Officer out of Uniform (Lock and Key Book 2)

by Ranae Rose

  * * * * *

  A deep, involuntary groan tore its way out from deep in Sasha’s gut as she experienced the biggest holy shit moment of her life. Henry had run toward gunfire, into the woods, carrying his gun.

  Suddenly, she felt the pain of every little stone sticking in her palms and legs. Forcing herself up onto her hands and knees, she sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, willing the world to stop spinning around her. Henry had knocked the air out of her when he’d shoved her to the ground, and this felt like her first breath in a million years.

  When she had a little oxygen circulating through her system again, she didn’t waste any time scrambling toward her vehicle. Crouching low behind the cover of her car, she opened the driver’s side front door and reached under the seat, fingers closing around the object she’d stowed there.

  Next, she scrambled through the gravel, seizing Henry’s keys. Thank God he’d dropped them before running off. Fumbling for the green key she’d seen him use to unlock the front door before, she sprinted for the house, already breathless.

  She expected to hear gunfire, to feel a bullet punch its way through her like the others had Henry’s truck. But there was no noise save for her ragged breathing and the slap of her 2” sandal heels against the ground. By the time she slammed into the door, she felt like she’d experienced a miracle.

  Shoving the key into the lock, she tried not to think too hard about what the silence meant. Something good, please…

  “Wolf!” She stumbled inside, beyond glad that only one of the three locks was usable from the exterior. The sliding bolt and door chain were only usable from indoors, when someone was inside the house.

  She nearly tripped over the huge dog. He stood in the entryway, the fur between his shoulders bristling in a crest. He stopped baring his teeth once he saw her, but barked loudly.

  “I know boy, I know. Come on!” She scrambled for the back door, where Henry had sealed the dog entrance, trapping Wolf inside the house. After undoing the three locks, she had it open. She didn’t know all the commands Henry had taught Wolf, but luckily, the dog sped out the door immediately.

  At first she’d worried about how she’d get him out of the back yard. There was a gate, but it was padlocked and she had no idea which key went to it – several looked like likely candidates. But Wolf blew her worries out of the water when he crossed the lawn in a few long bounds, then leapt over the 4’ fence like it was nothing.

  It seemed like hardly a second had passed when the sound of snarling came from the woods, a scary noise even to Sasha, who hoped desperately that it meant Wolf had located her and Henry’s attacker.

  Unfortunately, Sasha wasn’t nearly as agile as Wolf. She made it halfway across the yard before she tripped over her skirt, landing sprawled in the grass. Thank God she’d been carrying her Shun in a leather sheath, otherwise she probably would’ve gutted herself.

  Leaping to her feet, she tore her dress over her head and dropped it. Climbing the chain link fence in nothing but her bikini was an awkward affair, but she made it, and then there was nothing to do but sprint into the woods, praying she wouldn’t be knocked out cold by her bouncing cleavage.

  * * * * *

  The first thing Randy thought when the dog’s jaws locked around his shoulder was that he was being mauled by a ghost. It was a brutal haunting, one that was rending his flesh from his bones as he gripped the Blaser, swearing. How the hell had he failed to kill the dog?

  There was no time to waste wondering, and the rifle was useless to him now. Hell, as soon as he’d fired it he’d realized it’d never been used before – never sighted in.

  Reaching below, he fumbled at his belt and pulled out the hunting knife at his hip. As he plunged it into the dog’s body, it occurred to him that he could turn this around – make lemons out of lemonade. He’d hang the dog up beside its owner, and wouldn’t that be a sight?

  The dog yelped and finally let go, slipping down into Randy’s lap. The knife handle was torn from Randy’s hand, buried almost to the hilt. He barely had time to retrieve it before he saw that Officer Dryden was rising from where he’d fallen in the underbrush.

  Randy had gotten lucky when Dryden had charged him with his Glock drawn. Dryden had only been able to fire one shot, and it had missed – barely – hitting the oak behind Randy. Then one of Dryden’s beach sandals had slipped out from under his foot, sending him flying. Randy had acted on instinct, scrambling to hit him over the head with the butt of his rifle.

  Then he’d been attacked by the dog.

  “You miserable sack of shit!” Dryden threw himself at Randy again, and this time he deflected a blow from the rifle’s stock.

  In fact, he grabbed the rifle and tore it away from Randy, who didn’t have the strength to hold on, thanks to his mauled shoulder. Fuck, if anything important had been severed or crushed, he was in hot water. At the moment, he was way too high on adrenaline to tell.

  Dryden aimed a fist at Randy’s head – his gun had flown into the underbrush when he’d fallen – and landed a sharp punch, causing stars to burst forth in front of Randy’s eyes.

  He was stunned but not unconscious, and he still had his knife. Even though he could hardly see past the bright patches of color obscuring his vision, the thought made him smile. This was how Troy had nearly killed that other officer, Alexander.

  It seemed fitting that Randy would finish off Dryden this way. Then he’d make his way back to the house and decide what to do with Dryden’s sweet little girlfriend.

  He’d wanted to kill her first – make Dryden watch – but it seemed that wasn’t in the cards. The bullets he’d meant for her had gone astray, and now it had come down to this.

  “Ugh!” Dryden landed two more blows, the first to Randy’s stomach, and then another to his head.

  Randy realized that he was thinking too slowly, moving too slowly. Desperate, he threw up the fist he had wrapped around the knife’s handle.

  It worked. The blade hit something solid and he pushed with all his might.

  Dryden grunted and swore, and the blows stopped. Then – Jesus Christ! – Randy started hallucinating.

  It had to be the blows to the head. Or hell, maybe he had been shot but didn’t realize it. Either way, he saw a woman in a red bikini charging through the woods, blonde hair flying behind a face he couldn’t focus on because his attention was locked on two of the biggest tits he’d ever seen.

  Holy fuck, were they bouncing. She was sprinting like an Olympic track star, and they looked fit to burst right out of her top. By the time Randy realized he’d frozen, she was on top of him.

  She had a knife. Chest heaving, she raised it in the air and swung it down in an arc, like a woman possessed.

  When the blade sliced through Randy’s forearm, he realized she was no hallucination. She was Dryden’s girlfriend.

  Randy dropped his knife. Maybe it was shock, or something worse, but he just couldn’t hold on anymore.

  “Shit!” He heaved, fighting a sudden wave of nausea, as he rocked back, away from Dryden and his crazy bitch.

  Dryden was doubled over, and Randy could hear him breathing. He was moving, and Randy knew he had seconds, maybe less, to get the fuck out of there.

  The girlfriend blocked his path, standing with her feet apart, gripping the knife that was dripping with his blood.

  “You asshole!” she screamed, and lunged at him again.

  This time, the tip of the blade caught him right across the cheek. He felt the sting of it, saw the hard gleam in her eyes that said she’d cut his face on purpose and would gladly do it again.

  Fuck! He charged forward and hit her with all his body weight, bowling her over and not caring when he felt the sting of the knife again, this time on the same arm the dog had bitten. It was the price of getting past her, the price of freedom. Leaving her flat on her back in the underbrush, he ran like hell. His legs were just fine – all he had to do was not black out from shock or blood loss.

 
; As he ran, heaving and fighting the urge to puke, it began to rain. It was a sudden downpour, one that made his wounds sting as it flushed the blood and dirt out of them. Rainwater ran into his eyes and down his body, staining the pine needle carpet an ugly pink as it mixed with his blood.

  * * * * *

  “Henry!” Sasha’s legs gave out, like she’d just run a marathon instead of sprinting through the woods. Wet leaves stuck to her knees after she pushed herself back up and scrambled toward Henry. She’d seen Randy plunge the knife into his neck – she was still seeing it, in her mind’s eye.

  There was blood everywhere. God, it was a struggle not to throw up. Weird patches of light filtered in and out of her field of vision. Was this shock?

  Maybe it was just panic. It was rising up inside her, a colossal parasite that fed off her fear and took over as she sank back to the forest floor beside Henry, getting leaves on her knees and blood on her hands. “Henry! Henry, look here!”

  It was raining hard now and water got in her eyes, streaking down her face. The sensation was like crying, which she was also doing, an automatic response to the sight of so much red smeared all over Henry’s t-shirt. It was on his skin too, above the collar and below the edges of the sleeves of his shirt.

  “Sasha…” He grabbed one of her hands, pulling it away from his neck.

  Pain flared in her wrist, but it was dulled by fear. She ignored it.

  Had she hurt him? Guilt washed over her, along with the rain. They always said not to move accident victims, didn’t they? What was the protocol for people who’d been attacked by psychopaths – were you allowed to touch them?

  She squeezed his hand, hard. She couldn’t not touch him. The reserve of strength she’d drawn upon to face Randy was depleted, and all that was left was a gaping hole where it’d been. Doubt was already filling it. Doubt and terror, sharpened by memories of what it was like to lose someone.

  “Henry, this can’t be happening! Don’t even think about dying. I love you, and you’re – you’re not allowed!”

  She sounded like she was auditioning for a role in a cheesy movie, but she was incapable of caring. This whole situation was like something out of a movie – a horror movie. It didn’t even feel like it was happening to her, really. It was almost like she was floating above the bloody scene, watching it happen, powerless to stop her life from crumbling before her eyes.

  She really did love him. The realization had crept up on her over the summer, and now she finally faced it, saw the truth for what it was. She couldn’t bear to lose someone again. Especially not him.

  Now that his blood was on her hands, it was no use shying away from the strength of her feelings for him. That strength held her in a death grip, crushing her fear of admitting that she loved someone – that pieces of her heart had become gambling chips, were irrevocably out of her control. If she lost him, she’d lose those parts of herself, whether she wanted to admit it or not.

  She’d finally found the person who she couldn’t be cautious with, couldn’t guard her heart against.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Sasha, relax. I’ll be fine.” Henry winced, but met Sasha’s eyes.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, fought to keep herself from bursting into hysterics. “He stabbed you in the neck! There’s blood everywhere…”

  “He did not.” Henry straightened, letting go of her hand and forcing himself up onto one knee. “It’s my chest…”

  He touched his collarbone, and his hand came away red.

  “What?” She reached out instinctively, pressed her fingers gingerly to his neck, terrified of what she might feel. She fully expected her fingers to slip into the wet trench of a gaping wound, but they didn’t.

  Sure enough, beneath all the blood, there was only smooth skin.

  The relief she experienced was only a blip on the radar of her near-hysteria. He was still bleeding like crazy.

  “I’ll be fine,” he repeated, and pushed himself to his feet.

  When he held out a hand to help her up, she realized something: she was the biggest idiot in the world. And the happiest one.

  “God!” She refused his help, pushed herself up onto wobbling legs. “I thought he cut your throat!”

  “No. Take it easy.” He took one of her hands again. “I’m not dying. Do you still love me?”

  Sudden heat blazed its way across her cheekbones, but she stood tall. “Yes.”

  No way was she backpedaling now. Not when she’d worked up the courage to admit that she loved him – that her heart was permanently ensnared with his. If anything happened to him, she’d never be the same. In many ways, finally admitting it was a relief.

  He shrugged, then grimaced. “Thought maybe you just said that so I could die happy.”

  “No, I meant it.”

  “I love you too.” He met her gaze for a single, silent second and her heart skipped a beat. His eyes were steel grey behind the misting of rain, and his strong jaw was flecked with blood. He looked serious – dead serious. She had no doubts that he meant what he’d said. “I’ve loved you for a while, now. And I’m sorry I have to leave you here, but I do. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back for you.”

  She held onto his hand with a vice-like grip. “The hell you are! You’re not going after him!”

  It was obvious that was what he was planning. He was staring in the direction Randy Levinson had fled like a dog staring after a rabid cat that’d just scratched its nose.

  “I have to,” he said. “I can’t let him get away. I can’t.” He picked up his Glock and took off. He faltered and almost fell, then kept running.

  “Stop!” Sasha’s heart seemed to stop beating, and then it forged ahead, flooding her with adrenaline she could taste, like a mouthful of pennies. She ran after him, blood dripping from her hands.

  * * * * *

  “Look Dryden, you have to get in the ambulance. You have a concussion. You can’t drive yourself to the hospital.” A tall guy with broad shoulders and short red hair crossed his arms as he repeated himself to Henry for the third time. Rain water dripped off the end of his nose, and he looked like he wanted to pick Henry up and throw him into the back of the vehicle.

  “No way in hell,” Henry said, crossing his arms so that he and the other man stood facing each other in the exact same pose. “Randy fucking Levinson is out there! I saw him! If you think I’m gonna waste time lying around in a hospital with my ass hanging out of a gown, forget it.”

  Sasha had already gathered that the red-haired man worked a shift as a correctional officer at the prison when he wasn’t serving as an EMT. Apparently, that fact didn’t mean Henry was going to listen to him.

  “The police are searching the woods right now,” he argued. “They don’t need your help.”

  Henry gave the other man a sour look. “They’ve been looking for him for days. They couldn’t find him after the warden was killed, and they searched the woods then. I’d say they need all the help they can get.”

  Henry and the EMT had been arguing ever since first responders had arrived on the scene. Wolf had long since been whisked off in a squad car, rushed to the local vet clinic by a police officer.

  Henry had proven much more stubborn than his dog, and it was officially time for Sasha to step in. As much as she enjoyed watching two muscular men facing off while dripping wet, their clothes plastered to their bodies by rainwater, this was ridiculous.

  Taking a few strides across the driveway and planting herself between the two men, she looked Henry in the eye, purposely letting the blanket one of the EMTs had given her slip a little, exposing the cleavage that swelled above her bikini top’s neckline. “Henry… I’m not feeling so hot. I think I should get this wrist checked out. I’m afraid it might be a fracture, not a sprain.”

  She’d fallen on her left wrist when Randy Levinson had knocked her down. And she wasn’t lying – she really was afraid her injury might be something worse than a sprain. It was just that she’d tried to hide that fact a
t first so Henry wouldn’t freak out.

  Of course, when he’d gone charging after Randy, Sasha had had to chase after him to stop him. It’d taken a solid minute of him yelling at her to stop and her refusing before he’d finally given up and turned on her, white-faced and tight-jawed. When they’d finally retreated to the house to call 911 and alert the police, he’d refused to say anything on the walk back.

  She knew he was livid, but she didn’t care. He was alive, and her heart practically broke with relief every time she looked at him and saw him living, breathing. Even if he did have a blood-stained beach towel wadded up and pressed against his shoulder, where he’d been stabbed.

  “Okay,” he finally said, looking down at her, his mouth as straight and grim as a blade.

  “You’ll ride with me in the ambulance, won’t you?” she pressed, her gaze boring into his, willing him to give in.

  He swore under his breath, then made a jerky head movement that might’ve been a nod. “Fine.”

  He helped her into the ambulance, where they sat together. Finally out of the rain, her adrenaline had crashed, leaving her feeling cold. She leaned against Henry, more to be close to him than for body heat.

  He stared straight ahead, his jaw clenched. It was strange to think that just minutes ago, she’d told him she loved him, and he’d said it back.

  * * * * *

  Dawn broke bright and bold Sunday morning, an orange splinter on the horizon. The neon light filtered in between the slanted blinds in Henry’s hospital room, finally chasing away the shadows that’d filled the space during the night. He’d barely slept, and had only stayed because he’d figured that after what’d happened at his house, the hospital was actually the safest place he and Sasha could’ve spent the night.

  She’d stayed, too. The only injury she’d sustained had been a badly sprained wrist, thank God. But she’d insisted on staying with Henry in his room and he’d leapt at the chance to keep her by his side. While she’d slept on the little pull-out sofa, he’d watched her, propped up on the rock-hard bed. Now he shifted, grunting as the ache in his back flared.