by Debra Webb
Dan had visited her every month for a while. But his presence only seemed to agitate her, so eventually he’d stopped going.
Then he’d stopped thinking about that side of her. He chose to remember the intelligent, vivacious woman he’d first fallen for.
“Is there anything I can do?”
Sylvia shook her head. “Afraid not, Chief. The demons in her head don’t want to let go and we just can’t seem to find a way to oust them.”
“I truly am sorry, Sylvia. I wish there was something someone could do to bring her back.”
“Me, too.” Sylvia straightened her shoulders and shoved her hair behind her ears. “So tell me about you and Harris. How long have you been in love with her?”
Dan held up his hands stop-sign fashion. “I’m afraid that topic is off limits.” He smiled in spite of himself. “Besides, I’m certain she would tell you that she doesn’t have time for that kind of stuff.”
“She’s the one from high school, isn’t she? The one you followed to Boston?”
Why bother lying? She’d only dig up the answers later. “Yes. Yes, she is.”
“So did she break your heart or did you break hers?”
He shrugged. “I think there was mutual damage.”
“I see.” Sylvia stood. “I hope you know what you’re doing this time.”
Dan frowned as he pushed to his feet. “We’re lucky to have her in the department. I’m damned glad she accepted the offer.”
Sylvia stopped at the door and turned back to him. “I wasn’t talking about the job. I was talking about the falling in love again.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Or maybe you never really fell out of love.”
“Good night, Dr. Baron.”
“Make sure she follows up on this Larry thing,” Sylvia urged.
“You have my word.”
She searched his face a moment. “That means a lot, Dan. There are few men on this planet who are as good as their word, but you’re one of them and I appreciate that. I hope Harris does as well.”
And with that off-handed compliment, the senator’s elder daughter was gone. Dan watched her back her Lexus onto the street and drive away.
He closed the door and locked it.
The ego-driven male side of him wanted to argue that Sylvia was going overboard in her assessment, but he couldn’t do that. There was some part of how he had felt about Jess at seventeen that he had never gotten over. Through three marriages and countless relationships she had always been there, haunting him.
How she felt was far more difficult to measure. What her ex, Duvall, wanted was as clear as a bell. He hadn’t sent one of his underlings here to look into the Lopez family situation. He had come personally. Dan suspected the man was having second thoughts about having left Jess in the lurch.
If Jess was really smart, she’d tell them both to go to hell.
Dan chuckled. What a mess they had made of that aspect of their lives.
He checked the time. Almost midnight. Maybe he’d do a drive-by. If her lights were on, he’d call to see how she was doing.
He should probably just go to bed and forget the whole thing. Jess was, as she reminded him quite often, a grown woman who was highly trained in the art of self-defense.
But if he didn’t go he’d never get any sleep.
His cell chimed to alert him to an incoming text.
He grabbed it from the coffee table and checked the screen.
Night Burnett.
Jess. He smiled as he sent her a good night.
She was okay. Now maybe he could get some sleep.
Five Points, Wednesday, August 4, Midnight
It was almost time.
Lori didn’t want him to go. She trailed her fingers along his bare torso. He shivered. She loved when her touch did that to him.
“You know what you’re doing?” Chet murmured.
“Umm-hmm.” She made circles around his navel with the tip of her finger and then moved downward. He gasped. Her fingers curled around him and the rock-hard feel of him was her cue. She rolled atop him, pushed up to a sitting position. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” She rocked her pelvis gently against his.
He groaned. “It’s late. What about that no spending the night rule?”
She ground fully against his erection, making him growl. “Rules are made to be broken.”
He reached up, wrapped his arms around her, and rolled her onto her back. She gasped.
“Don’t toy with me, Lori,” he whispered against her lips. “You know what I want.”
She did. Oh man, she did. Determined to maintain her independence, she had fought him for all these months. He wanted a real relationship. One with commitments. She had fully believed she wasn’t ready for that. That level of commitment hadn’t been in her five-year plan.
Two weeks ago her life had changed. That sick bastard Matthew Reed, Eric Spears’s protégé, had kidnapped and tortured her and two other women. He’d murdered one right in front of her. During those seventy or so hours one thing remained steady on her mind: this man. If she survived, she promised herself that she would not take him for granted ever again. She would take nothing for granted. Not her mother and her sister or her friends. Not one second of her life from this moment forward was going to be a throwaway moment.
She wanted to live every minute of it to the fullest.
“I want the same thing,” she confessed. “I really do.” She caressed his jaw. “It’s time.” She slid her hands over his back.
He rolled off her. Before she could ask what was wrong, he’d dragged on his boxers and walked away.
What the hell? She pulled on her abandoned tee and joined him at the kitchen sink. “Okay, so what did I say wrong?” Jesus Christ this relationship thing was as frustrating as hell.
“I know why you’re doing this and it’s a mistake.”
“I thought I was doing what you wanted.”
Disappointment flared in his dark eyes and she instantly recognized her mistake.
“What we want,” she amended.
“When you skate that close to death, it makes you afraid of what the next hour will bring. You grab on to everything you can as fast as you can so you don’t miss anything.”
So maybe she was more transparent than she realized. He’d zeroed in on exactly how she felt. “What’s wrong with choosing not to take life for granted?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. But this ferocity you feel will wear off in time. And then what happens to us?” He reached out, twirled a wisp of her hair around his finger. “I love you, Lori. I want you to want this because you love me, not because you’re afraid of what might come next. There are no guarantees when it comes to life. But I can guarantee that I will love you with all I’ve got for the rest of my life, whatever else happens. If that’s not enough, there’s nothing more I can say or do.”
“It’s enough.”
Chet pulled her into his arms. “If that’s really how you feel, what would you like to do about that?”
Her heart was thundering. Was she really going to do this? Yes. Yes, she was. “I think we should try out living together.” She laughed at how embarrassed she felt at saying the words out loud. “See if we can do it without killing each other or having it interfere with work.”
“There are more rules about that,” he warned. “I’m senior to you and we’re assigned to the same team. There could be career consequences.”
That was the only part that worried her. “I know.” She wasn’t looking forward to dealing with those issues. “I’ll talk to Jess. See what she thinks.” Lori looked him straight in the eye. “Jess’s friendship beyond the job means a great deal to me. I don’t want to lie to her. Ever.”
“Same here. I respect the chief too much to do that.”
Had they really made this decision? “So, what do we do next?”
He grinned. “We pick the place. Yours or mine?”
She backed out of his arms and walked to the middle o
f the room. “There’s no privacy here.” She turned back to him. “And when you have Chester he probably wouldn’t be comfortable here.”
A big grin spread across Chet’s face. “Do you have any idea how happy that makes me?”
Confusion had her making a face. “Your son being uncomfortable?” The kid was cute—for a kid. And he was the light of his father’s life. Lori recognized this was a package deal. She would adjust. Hopefully.
“No.” He was really grinning like a jackass now. “The idea that you would think about his comfort makes me extremely happy.”
She decided to say the rest of what was on her mind. There should never be any misunderstandings between them. “I wasn’t expecting to have children in my life at this point. I had that penciled in a few years down the road.” She tried to smile but her lips trembled with the effort. “But I love you. Chester is your son, and that makes me love him too. I want to be a part of his life because he’s a part of yours.” She took the few steps to the bed and plopped down on the foot of it. “After my father died my mother wouldn’t even think about another man, much less look at one.” Even as a teenager she’d recognized her mother’s loneliness. “I remember thinking how much she and my father must have loved each other for her to feel as if no one else could ever take his place.”
Lori pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself. “But I was wrong about that. I mean, they did love each other that way. But years and years later, after my sister went off to college, Mom and I were talking and she said something I totally didn’t see before. She told me that at first the idea of another man was unthinkable. But eventually she got lonely, even with two girls to keep her running. But she never dared consider having anyone else in her life because she was terrified that she would be forced to choose, on some level, between him and us.” Lori blinked back the tears. “My mother sacrificed her own happiness because she was afraid. I don’t want to live in fear like that and that’s what that son of a bitch did to me. He made me afraid.”
Chet sat down beside her, wrapped his arms around her, and held her tight. “He did make you afraid. You would’ve been a fool not to be afraid. But you can’t let that fear rule you, the way your mother did. That’s the part that you have to get past.” He drew back, searched her eyes. “I don’t want to be a part of your fear, Lori. And if you’re afraid that refusing to move to the next level with me is going to make me give up”—he laughed—“that ain’t happening.”
For a long time they just held each other. No talking required. But she knew what she wanted. And he needed to know that, too.
“I vote for your place. Chester has his own room. There’s a backyard.” Not that she was looking forward to using a lawnmower. “As long as I get to do a little redecorating.”
He nodded. “You drive a hard bargain, Wells, but I can live with that.” He glanced around. “What about your place?”
“I’ll be keeping this place for a while. Just in case I find out all your man secrets and decide I can’t handle the real you.”
He laughed. “That might be a smart move.”
They held on to each other, and a comfortable silence settled around them. It felt good. Right.
“I’m worried about the Chambers kid,” Chet said eventually. “He’s only a few years older than Chester and the thought of what may have happened tears me apart.”
Lori hugged him closer. “I know. That’s the hardest part of this job. When a child is hurt or missing, it’s tough to take. I can’t imagine being a parent and having something like that happen.”
“I was just thinking about that, too.” He turned his face to hers. “If we have the time this week, we’ll pick Chester up for a few hours,” he said. “I think the two of you should spend a little time together. See how it goes.”
Lori prayed he didn’t spot the fear in her eyes. “Sure. Sounds good.” The thought sent another wave of terror roaring through her veins. She had met Chester briefly. She had looked at photo albums with Chet. But she had never sat through dinner with the child or played a game with him. Talking about him and planning for his being a part of their relationship was simple. Having the concept become a reality—this week—was way, way complicated.
What if he hated her?
8:00 a.m.
The weatherman on the radio warned that the heat wave would continue through the rest of the week. Birmingham was expected to sizzle.
“Lucky us,” Jess grumbled. People in general grew exceedingly more impatient and short-tempered when the temperature lingered in the triple digits. As it was, drivers turned utterly stupid between the hours of seven and nine every damned morning and then again around four in the afternoon. Dog days did not help.
Maybe she’d take First Avenue and go all the way to Twenty-fourth Street and then double back on side streets to get to the station. She knew better than to leave for work after seven. Some days it just couldn’t be helped. Her hair had totally refused to cooperate this morning. And the outlet in her bathroom wasn’t working, so she’d had to plug in her blow-dryer by the bed and dry her hair there. One of the charms of an older home. Historic, she reminded herself, a historic home. She hated for her first meeting with Mr. Louis to be a complaint about a faulty outlet. Maybe she’d just Google it and see if she could figure out the fix herself.
Why not? She was qualified with numerous weapons; how hard could it be to replace a single electrical outlet?
As she made another turn and discovered her plan had been a good one, Jess relaxed a little. There was no traffic on Twenty-fourth. Thank God. As she reached Marconi Park and the left she wanted to take, a car whipped around her.
She stamped on the brakes. “Idiot!” The sound of revving engines had her checking her mirrors. A black SUV was right on her bumper. Another roared up beside her and the imbecile who had barreled around her had now come to a near stop in front of her. She slammed on her brakes again. Her cell flew off the console onto the passenger side floor board.
“Damn it.” Adrenaline slid through her veins. She reached into her bag for her Glock. She had no choice but to stop. She couldn’t risk ducking down for her phone.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Stay calm. Her fingers wrapped around the butt of her weapon.
A man approached her window. He leaned down and came face-to-face with the business end of her Glock, which she had leveled on him.
“May I help you, sir?” she said loud enough for him to hear through the glass.
He ignored the gun. “My name is Hector Debarros. I am unarmed, Chief Harris.”
As if to prove his words, he backed up a couple of steps, held his arms up surrender-style, and then turned all the way around. Jess knew the Debarros family from the first case she had worked after returning to Birmingham. Hector had helped Burnett find Jess when Leonardo Lopez’s twisted offspring kidnapped her. So maybe she wasn’t about to get dead.
Which was a really good thing considering she had a little boy to find, a murder case to solve, and her sister needed her.
Jess checked to see if any other traffic had come along. Nope. Just her luck. See if she took the back streets again. She cracked her window a few inches. “Let’s see some ID. Slowly,” she reminded him when he reached for his back pocket.
He removed his wallet and stepped closer to her window, a driver’s license in his hand.
Damn it. Her glasses were in her bag. “Closer,” she ordered. God, how ridiculous was this! She squinted at the photo and then the name. Then she shifted her attention back to the man’s face. “What do you want, Mr. Debarros?”
“Mr. Lopez would like to speak with you.”
“Which Mr. Lopez?” She flicked a glance at each mirror to make sure no one else was approaching her car.
“Leonardo.”
A shot of adrenaline fired through her veins. Looked as if Wesley wasn’t the only West Coaster who had decided to pay the Magic City a visit. Leonardo was the father of Salvadore and his crazy sister. Seemed dad
dy had come to do some housekeeping. Unfortunately he was a little too late. And he wanted to talk to the wrong cop.
“Tell him to call my secretary and make an appointment,” Jess suggested through the glass, which she had no intention of lowering any farther. Not that it would stop a bullet, but it made her feel better. She didn’t have a secretary but that was irrelevant at the moment.
Hector glanced toward the SUV behind her. “You have my word,” he assured her, but he was obviously growing nervous, there was an urgency in his voice and on his face, “that you will be safe, Chief Harris.”
Well, gee. That made her feel way better. “Tell Mr. Lopez that if he wants to talk he can join me on the bleachers over in the park. You and him. No one else.”
Before he could respond, Jess cut the wheel of her Audi sharply to the right and bounded over the curb and sidewalk. The frame of the car dragged—at least she hoped that was all that scraped the concrete. She drove straight across the ball field and to the first set of bleachers, ensuring the driver’s side door faced away from her pursuers.
She snatched up her cell and hit Harper’s number, set it for speaker and slid it into the pocket of her new dress jacket. As much as she liked this snazzy tangerine suit she didn’t want to die in it. Moving quickly, she climbed out and turned to face the two black SUVs that roared to a stop on the other side of her Audi, blocking her in. The rear doors opened. Jess prepared to defend herself, feet wide apart, both hands firm on her Glock and ready to swing into a firing position.
Hector and a man who looked to be in his late forties approached her position.
The two walked right past her car and to the bleachers. Jess tracked their movements. When the older man had taken a seat on the bottom row and Hector had climbed to the top so he could see Twenty-fourth, Jess decided it was safe enough to join the man who had gone to so much trouble to have a meeting with her.
Satisfied the others were staying put in their vehicles, Jess strode over to the bleachers. She sat down next to the man who was an older version of Salvadore, but not so much older. Leonardo was younger than she had expected. The surveillance shots she had seen hadn’t done him justice. Good looking. No visible tattoos. The elegant suit would likely pay her salary for a month. She kept her Glock palmed as she settled her hands in her lap.
