Fade the Heat

by Colleen Thompson

  And not just any sounding board, he realized. He wanted Reagan Hurley, who would be as quick to tell him he was dead wrong as she would be to stick up for what she saw as right.

  Damn straight, her voice muttered in his head.

  Despite the situation, he couldn’t help smiling.

  It was funny, how quickly he had gotten used to having her around, had grown to appreciate her fierce loyalties and her outspoken frankness, even the stubbornness that had originally thrown them into conflict. Funny, too, how in the two days since her offer he had so often regretted throwing away the chance to lose himself in her arms for a while.

  Not that he truly believed Reagan was capable of something so fleeting as a one-night stand, any more than he was. He sensed they were alike in that: people who made few commitments, but took each one as seriously as the most sacred of vows.

  But whether she was still tied up in giving a statement, or had gone to help her captain’s family, or had simply decided to crash for a few hours, Reagan hadn’t shown up. Instead, another woman hurried toward him, her swaying gait grabbing his attention even before the click of her high-heeled pumps on the tiled corridor.

  “Sabrina McMillan,” she told him, thrusting her hand out.

  As they shook, he saw that her nails were painted crimson, to match her lipstick. The contrast of the red, against the blazing royal blue of the woman’s skirted suit hurt his tired eyes.

  “I recognized you from TV.” He wondered what Greater Houston male would not. With its body-hugging fit and deep V, her outfit looked as if she’d ordered it out of the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

  “I recognized you, too, although I must say, Jack, you’re much better looking than that photo on the news.” She looked up at him through lowered lashes, evidently trying the demure routine.

  He didn’t buy it for a moment. “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a difficult time,” he told her as he reached for the closed door. “I need to speak with my family about my sister’s condition.”

  “How is your sister?” She pushed a loose tendril of rich brown hair back into her upsweep, then caressed the arrangement with her fingertips. “When we heard about the…incident this morning, the mayor and I were terribly concerned.”

  Concerned with how they’d use it, Jack thought, his exhausted mind forming an image of Luz Maria in a wheelchair, being pushed onto a campaign platform. Then unceremoniously dumped once Mayor Young-blood heard about her involvement with BorderFree-4-All.

  “She’s had a tough time of it, but it looks as if she’ll eventually recover. Thanks for asking,” he said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  “But wait. Please, Jack. I understand the car she was driving was found wrecked this morning, in a ditch off a rural road in Galveston County.”

  “Galveston County?” Jack repeated. What would she be doing there? But only Luz Maria could tell him the answer to that question. And possibly Sergio as well.

  But there was one thing Jack was sure of: He’d be hearing from Paulo Rodriguez before the day was out. With one of his best cars wrecked, someone would have to pay. Jack figured it would most likely be him, and something told him Paulo wouldn’t be content to stand in line behind Jack’s medical-school loans or his need to rent a new apartment.

  It was sure to be a difficult encounter.

  “Was the car…was it vandalized?” he asked. “Like the room where we found Luz Maria?”

  “I don’t believe so.” Sabrina opened an expensive-looking purse and pulled out a business card.

  “There’s a foundation Mayor Youngblood’s put me in touch with,” she said. “You may not have heard of the Trust for Compassionate Service—they like to keep a low profile. But one of the things they do is aid the victims of hate crimes.”

  She handed him the card, which listed the name and contact information of a man named Isaac Mailer, along with the trust she had described. “Mr. Mailer is very interested in your case, and your sister’s.”

  Jack was certainly no expert on the finer things, but the raised brown print and thick, parchmentlike card stock all but shouted money. “Why? Why would some high-dollar trust care about my family? What’s their angle on this?”

  Sabrina gave him the sort of smile people bestowed on the less fortunate. Or the simple. Beneath her flawless makeup, her eyes crinkled at the corners, hinting that Sabrina was considerably older than she looked.

  “They do a lot of good work in the Valley, too, helping the uninsured and such. From what I understand, the trust was built on an endowment left by the heiress to some cattle ranch about the size of Delaware. Some soap-opera tale of woe’s behind it, how she never married because her family kept her from a young Mexican cowboy she loved. I think they had him killed or castrated or some such. I can’t quite remember.”

  With a wave of her hand, she dismissed the tragedy. “Anyway, the trust’s pockets are deep enough that they don’t have to worry about state funding—or their patients’ immigration status. You really need to call this number.”

  Jack frowned down at the card. “And you’re giving me all this—the heads-up about the car and this contact—in exchange for what?”

  Slyness edged her smile and a suggestion laced her words. “Really, Jack. We need to work on that suspicious nature. It’s a gesture of goodwill, that’s all, not tit for tat. If you feel moved to make a similar gesture, simply call me. That’s all there is to it.”

  With that, she handed over her own business card. He saw that at the bottom she had added her personal cell-phone number in pen, along with day or night!

  When he’d seen her on the news, he had first gotten the impression of a shark. But now that he’d actually met Sabrina McMillan, Jack amended his impression. This woman was the serpent in the garden, a demon in the flesh, and he had absolutely no doubt about what kind of tit she offered for his tat.

  Despite the fact that the mayor’s strikingly attractive and immediately recognizable campaign manager was all but draping herself around Jack, Reagan thought he looked relieved to see her. Which, in her opinion, spoke well of the man’s taste.

  “You look like hell, Montoya,” she said by way of a greeting. “How’re you holding up?”

  “I’m fine,” he said before introducing her to Sabrina McMillan.

  “So you’re a fireman?” asked Power Suit Girl, her lip curling in palpable distaste.

  “Nooo, I’m a firefighter,” Reagan corrected, shaking the fembot’s hand a little longer and harder than necessary. “You know, one of those poor mugs who trots up to your penthouse when you light up your curtains with the flambé?”

  Watching Sabrina redden was the most fun Reagan had had in days, mainly because she knew the woman was thinking of the paraphernalia the crew had seen in her apartment. Shackles, whips, and a truly amazing assortment of spray cheeses and feather dusters. Just thinking about that night made Reagan’s lips pull into what was undoubtedly a wicked smirk.

  “For the record,” she told Sabrina in a confidential tone, “my vote’s with Mayor Youngblood. Seems to me the man’s in a position to remember with gratitude the fire department’s hard work and discretion.”

  Especially since he’d been in Sabrina’s penthouse at the time of the incident in question. Working on their campaign positions, they’d both claimed all too loudly.

  Reagan didn’t care—or care to imagine—what positions they’d been practicing, so long as the city dodged the bullet of the Darren Winter write-in.

  Abruptly Sabrina McMillan remembered another appointment. Without meeting Reagan’s gaze, she zeroed in on Jack. “Don’t forget, you have my number.”

  Her heels click-clicked as she swayed down the hall.

  Jack looked at Reagan, confusion written on his features. “What the hell was that about?”

  “You don’t want to know,” she said. “But if you ever decide to call her, I hope you’re not lactose intolerant.”

  “All I can say is, you must have gotten a few hours�
� sleep. You’re as full of piss and vinegar as ever.”

  Reagan thanked him for the compliment before saying, “Tell me about LuzMaria. What did the doctors say?”

  She followed him down the hall, where the two of them sat in an otherwise unoccupied bank of chairs in a waiting area. Outside a nearby window, brilliant October sunshine burnished the still-green leaves of the park across the street.

  “She woke up earlier,” Jack said, “and she responded pretty well to the neurologist’s screening questions. They did some testing, too, and the results look encouraging. But that bleeding you saw—she’s had a miscarriage.”

  Reagan nodded slowly, not sure how to respond. On the one hand, the miscarriage solved some problems, but still, it was a sad event. “I’m glad the head injury doesn’t seem serious,” she said.

  “It’s still too soon to say that. With that long a period of unconsciousness, there could be all kinds of residual damage, even changes to her personality. They’ll be observing her for another day at least, waking her every hour for a neuro check, and she’ll have some follow-up visits as well.”

  “I see. So have you spoken to her yet?”

  Jack’s head shook. “By the time I found out she was awake, she’d gone back to sleep again. I want to talk to her—about what happened, and about the miscarriage, too.”

  “Does she know yet?”

  “I don’t think so. And neither does my mother. I was thinking I should tell her and my aunt, get it all out in the open.”

  “Don’t you dare, Jack. That’s not your decision.” Sometimes he was such a control freak it made her crazy.

  He chewed his lip in thought. And then, when he looked up at her, she saw in his brown eyes the boy she’d worshiped. Only this time, she looked past the hero who’d saved her from Paulo, and she also looked beyond the half-grown child who had so angrily accused her mother and her of moving to the suburbs to get away from people like him. This time, she saw all the way down to the fear inside his heart. Fear that he would be helpless to ease his sister’s pain. Fear of the consequences of what had once seemed like a simple and compassionate decision to help a child draw breath freely.

  Reagan ached with the bone-deep realization that she was gone, utterly gone on this man, and that she would go to hell and back to help him through this.

  “I thought…I just figured,” he said as he leaned forward to rest his forehead in his hands, “it would be better for her to have the truth all out at once.”

  “You’re exhausted, Jack, and God knows you’ve got every reason to be stressed out. But this isn’t a tooth you’re pulling. It’s your sister’s business,” she said gently, though she would have liked to swat the side of his head with a rolled-up newspaper. Why did men always feel the need—in fact, the responsibility—to charge ahead, fixing everybody’s lives? Or maybe that was just a doctor thing, the result of having people come to him all day for solutions.

  Still, she had to give him points for good intentions, so she kept her voice low and more or less free of exasperation. “You’re going to have to get past the fact that you helped raise her. She’s a grown woman now, one who’s made her own mistakes. You can still support her, be there for her if she’ll let you. But LuzMaria will have to figure things out herself, the same as the rest of us.”

  Aside from the questions of her miscarriage and relationship with Sergio, Jack’s sister was going to have to sort through some other issues, too. Reagan might have left out the incidents with Beau, but she had seen no way around telling members of the task force what she knew about Sergio, including the fact that he had been involved with Luz Maria. Reagan had been quick to add that Jack had seemed both shocked and appalled to learn that his sister’s boyfriend had ties to BorderFree.

  But now wasn’t the time to bring up the legal situation. Not when Reagan couldn’t keep herself from leaning over and putting her arm around Jack’s shoulder. “Come on, champ. Let’s get you to bed.”

  He looked up, a tired grin warming his handsome features and the devil playing in his dark eyes. “And here I thought you weren’t going to repeat the offer.”

  She shook her head and stood, then helped hoist him to his feet. “If I ever do, I can assure you, you’re gonna need a full night’s sleep. Now, let’s go. I’ve learned a few things bringing patients here when I was on the ambulance. I know a place they’ll let you crash for a few hours.”

  Trying to move him was like trying to tow an anchored barge.

  “But what about my mother and my aunt? And what if there’s some change in Luz Maria?”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ll go talk to your family—I’ll even take them home to rest and clean up if they’ll let me. And I’ll come and get you if there’s any news.”

  “I thought you had to help out the Rozinskis.”

  “I called over there a while ago. Donna’s already got more help than she can stand.” Reagan didn’t add that Beau had been there, and there was no way she wanted a scene with him to disrupt the preparations for their captain’s services.

  Reagan’s words finally loosened Jack’s feet, and she had him moving him toward a room where she knew that bone-tired residents sometimes grabbed an hour’s shut-eye.

  “And if the cops or the task-force guys come for me?” he asked.

  She flashed him a quick smile. “Then I have absolutely no idea where you’ve gone.”

  In spite of Jack’s exhaustion, not even the black chasm of sleep provided respite. At least it didn’t seem that way when someone shook him roughly after what felt like only seconds of sleep.

  He looked up to see a huge figure looming over him in the dimness.

  Jack shot out of the bed in record time. And felt his face heat at the realization that his “attacker” was one of the ER nurses, the heavyset black woman who had tried so hard to let him know his sister had woken up.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you, sugar.” She flipped the lights on and dished up an apologetic smile to go with her deep Georgia accent. “Thought you’d best get up, though.”

  “Is something wrong with LuzMaria?” He dragged his fingers quickly through his hair to push it out of his eyes.

  “Not that I know of,” she told him. “But ’less I miss my guess, you got other trouble brewing. Your girlfriend out there, she’s got herself some temper. And I do believe she’s fixin’ to let it fly sufficient to get herself hauled out of here.”

  It took Jack several moments to realize the nurse must be talking about Reagan. Had she finally lost patience with R.J. Lambert, Detective Worth, or one of the other investigators?

  After thanking his informant, Jack hurried out of the room that residents had dubbed Motel 666. Glancing at his watch, he swore as he realized that instead of sleeping merely minutes, he’d been down for nearly four hours.

  What had happened in that time?

  His heart sank when he spotted the answer near the waiting area in the form of Paulo Rodriguez, who was nearly chest-to-chest with Reagan. And shouting down at her as if she were a puppy that had piddled on his carpet.

  “You got handed your free ticket out, so why don’t you take that tight white ass of yours back up to the suburbs where the little blond chicas belong,” he told her.

  Reagan didn’t back off, not a hairbreadth. Instead, she balled her fists and snarled up at him, “Because this particular little chica’s about to kick your flabby ass.”

  Hustling toward them, Jack was quick to interrupt. “How about the two of you tone this discussion down a little? Unless you want security to throw you out.”

  Both gazes jerked toward him, then blinked in apparent surprise, not only at Jack, but at the number of people in the waiting area who were staring in their direction.

  “Come on,” Jack told them. “Let’s take a walk outside and cool off. There’s a little park across the street where we can talk.”

  Getting outside had been an excellent idea, Jack decided, not only for the two combatants but for him as well. There wa
s something about the fluorescent glow and antiseptic odors of hospitals that drained away his spirit, something that only nature had the power to counteract.

  The sun had descended behind a nearby building, and the day’s warmth was slowly ebbing from both the sidewalks and the air. Yet he was comfortable in his shirt-sleeves, and his spirits lifted at the sensation of a light breeze against his skin and the sight of a live oak’s branches stirring with the progress of a squirrel.

  Both Paulo and Reagan appeared calmer, too, Paulo looking at a mother walking twin toddlers on a pair of leashes while a tiny puffball dog ran loose at her side. Reagan, for her part, was staring at the pale disk of the rising moon.

  “You two shouldn’t be allowed in the same zip code,” Jack told them. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to step between you.”

  The illusion of peace evaporated as Reagan turned to glare at Paulo. “Yeah, well, he’s still a bush-league bully.”

  Paulo grabbed the lapel of his expensive suit and snarled back, “You better watch who you call bush league. I never got a goddamn break my whole life, but I could buy and sell your ass three times over.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Paulo. But unlike your girlfriends’ asses, mine’s not for sale.”

  Jack felt a stab of irritation. “Why don’t you knock it off, both of you? We aren’t kids anymore, for God’s sake. Now, either tell me what’s going on, or take this little lovefest somewhere else. Because, frankly, I have plenty of other things to worry about.”

  “My Mustang, por ejemplo,” Paulo tossed back at him.

  “I’m really sorry about that,” Jack told him. “If I hadn’t let Luz Maria borrow it, she never would have been hurt, and your car wouldn’t have been—”

  “I was sad to hear about your sister, compa,” Paulo told him, though he darted a glance at Reagan as he spoke. “I’m glad she’s gonna make it.”