Seek: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  “Clockwise,” I told him.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Yeah, he was really observant.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked as he grimaced and tried to free the bedpost. His biceps tightened under his long-sleeve shirt, molding the fabric to his impressive physique. Veins popped at his exposed forearms as he tensed in his grip. Such raw power and force. No wonder he’d been able to fight back Michael during all that time it took me to get the skillet. Luke wasn’t as stacked and plied with muscles, but he certainly had a fine—

  “You do realize keeping the lookout means looking…out?”

  Heat seared my cheeks and I lowered my gaze. Not the time to be appreciating his body. I tightened my hold around the switchblade’s handle and turned my stare to the bedroom door.

  “How’d you get—”

  “My key.” I cut him off, refusing to let him think I was stupidly complacent here. “Rosa gave me one when she moved in here.”

  “Anything unusual about it?”

  “The key?” I glanced at him.

  His lips were screwed into a grim line and he whooshed out a breath of defeat. “Eye. On. The. Door.”

  Resisting a growl, I obeyed.

  “Did it seem like the lock had been tampered with?” he asked.

  Ah. So that was where he was going. Because Michael couldn’t have been invited in. Rosa wasn’t here to let such an evil person in. Did cops have some kind of loophole to simply break into people’s homes? Unless he had a warrant. Even so, a warrant for what? Rosa’s preference for perfectionism didn’t allow for a deviation to criminal acts. I shook my head. “No.”

  A long, low groan came from his lips as he tried to open the bedpost and I refused to watch him. It ended in a whispered curse. Then, “Finally.” He flexed his fingers as he let his hands drop to his waist. I whipped my attention back to the door and didn’t take my gaze from there until he was at my side, the heat of his body soothing me. Security. How could he be my comfort if we’d only just met? Maybe it was the surrealness of the trauma that had me clinging to him.

  “Here,” he said, gently taking my hand and loosening the blade from my fingers.

  As he reclaimed his watching spot, I went to the bedpost and spun the loose top ball of the pole from the frame. Once it was off, I reached inside the hollow cylinder of wood. The cache wasn’t deep. Enough space for a fat, rolled-up wad of cash. Inside the bills was a ring with two keys on it.

  Griffin Bank was inscribed on the larger of the two, the heavier key with scrolled edges curling the top. The second had a tiny series of numbers on it. Looked like a copy from a hardware store.

  I had it. The key. Well, two. As far as keys went, there wasn’t anything spiffy about these. Most importantly, though, I had it—them. I’d succeeded in at least the first part of my mission.

  “Got it?” Luke asked.

  “Yeah.” I shoved the keys into my pocket. The roll of cash remained concave as I opened it halfway, but I pushed the bunch of bills into my other back pocket. My gut instinct coached me to take it. I wasn’t hurting for money, and if I took anything of Rosa’s, I’d pay her back. But something told me I’d be a fool to leave it.

  Success immediately dissipated as I crossed the room to Luke. Get keys, check. Retrieve files… I had a larger problem to tend to before I could play fetch for Rosa.

  “What do we do with Michael?”

  Luke frowned at me, confusion clear in his eyes. Hadn’t he actually looked at the ID in the leather case?

  “Officer Poole. Michael. That’s his name.” I jerked my thumb in the direction of the living room and winced. “Was his name.”

  “I don’t know what you have in mind, but I’m getting the hell out of here.”

  He seemed to study me for a minute. His plan wasn’t shabby. I’d killed a member of law enforcement—a shady one at that. Common sense ruled that I shouldn’t want to stick around to get arrested for the act that was in self-defense. It was probably wise to defer to his expertise. He had killed before. Surely he’d know what to do in the aftermath—whether moral or not.

  “Right. So we just leave him there?”

  “I’m not sure I like this we business.”

  “Oh.” I stepped back an inch, feeling like I’d overstayed my welcome. I’d certainly sped past the limits of his patience. Again, he had a valid point. This deathly chaos was between me and Michael. And probably Rosa, somehow, since the asshole cop had been hiding in the dark in her home. While I appreciated Luke’s presence and loathed his absence, I couldn’t expect him to tangle himself with this—my—mess. But a pointer or two would be helpful.

  “Um…”

  He stared at me as though I had grown a second head. After an exasperated sigh, he gritted out, “I’m going to leave him there, because that’s a humongous fucking corpse to move. Then I suggest you gather your stuff and get lost.”

  All I could do was nod. Hell, he was still a stranger. Why should I ask him for anything more? He’d saved my life. I owed him more than an invitation to trouble.

  “Thank you. For, uh…being here when you were.”

  He brushed past me to exit the bedroom. “My pleasure.”

  I glared at his back. He could at least accept my words. They were sincere. He led the way out of the room and I watched the ripples of his muscles on his back as he exited.

  “I’d grab that skillet on your way out, too.”

  Yes. Evidence. Collect and destroy. How did one get rid of cast-iron? Before I could even think about using the Griffin Bank key and collecting Rosa’s files, I had to clean this mess up. Well, not literally the blood and such out there. I needed to find her. Ask her what in God’s name was going on. Warn her that thugs, police-officiating thugs, were hiding in her home. That I was nearly strangled to death for nothing more than just being here. Being here at the wrong time, because there was no way Michael could have been targeting me.

  “Fuck.”

  Luke’s harsh whisper was too loud in the quiet apartment. He’d stopped abruptly, but instead of me crashing into him, he dropped one firm strong arm and gripped my hip, pulling me behind him. Shielding me. From what now, I didn’t even want to know.

  As he craned his neck, scanning the entire open space of the apartment, I leaned over to peek around his arm. It was darker than before, and my heart thundered at that clue. Who shut the front door? Luke hadn’t.

  An amoeba shape of red stained the carpet, Michael’s spilled blood from where I’d bashed him with the skillet.

  But the man was gone.

  Chapter Four

  Luke

  My heart raced as I blinked at the empty floor.

  How in the hell did he get up and leave?

  “I thought—” The woman fisted my shirt at my back and exhaled sharply. “I thought he was—”

  “He was dead.”

  I hadn’t felt a pulse. How could I have, anyway? She’d cold-clocked him on the damn skull like Venus pounding away a tennis ball. If this mystery woman had smashed that pan down a fraction of how hard she had on my shoulder, there was no way any human could survive the impact of such a head injury.

  I rubbed at my mouth and surveyed the room again. He wasn’t hiding in the apartment. There was nowhere to sneak away. He’d just got up and left. A beaten cop on the loose. So nice of him to shut the damn door on his way. Unless, maybe someone had just come and collected him?

  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  All kinds of itching warnings flared when this tiny blonde had said we. I couldn’t afford to be associated with trouble again. I had no desire to be on the run from the law again. But it was too late. I’d already stepped in, and I wouldn’t be the man I knew I could be if I walked away now.

  “Get your stuff. Whatever you came with.” I moved forward, erasing her grip on me. It wasn’t time to comfort or second-guess. If Michael was out there, he’d be sending someone else after his almost-killer—me or her. I didn’t bother to turn around a
nd see if she obeyed. First, I picked up the skillet, and agonizing aches screamed up my side. It wasn’t as painful to suck in a deep breath now, so maybe my ribs weren’t cracked. Then I collected the syringe on the floor. It was too dangerous to leave for someone else to find and use.

  Rosa’s daughter had two bag straps over her shoulders. One bloodied hand gripped the fabric at her collarbone and her other hand held the cop’s ID case.

  Jesus Christ. What a way to stay out of trouble. Save a woman from a strangling cop and now wonder when that bastard would come after us. No. Wait. I’d helped get her free, but then she’d ended up saving me. So I owed her? That mind fuckery could be solved another day.

  “Come on.”

  I had no clue how to strategize an escape. No time to even think about where to go. But it was obvious she couldn’t stroll right on out of the building with bloodshot eyes, red marks around her slender neck, and blood smattered on her arms and face. I felt as disgusting as she looked. We both bore the marks of a nasty, gory fight.

  I opened the front door, one hand on the switchblade I’d confiscated from Michael. No one waited for us, so I gestured for her to follow me. We walked the twenty feet down the hall to my place, and I was ever so thankful that the stairwell was partially walled off, preventing anyone from seeing up from the second floor.

  Once we were in, I snicked both deadbolts in place. Fury and confusion warred in my head, and I let my forehead thunk against the closed door. One deep breath in, one deep breath out. This wasn’t my first time dealing with some dangerous bullshit, and I had a hunch it wouldn’t be my last. That was just the crap hand of cards I’d been dealt in my life.

  There was no point wallowing or whining. I preferred to be a man of action.

  I shoved off the door, like a pushup, and spun to face the woman who’d singlehandedly upended my life in the last half-hour. Had it only been that long? I snorted and shook my head. In the clear light of my kitchenette-foyer, I took my first good look at her.

  She was short, slim but not skinny, and had the most piercing blue eyes I’d ever been sucked in by. Petite would be an ill way to describe her because she stood there with a solid yet tested strength.

  “You got a name?”

  “Cassidy.” She licked her lips as she looked everywhere but at me. The cop’s ID holder was still in her right hand at her hip, but she worried her free fingertips on the creamy skin of her slender neck.

  “Let me see.” I didn’t wait for her answer and approached her. If she was cut or in need of first aid, that was our priority. Actually, some semblance of an answer would be nice before she or I could decide what the hell to do now.

  She didn’t cower from me as I stepped into her space, but she flinched when I moved her hand from her neck. Red welts raised on her flesh, but as I spread the pad of my thumb over the angry marks, she shivered. Did I scare her? Was she reliving the trauma of a man touching her neck?

  I reared back to check those startling bright eyes and realized it was merely a reaction to my proximity. Whether good or bad, I wasn’t ready to know. Still, I kept my hand on her, smoothing my palm over her silky skin. When she swallowed, I felt her delicate neck tighten, and I released her.

  “I think… I think I’m okay. I mean, I’m not. How could I be? I just killed—no, almost killed?—a police officer. But my neck is okay. I can breathe. And swallow. And talk… Talk too much. Obviously…” Another big gulp. Her ramble ceased but she didn’t retreat from me. Her standing still and allowing me in her space didn’t fool me into thinking she was some submissive fool. Never mind her youthful, innocent appearance. I knew a nervous, guarded soul when I saw one.

  Without a word, I picked up her hand and checked for any cuts. Most of the blood coated on her knuckles and forearms was likely Michael’s from when she’d tried to free herself before I’d gotten there—scratching at his forearms with her nails.

  What if I hadn’t? What if I’d been a second too late? I squeezed her hand, seeking both the comfort in the fact she survived and offering a reassurance that she wasn’t alone after the tease of death.

  Her chest rose and fell slowly as I ran my hand over her arm and found a long slice above her elbow. She hissed at my touch and twisted to see, raising her arm at an angle. “I didn’t realize he’d cut me.”

  I lowered my face to her arm and inspected the wound. A wider gash, not a thin slash, like it might have been from the syringe. He must have had that switchblade out before I’d arrived.

  “What was that asshole doing in there, Cassidy?”

  She yanked her arm back, seeming to take my words as an accusation. “Like I’d know!”

  I tilted my head. “He wasn’t there for you?”

  She shoved at my chest, rocking me back a step, and I took a firm grip on her wrists, trapping them to my pecs.

  “You didn’t sleep with someone’s husband? Steal some shit?”

  Her hands pushed again but I held tight.

  “Someone got a hit out on you?”

  Laughter came then. Delirious, angry sounds that almost made me pity her and hate myself.

  “I work in a bookstore. I’ve never done drugs. Or stolen anything. I’m too goddamn boring and ordinary for someone to want to kill me off!”

  I released her then, and instead of stepping back like I expected her to do, she shoved even closer and got as much into my face as she could at her height. Her chin jutted at level with my collarbones. “And like I said, if he was coming after me, he would’ve had to know I’d be there. I only learned of Rosa wanting me to come this morning.”

  I crossed my arms, not exactly intending to brush against her heaving breasts. Hell, she’d taken the initiative to get this damn close, breathing hard and fast as I unintentionally pissed her off. “Then that means he was waiting there for Rosa. Which makes no sense at all.”

  Rosa had moved into our building one day after I had. It was how we’d met and initiated small talk. I wouldn’t claim to be best friends with my neighbor, but from the little I saw and learned, she was as prim and straight-laced as an academic professor could be. I found it impossible to think Rosa had a man—or a cop—waiting to ambush her. She wasn’t crazy-rich. She wasn’t into illegal shit. All she ever seemed to do was study in a lab. And travel. Her life story was chopped into studying at various campuses and relocating from one workplace to another. Which made it so easy to assume Cassidy had to be the reason for the attack.

  “It…doesn’t make sense,” she agreed.

  She brushed some pink-tipped hair behind her ear and cast her gaze to the linoleum floor. When she dragged her blue stare back up at me, the terror and anguish within screamed at me. Her lower lip trembled before she swallowed hard. “She’s gotta be in some kind of trouble.”

  No shit. “And now we are too.”

  Even if Cassidy was the one to fend off Michael with the skillet, I was there in her defense. I’d been physically resisting a cop, and with my rap sheet, I was already the bad guy. A former criminal as an innocent bystander to the rescue? Yeah, right, like anyone would believe that.

  Those baby blues shone up at me, getting glossier by the breath. Fuck. I couldn’t handle it if she lost it now and started crying… If her life was as mundane as she’d described it, then she was way out of her depths right now. I needed her semi-calm and not hysterical. Therapy could come some other day—at her expense. I backed up and lowered my arms, not wanting to stand so close. It was damned hard enough already to resist wrapping her into a hug and lying to her with promises of “it’ll be okay.”

  For a stranger I’d just met, I had a hell of a problem with wanting to protect her. I’d done my job protecting others before, and I learned my lesson the hard way of how much it could hurt. However, I opened my mouth, my brain not in sync with my gut. “So, before we can worry about helping her, we need to…”

  She was up in my face again, eager. Her hand shot out to reach mine, but she frowned and lowered it immediately, as though rethinki
ng her action. “What? What should we do?”

  Should? I rubbed at my mouth. What should I do? Run away as fast as I could. But I wouldn’t. Couldn’t. I’d never abandon someone in danger. I’d been on the receiving end of that hell to never wish it on someone else.

  What we should do contrasted with things we could do. Going to the authorities for help was clearly off the menu. Heading to an ER for our injuries was also a moot option.

  “Get cleaned up. Go somewhere else.” Hell, if Michael sent someone to follow up at Rosa’s, we weren’t exactly safe just next door. “Then figure out how to locate Rosa—”

  “I’ve tried to. After I got her letter to come here for that key, I called. Texted. Emailed. It all went to nothing. Like her phone was disconnected. Even the email was sent back as a delivery issue.”

  All right. Suspicion confirmed. Rosa was in trouble. Or trying to avoid it. “Okay. Still, we can’t just wait around here like this.”

  “I guess I could…” She shrugged and brought her hand right back to her neck, maybe to cover the raw skin rather than to soothe it. “I could go home. And—”

  “We will figure it out. But not like this.” I pointed at her not-so-white t-shirt. “Go ahead and clean up. Bathroom’s on the left.”

  She nodded and glanced at the entry to my bathroom, and then studied the stick-on tiles of the floor again. Did she miss the memo about needing to not hang around here? Like, now?

  “There a problem?”

  “I…” Her blue focus hit on everything except me as her throat worked to swallow. “I don’t want to be alone.”