Keep Her Safe

by K. A. Tucker

  “Jesus Christ!” My breathing is ragged with relief as I lean back against the door.

  She frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I thought . . . nothing.” I silently vow to keep the alarm set at all times. Better yet, I won’t leave Gracie alone again.

  She finds another pen under a pile of magazines. “Ha!” she exclaims, as it leaves a streak of blue ink on a cover. She storms past me with it and a highlighter, Cyclops trotting behind her all the way to her room, his tail wagging excitedly.

  “Did you find something?”

  She yanks the cap off the yellow highlighter using her teeth and sets to drawing a box around half a page before thrusting the page at me.

  I scan the paragraph in the section. “It’s a statement from one of the motel guests.” I frown. “Who saw nothing.”

  “Look harder!” Gracie urges, scribbling the highlighter over a name.

  Holy shit. “Mantis was canvassing witnesses.”

  “Not just canvassing witnesses.” She yanks another page off the bed and holds it up. It’s a list of the team of investigators. Mantis’s name is near the top. Gracie’s lips twist with a smug smile of satisfaction. “Why would a special Narcotics squad cop be part of a homicide investigation?”

  “Good question. I guess he could have volunteered. Or maybe they were short-staffed, or—”

  “He got himself onto that team because he wanted to cover his tracks.”

  “Right,” I agree. It would give Mantis access to potential witnesses and evidence. It would also give him the chance to ensure there were no witnesses or evidence pointing to him. I scan the rest of the list. “I don’t recognize these names. We can look them up, though.”

  As if remembering that she’s angry with me, Gracie smoothly lifts the page from my fingertips and settles herself onto her bed, cross-legged. Ignoring me once again.

  “That’s a long report.”

  “It is.”

  “It’s going to take you all night to go through it alone.”

  She waves a dismissive hand toward the nightstand. “I made coffee.”

  “The two of us could get through it faster. We both want the truth, Gracie.”

  She considers that, her sharp green eyes finally lifting to meet mine. “Yeah, fine,” she mutters, reluctantly.

  I should stop now and just be thankful she’s not itching to skin me alive anymore, but I can’t bite my tongue hard enough. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Klein. If I could do it over again, I would have gone and woken you up and brought you downstairs to talk to him that same night.”

  She presses her lips together. And then sighs. “I get why you didn’t tell me. I don’t like it, but I get it.”

  “Please say you don’t hate me.” I offer her my best contrite face.

  She rolls her eyes. “Stop that.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  I smile. “I can’t help it.”

  She averts her gaze, but I spot the corners of her mouth curve slightly. “Did you tell your uncle that we talked to the FBI?” There’s a challenge in her voice.

  “No.” Silas called me while I was on my run. I didn’t pick up. “He’ll hear about it soon enough.” I sound indifferent, but in reality I’m dreading that conversation. “All that matters is clearing Abe’s name and finding the person responsible. Or people,” I quietly add, knowing that could include my mother. “No more withholding information. No more worrying about anything except doing the right thing. We count on each other. We tell each other everything, right away. Deal?”

  She exhales heavily. “Deal.”

  “Okay then.” Gracie’s forgiven me. All feels right, even though it’s far from it.

  “So . . . were you going to shower first?” Her nose twitches with exaggeration, but then she laughs, breaking the last of the tension.

  “Yeah. Do you think you can control yourself for the next ten minutes? Or should I lock the bathroom door?” I tease. Knowing that I’m really pushing my luck here.

  “Leave it wide open for all I care.” She feigns indifference, but I catch the way her gaze flitters over my body, the way her throat bobs with a hard swallow, the way her cheeks flush.

  “Okay, I needed to make sure. Remember, you did pick an especially dumb one to chase aft—” I duck just in time to avoid the pillow that she launches at my head.

  CHAPTER 39

  Commander Jackie Marshall

  April 26, 2003

  I watch the cigarette smoke curl out my driver’s-side window and sail into the night sky. It’s been an hour of sitting and waiting.

  Finally, I spot Abe’s familiar stride. He weaves through the cars, heading toward his white sedan. It’s parked where he always parks—under the third light post on the south side. I swear, I could set my watch by that man’s predictability.

  “Abe!” I step out of my car.

  He sees me and his face hardens. He doesn’t stop.

  “Come on, wait up a minute!” I cut him off at his door before he has a chance to open it, his hand gripping the handle.

  “What do you want, Jackie?”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “Where am I going?” His brows climb halfway up his forehead and I brace myself for an earful. “Where do you think I’m going? To drive around the slums and sit in motel parking lots and bribe hookers for information, thanks to you! Now get outta my way.”

  The Abe I know would never have talked to me like this, but I can’t say much. I deserve it.

  “Mantis showed up at my house the other night.” I glance around to make sure no one’s within earshot. It’s late, and the shift change came and went. The staff parking lot is full of cars and not much else at this point. Still, I drop my voice. “You need to stop stirrin’ up that pot you’ve stuck your spoon into.”

  “Unbelievable.” Abe starts to laugh, but it’s not his usual hearty, boisterous laugh. It’s full of bitterness. “You protecting Mantis too?”

  “I’m protecting you. You know you can’t go around threatening him!”

  “Why? Because he’s Canning’s dog?”

  “Because he has the temper of a rattlesnake that’s been stepped on! Lord only knows what he’ll do if you get him cornered.” There are enough stories floating around about Mantis—sending opponents off sports fields in stretchers, putting a guy in a hospital after a bar brawl, complaints of excessive use of force, from criminals, mind you—to make any smart person wary of that guy.

  “Then he shouldn’t have stolen that money.”

  I knew it. “They’re getting drugs and bad people off the streets, even if Mantis has a crooked way of doing it. I’m telling you, Abe, leave it alone. For everyone’s sake, but especially your own.” I don’t know how I can warn him any more clearly than that.

  “When did you get like this? You weren’t always like this. I guess that assistant chief’s star is just too damn tempting, isn’t it?” He shakes his head, his chocolate eyes alight with anger. “If he’s done it once, he’s done it a hundred times. It’s wrong. I can’t turn a blind eye to that. Now if you’ll move . . .” He opens his door, forcing me back. “I won’t get to put my baby girl to bed—again—thanks to you.”

  I barely find time to step out of the way before he’s speeding away.

  CHAPTER 40

  Grace

  The first thing I’m aware of when I awake is the smell of soap.

  The second is the feel of a broad chest against my cheek and an arm coiled around my body. It takes my brain several seconds to register the fact that I’m curled up against Noah in my bed, and another few to remember why.

  We must have drifted off, going through each line of my dad’s report with a fine-tooth comb. Pages are now scattered beneath our slumbering bodies. Others have slipped to the floor during the night.

  I lie frozen for a moment, relishing the warmth of Noah’s strong, hard body, the heat radiating through his thin c
otton T-shirt. My palm is flat against the curves of his chest, and it feels even better than I imagined, enough to make my blood race through my limbs and my heart pound.

  Just days ago, he was no one. An assumed drug dealer who faced the brunt of my rage. Then, he was a guy I didn’t remember, the son of a woman whom my mother despised. Now . . . he’s the only real person I can count on in my life.

  True, he’s deceived and outright lied to me plenty, and yet my anger with him melted almost instantly last night. I want to hate him for protecting his mother, for listening to his uncle, but I can’t. I can’t blame him for hoping that there’s some grand explanation for her involvement, just like I can’t blame him for giving everyone he cares for the benefit of the doubt.

  Slowly, I shift my head so I can look up at his face. It’s exactly as I imagined it—boyish and peaceful in slumber, his brown eyelashes a thick fringe. And that jaw . . . My fingertips beg to slide across the layer of stubble covering it.

  When exactly did I start having these feelings for Noah? Sure, he was attractive, even when I thought he was my mom’s drug dealer. And I’ve admired him more than once from afar. But lying in bed next to him, my thoughts are on what those soft, full lips would feel like against mine, and on how he’d react if he woke up to find me pressed against him.

  When was the last time I trusted anyone the way I seem to trust Noah almost instinctively, no matter how many times he’s given me reason not to?

  I never have.

  Because I’ve never met a guy like him.

  Noah is a genuinely good guy, trying to do the right thing, while protecting the people he cares for. Mom said that’s how Dad was.

  What worries me is what happened to Dad because he was trying to do the right thing.

  Cyclops stands with a deep stretch from the spot where he made himself comfortable for the night—the pile of decorative pillows that I tossed to the floor—and trots over to the doorway, his tail wagging.

  He lets out a high-pitched bark of protest.

  I quietly curse the mutt as Noah’s chest heaves with a deep, awakening breath. His eyelids begin to flutter and the sharp jut in his neck bobs with his hard swallow. Still, I don’t move, hoping he’ll drift back asleep.

  Cyclops lets out a second high-pitched bark. I can’t ignore him any longer. He may have been domesticated once, but he’s a stray now. That he’s even doing the decent thing by not lifting his leg on the furniture is a miracle.

  I move to slide off Noah.

  His arm tightens around me instantly, locking me in place. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to—I can feel his heart begin to race. I catch his brilliant blue but sleepy eyes settled on me. “Did you sleep okay?” he asks, his voice grating so deeply that I feel it in my chest.

  I consider throwing back my usual sarcastic quip. Then I decide against it, because it’d be a lie and we agreed not to lie to each other. “Better than I have in a while,” I admit. “Even on a bed of paper.”

  He groans. “I meant to gather it up before going to my room, but I must have fallen asleep reading.”

  “We can find it all easily enough. I highlighted everything important.” The pages summarizing the interview with my mother, and how she couldn’t explain the stacks of money and bags of cocaine and marijuana that turned up in the search warrant execution, taped to the backs and underside of their bedroom furniture. Nor could she explain why my dad left the house that night, other than to say that he had received a phone call and told her he had to go to work.

  What was glaringly obvious wasn’t what was in the report, but what wasn’t in it. There was no mention of my dad’s unaccounted-for Colt .45, or his custom-made holster. No mention of my mom’s claims about a suspicious video. And not a single word about him acting as witness to a police corruption crime, which we know Silas—an ADA at the time—was aware of. So many minor details were documented—the times and dates that my father lied to my mother about working, with confirmation that he was not on the clock—and yet none of the facts that may have helped build reasonable doubt. Did they simply exclude them, assuming they weren’t important? Or did Mantis make sure they never made it into the report?

  Noah sighs as his fingers drag back and forth against my shoulder.

  This is getting too intimate. I should pull away, and yet I stay, frozen against him. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Great. Actually, I might still be asleep.”

  I frown. “Why do you say that?”

  His warm breath skates across my forehead. “Because you’re being nice to me.”

  I’ve never been shy, and yet I’m unable to look him in the eye again. “Don’t get used to it.” Meanwhile my body betrays me, pressing into his, reveling in his strength and warmth and protection.

  “Hey.”

  I sense the air between us shifting, a heady anticipation swelling. “What?”

  His hand pushes against my chin, lifting it until our eyes meet again.

  He says nothing, but he doesn’t need to. Everything he doesn’t say is clear. The hard swallow, the shaky inhale, the way his fingers curl around locks of my hair, while sweeping them off my forehead.

  The way he leans in, painstakingly slowly.

  His lips graze against mine in a timid way, as if he’s afraid of my response. Not until the second pass, when he presses a little harder, when he stalls there for a little longer, does it actually feel like a real kiss.

  Not until the third pass do I meet his mouth with mine, reveling in the way our lips fit against each other in an unhurried, sensual dance, as his arm around me tightens, as his body coils into mine, his other hand finding my hip. His thumb grazes against my pelvic bone.

  I could stop this.

  Given what this FBI investigation might uncover about his mother and what she did to my father, I should stop this before it gets more complicated.

  And yet my fingers claw their way up his chest, memorizing the feel of him, unable to stop myself.

  Because nothing has felt more right than having Noah back in my life.

  I’m so enthralled by his touch, his feel, his taste, that it takes a moment for the sound of a stream of liquid hitting the carpet to register. When it finally does, I’m breaking free and bolting upright in bed.

  “No! Bad dog!”

  * * *

  “Where do you keep these?” I hold up the bottle of vinegar and rubber gloves.

  “Under the sink is fine,” Noah says absently, his hands clasped behind his neck in a morning stretch that hasn’t quite finished, the hem of his T-shirt lifted to show a glimpse of his taut belly and the dark trail of hair.

  He doesn’t notice me admiring his body, his gaze locked on the backyard where the sun crawls over the horizon of trees. “He’s a real asshole of a dog.”

  “It’s our fault. He was telling us he had to go and we . . . weren’t listening.” I feel my cheeks flush.

  “Yeah, but the way he was lookin’ at us while he was doing it, through that squinty little eye of his, I could almost hear him saying ‘fuck y’all!’ ”

  I chuckle at the exaggerated Texas twang in Noah’s voice. “It’s going to take a while for him to get used to domesticated life. He’s used to living under trailers.”

  “He was outside when he did all that.” Noah waves a hand at the torn-up flower beds and overturned planters that we came home to yesterday—one of them resting at the bottom of the pool.

  “Told you we shouldn’t leave him alone here. He doesn’t like being confined.”

  “Looks pretty damn happy to me,” Noah mumbles, reaching over to hit a button on the coffeemaker.

  I peer out the kitchen window in time to see my newfound pet charge a flock of those noisy iridescent blue-black birds, his jaws snapping with excitement. They squawk in protest as they scatter. “What are those birds, anyway?”

  “Grackles.”

  I grimace. “Sounds like something out of the underworld.”

  He hands me a
steaming cup of coffee—black, just how I like it. “Your dog left an underworld bird on the doormat last night. Headless.”

  “A present for you,” I tease, inhaling the comforting aroma before taking my first sip.

  Noah’s gaze travels down my bare legs. He grins.

  “What?”

  Stooping over, Noah slowly drags a fingertip along my thigh, beginning just above my knee and moving upward. My skin sprouts gooseflesh instantly. “You weren’t kidding when you said you highlighted everything important.”

  I look down to see wobbly yellow lines from my highlighter all over my legs. And arms. And my new crisp white T-shirt. I groan. “I must have been rolling on it all night! Dammit!”

  “I should have capped it,” he apologizes, as if this is his fault. “We can buy you more clothes today.”

  “I can’t afford it.”

  “I’ve got money—”

  “No.” He’s already been generous enough.

  Noah studies me as if deciding whether it’s worth the argument. “You’re about the same size as my mom was. There’s a whole room full of clothes upstairs. Take whatever you want.”

  Jackie Marshall’s clothes? “Wouldn’t that be . . . weird?”

  “They’re just clothes. She doesn’t need them anymore.” He heaps a spoonful of sugar into his coffee and heaves a sigh, the kind that tells me talking about his mother—even her clothes—isn’t as easy as he’s making it sound. “Seriously, take what you want. Your mom will fit into some of it, too. We can bring whatever you think she may like when we go to visit her.”

  We’re going to visit her? “Thanks. I’ll . . . see.” The idea of pillaging a dead woman’s closet doesn’t sit well with me, but he’s right. They’re just clothes, and she doesn’t need them. I, on the other hand, covered in streaks of fluorescent yellow, do. I savor another mouthful of coffee. “What time is it?”

  “Eight.”

  I groan. “When did we fall asleep, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. Three? Four?” Noah’s eyes are heavily lined by bags.

  “No wonder I’m so tired.”

  He steps into me, and reaches up to push a wayward curl off my forehead, before leaning in to plant a gentle kiss against my lips.