Wait! Wait! Jake tried to reach back and fought to remain in the confines of the stone and the darkness but the smells were slipping away. He felt his grasp tighten around her, his hands cradling her breast as he pulled her back against his chest. Charlie sighed and snuggled against him as the sunlight streamed into the bedroom through the apartment window.
“Jesus,” Jake whispered, trying to capture his dream to his memory.
“Hmmm?” Charlie purred in his arms, starting to wake. She needed neither seconds nor minutes to process that she was wrapped in Jake’s arms. She knew it. She felt it all night and she would have been content to never wake again.
“Good morning Agent Adams,” she purred, rolling over to face him.
“Good morning, Beautiful.” God she was. Beautiful and glowing. He smiled down at her and they became lost in that place. Charlie was first to break the spell, reaching up to caress his worried face.
“Everything is okay, Baby,” Charlie whispered. She said it without even thinking; without analyzing it and over-analyzing it. Without wondering if it would freak him out or push him away. She said it as if she had said it a thousand times before. His eyes softened. He took a deep breath, completely caught off guard by the comfort her words brought him.
Jake had been alone for so long. He had been with women, lots of them, but still alone. Always alone. Alone by choice. His choice. He had truly never felt a connection to another human being like this. He felt as if he had known her for a hundred years. More. He drew her closer and she disappeared in his arms and tucked her head into his chest and hid there, protected and safe for as long as she could until she finally had to say it . . .
“We have statements to write, Adams.” His grip tightened as he tensed and she felt a small twinge of panic for a moment. Though her face was still buried in his chest, she could feel his eyes darken. She knew he didn’t like it when she took charge. There would be a consequence. She remained still. She knew it was coming but she was still surprised when he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back and kissed her hard on the mouth, robbing her of her breath. “Right you are, Sarge,” he said, his dark eyes piercing her. With that he bounded out of bed and got dressed while directing her to meet him at the station in one hour.
“Oh. Oh okay,” she said, trying hard not to surrender to tender feelings that were already starting in. It was clear he wasn’t going to come back and pick her up.
Reading her thoughts he said, “I’ve gotta touch base with Captain Kerns at the beach later today and I don’t want to leave you stranded at the station. I haven’t made contact with them or the regional office in a week. They are going to think you have kidnapped me,” he grinned. She threw a pillow at him and he rushed out, yelling, “Lock this deadbolt Charlie!”
“Lock this deadbolt!” squawked Moses. “Shut up Moses!” they yelled; her from the bedroom, him from the stairwell.
She knew she should get up and shower—he hadn’t given her much time to get ready to meet him at the station, nor had he asked how much time she would need, but it had been quite a while since she had enjoyed a morning afterglow and she wasn’t ready to give it up. She pulled the covers around her and snuggled in and began replaying the previous night in her mind starting with when she heard him undressing to climb into bed with her. No. Starting with when she asked him if he was going to “lock her up or spank her” and he had said . . . “Both.”
Even twelve hours later it sent a shiver through her and made her body ache for him. She ran her hands across her engorged and warm breasts and down to her stomach where his large hand had held her still while she convulsed in orgasm. She found herself reaching for Gus before she had time to argue with herself about how little time she had.
An hour later Charlie arrived at the station. She looked a little rough and she knew it and was feeling self-conscious. She was definitely not her usual controlled and composed self. Like the night before, she had only had time to pull her hair into a ponytail and throw on a baseball cap, making it now two days since she had washed her hair. No time for makeup either.
Hadn’t he said he liked her this way? We’ll see.
The Fed Mobile was already in the parking lot when she arrived—of course it was. She could feel her blood pressure starting to rise. She smiled and waved to the desk officer as she passed through the lobby, then popped into the locker room to check her look in the full-length mirror before going upstairs to the second floor of the white shirts and suits.
“Train wreck” she concluded as she looked in the mirror but she fluffed her hair anyway and retied her ponytail in a futile effort to look presentable. She started for the elevator and smiled thinking about Thompson and his pestering ‘Out of Service’ note he used to place on the elevator doors so the detectives and supervisors would be forced to take their “fat useless asses up the stairs.” For no particular reason, she headed for the stairwell instead. Her stomach started to knot knowing that she would be seeing him any minute. She took deep breaths to calm herself as she opened the stairwell door and started climbing to the second floor. She imagined him sitting in the chair in her office and . . .
“Jesus!” A scream caught in her throat when she saw him standing on the landing . . . waiting for her. “Christ Adams!” she screamed. He grinned down at her as he casually leaned against the stairwell wall.
“Hi!” he said, cheerfully. He looked gorgeous. Tall, hot, and gorgeous.
Charlie was completely perplexed. They had the same amount of time to get ready, her time diminished by Gus and his time diminished by his drive to his hotel and she looked like she had been hit by a bus, twice, while he looked like he just stepped out of a magazine. He was wearing tan Truspec BDUs, a black silk LA Police Gear polo, black leather Danner boots, and a charcoal gray Michael Kors windbreaker. Like the werewolf, his hair was perfect.
“You gotta little glow in your cheeks there, Sarge,” he said. “I hope you’re not running a fever.”
“You are not to discuss my cheeks in this station, Adams,” she said sternly. Then she realized what she had just said and blushed harder. Damn him! She burst through the CID door with an extremely self-satisfied looking Jake Adams on her heels, almost knocking Clint McCallister on his ass.
“Whoa! Where’s the fire Sarge?” Clint said, pretending to lose his balance and banging into the wall in dramatic fashion.
“Screw you Clint! I’m no hero!” she said, as she marched past him. Clint and Jake looked at each other confused and shrugged.
Jake strolled into the doorway of her office and stared at her while Charlie focused on her desk, trying to regain her composure. He loved seeing her like this, flustered and out of control, but he knew she didn’t like to be that way at work, so he backed it down.
“Sarge? Do I do this statement on a standard IBR report or just plain paper?”
She glared up at him, then suppressing a grin said, “Ask Clint to get you set up, please. I’m buried.” Jake nodded and headed for Clint’s desk.
“She okay?” Clint asked nodding toward Charlie’s office and handing Jake the report forms he needed.
“Yea, I think so. She’s not convinced the message was for her,” he said casually.
“Really?” Clint said staring him down and sizing him up, asking the question with his eyes that he didn’t need to ask out loud. Jake felt the need to shift in his seat but didn’t move a muscle.
“The fact is we don’t really know for sure,” Jake finally said.
“Don’t we?” Clint asked raising an eyebrow. Jake was impressed with Clint. He had underestimated him.
“I’ve gotta get this statement done, Clint,” Jake said, heading to his cubicle. Jake tried to focus but had a hard time staying put, knowing the questions that were bouncing around in Clint’s head. He also knew that Charlie would be struggling while she reconstructed the night of Daniel Silver’s murder. Jake thought of a
n excuse that would enable him to check on her without coddling her, which he knew she would hate. This was “Work Charlie” and he had to treat her differently.
He peeked into her office and found her with her head in her hands as she brooded over the blank report form. Jake knocked gently on the door jam. “What?” she snapped without looking up. Involuntarily, he took a step toward her, causing her to look up. She didn’t back down and returned his penetrating gaze. Jake regained control and forced himself to stop, though his instinct was to grab her by the hair and bend her over her desk.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sarge,” he said coolly. “I just needed some guidance about the preamble here. I mean, we arrived late, and I didn’t know if we were planning on ratting ourselves out on that, so do we start with—we were on a stakeout—and go right to the scream, or what?”
She shook her head. “No, Agent, we deal with facts here, even when we screw up.” His eyes darkened again but this time there was anger tinged with alarm. He started to speak but she cut him off.
“I’m sorry Jake. God. I’m being awful. You’re trying to cover my ass and I’m being a bitch. I’m sorry.” Jake said nothing.
They were both silent, her eyes pleading for understanding, his eyes revealing nothing. Charlie broke first. “I say we just go with the log. We arrived at 2145, the target returned home at 2200, and the scream came at 0500 yada yada yada.” Jake instantly relaxed, relieved that she didn’t intend to include his jog for coffee and he couldn’t help but smile at the yada yada.
“Thanks Adams,” she said and flashed a grateful smile at him in gratitude for pulling her from the dark place she was in.
As she gazed up at him, for a split second his dream flashed in his head. “What?” Charlie said, coyly reacting to the strange look on his face.
Jake shook his head clear. “Nothing. Okay. Got it. Log. Okay,” he said disappearing from her doorway. Charlie registered Jake’s reaction but had no time to analyze it. She dove into her statement with a clearer head. God he was adorable . . . when he wasn’t scaring the shit out of her or pissing her off.
About halfway through her statement, Mary Jane Klasky derailed her concentration as she bounced through the door and plopped into the chair. Her blonde hair was wild and untamed, and even though the clock was ticking away the morning and Charlie had three days of work piled on her desk, she was grateful for the distraction.
“What’s up kid?” Charlie prompted. Mary Jane launched into a detailed rant about everything teen that made Charlie so very grateful that the teen years only came once in a lifetime and were far behind her. Mary Jane clearly wasn’t looking for advice. She just wanted to rant. She could have been talking to a mushroom—Charlie was as good a mushroom as anyone else. Charlie smiled and nodded and uh-huh’d and oh-really’d for fifteen minutes and finally said, “Mary Jane. Duty calls.”
The teen took it in stride, grinned, and bounced out of the office the same way she came in. “Jesus that kid wears me out,” Charlie said to herself as Clint walked in and sat down in the chair just vacated by Mary Jane.
“What kid is wearing you out?” Clint asked.
“Never mind,” she said.
“What?”
“Really Clint?” Charlie sighed as Clint raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Clint threw his hands up and flashed his most angelic smile, his large dark eyes dancing. “I can’t just come in and see how you are doing?” Charlie motioned to the half-finished report on her desk.
“Christ Sarge! You’re still not done with that report? It’s noon? What are you doing in here? Writing it with your feet?”
Charlie rolled her eyes. “It is not noon,” she said. “Is it? Well it’s a little difficult to concentrate with all these interruptions.” She started tapping her fingers on the desk.
“Oh! Oh! I see,” he said, “he can interrupt you, but I can’t! Okay, I see how this works,” his hand covering his wounded heart. Charlie laughed. She was defenseless against Clint’s childlike charm.
“Whaaaat?” she whined. “Whaaaat dooo youuuu waaaaant McCallister!”
“Oh,” Clint said angelically, “I just wanted to see if you wanted to get a bite? See? I care!”
“Oh. I can’t, Clint. After I get this report done, I have to check off on all these other reports. I’ll be here all night.”
“Well that makes it easy then,” he said grinning. “Take-out from the Gay Dolphin it is.”
“Oh my God, I love you!” Charlie smiled, realizing the last time she had eaten was the two bites of Gay Dolphin take-out she had eaten last night.
“I don’t blame you,” Clint said, smiling, snapping her out of her thoughts.
“Hey!” she yelled after him. “Why don’t you check with Adams and see if he wants anything.”
Clint popped his head back in the door. “He’s gone. He left over an hour ago. Okay, let me make copies of my report for Heather so she can do her crime prevention PR thing and then I’ll run out. Yum! Yum!” he grinned, referring to Officer Heather Hinson, not the Gay Dolphin.
Jake had gone without saying goodbye? No big deal, she lied to herself. Charlie picked up her pen and finished her report on auto-pilot. She would never be able to remember or testify to the words that were written on the page before her, but at least the report was done.
“Okay I’m going now!” Clint yelled as he passed by her door.
“Clint wait,” she said. “I’m coming with.”
“Cool!” Clint lit up. She started for her cruiser but Clint dangled his keys at her and she got the message.
“I’m not that bad a driver,” she pouted.
“I didn’t say a word about your driving,” Clint said with a grin.
Get out of my head asshole, she thought.
Chapter 24
Robbery Code One
Before their seatbelts were buckled the tone alert went off “Beeeeeeeeep.”
“Units 354, 377, 389, armed robbery in progress Circle 7 Convenience Store 12764 Prince Andrew St. Code 1,” Jan purred.
“God, I love her voice,” Clint said.
Doesn’t that woman ever take a fucking day off? Charlie wondered.
“Come on McCallister. Let’s roll!” Charlie yelled, flipping on the grill and visor emergency lights and activating the siren. “Hey! Hey! Hey! My cruiser, my toys!” Clint laughed as he playfully slapped her hand away from the siren switch box, accelerated out of the police lot and launched onto the main drag. Charlie picked up the radio but Jan started providing additional details about the robbery before Charlie could mark up and say that she and Clint were responding to the call.
“Units responding to the Circle 7 robbery, citizen reports pulling into the lot and seeing a young white male with a black t-shirt and tan pants and a red baseball cap pointing a handgun at the clerk. All responding units acknowledge.” Units marked up along with their location and ETA, “354 Jessup St.—five minutes; 377 Rt. 6 and Donnelly—eight, 389 Virginia Beach Line—ten.”
“Hot damn!” Clint yelled, taking the turn on Prince Andrew Street at 70 mph, “We’re going to be first ones on the scene!” Charlie grinned at him and felt the adrenaline rising in her chest as she reached down and turned off the siren but left the emergency lights on—Always a risk . . . the chief reminded her from his perch on her shoulder. They needed to get there as quickly as possible, and they didn’t want to give the robber a heads-up on their arrival, but hauling ass with lights and no siren was a risk that all chiefs wanted to be managed very judiciously.
Charlie dropped a reassuring elbow on her gun, making sure it was where it was supposed to be and silently asked her plastic partner to come through for her. Well, not all plastic. The barrel and slide were made from hardened steel. The Glock 21’s main frame, magazine, and body were made from a high-strength nylon-based polymer, the inventor, Gaston Glock named Polymer
2. Glocks are sexy.
“Jesus Christ Clint!” Charlie yelled as Clint almost lost control on the winding road that was the eleven hundred block of Prince Andrew Street. Clint giggled and hovered over the wheel like a bad Gremlin run amok from Kingston Falls.
“Oh I got this!” he said, “I fucking got this!” Clint grinned, correcting the over-steer and straightening out the cruiser like it had been his plan all along. Charlie was suddenly glad Clint was driving instead of her, knowing she probably wouldn’t have pulled that off, but also knowing she wouldn’t be driving 70 mph either.
“Slow the hell down, you fucking lunatic. It’s coming up on the right. Pick a good spot. Shit! There he is!” Charlie started to bail out of the car while Clint was on the radio trying to mark out on the scene. Since they never told dispatch they were responding to the robbery they had to mark out first lest one of them be mistaken by a uniformed officer as the perp. Clint tried to grab Charlie’s arm while he clarified their location to dispatch but Charlie pulled away and gave chase. Neither of them had grabbed a portable radio when they left the station so Clint knew it was critical to mark out and give their location first before he raced off after his overzealous sergeant—he loved that about her. She was fearless and he was fearless when he was with her.
Jan confirmed their location and directed the first marked unit to the store to check on the clerk, who might be bleeding to death by this time. Jan knew that the heroes would be staging nearby but would not be going into the store until police said the scene was safe. She also knew Clint would be following Sergeant Cavanaugh in the foot chase. Everyone knew that.
Clint was only seconds behind Charlie but had already lost her in the thick underbrush. He stopped and listened and could hear her footsteps. Then he heard her yell, “Stop! Police!”
“Charlie!” Clint yelled as he continued to follow the sound. The robber was young, in shape, and motivated, and believed there was zero chance he would be caught today. He knew he was leaving the little female cop who was pursuing him in the dust but just for good measure, he cracked off a round from his pistol in her general direction to slow her down. Little did he know the shot just antagonized Charlie and made her run faster.
The Hooker, the Handyman and What the Parrot Saw Page 16
