“You’re an idiot.”
After the blunt pronouncement, Jolie stalked toward the apartment, her back rigid. Dace slammed the door of the armored car with his good arm, wincing a little as the effort pulled at his patched shoulder.
Dawson slid him a sidelong glance as they followed the steamed woman toward the front door. “Only fools ignore the advice of their doctors or lawyers.”
“I don’t like hospitals.” And Jolie, of all people, had no room to talk about following doctor’s orders. He’d been unwise enough to point that out, eliciting the earlier comment and a few others much less polite. “It’s a flesh wound. It won’t heal any faster if I lie in a hospital bed another twenty-four hours.”
Truman opened the door as they headed up the front steps. Jolie swept inside. She was as ticked as Dace had ever seen her, and he couldn’t quite figure why. Adrenaline letdown, maybe. They’d been hustled into the armored vehicle with such speed that it had been impossible to see what was going on with the shooter. They’d had to rely on updates from the agents, and the news hadn’t been good. The subject had gotten away on the back of the motorcycle that had provided the diversion. It had been found abandoned less than ten miles away.
The bastard always seemed to be one step ahead of them. If that was what had Jolie out of sorts, he could sympathize. He felt the same way.
“So what’s next?” Jolie was asking Truman as Dace walked in. “The memorial drew the shooter out, just the way Fenholt wanted. Does she have a fallback plan now that the subject managed to slip through the fingers of two departments?”
“Options are being discussed. We’re supposed to leave immediately for a debriefing downtown.”
Truman’s tone was terse. Dace could tell he didn’t like being reminded just how badly the Bureau had screwed up. Jesus. He shook his head in disbelief. The dirtbag managed to get an explosive on the site and park himself close enough to get a couple shots off. And then got clean away, which was really the pisser. If he was going to take a bullet, the least the feds could do was make the damn arrest.
He wondered if Fenholt was across town with the other feebies trying to figure out a way to blame this on the locals, which would be totally bogus. The Bureau had called the shots all the way. And maybe that was the problem.
Truman and Dawson stepped aside, discussing something in low tones. Dace’s attention, however, was on Jolie. She walked straight through the family room, heading for the stairs. He didn’t want to think about the ice-cold blade of fear that had stabbed through him when he’d heard that first shot. Seen how close it had come to her.
His lungs clogged at the memory. Time had frozen into still frames. The bullet creasing the wood steps. The ugly thick splinter lodged in Jolie’s leg. Shoving the agent aside and diving for Jolie. Panic sprinting through his veins. Afraid of a second shot. Afraid he’d be too late.
He hadn’t even been aware he’d been hit until he’d seen the blood on his shirt. For one awful moment, he’d thought it was Jolie’s.
When Truman spoke, it took Dace a moment to realize the words were meant for him. “The rifle used in the shooting was left behind. It’s been dusted for prints, but it had been wiped clean.”
Of course it would be. Dace’s mouth flattened. They were due, way overdue, for a break in this case.
The agent continued. “There was a visual of the shooter as he was driving away, at least from the back. He was wearing a SWAT Tac-Vest.”
Dace stared at him, the words coming as if from a distance. An LEO was responsible? Was it possible?
Everything inside him rejected the idea. But doubts filtered in and wouldn’t be banished. It would explain how the subject had infiltrated security. Maybe he had an ID. It didn’t necessarily mean he was LEO, only that he’d accessed law enforcement equipment.
And yet…someone had leaked the names of the SWAT personnel on-site at the bank. Admin had been leaning heavily on the dispatchers and reporters with the police beat. Maybe they should have been looking closer to home.
But it was one thing to think it. It was another to hear Truman practically repeat his thoughts a moment later. “Looks like you guys might need to look in-house. Local departments are notorious for corruption.”
Dace’s fingers curled into a fist. “Screw you, Truman. Anyone with access to the Internet can get police-issue vests. For that matter, it could just as easily be someone with a connection to the feds.”
“It’s extremely doubtful either way,” Agent Dawson put in. “He wore what he needed to blend in. He’s adaptable, and the panic in the crowd made it impossible to mount a quick pursuit. The good news is that one of our snipers got a shot off and is sure he hit the rider on the back. Probably the shooter.”
“If he was wearing a vest, a bullet didn’t do more than stun him,” Dace said flatly. The pain reliever they’d pressed on him at the hospital was starting to wear off. His arm was beginning to throb. Diplomacy be damned. The events of the day were combining to knock him on his ass. “I wouldn’t pin my hopes on that. These guys are making you look like a bunch of mutts.”
He started for the steps. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”
He’d only gone a few steps when Truman said, “Your presence isn’t required downtown. It’s an agency session.”
The words halted him in midstep. Turning to face the two men, he saw the truth in their expressions. “Yeah. I’ll bet it is.” He studied them for another moment. “Is Fenholt pulling the detail off us?”
“That hasn’t been determined,” Agent Dawson put in. He started for the door. “We’ll leave the two men outside until further notice.”
He waited as the pair walked through the door, then locked it after them. The turn of events wasn’t totally surprising. But for the first time he considered just what their options would be if the feds decided on a whole new game plan. Would they be expected to join the other SWAT members on leave? He doubted the city could afford that option much longer.
He hesitated on his way to the bathroom and looked in on Jolie. She’d switched the bulky shirt and armor for a tee the same shade as her eyes. She’d never leave the city willingly. Her mother’s health tied her here. She was seated at the desk in the spare bedroom, the contents of the case file spread before her. But she didn’t look like her mind was on it. The pencil she was holding beat a rapid tattoo against the pile of paper.
He eyed her uncertainly. Since he’d never seen her in this mood before, he had no idea how to defuse it. In the end, he seized on the investigation. That, at least, was a neutral topic. “The blame game already is starting downtown. Truman and Dawson just left for their seats at the table.” He relayed Truman’s speculation about the subject’s possible background, finishing, “Hell, if he was law enforcement, he’d be a helluva lot better shot.”
Her jaw tightened, and she bent over the papers, pencil in hand. “Well, he was nearly good enough, wasn’t he?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to interpret that caustic tone. He had three sisters. He knew when he was in dangerous territory. Dace backed out of the room. “I’m gonna take a shower.” Stating his intent almost made him feel like he wasn’t running. Almost.
When he got to the bathroom he rummaged through the medicine chest for a pain reliever. He wasn’t going to take the pain meds the hospital had sent home. Damn pills slowed his thinking.
As he swallowed some ibuprofen, he noticed that Jolie had already stacked extra dressings and gauze on the counter. Padding over to the shower, he reached in and turned on the water. All he wanted to do was let the showerhead pound out the stress of the day.
As he took off his shirt, the bathroom door pushed open behind him. “Are you counting on your superpowers to keep the dressing dry?”
Guiltily he glanced down at his arm. “I was planning to wrap a towel around it,” he lied. Probably not a good time to tell her he figured she could change the dressing for him. Or he could do it himself. Probably.
Her mouth a grim line, she marched to the counter and snatched up the plastic bag the materials had come in. He couldn’t make out the words she was muttering under her breath. Probably just as well.
With a few swift movements she had the bag wrapped around his dressing and secured with a couple of rubber bands, her touch decidedly ungentle.
“Thanks.” He eased away. “Good thing you’re a cop. Your bedside manner could use some work.”
As a joke, it failed miserably. She stared at him, something alight in her eyes that he couldn’t identify. A moment later it turned to temper, and that, unfortunately, was all too easy to recognize. “I was wrong earlier,” she snapped. “You aren’t an idiot. You’re a complete moron.” She turned and slammed from the room, leaving him to stare dumbly after her.
Christ. What had just happened? He didn’t remember ever getting this attitude from her before, and frankly, it was starting to piss him off.
He stripped off the rest of his clothes, pulled open the shower door and stepped inside. Bracing his hand against the shower wall, he lifted his face to the spray and let out a deep breath. Hell, he thought aggrievedly. If she was frustrated with the screwup at the park, he’d been there, too. They weren’t going to get any closer to solving this case by spending their time at each other’s throats.
A moment later the door was yanked open, and he swiped the water from his face in surprise.
“You could have been killed.” Her eyes were bright, her jaw clenched. “But I suppose you didn’t consider that before diving into danger.”
The leash on his temper frayed. “We both knew the danger going in. Am I glad the subject wasn’t a better shot? Yeah. But our biggest problem at the moment is that he’s still out there.” The water was spilling from the shower onto the floor, but right now he didn’t care.
“The agents were there. It was their job to protect us both. You took a needless risk.” Her breath hitched once and with a jolt he realized that the brightness in her eyes came from a sheen of tears. “You could have been killed,” she repeated fiercely.
Something in his chest softened and he reached out a hand, drew her inside the shower and pulled the door shut after her. “I wasn’t. I’m fine.” His gut clenched at the anguish on her face, and he recalled the last time he’d seen that emotion there. He’d been helpless to wipe it away eighteen months ago. He felt just as powerless now.
Her body was resistant as he drew her closer. “Two inches. That’s all it would have taken. If your arm had been two inches farther back, the bullet would have entered right where the vest ends beneath your arm. It could have hit your heart. It could have…”
He pulled her close, laid her hand over his chest where he could feel his heart chugging like a locomotive. “It didn’t. I’m right here, baby.” Tucking her against his chest, he dipped his head, inhaling the fresh clean scent of her now-drenched hair. “I’m fine. We’re going to be fine.”
She was still for a moment and he could almost feel the internal struggle as she battled for her famed control. Could feel the instant she surrendered it, when she linked her arms around his waist and clung.
He held her like that for a moment, tightly enough to deprive their lungs of oxygen. And he called himself every kind of fool for not seeing what had lurked behind her attitude, fueling the temper.
Cupping her face in his hands, he tipped it up to meet his. He slicked the water from her lips with the tip of his tongue and then delved deeper.
He tasted the welcome in her mouth, as well as a tinge of desperation that was easy to recognize. Her concern for him lit a flame in his chest that he’d thought long extinguished. Or maybe he’d been fooling himself on that front, too.
There was a message in her kiss, in her touch, that he was afraid to misinterpret. He’d never been especially good at translating her emotions. But this time, he vowed, his tongue gliding along hers, he’d get it right.
Her hands skated up his spine, sluicing the water off his shoulders. His mouth went to the cord of her neck and he scraped it with his teeth. An inch lower and he found the pulse at the base of her throat, throbbing like a caged wild thing. Heat licked through his veins.
His hands were fast and urgent when they pulled the soaked T-shirt over her head. Released the clasp of her bra. He let the water cascade over her breasts before capturing them in his hands. Things always seemed so clear when he could touch her like this. The passion between them at least had always been unclouded.
Pressing her back against the glass wall of the shower, he bent his head, took a nipple in his mouth and rolled it with his tongue. He heard the little gasp she made, felt the sting of her nails on his shoulders. A primitive flare of response fanned to life. He wanted her now, naked and wet and wild for him. He wanted to explore every inch of moist flesh with his mouth and then follow that exploration with his tongue.
But already there was no thought of slowing down, of drawing this out. Not when her hands were gliding over his flesh, making teasing little forays closer and closer to where he was hard and straining.
His hands went to the clasp of her dark pants and fumbled, fingers unusually clumsy. He managed to unzip them, drag them over her hips, then halted when her fingers encircled him, doing a quick sensual dance up and down his shaft.
The air leeched from his lungs. Staggered and aroused, he could only stand there a moment, trying to haul in a gulp of oxygen. She could bring a man to his knees by touch alone. It took every bit of strength he had to withstand those wicked, knowing fingers and continue dragging her pants down her thighs, to temper his touch as he eased them over her own injuries.
When she stepped out of them he pulled her to him, a little rough, a little desperate. The water pouring over them echoed a pounding in his blood, in his chest. Wet flesh pressed against wet flesh. Steam curled around them, enveloping them in a heated cocoon of intimacy.
He parted the slick fold between her thighs to send a finger inside her, absorbing the buck of her hips against his. She was hot liquid fire around him, a tight dark promise that had the skin tightening at the base of his shaft in anticipation. The contrasts he found with her were gut-wrenchingly arousing.
There was the taste of her, exquisitely feminine, and the feel, wet curves over heat. The cool moist flesh of her shoulder, rounded and delicate. The velvet warmth inside her, clenching and releasing around his finger in a way that had reason receding.
Her hands stroked his sides, slid to his back, fingers flexing against muscle, trailing fire in their wake. Her touch torched his blood. He could feel it surging through his veins like a Thoroughbred straining toward the finish line.
With his free arm he brought her closer still against him, sealing their bodies together. Flesh to flesh. Curves to angles. Heat to heat. Her breasts flattened against his chest and he ducked his head to scoop up the rivulets of water dammed in her cleavage.
Her fingers went in search of him and he let his head fall back, awash in sensation. They might have been in danger for their lives hours ago, but he felt alive now. Incredibly so. Every breath he drew had to be battled in through clogged lungs. She stroked him urgently, urging him on, and he had to grit his teeth against the savage urge to mount her, ride her hard until they were both limp and satiated.
He wanted to believe that having her would lessen his desire. That he could whittle it away until there was nothing left but indifference. But all he had to do was drag his eyes open and watch the passion twist her expression to know his hope was doomed to fail.
Every gliding movement of her fingers sent a corresponding bolt of lust tightening low in his belly. She nipped at his shoulder, the tiny sting of pain shredding his control. He withdrew his finger from her and crowded her against the wall of the shower.
A man who couldn’t take what he needed and walk away was a man truly caught. The truth danced at the graying hem of reason, taunting him. But all he wanted right now was to bury himself in her to the hilt, her velvety softness surrounding him with feminine heat. He wanted to plunge inside her until the pleasure exploded for both of them. And he wanted, quite desperately, for it to be enough.
His mouth on hers was rougher than he intended but she returned his kiss with a response that equaled his own. He used his good arm to lift her and she immediately locked her legs around his hips.
The position opened her to him, an invitation that was impossible to resist. His shaft nudged her slick folds as their mouths worked against each other, and she reached down with one hand to guide him. He sank into her with a hard lunge that drove the breath from both their bodies.
Dace stopped for a moment, tried to harness his flagging control. He wanted to watch her. Wanted to commit every change of expression to memory even as he began to thrust with a heavy insistent motion. But pleasure was crowding in, sensation slamming into sensation, making restraint impossible. His pace quickened until he was pounding into her, her heels digging into his hips, her nails biting into his shoulders. And when his release came, in a sudden powerful explosion, his mind was washed clean of every thought but of her.
* * *
The dressings had to be changed, of course. Somewhere during the tumultuous sex the plastic bag had worked down his arm. The bandages were soaked, as were those covering her wounds.
Dace sat on the edge of the tub, naked and docile as Jolie carefully cut a length of gauze. He lifted the dressing she’d applied, surveyed the wound critically. It was a nasty-looking crease but not a whole lot worse than the injury to Jolie’s leg from that splintered wood, which she’d just re-covered. When he saw her watching him with false patience, he grinned and replaced the dressing with exaggerated care. She began wrapping the gauze around the thick dressing to hold it in place.
“I was wrong earlier.”
“Call the news teams.”
She should know better than to try sarcasm when she was still naked. He pinched her ass, and she glowered at him.
“You do have a good bedside manner. The best.”
“And you have a woman standing over your naked body with scissors within reach. Be careful.”
He grinned, stretching his legs out, lazily satisfied as he watched her work. “You can be too careful, you know. Caution is good when it keeps you alive. But not when it has you slamming the door every time you have a chance to be happy.”
Her fingers slowed in their task. Because he was watching so closely, he saw her expression pale. Stubbornly, he plowed on. “We can’t go back, you and me. But there’s still something between us. Doesn’t make sense for us to deny it.”
She took more time than she needed to apply the adhesive tape to hold the gauze in place. When she lifted her gaze to meet his, he saw that her eyes were guarded. “Our mistake was thinking we could have more.”
His good humor faded, foreboding tangling in his gut. “And what? We don’t deserve more? Or you don’t?”
When she would have ducked to pick up the materials she’d used, he grabbed her wrist, drew her upward to meet his gaze. “That’s it, isn’t it? You want to content yourself with bits and pieces of a life, because you aren’t worthy of more? Who convinced you of that? That old bitch across town?”
“You couldn’t possibly understand.”
“Oh, I do.” He gave a hard nod, a sheet of ice slicking over his skin. “I understand that you’re going to let the past dictate the future. And not even your own past, but your mother’s. That’s a coward’s way, Jolie. And you’re not a coward.”
Her smile was small and sad. “That’s where you’re wrong. I am a coward. Allowing you to tempt me to reach out for more, a chance at family, a real relationship…that was the bravest thing I ever did. I learned my lesson eighteen months ago. You should have, too.”
Like a wraith, she slipped from his grasp and through the door, leaving him cold and alone with her words echoing and reechoing in his mind.
* * *
Jolie sat on the couch in the family room. The only light came from the muted television news. From the photos shown, she could tell they were recounting the scene at the memorial yet again. She made no move to change the volume. For once the case seemed of minor importance.
A sick knot of nerves tightened inside her when she recalled the look on Dace’s face a couple hours ago. She knew she’d disappointed him yet again with her answer. But she was only protecting him—both of them—from more disappointment down the road. The hardest fall of all came from reaching too high. From wanting too much. Hadn’t he learned that when Sammy died?
She hadn’t heard a sound from upstairs in over an hour. Laying her forehead against her knees, Jolie found herself hoping that meant Dace was asleep. The shock to his system, followed by the heavy-duty pain medication, should do the job.
She wasn’t so lucky.
Lifting her head, she stared blindly at the television, her vision burning. It was useless to wish things could be different. Useless to believe that anything she did or said could change the inevitable. Dace Recker was a man who believed he could have a normal life. And he deserved to find a normal woman who could share that dream with him.
Her cell rang and she turned her head slowly in the direction of the sound. For a moment she was tempted not to answer it. But the sound could wake Dace. And it could be news of the case. Or of Trixie.
But she didn’t recognize the number on the screen. And when she answered, it took her a moment to jerk herself back to the investigation.
“Detective Conrad? I know we promised to get back to you earlier, but the debriefing only recently broke up.” The agent’s familiar voice was brisk, impersonal. “I wanted to be the first to give you the news. We have the subject in custody.”
Stunned, it took Jolie a moment to answer. “How? When?”
“I’ll fill you in later. I’m afraid I have some unfortunate information for you. It seems while we were meeting, your mother disappeared.”
A cold pool of fear spread in Jolie’s chest. “Disappeared?” She turned to pace toward the couch and away again. “Where? She was left alone?”
Her questions went unanswered. “We’ve traced her as far as Bellamy Court.” The park was the habitat of hookers and drug dealers after dark. “We can continue the search, but I thought I’d let you know, in case you’d like to join us. You may have more luck finding her than we will.”
Jolie was already heading upstairs to change out of her oversize tee and boxer pajama shorts. “I’m coming with you.”
“Not a problem.” There was a burst of static, then the agent’s voice sounded again. “…driving there myself. I’ll swing by and pick you up in five minutes.”
The call disconnected and Jolie did a quick change, a familiar sense of weariness filling her. This was her reality, and the contrast between it and what Dace was asking for couldn’t be starker. She hesitated before going downstairs, deciding to strap on her weapon. Bellamy Court was notoriously unsafe, although it was the type of place where Trixie would feel at home.
When she got downstairs, she scribbled him a quick note in case he woke up and wondered about her whereabouts.
Looking out the window, she noted the dark sedan was absent. Hawkins must have gotten the word that the feds had a suspect in hand. Lights speared down the street, and a car pulled to a stop outside the condo. Quietly, she locked the door and slipped outside, jogging to the discreet navy sedan.