“I’m trying to protect
you!”
“By demanding where I
sleep? Or by screwing me blind? Or by trying to browbeat me into
doing everything your way, when and where you want?”
“It’s not like that! It
hasn’t been like that!”
“It’s exactly like that!”
Realizing she was screaming, she froze. Her heart slammed within
her ribcage, banging and clanging. She rubbed at the pain and tried
to calm herself. She’d never screamed at anyone. Ever.
Losing control simply wasn’t an option, and
she’d done it multiple times. What was it about Harte took her over
the cliff of rational behavior?
Stare-to-stare, toe-to-toe, they stood.
Combative. Breathing deep. Not blinking. Like they were waiting to
see who would speak first and forfeit the fight.
If he caught half of what she’d said, and
guessed at everything she hadn’t, he would realize how much power
he held over her. And she worried he knew her thoughts and desires
better than she did herself. No man could be as in tune to a woman
unless he understood the secrets she harbored deep inside.
“I’m sorry.” She stepped
back and shook her head. “I shouldn’t have said all
that.”
“Yeah well, I’m pretty
sure I dealt it as well as you. You make me lose control.” He
regarded her with those blue eyes of his. Her resolve to argue
faded. “I had no control over how I lost Sam. I won’t be able to
live with myself if something happens to you. You’re too important
to risk.”
BD jumped into the car, ready for the night
to be over. It had barely begun. Using Maggie as bait shredded his
heart with agonizingly slow slices.
He should have found a safer way to trap
Adalia. Should have kissed Maggie one last time or explained more
clearly why he didn’t like her in Adalia’s path. Should have told
her exactly how important she was to him and why.
Should haves sucked stinky balls.
But by the time he’d
stopped being a jerk, Craig had rushed to the door telling him they
had a tip on Adalia. BD couldn’t change what he’d done. All he
could do was keep his promise to protect her.
“How’s she holding
up?”
“She’s strong.”
Terrified, but trying to hide
it
. He leaned back against the headrest
while Craig drove out of the neighborhood in a hurry for the sake
of watchful eyes.
“Not what I
asked.”
“Your point,
Oprah?”
“You care for
her.”
Yeah, but what difference
does it make?
“That isn’t
safe.”
“She’s not Sam, BD. This
situation is…different.”
He kept remarks to himself.
What he felt for Maggie… She unearthed emotions he’d long buried.
Emotions beyond passion or caring inspired by respect. Emotions he
wouldn’t name. “I told her.”
Craig glanced his way with
wide eyes. “About Sam or the baby?”
“Both.” How had she gotten
under his skin so quickly?
“I know what Sam meant to
you better than anyone. I also see how you look at Maggie.” Craig
sighed with the weight of shared grief. He’d felt responsible for
her death too. “You’re not objective. You want to shelter
her.”
“Doing my job.”
“Stopping Adalia is your
job. Loving Maggie isn’t.”
“Didn’t say I loved
her.”
Did I?
“Didn’t have to. Just…be
careful.”
“I know the boundaries.”
No friendship. No future. No nothing beyond returning to the four
walls of his drab apartment.
Nope.
He would walk away, and though it would hurt,
she’d be alive and never have to worry about the dangers of his
job. He would never have to worry about her or her kids being
caught in the crossfire.
“This is going to work.”
Whether trying to convince himself or Craig, BD didn’t appreciate
his plaintive tone. “Adalia’s going to get to her one way or
another. At least this way we have some control over the when and
where.”
Craig headed a few streets
over as they’d planned. “Cap thinks it’s a solid plan, and
considering his military record, that’s high praise.”
“You think he’s the one
helping her?” They’d entertained the possibility briefly. Cap had
the freedom to be involved, but they found no
motivation.
“Cap? I hope not.” Craig
slipped the car into Park. “We’ll know soon enough
though.”
Exiting the car, they
checked their guns and turned toward Maggie’s. A Ford pickup
swerved down the road and sped straight for the side of Craig’s
car. Craig rolled onto the hood. BD dove as far away from the car
as possible doing a ducking roll across the grass. The truck
slammed into where Craig had been standing.
The wreck was too convenient, too perfectly
timed, and too much like Mike’s had been to be coincidence.
BD yanked out his phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Craig rushed to the driver’s door where a young boy, may be
fourteen, rambled in Spanish.
React
faster
.
Maggie was alone.
Unprotected. “Craig, this is a trap.”
Craig leaned into the open
window of the truck. “Are you hurt?
Lastimar¿
” he translated.
BD looked from Craig to the driver to
Maggie’s direction, half listening while giving instructions and
information to the emergency operator. His phone beeped with an
incoming message.
A in kitchen.
Adalia had shown.
React faster.
BD directed to operator to
dispatch Mac to Maggie’s and hung up. “Hang tight, Mags. I’m
coming.”
“
Lastimar¿
” Craig
repeated.
“No.” The boy rubbed his
forehead, shook his head. “No…hurt.
Estrellarse…dinero
.”
Craig opened the door and
pulled the kid out. “
Estrallarse¿
”
“Auto.” The boy pointed at
Craig’s car and slammed his hands together. “Boom.
Estrallarse
.”
“Craig.” McClain was
heading in, but he was too far away. Alarms rang in BD’s head. His
guts twisted. “Craig.”
“I know.” He waved a hand
at BD.
“
Dinero, si¿
”
“No. Prison. Slammer.”
Craig pulled out his cuffs, secured one link around the boy’s wrist
and the other to a bar on the truck’s side view mirror and ordered
the kid to stay put before joining BD. “You tell dispatch where
we’d be?”
“Yeah.” Shoving the phone
back in his pocket, he and Craig took off toward
Maggie’s.
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket.
Running through the houses, he pulled it from his pocket to read
another text from Maggie.
Someone’s going to
die.
Depressing. Sad. Unavoidable. The
certainty of the thought nagged.
Fiddling with her wedding ring, her fingers
shaking more with every turn Maggie paced Jared’s bedroom floor.
She knew the plan. She’d fought for this, for the right to face
Adalia and would see it through to the end. She’d never been more
scared.
Scared of Adalia. Scared of death. Scared of
losing the chance to tell Burke how she felt, how he made her
tingle, how she didn’t want to be without him. Ever. She wanted a
relationship with him. To get past the fear of his job.
This whole warped week of dealing with
Adalia’s torments had driven home just how fleeting life was. No
way could she allow the man who’d revealed her real self and shown
her the purity of passion go without knowing her feelings.
He’d given her the strength to believe in
Mike and had accepted and understood her need to be involved. Only
Burke could put his need for control aside and only because he
cared. But how much did he care? Enough to not bolt if she laid
herself bare at his fee?
Her belly flipped at the idea.
Checking her watch, she saw he and Craig had
been gone for five minutes and should be in position across the
street in the neighbor’s bushes. She pulled the cell from her
pocket, made sure it was on silent and slipped it back. Going
through the house, she flipped off lights and made a show of
getting ready for bed with the darkness acting as cover to hide her
moves from anyone watching.
Sometimes, being obsessive compulsive was
advantageous. She knew the layout of her home, right down to the
directional placement of the smallest knick-knack, in complete
darkness. Shifting a few things around the house, warning signals
of a sort, she prepared herself for Adalia. The activity calmed her
shaking hands.
Standing in the hall by her room, satisfied
with her efforts, she decided to kill time by cleaning Jared’s tub.
With odd luck she’d find an unidentifiable sticky substance that
would require major scrubbing. The last one had resembled chocolate
pudding, with the sticking power of Liquid Nails.
A soft thump, a scraping chair on the tile
floor, and a curse from the kitchen signaled it was show time. A
muffled crash from a few streets over ripped through the night
silence. Adalia laughed.
Maggie’s stomach jangled as if she’d downed a
couple of energy drinks and a few caffeine pills with no food.
Breathing deep and counting to ten, she
forced her heart rate to slow as she turned away from Jared’s room,
pulled out her phone and sent a text message to BD.
A in kitchen.
He would hurry, but she had no intention of
being an easy mark. Pressing her back to the hall wall across from
her room, she listened for hints as to which way Adalia headed. The
living room toward her or the dining room toward BD’s room?
The squeaky wheel of the antique tea cart in
the dining room, the annoyance she couldn’t get to stop squeaking,
gave her Adalia’s direction. She’d chosen to search the far side of
the house first. Timing her moves with the sounds of Adalia feeling
her way in the dark, Maggie stepped over the jangly metal belt
she’d placed on the floor, rounded the corner into the living room,
and pressed herself into the corner by the entertainment
center.
The motion sensor nightlight she’d placed in
BD’s bathroom shined dully around the back corner of the wall
blocking the view of his room from the living room. So far her
little traps were working, keeping her aware of Adalia’s moves.
With luck, she would avoid confrontation until BD and Craig
returned.
Keeping her back to the wall, Maggie slid
into a squat just as Adalia stepped onto the tiled floor of the
entryway. She grinned when each step the woman took made a slight
sucking sound. Pouring the Sprite out and spreading it around
wouldn’t have done much if she hadn’t worn rubber-soled shoes, but
tennis were best for sneaking around.
Luck was on her side so far.
Swallowing the lump of fear in her throat,
wishing her cell would vibrate with a message from BD, Maggie
duck-walked across the room until she was crouching behind the love
seat.
Adalia’s steps became muffled by the carpet
in the office. Maggie shifted around the end table she’d pulled
into the walkway and hustled into the hall by BD’s room. Reaching
inside the doorway of his bathroom, she pulled the nightlight from
the plug so as to not signal Adalia where she was, or BD when he
made it back, and then she hurried through the bathroom into the
bedroom.
Inhaling deeply, drawing in
the spicy scent of BD and embracing the reminder of what their
lovemaking had been like she wondered how much longer he would call
this room his. Her home
his
.
Swallowing a chunk of fear, she grabbed the
baby monitor off his bedside table, sank into the corner on the
opposite side of the bed to listen to Adalia on the far side of the
house, and pulled her phone out, hoping for a message from BD.
Where was he? Why hadn’t he texted back? He
had made a promise, but she appeared to be on her own with a killer
in her home.
Sitting in BD’s room by the open window, with
the bed between her and the door, listening to the occasional bump
on the baby monitor, she tracked Adalia’s location. She cursed as
she stepped on a toy truck. Just outside of Jared’s room. The open
doors on the bathroom connecting the kids’ rooms made hearing her
on the monitor easier.
Come on, BD.
Again she considered popping the window
screen off and climbing out. Again she reminded herself of the plan
and BD’s warning. Adalia wouldn’t come alone.
She needed to stay where BD expected her. At
least for a little bit. And she’d promised not to call 9-1-1. As
they’d discussed, they didn’t know what Adalia would do if she
heard sirens and they wanted to catch her partner.
“Nice painting, Sullivan.”
Adalia’s voice, layered with menace, as she stood in Jared’s room
chilled Maggie more than the phone call had.
Punching buttons, Maggie sent another text,
copying Craig, telling them of the traps she’d set and where she
and Adalia were in the house. If they didn’t show up pretty quick,
she was crawling out the window and calling 9-1-1. No one had
intended for her to face Adalia alone.
Where are you?
“Come out, come out
wherever you are.” Adalia called out from the living room. “You
can’t hide forever.”
She’s headed this
way.
Maggie flipped off the baby monitor
and slid along the wall. Putting distance between her and the
window could be a bad move, but so could keeping herself cornered.
At least if she moved closer to the adjoining bathroom she had a
chance of getting away. After a bracing breath she slid up the
wall, slipped her phone in her pocket and promised herself she
could handle this.