It was early evening when Miss Irene climbed the
attic stairs. Her girth and age made climbing difficult, but Bobby’s face was all over the television. Because he was her grandson she’d give him one last chance to leave her house before the police dropped down on him like Godzilla on Tokyo, because she knew they were coming. “You gotta go,” she announced flatly.
“Ham gave me until the morning.”
“Well, this ain’t Ham’s place. I want you gone. Now.”
Bobby was seated on the bed. In reality, he had no place to go, but he wasn’t telling her that.
“Your damn face is all over the television. The police are offering ten grand in snitch money, and it won’t be long before somebody gives you up, so get your shit and get out.”
“I’ll leave when I’m ready.”
“Did you hear me?”
The doorbell rang.
“Go answer the door,” he ordered contemptuously.
Miss Irene stood with hate in her eyes. The bell sounded again. “I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” he tossed out sarcastically.
Downstairs, she turned on the porch light and looked out of the peephole. Cracking the door cautiously, she asked the policemen standing on the other side of the locked screen door, “Can I help you?”
“Looking for Bobby Garrett.”
She opened up. “He’s in the attic. This way.”
When Bobby heard his grandmother’s footsteps on the stairs, he yelled, “Old bitch, I told you I wasn’t leaving, so take your fat ass back downstairs and leave me the fuck alone!”
When she rose into view, he opened his mouth to cuss her out, but stopped. The two men in the dark suits had to be the police. The third man was Reese Anthony.
One of the detectives said, “Robert Garrett, you’re under arrest.”
The other cop cuffed him while his partner read him his rights.
They turned him toward the door.
“Call Ham!” he said to his grandmother. “Call my lawyer!”
Miss Irene looked confused. “I know you’re not talking to me. I’m taking my fat ass back downstairs and leaving you the fuck alone. Just like you asked.”
And she did just that.
One detective stayed with Irene for a moment to give her his card while Reese and the partner took Bobby to the car. When they reached the curb, the detective opened the door. Bobby slammed his foot against the man’s knee and took off running. It happened so quickly, Reese was stunned. He was torn between helping the cop and chasing the suspect. Yelling for assistance from the detective inside, he took off after Garrett.
With his hands cuffed behind him, Bobby couldn’t run fast, but he managed to make it halfway down the street before Reese caught up to him and tackled him hard. When he hit the pavement he cried out in pain, but it fell on deaf ears. A grim-faced Reese snatched him up and threw him forcefully into the side of a parked car. Garrett’s face met the metal and it broke his nose. Blood spurted out and he screamed, “Police brutality!”
Reese slammed him against the car again. “This is a citizen’s arrest. That’s for JT, you piece of shit!”
He slammed him again, barking, “That’s for Carole!”
Reese wanted to slam him again and again, but by then a slew of squad cars were on the scene, sirens wailing, and uniforms were spilling out with guns drawn.
The detective who’d been with Irene came up huffing and puffing. “Thanks,” he said to Reese. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Bastard!” Bobby screamed at Reese. “You broke my nose!” Blood streamed down his face.
Reese snarled, “Be glad that’s all I broke.”
Bobby was spared further vengeance at the hands of Reese by the detective who escorted him back to the car. One of the uniforms held a towel to his bleeding, busted nose, and this time when the detective opened the door to the vehicle, Garrett got in without a fight.
As they drove away, if Bobby had been able to look back he would have seen his grandmother standing on the porch and shaking her head over what her grandson had become. In her hand was the detective’s card, and in her head plans for how she was going to spend that $10,000 reward.
While the detectives took Bobby to the hospital to get his nose looked at, Reese drove to the precinct to speak with Captain Mendes. Now that Garrett was captured, he planned to head back to Michigan, but first he wanted to thank the captain for his help.
The two shook hands and Mendes said, “If you ever want to put the badge back on, we’d be glad to have you.”
Reese grinned. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’ve had enough excitement to last the rest of my life.”
Mendes nodded. “You’re a good cop, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks, Captain.”
“Heading home?”
“Soon as I can book a flight.”
“Keep yourself safe.”
“You too.”
Mendes’s phone rang. Reese took that as his cue to leave, but before he reached the captain’s door, Mendes yelled, “What do you mean you can’t find him!”
Reese turned.
“Find his ass! Now!” He slammed down the phone and said to Reese, “They lost Garrett at the hospital. A uniform escorted him to the john and they both disappeared.”
Reese stared.
The captain grabbed his suit coat. “Let’s go.”
“Shit!” Reese snarled.
They ran for the exit.
Bobby was in the backseat of a police cruiser. He knew the uniformed officer driving wasn’t really the popo but an old friend of Ham’s, so he was ecstatic that Ham had somehow gotten him sprung. He didn’t know the other two men flanking him in the backseat, but that was okay. “Hey man, thanks.” All the cotton the E.R. doc had stuck up his nose to stop the bleeding made speaking and breathing difficult, but he knew it would only be a temporary discomfort. What mattered now was that he was free.
“No problem,” the driver replied.
The other two men seated on either side of Bobby hadn’t said a word, but he could see them eyeing him. He knew he wasn’t looking his best. “What the fuck are you all looking at?”
“You, my brother,” the taller one said.
Bobby froze. The man had an accent. A Jamaican accent. One that sounded eerily familiar. “Who are you?” he asked.
“You didn’t return my calls. I was starting to think you didn’t wish to speak to me.”
Terrified, Bobby looked to Ham’s man and saw that he was smiling. He yelled, “Let me out!”
Of course he didn’t, so Bobby was forced to turn back to the bomber’s reptilian eyes to try and explain. “I paid you your money!”
“You sent me an empty envelope.”
“No! The police must have—”
“The word ‘police’ in any sentence tied to me is not something I like hearing,” he warned in an easy but deadly voice.
Bobby turned panic-filled eyes to the driver. “Call Ham!”
But of course he didn’t do that either. Bobby’s heart was thumping like a boom box. “Where are we going?”
“Some place private, so we can talk.”
“Look, I can give you your money again. Just drive me to an ATM.”
“It’s way too late for that, Mr. Garrett, way too late, so just settle back and enjoy the ride.”
It was four in the morning, Michigan time, when JT heard frantic knocks on her door. “What!” she yelled sleepily.
Bryce, Jamal, and Pops came hurrying in. She could see by the light from the hallway that Bryce was carrying his open laptop. “Sit up!” he said to her. “Jamal, get the light!”
As Jamal clicked on the lamp on her nightstand, she asked, blearily, “What’s going on? Has something happened to Reese?”
The computer was placed on her lap and she found herself looking at a man on the screen. He appeared to be tied up. Two other men with their faces covered by bandannas were with him. Confused because she didn’t know what she was looking at, she asked, “What is this?”
Bryce said grimly, “I think the guy tied up is Garrett. Reese left us pictures of him so we’d know his face.”
She focused on the man slumped in the middle of the picture. The battered and bruised face was indeed familiar. Heart beating fast, she stared. “Oh, my lord.”
Jamal said quietly, “They already chopped off one of his hands.”
Her hands went to her mouth. Sure enough, blood was pooling from the stump at the end of his arm. The severed hand was lying on the floor next to him. She thought she was going to be sick. She couldn’t tell if he was alive or already dead. “Where is this coming from?”
“No idea, but somebody on scene is uploading it and feeding it via e-mail to ISPs everywhere. Been on about ten minutes.”
Jamal added, “The ISPs are probably scrambling to shut it down, but not having much luck by the looks of it.”
One of the hooded men was talking, and JT yelled. “Sound!”
Bryce brought up the volume and they all heard a Jamaican-accented voice say, “Always pay your debts, boys and girls. Or this could happen to you.”
Bobby could be heard moaning in the background.
The man said, “Let’s put our guest out of his misery, shall we?”
He walked over and put a gun against Bobby’s temple. Bobby began screaming and pleading. JT cut the volume and handed the laptop back to Bryce. She didn’t want to see any more.
But in L.A., Reese and the rest of the investigative teams didn’t turn away. They’d been alerted to the grisly scene by their in-house tech groups, and so, like millions of other cyber watchers across the globe, were eyewitnesses to the final frame of what the pundits would call “the Shot Seen Around the World.” The man put the gun to Bobby’s head and fired. Bobby Garrett was dead, murdered, and all Reese could say was, “Karma was a bitch.”
Reese caught the red-eye and touched down at the
Detroit airport at 3:17
A.M.
. Jamal and Bryce were there to meet him in baggage claim. He gave each a brotherly hug of welcome, but it was Jessi he was craving to hold. He’d spoken with her earlier, after Garrett’s surprising death, but he hadn’t told her he was coming home. He’d wanted to surprise her.
Hearing Reese’s plan, Jamal shook his head. “You know she’s armed. You’ll mess around and get shot sneaking in on her this time of morning,” he warned as Bryce drove them home.
“I’ll take my chances.” And he would. His plan to ask her to marry him was still on the top of his list. Like any man, he was hesitant to put his heart out there, but he wanted her, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, and the only way to find out if she felt the same was to pop the question.
The sound of voices outside the open window woke JT out of a dead sleep. She sat up, picked her gun up from the nightstand, and moved to the window to look out. What she saw under the moonlight made her grin. Reese. He was talking to Pops, who was wearing a big gray robe. She watched the two embrace then saw Pops head back to his place.
She got back in the bed, stuck the gun in the drawer, and when Reese came creeping in, she called out softly, “Hey, sailor.”
He chuckled. “Hey, you.”
She sat up, and he fed his eyes on her in the moonlight.
“You going to stand there all night or come and give me one of the thousands of kisses you owe me?”
He moved toward the bed. “Thousands?”
“At least.”
Standing over her now, he reached down to gently caress her cheek, and all she felt for him rippled inside as she closed her eyes.
The kiss that followed was slow enough to stop time. There was longing, eagerness, hunger. His need for her drew him down to the bed so he could hold her in his arms, and she wound up on his lap, comforter and all.
“You’re warm,” he whispered, lips against her throat. There was something about a sleep-warmed woman that always aroused him, and with Jessi it was even more so. The weight of her breasts in his hand, the soft skin beneath her ear, all contributed to making him iron hard and ready.
“Do you mind if we skip the prelims and go right to the game?” she asked.
He smiled. “A woman after my own heart.”
So Reese shed his clothes, slid into the warm bed, and filled her while she sighed. “Oh my, I’ve missed you.”
He was already moving, and she fed herself on those long, hard, slow strokes until she couldn’t say another word. His hands guided her hips and she let him set the pace because this was what she’d been waiting for all the while they’d been apart. The feel of him filling her, loving her, taking her to a realm where there was just the two of them; a realm of searing sensations, unbridled passion, and no inhibitions. It didn’t take long for her to explode from the orgasm, and as he watched her arc and twist and ride out the wave, he came too, with a force that rocked his soul.
Later, when they were sure they’d had enough of each other, at least for the time being, they slept.
Bobby Garrett’s body was found two days later floating facedown in the cement ribbon that was called the L.A. River. Law enforcement agencies and ISPs worldwide were still hunting for the people responsible and the place where he was killed, but they turned up nothing. Matt Wenzel had contacted Tate about a CD his father made detailing how and why Gus Pennington had been killed, so there had been closure for the family and that made Reese feel good.
Only after the Pennington case was closed did Reese tell Jessi about Garrett’s ties to that case.
They were walking in the woods on the Anthony compound, and she stopped. “He killed an old man?”
“Yep, and stole the man’s music player. That’s how we broke the case. Garrett gave the thing to his son and his son pawned it.”
She shook her head. “Bobby was a piece of work.”
“You told me that the first time we met. Do you remember?”
“I do. I thought you were the cutest thing walking,” she confessed.
“I thought you were pretty hot your damn self.”
“Great minds think alike,” she whispered, enthralled by every glorious inch of him, still.
“Apparently.”
Reese decided to ask her to marry him. “Jessi, I—”
But his phone rang before he could say anything else. It was Bryce. “What?” Reese snarled.
“Damn! What did I do? Just calling to say Madden is set up and if JT is ready to get whipped, now’s the time.”
Reese said, “We’ll be right there.”
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Bryce wants you to beat him playing Madden.”
“Really?” she said with a smile.
“That’s not what he said, but that’s the outcome I’m looking for.”
JT studied his face. “What were you going to say right before he called?”
“Nothing. It can wait. Just whip his butt. It’ll make me feel better.”
Sensing something was on his mind, she asked, “You sure?”
“I’m positively sure I want you to beat him like a rug.”
She slipped her arm around his waist and they headed back to the house. “Whatever my baby wants, my baby gets.”
He smiled, and she did too.
JT whipped Bryce like he stole something, as the old folks used to say. Even though she had the cast on her left hand, she’d regained enough dexterity in her fingers to beat him so badly, he was staring at her with his mouth open.
The jubilant Jamal and Pops gave each other fives, and Jamal crowed, “And she beat him playing with Arizona!” The Cardinals were one of the worst teams in the NFL. They didn’t win on the field and they certainly didn’t win in Madden football.
Pops gave her a big hug and a fat kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to make you enough butter pecan ice cream to start your own ice cream parlor.”
She grinned over at Reese and he grinned back.
“Get the belt!” Pops cried ecstatically. He’d lived long enough to see Bryce get his Brainiac behind kicked, and now he could die in peace. “Get the belt!”
The still stunned Bryce left the house and returned a few minutes later carrying the Anthony version of a championship belt. It was made of wide black leather and there was a large medallion in the center that read
THE GREATEST
! Circling the medallion were a bunch of beautiful red stones that to JT’s eye looked real.
“Are these rubies?”
Reese answered, “Yep. He was born in July and the ruby is his birthstone.”
She was amazed by the belt’s beauty. “How come only rubies?”
Pops cracked, “Because he designed it, and nobody’s been able to take it away from him since.”
Bryce countered, “Not my fault you all don’t have any skills.”
JT told him, “Well, I’m a September baby, so the next time you see this,” and she held up the belt, “there’ll be sapphires all over it.”
Jamal, Pops, and Reese cheered.
Bryce knelt and kissed her hand.
Later that night, as JT and Reese lay in bed after a long session of making love, he looked down into her face and said, “Marry me.”
JT closed her eyes. She’d been anticipating this moment and dreading it all at the same time. “Can you give me some time to get my life back together first before I answer?” She saw his jaw tighten and knew that was not the answer he’d been seeking, but for now it was all she truly had.
“Sure,” he said quietly.
She knew she’d hurt him, so she tried to explain, “Reese, I—”
“We’ll talk when you’re ready,” he told her, adding, “But I’m not going to wait forever, Jessi.”
“And you shouldn’t have to, so just give me a little time.”
The atmosphere in the room had changed, they could both feel it. He pulled her against him, kissed the top of her head and said, “See you in the morning.”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes, but sleep took a long time for them both.
Reese took her to the airport the next morning, and there was a distance in his eyes that didn’t need any explanation. “Call me when you get home, so I’ll know you made it,” he said to her.
“I will. Reese—”
He leaned across the seat and kissed her softly. “Have a safe flight, baby.”
She took the hint and got out of the car. He got out too, and carried her luggage over to the check-in station. When that was done, he gave her a wink, then walked away. As he drove off, he didn’t look back or wave good-bye.
When she arrived at the airport in San Francisco, she called him, but got his voice mail, so she left a message and hung up.
She spent the next week pulling her life back together. Francine found a great location for the new office on the edge of downtown San Francisco. The rent was high, but well within her budget. She flew down to L.A. to attend a memorial service for Big Bo Wenzel. There was no casket, only a huge life-size picture of him smiling, because his body still hadn’t been found. The docs gave her a new lightweight cast, which allowed her to drive, and she visited Carole every day. The jaw had been reconstructed to the satisfaction of the surgeons, and the teeth they’d implanted to replace the ones she’d lost in the explosion were also binding well.
The only speed bump in JT’s life was Reese. He hadn’t called at all, and when she called him, she always got voice mail. She supposed it was what she deserved, but it was maddening just the same because she missed him more than she missed Pops’s homemade butter pecan ice cream.
So a few days later, she got on a flight and headed home to Texas, hoping the visit would clear her head and help her finally find the courage to do what she knew she wanted to do, which was say yes to Reese.
Her mother met her at the airport, driving a brand new, emerald green Navigator. Now that her cast was gone, JT dumped her bags in the back and got in. She and her mother exchanged a long welcoming hug.
“So good to see you,” her mama whispered emotionally.
“Good to see you too.”
They shared a grin, and Michele drove them away from the airport. JT looked out at the familiar landscape and was glad to be home.
Over dinner, she caught her mother up on her new office, Carole, and Misha, who was with her parents, visiting relatives in England and trying to make peace with herself over the anguish she’d caused.
Michele asked, “So how are you and the chocolate man doing?”
“I’m not sure, Ma.” She told her the story.
Her mother listened without comment, and when JT finished, said sagely, “I understand your concerns, baby, men will change your life, but the only question you need to ask yourself, is: Can you live without him?”
As the next two days passed and Reese didn’t return her calls, she began to wonder if he’d answered her mama’s question with a yes.
Her mood was lifted by the arrival of her sister Max and her highly trained rottweilers, Ruby and Ossie. Michele called the rotties her granddogs, and JT wasn’t sure who her mother was happier to see, Max or the dogs. Max worked for the government in a secretive and shadowy capacity, which meant the family never knew where she might be in the world and, more important, if she was alive. She was taller than JT, a Marine, an ex-cop, and so well-trained in martial arts and weapons, nobody in their right mind would mess with her, not and live.
That afternoon, JT and the shades-wearing Max were lying around the pool. Max was having man issues of the heart too, and after hearing the story, JT asked her with surprise, “This is
the
Dr. Adam Gary, the inventing brother who was on the cover of
Time
magazine last year?”
Max nodded.
“Since when did you start hanging around with men with IQs?”
“Shut up,” her sister said, chuckling from behind her shades. “It was a job at first. Now?” She shrugged.
“Now you’re wishing you’d read more than just
Fanny Hill
in school, I’ll bet.”
Max snorted. “I will shoot you, you know.”
JT yelled to Michele, who was inside the house with her granddogs, watching a DVD of
For Love of Ivy.
“Mama! Maxie said she’s going to shoot me!”
Michele yelled back, “Maxie! Only plastic bullets. Okay?”
“Okay, Mama!”
The sisters laughed, then Max tossed back, “From what I’m hearing, I’m not the only one with manly issues.”
JT sighed, and Reese’s face filled her mind.
Max turned over on the warm tile and propped herself up on her side. Looking at JT through her shades, she said, “Spill it.”
JT’s brown eyes met her sister’s green ones. “I think I’m in love,” JT said.
The wonder and surprise on her face made her sister start to laugh. “Really?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I thought I was in love too, twice, remember? Sure it’s not the flu?” Max had been married and divorced twice.
JT grabbed one of the pillows off the chaise and threw it at her sister.
Max yelled out, “Mama!”
Michele hollered back, “Interrupt me with ‘Mama!’ one more time and you’re both going to your rooms!”
They fell out.
Once they regained some sense, Max asked seriously, “Why do you think it’s love, Jess?”
“Can’t eat, can’t sleep. Think about him all the time. Dream about him.”
“Then why are you here instead of where he is?”
“I don’t know. Scared, I guess.”
“Of him?”
“No, of me. I’ve been by myself for so long. What am I going to do with a man?”
“He treat you good?”
“Always. A little arrogant, though, but hey, so am I.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I suppose I just need to figure out what I really want.” And as she’d told herself before, she already knew. Silence settled between them for a moment before she asked her sister, “What about you?”
Max rolled over onto her back and sighed with the same frustration JT had a moment before. “I don’t know either. He’s so smart. He’s kind, nice, and fabulous in bed, by the way.”
“Then I’ll throw your question back: Why are you here instead of where he is?’