He shut the door, then leaned against the wall, listening to the sounds she made. Normal sounds.
Only then did he exhale and calm his own breathing.
Jesus. She’d scared the shit out of him.
Yeah, she’d hidden it well, but the trauma Anna suffered twelve years ago had stayed with her.
And the guilt churned within him.
He pushed off the wall and headed into the kitchen, warmed the Chinese food in the microwave and spread it out on plates. Anna finally surfaced. She’d put on shorts and a tank top and had combed her wet hair. Her face had lost that deathly pallor and she seemed steady enough now.
She hadn’t been the only one shaking in there.
“Take a seat.”
“Making yourself at home in my kitchen?” she asked as she slid into one of the chairs at the table.
“As a matter of fact, I am.” He put a plate and a soda from the fridge in front of her.
“How long have you had panic attacks?”
She lifted her gaze to his, a hot bite of anger in her eyes.
He held her gaze. He wasn’t going to let this go, and she knew it.
“Twelve years.”
That didn’t surprise him. “You take medication?”
She shook her head and pushed her plate to the side. “No. No drugs. Therapist tried to shove those on me. I tried them but they made me fuzzy. I hated not being clearheaded.”
“So how do you deal with the attacks?”
She laughed and took a long swallow of soda, then dabbed at her lips with the napkin. “Obviously, not well.”
“They often come with hallucinations?”
She inhaled slowly, then dragged it out. “Rarely. At first, yeah, but hardly at all anymore. Tonight was a bad one. Sorry.”
They ate for a while in silence. He was hungry, so he devoured most of his, while she picked at hers and slid the food around with her fork. But at least she ate some.
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Anna. You went through hell twelve years ago. Everyone deals with trauma in different ways.”
“Obviously I haven’t dealt with it.”
“This case dredged it all up again, didn’t it?”
She stared down at her plate, nudged the rice with her fork and nodded. She didn’t want to admit to anything. Dante knew that to her this was admitting weakness. He knew what that felt like.
“Your panic attacks have increased?”
She lifted her gaze to his. “Since the night we found George.”
“You still seeing a therapist?”
“Not for years.”
“Maybe you should consider seeing one.”
“What for? It’s always going to be with me, Dante. It’s never going away.”
He wasn’t going to let her get off that easily. “Then maybe you should consider stepping away from this case and letting some other detective handle it.”
She laughed. “Are you serious? No one knows as much about this case as I do.”
“Then let some other detective and Roman handle it. Roman knows as much about it as you do.”
A fast and sharp no was her reply.
“Why not?”
She shrugged and fiddled with the soda can. “Because he wants me involved.”
“Who wants you involved?”
She didn’t meet his gaze this time. “The killer.”
“Yeah? And you know this how?”
“He didn’t leave Roman a gift at his front door, did he?”
“Maybe that’s exactly why you should give this case up.”
“Bullshit. I’m a cop and I’ve got cop instincts. I’m not handing off this case just because I freak out and hyperventilate every now and then. I’ve had these attacks for years. They come and go. I can handle them.”
He laughed. “Yeah, you were handling it like a champ in there a few minutes ago.”
If looks could kill, the glare she pinned him with would have dropped him dead on her kitchen floor. She stood, anger darkening her cheeks.
“Fuck you, Dante. Get out of my house.”
He only smiled at her. “I’m not leaving. Especially not now.”
Her hands clenched into fists. He liked her with a little fight in her. It gave her strength and it made him feel better. It hurt him seeing her crumpled and weak on the floor.
“You think I can’t throw you out of my house?”
“I’d like to see you try. I’m staying put. You need someone to watch over you.”
She laughed at that. “I haven’t needed anyone to watch over me since you left me twelve years ago. I can take care of myself.”
He shrugged and stood, heading into the living room. “So you keep telling me, but from where I’m standing you’re doing a piss-poor job of it. The boogeyman could come in here and scare you right into a panic attack. You’d drop like a candy ass.”
When she launched herself at him, he was ready for her, just as he was always prepared for an attack. Only this was Anna, and he’d never serve a lethal blow to someone he cared about.
What he hadn’t been prepared for was her fury and the way she leaped on top of the chair and the kitchen table, flying over it to land on him.
He might be holding back. She wasn’t. She’d shoved her knee into him. He grabbed her arms and tossed her over his head, sending her flying onto the carpet.
Like a cat, she landed on her feet and without hesitating even a second came at him again. And even though he was more than twice her size, she wasn’t deterred. Whoever had taught her these maneuvers had done a damn good job. She knew her moves.
But he was better. He could have put her in a hold she couldn’t get out of, could immobilize her. Hell, he knew how to kill in just one move. But that wasn’t the idea here. He wanted to see what she had. And what she had was good. Good kicks, great maneuvers, she countered whatever he came up with, and she wasn’t afraid to go after him.
Plus, it helped that she was pissed at him. Healthy anger made for a stronger opponent. All that peace-loving martial-arts stuff was a load of crap.
Go for the jugular. Go for the kill. That’s what Anna was doing. She was mad enough to kill him right now, and if he’d been a weaker man he’d be under her and she’d be ready to deliver a death blow.
Not that she would, but she’d be capable of it with a lesser opponent.
She leveled a kick that could have broken his nose if he hadn’t feinted back.
Yeah, his girl was ready to inflict some pain.
Good for her. He took her leg and lifted it, tossing her onto her back. Then he leaped on top of her.
Time to end the game. He pinned her underneath him and splayed his arms and legs over her, waiting to see if this position would trigger another panic attack.
She was breathing in and out heavily now, but all he saw in her eyes was spitting-mad fury.
“You’re good,” he said.
She fought for breath, her breasts rising and falling with the effort. “So are you. Otherwise you’d be dead by now.”
He laughed. “I don’t think it was your intent to kill me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. If I wanted you dead, you would be.”
“You don’t have it in you to kill someone you care about, Anna.”
She arched a brow. “And you do?”
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t have any idea what you’re capable of because I don’t know who the hell you are anymore. Now get off me.”
He jumped up and held out his hand for her. Instead, she rolled over on her belly and rose on her knees. He shrugged, but when she turned around there was a Glock in her hands, and she was pointing it at him.
“Now who wins, Dante?”
Twelve
D
ante stared at the gun in her hands, then lifted his gaze to hers, no fear in his eyes. “You gonna shoot me?”
She lowered the gun, shoved it back in the pocket of the chair where she always kept one of the spares. “Just trying to prove to you that I do have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“Noted. Feel better now?”
Despite her utter fury, her lips lifted. As a matter of fact, she did feel better. And maybe Dante had something to do with that. He’d deliberately baited her, no doubt to shock her out of her feel-sorry-for-herself mood. There was nothing she hated more than having a panic attack. Having one and Dante finding her in the midst of one, with the bonus of delusions? The worst thing that could ever happen to her.
Instead of coddling her, though, he’d pissed her off, which had made her so angry she’d come after him like a bull.
Which had been exactly what she needed. Now she felt stronger. More capable.
So, yes, she did feel better. And damn him, he knew she would.
“Thanks.”
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
He held his hand out for her and this time she took it, letting him haul her up to stand. “How did you know what to do?”
“I’ve done my share of time in Iraq and Afghanistan and other unmentionable places. I spent some up-close-and-personal time with people who have PTSD, and know how to deal with it. It has a lot of different faces. Some people you have to hug. Some you have to slap around a little.”
She went into the kitchen and grabbed fresh sodas, handed one to him. “Yeah. Coddling me wouldn’t have made me feel better.”
“I know that much about you, Anna.”
She pulled her legs up on the sofa and wrapped her arms around them. “And yet I don’t know a damn thing about you, Dante. So tell me.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why the army?”
He took a gulp of soda, then set it on the table next to him. “I wanted to be all I could be.”
She snorted. “No, seriously. Why the military?”
“I was a month away from turning eighteen. I knew college wasn’t in the cards for me. I just wasn’t ready for it back then. But I knew I needed order and discipline in my life, so the military seemed right for me. I had all this pent-up energy and aggression and I needed an outlet, some training. I talked it over with George and he told me to choose whatever I wanted. I chose army.”
She studied him and Dante knew he’d have to choose each lie carefully. The military part was easy, because that was the truth. But how he got there—that was all lies. It wasn’t George who’d gotten him there—it had been her father, and it hadn’t been his choice to leave.
That he wouldn’t tell her. She didn’t have to know why her dad had wanted him out of town after that night.
More lies.
“And I guess you must have liked military life if you’re still in it.”
He slanted a smile her way. “It’s a lifestyle. I got used to it.”
“So you don’t like it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re not saying much of anything. You didn’t say you like it or don’t like it. You’re very noncommittal.”
“And you’re a very good detective.”
She laughed. “It’s my job to probe, to get beyond the surface to the truth.”
He’d have to be careful what he said around her. “I do like it. At first it was regimented. I had no freedom. It was a lot like being a foster kid, always having someone tell you what to do. It sucked. But after a few years, I had more and more responsibility, and more and more authority. The further up the food chain you go, the more you get.”
“What do you do for them?”
“Black ops are special assignments. I sometimes work with a team, sometimes alone. It depends on what they need me to do.”
“Do you like the work?”
Did he? He never thought about it. It was just what he did. “It pays the bills.”
“Dante, seriously.”
“I don’t know, Anna. It’s just what I do. I’m used to it. It’s part of me.”
“And what is it that you do?”
“I can’t tell you specifically about the operations I’ve done. They’re classified.”
She wrinkled her nose and studied him. “So you go in and do the dirty work, the hard missions that no one else can do.”
“Something like that.”
“Does it involve a lot of killing?”
“Sometimes.” No point in lying anymore.
“Hence the rewards.”
“Yeah.”
“So now that you’re off the grid, I imagine you can do almost whatever you want.”
His eyes took on a devilish sparkle. “It has its perks.”
He knew she didn’t trust him. He didn’t blame her.
“Like assuming false identities, Mr. FBI Agent?”
“That’ll help with the case. I’ll be able to pull strings you can’t. Get faster results on DNA.”
She leaned back against the sofa and twirled the soda can around between her hands. “What DNA? So far we haven’t found a single piece of useful trace.”
“Jeff’s bedroom was a mess. Surely your techs will be able to scrape up something from there.”
“True. It sure as hell was messier than the alley, which looked as if it had been scoured by a cleaning service. Whoever grabbed Jeff didn’t take the time to clean up his place before dragging him out of there. There was a definite struggle in there. I’m hopeful we can pull some DNA, prints, blood or fibers—something out of there that’ll give us a lead, because so far we’ve found nothing in the alley from either murder.”
“Something will come up.”
She yawned. “It has to.”
Her eyes drifted closed and he let the silence stretch between them, hoping she’d fall asleep.
It didn’t take long. Five minutes, maybe, and she was out, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest telling him she was asleep.
He scooped her up and she woke, her eyes wide and alert.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
She arched a brow. “I don’t recall inviting you.”
He laughed. “I’m dumping you in your bed. Then I’m going to my own bed to sleep.”
She laid her head on his shoulder. “Now I’m insulted.”
He rolled his eyes. “There’s just no pleasing you, is there?”
“Yeah, I’m tough like that.”
After he deposited her on her bed, she grabbed the blanket and pulled it over herself.
“Thank you, Dante,” she murmured.
“You’re welcome.” He closed the door to her room and headed toward his own, leaving it open so he could hear anything that might not sound right. As he sat on the edge of the bed he took a deep breath and released it, hoping it would relieve the tightness in his chest.
Maybe he’d bought into Anna’s tough act, because seeing her down on the floor of her bathroom tonight had just about knocked him out.
She wasn’t a superhero. She was vulnerable, and she had a lot more demons to fight than just the bad guys out there.