“Where to now?” Bruno asked.
Zeke stared out the Chevy windshield and pressed a fist into his thigh until he felt it bruise. Twenty years he’d given to the force. He’d been shot twice, knifed once, lost his wife and kids because he gave so much of himself to the damn job. Now they wanted to hand him a gold watch and a joke of a pension.
“Take me back to my car.” For five years, Zeke had been subsidizing his retirement fund. Two months ago, when his last partner retired with a little cushion of his own, Zeke had been worried about taking on a new partner. But rumor had it Kelly was a suicidal maniac, a man who ghost-walked through life, waiting to join the ranks of the dead. Zeke had thought he’d be an easy mark. If he couldn’t pull it off behind Kelly’s back, he could always bribe him.
“What we gonna do if he turns us in?” Bruno asked, his tone more whining than afraid.
“I’ve fixed that. They already think he’s dirty.” Zeke pounded his fist on the dashboard. The rumors were wrong about Kelly. Sure, the man seemed to have a death wish, but he had some kind of black mojo keeping him alive. Every stupid risk the man took, he came out strutting high. And whenever Zeke would hint at maybe making a little extra income on the side, Kelly would blow it off as if he’d meant it as a joke. The man didn’t have what it took to go on the take. Zeke knew that, but was counting on the others not knowing it.
“Damn it!” Zeke spat out the words. “I didn’t want this to go down like this. He’s supposed to be dead. I’m supposed to know he’s dead! He could be holed up somewhere, biding his time. He’s shot, damn it! There can’t be more than fifteen homes he could have gotten to. I’m going to talk to every freaking homeowner in the area.” He cracked his knuckles to relieve tension. “You’re going to come back and drive this area until—”
“He’s probably dead.” Bruno started his car and put it into gear. “Besides, I gotta go dancing at six. Promised my girl—”
Zeke jerked his gun out of his holster and pointed it right between Big Bruno’s eyes. “You’re going to do what I tell you. And if you screw up, you’ll die regretting it.”
Bruno stomped his foot on the brake. The car jerked. Zeke’s finger slipped.
The gun went off.
• • •
Lacy swung the fish left, swung right. The intruder dodged her blows but never struck back. Somewhere in the recesses of her brain, it occurred to her that he had a gun and all she had was a fish. The thought brought on an overwhelming desire to run.
Swinging around, she started for the door, but her bare foot landed on a towel. With no traction, her feet flew up, and she landed headfirst against the chest she used as a coffee table. The impact loosened her death grip on her weapon and it skidded across the floor.
“Jeez! Are you okay?” His words rang in her ears.
He rolled her over, carefully. Her head throbbed. The fish started its song again. “Take me down to the river . . . ” The words, “You better not cry. You better not pout . . .” also pumped through the house. She closed her eyes as the lyrics merged together. She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t going to the river. But she could do some serious pouting right now!
Masculine fingers moved over her head. A soft purr sounded in her ear and cat whiskers tickled her cheek.
“Lacy? You okay?” He sounded winded and concerned.
She opened her eyes and tugged her shirt down. Leonardo hovered on one side of her, while her abductor leaned over the other. His face came so close that his warm breath brushed her cheek and some delusional section of her addled brain registered that his eyes were the same vivid green as Leonardo’s—a vivid green that seemed to draw her in and soothe her as gently as the fingers that parted her hair.
“It didn’t break the skin, but you’re going to have a hell of a goose egg. I’ll get some ice.” He moved away.
Closing her eyes again, she tried to gather her thoughts. The man had an injured shoulder, and she’d clobbered him over the head with a talking fish, but he was getting her ice. Her head did hurt, but his injury had to be worse.
Sitting up, she leaned against the pine chest. She heard the refrigerator dispense ice: clunk, clank. Then the recorder on the fridge played its message. “Eat the tuna and. . . ”
She had never seen eyes so green. They really were almost the same color as Leonardo’s. Her gaze suddenly caught on the back door. Reality hit. Why in the dickens was she sitting here waiting for ice, contemplating his eye color, when she should be escaping?
Prepared to lunge up, she heard him step back into the room. Carrying one of her dish towels in his hand, he moved closer, groaned as he knelt, then held the clothbound ice to her head.
“I’m fine.” She pushed his hand away.
“Hold the ice to it,” he insisted.
Glaring at him, she grabbed the ice and flung it to the floor. Fabio barked. The man glanced down the hall at the dog, then slowly he rose.
“Damn it!” He started down the hall, away from her.
No lollygagging this time! She leapt up and almost got to the door when she heard him say, “Don’t do it. Please. I need your help. I really, really need your help.”
She imagined him with the gun aimed at her back. Her breath caught on her tonsils and her knees locked. Reflexes from watching reruns of Charlie’s Angels almost brought her hands up in the air. Then she remembered her lack of clothes beneath the shirt. “Don’t shoot me.” She faced him.
He stood there, legs slightly apart, and stared. Instead of the gun, he held Fabio. Her dog leaned his head back and licked the intruder’s chin. While Fabio’s pink tongue lapped across his jaw, the man’s gaze never left her face.
“I stepped on your dog when I came after you. You may want to check his leg. I don’t think it’s broken.” He slumped against the doorframe as if dizzy. “And I’m not going to shoot you.”
First the ice, and now his concern about Fabio. She edged closer, her heart racing, and took the dog from his arms. Fabio, appearing unharmed, started licking her neck. Ignoring the canine kisses, she moved her hand over the dog’s legs. When he didn’t whimper, she set him down. He limped on his right hind leg, but after two or three steps he started putting his weight on it.
“He’s fine.” She glanced up at the man.
“I’m sorry.” He pressed his hand against his temple. “I don’t intend to hurt you, your dog, your cats, or your talking refrigerator. I just need some time, then I’ll leave.”
She studied him. Tall, dark, and . . . His straight brown hair, a couple of weeks past needing a haircut, brushed against his neck. He had the body of a well-built baseball player, not too bulky, but far from wiry. Bright red blood stained his shirt.
“I’m not the bad guy here.” His voice echoed honesty and weariness. But echoes could lie.
She looked at his face, assessing: square jawline, a nondescript nose that fit with his face, full, shapely lips. Not the face of a murderer. Then again, how would she know? She’d never met a murderer.
Her heart pumped fear, her palms grew sweaty, but somewhere deep inside her the smallest amount of doubt started to flicker. Could he be telling the truth? “Prove it. Call the police.”
“I will . . . eventually. But first I need to try to make sense of this.” He leaned his head against the doorjamb.
“Make sense of what?”
“Everything. I’m too tired to think.” He stood straighter. “Grab the ice and come on.”
She noted his gun sticking out of his pants and the handcuffs hung again from the belt loop of his jeans. Her heart pounded to a higher speed. She picked up the ice. Fabio darted beside him and he backed up as if not wanting to step on the animal again. Would a cold-blooded killer watch his step so as not to hurt a dog?
“Come on and hold the ice to your head,” he insisted.
She placed the ice-filled towel to her bump. As they moved down the hall, the phone rang again. Her machine answered it.
They got to the bedroom, and her sound system put the so
ng “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” on hold while it piped in Sue’s voice. “Call me on my cell. Bye,” her friend said.
The intruder glanced around her bedroom. Walking over to her unmade bed, he picked up her gray sweats that lay on top and tossed them at her. “Here. Put these on.” Her red silk panties, with the words Hot Stuff splashed over the front, fluttered to his feet.
She caught the sweat pants, set the ice on the dresser, then, careful not to expose herself any more than she already had, slipped her legs into the sweats. When she gazed up, he still studied her discarded panties. Her heart stopped when he raised his eyes.
“I’m not going to hurt you. Believe that and you’ll feel better. And so will I.” He touched his head. “You swing a mean fish.” He grinned, but pain etched lines into his face.
His gaze shifted toward the LCD television mounted from the ceiling. “Turn it on, would you? And can we axe the Christmas music? I think I’ve heard this song three times.”
She leaned against the wall and hit a switch. The music stopped. Then she picked up the remote control. A tampon commercial blared across the screen. Sweetie Pie, red elf suit hanging crooked, strolled into the room, and jumped up on the bed to claim his space beside Fabio.
Staring at the animals, the man inched closer. As his shoes squeaked against the floor, fear squeaked inside her head.
“Give me your hands,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to handcuff you.”
“And you expect me to believe that you don’t intend to hurt me?” Her gaze shot from him to the lamp as she thought about weapons.
“Have I hurt you yet? That fall wasn’t my fault.”
In a blink, he had her right wrist cuffed, then he connected the other end to the bed. She gave it a yank. The metal ring clanked against the brass pole of her headboard and panic swelled inside her. He had her now. Caught, trapped. Oh, God!
“I’m not going to do anything. Sit down.” He picked up the lamp and set it out of her reach as if he’d read her mind, then he took the phone and set it away. “Relax, Lacy. Soon all this will be over. Sit.” He pointed to the bed.
She sat. Her phone rang. Sue . . . again. “I know you’re working, but I don’t have a husband, I’m too emotionally weak to take a lover, and you and Kathy are all I have. Call me! You’re not going to believe who I got a letter from. Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Lacy attempted to ignore Sue, which took concentration. Just her friend’s voice could make one dizzy. A perfect candidate for Ritalin, Sue didn’t breathe when she talked. And Sue always talked. “So, I was thinking . . .” Sue continued.
Tuning out her friend’s chatter long enough to worry about the fact that she was handcuffed to her own bed by a gun-toting stranger, Lacy watched her kidnapper step into her bathroom.
“Nice,” she heard him say, knowing he referred to her Jacuzzi with the attached television. Then she heard him rummaging through her drawers, followed by the creak of her mirrored medicine cabinet being opened.
He walked back inside her bedroom carrying several bottles of pills. “Is this an antibiotic?”
He tossed a bottle in her lap. She let go of the remote control and picked up the pills. The handcuffs clinked. “Why do you need an antibiotic?”
“They usually give you one after you’ve been shot.”
“Shot?” Her gaze darted to his shoulder. “I mean, I saw you were bleeding but I thought . . . How bad is it?”
“I’m not dead yet,” he said. “What was the antibiotic for?”
She glanced at the bottle. “I don’t think this will help. And it expired six months ago.”
‘‘What was it for?” He ambled closer.
“A female infection.” Her face grew warm.
“It’s better than nothing.” He took the bottle, opening it with a little difficulty, and swallowed the last two pills. Then he held out another bottle. “What are these for?”
She bit down on her lip and hesitated before answering. “Menstrual cramps and bloating.”
“Good, I hate to feel bloated.” His eyes crinkled into a grin as he opened the bottle and popped two tablets into his mouth. “You got any rubbing alcohol and bandages?”
“Under the cabinet in the bathroom.” She shifted and the cuffs jingled against the bed again, making her cringe.
“Thanks. I’ll replace everything I use.”
“Don’t you think you should go to the hospital?”
“If I go to the hospital, they’ll have the cops there within ten minutes. I’m not going in until I’ve thought this through.”
“But you’re shot! You’re not Arnold Schwarzenegger or James Bond. You could die. And I could be stuck here, handcuffed to the bed, with your body. You’d start stinking and I—”
“The bullet only grazed me.” He walked back to the bathroom.
She heard him moving around, then he hissed and let out a few choice words.
A few minutes later, he came back into the room, shirtless. The smell of rubbing alcohol scented the air. Her gaze moved over him, and her heart, having played fear’s beat for the last half hour, now thumped to a different drum. God help her but the man was a near-perfect specimen of the male sex. And it had been a long time since she’d had the pleasure of looking at one.
His thick arms had biceps that seemed to say, “Let me hold you,” without screaming “Look at me.” Between those biceps, she found a flat stomach and torso, with just a hint of a six-pack that made her believe he’d come by it naturally. Just enough hair dusted his chest to make him look masculine without appearing Neanderthal. Her gaze followed a thin treasure trail of dark hair that whispered down his abdomen, swirled around his navel and tiptoed into his jeans. Wet jeans molded to every dip and contour of his . . . maleness.
Aware that she ogled, she looked away. “You’re still shot. You should see a doctor. It looks red around your shoulder.” She hoped he’d think she’d been staring at the bandage.
If he’d noticed her bold-faced lie, he managed not to gloat. He moved to the opposite side of the bed and dropped his gun on the bedside table. “You wouldn’t happen to have a shirt I could wear, would you?”
“In the hall closet there are a few promotional T-shirts in a box.” She wouldn’t have been so accommodating, but getting him dressed seemed important—getting him out of the room crucial.
He disappeared into the hall. She heard the closet door open. Her gaze targeted the gun. If she could just . . . She rolled over onto her stomach, scooted as far as the cuffs allowed her and stretched out her arm. Close. She could almost feel the steel, but her fingers didn’t quite . . .
“Hey.” The sound of his voice stopped her cold.
Chapter Five