Armed With Steele (9 page)

“Yeah, we already went over that.” I rubbed my arm, still smarting from his earlier grip. “So…what do we do now?”

“I already called it in, and my backup should be here any minute. Until then, you stay here and keep an eye on the side door. I need to move in closer to block his escape route—we don’t want him sneaking off with your possessions. If you see that door open,” he said, pointing toward it, “you yell ‘door!’ as loud as you can. Got it?”

“Why ‘door
’
? Why not ‘fire!’ or ‘red alert’ or—”

“You gonna follow my directions or not?” he growled.

I put my hands up in defeat and nodded like a bobble head doll. Officer Steele took a step away from me, leaving me unprotected. I felt scared, vulnerable. Without thinking, I reached out and snagged his arm. “But what if he comes after the crazy lady yelling ‘door’?” I whispered.

He looked back and grinned. “Then you scream at the top of your lungs and run like hell.”

Not exactly the answer I’d hoped for. “Great. Just promise not to shoot me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve done this a million times. We’ll have him caught in no time.”

I unclenched my hand from his arm and remained at my post, watching helplessly as Officer Steele slunk stealthily across my back yard. He paused halfway to his post and glanced back at me. I gave him a shaky thumbs-up and tried not to look as terrified as I felt.

He’d just made his way to the other side of the kitchen window when I saw movement near the front of the house from the corner of my eye. I inhaled, ready to yell “door!”, then realized it was his police reinforcement making their way up our front walk.

Officer Steele rose up upon hearing my exaggerated intake of air. I quickly gave him the universal incomplete pass signal, then tilted my head in the direction of the front porch. He nodded and lowered himself back into position.

A moment later the uniformed officer knocked on my front door. The noise startled our burglar, and the muffled sound of shattering glass directly followed. My hands balled into fists as I pictured the thieving idiot inside bumping into my favorite flower vase. A twisted part of me hoped he would slip and end up with an ass full of glass shards.

The officer on the front porch knocked again. “Police! Open up!”

Our kitchen curtains fluttered, then parted.

“I’m going to give you to the count of five!” the officer shouted from the porch. “One! Two!”

A bag of my possessions dropped from the open window.

“Three!”

One leg poked through the open window, then another.

“Four!”

The young man came into full view now as he scrambled out the window and held tight to its frame.

“Five!”

The burglar let go of the window ledge, dropped to the ground, and turned to collect his bag of goodies.
My
goodies.

Officer Steele tripped the unsuspecting kid with a quick sweep of his foot, and had him pinned to the ground a second later. “Here, let me help you with that.”

“Hey!” the kid yelled in surprise. “Get…
off
me!”

“I’ll take it from here, Nate.” I turned to see the uniformed officer enter the backyard, handcuffs bared. “Nice work.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, Frank. And the counting routine? Loved it.”

“Yeah?” he said, cuffing the kid. “Just added that this week.”

I stepped out from the shadows and into a small patch of light.

Officer Steele came to stand beside me, the bag of my nearly-stolen belongings in hand. “You alright?”

I nodded in silence, my eyes focused on the young thief. His head hung in defeat. It was sad, really, that he’d resorted to this. I almost felt sorry for him.

“Would you like to press charges, Miss?”

I shifted my gaze to Officer Frank. “And if I don’t?”

“I take him down to the station, lecture him for a while, then have his parents come pick him up.”

Officer Steele handed me my belongings. I peered inside the bag at his pitiful booty—some mail-order costume jewelry and a handful of DVDs. “Sounds like enough of a punishment to me.”

“It’s not like she had anything good in there, anyways.”

I looked up in surprise, and took a step forward. “Why you little—”

“Easy there, Jessica,” Officer Steele said, holding me back. “We saved your things. Let’s not turn this into an aggravated battery case.”

I shook free from his grasp and glared at the kid as Officer Frank led him away. When I turned back around, Officer Steele gave me an apprising look. “What?”

“Remind me not to piss you off.”

I narrowed my eyes, in no mood to be teased. “Remind me again why you’re here?”

“I told you—to discuss the Sullivan case. And besides, I just caught your burglar. Don’t I at least get a ‘thank you’ or something?”

“Oh. Right.” I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, and ate some crow. “Thank you…for coming to my rescue.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Um, would you like to come in?” I hitched a thumb toward the door. “I might even have some leftover dessert in there somewhere.”

He grinned, eyes shining in the dim light. “Well now, how could I possibly turn down an offer like that?”

* * * *

“Be careful, it’s still hot. “

I set a steaming bowl of apple crisp on the table in front of him, then walked around and settled into an empty chair. He held out for all of five seconds before caving to his sweet tooth.

“Wow,” he said, then reached for his glass of milk and took a quick drink. “I thought those cookies of yours were pretty good. But this? Damn, you can
cook
.”

I shook my head. “Bake.”

“What?”

“I can
bake
. I’m no good at preparing actual meals, but desserts I can do.”

“Well, whatever you call this, it’s delicious.”

I appreciated the compliment, but that wasn’t why I’d invited him in. I wanted an update on Grace’s accident investigation. Tempted as I was to bring it up, though, I let him finish his dessert uninterrupted. After all, he had just come to my rescue.

Besides, it wasn’t often—hell, it wasn’t
ever
—that I had a man this handsome all to myself in the kitchen. He got to eat. I got to enjoy the view.

He inhaled the last bite, and I piped back up. “So, did you come here to con me into feeding you again, or did you really want to talk about the accident?”

“I came by to talk about the case. Although, now that I know you’re the neighborhood Martha Stewart, I might have to stop by for leftovers more often.” He chugged the last of his milk and set the glass down with a satisfied, “Ahh.”

“Hmm. Well, if you promise not to lurk in our shrubs and scare the crap out of me every time I come home, I
might
consider saving some for you from time to time.”

He chuckled. “I promise. But in all seriousness…” He pointed to the now-closed kitchen window. “You really need to do a better job of protecting yourself.”

“Okay, Mr. Friendly Neighborhood Police Officer, we—”

“Nate. Please, when the uniform’s off, I prefer to just go by Nate.”

“Alright then, Nate,” I said, and rather enjoyed how his name rolled off my tongue. “We’ve already been through the ‘Jessica is a dumbass and needs to learn how to lock her windows and doors better’ lecture. It won’t happen again, so let’s move on.” I leaned forward in my seat. “Tell me why you’re here.”

His gaze locked on mine. “They closed the Sullivan case yesterday.”

All that waiting while he ate just so he could serve me up a big dish of disappointment?
Thanks for nothing.
“I thought you were closing it after we talked last weekend.”

“That’s what I thought they’d planned to do. But I shared your information with the lead detective on Monday, and we kicked your theory around. About there being another car. Maybe something linked to Maxwell Office Solutions.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Even got some buy-in from his Sergeant. But then we hit a roadblock. One we can’t seem to get around.”

“Which is?”

Nate’s eyes darkened. “It’s an election year.”

“So? What, are the owners of Maxwell some big campaign contributors or something?”

“Bingo.”

My jaw dropped open. “Seriously? We’re being overridden by small town politics?”

He leaned back in his seat. “On the books? Yes, we’ve been overridden.”

“On the books?” I tipped my head to the side. “What other option do we have?”

“That’s what I came here to talk to you about. I hate being told to walk away from this case, especially when someone might be getting away with attempted murder. So I have another idea. One that’s a little less orthodox.” His eyes now glowed with a sense of purpose, determination.

“I’m listening.”

“I think we should re-open the case.”

“But you just said—”

“Not the department. You and me.
We
,” he said, motioning back and forth from me to him, “should reopen the case.”

“I…don’t get it.”

Nate leaned forward, making me an unwilling captive to his intense gaze. “Jessica, how badly do you want to know what
really
happened to Grace?”

I wanted to look away, to avoid whatever trap he was setting. But I couldn’t. “More than words can describe.”

His voice took on a darker edge. “And how far would you be willing to go to find those answers?”

“Whatever it takes,” I whispered, my mouth working in conjunction with my heart. Which, unfortunately, was running about a millisecond faster than my brain.

“That’s what I was counting on.” He leaned closer and unleashed the full power of those brilliant blues on me. “How would you feel about going undercover to help me get those answers?”

And there it was. Only, that wasn’t some little mousetrap he’d set for me—it was a freaking bear trap! “You’ve got to be joking.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Undercover?” I leaned back. “Seriously? I don’t know the first thing about working undercover.”

“You don’t have to. All you need to do is apply for Grace’s old job at Maxwell—I can teach you the rest.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Sometimes the legal system breaks down,” he said, his gaze working to reclaim mine. “This is one of those times. But if we team up, we can get you your answers. The ones I know you desperately want. All we have to do think outside the box.”

“No,
we
don’t.” I got up and walked over to the counter. Needed to put some space between us so I could think more clearly. “Look, Sherlock, in case you forgot, I already
have
a job. I’m a web designer—I don’t do police work, and I sure as hell don’t know anything about being an administrative assistant at a large company.”

“How hard can it be?”

I ran my hands through my hair. “How hard can it
be
? Look, you don’t get it. I have a job. A Full. Time. Job. And I own my own business—one that I’ve worked my
ass
off for years to get up and running. I can’t afford to take time off to play cops and robbers and leave my poor clients hanging in the wind!”

“I’m not asking you to quit your business,” he said, his voice cool and collected.

“What, you want me to work both? Ha! Like that could possibly work. Hell, I’d be working around the clock! But who needs sleep, right?”

He shrugged. “It might not be that bad. And the faster you work undercover, the less time you’d be doing double duties.”

Those deep blue eyes honed in on me again. I felt my resolve begin to waver and had to clamp my eyes shut before I got talked into something I’d regret.

“Look, I’m sorry you got shot down by your superiors. And I’m even more sorry that it happened on my best friend’s case. But my career is all I have left, Nate.” I shook my head and sighed. “If you come up with something less insane, you know my number.”