Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) (11 page)

She felt heat rise in her face just thinking about some of her more lurid fantasies. Just because she’d decided to steer clear of the man didn’t mean she hadn’t used him to inspire a few late-night dates with her biggest, raunchiest sex toy.

He must have seen and misinterpreted the rush of color in her cheeks. “I swear, Sloan. Fifteen minutes, that’s it. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

God, the man thought he could make her blush by looking at some personal moments from her day? Ha. She’d rather him see her wiping her ass than ever know she’d gotten herself off just by thinking about him. 

“Honestly, there was nothing to see, considering you were walking around in the pitch blackness.” Shaking his head, he asked, “What were you thinking, anyway? You had a flashlight, you had a partner upstairs…”

“I was thinking a flashlight would make it easier for him to draw a bead on me and going for my partner would give him a chance to get away. Plus, I wrote to Daniels and told him to come ASAP.”

“He didn’t get the message.”

That sounded as though Daniels and Sykes had met. Talked. She wondered how that first meeting had gone down.

Not well.

“Oh,” she said, realizing how lucky she’d been. “He came down looking for me after thirty minutes went by?”

“Yep. And you’re very lucky he did. They’re saying he probably scared off the person who attacked you.”

“Maybe,” she said, starting to remember more of what happened. “Or maybe the perp thought Daniels was there all along. I made it sound that way when I started down the corridor.”

“Why’d you go off on your own?” he asked. He sounded a little angry, but couldn’t be more angry than she was at herself.

“I heard something that sounded like a cry for help.”

“There was nobody there capable of crying out. He played you.”

“Yes, he did,” she gritted out.
But he won’t ever do it again
. “I wonder if he meant to draw me down there with that cry, thinking I was alone and he could take me out. Then, when I called out acting like Daniels was with me, he had to change his plan, not knowing if I was bluffing or not.”

“Either way—whether Daniels really scared him off when he arrived, or the mention of his name intimidated the unsub—your partner saved your bacon.”

Unsub. Unidentified subject. FBI speak for
We have no idea know who this monster is.

“Not the first time.” She looked around the room, wondering where Daniels was.

“He just went to call your lieutenant, who’s been checking on you every hour.” Sykes grinned. “Daniels didn’t seem too interested in sitting here by your bedside with me.”

Daniels would hate Sykes, she’d known that from the beginning. They were everything the other wasn’t—Daniels tough, shopworn, a little crass, blunt and powerful. Sykes smooth, charming, intuitive, with a way of working people to get what he wanted. While Daniels barreled through walls and didn’t much care about rules, Sykes merely walked around them and found ways to get the rules changed to suit him. They couldn’t possibly be more different and each of them drove her crazy, though for entirely different reasons.

“Your mother’s also downstairs in the cafeteria, getting coffee. She’ll be crushed she wasn’t here for the big eye-opener.”

“Aww, hell,” she groaned, not relishing that reunion.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her mother, but since Ronnie was all Christy Sloan had left, she’d become the definition of smothering parent. The horrific loss of her Dad and the boys on 10/20 had hardened Ronnie like a piece of volcanic glass, but it had smashed her mother into the softest, most vulnerable, easily-wounded creature on the planet. It took every ounce of patience Ronnie possessed to keep from crushing her with a thoughtless word, and she constantly walked on the edge of a knife between being honest with the woman and protecting her delicate feelings.

Absolutely the only thing she ever argued with her about was the job, because no matter how much her mother pleaded and begged, Ronnie wasn’t giving up being a cop. Not for anything, or anyone. Not even the only family member she had left.

“She seems very worried,” Sykes said, his tone gentling.

“I’m sure she is. So I guess I should get ready for another game of you’re-breaking-my-heart-how-can-you-do-this-to-me?”

“Better than a game of why’d-you-go-and-get-killed-on-me,” he pointed out.

A reluctant grin pulled at her mouth, but it hurt to smile so she quickly squelched it.

“You dealing okay?” he asked. He came even closer, until he stood right beside the bed. His face awash with concern, his gaze roamed over her, as if he was taking stock of every bruise, scrape and cut.

Sykes appeared torn between wanting to grab her and hug her tight or beat whoever’d done this to a bloody pulp. She couldn’t say which reaction would have pleased her more. And considering they hadn’t seen each other for months, she couldn’t say why the realization that he felt that way hit her hard in the vicinity of her heart.

“I will be,” she whispered, knowing his concern wasn’t just about her physically. He wanted to know how she was handling having been attacked by someone who was probably the person who’d brutalized Leanne Carr two days ago. Was she forever marked now, having been so close to someone that utterly evil, that black of spirit? How could she have breathed the same air of a monster and come out of it sane and whole?

Honestly, she hadn’t even had time to dwell on the whole thing. Not just her injuries, but that she’d been in the same place with the same monster and could so easily have ended up like poor, pretty Leanne. When she did, she’d allow herself to have a single, nearly-hysterical moment. Then she’d stamp it down, regain control over her emotions, and get back to her job of finding the cock-sucker.

“They’ll suggest you talk to someone,” he said.

“A shrink?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, they probably will.”

“It might not be a bad idea.”

“It’s never helped before.”

He didn’t ask why she’d seen a shrink before. He didn’t have to. He knew about the demons that tormented her—she’d told him about them herself.

He reached out and gently brushed a strand of hair back off her face, tucking it behind her ear. Ronnie swallowed hard, noting the tenderness, knowing what he wasn’t saying with words but still wanted to express with gestures. And she suspected he, like she, had never forgotten that afternoon in Texas, or stopped wondering what might have happened between them if they’d met under different circumstances.

“I’ll be all right,” she promised.

“I know you will.”

He finally smiled and she managed to smile back. Something about dealing with Sykes in all his bossy-tenderness was enough to bring a smile to her face even on what had been her crappiest day of the past few years.

“I guess I’ll go spread the word that you’re awake.”

He headed for the door, but right before he left, Ronnie remembered something he’d said a little while ago. Something about him being here, not to take over her case, but to do something she might like even less.

“Hey, Sykes, you never told me. What exactly are you doing here? Other than going through my mental underwear drawer.”

He tsked, a brow going up. “Why, Sloan, I never got near your lingerie. Are you saying I didn’t go back far enough?”

Glaring, she shot back, “You go digging in my head again, you’d better hope it’s because I’m dead.”

His faint smile faded and his stare gained heat that she felt even from several feet away. “Let’s not even joke about that.”

She heard something in his voice—a note of intensity that she didn’t often associate with him.

“Seeing you like that, helpless and hurt…well, I don’t want to ever see that again, Sloan. Got it?”

Nodding once to acknowledge his sincerity, and that bossiness as he ordered her to never allow herself to be hurt again, she licked her lips and cleared her throat. Her heart had skipped a beat or two, and she had to keep her hand down at her side to prevent herself from reaching up to fix the mangled remains of her hair.

Damn Sykes for making her feel…cared for.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

He hesitated, then murmured, “You never did meet me for that drink.”

“No, I didn’t.”

When they’d said their goodbyes in Texas, he’d suggested they plan to get together for a drink in a few weeks to compare notes on how things were going with the O.E.P. He hadn’t been proposing any kind of class reunion; she’d been the only one included in the invitation, and they’d both known it. He’d claimed they could meet on neutral territory, somewhere between New York and D.C.

If he’d given her a date and the name of a hotel before they’d left Texas, she might have considered it. A one night stand and out of her system he’d go.

But when he’d emailed her a few weeks after training to try to set it up, she’d blown him off. Not because she was a bitch. Not because she was playing hard-to-get. Not because she was disinterested.

She’d done it because she was a chickenshit. It had been hard enough to stop thinking about the man once she’d come back from Texas. Letting him back into her life—into her thoughts—was a bad idea, and she’d steered clear.

Now, though, it looked like she couldn’t avoid him anymore. The decision had been taken out of her hands.

“Maybe we’ll get a chance to do it soon,” he said, his tone low, serious and intimate.

She met his steady stare. “Maybe.”

The moment lengthened, they continued to eye each other, her with wary curiosity, him with frank interest. She sensed he had more to say, and that it probably wasn’t anything she wanted to hear. Oh, she wasn’t vain or stupid, she knew Jeremy Sykes wasn’t pining away with love for her. He wanted her, though, of that she had no doubt. Just as much as she wanted him. But to voice that, to give life to the words and the silent longing would put her in the position of having to deal with them. And she just wasn’t up to that.

Finally, he broke the silence. “I’ve missed you, Sloan.”

She licked her lips and ignored the fluttering of her heart.  “Sorry, can’t say the same.”

A soft laugh told her he’d seen through that lie. “You sure don’t make it easy on a guy.”

“Easy’s over-rated.” Nothing ever really came easy; Ronnie was used to working hard for everything she got. She just hadn’t decided yet whether any man was worth working that hard for.

This one could be.

Maybe. But not today.

“Hey, you never actually answered my question about what you’re doing here,” she said, feeling foolish for even thinking that way about Sykes, given their current situation—namely, her being banged up in a hospital bed looking like somebody’s yanked her half bald, and him looking as annoyingly perfect as always.

“No, I didn’t,” he said, his eyes twinkling, telling her he’d avoided answering on purpose.

Dread rose within her. What could possibly be worse than having this distracting man swoop in and take off with her first O.E.P.I.S. investigation?

“Oh, shit,” she whispered, a possibility occurring to her. One that would, indeed, be worse.

He winked. “I think ya got it.”

Steam building in her already aching head, she glared at him. “I am
not
working with you on this case. Forget it.”

Okay, maybe the powers that be had covered their bases, not sure how long she’d be down, bringing in somebody else to cover for her until she got back. But, once she was well, there was absolutely no reason the two of them had to do anything together, much less work on her big case. Being thrown into Sykes’s company during the nearly 24/7 frenzy of a major murder investigation would knock her for a loop she wasn’t ready to handle.

He reached for the door handle, calling over his shoulder as he left.

“Hate to break it to you, Sloan, but you don’t have any choice in the matter.”

-#-

There had been a time when Brian Underwood had truly looked forward to his one night a week out with his buddies. Drinks and poker with his work friends had been almost a ritual, a holdover from his single days, a tradition he’d stuck to as a way to hold on to his independence, even after the allure of hanging out with the guys, getting drunk, and losing money had faded.

That had changed when he and Lindsay had started having kids. The one-night-a-week had become every other Wednesday. Even then, the gatherings hadn’t necessarily been something he looked forward to anymore, but his wife insisted he go once in a while, if only so she wouldn’t feel guilty about occasionally going out with her girlfriends. He always made a point of stopping at an Italian bakery and buying Lindsay her favorite dessert—fresh cannolis—as an I-love-you-thanks-for-being-a-cool-wife-and-letting-me-go-out-with-my-friends offering.

Frankly, he’d rather just stay home. That had been especially true since the baby had been born. Lindsay was with the kids all day, every day, and not only did he feel like he had to come home and do his part every night, but he also was one of those suckers who just loved babies. Especially his own babies. If things had been great when it had been just him, Lindsay, and four-year-old Michael, they had become just about perfect with the arrival of Sarah, just 3 months old and already the owner of a huge chunk of his heart.