Hidden Heat: Hauberk Protection, Book 4 (25 page)

To her relief, he immediately straightened. But instead of moving away he pulled up a chair from the kitchen table and faced it in the opposite direction but still right beside her. Strangely it worked and some of her fear subsided. She put the phone back to her ear and realized Mitch was speaking, “—didn’t figure I’d be hearing from you again.”

His voice was cautious.
That’s right, buddy. You need to be cautious of me.

“Yeah. I’m sorry.” Oh God, did she really have to say this? If it got him a taste of his own medicine, she could. “I guess I over-reacted the other night.” Under-reacted was more like it. “I was wondering if we could get together so I could make it up to you. Maybe tomorrow night? Around eight?”

There was a long pause before he replied, “All right. Is your roommate going to be around?”

“Nope. We’ll have the place all to ourselves.”

She stiffened when Andy touched her knee. He leaned in and whispered, “Breathe.”

She forced air into her lungs and out slowly, before trusting her voice. “Maybe you could edit some more videos? Then afterward, I could thank you properly? I got some new toys we could try.”

Say you’ll come over, you bastard. So they can arrest your sorry ass.

“
All right. But I can’t make it until nine.”

“Okay, that’s still good. See you then. I c-can’t wait.”
For them to arrest your sorry ass.
Without waiting to hear Mitch’s—Michael’s—response, she ended the call, clapped a hand to her mouth and dashed to the bathroom. She fell to her knees in front of the toilet and vomited.

Cool hands gathered her hair and held it back from her face until her retching stopped. They smoothed the hair down her back, then disappeared. The faucet turned on and a glass of water appeared in front of her. “Here, rinse your mouth out.”

God, how pathetic she must look. Her hands trembling, she accepted the glass and rinsed out her mouth. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He helped her to her feet and probably would have carried her back to the living room if she’d let him.

She didn’t. She straightened and, holding her chin high, walked on her own.

Once she was seated on the couch, he took up his usual position on the coffee table. “Do you have someone you can talk to about what he did?”

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“You flinched when I touched you, honey. And you’re jumpy as hell, especially when anyone’s behind you. For all your bravado, when Scott was leaning over you this afternoon? You couldn’t hide the terror in your eyes. Something—some
one
put it there. And then there are these.” He took her hand and straightened her arm, lifting her sleeve to expose the angry marks around her wrists. “Your cuff fell down when you were holding the door. Sometimes rookies wouldn’t tighten the cuffs enough and guys would try to get out of them. They’d rub themselves raw like this. I’m guessing you weren’t in them willingly either.”

“Then you’d be wrong. They were my handcuffs. I got them out of the drawer and handed them to him and even told him how to put them on me.” She bit the words out, but she didn’t look away.

“But he went further than you expected, didn’t he?” He pulled her sleeve higher and exposed the five dark circles where Mitch—Michael— had held her when he’d been fucking her. Andy gently wrapped his hand around her arm, judging the distance with his own fingers. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what happened. You like things a little rougher than some women, but he went too far. I’m guessing he went way over the line. I’m guessing you told him no and he didn’t stop.”

She lowered her head and stared at her toes. Strangely enough the tears she expected didn’t come. But then she’d cried enough after he’d left Friday night so she doubted she had any tears in her system.

“Did you file a complaint with the police?” He was so quiet, so controlled. So unlike Mitch. Or so many of the men who catcalled or tried to manhandle her when she danced.

“Why bother? They wouldn’t believe me.”

“Because you work as a stripper?”

“Got it in one.”

“Strippers get raped too. Cops know that,” he said quietly.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll just claim he’s sorry, that he thought it was what I wanted and walk away scot-free.”

He traced the outline of the thumbprint on the inside of her arm. “Did you tell him to stop?”

“I tried, but—”

“—But he didn’t stop. It’s not your fault, Jazz. Stop blaming yourself.”

“No. You don’t understand. He filmed it. He got the whole thing. Including me telling him I liked rough sex. And me handing him
my
handcuffs to tie me up with. Mine. I handed them to him and sat there helping him put them on me. I agreed to be gagged. We never worked out a code word or anything, so he can quite rightfully claim that he didn’t know I wanted him to stop. Don’t you see? They’ll tell me I deserved it, that I brought it on myself. He’ll walk.”

His eyes searched hers. Eventually he nodded and released her arm. “Have you seen a doctor and been checked out?”

“Yeah.” At least her birth-control shots were up-to-date so she wouldn’t get pregnant. The HIV tests and the cloud that hung over her for the next six months wouldn’t be so easy to ignore.

“Good.” Damn, he was being so nice. “Did they set anything up with a counsellor? Because if you need someone to talk to, I know a couple good people.”

God, he thought she was a headcase or something. Wonderful. “Thanks but I can’t afford a shrink.”

“Considering this guy targeted you to get at Hauberk, I think Sam might see clear to footing the bill.” He lifted his hand as if he might touch her face but dropped it before making contact. “We’re going to get him for you, Jazz. He’ll never be able to hurt you again. Now why don’t you go pack a bag and I’ll take you somewhere safe until this is over.”

Chapter Nineteen

The cab had barely stopped when Troy tossed the fare to the driver along with an extra twenty. “Keep the change.”

He should have phoned Sandy to let her know he’d returned early, but he needed some time to decompress before he saw her. Killing an unarmed man tended to make him itchy. He hefted his pack over his shoulder and headed for the elevator. Scott would understand, even be angry at not being able to watch Garcia’s eyes glaze as the life drained from him, but would Sandy? Would she understand that sometimes death was the only way to mete justice? He was still pondering that as he got off the elevator and headed down the corridor. After unlocking the door, he stepped inside, the smell of fresh paint hitting him first. “Sonofabitch.”

While Scott had mentioned Sandy had cleaned the place up, the asshole hadn’t told him that cleaning included painting the walls. He opened the door again to verify he’d entered the right apartment. Yup. It was his unit, but now the stark beige walls were hunter green on two walls, a fresh coat of some almost-white color, bone or eggshell or some fancy name women loved, covered the others. Even the baseboards gleamed with fresh paint. Heavy curtains hung on his windows over sheers that filtered the mid-afternoon light. The pattern in the curtains picked up the colors of the walls and of the new oval rug with its geometric splashes of dark red. A massive photograph of D.C. at night hung on the wall between the recliners. His flat screen had been mounted on the opposite wall, the DVD, cable box and video console wires had been neatly coiled and hidden.

He shouldered his pack and wandered into his bedroom. “Holy fuck.”

The walls here had received similar treatment, though the curtains were plain deep green. A quilt he’d seen stored in her linen closet covered his bed. She’d even framed some of his photographs. She’d turned the condo into a home.

Maybe he wouldn’t have chosen that particular color for the towels in the bathroom but for the first time—ever—he felt like he’d walked into a home. When the front door opened, he headed back to the living room.

As he’d expected, Scott smirked when he saw Troy. “Surprise.”

“Did you do this?”

Scott snorted. “Think again, buddy. Your girlfriend turned into Martha-Freaking-Stewart once you walked out that door. And you’d better tell her you like it whether you do or not because I am not painting it again.”

“It’s…” Different. Colorful. Welcoming. “Nice.”

It wasn’t him. Or not what he was used to. Yet, he liked it. Because she’d done it perhaps.

“Yeah, well, consider it your birthday and Christmas presents for the next year or two.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think she had the money to buy all this crap?”

“You paid?”

“She was so excited about making this place into a home. For both of us. So I offered to pay. She says she’s going to pay me back but I won’t take it.”

“Fuck that. I’ll pay for it.”

“Nah. It’s good. As I said, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas.” Scott stretched his shoulder. “At least you didn’t have to do any of the fuckin’ painting. What are you doing back? Sandy said you weren’t arriving until tonight.”

“Caught an earlier flight, that’s all.” Though his actual return had been in question for a while, especially when Davis had threatened to dump him out over the Caribbean. “I figured I’d shower and shave and then head over to the office and pick up Sandy. Take her to dinner.”

Scott checked his watch. “You’ll have enough time for a shower before Sandy gets here.”

“She’s coming here?” Troy looked around the place. “Don’t tell me she has more decorating to do.”

“No. We thought it best if she stayed here until we catch Rowlands.”

“Rowlands? Who the fuck is Rowlands?” Shit—what had he missed? And why hadn’t Sandy said anything about any trouble when he’d talked to her earlier?

“Her roommate’s boyfriend. Went by the name of Mitchell Young? You ever meet him?”

“Yeah, just in passing.” Went by? What the fuck? “His real name’s Rowlands?”

“Yeah, he’s the hacker. We’re setting up a sting to catch him tomorrow. I didn’t figure Sandy should stay at her place until we’ve got him.” Scott’s shoulders slumped and he rubbed his hand over his hair. “Rowlands raped Jazz while we were at the club. He videotaped it too, used it to threaten her. The techs found it on her computer. It doesn’t show all of the rape—he’s edited out the worst part of course. But I’ve seen the report from the doc Sam sent her to. She got hurt real bad.”

“Fuck.” He’d talked to the fucker, watched television with him. Why the hell hadn’t his radar gone off? It had. But he’d been so intent on Sandy, he hadn’t listened to it. “Is Jazz okay?”

“She’ll recover. She might have a couple scars, but he whipped the crap out of her. Probably the worst damage is how he’s fucked with her mind. He convinced her a good defense attorney would get the video introduced into evidence as proof she agreed to have sex with him. Which they probably would.” Scott cursed himself. “I wasn’t much better. I was so fucking convinced she’d screwed Sandy over that I treated her like shit.”

“You can apologize.”

“I have. But it’s not enough.” He blew out a breath. “Anyway, I didn’t want either of them going back until we caught him. So we stashed Jazz in the safe house over in Alexandria. Andy’s keeping an eye out for her. She’s tough though. When we told her about our plans, she was all in, you know? Didn’t shy away at all. Even after I’d been a total asshole to her.”

“Tell me Sandy isn’t going to be part of the bait.”

“Nope. And neither’s Jazz.” Scott filled him in on their plans, ending with, “I told Sandy I’d feel better about her staying here and figured you would too.”

“Yeah, good thinking. Thanks.” Uncomfortable with the emotions surfing through him, Troy wandered back into his bedroom and shrugged out of his shirt.

To his surprise, Scott had followed him and now stood in the doorway, his head canted to one side. “You love her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I think I do.” He stared at the quilt she’d folded at the end of his bed. He recognized it as one her mother had made. “I want more than her coming over once in a while. I like the idea of her sleeping here. In my bed. Waking up beside me in the morning. I want her living here with me. Permanently.”

“You talking just living together, or marriage and the whole deal?”

“I don’t know. I can’t picture myself with anyone else but…”
She doesn’t want to commit.
Shit, wasn’t that what women usually complained was the guy’s issue?

“So what’s the problem? Ask her to move in.”

“She’s not going to stay. She’s said over and over again she’s not looking to settle down or anything.”
Especially if she finds out who I am. What I’ve done.
Any woman in her right mind would run screaming.

“No? Then how do you explain this?” Scott picked up the edge of the quilt and brandished it at him. “Look around you. She’s made this place into a home. It wasn’t before. Now it’s somewhere that welcomes you. She did that.”

“It’s only paint and fabric. It doesn’t mean she’ll want to settle down.” He had a closetful of two-thousand-dollar suits that allowed him to project a professional image that made people trust him, but at the end of the day he had to take them off. Underneath he was still the same murderer he’d been all along.

“You didn’t see her shopping for this stuff,” Scott insisted. “We must have hit every mall between here and Baltimore and back again. Including a few I didn’t even know existed. She wanted to make sure she got exactly the right colors and the right pictures, the right pillows. She knew exactly what she wanted and wouldn’t settle for anything less. I don’t think she would have done that if a) she didn’t love you, or b) she didn’t have settling down in the back of her mind. I think she’d stay if you asked, and I think that’s what’s scaring you.”