Material Witness (24 page)

He burrowed deeply under the blanket,
closer to the warmth of Cassie’s naked body and the memories of what they'd
shared last night.

In her sleep, Cassie responded by
curling up until her lovely nakedness was spoon fashion against his body. The
bed was way too small for the two of them, but they’d made due.

Jake listened to her rhythmic
breathing, tracing the delicate features of her face with his eyes. He liked
watching her sleep. The way her lips were slightly parted and moved as if she
were talking in her dreams. The way her wild, dark curls fanned out like
peacock feathers across her pillow and spilled over her smooth bare shoulders.

And he liked the way she felt in his
arms. All woman, soft and warm, seductive and hot. There was something
incredibly comforting about lying in bed with a woman and not having the
slightest itch to leave. Certainly a first for him, Jake thought with a
satisfied sigh.

They’d have to climb out of bed
eventually. They couldn’t afford to pretend that the world outside didn’t
exist. It did. And it would come crashing down around them soon enough.

 He and Cassie had made love several
times during the night and still he couldn't believe how much he wanted her
again. He'd always thought he knew what it was like to really make love. But
unpleasantness soon followed when the woman he was with wanted more of a
relationship after the pleasure of sex had given him a release.

There was a time after the shooting
five years ago when he thought he had something to prove. Something that had
nothing to do with feelings or emotions or even the act of sex itself.
Sex
with a vengeance
. A direct result of the shooting, the precinct
psychologist had said. Jake needed to feel alive, needed to prove that although
he was shot, he hadn't been killed. Tyler hadn't been killed either. They'd
survived.

He couldn't say the same for that
lost woman who'd stopped to ask for directions. Debra Cantelli and her unborn
child had been the victims of bad circumstances. Being in the wrong place at
the wrong time. They were dead and he was alive.

 Guilt ate at Jake even though there
wasn't a thing he could have done to prevent their deaths. He hadn't known
about Debra Cantelli’s connection to Angel Fagnelio back then. It had to have been
eating at Angel all this time, multiplying over the years, to have had him lie
so still during their meetings, waiting for the perfect moment to strike back.

Jake had sat through his share of
mandatory sessions with the house shrink, been deemed fit for duty, and went
on. Tyler hadn't. He'd left the force and no amount of convincing by anyone
could change his mind. For him, life had begun again.

For Jake, there was more guilt, more
women, and more unpleasantness until one morning he woke up next to a stranger
and just felt numb.

That's when it ended and he finally
opened his eyes to his own self-destruction. The worried stares of his parents,
Beth's constant pleas to give up law enforcement, the litany of lectures from
his sisters hadn't penetrated that thick layer of blame he'd poured around
himself.

The feeling of being totally alone
after making love to a woman whose name he couldn't even remember had. At that
moment he knew it had to stop. And he vowed to stay detached from romantic
entanglements to keep himself focused.

He ran his finger across Cassie's
brow.
Way to stay detached, Santos.

But even as he silently admonished
himself, he knew that Cassie was different than all the others. There was no
unpleasantness now. Only a contentment he'd never shared with another woman. He
wanted more of Cassie, more from their relationship than just simple sexual
gratification to wash away guilt. He wanted her in his life.

Now he knew with absolute certainty
that this was the first time he'd ever truly made love to a woman. And Jake
wasn't going to let that go.

Which was part of the problem he
dwelled on as he lay there with Cassie tucked protectively against to him. What
kind of a life could they possibly have with so much still unresolved? Cassie
deserved security and the love of a man who'd be able to give her some
semblance of stability.

Angel Fagnelio and Lord only knew who
else from the FBI are still out there hunting them down. And because of that
fact, she didn't have security.

Jake rolled on his back, propped his
free arm behind his head, and blankly stared up at the paneled ceiling above
them. He had to get moving. He needed word from Kevin. As much as he wanted to
hold Cassie all to his own, they needed resolution. Cassie needed it.

“You're not supposed to have such a
serious face the morning after we make love.”

Jake peered down into Cassie's dark
eyes at the sound of her sleepy voice, breathed in the warm scent of her skin
mixed with the lingering scent of sex. Burrowing deeper under the blanket, he
pushed away the dark thoughts that were plaguing him.

“Is that so.”

She nodded once.

“I didn't realize you'd woken up.” He
kissed her lips and let himself linger there, to dwell on the memories of their
lovemaking.

“You're thinking about Angel Fagnelio
again, aren't you? You only look like that when you're thinking about him.”

“I don't want to,” he admitted.

“Neither do I, but I've made a
decision.”

“Oh, you have, have you?” he said,
trying to hang on to the lighthearted feeling he'd had before reality crashed
in on them.

One look at Cassie and he knew she
was serious, too. Draping the blanket across her breasts with one hand and
sitting up to face him, she pushed her wildly tangled hair away from her face.

“I've had enough. I'm through running
from Angel Fagnelio and whatever he has in store.”

“What are you saying?”

“Simply that I'm tired of hiding out
like a scared child afraid to be hit. If Angel Fagnelio wants to find me, then
I'll make it easy for him.”

“No way!” he ground out, fear
crashing in on him completely.

She lay back down again, pressing her
warm, soft body against his, and tenderly stroked her fingertips across the
course hairs on his chest.

“I can't be afraid anymore, Jake. I
want to be in control of my life again. But I can't be if I make whoever is
responsible for all this madness believe he's won by driving me away. We can't
beat them at their game, but we can turn the tables on them.”

Jake shook his head. “You can't play
with these people at all, Cassie. You saw what happened at Rory's. What
happened yesterday at the cabin. You were damn near killed. They won't think
twice about wasting whoever or whatever gets in their way.”

“I can't go back if Fagnelio isn't in
custody. And he won't come out of hiding unless I show myself to him. So I'll
just give him what he wants.”

“Absolutely not! I refuse to let you
use yourself as bait.” Jake was sitting up in bed now, forcing the sudden rage
and fear down. What the hell was she thinking?

“I don't intend to.” Cassie sighed,
shaking her head. “Jake, listen to me. When your sister Jenna was attacked by
that mugger, it wasn't the money she was fighting for. She didn't give a damn
about that. It was just a symbol of something bigger being stolen from inside
her. It would have been smarter—safer—for Jenna to just let that thug run off
with her purse and all her money. I'm sure she knew that. But she couldn't do
it because the cost to her sense of safety was worth so much more.

“That's just how I feel now. Angel
Fagnelio is stealing everything I am from me. Everything I've fought so long
and hard to get back after Emilio was killed. I can't just hide out and let him
have that. I'll fight till the end if I have to, but he's not going to win.”

“It's bigger than just Fagnelio. More
complicated.”

“Maybe so, but we're not getting any
closer to figuring out what it is being here. All we’re doing is running
scared. We need to face him. And as soon as Angel shows his face, you know the
rest will follow.”

She was right, of course, as much as
Jake didn't want to admit it. Still, he couldn't hold back the dread that it
would all fall apart for them when they returned.

“I'm not going to put you out on
display just to catch Fagnelio,” he said, pushing both hands over his
disheveled hair.

Cassie reach out and took his hand.
“I'm not asking you to.”

Shaking his head, Jake chuckled
wryly. “Someone from the Bureau is in on this. We can't trust them until we
know who that person is.”

Cassie let out a heavy sigh and
nibbled on her bottom lip. “No, but you trust Kevin.”

“He's not FBI.”

“But he's on our side. That counts
for something.”

In Jake's book, it counted for a
whole hell of a lot. But as soon as they stepped one boot back into the
precinct, that trust would mean squat.

 “I believe Kevin is probably the one
person in this whole mess we can trust. So we call him, tell him we're coming
back. I'll call Maureen and tell her, too. I'm already suspected of leaking my
own name for publicity and compromising this case. Whoever is involved from the
FBI wouldn't dare try something in front of a group of reporters with cameras—”

Awareness of her plan suddenly dawned
on him. “To record their every move.”

“Exactly. Once Fagnelio knows I'm
back, he'll make some attempt to do his dirty work and be caught.”

Jake thought about it a minute. “It
might work.”

They lay quietly beside each other,
two bodies molded together as if they were one being as the morning light crept
into the room. He didn't want the light to invade them here. But it would. And
when it did, would darkness of another kind steal the light once again?

As much as Jake wanted to hold Cassie
in his arms like this forever, keep her safely tucked away in a place where the
Angel Fagnelios of the world couldn't harm her, he knew this was no life for
them. And the realization that he definitely wanted a life with Cassie was as
earth shattering as the danger they'd been forced to face.

He'd never looked beyond the morning
light before. But now he was thinking about a long string of sunrises and
sunsets that he and Cassie could have together, and a family of their own to go
along with it.

Maybe his sisters had been right.
Bertie, Carolyn, Beth, Susan, and Jenna had always said all it would take was
one special woman to bowl him over, and he'd be a family man.

But even that dream was a long way
off. Before he and Cassie could have the kind of life she deserved, they had to
go back and face the demon.

“You're an amazingly strong woman,
Cassie,” he whispered, tenderly stroking his fingers across her forehead. He
let his fingers get lost in the silky softness of her wild hair as he bent his
head to kiss the tip of her nose.

She smiled up at him and his heart
flipped. “Yeah, well, this is all new to me. Tricking the bad guys is CJ's
forte, not mine.”

Jake chuckled softly, but his
admiration for her strength was enough to level him. “You're a lot more like CJ
than you realize.”

“You think so?”

“What do you think?”

Her face was suddenly serious and she
let out a long, slow breath that hinted of regret. “Much as I hate to, I think
we need to get out of bed and make some phone calls.”

# # #

Chapter Thirteen

Snow fell like crystal confetti from
the sky, pasting itself to the windshield of the Jeep. Cassie sat in the front
seat and pulled Jake’s leather jacket tighter around her body, breathing in the
cold, crisp air, and watching as Jake stood in the phone booth. Their nightmare
would be over soon. Life would get back to normal.
She couldn't wait.

Her earlier conviction to beat Angel
Fagnelio was wavering. Cassie knew they needed to go back to the city or
nothing would be resolved. And she needed resolution, needed to feel her life
was on steady ground again, more than anything. Her only fear was the price she
and Jake would both pay to get it.

Anything could go wrong.
Everything
could
. That was the problem.

Oh, what she wouldn't do to stay
buried under the blankets, making love to Jake Santos for the rest of her days.
It was a wonderful dream that became a reality last night. He'd been more than
she'd expected. Certainly more than she'd ever known or felt.

Pushing the sleeve of the leather
jacket up her arm, she ran her bare fingers against the cold glass window,
wiping away the condensation building there. Jake was still talking on the
phone, rocking back and forth on his feet in an effort to ward off the cold
from this morning's drop in temperature. An omen? Cassie didn't want to think
so. She glanced down at herself and groaned. She should have at least given him
his own coat since he was the one standing outside.

Jake suddenly stood stiffly. From the
cold? Nerves? Maybe a little of both. She felt it, too. Her stomach lurched.
Something had happened, that much was evident by the harsh look on Jake’s face.