Deception (12 page)

“How’s it goin’?” he asked, knowing and anticipating the answer. He wasn’t disappointed. Police officers were complainers by nature. Every one of them broke into a chorus of the wrongdoings of the department and the shittiness of life in general.

Some things never changed and he was damn glad of it. It was like coming home.

Tony wound his way through the group. “You sure you still want to do this?” he asked under his breath.

Alex nodded.

“Okay, then, bro, just let me change and we’ll be on our way.”

“Hey, Juran, what’s the deal with all the calls to your house lately? Seeing the bogeyman around every corner?”

The room went silent. Alex’s smile slipped. Tony stopped, his gaze going to Alex.

“Way to go, asshole,” someone muttered.

“Better watch it, Bertram. Juran chews up and spits out FNGs like you.” Harrison scowled at the younger officer. An FNG himself—frigging new guy.

“Hey,” someone else called out. “Remember that one? What was his name? Abbott?”

Harrison’s face brightened and he chuckled. “Yeah, that’s it. Claimed to be an ex-Marine. Juran rode his ass so hard the guy quit. Upton said he cried when he put his notice in. Said Juran was too hard on him.”

“Is that what everyone thinks?” Alex asked, his voice quiet. “You think I’m seeing things? Making things up?”

Another uncomfortable silence fell until someone said, “Hell no, Alex.”

Alex pushed away from the doorframe and shot his coworkers a disgusted look. “Maybe when your wives are threatened and your homes vandalized, you’ll understand.”

A throat cleared, feet shuffled.

Alex searched the faces of his fellow officers. “I’ll meet you in the lobby, Blankenship.”

He walked out, painfully aware that his limp was more pronounced than usual.

***

Tess pulled her glove off with her teeth and rummaged through her coat pocket for Alex’s keys. She’d been meaning to come to his apartment and pack up the rest of his clothes. With Alex in his meeting, now was as good a time as any.

She stopped in front of the door marked 404, unlocked it and pushed it open. The place smelled of stale air and curry from the apartment next door. A lone ray of light shone through the half-closed drapes, highlighting dust motes dancing in the air and a secondhand couch in front of an old TV perched on a microwave stand.

This was where Alex had lived for the past six months? There was nothing here to make it a home, just a stopping-off place to eat, shower and sleep. How depressing.

She shook off her thoughts and headed into the kitchen with the intention of cleaning out the refrigerator. A mug sat next to the sink, cold coffee and mold congealing in it. Tess threw it away, mug and all. She opened the refrigerator and peered in, not surprised to see a bottle of beer and a shriveled carrot, but puzzled at the six-pack of root beer. Alex didn’t even like root beer.

A sound came from the living room, as if someone was walking around in there. Tess closed the refrigerator door and cocked her head to listen but only heard canned laughter from the TV next door. She poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Tony? Alex?” The surge of the furnace kicking on and the tick of the water heater answered.

Tess shrugged, ducked back into the kitchen and opened the freezer to find three plastic takeout containers of desserts she’d baked for local delis. They were covered in frost and the dates on them were from the beginning of December.

“Oh, Alex.” Her heart hurt a little more as she reached for the desserts, then pulled back, deciding to leave them for now. Root beer and her desserts. What was that all about?

She gathered the rest of the trash and set the overstuffed bag beside the kitchen door to take out later, then headed toward Alex’s bedroom. She stopped and stared at the front door, frowning. She was almost positive she’d shut it.

So why was it standing open?

***

“Don’t worry about them,” Tony turned the key in the ignition.

Alex looked out the side window. “That’s what they think, isn’t it? That I’m making things up. Seeing the bogeyman.”

“Nah. Well, just a few. You know, the new guys. But we’ll set ’em straight.”

“What are they saying?”

Tony merged into traffic, but kept silent.

“Tell me what they’re saying.”

His partner’s lips thinned.

Alex gripped his cane between his legs. “They think I’m nuts. That I’ve gone off the deep end. What’s gonna happen when the shooter turns out to be the person doing this, Tony? What’s gonna happen when he breaks into my house one night and I call for backup? They’re not going to show and it’ll be up to me.” Barely leashed anger had him tapping his cane. “You know what? Fuck it. Fuck
them
. I don’t need ’em. I can protect Tess without their damn help.”

“Look, Alex, cops talk. They come up with wild theories. Today you’re the hot topic. Tomorrow it’ll be someone else. You know the drill, just wait and someone else will do something stupid to take the heat off you. Besides, it’s not all of them, just a few idiots who don’t know any better.”

“So you think what I believe is stupid?”

Tony shook his head, pulled over and threw the car in park. “Look, man, I believe you, okay? You’re my partner and I trust your instincts.”

Alex looked at the dingy gray warehouses. The snow and the darkening day made everything eerily quiet. He looked toward the place where he’d been shot, cold apprehension curling in his gut. Did
he
trust his instincts?

***

Tess frowned and closed the door with a firm click.

Nothing but the wind, Tess.

Wind in an inside hallway?

She pushed the thought away. She must not have closed it tightly enough and when the furnace clicked on, the change in pressure forced it open.

She entered the bedroom, intent on grabbing what clothes she could and getting out so she could pick Alex up from his meeting.

An old comforter from the first days of their marriage lay in a ball on the floor. The covers and sheets were pushed back as if Alex had just climbed out. She touched the cold sheets, imagining him sleeping here. She couldn’t picture Alex living alone here, watching the TV in the other room, preparing for work. Undercover work. She hadn’t even asked about his undercover work. What if that’s what he wanted to go back to instead of patrol? Wearily she rubbed her eyes. They both wanted the marriage to work and that was a definite step in the right direction.

She picked up the comforter and smoothed the sheets, thinking that the last time he’d lain here was the morning before he was shot. Life was so damn unpredictable. One moment he was working, the next he was shot. One moment they were married, the next…

She shook those thoughts away and pulled out a few shirts and a pair of dress pants from his closet, then dropped to her knees and crawled in to search for the duffel bag he always kept on the floor of their closet. Her fingers found the cloth strap and she tugged. Shoes, a tie and a family of dust bunnies came with it. She scooped all the shoes out, searching for his dress shoes, muttering to herself when she couldn’t find the mate.

She reached toward the back of the closet for a lone shoe. The floorboard shifted behind her. She froze. Swallowed. Closed her eyes. Ragged breathing reached out to her, in counterpoint to her own unsteady breaths.

Chapter Fourteen

The tapping of Alex’s cane echoed off the metal walls of the warehouses.

“AJ?”

He ignored Tony and, just like he had that fateful night, listened to the long wail of a barge horn floating down the river.

He stopped and looked at the ground where Jason had died. The memories pushed at his mind, trying to find a release.

The kid should have been home, fast asleep, not in the middle of the warehouse district dealing drugs. He remembered thinking Jason looked cocky at first, but the cockiness had vanished when they both realized someone else was there.

Another voice speaking from the darkness. Just at the edge of the lights. Alex strained to remember, to see who had been standing there, but nothing came to him. It was as if that part of his memory had been erased because it jumped, out of sequence, to shots being fired. He remembered rolling. He remembered pain. Blood. Jason’s eyes looking at him, accusing him. Sirens. More blood. Pouring between his fingers, making the cold pavement slick.

He remembered fighting to stay awake. To tell Tony that he knew the shooter.

***

Strong arms wrapped around her, squeezing the air from her lungs. Hot breath brushed her bare neck. She tried to scream but he turned her around and pressed hard, wet lips against hers, stealing her breath and swallowing her scream. His erection pushed into her stomach. She swallowed bile and struggled to pull away, to get a look at him, but he was wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and a black ski mask over his face.

With a growl, he spun her so her back was pressed against his chest and his arms pinned hers to her side. She struggled, panic clawing at her thoughts.

“Did you get the Christmas present I left on your front porch? I did that for you, Tess. What’d you think?”

She went still. Good God, he knew her
name
.

He shifted.

Don’t let him get off center or you’re screwed.
All those times Alex had wrestled with her—coaching her on how to get out of certain holds, telling her what to do if she were attacked—came back. It’d been a game to her, something fun they would do together. Never did she think she’d actually have to use those moves.

Get your hand underneath his arm. Loosen his hold,
she heard Alex say.

She tried to lift her arms, to force his hands apart, but he was too strong and she felt her terror begin to drag her under.

He was going to rape her. She knew that as sure as she knew that she would fight him with everything she had.

Wet, disgusting lips touched her neck and she screamed. His hand clamped over her mouth, cutting off her cry. Had the person in the next apartment heard her over the TV?
Oh please, please have heard me. Please help me.

She bit his hand.

He yanked it away. “Goddamn bitch,” he whispered harshly.

Twist into the hold, he won’t be expecting that.

Tess went one better. She twisted and reared her head back at the same time, catching the guy in the nose. He cried out and she slipped her arms free, spun and kicked him in the balls. What started as a yell turned into a high-pitched squeak. His knees buckled and Tess sprinted for the door.

***

Alex settled on the bar stool and took a long drink of beer. His hands were still shaking, but the fear had faded.

Tony grabbed his own beer, swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” played in the background, accompanied by low laughter and the clacking of billiard balls.

The bartender, a woman with a nose ring and eyes lined in black, washed glasses, her gaze going to the mirror above her head to check out the room behind her.

Tony nearly drained his entire bottle. “Okay, I’m fortified. Tell me what happened back there.”

Alex ran a shaky hand through his hair and grabbed a pretzel from the bowl in front of them, breaking it in half. “I talked to the guy that night.”

“What’d you talk about?”

Alex crushed the pretzel in his fist. “I don’t remember.” God
damn
, this was beyond frustrating. “I just remember knowing the guy.”

“What’d he look like?”

Alex opened his fist. Crumbs fell from his finger into a little pile on the bar. “Can’t remember. I didn’t see him at first because he stuck to the shadows, then he stepped into the light and I was shocked.”

Tony pulled the bowl of pretzels in front of him and grabbed two. “What’d his voice sound like? How tall was he? Slight build? Bulky? Black? White?”

“Medium height. Shorter than me, but not by much. Caucasian.”

“Voice?”

“Can’t remember.”
Damn it all to hell!

“But you know him?”

“I know him.”

“How?”

Alex’s thoughts turned inward, remembering his fear for Tess’s safety and the overpowering need to give Tony a name, to extract a promise from his best friend to watch over Tess, to protect her. The name eluded him now, but he still feared for Tess’s safety. Damn it, he’d been right all along. This guy was still after him and now he was after Tess.

“What did I say to you after you got there?” he asked.

“Hell, Alex, I don’t know. You were talking about Tess. Wanted me to tell her you loved her. I was busy calling for the ambulance and keeping your white ass from bleeding out.”

“Is that what I said? ‘Tell Tess I love her’?”

Tony shook his head, stirring his finger through the pretzels in the bowl. “I guess. It all happened so fast and we were all so shocked. It was supposed to be a routine buy, not a damn bloodbath.”

Tony’s voice shook. His shooting had been hard on his longtime partner and Tony was dealing with his own shit about that night. Tony’s cell phone chirped and he put his beer down to answer it. “Blankenship.”

Alex took another swallow of beer and ate a pretzel. Who the hell was the shooter and how did he know him?

“When?”

Tony’s gaze met his and Alex’s stomach lurched.

“We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Tony flipped his phone shut and slid off the barstool. “Pay the lady, Juran. We gotta go.”

Alex reached for the wallet in his back pocket. “What’s up?”

“It’s Tess.”

***

He hadn’t expected her at the apartment. But once he saw her, he had to get closer. And once he got closer, he’d had to touch her.

Her body, wrapped in his arms, sent a fire through him no whore or self-gratification could match. When his hard dick pressed into her, he’d known he had to make her his. Take Juran’s woman from him. Make the prick watch. That’d show him.