Depth Perception (28 page)

He was gripping her arm too tightly, but Nat let him take her to his cruiser. At the rear of the car, he pushed her against it. "You got anything on you I ought to know about?" he asked. "Weapons? Drugs?"

Nat shook her bead. "Of course not."

"I'm just going to have a look-see."

She jolted when he put his hands just below her armpits, and skimmed them down her sides, brushing the outsides of her breasts. He paused at her hips, his eyes meeting hers. Nat saw the glint of cruelty, and it chilled her. She couldn't believe this was happening. Couldn't believe Matt Duncan would take advantage of his position as a cop-or be so blatant about it. Out of the comer of her eye, she saw Nick a few feet away. Even in the darkness, she could see that his face was dark with fury, his hands clenching into fists. She didn't know what was going through his mind, but he looked as if he were on some very steep edge and about to jump. She didn't want him doing something stupid.

"Nick, I'm okay," she called out to him. "Go get Alcee."

Duncan finished patting her down. then turned toward Nick. "Don't get any closer, Bastille, or I swear to Christ I'll arrest you for interfering with an investigation. You got that, convict?"

Nick held his ground ten feet away, but he didn't look as if he were going to stay. Nat caught his stare and shook her head. "Don't give him a reason."

Duncan grinned. "Yeah, Nicky, because I'll do it." He hitched up his belt and turned to Nat. "I smell alcohol on your breath."

"I haven't had anything to drink."

He leaned close as if to smell her breath, lingering with his mouth just a few inches from hers. "Do you have any idea how often I hear that?" he whispered.

Nat turned her head. "I don't care. Someone tried to run me off the road tonight. You should be out looking for them, not hassling me."

"Yeah? And an hour ago you were standing on Jean and Paulette LaRue's front porch swearing up and down you'd seen their son a block away when all the while he was safe and sound in the hospital."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "That has nothing to do with this."

"A lie is a lie. You ever see that movie Conspiracy Theory? The crazy guy kept telling people everyone was after him?"

"Once my car is pulled out of that pond, the damage will tell the story." Nat tried to make her voice strong, but her teeth were chattering. She couldn't stop shivering. She didn't know if it was from being cold or shaken up in the wreck or having to deal with a bastard like Matt Duncan, But she couldn't stand the way he was looking at her, as if he were a moment of bad judgment away from touching her.

She started to push away from the car, but Duncan hooked his finger in the belt loop of her jeans and yanked her back. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm c-cold. My head hurts."

"You should have thought of the consequences before you got drunk and drove your car into that pond. You looking for a little attention, or are you just fucking crazy like everyone says?"

“I-I need to sit down."

He locked her against the car with his body, then leaned into her. Nat could feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly and cringed. She could hear him breathing hard. She knew it was only a matter of time before the situation exploded. "Don't do this, Matt," she said.

"You think anyone in this town is going to listen to you if you cry foul and accuse one of Bellerose's officers of misconduct? Do you think anyone will believe you? A woman cold enough to kill her own fuckin' kid?"

All the breath left her lungs at his words. She could feel her heart hammering like a piston in her chest. "I didn't. You know I didn't."

"Here's a news flash for you, Nat. No one believes you."

"You have no right to do this to me."

"I'm a cop." His gaze dipped to her breasts, his tongue flicking over his lips like a snake's. "I can do whatever the hell I want, including putting my hands on those sweet little titties of yours."

Nat closed her eyes, mentally bracing for what she knew would happen next. She told herself it didn't matter. She could get through this; she'd gotten through worse.

In the next instant, Duncan's hands were ripped off her. She opened her eyes to see him flying backward, his face a collage of shock and fury. She saw Nick hauling him back by his shirt cellar; Duncan reached for his expandable baton. But before he could slide it from its holster, Nick spun him around, fisted his collar with both hands and slammed him against the car hard enough to dent metal.

"You just assaulted a cop!" Duncan screamed.

"And you were two seconds away from crossing a line." Grinding his teeth, Nick pulled him away from the car and slammed him back.

Duncan jerked like a rag doll. "You're going to jail, Bastille."

"No I'm not, you little pumped-up prick." Nick slammed him against the car again. "Because you're going to keep your mouth shut about this."

"Why would I do that?"

Nick leaned close until his face was an inch from Duncan's. "Because I'll kill you if you don't." he said menacingly.

A chill went through Nat at his tone. She'd never seen this side of Nick, but she could tell by the fury on his face that he meant what he'd said, that he would make good on it. Evidently, Duncan believed him, too, because his face went pale.

An instant later Duncan's hand dove for his service revolver. But Nick was faster and snatched the weapon from its holster. Stepping away from Duncan, Nick drew back and hurled the weapon into the pond.

“Why did you do that?" Duncan jumped away from the car.

Nick shoved him back against the car. "You have two seconds to get those cuffs off her," he snarled. 'Then you're going to get on the radio and get your boss out here. Or I swear to Christ I'll put you in your car and drive you into that pond myself.

#   #   #

"Any idea who might have been driving the SUV?"

Alcee Martin looked as if he'd been tom from his bed and thrown into yesterday's clothes before he was fully awake. His usually impeccable uniform was wrinkled, and the cowlick at the back of his head was sticking up like a rooster tail. He looked none too happy to be out on a call at midnight. Especially a call where nobody wanted to tell him what the hell was going on.

Duncan hadn't mentioned Nick's so-called assault. Not to protect Nick, but because he didn't want to have to explain to his boss how Nick had disarmed him, tossed his side arm into the pond, then forced him to call his superior. Nick in turn hadn't mentioned Duncan's treatment of Nat, But he would, first chance he got.

Nick knew he was treading on thin ice. One wrong step and he would end up in prison again. All he could do at this point was tell Martin the truth and hope the other man believed him. If the chief of police wanted some incompetent yahoo cop working for him, there wasn't a damn thing Nick could do about it.

Nat shook her head. "No."

"Color? Make?"

''Dark, I think. Blue or black." She lifted her shoulder and let it fall. "It happened fast, and I was just trying to keep my car on the road."

"Hunt Ratcliffe drives a blue Suburban," Nick put in. "Jim Arnaud drives an old black Bronco."

Alcee scraped his hand over his face. "Shit."

"Either one of them might think he had reason to hurt her."

"I'll talk to both of them." Alcee snapped his notepad closed, then shot Nat a pointed look. "I reckon you're not exactly one of Bellerose's most favored citizens these days."

"I have no control over what people think of me," she said.

"Yeah? Well, Matt filled me in on what happened at the LaRues' earlier. You want to tell me what that's all about?"

Nat looked away.

Alcee looked at Nick. "Either of you?"

Since Nick had no idea what Nat had been doing at the LaRues' , he had no problem looking confused. But he wasn't completely innocent: he knew enough about what was going on in her life to realize it probably had to do with her search for a killer.

Alcee divided his attention between them. "I don't know how you expect me to get to the bottom of this if I don't know what the hell is going on. Both of you are skating a thin line."He frowned at Nat. "You show up at the LaRue house again, and I'm going to have to arrest you. Jean filed a restraining order."

"I understand," she said.

"Good." Alcee shook his head in exaggerated disgust, then turned his gaze on Nick. "And you stay the hell away from my deputy."

Nick met his gaze steadily, lowered his voice. "If you hadn't gotten here when you did, Duncan would have been all over her."

Anger flashed in the other man's eyes, but he quickly masked it with a scowl. "Why should I believe you over what my deputy told me?"

"Because I think you're smart enough to know what kind of man he is."

Martin didn't have anything to say about that, but Nick saw the truth in his eyes. Alcee Martin knew exactly what kind of cop Matt Duncan was. "I'll take care of it."

"What about my car?" Nat asked. "There's probably paint on it or something. Dents. Evidence."

"We're going to have to get a diver to go down to get the winch hooked up. I know a guy works for the sheriff's department in Baton Rouge. I'll give him a call and see if I can get him to drive up first thing tomorrow morning."

The lawman's gaze slid from Nat to Nick. "In the interim, I suggest you two stay the hell out of trouble."

Chapter 22

Nick knew it was selfish, but he didn't want to be the one to take her to the hospital. He knew that made him a son of a bitch. But the truth of the matter was he didn't want to spend any more time with her. Damn it. he didn't want to care about her. He was in no position to care for a woman. Especially tonight when he was wound up so tight he could feel the tension all the way to his spine.

There was something about Nat Jennings that brought out his protective nature with a vengeance. And even though she would argue to her dying breath that she didn't need someone looking out for her, there was no way Nick could walk away.

"You didn't have to do this."

On the passenger seat next to him, Nat huddled in the blanket, shivering so hard he thought she might just vibrate right out of the truck.

"How else are you going to get there?" he asked. "Take a taxi?"

"I don't need some doctor to tell me I have a headache. I already figured that out all by myself."

"I hate to break it to you, Miss I-Figured-It-Out-All-By- Myself. but you need stitches."

"What I need is to find the son of a bitch who fried to kill me."

Nick didn't want to think about how close she'd come to dying tonight. He would never forget the stark terror he'd felt in the seconds he'd thought she was dead. Or the relief that was so powerful his legs had gone weak when he'd realized she was not.

"Any ideas?" he asked.

"Half the population of Bellerose." She shook her head. "I guess the question is, which one of them hates me enough to want me dead."

St. Tammany Memorial was a sixty-seven-bed hospital located off Interstate 12 in nearby Covington. At just before one A.M., Nick and Nat walked into the emergency room where a sour-faced nurse with salt-and-pepper hair took her information, then ushered them into a curtained examination room.

"Let me get you a gown so you can get out of those wet clothes." Digging into a cabinet, the nurse turned to Nat, brandishing a wrinkled gown. “Put it on and have a seat on the exam table. Doc will be with you shortly." She shoved the gown at Nat, then with a swish of white nylon she was out of the room.

Nat frowned at the gown in her hand, then raised her eyes to Nick. "I can't believe I let you drag me here."

"You let me drag you here because your head is laid open."

"I hate hospitals."

“Put on the gown, Nat, and stop complaining."

"How the hell am I supposed to get home with my butt hanging out of this thing?"

"I'm sure you'll manage." Not wanting to think of her in terms of her butt, Nick turned his back and stared at the wall. "Put it on or I'm going to sic Nurse Ratched on you."

He heard the rustle of clothes, then a clipped, "You can turn around."

Nick turned slowly and had to steel himself against a quick slice of lust. He knew this was neither the time nor the place to ogle. But she had absolutely no right to look so damn good sitting on the examination table in a wrinkled gown, a cut on her forehead, and damp hair tangled around her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat, and it took every bit of control he could muster to keep himself from reaching out to touch her just to make sure she wasn't some figment of his imagination.

She'd taken advantage of a disposable paper blanket and draped it over her legs. But it only reached to her ankles and he found himself staring at pretty feet with toenails painted the color of hibiscus. He'd never been unduly interested in female feet, but hers were small and pretty and sexy as hell.

Tearing his gaze away, Nick shifted his weight from one foot to the other to accommodate his swollen member and sighed unhappily. Vaguely, he was aware that she was staring at him, that his heart was pounding, that he was going to do something really stupid if he didn't get the hell out of there pronto.

"I'll see if I can round up the doc."

He'd just turned toward the door when it swung open. Surprise jarred him when Travis Ratcliffe breezed into the exam room with a clipboard in one hand, a stainless steel tray in the other. He looked up and stopped abruptly, his gaze darting from Nat to Nick and then back to Nat. "Oh." His brows snapped together. "Nat? What are you doing here? What happened?"

Nick could see the other man struggling not to show his surprise. But not even a man of Travis Ratcliffe's training and education could hide good, old-fashioned shock.

She paled all the way to her mouth at the sight of Ratcliffe. For an instant, Nick thought she was going to bolt. But she stayed on the exam table, clutching the paper draped over her, staring at Ratcliffe as if he'd just announced he was Dr. Hyde.

"I-I wasn't expecting to see you here."