Imminent Danger (Adrenaline Highs) (14 page)

“Is that smoke?” Kim asked.

Leo thought she’d fallen asleep. He glanced up where she pointed. Smoke drifted against the giant harvest moon. “Someone lost something tonight.” As Leo made his way closer to their destination, he realized they were headed straight for it.

“Oh my God,” Kim said. “That’s their neighborhood.” She sat up straighter in the seat. “That is totally their neighborhood.”

Leo turned down the street, expecting to see fire trucks but an empty street greeted him instead.

“Oh, shit. It’s Stephanie’s house!” Any alcohol high Kim had been riding seemed to vanish as she stared at the mansion. Smoke poured out of nearly every window and an orange glow lit the interior of the house. “Stephanie! She’s in there! Where’s the fire department? We need help!” Leo stopped the car and Kim scrambled out, teetering on her stilettos, digging through her purse. “Code, code, what’s the code?”

Leo called 911 and reported the address. A couple of windows upstairs exploded and glass rained down on the front lawn.

“Stephanie!” Kim screamed. She started punching numbers in the keypad but the gate didn’t open. “Stephanie!” The desperation in her voice sounded shrill. “Pull your car up against the wall,” she ordered.

“What the hell for?”

She waved her hands toward the house. “I need to get her out. She’s in there. I need to get her out!”

“Kim, that’s crazy. You don’t know that. You can’t go in there. The whole fucking thing is on fire.”

Flames shot out of the windows and the loud crackling sounded like a bonfire gone wild. Sirens wailed in the distance.

Kim yanked off her heels and ran for the wrought iron gate. She leaped up and caught the top of the giant W that decorated the bars. She hooked her foot into the bottom of the letter and heaved herself up. The woman had some muscle. Leo hadn’t thought she’d make it, so when she got to the top of the W with no signs of slowing down, he took off to save her from herself.

“Kim! Dammit, wait for the firemen. You can’t go in there!”

She jumped over the side and Leo had no choice but to follow. He got over in seconds and ran to catch up to her. Sirens blared louder as fire trucks pulled up along the gate. Leo didn’t want to hurt her, but didn’t see any other way to stop her. He tackled Kim just as the house exploded in a massive orange fireball, sending debris and ash into the air that rained down on them in a scalding hot shower.

Chapter Nine

The deafening sound reverberated in Kim’s head and the ground shook beneath her as Leo’s weight pressed her down. The smell of green grass mixed with the smoke in the air. Debris and hot embers rained down on them like a freak meteor shower.

Kim struggled to get free, but didn’t have much of a chance with the bulk of Leo on top of her. “I need to help her,” she screamed, clawing the lawn. Panting, she fought to get free, but Leo kept her pinned. When she finally stopped and looked up, all the blood drained from her face.

The house was practically gone, the roof blown off into nothing and the front walls collapsed to the interior. Despair crept up and strangled her chest, her throat. The Jack Daniels in her stomach swirled with vile intent.

“Stephanie.” She barely got the name out. “Stephanie!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Maybe she’d gotten out the back or… Kim scanned the expanse of the massive front lawn, but didn’t see any sign of her. She dropped her head on the ground as her stomach roiled more. “No, no, no,” she said, over and over.

“Fuck,” Leo swore and moved off her fast.

She turned to see him scrambling to pull off his shirt, a shirt that was smoking in the back. Rushing to help, she yanked it over his head and tossed it aside. Leo stood there, clenching his fists and his jaw, his eyes closed, his back arched as he clearly fought the pain of the burn. “Here sit down,” she told him, helping him to the lawn. “We need some help here!” she called to the firemen and paramedics still outside the gate. They had the jaws of life out and were attempting to cut the wrought iron. Kim ran to the walk-in gate and opened it from the inside so paramedics could enter. “My friend is in the house!” she screamed over the crackling blaze as they filed in. “Someone’s in the house!” Firemen manning the hoses started dousing the house from the street, but it hardly seemed to make a dent in the flames. Kim started for the house again, but strong hands held her back.

“Get back!” A fireman yelled over the noise. “Stay out of the way!”

The weight in Kim’s chest threatened to crush her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The Jack in her stomach finally swirled to the point of no return. She lurched out of the fireman’s hold and ran for the hedges along the front wall of the estate. Violently, she heaved the contents of her stomach onto the hibiscus plants.

Someone approached from behind her and set an arm on her back. “C’mon, come sit over here. I think your friend needs you.”

Her friend was dead.

Kim looked up and realized the man wasn’t talking about Stephanie.

Paramedics had Leo on his stomach as they attended to the wounds on his back. Kim sat near his head and, feeling very useless, she stroked her fingers through his hair as she divided her attention between the burning house and Leo’s blistered back. God, his hair was so soft and thick.

He craned his head and looked up at her with his cobalt blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said before he got a word out. “I didn’t know the house was going to blow up.” Another explosion happened, but this one landed in her chest like a guilt grenade. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry,” she said quietly. “You wouldn’t have gotten hurt if you hadn’t tackled me. What were you thinking doing such a stupid thing?”

One dark eyebrow lifted high. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”

She smiled slightly even as the sting of tears burned her eyes. “Yeah. I guess I am,” she said softly. “Thanks for saving my ass.”

“As long as you brought it up…I happen to think it’s a pretty fine ass.” Leo took her hand and linked their fingers. “Sorry.” he gestured toward the house.

The tears she’d been holding back finally slipped down her cheeks. Stephanie was gone. If she was in that house, she couldn’t have survived.

Oh shit. Carl. She needed to call Carl.

“I’ll be back in a sec, okay,” she told Leo. “I need to get my purse and call Carl.” Kim picked her way through the yard in her bare feet, avoiding hot chunks of burning wood. She found her shoes outside the gate and picked them up before retrieving her purse from Leo’s Porsche. She scrolled through her contacts but couldn’t find his number. Frustration sizzled down her spine. She hadn’t added him to her contact list yet. Dammit.

Stephanie’s phone! She snagged Stephanie’s purse, found the phone, and punched Carl’s number.

“What?” he demanded.
What. A. Prick.

“It’s Kim. Carl, something’s happened. You need to come home. Stephanie is…Stephanie is…” She didn’t know what Stephanie was. Until her body was recovered, Kim chose to avoid thinking the worst. “You need to come home now.”

“I’m a little busy at the moment.” If there was something worse than a prick, Carl was it.

“Carl, your house just fucking exploded and it’s burning to the ground. I suggest you get in your fucking car and come home.” Kim disconnected the call and a fresh sting of tears blurred her eyes.

A strong arm came around her shoulders and she looked up at a shirtless Leo. She’d forgotten how ripped he was. It had been years since she’d seen him in
Dangerous Race.
The movie had an R rating because the sex scenes were so hot. His washboard abs came from hard workouts and a huge amount of discipline.

She spotted the edge of the bandages along his side. “Are you okay?”

“Nothing time and burn cream won’t cure.” He tipped his chin toward the phone in her hand. “The Asshole is on his way?”

“Yeah.” She shook her head. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with him, but he makes it hard to be civil. Still.” She gestured to the house and her bottom lip trembled. “This is…this is really…” She couldn’t finish and Leo pulled her against him. She tried to hold it in, tried to keep a breakdown from happening and the effort shook her shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” Leo whispered, his lips so close to her ear. “I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t try to downplay it. Didn’t try to pretend that everything was all right. She might’ve lost her friend tonight. She held onto the hope that until they had proof, Stephanie wasn’t dead. He held her like that for a long time. Right up until Carl pulled up in his Bentley, got out of his car and surveyed what was left of his house.

“What happened here?” he asked, his eyes wide as he took in the scene. It was the first drop of emotion she’d noticed from him.

“I have no idea. We pulled up and it was fully engulfed in flames.”

“Where’s Stephanie?” he asked, scanning the yard like he expected to see her with them.

Oh God, how did she break the news? “I never saw her.” Maybe he’d understand what she meant. “Maybe she went to a neighbor’s house after she got home. Or maybe she realized she forgot her purse and headed back to the club.” All of a sudden her spirits picked up. Yes! That made perfect sense! Maybe she hadn’t been in the house after all. Maybe she was at the club now, wondering where Kim was.

Kim only hoped. Until the authorities investigated the site, they wouldn’t know for sure.

A police officer took their statement and Kim told them what little she knew. The first point of business was to find the limo driver and see if he’d actually taken Stephanie home or if she’d had him drop her off somewhere else. Although Kim had no idea where she might go, especially without her purse and ID, but until they found her body, she chose to think the best case scenario.

“I guess we need to find a hotel,” Carl muttered, looking a little shell-shocked at his burned out house.

“A hotel,” Kim repeated stupidly. Yes, she’d need a new place to stay. “Oh, damn,” she murmured. All of her stuff had been in the house…all her clothes and luggage, gone. She closed her eyes at the insignificance of the personal loss. But Carl’s meaning finally registered with her whacked out brain.

“We have to stay somewhere tonight.” He gestured toward his Bentley and Kim stood frozen, staring at him. “What are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Let’s go.”

Not in this lifetime. Not even if he quadrupled her salary. She still had her wallet and credit cards. She didn’t need Carl. “No.” She didn’t say it loud and having the steely hard gaze focused on her sent a wash of cold chills down her back.

“Don’t be a fool.” Carl’s beady eyes bored right through her. “You have no place else to stay. You don’t have a choice.”

Prick to the tenth power.

She turned to Leo. “Can you take me to a nearby hotel. I’d really appreciate it.”

He watched her for a second and considered something. “How about you come to my place? It’s closer than anything in the area and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper.”

God, she didn’t want to do that either. Staying with Leo Frost? What kind of suicide was that?

“Don’t look at me like I’m him,” he said, thumbing over his shoulder to Carl. “You’ll have your own room, your own shower and I’ve got an extra car you can drive. I won’t get near you, won’t touch you.” His solemn expression sold her. The man knew how to win an argument. No wonder he’d won so many awards. He was a master convincer. “C’mon. What do you say?”

Kim didn’t even look at Carl. “I say, Thank you. You’re on.”

Hot water sluiced over Blake’s shoulders as he stood under the shower spray in the opulent travertine tile shower. Two days had gone by. Two days of being near Abbey and at the same time, being a thousand miles
away
from Abbey. She was a pro at creating distance between them.

Blake shook his head to force the thought out of his mind. He shut down the stream, snagged the thick microfiber towel over the glass door and got out of the shower. Although his bruises looked like he’d gone ten rounds with a bull, he felt much better. At least he could move without pain ripping through his muscles. Recuperating in his boss’s tricked out house was way better than his no frills apartment.

Now if he could just figure out Abbey, he’d be batting a thousand. The healthier he got, the more she drifted away from him. He closed his eyes and thought back to the other night when he’d woken up with her fingers playing in his hair. He wanted more of that. A lot more. He wanted to be able to touch her that way. To not only run his hands through her hair, but across her skin. To taste the softness of her lips, the sweetness of her body.

He opened his eyes and exhaled a hard breath. He needed a life.

He also needed to get back to his own place. Toweling off the water, he reached for his clothes on the counter. He couldn’t hide out here anymore. Yeah, he’d needed the time to heal a bit, but no one was going to run him down or catch him unaware again. Not him or Abbey.

The police still hadn’t found their guy and Blake knew he was out there. Waiting, watching. There was no
if
the guy planned to strike again. It was
when
and
where.

Blake gingerly pulled on his faded jeans, a white T-shirt and headed into the kitchen.

“How you feeling?” Troy asked as he poured himself some coffee. “Want some?” He lifted the pot.