The Chase (3 page)

Screw it.

She scooted behind one of the officers leading the group out and entered the store.

“Jo,” he barked.

Still moving, she waved. “I’m good.”

Perfect nonanswer. Just enough to give the impression that Gabe, wherever he might be, had given her the all clear. Except the precinct team was still outside waiting to be given the go-ahead to begin their search.

No way around that one.
He’ll kill me
.

She knew she was pushing the boundaries of her agreement with the P.D. when it came to being on-site at these raids. But anticipation was evil and she wanted to get in there and see what volume of fake Barellis she’d find.

At her core, she was a lawyer trying to please her client. The sooner she got inside, the sooner she’d make a call to Barelli Corporate.

At least the officer she’d run by wouldn’t get in trouble. No. All of Gabe’s anger would be directed squarely at her. For a moment, her stomach pitched and she swallowed the bile forming in her throat.

She’d worry about Gabe’s wrath later, because just in front of her, at the end of the narrow hallway, was the door to the room with the merchandise. Inside, two officers were dealing with what looked like a couple of customers and one of the employees, a slight man with thick dark hair. He glanced at her, looked away and then slowly looked back.

Ignoring him, Jo stepped behind the glass counter, spied the assortment of watches she’d seen yesterday, slid the door open and reached for the black display box.

There they were. The little buggers she’d been hired to find. She reached for them, ready to stash them in the plastic garbage bag she’d brought. Her own shopping trip.

Just as she pulled the box from the counter, her thoughts reeling over the successful raid, a flash of silver entered her peripheral vision. The back of her neck tingled and she swung her head toward the flash. A man stood next to her clasping a thick metal pipe in his raised hand. Jo’s head whooshed.
Move
. She flinched a mere second before the pipe slammed across her right hand.

She stared at her hand as her knuckles disintegrated. For a few seconds, there was no pain, only the numbing shock and the bizarre image of this maniac attacking her with ESU guys in the room.

That changed when crushing agony barreled into her hand, a fierce blast of icy pain that brought every nerve ending in her body to screaming. The whooshing in her head evaporated. Tears—surely a reaction to the pain—filled her eyes.

Movement to her right. She turned toward it. Her attacker, someone she could probably bring down even without the use of one of her hands, loaded up for another attack. She snapped her hand back and yelped at the fresh round of pain from simply moving it.

“Drop it.” Gabe’s voice. From by the door.
Uh-oh
. “On the ground. Now!”

A rapid and constant click, click, clicking sounded. The man dropped the pipe as his face stretched long and his lips rolled open. His body seemed to lock up and the clicking sound droned on. Finally, after releasing a high-pitched howl, he collapsed to the floor and the clicking stopped.

She glanced to the doorway. There stood Gabe, his massive body just inside the room’s entrance and that cannon of a .45 he carried aimed at his target.

An explosion of activity surrounded her. Gabe shouting demands, the third officer hustling screaming people out and the second officer standing over her attacker, stun-gun in hand. All of it came at her in a fierce, agonizing assault and she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to concentrate.

Gabe moved closer, his weapon still aimed while the attacker was dealt with by Carlson.

And—
wow
—in the name of everything holy, her hand was killing her. She dared to look at it and found already purple knuckles. “Damn you,” she hollered at the man. “Look what you did to my hand.”

“Carlson,” Gabe shouted in a voice so rough it somehow, despite all the times she’d heard him yell, stunned her. Poor Carlson. He’d been an exemplary cop for over five years, but he’d just been accepted into the elite ESU and that made him a rookie all over again.

And if the tone in Gabe’s voice were any indication, Carlson was in big trouble. He must have been the one to screw up by not cuffing pipe man when they’d first entered the room. Bum luck that the combination of Jo’s impatience and Carlson’s mistake led to her now broken hand. This would surely earn her a lecture.

With Carlson standing over their prisoner, Gabe holstered his weapon and stepped the two feet toward her. “Let me see your hand.”

Suddenly, he was in her space—all six-foot-three of him—and she stepped back. His face had hardened to carved granite.

In short, this was one pissed-off sergeant.

“I’m not going to yell,” he said. “Let me see it.”

Oh, he’d yell. She knew him well enough to understand that. And worse, he’d just warned her to stick to the safety of her office because the vendors were beginning to recognize her.

She held her hand out and waited. Nothing. Only breathing. Heavy, nerve shredding, mad sounding breathing.

Maybe she could minimize this situation. “It’s a bruise.”

He scoffed. “Right. Carlson! Get a bus.”

Jo shook her head. “No. I need to bag and tag some of these items to send back to Barelli. They need to see it.”

He turned those coal black eyes on her. “We’ll get them bagged. Your hand needs to be looked at. Carlson. Bus!”

Another officer entered, did a swift scan of the room and headed for their prisoner.

Jo was grateful for the momentary distraction and took a breath. “Gabe, seriously. It’s not that bad. Look.” She tried to bend her fingers and a stabbing sensation shot up her arm.
My God, the pain
. She should earn an Academy Award for keeping her features intact and not wincing. “I can handle it. Just let me bag a few things and I’ll go to the ER.”

He folded his arms. “Why are you so friggin’ stubborn? Carlson! Forget the bus. Get over here and help Ms. Pomeroy bag this crap while Hutchins deals with that mope.”

Yikes.
Carlson would be in the doghouse for a week. And Gabe’s doghouse couldn’t be fun.

—:—

Gabe stepped into Jo’s ER bay just as the doc slapped her X-rays on the screen. He’d known that hand was broken the second he’d seen it. Not broken, that sucker was demolished.

Thanks to him, the idiot who allowed her to talk him into her accompanying them on hits. Sure, he always made her hang back, but she didn’t belong there and he knew it. Plus, she sucked at following directions. How many times had he told her not to step foot into a store until ESU cleared it and he gave her the go sign.

How many?

He always did have a weakness for leggy blondes.

Jo watched him walk into the room and her blue eyes got that hard, ready-for-battle look. Lawyers. Always brewing for a fight. “Don’t start yelling.”

He ignored her and turned to the doc. Phillips. “Should I wait outside?”

The doc nodded at Jo. “That’s up to the patient.”

“He can stay.” She paused, but didn’t look away. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t need to.”

Yeah, I did
. “Someone needs to take you home.”

“Okay,” Phillips said. “Here’s what we’ve got. Looks like the second, third and fourth metacarpophalangeal
joints are fractured.” He pointed to the injured knuckles on her hand. “I’ll need to refer you to an orthopedist, but we can get it wrapped for you.”

“So, my knuckles are broken.” She looked up at Gabe and their eyes met. “The little weasel broke my hand.”

Gabe nodded. “Yep.”

Don’t yell
. Still in his tactical uniform, he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his cargo pants and curled his fingers. Before this was over, he’d be yelling. No two ways about it. He was pissed enough to make sure she never came within half a mile of any building ESU was in. But damn, he was trying not to lose his shit on her.

Or maybe he should be losing his shit on himself for letting her be there in the first place.

“We’ll stabilize it,” Phillips said. “But you’ll need to see an orthopedic specialist. I’ll get you a list.” He checked his watch. “Call them today. You still have time this afternoon.”

“I’ve got a good ortho guy,” Gabe said. “She’ll call.” He’d make sure of that.

“I will,” she assured the doctor. “I’m an obedient patient.”

Her? Obedient? Not in this lifetime. “
That’s
funny.”

The doc laughed. “Okay, guys. I’ll get someone in here to wrap that hand.”

Joe waved her good hand at him. “Thank you, Dr. Phillips.”

Once the doc was gone, she lowered her hands to the bed and drew one knee up. Damn, she had long legs. He hated those legs, theoretically speaking. They had taken up way too much space in his brain. The rack too. What kind of shit luck got him working with a leggy, large-breasted, smart-mouthed lawyer that he actually enjoyed?

It was the mayor’s fault. Blame him.

“Did everything get bagged?” she asked. “That was a big haul. We’re getting closer to catching this guy. I know he owns that building.”

Gabe gave up on curling his fingers. Probably looked like he was playing with himself. Great. He snatched his hands from his pockets and folded his arms. “Yeah. We’re getting close.”

She flopped her good hand on the bed. “Oh, for crying out loud, just yell already. You know you want to. I appreciate that you’re not, but really, I like it better when you’re yelling. At least then I know where I stand.”

Ten months he’d been working with this woman. For five of those months, her aggressiveness had made him insane. She annoyed him, pestered him, sometimes told him how to do his job and basically nagged him until he let her accompany ESU on hits.

Miracle of all miracles, he hadn’t killed her. Yet. The thing that had saved her was the
last
five months. In that time, he learned one simple fact: Joanna Pomeroy loved her job. Much like him, she thrived on righting wrongs and throwing herself into the middle of the dogfight.

Big-time companies expected her to earn her money, and she took any risk necessary to find and confiscate the counterfeit goods that represented trademark infringement to the tune of $250 billion a year.

Gabe pressed his fingers into his biceps and took one huge breath.
Don’t yell
. “You’re done. From now on, you stay in your office. That’s it.”

“What happened today wasn’t my fault. I waited.”

Stay calm
. He pulled air through his nose, let it out his mouth. For maximum self-control, he counted to five. “No,” he finally said, “you didn’t.”

“I did.”

Don’t yell, don’t yell, don’t yell
. But holy hell, his blood pressure had reached epic heights. If he didn’t do something fast, his goddamn head would fly off. “Then how the fuck did you wind up with a broken hand?”

Okay. So he yelled.

A passing nurse—Jackie—stuck her head in. “Whoa, tiger.”

He raised his hands. “Sorry.”

Jackie knew him, uh, well. Considering they’d spent six months tearing up the sheets. At some point, she’d realized the only sparks between them happened in the sack and moved on. Gabe? He could have been happy with burning sheets. What single, thirty-three-year-old male wouldn’t?

At least until Jo came along. Now he wasn’t sure what he wanted. Aside from her naked in his bed.

Jackie pointed at Jo. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. He’s harmless.”

“Oh, honey,” Jackie said. “I wouldn’t say he’s harmless.”

Crap on a cracker. “Really, Jackie?”

She laughed at him and continued down the corridor. He turned back to Jo, who was analyzing him with the intensity of a sex therapist at Hedonism.

“What was that?” Jo asked.

“Nothing. She’s a smartass.”

“You know her, then?”

He shrugged. “I’m in and out of here. Somebody on my team is always getting hurt.”

“And here I thought I was special.”

“You’re special, all right. You’re my special pain in the ass.”

Jo swung her legs over the side of the bed. Gabe was brewing for a fight. He might be six inches taller than her, but she wasn’t afraid of him. Not a chance. Maybe she pushed his buttons, but the thing he hadn’t figured out was that, together, they were an unbeatable team. “How fitting. That’s makes us both pains in the asses. Let’s finish this later. I’m too tired to fight with you.”

His gaze locked onto her black stiletto boot. A gift from the president of Barelli for her dedication to getting the city to tighten counterfeiting laws. One thing about working with high-end companies, they knew how to keep the fashion princess in her happy. Gabe slid his gaze up her legs. At the intensity of those eyes, her core turned to a flaming ball of lust.

The man had no idea how hot he was. Or maybe he did. His rock-hard body, coal-dark eyes and hair, and a face filled with sharp angles didn’t exactly have women running from him. Unable to use her injured hand, she eased off the bed and he grabbed her elbow so she didn’t fall. What with all his male hotness sending her into convulsions and all. “So, you’re a leg man.”