Under the Gun (16 page)

I nodded mutely. Then, “I’m sure.”

I felt his hands move. I felt him take a step away from me—disappointing, even though
the step was minuscule. The sudden air between us was cold. Then suddenly he was against
me once more, one hand wrapping me against him, the other at my hip.

“Touch it,” he said, his voice a heart-stopping rasp. “Hold it in your hand.”

I tried to spin, to protest, but he held me firm so I couldn’t look at him. “I—I don’t
think I can.” I knew I sounded weak and immature and schoolgirl silly. I felt him
nod behind me.

“You can.”

All at once his hand was on mine, fingers interlacing, gently positioning me. I cupped
my hand to receive him as sweet anxiety filled my every pore.

“It’s bigger than I remember,” I said, my voice a throaty whisper now.

I licked my lips again and Alex pressed forward, the soft stubble on his chin rubbing
against my temple. I felt his lips press up into a satisfied smile. “That’s good.
That’s right. Do you like it?”

I tried to nod, to give some indication that I was here, invested in the moment, but
everything felt rooted to this one spot.

I was Sophie Lawson.

And as usual, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” Alex murmured. “Don’t be nervous. I know this isn’t your
first time.” There was a hint of mischief in Alex’s voice and I smiled. “It’s okay,
Lawson,” he said.

I closed my eyes and let Alex’s voice slip through me. I let it warm me from tip to
tail, let it give me strength. And then I used my hand to push his away, repositioning
mine.

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?” Alex rasped.

“Are you sure you are?” I drawled, looking over my shoulder.

Another sexy half smile. Another glinting tweak in those bedroomy, cobalt eyes. “You
should be wearing safety goggles.”

“Right.” I masked my juvenile need to giggle uncontrollably. “Safety first.”

I felt Alex gently push his leg in between mine and I widened my stance.

“Both hands,” Alex said. “Arms up.”

I did as I was told, snaking my other hand over Alex’s piece. It felt heavy in my
hands but alive, electric.

“I forgot how much I missed this. I was really scared the first time but now—”

“Shhh.” Alex’s hands trailed down my arms until his were outstretched, too, his hands
clasped over mine. “You’re a natural. Remember what we talked about. Slow . . .”

“No jerking.”

“Right. Give it a gentle squeeze.”

Alex must have sensed my anxiety because he squeezed my hands and whispered, “Gentle,”
in my ear. It sent shivers down my spine.

“Okay.” I felt the weight in my hands. I felt his hands, warm, on mine. I squeezed—gently,
slowly.

This was going to be okay.

I was going to be good at this.

It seemed to fire in waves. Molten sparks that shot through my body. There was moaning.
There was screaming.

There was me, huddled on the ground, crying. “Aughhhh,” I wailed. “I can’t do this!
I suck!”

Alex crouched down in front of me, his smile so wide it pushed up to his earlobes.
His body was shaking and his eyes were glassy, rimmed in moisture. “No, Lawson,” he
fought off a round of guffaws. “You’re a bad shot now, but you’ll get the hang of
it. I promise.”

“Go ahead!” I moaned. “Laugh at me. I know you want to.”

I had barely finished my permissive sentence when Alex flopped onto his butt and howled
like a country bear, smacking at the ground. I crossed my arms in front of my chest,
anger creeping into my soul. “It wasn’t that bad for a second time!”

Alex wiped his eye, sitting up and gasping for air.

“I bet I even hit the target this time. Maybe not on his body, but I’m sure I hit
the paper.” I sprang to my feet and fiddled with the lever that zipped the paper target
toward me. I examined it with narrowed eyes.

“Well?” Alex asked, brushing off the seat of his pants and standing behind me.

I mashed the lever back. “It was there.”

“Really?” He yanked on the lever from the target in the next booth over. “You sure
it wasn’t here?”

“Well, I said I knew I hit the target, right? I just didn’t specify which target.”

“Smooth.” He raised his eyebrows. “Try it again?”

“Maybe firearms really aren’t my forte.”

Alex was already curling me into him. “All the more reason for you to go again. You
can only get lucky with ass shots so often.”

I turned, my face reddening. “You knew about that?”

That sexy half smile again. “A hot chick doesn’t shoot a complete lunatic in the ass
without the entire force hearing about it.”

I felt oddly proud—both because my ass shot to Roland Townsend had made me a legend,
and because as Alex curled me into him for the second time in ten minutes, I didn’t
pool into jelly. Completely.

I shot off a few more rounds and little by little—little by very little—my aim was
improving. By the time I had cleared about a dozen, Alex was sitting on the cement
bench behind me, popping peanut M&M’s into his mouth. I turned and looked at him over
my shoulder.

“Some teacher,” I harrumphed.

“You’re doing great. You went from hitting the ground to hitting the ceiling to hitting
someone else’s target to—” He stood up, squinted, and then nodded, impressed. “Hitting
your own target.”

“While you sit there eating chocolate.”

“If you must know”—he popped a handful in his mouth—“I’ve been keeping an eye on your
form.”

The slant to his smile was nothing short of shameless and the heat that had zipped
through my body now pooled low in my belly—and lower into my panties. “Well, how is
it?”

Alex quirked an eyebrow. “How’s what?”

I dropped the magazine from my gun, feeling its heat on my palm. Something about handling
that thing made me feel bold, confident—dangerous. I looked at him through lowered
lashes, snaked my tongue over my tooth sexily like I had seen Nina do a thousand times.
“My form.”

It was fleeting—but definite. Red shot across Alex’s cheeks and his usual cool demeanor
was challenged. He quickly regained control, put both booted feet on the floor, and
strode toward me. “Let me help you with that.”

“I can do it.”

Alex stopped short of me, arms crossed in front of his chest, trademark half smile
cutting up the left side of his cheek. “You sure?”

I was fumbling now but desperately trying to hold my cool. Sexy women who said lascivious
things like “how’s my form?” didn’t look half as sexy trying to jam bullets into an
empty magazine. “I can get it.” As if on cue, the bullets popped out of the spring
load and littered the cement floor.

Alex grinned but didn’t say anything. He just stepped toward me, his hands going for
the extra ammo on the counter behind me. My hands were at my sides, one holding the
empty magazine, one holding the unloaded gun. Alex’s arms caged me and now I stared
at his chest, smelled the faint odor of singed gunpowder and perspiration. I didn’t
think about snaking my arms around his waist, sliding my weaponed hands up his muscled
back and pressing my lips against his.

I just did it.

I heard the ping of the bullets as Alex brushed them aside, crushing my body up against
his. He pulled me against him and I fought to get closer, to close every bit of space
between us. His arms wrapped around me, fingers tangling in my hair. I was kissing
him and he was kissing me back—hard, hungry kisses. I nibbled his bottom lip, felt
his tongue moving into my mouth as he picked me up and set me back on the cement divider,
spreading my legs and pressing himself closer. I locked my legs behind his back and
pulled him toward me. When his lips left mine and started a trail down my bare neck,
I felt the intensity break inside of me, my whole body tingling, trumpets blaring—

I pulled away. “What’s that?”

Alex didn’t bother answering and when his lips closed around mine again I didn’t bother
thinking about it—until I felt another zing, this one pressed up against my inner
thigh, dangerously close to—“That’s my phone,” Alex groaned.

I was still panting, still feeling the verve of desire as it rocketed through my body
when Alex yanked the phone from his pocket and gave it a cursory glance before tossing
it aside. I dove for him. “Who was it?” I mumbled in between devouring those incredible
lips and flicking my tongue over the salty curve of his neck.

“Station.”

“Station?” I paused and he pulled me toward him, rhythm unbroken. “Is it serious?”

The discarded phone started blaring again, hopping along the sawdust floor as it vibrated
wildly. I hated to tear my lips from Alex’s, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Maybe you
should check that.”

Alex stepped back and cocked an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“It could be important.”

He blew out a long sigh that seemed to crush his entire body. “You’re right.”

He turned his back and answered the phone while I wracked my brain trying to figure
out the sexiest way to lounge against the cement cubicle we’d been making out in.
Alex turned to me.

“So, is it serious?” I asked in my best imitation of a Grace Jones–sexy voice.

“Homicide always is.”

I opened my mouth, but Alex held up a hand, then brushed a thumb over my kiss-puckered
bottom lip. “Don’t think we’re not picking this up again,” he said with a sexy grin.

My nipples hardened while everything else softened.

Inappropriate love lesson number thirty-five: Homicide shouldn’t be an aphrodisiac.

Alex made a beeline for the parking lot, snapping his shoulder holster back on and
barking into his cell phone. I hurried behind him, jamming my gun into my shoulder
bag, then thinking better of it, and trying to jam it into the waistband of my pants.

Not a lot of room in the back of my pants these days.

“You want me to drop you off on the way?” Alex asked as we crossed the lot.

I narrowed my eyes and he rolled his. “Of course not,” he sighed.

Alex’s SUV had a chic row of cop lights on the dash, which made screaming through
intersections and his pole-position driving completely warranted. He loved it. I loved
keeping my innards on the inside and not flying through windshields, so I was pressing
myself into my seat as far as humanly possible, and praying to the God of Ford that
they weren’t cutting corners on seat belts. But with a murder in front of me and the
city racing beside me, I didn’t have much time to focus on my fear—or my squashed
sex drive.

When we turned into the Pacific Heights neighborhood, Alex slowed and I was able to
dislodge my heart from my throat.

“Hey,” I said, peering out the window. “Doesn’t this area look familiar?”

“It’s Pacific Heights, Lawson. You’ve been here a thousand times.”

“No, I haven’t been here a thousand times,” I said, speaking slowly, eyes still swishing
over the darkened sidewalks. “I’ve only been here . . .” I bit my bottom lip, considering,
“Ummm . . .”

Then it hit me.

“There!” I pointed frantically across the cab, my arm just under Alex’s nose. “Right
there!”

“We’re supposed to go to forty-nine California. That’s thirty-six. It’s not even the
right side of the street.”

“No, that’s where we went when—” My stomach started to quiver. It had been a long
time, and I had, unfortunately, seen my share of crime scenes in the years since.
But, much like with riding a bike or sex, I guessed you never forget your first time.

Alex nodded. “The Collector case.”

I nodded back. “Uh-huh.”

It was the first crime scene I had ever been to, and I couldn’t help but remember
the pristine room, the high ceilings, and the tulips leaning so gracefully over the
cut-glass lip of the vase. I also couldn’t help but recall the woman who’d looked
as though she had just fallen into a light and peaceful slumber, with her golden-blond
hair splayed over the pillow, her pale pink lips pressed together. Under her satin
blankets her chest was torn open, her heart removed.

It was an image I never bothered to strain from my mind, because I knew it was burned
into my subconscious.

I rolled down the window and pressed my head out, gulping in a huge lungful of the
slightly salt-tinged air. I leaned back into the car. “Did they tell you anything
when headquarters called it in?”

Alex chewed his bottom lip and shook his head silently—a sure sign he knew more than
he was letting on.

“Alex? I can handle it.”

Silence.

“I have a gun, you know.”

He gently let his foot off the gas but kept his gaze fixed on the street ahead. “Are
you threatening me with an unloaded gun?”

I sucked a quick breath through my teeth. “Just tell me: is it as bad as last time?”

“Let’s just say property values are about to plunge again.”

“Huh?”

Alex nodded toward the house on the other side of the street, just a few houses past
this one. Police lights were washing the sidewalk in rounds of red and blue as officers
unfurled their yellow crime scene tape and held back curious onlookers. An ambulance
was stationed with back doors open, but no one was inside, and no one seemed to be
moving very quickly.

“I don’t suppose it’s worth asking if you want to stay in the car,” Alex said.

But my eyes were glued to the house.

Yes, I’m a wimp. Yes, I turn into a quivering bowl of jelly when blood—that isn’t
nicely encased in a blood bag—is present. But this was something different. It wasn’t
a fear so much as a deep foreboding. An all-over sense that once I walked into that
house, something would be set in motion and nothing that I knew would seem real anymore.

I licked my lips and put my hand on the car door. “No, it’s not worth asking. Let’s
go.”

Two ashen-faced pup officers ran out of the house as we approached the walk. Both
doubled over in the bushes rimming the house, but only one started to vomit. A chill
started at the base of my neck and went down my spine. I hugged my elbows and hung
close to Alex.

We stepped into the foyer of the residence—it was big and grand, as to be expected
in the neighborhood, but it was empty, a collection of orb-eyed statues staring at
no one. A murmured hum came from a room just to our left and I followed Alex as he
headed straight for it, the heels of my boots click-clacking on the marble floors
and bouncing off the mile-high ceilings.

The dim room was immediately ten degrees hotter than the deserted foyer and crammed
with bodies in flak jackets and weapons belts. A bank of black-and-white televisions
lined one wall nearly floor to ceiling, and a desk ran the entire length underneath,
littered with wired telephones and a complicated-looking control panel.

“What is all this?” I whispered to Alex.

“Panic room, essentially,” he muttered.

Officer Romero was one of the officers crammed in the room and he looked over his
shoulder when he heard my voice. “State of the art.” He waved his hand over the equipment.
“I don’t even think the CIA has this kind of shit yet. Grace, Lawson. Glad you’re
here.”

“Who needs this kind of security?” I asked, trying my best to pick up the home owner’s
identity. “The president? Justin Bieber?”

“Tia Shively.”

Alex and I looked at each other, blank faced.

“Very wealthy. Old money,” Romero said.

“Silver-spoon-in-her-mouth kind of thing?” Alex asked.

“More like golden microchip. Married to Kidson Jobs.”

“The concert promoter?”

“Actually”—Romero shut his notebook—“the former barista. Apparently old Kidson made
Tia’s lattes with a little something extra because she married him six months later.”
Romero shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he just had an enormous dipstick. She swoops
in, marries Kidson—she’s twenty-five, by the way. He’s out of the country and something
trips the house alarm out here.”

Alex gestured toward the monitors. “So is this the crime scene?”

“No.” Romero shook his head. “It’s the crime.”

Officer Romero barked out an order and a space opened up at the desk. Alex and I squeezed
our way in so we had a better vantage point. “That one there is a camera facing over
the back fence.”

Alex nodded and I squinted at the grainy image. I could barely make out gray, oblong
fuzzy patches; I assumed they were juniper bushes.

Romero tapped the screen. “This is a stone wall right here.” He pointed to a short
white block that peeked through the blobs of trees. “Roll it back a few minutes, will
ya, fella?”

The screen dissolved into a series of skips and lines and returned to the same grainy
picture. “This is the crime?” I asked.

“Just wait.” Romero never took his eyes off the screen. “There!”

Another blob. This was so dark it was almost black and moving fast. It popped up over
the fence and tore across the lawn. The juniper blobs seemed to tremble as it whipped
by.

“What was that?” Alex wanted to know.

Romero moved to the next screen. “This is the living room. French doors open up from
the backyard”—he motioned back to the first screen—“into this room.”

“Okay . . .” Alex said.

“Oh my God!” My heart stopped when I saw it. It still wasn’t completely clear.

But I knew exactly what it was.

I started swallowing hard, trying to quell the frenetic thump of my heart.
No,
I told myself,
it couldn’t be
. But even before I could continue on my personal reassurance effort, Romero rewound
the tape again. The black blob bounded backward out of the front doors and across
the lawn, and threw itself over the fence. Romero pulled his sausage-y finger from
the button and the grainy line shot across the screen once more, as did the blob.
I looked down at my shoes.

Alex nudged my shoulder and I looked up, my eyes locking on to his.

“Then there’s this,” Romero continued, completely unaware of my and Alex’s silent
conversation. I held my breath, an anxious flutter rippling through my stomach.

The image on the next screen was a bit easier to make out. It was the living room,
set up with a glowing fireplace, a coffee table as big as my bedroom, and two overstuffed
couches that could sit an entire football team each. A woman was curled up on one
end of the couch, barefoot, with a loose-knit afghan thrown around her torso. Her
expression was blank and if it weren’t for her dark eyes that caught the flickering
reflection from the television screen and blinked occasionally, I would have thought
she was already dead.

It was less than a minute before the woman snapped to attention, sitting up on the
couch. Even on the silent, black-and-white tape, her terror was clearly evident from
the ramrod straightness of her spine, from the way her eyes went from lifeless orbs
to saucer-wide and frighteningly alive. The blob from the other screen broke through
the French doors. The glass seemed to explode more than shatter, the shards of glass
seeming to stop and float on the grainy film.

I licked my lips and implored myself to look away—I knew what was about to happen.
But it was impossible. My eyes felt physically drawn to the picture and I narrowed
my gaze, trying to hide my wince as the blob—now more clearly an animal, hunched on
all fours with shaggy, dark fur that was dotted with glass shavings, leaves, and dirt—tore
across the room and went directly for the woman on the couch.

She reared up, trying to push her small legs against the hulking cushions, but her
speed was no match for the animal. It cleared the couch in a millisecond, was on her
a second later, and before I could let out a breath—or a cry—the woman was his. She
swatted once and he grabbed her arm in his massive paw, giving her a yank that shook
her entire body; she flopped like a rag doll. Her head lolled, long hair flying in
sad, luxurious waves around her, her eyes directly toward the camera as the animal’s
jaws snapped open, then quickly closed around her neck. I watched in terrified horror,
my eyes locked on hers, as the life drained out of them. There was no reflection,
no vision. Her eyes went immediately to cold, hard marbles that gazed, unseeing, into
the eye that had caught her demise.

“It’s a wolf.” I’m not sure if I said it or if Alex did, but either way I felt both
guilty and betrayed. Like I should have said something then, should have somehow apologized
or stopped it, but I was still riveted to the screen.

The wolf dumped what remained of the woman’s lifeless body—clawed and blood covered—and
looked directly into the camera as if he knew we were watching him—as if he knew
I
was watching him. There was no remorse, no wild hunger, no rabid fire in his eyes.
He simply blinked as a droplet of tar-colored blood—her blood—dripped from his razor
teeth onto her rapidly paling forehead. He shifted then and she flopped from the couch
onto the shag carpeting, discarded, destroyed.

The camera cut out then, the image of the staring wolf and the broken woman seared
into my memory forever.

It seemed like an hour passed as we all stood in the room, staring at the bank of
television screens. The temperature seemed to rise with every minute and I felt the
sweat bead above my upper lip, begin to prick at my hairline. My clothes felt immediately
sticky and damp, and Alex swung his head to look at me.

“You okay, Lawson?”

We had been partners—friends—long enough; I knew that he knew what I was thinking.
But I still felt the overwhelming need to hide any indication of my suspicions.

I nodded and opened my mouth, but when I tried to talk, my throat felt stuffed with
sand. Alex put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed gently.

“Is there somewhere we can grab a drink of water?” Alex asked Romero, but kept his
eyes on me.

“Yeah, sure.” Romero stepped back from us. “I can grab you guys something. You’re
going to want it before we take a look at the crime scene . . . and probably to wash
your mouth out with after.” Seemingly unaffected, Romero left the room and Alex and
I were alone.

“So?” Alex’s brows went up into his bangs.

I flopped into one of the big leather executive chairs set in front of the monitors
and swiveled so my back was facing them. “So, what?”

Alex cocked his head, his lips pursed. “Wolf.”

The way he said it, I wasn’t sure if he was asking or telling me. I started at my
thighs, drew a squirrely figure eight on my jeans with my fingernail. “Is that what
you think?” I finally asked him.

I heard Alex sigh. “I thought it, you said it.”

My ears burned.

“Did you recognize it—uh, him?”

I know the question wasn’t meant to be inflammatory, but I was suddenly mad. “No,
I don’t know who that was,” I hissed. “My—
our
werewolves adhere to strict bylaws. You know it’s true, Alex. If not, this wouldn’t
be the first case like this you’ve ever seen.”

Alex crossed his arms in front of his chest. “It isn’t.”

He turned and walked away leaving me sitting in the monitor room, the hum of the TVs
mercifully drowning out any sound in my head.

 

 

Romero led us on a cursory walk of the crime scene. There wasn’t much to see as the
room was in shambles from the attack, but every gauge, every blood-soaked slash brought
me back to the Sutro Point crime scene, to the vacant eyes of those two girls as their
blood pooled in the dirt. The magnitude of the destruction, of the images on the tape
should have prepared me for the body. I steeled myself as we closed in on it, our
bootied feet sinking into the heavy pile carpet, the blood bubbling around my toes.
I knew it would be bad. But until Romero peeled back a few inches of the blood-soaked
cloth covering Tia Shively, I didn’t know how bad.