An Eye for Danger (9 page)

"Sam?" I knew I couldn't jump fast enough to catch him should he pass out, and I was growing less inclined to bother.

Finally, he grunted and jerked the towel from my hand. Relief settled my muscles. Strange how his name slipped over my tongue so easily now. The first time I'd called his name I'd been desperate, my leg collapsing under his weight. This time I'd spoken his name with familiarity. Sympathy even.

With a
zip
, Sam drew the curtain back, his fingers clawing the wall for traction he couldn't gain, his mouth gaping like a fish on land.

"Every breath is a real wallop," he said, leaning into my hold as I helped him over the tub ledge.

His matted hair and flattened beard dripped with water onto the floor, creating another slip hazard. The towel was wrapped around his waist, but he'd not bothered to dry himself. Or wasn't capable.

He resumed his seat on the throne, dripping and panting like a spent dog. And shaking. That was new. He couldn't afford to catch a cold with these broken ribs, so I grabbed another towel and set to rubbing his head. Leaning into my hold, he swayed with my pressure. Warm fingers slipped onto my arm, catching me off guard.

"Stop," he whispered.

"Too rough? Sorry, I'm used to Max."

His brassy hair danced in all directions, his bloodshot eyes straining to look up at me. "He can't know I'm here. No one can know."

I bit my lip.
Shit.
"You're not really a cop, are you? Cops don't take hostages."

"What, you learn that on Law and Order?" His grin was smug. Too smug.

"Fine." I tossed the wadded towel in his gut and spun on my heel. "Let's find out."

"Ah, Christ. Jules, wait." But I was already out the door, beyond his reach.

"I'll call Detective McCarthy," I yelled. "He'll confirm who you are. Or who you're not."

I picked up the kitchen phone. If Sam wasn't who he claimed to be, I'd grab his weapon, run out the door, dial 911. From the table his gun cloyed at me. Instead, I opened the knife drawer and rifled through the contents with enough clatter to telegraph my intentions.

"Just listen to me, damn it." Then a
crash, clang, spin, plop
and Sam swearing to God.

In a flash I stood in the bathroom doorway, expecting a prone body. Sam clung to the sink with cotton balls, Q-tips, and empty metal containers scattered at his toes. He shrugged like a little boy.

"Nice coveralls, by the way," he said. "CSU must've run out of NYPD gear. I'll get you an official T-shirt later to remember me by."

I held up the phone. One step backwards got my impatience across.

"Okay, okay." He shook his head. "Look, I'm on assignment. Undercover."

"No ID, no badge. That's convenient."

"No clothes either. C'mon, I'm at your mercy." He waved me into the room.

"And no gun. I could run. Right now."

He stilted a laugh. "Lady, you coulda run an hour ago."

Goddamnit.
I punched 91—

"Stop." He cringed as my finger targeted the final button. "Look, I'm not making fun of you. Okay, maybe a little. You just take yourself so damn seriously."

The phone hovered at my ear, my thumb over the final digit. "Spill it. The whole truth. Right now."

"Christ." His jaw sandwiched tight. "The truth is this morning—this whole fucking mess—blew two years' undercover work. You're not supposed to know. Not who I am, not what I do. No one can know. Can't even call in, I'm so deep in shit. But here we are, holed up like one happy little family. Figure I don't talk, you might get crazy. Call that prick, Ray. Or stab me with a knife. So now I gotta break cover. Just to make you feel a little more in control."

All his talking made him clench his side, and he leaned back to get more air.

"I could have betrayed you," I said softly. By now the phone hung limp at my side.

"If you say so." He started to smile, but thought better of it when he saw my eyes narrowing. "Look, I need a safe house, Jules. Someplace they won't expect. You're it."

"Now I'm 'Jules' not 'lady.'"

"Jules has a better ring to it. Matches those doe eyes of yours." His grin was unapologetic now.

"Thought it matched my quick temper."

"Double duty."

"I'll have to return McCarthy's call eventually." That wiped the humor off his face.

"He can't know. He's The Prick." Sam's brows clenched. "Why's he calling you anyway? You gave him the coat and a statement."

"And a full description: five-ten, two-twenty, hazel green eyes."

"Hey, five-eleven and three-quarters. One-ninety." When my eyes scrolled his flank, he added, "Okay, one-ninety-nine. But it's just beer weight." He slapped his belly. And winced.

"Gave a sketch artist your mug, too, but you looked pretty shaggy on paper."

Sam dropped his head back and mouthed 'fuck' to the ceiling.

"And they took prints off my cards, so they'll know you were the kidnapper."

"Nope." He tickled the air with his fingertips. "Not in their database. Ironic, huh? You worked pretty hard to play cool. Said to myself, 'Now here's a smart lady. She'll keep you safe, Sam. That's what you need. Someone safe.'" With his last word he let out a sigh, and I squirmed at his words.

"Thought you abducted me because I was a sucker. For my dog." This time the lines creasing his forehead told me he was more hurt than amused with the quip. "And The Prick told me his name was Stone, not Ray."

"Good old McCarthy." Sam closed his eyes as he strained not to laugh, which made his voice rise an octave. "Who names their kid 'Stone'?" He coughed, and I tensed just watching him fight the urge to choke out a lung. Finally, his lungs settled and he continued. "We call him Ray at the station. On account of his pop, Captain Ray McCarthy. You don't believe me, look him up. Old man's a shadow over junior. No, Stone's no ray of sunshine, not in that precinct. Not when you mention dad." He rolled his head toward me. "Go ahead, call The Prick. Or he'll come sniffing around. That's worse. But keep it short or he'll drill you. If he suspects, we're done for."

At least Sam's take on Stone rang true, considering the detective's parting words: "Thank you for your statement. And please, don't leave town, Miss Larson." He'd spoken to me not like a victim but a suspect. I resented being played like that.

When I looked up from my thoughts, Sam smiled at me. "Look, I trust you, Jules. Don't really gotta choice. You do. You want out, you tell me now. Seem like a nice lady. I feel bad already." He took up my wrist, lightly this time. "I mean it, Jules. What I did in the park," he said, shaking his head. "You didn't deserve that. That was wrong. I could lose my badge."

Resting my hip against the sink, I picked the frayed cuticle on my thumb. Giving me an out would've felt like a miracle this morning, but now it felt like a character flaw, like I couldn't complete an assignment. Like I wasn't worthy of the mission.

I dropped my thumb. "You said we're done for. I don't see why I'm in trouble."

"Remember my buddy? You think he's satisfied now I'm MIA? He's got hooks everywhere. Any leak could lead him here. And The Prick ain't got your back, believe me. Stone's got one priority: Stone."

"I don't understand how my calling the detective alerts the bad guy."

"Can't answer that." He pinched the bridge between his eyes as I stepped closer. "Move on, Jules."

Frustrated, I gathered his rancid clothes to toss them, wishing I could throw him out, too.

"Nope," he said. "Can't wash those. Need 'em ripe, like I've been hiding. Live among rats, you gotta smell like one. Bad guys don't like clean. Smells like cop to them."

I shuddered. Four ibuprofens and two cocktails—he must be high to consider ever wearing these clothes again. "They smell like a campfire. Cops don't torch buildings. Not even undercover cops. At least not on TV." I smirked, assuming he'd throw another 'nope' my way.

To my surprise he just stared at me, long and quiet, his eyes a well of information he'd never share. Finally, he spoke. "How safe you wanna be? Know more, risk more."

I swallowed the knot plugging my throat. The old journalist Jules wanted to consume every gruesome detail. But the new landscape photographer Jules clung to her peaceful life with Max, a life without corpses or cops, without men snooping through her life or home. Or investigating her history. That version of me had risked enough for one day.

The timbre of Sam's voice halted my feet when I turned for the door. "I didn't kill him, Jules. That's what you really needed to know."

***

The last of the pink suds circled the drain, the last of the blood washed from Max's paws. At 60 pounds, my mutt just fit my double-wide kitchen sink for a bath under the hand sprayer. I lifted out his wiggling body and gave him the same rough-dry with a towel as I'd given Sam before sending him scampering across the linoleum. He stopped and shook violently, spraying me with water, which made me laugh out loud. Max always found a way to make me smile. A hailstorm of bullets could hit, but one head tilt from Max with those crooked ears and my heart was full of rainbows again.

Unfortunately, the sweaty, smoky stench of Sam's escapades still stuck to my skin, while the police station cocktail of human degradation—the tramps and street thugs and muggers and homeless drunks—cleaved to my coveralls and hair. Then there was the blood. Under caked mud that made my skin feel tight, a dead man clung to my skin. Tony's twisted arm reaching out for me was yet another image among hundreds of corpses I fought daily to stop replaying in my mind. Like the accident. The fumes. The flames.

Dizziness threw me sideways. I stumbled, grabbed the edge of the counter till my head stilled. I hated feeling this flimsy.
Breathe, damn it
.

Below me, in the recycling bin, I spotted a slip of paper. My prescription from last month's wisdom teeth extraction, a cross-town journey I'd braved thanks to Howard escorting me by taxi. The doctor's rock-star signature blurred above next week's expiration date. Filling the prescription was obvious, now that I had good reason. Whether I should give the pills to Sam or use them myself, however, was still in question.

When I entered to the bathroom, I startled.

"Better, yeah?" Sam posed in the mirror, my fat pink robe curled at his shoulders, the sleeves reaching only halfway down his arm. No cop should look this adorable.

With a washcloth he wiped lumps of pink shaving foam off his smooth neck and cheeks. My razor floated in a sink of muddled water, beard hair clinging to the porcelain rim. I spotted my toothbrush on the shelf, sitting in a hairy puddle next to the medical shears that had cut his beard and hair, which accounted for the brassy locks sprinkled on my white-tile floor.

"Haven't seen this face in a year," he said, staring at himself. His brow and nose were tanner than his round jaw now that it was hairless, and his teeth gleamed whiter against flushed, full lips unhidden by the mustache. He pulled at his glossy chin and smile lines spread up his cheeks like double parentheses, making him look ten years younger than the thug I'd met hours ago. He'd definitely needed the beard; that boy-scout face would get anyone pummeled in his bar-brawling world.

"You can barely walk, but you're grooming yourself," I said. "Smart. And you owe me a toothbrush."

"Sooner I change appearance..." He smoothed back his wet brown hair and winked, like we'd known each other for years. Then his smile dropped and he turned to me. "You've been crying."

Sam slid closer, so close I could see the stubble he'd missed on his chin, the razor nick on his throat now crusting with blood, the dew on his chest hair. Those vivid green eyes investigated me in turn—my pink nose, my red eyes. Evidence of my fallout while washing Max.

"We should sterilize that burn," I said, ducking under his arm.

From the medical kit, I gathered ointment and swabs. I wasn't very good at taking care of people, especially when I could hardly take care of myself, but even an idiot could handle a cleanup job.

When I reached for his oozing arm, I dropped the first swab to the floor. "Shit."

Sam sat silently on the toilet lid as I prepped another swab. My fingers felt fat, stiff, numb, the way they always did after an adrenaline cocktail wore off and the insulin started pouring in. I opened and closed my fists to encourage blood flow. And still I fumbled the ointment. Looking down, I noticed my hands shaking. Not just my hands, but my whole body jittered.

"First shock, then panic," he said, cool and calm, his eyes fixed on my hands. "The fight or flight response. But once the adrenaline wears off, a wall hits."

With effort, I prepped a third swab. A desperate need pressed me to finish this.

"Jules. You need to attend to yourself now." He held my arm when I persisted with the swab. "Stop it. You need to lie down."

"Screw you." My lips were quivering, my stomach sour with insulin and coffee and a breakfast of panic. I'd been here a hundred times before, but he didn't need to rub my face in the fact that I was unraveling.

"Jules, I'm sor—"

"Don't." I ripped my arm away from him. An eternity of apologies couldn't appease me. "Don't ever. Not that word."

CHAPTER 7

The bell on the pharmacy counter jolted George out of his concentration, and he pushed pills back into their plastic container. White bags marked with the Ramsey Pharmacy's inky logo covered his work island, a hospital-style desk his wife had donated to his business.

"Haven't seen you in months," said George, offering a toothsome smile and a spindly hand dotted with liver spots. I took his hand and smiled, hoping to keep his gray eyes off the liquor bottles in my grocery bag on the floor.

"For a guy who retired, looks like work is keeping you out of trouble. I'm surprised you're not relaxing on a Maui beach with the wife." When not playing emergency room doctor at Roosevelt Hospital, George's wife ran the nearby medical clinic. "I wonder what she has to say about skipping another vacation."

"Not a word. Just driving her new Mercedes with a smile and singing my praises. Thirty-five years of marriage is a lot to celebrate. And damn expensive. Maui would've been much cheaper."