Naked Truth (Crimson Romance) (21 page)

“Turn off the lights!” Jerry called,

The person in the SUV must have had the window rolled down, because a moment later, the lights went dark.

“I have the necklace,” Jerry shouted. “And I have Shannon. If you want them, you need to give me my money!”

Kennedy leaned out from behind the dumpster and watched as her captor—Marie, Jerry said was her name—slowly climbed out of the SUV. She held a bulky, five-by-seven inch manila envelope in one hand, and she wore the silver rain slicker, which Kennedy was certain still had a knife tucked into the pocket. Jerry, however, had a gun, which in the real world trumped the knife unless he made the mistake of letting the wielder get too close.

Marie took a few tentative steps away from the SUV. It rumbled quietly behind her. She had not turned off the engine, which meant she intended to make a fast getaway.

“Jerry,” Kennedy hissed. “Don’t do this. She’ll kill us both.”

“Shut the hell up or I’ll put the gag back on,” he snapped in a harsh whisper. More loudly, he called out, “Throw it down on the ground.”

He grabbed her arm and stepped into view, dragging her along with him. She gave a cry when he tugged on her aching shoulder.

“As far as you can toss it,” he added.

Marie did as he asked, and then stood there, not moving, as Jerry inched closer to the envelope with Kennedy trailing behind him. He snatched up the sopping-wet package and started to straighten just as someone shouted, “Freeze!”

“Son of a bitch,” she heard someone growl from off to her left, near the gas station building. She recognized that voice. She knew without a doubt that it was Jack.

He was here!

After that, everything happened at the same time.

“My necklace!” Marie screeched and lunged at Jerry and Kennedy, the long, thin knife in her hand.

Jerry dropped the gun and ran, leaving Kennedy standing in the line of attack. She heard someone shout, “No!” as Marie came at her with the knife held high.

But she did not slash it down at Kennedy. She pulled back at the last minute and grabbed Kennedy instead, patting her body, looking for something.

“Where is it?” she demanded.

She must be talking about the necklace. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Where is it?” Marie cried out, asking the parking lot in general.

“I have it,” Jack said, and suddenly he stepped out of the shadows and into a pool of yellow light cast by a nearby lamppost. His blond hair was plastered to his forehead, his dark blue, FBI rain slicker was soaked through, and the look in his eyes was intense. He lifted his arm in the air, and Kennedy could just make out the thin chain dangling from his fingers.

“Shannon’s necklace,” Marie breathed, her eyes glued to the object. Her reverence lasted barely a moment, however, before she grabbed Kennedy and whirled her around to face Jack. Marie wrapped one arm around Kennedy’s chest and held the knife in front of her. Kennedy saw the fear skitter across Jack’s face. Was it fear for her safety as an innocent victim—just as he would fear for any stranger who happened to be in the same situation—or because he cared?

“Let her go, Marie,” Jack said, his voice shaking just a little. “She has nothing to do with this. This is between you and me.”

“She has everything to do with this,” Marie shouted as she gave her a shake. “She’s a married woman whoring herself out to a stripper!”

Jack shook his head. “You know I’m not a stripper, Marie. I’m FBI. I was undercover, trying to figure out who was killing the other strippers.”

“You figured it out?”

“Yeah,” Jack said with a nod. “And I think I know why, too. He used you, didn’t he? You thought he loved you, but he was just looking for a good time. And then when you ended up pregnant, he turned his back on you, didn’t he?”

Kennedy could feel the woman shaking behind her. What was Jack talking about? How did he know all this? Was it true?

“And then you thought Shannon was making the same mistake, with Danny. History repeating itself, especially when she told you she was pregnant.”

Kennedy heard the sharp intake of breath behind her. Jack seemed to be inching closer, but she wasn’t sure if Marie noticed since she wasn’t adjusting her stance at all.

“But it was different with Shannon and Danny,” he continued, his voice pitched low, soothing. “He really did love her. He was heartbroken when she died. He wanted to marry her, to raise their baby together. He even told her he’d give up the stripper lifestyle for her. Did you know that, Marie?”

“No,” Marie whispered, the word torn from her as if it physically hurt.

“You could have been a grandmother. And your son-in-law would have been someone you could be proud of. He wasn’t your lover, Marie. He was different. We aren’t all the same.”

Another “No,” this one barely audible.

“Most of us are like Danny. We care. We love. We want to make a go at it. We aren’t just in it for a good time.”

Was it her imagination, or was Jack staring at her as he said those words?

“Stop,” Marie whimpered.

“Let her go,” Jack encouraged. “Don’t do to her what happened to Shannon. Let her have the chance to make it right.”

“Shannon,” Marie whimpered, her voice full of tears.

Jack reached out his arm. The necklace hung from his fingers, swaying gently. He was almost close enough that Kennedy could touch him. She held her breath.

“Here’s her necklace, Marie. For you.”

“Shannon.” Marie was openly crying now. “Shannon. My baby.” She released Kennedy and reached for the necklace. As she wrapped her hand around the chain, Jack reached for her.

“No!” she shouted, and she jerked the necklace as she slashed out with the knife.

“Jack!” Kennedy screamed as he tried to dodge the swing. He turned to the side and lifted his arm to deflect the blow, and the razor-sharp knife sliced through flesh and tendon, to the bone.

“Jack!” Kennedy slammed her shoulder into Marie before dropping to the ground next to where Jack collapsed. She was vaguely aware of a swarm of activity happening all around her, but her focus was on him and the blood pouring from his arm. She grabbed the hem of her shirt, intending to pull it over her head so she could use it as a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood.

Jack blinked at her through hazy eyes. “Are you stripping for me?” he asked, his speech slurred.

“I’m saving your life,” she snapped back, just before a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She looked up and saw Cullen standing there, offering her a towel.

“How about using this instead? There’s a paramedic less than four minutes away. Can you keep him with us until they arrive?”

“Yes,” she said with grim determination in her voice, and she set about doing just that.

Unfortunately, Marie’s knife had sliced through Jack’s shooting arm. He was going to need a great deal of physical therapy before he would be allowed to resume his duties as a field agent. The thought of parking his ass behind a desk for the next few months would have pissed him off royally if the pain drugs he’d been given hadn’t been so damn strong.

For a week after the incident, he pretty much lay sprawled on the couch in his living room, watching mindless television and allowing his various friends and family to take care of him. Sabrina, his mother, his sister, even Cullen’s sister and sister-in-law stopped by on a rotating basis to make sure he was fed, bathed, and not in too much pain.

Cullen kept him apprised of the case’s resolution—Marie was locked up in a mental institution, and Danny hadn’t missed a beat, resuming his show in Biloxi, although, according to Cullen, he was keeping time with one of the bartenders from the club hosting the show in that city. Danny had even extended the show for an additional week because of it.

Marie confessed to killing Shannon’s birth father, Shannon, and the dancers in Danny’s revue. They fully expected her to be deemed unfit to stand trial, but Jack was fine with that, so long as she remained locked up and kept away from the general public for the rest of her life.

Vanessa’s husband showed up the day after Jack was shot, and much to everyone’s surprise—and relief—he demanded that his wife come home with him. As it turned out, the mysterious other woman in his life was actually just him, planning a surprise birthday trip to Milan, for he and Vanessa.

“He said he could never keep anything from her,” Cullen explained. “That’s why he was keeping his distance. He thought for sure Vanessa would figure out what he was planning.”

“Did she feel like an idiot for believing he was cheating on her?” Jack wondered.

Cullen shook his head in exasperation. “All I know is she told us not to bother them for a few hours, and then she dragged him back to the guest room. That was the point at which I took the coward’s way out and claimed I had to come over to take care of you.”

Through the haze of pain and between visitors, Jack couldn’t get Kennedy out of his head. Cullen and even Sabrina urged him to call her, but he didn’t. He was still too fucked up in the head, and if he couldn’t even figure out how to handle this … thing between them, how could he expect her to?

It was hard, though. He hated sleeping alone, hated not talking to her, and was even coming to hate his own home. It wasn’t nearly as cozy, as comfortable, as Kennedy’s. No one else’s food tasted as good as the meals he’d shared with her. He wanted her to be the one to change his bandages, help him bathe. It was damned embarrassing to ask for help from anyone else, but he had a feeling he’d thoroughly enjoy it if Kennedy bathed him.

Except every time he was ready to give in and call, he couldn’t get around Jerry, and the fact that Kennedy and Jerry were still married. Why had she handled the divorce—or lack thereof—the way she had? Why had she told everyone he’d cheated on her, when Jerry insisted he hadn’t?

Assuming she was even willing to give a relationship with him a chance, how could they make it work? He had no history with commitment, and a major hang up about married women. She had been burned badly, and then had lied about the circumstances. They were two clearly broken individuals with some serious cards stacked against them.

By the end of the week, he decided that his partner had been right, and Jack didn’t give a rat’s ass about that other bullshit, because when it came down to it, what was in their hearts was really what mattered. He loved Kennedy, and if she loved him back, well, they could figure out all the other crap. Somehow, some way, they would make it work.

This wasn’t a revelation he wanted to share over the phone, though, so he had to wait until he was cleared to drive, so that he could talk to her in person. Unfortunately, his doctor was being stingy with those orders. Jack was at the point where he was willing to call his partner, to endure the teasing, if Cullen would only give him a lift to Kennedy’s house. Hopefully he would only need a ride there, and then Cullen could take off. If luck was on his side and Kennedy felt the same way, he planned to just stay with her until he was released to go back to work.

Hell, if all went well, he intended to stay with her for the rest of his damn life.

Lucky for him, he didn’t have to call his partner and potentially embarrass himself, because Kennedy came to him.

• • •

For a week, she stayed away from Jack. She had a few things of her own to get into order. Such as contacting her lawyer to find out what were the necessary steps to ensure her divorce was finalized as soon as possible. Kennedy did not want to wait any longer than absolutely necessary to be officially free of Jerry.

She also assumed Jack needed a little space. The wound he’d gotten in the line of duty—trying to protect her—had been serious. If she had not reacted so instantaneously to stem the flow of blood, he very well might have died. The thought kept her up at night, and when she did fall asleep, it caused terrible nightmares that had her waking, shouting his name.

And truthfully, she was a little afraid. Afraid that he wouldn’t see her in the first place. Afraid that the fact she was still married to Jerry would deter him from acknowledging what Kennedy felt: that they should be together.

After a week, though, she could take no more. She had to know. And she still had to tell him her version of the events surrounding her lack of divorce.

So she stood on the front porch of Jack’s house on a sunny Friday afternoon, smoothing the front of her peach-colored sundress as she waited for him to answer the doorbell. She heard a shouted, “Come in,” and she twisted the knob and stepped into the cool, dim interior of Jack’s home.

He was sprawled on the couch, his arm bandaged to his side to keep movement to a minimum while the tendons, muscles, and skin healed. The second injury had been to the same arm as the first, which Kennedy figured was a good thing, if only to allow him uninhibited movement of at least one appendage.

He had a bottle of beer in the hand attached to his uninjured arm, with the television remote in the other. His chest was bare, save for the bandage, and he wore a pair of black running pants. His hair was uncombed; his face covered with a week’s worth of stubble.

Her insides warmed with affection and attraction.

He looked up and blinked in surprise. “Hey,” he said.

She stepped tentatively into the room. “Did you know the New Orleans Regional Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation made a hefty donation to the children’s wing of the hospital where I work?” she asked by way of greeting.

He shrugged.

“You made a lot of tips,” she said, guessing that was where the donation came from. Yet another item to add to the seemingly never-ending list of reasons she did not want to let this man go.

“Trust me, I’m happier as an agent. That lifestyle’s not for me.” He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig.

“Should you be drinking?” she asked, instead of the hundred other things she wanted to say.

Jack looked down at the bottle in his hand. “You tell me. You’re the nurse.”

“It depends on the pain medicine,” she said. “What it is and how much you’re taking.”

“I’m not taking any right now. It made me feel loopy. I don’t like not being in control.”