Adrien English Mysteries: A Dangerous Thing & Fatal Shadows (36 page)

Waiting, I broke out in cold sweat while he sprinted across the open space and ducked behind the Bronco tire.

Silence.

The wind sighed through the cotton willow leaves.

Unlocking the Bronco, Jake slipped inside. I heard the engine roar into life. I saw Jake’s bulk slide past the wheel.

It was now or never. I’d have preferred never, but that wasn’t an option. Hauling ass across the lot, I jumped in and slammed shut the door. My hands were shaking as I threw the gears into reverse and we shot back in a wide arc, just missing the tree with its swing gently swaying in the breeze.

“Easy, easy,” cautioned Jake.

I cranked it into first and we tore out of the yard like the starting moments of NASCAR.

The Bronco’s tires burned up the dirt road; we rattled across the cattle guard, bouncing down hard on every rut and rivulet in the road as we raced for the main highway.

“Shit, I’m getting blood all over your upholstery.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the upholstery!”

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“I know, baby. Keep it together.”

Second Action Figure not included. When I thought I could match Jake’s neutral tone, I said, “Do we call the sheriff when we get to town?”

“Not unless you want to spend the rest of the night answering questions. There’s nothing Billingsly can do tonight. Tomorrow I’ll have a look around. I think one of those bullets hit the porch.”

He gasped in pain as we hit a pothole.

“Sorry. Are you sure you’re not --”

“The bullet nicked the fleshy part of my forearm.” He tried to examine himself in the darkness. “I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt like hell.”

“I am so goddamn sorry, Jake.”

“Knock it off,” he growled. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is. If I hadn’t insisted --”

“Shut up.”

I shut up. Just as well. I had to concentrate on my driving since I was doing seventy on a winding mountain road.

Thirty minutes before I had been so tired I didn’t think I could stay awake long enough to walk to the bedroom. Now I was on an adrenaline rush that felt like it would carry me into next week.

The road snaked through the silent forest as I decelerated into each curve, accelerated out, the tires squealing now and then when I turned the wheel too tightly.

Jake said nothing, his hand clamped over his arm.

I slowed to a sedate sixty as we tore through town, stopping at the twenty-four hour

“doctor in a box.”

We were the only customers past midnight. Jake calmly explained to the nurse behind the counter what had happened while drops of his blood pooled slowly on the Formica. I hovered anxiously.

“Gunshot!” the nurse exclaimed. “We have to report gunshot wounds.”

“Not a problem,” Jake said. “We plan on reporting it.” He pulled out his wallet, but it was his insurance card he was after, not his LAPD ID.

The nurse shepherded Jake off to room number nine, and I dropped down in an orange plastic chair in the empty waiting room, feeling like someone had yanked my plug. Like I couldn’t have moved if my life had depended on it.

A few minutes later I saw a white-coated doctor go into the room and close the door.

* * * * *

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How long did I sit there petrifying in the orange plastic chair? It began to seem like a very long time. Too long. Not only was I the only person in the waiting room, I seemed to be the only person in the clinic.

At last a door opened at the far end of the corridor.

A doctor I hadn’t seen before was walking toward me. He was dressed in surgical scrubs and his face looked weary and grim. It seemed like he was walking in slow motion. My heart began to slug against my breastbone.

I stood up instinctively.

“I’m sorry,” the surgeon said. “We did everything we could.”

I couldn’t believe it. I stood there my heart banging like a battering ram against a drawbridge. My body seemed to turn hot and cold by turns.

“That can’t be right,” I said stupidly.

“I’m sorry.”

“But it was just a flesh wound.”

“Guys like Jake always say it’s a flesh wound.”

“But --”

“He went into shock and we lost him. It happens.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I thought probably I was going into shock too. It all began to seem far away, the hospital corridor receding, the bright overhead lights dimming, swirling away ...

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“Adrien.”

Someone was shaking my shoulder.

I opened my eyes. Jake loomed over me, frowning.

My heart kicked into overdrive.

I croaked out some sound and leaned forward, holding my sides to keep my heart from bursting through my rib cage like the parasite in Alien.

Jake demanded, “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

He began feeling around my shirt pockets. Irritating. I sucked air into my lungs, pushed his hand away and sat up.

“Hey,” Jake said. “Are you okay? Adrien?”

The strange doctor, his bizarre comments -- of course it had been a dream.

“I’m okay,” I managed. My heart was staggering along, punch drunk and swinging wildly, but still in the fight.

“You don’t look okay.” He turned to the reception desk like he was going to summon help.

Under other circumstances the concern in his eyes would have cheered me no end. Now I snapped, “Leave it! I’m fine.”

Jake was alive. His arm was bandaged, a neat cuff of white around his muscular forearm.

Otherwise he looked A-okay. I scrubbed my face with my hands, took another long cautious breath. Everything seemed fully operational, but the dream had been so real that I still felt shocked and disoriented. Grieved.

“Here.”

He reappeared at my side with a paper cup of water from the cooler.

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I got my pills out, popped the cap with my thumb and tossed two back for safety’s sake. I took the cup from Jake. The paper felt squishy, too flimsy to contain the weight of the water

-- kind of how I felt. Like I could tear apart at the slightest pressure.

If something happens to him because of me ...

If something happens to him ...

“You’re sure you’re okay?” The hazel eyes were keen.

“Great,” I said impatiently. “How’s your arm?”

“Kinda stiff. Funny thing. Usually bullets bounce off me.” He smiled a rare smile.

I smiled weakly in response.

In the end we checked into the Motel 6, neither of us up to fending off another firefight that night.

There’s something safe and sane about the generic comforts of a budget motel chain, even when you wind up with the room by the ice machine. One room with one king-sized bed. The walls were decorated with insipid watercolors of villas in the south of France for travelers whose idea of a dream vacation spot was Branson, Missouri. All I cared about was the deadbolt and chain decorating the door.

I slid the deadbolt, hooked the chain, and peered out the peephole. Nary a gunman lurked in the parking lot.

“Cable,” Jake approved, switching on the TV.

I headed for the john. I turned the sink taps on full and proceeded to lose what remained of my expensive dinner. When the dry heaves were over I splashed a couple of gallons of arctic water on my face and brushed my teeth with the toothbrush supplied at no extra charge by the front desk.

Stepping out of the bathroom I found find Jake comfortably sprawled across the bed, propped by pillows, remote control in hand. He was watching The Hunted.

“I’m not going to say I told you so,” he remarked, as I tottered toward the bed.

“I appreciate that,” I said. I lifted my side of the blankets. He was wearing black briefs.

His body looked as hard and sculpted as one of those underwear mannequins in department store displays.

“If it’s any comfort to you, I’d say we’re on the right track. Tonight’s ambush proves it.”

Flopping back on the bed, I moaned with relief. Clean sheets -- short sheets -- but clean.

Jake shoved one of the flat, spongy pillows my way.

“Next vacation I’m going to ... I don’t know ... Brittany,” I informed him. It sounded so removed from reality. White sandy beaches, castles, and tiny fishing villages. Crepes and cider and cathedrals. What could be safer than that? “I don’t think anyone speaks English.

And I don’t think they have guns.”

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“That’s right,” approved Jake. “Why stop at pissing off local law enforcement when you can get the Justice Department involved?”

I balled the pillow behind my head. It was weird lying next to him, feeling the sheets heated by his body. He took up a lot of space. If I stretched out my leg I could run my frigid foot down his hairy calf. I studied his profile.

Considering how long I’d waited for such an opportunity, you’d have thought I’d jump the big man’s bones, but, sad truth, I couldn’t have got it up to save my life.

“TV bother you?”

I shook my head and closed my eyes lulled by the slashing of a thousand swords. One thing I didn’t fear was a ninja attack. Although the way things were going ....

Dozing, I worked Jake’s dour commentary on the movie into my nap. I was vaguely aware when he snapped out the bedside light. I opened my eyes. The TV screen flickered in the darkness with images of gore and, more frighteningly, Christopher Lambert’s slightly crossed gaze.

Jake reached out, patting my face as though he were clumsily brailling me. I mumbled drowsily, and felt him ruffle my hair.

“You’re not going to die in your sleep or anything, are you?”

I slurred, “You’ll be the first to know.”

He laughed and tugged me his way. Extraordinary. And me too exhausted to do more than wonder at the extraordinariness of it. We lay against each other, chest to chest, cock to cock. Yep, it felt pretty comfortable even with my face smooshed in his armpit.

“Now why the hell would he?” Jake commented, his voice rumbling in his chest. He was focused on the movie once more.

Why the hell indeed? I put my arm around him. No objection from Jake. His skin felt smooth, the blonde hair crackled against my skin. He smelled of antiseptic and Jake.

My eyelids felt weighted. Listening to the reassuring thud of his heart, I let my body go slack and fell asleep in the crook of Jake’s arm.

* * * * *

In sleep his face appeared younger, the line of his mouth soft. I studied the white gauze bandage around his muscular forearm. I remembered him telling me big arms and shoulders were a help to a cop; a deterrent to punks and drunks who thought twice about taking on someone who was obviously in great shape, who worked out regularly.

Jake was in great shape, he worked out regularly, but one well-placed bullet last night would have ended his life. I guess until he was the one at risk I hadn’t taken the threat to us 230

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too seriously. Not that I thought I was invulnerable; just the opposite. When you live with a potentially life-threatening condition you get used to the thought of dying. You accept it, you push on. The thing that scared me was the picture of dying slowly and painfully, the loss of independence and identity to illness.

Or so I had thought until last night. Now I realized that I was even more afraid of something happening to Jake. He seemed so tough, so capable, but he was human, he was vulnerable. He could be injured, he could die. Maybe it was naïve that this thought hadn’t struck me until a bullet struck Jake, but there you have it. And all the jokes in the world about being bulletproof didn’t help.

Frowning in his sleep, Jake burrowed his face more comfortably in the pillow. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and reassure myself that he was safe and alive. Instead I edged out of the bed and headed for the shower.

By the time I finished shaving, Jake was sprawled on his back, arms outstretched, taking up 80% of the king-sized bed, being a king-sized guy. I sat down on the edge of the mattress, rolling my socks up.

I started as a warm hand slid down my bare back.

“Morning,” I said, turning to inspect Jake.

“Morning.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Sore.” He smiled faintly, ran his hand down my arm. His fingers encircled my wrist, his thumb stroking my pulse point.

I warned myself not to get too worked up. “What did you do with your prescription? I’ll get it filled for you.”

He tugged my supporting arm and I let myself topple on top of him. He was still smiling, but his eyes were intent.

I tried to think of something clever to say.

His mouth touched mine and it went through my mind that it was his first man-to-man kiss. I seemed to experience that kiss through Jake’s virgin senses: the queerness of a man’s hard jaw, a man’s bare lips, the texture of a man’s smooth shaven cheek, so different from a woman’s soft skin. The taste of a man’s mouth.

It was a tentative kiss, a first kiss. Surprisingly soft, surprisingly sweet.

The second kiss was not tentative, and I did not experience it through Jake’s senses because my own were swimming.

Deep and slow, searching .... His hand cradled the back of my head, drawing me closer, tasting me. I tasted him back. We breathed in gentle unison, filling each other’s lungs with our quiet exhalations.

Coming up for air, I said, “Man!”

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He brushed his knuckles against my cheek. “How long have you been up?”

“Now there’s a leading question.”

His mouth twitched, but he corrected, “Awake.”

I squinted at the radio clock. “About forty-five minutes. The game’s afoot, Watson.”

“Oh, I’m Watson, am I?”

“Well ...” I was hard pressed to be my usual witty self because Jake was tracing my bottom lip with his thumb, something I found distracting. My mouth tingled. How crazy was that?

“How do you like being a detective now, Mr. Holmes?”

Regretfully I shook my head.