After Love (21 page)

“Is that your bitchy neighbor?” Jamie asked, her voice way too loud.

“That's her,” Nick answered in a much lower tone, and hustled Jamie inside before she could ignite a response.

Jamie looked around his house, wandering from room to room. “Nice,” she finally said. “Cozy. And you're not a pig.”

“Thanks…I think.” Nick followed her around, not sure what to do next. He wished he'd vacuumed today, but he didn't really like clutter, so his place was usually pretty orderly. “Why don't I make some coffee?” he suggested.

“I'd rather have another margarita.”

He had some tequila, but the last thing she needed was another alcoholic drink. As much as he hated to pick up dog poop, he hated cleaning up vomit even more. Without answering her, he went to the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. He watched for her to return to the living room, but when she didn't, he got concerned and went to find her.

She was lying on his bed. Her clothes were scattered around the room, and she was on top of his bedspread, totally naked.

“I've missed you,” she said, and patted the pillow next to her.

Nick's body reacted immediately. His dick had never been very smart or particularly sensitive to a woman's emotional condition. Even as his erection pushed for freedom against the confining denim of his jeans, he hesitated.

She was beautiful, all soft skin and delicious curves. His gaze longingly caressed her from the top of her long, silky hair spilling over her shoulders and onto the pillow, down to her full breasts with their pouting pink nipples, along her concave abdomen and tight reddish gold curls, then down the shapely length of her legs to her pink-polished toes. He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his whole life. And if she'd been anyone other than Jamie, he would have considered ignoring his gentlemanly conscience and taking her up on her offer.

But now that he was faced with the opportunity, he knew he couldn't take advantage of her in this condition. He had true feelings for this woman. Yes, he wanted to make love to her. But it was important that she want him because she cared about him, not just because she was tequila-horny.

“I've got to walk Harley. The coffee will be ready when I get back. Okay?”

She moved sensuously, trying to lure him closer. “Hurry,” she breathed huskily.

Nick fled the room. He would definitely be laughed out of the man club if any of his buddies ever found out about this. He whistled for Harley, snapped his leash back on, and left the house.

He was relieved that Gail was inside her place. Her front drapes were open, and he could see her sitting in her living room, watching TV. If he cared about her safety, he would have told her that was a stupid thing for a woman living alone to do. But right now he was more concerned with trying to walk off his hard-on.

Luckily the park was almost empty, so he didn't have to make inane conversation while Harley picked a spot. Nick wavered between staying away from Jamie tonight and giving in to his needs and fucking her brains out. He hadn't had any reservations when their relationship had been well defined as just sexual gratification. Now that they had moved to the next stage—whatever the fuck that was—it was more personal. Emotions were involved…at least, his were.

Holy shit! He couldn't believe he had let it happen. He had fallen in love with Jamie. Being a man who had never believed in love, he had no idea what to do next.

Should he tell her? Would she laugh at him? Would she run away? Would she feel sorry for him? Or did she have genuine feelings for him? He honestly had no clue.

She had said she missed him. But after five margaritas her judgment was questionable. He was cold sober. He had no excuse.

Nick had just walked back into his house when his phone pinged, indicating he'd received a text. He selected the “messages” icon and read the text with a different kind of excitement than he had felt with Jamie earlier.

It was from Veritably, and it said simply:
1548 w 35 st
unit 1
.

He hurried into the bedroom to tell Jamie, but she was sound asleep. As tempting as it was to stare at her naked perfection, he had a job to do. He took a light blanket out of the closet and spread it over her, then jotted a quick note in case she woke up before he got back, explaining that he shouldn't be gone long.

“Harley, you stay here and watch her,” he told the dog, who was torn between his desire to go with his man and his concern for the woman on the bed. Nick figured that since this wasn't going to be a search issue, it would be better to leave Harley here and not risk him getting in the way should things get crazy.

In spite of his good intentions, he couldn't resist dropping a kiss on Jamie's cheek. They would have plenty of time to talk when he got home.

It was a few minutes after eleven when Nick parked in front of a small twelve-unit apartment building. It was split into sections of four units with the number of each attached to its front door. There were no lights on in any of the units in the first section, and he rechecked the text on his phone. “Unit one,” Nick mumbled. He called Bobbi. “You awake?”

“No.” There was the sound of someone fumbling around, then the click of a lamp switch. “Nick?”

“I need a search warrant for a suspected loosie lab. I'll text you the address.”

“I'll meet you there.” There was a moment of silence. “Don't screw this one up.”

“I'm touched by your vote of confidence.” He heard the phone disconnect. After sending her the address, he slid down on the front seat, where he wouldn't be noticed, to wait for the warrant and more warm bodies with badges and guns. He kept watch on the entire strip of apartments to be sure no one exited or entered. After thirty minutes his gaze remained focused, but his mind wandered back to the naked woman in his bed. The image was burned into his brain and was strong enough to make him have to squirm in his seat.

He'd thought he could settle for being a boy toy, and no one was more surprised than he was that sex wasn't always enough. Yes, he wanted her body, but he also wanted her heart.

The loud sound of a metal flashlight tapping briskly on the driver's-side window caused him to jump out of his reverie and almost hit his head on the ceiling panel. Shit! Harley would have warned him.

“You awake?” Bobbi asked sarcastically.

Nick got out of his truck and looked down at his pants. “You got a minute? I need to change my underwear,” he joked. Bobbi's surprise appearance had successfully deflated his penis to an acceptable size.

“Let's do this.”

“It's the end one on the left. I've seen no sign of life in there. Is the manager showing up?”

Bobbi glanced at her watch. “She should be here any minute.”

Nick took his bulletproof vest out of the backseat, buckled it on, and pulled a black windbreaker over it. Bobbi was already suited up and ready to go.

A car pulled into the lot and parked next to their vehicles. An older lady in an oversized velour jogging suit straight from the eighties got out and schlepped her way in house slippers to where they were standing. She held her hand out. “Warrant?”

Bobbi placed it in her open palm.

The manager put on a pair of reading glasses, opened the paper, and scanned it. “Looks good. I see several of these every month, but I can't be too careful, you know.” She handed it back and gave them a key. “Try not to break anything or knock holes in the walls. Lock it up when you're done and leave the key under the mat when you leave. I'm going back to bed.” She shuffled back to her car and drove off just as a military personnel carrier and two police cars, with lights off, pulled up in front of the complex. They parked in random fashion along the street, and immediately ten officers in full gear piled out of the back of the carrier and four more from the patrol cars. Without speaking or making any sound, they split and filtered around the building, surrounding it on all four sides.

Nick pocketed the key. No one would be using that tonight.

He and Bobbi waited in front until hand signals had relayed around the building that everyone was in place. The team leader nodded, and the two largest men leveled the front door with the first swing of their battering ram. Several police officers scrambled over the shattered door.

“Police! Drop your weapons! On the floor now!” The officer spoke in a commanding voice loud enough to carry outside. “They're running,” he shouted. That was followed by the boom of a concussion grenade, commonly called a flashbang because it not only temporarily blinded anyone in the room who looked at it but also deafened and disoriented them. The force was so strong that, even outside, Nick felt the concussion waves radiating out before he regained his momentum and rushed into the building.

The air was filled with smoke, and there was the sound of scrambling feet and the thud of bodies running into each other and the walls in their haste to get out. Then came the staccato sound of an automatic weapon. Something slammed into Nick's chest, knocking him back a couple of steps. He whirled and fired in the direction of the sound and was rewarded by a grunt of pain and a thud as dead weight hit the wood floor.

More gunfire followed until he heard the all-clear shouted from a back room. A round of all-clears echoed through the small apartment until the police were satisfied that there were no more stragglers hiding out.

Nick coughed as the cloud of gunpowder dissipated across the living room and hallway. He realized he was having trouble catching his breath. He looked down and saw a bullet embedded in his Kevlar vest in the middle of his chest. He slid his hand under the vest and winced as his fingers discovered the impact site. His skin didn't feel wet, but it was definitely bruised. In the excitement of the raid, he had barely noticed it, but now that things were settling down, it hurt like hell.

“All clear,” the sergeant yelled from the back of the house.

Bobbi came up behind him. “Everyone okay?”

The sergeant returned to the living room and confirmed with a military response. “Ten-four, ma'am. One perp dead. He was on the toilet. Instead of wiping his ass, he pulled a pistol out from his pants and started firing. There's another perp in the hall with a bullet in his gut and four others in the back bedroom on the floor. We caught them trying to escape out the back. They're all cuffed.”

“Good job, Sergeant,” Bobbi said.

“This went down quick….” Nick hesitated. “It was too easy.” It just didn't feel right to him.

“No vehicles in the front or back. What do you make of it?” the sergeant asked.

“They're probably running a taxi service so no one can identify their vehicles. I'll check the car-rental joints.” Nick headed toward the bedroom and had to step over the legs of the fallen perp who had shot him. The man was bleeding profusely from a hole in his stomach, to which one of the officers was applying pressure to keep the man alive until the paramedics arrived. The man was cuffed, even in his apparent incapacitation.

“Hey, Nick,” a SWAT officer called out as soon as Nick walked into the bedroom.

“Lenny? You still doing this shit?” Nick greeted his old friend. They'd served in the military together but had gone in different directions when they went into law enforcement.

“It's a great job for us adrenaline junkies.” He frowned at Nick. “At least I don't have a bullet in my chest.”

“Yeah, I stopped it before it could hurt someone.”

“You're a real superhero,” Lenny teased. “Where's your cape?”

Nick answered in a loud whisper, “It's a secret. Don't spread it around.” Then he turned to the four prisoners who were sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Hey, fellows, miss your limo ride tonight?”

The four men, all in their twenties, wore faded and torn T-shirts and jeans, not because it was a fashion statement but because they were all poor and desperate. They ducked their heads, trying to avoid eye contact.

“I suspect you know why you got busted tonight?” Nick looked at each one but got no reaction. He hadn't expected one. “We know this isn't your shit, but you should know that before sundown tomorrow, you'll be charged with four counts of murder of college students who used your product.”

One of the kids, the only one with light-colored hair, jerked his head back as if being physically hit when he heard the news of the murder charges.

Nick looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Blondie!”

The kid jumped.

“Let's talk.” Nick walked back down the hall to the front of the apartment while Lenny jerked the kid to his feet and half dragged, half walked him to the kitchen.

“Sit down, Blondie.” Nick pulled out a chair, and Lenny gave the kid a push that landed his ass on the seat.

“I want my lawyer,” the kid whimpered. His voice quivered and Nick knew he had the right pawn.

“Can't do that. What's your name?” Nick sat across from the kid.

His eyes darted around the room, seeking an ally. He repeated, more loudly this time. “I want a lawyer.”

“I'm going to guess you're not a law student…Dickshit. I'll call you that until you decide to tell me your name. You're not under arrest…yet…so you don't need a lawyer.”

“Then let me go, asshole.”

“Can't do that either.” Nick looked pointedly around the room where the crime-scene techs were photographing and wrapping up the chemicals and equipment for transport to the station. “There's a lot of shit here that we have to analyze. That could take months. Which means I can keep you for a while…you know, just to talk. Then, after that, if you want to leave, you can. I just hope you know some guys you can hire for protection.”

Nervously the kid repeated, “Protection? I don't need protection.”

Nick shook his head and shrugged. “You're probably right, Dickshit. No one will be able to keep you alive once your boss finds out we've captured this lab…and that you've been talking.”

The kid's blue eyes widened in horror. “But I'm not talking.”

“That's sort of our word against yours, isn't it? And I can guarantee that within an hour after I drop you off at the jail, your boss is going to get word that you spilled the beans on everyone.”

The kid considered his options for a moment, then stated, “I didn't murder those kids.”

“No one's going to believe you, kid. You see, you've got the deadly chemical on your hands.” Nick was just bluffing because, at this point in the investigation, he couldn't be sure this was the lab that was producing the poisonous loosies. But Dickshit was buying it, so Nick kept going. “Juries don't like kid killers. And your fellow inmates aren't going to treat you very well either.” He paused before adding, “Have you ever had a boyfriend, Dickshit? If not, you might want to get your ass stretched out before you get to prison. I've heard that keeps you from getting all torn up during your initiation.”

The kid's frightened eyes filled with tears. “Carl…my name's Carl.”

“Who hired you?”

Carl looked up like a beaten puppy. “No idea…no names. We just call him Driver. He picks us up downtown in a van…a different one each time…and drops us off at a house or apartment. All the stuff is waiting for us, and we cook until it's all used up.”

“How do you know it's time to go to work?”

“He calls us.”

“Show me.”

Carl tried to reach his back pocket but couldn't with his hands cuffed. One of the crime-scene techs, who was wearing gloves, carefully pulled a small flip phone out of Carl's hip pocket.

Nick put on a pair of gloves, took the phone from the tech, and examined the call log. There weren't any numbers on it, just blocked calls. Maybe the crime lab had a way to get past that. “This looks like a new phone,” Nick commented.

“We get cash and exchange phones every time he picks us up.”

“How about a description?”

“We never see him. There's a black curtain separating the cab from the back, and we're always in the back. The vans always have dark, tinted windows too.”

“What does he sound like?” Nick persisted.

Carl shrugged. “Just normal, dude. No accent, nothing to make me think he's Hispanic or Asian or anything in particular.”

These answers were getting nowhere, and Nick's chest was hurting like a son of a bitch. The sergeant walked back into the room, and Nick stood up. “Let's book these guys. Manufacturing, possession, distribution, trafficking…attempted murder of a police officer…Keep their asses locked up for a few days.”

“Wait…what about me?” Carl asked, his voice high-pitched with panic.

“Sergeant, be sure Carl gets an ocean-view room and VIP service downtown,” Nick said as he and Bobbi headed toward the front door.

“I need protection…fucker.” Carl's screams and pleas followed Nick outside.

Back at his truck, Nick leaned on it and tried to clear his nose without coughing or sneezing, which was too painful.

“So, you think this is the one?” Bobbi asked.

“Yes…maybe…hopefully. At least you can tell the governor that we caught the minions in the act. Should slow down distribution for at least a week.”

Bobbi nodded and walked back toward her car.

“Hey, Nick,” one of the crime-scene techs said as he lugged his toolbox from his van.

Nick glanced at his name tag. “Leroy? Long time, man.”

“Yeah. So what's the deal? Want anything special?”

“Do your usual. Make sure to swab all the dirty dishes and glasses in the sink. And be sure and swab the cooks before they get their free, all-inclusive trip downtown.”

“Got it. Nice souvenir.” Leo stared at the bullet buried in Nick's vest, then took out a pair of tweezers and a small paper bag. “I need that…for evidence.”

“Help yourself.”

Leo leaned closer and carefully plucked the bullet out of its Kevlar bed. He dropped it in the bag and rolled it shut.

“Can you put a rush on all this?” Nick asked. “I know you hear that from everyone, but we're right on this bastard's heels, and I don't want to lose the momentum.”

“I'll try,” Leo promised, and returned the tweezers to his kit and tucked the bag in an outside pocket.

Nick knew that was the best he could hope for. “Thanks. Take good care of my bullet. It's my first.”

“Never been shot before?”

“Some shrapnel in 'Stan, but nothing on the job,” Nick answered. He opened his door and started to get in, then remembered the key in his pocket. He pulled it out, walked back to the apartment, which was now bustling with activity, and slipped the key under the mat. “Someone's not getting their deposit back,” he said with a satisfied chuckle. They might not have caught the big cheese tonight, but they had certainly punched a hole in his organization. And one of those cooks might let something slip.