Dark Blue (South Island PD Book 1) (38 page)

His gut screamed that Belle was in there and that he needed to get to her. But logically, he knew that she might just as well be in Apartment A, or that the parking location might’ve been a ruse and she could be in another home, or even in another vehicle and on her way off the island.

His gut cramped as he thought on that, and he pushed the possibility aside for the time being. He needed to worry about the scene in front of him.

A flash of movement caught his eye, barely detectable in the darkness. The curtain in the window to the right of the deck had moved.

Police
. The word jumped to the tip of his tongue. Should he call out?

He weighed half a dozen different scenarios in his head. To a stranger, he and Elijah looked like two guys creeping up on doors in the dark. On the other hand, if Belle had a stalker – which now seemed the most likely explanation – that person probably knew exactly who Jackson was.

“Police,” he called.

At that very moment, headlights appeared on the street. A police cruiser stopped beside the sidewalk, a few yards behind Elijah’s vehicle.

Jackson didn’t have any attention to spare for the officer climbing out of the car.

“Police,” he called again, and knocked hard on the door.

Belle couldn’t have kept her eyes open if her life had depended on it. Sound drifted to her from far away, distorted as if she were listening from deep underwater. It felt as if she were floating, but something soft was against her back.

When she tried to focus on the noise, it bled away. Still, there was something familiar about it.

A repetitive banging worsened her headache and made it impossible to focus on what was being said. She could’ve sworn she had a head full of pain and helium.

Something clamped down hard on her shoulder, and the contact tethered her to reality. Opening her eyes halfway, she finally got a look at her surroundings.

White walls cast with the yellow tinge of cheap lighting swam around her, and Zackary’s face loomed in front of her, dominated by his glasses.

The sight of him brought back her anger. When she narrowed her eyes at him, they drifted shut against her will.

Shit
.

The banging grew louder – so loud it seemed to shake everything around them, threatening to bring the walls down.

“Police!” She finally made out a word, which was quickly followed by multiple voices. An argument?

“Come on.” Zackary’s voice drowned out the others, and the pressure on her shoulder increased. “Get up, Belle.”

She floated forward, banging her shoulder on a sharp corner. The pain was unnaturally dull.

Then the world exploded around her in a concussive blast of sound fragments.

* * * * *

The door gave way under Jackson’s shoulder, popping out of its cheap frame. The protests of the on-duty officer who’d arrived on the scene were nothing but meaningless noise.

There were no laws governing what he’d do to protect Belle. Whoever had peeked at them from behind the curtain and then refused to open the door had something to hide, and his gut told him that something was her – the woman he loved.

Nevertheless, the first person he saw when he stumbled into the apartment wasn’t Belle.

Instead, he saw a tall, slender kid with dark hair and glasses. Recognition hit Jackson like a lightning bolt.

“You fuck!” The kid was supposed to be back at Moreno’s, at the party. Jackson had seen him there, giving Belle goofy looks of lust.

It suddenly all made sense – the dildo in the office where the kid worked with her and the intrusion into her home. How easy would it have been for the kid to swipe her keys and make copies without her even noticing?

Jackson moved toward the little shit with vicious intent, his heart pounding like a war drum, preparing his limbs – even his bad leg – to do damage. The kid raised his hands, eyes wide like a deer’s while caught in headlights.

Oh, shit.
The expression on his face was easily readable, and Jackson relished his obvious panic.

And then something else caught his eye. Feinting to the right at the last second, he ignored every bit of his training and turned his back on Belle’s abductor.

Because there she was, slumped against the wall in a dark hallway, her delicate body folded at odd angles as her head lolled forward.

His heart stopped, nearly causing him to crash to the ground, and his mouth went instantly dry. She looked dead – gone. The realization threatened to floor him, but he lurched forward, scrambling to her side.

She wasn’t – couldn’t be – dead. She’d probably been drugged, or knocked out cold with a blow. How else would the scheming college kid have gotten her back here?

She wouldn’t have gone willingly.

Mentally repeating that to himself like a prayer, he slid two fingers over the arch of her neck, feeling for the carotid artery. She was fully dressed and there wasn’t a drop of blood on her – good signs.

He was no doctor, no nurse or EMT. It took him a few seconds to find her pulse, and within those seconds, he lived and died a thousand agonizing times.

Then it jumped beneath his fingers, slower than it should’ve been, but steady.

“Call an ambulance,” he said to whoever might be listening.

When no one answered, he snapped his head around, still keeping his fingers over her pulse point, needing to feel every beat.

Elijah had the snot-nosed college kid on the ground and was pulling a pair of cuffs out of his pocket. As he secured them, the uniformed officer stepped through the battered doorway and into the apartment.

His entire body prickling with angry heat, Jackson raised his voice at the officer. “Willard, call an ambulance! She’s unconscious.”

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Willard raised his radio and requested assistance.

“You gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” Willard asked when he was finished.

Jackson turned back to Belle just in time to see her eyelids flutter.

“Belle!” He only caught a glimpse of her dark eyes, crescent moon slivers of her irises. “I’ve got you, Princess. You’re all right.”

He debated moving her. He had no idea whether she’d been injured, and so he needed to let EMTs do it the right way. But fuck, he wanted to hold her.

He settled for holding her hand as the kid Elijah had cuffed began to babble.

Jackson paid no attention to his words until he caught Belle’s name. Then he looked back at the kid and saw him staring at Belle where she was slumped on the carpet.

“Don’t you fucking say her name!” Jackson ground his teeth.

“Get the hell off of me!” The kid’s voice was shrill. “I didn’t do anything wrong!”

If Jackson hadn’t felt duty-bound to stay by Belle’s side, he would’ve pulverized the kid. Instead, he just sneered.

The death glare had no effect on her abductor. “We came here to hang out! She hit her head! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Elijah kept a knee in the kid’s back, pinning him to the floor.

Belle opened her eyes.

“Jackson?” Her whisper was slurred.

Immediately, he was buried by an avalanche of relief.

“I’ve got you, Princess.” He squeezed her hand.

“Belle!” The kid started screeching. “Belle tell him I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Elijah jerked the kid to his feet and started walking him to the door.

He babbled the whole way, trying to get Belle to pay attention to him as he did an
Exorcist
-style head spin to stare at her.

And then came the sound of sirens.

Jackson breathed deep, holding Belle’s hand even tighter.

* * * * *

Belle woke up feeling as if she had the world’s worst case of the flu. The pounding in her head and ache in her stomach were the first things she noticed; Jackson and Mariah were the second. Lastly, she realized she was in a hospital bed.

The sheets crinkled beneath her, crisp, white and just a little scratchy.

“Thank God!” Mariah leapt up from her green vinyl seat and leaned over the bed to hug Belle. Meanwhile, Jackson squeezed her hand.

Belle’s mouth had a gross cotton-stuffed feel. “What?”

Her stunted question hung in the air, and she tried to will some moisture into her mouth.

Mariah wore jeans and a tank top instead of her scrubs.

“What time is it?” Belle asked. “Are you working?”

“The ass crack of dawn, and no,” Mariah said. “I came after Jackson called me from your phone and told me you were here.”

“Figured you could benefit from having your own private nurse.” Jackson’s voice helped to clear some of the fog from her mind.

“That’s right,” Mariah said, casting a look over her shoulder at Jackson. “
And
you knew I’d make you pay later if you kept me in the dark.”

Mariah smoothed a lock of hair away from Belle’s forehead. “I bet you could use some water, huh?”

“Yes, please.” Gratitude swarmed Belle as Mariah turned and poured water from a plastic pitcher into a Styrofoam cup, added a straw and handed it over.

Jackson drew closer, displacing Mariah as Belle sipped the water.

“You remember anything, Princess?”

She did and she didn’t. An uneasy feeling weighed on her shoulders, and she knew she’d felt like shit at the party and that that sneaking jackass, Zackary, had driven her car.

God, he hadn’t assaulted her, had he?

Her worry must’ve showed on her face.

“You were drugged,” Mariah said. “Thank God Jackson got there before anything worse could happen to you. What’ve I always told you about watching your drink?”

Belle shook her head and tried to concentrate. “I was with co-workers.”

It had to have been the champagne. Zackary had been there and it was after that that she’d started feeling bad.

Jackson squeezed her hand again. “I should’ve been there. Fuck, I’m sorry Belle.”

“You were there.” She remembered him holding her hand and telling her it was all right. Even now, she could remember the relief that’d hit her then, like emotional morphine.

She’d known everything would be all right, and it was.

“I was stupid,” she said, and realized she was going to vomit.

Mariah grabbed a bowl and didn’t bat an eyelash as Belle’s champagne came up, no longer sparkling.

Neither did Jackson. Presumably, they’d both seen far worse at work.

The sound of her being sick attracted a nurse, who swept into the room and ushered Jackson and Mariah aside.

As the RN checked her vitals, Belle asked her when she could go home. She didn’t need to stay in the hospital just because she’d been roofied.

“You’ve been drifting in and out all night,” the nurse said. “This is the most lucid you’ve been – looks like the drug is wearing off. You’re going to feel like you have a bad hangover, probably for a few days. Your vital signs are good, so after the doctor checks you out you should be able to head home as long as you’ve got someone to stay with you for a while.”

“I’ll do it,” Jackson and Mariah answered in unison.

The nurse smiled. “Looks like you’re good on that front – these two will have to fight over who gets to do the honors. My money’s on Mariah.”

“Fat chance,” Jackson said when the nurse was gone. “You can come to my place, Belle, or I’ll come to yours – your choice.”

“Not so fast.” Mariah placed her hands on her hips. “You’re still recovering from a traumatic injury, Jackson. You playing nurse for her would be like the blind leading the blind. How about I come over and look out for you both for the day?”

Jackson frowned, but Belle squeezed his hand. “That sounds good to me. Thanks so much, Mariah.”