Delta Stevens 1: Taken by Storm (2 page)

“Okay, I guess. I’m starting to feel a little lonely. Nights are forever when you sleep alone.”

“Has Sandy tried calling?”

Delta looked out the window at a couple of women crossing the street. Even hearing Sandy’s name stung her heart. “She wanted to go to dinner to talk about buying me out of the house.”

“Did you tell her to go to hell?”

“No. I said that I didn’t want to see her yet. God, Miles, the most frustrating thing is that she’s gone on merrily with her life and I’m still picking up the pieces.”

Gently turning Delta so she was facing him, Miles smiled warmly into her face. “Your problem is that you’re trying to do it all on your own. When’s the last time you’ve gone out? I mean really gone out?”

“You mean, on a date?”

Miles nodded.

“That last blind disaster.”

Both of them chuckled at the horror story behind her less-thanmemorable blind date.

“That was almost two months ago. Don’t you think it’s time you spread out a bit? You’re a good-looking woman. How do you expect to get any interest when you stay cloistered away at home or stuck here in a patrol unit?”

Delta painfully remembered returning home because of a stomach flu, and finding her lover in bed with her best friend. Work suddenly became the only real stability in her life; work and Miles. Instantly, all of her friends became suspect, as she discovered who had known about the affair, who took Sandy’s side, and who had, in fact, help cover it up. One-by-one, Delta crossed names off her social calendar until only a small handful remained; of those, three were cops. That left her little by way of a social group outside of her department.

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll start sleeping nights, if you join the land of the living once more and go out. Deal?” Looking deeply into Miles’s twinkling eyes, Delta smiled. He was

as close to her as any man could ever be.

“It’s a deal. Now can we go catch us some crooks?”

Miles turned the radio up. “Let’s do it.”

Music pounding mercilessly at her temples, Delta glanced at the beer bottle clock on the wall for the tenth time in as many minutes. With smoke clinging to her hair and clothes, stinging her eyes and drifting up her nose, it wasn’t hard for her to remember why she didn’t visit bars very often. Delta did love to dance and enjoyed being around so many different and beautiful women, but the stale smell of smoke combined with music meant to bust eardrums made her think twice about going out.

“Long time no see, gorgeous.”

Cocking her head and looking over her shoulder at the stool behind her, Delta’s mouth came to a grin. “Hey there.” Eyes scanning the lengthy blonde from head-to-toe, Delta’s smile widened. Maybe she could find something worth suffering through the smoky haze.

“I heard about you and Sandy. I’m sorry.”

Turning to fully face the blonde, Delta averted her eyes from the long cleavage beckoning her. It had been so long.

“I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” Delta offered as nonchalantly as she could. She hated these awkward moments of condolence. They made her feel puny.

“Maybe not, but with your best friend? That’s harsh.” The blonde flipped her hair over her shoulder and scooted closer to Delta. “Are you . . . seeing anyone now?”

Delta sipped her diet soda and smiled over the bubbles jumping out of her glass. The green eyes flirted dangerously with her, and Delta felt a tiny spark anxiously trying to light up.

God, it had been so long.

“Not at the moment.”

The woman reached over and gently touched Delta’s knee. “Well, if you ever don’t feel like being alone, you have my number.”

Delta gulped down her soda as the woman swiveled off the stool and sauntered back to the crowded table from whence she came. Glancing slowly around the bar, Delta knew that this wasn’t where she wanted to be.

Moving over to the doorway, Delta exchanged pleasantries with a bouncer she had known in college before zipping up her jacket and starting out the door. Almost before her foot hit the pavement, she withdrew it and backed quickly into the darkened doorway.

“Whatsamatter?” the bouncer queried, moving her large frame off the stool.

Delta held out her hand to stop her. “It’s nothing. Just a guy I think I know.” Peering out from the cover of the darkness, Delta spied Miles across the street, surreptitiously leaving a hooker hotel called the Red Carpet Inn.

“What in the hell?” Delta muttered under her breath. Miles seldom came to this part of the city. What was he doing creeping around a dive like the Red Carpet?

“Anything I can do?” the bouncer asked, leaning against the stool.

Delta shook her head and started out the door. “No thanks.” Stepping off the curb, Delta avoided a cab before jogging across the street. Her mind burned with questions. What was going on? The hotel was a rat-infested, bum inhabited dive. The windows were cracked, the shades were yellowed from smoke and age, and the place hadn’t been repainted in years. How it remained uncondemned, she did not know.

She also did not know why her partner was leaving such an establishment at one o’clock in the morning.

Sliding to the corner, Delta peered around it just in time to see Miles cutting across another alley. Instinctively, she reached down and caressed the 9 millimeter strapped to her calf.

Stepping around the corner, Delta came to an abrupt halt. “What am I doing?” Leaning against the old brick wall, Delta released a guilt-ridden sigh. What in the world did she think she was doing? Chasing after her partner on his off hours was the lowest possible act of mistrust. Whatever he was doing, it was his business. Besides, she told herself, maybe it was just a guy who looked like Miles. Maybe Miles had a moonlighting job at the hotel. Maybe . . .

Sighing again, Delta turned toward the parking lot of the bar. Whatever Miles was up to, it was on his time and thus, none of her business.

At least, she figured, not yet.

Opening her locker, Delta stared at the two green eyes looking back at her from the mirror hanging crookedly on the inside of her locker door. She had bar eyes; the kind that said a case of Visine wouldn’t help. The bloodshot veins were roadmaps weaving around and behind her deep emerald eyes. Delta thought of the many people she’d busted who had eyes just like these. Tilting her head back, Delta released a stream of drops from the bottle. They felt like acid as they splashed into her eyes and then ran down the side of her face.

“One of those nights, eh?”

Looking out the corner of her eye and immediately regretting doing so, because of the intense stinging, Delta nodded to the short Mexican woman standing next to her. Delta’s five-nine frame towered over the diminutive Latino known formally as Consuella Dolores Maria Rivera; or, as everyone knew her, Connie.

“Tried to work on my social life last night,” Delta said, closing her eyes and returning her head to the tilted position.

“Good for you. Any luck?”

“Nope.” Sitting on the locker room bench, Delta opened her eyes and blinked a few times to rid them of the fuzziness surrounding them. “I don’t think I’m into it yet.”

Connie sat next to her on the bench and smiled. Even in the dull light of the room, her perfect rows of white teeth :gleamed. Connie was one of the many Latinos employed by the River Valley Police Department, but her credentials were just as important as her origin. Connie spoke five languages, had a black belt in karate, and was a computer genius. The department considered her a pearl in an oasis of empty shells. Not wanting to “waste” her considerable skills in the streets, they made up a position for her that was suitably titled “Research and Data Input Specialist,” whereby, she played on the computer and acted as translator until there was a specific need for her services. This need covered anything from background investigations to developing specific problem-solving software for the department. She had one of the most incredible minds Delta had ever encountered. She was also one of Delta’s best friends.

“I don’t think there’s any need to rush it, do you?”

Delta looked hard into the dark brown eyes smiling back at her. Connie’s eyes could dance even when she wasn’t laughing or spewing her horrible puns. Although almost forty, Connie could easily pass for her early twenties. Her carmel-colored complexion was smooth and even, and her shoulder-length jet black locks tumbled casually onto her shoulders. She was not altogether beautiful, but there was a girlish charm about her that drew many a woman to her.

“God, Con, on one hand, I’m starting to feel really lonely, and on the other, I just don’t know if I have the energy to invest in those getting-to know-you games. Does that sound stupid, or what?”

Connie reached into Delta’s locker, pulled out a bulletproof vest, and handed it to her. “Not at all. It’s a good idea for you to take some time for yourself. And when the time is right, you’ll know it inside. Lord knows, we never find love when we’re looking for it. It has to sort of sneak up behind you and catch you by surprise. That’s the Greek tradition.”

Delta grinned, pretending she understood the allusion. “Look at me and Gina. I was alone for nearly five years before I met her.”

Delta groaned. She didn’t want to wait that long to find someone who wanted to share peanut butter and waffles while playing JEOP-ARDYon television. The house seemed so lonely at times, that she preferred to work overtime instead of going home to the kittens. Even that was beginning to get old.

“And you two met at a car wash.” Delta threaded her arms through the vest and pulled firmly on the velcro latches before pressing them down. It felt like a fourteen-pound girdle.

“Exactly. Can’t say either of us were looking for a lover. I mean, come on. A car wash? Hardly a place I would consider romantic.”

Delta and Connie laughed, sharing the memory of the incident when Connie had to help Gina pull up the top of her convertible just before the car wash started. It was a story Delta had heard her tell a dozen times.

“Love comes to us from mysterious angles, my friend.”

“Well, I hadn’t actually entertained the thought of going out, but Miles has been giving me a hard time about spending so much time alone.”

“Screw Miles! He’s been giving everybody shit lately.” This comment prompted Delta to stop dressing and turn back to Connie. “What makes you say that?”

“Lord, Delta, he’s been a pain in the ass around here all week. You should have seen him last night. After you left, he was fussing and fighting with one of these computers until I thought he was going to bust it.”

“What was he doing?”

Connie shrugged. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. I do know that when Taggart approached him, Miles jumped up and told him to mind his own damn business. It was weird. What’s eating him?”

Lacing up her shiny, black shoes, Delta turned the question over in her mind. It took a lot to make Miles angry and even more to make him act aggressively toward someone. Whatever was going on in him was clearly beginning to eat away at him.

“He’s just tired, that’s all. I don’t think he’s sleeping well.”

Connie shook her head. “No. There’s more to it than that. Last night wasn’t the first time he was on the computer after work. He’s after something, isn’t he?”

“I wish I knew. If you hear anything, let me know, will you?”

“In a flash. Well, hon, I’ve chatted long enough. I haven’t put Eddie to bed yet, and I’d better before the Captain sees the great game I’m making.”

“Eddie” was Connie’s pet name for her computer. As long as Delta had known her, Connie had given her computers names and often referred to them as if they were human. At first, Delta thought she was a bit eccentric, but once they became friends, she realized it was just her nature.

Connie had come from a family of five children in the southern region of San Diego. Once her older brothers realized she had a knack for remembering numbers and calculating figures, they would take her to town and earn the family money by betting people. When Connie was almost sixteen, someone had written to M.I.T. about her mathematical prowess, and she found a scholarship offer waiting for her when she graduated from high school. When she returned home from college, she found that her oldest brother had been killed during a gang war of which he was a member of neither side. It was then that she decided to put her considerable talents to use in law.

“Yeah, you’d better put that silly machine to sleep. Captain catches you and he might pull your plug.”

“Oh, he’d like that now, wouldn’t he?”

Watching Connie breeze out the door, Delta shook her head. She had been the first real friend Delta found on the force until she was partnered with Miles. And what a partnership that turned out to be.

Together, she and Miles had a nose for in-progress crimes. More times than she could remember, they had stopped a crime as it was happening and made major collars. Those were the most satisfying busts but Miles was right—ninety percent of the time, they arrived after the crime took place. It was for the ten percent that he lived.

Delta was different. She wanted to be the one called to a woman’s house after a rape. If she couldn’t have stopped it from happening, at least she could be there to lend some feminine support. If she couldn’t stop someone from robbing the little old woman down the road, at least she could hold her hand and tell her that they would do everything they could to get her stuff back. It was the human element that she most loved. And, if they could possibly stop a crime-in progress, then that was a bonus.