Detect Me (8 page)

Nikki wanted to go with him, but the police officer pulled her aside and started asking questions. Why was she there, what did Ghost do, how had she known to tell Rob about the painting? Nikki had no idea just how legal their activities were, so she struggled to give diplomatic answers that she hoped wouldn’t get Mark in trouble.

“…So Ghost talked to Mark like she knew him, is that right?” the police officer licked her thumb before flicking to a new page in her notebook.

Nikki blinked. “I don’t think I said that,” she said slowly, but wheels started to turn in her head. Ghost had talked to Mark in an awfully familiar way. She’d been too distracted to think about it much before, but now she was starting to wonder…

A hand caught hers and Nikki stifled a yelp. She wasn’t cut out for trauma.

“Just me,” Mark said knowingly, and gave her hand a squeeze. Nikki smiled at him tentatively and tried not to stare too pointedly at his arm. He caught her looking, though, and gave it a gentle roll. “See? Stitched back together and ready for action.”

“If you say so,” Nikki said quietly. She tightened her fingers a little around Mark’s hand. It felt warm and solid and eased the tension knotted in the pit of her stomach.

“Ah, yes, we have some questions for you too,” the cop told him. She opened her mouth, but Mark cut her off with a wave of his bad arm.

“Nope,” he said, wincing a little. “We’re done here for tonight. You have other people to interview anyway. Rob, for one - he’ll enjoy the hell out of it. And there’s some MoMA employees probably hiding out in a filing cabinet somewhere. You might want to find them and make sure they didn’t stroke out.”

The cop drew her eyebrows together in a scowl. “Sir, you don’t get to make the rules. We need information from you.”

Mark’s jaw tightened. “And you’ll get it,” he said, sounding less tolerant by the second. Nikki was used to him being scrupulously polite, and yet somehow it wasn’t a surprise to hear how authoritative he could sound when he wanted. “I’ll come down to the station tomorrow and answer all your questions and fill out all your forms tomorrow. But right now I’m going to go home and double up on the recommended dose of painkillers.”

The police officer’s expression wavered, like she was deciding between being angry or just exasperated. “You really shouldn’t do either of those things. How am I supposed to know you’ll show up tomorrow?”

Mark grinned humorlessly. “I’m a detective. Detective Mark Harrison. Don’t worry, the people at the precinct office know how to find me if I skip town.”

Without waiting for a response he turned on his heel and made for the door, pulling Nikki along after him. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder at the cop, who had put her hands on her hips and was staring after them but not following.

Probably they were breaking some sort of law. At the very least they were pissing off people who could put them in jail. The smart thing to do would have been to drag Mark back and fill out every form they could. But Mark’s hand was reassuringly warm around hers and he moved with purpose, like he knew what to do and where to go. Nikki figured at least that made one of them.

When they got outside, both of them heaved a deep breath of the chilly air, like they’d been locked away. It felt like it. Nikki looked around at the dusky sky and street lamps beginning to switch on. The city looked different now that she knew first-hand what some of its citizens were capable of.

The two of them seemed to remember that their hands were clasped together at the same time and caught each other looking. Nikki dropped her hand away, not knowing what to do, and Mark followed suit.

Feeling intensely awkward she said, “You should, um, come home with me. I mean! Not like - um. It’s just, you’re hurt. Unless you have someone at home, you could go to them, I mean…”

The corners of Mark’s lips tugged up into a smile. “There’s nobody waiting for me at home,” he said, much to her relief. Well, she was relieved that he had cut off the stream of awkwardness flowing from her. Not that there was nobody waiting for him at home.

Or at least, not just because of that.

Oh, she was so screwed.

“Okay,” Nikki said, nodding with a decisiveness that she didn’t feel. “Let’s go, then. It’s no so far from here. We can walk.”

They set out along the street together. Nikki felt a pang of regret when Mark put his hands in his pockets.

“You do this all the time, right?” Nikki asked, more to pass the time than any other reason. Mark raised an eyebrow and nodded wordlessly. “Why didn’t you bring a gun?”

His eyebrows stayed raised as Mark stared at her. After a second he pulled his hand, still in his pocket, back to reveal a holster strapped to his belt.

“I did,” he said.

Nikki felt her eyes grow at least three sizes bigger. She stared incredulously at the metal barrel of the gun catching the street lights and reflecting them back before Mark took his hand out of his pocket and let the jacket drape back over it.

“You had a gun?” she demanded. “You had a gun and - why the hell didn’t you get it out when Ghost was here?”

The serious look that Mark turned on her made Nikki’s righteous indignation crumble away.

“You don’t take out a gun unless you’re willing to use it,” Mark said quietly. “Ever.”

Nikki couldn’t think of a single thing to say to that. So she just nodded and looked over at the building on their left.

“This is it,” she said, and buzzed them in.

The elevator was broken again because of course it was, but Mark hiked up the four flights of stairs behind her without complaint. Embarrassment threatened to well up inside of her when Nikki started the dance of jiggling her key in the lock, but she pushed the feeling aside and carried on determinedly.

Mark said nothing at all, just waiting patiently and then gestured for Nikki to walk in the door before him like a gentleman.

Mark stopped abruptly in the entrance.

“You have a reptile.” He sounded completely baffled. Nikki couldn’t help feeling a prick of gentle amusement at his confusion.

“What, can you usually tell if someone owns a lizard? There’s cat ladies and lizard ladies?” She poked around the cabinets, taking advantage of Mark’s momentary stunned state to check her housekeeping abilities. The state of affairs in the apartment was looking bleak. Nikki made a summary decision not to offer Mark any coffee, since she didn’t have any. Or filters. She also seemed to have neglected to buy a coffee maker at all.

Mark shook his head and walked over to the cage, checking it out with the curiosity she expected. When he turned back to look at her, his eyes were soft, and all the affectionate amusement Nikki had felt a moment ago slid away, leaving her with only the butterflies in her stomach for company.

“You keep surprising me,” he said. They looked at each other for a long moment before Mark dropped his gaze and moved past her into the kitchen, rubbing his knuckles against her bare arm almost absently. Her skin prickled up in goose bumps.

“His name is Charm,” Nikki found herself stammering. If the iguana made Mark look at her like that, give her those casually familiar touches, she wanted to keep talking about it. Usually she kept Charm’s existence a state secret, since she’d learned quickly that people looked at you oddly for finding a slithery reptile impossible to resist. People who bought puppies from the shelter on impulse never got that look, she was willing to bet. “He’s kind of useless actually. Just sits there. Not much company.”

Even though Mark’s lips barely curved upward, his eyes warmed. “Well,” he said in a voice full of good humor, “perhaps I can best a lizard for good company, at least.”

“Probably,” Nikki said, smiling back helplessly. She remembered her loyalty, though, and added, “but he is a really
good
boring iguana.”

She was rewarded with an honest laugh that seemed to fill the whole apartment and brighten it.

But when Mark quickly recovered himself his face smoothed back into something solemn and dignified, and the comfort Nikki had been feeling vanished into the air.

“It’s not much,” Nikki said, nerves jangling under her skin. Exhaustion suddenly washed over her like a wave and threatened to pull her under. All the stress of the day finally hit and she thought she might fall asleep right there on the kitchenette floor. “But there’s a bed - um. And a couch. You’re injured, why don’t you take the bed?”

Mark was standing in the middle of the apartment, craning his neck to peer around the small rooms, looking every inch the curious detective. At Nikki’s words he snapped to attention and looked around sharply at her.

“Like hell,” he said in an amused rumble. “Go to sleep, Nikki. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you in the morning. If you’re lucky I’ll be awake enough to make pancakes.”

Nikki rubbed at her eyes. “I… okay,” she said, too tired to protest. She stumbled toward her bedroom and paused at the door.

“Goodnight,” she called over her shoulder. “Just come get me if you need anything.”

“Have sweet dreams,” Mark told her with a small smile, and to Nikki’s surprise, she did.

CHAPTER SIX

At the sound of footsteps padding along the wooden floor Mark glanced up from the stovetop, where he was tossing pancakes one-handed.

“Morning,” he said, and tried not to stare at Nikki’s long legs. She was leaning up against the wall, her blonde hair tumbling around her shoulders, disheveled from sleep. Apparently she slept in t-shirts, because all she wore was an oversize shirt that skimmed her mid-thighs.

A burning smell reached Mark’s nose and he hastily turned his gaze back to the frying pan.

“Grshnrk,” Nikki mumbled. She snuffled and ran her fingers through her hair, which Mark knew because he’d immediately abandoned the pancakes to look back at her again. It seemed impossible to look away.

She blinked heavily, and then seemed to come awake. Nikki’s pretty eyes flew open wide and her hands went to the hem of her shirt, tugging it down.

“Um,” Nikki said, looking more awake but completely flustered. Mark wished he didn’t think it was adorable. Sexy he could deal with. He lived in New York, there were supermodels walking down the street past him every day. But adorable? That was definitely trouble. “Hi? Good morning. I sort of forgot…”

“Pants?” Mark couldn’t help suggesting. Nikki glared at him.

“That you were here,” she finished. She shuffled away back to her bedroom, still pulling at the hem of her shirt. “But yes, also pants. I’ll just go… fix that.”

A few minutes later she emerged from her bedroom, now looking properly awake and clothed. Mark immediately missed those bare legs, but even Nikki’s relatively modest outfit of jeans and a simple white tee drew his eye to her curves. He was getting the feeling that maybe he wouldn’t be able to look away from her no matter what she wore.

“Pancakes, as promised,” Mark said, trying to break the stream of thoughts flowing through his head. He tilted the pan to let Nikki see the slightly burned evidence.

Nikki looked at the pancakes for a moment, and then at his arm. A small furrow formed in the middle of her forehead. She looked concerned. About him.

It had been a long time since someone had been concerned about him.

“Should you be doing that? Is your arm hurting?” Nikki moved forward to stand beside him and peering at the bandage, which was thankfully still white and clean.

Mark shook his head and grinned at her, slighty self-conscious. “Trust me, I’ve had worse,” he said.

Nikki’s frown didn’t go away. “That so?” she said quietly. “How much worse?”

His blood froze in his veins and suddenly he felt cold. He put the pan down on the stovetop.

“Bad enough,” he said, wishing he could go back five minutes ago to when Nikki was stammering and he’d felt happy.

Mark could feel Nikki’s eyes on him, but he stared determinedly at the pan.

After a few moments gentle fingers brushed his good elbow.

“Breakfast looks great,” Nikki said. She tugged at his arm and Mark followed without stopping to think about it. She led him the few steps across the kitchen to sit at the small table in the corner. “You’ve done the hard stuff. Sit down and give me a sec; I’ll grab the syrup.”

It was strange and unfamiliar, sitting there in comfortable silence and eating. What Mark remembered from cohabiting was yelling and claustrophobia. But maybe it had been better at the beginning. It must have been, right? This was probably just an illusion too.

“These are great,” Nikki mumbled through a mouth of pancake.

“Hope so,” Mark said, glancing down at a sticky mass of syrup and butter. “I make it at least once a week.”

“Wow. You must really like pancakes.”

He nodded. “It’s partially that. Mostly it’s that I don’t know how to cook anything else.” He couldn’t help a grin when Nikki snorted.

There were only a couple flapjacks left and their forks rested on their plates. Nikki stood and started to gather up the plates and cutlery.

“So…” Nikki dropped the silverware into the sink with a rattle and turned around, bracing herself against the kitchen counter. She worried at her bottom lip with her teeth. “What next? I mean… Ghost’s still out there. What do you think she’s going to do next? Not that… well, I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with me, really.”