Domestic Duet: Domestic Alliance & Asset (30 page)

“We’ll meet at Richard’s, like always, and see this through and make our money.”

Sadie held the newspaper to her face. They didn’t know their other man never made it to the check point and was in the medical bay coming to life in handcuffs. Colson scanned the room. “We’ll leave going our different ways then meet at the launch with our deliveries pocketing the cash. I have a lot riding on this shipment.”

“According to Richard, everything’s ready to go.”

“What about security? Dealing with a second party, these things go bad the minute somebody says the wrong word.”

They were scum. Sadie brought the cup close to her face sipping slowly, and shifted back, pretending to grab a packet of sugar from the next table.

The cafés doorbell dinged announcing the arrival of two black women. With an acknowledging glance only she noticed, they made their way to her table.

"Sadie,” Norma, another detective working on the Eastside said as she pulled out a chair resting her bag on the table. She sat down with Earnestine from three blocks over working for the Windamere’s, a retired couple and owner of a number of local pharmacies that did their banking through Edwards’ bank.

Sadie whispered, “Don’t make any noise.”

Norma mouthed, “Is that your mark?”

With a quick nod, Sadie gently pushed the rectangle packet of sugar to the center of the table.

The men reclined in their chairs and Sadie held her breath she hadn’t been made.

The two men lit cigarettes, the glow hovering like red eyes moving in two different directions. Colson, finished his coffee, then drew on the tip of the cigarette. He reclined in the chair after blowing out a ring of smoke.

Sadie split her attention between the tan suits, the waitress circling the tables, and her comrades.

Norma pulled out a compact as she sat and feigned checking her face and angled it to the couple at the end of the counter.

"Windamere has the family’s prescriptions filled at his pharmacy across the street, instead of the one close to home, so I can spy on his employees.” She snapped the compact tucking it into her suede patch purse in her lap.

“You’re spying for…” Sadie prompted under her breath, while digging in her purse, then handing Norma a slip of paper.

Norma took a quick glance then stuffed it in her purse, scanning the patrons around the café.

“I’m not a snitch...for free. Pay me and we can talk.” She set her umbrella on the empty chair. “The cheap skate, always worried somebody’s stealing the Bromo Seltzer in aisle three.” Norma’s deep southern accent put a sultry twist on each word. “It’s not that he’s hurting for dough.”

Sadie couldn’t agree more. Workers don’t spy on other workers for the boss.

“Sadie?” Earnestine leaned in and Sadie had forgotten she’d sat down. “You shacking up with the Karuntee Captain?”

“Where’d you hear that?” It wasn’t a secret she visited Aroc weekly, just not everybody’s beeswax to be burning around town. “Don’t believe all the gossip.”

“Are you?” Norma waggled her thick brows.

Sadie glared at her for even asking. “The captain’s a friend. There’s no laws stopping you from talking to one of them, Norma. Go for it.” She nudged her hand on the table. “You’re single. What’s the problem?”

“Not my taste,” she replied.

“Then why’d you ask?”

Norma appeared taken aback. “Because I’m nosy and an unasked question never gets answered.”

“And some answers should never be questioned.”

Earnestine chimed in, tearing off a corner of her donut. “I haven’t had one kidnap me yet. I’m cute and tall, just their type.” She inhaled expanding the chevron print on her cardigan to swell around her breasts under her uniform. The tiny pockets straining under the assault.

Sadie pinched the bridge of her nose before she spoke. “I’ll send a big one down to your home in Sector Two...maybe Montage. He’s got that long ponytail, like a Hell’s Angel.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “A big bad biker looking karuntee.” She licked her lips. “Don’t jive a sister dangling that much male in front of me.”

“It was a joke, Earnestine. Montage isn’t a lover of humans; thinks we’re dirty.”

The woman sank back on the metal chair, arms folded, pumping up her breasts then let out a suppressed huff. “Montage…that’s a sexy name. I can dream, Sadie. Don’t throw a wet blanket on my party.”

“Have you ever spoken with Montage before? He’s nothing to play with if you’re not into karuntee males.”

“I think I can handle him. Set me up.”

“Okay,” she conceded with hesitation, but it wasn’t her place to say what another woman could handle. “I’ll mention you’d like to have dinner, see what he says. Montage’ll eat you alive.”

“Now we’re on the same line of thinking.” Her smile widened. “A man willing to serve dessert as a first course.” She fanned her face. “See, was that so hard?” she said brightly.

She hadn’t felt hard yet, Sadie mused.
Wait until you’re under a Karuntee seconds before he climaxes, that’s hard.
The memory of being with the captain swamped Sadie down to her toes. Sadie needed ice water, but drank her coffee instead and peered around the café. The hum of voices had dropped, then rose as a bus load of workers came through the door.

Norma took advantage of the noise to lean into Sadie. “Taking another down tonight?”

“Tomorrow night,” she said. “It might be my last for a while.” Sadie extended a hand low beside the table, and gave the okay sign. Taking down a mark was always tricky when it came to a head. If things didn’t line up and fell apart, at the least, you lost your job. At the worst, you lost your life.

“Ryner ordered myself and Candice to assist at the launch. We’d leave the festival and meet you somewhere close.”

“Sadie this one’s going to be tough with you working for the Edwards all these years. Not all of us are that close to our employers. I can go in your place and help Captain Farkus.”

Sadie felt a zing of pride flowing through her. The sisterhood among the detectives was strong. “I can’t…I have a personal stake in this battle. Leave me a communication and we’ll meet you there.”

“I’ll message you, be ready and be careful.”

Norma gripped her forearm, then slid her hand down her arm to clasp their fingers in a hand shake, before the other woman repeated the motion.

“I'll see you around,” Sadie said craning her neck to see around the cars. The parking lot was clear.

***

Sadie walked outside, tapping her communications device in her ear now and waited to hear Captain Ryner's deep voice.

“You’re trying to kill me, Sadie.”

“Captain, how’s Oliver?” Raising her brows, she walked to the end of the sidewalk and stood beside a large shrub blocking her from view.

“Spitting mad I made him listen to the doctor. And if I find out you went back injured—”

“Captain Farkus already bent my ear, sir.” She stepped around the building. “I’m fine, just scuffed up a bit. Did our prisoner give up anything useful?”

“The Hortzberg brothers are in this somehow helping these guys steal from Aroc.”

Why would anyone steal from a karuntee? “So what I overheard was true. They’re getting back at Aroc for suspending them from traveling to Sector Three during blackout?”

“Appears that way. They had enough contaminated fuel to poison the oceans around the world twice.”

That turned her stomach. She paced a circle, eyeing the cracks in the sidewalk.

“Sadie, the warehouse is being cleared out and shut down. He’s still being interrogated. We’ll return him after a clean of his memory from the last twenty four hours. He won’t remember going to the warehouse.”

“Anything else?”

“Richard was responsible for the last shipment that came up. The shuttle was seen bound for the dark side on Farkus’s dock,” he said. “I spoke to the Captain. He’s pissed, and that’s mild for Aroc. He’s handling his end. On a different note, Aroc said something about you and he taking this thing between you deeper?”

“Am I the only one who didn’t see Aroc’s attraction all this time?”

He laughed. “You saw it, Sadie. You just weren’t ready to face the drastic change it’ll take on your life. Giving up your life on the planet to make a family with him and Norese on the space station is a big deal. Talk to him and do something for Sadie for once.”

What had Aroc told him? After this case. She couldn’t deal with personal issues right now.

She tipped her gaze slightly. A mother with a child rolled by in a stroller. "Captain, I’m at the coffee shop on the strip. I have a meeting with Aroc in twenty minutes. Colson and some of the others are questioning if Oliver’s holding out and keeping the bigger pay offs somewhere else.” She sensed Ryner’s apprehension of something bigger brewing, the same as she felt.

“Does Oliver know?”

“I doubt it; they’re suspicious of him right now. They’re meeting with a karuntian gone rogue—tomorrow. Somehow, I have to get Mr. Edwards to have the meeting at the house. I’ll leave the commander a message.”

Captain Ryner cursed over the line. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. Leslie’s in the hospital and the baby’ll be here in the next few hours. I hate to do this to you but treaty rule. Since Captain Farkus’s males are involved and I can’t be there, he’s in charge.”

Shocked by that admission she picked anxiously at the leaves on the shrub sprinkling them around her feet. “You’re not serious?”

“My wife’s in labor, Ochi…”

“Understood…What happened to the last shipment delivered to Farkus’s station?”

“Tainted fuel. He’s pissed. I talked him into letting you and Oliver handle this one and we’d deal with the humans.” He paused. “Ochi, I’m counting on your relationship with Farkus right now. We need him to stop this rogue karuntee.”

“Captain, I’m standing in the rain. I’ll contact you after my meeting with Captain Farkus and his security in an hour.”

“You’re my Ace, Sadie. Take it however you need to, but we couldn’t do this without you.”

“You’ve always been fair with me.” Her device chimed in her ear. Aroc’s alert. “Captain, I have to go.”

“Aroc?”

“Yes,” she muttered, eyeing the parking lot. There was no point in lying about who was calling. From now on, it would always be him.

“You’re amazing, Ochi.”

“I’ll need a vacation after this.”
A long one.

She ended the connection. Sadie sent a message to Oliver, slipped around the gas station by the air pump where no one could see her, then transported to Aroc’s.

Chapter 16

Aroc slid the door to Norese’s room until the latch caught, separating her from the noise of the meeting about to begin in his home.

Impatient to hear Sadie’s voice, he paced a three-foot path from Norese’s door to his room while shoving his hands in and out of his pockets. He knew his anxiety was the result of seeing her in the hospital earlier. It triggered a worry in him he hadn’t experienced since Katherine died. Knowing she was okay created an abject hunger within him, to touch her from head to toe memorizing each luscious curve. And he would the moment she arrived.

A captain, waiting; he hated waiting. Hated being alone more. That was probably why he waited. His heart fluttered. Karuntian didn’t flutter, yet this feeling was new for him. Knowing he’d have her in his arms soon, he paced.

After Katherine died, going without sex for two years hadn’t bothered him… The hell it hadn’t! He’d craved it the same as a good battle. More than sex, though, he missed the company of a female. The soft flare of her hips in the shower, beaded with scented suds he loved. The easy padding noise of her feet moving on the floor as she sauntered through his home played in his mind. Memories of Sadie’s luscious scent filled his nostrils.

He glanced at his empty bed through his open bedroom door at the end of the hall and images of Sadie filled his mind. Silky flawless skin, covering a long lean leg poking out from under the sheet hugging every dip and curve of her supple form. This wasn’t helping.

A feminine scent caught his attention. He inhaled deep, hoping she’d arrived and was out in the kitchen getting her water as normal. She hated materializing. Said it made her thirsty. His hopes crushed after he registered Norese, powdery fragrance lingering from her doorway.

One shoulder propped along the wall, he reached back, scrubbed the back of his neck, to loosen the knot of tension. Where was she? His other hand nearly ripped the flap from his cargo pants pocket snapping and unsnapping the closure.

This female had him strung out. Through his brooding, he felt her presence in the air. His nerves stood on end.

Sadie materialized inches from his face, smelling of coffee and something sweet on her breath. Chocolate skin speckled by rain. Pleasantries could wait.

With a hand on the dip along her back, Aroc ushered her down the hall to his meditation room. Sadie gave him a confused stare as he flipped open the vent to hear Norese playing safe and sound in her room. He grew to love the sound of Sadie’s soft grunts when he hooked his hands beneath her hips lifting her off the floor.