Into the Crossfire (18 page)

walls of his own brain ever since he'd woken up in a post-coital glow unlike any

he'd ever had before, only to find that Nicole had sneaked out while he was

sleeping.

Without a word, without even a goddamned note.

He must have been in a coma, because no way the noise of even the

quietest person on earth dressing wouldn't have woken him up. In the field, he'd

heard in his sleep a dislodged rock tumble down a hillside half a klick away, and

when the tangoes got to the campsite, they were met by only the embers of a fire

and an ambush.

Not to mention the fact that his security system sent off a message to his

cell phone each time the front door opened. He'd slept right through that, too.

Everything about the morning was off, askew, after the most fabulous night

of sex he'd ever had. At first, he'd stumbled blearily from room to room, foolishly

expecting to find her...somewhere. Out on the balcony. In the bathroom. Maybe in

the kitchen sipping a cup of coffee.

It had taken him two circuits of his house before it hit him upside the head

that her clothes were gone. Together with Nicole.

He'd rubbed his chest when he realized that. It hurt, as if he'd taken a sharp

blow.

That was when he'd placed his first phone call, to her house, kicking

himself in the ass because he'd been too involved in his dick to think of asking for

her cell phone number. Well, a quick search of a semi-legal database took care of

that.

The cell phone voicemail message was a canned one, from the company,

inviting him to leave a message. Which he did, repeatedly.

At the home phone number he'd gotten his first taste of, "You've reached

the Pearce household. We can't come to the phone right now, but please leave a

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message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can."

Rule number one in business--don't believe a canned announcement. It's

right up there with The check is in the mail. But man, he'd believed it and left a

long, rambling message, the basic tenor of which had been Come back to me.

While stumbling to the shower, he'd kept a cordless by his side so he wouldn't

miss her call.

Because of course, she'd make the call as soon as she could. She wasn't

calling right now because she was...in the bathroom or something. Or maybe

tending to her father.

So he'd called again five minutes later, timing it to the second. Because,

well, hanging up and calling again right away would be a tad...obsessive. Wouldn't

it?

It wasn't until the tenth time he'd called, while he was driving in to the

office, that it occurred to him that it wasn't that she wasn't answering because she

was busy.

She wasn't answering because she didn't want to talk to him.

Jesus.

She was avoiding him.

She'd also switched her cell phone off.

The last ten calls to her house had been from the office. Each one answered

by "You've reached the Pearce household..."

Sam stared at the phone, drumming his fingers.

He had an estimate to get out, for a client who was very rich, as dumb as a

rock, and would doubtless provide a good revenue stream over many years to

come.

He had some security equipment catalogues to go through.

He had e-mail to answer.

He had next year's budget to go over.

He had to call his accountant.

He drummed his fingers again and blew out a frustrated breath.

Fuck.

Sam picked up his cell phone and called Mike.

"Yo." Mike's deep, calm bass settled him a little. Mike was always cool, but

he was especially cool with the ladies. He'd never get in a sweat or a panic because

a woman disappeared after a night of hot sex. Nights of hot sex were Mike's

specialty.

Not that Sam was in a sweat or a panic. No, no.

"Hey." Sam's voice was scratchy. He cleared his throat. "Listen, I've got a

favor to ask you."

"Shoot." It was one of Mike's favorite expressions--ironic, coming from a

sniper.

"I need you to show up at a woman's house. I want you to pull up in a patrol

car, lights on, dressed in your SWAT suit, the whole friggin' deal. Be armed. Look

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scary." For Mike, that wouldn't be hard. The special-issue body armor turned his

barrel chest into a massive wall. You didn't want to fuck with Mike. You

particularly didn't want to fuck with him on duty, fully suited up and armed.

Exactly what Sam wanted. He wanted Mike to scare the shit out of those

two scumbags. Every hair on his body had stood up when he'd seen them come out

onto the porch to stare at Nicole, hooting and whistling. The way they looked at

her had had his gut churning. Their behavior had been classic predator behavior.

Circling warily, coming ever closer. One of the fuckheads had touched her car

while she was in it, Nicole had said. The next step was touching her. And the step

after that was a snatch and grab, the next time she came home after dark, and rape.

Over his dead body.

Sam had no illusions about the way the world worked. The strong preyed

on the weak and in this world, the weak more or less included all women and all

children. He'd seen enough women and children beaten into submission growing

up to know that someone perceived as weak, without a protector, was going to

attract violence, sooner rather than later. It was inevitable. He'd spent his entire life

putting himself in front of the weak, standing for them. The three of them, Sam,

Harry and Mike, had spent their lives trying to stop something that could never be

stopped, only slowed.

Nicole was like a lamb staked out as bait.

Whatever the house had been like in her grandmother's time, now it was

smack in the middle of a neighborhood that degenerated daily. With the recession

so bad, he'd bet that every other man there was unemployed. Out of work,

resentful men, many high on booze or drugs, with nothing to do all day but

fantasize--well, those weren't the best neighbors for a woman to have.

Especially a woman like Nicole.

Off-the-charts gorgeous, living alone with a housekeeper and a sick father.

Oh yeah, to men like those two fuckheads on the porch, and probably others in the

run-down neighborhood, she was ripe prey.

Well, Sam would put a stop to that. First, Mike would drive by for a couple

of days and make it clear that Nicole had friends on the force and that they were

looking out for her. And then, whatever happened between him and Nicole, Sam

was looking forward to a little chat with those two. And they could pay their own

goddamned hospital bills.

First Mike. "I need you to go to 346 Mulberry Avenue. It's the house of a

woman called--"

"Nicole Pearce," Mike said, only not into his cell, which he was slipping

back into his jacket pocket. He was standing in the doorway to the outer office and

Harry was right behind him. Harry, much taller, towered over Mike. "Yeah, I

know."

They both came in, settled down in the two armchairs across from the sofa

where Sam was sprawling. Both hunkered down as if it would take bolt cutters and

a crane to get them out of there.

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Oh Jesus, the double whammy. All three of them had been on the receiving

end of that one, at one time or another.

One of them got in a mess and the other two ganged up on him. Looked like

it was his turn. He sank lower in the sofa, knowing what was coming and knowing

it was not going to be fun.

Sam looked at them, at his brothers, men he relied on, men he loved, men

he'd kill for, men he'd unquestioningly die for, and wished them both gone. Poof.

Disappeared in a puff of smoke.

But the whammy part could wait because first he needed to take care of

business.

His gaze fixed on Mike.

"Yeah. Nicole Pearce." He'd rather die than let them know that just saying

her name hurt. "Right across the street is a boarding house, at Number Three

twenty-one. There are two dickheads, one black and one white. Dreadlocks, pant

crotches down to their knees, the usual. They've fixated on Ni--Ms. Pearce,

harassing her. I want you to drive by and make a show of force. Walk up to the

house. Make it clear she's protected, that the police are looking out for her. That

anyone who messes with her will be real sorry. And I want you to do that for the

next couple of days. I want to make sure the fuckheads get the message. Loud and

clear."

Mike nodded. "Sure thing."

Harry simply looked at him pensively, long fingers under his chin. Harry

looked awful, like he hadn't slept in months. He'd been on the receiving end of the

double whammy a lot since he'd come home, particularly while he tried drowning

his sorrows in beer.

Sam and Mike tried to get him into physical rehab but when Harry refused,

they simply hired a guy Mike knew. Bjorn looked like a wrestler and started

whipping Harry back into shape, whether Harry wanted it or not. Harry was

moving just a little more easily, and not like an eighty-year-old now. Harry

bitched endlessly about Bjorn, the therapist, and called him the Nazi, though Bjorn

had emigrated from Norway. Harry tried every trick in the book, including not

answering the door when Bjorn showed up with his bag of massage oils and what

Harry swore were his instruments of torture. Sam simply gave Bjorn a copy of the

key to Harry's apartment and everyone ignored Harry's bitching until it eventually

stopped.

Sam forced him to come into work and it did Harry good. He was even

starting to put some weight back on, though the sleep thing wasn't going well, to

judge by the huge blue-black bruises under his eyes.

Harry was the poster child for messed up. If he was double-tagging with

Mike, it meant they thought Sam was more messed up than Harry.

Well, hell.

Harry fixed him with his fierce yellow-brown gaze. "Would this be the

same Nicole Pearce you've been calling every five minutes all morning?"

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Sam gritted his teeth.

"And the one whose office doorbell you've been ringing every quarter of an

hour?"

Sam sank even lower into the sofa.

She hadn't come into work this morning. That was the thing that was

driving him crazy. He could barely stay in the same room with the thoughts that

were exploding in his head like grenades.

There was no good spin to put on Nicole Pearce not showing up for work,

none. Every single option he could think of was bad. The worst, the very worst

was--he'd hurt her. She was lying in bed in her home or was--God!--in a doctor's

office or hospital. He talked himself down from that one because he knew he

couldn't possibly have hurt her enough for medical care, but like a rabid dog, it

was a thought he couldn't keep away. It kept circling back at him, snarling and

snapping.

There were times last night when he hadn't been gentle. And his memory

wasn't always clear.

Sam had an excellent memory, a native ability that had been honed by

training. He could remember a map he'd seen once well enough to navigate by it,

he could remember a face no matter how long ago he'd seen it; once he'd driven a

route, he never forgot it.

But bits of last night were shrouded in such heat and electricity it was as if

he'd shorted parts of his brain. He remembered his cock plowing her endlessly, but

he couldn't remember what his hands had been doing. Holding her down? He had

strong hands, all of him was strong. Had he somehow used that strength against

her?

He'd never muscled a woman before, but he'd never before in his life been

as excited. Had he somehow hurt her? The thought made his insides roil.

Second in his little list of nightmares was that he hadn't hurt her but had

somehow...disgusted her. Because otherwise, why was she avoiding him? Those

little blackout moments might not have been violent, but maybe she thought he

was some kind of sex maniac or sex addict. The kind you read about on the

internet. The kind who go to 12-step programs.

Hello, my name is Sam and I can't keep it down.

Because, well, if she thought he was a sex maniac, he could understand

why. His cock hadn't gone down once all night. Not even a bit. It was like he was

plugged into her and as long as she was around, he was aroused.

Neither thought was a happy one, though having her believe he was sex

crazy was marginally better than having her think he was violent.

"Because if it is," Harry continued in his calm voice, "if this is the same

woman, then you're pretty much the dickhead I always suspected you were.

Because clearly, the lady isn't answering. Her phone or the door. And she might

not be answer ring because you're calling every five minutes." He shrugged and

spread his hands in a "don't knock the logic" gesture.

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Mike's sharp gaze went from Harry, then back to Sam. "So...the mission is

to protect the hottie from across the hall. Who's not talking to you. Looks like

fucking her once wasn't enough..."

The rest of the sentence was choked in Mike's throat, right behind Sam's

forearm, pressing him against the wall with it. It had happened without any

thought, without any planning, in an instant out of time. The words came out of