Thread of Fear, page 14
part #1 of The Glass Sisters Series
“Hoyt, you’re hurting me.”
A slow, mean smile spread across his face, and she knew he had no intention of letting her go. Every self-defense class she’d ever taken came flooding back to her, but all the moves and tactics churned together in a big soup. Suddenly, she remembered her high heels. On a burst of adrenaline, she stomped his foot.
“Shit!”
He dropped her arm, and she lunged away. But a yank on her ponytail toppled her backward onto the asphalt. Pain shot up from her tailbone, and tears sprang into her eyes. She heard a thud, and then something heavy slammed against the truck. Above her was a blur of denim and leather as Hoyt wrestled with someone against the pickup.
Jack.
Fiona scrambled to her feet just as Hoyt planted a fist in his face.
“Oh my God!” she shrieked, rushing forward. “Stop!”
An elbow jabbed into her chin and she reeled back against a car. Jack launched himself at Hoyt, and the next instant they were both on the ground in a tangle of limbs and grunts.
Fiona gripped the side of the truck and tried to shake off the dizziness.
“You’re under arrest, asshole!” Jack’s voice was muffled as he struggled under Hoyt. He was fighting off punches with one hand and reaching for something with the other. His handcuffs? A weapon?
“Stop it!” Fiona screamed. She spotted her purse on the ground and snatched it up. “Stop it right now!”
Jack managed to roll on top, but Hoyt cuffed him across the nose and regained control. She saw a flash of metal and a line of blood streaming from Jack’s nostril. Did someone have a knife?
Fiona thrust her hand into her purse and yanked out her gun. “I said stop it!”
She aimed it right at Hoyt’s chest, but his attention was fixed on Jack.
Jack glanced up at her, and in his moment of shock, Hoyt landed another blow.
“Hoyt!” she squeaked.
Finally he looked up at her, and this time Jack seized the opportunity. Another flash of metal, and Hoyt’s left wrist was handcuffed.
“What the fuck?” he stammered, looking from the handcuffs, to the gun, then back to the handcuffs again.
Jack got to his feet, dragging Hoyt with him. He wrenched Hoyt’s arm back behind him and shoved him against the nearest truck. “You are fucking under arrest.” Jack clinked the empty bracelet on Hoyt’s other wrist, and then glared at Fiona. “Put that thing away!”
Fiona’s hands were frozen around the revolver. She lowered it and let out a deep breath. Suddenly her legs felt weak, and she slumped against the side of the truck.
Jack shook his head and whipped a cell phone out of his back pocket. He punched a button and brought it to his ear.
“Carlos? Yeah, it’s me. I’m bringing in Hoyt Dixon on a drunk and disorderly, plus a raft of other shit.”
Hoyt squirmed against the truck and turned his head. His right eye was cut and bleeding, and he spat a curse at Fiona. Jack clapped his ear and snarled something, then he got back on the phone. “Send Sharon over here to escort Fiona Glass to her motel room. Make sure she brings a first-aid kit.”
“Jack, I don’t need—”
“Not a word.” He gave her a pointed look as he hauled Hoyt out from between the cars. “Come wait inside for your ride.”
She blew out a breath and zipped her gun back into her purse. She tasted blood in her mouth, and her chin stung, but the last thing she wanted was Sharon rushing over to babysit her. “Jack, this is ridiculous. I don’t need—”
“Just do it,” he said. “I’ll come find you as soon as I’m through.”
She thought about arguing, but he seemed to be at the end of his patience. And even if she didn’t need a first-aid kit, he certainly did. Blood trickled from his nose and his eyelid was already starting to swell as he recited Hoyt’s Miranda rights. So instead of arguing, she simply complied.
A faint siren came from the direction of the police station. The noise got closer, and people stepped out of the bar to check out the spectacle. It was going to be a long night.
Jack glanced at the crowd, then back at her, and she could tell he knew what she was thinking. “I mean it, Fiona. Don’t even think about taking off.”
Jack did another visual sweep of the area, and knocked on Fiona’s door. Her car was still at Becker’s, so it was possible she’d actually followed his instructions and let Sharon give her a ride.
She opened the door looking disheveled. She still wore the last remnants of her suit, but her hair was down and the heels had been replaced with yellow flip-flops.
“You didn’t ask who it was.”
She rolled her eyes. “There’s a peephole.”
He brushed past her and into the room. She’d turned on the bedside lamps and cranked the heater up full blast. Her coat and blazer were draped over a chair, and a rolling suitcase was parked beside the bathroom.
Maybe she’d intended to stay the night after all.
“That was quick,” she said as she bolted the door.
“I let Carlos handle the paperwork.” He pulled her close to the bedside table and lifted her chin with his finger. “What happened to your lip?”
“I caught an elbow. It’s fine, really. I’ve been putting ice on it.”
He took her hands and turned them up. She had some minor scrapes on her palms, but she’d cleaned them. He knew her tailbone must hurt like hell. He’d come out of the bar just in time to see Hoyt yank her backward by her hair, and twelve years of police training had flown out the window as Jack had shot across the parking lot in a blind rage. Beating the living shit out of Hoyt had been his only thought.
His mistake. He should have handled the situation like a professional.
He swallowed the bitterness in his throat. “Sharon said you don’t want to see a doctor.”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She sighed. “I’m fine. It’s just a few scratches.”
Just a few scratches. Yeah. And it could have been a lot worse.
Jack shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and wandered to the other side of the tiny room. Anger was pumping through his system with a force that scared him.
“That’s quite a gun you’re packing, Professor.” He spotted her purse on the dresser and nodded at it. “Mind if I…?”
She waved at it. “Help yourself.” Then she walked over to the vanity and lifted the lid off an ice bucket. She started transferring cubes to a clear plastic bag.
Jack unzipped her purse. It was small and stylish, made of supple black leather. He never would have guessed she carried a fucking cannon around inside it.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, pulling out the revolver. It was a Ruger .357 with a six-inch barrel.
“My grandfather.”
He checked the cylinder. Loaded. “Who’s your grandfather? Jesse James?”
She didn’t say anything, and Jack looked up. She was watching uncomfortably as he handled her gun.
He slid it back into the purse, and replaced it carefully on the dresser. “How long you been packing that thing?”
“Three years.”
He crossed his arms. “You want to tell me why?”
“Not particularly.”
“You have a permit for it?”
“Yes.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Who trained you?”
“My grandfather.”
Jack was trying. He really was. But his frustration had about reached the boiling point. He was pissed at Hoyt, and Fiona, and most of all at himself. He’d told her to leave the bar alone. Yes, this was Graingerville, but there were ass-holes everywhere, as Hoyt had so aptly demonstrated.
Fiona took a few steps toward him and raised a tentative hand to his eyebrow. She touched the skin just above his cut, and he flinched.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she said softly. “I’ll tell you about the Ruger if you let me take care of that eye.” Without waiting for an answer, she slipped her hand into his and led him to the bed. He sank down onto the edge and watched, silently, as she shuffled through a small box on the counter. Sharon, evidently, had followed orders and left Fiona with a first-aid kit.
She returned to the bedside and put some tubes on the table, along with the ice pack she’d made. Then she pulled the lamp closer for better light.
“Is that a toothbrush?” he asked, frowning.
“Yes.”
She picked up a tube of what he’d thought was ointment, but was actually Colgate. She squeezed some onto her fingertip and dabbed it around his left eye, right where the bruise was forming. After rubbing it in, she cupped his face in her hands and tilted it up. She had soft hands. He watched her eyes in the lamplight as she gently stroked the toothbrush over his skin.
“This how they treat shiners in California?”
She smiled, but her attention didn’t leave his bruise. “The peppermint stimulates circulation and helps break down the blood clot under the skin. Same with the toothbrush.” She did a few more strokes, and he held his breath when she got to the really sensitive part just above his eyelid. “With any luck, this won’t show too badly tomorrow. A little concealer, and you might even be okay in public. In case you have a news conference.”
Jack looked up at her uneasily. “Where’d you learn that?”
She shrugged. “Just something I picked up along the way.”
He watched her face. For whatever reason, she’d erected her wall of privacy with the big keep out sign.
This woman confused the hell out of him. She was aloof one minute, then compassionate the next. She abhorred violence, but she carried around a gun that could put a hole the size of a baseball in someone. She spent her time making big, beautiful oil paintings and portraits of hardened killers. She dressed herself up in staid business suits, but underneath she had the body of a Playmate.
And the more time he spent around her, the more she drove him crazy. What had she been thinking tonight? Jesus, did she think he needed her help taking down Hoyt Dixon? If something had gone wrong after she’d whipped out that gun, a parking lot scuffle could have turned deadly.
“Fiona.” He caught her wrist in his hand, and she looked at him finally. “What’s with the gun?”
She didn’t say anything.
“We had a deal.”
She glanced down, cleared her throat, then met his gaze again. “A couple years ago in L.A., I worked on the case of some gang members who were involved in a drive-by. I testified at their trial, too. One of them—after he went to prison—he started harassing me through some of his contacts on the outside.”
“Define ‘harassing.’”
“Threatening letters. Obscene phone calls. Someone broke into my apartment and vandalized everything. It freaked me out.”
“So what happened?”
She pulled her hand loose from his and put the toothbrush on the nightstand. “The guy was behind bars, and no one could ever trace anything back to him. I talked to my supervisor about it, but I think people thought I was just paranoid. Maybe I was.”
Jack could tell she didn’t believe that. If she felt certain about the source of the threat, she was probably right. Jack was all for good, hard evidence, but he believed in gut instincts, too.
“Anyway, I stopped taking cases for a while. Went to visit my grandfather for a few months, get some R and R. When I went back to Los Angeles, things subsided for a little bit. But then it all started up again, and I didn’t feel safe anywhere. Pretty soon after that, I decided to move.”
She pressed the ice pack to his eye, and he winced. “Keep that on there for a few minutes,” she told him, replacing her hand with his own.
She walked back to the sink, and he watched her, thinking about what she’d been through. She’d dealt with some major lowlifes in her career and had every reason to be cautious.
She came back with some ointment.
“And what about Courtney?” he asked. “Was she already here, or did she come along for the ride?”
“We moved together.” Her face looked carefully neutral. “She’d had enough of California and wanted a fresh start.”
A fresh start. How come he felt like he was getting the abbreviated, sanitized version of that story?
“This’ll help your nose,” she said, dabbing ointment below his nostril. He’d cleaned up some already at the station house, but he’d been in a rush.
“So what’s going to happen to Hoyt?” she asked.
“He’ll spend the night in jail. Probably take a good day or two before he can round up someone willing to bail him out again.”
“He’s a repeat offender?”
“He’s a repeat fuckup. He drinks too much and makes a habit of picking fights.”
She pursed her lips, and he wondered if she thought he didn’t take tonight’s events seriously.
“Don’t worry, he’s in a whole new world of hurt this time. He assaulted two people tonight, both law enforcement officers.”
Fiona raised an eyebrow at the description, but didn’t say anything.
“He’ll be charged. The prosecutor’ll probably want to make an example of him, and if he doesn’t, I’ll do my best to persuade him.”
Fiona gazed down at him tiredly.
“Come here.” Jack tossed the ice pack aside. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her between his knees.
“I’m not finished patching you up.”
“Yeah, you are.” He tugged the silk loose from her skirt and slid his hands underneath. Her skin was smooth and warm, and he felt her shiver. He pushed the shirt up and watched her eyes. “Let me see you,” he whispered.
She stared at him a moment, then lifted the shirt over her head. It made a soft whoosh as it landed on the bed beside him, and then she was standing there, finally, without all those layers covering her up.
“You’re so pretty.” He reached up to cup her breast, thumbing her nipple through the creamy lace. He eased forward on the bed and reached for the other one. Her bra had a tiny pink rosebud just between her breasts, and he pressed a kiss into the sweet skin right above it. He ran his hands down over her hips again and then reached around her waist to find her zipper.
“On the side,” she whispered, guiding his hand.
He pulled the zipper down, then slid the skirt over her rounded hips. She had another rose just below her navel, and when he kissed the skin above it, she sucked in a breath. He trailed his mouth down, tasting her skin, and his phone buzzed.
She froze.
Jack looked up at her as it buzzed again. He swore vividly and fell back on the bed. He jerked the phone out of his pocket and saw Lowell’s number on the screen.
“What?”
“There’s a woman just come in here. Nola Fuentes.”
Jack sat up. “Yeah?”
“Well, it took a while to understand her at first. She’s crying and carrying on. Finally Carlos came in from that fender bender in front of the Texaco? I got him to talk to her.”
Fiona reached for her shirt and pulled it over her head. Next the skirt came up, and Jack sent her a look of apology. Her face was a mask of composure.
“Spit it out, Lowell.”
“It’s our Jane Doe, Chief. This woman says the picture on the ten o’clock news is her daughter.”
CHAPTER 10
Natalie Fuentes. Natalie.
All day long, the name had been echoing through Fiona’s mind.
Natalie. It was such a young-sounding name, so full of promise. Natalies were beautiful, smiling girls with lots of friends, girls whose phones never stopped ringing and whose lockers were always surrounded by people. Girls named Natalie had bubbly personalities, and long silken hair, and dates to the homecoming football game every fall.
She knew it was an illusion. How could a name determine a person’s life? But Fiona had feelings attached to names, and in her mind—up until today, at least—Natalie had been one of the happy ones.
According to Jack, Fiona’s illusion hadn’t been far from the truth, either. During her early-morning drive back to Austin, Jack had called. He’d apologized again for leaving abruptly and then had given her an update on the victim.
Natalie Fuentes had been an honor student and captain of the Meyersberg High School cheerleading team. Fifteen months ago, she’d been nominated for the homecoming court. Five months ago, she’d enrolled as a freshman at San Pedro College in Hamlin, Texas.
Two weeks ago she’d been raped, brutalized, and strangled, then abandoned on a frozen patch of grass off Highway 44.
Neither Fiona nor Dr. Jamison had pegged her age correctly. Natalie was a short, slightly built eighteen. She’d been on her way back to school after Christmas break, but she’d never made it. Her mother hadn’t heard from her in twelve days, but she said that wasn’t unusual. Her daughter studied hard and had a busy social life.
Natalie’s body would be released to her family by the end of today.
Usually, when a victim’s identity finally came through, Fiona felt a sense of closure. Some family somewhere would lay their loved one to rest, and Fiona would feel a small measure of satisfaction for helping make that possible, for being one of the people who gave the victim back a name and a bit of dignity.
But Fiona felt no closure today. On the contrary, she’d spent the better part of this chilly Friday blazing with red-hot anger. So she’d come home from work, thrown on her rattiest jeans, and decided to do the only thing she knew that would help.
Now she lined up all her supplies, loaded her gun, and went to work.
Pop. The recoil shocked her hand. Pop. Pop. Her arm tingled with it. Pop. With every pull of the trigger, she felt a tiny release of tension.
The door opened, and Courtney waltzed in. She looked at Fiona and stopped cold. “What happened?”
“What?” Fiona looked down at the wood and aimed. Pop.
Courtney tossed her purse and coat on the sofa. “You’re upset. You always stretch canvases when you’re upset.”
Fiona frowned down at the frame in her hands. She didn’t realize anyone had noticed. She’d thought it was her secret stress buster.
