In the Line of Fire Read online

  “You’re done when I say you are and we haven’t practiced in the bedroom or the study yet,” Jett replied, shaking his head when she held up a cup. “Have your coffee and we’ll go again.”

  Sam shook her head. “No, I’m done. We’ve been doing this for two days solid and I’m over it. It’s time to deal the deck and let the cards fall as they will.”

  “I like to stack that deck, and I like knowing where those cards will land, Samantha,” Jett stated, hearing the annoyance in his voice. Calling her Samantha was also a pretty big clue that he was pissed. “That means preparation. I need to know that you can handle yourself for a few minutes until I get here.”

  Sam whirled around, her red hair flying. “Bedroom, gun under both pillows, under the bed, taped to the side of the bedside table. Another on the wall as I enter the bathroom, taped to the far side of the cistern. Study, under the desk, taped to the wall as I enter, on the bookshelf. Living room, coffee table, mantel, wall. Should I continue?”

  Fuck. But it was one thing knowing where the guns were but he needed her to instinctively reach for one and that took practice. And if she could do it without sight, all the better. Jett decided arguing was a waste of time and tapped the face of his watch. “Five minutes in the study. We’ll go again.”

  “No.”

  Jett lifted his eyebrows at her flat refusal. “No?”

  “After I finish my coffee, I am only interested in doing one of two things,” Sam said, pushing her mug under the spout of her machine and jabbing the button. “I would like you to take me to bed where we don’t talk at all but still end up having some fun.” Sam cocked her head to the side, her mouth flattening. “No? What a surprise. You haven’t touched me since that afternoon we made love in Stone’s guest bedroom.”

  Jett, thinking silence was the best response, just widened his stance and folded his arms, hoping she’d soon run out of steam.

  “No response? Then I’m going to my study to work.”

  “That room is the most exposed in your house,” Jett said.

  God, he’d told her, at least twenty times, to stay out of her study. There was a window in there with a broken lock, and they’d left it as it was, knowing it would provide an easy access for the killer.

  “I need to do something other than play GI Jane with you, Jett!” Sam shouted.

  “Losing your temper isn’t going to help the situation,” Jett replied, hearing the heat in his voice. “Why don’t we watch TV, or something?”

  “Two options, Legend, that wasn’t one of them,” Sam retorted. She threw up her hands and turned back to the coffee machine, her slim back taut with tension. “Just leave me alone, okay? You have no problem with that, generally, so why don’t you try it now?”

  Jett rubbed the back of his neck. So now they were getting to the heart of why she was upset. Yeah, for the past two days he’d been distant and preoccupied but he was trying to imagine every scenario, to consider every variable to ensure she didn’t end up in a fucking coffin because she was fucking dead.

  “This is a dangerous situation, Samantha, I can’t afford to be distracted.”

  “So, is that all I am to you? A distraction?” Sam demanded, turning around, her face porcelain hard.

  “You’re a pain in my ass,” Jett muttered, frustrated they were having this stupid conversation—a conversation he simply had no chance of winning—and immediately regretted the words. He held up his hands, seeking peace. “Sorry, I’m just—”

  “No.” Sam smiled and it was one of those smiles that dictators used to visually cut off the balls of the minions who displeased them. “Don’t apologize. I’m just the pain in the ass toward whom you blow hot and cold, who you bang senseless and then ignore. Well, you can take your passive-aggressive idiot behavior and shove it!”

  “I am trying to keep you safe!” Jett yelled, feeling his temper slip away from him. “This is serious shit and we make one wrong move, you could die! Horribly!”

  Did she not get that? Could she not tell he felt like he was walking a tightrope made of fraying cords over an alligator-infested river? So much could go wrong and he was determined to have a plan for each eventuality. God, his friggin’ head was about to explode.

  “You are in danger and you are whining about not getting enough of my attention?”

  “Whining? You didn’t just say that!”

  Judging by her face, it was the wrong word to use again. Yay, he was on a roll.

  “This is childish. I’ve got better shit to do than argue with you,” Jett muttered, turning to leave the kitchen. At the door, he turned around and gave her a long look, knowing his expression radiated boredom and dismissal. “When you’re done being a child, I’ll be in the living room working on my laptop, going over plans to keep you alive.”

  Jett watched the anger die in her eyes, to be washed away by flat-out fear. Unlike him, she wasn’t used to being in dangerous situations. She didn’t know how to channel her fear into a productive force, to push it away to focus on what she needed to do. It wouldn’t have hurt to give her some reassurance, a few kind words, a hug.

  But if he touched her, they’d end up in bed and after they rocked each other into oblivion, he’d beg her to ditch this plan, to let him take her back into protective custody. She’d see he was bone-deep shit scared and he was a fraction from losing it. This was her life they were talking about, and his. Her death would take all the meaning from his life...

  If he cracked, if he gave her anything of what she needed—reassurance, affection—she’d see he was head over ass in love with her, that he’d do anything to love her on a permanent basis, that his heart was hers. That he’d give her everything he had, except the promise to give up his job, to walk away from what he did. He couldn’t, his job was too much a part of who he was.

  Sam didn’t want his heart, couldn’t love—or wasn’t prepared to love—anyone who had even the slightest or occasional brush with danger. He’d offer his love and she might accept it, but with conditions: give up your job, be home by five, be safe. He’d have to save no, that he couldn’t live like that and she’d feel like she was unworthy. They would both end up feeling miserable.

  So, better not to go there, say anything, do anything. It was better to nip whatever they had in the bud.

  Oh, and not forgetting he had a mission to plan for, her life to protect.

  5:03.

  5:04.

  5:05.

  Through gritty eyes Sam watched the minutes tick over on her bedside clock. Like she’d had for the last three nights, she’d dozed on and off—for some strange reason she couldn’t sleep soundly when she was alone in her house waiting for a killer to call—and wished Jett was lying next to her, that she could roll over and burrow into his arms.

  “Miss you,” Sam muttered, pulling her pillow into her arms and burying her face in it, wishing she could, at the very least smell Jett’s unique scent on the fabric.

  “What was that, Sam?” Jett’s voice flowed into her ear and Sam closed her eyes, a wave of longing drowning her.

  “Nothing, I’m good,” Sam replied.

  “Then why aren’t you sleeping, honey?” Jett’s voice drifted into her ear via the Bluetooth earpiece he’d placed there. “We have motion sensors set up everywhere, it’s safe for you to sleep. No one is coming near you without us knowing about it.”

  “Not going to happen,” Sam murmured, pushing back the covers and swinging her legs over the bed. “I’m going to get up, make some coffee.”

  “Pick up your gun and disengage the alarm,” Jett ordered her, in his officer commanding voice. “And, maybe you should put on some clothes, Red.”

  Sam glanced down. She wore what she normally did to bed, a tank top and low-slung pajamas shorts and no underwear.

  “I’m good,” Sam said, just to irritate him. There were cameras all over the house but she had no idea where they were.

  “Put. On. A. Robe,” Jett reiterated.

  “Don’t bother o
n our account, we’re enjoying the view... ouch, dammit, that hurt!”

  Sam smiled at Kelby’s yelp and walked to the easy chair by the door, picking up the flannel robe she’d tossed there earlier. She pulled it on but left it open, before frowning at the alarm pad that was blinking at her.

  “What’s the code again?” she asked, knowing her question would irritate Jett.

  He’d made her practice turning the alarm on and off numerous times and she knew her forgetting the code would annoy him.

  She was bored, she had to get her kicks some way.

  “For fuck’s sake... seven, two—”

  Sam punched in the code before he could finish and heard Jett’s irritated sigh in her ear.

  “Stop trying to wind me up, Red,” Jett warned.

  “Yeah, it’s like someone crawled up his butt and died,” Kelby agreed.

  Neither Jett nor Kelby spoke again so Sam, yawning, walked into her hallway and started jogging down the steps. Coffee and bagel and then, killer or not, she had to do some profiling on a serial rapist targeting tweens in Chicago. They needed to get that asswipe off the streets as soon as possible. Asswipe? She’d been hanging around Jett too long, her vocabulary was getting saltier by the day.

  “Sam.”

  Something about Jett’s voice made Sam stop in her tracks, her foot hovering over the last stair. This was it, this what they’d been waiting for. “He’s here?”

  “Yeah. Climbing in the study window. He looks fit. Take the safety off your weapon, we’re on our way.”

  Sam looked down at her empty hands and cursed. She’d forgotten to pick up a weapon when she left her bedroom, a stupid move because she’d been more interested in baiting Jett. She either had to run back upstairs to her room or run past her study to reach the weapons in the kitchen and lounge.

  “Negative on the weapon,” Sam quietly said, “forgot to pick it up. Can you hurry the hell up?”

  “Fuck-fuck-fuck,” Jett shouted and she lifted her fingers to her ear and winced at his roar.

  Knowing she didn’t have any time to spend placating Jett, Sam whirled around and started to run up the steps when she heard a sharp “pffft” and the plaster flew out of the wall two inches next to her head.

  Sam threw her arms over her head and bent down into a crouch and screamed. “Please, don’t shoot.”

  “I won’t, as long as you do as I say, when I say it.”

  She knew the voice. Lifting her head, she looked down and saw the bright blue eyes first and underneath the balaclava he ripped off his head, the well-styled hair was fashionably messy. He wore a tight black sweater and midnight colored jeans and Sam thought that this was, possibly, the only time she hadn’t seen him in a designer suit. She’d spent many nights reviewing evidence with him, talking about crime scenes, blood splatter, gunshot wounds, motive. They argued about guilt and innocence but she’d always believed Ross Knox was one of the good guys, that he had her back.

  Incensed, Sam stood up, keeping her hands up. She stared into his wild blue eyes and saw his shaking hand. “What the hell have you done, Ross?”

  “Stay calm, Red,” Jett said in her ear.

  “Don’t move,” Ross cried.

  When Sam kept walking, he steadied his gun and released another bullet that skimmed past her head. Okay, so that first bullet wasn’t a mistake, he’d meant to fire at her.

  “Please, please tell me that you are not a serial killer, that you didn’t kill all those people.”

  “Of course I did,” Ross replied, sounding bored.

  Horror snaked down Sam’s back. Keep calm and talk to the serial killer. God, that was a twisted version of the popular saying. “I still don’t understand. And I need to understand, Ross.”

  “Two years ago, I kissed you. Do you remember, Sam?”

  Oh, God, vaguely. They’d come off a bad case and they’d gone out for drinks and Ross brought her home. She’d invited him in for coffee and they’d made out for a little while. She remembered waiting for the attraction to kick in, to start enjoying his lips on hers, his damp hands on her skin. She’d pulled away, told him she was drunk, that they were friends.

  Ross never made any reference to the incident, so Sam assumed he regretted his words and the awkward incident was behind them.

  “I remember holding your neck, wondering what it would feel like to strangle you while I was kissing you, fucking you. I came so close to killing you that night, the same night I fell in love with you.”

  Holy, holy, holy crap.

  “Had you killed anyone before that?” Sam asked, wondering where the hell Jett was.

  “No, but I wanted to.” Ross pushed his spare hand through his hair. “I’ve always been two people, Sam. Normal me and abnormal me, who loves the adrenalin high that killing brings.”

  “So why did you kill those people, Ross?”

  “I love you and no one is allowed to hurt you, to malign you,” Ross stated, his dreamy voice a complete contrast to his feral eyes. “Except me.”

  Sam, seeing he was miles away—that he’d gone to another place—slowly lifted a hand. This wasn’t about her, not really. This wasn’t about a kiss they shared; she’d just given him the excuse to do what he’d always wanted to do. “Who hurt and maligned you, Ross? Who are you really punishing?”

  Ross stepped forward and his hand connected with the side of her cheek, the force spinning her to the floor. Her ear piece fell out and she cried out, partly in pain but mostly because she’d lost her connection to Jett.

  Ross loomed over her, his lips lifted up into a snarl. “Psychoanalysing me, bitch?”

  So that was a button she should avoid if she wanted to survive this encounter. Dammit, Jett, where the hell are you?

  Ross grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her to her feet. He stood an inch from her and pushed his hips into hers and Sam felt his excitement, tasted the sour stench of perversion emanating from him.

  “There’s no point in trawling through my background, Samantha, there was no bed-wetting, no fire-setting, no cruelty to animals. My mom wasn’t dominating; my father didn’t abuse me. I was a normal kid. Well, apart from the fantasies...”

  Ross giggled when she stepped back and Sam saw, and heard, the evil little boy behind his intellectual facade. “I was always interested in crime and I’d look at all those photos of crime scenes and I’d get excited, you know? I wanted to taste the blood, feel how warm it was. I wanted to watch the light fade from someone’s eyes. Fuck them while they died. Best feeling ever. I’m going to do that to you, by the way. We’re going to go upstairs and you’re going to make it so damn good for me that I’m going to forgive you for sleeping with that Neanderthal.”

  Sam made herself meet his eyes. “And then?”

  “Then I’m going to take you away and keep you for a while. It’ll be good, Sam. I’ll have fun and you’ll make me happy.”

  He was living in nutso land. “And then?” she pushed, wanting to keep him talking and delay the walk upstairs.

  Ross gestured for her to start walking and Sam, reluctantly, turned her back on him and obeyed his instructions. “Well, when it stops being fun, I’m going to kill you. And take my time over it because I’ve been fantasizing about loving you and then killing you for a very long time, Samantha.”

  Where the hell was Jett?

  “I have to make it good with you, make some really good memories, because, after you, I’m going to have to stop for a while.”

  “Please don’t do this, Ross. If you love me, then please, let me go,” Sam said, hearing his footsteps behind her and judging by the heat she felt pouring off him, his gun was inches from her spine.

  “If I didn’t love you then I’d kill you tonight, right after I had my fun with you.”

  She wanted to whimper she couldn’t, she wanted to run into her bedroom and lunge for a gun but he would be on her before she moved a foot. No, her best hope of survival was to play for time, to wait for Jett to get into a position so that she cou
ld grab one of the many weapons Jett had stashed for her.

  Ross propelled her into her bedroom with a hard shove between her shoulder blades and Sam hit her knees, releasing a loud cry. Sam felt the hard, cold barrel of his pistol on the back of her head and closed her eyes.

  “You are so beautiful, Samantha. Those nights we spent together, working? I spent most of that time fantasizing about how many times I could take you to the edge of death before pulling you back. I want to watch your blood flow, your body shake with pain. I know a lot of ways to hurt you without killing you. It’s going to be slow and it’s going to be painful.” Ross giggled. “Just the way I’ve come to like it.”

  “Anytime, boys, seriously,” Sam muttered as Ross grabbed a hank of her hair and lifted her to her feet. Sam whimpered but as she regained her footing, she turned to head to look directly at him.

  Excitement brightened his eyes, put heat in his cheeks. She couldn’t help but notice his stiff erection. She was his fantasy, his twisted, dark, blood-filled fantasy.

  Ross’s hand left her hair and he pulled a hunting knife from a sheath on his hip. Sam opened her mouth to scream but, before she could articulate the sound, she felt the heat, heard the swish and Ross sank to his knees, his mouth half open and his eyes wide with surprise. A perfectly round, almost clinical bullet hole appeared between his eyes, a tiny ribbon of blood trickling down his nose.

  Sam screamed, stumbled backward, and ran smack bang into a hard chest. Swept away by horror, she started to punch and kick, unaware of who was friend or foe. She just had to get away, immediately. Sam screamed again as hard arms held her tight and her head swam. She was going to pass out or her heart was, judging by the pain she felt in her chest, about to stop.

  This was just a bad dream; it couldn’t be happening to her. There was a dead man lying on her bedroom floor but maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe she was just imagining it and any minute that knife would slice her neck...

  Sam kicked and punched, twisting and turning to get free of her captor. It was no use, he was too strong, wrapping his arms around her to keep her arms tucked into her sides, his leg wrapping around her calves to keep her from kicking.