Chapter 38

38

Special Agent Fallon Baxter

J ack Stone stands before me right here in the Velvet Lounge Gentlemen's Club, dark jacket, hair slicked back, facial scruff a little out of control, and his blue eyes blaring my way like sirens.

"By all means, don't let me stop you," I say, stepping to the side.

A crooked smile takes over as he shakes his head.

"Hey, Buddy." He gives the pooch a hearty scratch over the head before straightening and pinning his eyes to mine again. "I happened to have left Whispering Woods right after you did. I was heading to the diner. I thought you might be, too. Then you took a turn out of town. I'll admit, you had my curiosity piqued."

"So you followed me," I say with a laugh caught in my throat.

"You have my dog." He tips his head and that cocky grin of his ticks over his cheeks for a second. "I needed to make sure Buddy was safe."

I'd contest whose dog he is, but at this point, Buddy feels as if he belongs to the both of us.

"Keep walking," I say as we thread our way out of the Velvet Lounge and into the crisp autumn night as downtown Denver glitters all around us.

"What happened with Marco?"

"My sister and your brother happened." I quickly give him the breakdown and his chest expands the size of a wall.

" Geez ," he spits it out, just as annoyed as I am.

"It's refreshing to see someone share in my level of irritation. Thank you for that," I tell him.

He shakes his head. "Leave it to my brother to land me in front of a mobster's bullet."

"Leave it to my sister to do the same—to me," I say, incensed. "I was all set to play the part of the dirty fed ."

"No, you weren't."

"No, I wasn't."

"Is that your way of admitting I'm right?" That lopsided grin rises on his face again.

"That's my way of admitting I have two idiots for siblings."

"We're even on that level, too."

Buddy sniffs and whimpers as he looks up at Jack.

"You know I don't leave the house without treats." Jack pulls a doggy biscuit in the shape of a bone out of his pocket and tosses it to him. "Go on." He nods my way. "You know you want to say it."

"I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole." I hold my hands up as if to punctuate the point.

The smile glides off Jack's face as the two of us stare one another down as if we were having a standoff, and at this point, that's exactly what it feels like.

Jack Stone.

I shake my head at him.

This was not the plan.

The plan was to come home and track down my escape artist of a sister. It never once entered my mind to fall into a puddle of lust with another agent. But then, I hadn't counted on Jack Stone.

Whether I like it or not, he's a force to be reckoned with. And judging by the way my body is pulsating with a heartbeat of its own, I would very much like to reckon with him. Most likely something quick and dirty. But a part of me is craving something more.

"How about touching this?" His hand runs down my arm before he pulls me in and lands a soft kiss on my lips.

Buddy lets out a sharp bark and the two of us bite back a laugh.

"He doesn't seem to be a fan of you touching me that way." My teeth graze over my lip as I tamp the laughter down once more.

"He's a dog. What does he know?"

"I thought you said he was comparable to a Rhodes Scholar?"

"So now you believe in his scholastic abilities." He inches in close and wraps his arms around me. "I say we train Special Agent Buddy on how to stand guard while his fellow agents exchange some intimate intel."

"Intimate intel?" I ask as my own arms find themselves around his back.

"It's the best I can do on the fly. Did you know I have a very hard time thinking when you're around?"

"That does explain a lot."

He frowns as he lands another kiss to my lips, but he doesn't linger. Instead, he leaves me wanting more.

He hitches his head toward the parking lot. "How about we go back to your place?"

"Slow down, cowboy. You're not getting anywhere near my bed," I tell him.

"I was thinking about the hot tub."

"That does sound good."

He comes in for the kill again, or the kiss as it were, and no sooner do we dive into a whole other world than our phones buzz simultaneously.

We give a hard groan as we pull them out.

"It's Hale," I say before reading out loud. "Two college girls found dead at the Grand Meadows Hotel. The bodies had markings on them that resembled the same markings a couple of prostitutes had on them when they were killed last month. We got the official invite to the case."

Jack and I take off for the parking lot.

Another night, another murder, and perhaps a serial killer on the loose.

Not to mention, Erin is out there somewhere just out of reach.

But justice is never out of reach.

It might be delayed, but we are bringing it home.

The End.

*

72 Hours From Now…

Special Agent Fallon Baxter

"Cover me," Jack pants as the three of us hug the wall with our backs as we speed up to the second story of the rundown motel in downtown Elmwood. Our guns are drawn, our adrenaline hitting its zenith.

The thing with Elmwood is that every nook and cranny qualifies as the crappy downtown corridor, and this no-tell roach motel is no exception.

"Where do you think he went?" Nikki says, nearly out of breath.

Our sprint through three city blocks while chasing our suspect has made us well aware we should lay off the donuts for a while. Will we? Probably not. But lessons like this usually need to be learned the hard way.

The lights flicker as we make it to the second floor and are met with three orange doors, each sealed shut. Shouting comes from the far end and Jack hitches his head in that direction as the sounds of women's voices rise into the night, and they sound wildly agitated.

Jack steps toward the door before glancing back at us.

Both Nikki and I nod his way.

We're ready.

My heart riots in my chest so hard, my skull vibrates from the effort.

This is it. We could kill or be killed.

Who knows what we'll find behind that door. It could be our perp. And I can guarantee you it could very well be Erin. My sister. My totally insane genius of a sister who I have half a mind to run her head through a wall.

How I would give anything to see her again.

And now in just moments, I could do just that.

The impossible finally possible.

Jack turns and in one swift motion busts the door open with his foot before jumping inside.

" FBI, everybody freeze ," he thunders.

Nikki and I jump in, flanking him on either side. But we don't see our suspect. Instead, we see an older woman with a shag of white hair, pale, and thin as a skeleton with about seven teeth in total staring back at us with her mouth agape.

The thin tan girl next to her looks equally surprised—dark hair, black eyes, pocked skin, about mid-thirties in age. Her arms rise to the air, but the skeleton with hair continues to gasp in our direction.

The room is small, the kitchenette is loaded with old fast food bags, and the smell of stale air and cigarettes lingers in the air.

I move past the peanut gallery and make a beeline for the door to the right and find an empty bathroom the size of a thimble, and the sink is molded with orange slime.

"All clear," I say with my weapon still poised as I move to the opened window to the left of the sofa. "That's where he went."

" Everybody out ," Jack growls, and the woman with pocked skin runs past us and out the door as if she were an apparition. " I said everybody out ," he growls once again and Nikki and I exchange puzzled looks.

"Is he talking to us?" Nikki asks, sounding about as confused as I'm feeling.

" Get out ." He cuts the air with his angst as he continues to glare at the skeletal woman, the barrel of his gun starting to lose its trajectory in her direction.

"I think he is talking to us," I say, stymied. "Bad news, Stone. I'm not going anywhere."

His eyes cut to mine, and there's a glint of something in them—fear, frenzy, fury, all of the above, and I don't get it.

" Out ," he roars right at me.