there was no way she could make him let go of her, or keep him from ripping the damn thing off her if he felt so inclined. “You want this, darling, it’s a full package. Tell me right now why the fuck you’re wearing a gun strapped to your thigh, and if it’s a lie-”
“You broke into my house,” she cried out, digging her nails into his wrist in an effort to keep him from dragging her dress up to her hip. “I knew someone was in there. I heard you. But I didn’t know-”
“Stop right there. Your cameras picked me up running across your yard. And you’re a smart woman; you would have backed up the footage, possibly seen me park my Jeep.” That busted look he’d seen way too many times in his life was written all over her face. It was the same expression he saw when she told him she was twenty-seven when her ID said she was twenty-three. “I’m sure you watched me back up when I decided to try breaking in. Make sure the next words that come out of your mouth are chosen very, very carefully.”
He hiked her dress up a bit more, barely noticing the pinch from her fingernails when she tried stopping him. The longer she stared at him, remaining stubbornly quiet, the more he feared the truth.
“Are you hiding from someone?” he demanded. “God, Kylie, if someone is stalking you.”
She pursed her lips, looking as though she wanted another kiss. On an impulse, he grabbed the gun, quickly unsnapping the strap that kept it secure in its holster, and slid it out. When he let go of her dress, she let go of his wrist but then grabbed the gun.
And not like a novice, inexperienced and ready to fight for a weapon that could go off and get one of them shot. Kylie’s smaller hand went around his, pushing the direction of the gun away from both of them.
“You can’t take that,” she said, sounding deadly serious.
He shook his head, refusing to let the sense of betrayal that bit at him when she still wouldn’t open up and tell him the truth.
“You forget, my dear. I’m an officer of the law. I sure the fuck can take this. In fact, you’re going to stand right there and not move while I call it in. Let’s find out who it’s registered to.”
“I can’t let you do that, Perry.” She looked at him as though she possessed the strength to physically take it away from him. “I’m not hiding from anyone. No one is stalking me,” she told him, her crisp, cool tone grabbing his attention. She blinked a few times as she chewed her lower lip, as if it took a lot of work on her part to force whatever she might say next out of her mouth. “I am looking for Peter. He’s not going to take another teenager. I’m really close to meeting him myself and when I do-”
“Goddamn it. Like fucking hell!” Perry yanked the gun from her and opened his car door, placing the gun on the seat and then turning to her. “And this is why you feed me lie after lie, denying your feelings for me, because you know I’ll stop you? Are you that obsessed with playing detective?”
“Perry, give me back my gun. If you call in to your dispatch and run those serial numbers, they will know you’re here with me. And I can’t allow you to risk your investigation, or mine, by doing that.”
“What the fuck?” He stared at her, digesting what she’d just said. “Why would my running those serial numbers hinder my investigation?”
“Please give me back my gun.”
Turning from her, he climbed into his car and flipped on his dome light. It surprised him and irked the hell out of him even more when she didn’t say anything as he wrote down the serial number. Kylie had just warned him against calling the number in to his dispatcher. But there were other ways to learn who owned this gun.
After writing down the number, he stood, holding the gun flat in his palm, and held it out for her to take. Which she did, and promptly checked to make sure the security on it was in place and then slid it back into its holster, not watching what she did but focusing on his face. Like she’d done it a million times-like a pro.
Suddenly the thought of her being incapable of feeling faded from his mind. Kylie’s story went a lot deeper than that, and it was about to get exposed.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night at five,” he informed her, sliding back behind his driver’s wheel. “Wear something nice but casual. No short skirts.”
He drove off with her blank, almost hard expression burned in his mind. It was as if she was resigned to something, and he wasn’t going to sleep until he knew every detail of what it was.
Thirty minutes later he endured the silence on the other end of the line, about done with people who he thought were his friends not telling him what he wanted to know.
“Noah, man, talk to me,” he insisted.
“I’m here, man. Where did you get this gun again?”
“Just tell me who the fuck it’s registered to.”
The loud sigh on the other end of the line crept over his skin annoyingly, like someone juicing up his nerves, exposing them, and rubbing the wrong way so as to irritate him and piss him the fuck off.
“Damn it, man, I’m sick the fuck of being lied to. I’ve dealt with it all night and walked away from it once. She came back to me, damn it. I have a right to know the goddamn truth.”
“Actually, you don’t,” Noah said seriously. “And I believe you, man. I would be mad as hell, too. I know it doesn’t make any sense to you. I’m afraid you’re going to have to leave her alone.”
“Excuse me? What? Suddenly you’re my mother?” he snarled. “Noah, tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Man, you’ve taken on the wrong woman this time. Leave it to you…,” he said, pausing and grunting something under his breath that didn’t sound good.
“Tell me who she is.”
“I can’t.”
Silence weighed so heavily between them it was making it hard as hell to breathe. Perry wanted to scream. He wanted to reach through the phone and beat the crap out of his long-time good friend.
“She’s an FBI agent,” Perry spit out, guessing.
But he wasn’t ready for the continued silence to follow. Perry felt a cold sweat soak his forehead when Noah didn’t confirm or deny his guess.
“Goddamn, son of a bitch.” He rubbed his face, his heart suddenly pounding adrenaline through his system with a fury he could barely hold on to. “No wonder she almost panicked when I suggested calling in the serial number.”
“Perry, leave it alone.”
“Of course, Noah. I’m sure that is exactly what the fuck you would do in the same circumstance.”
Noah grunted into Perry’s ear, again not commenting, but not disputing the accusation, either.
“Goddamn good thing I speak Neanderthal. So tell me, she’s working undercover and that is why she’s lying every time she opens that pretty little mouth of hers.”
“You know I’m not going to answer your questions.” Noah might as well just have confirmed everything Perry just said. His mind raced, trying to come up with wording good enough to drag more information out of his FBI friend. “I made it to a crime scene tonight only to learn the FBI beat me to the punch. They announced tonight their involvement in this case. But I’ve worked alongside FBI agents before on other cases. So there’s got to be a damn good reason why someone has decided she can’t reveal who she is to anyone, not even me.”
“Don’t push it, man.”
“Like fucking hell. I’m going to fucking shove my way into this one. You have no idea.”
As he remembered how she ran across her yard barefoot, chasing him down instead of letting him leave her, Perry’s insides tightened. His urge to protect her peaked to dangerous levels. He would make sure she didn’t get hurt while she pursued a madman, and at the same time vowed to destroy whoever it was who decided she could take on this case by herself.
“This isn’t worth jeopardizing your career over, man.”
“You have no idea what it’s fucking worth to me, man. What if I told you going after that cop lady of yours wasn’t worth it a year ago?”
“I would have told you to go to fucking hell,” Noah said, laughing dryly.
“Well, back at you, man.”
“You take any information you stumble onto, Perry-”
“I know the fucking ropes,” he hissed. But the realization hitting him like a brick in the head at the moment was strong enough to knock sense even into his thick skull. “She’s on this case, undercover, and can’t tell me the truth. I can learn it, though, man. I wouldn’t jeopardize her job. All that I need to know is the truth. I’ll make sure she understands that I won’t blow her cover.” There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his mind that once he made her
