A Little Too Hot

Chapter Fourteen

“RED?”

At first I wonder what Jonathan’s doing in the VIP room with Harrison and me. It takes me a minute to shake off the remnants of the dream, then I rub my eyes and push the blanket aside. The lights flip on in the dark room, and I sit up and look at Jonathan through bleary eyes, standing in the door of my holding cell, a backpack slung over his shoulder.

Cooper took Jonathan’s number and told me he’d call him after he milked my brain for every insignificant thing I could remember about that night, from what the dead guy was wearing to every word he said in my presence, which was none. Apparently, Cooper made good on that promise, because here Jonathan is.

He steps into the room and I spring off the cot into his arms. Anything I think I want to say is choked off by the lump pulsing in my throat.

“Fuck, Red,” he says low in my ear, his fingers stroking my hair. “I can’t believe this shit happened to you.”

I swallow hard and pull back from his shoulder. “Did you talk to Ben? How pissed is he?”

He cringes a little. “They’ve got him. He might even be here somewhere,” he adds, his eyes flicking to the door, where Special Agent Nichols stands, arms folded over her bulging stomach. He unloops the backpack from his shoulder and hands it to me. “The guy who called said you needed some stuff.”

I take it from his hand. “Thanks. What time is it?”

“Like, nine.”

“Christ, it’s been a long day.” I look past him at Agent Nichols. “Can I use the washroom?”

She nods and I grab my towel and move to the door. “Don’t go anywhere,” I tell Jonathan. “I’ll be right back.”

I throw some water on my face, then slip on the clothes Jonathan brought: some of my sexiest underwear, a snug Victoria’s Secret Pink T-shirt, and my most comfortable jeans. He also remembered socks and my green Chuck Taylors.

He really is a good friend.

When I knock, Nichols opens the door, and I find Cooper waiting with her. Nichols hands me a white plastic sack. “This is everything you came in with.”

I peak inside and find my shoulder bag and my Benny’s costume, complete with boots. I pull my bag out and sling it over my shoulder, then dig for my phone . . . which is totally dead. “You don’t happen to have a charger . . . ?”

Cooper gives me a look, then turns and starts walking me back to my holding cell, Nichols trailing behind. “We recommend that you don’t talk to anyone about the case,” he tells me. “And don’t leave the Bay Area without talking to us first. We’ll need you to come in next week and give a sworn statement. We’ll set it up through our attorneys.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll leave the country?”

“No.”

He says it so matter-of-factly that it makes me want to prove him wrong. I start plotting where I could go. Cancun? Paris? Mars, maybe?

I hoof it up the hall toward where I hear Jonathan’s amazing voice wafting up the corridor as he sings. When I step through the door, he’s lying on my cot, his earbuds in and his eyes closed. His fingers are laced behind his head and one ankle is propped on a bent knee, his legs rocking to the beat of whatever’s playing on his iPod. I know he’s spent a few nights in jail here and there, but he’s looking way too comfortable.

“Jonathan,” I say, nudging his elbow with my knee.

He opens his eyes and sits up. “Oh, Red,” he says, a Cheshire grin lighting up his entire face as he scans my outfit. “I chose well. You look hot.”

I roll my eyes. “Can we try to stay a little focused here, Jonathan? I’ve been arrested.”

He rubs a forearm over his face and stands. “But you’re good now, right? They’re letting you go?”

I look a question at Cooper, who’s propped on the door frame.

“Your charges have been dropped. You’re free to go.” There’s something in his eyes as he says it that makes me uneasy.

“Get me out of here,” I tell Jonathan.

“Damn straight,” he answers, looping an arm over my shoulders.

I lean into him as we ride the elevator down, and ignore Cooper as he escorts us out of the building. But when I look up, Blake is just stepping through the front doors. My feet stall halfway across the lobby, and Jonathan slows to my pace.

“You okay?” he asks, low in my ear.

I nod and force my feet to move again.

Cooper peels off and Blake steps forward. “Be careful, Sam.”

“That’s it?” I ask. “That’s all you have to say? No ‘I’m sorry I screwed up your life’?”

He just nods and steps back, his expression flat and his eyes giving nothing away.

I glare at him, then Jonathan and I push through the doors into the dark of the night.

He follows us out and watches from the door as we cross the street.

I focus on breathing and force myself not to look back as we walk the few blocks to where Jonathan parked. The light drizzle cools the fever burning under my skin, but it’s not enough to quell the tumult of emotions that presses tears into my eyes and blurs the sidewalk in front of me. I stagger and Jonathan steadies me, then loads me into the van.

“You okay?” he asks again once we’re in, reaching for my hand.

“No,” I say, and the floodgates open. All the tension, and frustration, and fear from the last twenty-four hours, everything I refused to let Blake see, comes pouring out of me in tears that I can’t stop.

Jonathan pulls me to his shoulder. “I got you.” He strokes my hair and holds me tight until the tears slow.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I snivel between hiccups.

“I never would have brought you there if I saw this coming.”

I pull away from his shoulder and wipe my eyes. “What is Ben into, Jonathan?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t really know. I thought it was just minor drug stuff.”

“They want me to testify against him . . . say I saw a guy in his office that they think he killed.”

He groans a little and hangs his head. “This is so fucked up.”

I pull my foot up and hug my knee. “I was so stupid. I can’t believe I didn’t know Blake was a cop.”

He runs a strand of my hair between his fingers. “You really liked him?”

With his question, I realize I’m crying again. I tip my head and rest my forehead on my knee. “I would have slept with him right there at Benny’s. I wanted to. I just never thought . . .” I trail off, too ashamed to finish.

“It’s not your fault he turned out to be a narc, Red. He played you. The guy’s a dick. You can’t beat yourself up over it.”

Sure I can.

I click my seat belt, then crank the stereo, a Hell’s Gate demo reel, and listen to Jonathan singing about pizza toppings through the speakers as he pulls out his phone. “Ginger’s dying to see you. She was getting her legal panties all in a bunch,” he says, his thumbs flying across the screen.

He tucks his phone into his pocket and we glide away from the curb. When we hit the Bay Bridge, I lean into the window and close my eyes as the adrenaline drains from my system, trying to forget about Blake, Benny’s, and everything else.

Minutes later I realize I’m dozing when there’s a loud crunch and I’m jostled in my seat.

“What the fuck!”

The freaked pitch of Jonathan’s voice chases away any remnants of sleep and sends my heart shooting into my throat. I brace my arms against the dashboard when a car darts in front of us and Jonathan slams on the brakes. I’m thrown against the door of the van as he jerks the wheel to the left, and the screech of tires tells me we’re skidding. When we roll, it sounds like the whole world is shattering all around me. My seat belt locks me in my seat, but as we slam onto my side of the van, a rock or something smashes through the window and I hit my head hard.

It feels like we’re spinning and flipping forever before the van finally settles, creaking and groaning, in the ditch on the side of the highway. The sputtering hiss of the radiator in the sudden silence sounds like the rattle of a snake.

We’ve come to rest on Jonathan’s side of the van, so I’m dangling over him from my seat belt. My head throbs, and when I look around, it’s dark and my vision is blurry.

“Jonathan?” I croak.

I squint at his shape below me and see a dark splotch growing on his shirt. It takes me a second to realize that it’s blood. Mine. It drips in a steady stream off the tip of my nose.

“Jonathan!”

He just lays there, unmoving.

“Damn,” I say, my shaking hands trying and failing to work the buckle and free me from the seat belt. The throbbing in my right temple becomes a splitting pain with the effort. “Jonathan! Wake up!”

Adrenaline surges my bloodstream as I get my bearings. I finally manage to get the belt loose and fall out of my seat on top of him. I cry out at the stabbing pain that shoots from my right shoulder through the whole rest of me at the impact. He grunts and opens his eyes.

“We’ve got to get out of here, Jonathan!” I say, shaking him.

He blinks a few times, then seems to realize where we are. “Shit!” he groans, feeling around in the dark for his seat belt latch. “What the fuck happened?”

I snap open his buckle and untangle his seat belt from his body, then stand and reach for the passenger door above us and let out another shriek at the pain in my right shoulder. I yank the handle with my left hand and try to push it open, but it’s too heavy, or stuck, or something.

I scramble between the seats into the back, and when I reach the cargo door and tug the lever, it falls open with a groan and a thud. “Come on!”

He topples over the seat and staggers back to where I am. I get down on my belly and slither out. When I stand, I see the silhouette of a man looking down at us in the streetlights up on the road.

“Help!” I call.

My head pounds and through my double vision I see the streetlights glint off something in the guy’s hand. There’s a pop, then a chink on the door of the van at my feet. For an instant I stare up at the guy, my brain unable to register what’s happening. Jonathan drags himself through the door and is still on his stomach in the dirt when two more pops sound from up on the road. A patch of dirt near Jonathan’s face explodes.

He grunts and then sucks in a hissing breath. “Fuck! Get down, Red!” He grabs my legs and rolls me in the dirt so we’re behind the van. “He’s shooting at us!”