A Little Too Hot

Chapter Twenty-Three

BLAKE LEADS ME into a room in the courthouse where five men in suits are sitting on opposite sides of a table. My feet stall in the door.

“Where’s Yvonne?” I whisper.

He grasps my arm and backs us up a step, into the hall. “She was your criminal attorney. You’re not charged with anything anymore, so you don’t have a lawyer.”

“I liked her.”

His face goes sympathetic. “I’m sorry. But our attorneys are here to keep Arroyo’s team in line. It’s going to be okay.”

I take a calming breath and we step back into the room. All Ben’s guys are on one side of the table, and Blake and I move to the other, where the two DEA lawyers make room for us between them. Introductions are made, hands are shaken, and we all take seats. The only thing holding me together is Blake’s leg, pressed against mine under the table.

“Miss West, thank you for meeting with us,” the Asian guy on the other side of the table says.

“I didn’t realize it was a choice,” I mutter.

That gets a tight smile from the fat man next to me, one of the DEA guys.

“So, just to make sure we have all the facts straight, you were working at Benjamin Arroyo’s nightclub, Benny’s, as an exotic dancer?” the Asian one says, looking over his paperwork.

“Yes.” I want to add more, but I remember Yvonne’s rules and keep it to yes and no.

“And, on the night of April twenty-sixth, you were working?”

“Yes.”

“How long was your shift that night?”

“I started on stage at nine, and Nora . . . Ben’s wife, pulled me off around eleven-thirty.”

“So, it’s safe to assume you were tired, after dancing for two and a half hours on stage.”

“No.”

He gives me a skeptical smile. “You might have had a drink or two to relax?”

I have no idea where he’s going with this, but I work to hide my nerves. “Only water.”

“You’re sure about that?”

I open my mouth to say yes, but cringe as I remember. “Ben gave me a scotch or two.”

He nods, satisfied.

“But I wasn’t drunk.”

He squints at me, as if he finds that hard to believe. “How did you end up working at Benny’s, Miss West?”

“I interviewed and Ben hired me.”

He squints at his paperwork. “But . . . weren’t you enrolled at UC Santa Cruz?”

A stone sinks in my gut. “I was.”

“And you were asked to leave for academic reasons.”

It’s not a question, but I nod anyway.

“How many morning classes did you have last quarter, Miss West?”

“Define morning,” I say.

He waves a hand in a circle. “I believe the precise definition can be found in Webster’s, but for our purposes, can we agree on anything before noon, say?”

“Two on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and one on Tuesday and Thursday.”

“And, how many of those class sessions would you estimate you attended?” he asks, looking smug. “Just give us a ballpark percentage.”

“I don’t see how any of this is relevant to your defense,” the lanky white guy on Blake’s other side says, and I remember he’s one of ours.

“It goes to character and reliability of the witness.” He smirks at his adversary. “We can do this in open court, if you’d prefer.”

The guy leans around Blake and gives me a grim nod.

I rub my forehead. “In a ballpark percentage, zero.”

Blake tenses next to me, but when I look up at him, it’s not the disappointment I expected to see that’s lining his face. His blue eyes meet mine, and there’s an apology in them.

The rest of the questioning revolves around me detailing everything I saw again, and Ben’s attorneys making me question all of it. By the time we’re finally done, I have no idea what I saw.

“I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus,” I tell Blake as he leads me out of the room.

“That was rough. Sorry.”

I start to say it’s not his fault, but then I remember that it mostly is. “Just get me out of here.”

He guides me to the parking garage and opens the door to the Escalade for me. He climbs in his side and just looks at me for a second. “It wasn’t as bad as it seemed, Sam,” he says, starting the car. “Their job is to make you doubt yourself—to break down your confidence.”

“Well, they did a pretty good job of it, then.”

His face pulls into a frown as he navigates us out of the garage behind Cooper’s black Charger. “The other part of their job is to discredit you. They’re going to tear you apart on the stand. But all that matters is what you saw. Don’t let them into your head. Just tell the court what happened and everything will be fine.”

I plant an elbow on the console and rest my forehead in my hand. “But I don’t really know what happened . . . just that Weber was in that room when I left. I don’t know Ben killed him.”

Blake flashes me a glance. “He did, Sam.”

We wind our way through city streets, taking the most indirect route possible, and when we finally make it up the hill and Cooper clears us, we pull into the garage. Blake has seemed more distant today, and I know it’s probably because of our “moment” yesterday. He’s trying so hard to toe the line, but if he’s feeling half of what he makes me feel, I know that can’t be easy.

Once we’re safely inside, I change and escape out the French doors to the pool, where I dive in and swim. With each lap, I feel a little of the tension melt away, until eventually my mind is blank. I have no idea how many laps I’ve swum when I finally run out of steam. Twenty? Thirty? I roll onto my back in the shallow end and let the water sweep my hair back as I stand.

I wipe the last droplets out of my eyes and find my dragonfly keeping me company again. And so is Blake. He’s seated on the lounge chair near the edge of the pool in his swim trunks.

“Did you hire that dragonfly to watch me? Is that your version of a fly-on-the-wall?”

He glances down at the dragonfly and back to me. “I have spies everywhere.” He leans his elbows on his knees, flexing his pecs and making it hard to look anywhere else. “Were you a swimmer? Before this?”

“No. We didn’t have a pool or anything, so . . .” I move to the pool edge next to my dragonfly and prop my arms on it, crossing them and resting my chin on my forearms. “You?”

He shrugs. “Not really for exercise. More for recreation. Scuba and snorkeling mostly.”

I remember him saying something about diving with his dad when he was a kid. “I’m sort of afraid of sharks. I don’t go in the ocean.”

“Galeophobia,” he says with a nod.

“Excuse me?”

“The fear of sharks. Galeophobia. It’s pretty common.”

“All I know is there are always stories about surfers getting eaten, and there was that kayaker that got munched right near San Francisco a few weeks ago, so I think it’s less of a phobia and more just basic common sense. Don’t swim where there are things that can eat you.”

He leans back on his hands. “The chances of anything happening are almost nil. Thousands of people dive and surf off the California coast, and there are maybe one or two attacks a year.”

“Yeah, well, I’d bet those one or two people wouldn’t say their chances were nil.”

He stands and paces the pool deck, but his eyes never leave me. “I’m starting to think that’s what life is all about . . . facing down your fears.” He hesitates at the stairs into the water before slowly stepping down them.

The water, with him in it, takes on an electrical charge that wasn’t there before. As he gets closer, he brushes a hand over the surface of the water, pushing a small wave at me. “Would you ever consider leaving here?”

I turn my back to the pool edge and rest my arms on it. “Um . . . every day.”

He gives me a slow shake of his head. “I don’t mean this house. I mean this state.”

“I haven’t really thought about it.”

All I can do is stare as he moves closer, rippling the water ahead of him so that it laps gently against my belly. He reaches up and I hold my breath as the backs of his fingers brush along my jawline. He lowers his hand and closes his eyes, breathing deeply. When he opens them, his gaze is intense. “If I could go back in time, I’d never have put you in this situation. It’s killing me that I’ve put you in danger.”

I break our gaze, because what’s becoming crystal clear is, as much as I’ve wanted to blame Mom and Blake and everyone else for everything that’s happened to me, it’s all because of choices I made. “This isn’t your fault, Blake.”

“I’ve just . . .” He gives his head a slow shake as he tries to sort something out. “This is the whole reason I joined the DEA, you know? To take Arroyo down. I guess I was so focused on the endgame that I didn’t consider the collateral damage.”

“You joined the DEA because of Ben?” I ask, a little confused. There have to be thousands of bad guys. “How did you even know who he was?”

He blows out a slow breath and braces his hands on the pool edge on either side of me. “My sister was killed in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, God,” I gasp, my hands flying to my face. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

“Dad was a mess after she was killed, but he wouldn’t let himself grieve. He just buried himself in his work. It was about three months later that he was leading a bust here in San Francisco. Arroyo was involved.” He shrugs off the pool edge and backs away a step. “It’s not really clear what happened, but things went bad and Dad got shot.”

He pauses, swallowing hard, and I can’t even bring myself to ask if he’s alive, or if he was killed.

“I joined the DEA right after his funeral,” he says, answering my unasked question. “This is all I’ve been able to think about . . . taking down the guy who killed my father.” He turns and rests his back against the pool edge, his shoulder pressing against mine. “I can’t bring Caroline or Dad back, but it just felt like something I had to do . . . taking up his cause.” He closes his eyes against whatever’s rising there and rubs them.

I step in front of him, and he shudders as I stroke my fingertips down his cheek. “I’m so sorry, Blake.”

His wounded eyes open and he holds me in his gaze. His breathing is shaky from emotion as he says, “I should have never involved you in this. I just got so caught up in getting Arroyo, I—”

I stop him with my fingertips on his lips. They’re as soft and strong as I remember when they were pressed against mine. “It’s not your fault.”

My eyes trace the lines of his perfect mouth, along the angle of his jaw, past his Adam’s apple to the hollow of his throat. When they lift back to his face, his eyes are smoldering.

He lifts his hand and trails a fingertip along the scar on my cheek. His touch is electric, and my breath stalls as he leans slowly toward me. He threads his fingers through my hair, but then pauses, his lips just inches from mine.

There’s a long second where he holds me hypnotized by his proximity, by his scent, by the delicious taste of his breath. My heart strains against my rib cage, trying to break free. The fire in my soul burns in his eyes as he gazes into mine.

But then his jaw flexes and he closes his eyes. When he opens them, the fire is still there, but there’s a hint of pain. He turns and stalks up the stairs to the house, leaving me breathless and aching, but with a new understanding of Blake Montgomery.