A Little Too Hot

Chapter Thirty-Six

IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS since I last saw Blake. They moved me to a house inside the Presidio, waiting for it to be “safe” enough to let me go. It’s gated, so I guess they figure between the private security and Jenkins, no one will get to me here.

I’m pretty convinced I’ll never be safe.

Since there’s no pool, I stay in my room most of the time. There’s just enough floor space in here that I can work through my kata. So I do. A lot. It’s the only thing keeping me sane.

Every time I ask Jenkins what happened to Blake, he gives me the evil eye. Every time I ask Jenkins how long I have to stay here, he gives me the evil eye. Every time I ask Jenkins what’s for dinner, he gives me the evil eye. So I’ve stopped asking him things. I don’t think he wants to be here any more than I do.

A cool San Francisco breeze wafts in through my open window, drying the sheen of sweat on my neck and face as I work through my last series of kicks. I stand and bow, then flop back on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

The knock at my door surprises me. Jenkins usually leaves me alone.

“What?” I yell, sitting up.

The door cracks open and he sticks his ginormous head through. “There’s someone here you’ll want to see.”

My heart leaps. It’s got to be Blake. There’s no one else I want to see who they’d let in here.

I spring off the bed and nearly knock Jenkins over pushing past him out the door. I bound into the living room.

“Jezebel,” Cooper says.

My eyes dart around the room, but there’s no one else. The air is knocked out of my lungs.

“Have a seat.” He waves me into the sofa and sits on the coffee table across from me.

I sit, petrified. I can’t force words up my throat, because the only thing I can think to ask is if Blake’s okay, and I’m terrified of what his answer will be.

He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “Special Agent in Charge Navarro has decided Arroyo is no longer a threat. We’re sending you home.”

My eyes spring wide. “Home?” But as I say it, I realize I have no idea where home is. I can’t go back to Mom’s . . . at least not until I sort some things out. All my stuff is still at Jonathan’s, but I truly hate myself for thinking the worst of him when all he was trying to do was help. How can I ever apologize for that? I can’t go back to Katie’s. Izzy? Last time I saw her, we’d just gotten shot at. She was pretty shaken.

I belong nowhere.

“Sam?” Cooper says, and the sound of my actual name coming from his mouth shakes me out of my scrambled thoughts.

“Where’s Blake?”

He stands and rubs his palms down his slacks. “It’s a nice day out. Why don’t we take a walk?”

I gain my feet and find they’re numb, cement blocks at the end of spaghetti legs. We pass Jenkins, who’s standing in the corner with his arms crossed over his chest, and he starts to follow us to the door.

“You know, Jenkins,” Cooper says, flashing him a look, “I think we’re good. Why don’t you stay here and pack your stuff?”

Jenkins gives him a narrow-eyed look and turns for his room.

We slip through the door into rare San Francisco summer sun. There’s a stiff breeze off the ocean, but it’s not cold for a change.

I watch the sidewalk unfold as we stroll toward the water. “Is he okay?”

Cooper walks next to me, his head down and his hands in his pockets. “He’s on administrative suspension.”

“Because of me.”

It’s not a question, but he nods anyway. “In a manner of speaking, but not for the reason you think.”

“What do you mean?”

Out of the corner of my eye I see him lift his head and look at me. “Blake needs your help, Sam.”

I stop walking and look at him with wide eyes, my heart galloping a mile a minute. “What does he need? I’ll do anything.”

“Someone from inside the department was leaking information to Arroyo’s people. Internal Affairs is on a witch hunt. They think it’s Blake.”

My jaw is gaping and I close it. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

“If Blake wanted to give me up to Arroyo’s guys, he would have just let them into the house.”

He juts his chin. “Only if he wanted everyone to know it was him.”

“You’re crazy.”

He shakes his head again. “Look, Sam. I don’t believe it either, I need you to tell me exactly what happened. Unless we can come up with a better alternative, I’m afraid they’re going to pin this on Blake. His code is the only one that was used to access the house on the morning you were attacked.”

I rub my forehead to stave off the headache that’s forming there. But then I think about what he said. “In the morning? What time?”

“Seven-fifteen was the last time his code was entered.”

My eyes widen. “It wasn’t him.”

“And you know this because . . . ?”

“I just do,” I say, panic and the memory of exactly what I was doing to Blake at seven-fifteen that morning kicking my heart into overdrive. “He was with me.”

His lips press into a grim line. “They’re not going to take your word for it, especially when Montgomery refuses to corroborate that.”

My hands fist at my sides. “It wasn’t him,” I repeat through a tight jaw. My brain scrambles, trying to decide what would be worse for Blake, admitting he was in the shower with me or letting them think he let Marcus in.

He tips his head, giving me a wary look. “No one else would have had that code. We both chose our own and programmed them into the security system. We didn’t even know each other’s.”

I rub my forehead again. There’s something caught in there that feels important, but my brain won’t spit it out. “If they decide he did it, what would it mean? What would happen to him?”

His frown creases deep lines into his face. “Prison time.”

“Oh my God.” Tears press at the back of my eyes. “He was with me, Cooper. I woke up at seven and climbed in the shower with him. Marcus was in the bedroom when I came out at least forty-five minutes later. Blake didn’t let him in at seven-fifteen. We were in the shower together.”

His lips purse and he scrutinizes me before turning up the sidewalk.

“What do I do, Cooper?” I ask, moving beside him.

“That’s up to you. You can sign a statement to that effect, if you want. It will save Montgomery jail time. But you know that alibi isn’t going to keep him out of hot water.”

I look at him, searching his face for what he thinks I should do. “He’s already in trouble for that, right? I mean . . . he was naked in my bedroom when you got there.”

He flicks me a look. “But not when Navarro came in.”

My eyes widen. “The department doesn’t know?”

He shakes his head and traps me in his severe gaze. “Only me, you, and Montgomery know what state he was in when he contained the suspect. If he was with you at seven-fifteen, that would clear him, but he’s not going to be the one to tarnish your good name. Believe me, I already tried convincing him. So the choice is yours, Jezebel.”

This is the very least I can do for him. Blake has done so much for me, including taking a bullet. I shudder as images from the night Blake got shot flash through my mind: the blood, and Blake being carried away on a stretcher. “Nichols!”

Cooper lifts his head and gives me a guarded look.

“Nichols brought me home the night Blake was shot. He gave her his code and told her to flush it when she got to the house. When she left in the morning, she had his key. He told her to give it back to you because he had yours.”

In the next three seconds his gaze shifts from guarded to stunned to enraged. And the second after that, his phone is in his hand.

“Where is Nichols?” he barks into it, spinning on his heel.

I follow as he hoofs faster than I even knew he was capable of, moving back toward the house.

“Lock her down,” he says after a pause. “Interrogation 3. I’ll be there in thirty.” He shoves me through the door in front of him. “Jenkins!”

Jenkins comes loping up the hall.

“Don’t let her go anywhere until you hear back from me!” And then he’s gone.

IT WAS NICHOLS. Cooper came back later that night to tell me and bring me home.

She broke down and confessed when they questioned her. When she was under cover at Benny’s, she apparently let things go a little too far. I remember her saying she and her husband went through a rough patch when it took so long to get pregnant. She and Ben had an affair, and it turns out the dressing room wasn’t the only place Ben had cameras. He had pictures of them together in his office that he used to blackmail her to bring him information from inside the department.

And the worst part, she thinks the baby is his.

Cooper loaded up my things, and when he asked me “Where to?” I called Izzy and asked if I could stay with her for a few days. He dropped me off at her apartment. “When agents cross the line, it never ends well,” he’d said just as he was leaving, and from the look he gave me, it was clear he wasn’t just talking about Nichols.

And that’s when I knew.

No matter what happens, Blake isn’t coming back.

I’ve been at Izzy’s for a week, and I still haven’t been able to bring myself to call Jonathan. I’m sure he hates me for throwing him under the bus. But it’s time.

The Astray website says Hell’s Gate is playing there tonight. For better or worse, I have to know if I’ve lost Jonathan’s friendship.

Izzy and I take the bus downtown and push through the door of the packed club just as Jonathan is tearing through his rendition of a Disturbed song. We grab drinks at the bar and luck into a booth that a group of drunk college guys is just vacating to the right of the dance floor. I scan the crowd and catch sight of Ginger’s white hair as she thrashes up near the stage.

Izzy presses her shoulder into mine. “I’m going to get Ginger,” and before I can decide if I want her to do that, she’s already weaving through the crush of bodies toward the stage.

I alternately chew my cuticle and sip my drink as I watch Jonathan seduce the room, and I wish with every fiber of my being things could be how they were before I ruined everything. Will he forgive me?

“Holy fucking shit,” Ginger says as she steps out of the fray on the dance floor. Her arms are crossed over her chest as she looks me over, and I can’t tell if she’s pissed or just surprised. “Jonathan is going to shit his pants. Where the hell did you come from?” she says, launching herself at me and giving me a one-armed hug.

“I’m sort of back, I guess.” I start to open my mouth to ask if Jonathan hates me, when Izzy wrestles her way out of the crowd and slides into the booth across from me.

“She wanted to surprise Jonathan,” Izzy offers, and I realize how much better that sounds than what I was going to say.

Ginger looks around. “Where’s your secret agent man?”

“Um . . . I’m on my own. They let me go.”

She grabs my hand, dragging me out of the booth and back through the writhing bodies to the front of the stage just as Jonathan is swinging his mic by the cord to the last pounding beats of the pizza song.

When he looks down from the stage and sees me, his eyes widen and my heart stops. It feels like the rest of my life later that a grin breaks over his face.

“We’re gonna take a short break,” he says into the mic, hopping off the stage and landing right in front of me. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He flicks the mic off and tosses it onto the stage, and then he just looks at me with those incredible eyes. “Long time no see.”

It’s only as the first tear leaks over my lashes that I realize I’m crying. “I’m so sorry, Jonathan.”

He tips his head at me with a question in his eyes. “For what?”

“I thought you—” The words choke off on a sob and I drop my face into my hands.

“C’mere,” he says, and I feel his strong arm wrap over my shoulders. He moves us through the jostling crowd as everybody tries to get their piece of him, tugging on his clothes or grabbing at his arms. He manages to break through and guide me up the stairs on the side of the stage. He leads me backstage and turns me to face him, a hand grasping each of my upper arms. “What’s up, Red? Why the tears?”

“Do you hate me?” I ask, my voice thick as I rub at my wet cheeks.

His face scrunches. “What?”

“I thought you . . . might have . . . with Ben . . .” I stammer, fully aware that I’m making no sense.

“Hey,” he says, giving me a little bit of a shake. “I was afraid you’d never forgive me for being so fucking stupid. You have every right to hate me.” He lets me go and hangs his head. “I got you shot at, for fuck’s sake. I’m never going to forgive myself.”

I wipe my eyes again, and as our surroundings come into focus, I realize the entire stage crew is staring at us. I haul a shuddering breath, trying to get my shit together. “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

He looks up at me, then opens his arms. “I’m a moron. I deserve to be doubted.”

I step into his arms and they close around me.

“Jon,” someone says from behind me.

“Yeah, I’m coming,” he answers, but he doesn’t let me go. “So, Red. I gotta get back out there, but we need to talk, okay? After the gig, if you’re still around? Or tomorrow?”

I nod and pull back, stretching up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I love you.”

He gives me his signature crooked smile and cocks a pierced eyebrow as he backs toward the curtain. “I know.”

I stumble down the stairs and to the table where Izzy’s still holding down the fort.

“Everything good?” she asks when I slip into the seat across from her.

“I’m good,” I say, and it doesn’t feel like a lie.

I’ve talked to Mom. She wants me to come home. I think we understand each other a little better now. She gets that she needs to let me make my own mistakes, and I get that I need to try to make less of them. But the truth is, I really feel like it’s time to stop relying on everyone else and stand on my own two feet. I’ve been researching scholarships and grants, and I think I want to try the college thing again—on my own this time. San Jose State offers a victimology concentration in their criminology program, and I want to minor in women’s studies.

I’ve spent a lot of time at the shelter over the last week. Sabrina and I have talked and cried together. If all I can do for her now is to be her friend, I think that’s something, but I want to learn to help women like Sabrina for real. I want my life to mean something. Which means I need to get it straightened out, and the first thing that’s going to entail is getting a real job so I can keep living at Izzy’s and pay for school. The next thing is going to be figuring out how to shake the feeling like I left a huge piece of my heart up on that hill in Berkeley.

I’ve got to let Blake go, but I can’t deny the hole in my chest every time I remember the brush of his lips over mine; the feel of his hands, so gentle on my skin; the press of his body against mine as he loved me.

I miss him.

“Have you heard from him?” Izzy asks just over the music, reading my mind.

“No. Nothing.” I’ve resisted the urge to call him, and after what Cooper said, I’m glad. If he’s trying to get everything straightened out and keep his job, I’m only going to be a problem for him. I have to stop pining for him.

“He’ll call, Sam. When he can. I’m sure of it.”

I just nod, because if I try to say anything, I’m going to start crying again.

“Hey,” someone says from the end of our table.

I look up and see a dark Hispanic guy. He’s totally hot, and Izzy sits up a little straighter when she sees him. “You up for a dance?” he asks, grinning at her.

She looks in my direction with a hopeful expression.

I give her a nod. “Go.”

“I’ll be right back,” she says, giving me a quick hug before sliding out of the booth. I watch as he guides her to the dance floor.

Jonathan is screeching into the microphone as his guys back him up with a breakneck rhythm, and Izzy starts to move. She’s a great dancer, and her guy can’t take his eyes off her. Half a song later they’re pressed together, swaying half-time to the beat.

I slouch into the booth and tip my head into the back of it. I need to forget about Blake and move on. I listen to Jonathan sing and resolve right then that I’m going to dance with the next guy who asks me.

Jonathan and the band wind down their song, and there’s a pause in the music. It’s a few seconds later when he says into the mic, “This next one goes out to my best friend, Red. Things aren’t always going to suck. Starting now.”

I sit up and look toward the stage, where he’s grinning at me as he breaks into the Bruno Mars song that was playing the first time I met Blake. I’ve never heard him do this song before, but as he starts on the first verse, my heart contracts into a hard ball. He doesn’t know what this song means to me. I close my eyes and lower my head, determined not to cry, as the lyrics yank at the deepest part of my soul.

“Dance with me.”

At the slow warm-honey drawl, my breaking heart explodes. I lift my head, and my eyes find the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.