Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) (18 page)

Yep
, it was his
BAMF
hand.

Nicki’s body was stiff and immovable as she watched the action unfold.  Sterne’s gun went off, but the bullet went through the already-crumbling porch roof.  Sean punched him in his face again and Sterne dropped to his knees.  Sean kicked the gun out of his hand and the gun fell to the ground near the side of the house.  Nicki was closest to it, but she didn’t want to touch it.

The next thing she knew, no fewer than four officers were rushing up to the porch, and Sterne was in cuffs, blood dripping down over his lips.

Sean leaned against the wall of the house, his face pale. 
One of the officers
turned to him and started
talking to Sean when another approached
Nicki
.  “Miss, come with me please.”  Nicki saw Sterne being shoved into the back of a police car as an ambulance approached and parked behind the last police car.  “Are you all right?”

It felt like someone else was controlling her body when she answered, “Yeah.  I think so.”

* * *

The cops had asked a lot of basic questions, wanting to know how everything had unfolded, but they wanted to get more formal statements from everyone after they’d checked out the premises.  In the meantime, though, they wanted everyone
examined
by paramedics and needed the area cleared.  Several officers were in Melissa Jacobs’s house while Sean and Nicki sat on the curb next to her car.  Nicki had seen Melissa’s sons with her in the ambulance as a paramedic was giving her the attention she no doubt needed.  Mikey was being entertained by one of the police officers who was showing him the walkie-talkie mounted on a shoulder clip.

Nicki had so much she wanted to say but no clue how to say it.  She had to try.  “Sean, I’m so sorry I got you involved in all this.”

He looked over at her, a half smile on his face.  “It’s cool, Nicki.”

She exhaled.  “Yeah, but you could’ve gotten killed.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.”

She nodded, looking out at the two cop cars that were now parked and no longer displaying their flashing lights.  “Still…just accept my apology, okay?”

Sean was still looking at her and maintained his focus until her eyes finally met his.  “Fine.  But it’s unnecessary.
  It’s no worse than getting in a bar fight.”

“And when’s the last time you did that?”

He shrugged.  “So I’m out of practice.  I did all right, though.”

That he had.  “I just keep thinking that I’d probably be dead if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Well, stop thinking about it then.”

“No, seriously, Sean.  He had said that if the cops showed up, I was dead.  But you came to the door, and we made our way out the back while he was distracted.”

“Then stop fucking apologizing, Nicki.  You texted me for help, and I did.”

She scowled and pushed him with her shoulder.  He was right.  “Fine.”  He shook his head, smiling.  “And thanks.”  He nodded.
 
“Guess I should use this opportunity
to get my own statements for the paper
.
  A few impromptu interviews, and I’ll have one helluva story.
”  Her steno book and pen might have been in the house, but she had her car keys and fetched spares out of the backseat.

Chapter Twenty-two

NICKI STROLLED INTO Sean’s garage, grateful for the cool moist breeze she felt on her bare arms.  It was the first rainstorm they’d had in two weeks, and she could hardly believe how much better it made her feel
, both physically and mentally
.

Sean was welding in the corner, causing blue shadows to dance around
on the walls
.  His face was obscured by the helmet he wore, and he was leaning over, so Nicki knew he hadn’t seen her.  She wasn’t concerned.  She could wait.

He was playing Godsmack again, this time cranking some tunes off their first CD.
  As “Time Bomb” pounded through the garage,
Nicki stood by the long table that ran along the entire east wall of the garage, looking at the framed articles Sean had hanging on the wall above the table.  She’d seen them before—the picture where he opened his first shop and then the picture of him moving to a bigger location, the garage where she stood today.  There were also other articles of some of his buddies, but there was a new one, she noticed.  Sean had framed her first front-page article.  She hoped, though, that she was holding one that would replace the one she was looking at right now.

This time her story was above the gutter, and her headline was large font.  She was a
real
reporter
now
, and Neal had barely
altered
her words.  Not only had she helped police discover where the elusive Michael Sterne was, she herself had seen the action, up close and personal.  The hardest part of writing the article was keeping her personal feelings out of it.  And the story was big.  Sean had said he was going to start regularly subscribing to the paper, but she didn’t know if he had started receiving it yet, so she didn’t know if he’d seen today’s paper.  He might be surprised that, after the day they had yesterday, she’d actually not only written the article but
had
convinced Neal to extend her deadline a bit
just so it could be in today’s paper while the news was still fresh
.

“Time Bomb” ended, giving way to the next song on the CD, “Bad Religion,” and Nicki started tapping her finger on the table in beat to the music.  The music was loud enough that she didn’t hear when Sean shut off the welder.  Instead, she heard him
speak
behind her.  “Hey.”

She turned around. 
Sean was placing the helmet down on a bench and walking over to her. 
He looked nice as
always
—snug blue t-shirt, faded blue jeans, black boots, blue bandanna around his hair
, and ocean blue eyes
framed by long brown lashes
. 
“Hey, Sean.”

“How
are you
today?  Doing all right?”

“Yeah,
I think so.  You?”

“Business as usual.”  He walked over to the stereo and turned the music down.  “Actually, that’s not true.  I have a lot of catching up to do.”

Nicki winced.  That was her fault.  “Guess I’d better make this quick then.”  She pulled the folded front page of the newspaper out of her jeans pocket.  “Check this out.”

Sean smiled.  “Yeah, I saw it.  Nice job.  Your first big headline.”  She nodded, smiling back.  “I’m proud of you.”

He had no idea how good that made her feel.  And she probably wouldn’t tell him either.  “Thanks, Sean.”

He grabbed a white towel off the table and wiped his hands on it. 
“Did you ever find out who called the cops?”

She nodded.  “Yeah.  It was Mikey.”

“One of Sterne’s kids?”

“Yeah, his older one…the one who likes the TV show
Cops
. 
H
e’d grown up around Sterne and knew Sterne was violent, but Mikey had apparently been watching all kinds of
Cops
reruns over the past month
. 
So when
Sterne kept
yelling
about calling the cops, Mikey must have thought that was a good idea.  M
ikey ran into Melissa’s bedroom and made the call
to 911
.”
  Nicki shook her head.  “
They were so quiet,
I didn’t even know she had kids there until after you
knocked on the door
.”

“Well, no harm done, right?” 
Sean
looked up at the huge metal clock that hung over the middle garage door.  “
I think we should
celebrate.  How about I take you out to lunch?”

Nicki grinned. 
They
did
have lots to celebrate, and s
he couldn’t remember the last time the two of them had gone to lunch together.
  Especially
just
the two of them
…but s
he couldn’t in good conscience not say anything.
  “But what about Kayla?”

“What about her?”

“Don’t you want to invite her?”

Sean had pressed a button to lower
one of
the garage door
s
that was open
, and it made a metallic noise as it worked its way down
.  “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Right now, Nicki’s investigative reporter senses
screamed at her
but ultimately
sucked
, telling her nothing
.  Whatever Sean was trying to tell her wasn’t quite sinking in.  “And why not?”

“Because she broke up with me last week when I told her I didn’t want to move in
with her
.”

Hello.
 
She felt like she’d just jumped in a fifty-degree-Fahrenheit lake and couldn’t catch her breath.  Sean started lowering the other open garage door and didn’t seem to notice
her surprise
.
  That explained
why Kayla hadn’t come with him to her parents’ house and
why
Sean
was
acting weird at
Napoli
with the guys the other night…
  Nicki finally said, “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

He shrugged and turned around.  “I don’t know.  I just didn’t think about it.
  Not a big deal, really.
”  He grabbed the “Be back
at
” sign that hung on the glass part of the door and moved the plastic clock dial. 
He walked over to the stereo and shut it off, then pulled the bandanna off his head and ran his fingers through his hair.  Nicki wasn’t surprised when it fell perfectly into place.  Then Sean walked back to the door and opened it while
switch
ing
off the lights.  “You ready?”

Nicki willed her feet to move.  Her first major headline
ever
and her best friend and biggest crush single again all in one day.  She could barely believe it.  She felt a smile spread over her face.  “Yeah, I think I’m ready for just about anything.”  She strolled across the giant room to walk through the open door and relished
Sean’s warm
arm around her shoulders as they walked to his truck beneath the cool sky.

Dead

Nicki’s love life might suck, but her sex life is great.  The only way both could be spectacular would be if her best friend Sean would look at her as more than just a friend.  Nicki knows she’s stuck in the friend zone, so she focuses her energies on her job.  She’
s
becoming a better reporter every day
, so when her
editor
asks her to interview a local politician, Nicki is thrilled.  But when the politician’s
secretary
ends up dead, it’s a
nybody’s guess as to who did it
.  Nicki has a few ideas, though, and finds herself in deep trouble as she pokes her nose where
she thinks it belongs
.

Enjoy the following
exce
r
pt from
Dead
:

She was at the back of the hotel, about halfway around
,
passing by the service entrance to the hotel.  It was an open area with a shed and a delivery
bay
.  There was also what Nicki imagined was the location for employee breaks, an enclosed area with a wooden fence and a roof.

She kept walking when she heard, “Nicki!”  She looked back toward the building to see Jesse sitting on a crate up against the brick wall, away from the entrance.  He was smoking a cigarette.  Typical rebel Jesse, though...he was nowhere near the designated break area.  Nicki felt confident that the Sedgwick would not approve of guests seeing their employees smoking or even taking a break from serving their spoiled, pandered-to visitors.

“Hey, Jesse.  Glad to see I’m not the only one taking a break.”  She walked over to where he sat.

“It’s crazy, huh?”  He took a drag off his cigarette.  Nicki moved to the wall and leaned her back up against it beside him.  “Hey, do you wanna sit here?”

She shook her head.  “No.  I’ve been sitting for a while now, and I needed to move a little.  Thanks, though.”

“So, did you get any good info for a story?”

God, wouldn’t it be nice to tell him what she was thinking...that someone murdered Sara and she had two solid suspects—Cannon and his volunteer coordinator Colby Sears.  But she didn’t
dare say a word.  “Yeah, a news
flash.”  She stood up straight and held her hands out in front of her, her fingers bent as though grasping something, then she spread her hands apart, indicating a headline, and she did her best dramatic news anchor voice.  “
Nicki Sosebee
dies of boredom while politicians and well-to-do talk incessantly about themselves.
”  Jesse laughed, a puff of smoke spewing from his mouth.  Nicki smiled.  “Guess there’s a reason my editor writes the headlines.”