Gotcha!
CHRISTIE CRAIG
LOVE SPELL 
NEW YORK CITY
He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it onto her dresser. Macy blinked. The man looked downright edible without it. The golden lamplight showcased warm, melt-against-me skin. His chest, dusted with dark hair, appeared even more muscular.
An innie belly button, the cutest little dimple she’d ever seen, was centered among hard abs. His jeans fit snug around his narrow waist, and a trail of hair disappeared under the snap of his jeans. A treasure trail—wasn’t that what the thin spray was called? Because it led to…
He unsnapped those jeans.
Macy’s gaze shot up and found him studying her. “Uh, what are you doing?” she asked.
“I got on boxers,” he said. His cocky grin proved he’d noted her appreciation.
She tried to wipe all approval from her expression. “Okay, I had you down for a white briefs kind of guy, but you don’t have to prove me wrong.” She sat the rest of the way up. “Now, back to my original question. What are you doing?”
“Getting in bed.” He heel-kicked off his shoes.
She pointed to her bedroom door. “The sofa is thataway, big boy.”
He picked up the folded piece of paper from the nightstand and handed it to her. “Doctor’s orders.”
To my daughter, Nina, and her husband, Jason, who when this book is released will be living a new chapter in their lives as parents. May you two be blessed with a child as easy to raise as you were, Nina. Love you—all three of you.
HAPTER
O
NE
“You lucky bastard.”
Sergeant Jake Baldwin looked up from his desk and found Mark Donaldson, the new detective in the department and his sometime partner, leaning his head inside the office door.
“Why am I lucky?” Jake asked and shouldered back in his chair.
Donaldson’s chickenshit grin widened. “She says she
needs
you, and only you will do.” He looked down the hall, then shot off as if someone chased him. “Hey, who needs…?” Jake’s question tripped over his lips as a blonde, a dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe in her chubbier years, sashayed into his office. She didn’t walk. She sashayed.
About a foot from his desk she stopped moving, but her body didn’t. Her breasts, squeezed into a low-cut red tank top, continued to bounce. Up. Down. Up. Behind her, two Houston police officers paused, their tongues dangling out like hounds’. Jake’s tongue remained in his mouth. He’d never been a Monroe fan.
His visitor leaned over to pull out a chair, and he got a peek at her cleavage—which led him to realize maybe you didn’t really have to be a true fan to appreciate a look-alike. He glanced away. Gawking was crude. Besides, he’d stopped letting women know they had the upper hand. They still had it, of course. He was, after all, flesh and blood, but he refrained from giving them the leverage that came with knowing. His ex-fiancée, now sister-in-law, had taught him better. “What can I do for you?” he asked, but his male mind was already considering options. Then he gave her another onceover. She was twenty, maybe? At thirty-one, Jake refused to date anyone who might still believe in Santa.
Miss Monroe opened her mouth to speak, and Jake waited for her sweet husky voice to flow over him, sound effects to add to the fantasies that no doubt he’d have later on. His fantasies had no problems with a twenty-year-old. And lately, fantasies were all he had.
“My name’s Ellie Chandler.” Her voice, some would call it cartoonish—a really bad cartoon—came out two octaves above chalk screeching across a blackboard. “You’re Jake Baldwin, riiiight?”
Jake jerked, knocking over his coffee mug. God help him. No, God help
her
, he thought, grabbing the cup and saving his files from the spill. No wonder the Almighty gave her that body. He’d been trying to make up for the voice.
She continued talking, and Jake would have done almost anything to shut her up. Anything but be rude. For the son of a Baptist preacher, rudeness wasn’t an option, even for a religious backslider like himself. He finger-locked his hands in front of him and forced his attention on her. Every spoken syllable was like bowel surgery.
“I’m here to report a murder.”
He sighed. “Then you need to talk to Homicide. I work Robbery.”
Please God, let it be that easy.
God wasn’t listening.
“I want to talk to you.”
“Why me?” he asked both the blonde and the Almighty.
“Because you know what he’s like. You’re the one who put him away.”
“Put who away?”
“David Tanks. My ex-boyfriend.”
Jake remembered Tanks. Too many tattoos. A dealer with a mean streak and a drug habit of his own.
“And because I love Billy now, David’s threatening to kill him. He’s even threatened Billy’s sister. He called her one
dead
bitch.”
Jake shook his head to clear her voice from his ears. “Tanks is still doing time, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Ellie Chandler nodded vigorously, and her tank top strained to contain the jiggling. Up. Down. Jake had to force his eyes from lowering.
“So, the murder you want to report…It hasn’t happened? No one’s dead yet?”
“He cut the man’s head off. I’d say that killed him.”
Jake stiffened. “Whose head?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did this happen?”
“I wasn’t there”—her green eyes rolled—“so how would I know?”
Okay. She wasn’t making a ton of sense, but he’d give it one more shot. “When did the murder happen?”
“Last year, I think. David got drunk and bragged about it. I want you to pin it on him and then get him moved in with the dangerous prisoners—away from the good ones.”
Good prisoners?
Unlocking his fingers, Jake pressed his palms on his desk. Suddenly, the pieces of the blonde’s story began to fit together. “Where’s Billy?”
“In prison with David. But don’t murderers get moved away from people who accidentally rob a convenience store?”
“
Accidentally
robbed a store?” Jake tried to keep the disrespect from his voice.
The blonde started chattering again, and Jake listened. His eardrums throbbed. At last he reached for a yellow notebook and wrote down her contact info. Then he jotted,
Tanks—threatened to kill Billy’s sister.
Glancing right at her, and for the sake of politeness, he said, “Miss Chandler, I’m glad you came in.” Sons of Baptist preachers occasionally lied, but only when politeness was on the line.
She blinked, and something close to intelligence flashed in her green eyes. “You’re not going to do a thing, are you?”
Okay, he’d try one more time to reason with her. “Honestly, you need to talk to Homicide.” He then watched her storm out.
Though the view was nice, his gaze dropped back to his pad.
Tanks—threatened to kill Billy’s sister.
Sadly, if a cop jumped every time one inmate threatened to hurt another’s mother or sister, the whole damn force would be too busy playing leapfrog to do its job.
“You’re his sister.”
“No!” Macy Tucker said, dropping her veggie burger onto her plate. She should have guessed something was up when her mother served a lunch entrée that didn’t include butchered livestock. Macy had been a vegetarian since she was sixteen. Twelve years later, her mother still felt it was a passing fad. Of course, her mom, clueless at times, also waited for Macy’s dad to walk back in and yell, “I’m home. Get me a beer, would ya?” Never mind he’d been gone for fourteen years; she kept waiting. Not that Macy would want him back.
“Siblings are supposed to—”
“It’s not happening, Mom.”
Macy’s chest clutched when her mother’s blue eyes filled with tears. Not that Faye Moore’s crying would surprise anyone. In the last three years, she had taken her part-time job of hysterics and made it a full-fledged career. Hundreds of trees had fallen to make the facial tissues to dry her eyes. The doctor said it was menopause. Macy decided it was
men
. Macy sympathized, because she’d almost succumbed to the malady herself.
“He said he needed to see you.”
“I’m not his fix-it fairy anymore.” But Macy’s chest ached watching her mom dry her tears. Crying could be contagious.
“You’ve always been there for him.” Her mom snatched another Kleenex from a box on the counter and went to work with it.
“Maybe that’s where I went wrong. If he’d faced the consequences—”
“It’s been months since you’ve seen him.” The used tissues got pocketed.
“I’ve been busy. Between work, school, and getting a divorce, my plate’s been a bit full.” And the thought of seeing her baby brother behind bars was horrifying.
“Just because you’re…”
Sniffle.
Her mom glanced at the Kleenex box again. Macy glanced at the door. Two tissues were her limit. Any more heartfelt sobs and she’d need her own box of tear catchers.
Faye continued, “Just because you’re mad at your husband, you can’t take it out on your brother.”
“He’s my
ex
-husband, and I’m not mad at him.” What Macy felt went far beyond anger.
“Your brother thinks you’re embarrassed by him,” her mom suggested.
“Well, when Father Luis asked what Billy was doing, and I said, ‘Three to five in the pen,’ I wasn’t exactly beaming with pride.”
“Oh, Mace. You can’t be this way.”
“What way?” The self-control Macy maintained around her mother was starting to slip. She was tired of sugarcoating everything. It didn’t help. She had tried all sorts of ploys to curb her mother’s tears, biting her sharp tongue among them, but all had failed. And lately, Macy was tired of failure.
Her mom sighed. “He loves you.”
He should have thought about that before he borrowed my car to hold up a Stop & Go. And wrecking it didn’t help, either.
“I love him, but I can’t fix this.”
“He said he was sorry.” Emotion filled her mom’s face.
Anger at Billy’s selfish actions and their consequences shot through Macy like blue fire. She embraced it, because anger felt better than helplessness. But as her mom reached for a third tissue, Macy reached for her purse. No third tissue! “Gotta go. Thanks for lunch.” And with a quick kiss to a damp cheek, Macy fled her grandmother’s kitchen.
Her mother’s words chased her across the living room. “Mace! You weren’t raised to turn your back on the people you love.”
Macy kept walking. “It’s called tough love, Mom.” The front door was Macy’s target, and not crying her immediate goal. Not turning into her mother? That was a lifelong challenge.
“All love is tough,” her mom snapped. Then:
“Men.”
“Yup. We should all become lesbians,” Macy countered. And she never looked back as she hit the screen door with her open palm.
Tears did spring to her eyes, however.
You weren’t raised to turn your back on the people you love.
The lump in her throat grew as she headed for her car. Macy hadn’t been raised that way, but it sure seemed all the men in her life had. First her father—no, first was Grandpa,
then
dear ol’ Dad. Next her husband, now Billy. Of all the stupid, idiotic things to do, the brother she loved more than good chocolate, the brother she’d sworn to protect, had gotten himself a prison sentence. How could Macy take care of him now? She couldn’t, and she was tired of trying.
No, trying wasn’t the issue. But trying and failing was breaking her heart. And she’d obviously failed Billy, failed to teach him right from wrong.
She’d almost made it to her green Saturn when she heard the distinct clearing of a throat. Blinking the watery weakness from her eyes, Macy turned to face the music.
The music was dressed in purple biking shorts and an orange T-shirt that read bite me. It was Macy’s grandma, who flipped the bird at the world’s view of a senior citizen. No rocking chairs, no matronly house dresses or quiet home life. At sixty-eight, she biked six miles a day, taught yoga and, as Macy had recently discovered, did a few other things, probably in yoga positions.
“Your mom has a point.” Nan stood beside her new ten-speed.
Macy quirked an eyebrow. “Her having a point is fine. It’s when she starts jabbing me with it that I get out of sorts.”
“He
is
your brother. Would it hurt to just see him?”
“Yes. It would hurt me.” The thought of seeing Billy behind bars brought back the lump in her throat. Didn’t everyone know it was easier to be mad? She couldn’t start feeling sorry for him. That would hurt too damn much.
A sympathetic smile deepened the laugh lines in Nan’s face. “You’ll do the right thing. You always do.”
“I’m
not
going.” Macy suddenly remembered the package in her purse. She pulled out the plastic bag and said, “Here. And you can buy these yourself. They aren’t illegal.”
Nan’s smile vanished. “I…It would be…embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” Macy stalked to her car and opened the door. The smell of yesterday’s pepperoni wafted from the vehicle—one of the drawbacks of delivering pizza for a living. But going to law school full-time had left her with limited job choices. Never mind that her ex, Tom, was supposed to put her through college, just as she’d spent the first years of their marriage doing for him.
Nan looked at the bag. “You’re young. People know you’re doing it.”
“I haven’t done it in two years.” Giving up men meant giving up sex.
Nan smiled. “Mr. Jacobs has a nephew….”
“And he’s welcome to keep him.” With one foot inside her car, Macy swung around and hugged her grandmother. “I love you,” she said. And she meant it, too. As much of a nutcase as her sexually active relative was, she’d been the glue of their family since Macy’s father walked out. She had cocooned them in her nutty life. It wasn’t Nan’s fault that the glue hadn’t been enough. What
did
keep families like hers together? Macy wondered. She’d let her marriage fall apart in less than five years. How sad. Heck, even her mother had stayed married to her dad for fourteen.
“I know you love me,” Nan said. “Just like you love Billy.”
Macy jumped behind the wheel of her Saturn, shut the door, and drove away. “I’m not going,” she muttered. “I’m not.”
She hated being proved wrong, but the next day Macy sat behind the wheel of her pizza-scented, fender-dented, convenience-store-robbing Saturn, driving toward the prison. Her mom’s “you don’t turn your back on people” speech and Nan’s “you’ll do the right thing” lecture had done her in. However, she’d postponed the trip until today because she didn’t know the proper attire to wear to a prison. Visions of all the men ogling her, running tin cups along the bars, had been daunting. Not that she was the type who warranted a tin cup. Men preferred bouncy blondes. Macy was brunette, and her size Bs didn’t bounce without the help of a bra that pushed up, pulled in, and captured jiggle mass—and she’d burned those bras the day she found her husband in bed with his blonde, bouncy secretary—but prison inmates were desperate.
In the end, she had decided to wear her pizza uniform. How sexy could Papa’s Pizza’s polyester be? Plus, she had to hurry back to Houston, go to the library to do some research, and then go straight to slinging cheese pies. Then she had to study for exams. There was no time to cry tonight about the emotional havoc this visit was sure to bring. No. Not tonight. A vision of Billy behind bars popped into her mind. Dread pulled at her stomach.
Spotting the sign proudly announcing the prison, she pulled into the parking lot and mentally scheduled herself a pity party this weekend. But only two tissues. What was good for the mother goose was good for the…goosette.
Oh Lord, she didn’t want to do this.
Do what, exactly? Why had Billy insisted she visit? All night, Macy’s fitful tossing had given her mattress springs a workout, and she’d half dreamed, half imagined her brother begging,
Macy, you’ve gotta break me out of jail
.
