Turn or Burn (13 page)

I raised the stack of papers with the arrests on it. “Back to work?

“Yep.”

Her room was just like mine. A king bed in the middle. A table with two chairs by the window that looked out over the stores below. I closed the blinds. “No need to make it easy on them.”

I gave her half the stack again. She sat on the bed and I sat at the table this time. “I really don’t know what we’re looking for,” I said, “but we don’t have time to talk to every single one of them. There’s got to be an easier way.”

We analyzed the sheets for a while. Most of the people had been arrested before. No violent crimes, save one. I wrote the offender’s name down.

“Harper,” she interrupted.

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say thanks again.
Grazie
. You can say all day that you were just reacting, but you still were looking out for me today. Thank you.”

“That’s what we do, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“Had you been a male soldier, I would not have done that.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can stand to see a man hurt but not a woman. My first objective was to protect you. Because you are a woman. It’s something so deep inside of me I can’t shake it, no matter what. Just like any man. No matter what other lives are at stake. It doesn’t matter that I know you can take care of yourself. That’s why I don’t think women should fight. In the field, we have to worry about you hot ones getting hurt…raped. It clouds judgment.”

“You’re so full of shit. Don’t lay your mommy issues on this. We add just as much value as any man. And we sign up for it. Don’t forget that. We know what we’re getting into.”

“Well, you can’t fight like men, either.” I smiled at that one. Yes, I was getting under her skin, and that was really why I was saying it. I was being a jerk. There was something appealing about seeing her get upset. Maybe this was my way of flirting, though I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to get involved. Not that she had any intentions of opening up her doors to me.

“You don’t think I can fight?” she asked. She stood from the bed and came toward me. I didn’t know how to react.

“What?” I held up my hands.

That’s when it came. Full brute force. She punched me with everything she had. A full-on right to the cheek. No holding back. I dropped from the chair onto the carpet. It was a hell of a punch, actually. Then she kicked me several times in the stomach and ribs. Full throttle.

“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to catch her leg.

She stopped for a second. “You don’t think women can fight? I’ll kick your
culo
right now.”

“You joking? I’m not going to fight you.”

She kicked me in the stomach again and I lost my breath. “Then this is going to be fun. I’m going to hurt you.”

“No, you’re not.” I pushed up to my knees and tried to grab her leg. Had it for a second but as I began to twist it, she slipped away. “I’m not going to fight you,” I said again.

She came down low and punched me in the jaw. Blood hit the carpet.

“All right!” I said, raising my voice. “You’re pissing me off. You don’t want me to hurt you.”

“I want you to try.” Another punch. That’s when I finally took control, caught her arm, and pulled her down. She landed a little harder than I’d wanted, but she didn’t seem to mind. Holding her arms pressed down above her head, I got on top of her. We were both breathing heavily, and the climate suddenly changed. I was a foot above her, looking into her eyes.

“We done here?” I asked. “Can I let you go?”

She nodded ever so slightly and I released her arms. Her hand went up and I flinched, expecting another punch.

Instead, she grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me toward her. She pulled me down, pressing her lips to meet mine. Still over-the-top aggressive, we began to kiss. I felt the warmth and moisture of her full lips caressing my face. I could still taste the blood from her punches in my mouth. I have never experienced such a random juxtaposition of emotions. Desiring once again the vulnerability with a woman, and at the same time feeling the need to protect myself. I went with my primal instinct and pressed myself against her, closing in on her scent.

“I like fighting you,” I said. There is nothing like kissing a woman who has just punched you. In fact, I’d never been punched by a woman before, so this was an entirely new experience for me. Not that I was thinking of any of that at the moment. I was completely present, in the state that the men in orange are always trying for but never attain. How can you truly reach some sort of thoughtless Nirvana without a woman like Francesca all over you, touching you, teasing you, pulling and pushing you into some netherworld?

“Jesus, lady. You know how to turn a guy on.”

“Stop talking,” Francesca ordered, like some commander in her own sexual revolution. She pushed me over, switching positions, taking control and forcefully slipping her tongue inside my mouth. Sitting up, she ripped off my shirt. My blood was running south. She kissed my chest as my pelvis throbbed and pulsated to the beat of her drum.

I noticed a comforting smile on her face as she started to slow down for a little while, taking in what had happened so far.

Where was this going to go? I hadn’t been here in a long time…a very long time. I hadn’t been with a woman in probably more than three years. I’m telling you, my mind had checked out. At the risk of sharing too much, I hadn’t even masturbated in more than a year. Uh, yeah, I was bad off.

But this felt necessary—not that she (nor my anatomy) was giving me a choice. Wanting her badly was the understatement of the season. What was going on between us seemed very right.

I reached down and began to pull her shirt up and over her head. She pushed my hands away and did it for me, arching her back up and away from me, just long enough to get the shirt off and toss it across the room. This woman, Francesca Daly, was in the mood. And I liked it.

I wanted to get in past that white bra so badly I could have ripped it right off her body. I pushed it up off her large breasts, and they released into my hands. Dark, swollen nipples in between my fingers. I touched and kissed them, throbbing with a thirst for her. Helping me with my rustiness, she unclasped the bra and it fell.

She got aggressive again, kissing me like I’d been away at war and we hadn’t seen each other since our wedding day. Well, the first part was true. I had been away at war. For a long, long time.

My mind—amazingly—began to wander. I started thinking about what this was all about. I felt too free and vulnerable for this to be real.
Francesca Daly, who are you to wake me from my nightmares?

I could have kissed her for days, rolling around, exploring our sexual frustrations, wearing each other out. But the pants stayed on…and maybe for the best. I felt like I’d just been laid by the Rockettes, but our zippers hadn’t even come down. I was breathing like I’d just won a marathon. At last, we collapsed next to each other on the carpet.

So there we were, two soldiers, having broken down, letting our human emotions control us. Something we’re trained not to let happen. But I wouldn’t have changed it. Our friction, all that fire building up between us, had led to this moment. Looking back on it, that moment had been coming a long time. It had been written into our lives from the moment she’d started up her attitude with me at the doctor’s house in Magnolia two days earlier.

It was awkward trying to figure out what to do next. I felt like puppeteers had grabbed us both for a few minutes and had some fun, and now they’d abandoned us.

“What were you expecting?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think I was. Don’t get me wrong, though. You just put a smile on my face.”

“Oh, I did? I don’t see it.”

“Well, I’m smiling somewhere. Trust me. You are a game-changer,” I said.

“Now don’t start getting all attached. That was just a result of too much sexual tension in the midst of the loss of a friend. That won’t happen again.”

“Wow…when I finally wouldn’t mind a little of the girl in you, you turn into a hardened veteran again. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“You’re supposed to get up and get your eyes back on that paper. That was fun…now let’s get on with it.”

“Suit yourself.” I stood and tossed her shirt and bra to her. “Put your clothes on, soldier. This isn’t a brothel.”

Francesca shook her head with a tiny little smile as she caught the clothes. While she put herself back together, I pulled my shirt on and started flipping through pages back at the table. Not that I could really concentrate. What the hell had just happened?

My phone rang shortly after. “Harper, here.”

“Hi, it’s Lana. From the park last night.”

“Sure. Lana from last night.” I looked at Francesca. She was sitting back on the bed, thumbing through the documents, acting like
that
hadn’t just happened.

“So I talked to some people,” Lana said.

“Yeah, I heard. Got a call from the cops this morning. They said you gave them my number.”

“Sorry, honey. That’s the way the street works. I’m not looking for trouble. What I
am
looking for is cash. Can we meet? I got something I didn’t tell the cops.”

“Sure…how about right now?” Anything to get me out of that hotel room. “You know where those hot dog stands are next to the Seahawks stadium?”

“Yeah.”

“See you there in twenty.”

“Bring cash.”

I hung up, stood, and walked over to Francesca. “Want to come? She’s got some info for us.”

“Let’s go.”

An idea suddenly occurred to me, though, and I had to express myself. “If there’s really not going to be another of what just happened,” I said, “can we at least have a quick encore? I’d like to revisit a few things. I may have missed something.”

“It’s already in the history books. Forget about it.”

“Did I mention I’m fascinated with history? Quite the historian, actually. Especially Roman architecture.”

She rolled her eyes.

Francesca parked. We’d taken her Range Rover since my truck got obliterated. And I must say, she looked good driving it. I was trying real hard to ignore that fact that we’d been rolling around on the carpet earlier. As she said, it was over. Done-zo. Time to flip the page. I didn’t like it, but after spending a couple days with her, I’d gotten to know how hard-headed she could be. Let me tell you, our relationship was terminated. Her hard head was as tough as my luck.

As we were getting out of the car, she grabbed my arm and said, “I can tell you’re still thinking about it. Don’t bother. We have a job to do. Don’t make me regret that.”

“Regret what?”

“Right.”

I had a hard time believing she’d moved on so quickly. I hadn’t loved in a long time, but in my youth, I did have a few educational lovers that had brought me up to speed with what women want. So, in other words, I’d like to think that I did know what I was doing, and I wasn’t that easy to forget.

Oddly enough, Lana was wearing the same outfit she had on earlier: a short skirt with a tight shirt that showed the outline of ample breasts. She was chomping on some gum, and it was clear no one had ever taught her to keep her mouth shut while she chewed.

“Follow me,” she said. “The girl I found is over there.”

We went back toward Pioneer Square and turned into an alley. On the other side of a dumpster, there was a girl—and I mean
girl
—maybe sixteen years old, all whacked-out on something, sitting cross-legged on the ground and eating out of an Asian takeout box. She looked up as we approached.

“This is them, sweetie,” Lana said to her.

We both said hello and introduced ourselves, speaking in some kind of super-compassionate way, almost like we couldn’t hide how bad we felt for this one. She didn’t have much meat on her bones. A wool hat covered up her eyes, and she was shy about looking up. Barely made any eye contact.

“Can we sit down?” Francesca asked.

The girl extended her hand holding the fork, inviting us into her personal space. A half a serving of sweet-and-sour chicken was in the box. The three of us squatted on the concrete facing her. The smell of her Asian food mixed with the unpleasant perfume of the garbage bin not fifteen feet away.

Francesca took this ball. Repressed, destroyed young women were not my specialty. “What’s your name?”

“Jess.”

“Lana said you might know our friends, Lucy and Erica.”

“Yeah, I know ‘em.”

“Are you aware they were killed?”

She nodded yes.

“We’re just trying to figure out why. As you probably know, they were good people. When did you see them last?”

“How much cash you going to give me?”

“It depends on what you have to say.”

“Why don’t we start with something?”

Francesca handed over two twenties. Jess grabbed them like she was drowning and Francesca was handing over an oxygen tank.

“I’m going to need more.”

I held up my hand. “Why don’t you talk first?”

“It’s all right,” Francesca said, waving me off. Francesca handed her another two twenties. “There’s more where that came from if you have something we can use.”