Code blue, p.16
Code Blue, page 16
I turned and walked out, my heart hammering, hands trembling.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I took my phone out to call Zielinski. Not that I really wanted to speak to him, but at least this way Riko couldn’t ask me what the fuck was going on.
My head was a mess.
I picked up my gym bag and took it out to the patio while I called Agent Zielinski. It took a minute to get through to his extension, but he eventually took my call. “Mr. Frost, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve just spoken to Neil Ambrose,” I explained, unzipping the bag. “He told me about the developments with Jacqueline Sosa.”
“Yes?”
“You mentioned she bought camping gear. Can I ask if it included any climbing gear?”
“Uh . . . Mr. Frost—”
I threw a knee pad onto the lawn. “Did she buy any kind of bolts or anchors? Any equipment that she could use to—”
“I’m not comfortable discussing this over the phone, Mr. Frost.”
I took a pair of sparring mitts from my bag and tossed them next to the knee pad. “Good. Can you come to Mr. Dalton’s home address? I’m assuming you have it. Then you can see why I’m asking about the climbing gear.”
He agreed and the call ended. I threw my phone by my bag and pulled on some gloves. Riko came out. “Need a spotter?”
I nodded. “Yeah. That’d be great. Agent Zielinski will be here in about thirty minutes.”
Riko strapped on the knee and thigh pad, then picked up the mitts, and as I bounced on my toes for a bit and shook out my hands, Riko grimaced at me. “Take it easy on me,” he said.
I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck, letting some of the tension go. “Yeah, of course.”
He stood in the brace position, grounded his feet into the grass, lowered his center of gravity, and raised the mitt.
Riko was good, and out of all my team, probably the only one I could spar with. He knew how to get hit, how to spar, and how to lean in and away as needed.
I began slow and easy. Just a few taps and kicks to get the heart rate up, and the more I did, the better I felt. The faster I hit, the harder I hit, the better I felt.
It was good to focus, to expel some energy and let go of the frustrations and anger.
So I hit and jab, jab, jabbed. Tapped, punched, kicked until the sweat was dripping off me.
Riko eventually put his hand up and disengaged. “Time out,” he said, puffing almost as much as me. His short black hair glistened in the sun. “Christ.”
“You good?” I asked.
He almost laughed. “Sure. Are you?”
“Feel better now.”
“Good,” he replied. “You’ve got an audience,” he murmured quietly. “He’s been watching from inside.”
I kept my back to the house, and I ignored Jeremy. I took the punch mitt from Riko. “Your turn.”
So Riko ran through some moves and a few strikes and kicks. Pretty sure he appreciated the energy-burn as much as I did. Jeremy stayed inside . . .
Until I began giving Riko some instructions. I tapped his leg. “Keep this knee bent.” I patted his sternum. “Power from here.” I moved Riko’s hip. “Square your pelvis.”
That was when Jeremy came out, as if he didn’t like me being one-on-one with Riko. God, was he really jealous? He cleared his throat. “Yeah, Riko. Keep your pelvis square.”
I spared a glance at Jeremy but held the mitt against my outer forearm and readied my stance. “Come on, Riko. Give me a right kick. Hard as you can.”
Riko kinda smiled and gave me a few test kicks first, but they got harder and harder, and I had to brace and grunt against the impact.
It felt great.
I changed arms and Riko gave his left leg a bit of a work out, but apparently Jeremy didn’t like that either.
“Now it’s Steve’s turn to kick as hard as he can while Riko holds the pad.”
Riko stopped to catch his breath, clutching his side. He made a face at Jeremy. “Are you crazy? You come and hold the pad and let him kick you as hard as he can.”
Jeremy grinned as he came over and motioned for me to give him the mitt pads.
“No,” I said. “I’m not kicking you. Practice or not.”
“Oh, come on,” he said, trying to mimic the stance he’d obviously seen Riko and me do. “Just a small one, then.”
So while he stood there, holding the pad and smiling, I gave him a gentle one-two-three kick. And proceeded to knock him off balance. He didn’t fall, but he looked kinda horrified. “Jesus.”
“I barely touched you,” I said.
“That was twenty-five percent,” Riko agreed. “At most. And you wanted him to put a full hundred percent on me.”
Jeremy huffed but he looked at me. “How come your little pretend lesson with me the other day didn’t look like you and Riko just now?”
“Because Riko and I have done this for years,” I said. “And you’ve done two minutes.”
“I want to be as good as you,” Jeremy said.
For fuck’s sake.
I took the pad from him. “Okay then. Your turn.”
So, then he tried to hit the pad.
“Stop!” I said, throwing the pad toward my bag. “Jesus, you’re gonna break something.” I took his fists in each hand. “Wrists have to be straight. You break your wrist or your hand or your fingers and there’s no piano or guitar for weeks. Ambrose will kick my ass.”
He stared at his wrists as if they belonged to someone else.
Christ.
I chuckled. He did countless hours of choreography in front of a mirror, so I used that technique. “Okay, you’re overthinking this. Think of it as if I’m going to teach you a new dance routine. Mirror my stance.” Learning dance steps, he could do. I got in the ready position and he mirrored me. His feet were good, his knees bent properly, but his arms . . . I put my hands on his elbows. “Keep these in close to your body at all times.” I took hold of his fists. “Keep this one up to protect your snooze button.”
“My what?”
I tapped his chin. “Your snooze button. Your chin.”
He smiled but then looked down. “How can I keep my elbows in and my hand up here at the same time?”
“Like this.” I stood beside him and showed him. “Lead with your front foot. You’re right handed, right footed. Elbows in, hands up.”
He copied me and I threw some slow, deliberate punches, defensive steps, taking him through every move as if it was the choreo team in the dance studio. “One, two, three. One, two, three.”
And he got it.
I picked up the punch mitt and stood in front of him. “Keep going, one, two, three.”
“I’m having flashbacks of learning to waltz.” He smiled but kept practicing. “You knew to treat it like a dance if I wanted to learn, right?”
I smiled. “Sure. A good teacher should understand how the student learns. And you learn to a beat.”
Jeremy stopped punching. His gaze met mine. “That’s really true.”
God, when he looked at me like that, when there was no bullshit between us and we were just us, my heart ached for him. It physically ached. I ached to touch him, to tell him . . .
And my phone buzzed on the ground.
I startled and picked my phone up. “It’s Agent Zielinski,” I mumbled.
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Does he call you often?”
I ignored that and answered my phone. It was a five second phone call to say he was at the gate, and I told him we’d let him in.
Riko, who was taking a long drink of water, gave a nod. “I’ll go.”
I took the punch mitt and held it up for Jeremy again. “No, he doesn’t call me. I called him.”
Jeremy’s eyes cut to mine. “Oh, really.”
“Keep practicing.” I shoved the mitt toward him, jostling him a little. “Count the rhythm in your head, one, two, three.” He snarled and jabbed at the mitt. But he was holding back. “Harder.”
So he did. He jabbed with a bit more force and stepped forward, leading on his front foot. “Good.” Jab, jab, jab. “And he’s coming here to help us, so maybe try being nice to him.”
His eyes narrowed at me as he jabbed twice. “I’ll be as nice to him as he deserves.”
I smiled as he hit with a little more force.
“Stop fucking smiling,” he grunted as he hit harder still.
I stepped back and lowered the mitt to waist height, and he frowned at me. “What the hell. I was just getting the rhythm.”
“You’re going to hurt your hands. Now do this,” I said, showing him. “Keep your elbows in, hands up, but you’re going to drive your knee into this pad. Like this.”
I did a few quick knees to show him.
Jeremy tried a few gentle knee-raises and I tapped his knee with the mitt. “Good. Put your hands on my shoulders until you get your balance.” Not that he would probably need to, because he had such good balance . . .
He slid his hands onto my shoulders and lifted his knee again. “It’s not like I’m going to rest my hands on some guy who’s trying to attack me,” he said, bringing his knee up into the pad.
“Yes you will,” I replied. “Use his body, his head. Grab hold of him and drive your fucking knee into his face until something breaks.”
Jeremy stopped his knee and his eyes went wide. “Jesus Christ, Steve.”
I shrugged. “What do you think I’m teaching you here?”
He frowned. “I guess . . . I just didn’t think of it like that.”
His hands were still on my shoulders and he began to pull them away. I put them back on my shoulders, holding them there. “Let’s focus on what you should do if someone tries to grab you and how you can get out of it.”
We were standing close. Too close. Realizing I needed to make this stance look deliberate, I said, “Grab my shirt like you want to hurt me.”
He fisted my collar.
“You always draw his center of gravity away from your body,” I said, pushing his arm out and down. “Now you try it.”
I grabbed his shirt and his eyes flashed with something that wasn’t fear. He tried to push my hand away and down, but he stepped in too close and I instinctively palmed his chest to stop him from falling into me.
And that was when Riko and Agent Zielinski came out through the door.
Jeremy gripped my waist and leaned into me, very deliberately, while looking at Zielinski.
Jesus Christ.
That was a blatant territorial move.
He was jealous. Jeremy Dalton just marked me in front of another guy.
What. The. Actual. Fuck?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zielinski stayed for maybe thirty minutes. He gave us the same rundown that Ambrose had, and once I explained my concerns about the camping or climbing gear, I showed him the edge of Jeremy’s property.
“I’d already made a comment that the only boundary concern he really has here is if someone knows how to climb,” I said. We were standing on the edge of the sheer drop, maybe thirty feet down, to the canyon below.
Zielinski nodded. “It’s a valid concern. The camping gear was a gas cooker, tent, sleeping bag, water cannisters. A hunting knife. But no climbing gear. No hooks, no rappelling gear.”
“A hunting knife? Christ.”
“And the gun and ammunition.”
“Is she an experienced camper? Does she do this often?”
Zielinski shook his head. “No. According to the sister, not at all. Her spending history indicates no similar purchases either.”
“And you have no idea where she’s gone?”
Zielinski’s gaze met mine. “We have some leads we’re following.”
“Is that Fed-speak for ‘we got nothing’ or Fed-speak for ‘I’m not saying’?”
Before he could reply, I added, “We have a booked schedule next week. We’ve put off all we can this week, and he’s barely left the house. But next week he has contractually obligated appointments, and everything he does is scrutinized by the media. We can’t have this turning to shit in public. Not just for his safety, but the hundreds of fans that line the streets just to see him everywhere he goes.”
Zielinski studied me for a long few seconds, and I stared right back at him. “When I say we’re following some leads, I would ask that you trust us. I understand you have a personal relationship with Mr. Dalton and I can appreciate—”
“A what?” I stared. “I have a what with Jeremy?”
He glanced back to where Riko and Jeremy stood near the pool, watching us. “I just assumed you and he—”
“Well, that was your first mistake.”
“When I walked in, I interrupted an embrace, and he hasn’t taken his eyes off you since I got here.”
“No. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you,” I corrected. “He doesn’t trust strangers.”
Zielinski tilted his head just so, and he kind of smiled. “I’m sorry if my insinuation that you are involved with Mr. Dalton offended you.”
I wanted to bristle, but instead, I smiled right back. If he thought he could rattle me, he was wrong. I was the king of keeping my cool. “Oh, I’m not offended. In fact, I’m flattered.” I smiled a little sweeter. “Though I’d hate to question what other assumptions you’ve made about this case.”
And that was basically the end of his meeting with me.
He spoke to Jeremy for a bit while I tried to simmer down. Jeremy was right. The guy was a fucking jerk.
“So I take it that went well,” Riko said. We both stood watching Jeremy and Zielinski talking. We couldn’t hear what was said but I wasn’t letting Jeremy out of my sight.
I crossed my arms. “Hm.”
“Yeah, Jeremy likes him about that much too.”
“He has leads, apparently,” I mumbled. “Which means a whole lotta fuck all.”
Riko sighed. “I thought he was nice.”
I whipped my head around to glare at him, only to find him smiling. “He’s a pretentious brat,” he said. “Expensive suit, expensive watch, expensive haircut. Type of guy that might appeal—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Riko laughed. “Yeah, that’s about what Jeremy said too.”
I growled at him, because from that comment, I could guess he was totally aware of whatever tension Jeremy and I had going on between us.
We used to laugh and joke and talk and talk . . . Now we snapped and goaded each other. There are glimpses of how we used to be, but now there was tension and . . . and I didn’t know what to call it.
Goddammit.
Zielinski gave us a nod goodbye, and as Jeremy walked him out, Riko said, “Oh. Before I forget. While you were talking to your favorite agent, Jeremy asked the guys to come over for beef and beers.”
He had my attention now. “Who? The guys?”
He nodded. “Yep. All of them.”
“When?”
Riko shrugged. “Lunch, so . . .” He glanced at his watch. “Uh, now?”
Maddox and Roscoe arrived first, with Robbie, and I met them at the front door. “Hey. Jeremy’s out back trying to figure out the grill.”
“Oh, god help us,” Maddox mumbled as he walked through.
“Hey,” Roscoe said, looking awfully relaxed and casual in his shorts and T-shirt. It wasn’t often I saw him in civvies. He looked good.
He looked happy.
“Boss,” Robbie said, giving me his usual grin as he followed Maddox.
As Roscoe and I stood there, we heard Jeremy’s loud, “Hey, dickbag!”
Roscoe chuckled and it made me smile. “So, how’s he been?” Roscoe asked.
I made a noise that was half grunt, half sigh.
“That good, huh?”
I looked up at him. “I don’t know. I think he needs today with the guys, you know? Just to hang out and be themselves.”
Roscoe nodded. “Yep. Totally get it. Maddox is the same.” He nodded toward the back of the house. “How . . . how are things between you two?”
I groaned and shook my head.
“Also that good, huh?”
“Not good at all.”
Another van arrived and I opened the door to see Zoe let Luke and Blake out of the back. “Oh good,” Luke said to us with a grin as he stepped out of the van. “The muscle is here to help us.” He slid the door back fully to show three cartons of beer and a cooler. Blake took one carton, Luke took another, and they grinned as they came into the foyer. “Out back?”
I nodded. “Yep.”
Roscoe grabbed the remaining carton of beer and I took the cooler, which was the heaviest by far. “Jesus.”
Jason joined us at the side of the van. “It weighs that much because it has half a cow in it,” he said. “They ordered enough food to feed an army.”
Jason took the other end of the handle for me and we carried it into the house.
Was this an ideal way to spend the day?
Probably not.
Did I want all five guys of the world’s biggest band under one roof when a fixated person was on the loose with a gun?
No, I did not.
But did Jeremy need this?
Absolutely.
They’d cracked their first beers by the time Wes and Amy arrived, and they hung out by the pool while Maddox and Jeremy tried to figure out the grill. They shoved a beer in Wes’s hand and welcomed Amy. I admired her, to be honest.
Roscoe had talked about how hard it had been sometimes to be an addition to such a close group of guys. He had the advantage of knowing them all for years and already having that established base with them, and he slipped into being one of the guys so effortlessly. Amy didn’t have that luxury.
And she was the only woman. There were no other girlfriends, no other dates. Apart from Roscoe, but he had now taken over trying to get the BBQ going, which was probably a good thing.
I stayed inside, mostly, keeping an eye on the security cameras, particularly the front gates. Zoe and Jason checked the back boundary. Robbie and Ivan looked after the sides of the property.
The thing was, we weren’t here to drink and laugh with the band. It’d be all too easy to sit around with them, crack a few beers, and listen to the funny stories.
But we weren’t part of that inner circle.
