On Thin Ice Read online

  As if she said one word more than necessary to Special Agent Vinicor these days. But she couldn’t tell Lon that without a lot of dreary explanations she had no intention of getting into, so she merely nodded. “Gotcha.”

  “Gotcha don’t cut it, Sweet Thing. I want your word.”

  “You have my word,” she assured him impatiently. “Now spill!”

  “She’s afraid of the dark. No, more than afraid. Terrified.”

  “You’re kidding.” Sasha blinked. “Do you know why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine, babe. She has this little night-light she is never without. I was with her once when the thing burned out and, Saush, the woman went ape shit. I’m not talking a little bit upset, here, I’m talking totally, one hundred percent freaked out.”

  “Poor Karen,” Sasha commiserated with ready sympathy. “She must have had a horrible experience with a dark place at some point in her life. Maybe she got lost as a kid in the Carlsbad Caverns or something.”

  “I really couldn’t say.” Lon shrugged. “But Saush? The point I’m trying to make here is that Karen is more than just the one aspect of her personality that you’ve seen.” Man, was that the black belt of understatement. “And I don’t want to see her embarrassed by the knowledge that you know I’m sleeping with her.”

  Not to mention that if Karen possessed even darker aspects than he’d previously suspected, he didn’t want Sasha put at risk.

  “My God, just what is it you think I’m planning to do, Lon?” Sasha inquired indignantly, “go up to her and start singing, ‘Lon and Karen sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G’?” She glared at him across the table. “You might find my tendency to say ‘you know’ instead of ‘sex’ a little on the juvenile side, but I assure you I do comprehend the basics on how to conduct myself like an adult.” She dug the ten out of her pocket and threw it on the table, then started to slide out of the booth, but she was hemmed in by the sudden arrival of the waitress with their drinks. By the time the woman had counted out her change and left, Lon had reached a hand over to stay her.

  “Calm down, calm down now; that’s not what I meant at all,” he said, stroking her fingers soothingly. She was taking a deep breath to do exactly that, feeling ridiculous for overreacting, when he opened his mouth again and ruined the bit of progress he’d made by adding with a trace of male condescension, “You’ve really been tense lately, Sasha. Maybe you oughtta take a little time out to get a firmer grip on your emotions.”

  Leaving a dollar bill on the table, Sasha pocketed the rest of her change, picked up her drink, and slid out of the booth. “Thanks for the advice, chief,” she said levelly, looking down at him. “I’ll be sure to keep it in mind.”

  She strode from the lounge, thinking unkind thoughts about mankind in general and two men in particular. Too angry to pay attention to the woman crossing the lobby toward the doorway she had just exited, she marched straight past Karen Corselli without ever seeing her.

  Mick looked up when the door slammed closed. His shoulders lost the rigidity they’d been plagued with for the past hour and a half, and his stomach finally stopped pumping out a steady stream of acid. He hadn’t known what the hell he was going to do if Sasha decided to park her pretty little butt in her friend’s room for the night.

  Connie had already called his bluff on the protective custody scam. His take on her attitude had been that even armed with the knowledge that it was nothing more than smoke and mirrors on his part, she was tacitly agreeing to let him get away with it for the time being. He sure as hell couldn’t count on her remaining so forbearing, however, if he attempted to pack Sasha off. Not, at any rate, if Sasha expressed an adamant wish not to be packed . . . and he certainly had no reasonable expectation she’d do otherwise.

  Legs stretched out in front of him, Mick lounged indolently on an overstuffed chair and watched her storm into the room. Given the way she’d been pretending he was invisible ever since she’d discovered the truth of his employment, he fully expected to be ignored. That was how it usually went down these days, and after cursing at her earlier he naturally assumed he was in for more of the same. He was therefore caught unprepared when she marched straight up to him, slammed her half empty drink down on the table, planted her hands militantly on the arms of the chair he sat in, and leaned forward, getting right in his face. The scent of liquor wafted on her breath as she declared furiously, “Men are . . . pond scum.” Her chest heaved once, twice, her eyes burned with rage. “And I detest every last one of you.”

  It was the wrong time to attack him. “Well, stop the presses,” he snarled right back. “What a news flash.” Snapping erect, he thrust his face aggressively forward to swallow up the fraction of an inch of space she’d left between them, lip curling nastily when she jerked back in reaction. If she wanted a fight, he was more than ready to accommodate her. He’d tried being a New Age sensitive guy and look where that horseshit had gotten him—the proud possessor of way too much frustration. “This might come as a big shock to you, sister, but women aren’t all they’re cracked up to be either.”

  “Oh yeah? Do they lie and spy and act like condescending jerks?”

  “Hell no, that’d be too mature. They sulk and pout and expend so much energy feeling sorry for themselves that they don’t have anything left over to occasionally look at things from someone else’s point of view.”

  “Feel sorry for themselves?” Sasha’s voice rose several octaves and she lost all control, those words reverberating in her skull like the high-pitched scream of a table saw. He thought she was feeling sorry for herself? How dare he reduce her feelings to some petty little pity feast, as if he’d merely spilled a drink on her blouse and she was childishly refusing to get over it.

  She came up swinging.

  Mick was caught patently flat-footed and she got in two solid punches before he grabbed hold of her forearms and wrestled her arms down to her sides. He jerked her forward to knock her off balance.

  She landed partly on his chest, one knee planted in the chair cushion between his legs, her other leg out from under her as her thighs sloppily straddled one of his. She was in no position to fight but she nevertheless bucked and pitched with such fierce determination he half expected at any moment to feel the sick sensation of her kneecap slamming his scrotum up to meet his backbone. He slid out of the chair onto his knees, which effectively put her knees out of commission as well by the simple expedient of dragging her down right along with him.

  Sasha’s breath whistled in her throat and escaped in sobs as she attempted to fight free, twisting and jerking and calling him words he would have sworn she didn’t even know, or at least never in a million years would have said out loud. Mick was astounded that such a little body, even if it did belong to an athlete in her prime, could put up so much resistance against his own overwhelmingly greater strength.

  He’d grown accustomed to butting his head up against the solid wall of her cool dignity—it was that very imperturbability that had made him feel about two inches tall all week long. This total loss of a discipline he’d believed to be impenetrable shook him up and drained him of his anger. He wrestled her down onto her back on the floor and lay on top of her, his hands stapling her wrists to the carpet, his heavy thighs pinning hers into immobility beneath him. Still she struggled in a blind rage, trying futilely to throw him off.

  “Shhh, shh, shh, shh,” he soothed. Using his chin to push her hair out of his way, he pressed his open mouth against her ear, breathing into it a medley of nonsensical sounds whose sole purpose was designed to calm her, to neutralize her rage. “Hush now, darlin’, shhhhh.” He buried his nose in the fragrant hair behind her ear and planted kisses on the skin just in front of her hairline, then shifted over her, stringing a line of kisses down the side of her neck. And all the while he crooned soothing words. “I’m sorry. Ah, shh, baby, shh. I’m sorry.”

  Little by little her struggles ceased. Where restraint alone had failed to subdue her, the combinat
ion of his soothing voice, his soft kisses, and the heat and weight of his body surrounding hers slowly penetrated the red mist of rage that fogged her alcohol-impaired control. Except for intermittent shuddery little exhalations, she was soon lying quietly beneath him.

  Sasha was aware he was aroused; that rigid length lying against her inner thigh was unmistakable. But he made no overt movement to force awareness of his stimulated state on her—he didn’t move his hips, he didn’t even press it against her, and his lips moving up and down her throat traveled with a gentle lack of threat against her skin. It was in any case her own body’s response to the knowledge of his arousal that unnerved her. “Let me up,” she said in a thick voice. Clearing her throat she added, “Please.”

  Mick stilled; then he slowly lifted his lips away from her throat, released her wrists, and pushed up off the carpet with his hands and feet, shifting his weight to the side. Sasha slid out from under and he lowered himself again, lying on his stomach with his pelvis thrust forward, pressing his erection against the floor to afford himself the modicum of relief he hadn’t dared risk taking from her. He turned his head to look at her, drawing in deep breaths through his nostrils and exhaling them silently through his teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” she said primly, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins. “There’s no excuse I can give for such violent behavior—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Sasha,” he interrupted impatiently, “the real surprise here is that you haven’t cracked before now.” He rolled to his side, propping himself up on one elbow and staring at her intently. “I wish you’d just vent it all, until every last bit of it is out in the open—then maybe we’d have a chance to move on.”

  “Yeah, well. Don’t hold your breath.”

  “No, I’ve learned not to do that.” He studied her features one by one. “Can you at least tell me what precipitated this little brouhaha?”

  “What else? If it wasn’t you, then by process of elimination that naturally leaves—”

  “Morrison.”

  “Yeah, Lonnie. Don’t ask me for specifics, though, because I simply cannot talk of him to you . . . or of you to him, for that matter.”

  “And that’s the biggest shame of all, isn’t it?” He jammed his fingers through his hair. “One of the things I loved best about living with you was the way you and I could always talk about anything under the sun. I don’t think there’s another person on earth I’ve experienced that with.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said bitterly, “the search will just have to continue, I guess, because it’s not likely you’ll ever experience it with me again. I tend to lose my ability to express myself freely when I discover that everything I believed to be true was actually a lie.”

  Mick observed her stiff posture and wary eyes, remembered how different she had been just seven short days ago, and shook his head for what he’d helped to destroy. “Morrison and me . . . we’re making your life a misery, aren’t we?”

  She quit avoiding his eyes for the first time since he’d lifted himself up off of her and raised her chin, meeting them squarely as she said in a low voice, “About as miserable as it can possibly be.”

  “For what it’s worth, darlin’, I’m truly sorry. I know it probably doesn’t help a damn thing, but I am sorry.”

  “Thank you,” she said quietly and pushed herself to her feet. She looked down at him, wanting desperately to believe in the sincerity she saw in his eyes. Then she shrugged the desire aside. She had learned the hard way that wanting something like that wasn’t a smart thing to do.

  “That’s nice of you to say,” she said in a cool little voice, “but is it truth or is Memorex?” She shrugged impatiently. “And even if it’s true, you’re right, you know. It really doesn’t help a damn thing.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Lon kept one ear attuned to Karen in the shower as he rapidly riffled her dresser drawers. He felt like a perfect fool and did not expect to find anything worth getting excited over.

  And yet . . .

  The truth was he hadn’t liked the look in her eyes last night when she’d tracked him to the bar. She had to have passed Sasha; there was no way in hell she could have missed her storming out. However, not only had she failed to cross-examine him in her usual inimitable Perry Mason style, Sasha’s name hadn’t even so much as crossed her lips. That was very un-Karen-like, so much so that it caused those short hairs at the back of his neck to stand on end.

  He had yet to figure out how the hell she had known to come looking for him in the lounge in the first place—bars weren’t exactly Karen’s usual milieu. Did she possess some damn sixth sense or something that sent forth a signal every time he and Saush got together? Life with this woman was turning out to be too fucking weird for words.

  His hands slid deftly between slippery layers of underwear and he pushed the drawer closed just as he heard the shower being turned off. Crossing over to the bed, he gave it an assessing look, remembering his favorite place to hide his stash of skin magazines from his mother’s eyes back in his teenaged days in straight-laced Kells Crossing. Keeping a sharp look out on the short hall that led to the bathroom, he flipped up the comforter and slid his arm between the mattress and boxspring until it was buried up to the armpit. Mouth twisted in distaste, thinking a cynical, God, this is asinine, he made a wide sweep, starting at the head of the mattress and working his way toward the foot.

  He was midway down when his fingers encountered the unmistakable shape of a handgun.

  Connie checked to make sure no daylight would find a chink through the tightly closed draperies, then passed Sasha the cold pack she’d rigged up with ice from the machine downstairs and a washcloth from the bathroom. She settled herself in the chair opposite her friend. “So what’s your next move going to be?”

  The derisive sound that issued through Sasha’s nose on an exhaled huff of breath was nonverbal but nonetheless expressive. “Besides swearing off drinking for the rest of my life, you mean? God, I wish I knew.” She applied the ice pack gingerly to her right temple. “You think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of this thing wearing off before tonight’s show?”

  “Oh, it should; we’ve got a lot of hours yet. And if it doesn’t,” she continued with a cheerfulness that Sasha considered callously indifferent to the pain she was suffering, “you’ll get through it somehow. I’ve never heard of a hangover yet that was terminal.”

  “They just feel that way, I guess.” Sasha blew out a disgusted breath. “I feel like such an idiot. I didn’t even realize I’d had so much to drink until I went ballistic on him.” She transferred the cold pack to her left temple and gazed unhappily at Connie. “Lord, more than anything I wish there was something I could do to find a solution to this predicament myself. I hate sitting around like a good little victim while Mick hunts for the person responsible for landing me in this mess.”

  “But what can you do, Saush?” Connie regarded her with alarm, not in the least thrilled at the idea of her best friend plunging blindly into a situation for which she patently had not the slightest preparation.

  “Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it; what can I accomplish on my own? It’s not as if I’m qualified to do a damn thing except skate.” Shifting the ice pack to the top of her head, she clamped it there with the fingers of both hands and planted her elbows on the table, squeezing her temples between her forearms. Silent for several moments, she finally raised her chin, peering through slitted eyelids at her friend across the table. “I’m fairly intelligent, I think, but I don’t have the foggiest idea how one goes about detecting a drug dealer with a penchant for violence.”

  “So leave it up to Vinicor.”

  Sasha did not take kindly to her friend’s advice. Her head was pounding, her stomach felt on the edge of revolt, her life seemed increasingly beyond her control, and the sensation of helplessness did not contribute to the sweetness of her nature. “I can’t just sit here and do nothing, Connie,” she s
napped testily. “I mean, there must be something I can undertake on my own behalf. I don’t wanna be saved by some man.”

  “It’s not some man you object to, Saush; it’s Mick.”

  Sasha’s mouth developed a mulish slant. “Okay. Fine. I don’t want to be saved by Mick.” She was furious with Connie, with herself, with the world in general. None of which was a legitimate excuse for the snotty tone she used to inquire, “Is that better? You happy now?”

  “Don’t you take your hangover out on me, Miller.” Connie shoved back from the table and stood up. She saw the stubborn expression on Sasha’s face and rolled her eyes. “Listen, I know you feel wronged by Mick, and, yeah, okay, you’ve got a perfect right to your feelings,” she said quietly. “You’ve had a lot of cruddy things piled onto your shoulders lately. But the bottom line here is that he knows what he’s doing when it comes to this drug stuff and you don’t. So stay the heck out of that part of it.”

  Sasha tried indignantly to interrupt. “He—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Connie rode right over her. “He screwed up in a major way. He’s a pig; he’s a dog—I’ve heard it ad nauseam. But you know what, Sasha? I believe he genuinely loves you. And I know he’d do damn near anything to ensure your safety. Now you can hang on to your hurt and refuse everything he has to offer, including his professional expertise.” She paused to drill her friend with a hard look. “Or you might want to try growing up.”

  Feeling misused and maligned, Sasha assured herself it was merely pain induced by the door slamming behind Connie that caused her to squeeze her eyes shut against the scalding rise of tears.

  “Shit!” Mick crumpled the fact sheet into a ball and hurled it across the room. Digging the heels of his hands into his scorched eye sockets, he strung together the foulest combination of obscenities his fertile vocabulary could conjure. Damn it anyhow; he’d really liked the idea of Jack-the-bus-driver as Morrison’s elusive partner. But was life about to cooperate by being that simple? Hell no. The latest missive from the home office listed several dates and facts that made Jack as his man an improbability at best.