The Rookie: A Romantic Suspense Standalone (The Intelligence Unit Book 1) Read online

  Tara shrugged. “Considering tonight’s circumstances, I wouldn’t blame you if it were still accurate.”

  “Still,” Xander repeated. He hooked the end of the word upward until it became a question, and Tara’s dark auburn brows popped.

  “Well, yes. I assumed there was already no love lost from two years ago.”

  Fuck. He should’ve known the past wouldn’t stay in the past. It never goddamn did. “That was a long time ago.”

  Tara fell for the way he’d notched his tone right at its most easygoing setting, because she said, “Maybe. But my office still tried to send you to jail for a really long time.”

  “Bygones.” Xander realized he’d sent the word through his teeth, and damn it, he needed to breathe. “It all turned out fine in the end.”

  The look on her face said she wanted to argue (hello, attorney), but Xander about-faced the subject. “Anyway, I owe you an apology for tonight.”

  “What?” Tara breathed. Under any other circumstances, he might’ve gotten a thrill at shocking her thoroughly enough to make her ridiculously lush mouth fall open like that. But he stood the ground he’d just stolen.

  “Amour is your CI, and you two obviously have a good relationship. Interview protocol is designed to gain useful information, not overwhelm the person being questioned. I overstepped when I kept pushing you for details, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh.” Tara paused, and in less than a blink, the uncharacteristic softness in her expression got back to business. “Well, don’t be. I’m not.”

  Xander’s laugh held equal parts humor and disbelief. “Okay, not to put too fine a point on it, because I do have some pride, but you handed me my lunch back there. Respectfully, I’m not really sure I’m buying that you’re not sorry I pushed.”

  She pulled to a stop at the red light in front of them before lifting one hand from the wheel in a wordless translation of mea culpa. “I was a bit…brash. But it’s not as if I don’t know the process for giving a statement, and that it needs to be thorough. You were just doing your job, and I was”—she trailed off for a beat, then one more before turning to look at him through the shadowy interior of the car—“Well, I should’ve reacted differently.”

  A burst of desire moved through Xander, swift and enticingly hot, and Christ, was he nuts? This woman drove a BM-fucking-W and was a smart, successful attorney in the DA’s office. She wasn’t for him. Not fleetingly. Not just in his head.

  Not ever.

  Xander smoothed his expression and tugged together all the no-big-deal he could muster. Once he delivered Tara to the hospital and relayed her statement and an update to the Intelligence Unit detectives who would surely meet them there, the chances were high he wouldn’t even see her again. All he had to do was make it through the next hour or so. Then he could go back to keeping his head down and his ass in his own lane.

  “What do you say we just call it even?” he asked, extending his hand over the center console.

  Tara looked at him, her copper-colored eyes as wide as pennies but her grasp firm as she wrapped her fingers around his and shook.

  “I’d say you’ve got yourself a clean slate.”

  Oh, if only. Nothing about him was ever going to be clean.

  Especially with a woman like Tara Kingston.

  The rest of the ride passed in comfortable silence, with Xander trying to get the image of her sexy, sassy mouth out of his head and Tara blissfully unaware of his wicked (and wickedly inappropriate) thoughts. Remington Memorial’s Emergency Department was relatively quiet, with only a handful of people spread out across the waiting room, and Tara didn’t waste any time heading for the intake desk.

  “I’m Tara Kingston, with the DA’s office. I’m here for a patient who was brought in via ambulance. Amour Pollard. Aimee,” she added, and the scrubs-clad man behind the desk nodded.

  “The paramedics said to expect you. Dr. Riley is with the patient right now. You’ll have to wait out here.” He darted an apologetic glance at the waiting room. “But I’ll let her know you’re here. She’ll come find you as soon as she can.”

  Tara tensed beside him in a way that said she was primed to argue, and Xander edged his way into her line of vision before he could stop himself. “Tara, she’s in the best hands. You don’t want to mess with that,” he said quietly. “Plus, we have to wait for someone from Intelligence to get here to work this case before we can do anything, anyway. It’s SOP, and we have to do this by the book.”

  To his total surprise, she eked out a small, slow nod. Thanking the intake nurse, she stepped back with a frown. “I know you’re right. But…”

  “The waiting sucks. I know.” Xander slapped back the memory of exactly how well-acquainted he was with that particular terror and gestured toward the chairs. “Do you want to sit down? It might be a while.”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Okay.” Xander tried Door Number Two. “Maybe we should find a vending machine. Are you hungry?”

  Tara shook her head, knocking a strand of hair loose from the already tousled twist pinned just behind her ear. “No, thank you. I just want to wait right here for Dr. Riley.”

  She locked her fingers together and started to pace. Her shoes—a pair of classy black heels with slim straps around her ankles that did absolutely zip for Xander’s composure—clipped a steady rhythm over the linoleum, and after the third circuit of pacing/hand wringing, he realized he was going to have to stage an intervention, otherwise she was going to fry her own circuitry before Dr. Riley could get even close to an update.

  He fell into step alongside her. “Interesting story. Like, thirty years ago, there was this cargo ship on its way from Hong Kong to the United States.”

  “What?” Tara stopped short to stare at him, but Xander didn’t let go of his steady-as-she-goes expression.

  “Cargo ship. Hong Kong to the U.S.,” he repeated. When she was too shocked to verbalize the WTF that was scribbled all over her pretty face, he continued. “On the route, the ship accidentally lost a shipping crate, like, smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I bet you can’t guess what was in it.”

  She blinked. “Electronics?”

  “Good guess, but no.”

  “Car parts.” A competitive spark lit her eyes, making her even prettier than usual.

  Xander forced his shoulders into a haphazard shrug and his dick to stand down. “Nope.”

  “Clothing?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Xander.” His name was all warning as it crossed Tara’s lips, and he had to cave.

  “Twenty-eight thousand rubber ducks.”

  The look on her face was priceless. “I’m sorry. Did you say—”

  “Yup. Ducks. So, the shipping company figures they’re lost, right? I mean, the crate fell into the ocean.” He pantomimed a big splash with his hands. “But then these rubber ducks started popping up in all sorts of places.”

  “Are you serious?” Tara asked, fully hooked on the story if her expression was anything to go by.

  Annnd gotcha. “Scout’s honor,” he said, even though he was as far from a Boy Scout as a man could get. “Australia. Alaska. The shores of the Atlantic. They’ve even found a couple frozen in Arctic ice.”

  “No way.” She huffed out a laugh. “That’s thousands of miles.”

  “I know, right? But that’s the coolest part. Those accidental ducks ended up teaching marine researchers a ton about ocean currents. A few still pop up here and there to this day.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s so cool,” Tara murmured. The ease on her face lasted for a beat, then one more before her chin whipped up, and ah, busted. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

  Xander slid on his poker face like it was his Sunday best. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “You used that story to distract me so I’d relax.”

  Her hands found the generous curve of her hips, and Xander wondered if the move was pure reflex. Focus. And not on grab
bing her hips while fucking her senseless. “Uh,” Xander grunted, and what the hell was wrong with him? “Yeah, maybe. But you weren’t going to last five minutes pacing the floor like that, and I know you want to save your energy for Amour.”

  Tara took a step toward him, her arms softening at her sides. “You’re a really nice guy, you know that?”

  The urge to correct her was strong, but Xander bit it in half and said, “Just doing my job.”

  “The standard answer when someone says ‘you’re a nice guy’ is usually ‘thank you’.”

  The words carried none of her usual heat, filled instead with curiosity, and hell, Xander would take her ire a million times over the beautiful, wide-open look on her face right now. “Thank you.”

  Another step, and now Tara was right in front of him, close enough to touch. “How come you don’t like being called a nice guy?”

  His pulse flared, but that shit about old habits was real.

  This time, he stepped toward her, cutting the distance between them to inches. “The standard answer when someone says ‘thank you’ is usually ‘you’re welcome’.”

  “Oh,” Tara breathed. Her lips parted to release the sound as a sigh, and suddenly, there was nothing in the universe other than him, her, and the red-hot urge to claim her mouth. “You’re welcome, Xander.”

  “Hey, you two. Hope we’re not interrupting?”

  The female voice—not Tara’s, but almost as close by—whiplashed Xander back down to earth. “No,” he and Tara said simultaneously, both of them taking gargantuan steps away from each other.

  By the time Xander turned toward Intelligence Detectives Isabella Walker and Matteo Garza, his nothing-to-see-here armor was firmly back in place. “Not at all. Ms. Kingston and I were just killing time, waiting for you guys to arrive.”

  “Right.” Isabella’s smile told Xander she saw right through him (freaking detectives), so he went for old faithful.

  “Hey, you look great, by the way.” He gestured to her rounded belly. “How far along are you now?”

  Whether or not she was onto him, she took the bait. “Six months, and I look like I gulped down a basketball. But you’re a doll for lying.” Isabella took a second to run her hand lovingly over her baby bump before getting to the matter at hand. “And I’m still allowed to do victim interviews even if I have to take a break from actively chasing criminals, which is what Hollister is doing right now, the lucky brat”—she gave up a tart smile at the mention of her partner, Liam Hollister—“so I’m tagging along with Garza, here, in order to feel useful. Do you want to give us the rundown?”

  Xander nodded and got down to business. “Aimee Pollard, goes by Amour, eighteen, assaulted in her home in North Point.” He rolled through the bullet, making sure to take pit stops at the head injury, no outward signs of sexual assault, and Amour’s phone call to Tara. “Dr. Riley’s with her now. No update yet.”

  “Shit,” Garza said, dividing his dark gaze between Isabella and Tara. “You think Sansone’s behind this?”

  “Who else would it be?” Tara asked. “You both worked that case. You know what she risked to get us that intel. And what he’s capable of. If he knows she’s the one who gave us what we needed to get him arrested, he wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her.”

  Slowly, Isabella said, “We do have to look at every angle. Amour doesn’t exactly live in the safest of neighborhoods, and break-ins that end in assault aren’t unusual in North Point. This could just be a robbery gone wrong or a home invasion. That said”—she looked at Tara, who had already opened her mouth to argue—“I agree that the whole thing is pretty freaking suspicious. Something about this doesn’t quite pass the smell test. But we won’t know what until we can talk to Amour.”

  “I’m not about to go back there and piss Tess off,” Garza said, and Xander silently agreed. The doctor was part of a larger group of first responders and medical staff who hung out at his sister Kennedy’s bar on the regular, and while Tess had always seemed nice enough outside of the hospital, the stories of how she ran her ED without an ounce of bullshit and even less apology were practically lore. Plus, she was married to a guy who used to jump out of helicopters. On purpose. Repeatedly.

  “She knows we’re here,” Xander said quietly. “And she knows Amour is the victim of a crime. She’ll come find us as soon as she can.”

  At that, a tart laugh sounded off from over Garza’s brawny shoulder, and they all turned to see Tess Riley standing there in her dark green scrubs and doctor’s coat.

  “Give the rookie a gold star. And I’m glad the gang’s all here, because we need to talk.”

  4

  All the emotion Tara had managed to tamp down came rushing up in full force, taking the last shred of her decorum with it.

  “Tell me she’s okay,” she said past her heart, which was lodged firmly in her throat and pounding like a jackhammer.

  The woman—Dr. Riley, according to the name stitched on her white doctor’s coat—took a lightning-fast look at Tara before saying, “I’m going to assume you’re Tara?”

  At Tara’s nod, Dr. Riley continued. “Amour said you’d probably be assertive.”

  All the air left Tara’s lungs on a rush of relief. She’s not dead. Not like Lucas. “She said that?”

  “Actually, her exact words were, ‘She’s probably going to lose her shit if you don’t go get her’, but I figured assertive works, too,” the doctor said over a smile. “For the record, assertive is my favorite quality, and yes, Amour is okay. She’s a pretty tough cookie.”

  “What can you tell us about her injury?” Detective Garza asked, his dark eyes as serious as his expression.

  Dr. Riley wasted no time ushering them past a set of double doors and farther into the ED for privacy. “She’s awake and stable, although she’s pretty woozy and obviously shaken. She didn’t say much about what happened, and I didn’t want to agitate her by pushing until I ruled out a skull fracture or more serious brain injury. All signs point to no on both of those right now, but I called in a neuro consult, just to be safe.” She directed the gentler words at Tara before putting some frost into her tone. “Whoever assaulted her knew what they were doing. Amour sustained blunt force trauma to the right temple resulting in a moderate concussion, along with some lesser-degree facial trauma to the nose and contusions to her neck and upper extremities.”

  Tara’s gut bottomed out in dread. “He choked her before he hit her?”

  “Son of a bitch,” Isabella bit out. “So, whoever did this was a lot stronger than she is?”

  “And taller, too,” Dr. Riley agreed. “From the angle of the shot to the temple, I’d say your assailant is at least six inches taller than Amour, and that’s a minimum.”

  “So, probably male,” Garza said.

  “And left-handed,” Xander pointed out, and Isabella nodded.

  “That’s likely, given that Amour’s worst injury is to her right temple. Any idea if he used a weapon for the shot to the head?”

  Dr. Riley’s frown grew. “He definitely used something other than his fists. I can’t be a hundred percent sure what, but in my expert medical opinion…it looks like a pretty classic pistol-whip.”

  Oh, God.

  Tara must’ve spoken the gut-clenching words out loud, because Xander shot her one of those calm, cool, everything’s going to be okay gazes, just as he had before he’d thrown her for a loop with that rubber duck story. “But you said she’s okay now?”

  “The neurology resident was with her when I left, but she’s stable. At this point, I’d feel more comfortable keeping her until morning, just to be on the safe side and make sure she keeps to the concussion protocol. It wouldn’t hurt for someone from psych to try to talk to her, too. Trauma victims don’t just have to heal from their physical injuries.”

  “I want to stay with her,” Tara said. Amour was tough, but God, Dr. Riley was right. The poor girl had just been assaulted in her own house. Tara might hate hospitals with the red-hot intens
ity of a thousand fiery suns, but… “I don’t want her to be alone. Plus, once Sansone finds out he didn’t kill her, who knows what he might try to do.”

  Garza swapped looks with Isabella, but Tara didn’t know either detective well enough to read between the unspoken lines. “Let’s take this one step at a time. We have to prove it was Sansone first. Tess, do you think Amour is up for an interview? The sooner we do this, the sooner we can start figuring out who hurt her.”

  “It’ll have to be quick, and if she gets too overwhelmed, we’ll have to cut it off. I know she’s tough, but I also know I don’t need to remind you she’s had a hell of a night.”

  “Understood,” Isabella said. Turning toward Xander, she asked, “You sticking around to sharpen your victim interview skills, Matthews?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His nod sent the weirdest shot of relief through Tara’s chest. “I’d like to see this one through, as long as that’s alright with you.”

  Garza jerked his chin. “Never hurts to learn, but do us a favor, both of you, and let us do our job? This case in under Intelligence’s jurisdiction until we can make an arrest.”

  Tara bristled, but before she could tell Tall, Dark, and Broody exactly where he could shove his jurisdiction, Isabella said, “I think what Garza, here, is trying to say in his own charming way is, we really have to be sure we do this by the book. Especially if Sansone is involved. The last thing we want to do is give his lawyer any sort of technicality to hang a dismissal on.”

  And Sansone’s attorney was the slimiest defense lawyer dirty money could buy. Shit. “Understood,” Tara muttered.

  “Okay,” Dr. Riley said, leading them toward an exam room at the far end of the hallway. “I’ll stick to the background in case she needs anything. Try to be quick?”

  “Of course,” Isabella promised. Turning toward Tara, she said, “You’re good for this, right?”

  Tara nodded even though her heart was screaming to the contrary. “I have to be. Amour needs an advocate. I won’t let her down.”