Table Of Content1
Carnal Passions Presents
Search Me
By
L. A. Witt
2
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in
this book are of the author's imagination and are not to be construed
as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead,
is completely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
Carnal Passions
A Division of Champagne Books
www.carnalpassions.com
Copyright 2011 by L. A. Witt
ISBN 9781926996714
December 2011
Cover Art by Amanda Kelsey
Produced in Canada
Carnal Passions
#35069-4604 37 ST SW
Calgary, AB T3E 7C7
Canada
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook
may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to
share this book with another person, please purchase an additional
copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not
purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please
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purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of
this author.
3
Dedication
To Andy.
4
One
Gun in both hands, I inched down the hall of Nick's
apartment. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, my nerve
endings tingling and my senses on high alert for any indication there
was someone here. So far, the apartment was empty. Nothing had
been disturbed.
"Nick," I said over my shoulder, keeping my voice down.
"Did you leave your bedroom door open or closed?"
"I don't know," he said. "Probably closed."
I pursed my lips. Up ahead, the door was ajar.
As I took another step forward, I said, "Stay up against the
wall."
Fabric rustled behind me, so I didn't look back to make sure
he'd done as I asked. Instead, I continued toward the door, listening
for any movement beyond it. If Jesse was here, he could be in any
state of mind. Lucid. Volatile. Going through withdrawal. In the
middle of a high. The kid was mentally ill anyway, plus he was a
crack addict. After he'd attacked Nick the other night, breaking his
nose and nearly strangling him, there was no predicting what would
be going on in the kid's head now.
At the door, I paused for a moment, listening. Then I nudged
the door open with my foot.
Everything happened so fast. So goddamned fast. He must
have been completely still, completely silent, and I didn't see him
until he raised the gun. Until the muzzle flash startled me, sent me
stumbling back in the same instant fire ripped across the side of my
arm and a donkey kick's worth of force hit the center of my chest.
5
Nick tried to steady me, but we both went down.
As he scrambled to his feet, I gripped my upper arm. It was a
minor wound. Grazed me. My chest ached where my vest had
stopped the second bullet, and breathing took some extra effort, but it
was nothing serious.
And Jesse was still here.
"Andrew, are you okay?" Nick asked. Concern and fear were
etched all over his bruised, cut-up face.
"The gun." I coughed, then spoke through clenched teeth.
"Get my gun."
The pistol that had been in my hands had fallen just beyond
the open doorway, so Nick took the revolver from my ankle holster.
From the other side of the doorway came a hysterical,
familiar voice: "Oh God, oh God, oh God…"
"Jesse, put the gun down," I called out. I moved to my knees.
"Jesse…"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry," came the
shrill, shaky response. "I didn't mean to, Mark, I didn't—"
"Jesse, just calm down." I kept my voice low. The kid only
knew me by my undercover name, and probably had no idea I was a
cop. He was already delusional and had long ago bought into a
charade my partner and I had put on for months. As I tried to figure
out how to defuse this situation, I noticed Jesse had dropped his
weapon. The noise and the kick must have scared the shit out of him.
That, or he'd realized he'd hit me—not Nick, the one he probably
wanted to shoot—and freaked.
Dropping my voice a little lower, I said, "Nick. His gun. It's
on the floor." I nodded toward the bedroom.
Nick looked. Then he turned to me and mouthed, "What do I
do?"
"Just stay there." I gestured at the revolver in his hand. "Aim
the gun at the doorway."
He cocked his head. "Aim the—"
"Just do it. He goes anywhere near either gun, do not hesitate
to fire."
Nick nodded and drew the hammer back. He swallowed
hard, his Adam's apple bobbing between the purple and red welts
across the front of his throat. I thought he shuddered. He had to have
6
been scared out of his mind, but he did as I said, adopting the
shooting stance I'd taught him and aiming his weapon at the bedroom
doorway.
"Jesse, move where I can see you," I ordered.
"No, no, I can't, it's—"
"Jesse, move where I can see you. Now."
Tentative, unseen movement shuffled across carpet.
"Jesse, I'm not fucking around." I sucked in a breath as I
gingerly pushed myself to my feet, still clutching my wounded arm.
"Get in front of the doorway with your hands in the air and don't
touch that gun. Come on, Jesse."
Another step.
"Can you see him?" I asked.
"Not yet," Nick said.
"Come on, Jesse," I barked. "Now."
"Please don't shoot me," came the shrill voice from the other
side. He was crying now, almost hyperventilating.
"I'm not going to shoot you unless you reach for a gun,"
Nick said. "Come out now, or I'm coming in."
Jesse stepped into view. His eyes were wild with fury and
probably no shortage of chemical influence, but also red from crying.
His hands were up and his face was blotchy, vertical streaks marking
where tears had cut through the dirt on his skin. He struggled just to
breathe in between sobbing, and when he looked past Nick and saw
me, he cried even harder.
"Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm sorry, Mark, I'm sorry…" He
whimpered and shook, brushing frantically at his arms like he had
unseen insects crawling all over him. His legs trembled under him as
he rocked back and forth. Fuck. He was probably coming off a high,
maybe even a binge, and if ever a crackhead was going to be volatile
and dangerous, this was it.
"Jesse, put your hands back up," Nick said calmly.
Jesse's hysteria shifted to anger when he glared at Nick.
"Fuck you. I wanted to hit you, not…" He looked at me
again and crumbled into renewed crying. "Mark, oh God, I'm sorry, I
didn't mean to, I'm so..." He mumbled something after that, sobbing
and struggling to speak. He started to sink to the floor, way too close
to my gun for comfort.
7
"Stand up, Jesse," Nick said sharply. "Stand up and put your
hands where I can see them. Now."
Jesse obeyed, but stared at Nick with nothing but rage in his
eyes. "You killed Chelsea." His voice cracked and he blinked
rapidly. "You killed her, I saw you, I saw you, I tried to save her…"
"Jesse, I didn't kill anyone." Nick's voice shook, but the gun
in his hands stayed rock steady.
"Listen to him, Jesse," I said. "He didn't kill anyone.
Chelsea's alive. She's fine."
"No, she's not," Jesse said. "I'm not stupid, Mark. I saw her. I
fucking saw her."
"And you damn near killed me," Nick growled.
Jesse crumbled into incomprehensible crying and mumbling.
Struggling to keep my voice calm, I said, "Chelsea is not
dead, Jesse."
"You're both lying." Jesse's voice inched toward even greater
hysteria. He tore at his own hair, wavering back and forth on shaking
knees. "She's dead, I saw her, and they moved everything out of her
house and took it all away, and—"
"Jesse, I can call her," Nick said. "We'll let you talk to her.
She's alive, I promise."
Jesse clutched his hair and shook his head and fidgeted.
"You're lying. You're lying. I'm not stupid, Mark, I'm not stupid and
she's dead, I saw her, I saw what he did to her, I saw it, you—"
"She's not dead, Jesse," Nick said.
"You're lying!" All at once, Jesse went for a gun on the
floor, and Nick fired. The sound and recoil must have caught him off
guard, especially with the vertigo from his concussion, and he
grabbed the doorframe for balance.
Jesse dropped to the floor, screaming. For about two
seconds, I thought he was neutralized and this might be over, but
then he lunged for one of the guns.
"Nick! The gun!" Without thinking, I shoved Nick out of the
way. A gunshot. Pain. More shots.
I dropped to my knees, holding my arm. The wound was
worse than it had been earlier. Far worse. No, no, it wasn't. This was
a new one. A deeper, bloodier one, right through my upper arm.
"Oh, fuck…"
8
A hand materialized on my shoulder.
Nick's voice sounded far away as he said, "Are you—"
"Get the gun," I said through my teeth.
Nick left my side. I was vaguely aware of movement, of
Jesse moaning beside me, but more than anything, I was aware of the
hot blood slipping through my fingers and over the back of my hand.
My head spun. I slumped forward, my vision turning black, and from
nowhere, Nick was beside me again.
"Easy," he said. "Lie back." He guided me onto my back,
which slowed some of the spinning. Then he was gone again. Panic
rose in my throat, alternately directed at the wound, my waning
consciousness, and Nick's absence.
His voice and presence returned. "Look, I'm a paramedic and
one of these guys might be bleeding out." Who is he talking to? "I
need both hands to do this. Just send help and send it now."
A second later, something clattered beside me. A gun? A
phone? Fuck if I knew, because the pain in my arm worsened.
Someone was moving my arm. Squeezing it.
"Keep a tight grip on this," Nick said, guiding my hand to a
towel he'd wrapped around my arm, "and hold it against your side.
It's going to hurt like hell, but don't let go of it."
I gripped the towel, which sent daggers of pain shooting
through the wound. "Fuck, that hurts."
"It's going to. But don't let go."
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I looked around at
the blood and bullet holes in the room. "Looks like you're fucked for
your damage deposit," I muttered.
Nick chuckled. "And I thought I had a dark sense of humor."
He nodded at my arm. "Keep holding that."
He started to stand.
Panicked, I seized his wrist. "Wait, where are you going?"
Nick gestured at Jesse. "I have to help him. He's bleeding
badly. I'm not going far and help is on its way."
"Nick…" My heart pounded. My head spun faster.
Don't leave me like this. Nick, don't leave. Don't go, please.
But he got up. As I fought to stay conscious, to see through
the pain and my fading vision, he got up and walked away.
He walked away.
9
He walked away.
Nick…don't leave me like this…
~ * ~
My eyes flew open and I pulled in a breath.
That same fucking dream again.
I wanted to tell myself it wasn't real, that it was just a
damned dream, but I knew better. Sighing I rubbed my eyes. The
dull ache in my other arm reminded me that no amount of "it's not
real" would change the fact that the dream was real. It had happened.
The better part of a year ago, yes, but whether it had happened back
then or just now, it was anything but "not real".
I fidgeted, then cursed under my breath. No wonder my arm
ached: it was pressed between the back of the couch and me. I
moved just enough to free my arm, then raised it, bending and
straightening my elbow gingerly. Same thing happened last night.
One of these days, maybe I'd learn how to sleep on the couch without
fucking up my arm. Like facing the other direction or something.
Then again, it would all be a moot point if I just got up and
stayed in the bedroom, but I couldn't. Not now.
I couldn't sleep in the bedroom because Nick was gone.
I was used to spending nights apart, but this was different.
This wasn't like when he stayed at the firehouse for his three day
shifts. During his rotations, he was gone for a few nights, and when
that was over, he came through the front door, sleepy-eyed and
exhausted, in the morning before I went to work. Not this time. He
was really gone this time. Not moved out yet, but all it would take
was a borrowed pickup truck, some cardboard boxes, and a few
hours to take care of that.
He hadn't decided yet if this was permanent, but it didn't feel
temporary to me. There was too much finality in the click of the
front door two nights ago. He didn't storm out. He didn't slam the
door. He just quietly said he had to go, needed to go—Nick, please,
don't go—and slipped through my fingers.
I exhaled and rubbed my forehead, swallowing the lump that
kept trying to rise in my throat. We'd had problems for a while now,
but I'd been so sure we'd be all right. Even when we'd fought and
couldn't stand the sight of each other, when we went days on end
10
