The Chase (7 page)

“Just the ones you saw come out. Three of them. They’re not talking.”

She snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Let’s see what we’ve got, Sergeant.”

He held his hand out. “Lead the way, Counselor.”

One of the guys, Delaney, stepped out of an aisle. “Over here,” he yelled.

The aisles were alphabetically labeled, the first two being A through G. Delaney stood in the K aisle. Jo glanced up at Gabe and lifted her eyebrows.

“Don’t get excited, Jo. We don’t know what it is.”

“Yeah, but the K aisle is a good omen.”

If she didn’t find Konklin watch knock-offs she’d be crushed. He didn’t want that for her, but with her tendency to go emotionally all-in on these things, it could happen. They walked by two deep aisles filled from floor to ceiling with boxes. Next to him, Jo’s long legs ate up the ground in front of her.

They stepped up to where Delaney stood. “What is it?” Gabe asked.

The man pointed to a stack of boxes, five wide from floor to ceiling, labeled KON. One of the bottom boxes had been torn open and on top of it sat a watch. Jo damned near knocked Delaney over lunging toward the box.

She scooped up the watch, studied the face then flipped it over and ran her finger along the edge.

Gabe stepped closer and glanced over her shoulder. “Jo?”

A bright smile lit her face before she turned back to him, went up on tiptoes and threw her arms around his neck. Visions of that smoking hot kiss they’d shared flooded his mind and Gabe froze.

Well, a large part of him froze. The other part, the one between his legs, had hardening issues unrelated to freezing.

Delaney’s eyebrows hitched up and Gabe, not knowing what to do with his hands, held them wide.
See, no hands
.

“Okay, Counselor,” he said. “Let’s try and contain the enthusiasm.”

Please freaking contain it
.

She leapt back and the stretched look on her face indicated nothing short of horror.

“I’m so sorry.” She spun to Delaney. “I—I got excited.”

Delaney held his hands up. “I was hoping I’d be next.”

“Whoa,” Gabe said.

Jo straightened her coat, ran a hand over her ponytail and offered a small smile. “Nice try, Officer, but I’ve squandered my quota of professional slip-ups for the day.”

“Always the way.”

Gabe jerked his head toward the door. “Delaney, go do something. Start packing up your gear.
Something
.”

Delaney marched his ass to the loading dock doors. Gabe waited for him to leave the building before turning back to Jo.

“Shoot,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I saw all these boxes and then the watch and I went on overload.” She held her arms out. “Look at this stuff. If all these boxes have counterfeit goods in them—”

Gabe nodded. “It’ll be the biggest haul yet.”

She pounded her fist in the air. “Yes! The mayor will be ecstatic.
I’ll
be ecstatic.”

He should take a second and lecture her about the hugging thing. If she didn’t want a team of ESU guys speculating, she needed to deep-six the PDA. Seeing her so excited over the watches though, he couldn’t do it to her. Maybe later. Right now, he’d let her enjoy the find. “Do you want to stay and go through all this stuff with the search team? I’ll talk to the sergeant.”

Already, she was pulling her phone from her coat pocket. “Absolutely. I’ll clear my afternoon. I want to inventory everything we find related to my clients.” Again she stared up at the tower of boxes then shifted her gaze down the long row. “If all this stuff was actually real, it’d be worth millions.”

“Yeah. Even being counterfeit, it represents a huge loss to the smuggler.”

“Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

She spun to him, raised her open hand and they high-fived. “If this is what I think it is, we did it, Gabe. All these months of working together and finally,
finally
, a huge seizure.”

That was true, and his rapid pulse indicated his own sense of accomplishment. But this huge seizure, the one that would make them heroes and give the mayor something to brag about, would also royally piss someone off.

And they had no idea who that someone was.

—:—

Jo’s office was fairly quiet the following morning as she read over deposition notes. The only sound came from her television on low volume. The mayor was doing a 10:00 a.m. news conference regarding a new appointment at the Health Department and she was sure he’d go off-script and mention the seizure of counterfeit goods. The task force being his pride and joy, he took every opportunity to mention their successes.

“Finally,” the mayor said, “I’d like to thank the members of the Clean Sweep Task Force, including Bev Richards, Sergeant Gabriel Townsend and attorney Joanna Pomeroy, for the flawless execution of yesterday’s massive seizure of counterfeit goods. This task force continues to perform above expectations to cleanse our city of a billion dollar a year criminal enterprise.”

She raised her hands in victory. “And the crowd goes wild.”

The mayor stepped from the podium and Jo broke into a celebratory chair dance. Someone knocked on the open door and she glanced up. Her assistant, Liza, stood there holding what looked suspiciously like a Barelli shoe box.

Another gift from their satisfied client?

Jo grinned like a fool. “What do you have there?”

“It just came for you. I took it out of the bigger box, but figured since it was your gift, I’d let you open it.”

Jo waved her in. “I’ll tell you what, whatever is in this box is yours.”

A huge smile split Liza’s face. Good assistants weren’t easy to find and Liza was not only good, she was spectacular. The firm worked this young woman like a slave and she never complained. Not once. The least Jo could do was share the riches.

“But it’s your gift.”

“I just got the boots. You take this one.”

Liza bit down on her lip. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Open that sucker up and see what you got.”

Rushing to the desk, Liza set the box down and flipped the cover back. This would be good. Jo kept her gaze glued to Liza’s face so she could see her reaction.

Only, Liza’s smile dropped like the Titanic. Her lips recoiled and she threw her hand over her mouth before looking away. “Aah!”

Jo scooted forward in her chair and tipped the box up. A severed hand slid to the bottom of the tilted box, tumbled out, bounced off her wrist and landed on the deposition notes.

Ohmygod.
Jo’s eyes throbbed as blood roared in her brain. She raised her hands and slammed her eyes closed as sickening bile filled her throat.
No throwing up
.

Running from the room, Liza screamed for John, the senior partner.

Evidence.
Don’t touch it
. With her eyes still closed, Jo realized the hand would have to sit on top of the Alderson deposition until they figured out what to do.
Look at it
.
Make mental notes
. After one long breath, Jo called the bulldog of a lawyer inside her back to the surface and opened her eyes.

Palm up. That’s how the hand sat. It had been severed at the wrist. Cleanly. Whatever the hell that meant when dealing with a chopped off hand. Still, the bones and tendons had been severed, as if by a blade, rather than gnawed. Just one effective swipe had detached it. Otherwise, it was perfect—as perfect as a severed hand could be—the grayish-blue color was even, the skin unmarred, the nails clean.

Nausea swirled and, unable to control herself, Jo gagged. “God, that’s disgusting.”

She closed her eyes for another second and breathed into the crook of her arm. The clean scent of her laundry soap settled her rioting stomach. She needed to study the thing. Note her first impressions. Anything that might help when the police eventually showed up.

It also appeared to be a female hand. Jo held her left hand in front of her, then glanced at the severed hand. Yes, most definitely a woman’s hand.

“Jo.” John rushed in. “Don’t touch it.”

“I haven’t. Outside of it falling out of the box.”

John stepped closer, gasped and spun away. “Jesus!”

Liza hovered in the doorway refusing to come in. Who could blame her? “Liza, I don’t want to touch
anything
. Would you please call Gabe Townsend and tell him we have a…uh…situation?”

He’ll love this one
. It would probably launch him directly to yelling mode. Something to look forward to.

Liza swung from the doorway. “Right away.”

John stared at the ceiling a second—
yeah, pal, I know
—then his shoulders lifted and dropped as if he’d taken a deep breath.

With one foot, Jo shoved her chair back from the desk. She’d had enough of staring at that disgusting hunk of human flesh that had been sent to her.

In a Barelli box. Oh, that message had been received loud and clear. The cast on her hand should have been her first warning. Her stomach tumbled again and she looked down, shaking her head, willing the bile to go down her throat instead of up. She swallowed a couple of times, closed her eyes and exhaled.

“Are you gonna pass out?” John asked.

Not if I can help it
. She opened her eyes, ignored the wayward hand on her desk and zeroed in on John. “I’m okay.”

Liza stormed back to the doorway and told her Gabe had gotten called out—a barricaded accused murderer holding his wife hostage.

Jo’s severed hand delivery had nothing on that one.

“They’re sending the crime scene people over,” Liza said. “Don’t worry.”

Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

Chapter Six

Gabe stepped off the elevator in Jo’s apartment building and spotted Wasco, a guy who’d come to ESU not long after he did, standing guard at her front door. Wasco was still dressed in his tactical uniform from his shift and was probably ready to get home to his family.

“Hey, boss,” he said.

Gabe halted in front of him and pointed at the door. “Hey. She okay?”

“Pretty freaked, I’d say, but she was cracking jokes about one-handed women the whole way home.”

Gabe snorted. That sounded like Jo. Using off-color jokes to deflect her fear. “I’ve got it from here. You can shove off.”

Wasco glanced over his shoulder, then back to Gabe. “You sure? I mean, you had a long day. I could stay.”

A long day was putting it mildly. They stood outside that jackhole’s house for six hours until negotiations broke down and they finally had to go in and get him. The guy had beaten his wife to a pulp and the woman had been unconscious on the floor by the time they’d gotten inside.

Sometimes Gabe just didn’t understand. But he’d walked away with the suspect in cuffs and his clothes reeking of the chemical agent they’d used trying to smoke the guy out. Nasty shit, that.

At least a shower washed the odor away, but like every other time, the scent lingered in his mind. Now he stood in front of Jo’s door wondering what the hell he’d say to her that didn’t sound too much like “You’re fucking done going on these hits.”

She probably wouldn’t like that, but he’d had enough of this nonsense. National task force dreams or not, if she wouldn’t be responsible for her own safety, he’d do it for her. He’d lock her in a cell if he had to.

“I’m good,” Gabe said to Wasco. “Go on home.”

“Awright. Tell Jo to hang in there.”

The guys knew she was a pain in the ass, but they liked her sassy mouth. Gabe liked her sassy mouth too. For a variety of reasons. He nodded. “I will.”

Wasco strode down the hall and Gabe waited for him to get on the elevator before knocking on Jo’s door. “It’s Gabe.”

A minute later, the door swung open. She stood on the other side wearing a pair of those stretchy black yoga pants with a long-sleeved fitted T-shirt. And, once again, the wrong brain in his body took over. There was no denying this woman had one hell of a sumptuous figure. Curves in all the right places.

Places he wanted his hands to be. For a lengthy period of time.

“Hi,” she said. “Come in.”

He stepped over the threshold. “Sorry about this afternoon.”

“It’s okay. A barricaded murderer was more important than me.”

He shrugged. “Not really, but it’s the job.”

When he walked by her, she stuck her head into the hallway. “Where’s Wasco?”

“I sent him home. I’ll stay with you.”

She opened her mouth to say something, stared at the open door for a second, then shook off whatever she’d been about to say. When she closed the door, the snick of the lock echoed in the quiet hallway. Whether it was some sort of sign that he should run from the apartment rather than risk being alone with Jo after an emotionally charged day, Gabe didn’t know. Either way, he was in now and had no intention of leaving.

“Did you have to come all the way over here? Aren’t you tired? And hungry?”

He dropped onto her sofa. “Yes, I did. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I’m hungry.” He flashed a grin. “Not bad. All three of your questions answered. Boom-boom-boom.”