Somehow they managed. After they finished the stack of pancakes and chicken sausages Danny had piled on each of their plates, Jake volunteered to do the dishes while Danny showered and dressed.
After their morning of bump and grind, she should have known that being naked in the shower was too big a draw for him. She wasn’t really surprised when she heard the door to the bathroom open and felt a surge of cold air over the top of the shower stall.
“Whoever came in here, you should know I’m a cop and I’m trained in unarmed combat.”
The shower door opened. “Oh, Detective, I’m petrified,” he said.
She glanced down at his erection. “Well, part of you is.”
Shaking his head, he turned her so her back was to his front, took the bath sponge from her hand, and picked up the bottle of body wash. “There’s that smart mouth of yours again. Luckily I’ve discovered a way to quiet it.” He nuzzled her neck and began a long, slow slide with the soapy sponge across her breasts and down her belly, lingering long enough at the apex of her thighs to make her writhe in his arms. “You like?” he asked as he moved down a centimeter at a time.
“Oh, yeah, I like.” She wanted more than a sponge there, however. She wanted him. But he wasn’t cooperating. So she eased her fingers under his and took control of the sponge, dropping it onto the floor of the shower. Then she moved his hand down between her legs. “But I like this more.”
He rubbed his now-rock-hard penis against her bottom as he slowly, too slowly for her, inserted first one finger than a second one, into her hot, wet, and wanting core.
“Yes, please. More,” she begged.
“I love it when you want me like this,” he whispered into her ear.
“I want you more than you can possibly imagine. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I don’t think I could ever get enough of you.”
“Oh, God, baby, I hope not.” His hips moved, rocking against her. His fingers found the sweet spot at the front of her vagina and the heel of his hand rhythmically rubbed her clitoris. He was driving her higher and higher, until finally she reached the top, almost falling with the power of the orgasm that raged over her like a wildfire. If he hadn’t been holding her she was sure she would have been on the floor.
He let her regain her normal breathing rate before turning her around and staring deep into her eyes. “I mean it, Danny. I hope you never get enough of me. Because I’m never going to get enough of you. I’m falling in love with you.”
A stunned silence followed his words. Finally she whispered in a hoarse voice, “Oh, Jake, don’t do that. You have to know, I’m really not a relationship kind of woman and I don’t want you to get hurt by something like that.”
He looked crestfallen. “Are you telling me you don’t have feelings for me?”
“Of course I do. You know I do. But love? That’s way out of my league.”
He drew her to him, held her for a long while. When she pulled back from the embrace she could see the hurt in his eyes and knew she’d put it there. So she did the only thing she could think of. Sinking to her knees in the shower she took his penis in her hand and began a slow and sensual massage, licking off the drops of salty semen that she’d aroused, getting lost in the smell of him, the taste and feel of him, pretending this was all it took to satisfy him, satisfy her.
She looked up and saw him watching her with his intense storm-dark eyes and knew that this was only a temporary reprieve from the conversation she was afraid to have with him.
• • •
The only other woman he’d said “I love you” to had immediately said the three words back to him. He’d been sure Danny would reciprocate too. Had he read the signals so wrong? No, he didn’t believe he had. She showed him how she felt every time they were together, every time they kissed or held each other.
He didn’t believe the “I’m-not-a-relationship-kind-of-woman” excuse. There was something else. There had to be something else. Did she love him but was afraid to say so? Did she really think they could skate along on the surface with a relationship that was only good sex and good company? He had to know but was afraid to ask. Because if he got an answer he didn’t like he knew there was no fallback, no Plan B. He couldn’t step back from “I love you” and pretend that hanging out, rolling around in bed, and cooking for each other was enough.
Danny had blasted into his life with almost as much power as the damned IED. In fact, with more power because instead of making him feel like hell, she’d made him feel more alive than he’d felt since before he went to Iraq, maybe since any time in his life. He didn’t know whether that meant they could live happily-ever-after but he sure as hell wasn’t willing to give up at the first obstacle and write off the possibility.
The only thing he could think to do was to go on with their day as if he’d said nothing. If she wanted to bring it up, which he doubted, they could talk about it. Until then, he’d keep it light and sexy. He’d give her what she seemed to want. For now. Until he figured out how to get past her barriers and into her heart.
Twenty minutes later, both of them were dried and dressed. They hadn’t said much since the shower and he knew he had to be the one to start the conversation.
“It’s such good weather, why don’t we do something outside? There won’t be many of these days before next spring. Unless you have work you need to get done.”
She looked surprised — and relieved. “No, I cleared my desk for the weekend. And you’re right about enjoying the weather. What do you have in mind?”
“You like to hike?”
“Yeah. I love Forest Park, actually, but won’t hike there alone so it would be great if we went there. And maybe we could swing by and check on Kaylea. I know you’ve been good about checking on her but I’ve only talked to her on the phone a couple times and I’d like to see for myself she’s still okay.”
“A two-fer. You’re on.”
They left Jake’s vehicle at the Macleay trailhead parking lot and hiked for a couple hours, enjoying the feeling of being lost in nature in the middle of the city. Then, after a break at one of Northwest Portland’s ubiquitous coffee houses, they headed for the transient camp.
Kaylea seemed nervous when they got there but said she was doing okay. Danny noticed a man watching them the whole time they were in the camp. She assumed he was Jim’s friend, the one who was looking out for Kaylea, but she didn’t have a chance to ask. She did notice that he immediately went to the woman’s side as she and Jake walked away.
As they walked out from the camp, Jake said, “Anything strike you about that conversation?”
“Yeah, she was nervous. And that guy was watching us really closely.”
He stopped in the middle of the trail. “I think I should go back but I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“She won’t talk to you, you know that. I should be the one who goes back.”
“No way. Not alone. That place is dangerous.”
She stared him down. “I’ll go back to talk to her. You hang around the edges of the camp checking on the guys you know.”
He glared back at her.
“Don’t give me that look. This isn’t up for discussion, Jake.”
“Tough S.O.B., are you?”
“So I hear.” She turned before he could say any more and headed back up to the transient camp.
But going back to see Kaylea didn’t get Danny any more information. In fact, it seemed to make the other woman more nervous. Something
was
wrong but Danny was out of ways, for the moment, to find out what it was. She wrote it off to the looming presence of the good Doctor Abrams who, in spite of what he’d promised, seemed to be within a few feet of her wherever she went. It ticked her off, but she wasn’t able to figure out what to do about that right now either.
She waited until they were well clear of the camp before she said anything to him.
“Jake, you can’t stand between me and what it takes for me to get my job done. I know what I’m doing. Hell, I’ve been told I’m good at it. You’re overreacting. Lighten up.” She was walking behind him when she spoke and couldn’t see his face.
He stopped suddenly and she ran into his back. “I’m not overreacting. I know these guys, their reputation.” He faced her with a look of anguish and he took her hands, holding them so tightly it hurt. “You’re not safe there.”
“This isn’t your call.” She shook free of his grip and put her hands on his arms. “I don’t take unnecessary risks. Let me be the judge of what I need to do. Please.”
With a low moan, he pulled her to him and crushed her in an embrace that was more desperation than passion. “I don’t know what I’d do if you got hurt because of something I should have prevented.”
“It’s not your job to prevent anything. You’re my … lover … boyfriend … whatever you are … not my professional partner. And I won’t get hurt. Now, can we close this subject and get on with our Sunday? I need more coffee and I haven’t even read the comics yet, much less any other section of the paper. And Sunday’s the only day I have to actually read the paper.”
“Okay. I’ll let it go. For now.” He turned abruptly and continued down the trail, but she knew the discussion wasn’t over.
They hiked in silence until Jake’s phone rang. From the puzzled expression on his face, the caller was unfamiliar.
He repeated “Hello?” several times before the caller seemed to answer. After he paused to listen, he said, “Who is this?”
Another pause.
“I’m not going to answer that until you tell me who you are. Do you need help?”
Pause. Again. This time longer.
“Please, tell me who you are and where you are. I’ll come to you if you need help.”
After several rounds of essentially the same conversation, he said, “Look, if you won’t tell me who you are there isn’t any point in continuing this conversation. If you really need help, the clinic is open … ”
He jerked the phone away from his ear as a string of invectives came pouring out loud enough for Danny to hear, too. Shaking his head he ended the call.
Danny said, “Doesn’t sound like your caller thinks much of you.”
“No shit. They wanted to know where I was so they could come talk to me.”
“I’m guessing you don’t know if it was a man or a woman.”
“Right. Sounded like there was an attempt to distort the voice, maybe something like the old tissue-over-the-mouthpiece trick.”
“More likely something over the mouth of the caller. Especially if they’re using a cell phone. Does the number come up on caller ID?”
He checked. “Private caller.”
“If you’ll let me take your cell phone in, we might be able to trace it.”
“I’ll think about it — too many people get hold of me this way for me to let it go for too long.”
“But if we can trace the call … ”
Danny never finished her sentence. From the direction of the forest camp came the sound of multiple gunshots.
With Danny in the lead they raced back to the camp, arriving to a scene of such chaos that it was hard to know what had happened. Danny called nine-one-one and ordered Jake to meet the responding officers at the trailhead. He reluctantly complied, after first making sure Kaylea’s protector knew to watch out for Danny, too.
Danny was pissed that he’d lost precious seconds on something so irrelevant.
Kaylea was in her shelter, safe but trembling, ashen faced, and unwilling to talk. Danny moved on to check out the rest of the camp. No one interfered with her, seeming to accept her authority. She regretted that Jake wasn’t there to see it.
What she found was a trail of destruction through the whole camp. Shelters knocked over, belongings strewn all over the forest floor.
And then there was the body at the edge of the camp. It looked like the man had tried to run into the woods to escape but had failed. Danny knew that the ambulance she’d asked for would be of no use.
She also knew he was one of the men Jake had identified as his patient and she had to wonder if Jake’s phone call and this latest death weren’t connected. Perhaps the killer had known Jake was nearby and wanted him to see this.
The shocked look on the faces of the two uniformed police officers and the EMTs who were led to the camp by Jake was exactly the same as the one she’d had on hers when she’d first seen the camp. The officers quickly roped off the crime scene with yellow tape. The EMTs, whose expertise wasn’t needed for the dead man, made the rounds with Jake to see if anyone else had been hurt.
No one had been.
Danny convinced Jake to leave with the EMTs, arguing that she and the officers would be there for quite some time and it was absurd to think an unarmed doctor added anything to the protection she had from two armed cops. He eventually agreed but asked her to call him as soon as she got home.
The three cops spent the next several hours interviewing anyone who would talk to them, which, it turned out, was a hell of a lot larger number than Danny expected. But one man may have put his finger on why they were suddenly willing to cooperate. He said they’d all heard about the guy shooting homeless men and were even more eager than the cops were to get him caught. But they couldn’t help much. All anyone knew was that the shooter hadn’t come from the trail Danny and Jake had used but from deeper in the park.
As he had done in the Burnside Bridge drive-by, the perp first shot randomly into the camp, causing the panic Danny had found when she first got there. Then, when everyone was running for cover, he targeted the victim, killed him, and left.
The only person who wouldn’t talk to Danny was Kaylea. She refused to come out of her shelter. She didn’t respond when Danny asked to come in. She wouldn’t talk when Danny went in anyway.
Her protector, whose full name Danny finally learned was Bob Aronson, said it was because she was terrified, which Danny had already figured out. But Aronson knew the reason. Somehow, some way, the killer had gotten the message to Kaylea once again, that if she talked to the police, told anyone what she knew, she would be the next victim.
And Kaylea had been on the edge of the camp, where this latest murder had taken place, about the time Aronson had heard the gunshots.