Death of a Chorus Girl (The Delacroix Series Book 1) (20 page)

“What?”

I cross my arms over his chest and prop my chin on them to look into his face.  “Bellezza?”

His cheeks color slightly.  He runs a hand along my hairline before answering then places it back behind his head.  “It’s Italian for beauty.  If you don’t-”

“I adore it,” I cut in. “Do you speak Italian then?”

“I used to fluently.  My grandparents were from Italy.  I haven’t used it much since they died.”

Before I can ask anything more, his body shifts, and presses against mine until I am lying on my back with him propped on his side next to me.  A devilish twinkle glints in his eyes.  “Now back to you admitting your love for me.”  He kisses the hollow of my collarbone.  “And other things.”

His determination and actions don’t have the desired effect.  What was once a racing heart in my chest and boiling blood in my veins, freezes and leaves me cold.  I look away and struggle for something to say.  “I’m not ready…” I whisper weakly.

Richard shifts back onto his side and stares down at me.  “Why not?” he asks softly.  “Em, I have never loved another woman the way I love you.  You love me; I know you do.  Why won’t you admit it?”

I bite my quivering lip and scurry away from him to the other side of the bed.  The second my feet hit the floor a cage made up of his arms swallows me and pulls me back against his chest. His chin rests on my shoulder.  I instinctually turn my face to his.  His tender voice tugs at my heartstrings.  “What is this really about, Em?” he presses as his nose nudges at my ear.  “This is more than fear about saying three little words.”

“Because I’m terrified…” I trail off.  I open my mouth to continue but choke on the truth.

“Of what?” he questions.  “Of me?”

“No, Richard, not of you.”

“Of what then?  Em, I need to know this is going somewhere; that
we
are going somewhere.”

I suddenly feel overheated and nauseous from confusion, anger, frustration, and fear.  “I can’t do this!”  I break through the fleshy prison to escape him and run towards the bathroom.

His hand slips between the door and the doorframe to keep what would have been a locked door once closed from slamming shut.  The door rebounds and he stands there, silently massaging his hand, making no further move towards me.  He doesn’t look angry.  Perplexed is probably the best description for the expression he is currently wearing.  “Why?”

I lean over the sink, splashing cold water on my face.  How am I going to explain this?  “I do think I love you, Richard; that I’m
in love
with you.  But… but you… you have to understand…”  I take a deep breath to steady my nerves.  “It won’t be my first experience with sex.”

His steps erase the distance between us, but he freezes when I jerk away.  I meet his eyes in the mirror, too ashamed to meet them directly.  “I didn’t think I would be your first, Em-” he compassionately begins.

“But you will be,” I cut in and leave the words hanging until he understands their full meaning.

His expression goes from confusion to comprehension to shock then to anger faster than I thought.  “You are a virgin, but you’ve had visions of being raped!” comes out of his mouth in an impassioned whisper.  I don’t know what to say.  While my body isn’t damaged goods, in regards to sex my mind certainly is.  His arms sweep around me and crush me to his chest.  “Last night?!” raggedly falls from his lips and into my hair.  “Is that what happened last night?!”

I’m still not ready to share the details of last night’s stabbing, mainly because I don’t want to think about it myself, but I can’t let him think it was rape.  “Not last night.”  His body sags against me in relief.  “There have been a handful of times.”

“Why didn’t you just
say something?
”

“Because I do want to!  I hoped the memories wouldn’t be an issue with you, like they have in the past.”  I pull away from him and perch on the bathroom counter to look into his gorgeous, blue eyes.  “I’ve done more with you, trust you so much more, than anyone I’ve ever met.  I hoped sex would be easy, but I’m terrified of having some sort of heinous flashback, mid-act, to a violation that isn’t even mine!  That’s not fair to you!  That’s not how I want you to remember our first time together!  And what if it always happens?!”

After an agonizingly pregnant pause, where his eyes seem to look at me as if they have no idea what I am anymore, Richard takes a small step back.  The move breaks every bone in my body, my heart, and my will to live.  My eyes blur with unshed tears that I refuse to let fall.  It is quite a surprise when he pulls me from the counter and into his warm embrace.

“Em, it
isn’t
fair, but not to me.  The visions are a part of you, and I accept that. 
All of it
.  We’ll wait.  We’ll take all the time you need.  And when you’re finally ready, I have no concerns of flashbacks or bad memories.”

Richard Giordano: East Harlem

My mind swims with Em’s confession this morning as I drive down Central Park West to cut over to East Harlem.  Steve called about an hour after we got up asking me to back him up with a suspect from our Morningside DB.  They tracked a guy who was identified by some witnesses for fighting with our DB in a bar over a girl.  I was torn over staying with Em and coming.

“Go, Richard.  I have the performance at Joe’s school this afternoon.  I’ll be fine.”

She doesn’t allow me to argue, but I was able to get her to agree to let Joe pick her up and bring her home.  “Please, bellezza.  Just do this for me, okay?”  She agreed, so I left.

The GPS of the charger announces my destination, so I pull over to a side street and park next to the unmarked car Steve is using.

“Interesting love bite, Dick,” he says by way of greeting when I get out.  “Gotta say I didn’t peg Em for liking it rough.”

“It’s not what you think.”  I lean back against the charger and wait for Steve to get me up to speed.  That’s when I note the changes in his physique:  he is thinner, isn’t shaving regularly, and there are deep bags around his eyes.  I recall observing each separately before, but in the sun, they all stand out.  What is bothering him so much that it affects his appearance?  “So, partner?” I prompt when I grow tired of waiting.

“Our suspect is Peter Bentley.  He’s some kind of MMA wannabe.”  Well, that fit with the destruction that occurred in the apartment.  “Witness statements from the DB’s place and the bar described a man who resembles the mug shots and dimensions of Peter.  The guys got a rap sheet a mile long.  Theft, drugs, and violence.  We’ve got a couple of patrolmen, too,” Steve shrugs instead of finishing his sentence.

I apprehend the rest of his meaning, though.  There is no way I would go into an arrest without Steve at my back, IA investigation or not.  He probably assumes we aren’t good due to our bout yesterday concerning Em.  I clasp him on the shoulder to let him know we’re okay then walk around to the trunk to get my bulletproof vest.  Once I am ready, Steve crosses the street with me right at his six.

We enter the stairwell.  We have only ascended halfway up the first flight when one of the cops calls out over the radio that our suspect is making a run for it on the fire escape.  Steve goes through the window at the next landing to meet the guy on the escape.  I wave a cop to follow him before continuing up the stairs to catch our perp if he decides to move back inside.  Which turns out to be a good move since he comes dashing back inside two floors above me.  A curse fills the stairwell before he darts through the door to the hallway just as Steve climbs back inside the window next to me.

We carefully go through the door when we reach the floor our suspect escaped on.  The hallway is dead silent and he is nowhere to be seen.  Peter isn’t a small man so it shouldn’t have been easy to lose him.  We work our way down the hall, pulling on doors, evacuating residents or pausing to listen in case he bullied his way inside one of the apartments and taken hostages.

Three-quarters of the way through, our suspect suddenly barrels through a door Steve had just checked.  It was locked, so Steve mustn’t have heard anything.  In a scene reminiscent of when I lost my pops, the guy lunges at Steve just as the gunman years ago had lunged at me.  This time I find myself in pops’ shoes. I shove Steve out of the way but am not quick enough to get my gun back up.  His rapid and repeated punches of our perp’s fists to my ribcage knock me flat on my ass after he sweeps my legs out from under me.

I immediately see stars, hitting my head on the wall then the ground.  Multiple gunshots pierce my consciousness as the rest of our team lights him up once I am out of the way.  The dust settles leaving me with a raging headache coupled with stabbing pains in my abdomen.  If this guy is an aspiring MMA fighter, I don’t ever want to be opposite an actual one.

“Dick, can you get up?”  I groan and blink at the sound of Steve’s voice and attempt to stand but make no headway.  “Get a call out
now
for a bus.”  He checks the mountain collapsed at my feet with his foot. “Looks like we need IA and Morticia too.  Don’t worry guys, it was a clean shoot.”

Steve kneels down beside me.  “Dick, I need you to say something.”

I’m too busy sucking in breaths to answer right away.  “What the fuck, Steve,” I manage to push through clenched teeth.  The pain in my side is sharp and constant.  “He have on brass knuckles or something?”

He smiles some, a forced one that doesn’t really reach his eyes.  “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Then how the hell was he able to beat the shit out of me through the vest?”

“My guess would be steroids,” Sabene’s voice floats over the commotion of all the police and residents.  A male EMT and Frisco, whose worried eyes zero in on my injuries, flank her.  “But Teddy would know better than me.”

“Morticia,” Steve begins in an effort to lighten the mood.

“Can it, dickhead.  IA is looking for you, small surprise,” Frisco snaps without looking at him.  He trudges off in the direction of the hive of officers.  She takes a step towards me but Sabene stops her.

“I’ve got Rich.  You deal with the asshat who assaulted him.”

Frisco kneels down next to the body at my feet while Sabene walks up by my head to take the spot where Steve had been.  “Where does it hurt, Rich?” Sabene asks.

I try to be funny to ease the tension. “It might be easier to list what doesn’t hurt.”

Sabene glares as she stretches me out on the floor and catalogs my injuries.  Her fingers run over my head and she initially lists my bruised cheek until I say it isn’t from our dead suspect.  A smirk and a raised eyebrow accompany the instructions she gives to her partner for help removing my vest before she lifts my shirt.  Oh, I am going to get an earful when she gets the chance.

“At a glance, I’d say cracked ribs.  Maybe a mild concussion,” Sabene concludes before locking eyes with her partner.  They nod and lift me onto the stretcher to haul me out to the waiting bus.  Steve offers to ride with me, but I wave him off.  He needs to get started on the paperwork, since this is a police involved shooting, and close out our case on Bentley.  Sabene rides in the bus with me.  She whips out her phone after hooking me up to an IV.  At my furrowed brow, she mouths, “Em.”

Empathy Delacroix: Emergency Contacts

Joe pulls up to my curb right when my phone rings.  I answer before stepping out of his car.

“What’s up, Sabene?”

“There’s been an accident.”  My gasp draws Joe’s attention, but he stays silent while I continue to listen to my friend.  “Richard was hurt but he’ll be okay, Em.  You hear me?  It’s nothing serious.  I have him with me and we’re headed to Mount Sinai.  I have to finish a couple things up so, I can’t tell you any more, but I thought you would want to know.”

The line drops and I don’t know what to do.  That instant déjà vu rush of memories of the call from the hospital that had my parents floods over me.

“Em?” Joe’s voice overpowers the doctor’s, reeling me out of my memory whirlpool.  “Em?”  It’s clear now and I look at him with a blank face.  “Just tell me what hospital.”

“Mount Sinai.”

“Gunshot wound?  Beating?  What?”

“I– I don– I don’t know.”

“He’s going to be alright, Em,” Joe’s attempts to relieve my fears.  “They would have told you if it was life threatening.”

My face whips to his, which is glued to the traffic in front of us.  “How would you know?”

Joe steals a quick peek at me out the corner of his eyes.  “You didn’t assume suspects greeted him at the door with a smile, willingly putting their hands behind their backs.”  I honestly never really thought much about it.  “He gets injured a couple times a year.  I’m just surprised you got the call and I didn’t.”  At my puzzled look, he continues, “I’m his ‘in case of emergency.’  Rich got tired of mama freaking out every time she got the call.  I guess he changed it.”

“I doubt it,” I clarify.  “His EMT is my best friend.”  The wheels spin in my mind of what kind of life this means for me and I quickly jump to the worst possible outcome.  That dreaded call no loved one of a police officer ever wants to get.  My stomach immediately leaps into my throat.

Richard has always raved about his brother’s intuition and compassion.  I now understand why.  “Hey, Em, I didn’t mean to upset you more.  Rich is a great detective and he’s careful.  He doesn’t take chances, not since our pops died.”  Joe seems to this the hidden meaning behind those words will ease my conscious.  I just stare at him baffled.  “He didn’t tell you?”