Flirting with Disaster (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 2)

“They’re all fucking crooked, that’s why.”

“Come on. That’s not reasonable.”

She rounded on him with a sneer. “It’s not? Do you really think that gang of crooked cops just all happened to be below the rank of lieutenant? They’d been shaking people down for fifteen years, and none of them were ever promoted higher than that? They couldn’t have survived that long without their bosses taking a cut of the action and covering their tracks. Yet the investigation stopped there at the DA’s office. It never rose higher in the ranks. And somebody in the FBI made sure the police knew exactly what was going on with every move.”

She crossed her arms tightly, holding on to herself before she realized how weak that gesture was and made her fingers let go. “Anytime I had a meeting scheduled with an investigator, there was someone knocking on my door the night before, talking about my dad and loyalty and how many good men could be hurt by all of this if it got out of control. How the hell did they know when I’d be talking to the FBI?”

“Shit, Isabelle,” he murmured.

She poked him hard in the chest, but he didn’t even raise a hand to stop her. “Why didn’t you turn me in as soon as you realized who I was?”

“It didn’t smell right,” he admitted.

“No. Because it’s not right. And I’m not going with Agent Gates. If you won’t let me run, then take me in yourself.” She grabbed her jeans from the floor and jerked them on. She’d already jumped in the shower and brushed her teeth before Tom had awoken. But she couldn’t think about him in her bed now. She couldn’t think about the way he’d reached for her in the night and made love to her in darkness, both of them half-asleep and murmuring sweet words of pleasure. It hadn’t been sweet, after all.

“You’re not a federal fugitive,” he said.

“Arrest me for contempt or something. I’m sure I missed a subpoena or two.”

“Isabelle—”

“I can’t go with him,” she growled.

“If you really feel you’re in danger, let me talk to my boss about the protection program.”

She burst into bitter laughter. “Are you kidding? They’re going to spend thousands of dollars to protect me from the feeling I’m in danger? I’m not even a witness in a trial. I’m just a stupid, naive girl who got caught in the middle.”

“Shit.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“You did this! You lied to me. You fucked me. You led them to me!”

“Goddamn it, you were lying, too. You lied about everything, and that didn’t stop you from fucking me, did it?”

“No,” she said, hating the way tears filled her eyes. “I did it, too.”

“Jesus, just give me a minute, all right? I need to think about what to do.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but pacing helplessly around wasn’t his style, apparently. He got his laptop from its case and sat down in her living room. “Don’t sneak out the back door,” he said. “You’ll be easy to track in the snow.”

“Fuck you,” she tossed back, then went to pack a bag. She had cash. She always kept cash, just in case. If she couldn’t leave right now, she’d leave as soon as she could.

Bear jumped into her suitcase and stared at her as if she’d already done something wrong. God. She’d have to ask Jill to take him in. Bear wouldn’t like that at all. Then again, Jill would feed him table scraps. Maybe he’d be happier there with all he could eat and no more oil paint in his fur.

Isabelle started to cry, but she scrubbed furiously at the tears until they stopped. That was all she’d done for weeks in Chicago. Hidden in her house being scared and weepy. She didn’t even like to think about that girl; she definitely wasn’t going to be her again.

She picked Bear up out of her suitcase. “You can’t come with me,” she said sternly, and then she held him tightly to her, burying her face in his fur. But Bear wasn’t big on self-pity, either, and he stiffened up and yowled within a few seconds. When she let him go, he ran off to hide. They were just alike, she and Bear.

Now that she’d had a moment alone, she realized she was being weak again, asking Tom for help. He was only the latest in a long line of supposedly honorable men who’d spent every moment lying to her.

She couldn’t trust him.

He was suddenly in the doorway of the bedroom, the lines around his eyes far deeper than they had been the night before. “Gates was one of the original guys assigned to the case. Fairly low down on the totem pole back then, but...”

She stared Tom dead in the eyes, trying not to gloat over such a sad victory.

“Maybe...” he ventured, “that’s why he’s still so dogged. It’s an important case to him.”

“You know that’s not it,” she said. “I’m leaving.”