Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [62]
“What does this have to do with anything?” she said defensively.
He took off his glasses and rubbed the point on his nose where they rested and leaned back in his chair. “I’m so fucking sick of this.”
“Of what?”
“Of this little dance we do. I approach you, you back away. You come back a step, I move in again, you take two more steps back. Who are we kidding?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked the milk carton.
He got up and gently turned her around from the refrigerator. The frustration that had been building inside him was reaching a level that was getting hard to ignore. “Oh, come on. Are you going to pretend there’s nothing between us? Are you going to pretend you don’t know how I feel about you?”
“Jeffrey, please …” she said.
He looked into her eyes and saw fear there and he instantly hated himself. He pulled her into a tight embrace which she returned with equal passion.
“If we … I couldn’t … Oh God,” she said into his shoulder.
Suddenly the dim kitchen was flooded with light, startling them both. The outside floodlights, triggered by the motion detectors that surrounded the house, had turned on. He walked over to the window and peered out to the driveway. Had someone just stepped out of his sight? Or was it his imagination?
“Do you still have that Glock?”
“Yeah …”
“Go get it.”
She ran quickly to her office, punched a code into the keypad lock on the safe beneath her desk, and withdrew the heavy semiautomatic pistol. Beside it was a .38 Special, a revolver favored by older cops, less powerful but more reliable. She had been trained to use both during her stay at the FBI academy but had never fired them off the range. She liked the way the Glock felt, cool and heavy in her hand. She returned to the kitchen, where Jeffrey had turned off the light and was peering out the window. She handed the gun to him.
“Loaded?”
“Of course.”
“Stay here,” he said sternly, knowing her instinct would be to follow him.
He walked out onto the driveway, gun level. He heard nothing but he sensed a presence, something or someone, waiting. He walked toward the trees that edged the house, his ears pricked for even the slightest noise. He could see nothing through the trees, just an impenetrable darkness.
“Do you see anything?”
He spun around to see Lydia standing directly behind him, hugging herself against the chill, still in stocking feet. A less-experienced marksman would have discharged his gun from the jolt she gave him.
“Jesus Christ, Lydia, I told you to stay in the house.”
“There’s no way I’m letting you come out here alone.”
In the next instant Jeffrey heard someone cut and run into the woods. He was after him in a heartbeat, following the large, dark form through the thick trees. The intruder’s flight was panicked, clumsy, but he was oddly fast for someone so large. Jeffrey could feel the distance between them growing and he picked up his pace, pushing aside the branches that slapped at his arms and face.
“Jeffrey!” Lydia yelled after him, then ran into the house to get her shoes and her other gun.
His call of “Freeze, motherfucker—” shot like a bullet through the night air, but it only served to urge the intruder on with greater speed. Jeffrey had been in law enforcement far too long to shoot a fleeing suspect in the back.
Suddenly he lost sight of the form in the darkness. Jeffrey stopped when he realized that whoever it was had eluded him unexplainably. The night was alive with mysterious noises and bright stars above, but Jeffrey was alone with the sound of his own breathing, labored from the chase. He searched the area for any sign of the intruder’s escape route, but he was impeded by his poor eyesight, his glasses still sitting on the kitchen table. He sensed that he was alone, that no one was waiting in ambush for him. In the far distance, he heard the sound of a struggling ignition.
He slipped his gun into the waist of his jeans and began walking back toward the house. He could not be sure how