Bear Claw Lawman

“Three minutes out,” came the muffled response from Dispatch.

“Get it here in one.” Keeping the radio clutched, Tucker rounded on Nick. “Tell me.” He sounded almost as mad as Nick felt. Almost.

“I came in as the dipwad was going out the window,” Nick growled, and gave him a quick summary, along with his too-vague description of Jenn’s attacker.

Tucker shook his head grimly. “This is bad.”

“It gets worse. He got the evidence cases.”

“He…” The detective broke into a string of curses, then headed for the hallway, already barking into his radio. “Anything on the guy Lang saw? Business suit, two plastic cases. Anything?”

His voice faded as he stalked down the hallway, giving orders and making threats that anyone who’d known him for more than five seconds knew was more a sign of how worried he was than anything. Tucker was no pushover, but he was a fair leader, and he cared deeply about all of his people. More, the crime scene analysts had a special place in his heart, given that his wife, the mother of his daughter, was one of them.

Nick didn’t know what it meant to feel like that, to love like that. But he knew he was on the verge of losing it over Jenn.

In the distance, a siren throbbed faintly. Finally!

Tightening his fingers on hers, he leaned in. “They’re almost here. Any minute now.”

Her lashes fluttered.

“Jenn!” His muted shout sounded very loud in the room—in the freaking murder scene, the one he’d been coming to re-create in his mind, only to wind up coming way too close to reenacting it in an entirely more gruesome fashion. There was nothing of Dennison in him now as he brushed a few strands of hair from her forehead. “That’s it,” he said, though she hadn’t moved again. “Come on, baby. You can do it.”

The “baby” just slipped out. But even as it resonated too deeply inside him, her fingers moved against his, her eyelids fluttered again and she inhaled a deep breath—a real one this time, not one of the shallow, shocky sips she’d been taking ever since his arrival.

And then, finally, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.

* * *

W ARMTH RUSHED THROUGH Jenn at the sight of Nick’s face so close to hers, and the knowledge that he’d been watching her sleep, and that whatever he’d been thinking, it had put deep, intense emotions in his eyes, making him look so fierce he was almost frightening.

Almost.

“Nick,” she said softly, reaching for him. “What—”

She gasped when the move sent a slash of pain through her head, followed by a roll of nausea.

“Stay still.” He gripped her hand. “You were attacked, knocked out. The paramedics are on their way up.”

“Para…oh.” She closed her eyes as her brain caught back up with her, and the scenery she had glimpsed behind Nick’s head connected to her recent reality—or at least as much as it could when that reality was a jumble.

She was at a crime scene; there had been another torture-murder. She knew that much, though only as words, like Dispatch was reporting directly inside her head. In terms of really seeing things, really having the memories, the last thing she remembered was—ow! She moved to grab her head, then groaned when the motion made things worse. Grayness washed her vision and things went swimmy around her.

“Jenn!” Nick said urgently. “Come on, stay with me.”

“You didn’t want me to—” She had enough presence of mind to shut that off, clamping her lips together while she rode out a surge of nausea. Her mind raced, bringing more stabs of pain in her head and behind her eyeballs, but memories started coming back, too.

She remembered walking up the stairs to the fifth floor, coming in to find Gigi already working.

“Gigi!” Her eyes flew open and she tried to shove up off the floor, fighting through the pain and the too-bright glare of the winter sunlight and apartment fluorescents. “Where’s Gigi? She was here!”

“Chill!” Nick gripped her shoulders, holding her down. “It’s okay. You’re okay. She’s okay. She left on another call. You were here alone.” He paused. “You don’t remember her leaving?”

“I…” The fear had leveled off when she learned that Gigi was okay, but now it came back full force, roaring through her, sweeping through a jumble of memories. She remembered Gigi photographing the scene, the two of them talking about Nick. And after that…

What happened after that?

“Okay. It’s okay. Don’t stress about it. Just relax.” But there was something in his eyes that she didn’t like—it was too much like the looks she had gotten back in her old life, after Terry died and things started coming to light. It said, There’s more, and it’s bad.

“What is it?” she demanded, grabbing on to his wrists and digging in, her heart suddenly pounding even harder. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He hesitated, then said, “The bastard got your evidence kits.”

“No!” Horror lashed through her. Shame. Guilt. The cases held everything from the scene. If it was all gone… She surged against him. “Let me up! I need to—”

“You need to stay the hell down!” he said fiercely, leaning in so their faces were very close and she could feel the heat of his body, his grip. But then a sudden clamor erupted at the door and two paramedics came in, puffing from the climb. At the interruption, Nick’s expression flattened and he straightened away from her. “You need to let these guys have a look at you.”

She tried to wave them off. “I’m fine.” Which would’ve sounded more convincing if her voice hadn’t broken. But she wasn’t fine. She was down and hurting. And, worse, she had lost crucial evidence in the Death Stare case…otherwise, why else would the killer come back for it?

The killer, she thought, and closed her eyes as it started to penetrate. She’d been attacked, knocked out. Logic said that was what’d happened, but when she tried to remember, all she could picture was her and Gigi gossiping about Nick. Who was here, hovering over her with a gruff protectiveness he’d never shown while they were together, probably because she had been careful to never let him see her be anything but breezy and self-reliant. Now, she was anything but. She wanted to cling, wanted to cry. She had been attacked, knocked out, robbed.

Why couldn’t she remember any of it?

The paramedics dumped their gear and moved in, asking questions and starting to tug at her clothes.

She tried to fend them off. “I don’t—”

“Just let them have a look at you,” Nick said. “You were unconscious for a good five minutes, and there’s blood.” She would’ve kept arguing, would’ve kept trying to brush them off when they tried to look in her eyes and feel the growing lump on her skull. But then he leaned in closer and said, “Please.”

She stilled, caught in his eyes and the low-voiced request. Had he ever asked her for anything before? She didn’t think so, and the impact was palpable. He was still holding her hand, she realized. He followed her eyes to where their fingers were twined together, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he tightened his grip.

Warmth kindled, making her want to lean into him, lean on him. Her head hurt; her eye and the whole side of her face hurt. More, her heart ached at knowing she had lost the evidence. Maybe even the key to the whole case.

Damn it. She needed to let go for a few minutes, needed to know she could trust someone else to handle things, needed… She needed exactly what he was offering right now, she realized with a sudden cold-water dose of reality. Which meant it wasn’t real; it was just a means to an end, just like all the other roles she’d seen him play over the past month.

Stiffening, she pulled away, even though it took effort. “Whatever it takes to get the job done, right?”

He frowned. “What?”

“Never mind.” Going numb now, she submitted to the paramedics, no longer trying to fight them off as they asked her to follow a pen with her eyes and answer stupid-simple questions about what day it was and who was the President.

Nick stood, moved to the back of the room and took a good look around. Moments later, he and Tucker had their heads together and were conferring in low tones, with lots of looks in her direction. She was so busy trying to focus on them that it took her too long to notice that the paramedic working on a small scalp laceration—which had started bleeding when she began to move around—was tossing bloody gauze into the spatter pattern from the murder vic.

“The scene,” she protested, reaching for his arm. “Please!”

“Forget the scene,” Tucker said, more to the paramedic than to her. “A living victim gets priority.”

It was protocol, and normally she agreed wholeheartedly—the emergency responders needed to do their jobs without worrying about evidence. But she wasn’t critical—a headache and some memory gaps weren’t going to kill her—and this was the Death Stare case. “Not here. Not now. Not with me.”