Trial by Fire (Sizzling Romantic Suspense) (All Fired Up) Page 2

  “Yeah man, for sure. She had a hell of a day at the Fire House. They had big multi-car pileup on Hwy 2. Three college kids. They were lucky as hell no one was killed, but Erin was there for five hours straight. And that didn’t include the usual crap.”

  Nate nodded, “I talked to her right after she got home. She was heading for a shower and to bed. I was gonna call her and tell her what happened here, but I think it’s better in person. Ugly-assed scene, if ever I’ve seen one. Hard to describe in a phone call.”

  The furrow in Connor’s brow deepened.

  “Look Nate, we’re going to be talking about this for the next year—or decade. Who the hell knows? But before I get over there to clear the body, I need to know how you’re doing.” He held up his hands when Nate started to respond.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know you’re fine, but did you see her? I heard she found the body.”

  Nate shrugged.

  “She was out pretty much out of it. The doctor had her doped up. Apparently she was hysterical, hard to control. About three minutes after I got there she passed out, so I wasn’t able to interview her.”

  Connor shook his head.

  “Nate, this is gonna be tough. I know you know that. Are you sure you want to be lead on this gig? Couldn’t Dan or somebody—”

  “Stop, Connor. Look, man. I really am fine. You know as well as I do this is going to be the biggest case ever in Chicadia Falls. Hell, even bigger than Dylan Masterson’s murder. We don’t have time to talk about it now, but it has ‘professional’ written all over it. You know damn well, I’m the only one in our department who can handle something this big. I’m not saying that because I’m a cocky son of a bitch, which I am. But because it’s true. And yes, it will be challenging to spend time with Laura, but hopefully I can farm out most of those contacts.”

  Connor pressed hips lips together, deciding not to argue. His sigh was heavy, heartfelt.

  “You’re right, Nate. You are the only one who can handle something this big. But I’m telling you, guard your six. I know how bad that woman hurt you, and you are just now starting to get over it. Would be a damn shame to give her any room to hurt you more.”

  “Christ, Connor. Are you forgetting who’s waiting for me in my bed? Just the sexiest damn woman who ever walked the Earth, that’s who. And you know if it wasn’t for Kaitlin you’d be fighting me tooth and nail for her, just like every other damn guy in town. Too bad for all of you. Erin is mine! So stop worrying. Laura is history. And so unfortunately for him is her most current husband.”

  At that moment, Pete came over.

  “Connor, the M.E. is waiting….”

  Nate frowned and grabbed hold of Connor’s shoulders and pointed him toward the house.

  “Hell, Cuz. Go get that poor asshole down off the cross. Damn, Christ himself wasn’t up there that long. And stop worrying about me. When I say I’m fine, I’m fine. Have faith, man.”

  Connor gave a wry grin.

  “You’re incorrigible, Cuz. Just so you know, I got your back, man. And you know I’ll be all over you if it looks like she’s trying to take advantage of—”

  “Connor. Go. Now!”

  Nate headed for his car, then turned back and called to Connor.

  “Connor?”

  “Yeah, Nate?”

  “Thanks.”

  ~~~

  Nate angled his sleek automobile around the curved private drive leading to the cabin. Nestled on the heavily wooded site, the outline of the log structure melded into the natural environment. The front of the cabin was virtually all glass, mirroring the still lake beyond. A crescent moon graced the starlit sky, lighting the fieldstone path leading to the entrance. Nate parked the Turbo 911 along the drive knowing he’d be leaving in too few hours. He treasured every moment he spent in his cabin sanctuary, never taking for granted the way it quieted his raging soul. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. The fact that the woman he loved more than life was inside didn’t hurt either.

  He moved quietly to the guest room shower, not wanting to wake Erin. He needed to get the stench of blood and shit and antiseptic off his body before he got anywhere near her. And he needed time to think things through. It had been a hell of a night, and it wasn’t going to let up any time soon. He shrugged out of his clothes and cranked the shower up to the hottest water he could stand. Fifteen minutes later, when every ounce of hot water had been drained from the double tank, at least he smelled human again. A live human at that. He grimaced. It was impossible not to see Mike’s body. That death scene was hanging on to more real estate in his brain than he wanted to give it.

  Toweling himself off, Nate dragged on a pair of worn jeans and headed for the kitchen.

  Grabbing a long neck out of the refrigerator, he shuffled into the great room and turned on his favorite R & B mix. Sinking into the big armchair in front of the wall of glass looking out on Lake Pleasant, he leaned back in his chair and allowed the melodic rumble of Marvin Gaye to wash over him. Watching the moonlight play over the soft ripples of the lake, little by little he let go of the strain of the day. He loved the night. The darkness, the special sounds of the hundreds of creatures that claimed the dark. Made it theirs. Deep in thought, he realized that Erin was standing in the doorway. He jumped from the chair.

  “Damn, Erin. I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Hell, baby, I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

  “No, Nate. I’ve been waiting for you.” Her lush lips curved in a soft smile.

  “I find our bed much too big when you aren’t in it. I keep rolling from one side to the other. My body is looking for you. I miss you when you’re gone, Nate.”

  He was at her side in seconds. Pulling her into his arms he buried his lips in the enticing citrus and mint fragrance of her hair. He murmured. “Damn, Erin do you have any idea how good you smell?”

  Holding her away from him, he drank in the sight of her. A grin crossed his face.

  “I see you’re wearing one of my favorite costumes.”

  Erin laughed, a melodic peal that never failed to bring his dick to attention.

  Looking down at the sleep shirt he’d given her for Christmas, Erin blushed, remembering opening the gift in front of his family as they sat around the Christmas tree. On the front, the words, “Firefighters Heat Up the Sheets” were emblazoned over a the picture of a voluptuous stark naked cartoon woman with a sexy pout and a firefighter helmet on her head. She’d gasped when she opened it and Nate’d sighed apologetically. “I know baby, it doesn’t come close to the real you, but it was the best I could do.”

  Nate pulled her closer. The best thing about the shirt was that it hit her mid-thigh and made it easy for him to slip his hands underneath to cup her beautiful bottom. The swell of her breasts under the soft cotton sent a message straight to his dick to get the hell out of hiding, and up where it belonged.

  She murmured against his bare chest. “And you’re wearing one of my favorite outfits.”

  Running her hands over his bare back she nuzzled against him.

  “I’ve been waiting for you, Nate. What took you so long? It’s almost 2 a.m.”

  He gave a soft groan.

  “Well, Erin, it’s going to take a while to fill you in on the evening. Are you up for an unbelievable story?”

  She tipped her head back and for the first time saw the strain on his face.

  “Of course I am. What happened, Nate?”

  He picked her up and put her down on the overstuffed sofa in front of the fire.

  “Tell you what. How about you keep this spot warm for me while I go grab another beer. Would you like one?’

  Erin smiled up at him.

  “I think I’d prefer a glass of wine, Nate. But only if it isn’t too much trouble.”

  “Right, Erin. Ask me to give you the moon. And I will.” He grinned, pointing to the gorgeous reflection rippling across the glistening lake.

  She smiled up at him. “Thank you Nate. For the moon and the stars and for you. I love
you.”

  He dropped to his knees in front of her, took her face in his hands, and gazed into her eyes. His voice was soft, serious.

  “Thank you, Erin. It’s only appropriate that I give you those gifts. Because you have given me something I didn’t think I would ever have.”

  Erin frowned slightly at his somber expression.

  “What’s that, Nate?”

  He smiled.

  “The love of a good woman.”

  He leaned up and kissed her, then pulled her closer to him and held her tightly. She felt the tension in his grip, and moved in closer.

  “Are you okay, Nate?”

  He stood up and grinned down at her, his dark green eyes gleaming in the reflected moonlight.

  “Yeah, I am, Erin. That seems to be the question everyone is asking me tonight, so let me tell you before I tell you what the hell happened—because it is one fucking unbelievable story—that yes. I am okay. And now that I am here with you. Much more than okay.”

  He led her over to the oversized sofa and sat her down, grabbing for a soft throw to cover her bare legs. His lip quirked up in a sexy grin.

  “Here, honey. Put this over you. I don’t want you to get cold. Besides, if I have to look at those long legs of yours for more than fifteen seconds, we can kiss this ‘story telling’ part of the evening good-bye.”

  Watching him stride to the kitchen, Erin agreed. She felt the same way about him. His worn blue jeans hugged his tight ass and strong thighs. He was a gorgeous man. A big, tall, strong man. She loved to look at him. To touch him. Revel in the way his broad shoulders and muscular chest tapered down to his slim waist and tight hips. There wasn’t an inch of fat anywhere on his body. When he came back across the room toward her she saw that the top button of his jeans was undone. She gasped at the sight of the dark gold tipped hair on his chest that arrowed down across his belly to his groin below. That sight alone sent a shockwave of sensation to her core. She pressed her legs together, startled at the moisture dampening her soft folds. Damn. As if his body wasn’t striking enough, his shaggy sun-streaked hair and scruffy beard shadow cranked up another wave of heat across her thighs. She felt her face flush, and wished she’d worn panties. She’d have to avoid siting on his lap or it wouldn’t be long before he noticed the effect he was having on her. She looked down shyly, knowing if she met that emerald green gaze, she’d have no secrets. He could read her in seconds. But then, how could he not? She was quite simply gaga over him and there was no way she could hide how she felt, or what he did to her body.

  Erin could read Nate, as well. She saw the complicated, thoughtful man under the badass exterior. As outrageously arrogant as he was—and he was that—Erin had never met a smarter, more intuitive person, man or woman. Nate cut through the crap like no one she’d ever known. He saw through people and didn’t allow them to hide behind their masks, their carefully constructed personas. He sized them up in seconds, not minutes. It was what made him the ace detective that he was, and the most challenging and exciting lover she’d ever known.

  But Nate had masks of his own and a tough outer shell that few people saw beneath. Connor, the Chief, to some extent his partner, Dan—and now Erin—saw the complicated man behind the superstar, tough guy exterior. And something was bothering Nate big time tonight. Erin saw it in his eyes, the strain on his face.

  His sexy smile and the way his eyes lit up when he saw her was gratifying but his rigid jaw and furrowed brow told her this had been a tough night.

  Nate deposited the wine and a couple of glasses on the coffee table.

  “I decided I’d join you, Erin.” He said, as he poured her a glass of the dusky maroon Cabernet and handed it to her. “Are you hungry, baby?”

  Erin shook her head but couldn’t keep her from raking her eyes over his muscled chest and landing on his bulging crotch. Peeking up at him shyly, she said in a husky voice, “No, I can wait. For later.”

  Nate laughed. He sat down beside her and pulled her close to him and murmured in her ear, “Erin, it would be so damn easy to forget everything that’s happened tonight and bury myself in the sweetest, most erotic place in the world. But for once I’m gonna control myself. I need to tell you what happened tonight. You’ll be hearing about it for days and weeks to come but I want you to hear about it first from me.”

  Erin forced herself to shove down the wave of disquiet his words elicited and resisted snuggling up next to him. He was too enticing. They were too hungry for each other to sit close to each other for long before their hunger drove them together. But she could tell, tonight was the time for words, not actions.

  “What happened, Nate?”

  “Mike Peterson was murdered.”

  “The lumber man? The one who lives in the big house with, um—”

  “Yeah, the asshole who owns half the town and most of the county. And, yes, Laura’s husband.”

  Erin’s chest tightened at the mention of Laura’s name. She forced herself to concentrate on the facts.

  “How? Did someone shoot him?”

  Nate gave a deep sigh. “No. Nothing so simple as a gunshot took Mike down. I know you’ve seen some hard things in your work, Erin. But I can double-dare tell you, you have never seen a murder scene like the one we saw tonight.”

  When he hesitated and rubbed his hand through his unruly hair, Erin’s heart sped up.

  “Was anyone else… hurt?”

  Nate snorted. “No, honey. Nothing happened to Laura, except that she found the body. It was shocking, Erin. Like something out a grade-B horror movie. Someone took the time to build a makeshift cross and strung Mike up on it. Right in the middle of his multi-million dollar mansion, in what he called the ‘Gentleman’s Room.’ I can tell you for a fact that there were no gentlemen in that room tonight.”

  Nate tipped up his wine glass and quaffed the remainder of the aromatic liquid in his glass.

  He reached for the bottle and refilled his glass then offered it to Erin. She shook her head. Seeing the tension in his body, she sat up straighter and began working her expert fingers into the tight muscles and knots ringing his neck. He huffed out a deep groan.

  “Oh yeah, honey, you can do that all night.” He added with a grin, “That is, until we ‘up the ante’ a little and find some more sensitive places to dig our fingers in. But for now…”

  Erin heard the tension in his voice that she felt in his muscles and gave him an encouraging nudge. “Tell me, Nate. Tell me what happened.”

  Nate sighed. “It’s not so much that he was killed, it was how he was killed. Some sadistic bastard whipped him to death—likely with a steel-tipped cat or a flogger”

  Erin jerked back, startled.

  Nate nodded his agreement. “They put inch-wide slashes over every part of his body. It was amazing, Erin. It looked as though someone had drawn lines on him with a protractor. They placed each strike precisely, exactly two inches away from the previous one.”

  Erin exhaled and had to force herself to take keep taking deep breaths. She shook her head when Nate turned to her and asked, “Do you have any idea the experence, the sheer expertise it takes to wield a whip like that? It’s one thing to slash a guy with a knife. Or hell, chop him up with an ax. Crude. Blunt. But, it’s quite another thing to do it with a whip. Takes years of practice. And honey, that kind of expertise doesn’t come cheap. Someone brought in the best to torture Mike to death.”

  Erin saw where he was going.

  “They hired someone to kill him?”

  Nate grimaced. “Or, more likely, sent someone to kill him.”

  “You mean, a professional killer?”

  “Oh yeah. At least for the moment, no doubt about it. This was as professional a hit as I’ve ever seen.” He reached up and ground his fingers into the places Erin had been rubbing as if he needed to get much deeper, harder into the taut muscles and tendons. Erin pulled back, seeing that he had more to say and wanted to give him room to say it.

  “Oh and there was o
ne other little giveaway. They cut off his dick and his balls and shoved them in his mouth.”

  Erin gasped. “Oh my God, Nate. When he was alive? Why? I don’t—”

  “No honey, it’s damn near impossible to understand what drives a man to do what was done to Mike. And yeah, he was alive for most of it. How long he was conscious is another question. But the skillful way this was done, I have an idea that they kept him on the edge throughout. Making sure he felt every cut, every slash.”

  Erin struggled to get her arms around what he was telling her. She was incredulous. It didn’t make sense. It seemed impossible that something like this could have happened in this modest upper Midwest town. Things like this happened in big cities, not in Chicadia Falls!

  As if he read her mind, Nate confirmed. “I know what you’re thinking, Erin. Maybe in New York or Chicago or L. A., strongholds of the mob or the most violent gangs. But not here. In Chicadia Falls? You’re right. But even in those big cities that see a level of violence on a daily basis that we don’t see in a year, this crime was over the top. Hell, I’d be surprised if it didn’t become part of police academy textbooks of the future. One of those ‘This could happen even in your crappy little town’ stories.”

  “But, but why, Nate? Why would someone do such a hideous thing? Why not just kill him. Why torture him to death. So cruelly?”

  Nate heaved a deep sigh then finished off the second glass of wine.

  “That, darlin’, is what I will be spending the next months of my career finding out.”

  Chapter 3

  Erin sat silently trying to process the thoughts and emotions swirling though her troubled mind. The niggling thought that had been tugging at her from the beginning began to take hold. On the one hand it blessedly crowded out the gruesome images of Mike’s tortured body that Nate’s words evoked. But the image that supplanted them was terrifying in its own right. The image of Laura.

  Erin was a newcomer to the town, but she hadn’t been here a month before she heard the stories of the infamous Laura Peterson. The woman who used to be Nate Stryker’s wife. Erin knew how badly Laura had hurt Nate. Knowing Nate as she did, she had a hard time understanding how he could have been taken in by a woman as patently deceitful as Laura. At least in hindsight, she was to Erin. But Nate had fallen for her—hard. Probably his pride, his cocky assurance that any woman alive would be thrilled for the chance to be in Nate Stryker’s arms. He was known throughout the state. The Nate Stryker who could have any woman he wanted. But rather than choose one, he took them all. His reputation for one night stands was the stuff of legends. So was Laura’s. If anyone was more prolific than Nate, it was Laura. She slept her way through the police academy, but never worked as a cop. She bedded them instead. But she didn’t limit herself to guys in uniforms. After she’d worked her way through every guy in the county with a stud quotient of ten or higher, she went after the big dog himself. It was bound to happen. There weren’t two more gorgeous creatures than Laura and Nate. Of course they would notice each other and go in for the kill.