Page 97 of Blood Money

Deep in her soul she knew it wasn’t a mistake.

Something that happened back in the barn before Fatima started the fire niggled at her memory, something she’d all but forgotten about.

Right after she’d refused to cooperate and identify security locations on the One PP blueprints, Fatima did something on her cell phone. Alex vividly recalled the evil, satisfied look on the woman’s face. What could the bitch have done?

Alex leaned forward to talk through the open sliding glass divider between the driver and the backseat. “Can you go any faster?”

“I’ll try.” He began zigzagging through the thickening traffic.

She leaned back against the seat, her mind spinning with horrific scenarios.

Nicky hurt and alone.

Nicky in the hands of twisted, perverted criminals.

Her son—dead.

Daisy clasped her hand and squeezed it. “They’ll find him. Have faith that they’ll find him.”

She wanted to believe that but couldn’t. What she did believe was exactly what she’d garnered from her extensive pre-employment research into police investigations. If Nicky had really been kidnapped, time was of the essence. The more time that passed after an abduction the less likely the abductee would be found alive.

Her stomach roiled from the few bites of lasagna. She couldn’t, no—wouldn’t—think the worst.

Alex’s entire world was crashing down around her. If she lost Nicky, she didn’t know how she could go on.

…

Gray rested both hands on the shower wall, letting his head fall forward. The hot, pounding spray offered soothing but temporary relief from what he’d done to his body over the last two weeks. Two weeks during which time he’d gone against his bone-deep instinct to drive like a madman to Alex’s apartment, take her in his arms, and never let go.

The first week, he spent his nights drowning in a bottle of scotch. After deciding that alcohol would never take the place of what was missing in his life—Alex—he opted to purge his body and get back to working out at the gym two to three hours a day after he got off duty. The goal was to get his ass so exhausted that he would fall into bed without being overwhelmed by the loss that still plagued him every waking hour of the day.

Beneath the steamy spray, he groaned and rolled his aching shoulders. If his muscles could have talked, they would have told him what a damned waste of time it was to subject himself to that much pain, because no matter how much weight he pressed, how many reps he did, or how many miles he ran, he couldn’t run away from the truth.

I still want her. I still need her.

Hell, I love her.

His life wasn’t the same without Alex in it. It was dull, gloomy, and meaningless. Basically, it sucked.

He missed the way her smile lit up a room. Her beauty and grace outshined the insidious ugliness he encountered on the job every day. And she had enough passion in her to wake him every night in a cold sweat for the last two weeks. He’d dreamed that he was making love to her, driving himself inside her tight, wet heat as she moaned beneath him and dug her nails into his back.

But the attraction wasn’t all physical. He admired her.

She’d raised a great little boy all alone, working hard every day to not only earn a living but to pay for Nicky’s expensive medical treatments. Not once did she complain or ask for handouts. And her compassion and understanding where his own past was concerned astounded and humbled him. When he’d confessed to killing a woman in cold blood, there were no recriminations. She’d understood.

So what the hell is wrong with me that I couldn’t understand what she did?

Shit.

He’d been standing in the shower for so long, the spray was getting icy. Gray cranked the water off, grabbed a towel from the rack, and began rubbing himself dry with urgent, angry swipes.

Look at it logically, Yates. That’s what you’re good at, dipshit.

It was how he’d made more homicide arrests than any other detective in lower Manhattan. Analyzing every factual aspect of an investigation until it was a closed case. He was thorough and methodical, never leaving a stone unturned.

But life isn’t always methodical, and it doesn’t always make sense.

That’s what his father told him when he joined the NYPD. It was his dad’s way of warning him that his analytical response to everything didn’t take human nature into account.