Read Online Rapid Fire by Jessica Andersen - Free Book Online

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truck’s air brakes released with a loud hiss as the guy drove on, maybe because
he was on a tight schedule, maybe because he couldn’t be bothered to help.
     
    Or maybe
because he saw that Thorne already had someone coming to his rescue.
     
    Maya
yanked open the door. “Are you okay?”
     
    Her brown
eyes were wide and scared, her fine-boned features pinched, as though she’d
seen a ghost.
     
    Or nearly
created one.
     
    “What the
hell were you thinking?” Thorne bellowed. He yanked off his seat belt and
lunged from the car so he could go toe-to-toe with her when he shouted, “I
could have killed you! Hell, you could have killed me! What sort of idiotic
stunt was that?”
     
    It was
then that he realized how physically small she was. He topped her by nearly a
foot, and was probably double her weight. Her stature was almost childlike, but
there was nothing immature about the fire in her eyes, or the way the soft
curves of her breasts rose and fell as she breathed heavily and scowled up at
him.
     
    “I’m not
the idiot who was doing fifty on a city street. What is your problem?”
     
    “You have
no idea,” he replied cryptically, and stepped back, creating a chasm of empty
space between them and bringing a sense of coolness where there had been heat
moments before. He jammed his hands in his pockets. “Why the hell are you down
here jumping in front of cars when I specifically told you to lock yourself in
the condo?”
     
    He
expected her to snap back that he wasn’t her keeper. So he was surprised when
her eyes darkened and some of the fight drained out of her. Her voice sounded
small and scared when she said, “He called me again. He said he’d seen you walk
me to my door, and that I should look out my window. The way he said it, I knew
something was going to happen to you.”
     
    “But I’m
not the target,” Thorne said automatically, “you are.” Inside him, the anger
fought to get free, fought to rise at the thought that the bastard had called
her again, had tried to touch her again, if only through his mechanically
altered voice.
     
    But did
he? a voice whispered deep inside Thorne, the sly, suspicious voice he sometimes
ignored, sometimes heeded.
     
    He had
seen the suspicion in some of the other officers’ faces when they spoke of
Maya. Or rather, when they didn’t speak of her. They thought she had snapped
and gone after Henkes. They wondered whether she’d faked the bomb threat that
afternoon.
     
    What if
she had? What if she was fabricating this new call? His instincts stirred to
life as what he remembered of her from before clashed with what he’d been told
by the chief and others. He remembered her as a quiet, studious woman with
shadows in the backs of her eyes and a wicked grin that didn’t show nearly
often enough.
     
    It had
been that grin that had pulled him in. It had been the tears that had kept him
a gentleman. He had been attracted to her back then, and part of him still
wanted her. That much hadn’t changed.
     
    What had
changed?
     
    “Maybe
we’ve both been targeted.” She crossed her arms and looked away. “You’re part
of the Forensics Department now, at least temporarily.”
     
    He winced
internally at the catch in her voice, at the knowledge that she was banking on
getting her job back. But aloud, he said, “That’s true enough, but I wasn’t in
any danger until you jumped in front of my car and nearly got us both killed.”
     
    Her eyes
flashed. “I know what I heard. He told me to look out my window. I thought—”
She faltered, then continued, “I thought he’d rigged your car to explode. That
I’d look down and watch you die.”
     
    The word
you suddenly seemed too personal, as though she had worried for him as a man,
not just in the abstract. As though she’d run downstairs and out into the
street to save him, not just another cop.
     
    Thorne
shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the Interceptor, still parked up against
the