Chapter
4: I’m Leaving, Like It or Not
Sara
jumped off her bike and ran into the apartment complex, hoping and praying that
her stalker had lost her, but she knew him better than that. He could have
easily followed her without her even noticing. As she opened the door to her
loft and stepped inside, Sara sucked in a few needed breaths from her run up the
stairs. She set down the backpack of stuff she had gathered from her desk at the
precinct beside the couch and headed into her room to freshen up.
After
taking a long, hot shower and winding down just a little, Sara stepped into her
room and found a pair of clean comfortable jeans and a tank top. The heat
radiating through the loft was enough to choke her, then adding the steam from
the shower, she thought death was imminent if she didn’t turn on the air or
open a window. The summer was really taking hold, even now in late May. The heat
index was already in the upper nineties, and opening the window just seemed like
the easiest thing to do at the moment.
Sara
padded over and pulled it open, only to get the scare of her life. She shrieked
when she saw someone sitting on the steps of the fire escape just outside her
window. “
“I’m
sorry, Sara,” Ian Nottingham replied as he kept his head bowed and eyes glued
to the metal frame of the fire escape.
“What
are you doing here?” she asked, placing her hands on the window frame and
leaning out.
“Old
habit,” he answered quietly.
“Well,
this is one old habit that you really need to work on killing because it’s
really annoying,” Sara growled. But she had to admit, it was quite nice that
he kept a lookout for her even when she really didn’t need the extra security.
That and he was very easy on the eyes.
Sara had
to stop herself from staring as he looked up at her and their eyes met, caramel
brown on emerald green. She felt a twinge of pain emanating from those beautiful
eyes and quickly looked away, feeling bad that she was being rude to him, as
usual. Ian was nothing like his cold blooded boss. Instead, he had qualities
that she found irresistible in men. Beneath that dark persona, he was a
sensitive man with feelings, and he deeply cared for Sara. She knew, because she
somewhat cared for him even though she kept telling herself that she should hate
him and fear him because she really didn’t know who he was or what he was
besides Irons’ ex bodyguard and assassin.
“Sara?”
Ian asked when she realized too much time had passed between them without a word
being spoken. Sara looked at him again, except this time he was staring at his
shoes again. There were a couple of beads of sweat forming on his forehead,
prompting her to do something about it.
“Why
don’t you come inside?” Sara finally replied as she stepped away from the
window. “You’re going to get heat stroke if you stay outside in this weather
any longer with those clothes,” she pointed out, referring to his all black
“uniform.” Ian’s head shot up to look at her again wondering if she was
okay. Was Sara actually inviting him into her apartment? He didn’t stop to
think about it and just stepped through the window. “And for God’s sake,
take off that coat. You look like you’re dying,” Sara ordered as she began
heading out of the bedroom towards the living room. “You want anything to
drink?” she called from the kitchen.
“Water,
please,” Ian called back as he slipped off his coat to reveal the black tank
top beneath, which was almost soaked through with sweat. As he walked into the
kitchen, he noticed that Sara had sat down at the table, a glass of water set in
front of the chair across from hers. She sipped her own bottle of Pepsi then
looked his way.
What Sara
saw surprised her. Ian was actually wearing something revealing for once. She
could easily see the level of definition in his arms and torso. He was ripped,
for lack of a better word. ‘Mmmm… beefy,’ was the first thought that
popped into her head as she put down her drink and stared, wide eyed and
grinning. Her eyes followed him until he sat down across from her then dropped
to stare at the tabletop hoping he hadn’t noticed her.
“I need
to tell you something,” Sara finally said, her courage building up to the
point where she was ready to talk to him.
“What is
it, Sara?” Ian asked softly, her tone indicating that it wasn’t a good
thing.
“Something
happened last night that I can’t really explain to you, but because of it, I
had Dante transfer me to LA for a little while to work on the Gallo case,” she
explained, keeping her head down as she tried not to remember the previous
night’s events.
“You’re
leaving
“Yeah,
I’m leaving tomorrow morning. I just thought I’d tell you because I didn’t
want you to get too worried if you realized that I wasn’t at the apartment
anymore,” Sara said as she looked up at him.
“But I
don’t understand. Why are you leaving? What happened?” Ian’s eyes went
soft like a child’s, wondering and large.
“If I
told you, you’d want to go and kill someone, and I don’t want you to do
that,” she tried to explain. “Look, in time I’ll tell you what happened,
but you have to promise me that you’re not going to keep bothering me about
it.” Sara reached over the table and took his ungloved hands, which were
surprisingly soft to the touch and very warm.
Ian’s
eyes quickly locked on hers for longer than just a couple of seconds. This was
the third unexpected thing that Sara had done in the last five minutes. A smile
appeared on her face as she gazed back at him, friendly and unafraid. Ian’s
heart almost stopped. Sara seemed more beautiful now that she was actually
looking at him and smiling. Finally, he managed to mumble, “I promise.”
Her smile
grew almost to double its size as she replied, “Thank you.” Sara eased her
hands out of his and stood up. “I have to start packing. Dante said not to
bring anything that wasn’t important because I’ll be provided with
everything when I get to LA.”
“Who
will you be working for once you get there?” Ian questioned as he followed her
into the bedroom.
“Billie
Chambers, lieutenant, LAPD. She’s the officer behind the Candy Store,” Sara
said proudly as she opened her drawers and pulled out a few articles of
clothing. As she looked up at Ian, she found the confused expression of his
face. “The Candy Store is a warehouse of seized stuff that her recruits use to
help with cases. It’s a lot better than what I have going out here. And no
more Dante! I can’t wait until tomorrow. I’m beginning to get the feeling
that I’ll probably leave after I pack up. Oh, that reminds me, would you mind
watching my place while I’m out there?”
“Yeah,
sure,” Ian reluctantly replied. “I should be going,” he added, grabbing
his coat from off her bed and heading towards the window. He knew he couldn’t
just sit around and wait for Sara to come back, she could easily get in trouble
or hurt, maybe even killed if he wasn’t nearby watching her every move. Ian
made a point to keep that to himself. What Sara didn’t know wouldn’t hurt
her.
“Enough
with the window crap. Please use the door,” she said, continuing to grab
clothing out of her drawers and pile them on top of her bed. Ian left, silently
slipping through the door, formulating a plan for how he would get to LA and not
have her notice. He had a hunch that she was probably getting there with her
motorcycle, so an airline flight would be his best bet. Also, he had to check
out this Billie Chambers person Sara would be working for to make sure she
wasn’t a possible threat to Sara’s life. He headed back to Irons’ mansion
where the plan would soon begin to reveal itself.
*~*~*
“I wonder what Sara’s got that we don’t have,” Van mumbled as he sat down on one of the theater seats on the second floor of the warehouse. Deaq followed and sat beside him, putting his feet up on the chair in front.
“Maybe
something, maybe nothing. We’ll just have to see when she gets here,” Deaq
replied.
“I just
don’t get why Billie doesn’t trust us to get the information ourselves.
It’s not that hard. We’ve been in worse situations than this one,” Van
continued to try any prove his point. “What’s so important about Sara? How
about we take a look at her file again? I didn’t get a good look at it
before.” He stood up and started to head for Billie’s office on the first
floor. She wasn’t around, so accessing her computer wouldn’t be a tough
task.
“Van!”
Deaq called. “Van! Get you ass back here! If Billie finds out that you’ve
looked through her personal files again, she’s going to kill you.”
“The
last time I looked through her personal files, I didn’t get caught. What makes
you think I’ll get caught this time?” Van reasoned as he entered the office
and sat down at her desk. He booted up her computer and began searching for Sara
Pezzini’s file. As he predicted, it was easily accessible with the right
password, which he had figured out long ago as being “Bullitt,” the titled
of one of Billie’s favorite movies. ‘Jackpot,’ Van though as he opened
Sara’s file and began reading through the mundane stuff that he already knew.
As he continued to scan the page, things became interesting.
“It says
here that Sara’s been involved in several strange homicide investigations, a
couple of which as a suspect,” Van called to Deaq without looking up from the
computer screen.
“What!
Don’t read anymore without me,” Deaq yelled back as he jumped off his seat
and ran down to the office. Perching himself over Van’s left shoulder, he read
the scores of interesting information that Van had already look through.
“Shit, they think she killed an FBI agent? Damn…”
“That’s
not the most interesting part, just take a look at this,” Van replied as he
moved the mouse over to a case marked “V.” “It says here that just a month
ago, some big guy named ‘V’ tried to take over
“You
sitting in my office looking through my files,” Billie’s harsh voice echoed
through the warehouse. Van and Deaq looked up to see her standing just outside
the office. “What the hell are you reading, anyway?”
“Oh, boy,” Van said as he stood up from her chair. “Nothing…"