Page 24 of Hero

I never got an answer. One second, she was drinking me in with her eyes, and I was doing the same. The next, she was dragging me close by the neck to kiss me like there was no tomorrow. There damn well better be a tomorrow and plenty more after that. She. Was. Kissing. Me. Nothing on this earth came close to her lips on mine. It was magical and hair-raising. The swipe of her tongue sent bolts of static electricity through every inch of me. I was a live wire until a car shot by, its horn blasting the owner’s annoyance with us blocking the road.

We crashed back into reality together. Cherise edged away to move the car out of the street. There was this small but mesmerizing smile playing on her mouth. In the back of the car, a muted Andre was repeating my name from the floor. I didn’t even remember tossing the phone back there.

Sneaking a glance at me as she pulled into a neighboring driveway, she advised dryly, “You should get that before he comes through the phone.”

Snickering at her sarcasm, I reached between our seats to get the phone. “Andre, I’m fine. I had to take off for a minute.”

“I know that much, dude,” he sniped. “The problem was how long it took you to come back. Did you get the plate numbers or not?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Send them to me,” he dictated. “I’ll get in touch with my cousin’s precinct in Harlem, have him get the ball rolling on opening a case here for ole boy stalking your doctor.”

How could I refuse that? I couldn’t and didn’t. On the second time around, Cherise and I made it to her condo. I got out first, examining her doorway. When I thought all was good, I waved for her to get out of her car too. She wasted no time hustling across the sidewalk to a trio of steps up to her home. After unlocking it, she rotated back to me standing behind her.

“Are you coming in?

If I did, we would never come out again. “Not right now, no. I have to meet someone at my place. You’ll get to meet him later. Go inside. I want to have a look around the property. Lock every door and window upstairs and down tight. Don’t open the door if you’re not sure it’s someone you know. I’ll be back at eight sharp. Let Malaysia know what’s going on and to be vigilant. See you later.”

Frowning, she wasn’t loving my instructions in the least. “Okay. Please be careful.”

“Damn straight, I’ll be careful. Thank you for listening.” I hesitated to go, craving something only she could give. Tipping her chin up with the side of my knuckle to look deeply into her, I couldn’t stop from going in for a slow peck on her mouth. Anything more intense and Andre would be finding his own way inside my home.

I took my time releasing her then stepped back. Sucking her lips inward as if savoring my taste, she went inside. I left only after hearing the click of the deadbolt sliding into place. Extensive grounds surrounded her condo. Three sides were encircled by dense forest. The gate with spikes to deter climbing it would only help so much. A determined person would find a way around it. I was much more determined to make them wish they had stayed on the other side of it, where it was safer for them.

An hour later, I got a text from Andre that he was waiting for me. I drove to the red-brick apartment complex a few minutes away. It wasn’t in a gated, landscaped community or had pristine white siding like Cherise’s. The street was seven feet away on the other side of two patches of grass split up the middle by a sidewalk. Andre’s humongous, black rental truck hid took u

p most of the two-car drive in front of my home. I had to maneuver my truck in or risk clipping his outrageously extended side mirror. Andre remained standing on the microscopic amount of porch with his gear.

A grin stretched a mile wide across his face as I got out to bro-style embrace him. “It’s good to see you, Underwood.”

He gave me the once-over then sniggered. “What the fuck do you have on, Graham?”

I glanced down at myself. “Casual dress clothes.”

“Exactly. Why?”

I flicked the collar of his unbuttoned combat jacket. “Because camouflage fatigues don’t exactly go with an office setting outside of a base.”

“Bullshit. There’s barely any women on this planet that don’t like a man in uniform.”

“The same can be said about women and a man looking dapper in a collar shirt, slacks, and loafers.” That shut him up for three seconds. I knew how long because I counted.

He took another look at my outfit. “Okay, you got me there. I’ll have to remember that.”

“Andre listened to me about something?” I projected sarcastically. “I have to write that down and post it to my fridge.”

“Only if you open the damn front door first. I’m starving, and I need to tell you some things about Chad Lowell. He’s a very bad boy.” He had my devotion with that statement.

“Let me call Cherise before we get into it.” She had the right to learn who we were dealing with more than we did.

Throughout the day, we swapped enough information to fill a semi-tractor trailer. Cherise contributed to the workings of Chad’s mind, calling on a colleague by the name of Lambert to corroborate. Andre read off Chad’s arrest record from his phone after sending it and his mugshot to me. Chad was not a bad looking dude in the least. Women should have been falling at his feet. Cherise assured me that they were. She had a feeling they weren’t the women he wanted. That would cause problems for everyone involved, I guessed.

He not only had a long string of harassment charges dating back to his teens, there were a couple women he was suspected of making disappear over the span of thirty years. One more had been added to his file, Dr. Eva Laurent, who had gone missing recently. It took us all by surprise that something had happened to one of Cherise’s ex co-workers in California. She got off the phone immediately to confer with her people and parents in Los Angeles. There was no good news to be had when she called back.

“She’s still missing, guys. They suspect she was taken from the parking deck below the building. There’re no cameras down there.”

Andre cursed.

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