Page 79 of What About Love

“Darlin’, thank god you’re all right.”

Twisting her head toward the familiar voice, she encountered a troubled pair of brown eyes.

“T.” His name came out in a rush of air while relief washed over her. So did the adrenaline crash as her head lolled to the side and she saw nothing more except blackness.

Chapter 18

THE AC CLICKED ON,sending a waft of cold air blowing through the room. Angie hardly noticed. Neither did she take in the burst of color of the famed River Walk as it sparkled like a gem in the sun while laid out in all its shimmering beauty a dozen stories below. As she stared out the window, she was too lost in thought, the past few days replaying in her head, particularly the time since her rescue.

It had been like riding a malfunctioning roller coaster, full of fits and starts then getting stopped at the top of the highest peak and hanging in limbo, only to be thrown over the brink, flying headfirst down a heart-stopping drop as she plummeted into the unknown. Okay, maybe her lack of sleep and frazzled nerves were making her view it as more dramatic than it was, but she didn’t think so.

At least the mission was over. The LAPD had charged Stapleton with multiple counts of kidnapping, assault, rape, and at least two counts of murder. With a decent prosecutor in charge of his case, he wouldn’t see daylight except from behind prison bars for the rest of his days. The number of which were self-limited considering a crooked cop didn’t fare well in gen pop at your friendly, neighborhood maximum security prison.

It left only finding the remaining missing women. Stapleton, as expected, had lawyered up first thing, hoping to make a deal for himself with the DA. This was laughable, as he had no one to give up anymore. The trial on the cartel he’d worked with for decades, long since over.

Mistress Daria, on the other hand, had plenty to lose. She’d already made her deal, ratting out her partner to save her own ass in a heartbeat. More importantly, she provided details on Stapleton’s two other crappy apartments, one within a mile of where the first victim’s body was found in a dumpster. Searches of the areas around all three locations had turned up only one of the three other victims, Alisha Gray, his last before Angie. They also found her in a dumpster. This meant the other two, almost certainly, were buried somewhere in the refuse at the LA County landfill.

Angie had given her statement, happily leaving the rest of the gruesome investigation to the LAPD. It was sick, twisted stuff. Ironically, that had been the easy part.

With their involvement ended, except testifying at a trial much, much later, T had become distant. He was polite, dutifully helping her with her bags, although she’d protested, and escorted her to their flight. Other than that, he was silent and once again in lockdown mode. Worse, he’d completely shut her out.

She’d first noticed it immediately following her rescue, when he’d given her into the care of the paramedics. He supported the paramedics’ insistence that she be taken to the hospital to have her wrists checked out, as well as her bruised cheek and swollen eye. It had taken forever, especially with his suddenly too quiet presence by her side, speaking only when necessary, except the time he’d barked questions rudely at the doctor who’d come in to deliver his negative findings.

The drive to LAX Monday morning had been no better. Seated in the back of the SUV, she watched as T silently stared out the front passenger window. The drive seemed to take longer than the interminable wait for her CT scan in the crowded LA emergency room. In reality, it took only twenty minutes, but the sustained, awkward silence had seemed like an eternity. During the flight home, when they’d sat side by side on the overbooked plane, the extent of his verbal skills regressed to little more than grunts in response to her attempts at conversation.

As T so obviously did, Angie had plenty of regrets about their time in LA. One thing she would always remember fondly was meeting Val. She’d swooped into the ER like a guardian angel, giving her the TLC she needed. She’d sent T for coffee at one point and filled her in on the details of what she’d missed while unconscious. Something her partner should have done.

Apparently, Daria had driven to a private parking garage where she’d stripped Angie of almost everything, undies, jewelry—at Stapleton’s direction—and had ripped the panic button from the hem of her dress. This had gone down while the team had been busy trying to gather intel on the building where the GPS had localized. Eric, Kieran, and T had wasted no time and moved in on foot. Finding her little red coupe abandoned, they realized they’d been outwitted by a vehicle switch, and that Daria, or more likely Stapleton, was smarter than he appeared. Security and traffic cameras confirmed the mistress leaving in a beat-up Ford Focus by the back entrance minutes after her arrival. They’d tracked her, but it had taken time and delayed Angie’s rescue long enough for Stapleton to get a few punches in before she decided to rescue herself.

She’d learned from Val, who’d heard it from Eric, that T had gone ballistic. Blaming Eric and Samson for not moving in when he’d wanted to while still on the club grounds. Kieran had threatened to lock him down and put him in holding at headquarters if he didn’t get himself under control.

He had barely held it together until they’d found her. He’d come back to her cubicle before she could ask Val what she thought that all meant. Did he react as he did because he had genuine feelings for her? Or was it simply that he felt responsible for her, as any handler would?

“Anymore dizziness or fainting spells?” Cap’s question yanked her back to the here and now. It was Tuesday morning, her first day back at work. Instead of standing at the wall of windows where her mind had easily wandered, she took a seat in one of his kick-ass leather wing chairs in front of his enormous desk and gave him her full attention.

“I didn’t faint,” she insisted.

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