"Not a chance! You so much as twitch and fill you with lead, you filthy scum."
He didn't believe there was another soul within one hundred feet, but he wasn't positive, and the last thing he needed was a heroic civilian coming to her rescue.
"Someone help me-please!" she hollered loud enough to be heard in several distant counties.
Joe's jaw clenched. He'd never live this down, and he didn't even want to imagine facing Walker and Luchetti. Joe was still on the chief's shit list for the fallout after the Robby Martin shooting. He didn't have to think too hard to know what the chief would say. "You screwed the pooch, Shanahan!" he'd yell right before he busted Joe to patrol division. And this time, the chief would be right.
"Call 911."
"Quit screaming," he commanded in his best law enforcement officer's voice.
"I need a cop!"
Damn. "Lady," he gritted between his teeth, "I am a cop!"
Her eyes narrowed as she gazed down at him. "Right, and I'm the governor."
Joe moved his hand toward his pocket, but she made a threatening motion with the small weapon, and he decided against it. "In my left pocket is my identification."
"Don't move," she warned him once again.
Her auburn curls blew about her head, wild and unruly, looking like maybe she should have used some of that hair spray on her head instead of his face. Her hand trembled as she pushed one side of her hair behind her ear. In an instant he could have her on the ground, but he'd have to distract her first or run the risk of getting shot. This time in a place where he was unlikely to recover. "You can reach into my pocket yourself. I won't move a muscle." He hated tackling women. He hated slamming them to the ground. But in this case he didn't think he'd mind.
"I'm not stupid. I haven't fallen for that trick since high school."
"Oh for God's sake." He struggled to control his temper and barely won. "Do you have a permit to carry a concealed weapon?"
"Give me a break," she answered. "You're not a cop; you're a stalker! I wish there was a cop around here, because I'd have you arrested for following me around this past week. There's a law in this state against stalking, you know." She sucked in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "I bet you have a record for some sort of deviant behavior. You're probably one of those psychos who makes obscene phone calls and breathes really heavy. I bet you're on parole for harassing women." She took a few more deep breaths and tossed the hair spray. "I think you'd better give me your wallet after all."
Never in his fifteen-year career had he ever been so careless as to let a suspect-let alone a female-get the jump on him.
His temples pounded and his thigh ached. His eyes stung and his lashes were stuck together. "You're crazy, lady," he said in a relatively calm voice as he reached into his pocket.
"Really? From where I'm standing, you look like the crazy one." Her gaze never left his as she reached for the wallet. "I'll need your name and address to give to the police, but I bet they already know who you are."
She didn't know how right she was, but Joe didn't waste any more time talking. The second she flipped open the wallet and glanced at the badge inside, his legs scissored around her calves. She hit the ground, and he lunged on top of her, pinning her with his weight. She twisted one way, then the other, pushing at his shoulders, bringing the derringer dangerously close to his left ear. He grabbed her wrists and forced them above her head, using the full length of his body to pin her to the earth.
He lay stretched out on top of her, her full breasts pressed into his chest, her hips pressed into his. He secured her hands above her head and her struggles weakened, yet she refused to give up completely. His face was barely an inch above hers, and her nose bumped his twice. Her parted lips sucked air into her lungs, and her green eyes stared into his, huge and filled with panic and fear as she fought to free her wrists. Her long, smooth legs tangled with his own, and the bottom of his sweatshirt was up around his armpits. Against his stomach he felt the soft warm skin of her lower abdomen and the flat nylon of her fanny pack.
"You really are a cop!" Her breasts rose and fell as she struggled to catch her breath.
He'd get up as soon as he secured her derringer. "That's right, and you're under arrest for carrying a concealed weapon and aggravated assault."
"Oh, thank God!" She took a deep breath, and he could feel her relax, feel her turn all soft and pliant beneath him. "I'm so relieved. I thought you were a perverted psychopath."
A brilliant smile lit her face as she looked up at him. He'd just placed her under arrest, and she actually seemed happy about it. Not the kind of blissful happy he usually put on a woman's face when he found himself in this same position, more like a kind of deluded happy. She was not only a thief, she was ten-ninety six-definitely crazy. "You have the right to remain silent," he said as he pried the derringer from her fingers. "You have the right…"
"You're not serious are you? You aren't really going to arrest me, are you?"
"… to an attorney," he continued, one hand still pinning hers above her head as he tossed the handgun several feet away.
"But it isn't really a gun. I mean it is, but it isn't. It's a nineteenth-century derringer. It's an antique, and so I don't think it qualifies as a real gun. And besides, it's not loaded, and even if it was, it wouldn't make a very big hole anyway. I was only carrying it because I was so frightened, and you've been following me." She stopped, and her brows scrunched together. "Why have you been following me?"
Instead of answering, he finished reading her her rights, then rolled off to his side. He scooped up the small pistol and rose carefully to his feet. He wasn't going to answer her questions. Not when he didn't know what he was going to do with her now. Not when she'd accused him of being a pervert, and a psychopath, and tried to make him a soprano. He didn't trust himself to talk to her more than was absolutely necessary. "Are you carrying any more weapons on you?"
"No."
"Slowly hand me your fanny pack, then turn your pockets inside out."
"I only have my car keys," she muttered while doing as he requested. With her keys held high, she dropped them into his palm. His hand closed, and he shoved them in his front pocket. He took the little pack from her and turned it inside out. It was empty.
"Place your hands on the wall."
"Are you going to frisk me?"
"That's right," he answered and motioned toward the brick building.
"like this?" she asked over her shoulder.
As his gaze moved from her rounded behind and down the length of her long legs, he slid the small handgun into the waistband of his shorts. "That's right," he repeated and placed his palms on her shoulders. Now that he saw her this close, he realized that she wasn't five feet ten inches tall. Joe was six foot, and her eyes met his. He moved his palms down her sides, across the small of her back, and around to her abdomen. He slipped his hand beneath the bottom of her shirt and felt the waistband of her shorts. He felt her soft skin and the cool metal of her belly ring. Then he slid one hand up between the mounds of her breasts.
"Hey, watch your hands!"
"Don't get excited," he warned. "I'm not." Next, he patted down her behind, then knelt to check the tops of her socks. He didn't bother to feel for anything hidden between her thighs. Not that he trusted her, he just didn't think she would have been able to jog with a weapon in her panties.
"Once we get to jail, do I pay a fine and then go home?"
"When the judge sets bail you can go home." She tried to turn and face him, but his grasp on her hips prevented it.