Chapter 2

At 11:45 am, Nicki was cooling her heels at the twenty fifth precinct. She wasn’t particularly surprised to have been summoned there. The four gang members who hand gunned down Franko Sanchez was being held in separate cells. That way they could sweat out the charges of murder one, accessory to murder, illegal possession of firearms, possession of controlled substances, and all the other charges on the arrest sheet. And they could sweat them out individually, with no opportunity to back each other’s stories.
She’d gotten the call from Sly Pablo’s  public defense attorney at nine sharp. This would make the third meeting between them. At each  previous encounter, she had held firm against a deal. But she had noted that each time they sat in the conference room together, Pablo sweated freely.
Instinct told her he did indeed have something to trade but was afraid.
When she left the conference room, her head was pounding. There was tight sick feeling in her gut that always plagued her when she dealt with Pablo’s type. He was nineteen, for God’s sake, she thought as she tossed her visitor’s badge to the desk sergeant. He viciously gunned down another human being. She knew he felt no remorse. The demons considered drive bys a kind of tribal ritual. And she, as a representative of the law, had to bargain with him.
That was the way the system worked, she reminded herself as she stepped out of the stuffy station house into the steamy afternoon. She would trade Pablo like a poker chip and hope to finesse bigger game. In the end, Pablo would pay by spending the rest of his youth and most of his adult life in a cage.
She hoped Franko Sanchez’s family would feel justice had been served.
“ bad day?”
Still frowning, she turned, shaded her eyes and focused on Drake Graham.
“ oh hello. What are you doing here?”
“waiting for you.”
She lifted her brow, cautiously debating the proper response. Today he wore a gray suit, very trim and quietly expensive. Though the humidity was intense, his white shirt appeared crisp. He looked precisely like what he was. A successful, wealthy business man. Until you looked at his eyes, Nicki thought. When you did, you could see that women were drawn to him for a much more basic reason than money and position.
She responded with the only question that seemed apt.
“why?”
He smiled at that. He had seen her caution and her evaluation clearly and was as amused as he was impressed by it.
“ to invite you to lunch.”
“ oh, well that’s very nice, but..”
“ you do eat, don’t you?”
He was laughing at her. There was no mistaking it.
“yes, almost everyday. But at the moment, I’m working.”
“you’re a dedicated public servant aren’t you, Nicki?”
“ I like to think so.”
 There was just enough sarcasm in his tone to put her back up. She stepped to the curb and lifted an arm to hail a cab. A bus chugged by streaming  exhaust. “ it was kind of you to leave your limo for me last night.” she turned and looked at him. “ but it wasn’t necessary.”
“ I often do what others consider unnecessary.” he took her hand and, with only the slightest pressure, brought her arm down to her side. “ if not lunch, dinner.”
“ that sounds more like a command than a request.’’
She would have tugged her hand away, but it seemed foolish to engage in a childish test of wills on a public street. “ either way, I have to refuse. I’m working late tonight.”
“ tomorrow then.” he smiled charmingly. “ a request, counselor.”
It was difficult not to smile back when he was looking at her with humor  and was it loneliness? In his eyes.
“Mr. Graham. Drake.” she corrected herself before he could. “ persistent men usually annoy me. And you’re no exception. But for some reason, I think I’d like to have dinner with you.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven. I keep early hours.”
“fine. I’ll give you my address.”
“ I know it.”
“of course.”  his driver had dropped her off at her doorstep the night before. “ if you’ll give me back my hand, I’d like to hail a cab.”
He didn’t oblige immediately, but looked down at her hand, it was small delicate in appearance, like the rest of her. Drake made himself smile as he wondered how a single meeting of palms could have jolted his system so outrageously.
“ I’ll see you tomorrow.” he released her hand and stepped away.
She only nodded, not trusting her voice. When she slipped into a cab, she turned back. But he was already gone.



It was after ten when Nicki walked up to the antique store. It was closed, of course, and she hadn’t expected to find anything. She had written her report and passed the details of her interview with Pablo on to her superior. But she hadn’t been able to resist a look for herself.
In this upscale part of town, people were lingering over dinner or enjoying a play. A few couples wandered by on their way to a club or a restaurant. Streetlights shot out pools of security.
It was foolish, she supposed, to have been drawn here. Normal, Nicki reminded herself. There was nothing here to cause that itch between her shoulder blades. Yet even as she scanned the street, the adjoining buildings to assure herself no one was paying any attention to her, the feeling of being watched persisted.
She was giving herself the creeps, Nicki decided these little licks of fear were left over from her night in the alley, and she didn’t care for it. Most of her life she had been cared for, looked after even pampered by her older sister. Though she would always be grateful to Tasha, she had made a commitment when she left Denver for Urbana. To leave her mark.
Determine to fight her own uneasiness, she skirted around the building, walking quickly through the short, narrow alley between the antique store and the boutique beside it.
The rear of the building was as secure and unforthcoming as the front. There was one window, enforced with steel bars, and a pair of wide doors, triple bolted
“ you don’t look stupid.”
At the voice, she jumped back and would have tumbled into a line of garbage can if a hand hadn’t snagged her wrist. She opened her mouth to scream, brought her hand up to fight, when she recognized her companion.
“you.” he was in black, hardly visible in the dark. But she knew.
“ I would have thought you’d had your fill of back alleys.”
He didn’t release her, though he knew he should . His fingers wrapped around her wrist.
“ you’ve been watching me.”
“ there are some women its difficult to look away from.” he pulled her closer, just a tug on her wrist, and stunned both of them. His voice was low and rough. She could see anger in the gleam of his eyes. She found the combination oddly compelling.
“ what are you doing?”
Her mouth was so dry it ached. He had pulled her so close that their thighs met. To put some distance between them and gain some control, she put her hand to his chest.
“ that’s my business.”
“ your business is to prepare cases and try them in court, not to play detective.”
“ I’m not playing detective..” she broke off, eyes narrowing. “ how do you know I’m a lawyer?”
“I know a great deal about you, Miss. Maraj.” his smile was thin and humorless. “ thats my business. I don’t think your sister worked two jobs to put you through law school, and saw you graduate at the top of your class to have you sneaking around back entrances of locked buildings. Especially when that building is a front for some ugly particularly ugly commerce.”
“you know about this place?”
“as I said, I know a great deal.”
She would handle his intrusion into her life later. Now, she had a job to do. “ if you have any information any proof about this suspected drug operation, its your duty to give that information to the D.A’s office.”
“I’m very aware of my duty. It doesn’t include making deals with scum.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She didn’t even question how he knew about her interview with Pablo.
“ I work within the law,” she snapped at him “ which is more than you can say. You put on a mask and play captain America, making up your own rules. That makes you  part of the problem, not part of the solution.”
In the slits of his mask, his eyes narrowed. “ you seemed grateful enough for my solution a few nights ago.”
Her chin came up, she wished she could face him on her own ground, in the light. “ I’ve already thanked you for your help, unnecessary though it was.”
“ are you always so cocky, Miss Maraj?”
“confident.” she corrected
“and do you always win in court?”
“ I have an excellent record.”
“ do you always win?” he repeated.
“no, but that’s not my point.”
“ that’s exactly the point. There’s a war in this city, Miss. Maraj.”
“and you’ve have appointed yourself general of the good guys.”
He didn’t smile. “ no I fight alone.”
“don’t you..”
But he cut her off swiftly, putting a glove hand over her mouth. He listened but not with his ears. It wasn’t something he heard, but something he felt. Before she had even begun to struggle against him, he pulled her aside and shoved her down beneath him behind the wall of the next building.
“what are you doing?”
The explosion that came on the tail of her words made her ears ring. Beneath her the ground trembled as the antique store exploded.
“ are you alright?” when she didn’t answer, only trembled she took her face in his hand and turned it to his. “Nicki, are you alright?”
He repeated her name a few times before the glossy look left her eyes. “ yes,” she managed. “ are you?”
“ don’t you read papers?” there was the faintest of smiles around his mouth. “ I’m invulnerable.”
“right.” with a little smile she tried to sit up. Fitted against hers. His face was only inches away. He wondered what would happen to both of them if he closed that distance and let his mouth meet hers.
He was going to kiss her, Nicki realized and went perfectly still. Emotion swarmed through her. Not anger, as she’d expected. But excitement, raw and wild. It pumped through her so quickly it blocked everything else.
Her fingers brushed against his mask. He pulled back from her touch as if he’d been slapped. Shifting he rose then helped her to her feet. Fighting humiliation and fury, she stepped around the wall towards the rear of the antique shop.
“ they’ve beaten you this time,” he murmured. “ there wont be anything left for you to find, no papers, no drugs, no records.”
“ they’ve destroyed a building,” she said between her teeth. She hadn’t wanted to be kissed, she told herself. She’d been shaken up, dazed, a victim of temporary insanity. “ but someone owns it, and I’ll find out who that someone is.”
“this was meant as a warning, Miss Maraj. One you might want to consider.”
“I wont be frightened off. Not by exploding buildings or by you.” she turned to face him, but wasn’t surprised that he was gone.