Julie Walker - Born Wild

He stopped because Eve’s face, naturally pale, had turned as white as the potassium perchlorate he used when making explosive primers.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

“D-Dale,” she said, her pulse hammering at the base of her throat. Seeing it caused every cell in Bill’s body to go on high alert. Somewhere inside him a red light was flashing and an alarm was blaring.

“What about the bastard?” he demanded, sitting up straighter, barely recognizing his own voice.

“He’s a…” She licked her lips. “He’s a volunteer firefighter. And he…he does a lot of training with the CFD.”

And just like that, rage exploded inside Bill with the force of a bunker buster. Because even though he and Eve weren’t exactly simpatico, the fact remained that nobody, and he meant nobody, got away with attempting to turn her into a crispy critter.

“Let’s go get him,” he said, his molars aching with the force of his grinding jaw.

“But…but…” Eve blinked rapidly when he pushed up from the table, ready to put an extra hole in Dale WhoTheFuck’s head. “Shouldn’t we bring this to the police? Or…or the fire department? Or—”

“You mean the same police who’ve already closed the files on your cases?” he snarled, blowing like a raging bull. Luckily no one at the table was wearing red. “Or the CFD that incorrectly identified your condo fire’s point of origin? You think they’re going to listen to a couple of motorcycle mechanics?”

“Oh,” Eve said, clueing in to their perilous situation. “I see.” Then she shook her head. “But you’re friends with the police chief, right? Couldn’t you—”

“Yeah,” this time it was Mac who cut in, “and we want to stay friends with him. Which means we can’t have him orderin’ his subordinates to reinvestigate closed cases based simply on the hunches of a couple of guys from the local motorcycle club.”

“Okay,” she admitted, “but maybe Jeremy—”

“Love, your cousin would be as useless now as he has been all along,” Ace interrupted, and a delicate muscle began to tick in Eve’s jaw. “These aren’t his cases. Hell, this isn’t even his department.”

Used to be, Bill didn’t think Eve owned a temper. Now he’d go so far as to describe it as, not necessarily hot, but certainly warm. And after Mac told him how she’d stood up to her father earlier? Well, for some reason it just made her all the more desirable. Like he needed any more reasons. Damnit all to hell…

“We’re just going to go watch Dale for a while. See if he does anything hinky, anything that we can give Chief Washington as ammunition to reopen your cases,” Bill assured her, even though there was a large part of him that would’ve preferred storming into the man’s house and shoving a pistol against his temple until he spilled his guts. Then again, he wasn’t on the battlefield. This was a civilian issue that required a civilian response. Although…even in a civilian situation there was still some room for a little shock and awe if the need arose.

The anticipation of getting his mitts on Dale caused a smile to curve to his lips.

“Oh, goody.” Ace rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Anytime you get that look I know there are fun times ahead…”

Dale Pennyworth’s Townhouse

9:35 p.m.

“What do you mean I’m staying here?” Eve demanded, glaring out the rear passenger side window of the Hummer at Dale’s broad back as he lumbered down the sidewalk. There he was, pretty as you please, probably strolling down to the corner market to pick up milk or beer or cheese puffs like he hadn’t tried to kill her on three separate occasions.

Well…maybe. She still had trouble picturing Dale pouring fuel under her door and setting a match to it. Because, sure, he was mustache creepy, but he’d never really come off as murderer creepy.

Then again, she’d been wrong about people before. Her ex-husband for one…

“The restraining order you have against him specifies a fifty-foot buffer,” Billy said, fiddling with something in the mid-sized black duffel bag on his lap.

“That says he can’t come within fifty feet of me,” she insisted as Mac checked the clip on a…she squinted from backseat…it looked like a Glock 22 .40 caliber. And rock on! Her shooting instructor would be so proud of her! “It doesn’t say anything about me staying away from him.”

“Same difference,” Billy muttered, tossing the bag into the back seat with her. Whatever was inside made a clanking noise when it landed, rattling her already frayed nerves.

“But I want to see what he’s up to just the same as you,” she declared, scowling at Billy when he swiveled in the driver’s seat to frown back at her. “I think I deserve that much after all he’s put me through.”

That, and the fact that she was trying to be tough. And as far as she could figure, being “tough” meant she couldn’t very well sit out here while Billy and Mac ran around doing the dirty work. That’s what the old Eve would’ve done, and she’d been vigorously endeavoring to leave that milksop of a woman behind.

“Did you miss the part where we’re loading our weapons?” Bill demanded. “This guy could be headed out to catch a movie, or he could be headed out to light another fire in some woman’s house. In which case, we’ll be required to apprehend him. And at that point, since we’ll have already gotten our hands dirty with him, we might as well take the opportunity to make him confess.”

“By make him confess I’m assuming you mean force him to confess,” she said, her lips pursed.

“Naturally,” Billy nodded, thumbing off the safety on his weapon. “After all, we’re the ones with the guns.”

“Ever think of just asking him?” she inquired, batting her lashes.

Billy stopped fiddling with the Glock to look up and gape at her, one brow climbing steadily up his forehead. “Just asking him? What are you? Canadian?”

She pursed her lips. “I just don’t want to see you guys get into any trouble over this. If he does something hinky, as you put it, couldn’t you just turn him over to the police and have him arrested for suspicious activity or something? They could question him, detain him, and keep him from being a threat to me or anyone else.”

“You mean the same CPD who have had their heads shoved up their asses since day one where you’re concerned?” His tone was bland. “The same CPD that botched the fire’s point of origin?”

“That was the CFD,” she stressed.

“Whatever,” he waved a hand. “The fact remains that they’ve dismissed the attempts on your life without even questioning your stalker, and—”

“Yes,” she harrumphed. “Jeremy was pretty upset about that.”

“And I can see why. It’s shoddy work. So, to say my faith in doing this thing by the books is at a rock-bottom low would be putting it mildly. In case you haven’t noticed, your life is on the line here, Eve. Which means I’m not just willing to bend the rules; I’m willing to break every last one.”

His words sent a surge of warmth through her entire body. “But what if Dale sees you guys? Or what if you do wind up questioning him—illegally, I might add—and he has you arrested?”

“Never going to happen,” Bill shook his head, smiling. “We’ve got the Chicago Police Chief on our side.”

Yep, they’d mentioned this Washington person on more than one occasion. “What’s your relationship with him?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. Visions of Mac and Billy being loaded into a paddy wagon and carted off to the clink ran through her head. Although…were paddy wagons even a thing anymore?

“Let’s just say he’s one of the very few people living here in Chicago who is privy to BKI’s true calling, and he owes us a couple of favors. So stop worrying. Sit tight. Stay quiet. And let us take care of this, will you? You know, you’re lucky I let you come at all. I should’ve made you stay with Ace.”

And, boy, oh boy, all the warmth brought on by his earlier words was instantly replaced by ice-cold indignation. Because if he thought Ace had put up a good fight when he’d been required to stay back at BKI headquarters to answer any calls that might come in from the Knights currently out in the field, he’d have been shocked to his core by the fit she’d have thrown had he tried to make her hang back. “Oh, yeah?” she nodded, channeling a little of her best friend, Becky, and smiling sarcastically, “over my dead body.”

His face hardened, and a muscle started ticking in his wide jaw. “Yes, Eve,” he said, his voice quiet. Deadly quiet. “Your dead body, or the fact that we’re trying to keep you from being one, is exactly why we’re here. Now, you stay in the Hummer until we get back. You got me?”

She glared at him, nostrils flaring, breath sawing from her lungs. She wasn’t the same girl she’d been twelve years ago. She could do this. She could. But he’d never see her as anything more than that shy, bumbling, backbone-less eighteen-year-old. And that bothered her even more than all the things Dale Pennyworth had done to her.

“Nod your head so I know you understand,” he demanded, reaching back to grab her knee, his dark eyes, even in the dimly lit interior of the vehicle, were diamond-bright, flashing with conviction.

All the bravado she’d donned threatened to abandon her—especially with his warm palm burning a hole straight through her jeans—but she refused to let him see it. Instead, she narrowed her eyes and jerked her chin in a quick nod. And even though she was conceding—what other choice did she have?—she made very sure the look on her face called him a stubborn, autocratic, tyrannical A-hole.