The Intelligence Unit Series

All the emotion Tara had managed to tamp down came rushing up in full force, taking the last shred of her decorum with it.

"Tell me she's okay," she said past her heart, which was lodged firmly in her throat and pounding like a jackhammer.

The woman-Dr. Riley, according to the name stitched on her white doctor's coat-took a lightning-fast look at Tara before saying, "I'm going to assume you're Tara?"

At Tara's nod, Dr. Riley continued. "Amour said you'd probably be assertive."

All the air left Tara's lungs on a rush of relief. She's not dead. Not like Lucas. "She said that?"

"Actually, her exact words were, 'She's probably going to lose her shit if you don't go get her', but I figured assertive works, too," the doctor said over a smile. "For the record, assertive is my favorite quality, and yes, Amour is okay. She's a pretty tough cookie." "What can you tell us about her injury?" Detective Garza asked, his dark eyes as serious as his expression.

Dr. Riley wasted no time ushering them past a set of double doors and farther into the ED for privacy. "She's awake and stable, although she's pretty woozy and obviously shaken. She didn't say much about what happened, and I didn't want to agitate her by pushing until I ruled out a skull fracture or more serious brain injury. All signs point to no on both of those right now, but I called in a neuro consult, just to be safe." She directed the gentler words at Tara before putting some frost into her tone. "Whoever assaulted her knew what they were doing. Amour sustained blunt force trauma to the right temple resulting in a moderate concussion, along with some lesser-degree facial trauma to the nose and contusions to her neck and upper extremities."

Tara's gut bottomed out in dread. "He choked her before he hit her?"

"Son of a bitch," Isabella bit out. "So, whoever did this was a lot stronger than she is?"

"And taller, too," Dr. Riley agreed. "From the angle of the shot to the temple, I'd say your assailant is at least six inches taller than Amour, and that's a minimum."

"So, probably male," Garza said.

"And left-handed," Xander pointed out, and Isabella nodded.

"That's likely, given that Amour's worst injury is to her right temple.Any idea if he used a weapon for the shot to the head?"

Dr. Riley's frown grew. "He definitely used something other than his fists. I can't be a hundred percent sure what, but in my expert medical opinion...it looks like a pretty classic pistol-whip."

Oh, God.

Tara must've spoken the gut-clenching words out loud, because Xander shot her one of those calm, cool, everything's going to be okay gazes, just as he had before he'd thrown her for a loop with that rubber duck story. "But you said she's okay now?"

"The neurology resident was with her when I left, but she's stable. At this point, I'd feel more comfortable keeping her until morning, just to be on the safe side and make sure she keeps to the concussion protocol. It wouldn't hurt for someone from psych to try to talk to her, too. Trauma victims don't just have to heal from their physical injuries."

"I want to stay with her," Tara said. Amour was tough, but God, Dr. Riley was right. The poor girl had just been assaulted in her own house. Tara might hate hospitals with the red-hot intensity of a thousand fiery suns, but... "I don't want her to be alone. Plus, once Sansone finds out he didn't kill her, who knows what he might try to do."

Garza swapped looks with Isabella, but Tara didn't know either detective well enough to read between the unspoken lines. "Let's take this one step at a time. We have to prove it was Sansone first. Tess, do you think Amour is up for an interview? The sooner we do this, the sooner we can start figuring out who hurt her."

"It'll have to be quick, and if she gets too overwhelmed, we'll have to cut it off. I know she's tough, but I also know I don't need to remind you she's had a hell of a night."

"Understood," Isabella said. Turning toward Xander, she asked, "You sticking around to sharpen your victim interview skills, Matthews?"

"Yes, ma'am." His nod sent the weirdest shot of relief through Tara's chest. "I'd like to see this one through, as long as that's alright with you."

Garza jerked his chin. "Never hurts to learn, but do us a favor, both of you, and let us do our job? This case in under Intelligence's jurisdiction until we can make an arrest."

Tara bristled, but before she could tell Tall, Dark, and Broody exactly where he could shove his jurisdiction, Isabella said, "I think what Garza, here, is trying to say in his own charming way is, we really have to be sure we do this by the book. Especially if Sansone is involved. The last thing we want to do is give his lawyer any sort of technicality to hang a dismissal on."

And Sansone's attorney was the slimiest defense lawyer dirty money could buy. Shit. "Understood," Tara muttered.

"Okay," Dr. Riley said, leading them toward an exam room at the far end of the hallway. "I'll stick to the background in case she needs anything. Try to be quick?"

"Of course," Isabella promised. Turning toward Tara, she said, "You're good for this, right?"

Tara nodded even though her heart was screaming to the contrary. "I have to be. Amour needs an advocate. I won't let her down."

With that, she headed past the exam room door and slid the privacy curtain aside. Her pulse took an immediate roller coaster ride at the sight of Amour on the gurney in the center of the room, the dim lights casting dark shadows beneath her eyes, deepening the bruises already forming there. Her blond hair was matted and pulled back, yielding to the mass of gauze covering the right side of her face, and Tara choked down the noise her throat wanted to make.

"Hey, Amour," she murmured, marshaling her voice to steadiness she sure as shit didn't feel. "Are you up for visitors?"

The young woman blinked her eyes open, looking startled. "Tara?"

"It's me," Tara assured her, moving swiftly to the gurney to scoop up Amour's hand. Damn it, she was trembling. "I'm right here with Detectives Walker and Garza, from Intelligence. Do you remember them?" Amour bit her lip. "Yeah." Her eyes darted to Xander, who had hung back behind Isabella. "I remember you, too. You were there. Holding my head, after."

Xander took one step forward, but still stayed far from Amour's personal space. "Yes, ma'am. Officer Matthews. Would it be okay with you if I stay while you talk to the detectives? I'd really like to make sure you're alright."

"Oh." Amour blinked, then lifted a too-thin shoulder partway before letting it drop. "Sure, I guess. I'm fine, but whatever."

"You gave us a bit of a scare, kid," Garza said as he moved to Amour's other side, his gruff demeanor replaced by a look of empathy so deep, it shocked Tara. "How are you feeling?"

"I just want to get this over with," she said, her hand starting to shake again despite the steel she'd tried to put in her voice.

A frown flickered over Garza's face, and yeah, that made two of them. "Okay. Can you tell us what happened?"

"I don't remember anything," Amour said, her words nearly crashing into Garza's, and okay, something about this didn't wash.

"You just said you remember Officer Matthews," Tara pointed out, ignoring the way Garza's jaw tightened beneath his five o'clock shadow. For Chrissake, she'd graduated in the top ten in her class at Stanford. She wasn't going to ask anything that would give Sansone's lawyer, as scummy as the guy was, an advantage.

Amour paused. "I don't remember anything about the guy who did this."

"Except that it was a guy," Isabella said. Gently, she added, "Amour, we want to help you."

"Well, you can't," she said, her eyes filling with angry tears, and in that instant, it clicked.

"He threatened you."

At Amour's wide-eyed stare in reply, Tara continued, "Amour, listen to me. If Sansone did this to you, we can go to the judge and get an order of protection. With your testimony, we can—"

"It wasn't him."

Tara tried again. "Amour, I know you're-"

"Tara, you're not listening. It wasn't him."

"But someonethreatened you," Garza said, and Amour finally eked out a tiny nod.

"This guy was big. Bigger than Sansone. Like you." Her stare flickered over Garza before dropping to the thin blanket draped over her lap. The detective had to be six foot two, and he'd definitely eaten his Wheaties as a kid, because damn, he wasn't coming up short in the muscles department. "I was in the kitchen, getting a drink. I've been working a lot of late nights, so I wanted to crash early, but then I heard footsteps on the porch. I barely had time to turn around before the door came crashing in."

Amour paused for a shaky breath. "I ran to my bedroom. I know it was dumb, but he was blocking the front door, so it's not like I could get out that way, and my phone was on my nightstand, charging. He caught me before I could get toit, though."

This time, her pause lapsed into silence, which Garza filled with, "You're doing great, Amour. This is giving us a really good idea of what happened."

Whether the encouragement worked or she just wanted to be done with her statement, Tara couldn't tell. But Amour kept going. "He grabbed me by the tops of my arms and hit me once in the face, really hard. I was so surprised, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even scream. It was like I was just stuck there. So stupid."

"That's a very common reaction," Isabella offered gently. "And it's very likely that he hit you for just that reason-because he knew you'd probably freeze. Did you manage to get a good look at him?"

"No." She shrugged. "He was wearing a ski mask and a hoodie. Maybe jeans? I don't remember."

"That's okay," Garza said. "What about his hands? Could you tell what color his skin was?"

Recognition lit Amour's eyes, and Tara squeezed her fingers in encouragement. "He was wearing gloves, but when he grabbed me, the cuffs of his hoodie slid up a little. He was white, and I could see a tattoo. Not a lot, but it had numbers. What do you call them, when you keep count with those lines?"

"Hash marks?" Tara supplied, and Amour nodded, just once before realizing her concussion made it the worst sort of idea.

"Yeah. I tried to get away from him, but he put his hands around my throat and squeezed, just enough to make it hard to breathe unless I was really still. And he said..."

Amour broke off, the tears that had been hanging on to her lashes finally spilling over her face. "I can't. I can't tell you." She looked at Tara. "I'm sorry."

Tara's heart vaulted against her breastbone, and she fought for composure. "Amour, listen to me. We can keep you safe. Whatever he said—"

"You can't," she insisted, pulling her hand out of Tara's, her defenses locked and loaded in her glare. "You don't understand. He knows where I live. Where I work. What I did! He's fucking crazy, Tara. Nobody can keep me safe from that but me. I'm not telling you what he said, and I'm not testifying in court. I'm done with all of it."

Oh, no. No, no. "Amour-"

"Save your breath, girl."

"Amour," Isabella tried. "No!"

The half-shout was enough to snare Dr. Riley's attention. "Okay, that's enough. Either we get a whole lotmore chill about this or interview time is over."

Tara battled the panic starting to rise in her chest. Amour wouldn't be safe unless they got this guy and Sansone-who had surely hired or bribed this guy to scare her-behind bars, permanently, and without Amour's cooperation, they were screwed. She had to do something, God, anything, to get her to talk. "Amour-"

"It's pretty scary, isn't it?"

Xander's voice slipped through the tension in the room, surprising the hell out of Tara.

Amour, too, if the look on her face was anything to go by. "What?"

"I said, it's pretty scary, being threatened like you were tonight." He stepped a little further out of the shadows, but still didn't come close to Amour's personal space, as if he wanted to give her literal room to breathe.

She eyed him with tough disdain. "What do you know about it? You're a fucking cop."

"I'm also a Northie, born and raised. And I know exactly what you're feeling, because two years ago, I was in the same situation."

Amour eyed him with a solid dose of mistrust, but enough curiosity flickered through her stare that no one intervened. "You're a Northie?"

"Lived on The Hill for most of my life. Sullivan Street," he added, and Amour's brows lifted.

"In that apartment building by thepark?"

"Where all the junkies hang out at night," Xander confirmed. "And the pawn shop on the corner, by Old Lou's market."

Amour remained wary, but she kept talking. "I know it. Old Lou's not bad."

"He used to give me and my sister milk on the expiration day when we were tight on money. He's a good guy. Mean as a snake if you mess with his candy displays, though."

"So, what happened to you?" Amour asked, and Tara had to admit her curiosity was burning through her, too.

Xander said, "I got jammed up with someone I shouldn't have-you know how it is. You've gotta make a living, and you can't look sideways in North Point without your eyes landing on someone with crappy intentions."

Amour huffed out a laugh, although it carried very little joy. "Yeah. I don't exactly love wearing a leather bustier and getting groped for shitty tips, but..."

She shrugged off the rest, and Xander filled in the blanks all too smoothly. "You don't exactly have great options. So, you keep your head down and try to make things work. But then a guy like Ricky Sansone comes along, doing all sorts of nasty stuff to people, and the next thing you know, you're in over your head."

Isabella and Garza seemed all too happy to let Xander go with the lead he'd so smoothly taken, and Tara watched, half-mesmerized, as Amour nodded.

"He was hurting people, putting guns on the street. North Point is bad enough, you know? Most of us have enough shit to worry about without having to dodge bullets, so when I saw the chance to put him away..."

She broke off. Xander's expression never wavered, as if he had nothing in the world more important to do than sit there and wait until she was ready to keep going.

And she did. "But I was supposed to be safe. I didn't sign on for this." She waved a hand around the exam room. Xander took a careful step forward until he was right beside the gurney, never dropping eye contact with her.

"Believe me, I get it. I have the scars to prove it, too." Rolling up his right uniform sleeve, he revealed a two-inch burn scar that made Tara's heart race. "I was scared out of my head the whole time."

"But you got out," Amour said, with just enough curiosity for Xander to take the opening she'd given him.

"I did, but in order to make it work, I had to do something that scared me almost more than the person who did this to me. I had to be honest with these guys." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in Isabella and Garza's direction. "Look, none of us can tell you what to do. What you say or don't say in this interview is entirely up to you. But I can tell you this. Telling these detectives the truth saved my life, and I know that if you're honest with them, they'll do everything in their power to save yours."

The silence that stretched through the exam room felt like it lasted for a month before Amour broke it with, "Would...would you help them keep me safe for real? If I wanted to talk, I mean."

Tara's chest tightened with hope, and it took every single shred of her self-control not to interject.

"These detectives are the real pros, Amour," Xander said, looking at Garza and Isabella with a nod. "But if I can help them in any way, I will."

"I'm here, too." Tara squeezed Amour's hand. "I promise."

Letting out a slow breath, Amour said, "Okay. I'll tell you everything."