An Eye for Danger by Christine M. Fairchild Page B

kitchen in my Cal boxer shorts looked even sillier than his plan to return to the arson site sounded. Not that I'd minded the vision of pure masculinity stomping around my apartment. I was reserved, not dead.
    His fingers hooked the door frame of the front room, halting his retreat. "I'll catch a cab."
    "You don't have any money on you."
    "I'll hitchhike." He nodded, thinking he'd gotten the upper hand.
    "Your thug buddy will be expecting you."
    "Not at a crime scene crawling with cops." Sam's boyish grin shot down my fury.
    "Then the cops will find you and blow your cover. You're not exactly inconspicuous with that hunch. Or stumbling around in your underwear."
    Sam looked down, like he'd forgotten he was half-naked. The grin faded.
    "Wherever and whatever you hid, Sam, it can wait."
    "Not exactly." He rubbed his forehead. God only knew what type of evidence he'd risk his life for, but that impish grin told me I didn't want the details. "Hidden, yes. In a dumpster. The cops will search them all eventually. Or worse."
    "Worse, as in your buddy gets there first."
    "Worse." He squinted."As in no one gets there in time."
    Then it dawned on me: dumpster, as in waste management.
    "Collection day? Jesus, Sam."
    "Hey, I was in a hurry not to get shot. And I didn't expect to sleep for two days."
    "So let the cops find the evidence. I'll call in an anonymous tip."
    "They get this, and we're all cooked." He bit his lip before elaborating about what I desperately wanted to know: why he trusted cops even less than I did. "Look, my partner's waiting for the handoff."
    "So send your partner to do the pickup instead." By now I'd backed him up as far as the bed, and he'd pulled his gun from the nightstand drawer.
    "Can't, we've gone dark." Checking the chamber seemed habitual for Sam, and he repeated the act twice while we talked. "That means—"
    "I know what it means. Radio silence, no communications, no contact. My answer's still no." As if he needed my permission. "Walk out that door and you'll get yourself killed. And completely blow your case."
    "Nothing like the threat of death to wake you up in the morning." He gathered the oversize Cal sweats I'd donated to the cause. "Anyway, doesn't matter what happens to me. They'll dump my body in a river. Or in a dumpster for irony. Nobody'll ever know."
    I yanked the sweats from his hand. " I'll know."
    Sam looked me in the eye for a lengthy moment.
    Max barked and gave a play bow, as if Sam and I were playing tug of war.
    "Not now," I snapped at my dog.
    Sam glared at me on Max's behalf, and I slumped on the bed, guilt and frustration washing over me.
    "It's just me now, Jules. This is my job. The fires won't stop. And a lot of folks will get killed if I don't go. One of me versus a hundred innocents. That's a no-brainer. And, frankly," he said, looking down at Max, "this job's all I got."
    Great. Nothing spelled hopeless like a man with no one to live for.
    I released the sweats to him. Sam finished dressing, zipping the hoodie in a prolonged slide, as I leaned onto my knees. God, what a coward I was. He'd dare ten blocks with broken ribs to save people he didn't know, when I couldn't dare five.
    "I'll go." The words flew out my mouth so fast I hadn't time to consider their consequences. Yet what came to mind was not Bear Man attacking me, but that I'd just volunteered to roll around in a trash bin after two showers to remove yesterday's stench. "Nobody knows me. I can be inconspicuous."
    "Absolutely not." With effort he pushed off the bed and hobbled to the kitchen. The meds had softened the pain, but he still grabbed for his ribs when he inhaled deeply.
    "Easy in, easy out," I echoed.
    "Nope and nope. Should've never gotten you involved in the first place."
    "Your partner's still out there counting on you, Sam. Going solo you'll never make it to the scene, let alone back to safety." I ran to slip between Sam's hunched frame and the front door where he'd leaned, waiting for his lungs to