Right up until he’d broken the whole case wide open and helped the Intelligence Unit catch a killer.
“Xander? What are you doing here?” Tara blurted, her cheeks instantly heating at her lack of decorum.
“It’s nice to see you, too, Ms. Kingston.” The muscle that pulled across Xander’s unfairly chiseled jawline translated the words into a lie, but Tara didn’t have the time or inclination to apologize for her iffy brain-to-mouth filter before he continued. “I’m here because it’s my job. And if you have any information on this assault, I’m going to need you to stay here to make a statement.”
“No.”
“Pardon me?”
Okay, so that might’ve come out a liiiiiittle bit strong. But—no, no, no—the paramedics already had Amour in the back of the ambulance and were less than two minutes away from getting out of there, and Tara needed to be with her, to make sure she got anything she could possibly need.
To make sure she didn’t die.
She scooped in a deep breath. “I need to stay with Amour. She’s my responsibility.”
“You are aware that this wasn’t an accident, right?” Xander asked, his dark brown brows lifted so high that they nearly disappeared into his just-long-enough-to-look-hot-instead-of-scruffy hairline.
But not even his hotness, which had grown exponentially since she’d last seen him (along with his shoulders, holy shit) was going to distract her right now.
“Since I was on the phone with her right after it happened, yes. I’m very aware of that.”
Funny, he seemed totally unmoved by her Lawyer Voice. “Then you’re also aware that if you were on the phone with her right after this happened, you really need to give a statement as soon as possible so we can try to find the bastard who hurt her.”
And shit. “She doesn’t have any family nearby, and she won’t trust anyone else. I need to be with her in case she needs something,” Tara said, even though Xander wasn’t entirely wrong.
As if he’d sensed her blip of hesitation, he doubled down, his arms crossing over the front of his body armor. “You need to stay.”
“Why don’t we do this,” said the other officer, a petite Black woman who clearly outranked Xander, if the way he’d just lowered his chin was any indicator. Not that it erased his high-level frown. “I’m going to take a gamble and guess Amour is working something active with you right now. Is that correct?”
The officer, whose nameplate read L. Dade, kept her voice barely above a murmur, and Tara nodded.
“That means we do need to act quickly, since we all want the same thing, which is to catch the person who hurt her. At the same time”—Dade lifted a hand to silence the argument that Tara had been concocting, and whoa, that was a powerful, Mom-level, don’t-even-think-about-interrupting-me stare—“you are her point of contact, Ms. Kingston, and she’s probably going to want a familiar face at the hospital once she’s cared for.”
Tara swallowed. “She’s going to be terrified.” Neither Dade nor Xander argued, making Tara’s stomach clench. “She’s barely eighteen. I really need to go.”
This time, Dade sent The Stare at Xander, who looked primed to argue, before saying, “And we really do need a statement…which Officer Matthews is going to get from you before he escorts you to Remington Memorial.”
Xander’s mouth fell open for a split second before he recovered. “You want me to take her statement and escort her to Remington Mem?”
“I do.” Dade moved over to the ambulance, thumping the back door twice with her palm to signal an all clear and send the paramedics on their way. “It’s going to take the doctors a while to work on Amour, and I know Tess Riley personally. She’s the best emergency physician going, but she’s not going to let anyone see Amour until they’re done, so you have a little time to spare. And since you”—she slid a glance at Xander, who was looking more and more displeased by the minute—“seem to know Ms. Kingston already, you can take her statement and bring her to the hospital. I’ll call Sergeant Sinclair to get the Intelligence Unit involved and wait here for the crime scene unit I’m sure he’ll roll out. Matthews, you and Ms. Kingston should keep your eyes open for whichever detectives he sends to Mem to get them in the loop. Did I miss anything?”
Tara blinked. “No,” she said slowly. “Sinclair knows Amour. She gave us the intel that led to a huge arrest, and she’s supposed to testify in six weeks against a guy who wouldn’t hesitate to try to hurt her to shut her up.”
A frown formed at the corners of Dade’s mouth. “I’ll be sure to let him know you’re making a statement and that you’ll be headed to the hospital.”
“Thank you,” Tara said, then turned toward Xander. “Can we get this over with so I can go?”
She heard her impatience only after it had left her mouth, biting her lip even though it was too late to trap the words so she could rearrange them into something more polite. “I mean, I just—”
“I get it.” Lifting one shoulder partway before letting it drop, he gestured to the police cruiser parked in front of the house. “We can do this in the car, if you want. It’s probably more comfortable there. Cooler, and all.”
In that moment, Tara realized that her blouse was plastered to her body in no less than three places, two of which were her underarms and the third being the too-curvy bust she did her best to hide under normal circumstances.
Xander, of course, looked totally unfazed by the heat even though he had Kevlar molded to half his beautiful body.
“Fine,” she said, making her chin stay level even though she wanted nothing more than to blush her way into the ground. Xander led the way to the cruiser, popping the passenger side door before moving around the vehicle to the driver’s side, and Tara sent up a tiny prayer of thanks that the trip kept him from hearing her near-orgasmic moan as the cool interior air hit her skin.
Situating his lean frame in the driver’s seat, he pulled out a notepad and pen. “Okay. Why don’t we start with where you were when Amour called you tonight?”
“Work,” Tara said, as automatically as breathing. “Well, I guess technically, I was leaving work. I was on my way to my car, outside the DA’s office, downtown.”
Xander was all concentration as he wrote. “And what time was this?”
“Nine thirty. Maybe a few minutes after.”
Something that looked a lot like surprise flickered through his light green stare, but he didn’t give it voice. “What did she say?”
“I knew right away that something was wrong,” Tara said, a chill skating over her forearms at the memory of how Amour’s voice had trembled. “She sounded frightened. She asked me to help her.”
Tara’s voice caught on the last two words, and damn it, she couldn’t lose control over this. Not now, and definitely not in front of Xander, who suddenly had the patience of a saint to go with those sinful shoulders.
She cleared her throat and mentally kicked her own ass. “I put her on hold and dialed nine-one-one, then patched her through. I was worried she couldn’t do it on her own, and I didn’t want to lose her.”