Page 21 of Big Bad Wolfe

“Okay, it’s okay, sweetie.” Jillian felt Casey’s forehead. “A little warm. Stomach flu is going around at the center. C’mon, pal, let’s get you cleaned up.”

The phone rang in the kitchen. “Zane could you please get that? Just take a message and tell them I’ll call back ASAP.”

“Sure.”

As he headed out, she scooped up Casey and carried him toward the stairs, turning briefly to address Zane. “Use the master bath in my room, and I’ll take him into the smaller bathroom. I’ll mop the floor after I take care of Casey. Oh, and you can put your messy stuff in the laundry room.”

Unknownblinked on the caller ID as Zane picked up the shrilling receiver. “Ramsay residence.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

Another long moment of silence.

Then a click and the call disconnected.

He shrugged. Wrong number, or maybe the caller had been surprised by a male voice answering Jillian’s phone.

He gingerly toed out of his shoes and peeled off his socks.Ugh.Damned good thing he wasn’t a sympathetic vomiter. He tiptoed to the laundry room off the kitchen, where he found a used towel in a hamper and wiped his feet and pant legs. He rinsed out his socks in the laundry sink, andwhat the hell, also rinsed his dress shoes under the running water and left them sitting on the floor on a newspaper. They were probably goners anyway.

After rolling up his pant legs, he backtracked barefoot to the front door, swabbing the hardwood floors with a mop dunked in a bucket of hot water and floor cleaner he found in the laundry closet. Jillian had plenty to deal with at the moment, no sense in leaving it for her.

He dumped and rinsed the bucket and mop, then dropped his socks and towels into the washing machine, figuring when she brought Casey’s clothes down they could run one load.

Upstairs, he tied his pants inside a garbage bag until he could take them to the nearest, fastest dry cleaner’s. He collected clean clothes, and strode into Jillian’s bedroom studiously avoiding looking at the plush, neatly-made bed.

Sudsing up inside the expansive sea-glass-tiled shower enclosure while breathing in her lingering erotic scent and visualizing her luscious curves … wet and soapy and slippery beneath his roving hands … forced him to again crank the water to icy shards.

Havin’ some fun now.

He toweled off before changing into jeans and a black T-shirt. As was his habit when traveling on Bureau business, he’d worn a suit and brought enough clothing to last a week, including his runners. He left the T-shirt untucked to cover the Beretta stuck in his back waistband. He didn’t want to wear the shoulder holster in the house in full view of Casey, but he wasn’t about to walk around unarmed.

By the time he jogged back downstairs, Jillian had Casey settled on the sofa in blue cotton summer pajamas, dozing with a pillow and blanket. A battered Han Solo action figure was clutched to his chest, and aStar Warsmovie had begun to play on the TV screen. Jillian had set the mop bucket on the floor beside the sofa pending another spontaneous eruption.

She met him halfway across the room. “Thanks so much for cleaning up down here,” she whispered. “It was really above and beyond.”

He kept his reply quiet also. “No problem.”

“I hate to ask, but could you do me a favor?”

“As long as it doesn’t involve kid-sitting, sure.”

“I need a few things from the grocery store, there’s one eight blocks south on Conch Avenue. Pedialyte, popsicles, strawberry Jell-O, ginger ale, and soda crackers. Want me to write it down?”

“Nah, I got it.”

“I’ll find my purse and give you some money.”

“Nah, got that, too.”

“You don’t—”

“I do. I can drop off my suit at a dry cleaner’s while I’m out. See you in a few. I won’t be long.”

He collected his suit and the Mini Cooper’s keys. He stopped short when he reached the driveway, the hair on the back of his neck prickling.

During the short interval they’d been home from the ice cream parlor, in broad daylight in the middle of a busy neighborhood, someone had slashed Jillian’s tires.

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