The Past Between Us. Kimberly Meter Van

wound, no matter how hard he tried.

      And now the devious woman had just proven she didn’t give a rip for anything they might’ve shared when they were young. So why the hell was he?

      He gave the studio one final sweep just in case she’d doubled back, though he instinctively knew she wouldn’t. But he wasn’t about to make another rookie mistake. He left because he knew Cassi wasn’t going to hang around this town much longer.

      And one thing was for sure, he was ending this night with Cassi in custody.

      CHAPTER TWO

      CASSI VACILLATED BETWEEN plain getting the hell out of the city with just the clothes on her back or returning to her tiny apartment to get a few things first. In the end, she decided—a bit fretfully—that she couldn’t skip town without her date book at the very least. It seemed a small thing but every little scrap of information she’d managed to pull together on Lionel Vissher was in that damn thing and she wasn’t about to let it get tossed in the trash when the landlord realized she’d bailed.

      So, against every screaming bit of intuition in her head, she returned to her place. But she eschewed the front walk up and opted for the fire escape instead, just in case someone was watching—and by someone she meant that cold-eyed stranger trying to pass himself off as a former friend.

      She jimmied the window and slid it open quietly. She always kept it unlocked for this very purpose. While most people might worry about their possessions, she didn’t own anything she couldn’t walk away from except for her date book and she doubted anyone looking for easy cash was going to zero in on the beaten-up old date book. It looked as if it’d been chewed up by a rabid dog and then run over by a semi.

      Forgoing the light, she made her way to the nightstand beside her bed, intent on getting her book and then racing out of there. She had already purchased a bus ticket for this very occasion, though admittedly, she hadn’t thought she was going to be using it quite this soon. She’d come to New York following a lead but it took time to ferret out details of Lionel’s life before he met her mom, and she’d only just started to flesh out her new identity so she hadn’t made contact yet with her mark.

      Just as her hand closed on the worn leather, the light flicked on, momentarily blinding her.

      “You really ought to be less sentimental,” a voice said, scaring the crap out of her in one breath and causing her to swear softly in the next. “If you’d split town you might’ve earned yourself another couple of months free and clear, but in the end, it’s always the mementos that get people.”

      She turned. “It’s not a memento. It’s the key to getting my life back,” she said evenly, pissed at herself for breaking one of her own rules—carrying her valuables with her at all times. She should’ve kept her date book in her backpack with the rest of her essentials but she’d left it behind this morning when she’d realized her backpack had ripped a seam. She’d planned on buying a new one.

      Tommy gestured and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. She eyed the stainless steel and lifted her chin. “Aren’t you even curious?” she asked.

      “No.”

      She made a face. “What happened to you? You used to have a heart. Being a cop has leached all the humanity out of you.”

      His expression didn’t change, and the fact that he was implacable as stone in spite of their history served to make her wish things had turned out differently between them, but it didn’t make her want to turn herself in. If she allowed Tommy to bring her in, Lionel would win and there was no way in hell she was going to let that happen. “So now what?” she asked, stalling for time.

      “I take you into custody and we drive to my field office in Pittsburgh, where I will turn you over to the proper authorities.”

      “Sounds like a walk in the park,” she said, then sighed. “Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.”

      He eyed her with suspicion. “So you’re willing to come quietly this time?” He glanced around the tiny apartment. “No windows you’re planning to crawl out of? Or maybe you have a trapdoor somewhere that drops you down to the first floor?”

      “Well, there is the trash chute but I don’t really like the idea of getting dirty,” she quipped. When her answer didn’t elicit even the tiniest of grins, she said, “Can you blame me? What would you’ve done in my situation?”

      “I’m not in your situation, nor would I be, so there’s no sense in trying out hypothetical scenarios.”

      Cassi glared. “I liked you better when you were a loner without friends.”

      A tiny muscle moved in his cheek and she wondered at it. Had she struck a nerve? It seemed cruel to remind him of how they met but he wasn’t making this any easier by acting like a robot. Well, what a waste of time anyway. She wasn’t sticking around to smooth out the edges of their reunion. Better to get this over with and deal with her hurt feelings later. Like when she was on a bus traveling far enough away to kick him off her trail.

      She came forward and put her wrists together in a show of surrender but she had no intentions of going quietly. In one of her identities she worked at a dojo. She and the instructor had a thing and she was a very able student. Suffice to say…she knew a few things that would come in handy right about now.

      “Turn around,” he instructed and she gave him a sad, wounded look that said she was hurt because he didn’t trust her. And if he were smart, he wouldn’t. But she had a hunch that he wasn’t as hard as he put on. There was a soft spot underneath all that marble and she was going to poke at it to her advantage. He seemed to weigh the options heavily and she almost thought she’d overestimated her ability to persuade him but he finally relented with a gruff admonishment, “If you try anything I will hog-tie you for the entire trip back. You got it?” and she knew she’d won.

      She bit her lip but nodded. “Scout’s honor.”

      Good thing she’d never been a Scout. Shame on Tommy. He should’ve remembered that.

      THOMAS CLICKED OPEN the handcuffs and came toward her, his gut reacting adversely to the lump of lead sitting in it. She looked scared, even though she was trying to hide it. She’d always tried to hide her true feelings from everyone, except him.

      A part of him was itching to know the details of her messed-up life but he kept that curiosity under lock and key. He didn’t need to know. When he looked at her he tried not to see the girl he’d fallen helplessly in love with back when they were kids. He’d been the quiet loner and she’d been the popular girl who attracted people like bees to honey. Gorgeous and wealthy, spoiled and willful, yet for whatever reasons, she’d befriended him during a time when nothing in his young life had seemed right. She might not have realized it but that one act of kindness had sealed her fate. And his, as well. By the time they reached high school, his heart had secretly belonged to her.

      She could’ve had it all. Hell, she practically already had at the age of sixteen. So when had it all gone to shit?

      Thomas advanced and as he prepared to click the handcuffs in place—his mind in all sorts of places but not focused as it should’ve been—he was taken off guard by what she did next.

      The woman clocked him.

      Painful stars burst behind his eyes and he crashed to the floor, but before he landed he grabbed blindly and by sheer luck managed to snag her sneakered foot, sending her tumbling to the worn carpet, as well. She landed with a soft grunt and tried to kick his hand free but he was already losing the birds flying around his head and he lunged at her. She turned into a kicking, scratching she-devil and it was all he could do to keep from getting her size nine in his face.

      “Let me go,” she demanded as they struggled, but he’d managed to put his full weight on top of her and the last part came out as an outraged gasp. She was shorter than him but at five foot nine she wasn’t a petite little thing. She’d always been curvy in all the right spots and if it