Kay David - Obsession

“Señorita Toussaint? Emma Toussaint?”

“Y-yes?” With a shaking hand, she pulled together the thick lapels of her housecoat. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He pushed the door back with one hand and stepped inside, forcing her backward. “We’re here to search your home,” he announced. “We’ve been told you have drugs.”

EMMA STARED at him in shock, unable to speak. When she finally found her voice, she wished she hadn’t. But it was too late; she couldn’t take back her astonished reply.

“Drugs? Here? Are you insane?”

His reaction wasn’t the one she expected. He smiled. “ No, señorita, no estoy loco. But you may be by the time we finish.”

The men behind him snickered at his wit, but Emma went silent with astonishment. He stalked arrogantly past her, then lifted his hand and waved it toward her living room, tilting his head to the man directly behind him. “You go in there.” Pointing in other directions, he told the rest of them to scatter, as well.

“Stop!” Terrified and shaking, Emma made her voice a strident screech. She had to act angry; to show her fear to these men could be a fatal flaw.

“You can’t do this! You can’t come in here and start searching like this.”

Unbelievably, no one paid her any attention. She could have been speaking Farsi for all the notice her words garnered. As if she didn’t exist, the policeman did as he was instructed and stomped over Emma’s silk rug to disappear into the darkness of the front room. Immediately something shattered.

Emma whirled and glowered at the man who’d stayed behind, the one in charge. “What do you think you’re doing? This is crazy! Who told you there were drugs here?”

“Our informants are confidential. You don’t need to know.” He lifted his weapon toward the second floor. “What’s up there?”

From the back of the house, the kitchen it seemed, came another crash. Ignoring the man beside her, Emma took two steps in that direction, then felt herself yanked back. She looked down, her jaw dropping open again, at the policeman’s hand on her arm.

“I asked you a question,” he said, roughly shaking her. “What’s upstairs?”

For a second she was stunned, then she recovered…and recoiled, jerking her arm. He held on tightly, his fingers digging sharply into her flesh. “Tell me!”

“It’s my bedroom.” Her heart racing, she spoke furiously. “Now turn me loose or-”

Without another word, he spun her around and shoved her toward the stairs. “Let’s go,” he said. “Right now.”

From over her shoulder, Emma stared at him in a daze. His eyes were narrow and small, and his expression held only grim determination. “Go!”

Emma took the stairs as slowly as possible, buying herself time. She had to think! She had to have a plan! Nothing came except panic, and by the time they reached the second floor, she could hardly breathe her chest was so tight.

Another clatter from downstairs sounded as they entered her bedroom. Emma flinched at the noise, the smell of her perfume sickeningly sweet as it wafted into the bedroom from the bath she’d been filling when the police arrived. She turned to the man behind her, her stomach cramping in fear. “Look all you want. You’re not going to find a thing.”

He hesitated just a second-long enough to make her mouth go even drier-then he walked to her dresser and pulled out the first drawer. Dumping the contents-her T-shirts and shorts-onto the floor, he kicked them around with one booted foot, then went to the next drawer. In a matter of minutes, all of her clothing lay in a jumble on the carpet beneath his feet.

He bent down and ran his hand along the interior of the now-exposed piece of furniture. There was nothing there, and he straightened a moment later. In short order, he ripped through the rest of her bedroom, pulling the sheets from the mattress, turning it upside down, going through everything in her desk.

She stood by helplessly and watched, her heart threatening to leap from between her ribs, her hands clamped at her sides. Starting toward her bathroom, he stopped abruptly when a shout from downstairs could be heard.

“¡Jefe-baje! ¡Immediatamente!” Chief-come downstairs! Right now!

He sent her a look of pure satisfaction, using his gun to gesture toward the stair, and smirked. “Let’s go, señorita. To see what my men have not found.”

“There’s nothing down there.”

“Then you have nothing to fear. Pase, por favor.”

With a faint buzz in her ears, Emma headed for the stairs. The policeman was right behind her; she could smell him, onions and beer and unwashed clothing. Her agitation mingled with his odor, and her stomach threatened to erupt. At the very last minute, she managed to fight the nausea.

The dissonance of the men’s voices led them to Emma’s kitchen. As she stepped through the doorway, she gasped, her gaze taking in the havoc they’d created in their search. One man, standing in the middle of it all, caught her attention. His voice was gleeful.

“¡Mire, Jefe! See what I found!”

Shock stole Emma’s breath. She told herself to breathe, told herself to stay calm. But any chance she had at composure was hijacked by cold, stark horror as, with a triumphant grin, the policeman held up a plastic bag.

It was full of something white and powdery.

THERE WERE NO LIGHTS ON inside the house; it probably didn’t have electricity, Raul surmised. Sitting outside the hovel belonging to the man who’d planted the bug in Emma’s bag, Raul took a chance and lit his small cigar, cupping his hand around the flame to hide it from sight. He had planned on stopping by the barrio one way or the other, but this had worked out just fine. It made no sense to go home; he had too much on his mind to sleep.

With Emma’s scent still on his hands and her voice lingering in his mind, he couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate. The smoke from the cigar drifted up in a wisp before his face, as he thought about what that signified.

It’d been a long time since a woman had meant anything to him, such a long time he wasn’t sure that was what he was experiencing. The weekend had been a revelation to him, though. Emma Toussaint was a special person, and she had all the qualities he would have looked for in a woman in his other life. Intelligence. Honesty. Passion. He could actually love her, he realized with a start, if that was what he was looking for.

The first time they’d made love it’d been purely physical. This time something else had happened, something he hadn’t wanted. He’d felt himself drawn to Emma in an emotional way. He cared what happened to her, cared if she got her children back, cared if she got tangled up in Kelman’s web.

His eyes on the house before him, Raul pulled deeply on the cigar, the smoke filling his lungs with a sharp bite. He’d give it another five minutes, then he’d go inside.

Maybe by then, he’d have Emma out of his mind and back in the place where she belonged. He wasn’t sure where that was-but it could not be his heart.

THE HANDCUFFS cut into her wrists with a cold metallic bite. Emma squirmed against their clasp and told herself it didn’t matter, but she failed. Their pinch did hurt, and she was terrified. Sitting in the back of a Bolivian police car was the last place she had ever imagined being, and the drug search they’d conducted to get her there was too stunning even to consider. The enormity of it all had barely begun to sink in, and she knew why: denial was her only hope, at this point. Otherwise, she’d collapse.

There was only one problem. Her refusal to accept the situation wasn’t working.