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She glanced back over her shoulder again and saw him smirking at her. There was a faint glimmer of heat in his eyes, though, and she was pleased that he was interested. A bit of harmless flirting was always fun. And Barnes was rock solid. He had no black marks in his jacket; no ex-wives; no restraining orders from ex-girlfriends. He’d been honorably discharged from the Army a few years ago and settled down in Rapid City as opposed to his native California.
Izzy briefly wondered about “Sioux Falls” and whether or not the woman was his girlfriend. She wondered how serious it was. ‘Not the marrying kind’ he’d been quoted as telling his friends, which suited Izzy just fine. She was no home wrecker. She didn’t know how long she’d be in town, though, and it couldn’t hurt to blow off a little steam after working hours with one of RCPD’s finest—and she did mean finest—officers so long as he was solid and so long as he wasn’t married.
“How serious are—shit,” she muttered. Izzy halted on the sidewalk as she spied the slightly cracked door to her room. She’d closed the door firmly when she’d left, but this shithole—the only shithole she could really afford—didn’t have a key-card entry system. It had never been updated from the old-fashioned pass-key ringed to a scratched, plastic card with her room number painted on it. Caleb swept up behind her, obviously having spotted the breach of non-existent security at the same time she had. With one arm outstretched, he shuffled her back a step even as he reached for the doorknob with his other hand.
“Stay here,” he told her firmly. Then thinking better of it, he said, “Go back to your car.”
He pushed open the door and scanned the main room.
Izzy spotted a trashcan just to her right and slung her lunch order into the bin. As she turned back to the door, she heard Caleb’s voice, low and steady, as he called in her break-in on his phone. She eased her left hand off the denim of her jeans. She’d been pulling her pant leg up to go for her .22, which was strapped to her ankle, but if Caleb was already calling it in, the room must be clear. She dropped her pant leg and strode to the room door, defying his orders to stay put. More like stay out of the way, he’d meant. But she was too curious to be irritated about it.
She supposed it was possible that the Badlands Buzzards had discovered she was in town. Someone could have spotted her leaving the party at their clubhouse and asked around about her Colorado license plate. It seemed unlikely, though, as she’d been careful. And breaking into her motel room just to toss the place seemed awfully low-key for a motorcycle gang. Plus, she’d just left the room less than an hour ago. They’d have to be tailing her to get in and out so fast after she’d locked up and headed to the bar. That was out of the question because Izzy Boucher could not be tailed. Raised at her father’s knee, she’d been trained to both tail and spot one since she was a kid.
As she entered the room, she noticed Caleb on the other side of the bed, checking underneath it. The drawers of the decrepit dresser had been pulled open but Izzy’s duffel bag was locked securely in the trunk of her car, as was her laptop. She hadn’t even risked leaving her toothbrush in this roach motel.
“You should call off the cavalry, Barnes,” she told him, noting the bathroom door was standing wide open and the room beyond it was empty. “I never—”
“Izzy, I haven’t finished clearing this room yet,” he snapped. “Go outside and—”
She was about to ask if her ninja burglar was hiding underneath the bed when she unfortunately discovered that, no, her intrepid intruder was not hiding under the bed.
He was hiding in the closet.
The Rainbow Motel’s ‘closets’ were barely worthy of the name. They were just big enough for an ironing board (or was it an irony board in a rat trap like this?) and a few wire coat hangers. The flimsy door burst open and the edge of it caught her in the face, just above her left eye. The door may have been flimsy, but the edge was sharp and the burst of pain sent Izzy wheeling backward. As the scrawny meth head from the room next door lunged at her, she thought, Jesus. Even I couldn’t have fit in there.
As the tweaker caught her by the throat and pressed her against the wall, Izzy marveled at his ability to get his skinny ass wedged inside there in the first place. What she did not marvel at was the scraggly man’s strength and fighting prowess, for he had neither. Or a weapon. She easily gripped his wrist and pried his dirty fingers off her throat. She pushed his arm away with her left hand and socked him in the eye with her right. Served the bastard right. A shiner for a shiner. She lifted her boot, ready to strike, but at the last second took pity on the poor son of a bitch and caught him in the knee rather than the crotch. She usually reserved ball shots for people she really loathed.
