Tempted by a Touch (Unlikely Hero)

by Kris Rafferty

  “Fuck you, Lucas.” Harper glanced left and right, refusing to make a scene in front of a precinct that had turned their backs on the MacLains.

  He nodded, looking satisfied. “There, now that’s the Harper I know.”

  So…that dressing-down was his version of a pep talk? He was such a cop. Harper forced herself to return his smile and shrug, as if she felt better. It was what he needed, had little cost, and if she were being honest, she appreciated how he was trying to take care of her…even if it was for old time’s sake. She wasn’t foolish enough to think he cared, but it was still a comfort. Say what you will about Lucas—he always tried to do the right thing. Solid. True. He could have strung her along for years, dangling marriage and kids until she’d devoted decades to unfulfilled promises. He hadn’t done that. He was honest with her. When she’d finally decided to believe him, she’d realized what a gift he’d given her. The truth.

  Lucas smiled back, cajoling. “Do us all a favor and rethink this insanity, Harper. Let’s go out to lunch somewhere instead. I’m in the mood for Mexican.”

  Harper ignored his entreaty, and walked down the hall toward the elevator. Other than an impatient sigh, he seemed to be willing to drop the subject, distracted in part by people hailing them. Harper acknowledge the smiling ones. She ignored the ones who didn’t. In this building, everyone had an opinion about the MacLains since Alice’s murder. The closer to the elevator she got, the more people threw dirty looks, making her heart beat faster, her nerves grow tauter—she hated this place.

  “Hey.” Lucas’s face brightened, as if he was having an oh, yeah moment. “Heard you finished your degree online. You’re a proud graduate of Boston College. Good for you. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been doing that and juggling everything else that happened.” Harper was too distracted to participate in chitchat, so she nodded and focused on keeping her composure. “Dane told me you’re sending out résumés for elementary school teaching jobs, and that you’re still working as a cashier at Hannaford’s.”

  “Wow. How much coffee did you and Dane consume this morning?” Her flinty tone surprised even Harper, but damn, she’d have to have a firm talk with her brother about family loyalty and keeping Lucas the hell out of her business.

  His expression clouded, and she could see he felt she was taking offense when none was intended. “Don’t be mad,” he said. “I’m just saying…” He shrugged. “Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.” Harper marveled at how much their relationship had changed. They’d devolved to polite defensiveness.

  At the elevator, she was the first to reach out and push the button. When the door opened, Lucas pressed his splayed hand to her lower back, encouraging her to enter first. The heat of his palm through her thin shirt had her stepping forward as if he’d goosed her. When she turned her back to the elevator’s wall, she saw Lucas avoiding her eyes and smiling. The beast. He knew what his touch did to her.

  “The meeting will be recorded,” he said. “I’ll be in the room. Before you argue again, know that’s the only way this is going down.”

  Whatever. “What are you going to tell Dane, and where is he? People have seen me downstairs,” she said. “He’ll find out I’m in the building and wonder.” She couldn’t help thinking Lucas had better have a plan, or Dane would interrupt the meeting, interrogation room or not. There was a lieutenant in this building with a healing jaw from the last time someone got in her brother’s way. Dane was a force of nature.

  Lucas pulled at his collar. “Let me worry about Dane.”

  Harper rolled her eyes. She knew her brother. “Good luck with that.” The elevator light showed they were almost on the third floor.

  He adjusted his tie. “Not to change the subject…but, like I said, we don’t know why Folsom wants to talk with you, and we have questions. We’re hoping you can help that evil, lying piece of shit open up and open up quickly, because there is no keeping this a secret once you walk into the interrogation room.”

  “This?”

  “Your visit with Folsom.”

  “Why do we need to keep it a secret after I see him? I understand the need for secrecy before. His safety. But after, you’ll hide him, right?”

  His cheeks flushed, and she could see he was angry. “Did you even listen to my concerns last night on the phone? I detailed them repeatedly and at length.”

  “Yes, I listened, but it all came down to you not wanting me in danger. That’s not enough, Lucas. We need this. The precinct needs this. I can’t imagine what it must be like to work alongside someone you fear is on the take. So, please, don’t lecture me. Just tell me. Why keep it secret after the fact? We’ll have the list, right? The danger will be over.”

  “The precinct knows there is a list out there. They believe Folsom has it. He’s spoken to no one since he’s been arrested but his counsel.”

  “Yeah?” He wasn’t answering her question.

  “What if Folsom is playing us? What if he doesn’t have the list?”

  Then Harper would play the hand life dealt her. The bait Joe dangled was too tempting to ignore. The list, his silence… If only she knew the price. “I’ll worry about that later.”

  “I don’t have that luxury.” They were on the third floor, but the door hadn’t opened yet. “Rethink this, Harper. Let’s go find Dane,” Lucas said. “We’ll have some coffee in the break room, and your presence here will be excused as a visit to your brother.”

  She flushed. She couldn’t allow Lucas to nix this meeting. “Spread a rumor that keeps me safe if Joe comes up empty. We could say nothing was said about a list.”

  The elevator door opened, and Harper moved to step off. Lucas stopped her and hit the close-door button until it did so and then kept his thumb on it. They were inside, going nowhere. “This is a building full of investigators. Remember? Information flows through here like a sieve, and I have no way of controlling what their conclusions are. The safest plan is to find Dane and then get you out of here.”

  “We need those names. Hell, I want those bastards that allowed Alice to die, that stood by and allowed Elizabeth to live in a world where no one but her family cared—”

  “I cared.”

  “—that she’d been brutalized. My family deserves justice.”

  “You can’t be safe and visit him, too.” Lucas shook his head. “I vote safe.”

  She’d have to be deaf and blind to not notice Lucas’s foot tapping in the silent elevator. Living in his head, setting the new agenda he thought was best for her, the man wanted her to put her tail between her legs and run. Bullshit.

  She swatted his hand off the close button, and when the doors opened she stepped into the hall, looking left and right. Harper knew what her choices were: jeopardize her family’s safety by going after the bad guys, or jeopardize her family’s safety by allowing the bad guys to remain free to hurt her family again. Neither option was good. Harper needed the list and Joe’s silence, and the only way to do that was to meet with Joe.

  But she’d take what she could get and go down swinging. That Lucas didn’t understand that said he probably never really knew her. She was a MacLain.

  The MacLains always chose justice.

  Lucas swore under his breath as detectives walking by frowned, craning their necks to continue staring at her, working the mystery of why she was on the third floor, and did it have anything to do with Joe in interrogation room one. They recognized her, knew her history with Joe, and they’d figure it out. Harper wanted the meeting over before they did.

  “Keep Dane out of this as much as you can, Lucas. He’s been through enough, and you said it yourself, his involvement risks the DA’s case.” She didn’t want the people in this building causing her brother any more trouble than they’d already done.

  Lucas did a double take, his hands on his hips, outraged. “Wasn’t it you, no more than a half hour ago, berating me for keeping Dane out of the loop?”

  She sighed. Lucas was right. Again.
“I was wrong. Knee-jerk reaction from a sister whose big brother is her go-to hero for saving the world, but if there’s going to be any world saving today, it’s not going to be by him. I saw what Joe took from Dane. I won’t allow Joe to take any more.”

  He shook his head. “But you think Dane would be okay with you in danger? Hell, I’m not okay with this.”

  Harper didn’t have any good choices. “Do you want that list or not?”

  “Not if it means putting your life at risk.”

  “Lucas!” She covered her mouth to stop her shouting. When she could control her tone, she dropped her hand and attempted to be calm. “This is not your call. Anyway, we both know it’s too late. I’d be surprised if news of my presence hasn’t moved to all floors by now. Let’s go.”

  He wasn’t happy, in fact, he looked downright furious, but he had to know if he didn’t take her to Joe, someone else would. “If you’re set on this insanity, I have something I want in return. He wants to speak with you. Not me. Just you. So I need you to be my mouthpiece.”

  Harper arched a brow. “And say what?”

  “Whatever it takes to acquire the list.” Lucas seemed to chew the words as they left his mouth, as if he begrudged every one of them having to be spoken. “He has to give it to us. He gives it up, or we’ll bury him in the deepest, darkest hole until his last breath. Feel free to tell him that.” Lucas paused and waited until she nodded. “Secondly, the extortion money is missing. Whitman Enterprises’ accounts were emptied. All of it gone. A company that size, someone has to know where the damn money went, and as Ian Whitman’s right-hand man, Folsom should know. You need to convince him to tell you.”

  Harper nodded. She already knew where Whitman Enterprises’ missing funds were. Harper’s new sister-in-law, Marnie, had stolen the money and given it to Whitman’s extortion victims. Restitution, she’d said, and Harper agreed. Screw the MPD and their haven for dirty cops.

  Lucas then led the way down the hall to the homicide department. It was hopping, as usual. It smelled of coffee, sweat, and trash a day late in emptying. Hustle, bustle, people talking over one another—it was just another day in the life, and was as much a part of her history as Christmas dinners and college exams. Only now, instead of feeling safe and welcome here, as she’d felt for most of her life, she felt threatened and hurt. In her book, the cops who worked here were all dirty until proven innocent.

  A few called out Lucas’s name. The few that caught her eye showed curiosity, but no one spoke to her. Fine by Harper.

  When Lucas stopped in front of interrogation room one, he blocked her way, forcing her to meet his gaze as he leaned close, keeping his voice low. “This is your last chance to change your mind,” Lucas said. “You walk in there, they won’t be wondering why you’re here, they’ll know. Or think they know, which is just as bad. There’ll be no going back.”

  Harper glanced around the room and saw people she’d known since childhood, since her dad was alive and a detective here. Harper stared down the more curious, trying to see if she could detect guilt on their faces, but gave up quickly. There were too many, and if past was prologue, Harper sucked at reading people. Joe had played her. In his own way, Lucas had played her. The sad fact was Harper had been complicit in both. She’d trusted them, needed them to be trustworthy. She’d been so naive. Still was, and if she were smart she’d purge that from her system. No more trusting. No more open-book policy. It was time to round up the bad guys, and Joe was her key to that end.

  “Open the door, Lucas.”

  There was a growing restlessness to the onlookers as Lucas reached for the door and then opened it. Harper took a deep breath, feeling as if she were jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Then she stepped inside.

  And there he was…Joe. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, wrists chained to the table, his blond head shaved. All Harper could think was wow, look at him, not the bogeyman she’d been envisioning this last month.

  He seemed…diminished, and it confused her. She didn’t know what she’d expected to feel, but numb was what she got. Their gazes locked, neither speaking. His incarceration had already aged him. Gaunt, a gray cast to his pale skin, he didn’t smile, as was his habit when he saw her. She didn’t smile, either, which felt weird, because that was her habit, too. See Joe, smile. He looked like the guy who’d teased her in high school, flirted with her in college, her brother’s best friend, but now he was this version. He sat there paying for his sins, and here she stood getting away with hers.

  She had to leave. There was no air.

  “Harper,” Joe said. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Did I have a choice?” He knew what she was referring to. She saw it in his eyes. Then he nodded, as if acknowledging her accusation of extortion as Lucas adjusted the chair on the opposite side of the table from Joe, offering it to her. She sat, feeling the cold metal through her jeans.

  “You did have a choice, though,” Joe said. “Inside”—he indicated the police station by looking at the monitor and the locked metal door—“things become clear. Our choices and what we’re willing to pay to make them.”

  She shook her head. If he went all Buddha on her, she’d scream. “You promised names.” Joe tensed, and his gaze flew to Lucas.

  “Why are you looking at me, Folsom? You wanted a meeting with Harper, you got one.”

  “You’re in the room, Sullivan. Need to keep my eye on you, or who knows, maybe I’ll find a shiv in my belly.”

  Glancing back, she noted Lucas was relaxed, shrugging off Joe’s insult like the trash talk it was, but Harper had the impression Joe’s behavior was for her benefit. It confused her. If Joe was reminding her they had an audience, it was unnecessary, but if discretion was his message…fine. She was all for that.

  Joe leaned toward her, meeting her gaze with such intensity, she braced herself for whatever he was about to say. “I’m not going to last long in prison.” He threw a dirty look at Lucas, as if it were his fault, but then his expression mellowed to regret as his gaze returned to Harper.

  She wished she could believe he felt regret for murdering Alice, or his involvement in the kidnappings, but she suspected it was for getting caught. Harper’s derision was tempered by her own guilt. After all, it wasn’t as if Joe was claiming to be anything but what he was, like Harper was doing. Sure, she was keeping secrets for a good cause, but she was still keeping secrets. Joe wasn’t the hypocrite in this room.

  “Do you know what happened to Whitman’s money?” There, she’d asked about the list and the money. Lucas should be happy.

  “They keep asking.” Joe’s impatience was immediate. “How the hell would I know? I was tied up and hidden in a shipping container, blindfolded with a broken rib and a bucket to pee in. Let’s not waste time. Ask your boyfriend over there where the money is. If anyone knows, he probably does.”

  Joe’s insistence on blaming Lucas for all his troubles was ludicrous, but she could tell he believed it. And how was she wasting time? “Talk about the dirty cops then.”

  He visibly restrained himself, closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he leveled another intense stare at her. She became breathless, waiting for his big reveal. Whatever he’d asked her here for, it felt like he was dropping that bomb now. The list, maybe? Could it be that easy?

  “Do you remember the locket?” Joe leaned even farther across the table, rattling his cuffs against the table, as if speaking for her ears only. It was weird, because there was no tone he could adopt that would prevent the monitors from hearing or Lucas from spying. He had to know that, so she assumed it was a red flag for her benefit. To tip her off. But tip her off to what?

  “No.” She couldn’t admit to owning the locket. It would create questions she didn’t want asked, and he had to know that, but yeah, she remembered the locket. It was in her bedside table drawer. He’d taken a snippet of his hair and hers and put it inside it for her to wear around her neck. It was lovely and romantic, and every time s
he thought she’d lose her cool this past year, she’d worry it and find comfort. He’d been grooming her, pretending he wanted a relationship, when what he really wanted was information on Dane’s case against him and Whitman Enterprises. To admit to the locket was to allow Joe to rub it in Dane’s face that he’d played her, that he’d made his sister a tool for the extortion ring. “I don’t remember any locket.” If that was all Joe had on her, he was screwed. Hard to prove they’d had secret communications if he was relying on the locket as evidence.

  “Oh.” Joe studied her expression, knowing she’d lied. “That’s too bad.” He dropped his gaze to his hands, as if angry at himself. She had no idea what was going on in his head, but Joe was unraveling, rhythmically picking at a callus on his palm, rocking slightly, rattling the cuffs connecting him to the table. It was hard to watch.

  “Give the police the names you promised so I can leave, Joe.”

  He nodded a few times, pursing his lips. And still he rocked. “I’ve been thinking long and hard on what happened.” He wasn’t looking at her and acted as if she hadn’t spoken. “I just don’t see how I could have done anything differently.” She simmered, unwilling to rise to that bait. “I mean, obviously, I made serious errors in judgment.” She bit her lip until she tasted blood. “And for those I’m deeply sorry. I am. If you could tell Dane that, I’d be grateful. I would.” He glanced at her, not meeting her gaze for long, and then glanced at the monitor, as if Dane was watching him. He wasn’t. Dane, finally, was being protected from Joe, and the last thing Harper would do was tell Dane how bad Joe felt about kidnapping Dane’s late wife, Alice, and his daughter, Elizabeth, and then murdering Alice. Joe lifted his encumbered hands to rub his forehead, awkwardly. It made the chains rattle even louder. “You know…this would be a lot easier if you remembered the locket.” His tone grew hostile. “It would explain everything.” He waited, grew suddenly still, his gaze boring into her as if wishing would make it so and force her to remember…or at least admit she remembered the locket. Harper could have given Joe lessons on wishing. She wished Alice wasn’t dead. She wished Elizabeth hadn’t been kidnapped, wasn’t still recovering from his cruelty. She wished her brother hadn’t had to be so strong as life—no, Joe—tested him beyond his limits.