“I’d think that something like this would make you even hotter,” Jack pointed out, as the doors closed.
Cassandra considered it, but decided abruptly that she would rather not speculate. She was committed to what they were about to do; if she overthought it, no good could possibly come from it.
Cassandra pressed the button for the top floor—editorial, where with any luck, Max Adelman would be working away, completely unaware of their presence in the building. The elevator chirped, and a recorded female voice came on over a speaker, asking for credentials. Cassandra swiped her card again and the elevator started to rise from the fifth floor level where she’d parked, carrying them smoothly upward.
Cassandra had been up to the editorial level so many times that it was easy to remember the layout of the floor. Max’s office dominated, surrounded by a few auxiliary offices which belonged to the man’s subordinates in advertising and PR, as well as a lobby for his personal assistant to check people in. At such a late hour, the desk would be abandoned, but Cassandra had stayed sufficiently late often enough to know the codes she would need to get into the office.
“Ready for this?” Jack asked, holding her gaze for a moment as the elevator slowed.
Cassandra nodded, just as the elevator came to a stop and chimed, announcing their arrival. The doors opened with a silky mechanical whisper and Cassandra stepped through them, striding towards the reception desk in the lobby. She pulled the keyboard tray out and unlocked the computer. Taking a quick breath, she typed in the code that would unlock the security system, giving herself and Jack access to the all-important editorial offices.
Jack followed closely behind her as Cassandra hurried towards the now unlocked door. She opened it as quietly as possible, glancing behind her to make sure that Jack was still with her. He nodded, and Cassandra stepped through the door, holding it long enough for Jack to catch hold of the edge, before closing it silently behind them. The element of surprise was their biggest advantage in this confrontation. If Max heard the door slamming closed, he would know there was someone on the level. Cassandra didn’t want to give him the opportunity to plan a reaction, to collect himself.
She made a beeline for Max’s door, fully focused on the mission that brought her there. She patted her pocket, feeling the outline of her metaphorical trump card.
As they neared the door, Cassandra’s steps slowed as she heard muffled noises: the sound of something hitting the floor, a groan, shaking-rocking noises. She paused for just a moment, turning to look at Jack, bewildered, then Cassandra heard Max’s hoarse voice grunting something incoherent. Her mouth fell open as she realized what was happening in the office. Cassandra stifled a giggle and took a breath to gain control of the impulse.
Cassandra gathered up her composure and reached out, wrapping her fingers around the handle on Max’s door. Normally, he kept it locked, and Cassandra was surprised to find that it turned easily. She looked up at Jack and nodded: once, twice, a third time. At the third nod, as they’d planned in the car, Cassandra turned the knob quickly and pushed the door open, plunging through it. Jack hung back, waiting for his cue to come in behind her.
For a fraction of an instant, Max and the woman with him didn’t realize that they’d been interrupted. Cassandra took in the sight of her boss, naked from the waist down, his blazer on the floor and his shirt unbuttoned. Sprawled over his desk was a fully naked woman, her surgically enhanced breasts pressed to the wood, her ass in the air, her hands tied behind her back with what looked to be Max’s necktie. Her tight dress and heavily painted face implied that she might be an escort.
It was the woman who spotted Cassandra first. She let out a startled yelp that transformed into a shriek.
“You told me we would be alone!”
Max’s frenzied thrusts came to a stop and he looked up to see Cassandra standing in his doorway.
“Cass! What are you doing here?” He sprung back, away from the prostitute.
Whether or not he’s separated from his wife, he’s clearly moved on, Cassandra thought absently.
The woman tugged at the tie binding her wrists and Max pulled the knot loose. “You owe me, asshole,” she said, gathering up her clothes. The woman dressed herself quickly, glaring at Max. “I didn’t agree to having an audience.” She gathered up a stack of bills from the coffee table and beat a hasty retreat, muttering insults under her breath.
“Hello, Max,” Cassandra said, as the door slammed behind the nameless escort. “Sorry if I’ve come at the wrong time, but something came to my attention and I wanted to come straight to you.” She reached into her purse and found the item she wanted. Touch-memory brought her finger down on the correct button and then she withdrew her hand from the bag.
“If you wanted to drop in on me for a little fun, all you had to do was call,” Max said, sitting down in his chair and making no move to put his pants back on. “I’m always happy to oblige.”
“Well, actually… I’m not the one who’s going to be screwed this evening,” Cassandra said, smiling faintly. “Come on in,” she called over her shoulder.
The moment that Jack walked through the door, Max’s demeanor changed completely.
“You! What the… You’re supposed to be three states away by now,” he said, a mixture of anger and fear in his voice.
Jack smiled grimly. “I’ve been having an interesting time on the lam,” he said, blocking the only possible exit route that Max could take.
Cassandra saw her boss’ gaze land on the screwdriver now gripped tightly in Jack’s hand. She slipped her hand into her pocket and withdrew the ring she’d found in Laura Granger’s back yard.
“I think I’ve got a scoop for you,” she said quietly, as she walked towards the desk.
Cassandra laid the ring down where the light would catch it best. It touched the wooden surface with a muted clink, and Max tore his gaze away from Jack for long enough to look at it, the expression on his face removing all doubt from Laura’s mind as to whether it could be someone else’s ring.
“Now tell me, what would your wedding ring be doing in Laura Granger’s back yard?”
Max’s face went red and then pale once more. He glanced at Jack and shuddered. “I’m not saying anything,” he said, shaking his head.
Jack raised the screwdriver, holding it up in an unmistakable threat.
“You’ll talk or we’ll worry about the story of how you came to kill Laura later, when your body washes up in the bay,” Jack told him firmly.
“Oh Christ,” Max said, his gaze fixed on the weapon. He threw his hands up, cringing slightly. “Don’t kill me. Please.” He swallowed convulsively and looked at Cassandra. “It was me, I killed her.”
A poignant moment of silence enveloped them.
“How did you even know her?”
Cassandra looked at her boss intently; it was the question that the rest of her theory hinged on. She had never even known that Max had known Laura as anything other than the hero cop.
“We were partners,” Max said with a shrug, his gaze constantly shifting from Cassandra to Jack.
“Partners?” Cassandra moved closer to the desk and put her purse down on the surface, sinking into one of the chairs.
“You know what that bitch was like,” Max said, his voice tight. “At least, you do now.” Cassandra shrugged. “She had the in. She gave me the intel on what was going on in her investigations—juicy stuff for the paper. I gave her tips we got from some of the sources we go to. It worked well.”
“Okay, and what else?” Cassandra said, gesturing for him to continue.
She glanced at Jack; the fugitive’s attention didn’t waver from Max for even a moment, and Cassandra sensed that he was just waiting for an excuse to plunge the screwdriver into Max’s body.
“She was a good lay too,” Max said, his smug confidence briefly returning. “She’d come up here in the middle of the night, while I was working on the next day’s features. She’d bring a bag of whatever she
had to spare, and we’d fuck like animals.”
Jack’s grip on the screwdriver tightened and he moved forward a step.
Max, possibly realizing how dangerous the man he was talking to was, held up his hands defensively. “She was a dirty cop! She sold to dealers, she sold to me, she was about as corrupt as you could get, all while everyone’s going around making her into a saint.”
“And you certainly weren’t going to make sure that everyone found out about that,” Cassandra said, rolling her eyes.
“Of course I liked partying with her. She always skimmed the best stuff, and she gave me my pick. It was a solid arrangement…until that bitch walked out on it.”
Max’s face reflected sulky displeasure, and Cassandra wondered how a man so powerful and well off could look so much like a spoiled child.
“What happened, the night that you killed her?” Cassandra said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“She came to see me, like always,” Max said, shrugging. “We got a little buzz on, and I asked her if she had any new information for me. That’s when she told me it was the last time she’d give me anything. She wanted out of the deal—sex, drugs, everything.”
“Did she give you a reason?”
“’I have to look out for myself now,’ she said. She couldn’t take the lies anymore; she wanted to go straight, and she didn’t feel she could do that while we were still fucking.” Max’s hands balled up into tight fists “I was furious. I wanted more than just to fuck and do drugs with her,” he said ruefully. “I loved the bitch. I told her I was ready to leave my wife for her, to sacrifice everything so we could make a real go of it, and she just turned and walked out.”
“What happened next?” Cassandra asked, wanting to extract as much detail from Max as possible. The police had taken a big hit when it had come out that Laura Granger had been a dirty cop—they would love to be able to say that they’d nabbed the guy who had not only murdered her, but been witness to some of her most corrupt activities before that.
“I was in shock.” Max continued. “I couldn’t accept that she wanted to break things off just like that. I felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me, and I tried to let it lie but I couldn’t. Maybe an hour after she left, I followed her to the club where she was supposed to be at some work party. That’s when I saw her kissing you, and suddenly everything made sense.”
“What?” Jack stared at the editor in shock. “I only knew who she was because we met a few times through work, when I brought in bounties. I was there, that night at the club, and yeah, she tried it on with me, but I pushed her away. Maybe you didn’t stick around stalking her for long enough to see that.”
“Bullshit!” Max’s voice came out shrill, and he moved to get to his feet before remembering the weapon in the bounty hunter’s hand. “I went to her place. I waited till she got home, and I confronted her, said I could have understood if she’d really wanted to go straight, but it seemed like she’d been trying to pull the wool. Told her I’d seen her in the club that night, and I asked her if the real reason she wanted out was because of the guy I’d seen her with. She didn’t say anything, just looked towards her nightstand. That’s when I saw the dog tags, just lying there with your name on them. That’s what made me flip. I could deal with her cutting me loose from the drugs, I could deal with her wanting to go legit… but finding out she was fucking you was the last straw. I beat her until she bled, then I wrapped my hands around her neck and squeezed until she stopped moving.” Max whimpered. “I put your tags right there in her hands, and that’s when I called Cass.”
Cassandra saw the confusion on Jack’s face, and remembering what he had said about the tags and their mysterious disappearance, more of the puzzle pieces began to fall into place in her mind.
“So how come your ring ended up in Laura’s back yard?” Cassandra asked, advancing toward Max.
“I panicked. I wasn’t thinking straight. I tossed it in the bushes when I saw it all covered in blood. I went back to her place later, I tried to find it out in the back yard. When I couldn’t find it, I figured it wouldn’t be a problem. And it wasn’t, not until—”
“Not until right now,” Jack finished for him.
Cassandra looked at her bag on the desk, piecing through the information she had gleaned. At least half a dozen people in Laura’s life had testified to the woman’s fixation on Jack—the fact that Laura had been convinced that Jack was a real hero, the fact that she had wanted to get him into bed—some of her friends even believed they were sleeping together. The bartender and two of her friends recalled seeing Laura kissing Jack on the night she was murdered—further evidence which helped convict Jack.
“Jesus,” Cassandra said, thinking of the violent end that Laura had come to. She looked at Jack. “It must have been her,” she said, seeing the anger and the confusion on the fugitive’s face. “Jack—she must have been the one who stole them from your room. I don’t know how, but…” Cassandra shrugged. “She was obsessed with you.”
“You killed her,” Jack said, his attention shifting back onto Max. He stepped closer to the desk, his hand tightening on the handle of the screwdriver. “You killed her, and then you ruined my life—all because you couldn’t get over your ego!”
“He wanted to make as much money for the newspaper as possible,” Cassandra added, glancing askance at her boss. “Two birds with one stone: a huge story for the paper, and condemning the man he thought stole his girlfriend away from him. He’ll have plenty of time to think about the fact that he framed you for no reason while he rots in jail.”
“I promised myself that when I found out who did this to me, I’d kill them,” Jack said.
Cassandra’s heart stuttered in her chest; it was one thing to get to the bottom of the mystery, another thing to stand by while Jack used extreme measures to interrogate his suspects—but to watch him commit murder?
The familiar sound of sirens drifted through the open window, cutting through Cassandra’s abstracted thoughts.
“Jack,” she said, shaking her head and standing. “Jack—you can’t. The cops are coming, and they’ll catch you red-handed if you touch him. You can get your conviction overturned now—but what the hell will any of this matter if you go and hurt someone for real?”
“How can I get the conviction overturned?” Jack glanced from Max to Cassandra and back again. “What are you suggesting I do, show them a fucking ring?”
Cassandra smiled slightly and reached into her purse. She hadn’t realized until they had arrived at the building how lucky she had been that she always kept her voice recorder in her purse, in case of a last-minute interview.
“You play this recording for them,” she said, lifting the device out of her purse and showing it to the two men. “It may not be admissible as evidence, but they can definitely use it to find some more, don’t you think?”
Jack stared at the recorder for a moment, and Cassandra worried that the man was going to give in to his rage, but as the sound of the police sirens increased in volume, Jack’s hand fell to his side.
“You’re right,” he said, glaring at Max. “If I kill him, they won’t even bother investigating. They’ll throw away the key.” Jack looked at Cassandra, smiling faintly. “Think you can help me get the ball rolling on clearing myself?”
Cassandra mirrored his smile. “I think that’s very possible—but they need a living body if they’re going to investigate.”
Jack nodded. “They’ll have a living body, all right,” he said, glancing at Max with a satisfied expression. “But if you try to run, asshole, I’ll break you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Cassandra hurried the last few steps along the hallway to her apartment, already smiling. The past two months had sped by in a flurry of depositions, talking to law enforcement, and court appearances. With the information she’d been able to provide about Max Adelman, including the tape of his confession, the wheels of justice had started to turn. Jack had been re
leased from prison, and Max would face trial for murder in a few weeks’ time. The official pardon was Jack’s prized possession.
“I’m home!” Cassandra called out, after unlocking the front door.
Jack hadn’t needed much time to get back onto his feet. Once his conviction had been overturned, the public nature of his trial had actually helped promote his business—he was probably the best-known bounty hunter in the country after breaking out of jail to bring in the murderer responsible for framing him in the first place.
Cassandra had offered to let him stay in her place—an offer she had made not only out of guilt for her part in his original conviction, but also because she wanted to have as much sex with him as their schedules would allow, after their explosive debut in the backseat of her car.
The apartment was silent. Cassandra frowned as she closed the door behind her, hearing no response to her call. She had called it a night at eleven o’clock, wanting to be awake enough to enjoy Jack’s company before she fell asleep; she couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment that he wasn’t home.
Sighing, she strode toward the kitchen, tossing her purse onto the table by the front door on her way. The light was off, and Cassandra reached along the wall, feeling for the switch. She would reheat some leftovers and change into one of Jack’s tee shirts—with nothing on underneath it—and wait for him to get home.
Suddenly a hand closed on her wrist, and Cassandra found herself being spun around, her back colliding with the wall as another hand covered her mouth. She gasped, her heart beating faster in her chest with a mixture of surprise, fear, and instinctive arousal, as the memory of the last time filled her mind. Her body tingled as a large, broad body pressed against her, pinning her to the wall in the darkness. The hand let go of her wrist, and then with a muted click, the light came on, flooding the room and dazzling Cassandra’s eyes for a moment.
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