by Julie Miller
“But—”
“No buts.” He batted her fingers away from the disk and placed it back in its plastic case. After securing the disk inside his jacket pocket, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “The best thing for a tired brain and good intentions is a solid night’s sleep. Let’s get you tucked into bed, and we’ll get an early start in the morning.”
Grabbing his jacket and gun, Atticus led the way through the unfinished great room to her bedroom, where fresh paint, curtains and a hand-stitched quilt made him think of the warm, wonderful solace Brooke had brought to his life. He walked right past the sleeping bag she’d set outside her door and followed her inside.
“What are you doing?”
He closed the door behind him and looked down into her upturned eyes. “My brain and good intentions are beat, too. If you don’t mind, honey, I’d like to be where I can keep an eye on you—and if I should doze off, I can still feel you’re with me and that you’re safe.”
She wrapped her fingers around the curling wrought iron at the foot of her bed. “You…want to sleep with me?”
The wide-eyed surprise of that innocent question triggered a wry smile. He was probably setting himself up for a tortuous challenge to his self-control because he could bet that she squirmed and cuddled when she slept the same way she hugged and held on to a man when she was awake.
But he was determined to be a gentleman about this. “Let’s say you crawl under the covers and I’ll sleep on top. But I can still hold you if that’s all right.”
“You don’t want to sleep with me?”
The chagrin that made her voice husky was more potent than any of Hayley’s calculated seductions had been. His tired body suddenly awakened with possibilities. How could he have never known how much he wanted this woman? But he ignored the zing of anticipation and hung his jacket on the door, and moved around her to set his gun on the table between the bed and window.
He pulled off his belt and untucked the tails of his shirt. “Now that’s a loaded question, honey.”
“Honey. Why do you keep calling me that?”
Had he? So now endearments were slipping out? How did he think he was going to be able to maintain control of his baser urges when she was warm and sweet and snuggled against him in the middle of a bed? He couldn’t even control those silly, intimate words that a man and woman who were more than mere friends shared.
“Atticus?” He hadn’t heard her follow him around the bed. When she palmed the middle of his back, everything in his body leaped at the innocent touch.
Hell. Control was going to be damn near impossible.
She was already backing away when he spun around. With her head bowed, she beat a hasty retreat around to her side of the bed, misreading his reaction. “I’m sorry. It was just a question. A stupid one. A more experienced woman wouldn’t even ask it.”
“Brooke.”
She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a mint- green nightshirt and tossed it onto the bed behind her. “I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything. I wasn’t fishing for a date or something like that. I mean, hell, why would you…? I mean…”
“Brooke.” When a pair of matching panties sailed toward his face, Atticus caught them. His decision was made.
“Last night was probably a mistake. And you’re just being nice. And—”
“You talk too much.”
“Me?” Her sweet, pink lips were open when she turned to face him. “I am the quietest—”
He closed his mouth over Brooke’s and stopped her nervous ramblings in the most satisfying way he could imagine.
“I’m…what are…?”
He almost laughed when she tried to keep talking. Almost. But a surrendering sigh, like a purr in her throat, welcomed his kiss and stoked his desire. And when she wound her arms around his neck and angled her mouth so he could deepen the kiss, Atticus reached down to the decadent curve of her bottom and lifted her.
“Hold on to me,” he commanded, and was nearly knocked off his feet by his body’s fierce response to those gorgeous legs linking behind his back and opening her most feminine heat to his driving need. “Easy, honey. Easy.”
“There. You said it.” Her jubilant smile against his mouth sent a wild hunger pumping through his veins. She made that crazy tingle at the point of his chin when she nipped him there. He stumbled and had to brace one hand on the wall behind her when she laved her tongue over that same sensitive spot. “You called me honey. What does that mean?”
“It means you’re special to me. It means I want to be with you.” He rasped the words against the vibrant pulse at the dip beneath her ear. “Never doubt that.”
“I want you, too…honey.”
The last bit of caution guarding his heart cracked into pieces and was carried away by desire. With her knees hugging his hips, he turned and fell onto the bed with her. He peeled the tank top off, exposing those pert, perfect breasts to his appreciative eyes and hungry mouth. What another man might have found lacking, Atticus treasured. Her nipples were taut and responsive, and whether it was a gentle tweak between his fingers or a greedy pull against his tongue, Brooke panted and purred at every touch.
With his desire straining against his zipper, Atticus reached for the snap of her denim shorts. Her fingers were slower, but no less determined to rid him of his shirt and then the rest of his clothes.
Her wandering hands were wreaking havoc over his naked body when they suddenly stilled and pressed against his chest.
“Atticus, I’ve never been with a man.”
“I kind of guessed that.” He braced himself up on an elbow beside her, gently stroking the hair from her face as he studied her kiss-stung lips and the vulnerable tilt of her eyes looking up at him over the top of her glasses. He held himself still against her hip and made her a promise. “If you’re not sure I’m the one or you decide you’re not ready, tell me. We’ll stop. At any time. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“No. You’re definitely the one. Maybe you’ve always been the one. I’m just not sure…” She pulled her hands away and clutched them over her breasts, leaving his body chilled with their absence. “What am I supposed to do? I don’t want to just lie here like a lump and have it be awful for you.”
He smiled at that. “First, it’s you, so it could never be awful.” He dipped his head and kissed her. “And second, you’re a ringer, Miss Hansford. A natural talent in the passion department. Trust your instincts. Keep talking, so I know if it’s getting awkward or uncomfortable for you.” He stroked his fingers along her delicate jaw. “I have a feeling you’ll pick the details up pretty quickly.”
“A natural talent?” The hands began to move. Five curious toes curled behind his knee.
“Oh, yeah.” Atticus rolled on top of her, letting her body become familiar with his weight and shape. “In so many ways.”
He paused a moment to take off her glasses and set them on the bedside table. Anxious fingers dug into his shoulders. “Atticus, I can’t see.”
She was a resourceful woman. “Then I guess you’ll just have to feel your way around.”
Brooke’s laughter answered his. And then, they were done laughing as she took his advice to heart and began an exploration that left him as breathless as she. After leaving her for a moment to sheath himself, he came back for reassuring eye-to-eye contact before claiming her mouth and sliding inside her. He held himself still as her tight warmth stretched to welcome him. He kissed away her soft gasp and waited for the urging of her fingers against his spine before he began to move and carry them both to an explosive peak that was as new and amazing to him as it was for her before tumbling down the other side together.
Afterward, when she’d fallen asleep against his chest, with no covers, no pajamas, and no hint of regret between them, Atticus lay awake, stroking her hair and reflecting on what had just happened.
His control was shot to hell where Brooke was concerned. He wasn’t supposed to care about her this much. But he did.
He was supposed to be looking out for her, not taking advantage of her passionate curiosity. But things were already stirring, wanting her again. He was supposed to be the teacher, and she the pupil.
Somehow, in these past few days, Brooke had turned the tables on him. The student had taught him a thing or two about honesty and passion, intimacy and courage. She’d stripped away his cynicism about trust and innocence and taking chances.
He’d never expected to feel deeply about any woman again.
Atticus was a rational man who always liked to stay two or three steps ahead of the other guy. He calculated probabilities and profiled criminals and had a good idea of how almost any person would act in almost any given situation. He reasoned. He planned.
Now he was falling in love with Brooke.
And he’d never seen it coming.
Chapter Twelve
Atticus listened carefully to Kevin Grove’s report. He knew the only reason he’d been allowed to sit at this table in this conference room was that Mitch Taylor had ordered him to be a part of this briefing. The official mumbo-jumbo had been something about his superior investigation skills and the fact that he’d been in on Tony Fierro’s arrest.
He even began to wonder if his new precinct boss was going soft. The team of forensic specialists and veteran detectives sitting around the table were talking about things related to his father’s murder—similarities between the deaths of his father, James McBride and the Jane Doe they’d removed from the landfill. Did they think he could provide some insight? Was this really just an unofficial way to keep the Kincaid brothers apprised of the investigation without the D.A.’s office or Internal Affairs pitching a fit about personal bias? Or was he being given this information because it affected Brooke—and Major Taylor was a seasoned enough detective to know when one of his men had taken on the role of bodyguard and lover to his nearsighted administrative assistant?
No. Major Taylor would never go soft. Atticus was here for a reason.
Tony Fierro was dead. Stabbed during the night in lockup.
“Our key witness, Liza Parrish, identified Fierro as the driver of the car she saw leaving the Kincaid murder scene.” Detective Grove passed a stack of enlarged photographs around the table. “The first picture is our sketch artist’s rendering of the black man she described. You’ll note the face is pretty vague, but so was her description. She’s fairly sure about his size, though. He stands about six foot three and weighs in at about two hundred twenty pounds. She never heard him speak.”
What Atticus had mistaken for dull and plodding in Grove’s investigation was really patient and thorough. If Kevin Grove put a case together, it was going to stick. “What about the ‘suit’ Ms. Parrish says she saw get in the car? Do we have any description on him?”
“I can’t even tell you if it is a him. She saw a gray pinstriped jacket and dark hair through a tinted window.”
When Atticus flipped to the next picture, he finally understood why he’d been asked to sit in on the meeting. “Son of a bitch.”
“See something useful, Kincaid?” Grove asked.
Dr. Holly Masterson, sitting across the table from him recognized it. Mitch Taylor would have understood what was in the picture, too.
It was a photograph of Tony Fierro’s body, lying dead on the floor of his cell. And there on the concrete, drawn in blood by his own dying hand, was the number three.
The same number three that had appeared as a microscopic tattoo on three different murder victims.
The number three that Brooke wore on a charm around her neck.
“IT’S A number three. In the blood on the floor and on Fierro’s keychain. Just like your charm.”
Brooke pulled the gold chain from inside the front of her paint shirt and frowned against the phone. “My charm?”
She heard the revs and honks of rush-hour traffic in the background of Atticus’s call. He’d been called into the office for a special meeting and was on his way back to the house where he’d been camping out for the past three nights.
“You said your father gave it to you. That it belonged to your mother.”
“That’s right.” She traced her thumb around the loops carved into the gold. “But it’s not a number three carved into my charm.”
“Of course, it is. I’ve seen it.”
Brooke turned the gold disk, seeing the design the way someone who hadn’t lived with the gift and story that went with it her entire life might. “It looks like a three. But it’s a Cyrillic letter. My mother was of Slavic descent. It’s a Z. Z for Zorinsky. My mother’s maiden name.”
Wait a minute. Gold disk. Z for Zorinsky.
Brooke’s gaze slid over to the laptop where she’d been working. “Z for Zorinsky,” she muttered, thinking out loud.
“Brooke? Are you still there?”
“I’m here.” She crossed the room to her sawhorse desk and sat in front of her laptop.
“Put Holden on the line.”
She opened the disk and loaded it. “He just left to drive Peggy and Louise to the store to refill Aunt Peg’s prescription and get some groceries. I think Peggy wanted to get out after being on bed rest for three days.”
Atticus swore. “He’s supposed to be there watching you.”
“No, he’s supposed to be watching Peggy and Louise. You’re supposed to be watching me.” Did that sound like she was sniping at him? She instantly felt contrite. “I mean, I’m not blaming you. You got called in and I need to work on cracking your father’s code on this disk. Besides, Tony’s in jail and I’m perfectly fine.”
“Tony’s dead.”
“What?” A shiver of unease rippled down her spine.
“He was murdered in his cell last night. That’s what the briefing was about.” She could almost hear Atticus stepping on the accelerator and passing other vehicles. “Are McCarthy’s men there?”
“They don’t work on Sundays.”
“So you’re alone?”
Brooke got up to check the doors and windows. “Don’t worry. Everything is locked. I’m right here, sweating away, waiting for you to get here. You are still coming over for dinner, right?”
Or did Tony’s death mean he’d lost his reason to keep such a close eye on her? Had they moved too fast with their relationship? Of course, they’d known each other for several years. Not exactly what she’d consider a speedy courtship. But then they’d yet to go out on a real date. In public. Where other people could see that they were together.
She didn’t expect Atticus to suddenly become a romantic and start reciting poems and declaring his love, and she certainly didn’t want any surprise bouquets of flowers. But she was completely, crazily in love with the man—maybe she had been for years. The threats to her life and spending so much time together had finally peeled away her inhibitions and made second-guessing her feelings and thoughts seem like a wasteful luxury.
She’d fallen hard. But had Atticus?
Unless he presented her with a ring or said the words, how was a woman supposed to know?
“Stop analyzing stuff in your head and doublecheck the locks. I’m on my way there right now.”
“Why would I be in danger?” Irrationally disappointed that he could know she was stewing over something, yet not fathom what she was stewing about, she sat back at the desk and clicked on the disk icon. Brooke had to try. She started typing in a word.
Z-O-R…
“Oh, I don’t know. Because whoever killed Tony Fierro is probably looking for the same thing he was. That disk you’re playing with!”
She wasn’t playing anymore. Brooke shot to her feet and shouted.
“I’ve got it. Atticus, I’ve got it! I just unlocked your father’s disk.”
ZORINSKY was the key.
She was the key.
Brooke’s family name had unlocked John’s secrets. That’s why he’d left the clues in her journal for her to find. She was a Zorinsky. She would be able to break his code.
The files she’d o
pened thus far had been all about his life before becoming a Kansas City police officer some thirty-plus years ago, about his life in military intelligence and his assignment to a covert spy cell he referred to as Z-Group. Z-Group had operated out of the embassies of eastern Europe during the Cold War. John had been recruited as a young man to join a team which had included her mother and father.
John Kincaid was a spy.
Her parents were spies. Past tense.
And John knew why they had died.
Did he also know who had rigged her father’s car to crash that fateful day? Did he know his own killer?
The sun outside her home had moved beyond the heat of the day. But Brooke was miles away from Kansas City as she became entranced by the secret life that John Kincaid had wanted her to know about. He was creating a record, and clearing his conscience, she supposed.
And though she still had the majority of the disk’s files left to read, she could already imagine that the information contained therein provided more than enough motive for his death.
“Oh, my God. John.” Brooke reached beneath her glasses to wipe away the tears as she read the next entry in John Kincaid’s encrypted journal.
This one was a letter, actually.
A letter addressed to her.
Brooke—
I don’t regret for one moment bringing you into my life. You’re a hell of a secretary—but more than that, you’re a sweet, beautiful young woman with a kind heart, a sharp mind and more patience than an old fart like me deserves. I’m glad you’re part of our lives. You’re a true family friend and, I’ll say it, you’re like a daughter to Su and me.
But I owe you an explanation. I owe you an apology.
I knew you lived in Kansas City with your aunts long before you graduated from high school or college and came to work at the police department. Once I saw your name on the new hires list, I wanted to meet you in person. And once I met you—if memory serves me correctly, it was hot coffee you spilled down my pant leg during that first interview— I knew I wanted to know you better.