He closed the distance between them and tapped a gentle finger against her forehead. “The cop in here wants to side with Cook and Calvert, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.” She shrugged, not sure how to explain her torn loyalties. “But I can’t.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to hear that.” One of his rare grins appeared, banishing the strain of the day from his features. He cupped her chin, staring into her eyes for a long moment. Emotion glimmered in his blue eyes and then was gone. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
In the car, she glanced sideways at him as she fastened her seatbelt. “So how did it go?”
He started the engine. A grim smile played about his mouth. “I answered Calvert’s questions and made him happy. Agreed to a DNA test.”
She nodded. She’d expected as much—he’d want those DNA results as much as Cook would.
He pulled onto Durham Street and braked for the stoplight. A couple of pickup trucks rumbled through the intersection. “I want you to continue the investigation on your own.”
Startled, she glanced at him. “McMillian, it’s not my case.”
“I want to know what happened to Jessie. I need to know if the baby…” He cleared his throat, thumping a finger on the steering wheel. “I trust you, Celia.”
“You realize we’d be stepping all over Chandler County’s toes.”
His mouth twisted. “I can handle the heat if you can.”
She swallowed a sigh. If Cook had been pissed with her before, he really wouldn’t be happy when he learned she was poaching his case.
“I’ll need copies of the lab and autopsy reports,” she said. “And you’re going to have to assist me with the victimology. I’ll need you to help me get into Jessica’s life.”
“Why?” The light turned green and he accelerated. He looked at her quickly, and from his expression, she knew he was discomfited by the idea of them delving into Jessica’s life together.
“Because that’s where the answers will be. More than likely, we’ll find them in the twenty-four hours before she died.”
—
“I found a company in north Georgia who can do a twenty-four-hour turnaround on DNA testing. I talked them into doing a test on Sunday, if we send this out by courier tonight.”
Celia’s voice washed over him and Tom glanced up from Jessica’s banking records. The office lay quiet and deserted around them. He pulled off his reading glasses and laid them aside. “That was fast.”
She held aloft a plastic evidence bag. “I need to swab you.”
He nodded and pushed out of the chair. “What do you need me to do?”
Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, she smiled, the expression holding little humor. “Just open up and say ‘ah’.”
Hands clenching the edge of the desk, thighs spread, he leaned against the end and opened his mouth. She stepped between his legs, a long swab in hand.
“This will only take a second.” Her gaze flitted up to his and away. With her this close, he could smell her—faint traces of soap and shampoo, the warmth of her skin. Despite the day’s stressful events, arousal tugged at him, a low, hot pooling below his belt. Her eyes trained on his mouth, she scraped the cotton swab down the inside of his cheek. “That’s it.”
She stepped away and dropped the swab in the bag. He straightened, watching her graceful hands as she sealed the bag and labeled it.
“Who’s Turello?”
“Who’s Turello?” A visible tremor shook her fingers as she recapped her pen. When she finally looked at him, her eyes were bleak, although a wry smile flitted around her lips. “I guess Bryan Turello is my Kathleen Harding.”
Her name didn’t send all the old pain and frustration crashing through him. Thinking of her, even for a second, did nothing. All of his attention, his being, was focused on Celia.
“God, I was so stupid.” A harsh laugh burst from her lips.
“Stupid?” He reached for her, pulled her back into the cradle of his thighs. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to smooth away the tension the old memories brought her. He brushed her hair away from her face. “I doubt that.”
“Naïve, then.” She didn’t look at him, her gaze fixed on his throat. “I was a rookie with the DCPD. Turello was my training officer. He was a decorated road cop, very smart, very good looking.” She swept a finger over his collar, her face pensive. “Very, very charming. I fell hard. I was sleeping with him within my first two weeks on the force. That was a really intelligent decision, let me tell you.”
She’d been beating herself up for it ever since. One more thing they had in common—an inability to forgive themselves for past failures. He rubbed his thumb along her jaw. “What happened?”
“By the end of the first month, I’d moved in with him. He did put an engagement ring on my finger, I’ll give him that much. Whether or not he really intended to marry me? Who knows. A few weeks later, a college girl from Americus filed a complaint against him, said he’d let her out of a speeding ticket in return for oral sex. The media got a hold of that and the other girls started coming out of the woodwork. He’d been using the badge for a while, to get whatever he wanted from them.
“When the GBI came around, asking questions about one particular incident…” Her lashes fell. “I lied for him, because he asked me to and I believed in him.”
Tom swallowed an oath.
She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze, her own filled with self-recrimination. “A grand jury indicted him. The night before he was to surrender to the GBI, he called me from a payphone outside that little dive bar in Putney. He’d been drinking and he was crying. Confessed to all of it and then he shot himself with his service revolver.”
“With you listening.” Tom cupped the back of her head, massaging the tension lying along her nape.
She nodded. “Everyone knew I’d lied. It’s a wonder I didn’t lose my certification and my career, all three months of it.”
None of this had come up when he’d checked her references—everything he’d been told was glowingly positive. Obviously, she’d moved beyond it, at least professionally. “Why didn’t you?”
Her eyes lifted to his again. “Because Cook fought for me. He was convinced I’d make a good cop, that I’d simply made an error in personal judgment. He went to bat for me with the chief, the GBI, the review board. I owe him everything.”
That explained a lot, including Cook’s extreme reaction to learning about their relationship. “He thinks you’re making the same mistake with me.”
A sad smile touched her mouth. “Yes.”
Tom frowned. “You don’t agree.”
“I never questioned Turello’s culpability. I simply accepted on blind faith what he told me. If I’d thought about it…well, maybe I’d have seen what he was capable of.” She shrugged, a soft roll of her shoulders. “I’ve considered what I know about you, McMillian. I’ve questioned your culpability.”
He sifted his hands through the soft fall of her hair. “And?”
“And I know you’re not capable of what I saw at Jessica Grady’s home this morning.” She glanced away. “I know if you’d known about that baby, that it might be yours, that you’d never have done anything to put it at risk.”
Peace spread through him at her words. Exerting tender pressure, he pulled her toward him.
“What happened with Turello was a long time ago. You’re not the same person you were. Just like I’m not the same man who married Kathleen, who lost Everett. Turello doesn’t matter anymore. Neither does Kathleen.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, his mouth brushing hers. “This is what matters.”
He kissed her, soft caresses that were more about connection than desire. She wound her arms around him, pressing nearer, so he felt the slight trembling of her body. He tugged her closer. He drew her bottom lip between his and her fingers shaped the line of his jaw.
She pulled back, tracing his mouth with her shaking index finger. “We have a lot of work to do.”
She was right. The emotions developing between them mattered, but Jessica’s case, her baby, had to take priority.
They had plenty of time for them later. A vista of new opportunities opened before him.
Opportunities that would be well worth waiting for.
He leaned in, brushed his mouth across hers once more. “Let’s get to it, then.”
—
Celia frowned at the bank records in front of her. “McMillian, does this look normal to you?”
Setting his chopsticks and carton of fried rice aside, he moved to look over her shoulder. The lingering clean scent of his faded aftershave tickled her senses. “What?”
“She was moving a lot of money through her account.” Celia highlighted a line of deposits and withdrawals. “A lot of money.”
“Let me see that.” He picked up the paper and settled into his chair. “Which account is this?”
Celia consulted the list. “The law firm. There’s some activity in the one for the real estate company she’s invested in, but not nearly as much.”
“These are cash deposits.” He blew out a breath and rubbed at his chin. “It looks like normal money laundering.”
“I thought so too. See?” She pointed out another sheet. “She was transferring part of each deposit to the real estate company and part to an offshore account.”
“Which we don’t have records for.”
“Right.”
“What the hell was she doing?”
“I don’t know, but look…for the last few months, she’d been making regular deposits to the account, deposits which weren’t withdrawn or transferred. More cash deposits. They’re smaller, but if you add them up, it’s over fifty thousand dollars.”
“Since July.” McMillian rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Around the time she got pregnant.”
Celia looked at him. “Someone paying her for the baby?”
“Maybe. Fifty thousand for an infant.” McMillian shook his head. “Damn. Who’s that desperate?”
“Probably lots of people. I wonder…” She frowned, pawing through the files laid across the table in McMillian’s office. She picked up the preliminary autopsy report and flipped through it. “I thought I read that.”
“What?”
“Ford won’t know until she’s done the complete autopsy, but she doesn’t think this was Jessica’s first pregnancy.”
McMillian blinked, then laughed. “That can’t be right.”
Celia glanced up from the report. “Why?”
He shook his head. “You’d have to know Jessie. She was very vocal about never having children. Said it ruined a woman’s body.”
Cynicism trickled through Celia. “Amazing how enough money can change someone’s mind, isn’t it? So if this isn’t the first baby, how many times has she done this?”
“You two look busy.” Rhett High’s deep voice at the door drew their attention away from the files. Celia smiled, instinctively easing away from McMillian by sitting up straighter in her chair. Casually dressed in jeans and a thin sweater, Rhett moved farther into the office and glanced at the paperwork on the table. “Which case?”
McMillian leaned back in his chair, arms folded behind his head. “Jessica Grady.”
An apologetic grimace twisted Rhett’s face. “I heard about that while I was over at the clubhouse. I’m sorry, Tom. I know you two were close.”
“Thanks.”
Rhett waved a hand at the paperwork littering the table. “So are you assisting the sheriff’s department?”
“Something like that.” Celia and McMillian exchanged a look. McMillian straightened, exhaling hard. “Cook would love to pin this one on me.”
“You?” Rhett laughed. When no one smiled, he sobered. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish. And if it were anyone but me, I’d think he was onto something.”
Rhett lifted his eyebrows. “What’s he got?”
“My prints in the bedroom.” McMillian glanced at Celia again. “A fucking sex tape of the two of us last summer. The fact she tried to call me the night she was killed.”
“Man.”
Celia looked between the two men. McMillian hadn’t mentioned the baby. It wasn’t a secret; the local news had been running an Amber Alert for the missing child every thirty minutes. He and Rhett were close friends, and he discussed his feelings about fathering the baby with her rather than bring it up with Rhett. That had to mean something, didn’t it?
Rhett jerked his chin at the table. “So what angle are you working?”
“Right now?” McMillian rubbed at the back of his neck. “We’re taking a look at her finances.”
Mild interest flared in Rhett’s dark gaze. “Finding anything?”
McMillian shrugged. “What might be some money laundering. Other than that? Not much.”
Rhett shook his head. “Maybe it was random. Burglary gone wrong, you know?”
Celia’s phone pinged and she pulled it from her waistband. The screen read “private caller” and she sighed. “I’m going to step outside and take this.”
Tom watched her disappear into the hall, disquiet creeping down his spine. His nerves had started jumping as soon as her phone rang. Sensations of darkness and cold flashed in his head, an overall impression of looming threat. He tossed his reading glasses aside and pinched his nose, fighting the ache at his temples and the pictures in his head.
Damn it all, not this. Not now. He needed his focus.
“Tom?” Rhett’s quiet voice brought him back to reality.
He shook himself free of the images and directed his attention to Rhett. “Does Mariah know about Jessie?”
“Yeah.” Regret flashed over Rhett’s expression. “She was upset.”
Tom could imagine. The two women had been long-time friends, and Rhett’s wife had been the one to introduce him to Jessie in the first place.
Eyes narrowed, Rhett regarded him with friendly concern. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” Tom rubbed his hands down his thighs. The movement didn’t ease the unpleasant sensations prickling over him. “Just tired.”
“And a little stressed.” Rhett chuckled and dropped into Celia’s vacated chair.
“The cops turned up a fucking sex video of me. Yeah, I’m a little tense.” He tried to breathe through heavier flashes of foreboding. “And then there’s the baby.”
“The baby?”
“Jessie was pregnant. It looks like she was killed for the baby.” He sucked in a harsh inhale. “It’s possible I might be the father.”
“Shit. Like you needed that.” He paused and looked toward the door. “You and Celia here together…it’s about more than just this case, isn’t it?”
The idea of lying crossed Tom’s mind. If Rhett had noticed something, what sense was there in denying it? Rhett knew him too well and respected Celia enough not to gossip outside the office. Finally, he nodded. “Yes, it is. A lot more.”
Rhett frowned. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
Living. He was actually fucking living for the first time in…for the first time since he’d buried his son. The memories were still there, but their painful power to hold him prisoner had weakened. He had Celia to thank for that.
And damn if he would let her go. Damn if he would let anything screw this up.
He laughed, despite the lingering stress of the day. “Yeah, I do, Rhett. I honest to God do.”
“All right, man, if you’re sure. Because the DA getting involved with a subordinate? That’s some major shit to hit the fan. Might even be bigger than that tape you’re worried about.”
“It’s not like that, Rhett. It’s different.” Hell, he didn’t know how to explain it to his friend. How to explain the way Celia was freeing him from the past? He cleared his throat. “What are you doing here on a Saturday night, anyway? I thought it was your date night with Mariah.”
“She’s packing.” Rhett passed a hand over his bald head. “I came by to pick up some files. We
’re taking Amarie up to Emory in the morning and I’m going to work from there for a few days.”
Apprehension made its way over Tom again. Local doctors had been treating Rhett’s daughter for aplastic anemia for nearly a year, with little success. A trip to Emory Hospital couldn’t be a good thing. “What’s going on?”
A wide grin split Rhett’s face. “We have a possible bone-marrow donor. A distant cousin of Mariah’s. The docs are going to do the preliminary blood work tomorrow.”
“That’s great.” Laughter rumbled in his chest and Tom pounded the other man’s shoulder. As Amarie was adopted, they’d struggled with locating a suitable donor. This was good news. “That’s really great, Rhett.”
“Yeah, we’re really excited. We’ve still got a long road—chemo, antibiotics, all that jazz—but this is what we’ve prayed for, man.” He pushed out of his chair. “I’d better get going. Mariah wants to leave out before daylight.”
“Drive safely.” Tom rose to offer a hand. They shook and Tom pulled him into a quick hug, slapping his back. Rhett returned the slap and both men laughed. “Listen, anything you need, you call, okay?”
“You got it, my man. I’ll be in touch.” He passed by Celia at the door as he exited. “Take care of him, Celia. Keep him out of trouble.”
“Will do.” Her smile died as Rhett walked away.
Tom frowned, watching her fidget with her chain. “What’s up?”
She held up her cell phone. “That was Sheriff Reed. He’d like to meet with us, first thing Monday morning. And he didn’t sound happy.”
Tom nodded. “You know my philosophy on that, right, Cee?”
She smiled, although her eyes remained serious. “Always make them come to you.”
Chapter Ten
Bright moonlight flitted through the oak trees framing the back of Celia’s home. Leaning against the railing, she flipped through her keys and glanced up at McMillian. All the weariness and stress of the day dragged at his features, and suddenly letting him go home to his big, empty house was the last thing she wanted.
She ran a finger over her house key. “Do you want to come in?”
A half-smile quirked at his mouth. “If I come in, I’m not going to want to leave.”
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