“Well, of course,” Dorothy replied. “How else was she going to have him living with them? But ... but ... his health never did improve and he died a few years later. Mary was devastated. Cried for weeks, I’ll never forget it. But that was so long ago. Why would anyone hurt her because of that? She helped an orphan boy. She took him in and loved him and gave him a good life for the time he had left. And someone killed her for that?”
“We think so, yes,” Jack said quietly.
“Oh, gods. Oh, gods, who would do such a thing?” Her chin quivered and another tear spilled down her cheek. She looked every bit like a sad, lost woman who’d had the rug jerked out from under her. Her sobs were tragic, painful rasps of air, and Jack felt each of them punch him in the gut.
He glanced at Selina and the feeling of being gut-punched doubled. The look on her face was frozen horror. Not from this woman losing her cool, but in remembered pain. He’d seen that look on his own face in the mirror too many times not to recognize it. A flashback to memories he’d sooner forget, that wrenched at something deep and dark and ugly inside of him. Parts of himself that he’d rather let lie. It was part of the job, but he’d bet this memory was a lot more personal.
This case hit home for her in some way. He wanted to know how.
“Thank you for helping us fill in the missing pieces, Dorothy.” He rose to his feet and drew her up with him. “We really appreciate it.”
He walked her out toward the reception area where security would process her out of the building. Just before they got there, she turned to him. Her hand clutched his tightly, her owlish eyes reflecting desperation, anguish, and anger. “Promise me you’ll catch this man. Promise me he’ll never be able to hurt anyone again. My sister was a good woman. She didn’t deserve this.”
“I know she didn’t.” He touched her shoulder. “We’re going to do everything in our power to put this man away for the rest of his life. I promise you that.”
Because there was no way he could promise he’d catch anyone. Some criminals got away, just as this one had escaped Selina once. They could only do their best and hope to hell it was enough.
When he returned to his office, Selina sat where he’d left her, staring off into space.
“What was that about?”
She startled, her gaze snapping up to meet his. “What was what?”
“You were all gung ho to find the connection between your old crimes and this one, and when the sister arrives you barely ask a single question. What happened?” Everything he’d seen or heard about her said she was confident, driven, and not one to step aside in her investigations.
But vulnerability flashed in her gaze. The emotion was gone as quickly as it had come, but he knew he’d seen it. She shrugged and looked away. “You were doing a good job. No need to get in your way.”
“I don’t buy it.” He sat in the chair beside her rather than return to his side of the desk. “Something about this case gets to you. Something about Dorothy got to you.”
Her chin lifted, her gaze cooling. “Nothing gets to me. Not anymore.”
“I find that difficult to believe.” He reached out to brush a finger over her cheekbone. “And I won’t think less of you if you tell me when something is bothering you.”
Tears sheened her eyes. Then horror flashed over her face and she jerked away from him, turning to face the wall and clearing her throat. “I’m fine.”
Since he could understand not wanting to cry at work, he let that blatant lie slide, but every protective instinct he had roared to the surface. It went beyond what he’d feel for a colleague—the depth of the emotion stunned him. He slammed the lid down on it. No. He hadn’t felt anything like that for someone he was sleeping with since ... Shit, not since his wife. And look how well that had gone.
He thrust to his feet and moved around his desk. Getting involved with Selina would be a mistake. Caring for her would be a mistake. They were working together now, so the smartest thing to do would be to withdraw and keep things strictly professional. A twist in his chest told him it might be too late for that, but he tamped down on that, too.
Snatching up his phone, he punched in the speed-dial number to call Peyton. He set it to speaker so that Selina could hear. “Any news on my Normal hunch?”
“Not exactly.” The voice echoed through the phone and the door, and Peyton stuck his head in, closing his cell phone. “Apparently, my usual contact on the Normal side went out on maternity leave last week. Now I’m getting jerked around by her captain. He apparently has a real hate on the FBI. I’m tempted to let Cavalli take a bite out of his ass.”
“Nah. I’m the Normal liaison around here. Let me handle it. Thanks for trying.” In fact, Jack had a basketball match scheduled for the next morning with a couple of his Normal contacts. Old marine buddies who’d gone into law enforcement like he had. The thought of burning off a few hours with his friends was a welcome one. Sometimes the normalcy of Normals was a good way to decompress from Magickal troubles. It would be as good a time as any to see if they’d run across any drained bodies lately.
“You don’t need me, then.” The taciturn wolf tucked his cell into his pocket.
“Nope, we’ll be fine on our own.” Jack offered her a grin. “Won’t we, Selina?”
“Fine,” she echoed. “And it’s Grayson, thanks.”
When she looked at him, there was nothing to indicate that she knew him any better than some random FBI agent she’d been forced to work with. It didn’t piss him off that she’d shut him out so quickly—it intrigued him.
This wasn’t the sexy, interested woman who’d been at the wedding the night before, and it definitely wasn’t the soft, sleepy lover in his bed this morning.
He understood why they called her the ice queen now, but he’d seen the other side of her, so it was just another interesting layer for him. He had a feeling she wouldn’t care to know her frosty demeanor didn’t put him off at all.
It just challenged him, made him want to strip away the control and make her scream for him again. Which was a problem, since he knew he should forget about their one evening together. For her sake and his.
“Grayson, right. My mistake. I just got used to calling you Selina last night.”
If her eyes had been cold before, they had all the warmth of black ice now. Her gaze went between Peyton and Jack, as if she couldn’t believe he’d said something in front of the werewolf. “Excuse me?”
“At the wedding.” Jack arched an innocent eyebrow. “Everyone was pretty informal. My apologies.”
If she didn’t want anyone to know that the hotter, wilder side of her existed, then that was her business. He wasn’t going to let his colleagues know what they were missing out on.
“Right. I’ll leave you to it, then.” Peyton was gone without another word, the door whispering closed behind him.
“What the fuck?” A muscle twitched in Selina’s jaw, and for a moment Jack was pretty certain she was going to blast him with the kind of spell that would turn him into a braying ass. Like one of those medieval fairy tales meant to teach humans a lesson about their stupidity.
He held up a hand as if that might ward her off, but if she decided to hex his ass, there was nothing he could do about it. There was no counter spell he could throw out to save himself. Instead, he met her gaze squarely. “I wouldn’t say anything, Selina. Not to Peyton. Not to anyone. You don’t have to worry about me. This is my job and I’m a professional. Which means that my private life is private.” He shrugged. “It won’t make any difference in how professionally I treat you, but if you want me to call you Grayson here, I will.”
“I’d prefer it,” she said. Her gaze went from sulfuric to cautious. “I will make you bleed if you do anything to compromise this case for me.”
“This case?” He cocked his head. Her career, he could understand. Her reputation, yeah. But “this case”? That seemed a little more weight than he would have put on one assignment. She had to have worked hundreds
of them—maybe thousands—if she’d been doing this since the seventies.
Her expression flattened, and he knew he’d get no answers from her. He tried not to let it frustrate him. Despite what they’d done together the night before, they still barely knew each other. She had no real reason to trust him. Yet. Even if he didn’t pursue her anymore, he was still working with her, and that required a certain amount of trust. He wanted that from her, probably more than he should. He wanted her to tell him why this case upset her enough to almost lose her cool.
“Just call me Grayson.” She flicked away an invisible piece of lint on her pants. “It’ll be easier for all involved.”
Easier for her, she meant. He didn’t argue with her, merely nodded.
Brushing a wisp of short hair out of her eyes, Selina lifted her chin in that stubborn way he was coming to associate with her. “How long before we get the Winston files from the All-Magickal Council?”
There was a subtle subject change. He almost smiled, but he had enough self-preservation not to make that fatal mistake.
“They’re sending a courier over with copies of her paperwork. She was about two hundred years old, and they haven’t digitized records that far back yet. They have a backlog of older Magickals.”
Her lips twitched. “So sorry we older folks inconvenience the system.”
“Yeah, that kind of behavior deserves a spanking.” He lowered his voice to an intimate rumble. Yeah, so he should probably back off, but yanking her chain was just too much fun. She reacted so nicely. And he wanted to see something on her face besides icy blankness or gut-wrenching vulnerability. “I’d love to have you draped over my lap. Naked.”
Startled heat flared to life in her eyes and her breath caught. She wasn’t as immune to him as she might wish. Nice to know it wasn’t just him who couldn’t cut off the chemistry between them. The best they could do was ignore it and get on with their work.
Her mouth opened to respond, but he cut her off. “Forget I said that. Let’s talk to a few of Mary Winston’s neighbors and see if they saw anything useful. The telepaths on the scene didn’t pick up on anything, but they didn’t catch everyone. Can’t hurt to check on the ones who weren’t home this morning, but who might have been around when the party started last night.” He stood and snagged his jacket off the back of his chair. “With any luck, no one else will cry on us today.”
That hunted, haunted look crossed Selina’s face again, so fleeting that he almost missed it. The curiosity about her secrets, the concern about her as a woman flared inside him. His chest cinched tight with emotions he didn’t want to name, didn’t even want to admit were possible for him anymore. Not after what his wife had done.
Damn it to hell. It was more than just sex. Already. And he doubted he’d be able to ignore it. Not with Selina.
Now what was he going to do?
5
A knock sounded on her door, and Selina considered not answering it. She was beat, and her energy levels were in the toilet. Yesterday was a marathon for the wedding, she’d gotten little sleep the night before, and after the revelations of today, she was ready to bury herself in a gallon of ice cream and then pass out in bed. If she could convince herself to get up from her sprawl across the living room sofa.
The last thing she wanted was to deal with another human being.
She groaned when the annoying person knocked again. Her familiar, Grim, came over and stuck his cold, wet nose against her bare foot, which made her jackknife upright and curse. The big German shepherd barked and licked her toes when she glared at him.
Shuddering in disgust, she yanked her foot away. “All right, all right, I’ll get up. Damn it.”
The grumbling would have little effect on her familiar. Rubbing a tired hand down her face, she didn’t even bother using her magic to try to figure out who it was. Sometimes it was easier to do things the Normal way. She stumbled to the door and looked out the peephole.
Jack.
She bit back a groan and tugged open the door, trying to freeze her expression into the frosty glare she used with co-workers. After she’d almost broken down in front of him, they needed to establish some boundaries. “Is there a new development with the case, Agent Laramie? The standard practice these days is a phone call, not a house call.”
“Nothing new with the case or I would have called your cell.” Unimpressed by her frigid bitch routine, his eyebrows arched and he looked her over. She refused to fidget or feel embarrassed that she was in faded pajamas. That she’d teared up in front of a complete stranger. A complete stranger she’d fucked. Maybe it was wrong that the tears upset her more, but that was just her.
His slow smile said he didn’t care what she wore. “We were supposed to have dinner, remember?”
Oh. Right.
She had agreed to dinner with him. And a longer sexual relationship. That he’d want to hold her to that arrangement was something she hadn’t considered. She should have. She pulled in a deep breath. “Today complicates things a little, doesn’t it?”
He sighed and shook his head. “I know it does. I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t.”
“Why not?” She wanted the words to come out a demand, but she didn’t quite pull it off.
“Because I can’t get you out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about you underneath me last night. I can’t stop thinking about you almost losing it on me this afternoon.”
She closed her eyes and got about as close to blushing as she’d been in a century. “Can we not talk about that?”
“All right, let’s not talk about you crying.” He shouldered his way in and shut the door behind him. She engaged her security spells with a flick of her fingers, while Jack loomed over her, standing so close. “Let’s talk about why it upset you that Dorothy was crying. Let’s talk about why that shut you down. Let’s talk about why this case pushes your buttons so bad.”
Yeah, like she was going to tell him that story. Of their own volition, her fingers reached up to close around the talisman she wore. Too bad the one Bess had made for herself was for creativity instead of protection. It might have helped save her. Selina swallowed convulsively, wondering how her carefully constructed life had unraveled so fast. Then again, what life did she have left to worry about unraveling?
“Talk to me, Selina.” Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not calling you Grayson outside of work. I draw the line at that door.”
“Fine.”
His hand lifted to stroke over her cheekbone, just as he’d done that afternoon. She shivered, liking his touch too much, wanting to lean into it. Almost as much as she’d wanted to earlier. But she couldn’t allow herself the weakness. She wouldn’t.
“Talk to me.” His voice was low, coaxing.
He wasn’t going to give up. But then, he’d be a shitty agent if he weren’t a bulldog when he latched on to a topic. All she knew was that she couldn’t tell him the truth about why this case pushed her shiny red buttons. Merek didn’t know that one of the victims was her cousin, but if he did know, he’d understand that Selina could get beyond the fact that her family was involved. He’d understand Selina could handle that she was going to die. But Jack? Luca? She didn’t know them well enough to trust them, and they didn’t know her and what she was capable of. They might pull her off the case so fast her head would spin, and she couldn’t allow that.
Her name was listed nowhere on Bess’s official documentation—her aunt had made certain of that—so the likelihood that anyone would discover the connection was nil. The bottom line was she couldn’t let Bess’s killer get away again. She’d never be able to live with herself if she did. It was that simple and that complicated.
But Jack’s gaze watched her steadily, waiting. She had to tell him something, so she gave him as much of the truth as she could. “This was my first murder case. I was pretty new to the police force.”
Jack’s heavy brows drew together in a dark frown. “They gave a serial killer to a rookie?”
If anything, that made him look even more pissed off on her behalf. “So they dumped the shit on you and let you take the political fallout, too.”
“Pretty much.” She folded her arms over her chest, then dropped them when his gaze zeroed in on her cleavage. Tingles skipped over her skin, and she did her best to ignore them. “I got more help from a civilian than I did from my own department.”
“A civilian?” His eyebrows arched. “A Magickal reporter or something?”
“Hardly.” She snorted. “Theodore Holmes is the last living vampire hunter. Nice guy, if you overlook the burning, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred he has for all vamps.”
“Charming.”
“Not at all.” A wry smile curled her lips. “But he was there for me when I needed him the most, and that made overlooking his issues a lot easier.” She sighed and couldn’t meet his gaze when she went into half truth. “So this was my first murderer, and he got away. All those people died because I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. It’s ... haunted me. Unsolved cases happen, and I’ve put several of them behind me, but not this one. This one almost made me quit the force.”
He reached out and cupped her shoulders, his fingers massaging lightly. “This was the guy who got away.”
“Yeah.” That was true enough, and she hated the way her insides knotted at not telling him everything. It couldn’t be helped, but she wished it could. “I want to finish what I started, you know what I mean? Today was rough because it all rushed back at me ... same M.O., same scene with relatives sobbing and asking why, and me with no answers for them. Again. I’ll be fine by tomorrow, but today sucked ass.”
Night Games Page 7