A Touch Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 2)

by Claire, Nicola

  Chapter 32

  “Keen’s all grown up now, boss.”

  What those two were playing at, I had no idea. But I wouldn’t put it past Inspector Hart to have had an ulterior motive to that strange last minute conversation. Sure, he wanted me to question Kyan again, somewhere where I could get him to open up, quietly.

  But he also didn’t reprimand me for vacating his office without leave. He ran a tight ship. My actions just now were insubordinate. Yet, he’d carried on a conversation with Ryan Pierce as though they were sitting around drinking beers at a barbecue.

  He’d known I’d go after Damon. He didn’t stop me. Therefore Inspector David Hart had plans.

  I caught up to Damon in the public carpark where he had parked his HEAT truck. He’d just opened his driver’s side door when I came barrelling up to him; breathless, flushed, and probably looking a little wild in my out of fashion ball gown, no make-up, and wayward hair.

  “Damon,” I said, but he must have known I was there. Even I couldn't hear a damn thing other than my gasps for much needed air.

  “Let’s not do this right now, Lara,” he said, not turning around to face me. He folded his frame into the driver’s seat, all long limbs and lithe body, wrapped up in a beautiful package.

  “Ignore Hart,” I urged. “He’s got to say those things. The fact he hasn’t arrested you already means he’s got jack shit.”

  “I’m tired of defending myself,” he said, slipping his seatbelt on as though he was going to leave.

  I walked up to his open door and stood there, making it impossible for him to shut it before he drove off. I could smell his cologne. I could feel his addictive heat. I wanted to touch him. To reach out and burn my hand. I wanted him so much it actually hurt.

  “I believe you.”

  “I know you do,” he said, surprising me. “But I’m just so fucking frustrated right now, I can’t think.”

  “Don’t push me out,” I pleaded.

  “Lara,” he said, a sigh chasing my name on his lips. “Love, you’ve got a job to do and right now I’m on it. It’s better if I stay away.”

  “Bullshit,” I spat on a harsh whisper. “You are not my job.”

  He looked up at me, the late afternoon sun just at the right angle to make him have to raise his hand and shield his eyes. His cuff link glinted in the light, dazzling me for a second. I shifted. I told myself it was because of being blinded, but it was a lie. It was because I was uncomfortable with his silence and hard stare.

  “No, I’m not your job,” he said levelly. So much left unsaid with those simple words. My job was my life. It always had been. Carl had been entangled in that philosophy as well.

  Not anymore.

  I reached out and wrapped a hand around his wrist, changing the angle of his cuff link so I could see him clearly, and seeking that delicious heat I craved at the same time. I licked my lips and looked into his dark eyes, then willed myself to say something. Anything. Whatever was needed to keep him from running away.

  “You’re more important than my job, Damon. My job just fills the empty spaces inside my head. You fill the empty spaces in my heart. I’m not saying I would do well if I didn’t have CIB. Actually,” I admitted on a small laugh,” I don’t think I’d do too well at all. But I’d do worse without you. You keep me sane. Keep me healthy.” Keep Carl away. Make me forget my father. “I need you both,” I finished.

  Please don’t make me choose.

  “Come here,” he whispered, voice deep and speaking to parts of me best left at home and not on display in a police carpark.

  I shifted closer anyway.

  “No, Lara,” he said. “Come… here.”

  I swallowed, took the last step necessary to bring me alongside his seat, and leaned my face down.

  His free hand came up and cupped my cheek, a calloused thumb gently brushing across heated skin. Then his lips pressed to mine, tongue seeking, teeth nibbling, that thumb entering the side of my mouth and holding me still; like a vice.

  I made a sound, that really should not have been on display in a police carpark. He reciprocated, delving his tongue in deeper in a rhythm I couldn’t deny was making me all kinds of hot. Then he pulled back, looked into my eyes and sighed, his forehead coming to rest against mine.

  “I hate this,” he whispered. “Not knowing. She’s out there, probably addicted again. To all of it. The drugs, the sex, him.”

  “Tell me about him,” I urged, still bent over so his head could rest against mine. The hand that had slipped his thumb into my mouth in a move that did all kinds of wicked things to my insides, was now wrapped around the back of my neck. The other had fingers laced with mine down by my thigh.

  “He owned her,” he admitted. “In every single way. She was addicted to him as much as the substances. He fuelled her desires and then trapped her with them.”

  “Were they exclusive?”

  He pulled back and rested his head on the headrest of his driver’s seat. The absence of his heat and touch was almost debilitating. Talk of ownership seemed to only make the void he’d just created by pulling back too real.

  “She was strictly controlled, so for her exclusivity was a given. But I’m not so sure about him. He had a small entourage, but he was definitely seen on the club circuit. Sometimes with Carole, sometimes not.”

  “Someone must know more about him than just his alias,” I pointed out.

  “I never had a chance to look too deeply,” Damon admitted. “By the time I realised what sort of relationship it was, and how damaging it had become to Carole, I pulled her out and then he disappeared.”

  Damon was a good investigator, but he wasn’t a cop. He didn’t have the suspicious mind of a police detective who had seen too many dark and dangerous things. His investigations were often undertaken after the fact. And rarely stretched into motive.

  Andrew Falkner, for want of a real name to call him, would have believed Carole was his property. And Damon had stolen her. Revenge was obvious. But not for a fire investigator. I would have checked Falkner out before going in. I would have done my homework. But then, Carole wasn’t my sister.

  “Listen,” I said. “Hart wants me to corner Kyan Marcroft and try for something solid again on Samantha Hayes. Falkner is involved in the Irreverent Inferno, he had to be, to give Cawfield that much guidance.” Damon grimaced, but didn’t comment. So, I forged on. “I can try to push Kyan on that angle as well as the murder case.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted. “But I’m doing it.”

  “Is it what a detective would normally do?” Damon pressed.

  “It’s what this detective will do.”

  “Lara.”

  “Damon.”

  He shook his head, but there was a smile on his lips now. It reached his eyes.

  “There’s something you can do too,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Go back in.”

  “Hart won’t want me near the Irreverent Inferno and Carole will be long gone by now.”

  “Last night there were twenty seven members in attendance, including the initiates. The night before there were twenty-six. The difference was Cawfield. Which leads us to believe that the stable number of attendees is twenty-six. He was there, Damon. And if he was there, then Carole’s not far from him.”

  “That’s when she calls you,” he guessed.

  “She has some freedom, that’s obvious. But she’s too scared to really use it.”

  “Fuck!” he said, slamming his hand down on the steering wheel and almost bending it.

  “Go back in. If there’s twenty-six attendees, he’s there.”

  “You trust me to hold it together.”

  “I’d trust you with my life.”

  He blinked. His fingers flexed around the steering wheel. His voice was gruff when he spoke.

  “I want you. Right now.”

  I smiled, my body tingling. “Police carparks aren’t generally a good
place to ‘park up.’”

  “Ha ha,” he shot back. Then sobered. “I don’t know how long she’s got.”

  “I don’t know how long we’ve got before the murderer strikes again,” I countered. “The first act was showy. A performance he was prepared to undertake across the street from an open gaming club. A club he is most certainly a member of. He staged the body. Crucified her. She was paying for her sins, or his, I’m unsure. But whoever did this will be in the Irreverent Inferno tonight. I know it. The nine circles of Hell. He’s tested himself on each one. He’s already reached his version of Paradise. What happens now?”

  “He enjoys it,” Damon whispered.

  “And enjoyment for him involves breath control play on a grand public scale. This man will perform again. You can count on it.”

  “And Carole could be there.”

  “I can’t see it,” I said, shaking my head. “If what you’ve said about Falkner is true, everything he’s done is to get her back. Why put her in a position to be harmed?”

  “He put her on that fucking altar and let a stranger do disgusting things to her in front of hooded men.”

  “And then beat up the man who did those things to her, almost killing him,” I pointed out. “Maybe he regretted it. Maybe it was punishment for escaping him, and now she’s paid. But either way I can’t see it.”

  “Lara, he owns her. To keep or throw away.”

  Fuck, maybe Damon had seen dark and dangerous things in his line of work. Maybe he wasn’t as shut off from my world as I’d thought.

  “Then you need to go back there,” I said, feeling a strange sense of despair that he would jump to such a conclusion. Even as it justified my fucked up world.

  “OK, but the batteries on the cameras and mics are flat.”

  I glanced at my watch and then slipped my cellphone out of my handbag. I had it to my ear before Damon could raise an eyebrow in query. Carmel answered on the fourth ring.

  “Anscombe Securities and Investigations. How can I help?”

  “Hi, Carmel. This is Detective Lara Keen. May I please speak with Nick Anscombe?”

  Damon snorted at my overly polite greeting and request. I turned my back on him or I’d give myself away.

  “Of course, Detective,” the gatekeeper said in a matching false polite tone. “One moment please.”

  Too easy. It had been too easy.

  Then the phone clicked and went dead.

  Motherfucker! She did not just do that.

  My cellphone rang while I was staring at it in shock. The name on the screen was “ASI.”

  “Keen,” I growled down the line. “That was rude. What the fuck do they teach you at receptionist school? How the hell you keep your job, I don’t know.”

  “Detective,” Nick Anscombe’s recognisable deep voice said. “You wanted me?”

  I tipped my head back and closed my eyes.

  “I’m not fond of your receptionist,” I admitted.

  “No shit,” he shot back. “I think the feeling might be mutual.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, in way of apology.

  “Carmel’s part of the furniture, Detective,” Nick said. “You get used to her.”

  Unlikely, but I finally held my tongue.

  “Need your help,” I advised.

  “I wouldn’t have guessed.”

  “Damon’s going back into the Irreverent Inferno, he’s on his way to you now to change the batteries in his gear.”

  “Pierce hasn’t sanctioned this.”

  “I’m sanctioning it.”

  “You’re not lead detective on this case.”

  “Since when do you follow the rules?”

  Silence.

  Damon slipped out of his car and came ‘round to face me. His eyebrows were still raised, his arms crossed in a deceptively calm stance. He could hear every word, no doubt. And he did not like it.

  But he didn’t butt in. Damon knew me well. I liked to fight my own battles.

  “Here’s the thing,” I said when Nick still refused to answer. “We’ve narrowed down the murderer and we’ve got a bead on Carole Michaels. All roads lead to Sweet Hell.”

  “OK,” he finally said. “Send him in.”

  “Great. Tha…”

  “But if you want my help again, Detective, try a little sugar.”

  “You got a sweet tooth, Anscombe?” I said, attempting to lighten the mood. He had every right to be ticked off. I was pissing all over his territory.

  He made a sound. I couldn’t tell if it was laughter or something less inviting.

  “For you, Keen, I’d accept a fucking lemon.” The line went dead.

  “I don’t think he likes me,” I admitted to Damon as I slipped my cellphone away. “But he’s waiting for you at ASI.”

  “Are you going to tell Pierce?”

  “I don’t know. He is primary on this. But you’re right about Hart not wanting to send you back in. He can’t.”

  “And Pierce?”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about that. Nick and Ryan go way back. He’s likely to bust my arse to Pierce just out of spite.”

  “You are a charmer,” Damon quipped.

  “Why, thank you,” I replied, with mock sincerity. “I try my best.”

  We smiled at each other and then he checked his watch. It was approaching five already.

  “Are you coming as well?”

  “I have to touch base with Kyan. Orders,” I added when he frowned.

  “Be careful, love.”

  “Always.”

  We stared at each other a little longer and then he reached forward and drew me close, one hand twisted in my hair, one cupping my jaw, tilting my face up to his.

  “I still want you,” he whispered against my lips. “When this is over, later tonight,” - he was being optimistic - “I’m going to strip you down, until your beautiful bare skin is glowing in the light of the moon as it shines through your bedroom window. All those dips and curves coated in an alabaster sheen. And then I’m tasting every inch of you. Every. Single. Delightful. Inch. And once I’ve made you beg for more, I’ll make you come, I’ll make you scream my name. And only after I’m convinced you’re about to break apart from my touch, from my kiss, I’ll slide deep inside you, pin you beneath me, and take you with every part of my soul. I’ll fuck you into oblivion, Lara. I’ll pour every inch of me inside every inch of you. I’ll make us come together, sweaty, breathless, limbs like marshmallow. And then I’ll do it all again, just to be sure.”

  “To be sure?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, still not kissing me, his breath the only touch he allowed my lips. “To be sure you know how much I love you. To be sure you know how much I need you. To be sure you know how much I crave you.”

  His forehead came down and rested against mine. Such an intimate move, but so innocent in appearance.

  “I’m yours, Lara. You own me.” The words hung on the air between us. Meaning something, I was sure, completely different from what they meant to Falkner and Carole.

  But he’d said them. Damon had voiced his deepest desire aloud.

  And it had come crashing down to haunt him.

  “Damon,” I started and he moved his lips to mine.

  The kiss was soul destroying. An attempt to exorcise his choice of words. To prove to me or himself, I’m not sure, but to prove his type of ownership was an entirely different thing than anyone else’s.

  Than Andrew Falkner’s.

  He pulled away, reluctance and regret making a strange combination of his features, and then he slipped into his vehicle and shut the door.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said, through the window. “Good luck,” I added, not sure what else to tell him, knowing I should have been putting his mind at rest, unable to find the fucking words.

  He wouldn’t have listened. Damon was neck deep in his sister’s woes. His words bringing back the importance of tonight. Sealing his fate, and I feared, sealing ours.

  I watched
until the truck disappeared onto Hobson Street. I watched until the sun disappeared behind the ten storey Central Police building. I watched until I realised I was standing in a police carpark in an out of date ball gown with no means to drive home and get my car.

  And then my cellphone started ringing.

  The number on the screen said, when I fished it out of my bag, “Unknown Caller.”

  Carole.

  Chapter 33

  “Any chance not to use your service weapon, you grasp it. Paperwork’s a bitch.”

  “Keen,” I said into the mouthpiece. My steady voice belying the tremors in my hand. I’d shaken when I’d taken a call from my silent caller before, but not because the stress of the moment, the repercussions of fucking this up, were so great.

  Because I’d thought it was Carl and it screwed with my head.

  Carole didn’t screw with my head. This was what I was made for.

  “This is Detective Lara Keen,” I said, when she continued her shaky silence. “Carole, I know it’s you,” I added softly. “I can help.”

  A hitched breath. A near silent sob.

  “Where are you, Carole? Your brother is beside himself with worry. Let me bring you to him. Let me help.”

  “You can’t help,” she whispered, so quietly I had to strain to hear. I searched for a better place to stand, out of the wind, away from a busy city street. The only option was back inside the Central Police building and I didn’t have time.

  I covered my free ear with my palm, pressing the cellphone into the other, and crouched down behind a dark blue Mitsubishi Galant.

  “Where are you, hon?” I said, willing her to find her courage and speak out. “I can get you out of there with a minimal amount of fuss. Falkner won’t even know you’re gone.”

  Another hitched breath, or it could have been a gasp. Was she surprised we’d figured it out? Or just scared shitless when I mentioned his name?

  “He’ll know,” she said, making me believe the latter reason for her gasped breath. “I can’t escape.”

  “Let me come and see. OK? I’ll check it out, and if we can get you out of there, we will.”

  “Not we, you.”

  “I have close colleagues I can trust. We might need them, Carole.”