Private Affair
Page 16
“I guess that’s the smoke bomb,” Olivia whispered, her voice high and reedy.
He hefted it in his hand, then heaved it toward a window, where it crashed through. Seconds later, he rushed forward and looked inside.
On the tape, smoke began to billow out the shattered glass. And it seemed that less than a minute went by before he threw another missile after the first.
“What were you doing after he threw it?” Jack asked.
“Claire and I both started coughing, and our eyes were burning. I was trying to get her out of there. First she wouldn’t move. Then it seemed like she’d come with me. But she changed her mind again.”
They were still watching the screen. The man was still on the outside looking in, but he probably couldn’t see anything through the smoke. Then he withdrew a gun from the knapsack and walked confidently around to the front of the house.
“What a brave guy,” Jack muttered. “Going after two defenseless women inside with their eyes stinging and their lungs burning.”
“He thought they were defenseless,” Max answered. “But Olivia wasn’t going to just let him shoot her.”
With the gun in his hand, the man disappeared from view.
“I guess that’s it,” Jack said. “Too bad we couldn’t hear anything or see anything more.”
Max turned toward Olivia. “From what we just watched, do you know who he is?”
Chapter 18
Max waited for Olivia’s answer.
Her response was what he expected, given the precautions the guy had taken.
“No.”
“Anything at all you can think of?” Jack pressed.
“I was in a panic. In the smoke. He was shooting at me. All I wanted to do was get away. Well, get away with Claire.”
“Yeah, but we can go back and look at him on the tape.”
He rewound until they had a clear picture of the time after the assailant walked into the frame.
Max went through the tape very slowly.
“He didn’t park in the driveway,” he said. “It looks like he came through the woods.”
“Like when he was here before,” she murmured.
“I told you about the man who strung the barbed wire in the woods,” Max clarified to his partners. “We don’t know for sure that was him, but it would make sense. Which means it would be helpful if we got those DNA results.”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed. “But once we get the profile, we’ve got to find out if he’s in the system.”
“Work on that,” Max ordered.
Shane nodded. “He must have been coming to check out the place. “But why announce his presence by setting that trap in the woods? That doesn’t exactly make sense.”
Max made a sound of agreement, then went back to slowly forwarding the surveillance tape, keeping his focus on the man who had come to kill Claire and Olivia.
“He moves easily. I’d say he works out,” Jack observed.
“One of the former football players?” Olivia wondered.
“Not necessarily,” Max answered. “Too bad he had on that cap. I’d like to at least know his hair color—or if he’s bald.”
“See if you can get it,” Shane said.
Max stopped the picture and zoomed in on the man’s mask-covered face. When the guy turned his head, they saw a bit of hair at the bottom of the cap.
Max enlarged the picture again. “It’s dark,” he said.
“He could still be mostly bald,” Shane pointed out.
“Or he could have dyed his hair,” Olivia said.
“It’s the only physical evidence we have to go on so far,” Max said.
“I’d like to look for shoeprints, but the cops have probably trampled the ground,” Jack said.
Max zoomed out again, and they kept going through the tape, frame by frame.
“He could have gotten that shirt anywhere,” Max said.
“No,” Olivia said.
“You know where he bought the shirt?” Jack asked, and they all turned to her.
“Well, not specifically where he bought it, but I’m pretty good at remembering clothing. It’s part of my job.”
“You said you remembered women’s clothing better than men’s when I asked you about the reunion meeting,” Max said.
“Right. But last year I was doing some commercials for Ralph Lauren. That shirt was in the male collection.”
“You’re sure.”
“It’s a dark, solid color broadcloth shirt with a slight pattern in the weave.” She pointed toward the screen. “But look at that checked pattern inside the collar.”
“What about the logo?” Max asked.
“He had a handkerchief covering it,” she said.
“Good work,” Max said to Olivia.
“Does it help?” she asked.
“It’s a clue,” Max answered. “It tells us he’s a guy who can afford to wear expensive clothing to a murder. And that he doesn’t mind getting them messed up,” he added.
Shane snorted.
Max kept going. “Anything else sartorial that would help?”
Olivia watched for a few more minutes, then pointed to his shoes. “I think those are Gucci loafers. I can’t be sure because there are a lot of knockoffs. But it’s the style. See the curve of the tongue.”
Shane laughed. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“More evidence that he’s well off,” Jack said.
“Like Brian Cannon,” Max said.
“But he has blond hair,” Olivia pointed out.
They kept watching, and Olivia couldn’t come up with anything else that would help identify the guy.
When the tape finished, Max turned to Olivia and saw her biting her lower lip. “What are you thinking?”
“If I had saved Claire, we could ask her about him,” Olivia whispered.
“You couldn’t save her because she wouldn’t let you,” Max said. “She was too out of it, I think. Maybe she was even drugged so she couldn’t think straight.”
“I was wondering about that,” Olivia conceded. “She wasn’t acting the way I remembered her—or acting normal, come to that. But how would he drug her?”
“He could have done something similar,” Shane said. “Introduce some kind of gas into her house. Something more subtle than breaking the window. But we can’t find out if we can’t go over there and investigate.”
“That jerk Hamilton is irrational,” Max muttered.
Jack shook his head. “We probably wouldn’t have access anyway.”
“We’d have a better chance of getting some evidence,” Max shot back, then glanced toward Olivia. She had thrown her head back and looked exhausted. He’d wanted to talk about the assailant’s motivation, but he decided that was going to have to wait.
“I think we’ve worked you hard enough tonight,” he said. “Why don’t you take a shower? You probably feel grimy after that smoke attack.”
Olivia sat up and looked at him. “Yes.”
When she’d gone into the bedroom and closed the door, Max looked at his partner. “I was thinking about something,” he said.
“And we’re not going to like it,” Jack said.
“Yeah. It’s about the two of you staying in the hotel with us. I understand why you got yourselves a room, but under the circumstances, it’s not the best plan.”
“Why not?” Jack asked.
“Because the killer has obviously researched us. Not just me—the whole Rockfort organization. He knows who we all are, and he’s got a line on how we operate. He knew enough to get your cell phone.”
Shane made an angry sound.
“And use it to trick me,” Max added. “Unfortunately, I think if the two of you are in the hotel, that increases the chance of his finding us here.”
His partners thought about that for a few moments.
“I hate to admit it, but that makes sense,” Shane said.
“So go back to your wives tonight. And tomorrow, try to get those DNA results.
Also, we need to do some more intensive research on Olivia’s class. We can narrow it down to rich guys.”
“Unless he bought the shoes and shirt on sale,” Shane said.
“Well, that would mean he wants to look prosperous. We can also focus on guys who think image is important.”
“That will take a bit of digging,” Shane said. He cleared his throat. “I’m really sorry about the phone.”
“Not your fault,” Max answered immediately.
“I should have put you in the loop as soon as the damn thing disappeared.”
“And I shouldn’t have fallen for that damn ruse like a wet-behind-the-ears patrol officer,” Max snapped.
“Don’t either of you beat yourselves up on that,” Jack said. “It was a clever ploy executed with finesse.”
“It could have gotten Olivia killed,” Max shot back.
“But she’s okay,” Jack said. “She held him off long enough for you to get back there.”
“And we know the guy is smart. Don’t underestimate him,” Shane said.
“He was clever enough to make his previous murders look like accidents until Angela,” Max said.
“And now maybe he’s coming unraveled,” Jack said.
“Which makes him more dangerous,” Max added.
They discussed the case for a few more minutes but drew no other useful conclusions. When the two other Rockfort agents left, Max was alone with his thoughts—and with Olivia.
He hated the way he’d bought into the idea that Olivia was involved in the case as more than a victim, even when he understood his twisted logic. Partly it was because he was certain that she was hiding something from him. And he’d been using that as an excuse to distance himself from her.
And now that they were alone, he had to talk to her about what had happened, even though the thought of the conversation made him feel like he’d stepped out of a helicopter and was hurtling toward a crash landing onto a concrete slab.
Unable to sit still, he stepped to the bedroom door, listening. The shower went off, and then he heard rustling noises in the bathroom. He was standing by the window when the door opened and she stepped into the living room, facing him.
She looked a lot better than she had twenty minutes ago. She was wearing one of those white hotel robes, and he wondered what she had on under it. Forcing his mind away from intimate thoughts, he folded his arms across his chest and said, “I have to ask you something.”
His tense posture and the tone of his voice had apparently made her wary.
“What is it?”
“Do you still want me on the case?”
Chapter 19
Fighting a feeling of disorientation, Olivia stared at the man standing beside the sofa.
“Why are you even asking?”
“Because I screwed up,” Max said.
“No.”
“Of course I did. I knew it wasn’t safe to leave you alone. Then I let myself get lured away—so the killer could come to your house. He obviously had it all set up.”
“And he obviously had it carefully planned,” Olivia reminded him. “He wanted you to leave so he could come after me and Claire.”
“How does that change anything?” he asked in a gritty voice.
“Well, you realize that he could have lured you away to kill you,” she said.
His eyes widened. “Jesus, I didn’t think about that.”
“I did. I had a lot of time to think while I was hanging around police headquarters, waiting for you to finish with that nasty detective. Where were you supposed to meet Shane?”
“In the parking lot of the restaurant where we had the reunion meeting.”
“So he knew about that. In fact, he could have been there.”
“Or not.”
She could see from his face that nothing she said was going to have much effect on the way he felt about what had happened. He was still kicking himself for leaving her unprotected. Probably Hamilton had pounded that into him as well.
Maybe she wasn’t totally sure how she felt about his going. But she knew there was only one way to reassure him that she wanted him here with her.
She reached for him, pulling him to her, feeling his resistance and knowing when he finally gave up fighting what he wanted. What they both wanted.
She cupped the back of his head and brought his mouth to hers in a kiss she didn’t even pretend was part reassurance. It was all heat and fury and relief that both of them had come through the incident all right.
He made a sound deep in his throat. A sound of surrender, she decided, as the kiss changed its focus. She had been the aggressor to start with. Now he took that role, and if she had been surer of him, she would have thought that he was staking his claim on her.
He gathered her close, his hands moving over her back and shoulder and into her freshly washed hair. She felt his erection standing up between them, hard and insistent, and knew that this time things were going to end differently.
He fumbled for the belt of the robe, opening the tie and letting the belt ends drop to the side before he swept the edges of the garment out of the way.
She was wearing nothing underneath, and the feel of his large hands on her naked body sent a shock wave through her. The kiss had aroused her. It was nothing to what she felt now.
She was pretty sure the public made assessments about her life. Probably they thought she had slept with a lot of men. But it wasn’t true. Of course she’d had a lot of offers, but she’d learned to be cautious about relationships. And this was the first man she had let past her defenses in years. Maybe because he hadn’t been trying. He’d been keeping his distance, the way she had been until she’d understood what kind of man he was.
His hands moved over her stomach, her ribs, then reached to cup her breasts. He made a needy sound as he took them in his hands, and she echoed that sound when he stroked his thumbs across nipples that had hardened to tight points of sensation.
When she felt him go still, she raised her head, giving him a questioning look.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked in a gritty voice.
“Very sure.”
To make that point, she reached for his belt buckle and pulled the end of the belt free before finding the button at the top of his jeans.
He kept his gaze on her face as she lowered the zipper and reached inside, cupping her hand around his erection through the soft fabric of his boxers.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “That’s good. Probably too good.”
“Yes,” she answered, smiling at his reaction.
Next she tackled his shirt, opening the buttons and pushing the garment off his shoulders. While she did that, he was slicking down his jeans, scuffing off his shoes, and kicking his pants away.
She reached around to his butt, stroking her hands over his curves, and he did the same, then he reached lower into the folds of her sex, caressing her there with knowing fingers.
He let go of her long enough to shrug out of his shirt and push the robe off her shoulders so that they were both naked, with a convenient bed only steps away. She’d already turned down the covers, and he took her down to the surface of the mattress with him, gathering her close and starting to kiss her all over again, beginning with her mouth, then her ears, her neck, her collarbone, and finally her breasts.
“Don’t make me wait,” she pleaded.
He lifted his head away from one breast so that he could speak. “I want you as hot as I am.”
One of his hands traveled down her body while his mouth returned to the nipple he’d been circling with his tongue. When he drew her into his mouth and began to suck, she knew she couldn’t take much more.
Sliding her hand down his body, she clamped her fingers around his erection, feeling the heat and power of him.
He gasped. “Olivia.”
“Do it now,” she answered, rolling to her back.
He followed her, covering her body with his, and she guided him into her.
When he began to move, she matched his rhythm, knowing he was holding back, waiting for her to catch up with him. And all at once she was there, on a high plateau where she knew she might get burned by the heat of the sun. She didn’t worry about that. She could only drive for her satisfaction, then come apart in a burst of feeling that carried her into space.
She knew he was with her as she felt his body go rigid and heard his shout of satisfaction.
And then his weight was on her as he gathered her to him, breathing hard.
“That was okay for you?” he whispered.
“Wonderful.” She smiled and snuggled against him, feeling happier than she had in a long time. Someone had tried to kill her a few hours ago. But she had kept him at bay long enough for the man who held her in his arms to come back and drive the invader away.
“We make a good team,” she murmured.
“Making love?”
“I was thinking of a few hours ago.”
He winced.
“Sorry if I reminded you that you left.”
“I don’t need reminding.”
She raised her head and looked down at him. “You saved my life. Don’t forget that part.” When he said nothing, she added, “I mean that.”
He held her close, stroking her, and she might have drifted off to sleep in his arms—until she felt the tenor of the stroking change.
“What?” she murmured.
“There are things I never told you about myself.”
“Do they matter?”
Ignoring the question, he went on. “I had nothing growing up, and I had a chip on my shoulder. I envied the well-off kids at Donley.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than you had. I wanted more, too. Not just material things. I could see that the other kids didn’t have a father like mine—who was always on my case.”
“Yeah, well my mom wasn’t home enough to be on my case. And the only way I could see to get the things I wanted was to steal them. Another guy and I did some shoplifting—taking clothing, mostly,” Max said. “Stuff I wanted to wear to school. And when I needed cash, I broke into a lot of houses in Columbia and Ellicott City.”