A very bad slip, she thought. “I wouldn’t do that around people if I were you.” She saw the suspicion in his eyes as he looked at her. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
No, he decided, he didn’t. He glanced toward the telephone and the menu he’d left beside it. He’d intended to order in after his shower. He still did. “Are you hungry? I can have something sent up.”
“I thought you already ate.”
“My lap had the Rigatoni Alfredo,” he reminded her. “I didn’t.”
She watched him reach for the phone. He was going to call room service one way or another, and maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, having dinner with him in his room. There was less noise to compete with.
Just as he raised the receiver to his ear, she said, “I put in for some personal time.”
“At the precinct?”
She nodded. He replaced the receiver into the cradle again, puzzled.
“Why would you do that?” he asked.
Because something was egging her on to give Eric’s case her full attention, despite the evidence against it. “Because while I’m good at multitasking, I can’t do my job properly and look into your brother’s case at the same time. Too many feathers getting ruffled.”
By that he surmised she meant the police personnel. He didn’t want her doing anything that would place her in harm’s way. Or make valuable pieces of evidence disappear. “Does anyone know you’re looking into it?”
“Longwell probably suspects something.” She saw his frown deepen and had to admit that it was a formidable sight. She wondered if he used it on the people who worked for him. “Don’t worry about him, we go way back.”
Cole was far from convinced that it was all right, but it wasn’t that which prompted him to ask, “How far back?”
“We’re friends, or were until I got my promotion.”
“Jealousy?”
She doubted if Longwell had a jealous bone in his body, at least, not where work was concerned. He wasn’t petty, like Patterson and some of the others, who had viewed her promotion as a form of nepotism.
“No, we just drifted apart. Different worlds,” she explained. “There’s a little bit of a caste system going on within the police department. We all band together when threatened from without, but internally—” she shrugged “—I guess it’s no better or worse than every other place. One group doesn’t quite trust the other.”
He immediately thought of the investigation into Eric’s case. “What did you mean by ‘threatened from without’? You mean, when someone tries to shake a case?”
“Something like that.” She nodded at the phone, making up her mind. She might as well stay. “You going to pick up that phone or does room service magically read your thoughts and deliver the meal of your choice at a set time?”
The sarcasm only made him laugh. It felt good, but it hardly went to relieve the tension pulsating within the room. “They might be able to read my thoughts, but not yours. I doubt if anyone can read yours.”
Her smile was deceptively soft. “I’m a very simple person.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she informed him sweetly. “There, simple.”
Not by a long shot, he thought.
The room had gotten somewhat warmer since she’d entered it. It seemed odd to him that in all the time he’d spent away from home, he’d never found himself more than passingly attracted to anyone. Throughout his travels, he’d had plenty of opportunities to find willing companionship. But beyond the physical, there’d never been any sort of real gratification. Which kept things simple but at the same time continued to propagate the feeling of isolation he carried around within him.
A hoped-for breakthrough in his brother’s case seemed on the verge of happening.
Cole knew timing was everything, and whatever was in the making here couldn’t have found the least opportune time to manifest itself. He had absolutely no time to think of himself right now. Because things were at a critical junction, he’d even gone so far as to delegate his work to his assistants so that he could be free for the length of time it took to prove Eric’s innocence. But he had no time to pursue an urge that had materialized out of nowhere and might very well lead to the same place.
He picked up the telephone and ordered.
As she listened, Cole ordered Chicken Marsala, along with a bottle of wine, expensive by the sound of it.
“What,” she asked as he hung up, amusement dancing along her lips, “no Alfredo sauce?”
She had a nice smile, he caught himself thinking. Not that it mattered one way or another.
“I’ve had enough of that to last me for a while,” he said, turning away from the phone. “What does your gut instinct say?”
Her tongue threatened to seal itself up to the roof of her mouth again. My gut instinct says I should get the hell out of here because the walls seemed to have moved in closer than they were a minute ago.
“About what?” she asked.
“The report.”
Idiot, she upbraided herself. Of course that’s what he meant.
“Seems straightforward enough.” She recited the highlights for him, although she had a feeling he was more familiar with them than she was. “Kathy Fallon was found dead in her apartment by a girlfriend who became worried that something might have happened to Kathy after she didn’t come in to work and didn’t answer her phone. She’d been stabbed.” Rayne paused for a moment, then continued. “According to neighbors, Eric and Kathy were heard arguing rather heatedly that evening. He said something to the effect that if he couldn’t have her, nobody could have her.”
Cole took a deep breath. He was already aware of that and how damning this testimony was for Eric, but it was still circumstantial. “That doesn’t automatically make him the killer. Eric said he left her alive.”
“We can’t find anyone to verify that,” she told him quietly, “and Eric’s fingerprints are all over the apartment. That, the restraining order Kathy swore out against him last month and the fact that he has no alibi for the time in question does put him at the head of the list.”
“He was at the party,” he reminded her.
She shook her head. She sympathized with what Cole seemed to be going through, because if it were one of her brothers facing being on trial for his life, she would be moving heaven and earth to try to find the flaw in the statement, the one piece that didn’t fit or would give way. But right now, there didn’t seem to be a tangible chink.
“Nobody remembers seeing Eric at the party after ten o’clock. The girl he was with supposedly said they were in one of the bedrooms and then she left. No one knows what happened to him after that. Kathy Fallon was killed close to midnight. By his own admission, Eric can’t remember what happened to him between shortly after he got to the party and waking up to the sound of the police banging on his door.” They might as well have everything out on the table at the same time. “And then there’s the little matter of that imprint from Eric’s ring on Kathy’s face.”
“I already told you, he said he gave it to her,” Cole said.
“We just have his word for it.”
He sighed, trying to gauge her tone. “So you think he did it?”
“No,” she said honestly, “but the jury’ll think he did it.”
For the second time he stopped prowling around the room. He needed to know. “What makes you think he didn’t?”
Cole’s eyes seemed to pin her in place. Even though she felt for what he was going through, Rayne resented being probed this way. “Are you trying to mess with my head?”
He blew out a breath. He felt as if he had his back against a wall. All he could do was pray that it wasn’t the wall in front of a firing squad.
“No, I’m trying to find what might be our best line of defense.”
“I don’t think Eric did it because the man I knew wouldn’t have hurt anyone or anything. He didn’t throw his weight around. He
wanted everyone to like him. Dead people can’t like you.” She paused, knowing she hadn’t really said anything they could use to sway a jury. “But I don’t think using his character is going to be our best line of defense. Too many people out there have less than glowing things to say about Eric. In the last ten years he’s gone from being a good-time Charlie to a rather pathetic little human being. He drank too much, spent too much and did nothing with his life except go from woman to woman. Until Kathy.”
“Until Kathy,” Cole echoed. There was a knock on the door. He saw the alert look instantly come over her face. In that moment he could almost visualize her springing into action. The notion tantalized him. He banked it down.
“Room service, remember?”
She was on edge. Whether it was due to the earlier call on her cell, or because she was here with Cole in what amounted to an intimate setting, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that a great deal of tension telegraphed itself up and down her body at an incredible rate.
She nodded toward the door. “Answer it.”
As he went to open it, he noticed that Rayne slipped her hand inside her jacket. Was she reaching for her weapon for some reason? Just who did she expect to be coming to the door?
He had to admit that it was an odd feeling to have an armed woman in his room. He was no stranger when it came to guns. When he’d gone to South America posing as a mercenary with an intelligence cartel, he’d had to blast his way out of more than one situation. But the women he’d encountered during that brief period of his life had never handled any kind of weapon on a regular basis. This was a completely different experience for him.
But then, so was trying to get his brother absolved of a murder charge.
The person on the other side of the threshold when Cole opened the door was dressed in a short white jacket that contrasted with his neatly pressed black slacks. “Room service,” the young man announced cheerfully.
Cole glanced over his shoulder at Rayne, his look all but saying, “See?”
“I’ll take it from here,” Cole told the waiter. He took possession of the cart after handing the young man a sizable tip.
Rayne closed the door the moment the cart was inside the room. “Well, you’re certainly not stingy, I’ll give you that,” she murmured. He looked at her quizzically. “You gave that kid a twenty.”
Since he’d begun working with people struggling to better themselves and the lives of their children, Cole had had a very profound sense of “there but for the grace of God….” It made him see things in a whole different light.
He positioned the table by the bed, then pulled over a chair for her. He figured she’d be more comfortable on it. Cole held it out, waiting for her. “Checking me out, Detective?”
Rayne sat down, letting him usher the chair in for her. “Just taking in bits and pieces of information. You never know when it might come in handy.”
Cole reminded himself that she didn’t need to be collecting information on him. And most of all, he didn’t need to be so interested in her.
Cole took off the metal covers keeping the two dinners warm and slide them onto a shelf beneath the table. “I’m not the one facing trial.”
“No, you’re the black sheep who came back to save his brother.”
How could you be a black sheep in a family that was comprised of nothing but black sheep? He wondered if that was some kind of anomaly.
Cole sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’d prefer thinking of myself as a rebel.”
“Sorry, that’s my position. Or so they like to tell me.”
By “they” he assumed she meant her family. Cole scoffed at the description. “You joined the police force like the rest of your family. How much of a rebel can you be?”
She felt as if he’d just challenged her. She still liked to think of herself in those terms, that she hadn’t arrived at her present position in life without having gone through considerable angst. Angst that haunted her still at times. “And you made something of yourself rather than coast on your family’s money. What kind of a black sheep are you?”
He broke open a roll. “I guess we’re both reformed.”
“In a manner of speaking.” In her heart, she always knew she’d be a rebel. It had to do with a mind set. Determined to make her father proud of her and to make up for the years that had gone before, she still didn’t intend to be mindlessly obedient to the department to which she’d pledged her loyalty.
“I still have my moments. Like now.”
“Now?” The word shimmered between them invitingly. It made him think of warm moonlit nights and soft, supple bodies. Kisses that promised to go on forever, even when he knew they wouldn’t.
Did her kisses do that?
Had she ever felt that strong pull that drew you into the eye of a hurricane before it spun you out to forever? Or had she been like him, seduced by the promise, only to be disappointed in the execution?
It took a moment before her words broke through. “I’m not exactly following official party line by independently looking into this for you, now am I?”
His smile, she found, was nothing short of raw sex. Her breath was coming in short supply. “Oh, that kind of now.”
Finding her tongue was becoming an annoyingly repetitive task. “Yes, that kind of now.”
She was doing more than justice to the dinner. He reached for the bottle chilling on the side. “Wine?”
Rayne placed her hand over the top of her glass before he had a chance to pour. “No.”
Her response surprised him. He poured a little into his own glass. “Teetotaler?”
“Believe me, when I was younger, I drank enough alcohol to float a battleship.” It wasn’t something she was particularly proud of, but it was a fact and part of her past. She didn’t see the point in trying to bury it by pretending she’d always been what she was today. Someone who, for the most part, walked a narrowed path. “But these days I like keeping a clear head.” She looked at him significantly. “You never know when one might come in handy.”
After taking a taste from his own glass, he retired it beside his plate. “Eric is going to need all the clear heads on his side he can get.”
His gaze held her in place again. Dragging the breath out of her lungs. “My thinking exactly.”
Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore. Not for what room service had delivered. Not when there was this other thing buzzing around in his head, pushing other, more important thoughts out of the way. “What else are you thinking?”
How did he do that? Evaporate the air around her? She was lucky she wasn’t gasping. “Nothing that has to do with Eric’s case.”
“Yeah, me, too.” He took a breath. There was no mistaking the look in her eyes. Not when it mirrored the one he was sure she saw in his. Slowly he rose to his feet, slipping his hand to her cheek. “Want to get it out of the way?”
Rayne felt as if she were being levitated. She certainly wasn’t gaining her feet under her own power. She didn’t even try to pretend she didn’t know what he was talking about. Because she did. “Like a box we forgot to unpack?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re on,” she heard herself whispering.
And he was. The moment he kissed her, he was on. Completely turned on.
And unless he’d lost all ability to read another person, Cole knew for damn sure that he wasn’t the only one.
Chapter 8
She wanted to get “it” out of the way. It. Her curiosity, about the kiss, about her response. About his. All tied up in one neat little bundle.
It.
She should have thought about getting herself out of the way. Wasn’t that what you did when you were in the direct path of an oncoming steamroller? You jumped out of the way.
Except that she didn’t.
And was completely and utterly flattened. Immediately.
It felt as if every available drop of air was pushed out of her lungs, her body. It left her head reeling and h
er pulse, she was fairly certain, had broken some kind of sound barrier limit because it throbbed so hard, so fast.
And the heat—there was a great deal of heat. Rayne would have sworn that she’d fallen headlong into hell, except that it felt like heaven.
Why else would there be music ringing in her head?
It wasn’t music, it was bells. Bells were ringing. Even more appropriate. If such a word could be used to describe the scrambling sensations assaulting her body from every direction, making her acutely aware that she was a woman, a woman who had, of late, been living the life of a nun.
She didn’t want to be a nun anymore.
It took Cole a second to realize that something was ringing. In the beginning, he’d felt sure the sound was only in his head, in his ears, reflecting the erratic way his heart was hammering.
Curiosity and a certain amount of overwhelming animal attraction had brought him to this junction. But what had begun as a minor thing now threatened to swallow him up whole. Because his curiosity wasn’t sated, it was hungry for more.
He wanted her.
Of all the times…
With effort, Cole began to disengage himself from the tendrils wound tightly around him. He pulled his head away. The ringing left his ears and filled the room.
Idiot, he jeered silently to himself. “It’s your phone,” he finally told her.
“What?” The word escaped on the wave of a breathless gasp.
Were they still on earth? Still standing? Still in his room?
Could kisses do that? Completely obliterate your powers of orientation? She’d thought that was just a silly rumor, whispered amid pubescent girls nestled in sleeping bags at slumber parties while they still had their illusions and their dreams. Before reality found them.
Wonder filled her. Rayne felt like someone who had stumbled across the last living unicorn and was doubting her own eyes, her own senses.
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