An Irresistible Man

by Kylie Brant

  She ducked behind one of the huge square pillars that dotted the area, giving a silent prayer of thanks to the architect who’d included them in this building’s plan. Then she prepared to wait.

  Stakeout had never been one of her favorite parts of police work, and after more than three hours Madeline’s mood was approaching the dangerous. Her surveillance had yielded no results, and the shoes she’d put on this morning had quickly lost the comfort for which she’d bought them. No one else came out of the elevator, although a few more people left the offices for the night.

  What could he be doing here for so long? The tedium was starting to wear on her nerves. She’d had too much time to think tonight, and she didn’t like the way her thoughts all seemed to center around one man. She should be using this time to concentrate on every aspect of the case, but images of him kept appearing in her mind. Each was different, reflecting a different side of him. Face gentle as he held one of his nieces, aglow with pride when he introduced his parents. Closed and guarded when he’d talked to Ritter, laughing and teasing as he was all too often, and by contrast, cold and harsh as he’d been the time they’d encountered Baker.

  She didn’t usually think about the phenomenal memory she’d been blessed with. When she did, she gave thanks for it. But she cursed it bitterly now, because she knew it would supply her with never-ending tortuous memories of Cruz and the night they’d spent together. The realization did nothing to improve her mood.

  When Cruz finally did leave, he wasn’t alone. Her view was partially blocked by the huge pillar, but her eyes widened in surprise. He walked away with a man who looked very like the mysterious Dan whom they’d run into in the restaurant. She waited a few minutes and then crossed over and looked at the door they’d exited through. It bore only a number; no name or business was listed. After waiting a little longer, Madeline left the building. But she didn’t go home. Instead she headed to the Internal Affairs headquarters. She logged on to one of the available computers, one that accessed a vast databank for the city. Then she spent the better part of the night hunting for information that would explain once and for all Cruz Martinez’s secret.

  Cruz’s eyes narrowed with concern when Maddy approached his desk the next morning. She looked even more fragile than she had the day before, and that was saying a lot. Those gorgeous green eyes were dull, shuttered, and no amount of makeup could hide the shadows beneath them. His lips thinned, and he didn’t know who he was angrier at-her for beating herself up over their one night together, or himself. He finally decided that most of the blame was his. She was cautious about emotion; he’d known that, dammit, and still he’d pushed her.

  Well, it was too late now for regrets, and if the truth be told, he had damn few of them. He was only sorry that Maddy was suffering; he hated to see her tearing herself up over this. But the case would be over soon, and then, he vowed, he’d make it up to her.

  Pushing these thoughts aside, he made no mention of the tension that showed on her face. Instead he poured her a cup of coffee and sank into his chair, giving her some time to unwind.

  “Got a call from Lieutenant Niles,” he said as she sipped. He handed her the notes he’d jotted down from the phone conversation. “They checked out Valdez’s apartment. No one claims to have seen him around lately. That’s the list of what they found in his apartment.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be anything interesting on it,” she said, a note of disappointment in her voice. “How about prints? Have they dusted his apartment for Cantoney’s or Stover’s prints? Maybe their gun sales took place there.”

  “I doubt he dealt out of his apartment, but they dusted for Stover and came up empty. I already asked them to see if they could run a match on Cantoney. We’ll know the results tomorrow. Also, cotinued, “I talked to the lab and the gun you found in Cantoney’s apartment had several different prints on it, but none of them were Ramsey’s.”

  “That’s a relief, at least,” she said. “Did they get a clear print of Cantoney’s, I hope?”

  Cruz nodded. “Sure did. The gun yielded a set of his prints, and it was hidden in his apartment. I doubt they’ll need to use Ricky to testify against him. The case should stand alone on what we’ve got.”

  They left then and went out to the car. Madeline was grateful that it was her turn to drive. Fighting the traffic would give her mind something else to concentrate on other than the man riding beside her. She’d gotten very little sleep last night after leaving Internal Affairs. And she was planning to go back there again tonight. Just a few more hours and she should be able to answer several of her questions about Cruz Martinez.

  The lead ball in her stomach seemed a permanent fixture these days. It had been impossible to forget, even for a moment last night, just who she was investigating. It was hard to concentrate on her work, trying to compile enough facts that, taken together, might prove damning enough to point the finger at her partner.

  It wasn’t only for herself that she dreaded the possibility of having Cruz turn up guilty. The thought of what it would do to his family also haunted her. And the fact that it bothered her so much angered her. Why should she be the one to feel guilty? If Cruz had made his choices without regard to their impact on his family, he was responsible for letting his family and the department down, as well as for putting illegal weapons in the hands of kids. All those involved in the gun supply ring were as guilty as those who’d pulled the triggers.

  They arrived at Wynn Construction with only a few words being exchanged between them. The same manager greeted them, but had little more information for them than he’d had the first time.

  “Somehow I’m not surprised that you’re back to talk to us,” he grunted, putting down his pen on the stack of paperwork he was filling out. “I should have known that hiring an ex-con was going to get me nothing but trouble.”

  “It isn’t the practice of hiring ex-cons that has us interested,” Madeline corrected him evenly. “We’re looking for Valdez, as you know. We have no problem with you or your company.”

  The man’s grimace told them what he thought of that answer. “Well, I could have saved you a trip out here. Valdez hasn’t been back since you were here last time. And it’s put us in a real bind, too. We were shorthanded anyway, and now this. I don’t need the aggravation, believe me.”

  Cruz did. The man’s face seemed to be bright red all the time. Judging from that and the extra sixty pounds he was carrying, he was a prime candidate for a heart attack. “We won’t keep you very long. We want to question the foreman we spoke to last time, if we could.”

  “Don’t suppose I could stop ya,” the man grumbled. “I tell you, hiring Valdez was the worst mistake I made all year. Hell, if I hadn’t gotten a memo from the powers-that-be at Andersen’s about equal-employment opportunities, I would never have considered him at all. The guy was spooky.”

  The man’s attitude was making it increasingly difficult for Madeline to keep her tongue. Her eyes resting on the pen he’d dropped on the pile of papers on his desk, she crossed over and picked it up. “Wynn Construction.” She read the logo aloud, then she looked up with a smile as she replaced it. “Everybody’s into advertising, I suppose. Do you have a lot of these?”

  The man looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Yeah, they’re all over the place. But after a few months it gets harder than hell to find one. They seem to have a way of walking away, if you get my drift.”

  She smiled commiseratingly. “I suppose. You probably have things with Andersen Steel printed on them, too, since it’s your parent company.”

  He shook his head. “No need. We have our own name on pens, hats, key chains, the whole nine yards.” He was clearly growing impatient with the time they were taking. “You can find Kurt, the foreman, outside somewhere, checking the equipment. He’s got to go out and inspect job sites in an hour, so don’t tie him up too long, okay?”

  Cruz and Madeline left the office and headed across the construction yard to where they could
see Kurt near some large earth- moving equipment. “Pretty friendly guy,” Cruz commented as he strolled along.

  “He sure wasn’t happy to see us again,” she agreed. But her mind was only half on her own words. She was wondering about what the manager had said about not having anything here with Andersen advertising on it. That contradicted what Stephen Andersen had told them. And it left one question looming in her mind: If Valdez hadn’t picked the pen up here, at work, when and where had he gotten it?

  As they approached Kurt, a construction worker in a bright yellow hard hat climbed up onto the huge bulldozer and started it up. The noise was deafening as they grew closer, and they had to shout to be heard.

  “You’re back checking on Jose, I’ll bet,” Kurt called to them. “Hasn’t been back to work since the last time you came.”

  “We know, we talked to the manager,” Cruz said. “We’d like to speak to the men on the crew that Valdez worked on. Maybe he talked to one of them.”

  Kurt shook his head. “I’ve got his crew on the other side of the city. But you won’t get much from them. Valdez kept to himself. He was a good worker, I’ll give him that, but he didn’t talk much. His taking off really put me in a bind, too. I’ve got my hands full juggling several different projects, and I need every guy I’ve got. And if that’s not enough,” he complained querulously, “we’ve run out of steel, and the next shipment isn’t due in for several days.” He broke off then, as the man in the bulldozer cut the engine and climbed down. “If you want, I can write down the address of the place that crew is working, but I still think you’re wasting your time. Just make sure you don’t tie them up too long, okay? We’re on a tight deadline for the project they’re on.”

  They spent the next several hours across town at the construction site where the crew was working, questioning each man who had worked with Valdez. But their efforts were in vain, just as the foreman had predicted. None of the men could shed any light on Valdez or his whereabouts. They all agreed that in the short time he’d been there he’d done his job, but hadn’t talked much. No one professed to have had an opportunity for conversation having to do with anything other than work.

  When they finished questioning the crew members, they drove to Ricky and Ramsey’s apartment in the projects. A visibly subdued Ramsey let them in. “You heard Dirk was arrested?” Madeline asked him.

  He nodded.

  “He’s going away for another long stretch, Ramsey,” Cruz said soberly. “And if we hadn’t arrested him, you would have been the one to get put away. He was planning to get your fingerprints on the gun. He would have given you up as the shooter, if the killing had been traced back to him.”

  Ramsey looked down. Gone was the sullen bravado he’d sported every other time they’d talked to him. The news had shaken him that was apparent. “I never even seen the gun.”

  “Had you heard that Cantoney had gotten it?” Madeline asked.

  He hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. “I knew he was planning to. He talked about it all the time I wasn’t there when he got it, though.”

  “Do you have any idea who he bought it from?” Cruz pressed.

  Ramsey shook his head. “I never heard no names. All I know is he got it from some guy he had to meet on the docks.”

  “The docks?” Madeline frowned.

  “That’s what he said,” the boy insisted. “He was in a big hurry that he get it when he did. Otherwise he said he was going to have to wait a couple weeks before he got another chance.”

  “You had a pretty narrow escape, Ramsey,” Cruz noted, sending the boy a keen look. “If we’d been too late, it would have been you locked up, not Cantoney. Guess you couldn’t trust Dirk as much as you thought, huh?”

  The boy shrugged, frowning.

  “Next time you might not be so lucky,” Madeline put in. “Go back to school and steer clear of your friends in the Lords. It’s the only way you can stay clean.”

  Driving back to the district headquarters, Madeline asked, “Think we got through to Ramsey this time?”

  Cruz shrugged. “The whole thing made more of an impression on Ricky than it did his brother, I’m afraid. I’d hope he’d be smart enough not to trust the Lords again, but I don’t know if he can stay straight or not.”

  “With Cantoney in prison, the gang probably won’t be as solid, since there was no clear second in command,” she noted. “Who knows? Maybe this scared him enough to start him thinking.”

  “We can always count on Ricky to badger him about that.” Cruz chuckled. “Ramsey might not know it, but his little brother saved his butt for him, big time.”

  When they arrived back at district headquarters, Madeline declined to go in with Cruz.

  “We need to plan our next move,” he argued, surprised at her reluctance.

  “It’ll have to wait until tomorrow, at least for me. I have something else I have to do tonight.”

  He frowned, but shrugged as she got into her car. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  Madeline drove back to Internal Affairs and unlocked the file she’d started last night and sat back down at the computer. Last night she’d discovered the owner of the building Cruz had visited last night. A check of the tenants had listed Daniel A. Chambers as a tenant on the third floor. Now she had a place to start. She scoured every file she could for information on him. He had no criminal record, but seemed to have a parking ticket problem that he needed to see to. She switched to a different data base, and asked the computer for all properties and businesses with his name on them.

  While she waited impatiently for the information to appear on the screen, her mind wandered. She’d been having an unusually difficult time concentrating since trailing Cruz last night, and her stomach was tied in what seemed to be permanent knots. This constant uncertainty about him, the continual search into his background, was having an undeniable effect on her. Until she’d been paired with Cruz, she’d never before had difficulty maintaining a single-minded attention to an investigation. But he’d been the exception to many of her rules to date.

  Determinedly she moved her gaze to the screen, and her eyebrows lifted as she read the impressive list of properties under Daniel Chambers’s name. Halfway down the list Chambers’s name became paired with others, apparently partners of his. When she noted Cruz’s name listed next to his, she had to blink, wondering for a second if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Cruz was listed on three different properties with Chambers, but Madeline couldn’t be sure from the names exactly what kind of businesses they were.

  Deciding the telephone would be a quicker route to her answer, Madeline reached for the phone book and the receiver. By the time she had called each business on the list, she was certain she’d found the source of Cruz’s second income. But she still wasn’t sure she believed it. Dropping the receiver in its cradle, she leaned back in her chair, bemused. The irony of what she’d just learned didn’t escape her.

  Cruz Martinez was in the restaurant business.

  Chapter 14

  Madeline couldn’t prevent a wry smile at the revelation. It should come as no great surprise to her, after all. The man had been commenting on her eating habits since she met him. Everything from her choice of dining establishments to her meal selections had warranted discussion. And he’d certainly proven to her when he’d come to her apartment that he could cook.

  Madeline glanced at her watch, then signed off the computer and returned to her desk. Rapidly she began to type up a report for Brewer detailing what she’d found tonight. She knew she still didn’t have anything conclusive to report. Just because she’d discovered the source of Cruz’s extra income didn’t mean he couldn’t also be involved with the gun suppliers. The end product was as concise and analytical as usual. When she’d finished, she paper-clipped the pages together and slipped them into a file folder. Most of the other workers had left long ago, and the building was dim, except for lights at the desks of a few others working late. As she stretched her stiff sh
oulders tiredly, a voice came from behind, startling her.

  “You’re sure working late, Casey. Hope that means I can expect to see a report from you sometime soon.”

  Madeline willed her muscles, which had all tensed at the unexpected voice, to relax. Turning her chair to face the speaker, she said mildly, “Captain Brewer. You’re here late, too. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  The captain looked a bit haggard. Right now his suit coat was slung over one arm and his tie had been loosened. She noted absently that the bald spot on the top of his head seemed more pronounced. She felt an unusual pang of compassion for him. He looked as if he’d spent a few days in misery. However, at his next words, all her empathy disappeared.

  “I’m beginning to think I made a mistake assigning you to Martinez. I need some answers, and I need them fast. When are you going to have them for me?”

  Her fleeting sympathy gone, she was left with a familiar desire to see him strangle on his tie. She had to content herself with the satisfaction she felt at seeing his face when she handed him the file folder in her hand. “Here you go, Captain. I was going to leave this on your desk. Although my investigation on Martinez isn’t over, I do have some new information for you.”

  She waited with far more equanimity than she was feeling. It was second nature for her to hide her feelings behind an emotionless mask when dealing with him. His reaction wasn’t long in coming.

  He snapped the file folder and uttered a foul imprecation. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” she answered caustically. “Exactly what is it you were hoping for? I told you the investigation wasn’t finished.”

  “What I was hoping for,” he muttered bad-temperedly, “was that one of my people would get something, anything, on one of these detectives. Somehow the word has gotten out to the powers-that-be that we have a dirty cop on the loose and, believe me, my superiors are making my life a living hell. I’d better have a cop to deliver to them, or my butt’s on the line.”