“I came to see if my chief assistant needed some moral support.” He looked over toward the desk where Destiny was sitting. “Word has it that you made an arrest on the case.”
Getting to her feet, Destiny quickly made her way over to her boss.
“We did,” she confirmed. There was no pride in her voice, no indication that the battle was finally over.
Sean had always been able to read people. It was one of the reasons he’d gone into the line of work that he had.
“I sense a ‘but’ in the air. How airtight is your case?” he asked, looking from his son to Destiny. “What kind of evidence do you have?”
“Circumstantial,” Destiny was forced to admit, but she quickly assured the older man, “But there’s a ton of it. Simmons’s fingerprints are at her apartment, and there are dozens of cell phone calls between them in the week before she died, not to mention too many to count over a period of eight weeks.”
Sean shook his head very slowly. “That just proves that they knew each other, not that he killed her,” he pointed out quietly.
She didn’t want to hear any negative arguments. “He did it, Sean. He’s responsible for Paula’s murder. I can feel it,” Destiny insisted.
Sean was nothing if not sympathetic. Although he placed a great deal of emphasis on black-and-white evidence, he also believed that at times, investigators had to go with their gut feeling.
“Then go for it,” he urged. “And you—” he turned toward Logan “—help her.” It was a direct order, not from a father to his son but from the head of the crime lab to a detective.
“That’s what I’ve been doing, Dad,” Logan replied. He wasn’t defensive in his answer. There was no need to be. His father knew him well enough to know he didn’t lie.
Sean nodded, as if he knew that but had just wanted to hear it said out loud—predominantly for Destiny’s benefit.
* * *
Simmons’s lawyer as well as his assistant arrived less than half an hour later. The delay had been unavoidable because it had taken Simmons’s assistant, Howard, that long to find the sections from the CEO’s schedule that had mysteriously gone missing.
The printout copies were now safely in Logan’s hands, and the pages showed that Simmons had been clear across town, at another hotel room with his latest love interest at the time of Paula’s death.
The man was disgusting, Destiny thought as she looked over the pages that provided Simmons with an alibi. He’d no sooner cut her sister loose than he’d hopped into bed with someone else.
Howard took the opportunity to preen before the police department duo. It was obvious that he was enjoying rubbing their noses in his boss’s innocence.
“So Mr. Simmons couldn’t have been in that woman’s apartment, drugging her and slashing her wrists before putting her into the bathtub,” Howard crowed as he haughtily looked down his nose at Destiny and Logan. “You’re just going to have to pin this on somebody else.”
It had almost gone sailing over her head.
Said so quickly by the little man, his words had almost not registered.
But then they did.
And when they did, they wound up hitting her like the proverbial ton of bricks.
Stunned, Destiny exchanged glances with Logan to see if he’d picked up on it, as well. Judging by his delayed reaction, the all-important phrase had taken the long way around getting to her partner, as well.
“Would you mind repeating what you just said?” Logan requested politely.
“You people deaf as well as blind?” Howard demanded nastily. “I said Mr. Simmons can’t be blamed if that two-bit floozy pumped herself full of drugs and then slashed her wrists. He has important work to do. He’s not her guardian angel, you know.”
“Nobody would accuse him of being that, that’s for sure,” Destiny couldn’t help saying with more than a little contempt in her voice. “But then, someone might just turn the tables and accuse you of killing Paula,” she said, suddenly getting into the man’s face.
“Me?” Paling, his eyes growing wider and wider, Howard croaked out a protest. “You’re crazy, you know that? Absolutely freakin’ crazy!”
“Oh, I don’t know. That little detail about the drugs found in Paula’s system, that was left out of the media story. As a matter of fact, from what I’d read in the other files, that salient point was left out of the articles about all the dead women. How is it that you were aware of that information, Mr. Palmer?” Destiny asked pointedly.
A little uneasy, Howard shrugged his sloping shoulders. “I dunno. I must have read it somewhere.”
“You’re not paying attention, Howard,” Destiny told him. She could barely contain her excitement. They might have lost Simmons as a suspect, but Howard was shaping up rather nicely to fill that vacant slot. “That little fact was kept from any and all media. It’s our ace in the hole, the let’s-see-who-knows-more-than-they’re-telling card. No one knew about the drugs in the women’s systems except for the investigating detectives and the medical examiner—and the man who killed her.” Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in over the table. “Which right now would seem to be you.”
“No,” he insisted, his voice going up an octave. “You’re making a mistake.”
“From where I’m standing, you’re the one who made the mistake, Howard,” she stated.
“You’re just trying to pin this on someone!” he accused, then pulled himself up to his full five-foot-five height. “And I’ve had enough of these accusations. I’m going home.”
But as he began to walk toward the door, Logan rose to his feet and all six foot three of him blocked the other man’s path.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Howard. It looks like you’re going to have to be the guest of the city for a while.” His eyes held the other man’s. “With any luck, for a very long while.”
Real panic seemed to set in as Simmons’s personal assistant wobbled on his feet.
“You can’t put me in lockup. There’s nothing but lowlifes there.” Breathing hard, he declared, “You’re bluffing. You’re just looking to pin these murders on someone,” he repeated indignantly.
“Actually, yes, we are,” Destiny agreed, then clarified, “The right someone, and you now seem to be even a better candidate than your boss. So tell me, how did this play out?” she asked, her voice growing harsh. “He has the good time and when he’s done, you get to clean up after him? Does he pay you enough for that kind of thing?” she demanded.
Howard Palmer did nothing but whimper.
Splaying her hands on the scarred surface, Destiny leaned over the table, her face inches away from Palmer’s. “You realize that this way, he gets to have an alibi and your fingers, so to speak, are all over the crime. He’s dumping this all on you, Howard. Without your testimony, he gets to walk and you get the execution chamber. You’re the fall guy, Howard.” Still inches away from him, Destiny whispered urgently, “Don’t let him do this to you.”
But Palmer shook his head so hard, some of the sweat from his forehead flew off and managed to make contact with her face.
“You’ve got this all wrong,” he cried. “All wrong. Mr. Simmons never asked me to do anything except offer his ex-girlfriends money, something to tide them over until their lives got back on track. He was never anything less than a gentleman.”
Was that what passed for a gentleman these days? Well, not in her book, not by a long shot.
“Right, he’s a regular prince,” she spat out. “So, what are you saying here, Howard?” Destiny asked the man sharply. “You read between the lines and did what you thought Simmons wanted you to do?”
The man blew out a shaky breath as he stared up at the ceiling. He seemed to be hoping that a black hole would open up and swallow him.
Finally he said in a small, still voice, “I did what had to be done.”
Logan could see that the second the words were uttered, they’d waved a red flag in front of Destiny. He indicated to her to let him
continue asking the questions. They needed a confession, and they needed someone calm to go after it. Right now, that wasn’t her.
“And exactly what had to be done, Howard?” Logan pressed.
“The threat had to be eliminated,” Howard said, a desperate, pleading edge back in his voice.
“What threat?” Destiny asked. This wasn’t making any sense. Her sister had never been a threat to anyone.
“Why, to Mr. Simmons’s good name, of course,” the assistant insisted, as if that was elementary and as plain as day. “If one of those whores decided to sell her story to one of those tabloid rags, his career chances would be over.”
Destiny and Logan exchanged looks. Simmons had climbed up as high in his company as a man could go. “I’m afraid you lost us, Howard,” Logan told him, then asked, “What career chances?”
Fidgeting, Howard sighed impatiently, as if trying to suffer through dealing with imbeciles. “It hasn’t been made public yet, but Mr. Simmons has been planning for years on running for senator. If word got out about his insatiable sexual appetite—”
“Most likely he’d fit right in with the Washington crowd,” Logan concluded cynically.
But Howard disagreed. “Mr. Simmons needed a spotless record. He might not have realized that, but I did,” he said importantly. “He has a wife, a family. If his affairs came to light, he might not get elected.”
It was beginning to come together. Destiny felt outraged as well as sick to her stomach.
“So you’re telling us that you killed all those women just to protect Simmons’s good name?” Destiny asked incredulously.
“Someone had to,” Howard insisted with passion.
“And Simmons never asked you to do any of this? Not even indirectly?” Logan asked.
“Mr. Simmons, I’m ashamed to admit, was usually already involved with someone else and not thinking about any woman who had come before.” Howard pressed his lips together. “Mr. Simmons doesn’t walk away from one woman without having his sights set on another one.”
“A game plan, how very organized of him,” Destiny bit off sarcastically. She rose from her chair. “Well, I think we’ve got enough on him to make this stick.”
Logan was already on his feet. “I totally agree,” he responded.
Howard looked from one interrogator to the other and then back again, his head all but spinning. “Make what stick?” he asked nervously, his voice rising and cracking on the last word.
“Oh, you’re a smart man, Howard,” Destiny told him in a syrupy voice. “I think you can figure it out.” And with that, she walked out of the room with Logan right behind her.
Howard began to yell after them, but she made no effort to listen, or to turn around and walk back in. As far as she was concerned, her work here was done. She’d lived up to her promises, both her silent one to her sister and to the verbal one she’d given Mrs. West about bringing the woman’s daughter’s killer to justice.
“Take him down to booking,” Logan told the detective they’d left posted outside the interrogation room.
The detective looked more than happy to comply.
* * *
Destiny sighed as she leaned back in the passenger seat. After making sure that everything was in order and all the right reports were filed, she and Logan were finally calling it a night and leaving the precinct.
It had been a long, long day, and she was more than tired. But happy. Very, very happy. And then it hit her. Right between the eyes.
It was over.
She’d found the man who had killed not just her sister, but also five other women. There was no need for her to hang around the squad room any longer.
And that was when the full implication of that hit her, as well. She could go back to the crime lab. Her work was done.
And so were they.
Out of sight, out of mind, right? And if she needed any proof of that, all she had to do was look at the life expectancy of any one of Logan’s affairs. It gave new meaning to the words short-term.
It was probably over already. He might just drop her off at her door and not come in. Or, if he did, it would be just “one last time” and then they—she—would be history.
She’d been way too quiet, Logan thought. Not that the woman had ever been exactly a chatterbox, but this was eerily silent, even for her.
“You know,” he said, glancing at Destiny as they came to a red light and stopped, “for a woman who just nailed the guy responsible for killing her sister, not to mention five other women, you sure don’t look very happy.”
“Oh, I’m very happy,” she protested.
He shifted his foot off the brake and back onto the accelerator. “If that’s very happy, remind me to run for the hills when you’re being very sad.”
Right, as if he was going to stay one more second than he had to. “Don’t worry, you won’t be around to see that.”
“Why?” he pressed. “Where am I going to be? You know something I don’t?” Had there been some sort of a shake-up in the department he hadn’t heard about? He had a habit of ignoring memos and email communications, which at times made him the last to know about precinct matters.
“I’ll be going back down to the crime lab.”
“Okay.” He drew the word out, waiting for more, for some sort of enlightenment.
Annoyed, she blew out a breath. “And you’ll be up here.”
Still no enlightenment. “So? You’re talking about four floors, not scaling the Himalayas or going halfway around the world.”
“It might as well be that.”
Okay, he needed to call her on this since she obviously wasn’t going to volunteer anything remotely close to plain talk unless he deliberately asked her to.
“I’ve got three sisters, Richardson. I know all about sideways thinking and stuff coming out of mouths that make absolutely no sense to the male mind. I’ve always been good at putting the pieces together and solving puzzles, but I’ve got to admit you have me completely stumped. Just what the hell are you talking about?”
She stared straight ahead into the darkness as he approached her apartment complex. “You don’t have to pretend.”
“Pretend what? That I’m confused?” he guessed when she didn’t say anything. “This isn’t pretending. I am really confused. What are you talking about?” Logan asked again.
She looked at him. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said sarcastically.
Finally, at least they’d established that. “Hell, I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
Now he was getting her angry. Did he think she was simpleminded? “I’m talking about moving on.”
Pulling up into a space in guest parking, he turned off the ignition and looked at her, stunned. Where had this come from? He’d thought they were doing well. Progressing, even. And now she hit him with this. “You want to move on?”
Oh, God, why was he doing this to her? Torturing her this way? They both knew what she was like. “No, you want to move on.”
He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. And then a trickle of relief began to flow through him. “Well, if I do, I haven’t told me yet, so let’s just keep that a secret.”
“This isn’t funny, Logan,” Destiny insisted, glaring at him.
“Finally. Something we can agree on.”
For just a second, she was speechless. Was he saying that...?
No, this was Logan Cavanaugh, a man who’d refused to have any ties outside his family. For some reason, he was playing mind games with her. Well, no more beating around the bush. She intended to resolve this head-on. She couldn’t take nurturing false hopes.
“You’re telling me that you don’t want to move on.”
He never blinked as he repeated, “I’m telling you that I don’t want to move on.”
So maybe she had a little more time with him, but that didn’t change what was eventually coming, and she knew it. They both knew it.
“Yet,” she said.
“Ever,” he countered.
No, no, she couldn’t let herself get sucked in. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that he was talking about something permanent.
And yet...
Her voice was far less confident and a little shaky as she began, “So you’re telling me—”
He didn’t want to go another round of trading barbs or having her toss accusations at him. He couldn’t blame Destiny for being skeptical. He figured she knew all about his reputation. Hell, everyone knew all about his reputation.
But this had nothing to do with his reputation and everything to do with his new view on what life should really be about. About having the same person beside you, the same person to love and share things with, good and bad.
“That I love you and I intend to stick around until you toss me out,” he said, concluding what he knew she hadn’t been about to say.
Every inch of her was tingling now. It began to dawn on her that he just might be serious. “And if I don’t toss you out?”
His smile was almost radiant. “Then I become a permanent fixture in your life.”
Everything inside of her was holding its breath, wanting so desperately to believe what he was saying. At the same time, she was afraid to believe it.
“How permanent?” she asked, her voice a low whisper.
“Permanent-permanent.” He brushed his fingertips along her face, exciting both of them. “Bonding cement permanent. World-without-end permanent.” The urge to kiss her was tremendous, but this had to be put to bed first. “Convinced yet?”
Her mouth was cotton dry. “Not yet. I’m still working on stunned.”
“You work on ‘stunned,’” he told her, moving aside the hair against her neck and then touching his lips to her skin. “I’ll work on you.”
Her eyes fluttered shut as delicious sensations sprang up, fully grown and raring to go. “You know I can’t think when you do that.”
She felt him laugh against her skin. Who would have thought that could excite her, as well? But it did. Very much.
“That’s the whole idea,” he told her, pressing another kiss to her neck. Sending shimmies of desire through her. “You’ve done entirely too much thinking. Time to bring your senses into play.”
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