by Mary McBride
“I love you, Sara Campbell.”
Before she could do anything more than utter a startled little yelp, he had slipped out the door and pulled it closed behind him.
Frank was late, which wasn’t much of a surprise. What was a surprise, though, was Joe’s unpremeditated declaration of love. A real shocker, that. While he sat at his desk waiting for the captain to arrive, he replayed that exit scene over and over in his head, worrying because Sara hadn’t responded in kind. No “I love you, too, Decker.” No chirpy little, “Oh, how wonderful!” Not even a smile. Just a startled widening of her eyes, coupled with a kind of strangling sound in her throat.
“Nice going, Romeo,” he muttered under his breath, crumpling another page from a scratch pad and aiming it at the trash can beside a vacant desk nearby. He never missed with these paper shots. He always scored. But he might have just fouled out with Sara Campbell, he was afraid.
Maybe it was too soon for her. Maybe she needed more time. Hell, maybe given all the time in the world she still wouldn’t fall in love with him. He wasn’t, after all, in her league. Pearl Street, where he grew up, was more than mere miles from Westbury Boulevard. It might as well have been a different planet And just because Sara had enjoyed his family, that didn’t mean she wanted to be a part of it.
He lobbed another paper wad at the trash can but hit Detective Carl Jeffers, who happened to be passing his desk at that moment.
“Busy, Decker?” the detective asked as he bent to pick up the crumpled paper, then tossed it at Joe.
“Busy waiting for Cobble,” Joe said. “Any idea when he’s going to show up?”
Jeffers let out a little bark of a laugh. “Your guess is as good as mine, Decker. That guy keeps the weirdest hours of anybody I’ve ever worked for.”
After the detective disappeared into one of the interrogation cubbyholes laughingly referred to as rooms, Joe pondered those weird hours of Cobble’s. The irregular times he showed up for work or left for home didn’t seem to jive with the obsessive nature of the man. Of course, it didn’t make him a killer, either.
God, he hoped Sara was wrong, not so much for the captain’s sake, but for the department’s. They sure didn’t need another scandal. And this one—if Frank indeed turned out to be the infamous South Side Ripper—would be a lulu. The mother...no, the great-grandmother of all scandals.
He sighed, checked the time again, then rolled his chair back another few feet to lengthen the distance to the trash can. He had crumpled up almost half the scratch pad and was scoring four out of five shots by the time the captain finally appeared in the doorway of the squad room. From there, Cobble did a quick scan of the occupied desks. His gaze skimmed over Joe, then came back and locked on him. Joe gave a small, slow, openhanded wave, designed to be a greeting as well as an irritant. Shake him up a little, he thought, then see what shakes out.
The captain stalked into his office, slamming the door behind him. Only seconds later, Joe rapped on the wavy glass. After a gruff, “Come in,” he stepped inside.
“Got a second, Frank?” he asked.
The reply came in the form of a grunt, which Joe took for a yes. At this point, he didn’t much care whether Frank said yes or no. He left the door slightly ajar on purpose, partly to vent the smoky air inside but mainly as a test to see how much privacy the captain required once he was confronted. No sooner had he sat down than Frank went on the offensive.
“I pulled up your records, Decker.” He took a mean drag from his cigarette, then squinted through the smoke. “You’ve just about used up all your sick leave. Just how much longer do you intend to baby-sit the Campbell woman?”
“Not much longer.”
It wasn’t the answer the captain expected. He sat up a little straighter in his chair, his head angling curiously to one side. “What do you mean?”
“I mean she probably won’t need protection after we arrest the Ripper.”
“Obviously.” He tapped the ash off the end of his cigarette, then adjusted the ashtray so it was perfectly parallel with the edge of the blotter. “So you’re saying you have some new information that might lead—”
“To an arrest.” Joe finished for him. “Yes.”
Cobble did a double tap on the cigarette even though there was no new ash since the last time. He checked the alignment of the ashtray, nudged it an eighth of an inch with his thumb. “Are you going to share that information with the department, Decker, or is this going to be another one of your grandstand plays? I’ll have you know, Lieutenant, I won’t tolerate—”
“Sara Campbell came up with a solid ID.” He paused, but didn’t take his eyes off the man he was about to accuse. “She watched your press conference yesterday, Frank.”
The man didn’t appear to react at all except for a quick, lizardlike flick of his eyelids. That tiny but telltale movement was as good as a confession in Joe’s book, and when Cobble stabbed out his cigarette, then rose abruptly from his chair and started toward him, Joe’s every instinct told him to draw his gun. But the captain brushed past him, went to the door and closed it. He stood there a moment, his back to Joe, his head bent almost prayerfully. The question was just who was he praying for? And what? For a second Joe wished he had brought Maggie with him as a witness as well as backup.
When the captain resumed his seat at the desk, he looked like he had aged ten years in the space of a few minutes. His face had taken on an ashen hue, and his eyes seemed dull, bereft of hope or even the spark of life. Frank Cobble looked like a prisoner of war. Haggard and hopeless and utterly beaten.
“Dear God,” he said, “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I hoped...” His voice broke. “I prayed so hard. So hard.”
“You want to tell me about it, Frank?”
“She said it was me? The Campbell woman saw the press conference and said it was me?”
“That’s pretty much the way it happened.”
“And she was absolutely certain?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. A hundred percent.”
Cobble reached for his pack of Marlboros, extracted one with trembling fingers, then had trouble flicking his lighter. He swore harshly and tossed the unlit cigarette into the trash can. “It’s not what you think, Decker,” he said. “Here. I want to show you something.”
When the captain reached down to open a bottom drawer, Joe tensed again, shifting his upper body to allow better, quicker access to his gun. His index finger twitched instinctively. If Frank came up with a gun, they were both dead men.
Instead of a revolver, though, the captain produced a framed picture from the drawer. He leaned forward, handing it to Joe. “Take a look,” he said.
Joe scanned the eight-by-ten photo, angling it a bit to avoid the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. It was Cobble, probably twenty or twenty-five years ago, looking typically trim and buttoned-up in Marine Corps dress blues. “So?” Joe glanced up. Cobble was studying him while he was studying the portrait. “Semper fi, Frank? What’s your point?”
“That’s not me.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s not me, Decker. It’s my son. Frank Junior.”
Joe stared at the photograph. The resemblance was amazing. Father and son were nearly identical. From forehead to chin, the same. The same thin nose with its slight right cant. The same mouth with the same prim, disdainful slant. It was as if Junior hadn’t had a mother at all, but simply been cloned from Senior. Just a chip off the old block. A replica. The difference in their ages, which must have been two decades, barely registered. They could easily have been mistaken for twins.
“Jesus,” Joe breathed. That’s exactly what Sara had done.
From across the desktop, the captain’s voice was low and grim. “I’ve suspected him for a while now. Since the fifth victim. I kept telling myself it was coincidental, though. Even when I did a search of his room and came up with a pair of ski masks.” His voice diminished. “One had bloodstains on it. Could have been from shaving. A cut. A bl
oody nose.”
“Did you ask him?”
Cobble shook his head. “I don’t think I wanted to know, to tell you the truth. I kept telling myself I was wrong. It was all circumstantial. F.J. couldn’t... wouldn’t...”
“Did you find any weapons, Frank?”
“No. Only kitchen knives were always coming up missing, then suddenly reappearing in the wrong drawers or the wrong slots in the knife block. It got to be a joke around the house.” He laughed weakly. “Poltergeists, you know.”
Joe didn’t know. Not about ghosts, and not about being a father. Not like this. He had no idea how far he might go to protect a living image—an imperfect perfect copy—of himself.
“What about motive, Frank?” he asked. “Any idea?”
“He hates me.” Cobble’s eyes glistened with tears.
“So, why didn’t he just off you?”
One of the tears broke loose and tracked down the side of his narrow nose. He didn’t even bother to brush it away. “I’m not a shrink, Decker, but my guess would be that he’d rather I did that myself.”
Joe let out a long breath. He didn’t like Cobble, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t imagine the kind of pain the man must have suffered for the last year or the pain that was awaiting him in the future.
“We need to bring him in,” Joe said.
“Yes. All right. He’s due home from the university tomorrow.”
“Any chance he’ll run?”
“No. No chance. I suspect he’s coming home for a reason.”
Joe suspected it, too. And the reason was probably Sara.
Well, so be it. Now he wouldn’t have to mess around with circumstantial evidence, hidden ski masks, disappearing knives that may or may not yield blood types or DNA or even Sara’s belated ID. No way was Frank Cobble Junior going to be out on bail for the next five or six months pending an investigation. No way was Joe going to spend all that time looking over Sara’s shoulder, sleeping with one eye always open.
He was going to catch the bastard in the act, then put him away for good. Whether that meant behind bars or six feet underground, Joe didn’t much care.
He already had an inkling of a plan, the scaffolding of a trap. All he needed was the bait.
Chapter 13
Sara was sunk to her chin in a bubble bath when she heard the suite’s door open and Joe call her name.
“In here,” she yelled.
She hadn’t expected him to return so soon. The bubble bath had been a way of killing time, a way of distracting herself from worries about what was happening at the police station. Since they’d probably be checking out as soon as Joe returned, it seemed a shame to waste the huge marble tub and the complimentary vial of aloe bath salts. The luxurious soak was also a way of distracting herself from those three little words that kept reverberating in her head.
Decker had said he loved her. He loved her! She’d been so stunned that she hadn’t been able to tell him she loved him, too. Idiot. He probably already regretted his words. She’d soon find out, she guessed.
Turning her head, she caught a glimpse of herself in the smoked-glass mirror that framed the marble tub all the way to the ceiling. The humidity had corkscrewed her hair into a red frenzy of curls, making her look like a soggy Orphan Annie. To complete the resemblance, her mascara appeared to have melted, outlining her eyes with big, black circles. Oh, great.
Joe tapped on the door. “Are you decent?”
“Sort of.”
“I’ve got some news. Can I come in?”
She slid farther down beneath the thick blanket of bubbles, then said, “I guess so. That is, if you aren’t offended by the sight of really wet, bedraggled women with pruney fingers and toes.”
“That’s my favorite thing,” he said, pushing the door open and stepping inside. He stood there a moment, just looking at her, while a grin that could only be called lecherous worked its way across his lips.
Lecherous and loving, sexy and sweet, all at once. He looked like a sheep disguised as a charming wolf. Sara’s heart started to beat so fast she was surprised the water in the tub wasn’t churning as a result. Or maybe it was. All she could look at was Joe as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his flannel shirt and slowly began to roll up his sleeves.
“You said you had news, Joe.” Not that she cared just then who the South Side Ripper was. Captain Cobble. Captain Midnight. Captain Hook. It really didn’t matter. All that mattered at this moment was this moment.
He knelt beside her, bracing his uncovered forearms on the edge of the tub. “Yeah, I’ve got news,” he said while his gaze drifted lazily from her head to the tips of her toes just peeking out of the white foam, then returned to her face. “Good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?”
She made a small shrugging movement that set the bubbles in motion, lapping at the sides of the tub. “You choose.”
“Okay.” He nudged one flannel sleeve over his elbow, then reached into the water, his ropy arm disappearing under the suds as his hand discovered her leg. “The good news is that your ID was right on the button.”
“Ah,” she said, not so much from the satisfaction of being right as from the hand that was moving slowly, invisibly from her calf to her thigh. “So it was Captain Cobble?”
“Almost.” His hand curved over her knee, fingertips testing the flesh of her inner thigh. “It’s his son, Frank Junior. Turns out the guy’s a dead ringer for his dad.”
“Mm.” “I told you so” would have been more appropriate, but with Joe’s hand moving slowly up her leg and her heart knotted in her throat, Sara could barely breathe, much less manage any sort of pleased, self-congratulatory comment.
“The kid’s been back at school these past two weeks,” he said. “That explains why nothing’s happened.”
Something was happening. That incredible hand had moved up as far as it could go, coming to rest at the juncture of her legs, applying just the slightest pressure, sending dizzying currents of heat, piercing shafts of need all through her.
“He’s coming home tomorrow,” he said. “This should all be over by tomorrow night, babe.”
“Mm. Good.” That was good, wasn’t it? Was over good? She couldn’t keep her thoughts going in a straight direction. They kept trailing off with every subtle movement, every delicious shift of Joe’s hand. She sighed huskily, tried to focus on his face, then asked, “What’s the bad news?”
His mouth twitched with a grin as the color of his eyes darkened to gunmetal. “Bad news?” He leaned forward, his free arm reaching deep into the water to curve around her back and bring her close.
“There is no bad news,” he whispered against her lips. “Not for us, babe.”
The big round bed was a tangle of ivory satin sheets, with Joe and Sara lying at a precise twelve o’clock. His face was buried in the damp and fragrant crook of her neck. His pulse rate was slowly decelerating, and his body was decompressing, but Sara felt so good, so deliciously warm beneath him that he dreaded moving. He shifted his weight slightly.
“Too heavy?” he murmured.
She shook her head. “Just right.”
There was something in her voice, a little lilt of amusement, that made him lift his head. She was smiling, less like a sated lover than a sleepy, cream-fed Cheshire cat.
“What?” he asked. “What are you smiling at?”
Her shuttered eyes opened a bit wider and she kept grinning while her gaze lofted overhead. “Nice buns.”
Joe murmured a soft, self-deprecating curse, then dropped his head, nuzzling into her once more. He’d completely forgotten about the mirror. He’d forgotten about everything except Sara while they made love. There was only her damp skin and soap-scented hair. Her giving flesh. Her hands on him, exploring, teasing, tempting. Her lithe legs and the sweet heat between them building and building until he couldn’t hold back anymore. Until neither one of them could hold back.
He flexed the muscles in his backside. A kind of wink. Sara giggl
ed.
“Next time I get the bottom,” he said.
“I’ll flip you for it.”
“Oh, yeah? Maybe I’ll just flip you, Ms. Campbell, you shameless little voyeur.” He scooped her up in his arms and with one quick twist of his body, she was sprawled on top of him.
“No fair, Decker.” She laughed, dipping her head to kiss him.
“Nice buns,” he said against her lips while he smoothed both hands over her backside, thoroughly enjoying the view as well as the small rumble of pleasure in Sara’s throat.
Ah, God. He wished they didn’t have to leave this honeymoon suite in a matter of hours to return to the real world with its rectangular, unreflected beds and its assorted dangers. Slowly, he splayed his fingers on her soft, pale flesh, bringing her even closer, hoping he’d never have to let her go.
Against his will, thoughts of the immediate future began to intrude upon the afterglow. Knowing what tomorrow was going to bring, Joe could already feel himself becoming edgy, his focus no longer trained solely on the loveliness of the naked body draped over his. He knew he ought to get a solid six hours of sleep at the very least to be at his best when he tangled with the Ripper.
He angled his arm over Sara’s shoulder to check the glowing dial of his watch. It was a little after fivethirty. Not much time left. But enough. As for Sara, he already knew he could never get enough of her.
They ate dinner in bed, sitting cross-legged and swaddled in the hotel’s soft, one-size-fits-all white terry robes. Joe had ordered a bottle of champagne to toast their maiden voyage, as he called it.
Sara laughed as they clinked glasses, then, just as she was taking a sip of the cold liquid, a little chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the champagne raced down her spine. The sense of foreboding must have registered on her face because Joe immediately asked her what was wrong.
“Nothing,” she said, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “Not really. It’s just that when you mentioned maiden voyage, I started thinking about the Titanic. Let’s hope ours doesn’t end the same way.”