Flash Point

by Metsy Hingle

  “Then what is it?” she asked innocently as she came to stand directly in front of him. “Was it the concern of a friend? Surely that must be it. I mean, I know we’ve been sleeping together for years, but you made it clear the last time we spoke that you wanted me to move on to someone else’s bed.”

  “Shut up, Meredith.”

  “Why? It’s the truth, isn’t it? When I said I wanted a real relationship, you told me to count you out. You suggested I look in another direction. So—”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, dragged her against him. “I said to shut up,” he repeated through gritted teeth.

  “Make me.”

  Something inside him snapped. And without thinking of the consequences, he claimed her mouth. He kissed her hard with all the fury and hunger that had been building inside him for weeks. Hell, not weeks, he admitted. Years. Since she’d been a sassy-mouthed kid in braids. When he lifted his head a fraction, he felt a jolt of satisfaction at the dazed look in her eyes. He danced her backward until she came up against the desk, then he angled his mouth and moved in for another taste. Tongues tangled, teeth nipped and he still couldn’t get enough.

  “Alex,” she gasped against his neck. “Please, touch me.”

  The request ripped away the last thread of his control. He pulled open the dainty bows at the front of her blouse and made short work of the clasp at the front of her bra. He filled his hands with her breasts.

  She gasped again as he tweaked the nipples. And suddenly she was tearing at the buttons of his shirt. He heard the fabric give, the sound of buttons flying, and her frenzied response only fed his desire. When her teeth closed over his shoulder, Alex reached behind her, unzipped the skirt and let it fall in a puddle around her ankles. She was wearing a scrap of red lace and a pair of stockings. Real stockings—not panty hose—with lacy edges at the tops that came up to her thighs, designed, he was sure, to tempt a man to sin.

  “This is crazy,” he warned.

  “I know,” she said even as she reached for the buckle of his slacks and worked his zipper down.

  And it was crazy. He was crazy, he told himself as he pulled off her panties. He swiped his arm across her desk, sent files and paper clips crashing to the floor. Blind with need, he lifted her up on top of the desk. He needed her, wanted her more than he wanted his next breath.

  When her fingers encircled him and guided him to her, Alex lost it. Groaning, he drove himself into her. He took her. She took him in a frenzy of heat that had her clinging to him, urging him. When the explosion came, she convulsed around him and cried out his name.

  “Meredith,” was all he could manage to say before he slammed into her one last time and the world exploded around them.

  When the tremors had subsided, Meredith lay limp against him. Horrified by what he had done, Alex zipped his slacks, then picked Meredith up. He carried her over to the small couch and gently laid her down. Grabbing the throw from the arm of the couch, he draped her with it, then knelt down beside her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m a lot better than all right,” she told him, a lazy smile curving her lips. She had the look of a kitten that had just finished a bowl of cream. “I love the way we christened my new office. And as soon as I can move again, we’ll have to pick a spot in the store next.”

  “How can you joke about what just happened?”

  Her smile faded. “Alex, we made love.”

  “That wasn’t lovemaking. It was…it was brutal. I took you like an animal.”

  She sat up, heedless of the throw slipping down her shoulder. “There was no taking involved. We were giving to each other, sharing ourselves. That’s what two people do when they love each other. I love you, Alex. I thought you loved me. Was I wrong? Have I been kidding myself all these years that you really love me, too?”

  He didn’t answer her. He couldn’t, because if he said the words aloud to himself or to her, he might weaken and never be able to let her go. And he had to let her go. “I don’t deserve your love. And you certainly deserve someone better than me, someone who’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated.” Not the way he’d just treated her, attacking her like some kind of animal in heat. God, he really was no better than his parents.

  “What I deserve is a man who isn’t a coward. I deserve a man who loves me enough to admit it and to plan a life with me. I want that man to be you, Alex. But if you’re not willing to face whatever demons keep making you pull away from me, then I want you to leave.”

  She was right, Alex decided. Feeling as though his heart had just been yanked out of his chest, he stood. He walked over by the desk to pick up his tie. Turning back to her, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  She looked as though he’d punched her, but she held her chin high like a queen’s. No tears for his Meredith, he thought. “If you walk away from me now, Alex Kusak, you walk away from me for good. I’m through running off to lick my wounds and then coming back six months or a year later to let you break my heart again. So if you walk out that door, make sure you don’t come back.”

  And though it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, he turned away from her and walked out the door.

  Eighteen

  Jack stopped by his partner’s desk at the station house. Shoving aside a stack of files, he sat on the edge of the desk and asked, “You having any luck with those tax returns on Gilbert?”

  “I finally tracked down the CPA firm that filed them. The guy who actually did the returns retired and sold the business about ten years ago. The fellow who owns it now said Gilbert wasn’t on their client list and they’d never filed any returns for him. But he’s going to dig through some of the records they inherited and see what he can find.”

  “Did he give you a phone number or address where we can contact the former owner?”

  Leon held up a slip of paper and flashed him a smile. “The fellow moved to Natchez. I’ve been trying to call him, but keep getting a busy signal. Guess he didn’t want to spring for call-waiting.” Leon sat back in his seat. Lowering his voice, he asked, “How about you? Making any progress finding out whether or not Kelly is the Tompkins woman’s kid?”

  Since Kelly had revealed what she’d learned from the journals, Jack and Leon had pursued the angle that Evelyn Tompkins was the mysterious Lianne’s mother. But digging through birth records had proved a daunting task. He’d accessed the New Orleans records but come up empty. There had been no record of Evelyn Tompkins giving birth to a daughter within the two-year period preceding or after what was presumed to be Kelly’s birth date. “Nothing in Orleans Parish, so far. I’m just getting started on the surrounding parishes.” And he had yet to tackle records from Mississippi.

  “Let me see where I get with Gilbert’s former CPA, then I’ll give you a hand.”

  “I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I’m going over to Margee Jardine’s office. I think I’ll have a better chance of her telling me what she went to see the nun about if I go see her alone.”

  “No problem,” Leon told him. “I’ll keep trying to get Gilbert’s numbers’ man in Natchez.”

  “Thanks, buddy.”

  Leon nodded. “Jack,” he called out when he started to walk away.

  “Yeah?”

  “The captain was asking for an update. We’re going to have to tell him something, man.”

  “I know.” And he did know. But he was fairly certain that the captain wouldn’t approve of the direction in which they were headed—particularly when he learned they were relying on info from a psychic. “Try to stall him. And if you can’t, tell him we’re running down stuff on the Tompkins woman and her family,” he said, which, he reasoned, was the truth.

  “All right. But he isn’t going to be fooled by that crap for long.”

  “If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hand over the killer to him soon enough.” At least that’s what he was counting on, Jack told himself as he headed out of the station. Because that warning ache in his neck that he likened to his cop’
s sixth sense and that had saved his hide on more than one occasion was acting up now. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Kelly was right. Whoever Kelly’s sister was, she had killed Gilbert and the nun, and was only waiting for an opportunity to take out Kelly. And the closer they got to the truth, the more danger Kelly was in.

  He was still thinking about that danger to Kelly when he arrived at Margee Jardine’s office thirty minutes later. “Ms. Jardine will see you now,” the perky assistant informed him as she ushered him into his old friend’s office and closed the door.

  “Jack, I’m sorry I kept you waiting, but my conference call ran long,” she told him as she came from behind the desk to greet him.

  “No problem,” he said, and returned the sisterly hug. “Say, this is nice,” he told her as his gaze swept over the spacious office. Smart and aggressive, Margee was among the few female attorneys who’d made partner in the law firm.

  “Thanks. I’m still trying to get used to having so much space,” she told him, her hazel eyes twinkling. “Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable,” she said, indicating the chairs positioned in front of the desk.

  “Peter seen these new digs yet?”

  “No. He claims he’s been too busy to come by.” Jack thought he detected a note of annoyance in her voice.

  “When he does see this place, I have a feeling that Callaghan and Associates is going to be shelling out big bucks for new offices. Especially when I tell him that your office makes his look like a closet.”

  Margee laughed and the lighthearted sound transformed the sophisticated, all-business attorney sitting across from him into the girl he’d grown up with. “You always did like to stir things up, didn’t you?”

  “Still do,” he told her. “Seriously, you done good, kiddo. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and sat back in her chair. “So why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here? You sounded so serious on the phone.”

  “I need to talk to you about something personal.”

  Her smile faltered and her eyes went lawyer serious. “Jack, you’re not in any kind of legal trouble, are you?”

  “No, no. Nothing like that. This personal thing, it has to do with you, Margee.”

  “Me?” she replied in surprise.

  “Yes. I need to ask you some personal questions.”

  Her surprise immediately shifted to wariness. “What kind of personal questions?”

  Jack took a breath. “Shortly before her death, you made a couple of phone calls to Sister Grace. I need to know what the two of you talked about.”

  A shield seemed to slide down over her face. “That is none of your business.”

  “I know it’s not, but I need to ask you, anyway.” He sat forward. “Margee, I know you called her twice, and the last time you left her a message saying it was important that you speak with her. Please, I need to know what was so important that you had to discuss it with her? It might have something to do with a case I’m working on.”

  “You’re wrong. What she and I discussed was a personal matter between me and Sister Grace.”

  “Margee—”

  “Leave it alone.”

  “I can’t.” He could see that he’d upset her and whatever had passed between her and the nun was painful. He didn’t want to add to that pain. Yet with Kelly’s life possibly at stake, he couldn’t afford not to. “Margee, you know I love you like a sister and the last thing I want to do is upset you. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

  “What possible good can come of my telling you something that…that is very painful for me to talk about?” she countered, a hitch in her voice. “No, I won’t do it. I promised myself I wouldn’t ever talk about this again.”

  “Would it make a difference if I told you that by doing so you could help me catch a murderer and protect the woman I love?”

  Margee’s eyes narrowed.

  “Kelly Santos,” he replied, saving her the trouble of asking. “She thinks Sister Grace was murdered.”

  “Murdered,” Margee repeated, losing some of her defensiveness. “But I thought she had a heart attack.”

  “That’s what someone wanted everybody to think. Kelly believes Sister Grace was injected with some kind of drug that simulated a heart attack.”

  “And you believe her?”

  “Yes, I do,” Jack told her.

  “Do you have any evidence?”

  Jack shook his head. “The body was cremated. But I believe the same person who killed Sister Grace also murdered a doctor from Mississippi a couple of weeks ago. Since the doctor who was killed had also made several calls to Sister Grace, there’s a good chance the two murders are connected.”

  “And this theory of yours, are you basing it on Kelly’s psychic impressions?”

  Jack’s own defenses rose at the skepticism in her tone.

  “That and the fact that someone broke into Kelly’s hotel room last week. I think she’ll go after Kelly next.”

  “She? You think the murderer is a woman?”

  “The DNA of a hair sample from the crime scene confirms it was a woman in the car with the victim. And we have a witness describing a woman who fits the description.”

  Margee scooped her dark blond hair behind her ear. “Still I don’t see how my conversations with Sister Grace has anything to do with your case.”

  “It might not. But there were only two people’s names that came up that weren’t part of her normal circle. Yours and someone named Lianne, who used to live at St. Ann’s. So far, I haven’t been able to locate this Lianne person. And since Peter’s handled any legal matters for Sister Grace since my father passed away, I assume you didn’t contact the nun on legal business.”

  “As I’ve already told you, it was personal and I don’t see how what we discussed can possibly help you.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that.”

  She stood and walked over to the sweep of windows that looked out over the busy street. When she turned around, she said, “All right, I’ll tell you, but I want your word it doesn’t leave this room.”

  “If it impacts this case—”

  “Your word, Jack, or I tell you nothing.”

  “You have my word. I won’t say anything to anyone.”

  “That includes Kelly and your partner,” she insisted.

  “I said you have my word,” he snapped, not liking the fact that she was tying his hands.

  “Very well.” She swallowed. “I wanted Sister Grace to tell me who my parents were.”

  It had been the last thing he’d expected her to tell him. “But Caroline and Robert Jardine—”

  “Are not my parents,” she said, her voice shaky. “At least they’re not my biological parents. I was adopted.”

  Stunned by the revelation, he said, “I didn’t know.”

  “No one outside of the immediate family knows. I only found out myself by accident a few months ago when my mother had surgery and family members were asked to give blood. My blood type…” She paused, turned away. “Let’s just say that I discovered that there was no way that Caroline Jardine could have given birth to me. When Mom came home from the hospital, I confronted her and my father and they told me the truth. They adopted me from St. Ann’s when I was an infant. They planned to tell me when I was younger, but didn’t know how. After a while, it just didn’t seem to matter to them that I had been someone else’s child first because I was their child. So they never told me. They never told anyone.”

  Jack went up behind Margee, squeezed her shoulders. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

  “Me, too,” she said, and turned around to face him. “It was just such a shock. I feel like someone’s ripped the carpet right out from under me.”

  Jack held her close, patted her back and allowed her to weep. After a few moments, he handed her his handkerchief.

  “Thanks,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.

  “You know this doesn’t change anything, don’t you? You’r
e still Margee Jardine.”

  “I keep telling myself that.”

  “Then believe it. Seriously, Margee. This whole blood thing is overrated. So what if someone else’s egg and sperm got you started. All that means is that they’re responsible for the color of your hair and your eyes. It doesn’t have a thing to do with who you are. You’re still Margee Jardine, daughter of Caroline and Robert Jardine, the pain-in-the-ass girl from down the street who was always tagging behind me and Peter.”

  She gave him a watery smile. “In my head I know that you’re right, but there’s a part of me that feels like a piece of me is missing. I thought if I could find out about my biological parents, I’d feel better. But the records were sealed.”

  “Is that why you contacted Sister Grace?”

  She nodded. “I know that she was at St. Ann’s for a long time. I thought she might be able to tell me who my real parents were.”

  “Did she know who they were?” Jack asked, not bothering to point out that her real parents were Caroline and Robert Jardine.

  She shook her head. “She wouldn’t say. She told me that from the moment she placed me in my mother’s arms, I was Caroline and Robert Jardine’s daughter.”

  “Maybe she was right,” Jack offered.

  “That’s what I’ve been telling myself since Sister Grace died. You know, I saw her that evening in the chapel, probably less than an hour before she died.”

  He hadn’t known that. “You were in the chapel with her?”

  Margee nodded. “I went to evening mass and prayed for some sign, some answer that would give me peace. When the service was over and everyone was leaving church, I saw Sister Grace kneeling in a pew alone and I approached her. I pleaded with her for answers about who my mother was.”

  “What happened?”

  “She said that God had already given me my answer. That the sealed records were God’s way of telling me that Caroline and Robert Jardine were my parents. The next day when I learned that she had died, I finally accepted that she was right. The Jardines are my parents and whoever the woman is who gave birth to me really isn’t my mother. Caroline Jardine is.”