by Beverly Bird
Kate looked quickly around the yard. It was like thousands of others across large cities throughout America. There was an apron of concrete that made for a tiny rear patio. Raphael had a barbecue grill there, but there wasn’t room for much else. Just beyond the apron sat the lawn chair, and next to it was a resin table. There were two trash cans near the door, the lids on tightly. And encircling the little fifteen-by-twenty-five-foot space were young, spare shrubs.
There was no way to get into the yard except through the house. But that wouldn’t stop someone from shooting right through the hedges.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”
Fear—this kind of fear—was totally new to her. It was stark and wild compared even to what she had felt yesterday, arguing with Raphael over the prosciutto on a city street. Kate’s heart slammed. Panic took over.
She bent and grabbed Belle, planting the little dog on her feet again. Belle twisted around, aiming for her hand with flashing teeth, but Kate was quick. She let her go and turned her back on her. “Do it. Now.”
She gave it a few seconds and glanced over her shoulder. Sure enough, Belle was finally taking care of business. She’d been right. The dog had been waiting for some privacy. “I don’t believe this.”
Kate grabbed Belle in both hands and raced for the house. She met Raphael at the rear door and barreled into him. He caught her, and there was a yip from between them as the dog was pressed between their bodies. “Why did you send me out here?” she demanded.
“Because there’s something weird about that animal. Is everything okay?”
“I could have been killed!”
And instantly, everything about him changed. His hands tightened on her shoulders, and the strength she felt there numbed her for a moment with both gratitude and a little alarm. She would not want him angry at her in quite that way. Then he set her aside, and he raced into the yard himself.
When he came back, she was still at the door, clutching the dog, but her heart was finally settling. In fact, she was mortified.
“There’s no one out there,” he said angrily.
“I never said there was.” Kate sniffed.
“You never—” He broke off. “Then what the hell was that all about?”
“There could have been someone on the other side of those hedges.”
“In the Bakers’ back yard?”
Kate drew herself up to every inch she possessed. “That, I believe, is what I said about the Morleys before you pointed out the error of my ways.”
“The error—” Raphael heard himself and realized he was stuck in repeat mode. “Bill Baker, my neighbor, is a municipal court judge.”
“Oh, and of course, judges are never on the take.”
She was right, and he hated it. “This isn’t about Bill Baker.”
“No, it’s about why you just sent me to my death.”
“You’re alive. Until I choke you. You just scared the hell out of me.”
“Me? Scared you? I was out there and all of a sudden I realized that one bullet—one bullet—could come tearing through those hedges at any moment and I’d be gone! That’s what you wanted, right? For me to be scared? Well, you’ve got it. And presumably, you’ve got neighbors on both sides. What about the other side from the Bakers?” She shoved the dog at him without waiting for a response.
Raphael caught Belle out of instinct. It had been a stupid mistake. His only excuse was that he’d been off his stride all morning, so worried about what she was doing to him that he’d forgotten why she was with him in the first place. It’s your turn to walk the dog. He’d flipped the words out without consideration. And she had a point. Bill Baker still didn’t particularly concern him, but the town house on the other side was vacant. He’d been told that the people living there were retired and spent their summers at the Jersey shore.
Raphael made a growling sound deep in his throat and went to the living room. Kate was hunting around for her purse.
She realized that she didn’t have it with her. She never took it on jobs. And, of course, she’d been on a job last night before she’d landed here in his home, in his bedroom, smack dab in the middle of his chaotic, kitchen-tableless life.
Another little cry of pure helplessness caught in her throat.
Raphael held the front door open for her with the hand that didn’t hold the dog. One good day was all he needed to straighten this out, he told himself. And then she—and every crazy thing she had going on inside him—would be gone.
They went outside, then they both stopped cold on the sidewalk at the same time. They stared at her van. His SUV was still in her parking garage.
“Okay, here’s how we’re gong to do this.” Raphael gave her the dog. “Your place will be our first stop. It’s a little out of our way, but I’m not driving this thing all day.”
Kate pushed Belle right back at him. “Okay. Just let me get my stuff first.”
Raphael caught the mutt in one hand, nearly dropping her. Belle sounded a warning. “What stuff?”
“You know, my wagon and everything.”
“You’re going to go back inside and collect all that all over again? You put half of it in my refrigerator!”
“I want to take it home!”
“You’re not going home! We’re just going to your garage and changing vehicles.” He shoved the dog at her. And Belle bit him, sinking her teeth into the soft pad of his palm, hanging on. “Damn it!” He shook her teeth off.
Raphael got behind the wheel of the van and started the engine. He’d left the keys in it last night, maybe subconsciously hoping that someone would steal the…the atrocity.
Kate hesitated until the van began rumbling backward down the driveway without her. She gave a yelp of disbelief and ran for the passenger door. Just as she grabbed it, Raphael hit the brakes.
“I hate you,” she said tightly, throwing Belle into the seat then climbing up herself. She slammed the door shut, and the van began rolling again.
“Honey, the feeling borders on mutual more times than I can tell you.”
Kate caught her breath. She made herself shrug. She was not going to let the comment sting. She hadn’t really meant it.
But he did. The truth hit her like a sledgehammer. He was sort of…growing on her. Even during abominable behavior like this. And it hurt deeply, too deeply, that the transition wasn’t mutual.
“I fail to see why we couldn’t take just ten seconds for me to return my belongings to my own home,” she said tightly.
“You don’t know the meaning of ten seconds.”
“If we finish this today, I’m just going to have to come back for all of it.”
“Oh, man, and that’ll knock your whole organized day out of whack, too.” Raphael felt a small, sharp pain in the center of his chest that she was so anxious to put him behind her. She was going to help him with the investigation! Where the hell had that come from? Raphael turned the corner, heading toward the bridge. “If you’ll be kind enough to just recognize someone from these mug shots, you might even get your belongings back by lunch-time. I’ll have an officer deliver them all to your door personally.”
Kate felt a burning sensation in the area of her heart. Well, that made it clear enough. He didn’t even want her to come back here for her possessions. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her. She bit her lip. Unconsciously, she smoothed a hand over her unruly curls. She hadn’t put on makeup this morning. She didn’t have any with her. Not that it would have made a difference anyway.
She nudged Belle over in the seat. “Isn’t your headquarters on the way to my garage? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just stop there on the way so I can look at these pictures? The quicker I get it over with, the sooner we’ll know if we’ve got a lead or not.”
Temper punched behind Raphael’s eyes. Maybe it was at the way she used that cop jargon again. We’ve got a lead. Maybe it was because she didn’t even want to detour a few blocks south before settling down to the business of getting
him out of her way. Raphael jerked the big van around a corner.
“Is that a yes?” Kate asked cautiously.
He nosed the vehicle into a municipal parking lot without answering. He parked and watched her open her door and slide down off the seat before the engine had even quit sputtering. Then she set off across the street without him, her black curls bouncing, her hips moving in that tight little way that had entranced him from the start. Her spine was as straight and regal as any princess’s.
It had happened, he realized. In spite of all his intentions, in spite of the many, many ways she managed to irritate him, somehow it had happened. She had him tied up in knots. She had turned him inside out. She had him furious and confused, and yeah, half of it hurt a little.
Damn it, he was crazy about her.
Chapter 10
Kate flipped each page of photographs over with exquisite care. She propped her chin on her hand. There was no stirring of her subconscious. There was…nothing.
Raphael stood on the other side of the table, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. It was strange and sort of bemused. She felt him clearly enough. His gaze was like a physical touch, brushing feather light over her skin. She finally let out a gusty breath of frustration.
“You’re distracting me.”
Raphael took a step back so that he was leaning against the wall next to his desk. “I haven’t said a word.”
He didn’t have to. Paradoxically, she wanted desperately to feel a nudge of recognition from the photos for the same reason her mind kept straying from them. She had to get him out of her life by sundown. She didn’t dare spend another night in his bed.
She’d weathered his comment about kissing her to snap her out of hysteria. But then he had held her last night while she’d cried, and his comments in the van this morning had cut just a little more deeply than they should have. Who knew how badly his candid remarks would hurt if she was forced to spend yet another twenty-four hours with him? Only yesterday morning, he had infuriated her. That had segued into tolerance. And now she was fantasizing about him doing sports type things without his clothing on.
Kate grabbed the book in front of her and slapped it shut. She reached for the first one again. “One more time.”
“What’s the point?”
The point, she thought, was that she might see something in them this time if she could get him to leave the room. Instead, he planted his palms on the table and leaned toward her. Kate’s pulse tap-danced as she caught that summery scent of him again.
“Kate, there’s a time for determination and a time to just call it a day.”
She started to argue, then she saw it in his eyes—green now, such a clear green. He had never really thought anything in these pictures would tweak something in her mind. At least, he had considered it a long shot. It was just a motion that needed to be gone through.
But for Kate, it was the only hope she had.
“I want to look again,” she said obstinately. “If I don’t come up with anything this time, then you can hypnotize me.”
Raphael felt surprise jerk at his heart.
“Is there something to drink around here?” she asked. “Something that doesn’t come from whatever place you’ve been feeding Belle from?” The dog was currently dozing near a paper plate in the corner. Raphael had emptied out a refrigerator somewhere in the building and had been using her for a disposal. In her sleep, Belle burped.
“Hot or cold?” Raphael asked.
“Huh?” Kate dragged her gaze off the preposterous excuse for a dog.
“Coffee or a soft drink?”
“Oh. A soft drink. No caffeine or calories, please.”
“Then why don’t you just use the water cooler in the hallway?”
Kate glared at him. He waved a hand and left.
Kate scrubbed her hands over her face and turned to the books again. When Raphael came back, she’d gone through the photographs one more time and there was still nothing. She was so distressed that she popped open the can of sugar-laden cola he’d brought her and drank it without noticing.
“Okay,” she said grimly, looking at him. “Let’s do the other, the hypnotism.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
He sat across the table from her and swigged from his own can. “Maybe tonight.”
She didn’t want there to be a tonight! “Please. Let’s just try.”
Raphael watched her. She pressed a hand to a pulse at her throat, then let it flutter back to rest on the table. He felt a stirring in his gut. What was that all about?
In all honesty, he considered her to be maybe the worst prospect for successful hypnosis he’d ever come across. Unless she gave up control, and he was no longer sure he wanted to be around to see that happen.
He leaned toward her. “Are you relaxed?”
Kate’s hand went to her throat again. “Of course.”
He reached out and trailed a finger along the line of her jaw. And he watched that pulse begin beating madly. “How about now?”
Kate backed up, breaking the contact as the flow of her blood skipped at his touch. He didn’t mean anything by it, she reminded herself. He was just making a point. “As much as can be expected while a crazed gunman believes I’m his worst nightmare.”
“Not good enough.”
“What do you want from me?” she cried.
Things he was damned if he was going to contemplate, Raphael thought. And he heard his own voice drop a notch regardless. “Tell me what it would take to relax you.”
Too many things came to mind, Kate realized, and none of them had anything to do with hypnosis. Candlelight, she thought. A good Cabernet wine. A fireplace, its orange light dancing over that bronzed skin of his…
Kate put a hand to her mouth and coughed as her heart tried to squeeze into her throat. “I…uh, believe I get your point. This atmosphere isn’t conducive to hypnosis.”
What was she thinking, Raphael wondered, to make that blush creep up her neck? Then he decided that it was better that he didn’t know. He felt his gut twist a little.
He’d like very much to get past that control of hers, to peel it away from her layer by gentle layer until her muscles were liquid and every move, every reaction she made came straight and raw from her soul. Wanting that, and acknowledging it to himself, was going to make the time until this job was over an exercise in determination and willpower. But he heard himself push her again anyway.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
A tub full of bubbles, Kate thought. That would melt all this coiling tension inside her. She mentally transferred the wine and the candlelight into a bathroom. And somewhere in her soul, deep in a place that dreamed, she could feel his body behind hers in the tub, her back resting against that strong, sculpted chest, his hard arms around her. Why stop there? She thought about his hands for a moment, sliding forward through hot, slick, foamy water and over her skin, her breasts, then her tummy, then…
“Kate?”
She cried out softly, pushed back from the table suddenly and came to her feet.
Raphael jolted. “Damn it, will you stop doing that?”
For a mortifying moment, she thought he’d read her mind. Then she realized that his right hand had moved to the gun at his back and his gaze had flown to the door.
“What the hell was that about this time?” he demanded.
“I…nothing. I’m sorry!”
After a long moment, his hand moved away from his gun. She could almost see the hard readiness for violence go out of his muscles. He seemed to take a deep breath. “Apologizing gets easier with practice, doesn’t it?”
She did still hate that smug look he could get. “If not the hypnosis,” she said stiffly, “then what’s next?”
It took him a moment to answer. “We hit the streets. Fox says he’s getting nowhere with McGaffney’s guys. They won’t talk to him, so it’s my turn. You carry the dog.”
Kate so
on tired of carrying Belle. Though the little beast could hardly weigh more than four or five pounds, her arms ached from the relentless burden. Kate shifted her back and forth, from side to side, as she and Raphael made their way down Eighth Street on foot. When she’d pointed out that they had a vehicle at their disposal and that maybe all this walking was unnecessary, he’d only said something about the van being mistaken for a Trojan horse where they were going.
“And where exactly is that?” she asked.
“Bonnie Joe’s.”
“Is he a friend of yours?”
“He owns a restaurant on Filbert. I thought you were so big on cop dramas.”
“And your point would be what?” His legs were long. Hers were short. She had to take twice as many strides to keep up, and he wasn’t waiting for her.
He crossed Arch against traffic. “If you want to talk to a mob bigwig, you can generally find him where food is being served.”
Kate was intrigued. “That’s really true?”
“True enough. When we get there, you’re going to stay at the door and shut up.”
“Inside or outside the door?” She did not want to be cut out of this.
“Inside, where I can see you and shoot anybody who approaches you.”
Kate stumbled. He finally glanced at her.
“Just kidding.”
“Ha, ha.” She began walking again. “Why am I carrying this dog?”
“Because it was your brainy idea to keep her.”
“That is not true. She decided to stay.” She tucked Belle under her left arm and pinned her there to give her forearm a break. The dog growled.
“Shut up,” they said to her simultaneously.
Raphael turned onto Filbert and Kate hurried after him. Halfway down the block, they came to the restaurant. Several windows with old-fashioned panes fronted the street. There was thick darkness behind the glass. The place looked closed. Kate shifted Belle again to glance at her watch. It was only half past eleven.
“They’re not open yet,” she told him.
Raphael banged a fist against the heavy oak door anyway. He looked over his shoulder at her. “And how many years have you spent following the power shifts and movements of these—” He jerked around to face front again as the door opened under a second assault from his fist. “Hi, Joe.”