by Beverly Bird
She hadn’t even remembered to call her family last night!
She was not herself, she realized. She was totally out of control.
She went reluctantly to the machine and hit the button. Three of the messages were from her mother. Her father had left two, short and to the point. Where are you? Why can’t you show us a little consideration and let us know?
Eleven of the messages were from Jesse. They were genuinely concerned, even frantic toward the end. Her brother was the one she decided she would call back. She felt most guilty where he was concerned. His current female companion du jour couldn’t have had a very good time last night if Jesse had been continually running to the phone, worried about her.
“I’m fine,” she breathed when he answered. “I’m sorry.”
There was a short pause. “What happened?” Jesse demanded.
And she knew in that moment that she couldn’t tell him.
Jesse was ten years her senior. They were close as adults because they battled much of the same problems with their family. But as children, they’d had little contact because he was so much older. By the time she was out of diapers, Jesse had been shipped off to prep school. She didn’t think he could handle her pouring her heart out to him about this. And what could she say? My life has been turned upside down because I’m sexually attracted to a man who isn’t my type at all.
Except he was. Oh, God, everything about him was.
She realized that she genuinely liked Gunner. It was his irreverence she couldn’t handle. At least not when it involved her. She could watch it fine from a distance, but she could never adapt it to her own life.
“Hey, you’re scaring me,” came Jesse’s voice. “Say something. You don’t sound fine at all.”
“I’m okay,” she reassured quickly. “I just wanted to get away from it all last night.” And oh, she had certainly done that.
“Bad, huh?”
“Not as bad as I thought it would be.” And that was the whole problem, she thought dismally.
Jesse paused, then seemed to accept her explanation. “I heard through the grapevine what Baum did to you.”
Tessa gratefully latched on to a subject that didn’t hurt. “He’s a worm, Jess. Christian’s got to be paying him off.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Baum’s always sided with the bad guys.”
“Gunner and I are scrambling for more evidence, for probable cause to convince him to order a blood test.”
“Well, when you get it, hand it over to my office. I’ll take it to the old goat personally. We’ll see how easily he can turn down the D.A.”
It was what she had been hoping for. She’d never have asked for a special favor, of course, but she’d been reasonably sure that Jesse would volunteer. It was another reason why she wanted to keep the case when she and Gunner parted ways. She flinched in spite of herself, then told herself that whether Gunner liked it or not, she was the one with the connections. She was pretty sure Kennery would agree with that and give her the Benami file, but something strange and twisting happened in the area of her heart anyway.
“What?” she gasped. Jesse was still talking.
“I asked if you’ve got anything new so far, anything besides that stuff under Daphne’s nail”
“I’m going to be working the cab companies today,” she told him. “I’ll try to get a trace on where he went and at what time.” It would help her fill the day, help her get through this endless, quiet holiday that was suddenly yawning ahead of her. If she had learned one thing after Matt had died, it was that keeping busy made her feel better.
Then she realized that she was likening the situation with Matt to this one with Gunner, and she almost choked.
She dragged her mind back to Benami and told Jesse about Gale Storm’s theory, too, and her gut instinct about the safe-deposit box.
“Put something together there, and I’m as good as in Baum’s office,” Jesse replied. Then Tessa heard a female voice in the background, muffled quickly as her brother covered the phone. “Keep me posted,” he said into the receiver again suddenly. “I’ve got to run.”
“Sure.” Tessa smiled sadly, feeling lonely. “Talk to you later.”
She hung up the phone slowly. Keep busy. Before she could get too much more lazy and comfortable on the sofa, she got up for another cup of coffee and the telephone directory. She opened it to the yellow page listings for cab companies and got to work.
Chapter 14
In contrast to Monday’s silence, on Wednesday morning the Homicide floor of the Police Administration Building was bustling. People strode deliberately down the corridors, waving sheaves of paper, talking animatedly. Computer keyboards kept up a muted, distant tapping and printers hummed.
Tessa stopped to check on Igor first. Nothing. She hadn’t really expected that the computer would produce anything over the holiday, not now that it was reduced to waiting for some other police department to notice the query she’d entered. She was stalling. She knew it, and didn’t like herself for it.
The next order of business was Captain Kennery. She made it as far as the hallway again before she hesitated, clutching her briefcase to her chest. Her throat was suddenly, unaccountably tight.
Was she being naive and immature about this? No, she thought indignantly. It was a practical, logical move after what had happened between them. Surely he could see that they couldn’t continue working together after the bathtub, after New Year’s Eve. Things between them were just getting worse and worse, more and more tangled. Soon this... this attraction she felt for him would muddle their whole professional relationship.
Even so, stupidly, perhaps, she hadn’t anticipated Gunner’s anger. Even remembering it made something shrink inside her.
Her gaze slid to the left, to the door to the detectives’ office. Then her eyes dropped to her watch. It was early, only a quarter past eight, but she knew he’d already be in there, at their desk.
The knot in her stomach turned to an ache.
Well, what was she supposed to do? she thought angrily. She could hardly keep trying to work with him just to placate him. She couldn’t believe the things she’d done in the short time they’d been partnered—everything from breaking into a man’s home to kissing him. Oh, God. No, she could not continue with this partnership. She had no true idea what she was liable to do next.
She laughed a little at that thought. Becky Trumball, Kennery’s secretary, was just passing by in the hallway, and the woman gave Tessa a knowing look.
You won’t stay immune to him for long.
No, she thought. She certainly hadn’t.
That made her spine snap straight. “Is the captain available?” she demanded.
Becky held up the mug she was carrying. “Yeah, he just got in. I was taking his coffee to him.”
“I’ll do it.” Tessa took the mug out of her hand and went to Kennery’s office, knocking quietly. His voice barked out that she should enter.
She stuck her head in and tried to keep her voice light. “Got a minute? I come bearing gifts.”
Kennery waved her into a chair. “Sure. Anything for royalty. Have a seat.”
She put his coffee on his desk and sat stiffly. She cleared her throat.
“I need to get reassigned,” she blurted on a breath. “I can’t... it’s not working out with John Gunner.”
Kennery leaned back in his chair and hooked his hands behind his head. “Nope,” he said after a thoughtful moment.
Tessa’s jaw dropped. “I beg your pardon?”
“Nope,” he repeated. “As in, not now. Can’t do it.”
“But you’ve always been such a stickler for partners getting along! You’ve always said that not getting along could jeopardize a case!” Tessa launched herself to her feet without even realizing she was doing it. She was frantic. “I can’t work with him!” she almost shouted.
Kennery lowered his hands and dropped his meaty fists on the desk with a thump. “Fine. I’ll try to change you
around. After you bring me Benami on a silver platter.”
“I want Benami!” She took a deep, steadying breath. This was her ace in the hole. It had to work. “I’ll keep Benami myself,” she said more quietly. “I don’t intend to ditch that, too. I mean, I know that’s why you brought me back, and of course I’ll—”
“You’re not listening, Princess.”
Tessa sank into her chair again. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Okay. One more time. No. I can’t do it right now. I’m not going to break up the team handling one of the biggest cases to come through this unit in years. Gunner’s good. You’re good. You’ve both got your areas of expertise, your strong points. I want you together on this. I want Christian Benami, regardless of all his new money and his connections. Am I making myself clear now?”
“Yes,” she said softly, helplessly. Now what?
“I don’t give a damn what happened with you guys in any bathtub.”
Her eyes flew to Kennery’s face, stricken.
“You’re just going to have to get over it,” he said. “If you want to go your separate ways when this is over, I’ll see what I can do. Until then, put bathtubs and your other differences behind you and act like professionals.”
Tessa felt her face flame. She was appalled to feel hot tears burn her eyes. No, they definitely could not continue to work together.
“How did you... never mind.” Of course she had known their argument at the elevator would get all over the department. “I can’t do this,” she said helplessly. “I can’t live like this.”
“You want to go back to the Fifth?” Kennery. demanded.
Her temper flared. It shot blessed heat into her system. Her eyes dried. “Is that a threat?”
“Yeah.” Kennery swigged coffee. “It is. Because people in my unit work like adults. You want to play hanky-panky with Gunner on your own time, fine. But I’m not going to take either one of you off this particular case just to make your personal life easier.”
Tessa shot out of her chair again. “Hanky-panky?” she fairly sputtered. “I’m not—I didn’t—”
“Hey, that’s your business, Detective. Notice I didn’t ask what you guys were doing in a bathtub, or even whose bathtub you were in, although it does snag a guy’s curiosity.”
She suspected he knew. There was something in his eyes. And, of course, there’d been that phone call from Basil English about someone breaking into Benami’s home.
She flushed, suddenly unable to meet the man’s eyes.
“All I care about right now is nailing this sucker,” Kennery breathed. “Bring me a conviction, and I’ll be much more understanding about the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees.”
“Fine,” she snapped. She turned on her heel, heading for the door. Kennery stopped her.
“In the meantime,” he said, “you got anything new? I just asked Gunner a little while ago and he damn near took my head off. He said I should ask you.”
Tessa swallowed carefully as she stepped out into the hall, then she leaned her back against the doorjamb and looked at Kennery helplessly.
“I am professional,” she insisted, still stung.
“Yeah, you always used to be. Until this crazy request.”
“He’s just... wild. There are no lines with Gunner.”
“Which is why I thought you two would work well together. You keep him in line, and he loosens you up.”
Oh, he’d done that, Tessa thought helplessly.
Kennery’s voice softened a little. “Give it some time, Tessa. Give it until the end of this case. If you still want reassignment then, come back in and see me. I’ll do what I can. Although I’ve got to tell you, everybody else is paired off pretty happily right now, and no one is going to take kindly to being shuffled around.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted weakly.
Kennery slung his hands behind his head again, leaning back. “So answer my question about Benami.”
“Oh.” She filled him in on what she had learned yesterday from the cab companies. Kennery’s eyes, tiny to begin with, narrowed even more.
“Good. I like that. There’s something Baum can’t ignore.”
“I think my brother will agree.” She told him of Jesse’s offer of help.
Kennery rubbed a hand over his crew cut. “I knew all your connections were good for something, Princess.”
She nodded woodenly. She told him of their conversation with Gale Storm, and of her hunch regarding where Benami might have stored any souvenirs of the crime. Kennery finally smiled.
“The unit pool gives two-to-one odds on you and Gunner putting this guy behind bars by Monday,” he told her. “I think I’ll put my money on you.” He decided not to mention the other pool, the one that had nine-to-five odds on John Gunner asking the Hadley princess to marry him by Easter. Amazing odds, given that Gunner was no way, nohow the marrying kind. But he was as boggled by his new partner as anyone had ever seen him. The odds-makers firmly believed that the only place it could lead was the altar.
Tessa’s jaw hardened. Her chin came up. “Take the bet,” she advised shortly. “You’ll double your money.”
Kennery thought so. On both counts. If he just kept them working together a little longer.
Tessa left his office, trying to cling to her temper, her righteousness, and went to find Gunner. She thought maybe it was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.
She stopped in front of their desk. “Hi,” she said cautiously.
Her voice was a thin, piping squeak. She cleared her throat to try again. Oh, this was so hard. Should she apologize? No, that was ridiculous. She’d only tried to do the right thing. The fact that she hadn’t been able to manage it, due to forces beyond her control, felt like penance enough at the moment.
Gunner replied without looking up from the notes he was making. “Hey,” he answered inflectionlessly.
Right or wrong, he was still angry, she realized.
She found herself studying his hands, the fingers that ostensibly couldn’t handle delicate work. He finally reached for the telephone, then he hung it from his shoulder and looked up at her.
“So what did Kennery say?” he asked shortly. “I guess you were in there talking about this partnership thing, huh?”
Tessa jolted. “How did you know I was in with him?”
I felt you in the building, he thought. I sensed you, smelled you, something faintly floral filling my head. The air changed the moment you stepped into the hallway.
“Becky said.”
“Oh.” Tessa cleared her throat again. “Well, you’re stuck with me.”
Gunner felt his breath leave him in a harsh little burst. He coughed to cover it. So Kennery had said no. He shouldn’t be relieved. Where was his damn pride? She had dumped him—had tried to at least. And all he could think of was that he had more time, time to win her over or to win her back, time to...what?
He wasn’t sure what he wanted from her. It was just that he didn’t want to lose her to a different partner.
Right, another voice chided him.
He wanted her. She was out of his league? Too damn bad. He had no respect for that sort of thing anyway. She wanted rules, lines? He’d shatter them, love her so hard and so well that she wouldn’t give them another thought. He’d—
Love her and leave her and move on, the way he always did. No complications, no headaches, no letting himself, or anyone else, down.
He slammed the phone down again without calling anyone. He knew that nothing was forever. But Tessa Hadley-Bryant was the type to dream of eternal stairways into the stars. She would have died for Matt Bryant, he thought again. How the hell could he compete with that, even if he wanted to?
“Gunner?”
Her voice dragged him back. “What?” he snapped.
“I... you just looked... odd for a minute there.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got things on my mind.”
He looked t
ired, she thought. She wanted to touch away the shadows under his eyes.
“What have you got?” he asked roughly.
“Where?” She jumped a little, then forced herself to rest a hip against the corner of the desk.
“In that briefcase you’re clutching to your chest like it contains holy water to ward off Satan.” He hesitated. Get it out, he thought, get it behind them. Again.
They seemed to do a lot of that.
“I’m not that bad,” he stated.
Something happened to her face. It crumbled. “Oh, Gunner,” she said softly, and her voice was like velvet running over his skin. “It’s not you. It’s me. I just—”
“I know. You can’t function and you can’t think.” Interesting, he thought. He’d given those words of hers a lot of play in his head yesterday. And last night. And this morning. And they had infuriated him even more because they pretty much made it clear that she wanted him. She didn’t want to want him, but she did.
Funny, he thought. The only woman who’d made him stumble in years—maybe ever—didn’t want him.
Leave it alone, he chided himself. Especially right now. He looked around and realized that at every desk, heads were swiveled toward them. Phones had been quietly put down again. Scribbling pens were forgotten.
“Don’t you guys have work to do?” he snarled.
The eyes dropped in unison.
He glared at her. “Where were we?” Then he remembered that he’d been convincing himself to leave it alone, to leave their relationship as professional as it still could be after...well, after all that had happened.
He could still taste her.
“The briefcase, Tess,” he said again. “What’s in the briefcase?”
“Oh.” She put it down and began dragging out papers. He wondered if her hands were really shaky or if it was just his imagination.
She looked as though she hadn’t slept. And even that left her better looking than any woman in the department, than any woman he could think of off the top of his head.
“I worked on the cab companies yesterday,” she explained, and he realized that her voice had sharpened a little. She had found something then, he thought. His own pulse kicked.