by Karen Anders
He rested his forehead against hers, their breathing labored. “We’d better stop or we’ll never leave here,” he murmured, touching her mouth regretfully. “I messed up your lipstick.”
“You got some on you,” she said huskily, her thumb wiping at his bottom lip.
Without any more words they went out the door and Jericho opened the Mercedes door for her as she got in.
He felt closer to her than ever. It made his heart sing, but also made him somewhat worried about how he was going to let her go when she got her souvenir.
THEIR SEATS were at the head table because Jericho had to give his speech later on. Kate tensed when she saw that Ken Mitchell would be seated right next to her.
“Are you okay?” Jericho asked, covering her hand with his.
Kate slid her glance to him. No way would she let on about the conversation she had had with Sienna earlier that day. “No worries,” she responded calmly, turning to meet his eyes. His head naturally moved closer to hers, a slight frown furrowing his brow, and she sensed that he wasn’t convinced as he glanced at Ken Mitchell. Her next words were the perfect distraction. “The only man who is of any interest to me is you.”
The evening progressed and many people took up Jericho’s attention. Kate watched Ken Mitchell, trying to act as though she wasn’t.
“Good turnout for Jericho,” Sienna said, coming up to her.
“Yes. Should add to his campaign coffers nicely.”
“Ken seems restless.”
“I hope I’m not being too obvious,” Kate said. “I’ve never done a stakeout before.”
“You’re doing fine,” Sienna smiled. “I found out what Mitchell was arrested for.”
“What?”
“Shoplifting.”
“Interesting.”
“I thought so.” Sienna eyed the tray of champagne flutes, but didn’t partake. “How’s it going with Jericho?”
Kate inhaled and let out a dreamy breath. “He’s fabulous. I’ve got really sticky plans for him tonight.”
“Oh, yeah? What?”
“He doesn’t know it, but he’s going to be dessert.”
“Mmm, sounds good. You go, girl.”
“A.J. looks good. Is teaching at Coronado agreeing with him?”
“He loves it and the best thing is he’s home every night. I had no idea I would fall so deeply in love with him when I first met him. This souvenir business gets damn tricky.”
“Right. Wasn’t he supposed to be a one-night stand?”
Sienna laughed. “A.J. is relentless when he wants something. And he wants me, thank God.”
“How are the wedding plans coming along?”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “My mom is really getting into it. You are going to be one of my maids of honor, right?”
“Of course, you have to ask?”
“He’s on the move,” Sienna said softly. The whole while they talked she hadn’t lost her concentration on her target.
“He’s going over to his father,” Kate said.
“Looks like this is round two in an argument they started before they got here.”
“Looks like it.”
Kate’s gaze was cut off as Jericho walked between her and Ken.
“It’s time to eat, Kate,” Jericho said.
Dinner passed with nice conversation, but Ken was quiet, giving angry sidelong glances at his father.
Keeping one eye on Ken, Kate said, “Are you nervous about speaking?”
“No. I don’t get nervous in front of people.”
“That’s why you make such a good prosecutor.”
“No. I just like to argue,” he said.
“I think it’s more that you like to prove that you’re right.”
“Most of the time, I am.”
The rest of the meal passed unremarkably.
Kate glanced over at Sienna and she nodded. She was ready.
When Jericho reached the podium and began to speak, Ken Mitchell shifted in his seat. The argument she’d witnessed between him and his father made her wonder about what the psychiatrist had said. Addictive/compulsive theft was usually preceded by a tense moment. She’d describe the interchange between his father and him as not only tense, but very unpleasant. It was obvious that Ken’s father neither respected nor trusted his son. That had to sting.
Jericho’s words reached her.
“Ladies and gentlemen and members of the bar. I have been asked to speak to you tonight about my role as a prosecutor. I could stand up here and spout that we are the keeper of the flame of both justice and order. I could tell you that the satisfaction of what I do makes it worthwhile. I could tell you many different reasons.
“I could tell you that the public creates a prosecutor and endows him with power through the courts. That a prosecutor can become a leader in developing legislation, proposing constitutional amendments to improve deficiencies in the system, have an interest in community activities, is respected by state and national professional associations, and that participation in advisory board meetings and policy-making groups are a very important part of the job.
“But there is no convincing you unless deep down inside of you there is a passion. This job requires so much of you.
“It hurts.
“It frustrates.
“It takes.
“There are days when I don’t even think I could gather enough courage to walk into another courtroom.
“But I do. I’m here to tell you that this job is not about power, not about prestige, definitely not about politics, or even about hard work. This job is about people. First and foremost and forever it’s about the victims.
“We are here and we do the job for them.
“Period.
“Because I care about people and care about their rights, I chose prosecution.
“Above all, I am concerned with fairness as much as I am about putting criminals behind bars and can recognize that the two goals are interrelated, not contradictory.
“I have absolute integrity and believe deeply in fair play, use honesty and fairness in dealing with adversaries and the courts, prepare carefully, do not bow to conjecture or leave anything to chance, and never proceed in any case until convinced of the guilt of the accused or the correctness of my position.
“To be a prosecutor demands staunch personal qualities—timeliness, dependability, accuracy, thoughtfulness, decency, personal courage and conviction.
“I will tell you that I love this job and somehow the ideals become part of you.
“Keeper of the flame of law and order? May it burn forever.
“Having said all that, I want to remark on my qualifications for the job.”
That was when Ken left the table. Kate waited a couple of beats and met Sienna’s eyes.
She rose at the same time Kate did and they soon met up in the lobby of the hotel. Ken was just getting into his Porsche as they burst through the lobby doors. Sienna signaled to the valet and Sienna’s car was brought right away.
Sienna took off as soon as the doors closed. “Want to bet he’s going to your building?”
“Sounds like a fool’s bet to me,” Kate replied.
They pulled up to Kate’s building as Ken was going through the doors. They rushed out of the car and into the building.
“He’s gone upstairs.” Sienna lifted up her dress and pulled out her gun. “Nice,” Kate said as they ascended the stairs. They crouched and watched as Ken looked around.
“The bastard’s at your apartment.”
“Yeah, I guess he couldn’t resist his compulsion.”
They watched as he inserted a master key into the lock and turned the knob and went inside. As soon as the door closed, Kate and Sienna hotfooted it to the door. They waited for fifteen minutes and finally the doorknob jiggled and Ken stepped out.
Sienna put her gun to his head and said firmly, “Looks like you’re under arrest, Mr. Phantom Bandit.”
KATE STOOD at the observation window whi
le Sienna talked to Ken.
“Why don’t we save a lot of time, Ken? Tell me why you killed Mrs. LePlante.”
“I didn’t kill her!”
“We’ve found DNA evidence in the bathroom both on glass shards and in the shower.”
“So.”
“Is that DNA going to match yours?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it will.”
“I want a lawyer.”
Jericho came through the door, shutting it quietly. “What is my little detective doing now?”
“Watching Sienna interrogate the Phantom Bandit.”
“Feeling pretty smug, are you?”
She turned to smile at him. “Yes, I am. At least this puts reasonable doubt into not only the jury’s mind, but in yours, too.”
“Caught him red-handed.”
“Sure did. He took a diamond pendant and a pair of my black lace thong underwear.”
Jericho looked toward Ken and suddenly Kate was very glad that there was a barrier between him and Jericho.
She touched his arm. “Don’t go all macho on me now.”
“I’d just like five minutes with him,” Jericho said very low. A chill slid down Kate’s spine. He turned that inscrutable look on her. “He could have been armed, Kate.”
“I’m not a total fool. I took Sienna with me and she was armed. She’s really scary when she’s in her cop mode.”
“I bet.”
“So you were right about Ken. What made you follow him tonight?”
“The fact that he never fenced the items was telling. I thought he was a kleptomaniac, but after I talked to Dr. Thompson, I found out that he might be an addictive/compulsive thief. She told me that they tend to react to a tension-filled situation. I watched him and sure enough, he had a run-in with his father. It was a nasty fight. I figured he needed to blow off steam. Now I need your help.”
“In what way?”
“Get me a court order for a DNA sample.”
“I’ll wake up Judge Drury. She likes me.”
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, Kate had her court order. She walked into the interrogation room and presented the court order to Ken’s lawyer who had shown up thirty minutes ago.
The man read it. “You’ll have to comply, Mr. Mitchell.”
Kate took out a swab on a long wooden stick. “Open your mouth, Mr. Mitchell.”
“This is all your fault, you bitch.”
Ken went to rise, but Jericho was there, placing his palm into the middle of Ken’s chest and pushing him forcefully back into his chair. “Touch her and I’ll break your arm.”
Kate looked at the grim lines of Jericho’s face and she realized with a shock that he meant it.
Ken sat in the chair and the anger seemed to drain out of him. He opened his mouth with a sullen look on his face.
Kate swabbed his mouth rich with cells, secured the sample and left the interrogation room. Back in the lab, she got busy breaking the DNA down in the process of DNA testing.
She heated the DNA strands in a glass test tube to ninety-four degrees, separating the molecules completely. Carefully adding primers to combine with the strands of the DNA, she lowered the test tube temperature. Adding a DNA enzyme—polymerase—Kate prepared the samples to go into a thermal cycler to rebuild a double strand of DNA, effectively duplicating the DNA. The machine would repeat this process over and over in thirty cycles to yield more than one million copies of the DNA.
Close to the end of the process, the lab door opened and two strong hands settled on her shoulders. Kate would know his scent anywhere. She leaned back into Jericho’s chest, moaning softly at the glorious feel of his hands massaging her shoulders.
“How much longer?”
“Almost done with the first step. It’ll take at least forty-eight hours to complete the whole process yielding preliminary results,” she said wearily.
“Time to go home?”
She looked up at him. He looked as tired as she felt. “You’ve been in with the D.A.?”
“How did you guess?”
“You have that look.”
“He’s royally pissed.”
“At me?”
“Yes. He said you were removed from the case and he’s mad that you went beyond your boundaries.”
“I had a hunch and I followed up with it. He should want his investigators to be relentless. Besides, I had a detective with me. The very one working on the Phantom Bandit case.”
“I think he’s more pissed that you’ve jeopardized my funding for my campaign than anything else.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“The funding?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t give a damn, Kate. I’m not a politician and I have no patience for it. I think that becoming D.A. would give me a chance to fine-tune our process and allow me to dictate how we prosecute criminals.”
“You think Roth is too soft?”
“I think that he’s not as aggressive as I would be.”
She nodded, beginning to wonder if Jericho’s association with her would ruin his chances of getting where he wanted to be. She admired his tough attitude and she couldn’t be sorry about nailing Ken Mitchell, but getting involved with a co-worker could cause much more trouble for them down the line. Kate cleaned up her work area, made sure the process was working and they left the lab.
12
HE HAD KATE in his bedroom. Finally. She walked in and stood for a moment, taking it in. Had she fantasized about being here just as he had about having her here?
There was a rolltop desk near the French doors to catch the most amount of light. An antique highboy that matched the four-poster bed with intricate scrollwork of birds and fruit carvings. A little ornate for his tastes, but he’d given the decorator free rein in his house. Most of what she’d done, he liked, but this room he felt needed a feminine touch. It was rich in mahogany wood, heavy caramel and red brocade, and echoed with loneliness.
She walked to the bed and curled her hands around one of the four posts. Her fingertips flowing over the carvings.
“This is beautiful, but seems a bit much for you, Jericho.”
He smiled at the way she had effortlessly slid into him, already knowing his tastes.
“It is.”
She was a seductive vision in her blue dress and black high heels. A choker-tight strand of pearls wrapped around her throat then flowed down to her navel. He wanted to see her in nothing but those pearls.
She left the bed and walked to the desk, peered at the array of pictures over them. Pictures of his friends and family.
“I see,” she said softly, her hips swishing seductively as she walked. Her bared back looked like creamy silk in the dim glow of his bedside lamp.
“See what?”
“That you like to keep your private life, uh, private.”
“What?”
“There are no pictures in your office, no mementos, but here there are pictures and bits and pieces of your life.” She ran her hand over his polished desk, the scarlet-painted nails erotic in the half light.
“If you want to know anything about me, all you have to do is ask.”
With her back to him, her eyes still gazing at the pictures, she said, “I already know so much, but I want more.”
He closed his eyes at the soft, husky tone to her voice. “Like what?” he asked.
She turned then and walked up to him, slipping her hands under the tux jacket and pushing it off his shoulders. “Like the tattoo you have down here.” Her hand slid down his chest and rested on the bulge of his pants. “I’ve already been with you twice and didn’t get a chance to really see it, even though I was up close the night we made love on the piano.”
She pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers and deliberately popped the studs as she pulled the fabric apart. They flew every which way.
Her usually angelic eyes were a deeper, richer blue, swirling with a hunger that sent a shiver of awareness d
own his spine. A white-hot flame that burned. A hunger that called to his own. A recognition of a common need that could only be fulfilled by him for her, her for him.
He closed his eyes as she splayed her hands against his chest, her palms silky as they ran over his pectoral muscles and down the hard ridges of his abdomen.
“I used to sit in your office and wonder at the hardness beneath your shirt. You have such wonderful broad shoulders.” She ran her hands over them, down over the hard bulge of his biceps. “Little did I know that reality would be so much more exciting than fantasy.”
“What else did you imagine?”
“Having you completely at my mercy.”
“Whoa,” he said, closing his eyes at the ripple of sensation that went through him, sending heat pooling in his groin.
“I used to wonder,” she whispered against his ear, “whether you knew how to let a woman lead. All that virile strength and power in my hands made me wet.”
“You were wet and aroused sitting there in front of my desk?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you do something about it?”
“I was inhibited and repressed, just like you said. My friends teased me all the time, but they were right, too. I was Sister Kate.”
“And you wanted to change that.”
“Yes, desperately. But only with you Jericho.”
“Why me?”
“You were so intimidating, so male and seemed way out of my league.”
Her hands drifted down to his belt. She unbuckled it, brushing her hands against his waist. She pulled it free of the belt loops and let it fall to the floor.
She unzipped his trousers and pushed them off his hips. Pulling the waistband of his briefs over the pulsating shaft made him moan softly.
Kate’s body felt as if it was charged with electricity, currents of awareness and sexual need sizzling between them. This was her night and Jericho would have to succumb. He tried to take charge, his mouth already demanding on hers. Although his hunger made her ravenous to keep that clever mouth on hers, Kate sidestepped his kiss.