Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim

by Jan Coffey

  “How about Linda? Doesn’t she need the code?”

  “The office is officially closed until after Labor Day, though what will happen now pretty much rests in your hands, Counselor. Anyway, Linda gives me a call if she has to go in for anything, and I meet her here. Stairs or elevator?”

  “Stairs.” The two men started down together.

  ~~~~

  Listening on the stair landing a half floor above the law offices, Sarah tugged on Owen’s arm. Together they quietly descended the stairs. A moment later, they heard Steele and Rosen go out the front door of the building.

  “I’d say we have five minutes.” Ignoring the new box in the corridor, she used her key to open the door. Quickly, she shut off the original security system. “I was here when Steele installed this system. There is a two minute delay and the call goes to his automated system. There’s a call back before the signal goes out to the police. I’m hoping that we’ll have at least that long before his office calls Steele. So unless he’s shut off his cell phone or has stopped to have coffee around the corner with Scott Rosen—either of which is highly unlikely—we’ll have approximately five minutes.”

  Owen followed close behind as she crossed to her office. “What happens if there is no delay on this one?”

  Sarah wasn’t listening. He watched her scramble through the file cabinets in her own office and then the one by the office manager’s desk in the outer office. He stayed close to her and took the folders she handed him.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said a short time later, after pulling a pair of blue dividers out of a drawer. “He took two of my files.”

  “The judge’s lawyer?”

  She shot a look at the door before staring at the card in her hand again and nodding. “Monday…Rosen’s bringing it back on Monday.”

  “What we’re looking for might be right here,” Owen reminded her. He glanced at his watch. “I think we are pushing the four-minute mark.”

  She closed the file cabinets and they headed for the door. Quickly, she reactivated the original security box. They were out of there in an instant.

  “We can go out the fire exit in the back. It takes us into the alley.”

  “Who else has that security code?” Owen asked as they went out.

  “Everyone,” she replied. “Linda. The two part time clerks. The cleaning crew.”

  They had parked his car in the nearly empty church parking lot, a block up the hill from the law office. Sarah, with a bag over her shoulder, was wearing the oversized sunglasses, khaki shorts, and a sleeveless tank top. She looked like any other early rising tourist in search of an open shop. Owen’s well-known face, though, drew gazes as they walked up to the car.

  “You’re the one who needs the disguise,” Sarah teased him, once they were safely inside the Range Rover.

  “Yeah? Well, I refuse to be a blond, or wear shades that ugly.” He glanced over at her as he pulled out of the lot. She had pushed the glasses onto the top of her head and was already going through the folders she’d taken from the office. Rather than the paperwork on her lap, Owen’s gaze was drawn to her profile, to her lips, and then moved downward, taking in the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the tank top. He forced his attention back on his driving.

  “I heard that,” she muttered, without looking up. “And you’d better keep your eyes on the road.”

  He laughed and took her hand, kissing it. As a precautionary measure, Owen took back streets all the way to Ocean Drive.

  “There’s nothing here,” she announced a few minutes later.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I went through them pretty fast, but I didn’t see anything that doesn’t belong there.” She closed a folder and stared straight ahead, her brow furrowed with concentration. “It figures that Rosen should pick the same two files I was looking for.”

  “Were those the only two he had out?”

  “No. I saw at least a half dozen cards in there.”

  “How well do you know this guy?” Owen gave her a sideways glance.

  “Young, a go-getter. Very hungry and smart. He is one of the toughest attorneys in state. Maybe the best. He is driven to win and he’s married to his job. Famous for being very involved in his cases, start to finish.”

  “Do you know him well enough to stop at his place for lunch?”

  “Very funny. And I don’t know him well enough to burgle his house, either.” She leaned her head back. “I know he doesn’t live on the island. But even if he did, I would be more afraid of going inside his house, right now, than I would be robbing a bank. He wouldn’t think twice about handing me over to Archer, even if he knew they’d shoot me between the eyes on the way to the station. He just wants his client out.”

  “What happens if he finds what you’re looking for?”

  “I can only hope that he won’t recognize it.” Sarah shook her head. “I don’t really know why he took those files, to begin with.”

  “We’ll look through these folders again when we get back to my place.” Owen placed his hand on her knee and gave a gentle squeeze. “And if we don’t find anything…well, Monday is only two days away.”

  One of Owen’s neighbors was pulling out as they turned into the chateau’s long drive. Sarah immediately put on her sunglasses, and he returned the friendly wave.

  “Never mind involving you in my life of crime, I’m also ruining your reputation by staying here.”

  “What reputation is that?” Owen asked, noticing the blue sedan in the lot again.

  “Well, something must be wrong if you’re spending the weekend with some old hag who wears ugly glasses.”

  He turned off the engine and smiled at her. “Ruin me.”

  She held the files against her chest and looked back at him, her green eyes deadly serious as she studied every aspect of his face. “Is this real?”

  He took her hand. “Come inside with me, and I’ll show you how real it is.”

  Instead of going through the terrace, they went in through the great hall. After stopping by his mailbox, they walked toward his apartment. Owen tucked the new mail under his arm and put the key into the lock. He could feel the heat rising between them. It was electric. The brush of an arm. The way her back arched at the touch of his hand. He opened the door.

  The place was just as they’d left it. He locked the door and leaned against it. She walked in, dropped the files and her bag on the coffee table and then turned to him.

  The mail dropped to the floor, but Owen didn’t see it. All he saw was Sarah. All he felt was how much he wanted her.

  She took a step. He took two…and then his mouth was fused with hers, his hands molding her body against his. It was madness, this urgent need in both of them. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

  “Sarah…”

  Her mouth, soft, desiring, invited him in. Both of them seemed to be starved for a touch that could only be soothed by the other. They were reckless, wanton in their physical desire, and yet somehow aware that this was the first time for two aching souls.

  She tugged his shirt free of his shorts. Her hands swept over his back, his belly, they reached for his belt.

  “I’m afraid, Owen, afraid of the way I feel about you, about how much I want you.” Her fingers slid downward, touched him in places where he’d been praying for her to touch him. “But I don’t want you to see me like…like Tori.”

  “There is no chance of that.” He dragged her mouth up for another kiss. “Christ, Sarah! I want you.”

  She raised her hands into his hair and kissed him deeply.

  “I want to touch you,” he whispered hoarsely. “I want to make love to you.”

  His lips brushed over her face, and down over the soft lines of her throat. He lifted her and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  In the dim light of the room, her eyes flashed a wild shade of green. He carried her into the bedroom, and they fell onto the bed. Streaks of morning sun slipped through the clo
sed shades, dancing around them.

  He drew back for a moment, peeling off his shirt. When he looked down at her, a tightness gripped his chest. “Have you ever had a feeling that you wanted to stop time, to preserve a moment, carry it into eternity?”

  “I have. I feel that way now.”

  Owen choked down the knot that was rising in his throat. His mouth was deliberate and slow when he lowered himself again. He wanted to savor every taste, every touch, every sigh. She belonged to him at this moment, but the thought of ever being without her rankled deeply. He forced down such thoughts.

  A moment later, their clothing cast aside, they joined together. With naked limbs entwined, they made love as neither had ever made love before. Even the wild moment of release was something new, different…almost holy.

  Their past, their futures, their joy, and their grief were all a part of this moment. As she clung to him, as he clung to her, their spirits rose to a place entirely new. To a place that was theirs alone. A place built on dreams. A place built on trust.

  A place to be preserved, if only in the eternity of this moment.

  Chapter 19

  The Fifth Ward. Blue-collar chic. Thirty blocks of the old harbor town. Crowded. Bristling with life. Thirty blocks of stores and warehouses and clapboard houses leaning hard against one another, huddled together against a century wind and sleet and rain. Thirty blocks of narrow, winding streets and alleys tumbling westward from Bellevue to a working waterfront that had boasted at one time the toughest whores on the East Coast.

  Once the domain of Cork and Dublin-born servants to the gilded “cottages” of Astors and Vanderbilts and Dukes, the Fifth Ward and the Irish who lived there had resisted and then grudgingly given way to the incursions of Italians, Portuguese and finally to the yuppies of every flavor who had moved in over the past couple of decades and reclaimed the neighborhood.

  But through it all the Irish never moved out. Kelly’s Place. The Irish-American Club. Flanagan’s Pub. The Finian Bar. The faces at the bars still stood in not-so-silent testament to the tenacity of a people who have always hated to give up something that was theirs, even when no one else wanted it.

  The Fifth Ward.

  Parked behind Frankie’s black Mercedes, the driver of the dark sedan drained the last of the coffee from the paper cup and watched his partner come out of the dead-end alley. Frankie had been living in the same house in that alley that O’Neals had been living in for three generations before him.

  The partner crossed the Thames Street and got into the car.

  “Well?” the driver asked.

  “He is sleeping.”

  “For how long?”

  “How does forever sound?”

  The driver started the engine. “How about the knife?”

  “Tucked into a kitchen drawer…under some towels.”

  They pulled out onto the street. “Did you clean up after yourself?”

  “You know I always do.” The other man answered as he polished the lenses of his shades on his pants.

  “Don’t get too cocky. Not after the screwup the other night.”

  “Forget about it.”

  “Fuck ‘forget about it’. The boss was pissed as hell. You had your directions and you fucked up. We were supposed to just wait until they made contact and then let Frankie take care of her. But no, you had to jump in, kill the wrong guy and let her get away. And you say ‘forget about it.’”

  “I told you, I saw the paper in her hand.”

  “Big fucking deal! That paper meant bupkus.”

  “But none of us were sure, were we?”

  “Yeah…now it’s we.”

  “I’d shut the fuck up if I were you, considering the fact that you shot the wrong broad in the face to start with—”

  “How the fuck was I supposed to know that?” the driver snapped back. “You were the one who knew her and didn’t say squat when we went through the place. But don’t try to change the subject. You fucked up then and you fucked up the other night.”

  The passenger threw a menacing look at the driver. “You would have done the same thing. If she showed the paper to the other guy, and it ended up being the real McCoy, we would’ve had to get rid of him anyway. This way, they find the knife in O’Neal’s house, and he takes the rap.”

  The man in the passenger seat returned the wave of a traffic cop as they went through an intersection.

  “I still say you screwed up. Frankie saw you do it.”

  “But he won’t be doing any more talking now, will he?”

  What if he’d already done all his talking, the driver thought angrily as he drove north toward the deserted boatyard in Portsmouth. Making mistakes was frowned on in their business.

  But what was unforgivable was letting the people who’d made the mistakes live to make more. He cast a sidelong look at his partner…his former partner.

  Unforgivable. And he had a reputation to protect.

  ~~~~

  Sarah smiled. Even in his sleep, Owen kept a protective arm around her waist and one leg draped over her hip. Her body was still humming from the love they’d made, and her mind…well, that was humming, too.

  Sex had never been a high point in Sarah’s relationships with other men. Not that she’d had all that many lovers. But the very few who had been persistent enough to reach that particular level of intimacy with her had clearly been disappointed after the fact.

  Hal had been one of those. She had discovered another woman in his bed the very same week that she’d made love with him. But his disloyalty had been as much her doing as his, she’d realized after they’d talked the whole thing out. He’d sought her forgiveness—thrown himself on the mercy of the court—and she’d tried to be understanding. At first, anyway. What a fool she’d been.

  Nonetheless, Sarah didn’t need anybody telling her that she was cold and unresponsive. That she had no experience in ways of alluring a man.

  Still, Sarah had not been able to make Hal want only her in the time they were together. She wondered now if she had ever really cared enough to try. That was why it had been so easy to end it, once she’d made up her mind.

  She stretched her body and felt Owen stir next to her.

  In the past, after such intimacy, all she ever wanted to do was to leave the bed, to get out and walk away from the situation, putting it out of her mind. For Sarah, it had always felt as if what she’d experienced wasn’t fulfilling enough to invest any more of herself in it. She must be doing something wrong, she’d told herself.

  But this time…everything had been different.

  There was nowhere in the world she preferred to be than here, in this bed with this man, for so long as she could stay.

  Owen’s hand moved up from her waist and his fingers brushed against one breast. Sarah found her entire body come alive again as his leg moved along her hip and his scratchy face nuzzled against her throat. She shivered.

  “Ticklish, hmm?” he growled, moving on top of her. “How long did I sleep?”

  She turned her head to look at the clock on the table beside the bed. He took advantage of her movement, his mouth roaming her breasts.

  “Two hours…” she managed to say. “Not enough, after Lord knows how many nights of getting none.”

  “That was plenty.” His hand moved downward over her belly, making her ache where his mouth was headed.

  “You…you must be hungry. We didn’t have any breakfast.”

  “Starved.” He gave her a devilish grin. “But I’m about to take care of that right now.”

  ~~~~

  She was wearing one of his longer T-shirts when they finally went to the kitchen for some food. Owen had pulled on a pair of boxers. While he took what he called “real breakfast” fixings out of the fridge, Sarah went to get the bag and the folders she’d dropped on the coffee table. Seeing Owen’s mail scattered on the floor by the front door, she went to pick it up.

  “Another fan letter by your prisoner friend.”

>   Sarah froze as she saw the additional line of script beneath the address.

  “I never read the letter that he sent with that picture.” Owen said from the kitchen. “I can’t help but wonder, why he sent that particular one. There’s no reason that he could know about her.”

  Sarah looked up from the letter in her hand. Her voice was hoarse, even to her own ears. “He said you had something in common. That you both were intimately familiar with…Tori.” She felt gooseflesh rise on her arms as she walked into the kitchen and held the letter out to Owen. He was just getting ready to break some eggs into a frying pan. “But I think you should open this.”

  He saw the name on the envelope. “‘Hal!’ What the hell is this joker doing now?”

  Sarah watched Owen tear open the envelope and pull out the single sheet, obviously torn from a notebook. She looked over his shoulder at the five lines scrawled on the page.

  I know who killed Hal.

  I know you were there.

  I know you like fucking dead babes…but she sure doesn’t look dead to me.

  Come and see me.

  Your fan—Jake Gantley

  ~~~~

  The dual arrests of Cherie Lake and William Hamilton, also known by the nickname Billy the Kid, brought a sigh of relief to David Calvin, the Newport police chief. The three officers and the two detectives working for Archer on the case over the past year crowded the Chief’s office on Saturday morning.

  “We had a two-headed monster here, and we wanted to make sure we cut off both heads at once.” One of the detectives, a young brunette Calvin had promoted himself, continued her summary of the raid. “Cherie Lake was the recruitment department for Billy. She would check out the girls at the high school—in the stands at sporting events, at the local skating joints, the neighborhood pizza hang-outs, at the beach. She would do her homework, finding out who was having trouble with family, who came from broken homes, who had money troubles. She wanted to know who was interested in getting high but couldn’t afford it. She always seemed to zero in on the girls hungry for attention. At any time since we started watching her, we figure she was keeping tabs on least a dozen of them at a time.”