by Joanna Wayne
Raw, visceral need bucked around inside him. His body grew rock-hard, his erection pushing hard against the zipper of his jeans. The craving to pull her into his arms and find her lips with his raged inside him.
For a second he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t produce a rational thought.
Finally he managed a few deep breaths and the good sense to ease himself from beneath her arm and off the bed.
But the damage had been done. There was no denying his infatuation for her now, no pretending that the attraction wasn’t growing out of control.
Any way you cut it, Cannon was in for trouble.
* * *
BRIT OPENED HER eyes and stretched, confused for a minute about where she was or why. Slowly the details fitted themselves together. The attack. The concussion. The nightmarish posters. Cannon.
She glanced around the room. He was bent over a computer, his focus glued to whatever he was reading. He was shirtless, shoeless, his hair slightly rumpled. The awareness he ignited hit again, sending her senses reeling.
Had someone told her twenty-four hours ago she’d experience these sensual jolts, much less trust Cannon enough to move into his hotel room, she’d have thought them nuts.
The only explanation was the timing. She couldn’t remember having ever felt this vulnerable. It wasn’t that she’d learned anything new from the sickening photos, but they’d been upsetting all the same. So was finding out that she might be the reason Sylvie had been murdered.
Still, Brit could have made it on her own. Having Cannon around had made it a lot easier. Even now, she didn’t trust herself to drive, and she wasn’t about to sit around and twiddle her thumbs for a week, no matter what Carla Bradford had ordered.
She sat up in bed. There was no reoccurrence of the vertigo that had plagued her this morning. The headache was almost gone, as well. Only the dull, thudding pain in her shoulder remained, triggered by her every move. She stretched and slid out from under the covers.
Cannon turned in his chair. His lips split into a slightly crooked smile that deepened the dimple in his chin. “The sleeping beauty awakes.”
“Working on it.” She was pretty sure the word beauty had been applied loosely. Impulsively, she raked her fingers through her hair, tucking the wild mussed locks behind her ears. Then she straightened the T-shirt that had bunched around her waist.
“How do you feel?” Cannon asked.
“Better,” she said, thankful it was the truth. “At least physically. Emotionally, I’m vacillating between fury that I let the lunatic escape last night and frustration that Bradford’s ordered me out of the loop.”
“From the amount of blood that covered your kitchen floor, I’m not sure the guy is still alive.”
“Apparently he was alive enough to get out of the neighborhood.”
“He could have had an accomplice nearby driving the getaway car.”
“The possibility of having two lunatics out there looking to kill me doesn’t make me feel the least bit better.”
She glanced at the bedside clock. Ten minutes after five o’clock. Obviously not correct. “What time is it?”
“Ten after five.”
“No way. I couldn’t have slept that long.”
“Yep, you were out of it.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Now why would I do that when the doctor said you needed rest and your boss said you were on vacation?”
She slung her feet over the side of the bed. “I wasted a day.”
“Worse, you missed lunch,” Cannon said.
“I need a shower more than food.” She’d never felt dirtier in her life. It was as if the filthy perversion in her bedroom had crept into every cell of her body. “And I’ll need to change into something besides these workout shorts and T-shirt to go out.”
“How about room service?” Cannon asked. “I checked out the dinner menu offerings. They look pretty good, and you won’t have to bother with changing.”
“Fine by me.” Bread and water would be fine by her this evening.
Cannon picked up a menu and tossed it to the side of the bed next to her. “Everything from bratwurst to filet mignon.”
“I’d best stick to something light until I’m sure the nausea isn’t just taking a break.”
“But you’re not dizzy or nauseous now?”
“Not at the moment. Not even a headache.”
“It’s the nursing,” he said. “I’m extremely experienced in dealing with contusions and concussions, usually my own. Fortunately, I haven’t had a concussion since I mastered the art of getting bucked off a bit more gracefully.”
“Obviously a man of many talents.”
“Yep. See how lucky you are to have me around.”
“Let’s see, since you’ve arrived in town I’ve been attacked and nearly killed. I’ve had deranged pictures of my sister’s murder plastered around the walls of my bedroom. And I’ve been ordered to take an unwanted vacation. You have a strange definition of lucky.”
“But without me riding to your rescue, you could be in the hospital tonight, dressed in that baggy, open-backed gown and about to dine on broth and gelatin.”
“There is that.” She studied the menu offerings. “I think I’ll go with the club sandwich and a cup of tomato soup.”
“What do you want to drink?”
“I’ll stick with water with lemon.”
“How about dessert?”
“None for me. In fact, I can halve the sandwich with you if you want. I’ll never eat it all.”
“Half a sandwich wouldn’t get me past the appetizer stage. I’m thinking a bowl of Texas chili for starters. Followed by the rib-eye steak with fries and a hunk of their fresh-baked bread.”
“All washed down with a cold beer,” she added for him.
“How’d you guess?”
She shook her head in wonder. “How do you keep from getting to be the size of those bulls you ride?”
“I’m a growing boy.”
That wasn’t far from the truth. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Three years younger than she was. He could have passed for his early twenties. In spite of his appetite, he was in great shape. Lean and hard-bodied. She supposed he’d have to be strong and agile to stay on a bucking bull.
Brit looked around the room for her purse but didn’t spot it. “Did an officer drop off my handbag and Smith & Wesson?”
“No, but Captain Bradford did. I think she wanted to assure herself that I hadn’t taken you captive. I get the feeling she doesn’t like me much.”
“Welcome to the club. So where’s my weapon?”
“In the closet, inside your handbag.”
Cannon made the call to room service. Brit retrieved her phone from her handbag. No calls. She’d hoped for news of suspects from Rick. She checked the pistol and made sure it was easily accessible, loaded and with the safety on. She dropped her phone into her pocket.
Once in the bathroom, she spent agonizing minutes staring into the mirror. Dark circles cupped her eyes. Lines from the pillow creased the skin on her cheeks. Her hair was a disheveled mop.
One thing for sure, Cannon Dalton wasn’t hanging around because he was enamored of her looks. Not that she wanted him to be.
She turned on the faucet, dipped her hands under the spray and splashed the cool water onto her face. She brushed her teeth again. The metallic taste lingered, probably from the drugs. She’d taken two pills before she lay down.
Her mind went back to the problems at hand. She tried to arrange the events of the past twenty-four hours into a rational pattern, but it was like trying to work a children’s pegboard, where all the holes were round and all the pegs were square.
The only thing she was sure of was that the attack was an act of revenge and the would-be killer hadn’t started with her. For all she knew, he might not be planning on ending with her, either.
He might have a history of con
victions and be going after everyone who’d ever arrested him and their families, as well.
That didn’t seem nearly as far-fetched when she remembered the killer’s comment about her father. Not that she suspected he’d killed her father. Very unlikely that he’d have waited three years to kill again.
Unless he’d been incarcerated between then and now.
After his years in the police business and coming up through the ranks to land the position of chief of police, the number of people who held a grudge against her father was legend.
She took a long shower and then slipped into a pair of worn and comfortable jeans and a sweatshirt.
When she rejoined Cannon in the bedroom, he’d pulled two chairs up to a round table. She took one of them. He took the other. “Feel like talking?” he asked.
“I assume you don’t mean about the weather.”
“Not much we can do about the weather, though the first cold front of the season is headed our way. Should feel like winter by the weekend.”
“That covers the weather. If you have questions about the attack, I’m fresh out of answers.”
“I have confidence that you’ll get on top of the situation once you’re back on the job.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I ran a computer search on Sylvie Hamm while you were sleeping.”
Clearly Cannon’s focus was still on the reason he’d come to Houston in the first place. He was here to find out if he had a daughter. Naturally he’d be curious about Kimmie’s mother.
Once he got the results of the paternity test, his work would be done in Houston. There would be no reason for him not to bail on Brit and her problems. She needed to keep that straight in her own mind.
“I’m not sure what you learned about Sylvie on the internet, but I told you most of what I know about her last night.”
“Then I must have missed a few of the finer points. How is it you didn’t realize you had a twin sister before now? Wouldn’t your birth certificate indicate that?”
“I was adopted as an infant so I have an adoption decree not a birth certificate.”
“You’re a cop. Can’t you get a copy of the original?”
“Possibly. I’ll try in time, but up until now that hadn’t been pertinent to the murder investigation. Finding and arresting her killer was far more pressing than figuring out our birth history.”
“Does that mean you haven’t identified your and Sylvie’s biological mother?”
“I know who our mother was, but she died a few years ago from cancer. I haven’t identified our biological father as yet, but Sylvie’s stepfather is working in Guam and so far I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“Was Sylvie also put up for adoption at birth?”
“Her birth certificate didn’t indicate that. I did find a copy of her birth certificate in a file with other important papers inside her home.”
“Then you should have the name of your birth father.”
“None was listed. I assume our birth mother wasn’t married. That may explain why we were separated at birth. She might have felt she could only afford to raise one child, or health issues may have made her only feel capable of raising one child. She chose Sylvie.”
“Are there other family members?”
“Sylvie has one younger half brother, which makes him my half brother, too, though neither of us knew the other existed.”
“Have you been in touch with him?”
“By phone. Briefly.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’m not sure. He’s a Navy Seal, currently on a secret mission. He said he hasn’t even talked to Sylvie in over a year. They kind of lost touch after their mother died. He said his mother had never mentioned Sylvie being a twin and had never mentioned giving up any child for adoption.”
“Interesting.”
“Yes, though that means he’s been zero help in the investigation. But he did have a lot of questions about Kimmie. I think it’s likely he’ll get in touch with you when he finishes his mission.”
“If it turns out that Kimmie is my daughter.”
“Right.” Even without the test results, Brit was almost certain that she was.
“I read online the little the Houston Chronicle had to say about Sylvie’s murder,” Cannon said.
“It covered the basics, which was all we had at the time, not that we have much more now,” Brit admitted.
“It gave the address where she was dragged into an alley and stabbed to death. Not too far from your office in police headquarters. Did she live or work in that area?”
“Oddly no. She lived in Katy and worked at home as a medical transcriptionist.”
“What was she doing in the city that morning?”
“All I know is that she took a bus into town and got off a few blocks from where she was stabbed to death. We have security photos from nearby buildings that show her getting off the bus and crossing the street. We lost her after that.”
“So there was a chance she was coming to see you that morning.”
It hadn’t taken him long to figure that out.
“That is one of the possibilities we were looking into. I’m not at liberty to tell you more,” she said. Not that she knew much more. The clues had dried up like a raisin in the sun—until the posters in Brit’s bedroom had linked Sylvie’s death with Brit.
She really needed to talk to Rick. He should have something to go on by now. So why hadn’t he called? Surely he didn’t really believe she intended to follow the captain’s orders to stay completely out of this.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but I have to make a phone call that can’t wait.”
She picked up her phone and took it to the bathroom. Better not to drag Cannon into this for his own safety. She had to reestablish the boundaries. No matter how easy he was to talk to, they were not a team.
Rick’s number was on speed dial. In seconds, his mobile number was ringing.
“I figured you’d be calling soon,” he said as a greeting. “Knew it was only a matter of time before you balked at your forced vacation.”
“Glad we have that clear. Why didn’t you tell me about the blown-up photos of Sylvie’s murdered body when we talked this morning?”
“Because I knew you’d jump out of bed and leave the hospital, which I’ve heard that you did, anyway.”
“Now that I know revenge against me and Sylvie’s murder are linked, I have a lot better chance of figuring out who killed Sylvie.”
“Really? Let’s hear what you’ve come up with.”
“Nothing yet,” she admitted reluctantly.
“And I don’t see how you will until you learn a lot more about Sylvie than you currently know.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Going with what we know. Figure out who has a serious grudge against you and the opportunity to come after you.”
“What have you got?”
“Unfortunately, not a lot,” Rick said. “I’ve spent most of the day checking out every criminal who falls within those parameters.”
“Any luck?”
“You’ve helped send a lot of guys to jail since making homicide detective. You have enemies out the kazoo.”
“Name me a good cop who doesn’t.”
“Good point.”
“Who tops the list?” Brit asked.
“There are three suspects sharing top spot. Two male. One female.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“Gary Palmer. You remember him, killed his wife and her lover three years ago.”
“One of my first cases after making homicide detective. How could I forget?”
Gary Palmer was running for city councilman at the time, though most thought he had little chance of winning. He’d always sworn his innocence, falsely claimed that Brit had tampered with the evidence. The jury had decided with the prosecution. The evidence against him had been too compelling.
“I remember the trial and the sentence,” Bri
t answered. “He got life without parole.”
“And last year he got a new sly, sleazy lawyer who’s persuaded a judge he should be retried due to our handling of the evidence.”
“That case was handled by the book. I made sure of it.”
“Nonetheless, he’s out on bail while his attorney prepares for a new trial.”
“If he’s getting a new trial, it seems stupid for him to risk another murder charge. Not that I don’t want him checked out, but who else do you have?”
“Hagan Daugherty, better known as the butcher.”
“Who could forget good old Hagan?”
Carved up his girlfriend’s furniture and her face before plunging the butcher knife into her heart. He’d become romantically fixated on Brit during the investigation and sent her creepy love letters from prison. No one had ever freaked her out more.
“He was placed in an out-of-state psychiatric facility for treatment,” she said. “Surely he wasn’t released early.”
“Afraid so, considered mentally capable of returning to the public two months ago.”
He was a definite possibility. She wouldn’t put anything past him. “Where is Hagan now?”
“No one seems to know. I’ve got a team tracking him down. I’ll let you know as soon as we get anything on him.”
“Which leaves suspect three,” Brit said.
“Melanie Crouch.”
“The Melanie Crouch who paid someone to kill her rich plastic surgeon husband?”
“That’s the one.”
Melanie was a piece of work. Attractive. Could pull tears from thin air. Had the jury and the judge in the palm of her hands.
“Melanie did her time and was released last month, a little early, for good behavior,” Rick said.
“Yeah. She was a sweetheart. Let’s see, how many threatening letters did she manage to get mailed to me from her prison cell?”
“I’d say at least a half dozen that first year. They slowed down after that, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t keep harboring her grudge.”
“Where is she now?”
“According to probation records her official residence is an old farmhouse that once belonged to her grandparents and hasn’t been lived in for years. Apparently she inherited it.”