by V. K. Sykes
Amy agreed. “Lots to follow up on, starting with Franks and Hansen. I’m not sure what to do about the third man. Maybe the other servers on duty that night will be able to tell us more when we track them down, though I’m not holding my breath.” She rubbed her throbbing temples. “My brain’s about fried.”
She was exhausted, and if she had a grain of sense she’d be home in bed, not sitting here giving Luke Beckett the wrong idea by her presence.
David Rivera, the gregarious owner of the wine bar, had recognized Beckett as they entered and had personally seated them at a table in the quietest corner of the room. The deep-cushioned chairs, separated by a small square table, were comfortable enough to fall asleep in. The server brought their wine selections, and they each savored a taste in silence. Amy’s Languedoc trailed seductive warmth across her tongue and down her throat as she sank into the warmth of the leather surrounding her. The headache seemed to ease a fraction, and she relaxed a bit more. Maybe the thing to do was not talk about the case. Give her head a rest.
Beckett broke the surprisingly comfortable silence. “I’ve been wanting to ask you something, Amélie.”
“Sure, as long as it has nothing to do with women getting murdered.”
“Here’s what I want to know. Are you hostile to baseball players in general, or just to me?”
Shit . Talk about going straight to the heart of the matter. Her temples instantly started pounding again and her temperature shot up. “Why do you think I’m hostile to you, Beckett?”
He let his expression convey his disbelief at her evasion.
She grimaced. “Well, okay, maybe I was a little hostile at the start. Now, maybe not so much.”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “It was because I’m…I was a ballplayer, right?”
She stifled a sigh. “Oh, man, do we have to do this now?”
“Humor me. I’m working for one lousy buck, you know.”
She had to chuckle. “Oh, well, in that case.” She swirled the wine, wondering how honest she should be. Might as well go for broke. “Okay, I suppose I do have a problem with baseball players as a species.”
A knowing smile curved his lips, making him look even sexier, if that was humanly possible. “I think it must be more than your issues with your brother-in-law.”
Amy had to keep from gaping at him. She’d briefly mentioned M.L.’s problems with her husband to Beckett, but didn’t think she’d trashed Justin at all. Beckett must be good at reading between the lines. A warning prickled along her neck. This guy was way too perceptive.
“You’re not going to let it go until I tell you, are you?” she groused.
“Not if I can help it.”
“Okay, then.” She sighed. “You probably know Gabe Labrash.”
He looked confused for a second, then his eyebrows crawled upward. “Gabe? You had a relationship with Gabe?”
His response raised her hackles. “Yeah, years ago. I was just a kid, really, and he wasn’t all that much older. But the bastard jerked me around big time, and it took me a long while to get over it.” She took a bigger swallow of the Languedoc. “Maybe I’m still not entirely over how he treated me,” she finished, hating the bitterness in her voice.
Beckett let the moment stretch as he studied her. It brought an embarrassed flush to her cheeks. She hated talking about Gabe.
“Of course I know Gabe,” he said. “Hell, I play in his charity golf tournament every year. He’s kind of a friend, but everybody knows he’s always been a dick when it comes to women.” He shook his head. “Jesus, I just can’t see you with him, Robitaille. It doesn’t compute.”
She could feel heat and resentment coloring her cheeks. “Well, you wanted to know,” she snapped.
“When did all this happen?”
Amy peered at him suspiciously, but discerned no judgment in his intent gaze. Just concern, even warmth. The knot of humiliation in her gut unraveled a bit. Hell, she might as well tell him and get it over with.
“I was about to start college after my summer in France. Gabe was playing in the West Palm area. In fact, it was the very end of his team’s season. I met him in a Fort Lauderdale bar one night when I was out with a couple of girlfriends. For some inexplicable reason, he chose me to hit on.”
Beckett rolled his eyes. “It’s not inexplicable, Amélie. Not at all.”
That made her flush again, but she forced a casual shrug. “We started a relationship. I thought I was in love, but he dumped me and went back home to California. End of stupid story.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I hear more than a little bitterness, even after all this time.”
“Yeah, well, the man lied to me,” she retorted. “He kept telling me how I was special I was, and how we were going to go places together, and like a total, immature dumbass, I bought into it. I bought the whole damn thing. I was still a mess, and needed something. To get away from home, maybe. And even though I was sure he had other women, I couldn’t face it.”
Even after all these years, she could feel herself choking up. She swallowed, furious at the old, stupid wounds. Might as well finish it so Beckett would maybe leave her alone.
“Not long after he dumped me, I got to know a couple of the other girls he’d screwed over. Once we got talking, comparing notes on the jerk, we decided we weren’t going to just slink off and forget about him. We got a friend to help us set up a web site that was just a hair’s breadth short of libelous. But then again, truth is a defense against libel, isn’t it?”
Beckett gave a rough chuckle. “I’m sure everything you said was accurate and fair.”
“The best part—the part that made him crazy—was that we organized ourselves into hit squads and dogged him whenever and wherever he showed up in Florida.”
Luke plunked his wine glass down on the table with a thud. “My God, you were one of Gabe’s Payback Posse?”
“I see you heard about us.” She couldn’t help a tiny grin as she took another sip of her wine.
He laughed. “I think damn near everybody in baseball heard about you crazy women.”
“You’re wildly exaggerating, but it was great fun while it lasted. A lot of Gabe’s fans hated us, but some thought we were pretty funny. Five or six of us would get together every year for a few days during spring training where he was playing. We’d boo him like crazy, and hand out flyers to all the fan girls telling them to steer clear of the guy.” She chuckled as the memories flooded back. “We were pretty brutal.”
“No kidding. Gabe used to joke about it, but everybody knew how much it riled him up.”
A warm glow from the wine—and his words—spread through her. “We knew we got to him, but it’s truly sweet to have it confirmed by someone like you, Beckett.”
“So, what made you stop?”
“Oh, we were still just kids, really, and we had to get on with our lives. College and work. Besides, stuff like that gets old after awhile.”
His eyes glittered wickedly. “Next time I see Gabe, I’m going to give him a kick in the ass for what he did to you,” Beckett said, making her insides glow with warmth. “But then again, you did a good job of that yourself.”
“I hope he’s grown up a little in the meantime,” Amy said. The experience, as painful as it had been, had helped make her grow up. If she ever got serious about a man again, he could never be anything like Gabe Labrash, no matter how hot or charming he was.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Beckett said dryly.
Amy was done with chewing over the past. What she really wanted to talk about was Beckett and that little girl. “You look a lot less down now than you did when you walked onto the Floor tonight, Beckett.”
He smiled at the conversation shift. “You noticed.”
“I’m a detective. I get paid to notice stuff.” She swallowed the last of her wine and put her glass down. Maybe it wouldn’t be her only glass of the evening after all. “You’re really bummed about that little girl.”
“Hard not
to be,” he replied as he waved at the server.
“I’ve been wondering about that, because you must see sick kids all the time. Some who never make it out of the hospital.”
He looked puzzled. “Of course.”
“So, is it the fact that this one’s an orphan that makes you feel so strongly about her?”
He seemed to bristle a little. “I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing my feelings. What’s your point?”
She put her hands up, palms out. “Just asking a question, Beckett. I’m a detective, remember? I can’t help it.”
His prickly reaction to her assessment of his motives surprised her. Truth be told, she thought it was odd that he’d become so focused on this one particular kid, especially a seasoned hand like him. Something lay behind it, and she’d sensed earlier that he needed to talk about it.
Clearly, she’d been wrong.
Beckett gave the server a signal to refill their glasses, then turned back to her. “Time to turn off the detective mode, don’t you think? Or does that ever happen?”
She squinted at him, her standard response to disbelief. Had he forgotten what had happened when they had dinner, barely more than twenty-four hours ago? “Calice, Beckett. What was last night all about, then? For some crazy reason, I blabbed a hell of a lot to you. But I guess I didn’t make much of an impression.”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “You opened up some. But I think you held back even more.”
“As did you,” she shot back. She’d practically had to hold a gun to his head to get him to talk about his sister.
He exhaled a sigh. “So, Amélie, how about those Marlins?”
She had to laugh. “We don’t seem to do too well on the emotion stuff, do we?”
“I flunked the course.”
“Me, too. I try to leave all that stuff to my sister.” And she suddenly realized that this was a perfect time to segue into what she’d promised M.L. “And speaking of my sister…”
“Mrs. Justin Wilson.”
“Yes.” Amy bit her lip. “Beckett, normally, I’d rather shoot my toes off than ask you for a favor.”
His eyebrows arched a touch as he gave a small, amused snort. “God, you must be desperate.”
Shit. Amy would throttle her sister for making her do this. “M.L. came up with the brilliant idea that I should entice you to dinner at her house. Reluctantly—very reluctantly—I agreed to ask if you could possibly fit such an engagement into your schedule.” She tilted her chin up. “Feel free to tell me you’d rather walk over a bed of hot coals.”
There. She’d done her duty. Now she just had to suffer the sting of his rejection.
He looked puzzled. “Sounds to me like your sister might be trying to set us up.”
Amy couldn’t hold back a groan, even if part of her had to acknowledge he might be onto something. “Hell, no, Beckett. She’s just using me to get you to her house so your appearance can be a big surprise for her husband. They’ve been having their troubles lately, and she figured this would be some kind of fabulous coup for her. Justin apparently thinks quite highly of you.”
She tried to adopt an air of indifference to his response, but it surprised her how much she wanted him to say yes. A few hours ago, M.L.’s request had seemed like just another pain in the ass. But now she hated the thought that he might blow her off.
Damned if he didn’t just sit there, though, studying her face.
She began to fidget with her coaster. “Calice, Beckett. Yes or no. I can’t stand the suspense.”
All his easy charm had disappeared, replaced by a predatory intensity. “Amélie,” he finally said, “do you want me to do this?”
She could have said something quick and easy, like of course I want you to do this—for my sister. But that wasn’t what Beckett was asking, and suddenly she didn’t feel like being glib and evasive with him.
Still, she had to force the words out. “Call me an idiot, but yes, Beckett, I do.”
He nodded, as if they’d just made a pact. “Anytime, then. Name the day.”
Amy choked back a sigh of relief. “Tomorrow works for her. She needs the boost right away.”
“Want me to pick you up?”
She shot him a glare. “We’ll meet at HQ and I'll drive from there.”
“Ah, yes. That control thing. Okay, Detective, you’ve got the lead. For now,” he said with a smile.
And damned if that smile didn’t make him look like a wolf.
30
* * *
Sunday, August 1
11:45 a.m.
Amy tried to shake the mental cobwebs from her brain as she walked onto the Floor. Ryan, Washington, and Scarpelli had all beaten her in. Ryan looked relaxed, sitting back in her desk chair, Starbucks cup in hand. She appeared lost in thought.
Amy walked directly to Ryan’s cubicle. “Don’t want to interrupt your train of thought, but we got some leads at Chester’s last night.”
Ryan jerked her head around. “Do tell.”
Amy filled her in on the conversations with Melina Stovall and Bruno the Bartender. “Were you able to reach any of the other women?”
“Three out of the four,” Ryan said. “And I left a message for Samantha Goodall. Garrett and Gonzales did meet Rist at the bar. White said she stayed home and watched a movie with a friend.”
“What did Garrett and Gonzales have to say?”
Ryan consulted her notes. “Garrett spent about an hour and a half at the bar with Rist. Rist was already there when she arrived, and Gonzales joined them about forty minutes later. Garrett and Gonzales left together just before midnight. Walked each other to their cars. Rist stayed behind.”
“Let me guess. No one else spoke to them, right?”
“Yep. They claimed the three of them had a couple of drinks and talked mostly about shopping and hair. Rist didn’t want to talk much about the murder, even though that was supposedly the reason she’d asked her friends to join her at Chester’s.” Ryan shook her head. “Man, talk about irony.”
“Anything else?”
“Garrett told me she thought Carrie Noble might have had something going on outside her marriage. When I asked Gonzales the question, she said she didn’t know anything about it, but her body language told me she could be lying.”
“Did Garrett have any ideas about Carrie’s extracurricular activities?” Amy felt like she was having to extract the information from Ryan.
“She thinks it was a player, but not one of the Hammerheads.”
“That makes sense. The guy was at her house when the Hammerheads were in Viera.”
“Garrett apparently got the dish from a mutual friend.” Ryan ran her finger down the page of her little notebook. “One Allegra Karenes. She runs a clothing boutique where Noble and Garrett both shopped. I’m going to track her down this afternoon after the meeting.”
“Let’s hope she can ID our mystery lover,” Amy said. “Great work, Jenn.”
Ryan abruptly turned her head away. “Just normal everyday police work, Robitaille,” she said with a tinge of sarcasm.
Amy went to her desk, waving a hand to Poushinsky who’d just walked through the door. Beckett was right behind him, gripping a pair of stacked cardboard trays that were loaded with eight Starbucks cups. Amy worried she might be drooling, and not just for the rich aroma of the coffee. Criss, Beckett looked good enough to take a bite out of, all tanned and muscled in a designer golf shirt and close-fitting jeans. He ducked into Knight’s office to give him a coffee.
Shaking off the distraction, Amy began organizing her task list for the day. Earlier this morning, she’d tried to track down Johnny Franks and Colt Hansen. When neither answered at their homes, she’d left messages for them to call her back. If they didn’t respond in the next couple of hours, she’d head to Roger Dean Stadium later this afternoon. The Cardinals game would be over by mid-afternoon and she could catch both players as they came out of the clubhouse.
She’d also gotten a mes
sage from Cramer on her voice mail last night, left in the middle of her long conversation with Beckett. She assumed Beckett had received the same message. The captain had summoned the investigators to a noon meeting at HQ. The sheriffs of Palm Beach, Polk and Martin counties had agreed to form a task force, and the FBI would assist by assigning an agent from the Miami field office. A profiler from the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico would be at the meeting, too.
As soon as Amy heard the words ‘task force’ and ‘FBI’, she’d groaned, visualizing the case slipping out of her control. But then she’d given herself a mental slap. Two young women had been murdered, mere hours apart. All that mattered now was making sure the killing spree ended there, using whatever resources they could. If Cramer brought in a task force or the FBI or the freaking National Guard, she’d make it work.
A couple of minutes later, Beckett plunked the remaining two coffees down on her desk and handed one to her. He flipped the lid off the last one for himself.
Amy inhaled deeply. “Bless you, Beckett. Merci bien.”
De rien ,” he said, waving away her thanks.
She smiled into her cup, liking the way he invested the French words with that sexy southern accent.
“I really enjoyed last night, Robitaille. And you’re looking damn fine this morning, by the way,” he said in a quiet voice so as not to be overheard.
She huffed. “You are such a liar.”
Maybe he was insincere, but the unexpected compliment still made her feel like the extra few minutes she’d spent this morning putting herself together had been worth it. She’d told herself she was doing it because her head had felt a little fuzzy and her eyes looked dull and tired. But a polygraph would probably have caught her out. Actually, she’d fussed with her hair and makeup this morning because she wanted to look at least halfway decent for the big meeting. Not for Beckett.
At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
“I have been known to tell a white lie about a woman’s appearance, but not this time, Detective. Did you give your little sister the good news yet?”
“She was over the moon. We’re a go for dinner tonight. Meet me here at seven.”