Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  For a moment Julio’s eyes widened, and then he smiled the smallest degree. “I was in the company of a friend, Lieutenant.”

  “A friend who’ll corroborate your story?”

  Julio paused, sighed. “A friend who is married.”

  Rivera took a step forward. “So you have no alibi. Tell me, what made you decide to visit Ms. McMullen’s office this afternoon?”

  “I wished to make certain all was well.”

  “Why today? Do you stop by often?” He was starting to crowd.

  “I fear my duties at the club keep me too busy to do as much socializing as I would—”

  “Then why did you—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, and stepped between the two. I should have done it sooner, but all this talk about beauty and innocence and the dark looks and the flared nostrils had pretty much unhinged my jaw. Still, enough was enough. “Julio…” I turned toward him, showing Rivera my back. “…thank you for bringing me home.”

  His eyes were gleaming, but with anger or humor or some other emotion, I couldn’t tell. “It was an honor, Ms. Christina,” he said, and lifting my hand, kissed my knuckles with slow deliberation. His lips felt firm and shivery hot against my skin. “You will call me if ever you are in need, will you not?”

  I cleared my throat and refrained from giggling like a nervous majorette. “Certainly.”

  He nodded and turned toward the door. I followed him.

  “Wait. You don’t have your car,” I said, but he smiled and turned in my mini-vestibule.

  “I’ve no wish to intrude on your day any longer.” He glanced at Rivera. I could only imagine the lieutenant didn’t look any happier than he had during the first few months of our acquaintance. “I believe the two of you have much to discuss. There is a bus stop just around the corner. I have not been so long from my humble roots that I do not remember the value of public transport.”

  He kissed my cheek. I didn’t turn to see Rivera’s reaction.

  “I’m sorry,” I said instead, but Julio laughed and leaned close, lips nearly touching my ear.

  “You need not apologize for a man in love,” he said quietly, and bidding Rivera adieu, stepped onto my stoop and shut the door.

  I gaped after him. A man in…What?

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Rivera snarled.

  I turned on him in a haze. A man in…where?

  “Fuck it! Why don’t you just put a gun to your damn head?”

  I felt a little dizzy. “What are you talking about?”

  “Shit!” He paced, jaw flexing. “He come to check out your garage, too?”

  My brain shifted, ground gears, started spinning. “He’s a friend.”

  “A friend!” He barked a laugh, jabbed a finger toward the door. “He’s a fucking gigolo.”

  I felt my temper start to fume. “What other kind would there be?”

  “You so desperate you’re willing to pay for it now, McMullen?”

  I stopped the words about to spill from my mouth and took a cleansing breath. “Why are you here?”

  “Why the hell was he here?”

  “I told you. He’s a—”

  “He’s a damn murder suspect!”

  My hands went numb. “What?”

  He glared at me. “He was at Salina’s house the night she died.”

  I blinked, paused. Feeling was already tinkling back to my extremities. “So were you. So was I, for that matter.”

  He held my gaze for another second, then jerked it away, pacing again. “He’s a damn whore,” he said, but he sounded sullen now, seething.

  “He’s a—”

  “And my old man’s gopher,” he snarled. I couldn’t tell which term he found more distasteful.

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “What was he doing here? What does he want? Maybe the good senator was innocent of Salina’s death, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe from him.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Murder!” he growled, and stormed across the room toward me. “Death. Stupid-ass gigolos who think my father’s a fucking saint. Why was he here?”

  “Is it so hard to believe a man would be interested in me just for me?”

  “Damn right, it is,” he growled. “You know things. About my father. The real him. The shitty him.”

  I felt strangely relaxed now, cool under fire. “So you think Julio Manderos came to my business, gave me a ride home, fixed me a drink, and planned to kill me so that I wouldn’t reveal the fact that he has doubled as your father.”

  Rivera shifted his gaze away and back. “It’s possible.”

  “Really?”

  He fisted his hands and gritted his teeth, steadying himself. “Maybe you think his eyes are too fucking soulful for him to be dangerous.”

  “You noticed.”

  Control was seeping in by careful measures. “Oh, yeah. He’s dreamy.”

  “Isn’t he just?”

  “So tell me, McMullen, do you become fast friends with everyone who gives you a foot massage, or is it just men who look like my old man?”

  “He’s not as old as—” I began, but stopped abruptly. “How the hell did you know about the massage?”

  The room went silent, his jaw flexed. “It looked like he’d found your G spot. I assumed it was a massage. You want to enlighten me?”

  I searched for one of those witty zingers I had contemplated moments before and snatched up the best one. “You’re an idiot,” I said.

  The doorbell rang simultaneously. I jerked. “Who’s that?”

  “Could be Charles Manson,” Rivera said. “Should I let him in?”

  I gave him a glare and headed for the vestibule, but not too fast. With my luck, Manson would have been a pleasant surprise. “Who is it?” I called. “Sophie,” came the response.

  The voice was trilling and feminine with a lilting foreign accent, but my pulse was still racing. Just because no woman had tried to kill me lately didn’t mean one wouldn’t soon. Maybe it just meant that my good luck was coming to a screaming halt.

  Rivera eased up beside me, nudged me away from the door. Maybe I let him do so because I’m a perfectly secure woman with a Ph.D. and a mortgage, but maybe I was scared out of my mind. He opened the door. The woman on the other side was French—pretty, long hair blue-black and caught up at the back of her head, dark eyes expressive enough to make a weaker woman cry. Curvy enough to make anyone cry.

  “Can I help you?” Rivera’s voice had softened toward human. What kind of freaky magic do these foreign women possess anyway? Besides the curves. And the hair. And the damn accent. I’m going to get me an accent.

  “Yes. I hope so.” She gave him a smile from full, recently glossed lips. She wore a white blouse with a little ruffle down the front, and a red knit skirt secured around a ridiculously small waist with a fat belt. “Is this…?” She glanced at the scrap of paper in her hand and read off my address.

  “Yes,” I said, elbowing forward. Move over, secure women with Ph.D.s, Christina McMullen was in town. “What can I do for you?”

  She glanced past me. “Is, perhaps, Julio Manderos present?”

  “Julio…Oh,” I said, noticing the paper bag that dangled from her hand for the first time. It was large and white and smelled like Shangri-La on steroids. “You’re from Melisse.”

  “Melisse,” she said, correcting my pronunciation congenially. “Oui. He ordered lobster bolognese.” She glanced at Rivera.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. My voice sounded like a jackhammer after hers. “He had to leave unexpectedly.”

  “Oh.” She scowled. “That is too bad.”

  A heavenly scent was wafting up from the open edges of the bag, firing up my taste buds. “But I’ll pay for the meal.”

  “Pay!” She looked aghast, black eyes going dinner-plate wide. “Oh, no. Julio Manderos does not pay for his meals from Melisse. Not so long as I am present.” She handed over the bag wi
th something of a flourish. “Enjoy,” she said, and narrowing her French fantasy eyes, slid her gaze up Rivera’s jean-clad body to his face. “You, too, Officer,” she said, and turned away.

  8

  Women have to be in the mood for sex. Men have to be breathing.

  —Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons and Brainy Laney’s alter ego

  “WHAT THE HELL was that about?” Rivera asked, but his voice sounded kind of hazy, his gaze still locked on Frenchie’s retreating form. “Form” being another word for ass.

  I considered kicking him in the shins…“shins” being another word for balls. “Don’t ask me,” I said, scowling. “Do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?” It wasn’t like I was jealous or anything. But damn it, foreign women always make me feel kind of…lumpy.

  She was still walking away, scarlet skirt snug across her bottom, then flaring to swish flirtatiously against the backs of her thighs.

  “I’d remember,” he said.

  Maybe it was hunger that made me want to drop-kick him into my dusty yard and lock the door behind him. “You sure you weren’t engaged to her or something?” I asked, tone sweet, lashes fluttering like discombobulated butterflies.

  He glanced at me, snorted, and closed the door. “Still jealous, McMullen?”

  I headed for the kitchen, put the bag on the table, and realized that if I killed him I could have all the…whatever the hell it was…for myself. “So that Julio Manderos,” I crooned, “isn’t he the dreamiest?”

  A muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw, but he turned away without strangling me, opened the appropriate drawer, and pulled out what I generously refer to as silverware.

  I put plates on the table, added a mismatched pair of glasses, and opened the bag. After that it was all kind of a haze. I considered telling Rivera he wasn’t invited to share my meal, but in actuality there looked like there was enough for Genghis’s army—or me, so I put on my game face and dug in.

  There were juicy tomato slices topped with cheese, and a lobster dish served in a sauce that made me glad to be alive.

  By the time I was slurping up the last bite, Rivera was staring at me. I classily wiped my mouth with a napkin and refrained from belching.

  “Does he come by often?” he asked.

  It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. But then I remembered the foot massage. Which had been very nice, but juxtaposed beside Melisse’s lobster stuff…

  I leaned back in my chair. “Manderos is a nice guy,” I said, wanting quite desperately to pop open my waistband and recline somewhere inconspicuous. “And maybe he was right. Maybe Swanson’s death didn’t have anything to do with me,” I said, and began clearing the table.

  “You believe in the Easter Bunny, too?”

  “I saw him at the mall. Just a couple months ago.”

  “I’m staying,” he said, and tossed the empty cartons in the trash.

  “Over my dead body.”

  “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.” The tic again.

  His eyes spoke volumes. None of it was polite. “Listen, McMullen…” He glanced out the window, body tense. “Manderos was right.”

  I scowled at him, waiting.

  “You’re as sexy as hell.”

  Swear to God, if he had morphed into a monarch butterfly and flown to Pacific Grove I couldn’t have been more surprised. I mean, yes, I knew at times that he was attracted to me, but…weren’t we fighting?

  “Shut your mouth,” he suggested.

  I did.

  “You and me…” He glanced toward the window again, exhaled sharply. “Shit!” He looked back, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Don’t you wonder why we haven’t done it yet?”

  “I thought it was because of your phone.”

  “Fuck the phone!” he snapped. “I could take you right now. Thirty seconds. Just…” He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. “Maybe I want more than that.”

  “More…” I shook my head. “Like a week?”

  “Like a fucking lifetime,” he said, and paced the length of my kitchen.

  I felt the blood drain from my face. “What?”

  “Why Manderos? Why him?” He had stopped abruptly, eyes sizzling with dark intensity. “Did you sleep with him?”

  Something in me wanted to tell him the truth, but the rest of me was kind of spiteful and a little nuts. “Is that any of your business, Rivera?”

  His brows dipped toward his ever-dark eyes. “Maybe I’d like it to be.”

  My heart did a fish-flop. “Maybe?”

  He blew out a breath. “You make me crazy.”

  “I don’t think I can take all the credit.”

  “Half the time I want to strangle you and the other half…”

  My heart was beating a slow tango in my chest. “Does the other half last about a week?”

  He chuckled and stepped forward. I stepped back, but not fast enough. He caught me, pinning my arms to my sides with his. “Maybe a month,” he rumbled.

  I tilted my head back to watch him. “But you’re gay?” He pressed against me a little. “My next guess was that you were injured in the line of duty,” I said, “but I guess not.”

  “Have you got a thing for him?”

  I scowled.

  “Manderos,” he said.

  I shook my head. “He’s a nice guy, Rivera. I—”

  “How ’bout my old man,” he asked.

  “I don’t know if he’s nice or—”

  “You got a thing for him?”

  I didn’t answer right away. So this was jealousy. Who would have thought?

  “You can tell me,” he said. “You wouldn’t be the first to fall for his shitty lines.”

  So he was still hurting over Salina’s betrayal.

  “One Rivera in my life is plenty,” I said.

  He looked as if he might continue in the same vein, then changed directions, face tense. “I never said my family was normal. Not like the sainted McMullen clan.”

  “Screw you,” I said, but the words were kind of breathy.

  He moved a little closer. “You got a week?”

  I swallowed and remained very still, lest the slightest motion tilt me over the horny line and into the humping-his-thigh region. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, and kissed me. My hormones fired up like cherry bombs. I kissed him back. I knew it wasn’t a good idea. But…some guy had died in my yard. And…well, hell, he’s got an ass tight as a cement mixer. I was panting like a racehorse when I reached for it, and that’s when his phone rang.

  I broke off the kiss and said something nasty.

  “What’d you say?” he asked, words a caress against my cheek.

  Good God, I could still feel his erection against my thigh. Just sitting there, not doing anything constructive. “Nothing.”

  He chuckled, delayed a second, then pulled his cell from his pocket. Flipping it open, he stared at the screen. “This could be important,” he said.

  And twenty-one months of celibacy wasn’t? “Of course,” I said.

  His eyes scorched me for a second, and then he pushed a button. “Mama,” he said.

  I refused to let my jaw drop at the idea that he would choose a conversation with his mother over mind-imploding sex. If the world was fair, that alone would force him to give up rights to his Latin heritage.

  “I’m not home right now,” he said, and watched me with smoldering intensity. I resisted squirming. And then it hit me. Maybe it wasn’t his mother at all. Maybe he called all his girls “Mama.” Except me, of course. “No.” There was another pause, a quirk of the lips. “I’m at McMullen’s.”

  “Christina’s?” It was the first clear word I heard from the other end of the line. It did sound kind of like his mother. And her tone was thrilled. Mrs. Rivera and I had once bonded over a trough of liquor and talk about men having descended from the porcine species.

  “I’ll tell her,”
he said. “Tomorrow night?” There was more mumbling, then, “Okay. Everything all right?”

  There was a muted answer.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  She must have assured him all was well, because he didn’t torpedo through the door to her rescue. Instead, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and glared at me.

  I fidgeted a little, wondering if she’d told him something about our exploits from a couple months before. Maybe something I myself couldn’t remember. I’d been as drunk as a carny.

  “Nothing’s wrong, I hope,” I said.

  He narrowed his eyes. “She likes you.”

  “That a crime or just a rarity?”

  His lips twitched. “I don’t want to disappoint her.”

  I wasn’t sure where he was going. “Okay.”

  “So I figure we’ve got two options. We could do it right now before my phone rings again.”

  I was holding my breath. “Do what ex-exactly?”

  “Make her a grandchild.”

  I stumbled back a step. “Holy crap! What? What’s wrong with you?”

  There was a devil in his eyes as he stepped forward and pinned me against the wall again. His thigh settled with smug intimacy against my core. His lips slanted across mine. I felt my brain go numb, taken hostage by my ovaries.

  “Was there a second option?” I rasped.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” I think I nodded. “Okay.”

  He leaned in, eyes dark, hands hard and hot against my wrists. That’s when his phone rang again. He snarled, but a second later he released me, pulled out his cell, and flipped it open. “Yeah!”

  Someone muttered something.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Another mumble.

  “You’ve got the wrong damned number,” he said, and hung up.

  Wrong number! Thank Jesus! It was a wrong number, I thought, but suddenly memories fired up, flashing suspicions in every inconceivable direction. “Who was that?” I asked.

  He eyed me. He was still cradled between my thighs, still feeling like a million bucks against my needy stuff, but they say once burned twice shy. I’d been burned about seventy-seven times. The last pyro had been a paid assassin. Maybe. “You think it was a woman?” he asked, and flexed his thigh a little.