Sudden Engagement

by Julie Miller

  Ginny waited the moment it took him to realize her intent and look at her. “Why do you second-guess yourself?” she asked.

  “Time to interrogate me, huh?” But the teasing in his voice didn’t reflect in his face.

  “I know it was hard for you to hear those details about Mark’s injuries.”

  “I’ve seen Mark hurt plenty of times.” He shrugged his shoulders, and the air of false nonchalance disappeared into the night. “I guess hearing Mr. R. describe that scene in the alley got me thinking about what I was trying to do to help Mark in the first place. And how, ultimately, I failed him. I guess a lot of us feel like we failed him.”

  Ginny understood failure. She understood how debilitating the feeling could be.

  “I failed Amy, too,” she admitted. She wanted to reach out and touch Brett, offer him some bit of the comfort she herself had yet to find. But he was too big, too much, too hurt for her paltry skills to be of much help, so she simply shared her own story. “She tried to tell me something was going wrong in her life in that last month before she died. She wrote me letters while I was at school in Europe. But I was too caught up in my own stupid problems to listen.”

  “It eats you up inside, doesn’t it.”

  He stood framed in the open door, one arm draped over the side of the truck bed, one hand hooked over the top of the door. From her perch on the seat, they formed a triangle, a connected unit.

  The space between them sparked with electricity, an awareness of something more than physical. An embrace of like minds, of shared spirits, of battered souls. Ginny knew an overwhelming urge to touch, to close the distance between them. The tips of her breasts, her stomach, her fingertips tingled with the energy flowing between them. He needed… She wanted…

  A single blink of his eyes broke the spell, reminded her of past mistakes, and finally, recalled the strength of her inexhaustible reason.

  “I have to believe I’m helping her now. I will not let my sister be a statistic. She will not be some unsolved mystery.” Her whispered vow caught in the trapped air between them. “Try to believe you’re helping Mark now, too.”

  In the still silence of the night, Brett reached out. His broad hand hesitated in her peripheral vision. And when she didn’t speak or flinch away, those rough-tipped fingers touched her hair ever so gently, catching a curl and tucking it behind her ear. She closed her eyes and savored the callused warmth of his hand along her jaw.

  His low voice drizzled against her eardrum. “Thank you.”

  She opened her eyes, shaking her head. “For what?”

  “For not being as tough as you want the rest of the world to believe.”

  Chapter Six

  Ginny watched the numbers above the elevator doors light up one by one. She twisted her neck from right to left, trying to ease some of the tension there. She didn’t know which spooked her more—the feeling that her investigation into Alvin Bishop’s murder had stirred the interest of an anonymous fan, or the admission that Brett Taylor was getting under her skin despite her best efforts to remain unattached.

  Four. Three more floors to go.

  After their interview with Frank Rascone, she’d had the most illogical desire to throw her arms around Brett’s neck and hold him close. She’d wanted to comfort him.

  Five.

  He’d do better wrapping up with his hard hat than to accept such a feminine gesture from her. She’d rejected his kisses, argued at every turn, misplayed his attempts to make their engagement look real. She’d even upset his chauvinistic sense of right and wrong by refusing to let him drive her home tonight.

  Still, after talking about Mark, he’d been so…hurt.

  It eats you up inside, doesn’t it.

  His words rang true, deep inside her soul. She understood the guilt he felt. For a few moments, she’d felt a connection to him that went beyond job stress or even physical attraction. Yet, while she buried her wishes and wants, and pains and sorrows, behind her badge and an attitude, he wore his for all to see—in those big smiles and on those broad shoulders.

  She felt a coward, by comparison.

  Imagine, thinking someone with her dysfunctional history could offer him some kind of comfort.

  Six.

  She laughed out loud. “Handsome playboy turns to neurotic lady cop. That’ll be the day.”

  The bell dinged. Any humor, sarcastic or otherwise, was eclipsed by the ominous flash of the number seven.

  As much as she hated the elevator ride up to the seventh floor of her apartment building, she dreaded stepping out into the hallway even more.

  Fifty-fifty.

  Those were her chances of having the hall light work. The window at the opposite end of the hall let in some light during the daytime. But at night, the place would be pitch black. And since her neighbors rarely opened their doors, she’d get no relief there either.

  Ginny sucked in a deep breath and held it. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the elevator to open. Hardly a smart move for a lone female trained in the rules of self-defense. But it delayed the nightmare just a bit.

  “Oh hell.”

  She focused her eyes on the long, black corridor that greeted her. Her breath whooshed out on a puff of air.

  Little children and superstitious fools were afraid of the dark. Not mature adults, not cops.

  But dark was dark, and she knew what kind of heartbreak and humiliation could lie hidden within the darkness.

  With her key gripped in her hand, she hurried down the hall, trailing her fingertips past two, three, four doors. Flattening her palm against the door of 709, she used unerring rote memorization to find the dead bolt, insert her key and unlock it.

  With her heart beating in her ears, she turned the knob. A sudden flood of light washed over her from behind.

  “There you are.”

  She spun around, her key protruding between the knuckles of her fist. “Dammit, Dennis, you startled me.”

  She collapsed against her door and lowered her makeshift weapon as she identified the tenant from apartment 710 across the hall. Dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, Dennis Fitzgerald managed to look impeccable with his receding red hair and black plastic half-glasses perched below the bridge of his nose.

  He tapped at the Timex on his wrist. “You’re getting home awfully late. Is it that case from the Ludlow Arms?”

  Ginny sighed deeply, emotionally drained and physically exhausted, but too well mannered to blow off his neighborly concern. “So you’ve been watching the news.”

  “You know I always watch the crime report. The description of Mr. Bishop’s death reminded me of a story by Edgar Allan Poe that I read back in school.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I pasted today’s newspaper report in my scrapbook. Then I went to the library to get a copy of Poe’s short stories so I could compare details. I can get the book for you, if you like.”

  Only one book? Dennis’s lifelong hobby had been collecting police blotters from the newspapers, and accumulating photos and obits of assorted crime victims. Since his retirement, his amateur sleuthing had become a full-time profession. Ginny often wondered if he had chosen this particular apartment because he knew a detective lived across the hall.

  “Maybe another time, Dennis. It’s awfully late and I need to get some sleep.”

  He tipped his head to study her over the rim of his glasses. “You do look tired. You’d best go straight to bed. I’ll slip a copy under your door in the morning then, so I don’t disturb you.”

  “I…” She rethought her protest. Dennis looked after her in an impersonal, good Samaritan kind of way. She trusted him to water her plants when she was gone on an extended assignment, after all. If helping her with a case gave him pleasure, or made him feel he could contribute something to the world, then she didn’t have it in her to stop him. “You do that,” she agreed, figuring that would earn her a quicker good-night.

  “I will.” He pointed to her door. “I’ll wait until you lock up b
efore I turn in.”

  “Thanks, Dennis.”

  “Good night.”

  She opened her door and stepped inside, immediately turning on the lamp she kept beside the door. She slipped the dead bolt and hooked the chain, then waited to hear the same sounds across the hall before moving on into her apartment.

  Tossing her shoulder bag onto an overstuffed chair, she kicked off her shoes and walked down the hall, turning on lights as she went. Her hand grazed the doorknob to the room on her right and she paused.

  For a moment she stopped breathing. This was always so hard.

  Tightening her grip on the knob, she opened the door and flipped on the light. Unlike the rest of her apartment, this spare room was a study in chaos. Instead of carpeting, drop-cloths covered the floor. A battered chest of drawers that had lost its handles long ago filled one corner. And on its paint-spattered top, she’d piled boxes of oils and pastels, and jars of pencils and paintbrushes. Ignoring the mess, she crossed the room to close the blinds that hung over the double windows.

  Then she turned to the wooden easel and oversize canvas standing in the center of the room. Like the rows of canvases leaning against the north wall, this one, too, showed a hodgepodge of drab, muted colors. Olives and browns, grays and deep reds. Impressionistic in form, she’d created landscapes and cityscapes dotted with faceless people. Each painting reflected a mood, an observation about life, an attempt to escape the memories that refused to let go.

  “God, you’re depressing.” She admonished her work and exited the room, closing the door behind her. When had her haven become such a dark, dour place?

  Shaking off the downward spiral of her thoughts, she shed her blazer and carried it to the closet. After hanging it up, she removed her gun, holster and badge from her belt and locked them inside the metal box in the drawer of the bedside table.

  Ginny hesitated for a moment before picking up the yellowed shoestring lying beside the box. Threaded onto the string was a tiny key.

  Brett said a lot of people had failed Mark Bishop before his death. They’d failed Amy Rafferty, too.

  Once, she and Amy had been more than sisters, they’d been best friends. They’d always talked. But when Ginny graduated from high school and went to Europe, she’d left her sister alone with two busy, distant parents. So they’d written letters.

  Mostly, Amy had done the writing. Ginny had been too caught up in a new world, a new school, a new love.

  Three letters had come the week after Jean-Pierre Dumage had hurt her so. A week she’d spent sulking in self-pity, questioning her talent, cursing her willingness to trust—a week to convince herself she had no more use for love.

  Three letters came that week. Ginny didn’t read them.

  Until the phone call came from her father, telling her that Amy had been murdered.

  She tossed up the key and caught it in her fist.

  It was time to face those letters again.

  When Ginny had on her ice-blue silk pajamas, she returned to the kitchen. A scan of her fridge and freezer revealed nothing more decadent than boxed microwave meals and bottles of salad dressing. Making a mental note to add ice cream to her shopping list, she poured herself a glass of milk and went into the living room. She set aside a bouquet of silk flowers and lifted the glass tabletop from the antique travel trunk that served as her coffee table.

  She pulled the key from the shoestring looped around her neck and unlocked the trunk. The stale smell of mothballs and memories stung her nose as she pushed open the lid. She set aside a pilled and faded baby quilt and pulled out a stack of airmail o’grams tied up with a pink silk ribbon.

  Curling her legs beneath her, Ginny sank onto the couch and untied the ribbon.

  The first date and address actually made her smile. A safe place to start—before Paris and Jean-Pierre and shattered dreams.

  London, England

  Dear Ginny,

  Too cool! Imagine writing to you in London! I am so jealous that Mom and Dad think you’re old enough to study abroad. When I go to college, I’ll probably end up at a state school. How dull is that? Too cool! Imagine writing to you in London! I am so jealous that Mom and Dad think you’re old enough to study abroad. When I go to college, I’ll probably end up at a state school. How dull is that?

  I remember how you used to close yourself up in your room and paint all day. I always wanted to be creative like you. Mom used to send me up to get you for dinner. You’d be a mess, but you’d be so happy. Just think. Now you can be as messy as you want!

  When I’m teaching kindergarten in five years, I plan to take my students to the Nelson Art Gallery to see your stuff.

  Remember when Mom took us to the Egyptian exhibition there?

  Ginny stopped reading and folded the letter. She closed her eyes and remembered. They were both in elementary school then, fourth and sixth grade. The sarcophagus had freaked them out. The idea of closing someone, even if he was dead, inside the ornate coffin had turned her into a quivering wreck.

  Ginny’s eyes shot open, thinking of Alvin Bishop’s remains, chained to a wall and buried alive. How her flashlight had gone out and she’d been plunged into horrifying, haunting darkness.

  She’d always hated the dark, she realized.

  But Amy had recovered quickly. She might have marveled at her older sister’s talent, but Ginny had always envied Amy’s resiliency. Nothing kept her down for long.

  Ginny’s lips curved into a smile, remembering more about that trip to the Nelson Gallery. Minutes after leaving the Egyptian display, Amy was sliding down the wide marble banisters of the museum. She’d dared Ginny to try the ride, and throwing rules aside, she had.

  She thought of Brett Taylor’s assertion that she needed to break the rules. Once upon a time she would have. But now…

  She set the letter aside and picked up the next one in the stack.

  Paris, France

  Dear Ginny,

  Okay, ’fess up! Tell me more about this French professor of yours. He sounds really cute.

  She refolded the letter and put it on top of the first.

  “So much for a safe trip down memory lane.”

  Swallowing the last of her milk, Ginny got up and laid the letters back in the trunk and closed the lid. She’d try reading them in the morning, when she was rested and felt less at odds with herself.

  On her way to rinse out her glass, the phone rang.

  She glanced at the wall clock in the kitchen. No reason to panic. Anytime something broke on a case, she could get a call. Answering the phone at 12:00 a.m. was no big deal.

  “Detective Rafferty.”

  “Gin?”

  Professional detachment abandoned her and she hugged her arm around her waist in an automatic defense against the power of that hushed voice. “Brett.”

  After a breathless moment of silence, he asked, “Did you get home all right? It was so late, I wanted to double check.”

  His concern, couched in those seductive tones, made her knees and ankles tingle. She fought the feeling. “I’m a big girl. I’ve been getting home by myself for a long time now.”

  “Not when you’re my responsibility, you haven’t.”

  Her legs buckled. Preserving the shreds of her self-assurance, she climbed onto a stool and rested against the kitchen’s center island. “I appreciate your concern, but—”

  He cut her off. “I have a proposition for you.”

  Not again.

  “Brett…”

  “I feel guilty about making you miss two meals today.” This was about food? She could almost see his shoulders relaxing, a mischievous smile tipping the corners of his mouth. She could almost feel a matching smile herself. “I don’t want you to waste away into nothing.”

  Silly midnight talking. She hadn’t done anything silly for so long. Maybe the late hour made it easier to give in to his boyish humor. Maybe the distance between them made it safe for her to play along.

  “You missed two meals, too,”
she pointed out. “If you keep that up, you’re gonna shrink down to my size.”

  The rich, musical laughter at the other end of the line made her smile. “No chance of that, angel.”

  The tension she’d felt from the phone message and the dark hallway and Amy’s letters eased out of her like a gentle massage. It felt so good to just talk to someone, without trying to ferret out information or keep them at a professional distance.

  “Did you really call just to check on me?” she asked, not quite trusting the shared moment.

  “Not exactly.” Her bottom lip slipped between her teeth as she braced for the reality check. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  She stopped her gentle gnawing. “My voice?”

  “Yeah. Crazy, huh?” She heard a rustling sound over the line and imagined that he was up and moving around his…wherever he lived.

  “Brett, where are you?”

  “At home. I couldn’t sleep.”

  In an unforeseen rush, her imagination conjured up a mental image of just how Brett might sleep. He didn’t seem the pajama type. T-shirt? No, too confining for that much man and muscle. Shirtless? Yes, definitely. And shorts, maybe. They’d cling to those muscled thighs and show off the naked, masculine length of those powerful legs.

  Ginny’s nipples puckered as if a cool breeze had suddenly blown through her apartment.

  “Oh, my…” she breathed, startled by her body’s physical reaction to a mental image.

  Shutting her eyes did nothing to dispel the image of broad shoulders and bare chest. Of a jutting jaw with a raspy need for a shave. Right on cue, her lips prickled with the memory of his gentle, commanding kiss.

  “Brett.” Was that croaky plea her own voice? She slapped her palm over her mouth, embarrassed by all she might have revealed.

  “Angel? What’s wrong?” The snap of concern in his voice cut through the imaginative haze clouding her mind. She was dimly aware that he’d been apologizing for something. Moodiness, she thought she’d heard.