by J. R. Ward
The manila envelope landed on her desk with a slap, startling her.
“Got something pretty for you to look at,” Dick said with a sly smile.
She reached for the packet and slid out…
Well, wasn’t she glad she’d given both those sausage biscuits to Tony: They were photographs of the prostitute’s body, eight-and-a-half-by-elevens in color, all up close and personal.
As Dick hovered over her like he was waiting for her to chick out, she refused to give him any satisfaction, even though the center of her chest ached at the images…particularly the one that showed the neck wound in detail, the deep slash cutting through the skin and into the pink-and-red muscle and pale gristle of the throat.
When Mels put the photos down, she made sure that was the one on top, and noticed that Dick, for all his Big Man attitude, refused to look at the image.
“Thanks.” She kept her eyes steady on his. “This is going to help a lot.”
Dick cleared his throat like maybe he’d pushed the asshole act a little far, even by his own low standards. “Let me see your follow-up ASAP.”
“You got it.”
As he sauntered off, she shook her head. He should know better than to give her father’s daughter a challenge like that.
And P.S., the fact that he would at all was just gross.
Kind of made her think about the way Monty used tragedy for his own purposes.
Frowning, she went through the photographs again, and then focused on the one that was taken on the morgue slab. There was a strange rash on the lower abdomen, a reddening of the skin, as if the victim had been sunburned—
As her cell went off, she answered it without looking at the number. “Carmichael.”
“Hello.”
The deep voice sent a burst of heat right through her core. Matthias.
For a split second she wondered how he’d gotten her number. But then she remembered that she’d given him her business card—and written the thing down.
“Well, good morning,” she said.
“How you doing?”
In her head, a Ping-Pong match started up between what Tony had told her in the car and what that kiss had felt like. Back and forth, back and forth—
“You there, Mels?”
“Yes.” She rubbed her eyes, and then had to stop because the bruised one didn’t appreciate the attention. “Sorry. I’m okay, how are you? Any more memories coming back?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
Mels straightened in her chair, her interest shifting, locking on. “Like what?”
“I don’t suppose your Nancy Drew would mind checking something out for me?”
“Absolutely. Tell me what you want to know.” As he spoke she took notes, writing down names, murmuring uh-huhs at the pauses. “Okay. This is no problem. Do you want me to call you back?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.”
There was a strange pause. “All right,” she said awkwardly. “So I’ll call you—”
“Mels…”
Closing her eyes, she felt him against her, his body pressing in, his mouth taking over, that dominance that was intrinsic to his personality coming out.
“Do you know what happened at your hotel last night?” she said abruptly.
“Yeah. I spent hours thinking about you.”
She closed her eyes briefly, fighting the seduction. “The police found a dead body. That had a very fancy bulletproof vest on it.”
Another pause. Then an even response: “Huh. Any suspects?”
“Not yet.”
“I didn’t kill him, Mels, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“That’s what you’re thinking.”
“Who are these people to you?” she cut in, making little boxes around the names he’d given her to research.
“Just things that have bubbled up.” His voice became distant. “Look, I’m sorry I called you about them. I’ll get the info somewhere else—”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’ll do it and I’ll phone you back.”
After she hung up, she stared into space. Then she rose from her desk chair and went down a couple of cubicles. Leaning over the top of yet another gray partition, she smiled in a fake way that her colleague didn’t know her well enough to spot. “Hey, Eric, what’s up?”
The guy’s eyes shifted away from his computer monitor. “Hey, Carmichael. What can I do you for?”
“I want to know about that murder at the Marriott.”
The reporter smiled, all cat-and-canary. “Anything in specific?”
“The vest.”
“Ah, the vest.” He rifled around the paperwork on his desk. “The vest, the vest…” He pulled a sheet free and spun it to her. “I found this on the Internet.”
Mels frowned as she read the specs. “Five thousand dollars?”
“That’s what they cost before they’re customized. And his was.”
“Who the hell can afford that?”
“Exactly what I’m asking myself.” More rifling. “Big-time security firms are one. U.S. government is another—but not for your Joe Schmo FBI agent, mind you. You’d have to be very high-level.”
“Any VIPs in the hotel?”
“Annnnnd that’s what I looked into last night. Officially, the staff can’t give out names, but I overheard the night manager talking to one of the cops. There’s nobody special under their roof.”
“What about that area downtown?”
“Yeah, I mean, there’re some big businesses around the neighborhood, but they were all closed as it was way after normal business hours. And it defies logic that some dignitary was walking around Caldwell and one of his security team happened to go rogue and get his throat in the way of someone’s knife.”
“When did it happen?”
“’Round eleven o’clock.”
After she’d left and gone to the crime scene. “And no clue on the identity?”
“Not a one. Which brings us to the next hi-how’re-ya.” Eric chewed on the end of a blue Bic. “No fingerprints.”
“At the scene?”
“On the body. He didn’t have any fingerprints—they’d been etched off.”
Mels’s ears started to ring. “Any other identifiers?”
“A tattoo, apparently. I’m trying to get some pics of it as well as the body, but my sources are slow.” His eyes narrowed. “Why all the interest?”
Fancy bulletproof vest. No prints. “What about weapons?”
“None. He must have been stripped.” Eric leaned forward in his chair. “Saaaaay, you’re not trying to sweet-talk Dick into getting you a byline on this, are you?”
“God, no. Just curious.” She turned away. “Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.”
When the phone rang about a half hour later, Matthias just stared at the thing. Had to be Mels getting back to him.
Damn it, this was a mess….
After Jim had taken off to go do breakfast or errands or some shit, naturally, the first thing he’d done when he was alone was call Mels and try to find out if that story was true about the father and the son up in Boston. It hadn’t dawned on him that she’d have heard about what went down in the basement, but come on, sloppy thinking much? It was all over the cocksucking news. Even nonreporters who didn’t keep up with that kind of shit knew.
The phone stopped its electronic ringing. But she was going to redial.
God, her voice when they’d spoken. She’d sounded suspicious, and in so many ways that was the best thing for her. Yet it killed him.
When the phone started going off again, he couldn’t stand it. Grabbing his cane, he walked out the door of his room and headed blindly for the elevator. As he took it down, he had no clue where he was going. Maybe breakfast.
Yeah, breakfast.
It was what people did at nine a.m. all over the country.
Annnnnd, of course, the only restaurant that was open for business was the one h
e’d gotten to know intimately the night before—and as he walked past the colored glass wall, he decided to go off Marriott property to—
“Matthias?”
At the female voice, he pivoted around. It was the nurse from the hospital, the one who’d given him a helping hand, so to speak. Outside of work, she was fresh as a daisy, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a pale dress hanging below her knees.
She kind of looked like a bride.
“What are you doing here?” she said as she came over. “I thought you’d be home recovering.”
As people walked by her, they all stared, men with hot speculation in their eyes, women with varying degrees of envy and dislike. Then again, she was stupidly beautiful.
“I’m okay.” He tried not to stare at her. It was like looking into the sun, painful on the eyes. “How about yourself?”
“My mom’s come into town. Or rather, she was supposed to be here by now. Her flight was due in a half hour ago, but it got delayed in Cincinnati because of storms. I’ve been debating whether to wait or go home—we were going to have breakfast. Is that where you’re headed now?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“Well, then, how about we go dutch. I’m starved.”
Her black eyes positively sparkled, to the point where they made him think about the night sky. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to cop a squat in the—
“Okay,” he heard himself say, like some third party had taken over his mouth.
Together, they walked over to the maître d’s stand.
“Two,” Matthias said as the man did a double take at the nurse, and then froze like a deer in the headlights, apparently struck stupid by all the lovely.
“I’d like a window seat,” she said, smiling slowly at the guy. “Perhaps over…”
Not the window he jumped out of, Matthias thought.
“…there.”
Bing-fucking-o.
“Oh, yes, sorry, right away.” The maître d’ got with the program, snagging a couple of leather-bound books and leading the way. “But there are some better views across the room, overlooking the gardens?”
“We don’t want the sun to be too bright.” She put her hand on Matthias’s arm and gave him a little squeeze, as if she wanted him to know she was watching out for his bad eyesight.
Man, he really didn’t like her touching him.
As they walked across the room, the nurse created a total stir, men peering over the tops of their Wall Street Journals and their coffee cups and sometimes their wives’ heads. She took it all in stride, like it was just the normal course of things.
After they sat down in front of the window he’d violated with Jim, coffee materialized, and they mulled over the menus. The civilized bullshitting that came with picking and choosing among the fifty different plates of good-morning got on his nerves. And he didn’t want to eat with her, although to be fair, he didn’t want to eat with anybody.
The stuff with Mels was the problem. Yeah, he’d called her with that info search, but the bigger truth was, he’d just wanted to hear her voice.
He’d missed her through the night—
“Penny for your thoughts?” the nurse said softly.
Matthias looked out the window at the building across the alley. “I just realized—I don’t know your name.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought it was on the whiteboard in your room.”
“Probably was, but it could have been in neon lights and I don’t know if I’d have noticed.”
This was a lie, of course. In fact, there hadn’t been a nurse listed, just a doctor, and there hadn’t been a name tag on her scrubs.
Which seemed a little strange, come to think about it….
She took an elegant hand and laid it on her breastbone—which seemed like an invitation to check out her cleavage. “You can call me Dee.”
He stuck with her eyes. “As in Deidre?”
“As in Devina.” She glanced away, as if she didn’t want to go into it. “My mother has always been a godly woman.”
“Which explains your dress.”
Dee shook her head ruefully and smoothed the skirt. “How did you know this getup isn’t me?”
“Well, for one thing, it looks like it belongs on a forty-year-old. The jeans and parka are more your age.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-five-ish.” And maybe that was why he didn’t like her touching him. She was so young, too young for someone like him.
“Twenty-four, as a matter of fact. It’s why my mom’s in town, actually.” She touched her sternum again. “Birthday girl.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks.”
“Your father coming in, too?”
“Oh…yeah. No.” Now, she closed up completely. “No, he’s not coming.”
Damn it, the last thing he needed was to get all into her personal shit. “Why not.”
She fiddled with her coffee cup in its saucer, turning it back and forth. “You are so odd.”
“Why.”
“I don’t like to talk about myself, but here I am babbling away.”
“You haven’t told me much, if that makes you feel better.”
“But…I want to.” For a split second her eyes dipped to his lips, like she was wondering things about him she really, really didn’t need to. “I want to.”
Nope. Not going there, he thought.
Especially not after Mels.
Dee leaned in, those breasts threatening to break out of that dress. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
Great. Wonderful. Fucking perfect.
In the tense quiet, Matthias briefly eyed the big window next to them. He’d already been out the thing once.
If things got awkward, he could do it again.
Mels hung up her office phone and leaned back in her chair. As the squeak sounded, she made a new tune out of it, rocking back and forth.
For some reason, her eyes locked on that coffee mug that had been left behind by the other reporter.
When her cell phone went off, she jumped and fumbled with the thing. Quick check of the screen and she wanted to curse—not because of who it was, but because of who it wasn’t.
Maybe Matthias was in the shower.
People took showers in the mornings.
Yeah, for, like, a half hour, though? She’d been calling every five minutes.
“Hello?” she demanded.
“Hey, Carmichael.” It was Monty the Mouth; she could tell by the cracking of his gum. “It’s me.”
Well, at least she did want to hear from the guy. “Good morning.”
“I got something.” His voice dropped, all secret-agent style. “It’s explosive.”
Mels sat up, but didn’t get too excited. With her luck, “explosive” was more hyperbole than H-bomb. “Oh, really?”
“Someone tampered with the body.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like I told you, I was first on scene, and I snapped some photographs—you know, in an official capacity.” There was a rustling over the connection, and then a muffled conversation, like he was talking to someone and had covered up the receiver. “Sorry. I’m at the station house. Let me get out of here and call you back.”
He hung up before she could say anything, and she had images of him dodging fellow officers on his way to the parking lot like he was one of Eli Manning’s receivers.
Sure enough, when he called back, he was out of breath. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I got you.”
“So my photographs of the body have something on them the official ones don’t.”
That was her cue to OMG, and in this case, she didn’t have to fake it. “What’s the difference?”
“Meet me and I’ll show you.”
“Where and when.”
After she hung up, she checked her watch and dialed Matthias’s room phone again. No answer.
“Hey, Tony,” she said, leaning into
the aisle between their cubicles. “Can I borrow your—”
The guy tossed the keys without missing a beat with whoever he was talking to on the phone. As she blew him a kiss, he covered his heart and gave her a little swoon.
Striding out of the newsroom, she got in Tony’s Toy and headed across town, using a route that just happened to…well, what do you know, it was the Marriott hotel.
And she was a good half an hour early for her meeting with the Mouth.
By crazy luck, she found an open, metered parking spot just across from the lobby entrance—except it took her two tries to get the car in place, her parallel-parking skills rusty from her using too many garages since she’d moved back to Caldwell.
Plus, feeling like a stalker didn’t help her at the wheel.
As she walked into the lobby, she felt like someone from security should stop her and turn her away, but no one paid her any attention—which left her wondering exactly how many other people were to’ing or fro’ing over things they felt icky about.
At the elevators, she hopped a ride to the sixth floor along with a businessman whose wilted attire and red eyes suggested he’d flown in the night before from somewhere far away.
Maybe even flapping his own arms.
Stepping free, she hung a right and went down the carpeted hall. Room service trays were set out next to doors, treacherous welcome mats with their smudged plates, half-empty coffee cups, and stained napkins. At the far end, a maid’s cart was parked in front of an open room, the light from inside spilling into the corridor and highlighting fresh toilet paper rolls, folded towels, and a lineup of spray bottles.
Matthias’s door still had the Do Not Disturb sign on it, and she took that to mean he hadn’t checked out. Putting her ear to the panels, she sent up a quick prayer that he wouldn’t pick this moment to open up.
No running water. No muttering from the TV. No deep voice on the phone.
She knocked. Knocked a little louder.
“Matthias,” she said to the door. “It’s me. Open up.”
As she waited for a response that didn’t come, she glanced over at the maid who had come out with a plastic bag full of trash. For a split second, she considered playing the whole I-forgot-my-key-card thing, but in post-9/11 Caldwell, she had a feeling that wasn’t going to work—and might end up with her getting tossed out on her hey-nanny-nanny.