“I’m surprisingly simple.”
“Oh, you think so, huh?” he teased.
She rolled her eyes. “I mean as far as food is concerned.”
“Burgers and size-small pants work for you?”
“Extra small. And make sure they don’t skimp on the mayo.”
“Got it.”
She moved to the oversize chair beside the coffee table, sank back into it and curled up her legs, only half listening as he placed their unusual order from the twenty-four-hour room service menu. She was both eager and apprehensive to hear what he had to say about the part of the conversation she’d just overheard.
If he’ll say anything at all.
Her experience with police was limited, but she suspected they were tight-lipped about things related to their cases. Understandable, in most circumstances. Of course, she knew perfectly well that her circumstances weren’t the usual. Most people didn’t get a 24/7 guard outside their room after being in a supposed car accident.
Because most people didn’t intentionally run a corrupt cop off the road, resulting in his death, while simultaneously getting in the middle of a decade-and-a-half-long police investigation that had ties to their own choppy family history.
Nadine plucked at the plush robe and tried, unsuccessfully, to brush off the run-on sentence of a thought.
It was true that things had ended badly for Officer Chuck Delta. And it was also true that he’d shot and killed her half brother, manipulated the crime scene after the fact, used his position to commit God knew what other crimes and worked for Jesse Garibaldi the whole time. Nadine didn’t feel responsible for the man’s death. He’d dug himself into the hole that was his criminal life. And Garibaldi... Well, the man behind the businessman facade was a whole other ball game. He’d taken Nadine’s father’s life. He’d tried to take hers, too. And she’d only just started to unravel the reasons why. There was no way she was just going to keep quiet and hide, no matter how badly Anderson and his partners might want her to.
Like he could read her mind, the detective interrupted her thoughts with a statement that confirmed her assumptions about his opinion on the situation. “I know you’re probably sitting there trying to devise some method of getting me to tell you everything I know about Garibaldi. And I think you should know that I’ve developed an immunity to having anything stuck under my fingernails.”
She couldn’t muster up a laugh or even manage a lie; she just sighed. “I’m not going to be uninvolved in figuring out why my father and brother had to die.”
He sat back studying her, his face unreadable. It was a little unnerving to be so silently and thoroughly assessed. And it made Nadine think—not that she’d been considering his worthiness until right that second—that Anderson was probably good at his job. His scrutiny made her want to squirm and blurt something out.
And I don’t even have anything to hide, she thought.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like if she was trying to keep something from him. Impossible, probably.
But she tipped her chin up stubbornly, pressed her lips together, then said, “What’s supposed to happen here? Am I supposed to succumb to some kind of cop wizardry?”
After a few more wordless moments, Anderson blinked, his stony expression dropping. “Works with the criminals.”
“Which I’m not.”
“You did kidnap my friend’s fiancée,” he pointed out.
She made a face. “Taking Reggie was a misunderstanding. She saw my brother get shot. And it’s too soon for jokes, Anderson.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” He sighed and ran a hand over his hair. “Look. There are few people in this world who know as well as I do what it feels like to be chasing a killer for personal reasons.”
The statement stabbed a little at Nadine’s heart. “I know. I didn’t mean to—”
He put up a hand. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m saying that I literally understand what it feels like. I know the helplessness and the need for justice. I’ve been chasing it—chasing Garibaldi—for fifteen years. That’s half my life, Nadine. I can’t even guess how many of my waking moments I’ve spent trying to sort out what the hell happened and why. I’ve never been able to walk away from it. Maybe I couldn’t even if I tried. So I really, truly get it.”
By the end of the short speech, Anderson’s voice had roughened with emotion. The hand he’d put up dropped down to his lap, and his gaze followed it. He stayed that way, and, without thinking about it, Nadine unfolded her legs, stood up and moved to sit beside him. She reached out and placed her own hand over his. For a second, he just sat still. Then his palm flipped over. As their skin met, his fingers closed to clasp hers tightly. And then it was Nadine who sat still, at least on the outside. On the inside, though, her pulse was thrumming.
Their pose was intimate. Familiar. Like an old friend—or a lover, said a little voice in her head—offering comfort in his time of need. It was disconcerting to feel such a strong connection to a near stranger. But Nadine felt no need to pull away, and after a few seconds Anderson at last cleared his throat and lifted his face to meet her eyes.
He shrugged, his expression tinged with embarrassment. “Apparently, I meant all that.”
She gave his hand a squeeze. “I can see that.”
“I don’t have any interest in making you to do something I couldn’t do myself. I’m not asking you to forget your need to find out what happened.”
“But you want me to do what?” She was careful to keep the question from sounding defensive. “Let it go for a while so you can do your job?”
“No.” Anderson lifted their clasped hands to his mouth and dusted her skin with a kiss like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Something a little more complicated.”
Nadine’s heart fluttered nervously. “Okay.”
“Don’t say okay until you’ve heard what I want.”
“Okay, er, you know what I mean. Tell me.”
“What I want is for you to trust me.”
It wasn’t really what she’d been expecting to hear, and her surprise made her blurt out an honest response. “Trust is hard for me. I’m a woman whose dad led a double life and whose boyfriend thought being my roommate was an acceptable option after our breakup.”
“I’m not asking you to jump in with both feet right away. I just want you to start with a little quid pro quo.”
“Quid pro quo?”
He nodded. “You overheard that last part of my conversation with Harley?”
“You mentioned something about leverage and my brother,” she said, embarrassed to admit that it had somehow managed to slip her mind in the last few minutes.
“And you’re curious about what that meant.”
“I was.” She cleared her throat as she realized she’d just made it sound like she wasn’t interested any longer.
If Anderson noticed, he didn’t comment on it. “I want to preface what I’m about to say with a bit of an apology.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No. I just don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Part of that trust thing.”
“All right.” She felt cautious now, her heart beating unevenly for a different reason.
“We were up-front about the fact that I was sent here to act as a bodyguard, and you already know our overall goal is to put Jesse Garibaldi behind bars. Brayden told you all of that before he and Reggie left.”
“Yes.”
He released her hand and scratched nervously at his stubble. “He left out a few details. Or a detail, I guess.”
“Just spit it out, Anderson. Listening to you jump around it is probably way worse than whatever you’re going to say.”
“Before your brother died, one of the last things he told Brayden was the reason that Garibaldi let you live. He said that your dad
passed along something valuable—a way to blackmail Garibaldi.”
She frowned, feeling like the revelation was a little anticlimactic. “But I don’t know anything about something that could blackmail Garibaldi.”
“That you’re aware of.”
“That I’m—oh. You think it’s buried somewhere with the memory of the day my dad died.”
“At the very least, it’s a good possibility.”
“And you think that you can help me retrieve that memory so that you can use it to gain the leverage yourself.” She studied his face for a second. “And that makes you feel bad.”
“I’m not a user, Nadine. Never have been,” he replied, looking down at his hands. “Even having the odd criminal informant rubs me the wrong way. I guess I struggle with that whole greater-good piece. The other guys know it. They call me the nice one.”
“Which I’m guessing is another reason they picked you to babysit me.” She knew it sounded bitter and, sure enough, his eyes jerked up.
“Hey, now.”
“I know it’s not what you said. But it’s what it boils down to, right? They sent the nice one to deal with the difficult one.”
“Actually, that title belongs to our friend Rush. He’s the fourth partner in our scheme.” He smiled for a second before shaking his head. “And you’re not difficult.”
“I thought we were being honest.”
“Nadine...”
“As you so kindly pointed out, I kidnapped a woman a week ago just to prove to myself she wasn’t working with the man who killed my dad. I ran away from the care facility where you were making me stay for my own good. I obviously need a babysitter.”
Anderson sighed noisily, put his hand on her shoulders and turned her gently so that she was facing him.
“You’ve been through a hell of time,” he said. “You’re still going through it. And it’s lasted too long. All I want to do is to help you end it. Isn’t that what you want, too?”
“Of course. But I don’t want to be this massive inconvenience to everyone around me.”
“Needing help from trained professionals isn’t the same as being an inconvenience.”
She started to argue, to point out that she liked being independent, then stopped abruptly as she clued in to the reason she was being so prickly. It was simple. She really hated the thought of being an unpleasant task instead of a choice.
Especially to Anderson?
She shoved aside the question and changed the subject. “You still haven’t got to the quid pro quo part.”
“I want you to tell me everything you can remember about the day your dad died, and everything your brother said to you during your last bit of time together. Somewhere in there—in your head—is the key to what Garibaldi’s after.”
He continued talking for a minute, assuring her that in exchange for the information she provided—whether it panned out or not—he’d keep her in the loop in regard to anything he and his partners found out about her father. He had a few caveats about ensuring that nothing would compromise the case, but Nadine was only half listening. The word “key” had triggered something in her memory. She didn’t know what or why, but it felt like an answer, frustratingly out of reach.
* * *
Anderson paused in his speech as he noted a change in Nadine’s expression. He knew what the look signaled because he’d seen the same one on many faces—both witnesses’ and suspects’—in the interrogation room. The pretty blonde was experiencing an aha moment.
Trying to keep from getting too hopeful that it was something directly related to the case, Anderson reached out to touch her wrist and ask. He got only as far as opening his mouth, though, before a light knock on the hotel room door interrupted. Wishing he’d had a minute or two more, he moved from the couch to the door, where he verified through the peephole that it was room service. The staff member—not the exuberant girl from the front desk, thank God—set up the tray efficiently, handed over a plastic bag full of clothes, accepted the tip, then exited smoothly. It took under five minutes, but it was enough to change the tone in the room. The flow had been interrupted, and as much as Anderson wanted to push Nadine for a little bit more, he sensed that it was time to lighten the mood.
“Why don’t you get dressed,” he suggested. “I’ll see if the honeymoon suite rental comes with any suitably romantic movies for us to watch while we eat.”
“We don’t have to watch a romance movie just because we’re in the honeymoon suite.”
“I know. But I want to.”
Nadine lifted an eyebrow. “You want to?”
“What? We already established that I’m a romantic.”
“But...romantic movies?”
“Let me guess. You’d peg me for an action man. Guns and ammo. Bombs and dudes jumping from helicopters.”
“As a matter of fact...”
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Always with the stereotyping. That’s offensive to sappy policemen everywhere.”
“What about car chases?”
“Nope.”
“Slasher flicks?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Political thrillers?”
“Not a chance. Trust me. I get all the pulse-pounding adrenaline I can handle at work. What I need is lighthearted drivel to take my mind off reality.” He snagged the TV remote from the coffee table and leaned back. “Better hurry if you want a say.”
“You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“Deadly.”
She shot him a half-amused, half-incredulous look, then grabbed the bag of clothes and hurried to the bathroom. As the door clicked shut, he started flicking through the prepaid channels in search of something just right. It took only a few seconds to find something that promised to make the viewer laugh, cry and laugh some more. He cued it up, then took the covers off their burgers as he waited.
He wasn’t lying about his predilection for movies that kept things on the fluffy side. Violence and gore didn’t appeal to him, and if that made him a giant suck, then so be it. But a bump and a muffled curse followed by a yell of “I’m okay!” drew his attention to the hall and prompted a silent question.
Are you sure that’s all this is about?
He sighed again. He’d have to be an out-and-out liar not to admit that it’d been a long time since he’d found a woman as intriguing as he found Nadine Stuart. So sitting back and watching a movie with her—any movie, really—carried the potential for something more than just a distraction from the swirl of dark things that clouded his everyday life.
The point was driven home as she stepped into the room, pausing to do a girlish, seemingly out-of-character spin right in front of him. “What do you think? They sent cozy pajamas.”
Anderson couldn’t find a grin. “I guess they thought you might not want to spend the whole night in clothes. Even comfortable ones.”
She paused, midtwirl. “Wait.”
“What?”
“They didn’t send the pajamas. You did.”
“Maybe.”
“I can tell from that smirk on your face that you did.”
“And I can tell from that smile on yours—or that was on yours a second ago, anyway—that you like them.” He patted the couch beside him. “Come and eat.”
She flipped her damp hair off her cheeks, made a face like she was going to argue, then shook her head instead and stepped over to sink down beside him. “Did you find a movie?”
“I did.”
“So hit me with the damage.”
“Well. It features a twentysomething starlet with really, really straight teeth, a low-cut shirt and a smart mouth. There’s a dog. And a broken elevator.”
“Hmm. Promising. What about the leading man?”
“Too good-looking to be believable, and therefore not important.”
“Jealous?”
Anderson snorted. “Of a pretty boy in an overpriced suit?”
Nadine dipped a fry into her gravy, popped it into her mouth, then immediately grabbed another. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m not jealous.” He leaned over to snatch the fry from her. “But just for curiosity’s sake...is that what you’re into?”
“Who doesn’t like a pretty boy in an overpriced suit?”
“Me, clearly.”
She laughed, and Anderson reached out impulsively to thread his fingers through hers. Her laugh cut off abruptly as she stared down at their clasped hands, and he heard her sharp inhale.
“Are we really doing this?” she asked softly.
“Which part, specifically?” he replied.
“Pretending that you’re not here to make sure I don’t get killed by acting like we’re on a first date.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“Which part, specifically?” she echoed.
“Any of it,” he said. “If you spend all your spare time dwelling on the bad things, you lose sight of the good.”
“I know.” She didn’t look up, and Anderson didn’t buy her claim.
He released her hand to bring his fingers to her chin, which he gently tilted in his direction. “Do you?”
“I do. I’ve managed to do a pretty decent job of living a good life in spite of everything that’s hung over me for the last ten years.”
“So what’s holding you back from putting things aside for a couple of hours now?”
“Aside from the fear of being chased down and killed?” she asked drily.
“Aside from that, yes.”
“I guess I’m just worried that this isn’t spare time.”
“We’ve got nowhere to be, and unless someone specifically knows we’re here at the lodge, we’re well hidden. On top of that, it’s about four in the morning, and that’s an impossible time to conduct any kind of stealthy investigative work. So as far as I’m concerned, this is definitely spare time. At least until it’s light out.” He dropped her chin and offered her an exaggerated wink. “And if we want to use it as a first date...that’s fine by me. We do have a lot of ground to make up.”
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