by Donna Ball
“I wish it could last longer,” he said softly, “but I think for both our sakes we’d better say goodnight.” And then, outrageously, he dropped a soft, lingering kiss upon her bare shoulder, just where the strap of her sundress curved toward her breast. Still she did not move away. “So good night, Teale."
He dropped another kiss onto her shoulder and then lowered his head and lightly, very lightly, kissed the hollow of her throat, just above where the microphone lay tucked into her bra. "Good night, Sam," he said.
*****************
"This isn't going to work," Teale said firmly the next morning.
She stood before Captain Hollis's desk, her back straight, her feet planted solidly, an expression of formidable intractability on her face. Only her clenched fists betrayed the anxiety she felt inside.
Captain Hollis regarded her mildly, with an infuriating patience and a total lack of expression that compelled Teale to go on.
"He knows I'm a cop," she insisted, working hard to keep her voice calm and reasonable. "He knew I was wired. He knew he was being tailed, he even knew the exact position of the van every minute. This is hardly what I call undercover work, Captain. The man has been one step ahead of us from the beginning without even working up a sweat, and worse, he doesn't care."
Her voice was becoming more impassioned now, and she could feel angry color stain her cheeks— though whether the anger was generated by Captain Hollis's impassivity or David Carey's arrogance she couldn't be sure. "Nothing we do throws him," she said shortly. "Nothing I can do is going to trip him up, he’s made that clear. What is the point of this operation, anyway? What can we possibly expect to accomplish at this point?"
She had run out of things to say. Captain Hollis simply continued to look at her, quietly, politely, without a trace of expression on his face to indicate what he might be thinking. From the outer office came the muted sounds of typewriters and ringing telephones, but the silence that emanated from Hollis's desk was thick and interminable.
At last he said, thoughtfully, "What do you suggest, Detective?"
"A surprise raid," she responded quickly, almost too eagerly. "We've surely got enough for a warrant, and we know we're going to find enough to put him away."
Hollis nodded slowly. "How long have you worked vice, Saunders?"
Teale felt the flush, which had begun to fade away, creep up the back of her neck again. He knew that as well as she did. She had been transferred under his command. "Two years, sir."
He nodded again. "Some things come with experience, I suppose. Like learning to look at the big picture and resisting the temptation to go for the quick fix. We can move on Carey tonight and put him out of the picture, that's true enough. Get him out of our hair, close the file, everything nice and neat, move right along to the next case, and maybe the next one won't give us so much trouble. But that's not really what law enforcement is all about, is it?"
She felt like a ten-year-old brought up before her school principal. She tried to brazen it out. "No sir, but---”
“Carey is just a symptom. We've got to try to cure the disease. And we're not going to do that by rushing in there with guns blazing like vigilantes in an old-time western."
"I realize that, sir. But—"
"The object here is not to make life easy on ourselves, Saunders, and you know that as well as I do." His gaze became sharp. "Have you got a problem with this case you haven't told me about?"
Yes, she wanted to shout. And every bit of it is on that tape Sam made of my dinner with David Carey last night. A problem? She had a dozen problems. Smiling silver eyes, wind-tossed hair, a pact of truth. A man whose gentle probing questions made her want to bare her soul, whose kisses took her breath away. David Carey had already stripped her of her objectivity; what would he take next? That was a problem.
But she would admit none of that out loud. It was hard enough to admit it to herself. Let Captain Hollis believe the voice of the woman he had heard on last night's tape was that of one of his best detectives playing a well-rehearsed part; let him think she was just doing her job, let him think she had David Carey well in hand. Perhaps, if she worked hard enough at it, she would be able to convince herself of the same thing.
Teale drew a breath. "No," she said. "No problems."
He looked at her for a moment longer, and then gave a satisfied nod. "Good. Because I'm nowhere near ready to walk away from this case."
Then his tone became less brisk. "I know the odds seem stacked against us," he admitted. "It's a damned peculiar situation, and it's hard for an officer to know how to conduct an investigation like this. But there never were any hard-and-fast rules in undercover work; you know that. Almost every move you make is a judgment call. And I trust your judgment, Detective Saunders."
Teale wished she had his faith. "Thank you, sir."
"Right now the main thing we have to do is stay close to Carey. Something's getting ready to break, and we're never going to know what it is if we don't have a man—" he almost smiled "—woman in there. I know it may not seem like much, but right now you're the only lead we've got. Just hang in there and do your best.”
Teale mentally steeled herself. "Does that mean you want me to actively pursue the contact?"
"I don't think you'll have to do that. Carey is a game player. He's getting a kick out of playing outsmart- the- cop, and his ego won't let it go. My guess is he'll pursue the contact. All you have to do is keep your eyes and ears open and wait. Chances are a man like that will trip over his own overconfidence sooner or later, and we'll be there to pick up the pieces."
She nodded and even managed a semblance of her old cocky smile. "Sounds simple enough to me."
She turned to go, but Hollis called her back.
"Detective Saunders." His tone was serious. "If any problems do develop, let me know. We can't afford to have you in there if your mind's not one hundred percent on the job."
She hesitated and almost wavered. If she was ever going to get out, it should have been then, before she got in any deeper. But pride, stubbornness and professional integrity refused to let her admit defeat.
Or perhaps she, too, was suffering from overconfidence.
"No problems," she assured him, and left the office.
Outside, she took a deep, steadying breath and went over to her desk. So, that was it then. David Carey was her albatross—or she was his—for the duration. She tried to assess the positive factors. At least she knew where she stood with him; the lines were clearly drawn. There was no need for subterfuge—or at least, not much. He was pleasant company, amusing, even stimulating. The assignment would never be dull. And he found her attractive—or he pretended to—which should give her some sort of advantage.
On the negative side, she found him attractive, too, and that was no advantage at all. He was pleasant company—too pleasant. And too amusing and too stimulating for her own good. But perhaps the most disconcerting fact of all was the one that should have been the most reassuring: she didn't have to play a role with him. Teale had been playing roles all her life. Who was she supposed to be now that she was playing only herself?
Teale went through the telephone messages on her desk and didn't know whether she was relieved or disappointed that there was no message from David Carey. She entertained a brief hope that the captain might be wrong; perhaps Carey wouldn't pursue the contact after all. Immediately she dismissed the notion as pointless and futile. Damn it, she had a job to do. She was supposed to be going after the bad guys, not avoiding them. But everything about David Carey confused her, made her uncertain and hesitant to trust her own judgment. Such a state of mind, for a police officer, could unquestionably be dangerous.
Sam rested a sympathetic hand on her shoulder, rousing her from her troubled thoughts. For the first time in their association, Teale was not glad to see her partner.
"Saunders," he said soberly, "I admire you. How you kept a straight face through all that drivel he was dripping on you last night i
s beyond me. I about lost my lunch just listening to it."
Teale half thought Sam was serious, and that annoyed her. She avoided his eyes, busying herself with the papers on her desk, and replied shortly, "I've heard worse."
"Well, I guess lobster and champagne will cover a multitude of sins," Sam agreed philosophically, and that didn't help a bit.
Teale wondered what he had made of the long silences, the soft rustling noises that came over the microphone last night. Had he guessed David had kissed her—and that she had let him? Of course he had, she thought irritably, Sam was no fool. The question was, what did he make of it? He was certainly being very diplomatic, whatever he thought. And his tact, for some reason, annoyed Teale even more.
She looked Sam straight in the eye, and she said, "Let's stop tiptoeing around the subject, Sam. You know what went on last night."
"And you handled it like a pro," he assured her.
"That's not the kind of professional I'm trying to be," she flared at him, and he grinned.
"I've always said, being a vice cop is the best training in the world for real street work. Unemployment is not something you'll ever have to worry about.”
Teale frowned, but she felt a little better now that the subject was out in the open. It was all part of the job, she assured herself. Sam knew that; she knew that. And they both also knew how difficult it was, sometimes, to tell where the job left off and real life began. Losing one's sense of perspective in undercover work was a constant threat and one she had been trained to avoid. She only hoped she had been trained well enough.
She picked up a pencil and tapped it thoughtfully against her cheek. She looked at Sam. "You're a man. What do you think was going on with Carey last night?"
Sam perched comfortably on the edge of her desk and replied without hesitation, "I think he's a man who knows a good thing when he sees it and doesn't waste any time going in for the kill."
Her expression turned dry. "How very perceptive. I don't suppose you'd care to be more specific?"
"All right," he answered, scooping up a handful of candy from the dish on her desk. "David Carey is an arrogant son of a bitch with the morals of an alleycat and about as much finesse."
"You just described every man I've ever known," Teale pointed out impatiently.
Sam's eyebrows flew up in mock indignation as he popped a chocolate into his mouth. "I beg your pardon. I thought you wanted my opinion."
"Please, go ahead. Maybe I should take notes."
"Quite aside from the fact that you could pick up lines like his in any bar in the city at half the price," Sam went on intrepidly, "he has all the markings of a sociopath—"
"Oh, come on, Sam! Don't you think that's going a bit far?”
“—in that," Sam continued deliberately, "in his particular area of expertise—which is deception, fraud and evasion—he not only shows no sign whatsoever of conscience, but actually enjoys making things difficult for himself. The hotter the game, the more he wants to play. And a man who courts danger that closely has got to be just a little bit dangerous himself. That's what I think."
Sociopath? Dangerous? Teale didn't like what Sam thought at all. And because she didn't want to think about how close Sam might be to being right, she deftly returned the ball to Sam's court. "All right, hotshot. You seem to have it pretty well figured out. What would you do if you were me?"
Sam appeared to give this some consideration. "Well," he replied at last, tossing back the last chocolate. "I wouldn't kiss him, that's for sure."
Teale scowled at him, but in fact she was relieved. She'd been waiting for a gibe like that all morning, and now that it was out of the way she could relax. Sam wasn't one to push his luck.
"I think," she replied, giving him a cold stare, "the first step is to get rid of the wire."
"Suits me. If I had to listen to any more of that garbage, I'd be unfit for duty. But the Captain might have a thing or two to say about that."
Teale could well imagine he would, but she didn't consider the matter open for negotiation. The woman in her rebelled against undergoing another humiliation like last night's, while the practical, professional side of her insisted that if she were going to go through with this, she may as well do it right. It was obvious she would get nothing more from David Carey until her trusted her, and he would never trust her as long as a hidden microphone monitored his every word.
She took a chocolate from the dish and chewed on it thoughtfully, trying to formulate a plan—trying, somehow, to get a grip on a situation that was already beginning to slip out of her control. "The shortest route between point A and point B..." she murmured out loud.
"Is a straight line." Sam helped himself to more candy.
"Precisely."
"What straight line are you trying to follow?"
"Diangelo. He's the object of the entire investigation, isn't he? David Carey is just window dressing, and the time we spend on him is traveling in circles and corkscrews rather than going straight to the source." Even to herself that sounded like rationalization, just another way to get out of a job she didn't want to do. But she was grasping at straws now.
"Maybe," Sam admitted reluctantly. "But right now Carey is the straightest line we've got. And you, my dear detective, are a straight line to Carey."
"Well, so far that's gotten us exactly nowhere." Her tone was challenging. "Have you got a suggestion?"
"I do." Sam got to his feet and pushed casually away from the desk. "You've got a pact of truth with the man, don't you?" He grinned. "Ask him."
Teale's features drew into a formidable scowl as he sauntered away, but it wasn't Sam's flippancy that angered her, it was the fact that it might work. And that possibility made her very uneasy.
Which was, of course, ridiculous. Was she to accept the word of a man like David Carey? Did she believe that he could have feelings, whimsies, sincerities and pleasures like an ordinary man? Did she believe that he thought she was beautiful? Did she believe that gentle, pleasured look in his eyes after he had kissed her? And most of all, did she really believe that he had meant it when he promised her nothing but the truth between them?
Far away, some small treacherous voice deep inside her whispered, Yes... Yes, in some strange way a part of her almost did believe all of those things. And if he lied—which, if she asked him about Diangelo, he was certain to do—she didn't want to know about it. She was perfectly aware that that was both perverse and unprofessional, but she simply wasn't ready to confront David Carey on the subject of his veracity.
What she did want to do was find out as much as she could about him. That, in fact, was the only sensible thing she could do at this point—and the only thing she could think of to keep from going crazy waiting for him to call her. There were big gaps in the police file that made Teale uncomfortable, and a great many things she needed to know for herself about Carey's connections in town. And those were things she could do something about.
With a surge of energy, she logged on to her computer and set to work, busying herself with useful, productive, positive things: sending off requests for information to various government and local agencies, making phone calls, dragging Sam along for firsthand interviews with contacts who might be able to provide something the police didn't already know. It would take several weeks to get a reply to any of her queries, the phone calls proved fruitless, and the interviews were entertaining but hardly enlightening. But for the remainder of the day Teale hardly thought at all about a kiss on a moonlit beach.
******************
FIVE
Teale asked very little from life. A place to lay her head at night, a square meal at least once a day—and an automobile that worked. After spending the day lost in the fast-paced world of high-level crime fighting, it was somewhat of a letdown, to say the least, to find herself standing by the side of the road sweltering in the six o'clock heat and staring at a steaming engine.
Cars swept by in a roar of exhaust fumes, causing Teale to s
hield her face against the dust and the taste of carbon monoxide. "Damn tourists," she muttered, which was almost a blasphemy in itself, since eighty percent of Bretton Beach's economy—and at least fifty percent of Teale's job—was dependent on tourism.
She slammed the hood closed and walked around the car, flipping open her cell phone. She punched Sam’s number on speed-dial, hoping he was still in his car on the way home, and wouldn’t have to get back out in traffic to rescue her. She waited... And waited... and looked at the display on her phone and saw nothing Disbelieving ,she punched “send” again while another car whizzed by. She shook the phone, staring at it incredulously. Too late she remembered forgetting to place the phone in the charger last night, and the night before that. So now she was stuck on the side of the road with a dead car and a dead phone.
Unless some sunburned, dinner-bound tourist took pity on her, the nearest telephone was conveniently located at the nearest service station, about two miles back, and standing in the hot sun swearing about it wasn't getting her any closer to either one. Teale reached inside the car and jerked her keys out of the ignition, slung her purse over her shoulder and slammed the car door. She didn't bother to lock it. With any luck, an auto thief would stop by while she was gone and solve the entire problem.
She'd walked fifty yards when she heard a car slow down and pull to the shoulder behind her. Somehow she wasn't in the least surprised when she turned and saw a sleek red sports car idling patiently at the side of the road, and she didn't even have to guess who the driver was.
Teale's heart was beating fast as she walked slowly toward the car, but she told herself that was only from the heat. She came around to the passenger side, away from the traffic, and bent down to the window.
"Car trouble?" inquired David Carey politely.
She answered dryly, "I don't suppose this is a coincidence?"