He looked at her for a moment, his expression hard to read. But when he replied, his tone was brisk.
‘It’s fine. Same old, same old.’
Still, the way he upended his bottle, swallowing hard, belied his words.
Normally, Harper would have let it go at this point. But the beer made her reckless.
‘You know, I still don’t understand why you switched to undercover,’ she said. ‘You’re a good homicide detective. One of the best. It never made sense.’
He studied his beer bottle.
‘Office politics.’ His clipped tone warned her against asking more. But she decided to push it.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Harper.’
‘Well,’ she said, unperturbed, ‘you’re wasted, chasing drug dealers. You ought to be solving murders. Like this damned Whitney case.’
That caught his attention. He tilted his head.
‘Why do you say it like that? What’s going on with that case?’
‘Blazer’s blowing it,’ she told him, with a sudden burst of righteous anger. ‘He’s got no suspects. I don’t think he has a clue. Smith won’t listen. And there’s another little girl without a mother, and everyone’s looking at it wrong.’ She waved her bottle. ‘The killer’s out there and no one’s doing anything about it. It’s all slipping away.’
In the sudden silence that followed, she drew a long breath.
‘Damn. Where did that come from?’
Luke had said nothing all this time – he let her talk, listening with a kind of intensity she found unfamiliar but not unpleasant.
Now, instead of answering her question, he reached for her empty bottle. Their fingers brushed as he took it from her hand. His skin was warm and dry against hers.
‘Stay here,’ he told her.
He disappeared through the back door, where the thump-thump-thump of the music had increased in volume. He was gone less than a minute, returning with two fresh beers. Motioning for her to follow, he led the way to the back of the yard, out of sight of the house, and handed her a bottle.
‘Thanks.’ Harper pressed the cold glass to her forehead.
‘OK,’ Luke said. ‘I get that you’re pissed off at Blazer. But I don’t really know why. Tell me your theory about the Whitney case. Start at the beginning.’
Harper bit her lip. Until this moment, she hadn’t really considered telling Luke what was going on. And this was probably a diversion to get her to stop asking about what was happening with him. Still, all of a sudden, she wanted to tell him everything.
‘This is going to sound crazy,’ she warned him. ‘I don’t have all the pieces yet. It’s a hunch, more than anything.’
He waved his bottle impatiently.
‘Look, Harper, any cop will tell you every theory about a case starts out as a fucked-up idea. Talking it through is how you unfuck it. You whittle away the crap and get down to the truth. So … Talk.’
Harper drew a long breath – steadying herself.
‘I’m looking at two similar crimes,’ she told him. ‘Fifteen years apart.’
He swung his bottle in an impatient circle. ‘The Whitney case and …?’
‘My mother’s murder.’
Undercover cops learn early how to hide what they really think. The only way she could tell he was caught off guard was by the time it took him to respond.
‘What ties them together?’ he asked after a split-second too long.
He was calm, interested. But what was most important to Harper was what he didn’t say – he didn’t ask how or when her mother was killed.
He knew already.
The realization jolted her.
She’d always suspected most of the detectives had to know her history. After all, some of the older ones had worked that case.
But Luke was young. It was strange to think that he might have known all along. And never mentioned it.
‘Harper?’ Luke prodded with unexpected gentleness.
‘The crime scenes,’ she said, gathering herself. ‘They’re identical.’
Quickly, she told him what she knew.
‘I know how crazy it sounds,’ she said, at the end. ‘Fifteen years is a long time. But if you could have seen those scenes, Luke. They’re exactly the same.’
She paused, wondering how to explain.
‘It’s like my mother’s death made this huge noise a long time ago. And this murder is the echo of it.’
Luke stood staring into the darkness, his jaw tight. The breeze ruffled his hair.
When he didn’t speak, Harper decided he thought she was wrong, too. Like Smith and Miles and everyone else she’d confided in. Maybe they were right.
Maybe she really was seeing what she wanted to see.
She took a drink. ‘I told you it would sound crazy.’
‘The problem I’m having here,’ he said slowly, ‘is it’s not nearly as crazy as I’d hoped.’
Harper stared at him in stunned surprise.
Someone laughed loudly in the house. The sound made them both flinch.
‘Don’t get me wrong.’ Luke glanced back at the house, his brow creasing. ‘You shouldn’t take it to court yet. But it’s worth finding out more.’
Something broke with a crystalline crash. Loud cheers arose.
The party was reaching its peak. Soon, the neighbors would call the police, not without irony, and some night-shifter would come break it up. It would never appear in the stack of police reports on the reception desk.
Blue looks after blue.
Clearly, Luke had come to the same conclusion.
‘Listen,’ he said suddenly, ‘let’s get out of here. Do you have your car?’
‘N-no,’ she stuttered, caught off guard. ‘I walked.’
His smile was a flash of white in the shadows. ‘I forgot you live downtown. You’re as bad as Riley.’
‘I’ll bet my rent is less than yours,’ she retorted tartly.
He gave a low chuckle.
Setting their half-finished beers on a garden table, they walked back to the house.
‘This way.’ Luke pointed to a shadowy path leading down the side. ‘Let’s try to get out of here without rumors starting. Cops are worse than teenage girls.’
Just as they slipped away, drunken, mock-fighting bodies tumbled down the back steps behind them.
‘They’ll be handcuffing each other next.’
Luke whispered the words in Harper’s ear. His breath against her skin felt electric.
She suppressed a shiver.
As they walked through the dark, she felt hyper alert – every nerve firing. Something was different tonight. She could sense it – smell it in the air, like smoke. He was closer to her than he’d ever allowed himself to be – their hands were almost touching. He wasn’t finding an excuse to leave, as he often did. He was making no effort to put a safe distance between them. To ensure they didn’t cross a line.
There had always been something between them – a low unspoken force of attraction. They had always ignored it. Their jobs meant they had to.
But ever since the shooting, she’d felt the strangest need for those barriers between them to fall. Maybe he’d felt that, too.
This felt dangerous. And she liked danger.
They slipped through the side gate and out onto the sidewalk, heading down the silent street. The rambling, historic houses were dark at this hour. Aside from the pair of them, the only movement was a black cat, in the distance, slinking under a parked car.
Harper shot a surreptitious sideways glance at Luke. His hands were loose at his sides and his eyes were focused straight ahead. He had a loping, easy stride, like a cowboy heading back to the bunkhouse.
She made herself look away.
‘Look,’ he said, when the sounds of the party had faded behind them. ‘About the Whitney case. I’ve heard some things.’
Harper was instantly sober.
‘Like what?’
<
br /> ‘Like no useful evidence was collected at the scene,’ he said. ‘Like, everything was too clean to be believable. The killer was professional. Things you already know.’ He glanced at her. ‘You’re not the only one to notice – people are talking. Even outside Homicide. Everyone knows Blazer hasn’t got a handle on it.’
‘Why doesn’t the lieutenant do something?’ she asked, frustration ringing in her voice. ‘He should take Blazer off the case.’
‘Office politics,’ Luke said, for the second time that night. ‘Smith and Blazer go way back. There is no chance of Smith admitting he has any doubts. Not publicly, anyway.’
That made sense to Harper. Blazer was Smith’s second in command. They hung out together outside of work. They often went fishing in Blazer’s bass boat in the summer.
‘What do you think is going on?’ Harper asked. ‘Do you think the killer was a professional, like Blazer’s saying?’
Luke made a disgusted sound.
‘None of it fits. Why would a professional killer murder Marie Whitney? It feels like an excuse for not solving the case.’ He hesitated. ‘But … Harper, it’s extremely unlikely the Whitney case has anything to do with what happened to your mother. You know that, right? Killers don’t lie low for decades and then reappear to commit the same murder again.’
Harper turned away.
‘I know,’ she said. But her voice was tight.
‘Hey.’ He touched her arm. ‘Listen.’
Their steps slowed. His face was serious.
‘If it were my mom, I’d do exactly what you’re doing. And if I can help from the inside, let me know.’
Harper stared. This offer broke any number of police codes and rules. And it wasn’t like Luke to break rules.
‘You’d really do that?’
‘Sure. I’ll poke around, see what I can turn over.’ He smiled that cowboy smile. ‘I’m between cases. They always make us wait for six weeks before going back undercover again. All I’m doing is running down low-level drug dealers. I’ve got to do something else to stay busy.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, with genuine feeling. ‘That would really help. If I’m on the wrong track, I want to know.’
Somehow they’d reached her street. As they neared her front steps, they both stopped, looking up at the blue, two-story building with its peaked roof. The students upstairs were asleep – all the lights were off except the one in the entrance hall.
‘This is you,’ Luke said softly, turning to her.
Their eyes locked.
Harper’s chest tightened. She’d been right – something was different tonight. She didn’t know why, but something between them had changed and they could both feel it.
It wasn’t like Luke to offer to break rules for her, and it wasn’t like him to show up at Riley’s party, or to walk her home. Or to stand here now, looking at her like that.
Like he wanted her.
But he was and she didn’t want him to go. And she knew he didn’t want to go either.
A muscle worked in his jaw.
Harper thought she could see her own confused longing reflected in his eyes. She felt that look in the pit of her stomach.
With aching slowness, he reached out, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek with his fingertips.
His skin was so warm. She leaned into his touch.
‘Harper …’ He said her name with soft reluctance. Like he was about to say ‘I have to go.’ Or ‘We can’t.’
But he didn’t say either of those things. He didn’t say anything.
The moment had the fragile tension of thin ice.
Harper tried to make herself think clearly. Was this what she wanted?
The one rule Harper had never violated – the one she genuinely saw the sense in – was never to get romantically involved with the police. They were her subjects – her sources.
Except now, all of a sudden, she didn’t care one damn bit about any of that. She wanted to break that rule, and break it hard.
Was this what she wanted?
Yes.
She could feel the desire coming off him like heat. His gaze was like a held breath.
‘You could come in,’ she suggested hoarsely. ‘I have coffee.’
For a second he stood still, waging an internal battle she’d already lost. Then his jaw tightened, and he grabbed her hand.
They took the front steps two at a time.
Harper fumbled with the key, unlocking the door with feverish impatience. They tumbled into the house. His lips were on hers before the door swung shut.
Luke’s body was all hard muscle as he pulled her to him, kissing her with a hungry urgency that made her insides dissolve.
They stumbled over a pair of shoes she’d left by the front door, falling back against the wall.
He caught his balance, holding her close against him.
Everywhere he touched her burned like fire.
His body fit perfectly against hers. She had always known he would feel like this. Smell like this. Taste like this.
‘We’re not supposed to do this,’ he whispered against her skin.
How could she tell him that some part of her had wanted to kiss him since that night in the police car when they were both twenty-one and ready to conquer the world?
Harper ran her hands down his back. Raised her lips to his ear.
‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’
Then they were kissing again, his tongue teasing her lips apart, his breath filling her lungs. He smelled of soap and salt and trouble, and she wanted him to stay the night.
He trailed kisses along her jaw to her ear, and her breath caught as his teeth pressed against the sensitive skin there.
‘We could both get fired,’ he whispered.
Somehow, everything he said sounded like a promise of the best sex of her life.
She stood on her toes, whispering two words against his lips: ‘Worth it.’
His hands slid down her spine, flattening against the small of her back, pressing her body against his.
‘Oh, hell,’ he said, looking down into her eyes. ‘I think you might be right.’
It was all over now. There would be no more fighting it.
His mouth covered hers as he pushed her back against the wall. She ran her fingers through the soft strands of his hair that she had always wanted to touch.
She was trying to remember if she’d left anything embarrassing out in her bedroom when his phone rang.
They both froze.
The harsh buzzing echoed insistently in the quiet hallway.
Exhaling, Luke pressed his forehead against hers. His eyes were steady, a clear, trustworthy blue that seemed to see directly into her soul.
‘I have to get it.’
She brushed her lips against his. ‘I know.’
With obvious effort, he stepped back, pulling the phone from his pocket.
Clearing his throat, he said, ‘Walker.’
A voice on the phone spoke to him in quick, authoritative sentences Harper couldn’t quite make out. Luke listened, his eyes on hers.
‘Got it,’ he said after a minute. ‘I’m on my way.’
He ended the call, sliding the phone back in his pocket.
‘It’s work. I have to go.’ He traced his fingertips lightly under her chin, following the line of her jaw – even that touch raised goosebumps on the back of her neck. ‘I really don’t want to.’
‘Go,’ she said gently. ‘Catch your drug dealer.’
He pulled her close, kissing her one last time. When he finally released her, she felt colder.
He opened the door and the night poured in.
He glanced back with a wicked grin.
‘Harper McClain,’ he said. ‘You are full of surprises lately.’
Chapter Seventeen
The next day, Harper slept until noon. When she woke, light was filtering softly through the blinds. She stretched languorously. Then her whole body went rigid.
Shit.
>
She sat up abruptly, dragging the sheets with her, sending the blanket to the floor and making Zuzu, who had been asleep on the end of the bed, leap to her feet.
Luke.
Dropping her head into her hands, Harper replayed the last minutes of the night.
In retrospect, it felt like a dream but, even through the fog of morning, she knew it wasn’t. She could still feel his hands on her back, hear him whisper against her skin, ‘We’re not supposed to do this.’
The memory sent heat rushing through her.
‘Shit.’ She said it aloud this time, for emphasis. ‘Shit, shit, shit.’
So much was wrong with this.
She and Luke were friends, and nothing ruins a friendship like skin against skin. Then there was the fact that he could lose his job for it, not to mention, if the police complained hard enough, she could find herself in trouble at work as well.
Her stomach was tight with a contradictory tangle of trepidation and longing.
If she were honest, all she wanted was to finish what they’d started. But odds were, wherever he was right now, Luke was having the same realization she was.
They couldn’t take this any further.
The rules in the police force called for no ‘fraternization’ with the press outside of work hours ‘in a manner that could compromise the integrity of police investigations’.
Oh, there were always flirtations between cops and the reporters who covered them – there was hardly a male cop on the force who hadn’t hit on Natalie from Channel 12 – but she’d never heard of a cop actually having a relationship with a reporter.
It wasn’t only because of the rules. The fundamental mistrust between the police and the press created a hazy no-man’s-land between the two. Journalists made a living uncovering the things cops wanted to keep buried. Normally, nobody had to work very hard to keep them apart. They were oil and water.
Except for Harper. She was different.
She’d grown up with the cops. Been part of them, in a way.
After her father left, Harper’s grandmother couldn’t always pick her up after school. Usually she went to Bonnie’s house on those days but, if she couldn’t, it was Smith who came to get her. Sometimes he came himself, other times he sent a patrol car to drive her – lights flashing, sirens howling – to the station to do her homework.
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