Lover in the Shadows

by Lindsay Longford

  Pulling her hands free, he stared at her, his face close to hers. Looking into his golden brown eyes, their colors shifting and changing, fascinating her, Molly once more felt as if she were spiraling forward into a tunnel filled with light. For a long time he stared at her, snaring the breath from her lips, emptying her lungs of oxygen until the air around her shimmered and glowed and she couldn’t breathe at all, caught in a place where breath and air didn’t matter and held there as long as he chose by his glittering eyes.

  Finally, leaning back, he released her. “All right, Ms. Harris. I believe you,” he said pleasantly. He walked around the foot of her bed and opened the drawer of the end table to the right.

  “You do?” she whispered, still breathless. “You believe I didn’t kill Camina?” Relief, rich and thick, pounded in her veins.

  “Ah, but I didn’t say that.”

  “You said you believe me!”

  Head down, he explored the drawer. “I said I believe you when you insist you don’t remember what happened after you left your kitchen last night.”

  A groan escaped her. He’d duped her twice, letting her hope for those seconds that the nightmare was over and he no longer considered her a suspect. Each time, he’d let out the leash and given her a taste of freedom before jerking her back to reality. He was playing head games, toying with her and disturbing her equilibrium in his attempts to trip her up. “I thought you meant Camina,” she said. She hunched her shoulders. “That you realized I couldn’t have murdered her.”

  “Ah, well, the jury’s still out on that question, Ms. Harris.”

  “You’re not my jury. Not my judge, Detective.” Molly took a deep breath, oxygen flooding her brain.

  “And lucky you are that I’m not,” he said, holding up a round plastic container. “A real nineties woman, I see. Birth-control pills?” He rattled the case. “You’re like the Boy Scouts? Always prepared?”

  “They’re…from before.”

  His glance was quizzical as he waited for her to elaborate, and Molly fumbled for words, loath to rip off the scab of her wounds for him, her failure still painful in odd, shameful ways.

  “Yes, Ms. Harris?” he encouraged. “Before?” He knew, but he was going to make her spell it out. He was relentless.

  “Before. Before my divorce.”

  Shaking the plastic again, he returned it to the drawer, the pills ricocheting inside the container. “From Dr. Bouler.”

  “Yes. Paul.”

  “Shortly before your parents died.”

  “Yes.” Drawing her knees up under the sheet, Molly bent double over them, burying her head in her arms. “But you knew that without asking, didn’t you?”

  He was between her and her bathroom door when she raised her head. Silhouetted by the eastern light coming in from the hall, his shoulders filled the arch separating the two rooms. The backlighting obscured his expression. “I did my homework, Ms. Harris.” From anyone else the note that shaded his somber voice would have passed for sympathy.

  Lifting her head wearily, Molly sighed. She knew better. He played both roles with her—bad cop, good cop. She couldn’t expect sympathy from this man. She’d be a fool if she did, and she’d already learned how humiliating it was to be taken for a fool. “I’m sure you researched everything about me and my family that you could get your hands on.”

  “I always do. Makes my job easier.”

  “I’m happy for you.” Shrugging, Molly clapped her hands together in sarcastic applause. She hitched up the sheet, which had slipped from her shoulders. “Do you want a gold star, too?”

  He shifted, the small movement suddenly threatening, but his voice was still exquisitely polite as he said, “I have a star. Silver. On my shield. That’s sufficient.” He pivoted and disappeared into her bathroom.

  Pulling the sheet off the bed and wrapping it around her like a toga, the ends trailing on the smooth wood, Molly followed him. She didn’t go into the bathroom, though. Intuitively she knew that the room, not small at all, was nevertheless too small for Detective Harlan and herself at the same time.

  The flick of his fingers across her perfumes and boxes of bath powder, over the still-damp towel draped over the brass hook, down her white satin bathrobe, disturbed her in ways his examination of her lingerie hadn’t.

  This was more intimate. She saw, and looked away from, the curl of his fingers into the satin fabric, but she felt their rough catch against her own skin, felt their callused tips moving down her throat as he returned the robe to the hook. As he stood in the middle of the bathroom, his back to the sink with its vase of deep red mountain ebony on the white porcelain, Molly spoke, her mouth dry with something that wasn’t fear. “You haven’t found anything except outdated birth-control pills. Are you satisfied now?”

  “Such a leading question, Ms. Harris. I find it very difficult to resist the reply.” He straightened and stepped, one long stride only, toward her, but he didn’t touch her. “In fact, no, Ms. Harris, I’m not at all satisfied.” His voice was rough and grainy as he tugged the end of the robe’s tie and looped it around his hand. Letting the silky fabric slither through his fingers onto her shoulder, he trailed the tie lingeringly across her neck, a taunting caress of satin on her skin. “Here, Ms. Harris,” he said as he unhooked the robe and handed it to her, “perhaps you should get dressed. And let me remain unsatisfied.” Hunger flared deep in his amber eyes. Danger.

  The robe slipped from Molly’s grip.

  He stooped and picked it up. “Take it. Now.”

  Molly did.

  The tips of his fingers grazed the pulse beating at her neck as she reached for the robe.

  Behind him, the five-petaled flowers seemed to burst into flames.

  He closed the bathroom door as she left. The small tick of the metal tongue into the slot shivered the length of her spine as she dropped the sheet and pulled the robe around her, knotting the tie. She would lodge a complaint.

  Pulling the ends of the robe tighter, Molly sat down on the bed and picked up the phone. Holding it in her hands, she weighed the consequences as she twisted the receiver around and around.

  The bathroom door opened. Standing in the archway, Harlan flipped a medicine vial onto the bed.

  Molly put the receiver down.

  “Sleeping pills, Ms. Harris? But they’re not from ‘before,’ are they?”

  Rolling the brown plastic bottle between her fingers, Molly shook her head.

  “Actually,” Harlan said as he removed the vial and extended it to her, “this prescription goes back only three months, to September. You have three pills left. When did you take one last, Ms. Harris?”

  “I don’t know.” Molly kept her hands safely in the folds of the robe.

  “Isn’t it unusual that your ex-husband prescribed them for you?” His thighs, long and heavily muscled, blocked her view of the hall.

  “Maybe. We’ve remained friends.” Molly slid her bare toes back under the bed, away from Harlan’s pointed boots. “I told him—”

  “That you couldn’t sleep. And he helped you out.” He dropped the vial into his pocket. “A little irregular, isn’t it? For a dentist to prescribe sleeping pills? Does his medical license cover Class II drugs?”

  “I don’t know what class of drugs they are. They’re mild. Only a little stronger than an over-the-counter medicine. Paul wouldn’t have given them to me if they had any addictive effects. He said they would relax me. I’d been under a lot of stress. I was grateful to him, do you understand? Grateful that he tried to help.”

  Paul had assured her there were no weird side effects to this medication, had promised her they were extremely mild. They would relax her only enough so that she could go to sleep on her own.

  They hadn’t.

  As far as she could tell, the confounded pills hadn’t done anything for her.

  “Did you by any chance take one night before last?”

  “If I took one, I don’t remember, Detective. I’ve told you that o
ver and over! I might have, but if I had, what difference would it make? They don’t even work for me. My metabolism, I guess.” Molly shrugged and burrowed her hands deeper into the robe.

  “I’m taking them to the lab for analysis. Perhaps they’re what you say. Perhaps not. Who knows?” He rubbed the back of his neck, disturbing a strand of his thick, black hair, ruffling it. “We’ll see.”

  Now Detective John Harlan was including Paul in his nasty insinuations. Paul, who’d done everything he could to help her, would be sucked into this nastiness that was enveloping her.

  “Paul and I are friends.”

  “Interesting. You must not have loved him.” He leaned against the wall, sliding down it until he was hunkered down, his weight balanced on his thighs.

  “Of course I did,” Molly insisted stubbornly, knowing she could never make this cynical man understand her relationship with her former husband. Hopeless, hopeless.

  “I doubt it. Hard to be friends with someone you’ve been passionate with, passionate about. The psychology doesn’t work that way. Unless, of course, your relationship with the accommodating doctor was never very passionate to begin with?” he said, flexing his thighs and rising to his full height. “Is that what it was like between you and Dr. Bouler? A lukewarm meeting of the minds and not a passionate meeting of bodies and souls?” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Somehow I doubt that there was much passion between you and your very helpful ex-husband, Ms. Harris.” John Harlan’s smile taunted her with the memory of the satin tie slipping across her skin.

  Molly jerked to her feet, her palm swinging wildly for his mocking face.

  She never had a chance.

  From two feet away, leaning forward in a blur of motion, he clipped her arm uselessly to her side. “I wondered what it would take to break through your nice, ladylike behavior.” His mouth curled up with pleasure. “It took longer than I expected, but now I know. Like a volcano, you bubble away and finally explode.”

  “I hope you’re satisfied.” Bitterness etched her voice. She’d been a fool. She’d fallen into his intricate trap.

  “Ahh. That word again. Well, there’s satisfaction—and satisfaction.” He gave an insistent tug on her arm, pulling her off balance. She would have landed against his chest had he not steadied her, inches away.

  “Is that what all this harassment is about?” Fury simmered in her. If he’d turned her loose, she would have tried to slap his face again. He’d pulled her strings like a puppet, manipulating her, his every gesture, every expression calculated to get a reaction from her. “You were trying to trick me?”

  “I’ve seen your kitchen. It made me wonder how much—” he tugged once more and again halted her fall toward him “—emotion hid behind your trembling mouth and your innocent eyes. And now I’ve seen you lose control. Underneath that sweet innocence, you have a real temper, don’t you?” He walked her backward until her knees bumped the edge of the bed. “Slapping people isn’t nice, Ms. Harris,” he chided.

  “You deliberately provoked me,” she said, trembling with fury and fear.

  “Is that what happened with Camina? Did she provoke you, too? Only you had a knife in your hand that time?”

  Forgetting all caution, Molly stepped right up against him, her thighs nudging his. “Detective Harlan, I intend to file a complaint about the kind of persecution you’ve subjected me to. No matter what you think, I didn’t kill Camina, nor do I remember walking outside my house last night. Now, make of that whatever you want, but unless you have enough evidence to arrest me, get out of my house.” She shrugged out of his grip, throwing his arms aside as she stormed toward the stairs, propelled by the sheer force of her anger at his manipulation of her emotions.

  Close as her shadow, he followed her to the bottom and into her wrecked kitchen. Pulling out a chair, he turned it around and sat on it, resting his arms across the back.

  Once again, he’d surprised her.

  Picking up the broom and dustpan, Molly faced him. “I asked you to leave, Detective. If I have to, I’ll call the police to come and take you away.”

  “You would, too, wouldn’t you?” He stretched one long leg out to the side, hooked the other on the rung of the chair.

  “Yes.”

  His gaze as he stared at her was pensive, all heat and threat tamped down. “Good for you. That’s precisely what you should do. It’s what an innocent person would do.” He curled his fingers over the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. Closing his eyes, he seemed to shrink, fade, his outline wavery against the muted light from the shuttered kitchen windows.

  Quiet, all his predatory energy diminished, he became another creature entirely. It was as if he had switched off an internal engine, vanished and left only a tired shell of himself. His rumpled black hair showed the streaks where he’d raked it back from his forehead. She saw the circles under his eyes, the bristles of his heavy beard against his pale skin, the line of perspiration at the neck of his T-shirt even in the chill of the morning. All-male from his wide shoulders down to the elongated, powerful thigh muscles of his extended leg, he lounged at his ease in her space.

  Rain drumming against the windows muffled sounds, enclosed them in the small world of her kitchen, intensified her awareness of him.

  Eyes closed, his head still on his chin, he sighed. “You are beginning to convince me in spite of everything, Ms. Harris. Either you’re a very good actress, or you might be exactly what you seem. Possibly you are as pure as the proverbial snow they talk about up north.” He yawned, his even white teeth flashing for a second before he widened his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s been a long night. I should apologize to you for my behavior. If you want an apology, you’ve got it.” He lifted his head and rotated his neck.

  Molly heard the cartilage cracking as he turned his head from side to side. Admitting his conduct, he’d tipped her off balance again.

  “I won’t offer you any excuses for my behavior. Whether you’re guilty as the devil or as innocent as one of God’s angels, I screwed up. I stepped over the line. Period.” Raising his arms, he clasped them behind his neck and pulled. The butt of his gun in its shoulder holster showed through the opening of his jacket.

  “Way over,” Molly whispered.

  “Yeah. I know. I won’t defend what I did. Like I said, if you want to register a complaint against me, go right ahead. I’ll even pull the forms for you. But to tell you the truth, Ms. Harris, I don’t give a rat’s damn if you file a complaint or not. Personally, I think you should. It’s what I would do if I were in your shoes.” He glanced at her feet. A weary smile tugged at his mouth. “Don’t you ever wear shoes, Ms. Harris?”

  Molly shook her head, bewildered. He’d pricked the balloon of her anger, justified though it was. “Are you trying to soft-soap me? Get me to back off so that maybe you won’t be fired? Is that what this hundred-and-eighty-degree turn is all about?”

  “No. I don’t care one way or the other about being fired, either.”

  “Would you be fired if I reported you?” she persisted.

  “I could be.” Total indifference flattened his deep tones.

  Working her way through the labyrinth of her thoughts, Molly traced the molded edge of the beige dustpan. “If I complain, and you’re not fired, will you be taken off this case?”

  “Probably.” His smile was a thin flash of white. “That should please you.”

  Ignoring him, Molly twirled the dustpan slowly in her hand, trying to work out what would be best for her. “If you’re off the case, what happens next?”

  “Someone else takes over.”

  “But not like you.”

  “No. Not like me.” Narrowing his eyes, he watched her with a knowing smile. Lines radiated from the corners of his eyes, slanting up and briefly giving him the look of a sleepy tiger observing a distant antelope.

  “You’re a hunter, aren’t you, Detective Harlan?”

  “Yes.” Amusement twitched one c
orner of his mouth. His boot heel squeaked against a tile as he shifted on the chair.

  “You won’t give up until you find Camina’s killer, will you? You may think I killed her, but until you know for sure, you won’t give up the pursuit.”

  “You know I won’t.” His eyelids half-closed, he seemed even sleepier and more indolent as he yawned widely.

  “But I could make a lot of trouble for you.”

  “Sure. Easy as breathing.”

  She couldn’t help it. She inhaled.

  His eyes narrowed drowsily as his gaze lingered on the lift and fall of her breasts.

  Her breathing erratic as he watched her, Molly discovered that the idea of annoying John Harlan was barely resistible. “It would be annoying for you if I caused difficulties.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’d be ticked off.”

  Nodding, Molly murmured, more to herself than to him, “I’ll just bet you would be.”

  “Are you looking to get even? Is that your goal? Go ahead.” The gleam of his teeth was the smile of the tiger after a meal. “It’s your hand. Play ’em or fold ’em.” He shrugged. “But don’t forget to include that I came on to you down at the bayou, Ms. Molly. It’ll make your complaint stronger, you know. Even if you don’t recall our little tête-à-tête, I’ll own up to it.”

  He must have read her obvious discomfort in her grimace because he sat a bit straighter, mockery sparking in his extraordinary eyes as he drawled, “Usually, of course, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell, does he?”

  Molly frowned. She wished she could remember exactly what had happened in that lost time.

  “But then I’m no gentleman, am I?” He raised an eyebrow as she remained silent. “What? No answer? I would have thought you wouldn’t let the chance to throw that into my face pass you by.”

  The broom rested against her chest as she gestured, one palm up. “You’re hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

  He curled around the chair again as if he were double-jointed. Weariness grooved the corners of his mouth. “Well. I’ve never pretended to be a gentleman. I am what I am.”