He came around the desk, but only leaned back against it. He didn't trust himself to approach her, not yet. "You've got all the evidence, don't you, Counselor? All your neat little facts. So, I'll save time and plead guilty as charged."
"Then we have nothing more to say."
"Isn't the prosecution interested in motive?"
She tossed back her head, bracing as he crossed to her. Something about the way he moved just then, slowly, soundlessly, set off a flash of memory. But it was gone, overwhelmed by her own temper.
"Motive isn't relevant in this case, results are."
"You're wrong. I went to the mayor, I asked him to use his influence to have you taken off the case. But I'm guilty of more than that—I'm guilty of being in love with you."
Her tensed hands went limp at her side so that the briefcase fell to the floor. Though she opened her mouth to speak, she could say nothing.
"Amazing." His eyes were dark and furious as he took that final step toward her. "A sharp woman like you being surprised by that. You should have seen it every time I looked at you. You should have seen it every time I touched you." He put his hands on her shoulders. "You should have tasted it, every time I kissed you."
Pushing her back against the door, he brushed his mouth over hers, once, twice. Then he devoured her lips.
Her knees were weak. She hadn't thought it was possible, but they were shaking so she had to hold on to him or slide bonelessly to the floor. Even clinging, she was afraid. For she had seen it, had felt it, had tasted it. But that was nothing compared to hearing him say it, or to hearing the echo of her own voice repeating the words inside her mind.
He was lost in her. And the more she opened to him, the deeper he fell. He took his hands over her face, through her hair, down her body, wanting to touch all of her. And to know as he did, that she trembled in response.
When he lifted his head, she saw the love, and she saw the desire. With them was a kind of war she didn't understand.
"There were nights," he said quietly, "hundreds of nights when I lay awake sweating and waiting for morning. I'd wonder if I'd ever find someone I could love, that I could need. No matter how I drew the fantasy, it's nothing compared to what I feel for you."
"Gage." She lifted her hands to his face, wishing with all her heart. Knowing well that heart was already lost to him. But she remembered that she had swayed close to another man only the night before. "I don't know what I'm feeling."
"Yes, you do."
"All right, I do, but I'm afraid to feel it. It's not fair. I'm not being fair, but I have to ask you to let me think this through."
"I'm not sure I can."
"A little while longer, please. Unlock the door, and let me go."
"It is unlocked." He stepped back to open it for her. But he blocked her exit for one last moment. "Deborah. I won't let you go the next time."
She looked up again and saw the truth of his words in his eyes. "I know."
Chapter 7
The jury was out. Deborah spent their deliberating time in her office, using both her telephone and computer to try to track down what Gage had referred to as the common thread. The antique shop, Timeless, had been owned by Imports Incorporated, whose address was a vacant lot downtown. The company had filed no insurance claim on the loss, and the manager of the shop had vanished. The police had yet to locate the man Parino had referred to as Mouse.
More digging turned up the Triad Corporation, based in Philadelphia. A phone call to Triad put Deborah in touch with a recording telling her that the number had been disconnected. As she placed a call to the D.A.'s office in Philadelphia, she inputted all of her known data into the computer.
Two hours later, she had a list of names, social security numbers and the beginnings of a headache.
Before she could make her next call, the receiver rang under her hand. "Deborah O'Roarke."
"Is this the same Deborah O'Roarke who can't keep her name out of the paper?"
"Cilia." At the sound of her sister's voice, the headache faded a bit. "How are you?"
"Worried about you."
"What else is new?" Deborah rolled her shoulders to relieve the stiff muscles, then leaned back in the chair. Coming tinnily through the earpiece was the music Deborah imagined was pulsing in Cilia's office at the radio station. "How's Boyd?"
"That's Captain Fletcher to you."
"Captain?" She sat straight again. "When did that happen?"
"Yesterday." The pride and pleasure came through clearly. "I guess I'll really have to watch myself now, sleeping with a police captain."
"Tell him I'm proud of him."
"I will. We all are. Now—"
"How are the kids?'' Deborah had learned to stall and evade long before taking the bar exam.
"It's dangerous to ask a mother how her kids are during summer vacation—no elementary school, no kindergarten, so they outnumber me and the cop three to two." Cilia gave a rich, warm laugh. "All three members of the demon brigade are fine. Allison pitched a shut-out in a Little League game last week—then got into a wrestling match with the opposing pitcher."
"Sounds like he was a rotten loser."
"Yeah. And Allison's always been a rotten winner. I practically had to sit on her to make her give over. Let's see… Bryant knocked out a tooth roller-skating, then, being a clever little capitalist, sold it to the boy next door for fifty cents. Keenan swallowed it."
"Swallowed what?"
"The fifty cents. Five dimes. My youngest son eats anything. I'm thinking about putting in a hot line to the Emergency room. Now let's talk about you."
"I'm fine. How are things at KHIP?"
"About as chaotic as they are around the house. All in all, I'd rather be in Maui." Cilia recognized the delaying tactics well and pushed a little harder. "Deborah, I want to know what you're up to."
"Work. In fact, I'm about to win a case." She glanced at the clock and calculated how long the jury had been out. "I hope."
Sometimes, Cilia mused, you just had to be direct. "Since when have you started dating guys in masks?"
Stalling couldn't last forever, she thought with regret. "Come on, Cilia, you don't believe everything you read in the paper."
"Right. Or everything that comes over the wire, even though we ran your latest adventure at the top of every hour yesterday. Even if I didn't go to the trouble to get the Urbana papers, I'd have heard all the noise. You're making national news out there, kid, and I want to know what's going on. That's why I'm asking you."
It was usually easier to evade if you added a couple of dashes of truth. "This Nemesis character is a nuisance. The press is glorifying him—and worse. Just this morning at a shop two blocks from the courthouse, I saw a display of Nemesis T-shirts."
"Isn't merchandising wonderful?" But Cilia wasn't about to be distracted again. "Deborah, I've been in radio too long not to be able to read voices—especially my baby sister's. What's between you?"
"Nothing," she insisted, wanting it to be true. "I've simply run into him a couple of times during this investigation I'm doing. The press plays it up."
"I've noticed, Darling Deb."
"Oh, please."
"I do want to know what's going on, but it's more to the point right now why you're involved in something so dangerous. And why I had to read in the paper that some maniac had a knife to my sister's throat."
"It's exaggerated."
"Oh, so no one held a knife to your throat?"
No matter how well she lied, Deborah thought, Cilia would know. "It wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. And I wasn't hurt."
"Knives at your throat," Cilia muttered. "Buildings blowing up in your face. Damn it, Deb, don't you have a police force out there?"
"I was just doing some legwork. Don't start," she said quickly. "Cilia, do you know how frustrating it is to have to keep repeating that you know what you're doing, that you can take care of yourself and do your job?"
Cilia let out a long breath. "Yeah. I can't
stop worrying about you, Deborah, just because you're a couple thousand miles away. It's taken me years to finally accept what happened to Mom and Dad. If I lost you, I couldn't handle it."
"You're not going to lose me. Right now, the most dangerous thing I'm facing is my computer."
"Okay. Okay." Arguing with her sister wouldn't change a thing,
Cilia knew. And whatever answers Deborah gave her, she would keep right on worrying. "Listen, I also saw a picture of my little sister with some millionaire. I'm going to have to start a scrapbook. Anything you want to tell me?"
The automatic no caught in her throat. "I don't know. Things are pretty complicated right now and I haven't had time to think it through."
"Is there something to think through?"
"Yes." The headache was coming back. She reached into her drawer for a bottle of aspirin. "A couple of things," she murmured, thinking of Gage and of Nemesis. That was something not even Cilia could help her with. But there were other matters. "Cilia, since you're married to a police captain, how about using your influence to have him do me a favor?"
"I'll threaten to cook. He'll do anything I want."
With a laugh, Deborah picked up one of her printouts. "I'd like him to check out a couple of names for me. George P. Drummond and a Charles R. Meyers, both with Denver addresses." She spelled out both names, then added social security numbers. "Got it?"
"Mmm-hmm," Cilia murmured as she scribbled the information.
"And there's a Solar Corporation, also based in Denver. Drummond and Meyers are on the board of directors. If Boyd could run these through the police computer, it would save me several steps through the bureaucracy."
"I'll threaten him with my pot roast."
"That should do the trick."
"Deb, you will be careful, won't you?"
"Absolutely. Give everyone a hug for me. I miss you. All of you." Mitchell came to the door and signaled. "I've got to go, Cilia. The jury's coming back."
Deep in the recesses of his home, in an echoing cavern of a room, Gage studied a bank of computers. There was some work he couldn't do in his office. Some work he preferred to do in secret. With his hands hooked in the pockets of his jeans, he watched the monitors. Names and numbers flashed by.
He could see on one of the monitors just what Deborah had inputted in her computer across town. She was making progress, he thought. Slow, it was true, but it still worried him. If he could follow the steps she was taking, so could others.
Eyes intent, face sober, he took his fingers flying over one keyboard, then another and still another. He had to find the link. Once he did, he would carefully, systematically locate the name of the man responsible for Jack's death. As long as he found it before Deborah, she was safe.
The computers offered him one way. Or he could take another. Leaving the machines to their work, he turned, pressed a button. On the wall on the far side of the high-ceilinged, curving room a huge map slid into place. Crossing to it, he studied a very large-scaled detail of the city of Urbana.
Using yet another keyboard, he had colored lights blinking at various parts of the city. Each represented a major drug exchange, many of which were as yet unknown to the UPD.
They flashed in the East End, and the West, in the exclusive neighborhoods uptown, in the barrios, in the financial district. There seemed to be no pattern. Yet there was always a pattern. He had only to find it.
As he studied the map, his gaze lit and lingered on one building. Deborah's apartment. Was she home yet? he wondered. Was she safe inside? Was she wearing her blue robe and studying files, the television news murmuring in the background?
Was she thinking of him?
Gage rubbed his hands over his face. Frank was right, she was interfering with his concentration. But what could he do about it? Every attempt he made to see that she withdrew from the case had failed. She was too stubborn to listen.
He smiled a bit. He hadn't believed he would ever fall in love. How inconvenient, he thought wryly, that when he did, it was with a dedicated public servant. She wouldn't budge. He knew it. And neither would he. But however much discipline he had over his body and his mind, he seemed to have none over his heart.
It wasn't just her beauty. Though he had always loved beautiful things and had grown up learning to appreciate them for no more than their existence. After he'd come out of the coma, he had found a certain comfort in surrounding himself with beauty. All that color, all that texture after so much flat gray.
It wasn't just her mind. Though he respected intelligence. As a cop and as a businessman, he had learned that a sharp mind was the most powerful and the most dangerous weapon.
There was something, some indefinable something beyond her looks and her mind that had captured him. Because he was just as much her prisoner as he was of his own fate. And he had no idea how to resolve the two.
He was only sure that the first step would be to find the key himself, to find the name and to find the justice. When this was behind him, and her, there might be a chance for a future.
Clearing his mind, he studied the lights then, bending over a computer, went to work.
Balancing a pizza box, a bottle of Lambrusco and a briefcase full of paperwork, Deborah stepped off the elevator. As she wondered how she would manage to dig for her keys, she glanced up at the door of her apartment. Colorful draping letters crossed the door. CONGRATULATIONS, DEBORAH.
Mrs. Greenbaum, she thought with a grin. Even as she turned toward her neighbor's apartment, Mrs. Greenbaum's door opened.
"I heard it on the six-o'clock news. You put that little weasel away." Mrs. Greenbaum adjusted the hem of her tie-dyed T-shirt. "How do you feel?"
"Good. I feel good. How about some celebratory pizza?"
"You twisted my arm." Mrs. Greenbaum let her door slam, then crossed the hall in her bare feet. "I guess you noticed the air-conditioning's on the fritz again."
"I got the picture during my steam bath in the elevator."
"This time I think we should mobilize the rest of the tenants." She gave Deborah a shrewd look. "Especially if we had some sharp, fast-talking lawyer lead the way."
"You're already leading the way," Deborah said as she shifted the wine. "But if it's not on within twenty-four hours, I'll contact the landlord and put on the pressure." She fumbled around in her pocket. "Now if I could just get my keys."
"I've got the copy you gave me." Reaching into the pocket of her baggy jeans, Mrs. Greenbaum produced a key ring crowded with keys. "Here we go."
"Thanks." Inside, Deborah set the pizza box on a table. "I'll get some glasses and plates."
Lil lifted the lid and saw with approval that the pizza was loaded with everything. "You know, a pretty young girl like you should be celebrating with some pretty young boy on a Friday night instead of with an old woman."
"What old woman?" Deborah called from the kitchen and made Lil laugh.
"With a slightly above-middle-aged woman then. What about that mouth-watering Gage Guthrie?"
"I can't imagine him eating pizza and drinking cheap wine." She walked back in, carrying the bottle and two glasses, paper plates and napkins tucked under her arm. "He's more the caviar type."
"Something wrong with that?"
"No." She frowned. "No, but I'm in the mood for pizza. And after I gorge myself, I have work."
"Honey, don't you ever let up?"
"I've got a deadline," Deborah said, and found she still resented it. She poured two glasses, handed one to her friend. "To justice," she said. "The most beautiful lady I know."
Just as they sat, gooey slices of pizza split between them, there was a knock on the door. Licking sauce from her fingers, Deborah went to answer. She saw a huge basket of red roses that appeared to have legs.
"Delivery for Deborah O'Roarke. Got someplace I can put this thing, lady?"
"Oh… yes, ah. Here." She stood on tiptoe and got a glimpse of the deliveryman's head under the blossoms. "On the coffee table."
; They not only sat on the coffee table, Deborah noted as she signed the clipboard, they covered it from end to end. "Thanks." She dug into her wallet for a bill.
"Well?" Lil demanded when they were alone again. "Who are they from?"
Though she already knew, Deborah picked up the card.
Nice work, Counselor. Gage
She couldn't prevent the softening, or the smile that bloomed on her lips. "They're from Gage."
"The man knows how to make a statement." Behind her lenses, Lil's eyes sparkled. There was nothing she liked better than romance—unless it was a good protest rally. "Must be five dozen in there."
"They're beautiful." She slipped the card into her pocket. "I suppose I'll have to call him and thank him."
"At least." Lil bit into the pizza. "Why don't you do it now, while it's on your mind?" And while she could eavesdrop.
Deborah hesitated, the scent of the flowers surrounding her. No, she thought with a shake of her head. If she called him now, while his gesture weakened her, she might do or say something rash. "Later," she decided. "I'll call him later."
"Stalling," Lil said over a mouthful of pizza.
"Yeah." Not ashamed to admit it, Deborah sat again. She ate for a moment in silence, then picked up her wine. "Mrs. Greenbaum," she began, frowning into her glass. "You were married twice."
"So far," Lil answered with a grin.
"You loved both of them?"
"Absolutely. They were good men." Her sharp little eyes became young and dreamy. "Both times I thought it was going to be forever. I was about your age when I lost my first husband in the war. We only had a few years together. Mr. Greenbaum and I were a bit luckier. I miss both of them."
"Have you ever wondered… I guess it's an odd sort of question, but have you ever wondered what would have happened if you'd met both of them at the same time?"
Lil arched her eyebrows, intrigued with the notion. "That would have been a problem."
"You see what I mean. You loved both of them, but if they had come into your life at the same time, you couldn't have loved both of them."
"There's no telling what tricks the heart will play."
"But you can't love two men the same way at the same time." She leaned forward, her own conflict showing clearly on her face. "And if somehow you did, or thought you did, you couldn't make a commitment to either one, without being unfaithful to the other."
Books by Nora Roberts Page 377