“Colorado. Born and raised in Denver.”
He looked back into the unsettling blue of her eyes. “Beautiful country.”
She nodded. “My mother’s still there.”
“You have family here, too?”
“No.”
Both of them were far away from their roots. There was a time when he vowed that gave him the strength to go on. That being alone, forging his own path, was the only way to be whole again in this world. Not anymore.
He dipped his head, took in her scent. It almost hurt to breathe because of that fragrance, intertwined with scents of soap, or maybe her shampoo. He clenched and unclenched his hands, as though that could fight the fire than coursed through his blood.
The automated air-conditioning turned on, its hum filling the room. The only other sound was the scrape of her fingernails as she mindlessly plucked at the side of her khaki shorts.
“Gina,” he murmured.
“I should go now.”
Impulsively, he threw a detaining arm in front of her, his knuckle accidentally grazing her breast in the process.
Gina gasped, the sensation startling as much as pleasurable. Her heartbeat escalated as she watched his eyes drift slowly, hungrily, over her, taking in her hardening nipples, her flushed face. Her body was so hot with desire, butter could melt on her, but she knew better. Bad idea to mix pleasure and business. It was time to split, go home, write up a report for Bowen. This had been, after all, an interview of sorts. She hadn’t failed her mission.
“I need to go,” she whispered, her voice scarcely audible.
She nearly tripped over her own feet as she stepped past him, feeling gawkier than she had as a teenager. Back then, she’d worn braces and braids, a nerdy tomboy who could talk history and physics but could barely speak a word to the opposite sex. She’d thought that feeling of awkward, first-time thrill was long ago, but damn if one accidental touch from Hawk hadn’t brought it all back.
Heading toward the door, her eye caught on the bunched shadows she’d thought, when outside, might be the TV. She paused, her eyes adjusting to the darkened area, wondering if anything on the tiered wooden frame might be from the work site. Despite her urgency to leave she was still, after all, on the job.
“What’s this?”
He approached, stood next to her. “My altar. It’s where I meditate.” He pointed out the objects. “An eagle feather, a beaded pouch, a stick of sage, some quartz rocks.”
“What’s on that back shelf, by itself?”
He paused. “A dried white rose in a crystal vase. It was for someone special who loved roses.”
Was. Gina nodded. “Your wife?”
“No.” Another pause. “But she would have been. She died on nine-eleven.”
Gina jerked her head toward him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He stared at the rose, a faraway look in his eyes.
“We were Skywalkers, together on the same job near the World Trade Center. When we heard the explosions and the sirens, all of us left the construction site and headed to what is now known as Ground Zero. We were among the first rescuers to arrive. I lost contact with Patty, but I didn’t worry. She was strong and fearless.”
He looked at Gina, his dark eyes shiny as obsidian. “She died like a hero going home. It was her day.”
FORTY MINUTES LATER, Gina pulled into the strip-mall parking lot outside her office in Little Havana. After Hawk had told her how his lover had died, Gina hadn’t known what to say except how sorry she was.
Leaving his room, she’d walked past Hawk’s pickup and paused to look inside. It’s what she did as a P.I., but she’d felt sneaky doing it after hearing of his loss. As though he’d trusted her with his heartfelt secret and, in turn, she’d distrusted him through her ongoing prying. She’d had to remind to herself that she was still on a job, independent of his past—hell, independent of her past, too. Besides, there’d been nothing in his pickup except a water bottle, a pair of work gloves and the same Connelly paperback she’d seen before. As a P.I., her job was to gather the facts and, so far, the facts showed Hawk to be innocent of any wrongdoing.
As she cut the engine, she spied a familiar figure carrying a pink box toward G K Investigations. Teresa. Gina honked her horn. Teresa looked over, held up the box and smiled broadly, her white teeth framed by bright-orange lips.
“More brazo gitano,” Teresa said a moment later, handing the box to Gina. “To fatten you up.”
“I’m not that skinny, but thank you.”
Teresa made a tsking noise as she brushed back one of her abundant black curls. “So, how was the motel room?”
“Fine.”
Teresa arched a shapely brow. “That’s all? Fine?”
Gina gave her friend a knowing look. “I didn’t say I was meeting a man there.”
“Don’t have to. I can tell.” A wolf whistle shrilled from one of the cars in the never-ending street traffic. Teresa smiled broadly and waved her orange-tipped nails. “That’s for us, girl!”
“You mean, for you,” Gina said with a smile as she pulled out her key while juggling the pastry package with her other hand. “About your friend, Pilar. What does her boyfriend look like? What does he drive? Work place, hangouts?”
“That scumbog is short with black hair, twenty-eight, drives an Oldsmobile Eighty-eight lowrider convertible with chrome rims, works at the supermarket where he meets up with that blonde, and you can find him most nights at Frisco’s.”
“Scumbag.”
“That’s right.”
“I meant…Never mind.” Didn’t surprise her Teresa described the car in more detail than the guy. She was the only woman Gina knew who owned three cars, all in—as Teresa so loved to say—cherry condition. “I’ll be heading out tonight, so I’ll drive by Frisco’s, see if he’s there.”
“Heading out?”
Gina rolled her eyes. “It’s not a date, if that’s what you’re insinuating. It’s about work.”
Teresa suddenly jumped, checked her watch. “Gotta get back to Nata’s to make sure Jorge doesn’t fry the pastelitos to death!” As she strutted away, she said over her shoulder. “Gina, girl, you need to work less and have some fun.”
“After this case, I’m taking my dream trip to Whistler Mountain to make some serious grooves in the snow with my skis.”
Teresa turned and paused. “Make grooves with skis?” Her bracelets jangled as she swept the air with a dismissive gesture. “Take a hot man with you, instead, and make steam in that snow, girl!”
SEVEN O’CLOCK that night, Gina’s cell phone rang. A tune she hated, but always forgot to change until the next time it rang.
“G K Investigations.” She made a mental note to change the damn ringtone after this call.
“Gina, Bowen.”
“You got my report?” She’d faxed it to Roger Bowen’s office earlier.
“So nothing was in his motel room. Doesn’t prove he’s innocent.”
She’d had clients like this before, gung-ho to nail someone they deemed the perp, which only encouraged her to keep gathering all the data she could. Just the facts, ma’am was more than the fictional detective Joe Friday’s signature line. It was the crux of an honest investigation.
“I was thinking,” she said slowly, “it’d be a good idea to check out some of the other construction workers, as well. Interview them. Do background checks.”
“Our man’s Hawk. I want you to keep on him, get me some dirt.”
Roger Bowen was her meal ticket right now, which meant she needed to tread carefully. She’d continue investigating Hawk, but she’d also investigate others on the side. If this ever came down to a trial, Bowen would look better to the court if he’d retained a fair investigation, not a witch-hunt.
But she wouldn’t tell that to Bowen, now right now.
“Dirt, right,” she murmured.
“Good. I look forward to more reports.”
“Speaking of which, I’d like to visit the construction site�
�”
“Why?”
His sharp tone took her aback. “Because I always do firsthand research.”
“Police already did, so you don’t need to.”
She frowned, punched a key on her keyboard. “It’s how I do my job, and I’m good at what I do.” She’d skip the speech about how often police missed clues.
She heard Latino music in the background, a horn honking. Bowen must be calling on his cell while driving his slick Mercedes convertible. No wonder the guy was perpetually tanned.
“Construction sites are dangerous for civilians, so I’m saying no for your own well-being.” She heard the laughter of a woman. Sounded young, giddy. Doubted it was his wife. “If we don’t have anything else to discuss,” he said, “I’ll be going.”
After hanging up, she stared at the computer screen where she’d pulled up a file, thanks to one of her insider sources, that showed international flights arriving and departing from Miami. In the search field, she went with a gut feeling and typed in Bowen’s name, which flagged an upcoming flight from Miami to Venezuela. One-way.
“Son of a bitch,” she whispered.
Her cell phone rang again. Probably Roger Bowen with another request for more dirt.
“G K Investigations.” She needed to change that damn ringtone and, this time, she meant it.
“Gina?”
Her heart spiked. “Hawk?”
“Yeah.” Pause. “There was another accident at the work site this afternoon.”
She frowned. “Thought you worked at Frameworks for the Future on Tuesday afternoons.”
“Got a call from one of the guys at the high-rise.”
She was already reaching for her fanny pack. Since Bowen wouldn’t give her access, she’d use Hawk. Maybe not her best option, but it was her only one. “I’ll drive over, pick you up. Or meet you there.”
“Don’t need to do either.”
She stood, one hand holding the fanny pack, the other the cell to her ear. “Why?”
“I’m here. On your doorstep.”
5
THE WORK ELEVATOR—more like a cage with its chain-link walls through which downtown Miami and the distant Atlantic Ocean were visible—rattled and creaked as it carried Hawk and Gina up the Bowen Builders high-rise construction site toward floor eighteen, where today’s accident had occurred.
It wasn’t the first time Gina had traveled to a crime scene after the police had combed through it. If she had a dollar for every time law enforcement missed an important clue that ended up being dynamite in her investigation, she’d have a killer savings account by now.
Of course, Bowen wouldn’t be happy if he knew she’d gone ahead and visited the construction site, but screw that. The coincidence of two accidents within two weeks couldn’t be overlooked, and maybe somewhere in that combed-over scene was a dynamite clue that could cast some light into the recent thefts.
She needed to stay focused, had to concentrate work on the work at hand. Both of which were damn hard while being in such close physical proximity to Hawk, who looked like an oversized Gap store poster-boy in his snug jeans and chest-molding crewneck T-shirt. Just thinking about what was underneath those clothes made her mouth go dry and her sex go wet.
“So this welder,” she said, putting on her best all-business voice, “he had no inkling the wiring was faulty?”
“You and I talked about this on our drive over.”
“Refresh me.”
“No inkling.”
One could never use the word chatty for Hawk. “So, you said he was welding a steel frame when the electrical wiring suddenly caught fire at about 3:00 p.m.”
“Right.”
“Who told you about the accident?”
“Coworker called my cell.”
“You give that number out often?” Okay, that had nothing to do with the case. Fortunately, her question was dropped as the elevator lurched to a stop.
“Stay here,” said Hawk, unlatching the door.
“But—”
“It’s dangerous walking around up here. I’ll look, tell you what I see.”
Nobody does my investigations, buddy. “No need to do that, got a digital here—” she unzipped her fanny pack, pulled out the camera “—so I’ll take photos.”
He held out his hand. “I’ll do it.”
“No.”
“You can’t always call the shots, Gina.”
“Neither can you, Hawk.”
Even in the dusky light, she saw the ominous look in his eyes. Well, tough. She wasn’t intimidated by his size, his power an, d least, of all his macho one-upmanship. Okay, so her hands were trembling slightly. That had more to do with hormones than being afraid.
Damn hormones.
“Look,” he said, impatience creeping into his voice, “the sun’s setting, we’re losing light. I’ve walked these girders for years. You, on the other hand, have never set foot on one. The last thing we need is you falling eighteen floors just because you wanted to take a picture.”
Eighteen floors. She glanced down through the partially constructed floors at the seemingly endless drop of space. A body would crash against steel and concrete on its way down, bruised and broken before it even hit the ground.
She handed him the camera.
As he walked away, navigating the girders with agility and confidence, she understood the term Skywalker. In the mounting shadows, it looked as though he were walking on the very sky itself. Must feel like flying.
Moments later, he called out, his voice booming through the empty space. “I found the spot. I’ll take pictures.”
He was being great, helping her out like this. She’d love to think he did it because he liked her, but what if he had another motive. Such as to cover his ass. Or to cloud the investigation with, say, misleading photos. What if Bowen had been right all along that Hawk was the bad guy, a fact she’d gambled with in her urgency to get up here? It’d be her own dumb, bad luck if Hawk also had a motive to be up here tonight. Like, to do her in. One push and she’d be history.
Don’t be an idiot. If he meant to harm you, he could have shoved you out the elevator door at any point on the ride up.
Nevertheless, she felt in her fanny pack to make sure she’d brought her pint-sized stun gun. Oh, yeah, like that would do much. Even if you managed to hit bare skin, five-thousand volts would be more like a tingle on a man that size. A strong tingle, but a tingle nevertheless.
She pulled out her cell phone and punched the speed dial for Teresa’s home number.
“Hello?”
“Teresa, Gina.”
“Why you whispering?”
“I have to make this quick. I’m at that high-rise construction site downtown, near the Radisson. I’m alone with a man. His name is Hawk Shadow Bonaparte—”
“And you’re calling me? Girl, you need to get your priorities straight—”
Seeing Hawk heading back, Gina flipped shut the phone. She’d explain to Teresa later.
Moments later, he stepped into the elevator, latching the door behind him. Handing the camera to her, he said, “Something suspicious is definitely going on around here. Last week, someone slipped in a bad patch of concrete, snapped their ankle. Today, a man was burned by faulty wiring. I got some good photos of the burned wires and melted outlet.”
Which were exactly the photos she’d have taken. Maybe she needed to give her paranoia a rest and accept that Hawk was really here to help her.
“Why would someone steal tools and sabotage the job site?” she mused.
“Can you prove anything’s been stolen?”
Except for Bowen’s word, and those of his paid honchos, no. As she put the camera back in the fanny pack, she made a mental note to ask Bowen for an inventory of his equipment.
When she looked back up, Hawk was staring at her.
“What?” she asked.
He started to say something, but stopped. She couldn’t see his face all that well, but she sensed he was troubled. O
r maybe nostalgic. She wondered if it had anything to do with Gina being the first woman he’d skywalked with since he’d lost Patty.
“It’s a crescent moon,” he said quietly, gazing out at the sky.
A faint orange sliver hung in the vast dark blue. In the distance, a plane buzzed in the sky. Breezes wound their way like ghosts through the girders and partial walls.
“My mom always made a wish on such a moon,” she said.
“Did you?”
“No.” She shrugged. “I’m not superstitious.”
He made a thoughtful noise. “I am.”
She looked up at his dark profile, dramatic and sharp as though cut from stone. Yet after witnessing his altar, especially the dried rose, she knew him to be a man who felt deeply, sometimes painfully so. It wasn’t just his heart that had been broken on nine-eleven. His willingness to trust love again had also broken.
She could relate. She’d lost trust with the media, toward so-called friends, toward love, too.
What a pair we make. Two broken people caught up in a crime, afraid to trust each other. Too complicated for our own good. And yet, here we stand side by side, staring out at the simple beauty of an endless sky.
Very closely side by side as there wasn’t a hell of a lot of room in this elevator.
She felt the familiar thrum of attraction between them, as soft as the breezes that ruffled her hair. As powerful as the churning ocean in the distance. He wanted her, she wanted him. It’d been building since the first time they’d met at the photography studio.
Looking at his massive body, imagining those marvelous arms wrapped around her, a shudder of need ran through her body, lodging in a pool between her legs. God, she missed being caressed and kissed. Missed touching and pleasing a lover. Missed kissing. Really, really missed that.
She didn’t want to miss it anymore. She wanted a man’s warmth and touch and sex. Oh, yes, sex. Hip-grinding, mind-blowing, burn-down-the-house sex.
Hawk was slightly turned away from her, still contemplating the night sky. She touched his warm, muscled arm.
“Hawk,” she whispered huskily.
As he turned, she moved forward, slid her hands up his powerful chest. He was built like a rock. Solid, massive. Even through his T-shirt, she could feel bunched muscles and ridges. Feel the heat from his skin.
Men at Work Page 20