Finger Prints

by Barbara Delinsky

  “Sandy?” He ran the towel across his brow. “Is Howard around?” There was a pause; Ryan worked the towel around his neck. “Yeah, Howard. What’s up?” The silence was prolonged and ominous. “What?” His voice held disbelief, then shock. “My God.”

  Twisting in her seat, Carly looked back to find his face a study in pain. Her heart began to thud as she listened to his terse questions. “When?” then, “Where?” and finally, “How?” Then he came alive. “What do you mean, they won’t say? We have a right to that information!” His partner tried to calm him, but his anger raged. “Damn it, Howard, the bastard got to him! Suicide, my foot! I’m calling the D.A.—”

  Unable to politely ignore what she’d heard, she slowly came to stand at the kitchen door. Ryan was too embroiled in his fury to notice. His brows knit low over his eyes, which were dark and threatening. One hand savagely gripped the phone, the other pressed hard against the wall. His lips were taut. Even his jaw, buffered by the thickness of its beard, seemed set in steel.

  “That’s a crock of bull! I want an autopsy! They’ll rush him through the morgue and get him buried before anyone’s the wiser. I’m telling you—”

  He was loudly interrupted. Even Carly heard it, though Howard Miller’s specific words were indistinct. But Ryan listened, very slowly calming down. When he spoke again, there was an element of defeat in his voice.

  “Okay, okay.” He sighed, his voice lowering to a murmur. “I’ll call you back in ten minutes. Fifteen, then.” Replacing the receiver on its hook, he closed his eyes. He looked distraught.

  Carly took a step closer. “Ryan?” she said softly. “What is it?”

  He looked up in surprise, having momentarily forgotten her presence. At her concern, he was doubly distressed. She didn’t need to hear this; Lord knew she’d lived with death too closely already.

  Thrusting his fingers through his hair, he scooped it back from his brow. “Nothing you should be bothered with.”

  “You’d rather not talk about it?”

  “I’d rather not burden you with it.”

  She chided him gently. “I’m not fragile. Sometimes it helps to share things. Besides, after the way I dumped it all on you a little while ago….”

  He held her gaze then, seeing something he hadn’t seen before. She wanted him to talk; it was no empty offer. And it was the first such open invitation she’d made.

  He straightened and dropped his head back, then slowly raised it and looked down at her again. His eyes were clouded. “I’ve been defending a fellow on charges of dealing.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Heroin.” His taut-knuckled hands gripped the ends of the towel. “He was a nineteen-year-old kid who’s been on the wrong side of the law for years. Very bright. Has run the cops around in circles time and again. But stupid enough to think that a little more money, always a little more money, would get him over the hump.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “Not this time. They found him dead in his cell last night. His mother was notified. When she couldn’t reach me, she fished Howard’s number from the book.” He lowered his eyes and scowled at the floor. “It’s criminal. Prison is criminal. Totally lawless as we know the law. A guy like Luis needed help. He was lost and desperate. His childhood alternated between running away from home and protecting his mother from beatings by a drunkard of a husband. The kid had nothing going for him but misguided intelligence and a mother who loved him. There’s the shame. It was his mother who first called me. I swear, she would have sold herself into bondage if it would have meant raising the money for Luis’s defense.”

  “How did she raise it?”

  “She didn’t. I’m not—I wasn’t charging her.”

  “You do that then?” Not all lawyers did. Another something to respect.

  “If I think the case merits it.” He paused to rub the end of the towel along the line of his beard beneath his chin. “Sometimes a lawyer takes a case pro bono as a favor to someone else. Sometimes he takes it because he believes the client deserves representation. Then there’re cases that offer an opportunity to break ground on a legal issue. And there are those cases that are simply interesting or exciting enough for a lawyer to want to handle, whether he’s paid or not.”

  “And Luis’s?” Carly prompted, absorbed in Ryan’s philosophy.

  “Luis,” he sighed, “was just someone who needed a helping hand. One helping hand. Life had been tough on him; it didn’t seem fair. Not that I felt I could ‘save’ him. He was what he was, shaped by nineteen years of hell.” He raised his eyes, his voice deep and hard. “He was an addict. Do you have any idea what happens to addicts in there?” Carly had read her share on the subject, but he went quickly on. “It’s a fate worse than death. Especially where Luis was, in that limbo between the cops and the guys on the inside who could either make or break him.” With a muttered “Damn,” he looked away in anguish. “I can’t believe he killed himself.”

  “That’s what they’re saying?”

  “That was what they told his mother. Howard’s trying to contact someone in the prison.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to try him in another ten minutes.” He hesitated, cocking his head toward the phone. “Would you mind—”

  “Of course not,” she said, with a dismissing wave. Her thoughts had already moved on, the investigator in her at work. “But the alternative is murder, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you really think it could be that?”

  “He’d been getting his stuff from someone pretty powerful. It’s been known to happen,” he gritted.

  “Committed by an inmate hired by the supplier?”

  “Or the cops.”

  His words hung in the air like sulfur fumes around a rubber plant. Carly couldn’t help but stare. Though the police she’d come to know through her own ordeal had been relatively innocuous, she knew well enough of those who weren’t. Still, murder? Oh, it had happened. Just the year before, there had been an incident in Chicago. Then the cop had been convicted of manslaughter, a lesser degree, on the grounds that in a scuffle the cop had used undue force that had resulted in the man’s banging his head against the back of a truck. The cop had lost his job, but hadn’t served a day in jail. The case had pitted the community against the department; its disposition had been a no-win compromise.

  “I’m sorry, Ryan,” she whispered, returning to the present and his somber expression. “Will you be able to find out?”

  “That’s what I don’t know. That’s why Howard is getting onto it.” He sent her a wry smile. “He figured that I’d go off the handle with accusations.”

  “Would you?”

  “If I smelled a cover-up, you bet. It could have been another inmate, with a guard in the system protecting him. Hell, it could have been suicide.” His voice dropped. “I just don’t know.” He looked at his watch again, then grew silent.

  “How about some coffee?” she offered, wishing she could ease his wait.

  “Hmm? Oh, no, don’t go to any trouble for me.”

  “I was going to make a pot anyway. Would you like some?”

  He shrugged, then nodded but said nothing, content to watch her remove a can of coffee from the cabinet, measure the prescribed amount into a filter, and set it into the coffee maker. She moved with a steadiness that was comforting. Strangely so. As though she’d always be there to lend an ear, to offer support. Alyssa would have never thought to ask about his legal life. She had wanted it left in the office, appropriately filed and forgotten after business hours. And he’d done just that, though “business hours” had grown longer and longer. She had refused to accept his love for the law; he had refused to accept her refusal. It had been a standoff, one of the many irreconcilable differences that had led to their divorce.

  And now there was Carly. Quiet and alone. Interesting and interested, though fiercely protective of her privacy. He could easily open up to her, as if she’d been the one who had vowed to take
him for better or for worse, when in fact he’d known her less than two days. She seemed to have so much to give.

  “How do you take it?” Her voice broke into his thoughts, and he realized he’d been staring. With a start, he shifted his gaze from her face to the coffee, which had already begun to drip.

  He cleared his throat, needing the minute to refocus. “Black is fine.” Then he leaned back against the counter, not far from her, and looked around the room. Immaculate, as always. Neat, sparkling. His gaze wandered into the living room to encounter the same. What was it that bothered him?

  Leaving the kitchen, he idly approached the sofa, rounded it and sidestepped the pair of sculpted tables. His feet took him to the white-lacquered wall system, where he studied the bouquet of silk flowers in their elegant vase, the silent face of the television, the fine collection of books—literary works as well as volumes on art and drama and photography.

  Something was missing. Puzzled, he reviewed what he’d seen, then returned pensively to the kitchen in time to see Carly remove two mugs from the cabinet. She was lovely. Lovely and intriguing. But her home? It lacked…it lacked…fingerprints. That was it. There was nothing in her home to brand it hers, to mark it as unique in the very way she was. It was strange.

  Carly offered a gentle smile along with the mug of coffee. He took the brew with a murmured, “Thanks,” and leaned back against the counter again. He was eminently aware of Carly, and she of him. When the phone jangled, they were both startled.

  On reflex, Ryan reached for it as though it were his own. Carly held her hand suspended. “Hello?” she heard him say, then saw him frown and eye her questioningly. “Robyn?” Stifling a gasp, she managed to shrug. “There’s no Robyn here,” he responded offhandedly. “You must have the wrong number.”

  Replacing the receiver, he darted a sheepish gaze Carly’s way. “Sorry about that. I guess I’m a little preoccupied. Kinda forgot this wasn’t my phone.”

  Had Carly not been slightly preoccupied herself, she would have been susceptible to the half smile that gave his lips a roguish twist. But her mind was on the call itself, on the name that had passed through those lips moments earlier.

  She tossed her head jerkily in an attempt at nonchalance. “No problem. A wrong number’s a wrong number.” But it hadn’t been. Someone had called for Robyn, yet no one who would normally do that had her number. Apprehension sent a chill through her. She had to call Sam. But with Ryan here? Not wise.

  But then, Ryan’s presence offered a certain solace: protection at its most innocent. The blank look on his face when he’d repeated the name Robyn had seemed authentic enough—unless it was all part of a skillfully slow regimen of psychological torture.

  “Hey, I’ve upset you,” he said softly, intruding on this most gruesome of thoughts. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The ghost of Robyn Hart—close, she thought. “Of course not. Must have been the running. Six miles two mornings in a row. I guess I’m not used to it.”

  He brushed his fingers against her cheek while his gaze seared her heart with an irresistible tenderness. “You’re sure I haven’t upset you with talk of my case?”

  For an instant, she nearly forgot her own. The thudding of her heart could as easily have been caused by Ryan’s touch. In defiance of the worst of her fears, she allowed herself to feel warm and safe and very much cared for. But she mustn’t forget, she told herself. A phone call for Robyn was real and serious; Ryan Cornell’s appeal was a passing thing, in all likelihood a fabrication of her own emotional need. Rationally, though, what she needed was to contact Sam, but she was hamstrung until Ryan made his call and left.

  Tearing her eyes from his, she glanced at the phone. “I’d have to be made of stone not to be affected by your case. Who is your partner calling now?”

  “He’s seeing what he can get from the warden.”

  “Then what? If you want an autopsy performed, won’t you have to go through a medical examiner?”

  Ryan arched a brow at the extent of her knowledge. “If we’re in luck, the warden will request the autopsy himself. Most likely we’ll have to do the demanding. And yes, the medical examiner will be the one to contact.”

  “What about the district attorney?” she asked nervously. “You mentioned him before. If you suspect murder, will you go to him?”

  “I’ll go to him if I suspect any foul play.” He paused to take a drink of coffee, then took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Maybe it was suicide. The guy had a raw deal in life. Who could blame him if he wanted to escape once and for all?” He gave his watch an impatient glance, then snatched up the phone and punched out his partner’s number. Taking a seat at the table, Carly watched and waited. When he replaced the receiver a few minutes later, he wore a weary expression.

  “What did he say?” she asked, curious enough about Luis’s fate to ignore the fact that any conversation would prolong Ryan’s stay and delay her call to Sam.

  “The warden is convinced it was suicide. He claims there were no suspicious marks on the body.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Ryan frowned. “Luis had so many marks on him anyway—who knows? Howard’s calling in for the autopsy, though. That should tell us something.” He stared pensively at the last of his coffee before downing it in a gulp and putting the cup in the sink. Then he turned to Carly.

  “Thanks,” he said simply.

  She stood as he retrieved his newspaper from the counter and headed for the door. She understood that his appreciation was for the phone, the coffee, the sympathetic ear, but she wanted no further sweet words. His compellingly masculine presence was far too potent as it was. Against her will she recalled the kiss they’d shared earlier that morning. Then she thrust it from her mind. She had a phone call to make. And the reason behind that phone call was precisely the reason why it behooved her to keep Ryan Cornell at a distance.

  At the open door he eyed her with resignation. “Sure you won’t change your mind? I’d much rather spend the afternoon with you than have to see Luis’s mother or stop by the prison.”

  “You’ll do that anyway,” Carly declared softly, with more admiration than criticism. “I know your type. Work before play. True?”

  He hesitated a minute, wishing it weren’t so but finally offering a “True” as softly, before giving her a sad smile and starting down the stairs.

  Pulse racing, Carly closed the door quietly before bolting for the phone and punching out Sam’s number. It was Ellen who answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Ellen? It’s Carly Quinn. I’m really sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but is Sam around?”

  “Oh, Carly, he’s gone to pick up some milk for me at the store. I expect him back any minute. You sound upset. I expect him back any minute. You sound upset. Is something wrong?” Though Ellen knew nothing of Carly’s real name or the case that had brought her to Boston, she was well aware that Carly was part of the program and knew enough to be concerned.

  “I don’t know,” Carly murmured. “I got a strange phone call a little while ago. I just wanted to run it past Sam.”

  “You’re at home now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Got the door locked?”

  “Oh, damn. Hold on a minute.” She started to put the phone down, then raised it again. “Do you want to just have Sam call me back?”

  “No, no, Carly. Go bolt the door. I’ll hold on.”

  When Carly returned she was slightly breathless. “There. Thanks, Ellen. God, how could I have done that? I must be going soft!” She paused. “Any sign of him yet?”

  “Not yet. I’m at the window watching. He’ll be right along. In the meantime you can tell me about school. How’s it going?”

  “Not bad. Busy right about now.” And the last thing on her mind at the moment. Better to shift the conversation back to Ellen, who might be feeling a bit more talkative than she was. “But how about you? How are you feeling?�
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  “Pretty well. A little tired. The first time round I didn’t have a toddler to watch. Sara’s into the terrible twos three months before her time. She can’t quite understand my being under the weather now and again.”

  “Jealousy before its time?” Carly ventured sympathetically.

  Ellen chuckled. “Could be. Sam tells me you’ve got a load of nieces and nephews. This must be old hat for you.”

  “I’ve never had one of my own. It’s always pretty exciting when someone’s having a baby.”

  “Did you want to—have one of your own, that is?”

  Carly sighed. It was something she’d asked herself more than once in the past four years. “I don’t know. I was so young when I first got married and we were each busy with our careers. If Malcolm—” her voice broke slightly, only in part due to the use of a name so strange to her tongue “—had lived, I’m sure I would have wanted a child by now. I often wonder what would have happened if I’d had one. This relocation would have been that much harder with another person involved, I suppose. On the other hand, it would have been nice to have had someone with me, particularly with my husband gone. Then again, if I’d had a child I might have been more cautious about things to begin with. All this might never have happened.” She gave a snort of disgust. “Am I rambling! See what happens when you ask a creative writer a simple question? They say that a born writer is one who is never satisfied with a single side of a story but keeps looking to the far end of the issue. I think they’re right.”

  “Have you had a chance to do much writing?”

  “No. School’s been too demanding so far. Maybe when things settle down some I’ll try.”

  “It’d be a great outlet, Carly.”

  “But far too revealing. In the wrong hands….” Her words trailed off, their implication obvious.

  “You shouldn’t think that way,” Ellen scolded gently.