Lovelace, Merline

by Dark Side of Dawn

  She would, she vowed. After this meeting with Dr. Russ, she'd cut anything and everything related to Alexander Taylor out of her life.

  With that resolution firm in her mind, she navigated the MG into the vortex of traffic converging from I-95 and I-295 just a mile or two from the bridge. Bumper to bumper, it inched across the Potomac. Twenty minutes later, the MG nosed out of the traffic at the exit for Old Town, Alexandria.

  Old Town was definitely one of the pleasures of an assignment to D.C., Jo decided as she navigated the cobblestone streets. She'd only visited the area a couple of times in the months since her arrival, once with her folks when they'd come for a stay and once on her own, exploring the shops. She'd fallen a little more in love with each visit.

  The city had been a thriving tobacco port back in George Washington's day, and its past still lived in the restored eighteenth- and nineteenth-century homes, taverns, and iron street lamps throwing puddles of light on the cobbled streets. Jo thought it so appropriate that Dr. Russ would choose Gadsby's Tavern as a meeting place. A museum and national historical landmark as well as a popular eatery, Gadsby's served mouthwatering colonial specialties like rum-raisin bread pudding and hot spiced wine.

  Hot spiced wine would taste good tonight, she thought as she zipped into a parking space that miraculously opened just a few blocks down the street from the tavern. Something to take the chill from her bones.

  Locking the MG, she turned her collar up against the brisk breeze. Dried leaves, courtesy of the towering oaks and maples lining the street, crunched under her feet. Unlike so many urban centers, Alexandria's sidewalks were crowded with people. Local residents, strolling from their town houses to the area's many fine restaurants. Tourists, peering into lighted shop windows. Commuters, newspapers tucked under their arms and briefcases in hand as they trudged from the King Street Metro stop.

  Jo was only a few yards from the black-shuttered building that housed Gadsby's when Dr. Russ hailed her from across the street.

  "Captain West!"

  His white hair wisped out from under a tan Burburry cap reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes. A scarf in the same plaid was tucked neatly into the neck of his overcoat. He waved a hand, waiting for the light to change to cross King Street and join her.

  Jo jammed her hands in her pockets and shifted from foot to foot in the chill night air. Traffic whizzed past. Finally, the stream of cars thinned. The light flickered from green to yellow.

  Tires squealed. A loose cobblestone popped as a dark sedan raced to beat the red light. Dr. Russ stepped off the curb as the vehicle whizzed past.

  No, he didn't step. He staggered.

  Jo froze, her eyes widening in alarm as the historian clutched his chest. He stumbled another step. Two. Stopped. Clawed at his chest.

  Horrified, she saw him start to pitch forward. She'd started running before he hit the street.

  "Call 911!" she shouted to a startled couple passing by. "Now! I think my friend's having a heart attack!"

  Her heart pounding, she raced across the intersection. She knew CPR, knew, too, that the first few moments were critical in situations like this. She started to drop to her knees beside the historian, only to realize that he stood as much chance of getting run over when the light changed as dying from his attack. Jo grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the curb.

  Her breath shot out in fast, sharp puffs. A stone cut into her knee as she slid a hand under Russ's neck to arch it and open his air passage. She ripped away his scarf, tore open the buttons of his heavy wool overcoat. Folding one hand atop the other, she rose up on both knees to start chest compressions.

  She'd pushed down once, maybe twice, when she registered the warm liquid gushing through her clenched fists. Startled, Jo lifted her hands.

  Blood dripped from her fingers.

  Oh, God! She'd pressed too hard. Broken the man's fragile ribs. Maybe pierced a lung.

  Her heart caught squarely in the middle of her throat, she dropped back on her heels. What the hell did she do next? Risk puncturing more internal organs with a broken rib or continue the CPR?

  It was then, only then, that Jo realized the doctor's blood pumped not from a pierced lung, but from the neat, round bullet hole in the center of his chest.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "I didn't hear the shot," Jo told the heavy jowled detective who'd introduced himself as Tony Ambruzzo when he'd arrived on the scene. "I didn't hear anything that sounded even close to a shot."

  "The shooter must have used a silencer," the detective muttered to his partner.

  Hunched sideways in the backseat of a cruiser, one heel hooked on the frame, the other planted on the street, Jo swiped her palm down the seam of her slacks. Someone... one of the paramedics, she thought... had given her a towel to wipe her hands, but blood had dried in the cracks. She could still feel its prickle, still feel the residual shock of that moment when she'd discovered the hole in Dr. Russ's chest.

  More than an hour had passed since then, almost twenty minutes since Jo had watched the paramedics zip the historian's body into a plastic shroud, strap it to a gurney, and roll it into an ambulance.

  Now blue and white strobe lights cut like lasers through the night. With King Street closed off by yellow crime scene tape, traffic was being detoured to the side roads. Reporters and camera crews had begun to arrive, drawn no doubt by news of the shooting gleaned from scanning police radios. The homicide detectives had shielded their witnesses from the media so far, but Jo knew she'd have to face them sooner or later. The prospect made her stomach knot.

  "We'll have to wait for the ME's report to verify the bullet's angle of entry," Ambruzzo told her, spearing a glance over the cruiser's roof at the buildings on the opposite side of the street. "The shooter could have positioned himself in one of those windows, waiting for the professor."

  A team from the crime scene unit was going through the buildings now, Jo knew, floor by floor, room by room. Looking for any material clues, Ambruzzo had explained. Spent shell casings, cigarette butts, candy wrappers.

  "But my guess is a drive-by." The detective's gaze cut back to her. "You said a car sped through the intersection just as the light changed?"

  "I didn't really pay any attention to it." Frustrated by her inability to recall any specific details, Jo swiped her itchy palm down her leg again. "It was a late model sedan. Some dark color, blue or black."

  "No one else paid any attention to it, either," Ambruzzo grumbled. He'd already interviewed and released the few passersby in the vicinity at the time of the incident. "Tell me again why you were meeting Dr. Russ."

  "He called me earlier this evening, wanting to set up an appointment. He said it was urgent."

  "He didn't give you any clue what he wanted to talk to you about?"

  "No."

  She'd wracked her brain, trying to figure out what was behind Russ's strange behavior. The only possibility that made any sense was that he wanted to warn her away from Alex. Maybe he'd uncovered Alex's predilection for rough sex. Maybe he'd just assumed she wasn't up to the rarefied circles the Taylors moved in.

  "And you said he sent you a photo?"

  Jo hesitated. So far she hadn't involved Alex in the discussion.

  "It was a black-and-white eight-by-ten," she answered, "taken just after Alex Taylor brought me home from dinner at the White House."

  Jo's name and face had clicked in Ambruzzo's mind at that point. He remembered the coverage of the incinerated Ferrari, he informed her. And the tabloid shots of her in her underwear she guessed from the speculative glance he'd run over her.

  The detective shot a look at his partner before asking Jo politely, "You dine at the White House often?"

  "No, only once."

  "So why did the professor send you this photo?"

  "I don't know. I didn't even know he was the one who'd sent it until last night, when I compared the handwriting on the back of the picture with a note he'd written me."

  "I'd like to examine bo
th the note and the photo."

  "Of course."

  "I'll send a patrolman out to your place tonight to pick them up. Anything else?"

  Once more Jo hesitated. She couldn't imagine any connection between Dr. Russ and the photographer who'd taken that shot. Didn't even know for sure who'd captured her in such stark lines and angles. But...

  "I think the man who took that photo was named Stroder," she said slowly. "Eric Stroder. He was killed a few weeks ago in a car-jacking."

  "You don't say." Ambruzzo's pen flew across the page. "I'll check it out."

  "Do you need me for anything else?"

  "Not tonight, Captain. If I have any more questions, I'll call you. Hang loose, I'll get a patrolman to drive you to your car."

  Jo slumped back in the cruiser's seat, knowing she wouldn't be able to escape the gauntlet of reporters for long. The media had identified her even faster than Ambruzzo had.

  Sure enough, camera lights blazed in her face as the cruiser pulled away from the scene. Reporters scrambled into vans. A small convoy followed them the two blocks to her car. The questions started flying as soon as she climbed out of the black and white.

  "Captain West! Can you tell us who was shot?"

  Ambruzzo had already briefed reporters that he wouldn't release the name of the deceased pending notification of next of kin. Jo wasn't about to divulge the information, either. She didn't want Russ's wife to learn about his death on the local twenty-four-hours news channel.

  She shouldered through the small crowd, ignoring the microphones shoved in her face.

  "How do you know the deceased?"

  "Any idea why he was shot?"

  "When are you and Alex Taylor going to officially announce your engagement?"

  That spun her around. She pinpointed the source of the question as a slender black woman muffled against the cold in a fox-trimmed coat.

  "We're not engaged, officially or otherwise," she answered bluntly. "There's nothing to announce."

  The reporter flashed a knowing smirk. "That's not what we hear, Captain."

  "What, exactly, do you hear?"

  She realized her mistake the minute the irate question slipped out. Showing even the slightest interest would only add credence to the absurd rumors.

  "That you and Alex agreed you'd stay away from President Taylor's funeral because you didn't want interest in the grandson's love life to eclipse the grandfather's memorial services," the reporter replied, pouncing on her question like a hungry dog on raw meat. "Now that the funeral's over, when are you two going to share your romance with the public?"

  "We're not. I mean, there is no romance."

  "Then he didn't transfer the title to a new helicopter to your name? Or make a hefty donation to the foundation your brother works for?"

  The woman had done her homework, Jo conceded. She also seemed to care a heck of a lot more about this supposed affair than about the fact that a man had just bled to death in the street.

  Disgusted, Jo shook her head and ducked into her car. Tension crawled across her shoulders the entire drive home. Thank God she didn't have a flight scheduled tomorrow. No way she was going to sleep tonight.

  Her first order of business when she arrived home was a quick shower. A glance at the phone on her way through the house showed no flashing message light, thank God. She wasn't ready to deal with more pressure from reporters right now.

  Or from Alex.

  He'd call. As soon as he heard the awful news.

  For a few seconds, Jo debated whether to turn off the damned answering machine. Or better yet, unplug the phone. But the squadron had to be able to reach her. And her family, who'd no doubt hit the phones as soon as the rumors about her supposed engagement to Alex made it into the tabloids.

  She'd better call them. After she cleaned up, she decided, grimacing as she caught sight of herself in the bedroom mirror. Blood had splattered across her slacks. Rust caked in the creases of her wrists.

  Unzipping the slacks, she started to add them to the uniform skirt and plaid blazer she'd laid out to take to the cleaners. No. No way she'd ever be able to wear that pair again without thinking of tonight. Wadding them into a tight ball, she stuffed them into the wastebasket in the bathroom.

  She was in the shower, hands braced against the tile, head bowed to the hot, pelting stream, when Jo realized she should call or visit Dr. Russ's wife. Her husband's death would no doubt traumatize her, but the woman might want to know the details of his last moments. Know, too, that he hadn't suffered for more than a few seconds.

  The phone shrilled three times while she was in the shower. Above the hiss of water, Jo caught fragments of the messages left by various radio and television reporters.

  Her front doorbell bonged just as she was toweling dry. It hadn't taken the media long to beat another path to her door, she thought, her mouth thinning. She ignored the chimes until a third ring reminded her that Ambruzzo had said something about sending a patrolman for the photo and note Dr. Russ had written her.

  She'd learned her lesson the first time she'd flung her front door open, however. She pulled on jeans, thick socks, and a sweatshirt before she peered cautiously through the peephole.

  "Deke!" Relief pouring through her, Jo fumbled with the locks. "What are you doing here?"

  "I was on my way home from the base and heard your name on the news."

  "They wrote that copy fast," she said grimly, waving him inside.

  His hazel eyes searched her face as he pulled off his flight cap and stuffed it into a pocket of his brown leather jacket.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I am now that I've washed off the blood. Not mine," she added quickly as alarm flared in his face. "The man who was shot."

  Leading the way to the sofa, Jo plopped down in a corner and tucked her feet under her. Deke unzipped his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair before joining her. He must have had a late flight, she thought. Stubble shadowed his chin, and his green flight suit still carried a faint, familiar tang of aviation fuel.

  "What the hell happened? The news report hinted at a drive-by shooting."

  "At this point, the police don't know what it was."

  "Who took the bullet?"

  "A professor by the name of Martin Russ. A historian, actually. He was working on John Tyree Taylor's biography."

  "You knew him?" Incredulous, Deke shoveled a hand through tobacco brown hair still flat from his helmet. "I assumed you just happened to be in the vicinity and rushed over to aid the victim."

  "Actually, I was on my way to meet him."

  His hand dropped. He chewed on her reply for a moment or two.

  "Getting ready to add your chapter to the Taylor family history, was he?"

  Fingers of heat rose in Jo's cheeks at the sardonic response. All right. Deke had pegged it. She'd gotten in over her head with Alex. She might as well admit the sorry truth.

  "There isn't going to be any chapter labeled Jo West."

  "Is that right?"

  "That's right.

  "Have you told Taylor yet?"

  A shiver rippled down Jo's arms as she remembered that Dr. Russ had asked her the same thing just a few hours ago. She gave Deke the same answer she'd given the historian.

  "Yes. Several times."

  She pushed off the couch, not really ready to discuss her messy break-up with Alex. "Do you want a beer?"

  "That sounds good."

  Almost as good as what he'd just heard, Deke thought. A deep, visceral satisfaction filled him as he stretched his legs and contemplated Jo's nicely-rounded butt until it disappeared into the kitchen.

  So she'd given Taylor his walking papers? That was the best news Deke had heard all week. Hell, all year.

  He rolled his shoulders, shrugging off the fatigue from the fourteen-hour day he'd just put in. Shrugging off, too, the tension that had speared him when Jo had dropped that bomb about washing away blood.

  He still didn't understand her connection to
the historian or what had happened tonight. But he didn't have any trouble understanding the kink in his gut when he thought she'd taken a hit. It was fear, pure and simple. The kind that comes zinging out of nowhere and hits a man when he least expects it. He'd have to think about that fear when he'd sorted out just what happened tonight.

  And sorted out, too, when to make his move.

  It had to be soon. That was a given. He'd lain awake too many nights thinking about the way Jo West filled out a flight suit, not to mention the laughter that played like a fiddle on Deke's heartstrings. She could put him in a sweat faster than any other woman he'd come across in his thirty-two years of looking.

  He still kicked himself for standing around like a blind-drunk cowboy on a Saturday night while Taylor cut Jo out of the herd and claimed her as his own. He wouldn't make that mistake again.

  That promise echoed in his head when she returned, a cold beer in each hand.

  "You're not flying tomorrow?" he asked, accepting one of the bottles.

  "Nope." She curled up in her corner again, tucking her toes under her. "I've got small-arms training in the morning and had planned to attend a Company Grade Officers' Council meeting tomorrow afternoon, but..."

  "But what?"

  "I'm thinking I should go see Dr. Russ's wife... widow." She fiddled with the bottle, peeling back a corner of the wet label. "Mrs. Russ might want a firsthand account of what happened."

  "What did happen, Jo?"

  "I don't know. Honestly. One minute, Dr. Russ was standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change. The next, he was lying in the street, blood pumping through a hole in his chest."

  "Christ!"

  "It was so weird. I didn't hear the shot, didn't even know he'd been shot until I rolled him over and tried to administer CPR."

  Deke took a pull on his beer. He didn't much like the picture forming in his mind. From the look on Jo's face, she didn't much like it, either.

  "Sounds like the shooter may have used a silencer," he said slowly.