Criminal Deception

by Pappano, Marilyn

  It was eleven o’clock, too late for mid-morning coffee breaks, too early for people making a java run at lunch. He’d had ten minutes since the last customer and caught up on everything that needed doing up front. He could head into his office, a small corner of the backroom, and do some paperwork, but the idea didn’t move him from his spot leaning against the counter.

  There was always time for paperwork, and always paperwork to be done.

  He hated to admit it, but he’d thought Liz would come by this morning. Even during the busiest moments of their a.m. rush, when Esther liked to complain that they met themselves coming and going, his gaze had kept sliding to the door and the streets outside, expecting to catch a glimpse of black curls and amazing legs.

  All morning he’d waited, and she hadn’t come.

  Scowling, he pushed away from the counter and took four steps toward the storeroom. Just as he reached it the sound of the doorbell made him pivot and return to the counter.

  Not Liz. Just a stranger, tall, with a hard set to his features and even harder eyes. His gray suit was well-made but stark, the shirt a shade lighter, the tie a shade darker. He rocked back on his heels at the counter and studied the menu board posted on the wall above, skimming over the usual whipped, blended and frozen drinks. “Medium chai tea,” he ordered in a voice as tough as his face.

  “For here or to go?” Joe asked, suppressing a grin. Sure, chai tea was popular with his customers—his female customers. Pregnancy made Ellie crave it at least twice a day. But from a guy who looked as if he should be ordering coffee beans—Don’t need no cup. I’ll just grind ’em in my mouth with a little hot water—it was a surprise.

  “Here.”

  Joe rang it up, made change for a twenty, then started the tea. Instead of taking a seat, the man stayed where he was, unmoving but giving the impression of loose energy, barely controlled.

  “Nice town.”

  Breathing in steam fragrant with nutmeg and cloves, Joe glanced over his shoulder at the guy, and the hair on his nape automatically prickled. There was no reason for it, he told himself. So the guy wasn’t a local, or even a good ol’ Georgia boy. Not with that accent—New York, maybe New Jersey, blunted by years elsewhere. He waited on strangers all the time with all kinds of accents. It didn’t mean anything.

  “We like it,” he said, sliding the porcelain mug across the counter.

  “Nice change from the city.”

  Another prickle of unease slid down Joe’s spine, but he kept his tone as steady as his hands. “Depends on the city.” He had liked Chicago. Like his parents, he’d intended to spend the rest of his life there. He’d just needed a different place for a while.

  “Chicago,” the man replied with a humorless smile. “My name’s Tom Smith, and Chicago’s my kind of town.”

  Joe’s hands weren’t steady any longer. Where was a cop when you wanted him? Maricci, Decker, Petrovski…hell, he would have settled for a meter maid. Or a pregnant Ellie, or Esther breezing in because she’d forgotten something.

  He was overreacting. A lot of people liked Chicago. It didn’t mean Tom Smith was from there. It damn well didn’t mean he knew the Mulroney brothers. He was just passing through, looking for decent chai tea, not an easy to thing to find in Copper Lake. So what if he looked like he might grace some most-wanted list, or dressed like a guy who might work for the Mulroneys? The best-dressed thugs in the world, Josh used to say. The one who’d shot him had been wearing Armani. Joe had recognized it because the same designer label had filled his own closet.

  Joe shifted his gaze outside. It was an odd moment when he could look out the window and not see a single friend, but the people he saw now were only vague acquaintances or, in the case of Louise Wetherby, striding past with an armload of shopping bags, even less preferable than the man watching him.

  “Do you miss it?” Smith asked.

  “Miss what?”

  “Your old hometown.”

  Joe straightened his shoulders and folded his arms across his chest. It was the middle of the day in downtown Copper Lake. Huge plate glass windows offered clear views into the shop. He had steaming pots of coffee within reach. Failing all that, the storeroom, with a decent lock, was only a few steps behind him, and a few steps past that was the outside door. And all that bike riding had given him leg muscles a track star would envy.

  Run, he thought, and of course, he immediately thought of Josh, too. That was what he had always done. Run and let someone else deal with the fallout.

  Pretending nonchalance, Joe shook his head. “I wouldn’t mind going up for a game.”

  “Or a proper pizza.”

  “I’m partial to hot dogs myself. But this is a sweet place. It’s got everything I want. If I feel the need for traffic and crowds, I can always go to Atlanta.”

  “Except your folks. They’re not here.”

  Despite the heat radiating from the coffee pots, ice swept through Joe. So it was no coincidence Smith was here. No more pretence. “Leave my parents out of this.”

  Smith took a long, spice-flavored sniff of his tea and murmured appreciatively. “I’m not interested in your parents. I just want to find your brother.”

  “Why?”

  “The same reason as everyone else.” He drank the tea, then blotted his mouth with a napkin. “That was a tough thing—the mistaken identity bit. The Mulroneys didn’t even know Josh had a brother, much less a twin. And there you were, walking out of his apartment, getting into his car.” He shook his head sympathetically.

  Can I borrow your car, Joe? We’ve got a hot date tonight. We’re going someplace special for my birthday.

  Joe’s mind had fired in a dozen different directions. A serious date? In the weeks since Josh had introduced him to Liz, they hadn’t had one real date, mostly just takeout at home. And someplace special? And Josh wanted to use Joe’s Infiniti, wanted to return it to him smelling of her perfume, her shampoo, her everything.

  Your birthday’s not for two more months, he’d said sullenly.

  Yeah, but she don’t know that. Wink, wink, grin.

  Joe had wanted to smash his fist into that grin. Instead, he’d traded car keys and walked out. Sixty seconds later, as he’d clicked the remote to unlock the door to Josh’s truck, a man in a black overcoat had approached and shot him twice in the chest.

  Maybe this man? Joe looked closer at Tom Smith. He couldn’t say. The bastard had almost killed him, and he hadn’t seen a thing besides the coat. Height, weight, hair color, eye color, skin tone—he hadn’t had a clue. But he’d noticed the coat was Armani.

  “It was a tough thing,” Joe agreed. “You can probably understand when I say that because of it, Josh isn’t particularly welcome around here. I’m all out of help to give him.”

  “If he shows up, you want to make a call, you could make some money.”

  “A reward for turning my brother in to people who want him dead?”

  Smith gave him a long look, then reached slowly into his breast pocket and removed a silver card case. “The Mulroneys’ reward is bigger than ours,” he said as he slid a card out, then laid it on the counter between them. “But we, at least, can guarantee that we’re not going to kill him.”

  Joe stared at the card but didn’t pick it up. Engraved on the left side was the Department of Justice seal and on the other was contact information: Thomas P. Smith, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Chicago, Illinois.

  “We’re pretty well-dressed thugs, too, Mr. Saldana,” Smith said with a thin smile. “Or so your brother said.”

  Heat warmed Joe’s cheeks—from standing too close to the coffee machines, of course. He turned away, fixed himself a cup of ice water and took a long drink before facing Smith again. “I haven’t had any contact with him since the shooting. He doesn’t even know where I am.”

  “We need him at the trial, Mr. Saldana. The government has put a lot into this case and we don’t want to lose it because of him. We want to find him before the Mulroneys do.”
<
br />   “If you can’t find him, how could they?”

  Smith managed what Joe suspected was, for him, a smile, and his voice turned very dry. “They have resources we don’t.”

  Joe left the card where it lay. “If you share any resources with them, tell them to stay the hell away from my parents and me. We won’t help them and can’t help you.”

  “If they find Josh first, they will kill him.”

  “Then maybe he’ll have the good sense to stay lost.” But even as he said it, Joe knew it wasn’t likely. Josh had a bad habit of relying on family and friends. He was willing to take care of himself for only so long, and the two months since he’d left Liz had already exceeded that limit. He was probably looking for Joe and their parents, and Liz, and the woman he’d dated before her, and the woman before her, at that very moment.

  “If your brother lacks one thing in great abundance, it’s sense.” Smith finished the tea, then set the mug on the counter. “My cell number’s on the back of that card. If you change your mind—” Breaking off at Joe’s scowl, he rephrased. “If you hear from Josh, let me know. We can protect him.”

  “Not from himself,” Joe muttered. And hadn’t Josh always been his own worst enemy?

  Smith walked to the door before turning back. “Good tea. The cinnamon and cardamom were just right.”

  “I’ll tell my taste tester.” Ellie would be pleased, but she was used to compliments on her taste. It was what made her restaurant one of the most popular in town.

  As Smith got into a black rental, the bell rang again and Natalia stopped in the doorway. “Can we come in?” Twisting around her ankles on leashes were the hellhounds, both straining to venture farther inside. A new place with new smells and all new things to pee on.

  “I think health department regulations prohibit it, and I’m sure my own rules do. But I’ll come out.” Sliding the business card from the stainless steel counter, he crossed the dining room in a few strides and stepped out into muggy warmth and an excited, eight-legged greeting.

  Natalia untangled long enough to hand him one leash, then sat on the bench a few feet away. The striped awning overhead protected it from too much sun and the worst of the rain when it came, and it had an unobstructed view of the cars driving by. There was no sign of Tom Smith’s black rental.

  Or Liz’s red one.

  “Are you going to name these guys?” Natalia asked as the fuzzy one jumped onto the bench between them, rolled onto his back and splayed all four legs in the air with a noticeable lack of dignity while she dutifully scratched his belly. The female was too busy sniffing every inch of Joe to notice.

  “They don’t respond to anything I call them.”

  “‘Bad dog’ and ‘devil dog’ don’t count. They need proper names.”

  “How about Goldie and Brownie?”

  Natalia rolled her eyes. This morning they were violet. “Would you answer to Blondie?”

  “For the right person,” he retorted, and an image of Liz popped into his mind. Damn it.

  “How about Bear for this one?” Natalia gazed down at the fuzzy pup with more affection than she’d shown even Joe, and he was her best—maybe only—friend in town. “My mom used to sing a rhyme when I was little: ‘Fuzzy wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair…’” Her voice grew softer with each word until it trailed away, as if the memory were so burdened with emotion that she could no longer sustain it. It was, Joe realized, the first truly personal thing she’d ever told him.

  He swallowed the curiosity, and the lump in his throat, and the urge to wrap his arm around her, the way he used to do with his younger girl cousins when they were kids. “Okay. Bear it is. So can I still call this one Bad Dog?”

  Natalia continued to stare off into the distance for a moment, then drew herself together. She shook her head, straightened her shoulders and erased the emotion from her eyes. “No, you can’t. She’s very regal. You could call her Princess.”

  “Or Queen Bitch.”

  “Naming a pet is like naming a child. You have to choose a name you won’t be embarrassed to yell out the door.”

  “I wouldn’t be embarrassed yelling Bad Dog or Queen Bitch,” he grumbled. “Neither would she. She’s probably proud of being both.”

  The female ran to sniff a piece of trash that had blown against the curb, and Joe reeled her back in, winning in spite of her valiant effort to resist. Immediately, she turned, her nose quivering, and locked in on the business card he was tapping against his thigh.

  Natalia’s gaze zeroed in on it, too. “U.S. Attorney’s office?” She stared at him. “Are you in trouble?”

  He tilted his head to mimic her position. “How can you read that from there? Or have you seen so many U.S. Attorney’s office business cards that you recognize them on sight?”

  “My distance vision is very good. Are you in trouble?” she repeated.

  If he avoided answering again, she would let him, but she was his best—though not only—friend in town, so he responded. “Not me, but someone I know.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yeah.” He’d told her he had a brother in one of those early getting-acquainted conversations, but that had been the extent of it. He hadn’t wanted to even think about Josh—about the hostility and the anger and the bitterness and the disappointment—much less talk about him. She’d had the same reaction to discussing her family: mother, father, two sisters, hadn’t seen them in ages. He hadn’t pressed, and neither had she.

  “Is he in jail?”

  “Not that I know of.” Not yet.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Don’t know that either.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “It’s been a while.” He shot her a look. “Any more questions and you’re gonna have to answer the same about your sisters.”

  That shut her up. She nudged the newly named Bear to the ground, then took the brown dog’s leash from him. “We’re going to head back home. I don’t want to wind up carrying Bear the last block like I did last night.”

  Teasing her would be too easy, especially when she was serious, so Joe settled for shaking his head. He watched until they turned the corner before chuckling at the image of the fuzzy puppy cradled in Natalia’s arms while the female darted and sniffed until she quivered.

  “You’re in a good mood.”

  Deliberately he lowered his gaze as he turned his head to the right, seeing sidewalk, that bit of trash and a set of delicate feet with dark red-tipped toes. A vee of tan leather was anchored between the first and second toes, thin, intricately knotted as it stretched back to encircle slender ankles. A coral silk flower sat on the outside strap, just below the ankle bone, and the heels rose, lethally tall and thin.

  As if the shoes weren’t enough, they led to her legs, longer today, or so it seemed. Fact was, her dress was just so much shorter. Not indecently short, not even modesty-at-risk short. Just enticingly so.

  “Moods can change.” He finally managed to slide his gaze up over the snug-fitting dress that matched the silk flowers to her face. Her hair was down today, curls skewing in every direction. One fell across her forehead, and for an instant the temptation to brush it back was so strong that he actually lifted his hand to do so.

  Silently swearing, he clenched his fist, and Tom Smith’s business card crumpled inside it. He surged to his feet, scooped up the trash from the curb, then reached the shop door in two steps.

  “Don’t hurry off on my account.”

  “This isn’t hurrying. It’s me getting back to work.”

  She made a show of peering through the glass. “I don’t see any customers.”

  He had the door open. All he had to do was walk through and let it close. Maybe she would follow, maybe she wouldn’t. He didn’t have to look at her again and he damn sure didn’t have to say anything else. But he held the door open and he did both.

  “Why don’t you be the next one, then?”

  Chapter 4

/>   Liz would bet that piece of paper had blown at least a block. Cars had driven over it, people had stepped on it, but only Joe had bothered to pick it up and put it in the trash.

  Switching her shoulder bag to her other arm, she reached for the door he held open, then followed him inside. The purse was smaller than she normally carried, but her GLOCK didn’t fit inside just any old bag. She ordered a frozen hazelnut coffee blend with extra whipped cream as she slipped her debit card from the pocket next to the .45.

  Joe waved the card away, but she insisted. “If you want to make me coffee at home for free, I’ll accept, but not here.”

  “Consider it a sample.”

  “I’ve already had a sample and I liked it,” she pointed out, and just that quickly, the air turned hot and heavy. She was in sorry shape when a truly innocent comment could raise her blood pressure and her core temperature into the danger zone.

  Judging by the intensity of his stare, he was in equally sorry shape.

  After he swiped her card, she went to a table, sat down and crossed her legs. Her foot bobbed in the air, displaying her to-die-for sandal at its best. She’d learned on her first job to use the tools she had, and with Joe, she was well aware, that included her legs.

  He brought her drink to the table, along with a glass of water for himself. “How do you walk in those things?”

  She stretched out her leg, tilting her foot from side to side. “Rather gracefully, I think. Don’t you?”

  “I wasn’t watching.” He pulled out the chair across from her and sprawled in it.

  Liar. Liz sipped the coffee drink and practically hummed with satisfaction. “Whoever invented frozen coffee was a genius. It’s even better than ice cream.”