Detective Defender

by Marilyn Pappano

  After they’d fixed their coffees, she asked, “Are you done with the ugly stuff, or do I need to leave the room?”

  Jimmy didn’t want her to go. Though she couldn’t possibly be safer than she was at the moment, he felt more comfortable being able to see her. “You already know pretty much everything.” Except that both hearts had been removed while the victims were still alive, and he’d already warned Jack of that.

  Jack gave her a moment to get settled on the couch before he started. “I did a lot of checking into finances while I was in Omaha. What do you remember about the different families’ money status when you were kids?”

  Martine blinked blankly. “I don’t know I ever thought about it. We all lived in the same neighborhood, though the Winchesters’ house was definitely the biggest and nicest and Robin’s house was kind of small. We couldn’t have sleepovers there because it was too crowded, and she didn’t really ever invite us. Her parents were nice enough, but they didn’t socialize much with our parents except holidays or parties. Mom and Paulina’s and the twins’ moms had lunch every other Tuesday, and our dads played golf every weekend, but not the Raileys.”

  “Was she ever left out of your activities because of money issues?”

  Jimmy looked up from his notebook—he was the dedicated note taker in this partnership—and watched Martine’s gaze go thoughtful. Were Jack’s instincts pointing to Robin? Jimmy was open to any suspect, preferably one they could stop, and Robin was as good a candidate as any, though she needed a motive. Maybe she’d never felt as much a member of the group as the others had. Maybe she still harbored some jealousy or anger toward them.

  It was scary to think how little things that happened as kids could have such profound effects on people twenty or thirty years later, but he’d seen enough examples of it himself. Jealousy turned to envy turned to resentment turned to bitterness turned to rage, and rage trumped everything, even love.

  “There were times she couldn’t spend the afternoons with us because she had to work—she had a part-time job to pay for her cheerleading costs—but we did the same things all the time. It wasn’t really missing out.” Martine hesitated, as if she wanted to say something, even took a breath and opened her mouth, but closed it again right away.

  Do you think Robin is the killer? Jimmy would bet that was what she wanted—and didn’t want—to know. It was hard to accept that two of her friends had been brutally murdered. Harder still to know the killer wanted to do the same to her. It just might be impossible to believe it was another of her friends who hated them so.

  “The Winchesters had a lot of money, didn’t they?” Jack asked.

  She smiled drily. “When the twins turned sixteen, their parents gave them each a brand-shiny-new convertible. Paulina and Robin and me—we were blown away, but their dad just grinned. He couldn’t expect them to share a car, now, could he? What was another forty thousand dollars when his girls’ happiness was at stake?”

  “Damn,” Jack muttered. “Jackson and my girls will be lucky if I allow them to leave the house by themselves when they’re sixteen.”

  One of the downsides of police work: a cop knew better than anyone the danger lurking in the outside world. A cop who was a parent couldn’t help but make some of it personal: What if that was my kid? And it extended beyond that. Too often the last couple of days, when Jimmy remembered the sight of Paulina lying dead in the cemetery, he wondered, What if that becomes Martine?

  It wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Jimmy DiBiase didn’t fail, and Jack Murphy didn’t fail, and between the two of them, they would keep her safe.

  * * *

  Jack had more questions about Tallie and Callie—their relationship, their spending, their habits, their attitudes. Martine found the conversation surreal. He actually suspected Robin or Tallie of killing Paulina and Callie. She had great admiration for him as a detective, but this time he was wrong. She was certain of it.

  Closing her eyes, she called up images of her old friends. Except for the end, their years together had been good times with so much laughter. They were peas in a pod, her father had teased, one personality split between five girls. They had shared meals, clothes, classes, activities, friends, families, experiences. They’d had a sort of conversational shorthand that allowed them to communicate with no more than a look, a word or two, and had led them into adventures and disasters. They had lived such fun lives.

  Could either of them have become a killer?

  It was unfathomable. Even trying to consider it made her stomach clench with revulsion. It had to be Irena Young. Irena didn’t know Martine and the others, didn’t love them. Or someone else, someone who’d thought he had reason to kill Callie, then had gone after Paulina to misdirect the investigation. Someone who’d never met Paulina or Martine or Robin or even Tallie.

  It would still break her heart that Callie and Paulina were dead, but it would be easier to deal with if the real reason had nothing to do with the teenage bond they’d shared.

  Was that selfish of her?

  Before she could find the answer to that question inside her, she was startled back to the present when Jimmy and Jack both stood. Her knees were drawn up, her hands clasped around her now cold coffee. Jimmy’s notebook lay open on the boxes, the one page visible filled with his tiny printing, and Jack’s chair was folded, tucked under his arm.

  “Give Evie and the kids a hug for me,” she said wanly.

  He said he would before walking to the door with Jimmy. They talked a moment longer while she gazed into the fire. Uneasiness crept through her like the past week’s fog, filling all the empty spaces inside, worse than it had been before Jack’s arrival. Sure, Jimmy had considered everyone a suspect but her, but actually being questioned about Robin and Tallie gave the situation a reality she wasn’t prepared to accept.

  She didn’t know if she ever would be.

  Jimmy returned, tugging her coffee cup from her hands. He took the empty mugs into the kitchen, then came back a moment later with a bottle of water for each of them. He circled behind the couch, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, then took his seat again at the other end of the couch. “Let’s talk.”

  In her experience, when men said, Let’s talk, it didn’t bode well for the relationship. Either they wanted more than she was willing to give, or they wanted out. Intuitively, she knew Jimmy wanted her to talk, and he would listen, and then he would offer what comfort he could. Gratitude warmed her to her core, but it didn’t shake the edginess.

  She drank from the bottle, then fiddled with the cap before finally meeting his gaze. “Tallie wouldn’t kill Callie.” She infused the words with all the certainty in her heart, but a few beats later, more words escaped. “Would she?”

  “Tallie’s lived in London for twelve years. According to the State Department, Callie hasn’t been there for more than fifteen years, and Tallie’s trips to the US have been few and far between. There wasn’t much in the way of phone calls, emails or texts between them, either.”

  “They’re identical twins. Two halves of a whole. My mom used to say they lived in each other’s back pocket.”

  “Or each other’s shadow.”

  Martine was an only child who had longed for a sibling until she’d met Paulina, then the others. It was hard for her to think that sisters could be too close. And despite the two-halves-of-a-whole bit, they were still people with their own personalities, quirks, weaknesses and passions. Individuals who had been treated as one for the first eighteen years of their lives.

  All four of them had cut Martine off without a word. Was it so unlikely that the sisters had had a falling-out, as well?

  And what about Robin? Had she felt like she was in the shadows, too? That somehow she didn’t measure up to the rest of them because her parents didn’t have as much money? Had she resented them without their even knowing it?

&nbs
p; Her head ached from the rounds of no-she-couldn’t and maybe-she-could-have. Switching the water to her other hand, she pressed her palm to her forehead, letting the cool dampness left from the bottle ease her heated skin.

  Her sigh was soft and tired. “You know what? I’d like to have one hour where I don’t have to think about anything from the past.”

  Jimmy’s grin was smug and sweet. “Take those clothes off, and I’ll give you two.”

  “You’re so charming.”

  “Hey, I think that’s a pretty good offer. You get naked, and I give you two hours of fun and forgetfulness.”

  “Sadly, I think the forgetfulness is the more appealing of the two right now.”

  He set his water aside and made room for her—a very small bit of room—beside him. She shifted around and settled between his hard warm body and the back cushions of the couch, and he wrapped his arms around her. For a long time, he just held her and she just savored it, letting her eyes close, her memories shut down, her brain concentrate on nothing but how good he felt and how good she felt with him.

  “It’ll be okay, Tine.” The softness of his voice slid over her, easing muscles and soothing fluttering nerves.

  “How do you do it?” Peering through her lashes, she watched him cock his head in question. “How do you spend every single workday with people at the worst time of their lives without letting hopelessness and despair take over your own life?”

  He didn’t have a pat answer, as she’d expected. Instead, he gave it a few moments’ thought. “I have an occasional drink. I have good friends. I have great sex. From time to time, I go a little bit crazy for a few days. Then I get back to it.” His shrug flowed through his body and into hers. “Someone’s got to do it, Tine. It might as well be me. I’m good at it.”

  “You see so much ugliness.”

  “And a lot of good. And I do some good.”

  She rested her cheek against his chest, absorbing the quiet thud-thud of his heart. Someone had to do every tough job: care for babies whose lives were destined to be short; hold the hands of elderly patients as they passed from this world; fight fires and wars; advocate for abused children; counsel victims who lived; autopsy those who died, and find the persons responsible.

  She couldn’t be that someone. Put her in the shop, with its tourist-and voodoo-related items, and she was great. Ask her to do something so vital as heal, touch, love, grieve, protect, defend and find justice for those who couldn’t do it for themselves, she would get lost in the darkness and never find her way out again.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “By what?”

  She lifted her head to see if he was serious. He was. “You. Your commitment. Your passion.”

  Surprise flitted through his eyes, then his expression softened. He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it in such a gentlemanly fashion that she almost didn’t notice the swelling of his erection as he turned onto his side to face her. “Contrary to popular belief, I do know how to commit to something.” He settled her hand on his hip, then tilted her face so he could nuzzle her jaw. “And to someone. I may be a jerk, Tine, but I’m trainable, if you’ll just give me the chance.”

  She cradled his cheeks in her hands and kissed him thoroughly before making a show of checking her watch. “It’s four forty-five. My two hours start...” The old-fashioned second hand swept, tick-tick-tick, around the watch face before finally reaching the twelve.

  She gave him a greedy, hungry, needy look and slid her hand down his flat stomach to his groin, making his breath catch, before she said the magic word.

  “Now.”

  * * *

  She jumped up and dashed away from the couch. “Hey,” Jimmy called, scrambling to follow her, catching hold of her narrow waist just as she dived onto the bed. They landed in a tangle of limbs and covers, laughing, pulling at their clothes, struggling to get naked and to get him suited up before the need burned through them like a wildfire. It was fast and hard and funny and touching, and it led to a slower, lazier, easier, harder, damn more intimate second time. It left him feeling...

  The Jimmy he’d been most of his life couldn’t find words to describe what he felt. The Jimmy he’d been slowly evolving into wasn’t sure, either, but was willing to give it a try.

  Connected. Lucky. Tender. Protective.

  Blessed.

  In a culture where Bless your heart was an insult as often than not, blessed was in his vocabulary, just not used much. His family said the blessing before meals. His sisters’ kids sang a song about counting their blessings, and he was on the receiving end of plenty of bless-yous when he sneezed.

  Looking at Martine, though, lying quiet in his arms, the sweat drying from her body, her hair covering the pillow, her hand lightly resting on his chest, he was definitely feeling blessed.

  Her eyes closed, her face sleepy, she murmured, “I heard you tell Jack you aren’t afraid of Evie. He was right. You should be. She threatened to put a curse on you that would make your dangly bits shrivel away and ruin you for any other woman.”

  “Ouch. I hope you asked her not to.”

  Her eyes opened to bare slits, and a womanly smile curved her mouth. “I told her I intend to ruin you for other women.”

  He kissed her forehead. “You’ve accomplished that, sweetheart.”

  She closed her eyes again, but the smile widened as she resettled in silence.

  He liked Evie, he thought as he stroked Martine’s silken skin. Even loved her in a sister-who-could-kick-his-ass way. She was fiercely protective of the people in her world. She gave Jack unfailing support, gave the kids unconditional love, gave Jimmy unasked-for but always appropriate advice, and she was the best friend that Martine deserved. The other four had let her down, but not Evie. Jimmy loved her more for that.

  Dusk had settled, followed by dark, though it was never really dark in downtown New Orleans. A small snore from his side indicated that Martine had drifted off, and if he closed his eyes for a few minutes, he was pretty sure he could, too. Why not? Security was at their posts downstairs, the door was locked, the alarm was set, and the nightstand was crowded with their weapons. Nothing was going to happen tonight, besides snuggling with Martine and maybe a few more rounds of forgetting, or at least dreaming about it...

  The ringing of the cell phone was harsh, out of place. He was dreaming, in the mountains where he vacationed, with tall trees, crisp air, the sun shining brightly, the water of a snow-fed creek tumbling across rocks, and Martine. Why would he take his phone there and leave it turned on? Most days he didn’t even have reception there.

  Dream-Martine turned to look at him, brows raised questioningly, and real-Martine thumped him with her elbow as she rolled away. “Answer the phone.”

  Slowly he came out of the dream, saw the lit screen of his cell phone on the table and picked it up. Groggy, much preferring the sunny Colorado mountains over reality, he grunted a greeting.

  “Detective DiBiase?”

  The voice was familiar. Clearheaded, he would have no problem putting a face and a name to it, but clearheaded, he was not. “Yeah.”

  “Sorry for waking you, sir. This is Chaz Jordan.”

  A patrol officer in the Quarter. Tall, broad shouldered, weight lifter. He would come in handy on Jimmy’s next move, and he wouldn’t be dropping anything from a third-floor landing. “It’s okay, Jordan. What’s up?”

  “We got a call about a disturbance on Royal Street.” He gave the number, and Jimmy’s heart missed two or three beats before starting again. “It’s nothing big, but someone started a fire on the stoop. The person who called it in poured bottled water on it before it got really going. There are a few scorch marks on the door but nothing a coat of paint can’t cover.”

  “Can you tell what was burned?”

  “Pictures. Old ones.
I know you’ve got a case involving the woman who lives here, and she’s not answering the door, so I figured I’d let you know.”

  “Listen, Jordan, can you stay until I get there? It won’t be ten minutes.”

  “Sure. I’ll see you.”

  Jimmy spotted his jeans as he stood, yanked them on, then grabbed his shirt, socks, shoes. The mattress shifted behind him while he pulled on his socks, and Martine bent close. “What happened?”

  Damn, he hated that fear in her voice. She couldn’t have figured out from his side of the conversation that the call involved her, but she worried anyway.

  “It’s not a big deal. Someone set a fire on your doorstep. Guy put it out and called the police, and the cop’s waiting for me to pick up what’s left over.” He shoved his feet into running shoes without untying them, tugged his shirt over his head, then started threading his belt through the loops on his jeans.

  “I want to go with you.”

  “Martine—”

  “I won’t get out of the car. I won’t talk to anyone. No one will even notice me. I just... I need to see that everything’s okay. Please, Jimmy.”

  He tried to stand his ground, but it was a losing battle. “It’s not fair to ask favors when you’re sitting there naked,” he grumbled. “You’ll stay in the back seat, and I’m locking you in. Give me any trouble, and I’ll take you to jail. We’ve got cells for people like you.”

  She dressed more quickly than he did, grabbed the Taser and the pepper spray as if she’d been doing it for years, and was in the hallway heading for the door before he finished securing his own weapons. Shaking his head, wishing he could just handcuff her to the bedframe—not that he had a bedframe—he caught up with her at the door where she was putting on her jacket.