by Maggie Price
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me an arrest fast. If you need more people on this, fine, you’ve got them. Just make sure you have a suspect in custody. Preferably before Christmas Day.”
The door clicked shut, and Michael expelled a ripe curse.
Fingers digging into the top of an upholstered chair, he stood motionless while he stared at the photos on the table through a haze of anger. After a moment, he shoved a hand through his hair and turned his head toward A.J.
She stood staring at the door, her cheeks pale, her dark hair enfolding her face like a shadow. “I hadn’t...” She took a deep breath. “I hadn’t even thought that other people know you’re investigating Ken and me.”
“A.J.—”
“It’s logical.” She dragged the heel of her palm across her forehead. “It’s an active IAD investigation. You’d have had to go to the chief.” She leaned over the table, her unsteady hands shoving the photos into a disorganized heap.
“A.J.—”
“I shouldn’t have mouthed off to him,” she said, with a derisive shake of her head. “He just made me so angry. We’ve got a cold-blooded killer on the loose, and all the man’s worried about is how he’ll come across on the six o’clock news—”
Michael caught her wrists. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “You didn’t deserve his belligerence. You didn’t need to hear what he said.”
She looked up, her eyes softening. “What I heard was that you’ve gone out on a limb for me.”
“I don’t see it that way. It’s like I told you, I listen to my instincts.”
“Instincts that have you ninety-nine percent convinced that I didn’t conspire with Ken to...do everything you believe he did. There’s a one percent chance you’re wrong about me. That could cost you your badge.”
He released one of her wrists, reached out and slicked his knuckles down her cheek. “Where you’re concerned, I’m leaning toward one hundred percent.”
She kept her eyes locked with his. “What about Ken?”
“The evidence points to his guilt.”
“It’s circumstantial, every bit of it.”
“True, but there’s a lot.”
She closed her eyes. “I know.” Her voice shook. “God, I know.”
Michael’s throat tightened. He knew how much it must have cost her to concede that. Cupping a finger beneath her chin, he nudged upward until her dark-lashed lids fluttered open. “You think I haven’t worked this from every angle a hundred times in my mind? You think I haven’t tried to come up with a reasonable, logical explanation for what I found in Ken’s locker? Any way I work it, the result’s the same.”
“That he’s guilty.”
“I’m a cop, A.J., I can’t overlook the obvious.”
“You could trust what I say. You could trust me.”
Michael tightened his fingers on her wrist and drew her a step closer. “I do trust you. And I respect your feelings for your brother. But those feelings are based on emotion.” He eased her to him, degree by degree, until a mere inch separated their bodies. He felt the heat of her flesh; the soft, fresh scent of her swirled in his brain. “I have to look at the facts.”
“Only when it suits you,” she countered, temper flashing in her eyes. “You have the same facts about me that you have about Ken, yet you’re trusting your instincts where I’m concerned.”
“There’s a lot more stacked up against Ken—the printout in his locker, the cash in the bank, his insistence in putting your aunt in a clinic he couldn’t dream of affording on a cop’s salary.” Michael shook his head. “Ken broke the rules once and got himself demoted—”
“That doesn’t make him a thief. Or a murderer. I’m not saying that because he was my brother. I’m saying it because I know the kind of man he was. Why can’t you trust my instincts about him?”
“It’s not that simple.”
She nodded slowly, her fisted hand coming up to press against his chest, forming a barrier between them. “Nothing about this is simple.”
“That’s where we agree.”
She flicked a look at the conference table, piled high with file folders and computer printouts, then looked back, refusing to meet his eyes. “If you’ll let go of me, I’ll start on McMillan’s report.”
Michael sensed the battle waging through her, the conflict between her love for her brother and her feelings for him—whatever the hell those feelings were. In the next silent span of seconds, her eyes darkened with something indefinable. Just as quickly, he had a name for the emotion: withdrawal. The wall had come back up. The wall meant to keep him out, to keep them apart.
Her wrist stiffened beneath his hand and she increased the pressure of her fist against his chest. “Let go, Lieutenant.”
The coolness in her voice sent frustrated anger surging through Michael’s brain, summoning reaction before thought.
“Like hell,” he muttered.
His hands shot up, cupping her cheeks, lifting her face to give him access to her mouth. He dipped his head, settled his lips on hers and kissed her, a long, hard kiss that shot lightning bolts through every nerve in his body.
For a long moment she didn’t move, barely breathed as his lips devoured hers. Then an almost imperceptible moan sounded in her throat, and her lips parted beneath his. Her body shuddered, then seemed to melt against his in a surrender he knew hadn’t come easy.
He fed on her mouth as if he were a starving man, all the while wondering how it was possible that her flesh felt even softer than he remembered. And how, dammit, how could the taste of her be more potent, more addictive than before? His arms captured her waist, his hands molding over the snug denim that curved her hips. Sweeping her against him, he pressed their bodies center to center and deepened the kiss.
A tiny purr of passion sounded in her throat, sending greed, quick and urgent, spiraling to his groin.
“Michael...” Her hands slid up his arms.
Reason, faint and glimmering, resurfaced from the dark recesses of his brain, pushing away the unthinking insanity that had overtaken him. However much satisfaction it gave him to hear her breathe his name in a hoarse whisper, to feel her curvy body pressed to his, he knew this was wrong.
All wrong.
Even as a fresh swell of need arrowed through him, he checked it. As much as he wanted to devour her, wanted to tumble her to the carpet and claim her, a far greater hunger stirred inside him. He wanted her, not just physically but emotionally. Wanted more than just the fast, molten ride of urgent sex in a room filled with pictures of murdered women. He wanted A.J. Duncan in his bed, her body slicked with passion, the prospect of long, unending hours stretching before them.
And when he took her, there wouldn’t be any residual regret on her part. Wouldn’t be a reason for her to look back and wonder how she could give herself to a man who, only moments before, had refused when she asked him to trust her.
Michael forced his hands to surrender their hold on her waist and slide unsteadily upward to her shoulders. He softened his kiss, then lifted his head and stepped back. “A.J....”
Her eyes flickered open, wide and glittering. Her face was no longer pale but flushed. Her body shuddered beneath his hands as she met his gaze and saw the look in his eyes. His hands tightened, holding her in place when she attempted retreat.
The flush deepened on her skin as her breasts rose and fell in an uneven rhythm. “I don’t know...what happened...”
“I do,” he said softly. “I lost my head, and I’m sorry for that.”
“You’re sorry,” she repeated dully.
“Make no mistake about it, lady, I want you,” Michael continued softly. “I want us to be together. But not here. And not with unresolved issues between us.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “God, nothing’s simple.” Her voice was hoarse, raw.
“Far from it,” he agreed. “All I know is that I couldn’t stand looking into your face and seeing regret. Regret for having be
en with me.”
She met his gaze, her hands clenching, then unclenching against her thighs. “We may never resolve our... differences over Ken.”
Michael’s hands went up, his fingers feathering her cheeks as he lifted her dark hair back over her shoulders. “Your being with me won’t negate your loyalty to your brother. I’m certain of that. And if you ever are, too, I’ll be waiting.”
A.J. fastened the hook on the black dress shimmering with sequins that she’d retrieved from the back of her closet. She twisted her dark hair into a loose chignon, then secured the clasp of her mother’s diamond choker, which lay like a jeweled ribbon around her neck.
Her fingers faltered against her throat, and she slowly raised her eyes to the mirror over the bureau. Two days had passed, yet her flesh still burned with the feel of Michael’s touch. Two days, during which the emotional wall she’d once managed to maintain between them had crumbled and vanished.
Two days, and the need for him simmered in her blood like an incurable fever.
“And what,” she asked her reflection, “are you going to do about it?”
No answer was forthcoming, just as none had been the previous hundred times she’d put the question to herself.
“Damn!” Frustration had her jerking the pins out of her hair. Dark waves tumbled over her shoulders and across her face.
“Damn, damn, damn!”
She took a deep breath, then another. Less than a week ago she’d vowed to put everything else aside while she searched for the truth about Ken. She’d put up a wall to keep Michael out, had been determined to do what she had to do. Yet now, the path that had seemed so logical and essentially uncomplicated had turned torturous.
She had no idea how to resolve her loyalty to Ken with what she felt for Michael.
Shoving her hair out of her eyes, she stared dazedly back at her reflection. She was falling in love with Michael Ryan—she was far past denying that. And the knowledge made a strange disquiet surface inside her. He had taken her at her word, gone out on a limb to keep her off the chiefs suspension list. Yet, he’d refused to trust her feelings about Ken, refused to trust her.
She tightened her jaw. She wasn’t a fool. She knew there was a mountain of evidence that implicated Ken; knew exactly how guilty her brother’s actions looked. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe the accusations, couldn’t stop believing in him.
And that left things at an impasse to which there seemed no resolution, she thought, dragging a brush through her disheveled hair. Or was there? She tossed the brush aside in frustration at another unanswerable question. At this point, the only thing she was certain of was that if Michael hadn’t ended their kiss, hadn’t pulled back when he did, she would have been powerless to stop the inevitable outcome of their passion.
“A quickie on the chief’s conference room floor,” she muttered, wincing at the thought.
And tonight at the Christmas dance, she’d have to face seeing Helene St. John draped over Michael’s arm. A.J.’s thoughts skittered back to that morning when she’d passed him a copy of a follow-up report just as Helene put a hand on his shoulder, gave him a smile that reeked of seduction and asked if he’d be at the dance. He said yes, then gave a vague nod when she suggested he save her a dance. The memory of that exchange had become a splinter beneath A.J.’s skin, annoying and festering.
The ring of the doorbell jerked her chin around. “Damn,” she said softly. Squaring her shoulders, she grabbed her evening bag and headed down the stairs.
“God, I’ve missed you,” Greg Lawson said as he stepped through the door, a blast of frozen air gushing in behind him. He shrugged out of his coat while his gaze did an appreciative sweep across black sequins. “You look gorgeous.”
She smiled. “So do you.” The entry-hall lights put sandy streaks in his blond hair, made the satin lapels of his tuxedo glint like black oil.
He glanced at his watch. “I’m early. How about a drink before we leave?”
She nodded, thinking it would take a barrel of alcohol to unknot her stomach. “Sure.”
Greg draped his coat across the staircase’s oak banister, then trailed her into the study. “I saw the chiefs press conference yesterday. McMillan sure didn’t look happy about having three dead women and no suspects.”
“Believe me, he’s not.” A.J. paused at the credenza, where a carafe and matching glasses sat on a brass tray. “Is Scotch all right?”
“Fine.” Greg walked over, his fingers brushing hers as he accepted the drink she’d poured. “Has the task force come up with any leads?”
“Actually, we got a break,” A.J. answered across her shoulder while she poured a drink for herself. “We found the nightclub where Dianna Westfall hung out.”
“Which one?”
“Encounters.”
Greg emitted a low whistle between his teeth. “Pretty high class of clientele.”
“There’s a good chance one of them killed her,” A.J. said. She leaned a hip against the edge of her aunt’s desk and lifted her glass. The Scotch slid down her throat like liquid gold, pooling warm in her stomach. Maybe it wouldn’t take a barrel of the stuff after all, she thought before continuing. “We did a run of field-interview cards that patrol filled out on all white males stopped over the past six months within a square mile of Encounters.”
“That’s a high-traffic area. Bet you’ve got one hell of a long list.”
“Thousands of names,” A.J. confirmed. “But one bartender gave us a vague description of a man he saw Dianna Westfall talking to the night she died. Using that, we pared the list of men who’ve been FI’ed to less than three hundred who match the description. This afternoon we started running a cross-check of those names with ones from Dianna’s address books. The computer went down about ten minutes into the run.” She sighed. “When I left, the city’s MIS people were still trying to get us back on line.”
Greg sipped his drink, watching her over the rim of his glass. “Wasn’t the Westfall woman’s nephew a suspect?”
A.J. tilted her head. The chief had taken great pains to keep that information under wraps. “Where did you hear that?”
“I don’t remember,” Greg replied as he turned and inspected a shelf of leather-bound volumes. “You know how word gets around the department.”
She set her glass aside, suddenly losing her desire for alcohol. “He’s not a suspect anymore.”
“He’s not anything anymore,” Greg said. “Got shot and had his tongue cut out.”
“You know a lot about him.”
“I talked to the day-shift officers who found Hollis.”
“Hollis? You knew him?”
Greg moved to the fireplace and idly examined the alabaster cat with kohl-lined eyes that stared from the mantel. “I ran across him a couple of times on the street. Hollis was a two-bit piece of scum.”
“Is that what Ken thought?” she asked quietly.
Greg turned, looking at her with cool scrutiny. “Is that what Ken thought about what?”
“About Hollis. Did he think he was a two-bit piece of scum?”
“I don’t know that he ever ran across him. Does it matter?”
A.J. shrugged. “Hollis tried to work a deal by squealing on Snowman.”
“Who?”
“Snowman. Benito Penn’s boss.”
For a fleeting instant, A.J. thought she could hear Greg’s breathing change.
“I know all about Penn. What street cop doesn’t?” he commented easily. “Never heard of Snowman.” His mouth curved into a smile. “We were supposed to have a drink and relax. How’d we wind up talking about lowlife drug scum?”
A.J. lifted a hand and rubbed her temple. “I’m not sure. You mentioned the task force—”
“So I did. Let’s hope you nail your guy soon. Then maybe things can get back to normal.”
A.J. dropped her hand and stroked her index finger along the sheath of a brass letter opener that lay atop the desk blotter. She was far past get
ting back to what Greg perceived as normal. To him, normal was her walking around in shock as the days spooled before her in a ribbon of grief. Normal for Greg was her depending on his strength when she’d been too hurt to be strong.
The sound of his footsteps against the wood floor brought her gaze up. She watched in silence, tracking his progress as he crossed to her.
He reached out, his fingers curving at the side of her throat over the diamond choker. He stared down, his eyes boring into hers. “Let’s forget the dance.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”
“Because I don’t want to share you with all those other cops. Because I want to be with you.” His fingers tightened. “I want us to be together.”
She took a step back, forcing him to drop his hand. “The other night at the hospital you said we needed to talk. You were right.”
He raised his hand again, then let it drop. “Look, I’m sorry I haven’t been around. I’ve been on duty every night since then. I have to work tonight, too. I tried to get someone to trade days off with me so we wouldn’t have to leave the dance early, but everyone had already made plans—”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said quietly. “You don’t have to apologize for having to work. Lord knows that’s all I’ve done lately. The only reason I’m not at the station right now is that the chief sent out a memo reminding all division heads that attendance at the Christmas dance is a good idea—”
“Meaning mandatory.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath. “What I’m saying is, now that we have time, we need to talk about our friendship.”
“Friendship?” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Not relationship but friendship?”
“That’s what I feel for you, Greg. Friendship.” She took a step toward him, softening her voice. “I think you already know that.”