Body of Evidence

by Pickart, Joan Elliott; Davis, Justine; Merritt, Jackie

  “Gardner was on the board of the charity that funded three of these,” Palmer contributed, and Colin knew they had yet another nail in Reicher’s coffin.

  Within an hour of concerted effort, they knew he was right. Everything matched. Phone calls to the shelters and halfway houses verified the last facet of his guess.

  “I think we’ve got it,” Colin said. “Thanks to Darien,” he added. The words were for her, but he was looking at Palmer, who had the grace to look abashed.

  “So Gardner did the shopping, off this list, at these halfway houses and shelters, sent the list to Reicher, who arranged the kidnappings?” Darien asked.

  “Probably helped deliver them to the buyer,” Colin said.

  “And I’m supposed to be sorry he’s dead?” she asked.

  Colin and Palmer gave her a startled look. “Ah,” Colin said. “Under that beautiful exterior beats a justice-craving heart.”

  Darien stared at him, so intently he felt nonplussed.

  “You going to go get him?” Palmer asked.

  Colin shook off the odd sensation Darien’s steady gaze had given him.

  “That we are,” he said.

  Chapter 6

  “This is an outrage!”

  “You’re right about that,” Darien said, her voice cold. “Did you figure you could get away with it because nobody cared about those kids?”

  She’d been stunned when, after discussing interrogation strategy, Colin had told her to go ahead and start the questioning. She’d asked why, and he’d told her she was just angry enough to face Reicher down.

  “I’ll step in when the time’s right,” he said.

  So, quashing the nerves that were making her stomach jump, she had begun.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reicher snapped now. “I’ve taken all the insults I’m going to take. I demand to see my lawyer.”

  “Your request has been noted. You’ll get your call as soon as a line is free.”

  She saw him glance at the phone on the interview room desk. All the buttons were indeed lit or flashing. They’d made sure of that.

  “In the meantime,” she said, “you might want to figure out how you’re going to explain this.”

  She tossed the printout of the list on the table in front of him. He glanced at it, and she had the extreme satisfaction of seeing him pale visibly beneath his carefully maintained tan. His gaze flicked up to her face, and she saw a trace of apprehension in those cold, crocodile eyes.

  “Where did you get that?”

  Not what is it, she noted, satisfaction flowing through her again.

  “Right off your hard drive, unedited and uncut.”

  “How dare you?” he sputtered.

  “Oh, with a warrant, Desmond.” She used his first time intentionally, almost insultingly. “Rest assured, the legal system is already fully engaged.”

  “You can’t prove a thing. My attorneys will make a hash out of your warrant. And then I’ll slap this department with the biggest lawsuit it’s ever seen. Anybody could have put that on my computer.”

  “Interesting. Your staff told us you were paranoid about it, that no one was allowed to touch that computer, or even clean the room it was in unless you were physically present.”

  Reicher muttered something under his breath, and Darien doubted any of that staff would be employed by Reicher much longer. But she also guessed none of them would be particularly upset about that fact.

  “Was it really worth it? You can’t need the money, so was it for kicks? The thrill? Or just the pure joy of putting a few more women in their place?”

  “Someone should put you in yours,” he snapped.

  She lifted a brow at him, and he flushed, as if realizing he’d betrayed something he should have kept hidden.

  “My place,” she said softly, leaning over the table to invade his space, “is to make sure you go to jail, where no one will care how rich you are, for a very, very long time.”

  “That will never happen,” Reicher said. “You’ll never prove I had anything to do with those women disappearing.”

  “Who cares?” Colin asked, speaking for the first time.

  “What?” Reicher said, clearly startled.

  “That’s just our reason to hold you until we gather up the last bit of evidence for the big one.”

  Reicher frowned. “The big one…what?”

  “We know when and how you did it, but what we don’t know is why. Did he want out, maybe, cutting off the flow of easy cash? Did he develop a conscience, threaten to go clean, maybe confess?”

  Reicher looked puzzled, and Darien thought it seemed real. “What are you talking about?” the man asked, in an entirely different tone than he’d used when he’d said similar words before.

  “Nice try, Desmond,” Colin said, using his name familiarly just as Darien had; the man was used to more respect than this, and with his ego, not getting it could only add to his anger, which might make him make a fatal mistake. “If I didn’t have all this evidence, I might even believe you didn’t do it.”

  “Whatever evidence you think you have, my lawyers will tear to pieces. I had nothing to do with those women.”

  “And it won’t matter, when you go on trial for murder,” Colin said flatly.

  “Murder?” Reicher’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute…you think I killed Franklin?”

  He looked so astonished Darien found herself thinking, I almost believe him.

  “Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

  “I think I gave you some possible reasons,” Darien said.

  He gave her an irritated glance, but then looked back at Colin. “I’d be crazy to kill Franklin. He was the goose that laid the golden egg.”

  “That goose, if you recall, wound up as dead as your partner. So did he want out? Did he want to put an end to your little scheme? Is that why you killed him?”

  “I didn’t kill him. This is insane.”

  “Insanity is overrated as a defense,” Darien said, letting her disdain show in her voice, knowing it would needle him, coming from her. “And by the way, your alibi didn’t hold up. Your assistant could only swear you were at your office until ten. Not late enough to save you, Desmond.”

  Reicher looked at her as if he wished he could send her the way of the women he’d already sold into hell.

  “Look, we know you and he were in on this slavery ring,” Colin said. “You’re going to go down for that. Which makes you the most likely suspect for the murder, too, unless you can give us a very good reason to go looking elsewhere.”

  “The very good reason is I’m not a fool, Detective,” Reicher snapped at Colin. “I did not kill Franklin Gardner. And whatever else you think you’ve got, you will never be able to prove I did because it’s not true.”

  “What’s bugging you?” Colin asked, judging by the crease between her brows that Darien wasn’t happy about something. “You did great with him.”

  “Thank you,” she said, with that smile that he’d finally had to admit knocked him for a loop every time. It was so warm, so gentle, so…personal, that it was hard not to read too much into it.

  “You earned it,” he said. “So what’s putting that furrow in your forehead?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Well, something’s bugging me,” he said, and she looked at him quizzically. His mouth quirked wryly at one corner. “After all this, my gut isn’t cooperating.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He let out a compressed breath. “I believe him.”

  Her forehead immediately cleared. “You do?”

  “I know, I know, it’s crazy, but slime that he is, I don’t think he killed Gardner.”

  “Neither do I.”

  He blinked. “You don’t?”

  “I believe him, too.”

  “He had to have known killing Gardner would cause more trouble than it was worth.”

  She nodded. “The only way I could reconcile it w
as if he killed him in an out-of-control rage, and…”

  When she hesitated, he finished it for her. “And Desmond Reicher has never been that far out of control in his entire lifetime.”

  “Exactly. He’s too cold, calculating. He would never act without figuring what it might cost him first.”

  “Same conclusion I came to.” Colin sighed audibly. “I just don’t know where that leaves us.”

  “At square one?” she suggested wearily.

  “Well, not quite,” Colin reminded her gently. “We did just put a forced prostitution ring out of business.”

  “Yes, we did. No way now Reicher could pick a new partner and start again, or try to carry on alone.”

  “And when they trace the other end of the chain, we might just save some of those girls.”

  She brightened at that. “I hadn’t thought of that. Now that would be worth it all and then some.”

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “I do. But now what? And what if we’re wrong about him not killing Gardner?”

  He shrugged. “He’ll still get turned over to the feds for the forced prostitution charges. That will hold him for a long time. More than long enough for us to keep turning over rocks and looking for anybody else that might crawl out.”

  She yawned suddenly, then embarrassedly apologized. “Sorry. Guess it’s catching up with me.”

  “We’ve been pushing pretty hard for days now, and it’s—” he glanced at his watch and was surprised himself “—it’s nearly eight. Let’s knock off, get some dinner and some sleep.”

  “Food? Real food?”

  “Honest. Then we’ll start fresh in the morning.”

  “Early,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  He grinned at her, and got himself that smile again. He could get used to that, he thought. And before he could recoil from the danger of that thought, she was on her feet. She grabbed her coat and, seemingly without embarrassment, his hand, tugging.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t care where, as long as it’s food I didn’t cook on dishes I don’t have to wash.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to ignore the heat that shot through him at even her casual touch.

  This could be a long night, he thought. In more ways than one.

  She shouldn’t have had that second glass of wine, Darien decided too late. She didn’t drink often, didn’t like the feeling of being out of control, but tonight she’d been having trouble winding down and thought it might help. She needed sleep, after too long with too little, but her mind wouldn’t slow down. She knew too many cops went down that road too far to get back, so she was in little danger of following, but still, she could understand how it happened when you felt like this.

  Right now, she felt full of good food and a bit buzzed. And it was not a bad feeling. But then, neither was sitting across the table from Colin Waters. She’d liked his looks before she’d ever spoken to him, but now that she’d spent hours and days on end with him, she liked him as a person as well. She liked the way he handled himself, the way he’d let her deal with Palmer, the way he’d subtly warned the man when things got out of line. She liked that he gave her a chance to prove herself before he passed judgment, and that he didn’t belittle her instincts, even though they weren’t honed with as much experience as he had.

  And most of all, she liked the way she felt when he looked at her with approval in those amber-gold eyes.

  “Thank you,” she said suddenly.

  “For what?” he asked, clearly surprised by the out-of-the-blue gratitude.

  “For not making this harder than it had to be for me. I knew there was going to be a certain amount of resentment to deal with. I’m grateful to you for not being part of that.”

  “Even if I had been,” he said, “I’d be over it by now. You do your job, you give it full effort, and you know when to back off and learn. That’s all I ask from a new partner.”

  This reminded her of something she’d been wanting to know. “Your former partner retired?”

  He nodded. “Sam had thirty years on. He taught me most of what I know.” He grinned. “Sometimes, he just let me learn the hard way. He called it tough love.”

  “Sounds like quite a character.”

  “He was one of the best. Before he left, I tried to thank him for all he’d done. He said the best thanks I could give him would be to pass it on. That way he’d feel he didn’t do those thirty years just for a paycheck.”

  “I’ll have to look him up and thank him some day.”

  “He’d appreciate that.”

  A few minutes passed as the check came, Colin insisted on paying, saying she could pick up next time. The idea that there would be a next time, and conceivably a next and a next, both thrilled and frightened her. She could so easily get into trouble with this man, and trouble was just what she didn’t need now, on a new job that was already hazardous enough, in too many ways to count.

  And then he looked up, caught her staring at him, no doubt with everything she was thinking showing plainly on her face.

  “This way lies trouble,” he said softly. “For both of us.”

  She didn’t, couldn’t, pretend to misunderstand. “I know.”

  “Are we going anyway?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “I hate being a cliché.”

  She knew he meant the cliché of cop partners falling for each other. She’d had the same thought herself more than once since they’d started working together.

  “So do I.”

  Later, when they were outside walking to the car, Darien still wasn’t sure of anything except that this was asking for trouble. Yet when he entrapped her with his arms against the car, even though she could easily have escaped, she didn’t make a move.

  “Maybe,” he said, his voice low and husky, “we should dip a toe in the water and see just how hot it is.”

  “I suppose,” she said rather breathlessly, “we should find out what we’re resisting. Maybe it won’t be so hard after all.”

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  Darien knew in the first three seconds that fighting this was going to be next to, if not beyond, impossible. His mouth was rich with the taste of wine and the chocolate they’d had for dessert, and with something indefinable that was pure Colin. Her nerves came to life with startling speed, as if they’d been waiting for this moment, this man. Anything she’d known before paled next to this.

  She heard him make a sound, deep in his throat. He seemed to hesitate, and she thought he was going to pull back. Her response was immediate, without thought; she flicked her tongue over his lips in an effort to keep him there.

  It worked. The sound he was making became a groan, and his arms came around her, pulling her hard to him. He probed her mouth with his tongue, taking the hint she’d offered. Fire leapt through her, and all thought of danger, all the reasons they shouldn’t do this, were seared to ash.

  By the time he finally did pull back, Darien was shaking. And it didn’t comfort her much to realize he was breathing fast and hard as he stared down at her, his eyes as hot as the flames that had scorched her.

  “That answers that,” he said roughly.

  “It certainly does,” she whispered.

  They were both in trouble now. For a long, tense moment they simply looked at each other, and somehow Darien knew he was thinking the same thing she was: what had they unleashed?

  When his cell phone rang, he didn’t even react until the second ring. Then, with an effort that was obvious, he pulled it out and pushed the talk button.

  “Waters.” He listened for what seemed like a long time. Then, finally, he said, “No, I’m not surprised. We’d already reached that conclusion. But now we have proof. Thanks.”

  He informed the caller that they would start anew tomorrow, and then hung up.

  “That was the sergeant from the facility whe
re Reicher’s being held,” he said. “Benton called him. Sutter’s determined our killer had to be left-handed.”

  Her brows shot up. “And Reicher is right-handed.”

  He nodded. “So we’ve got the satisfaction of knowing we were right. And the job of starting all over to find our killer.”

  “Joy,” she muttered.

  “And,” he added softly, “the extra job of figuring out what to do about this personal fire we’ve started.”

  “That, too.”

  Chapter 7

  “When in doubt, start with the family,” Darien said. “Isn’t that what they always say?”

  Colin nodded. “That’s what the statistics say.”

  “Well, all I can say is the matriarch should be the last one we talk to, or we’ll be dead in the water before we start.”

  “I had that same feeling,” he said, stifling a yawn that reminded him too clearly of a restless night spent remembering that heated kiss they’d shared. “I’m thinking we hit the son again first, since he’s the one dodging us.”

  …they may have fought about the money he was going to inherit, but Stephen had nothing to do with this!

  Lyle’s vehement defense of his nephew had been echoing in his head, and he wondered if perhaps the man had reason to think the young man needed it.

  A single phone call not only set the course of their day, but gave them a piece of information that made them both react with interest; Stephen Gardner had dropped out of school.

  This trip to the Gardner estate was considerably different than the last one. For one, they were now looking for a suspect in the family circle. Secondly, they had the memory of that kiss between them.

  And this time, there would be no insulating her grandson from reality for Cecelia Gardner.

  “Get any sleep last night?” Colin asked.

  “Not much,” she admitted.

  “Me either. What are we going to do about it?”

  “Get over it?” she suggested, but without much conviction.

  “I wish,” he said dryly. He wasn’t particularly stung by her words, mainly because they were uttered with such acknowledgment of the impossibility of what she’d said.