Bulletproof Hearts

by Brenda Harlen

  “I just want some answers.”

  She met his gaze evenly. She wouldn’t cower. She wouldn’t let him know how much his accusations had hurt her. “I don’t answer to you, Lieutenant.”

  “If you’re hiding something, I’ll find out what it is.”

  “Go to hell.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up in a half smile. “I’m already there.”

  Two days later, Dylan still believed his actions were justified. He’d had legitimate reasons for asking Natalie the questions he’d asked. Maybe he shouldn’t have barged into her home with the sole purpose of leveling accusations at her, but he’d needed answers and he hadn’t been willing to wait.

  Over the weekend, he’d spent a lot of time thinking about her, too much time. So he’d forced himself to look past his personal feelings and examine the situation critically. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that she was hiding something. He didn’t believe for two minutes that her reasons for coming to Fairweather were as simple or straightforward as she wanted everyone to believe.

  His self-righteous anger dissipated when he reviewed the contents of the package she couriered to his office Tuesday morning. Inside the envelope was a brief handwritten message:

  A former colleague at Legal Aid faxed the enclosed documents to me. My original notes remain subject to solicitor-client privilege, but these court records might clear up any misunderstanding.

  It’s possible you were thinking of Charles Ferrini (a fifty-three-year-old man who was never a client of mine, and who is currently serving time for murder) rather than Chuck Ferlini (a seventeen year old whom I represented on a possession charge, and who is presently in rehab to deal with a drug habit).

  She hadn’t bothered to sign the note.

  He frowned, skimmed through the pages she’d sent, embarrassed to realize she was right. It was a mistake anyone could have made, or so he tried to convince himself. But the truth of the matter was he’d seen the name “Ferrini”—“Ferlini,” he amended—and he’d been only too eager to jump to conclusions.

  He wanted to think the worst of Natalie, because he needed to stop thinking about Natalie. He needed to find something, anything, to vitiate the feelings she’d stirred inside him. Feelings that had taken precedence over everything else since they’d made love.

  He pushed the papers aside and scrubbed his hands over his face. He still had questions about her move to Fairweather, about the amount of money in her personal bank account, but he’d had no right to demand answers. And he owed her an apology.

  The carpet silenced his footsteps as he moved down the hall toward her office. She was seated behind her desk, her head tilted forward, her hair curtaining her face. As if sensing his presence, Natalie glanced up.

  “I wanted to apologize,” he told her.

  She considered his statement for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay.”

  “I am sorry. I had no right to jump to the conclusions I did, to come down on you the way I did.”

  “I’m sure you had your reasons.”

  “Don’t you want me to grovel at least a little?”

  He’d hoped for a smile—a sign that he was forgiven. But her eyes remained clouded with wariness and distrust. She wouldn’t forgive him so easily, and he couldn’t blame her.

  “What would that accomplish?” she asked.

  “It might make me feel better. I know I was out of line.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yeah.” Unfortunately, he’d realized his mistake too late. All he could hope for now was that Natalie would prove more open-minded than he had been.

  “Then you no longer believe I’m on Conroy’s payroll?”

  “I never really believed it.”

  Her silence effectively communicated her skepticism.

  “I didn’t,” he said again. “I wanted to believe it, but—”

  “Why would you want to believe something like that?”

  He dropped his gaze. He’d been prepared to grovel; he wasn’t sure he was ready to put his feelings on the line. But she was waiting for an explanation. She deserved an explanation.

  “I’ve never had any trouble keeping my personal life separate from my job before. I don’t cross that line. Ever.” He wanted to reach for her, to touch her. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “We crossed that line.”

  “I’d say we learned our lesson.”

  “Did we?” He smiled wryly. “I still can’t stop thinking about you, thinking about what happened between us, how incredible it was to be with you.”

  There wasn’t so much as a flicker in her eyes. “I’d say that’s your problem, not mine.”

  Ouch. “Didn’t it mean anything to you?”

  “At the time—it meant a lot. Now, I just want to forget the whole weekend ever happened.”

  “Can you?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  He hated to think that she could so easily put their love-making out of her mind when he could hardly think about anything else. “I don’t want to forget it. What we shared that night was amazing.”

  She shook her head. “Even if I wanted a relationship—which I don’t—how could we possibly build one without trust?”

  “I said I was sorry. I was angry and—”

  “And you were right.”

  Her words stunned him into momentary silence. “What?”

  “You have no reason to trust me,” she said. “You don’t know me any more than I know you. It’s just one more reason that what happened between us was a mistake.”

  “I don’t regret making love with you, Natalie.”

  “But you feel guilty about it,” she guessed.

  He didn’t know how to respond.

  “Do you think I didn’t realize that as soon as you showed up at my door Saturday afternoon, blaming me for something that neither of us could have foreseen much less prevented?” She finally smiled, but it was filled with sadness. “I shouldn’t have expected you to open up to me when you’re still involved with someone else.”

  He frowned. “What happened between us never would have happened if there had been another woman in my life.”

  “I’m talking about your wife,” she said gently.

  His scowl deepened. “My wife is dead.”

  “But you still miss her, you still mourn for her, and you have only one goal in life—to put her killer behind bars.”

  “I want justice,” he agreed. “I don’t see that there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “There’s not. And there’s no room for anyone else until you finally close the door on that part of your life.”

  It annoyed him that she thought she had him all figured out. It annoyed him even more that she was right. Over the past four years, he’d thought of little else but putting Conroy behind bars—until Natalie had come into his life. She’d changed things for him; she’d made him want more. But she couldn’t see that he was ready for more.

  “Beth was killed four years ago,” he reminded her. “You’re not the first woman I’ve slept with since then.”

  “I didn’t think I was.”

  “Then why would I feel guilty?”

  “Because you always feel guilty. Every time you give in and let yourself feel alive, you feel guilty because she isn’t.”

  “I’ve done the requisite sessions with the department shrink,” he said bitterly.

  “Then I’m not saying anything you haven’t heard before.”

  “Spare me the psychobabble, Natalie. What happened between you and me had absolutely nothing to do with anything else.”

  “Maybe not. But your unresolved feelings about your wife’s death are just one more reason we should never have crossed that line.”

  “What are the other reasons?”

  She just shook her head. “There are so many, I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Let’s start with a date,” he suggested.

  “Excuse me?”

  He’d surprised
her, which he took as a good sign. The only hope he had of breaching the barriers she’d firmly resurrected around her heart was by keeping her off guard. “I thought we should go out. Dinner and a movie, that sort of thing.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be the type to hold a grudge.”

  She sighed. “I’m trying not to. But I’m not going to pretend that the things you said Sunday night didn’t hurt, because they did. Because I thought we were becoming friends.”

  “Friendship isn’t what I want from you.”

  “What do you want, Lieutenant? Another tumble between the sheets?”

  If he’d thought it was a legitimate offer, he certainly wouldn’t turn it down. But they’d rushed down that path once already. This time, he was determined to take it slow, to show her how much she mattered to him.

  “For starters, I want you to stop calling me ‘Lieutenant.’”

  “Our professional association is all we have left.”

  “We were lovers once—we’ll be lovers again.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want a personal relationship with you. I don’t believe you want one with me. You just think I’ll spill all the deep dark secrets you’re convinced I have if we’re in bed together.”

  “I know you have secrets, Natalie. We all do. My mistake was in thinking that what you wouldn’t tell me could be more important than what we’d already shared.”

  She still looked skeptical.

  “Just keep an open mind,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “Us.”

  Natalie didn’t believe for two minutes that Dylan was serious about wanting a relationship with her. He didn’t want her—he wanted information from her.

  Well, he was a detective. If it was his mission in life to find the answers, he could do so on his own. Her only mission was to forget about Dylan Creighton.

  Except that when Friday morning came, she found herself heading across the parking lot to the police station. She followed the directions of the desk sergeant and found Dylan in his office. The door was wide open, so she walked in.

  When he looked up and saw her, the smile he gave her nearly made her knees buckle. Damn those dimples, anyway.

  “Randolph Hawkins wants a deal for Ellis Todd,” she said without preamble. “Man One.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “That’s what I said. When I talked to Beckett about it, he gave me complete authority to handle the case.”

  “He’d let you offer that kind of deal?”

  “I’m not going to,” she told him. “We have the evidence to convict on murder, so long as all my witnesses cooperate.”

  “You’re afraid of more intimidation tactics,” he guessed.

  She nodded. “Cochrane’s statement is vague, Garbutt’s credibility is questionable, Jennings is still shaky.”

  “You did a good job with Jennings at the prelim.”

  “But will he fall apart under cross-examination when we get to trial?”

  “If he’s come this far, he’ll hold up,” Dylan said. “As long as he gets the chance.”

  Natalie hated to even consider the implications of his statement. She’d convinced Victor Jennings to take the stand. She wasn’t sure she could live with the guilt if anything happened to him because of his testimony. “Do you really think Conroy will try to take him out?”

  “It would be immediate grounds for a mistrial.”

  “It would,” she agreed. “But I’m not sure he wants a mistrial. I’m not even sure he wants Todd acquitted.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think Ellis Todd is being set up.”

  He groaned. “Not you, too.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Whose side are you supposed to be on?”

  “I know you’d like everything to be black and white, but I’m not sure it is.”

  “We’ve got everything except an eyewitness who saw Todd pull the trigger.”

  “And doesn’t that strike you as the least little bit odd?”

  “No. Most killers prefer to work in private.”

  She didn’t appreciate his humor, or his refusal to look beyond the obvious. “Sandra Todd came to see me this morning. She told me that she was with Ellis the morning he is alleged to have put a rat in Victor Jennings’s newspaper.”

  “Of course she’s going to say that—she’s his wife.”

  “They’ve been separated for three years.”

  Dylan shrugged. “She still has an interest in keeping her husband out of prison. If she really was with him, why didn’t she come forward as soon as he was charged?”

  “She was out of town when he was arrested. She came to see me as soon as she heard about the charges.”

  “Why didn’t Todd tell us he had an alibi?”

  “Because he doesn’t want his wife dragged into the middle of this. He didn’t want her to come forward now.”

  “So she says,” he scoffed.

  She sighed. “Think about it, Dylan. No less than four witnesses placed the white Cadillac in Jennings’s neighborhood between five-forty and six-ten that morning. Does that sound to you like a man who’s trying to cover his tracks?”

  He remained silent.

  “And there were no fingerprints in the vehicle. A vehicle which, if really his, should have his fingerprints all over it.”

  “We found several of his hairs on the front seat.”

  “Which could easily have been planted.”

  “I appreciate your interest and your enthusiasm,” he told her. “But why don’t you concentrate on prosecuting Mr. Todd and leave the investigation to the investigators?”

  She was annoyed but not deterred. “Have you even considered the possibility that someone other than Ellis Todd might have killed Roger Merrick?”

  “There’s no evidence suggesting that it was anyone other than Ellis Todd.”

  “Do you know what your problem is, Lieutenant? You’re so focused on Ellis Todd as a means of getting at Zane Conroy, you can’t see beyond the obvious.”

  “I’ve been a cop for fifteen years,” he reminded her. “And in my experience, the obvious answer is usually the right one.”

  “Usually.” She picked at his words as any good lawyer would. “But there are exceptions.”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t one of them.”

  “If you’re so convinced Ellis Todd pumped four .45-caliber bullets into Roger Merrick’s body, tell me why. Give me a motive that I can put to a jury.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Okay,” she said, “consider this. Ellis Todd went to work for Zane Conroy three years ago. Shortly after that, Sandra took their son and walked out.”

  “And your conclusion, Sherlock?”

  She chose to ignore his sarcasm. “She left her husband because she didn’t want him working for Zane Conroy. She and Zane are cousins, their fathers were brothers. She probably knows more than she wants to about his questionable business dealings, and she didn’t want Ellis to get involved.”

  “That might make sense,” he allowed. “Except for one thing. Why would Ellis Todd leave what was, by all accounts, a very lucrative and promising career at Denby & Witter to work for Conroy if it wasn’t what his wife wanted?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I thought you could find the answer to that question.”

  “Even if I could, I don’t see that it has any relevance to the situation at hand.”

  “Maybe it doesn’t. But I know there’s more going on with Merrick’s murder than the evidence has revealed.”

  “I can’t dig for evidence to support your theory that Todd was framed just because you’d like it to play out that way.”

  “I’m only asking you to look beyond the obvious. To consider who would want to frame Ellis and why. If I’m right,” Natalie continued, “there aren’t many men who have the resou
rces and the clout to pull off such an elaborate drama. Zane Conroy would be one of them.”

  “What possible reason could Conroy have for setting up his own accountant?”

  “What possible reason could Ellis Todd have for killing Roger Merrick?”

  Dylan shook his head, a reluctant smile curving his lips. “You’re a damn good lawyer, Natalie.”

  She flushed with unexpected pleasure at the compliment. “Why is that—because I boxed you into a corner with your own logic about the irrelevance of motive?”

  “Yeah,” he admitted. “And because your theory is just bizarre enough to merit further consideration.”

  “Then you’ll look into the possibility?”

  “Unofficially,” he agreed.

  “Start back three years,” she suggested. “I’d bet something happened then to set this whole chain of events in motion.”

  He gave her that narrow-eyed look again.

  She sighed. “I know—leave the investigating to the investigators.”

  After Natalie left his office, Dylan was torn between amusement and exasperation. He wanted to believe her theory was completely erroneous, but he couldn’t deny she’d asked some pretty tough questions. And the fact that Joel Logan had expressed some of the same concerns added weight to the possibility.

  He still believed Todd had killed Roger Merrick, but he wasn’t opposed to digging a little deeper. If Conroy had set up his accountant, he could still nail Conroy, albeit by a different route.

  He continued to think about the possibilities while he sat behind his desk Saturday morning. He also thought about Natalie. In the end, he decided he should talk to her about the information he’d found.

  He pulled up in her driveway behind a red Mustang convertible with Illinois plates. Illinois—Jack.

  He hesitated. He didn’t have any right to intrude on Natalie’s weekend, and he had nothing to tell her that couldn’t wait until Monday, but curiosity got the better of him. He parked the car and got out.

  He started up the sidewalk, paused when he heard voices, laughter from the backyard. He pivoted and headed in that direction.

  Natalie was sitting on a lounge chair, her long legs stretched out in front of her. Her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses, her lips were curved. She turned her head slightly, to speak to the woman sitting in the chair beside her.