Her eyes narrowed at the detachment in his voice, and something familiar niggled at her. But the familiarity wasn’t his voice; he’d never sounded so flat before. He obviously wasn’t happy to see her… but then he wasn’t irritated either. He was just… neutral.
“I arrived last night.” Although it had been more like yesterday afternoon. She reached for her sunglasses, only to reconsider taking them off. Their absence would leave her too exposed. She lowered her hand. “You?”
“Me?” His eyebrows climbed.
“When did you return to town?” she elaborated.
“After college.” He stopped talking, apparently a fan of brevity.
“You didn’t make it to the NFL?” The question was half curiosity and half a conversational potshot.
“Didn’t try.”
Again no inflection in his tone, no emotion on his face. He had the robotic delivery down pat. That sense of familiarity swelled. She pushed it aside and concentrated on the important thing. He lived in town, which would work in her favor. If news of this new body had been released, he’d have heard about it.
Since it felt awkward to launch into an immediate interrogation after so many years apart and so much history between them, she eased into small talk first. Besides, she was wildly curious about what he’d been up to since she’d left town.
“How are your parents?”
“Divorced.” He cocked his head and waited, watching her steadily.
Okay… he certainly wasn’t one for small talk. Determinedly she tried again. “What are you doing for a living these days?”
Football had been the only career on his mind back then. He’d never had a backup plan, something his parents had hounded him about constantly.
There was a slight pause, and his forehead wrinkled beneath a frown. “I work for the city.”
Okay, that made sense. His dad had been a supervisor in Dark Falls’ maintenance department. He must have gotten Rhys on the payroll, which would have pleased his parents immensely. They hadn’t been exactly supportive of his NFL plans and lack of career interests.
If he worked for the city, then he’d probably heard about the new body. City maintenance must be tied into Dark Falls’ rumor net. She removed her sunglasses so she could assess his expression more clearly and leaned across the table.
“How up to date are you with what’s happening in Dark Falls these days?” Ariel asked, lowering her voice. Something flashed across his face, but it was gone so fast she couldn’t identify it.
He cocked his head, his gaze narrowing. “Why?”
He had to know what she was fishing for, right? Unless… unless he hadn’t heard about the new murder victim.
If the cops had locked the discovery down, rumors might not even be circulating. She needed to do some digging. But… hell… he worked for the city… so it would be easier for him to do the investigating. He must have contacts who’d have the information she was looking for.
They were on the same team, whether he realized it or not. He’d want his sister’s killer brought to justice as much as she wanted to clear her father name.
“I got a tip the other night,” she whispered, dropping her voice even further. “A body was found in the Colorado State Forest, just inside Dark Falls’ city limits. Smack dab in the X Factor Killer’s dumping ground.”
His face froze, but his eyes sharpened until the blue was laser bright. “Body? Who told you that?”
She frowned, studying him intently. His response was off. Why wasn’t he asking more questions? Nor did he seem surprised by the news, or curious. He seemed… She wasn’t even sure.
“I told you… it was a tip… an anonymous one.” The door chime sounded as she pulled back in her chair, unease rising.
He glanced toward the coffee shop entrance, and frustration flashed across his face. It was the first hint of emotion he’d revealed so far. Thoughtfully she followed his gaze. The man who entered the café was middle-aged with thinning gray hair and old-fashioned black plastic glasses. Anxiety seemed to thrive within the sallow complexion of his face. Hardly the kind of person to inspire tension.
The guy stepped to the side of the door, out of the way of incoming and outgoing traffic, and stopped to survey the room. When he saw Rhys, a smile stretched his thin lips. He scurried over to Rhys with curved shoulders and nerves flickering in his brown eyes.
Ariel could swear Rhys swore beneath his breath, and yep—that was pure frustration flashing in the brilliant blue eyes.
“Detective Evans,” black glasses said. “I wanted to thank you again for your help with Michael. Whatever you said really straightened the boy out. He’s…”
It took a second for the guy’s words to hit home. But when they finally registered, they hit hard, like a draft horse had kicked her squarely in the chest. Her entire torso went numb.
Detective?
A sinking, holy-fuck-I’m-so-screwed sensation heated her face.
“Detective?” Ariel repeated.
Please… please… let him be a PI. They’re detectives too.
Except she was a billion percent certain that wasn’t the kind of detective black glasses had meant.
Shit.
The locked-down, robotic delivery of his made sense now. Flat. Watchful. Careful—the cop affect. He had all the markers. The only reason she hadn’t put it together earlier was because cop was the last thing on her mind when she thought of Rhys Evans. Athlete? Absolutely. Too damn sexy for his own good? Unquestionably. Police? Never.
Damn it.
“Tell me, Detective Evans, just which department in Dark Falls do you work for?” Ariel snapped.
From the way he rocked back on the heels of his boots and lifted his sandy eyebrows, the question must have sounded hostile.
Damn it… there went any chance of spying on the inhabitants of Dark Falls without anyone being the wiser.
Chapter Five
Fuck.
Rhys scrubbed a hand down his face. There went the easy flow of information. Hell, he’d barely had to ask questions, she’d been so eager to spill the details. But Eugene’s comment had shoved a plug in her spout of information, and judging from the shocked, betrayed expression on her face, she wouldn’t be offering up any more secrets… at least not willingly.
“Good to hear Michael took the intervention to heart,” Rhys muttered, without taking his eyes off Ariel’s face.
She looked the same—at least what he could see of her. Same slender build, same dark hair and expressive eyes, same heart-shaped face. Even dwarfed by the sunglasses and ball cap, he’d recognized her immediately.
He’d reacted to her instantly too. The surge in his blood and tightening of his gut had startled him initially, until he’d realized who she was.
He’d always reacted like a rocket reeving up for launch when it came to Ariel. Some things, apparently, hadn’t changed.
The shocked, betrayed expression had vanished from her face, giving rise to suspicion and wariness.
A wave of exhaustion rolled over him. After thirty-six hours on the job, he’d headed home to hit the sack for a couple of hours. The time off hadn’t quite jumpstarted his brain. Hence the espresso and its chemical-induced mental lift.
He turned to Eugene. “Could you excuse us? The lady and I have catching up to do.”
Eugene glanced between him and the table.
“Of course,” Eugene stammered, his gaze lingering on the dark hair poking out beneath Ariel’s black baseball cap.
Rhys frowned slightly, watching Eugene’s eyebrows bunched as though something had jogged his memory even though Ariel shouldn’t be familiar to him. Eugene and his family had arrived in town long after she’d left it.
Eugene took a shuffling step back. “Well… I’ll let you go then.”
Rhys waited until the retreating footsteps were interrupted by the door chime and disappeared completely before pulling out a chair and taking a seat at the table.
“Regarding that phone cal
l you mentioned—who called and what did they say?”
Her face shuttered. “What phone call? I don’t remember a phone call. You misunderstood.”
Sure he had.
Cocking his head, Rhys studied her obstinate face. She was going to be difficult. Hardly a surprise. Stubborn had been her middle name in high school and college. Back then he’d known how to work around her inflexibility. His tactics of lips, tongue, and fingers had generally ended with her beneath him and them both out of breath. His lips twitched… Yeah… he couldn’t exactly employ those strategies now. Although the increase to his pulse and swelling in his crotch suggested he wasn’t averse to giving his old methods the good ol’ college try.
“This is serious, Ariel.” Rhys leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table.
Whoever had called her had known too many details about this new murder, which meant the informant was either connected to the crime scene… or… the killer himself. Assuming, of course, that someone had actually contacted her. Hell, maybe she was making the informant up in order to explain how she knew things she shouldn’t know.
Which would mean what, exactly? That she’d killed that girl herself?
Rhys frowned, instantly rejecting the possibility. Every instinct he possessed insisted she wasn’t a killer. The most likely scenario was that the murderer had contacted her. Which raised all kinds of questions. Why reach out to her? Why bring her back to town? What was the bastard’s agenda?
The possibilities that flooded his mind went from grim to grimmer.
Ariel’s brown eyes narrowed, and the rise of her dark eyebrows carried pure mockery.
“Hypothetically, if I did receive a phone call, it would only be serious if a new body with the X Factor’s signature had actually been found in Dark Falls…” Her brows climbed even higher. “Care to comment on that?”
Rhys lifted his elbows and pulled back from the table. “If—hypothetically—your information was accurate, then these questions of yours could be considered impeding a police investigation.”
If her eyebrows rose any higher, they’d disappear beneath her baseball cap. The brown eyes locked on his face shimmered with determination and frustrated anger.
“If you’re investigating a murder with the markers of the X Factor Killer, then you owe it to the public to disclose the information. You have no right to sit on that news. It leaves the women of Dark Falls and surrounding areas vulnerable.”
Rhys scowled. She was right, dammit. The Major Case detectives, along with Captain Scanlon and Chief Forsyth, had discussed that salient fact thoroughly, before deciding to give the unit forty-eight hours to hunt down every possible lead. After that, they’d take the case to the press and alert the public. If there was a new killer out there, it was unlikely he’d be on the hunt for another victim so soon. He’d be basking in the endorphins from his first kill. It would take a while for the glow to fade and the urge to kill to rise again.
Fuck, even with the carved forehead and the double ligature signature, they had no indication another serial killer was hunting within Dark Falls. The victim had likely been the result of an argument, the product of passion and rage. The bastard responsible had probably latched onto the X Factor signature and dumping ground in the hopes of throwing off the ensuing investigation.
The whole damn crime scene had probably been staged, an attempt to distract and divert.
Which made sense until you factored in the call to Ariel.
Frowning, Rhys rubbed his forehead. If the murder had been personal, a onetime occurrence, why would the killer deliberately bring Ariel to town? Another distraction?
If Ariel checked into this new murder and sought to prove the X Factor Killer was at work again, she could significantly impede their current case. Not to mention that such a public spectacle would mess with the jury’s perspective of probable cause once the killer was caught and the case made it to trial.
Hell, her efforts to exonerate her father could fuck up both the current investigation and the eventual trial.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Ariel drawled, her eyes more wary than ever. “Let me guess. You’re working on some trumped-up charges to get me out of the way.”
Rhys grunted and shook his head. “You watch too much television.”
Although she wasn’t far off the mark. He needed to keep her quiet for the next few hours, long enough for Scanlon to finish her press conference. The last thing Major Crimes needed was Ariel breaking the news of this fresh body and spinning the discovery off in directions the precinct couldn’t afford, like a new serial killer or the return of a past one.
Hell, talk about freaking out the entire town.
He doubted she’d come to the station willingly, and cuffing her and dragging her next door would drum up more attention than they could afford. His best bet was bribery. Ariel had always been vulnerable to bribes. Hell… everything had been a negotiation with her.
“Look,” he said quietly, leaning across the table again. “You want answers? So do I. So how about we help each other out here. Quid pro quo. For every question you ask and I answer, I ask you a question of my own.”
“Will I have to answer your questions?” she asked with a smirk, but her gaze had narrowed, and a wrinkle creased the skin between her eyes. She was thinking the proposition over. “Fine. But I get to go first.”
With a shrug, Rhys inclined his head before glancing around the coffee shop. “Not here. At the station.”
For a moment it looked like she was going to balk, but then those expressive eyes narrowed, her forehead wrinkled, and after a quick lift and fall of her slender shoulders, she nodded. “Fine. But I get the first two questions.”
Hell, why not. It would get her off the streets for the next couple of hours, and he’d get his questions answered. Agenda achieved. Maybe they’d even luck out and zero in on who’d called her. She’d claimed the caller had been anonymous, but she could be stonewalling. While they’d pull her phone records and triangulate the call between towers, if the phone had been a burner, they’d only get the general location the call had been made—not the person who’d made it.
Ariel rose to her feet without prompting, and he escorted her to the door. The chime sounded as he pulled it open and held it wide. Her elbow grazed his chest as she brushed past him, and a blast of heat swept over him. He froze, before following her outside.
Fuck. From the swelling in his crotch, you’d think she’d caressed his bare flesh. Which was fucking ridiculous. There’d been no bare skin involved. Just her coat-covered elbow, brushing his shirt-covered chest. Hardly titillating.
Not that his cock, the bastard, appeared to care.
Hell…
He’d managed to convince himself through the years that the explosive attraction he’d felt for her had been embellished in his mind—memories padded by time and nostalgia. Or… that his hunger had been a result of youth and inexperience.
Except his current thirty-five years hardly qualified as youthful, and his reaction to her was stronger than ever.
Just fucking wonderful. One more thing for him to hide from his buddies on the job.
Chapter Six
Maybe she’d been a fool to accept Rhys’s offer to exchange information, but she didn’t think so. Getting the facts surrounding this recent murder directly from one of the detectives involved in the case would benefit her far more than hiding details of the phone call. Besides, she wasn’t giving anything up in return. He already knew someone had called her. She could hardly reel that information back now or ask Rhys to kindly ignore that she’d mentioned it. All he’d have to do was pull her phone records to know almost as much about the call as she did. Well—except for what the guy had actually said.
She tried to ignore Rhys’s tall, lean, and annoyingly sexy body as they headed toward the police station. He took the outside edge of the sidewalk, positioning himself to her left, between her and the street. It was a trait she remembered from when they’d been togeth
er, back when they’d been kids.
He’d always put himself between her and possible danger.
They walked the half a block in silence, the swishing of tires and the occasional blaring horn accompanying them. When they reached their destination, he held the door for her and followed her inside. The low buzz of voices swept over her as they entered the lobby.
The precinct smelled exactly as she remembered it—burnt coffee and old cigarette smoke, with the overwhelming stench of Lysol or bleach lurking in the background. She gagged and stumbled to a stop, nightmarish memories scratching at the edges of her mind.
Rhys halted beside her, a frown wrinkling his forehead. He took hold of her elbow to steady her. “You okay?”
She concentrated on the warm band of his fingers. Slowly the urgent slam of her heart eased back into a respectable rhythm. Her lungs loosened their death grip on her breath. The unwelcome memories slipped away, taking with them the remnants of fear and frustration and rage.
She shot him a tight smile. “Just peachy. Let’s get this over with.”
He fell in step beside her as she started walking again.
Glancing down, he raised his eyebrows. “Stairs or elevator?”
“Stairs.” Anything to avoid the upcoming confrontation a bit longer. “Are the homicide detectives still on the third floor?”
“Yeah, it’s the major crimes unit now.”
She snorted. “Catchy title.”
Half the police departments she interviewed had a major crimes unit. Plain old homicide was apparently passé these days.
By the time they’d climbed the three flights of stairs and reached the major crimes unit, Ariel was out of breath. She couldn’t blame her condition on lack of exercise though. Not when she worked the stair stepper at the gym for twenty minutes each day. No, her current breathlessness had nothing to do with her physical condition and everything to do with her emotional one.
Dark Legacy: (Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 3) Page 4