Dangerous Desires

by Dawn Altieri

  Jake glanced around the room again, noting the pristine condition of the burgundy and gold bedding. “Doesn’t look like they ever made it up here. Anybody check out the bar downstairs?”

  A look of realization sparked in Al’s eyes. “Right. If they were having an affair and they never came up to the room together, they probably met in the bar.” If you gave Marino something to look for, he would search for it like a hound, but he needed a scent to follow first.

  “Looks like I’m heading to the bar,” Jake said.

  He returned to the ground level of the hotel, where he entered the similarly-decorated lounge and approached the bartender with his badge in his hand. “Detective Quinn, NYPD,” he announced to the gray-haired man loading clean glasses onto a shelf under the bar. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure,” the bartender replied. “I’ve got a little free time on my hands. They told me I have to close up for the night, but I’m not allowed to leave. What’s going on?”

  Jake read the plastic tag pinned to the man’s shirt. “Robert, is it?”

  “Bob.”

  Jake tipped his head toward the decorative plaster ceiling above the bar. “Bob, any security cameras in here?”

  Bob laughed. “Nah, not in here. This place is old as dirt. We’re lucky we got running water.

  Jake nodded. The lobby would have something. He’d find the manager later.

  “Can you tell me anything about a young woman who was in here earlier this evening? Mid-twenties, long brown hair, wearing a light-blue top and a black skirt.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Bob answered. “She met a guy here. They left together a couple of hours ago. Something happen?”

  “What can you tell me about the guy? What he looked like, his age, anything that stood out about him.”

  “Let’s see… About your size, maybe a little shorter, probably the same age as her. Had on a T-shirt and jeans and a Yankees cap.”

  Of course he did.

  “She got here about half an hour before he did, said it was a blind date. She told me she found him on one of those internet sites—asked me to keep an eye out for her, but I thought she was kidding. I’ve seen him in here a few times. I didn’t get a chance to tell her that once he got here.”

  Jake’s interest piqued. This could be something. “What do you remember about the other times he was here?”

  Bob thought for a moment. “He’s met other women here. They all looked an awful lot like the girl he was with tonight. Long brown hair, pretty.”

  “Did she give you her name?”

  “No, but, let me look.” He turned toward the register and started thumbing through a stack of receipts. “Yeah, here it is. She charged the bill to her room—two scotches and a margarita. Room two-eighteen.”

  Son of a bitch didn’t even buy her a drink.

  The bartender glanced over Jake’s shoulder toward the lobby, and Jake turned to follow his gaze. Three more uniformed officers approached the elevator on their way up to the victim’s room. Bob set down the glass he was drying. “Something happened to her, didn’t it?”

  Jake faced him again and tried to choose his words carefully. Most people didn’t really want to know a murder had been committed in their little circle of the universe. “She was found in the alley behind the hotel.”

  Bob’s mouth fell open and his forehead creased. “Oh God, no.”

  Jake reached into his pocket and pulled out one of his cards. “Bob, we’re going to need you to come down to the precinct to give us a statement and talk to one of our sketch artists.”

  Bob took the card and examined it. “Yeah…yeah, sure.”

  “I’ll let you get everything here squared away. I’ll be right back.”

  Jake stepped into the lobby and called Marino’s cell phone.

  “Yeah, Jake?”

  “She hooked up with the guy on some dating site. Crack that laptop, figure out what site, and find him.”

  Hours later, Jake sat at his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut against the headache the grainy footage from the poorly-lit Dorchester Hotel lobby had given him. The camera had been angled toward the front desk and away from the lounge entrance and had only captured a few guests checking in for the night, but he still had hopes of catching a shadow, a bit of clothing, something that would stand out. He was only halfway through it, and he needed a break.

  He leaned back in his chair, far enough to prop his feet on the edge of his desk as he stared at the evidence board, sweeping his gaze across the victims’ photographs.

  “Quinn.” Al Marino interrupted his thoughts, waving a folder as he approached Jake’s desk.

  “That my report on the laptop?”

  “No.” Marino scoffed, as if the question was absurd. “Still working on that. But I thought you might be interested”—he removed a piece of paper from the folder—“in this.”

  Marino held up the paper, a black-and-white image drawn by one of the department’s sketch artists. Jake stared at the charcoal and graphite image, and his forehead creased as realization hit him. The air rushed from his lungs as he fell against the back of his leather chair as if he’d been punched in the gut. “Son of a bitch.”

  The face of Benjamin Windsor glared back at him.

  Mack stepped in front of his own desk, watching Jake with that look he had when he knew his partner was onto something. “Son of a bitch, what?”

  Jake shuffled through papers on his desk until he found the manila folder that he’d assembled on Windsor. After his last two encounters with the man, Windsor had moved straight to the top of the list of Emma’s acquaintances Jake needed to question, but Windsor hadn’t returned his calls. The research Jake had done on his own turned up next to nothing. No priors, no complaints, not even a goddamned parking ticket. Not one shred of evidence linking him to anything. He tossed the manila folder onto Mack’s desk.

  Mack flipped open the cover. “Ben Windsor?”

  Jake nodded. “Emma’s fiancé’s brother.”

  Mack skimmed what little information was in the folder. “I’m listening.”

  “I watched that bastard from the back row of a funeral home, coddling and comforting Emma through his brother’s memorial service.” Jake had attended in hopes of noting any suspicious behavior, but he’d missed it back then. “Windsor didn’t strike me as anything more than an overly affectionate family member. But he’s got a thing for his former sister-in-law-to-be, which gives him a motive for wanting his brother out of the way. And now that she hasn’t accepted his advances—”

  “Wait.” Mack held up a hand. “He’s made advances?”

  Jake couldn’t quite believe it himself. “He came on to her a few days ago. And now this.” He passed the sketch to his partner.

  Mack whistled and nodded in acceptance. “So let’s say he was involved in his brother’s death. What about this case? Mugging Emma and murdering these other women doesn’t sound like the best way to win her over.”

  “He’s not trying to win her over anymore. He’s pissed he hasn’t gotten his hands on her already.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Emma’s cell phone trilled from its spot on the breakfast counter. A tingle of excitement ran the length of her spine when she saw Jake’s name on the screen. She hadn’t heard from him since he’d left in the middle of the night. Instantly, apprehension washed over her at what news he might have.

  “Hello, stranger,” she said, struggling to hide her desperation.

  His soft chuckle warmed her straight to her core. “Would you mind coming to the precinct before you head to the office? Adam will drive you. I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Sure.” Was she imagining the tension in his voice? Maybe something useful had been discovered at the crime scene? “What is it?”

  He hesitated. “I ju
st need to see you.”

  Need. An interesting word. One she’d been using a lot lately herself, at least in her thoughts. It was the only word that described how she’d felt late last night, standing mere inches from Jake’s bare chest, or the look on his face as he’d stared at her in her silk robe…

  She pushed the memory down. Torturing herself over everything she couldn’t have with him because of the investigation was no way to get through all this.

  And he obviously had something important to tell her.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jake paced in front of the evidence board. Emma would be arriving any minute, and he needed to figure out how he was going to approach this. Fast. She was not going to like what he had to say. The Windsor family meant a lot to her…but maybe her encounter with Ben had changed her mind about him.

  His phone buzzed, and the desk sergeant’s voice boomed over the speaker. “Quinn, there’s an Emma Sloane here to see you.”

  “Send her back.” He grabbed the file from his desk and strode toward the entrance to meet her.

  The chaos of the precinct seemed to die down as she entered the room. Maybe he was imagining things, but he swore he heard his colleagues whispering behind him, likely as in awe of her as he was.

  “Hey,” he said, attempting to force a relaxed smile. “You look beautiful.”

  He regretted saying it the moment the words left his lips—not the sentiment, but the circumstances where the wrong people could potentially overhear him. She glanced away with a shy expression that made him feel even worse for making her uncomfortable. How could she not know how beautiful she was? Hadn’t her fiancé told her every chance he got? Jake would love to rectify that oversight.

  He led her down the hallway into one of the interview rooms, and she glanced around the small space to the mirrored glass on the wall.

  “Have a seat,” he said, ushering her into a chair next to the small table, more nervous than he’d been before any interrogation, although the plan had been much the same: get Emma to the precinct—his turf, not hers. Ply her with a little sweet talk to loosen her up. Throw her off balance so she wouldn’t have any grounds to argue with him when he dropped the bomb that Windsor might be the murderer.

  God, he was a prick. Jake wasn’t worthy of a woman with such a trusting nature.

  Her gaze locked on him as he took the seat across from her. “What did you need to talk to me about?”

  A rush of air escaped him. “You don’t mess around, do you?”

  She tipped her head with that coy smile of hers. “That all depends on what you need to tell me.”

  His resolve slipped a little more. She gazed up at him, anxious and waiting, and for a moment he forgot what the hell he was supposed to be doing.

  Right. He had to tell her the truth.

  “Okay,” he said with a firm nod, more for his own benefit than hers. He dropped the manila folder to the table and picked at the curled corner. “My lieutenant is in a press conference right now about the case.”

  Her eyes grew wide. “That sounds like a big deal.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and carefully chose his words. “There’s some information we need to get out. We have a witness who saw the latest victim with a white male, a couple of hours before the attack. We had him sit down with a sketch artist, and we’re giving the image to the media, asking anyone with information to call it in.”

  She brightened. “That’s good, right?”

  “Depends how you look at it. The media aren’t always good at letting us do our jobs.”

  “Oh.” She glanced at the folder. “Is that what that is? Can I see it?”

  He opened the folder and slid it toward her on the desk. Lines of confusion creased her forehead. She leaned in for a better look but said nothing.

  Maybe he was wrong? Maybe his judgment had been clouded by what she’d told him, that Windsor had made a play for her. He scrutinized the image again. These sketches weren’t always accurate. And neither were the witness accounts from which they were created. Shit. What if he was wrong?

  But what if he wasn’t?

  He’d be damned if he’d let Windsor slip through any cracks in this investigation. He would not put Emma at risk. She could hate him if she had to—and she probably would, soon enough—but he had to find out if Ben Windsor was the man responsible for these atrocities.

  Jake dropped a hand over hers where it lay on the table and grazed her knuckles with his thumb. “You don’t recognize him?”

  Her gaze flickered to him and back to the sketch. “I don’t think so.”

  “Emma.” He squeezed her hand gently. “I think this is Ben.”

  The color drained from her cheeks as her jaw dropped. He barely caught her arm as she rose from the chair, knocking it to the floor behind her.

  “Is that some kind of joke?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Ben did not kill those women.”

  Jake grabbed the chair off the floor and righted it. “Emma, please, sit down.” He closed the door and reached out to her, but she yanked her hand away again.

  She’d expected Jake to be suspicious, feared he might question whether Ben could be fixated on her to the point he would attack her. But no matter what he may have done to change the nature of their relationship, Benjamin Windsor was not a murderer. “There has to be some mistake. Who is this witness?”

  The muscle in Jake’s jaw twitched violently. “I can’t tell you that. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, but I didn’t want you to see this sketch for the first time on the news.”

  She gaped at him, comprehension hitting her square in the stomach as he stared at her with no emotion. This was how it would always be, regardless of where things went between them. There would always be information he’d have to keep from her because of his job. Could she handle secrets like that?

  “Well, the witness is wrong,” she said. “You’re wrong. This doesn’t even look like him.” She picked up the paper from where he’d dropped it on the table. Her hands trembled as she pointed out the discrepancies. “The nose is different, the hair. And where are his glasses? Ben always wears his glasses.”

  Jake’s expression was pure determination. “The sketches aren’t always perfectly accurate, especially if the witness didn’t know he was looking at a potential suspect and wasn’t paying close attention.”

  “This could be any white male in the city. No. This is not Benjamin.” She shoved the paper against Jake’s chest, and he pursed his lips in a grimace. “Are you going to arrest him?”

  Jake shook his head with a pained expression on his face. “No. We have nothing on him other than this. But someone will question him, check his alibi, that sort of thing.”

  She folded her arms across her midriff. “Will that be you?”

  “Maybe.”

  She spun to face the small window in the door to the hallway. This was his job, smoking out the bad guys, she firmly reminded herself. She should want him to do this, to look into anyone who could be the culprit. It was what she’d expected during the investigation into Justin’s death, what his family had accused the police of not doing when the case remained unsolved.

  Ben would understand. He would chalk it up to the police being thorough in their search for a killer he happened to resemble. But could she put her faith in a man who would pursue her close friends as though they were criminals? The same man who somehow hadn’t been able to find Justin’s murderer? What did that say about him?

  Her stomach roiled at the one thought she’d been fighting. She’d tried not to let the outcome of Justin’s case cloud her judgment of Jake as a detective. That had been a difficult investigation, through no fault of his. Could he be blindly accusing Benjamin out of desperation, rather than looking at the evidence objectively, just to close the case?

  “I know this is a lot
to take in, and I’m sorry,” Jake said, his voice softening. “But I wanted you to hear about this from me, before this picture is all over the goddamned news. We’ll have hundreds of leads within hours, all kinds of whackos coming out of the woodwork saying they know who this is. “

  His energy surrounded her as he came up behind her. Thankfully, he didn’t touch her. She couldn’t handle his touch right now. It would make her want to collapse into him and let him hold her and make her feel safe again. Let him tell her everything would be all right, when there was no way he could guarantee that.

  “Emma…” He stood so close she could feel his warmth, sense the charge in the air between them.

  “Can you do me a favor?” she asked, still facing the door.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  She turned slowly, swallowing past the lump rising in her throat. “Please…please forget what I told you about Ben. Yes, he came on to me, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. Don’t hold it against him. His family has already been through so much.”

  A solemn expression came over Jake’s face. The muscle in his jaw worked relentlessly, and he sucked in a deep breath through clenched teeth. “What you told me is relevant to this case, but I’m not going to make more of it than what it is. I’m not that kind of cop, Emma. I’m not that kind of person. I promise I’ll be fair with him. I have to be. I want to be.”

  Her gaze fell to the stark table next to them, the one at which Ben could soon be seated. “Okay. I need to get to work.” She pulled her phone from her purse and opened the messaging app.

  “What are you doing?”