by Nora Roberts
“They’re lying.” And he smiled at her.
“Mr. Slagerman, didn’t you go to Miss Lovitz’s apartment on the night of February 25th, angry that she was unable to work, and in your anger, beat her?”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You swear that, under oath?”
“Objection. Asked and answered.”
“Withdrawn. Mr. Slagerman, have you contacted either Miss Lovitz or Miss McRoy since this trial began?”
“No.”
“You have not telephoned either of them?”
“No.”
Nodding, she walked back to her table and picked up a stack of papers. “Is the number 555-2520 familiar to you?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“That’s odd. It’s your private line, Mr. Slagerman. Shouldn’t you recognize your own private telephone number?”
Though he smiled, she saw the icy hate in his eyes. “I call from it, not to it, so I don’t have to remember it.”
“I see. And did you, on the night of June 18, use that private line to call the apartment where both Miss Lovitz and Miss McRoy now live?”
“No.”
“Objection, Your Honor. This is leading nowhere.”
Deborah shifted again, facing the judge and leaving the jury’s view of Slagerman unobstructed. “Your Honor, I’ll show you where it leads in just a moment.”
“Overruled.”
“Mr. Slagerman, perhaps you could explain why, according to your phone records, a call was placed from your private line to the number at Miss Lovitz and Miss McRoy’s apartment at 10:47 p.m. on June 18?”
“Anybody could have used my phone.”
“Your private line?” She lifted a brow. “It’s hardly worth having a private line if anyone can use it. The caller identified himself as Jimmy. You are known as Jimmy, aren’t you?”
“Me and a lot of other people.”
“Did you speak to me on the phone on the night of June 18?”
“I’ve never spoken with you on the phone.”
She smiled coolly and moved closer to the chair. “Have you ever noticed, Mr. Slagerman, how to some men, all women’s voices sound alike? How, to some men, all women look alike? How, to some men, women’s bodies are for one purpose?”
“Your Honor.” Defense counsel leaped to his feet.
“Withdrawn.” Deborah kept her eyes level with Slagerman’s. “Can you explain, Mr. Slagerman, how someone using your private line, using your name, called Miss McRoy on the night of June 18? And how when I answered the phone, this person, using your line and your name, mistook my voice for hers, and threatened Miss McRoy?” She waited a beat. “Would you like to know what that person said?”
Sweat was beading on his upper lip. “You can make up whatever you want.”
“That’s true. Fortunately we had a tap on Miss McRoy’s phone. I have the transcript.” She turned over a sheet of paper. “Should I refresh your memory?”
***
She had won. Though there were still closing arguments to take place, she knew she had won. Now, as she stormed through the Justice Building, she had other business to tend to.
She found Mitchell in his office, a phone to his ear. He was a big bull-chested man who had played linebacker in college. Pictures of him in his jersey were scattered on the wall among his degrees. He had short red hair and a sprinkling of freckles that did nothing to soften his weathered looks.
When he spotted Deborah, he waved her in, gestured toward a chair. But she remained standing until he’d completed his call.
“Slagerman?”
“I’ve got him nailed.” She took a step closer to the desk. “You sold me out.”
“That’s bull.”
“What the hell do you call it? I get pulled into the mayor’s office and get the brush-off. Damn it, Mitch, this is my case.”
“It’s the state’s case,” he corrected, chomping on the end of his unlit cigar. “You’re not the only one who can handle it.”
“I made Parino, I made the deal.” She slapped her palms down on his desk so they were eye to eye. “I’m the one who’s been busting my tail over this.”
“And you’ve been overstepping your bounds.”
“You’re the one who taught me that trying a case takes more man putting on a pin-striped suit and dancing in front of a jury. I know my job, damn it.”
“Going to see Santiago alone was an error in judgment.”
“Now, that is bull. He called me. He asked for me. You tell me what you’d have done if he’d called you.”
He scowled at her. “That’s entirely different.”
“That’s entirely the same,” she snapped back, certain from the look in his eyes that he knew it. “If I’d screwed things up, I’d expect to get bumped, but I haven’t. I’m the one who’s been sweating and frying my brains over this case. Now when I get a lead, I find out Guthrie chirps up and you and the mayor keel over. Still the old boys’ network, is it, Mitch?”
He stabbed the cigar toward her face. “Don’t pull that feminist crap on me. I don’t care what way you button your shirt.”
“I’m telling you, Mitch, if you pull me off this without good cause, I’m gone. I can’t work for you if I can’t depend on you, so I might as well go out on my own and take on divorce cases for three hundred an hour.”
“I don’t like ultimatums.”
“Neither do I.”
He leaned back, measuring her. “Sit down.”
“I don’t want—”
“Damn it, O’Roarke, sit.”
Tight-lipped and fuming, she did. “So?”
He rolled the cigar between his fingers. “If Santiago had called me, I would have gone, just like you. But,” he continued before she could speak, “your handling of this case isn’t the only reason I’ve considered pulling you.”
“Considered” took her position back several notches. Calming a bit, she nodded. “Well, then?”
“You’ve been getting a lot of press on this.”
“I hardly see what that has to do with it.”
“Did you see this morning’s paper?” He snatched it up from his desk and waved it in her face. “Read the headline?” Because she had, and had winced over it already, she simply shrugged. Darling Deb Swept Through City in Arms of Nemesis.
“So some cabdriver wanted his name in the paper. What does that have to do with the case?”
“When my prosecutors start having their names linked with the masked marauder, it has everything to do with everything.” He popped the cigar back in his mouth, gnashing it. “I don’t like the way you keep running into him.”
Neither did she. “Look, if the police can’t stop him, I can hardly be responsible for his popping up all over the place. And I’d hate to think you’d take me off a case because some jerk had to fill his column.”
Personally Mitch hated the weasely reporter. And he hadn’t cared for the strong-arm tactics the mayor had used. “You’ve got two weeks.”
“That’s hardly enough time to—”
“Two weeks, take it or leave it. You bring me something we can take to a jury, or I pass the ball. Got it?”
“Yeah.” She rose. “I got it.”
She stormed out, past snickering associates. A paper was tacked on the door of her office. Someone had used Magic Markers and highlighter pens to draw a caricature of Deborah being carried in the arms of a lantern-jawed, muscle-bound masked man. Under it was a caption. The Continuing Adventures of Darling Deb.
With a snarl, she ripped it down, balling it into her pocket as she stomped out. She had another stop to make.
***
She kept her finger pressed to the button of Gage’s doorbell until Frank pulled the door open.
“Is he in?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stepped back as she pushed past him. He’d seen furious women before. Frank would have preferred to have faced a pack of hungry wolves.
“Where?”
“He’s up i
n his office. I’ll be glad to tell him you’re here.”
“I’ll announce myself,” she said as she started up the steps.
Frank looked after her, lips pursed. He considered buzzing Gage on the intercom and giving him fair warning. But he only grinned. Surprises were good for you.
Deborah didn’t bother to knock, but pushed open the door and strode in. Gage was behind his desk, a phone in one hand, a pen in the other. Computer screens blinked. Across from him sat a trim, middle-aged woman with a steno pad. At Deborah’s unannounced entrance she rose and glanced curiously at Gage.
“I’ll get back to you,” he said into the receiver before lowering it to the cradle. “Hello, Deborah.”
She tossed her briefcase onto a chair. “I think you might prefer to have this conversation in private.”
He nodded. “You can transcribe those notes tomorrow, Mrs. Brickman. It’s late. Why don’t you go home?”
“Yes, sir.” She gathered her things and made a fast, discreet exit.
Deborah hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her skirt. Like a gunfighter hooking thumbs in a holster. He’d seen her take that pose in court. “It must be nice,” she began, “sitting up here in your lofty tower and dispensing orders. I bet it feels just dandy. Not all of us are so fortunate. We don’t have enough money to buy castles, or private planes or thousand-dollar suits. We work on the streets. But most of us are pretty good at our jobs, and happy enough.” As she spoke, she walked slowly toward him. “But you know what makes us mad, Gage? You know what really ticks us off? That’s when someone in one of those lofty towers sticks his rich, influential nose in our business. It makes us so mad that we think real hard about taking a punch at that interfering nose.”
“Should we break out the boxing gloves?”
“I prefer my bare hands.” As she had in Mitchell’s office, she slapped them down on his desk. “Who the hell do you think you are, going to the mayor, pressuring him to take me off this case?”
“I went to the mayor,” he said slowly, “and gave him my opinion.”
“Your opinion.” She blew a breath between her teeth and snatched up an onyx paperweight from the desk. Though she gave careful consideration to heaving it through the plate glass at his back, she contented herself with passing it from hand to hand. “And I bet he just fell all over himself to accommodate you and your thirty million.”
Gage watched her pace and waited until he was sure he could speak rationally. “He agreed with me that you’re more suitable to a courtroom than a murder scene.”
“Who are you to say what’s more suitable for me?” she whirled back, her voice rich with fury. “I say it, not you. All my life I’ve prepared myself for this job and I’m not having anyone come along and tell me I’m not suitable for any case I take on.” She snapped the paperweight back on the desk, a hard crack of stone against stone. “You stay out of my business, and out of my life.”
No, he realized, he wasn’t going to be able to be rational. “Are you finished?”
“No. Before I leave I want you to know that it didn’t work. I’m still on this case, and I’m staying on. So you wasted your time, and mine. And lastly, I think you’re arrogant, officious and overbearing.”
His hands were fisted beneath the desk. “Are you finished?” he asked again.
“You bet I am.” She snatched up her briefcase, turned on her heel and headed for the door.
Gage pushed a button under the desk and had the locks snap into place. “I’m not,” he said quietly.
She hadn’t known she could be more furious. But as she spun back to him, a red haze formed in front of her eyes. “Unlock that door immediately, or I’ll have you up on charges.”
“You’ve had your say, Counselor.” He rose. “Now I’ll have mine.”
“Not interested.”
He came around the desk, but only leaned back against it. He didn’t trust himself to approach her, not yet. “You’ve got all the evidence, don’t you, Counselor? All your neat little facts. So I’ll save time and plead guilty as charged.”
“Then we have nothing more to say.”
“Isn’t the prosecution interested in motive?”
She tossed back her head, bracing as he crossed to her. Something about the way he moved just then, slowly, soundlessly, set off a flash of memory. But it was gone, overwhelmed by her own temper.
“Motive isn’t relevant in this case, results are.”
“You’re wrong. I went to the mayor. I asked him to use his influence to have you taken off the case. But I’m guilty of more than that—I’m guilty of being in love with you.”
Her tensed hands went limp at her sides so that the briefcase fell to the floor. Though she opened her mouth to speak, she could say nothing.
“Amazing.” His eyes were dark and furious as he took that final step toward her. “A sharp woman like you being surprised by that. You should have seen it every time I looked at you. You should have seen it every time I touched you.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You should have tasted it every time I kissed you.”
Pushing her back against the door, he brushed his mouth over hers, once, twice. Then he devoured her lips. Her knees were weak. She hadn’t thought it was possible, but they were shaking so she had to hold on to him or slide bonelessly to the floor. Even clinging, she was afraid. For she had seen it, had felt it, had tasted it. But that was nothing compared to hearing him say it, or to hearing the echo of her own voice repeating the words inside her mind.
He was lost in her. And the more she opened to him, the deeper he fell. He took his hands over her face, through her hair, down her body, wanting to touch all of her. And to know as he did, that she trembled in response.
When he lifted his head, she saw the love, and she saw the desire. With them was a kind of war she didn’t understand.
“There were nights,” he said quietly, “hundreds of nights when I lay awake sweating and waiting for morning. I’d wonder if I’d ever find someone I could love, that I could need. No matter how I drew the fantasy, it’s nothing compared to what I feel for you.”
“Gage.” She lifted her hands to his face, wishing with all her heart. Knowing well that heart was already lost to him. But she remembered that she had swayed close to another man only the night before. “I don’t know what I’m feeling.”
“Yes, you do.”
“All right, I do, but I’m afraid to feel it. It’s not fair. I’m not being fair, but I have to ask you to let me think this through.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
“A little while longer, please. Unlock the door, and let me go.”
“It is unlocked.” He stepped back to open it for her. But he blocked her exit for one last moment. “Deborah. I won’t let you go the next time.”
She looked up again and saw the truth of his words in his eyes. “I know.”
Chapter 7
The jury was out. Deborah spent their deliberating time in her office, using both her telephone and computer to try to track down what Gage had referred to as the common thread. The antique shop, Timeless, had been owned by Imports Incorporated, whose address was a vacant lot downtown. The company had filed no insurance claim on the loss, and the manager of the shop had vanished. The police had yet to locate the man Parino had referred to as Mouse.
More digging turned up the Triad Corporation, based in Philadelphia. A phone call to Triad put Deborah in touch with a recording telling her that the number had been disconnected. As she placed a call to the D.A.’s office in Philadelphia, she inputted all of her known data into the computer.
Two hours later, she had a list of names, social security numbers and the beginnings of a headache.
Before she could make her next call, the receiver rang under her hand. “Deborah O’Roarke.”
“Is this the same Deborah O’Roarke who can’t keep her name out of the paper?”
“Cilla.” At the sound of her sister’s voice, the headache faded a bit. “How are you?�
��
“Worried about you.”
“What else is new?” Deborah rolled her shoulders to relieve the stiff muscles, then leaned back in the chair. Coming tinnily through the earpiece was the music Deborah imagined was pulsing in Cilla’s office at the radio station. “How’s Boyd?”
“That’s Captain Fletcher to you.”
“Captain?” She sat straight again. “When did that happen?”
“Yesterday.” The pride and pleasure came through clearly. “I guess I’ll really have to watch myself now, sleeping with a police captain.”
“Tell him I’m proud of him.”
“I will. We all are. Now—”
“How are the kids?” Deborah had learned to stall and evade long before taking the bar exam.
“It’s dangerous to ask a mother how her kids are during summer vacation—no elementary school, no kindergarten, so they outnumber me and the cop three to two.” Cilla gave a rich, warm laugh. “All three members of the demon brigade are fine. Allison pitched a shutout in a Little League game last week—then got into a wrestling match with the opposing pitcher.”
“Sounds like he was a rotten loser.”
“Yeah. And Allison’s always been a rotten winner. I practically had to sit on her to make her give over. Let’s see … Bryant knocked out a tooth roller-skating, then, being a clever little capitalist, sold it to the boy next door for fifty cents. Keenan swallowed it.”
“Swallowed what?”
“The fifty cents. Five dimes. My youngest son eats anything. I’m thinking about putting in a hotline to the emergency room. Now let’s talk about you.”
“I’m fine. How are things at KHIP?”
“About as chaotic as they are around the house. All in all, I’d rather be in Maui.” Cilla recognized the delaying tactics well and pushed a little harder. “Deborah, I want to know what you’re up to.”
“Work. In fact, I’m about to win a case.” She glanced at the clock and calculated how long the jury had been out. “I hope.”
Sometimes, Cilla mused, you just had to be direct. “Since when have you started dating guys in masks?”
Stalling couldn’t last forever, she thought with regret. “Come on, Cilla, you don’t believe everything you read in the paper.”
“Right. Or everything that comes over the wire, even though we ran your latest adventure at the top of every hour yesterday. Even if I didn’t go to the trouble to get the Urbana papers, I’d have heard all the noise. You’re making national news out there, kid, and I want to know what’s going on. That’s why I’m asking you.”
It was usually easier to evade if you added a couple of dashes of truth. “This Nemesis character is a nuisance. The press is glorifying him—and worse. Just this morning at a shop two blocks from the courthouse, I saw a display of Nemesis T-shirts.”
“Isn’t merchandising wonderful?” But Cilla wasn’t about to be distracted again. “Deborah, I’ve been in radio too long not to be able to read voices—especially my baby sister’s. What’s between you?”
“Nothing,” she insisted, wanting it to be true. “I’ve simply run into him a couple of times during this investigation I’m doing. The press plays it up.”
“I’ve noticed, Darling Deb.”
“Oh, please.”
“I do want to know what’s going on, but it’s more to the point right now why