by Julie Miller
“I don’t know what was in the envelope. It wasn’t a document envelope like my firm sends out. It was padded, lumpy.”
“Could it have been a ring?” Laura speculated. Maybe Vinnie had already found what he’d been looking for, and his appearance tonight was all about throwing Deputy Cobb off his trail.
“She didn’t show me, and I didn’t ask. She wanted me to be happy for her—that she was finally going to have it all. I told her to go to hell, and I left.” Isaac’s tears started again. “‘Go to hell.’ Those were the last words I said to her.”
Laura rubbed her hand up and down his arm. “You were hurting. Chloe knew you cared about her.”
“I loved her,” Isaac stated bluntly. “But it wasn’t mutual. She needed me, but she didn’t love me. I always thought if I was patient enough, that she’d give me a chance. But then Vinnie and his money came along...”
Conor stood, catching Isaac by the elbow and pulling him to his feet. “I need you to tell all this to Deputy Cobb.”
“You need to be talking to Chloe’s boy toy out there. The one she dumped me for.” His dark eyes cleared their alcoholic haze for a moment, anger replacing his grief as he looked down at Laura. “I found Vinnie in her bed when I went to pick her up yesterday afternoon. That’s why I said he could take her to the damn wedding.”
Laura pulled her cell phone from the pocket of Conor’s suit jacket. “Would you let me take a picture of your hand before you leave?” The fact that he didn’t protest told her he was succumbing to his fatigue and emotions.
“Do you want me to drive you to the ER, so a doctor can look at those cuts?” Conor offered.
“To have them swab for DNA to prove whatever the hell you think I’ve done? No thanks.” Isaac turned to Laura. “I used up my cash getting here. Will you float me a loan to get home?”
“I’ve got it covered,” Conor offered, pulling out his wallet. When Isaac would have draped his arm around Laura’s shoulders, Conor wound his arm behind the drunk man’s waist and pulled him to his side to walk him out to the elevator himself. “For the record, any DNA the hospital pulled off you would be inadmissible in court, because I’m not in the chain of command on this case.”
“You trying to be my friend now, Wildman?” Isaac slurred with contempt.
“Nope. I’m trying to be Laura’s and get you to take care of yourself.” Dark blue eyes met hers over the top of Isaac’s head. “So that worry mark between her eyes will go away.”
Chapter Five
“Thanks for helping get Isaac loaded into a cab.” Laura carried Conor’s mug to the sink and rinsed out the dregs of his coffee along with the rest of the pot her mother had made for them. “And thanks for convincing Mom and Dad it was okay to go home. It has been a super long day for them. Between the wedding and the murder, I know they’re exhausted.”
“But you’re immune?”
She laughed, rinsing out the carafe and putting it back in the coffee maker. “All I want to do is fall into bed. And take off this gut-pinching corset and fluff of a dress.”
He stood from the stool on the far side of the peninsula countertop and brought her the two plates on which they’d finally gotten to eat some leftover cake from the reception. Another gift from her mother. “I don’t know.” He batted at the fascinator still clipped to her hair. “I think flamingo is a good look on you.”
She laughed with him, butting her shoulder against Conor’s arm. He was warm and immovable and a better tonic for her glum 5:00 a.m. mood than sugar and caffeine had been. “Thanks. I was hoping it wasn’t just me. ‘Bridesmaid or Die’ was my motto to get me through all the wedding planning and dress fittings. Can’t tell you how many times I said that. No one else appreciated the joke.”
“You came through the day with flying colors. The night, too.” He checked his watch before rolling down the sleeves of his rumpled white shirt and buttoning the cuffs. “The sun will be up in another couple of hours. You gonna be okay?” He picked up his coat from the back of the stool and pulled it on. “You sure you don’t want me to stay and keep an eye on things for a couple of hours while you take a nap or grab a shower or something?”
She quickly squashed her heart’s eager response to his offer and waved aside the suggestion. She’d had Conor’s full, protective attention through most of the night. She shouldn’t be craving anything more. “I’ll be okay. It’s been a long twenty-four hours or so for you, too.” She linked her arm through his and walked him to her front door. “I know you have stuff you wanted to get done today. Sorry to keep you up so late.”
He stepped into the hallway but turned to her before leaving. “Not a problem, Squirt.”
“What am I going to do with you, Wildman?” She crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe, looking up into midnight blue eyes that were as familiar as the juvenile nickname. The golden scruff of his nearly twenty-four-hour beard growth dusting his cheeks and jaw was less familiar. His unbuttoned collar combined with his need for a shave felt intimate, as if they were evidence they’d shared the night together. In a way, they had. But certainly not in any way she’d fantasized about since she’d been old enough to think intimate thoughts about a man.
There were other details that were different tonight, too, details that twisted at her heartstrings. In the pocket of light from the hallway sconce beside her door, Conor’s face was more guarded than she remembered, the laugh lines beside his eyes more pronounced with fatigue. He was all mystery and angles and mature man, and Laura’s pulse fluttered in a purely female response.
But he wasn’t here to stir her hormones or her heart. This wasn’t the tender end to a special date. She was the only one imagining the intimacy of the two of them alone in the hallway, speaking in hushed tones as her neighbors slept. Laura mentally shook her head, warning her heart to be grateful for Conor’s concern, and not ruing her inability to measure up to the love he had for her sister. “I just wish Cobb would have listened to what Isaac told us. At the very least he’d know that Vinnie might have been the last person to see Chloe alive yesterday.”
But Cobb had shut down their efforts to report Isaac’s account of his last argument with Chloe. “Secondhand information is worse than no information at all,” he’d said.
Laura filled her lungs with a deep breath that smelled like Conor and coffee and exhaled her despair at their hopes of finding Chloe’s killer. “He’s not a very good cop, is he.”
“Not that I can see. But I’ll stay on top of him as long as I’m here in town.” Conor glanced down the hall to the elevator, as if he’d heard a sound, or sensed another presence. Maybe he was just anxious to leave now that the worst of the crisis had passed. “I still have a few connections here who can keep tabs on the investigation for me. For us.”
“Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here with me tonight.”
His gaze locked on to hers again and he smiled. “You’d have handled it.”
“I would have probably blown my stack at Cobb, or spent the night bawling my eyes out. Instead, you helped me do something about it. Even if we don’t have answers yet. At least we tried.”
Conor braced his hand on the doorframe above her head, his smile turning wry. “Beats trying to pretend I was the happiest guest at Lisa’s wedding.”
Right. Without the distraction of using his detective skills, he was probably thinking about how Lisa’s decision to marry someone else had crushed him. Maybe it wasn’t Laura specifically he wasn’t romantically interested in—maybe Conor wasn’t interested in loving anyone. If sarcasm was his go-to defense when dealing with the gruesome aspects of his work and the stresses of life, then complete avoidance of any entanglement might be how he protected his heart. She needed to accept that and be as good a friend to him as he’d been to her.
“I’m sure Lisa bought your act,” she assured him. When she shrugged,
her hair snagged in the nubby wool of Conor’s jacket. She unbuttoned the front and took it off, feeling an instant chill as she lost its warmth and the care it symbolized. She folded it as neatly as she could before handing it to him. She’d already emptied her keys and phone out on the kitchen table. “Sorry about the wrinkles. I suppose we should both try to get a little sleep before sunrise.”
“I don’t mind staying,” he offered, tossing the jacket over his shoulder. “Looks like your couch might hold most of me.”
Laura smiled. Marie Wildman had raised her boy right. He was going to be chivalrous and protective even if it cost him a night’s sleep and gave him a crick in the neck. “I’m fine. The police are done talking to me, right?”
“For now. If something else comes up, they might contact you again to double-check your information. But that won’t happen until later.”
“Then I’ll be fine. I do want to get a few hours’ sleep. I need to run by the reception hall and get my things and my car—Mom or Dad can drive me. And then I’ll look into contacting Chloe’s mother at the VCCW.”
He straightened away from the door. His volume raised a notch as the cop resurrected itself and a bit of temper seeped into his tone. “The Virginia Correctional Center for Women? She’s in prison? You have no business going there. Let the cops handle the notification. Deputy Cobb seems to like running things.”
Laura patted his chest, hushing him before he woke any of her neighbors. “I want to do it. Chloe mentioned her mom when she called me, although I didn’t understand exactly what she was saying. Maybe it’d comfort her mother to share my condolences. And then she might be willing to tell me why something like this would happen to her daughter.”
“Let the investigators handle it. If you think there’s any connection between Chloe’s murder and her mom’s crimes, stay out of it. I don’t want to see you caught in the middle of something the way Chloe must have been.”
“Aww, Detective Wildman really does care,” Laura teased, sliding her fingers down the lapels of his coat to poke his stomach. But her laughter quickly faded, and she curled her fingers into her palm feeling singed. That felt like a caress. Of course, he worked out. His chest was hard and muscled. And there was certainly no Pillsbury Doughboy to those abs. She really should stop touching him because even the familiar fist bumps and nudges they’d exchanged for years were colored with the feelings that simmered too close to the surface tonight.
Besides, she wasn’t the only one not laughing. “I’m not kidding, Squirt. A woman was murdered. All signs indicate that she fought with her attacker. And lost. I know you feel responsible because she reached out to you, but stay out of this. Don’t go looking for trouble.” He dropped his hand down to capture hers and pull it back against his chest. He must not feel the same sizzle of electricity between them that she did when they touched. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Laura’s eyes instantly felt hot and gritty. Had no one said that to her tonight? There’d been worry and shock and anger and cops and weariness. But Conor’s whispered condolence finally triggered her grief. “I wish you could have known her. You would have come up with every blond joke in the book, but she’d have been laughing right along with you. She was impulsive and absent-minded, but you’d have appreciated Chloe’s heart.” She sniffed back the tears before they became an embarrassing sob. “You’d have liked her.”
“I’m sure I would have.”
Laura wiped at the first tears that spilled over. “Good night, Conor. It’s been...”
Suddenly, there was a man’s handkerchief dabbing at her face. With gentle presses against her cheeks and eyes, Conor surrendered his handkerchief to tears and a smear of mascara. When he touched the tip of her runny nose, she pulled the handkerchief from his fingers and took care of that messy business herself. He didn’t retreat one inch from sheltering her in the doorway, protecting her ugly cry face from anyone who might step into the hallway and see her pain. The scene reminded her of one summer when she’d wrecked her bike and had scraped up both knees, an elbow and part of her face her helmet hadn’t protected. Conor had gotten off his bike and sat right beside her on the edge of the sidewalk. He’d offered her the sleeve of his T-shirt and a lollipop from his pocket to calm her down until Lisa had returned with their dad to load her and the bike into the car for a trip to the emergency room for stitches in her chin.
She brushed her knuckles against the faint scar that lingered from that day and smiled. Conor had grown older, sexier, perhaps more cynical, but the hero inside him hadn’t changed. “It’s been really good seeing you again.”
“Yeah.” Despite the late hour and the ruined handkerchief, he seemed reluctant to leave. Reaching behind him, he pulled a business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. “I’ll be in town for a couple of days. If anything else happens, if you need a ride to get your things tomorrow, or you just want to talk about coping with grief, give me a call.”
Although she folded the card into her hand with the handkerchief, she relieved him of responsibility. “You don’t have to take care of me. You and Lisa aren’t together anymore. You have no big-brother obligations toward me.”
“I mean it, Laura. This has nothing to do with your sister. Loving her had nothing to do with me caring about you. You always had your own place in my heart.” For a split second, his confession caught her off guard. Conor cared about her. But clearly, he meant as a friend, and nothing more special, because he went on. “Be careful. One of those men upstairs tonight could have killed Chloe.”
“You mean Vinnie or Isaac?”
“The first suspect cops look at is almost always the boyfriend. Or in her case, boyfriends. If the killer thinks Chloe told you something incriminating when she called you...”
That brief glow of hearing she was special to Conor faded with the apprehension of his warning. “You think someone I know killed her?”
“There could be other suspects we don’t know about—someone connected to her mom, someone she’s worked with, even a third boyfriend who didn’t like how she was playing the field. But I doubt it was a random home invasion. Not with the way the evidence is stacking up. The police need to find that envelope and who she mailed it to.”
“They need to find that ring.”
He nodded. “If it even exists. Vinnie may have made that up as an excuse to get back inside Chloe’s apartment to retrieve something he doesn’t want the cops to find. There’s something going on here we don’t yet understand. If you remember anything else Chloe said, or if you see someone sniffing around her apartment who shouldn’t be there, or if Isaac or Vinnie or Cobb or anybody gives you any trouble while I’m in town, call me. I don’t want you dealing with this on your own.”
“You always were my big, badass protector.”
He touched the tip of his finger to the scar on her chin, maybe remembering that same day from their childhood. “And you were always a handful who jumped in and did things before you thought through the consequences. You needed someone to look out for you.” He pointed into her apartment. “I checked your windows already. Lock the dead bolt behind me, or I’ll be camping outside your door.”
“Will do. Thank you.” There was an awkward moment when Conor extended his hand and she reached out with both of hers. How were they supposed to say goodbye? A handshake? A hug?
Instead of pulling his hand back, he unsnapped the fascinator clipped behind her ear. “You’re right about Lisa’s fashion sense. I think your sparkly thingie has wilted.” He held the droopy feathers and netting in front of her face before tossing it over her head into the apartment. “Never wear anything that silly again.”
Her answering laugh stopped up in her throat when he reached for her hair again. This time, he feathered his fingers into the wavy tresses to untangle the strands and smooth them behind her ear. His gaze slipped over to hers, darkened. And when his head dropped toward hers,
Laura’s stomach knotted with anticipation. His handsome mouth descended, and she braced her hands against his chest, stretching up on tiptoe to meet his kiss.
His firm lips folded over hers. For one endless moment, he simply touched his mouth to hers, warming her skin, heating up something deeper inside. Then he tugged her bottom lip between his and that knot in her stomach loosened with a jolt of desire. Laura mimicked the little tug on his bottom lip. He met her response with another pull of his own, and a tender duel began. They learned the shape and flavor of each other’s mouths—a nibble here, the brush of a tongue there.
Laura clutched a fistful of his coat and shirt, her knuckles digging into the hard muscle she’d discovered earlier and leaned into him. With both hands now, Conor stabbed his fingers into her hair, cradling the back of her head, holding her mouth in place beneath his while he explored her lips from corner to corner, from curve to curve. She heard a low-pitched groan from deep in his throat, and he pushed his tongue against the seam of her lips, demanding entrance. She answered with a whimper of pleasure from her own throat as her lips parted and he thrust inside to taste her eager welcome. He was raw, potent heat, and tasted like rich coffee. The stubble of his beard abraded the tender skin of her mouth, reminding her of his utter maleness, even as he soothed each sensitized nerve ending with the healing stroke of his tongue. Since he seemed willing to see where this kiss would take them, Laura slid her tongue alongside his and darted into his mouth. When his teeth gently closed around it, capturing her boldness, she smiled at the thought of Conor trapping her in this embrace.
All the times she’d imagined kissing Conor hadn’t prepared her for the real thing. They hadn’t prepared her for the tenderness and teasing, the sense of being gently asked and surely taken at the same time. They hadn’t prepared her for the thump of his heart beneath her hand or the sound of her own pulse thundering in her ears as he touched her with nothing but his lips and his kneading hands in her hair. This kiss was living up to every fantasy and taking her to a reality that was far more satisfying and maybe even a little bit scarier than her dreams, judging by the mindless way her brain was singing and her common sense was shutting down and her blood was turning to molten want in her veins.