by Julie Miller
When he saw her eyes were wide and dark and locked onto his, her lips parted in trembling anticipation, he nearly leaned in to cover her mouth with his.
But a hushed whisper from the video turned their attention back to the computer screen.
“Oops.” The camera pulled back, as if Chloe had stopped in her tracks. Then the shot turned sideways before righting itself. Now the camera was shooting from a lower angle, with the distinct ridges of a galvanized steel trash can lining the right side of the image, as though Chloe had hunkered down beside the can to remain out of sight of whatever she was filming. “Oh, I don’t do that, baby. No friends allowed.”
Illumination from a single lamp over a gray steel door indicated Chloe was indeed filming in an alleyway. He could make out the silhouettes of a dumpster and two SUVs or maybe pickup trucks parked beyond the dim circle of light. The steel door sported a logo that included a frothy beer mug and some chipped, unreadable words. He recognized the sharp nose and brown ponytail of the man pacing in front of the door.
Laura grabbed the mouse and started to click off the video. “That’s Vinnie. We probably don’t need to see this one, either. For all I know, she filmed the two of them having sex behind a bar.”
“Wait.” Conor laid his hand over hers when Chloe panned the scene and he saw four other men come into the picture frame from the direction of the vehicles. “Let this play out. I think we’re onto something here.”
Laura’s fingers curled into his and he tightened his grip. “I can’t make out the faces on any of those men,” she said. “Although those two in the bulky winter coats remind me of Vinnie’s entourage. They were with him at Chloe’s apartment the other night.”
“I remember them.” Conor leaned in closer as the two beefy men parted and a shorter, slighter man wearing a longer coat moved between them. “He matches the lawyer Vinnie had with him, Marvin Boltz.”
Chloe was talking again, giggling at her own joke. “A suit, a cop and a hottie walk into a bar...”
“A cop?” Laura and Conor echoed together. They both leaned forward to study the fuzzy images.
The fourth man walked up beside the man they suspected could be Boltz. Although the brim of his hat matched the local deputy’s uniform, it also kept his face shaded and unrecognizable. The bulky man with the hat nodded at something the could-be-Boltz said. Then he turned to Vinnie, and the light caught the shiny flash of a badge on his chest just before he shoved Vinnie up against the wall, pinning him there.
Laura sat back in her chair. “That looks like Cobb.”
“Not enough to prove anything.” Not in a court of law, at any rate. But Conor was more and more certain that they’d identified the players in this back-alley meeting.
Chloe’s phone camera was too far away to record any of the men’s conversation, but she continued her whispered commentary. “What the...? Oh, no, you don’t.” The man with the badge grabbed Vinnie’s ponytail and gave it a hard tug, knocking Vinnie’s head against the bricks. “No police brutality without a witness.”
Chloe must have thought Vinnie was getting roughed up by the cops and wanted to film evidence of it. But this was something else. She realized it, too, when Vinnie put his hands up in surrender and the man with the badge backed off. Vinnie reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small plastic bag filled with white powder. “Oh, baby. Don’t put that stuff in your body.”
The man in the suit smacked the drugs out of Vinnie’s hand. Vinnie protested while the smaller man lectured him, slapping him a few times about the face. Then the smaller man straightened the front of Vinnie’s jacket and stepped back. Whatever he’d said had finally silenced Vinnie into submission. While the man with the badge picked up the bag of drugs, Vinnie walked to the car parked closest to Chloe. Some of the picture disappeared as she retreated farther into her hiding place. But because she was closer, when she panned to the rear of the car, Conor could make out the red color. And a partial license plate number.
Conor turned to Laura. “Do you have pen and paper?”
But she was already writing down the numbers. “Something, something, two, four, zero, nine. That looks like Vinnie’s car.”
The men followed Vinnie to the back of the car where he popped open the trunk. The men were close enough to make out a few words now.
“I thought she was asleep,” Vinnie said. “She must have already taken something else before we lit up.”
“You were right to call me.” The slighter man with the long coat shook his head. “Don’t say a word about this to anyone. We’ll take care of it.”
“Her name is—” Vinnie began.
“Names don’t matter. Rico? Hammer?” The older man waved the two thugs over to join them. “Let’s get it out of here.”
Conor had a really bad feeling about what they were going to see next. But Laura slid him a sideways glance, and he knew any request to let him watch the rest of this video alone wasn’t going to happen.
“I know what you’re thinking, Wildman,” Laura whispered, turning her focus to the monitor. “I want to know why Chloe was killed.”
“Okay, Squirt. We’ll do this together.” Conor tightened his hand around hers and they continued to watch.
Vinnie reached into the trunk and scooped up something lumpy and cylindrical in shape that hung over the ends of his arms. Chloe’s whispered commentary started up again. “Is that a...?” A shock of long blond hair tumbled out one end of the bundle. “That’s a woman.”
Laura gasped right along with Chloe. “A dead woman.”
“Wait.” The man in the long coat picked up the limp arm that fell from the bundle. He tugged on the dead woman’s hand before holding up a small circle of gold that gleamed in the dim light. He smacked Vinnie’s cheek. “Are you kidding me with this?”
Laura leaned closer. “That’s a ring. The ring Vinnie was looking for?”
Conor nodded. “Something that distinctive could certainly link Vinnie to a crime scene.”
Slipping the piece of jewelry into his coat pocket, the older man nodded to the two thuggish men. They took the limp body out of Vinnie’s arms and carried it off into the shadows. A few seconds later, a trunk slammed shut. “OMG, seriously? I ride in that car.” Chloe’s voice got slightly louder as the men walked Vinnie to the back door of the bar. Their voices were beyond hearing again. “Why do you have a dead body? What have you done, baby?”
The guy in the suit patted Vinnie on the back, pointed at him, and said one last thing that made Vinnie shrug off his touch. Then Suit Guy and the man wearing the badge got into their vehicles and drove away. Once he was alone, Vinnie kicked a trash can before stomping back inside the bar.
Chloe pulled back into nearly complete darkness, still recording even though there was no picture. “Something very bad just happened. Does Mommy know about this? I’m guessing she wouldn’t be pleased.” She laughed. “And she said I was the bad influence. I never did drugs a day in my life, but you... Oh, this is too sweet. You know I love you, baby. And I know you love me. This is our chance to be together without Mommy objecting. Trust me, okay?”
She turned the camera to her and Conor glimpsed the beautiful, animated blonde Chloe had been before her murder. “I just figured out how to get Vinnie to pop the question.” She wiggled her bare fingers in front of the camera. “I’m going to finally get my ring. Not that old gold filigree thing she was wearing, but one with a real diamond.”
The video ended with a startling blackness.
Laura hugged her arms around her middle. “That’s why she was killed. Drugs? A dead woman?” She looked over at Conor. “Chloe thought it was a good idea to show that to somebody? She was in trouble as soon as she recorded it, wasn’t she?”
Conor’s fingers went to Laura’s hair again, to soothe the concern lining her eyes as well as to ease the tension in him with the gentle tickle of the waves
tangling with his fingertips. “She played a dangerous gamble, forcing Vinnie to commit to her. I’m sorry she lost. I’m sorry she got you involved.”
“If only she would have thought it through. She should have known any one of the men on that video would want to destroy it and anyone who knew...” Laura’s eyes lit with an idea. She pointed at the black screen on the monitor. “Who’s Mommy?”
“Sounded like Vinnie’s mother didn’t approve of his relationship with Chloe.” Conor reached for the mouse to close the video file. Laura rolled her chair to the side to give him room to pull up the internet and log in to his email. He typed in an address in Kansas City, along with a brief message, attached the video and hit Send. “That could have been her plan—showing the recording to his mother if Vinnie didn’t agree to marry her.”
Laura sprang from her chair and paced the room. “Chloe was a good person. Mommy shouldn’t approve of his son buying or selling drugs and hauling around dead bodies. Do you think he killed that woman in the trunk? Or she overdosed while doing drugs with him? Chloe would never be involved with something like that. Her whole life was tainted by her mother’s drug use and crimes. She always avoided getting involved with anyone in that lifestyle.”
“Her mother said she got greedy.” Conor pulled out the flash drive and walked into the kitchen, asking Laura for a plastic bag and pen to label it. The data stick already had their prints on it, jeopardizing its usefulness as evidence, but if there was any chance they could use it to find Chloe’s killer and get Laura out of this mess, he was going to take it. “If a guy had enough money, would she overlook his addiction? Or think she could change him? Save him?”
Laura shrugged. “If she really was in love with Vinnie, I could see her believing that marriage would give him stability. If he has issues with his mother, she might think bonding together would make them a team—make them stronger together—to face his mother, or hers, or whatever problems they had to deal with.”
“Blackmail isn’t a great basis for a lasting relationship.”
Laura’s eyes tilted up to his. “But it makes sense. If you thought a certain woman was the one—that she was your soul mate like Chloe must have thought about Vinnie—wouldn’t you do anything to be together? To stay together? Love makes people hold on to hopes that maybe they shouldn’t. Real love makes them fight for what they want. She was fighting to get her man.”
Conor instantly thought of Lisa. He’d loved her enough to propose. But like Laura had explained Lisa’s feelings at the wedding reception, maybe he hadn’t been in love with her, after all. He’d settled for the easy comfort of their relationship, the lifetime of expectation that they would one day be together. If he truly believed Lisa was the only woman for him, wouldn’t he have fought harder to make their engagement work? He could have changed his job. He could have stayed in Virginia. Although, he could see now that changing who he was to please her wasn’t a healthy compromise—not in the long run. Lisa was right—they wouldn’t have been happy together. But he’d been broken by the thought of someone leaving him again. His perception of his real feelings might have been clouded by the helplessness he was going through with his mother’s illness. But once he’d started to heal from that loss, he would have said or done something more if he truly believed she was the only woman for him. Instead, he’d let her go without a fight.
He watched Laura as she put away the leftovers from her lunch and cleaned the kitchen. Seeing her do those simple tasks or tuck her hair behind her ear or touch his arm when she needed him to step aside so she could return the box of sandwich bags to its drawer hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Even without the fancy pink dress showcasing her every curve, she was a pretty, sexy woman. He felt a sort of possessive caveman awareness heat his blood when she came close enough for him to inhale that subtly exotic scent that was all Laura.
The admission was telling. He felt more compelled to bend the rules—to strap on his gun and protect Laura, to hunt down the men in that video and put them out of commission so they could never threaten her again—than he ever had been motivated to fight for anything in the years he’d been with Lisa. He wasn’t just fighting for Laura’s safety, or perhaps fighting for her life—he was fighting for whatever this was that was happening between them.
Yeah. He understood what had driven Chloe Wilson to use that incriminating video to ensure she could be with the man she loved.
Because he was in love with Laura.
This wasn’t any rebound from losing her sister. She wasn’t any second-best consolation prize. This felt like... He wasn’t sure what this felt like because he’d never had feelings this intense before. He’d been waiting for the right woman, the one who got him and accepted him the way he was, the one he’d always shared a special bond with, to grow up. She had.
Now what was he going to do about it?
“Conor?” He realized she’d said something. That he’d been staring long and hard at her without really listening to what she was saying. He snapped himself out of his head and brought his focus back to the conversation. “Are you going to turn the flash drive over to Deputy Cobb? Is that what you’re trying to decide?”
“No.” He pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning against and crossed into the living room where he stashed the makeshift evidence bag in the pocket of his coat. “He doesn’t get his hands on this. For one thing, I don’t want you implicated in any kind of illegal seizure of evidence. And two, I don’t trust him. If there’s any chance the cop in that video is him, then he already knows too much about you. That’s why he’s doing such a lousy job investigating the murder. He’s stalling, buying time to find this before he gets implicated.”
She followed him out to the living room. “Could he have killed Chloe?”
“It’s possible. Or one of the other men in that video. Even Vinnie himself.”
“Or Mommy?”
Conor nodded. “I don’t think we should trust anybody local for now. Let me call a friend of mine in Kansas City, a retired detective and consultant with KCPD. I emailed him a copy of this video and asked him to look up some information. He can run the partial license plate. I’ll see if he can track down who Vinnie’s mother is and run a background check on Cobb. One of his sons works at the crime lab there. Maybe Niall can call in a favor and see if a tech can clean up the video, so we can identify the other men and who that woman might be. Confirm that it’s Boltz and Cobb, or, clear them as suspects.”
“Your friend and his family would do all that for you? For me?” She nodded, seeing the affirmative answer written on his face. “No wonder you have such strong ties to Kansas City. You didn’t have that kind of support here.”
“If Thomas Watson can help us, he will. He’s married to a former witness of mine. I was her man of honor when they got married in front of a judge there in KC. It’s a little complicated, but if Cobb is involved in this, Thomas will definitely help us. He has a particular dislike for dirty cops.” That was a story for another time.
“If he’s that much of a straight arrow, won’t he want to arrest me for taking that flash drive from Chloe’s apartment?”
“Not if I explain the circumstances and put in a good word for you. And I will.”
“Thank you. For being here when I need you.” She braced her hand against his chest and stretched up on tiptoe, curling her fingers behind his neck to bring his mouth down for a kiss. “For everything.”
He didn’t need any encouragement to open his mouth over hers and drink in the gift she offered. His hands settled at her hips, sliding beneath the hem of her sweatshirt to find warm skin at the nip of her waist. She slipped her arms around his neck, pulling her shorter frame as tall as it could go to keep her lips aligned beneath his, softly pulling at him, demanding more pressure here, a tiny stroke of his tongue there. Conor answered every request, giving, taking, and giving more until she whimpered that needy hum of
desire in her throat. The sexy sound demanded his attention there and he lowered his head to chase the husky vibration along the arch of her neck. Her skin was sweet and smooth beneath his lips, warming at every touch.
Oh, yeah. This was one hell of a thank-you. Although, exactly who was being grateful for what got lost in the passion arcing between them. He just knew he had to touch her, taste her, to believe that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
Laura threw her head back, offering him the chance to taste the indentation at the base of her throat, encouraging him to push aside the neckline of her sweatshirt and nip at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders, seeking purchase as she squirmed against him. With her hips bumping against his zipper, he couldn’t exactly hide the effect she was having on him. She moaned in frustration before grabbing either side of his face and pulling his mouth back to hers. Her fingers skimmed through his hair and cupped his scalp, holding his lips against hers while he licked and teased and plundered, giving back the same and more—taking charge of the kiss one moment, submitting to his driving need the next, then meeting him somewhere in the middle—until muscles weakened and gravity kicked in. Her toes slid back to the floor, easing the ferocity of the kiss.
Conor spread his legs to make himself shorter, but it was proving equally frustrating for him to have their mouths mesh so perfectly, when their bodies felt like two mismatched puzzle pieces struggling to find a way to fit. Switching tactics, she dropped her hands to his waist, lifting his sweater and tugging at his shirt. When her fingertips brushed against the skin above his belt buckle, he hissed at the jolt of awareness that arrowed through him. Her hands brushed against his holster anchored to his belt. For a moment, he remembered how Lisa had always wanted him to remove his weapon before she touched him, even casually, as if she feared it more than she’d ever wanted him. But that memory and the momentary pang of doubt vanished like popping bubbles when Laura dug her fingertips into the sensitive skin at his spine, and her lips scudded across his jaw and took a playful bite of his chin. There was no hesitation in how she touched him. She wanted to feel skin, muscle, heat.