Cuff Me

by Lauren Layne

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “I got that.”

  “I may not be the effusive type, but I care about you, Henley. I want you to be happy, even if that means you and I part ways. You got that too?”

  Jill’s heart should have flown at that moment. He cared about her. He cared about her. He’d never come even remotely close to admitting it, and just a few months ago, the admission would have sent Jill flying over the moon.

  Vincent Moretti cared about her. He wanted her to be happy…

  And yet… she wasn’t happy. Not at the moment.

  Because as quickly as the euphoria had come on, it fled. For some utterly unidentifiable reason, his admission left her more melancholy than if he hadn’t spoken at all.

  Almost as though it wasn’t enough.

  He pulled back slowly, and she felt the loss of his body warmth acutely. She lifted her hands to pull him back, only to realize the utter insanity of that. Instead she shoved them in her pockets and squeezed her eyes shut.

  Tom. Think of Tom. You’ll see him in just a few hours, and everything will be fine…

  “Henley, let’s get a move on it. We’ve got a case to solve,” Vincent called, already several feet down the sidewalk.

  Right. She took a deep breath, opened her eyes.

  They had a case to solve.

  Likely the last they’d have together.

  Might as well make it a good one.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Vincent’s apartment was the one place where the Moretti family never gathered. Ever.

  He didn’t blame them.

  His place was quintessential bachelor pad.

  Beat-up hardwood floors. A Spartan black leather sectional that had probably seen better days even back in the Reagan administration. A dented coffee table. Nary a throw pillow in sight. A big-ass TV that had cost far more than the couch, coffee table, and nonexistent throw pillows combined.

  He kept the kitchen clean, but it was small; just big enough for him to keep himself fed, and certainly not large enough to host his big, chronically hungry Italian family.

  Vincent was also the only family member to live in Queens. His parents were on Staten Island, Elena in Midtown, and his grandmother and brothers in Upper West Side. His place wasn’t exactly “on the way” to anything.

  But none of that was why his family avoided his house like the plague—especially come feeding time.

  No, the reason that his house was Absolute Last Choice of Moretti family gathering spaces had to do with the fact that while the rest of his place was rather Spartan, his walls were colorfully and frequently adorned.

  With crime scene photos.

  Corkboards competed for space only with the dry erase whiteboards, and every last surface was generally covered with pictures, notes, charts, and even the occasional good, old-fashioned, I-thought-they-only-did-that-in-the-movies string running among various pieces of evidence.

  Technically speaking—he wasn’t supposed to have any of this out of the office.

  But Vincent had never been a stickler for the rules.

  This was how he solved crimes. This was where he solved crimes. Sure, he had a desk at the precinct, and he put in the bare minimum of face time in order to not get his ass fired.

  But the office was bullpen style. A bunch of desks pushed together, his one of dozens in the middle of a crowded, ever-buzzing room.

  He couldn’t think there. Couldn’t get inside the mind of the victims, and certainly not inside the head of the suspects.

  Vin needed space, and visuals, and above all else, quiet.

  It was that last one that was turning out to be really fucking hard to come by on a Sunday evening.

  The phone would not stop ringing.

  “What,” he snapped into the phone without glancing at the caller ID.

  He’d already heard from:

  His mother (how come you never come to dinner anymore?).

  His father (did you catch the guy yet?).

  His grandmother (will you pick me up from my colonoscopy on Tuesday?).

  Luc (Jill’s not seriously marrying that guy, right?).

  And Elena (do you want to buy my old smoothie machine? I’m getting an upgrade? No? What if I give it to you? Still no?).

  Vin figured it was Anthony’s turn. His big brother wasn’t the chatty type, but he’d been known to take his hobby of lecturing to the cell phone once or twice.

  But it wasn’t Anth.

  “There’s that sweet voice I know and love,” the low voice on the other end said in a cooing, mocking voice.

  Vincent grinned. “Well, son of a bitch. If it isn’t the prodigal son.”

  “Prodigal brother to you,” Marco said.

  “What’s that? You seem to be breaking up—must be because you’re in Goddamn California.”

  “Easy, Grandpa. This isn’t a World War One radio. Cell towers work just as well here as they do there. Probably better.”

  Vin sat down on his couch, well aware that he was still wearing an atypical, broad smile.

  Of all his brothers, Marc had always been the one to piss him off the least. Younger than Vin by two years, he’d been easier to relate to than Anth, who’d always pissed everyone off with his interfering tendencies.

  And Marc had been the cool brother. The one who was always just a couple inches taller than you, just a little bit better than you in sports, and in the case of Marco and Vincent, was about ten times nicer than you.

  It wasn’t that Marc was soft. Not in the least. The man was six feet two inches of sheer muscle, and his intolerance for the “bad guys” ran blood-deep. He could also be stubborn, impatient, and intense.

  But people liked Marc. Liked his quick smile, his sense of humor, his good-old-boy charm.

  So yeah, Vincent had idolized his brother as a kid, even though the other was younger.

  As adults, they’d been close too. Closer than he was with Luc or Anth. And then Marc had up and left for California with barely a month of warning, all for a woman.

  “How’s Hollywood?” Vin asked just to needle his brother. “You busy working on your tan?”

  Marc didn’t live anywhere close to Hollywood, but the thoroughly East Coast Morettis clung to California clichés whenever they talked to Marc.

  Partially out of ignorance, but more so out of persistent dismay that one of their own had up and left them for the other coast.

  “Absolutely,” Marc said. “Just got done pruning my poolside palm trees.”

  Vin smiled. Marc was just about the only brother who’d mastered the skill of not letting his siblings get under his skin.

  “And Mandy?” Vin asked, not that he much cared.

  Marc’s girlfriend was… well, suffice it to say, none of the Morettis had ever been able to figure out what Marc saw in Mandy Breslin.

  She was pretty, yes. Stunning, even, in a Barbie-esque kind of way. She was also manipulative, selfish, and completely allergic to anything resembling work.

  It galled Vin that they’d moved to California for her “acting” career, and yet they were living off of Marc’s salary while Mandy waited for her big break.

  “She’s good,” Marc said.

  Vincent’s eyes narrowed, noticing the delay in Marc’s response. “Gone on any auditions lately?”

  Another pause. “No. Her agent’s called with a few possible commercial slots, but she wants to hold out for something bigger.”

  Of course she did.

  “How’s Jill?” Marc asked before Vincent could press the issue. “Rumor has it she’s getting married.”

  Well played, Big Brother. Well played.

  “Yup.” Vincent’s voice was curt.

  Marc didn’t take the hint. “And how do we feel about that?”

  “We, being the Moretti collective, or…?”

  “Good point,” Marc said. “I already know how the rest of the Morettis feel about it. How are you handling the news?”

  Vincent slouched back on the couch. “
Not much to handle. My colleague is getting married. Not exactly earth-shattering.”

  Marc snorted. “Really? That’s where you’re going with this? Jill’s a colleague now?”

  “She’s my partner.”

  “I know who and what she is,” Marc said quietly. “I also know who and what she is to you.”

  Do you? Because I sure as fuck don’t know.

  “Can we not talk about this?” Vincent grumbled.

  “Sure,” Marc said easily. “How about you tell me about this case you and your colleague are working on.”

  That, Vincent could do.

  Hell, he needed to do it. He’d been staring at his boards for hours now and couldn’t shake the sense that something was just out of reach…

  He filled Marc in on the Lenora Birch case.

  Told him of finding the body but without a single sense of what might have gone down. Told him that they’d interviewed all of the usual suspects—ex-lovers, ex-husbands, jealous ex-lovers of Lenora’s ex-lovers…

  And nothing.

  He and Jill had been following Vincent’s suggestion of “starting over.” They’d interviewed everyone again with fresh eyes and ears, and they weren’t any further along than they were before.

  Vincent stood to stare at his board, his eyes locking on the wide-eyed stare of a deceased Lenora Birch, silently begging her to tell him her secrets.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, man,” he told his brother with a shake of his head. “The method—shoving someone over a railing—screams crime of passion. But the complete lack of evidence, the lack of fingerprints, or so much as a hair could mean premeditation…”

  “Or someone who’s remarkably cool under pressure,” Marc said. “A crime of passion followed immediately by levelheaded damage control.”

  “Could be,” Vin mused. “But that’s the part that’s tripping me up. Crimes of passion generally stem from, well, passion. And Lenora Birch’s love life, while not uncomplicated, hasn’t turned up anything worth killing over. Best as we can tell, she held herself apart from other people. She was… removed.”

  “Huh. Someone scared to connect, to get too close to another person,” Marc said. “Sounds… familiar.”

  “I don’t think she was scared,” Vincent mused, ignoring Marc’s not-so-subtle jab about Vincent’s lack of relationships. “It’s like she focused her energy somewhere else.”

  “Well, we can get that right?” Marc said. “Sure, we Morettis are all husbands or boyfriends or brothers or sons, but aren’t there times when we’re a cop first? When that takes up all of us. Those days when we’re married to the job, you know?”

  Vincent froze in the middle of his pacing, a familiar prickle of knowing rippling along his spine.

  “Say that last part again,” he commanded his brother.

  “Um,” Marc said. “I said we were cops first… that some of us were boyfriends, although of course not you, because you just have a colleague—”

  “That’s it,” Vincent said, interrupting yet another jab.

  “What’s what?”

  “What if it was a crime of passion,” Vincent said excitedly. “But not passion in the sense that we usually think of it. Love and sex and all that.”

  “Um—”

  Vincent tucked the phone under his ear, moved toward the board, and began plucking down pictures of ex-lovers.

  “You said we were married to our job,” Vincent said hurriedly. “What if Lenora Birch was the same. What if the reason she held herself apart from people all those years was because her focus—her heart—was her career.”

  “Not following. Remember, of the two of us, you’re the detective who solves crimes. I’m the sergeant who chases bank robbers. Spell it out for me.”

  Vincent didn’t respond. His brain was humming with the hunch that had been eluding him this entire case.

  “Marc, you’re a fucking genius,” he muttered.

  “Thanks?”

  “I gotta go,” Vincent said, hanging up before even giving his brother a chance to say good-bye.

  Two seconds later, he was making another phone call, this time to his partner.

  “Henley,” he said the second she picked up the phone. “Get your butt over here. Now.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jill’s place was a ten-minute walk from Vincent’s apartment, which was handy when he had what she thought of as his “fits.” Those abrupt, semifrantic phone calls that meant he was onto something.

  Hadn’t happened in a while though.

  Both because she’d been in Florida for three months, and because in the month she’d been back, they’d both been thoroughly stumped by the Lenora Birch case.

  Funny how she’d almost missed his barked commands to drop whatever she was doing and come over.

  This interruption in particular had been welcome. Jill had been sitting on the center of her bed, surrounded by bridal magazines and trying to get excited about… something. Anything.

  What did it say about her that the latest trend in bridal bouquets (yellow roses were apparently “in”) didn’t even cause a blip on her radar, but a lead in a homicide case revved her motors?

  Right now, Jill didn’t care.

  Because she and Vin were back. She could feel it.

  She knocked at his door, but he didn’t answer, so she let herself in.

  “You know, you should really lock your front door,” she called, shrugging out of her coat. “Being a cop and all.”

  Still no answer. She walked toward his living room and found him precisely where she expected to. Where she’d found him a thousand times before.

  Scribbling frantically at his whiteboard.

  She watched him for a moment. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, a surprising change from his usual black. The muscles of his back rippled beneath the thin fabric as his arm moved furiously across the board, scribbling whatever was going through his head at warp speed.

  His black marker was starting to run out, and Jill wordlessly went to the small, utilitarian desk in the corner and pulled out a fresh pen.

  She moved to his side, uncapping it and then fluidly swapping the dying pen in his hand with the fresh one in hers.

  He barely paused. Didn’t grunt so much as a thank-you, and Jill smiled.

  She’d missed this.

  She tossed the dead pen in the trash and then settled down on his couch to wait.

  And wait, and wait.

  She tried to read his notes as he wrote them but his handwriting was atrocious, and he kept moving back and forth from one end of the board to the other.

  Finally, finally he stopped, although likely it was more a function of him running out of space than his brain slowing down.

  He capped the pen.

  Stepped back, and stared at the board.

  He held up the marker without turning around. “Thanks for this.”

  Jill lifted an eyebrow. Acknowledgment of her usefulness. That was… new.

  She pushed off the couch and moved beside him so they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Actually, more like shoulder to waist, since he was several inches taller.

  “What am I looking at?” she asked.

  He tossed the marker on the coffee table, then linked his fingers behind his head, turning in a circle.

  “I had a breakthrough.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, I figured.”

  He glanced at her then, seeming to see her for the first time since she’d arrived, and he dropped his hands, looking her up and down.

  “You’re in your pajamas.”

  She glanced down at her pink-and-white-striped flannel pants and white tank. “Well, you called me at nine o’clock on a Sunday night. Not quite my bedtime, but let’s just say I’d put my ball gown away for the evening.”

  He’d already turned back to his boards. His main one—the one he called the board—was more barren than last time she’d seen it, and the stack of papers on the table told her that he’d recently de
cided he was on the wrong track.

  “Talk to me,” she said patiently.

  “We’ve decided that pushing someone over a railing smells more like impulse than premeditation, right? If you’re going to show up at someone’s house with the intent to kill, you take a gun, maybe a knife—”

  “Right,” Jill said. “You don’t think, ‘gosh, I want to off someone; I’m going to wait until they’re in a prime position on the second-floor landing and then push them.’”

  “Exactly. So we’ve been operating under the assumption that this is a crime of passion.”

  “Right…” she said, waiting.

  “It is a crime of passion, but we got the passion wrong,” he said, turning to face her, eyes excited.

  Jill shook her head. “Explain?”

  “Something’s been bothering me about the way she died,” he continued hurriedly. “We know that someone pushed her, likely in a fit of rage.”

  “Sure, but that’s not all that unusual—”

  Vincent held up a finger. “No, what’s been bothering me is that everything we’ve learned about Lenora Birch says that she’s not the type to provoke someone. Almost everyone we’ve talked to, from the housekeeper to her boyfriend, said she’s hard to rattle. Cool to the point of being cold.”

  Jill nodded, still having no idea where he was going with all this.

  “Everyone except one person said that,” he said.

  Jill chewed her lip as she mentally ran through every conversation they’d had, every person they’d interviewed.

  “Her agent,” Jill said. “The Lenora that her agent described was a different person. Fiery, temperamental, passionate.”

  “Exactly.” He took a step nearer, his eyes blazing. “Passionate. This was a crime of passion, but not of the romantic, sexual nature. If Lenora could be provoked into saying something that would piss off another person to the point of murder, it means they would both have to be fired up.”

  “Okay?”

  He breathed out a sigh of irritation. “We’ve been looking at her lovers, and lovers of her lovers. But the Lenora we keep hearing about would have been indifferent if she were talking about a husband or a boyfriend, and nobody pushes an indifferent person to their death.”