by Karen Rose
‘So why tell me tonight?’ she asked.
He lifted his hand to stroke her cheek, but she flinched, shifting so that he touched only air. His hand dropped to his side and his mouth curved bitterly. ‘Because I feel you moving away from me and I don’t know why. It’s been almost a year since we—’
‘Hooked up,’ Scarlett said flatly, because that was all it had been. ‘And it’s been more than a year. It’s been eighteen months.’ His confused frown made her sigh. ‘The last time was before Julie,’ she supplied dryly.
‘Oh yeah.’ His lips curved, but his eyes remained oddly distant. ‘We had a good run, Julie and I.’ His slight smile faded. ‘When it was over, I came to you, but you said you weren’t in the mood.’
That had been a month after she’d met Marcus. ‘No, what I said was that I didn’t want to hook up anymore.’ Her cheeks heated at the memory of the times she’d given in and had casual sex with him. At how little she’d expected for herself. At how very reckless she’d been. ‘I still don’t, Bryan.’
Scarlett had turned him away that night and all the other nights he’d shown up at her door thereafter. When Bryan had tried to cajole her into changing her mind, all she could hear was Marcus’s deep voice in her mind. Because it was the right thing to do.
Bryan’s gaze dropped abruptly, then winged back up a moment later, troubled. Wounded. ‘Did I do something wrong? Something to hurt you?’
Pity pricked at her heart. ‘No, Bryan. You haven’t done anything wrong and you haven’t hurt me. You’re exactly who you’ve always been.’
His tension draining away, he leaned in far enough to press his face into the curve of her shoulder while taking care to touch her nowhere else. He breathed in deeply, drawing in her scent. ‘Then let’s go upstairs,’ he whispered. ‘I need you tonight. It’s been too long.’
She took a step back, coming up short when her ass hit her car door. Bryan remained frozen in place, his back bent, his shoulders hunched.
‘I’m sorry, Bryan,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t. I’ve told you this, over and over.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ he asked harshly.
‘Either. Both.’
‘Why?’ he asked, his whisper barely audible.
‘Because even though you haven’t changed, I have.’
He exhaled, dropped his chin to his chest. ‘Is there someone else?’
‘No,’ she said honestly. Not yet. Maybe not ever. She drew a deep breath. ‘But maybe I want there to be.’
He looked up then, eyes narrowed. ‘But that isn’t me.’
‘No.’ She smiled to soften her words. ‘We both know that you’re not forever material.’
‘True,’ he murmured. That it hadn’t even seemed to occur to him to deny it made her want to cry. He straightened slowly, studying her. ‘Are you forever material?’
Tears rose to burn her eyes, because she knew exactly what he was asking. Was she even capable of being some guy’s happily-ever-after? Importantly, could she be Marcus’s happily-ever-after? ‘I don’t know. I’m just as messed up as you are.’
He was quiet for a long moment and she instinctively knew he was thinking about that day, that horrible, horrible day. The day that had changed their lives so irrevocably. It might as well have been yesterday, the memory was so vividly clear. So much blood. In all the years she’d been a cop, she’d never yet seen another crime scene with so much blood.
She blinked, startled out of the memory by the feeling of soft fabric touching her face. Bryan held a cotton handkerchief and was using it to dry her wet cheeks. The tears in her eyes had spilled without her realizing it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
She made herself smile. ‘For what?’
‘For not being forever material. I wish I could be. But I can’t. Not even for you.’
Touched, she cupped his cheek. ‘Maybe when you meet the right person it’ll seem easy.’
Again his eyes narrowed, this time in discovery. ‘You’ve met that person.’ He crossed his arms over his chest, going from wistful to menacing in a heartbeat. ‘Did he hurt you?’
‘No. It’s not like that. He’s just . . .’ She sighed. ‘He doesn’t know.’
‘Then he’s blind and stupid,’ Bryan declared, and the wicked gleam she knew so well was back in his eyes. ‘I could help you forget him,’ he suggested slyly.
Scarlett shook her head, more than a little glad that the moment was over. ‘I appreciate your offer to make the sacrifice,’ she said. ‘But the answer is still no.’
‘Coffee then?’ he said.
‘Sorry, not now. I have a body on its way to the morgue.’
He frowned, lightly lifting the thin strap of her tank top with his pinkie before letting it snap back against her shoulder. ‘You dress like this while you’re on duty?’
Her cheeks heated. It was on the skimpy side as tank tops went, baring her shoulders and hugging her curves. Neither her top nor her low-riding jeans were the proper attire of a law enforcement professional. But I didn’t get dressed for work. She’d dressed for Marcus. She thought now about the way his dark eyes had followed her as she’d processed the crime scene. He’d noticed.
‘I have a jacket in the car.’ A jacket she’d deliberately left off at the crime scene.
Bryan’s frown didn’t falter. ‘I thought you were off duty today.’
Scarlett blinked, then set her jaw. ‘How did you know that?’
‘I called your mother last night and asked her,’ he said unapologetically.
‘You asked my mother?’ she asked, incredulous at first, then resigned. Her mother had always had a soft spot for Bryan. ‘How did my mother know?’
‘She asked your father.’
Scarlett sighed. ‘And of course he knew.’ Her father knew nearly everything that went on in CPD, especially when it concerned the three of his seven children who’d followed in his footsteps to join the force. She tilted her head to one side, studying Bryan’s face in the harsh glare of the streetlights. ‘Why did you call my mom looking for me, Bryan?’
His shrug was careless. ‘You’d been pushing me away. And I was . . . lonely.’
‘What about Sylvia?’
‘Ancient history. We broke up six months ago. Kathy followed Syl, and then there was Wendy.’
‘What happened to Wendy?’
A one-shouldered shrug. ‘We broke up two weeks ago.’
Scarlett lifted a brow. This was the Bryan she’d known since their freshman year of college. His slew of recent visits now made sense. Had he and Wendy still been a thing, he would not be standing in Scarlett’s driveway. ‘So you came to me,’ she said.
At least he had the good grace to look ashamed. For a second, anyway. Then he lifted his chin, his jaw taut. ‘I came by a few other times last week, but you weren’t home.’
The accusing way he said it made her wonder if he knew she really had been home those times too. It made her wonder how he’d known she was home the last time, when he’d banged on her front door with his fists. Because she didn’t want to admit she’d been hiding under her bedcovers, she didn’t ask that question. ‘I work odd hours, Bryan. You know this.’
He gave her a pointed look. ‘I also know when your car is parked in your garage. It smells like dirty socks.’
She let out a breath. Damn diesel fuel. ‘I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Well I’m about to hurt you,’ he said flatly. ‘So brace yourself. I saw Trent Bracken downtown last week, eating lunch with the senior partner of Langston and Vollmer.’
Scarlett flinched, feeling like she’d been physically slapped. Then the fury hit and she had to take a deep breath to keep it contained. Trent Bracken should be on death row, not lunching with the most powerful law firm in town. ‘Why?’ she asked hoarsely.
Bryan’s mouth twisted. ‘Because they just brought him in as a junior partner. His win record in the courtroom is “legendary”. That was the word the partners used in t
he memo they sent out to everybody in the firm.’
‘Fucking bastards.’ Scarlett had to take another breath, this one to keep from throwing up. ‘They’d hire a murderer?’
‘They would and they did,’ Bryan said bitterly. ‘They said his “horrific experience with the justice system” had given him a passion for “defending the rights of the innocent”.’
Scarlett’s knees wobbled and she leaned against her car for support. ‘The innocent,’ she whispered. ‘Michelle was innocent. Don’t they care that he killed her?’ Huffing a bitter laugh, she answered her own question. ‘Of course they don’t. They’re just like the animals who got Bracken off in the first place.’ Defense attorneys looking for any possible loophole, not caring that they pushed a killer back on the streets. ‘Of course they’d hire scum like him. They are scum like him.’
‘I thought you should know in case you met him in court. I didn’t want you blindsided.’
New tears had risen to burn her eyes and she blinked them away. ‘So that’s why you’ve been coming to see me? To tell me about Bracken?’
He nodded, then shrugged. ‘And for sex,’ he admitted.
Her chuckle was unsteady at best. ‘Hell, Bryan. Go home, get some rest. Maybe you’ll meet someone new tomorrow.’
‘Maybe,’ he said sadly. ‘Who is he, Scarlett? At least tell me that.’
She frowned, still in enough shock over Bracken’s new mockery of justice that it took her a second to process Bryan’s question. Oh, she thought, and then the memory of Marcus’s voice was filling her mind, soothing the frayed edges.
She wasn’t willing to tell anyone yet. Not when it could, quite literally, be all in her mind. ‘There isn’t a “he”. Not until one of us makes a move. Assuming one of us ever does.’
‘If he’s not dead, he’ll make a move,’ Bryan predicted grimly, then turned and walked back to his car. ‘I guess I’ll see you . . . when I see you. Next month for sure.’
Scarlett nodded, still feeling sick. ‘For sure.’ When Michelle’s friends would gather by her grave on the anniversary of her death and remember the woman whose loss had scarred them all. She stepped out of the way as he slammed the door of his Jag and revved the engine loud enough to wake everyone on the street. Peeling out of her driveway with a squeal of tires, he set off down the hill at a speed far too high to be safe. Scarlett might have whispered a prayer for his safety . . . if she still believed in prayer. Which she had not since the moment she’d found Michelle’s body in that alley, covered in blood.
The thought of bodies and alleys jerked her out of the past. Tala. Michelle had never gotten her justice, but Tala sure as hell would. Digging deep for the anger that had kept her going for ten long years, Scarlett straightened her spine, marched up her front steps, unlocked the door and stepped inside. As she locked it behind her, the sob she’d been holding back barreled up from her gut like a tornado, stealing her breath. Slumping against the foyer wall, she slid to the floor, burying her face against her bent knees as she rocked herself for comfort, her keening cries echoing in the empty space.
The uneven patter of claws on her newly laid hardwood floor cut through her tears, giving her a moment’s warning before a sandpapery tongue licked her cheek. Choking on a wet laugh, she threw her arm around the three-legged bulldog whose life she’d saved the day she’d brought him home from the shelter. ‘Hey, Zat,’ she whispered, still surprised at how quickly he’d wormed his way into her heart.
She sat there with the dog for several minutes, then pushed herself to her feet and climbed the stairs to the one bathroom she’d finished remodeling. A shower, clean clothes and some coffee, and she’d be ready to start searching for Tala’s identity. And her killer.
That the search might include more interactions with Marcus O’Bannion shouldn’t seem like a silver lining, but it did. ‘And who knows,’ she murmured as she turned on the shower. ‘Maybe I’ll be the one to make the first move.’
Three
Cincinnati, Ohio
Tuesday 4 August, 5.15 A.M.
‘You’re here awful early, boss.’
Shock had Marcus jerking his gaze from his laptop to frown at the woman who leaned against his office doorframe looking sleep-rumpled, her curly hair all over the place and her clothes crushed and wrinkled.
Jill Ennis was not supposed to be here by herself. She was not one of his trusted staff. Not yet. And maybe not ever.
She’d never done anything overtly untrustworthy, and her work was impeccable, but she gave off an odd vibe that made Marcus uncomfortable, though he wasn’t sure why. He would have fired her months ago, except that she was Gayle’s niece, which put him in one hell of a bind. Jill’s parents had died five years before, and she’d moved in with Gayle. She had graduated from high school a year ago, and Gayle had asked Marcus if he would give her a job while the girl decided what to do with her life.
Marcus had never been able to deny Gayle anything, so he’d said yes. Jill had been tasked with updating their website, and she did good work. But recently she’d started college and had taken to coming in after hours to finish her work, often having to be almost kicked out when the others went home at two A.M., when the paper went to press.
‘Why are you here?’ he asked, wondering what Jill had overheard.
‘I was working on an ad layout for a new client and couldn’t get it quite right. I fell asleep at my desk. I dreamed someone was cursing, then woke up and realized it was you. What’s going on?’
Ignoring her question, Marcus refocused his attention on the list of threats that filled his computer screen. The last time he’d seen the list was more than nine months ago, and it was far longer than he remembered – with too many totally capable of taking a shot at him. Or at someone standing next to him. He couldn’t give this entire list to Scarlett Bishop. She was smart enough to see patterns. To figure out that he was doing a lot more than simply publishing the news.
‘You wouldn’t keep falling asleep at your desk if you weren’t burning the candle at both ends,’ he grumbled. ‘I pay you well enough that you shouldn’t need to go to school after working here all day.’
‘You pay me far too well,’ Jill said mildly. ‘That’s never been an issue.’
He looked up from the list. ‘Then what is the issue? Why are you killing yourself like this? You know I don’t care about any stinkin’ degrees.’
Her lips curved, but it was nowhere close to a smile. ‘You don’t really want to know the answer to that question, Marcus.’
Startled at the anger behind her words, Marcus shoved his own irritation back down, made his voice civil. ‘Try me.’
‘Okay, fine.’ Jill crossed her arms loosely over her chest and gave him a look that reminded him of Gayle when she’d scolded them as children.
‘Your aunt could freeze me with that look when I was a kid,’ he commented, leaning back in his chair, wondering what could have put that expression on Jill’s face.
‘I know. She said that Stone was always able to charm her out of it and into giving him cookies, but that you would always confess whatever “misdeed” you’d done.’
‘That’s pretty accurate,’ he said. Of course there was one childhood misdeed that Marcus had never confessed to Gayle or to anyone else, partly because he was ashamed. Partly because he was worried about the impact the truth would have on his mother and Stone. But mostly because he’d only been eight years old at the time, a traumatized little boy in a situation no child should ever need to face.
He hadn’t needed to confess to Gayle. She’d seen the whole thing and had kept his secret for the past twenty-seven years. Her love and care had ensured that his eight-year-old self hadn’t fallen into the abyss that called to his adult self. He sat here today because Gayle had never given up on him.
Now he faced her furious niece calmly. ‘But I’m not a kid, Jill, and you’re not Gayle. I’m your boss.’ He let the sentence hang, hoping to see some respect in her eyes. When she continued the sta
ring contest, he sharpened his tone. ‘Why don’t you tell me exactly what it is that I don’t want to know?’
Jill squared her shoulders. ‘You’re looking at the threat list. Why?’
Marcus stiffened in shock, the anger he’d been controlling for hours suddenly collapsing into an icy ball in his gut. How had she known that? He hadn’t trusted her with the true mission of the paper, so he’d kept her access to sensitive information to a minimum. ‘How do you even know that such a list exists?’ he asked quietly.
‘My aunt told me.’
Impossible. ‘No, she didn’t tell you, I’m sure of that.’
Gayle was the only person Marcus would ever have trusted with the task of cataloguing the threats to his life. She would never have told anyone outside their specific small circle.
‘Okay, fine, Aunt Gayle didn’t tell me. I hacked into her computer and figured it out for myself.’ Her jaw jutted out, her gaze daring him to condemn her.
The hairs lifted on the back of his neck. Something was very wrong here. And considering he’d just witnessed a seventeen-year-old girl being gunned down in front of him, that was saying something. Jill’s mild manner a few minutes before had been a facade. She was furious with him. He wondered how long she’d carried her rage.
‘When?’ he asked.
‘The day Mikhail died.’
‘Was murdered,’ Marcus corrected, his words clipped. ‘Mikhail was murdered.’
‘Fine.’ Her tone was as cold as his. ‘The day Mikhail was murdered, I came into the office and found Aunt Gayle pale as a ghost, clutching her chest. It was her heart.’
Marcus sat straight up in his chair, his bruised back protesting the movement. But he barely felt the pain because panic had gripped him. ‘What? Gayle had a heart attack?’
‘Yeah. A “little” one. Not that she’d ever admit it to any of you,’ she added bitterly.
Marcus closed his eyes. Gayle hadn’t come to see him in the hospital the first week. He hadn’t seen her until Mikhail’s funeral. He hadn’t asked why because he figured she’d been grieving too. She’d raised Mikhail from infancy. His murder must have cut her in two. But he’d never suspected, never even thought that she could have . . .
