But now Mitch saw the flaw in his plan. When O’Brien showed up—and he would, statistics put the odds firmly on that eventuality—Mitch would have to arrest him. It didn’t matter that Mitch had reviewed the evidence and thought there was merit to O’Brien’s claim of innocence. The fact was O’Brien was still a fugitive and Mitch would be risking not only censure, but imprisonment if he didn’t apprehend O’Brien when he had the chance.
And Claire would discover the truth. He’d misrepresented himself. He’d lied. She would hate him. And he wouldn’t blame her.
Deep down, Mitch hoped O’Brien never showed. He wanted Claire to himself, and he never wanted her to find out the truth.
Stupid. She would find out sooner or later. That first night out, while they ate, Claire said, “You know, when I first met you I thought you were a cop.”
Mitch’s blood ran cold, but he kept his face casual. “You did? Why?”
“I’ve been around cops all of my life. And a lot of Rogan-Caruso employees are former cops or military. Two things stood out. First, every time someone walks into your peripheral vision, you glance at them. Quickly, but it’s a habit. And when we sit at Starbucks, you always have your back against the wall. Just like you do now.”
“I was in the military for three years.”
She nodded. “That explains it.”
He didn’t know if it explained it. He’d almost forgotten who he was dealing with. Claire O’Brien was not stupid.
“Marines.”
“Semper Fi.”
He grinned.
“Why’d you leave?”
He didn’t want to talk about himself, but he wanted to share something real with Claire. And it didn’t get more real than this—his past, the past that made him the man he’d become. The good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly.
“The real question should be, why’d I join.”
“Okay. Why’d you join?”
“My dad.”
“He was in the Marines?”
“No. The Air Force.”
She didn’t say anything, but he saw her mind working behind those incredible blue eyes.
“When I was growing up in Santa Barbara, I didn’t have plans for my future. My dad was the district attorney, and I was a beach bum.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t fit. I don’t see you lying around on the beach working on your tan.”
He laughed. “No, lying around wasn’t my style. Surfing was. Surfing and diving. Travis—Travis Cole, my closest friend since we were six—and I spent every afternoon on the waves or under them. And we cut enough classes that I had to study my ass off to pass my finals.”
“Your dad didn’t like that.”
“Hell no. He didn’t like Travis, who was from a wealthy family. They had the kind of money that seemed to grow on trees. I didn’t have the same advantages. We weren’t poor by any stretch, but putting me through college and law school like my father planned would wipe out their savings account.” Mitch heated with regret remembering when he told his dad he’d be a lawyer over his dead body. Rod Bianchi was dead less than a year later.
“I joined the military right out of high school to get away from Dad. It was the military or college, and I really didn’t want to go to college. I wanted to travel the world with Travis on his yacht, diving in the tropics and surfing waves that hit empty beaches. But I couldn’t do it. I told myself it was because my mom would be devastated, but in truth I was still under Dad’s thumb. No matter how many shenanigans I pulled with Travis, I kept going home and asking for forgiveness.”
“You probably would have gotten bored with that after, oh, ten or twenty years.”
He nodded, gave her a half smile, though his memories were of an unhappier time.
Something passed across Claire’s expression that told Mitch now was the time to get her to talk about her dad, but then it was gone and she said, “So you joined the Marines because he had been in the Air Force.”
“Yeah.”
“And why’d you leave?”
“My dad died. Heart attack.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He was a workaholic. On the job 24/7. He didn’t know the meaning of the word relax, and his doctor had been warning him for years that if he didn’t slow down or take care of himself, he would die early. Rod Bianchi didn’t believe him. He was in shape, worked out at the gym every morning, ate healthy. He died at his desk.”
“And you came home to be a beach bum?”
“I considered it. But I ended up going to college. Travis got tired of traipsing across the planet, so he joined me. We got a place on the beach and spent a lot of time on the waves, and a little time in class.”
“How’d you end up becoming a writer?”
Now they were getting into the lies. It had felt so good to tell Claire the truth about himself that he dreaded the next sentence that came out of his mouth.
“I worked on the campus newspaper. I liked it, and when I graduated I took a job on a paper in the south. Then moved my way up the Eastern Seaboard. Came back to California when my mom died. When my grandmother passed a year later and I had a bit of money, I decided that if I was ever going to do something big, I needed to try now. So I’m trying to write the Great American Novel.”
The lies came off his tongue effortlessly, but he wished his heart wasn’t so twisted. He wanted to tell Claire everything—how he joined the FBI because he thought that would have pleased his father, the man he had fought with only days before he died. How his mom had blamed him for his dad’s early death.
Instead, he created a fictional past for Claire and hated himself for it. He couldn’t tell her he thought her father was innocent, or that he had intentionally befriended her in order to capture Tom O’Brien.
Claire took his hand and kissed it. “You’ll have to teach me to surf someday.”
“There’re no beaches in Sacramento.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Really? Guess we’ll have to head to the coast for a weekend sometime.”
His heart did a flip and his hand tightened within her grasp.
“Guess we’ll have to,” he said thickly.
Instruments were being tuned in the bar, and Claire smiled. “That’s Finnegan’s Wake.”
“What?”
“The band. Named after the classic Irish folk song. A homage of sorts. This is their first time here.”
“I thought this was a British pub.” He pointed to the British flag hanging on the interior glass windows of the converted warehouse. “And isn’t that Queen Elizabeth?” he said, gesturing toward a mural.
She laughed. “Come on, let’s dance.”
Mitch had seen Claire dance before, but not when they’d been together. When he’d been watching her, following her.
Her body moved erotically back and forth to the fluid tempo of music as he danced with her. Seeing her so free was a treat. Every morning when they talked she was on guard and cautious. Now . . . was this the real Claire? Was this the woman she’d have been had her life not been turned upside down when she was fourteen? Or was this the woman she’d become because of the murders? She danced for herself, no one else. Tonight, she seemed relaxed. Almost . . . happy. Happy with him.
She couldn’t possibly know how her movement affected him. Her eyes closed and she wore that half smile Mitch loved so much. At this moment, her entire demeanor said “peace,” when usually Claire seemed to struggle so.
She opened her eyes, looking right at him, all her beauty and charm and those seductive bright blue eyes focused on him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and closed her eyes again. The music had changed to something more folksy. Whatever it was, she liked it and moved accordingly.
“I love . . .”
“What?” he said, unable to hear her over the noise.
She stood on her tiptoes and leaned against him until her lips practically touched his ear. Her warm breath had him holding his. “I love this song.”
She rested her head on his
shoulder and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight against him. The dance floor wasn’t large, about ten feet square, and more people joined them, pushing them closer. She kissed the side of his neck and Mitch held her tighter, one hand on the small of her back, the other on her neck.
Throughout the evening they danced, they drank a bit, and Mitch wanted to be nowhere else in the world but with Claire.
She wrapped an arm around his waist at the end of the evening and said, “That was fun.”
“I agree.”
They walked out to the parking lot, arm in arm. Mitch unlocked the passenger door for Claire. He’d taken out everything that might identify him as an FBI agent. His gun was in his trunk. He felt naked without it, but Claire would have been able to see—or feel—the piece on him.
“Wow, chivalry,” she said and turned to face him.
She kissed him. Everything about Claire was larger than life, and her kiss was nothing less. Her mouth parted and her tongue found his. She tasted of hops and peppermint. Her hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him down to her, her fingers rubbing his muscles, his hair, his shoulders. Her lithe body molded to his and all Mitch wanted to do was take her to his bed, right now.
His mouth opened to suggest it, but he stopped himself. He was staying at Nolan’s house. Nolan had a damn congressional medal of honor on his wall with the salutation “Special Agent Nolan Cassidy” plus a bunch of news articles in his den, extra guns in his bedroom. Damn.
“Come home with me,” Claire murmured.
Was she drunk or just tipsy? What was he thinking? It didn’t matter! She was Tom O’Brien’s daughter. He couldn’t sleep with her, no matter how much he wanted to.
He was about to protest, but instead pinned her to his car and kissed her as hard as she’d kissed him. Their bodies were as close as possible while still being fully clothed. He held her chin, kissing her repeatedly, not wanting to give up this moment.
Reluctantly, he pulled himself away. Her blue eyes looked black in the yellow light of the parking lot. Her skin was flushed, breathing heavy, lips red and lush.
“I want to.” He swallowed. “But—”
She put her finger to his lips. He kissed it and she smiled. “No buts. No promises. I want to, you want to.” She gave him a feather of a kiss that was as erotic as the deep kiss a moment before.
“Claire.”
He wanted her.
He couldn’t have her.
“I’ll take you home,” he said.
If she was hurt by his rejection, she didn’t show it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He wanted to make love to her.
But not like this. Not with lies between them.
He drove the short distance to her house.
“Thanks,” she said, making a move to open the door.
“Claire—” He took her arm, pulled her across the middle seat, and kissed her. Long and hard, showing her his feelings when he couldn’t speak the whole truth.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?” he whispered as his lips pulled back, lightly touching hers, teasing both of them.
“Okay.” Her voice was hoarse.
“Good night.”
“ ’Night.”
He watched her walk into her house alone, and he prayed he had the willpower to resist her next time they went out.
And he knew the only way he’d be able to resist her would be if he never saw her again.
But that wouldn’t happen.
ELEVEN
Steve walked through the door of the Fox & Goose at seven thirty. Mitch had to get him out of there before Claire showed. He doubted Claire would be early, but he wanted Steve gone by eight thirty.
“You started without me.” Steve slid into the chair next to him and motioned to the waitress to get him what Mitch was drinking.
“You’re late.”
“Got a lead on the Pinter case, but it didn’t pan out. Arrested one of his minions, though, practically a kid—but with two hundred counterfeited credit cards in his possession.”
“No shit.”
“Credit-card fraud is out of control, and until we get the big players like Pinter we’ll never even make a dent.” He shook his head. “Here we are, at one of Claire O’Brien’s favorite hangouts. But of course you already knew that.”
Mitch said nothing. What could he say?
“If Meg finds out about your off-duty investigation of Tom O’Brien, that’s one thing. You get a slap on the wrist. But if you’re involved with Claire, that’s a whole different ball game.”
“It’s not like that.”
“So what the fuck is it like?”
“It’s complicated.”
Steve sipped his beer. “Dammit, Bianchi, I went to bat for you today with Meg. I told her I needed you as a partner, that you are invaluable to the squad. So no more bullshit.”
“I wouldn’t put you at risk, Steve.”
“Why are you obsessed with Tom O’Brien? Just because he saved your life three months ago? Or is there something else you’re not telling me?”
Mitch didn’t want to talk about his own father railroading another innocent guy into prison. It still burned him and he hated that he came from the same gene pool as Rod Bianchi. But Steve was smart, maybe he’d see the same problems with the O’Brien conviction that Mitch saw. That while Mitch couldn’t right the wrongs committed by his father long ago, he could help another wrongfully convicted man find justice and exoneration.
“Let me lay out what I know,” Mitch said. “The fact that Oliver Maddox is dead makes it even more suspicious.” Mitch filled Steve in on Maddox looking into an appeal of O’Brien’s death sentence. “What if Maddox had real information?”
“And the real killer didn’t want it to get out?” Steve shook his head. “This is a wild-goose chase. Maddox’s death was probably an accident. Dozens of people drown in the Delta every year. Most are accidents.”
“Convenient accident,” Mitch said.
“Could have been suicide.”
“By drowning? Rare. Let’s wait until the autopsy tomorrow. And we have the meeting with the detective in Davis. But look at the facts. Maddox disappeared two days before O’Brien was moved into the general prison population. He was actively looking into the O’Brien case, had met with O’Brien at Quentin, and phoned him six times after that meeting. There was a meeting scheduled on the books for the Monday after Maddox disappeared.”
“How’d you find that? I didn’t see it in the file from Quentin.”
“It wasn’t, but when I interviewed the warden and the head guard of North Seg, I got a copy of the schedule. It wasn’t in the file because Maddox never showed up. He was already dead.”
“You’re certain it’s murder.”
Mitch nodded. “Steve, I’m sure as hell not perfect, but you know I’m a good cop. I smelled murder the minute I saw the body.”
“I’m not going to doubt your instincts, Mitch. They’ve been right on the money in the past. But this time you’re too close to it.”
“Maybe, but there’s more than Maddox being dead.”
“What? Just because O’Brien helped capture the Goethe gang, that psycho up in Montana, and a bunch of other prisoners, he’s redeemed from a double-murder charge?”
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, but now that you mention it, I think those actions say a lot about his character.”
“What it says is O’Brien isn’t a repeat offender. He killed in a crime of passion. Most spouses who off their unfaithful wives aren’t out to kill a half-dozen other people.”
“He risked himself—his freedom and his life—staying close to San Francisco to set up Goethe’s gang.”
“But he’s a dead man, Mitch. His date with the executioner is only weeks away. Maybe he wanted to do something noble to go out in a blaze of glory or whatever.” Steve shook his head in disbelief and drank some beer.
“Put that aside for now and look at the facts of his case. O’Brien was co
nvicted solely on circumstantial evidence.”
“He had motive and opportunity,” Steve countered. “That isn’t circumstantial.”
“Bullshit. A lot of people have the motive and opportunity to kill and they don’t do it. Why use his personal weapon?”
“Crimes of passion aren’t well thought out.”
“Did you look at the crime scene photos?”
“No. Why would I have? I’m not obsessed with this case.” Steve motioned for the waitress to bring two more pints. Mitch stole a glance at his watch. 8:10. He needed to wrap this up within thirty minutes and get Steve out of here before Claire walked in and saw them talking like they were best friends. Mitch didn’t want to confirm Steve’s suspicions that his feelings for Claire went beyond his need to prove O’Brien innocent.
“The bodies were in bed. Taverton on top of Mrs. O’Brien. The killer walked in and shot them without hesitation. Without Taverton even having a chance to move or defend himself. That, to me, says cold-blooded premeditation.”
“And a betrayed husband could have planned it just like that. What if he knew about the affair for a while? Fumed over it? Then his daughter calls and she’s upset because she walked in and heard her mom in bed with a stranger. It set him off. He might have been thinking about it, maybe planning it, and now he just goes and does it.”
“No rage? No yelling and fighting?”
Steve shrugged, sipped the new pint the waitress brought. Mitch tossed a twenty and a five on the tray and thanked her.
“What I’m saying,” Mitch continued, “is that the police never investigated Chase Taverton’s life, not in any depth. He was a prosecutor. He must have racked up a long list of enemies, and to not even walk down that road—if only to check it off the damn list—seems not only irresponsible, but flat-out wrong. It’s like they saw what they wanted to see—crime of passion—arrested the husband, and tossed away the key.”
“Usually the most obvious suspect is the killer,” Steve said.
“And sometimes the obvious suspect is innocent.”
“He was convicted by a jury.”
Playing Dead Page 10
