Troubleshooters 04 Out of Control

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Yeah. Lots of reading and writing,” she told him. “Not so much of the Perry Mason stuff. In fact, not any of that at all.”

  “Really? I bet you’d be good at it.”

  “What I’m good at,” her voice was as smooth as the darkness that surrounded him, “is finding other people’s stupid mistakes.”

  Yeah, he could believe that.

  “It’s amazing how often prosecutors and even judges cheat the rules,” she told him. “Our justice system only works if the rules are always followed and everyone—everyone—gets a fair trial every single time. I’ve got to believe in that completely in order to do my job because, trust me, some of these people I handle appeals for are the complete scum of the earth.”

  Ken tried to make himself more comfortable on the hard ground. “Like, give me an example,” he said, curious as to whether he might fall into that particular subset.

  “I did one appeal for a guy who was in jail for second-degree murder because he went target shooting when he was drunk. I’m talking completely tanked. He didn’t go far enough into the woods; turns out he was near a campsite, and a ten-year-old was struck by a bullet and killed. Well, his whole trial was riddled with errors. The judge didn’t read the correct instructions to the jury, the prosecutor included some information in his closing that was hearsay, and there was an incident in which the defendant fell and hit his head on the way into the courtroom and actually showed signs of concussion. He claims he was completely out of it, incompetent to stand trial, and yet it went on without him getting any medical attention, without him even being checked by a doctor. I had a whole list of reasons to appeal.

  “And yet,” she continued, “even though we didn’t have a ballistics match because the bullet that killed the girl exited her body and was never recovered, we have testimony from forensics experts as to where the shooter was located when the girl was killed. And there was some extremely damaging proof in the form of shell casings found at that very spot—with my client’s fingerprints on ’em—that match the ones he used in his rifle.

  “He claims he didn’t see anyone, didn’t know that anyone had been hurt, but God, he was guilty of manslaughter at the very least, and here I was about to get him a whole new trial. That little girl’s parents were going to have to go through hell all over again, and that really stank. But it would stink even more if we started slacking off on giving everyone a fair trial. Oh, you know, he doesn’t need a fair trial. It’s okay that he has a concussion and can’t even focus his eyes while he’s in the courtroom because he’s guilty, right? Wrong. Everyone gets a fair trial. It’s the only way the system can truly work.”

  “Wow,” Ken said.

  “Sorry. I sometimes get a little too . . . I don’t know. Passionate, I guess.”

  “I don’t think there’s such a thing as too passionate,” he countered.

  “Yes, there is.”

  “Not in my book,” he said. “If you think otherwise, you’ve probably been hanging with the wrong people.”

  He couldn’t see her, but he heard her smile in the darkness. “You’re a SEAL, Kenny. It makes sense that you don’t scare easily. But you should see the way people—men—run sometimes when I go off on a rant like that.”

  “Really? They run? Because I was, like, getting really turned on.”

  Savannah laughed. “You know, just when I start to forget, you remind me exactly how much of a jerk you are.”

  Ken smiled at the sound of her laughter.

  “You do that on purpose, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Do what?” He played dumb.

  “You probably got farther in life by playing the clown than you did from being a straight-A student. Am I right?”

  “Savannah, Savannah, Savannah,” he said. “Do not even attempt to psychoanalyze me. I assure you, many a seasoned professional has been stumped and even driven to tears by the magic that is me.”

  She laughed again, just as he’d hoped she would. She had the sexiest laugh. Low and husky. “You’re not so hard to figure out.”

  “Terrific,” he said. “When we get back to the States, do me a favor and write up a report. I’ll bring it with me next time I go in for a psych eval. That’s kind of a mental health checkup that we all have to go through pretty regularly,” he added before she could ask.

  “All right,” she said, around a yawn. “I will.”

  “Maybe we should try to sleep,” he suggested. “I want to get moving as soon as it’s light in the morning.”

  “I’m sorry. Here I am blabbing away. You must be exhausted.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’m fine. I thought you were tired. But if you want to talk more—”

  “I don’t.”

  “Well,” Ken tried not to sound disappointed. “Okay. Good night then.”

  “Good night.”

  Truth be told, he was wired. And he couldn’t remember the last time he so desperately wanted sexual release. He actually ached from it. If he were alone . . . But he wasn’t. And he’d promised her he wouldn’t leave her, so he couldn’t even wait until she fell asleep again and then sneak off to . . . Ah, Christ. What was he doing even thinking about this? If she could read his mind, she’d be disgusted. He was disgusted with himself.

  Doubly disgusted because she’d all but started this conversation by admitting how badly she’d wanted to sleep with him back in San Diego.

  He’d managed to make her laugh—that was good—but he hadn’t moved the conversation to a place where he could ask if maybe she wasn’t still a little bit hot for him. Because if that was the case, he wouldn’t be taking advantage of her, would he? Not if she wanted him and he wanted her.

  “Ken?” Savannah whispered.

  “Yeah.” Please, Jesus, don’t let her ask him to hold her unless she wanted him to jump her, too.

  “Will you . . .” She cleared her throat. “Would you mind very much if I asked you to, you know, just put your arms around me?”

  Fuck. She only wanted his arms.

  But why not give her what she wanted? He couldn’t want her any more than he already did. It wasn’t going to hurt him any worse than he was already hurting. “Sure,” he said, before he thought it all the way through.

  Oh, shit. She was already coming over to him, feeling her way in the darkness. Her hand found his hip, and he nearly jumped a mile. “Whoa, Van! Time out, okay? Are you familiar with the effects of adrenaline on the male physi—”

  Ken cut himself off as she curled up beside him, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest, her legs not even touching him.

  “Am I familiar with what?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” Okay. This would work. As long as her hand didn’t drift lower. As long as she didn’t throw her leg across him in the night.

  Oh, God, don’t think about that. Don’t think about how easy it might be to get her heated up while she was more than half asleep. Don’t think about pushing off her shorts and pulling her on top of him and . . .

  “Good night,” Savannah said again, her voice right in his ear.

  “Okay,” he heard himself say. Jesus, what a loser. Good night—okay?

  He heard her move slightly in the darkness, felt the coolness of her knee against his thigh, and almost screamed. She shifted even more and he turned toward her desperately. “Savannah—”

  She kissed him. Her lips were soft and warm and tasted faintly of the pseudo-tomato sauce mixture used in an MRE. She got him right on the mouth, which had to be an accident. If he hadn’t turned his head, she would have kissed him chastely on the cheek.

  “Sorry,” he practically shouted at her, pulling back from her, forcing himself not to grab her and jam his tongue down her throat. God, he wanted to kiss her. He made himself laugh instead. “Christ. That’s the last thing we need here, right? First you try to keep me up all night talking and then, well . . . Jesus.”

  Jesus, indeed.

  He’d always thought that a woodie should’ve been like Pinocchio’s
nose, but instead of growing with each lie, it should by all rights shrink with stupidity. But no. Despite his total flaming idiot comments, it raged mindlessly on, at full happy salute.

  Savannah settled back down against his shoulder, thank God.

  “Good night,” she said again.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good night.”

  As if he was going to get any sleep.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Thirteen

  As usual, following Heinrich was an exercise in futility.

  I lost him four short blocks from the hotel.

  I must confess that I didn’t go straight back there and finagle my way into his room so I could search it at my leisure.

  No, instead I went shopping.

  And it was in the dress shop, as I tried on an exceedingly gorgeous and very spicy red evening gown, that I realized I didn’t need another dress to wear out on the town.

  What I needed was a night gown.

  Something diaphanous and sexy. Something I wouldn’t be able to wear outside of the privacy of a hotel room. Something that would broadcast my intentions loud and clear. Something Hank wouldn’t be able to misread. Or ignore.

  I squared my shoulders and went into the lingerie department. And I couldn’t do it.

  The prices were exorbitant, silk was scarce, but my biggest hurdle was me. I couldn’t even get up the nerve to ask the salesclerk (who looked a little too much like my mother) to show me what they had in my size. Perhaps if I had a wedding ring on my finger . . . But no. Even then I think I would have been too embarrassed.

  There was only one thing to do, one place to go for help.

  “You want to borrow what?”

  “You heard me.” I turned to face Evelyn, forcing myself to meet her eyes. I’m sure my face was flaming. “You know I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t vitally important.”

  I’d caught her coming back from lunch, and she set her hat down on a table in the magnificent entry hall of her penthouse suite.

  She was looking at me intently, studying me. It was quite a few moments before she spoke. “Do you love him? Whoever it is that you want to borrow this dressing gown for?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  Her expression softened then. “Oh, Rose. All right then. For a minute there, I was afraid you were intending to seduce some suspected Nazi. I wouldn’t help you do that, but for love . . .”

  She led the way up the stairs to her dressing room, gesturing for me to follow. “Who is he?” she asked.

  “Would you mind very much if I didn’t go into details?”

  “Please tell me it’s not the Euro-God. Hank what’s-his-name?”

  I followed her into her bedroom, toward the first of a row of dressing room doors. “I really am quite uncomfortable discussing this.”

  “Oh, dear, it is Hank, isn’t it?” Evelyn turned to face me. “Darling, he’s some kind of prince. A man like that’s not going to marry you.”

  “I could really do without a lecture—”

  “Sorry.” She threw open the door. “But if you want the gown, you’ve got to take the lecture, too. It’s a package deal.” She took a deep breath. “Rose, sweetheart, I know it must seem horribly romantic. He’s about to leave, to go fight the war, right? He may die, it’s true. But live or die, either way, this one is not going to come back to you.”

  It was a good-sized room, dedicated to holding clothes, and as she pulled me inside, I saw she had a selection of night gowns that would have put most of the major department stores to shame. Black, white, red, pink, purple, violet, blue, in various substances of silk and lace.

  “Do you really want to be his American mistress?” she asked me. “Is that honestly enough for you?”

  “Yes.” I pulled a red one from the bunch and found that it was completely sheer. I gaped and Evelyn gently took it from me and hung it back among the others.

  “Do you actually wear that? In front of Jon?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

  Evelyn laughed softly. “Do you remember when we first met, and you were so worried that I might be afraid Jon would try to cheat on me with you?”

  I nodded. Yes. I had known neither of them all that well at the time.

  “Trust me when I tell you that I was never worried,” Evelyn said with a smile. “I think white,” she decided. “With your fair skin and blond hair, you’ll look like an angel.”

  “I’ll look like a virgin,” I countered. “And I don’t want him thinking about that. He’ll pack me up and pat me on the head and push me out the door. He’s very good at that.”

  “He’s been keeping you at arm’s length, has he?” Evelyn realized. “Good boy, princey, I wouldn’t’ve thought you had it in you. Rose, darling, hasn’t it occurred to you that he’s doing the right thing?”

  “I want something red,” I told her. “Or black.” I pulled out a black silk gown that was slightly more substantial, except for the back, which was completely open and held together by laces. It had a slit up the side that looked to go well past the wearer’s hip. Dear me.

  “Has it occurred to you that he might be right about doing the right thing?”

  “He’s not.”

  “Rose—”

  “I know he’s not going to marry me,” I told her, fighting the urge to burst into tears. “I know he’s not coming back. These next few days are all the time we’ll ever have together, and I want every minute of it. I want it all.”

  There were tears in her eyes, too. “Oh, Rose.”

  I held the gown up to me, looked in the mirror. Willed myself not to cry. “What do you think?”

  Evelyn became brisk, businesslike as well. “That one’s way too hard to get out of. Kills the mood. And black’s not your color, dear. It washes you out. I think royal blue, instead.” She laughed as she searched through her gowns. It was shaky, but it was definitely laughter. “If Jon finds out I helped you, he’ll kill me.”

  “Not while you’re wearing one of these.”

  She held up a silk gown of the deepest blue. It was almost demure in its simplicity, and yet I could see light passing through it. “This is the one,” she said. “Trust me.”

  She had slippers to match, of course, and we wrapped up both gown and slippers and I headed back to the hotel. I didn’t try the gown on at Evelyn’s house—I knew if I did, I’d chicken out. No, I had to put it on for the first and only time in Heinrich’s hotel room. I had to have it on and be there, waiting for him to return from wherever it was he’d gone.

  But first I had to get into his room.

  It was simple enough to do. I used the house phone in the hallway to call down to the front desk.

  “This is Mrs. Sally West in room 5412.” I gave the false name under which I’d registered for the room across from Heinrich’s. “Silly me, I’m afraid I’ve locked my key in my room. Could you send someone up to unlock the door for me?”

  A bellboy stepped off the elevator in a matter of minutes, eager to help. (I’d tipped him most generously when I’d checked in.)

  He quickly unlocked the door to my room with his pass key—except it was not my room. It was Heinrich’s, right across the hall. But it was indeed the door I was standing in front of when the young man approached, and of course he didn’t think to check the numbers.

  “Thank you so much.” I gave him a smile and one of my few remaining five-dollar bills, and slipped into the room, locking the door behind me.

  It was that easy.

  The hotel suite was dim and cool with the curtains closed. It smelled like Hank—like the soap he used, like his expensive cologne.

  The sitting room was undisturbed—the only sign it was being used was a copy of that morning’s New York Times out on a breakfast table.

  It wasn’t a promising start, but then again, I didn’t truly expect to find Nazi files and lists of informants scattered about the room.

  Still, his bed chamber wasn’t
much different. His personal items were few. His clothes were hung in the wardrobe, shoes neatly below. A few toiletries were out on a dresser, everything precisely lined up.

  I went through it all methodically, careful not to touch anything until I examined it closely. And yes, there were hairs strategically placed across dresser drawers, even across his leather toilet kit in the bathroom. I was careful to replace them all so that he wouldn’t know his belongings had been searched.

  Of course I found nothing. No miniature cameras, no great sums of money hidden behind mirrors or taped to the bottom of drawers. No intricate Nazi instructions to cripple the United States war effort. No list of underlings in Heinrich’s spy network.