Secret Witness

by Jessica Andersen

  The man kissing her now was the man who’d sat by her bed while she lay in a coma, then wouldn’t take her thanks for it afterward. He was the man who’d taken in a stray cat and worried himself over her babies. The man who’d fought to protect her and railed when it didn’t seem he could.

  “Reid?” There was a question in the word, and an invitation. He didn’t answer out loud, but reached down and lifted her in his arms. He carried her up the stairs, and paused at her daughter’s bedroom as though he’d known she would need to check one last time. As though he wanted to as well.

  Then he carried her to the end of the hall, where blue moonlight streamed through the rippled glass to splash on her unmade bed. She’d never thought of her room as particularly romantic, but the high old windows gave patterns to the moonlight, the darkness—and the man who held her in his arms.

  They sank together onto the old canopy bed, and when Steph put her fingers to the buttons of the ratty old lab coat, Reid stilled her with a touch and a whisper. “Leave it on.”

  She answered the glint in his eye and the sensuous curve of his lips with a smile of her own. She tugged at the cutoff sweatshirt. “Take it off.”

  And then she was free to explore the perfect chest she’d seen her daughter drooling on the other morning. He lay back and closed his eyes as she trailed her fingertips along the taut muscles of his stomach. She touched her lips to the trio of round scars that reminded him of his father, and the shallow ridge along his ribs that might have come from a knife.

  The heavy muscles across his chest flexed and shifted beneath her tongue, and the moonlight gleamed off his hands, which were fisted into her sheets at his sides. Her blood beat hard and hot but it felt as though there was no rush. They had all the time in the world.

  She reached up and kissed his lips, and as though that was the signal he’d been waiting for, he rolled toward her and pressed her down into the giving mattress with his good, solid weight as his hand took a slow, possessive journey down her body and his tongue delved deep and found hers.

  Stephanie moaned; the soft cotton of the lab coat felt suddenly harsh as he touched her again and again through the thin barrier. Then his questing hand found the pocket slits and slid through them to stroke her hips until she was writhing beneath him and his breath was coming hard.

  “Reid, please.” She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do, but knew she needed something or she’d shatter from nothing more than the touch of his hand on her hip. The warm, gentle heat was closing in around them and starting to burn.

  She twined her arms around his neck and poured herself into the kiss, giving him everything and asking nothing in return until he brought his arms up to cradle her and she rolled them across the soft mattress.

  For the first time she blessed Jared for always getting her lab coats that were too big, because when she straddled Reid to ride the hard ridge beneath his jeans, there was room for his hands to slide beneath the white cotton and take possession of her aching, needing breasts for a slow, gentle exploration that she thought might drive her mad.

  And then he was unbuttoning the coat one plastic disk at a time and spreading the halves apart so he could look at her, simply look as she rose above him and slid the coat off.

  She felt beautiful. The moonlight and the man made her beautiful, as did the sweet slide of his hands across her flesh. The molten gold of his eyes made her feel powerful, and when she slid down him to press against his chest and feel, finally feel the electric contact of skin on skin, she felt as if she’d come awake after having been asleep her whole life.

  Leaning across him, she pulled a box from the nightstand and pressed it into his hand, figuring the knife-sharp corners and virgin cellophane would tell him all he needed to know.

  He stood to strip out of his jeans, then stood a moment more when she caught her breath. The moonlight gleamed across the angle of his jaw and the hard muscles of his chest and stomach. The proud, arrogant jut of his member cast a blue-black shadow against the thatch of hair and the generous flesh below.

  Apparently, Steph thought, a lack of morals hadn’t been only Luis’s problem.

  Then she thought no more, as Reid’s weight sank into the mattress beside her and they were finally tangled together, naked and needy.

  Had it been a year or a few days she’d been wanting this? She wasn’t sure any more. She only knew that the ache within her was building higher and higher, and that if he wasn’t inside her soon she might scream.

  He brushed a gentle hand across her breast and she jolted, feeling every nerve ending on fire. He kissed her deeply, probing with his tongue in the same rhythm he set with his hand on her breast, and she felt an answering rhythm pound within.

  Wanting more, needing more, she traced a hand down his stomach and found the hard length below. He shuddered when her fingertip found the single drop of moisture at the tip. She saw his hands tremble as they slid across the cellophane, fumbling to open the box and tug a foil packet free.

  All the while, she was touching him. Stroking him. Measuring him and feeling the pulse pound within her core. And then he rolled atop her, poised for the joining, with his heavy, hard bulb just teasing at the entrance. Rubbing the soft, greedy flesh that gaped open for him and wept for his entry.

  Their eyes met. And held. And he slid inside her on a single slow slide that felt tight, so tight. The pressure sent ripples through her that hit the edge of her consciousness and reflected back to cross over the new ripples, increasing in intensity with the slow, urgent rhythm of his thrusts.

  He whispered her name, or maybe she said his, she wasn’t sure any more. She could hear nothing except the moans and the slide of flesh and the pounding of her heart in time with the breath that backed up in her lungs.

  She might have climaxed once, might have climaxed a thousand times. It all built up in one steady wall of pleasure that broke over her and swept him along until she bucked up against him and held him fast with her thighs as the pulsing, pounding, throbbing pressure conquered him and he shuddered in her arms for what seemed like a year, then lay quietly. Spent.

  Loved.

  STEPHANIE MUST have dozed. She wasn’t sure how much time passed before he left her bed. She watched him through slitted eyes as he padded to the bathroom. When he returned, he stood at the door for a long moment, watching her.

  Would he leave now? Would he go home and leave his cat behind, chalking it up to a moment of exhausted weakness? Or had he finally realized that she was worth fighting the ghost of his father for? That they were worth fighting for.

  When he crossed the room and she felt the bed dip under his weight, she felt tears prickle. When he lay on his side behind her and looped one strong arm around her waist to draw her into the tight curve of his body, she felt a single drop of wetness track down her cheek.

  And when she drew his hand up to her breast and arched her back to accept the hard part of him that was pressed up against her from behind, she knew she would never be the same.

  Chapter Eleven

  Da-da-da-DUM!

  When the phone woke him, Reid sat bolt upright, startled as much by the fact that he felt well rested as by the ruffled canopy above him. God. He hadn’t slept that well since…he glanced down at the woman beside him, at the sleepy jade eyes that blinked in the morning light. Well, since forever.

  Oh hell. He was in trouble now.

  Da-da-da-DUM!

  “I’m not answering it this time,” Steph said on a yawn, sitting up and stretching as the sheet fell aside. The sight of those perfect, rosy breasts framed in soft red curls made Reid long for a paintbrush. A day off to spend in bed. Someone to tell him if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life or his best decision ever.

  Da-da-da-DUM!

  She slid out of bed when he reached for her. “Answer your phone. I’m going to check on Jilly and think about making us some breakfast.”

  She looped the lab coat robe over her shoulders and sauntered down the hall an
d Reid felt the need tangle in a hot, aching ball in his chest, right next to the fear.

  He scratched an itchy spot on his back and snapped the phone open. “Peters.”

  “Where are you?”

  Reid leapt to his feet at Sturgeon’s tone. He was rummaging for his jeans and shirt even as he answered, “Stephanie’s. Why? What’s wrong?”

  He heard the water running in the bathroom and glimpsed her padding down the hall to her daughter’s room.

  “Stay there. Derek Bott has an alibi for the Wong rape. He was also out of town when the phone calls were made.” Reid felt his stomach sink and a fine tremor run through his body when Sturgeon said, “His lawyer got him out first thing this morning.”

  Reid cursed, but the words were drowned out by a scream from Jilly’s room.

  “My baby! Nooooo!”

  Still clutching the phone, barely hearing Sturgeon talking to midair, Reid sprinted for the hall, needing to get to Stephanie. To Jilly.

  Banishing the horrific images that flashed through his mind, he charged into the room and slid to an abrupt halt so he wouldn’t step on the jagged shards of broken glass.

  Steph grabbed him. “She’s gone! How could she be gone? Where is she?” Her fingers clutched at his bare forearm hard enough to leave marks. “Where is my baby?”

  A sultry breeze blew through the shattered window. The feeble glow of the dawn filtered across the rumpled white bedspread. Almond-shaped eyes peered from beneath the bed, where She Devil must have hidden her babies. Too bad she couldn’t have done the same for the little girl.

  Reid wrapped one arm around Steph, though he had little comfort to offer. He lifted the phone. “Sturgeon? Get over here. The kid’s gone.” He looked at the broken window and the rumpled bed. “And she’s not in the park this time.”

  STEPH COULDN’T STOP shaking. Her hands shook. Her lips trembled. Her body quaked as though she’d been sitting in ice-cold water for hours. She felt numb. Too numb to cry. Too numb to scream, though her throat was raw from the screams she’d wasted before realizing they weren’t going to bring her daughter back. Before realizing that she’d let the monster take her baby.

  “When was the last time you saw your daughter?” The question sounded familiar, though she didn’t know if it was because Sturgeon was repeating himself or if it was because she’d been asked the same questions just days earlier when Jilly had ‘wandered off.’

  “About ten-thirty last night. We—I checked on her and the cats…” She turned quickly toward Reid, who sat across the table with his partner, cop face firmly in place. The night might never have happened, except for a few unfamiliar aches. “Are the cats okay?”

  He nodded. “They’d hidden under the bed.” And that seemed the saddest irony of all. The stray cat had stayed in the house, while her Jilly—the least stray child Steph had ever known—had been taken into the night. Her lips trembled harder and she felt Reid take her hand.

  She pushed it away and repeated, “I checked on her at ten-thirty. I didn’t look in on her again until this morning.” It had been Jilly’s first night home. Why hadn’t she checked on her daughter? What if she’d been afraid?

  The thought brought hot, heavy tears pressing at her eyes. She’d been too wrapped up in Reid to even remember she had a daughter.

  “Did you hear anything suspicious during the night?” Sturgeon asked, looking as though he’d rather be anywhere but at her kitchen table asking these questions.

  “No, I was…we were…” Steph trailed off, wondering what the protocol was. Could she say, No, I wouldn’t have heard Armageddon, since your partner brought me to screaming climax no less than four times between ten-thirty and dawn? Or perhaps, A whole chain gang could have marched up my front steps and into my daughter’s room and I wouldn’t have noticed.

  “We didn’t hear anything,” Reid cut in, and he must’ve flashed Sturgeon a sign, because the other man cleared his throat, stood and mumbled something about checking on the progress of the door-to-door search before he escaped from the kitchen, leaving Steph and Reid alone.

  “We’ll find her,” Reid said, patting her hand.

  We’ll find her. She tried to hold on to the promise, the certainty in his voice. But hope battled with the memory of clicking on Jilly’s light and finding her bed empty. Feeling the air move through the broken window while the new sash lock gleamed mockingly.

  Reid leaned down and kissed her soothingly on the brow, and at the touch, Steph feared she was never going to see her daughter again. She could feel it in the pressure of his lips. See it in the strain across his shoulders—and in the fact that he was wearing his shoulder holster over the freshly pressed oxford shirt Sturgeon had brought with him.

  She shot to her feet. “No! I won’t let her be gone. Don’t let her be gone, Reid.” She grabbed him and ignored the flash in his eyes when she shook his arm. “You’ve got to find her!”

  He tried to draw her close in a soothing hug. “We’re doing our best, Steph. We’re looking. We’ll find her.”

  “No!” She pushed him away and pulled him close at the same time. “It’s not enough! I don’t want the others looking, Reid. I want you. You have to find her for me. Please! Please?” She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed suddenly imperative that he be the one to look for her daughter. That he be the one to bring her home. To tuck her into her bed so she’d be where she belonged once again.

  To follow Stephanie into her bedroom, so he’d be where he belonged as well.

  She almost sat down as the strength left her legs when the delayed realization smacked her upside the head and left her reeling.

  Reid had to find Jilly because he made the circle complete. He made them a family.

  A family he didn’t want.

  He ran an impatient hand across his face and stalked across the kitchen. “There are officers out looking, I promise. Not just here, but in Chinatown, too. They’ve been to Derek Bott’s house, but Steph…” he trailed off and looked full at her. She braced for news that couldn’t be good, even as the fading glow of their new relationship battled with despair for her daughter. “We don’t have much in the way of leads. We’ve sent a car to Bott’s house, but…”

  Steph knew. They had no evidence tying Bott to the crime other than DNA results from an illegal source. She sagged back into a kitchen chair. “You’ve got to go find her, Reid. I trust you. I love you. If you love me, you’ll find my daughter.”

  The words she hadn’t meant to speak hung in the air like an unexpected giggle in church—inappropriate and strange. Reid froze, and if he didn’t physically back away, she could feel him withdraw until he was clear across the city from her, though his feet were frozen in place on her linoleum.

  “Steph…” He raised his hand as though to touch her, but she leaned away and the arm dropped to his side. “I swear I’ll do my best to bring her back to you.”

  She knew he would. It was his way, just as it was also his way to believe that he didn’t want a family. That he didn’t deserve one. She shook her head. “I know you will, Reid. And I’m sorry. Forget I said anything. It was just the stress talking.”

  But he knew her better than that. He used a finger to tilt her chin up and kissed her softly on the lips. “I’m sorry, Steph. About everything. I really am. I’ll find Jilly, I promise.” He kissed her again, a little deeper this time, and she could taste the goodbye.

  He turned and slung his suit jacket over his shoulder on his way out the door. Steph called to him and he turned just inside the kitchen, with the light catching his mid-brown hair and painting his face until he looked as exquisitely tortured as any of the Renaissance martyrs. “Yes?”

  “What about She Devil?” And they both knew she was asking about more than a cat.

  He caught her eye, shook his head, and said, “She’ll be happier here.”

  And he was gone.

  REID TRIED to escape the house as quickly as he could, before he ran back into the kitchen and did something stupid
like pretend for even a moment that what shouldn’t have happened between Steph and him actually had a future, when it absolutely, positively didn’t. Tried to escape the knowledge that he’d been sloppy in thinking the danger was over just because they had a suspect in custody.

  Tried to escape knowing that a murderer had been in the house while he was making love to Stephanie, and that if they didn’t find her in time, Jilly’s blood would be on his hands, too.

  Sturgeon grabbed his arm near the front door. “Peters.”

  Reid spun. “News? Did they find Jilly?” Not only were there uniforms canvassing both Patriot and Bott’s neighborhood at the Chinatown/Theater border, but Maureen, Mortimer and several officers were searching the park where Jilly had been found the last time. It seemed unbelievable that she would reappear again, but Reid felt a kick of hope in his chest anyway. He wanted to find the kid so he could be done with Stephanie and the warm things she made him want.

  He wanted to find the kid because he couldn’t bear the thought of finding her broken and bloody in some anonymous Chinatown hotel room. He couldn’t imagine never seeing the quiet little child again, not hearing her whistle that strange tune or feeling her fall asleep in his arms.

  No. Strike that. He wanted to find Jilly because it was his job.

  Period.

  Sturgeon shook his head. “No, not yet.”

  “Any luck at Bott’s house? With Bott?”

  “That’s the problem. He was with his lawyer filling out the paperwork until a half hour after Stephanie discovered Jilly missing.” Reid felt a quick, hard surge of anger and frustration. Helplessness. Sturgeon offered him a mint. “I don’t know what it means. We have Bott’s DNA at the two rape scenes, but he’s alibied for one of them, for the calls to her house, and for this morning. It doesn’t add up.”