Guilty as Sin

by Jami Alden

  Let her get under your skin? a snide voice asked. Look at you—one kiss and all of your resolve to stay away from her crumbled to dust. You with your so-called iron-clad control, couldn’t even last a week with her. I’d say she’s pretty firmly embedded there.

  All the more reason to make an escape.

  Yet he couldn’t make himself pull away from her just yet. It felt too damn good—she felt too damn good. The soft weight of her on his chest, the warm puff of her breath against his throat. The silky strands of her hair tickling his wrist as his fingers circled the unbelievably smooth skin of her back and shoulders.

  Several minutes passed and she stirred against him with a little sigh. He tensed as she propped herself up on her elbows, her brows knitted in a quizzical look.

  Crap. Here come the questions about what does this mean and where do we go from here and all the other shit he never wanted to deal with after sex.

  To his surprise, Kate didn’t ask for a debrief on what just happened. “How did you know where the bedroom was?”

  “All of the units have the same layout. If you’ve been in one, you’ve been in them all.”

  “Oh,” she said, and he felt her stiffen against him, her mouth, swollen and red from his kisses, pulled tight.

  He knew immediately what she thought, that he’d been in at least one more bedroom in this complex. While technically it was true—he’d been in all of the bedrooms of all of the townhouses when he’d done the wiring for the security system—it wasn’t in the way she thought.

  He didn’t correct her. “I should go,” he said, seizing the chance to get out, even as his conscience pricked at hurting her.

  “Right,” she said, and rolled off him, scrambling to get under the covers. He pulled on his clothes and turned to see her hunched against the headboard, her hair hiding her face as she stared at the bedspread.

  “You okay?”

  Her gaze snapped to his, and the look on her face made his stomach clench. Gone was the misty glow, the look of surprised delight she’d had on her face as he sent her over the edge. Now she looked disappointed, her mouth pulled in a rueful smile. “I’m sure this is all routine for you. I’m not exactly up on proper etiquette after a one-night stand. That is what this is, isn’t it?”

  Tommy stayed silent. He felt like a jerk but couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t give her the wrong idea. Or, God forbid, let slip that while he’d come here tonight hoping to satisfy his craving for her once and for all, he was afraid all he’d accomplished was ripping down the last barriers of defense he’d had against her.

  Even now he could feel it all bubbling up inside him, everything he’d felt from practically the first moment, the summer she was sixteen, when he realized that Kate was no longer a little girl. There had been lust, sure, but also a fascination. A curiosity, a need to know everything about her, inside and out, and a knowledge that he could spend a lifetime learning her and still discover something new.

  And then there was the drive to protect her, to keep her safe and wipe away all the hurt the world might pile on her. Like he was piling on now.

  Her eyes snapped with anger. “That being the case, I’ll spare you the part where you lie and say you’re going to call me and that we should do this again sometime. And I’ll spare myself the part where I dissect everything that happened and try to determine what it all meant, because in the end, it meant nothing, right?”

  Yes. The lie stayed locked in his throat. “Kate—” he began, then trailed off. There was nothing he could think to say that wouldn’t dig him into a deeper, more dangerous hole. He’d already shown himself to have changed from the love-struck boy he’d been into a cold, unfeeling jerk. Best to let her continue to believe that.

  She waved a slender hand at him. “Don’t worry about it. I get it. We never got to experience what it would be like to be together. Now we know. Curiosity satisfied. We can move on.”

  But as he took one last look at her, clutching the sheet to her like armor, her posture forlorn despite the hard look on her face, Tommy felt his own heart squeeze in his chest. Far from satisfying anything, he was afraid what had happened here tonight had only rekindled a need in him that went beyond lust, beyond sex.

  A need that made him weak, vulnerable in a way he promised himself he’d never be weak again.

  Chapter 15

  Kate was so tired she almost felt drunk the next morning when she walked into the volunteer headquarters. She greeted the women who were manning the phone lines and made a beeline to the coffee station that had been set up in one corner.

  As she took a drink, she made a mental note to stop by Mary’s and thank Erin, who continued to replenish the coffee and pastry stores like some kind of coffee elf.

  Kate finished her coffee quickly but didn’t hold much hope that it would do much to clear the cobwebs in her brain. Contrary to what she’d said in her lame attempt at bravado, she’d stayed up most of the night going over every second, every detail of what had happened from the second Tommy walked through the door until the second he left.

  What he said. What he didn’t say.

  And, dear God, the things he did. Even with her heart and pride bruised by his callous exit, her body clenched and flooded with heat at the memory of his mouth and hands on her, his thick hardness buried deep inside her.

  She’d fantasized about it endlessly, what it would be like to actually have sex with Tommy. To be naked, skin to skin, taking him inside her, as deep and close as two people could be.

  None of her imaginings could even come close to the reality of the pleasure.

  But she hadn’t bargained for the pain, which had settled in her chest and wouldn’t go away. No matter how much she scolded herself that she was a big girl. Lots of people—men and women—had sex without any expectation of it going any further.

  Logically she knew what happened last night didn’t mean anything.

  And yet the way he’d kissed her, the way he’d touched her, it was like something had broken free inside of him. Gone was the stone-faced warrior he’d become. For a while, it was as though she’d held in her arms the Tommy she’d fallen in love with. All the passion, the tenderness, the way he touched her like he couldn’t get enough of her.

  The way he looked at her, seemed to revel in her pleasure as he pushed her over the edge. Naively, for a fleeting moment Kate thought he felt it too, that crazy, undeniable connection she couldn’t seem to shake. The pull between them that was so strong it was like gravity, hurling her into his arms time and again.

  But then it was over and he’d gone silent and distant, hadn’t offered up any soft words to reassure her that it was anything more than two bodies coming together to satisfy a long-held curiosity.

  Even as the memory stung, she knew she had only herself to blame. For all that he’d stormed in like a bull in a china shop, thrilling her with his loss of control, he hadn’t made any bones about how he felt about the situation.

  He didn’t want to want her. Didn’t even seem to like her, she was forced to admit, despite the few times he’d shown any sign of softening toward her.

  Yet she’d let herself get caught up in the blind, stupid hope that maybe she still meant something to him besides being the girl who had nearly ruined his life. Because like it or not, Tommy Ibarra still meant something to her.

  The admission made her burn with shame. What was wrong with her that she completely lost control—not just physical but emotional too—when it came to him?

  And when was she ever going to learn that no matter what she did, she was never going to get back what she’d lost?

  But isn’t that what your whole life is about? Trying to make up for something you’ll never, ever be able to fix?

  She shoved the maudlin thought aside along with her adolescent musings about Tommy and pulled out her laptop to log into the tip database. Within an hour she concluded there was little of value in the dozen or so calls they’d received, but she flagged the few th
at had any promise and was just about to send them to the sheriff’s department when her phone rang.

  Her heart jumped at the sight of Tommy’s number on the screen. She quashed any hopes that he might be calling about anything other than the case before she thumbed the “answer” button.

  It was a good thing, because Tommy barely offered a gruff greeting before he dropped the first bomb of the day. “CJ talked to the agent in charge of the Bludgeoner case. He doesn’t think Tricia’s disappearance is at all related.”

  Ten minutes later, Kate stormed into CJ’s office, grateful to have anger and frustration to seize on. It made coming face to face with Tommy’s stony stare a little less devastating.

  “How can they not at least consider it?” Kate exclaimed. “They didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Dorsey before he died. They have to consider the possibility that he didn’t do it.”

  CJ shook his head. “As far as the Bureau is concerned, Dorsey’s arrest was imminent. Offing himself saved them a lot of time and tax dollars.”

  “And the victims’ families? They’re satisfied with this?” Kate asked.

  “The ones who would speak to us at all are, yes.”

  “But if they knew—”

  CJ cut her off with a raised hand. “Look, Kate, these people went through a horrible tragedy. They don’t have much, but they do have closure, and you know damn well how much that’s worth. Do you really want the FBI to reopen the case, dredge up all that ugliness for them on the very slim chance that the cases are related?”

  “I have all the sympathy in the world for those families, but Tricia’s life is worth more to me than their peace of mind.”

  CJ’s mouth pulled into a tight line. “Of course her life is more valuable, but the Bureau is overloaded as it is, and they’re not willing to allocate resources to reopen a case they considered closed almost a decade ago.”

  “You’re still going to look into it, aren’t you?” Kate asked CJ. “I think you should talk to Dorsey’s mother—”

  She broke off as CJ shook his head. “We can only afford to follow up on the highest-priority leads, and right now that means tracking down the leads in Boulder. I’ve got one of my deputies headed down there this afternoon.”

  “So you’re just going to let this go? Ignore the fact that someone deliberately brought my attention to the Bludgeoner case like it means nothing?”

  CJ’s big palm slammed down on his desk with a metallic bang. “Hell no, I’m not going to ignore it. But I have limited manpower and I have to prioritize, and you said yourself it could easily be someone screwing with—” The phone on his desk rang. CJ snatched up the handset. “What?” He was silent a couple seconds, listening. “Son of a bitch. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

  Kate gaped as he strode to the door and grabbed his hat from the stand. “Where are you going?”

  “Priest River. A trailer exploded and two people were killed. We think it’s a meth lab tied in with a ring that distributes across the Northwest.”

  “But—”

  “Look, Kate, I’m doing my best here,” CJ said tightly. “Right now we’re going to focus on the most likely leads.”

  He closed the door and she whirled to face Tommy. “What do you think? Am I crazy to think we should be on top of this?”

  Tommy was silent a few seconds, and despite her resolve not to let him get to her, she felt her skin heat under his steady gaze. “I think a lack of resources is a piss-poor reason not to take this seriously.”

  Kate nodded, even as uneasiness twisted in her stomach. “He’s right though—the three leads in Boulder are more logical.” She wasn’t an investigator, and it was possible—probable even—that whoever had brought the Bludgeoner case to her attention had done it as a sick prank. Still… “But there’s something there. I can feel it in my gut.”

  Tommy nodded. “Then you should trust it. If CJ’s going to put it on the back burner, it’s up to us to pick up the slack.”

  “So you’ll help me?”

  Tommy pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning against and slowly approached. Kate forced herself to keep her eyes locked on his face instead of straying down to his chest and stomach, which she knew now was ridged with hard muscle and bisected by a line of soft, dark hair. “Of course I’ll help you. I promised Jackson I’d do whatever I could to get Tricia back. That sure as hell doesn’t include sitting back and doing nothing while we wait for CJ to ‘prioritize,’ ” he said, eyebrow cocked sardonically as his fingers made air quotes.

  “CJ’s right, though,” Kate said, her brow furrowing as she sucked in her bottom lip. “I don’t think we should approach the victims’ families until we have more to go on. Having to relive it all again…” She trailed off, thinking of how with every case, with every press appearance, she had to revisit and discuss what happened to Michael. “It’s like ripping off scar tissue every time. I don’t want to put them through it.”

  Tommy nodded, and something flickered in his eyes. Sympathy? She wasn’t sure, but it was the first bit of softness she’d seen in his gaze since he’d left her the night before. “I can relate a little—God knows I don’t like to talk about what happened when I was deployed with a bunch of strangers. I can’t imagine what it’s like when it involves your kids.” He paused a beat. “Or your brother.”

  This time there was no mistaking the sympathy.

  “Victims’ families are out, and only one person is interested in opening the case back up,” Kate said, “and that’s—”

  “Dorsey’s mother,” Tommy finished for her. “I’ve already got her information.” He pulled out his iPad and pulled up an address in Spokane.

  “She moved,” Kate said.

  Tommy nodded. “Six years ago. She lives with her daughter, Judy, Dorsey’s older sister, who’s a nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center. Since Arthur’s death, Mrs. Dorsey has had episodes of severe depression, apparently so severe Judy had concerns about her living on her own.”

  “You’ve been busy, ferreting this all out.”

  He caught her gaze with that unfathomable stare of his. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

  “That makes two of us,” Kate replied before she could think better of it. “Okay, so let’s call her.”

  Tommy’s mouth tightened and he ran his hand over his thick, short hair. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. From what I could tell, Judy canceled the phone line four years ago—”

  “What about her cell?” Kate interrupted. “I thought you were the investigative mastermind who could do that in his sleep—”

  “She doesn’t have a cell phone, at least not one with a permanent number and account.”

  “How in the world are they getting by without a phone?”

  Tommy shrugged. “How do I know? Maybe she has a pay-as-you-go from Wal-Mart. Point is, no way to call her. Good news is we’re less than two hours from Spokane. We can get there and back before dinnertime.”

  Kate suppressed a frustrated sigh. Hours alone in a car with Tommy was exactly what she needed. “Let me get my stuff out of the car.”

  As soon as they stepped out into the parking lot, Kate had a microphone in her face. Startled, she took a moment to compose herself, irritated that no one had mentioned that any reporters had gathered outside. In the past three days, their ranks had thinned and they’d been less of a constant presence. As much as Kate wanted to keep the case front and center in the media, she was less than excited to see Maura Walsh, the blonde from KITV, smiling her too-white smile from the other side of the microphone. A smile that did nothing to disguise the calculating glint in her eyes.

  Kate recognized the look all too well. And as she watched the woman’s gaze track Tommy’s broad back as he brushed by without making eye contact, a knot settled in Kate’s stomach as she thought of all the dirt the woman might be able to dig up if she looked hard enough.

  And if Kate wasn’t careful with Tommy, Walsh wouldn’t have to dig at all.

 
Kate shook off her anxiety, determined to let none of it show as she pasted on her game face, a look she’d perfected over the course of thousands of news appearances. Her expression serious but not so grave as to be uninviting, her concern for the victims apparent but not melodramatic.

  “Ms. Beckett, we were unable to get a statement from the sheriff earlier. Perhaps you can give us an update on how the search for Tricia Fuller is progressing.”

  “The sheriff’s department is coordinating the ongoing search efforts, and additional volunteers are expected to arrive later today.”

  “At this point, with Tricia missing for five days without any sign of her, how optimistic are you about the chances of finding her alive?”

  An image flashed in her head, a picture of Ellie Cantrell’s body, her face beaten beyond recognition, and Kate felt a cold sweat break out. “Very optimistic,” she said tightly. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “Do you have anything to say to your detractors?” Walsh said as Kate started to step away.

  Kate halted midstep. “I wasn’t aware I had any.” The lie slipped through her lips as smooth as silk.

  “Just this morning Ramona Walker accused you of being a quote ‘pathetic, attention-starved young woman who feeds her narcissism with the pain and suffering of victims’ families.’ ”

  Kate stretched her mouth into something she hoped resembled a smile. “Ms. Walker doesn’t mince words, does she? But in a way, she’s right. I am all about getting attention—for the victims and their families, and to the plight of all the children who disappear every day in this country.”

  “But what about the accusations that your involvement is not just ineffective, it can also be detrimental, as in the Drexler case?”

  It wasn’t the first time Kate had heard comments like that. It had gotten worse in the past few years when so many competing news outlets turned to sensationalism to draw viewers. She’d built a tough skin, but it had weakened in the fallout of Graham’s betrayal and Madeline’s death. But she’d be damned if she’d ever let Walsh see her crack. “What happened to Madeline was a horrible tragedy, one that will haunt me for the rest of my life. All I can tell you is that I’m doing everything I can to make certain that won’t be the case with Tricia.”