Shades of Passion

by DePaul, Virna

  They waited.

  There was jostling at the doorway as some of the residents backed away, allowing an elderly woman draped in a faded Peruvian poncho to come forward.

  “You and your detective may enter. None of the others. We will tell only you,” the woman said, pointing directly at Nina.

  Simon felt a sense of relief and pride at the way Nina had defused the situation. He was, however, still pissed that she’d gone off half-cocked, running straight into what could have been a dangerous situation. The two of them were definitely going to have further discussion about that. First, however, he had a witness to interview.

  The woman in the poncho was named Mary. Just Mary. Elaina Scott didn’t know her last name and the woman refused to give it.

  “I heard Nelson screaming,” Mary said. “Saw the man over him and chased him off.”

  Simon raised his brows in surprise, which caused Mary to laugh. “I may be old and creaky, Detective, but I never smoked a day in my life, and I’ve got good lungs. You can hear me shout from practically one end of the park to the other.”

  He grinned. “So you hollered and the attacker went running?”

  “Somethin’ like that. Just wish I’d gotten there sooner,” she added, lowering her gaze to the floor. “I was supposed to meet him. Meet him near the Japanese Tea Garden, but I was late.”

  “Mary, Ms. Scott told me Nelson was a volunteer here. Did you meet with him often?”

  “No. But he said he was doing something near the park. And he promised to show me the Tea Garden.”

  “Do you know what he was doing near the park?”

  “No. He didn’t tell me.”

  “Okay. So you went to meet him. And what happened?”

  “I was late. But when I got there, I saw—I saw—”

  “What did you see, Mary?”

  Mary brought her shoulders in closer together and curled inward. Several minutes of silence ticked by.

  Simon started to speak, but silenced himself when he caught sight of Nina’s subtle headshake.

  Give the woman space. Distance. Time to pull herself together. Don’t push.

  He could practically hear Nina’s unspoken words in his head.

  So he waited, watching Mary breathe in and out, in and out, until her shoulders went back to square. She took one last shuddering breath and said, “He had a knife. He carved up poor Nelson. On his back. Initials. It was so bloody.”

  This time it was Nina who inhaled sharply and Simon who gave her the “hold back” hand gesture. He heard the murmur of voices in the distance, the squeaky sound of rubber soles on the vinyl and someone’s cell phone ringing, but still he waited.

  “Did you see the initials? Can you tell me what they were, Mary?”

  “There were four letters.”

  Of course, but he had to ask anyway. “What were they?”

  “BDSG.”

  * * *

  SOMETHING WAS WRONG, Nina thought, then cursed herself.

  Of course something was wrong. Someone was murdering people and carving them up like woodshop projects. What she meant was something was wrong with Simon. He’d completely withdrawn from her. Holed up inside himself and emotionally retreated from her in a way he never had before. Always before, when something traumatic like this had happened, he’d been there, a rock for her to lean on. Reassuring her that everything was going to be okay. But now that he was dealing with the realization that he might be personally mixed-up with these murders—at least, she assumed that was the case given Mary’s revelation that the initials SG had been carved into Nelson Conrad’s back—he was acting shell-shocked.

  It was her turn to be his rock to lean on.

  “Simon,” she said gently. “What are you thinking?” She really wanted to ask him further what he was feeling, but she was afraid those loaded words would cause him to retreat even further inside himself.

  “What?” he said, looking at her, eyes clearing as if he’d forgotten she was even there, in the car with him. “I’m thinking this has got to stop. Only I’ve been trying to make it stop since before I met you, and this guy has been one step ahead of me the entire time.”

  “This guy, meaning Davenport?”

  Simon shook his head. “No. It’s not him. He didn’t do this. We’ve had an officer on him ever since he was bailed out. This is pretty much going to clear him for the other two murders, as well.”

  “It’s still possible that he hired someone. Or that Hyatt did.”

  “Possible, sure. Anything’s possible,” he said gruffly. “But it doesn’t make sense anymore. It doesn’t feel right. Even before we found those other footprints in your house, it never quite did. Aside from the initials that link these crimes, my gut is telling me that Davenport and Hyatt are exactly what they appear to be. They’re pissed at the world because of what happened to their daughters. Maybe my mistake has been in assuming these murders were about you in the first place.”

  “You had reason to believe that because of the initials he left behind. On Six. On those men.”

  “Yeah, well now he’s left my initials. Given I’m the lead detective on this case, it’s obviously not coincidence. He’s telling me something. And maybe what he’s telling me is that I’ve been the wild card in this all along. That the only reason he dragged you into this in the first place was because of your work with the police. With me.”

  He probably didn’t even realize it, but his expression and tone were laced with horror. Lana, she thought. His ex-girlfriend had been killed less than a year ago. He probably viewed this new threat as his nightmare come back to haunt him all over again.

  They arrived back at his place and got out of the car. When they got inside, Nina took him by the arms, trying to ground him in the here and now.

  She wasn’t dead. She was here. Alive and protected because of him.

  “Even if this person is targeting you, Simon, it doesn’t make these murders your fault. You’ve been telling me that this whole time, and you need to listen to yourself. If you’re having trouble remembering that, I’m here to remind you. You can lean on me now, just like you’ve allowed me to lean on you.”

  He stared at her with a slight frown on his face, almost as if she wasn’t speaking English. Slowly, he said, “I appreciate that.”

  The words themselves didn’t alarm her, but the way he said them, and the way he wouldn’t look at her as he did so, did.

  “What’s going on here, Simon?”

  He took several steps away from her, causing her hands to fall away from him. “You were right before, Nina. About things having to end between us. We let our mutual attraction get out of hand because of all the things that have been happening.”

  “And what? Now that you think you’re personally connected to these murders, things are somehow different and you’re suddenly willing to agree with me?”

  “I don’t want to pull you into this more than you already are, Nina. If someone is targeting you because of me, then the best way to protect you is to get you away from me.”

  His words made sense, but his timing and the detached manner with which he spoke made her instinctively rebel against them. “Are you sure that’s what this is about?”

  “What else would it be about?”

  She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I said I loved you before. Maybe hearing that freaked you out.”

  “So what if it did?” he snapped, his eyes momentarily flaring with anger. “It freaked you out, too. So much so that you attributed your words to a really good orgasm.”

  “That’s because it scared me. How much I was starting to care for you. But whether we call it love or not, whether it was the sex talking or not, I do care about you, Simon. I need you to know that.”

  “I do know it,” he said quietly. “And you know I care about you, too.”

  “But you want to walk away from me. After everything we’ve been through together? Just like that? Before you’ve even caught
the person responsible for the murders? You’re determined to do what? Leave me alone? Hand me off to another protective detail?” Because I won’t feel safe, Nina thought. Not the way she felt when she was with him.

  “Besides the cards and letters, there hasn’t been a direct threat against you,” he reminded her. “I can call in favors. Talk to the members on my team. They’ll help me out. For now? You mentioned your friend Karen before. Can you stay with her? I have to go to this fundraising gala, anyway. It’s not social. It’s work. If I can, I’ll have a patrol officer drive by Karen’s house to check on you.”

  “And what about next week? I have to go back to work, too, remember? Will there be a patrol officer checking in on me there, as well?”

  “We’ll do the best we can to make sure you’re safe.”

  “Physically, yes,” she said almost bitterly.

  Her bitterness punched a hole in his composure. Once again, his eyes flared with emotion, but just as he had before, he quickly banked it. “Damn it, this isn’t easy for me. I’m trying to do the right thing here and that means protecting you. If I have a target on my back, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “Fine,” Nina said, instinctively responding to his desire for separation when before he’d sworn he wouldn’t leave her alone. It didn’t matter what his motivation was; her heart was bleeding. “Then I’ll be sure to stay as far away from you as possible.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  SIMON WOULD HAVE PREFERRED to assign a patrol officer to watch Nina, but getting her to agree to stay with her friend Karen was the best he could do right now. Still, before he left, Simon warned Nina to be careful.

  “Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” he said. “Please.” It was like the first day she’d come to shadow him all over again, when he’d warned her not to endanger herself in an attempt to help someone they encountered on a call. He hadn’t known it at the time, but despite being one of the most compassionate women he knew, she wasn’t foolhardy. She’d be fine, he told himself.

  She smiled tiredly, as if she was remembering that first day, as well. “Don’t worry yourself, Simon. I’ll be fine so long as I’m not anywhere near you. At least, that’s your theory, isn’t it?”

  She looked at a point over his shoulder, her back to Karen’s front door. The other woman was waiting inside and had promised to lock the door again as soon as he left. She even had a state-of-the-art security system. There was no reason to delay his departure any longer.

  Except, of course, for the fact he didn’t want to leave her. But that was his heart and his body talking. His mind—that little voice he listened to when assessing life-and-death situations on the job—was telling him this was the right thing to do. He hadn’t listened to that voice where Lana was concerned, and look how that had ended. This time, he wasn’t taking any chances.

  “I’ll be at the office,” he told her, “until I have to leave for the gala. Even if I’m not at the office, remember what I said before. If you need something, you can call anyone in SIG. Even Stevens. They all care about you, Nina, and won’t hesitate to respond if you need them.”

  “How convenient for you,” she said. “You can ensure I’m protected without having to put yourself out any longer.”

  “Damn it, don’t! I’m not abandoning you. If you need me, if you call me and I can be here, I will be here. Do you understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then promise me you’ll call me if you need me.”

  She just looked at him, then turned to walk inside.

  He grabbed her arm. “Damn it, Nina, promise me!”

  She wrenched her arm away. “Fine,” she said. “I promise. Now, is that all?”

  “No,” he said, before bending his head and stealing a kiss from her. He’d much rather she’d kissed him on her own, but her mouth softened under his and that was enough. He buried his hands in her hair and cradled her face, trying to communicate to her with his lips and tongue how very much he cared about her. And how scared he was about letting her down. She raised her own hands and touched his face. The contact was electric and jolted him back to reality. Already the thought of walking away from her was unbearable. He was only making it worse. He pulled away, once more said, “Be careful,” and then left.

  As soon as he got into his car, Jase called to tell him he had information about the security cameras in the SIG parking lot and the vandalism of Simon’s car. “You’re not going to like it,” Jase warned. And he was totally right.

  * * *

  BACK AT SIG, JASE TOOK a sip of coffee, then said, “Whoever broke into your car and set up the doll did it in exactly five minutes, between four and five after four. That’s when the security disks were tampered with, resulting in a five-minute blank. This guy was smooth. And he knew our system.”

  “Another cop?” Simon asked, a hollow feeling in his gut. DeMarco? he wondered.

  Impossible.

  But was it really?

  Davenport had gotten into Nina’s house despite a security system that DeMarco had just installed. And then there were the initials—BD—that matched those of the kid, Billy Dahl, who DeMarco had shot in New Orleans. He couldn’t bear to think that another cop—a friend—could be doing such vile things, but he also recalled his conversation with Nina, the one they’d had on the beach before they’d made love. She’d said that trauma could affect someone who’d exhibited no prior signs of mental illness and skew his reality so much that he would do things he normally wouldn’t. DeMarco had talked about some of the symptoms he’d been experiencing, including hearing things, and if he was hearing things, who knew what else was going on...whether his link with reality had truly slipped.

  “Let’s assume it’s a cop, Simon,” Jase said. “Can you think of anyone who has a personal vendetta against you?”

  He thought about it, then shook his head. “I’m not everyone’s favorite person around here, but I can’t think of anyone I’ve pissed off lately.”

  “How about not so lately? When you were away from SIG? When you were a captain?”

  “I was captain for three weeks. The men I worked with during that time seemed to respect me. Like me, even. Of course, I wasn’t there to make friends. I made some tough decisions, one in particular...” He frowned. He wondered whether it would be enough to make someone come after him like this.

  “What was the decision?”

  “I shut down a program for retired annuitants, retired police officers who were able to stay on the P.D.’s payroll as contract investigators. The entire program got the boot for purely budgetary reasons.”

  “Retired police officers would know about our security system just as much as current ones. How about I check into it? You’ve got to get ready to rub elbows with the bigwigs at that fundraiser, don’t you?”

  Simon cursed under his breath. “I should blow it off. There’s no reason you should be chasing down leads while I put on a tuxedo and eat a gourmet meal. Especially when those leads might involve a dirty cop.”

  “No reason except the mayor and Commander Stevens will be pissed if you don’t show. It’s fine. I’m here anyway and I have the time to check it out.”

  Simon hesitated, then sighed. Being on a team was all about covering someone one moment and being covered the next. He knew he’d do the same for any member of the team, and that made it easier to accept Jase’s help now. “Thanks, Jase. I’ll head back as soon as I can after the gala.”

  “No rush.” Jase hesitated. “Is Nina attending the gala with you?”

  Simon briefly looked away. “No. She’s staying at a friend’s house.”

  “So you’re running again?”

  Simon frowned. “What?”

  “Doesn’t take a genius to know what you’d do once you found out you were linked to the homeless murders. To know that you’d separate yourself from her. I get it, but she has to be hurt. Especially if you two had gotten as close as I think you have.”

  At first, Simon resisted Jase’s
obvious attempts to get in Simon’s business. But then he thought of DeMarco again. How not getting in DeMarco’s business had left his friend feeling like he had to deal with his problems alone. Simon also remembered what Nina had said: that you couldn’t truly know you were handling something unless you were willing to talk about it with another person. Before he knew he was going to, he confessed, “Yeah, well, we got pretty close. And yes, she’s hurt. But better her feelings are hurt than she ends up dead like...”

  “Like Lana?” Jase asked softly.

  “Yeah. Like Lana.”

  “Lana was killed by a serial killer while on the job, Simon. She walked into that situation of her own accord because she was trying to help him. That’s not going to happen to Nina.”

  “And how do you know that, Jase? ’Cause I sure don’t.”

  Of course, Jase didn’t have an answer because there wasn’t one. No guarantees that Nina wouldn’t die just as brutally and suddenly as Lana had one day.

  Simon got up to leave, then hesitated. “Have you talked to DeMarco?”

  “I touched base with him earlier today. He sounded better. Said he went and saw a counselor who is helping him figure some things out. He doesn’t know when he’ll be back, but he’s hoping soon.”

  “Good.” His earlier suspicions about DeMarco had vanished as quickly as they’d formed. He knew the man. No way was DeMarco responsible for any of the things that had happened over the past week. Even so, despite his renewed confidence in his friend’s innocence, Simon’s mind was a mess. He kept twirling one possibility after another around his head, but none of them felt right.

  On his way home, he had to pass by the cemetery. The one where Lana was buried. And before he knew it, he was pulling in and walking to Lana’s grave.

  Simon stared at Lana’s tombstone and remembered the slight breeze he’d felt the last time he’d visited her. The air was still now. Dry and uncomfortable. For a second, he almost couldn’t breathe.

  Had it been just three weeks ago that he’d come here to visit Lana? Even less than that since he’d met Nina? That boggled his mind. He’d known Lana for years. He’d loved her. Yet even though he’d known Nina for far less time, it was amazing how much he’d grown to care about her. And, dare he admit it...how much he’d grown to love her?