by Maggie Price
That was why she had just sat through a dull, sedate dinner with a potential male client. That was why, instead of going home, she was driving down this dark street, searching for the address she’d gotten from DeSoto Villanova’s file. DeSoto, a client, had dropped by her office earlier that day and left his solid gold pen on her coffee table. She’d noticed the pen while Jake was there, slipped it into her suit pocket where she’d forgotten about it until hours later.
Keeping one eye on the street, Nicole flipped on the interior map light, angling the card on which she’d jotted DeSoto’s address…1804. Her lips curved when she spotted the number on a two-story brownstone, its lower floor bulging into large bay windows.
The driveway was empty; no lights glowed from inside. Nicole hadn’t expected DeSoto to be at home since he had a date for the evening with one of the women on his match list. Nicole fervently hoped tonight’s encounter went well. DeSoto was a lot like Phillip Ormiston in that he had yet to find a compatible partner in the months he’d been a client. Yet, DeSoto wasn’t in the least bit dissatisfied. In fact, he’d signed a renewal contract just that morning, using his gold pen.
Pulling into the driveway, Nicole shut off the Jaguar’s purring engine, then retrieved the envelope from her purse in which she’d sealed the pen with a note. She planned to leave the envelope in the mailbox, then phone a message to DeSoto’s answering machine to tell him where she’d left the pen.
Sliding out of the car, she skirted its hood, her high heels clicking smartly up the driveway. The full moon that skimmed in and out of fat gray clouds rendered the front walk and flower bed in subdued shades of gray, with occasional patches of white. Those patches gave a ghostly tint to the sea of pale pansies that lapped the edges of large ornamental rocks.
Nicole climbed the stairs to the porch. On one side of the front door a carriage light illuminated the brass mailbox. The lid on the box squeaked a thready protest when she lifted it and dropped the envelope inside. Her fingers were still grasping the lid when the porch light snapped off. Her heart made a beeline for her throat and she stood frozen in pitch dark, listening to the sound of her own racing heart.
The lid of the mailbox closed with an eerie groan when she released it, adding to the jangling in her nerves.
“Get a grip,” she whispered. Her hand crept to her throat while she stood in the oozing shadows, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. It did little good to remind herself that lightbulbs burned out all the time.
The next instant, the front door swung inward and her breath sucked in on a gasp. A tall, black-clad figure rushed from the house, slamming into her. She stumbled backward, her high heels nearly sliding out from under her while slippery fingers of fear prickled her skin.
Before she’d regained her balance, a fist slammed into her temple. Jagged lights shot behind her eyes. A scream tore up her throat as she staggered sideways, then toppled off the porch.
The air whooshed out of her lungs; pain exploded as her head smashed against one of the ornamental rocks she’d admired moments earlier. Stomach roiling, she tried to push up, got as far as her hands and knees. Her vision doubled, tripled, then blacked out completely as she crumpled onto the pansies.
Jake stood in the velvet-draped parlor of the Ormiston Funeral Home amid sedate upholstered sofas, soft lighting and quiet classical music. The heavy scent of roses perfumed the air, reminding him of the men’s locker room at Sebastian’s.
Across the parlor near the front entrance, Bradley Zucksworth, a short, roly-poly man wearing a black suit and a grim expression, talked softly with a woman dabbing at her eyes with a wad of tissues. After searching Ormiston’s office that morning, Jake had verified Zucksworth’s alibi that he was present at an all-day seminar when someone deep-sixed his boss.
Jake scrubbed a hand over his face. After he left Sebastian’s, he’d spent the rest of the afternoon and evening running background checks, then poring over the files and watching the videos on the women whose names he’d gotten from Meet Your Match. Nothing hinky about any of the ten women Ormiston met through the dating service had jumped out at him. Still, he knew that didn’t mean anything—he’d booked people for murder who, on the surface, appeared to be saintlike. He figured it was safe to assume that all the women on Ormiston’s match list would have been able to get close enough to slide a needle into his neck. All of them were suspects and he’d set up appointments to interview them, starting first thing in the morning.
Jake glanced at his watch, saw it was nearly nine. His snitch, Julio Lira, had called earlier and assured him that the drive-by shooter’s girlfriend would be at a bar called Angel’s tonight around ten o’clock. Jake planned to be there, too.
He blew out a breath. Whitney still had two days to go on her honeymoon, he had too much work and not enough time to do it in. Still, he had a chance tonight to get closer to nailing Ramon Cárdenas for the murder of a seven-year-old boy, and Jake intended to take that step.
Across the parlor, Bradley Zucksworth escorted the weeping woman to the towering wood front door. After locking the door behind her, he turned and headed across the cushy maroon carpet.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Sergeant. Some of the bereaved need more care than others.”
“No problem.” Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit coat, Jake pulled out the obituary on Eddie Denson and handed it to the man. “I found that in your boss’s locker at his health club. Can you tell me anything about Denson?”
“Denson, Denson.” Zucksworth lifted the reading glasses that dangled from a gold chain around his neck and jabbed them on. “Ah, yes,” he said, peering at the obituary. “The car wreck on I-40. His parents were both quite aggrieved.”
“Any idea why your boss had the kid’s obit in his locker?”
“I remember Phillip saying something…” Zucksworth tapped a fingertip against his pursed lips. “Phillip met with the family when they arranged the service. I don’t know what was said during that meeting, but immediately after, Phillip went to the embalming room and viewed the body. That was something he rarely did.” Zucksworth peered over his glasses at Jake. “It’s not the most enjoyable experience, but I imagine you know that.”
“Yeah. Go on.”
“Phillip told me that Denson, who was barely twenty, had extraordinary bulk—Phillip called it the ‘Mr. Universe’ syndrome. His jaw muscles also had a somewhat bloated appearance. Both physical traits are a sign of steroid usage.”
“Steroids,” Jake said thoughtfully when Zucksworth returned the obituary.
“Which are legal if one has a prescription.”
“And illegal without one.”
“Certainly.”
“Did Ormiston say anything else about the Denson kid?”
“No, that was all.”
Jake nodded. “Did your boss mention he’d made an investment that went sour? One that cost him a lot of money?”
“I don’t believe so….”
Zucksworth’s voice trailed off when Jake’s cell phone rang. Unclipping the phone off his belt, he flipped it open. “Ford.”
“Jake… I…”
Nicole. His scalp prickled at the fear in her voice. “Nicole, what’s wrong?”
“He…hit me,” she began, panic welling in her every word. “I couldn’t…”
“Are you hurt?”
“I…fell…my head.”
Jake shoved back the fear for her that shot through him. Not until that instant had he known that some small part of her had managed to slip under his skin.
“Are you at home?” As he spoke, Jake clamped a hand on Zucksworth’s arm and dragged the man toward the door.
“No, at…DeSoto’s. In my…car.”
“DeSoto Villanova?” Jake pictured the anger he’d seen in the Latino’s eyes that morning when the man stalked onto the elevator after leaving Nicole’s office.
“Yes.”
Jake tightened his jaw when Zucksworth fumbled his key ring. When he finally twis
ted a key in the lock, Jake shoved open the door. His gait ate up the sidewalk as he rushed toward his cruiser, which he’d parked at the curb. “Is Villanova there?”
“Don’t…know. Door’s open. The house…is dark. I…don’t want to go in.”
“Don’t go in.” Jake pulled open the cruiser’s door, slid behind the wheel and started the engine. “Stay in your car. Are the doors locked?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the address?”
“I…can’t…remember….” She responded slowly, as if she were testing each word as she spoke it. “I see two of…everything. My…head…hurts.”
Concussion, he thought. “Sit tight. I’ll find you.”
He grabbed the microphone off the dash, radioed dispatch for an address on Villanova. The dispatcher came back with the information in less than forty-five seconds.
“Send a patrol unit to that address to check the welfare of an injured woman in a red Jaguar,” he said. “Dispatch an ambulance there, too. I’m en route.”
Jake jammed the cruiser into gear, then laid rubber while he gripped the phone. “Nicole, I’m on my way. A scout car may get there before me. Keep the doors locked until one of us shows.”
“Can you…hurry?”
The thought of her being hurt, just the thought of it, iced his blood. “Like I’ve never hurried before.”
A scout car and ambulance had reached Villanova’s house by the time Jake pulled beside the curb. The fact that a uniformed officer was in the process of wrapping yellow crime scene tape from tree to tree gave Jake his first inkling that more than Nicole’s assault was involved.
“What have we got?” he asked a second cop with a clipboard.
“One female assault victim,” the cop replied as he jotted Jake’s name and rank on the crime scene log. “And one stiff.”
Jake jolted. “Who the hell’s dead?”
“Probably the homeowner. When my partner and I got here, we found a woman—Nicole Taylor—locked in her car. She took a blow to the head so she’s disoriented. From what we could get out of her, she claims she was putting a gold pen in the mailbox when the porch light went out. The pen’s there, by the way. Next thing she knows, the front door flies open, someone rushes out and smacks her upside the head. She falls off the porch, slams her head on a rock.” The cop glanced over his shoulder at the ambulance. “Messed up the side of her face some.”
Jake’s heart stopped. “Define some.”
“Cuts, bruises. Nothing permanent.” The cop nodded toward the house. “The front door was standing open, so I checked inside while my partner saw to the woman. Found the dead guy lying in the living room. I backed out of the scene, notified dispatch. They advised you were en route.”
Jake stared at the house, illuminated by patches of silver moonlight. “Any sign of a struggle? Forced entry?”
“None that I could see.”
Just like Ormiston. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw the lab’s van pull up. “Get more uniforms here, have them start a door-to-door. Maybe one of the neighbors saw something.”
“You got it, Sarge.”
Jake turned, headed toward the ambulance, its light bar flashing red and blue against the dark landscape.
His insides tightened when he got his first glimpse of Nicole. She lay still as death on a gurney, her eyes closed, the deep purple bruise on her right cheek a stark contrast to the white sheet on which she lay. She wore the same red suit she’d had on when he visited her office. Now the suit was streaked with dirt, the left sleeve ripped at the elbow.
“What’s her condition?” he asked the EMT who was strapping a blood pressure cuff around her upper arm.
“Possible concussion,” the EMT stated at the same time Nicole’s eyes fluttered open.
Pain flickered across her face. “Jake.”
Crouching beside the gurney, he forced a smile, fighting back the rage that was a hot ball in his throat. Someone had hurt her. He wanted to hurt that person. “How you doing?”
“I…my head hurts.”
“I’ll bet.” Her speech wasn’t slurred the way it had been on the phone. As far as he could tell, her pupils looked normal.
“I…shouldn’t have…called you. After I…woke up and got to my car…I couldn’t see good. I hit the redial on my cellular.” She closed her eyes, as if just the effort of speaking hurt. “I’d called you earlier about picking up…the copies you wanted—”
“So you got me when you hit redial.”
“Yes.”
“I’m a cop, Nicole. You’re supposed to call me when something happens.” He settled his palm over her hand. The trembling he felt in her fingers tightened his chest.
“You said…to stay…out of…your way. You said that…after…”
We kissed. “Yeah.” Without conscious thought, he linked his fingers with hers.
“I was…”
His heart constricted when a sob bubbled up her throat. “You were what?”
“So scared.”
“You’re safe now,” he said softly.
She had stumbled on to the bodies of two of her clients in as many nights. In no way did Jake think coincidence had anything to do with that. If the dead man turned out to be Villanova, Jake would bet the title to his Harley that the M.E. would find a pinprick somewhere on the Latino.
The fact that both men had solid connections to Nicole had Jake frowning. He suspected that if he analyzed his feelings for her, he would discover they went deeper than he cared to admit. So, he wouldn’t analyze. He was a cop, investigating the deaths of two of her clients, one of whom had been murdered. He needed to keep his perspective.
He looked down at their joined hands, forced himself to let hers go. “Did you see who hit you?”
“It was…so dark. Too dark.” She swallowed hard. “Maybe DeSoto knows who it was.”
Problem was, DeSoto was probably dead.
The EMT gave Jake the sign they were ready to roll.
He looked at Nicole, resisted the urge to nudge back a wayward blond tendril from her cheek. “I need to get out of here so these guys can take you to get checked.”
She touched a tentative hand to her cheek and winced. “I hate…hospitals. Not staying.”
“You may run into a doctor who thinks different.”
“I’m tougher. Don’t like them…poking at me.”
“You don’t have to like it, just let them do it.”
“Okay. Maybe.” The smile she gave him was weak and didn’t last. “Thanks.”
Despite the ambulance’s medicinal odor, Jake could smell her sexy scent. How the hell was he supposed to keep his perspective when all he wanted was to gather her close and ease her head onto his shoulder?
He wasn’t going to do that, he told himself, even as he felt something move inside him, struggling against the lock he’d clamped on his feelings. He knew what it was like to find one special woman. He also knew what it was like to lose her. Never to be free from the dragging grief. To have pain boil through you like acid, eating at you on the inside.
He wouldn’t let that happen again. Couldn’t let it happen.
“Don’t thank me. I’m just doing my job,” he said, then climbed out of the ambulance and headed for the crime scene.
Chapter 5
Nicole lay in the hospital’s emergency room, her entire body achy and sore. Although the painkiller the nurse had given her half an hour ago had eased the hammering behind her eyes, she now felt as if she had thick, sticky cobwebs in her brain. The drug had done nothing for the nausea rolling in her stomach. Nausea that swelled every time she thought about the dark, faceless man who’d rushed like a demon out of DeSoto Villanova’s house.
She thought it was a man, anyway. When the body collided with hers, she’d had the instant impression of smashing into solid muscle. Felt the corded power behind the fist that slammed into her cheek. Yes, it must have been a man.
Still, she wasn’t positive because the shadows that had oozed acr
oss the porch had concealed her attacker’s features.
Her stomach churned with memories of the fear that had washed over her. Of the jagged pain that had exploded behind her eyes when her head smashed against the rock. Of the sick panic that her attacker might grab her and do God-knew-what.
In those terrifying seconds before she’d lost consciousness, she had wanted only one person: Jake.
I’m just doing my job.
His expression had been as remote and cool as his voice when he’d spoken those words before he climbed out of the ambulance. Yet, before that, while he’d crouched beside her, she had seen more than just the cop with a flat stare. She had glimpsed a man with intense concern swirling in his eyes. A concern that had filled her with a dangerously heady sensation. And when he’d twined his fingers with hers, she had felt the link between them deepen—she was sure about that. Just as she was sure something had stirred inside her, something she hadn’t felt—hadn’t chosen to feel—in a long time.
Something she didn’t want to feel, not for a man she knew was so wrong for her.
Still, she couldn’t deny it was Jake whom she had wanted during those terrifying seconds. Couldn’t deny she was lying there this very instant, longing for a man whom logic told her she didn’t really want. Not for the long run, anyway.
Not for any run, Nicole corrected herself when an alarm screeched in her brain.
Frowning, she assured herself the blow she’d suffered had done more than just make her head pound. It had addled her thinking, made her momentarily forget what had happened when she’d jumped into a relationship based on scalding heat and clawing lust. She’d rushed headlong into marriage with Cole Champion, and when the fire between them banked, she’d gotten her heart handed back to her, battered and scarred. She’d resolved then that she would never jump into that kind of fire again.
She wasn’t in danger of doing that with Jake, she told herself. The reason her thoughts had arrowed to him during the attack mirrored what he’d said in the ambulance—he was a cop. Who better to long for when one’s head had been smashed in?
