Reunited with the P.I.

by Anna J. Stewart

  She appreciated his teasing. “I should have paid closer attention to Mara. I should have talked to her more, made certain that she understood what she’d given me was enough. Instead I let her get caught up in my excitement at the prospect of bringing down some criminal overlord who might not even exist. God.” She pressed her fingers into her eyes. “What if I’ve been wrong all this time, Vince? What if Denton is just some schmuck who was defrauding clients and the IRS?”

  “The fact that we’ve pulled Mara’s body out of the river should be all the proof you need you were right.” He pressed his lips against the top of her head. “Blaming yourself isn’t going to get any of us anywhere. From everything you’ve told me about her, there’s nothing you could have said to stop her from pursuing some mysterious connection she found. Everything I saw in her apartment told me she loved puzzles and figuring things out. You can’t take on everyone’s mistakes and decisions. Do you have tunnel vision? Absolutely. I’ve seen evidence of that myself.”

  “Geez, Vince, not Jason again.” She planted a hand on his chest and tried to push away, but he kept holding on to her. “Not now.”

  “It was only an example and stop using my brother as a convenient barrier between us.” As he was never one to coddle, she welcomed his terse comment as a sign of normalcy. “That situation is what it is. You’re not wrong, Simone. Not about Denton and not about your boss and Hobard. The question is what are you going to do about it?”

  “Do about it?” This time she had enough strength to break his hold. She sat up, brushed the dampness from her cheeks and handed him back his jacket. “What do you think I’m going to do about it?” She stalked around to the passenger side of the car. “I’m the Avenging Angel, Vince. I’m going to make whoever did this wish they’d never been born.”

  Chapter 12

  “I told you I wanted to go to my office,” Simone said as Vince bypassed the turnoff. He’d been hoping by the time they got back to Sacramento her temper would have cooled. No such luck. If she’d been raging before, now she was in full-blown fury mode.

  “I know what you told me.” Patience, he counseled himself. She’s in pain. “I’m not letting you anywhere near your office—or the DA—until you get your head on straight. We need a plan. Your main witness is dead. I don’t have to be a legal expert to know Lawson is either going to want to offer a deal or cut Denton loose altogether. He won’t have a choice unless you find another way to present your case.” He hit the gas and took the next turnoff, which led toward her loft. “You’re due in your boss’s office tomorrow morning, right? Let’s go over everything we have and see what else we might have missed. Maybe have some fresh eyes take a look at Mara’s journal entries.”

  “Fresh eyes?” She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I’m not bringing anyone else into this mess.”

  “You think I’m enough? I’m touched.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant. You don’t want to put anyone else at risk.”

  “I don’t have to worry about you,” she said. “You can take care of yourself.”

  “Now I really am touched.” He reached over and took her hand, forcing his fingers between her iron-tight fist. “You are not alone in this, Simone. But until we have all the information about what happened to Mara, going in half-cocked is only going to get you fired and negate everything you and Mara were trying to accomplish.”

  “She was twenty-three.” Simone’s whisper cracked the wall around his heart. “She’d barely started her life, a life that she wanted to have meaning. You and I both know it wasn’t an accident her car went into the river.”

  “What we know and what we can prove are two totally different things. Jack said they’d have lab results by tomorrow, right? Let’s hope it’s early enough to make a difference in your meeting with Lawson.”

  “And Hobard.” She gripped his hand so tight he lost circulation. “I want to know what he was doing near her apartment all those times. I swear if he had anything to do with this—”

  “All the more reason to go in prepared for anything.”

  “Did you have a plan in place when you beat the crap out of your murder suspect?” She snatched her hand free.

  He took a slow count of ten before he answered and only after he turned into her driveway, inserted the garage keycard the doorman had given him Friday night and drove inside. “I did have a plan, actually.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” The anger in her eyes blazed hot in the dimness of the parking lot.

  “It didn’t. He’s still alive.” There were days he wished he’d succeeded, to know that the monster responsible for the brutal murder of Sabrina Walker was erased from existence. Then there were days he realized he’d crossed a line. A line he was going to make sure Simone never even got close to. “Why do you think I’m telling you to take some time? You don’t want to live with what I do, Simone. Trust me. No one does.”

  Her brow furrowed enough that he knew she heard him. Whether she understood what he was saying was something else.

  “Tell you what.” He parked and killed the engine, palmed the keys. “You go upstairs, toss those clothes and shoes in the trash and take a long hot shower. If, when you’re done, you still have the desire to destroy your career, ruin your reputation and make enemies of just about everyone in law enforcement, I’ll take you someplace where you can work out your aggressions in a more productive manner than unmanning your boss and his underling.” He had a punching bag with her name on it.

  “You hate my career,” she countered. “Why do you care what happens to it?”

  “You’re a brilliant lawyer, Simone. I’ve always thought that.” That she’d confided in him about why she only wore white no doubt required a reciprocal admission. Not much harm it could do now, anyway. “What I didn’t like was how I disappeared around it. Do you realize we’ve talked more about the law, procedure and my work as a P.I. in the last three days than we ever did in the months we were together?”

  “It never occurred to me that you were interested. You always distrusted the police and the judicial system.”

  “I seem to recall asking you to convince me I was wrong.” Not that she’d ever heard him. “And I don’t distrust all police. I know there are good ones. Like Jack and Cole. And the two detectives who were working the Walker case.”

  “You can say that given what happened?” Her eyes glinted.

  There was the law-abiding prosecutor he loved. “They could have testified against me. They’d seen enough of what I’d done, but they put the attention back on Sabrina Walker, on the fact that she wouldn’t have been found without me. Not entirely true by the way.”

  “I’ve read the report,” Simone said. “You’re underestimating yourself again.”

  “I nearly beat a man to death with my bare hands, Simone.” He could still feel the bruises, still feel the blood on his hands. And he would do anything to feel more remorse than he did. “As much as you want to believe I’m still the man you married three years ago, something like that changes you. You know it does. It just happened to you a lot sooner.”

  “Is this the equivalent of you talking me off the ledge?”

  He took her hand again, raised it between them and pressed his lips against her fingers. “You jump, I jump. Nothing else to it, Simone. You’ve got me for as long as you want me.” He started to get out of the car, but she tugged him back.

  “What if I do? Want you?” Her other hand came up and touched his face. She leaned forward and kissed him. Gentle, questioning, tempting. And it was all he could do not to take what she offered.

  “Simone,” he murmured against her lips. “You’re not in the right frame of mind—”

  She sat back, stared at him, disbelief shining in her eyes. “You’re saying no to me again? Seriously?”r />
  “Yeah, I’m starting to doubt my own intelligence. But don’t worry.” He shifted toward her, her mouth only a breath from his. He brushed a kiss on either side of her lips, stroked that sensitive spot under her ear and waited for her to shiver. “Consider this a rain check, not a refusal. Now let’s get upstairs before I change my mind.”

  She flattened her hand against his chest, moved it lower, until her fingers brushed against the front of his jeans.

  He tried hard not to exhale fire. “Come on, Simone.” This time when she pulled back, he broke free. He waited for her to get out of the car and gather her purse. There was no denying he wanted her. He would always want her. But not when her head was filled with images of a dead friend and her heart overflowed with guilt.

  The familiar silence descended as they walked to the elevator. Stretched to the ride up and followed them to her front door. “Last chance, bud. You sure you won’t change your mind?” She slipped her key into the lock, arched a brow at him. “Shower’s nice and large. Remember?”

  He stared at her, jaw locked, letting her read his mind.

  “Fine. See if I ever offer again.” She pushed open the door and disappeared down the hall. Vince waited, waited...she yelped. “What on earth are you doing here?” He heard her ask her friends and pocketed his keys. He waited, listened, not wanting to intrude. “Allie, you said you weren’t coming back until... Eden? You two still have days left—”

  “Vince called,” Eden outed him despite their agreement to make their arrival seem spur-of-the-moment. “He told us about Mara. He said you needed us.”

  “I—he did? But he didn’t tell me—Vince?” Simone’s voice broke as he reached for the doorknob and drew the door closed.

  * * *

  “Sutton.”

  Finding Cole Delaney leaning against the trunk of his car seemed like the fitting end to his day. He did a quick inventory of his most recent actions. Nope. Nothing to warrant an official police visit. He supposed he could chalk this up to the cop’s wife upstairs in Simone’s apartment.

  “Detective.” He’d met Delaney only on a few occasions, the most recent being his and Simone’s wedding. Cole hadn’t changed much. He still had that boy-next-door look about him with dark blond hair and a special twinkle in his eye despite the “don’t mess with me” attitude. Vince supposed he could attribute all but the attitude to honeymoon jet lag. And the gold wedding band on his finger. “Problem?”

  “Appreciate you letting us know what’s been going on.” Cole uncrossed his ankles and held out his hand. “Simone’s either going to kiss or kill you. Hope you’re prepared.”

  “For both, actually.” He’d known he was taking a chance by notifying Simone’s friends, but as soon as he’d talked to Jack this morning about what they expected to find in the river, he hadn’t thought twice. Calling in reinforcements was the only thing to do. The only thing he knew he could do that might actually make a difference where Simone was concerned. “Have you talked to Jack?”

  “I’m on my way in to the station now to get filled in. Why don’t you come with me? Catch me up on your side of things so I’m not flying blind.”

  Vince hesitated, gripped his keys and then slipped them back into his jacket. “You still want me involved?”

  “You’re involved whether I want you to be or not.” Cole’s lips quirked. “For the record, I’m fine with it. One thing I’ve learned is not to turn down help from smart people. Even P.I.s with anger issues. Besides, I’m betting Simone would never speak to me again if I tried to lock you out of this now.”

  Despite the rotten day, Vince’s mood lightened. That they understood each other would make getting this case to a satisfactory conclusion a lot less painful for all involved.

  “Car’s over here.” Cole inclined his head toward a blue SUV. “So, Vince, don’t hold back. Fill me in on what you’ve been up to the last three years.”

  * * *

  “There, I bet you feel better.” Eden skidded to a halt, passed a filled wineglass to Simone and stared at her, her green eyes going wide. “What are you wearing?”

  Simone looked down at the jeans and purple T-shirt. “What’s wrong?” She tugged at the hem as she asked. She knew this was a bad idea, but her suddenly blinding closet didn’t look right. Nothing looked right. Nothing felt right. The white had brought her so much comfort all these years, but now? What she’d finally found in the bottom drawer of her dresser felt as confining as a straitjacket while at the same time she couldn’t remember feeling so exposed. “Vince said something about adding...you know what. This isn’t working. I’m changing.”

  “Allie!” Eden set the wine down and dived forward, grabbed her wrists and hauled her into the kitchen. “We won’t need an angelic intervention after all. Look!” She did something with her hands that reminded Simone of a model on one of those spinning car displays. “Color! You’re so shiny. I’m going to call this the Vince effect.”

  Allie had pulled her head out of the refrigerator and was looking at them, her jet-black hair a sharp contrast against the soft lavender of her capris and matching tank. She blinked. A slow smile spread across her lips. “This is what we in my profession would call a breakthrough.”

  “And bare feet.” Eden clapped like a five-year-old greeting Santa. “Oh, this is a happy, happy day.”

  Simone laughed, then slapped a hand over her mouth. She shouldn’t be laughing. Not with everything that had happened. Not with Mara...tears burned.

  “Eden!” Allie pointed a finger at her then the wine.

  “On it.” Eden dashed away but returned quickly with their glasses. She wrapped Simone’s hand around the stem. “Drink. Allie, you know what to do.”

  “I already called. Two supersized supremes with extra cheese are being prepared this minute.”

  “Did you tell them no mushrooms?” Eden asked as she pushed Simone onto the sofa before she curled up next to her.

  “Of course I didn’t.” Allie sounded as if she were placating an irritable child. “What would pizza with my best friends be without you picking off the fungus?”

  Gratitude drove away the sadness. Vince might have done well in the distraction department the last few days, but no one distracted her better than these two. Eden with her sharp edges and acerbic views, Allie, all rounded and optimistic. They balanced each other. They balanced her. When Allie dropped down on the other side of her, a bit of Simone’s world righted itself again. Not quite as sturdy as before, but as close as she was going to get until this case was over.

  “We’re sorry about Mara,” Eden said. “Kyla filled us in while we were waiting for you.”

  “Kyla.” Simone tried to break free of their hold, but they wouldn’t let go. What was it with people and not letting her move when she wanted? “I should call her and let her know—”

  “She knows,” Allie said. “And what she doesn’t, she will be told. Cole said he’d have Vince call her.”

  “Where is Cole? You didn’t ditch him already, did you?” Simone’s own attempt at teasing didn’t come close to striking home. She felt trapped between emotions she couldn’t get a handle on.

  “Please,” Eden snorted. “He’s stuck with me for the rest of his life, poor guy. He said something about taking Vince to the station.”

  “Why to the station?” Vince hadn’t done anything wrong as far as she knew. Had he?

  “Relax. The fact Vince called us earned him serious credit.”

  “With all of us,” Allie added. “Maybe even enough to make us forgive him for breaking your heart.”

  Given what she’d learned in the last few days, it seemed she’d done most of the breaking. “We both gave up. There’s no one to blame.”

  “Spoken like someone in the midst of a rekindling,” Eden said. “So we’ll hold off on the girlfriend bonfire and give him a p
ass. For now. At least until things settle down.”

  Simone hadn’t realized how much she’d needed to hear those words. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Looking at this place,” Allie said, “I’m thinking this compulsion you two share of taping notes all over the place is a cry for help. I’ve seen serial killers’ homes less obsessive than this.”

  “Do you pack that silver lining of yours wherever you go?” Eden rolled her eyes. “Just because you have more brain capacity than the rest of us—”

  “I needed to see all of it.” Simone could barely see the sanctuary of her home beneath the facts, records and figures of what, in the last few hours, had turned into a murder case. She grasped Chloe’s pendant and slid it across the chain. “I didn’t understand that before, Eden. How it helps put the pieces together.”

  “No two cases are ever the same.” Eden frowned. “You’ve got a lot going on but no real connective threads. It’s there,” she added when Simone’s confidence took a nosedive. “We just have to dig it out. You want to talk about what happened today?”

  “Other than watching them pull the body of a twenty-three-year-old kid out of the river?” Simone shrugged, as if she could push aside the images circling in her mind. “What’s there to talk about?”

  “How about the fact you’re blaming yourself.” Allie kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet under her. “That you believe her death is your fault. That you should have seen it coming because Simone Armstrong is an all-knowing omnipotent being.”

  “That’s not fair.” Simone bristled.

  “We all do it,” Eden said. “We have control issues and we all know why. Something goes wrong, someone innocent gets hurt or worse, someone dies and we blame ourselves because at the moment there’s no one else.”

  “The only person responsible for Mara’s death is the person who killed her,” Allie added.

  “I know,” Simone sighed. “You’re right, but...” She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to feel anything ever again.