by Sharon Sala
“A woman in her nightclothes is a woman one step away from bed. Some men might take that as an invitation.”
“Yes, I suppose,” Caitlin said, praying that her shock didn’t show. “But some men also eat with their fingers and burp for their own entertainment, and it doesn’t endear them to me, so I’m thinking that the playing field is even. Just let your brother in when he rings and stop baiting me. My head hurts too much to argue with you.”
The devilment in his eyes faded immediately. “Did you take your pain medicine this morning? How long were you working before you stopped? Sitting at that computer can’t be good for you, with your side so bruised.”
Taken aback by his concern, Caitlin sputtered, then was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door.
“That’s Aaron,” she said, bolting out of the kitchen and down the hall.
Mac shook his head as he answered the door.
“Good morning, little brother,” he said, as Aaron sailed into the room.
“Good morning to you, too,” Aaron said. “Where’s Caitlin? Did she get any rest? Are you behaving yourself?”
“She’s getting dressed, and I suppose she slept…some, at least. I woke up to hear her typing in her office.” Then he frowned. “And just for the record, I resent the implication that I would behave inappropriately.”
Aaron sighed. “You know what I mean, so don’t be so huffy. I just want you to be nice.”
“If I was any nicer, I could be looking at getting sued for child support,” he muttered. “Want some coffee?”
Aaron nodded, too stunned to speak. He stared at the set of Mac’s shoulders as he strode from the room, then listened to the sound of slamming doors and banging crockery before he started to smile. He was still absorbing the child support crack when Caitlin entered the room.
“Aaron, how good of you to stop by.”
He blinked. Caitlin was coming toward him with a forced smile on her face. For once he didn’t even notice what she was wearing. He loved her as much as it was possible for him to love any woman. He couldn’t marry her, but Connor could. Of course, that all hinged upon mutual desire. But from the way Mac was acting and the fake smile on Caitlin’s face, something was up. He just didn’t know whether it was good or bad.
Seven
Sylvia Polanski’s apartment was a total surprise. It was chic, understated and obviously very expensive. Whatever Sylvia’s profession, she had been successful at it.
Paulie Hahn picked up a small porcelain statuette of a shepherdess and turned it over, looking at the stamp on the bottom.
“Dresden,” he said, and set it back on the table where he’d found it. “Sylvia Polanski might have been a hooker, but she had good taste.”
“We don’t know she was a hooker,” Sal said, as he poked through a desk drawer for something that might give them a clue as to who Sylvia’s killer could be. “Just because Neil said it, that doesn’t make it so.”
“You don’t like him much, do you?” Paulie asked.
Sal shrugged. “He’s all right. Just got too much hair.”
Paulie grinned. “We aren’t gonna find anything here to link the two women.”
Sal straightened and turned. “Why do you say that? Have you gone psychic on me?”
“Because the two women don’t connect,” Paulie said. “Donna Dorian was a twenty-year-old university student still living with her mother. Coroner said she was a virgin before the rape. Sylvia Polanski is in her thirties, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“I think Neil was right. I think she was a hooker. You heard what the super said when he let us in. She slept all day and was out all night. She didn’t bring anyone here. This was home. So she’s either got a place somewhere in Manhattan where she takes her johns, or she uses their places.”
“We don’t know that,” Sal said, pushing a drawer shut and opening another.
Paulie shrugged. “Well, if she is a hooker, she’s a high-class one. Lofts like these rent for a pretty penny. She was either independently wealthy or damn good at her job.”
“Hey, look at this,” Sal said, as he pulled a small leather-bound book from beneath a pile of receipts.
“What is it?”
Sal whistled between his teeth. “It’s what my old man used to call a ‘little black book.”’
“Let me see,” Paulie said.
Sal handed it over.
“Man, look at all these names and numbers.”
Sal studied it a moment and then handed it back to his partner. “Okay, so it looks like Neil might have been right after all.”
“Unless she’s their stockbroker or something, I’d agree.”
Sal turned, scanning the room for a new place to search when he saw a photo on the wall near the windows. He walked over for a closer look.
“This must be her,” he said, pointing toward the picture. “She was a fine-looking woman before that crazy son of a bitch got a hold of her.”
Paulie looked. “Yeah. Let’s take it with us. It’s a damned sight better than the one the coroner will send.”
Sal laid it beside his coat and kept on digging. A few minutes later, he turned up a small address book with what appeared to be personal phone numbers.
“I think I just found her next of kin,” Sal said. “What looks like her mother’s phone number is in here.”
Paulie frowned. “That’s the worst thing I hate about working homicide. It’s your turn to break the news.”
Sal sat down on the sofa and picked up the picture, staring intently at the woman’s face. Dark, shoulder-length hair and dark eyes—and a real pretty mouth. He laid the picture aside.
“You know, you have kids. Raise them the best way you know how, then they turn to shit like this. No woman I ever heard of made plans to give birth to a hooker.”
Paulie shrugged. “You think too much, Sal. Come on, this place is giving me the creeps. We’ve got her book. We can run the names and phone numbers from the office. Let’s get out of here.”
Two days later
Awakened by the sound of the wind, Caitlin quickly became aware of a distinct drop in the room temperature. She opened her eyes to darkness and then glanced at the clock. Almost 3:00 a.m. If she didn’t turn up the heat, it would be freezing in the apartment by morning. Reluctantly she turned on the light and then crawled out of bed, moving quietly through the house in her sock feet until she reached the living room. With instinct born of familiarity, she felt along the wall for the thermostat, upped it a couple of notches until she heard it kick on and then headed back to bed. But when she got to the hall, she stopped abruptly. Connor was standing in her doorway wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s getting colder. I just turned the thermostat up a bit,” she said. “Sorry I woke you.”
“You didn’t wake me. I wasn’t asleep.”
When he took a step forward, the light spilling out of her bedroom wrapped around his body, bathing it in a warm, soft-white glow. Breath caught in the back of her throat. His chest rippled with muscles the weight lifters called six-packs, and his sweats rode too low on his hips for her comfort. Instinctively she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and took a slow breath, trying to remember what they’d been saying. Sleep. It was something about not being able to sleep.
“You said you couldn’t sleep, are you ill?”
“No.”
“It’s almost three.”
Mac watched the panic on her face and wondered if his was as obvious. This attraction to her was scary as hell.
“I know,” he said, and took another step toward her.
Caitlin shrunk within herself, too scattered to move.
“Do you suffer from insomnia?” She thought she heard him sigh.
I’m suffering all right, but it’s not insomnia, you little witch, it’s you.
He eyed her tousled hair and fading bruises, as well as those ridiculous flannel pajamas, and wondered
why in hell he kept dreaming about making love to her.
“I guess it’s something like that.”
“There are some sleeping pills in the bathroom,” she offered. “But don’t take more than one or you’ll sleep through tomorrow.”
“I don’t do drugs,” he muttered.
Caitlin felt herself bristling. “Are you insinuating that I do? Because if you are, I can assure you that—”
The next thing she knew, he had her pinned against the wall, his hands still gentle on her shoulders.
“I wasn’t insinuating anything, you ungrateful little wretch, but if you’re about to light into me again, then I may as well give you something real to be pissed about.”
Before she could answer, he lowered his head. She felt the warmth of his breath and then his hands sliding from her shoulders to her back, urging her toward him.
She put her hands between them in reflex.
It was a mistake.
Instead of pushing him back, she found herself stroking his chest, pausing as the ricochet of his heartbeat seared into her palms.
Then she made her second mistake.
She looked up.
“I warned you,” he whispered.
His lips were warm, the pressure gentle yet persistent. Caitlin lost all sense of self. The danger to her life, the blizzard outside—all of it was gone. Everything that had come and gone before seemed frivolous and shallow. Right now—at this moment—she felt reborn. She was starting over with just one kiss.
It wasn’t until she moaned that Mac came to his senses. He immediately turned her loose, certain he was hurting her.
“Oh hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Then he shoved his hands through his hair and looked away, unwilling to face any more of her accusations. “The only thing I seem to get right around you is an apology.”
Caitlin stared at him in confusion. Her head was spinning, her heartbeat out of control, as she tried to come to terms with what he was saying. The imprint of his mouth was so real she had to touch her own lips to assure herself he was gone. At that point, she drew a shuddering breath.
“I don’t know where you got your information, but I wasn’t the one complaining.”
Then she lifted her chin and walked into her room, quickly closing the door behind her before she followed her own impulse to invite him in.
Staggered by what he’d done, Mac stood in the hall, seriously considering the option of going in after her. Fortunately sanity returned. Cursing himself for a fool, he turned abruptly and strode into his bedroom, dropping to the side of the bed in quiet dismay.
He’d learned long ago that, between midnight and morning, caution had a tendency to go to hell. He’d come to protect her, not complicate her life even more. And, he reminded himself, he didn’t want any complications, either. He wasn’t a settling down kind of man, and Caitlin Bennett wasn’t anyone’s one-night stand. The fact that their mutual attraction left her angry and confused and him hard and hurting was too damned bad.
But as the wind continued to shriek outside the building, his worries became true fears. How long could they hold out against this growing attraction when there was a blizzard snowing them in?
Buddy paced the floor of his apartment, wishing he’d gone in to work. It was just after daybreak, and even though he’d taken a personal day off, he thought about reconsidering. He paused at the window and frowned.
The wind was fierce, the snow blinding, slowing vehicles to a crawl. Pedestrian traffic was sparse, and those who dared to venture out spent more time holding on to their coats and trying to stay on their feet than getting to any particular destination. He shuddered as he turned away, revamping his previous thoughts. Work be damned. There were other ways to occupy his time besides freezing his ass off.
The euphoria of killing the hooker had passed, leaving him with the unpalatable fact that no matter how many substitutes he killed, his target still lived.
He moved from the living room to his bedroom, taking comfort in the newspaper clippings, as well as the pictures he had plastered all over the walls. A poster-size photo of her hung above his bed. The beauty of her face had been marred many times over, but the act had done nothing to assuage his rage. The fact that there was now a bodyguard between him and justice was a thorn in his side, but not a pertinent issue. There were plenty of ways to get to her, and he was a patient man.
As he stood, he became aware of the silence. Except for the occasional rattle of the windows from the storm, everything was muted, buried beneath the wind and the snow. He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath, concentrating on the sound of his heartbeat. After a while, he crawled into bed and pulled up the covers, letting his mind go free. And as he listened, the race of thoughts with which he usually lived stilled and peace settled within.
He was on the verge of sleep when the silence in the room was broken by a series of scratching sounds, followed by one very distinct squeak. His eyes opened, his nostrils flaring in anger. A large part of his paycheck went toward the rent on this apartment. It was a nice place in a decent part of the city, and yet there was no mistaking what he’d heard. There was a rat in the walls. That was something that belonged with his childhood. He wasn’t going to live in that kind of poverty again.
He climbed out of bed, yanking on clothes as he went, then stalked out of his apartment. Just as he reached the elevator, the power flickered. Unwilling to chance getting trapped in the elevator he took the five flights of stairs down to the super’s apartment. By the time he arrived, he was furious. It showed in the fervor with which he knocked.
“Who is it?” the superintendent called.
“It’s me!” Buddy yelled. “The tenant in 505.”
Buddy heard locks turning and then the door opened on the chain. When the superintendent recognized Buddy’s face, he came out into the hall.
“What seems to be the problem?” he asked.
Buddy’s voice was soft, a deceptive indicator of his state of mind.
“There are rats in the walls of my apartment.”
The superintendent’s eyes widened nervously. “Can’t be,” he denied.
Buddy inhaled slowly, maintaining his composure. “Oh, but there are. I heard them.”
The superintendent shrugged. “I ain’t sayin’ you’re right and I ain’t sayin’ you’re wrong, but it ain’t my problem. I just work and live here, like you.”
“And part of your job is to see that the complaints of the tenants are dealt with. I expect traps to be set in the basement and the owner to be notified. You tell him to get an exterminator into this building before he finds himself sued.”
The superintendent frowned. “You ain’t gonna win no lawsuit because of rats. The city is full of ’em.”
Buddy’s fingers curled into fists. The urge to punch that smug expression off the superintendent’s face was overwhelming, but he held his ground, maintaining the hold on his emotions.
“Not at the rent I’m paying,” Buddy said. “You know what I do for a living. I know important people. I could make big trouble for you and for the owner. You think about that. You think long and hard. You hear me?”
The man nodded nervously, unsure of the tenant’s true power, but unwilling to push the issue.
“Yeah, I hear you,” he muttered.
“I’m going back to my apartment now,” Buddy said, then poked his finger into the soft flesh of the man’s chest. “And you’d better pray I don’t hear any more scratches or squeaks.”
Without waiting for the man to answer, he pivoted angrily and stalked back up the stairs and into his apartment, slamming and locking the door behind him as he went.
Mac stood at the window of Caitlin’s living room, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. The stress of being snowed in with her was driving him nuts. Half the time he wanted to throttle her, the rest of the time he was dying to take off her clothes.
“It’s still snowing.”
“I know,” Caitlin s
aid, without looking up from the pages she was editing.
She thought she heard a muffled curse but ignored it. She understood Mac’s frustration but she couldn’t change it. The snow of the past few days had turned into a full-fledged blizzard sometime after midnight, but its power was nothing to the kiss they’d shared in the hall. Afterward, she’d run like the coward she was and, by daybreak, convinced herself it meant nothing. But now Mac’s predatory prowl was starting to bother her. And when he turned around, she realized she’d been right to worry.
“Caitlin, we need to talk.”
She marked her place on the manuscript with a small red check and then looked up.
“Yes?”
“Something’s happening between us—something I didn’t expect.”
Taken aback by his openness, she didn’t quite know what to say.
“I don’t know…maybe it’s the close quarters we’re in,” he said. “And maybe it’s nothing more than compassion for what’s happening to you, but I’m not in the habit of wantonly kissing my clients.”
Her mouth snapped shut, her eyes narrowing. “I’m not a client. I didn’t hire you, remember? You are free to leave any time you feel the need.”
He sighed and shoved his hands through his hair in frustration.
“See? We don’t get along at all. You don’t like me and truthfully, I didn’t think I liked you all that much, either. But I don’t want to mislead you about what’s been happening.”
“I’m not misled,” Caitlin said. “You kissed me twice, both times in anger. I think you need counseling to rechannel your emotions.”
He stared at her for a moment and then burst out laughing. It was the last thing Caitlin had expected him to do.
“What?” she muttered.
He was still chuckling when he walked over to where she was sitting and absently ruffled the top of her hair, as if he was petting a dog.
“You know something, kiddo? You just might be right. It’s after two. Aren’t you hungry?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”
“Well, think,” he said, and grabbed her by the hand, pulling her off the couch and toward the kitchen. “I’m starving, and I’m bored. So feed me or take me to bed.”
