Dangerous Attraction

by Susan Vaughan

  Quinn leaned forward, as if ready for combat. The layered sinews of his thighs strained the khaki fabric of his stylishly pleated trousers. Muscles bulged beneath his collarless denim shirt. His imposing physique and harshly carved facial features must have instilled fear in more than a few drug dealers.

  “Mr. Quinn—”

  “Just Quinn. Or Michael,” he said. “Mr. Quinn is my father.”

  How strange to think of this hard man having a father. “Quinn, then.” Michael was too familiar.

  Claire hesitated. Fitz had assured her Quinn could be trusted. She had no one else.

  “I need your help, but don’t ask me to relive those memories in excruciating detail.”

  Quinn levered himself from the deep confines of the wing chair. He stood only a few inches taller than she, but loomed above her more imposing than before, and more intimidating. His chestnut-brown hair brushed his collar and threatened to flop onto his forehead. His square face with its rugged features and probing gray eyes wasn’t handsome, but it was nevertheless compelling in its intense maleness and strength.

  Disliking his imposing stance, she rose, but not without a warm flutter of reaction.

  Mais non, she couldn’t allow herself to be attracted to him, to any man. It wasn’t safe.

  “If I don’t have the facts,” he said flatly, “I’m no good to you. Detail the deaths for me, or find someone else.”

  His uncompromising tone set her back a pace. “You can get the whole story from the police files. Here’s the detective’s phone number and the address of his Portland office.” Claire plucked a slip of paper from her folder.

  For the first time, she noticed that the bronze cast to his skin left white crinkles around his eyes. A tan, not merely a swarthy complexion. Curious.

  “Fine, if all you want me to know is their side of things. If I work for you, shouldn’t I have yours?”

  Slumping inwardly, she accepted his logic. “All right, Quinn. Sit down. I’ll go through it for you.” She lined up the folder with the magazines on the table. No need to consult it. She knew the events by heart.

  From a pocket, he extracted a small notebook and pen. “Just the basic chronology for now,” he said softly. “We can fill in the details later.”

  Had this hard, blunt man with his strong, blunt face actually yielded because of her distress? In his assessing gaze, she perceived a predatory gleam that belied his obvious dislike of her. Not her distress, but her beauty influenced him.

  Her beauty, that was her curse, as if she needed a reminder. Attraction led to tragedy.

  The curse of your beauty is to be alone.

  “All I really know,” he continued, “is that over the last seven years, three men connected to you died.”

  Steeling herself against the painful retrospection, she said, “Yes, the first two deaths were accidents, or at least appeared accidental. My first husband, Jonathan Farnsworth, died in an automobile accident on a narrow coastal road.”

  “Was there another vehicle involved?”

  “No. He went over a cliff.” She knew her voice sounded robotic, but automatic recitation staved off an emotional onslaught.

  “And the next?” he urged, flipping a page to add more notes.

  “My second husband, Paul Santerre. He drowned while out on his yacht. Again alone.”

  “But it wasn’t until the third man died five years later that the cops stepped in?”

  Drenched in memories, she nodded. “When Alan Worcester died in an avalanche at Caribou Peak Ski Resort.” The state police, the entity charged with investigating homicide in the state of Maine, had accused her of murder. Three murders. She shuddered involuntarily.

  “But they didn’t find enough solid evidence of foul play in any of the three deaths to incriminate you.”

  “No, nor anyone else. Jonathan’s father is very influential with both the press and the authorities, so they continue trying, probing, prying,” she said, shrugging elaborately. “The most damning link to me was that I’d been married to the first two men and engaged to the third.”

  “I’ll go now,” he said, getting to his feet once more, “and see if I can contact Pratt today. Once I’ve read the official reports, I’ll come back.”

  She accompanied him to the hall, where she retrieved his bulky coat.

  “Go talk to Detective Lieutenant Pratt,” she said. “Read their stacks of files. Fill in the gaps. Then we’ll begin our investigation.”

  He pivoted at the open doorway. “What did you mean, we’ll begin investigating?”

  His powerful masculine presence unnerved her, but she wouldn’t be cowed. She folded her arms. “I’m paying you well for this case, Quinn. I will accompany you on interviews. We share all information.”

  “No way, lady.” He shook his large head of chestnut-brown hair, like a bull preparing to charge. “You’ve hired me to investigate. I’ll do just that and report back. I work alone, not with a damn partner, especially a client.”

  Claire thrust out her chin and drilled him with a glare. “Over the past months, people have accused me of horrible things. The media sensationalized the case, vilified me. They called me many names, Widow Spider and Bloody Mary the least offensive. It’s my life at stake. As long as you’re working for me, I’m your damn partner.”

  Once his Cherokee left the widow’s house behind and he rounded the corner, Michael pulled over to the side of the street. He managed to peel his fingers from the steering wheel, a stand-in for the woman’s throat.

  With that bitchy attitude, how did she ever get three men to fall for her?

  Damn, he knew how. Even when she snarled at him, he wanted his hands on her. And not to strangle her. Before that, in spite of himself, he’d even attempted flirtation with that asinine remark about the French hens.

  Hell. She would be in his face the whole time. And he had no one to watch his back. Maybe talking to the aggrieved relatives of the men she’d murdered would shake her off. How much of that could she take? How tough was the Widow Spider?

  He punched buttons on his cell phone and waited. When a familiar voice answered, he barked, “Yo, Cruz, couldn’t you have found some other damn sucker for this job?”

  “‘Come into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly. Did the lady put the moves on you, mano?” Ricardo Cruz asked, using the Cuban vernacular for brother.

  “No, I wish to hell it was that simple. She wants to be my damn partner.” Michael shoved his fingers through his hair, longer than his usual no-nonsense cut. Between getting yanked off the mountain and showing up here, he’d had no time to get it cut.

  “What do you mean? She believed your cover story about quitting the DEA and becoming a P.I., didn’t she?”

  “I did quit the DEA,” Michael protested.

  “Paperwork, buddy, red tape. Nothing’s official without it. You were on leave. Boss called you back because we had no one else available for undercover.”

  Michael wasn’t so sure. Their Group Supervisor might be delaying his resignation on purpose. “Maybe the GS is getting back at me for my last…snafu.”

  “He’s done some weird things lately, but it’s more likely he doesn’t want to lose a man of your talents, mano.”

  His friend’s unfailing optimism did nothing to ease Michael’s cynicism. His response was a one-word epithet.

  The undaunted Cruz chuckled. “So, did she buy your undercover ploy or not?”

  “No problem there. But after what she’s been through, the widow’s savvy and skeptical. She trusts no one to investigate for her. She wants in on every move.”

  “The lady’s just made your job a hell of a lot more interesting.” Cruz chuckled. “Unless you’re afraid.”

  She’d asked him that, too. Michael fired a volley of expletives into the receiver. Once his temper cooled, he said, “The file you gave me is thin enough to floss with. What’s the DEA’s stake in this?”

  “Since your attention’s likely to be as short as your temper, I
’ll condense,” Cruz said cheerfully. “We had a team closing in on hubby number two, Santerre. He ran a cool smuggling operation for our old friend El Halcón. Picked up shipments of drugs offshore in his boat and drove them to Boston in his seafood truck.”

  “Stuffed lobster, huh?”

  “Your weird sense of humor shows up at the oddest times, partner. Anyway, the team was about to pick him off, when he conveniently died. Then after a few months’ hiatus, drug traffic from this area rose again.”

  “So even though the bereaved widow sold the seafood company,” Michael inferred, “you think she might be carrying on his other business.”

  “She does still own the powerboat. She must have known what hubby was up to, where all that money came from.”

  Michael still didn’t like the setup. “Did she kill them or didn’t she? Murder’s not the DEA’s business, and shadowing the widow’s a piss-poor way to catch drug smugglers. How does she ship the stuff south if she doesn’t own the damn seafood business anymore? Why the hell doesn’t the Group Supervisor plant an agent there instead?”

  “Yeah, well, the G.S. thinks your gig might work. Just do your job. You owe me.”

  Michael punched the disconnect button, wishing for the luxury of slamming down a receiver.

  He did sure as hell owe Cruz. Big time. Rick had saved his skin twice. Once literally in a darkened warehouse when a Colombian hit man, courtesy of El Halcón, jumped him from behind. Later, Rick had covered for him when his double failures sent him off the deep end.

  Thank God the deal didn’t include bodyguarding the widow. He wasn’t the person to rely on for protection. The last people who counted on him died.

  He owed Cruz all right. So Michael would figure out how to conduct an investigation while trying to keep his “partner” happy.

  Was the Widow Spider a drug dealer as well as a murderer? A murderer whose languid walk and bedroom eyes had already mesmerized her next potential victim.

  Cocaine and heroin brought in a hell of a lot more profit than scallops and clams. And the widow lived well.

  Whether he liked it or not, he sat smack dab in the middle of the widow’s web.

  Fuming, Claire stood a moment in the hallway. Her left foot tapped with the same rapid rhythm as her heartbeat. Quinn was supposed to be a good investigator. The best, Fitz had said. But she didn’t know if she could tolerate working with him long enough to achieve her goal.

  Arrogant chameau! No, not a camel, a bull, and bull-headed. But she didn’t fear him. She held to her demand in spite of his outburst.

  If fear hadn’t caused her pulse to race, it must have been the excitement of finally taking action. Surely that was it.

  He’d stomped away like a raging bull pawing the ground. “We’ll see,” he’d said, about her working with him.

  “Yes, we’ll see,” she echoed now.

  Claire checked the double locks on her front door before walking to the back of the house and through the swinging door to the kitchen. A medium-sized, shorthaired dog clattered across the tiled floor to greet her. “Alley, how are you, little one?” Claire checked the back door lock. Then she knelt to pet the wriggling tan mixed-breed. “You can come out now and help me decorate the tree.”

  Pointed ears alert, the dog pranced ahead of her. Claire’s lips curved with the satisfaction that a year after the amputation, Alley trotted around on three legs with the agility of most dogs with four. She sniffed the boxes of ornaments before settling on the hearth rug to supervise, a tongue-lolling grin of approval on her whiskery muzzle.

  The short winter afternoon having been transformed into evening, Claire pulled down the living room shades. Anxiously, she checked the window locks. After plugging in the lights, she lined up the boxes. She lifted the lids and placed each one beside its box.

  From the tissue paper in a large white box she withdrew a small needlepoint Christmas tree, embroidered with “Jonathan & Claire.” A lovingly crafted gift from tante Rolande for their first—and only—Christmas together. Clutching it, she was overwhelmed with grief and anguish. How could she bear to hang all these memories again?

  Why should she? Resolved, she replaced the lids on the boxes.

  “This year, Alley, we’ll hang only new ones. Crimson balls and gold stars and silver snowflakes. What do you think, little one?”

  The dog’s tail thumped agreement. She consulted the mantel clock. Five-thirty. If the Weymouth Hardware Store was still open, she could buy them now, and the snow blower she’d noticed in their ad.

  If she drove over there now, she wouldn’t have time to change her mind and let the guilty burden of her curse stop her from storing the mementos. From hiding them.

  She whisked to the kitchen to telephone the store. She’d just located the listing in the directory when the wall phone rang.

  Please, mon Dieu, no. She hesitated, her hand hovering within inches of the phone. With trembling fingers, she snatched up the receiver.

  Only silence answered her greeting.

  Chapter 2

  Slogging through the Maine Criminal Investigation Department’s files on Marie Claire Saint-Ange ate up most of Michael’s time for the next few days.

  Detective Sergeant Pratt sneered at the idea of cooperation, but CID policy dictated that the department had to give the feds anything they wanted. After his lieutenant insisted, Pratt slammed down the folders and left Michael alone in an interview room.

  Finally, Michael closed the last folder and slapped it on top of the rest. He didn’t know how many pages of reports and computer printouts he’d read, but they stacked up twice as high as the large foam cup holding his coffee, now as cold as this case.

  He stared at the opposite wall, a drab tan with not even a bulletin board for relief. CID headquarters in Portland typified any police station—drab little offices and cubicles, with drab metal desks surrounded by drably painted walls, some of them peeling. A stimulating place to work, about like the DEA’s offices.

  He stood and rolled the stiffness from his shoulders. Man, he wished himself back in the White Mountains. How the hell the DEA found him in his wilderness camp he didn’t know.

  “You done with my files, Quinn?” the detective said from the open doorway. A smirk on his lined face, he swaggered into the room.

  “Your files, Pratt? Not official CID files?”

  “Mine more than anyone else’s. Took a bucket loader to dig up all that info years after the fact.” Pratt straightened his electric-blue tie over the matching shirt, tawdry imitations of the clothes worn by this season’s TV cops. He hiked up his shiny polyester slacks and tried to tuck in his gut, but too much beer and fried clams made that impossible. Pratt was a competent, middle-aged, balding cop whose frustration with this case turned him nasty.

  “Info, yes,” Michael said, “evidence, maybe. You haven’t got enough to pin on a gnat and you damn well know it.”

  “Maybe, but the DEA has a hell of a lot less, or you wouldn’t be here raiding my files. Just why’s the DEA snooping into this, anyway?”

  In reply, Michael arched one eyebrow.

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Official business.” Pratt scooped up the folders and held them propped on his belly like a shield. “She did it, all right. She plotted it out like a damn movie script, murdered all three men in cold blood. And one day I’ll prove it.”

  Michael snagged his parka from the back of his chair. “I’m finished for now, but I want a copy of those files. I need to study every angle and all the players.”

  Pratt wouldn’t notice that one folder was missing a few sheets, now stowed carefully in an inside parka pocket. Michael would analyze them further before he returned to the widow.

  The detective gaped at him. “The entire damn thing? That’ll take some time. We’re not exactly overstaffed here.”

  No sense butting heads, Michael told himself. “I’d appreciate anything you can do, Pratt. I see you’ve done a straight-up investigation.” He headed for the door.


  The detective sucked in his paunch. “We try. If nothing else, by putting the bitch in the spotlight, we’ve prevented more deaths. ’Course, she hasn’t been involved with another man. Until now.”

  At that, Michael turned back from the hallway. “Until now? That wasn’t in the files. Who?”

  Pratt spat into the metal wastebasket. “You.”

  When the doorbell rang, Claire hoped it was Quinn. It better be. Who else would visit her this morning? Or any time? Old Elisha was her only caller, and only because of their business arrangement.

  She saved her current desktop file. Concentration and inspiration eluded her, anyway. Since the start of the anonymous phone calls and Quinn’s interview three days ago, she found her thoughts focusing on her problems instead of the work that used to provide escape from them. With a sigh, she rose from the desk.

  A quick glance told her everything lay in order—paper clips and pencils in their organizer, reference books side by side, evenly stacked printouts beside them. Before sliding closed the pocket door to the erstwhile dining room, she gave cursory consideration to closing the program.

  No, Quinn had no reason to snoop in there. She tucked a loose curl back into the single braid down her back and strode to the front door.

  “Quinn. I expected you sooner.”

  He pantomimed tipping a hat. “Ms. Saint-Ange.”

  She wanted to maintain distance, reveal as little of herself as possible, but something about this man complicated that goal. She’d hoped a fallible memory had exaggerated his size, but no, he loomed as large as the last time. Too imposing. Too male. Too attractive in a rugged sort of way.

  “Was the file on me that massive,” she continued, “or did Pratt keep you cooling your heels?”

  “Detective Sergeant Pratt had no reason to cooperate with a private snoop. It took calling in a few favors and some time to gain access to the files.” He draped his parka over the coat tree.

  “Have you decided how to begin?”

  “I’ll check out Paul Santerre’s boat—” he consulted his small notebook “—the Rêve something, but I want to talk to you first.” His commanding tone rendered it more than a request.