“Highly unlikely.”
She turned another page. “After they’d ‘messed’ with the mirror a while, Delta came over again. The waiter said she argued with Desirée some more. A second waiter says Delta was trying to apologize.”
“Eyewitnesses can be inaccurate.”
“Sure, but if Desirée turned away from the table to talk to Delta,” Miranda twisted her body to simulate, “it was the perfect time for Usher to slip the PCP into her drink.”
Parker studied her pose. “Possible.”
“Very possible.”
“No witness saw the vial.”
“True, but the police found it. And it had traces of angel dust.” She turned back and read again. “Delta seemed very upset. She turned away from Desirée, ran toward the barn, and disappeared into the crowd.” Miranda stared off in that direction. “So the last time Delta spoke to her sister, they’d had a fight.” She felt sorry for the woman.
Parker didn’t comment.
She continued. “Desirée and Usher stayed at their table and ordered more drinks, but Desirée was in a foul mood. Their conversation became heated and emotional. By now, they were both pretty sloshed.”
“And stoned.”
“It was time to get ready for the first race, but Desirée was in tears. The waiter heard her say something like, ‘All you ever think about is your career.’ At that point, Desirée got to her feet, called Usher a ‘rotten son of a bitch,’ downed her drink, and took off for the stables to check on Calypso.”
“That was the drink laced with PCP,” Parker said solemnly.
“Had to be. So what was the trigger that made her decide to commit suicide by pouring PCP into it? Her fight with Usher?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Bullshit.” Miranda started to walk toward the barns, as if she were Desirée on that day. “Desirée got lost in the crowd, like Delta did. Nobody saw her go into Calypso’s stall. Nobody noticed Usher again until just after the incident. I was the first one to see him.”
Parker gestured where he stood. “He might have stayed at the table until the commotion started.”
“Or,” she called over her shoulder, “he might have followed her when she left the table.”
Parker joined her at the edge of the barn. Miranda strode over to the stall that had belonged to Calypso that day. She peered inside. The backboards had been repaired, and it looked new and clean, as if nothing gruesome and bizarre had ever happened here.
She looked at the dirt path in front of the building and pointed toward the right. “I was over there at the other end of the barn when Calypso had his hissy fit. Two men dragged the horse out of this stall. He was bucking and neighing furiously. A crowd started to gather. I ran over this way.” She moved toward the middle of the barn. “A woman screamed, a man said Desirée was in the stall.”
“That’s when you entered it.”
“Yes. I saw the body and tried to help, but she was already gone.” She shuddered at the memory.
“And Usher came up behind you.”
She nodded.
“Plenty of time to get there from the restaurant table.”
She looked over at the spot. “Doesn’t prove he came from there.”
“Or that he didn’t.”
She grimaced. “Yeah, you’re right. Usher could have sat there, smugly watching her. After he gave her that PCP, it was only a matter of time before she dropped dead.”
“Then he couldn’t have planted the suicide note.”
She shifted her weight, uncomfortable with Parker’s implication. “He might have given it to her earlier. And told her not to open it.”
“He might have.”
The devil’s advocate was starting to bend. “Okay, so then a security guard came and threw Usher and me out of the stall. I moved over here.” She stepped that way. “The crowd had swelled by that time. Usher pushed his way through the onlookers and took off that way.” She pointed. “Back toward the restaurant tables.” She wondered where he’d been going.
“Anyway, about here was where Delta stopped me and asked for help.” She stopped on the spot and exhaled in frustration. “None of this is anything we didn’t know already.”
Parker stroked his chin. “True.” The sun was getting higher in the sky and growing hotter. She saw sweat bead up on his forehead.
“Who commits suicide in a big crowd? Doing something you love?” She started to walk along the barn, trying to imagine the throng that had been there that day. Parker stayed behind to re-examine Calypso’s stall.
She looked at the adjoining stalls where the other horses had been kept. Hay covered the floor. In front of the stalls, the red clay path was hardened from foot traffic. No shoe prints.
She reached the corner where the grass started up again. There, a row of bushes had been planted along the barn’s side. Some decorator sprucing the place up, or trying to keep kids away. She stared into the bright green leaves.
Her breath caught. Something in there wasn’t green. It wasn’t a leaf. She bent down, peered into the bush. It looked like a flap of leather. Tan, mahogany colored.
She stared deeper into the thicket without touching the bush. A long, thin shape, like a stick with a knobby end, was wedged in there. She tilted her head and made out the fancy gold letters embossed on the tip. “FJU.” The police report said that Usher’s middle name was James. Good thing, or his initials would be “FU.” But no. They were “FJU.”
“Parker!” she shouted, her heart racing. “I think I’ve got something.”
He trotted over to her. “What is it?”
She pointed toward the bush. “Look.”
He bent down, squinted into the hedge. Then he smiled. “A riding crop.”
Exactly what someone might have used to make Calypso go crazy after a buzzed Desirée had gone into the stall. “Look at the end of it.”
His gray eyes twinkled in the sunlight. “Excellent work.” Quickly, he set down his silver investigator’s kit and opened it. “Don’t touch it.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know. I’ve passed Fingerprinting 101, you know.”
“Indeed you have. With flying colors.” He took out a digital camera from his case. “Would you like to do the honors?”
“Sure.” She took the camera from him, adjusted it, and took shots from several angles.
She handed the camera back to Parker and he exchanged it for a pair of rubber gloves. He already had his on.
Miranda donned the gloves and slowly, carefully, pulled back the leaves of the bush, eased the whip out of its hiding place. It was about two and a half feet long, made of top quality leather.
“Got it.” She beamed as she slid the crop into the long plastic bag Parker held open for her.
The look of pride on his face made her swell. Had she nailed Usher? It sure looked like it to her.
“We’ll take this back to the house and print it,” he said.
She grinned victoriously. “What are we waiting for?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Parker’s silver-gray Mazda shot through Kennesaw and down I-75 with the speed of a James Bond Aston Martin. Halfway back to Buckhead, he reached for his cell and ordered a pizza to go from Mellow Mushroom. No time for fancy restaurants this afternoon. They picked up their order, raced through traffic, nearly ran a few red lights along the way.
It was almost four o’clock when Parker pulled into the mansion’s fancy garage. Miranda grabbed the pizza and they hurried inside through the door that led to the kitchen. She laid the box on the stove, as Parker came up behind her and set his silver investigator’s case down on the large stonework island in the middle of the room.
He gestured toward it. “Be my guest.”
“You really are taking this lead thing seriously, aren’t you?”
“You’re doing so well, why stop now?”
She couldn’t have been more thrilled. “Hand me a pair gloves.”
He obliged and with an eager grin
, she pulled them on and gingerly eased the riding crop out of its plastic bag, being careful not to touch the handle.
Peering into Parker’s case, she selected a fine, light gray powder and gave the whip handle a dusting. She blew on the surface and a nice specimen appeared. Cool.
Parker held the crop steady while she took the tape and lifted a fairly clear thumbprint from the handle. A pretty good forefinger print was just an inch away. That was all that were legible, but she could tell by sight that the ridge formations were similar.
She retrieved a black backing card from the case, filled in the information section with date, time and a short description, and carefully laid the tape across it. She looked up at Parker. He was wearing that look of pride that was becoming so familiar. The thrill of that look went right down to her toes.
“Now what?” she asked. “We don’t have a place to process the prints.”
He picked up the backing card that held her handiwork. “Now we run it through the database.”
“Database? Here?”
Grinning slyly, he strode over to the fridge and reached for couple of beers with his free hand, nodded toward the door to the hall. “Follow me.”
Miranda grabbed the pizza and tagged along as he went across the downstairs hall, up the carved mahogany staircase, down the upstairs hall, and into a large, open room.
She felt like whistling when she stepped inside.
The space was done up like an office. A very fancy office. Mostly in black and white, with classy silver accents, it was windowless, but it had track lighting along the ceiling, along with a few floor and table lamps with bases of pewter-colored, scrolling leaves. Against the walls were black lacquered credenzas and shelves showcasing books and magazines and decorative knick-knacks. On one shelf there was a silver desk clock, the kind with roman numerals and all the inner gears showing. Nearer the door sat a coffee table and a big white suede couch—a cozy little spot to lounge.
But the real eye-catcher was the three black lacquered desks, each with a huge, flat-screen computer monitor sitting on it, screensavers dancing merrily away.
This didn’t look like Mr. P’s taste. It was all very sleek, very sexy, very typically Parker.
Parker set the beer bottles down on leather coasters on the black lacquered coffee table. “I took the liberty of having some of my personal equipment brought over the other day. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Miranda smirked.
“Since this is your house.” He gestured toward one of the white suede swivel chairs at the desk nearest him.
“Oh, right. What self-respecting bodyguard doesn’t need a few state-of-the-art computers lying around?” She set the pizza box next to the beers on the coffee table and sank down into the cushy-soft seat. She hadn’t thought about what he’d done with the stuff in his penthouse. Guess he was making himself at home. That was good.
His eyes twinkled. “I’m glad you see it that way.”
She looked at the backing card in his hand. “So what do we do with those prints?”
“We process them.” Parker stepped over to a scanning machine on the credenza and ran the card through it. Then he sat down at the middle desk, punched a keyboard, and the fingerprints appeared on all three screens. He pressed a few more buttons. A nanosecond later, data began to flash and flicker.
He turned back to her. “It will take a while to find a match, if there is one in the database.”
“Okay by me. A drug user’s prints have got to be in there. Hey, this pizza’s getting cold and I’m starving.” She opened the box and grabbed a piece. She’d wanted jerk chicken, but had settled for the house special with everything on it when Parker had grimaced. She took a bite and moaned with pleasure. Right now, it tasted like filet mignon. She hadn’t eaten since they’d left the house this morning.
Parker reached for a beer bottle, opened it and handed it to her. He shot her a wry smile. “Have I mentioned that you’re turning into an excellent investigator, Miranda? I believe you were born for this work.”
His compliment made her feel a little giddy, but she pretended to ignore it. “You forgot the glass,” she teased.
“Do you want one?”
“Nope.” She took the bottle and downed a swallow.
Parker opened the second beer and did the same.
She smirked. “I never thought I’d see you swig beer from a bottle.”
“It’s a difficult skill, but I believe I’ve mastered it.”
She cocked her head at him. “So you’re not a hundred percent highbrow, after all.”
He gave her a look of mock incredulity. “What gave you the impression that I was highbrow?”
She laughed and took another pull. The cold liquid tasted wonderful, especially after the hours of tromping around under the hot Georgia sun. It was thick and dark, with just enough bite. She looked at the bottle. “What is this stuff?”
Parker reached for a slice of pizza. “Stone Imperial Russian Stout,” he answered as she read the label.
“Sounds expensive.”
“Moderately. About nine dollars a bottle.”
Not a hundred percent highbrow? Drinking pricey beer from the bottle only counted for maybe five percent. The other ninety-five percent of Wade Parker was all class and sophistication. All polish and elegant, irresistible style. Though he was never haughty or uppity. Amazingly, he’d never made her feel less than an equal, except for the few times he’d pulled rank. But that was in his professional capacity, so she forgave him for it. Sort of.
She wiped her mouth. “It’s good. A lot better than the brands I drink.”
“Are your tastes changing, Miranda?” he asked in a low, provocative voice.
He probably wasn’t talking about just beer.
She shrugged, took another bite of pizza and studied the screen intently. “It’s way cool to have a crime lab in your own home.” Except that it really wasn’t her home.
She looked up. Parker was staring at her. “What?”
His smile was evasive. “You have the most fascinating line between your eyes when you concentrate.”
A strange sensation, as sharp as the sting of the rich, heavy beer, flowed through her. She got up and moved over to the couch, reaching for another slice of pizza. “Detective Judd only taught us how to do manual methods of print analysis.”
“Manual methods are usually too slow. This is print recognition software that accesses a national service the Agency subscribes to.”
“AFIS. Automated Fingerprint Identification Service.” She hadn’t used it at work, but she knew about it from TV.
“Exactly. If Usher has a record, it will find a match. If those are indeed his prints.”
“Still playing the skeptic, huh? Usher’s a user. He’s got a record of some kind.”
“It’s what I’m counting on.”
Miranda sat back against the sofa’s soft suede, took another swig of the delicious beer and watched the screens flicker. It was utterly cool to be with Parker. But all this was his stuff. Just like this was really Parker’s house. Maybe it was time to come clean about that.
She ran her finger around the lip of her bottle. “Uh, you know what you said about bringing all this over?” she gestured vaguely at the furniture.
“What did I say?” He moved from the computer and sat down close beside her. He fixed her with that steady gray gaze of his.
She drew in air. It was always harder to breath when Parker got this close. “Well, you said it was my house. How do you feel about that?”
He leaned closer, peered at her more deeply, more sensually. “You have a bit of tomato sauce at the corner of your mouth.”
Before she could do anything about it, he bent forward and licked it off with his tongue. Her breath caught. All at once she was overcome by the erotic gesture.
His lips covered hers and the fire ignited. She reached over and managed to put her beer down on the coffee table without spilling it. Then as if they had a mind o
f their own, her arms slipped around Parker’s neck and the two of them went prone on the couch.
As he began to tug at her T-shirt, he lifted his head and the brief release cleared her mind enough to remember what she’d been trying to say to him. “Uh, Parker.”
“Yes,” he murmured, working his mouth over her hair. “I love the smell of your hair. Fresh, outdoorsy.”
“I need to make a confession.”
“Do you?” She felt him smile at her ear as his mouth moved over its folds.
She was growing dizzy and mindless again. Better spit it out while she could still speak. “I didn’t mean it when I told your father I wanted this house.”
“You didn’t?” His voice rang with feigned surprise. Stubbornly, his lips moved softly over her temple, across her hairline.
She frowned. “No, I didn’t. It was sort of a ploy.”
“A ploy?” His breath grew heavy as his hands slipped under her T-shirt.
“Yeah,” she swallowed, fighting to get coherent words out. “A maneuver to get you back in here.”
“I’m shocked.” His lips tickled her cheek, then moved to her neck.
“You knew. I thought you did.”
His mouth went to her shoulder, sending little thrills over her. “I never would have thought you’d stoop so low.”
“Hey, buster,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “I did it for you.”
“For me?”
“I couldn’t see you lose your family mansion, your inheritance, just because of some testosterone-driven pride between you and your father.”
He chuckled as one of his hands finally reached her breast. Slowly he ran his fingertips over her. “I’m glad you did it.”
She groaned with the intense pleasure of his touch. Parker was like a rich piece of chocolate she couldn’t resist. She tried to say no. She knew it would ruin her diet, but he was just too darn tempting.
“Glad?” she gurgled.
He raised his head and gazed into her eyes. “It means you care. Genuinely.”
“So the bodyguard thing—”
He laughed darkly. “—was my ploy.”
Delicious Torment Page 16
