The Law of Desire

by Gwyneth Bolton

  Thinking there was no way she could allow herself to go out like this, she picked up the pace, only to run smack-dab into what felt like a wall of steel. A strong arm held her in place and she looked up expecting to see another masked man.

  She had never been happier to see Detective Lawrence Hightower in all her life. He held her with one hand and his gun with the other.

  The men didn’t hesitate to take off, running back to their van. They jumped in and Lawrence ran after them, but he didn’t catch them.

  Her breath came out in sharp pants and no matter how much she wanted to sob, she willed herself not to cry. She stared unblinkingly at the moving van until it turned into a blur.

  They must have found her. She had to leave. But where could she go?

  Lawrence walked back toward her, putting his gun in his holster.

  “What was that about and why were those men after you?”

  Minerva’s chest constricted and she tried to remember that she didn’t have asthma, so she couldn’t possibly be having an asthma attack. She also reminded herself there was no way she could tell the detective why the men were after her. She may not know whom she could trust, but history pretty much dictated that she couldn’t trust cops.

  “I don’t know. That was so weird. They just came out of nowhere. Oh, my God!”

  He frowned as he eyed her suspiciously. “You don’t know? You have no idea? Do I look stupid to you?”

  She pursed her lips and narrowed her eye.

  The man did just save her life. She figured she should probably hold off on outright insults for at least a day or two. But he didn’t have to make it so easy and tempting. She was only human, so she could barely keep a flip comment from falling out of her mouth.

  Her expression must have given away everything she wanted to say, because he really frowned then and took her arm, leading her to his navy-blue Ford Taurus.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “We’re going to go and file a report at the trailer and you’re going to tell me the truth.”

  “I told you I don’t know. Why is it you never believe a word I say? You don’t know me. You have no reason to be so distrustful of me.” She tried to pull away, but he easily guided her into the backseat of the car and shut the door. She didn’t even bother to try to open it because she’d seen enough movies and heard enough stories from her brother and his boys to know that back doors of police cars didn’t open from the inside.

  She sat and listened while he called in the details and requested officers to remain on the lookout for the white van. The entire time she listened to him speaking on the radio she tried to figure out what she was going to say. She couldn’t tell him the truth and she wasn’t sure she could just look him in the face and tell an outright lie.

  Minerva nibbled her lips. The truth was, although she had some idea that her brother’s killers were after her, she didn’t know who they were. And even though she could assume they wanted her because they thought she knew something about the murder, she had no way of knowing anything with certainty.

  “I think you’re wasting your time,” she said. “I saw the same thing you saw—men in masks. I didn’t even have time to try to get the plates.” She swallowed to calm herself. “As soon as they pulled up all crazy, I took off running.”

  “They didn’t have any plates on the van. And I don’t think I’m wasting my time by trying to get you to tell me the truth. Something’s up with you. And I plan on finding out what it is. Folks don’t roll up trying to snatch someone in broad daylight in the ’hood for no reason.”

  “And you know this because you have a handbook of 101 reasons to attempt a kidnapping in the ’hood or would that be the 101 reasons why people don’t snatch folks in the middle of the day in the ’hood? Or could it be because you are king of all the reasons why people would do anything at all?”

  “That smart-ass mouth is really going to get you in trouble one day. I suggest you think about that long and hard before we get to the trailer.”

  It didn’t take them long to get to the trailer in the heart of the ’hood. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes.

  The Paterson Police Department seemed to be walking a thin line between policing and police state, in her opinion. Sure, it wasn’t the equivalent of the constantly flying helicopters, or ghetto birds, as they affectionately called them in South Central. But mini-police huts in the ’hood seemed just a bit over the top. Whatever happened to just driving through and heading on back downtown? It wasn’t like their presence really inhibited crime. All it did was ensure that she could never get away from the annoying detective.

  She followed him into the trailer, happy that she wasn’t in handcuffs or anything. She had had that experience once in her life and she never wanted to go through that again.

  “Hey, Hightower. What ya got for me?” A fat man with a mustache full of food eyed her up and down as he spoke. He had a stringy and greasy flap of hair pulled from one side of his big head to the other, trying to cover up a rather large bald spot.

  “Not a thing, Johnson. I’m just going to question Ms. Samuels here about an attempted kidnapping.”

  “There was an attempted kidnapping? Who almost got snatched?”

  “Ms. Samuels.”

  “Really.” The fat man looked her up and down.

  She frowned because his survey clearly had a leering quality to it. The man gave her the creeps.

  “We can talk back here, Ms. Samuels.”

  Minerva followed Lawrence to the back of the trailer to a relatively small room with a large desk. There were two chairs in the room, one comfortable cushioned chair behind the desk and one hard wooden one. As she took the wooden seat in front of the desk she prepared herself to lie. There was no way she could tell him the truth. That wasn’t even an option, especially if someone had sent people after her when she hadn’t even spoken to the cops yet.

  He took his seat behind the desk and eyed her warily. “So who were those people and why were they trying to snatch you up?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t know.”

  Not exactly a lie, per se.

  She folded her arms across her chest and bit the inside of her cheek.

  Please let that be enough for Officer Work-My-Nerves.

  Lawrence shook his head. Why did he even bother? The woman was lying. A blind man could see that. Here he was trying to help the little idiot and she was content to just sit there and tell a bald-faced lie.

  He gritted his teeth and pulled the collar on his knit shirt so it stretched slightly away from his suddenly heated neck.

  “I’m trying to help you.” He bit his words out through clenched teeth and noticed her back straighten.

  “Did I ask for your help?”

  “Well, considering you would have been on your way to God knows where to be raped, tortured, murdered or God knows what if I hadn’t showed up—”

  “You mean if you hadn’t been stalking me to make sure I didn’t commit some crime—”

  “Watch it, Ms. Samuels. You’re treading on thin ice.”

  Her lips twisted to the side and she shook her head.

  “Were they enemies of the McKnight twins? Are they dealing again? Was the attempted kidnapping drug-related?” He fired off his questions one after the other, all the while keeping his eyes pinned on her.

  She let her eyes roll toward the ceiling before cutting them at him.

  “Or were they enemies of yours? You never did tell me what brings you to these parts, Ms. Samuels. Are you planning on making the Garden State your home now?”

  She blinked. Her eyes shifted from side to side and she tried not to squirm in her seat.

  Yep. Lying. “I have all day. Ms. Samuels.” He leaned back in his chair and waited.

  Her eyes snapped open. “Well, I don’t.”

  “Then I suggest you start spilling. Who were those people and why were they after you?”

  “Am I under arrest or something? Because I swear it
feels like I’m the criminal here when you know full well I was almost the victim. I told you, I don’t know.”

  “And I told you, I don’t believe you.”

  She squirmed again, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes she looked him dead in his.

  The depth in those huge dark brown pools almost took his breath away. Those eyes. That cute button nose. Those soft sensuous lips. Those dimples. Her face. He felt like he was drowning in a sea of beauty. He had to move his gaze to that two-toned hair and expensive hip-hop brand clothing to remind himself who she really was. No matter how sweet, sexy and innocent she appeared, she consorted with known drug dealers. More than likely, she was one of them.

  She let out a hiss of breath. “I don’t know what to tell you, Detective Hightower. I can’t make something up. I really don’t know who those people were.”

  He noticed that even though she looked him in the eyes and seemed sincere, she didn’t answer the rest of his questions.

  Why are they after you, Minnie Samuels?

  He leaned back in his chair. It was going to be a long day.

  “I can’t believe you kept me in that funky little trailer for over two hours trying to get information I don’t have. If I had known exactly who tried to grab me, I would have told you.” Minerva hissed out her words in irritation as she and the grating-but-sexy Detective Hightower made their way up the stairs.

  The only thing she knew now was that she had to leave Paterson, New Jersey, because the people who had murdered her brother had found her.

  “The ride home was fine. You don’t have to walk me to my door, too. I know my way home.”

  “Just use this quiet time to try and see if all of the information you claim you don’t know suddenly comes back to you.” His calm, cool and collected voice would have been sexy if it weren’t so damn irritating.

  Jerk! His stubbornness meant she would have to explain to Timmy and Tommy yet again why she was with the detective from hell. Not to mention that she had to figure out where she was going to run to next.

  When they reached the door to the apartment, it was slightly ajar. A chill slid down her spine.

  No. No. No.

  The silent scream echoed in her head as déjà vu took over and she braced herself.

  Her blood ran cold as the sight of Timmy and Tommy’s bodies, each with bullets in the center of their heads, met her gaze. She wrapped her arms around herself and took deep breaths.

  Detective Hightower pulled out his gun and started racing through the apartment.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered knowing the twins couldn’t hear her but needing to say something.

  When Lawrence came back, Minerva was still standing in the same spot willing herself not to cry. She had shed so many tears on the cross-country bus ride from California that she felt all cried out. The only people who knew her and her brother, who cared about them besides David, were dead.

  They’re dead because they tried to help me. I can’t let anyone else be hurt because of me. What am I going to do?

  The detective called in the murders and paced the room as they waited for the coroner and more police backup.

  She watched him pace and tried to keep herself from fleeing from the apartment. With more police on the way, Minerva didn’t know what to do.

  I can barely handle one detective. How am I going be able to dodge questions from more of them?

  And how long could she keep the fact she was wanted for questioning about her brother’s murder a secret now that two more murders had taken place?

  “Who did this?”

  The detective’s harsh tone shocked her from her thoughts. She looked up and stared at Lawrence. He seemed to be studying her. Probably to see if she was going to tell him the truth.

  Un-freaking-believable! “How would I know? You seem to forget I spent the entire afternoon with you in the freaking police trailer being interrogated like a criminal when I was almost a victim.” She placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.

  “I know where you were two hours ago. But until we establish time of death, we can’t really rule you out as a suspect, can we? You seemed pretty resistant to me taking you home. What did you have to hide?” He walked up to her and stood right in front of her, as if he were daring her to answer him. “Unless you have some names to give…Of course this has to do with the people who tried to grab you earlier?”

  Here we go again…

  “Look, I told you I don’t know!” She moved to walk away and he grabbed her arm.

  She shook her arm but couldn’t seem to shake his grasp. She blinked.

  No. I will not cry! I will not give this man the benefit of my tears. I refuse.

  He gritted his teeth and opened and closed his mouth twice before speaking. “Maybe some time downtown will help jog your memory, Ms. Samuels.”

  She blinked again. No tears! “What? You have got to be kidding me! You’re going to arrest me? For what? Not knowing?”

  “Right now, you were the last person to see the McKnights alive. You’re a person of interest and, yes, I’m bringing you in for questioning.” He let her arm go and threw up his hands as if he had no choice in the matter.

  She pursed her lips and nodded her head as she studied him. He kept her gaze as if he halfway expected her to start spilling her guts.

  Wait on! I have nothing to say, Detective.

  The backup police and the coroner arrived at the same time. Soon the apartment was abuzz with activity.

  She bit back the dread threatening to overwhelm her with a real and fierce indignation. Her eyes narrowed and her back straightened. Detective Hightower wanted to play hardball and there was nothing she could do to stop him. She stared at him and tried not to let her fear show in her eyes.

  She held out her arms with a smirk. “Are you going to cuff me, Detective?”

  Chapter 4

  I’ll get him back for this. One day, I will get him back for this!

  Minerva allowed sweet, vicious thoughts of revenge to soothe her ego as she propped her feet up off the crusty floor onto the more-than-likely flea-infested mattress.

  The only saving grace for her less-than-ideal situation was that she was in a cell by herself. Since it was a weeknight, she could only hope things were slow at the police precinct and she’d be able to remain in the cell alone. But something told her she wasn’t going to be that lucky.

  Somewhere between the ride downtown to the precinct and being fingerprinted by that Hightower hothead himself, she realized that Lady Luck must have left her high and dry a long time ago. When she came to grips with the fact that the detective was actually going through with it and holding her for “questioning,” she let the venom take up residence and began to think of creative ways to get even with him.

  With no one to call and no money for a lawyer, she was basically stuck there until the jerk decided to set her free. And even when he did decide to let her go, with the McKnight twins now dead like her brother, she had nowhere to go. Even David had disappeared on her.

  She might have cried if she weren’t so damn angry with Detective Hightower. He had no right to detain her when he knew she didn’t do it. He was going to be sorry and he was going to pay. The man had no idea who he was messing with.

  Lawrence tried to get the slight gleam in Minnie’s eyes out of his head. The fact was somebody had tried to snatch her. His gut told him there was a connection between the attempted kidnapping and the execution-style murder of the McKnight twins. And there was no way he was going to leave her alone so she could end up dead. He was going to help her whether she liked it or not.

  At least she hadn’t cried. He could tell she wanted to, but she didn’t. If she had started crying, he wasn’t sure that he could have brought her in, fingerprinted her and placed her in that cell. Something told him that her tears would have stopped him cold.

  Not good.

  He shook his head and willed the computer to hurry up and give
him some background on the mysterious Minnie Samuels. As much as his basic instincts demanded that he protect the woman, he also had the niggling suspicion there was way more to her than she was letting on. He just hoped it wasn’t a criminal past she was hiding.

  “What are you doing down here? I thought you’d basically moved into the satellite trailer in the Fourth Ward?”

  He looked up to find his youngest brother, Jason. Jason was a cold case detective and the two of them were the only two of the brothers to follow in their father’s footsteps and join the Paterson Police Department. The other Hightower brothers, Joel and Patrick, had followed the other Hightower tradition and become firefighters. Now their father James and brother Joel both worked at the company their father started when he retired from the police force, Hightower Security.

  “And what are you doing with my cup? I swear every cup in this place and you somehow manage to always find my Pace cup.” Jason eyed the blue mug that Lawrence drank his coffee out of.

  Lawrence couldn’t help but smirk. He’d had to search for the prized mug today, but he’d found it way in the back of the cabinet.

  Jason must have taken a lot of time hiding it.

  He didn’t know when he’d decided to make it his personal quest to annoy his brothers by using their favorite cups or plates or taking the chair they always sat in. But he knew he liked getting a rise out of them. And none of them got as upset as Jason.

  “You now, baby bro, you really shouldn’t covet things. It’s just a cup. People are more important than things. Think of how happy it makes your older brother to drink out of this cup.” The grin on his face let his younger brother know he knew it was more than just a cup. “Plus, you weren’t even thinking about this cup until you saw me drinking out of it. This thing was so far back in the cabinet there’s no way you could use it every day.”

  Jason gave a rueful smile. “It’s still my cup.” He took a seat on the edge of the large metal desk where Lawrence was working.