Dangerous Games

by Marie Ferrarella

  No, not in so many words, she thought, but he still underestimated her. “But I’d be one if I let you just come in and use me to get your brother off.”

  Cole sighed, struggling with his temper and wishing he had ordered a drink, a strong one. But he’d driven over here and the last thing he needed right now was to be pulled over and arrested for a DUI, which he could guarantee would happen if he downed the kind of drink he was thinking about.

  “I don’t want to use you, I need you. To get at the truth.”

  Everyone always said that, but they didn’t mean it. What they wanted was for the truth to bear them out, to yield the kinds of answers they wanted to find. “Well, right now the truth of the matter is, the D.A. thinks they have your brother dead to rights for the murder of Kathleen Fallon.”

  He’d thought that she of all people’d know better. “You know how that works. Once they make an arrest, they stop looking around at anyone else and they start building a case.”

  “They have a case, Cole.” She stopped. She’d never called him by his first name before. Her eyes narrowed. “I can call you Cole, can’t I, seeing as how you’re shouting at me?”

  He made an effort to lower his voice and take some of the sarcasm out of it. “They have a fabricated case,” he insisted.

  As far as the police were concerned, the case seemed very solid. “Your brother’s ring had Kathy’s DNA on it, not to mention that it left a pretty damn good imprint on her face, right in the middle of a fractured cheekbone. His prints were all over her apartment. He was seen entering that evening. The neighbors heard them shouting. She had a restraining order against him—do you want me to go on?”

  Cole recalled what Quinn’s report had said. It looked pretty damning, but that didn’t change the fact that he knew down to the core of his bones that Eric couldn’t have done something like this. “He gave her that ring.”

  It was her turn to frown. “So what are you saying, she punched herself?”

  He didn’t appreciate being on the receiving end of sarcasm. The woman gave as good as she got. “No, but maybe she gave it to someone else and he used it on her.”

  She supposed the theory had some merit, but he was clearly reaching. She would have done the same if it were her brother facing prison for the rest of his life. “They do that on TV shows and in the movies. Usually life isn’t that planned out.”

  His eyes held hers. “Usually. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened that way. Someone could have set him up to take the fall.”

  “So your theory is that an enemy set him up?”

  “No, someone used him to cover up their part in the murder.”

  She blew out a breath. If anyone overheard them, she’d have some explaining to do. It was like telling tales out of school. “Look, I’m not supposed to be discussing this—”

  “Why? As you said, it’s not your case. That means you don’t have a vested interest in keeping your mouth shut, Lorrayne.”

  She bristled. “My friends call me Rayne.” Her meaning was clear. She didn’t remotely consider him to be even close to that category. “You can call me Detective Cavanaugh.”

  She wasn’t the kind to be bullied and he knew it. Though he hated doing it, he had no choice. She could very well be the key to unlocking this for him. He had no other options available right now. He threw himself on her mercy. “I will call you anything you want, just help me. My brother’s being framed.”

  “Every family member wants to think that their brother, sister, mother, father, whoever, is innocent, but—”

  He cut her off. “My parents don’t.”

  Well, maybe that said it all, she thought. And Cole just didn’t want to hear it. “They’d be in a position to know, wouldn’t they? More than you.”

  Cole fought to keep his voice from rising again. “The woman at the perfume counter in Macy’s department store knows more about my brother than they do. They were AWOL for most of Eric’s life.”

  “And yours.”

  He hadn’t come looking for her just to be drawn onto some imaginary couch and analyzed. “I’m not the one sitting in a jail cell.”

  For a large part of her life, she’d shied away from really opening up to people. She recognized a kindred behavior in someone else. Apparently, Cole Garrison shared her reverence for privacy. Ordinarily, she respected boundaries, but the growing passion in his voice had aroused her curiosity. “You really love your brother, don’t you?”

  Cole shrugged. The fact was a given, but not one he either voiced or debated. “He’s my brother.”

  Her gaze never wavered. “That’s not an answer, that’s just a point of biological fact. Plenty of brothers can’t stand each other.” She fell back, appropriately enough, on something she’d read in high school. “If you remember your old English history, brothers have been known to kill one another.”

  The woman had intelligent eyes. He could see she was constantly analyzing, dissecting, weighing. But that she had a taste for history surprised him. “There’s no throne of England at stake here. I’m all Eric has. I’m all he ever had. And I believe him when he says he didn’t kill her.” Cole leaned over the small table, pressing his case as his sense of urgency mounted. He needed to win her over. “Look, Eric’s a screwup, there’s no denying that, but you knew him. He’s harmless.”

  She quickly picked up the word he’d used. “You’re right, I knew him,” she emphasized. “But I don’t know him now. People change.” Cole didn’t have to look any farther than his mirror to know that. “You did. You went from someone nobody thought would amount to anything and turned yourself into a businessman. Someone who does a lot of good without being asked or waits around to be acknowledged.” She saw the questioning look in his eyes and couldn’t help adding with a touch of smugness, “I like to know who I’m being propositioned by.”

  Maybe it was the softening lighting, or maybe it was the word she’d used, but something stirred within him as he looked at her face. Something that was completely out of sync with what they discussed.

  “When I proposition you, you’ll know,” he promised her quietly, so quietly that she could almost feel the words whisper along her skin. “This isn’t that time, Detective Cavanaugh. You’re interested in justice, I’m interested in justice—”

  It took her a second to pull herself together. “And if justice means sending your brother to prison for murdering Kathy Fallon—?”

  “It won’t. He didn’t kill her.” He was never more sure of anything in his life.

  She fell back on the evidence again. “He stalked her. She had a restraining order against him. He was overheard threatening her—”

  Cole shook his head. “He was drunk and hurt at the time.”

  She smiled at him as if he’d scored the winning point for her side. “Maybe he was drunk and hurt when he killed her. Maybe she drove him to it.”

  “Then we’ll find that out, too, won’t we?”

  So he wasn’t asking her to get rid of evidence or to whitewash his brother. Well, at least there was hope for him. But that still didn’t change the situation she’d find herself in if she went at this full-tilt. And she wasn’t about to tell Cole that she’d been quietly looking into the matter herself. He’d only seize on that.

  “The police department doesn’t like one of their own playing devil’s advocate and questioning the findings of their own people.”

  The police department was no different from any other fraternal organization or company. But he didn’t see her in a traditional role. “Since when did you ever live by the rules?”

  Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like his assumptions, even if they were true. “For someone who didn’t speak two words to me before today, you seem to think you know me pretty well.”

  He allowed himself a small smile as he recalled a far less complicated time. “You had a reputation around school. And, to be honest, I always thought we were kindred spirits.”

  That was a crock and they both knew i
t. Back then he’d been one of the cool kids just because of his don’t-give-a-damn attitude. She’d just been considered someone on the fringe. “You wanted blue hair, too?”

  She smiled then, slowly. He watched as a warmth filtered over her features.

  “Inside,” he clarified. “Kindred spirits inside.” She wasn’t the kind of person anyone could snow, so he went with the truth. “You wore clothes like a clown.”

  “And you looked like Darth Vader, dressed in black, dark and brooding.” And sexy, she added silently. But she was sure he was already aware of that. “At least my hair’s not blue anymore.”

  His eyes slid over her appreciatively. The clothes she’d used to favor had been baggy and had hidden the trim figure she now displayed. “Your taste in clothes has improved a great deal, as well.”

  She’d never liked the clothes she’d worn. She’d picked them out for a specific reason. “I wore those to annoy my father.”

  That she’d done what she’d done to rebel was something anyone could have understood. But he found himself wanting to know, for no earthly reason he could pinpoint, what had prompted her to be so blatantly rebellious. “Why?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore.” She looked at him sharply. “And it doesn’t have anything to do with the case.”

  “So you’ll help?”

  It wasn’t that he was wearing her down, she was just curious what he thought she could accomplish. “Just what is it you want me to do?”

  “Be a police detective. Go over the evidence they have, talk to the same people whoever’s handling the case talked to—”

  So far, he wasn’t being illuminating. “You can pay a private investigator to do that.”

  He already had a private investigator. What he needed was something more. “You’re on the inside. You’re in a unique position—”

  “Yes, to get my butt in a sling.”

  The thought of actually viewing something like that was not without its allure. But he wasn’t here to be allured, he was here to try to save his brother the only way he knew how. “No, to make sure an innocent man isn’t railroaded into going to prison for something he didn’t do just because he was the wrong man in the right place.”

  She sighed. The tea had long since grown cold. She drank it anyway and then set down the small cup. “Are you going to talk until I say yes?”

  He nodded. Words were all he had. He knew that, besides looking like a blatant bribe, offering her money in exchange for her services would have gotten him tossed out on his ear long ago. “Pretty much.”

  Her expression told him that he hadn’t won yet. “You might wind up with a very dry throat.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Something was happening here. Something she didn’t entirely like or approve of. She could feel herself reacting to him and that was just wrong. On a lot of counts. It was time for some air. “Look, the best I can do is say I’ll think about it.”

  “Fair enough.”

  She was sliding out of the booth. If he called for the check, he knew that by the time it arrived, the woman would be gone. Rising, he peeled off a hundred, far more than the two meals could have possibly approached, and left it on the table.

  Surprising her, he took Rayne’s arm and guided her toward the entrance. The restaurant was nearly filled to capacity. People began to line the bar, waiting for a table. It took them a couple of minutes to reach the door.

  When they did, he helped her with her coat, slipping it onto her shoulders. “For how long?” he wanted to know. “How long do you need to think about it?”

  With effort, she turned her face away from his and pushed open the door. She really needed that air now. She felt far too warm.

  The air hit her with a blast. It felt good. Sobering. “Until I come to a conclusion.”

  Walking behind her, he wanted her to know something. “Any other time I’d back off, Detective, but we’re fighting the clock here. Eric doesn’t have very much time.” She turned to face him. The wind had picked up since he’d gone inside. Cole slowly raised up her collar, his eyes never leaving her face. For an instant, a very foolish instant, he felt like kissing her. He didn’t.

  “Why don’t you sleep on it and give me your answer in the morning?” he suggested. “I’m staying at Hyatt Regency. Room 1440.”

  She struggled not to let the shiver take possession of her body, telling herself it was only the cold, nothing more. “Not home?”

  “Let’s walk to your car.” Not about to answer her, he took her arm and began to walk through the parking lot.

  After a beat, she took the lead. “‘I don’t have a home here, Detective. And I doubt if I’m very welcome in my parents’ home.”

  She stopped in the third row, beside her vehicle. Mist had gathered on its body and windshield. Rain was coming. “Why don’t you try going to see them, anyway? People change.”

  There was an ironic twist to his lips. “Yes, some people get worse with time.”

  Taking out her key, she unlocked her door but didn’t open it. “You’re not any more upbeat now than you were then, are you?”

  He shrugged, his shoulders moving beneath the tan coat. “I don’t know about upbeat, but I’m more of a realist now than I was in high school.”

  “And you still believe your brother’s innocent?” She supposed that meant something.

  “I still believe my brother’s innocent.”

  Opening the door, she slid in behind the steering wheel. “Okay.”

  He felt a nugget of hope being stirred. “You’ll help Eric?”

  He’d jumped to a conclusion and she was quick to set him straight. “No, okay I’ll give you my answer in the morning.”

  He could accept that. He didn’t have much of a choice. “All right, Detective Cavanaugh, until the morning, then.”

  She reached to close the door. “Oh, and you can call me Rayne.”

  “Does that mean we’re friends?”

  Unlike Teri and Clay, she didn’t make friends quickly. That kind of thing was something she did slowly. After she was sure. “No, it just means that I don’t have time to wait around until you finishing saying ‘Detective Cavanaugh’ every time you want to make a point.”

  He laughed softly, then closed the door for her. “See you in the morning, Rayne.”

  It wasn’t until she’d pulled out of the lot that she realized he’d said “see” instead of merely “talk to you” in the morning. The man was nothing if not confident.

  She, on the other hand, had a lot of issues to sort through.

  Rayne laughed shortly to herself as she looked in the rearview mirror before changing lanes. Who was she trying to kid? She’d already made up her mind before Cole Garrison had ever come on the scene. She’d started poking around in the case, not liking the direction it was headed. She was going to say yes to Cole. She just didn’t like him assuming that she was complacent, or that he had that kind of sway over her, because he didn’t. It was just the right thing to do.

  Something about the case hadn’t felt right to her from the start. She had nothing to point to but a gut hunch. Maybe it was because she had once gone out with Eric. Her feelings had changed over the years and all she felt now for Eric was sympathy. Even back then, beneath Eric’s laughter and brassy manner, she’d felt there was a lost soul there. As lost as she was.

  The only difference between them now was that she had managed to finally find her way out of the maze. Eric, apparently, had only managed to get himself deeper and deeper entrenched. But then, from what she’d ascertained and Cole had confirmed, Eric had never had the kind of support system she’d had. Her family had always been there for her to fall back on. The only person Eric ever had, had left town the day after his own high school graduation.

  Was it guilt that had brought Cole back now?

  She would have said that he wasn’t the type to feel any guilt, but then, the same might have been said about her. She did feel guilty, very guilty over everything she�
�d put her family through, especially her father.

  Odd how they kept seeming to have things in common, she thought as she drove home.

  “Home early or just making a pit stop?”

  Her father’s voice floated to her, stopping Rayne in her tracks halfway across the foyer on her way to the stairs. Looking around, she saw him sitting in the living room, watching some program that obviously wasn’t holding his attention. He had the sound on mute.

  Rayne crossed to him and sat on the edge of the sofa arm. She glanced at the set. It was an old Clint Eastwood movie, one of the Dirty Harry ones, although she wasn’t sure which one. Her father could have easily supplied the dialogue to all of them. Though he didn’t always hold with “Harry’s” methods, her father loved those movies.

  “No, I’m home for the night.”

  Tossing the remote aside, he began to rise, only to have her push him back into his seat. “Did you eat?”

  “All fed and diapered, Dad.”

  He snorted. “I’m not babying you. Adults have to eat, too.”

  “And if I’m hungry,” she recited in a singsong voice, “I can fix myself something. I don’t need you to wait on me.”

  “Never a waiter, more like a maître d’,” he corrected. Then the humor faded from his face as he looked at her closely. “Anything I can help with?”

  She could see his parenting radar going on full-blast. How did he do that? “What?” she asked warily.

  “You’ve got that little groove between your eyes.” He lightly ran the tip of his finger over it, as if to smooth it out. The groove only became deeper as she frowned at him. “The same one your mother used to get when she was busy trying to resolve something.”

  “I’m not trying to resolve anything.”

  Which only made Andrew smile. “She used to deny it, too.”

  Rayne sighed. There was no arguing with him when he was like this. Even so, she didn’t want to get into a discussion about Cole Garrison, his brother Eric, or any of it, not tonight. Besides, she was fairly certain she knew what her father would have to say about her investigating on her own. He might have done it in his time, but it wasn’t something he wanted any of his kids risking. The man clearly had a superhero complex. And maybe, just maybe, it had rubbed off a little on her. She wasn’t just her mother’s daughter, she was his, as well.