Dangerous Games

by Marie Ferrarella

  “What?” she repeated, her breathing only a tad more controlled than before.

  “Your phone.” He nodded in the vague vicinity of her pocket. “It’s ringing.”

  Rayne felt for her cell phone automatically, even as his words registered. Taking it out of her pocket, she opened the phone and she held it upside down to her ear. The smile on his lips made her realize her mistake.

  She switched it right-side up with aplomb, daring him to laugh at her. Now if only she could unlock her knees without risking the embarrassment of sinking bonelessly to the floor.

  The second she heard a noise on the other end, she straightened, remembering the last call. The whispered command.

  “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end of the line wasn’t whispering. “Should I keep it warm for you?”

  Heat still rushed to her face, her limbs. Bellhops carrying bags with no place to leave them. The last thing she needed was to keep anything warmer than it already was. “What?”

  “Dinner,” her father said patiently. “You want me to keep it warm for you? Or are you putting in extra time?”

  You’d think that a former police chief wouldn’t worry so much. But then, she amended, maybe he worried so much because he was a former police chief. Having him keep tabs on her used to annoy her no end, now she had to admit it just made her feel cared for. She wondered if she was getting wiser, or just older.

  “Put dinner in the refrigerator,” she said. Put me in there with it while you’re at it.

  She heard a long pause on the other end. “Rayne, are you all right? You sound different.”

  She still hadn’t entirely caught her breath. She should have realized her father’d pick up on it. The man had ears that could put a bat to shame.

  “Must be a bad connection, Dad. I’ll see you later on tonight,” she promised.

  Rayne was vaguely aware of saying goodbye. Or maybe she just thought the words as she closed her phone and slipped it back into her pocket.

  Cole watched her and she hadn’t a clue what he was thinking. Had he been as blown out of the water as she was? Or was it just business as usual for him? At least he wasn’t laughing at her.

  Struggling for control, she blew out a long breath, then took another in. The light-headedness faded just a shade.

  “Glad we got that out of the way,” she murmured.

  “I don’t think we got anything out of the way,” he told her. “But at least we answered one question.”

  She wasn’t aware of anything being answered, only of a box being opened up and a thousand questions spilling out. Rayne blinked as her bangs fell into her eyes. “Oh?”

  He resisted the urge to brush her hair aside, because then he’d be touching her and if he touched her, he might forget to stop. “It’s not my imagination.”

  His eyes held hers, accelerating her pulse again. She pressed her lips together, tasting him. “Excuse me?”

  “The tension that’s been buzzing here between us. It’s not just because I’m challenging police findings.”

  No, it wasn’t, but she wasn’t about to go exploring the issue any further until she had her bearings back. You didn’t just waltz into a dark alley without knowing you could waltz back out again in one piece. It was one of the first lessons she’d learned not just at the academy, but at her father’s knee.

  She almost wished she was back there. Things had seemed so much more stable then. Her family had comprised her world and there were no dangers, no forbidding territories.

  Rayne cleared her throat. “But that is the main reason we’re here.”

  She shouldn’t have had to remind him, Cole upbraided himself. Eric came first. If something was going to happen between him and Rayne, it would happen, but not now. Now it had to be put on ice.

  Lots of ice.

  “Right.” Without thinking, Cole reached for his glass of wine. Then he stopped, changing his mind, and picked up the glass of water instead. Wine might just weaken his resistance enough to put himself first, Eric second. That was his parents’ way, not his.

  He drained the glass before he said anything. “While you were looking up the report today, I was going down the list.”

  She wasn’t following him. “List, what list?”

  “Of women Eric had gone out with in the last few years.” He was as much trying to get some insight into the brother he’d left behind as he was trying to establish Eric’s character. At some point in time, he knew he should have returned and taken Eric with him. Eric was weaker than he was, a good deal weaker, and had wound up selling his soul because it was easier that way than it was to attempt to make something of himself. Cole frowned. “Some of the things they had to say about him weren’t all that flattering.”

  Putting some distance between them, Rayne moved over to the window. It began to mist outside. “And you’re thinking of using them as character witnesses?”

  He heard the incredulous note in her voice. “The point is, none of them said Eric ever raised a hand to them, ever threatened them, ever turned remotely ugly. At best, he was a sloppy drunk, harmless. One of them even called him giddy.”

  She knew what he was trying to do, but that approach would get them nowhere. She remembered what Longwell had said to her. That everyone was capable of murder under the right circumstances. “The D.A.’ll say that everyone’s got their breaking point. And there are those neighbors who’ll testify that they overheard Kathy and Eric in a shouting match, arguing.”

  He shook his head. “Eric doesn’t argue or shout. He withdraws. He cries.”

  “But Kathy was different,” she reminded him. “She meant something to him.”

  He was pacing again, his agitation clearly rising as he absently ran his hand through his hair. Watching him, Rayne caught herself wondering what that same hand would feel like running along her body. Caressing her. Finding all the secret places.

  She stopped herself abruptly.

  What was she, seventeen? She was twenty-five, for heaven’s sake, and far from a trembling, inexperienced teenager. Hell, she hadn’t been all that inexperienced as a teenager, either.

  Then what was going on? Why was she having all this trouble focusing on what mattered? Maybe she was coming down with something. It seemed to be the only explanation, at least, the only explanation she’d accept.

  Cole suddenly swung around to face her, excitement in his eyes as he worked out a theory. “These neighbors that supposedly overheard Kathy and Eric arguing, did they actually see them arguing?”

  She thought of the report she’d reread after she’d talked to Longwell.

  “Maybe.” He continued looking at her, as if he expected her to amend her answer. She did. “There wasn’t any mention of anyone actually seeing anything. But there were several statements in agreement—” The excitement had increased. She could feel herself being reeled in. “What are you getting at?”

  He had to admit it was a long shot, but it was possible. More than possible, it struck him as perhaps the only explanation. “What if she wasn’t arguing with Eric? What if everyone just assumed it was Eric because she had that restraining order out on him? What if,” he hypothesized, “it was someone else?”

  “And that someone else killed her?” she guessed. When he nodded, she shook her head. He’d already said something like that before, when he thought Eric was being framed. It was wishful thinking on his part. “You’re reaching for straws, Garrison.”

  He didn’t waver. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any there.”

  Stranger things had turned out to be right, who was she to ignore a possibility? “Okay, I can check that out tomorrow.”

  “We,” he corrected. “We can check it out tomorrow.”

  She was trying to attract the least amount of attention. Having him with her wasn’t going to accomplish that. Cole Garrison was as unmemorable as a meteor shower. “Look, let’s not get in each other’s way.”

  “Fine. I’ll stand two steps to your right
at all times.”

  “Cole—”

  He purposely kept his expression innocent. “Would you prefer the left?”

  She would prefer it if he were out of the picture entirely. “Cole, do you know one of the reasons the South lost the war?” He looked stunned by the question. Just as she’d wanted him to be. “Too many leaders, not enough soldiers.”

  “In the middle of all this, you’re stopping to give me a history lesson?” he asked incredulously. “For somebody who supposedly never studied in high school, you’re just chock-full of information, aren’t you?”

  She’d lost track of the number of times the principal had sent for her father because she wasn’t doing her homework or was cutting classes. The thing Principal Oshinsky could never understand was how she managed to do so well on tests when she’d hardly even put in a regular appearance in class. Back then, she couldn’t abide structure or any rules that hemmed her in. That didn’t mean she was stupid.

  Rayne shrugged. “I liked doing independent studies.”

  “Maybe that’s our problem. We’re both too independent.”

  “Agreed. The bottom line is, I can’t have you compromising the investigation.”

  He wasn’t about to sit in the hotel, cooling his heels while she did the legwork. He wanted to be right there with her. “I’d say we were compromising it just by being in the mix.”

  She hated to admit it, but he was right. Having her look into the case could already be considered a compromising circumstance if it came to light. She had to be very careful how she went about things. Enemies in the department didn’t go away easily.

  One look at Cole told her that he wasn’t about to be kept out of it. Like he said, they were kindred spirits of a sort and if this had been about one of her own, someone would have had to tie her down. “All right, but we still have to do it my way.”

  Cole spread his hands out to either side of him, as if in complete compliance with her terms. “As long as I get to be there.”

  She knew she would never convince him otherwise. It was better to have him beside her than to have to keep looking over her shoulder to see where he was. Though he struck her as pretty savvy, she couldn’t take a chance on his jeopardizing the investigation by tainting their findings.

  She crossed to the door. It was time to go before she decided to revisit the site of her encounter with the steamroller. “Okay, I’ll stop by at nine and pick you up tomorrow morning.”

  His expression was unfathomable and made her a little uneasy as he nodded. Cole reached around her to open the door for her. “It’s a deal.”

  She noticed that he hadn’t bothered to shake on it.

  Rayne glanced at her watch. She was running late again. Stifling an oath, she strapped on her gun, then slipped her jacket on over it.

  Andrew eased a frying pan into sudsy water. Rayne was the last one in the kitchen. “I thought you said you weren’t going in today.”

  “I’m not. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to go out.”

  “What’s up, kiddo? Tell your old man.”

  She didn’t want to tell him because she didn’t want a lecture. She picked up her coat. The weatherman promised more rain was on the way. It never ceased to amaze her how her siblings could get away without a third degree, but she’d always had to jump through hoops when it came to their father.

  Probably because she’d given him so much to worry about when she was younger. None of her brothers or sisters had ever had to have him come down to the police station to fetch them. In hindsight, it had been a harmless prank, but the Aurora police department hadn’t thought so at the time.

  “Nothing’s up, Dad. I’m just running a few errands, catching up on things. Doing a favor for a friend.”

  The frying pan sank below the suds, sending foam over the side. He ignored it. His attention was on his daughter’s last words. And her manner. “What kind of a favor?”

  She was already out of the kitchen, heading for the front door and freedom. “The kind that needs doing.”

  “Rayne—”

  “Probably,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be sure to take an umbrella.”

  Throwing open the door, she managed to make good her escape.

  And come very close to slamming into Cole.

  Swallowing a gasp of surprise, she took half a step back. With the door at her back, there was no place for her to go.

  Instantly her temper flared. Was he spying on her? “I thought we had a deal.”

  Amusement tugged on his lips. She looked breathless, as if she’d made a run for the door. Breathless looked good on her. He didn’t allow his thoughts to go any further than that.

  “The thing about deals is that when they involve more than one person, as they perforce need to, they have a tendency to fluctuate.” Before she could say anything, he indicated his car parked across the street. He’d positioned it to look as if he was visiting the people on the other end of the block. “I did sit in the car and wait for everyone else to leave,” he pointed out. Which brought him to a question of his own. He’d counted more than half a dozen cars coming and going since he’d arrived. “Just how many people stop by here in the morning, anyway? I’ve seen less traffic at roadside diners during rush hour.”

  He watched a hint of a smile curve her lips. “My father likes to feed the family.”

  He came from an almost nonexistent family. His mother was an only child and his father had one brother whom he despised. Cole’d heard the feeling was mutual. The concept of a large family never quite registered, certainly not one that had enough members to make up a small country of its own.

  “All those people were related to you?”

  She nodded. “In one fashion or another. Siblings, cousins, about-to-be spouses to siblings.”

  That took care of the adults. But there’d been more. “And the two kids?”

  He meant Brent’s daughter and Clay’s newly discovered son. Something she didn’t feel she had the right to get into without Clay’s okay. “Long story.”

  “Which you’re not going to tell me.”

  Not wanting her father to see her talking to Cole, she began to urge him off the property. “Maybe some other time.”

  Too late. Her escape was terminated. The door behind them opened and Andrew was in the doorway, giving Cole the once-over. Slowly.

  Rayne held her breath. Waiting for an explosion of some sort to erupt.

  “You must be Garrison.”

  To her knowledge, her father had never met the man, now or when he was in high school. She blew out a breath. “How do you do that?”

  Gray-blue eyes twinkled at her. “Trade secret. Keeps me one step ahead of my kids. A place where all parents want to be.” His eyes shifted back toward Cole, taking measure. Closely. He put his hand out. “Andrew Cavanaugh.”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “We’ll see,” Andrew replied, dropping his hand to his side again. “Sorry to hear about your brother.”

  Here it comes, Cole thought, bracing himself for a confrontation. Authority figures still had that kind of effect on him. And he on them. After all, this was Aurora, the place where he’d been the outsider. “He’s innocent.”

  If Andrew heard the edge in Cole’s voice, he gave no indication. His expression remained unchanged. In stead he spared a glance at his daughter.

  “So Rayne seems to think. You have anything to go on besides gut feelings?” He addressed the question to Cole.

  “We’re working on it.”

  Andrew nodded. Then, instead of a lecture, or the promise of one, he completely surprised Rayne by saying to Cole, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

  With that, he withdrew, leaving Rayne standing on the doorstep with a stunned expression on her face.

  Cole peered at her as the door closed behind them. “You okay?”

  She shook her head, as if to free her brain of cobwebs. “Who was that masked man?” she murmured.

  �
�What?”

  Rayne waved her hand. “Nothing. It’s just that I would have expected him to say something about the possible fallout over what we’re doing.”

  “Because he’s a straight arrow?”

  She glanced over her shoulder, not completely certain that her father still might not come out.

  “Because he doesn’t want me stirring up any trouble for myself.” She started to put on her coat. Cole took it from her, holding it so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves. She offered him an absent smile in response. “He tends to be very protective that way.”

  “Maybe he thinks the truth is worth a little trouble.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed.

  She glanced over her shoulder one last time at the closed door. It just went to show her that just when she thought she had her father all figured out, he pulled something like this on her.

  With a confused shrug, she headed toward her car. Cole took her arm. “You’re putting yourself out for me. The least I can do is drive.”

  She didn’t want it on that footing. Didn’t want this getting any more personal than it had already gotten. Deep down, where it counted, personal had always scared the hell out of her.

  “I’m not putting myself out for you,” she informed him, summoning her best professional, distant manner. However, she did take him up on his offer and walked over to his car. After all, it was a Porsche. “I’m doing it so that I can feel the right man is being charged with the crime.”

  Experience had taught him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. What mattered was that it was there, that she was helping. Everything else, he had to remember, was secondary.

  “Whatever works for you,” he said, opening the passenger side for her.

  Right now, very little was working, Rayne thought as she slid into the seat. She glanced at Cole as he rounded the hood and got into the car beside her.

  Least of all her willpower.

  Chapter 9

  Rayne could feel frustration building up inside of her. She didn’t like going around in circles and that was exactly what they’d been doing since they’d arrived at Sunflower Apartments. Taking down statements and going nowhere.