Lethal Attraction: Against the RulesFatal Affair

by Linda Howard

  “We’ve worked our way through the Johnson family and the majority of their known associates,” Detective Jeannie McBride said. “For the most part, they were hardly sympathetic to hear you’d nearly gotten blown up but were adamant that they had nothing to do with it.” With a chagrinned expression, she added, “A few said they wished they’d thought of it.”

  “Nice,” Nick muttered.

  “We didn’t pick up any vibe that an actual order had come from either of the Johnsons,” McBride said.

  “And it would have,” Sam said. “After six months undercover with them, I can tell you nothing happens without one of them ordering it.”

  “Agreed,” McBride said.

  Sam ran her fingers through her hair, which she had left down the way Nick liked it. “I’ve got a bunch of shit running around in my head, so I want to go through it from the top if no one minds.”

  When the others nodded in agreement, she began with Nick finding the senator’s body in his apartment. “He’s murdered on the eve of a vote that would elevate his standing in the Senate by passing legislation on a hot-button issue. The murder itself, at least on the surface, is personal, with all the trimmings of a love affair gone wrong. However, as Detective Cruz correctly pointed out, the dismemberment could’ve been intended to throw us off, to send us down the personal road. Keep in mind there was no forced entry and no sign of a struggle, leading us to believe the killer was someone he knew, someone he was comfortable with and not surprised to see.”

  “And someone who had one of the many keys he’d given out,” Freddie interjected.

  “Yes. We’ve interviewed three of his past lovers, discovered he had a few fetishes, and uncovered a son his family kept hidden from the public for twenty years. The mother of that child appears, for all intents and purposes, to have been the love of his life and, for some reason, the only one who didn’t experience his wilder side. It would stand to reason that his often-cavalier treatment of other women and his fixation with Internet porn stem directly from the stymieing of the most important sexual relationship in his life. That it wasn’t allowed to flourish or take its natural course, set him up for all kinds of psychological issues that he worked hard to keep hidden from even the people closest to him.” She glanced at Nick and found him staring at the wall, his face impassive.

  “The senator’s relationship with his parents, his father in particular, was complicated by the teenage pregnancy and the resulting child. When John reached adulthood, his father threatened to disown him if he married Patricia Donaldson or acknowledged his son. If Ms. Donaldson is to be believed, protecting his political career and reputation was more important to Graham O’Connor than his own grandchild.” She looked to Freddie for confirmation. With his nod, she continued. “On the same night he discovered the senator’s body, Mr. Cappuano reported an intruder in his house, which the Arlington police investigated. Toss in Destiny Johnson’s threats in yesterday’s paper and the bombing today. Is that everything?” She looked to Freddie. “Am I forgetting anything?”

  “Stenhouse.”

  “Right—the O’Connors’s bitter political rival. His motive would be derailing the bill and deflecting the accompanying glory that would have fallen on John, the son of a man he told us he hated.”

  “But he would’ve had no way into O’Connor’s apartment,” Freddie said. “Or at least he wouldn’t have had a key.”

  “Which keeps him at the bottom of the list, but still a person of interest,” Sam said. “A man in his position could probably get a key if he wanted one badly enough. So how’s it all related? How’s our dead senator related to a breakin at his chief of staff’s house? If we’ve ruled out Johnson, how’s it related to a bombing at the same location?”

  “Maybe it isn’t,” Skip said.

  All eyes turned to him.

  Sam’s brows knitted with confusion. “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “Goes back to timing. What else has happened this week?” Before Sam could reply, he said, “In the course of the investigation, you’ve rekindled an old flame.” He glanced at Nick. “Who might be put out by that?”

  “We’re both single, so other than my superiors, I can’t think of anyone,” she said, wondering where he was going with this.

  “Are you sure?”

  And then, all at once, she knew exactly what he was talking about—or rather whom. “Peter,” she gasped. “Oh my God.” Curling her fist into her stomach, she had to sit when her legs would have buckled under her.

  The room fell silent. Her rancorous divorce, complete with restraining orders and accusations of mental cruelty and emotional abuse, was hardly a secret to any of them.

  Nick sat next to her, and Sam didn’t object when his arm slid around her shoulders.

  “He was outside the house,” she whispered. “That was him before. He was watching us that night after we had pizza. I felt something, but I blew it off, chalked it up to nerves. I’ll bet he was in your house, too.”

  “What would he want there?”

  “First rule of combat,” she said softly. “Know your enemy.”

  Nick turned to Skip. “What do we do?”

  Skip shifted his furious eyes to Gonzo. “Call Malone. Report in, and then pick up Gibson.”

  “Yes, sir.” Gonzo signaled to Arnold, his partner, and they left.

  “I’m going with you,” Freddie said, following them.

  Sam got up and grabbed her coat off a hook by the door. “I just need some, ah, air.” She rushed through the front door.

  Nick was right behind her.

  She struggled against his efforts to embrace her. “Just leave me alone, will you?”

  “The hell I will.” He pulled her in close and tightened his arms around her. “Don’t push me away, Samantha.”

  “He was watching us! He was in your house! Because of me!”

  “It’s not your fault. Don’t take it on.”

  “How can I not? He’s obsessed.” Another thought occurred to her all of a sudden.

  “What?”

  “The EDs,” she whispered, the ramifications so huge, so monstrous it was almost too much to process.

  “You don’t think…”

  She looked up at him. “That he’d rather kill me than see me with you? Yeah, I do, and if he couldn’t take me out, getting rid of you would be the next best thing.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I told him everything about you after that night we spent together. When you didn’t call, I told him about the connection we’d had, how I’d never had that before with anyone else. I thought he was my friend.” She took a deep, rattling breath to stave off the pain circling in her gut. “He’d remember that. He’d know you were important, a real threat. The first real threat since he and I broke up.”

  “He’d be jealous enough to want to kill us both?”

  “Destiny Johnson handed him the perfect opportunity with her tirade in the paper yesterday,” Sam said as the whole thing clicked into focus with such startling clarity she wondered how she could’ve missed it. “If it had worked, the cops would naturally blame her or her friends. No one would’ve thought to look at him. It was so easy. He wouldn’t have been able to resist.” The pain gnawed at her insides, making her sick and weak.

  “Would he know how to build a bomb?”

  “You can get how-to instructions for just about anything on the Internet these days.” She winced at the claws stabbing her gut. “Higgins said the EDs were crude. I guess we were lucky Peter screwed it up.”

  “You’re in pain.”

  “Just need to breathe,” she panted.

  He loosened his hold on her. “What can I do? You’re scaring me, Sam.”

  Clutching her midsection, she looked up at him. “I’ve dragged you into a nightmare.”

  “I’m exactly where I want to be—where I’ve wanted to be since the night I met you. And if I get my hands on that ex-husband of yours before you do, I’ll be sure to let him know that he might’ve s
ent us on a long detour but we found our way back to each other.” He kissed her, gently at first and then with more passion when she responded in kind. “Despite him, we found our way back, and nothing’s going to get in our way this time. Nothing and no one.”

  “Especially not a couple of bombs,” she said with a weak smile.

  “That’s right.” He returned her smile. “How’s the belly?”

  “Better,” she said, surprised to realize it was true.

  “We’re going to do something about that. As soon as this case is closed, you’re going to see my doctor friend Harry.”

  “You and what army will be taking me?”

  “You’ll find out if you don’t go on your own.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest as she studied him. “There’re things…about me…that I need to tell you, stuff you should know before you decide anything.”

  Cradling her face in his hands, he looked down at her with his heart in his eyes. “There’s nothing you could tell me that would make me not want to be with you. Nothing.”

  “You don’t know that—”

  His mouth came down hard on hers, stealing the words, the thoughts, the air and every ounce of reason. When he had kissed her into submission, he said, “I do know that.”

  “But—”

  “I love you, Samantha. I’ve loved you from the first instant I ever saw you across a crowded deck at that party and for all the years since. Having you back in my life is the single best thing that’s ever happened to me. So there’s nothing, nothing at all, you could tell me that would change my mind about you or what I want from you.”

  Sam rarely found herself speechless, but as she looked up at his beautiful, earnest face—the face she had dreamed about during her miserable marriage—she simply couldn’t find the words.

  Without breaking the intense eye contact between them, he brushed his lips over hers in a kiss so sweet and undemanding that her knees went weak.

  “Later,” he said. “We’ll have all the time in the world. I promise.”

  CHAPTER 27

  They borrowed Celia’s car to go to Arlington. After an upsetting day, the neighborhood had returned to tranquility, and the media had thankfully moved on to the next story. At Nick’s house, the windows had been repaired, but broken glass crunched under their feet in the foyer and upstairs in his bedroom. “I’ll still be cleaning up glass a year from now,” he joked, attempting to make light of it since he could feel the distress radiating from her.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t go there, Samantha.” He threw jeans, sweaters, underwear, T-shirts and socks into a large duffel bag. With the funeral scheduled for Monday, he packed a dark suit, dress shirt and tie into a garment bag and tossed a pair of wingtips into the duffel. In the bathroom, he grabbed what he needed as fast he could, not wanting her to be there any longer than necessary after what happened earlier.

  He’d told her he loved her. Just blurted it out because he thought she needed to hear it right then. He told himself it didn’t matter that she hadn’t said it back. She would. Eventually. But what if she didn’t? What if she’d been swept up by the craziness of the investigation, and he’d read her all wrong? No. That wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be possible.

  “Nick?”

  “What, babe?”

  “You just went all still. What’re you thinking about?”

  He cleared the emotion and fear from his throat. “I’m wondering if they found Peter.”

  “They’ll call me. They know he’s mine once they bring him in.”

  “You’re going to confront him?”

  “I’m going to nail him.”

  “Why don’t you let someone else do it? Why does it have to be you?”

  “Because it does.”

  “That’s it?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “What if I ask you not to?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Would it matter? If I did ask?”

  “It would matter. And I’d take that in with me, and it’d throw me off. I want to be at one hundred percent when I confront that miserable excuse for a human being. So don’t send me in there dragging baggage. Don’t do that to me.”

  “Is that what I am? Baggage?”

  “What the hell happened between my house and here?”

  He zipped the duffel. “Nothing. Not a goddamned thing.”

  She grabbed his arm and spun him around to face her. “Are you mad that I didn’t say it back?”

  “What’re you talking about?” he asked, his heart aching.

  “You know.” Her tone softened as she raised her hands to his face. “Everything is so insane—the investigation, my psychopathic ex-husband, your loss and your job situation, my stomach…even the freaking holidays are bearing down on me. After what I went through with Peter, I’m different than I used to be. I’m more cautious. I haven’t been cautious with you, though, and that scares me.” She laughed. “It terrifies me, actually.”

  “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  “I know that, but I’ve screwed up so badly in the past. I need time, when I don’t have fifty other things on my mind, to think and to process everything that’s happened this week. I can’t do that right now. But if it helps at all, I can tell you I’m moving in the same direction you are.”

  “It does help to know that.” He reached for her hands and brought them to his lips. “Will you promise me one thing?”

  “If I can.”

  “Will you spend Christmas Eve with me here? No matter what happens in the next few days, will you save that one night for me?”

  “We usually go to my sister’s…”

  “We can do whatever you want on Christmas Day.”

  “All right.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.” She went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “I can’t believe Christmas is Wednesday, and I haven’t bought a thing for anyone. What about you?”

  “Not too many people on my list. I usually get something for Christina, the O’Connors, my dad’s twins, John…”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. About your family situation.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” He shut off the light in the bedroom and led her downstairs.

  She stood in the living room with her hands jammed into her coat pockets. “What you said earlier, about us living together?”

  “Too much, too soon. I get it.”

  “What I was going to say is if, you know, we get to that, I couldn’t live here. It’s too far from the city and my dad.”

  “Okay.”

  “That simple?”

  “It’s just a house.”

  She studied him. “When are you going to turn into a jerk?”

  “Any minute now. I’ve been meaning to get to that.”

  Her cell phone rang, and she pulled it from her pocket. “It’s Freddie.” She put it on speaker so Nick could hear. “What’ve you got?”

  “No sign of him at his place, but we found wires, plastic and fertilizer sitting right out on the table. Gonzo requested a warrant for a full search, and we’re just waiting on that now.”

  She sat down. “I was hoping it wasn’t him. I was really hoping…”

  “I’m sorry. We’ve issued an APB. Every cop in the city is looking for him. We’ll get him, Sam.”

  “Thanks. Go on home. Get some sleep. Meet me at HQ at eight. We’ll put in a half day.”

  “I’ll be there. Are you okay?”

  “Overall, I’ve had better days, but I’m okay. See you in the morning.”

  Nick dropped the duffel and suit bag by the front door and joined her on the sofa.

  “I was so hoping he was just stalking me and we wouldn’t be able to pin the EDs on him. I didn’t want it to be him.”

  Nick put his arm around her and brought her in to rest against him. “I know, babe.”

  “The papers tomorrow will be all about me—the bomb, my relationship with you, my psycho ex-husband. They’
ll rehash Johnson, run through my dad’s unsolved case.” She scrubbed at her face. “I hate when the story is about me. It’s been about me too often lately.”

  “You’re so tired,” he said, kissing her brow. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

  “I’d rather stay close to home until we get Peter. He knows my dad is an Achilles heel of mine.”

  Standing, Nick held out a hand to help her up.

  She surprised him when she wrapped her arms around him. “Can we just do this for a minute?”

  He kissed the bruised bump on her forehead. “For as long as you want.”

  They were interrupted several minutes later by a knock on the door.

  “Wonder who’s here at this hour.” Nick swung the door open and was startled to find Natalie Jordan on his doorstep. “Natalie? What’re you doing here?” He wouldn’t have thought she even knew where he lived.

  Her eyes rimmed with red, she said, “May I come in for a minute?”

  Nick glanced back at Sam, who nodded. He showed Natalie into the living room.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” Natalie said to Sam. Her face was splotchy, as if she’d been crying for hours.

  “What can I do for you?” Sam asked.

  To Nick, Natalie said, “Would it be possible to get a glass of water?”

  Nick made eye contact with Sam. “Sure.” When he returned with the water, Natalie had taken a seat on the sofa and was focused on her hands in her lap.

  Sam looked at him and shrugged.

  “Here you go,” Nick said, handing Natalie the glass of water.

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s really late, Natalie,” Nick said. “Why don’t you tell us why you’re here?”

  “It’s so unreal,” she said softly. “I still can’t believe it…”

  “Mrs. Jordan, we can’t help you if we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam said.

  Looking up at them with shattered eyes, Natalie said, “Noel. I think he…”

  “What did Noel do?” Nick asked, his heart beating harder all of a sudden. He wanted to take Natalie by the shoulders and shake it out of her. “What did he do?”