by JoAnn Ross
“So,” he said with forced casualness as he turned back toward her, “what was important enough to call you out in the middle of the night?”
The warmth immediately left those gilt eyes, like a candle snuffed out by a Gulf Coast hurricane. “It was the rapist.”
Something went very, very still inside Roman. Needing something—anything—to do, he reached out and straightened a picture. The framed snapshot was of a young girl with wild, windblown hair the color of flame. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt, a pair of too-large jeans rolled up to the knees, and she was carrying a bamboo fishing rod. The grin on her freckled face revealed immense pride in her catch. Along with a missing front tooth.
“He struck again?” Roman was amazed that his voice sounded so matter-of-fact.
“They found the girl in Whooping Crane Pond.”
An image sprung full-blown into his mind, like a wartime flashback: the vision he’d had during dinner, of Desiree dressed in a filmy white nightgown, standing beside a small pond, a bouquet of bloodred roses clutched to her breast.
“This time he killed her,” Desiree revealed.
Horrifyingly, Roman already knew that. Unconsciously, he glanced down at his hands, half expecting to see them covered in some young girl’s blood.
He wanted to ask more questions. But viewing Desiree’s obvious exhaustion, he decided that whatever answers she could provide would have to wait.
“Look,” he suggested, “I’m just keeping you up. I’d better go.”
“No,” she said quickly. She wasn’t eager to be alone. Not after what had happened. “Don’t leave.” Under normal conditions she never would have stooped to something that sounded uncomfortably like begging. But these were far-from-normal conditions. “I’m too wound up to get any sleep. And to tell you the truth, I’d like company.”
From the embarrassment in her eyes, Roman suspected Desiree was not accustomed to asking for favors from anyone. Which was why, although he knew that to remain would be to sink deeper into the quicksand his life seemed to be immersed in these days, he found it impossible to refuse her softly spoken request.
“Why don’t I make you some tea?” he suggested.
She answered with a faint, reminiscent smile. “That’s the second time you’ve offered me tea.”
“Blame it on my mother. Being half-English, she’s always believed tea to be the universal antidote to most of life’s problems.”
“I envy your mother her belief system.” She also envied Roman his mother.
Suddenly more tired than she’d ever been in her life, she sank down onto the flower-sprigged cushion of the white wicker sofa and kicked off the Italian pumps she’d been wearing for nearly the past twenty-four hours.
“What can it hurt?” She dragged a weary hand through her hair. “I’ll try the tea.” Her hand dropped to her side. “The kitchen’s in there.” Her words had begun to slur. Too worn out to point, she nodded toward an arched doorway.
“I can manage. Although I’m admittedly not the most domestic guy on the planet, I am capable of boiling water.”
For not the first time, Roman realized how delicate she was. Her mother, after all, had been a Porter. But her father had been a Louisiana Cajun who’d known how to live life to its fullest. A man accustomed to going with the flow. The very fact that Katherine Porter had dared to risk her own mother’s wrath and elope with Lucky Dupree, turning her back on wealth and privilege for love, proved she, too, had possessed a passionate nature. And both these individuals’ blood was flowing through Desiree’s veins.
The thought of her bringing all that passion to their lovemaking—which Roman had already decided was inevitable—made him want to scoop her up from that feminine couch and carry her into the bedroom which he suspected would be every bit as romantic as the living room.
Because he wanted her to be a willing participant, he resisted and went into the kitchen to prepare the tea he suspected neither of them really wanted. As he left the room, Desiree leaned her head against the back cushion, allowed her eyes to drift shut and promptly fell asleep.
Roman found her right where he’d left her, looking deathly pale and vulnerable. The sight pulled unbidden, unwanted, heretofore unexperienced emotional chords deep inside him, leading him to curse softly under his breath.
He put the cups onto a glass-topped wicker table. Then he bent down and picked up her stocking-clad feet, swiveling her legs until she was lying down. She didn’t move a muscle. Not even when he lifted her head to put the fringed pillow beneath it. Not when he covered her with the lacy white, Irish wool blanket he took from the back of a neighboring chair.
Her hair spilled over the velvet pillow like molten bronze. Her lashes were dark and spiky against her cheeks, and her rosy lips were slightly parted in a way that made him think of Sleeping Beauty awaiting the kiss of her prince to awaken her. The problem with that little scenario, he decided, was that Desiree might be a beauty. But he was no prince.
Which wasn’t quite accurate, he amended, thinking back on the nickname his fellow prosecutors had given him during his days as district attorney.
Not wanting to wake her up, but not wanting to leave her, either, Roman sat down in a chair across from the couch. As he drank the Chinese tea and watched Desiree sleep, he found himself wondering about the odds of the Dark Prince ever winning the fair maiden.
* * *
POUNDING ON HER DOOR awakened Desiree from her dreamless, exhausted sleep.
“Dammit, Desiree,” the deep voice shouted from the other side of the door. “I know you’re in there. So open up!”
She sighed and dragged a hand through her uncombed hair. “Hold your horses, I’m coming.” She forced herself off the couch and opened the door. “Can I help you, Officer?”
“I ought to beat you,” O’Malley growled as he marched past her into the house.
“Then I’d have to report you for police brutality.” She shut the door and followed him into the living room.
“Since the thought of applying a few lashes with a rubber hose against that tight backside is seeming more and more appealing with each passing day, I’m willing to risk it. What the hell did you think you were doing?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I assume you’re referring to my morning report.”
“Where you invite the creep to rape you, too.”
“I don’t believe that’s what I was suggesting.”
“You offered to talk with the guy, dammit! ‘Anytime. Anywhere,’” he quoted.
“I was inviting him to turn himself in to authorities. I merely suggested I’d be willing to accompany him to the police station, to ensure his safety.”
“Since when are you so freaking worried about a murderer’s safety?”
“I’m worried about all the other potential victims.”
Needing coffee, she turned and walked into the adjoining kitchen. When she saw the cold tea in a cup on the counter, she remembered asking Roman to make her some. Great company she’d been, falling asleep on him after asking him to stay with her. She turned and saw an empty tea cup on the coffee table, and she flushed, wondering just how long he’d sat there in the wing chair, watching her sleep, before he’d tired of the vigil and gone home.
Pushing Roman out of her mind, she concentrated on O’Malley and the matter at hand. “I thought the rapist might be worried about suffering an ‘accidental’ injury if he turned himself in. So I offered to go with him.”
“You had no right interfering in my case.”
“I wasn’t interfering.”
“The hell you weren’t!” His hands were curled into fists at his side. From the way he was flexing his fingers, Desiree had the feeling he was anxious to hit something. “You finally gave the sicko creep the publicity he’s been seeking. What makes you think he won’t rape again, just to get more television coverage?”
“You were already calling your press conference,” she reminded him. “I was just trying to personaliz
e the message. Since he sent a personal one to me first.”
“You’re supposed to be an intelligent woman, Desiree.” O’Malley leaned over her, his face inches from hers. “Have you considered the publicity the guy would get if he made you his next victim?”
No. Amazingly, she realized now with a sinking dread, she’d never considered that possibility. Oh, there had been that fleeting moment when she’d learned about the ribbons, but when he hadn’t contacted her again, she’d managed to convince herself that that had only been a coincidence.
“I guess I should have thought it through more carefully,” she admitted. The problem was ever since meeting Roman, she’d been reckless, and look where it had led—to a dangerous mistake.
“You should have been more careful,” he said. “Hell, Desiree, I don’t want to scare you, but—”
“Yes, you do.”
He rubbed his chin as he considered that. “You’re right. I guess I do. But it’s only because I care about what happens to you.”
“I know.” She had a sudden urge to wrap her arms around him and press her cheek against his broad chest. But knowing that she no longer had the right, she refrained from any physical contact.
“I want to put a man on you.”
“A bodyguard?”
“Just until this guy is caught.”
“That could be a very long time.”
“Perhaps.”
“Or perhaps not?” she suggested, instantly alert at his tone. No longer a woman concerned for her own safety, she’d switched into her reporter mode. “Are you saying you’ve got a lead on him?”
“This is off the record.”
“So what isn’t with you?” she said with resignation.
“The florist is down at headquarters right now, working with a police artist on a composite. We also have an eye witness who saw him pick up the girl in the Santa’s helper outfit.”
“Are you saying your witness can actually identify him?” This was a break.
“Not the guy, unfortunately. But he did manage to identify the make of the car, although he didn’t get the plate numbers. We’re running a check of all the black Porches licensed in the parish.”
“He drives a black Porsche?” An image flashed through Desiree’s mind. An image of Roman Falconer emerging from the dark sports car parked at the curb outside her house.
It was only a coincidence, she told herself, just as she’d done when she heard about the rapist seeming to have read her book. There was no way she was possibly going to believe that the man who’d made her tea and covered her with the soft wool afghan she’d bought during last year’s vacation with O’Malley to his ancestral home in County Wexford could possibly be a vicious, mentally deranged killer.
“Black or dark blue. Even with the Christmas lights at the entrance to the park, it was a little hard to tell.”
“There must be a lot of Porsches in Orleans Parish. How are you going to run them all down?”
“One at a time.”
“You’ll find him,” Desiree said, knowing that this man more than most had the patience required to do exactly that.
“Not standing around here, I won’t.” He reached out as if to run his hand down her face, then withdrew it. “I’d better go.”
“Yes.” She was tired of keeping her distance. Perhaps he didn’t believe former lovers could be friends, but she was damned if she was going to pretend that she didn’t still have feelings. “Thanks for caring, O’Malley.” She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek.
A dark flush rose from his collar and he quickly looked around, as if half expecting to see Karyn standing in the kitchen.
“A Christmas kiss between friends, O’Malley. That’s all it was,” Desiree said with a grin.
He returned her grin, looking as if she’d taken a load off his shoulders. “In that case—” he bent his head and brushed a light kiss against her smiling lips “—Merry Christmas to you, too.”
The kiss was warm and sweet and failed to stimulate so much as a tinge of desire. Relieved, Desiree allowed her lips to cling and thought how strange it was that she had the French Quarter rapist to thank for bringing this warm and caring man back into her life.
“About that bodyguard,” she said as the brief kiss ended.
“It’s not up for discussion. He’s outside now. And he’ll stay with you until the rapist is behind bars.”
“He’ll interfere with my work.”
“Tough.” This time he allowed his hand to sweep up her cheek. “Protect and serve, remember?”
Despite the tender touch, the no-nonsense detective was back. In spades. Oh well, Desiree thought as she watched O’Malley stop to talk to the man in the unmarked sedan parked across the street, she was a clever woman.
If the bodyguard O’Malley had saddled her with became a hindrance, she’d just have to figure out some way to ditch him.
11
AFTER RELUCTANTLY returning home, Roman rewound the video tape, then punched play on the remote with more force than was necessary. It was the fifth time he’d watched Desiree’s report, and unfortunately, it didn’t get a damn bit better with repetition. She was either the most daring or the most foolish woman he’d ever had the misfortune to meet.
But now that their paths had crossed, he had no choice.
Since fate had dropped Desiree Dupree into his life, it was up to him to do something about her. Before she managed to make things even worse than they already were.
“Fat chance of that.”
He blackened the television screen, picked up the Scotch bottle from the table beside the chair and refilled his glass. The glass was almost to his lips when, on an afterthought, he carried the bottle and the glass into the kitchen and poured the contents down the sink. Then he went around the house, retrieving other bottles from other rooms.
He had plans to make. And in order to pull them off, he needed to be stone-cold sober.
* * *
DESIREE WAS NOT in the best of moods when she returned to the station after the press conference. Other than stating the make and color of the alleged rapist’s car and assuring the gathered members of the press that the police were on top of the case and expected an arrest soon, O’Malley hadn’t given her any solid facts to work with.
At this point, since they hadn’t yet identified the dead girl—who was, it was assumed, another prostitute—Desiree couldn’t even try to track down family members. She’d interviewed some of the girls on the street, hoping to learn something about the victim. But the rapes—and now the murder—had everyone edgy.
Add to that the silent shadow that had not let her out of his sight, and Desiree was not surprised when not a single one of the prostitutes had proved cooperative.
“I can’t get a slant on this story,” she complained.
“When in doubt as to your target, shoot at the politicians and the police,” Adrian suggested.
They were in his office, working on her evening report. Someone had adorned the wood-paneled office with garlands of gold tinsel in an attempt to add holiday cheer. A wreath fashioned of red chili peppers, the kind used to make Louisiana’s famous hot Tabasco sauce, adorned the window that looked out over the sidewalk.
“Hit them between their myopic, bureaucratic eyes for not releasing the facts about the guy sooner,” he instructed, building up steam as he lit a cigarette and ignoring, as he always did, the station’s no-smoking policy.
“I already addressed their failure to warn people in my morning report,” she reminded him. “I need something new. Something more visual. This is, after all, photojournalism.”
He leaned back in his chair, breathed out a cloud of blue smoke and gazed thoughtfully out the festooned window at the shoppers crowding Royal Street. “It’s too bad the guy hasn’t responded to your offer. It’s not that he hasn’t had a chance. We’ve been running the spot as a newsbreak all day.”
“I know. O’Malley’s about to blow his stack.”
“If
he’d caught the guy sooner, there wouldn’t be anything for him to get pissed off about.” He dragged a hand through his thinning hair. “The stuff Sugar’s already shot at the cemetery and the pond will still work,” he decided. “Intermixing those with shots of all the holiday tourists and using a voice-over should stir people up.”
“I don’t want to just stir people up. That’s what programs like Hard Copy and A Current Affair like to do. What about enlightening and informing our viewers?”
“Fine, to a point,” he agreed. “But if we don’t keep our ratings up, Des, we won’t have any viewers left to inform. Let’s not forget that it’s the sizzle that sells the steak.”
He was, of course, right. But there were times, and this was one of them, when Desiree was forced to acknowledge how very thin a line there was between legitimate news and the ever-growing, increasingly popular tabloid journalism.
“Perhaps I’ll go back to the park,” she suggested, “and see if I can find out any more information on those kids who discovered her body.”
“Great idea,” he agreed enthusiastically. “Especially if they’re good-looking. The fact that they were making out at the time adds to the appeal. Lord, talk about throwing cold water on teenage passion!”
Desiree rolled her eyes. “You’re such an inspiration, Adrian.”
“I do my best,” he said easily, ignoring her dry tone. The intercom on his desk buzzed, signaling a call. “This’ll probably be for sales,” he muttered.
A temp was filling in for the receptionist, who’d left yesterday for Nashville to visit her daughter and grandchildren for Christmas. And although the new woman was friendly and eager to please, calls had been misrouted all day.
He punched the speaker button. “What is it now, Charlene?”
