The Man She Almost Married

by Maggie Price

  The rational part of her, the part that was pure professional, struggled to figure out what was going on inside her. She shouldn’t think about Sloan, not in any context other than the investigation. She shouldn’t. But she did. For the past two days—from the moment he’d taken her in his arms and feasted on her mouth—she’d thought of him constantly. Only him.

  “Damn,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper.

  Although he stood only inches from her, Sloan wasn’t sure if Julia had spoken...or merely expelled a soft moan.

  He remained silent, studying the intriguing lines of her profile while she stared into the depths of a foam cup as if every answer she’d ever sought were inside. After a moment, she crushed the cup beneath her fingers and gazed out at the chapel’s parking lot, looking defeated and miserable... and gorgeous.

  He dragged in a slow breath. There wasn’t a man alive who could have resisted the sight of her at this instant—the way the morning sunlight glistened against the sleek fall of dark hair, the way cool shadows lengthened the elegant curve of her throat, the way she looked unaccountably soft and fragile in her trim, black coatdress.

  Her hand rose, swiped back an errant curl off a cheek that seemed too pale.

  Sloan narrowed his gaze. Despite her sunglasses, he could see the smudged shadows and small lines of fatigue at the corners of her eyes.

  Because he wanted to touch her, soothe her, he dipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks before stepping forward.

  “’Morning, Julia,” he said quietly.

  She swung around, her thick, dark hair swirling with the movement. The impression of fragility vanished as she stared up at him, her mouth tight. Annoyance, he judged, from his having come so close without her hearing.

  “Sloan,” she said, then dropped the remnants of the cup into her purse.

  He gave the crushed foam a glance before lifting his eyes back to hers. “Do you attend the funeral of all your murder victims?”

  “I go where the job takes me.”

  His lips curved. “I was thinking that very thing about you the other day. Wondering, actually, if a murder suspect left town, would you follow him?”

  Her shoulders stiffened. “If you leave, I’ll send Halliday after you.”

  “I’ll stay put then,” he said easily.

  She stared at him for a long moment. “Wise decision,” she said, then looked back at the parking lot that had filled to near capacity.

  Sloan followed her gaze. “Waiting for someone?”

  “My partner.”

  “Speaking of Halliday, my lawyer said he called yesterday. I understand I can pick up my guns.”

  Again, she raised a hand, this time to rub at her right temple. “None of them is the murder weapon.”

  “I know.” He cocked his head. “You knew that, too, before you raided my house.”

  “It wasn’t a raid. And I doubt you’d have shot Vanessa with a gun registered to yourself.”

  “I didn’t shoot her.”

  “Not with any of the guns you turned over. Are there others, Sloan?” she asked, turning to face him. “Do you own any unregistered .22s?”

  “No. You look exhausted, Julia. Have you been up all night?”

  “I’m working two unsolved homicides. They take time.”

  He took a step closer, breathed in the warm scent of Obsession that rose from her sun-heated skin. The fatigue. in her eyes, the weary curve of her shoulders pulled at him.

  “Has it once crossed your mind that I’m as interested as you in finding the person who killed Vanessa?”

  “That’s either you or one of your employees.”

  “An employee.” Anger, deep and dark, stirred inside him over the fact she considered him capable of murder. He paused, using well-honed control to bank down on the emotion.

  “I’m aware that one of my employees pulled the trigger,” he continued in an even voice. “The rest of my staff knows it, too. Try to imagine five hundred people working in the same building, all eyeing one another with suspicion. Doesn’t promote a serene environment.” Again he paused, took in the small lines of weariness at the corners of her mouth. “Not knowing the killer’s identity obviously doesn’t do anything for your peace of mind, either.”

  Her expression sharpened. “You want to help ease my peace of mind, Sloan?”

  “There’s nothing I’d like better.”

  “Use your connections. Get a copy of the guest list from the museum fund-raiser you and Vanessa attended.”

  His brows rose. “You can’t get it?”

  “I will, eventually. Certain...people think our uppercrust citizens will take offense if the police ask if they gave a woman a ride hours before her murder.”

  “Imagine that,” Sloan said mildly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Fine,” she said, her lips giving a bitter twist of a smile. “You get the list, maybe I’ll nominate you for a crimestopper’s award.”

  The hard edge to her voice touched someplace deep inside him. For reasons he hadn’t wanted to examine, it had become very important that she not spend the rest of her life hating him.

  He leaned in. “Julia, what happened between us the other day—”

  “Was a mistake,” she shot back.

  “I agree.”

  He caught her elbow before she could turn away, then waited until those dark-as-midnight eyes came back to his. “A pleasurable mistake,” he amended softly. He felt her stiffen and he tightened his fingers to keep her where she was until he’d had his say. “One I’ll always remember. For the rest of my life, I’ll remember everything about you. About us.”

  “Sloan, don’t—”

  “You were too young to be a widow, Jules. Too good a cop to sacrifice your career.” His hand gentled its hold on her arm. “Too full of life to die. I hope someday you’ll understand that I did what I believed was right.”

  She closed her eyes, and he could guess all too well the images playing through her mind. Of him telling her he’d lied when he said he loved her. Of the agonized tears she’d shed on his best friend’s shoulder. Of the bitter betrayal she’d surely felt. Still felt.

  His jaw set. He wanted so much more than just to pull her into his arms and taste that luscious mouth again. He wanted to tell her that without her, he was less than complete. Tell her he would never be fulfilled with her gone from his life. Tell her how much he had, and still did, cherish her.

  Burned to tell her he loved her.

  A vicious case of frustration had him balling his free hand into a fist. “Julia—”

  A sharp blast on a horn brought his gaze up and had Julia turning toward the parking lot. Sloan saw the detective’s cruiser parked against the curb, took in Halliday’s sharp, assessing expression as he stood in the vee of the car’s open door.

  “Sloan, let go.” Her voice trembled. “Just let go.”

  This time when she stiffened her arm, he let her pull away.

  “One more thing, Jules.”

  She hesitated before lifting her eyes to his. “What?”

  “Get some sleep,” he said softly.

  The minute she slid into the passenger seat beside Halliday, Julia’s stomach muscles began to tremble.

  “What the hell’s going on with you and Remington?”

  “Nothing,” she said, thankful the weakness that had overtaken her entire body didn’t sound in her voice. She leaned and aimed the vent so that cold air blasted her heated face.

  “It looked like something,” Halliday insisted. “It looked like...” He scowled. “Hell, I don’t know.”

  Refusing to meet his gaze, she glanced across her shoulder into the back seat. “I just took two aspirin on an empty stomach. Where’s the bakery bag?”

  “Pam ate everything. Have you forgotten that your exfiance is a murder suspect?”

  “Not for a damn minute.”

  “Then why the hell don’t you act like it?”

  Julia winced. The question stung. Especiall
y since there was some truth to it. “Save the lecture, Halliday,” she shot back. “We come to these things to observe whoever shows up—”

  “Observe, Cruze. Not stand around while a suspect clamps a hand on your elbow and—”

  “If you hadn’t been late, I wouldn’t have been standing on the sidewalk when Sloan...”

  She held up a hand that wasn’t quite steady and took a firm grip on her composure. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a headache that could make an elephant scream. I spent most of last night poring over reports on our other case—”

  “You should have called me. I’d have burned the midnight oil with you.”

  “Sure thing. Pam will go into labor any time, and you want to spend the night sitting around the station, reading reports with me. Get real, Halliday.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. His eyes widened behind his wire-rim glasses. “Look, I’m late because Kelly caught me right when I was leaving the station. He broke through the access code on Vanessa’s disks.”

  Julia’s instincts came up like radar. “It’s about time,” she said, shoving her hair across her shoulders. “What’s on them?”

  “Personnel records,” Halliday said, pulling a printout from the briefcase that sat on the seat between them.

  “Personnel records?”

  “Of every Remington employee in this city.” He pulled two additional printouts from the briefcase’s depths. “Also every employee in Houston, and the ones in San Francisco.”

  “Personnel records,” Julia repeated as she began leafing through pages. “From all three Remington offices where Vanessa worked.”

  “Suppose she was into blackmail?” Halliday asked.

  “From what we know of her, I wouldn’t doubt it. Once you’ve got someone’s birth date and social security number, they’re yours.” Julia paused. “Halliday, do you think it’s just a coincidence that Don Smithson, the head of personnel, found Vanessa’s body?”

  He stretched his arm across the top of the seat. “I don’t believe much in coincidence.”

  “Me, either.”

  “You need to remember something, Julia.”

  “What?”

  “There’s another person who has full access to the company’s personnel records.”

  She lifted her gaze from the printout. “Sloan.”

  “Yeah. For whatever reason, Remington could have given her access to the information.”

  “That wouldn’t have been smart.”

  “Murder isn’t smart. People do it anyway.”

  Julia pulled off her sunglasses, rubbed at the persistent ache in her temple. “I don’t think Sloan killed her.”

  “You don’t think he killed her,” Halliday repeated quietly. “Or you don’t want your former fiancé to wind up behind bars?”

  Her chin came up. “My past with Sloan has nothing to do with my beliefs about the case.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, Julia, let’s look at what we’ve got on Remington. He was in that parking garage the same time as Vanessa. He’s an excellent shot—you said so yourself. The night before she died, she threatened to ruin him and his company. That gives Remington the opportunity, the means and the motive for murder.”

  “I agree. But my instincts tell me he’s innocent.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I do.”

  “Maybe you do,” he said carefully. “A cop’s instinct alone has solved more than one case. But you sure as hell can’t prove Remington’s innocent, and that’s what matters.”

  She turned her head and stared out the passenger window. Sloan was still on the sidewalk where she’d left him, talking now to a man and woman clad in black. Could any other man brush accusations of murder off like dust and still look so in control, so completely confident? Julia wondered. Sloan’s impeccable black silk suit and sedate tie lent a distinguished air, but the aura of strength came from the man himself. It showed in those dark, unfathomable eyes, in the firm line of his mouth, in the assured set of his broad shoulders. While she watched, a gust of wind whipped his dark hair into his eyes. Lifting a hand, Sloan smoothed his hair in an achingly familiar gesture that put a knot in her chest.

  She closed her eyes. Emotionally, she was in trouble. Terrible trouble. Why else would she have asked him to get the museum’s guest list? Doing so had been inappropriate for all sorts of reasons. But, dammit, the mayor had sent orders that blocked their obtaining a warrant to serve on the art museum. She had to do something to knock the investigation off high center. Had to find proof of Sloan’s innocence.

  The thought had her groaning inwardly. She was more than just in trouble. She was lost.

  “Julia, you going to stare out that window all day?” Halliday asked.

  “I can’t prove Sloan’s innocence,” she said, looking back at her partner. “I also can’t prove his guilt. Can you?” Halliday expelled a slow breath. “You know I can’t.”

  She lifted the printout. “Vanessa had personnel records. The director of personnel claims he discovered her dead in the garage. We found a personnel service pin at the crime scene. Vanessa was seeing someone she identified by the initial ’S.‘ I don’t know about you, but I’m itching for the funeral to be over so we can talk to Mr. Smithson.”

  Halliday’s mouth quirked up on one side as his gaze swept the parking lot. “Nothing like starting the day by screwing up some citizen’s schedule. Have you seen Smithson?”

  Julia nodded, her gaze following his out the windshield. “Earlier,” she said, surveying the sidewalk. “He was in front of the chapel. I don’t see him now.”

  “He must be inside.”

  “We’ll get him just as soon as the service ends,” she said, then shoved open the car door.

  “My plane just got in,” Rick Fox said as he approached Sloan on the sidewalk and offered his hand. “I wasn’t sure I’d get here in time. Too bad the corporate jet is down for maintenance.”

  Sloan nodded. “Is the problem in San Francisco taken care of?”

  “I think so. I’ve ordered more security cameras for our production facility and new badging procedures. If we don’t nab our thief that way, I’ll put a man undercover on the inside.”

  “Fine.” Sloan turned his gaze back to the parking lot, his mind veering from business as the doors to the detective cruiser swung open. A long length of black-stockinged leg appeared, then Julia stepped into the sunlight. Halliday came around the car to join her. As they spoke, she hooked her badge onto the belt of her black dress. Turning in unison, they headed toward the chapel.

  Rick’s gaze tracked them. “I don’t have to ask what your mind’s on.”

  Sloan’s mood darkened. “I think about her all the time.”

  “You might want to tell her that.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “She’s not married yet.”

  Sloan watched as Julia’s light steps took her up the granite steps, then through the chapel’s carved doors. “Whether she’s married or not isn’t the point.”

  “Right, your health is.” Rick slanted him a look. “You look healthy to me, Sloan. The doc said so himself after your last checkup. Hell, you’ll probably outlive us all.”

  The echo of an unwelcome memory settled around Sloan, stirring glimpses of nondescript exam rooms and grim-faced doctors detailing even grimmer odds for his survival. Too many doctors...too few odds. No, he shouldn’t—wouldn’t—question the decision he’d made two years ago. He’d walked away to keep Julia safe, to spare her grief. And he’d stayed away after he recovered because she’d gotten on with her life and sure as hell didn’t need him dragging her down. Walking away—and staying away—had been the right thing.

  Let go, he told himself. Just let go.

  He looked at Rick. “Now that you’re back, I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Do you know how Vanessa got home from the art museum?”

  Rick blinked. �
��To tell you the truth, I never thought about it. I guess I figured she cooled off after she let you have it, then you gave her a ride home.”

  “I didn’t. I looked for her when I was ready to go, but she’d left. So had you, for that matter. I thought maybe you’d given her a lift.”

  Rick gave a short laugh and slid a hand into the pocket of his slacks. “C’mon, Sloan, you know I couldn’t stand Vanessa.”

  “That doesn’t mean you didn’t drive her home.”

  “Guess not. Actually, I took off about half an hour after the two of you had your run-in. I looked for you to tell you I was leaving—found you, in fact. You were in the middle of a conversation with a good-looking brunette wearing red sequins.”

  Sloan thought back. “The museum director’s wife.” He frowned. He had no idea what time he’d talked to the woman.

  “Whoever she was, I didn’t want to interrupt.” Rick raised a shoulder. “Vanessa probably called a cab.”

  “The police say she didn’t.”

  “The police, meaning Julia?”

  “Yes.” Sloan rubbed at the knotted muscles in the back of his neck. “Julia.”

  Rick nodded. “Interesting, isn’t it, how everything circles back to her?”

  Julia’s senses sharpened like a lens coming into focus when Halliday escorted Remington’s personnel director into the plush carpeted, velvet-draped waiting room the chapel staff had made available.

  Although he was pale and wary eyed, little resemblance remained to the trembling, green-complected man she’d interviewed in the parking garage four days ago. Now Don Smithson stood before her tall and erect, his carefully brushed iron-gray hair a striking frame for his strong, square jaw.

  “Mr. Smithson, we need to ask you a few questions.”

  “I’m planning on attending the grave-side service.” He gave a sharp look across his shoulder when Halliday closed the door behind them. “Can’t your questions wait?”

  “No,” Julia answered. Although several comfortable-looking chairs dotted the room, she’d chosen to remain standing beside the small, cherry-wood writing desk. “But if you cooperate,” she added, “you should make it to the cemetery in time.”