Dangerous Kisses (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Ramagos, Tonya

  Megan’s hand wanted to shake as she turned the knife to get a better look at the handle. The letters D and R had been etched into the end cap. She gulped and met his gaze again. “Tell me you dropped this.”

  Except, that wouldn’t help, would it? Obviously, the knife had been dropped, slipping perfectly between the grates to stab into the crack in the concrete. That explained how it got there. What it didn’t explain was the blood.

  “I didn’t drop it.”

  God, was it her imagine putting that dangerous inflection in his voice?

  Please, let it be my imagination.

  “I loaned that knife to Robert a couple of weeks ago.” Drake spoke calmly, steadily holding her gaze. “I haven’t seen it since.”

  Should I believe him? She wanted to. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she wanted nothing more than to believe him.

  “Didn’t Robert have his own knife?”

  Drake scoffed. “Come on, Megan. You know what a dumbass he is. He lost it somewhere. Hell, for all I know he left it at home and kept forgetting to bring it to work with him. He came to me one day, said he didn’t have his, and asked to borrow mine. I let him and I haven’t seen the knife since.”

  “There’s blood on it.”

  “You and I both know it’s not necessarily human blood. Everything in this place bleeds, Megan.”

  True, but her instincts were screaming she couldn’t dismiss it as coincidence. A knife caked with blood found next to a shark tank where a man had lost his life less than twenty-four hours before. If Paul had been stabbed then pushed into that tank, the blood from the wound would have attracted the shark and prompted him to attack. It would also explain why the shark had attacked Paul’s midsection rather than an arm or a leg.

  Drake took a step toward her, reached for her, and she took an involuntary step back. A thinly veiled anger bolted through a sea of disbelief in his eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he dropped his hand and stared at her. “You don’t believe me.”

  “What I’m starting to believe is that Paul’s death wasn’t an accident,” she said coolly, despite the emotions clambering inside her.

  Drake nodded once. “Call Cusack. Turn the knife over as evidence and have the blood analyzed. It’s the only way we’ll know for sure.”

  Is it, or do you already know?

  Megan looked away, shutting off the thought. She couldn’t be face-to-face with a murderer. Drake had loved Paul. He wouldn’t have killed him. Would he?

  She thought about Robert, of the fight she had witnessed between Paul and his nephew yesterday. She remembered the fury in Robert’s eyes, the threat that had been his parting words.

  You’re the one that’s going to regret this, Uncle Paul. I’ll make sure of it.

  Had Robert made good on that threat? She knew the man was a screwup, but that didn’t make him capable of murder.

  “I need something to put this in.” She adjusted her grip on the knife, holding it firmly between her thumb and forefinger, hoping she hadn’t already tainted the evidence by smudging any other fingerprints that might have been on the handle. “And my cell phone. Did Brandon leave?”

  Her sole focus the last few hours had been on the job she had been performing. She remembered catching tidbits of a conversation between Brandon and Drake, something about Brandon needing to take care of some other business. A cursory glance around the room told her the man was no longer there with them.

  “About two hours ago,” Drake confirmed.

  “Get Tracey and Mark back in here. No one else leaves this place, and no one touches anything.”

  She started to turn when Drake grabbed her upper arm. Reflexively, she stiffened. Her gaze dropped to his hand. She had yearned to feel his hands on her for so very long, had always gotten a jolt of desire that rocked her system all the way to her core at the slightest contact. The heated sensations she felt this time came with a heavy dose of apprehension. Was that the hand of the lover she couldn’t stop herself from wanting or that of a cold-blooded killer?

  “I didn’t kill him, Megan,” he told her softly.

  She wanted to tell him she knew that. She wanted to believe him. She stared at him, saw the hardness in his expression, the ferocity in his return gaze, and couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “I’m calling Cusack.”

  He let her go, and she walked away, working with each step to separate her heart from her mind, at least until she knew the truth.

  * * * *

  Drake crossed his arms and studied Megan as she talked with Jerry Cusack across the room. Cusack didn’t believe him. That didn’t come as a surprise. The fact that the man hadn’t already slapped the cuffs around Drake’s wrists and charged him with first-degree murder did, especially given their track record.

  Drake had never told Megan about the heated words he’d had with Cusack. The man was good, observant, and had picked up on Drake’s attraction to Megan in a heartbeat. He had called Drake on it, too, and told him in no uncertain terms to keep the fuck away from her. Drake had responded by telling the man he would do what he damn well pleased. He had ingested Cusack’s warning with a grain of salt. If Cusack had felt that threatened by him, then the man didn’t have the power over Megan he obviously thought he did. Their breakup shortly after his confrontation with Cusack had proved Drake right.

  Cusack wanted her back. They might be talking business right now, both of them in obvious investigative mode, but anyone with a pair of eyes could see Cusack’s desire for Megan still pumped strongly through the man’s veins.

  Hate it for you, buddy. She belongs to me now.

  The possessive thought came out of nowhere, and Drake shook his head at himself. One explosive kiss, one short dry hump against a wall, a few exotic seconds of having her under his control didn’t make her his. Hell, he didn’t even know if he wanted her to belong to him, not for more than a night or ten.

  He watched her take a half step closer to Cusack and jealousy, white-hot and primal, tightened a band in his chest. He recognized the feeling, though very few women had ever stirred the emotion so fiercely inside him. Maybe he shouldn’t be so hard on Cusack for the way he had been so invidious when he had been dating her, considering he was having the same feelings now. Insurmountable needs, familiar hungers, and alien sensations were starting to add up in his system, forming a potential conclusion he wasn’t quite ready to face. It didn’t seem possible that a few years of knowing her, of wanting her, coupled with scant moments of physical contact could touch places inside him no other woman had ever been able to reach.

  Drake couldn’t hear the conversation between Megan and Cusack, but he knew whatever he was feeling for Megan was the least of his worries right now. He didn’t need an FBI decoder ring to know he was the primary suspect in a probable homicide.

  “Have they found anything else?”

  Drake glanced to his left as Brandon stopped beside him. “Nothing that I know of.” All around them, a team of investigators were picking through the room, looking for more evidence that had been missed last night.

  “I spoke with one of the cops in the hallway. The security cameras didn’t pick up a thing. Surveillance was set to bypass this room, the hallway, and the back door for a good forty-five minutes, shortly before the attack until several minutes after.”

  “So whoever did this knew how to work the security system, how to program it to skip certain areas for a specified time.” Drake knew it could be done, but he didn’t have a clue how to do it himself. His skill with computers was laughable at best.

  “It looks like it.” Brandon raked a hand through his graying hair. “I was at Marie’s when you called me back here.”

  “Does she know?”

  “That Paul’s death wasn’t an accident? Yes, she picked up on it from my end of the conversation with you. She went from the grieving widow to the ice bitch in a blink.” He laughed, but there was no humor in the tone. “It was pretty amazing to watch.”

  “I take it she jumped to Robe
rt’s defense.”

  “Are you surprised?”

  “Not a bit.” Marie Colton protected her nephew at all costs, always turning a blind eye to his capriciousness.

  “Debbie was still here when I left last night. You let me out, and Paul was in here. There wasn’t anyone else in the building.”

  Drake leveled a hard glare on Brandon. “Someone was. I don’t know who. I don’t know how they got in. The back door is only accessible from the inside. What I do know is I didn’t kill him, and I doubt seriously Debbie did either.”

  How the hell he was going to prove that was an entirely different story.

  * * * *

  “You can’t arrest him on circumstantial evidence, Jerry.” Megan kept her voice low, but her tone was unyielding.

  “A murder weapon carved with his initials is hardly circumstantial,” Cusack argued.

  Megan gritted her teeth. “It is when the knife wasn’t in his possession at the time.”

  Cusack scoffed. “So he claims.” He ticked off points on his fingers. “He was one of the only two people here at the time of the attack. You found the knife, and we’re both certain when the lab results come back they will confirm that was Paul Colton’s blood. Back that up with an autopsy that will likely reveal a stab wound in addition to the shark bite, and we have an open-and-shut murder case.”

  Megan sighed. “It’s nowhere near that simple, and you know it.” She prayed it wasn’t that simple. She was defending Drake, putting herself on the line when a part of her wasn’t sure she believed in Drake’s innocence herself.

  “What I know is I have the facts staring me in the face.”

  “And the most obvious answer is usually the wrong one. Every cop with an ounce of investigative experience knows that.” She had been telling herself that almost since the moment she realized the knife belonged to Drake.

  In any other case, she would have gone with her gut. Her instincts very rarely steered her wrong. But her gut was twisted in knots, her instincts buried in a swarm of confusion and erotic desires.

  “He’s being framed, Jerry. Whoever did this wanted that knife found. They wanted us to believe Drake murdered Paul. It’s too perfect, too clean.”

  “I like perfect and clean. I’m taking him in, Megan.”

  “At least talk to Robert Warren first. And Debbie Norman. She was here last night, too. From what Drake said, she got to the tank first when she heard Paul’s scream.” And Drake had been returning from letting Brandon out the front door when he heard Debbie scream. He couldn’t have stabbed Paul, let Brandon out the door, and returned to the tank room in that amount of time.

  “From what Drake said,” Cusack repeated. “I thought you two weren’t together.”

  “We aren’t,” Megan said through gritted teeth.

  “You show up here this morning together. You’re protecting him now.” Cusack shook his head in obvious disgust. “Sure looks like you’ve got a thing going to me.”

  “My personal relationship with Drake, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with this. If I was trying to protect him, I wouldn’t have called you when I found the damn knife. What I’m doing is the job I’ve been trained to do.”

  Cusack’s brows winged up. “And I’m not?”

  “Not if you think you’re going to wrap up this case with the little evidence you have. Robert borrowed that knife. He threatened Paul yesterday mere hours before the attack. I heard the threat myself.”

  “You were here?” Cusack didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “It wasn’t relevant at the time. I left the department yesterday, went home to change, and came here to visit Paul. He was upset. The aquarium is in financial trouble. Two of his partners want to sell out to a casino firm out of Vegas. Then he found out about the temperature problem with the shark tank. When you think about it, you have more suspects than you can count on one hand, and any one of them could’ve gotten in here last night without Drake or Debbie knowing a thing.”

  “How? The only point of entrance that wasn’t covered by the security cameras is the back door that can only be opened from the inside. If your sweetheart didn’t do it, then he’s an accomplice. Hell, for all I know, he and Debbie were both in on it. There wasn’t anyone else here to dispute that.”

  Megan let the “sweetheart” jab slide. “And there’s no concrete evidence to support it either. I want this case.”

  “You’re on vacation, and you’re too damn close to this case to investigate it with a clear head.”

  Megan gaped at him. “Like you’re investigating it with a clear head. You don’t like Drake. You never have. You’re a breath away from arresting him now, and you haven’t done a thing to see if his story checks out.”

  “I fully intend to check out his story.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “And I intend to start by tracking down Robert Warren.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No, you’re not. I let you in here today because you know this place, you know how to do the job that needed to be done. You’re here unofficially, and it’s going to stay that way.”

  Megan shrugged. “Fine, then I’ll talk to Robert myself later. You can’t control what I do on vacation, Sergeant.”

  “I can get you for interfering in an investigation, Detective,” he countered hotly.

  “Then get me. I’m not backing away from this. Paul was a close friend, and I’m going to find out the truth about what happened to him, whatever that truth might be.”

  “Even if it turns out that your honey is the murderer after all.”

  “Even if it turns out that Drake is our killer.”

  Chapter Four

  Drake watched Megan spin away from Cusack. She stomped his direction, her muscles tight, her movements jerky, and her expression cold as ice. Yeah, no doubt about it, the woman was pissed and sexy as hell in her anger.

  “When they finish combing this place, you’ll be allowed to move the fish back to the main tank. I’ve told Cusack it will have to be done. They don’t need to stay in the holding tank any longer than necessary.”

  Drake nodded, studying her. She was all business, her emotions guarded, her tone revealing nothing. “Okay.”

  “Can you handle the job without me? You’ll have Tracey and Mark here to help.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To check out your story.”

  “You think I did it, don’t you?” He had noticed the way she had backed up from him after he told her the knife belonged to him. She hadn’t said anything when he told her he didn’t kill Paul, either. He searched her eyes for something that would tell him what she was thinking, but the wall she had slammed into place hid her thoughts well. The woman was good. He would give her that. He had always been able to read her like a book, easily picking up on her attraction to him, never once doubting the dark passion she craved and her fears of giving into those hungers. But, when it came to reading her now, the book was closed and padlocked shut.

  “I think I have a murder that needs investigating, and that’s what I’m about to do.”

  “Then Cusack isn’t taking me in yet?”

  “No, but he is stationing uniforms through the building. They will remain here while you finish up.”

  “Do I get to take them home with me, too?”

  “You’re not under surveillance, Drake, but I wouldn’t plan any spur-of-the-moment trips out of town.”

  “Spoken like a true detective.”

  Her lips actually twitched. “I am a true detective.”

  “Does that mean you’re officially off vacation?”

  “Not officially, but I’ve made it clear to Cusack that I’m not backing away from this.”

  “I should be done here by ten. Meet me at the bar in the Bicycle Club tonight.” Drake didn’t ask her. He told her. Whether or not she believed him, she apparently knew how to separate what they had started last night from the job stealing her focus now, and so could he.

/>   She stared at him for a long moment and he saw the wall lower, saw the heat return to her eyes. She swallowed, bowed her head, and laughed. When she looked at him again, the hunger was back, and he knew she wouldn’t say no.

  “I’ll be there.”

  * * * *

  Robert Warren lived on the sixth floor of the Gulf Towers apartment building directly across from the beach and a mere two miles down the strip from the M.P. Colton Aquarium. Megan studied the aging apartment building as she walked with Cusack through the lobby, past a small bar on the first floor, to the elevator that would take them up.

  “I’m not ending your vacation,” Cusack told her as the elevator doors swished closed. “I’ll let you dig on your own time. I’ll allow you to tag along with me. I’ll keep you in the loop, but this is my case, and it will remain that way. Anything you find out gets reported to me. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Megan glanced at him, knowing he wasn’t following protocol and surprised he wasn’t demanding she keep her nose out of the case. “And thanks.”

  “You would never use your position to cover for someone. I know that. You’re going to be driven to find Paul’s killer because he meant so much to you. I know that, too. I also realize you know more about the people involved than anyone in the department. I still think you’re too close to the case, but, at the same time, I believe you have a level enough head to use it right.”

  The elevator dinged as it stopped on the sixth floor, and the doors slid open. Cusack gestured for her to walk out first. The air in the hallway smelled musty. Dim lights cast shadows on chipped walls and stained carpet.

  She scanned the numbers on the apartment doors as she walked down the hall, noting more chipped paint, broken locks, and patched peepholes. Given the progression of the casinos flanking the building and the nicer structures overtaking the strip, she didn’t expect the Gulf Towers to be standing much longer unless the owners dove into a major overhaul.

  She stopped at apartment 629 and rapped sharply on the door. She heard shuffling from inside the apartment, voices speaking too low to be understood, and then the door opened with an eerie creak. Robert’s gaze landed on her first, and she noted the instant recognition in his eyes. His attention flicked to Cusack, the recognition twisting with a swirl of apprehension.