by Pamela Clare
Suzannah’s lips thinned, along with her patience. Was a little open-mindedness from the press too much to ask? “What would bother me is to see a conviction entered on the quality of the evidence we saw today. My client deserved to be acquitted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a schedule to keep.”
A minute later, she descended the steps of the Justice Building and crossed the parking lot. The sun had already begun to dip behind the tallest buildings, casting long shadows. Even so, heat rose from the asphalt in shimmering waves.
All of southern New Brunswick had been gripped in a heat wave since the July 1st Canada Day holiday. Like the rest of her pasty-faced compatriots, Suzannah had welcomed the first real taste of summer. Now, almost three weeks later, she cursed the humidity that made perspiration bead between her breasts before she’d even reached her car.
She thought briefly about stowing her case in the BMW’s trunk, but decided that would require too much effort. Instead, she hit the button on her remote to release the door locks. She opened the back door on the driver’s side and tossed the garment bag onto the back seat. She’d started to swing the heavy bag into the vehicle when a flash of color from the front passenger seat caught her eye. She lost her grip on the handles, and the bag collided with the car’s frame and thudded to the pavement.
Oh, God, no. Not again.
*
“Can I give you a hand with that?”
She seemed to just about come out of her skin at his words, whirling to face him. Wide blue eyes locked onto him, and for an instant, Quigg saw fear. Not surprise. Not your garden variety momentary fright when someone startled you. This was real, raw fear. Then it was gone, and she wore her smooth Princess face again.
“Thank you, no. I can manage.”
Her voice was cool, polite, completely assured. Had he imagined the blaze of fear?
Bending, she righted the briefcase, deposited it on the car’s seat and closed the door. She must have expected him to move on, or at least to step back, because when she turned, she wound up standing considerably closer than before. Closer than was comfortable for her. He could see it in the quick lift of her brows, the slight widening of her eyes. But she didn’t step back.
Neither did he.
Damn, she was beautiful. And tall. In those three inch heels that probably cost more than he made in a week, her gaze was level with his. Throw in all that long blond hair that would slide like silk through a man’s hands, and a body that would…
“You’re that cop.”
He blinked. “That cop?”
“Regina vs. Rosneau.”
“Good memory.” They’d secured a conviction on that one, but her client had taken a walk on appeal. Though in truth, Quigg hadn’t minded over much. The dirtball had done it, all right, but strictly speaking, the evidence had been a bit thin. One of those fifty/fifty propositions.
“Regina vs. Haynes. That was you, too, right?”
Okay, dammit, that one still stung, although the insult was almost two years old now. Two defendants, separate trials, separate representation, each accused managing to convince a jury the other guy’d done it. Of course, Quigg could take consolation from knowing the noose was closing yet again around Ricky Haynes’ good-for-nothing drug-dealing neck. Haynes had since moved outside the city limits, beyond municipal jurisdiction, but Quigg had it on good authority that the Mounties were building a rock-solid case against him.
Yes, he could take some consolation in that. Some small consolation. Not enough, however, to blunt the slow burn in his gut right now.
“Keep a scrapbook, do you, Ms. Phelps? Or maybe you cut a notch in your little Gucci belt, one for every cop you skewer?”
Something that looked astonishingly like hurt flashed in her eyes, but like before, it was gone before he could be certain he’d really seen it. Then she stepped even closer and smiled, a slow, knowing smile that made him think about skin sliding against skin and sweat-slicked bodies fusing in the dark, and he knew he’d been mistaken. When she extended a slender, ringless finger to trace a circle around a button on his shirt, his heart stumbled, then began to pound.
“Definitely not the belt thing,” she said, her voice as husky and honeyed as his most sex-drenched fantasy. “At the rate you guys self-destruct under cross, there’d be nothing left to hold my trousers up, would there, now, John?”
Then she climbed in her gleaming little Beemer and drove off before his hormone-addled brain divorced her words from her manner and realized he’d been dissed.
Against all reason, he laughed. Lord knew it wasn’t funny. Certainly, young Langan wouldn’t share his mirth.
Of course, the whole thing defied reason, the way it twisted his guts just to look at her. She was rich. She was beautiful. She was sophisticated. She was the daughter of a judge, from a long line of judges. She was … what? He searched his admittedly limited lexicon for an appropriate term. Kennedy-esque.
Meanwhile, his own father had worked in a saw mill; his mother had cleaned other people’s houses. Suzannah Phelps was so far out of his league, there wasn’t even a real word for it.
She was also the woman not-so-affectionately known around the station house as She-Rex. And worse.
Much worse.
Except she hadn’t looked much like a She-Rex when she’d spun around to face him, her face all pale and frightened.
Quigg turned and headed for Queen Street, where he’d parked his car. What had spooked her? Not his sudden appearance. He was sure of that. She might not have much use for cops, but she wasn’t scared of him.
Maybe it was something inside her car.
He’d reached his own car, which sprouted a yellow parking ticket from beneath the windshield wiper. Great. He glanced up, searching traffic. There she was, at the lights a block away.
What could be in her car to make her look like that? Or was he completely off base? Was it a guilty start, not a frightened start? Hard to say. She’d masked it so quickly.
Damn, he was going to have to follow her.
Climbing into his not-so-shiny Taurus, he fired it up, signaled and pulled into traffic.
Even at this hour with the first of the home-bound traffic leaving the downtown core, tailing her was child’s play. As he expected, she headed back to her office. No knocking off early for Suzannah Phelps. She probably put in longer days than he did. Two blocks from her uptown offices, she pulled into another office building’s parking lot. Quigg guided his vehicle into the gas bar next door and watched Suzannah drive to the back of the lot where she parked next to a blue dumpster.
Pretending to consult a map he’d pulled from his glove compartment, Quigg watched her get out of the car and scan the lot. Then she circled the BMW, opened the passenger door and pulled something out. The car itself blocked Quigg’s view, but he saw a flash of mauvey/pinky floral patterned paper. Then she lifted the dumpster’s lid and tossed the object in. Quickly, she rounded the car, climbed in and accelerated out of the lot.
Quigg watched her vehicle travel east along Prospect. When she signaled and turned into her office’s parking lot, he slipped his own car into gear. Thirty seconds later, he lifted the lid to the dumpster.
Flowers? She’d been scared witless by flowers?
More likely by who sent the flowers, he reasoned. Maybe they still had a card attached. Out of habit, he patted his pockets for latex gloves before remembering he didn’t have any on him. He wasn’t on duty. He had some in a first aid kit in his car, but he wasn’t about to dig them out. This wasn’t an investigation.
Well, not a sanctioned one.
Grimacing, he retrieved the prettily wrapped bouquet with his bare hands. The florist’s paper appeared pristine, undisturbed, as though Suzannah hadn’t even looked at the contents. Carefully, he peeled the paper back. Then he dropped the bouquet back into the dumpster.
Holy hell! Long-stemmed red roses. Or rather, what he suspected used to be red roses. Now they were more brown than red. Rusty, like old blood. Dead
. Probably a dozen of them.
His mind whirled. How had she known? She hadn’t even opened the wrapper.
Because it wasn’t the first time, obviously.
Because they’d been deposited in her car, right there in the barristers’ parking lot, while she was inside defending Leo Warren. While a commissionaire kept an eye on the lot. While her car doors had no doubt been locked.
No wonder she’d been spooked.
He picked up the bouquet again and examined it closer. No card. There’s a surprise, Sherlock.
Why hadn’t she told him? She knew he was a cop.
Domestic. The answer came instantly. Had to be. She knew the source, but wasn’t prepared to make a complaint because she didn’t want to make trouble for the jerk who’d done this, thereby increasing his rage. How many times had he seen that age-old dynamic in operation?
Except he hadn’t expected it from Suzannah. She was too much of a fighter. What could be going on in her head?
Quigg tossed the bouquet back in the dumpster and closed the lid. Climbing back into the Taurus, he sat for long moments.
He should leave this alone. He knew it.
He also knew he wasn’t going to.
“This, you dumb-ass, is how careers are ruined.”
But she’d called him John. Back there, outside the courthouse, she’d called him by his Christian name. Nobody called him John, except his mother. It was Quigg, or Detective Quigley, or Officer, or even Hey, pig! But back there, while her index finger had traced delicate circles on his chest, she’d called him John.
Stifling a sigh, he keyed the ignition and slipped the Ford into gear.
Chapter Two
That did it.
Suzannah plunked her champagne glass down with enough force to bring a server scurrying to assure himself of the health of both the Waterford flute and the Chippendale sideboard.
John Quigley. Not only was he here at this exclusive New Brunswick Day bash, but he was standing there beneath the chandelier, flirting shamelessly with the Lieutenant Governor.
Dear God, he was good looking when he smiled like that.
Not that he didn’t look pretty good all the time. Not handsome—no one, even at their most generous, would call him that. His face was way too strong. And his clothing always looked so … disheveled.
She studied him under the brilliant lights. His close-cut hair, a kind of sandy color that was neither brown nor blond, sprang back from a high forehead. His hairline had begun to recede just the slightest bit, but it seemed to Suzannah that it only served to offset the brutally masculine planes of his face, all taut skin stretched over strong bones. Eyes that were more grey than blue, straight nose. Really, really good mouth…
Her lips thinned as she realized the detour her thoughts had taken. From all appearances, this man was practically stalking her, for goodness sake, and here she was mooning over his mouth.
“Another champagne cocktail, madam?”
She didn’t lift her gaze from the pair under the chandelier. “No, thank you. I have to be going, actually.”
“Then let me fetch your wrap.”
She smiled at the server then. “Thank you.” Digging a coat check from her tiny evening bag, she handed it to him. He melted away with the grace of a professional who took pride in his job. When she looked up again, her gaze collided with Detective Quigley’s.
A third party, an older man, had joined them beneath the chandelier, and was currently monopolizing the Lieutenant Governor. Detective Quigley nodded agreeably at something the man said, but he held Suzannah’s gaze for long seconds.
Suzannah’s breath stalled in her lungs. Good Lord! She swore she could feel the brush of that gray-blue gaze on the sensitive skin of her shoulders, left bare by the Donna Karan sheath she’d chosen. Then he shifted his attention back to the Lieutenant Governor, who was speaking to him.
Suzannah let her breath out in a rush.
To hell with waiting. She was going in search of her wrap.
Two minutes later, she handed her keys to the valet and pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. The heat wave still hadn’t broken, but with the slight breeze from the river, it was cool enough tonight that she was grateful for the cobweb-thin material.
“Leaving so soon?”
She didn’t start at his voice. On some level, she must have known he’d follow her out here. She turned to face him, an odd sense of exhilaration revving her pulse rate.
“Are you following me, Detective?”
Good Lord, was that her voice? It sounded way too sexy, too sultry.
“I liked John better.”
She felt her face heat at that velvet-voiced reminder of her parting shot the last time they’d spoken. “Answer the question, Detective.”
He loosened his tie and undid the top buttons of his white shirt, then cricked his neck one way, then the other. “Ah, that’s better. Now, what makes you think I’m following you?”
Her mouth suddenly dry, she swallowed, keeping her gaze on his face, away from the rumpled sexiness of his shirt. What in God’s name was wrong with her?
“Hmmmm, let me see—maybe because after not laying eyes on you outside a courtroom until the other day in the parking lot, I’m now seeing you everywhere I go.”
He slid his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned back against one of the building’s impressive pillars. “Everywhere? Surely not.”
“The theater?”
He grinned. “Good play, wasn’t it?”
“The exhibit opening at the art gallery?”
The twin grooves on either side of his mouth deepened. “What, you don’t take me for a fan of art?”
She snorted. “Of the poker-playing-dog variety, maybe.”
He laughed, a deep, surprising rumble that made a sensation flutter in her stomach. Dammit, she was supposed to be lambasting him for trailing around after her. Except it was a little … flattering.
“Madam?”
She glanced up to see the valet had returned, without her car.
“I’m afraid you have car trouble,” he said, handing her the keys.
She closed her eyes, exhaling. “Tires?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful.”
*
She looked so thoroughly disheartened, way beyond what a flat tire should cause. “Relax, Princess.” He pushed away from the pillar. “I’ll change your tire, have you on your way in five minutes.”
“Don’t bother,” she clipped. “I’ll call CAA.”
“Hey, I can handle this. Besides, with any luck, I’ll get dirt or grease all over me and won’t have to go back in there.” He indicated stately Old Government House with a nod of his head.
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t have room in my trunk for four spares.”
“Four?” He blinked at her. “They can’t all be flat.”
“They can if they’ve been slashed.”
Quigg shot a look at the valet, who nodded a confirmation, then retreated back to his station.
He gripped her elbow. “What’s going on, Suzannah?”
Calmly, she removed her arm from his grip. “Nothing that’s not par for the course, Detective.”
“Jesus, your tires are slashed and you don’t even bat an eyelash?”
She opened her ridiculously tiny beaded purse and pulled out an even tinier cell phone. Seconds later, she was talking to the CAA dispatcher. Cripes, she had the auto association on her speed dial? He listened as she gave her situation and her location.
“Wanna explain what’s going on here?” he asked as she tucked the phone away again.
She shrugged, an elegant lift of the shoulder. “Just the cost of doing a little criminal Legal Aid in this town.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? And why wasn’t your first call to the cops, especially if this isn’t the first time it’s happened?”
“The police.” She laughed, a surprisingly grating sound that lacked re
al amusement. “Yeah, that’d work.”
Quigg sucked a breath in through his teeth. “You think cops did this?”
She arched a delicate eyebrow. “Congratulations, Detective. I’ll bet you graduated top of your class.”
“No.”
“No? Gosh, with those deductive powers, I’d have –”
He stepped closer. “No, it wasn’t a cop who did this.”
Her bosom lifted on a long inhalation, but she didn’t huff out an impatient sigh as he half expected.
“Look, I’ve been around the block a few times, Detective. I know I haven’t endeared myself to you guys. I also know you stick together –”
“But not like this –”
“Hey, I understand. Really. The blue wall. You’re charged with enforcing what amounts to a pretty puritanical code, one that abhors improprieties like drunkenness or lewdness. So you avoid those social situations where you might make a hypocrite of yourself. Then, before you know it, your social sphere includes nothing but other cops.”
“Can I just say –”
“It’s okay. I totally get it. You put that uniform on, that badge, and it isolates you from your friends, from your community, even from the legal system. Which sets up the us/them solidarity thing. So when a guy gets a rough ride from me on the stand, of course the rest of you are going to empathize pretty strongly with him.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phelps, for that lesson on police sub-culture. But read my lips—it wasn’t one of us slashed your tires.”
Judging from the exasperated noise she made, the patience she was trying so hard to project had finally reached its limits. “Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me you think every cop on your force is above this kind of dirty trick? That they wouldn’t slash a tire or two to get their point across?”
“How could I? I don’t even know some of the guys, except to nod at them. But I think it’s more likely this was done by your dead-flower delivery man.”
“What did you say?” Her tone was suddenly sharp.
“I said, this is more likely the handiwork of your FTD psycho, and I’m damn sure he’s not a cop.”
