by Beverly Bird
“You’re impeding this investigation.”
Tessa gasped.
“Watch yourself, Detective,” Baum warned.
“The man’s a snake,” Gunner snapped. “And I can guarantee you that if he slides out of our grasp, I’m going to make damn sure that why and how become a matter of public record. He’s already disappeared from somewhere once.”
“Prove that,” Baum said tightly. “Prove it and I’ll—”
“We could have that bastard nailed by nightfall,” Gunner said, interrupting him. “A blood match could hold him over for trial, and by then the DNA will come in.”
“He’d get bail,” Baum snapped. “He could still disappear even after you got a blood match.”
“Maybe, but at least I wouldn’t be standing around and patting him on the back, smiling and watching him go.”
Baum stood up. “We’re finished here.”
“No. We’re finished when Christian Benami—or whoever the hell he is—is behind bars. We could close this case yesterday with your cooperation, just a little cooperation.”
“I’m going to choose to believe you’re not threatening me, Detective, if you’ll just leave promptly.”
Tessa felt something stiffen inside her. They all knew there was only one reason that Baum would make such a choice. She was present.
Gunner’s machismo was not going to take this well at all.
Tessa stood quickly. “Thank you. You can rest assured that we’ll be back.”
Baum’s gaze was unreadable as he turned his attention back to her. “Of course, I hope you are. I hope you can give me something with which to convict this man, assuming he is indeed Mrs. Benami’s killer. At the moment, that just seems like a long shot.”
Gunner vented a particularly descriptive expletive. Tessa flinched.
She left the office ahead of him, not looking back, only hoping against hope that he would follow her and not antagonize the judge any further. She heard Baum’s office door slam behind her. She wondered if Gunner had done it, or if it had been Baum.
When he caught up with her, one look at Gunner’s face told her the answer.
“Have a cigarette,” she said shortly. “Just smoke a cigarette, would you, please?”
He shot her a look as he lengthened his stride. “No.”
“No? I’m giving you carte blanche, Gunner. The deal’s off.”
“I’ve gotten this far. I’m not going to wimp out now.”
“Then get some of those patches, that gum, something, Gunner. Nicotine’s an addiction. And let me be the first to tell you, your withdrawal is foul.”
He stopped suddenly, turning toward her. Tessa took a wary, instinctive step backward at his expression. Her spine hit the wall. “What?”
He planted a hand against the plaster on either side of her head. “I’ll tell you what’s foul, Princess. Politics are foul. The haves getting away with murder while the have-nots just watch—that’s foul. And I’d be just as angry about it if I had a full load of pollution in my system. It’s wrong, damn it.”
“I see,” she said quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he growled.
It meant, she thought, that suddenly she understood him. He was nothing more—and nothing less—than an idealist. He really was a white knight—albeit with armor that was just a little tarnished. He had a staunch and unwavering sense of right and wrong.
Like her.
The difference, of course, was that she had been raised in a world where you handled it politely. Gunner, on the other hand, was strong willed, unabashed and unapologetic.
And definitely, incurably macho. She took a deep, careful breath.
“It means,” she said softly, “that where there’s power, there’s always someone around who’s willing to abuse it to get more.”
“All right,” he said just as quietly, but he made no move to step away from her.
He was close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. Close enough that she could feel the heat of him. Close enough that she could smell him, that woodsy cologne again, something virile, something strong. His broad chest was inches from her nose.
She tried for another breath and couldn’t quite get air this time.
“It means...” she began again, and noticed that her voice was a high-pitched squeak. She cleared her throat. “It means that we got from Baum exactly what we expected to get from him. It means that we’ll just have to work a little harder to show him up.”
Gunner realized he wasn’t really hearing her. He wasn’t thinking about Baum any longer. He was noticing the way her black hair curled behind her ear. And that tiny little diamond there. Classy. Understated. Pure Tessa Hadley-Bryant.
He caught a whiff of her again—that faintly floral aura. It filled his head and did odd things to his senses.
“We’ll just bring him his proof so he has to cooperate with us,” Tessa said. “Move back, Gunner. I can’t breathe.”
“Want a beer?”
“What?” she asked dazedly.
“A beer, Princess. It’s the middle-class answer to champagne.” Or eighteen-year-old Scotch, he thought. “It’s after four o’clock, we’ve run all over the city—half of it on foot—and I’m thirsty and willing to trade one vice for another.”
“A beer,” she repeated. No, she thought, that’s over the line. It was too close, too cozy, too...something. Her heart started picking up its pace a little. Oh, God, he smelled good. “Do I have to buy it?”
“Nope. You won. My treat.” His voice was suddenly as intimate as a touch.
“I...sure,” she heard herself answer. “Okay.”
He straightened away from the wall and crooked an elbow around her neck in a purely friendly embrace, a gesture of sheer camaraderie, and pulled her down the hall.
Tessa was all the way to the elevator, matching his stride, before she realized that her lines had definitely been crossed. And they had an audience.
Three city employees—female city employees—were standing outside one of the bail-bond rooms, watching them. They stared until Tessa and Gunner stepped into the elevator.
Before the doors slid closed again, Tessa saw them put their heads together, whispering.
Gunner took her to a sports bar on Filbert, just down the street from City Hall. It was jammed with people watching the last of an NFL playoff game, and not one of the patrons seemed to be as bloodthirsty or as avid as the three women who had been standing outside the bail-bond office, watching Gunner hug his new partner.
They would talk, Tessa thought resignedly. This was certainly a day of firsts. She had never been taken down by her boss before, and she had never been the point of salacious gossip before, either. Gossip, certainly, but not the kind that was going to come about because of this.
It was all Gunner’s fault.
“Sit tight and hold the fort,” he told her when they found an empty booth. “To tell you the truth, Princess, you look a little worse for the wear.”
“Thanks so much.”
He went to the bar. She watched him, propping her chin on her hand with far more insouciance than she felt.
They were both tired, she thought. It had been a long day. She did feel haggard and limp. But on Gunner, the wear and tear just looked...rugged. Something still simmered inside him, she realized, a certain indefinable energy. She knew it could erupt at any moment and drive him on for hours more.
His jeans—clean and stiff that morning—were a little rumpled now. They still clung. When he turned back from the bar with two frosted mugs, there was a trace of catsup on one thigh from that ghastly hot dog he’d eaten.
He wore it well.
He slid the mugs onto the table and peeled out of his leather jacket, his dark hair ruffling along the collar of it, then settling again. He tossed the jacket into the booth and sat down, grinning at her, then he lifted one of the mugs in a toast.
“To Day One.”
“Day Two.” She corrected him automat
ically, being a stickler for details. “We were assigned to each other yesterday, if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, but yesterday was just a how-do-you-do day.” He took a swig and licked the foam from his lip. His tongue was fast, sure, agile.
Her heart stalled.
She had to get a grip, Tessa thought wildly. She had to stop noticing these things. But her stomach seemed to curl and she found herself watching, mesmerized, to see if he would do it again.
“What?” he asked. “Do I have catsup on my chin or something?”
“Uh, no,” she croaked. “It’s nothing.”
“You didn’t toast.”
“Oh.” She looked down at her beer. “I don’t drink.”
“Ever?” It occurred to him that he didn’t think he’d ever known a woman who didn’t. The ladies he knew could pretty much keep pace with the boys. To be fair, though, the vast majority of them had been buddies rather than lovers.
And he had no idea why he was thinking of lovers at the moment.
“Well, sometimes,” Tessa was saying. “I think I had my monthly quota last night.” The wine had ended up being three glasses.
“Is this a Hadley-type thing?”
She stiffened. “No. It’s a me thing.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“I worry myself when I get tipsy.” She couldn’t control her emotions when she got tipsy. Not in the past year.
“Tipsy?” he repeated, then that half grin came back. “Yeah? What do you do? Should I start plying you with liquor here?”
“It depends on what you want from me.” Then she heard herself, and she blushed to the roots of her hair. “I mean—”
Gunner’s burst of laughter interrupted her. It was delighted. “No way, Princess, you said it fine the first time. Tell you what. Your virtue’s safe with me.”
She felt unaccountably stung. Pride, she thought. Just irrational female pride. No woman in the whole department was safe from John Gunner. Except, apparently, the delicate Hadley princess with her law degree and her trust fund and her ins to every political office in the city.
Yes, it stung.
“For the record, I’ve never had to get a woman drunk in my life,” Gunner avowed, still grinning.
“Machismo again?”
“Could be.” Then he thought about it. “No. Actually I just don’t like sloppy loving.”
His voice had changed, she noticed. Was she crazy, or had it really gotten huskier, deeper? Was it really stirring gooseflesh over her skin?
She had to stop this.
“I’ll never take anything from you under the influence that you wouldn’t give me sober,” he said.
“I...oh. That’s...remarkably...gallant of you.” Her heart was beating a fast tattoo against the inside of her chest. She grabbed her beer and drank deeply from it after all.
One of his brows went up. “Does that mean you’re feeling safer now?”
“It means I’m thinking that this isn’t very impersonal.” It had been a mistake to come here with him, she realized.
He leaned back against the leather seat lazily. About as lazily as a caged lion, she thought. “Sorry. I guess I just forgot we’re supposed to be impersonal.”
“Your mood’s improved.” She tried valiantly to change the subject.
“Not really.” He drank again. “How’s your mood at the moment?”
“Fine,” she answered, watching him warily.
“Good. Because I want to hit you with something.” He eyed her beer. “Better take another swig of that after all, Tess.”
This time her heart whaled against her chest. What was he up to? She had been partnered with him through all of two days, and already she knew it could be anything, anything at all.
“I want that proof,” he said.
“Proof?” she echoed dumbly.
“Baum wants proof. So I’m going to find it. I’m going to nail this jerk.”
“We will,” she said correcting him.
He smiled slowly. “Good. I’m glad you feel that way. Does that mean you’ll break into his house with me?”
Chapter 6
“Break in,” Tessa repeated slowly. She stared at him, hoping against hope that she hadn’t heard him right.
Of course she had.
Gunner pounded a fist on the table. “That scum’s stalling, Tess. He’s got his fancy, high-priced lawyer, and Baum’s probably all cozy in his pocket, so he’ll hold us off with his bluster long enough to collect the lady’s life insurance and then—” He broke off, snapping his fingers. “Poof. By the time the DNA comes back, by the time we find proof of an alias, there won’t be anybody to test, anybody to force to comply, because Benami’ll be gone.”
She couldn’t argue with that possibility, but she shook her head. “The insurance company won’t pay out right away since we’ve put Daphne on the books as murder. Gunner, those companies never pay up until they absolutely have to.”
“They’ll pay,” he said stubbornly. “They’ll have to pay if we can’t charge Benami with her death pretty soon. Are you going to sit there and try to tell me that Benami’s not going to be on the phone to them every second, pressing them to get on with it?”
“We can tell Citizen Life that he’s a suspect.”
“Harassment.” Gunner bit out the word. He finished his beer in one irate swallow.
She was starting to understand how he had gotten the rest of his reputation, the part that didn’t have anything at all to do with his charm and his sexual prowess.
“No,” she said flatly. “I won’t be a part of this.”
“Why not?”
He looked as indignant as a boy whose home run had just broken a window, and he couldn’t figure out why no one was congratulating him. Impossibly she found herself fighting a smile.
“Those were damn good reasons I just gave you,” he said.
“But you’re overlooking one very important point. We’re officers of the law. Justice has rules, Gunner. And I, for one, have always believed that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, and taking the wrong way is always a conscious choice. Taking the wrong way will catch up with you. Always.”
“The end justifies the means here, Princess.”
“It does not! Gunner, what’s the point? Even if you break in, anything you get under the circumstances wouldn’t be admissible!”
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered stubbornly.
“You’re out of your mind!”
“It’s a gray area,” he persisted.
Tessa felt a headache coming on. She wondered if she could be somehow implicated by association even if she didn’t go in there with him.
She clasped her hands together tightly in front of her. “No,” she repeated. “No way.”
“Look,” Gunner argued, “the place is still marginally considered a crime scene. We don’t actually need a judge’s cooperation or a search warrant to go in there, so we’re not doing anything blatantly illegal.”
“Not if we make an appointment and do it on the up-and-up.”
“Won’t work. That gives Benami a chance to tidy up first. And if we don’t make an appointment, if we just bang down his door, then he can scream harassment again.”
“The crime scene tape has been removed,” Tessa said. She was desperate. It was her last good argument. “Benami’s been permitted to reenter the town house. He’s been living there. Therefore, anything you find will be considered tainted. The chain of evidence is broken.”
“Broken or not, there’s something in that house. Something incriminating. There’s got to be.”
She closed her eyes and took a careful breath. When she looked at him again, his expression had the formidable threat of a very big thundercloud.
“Don’t you think Baum’s going to ask where and how we got this ‘something’?” she asked, striving for calm. “Besides, the district officers who got there first already went through the place once. They didn’t find anyt
hing.”
“They didn’t know what we know.”
He had an answer for everything. Tessa stood and snatched her purse from the booth. “I’m going home.”
“Is that how we’re going to settle disputes, partner?” Gunner charged. “Just get up and walk out?”
He was actually mad because she wouldn’t go along with this crazy scheme. She looked at him wildly. “Don’t get ugly, Gunner.”
“This isn’t ugly.”
“Angry, then.”
“Yeah, I’m angry. It’s been a long day and we’ve been turned back at every damn corner.”
“So we need to think about this. We need to think of another way. We need to go to our respective homes and sleep on it.”
“Are you always this calm and reasonable and genteel?” he snapped.
Tessa flinched in spite of herself. Then her jaw hardened. “No,” she said harshly. “Believe it or not, sometimes I actually scream. Like when my husband is dropped at my feet.”
She turned on her heel. She was outside before he caught up with her. He was still struggling into his coat.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “I never even thought about Matt when I said that.”
“Then don’t apologize.”
“What?” He was baffled.
“Look, Gunner,” she said tightly as she began walking. “About the only thing I’ve really liked about you in two whole days is that you don’t coddle me. Much. Matt was shot. He went down in front of me. Okay. It was bad, horrible, but life goes on. I’m a cop, and I’m a good one, and I’ve put it behind me. You don’t have to watch every little thing you say to me. Don’t start apologizing for something you didn’t mean. You were right the first time. You didn’t think about Matt. That’s the way it should be. I’m not ticked off about that. I’m mad because you’re mule-headed and stubborn and irresponsible.”
“Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Where are you going?” She was moving at a fast clip, he thought. She strode angrily on the pavement. A cold fog was beginning to roll into the city.
“I told you. Home.”
“The car’s back in the city lot on Thirteenth,” he reminded her. And they were already at The Gallery on Tenth Street.
