Mountain Man's Accidental Baby Daughter (A Mountain Man's Baby Romance)

by Lia Lee

  “Sir, I wanted to bring to your attention a potential infraction.” Anne phrased the words carefully in her head. “I got a call from someone we questioned informally for the Pigg case—I’d given him my card, just in case he discovered anything—and he’s complained that he was pulled and searched without a warrant last night.”

  Lopez looked up from his laptop with a sour expression.

  “He hasn’t looked into making a complaint yet, but I wanted to keep on top of this,” Anne clarified.

  “Did he get badge numbers?”

  “He didn’t mention any. I could check with traffic. They would have run his license—”

  “That’s not work for you anymore.” Lopez picked up his phone, barked a few orders into it, and then looked up at Anne. “Who did they pull over? I’ll have the officers questioned just so we have our damn ducks in a row in case internal affairs starts sniffing around.”

  Anne braced herself. “William Spencer.”

  Lopez raised his brows. “Is that a joke? Or is it just some guy with the same name?”

  “It’s not a joke, and it’s him. He was released on appeal, sir.” Anne wasn’t sure whether he would’ve been following William’s case after the first trial or not. “And we’ve been questioning him, but… You know he has a good lawyer, and if we do want to investigate him further—”

  “Right. Good catch, Sutton.” He shot the name to whoever was on the other end of the phone and hung up. “No need to mess up our case before we get it started. Where are we on Pigg? Is Spencer a suspect?”

  “Not much further than before, I’m afraid. As for Spencer, we’re keeping our eyes open, but his alibi checked out. But Jeffers and I are going down to the morgue today to see if the medical examiner has anything new. I had an idea, though.”

  “Update me when you make some progress. Keep an eye on that Brit. This isn’t high priority, but I’d like to show some progress this quarter to the guys upstairs, understand? Even if it is on the murder case of a lowlife.” Lopez shut his laptop and rose. “You’ve got this one under control, Sutton?”

  “Definitely, sir. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “Good. I’d like to have you on another case as soon as possible.” Lopez threw on his suit jacket and headed for the door.

  Implicitly, Anne knew she had been dismissed and followed him out of the office. Jeffers was at their desk, twirling a pen and scrolling through his phone. Anne kicked his chair.

  “Hey!” Jeffers objected.

  “What have you been doing all morning?” Anne demanded.

  “I’ll tell you what I haven’t been doing. I haven’t been wasting the morning getting up the nerve to go talk to the captain about an ex-con’s civil rights,” Jeffers said.

  “Well. First, William isn’t technically an ex-con, and second, if we would like to make him a con, it would probably help to make sure we could make a clean conviction.” Anne jerked on the back of Jeffers’ collar. “So could we get to work, or did you need a few more minutes on Reddit?”

  “Cut me some slack, Anne. We’ve been on this nonstop for days.”

  “It’s our job. And Shaw ought to have completed his autopsy reports by now.” Anne reached over to her desk for the file. “I want to ask him some questions.”

  “Everything you need is in the report. That’s why it’s there.” Jeffers swiveled around. “What’s with you lately? You’re so gung-ho.”

  Anne sighed and considered going down to the morgue without him. “Look, on the Olivarez case, I had the answer. I was Davis’ secondary and did all of his paperwork, and I gave him the damn answer. And he got the credit and didn’t even mention me. Before that, I had it figured out on that campus murder we were all working on, and DeWinter snaked it from me and got the collar. I need to prove myself on this one.”

  “You don’t though. Lopez knows that you’re a good cop. It’s why he promoted you,” Jeffers pointed out.

  “I want him to see that. I want him to know that I deserved to be made detective. I want everyone here to know it.” Anne swatted his arm with the file. “So could you get up and help me?”

  Jeffers grumbled as he got up. “Why don’t I just call Shaw and let him know we’re on our way down. I don’t want to catch the morgue crew doing anything weird.”

  Anne stared at him for a moment. Did she want to know what he was talking about?

  Just then, her own phone lit up. Internal message. She picked it up. “Sutton here.”

  “Anne, you have a visitor,” Josh from the front desk said in a pained voice. His volume lowered. “Cute Brit looking for you.”

  Anne felt her cheeks light on fire. William was here? “Oh, God. Josh, can you just keep him there? Do not let him slip past you and get back here in the bullpen.”

  “I won—Hey!” Josh dropped the phone.

  Anne wasted no time in heading up front. If Josh didn’t stop William, someone else would, but the last thing she needed was a suspect running around the station.

  “Hullo, pet.” William’s silky smooth voice greeted her as she walked into the hallway. There he stood, sharp against the mundane surroundings of the intake desk. Over his well-cut trousers and blue silk shirt, he wore a long, black leather coat that almost came to his ankles. Josh was glaring at him and sweating.

  “Why are you here?” Anne demanded. “You have another run-in with the highway patrol? Someone policing your broken windows?”

  William licked his lips slowly as he raked his eyes over her and strolled closer. “I thought you and I might have something to talk about.”

  Anne took a deep breath, hoping that her cheeks weren’t turning redder. It was like he was envisioning her naked. She clenched her jaw.

  “I think we covered it all last time, Mr. Spencer. There was no need to come in.”

  “Oh?” William lowered his voice and slipped his hands into his jacket pockets casually.

  “I don’t believe that’s true.”

  Anne wanted to slap that smirk off of his face.

  “You can’t be here,” she ground out through her teeth.

  He leaned over nearly to her ear. “I think it’s clear that I can be.”

  “Listen, Will, this investigation—”

  “You hold it!” Jeffers snapped from behind.

  Anne turned to see a gun in the man’s hand. She blinked in disbelief. “What are you doing?”

  “Hands where I can see ‘em!” Jeffers ordered.

  William gave Anne a nonplussed look as he raised his hands into the air as told. He seemed almost bored by this display of pseudo-authority over him. Granted, he hadn’t done anything, but it said something that William was utterly unafraid of being shot.

  Then again, he’d been stabbed before, so Anne had often wondered whether William’s sense of self-preservation was skewed beyond repair.

  “You gonna read me my rights?” William said. “What am I meant to have done now?”

  “Don’t start with me.” Jeffers came over, one hand training his gun on William and the other fetching his cuffs from his belt.

  “Jeffers, knock it off,” Anne said.

  “Coming in here, intimidating an officer who’s been investigating you for murder?” Jeffers said. He motioned for William to turn around. William pursed his lips and complied.

  “He wasn’t intimidating me,” Anne protested. “Why would you think that?”

  “C’mon, Anne. Don’t tell me you were fine. He was all over you.” Jeffers jerked William’s hands into the cuffs, but William didn’t make a noise, aside from one indignant grunt.

  “I could tell you what he came for, if you’d have waited a second for him to tell me. I wasn’t being intimidated, and you don’t need to arrest him,” Anne argued. With her eyes on them both, she waited for another moment before snatching the gun out of Jeffers’ hand. “Are you kidding me with this? In the station?”

  Jeffers looked up. Josh had ducked behind his desk and had his hand on the phone.

 
; “It’s fine, people,” Jeffers announced. “We’re just bringing him back for questioning.”

  “Great job, there. Catching the man who came here of his own volition,” Will muttered.

  “You got something to say?” Jeffers growled.

  “Yeah, obviously. It’s why I came here.” William rolled his eyes and looked to Anne.

  He wasn’t pleading or distressed in any way. He just looked incredibly annoyed.

  “Jeffers, you need to be incredibly careful,” Anne warned.

  “Yeah, I know this one is slippery.” He gave William a push and began walking back down the hall with him.

  “No, I mean…” Anne reached up on her toes and tried to whisper, although it was hard to pitch her voice properly and William could probably hear. “You don’t want him suing the department. You didn’t read him his rights, and last night his car was searched illegally.”

  Jeffers looked back at her. His expression was stubborn and angry. He gave William another push, and Anne almost had to jog to keep pace with them. Within a minute, they’d reached Jeffers’ destination, an interrogation room. He dragged William inside and unlocked one of his cuffs and attached it to the table. Then he stepped back outside and slammed the door.

  “What’s going on here, Anne? Why is he even here?” Jeffers demanded.

  “I told you. I don’t know. He hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

  “But he got to the part where he practically had his tongue in your ear?”

  Anne tilted her head back and looked at Jeffers in disbelief. “That is unbelievably disgusting, and you are so out of line. I’m letting him out.”

  Jeffers caught her hand. “Don’t. He’s here for questioning. Why shouldn’t we question him?”

  “He’s not here to be cuffed to a table and roughed up by the cops,” Anne countered. “I’m not kidding about the possibility of a lawsuit.”

  Anne shook her head. Jeffers could be a little too casual and sometimes a little lazy, but she’d never seen him be so irresponsibly aggressive. She reentered the room to see William with his heels kicked up on the table and rubbing his wrist.

  “How the hell did you get out of those cuffs?” she asked without thinking.

  “Why the hell did your idiot partner put me in them?” he shot back.

  “Hey,” Jeffers objected.

  Anne held up a hand. “Look, it’s better to be alone as we discuss whatever you decided was so important that it needed a face-to-face conference. Just say what’s on your mind.”

  William closed his eyes, took a breath, and looked back up at Jeffers. “Just you.”

  Jeffers narrowed his eyes. “Not a chance.”

  William pressed his lips into a flat line and crossed his arms.

  “He won’t attack you again,” Anne promised. Funny, since the roles were usually reversed when they were playing good cop/bad cop.

  William blinked slowly and said nothing.

  “Are you just here to waste our time then? Some kind of distraction?” Jeffers said.

  “I’m here to talk to Anne,” William said mildly.

  The fact that William wasn’t even slightly intimidated by Jeffers seemed to make him even angrier. And it occurred to her that what he wanted to talk to her about might have been romantic in nature. Her heart surged in her chest.

  “You could’ve called.” Anne took a seat.

  “Could’ve. Didn’t.” William rolled his neck around on his shoulders. “It would be easier to show you.”

  Anne’s cheeks burned. Did he have to act like this here?

  “Then show us,” Jeffers said.

  William shrugged. “What I have to show you would be down in the morgue. Let’s just say I have a suspicion that your guy missed something.”

  Jeffers leaned forward. “And how would you get that suspicion?”

  Anne had a feeling that admission to how William had gotten that information would be incriminating. “Why do we have to go to the morgue?”

  “Look, this Pigg bloke, he’s the thug type, right? He’s a big hunk of muscle. That means he’s either addicted to bodybuilding, or he’s someone’s hunk of muscle.”

  Anne held her arm in front of Jeffers and leaned forward. “As in a gang?”

  “As in hired. It’s my best guess. But if that’s correct, then you’re not necessarily looking for a crime of passion or a personal vendetta. Could be a pro that did this.”

  Jeffers made a noise, but Anne nodded. “I’d considered that. But how would you be sure?”

  “You couldn’t be, unless the guy was the kind to leave his mark.” William put his feet down and met Anne’s eye. “And if he did, he’d be subtle about it. Else he’d have the cops following his trail up and down the west coast.”

  Jeffers shook his head. “So, you think the body’s got some hit man’s mark on it, and you’re gonna catch it when our people can’t? What are you, Batman?”

  “Hardly.” William rested his arms on the table. “I’m just a fellow who’s been on the inside for a minute. I know a few things.”

  Jeffers pinned William down with a glare, then, just as Anne had been about to break it up between them again, Jeffers held up a finger and left.

  “Touchy,” William muttered.

  “Behave yourself.” Anne pulled up a chair and sat across from William. “Tell me more about this. You really think it could be a hit man?”

  “Oh, is this the part wherein the nice lady cop gets the bad boy to speak, when there’s a recording device somewhere in the room?”

  “Don’t be paranoid and weird.”

  “Me?” William laughed. “I just got pulled into this room with my hands behind my back. I’m hardly being paranoid. Your lovesick puppy of a partner would definitely see to it that I’d incriminate myself somehow.”

  “So you would incriminate yourself, telling us this information?” Anne pressed.

  William said nothing. But she hadn’t expected him to admit it. Instead, he reached across the table and touched her hand. Their eyes met.

  “You’ve got to be careful on this one, love. You don’t want to get caught in the crosshairs. You’ve got people who depend on you. Who care about you.”

  Anne twisted her head away. There was nothing in there to look at. Just the white walls and a beat-up table. “Will, I…”

  She couldn’t meet his eye. She could see her daughter in those eyes, and they looked at her with a desire for something Anne absolutely couldn’t give. Not now. Not again.

  “You take me down, and I’ll show you this one thing. Then you don’t have to see me ever again,” William said quietly.

  Her heart fluttering disobediently, Anne rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. Three years on top of a mountain of lies and differences didn’t seem so much when she was alone with him like this. It seemed as though the world could fall away, and she could be pressed against him once again, brushing her fingers over the white-blond hairs on his chest.

  When the door opened again, their hands flew part. They were like two teenagers avoiding parental eyes and strictures against dating. Anne would have laughed, if it weren’t for the look on Jeffers’ face, and what he was holding.

  Jeffers had the evidence bag for the ring they’d found at the scene.

  “What are you doing?” Anne demanded.

  “Here you go, Spencer.” Jeffers tossed the bag onto the table. “You try that pretty little ring on, and we’ll let you come down to the morgue with us for a good up-close look at our vic.”

  William stared at the ring uncertainly.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Anne said. “Jeffers, we can’t make him do that.”

  “He can choose to do it,” Jeffers said.

  “It’s coercion.”

  “He said he wanted to help. We’re not forcing him to do anything.” Jeffers crossed his arms and shrugged. “Go ahead. Help.”

  Anne opened her mouth to argue policy once more, but William was opening the bag. He took the ring, ex
amined it for a moment, and then slipped it on.

  Chapter Six

  It didn’t fit.

  The damned ring that William had been worried about for days now didn’t fit. It wasn’t even close. He gave it a push, just for show, as he looked that weasel Jeffers in the eye.

  “Looks like I’m not your Cinderella. Hate to disappoint.”

  “It’s too small,” Anne muttered. William tried not to be too disappointed with her tone. She’d clearly believed that William had been involved in this murder somehow.

  “So what? He could’ve gained weight,” Jeffers said.

  “Excuse you. Rude,” William objected.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Anne argued. “He lost weight in prison. An alarming amount.”

  William’s brows shot up. She looked at him and shrugged, as if to say, “You obviously did. You could slice me in half with your cheekbones.”

  “That’s settled then. It’s not even circumstantial evidence,” Anne said. “It’s just a ring that looked like your ring.”

  “A ring that looks a lot like my ring.” William handed it back to Anne. “Honestly, mine’s probably slipped off in my hotel room somewhere. I reckon I could give you the name of the jeweler who made mine, but we’re talking about a shop in 1970s London. Might not exist anymore. People buy everything online these days though so it could’ve come from anywhere.”

  “I don’t think it could possibly be a coincidence that it looks exactly like yours.” Anne sealed the ring in the evidence bag. “I’ll have to think about it more. For now, though, you’re coming with us, right?”

  She looked at Jeffers, who had a fairly constipated look about him, but he nodded anyway. What could the man do? William’s alibi checked out. The ring didn’t fit. That last part seemed a good bit of luck since William had been genuinely concerned seeing the picture of it. Up close though, he could tell that the engraving of the fleur-de-lis wasn’t as intricate as his own, and it was too newly made. William had been rubbing his thumb over that pattern since he was nineteen years old.

  William felt three feet taller, though he already towered over his little Anne and her lapdog Jeffers. He didn’t know how the latter would be able to explain how he’d dragged a local entrepreneur through the station in handcuffs and then escorted him down to look at evidence. William was just disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to see the fallout.