Emily looked around. It was broad daylight. Of course, three of the seventeen rapes had occurred during the day—one of them in the back seat of the victim’s car, in the north campus parking lot. She shivered. And climbed into Jim Keegan’s sedan.
“Thanks,” she said.
“My pleasure,” he said, with his quick grin.
He drove her the quarter mile back to the main campus building and pulled over to the sidewalk. She started to open the door, but he reached out and held her arm.
“You know, I was serious about what I said before,” he told her. “About wanting to ask you out.”
Emily didn’t know how to answer, so she said nothing.
“I was wondering—” Jim stopped, then shook his head and laughed. “This is going to sound really stupid, but…can I call you? In about a year or two?”
He was still holding her arm, and Emily gently pulled herself free. “You’re right,” she said, getting out of the car. “That does sound really stupid.”
But in the end, Emily thought, closing her eyes as she lay on the lounge chair on her tiny deck, she had been the stupid one. Seven years of hindsight made that more than clear.
From inside the apartment, she heard the faint sound of the doorbell ringing, but she didn’t open her eyes. She wasn’t expecting Jim for another few hours, and she didn’t feel like talking to anyone right now, not even Carly. Maybe especially not Carly.
But the bell rang again, and then again, and Emily pushed herself to her feet and went inside. Carly had probably seen her car in the parking lot. She knew Emily was home, and she wasn’t going to give up until they talked.
With a sigh, Emily opened the front door.
“I thought you were home,” Alex said, with his smooth, charming smile. He leaned against the doorframe. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
What was he doing here? Emily’s heart was in her throat as she stared at him, and she swallowed, trying to push it back down where it belonged. Just because Alex was here, that didn’t mean that he knew she’d gone to the police. Just because he was here, that didn’t mean that he suspected her of anything. As long as she kept her cool and acted normally…
“No, not really,” Emily said, trying to keep her voice even. “I was sitting out on the deck, thinking about dozing off.”
“Mind if I come in for a minute?”
Yes. “No, of course not,” she said, stepping back to let him into her apartment. “Can I get you something to drink? A glass of iced tea? Some wine? A beer?” Good grief, she sounded like a waitress. If she didn’t relax, he was going to get suspicious.
“Actually,” Alex said, “I can’t stay long.”
Thank God.
“I just came by to give you this,” he continued, taking a slim black jeweler’s box from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He held it out to her with a smile. “I saw it when I was out at lunch, and it made me think of you, so I gave in to the urge to be self-indulgent.” He wiggled the box. “Open it.”
Emily slowly took the box from him. It was heavy, and it felt cool in her hands. Why was he doing this? He’d never bought her anything before. Was he using this expensive gift as an excuse to drop by, to see how much of his conversation with Vincent “the Shark” Marino she’d overheard?
But he was smiling at her, and his smile seemed genuine enough.
Of course, this was a man who was a suspected drug smuggler. Was anything he did or said genuine?
“Go on. Open it,” Alex said again.
Emily slowly opened the box.
It was a necklace. It had a simple yet substantial gold chain with a single enormous sapphire pendant in an equally simple setting. It was elegant, and it had surely cost Alex a small fortune.
But what had it cost the people he made his money off of? What had it cost the addicts and the kids looking for a kick, for a high, or for a quick fix for their poverty and depression? How many people had had their lives ruined, how many people had overdosed and died, in order for Alex to be rich enough to buy her this necklace?
“I can’t…I can’t accept this,” Emily said. No way was she going to wear this necklace. No way could she put this piece of gold, bought with Alex’s tainted money, next to her skin.
“Sure you can,” Alex said. “It’s nothing, really.”
Emily closed the box with a snap and held it out to him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just…I’m not comfortable accepting this. It’s not appropriate.”
Alex laughed. “Oh, come on.”
“I’m serious, Alex,” she said. “I’m not dating you so that you’ll buy me expensive jewelry.” I’m dating you so that I can help the police get the evidence they need to put you in jail, where you belong.
“Think of this necklace as an apology,” Alex said. “I thought maybe my conversation with Vincent Marino upset you, and I wanted to say I was sorry about that.”
Panic. For one mind-numbing instant, Emily was frozen with fear. He knew. Alex knew she’d been out in the corridor, eavesdropping. But he was still smiling at her. He wouldn’t look so calm, so confident, if he thought she knew about his illegal activities, would he?
“Vincent who?” she asked, playing dumb, praying he would buy it. “Alex, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I wasn’t upset at all last night.”
His smile broadened. “Well, good. My mistake. Keep the necklace anyway.”
She wanted him to leave, but she wanted him to take the damned necklace with him. If he left it, he’d wonder why she didn’t wear it tomorrow night at the country club. And she wouldn’t wear it. She couldn’t.
“I can’t accept this,” she said, forcing it into his hand. “People will get the wrong idea.”
He laughed again, but this time with good-natured resignation. “Can’t it be an early birthday present?”
“My birthday’s not till October,” Emily said. “Even then, it’s too expensive a gift. It’s just not appropriate.”
Alex slipped the box back into his jacket pocket. “Well, then, I’ll hold on to it until it is appropriate,” he said. “Is that okay?”
He’d be holding on to the necklace until hell froze over. And that was just fine with her. Emily nodded.
“I’ve got a dinner meeting I need to get to,” Alex said. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”
Emily nodded again.
He stepped toward her, and she turned away, afraid he was going to kiss her goodbye. But then she was even more afraid that he would wonder why she didn’t kiss him. She leaned forward and lightly brushed her lips against his, praying that her revulsion wouldn’t show.
“See you tomorrow,” she said lightly, opening the door.
And then he was gone, leaving behind only a trace of his expensive cologne.
Emily locked the door behind him. She turned the dead bolt and fastened the safety chain.
She went into the kitchen and dug through the cabinet underneath the sink until she found a spray can of disinfectant. Then she sprayed the living room until the last of Alex’s scent was wiped clean from the air.
CHAPTER FOUR
JIM KEEGAN sat and stared at the computer screen on his desk. In real life, Emily Marshall’s brother, Daniel, was an astronomy professor. She couldn’t remember what she’d told Alexander Delmore about her brother, so Jim was taking this crash course on the computer in basic astronomy. He was learning the lingo so that he wouldn’t look stupid—or suspiciously unscientific—when someone mentioned pulsars or red dwarf stars or God only knows what else.
He glanced at his watch. He was supposed to show up at Emily’s in less than three hours. Three hours to learn ten years’ worth of facts and theories. Jim was known as something of a quick study, but he wasn’t that quick.
No, he was just going to have to pray that Alexander Delmore knew even less about the universe than he did.
Still, he dragged the cursor back up to the explanation of a black hole, and tried to concentrate. A black hole was a collapsed sta
r with such an intense gravitational field that everything around it was irresistibly sucked toward it. Even light couldn’t escape its pull.
Jim shook his head. He knew all about irresistible pulls. He’d experienced one himself, seven years ago.
He had been well aware that he should stay away from Emily Marshall. He had been well aware that she was too young, too sweet, too damn nice, for a man like him. And after they caught and locked up that bastard who had raped all those college girls, Jim had stayed away from Emily—for all of two weeks.
But, just like a stray beam of light bouncing around the universe, he’d found himself constantly pulled in the direction of the irresistible black hole that was the university—and Emily.
One evening, he found himself standing outside her dorm. When he realized where he was, he tried to tell himself that he had no idea what he was doing there, that it surely was a coincidence that he’d ended up on that particular street in this particular part of town.
But the more pragmatic side of him knew that his excuses were a load of bull. He’d come to the university campus for one reason and one reason only—to see Emily.
He could have flashed his police badge to get past the guard at the high-rise dorm’s security checkpoint. But he wasn’t here on official police business, so he used one of the telephones in the lobby and dialed Emily’s room. As the phone rang, he half prayed that she was in, half prayed that she wasn’t.
“Hello?”
She was in.
Jim cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah, Emily?” he said. “This is Jim Keegan. How ya doin’?”
There was a brief pause, the tiniest of hesitations. Then: “Fine.” Emily’s voice was musical, even over the telephone wires. “What can I do for you, Detective?”
“You can start by calling me Jim,” he said.
“Jim,” Emily repeated. “Thanks for calling that night—my roommate gave me the message that you called to say you caught the rapist. I was glad to hear that he was off the streets.”
“You never called me back,” Jim said.
There was another pause. “I was going to,” Emily said. “In about a year or two.”
Jim laughed. “Touché,” he said. “Look, I’m in the lobby of your dorm. You want to come down? We could go get something to eat.”
“I already had dinner,” she said.
“We could get dessert then,” he said. “Or, I don’t know—a cup of coffee?” All of a sudden, he was positive that she was going to turn him down. “You’re still on the student safety committee, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but—”
“There are some things I’d like to talk about, if you’ve got the time,” Jim said. It wasn’t the truth, but he would have said damn near anything to get a chance to see her again.
There was another brief pause.
“All right,” Emily finally said. “I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
He leaned on the edge of the security desk for nearly twenty minutes before he saw Emily come out of one of the elevators. She smiled as she walked toward him, and his heart started beating so damn hard he was sure the security guard could hear it.
She looked fabulous. She was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a turquoise T-shirt that hugged her slender curves. Her long chestnut hair was shiny and loose around her shoulders, and she wore very little makeup—just a touch of lipstick and some blush on her cheeks. Her eyes were the color of the ocean.
She walked with the poise of a much older woman. But she was only eighteen. He’d have to remember that. She was just a kid.
“How’re your classes going?” he asked as they went out the doors into the early evening. In Florida, November nights were still soft and warm. The sidewalks were alive with people out for fresh air.
“Great,” she said, smiling up at him as they began to walk.
Her skin was soft and smooth looking, and her features were delicate, almost fragile. Her freckle-covered nose tipped up a tiny bit at the end, and her chin was a touch too pointy, making her look slightly elfin. She was gorgeous—an incredible mix of woman and girl, of sophistication and innocence. The woman in her was emphasized by the peaceful calm of her lovely blue eyes.
Jim took her arm and pulled her out of the stream of pedestrian traffic.
“I lied,” he said bluntly. “I didn’t come here to talk about the student safety committee. I came because I wanted…”
He couldn’t find the right words. Why had he come? Because he wanted to see her again? But he didn’t just want to see her. He didn’t just want to talk to her. He wanted…
“What?” she breathed, looking up into his eyes.
Jim realized he was still holding her arm. He realized he was standing close enough to breathe in her sweet, fresh scent, close enough to feel the heat from her body, close enough to kiss her….
He bent his head, drawn irresistibly toward the tantalizing sweetness of her lips. But he made himself stop, a whisper away from a kiss, giving her a chance to pull away, to pull back. But she didn’t move. She didn’t use the opportunity to escape. She simply looked up at him, her lips parted breathlessly, a spark of anticipation, of excitement, in her eyes.
So he kissed her. Right there, on the sidewalk in front of the university dorm.
He didn’t intend for it to be anything but a sweet kiss, a gentle kiss—a single kiss. But one kiss wasn’t enough, and he kissed her again. And again. He pulled her against him, and the softness of her body made him crazy, and he forgot all about gentle and sweet. He ran his tongue along her lips and, God help him, she opened her mouth to him, granting him access, inviting him in.
It wasn’t an invitation he needed to be given more than once.
Jim felt her fingers in his hair as he drank her in. He kissed her again and again, long, hard, deep kisses that made the world spin dizzily around him and made the air suddenly thin and hard to breathe.
He might have gone on kissing her for hours, days—hell, even weeks—but she pulled back. She was breathing as hard as he was, and her beautiful eyes were nearly molten with desire as she gazed up at him.
Her voice shook slightly as she spoke. “Does this mean you don’t want to wait a year or two before you ask me out?”
Jim had had to laugh. With hindsight, he knew that was the exact moment he’d fallen in love with Emily. But at the time, he hadn’t recognized the sensation. All he’d known was that she made him smile, that she took the edge off all the pain he carried around with him day in and day out.
Jim stared blindly at the definition of a nebula that was displayed on his computer screen.
He’d never told Emily that he loved her. Not even that one wonderful, exhilarating, terrifying weekend they’d spent together, that weekend he’d lost all control and made love to her. He’d never told her, never said the words.
He couldn’t. Because if she’d known, she wouldn’t have let him walk away from her without a fight. She would’ve known that the cruel things he’d said to her were said out of fear and pain.
Jim shut the power on his computer down, then went to pack up the things he would need over the course of the next two weeks.
Two weeks that would be spent with a woman who had every reason to hate him.
What had Lieutenant Bell called this investigation? Quick and easy? Yeah, right. This was going to be as quick and easy as a canoe trip around the world…without a paddle.
EMILY WOKE UP drenched with sweat, with the setting sun glaring in her face. She pushed herself up from the deck chair, slid open the glass door and went inside. The living room was cool and dark, and as she closed the sliding door behind her she shut out the noise of the traffic and the raucous cries of the seabirds that wheeled overhead. The steady hum of the air conditioner joined with the gentle throbbing of her refrigerator, making her apartment seem like some kind of environmentally controlled spaceship, detached and separate, independent and remote from the rest of the planet.
Emily went around the corner into the
small galley kitchen and opened the refrigerator. She poured herself a large glass of seltzer, and drank it thirstily as she glanced at the clock on the wall.
It was 5:38.
Jim Keegan would be arriving in less than an hour.
She pushed her sweat-soaked hair back from her face and searched her cabinets for an aspirin. She didn’t have a headache yet, but she could feel a real doozy coming on.
Of course, it wasn’t too late to call off her participation in the investigation.
Emily poured herself another glass of seltzer and drank this one more slowly, swallowing the extra-strength aspirin tablets with the first sip.
What if she had guessed wrong about Alex Delmore? What if she had misunderstood his conversation with Vincent Marino? What if Alex really had been out fishing in the dinghy that morning? What if he was innocent? He had acted innocent enough an hour ago, when he dropped by.
But if he was innocent, what was he doing socializing with one of Florida’s most powerful mob bosses? And Emily hadn’t misunderstood that conversation. She knew exactly what she’d overheard. And, come to think of it, why would Alex have bothered to take the dinghy if he wanted to fish? Why wouldn’t he simply have done his fishing from the deck of the Home Free?
No. Something odd was going on, and her every instinct screamed that Alex was involved.
If she backed out of this investigation now, she’d always wonder how much crack Alex had brought into Florida during the time wasted because she refused to cooperate with the authorities. She’d wonder how many people—how many kids—died from drug overdoses, from heart attacks, from knife fights over possession of those drugs.
How many kids would die because she was too chicken to spend a little time with Jim Keegan?
This was good, Emily realized, grabbing this course of reasoning as if it were a lifeline. Thinking this way would help her stop focusing on the awfulness of her situation.
True, working with Jim Keegan would be terrible, because she’d be forced to face the embarrassment of knowing that he’d once played her for a fool. She would have to face the fact that she had misjudged him so absolutely, that seven years ago she hadn’t really known him at all. True, she’d have to face the constant reminder of the pain he had caused her. And, true, she’d be forced to confront her own stupidity every time she looked into Jim’s blue eyes and felt her heart still leap and her pulse still kick into double time.
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