Dangerous Waters

by Toni Anderson

  “He’s self-employed.” A small smile touched her mouth. “Want me to tell you what he does?”

  The urge to know was so strong he almost choked on it. “No. I want him to tell me himself.” And that would never happen.

  Her eyes softened. “Did Brent know Len Milbank?”

  He took a step toward her and hooked his finger around a lock of her hair. “Not to my knowledge.” He’d burn in hell for that one.

  “Did he know about the wreck?”

  Integrity was something he’d always treasured, but he might be losing his own. He leaned toward her, gazes locked, as his lips lowered toward hers. He whispered in her ear. “Not to my knowledge.”

  She swallowed hard, and he got satisfaction from seeing a shiver flicker across her skin, goose bumps forming in its wake. Then she grabbed two handfuls of his T-shirt and tried to shake him. “Would your brother have run me off the road?”

  He wanted to lie again. Couldn’t. “I don’t know.” He closed his eyes, his whole body shaking from the effort of not pulling her close and sinking himself into her warmth. He dropped his head. “I wish I did.”

  There was a fierce cry overhead as two golden eagles swooped in and chased away the ospreys. He gathered his strength and moved away to face the ocean. A burst of spray in the shallows told him a whale was feeding on the baitfish that swam close to the shore. Holly came up behind him and they stood in silence. They were in nature’s paradise, but the oppressive weight of secrets haunted everything he loved.

  How the hell could he keep Brent and Thom safe? What if one of them was a killer? What about Holly? What if Brent had forced her off the road? “Tell me what you need to know. I’ll try to find out,” he said quietly.

  “You’ll help me?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “Why?” Suspicious to the end.

  He turned and held that smoky gaze. “Because the sooner you leave, the sooner I can get you out of my head.”

  Her eyes flared, and for a moment he saw the same hunger that ate at him, burning away at her resolve. Then she looked away, clenching her fists. “You and I can never happen…”

  “I don’t want it to happen either, but I’m damned if I can stop thinking about getting you naked.” He pressed his lips tight together to prevent himself from revealing more. He turned his back on her and stared at the seemingly endless ocean.

  He felt her behind him. Her hand tentative on his arm. Forehead heavy against his back. “Sleeping with you would destroy my career.” There was a long pause until finally she whispered, “But I can’t stop thinking about it either.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Finn drew clean air into his lungs, but it did nothing to stop the desire that flooded him. Heat swam through his flesh, and he gritted his teeth against the image of them entwined around one another. Hell.

  He turned, hands resting on her waist as she looked at him with stormy, conflicted eyes. He leaned closer, expecting her to break the connection even as his lips found hers and gently coaxed a response. Her tongue flicked across his, and he was instantly, painfully aroused, like a horny teenager with his first taste of female. Her hands clasped his neck, tunneled up and into his hair, drawing him deeper. She groaned in the back of her throat, as if wanting more, wanting him.

  Dark and sultry, she tasted like hot summer nights and sweet, sexy temptation. His head was about to explode as urgency drove through his blood and made his heart hammer against his ribcage. His breath came in ragged gasps. Heat poured off his skin. He strained against his zipper, jeans suddenly two sizes too small as one of her hands slid down his chest and her palm spread wide against his heart. He wanted her to keep going lower. To touch the aching length of him that burned for her. When was the last time he’d felt this way?

  He dragged her closer, taking care of her bruises as he squeezed the sweet curve of her ass, sculpted the indentation of her waist, then moved higher, until his thumbs found the hard peaks of her nipples that thrust eagerly against her uniform shirt. He’d never found uniforms particularly sexy until he’d met Holly. She shuddered as he circled both tips smoothly and firmly, making her whimper and her knees sag. She fell against him, and he gathered her to him, letting her feel exactly how much he wanted her. He thought it would jolt her back to reality, but she rubbed herself against him with a low groan, obviously as aroused as he was—a massive turn-on for a man already on the edge. It felt like a million years since he’d made love to a woman, and he had to hold on tight to his control.

  He nipped at her mouth. Palmed her breast while his other hand cupped the curve of her ass and pressed her more firmly against him. It felt so good, and yet he knew it was nothing compared to how he’d feel sheathed in her hot, wet heat. He was shaking. Muscles trembling with the need to hold back.

  He wanted to lay her down in the sand before either of them remembered who and what they were. This attraction was scorching hot, achingly sweet, and heartbreakingly wrong. They both knew it. Breathing hard, he pulled his mouth away. They were on a public beach, for god’s sake.

  The chime of a cell phone shattered the moment. She swallowed hard, squeezed his arm for a long moment before she answered.

  “Rudd here.” She sounded breathless. It filled him with a fierce sense of male satisfaction because he’d done that. “Where? Damn. Yes, I’ll check it out.” Her eyes swung to his as she talked to her cell. “I don’t know how I’m going to get there, though. I don’t have a vehicle.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  She covered up the microphone. “You don’t know where I need to go.”

  After what had happened yesterday, the thought of her driving alone on these remote roads made him feel ill. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll take you.”

  There was a strident rap on his door. Thom stood in the kitchen and hoped whoever it was would go away. He didn’t get much time to himself, and frankly, lately, he was sick of everyone interfering and telling him how to live his life. Then the thought that it might be Holly had him scurrying to the door like a frantic rabbit. He yanked it open only to be confronted by the person lowest on his list of lovely-to-see-yous.

  “You missed our lunch appointment.” Laura Prescott raised one arched brow and used her briefcase to bludgeon her way inside. “I’ll put it on your bill.”

  Bill?

  She wore black slacks that clung and revealed a shapely figure. Her hand-knit purple sweater had a pretty little ruffle and she wore a flowing scarf loosely wrapped around her neck.

  “I never arranged an appointment, so you may as well leave.” He followed her into the living room where she sat on the sofa where Holly had sat, just yesterday morning. OK, he had to stop obsessing about the young woman, but last night he’d been examining her moles and noticed she definitely had some in common with his baby girl.

  But Holly said she had a family, so he had to be wrong. What if it were just a coincidence that she looked like Bianca? A phenotypic aberration?

  “Finn arranged the appointment.”

  “He shouldn’t have interfered,” said Thom.

  “Why not? He does everything else for you,” she snapped. “And he’s paid me up front so you may as well just sit down and discuss this with me—”

  “There’s nothing to discuss!”

  “Then for god’s sake get me a glass of wine because I’m fed up with being treated like a leper whenever we’re in the same room.”

  Heat spread up his back and neck. “I don’t treat you like a leper, I barely know you.”

  “Exactly.” She raised her face to the ceiling and swore. “In a town of only a couple of hundred people, it’s the same damn thing.”

  Thom’s mouth went dry, and when it was obvious she wasn’t going to move, he stalked into the kitchen and popped the cork on a nice bottle of white he had in the fridge. He carried two glasses back and found Laura staring at a photograph of Bianca and the kids that hung on the living room wall.

  She turned, a direct blue gaze following him
across the room. “Did you kill the guy you found in the wreck?”

  “I didn’t think lawyers asked their clients if they were guilty.” He watched the way the light fell over her face. She had soft-looking skin.

  She laughed. “I was never a defense attorney.” She shuddered. “I worked prosecution. I don’t believe in working for people I already know are guilty.”

  Did she really think he might be dangerous? He found he rather liked the idea. “So if I say I killed him, you’ll leave me alone?”

  “Did you?” She didn’t let up.

  “No.” His throat was dry. “I didn’t kill him. I don’t kill people. It’s not my thing.”

  Laura took the wine he held out, her fingers brushing his in the process.

  “You’re cold.” Thom immediately went and lit the fire.

  “I have vampire blood,” she said.

  He laughed, but then she moved closer to him, and he felt slightly hunted. Women did not pursue him. He had no real idea how he’d ever ended up with someone as beautiful as Bianca—it was another great mystery in his life.

  “So what is your thing, Professor? Besides mourning yourself into an early grave? Wasting decades looking for a murderer who will never be found? Is that all you want out of life?” Dark blue eyes pinned him, demanding answers. “Or do you still have a heart beating inside that scrawny chest?”

  “I’ve been doing it for so long I haven’t really thought about it,” he answered honestly. Until these last few days. Suddenly he was tired. Tired of the constant struggle to solve a mystery that no one else seemed to care about. He inhaled and looked down at his lean frame. “And I’m not scrawny. I’m wiry.”

  A smile curved Laura’s lips and she sat on the sofa. Opened her briefcase. “Let’s go through some basic facts in case the police decide to try to hang this on you.”

  “I can’t believe a prosecutor would ever think the police might go after the wrong guy.”

  Another tinkling laugh filled the room. “I’m a lawyer, I’m not stupid. But I can only do my job if I know the facts.”

  “You want the whole truth?”

  “Nothing but.”

  Thom blew out a sigh and sat, keeping her briefcase between them.

  She raised her glass for a toast. “To a new business relationship.”

  He clinked her glass and took a long swallow of his chilled wine and found he rather liked that idea.

  “Who knows where it might lead.”

  He almost spat it all back out again.

  Mike slipped silently into the house, closed the back door, and shot home the bolt. Between his sessions of breaking and entering, he was more wired than a junkie searching for another hit. Time for reporting his failure to Dryzek was running out, and tension had strung his balls so tight he felt like he’d been castrated. Hot sweat had frozen to an icy chill on his skin, and he stank of the ripe perfume of fear.

  The sound of the shower going full blast rammed his senses with a mixture of gratitude and self-disgust. He needed to forget his troubles for an hour. He needed release. Unbuttoning his shirt, peeling it over his head, then undoing his pants as he strode down the hall. He slipped a condom out of his back pocket, kicked off his boots, and slipped soundlessly into the tiny bathroom of Gina Swartz’s two-bedroom bungalow. The room was thick with steam, hot and cloying in his lungs. The scent of sweet strawberries filled the air. She was singing loudly, and from her silhouette he could see she was distracted, washing her hair. He tossed the condom on the side of the sink. Silently he eased past the curtain, moving soundlessly until he stood right behind her. She suddenly froze, and her elbow bumped into his hand as he grabbed her around the waist. She drew in breath to scream, but he slapped his other hand over her mouth and pulled her flush against his painfully aroused body. She bit him, shampoo streaming over their skin in a slick trail. He held her tight, whispered low in her ear, threatening. “I won’t hurt you as long as you do exactly as I say.”

  Her eyes were enormous as she stared at him over her shoulder. He released her mouth, carefully gauging her reactions. His fingers slipped up into her wet hair, then he kissed her neck. “I need you, Gina. I really need you, baby.”

  He hadn’t meant to get so involved with Brent Carver’s ex, but now he was finding it harder and harder to leave her alone. He hadn’t touched another woman in months and, despite his flirting words, hadn’t wanted to. She turned in his arms, slippery and wet. He dove into the passion and heat of her mouth and wished he could go public with their relationship. But if Brent didn’t kill him, Finn might. And with Dryzek threatening his ass, he couldn’t risk Gina getting caught up in the tangled mess of his life.

  He pushed her against the tiles and manacled her wrists above her head, looked down into those pretty eyes. “I’ve only got an hour.” He swallowed the emotion that caught him off guard. She deserved better than this, and he had the terrible feeling he was starting to fall in love with her. Not only was she the most sexually adventurous woman he’d ever met, she was soft and gentle and kind.

  She was also hot. Really fucking hot.

  She ran her leg up his thigh, and he almost dropped to his knees. Never had he imagined that beneath those plain cotton blouses and knee-length skirts was a creature so full of simmering sensuality he could barely look at her without getting a hard-on. And naked in the shower with water drenching her skin, running over those full breasts? He was a goner, pure and simple.

  She stood on tiptoes and nipped his ear. “So what are you waiting for?”

  Holly sat between Finn and Malone as they peered through the darkness. She tried not to think about Finn’s thigh pressed snug against hers in the close confines of his truck.

  “Where exactly was it spotted?” Finn leaned over her shoulder to stare at the topographical map she’d spread across her knee. All three wore headlamps, and it was like being stuck in a damn laser show. The thing that had happened on the beach made this situation even more difficult because she still had a job to do. And she still wanted him.

  “We have two hikers reporting an abandoned boat anchored just south of the Klanawa River Ecological Reserve, just north of where it meets up with Blue Creek.” She stuck her index finger on the spot. “The numbers on the side match the boat Len Milbank owned.”

  “So you figure the killer dumped the body in the wreck, boated up here, ditched the boat, and either got a ride or walked home?” said Finn.

  Malone gave him a cranky, bloodshot look that screamed too many hours spent upright with his eyes open. “That how you’d have done it?”

  Finn glared back, landing Holly smack bang in the firing line of two pissed-off alpha males.

  “If I’d killed Milbank, I’d have dumped the body out in the open somewhere nice and remote”—the fastest place for decomposition—“and then I’d have taken his boat out into the sound, scuttled her, and swum home in time for beers and burgers. You wouldn’t be sitting here wetting your pants about crime scenes and trace evidence.” Finn’s lip curled in disgust.

  Malone pushed open his door. There was a path through the woods, just visible as a denser patch of forest. “You stay here with the truck, Rambo.”

  Finn got out on his side. “In your dreams, Barney.”

  “Finn.” Everyone was tired and stressed and this wasn’t helping.

  He looked furious. “There are thousands of acres of bush out here. If you guys get disorientated and lost, it could take the authorities weeks to find you. And that’s even if they know your starting point.” He grabbed his jacket from behind the seat. Stabbed his arms through the sleeves. “Plus, the island has the densest population of cougars in the world, not to mention black bears and gray wolves—”

  “I was just going to ask if you had another flashlight. Malone’s winding you up,” Holly said patiently.

  “Successfully,” her colleague muttered with a smirk.

  She glanced at her fellow officer, who raised an innocent brow.

  “You know thi
s area?” she asked Finn.

  “Some. We used to fish up here when we were kids.” Finn pulled another flashlight out of the back of the truck and retrieved a rifle case too. She and Malone watched with interest as he unpacked the gun and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Got a license for that?” Malone asked.

  “You got a license for your mouth?”

  She planted a hand against Finn’s chest before the testosterone ignited. “Corporal Malone is just doing his job, although,” she raised her voice and aimed her next comment at the usually taciturn cop, “he could be a damn bit more polite to a man who’s just spent the last hour driving us out here, especially if he wants a ride back again.”

  “Now there’s a thought.” Finn smiled.

  Malone grinned, unrepentant.

  “You do have a license for that, right?” she asked Finn.

  His teeth flashed. “Remind me to pull it out and show you if we meet a Puma concolor.” But he opened his wallet and showed her the license anyway.

  “I might just steal the rifle and shoot you both. I like cats.” She rolled her eyes. “Finn, lead the way. Malone, bring up the rear and stay close. I don’t want to lose either of you tonight.”

  They set off through the dense black forest. Tree branches creaked overhead in the low wind that was slowly building from the west. Holly could see nothing beyond the rifle draped across Finn’s red jacket and a foot of jungle when she shone her lamp that way. It felt like the set of a horror movie. Even though she carried a gun and a Taser, she was glad to have Finn, and Malone, close.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” said Malone.

  “Me too.” Holly spoke loudly, hoping to scare away anything with canines sharper than her own.

  “At least it isn’t raining,” Malone commented. She saw Finn shake his head as, a moment later, the first drops hit.

  “Fuck a duck,” Malone squeaked. The rain was gentle at first, just the odd large drop splattering on the wind. But that was just the scouting party. Thirty seconds later, the heavens opened and a sheet of water lashed out of the sky. It got heavier and heavier, in waves, like a monsoon. At first her coat and hat kept off the worst, but after five minutes, water began to seep in along the seams, and rivulets dripped from her nose and chin. Her pants stuck to her skin, and she was starting to shiver. She sneezed. Finn looked back at her, lips tightened with concern.