by Anna Sugden
Was she frustrated that she’d lost control with him? Or was it something more than that? Had she experienced a bad breakup in the past? Was that why she was afraid to trust others? There had to be something to it. His questions and his justifications made him grin. The male ego was a fragile thing. A man would make any excuse to explain away the truth—that a woman just didn’t want him. And he needed to come up with some good excuse now because Delia Morgan didn’t seem to want him at all.
“Thanks for suggesting this place,” she said after a few minutes.
“As long as no other troopers pop in, we’re good.” At the question in her eyes, he explained, “You remember that since the cuts, some troopers are operating out of city police departments instead of only at their posts? The Novi department is just down the street from here.”
“Oh. Right.” She turned toward the stairs as if she expected to see blue uniforms at any moment.
“Is it bright enough for you in here?”
He meant it as a joke to distract her from worrying, but he regretted his words when she shifted and stared up the long tracks of suspended fluorescent lights. As if those weren’t bright enough, each of the workstations had its own desk lamp, as well. He couldn’t have suggested a brighter, less intimate place, without asking to meet her in the middle of a parking lot at high noon.
Delia turned back to him and shrugged, her gaze shifting to the side. “We’ll definitely get more work done here.”
“Definitely.”
Of course, he would accomplish a lot more if he could stop staring at her, so he looked past her to the opposite side of the room. Unfortunately, his gaze landed on a teenage couple seated on one of the sofas in the reading area. He’d noticed them earlier, making too much noise and earning two warnings from the librarian at the reference desk. Both were at least pretending to read now, but it was clear that they were more interested in each other than their books.
Delia followed his gaze to the young couple. For a few seconds she only sat watching them, but then she turned back to Ben. “Guess other people need the bright lights, too.”
He decided not to point out that she’d included the two of them in that group. Instead, he closed his laptop. “Why don’t we start by updating each other on any new information we’ve found. Anything you haven’t told me already?”
He expected her to look relieved that he was back to business, so her immediate smile surprised him.
“Well, there is one thing,” she said.
He frowned. “So spill. The suspense is killing me.”
“I’d rather show you.”
Oh, she could show him, all right, but the library probably wasn’t the best place for that. Missing the innuendo in her own words and his willingness to leap to such licentious conclusions, she reached into her backpack and withdrew a thick yellow clasp envelope.
He stared at the package she set on the desk in front of her. “Is that what I think it is?” Strange how he suddenly hoped it wasn’t. As much as he needed what could be inside that package, the envelope only served as a reminder of all the risks Delia was taking. For him.
“I told you I’d get it. Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Not here. You never know who might get nosy.”
“You’re probably right.” She frowned. “You’ll have to let me know if anything jumps out at you as significant.”
“You haven’t read it already?”
“I scanned it after I got home last night, but I don’t have enough history to recall many of the cases.”
“Scanned it?”
The side of her mouth lifted. “Okay, I pored over it for hours.”
“That’s my girl.”
As soon as the words slipped out, he wished he could draw them back in. She slanted a glance to the side rather than to look at him. But was that an idiom or a Freudian slip? Had he just admitted to the both of them that despite all of the reasons he shouldn’t be with someone like Delia, he wanted just that? No one had ever frustrated him more, or challenged him, or downright entertained him like she did. Did that mean something? Should he let it?
“Anyway, nothing jumped out at me.”
“Makes sense. I told you that even I don’t know which cases are involved.”
Ben reached for the envelope and, though she bit her lip, her gaze shifting from side to side, she pushed it his way. After he’d placed it in his computer satchel, he folded his hands on the desk.
“Anything else?” He asked it quickly, before she had the chance to start asking him questions. He didn’t look forward to explaining that he’d made no progress at all...other than digging for bones among the skeletons in her closet.
“Well, I’ve gone out with the others a couple of times.”
“That’s good,” he blurted. “I mean, that’s a good way to find information. No one’s going to come out and announce, ‘Hey, you should consider me as a suspect.’”
“You’re probably loving this.” She chuckled as she closed her laptop. “You’ve been encouraging me to get to know them better. Bet you never planned for it to happen this way.”
“Might as well kill two birds with one stone.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
It wasn’t a full-blown endorsement, he decided, but she hadn’t shot his idea down this time, either. “When they’re stuffing their faces, they’re more relaxed. You’ll get to overhear more conversations than you ever would at the post.”
“I hope so.”
And he hoped for more than that. Even if this investigation didn’t turn out so well for him, if it ended his career—or worse—at least Delia would have built relationships with other team members. At least she would be all right. That this suddenly meant more to him than his own future demonstrated just how off his game he was around Delia and how much he needed to regain his focus.
“So you went to the Driftwood,” he prompted when she didn’t elaborate on anything she’d learned.
“Not the Driftwood. We’ve been going to Casey’s Diner.”
“That’s a switch.”
“Nobody wanted to go to the Driftwood,” she explained, “because, well, things are different now.”
He wasn’t there. She didn’t have to say it aloud for him to catch her meaning.
“Oh. Well, that’s nice of...everybody.” He cleared his throat, emotion threatening over that small sign of support. How soft had he become lately?
“It is kind of strange,” she began, but stopped herself from saying more.
When their gazes met, she pointedly turned away. Unfortunately, the lovebirds in the reading area had become downright cozy by this point, snuggling up together, textbooks untouched in their laps. No matter how hard he tried to ignore the couple, he couldn’t help picturing himself and Delia on that sofa instead, oblivious to everyone else.
When she looked back to him again, Delia swallowed visibly. “Anyway, I have some questions about Trevor Cole. What do we really know about him other than that he came from the Manistique Post?”
“Why? Did he say something suspicious?”
She was still wearing her coat, but she crossed her arms as if suddenly cold. “Nothing per se. But he just keeps—I don’t know—watching me.”
Ben pressed his lips together to keep from smiling, but from her frown, he could tell he’d failed.
“You told me to look for anyone behaving strangely.”
“And you’d never noticed him watching you before?”
As much as it gave him an itchy feeling inside to know that someone else was staring at Delia, he could hardly blame the guy. Oh, he was tempted to call Trevor and tell him he’d be sorry if he didn’t knock off the staring, but he couldn’t blame him for seeing what Ben had somehow missed at first. Now he didn’t know how that could ever have been possible.
“I’d never paid attention before,” she said, also answering Ben’s question without realizing it.
But that Delia hadn’t noticed men’s react
ions to her didn’t surprise him. She didn’t know how beautiful she was.
“Maybe he thinks you’re attractive.”
She shook her head. “That isn’t it.”
He wouldn’t be so sure. Strangely she’d failed to recognize some men’s reactions to her, but she’d seemed keenly aware of the effect she had on Ben. Or had he read too much into that, as well?
“He did ask me what I was thinking when I was daydreaming last night at Casey’s,” she told him. “He said, ‘Penny for your thoughts.’”
“Sounds like a bad pickup line to me.”
“It felt more like the beginning of an interrogation. I was worried he’d seen me borrowing the file from Polaski’s office. Or maybe he saw me return it after I’d made the copies.”
“You had to sneak in there twice?”
“What did you expect me to do, steal it and hope no one missed it?”
“You’re right.” Clearly, he hadn’t thought that through before he’d let her get the file. Let her? This was Delia Morgan he was talking about. She would have done as she pleased no matter what he’d said.
“Let’s say that Trevor was behaving strangely,” he began again, pushing aside his protective, and probably sexist, tendencies. “How do you suggest we check that out?”
She relaxed finally and wiggled out of her coat sleeves. “I just thought we should check to see if there were any cases of evidence irregularities at Manistique.”
“I can hunt for any news stories suggesting that. Truthfully, I haven’t looked at Trevor or Jamie too closely yet since they weren’t in Brighton when some of the cases that I suspect were involved came through.”
“I wasn’t, either.”
He only nodded. He couldn’t admit that though he hadn’t looked into their backgrounds, he’d been scouring hers.
She pointed to his bag next to the desk. “That will answer your questions about which cases are involved, but I wouldn’t rule those two troopers out yet. Just because they weren’t around when the arrests were made doesn’t mean they couldn’t have messed with evidence by the time the cases went to trial.”
“True.” He hadn’t thought of that, but she was right. “That means we can’t rule anyone out yet.”
“Except me.”
“Not even you.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DELIA COULD ONLY stare at Ben, though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t. It was hard enough facing him after the other night—after the shameful way she’d behaved—without having kids on the verge of tangling their braces right in front of them. Now Ben had made it worse by revealing that he still suspected her.
“What do you mean, you can’t rule me out?”
“Can you rule me out?” he asked.
She frowned at him but didn’t answer.
Ben was the one under suspicion, and she had to keep reminding herself that she shouldn’t clear him as a suspect without proof, either. So why was it so easy for him to continue suspecting her?
“You have a motive.” When she shook her head, he only nodded. “Sure, you do. You’re ambitious. You’re looking to make your mark. You would benefit from having some of your superior officers out of the way. The question is how far you’d be willing to go to see that happen.”
He was grinning as he said it, but she could only frown. Did he think this was funny?
“You really think I’m capable...”
He shook his head. “If I had answers to all of my questions, I wouldn’t still be sitting here asking them. Maybe I’d even be back behind my own desk, grumbling about how small my office is.”
He swiped his hand across the air in front of him. “Slash that. If all of this blows over, I’m not going to complain about my small office or the slow computers. For at least a week.”
Ben was smoothing over the tense moment like he always did, but Delia couldn’t let it pass so easily. Though she couldn’t fault him for still having questions, when she’d never really explained why she was helping him. Or anything else.
“I have career aspirations, sure,” she began, carefully planning her words. “And I am trying to make my mark. But my goals have nothing to do with any other officers. I don’t want to shoot anyone else down.”
She winced after her last comment. In a career where they all carried weapons, she shouldn’t be talking about shooting anything. She expected him to make a joke about that, but he didn’t even smile.
“So what do these goals of yours have to do with?”
To stop from fidgeting, she opened her laptop and swirled her finger on the mouse pad to bring up the screen again. Though she wasn’t used to opening up to anyone, maybe it was time. She wanted to believe that it was only so Ben could eliminate her as a suspect, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was something more. Did she finally want someone to really know her? Should she take that kind of risk, even if he might be the only person who would ever understand her?
She forced herself to look at him as she spoke. “I just see myself moving on to a higher-profile law enforcement agency where I can help crime victims. Especially kids.”
Ben nodded and opened his laptop again.
“And in order to make the move to this high-profile agency, you have to make an impression where you are. Like the one I made at the bank?”
“Well, something like that couldn’t hurt. Something with a commendation. But I didn’t begrudge you your moment in the spotlight.”
He lifted a brow. “Oh, really?”
Her stomach tightened. He’d seen right through her all along. Did he know her other secrets, as well? Had she given away hints without realizing it?
“Okay, I was jealous for about a minute. But even if I was still jealous, I wouldn’t try to sabotage you. I wouldn’t even benefit from damaging your credibility or from causing a scandal at the post.”
“Why is that?”
“You know why that is. It’s like earning top honors from the worst medical school in the country. Not exactly a résumé builder.” She glanced down at her screen again, typing MSP Manistique Post into the search box. Somehow that was easier than seeing more questions in his eyes. Questions she wasn’t prepared to answer.
“That’s why you wanted to help me clear my name. So you could boost your own career.”
Delia blinked. Was that really why she’d done it? “When you put it that way—”
“Is there any other way to put it?”
She stared at her hands as they rested on the keys. “I guess not. There was more to it, though.” But how could she explain that to him? Could she tell him that she’d never witnessed that kind of valor before, and she couldn’t bear the thought that she would have been wrong about him, too?
“Sure. You said it was the right thing to do. You just didn’t say right for whom.”
Delia’s fists squeezed. So much for opening up to him. He’d taken what she’d said and twisted it until it looked ugly and selfish and—
“Wait.” She jerked her head up. “Where that argument falls short is in assuming that the post’s reputation could be cleared, as well. That’s not going to happen because someone at the post or with access to it has committed these crimes.”
“Valid point,” he said finally.
“Valid point? That’s all I get?”
“What do you want? A cookie?” At her frown, he continued, his hands held up in surrender. “Fine. There’s a possibility that you were simply being magnanimous.”
“Hmm, magnanimous. I like the sound of that.”
“Figured you would.”
But somehow winning the argument wasn’t enough this time. She needed to understand him. So as she scanned through the headlines of articles about the Manistique Post, she casually asked, “If you questioned my motives, why did you agree to work with me?”
“You said it yourself. I didn’t have many options.”
She nodded toward the screen. Of course that was it. She didn’t know what she’d expected, and that she’d expected
anything wasn’t a good sign.
“That wasn’t the only reason,” Ben said after a few seconds. “I let you help me because I admired your boldness. You were taking a huge risk, and you took it for me.”
Though it didn’t seem wise, nothing could have stopped her from looking back to him now. He was smiling, his eyes crinkling at the sides, those too-appealing dimples of his flashing unfairly. Their gazes caught and held in what felt like a caress. It was too tempting. Too sweet. And it had to stop.
Somehow she managed to look away, but she made the mistake of looking out into the open area of the room instead of turning to the safety zone of the window. That little blonde and her dark-haired boyfriend, the nemeses of her ability to stay on task tonight, picked that moment to steal a kiss.
It didn’t seem right to watch, but she couldn’t look away. Where she usually would have been annoyed that they didn’t take their kissing elsewhere, she envied them the moment. Just once she wished she could have that, a normal relationship where kissing and touching seemed natural, instead of a cause for shame.
The reference librarian must have noticed the kiss, too, because she crossed to the pair and spoke to them in low tones. Whatever she said caused them to pack up their books and leave. After the tops of their heads disappeared from view on the staircase, she turned back to Ben. She caught him watching her, but he quickly looked back to his computer screen. Had he been observing her the whole time, and if he had, what did he think he’d seen?
“Well, good thing the PDA police was on that one.”
She could almost hear the smile in his voice this time, but she kept looking at the screen. It was safer.
“Wonder if their parents knew how much studying they were doing at the library.”
He chuckled at that. “Or what subject they were studying.”
She tried to focus on her computer screen, but she couldn’t stop peeking over at the sofa the young couple had vacated. Only it wasn’t the kiss she and everyone else in the library had witnessed that kept replaying in her mind. She pictured a cold night and a burned-out street lamp. Two other hungry lovers coming together under a cover of darkness. But the images were as clear to her as if they’d acted out the scene on that same empty sofa, under a set of UV lights.
