He dropped onto the bench, threw his arms wide and gripped the deck railing with both hands. “From the moment I regained consciousness in the hospital, I’ve struggled to understand what happened.”
“You don’t know?”
“I can’t remember clearly.”
“Didn’t the police investigate?”
“Internal Affairs left no stone unturned.” He patted the bench beside him. “You’d better sit down. It’s a long story, and it started about this time last year.”
THE REAL ESTATE fraud file on his desk had ballooned to a thickness of eight inches, but Jordan was no closer to zeroing in on the scam artists than he’d been four months ago at the start of his investigation.
He shoved away from his desk, crossed to the coffeemaker in a corner of the Criminal Investigations Department and was draining the unappealing sludge from the bottom of the pot into his mug when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled, sloshing coffee over the rim of his cup.
“That stuff’ll stunt your growth,” Jenny Argeroux said.
He grinned at the uniformed patrol officer, whose head didn’t quite reach his shoulder, and mopped his hands and cup with a paper towel. “Speaking from experience, short stuff?”
“Another crack like that,” she waved a folded newspaper beneath his nose, “and I’ll give this to Panowski. When he takes the credit for solving your case, you’ll have only yourself to blame.”
“Which case?” Jordan grabbed at the paper, but she flitted out of range.
“The real estate scam.”
She followed him to his desk. Shoving aside the holstered gun at her hip, she settled into the empty chair beside the cluttered surface of his work area.
He eyed the petite officer with affection and resisted planting a kiss on her freckled nose. “Anyone ever tell you how great you look in uniform?”
She aimed her deep blue gaze at the ceiling. “Oh yeah, clunky shoes, Sam Browne belt and starched trousers are the latest thing in sexy. I have to beat guys off with my truncheon.”
He suppressed a grin and shrugged. “You want sexy, you can always ask for an assignment in undercover vice, like nabbing unsuspecting johns. Then you could wear short skirts, high-heeled boots, big hair, push-up bra—”
She smacked him playfully with the newspaper, then flipped it open and spread it across the chaos on his desk. She poked at one section with her finger. “Be serious and take a look. I picked this up when my shift ended, and the ad jumped out at me.”
A quarter-page advertisement in big, bold type for a new development east of town caught his eye. Jenny was definitely on to something.
“It’s the same language, same MO as the first one.” He couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice.
The trail had gone cold on the first real estate scam. By the time the Sunset Bay police had received complaints about a bogus company that was selling homes for huge down payments, then splitting with the money, the crooks had folded their operation and disappeared, completely covering their tracks. Jordan had ferreted out a few leads, including a possible connection to local real estate mogul David Swinburn, but nothing concrete had panned out.
“There’s a phone number to call for an appointment,” Jenny pointed out, cocking an eyebrow at him. She had been a patrol officer only two years, and she was already bucking for detective.
He smiled at her enthusiasm. “I’ll make an appointment and get Maggie to pose as my wife. If we wear wires, we can tape their sales pitch, plus we’ll both get a good look at the salesman.”
“With any luck, he’s got a mug shot in the files.”
“Thanks, Jen.” He tousled her cropped sandy hair. “Did you see Maggie when you came in?”
“She just left. Said she caught a murder-suicide at one of the retirement complexes near the golf course and was headed there to start the investigation.”
“That’ll tie her up for days.” He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. “And Tracy’s on vacation for another week.”
Jenny’s impish grin wrinkled her freckled nose. “You could try putting Rick Panowski in drag and take him to the appointment. Let him play your wife.”
Jordan laughed. Panowski’s runaway ambition to make lieutenant and his willingness to do anything to further his career were legendary, even among the uniforms.
Jenny’s expression sobered. “Or you could take me with you.”
“No way.”
“Aw, Jordy, it’s not dangerous—or complicated. I just act like a lovestruck bride anxious to own her first home. How hard can that be?”
“With your flair for the dramatic, not hard, but the answer’s still no.”
She slugged him lightly on his right bicep. “Lighten up! You’re pulling your protective act again. I hate when you do that.”
“Don’t try your feminine wiles on me, short stuff. What part of no don’t you comprehend?” He felt responsible for her. After all, he was one of the main reasons she’d chosen a law enforcement career.
She narrowed her eyes and lifted her chin. “I’m a trained officer, and I can take care of myself. If you wait till Maggie’s free or Tracy’s back, you could lose your chance to nail these guys.”
“Forget it.”
“If you don’t say yes, I’ll go over your head.”
“To the chief?”
“Worse. Your father.”
He laughed. “You fight dirty, Argeroux.”
“I fight to win.”
And, eventually, she did. Her tenacity wore him down. With the chief’s blessing, she made up the other half of the undercover team.
At seven-thirty that night, they drove in an unmarked car to the motel where the so-called real estate developer was meeting clients.
Jordan and Jenny activated their hidden recorders and climbed the stairs to the second-floor room. Jordan knocked at the door, standing slightly ajar.
“That you, Mr. Smithfield?” the voice from their phone conversation called out.
“Yes, and my wife, Jenny,” Jordan answered.
“Come in and have a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Jordan nudged open the door to the dimly lighted suite, and Jenny preceded him inside. At a sudden movement in the shadows, his instincts flashed red alert. He yanked the SIG-Sauer from his shoulder holster, but something punched him in the left shoulder and knocked him off his feet.
“Look out, Jenny!” he cried, just before the nondescript carpeting rose up and smacked him in the face.
“You WERE AMBUSHED.” Hearing his story, Angel felt more confused than before. “If you were unconscious, you couldn’t have shot her.”
“She was killed with a bullet from my gun.” The neutrality of his voice hid his obvious agony. “The Internal Affairs investigation concluded I had already drawn my weapon, and my hand must have convulsed on the trigger when I was shot. Jenny was standing in front of me when I fired. She died instantly.”
Heartsick, Angel placed her hand on his knee. “I’m so sorry.”
“God knows, I loved her,” he said softly.
“Would you have married her?”
“Married her?” He looked at her as if she’d grown a second head. “Jenny was my kid sister.”
A fist in the stomach couldn’t have winded Angel more. “Your sister?”
“She went into police work because of me. I was responsible for her. And I killed her.”
“You mustn’t blame—”
“I should have been more alert, or entered the room first, or—”
“Don’t torture yourself with should-haves.” Her heart ached for him, and she longed to wrap her arms around him, but the stiffness in his bearing held her off.
“My father blames me, and so does Ted, Jenny’s husband. In fact, my whole family has written me off.” His voice held no self-pity, no emotion of any kind, just a deadness that turned her blood cold.
“They can’t understand—”
“Dad’s a retired police ch
ief. He studied the IA report backward and forward. The report exonerates me, but Dad still believes Jenny’s death was my fault. And he’s right. A good cop always looks out for his partner.”
She yearned for some way to ease his suffering. He had shot and killed the kid sister he loved, who’d regarded him as her hero and followed in his footsteps. How could he expect his family to forgive him when he couldn’t forgive himself?
“Jenny’s death is why you never returned to the department?”
“No cop would feel safe with me as backup. And how could I trust myself?” The bleakness in his face wrenched her heart. “I put away my gun and haven’t touched it since. Then I resigned from the force and used my pension money to buy this cabin cruiser.”
Oblivion. Exile. Emptiness. Nothing.
She shivered. The name he’d given his boat described his state of mind. She wished she could siphon away his anguish and make him whole again, anything to free him from his all-consuming guilt and soul-crushing sorrow.
A memory of the unopened vodka bottle in the bulkhead cabinet flashed into her mind. The demons he’d tried to drown now had names. He’d lost too much—his sister, his family, the work he’d loved. How could any man withstand what he’d experienced without cracking under the load?
But Jordan Trouble wasn’t just any man. He was inherently kind and capable and generous. He didn’t deserve the tragedies life had dumped on him.
Ignoring his rigid posture, she knelt beside him on the bench and drew his head against her heart. He stiffened and tried to pull away, but she held him fast.
“You might as well stop resisting. I can be as stubborn as you.”
“I don’t want your pity,” he said with a low growl laced with misery. Breaking from her embrace, he rose and circled the cabin to the bow. Determined, she dogged his steps.
He braced himself at the rail, a lonely shadow above the dark open water. Leaning against the rail beside him, she placed her hand over his. “What I feel for you isn’t pity.”
Jordan searched her upturned face for signs of the pity she denied. Her eyes glittered, but not with sympathy. Slowly, the hard, cold shell around his heart shattered like a stone splintering beneath a hammer’s blow. His defenses fell away, and unbearable pain flooded him. He’d barely steeled himself against it before the bolstering presence of Angel’s love inundated his agony and washed it away.
With a strangled cry, he gathered her in his arms like a shield against his grief. She loved him in spite of what he’d done, accepted him with all his flaws. God knew, he didn’t deserve her. He should send her away before he tainted her further with the misery of his life.
But he needed her. He wanted her. Since Jenny’s death, he’d been a dry husk, void of feelings and only going through the motions of living, but Angel had given him a purpose and taught him to experience joy again.
And Carleton James intended to kill her.
Ignoring the tenderness in his heart and the hot, fierce longing pulsing in his groin, he thrust her at arm’s length. “Get some sleep. We’ ll need clear heads tomorrow.”
She didn’t protest, but her dazed, hurt expression haunted him long after she’d gone below.
MAGGIE HENDERSON DIDN’T BOTHER with greetings or waiting for Jordan and Angel to take a seat in David Swinburn’s formal living room the next morning.
“Did you have any idea what was in Swinburn’s safety deposit box, Trouble?”
With her barely contained energy, nervous pacing, slender frame and fiery red hair, the petite detective reminded Angel of a stick of dynamite, seconds from detonation.
“Good morning to you, too, Mags,” Jordan said with an amused grin. “You remember Sara?”
Maggie stopped pacing and nodded at Angel. “Looks like I owe you an apology, Ms. Swinburn.”
Hope fluttered through Angel like a fresh breeze. “You’re dropping the murder charge?”
Maggie cocked her head to one side and skewered Angel with a probing glance. “That depends.”
“On what?” Jordan asked.
At his tone and his refusal to look at her, desolation washed through Angel. All business in his investigator’s role, Jordan seemed even more remote than Brittany, who was over a hundred miles away.
Maggie nodded toward a quartet of chairs in a far corner, away from the windows. “We’d better sit. This gets complicated.”
Stifling a longing fueled by memories of Jordan’s tender kisses and the reassuring strength of his arms, Angel sank onto an antique chair covered in yellow brocade and concentrated on the assertive detective. “You don’t still think I killed David?”
“What I think isn’t the point.” Maggie hovered on the opposite chair as if ready to leap to her feet in an instant. “What counts is evidence—and right now, all the hard evidence points to you.”
Angel’s hopes plummeted. More than anything, she wanted the charges against her cleared and James caught, so she and Brittany could resume their life together. Before last night, she would have included Jordan on her want list, but he’d withdrawn behind a cold, impenetrable shield that shut out his pain—and everyone and everything else along with it.
She glanced at the tall, handsome man whose easy manner once again hid the terrible agony he suffered. Last night, when she’d heard his account of shooting Jenny and how his family had turned their backs on him because of it, her heart had ached for him. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her pity. And he hadn’t wanted her love. Judging from his subsequent chilly behavior, she gathered all he wanted was to wreak vengeance on Carleton James and his hired assassins and then be rid of everyone, her included.
When he folded himself into the seat next to her, dwarfing the chair with his large frame, his honest male scent of sunshine and salt water made her stomach clutch with desire. She gave herself an inner shake. She had to concentrate on proving her innocence and quit mooning over a man who didn’t want her.
“The evidence against Angel—uh, Sara,” he was saying to Maggie, “is all circumstantial.”
Maggie shrugged. “At this point, it’s the best I’ve got.”
Jordan frowned. “What about your case against Carleton James?”
The energetic detective balanced on the edge of her seat. “What case? All I have are the counteraccusations of the woman already charged with Swinburn’s murder, some vague notations of monies paid by Swinburn to James—”
“Don’t forget,” Jordan interrupted, “I clearly heard Frank and Sidney say James instructed them to kill Sara and her daughter.”
Maggie quieted suddenly and leaned back in her chair, her expression communicating a peculiar gentleness. “You’ve had a rough year, Jordy. You won’t make the most credible of witnesses.”
He sighed and tunneled his long fingers through his thick hair. Angel felt his pain but held back from going to him and circling him in her arms. After last night, she was certain he would push her away.
“You’re telling me—” exasperation colored his voice “—you have no case against James?”
“No hard evidence,” Maggie agreed. “Not yet.”
Angel wrung her hands in frustration. “You found nothing in the safety deposit box to incriminate James?”
Like a dynamo powering up, Maggie grew more animated. “Thanks for reminding me. I wouldn’t call a million and a half bucks nothing.”
Angel gasped, and Jordan’s jaw dropped.
“A million and a half?” he said. “Cash?”
Excitement thrummed through Angel like an electric current. “That’s the money James is after.”
Jordan scowled. “Profits from his phony real estate deals.”
“Probably, but I can’t connect the money to James,” Maggie said. “We’ve got zip to correlate him to the scams and nothing but Sara’s word to tie him to Swinburn’s homicide.”
The detective’s gaze met Jordan’s and Angel saw a flash of understanding arc between the two cops.
“So set a trap with the money,”
Jordan suggested.
“It might work if Sara contacts James, tells him she has the money and will give it to him if he promises to leave her and Brittany alone.”
“He won’t let me live,” Angel said with a shiver. “I’m a witness to David’s murder.”
Maggie nodded. “But James doesn’t know you don’t trust him. You’d wear a wire, ask leading questions. Since he intends to kill you anyway, he may tell you everything—which we’d then have on tape.”
“No way.” Jordan’s voice was hard, unyielding.
Maggie looked puzzled. “You don’t think James will talk?”
“He’ll talk, but there’s no way you’re putting her in that kind of danger.”
Maggie hopped to her feet and balled her hands on her hips. “What kind of cop do you take me for? We’d have the meeting place surrounded. James wouldn’t have a chance to look cross-eyed at Sara before officers’d be all over him like ants on a picnic.”
Heat flushed Angel’s face. “Quit talking about me as if I’m not here. I make my own decisions, and I’m willing to take the risk.”
Jordan’s eyes burned black with anger. “Aren’t you both forgetting something?”
Angel glanced at Maggie, then mirrored her shrug.
He rammed his hands in the pockets of his jeans and slumped in the chair. “You have a mole in your department, Mags. With someone feeding info to James, how can you be sure he’d show up? And if he does, how’re the cops going to keep Angel safe if you don’t know which one of your guys is on James’s payroll?”
Angel blinked in amazement at the stream of profanity that sprang from Maggie’s delicate lips. The detective finished her tirade and confronted Jordan. “So now what?”
“You’ll need a totally different plan.” He arched an eyebrow, watching for Maggie’s response.
She shook her head. “Just a variation.”
He looked skeptical, but Angel, anxious to end her ordeal and reunite with her daughter, would grasp at any straw.
“I’m willing to hear it.” She shot a warning glance at Jordan, daring him to intervene.
A Woman of Mystery Page 16
