David took in a deep breath and lengthened his strides across the room. He could do this. He’d spent the past five years in a van strategizing every case that he had come across.
“What do we know?” Renner asked.
David relaxed. This was what he needed. “Fuller confessed to being a call girl. Gemma can vouch that she owns the necklace that connects her to the ring. Where are we on Fuller’s accounts? She checked in under her own name, right?”
Renner nodded as he went back the computer. “We put a trace on them earlier today and nothing has pinged against them. We put a car on the apartment building listed on her license. Nothing.”
“This is the woman who managed to escape a team of federal agents, so lets give her a little credit.”
“But that quarry thing that you and the girl were talking about worked. Fuller’s on the run.”
David frowned. Renner wasn’t wrong. Annie knew they were after her, had to know that they still had Gemma. She wouldn’t go home and she’d only use the cash she had on her when she ran.
Renner had also picked up on something that was becoming all too clear to David. Gemma. They spoke the same language. He couldn’t fake it around her. He could only be David when she looked at him. And he, like the ass he was, had left her alone in the bathroom.
David rubbed his jaw. He could still smell the sweet scent of her on his fingers. He needed go back to her, wanted her again. “Keep a watch on Fuller’s credit cards.”
With a deep breath to prepare him, he stood up straight and walked into the bedroom.
“So, Annie running implicates her even more?” Gemma looked up at him with glaring green eyes, her cheeks still flushed with the flurry of their activity. “These walls are thinner than tissue paper.”
Amazement sizzled through David’s entire being and he was frozen between wanting to talk to her and to throw her to the bed with the rest of the evidence. “Yes.”
Gemma took in a deep breath, her chest rising softly and falling again under his study. “What would I need to do to get her out?”
“What?”
Gemma rose and tossed her book, a small copy of Pride and Prejudice, on the table. She walked up to him and put her hands on her slim hips. “She’s my best friend. The only one who’s stuck with me through all this crap that follows me around. I want her safe, so what do I have to do to make that happen?”
David’s mouth went dry. The smell of her shampoo washed over him and his eyes landed on the graceful line of her neck. He wanted to run his lips up the ivory slope. He wanted to bury his nose behind her ear and pull her to him. Take her against the window this time. He’d explore her breasts more, taking the time to circle those perfect nipples with his tongue. He wouldn’t be gentle.
Gemma waved her hands in front of his face. “I’m telling you I’m ready to deal here. I know that Annie is innocent. And I want to help prove that.”
David snapped out of his daydream. Right. That wasn’t going to happen. She’d told him. She was only here for her friend. No mention about what had just happened in the bedroom and no snarky remarks yet to show that it had affected her as it had him.
“What do you mean? You want to make a deal on her behalf?”
“You’ve already mistaken me for her once. I want you to find your white whale, to find who’s hurting that girl. So you can ask me the questions you would need to ask her and I’ll fill in all the gaps I can about her new lifestyle if you think that will protect her somehow.”
“I can’t guarantee that Annie will be freed. We’ve got her on tape admitting she’s a prostitute.”
“But you can guarantee that she will be safe and not dead in some alley like that other girl? Prison I can deal with, her dead, I couldn’t bear.”
David looked away. “I can’t make it legally binding. I will not make promises that I can’t keep.”
Gemma licked her pinked lips. “I believe you. Technically you haven’t lied to me. You told me your real name in the bar. You said that you would see me again and you have been honest about me throwing you off you game.”
David tried to muster a protest.
“Your voice carries. Would have been nice to hear that I was brilliant to my face.”
He dropped his gaze to the carpet between them. He was waiting for it, waiting for the slash and burn of her tongue.
“So here’s the deal. I answer questions related to your case. You find Annie and I talk some sense into her and we can discuss her deal later. Nothing more, nothing less. I think it will be best for both of us that way.”
He gulped. No more touching her. No more carrying her off into the bathroom or against the window. It was the right thing to do for the case. To help those girls.
“What about you? Why aren’t you more worried about yourself?”
“The only thing you’ve got me on is assaulting a federal agent and it was totally justified.”
He looked up into those brilliant green eyes and forced a nod.
“Good. Now you’ll need to look for a Juicy store nearby.”
“I’m not following you.”
Gemma rolled her eyes but smiled. “You need a woman on your team. If Annie is stressed out, she’s not going to want to stay in that dress she got away in. She’s going to want her Juicy Couture tracksuit. And since you have feds all over her apartment, she’ll go buy a new one.”
David raised an eyebrow in satisfaction. “Juicy it is.”
Chapter Eight
Gemma pressed her forehead against the cool glass and looked out at the twinkling city. There were seven agents swarming the suite now, back from their failed hunts, so she was suspect number one again and relegated back to her chair in the corner.
She sighed and fogged the glass between her and the bustling city. New York looked amazing and apparently, that was all she was going to get to do, look and not touch.
Even now, as she was pressed up against the windows, she reminded herself that David needed to be off-limits too. Look at what had happened before. She was trying to help him with the case and she ended up spread-eagle against a wall.
It was stupid and dangerous in a way that Gemma hadn’t known before. She had never met a man in a bar and taken him home. Never thought any man would want her like that. Then walked in Agent David with his ginger hair and hazel eyes who’d wanted her so bad that he had jeopardized his job to take her to bed. And she had tossed all common sense to the wind and followed her swollen sense of pride.
And the way he knew how to touch her, to slide into her and ease that need within her. Her pulse raced thinking about the way his fingers knew exactly how to stroke her, circle her and his insistence that she come first.
She gasped when she felt herself moisten again.
No, she needed to focus on Annie. Try to figure out what Annie was up to and why she would run. It was more than the feds banging down their door. What would cause the fear in her eyes? Gemma could still see it as if she were looking at Annie’s reflection in the window instead of her own. Would Annie’s boss cause her to be that scared?
Annie wasn’t the type to get involved in anything this deep. Hell, Annie had started and sold three accessory businesses already. She wasn’t the type to even work for anyone else, let alone in something that was this dangerous.
Gemma didn’t know if she was relieved when a store reported selling a pink tracksuit to a woman matching Annie’s description. It meant Annie was still somewhere in Manhattan and wearing bright fuchsia.
She had been right about that, but it still wasn’t enough. She didn’t know if Annie was safe. Her stomach tightened. What if Annie had told her boss and she retaliated? The image of the dead girl flashed across her brain.
She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Her bones ached with exhaustion and she turned to look at the bed. It was still half covered with papers and pictures. There was a spot where she could lie down. And she did have personal experience that this hotel had the most comfortable beds on t
he planet.
Something pink caught her attention. Slowly she pulled herself away from the window and walked over to the bed.
It was another evidence photo. A pink heart necklace. Gemma would have known that style anywhere. She spent most of her college life staring at Annie doodle that same heart in the corner of all her notebooks. It was Annie’s design that had made her first business so desirable that she’d sold it off for fives times the net worth.
“You really shouldn’t be looking at evidence.”
“Who’s going to stop me, Gimpy?”
The man hobbled over to the chair she’d been in most of the evening and slid it closer to the bed before sitting. “I do have a name.”
“So do I, but you keep calling me ‘that girl’ so I’ll keep calling you ‘Gimpy’.” She flashed a fake smile at him before going back to the pictures on the bed.
“David went to go get something to eat, if you’re wondering where he is.”
“I wasn’t.” Gemma ruffled through some more of the photos and found two more pieces of jewelry. Both were Annie’s signature style. Was this how she’d become involved in all this? Her jewelry? Did all the girls get matching jewels?
Gemma fingered the peacock necklace that still hung around her neck.
“Our boss is going to be here any minute and I don’t think he’s going to be as gentle as David.”
“Bet that makes you jump for joy. Oh wait. You can’t.”
The man let out a deep breath and his blue eyes searched the bed. “No, it really doesn’t.”
Gemma would have brushed off his remark, but there was a crack in his handsome armor. A shadow of doubt cast across that amazingly sharp jawline.
“I don’t know what you did to David, but he has faith in you. He doesn’t trust people often. I think he prefers books to people.”
“I can understand that. Books don’t threaten to arrest you.”
She cleared the top corner of the bed and curled around a pillow.
“David’s always had my back, so I’m willing to go out on a temporary limb for him and trust you for three seconds.”
Gemma looked up at him. The steadiness of his gaze, the clench in his jaw—he was serious. “What do you want that I haven’t already given you?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. You’ve managed to scramble the brains of the smartest guy I know. But I’m willing to bet you can’t do it to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not as smart as David.”
Caring. That’s what she was hearing in his voice. Actual compassion. Could it be? “You really are concerned that David’s gone off the deep end.”
The man nodded. “We’ve been together for three years and he keeps saving my butt. I want to return the favor at some point.”
“Then you understand I want to do everything to get Annie out of this in one piece.”
“I do. And I want to make sure David and I still have jobs after this. So if you’ve got anything that we can use to find Miss Fuller.”
He was offering her a truce? She was trying to figure out the game he was playing but nothing came to mind. “I’m going to need coffee.”
“I’ll see what the federal government can come up with.”
Where she couldn’t keep her thoughts straight around David, she didn’t seem to have the same problem around Renner. She sat on the edge of the bed while Renner leaned over the evidence still spread across the cream comforter.
“David said this whole thing started with a senator?”
“Sort of. A state senator was convicted of taking bribes and when he flipped, he spilled everything on everyone, which included a hooker he’d been seeing for years.”
“How does this tie into the dead girl?” Gemma asked, still keeping her eyes off the picture of the bloody shoe in the corner.
“Meet victim number one.”
Gemma gasped. “What happened?”
Renner shrugged. “We don’t know. We went to interrogate her, see if there had been any valuable pillow talk, and she was dead. We think it was to prevent her from talking to the feds at all. Never caught her handler either.”
“And you’ve been chasing skirt ever since?”
Renner chuckled. “Good one.”
“Thank you.” Gemma picked up the same list of names that Renner had shown her earlier today. Annie’s favorite color and Annie’s favorite actors. “How did you get the leads on the rings?”
“There were some ongoing investigations that Samson merged together.”
She picked up another evidence picture of Annie’s necklaces. This had to be Annie’s gateway into her new society. Gemma fingered the piece of jewelry still around her neck.
“And that little decoration.” Renner pointed to her neck. “Came up on our radar about six months ago. And we haven’t caught a girl yet, just terrible pictures.”
Gemma reached out and pulled a grainy photo of Annie on the arm of a tall, dark and handsome, as she had always been in college. “If they were so elusive, how did you guys get the date?”
“Samson. He made the call. Had the intel.”
“How though? I mean, it’s not like they advertise on the subway.”
Renner rubbed his chin. “I have no idea.”
“And that doesn’t make you go ‘hmm’?”
“You don’t question Samson.”
Gemma pressed her lips together. Annie’s jewelry. Annie’s names. Annie’s taste in men. Hell, Annie’s taste in hotels. Everything screamed Annie.
“So Samson makes the date, David goes in and you scoop up the first of what will be your third ring of girls for the win.”
“Fourth for the win and we needed it.”
“Will I be blessed with the story of the cast?”
Renner snorted. “No.”
Gemma chewed her lip. She would have pegged him for the kind of guy who liked to talk about himself. Which would have been perfect because she wanted to check out more of the evidence against Annie.
“You guys still haven’t really asked me any questions about Annie. I mean, the two of us go way back. I might have the detail that cracks this case wide open.”
Renner shook his head. “Fine. Where did you two meet?”
“Communication class, freshman year. I did all the homework, she gave all the presentations.”
“And all this rescuing that you spoke of?”
“Mostly from myself though I’m pretty sure the universe has something against me too.”
“So these accidents follow you around?”
Gemma nodded. “Guess you could say that.”
A file caught her attention. She pulled the manila folder labeled “alumnae”. She knew right off the bat that David had made these folders.
Renner didn’t stop her as she flipped it open. The first page was a rap sheet, complete with mug shot of an older but nice-looking woman and very large across the top was the word ‘deceased’. She’d done a year in jail for solicitation.
Renner rolled his chair over to her. “Victim number one.”
Gemma flipped to the next page. It was another rap sheet on a different woman who had a few convictions for prostitution. “Are these all prostitutes?”
“At some point or another.”
“Have you talked to any of them? Checked if they could give you info on the dead girl?”
“Usually hookers don’t want to talk to the feds.”
“Even a handsome face like yours? I don’t believe it.”
Renner chuckled. Gemma watched those twinkling blue eyes, the coal-black hair. He was exactly Annie’s type. Perfect in every way, but Gemma’s hands weren’t sweating, she wasn’t stumbling over herself as she did with David.
Her thoughts drifted to the tall agent and her pulse raced. She ran her hand along the soft comforter and her thoughts wandered away from the evidence. Sitting this close to Renner, she missed David’s smell. It was more organic than Renner’s. She missed the way it wrapped around he
r when he was close, when he was pressed against her and the way it clung to her after their heated moments in the bathroom.
“I’m right here, you know,” Renner said.
Gemma’s cheeks flushed. “What?”
Renner laughed. “Right. David might be good with the thinking part, but I’m good with the reading people.”
Gemma wanted to hide her face in her hands but she just dropped her head to her chest and sighed. “Maybe you’re his Annie.”
“Maybe we’re all a little of both.”
* * * * *
He’d taken a walk down to his hotel room and showered. Renner had suggested that he get some sleep because they both knew that he hadn’t gotten any the night before.
He’d nearly forgotten that Gemma had clocked him that morning. There was barely any swelling and the cut had closed up hours ago. Further proof that the girl had made her mark.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. When David saw the caller’s name, his stomach hardened and his head spun. He really didn’t want to talk to his boss.
“What’s this I hear about making a deal with a suspect?”
David winced at the volume of his boss’s voice. How in the hell did he hear about that? “She did give us…”
“If you don’t have the hooker, she’s given you nothing. Now get what we need or you charge her and get her out of your way.”
“Sir—” David started.
“Don’t you dare ‘sir’ me. If you don’t have something by dawn, I’m coming in there to do your job for you.”
David gulped.
“I want that girl, Hadley.” Samson disconnected and David let out a sigh of relief.
He knew his boss was right. They should probably let Gemma go and start all over with their pursuit of his ring.
But he couldn’t. He had promised that he would keep Annie safe. Which meant working with Gemma to find her.
He grabbed his jacket and headed back to the hotel room. He met the room service cart at the door. “Thank god. You have coffee on that thing?”
“No, sir.”
“Get some. We are going to need it.”
He opened the door to fed central and the other agents swooped in on the cart before David could tip the bellhop. He barely grabbed a sandwich for himself and Gemma before everything was picked clean.
Pride and Prostitution Page 6
