Leaning back, she slid the note he’d left for her from her pocket. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I got a little bit of everything.”
Bronte ran her finger over the carefully printed letters. As thank-you’s went, she’d take that kind over words any day. Especially from a big, silent, sexy guy like Connor McCoy. Who knew he could be so thoughtful? Particularly with all he had going on.
“One cup of hot water…one filched file from your back-stabbing co-counsel.” Greg breezed back into her office, plopping the file down on top of her desk, then handing her the cup. Bronte quickly tucked the note back into her skirt pocket.
“Thanks.”
“De nada.”
He just stood there.
“I said thank you.”
“And I said no problem.”
She laughed as she reached in her drawer for a tea bag. “You can leave now, Greg. I know your number if I need anything else.”
“Oh.”
She smiled at his crestfallen expression as the phone rang. She reached for the receiver at the same time he did. He beat her.
“Bronte O’Brien’s office,” he said efficiently. He held out the receiver. “It’s Kelli.”
“Kelli?” She took it. “She’s supposed to be on her honeymoon.”
Greg shrugged, apparently disappointed the caller wasn’t male and couldn’t shed any more light on exactly why his boss wasn’t into doughnuts this morning. He closed the door behind himself.
“Hey, Mrs. McCoy, how’s married life treating you?” she asked.
A discernible gulp filtered through the line. “God, it took me a moment to realize you were talking to me.”
Bronte smiled. “Don’t tell me. You forgot that when you get married it’s customary to take the guy’s name. Unless, of course, you’re thinking about keeping yours. Now that would make for some interesting dinner conversation. ‘Hi, I’m Hatfield and this is my husband, McCoy.”’
“Very funny.”
“I thought so.” She flipped open the file Dennis Burns had essentially stolen from her desk and that she’d had Greg steal right back. Instantly, she noticed it had grown fatter. She twisted her lips. Had Dennis been secretly working on the case all along? “So tell me, Mrs. McCoy, what are you doing calling me when you’re supposed to be with your new husband enjoying your honeymoon?”
“David’s off getting treated for poison oak…on that fabulous rear end of his.”
Bronte howled with laughter. “Thank you, but that’s a little more information than I was looking for.”
“It’s exactly what you were looking for and you know it.”
The talk of rear ends and McCoys made Bronte think of Connor’s nicely shaped buns. She banished the image immediately and instead leafed through the pages that had been added to the top of the case file. “So while hubby is away having some young nurse—”
“Male nurse,” Kelli interrupted.
“I don’t know that that’s better, considering the location of the injury, but hey, he’s your husband.” She smiled. “Anyway, you just thought you’d give me a call because, hey, let’s face it, you miss me.”
“After three days? I don’t think so. I’d need at least about three months or so before I even realized we hadn’t spoken.”
“Liar.”
Bronte could practically hear Kelli smile. “You’re right. I didn’t call to play catch up. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
She frowned. “Me? Why? Did something happen that I don’t know about?”
“Very funny. No, it’s just, at the wedding…then the reception afterward…well, you know, you just looked a little…down, I guess is the word I’m looking for.”
Bronte couldn’t think of a single word to say. She’d thought she’d hidden her emotions from her friend. She should have known better. She’d never been very good at hiding anything from Kelli, which was exactly why Kelli kept hounding her for the reason behind her melancholy behavior ever since her friend had returned to D.C.
“Bron? Are you still there?”
“Yeah. I’m still here.” She absently flipped over another page in the file. “Is that really why you called? Because you’re worried about me?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Then, don’t.” She supposed she should be glad that Kelli didn’t seem to have gotten wind of Robbins’s murder and Connor’s suspected involvement in it and was calling to meddle in more than her personal life. But she wasn’t.
Her friend sighed. “Don’t what? Call? Or worry?”
“Both. No, wait. You can call anytime you want. Only not on your honeymoon. It’s the worrying thing I don’t want you to do because…well, because there’s no reason to worry.”
“Come on, Bron, both you and I know that you’re hiding something from me.”
And with Connor staying the night last night, now I’m hiding two things. “Correction—you think I’m hiding something. I know I’m not. The reason behind my change in behavior is probably just something simple—you know, like impending middle age.”
“You’re twenty-eight.”
“Okay, then, early menopause.”
Kelli harrumphed.
“Well then, maybe it’s because thirty is around the corner.”
“You forget who you’re talking to.”
Bronte’s gaze caught on something at the top of the page before her. Written in large capital letters was the word “COMPLAINT.” She scanned down the page to find that Melissa Robbins had been the complainant and the document had been sworn the day of her death. “Actually, Kelli, the only one doing any talking on this issue is you. Me…I’m just trying to convince you that there’s nothing to talk about.”
“You know I’m not going to give up until you tell me what’s going on, don’t you?”
Bronte barely heard her friend. Her attention, instead, was riveted to the body of the complaint. Witness contends that Marshal Connor McCoy and she were involved in an intimate relationship. That Mr. McCoy took advantage of her circumstances and ingratiated himself into her life in order, she believes, to convince her to stay and testify against Pryka.
“My God.”
“What?” Kelli asked.
Bronte shook her head. “Nothing.”
She turned the complaint over, then to the front again. Why was she just finding out about this now? And why had Melissa gone to Dennis rather than her?
She cautiously fingered through the remaining additions to the file, searching for any other little landmines that might be hidden in there. A small pile of credit card receipts slid out. She gathered them together then quickly scanned through them. Sak’s, Lauder, Cuddledown—for outrageous amounts that rivaled her annual clothing allowance. And she hadn’t authorized a single expenditure.
She was still staring at the receipts when Greg opened her door. She covered the mouthpiece with her palm. “What is it?”
“Guess who just returned?”
“Good,” she said. “Tell him I want to talk to him. Now.”
Greg gave her a little salute, then closed the door after himself.
Bronte removed her hand from the receiver. “Look, Kell, I appreciate your calling, but I’ve gotta run.”
“Anything wrong?”
Bronte rolled her eyes then began rapidly leafing through the new documents in the file, intending to copy them. “You might consider changing the CD, Hatfield…I mean, McCoy. That question is starting to wear on my nerves.”
“Wait! Before you hang up, there is a favor I wanted to ask of you.”
She sat back in her chair. “Ah, there was another reason you were calling.”
“No, there wasn’t…isn’t. It just occurred to me now, while we were talking.”
She released a sigh. “Okay, what is it?”
“I forgot to take Kojak’s biscuits out to the McCoy place in Manchester. Would you mind—”
“No problem,” she said. “Just tell me the brand, how many, and feeding instructions a
nd I’ll take them right out.”
“Thanks, Bron. I owe you one.”
“You owe me more than one, but we can discuss that in detail when you get back from the Poconos, okay?”
Bronte was just about to break the connection when Kelli stopped her. “Oh, and Bron? If you need to talk—I’m not saying about what—call me, you hear? Anytime.”
She squeezed the cold plastic of the receiver, wishing she could instead give her friend a squeeze. “I will,” she said softly, then finally hung up.
She sat there for long moments, wondering if she should just come clean with Kelli. Lay it all out—Thomas, Connor, the case—and ask her take on everything. But she wasn’t so keen on doing it over the phone.
Slowly, the items littering her desk came back into focus. Her stomach tightening, she sprang back into action.
Five minutes later, Bronte had hidden away the pages she wanted from the file, closed it in the middle of her desk, then reached out to contact Greg with the intercom. Only she didn’t have a chance because her door opened. It was Greg.
“So where is he?” she asked with a raised brow.
“He left.”
“Left?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well stop him bodily.”
She sighed. No, she supposed he couldn’t. Not when Dennis had five inches on him and at least twenty lean pounds.
Greg cleared his throat. “Oh…he did want me to pass something on.”
She stared at him. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense.”
“He told me to tell you he wants the case file back on his desk by the time he returns.”
She hiked a brow. “He did, did he? A little presumptuous, isn’t he?”
Greg frowned and a ball of dread settled in Bronte’s stomach. “Ten minutes ago I would have said the same thing. But now…”
Bronte collapsed against her chair back. “Don’t tell me. He finally managed to finagle the case away from me.”
“Uh-huh. But there’s more.”
“More?”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t happen to know where your best friend’s new brother-in-law, Connor McCoy, is, would you?”
“Me?” She nearly choked on the word. “No. Why?”
“Because an official warrant has just been issued for his arrest.”
CONNOR LEANED BACK IN THE diner booth, the crackle of the plastic covering temporarily drowning out the conversations from neighboring tables. He picked up his coffee cup and downed the contents. His empty stomach protested. He ignored it and motioned for the waitress to bring him a refill.
After he looked at his watch for the third time in as many minutes, he glanced back through the window and across the street at the U.S. courthouse, where the D.C. division of the U.S. Marshal’s office was located. He’d called fellow marshal Oliver Platt over a half an hour ago. His friend and long time co-worker had said he’d be right down, yet there was still no sign of him.
The waitress popped up and filled his cup. “Are you sure you don’t want some lunch? The chicken-fried steak is really good today, I hear.”
He shook his head. “No, thanks.”
She frowned, making him realize she hadn’t been concerned with his welfare, rather she had been looking after her tip. He made a mental note to leave her a large one as he lifted the steamy brew to his lips and took a hefty sip.
He couldn’t eat anything if he tried. He was afraid his stomach would reject everything but the coffee he now plied it with. He’d barely even glanced at the breakfast he’d picked up for Bronte that morning.
He checked his watch again, only this time his interest in the time had nothing to do with Oliver and everything to do with one Bronte O’Brien and what she was doing right about now.
She’d probably be going to lunch. Or did she eat in? Judging by the scant contents of her refrigerator and cupboards, he doubted she packed anything, simply because there wasn’t anything to pack.
Then again, she didn’t strike him as the sort to blow money on a sit-down meal.
She probably frequented the building’s vending machines, was his guess. Then probably picked at whatever she got, barely eating anything of it. At least her too slender frame indicated that’s what she did.
Then again, for all he knew she ordered in and had the appetite of a cow.
He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. Hell, what did he know about Bronte O’Brien’s eating habits? She very well could have dumped every last item he’d stacked her table with into the garbage can. Why he should care one way or another bothered him.
Who was he kidding? He wasn’t even remotely interested in her eating habits. He was interested in her. All of her. Preferably naked. In her bed. On her floor. Across her kitchen table. He didn’t care. Last night his mind had been filled with the various ways he and Bronte could have indulged in some heavy-hitting sex. And knowing he could have seen through every single one of them when he’d gone up to her room, and that he’d turned her away, was enough to make a grown, sexually healthy man want to cry.
Connor groaned and took another long pull of coffee, grateful for the painful burning that snatched his mind from the subject at hand.
And ultimately that was the problem, wasn’t it? No matter what he did, no matter how complicated his present circumstances, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Bronte and how much he wanted to slip between the sweet, silken flesh of her thighs.
The old cowbell over the door clanged. Connor looked up to find Oliver Platt stepping inside and scanning the joint. He spotted Connor and quickly took the seat across from him.
“Jesus, Con, where have you been?”
“Here for the past half hour. Waiting for you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Connor tightened his fingers around his cup, being careful not to show any of the anxiety that suddenly filled him. Oliver was nervous. “What’s up?”
“Not much, except the M.P.D. was just by the office serving a warrant for your arrest, that’s all.”
There it was. What he had suspected. And feared.
He supposed he should count himself lucky that the warrant hadn’t been served immediately after Robbins’s death. Had it been, right now he’d be sitting in jail somewhere, probably denied bail—who better than a U.S. marshal assigned to WitSec knew how to make himself disappear?—and he wouldn’t have stood a chance of proving himself innocent.
That the U.S. attorney’s office had used the metropolitan police department over the U.S. Marshal’s Service wasn’t surprising either. It never boded well to have a group arrest one of its own.
“Did you get what I asked for?”
Oliver’s face registered surprise. “You knew about the warrant?” he asked, ignoring Connor’s question.
Connor shook his head. “No. But I figured it was coming.”
Oliver looked around nervously, then reached inside his jacket. “Well, I certainly didn’t. Even Newton looked like he was about to have a coronary when the guys came in.”
Connor felt a brief, short shot of gratitude that his boss and co-workers hadn’t believed him guilty. Well, at least not before a warrant had been sworn. Now…well, now his avenues of contact at the office had essentially dwindled down to none. Oliver, included. Not because he felt he couldn’t trust him. Simply because he wouldn’t place Oliver in any more jeopardy than he already had. In a case like this, aiding and abetting carried a stiff penalty. Including his job.
“Thanks for coming.”
Oliver frowned. “I said I’d come, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but that was before.”
“My word is my bond, Con. You know that.” He slid a bulging manila envelope across the table. “Here. Just as you asked.”
“A copy?”
“Yeah. Had a helluva time making it, if you want to know the truth. A messenger from the U.S. attorney’s office was waiting for the master while I made the copy.”
“Thanks, Ol. I owe you one.”
�
��You owe me nothing.” The waitress walked up but Oliver waved her away.
Connor sat forward. “Did you talk to Wagner?”
Oliver shook his head. Dan Wagner was the agent in charge at the time of Robbins’s murder. He would have been in charge of the visitors’ log. And as such, could essentially clear—or damn—Connor with one simple answer.
“No. Dan’s called in sick ever since that day. No answer at his place. And a drive by this morning proved he wasn’t home.”
Not good.
Oliver clasped his hands in front of him on the table. “You thinking Pryka is behind this?”
“Yeah, unless you can think of anyone else who wanted Robbins dead.”
His friend shook his head. “Seems M.P.D. got a call this morning complaining of someone sitting outside Pryka’s place. They contacted us to ask if we had anybody there. You?”
Oh, yeah, he’d definitely been there. Parked on the street in plain view, hoping to force Leonid into making a move. Only he hadn’t. And the remote twelve-inch diameter microwave dish Connor had obtained from a local electronic store to attempt to listen in on Pryka’s reaction to his being there hadn’t yielded anything but white noise. Most likely produced by a top-of-the-line jamming system. It was no use planting a bug. If Pryka had a jammer, then it was safe to assume he also had his house swept for listening devices on a regular basis, as well.
Oliver was staring at him. “Look, if you need anything else, you know where I’m at, you hear? I mean anything.”
Connor nodded and watched as Oliver slid from the booth and made his way toward the door. He wouldn’t call Oliver again for anything. Nor would he be contacting the office again, either. From here on out, he was on his own.
He pulled out the money to pay for his coffee, then remembered to leave the extra tip for the tired waitress. Slipping the envelope into his jacket, he strode toward the door himself. Out on the sidewalk, he caught sight of Oliver walking back toward the district courthouse.
No, he wouldn’t be calling anyone at the office again until all this was over.
Still, there was something about knowing he could that made him not feel so alone.
Never Say Never Again Page 8
