by Mallory Kane
She turned in time to catch him frowning as he picked up a pencil and pushed a stack of paper aside. He was still on his phone. “Key? Okay. In her left pocket.” He jotted something on the desk blotter. “Wrapped in a tissue?”
Key. Debra had had a key in her pocket? Laurel met his gaze and he moved his head a few millimeters in a nod.
She knew he was thinking the same thing she was. Debra may have been bringing that key to Laurel as evidence. If it fit Laurel’s room at the B&B, it would explain how the intruder got in.
“We need that key. Can you send it over by courier? Yeah, the fibers, too. I’m pretty crippled here. I only have two officers and one is the victim’s father.” He set the pencil down and rubbed his eyes. “How soon can you get it here? Great. Thanks.” He hung up.
Laurel barely waited until the phone hit the cradle. “Debra was bringing me a key wrapped in a tissue. It had to be to my room. And it’s got prints on it, I’m sure! She knew who ransacked my room. Maybe she did it.”
Cade sent her a cautious look. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Wait? We don’t have time to wait. We need information. What did the ME say about the cause of death?” Laurel planted her palms on the desk. “The autopsy report? Is he sending us photos? I need to see the marks on her neck—get a closer look at the bruising.”
“Settle down. You’re about five seconds from a meltdown. Let me take you to the house so you can relax—maybe take a hot shower.”
She shook her head. “No. Stop treating me like a girl. I’m a cop, just like you are. So when you stop to take a hot shower, I’ll join you.”
Cade’s eyebrows shot up.
“What?” she snapped.
His cheeks turned faintly pink and he shook his head. “Nothing.”
“What other physical evidence did he find? You mentioned fibers. Were they her fingernails? I’ve got to look at everything before I can make a determination—”
“Hold it.” Cade held up his hands. “We do know about procedure down here in Dusty Springs. The ME is faxing me his autopsy report and emailing me hi-res images of his autopsy photos. We’ll get a look at them in a few minutes.”
“Good. Fine.” She slid her hands out of her pockets and rubbed her temples as she paced back and forth across the small office. She twisted her hair up off her neck, but as usual, she didn’t have a barrette or a clip to hold it so she let it drop back to swinging just above her shoulders. Then she looked at her watch, still pacing.
“How long will it take the courier to get here? I want to overnight all the evidence to the FBI lab. They can lift a print off almost anything.” She reached the front of the room and whirled on her heel and retraced her steps.
“If we call early enough,” she continued, “we can get it picked up this evening. Mitch will have the lab in D.C. process it priority and get us some preliminary results by Tuesday at the latest.”
At the opposite end of the room, she turned again. This time she ran slap into Cade’s hard, warm body. How had he gotten up without the chair squeaking?
“I said hold on.” He put his hands on her upper arms and squeezed. “Settle down. We’ll get it all done. You need to chill.” He ducked his head a little to meet her gaze.
“Chill? You think I should chill while there’s a killer out there?” She shook her head and tried to extricate herself from his grip. “There’s no way. I already let Misty get hurt, and now Debra’s dead.”
She looked at his big, long-fingered hands, dark against the paler skin of her arms. “Let go of me. I need to move.”
He held on. “Yeah, so I see. Why is that?”
She pulled against his grasp.
“That wasn’t a rhetorical question. You’re nervous as a cat. It’s wearing you out.”
“It helps me think.” She rubbed her temples. “Usually. But right now all I can think about is Debra out there waiting for me, not knowing she was about to die.”
“Are you telling me you feel responsible for Debra’s death?”
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop the lump that was growing in her throat. She swallowed and blinked, and tried again to escape Cade’s hold.
“I didn’t take her seriously,” she said, not looking at him. “I should have insisted that she meet me right then, when she called. And then I wasted time dancing with you when I should have been with her—”
“Okay, stop. It’s not your fault that Debra was killed. All you did was agree to meet with her. If she told someone what she was doing, or if someone saw her, that’s not your responsibility.” He stared into her eyes. “Got it?”
His blue gaze was reassuring, but her guilt wasn’t that easily assuaged. She’d been lusting after Cade while Debra was dying.
“I tell you what. Why don’t I make you some coffee? You can lie down on the couch in the other room for a while, just until the courier gets here with the key.”
“Coffee? Lie down? I can’t do that.” She wrenched away from him. “Would you stop treating me like—”
Cade’s smile faded and his gaze froze her in place. “Like a girl? That’s not going to be easy.”
Laurel’s cheeks flamed. “I don’t see why not.”
“Then you don’t see what I see.”
What did he see? She wanted so badly to ask him, but what if all he meant was that he couldn’t avoid seeing what any man saw—boobs, lips…boobs? That would be unbearable.
If he really was looking, she wanted him to see her. Who she was inside. Who she’d always been, even behind the teenaged awkwardness, the braces and glasses. For what little good it would do her.
Even if he did think of her as more than a fellow law enforcement officer, even if his casual flirtations were partly genuine, it wouldn’t matter. She’d never been good at the flirtatious banter that went on between men and women. She had an annoying habit of speaking her mind, when she wasn’t too flustered to speak at all. She’d missed out on a lot of dates because she’d never learned how to flirt.
“Hey.” He touched her chin with his fingertip, gently urging her to look at him. “Surely you look in the mirror.”
She shrugged, caught by his gaze again. This time his blue eyes were smoky and soft. His scent filled her head—fresh, woodsy, unbearably sexy.
His finger slid along her chin to her jawline. “What do you see when you look in the mirror?”
Another opportunity for a cute, flip remark. But her mind was blank. All she could think of was the truth. “Red hair, freckles. A too-big mouth and a too-short nose.”
“Man. You’re really fishing for compliments, aren’t you?”
“Fishing? No, of course not.”
His gaze roamed over her face. “You’re not, are you? You don’t know you’re a knockout, Gillespie?”
Her face burned. “I’ll bet you say that to all the FBI agents.”
His killer grin appeared. “Look, ladies and gentlemen. She can flirt.”
She laughed and stepped backward, putting distance between herself and him, distance that would hopefully dissipate the intense sensation that was surging through her—a sensation she could only name as lust.
“Good job distracting me, Dupree,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. “I’m fine now. Thanks.”
His expression softened and he took a step toward her. “It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. I’m available any time you need distracting.”
Don’t kiss me. As soon as the thought formed in her head, she had to suppress a laugh at herself. He wasn’t going to kiss her. All he was doing was a little harmless flirting to take her mind off her brush with death and the weight of her responsibility for Debra.
But he dipped his head a little more and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
Oh, don’t. Don’t be unbearably sweet and protective. “Nothing to be sorry for. Getting shot at is part of the job.”
“But it’s never happened to you before, has it?”
“Yes. Well, no.” A shudder racked her body. “Not with real bullets.”
He laughed softly. “Just at Quantico.”
She nodded miserably. “I can’t believe I’m so shook up over one shot.”
“Two shots. And you ought to be. I am.”
“You? Why?” She raised her gaze to his and saw the tenderness she’d dreaded.
Cade shook his head in wonder. “You have to ask?” His fingers touched her cheek. With the slightest pressure, he urged her head up. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.”
His voice was low and gentle, surrounding her with the promise of safety. It was also rough and sexy, rumbling through her, sending deep tremors of awareness straight to her core. She couldn’t draw breath to speak as he caressed the underside of her chin, the sensitive line of her jaw. She couldn’t breathe when he moved his hand over the nape of her neck to curve protectively around the back of her head.
“Um, have you ever been shot?”
He chuckled and his breath fanned across her mouth. “Only once. By Old Man Rabb.”
His thumb caressed the soft skin beneath her ear.
She could barely think. “The guy who shot his son-in-law in the butt?”
“The very same.”
“Wh-where did he shoot you?”
His eyes twinkled. “In his front yard.”
“I meant—”
He bent his head and lowered his gaze to her mouth. “I know what you meant,” he whispered.
Then he kissed her.
At first it was nothing more than a brush of sensation across her lips, like the flutter of a butterfly’s wing. His fingers tightened when she let her lips part. He kissed her more deeply, using his tongue to taste her, to trace her lips and invade their boundaries.
She heard a plaintive moan, and realized it had come from her own throat. Cade reacted with a sharp intake of breath. He widened his stance and wrapped his arm around her waist, then pulled her close.
Laurel felt his need through the double barrier of their jeans. Her breasts tightened. Her nipples scraped against the soft cotton of her T-shirt.
All her carefully honed defenses melted at the feel of him—hot and hard, pressing against her.
He wanted her. The thought empowered her. This was Cade Dupree, her first major crush. Back in high school he hadn’t known she existed. Well, he knew now. She felt his knowledge in his hard, insistent arousal.
She kissed him back with rising passion. Her knees wobbled and her insides turned to liquid heat. If he weren’t holding her up, she’d crumple at his feet.
He pushed her two steps backward. Her back hit the wall and at the same time, Cade freed his hands and slipped them under her shirt. He caressed the bare skin of her belly and back.
The almost-aggressive gesture flooded her with hot longing. He was dominating her, holding her immobile, as his desire for her became more and more insistent.
She flattened her palms against his chest, not to push him away, but to soak up the surge of life within him. His breath came hard and steady. She lifted her head to look at him and he kissed the tip of her nose.
Laurel’s thoughts were as jumbled as her emotions. Her desire was as all encompassing as his arms. She struggled to clear her muddled brain, but he was nibbling on her ear. Heaven help her she was about to come just from the feel of his mouth on her.
She tried to concentrate on their reason for being here, but he was doing things to her insides like nothing she’d ever experienced.
He propped a forearm on the wall above her head and leaned in toward her, letting his chest skim the sensitized tips of her breasts just like his lips were skimming the ultra-sensitive spot beneath her ear. Desire flowed through her like hot lava, wiping all thoughts from her head.
Her body went boneless as he pressed closer. She spread her fingers on his chest and encountered his nipples. A quiet hiss in her ear told her she’d discovered an erogenous zone, maybe one no one had explored before. A thrill of power sent her desire climbing higher.
What would she give to show Cade Dupree something he’d never experienced?
She curled her fingers, grasping handfuls of his shirt, as she sought his mouth. He brought his attention from her earlobe and jaw back to her lips and kissed her more deeply than he had yet. Her bones melted as desire pooled between her thighs.
A knock on the door sent them hurtling away from each other.
Cade wiped a hand across his mouth and grimaced at the ache in his loins. As he forced himself back from the brink of full arousal, the knob turned.
He worked to compose his face. What the hell was he thinking? He’d lost all sense of time and space for a few seconds.
He clamped down on his tongue, using the shock of pain to deflate his arousal. He tasted blood. Even so, his effort wasn’t entirely successful.
“Probably the courier,” he muttered, turning his back on Laurel and heading behind his desk.
The door slammed open and Ralph Langston stomped in. His gaze flickered over Cade’s face, then stopped short when he saw Laurel. His dark eyes bounced back and forth between them.
Cade risked a glance at her flaming cheeks and too-bright eyes. She finger-combed her hair and tried to look nonchalant. She didn’t succeed. In fact she looked about as far from nonchalant as a woman could. She looked flushed and supple and turned on.
Langston’s eyes twinkled. “Sorry to bother you, Dupree. I see you were interrogating Laurel.”
Jerk! Cade ground his knuckles into his palm, quelling the urge to deck the man. “I hope you’re here to solidify your alibi for last night,” he growled.
“My alibi? What are you talking about?”
“According to what you told Special Agent Gillespie, you were in the main room of the Visitor Center all night. But you won’t name anyone who can corroborate that. You want to think about your answer?”
“I don’t have to think about it. Am I the only attendee at that party whose whereabouts can’t be verified?”
“That’s not the point. The point is, you don’t ever seem to have a witness to your activities. How do you explain that?”
“Once again, Chief, you’re asking me to prove a negative. I was in plain sight in the Visitor Center the whole evening. If you can’t unearth a witness that will tell you that, it’s not my problem.”
“What did you come here for?” Cade snapped.
“I want that crime-scene tape taken down. I’m paying through the nose for that equipment, and I want to get the land down by the creek bank cleared today.”
“Not going to happen.”
“You can’t do this. It’s my land. I paid good money for it.”
Good money? That was a matter of dispute. Cade shook his head and sat behind his desk. “It’s my crime scene until I say otherwise.”
Langston’s gaze dropped to the row of plastic bags on the edge of the desk. Cade had to resist the urge to sweep them across the desk and into a drawer. How much could Langston see? Could he read Cade’s bold writing across the face of each bag?
“You crawled all over the area last night,” Langston said. “What else do you expect to find down there?” He took a step forward.
Cade pushed his chair back and came around the desk, casually propping a hip on the corner so that his thigh blocked Langston’s view of the evidence.
Langston’s eyes narrowed and his face flushed. He backed up a step and shifted his gaze toward the back of the office.
“Why don’t you tell me what I can expect to find?” Cade asked, crossing his arms. He’d like nothing more than to throw Langston out of his office, but he needed to hear what the man had to say. “You and Kathy Adler were tromping all over the scene this morning. Were you two just out for a stroll?”
“Kathy wanted to see if she could find anything that would help catch whoever killed Debra.”
Right. Cade exchanged a glance with Laurel and knew she was thinking the same thing he was. Kathy Adler had ne
ver thought about anyone but herself in her life.
“And you?”
Langston pulled his attention away from the back door of the office. He showed his amazingly straight, unnaturally white teeth. “Just helping out a friend.”
“Fine. Help me out and stay away from my crime scene.”
“Don’t forget that your crime scene is on my land.”
“Trust me. I haven’t forgotten that. In fact I find it very interesting.”
Langston took another step forward. This time his full attention was on Cade. “Now what are you implying?”
“I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you straight out, don’t mess with my crime scene. If you do I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
“I’m talking to my lawyer.”
Cade shrugged. “Whatever you need to do. Just don’t leave town without asking.”
Langston whirled on his handmade Italian leather heel and stomped out of the office.
Cade turned his attention to Laurel for the first time since Langston had walked in. He felt a keen disappointment that her face was no longer flushed, her body no longer supple and open and her eyes had lost the dewy sparkle of sexual hunger.
His loins tightened at the memory of how turned on she’d been. But the sore place on his tongue reminded him of just how close he’d been to losing control.
He had no business thinking about sex right now. He had a murderer to catch. A cop could get in big trouble if he let his libido do the thinking.
“What do you think that was about?” he asked her, forcing his brain to evaluate Langston’s actions.
Laurel tugged on the tail of her short orange T-shirt. “He didn’t come here to complain about his construction timeline.”
He nodded as he straightened. “Right. Did you see what he was trying to do?”
She nodded. “He couldn’t take his eyes off the evidence bags until you blocked his view with your—” her gaze drifted down his torso for an instant “—self.”
She looked so miserable that he felt sorry for her, even as he clamped his jaw to keep from smiling at how hard she was working not to look at his thighs.
