Search and Seizure

by Julie Miller

  “THAT’S WHERE I MET Zero before.” Maddie pointed toward the sidewalk opposite the abandoned Wingate Mission as they walked by a second time. Each pass left her more nervous than before. If Dwight circled the block a third time, she might not be able to control the angry butterflies that were tying her stomach into knots.

  Even though most of downtown Kansas City closed by 9 p.m., these few blocks of 10th Street off of Broadway seemed even busier at night than they’d been the day she’d first come searching for Katie. The slow flow of traffic, the glare of headlights, the competing thumps of bass from more than one boom box and car radio all made it difficult to focus on picking one man out of the crowd.

  “Maybe we should get out and walk,” she suggested, though she could tell from the silent swell of Dwight’s shoulders that he didn’t like the idea.

  Finding a parking space along the street would be difficult but not impossible, and there was no parking garage or other protected lot where he could leave the silver Mercedes. “Your car should be safe if we lock it.” Though she hadn’t spotted even one face she recognized yet, she was determined to keep faith that A.J. and his team were already in position. “There are plenty of good guys around to keep an eye on things.”

  “They’d better be keeping their eye on you.”

  “And you.”

  “Yeah, right.” Dwight slowed as he passed an empty parking space, then turned on his signal and looked over his shoulder to back into it.

  “You can’t just dismiss my concerns because you’re so over the top with your own. This is dangerous for you, too.” She snatched at the cuff of his charcoal jacket, where it rested across the back of her seat. She shoved the sleeve up past his wrist to reveal the end of the gauze bandage that marked where Joe had sliced open his arm. “There’s proof that would be admissible even in your stubborn court of law.”

  Those butterflies hammered against the wall of her chest. If Dwight hadn’t deflected the blow, if Joe had struck anything vital, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. If Dwight hadn’t deflected that blow, Tyler might be dead, too. “If anyone recognizes you as an assistant district attorney or tries to mug you for that Rolex—”

  “I can handle myself if something comes up.” He pulled his arm from her grasp, adjusted the sleeve and set the gear into Park.

  She sat back in her seat. “So can I.”

  “This is not a competition.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” The people on the sidewalk in their partylike bustle paused in their conversations, taking a curious interest in the sleek new car parked in their neighborhood. “Whitney Chiles is already dead. I don’t want to see Katie in that morgue, too. Joe’s dead. A cop’s dead. My sister’s dead.” By now, her hands were flailing in the air, making her point. “Roberta’s in the hospital in a coma. Cooper’s on desk-duty-slash-baby-sitting detail because he threw his knee out diving in front of that truck. Believe me, I have a pretty clear idea that this is not a game we’re playing.”

  “Okay, okay.” Dwight reached out and caught her wild hands, pulling them down to his lap. He turned partway behind the steering wheel to face her. “Truce,” he offered in a deep, calm voice. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you, either. But I believe you’re made of stronger stuff than you give yourself credit for.” He stroked his thumb across her knuckles, kindling a fire between them that seeped into her skin and warmed the blood inside her. “I should respect that strength.”

  She nodded, losing her will to argue with him as a different sort of tension ignited between them. “You should.”

  “Tell you what.” He raised his right hand, keeping it out of sight from the windows so that the oath was for her alone. “I promise to watch my own back. As long as you don’t deny me the pleasure—or the need—to watch yours, too.”

  “And don’t deny me the need to watch yours.”

  That crease deepened beside his mouth and he almost smiled. “Well, you are my wife for the next couple of days. I guess that’s what wives do.”

  “Yeah.” He’d knocked the argument completely out of her with that sobering reminder. Though whether it was a real concession or just a clever lawyer’s trick, she couldn’t tell. Then the clench of hands between them registered. “Wait a minute.”

  Maddie held up her naked left hand and stared at the most obvious part of their costumes that they’d forgotten. “Wedding rings.”

  “Damn.” Dwight flipped his own hands for inspection. “I don’t wear mine anymore.”

  Now that was a sobering reminder. She turned and studied the sidewalk outside her window. Any relationship between her and Dwight was short-term. A charade. He’d already loved another woman completely. Loved her and lost her and didn’t intend to love again.

  But Maddie only needed to see the teenage girl with too much makeup and too few clothes strutting past the Mercedes and sizing up its occupants for potential customers to be reminded that she was here for Katie. Her own feelings and longings and foolish dreams weren’t important.

  A practical solution presented itself as she tried to comb her fingers through her oversprayed hair.

  “Here.” She pulled her mother’s silver filigree ring—similar to the one given to Karen and then Katie—from her right hand and slipped it onto the ring finger of her left hand. She waved her fingers in the light from a passing car. “Ta-da! Now we’re married.”

  Dwight laced his big fingers through hers and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t think of that. Usually, I have a better eye for detail. I don’t want anything to give you away.”

  Maddie dredged up a game smile. “Just act like you love me and you can’t wait to have a baby.”

  Then she quickly withdrew her hand and slipped out of the car into the humid night air. She didn’t want to read on Dwight’s face which lie would be harder for him to pull off.

  “IT’LL COST EXTRA FOR TWO of you with one of my girls.”

  Zero adjusted the six rings he wore on his left hand, his nonchalance only increasing Maddie’s shock at what he was suggesting. “Oh, no. I’m not interested in your girls.”

  He flashed a smile that revealed a diamond-studded gold tooth. “Then I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  Zero turned and ambled down the sidewalk, out of the circle of lamplight where Maddie had finally caught up with him. But he stopped a few steps later at a deep, distinct voice that made even Maddie shiver. “Listen to the lady.”

  Rolling the tension from his neck, whether real or for show, Zero slowly turned and stepped back into the light. He hung back at the fringe of illumination, though, studying Dwight, who’d come up to circle his arm around Maddie’s waist. Idly, Maddie wondered if it was the expensive, tailored cut of Dwight’s suit or the muscular threat of the boxer inside that ultimately convinced Zero that he should do business with them.

  “So whaddya want?” Zero asked.

  Dwight glanced down at Maddie. When A.J. had first briefed them, they’d decided that she would take the lead on this conversation—unless Zero showed signs of recognizing her from before. He didn’t. She knew the pampered socialite with a virile man at her side was a far cry from the panicked spinster who’d shown him Katie’s picture more than two weeks ago.

  Maddie flipped her stiff hair off her collar and began her speech. “I’ve heard from some of my friends at the club that you might know a man who can help us have a baby.”

  Zero raked her from head to toe and opened his mouth. But any suggestive comment about how he might personally help her make a baby died on his lips at Dwight’s unblinking glare. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about lady.” He swept his arms out to either side. “As you can see, we’re not exactly a family neighborhood. Maybe you should check with your doctor.”

  “I don’t want to get pregnant,” she lied, forcing herself to laugh. She patted her hips. “God, no. It’s too hard to keep my shape as it is at my age. I’m talking about adopting.”

  “Talk to a lawyer.
” Zero’s dark brown gaze slid to Dwight, as if he suspected that might be his profession. “Or family services. I don’t do charity work.”

  Dwight added enough to the conversation to convince Zero that they meant business. “We’re tired of dinkin’ with the system. The older we get, the further down the list of acceptable parents we become. My wife’s tired of waiting.”

  Maddie squeezed her hands together in a pleading gesture. “Sure, they’ll fix us up with a teenager or some special-needs kid who’s hard to adopt. But I want a baby. A perfect, pretty little thing I can hold in my hands and dress up and…spoil.”

  As if sensing that the lies were getting harder and harder to eke out, Dwight dipped his head and kissed her temple. “I know how badly you want a little boy or girl, sweetheart. I’ll get you one, I promise.”

  “Can you help us? Money isn’t a problem for us. We’ve both had our careers for so long….” Forget that a teacher would never be able to afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to finagle an illegal adoption. She was playing the part. She had to remember that. Still, she could feel her lips quivering with the stress of trying to convince this criminal that she was just as heartless and opportunistic as he was. She turned her face to Dwight to mask the nervous habit. “Isn’t that right, sweetie? You said I could spend whatever it took to get a perfect little baby, right?”

  “That’s right.” Dwight’s eyes narrowed on hers. He was worrying about her now, she could tell. He pressed his thumb to her lips and brushed across them in a heated caress. “It’ll be your birthday and Christmas all rolled into one.”

  Maddie felt his warmth and strength deep inside and summoned a brave smile on steadier lips to give him the reassurance he sought. She fixed the smile in place to look at Zero again. “If you can help us, that is. My friend said I should ask about someone named Roddy. That you might be able to arrange a meeting?”

  Zero shrugged. “I may know a guy.”

  Dwight reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash-wad of bills that A.J. had given him. “How much will it take for you to remember where this guy lives or how to reach him?”

  “I don’t know, big man.” Zero had taken the bait. “How much are you willing to pay to make the little lady happy?”

  Dwight leaned inside the driver’s side window and gave his wife a kiss.

  Not again.

  He thrashed in his bed and willed the nightmare to leave him alone.

  “Da-da-da-da-da.”

  He’d been so thrilled to have a son. Braden had made his love for Alicia complete. He had it all. A career. A loving wife. A family. For a tough guy from Chicago whose own father had been killed in Vietnam and who’d never seen what a whole, loving, successful family could be like, it had been everything. Wife. Baby. Love.

  He had it all.

  “No.” He moaned the word in his sleep.

  He didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to live through this again.

  But the nightmare sank its talons into his mind and wouldn’t let go.

  Dwight let his gaze slip to his son in the backseat.

  There was something different this time. The kid was smaller. The eyes were bluer. He wasn’t fussing about the stupid tiger.

  “No.”

  His subconscious was a sick, twisted thing and he couldn’t fight it. “Don’t do this.”

  The kid’s blue eyes looked at him. Looked deep inside him as if those innocent eyes believed in something that wasn’t there.

  Dwight rolled over. He tried to get away. “I can’t save you. I can’t give you what you need.”

  But the blue eyes still believed.

  “Dwight?” He heard the soft whisper, like a caress in his ear.

  “Don’t tempt me, sweetheart.”

  Alicia’s brown eyes should have flashed in his head. But the eyes were blue. The hair was a wild disarray of coppery silk.

  He leaned inside the car window and kissed her.

  Kissed Maddie.

  “No.” He snatched at the covers, kicked them aside, fighting to wake up, dreading where his mind was taking him. “Don’t do this.”

  He was going to lose them.

  They backed out of the driveway. The last things he remembered were Maddie’s kiss—and the kid’s blue eyes, watching him, knowing…

  “Dwight.” A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him.

  “Mr. Powers? Mr. Powers?”

  Dwight turned and glared at the young security guard. No one, but no one interrupted him before he gave his opening statement. “Later, Smitty.”

  “But, sir, I think you need to read this now.”

  “No!” Dwight came up off the bed, roaring himself awake.

  “Dwight.”

  He wasn’t alone. She wasn’t dead. “Maddie?”

  She sat on the edge of his bed, her hair rumpled with sleep, her blue eyes tortured with concern. “You were having the nightmare again. I tried to wake—”

  “Maddie.” Relief thundered through him, clipping at the heels of the nightmare that left him shaking and feverish. “You’re alive.” He lifted her onto his lap and crushed her in his arms. “You’re alive.” He covered the startled O of her mouth with his own, driving his tongue inside, tasting her, feeling her, verifying that she was here with every sense he possessed. She was real. She was safe. “God, babe.” He could barely catch his breath as he tunneled his fingers into her hair and laved his tongue against the spicy heat of her throat. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Dwight.” Her fingers dug into his shoulders. “It was a nightmare.” She gasped as he palmed her breast through that whisper-thin gown and squeezed its full bounty. “It wasn’t real.”

  “This is.” He nibbled at her ear. Kissed her eyelids. Reclaimed her lips. “You are.”

  “Dwight.” She flattened her palms against his shoulders, pushing some distance between them, even as her lips nipped at his. “You’re confused,” she tried to reason.

  But every fear, every doubt, every haunting image that had ripped through him had transformed into a crystalclear passion. A driving need to affirm life and reality pulsed through his blood, making him hungry and hard.

  His anxious fingers fumbled with the buttons on her gown, then grew frustrated and tugged the white cotton over her head and tossed it aside. He cupped her breasts, loving the warm weight that filled his palms. “You have such a beautiful body.”

  The large, luscious globes flushed with the color of her arousal. The rosy tips beaded and beckoned to him. How could a man not want to feast his eyes on her? How could he not want to touch and taste her responsive heat? Dwight lowered his head and laved his tongue around one engorged nipple. She shivered in response. Her fingers clutched at his chest. Her husky moan of pleasure danced against his ears and went straight to his groin.

  “But Alicia’s the woman you want. She’s the woman you miss.”

  Did she have to argue every point?

  Dwight had no doubt about what he wanted. About what he needed. Right now. With Maddie.

  “Don’t ask me to prove myself every time I want to make love to you.” He framed her sweet, blushing face between his hands and looked deep into her eyes, groaning at the restraint that this was costing him. “I loved my wife. I miss her. But I’ve packed away her memory and I’ve moved on.” Dwight knew the words were true. The grief that had once consumed him was gone. “I want you. Madeline McCallister. You.”

  She slid her hands behind his neck, linking them together despite the shades of doubt lingering in her eyes. “Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Always.”

  Her fingers slid through his hair and she smiled. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  When she leaned forward and kissed him, the passion that had been simmering on hold instantly reignited. Dwight pulled her in tight and fell back into the pillows, kissing and stripping and touching anything he could reach. He rolled her onto her back and slipped inside her, sinking into her lus
h welcome. Her fingertips dug into his spine, eliciting tremors that matched the same rhythm pulsing inside her. He claimed her lips with his own as she cried out her release. Dwight knew a moment of complete perfection as he emptied himself into her and collapsed beside her on the bed.

  The nightmare was gone. The dream was in his arms.

  He didn’t even bother with the modesty of covers this time. He loved the look of her pale, curved body lying next to his harder frame.

  “Don’t leave me in the morning,” he begged, fearing that holding her right here in his arms, skin to skin, was the only way he could keep the nightmare of losing someone else he loved at bay.

  “Don’t leave me,” he whispered, finally relaxing as Maddie snuggled against him.

  The silent admission that the man who could never fall in love again had done just that was a detail he overlooked as a calm, contented sleep quickly claimed him.

  Chapter Twelve

  The ringing of the telephone woke Dwight from a deep, dreamless slumber.

  For one disoriented moment, he wondered why his left arm had gone to sleep. In the next moment, he smiled at the sleepy woman cuddling against him for warmth. He palmed the cool skin of her exposed backside and waited for her eyes to blink open. “You stayed.”

  The incessant ringing kept him from enjoying the treasure of her drowsy smile. With a grumpy curse of annoyance, he reached across her body and snatched the phone off the nightstand. “Hello?”

  But the damn thing was still ringing.

  Maddie’s body tensed beneath his. She pressed her palm against his shoulder, her eyes suddenly and fully awake as he questioned her reaction. “Dwight.”

  And then he knew. The secure cellphone A.J. had given him last night—the number they’d given Zero so he could set up a meeting with Roddy—was ringing.

  Dwight hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. It was 6 a.m. “They’re calling early to catch us off guard.”

  But everything about Dwight was completely alert and ready to resume the charade by the time he’d scrambled out of bed and snatched the phone off his dresser. Maddie sat up, pulling up the sheet to cover her nakedness, her lips pursed in nervous anticipation as he opened the phone and answered. “Payne residence.”