Where the hell was her cell phone? He started to walk back into the bedroom to look for it, but the guy with the buzz-cut stopped him. “Sorry, sir. You can’t go back in there. This isn’t your investigation.”
Shit.
His stomach hurt and bile tasted bitter in his mouth. “She left the front door ajar, and texted me to come up.” He rubbed his forehead. “At least, I assumed she’d done it.” The killer must have done that.
Fuck. Had he been played?
He’d definitely been played. Had Lyle set him up to get rid of a woman he no longer wanted?
“You need to call her husband,” Mac told them.
“Another one?” the cop asked in surprise.
Mac nodded. “They were having problems, separated at Christmas.”
“Those problems have anything to do with you?” the uniform asked.
Mac gave him a hard stare, not liking where this was going. “No. I just got reassigned to HQ in DC a week ago. Heather begged me to meet her for lunch on Tuesday. Before that I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years.”
“Amicable?”
Mac grimaced. “As a bare-knuckle fight.”
He saw the cops exchange a glance, the kind he exchanged with colleagues when he thought the witness might be the bad guy. “Do I need my lawyer, Officer?”
The guy smirked. “Only if you have something to hide.”
It was the sort of thing Mac would also say to a suspect to get them to waive their rights. He blinked a couple of times, realizing how this looked. Fuck. He didn’t have time for this shit.
Mac walked downstairs to the living room and sat on the couch. Buzz-cut followed. Mac might be a federal agent who’d called emergency services, but he was now the prime suspect in a vicious homicide. He shook his head and covered his face with his hands. Swore. “I have to return to headquarters. I’m leading the task force investigating these DC murders.”
“I’m sure you are.” The cop nodded sagely, clearly not believing a word. “Weren’t they killed by two shots, one to the heart, one to the head? Like the vic upstairs?”
Mac nodded. He wasn’t about to go into the differences between the cases, but they couldn’t actually believe he’d done this.
“You know as well as I do, we need to question you before you do anything else.”
“Then hurry the fuck up,” he bit out. Then he closed his eyes and realized he was being an asshole. Heather had been murdered, and he needed to do everything he could to bring her killer to justice. And if that involved sitting down with a homicide detective for an hour or two to try and sort this mess out, then so be it. “Fine. But I need to call headquarters and tell them where I am.”
“You can do that.” The uniform gave him the sort of smile that made criminals buckle. “Tell them you’re gonna be a while.”
* * *
Tess drove up to Cole’s house in American University Park and parked on the side of the road. The lower half was red brick and the windows had black painted shutters. An addition on the side housed Cole’s office, but it was dark. A light shone in the living room. Cole’s car wasn’t visible but it might be in the garage.
She went around the side to knock on the kitchen door. No one answered so she knocked harder. She didn’t want to use her key. The sound of footsteps had her bracing herself.
Dave opened the door. The stocky redhead gave her a puzzled frown and rubbed his eyes. “Tess? Everything okay?”
“I need to talk to Cole. Is he here?” She’d changed into jeans and a red sweater. She hunched inside her coat trying to keep out the frigid wind.
Dave stood back and she brushed past him.
“I don’t know. I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie. Last time I saw him he was on his way to your place.” He yawned widely and covered his mouth in embarrassment. “You want me to go find out if he’s in his room?”
“I’ll do it. Thanks. I need to check on something first. Tax stuff.” She spoke quietly, not wanting to disturb the other people in the house. She wasn’t willing to back down now she’d finally found the courage to confront her baby brother. She took off her boots and left them by the door. The thumb drive was in her jeans’ pocket and she wanted to study the look on his face when he saw it.
First, she wanted to see if that black folder had magically reappeared.
She went to his office and started going through each individual file. After a few minutes, she sat back on her heels. Nothing.
Frustrated but determined, she headed upstairs to Cole’s bedroom. There were four rooms on this floor: Cole, Zane, Dave and a spare that Joe often used. Tess wasn’t sure why the guy didn’t move in here, but he claimed to like dorm life too much. Probably appreciated the easy access to the female population, she thought wryly.
She knocked lightly on Cole’s door and eased it open. The room was empty. Dammit. She pressed her lips together and took a step inside. The familiar scent of athletic trainers assailed her, but the room was tidy. No dirty laundry on the floor. Bed was made. Tess wondered if he’d turned over a new leaf for this woman he was seeing. Just in case she ever turned up here unexpectedly.
Was that where he was now? Sadness seeped through her. Her lies had driven him away and that left her feeling desolate. But she wasn’t compromising her principles again. Not for Cole. Not for anyone.
She closed the door behind her and eyed his bedside table. It was a gross invasion of privacy but she started searching the drawers, ignoring the personal items that were not her focus.
Then she searched his clothes drawers, running her hand beneath the sweaters and t-shirts, across shelves, under jeans. Nothing. She felt beneath his pillow and found the pajama bottoms she’d bought him for Christmas. One of the pictures tacked to the wall above the bed was a photograph of Cole and her when she’d moved into her new house last fall. Another showed him kissing the cheek of a woman, but Tess couldn’t make out any distinct features. She stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips. Guilt ate at her. She shouldn’t be doing this. He’d be furious.
She didn’t care.
She turned on her phone’s flashlight and knelt beside the bed. The carpet was dusty but aside from two pairs of sneakers and a stray pen there wasn’t anything underneath. She frowned as something black caught her gaze through the slats. She heaved up the mattress and there was the file. Her heart knocked against her ribs in a frantic tattoo.
She pulled her gloves out of her pocket and slipped them on. Grabbed the file, and flicked it open. There was the photograph of Judge Thomas. She slipped the folder inside her coat, and held it tight against her side while she did up the zipper. She hadn’t imagined it. She put the room back together so no one would know what she’d been doing.
At the door, she met a concerned-looking Dave. “I left him a note,” she said to explain the length of time she’d spent in his room, closing the door firmly behind her. Suddenly his confused frown seemed a little sinister. Cole’s roommates were just as capable of hiding that file under his mattress as he was.
But what motive would they have?
She smiled brightly. “Sorry I woke you,” she whispered. “Bye.”
He shrugged as if coming over in the middle of the night was perfectly normal. “S’okay. See ya at the party?”
“Of course,” she lied. A birthday party was the last thing she cared about. She was conscious of his gaze on her back as she jogged down the stairs, holding on to the folder with one forearm. She forced herself to walk not run through the house and pull on her boots rather than bolting barefoot down the street.
She eased out the door, her ears hammering with the sound of fear.
She got into her Mini Cooper and locked herself inside, heart beating frantically. She unzipped her coat and placed the folder on the passenger seat before driving away. Half a mile later, she pulled over. She called Cole, but once again he didn’t answer. What was he doing? Spending the night with his lover or plotting how to avenge the deaths of a f
amily he didn’t remember?
She glanced at the file and lifted the first page. The paper fought her slippery gloves. Finally, she turned over the first page and her heart solidified into a piece of ice. A picture of Sonja Shiraz, the transgender DJ, was on the second page.
The ice shattered and inside she felt broken. She needed to get this file to Mac.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cole folded his arms above his head and smiled up at the ceiling. Despite everything, life wasn’t so bad. Carolyn swore and then laughed as she searched for the black pumps she wore to work. “I can’t see a thing in this mess.”
Boxes were stacked everywhere.
“Want me to put the light on?” he asked.
“No. Go on back to sleep. It’s early, but we’re busy at work and I have to go in. Stay and sleep.” She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss him on the lips.
She’d called him unexpectedly and for the first time ever begged him to come over and spend the night. Told him she missed him.
Everything else paled into insignificance.
She slipped her hand over his chest as if she couldn’t stop touching him. He pulled her toward him for a kiss.
“I was thinking…” She said between tasty bites. “That rather than me moving to that new apartment all alone…” His heart stopped beating at the thought of what she might be about to say.
“We could maybe go to the next level in our relationship.”
He pulled away, heart pounding. “You want me to move in with you?”
Her expression, just visible in the glow of the alarm clock, grew uncertain. “Only if you want to. I thought we could try it. See how we fit.”
“We fit great.”
The timing was terrible. Everything was going to shit, but finally here was something he really wanted, going right. He could make this work in his favor. He drew her up until she was lying over him and then he rolled so she was beneath him, hands pulling her shirt out of the skirt she’d just put on so he could access her breasts. “I would love to move in with you. Hell, if it were up to me I’d take you to the best jeweler in town and—”
She placed two fingers on his lips. “One step at a time, lover.” He stopped speaking but his hands never stopped pulling that tight skirt up those delectable thighs.
He grabbed a condom and covered himself. She still wore the black heels and they dug into his ass as he entered her in one hard thrust. They began to move together, her as frantic for this as he was for her.
He wanted to be in her life for as long as possible. He knew the age difference wouldn’t be easy but so what? If people didn’t like it, fuck them. His secrets were another matter.
He should tell her the truth before she committed for sure but, hell, he’d tell her later when she was as sure about him as he was about her.
He raised her hips so he could thrust deeper and felt her start to lose it as her chin tipped up and she groaned. “I love you…”
He couldn’t hear the last thing she said because the blood was rushing through his ears and the tingle in his spine erupted to crash over his body in a tsunami of pleasure. She cried out at the same time and tightened around him, clutching him like he was her lifeline.
“I want us to be together now,” she sobbed.
“We are together.” He pressed his forehead to hers, their breath mingling, warm and damp on his lips. He didn’t want to move though they had to. “What time do you want me to help you move today?”
Her grin was so huge he could see it in the darkness. He hadn’t forgotten his promise although she hadn’t mentioned it again. He wanted to prove he was serious about her. He wasn’t some kid. He listened.
“Trent said he’d drop the truck off this morning and maybe load it up with some boxes before he left.”
“Trent has a key?” Unconsciously, Cole’s voice deepened.
“No, the super will let him in.” She touched his face. “You don’t need to be jealous. I love you, not him.”
One side of his lips curled. Epic. He started to get hard again. Honestly, he loved her so much he physically couldn’t get enough.
She pushed at him. “Nope. Get off me. I don’t have time. How about we meet here later so my boss doesn’t have a fit and you can attend that ethics class you mentioned?”
He laughed. “You’re such a rule follower.”
She bit his lip.
He reared back and swore, touching the sting. “But don’t worry. I won’t take it for granted.”
She pushed him off her and climbed to her feet. “You’d better not.”
He caught her hand. “I love you,” he said quietly.
“I love you, too,” she said. “Always.”
* * *
The hammering on Tess’s door sounded like someone was close to breaking it down. She was jerked out of a deep sleep and scooped up the Ruger from where she’d laid it on the carpet beside the couch.
Easing the drapes aside, she checked the side window. Dawn was skirting the horizon. Shadows blending into dull gray tones. One of the agents from Mac’s team, the bald guy she’d met earlier tonight, stood on the stoop. She ran her hand over her hair and gave up on trying to tame it. She had more important things to worry about than her appearance. She placed the Ruger beneath a throw cushion on the couch, then went to the front door and unlocked it. The Fed pushed past her, making her rear back in alarm.
“Can I help you, Agent…?”
He raked her with a hard, blue gaze. “Walsh. We met earlier, remember?”
She set her teeth. She didn’t appreciate people thinking she was dumb.
“Agent Walsh.” She nodded and gave him a stiff smile.
Hyperaware that the folder she’d found under Cole’s mattress was inside a plastic bag on a chest in the living room Tess closed the front door to block out the winter chill. Not taking that information to the nearest police station was no doubt a crime but Mac was the only officer of the law she trusted. She needed to speak to him before Cole discovered it was missing. Mac needed to question him, and fast.
She itched to call Mac again but needed to get rid of this guy. She forced herself to be polite. “What can I do for you, Agent Walsh?”
“What time did ASAC McKenzie leave here last night?”
Why did he want to know? Would Mac be in trouble if his colleagues found out the two of them had had sex? Of course he would. But lying might be worse.
“Why don’t you ask him?” she hedged.
“Give me a straight answer, lady,” he bit out.
Her head snapped up. What an asshole. “He left around three a.m.”
“You’re sure?”
Her brows rose and her smile was one of reproof. “Yes. I’m sure.”
She saw him glance into her kitchen, which she still hadn’t tidied after the break-in last night. She’d braced a chair under the handle of the back door and intended to call a security firm today to install an alarm system and new locks. Because the person who’d broken in last night might have a key…
The thought it might be Cole cracked her heart wide open.
Walsh’s eyes lingered on items scattered across the floor. Could he tell she and Mac had sex there? Or on the table? Or against the door she was now leaning against? Were her sins like bruises on bone and easy to spot?
“Why are you here, Agent Walsh?” she prompted. Had something happened to Mac? Was that why he wasn’t answering his phone? Or did he want her to stop calling him but lacked the nerve to tell her himself? Tess stayed very still, bracing for another dose of reality to smack her in the face. “Did Mac send you?”
Walsh’s eye twitched at her use of his boss’s name. Hell, she’d known Mac longer than this guy had been in the FBI, but she was supposed to pretend they’d just met?
“Why was he here so long after we left? I thought everything was cleared up?” Walsh’s blue eyes were sharp on her face.
A shiver of unease stole over her body and she turned away. She wasn’
t ashamed of what they’d done but there was no way Mac would want it broadcast to the world and, frankly, neither did she. Their time together was private.
Was it illegal to lie? Or was it immoral to ask?
“We were talking about Eddie, trying to figure out who he might have gone to for help. Why are you here?”
Walsh watched her critically. “Can you confirm the time he left again?”
She didn’t understand. “I thought I just did?”
“Did something precipitate his leaving?” he pushed.
God, the guy was being an ass.
“He got a series of texts. Said it was his ex-wife and he needed to go and sort something out.” She crossed her arms as that familiar sense of awkwardness swept up her neck and into her cheeks. She doubted Mac would want her talking about this either.
“Was he angry?” asked Walsh.
She blinked in surprise. “No. I mean, he was irritated. Said she kept texting him and he wanted her to stop. He wasn’t angry.” He’d had too much mind-blowing sex to be truly angry. “He seemed frustrated and eager to do something about the fact she was texting him.” Too eager.
Walsh watched her face so avidly it was like he was scanning her micro-expressions for deceit. “Where were you?”
She frowned in confusion. “What do you mean, where was I? I was here. Obviously.” She opened her palms to indicate her home.
“Did you go out at all?”
Unease did a little somersault in her stomach. “I went to my brother’s house after Mac left, but Cole wasn’t there.”
“So no witnesses?” His tone said, how convenient.
“I didn’t say that. One of his roommates let me in. Dave… God. I forget his surname.”
“Address?” he pulled out his phone and eyed her expectantly.
Her mouth went dry as the Gobi Desert. Her nails bit into her arms through the wool of her sweater. Had someone else been murdered? Was their name in that file? Might she have saved them if she’d gone straight to the police? A terrifying thought occurred to her. “Please tell me Mac wasn’t shot?”
Cold Malice Page 28
