by Maggie Price
He shifted his gaze to the mirror. From behind the rim of his beer mug, Nate gave a subtle nod to indicate he and C.O. had spotted the couple.
On stage, one of the musicians coaxed a low, sexy throb from a sax; another’s voice slid into an earthy, mellow tune. The waitress trailed a finger down her companion’s cheek. Even as she turned and headed toward the bar, the man snagged the hand of a short brunette standing nearby and tugged her onto the dance floor.
“Fickle guy,” Tory commented.
“Yeah,” Bran agreed, rising off his stool. “Let’s get a good look at him.”
“I was about to suggest the same thing.”
Tory felt the bite of Bran’s fingers against her upper arm as he escorted her through the fringes of couples moving on the dance floor where the light was a warm, smoky blue. She knew if that same hand were against her bare flesh she would feel the ridge of callus running under the fingers and along the tips.
After last night, she doubted she would ever feel his hands on her again.
Despite the Scotch she’d sipped, her mouth was dry when they shifted into dance position. His hand settled firmly against her waist, she felt the slope of muscle in his shoulder where she rested her palm. Here’s to quick endings. Unsure whether Bran’s toast referred to the case or to their relationship, or to both, she lifted her gaze to his. The sandy beard that covered his cheeks and jaw made his face seem leaner. Shadowed. More broodingly handsome.
Brooding certainly described his mood. Which, she conceded, was her doing. In an attempt to protect her heart, she had hurt him with her comment that she no longer trusted him. She had heard it in his voice, seen it in his eyes, in his cool demeanor while they’d sat in the kitchen of the safe house, formulating their plan for tonight. That coolness had continued throughout the day. It was as if he had slammed down a wall to shut her out.
While a tenor sax wailed, she unconsciously curled her hand into a fist against his shoulder. She hadn’t realized how much she preferred Bran’s heated emotion over his calculated disinterest.
And if there was nothing left between them, why had she lain awake all last night, feeling the ache that his in-difference had punched into her stomach? And why was that ache even now reaching up to rip at her heart?
She shoved the maddening questions aside when his smooth steps brought them near the man who’d appeared out of the back room. Peering over Bran’s shoulder, she studied him through the dim light.
He was tall, with shaggy black hair, designer stubble, long legs, narrow hips. He wore a black T-shirt tucked into tight black jeans. When he smiled at something his partner said, Tory decided he had the face of a poet, lean, high-boned with dark, intense eyes.
With his right hand curled around the brunette’s left, Tory couldn’t see if he had a tattoo. As if sensing her thoughts, Bran executed several quick steps, bringing them on the couple’s opposite side.
She felt Bran’s shoulders stiffen, and knew he’d also spotted the crow tattoo on the web between the man’s thumb and index finger. There was no doubt in her mind this was the professor who had played poker with Danny a few weeks ago. So, here she was, inches away from a man who had a tattoo identical to that of the man who wanted her dead.
The next instant a deep, intuitive disquiet swept through Tory and she realized the professor’s gaze had shifted her way. Her throat tightening against an unsettling flutter of fear, she reminded herself she was in disguise. That even if he’d been the one who had snapped pictures of her over the days before the attack, there was no way he would recognize her. No reason for him to think that blond P.I. Tory McCall who habitually dressed in jeans and T-shirts was the brunette dancing beside him, wearing a snug tank top and a skirt the size of an oven mitt.
She let her gaze slowly rise past Bran’s shoulder. When her eyes locked on to the professor’s, his mouth curved. He winked.
She knew it was crazy, but for a mindless instant she was back in her car, struggling against the cold links of chain garroting her neck. Fear skittered through her, snatching her breath away, making her tremble.
Settling his palm at the small of her back, Bran drew her closer. “Steady,” he murmured. As the music pumped over them, the professor and his partner disappeared amid the sea of other dancers.
“Do we need to keep them in view?” Tory asked, while their bodies swayed in synch.
“Not right now.” Easing his head back, he met her gaze. “Nate and C.O. are on that side of the dance floor. They’ll watch him.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
“He winked at me.”
Beneath her clammy palm, Bran’s shoulder went as taut as high-tension wire. “The professor?”
“Yes. Made my skin crawl.”
“Heath and his pals can’t get to you again.” His voice was a lethal whisper, his mouth hard and unsmiling. “I’ll make sure of that.”
She could feel his heart beating against hers, quick now, and not too steady. Although logic told her it was due to having a man who might possibly lead them to Heath nearby, that didn’t stop her from acknowledging how well their bodies fit together, as if their molds had been made to match. Of how right it felt to have his arm locked around her waist and his fingers entwined with hers.
“I trust you not to let Heath…,” Her voice trailed off. After last night, the word trust wasn’t exactly the smartest one to use.
“You trust me with your safety, but in no other way. I got that message loud and clear.”
The hot-wired edginess inside her turned her belly into a minefield. Without thinking, she slid her hand over his shoulder so her fingers brushed the back of his neck. “Bran, I—”
He halted his steps at the same instant the music died. For a moment they stood unmoving, he staring at her with eyes that sliced at her heart. It was just as well their dance had ended, since she had no idea what she’d been about to say.
His fingers untangled from hers as he took a half step back. “How about we sit the next one out?”
They now knew what the professor looked like. They could watch him from a distance. Watch him, without continuing to touch each other.
“Good idea.” Turning, she moved back toward the bar, waging a marathon-struggle against a longing too deep for words. Too wide for tears.
Two hours later, Bran clicked off the untraceable cell phone the FBI had loaned him. Disgusted, he tossed it on the dash of the SUV he’d checked out of the department’s asset forfeiture lot.
“Dammit to hell,” he muttered, giving serious thought to snapping the steering wheel in two with his bare hands.
“What did Nate say?” Tory asked from the passenger seat.
He looked her way. When they’d left Chappell’s a few minutes earlier, he had moved the SUV to the far reaches of the club’s lot. With the idling vehicle parked in heavy shadow beyond the last of the sodium-vapor arcs, her face was a canvas of gray light and shadows.
“He and C.O. lost the professor.”
Tory groaned. “How?”
“A cement truck blasted through the red light at an intersection. Nate had to do some fancy steering to avoid getting rammed broadside. When he finally got back on the road, the professor was gone.”
Bran was aware that Tory had tailed numerous people in her career as a P.I. So she knew that, contrary to its representation in film and on television, vehicular surveillance had a small success rate. Even with a team of three or four vehicles tailing one, too many things were left to chance. And more often than not, something went wrong. Like Nate’s too-close encounter with the cement truck.
“What was the professor driving?”
“A motorcycle. Harley.” Shifting forward, Bran turned up the heater’s fan. “Nate said there were plenty of curving side streets he could have turned off on. Another reason the professor disappeared from view so fast.”
“Does Nate think he snapped to the fact he’d picked up a tail?”
“No. The guy wasn’t weaving in and out of traffic
or taking any other sort of evasive action that made Nate think he knew he was being followed.”
“Has Nate had a chance to run the Harley’s tag?”
“Yeah, it checks to a Harry Smith. Nate ran the name through the department’s database. He got no information back on the name.”
“What about the address on the motorcycle’s registration?”
“It’s an empty lot on the city’s southeast side. There was a house there until about six months ago when the city condemned, then demolished it.”
“So, this Harry Smith could have lived there, and never bothered to get his address changed on his license?”
“It’s possible.” Bran bounced a fist against the steering wheel. “We have to wait until the Department of Motor Vehicles opens in the morning to get a look at the picture of the guy they’ve got on file to see if it matches the professor. Nate’ll also run the name through the utility companies to find out if they’ve got this guy as a customer.”
“Harry Smith,” she said, then frowned at him through the shadows.
“What?”
“He doesn’t look like a Harry.”
Bran arched a brow. “What the hell does a guy named Harry look like?”
“Not like the professor. When I saw him up close, my first impression was that he looked like a poet. Not like a guy named Harry.”
It was Bran’s turn to frown. “Did you form that opinion before or after he winked at you?”
“Before.”
When she’d first told him about the wink, the thought of the bastard flirting with her had lodged in his brain like a tumor. It’d been all he could do not to smash his fist into the guy’s face. That reaction, he knew, had nothing to do with his being a cop, and everything to do with his being her husband.
For the time being, anyway.
He scrubbed his hand over his jaw. Christ, why did all of his thoughts have to circle back to their screwed-up marriage?
“So,” she began, “want to bet that Harry Smith isn’t the professor’s real name?”
“No.” He set his jaw. “And my gut tells me his having the same tattoo as Heath is no coincidence. They’re pals. If the professor doesn’t have Heath hidden away somewhere, he probably knows where he is.”
Tory’s gaze slid to Chappell’s front door. “Too bad we can’t just walk back into the club and ask Kandy.”
“We ask her anything about the professor, she’d close down like a trunk lid, then tip him off.” Bran pursed his mouth, his mind working. “So, tomorrow night we come back. Keep our fingers crossed the professor shows up again. We put more undercover couples on the street, and hope to hell when he leaves that someone manages to follow him to wherever he goes.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “After the professor walked out of that back room with Kandy, he danced with about ten different women. If you hadn’t been around, he would have probably hit me up for a dance.”
“So?”
“That wink he sent me was a blatant invitation. What if I follow up on it tomorrow night and ask him to dance? Chat him up. Shmooze with him. Maybe find out something about him.”
“Forget it.” Just the thought of the guy putting his hands on her knotted his gut.
“Forget it, and do what?” she countered. “Hope the cops don’t lose him tomorrow night when they tail him? What if someone manages to stay on him, and he winds up at Kandy’s apartment? We already know about his connection with her, so that won’t get us any closer to finding Heath.”
“The idea of having someone dance with the guy is good. But not you. A couple of female cops can waltz him around. Get friendly with him.”
“I doubt any female cops have played in one of Jazz’s poker games. I have.”
Leaning forward, she settled a gloved hand on his thigh. “Think about it, Bran. I ask the guy to dance. The instant he tells me people call him the professor, I light up like a runway. Tell him I heard his name at Jazz’s poker game. That gives us an instant connection. A reason to talk more.” She tilted her head. “If he decides to excuse himself and call Jazz, maybe describe me to him to check to see if my story pans out, it will.”
Bran looked down at the gloved hand she’d placed on his thigh. He could almost feel the energy inside her, feel her thought processes revving, hear her mind racing, see her body bracing for action. Although he’d glimpsed the P.I. side of her before, it hadn’t intrigued him as it did at this moment. Hadn’t pulled at him. Hadn’t made him burn from a combination of need and hot-blooded admiration, of aching desire and frustrated lust.
Hadn’t made him want to latch his mouth on hers and claim her for reasons he couldn’t begin to explain it. All he knew for sure was that she was his. His.
Since he had no idea what the hell to do about that, he let his frustration bleed onto the topic at hand.
“Dammit, you think I didn’t feel you tremble when we got close to that guy? How are you going to hold up if he’s got his hands on you?”
“I admit he gave me the creeps. I got a little shaky.” As she spoke, she lifted a gloved hand to her throat. “It wasn’t because he recognized me, I didn’t see anything like that in his eyes. The wink got to me because just for a minute it was like Heath was there. I think until he’s locked up, I’ll keep having these Twilight Zone moments when I turn and see him standing right behind me when he’s not.”
She shifted her gaze out the windshield. When she spoke again, her voice was like smoke. “It helped me to be here tonight. To do something that might lead us to him. Doing that makes me feel less like a victim. I’ve got to keep working with you on this.”
“You’re a civilian. Cops should handle this from now on.”
“I’m a licensed private investigator. I carry a gun, just like any cop. I know how to handle it and myself.” She gave him a pointed look. “You know it, too. My instincts tell me the professor is our link to Heath. Yours have to be telling you that same thing. I’m going to dance with him, Bran. Talk to him. One dance, one conversation might give us the break we’ve been waiting for.”
“It’s not a question of you being able to handle yourself. I just don’t like the idea of you getting any closer to that guy than you did tonight.”
“I know.” In the shadowy light, her eyes looked huge, her mouth glossed and tempting. “Sitting at the bar, you made a toast to quick endings. I don’t know if you were talking about just the investigation or us, too.”
He made no attempt to clarify. How could he when he wasn’t sure himself?
“All I know is nothing will be over,” she continued, “or resolved, until after Heath is back in a cell. If my dancing with the professor makes that happen sooner, it’ll be worth it. In every way.”
He knew she was right. Logically, he knew. But whatever his mind told him, his gut wanted to keep her on the outskirts of the investigation. And, dammit, his heart just wanted her. Their marriage was as good as over. The longer they interacted the more they hurt each other, and still he wanted her.
He gripped his hands on the steering wheel and burned for her.
Chapter 11
“What’s up with Bran?” Morgan McCall asked the following afternoon. “He’s sitting out there, looking like he’s got a burr under his butt. He about took my head off when I asked him what his problem was.”
Standing in a dressing room near a worktable piled with bolts of fabric, Tory slid into the slinky tube of blue silk that was her bridesmaid’s dress. “Out there” was Morgan’s reference to the living room of the cozy cottage-like house owned by the seamstress who’d designed and sewn first the youngest McCall daughter’s wedding dress and now Carrie’s.
“It’s the tension,” Tory replied. “Over Heath. Over having our lives—everything—put on hold.” Over having to live in the safe house’s close quarters with an estranged spouse. “Bran and I are past ready for Heath to get caught.”
“All of us are ready for that.” Roma McCall sent Tory a concerned look while she helped her you
ngest daughter step out of yards of snowy silk and lace. “Are there any new leads on him?”
“Maybe,” Tory said, thinking of the professor. “We’ve got a line on a guy named Harry Smith. Bran and I both think he’s an associate of Heath’s.”
Tory ended the statement with a frown on her face. Even though Nate’s visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles had verified the picture on Harry Smith’s driver’s license matched the professor, she still couldn’t reconcile the name with the poetic face. “Anyway, we’re going back to the club he hangs at tonight, hoping to find out more about the guy.”
“I’m praying Heath and everyone he knows gets caught soon,” Roma said, draping the dress across the worktable. “Morgan’s and Carrie’s wedding is two weeks away. I can’t imagine the security precautions we’ll need to take if Heath is still on the run.”
“You’ll have four cops at the altar saying ‘I do’ and the majority of the police department sitting in the pews.” Morgan tugged on jeans and a black sweater, then smoothed her long blond ponytail. “Even the president doesn’t have such security.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Roma said, then turned and took a good look at Tory. Her mouth curved. “Dear, you look gorgeous.”
Holding a pair of spiky heels in one hand and hitching the long skirt with the other, Tory padded barefoot across the room. She paused in front of a full-length mirror, gave herself the once-over, then nodded.
“I have to hand it to you, Morgan, people will see this dress and think ‘snazzy.’” She angled to see the back where blue silk dipped to her waist. The sleek skirt turned seductive when the movement parted a long side slit, revealing an ample length of leg.
“Snazzy sexy,” Morgan amended, crossing to her. “Bran won’t know what hit him when he sees you in this.”
Tory said nothing. After two days of Bran’s polite remoteness, she doubted the slinky blue dress—or anything else she wore—would have any effect on him. It was as if he had finally accepted the fact their marriage was over.
