He stared silently for a long minute. I drew myself up to my full height, nearly six feet even without stilettos, and stuck out my chin for good measure.
“Do you even know how to pick a lock?” he sighed.
“I’ll figure it out,” I said.
“You’ll set off the alarm and get yourself arrested. Come on.”
He crossed the backyard in a dozen strides, keeping to the shadows seemingly by second nature, and stopped in front of a door I wouldn’t have even noticed on the far right corner of the house.
I managed to keep up without my heels to unsteady me on the emerald turf. Joey pulled a thin scrap of metal from his wallet and what looked like a tiny screwdriver with a funny curved end on it from inside his jacket.
He cut his dark eyes at me as he worked the tool around, first in the deadbolt and then in the button lock on the handle. When the second one clicked loose I gave an involuntary gasp of awe.
“My undesirable skill set suddenly isn’t so undesirable, is it?” He flashed a tight grin.
I didn’t answer, trying not to breathe too deep, every fiber of my being acutely aware that he was very close, and he smelled unbelievably good. Cologne, yes, but something else, too. Not aftershave, or hair gel, I didn’t think. I couldn’t place it, but it was downright magical, and making it damned near impossible to concentrate on anything else. There was nothing undesirable about Joey, no matter how hard I tried to remind myself there should be.
A tiny click pulled my focus away from the hollow alongside his Adam’s apple. Whatever he’d been doing now allowed him to open the door enough for us to slip through.
“No siren?” I asked.
“Magnets,” he said. “Most of the security systems in these places were installed in the eighties, and not many of them have been updated. There’s a magnet in the doorframe that tells the alarm system the door is closed. As long as the connection isn’t broken, ADT will never know we’re here.”
The little piece of metal was stuck to the inside of the doorframe about halfway between the lock and the top.
“I’ll be damned,” I whispered, filing that away as very useful information I hoped I’d never need again.
I slid through the doorway and felt him tense when I brushed against him, fighting to keep a smile off my lips. At least it wasn’t just me.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“What used to be the maid’s quarters,” he said. “Behind the kitchen, usually.”
I flicked my little flashlight back on and crept down the hallway into the house, cracking a big set of double doors on my left.
“Laundry room,” I said, the smell of Tide giving it away before I could make out the outline of the huge, front-loading washer and dryer alongside the sink on the opposite wall. White breadboard cabinets lined the perimeter of the room, three drying racks folded into the wall above the sink. “Damn. Martha Stewart’s laundry room.”
Two feet further and across the hall, I hit pay dirt.
“Study,” I whispered, peeking through the French doors. The heavy scent of good cigars and better scotch was probably as much a part of these walls as chemicals were a part of the photo cave at my office.
Joey waved a “ladies first” gesture and I ducked inside, completely unsure why I was whispering and tiptoeing, but doing it just the same.
“I’ll take the desk,” I said, reaching in my pocket for the latex gloves and offering him one. “Put this on and check in the cabinets.”
He pulled a pair of black leather driving gloves from inside his jacket and grinned. “Thanks, but I’ve done this before. What am I looking for?”
“You don’t know?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll rephrase. What are you looking for?”
“Something that proves Grayson is dirty. I’ll know it when I see it,” I said.
“Good plan.” Joey chuckled and turned to the cabinet.
I opened drawers and flipped through files, closing them when I didn’t see anything promising.
In the very back of the second drawer, I spied a familiar name.
“Billings,” I breathed. I pulled the folder loose and opened it.
Spreadsheets full of six-digit numbers. Dollar amounts? I turned and laid them on the copier that was enclosed in the handsome cherry secretary behind the matching desk. A slip of thick paper fluttered from between the sheets and landed face down on the deep red and beige Oriental rug.
“What are you talking to yourself about over here?” Joey asked from directly behind my shoulder.
“A file on Billings,” I said, picking up the slip, which was printed with a pattern of little curlicue doodles and numbers. Was that what a tax stamp looked like? Not being a smoker myself, I had zero frame of reference, but it looked promising. “What is this?”
Joey yanked the chain on the desk lamp and studied the paper before he sighed and thrust it back at me.
“What you came here for,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I opened my mouth to object, pointing to the stack of documents. I froze when the floor started to vibrate.
“Garage door,” Joey said. “Do you trust me?”
He held my gaze for a very long second.
“More than a rational person would,” I said.
“Then move.”
I did, crossing to the door silently.
Through the open door I heard a woman giggling and a deep voice I couldn’t make out enough to recognize.
“He’s supposed to be in D.C.,” I whispered involuntarily. “Cheating weasel.”
“Who says he’s not in D.C.? He’s not the only one cheating,” Joey breathed in my ear, putting one hand on the small of my back and steering me through the dark hallway to the open door. He flipped the metal piece loose as he followed me out, since Mrs. Grayson and her friend had disarmed the alarm system. Turning the knob, Joey pulled the door shut silently, scanning the yard before he nodded an all clear and waved me off the patio.
I stuffed the gloves into my pocket and hurried toward the driveway, anxious to get home with the slip of paper and check Google for cigarette tax stamp pictures.
Two steps into the lawn, my foot clipped a buried sprinkler head and my ankle turned under me. I bit my lip hard, but managed to avoid yelping.
Joey’s arm shot around my waist before I could fall, and I gripped his shoulder and leaned into him, hobbling silently to the alley. I blinked away tears and cleared my throat, my searing ankle feeling twice as big as usual.
“Are you alright?”
“I don’t even have my good shoes on,” I said. “What kind of shit is that? I can run in stilettos, but in flats, not so much.”
“Look at it this way,” Joey said with a barely-suppressed chuckle. “You might have broken it in the heels. Hobble this way, and I’ll drive you home.”
After a few steps I made out the outline of his Lincoln, parked under a willow three houses down.
He helped me into the passenger seat and rounded the front of the car, sliding behind the wheel.
I bent forward and probed my ankle gingerly, sucking in a sharp breath. It was swollen, and very tender.
“Do you need to go to the ER again?” Joey asked, concern clear in his tone.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I will tomorrow if it gets worse, but I think some ice will be okay for tonight.”
“What are you going to do with those stamps?” he asked tightly, laying an arm along the top of my seat as he turned to back the car up.
“Stamps?” I asked, playing dumb.
“The tax stamps you found in the file,” he said.
Pay dirt. I reached into my pocket and patted the slip, sure it meant Grayson was going down, but unsure exactly why that was.
“What’s Gra
yson doing with them?” I blurted the question, but after I said it I wondered if he was distracted or annoyed enough to fire an answer back.
Joey kept silent, studying the road as he turned up Monument toward my house. Fine. I could figure that out for myself.
I stared at his jawline, trying not to imagine what the faint stubble there would feel like under my fingers as hard as I was trying not to care if he was caught up in whatever dirty dealings Grayson was doing. His arm had felt so natural around my waist, warmth lingering there even with the cool leather of the seat against my back.
But the truth was my goal, no matter what. Right?
He stopped in my driveway and shut off the engine, turning to face me.
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” he asked.
“I can’t,” I said.
“Billings is no angel.”
“But he’s not a murderer, is he?” Resting an elbow on the console, I twisted in the seat, trying to configure my throbbing ankle into a more comfortable position.
“No. But these are not nice people, Miss Clarke.”
“Nichelle, for the eleven thousandth time. And I’ve held my own so far.” I didn’t move my eyes from his, though I’d always been hesitant to hold his gaze for long in close quarters.
“You’re flirting with danger.” He leaned closer, his eyelids simmering.
“I’m well aware of that.” My breath stopped. My sexy mobster friend was about to kiss me.
At least, I hoped he was. Because I was sure as hell going to kiss him, criminal status be damned.
It was fast and slow all at the same time. I wasn’t sure who kissed who, only that suddenly his lips were on mine, and what he did or didn’t do outside of that didn’t matter one little bit.
I wouldn’t even admit to Jenna how many times I’d fantasized about this moment, and the reality was so much better: sweet, rich, and forbidden. Like eating an entire box of Godiva white raspberry truffles when you’re supposed to be on a diet. And surprisingly—Joey was an intimidating, do-as-I-say guy—his mouth was soft against mine. Hesitant. His palm cradled my cheek the way a collector might hold a Fabergé egg.
I curled my fingers into his thick, dark hair and pulled him closer, parting my lips and pressing them harder against his.
He swept the tip of his tongue along the line of my lower lip and I gasped, dropping my hands to clutch his shoulders, certain I was about to melt into a puddle on the black leather seat.
Oh. My. God.
He tightened his arm, his hand between my shoulder blades pulling me to him, but kept the kiss gentle. My ribs protested melding with the console, but I didn’t care. Electricity skated up my spine with every thump of my heart and flick of his tongue.
When I pulled away, his fingertips lingered on my jaw, his thumb streaking sparks across my cheekbone as he stroked it with the lightest touch.
It took everything in me to refrain from inviting him in. I leaned away instead, opening the car door.
“Goodnight, Joey,” I whispered. “Please, please, if you’re involved in whatever Grayson’s doing, disappear before I find out.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere, Nichelle,” he said. I wanted to believe it was an answer, not an argument. “Sweet dreams.”
I eased out of the car, gripping the top edge of the door as I tested my ankle. It hurt, but the kiss was working like morphine. I could feel the pain, but I truly did not give one damn.
I watched as he backed out of the drive, then turned for the door when he flickered the high beams at me.
I took Darcy out back and leaned on the wall as I threw her squirrel, then checked her food bowl, tucking the stamps into my utensil drawer as I limped through the kitchen. Dropping clothes on my way into the bathroom, I pulled a clean t-shirt from the dryer on my way out. I needed to ice my ankle, but I was too drained. It would still be swollen in the morning.
What kind of worms am I going to find in this can? I wondered, trying to think about anything but Joey’s toe-curling sweet kiss. As if that were even possible. Folding the cloud-soft duvet back, I climbed into my big cherry four-poster, Joey’s jawline waiting on the backs of my eyelids.
15.
Bringing out the dead
Sleep was fitful, thanks to my ankle and a drawn-out dream that would’ve made a porn star blush. By the time first light peeped through my shades, I was ready to hobble to the kitchen for some coffee and an ice pack.
A little rummaging in the far reaches of my linen closet produced an ace bandage I’d used on a sprained knee that had ended my brief Venus Williams phase. I wrapped my ankle tightly, dropping a few ice cubes in a Ziploc and propping my foot on a stack of throw pillows while I sipped a homemade white mocha.
I picked up the stamps by the edges and studied them in the lamplight. The paper was an odd, linen-type adhesive variety, and the strip was scored for easy tearing. The mark itself was a curlicue design with an alphanumeric code printed underneath, and “Commonwealth of Virginia” printed across the top in bitsy letters.
Grayson was definitely dirty. Joey’s cryptic non-information and the paper in my hand proved that much.
“Are they fakes?” I wondered aloud, trying to remember exactly what Kyle had told me about the huge case he was working on. “Why would Grayson have fake state tax stamps if he’s taking bribes to keep the federal taxes lower?”
Darcy yipped from her bed in the corner, and I looked over at her.
“What do you think, girl? How did the senator get ahold of these?”
I laid them on the table and picked up my coffee, still thinking about Grayson. All the work he’d done at the state level for tighter regulations and banning smoking in public places didn’t jive with any of this. And how did the dead guy fit in?
Hold on. The dead guy.
I snatched the stamps off the table and peered at the edge. Not paper, exactly, but like paper. With an odd sheen because of the adhesive.
“Ten to one the scrap I found near the body is this same kind of paper, Darcy,” I said, knocking the ice to the floor in my haste to get to my feet. I grabbed my Blackberry and pulled up the photos I’d taken at the scene, but I couldn’t tell anything definitive from them. It looked promising, though. “I wonder what Kyle’s up to this morning.”
I limped to the bathroom, the ice, the bandage, and a double dose of Advil keeping the throbbing to a minimum.
Scrubbing my face with a wet cloth, I smiled at the determined flash in the violet eyes that stared back at me from the mirror. If the paper had come from the stamps, Kyle would have to at least acknowledge the possibility that he was wrong. I brushed my teeth and twisted my hair up into a messy bun, finger-combing a few strands around my face. A touch of makeup, and I debated which shoes would accommodate my bandaged foot.
I settled on a pair of Tory Burch pumps I’d picked up at a Salvation Army sale in July because I couldn’t pass up the price even if they were a half-size too big. Stuffing Kleenex in the toe of the right one, I slipped it on my uninjured foot and paired the turquoise suede shoes with cream slacks and a canary wrap sweater. Professional, but cute enough to hold Kyle’s attention.
I walked gingerly until I got the hang of slightly limping in heels, then climbed in the car and flipped on my scanner.
“Female, approximately twenty-two years old. Forensics is picking through the dumpster now.”
A body.
Between the math building and the student union at RAU.
Having just covered a horrific murder case involving students there over the spring and summer, my stomach turned at the idea of another dead coed. Writing about murder is hard enough without tragically young victims.
I started the engine, fishing for my Blackberry to call Bob.
“I’m really not trying to piss you o
ff, Chief,” I said when he picked up. “But I’m going to be late. There’s a dead girl in a dumpster at RAU this morning.”
“Really?” He was the only person in the world who could sound perky in response that statement and not come off as a creep. “Shot? Stabbed?”
“Don’t know. They’re not saying much on the scanner and I’m still in the car. But I’m on my way over there to see what I can see.”
“Stay with it as long as you have to,” he said. “Good thing I’m not the only person you’re standing up.”
“I’d never—” I began, but stopped when I remembered that I was supposed to go to the courthouse at eight-thirty. “Shit. The jewelry store hearing.”
“Ding ding ding! It was in your copy last night. Early hearing. Any big reason you need to be there?” He meant was there any reason for him to send someone else; in this case “someone else” would likely be Shelby Taylor.
“Not really. I just wanted to get a look at the guy,” I lied. I wanted much more than a look at William Eckersly. “It’s just a bond hearing.”
“I can send photo,” he said. “It won’t hurt to have a shot of that guy in a courtroom on file. Let me see if we’ve got anyone available.”
“Thanks, Chief.” I clicked off the call, thinking he had no clue just how handy that picture might be.
I turned onto the campus, a half-dozen RPD cars, an ambulance, and forensics, coroner’s, and TV vans making it even more difficult than usual to find a parking place.
Finally double-parking next to the Channel Four van, I hurried around the student union to a sidewalk overlooking a picturesque courtyard. Students stood clustered in groups, whispering and staring at a large blue dumpster. A thirty-foot radius was blocked off by crime scene tape, the grass between the sidewalk and the dumpster hidden beneath the feet of more than fifty reporters, cops, medical examiners, and suit-and-tie university administrators.
Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) Page 17
