by Maggie Price
As Michael spoke, A.J.’s face had gone from flushed to pale. She stood motionless, one hand fisted at her throat, her other arm wrapped around her waist. “What about Greg? Do you think he lied about what happened?”
“I have no idea. His injuries were real, I do know that. The patrol officers who found him in the alley behind the warehouse confirm he was out cold. So does the doctor in the emergency room who stitched the gash in his forehead. Lawson could be as much a victim as Ken.” Michael lifted a shoulder. “I’m not pointing a finger at anyone. I’m just saying some things that have to do with Ken’s death aren’t playing the way they should. It makes me wonder.”
Keeping his eyes steady on hers, he slowly closed the distance between them. “You’re holding something back about Ken, thinking you’re protecting him. Maybe you are,” he added. “Then again, your silence may be protecting his killer.”
“My, God.”
The anguished despair in her eyes had him fighting the need to touch her, to comfort. He balled his hands against his thighs and forced himself to concentrate on the case. She was close to telling what she’d concealed from him. He could feel it.
“At some point, you’ve got to trust me,” he said. “I’m not on a witch-hunt. There’s no burning need inside me to dig up dirt on your brother. All I want is the truth.”
She opened her mouth to speak. Her lips trembled and she said nothing.
“You knew the kind of man Ken was,” Michael continued. “You’re convinced someone framed him. If that’s true, what you know could help prove that.”
“And if it proves otherwise?” she asked, her voice quavering.
“What’s done is done, A.J. No amount of loyalty or silence on your part can change the past. Could be, all that’ll come out of this is that someday you’ll answer ‘yes’ when your aunt asks if Ken’s murderer is behind bars.”
She nodded, took a few limping steps to the nearest chair and sank onto its cushions. She stared down at her lap, where her hands lay gripped in a white-knuckle clench.
Michael stood silent, watching her shadowed face. It was almost as if he could see the struggle going on inside her.
Finally, she lifted her gaze to his and said, “I got an anonymous phone call the night before Ken died. The caller claimed Ken had gone bad. That I should tell him to cooperate with his new partners or else.”
“Or else, what?”
“He didn’t say. He just hung up.”
Michael settled onto the chair’s matching ottoman, his knees inches from hers. “Did you recognize the caller’s voice?”
“No. His voice sounded muffled. There was some kind of background noise that I couldn’t ID. I’ve racked my brain trying to put a face with the voice, but I can’t.”
Michael nodded. “What did you do after he hung up?”
“I tried to find Ken.” She lifted an unsteady hand, shoved a tumble of dark hair behind one shoulder. “It was late. The call came in around two in the morning. I phoned dispatch, and found out Ken had called in sick and wasn’t working. I phoned his apartment.” Her gaze flicked across the coffee table where Ken’s answering machine sat. “His machine wasn’t on and he didn’t answer.”
“Then what?”
“I threw on some clothes and drove to his apartment.” She shook her head. “I had no idea who he was dating, where he might be spending the night. I just knew I had to talk to him about that damn call. I figured he’d show up eventually. And he did.”
“When did he get there?”
“Around five that morning. He didn’t say where he’d been.”
“What happened when you told him about the call?”
“The look on his face...” A.J. dropped her gaze. “He was furious. He paced his living room like a caged animal. He kept repeating that he’d kill the bastard for involving me in this—those were his words. I demanded, pleaded, eventually begged him to tell me what the hell was going on. He refused to say anything more. After a while he stormed out. It was...the last time I saw him alive.”
Michael leaned in. “And you think he might have made good on his threat to kill the man who called you. That’s why you didn’t tell me about the call when I ordered you to Internal Affairs.”
With slow precision she raised her gaze to meet his. “Yes. Ken was laid-back, easygoing. If I hadn’t seen it for myself that morning, I’d have sworn he was incapable of such rage. But I did see. And I half believed he’d make good on his threat. I was so upset, so scared that after he walked out I went into his bathroom and threw up.”
Even now, Michael could see the agonizing uncertainty in her eyes. “For what it’s worth, we don’t have any unsolved homicides that occurred in that period.”
“Except Ken’s.”
“Except Ken’s.” He leaned back on the ottoman, studying her. “Is that it? That’s all you’ve held back?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Again, he had no facts to back up his instincts. He just knew. She was telling the truth.
Her lips thinned. “I withheld information about an active investigation. You can suspend me for that. Maybe fire me.”
“True.” He gave her a ghost of a smile. “But then, where would I find another experienced profiler to work on the task force on such short notice?”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her eyes were huge and dark against the pallor of her skin. “Do you think whoever called me had something to do with Ken’s death?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said quietly. “If you get another call, I want your word you’ll tell me.”
“I can’t see that the man would have reason to call again.”
“Maybe not. But he’s got to know that his call put questions in your mind. Questions that haven’t gone away with Ken’s death.”
Michael was suddenly aware of a deep-seated anger stirring inside him and he tore his gaze from her dark one.
Sweet Jesus. Instead of maintaining his distance from the Duncan investigation, he’d let his emotions dump him into the middle of it. At this instant, all he wanted was to catch the anonymous caller just so he could throttle the scum for threatening A.J.
“Whoever called you is still out there,” he stated, his voice sharper than he’d intended. “You need to be careful. If anyone even looks at you funny, I want to know.”
“Yes. All right.”
He glanced again at his watch. It was near midnight. “I’ll check Ken’s machine for messages, then go.” He rose, gathered up the answering machine and carried it to the desk. There, he plugged it in and hit the Play button.
As a message about a special offer from a portrait studio filled the study, he kept his eyes on A.J. She sat unmoving, her gaze fixed on the machine. Her face was a picture of exhaustion; the strain she felt showed in the shadows beneath her eyes, in the small lines etched at the corners of her mouth.
The next message began, and she winced when a bill collector promised dour consequences if Officer Duncan didn’t pay up. Another beep sounded, and a woman’s soft voice drifted on the study’s warm air.
“I’m sorry I missed your call...and I’m sorry we argued. Ken, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. We lost each other once. We can’t let it happen again. Come here when you finish your shift. We can talk. Whatever it is, I’ll stand by you. I love you.”
A.J.’s eyes widened. “My, God.”
Michael waited for the machine to click off, then pushed the Rewind button. “I take it you know the voice?”
She nodded. “Mary.”
Michael arched his eyebrows when she didn’t continue. “Mary who?”
“Duncan. Ken’s ex-wife.” A.J. rose and walked to the desk. “I had no idea they were seeing each other.”
“How long have she and Ken been divorced?”
“About a year,” A.J. answered, her voice still ripe with bewilderment. “I don’t know why they split up, Ken never would say, and Mary didn’t come around after that.” A.J.�
��s forehead furrowed. “I saw her at Ken’s funeral. I remember hoping she’d come here afterward, but she didn’t.”
“If she got Ken to talk about what was going on, then she might have some answers to our questions. She might even know something about the evidence he said he had.” Michael ejected the tape from the machine and slid it into the back pocket of his jeans. “How do I get in touch with her?”
“I’ll try her at home,” A.J. said as she reached for the phone. “As far as I know, she’s still in the house where she and Ken lived.” A.J. punched in a number, then waited. When someone picked up and she asked to speak to Mary, he could tell that A.J. had gotten an answering service.
“Mary’s out of town,” she said after hanging up. “She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“What does she do?”
“She’s a lawyer.”
“What firm?”
“Ames, Martin and Radner.”
Michael arched a brow. “High-dollar criminal attorneys.”
A.J. nodded. “That’s how Ken met Mary. He’d busted a client of hers and she gave him hell on the witness stand. He used to say it was love at first insult.” A.J.’s eyes sharpened and locked with his. “I want to be there when you talk to her.”
“You may find out things about Ken that are hard to accept.”
“I don’t think anything could be worse than not knowing.”
He studied her for a moment, saw the anguish in her eyes.
“All right. We’ll talk to her together.” He looked at the scattered possessions around him, at the empty boxes. “I’ll help you pack—”
“I can do it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Michael walked to the chair and retrieved his leather jacket. “Then I’ll get out of here. I’ve got a briefcase full of reports on the Westfall homicide to go over.”
She nodded and said nothing.
He wanted to say something to banish the pain from her dark eyes, but there weren’t any words. Turning, he walked into the entry hall and out the door, locking it securely behind him.
Chapter 5
“Dianna Westfall died no more than six hours before the maid found her body.”
From her place at the conference table, A.J. listened to Michael brief the task force on the medical examiner’s findings. As he spoke, she shuffled through the packet of crime scene photos she’d found on her chair when she arrived moments before.
“Cause of death is multiple stab wounds,” Michael continued in a deep, even voice. “The ME cataloged twenty-one during the autopsy. Seventeen incised wounds to the left lung, one to the right lung, two to the liver and one to the left lateral neck, which almost severed the spine.”
A.J. winced. No wonder the woman was nothing more than a mutilated heap, bent like a gruesome fortune cookie on a mattress so saturated with blood that it looked black.
“The murder weapon has a double-edged blade, sharpened on both sides, about eight inches long. It wasn’t found at the scene.”
Seconds lengthened into minutes while A.J. studied the close-ups of the severed red-lacquered index finger posed amid a bank of lacy pillows. Frowning, she attempted to fit together the pieces of the puzzle swirling in her mind. Something about the finger didn’t add up.
“Ought to be a law against men as good-looking as the lieutenant.”
Helene St. John’s whispered words jerked A.J. out of her intense concentration. She gave the patrol officer a sideways glance to acknowledge she’d heard, and said nothing.
Helene leaned in. “I wonder if Ryan knows how delectable he looks in that navy suit.”
You should see him in a leather bomber jacket and faded jeans that hug his thighs, A.J. thought.
She pulled off her reading glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. The first rays of winter sun had barely crept through the conference room windows, and already she felt the fatigue in her legs and back. She hadn’t slept a wink last night. The rich, drugging memory of Michael’s kiss had tied her in knots, kept her mind spinning.
Michael...
God, when had she started thinking of the man on a firstname basis?
When his lips took hers in that kiss, that was when. The kiss that had erased every rational thought from her mind and swirled her blood with quick, urgent need.
From across the table, Sam Rogers blew out a puff of gray cigar smoke and leaned forward in his chair. “Lieutenant, do we know yet if there’s property missing from the scene?”
“No,” Michael answered. “We’ll find out later today, after the housekeeper and insurance agent finish their inventory.”
A.J. barely heard the exchange. Her fingers stilled against the stack of crime scene photos, and she stared unseeingly at Dianna Westfall’s antique bureau, topped with a silver tray holding crystal atomizers filled with pale, golden scents. Now that she’d let the disconcerting memory of the previous night interrupt her thoughts, A.J. found it impossible to focus on the job at hand. Couldn’t concentrate on anything, except that kiss.
That kiss.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth, savoring the tenderness lingering there.
She’d wanted that kiss. Needed it. Welcomed it. Even now, the remembered feel of Michael’s hard, muscled body against hers sent a twist of desire through her belly. Beneath her jade bolero jacket and black wool skirt, her skin heated.
Was that kiss the reason she told Michael about the anonymous phone call? Had those few delicious moments in his arms lowered her defenses to such an extent that when he voiced his theory—and that was all it was, a theory—that someone other than burglars killed Ken, she’d revealed information that could further implicate her brother in wrongdoing?
In the following introspective moment, A.J. knew the answer. Knew her hormones had nothing to do with it.
She wanted to trust Michael Ryan. God help her, she had no idea why. Nor did she know if she should.
Michael had a duty to see the investigation of her and Ken through to the end, she knew that. Right now, Michael believed she was an innocent pawn, but would his thinking change if additional incriminating evidence against her and Ken emerged? And what steps would Michael take if that happened?
Where the job was concerned, he had a reputation for toughness. He went by the book, did what it took to clear a case. Michael Ryan was not the type of man who’d let a kiss influence his thinking.
A.J. let her gaze drift down the length of the table. Head cocked, Michael listened with intense concentration while Sky Milano gave an update on forensic evidence found at the scene.
“From seminal fluid found on the victim’s body, we know the suspect’s blood type is AB,” Sky said, poking her oversize glasses up the bridge of her thin nose. “Common to only four percent of the population. Find a white male suspect with type AB, and chances are it’s our guy.”
Michael nodded, then glanced up, his eyes snagging A.J.’s for a brief instant before moving on. The knot in her belly tightened.
How could she work with him, see him every day, and not think about that kiss? About the need his touch had awakened in her?
She set her jaw and told herself to stop acting like a starry-eyed schoolgirl. It had only been one kiss, after all. And he hadn’t even been the first man to kiss her last night.
Lifting her hand, she began a slow massage of her right temple. Who was she fooling? With Greg, she’d felt no genuine passion when his mouth descended on hers. His lips had been tender, caressing, yet she’d felt no fizz in her blood, no jump of her pulse.
It was Michael’s kiss that had sent her body temperature spiraling, kicked her heartbeat into overdrive. Michael’s touch that had robbed her of sleep, causing her to lie awake the entire night, tangling the bed sheets as if in a fever.
From where she sat, A.J. studied his strong, clear-cut profile. If he’d lost any sleep, he didn’t show it. His thick, dark hair was neatly combed, his face freshly shaved, his navy suit pressed with sh
arp creases. What would it feel like to lie beneath him, flesh to flesh? To be held in his arms, her body smoldering beneath his touch as his wide, sensuous mouth—
At that instant, Michael finished making assignments and ended the meeting. A general murmur of voices and a rustling of paper brought A.J. plummeting back to earth. Most of the people around the table pushed back in their chairs and rose. Some headed for the door; others made a beeline for the newly installed computers and banks of phones that lent a war-room atmosphere to task force headquarters.
As Helene stood, A.J. noted the officer had taken advantage of the plainclothes aspect of the assignment. Her black suit fit her sleek body like sausage casing; her platinum hair hung loose and wild, framing her striking, high-cheek-boned face.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Helene said and handed A.J. a piece of paper. “I took a call for you before you got here. The woman said she’s Mary Duncan’s secretary. Said to tell you Ms. Duncan’s in Dallas taking a deposition and should be back in the office around four today. You can come by then.”
“Thanks,” A.J. said, and tucked the message into her folder.
“Mary Duncan.” Helene pursed her lips. “She’s Ken’s ex, isn’t she?”
A.J. nodded. “Do you know her?”
“No. By the time I came on the night shift, she’d already filed for divorce. As I recall, Ken wasn’t at all happy about the split.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Speaking of Ken, a bunch of us who worked his shift are getting together tomorrow night at Buck Newton’s house. Sort of a bring-your-own-booze-and-food type deal. Starts at eight, ends when the last person passes out. Greg has the address. Why don’t you ask him to bring you?”
A.J. took a deep breath. Last night when she’d ended Greg’s kiss and pulled from his embrace, her gaze had fixed on the angry cut on his forehead. Guilt pressed in around her. Greg had been there for her when Ken died, and she owed him. She wanted to give back to him. But the emotion he seemed to want from her simply wasn’t there. In the glow of the porch light, his expression told her that he had seen the truth in her eyes.
