by Nikki Duncan
Maybe an affair, but somehow that didn’t sit right in BD’s gut. It wasn’t a strong enough reason for a woman like Adalia to kill a man or go after his wife a year later.
Regardless, death was back at Maggie’s door and he had a promise to keep. The potential ramifications of spending time around her had pressure building at his temples. She’d pulled at him, sexually and emotionally, when he’d shattered her world. Her allure had grown with time, judging by his earlier reaction.
“What good does it do to put murderers behind bars if morons let them go?” BD ground his teeth. They had to redo a job they’d already done because of incompetents.
Punch. He’d prefer himself or Craig being the targets. They were trained.
A target on Maggie… He may as well have been gut punched by a three-hundred-pound thug on a high. He didn’t stand a chance of blocking the force of such a hit any more than he could remain unaffected by the exotic looking widow with her dark hair and compelling gaze.
Adalia was crafty and planned everything ten moves in advance, which meant BD was going to have to get close to Maggie. She needed protection and sitting in his car each night wouldn’t be effective.
“Adalia mentioned a professor in the note on Michelle Dane.” Thankfully they’d identified the woman in the park. “Maggie’s husband was a professor, but what’s the logic behind targeting her?”
“Vindication?” Craig ventured. “Maggie was at the trial for most of the closing statements. Women can latch on and turn small grudges into vengeful ones.”
“No.” BD slammed his fist into the polycanvas bag. “Family members of her other victims were there too. They haven’t been identified as targets.”
What did Mike Sullivan have to do with Adalia? What hat she wanted to keep him from talking about? She wasn’t crazy. She had reasons for every action—even if BD couldn’t pinpoint them.
Craig braced the bag and studied him. “She got to you again.”
“Maggie?” Punch. “No.” Yes. Seeing her threw him back in time. He recalled every emotion crossing her face when he told her he was responsible for her husband’s death. That had been the second time he’d failed to react fast enough. Nothing would distract him this time.
“BD—”
Punch. Ignoring the suspicion in Craig’s tone, BD jerked his head. He’d have to put more into his punches if he wanted to move the bag. Moving Craig could be like moving a mountain.
“She dressed more primly today, but I still see her in Pepto-Bismol pink cleaning gloves with a rip in her jeans and her chin jutted out in defiance.”
Her house had been cluttered with kid stuff last time he’d been there and her hair had been in a messy ponytail. Aside from photographs in decorative frames of a relaxed Maggie and the mess from the raccoon, she now portrayed an obsessively controlled person. Nothing in her life was allowed to slip from its approved slot. She hadn’t even been able to look at the magazines on the table without straightening them.
Punch. Facing her again ripped open old wounds and awakened the memory of her body pressed against his. His heart trembled with the echoing memory of her pain.
“She’s a job.” PUNCH.
Craig grunted and stepped back with his right foot.
Punch. Punch.
“Right.” A job and nothing more. So why had he avoided women since meeting her?
Yeah, his thoughts about the widow were inappropriate. The temporary—and intense—attraction he’d felt while offering comfort to a grieving woman made him the lowest kind of sleaze. Damn if he hadn’t felt a stronger attraction today.
Her pleated slacks and silk tank top accentuated her curves. Elegance radiated from her even as she chased a raccoon with a broom, and the instinctive attempt to take him down when he’d startled her… Her spirit was arousing.
“That case was tough for you.”
BD pictured Adalia’s face and put the full weight of his body into the next swing. Punch. Punch.
He knocked Craig back two steps. Bouncing on his feet, BD rolled his shoulders. That felt good.
“I did what I needed to do to stop a murderer.” And a man lost his life, a kid his dad.
Craig stepped over to the open mat in the middle of the floor and held his hands out to his side in invitation. BD pulled the Velcro on his gloves with his teeth. Maybe hand-to-hand against Craig would release the need to throttle someone. He couldn’t ask for a tougher opponent.
Shaking his arms, then legs, loosening his muscles, BD stepped in front of Craig and assumed a defensive stance. He’d gotten good at defenses. Even if he didn’t clear his mind, he might sweat out some aggravation.
Craig swung a test punch at his face. “And then you took it further.”
BD swooped in. He landed a right jab to Craig’s chest sending him back a step. He had twenty pounds on Craig and should be able to knock him flat on his see-all-hear-all ass.
“I promised her husband I’d tell her he loved her.” Promised to protect her without knowing what or who from.
“You didn’t promise to comfort her.”
Anger ran off him with the sweat, but nothing washed it away. Craig had no right to question his actions, even if he was the closest thing to a brother BD had.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He spun and aimed a kick at Craig’s head.
Craig raised his arm and blocked the blow with little effort. “It means you went above and beyond. Way beyond.”
“I did what I had to.” Liar. He had wanted to turn away from her, but guilt had sent him to her side. The desire to hold her while she grieved had made him stay. Nothing could have erased her pain, but maybe he’d helped a little.
He circled Craig, looking for a chink in his guard. Unpredictability and the challenge of finding a defense flaw, of out-thinking a worthy opponent, made the sparring effective.
“Holding the widow while she cried after emptying her stomach?” Craig cleared his throat in an unspoken I’m-not-buying-your-story way. “Was that what you had to do, or did it just make you feel more like a hero?”
He found his opening. BD dropped to the ground, swept Craig’s legs out from under him. He flipped up and out of reach before Craig’s back smacked the mat. Dancing from foot to foot, he waited for Craig to get back up. “What else was I supposed to do? Leave her? Walk away? Ignore that she hurt? That I’d just destroyed her life?”
“Most would.” Craig jumped to his feet. “And you didn’t destroy her life.”
Walking away would have been normal. No one would have thought less of him, but thinking of Maggie grieving on her own… One look at the naked grief in her eyes and the option of walking vanished.
“Bull.” BD ignored the sweat dripping into his eyes, switched his lead foot and swung some slow punches in the air. Craig’s badgering actually had some of his anger draining away. “Sullivan wasn't a criminal. If I’d gotten to Adalia faster, he wouldn’t have died.”
“You seemed awfully protective of someone who was just a victim’s wife.” Craig raised a brow, practically daring BD to try another move. He’d assumed his role as pseudo-therapist, encouraging BD to talk about his feelings. “She reminded me of Sam.”
“No way.” BD envisioned Maggie as she’d been in the courtroom. Dressed in a somber gray suit, sitting statue stiff with a blank stare, she hadn’t shown a hint of nerves or emotion.
Samantha had always been unable to sit still for two minutes. She had been outrageously and overtly sexy. Her bravery ended at trying a new shade of nail polish. Maggie Sullivan was quietly sensual and aside from soft clothes didn’t seem the least bit fragile. Especially with a broom in her hand.
BD swung at Craig again, but was easily blocked. “We may be men, but you can still talk about your feelings.”
“No.”
“You keep this close-minded caveman act up and Cap will assign someone else to the case, though maybe that’s for the best.”
Chest heaving, teeth grinding, a fire-burst of temper prope
lled BD into Craig. Grabbing his best friend by the shirt, BD slammed him into the wall and got in his face.
“Adalia Wood is ours. Mine. If Maggie needs protection I will see to it.” He pressed Craig harder against the wall. “You open your meddling mouth to Winchester and I’ll personally pull your balls out your throat. Then we’ll talk about your feelings.”
“You can try.” A cocky grin spread across Craig’s mouth. “After you get your head straight.”
An hour later, while they worked at dissecting everything in the case files from their first go-round with Adalia, BD still fumed over Craig’s hard view of his actions. Again they tried to find a logical connection between her victims aside from the cryptic notes left with the bodies.
“Why was she so direct in her last note? She was more vague before.” Craig twirled a pen between his fingers. “And what’s she mean by ‘our failure resulting in mass destruction’? How many people does she plan to kill?”
“I don’t intend to find out the last answer. As for her directness, maybe she’s working against a timetable. Or she’s grown impatient, which will make her screw up. We just have to figure out her agenda.”
Craig looked up from the paper he was reading. “We have to tell Mrs. Sullivan.”
“No.” BD could see it now. Him explaining to Maggie how the woman sentenced for Mike’s death had escaped, killed another woman and that Maggie may be next. Of course he couldn’t forget the part about her husband maybe being involved with Adalia.
“No,” he said again. “It wouldn’t go over well.”
“She’ll be safer if she knows.”
“Or she’ll go off half-cocked thinking she can handle the situation.” BD pinched the bridge of his nose in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure. While there was nothing fragile or timid about Maggie, she wouldn’t take orders well—even for her own protection. “We need a way to stay close without her knowing what’s going on.”
“We’ve upped patrol car presence in the area.”
“Which won’t be enough.” Wood was too clever and always a step ahead. “We’ll need to take turns watching her house at night.”
“Have I mentioned my hatred of stakeouts?” Craig, the mellow member of their team who dealt more easily with periods of inactivity as they related to doing paperwork hated sitting in a car for hours. Where Craig thrived on mental stimulation, BD fared better when his mind could drift from possibility to possibility.
“Loan me your car. I’ll cover them.” It was a better option than going home to the cheap, pre-furnished apartment he’d moved into after Samantha.
“Why do you need my car? What’s wrong with yours?”
BD leaned back in the chair and rolled his neck. “Maggie identified mine from a few sweeps I’ve done. If I park all night she’ll know something’s up.”
Craig’s left brow popped up. The pen rolled seamlessly through his fingers like a miniature baton. “Man, where to start. How about with pointing out she’s already aware something’s up?”
“Been there.” BD tapped his temple and ignored the sarcastic air quotes Craig framed “something’s up” in.
“You take the fun out of it when you don’t fight back. Well…” Craig grinned slowly, only raising one side of his mouth. “Mostly. That you’ve been checking up on her and keeping it secret…” The weight of what Craig didn’t say sat like boulders on BD’s mind. “How long’s it been going on?”
“Awhile.” Three more days would make a year. Not that he’d counted.
“Okay. She’s observant. Probably too much so to be fooled with a different car. If anything it could scare her into calling 9-1-1.”
He’d thought of that too.
“I’m open to alternatives.” As long as they didn’t involve being close enough to smell her sweet scent of vanilla and roses.
“You want her to be careful? Give her a reason. Her concerns will be raised and she’ll stay on guard.”
“A warning won’t keep her safe from Adalia.”
Thinking, Craig flipped the pen back and forth three times before tapping it on the desk. “You could date her. And don’t think I’ve missed that you’re ignoring my question.”
Date her? Maggie was sensual and had a quick wit. As he’d been sprawled on the porch, with her standing over him, erotic images had flashed in his mind of her naked, lowering herself onto him. Of her hair falling loose from her braid in soft waves over her shoulders. Spending time with her wouldn’t be a hardship.
Yes it would. “I need to be close, but dating her isn’t going to work.”
“Because…?”
“It takes time we don’t have. And it doesn’t get us close enough.” Maggie and her son wouldn’t be safe enough.
Craig snapped his fingers. “There’s an empty house next door. Maybe we could talk the owner into letting us rent it for awhile.”
“Thanks to the economy and budget constraints, Cap won’t release funds.” Which left BD with the options of watching her house from the car or pretend dating her. There had to be an approach less littered with buried bombs.
Chapter 2
Maggie put a finally sleeping Emma in her crib and went to check on Jared, who was sprawled on his stomach across his bed with his feet dancing in the air above him. “You’re supposed to be cleaning your room, not playing DS.”
“Almost done with this level.”
She closed her eyes for a brief moment to hold her frustration in check. Jared’s behavior would be easier to handle if he was intentionally defiant for the sake of gaining attention. Instead, he had retracted so deep into himself, stopped acting like a typical young boy, she worried he might be borderline depressed. He had fun with his friends, he’d pulled a few small pranks again, but grief over losing his father still shadowed him. And he never smiled.
“When you finish that level, get your laundry picked up and into the laundry room. Or you won’t need to worry about the next level.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She pulled his door closed and headed out for the mail, wondering yet again if she should still be allowing him to slide by without ever fully cleaning his room. In the grand scheme it wasn’t the most important thing. He would come around eventually, unless her leniency made him too complacent.
The mess still drove her crazy, crap it made her skin itch, but Grace, a psychiatrist, insisted it was best left alone and had promised Jared’s reactions were normal. Before much longer she’d have her high-spirited, laughing, prank-pulling son back in full force. The raccoon from a couple days ago hadn’t gone over well, but it was a sign he was bouncing back.
If only he could dream up less destructive pranks. Shaking her head, Maggie flipped back the deadbolt and pulled open the door.
The metallic stink of blood rose. A scream surged up and lodged in her throat. Her stomach rolled. She jerked back a step.
The raccoon she’d chased out of her home lie on the welcome mat—gutted. Violated. He’d been sliced open from the furry white star at the bottom of his chin to the base of his tail. A piece of paper protected by a plastic bag was stuck to the creature with a knife.
Curious, Maggie squatted down to grab the bag, but instead left it untouched and held her breath while looking more closely.
The paper had the University of Texas at Dallas logo. The woman from Detective Harte’s picture smiled up from the page.
Michelle Dane, according to the name beneath the enlarged photo ID printed by one of Mike, had been stunning. She had been a linguistics professor who had been Mike’s replacement if the dates of employment printed beneath each picture were accurate. The paper read like tombstones.
Maggie’s blood chilled. The woman in the park. Detective Harte’s visit and drive-bys. Now the raccoon and pictures. She was no Sherlock Holmes but one of these things shouldn’t fit with the others. Yet it seemed to. She scanned the surrounding houses before stepping back and closing the door.
Striving to be calm, wishing her shaking hands
would get the message, she pulled out Harte’s card. She hadn’t expected to see him after he’d walked away from her at the courthouse. She’d half hoped not to see him again after his latest visit. She sure hadn’t expected to be dialing his number.
Massaging her flip-flopping belly, breathing slow in an attempt to calm her quivering heart, she braced herself for the shivers the deep timber of his voice caused. As if she needed more shivers. He carried himself with a confidence that promised the passion she’d always yearned for. The passion she imagined would make her feel alive.
Detective Harte was not the man to test the theory on. He was dangerous, with a deadly job. And her traitorous body heated up just thinking about him. Being in a room with him exaggerated the issue—a scary predictability.
Mike’s job had been predictable and he’d still been killed. A detective was in danger daily. She couldn’t live with the doubts and fears. Not that it was an issue. They weren’t having a relationship. “Get a grip, Maggie.”
She had her life in order. She didn’t need or want a relationship. She had her hands full being mom and dad to two kids.
“Detective Harte’s desk.” A hard, disapproving voice pulled her from her thoughts. “Detective Pritchett speaking.”
“Is Detective Harte available?”
“Well now, sugar,” the detective purred. If slime-coated arrogance could be a purr. “Why would you want Harte when I can satisfy your needs?”
“Um…” Her skin twitched with instant revulsion. Never before had a voice on the phone made her feel as violated. She’d rather clean up the raccoon herself than talk to this guy. “I called for Detective Harte.”
“You can’t do better than me.” Smarmy satisfaction slithered along his tone like a laugh. “Can’t I help you, darlin’?”
Keeping her disgust disguised would be a challenge, it sat so thick on her tongue, but she tempered it. “I’ll call his cell.”
“You don’t know the pleasure you’re missing.”
