At Close Range Page 6
Dani cast a look at Ric, but he was focused intently on the screen.
“Mr. Black? You say you’ve never owned a Glock?”
Scott sighed. “That is what I said.”
“You ever borrow a Glock from anybody?”
“No.”
“Ever purchased one from a friend and had it in your possession temporarily?”
“No.”
“Ever kept one for a friend?”
“No.” Scott glanced at his watch again and stood. “We finished here? I’ve got work to do, so unless you plan to arrest me for something, I’d just as soon wrap this up.”
Scott knew that if they had enough to arrest him, they would have done it by now. He also knew he had every right to walk straight out that unlocked door.
The lieutenant got to his feet. “Stay available,” he ordered.
Scott looked straight at the camera, and Dani felt it like an arrow through her heart. He yanked open the door and walked out.
• • •
As soon as she stepped into the bar, Scott felt her. He always felt her. He tried to lock it out of his mind as he checked the baseball score one last time and finished his drink.
The bartender sauntered over and smiled. “Another round for you guys?”
Travis lifted his beer. “Not yet.”
“I’m good,” Scott said as Dani strode over to their end of the bar.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demanded.
Scott glanced at her as he pulled out his wallet. She looked the same as she had earlier, right down to the detective’s shield clipped to the waist of those snug-fitting jeans.
He slid a couple twenties across the counter and nodded at Travis. “I’m out.”
“You need a ride?”
“No.”
Travis cast a chilly look at Dani, but she was too worked up to notice it as she followed Scott toward the exit.
“Scott?”
“What?” He pushed through the door into the muggy July night.
“What the hell?”
He stopped and stared down at her. Her green eyes flashed with frustration—slightly different from the lust he’d seen in them this morning at the lake.
A Harley roared to life in the parking lot, drowning out conversation as he walked toward his truck with Dani hurrying to keep up with his long strides. The noise faded as he neared his pickup and took out his keys.
“Hey.”
He stopped and turned.
“Could you wait a goddamn minute? I’ve been looking for you for hours.”
“Why?”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why? Um . . . because you’re suddenly a suspect in a double homicide. Jesus Christ. Are you planning to explain to me what’s going on?”
“You’re the detective. You figure it out.” He turned toward his truck and caught a blur of movement as she swooped in and snatched the keys from his hand.
Anger rippled through him and he turned around. “Gimme my keys, Dani.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Wanna bet?” He stepped closer and glowered down at her, and she held his keys behind her back. “Now, Dani.”
“No.”
She glared up at him, and that was it. He’d had it. He yanked her against him and kissed that mouth that had been making him fucking crazy. He felt her startled gasp.
He’d surprised her. Completely. And that should have been his signal to stop, but he couldn’t have if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t want to, not when she arched against him and kissed him like she’d been thinking about it maybe even half as much as he had.
She was hot and sexy, and the way she squirmed against him sent a lightning bolt of lust straight to his groin. She tasted so good, even better than he remembered. She moaned and pushed at his chest, and only then did he realize what her squirming was really about. Her fist thudded against his shoulder as she jerked out of his arms.
• • •
Dani stumbled back and stared up at him. He was breathing hard just like she was. Something dangerous flickered in his eyes and he dragged her against him again.
“Stop.” She pulled away. “You can’t just . . .”
“What?” He gave her a rough shake. “What can’t I do, Daniele?”
Before she could answer, he dropped her arms and stepped back, leaving her suddenly adrift in a sea of cars and pickups. She glanced around and realized it was the same as the last time, the same sloppy, drunken mistake in the same damn parking lot, and she flushed with embarrassment as she looked up at him.
“You can’t kiss me! You’re a suspect in my investigation!”
He scowled and looked away.
“Why aren’t you taking this seriously?” she yelled, so angry she actually stomped her foot. “You’ve been implicated in a double homicide.”
His jaw tensed. “I wasn’t there, Daniele.”
“Your gun was there!”
“It’s not mine.”
“Your prints are all over it.” She got up in his face. “You have to explain that. And you have to get yourself a lawyer. What the hell’s wrong with you? You know how the system works.”
“I don’t have to do jack shit.”
She gaped at him. “Yes, you do. You look totally guilty.”
“I’m not.”
“It doesn’t matter! You look guilty. And I can’t believe I’m even standing here having this conversation with you in a stupid parking lot.”
She glanced around, flustered as she noticed people turning to stare as they walked out to their cars. How did he do this to her? How did he make her completely batshit crazy while he somehow remained completely cool? It had to be the alcohol.
She shoved his keys in the pocket of her blazer and squared her shoulders. “Get in. I’ll take you home.” She stared up at him, daring him to challenge her, and as the moment stretched out, her heart started to pound. Whose home? And then what?
Heat simmered in his eyes, and she felt a warm shudder from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. Her skin was tight suddenly, and she wanted to kiss him again even though her lips were still numb and tingly from the fierceness of his mouth and the whiskey she’d tasted on his tongue.
He eased closer, and she tried not to flinch under his gaze. His kiss did something to her, made it impossible for her to think straight.
Boots crunching on the gravel nearby had her turning around. Travis paused beside his black 4Runner, watching them warily. Scott looked at him, then back at Dani.
“I’ll get a ride with Travis.”
Her heart squeezed. “Fine.” She tossed his keys at him and he caught them against his chest. “Do whatever the hell you want.”
CHAPTER 7
Scott’s house was dark, and he didn’t bother with lights as he let himself in and stood in the kitchen for a moment, just listening to the quality of the silence. Then he took off his jacket and grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam from the cabinet. He poured a drink and went into the living room to sink onto the sofa.
His head pounded. Still. It had been pounding all day, and it would be worse tomorrow because of all the booze. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose, but he couldn’t get the image out of his brain. For two full days it had been stuck there—Tessa Lovett sprawled in the mud by that lake, a pair of nice, neat bullet holes in her back.
He tipped back his glass, and the bourbon washed away the taste of Dani. He couldn’t believe he’d kissed her again. What the hell was he thinking?
Headlights swung into the driveway. Scott’s pulse kicked up until he saw that it wasn’t a Chevy pickup but a BMW. Scott reached for the remote and found the Astros game he’d been watching at Schmitt’s.
The back door opened and closed and Drew stepped into the kitchen. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
Drew stood beside the breakfast table, his tie loose around his neck. He hadn’t even been home yet. He walked into the living room and sat down on a leather ottoman.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Scott flicked a glance at him. “About what?”
“Hiring a fucking lawyer, that’s what. You’re a prime suspect in a homicide.”
Scott stared at the game.
“I put in a call to a law school buddy of mine.” Drew took out his cell phone and swiped at the screen. “Name’s Joe Billingsly. He’s a defense attorney in Austin. I’ll text you his contact info.”
“No, thanks.”
Drew leaned forward. “What do you mean ‘no, thanks’?”
“What I said. I don’t want an attorney.”
Silence settled over the room.
Drew stood up and rested his hands on his hips. His eyes were filled with frustration and disappointment. It was such a Dani-like expression that Scott had to look away.
“You know, this renegade thing you got going doesn’t work out here in the real world. This shit’s serious.” Drew paused for effect—one of his courtroom techniques. “You could end up in jail. Or worse. This is a death-penalty case.”
“Drew . . .” Scott sighed.
“What?”
Scott looked up at his best friend. They’d played football together, mown lawns together. They’d gotten drunk together and high together and even gotten laid together on a few lucky occasions. But all that was years ago, before Drew had gone off to law school and Scott had gone off to war. Things were different now. Scott was different. And if Drew stood in his living room for one more minute telling him about the “real world,” Scott was going to have to hurt him.
Scott tossed back the rest of his drink.
“Unbelievable,” Drew muttered. “Nice talking to you, man.”
He stalked out of the room, and Scott didn’t look up. The windows rattled as Drew slammed the door.
• • •
Brooke Porter knelt down and beamed her flashlight over the sodden carpet. She could have used more light, but that was the problem with crime scenes—sucky working conditions were the rule and not the exception.
“Hey, Roland,” she called. “Turn that lamp this way, would you?”
Roland was in an intense discussion with a firefighter. A female firefighter who had captivated his attention the second they rolled up to the scene in the Delphi Center van.
“Roland.”
He looked up.
“The lamp?”
He shifted the scene lamp to face her direction, then resumed his discussion.
Brooke shook her head and took out her utility knife. After deciding on precisely which area she wanted, she used the blade to cut a four-by-four-inch square. She held the knife in her teeth as she deposited the carpet sample in a metal can.
Someone stepped into her light, and she glanced up.
“Brooke Porter?” a male voice asked.
She tried to make out the silhouette, and her heart gave a little lurch when she recognized him. Ric Santos, the sexy homicide detective from San Marcos PD. She set down her blade. “May I help you?”
“I hope so.”
She secured the lid over the metal can and tapped the edges with the hilt of her knife to give it an airtight seal. If her hunch was right, this patch of carpet had been doused with an accelerant. Brooke wouldn’t know for sure until she took the sample to the lab and ran tests.
She stood up and tucked her tool into the pocket of her white Tyvek suit. The detective stepped out of the glare and she could see him better.
“I’m Ric Santos with SMPD.”
“Mia’s husband.” She tipped her head to the side. “Aren’t you a little out of your jurisdiction?”
“Just a little.” The detective glanced around the small room, which was a giant mess. What had once been a quaint lakefront cabin was now a fire scene swarming with emergency vehicles. Ric shifted his gaze back to her. “Curtis said I’d find you here.”
“Dr. Curtis?”
He nodded.
That got her attention. Why on earth had a San Marcos cop asked her boss’s boss—the number two man at the Delphi Center—about her?
Brooke gathered up her cans of evidence. She attempted to grab her evidence kit, too, but her hands were overloaded. Ric grabbed it for her.
“I’m just wrapping up here,” she said, squishing her way across the carpet and passing through what was left of the cabin’s front door. The entire place had been reduced to a charred black skeleton now crawling with crime-scene techs. Ric walked her down the sidewalk.
“My department just sent some evidence to your lab and we need a rush on it,” Ric said.
“Define ‘rush.’ ”
He lifted a swag of crime-scene tape, and she ducked under it. He followed.
“We need results by tomorrow.”
Of course he did.
Brooke crossed a narrow gravel road to the crime-scene van. She set down her cans and opened the cargo doors.
That a homicide cop wanted a rush on his evidence was nothing new. That he’d called her boss’s boss and then hauled his butt out to a crime scene at 11:00 P.M. to personally put in the request was a little unusual.
Brooke loaded the cans into a plastic tub, where they wouldn’t rattle around during transport.
Ric had a curious look on his face. “Paint cans?”
“Yes, but they’ve never been used. We get them straight from the manufacturer.” She pulled her gloves off and stuffed them into her pocket. “We use them for transporting evidence that might contain accelerants so the chemicals don’t evaporate before we get a chance to run tests.”
“I see.”
She turned to face him. “What’s this evidence and why is it so important?”
“It’s a pistol. A Glock nine, and we think it was used in a double homicide.”
“The professor thing.”
He nodded.
“So you want me to fingerprint it?”
“Our guy already did that.”
She felt a stab of irritation as she loaded her evidence kit and shut the cargo doors. “If you already ran it—”
“We need someone to corroborate his findings. Or disprove them.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “You don’t trust your own guy?”
“We also need you to run the weapon for anything else,” he said, ignoring her question. “Biological evidence, trace chemicals, whatever.”
Brooke gazed up at him, trying to get a read. She didn’t like this at all. He was basically asking her to redo something that had already been done because he believed his police evidence tech was incompetent or had botched the job or both. And this was a high-profile case, which meant the stakes were through the roof. Whatever the test results were, they were going to be scrutinized by an army of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and jurors down the road.
“Look, Detective—”
“Ric.” He smiled, and Brooke felt a little flutter. She had to remind herself he was married to a colleague. A very pregnant colleague.
“Look, Ric, I’d love to help you, but I’ve really got my hands full right now, as you can see. There must be someone over at the state lab who could do this. Did you try over there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re the best.”
She drew back, startled by such a bold statement, even though it was true.
“We want you. It’s important. This is a death investigation.”
“Yeah? Well, so is this.” She nodded at the medical examiner’s van, which was pulling out of the driveway at that very moment. “So are many of my cases. Why should your case jump to the front of the line?”
“I can’t tell you.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I wish I could. Just trust me that it’s urgent.”
• • •
Dani felt antsy on the drive home. She’d felt that way all week—jumpy, anxious, even paranoid. For days now she kept getting this weird sensation as though someone were tickling the back of her neck with a feather.
She glanced in the rearview mirror for anything suspicious. Nothing, of course. No one was following her or watching her. She was simply going crazy. She was totally off her game this week, and she blamed Scott.
He’d pulled the same crap again, and again she’d reacted like a stunned teenager who’d never been kissed. Warmth flooded her cheeks and she tried to shake off the memory. But she couldn’t. Because she didn’t really want to. His scent, the feel of his body—all of it was seared into her mind. Why did he keep doing this to her? If he wasn’t interested, why did he keep stirring her up this way?
She needed to focus. On the case, not Scott. She had to figure out what the hell was going on with her investigation.
She passed through an intersection and glanced down a tree-lined street. It was Ric’s neighborhood. On impulse, she hung a right at the next corner and navigated her way to his house.
No cars in the driveway, but the garage was closed and a TV flickered in the living room, so someone was home. He was probably cuddled up on the couch with his wife, picking out baby names. Dani should leave them to it.
She was about to pull away when she noticed a shadowy figure waddling down the sidewalk. Dani slid from her pickup.
“Mia?”
The figure stepped from the shadows into the light of a streetlamp. It was Mia, all right. She wore shorts and tennis shoes and a fitted pink T-shirt that looked like it had a beach ball stuffed under it. Mia’s strawberry-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her skin shimmered with sweat.
Dani grabbed a water bottle from her cup holder and walked over. “What are you doing out here? It’s got to be ninety degrees.”
“Ninety-two.” She stopped beside Dani and took the bottle. “Thank you.” She tipped it back for a long sip, and Dani tried not to stare at her huge bump. “Thanks,” she gasped, handing back the bottle. “I feel like I’m about to burst. I wish I would.”
Dani bit her lip. Pregnancy was a mystery to her. She wasn’t in the club, and based on what she’d seen, she didn’t know if she ever wanted to join.
“So . . . you’re just out for a walk or . . . ?” Dani didn’t finish the question because she couldn’t think of a plausible reason why anyone would be power walking in this heat while nine months pregnant.