Kitabı oku: «Police Business», sayfa 3

He could almost feel her disappointment at a good idea refusing to pan out. Her frustration was such a tangible thing in the stiff set of her shoulders and crossed arms that he wanted to say he believed her story, even though the possibility of a woman being shot to death in Cain Winthrop’s office seemed more remote by the minute.

“How many offices are in this building?” he asked, knowing he didn’t have enough of a case here to warrant pulling any manpower off the Slick Williams murder and other homicides for an extensive room-to-room search.

“Hundreds.” She tipped the point of her chin at him, her blue eyes blazing. He recognized that look from his sisters, too. “And, yes, I’m sure I have the right room.”

She looked about as dangerous as a kitten, all huffed up and ready to spit in self-defense. A.J. respected her right to a temper, but couldn’t help smiling to himself at the notion she looked more cute than ferocious. “That wasn’t what I was thinking, amiga.”

Tiny fine lines appeared beside her eyes as she frowned. “What?”

She hadn’t understood him. “Amiga?” Reading lips in English was amazing enough. He supposed translating a foreign language on top of that would confuse most people. “It’s Spanish. It means friend.”

“Oh. Amiga.” She said the word again, touched her own lips as she repeated it, giving A.J. the feeling she wasn’t most people. She’d just expanded her vocabulary and wouldn’t miss that word again. “I’m bilingual, too.”

“You seem to communicate just fine.”

Her pale cheeks colored at the compliment. “It helps when someone really listens.”

Meaning there were others who didn’t listen to what she had to say? A.J. raised his guard a notch against his growing admiration for the woman. Maybe she had more of a reputation for making up stories than her father had indicated. Or maybe, like his own father had once told him, Winthrop will ignore the truth if it doesn’t suit his purpose. Or he’ll change things to make them fit his truth.

As a smart-ass teenager, A.J. had asked his father what he was smokin’ to come up with that deep thought. Antonio, Sr. had shoved his only son up against the wall and warned him to watch his mouth. Maybe if he listened a little better, instead of putting so much noise into the world, he could see the truth. If he heard the truth, if he championed it, then men like Cain Winthrop and his compadres at Winthrop, Inc. would lose their power to control and ruin other people’s lives.

His father, who had never once resorted to violence with his children, had been trying to tell him something important. But A.J. shrugged him off, called him loco and worse, ignored his warning and sped away in his muscle car.

It wasn’t the first time his father had tried to teach him how to be a man.

But it was the last time.

Though A.J. knew his father’s car, even as a burnt-out skeleton in the police impound lot, the coroner had needed dental records to identify his father’s remains. His mother had needed a sedative, his sisters had needed a shoulder to cry on and he had needed to grow up and become the man his father wanted him to be.

He was still working on that last one.

With little more than a blink to betray the depth of guilt and hurt he buried inside him, A.J. shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and tried to hear Claire Winthrop’s truth.

“Your father doesn’t listen to you?” he asked.

Claire’s cheeks paled again, giving him the real answer. “So what were you thinking, Detective? About the offices?” she asked, defending her father by refusing to condemn him.

A little spark of anger kindled deep inside A.J., disrupting the Zen-like sense of calm that kept his temper in check, his priorities straight and his desires under control. How could a father ignore his own child? Dismiss her when she needed his support? Antonio, Sr. never had.

But he was years beyond giving vent to angry words. His personal opinions were irrelevant to the investigation, anyway. So he did what he did best. He played it cool and let the witness and the facts take the investigation where it needed to go.

He shrugged off any awareness that he’d gotten too personal with his questions. “I was thinking more along the lines that your killers stashed the body somewhere else until they could come back and move it later.”

Her eyes followed the movement of his lips, then lit with hope. “The supply closet.”

He’d checked the supply closet earlier. No dead assistant.

But she was already hurrying across the reception area to a black steel door. A.J. followed at a more deliberate pace. Claire Winthrop wasn’t looking for bodies. She was back to finding what she thought was the missing chair mat.

A.J. turned on the light for her and helped her move some chairs to uncover two plastic mats stacked on their sides against the wall. Her toes tapped an impatient rhythm as she tried to transform the items into a clue.

He tried to help. “Any idea how many are supposed to be in here?”

When she didn’t answer, he realized she had her back to him and hadn’t heard the question. As soon as he touched her shoulder, she spun around. Oh man, this was killing her. He could see the frustration carving squint lines beside her eyes. He could read what it was costing her to keep from screaming out loud in the tight set of her mouth.

“Who would know how many mats are supposed to be in here?” he asked.

He was fascinated with the way her eyes followed his lips whenever he spoke. It was an intimate connection that made him want to keep talking, that made him want to study her lips with equal thoroughness.

But Claire Winthrop was all about finding answers, not making a play for a world-weary homicide detective.

“Valerie would know. Or the chief maintenance engineer.”

Bam. Finally, the wake-up call he needed. Maintenance engineer. No matter how she sugarcoated the term, Claire Winthrop was the daughter of a multimillionaire while he was the custodian’s son. He had real crimes to solve, real victims to protect. A real world to live in.

He was done playing. It was late, he was tired and he was a damn lonely son of a gun for wasting even one moment feeling whatever the hell he was feeling for Claire Winthrop.

A.J. drew back the front of his jacket and hooked his thumbs into his belt, giving Claire a clear look at his guns, his badge and the seriousness of making a false report to the police. He needed the truth from her and he needed it now.

“How long were you gone tonight, Miss Winthrop? From the time you allegedly saw the murder to the time you returned to the 26th floor with your father?”

“I didn’t allegedly see anything.” Her temper spiked, then dissipated just as quickly. “I don’t know. I didn’t check my watch until I got home. Maybe two hours. Maybe less.”

Was that enough time to completely erase a crime scene? Or just enough time for a needy young woman to perfect an elaborate lie?

He waited for her to turn off the light and close the closet door behind her. “Since there’s no body for us to look at, maybe you could tell me more about this man with the gun you saw?”

“I’ve already given a physical description to you and Detective Taylor.”

“Tell me again.”

“So you can catch me in a lie?” she challenged. Her probing eyes locked onto his.

Definitely not as fragile as she looked. A.J. pulled out his notepad and pen to add credence to his request. “So I can find some truth to back up your claim.”

Her defensive posture sagged on a weary breath.

“All right. One more time.” He fell into step beside her and went back to Winthrop’s office. “How tall are you, Detective?” she asked, turning to face him inside the doorway.

“Five-ten.”

“Then I’d say this man was about six-one or six-two. He had hair as black as yours, longer, combed back. But his skin was pale. Almost sallow-looking. And there was acne scarring all over it.” She closed her eyes for a moment, as if replaying the scene in her mind…or reviewing the details of her story. When her eyes sprang open, he was reminded again of just how blue they were—like a clear spring sky. “His suit and shirt were black, and his clothes fit as if they had been personally tailored for him. The man had money. But then I suppose professional hit men make—”

“Hit men?” A.J. slapped his notepad shut. His attention flashed back to the murder of Ray “Slick” Williams at the Jazz Note. That had been a professional job, not the work of some penny-ante thug guarding his territory. KCPD had even issued a profile on the type of man they were looking for.

Tall. Well-dressed. Probably wearing dark clothes to blend in with the shadows. Armed and extremely dangerous.

Hell. Had she read about Slick’s death in the papers? Had he been about ready to buy into a crime because her story reminded him of his father’s claim? Because her pretty blue eyes and articulate mouth stirred up a few hormones?

Being played for a fool didn’t ruffle his feathers. Feeling any kind of attraction to the woman playing him did. “What do you know about hit men, Miss Winthrop?”

He wondered if she could pick up subtle nuances in vocal tones, or if he’d revealed something in his expression. Her shoulders went back and she crossed her arms in a classic defensive posture. “You don’t believe me.”

“There’s nothing here to corroborate your story.” This woman needed some help. But not the kind a cop could give her. “There’s no sign of forced entry. No sign of struggle. No blood. No body.”

But she wouldn’t let the damn farce die. She paced the room, still searching for a way to make her story stick as she began to speak and sign again. “I could go down to your office to look through some mug-shot books. Or talk to a sketch artist. I have classes in the morning, but I could come in right after that.”

Sure. Waste some more of his time.

But the taunt never left his lips. Instead, the phone on Winthrop’s desk rang. On the second ring, Claire touched the receiver, as though using the vibrations to verify whatever sound she must have heard. “Daddy?”

It rang again before Cain Winthrop dashed in and picked up the receiver. “Winthrop here.” His blue eyes nailed Claire’s, warning her to pay attention. “Yes. I’ll accept the charges.”

The older man reached out for his daughter. He smoothed the hair across her crown, practically patting her on the head as if she was still a child. Then he smiled. “Thank God,” he said into the phone. He wrapped his arm around Claire’s shoulders and hugged her to his side. “Sweetie, everything’s going to be okay. We can go home and forget all about tonight.”

Her complexion blanched to a shade beyond pale as Cain delivered the truth A.J. had been pushing for.

“It’s Valerie. She’s alive and well and calling from Nassau.”

Chapter Three

“Hey, I hear you caused quite a ruckus at the office tonight, Pipsqueak.”

Claire dutifully stopped halfway up the cream-carpeted staircase to endure her stepbrother Gabriel’s teasing. Pipsqueak had never been her first choice in the nickname department, but compared to six feet four inches of tall, dark and daunting, that’s about where she measured up.

She’d always had to make up the difference in attitude. “Bite me, Gabe.”

Clutching her purse and shoes in one hand, she trudged on past him in her stockinged feet. He quickly reversed his descent and backed up the steps ahead of her so she had to crane her neck to read his lips and continue the conversation. “It was that bad?”

Claire puffed out a frustrated breath. “I’ve been completely discredited by KCPD. Dad wants to send me to a spa to rest because he thinks I’m having some kind of breakdown. I broke Mom’s pearl necklace. And Detective Taylor was friendly enough, but Detective Rodriguez…”

Detective Rodriguez what? How had her subconscious mind intended to finish that sentence?

He made her pulse beat a little faster because he always seemed to be watching her with those unique golden-brown eyes? He entranced her with his beautifully sculpted lips, whether arched in friendly amusement, parted with concern or tight with disbelief?

Did the Latin detective linger in her mind because he was an older man? Mature? Experienced in life the way she’d never been allowed to be? Or was it because the jolt she felt at the simple touch of his hand was more intense than even the most passionate kisses she’d tried to share with Rob?

Heck. Rob and intense didn’t even belong in the same sentence together. A. J. Rodriguez was everything Rob Hastings was not. Danger personified, judging by his compact strength and the stitched-up wound beneath his eye. Black leather and cold steel. No wasted movement. Deliberate in his speech.

Was she upset with A. J. Rodriguez for dismissing her claim? Or for revving up her dormant libido before he dismissed her?

“What did the detective do?” Frown lines had formed between Gabe’s dark eyes, as if he was assessing the need to bring a few choice words or even legal action against Detective Rodriguez.

Thinking it best to keep her observations to herself, she stopped beside Gabe on the landing. She had plenty of other things to be upset about tonight. She didn’t need her pseudo-big brother to overreact. “He didn’t do anything. I started the evening on such a high note and then all this mess happened. I was just looking for a scapegoat to pin my frustrations on.”

Her excuse seemed to appease his sense of family honor. He relaxed by straightening his tie against his starched collar. “The good news is that Valerie’s okay, right?”

But Valerie wasn’t okay. Claire raged against the futility of trying to convince anyone to believe the impossible. “If she’s in Nassau, then what did I see in Dad’s office tonight?”

“Apparently, nothing.”

“I want that to be true, Gabe. But I know what I saw.”

He lifted one eyebrow in an arrogant arc and shook his head. Dressed to close a deal, Gabe buttoned the jacket of his pin-striped suit and dismissed her like everyone else had. “You know, Claire, this game you’re playing is probably upsetting to Cain on two levels. He’s not just worried about you, but now he’s got to have some doubts about Valerie’s well-being. She’s been his right hand at the company for a lot of years. Losing her would be like losing a part of himself. So give it a rest, okay?”

Though it clearly wasn’t his intent, something in Gabriel’s words triggered an idea that might help this all make sense. “Did Valerie have access to all of Dad’s files? Did she know about his current negotiations?”

“She does know about them.” Gabriel emphasized the present tense with a nod. “So does the rest of the board. You want to kill us off, too?”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“The hell it isn’t.” Gabe had moved beyond big brother into company man mode. He clutched her shoulders and hunched down to look her in the eye. “You need to forget this fable. We have a business to run. We have deals on the line, new hires to consider. Valerie’s on vacation. She’s safe. Now let it go.”

Valerie knew the company inside and out. She knew her father’s secrets and the family’s history. There had to be a motive in there somewhere for killing her.

“I’m not trying to hurt Dad,” Claire insisted, latching on to Gabe’s wrist and giving it a squeeze. If she didn’t love her father so much, she might have already accepted what everyone else believed. “I’m worried about him. That man said there were other people on his list. What if Dad’s in danger? What if you are?”

Gabe straightened with an exasperated smirk. “First, Valerie’s dead, and now you’re trying to knock off Cain and the rest of the family, too?”

“No—”

“I tried. I give up.” Gabe leaned down and kissed her on the forehead before releasing her. “Goodnight, Pipsqueak. I have a meeting to get to.”

Dismissed. Again.

“At this time of night?”

He was already loping down the stairs. At the bottom, he turned to doff her a salute. “I didn’t say it was a business meeting.”

Ah, yes, the life of one of Kansas City’s most sought-after bachelors. “Have fun.”

“I intend to.”

As he strode out the front door, Claire summoned half a smile and headed for her room. Her stepsister Gina was probably out on the town, too. Seemed Claire was the only Winthrop heir who didn’t have a life. No wonder everyone was so ready to believe she’d make up a horrible story about their dear friend and loyal employee being murdered.

Claire set her purse on the chaise at the foot of the canopy bed, then neatly placed her shoes inside her closet. She’d bet good money that A. J. Rodriguez had a life, too. Between his work and those poet’s eyes—set in the middle of a face carved by classic Mediterranean ancestry and chiseled by real-world experience—his life would definitely be full of interesting adventures and relationships.

Her life wasn’t full of anything.

She unbuttoned her skirt and stepped out of it as it slid to the floor. She tossed her jacket onto the bed, unhooked the shell she wore and slipped it over her head. The hose went next. Then the pearl earrings.

The pearls. “Oh, gosh.”

Claire dashed back to the bed and dug inside her jacket pocket to find the strand of pearls and loose beads she’d managed to retrieve. She felt guilty at seeing the legacy from a mother she barely remembered in such sorry shape.

She pulled a velvet pouch from her jewelry armoire and slipped the pearls inside. Setting the pouch beside her purse she made a mental note to take them to the jeweler’s shop tomorrow after school.

School!

Claire silently cursed the powers that be for ruining the good memories of what had happened earlier that night. In all the chaos, she’d completely forgotten to tell her father about the Forsythe School’s offer to hire her as a full-time counselor. She’d forgotten to tell him about the honor the students had given her, naming her as their favorite paraeducator.

Hoping to recapture even a smidgen of the excitement that had thrilled her so earlier, she picked up her jacket to look at the pin. And frowned.

“Where…?”

She checked both lapels—looked at the material and crunched the pink silk beneath her hands to verify what her eyes were telling her. “Where’s my pin?”

She dug into the pockets, wondering if she’d forgotten that she’d taken it off earlier. Only, Claire didn’t forget things.

“I want to wear it tomorrow to show the kids.”

She dumped out her purse next, checked the bag of pearls. Then she was on her hands and knees, retracing her steps across the plush carpet. She was nearly frantic by the time she pulled a robe on over her slip and ran barefoot through the hallway and down the stairs. She ran past the door to the study where her father would be working or reading at his desk while Deirdre briefed him on the final plans for the party she was hosting tomorrow evening.

Nothing.

Claire rubbed her fingers against her temples, too late putting up a fight against the tension that throbbed inside her head. She didn’t hallucinate murders. She didn’t lose gifts. She didn’t forget things.

Her Volvo.

Cinching the sash of chenille at her waist, Claire darted outside, down the steps misted with rain. The bricks were cold beneath her bare feet as she dashed around to the detached multicar garage beside the house. She punched the entry code into the keypad and hurried inside as soon as the lock released and the door went up. Inside, she switched on the light before closing the door to the night and the rain.

Claire wiped the dampness from her face and hurried past her father’s Range Rover and stepmother’s Lexus. She crossed the empty stalls where Gabe and Gina parked their cars and climbed in behind the wheel of her sensible beige Volvo. She turned on the interior lights and searched it from top to bottom.

“Where are you?” she muttered to herself, feeling her self-assurance spinning beyond her reach. She crawled over the seats into the back and dipped her fingers into the seams between the cushions, checking impossible places for the missing pin she’d worn on her lapel.

Nothing.

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she gave in to the urge to lay her face in her hands and cry in weary frustration. She mentally retraced her steps from the time she’d signed her thank-yous at the podium during the banquet to the moment she saw that bullet hole in the middle of Valerie’s forehead.

In between, she distinctly remembered pinning that gold medallion onto her lapel. There was no way around it. She’d have to go back to her father’s office and search for the pin. And if she couldn’t find it there, then she didn’t even want to consider the possible explanations for its disappearance.

She didn’t hallucinate. She didn’t forget things.

Claire screamed at the thump on her car window and jumped halfway across the back seat. The flashlight beam shining in her face blinded her to the man outside. She slid her back clear against the opposite side as the door opened and a pair of khaki slacks and a gunbelt came into view.

“Miss Winthrop?” She heard the buzz of sound, but waited for the man to lower the light and for her startled fear to unstop her senses before she could see his lips and decipher his words. “Miss Winthrop? Is something wrong?”

Gradually, the words and the face of the estate’s nighttime security guard came into focus. Claire pressed her palm against her racing heart and released a deep breath of recaptured sanity. “Aaron.” She said the black man’s name, reassuring him that she knew where she was and whom she was with. “You startled me.”

“Sorry about that.” He turned off the flashlight and hooked it back on his utility belt. “What are you doing out here?”

“I lost something. I was looking for it.”

She became aware of the bare skin beneath her palm the same time Aaron’s questioning gaze swept down to the thigh-bearing hem of her crumpled-up robe. Right. She might talk a good game, but sitting there crying, half-dressed in the back seat of her car in the middle of the night wasn’t going to convince anyone that she wasn’t crazy.

Quickly tugging her robe down to her knees and pulling the collar tight around her neck, Claire scrambled out of her side of the car. “I lost a piece of jewelry. A small gold pin.”

He stood and closed the door, speaking to her over the roof of the car. “I haven’t seen anything like that. But I’ll keep my eyes open for it.”

Claire summoned a smile to thank him. “Well, good night.”

She felt the vibration of his footsteps through the concrete floor and knew he was jogging up beside her even before his fingers brushed her elbow. It was just a polite gesture to get her attention, but Claire flinched all the same and spun around.

“Sorry.” He nodded toward her right ear. “I guess you couldn’t hear me.”

Guess she didn’t know how to relax when the only person who might believe she’d witnessed a murder was the murderer himself.

But she felt a twinge of guilt as Aaron tipped the bill of his uniform cap in apology and held both hands where she could see them. “The rain’s coming down a little harder now, miss. Let me grab an umbrella and walk you back to the house.”

“That’s not necessary. I—”

He opened the garage door to a curtain of gentle spring rain. She’d get soaked to the skin wearing what little she had on, and would no doubt have to explain that to her father. He’d be just as worried about her catching cold as he was about her making up gruesome stories of murder and cover-ups.

“Besides,” Aaron explained, “Chief Tucker called and said I should keep an extra close eye on you tonight.”

Security Chief Tucker? Claire frowned. “Why?”

“I didn’t ask. I just obey.”

Had her father ordered his security staff to watch over his handicapped daughter? Didn’t anyone believe she could take care of herself? Think for herself? When would she be old enough for her family and friends and employees to start thinking of her as a capable, competent woman?

Resigned to the practicality of Aaron’s suggestion, Claire linked her arm through his when he offered it and huddled against him beneath the umbrella. She fell into step beside him, her toes splashing through the puddles. “Thanks.”

He said something back to her, but the rain muffled the sound receptors in her ears. She wasn’t paying much attention to Aaron, anyway. Claire was more aware of the uneasy sensation that tickled the back of her neck and raised goose bumps across her skin.

Someone was watching her.

Maybe it was just the hypervigilance of the Winthrop security guard. Maybe it was the metaphoric weight of her family’s smothering protection. Maybe it was the chill of the rain itself.

Aaron walked her up to the front door and stood on the porch until she closed and locked the door behind her. Dutifully deposited back inside her sheltered ivory tower.

Claire shivered as she clutched her robe around her and climbed the stairs.

The feeling of being watched from the darkness never left her.

A.J. IGNORED THE FIRST TWO RINGS of the telephone to finish scrolling down the list of Winthrop Enterprises’ holdings on his computer screen—Australia, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Japan…

“Maldición.”

He muttered the curse under his breath. Something about last night’s events at the Winthrop Building still didn’t feel right to him. So when he was done typing up the facts in his report, he’d done a little extra poking around. It had become almost a hobby of his over the years—digging up bits of information about Cain Winthrop and his import-export empire. He never knew when some nugget of info would bring him half a step closer to uncovering the truth about his father’s death.

But reading through the corporation’s annual report was turning into information overload. The business paid out a fortune through customs, but apparently took in nearly three times as much in profits. Jewelry, furniture, cars, collectibles—even exotic animals made the list of items the company transported across international trade lines. It was too much to make sense of in one sitting, with one set of eyes.

He’d have to get Banning to take a look at the report to see if Mr. Logic could narrow down the facts and figures into something that might actually prove useful—like a dirty little secret that money, time and power couldn’t quite hide, or the name of a security specialist who terminated employees. Permanently.

But the detailed research would have to wait. Banning had gone to lunch with his wife Kelsey. Funny how newlyweds always seemed to have time for each other, no matter how busy their respective schedules might be.

A.J. looked across to the empty desk facing his. Hell. A man didn’t have to be a newlywed to make time to spend with the woman he loved. His partner, Josh Taylor, had been married two years, had two little girls and still grinned like a lovesick puppy at the mere mention of his wife’s name. He’d left by 11:30 to accompany his wife on some sort of newborn health checkup.

He couldn’t afford to feel envy at his friends’ happiness, though. What would be the point? A.J. didn’t have time for a wife or a girlfriend. He’d date, get a little lovin’ when both parties were willing, but he’d never get serious. His job demanded too much of his time; his work entailed too many risks.

So, while he saved some poor woman from certain heartbreak by remaining unattached, A.J. sat alone in a sea of empty desks.

He’d lost count of the rings and thoroughly depressed himself before he picked up the receiver. “Rodriguez.”

“A.J.” Maggie Wheeler, the desk sergeant with a body like Xena and the face of a farm girl, topped A.J. by two inches and worried him with the shadows in her hollow eyes.

“What’s up?”

“There’s a deaf woman here to see you. I told her you were on your lunch break and she said she’d wait. But she’s pacing the floor by the elevators, so I thought it might be something important.”

A.J. slid his gaze across the floor toward the main desk. Even though his view was blocked by several carpeted partitions, he could picture the petite blonde with the delicate features and surprisingly solid grip wearing a path in the floor on the other side. “Claire Winthrop?”

“Yeah.” Maggie’s surprise was evident. “You expecting her?”

“No. But send her on in.”

“She’s a pretty one, A.J. Is there something you’re not telling—?”

“No.” He cut off the friendly curiosity he heard in her voice and hung up. Maggie wasn’t a gossip, but it would only take an innocent remark and Josh’s sense of humor to create rumors of a whole sordid new love life between the taciturn cop with the stitches on his face and tattoos on his back and the virginal young heiress.

He knew how to put up with the teasing, knew how to put a stop to it if he needed to. But he had a feeling that Claire Winthrop wouldn’t appreciate the joke.

A.J. stood, tucking his black T-shirt into his jeans and combing his fingers through the top of his thick, short hair. Not that he wanted to impress the prim and proper heiress. But it might be nice if he didn’t scare her away.

Maggie appeared beside the partition that separated the elevators and check-in desk from the Fourth Precinct’s Detectives Division offices. She pointed him out, and an instant later a flash of black slacks and gold jewelry hurried around the corner.

What the hell? A.J. shifted onto the balls of his feet, his protective radar buzzing on full alert. Claire’s blue eyes were wide and dark, boring into his. Her mouth was pinched into a thin line. Her fear was a palpable thing, a force he felt clear across the maze of desks between them.

“Claire?” There was no polite Miss Winthrop, no How may I help you? Was she hurt? Had she located a bloody chair mat? “What’s wrong?”