Falling Hard and Fast (19 page)

She turned to face him fully, trying to make him understand. “Don't you see? I'm very proud of my brother and my sister, but there's no way for me to ever be sure that I did the right thing. Who knows? Maybe with the advantages my relatives could have given them, the kids would have been even better off. The fact is, there's no way of being certain. And I got to the place where I had to shut off all the questions, all the doubts, and just concentrate on doing my best. Because in the long run, that's all there is. Being able to look back and say we did as well as we could.”

Her words rang in some distant place deep inside him; a place where he wasn't ready—not yet—to accept the simplicity of the message. “I wish it were that easy.” He brushed his lips over her hair and drew in her scent. She smelled like springtime.

He drew a languid finger down her throat, lingered on the pulse that beat below her collarbone, and then dipped lower. “Where's your locket?” he murmured, leaning forward to press his lips to the spot where he'd often seen it nestled.

When she felt his tongue trace the upper curve of her breast, her pulse leaped, then settled into a skitter. “I don't know. I haven't been able to find it.”

He raised his head, a smile curving his lips. “Maybe I could help you with that. Someone with my skills should prove invaluable in the search.”

Her fingers twined in the hair at his nape. “You think
so?” It was so easy when she was alone, when logic was uppermost and emotion suppressed, to believe that both of them could take what they needed from this relationship without regrets. So tempting to think he would be satisfied with the little of herself she was comfortable sharing. His fingertip traced the slope of her breast and with the gentlest of touches, brought her nipple to pebbled hardness.

And it was absolutely terrifying to discover the ease with which reason shifted aside, allowing dangerous emotions to surface.

“I know so,” he affirmed. “And as a result of the experience I bring to investigative practices, I suggest we start the search—” he closed his teeth over her earlobe “—in your bed.”

“That seems an unlikely place to look.” She strove to ignore the shivers chasing over her skin and kept her voice steady. “I've never worn the locket to bed.”

“In that case—” he swept her up in his arms and grinned wickedly down into her surprised face “—it's the floor again.”

She laughed softly and hooked her arms around his neck.

“Again?”

He brushed her mouth with his. “And again. And again.”

He carried her into the house, and their laughter drifted into the night air, curling like smoke through the darkness. The sound reached the figure hidden in the distance. Night-vision binoculars were lowered. The familiar urges frothed and churned, but it wasn't time to let them run unchecked.

But soon. The figure smiled with hideous resolve—a balm to deep, twisted desires that wouldn't be denied.

Very soon.

C
age looked up from the reams of printouts he'd downloaded from the computer and set down the highlighter he'd been using. He'd confined his search, for the present, to homicides that had occurred in the last ten years, and to victims who fit the physical description of Janice Reilly. And even as he started to read through the material that hadn't been eliminated, he wondered if he was wasting his time.

If so, it wouldn't be the first fruitless task he'd engaged in over the past few days. The search for Donny Ray Rutherford had yielded them nothing, despite the manpower he'd assigned to it. Stacy's prediction had proved true. Donny Ray had taken to the woods, and so far had managed to elude the manhunt. The tracking dogs had been useless because the recent heavy rain had washed away any traces of scent he might have left. In any case, Donny Ray was wily enough to have used the river to end his trail.

Although Cage still had men combing the area, the search was going to be tedious and time-consuming. He was bank
ing on the fact that Donny Ray wouldn't leave the area. In his warped mind, his violence toward his wife wouldn't seem serious enough for him to run very far.

Or maybe Cage wasn't giving the man enough credit. Maybe Donny Ray realized that the longer he stayed at large, the shakier Stacy would be about pressing charges.

If so, he'd be right. Each day that passed without her husband in custody, Stacy withdrew a bit more, got a little less certain about her actions. Cage had assured her over and over again that Donny Ray would be brought in, and he'd been sincere. But he harbored an equally sincere realization that timing in this instance was critical.

He turned his attention back to the printouts. Already, it looked as if the particular hunch he'd followed had led him straight up a blind alley. After narrowing the search, he'd combed the information for rape/murders with similar MOs, but no particular pattern was jumping out at him. In his experience, repeat offenders didn't change their style or their weapon of choice. Each had an individual preference—the impersonal power of a gun, the ruthlessness of a blade, the all-powerful feeling of strangulation. And once they'd established an MO, they might improve upon it, polish it, but they didn't alter it to a significant degree.

Which led him right back to nowhere.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Black dots still danced behind his eyelids—a sure sign he'd been poring over these printouts for too long.

The door behind him opened, and Fisher's voice sounded. “I've got some good news, Sheriff.”

Cage lifted his head and turned around. “I could use some, Delbert. What do you have?”

“Finally got a lead on the source of ether for the meth operation.”

His attention sharpened, Cage asked, “You found where it came from?”

Fisher shook his head. “Not yet, but I've got a start. A
clerk at one of the last automotive stores we checked, positively ID'd one of the pictures we showed them.”

“And?”

“Said a man who looked like the photo I showed him of Donny Ray came in last winter and wanted to order a large quantity of ether. Gave the guy a song and dance about moving up north, and wanting to stock it up for the next winter so he could start his car. The clerk was wise enough to recognize the story for what it was and told him he had to report such orders to his manager. And then he said Donny Ray offered him a wad of cash to keep the transaction between the two of them.”

“Like I always said, Donny Ray's not the brightest bulb in the pack. Good work, Delbert. Guess we have a few more questions to put to ol' Donny Ray when we catch up with him. Keep Sutton and Baker on it, though. The Rutherfords ended up getting those chemicals from somewhere. Let one track the anhydrous leads and the other focus on the ether.”

“Yessir.”

Cage rubbed at a knotted muscle in his neck. “Have you come up with anything more on Jeremy Klatt?”

A little of the jubilance went out of Fisher's expression. “Not yet, sir, sorry. Checked with his employer, co-workers… Even his ex-girlfriends don't have anything too damaging to say about him. Unless being tight with money has become a crime.”

Blowing out a breath of frustration, Cage shook his head. “If it was, we'd have our cells full pretty regular. Damn. Can't help thinking we're chasing our tails looking in his direction.”

“I don't know.” Fisher reached up a hand, ran it through his thinning dark hair. “Most times it turns out to be someone closest to the victim. I can't help thinking whoever did it is right under our noses.”

“Yeah, well, Klatt would make a helluva good suspect if we weren't coming up empty-handed on any evidence linking him to the crime. No, I think we need to re-examine our
attentions in the case. I want you to reinterview the victim's co-workers, her friends, even her beautician. Ask them again about somebody new in her life.”

Fisher shifted uncomfortably. “Sheriff, we went over those questions with them before—”

“So, do it again.” There wasn't a snap in Cage's voice, not quite, but there was enough steel to have the other man subsiding. “Janice Reilly dressed to go out that night to see someone. We haven't learned who it was yet. Concentrate on that.”

Fisher's face was as expressionless as his tone. “Yessir.” He'd turned to leave, when Cage's voice stopped him again.

“And Delbert?”

The man looked quizzically at him.

“Good job with the lead on the ether.”

A slight smile curled the other man's mouth, reminding Cage how long it had been since he'd seen one there. “Thank you, sir.”

The door closed quietly behind the deputy and Cage shifted his gaze back to the printouts. His concentration slower to adjust. He'd gotten used to trusting his instincts when he was a detective with the NOPD. They'd saved his skin on more than one occasion. Was it possible to lose that intuition once the constant edge of danger was removed? He dropped his head to his hands, considered the question. Law enforcement in Charity had been, up until recently, a walk in the park. They'd handled the drunks, the reckless drivers, an occasional break and enter. There'd been that stolen-car ring in the southern part of the parish last year, but compared to his caseload as a detective, the work had been fairly routine. Until now.

He raised his head, stared blindly into space. He was going to have to hope like hell that a man couldn't lose instincts that had played such a large part in his life—because his sixth sense was still prodding him. His focus shifted to the sheaf of papers on the table.

And it was telling him that he'd find answers buried somewhere in that pile of information.

 

Zoey barely let up on the accelerator when she entered Charity's town limits. She'd been so lost in her work, the hours had gotten away from her. When she'd finally glanced at the clock, she'd only had ten minutes before she was supposed to meet Cage at the Stew 'N Brew for lunch.

There had been no time to change her clothes, as she'd planned. She'd had to be satisfied with grabbing her purse and running a quick brush through her hair as she'd backed the car out of the drive. Oxy had whined piteously when he'd realized she was leaving without him, and she knew she'd pay for the slight when she got home. The pooch was ingenious at getting himself into mischief when she wasn't around.

The diner was ahead, and she was mentally congratulating herself for arriving on time when a siren sounded behind her. For an instant she was certain it was Cage, making a spectacle for which she'd make him pay dearly. But a glance in the rearview mirror showed an official city car, not a parish one. Damn. Surely at some time in her life she had to have done at least one good deed for which an opportunity such as this would have been allowed to pass.

She pulled over to the side of the road and looked straight ahead rather than at the Potter sisters, who were peering out of Neesom's store window. There was no divine intervention in sight. Apparently God was having a busy Thursday.

She rolled down her window, ignoring the intense wave of heat. Arranging her face into a polite smile, she greeted the stern-looking policeman approaching her.

“Is something wrong, officer?” Experience had taught her that ignorance worked as well as any other ploy.

“I'll need to see your driver's license, ma'am. You were doing forty in a twenty-five-mile-an-hour zone.”

Zoey handed him her driver's license and an apology.
“I'm sorry, I just wasn't thinking. I noticed I was late for an appointment and I…”

The man already had his ticket book out, and was writing carefully. “Discipline is the key, ma'am. Time is a gift. We all have to use it wisely.”

The rest of her explanation slid down her throat. For the first time she noticed that despite the stifling heat, the man's crisply pressed uniform didn't show a hint of moisture. She rolled her eyes. It was just her luck to have to tangle with a superhuman law-enforcement robot.

From the corner of her eye she saw someone approaching and turned her head. Mentally she groaned. Cage had pulled his car up in front of the diner, and was sauntering across the street toward them, hands in his pockets. She'd always thought she had a sense of the ridiculous, but this was overkill.

“Looks like you've caught yourself a dangerous criminal, Boyd.” Cage bent to look in the driver's-side window, a broad grin on his face.

The ticket was ripped off the pad, and the officer handed Zoey a copy. “I've got the situation under control, Sheriff.”

“I don't know.” Cage straightened, and faced the man. “Maybe I'll just hang around in case she needs to be frisked. Did you run her plates? She may be wanted for something.”

Zoey aimed a particularly lethal glance at him. His grin only widened.

“As I said, Sheriff,” the officer went on imperturbably, replacing the pen in his shirt pocket, “just a routine traffic stop. Nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

“Routine traffic stop?” Cage rubbed his chin and headed to the back of her car. “You probably caught the fact that the bulb is out in her taillight, then.”

Zoey halted in the act of folding up the ticket, her jaw dropping. She poked her head out the window. “What do you think you're doing, Gauthier?”

“You know, you're right.” The officer took out his book
again. Before her disbelieving gaze, the man wrote out another ticket and approached her with it. Cage, the low-down weasel, was bent over in a suspect fit of coughing.

“Now this one's just a warning, ma'am.” Zoey fairly snatched the piece of paper out of his hand and jammed it into her purse. “You've got yourself a week to see about fixing that taillight. Safety should be a driver's utmost concern.”

Only the fact that it was sure to result in another ticket kept her from backing over the man grinning at her through her rear window. Clenching her teeth, she slowly and carefully pulled away from the curb and parked in a free space in front of the diner.

Cage strolled across the street to meet her, and she got out of the car, her fingers curled. The police car pulled into the spot beside her. She whirled on the officer getting out of the car. “Now what?”

His eyebrows rose. “Ma'am?”

“I'm too close to the curb…too far away…my car hasn't been washed recently…what?”

“Uh…Zoey.” Cage's voice sounded in her ear. She switched the focus of her glare to him.

“What?”

The policeman went by them, headed up the steps.

“I believe he's going in to eat lunch. That is—” his voice was full of laughter “—If he still has an appetite.”

“Damn you, Gauthier.” Her elbow jabbed his ribs with satisfying force. “Sometimes you're just too cute for words.”

He rubbed at the spot where she'd caught him, his smile not dimming. Taking her elbow in his hand was as much an effort to protect himself as a gesture of politeness.

“Now, honey—” he fought to keep his tone sober as they walked up the steps to the diner “—Where's your sense of humor?”

“It'll be restored as soon as you fix my taillight.”

It was, he figured as they entered the diner and found a booth, a lighter sentence than he deserved.

“I'll have the special today, Becky.”

“Chicken-fried steak swimming in mashed potatoes and gravy?” Zoey sent him a reproving look. “I can almost hear your left ventricle slamming shut in protest.”

“I've gotcha down, Sheriff. And how about you, Miss Prescott?” The waitress turned to Zoey, pen poised. “Gumbo again?”

Prepared to agree, Zoey looked from the expectant expression on Becky's face to Cage's knowing smile. A moment passed before resolve solidified. “Yes. Gumbo.” The waitress wrote it down and turned away.

“Gumbo's always good,” Cage said blandly.

Zoey narrowed her gaze at him. “I know what you're getting at, Gauthier. You're saying I'm predictable.”

“Me?” His brows arched in exaggerated innocence. “I thought we were talking about Ethel's gumbo.”

“There's nothing wrong with a little structure in life,” she said primly. Not that there had been much structure in her life since Cage had entered it, but it was, in general, a philosophy she held dear. It wasn't inflexible to insist on control, she thought, lifting her chin. Surely it wasn't asking too much to keep things orderly, practical, with a slight protective distance between her and most of the world.

Her gaze dropped away from that laughing light in Cage's eyes. Distance, she'd found, spiraled away a little faster and more furiously each time she was with him. She smothered the chill the realization sent through her by changing the subject.

“Who was that drone to duty who stopped me, anyway?”

He chuckled at her words. “That was Charity's chief of police, Boyd Runnels.”