Beachcomber (21 page)

“I’ll put it on the grocery list,” Gary called back gamely as Luke dumped the monster in his bedroom and quickly shut the door before it could escape. Damn it to hell and back anyway, who would have thought that she’d go and remember about the cat, much less catch it and bring it to him? He was probably going to need frigging rabies shots.

He made a quick pit stop in Gary’s bathroom to wash the wounds, swiped his styptic pencil—Gary was the only person he knew who actually had one and used it—to stanch the blood, winced at the sting as the chemical penetrated his lacerated flesh, rubbed on antibiotic ointment, and headed back out to the living room.

With a forced smile on his face.

For this he was putting in for combat pay.

Christy was perched on a stool with her elbows resting on the breakfast bar watching Gary take the lasagna he’d promised Luke for supper out of the oven. Now that Luke was able to focus on something besides the cat, he noticed that she was wearing an oversized T-shirt in a sunny yellow that was only a couple of shades brighter than her new pale blond hair. The shirt fit her loosely but because she was sitting, the soft knit was pulled tight around her truly remarkable ass. Below it, her long, tanned and equally remarkable legs were bare, like her feet.

He could see panty lines, he realized. A thong? Studying the faint outline, he mentally shook his head. Bikini panties, like the ones she’d been wearing—

He stopped that thought dead in its tracks, but not before he felt his pulse kick it up a notch.

“Sorry I took so long,” Luke said. Christy turned to look at him. “But I thought I better give”—here he almost dropped the ball as he sought for and failed to remember the damned cat’s supposed name—“him some supper.”

“Yeah, he’s, like, hypoglycemic or something. He gets cranky when he doesn’t eat.” Gary, who knew nothing of the whole cat saga, shot Luke a wildly inquiring glance that his Coke-bottle glasses magnified about a thousand times. Christy, fortunately, was still looking at Luke and didn’t see.

“Gary invited me to stay for supper. Do you mind?” Christy sounded a little uncertain of her welcome. He guessed that her abrupt withdrawal of her acceptance of his dinner invitation the previous day was making her feel shy. That, or the fact that she had marched over here to express unhappiness about the behavior of “his” cat. Meeting her gaze—those long-lashed brown eyes looked downright seductive when paired with a fringe of champagne-colored hair, he discovered to his dismay—he felt his breathing quicken.

“Nah. Glad to have you.”

“I told her we had more than enough for three,” Gary put in, rattling crockery. Glad of the distraction, Luke nodded and glanced his way without really seeing him.

“I really appreciate it,” Christy said.

“So what’s with the hair?” Luke asked, leaning against the counter. He’d liked her hair the way it had been before, dark brown and on the long side, silky like her skin …

All right, don’t go there.
This choppy blond hairstyle that didn’t turn him on was a positive happening in his life, if he just had the sense to see it that way.

She smiled at him and his groin tightened.
Oh, boy,
he thought. Blonde or brunette, she still had what it took to make him get hot. Which, given the circumstances, was not a good thing. Not good at all.

Her smile disappeared. “Remember what I was telling you about a possible serial killer? Well, there was an article about all the girls who might have been victims in the local paper today. Eight in the last three years, including the girl on the beach.”

“I saw that,” Gary said, balling up the foil he’d peeled from the casserole dish and tossing it into the trash. “When I was waiting in line at the grocery. They were all brunettes.”

“Yeah,” Christy said in a significant tone.

A beat passed.

“Are you telling me you did
that
to your hair hoping that if the guy who attacked you was a serial killer he’d lose interest now that you’re a blonde?” Luke couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. It was such a ridiculous, typically female, weirdly logical reaction to a terrifying situation that he was bemused and charmed and blown away by her ingenuity all at the same time.

Christy’s brows twitched together ominously. Lord, had he made it sound like he didn’t like her hair? In his experience, as far as women were concerned that was the verbal equivalent of waving a red cape at a bull.

“By the way, your hair looks great,” he added hastily.

“Luke, you want to set the table?” Gary asked.

Glad to have the subject changed, Luke nodded and moved around the breakfast bar into the galley-style kitchen. The casserole dish containing the lasagna was steaming on the cutting board now, and Gary had the refrigerator door open and was reaching into it. Luke stepped around him to grab the plates. In their few days together they’d come to a meeting of the minds about food: Gary liked to cook and was good at it. Luke liked to eat and was good at it. Gary made the meals; Luke set the table and cleaned up after. It was almost like being married, Luke reflected, except that Gary, with his slicked-back red hair and thick glasses, his bony body and persnickety ways, wasn’t exactly what he’d pictured the few times he had imagined himself with a wife.

“Can I do something? Like make a salad?” Christy asked, sliding off the barstool.

“Already done.” Gary produced the salad from the depths of the refrigerator with a flourish, Luke finished setting the table, and in just a few minutes they were all three passing salad and lasagna around and chatting like old friends. From his place at the table Luke had an excellent view out through the patio doors. It was growing almost dark, huge gray thunderclouds were rolling in, and people were leaving the beach in droves. The wind had picked up. The sea oats swayed noticeably, and in the distance he could see whitecaps breaking.

“This is wonderful.” Christy took a bite of lasagna. Luke watched the movement of her lips as they closed around the fork, realized what he was doing, and
forced his eyes away. They lit on Gary, who served as a worthy antidote.

“Gary’s a heck of a cook.” Luke tipped his beer toward his partner.

“Thanks.” Gary flushed a little. Christy looked from one to the other. Her dress tightened across her breasts as she moved. Nice round breasts …

Luke caught himself breathing a little faster, and took a swig of beer.

“So how do you two know each other?” Christy asked, and ate some more lasagna.

Luke refused to allow himself to watch her mouth again, and so ended up staring at the curve of her throat, watching the muscles move beneath the silky skin as she swallowed. He imagined what that skin would feel like beneath his lips… .

Christ, he needed a woman bad. A different woman.
Not this woman.

“From work,” he said, and concentrated on eating. He knew what she was getting at, had even thought it himself: he and Gary were unlikely-looking roomies. Of course, she’d never been meant to know that they
were
roomies. She’d never been meant to see them at all.

“Oh, are you a lawyer, too?”

This time, thank God, she turned those big brown eyes on Gary.

Gary choked on his lasagna.

“Yep,” Luke answered for him, since Gary was busy turning red and coughing and reaching for his water. Lying was not exactly Gary’s forte. After this investigation
was over, Luke vowed to do less of it himself. For one thing, if he hadn’t lied he wouldn’t now be stuck with a bedroom full of ticked-off feral cat that he was going to have to deal with later. In the meantime, however, lying was necessary, and lying well was better than lying poorly. A man who lied well rarely got caught, and not getting caught was the key to a successful surveillance. “A good one, too. He and I,” here he tried to look suitably modest, “got the week off and the use of this beach house as a reward for winning our last case.”

Gary made a strangled sound and chugged more water.

“So far it hasn’t been much of a reward, has it?” Christy grimaced. “More like a nightmare.”

Ah, an opening. If he could just keep his mind off other potential uses for that sexy mouth than eating lasagna, he might be able to work in a little subtle interrogation.

“I’m surprised you’re not hightailing it back to Philadelphia.”

She looked at him, and a beat passed. She covered it well, but knowing what he knew about her he didn’t have any trouble discerning that she was struggling to come up with a remotely plausible answer.

Any woman in her right mind, having just survived a murderous attack and facing an unknown degree of continued peril, would run for home as fast as she could.
If
she could. But it had become clear, from her little chats on the phone, that Christy couldn’t just leave. She was being compelled to stay, compelled to act as an organization bagman. And her real fear was
that she had been targeted, not by a serial killer with a taste for brunettes, but by a hit man.

The question was, why? Christy knew, but so far he didn’t.

Finally she came out with an answer: “This is the first vacation I’ve had in years, and … and it was a really bad breakup.”

“Your boyfriend still back in Philly?” Luke loaded the question with sympathy. None of the contacts he’d checked with knew anything about a breakup between her and Donnie Jr., but that didn’t necessarily mean that Christy was lying.

“I don’t know.” She took a bite of lasagna.

“You think maybe he took off for some ‘me’ time too? Or maybe he’s on his way down here to make up?” He watched her keenly, without, he hoped, giving the appearance of anything more than the normal amount of interest.

“I—I don’t know.” She looked unhappy.

“You haven’t talked to him since you’ve been here?”

“I—no.” She put down her fork, took a deep breath and glanced at Gary. “This was great, but I don’t think I can eat another bite.”

Her plate was still half full. His questions had clearly made her too uncomfortable to finish. Luke felt a stab of guilt, then reminded himself that he was just doing his job. And his job was to catch Michael DePalma.

“There’s ice cream for dessert,” Gary said, shooting Luke a disapproving glance that, despite being kept below Christy’s radar, managed to convey Gary’s obvious feeling that Luke was the bad guy here.

“No, thanks.” Christy glanced up at the clock and seemed to hesitate. Following her gaze, Luke saw that it was getting on toward eleven. Time to shoo the bait back into the trap. The sooner Donnie Jr. was caught, the sooner they could all call it a day.

“If you’re ready to go, I’ll walk you home,” he offered, and stood up. Christy looked up at him mutely. For a second he saw fear, raw and unmistakable, in her eyes. After what she’d been through he couldn’t blame her. He felt like the biggest bastard alive for sending her back to spend the night on her own when she was obviously terrified, but there was no help for it. Whether they’d broken up or not, she was the best link to Donnie Jr. that they had. If the man was in the vicinity, and that fingerprint said that he was, he would be paying Christy a visit sooner or later. Guaranteed.

And, while she didn’t know it, she no longer had any reason to fear sleeping in that cottage. He might be using her for bait, but he meant to do whatever it took to keep her alive while he did it.

“I—” She broke off on what seemed to be the verge of confessing her fear, swallowed whatever she’d been going to say, and stood up. “Thanks.”

He could almost see her mentally squaring her shoulders. The urge to pull her into his arms, to offer comfort and protection, to reassure her that she was safe, that he and Gary and a whole bunch of electronic gadgets were watching over her night and day, came upon him sharp and strong as a hard elbow to the ribs.

Ruthlessly he crushed it. Catching Donnie Jr. had to be paramount.

“Thanks for the meal, Gary,” Christy said on an almost wistful note as Luke slid the patio door open and ushered her firmly through it.

“Anytime,” Gary replied. Looking at his partner over his shoulder, Luke realized that Gary was suffering from the same kind of atavistic guilt that was making Luke himself feel so conflicted. Only Gary’s expression made Luke think that in Gary’s case the guilt was winning.

Chivalry might not be dead, but in this case it needed to be stifled.

Luke closed the patio door before Gary had time to do something stupid, like spill his guts. He’d be damned if either one of them was going to blow this investigation over a pair of big brown
save-me
eyes.

15

“I
T’S—REALLY DARK,
” Christy said as they reached the end of the patio and turned onto the sandy path. She was walking close to him, her arm brushing his side. The night was, indeed, very dark, so dark that he could barely see her, and he was glad that she’d brought it to his attention. Looking up at the starless, moonless sky, feeling the rush of wind blowing in from the ocean, sensing the promise of rain in the heaviness of the air, kept him from thinking about the warmth of her, and the smoothness of her skin, and how near she was, and …