Criminal Promises (3 page)

“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 propelled 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.

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.”

She hung up and stared at
the silent phone in her hand for three seconds before a full body
spasm shook her. “Ugh. What a sleaze.”

Grateful she hadn’t met the detective
personally, she dialed Harte’s cell. It rang once before his deep
voice vibrated into her ear—effortless and arousing, a truly
genuine purr that belonged on sex lines.

“Detective
Harte.”

At least someone knew how
to answer a phone. “It’s Maggie Sullivan.”

“What can I do for
you?”

“I received a delivery you
should see.”

“What?” The professional
inquiry he’d led with became a terse one-word snap.

“I would prefer it if you
came over.” The raccoon image was planted firmly on her memory, but
she’d rather not describe it. “It’s on my porch.”