Hard Evidence (21 page)

The conflicting emotions left Tessa feeling itchy in her own skin.

"You're such a pretty girl, Tessa. I saw your picture on the paper's website. I can't imagine men aren't beatin' down your door. You got someone special?"

I'm in love with a man who doesn't love me.

"No," Tessa said, unwilling and unable to discuss Julian with her mother. "No one. I don't really have time for dating."

"Well, I hope you can find time. There's more to life than earnin' a paycheck."

If her mother had said this before she'd met Julian, Tessa would have said something about how careers were a much better investment of one's time than any man. But now, faced with the cold inevitability of a life without Julian, she thought she understood what her mother meant.

Julian pulled into his garage, feeling an odd mix of anticipation and irritability. He'd spent the past couple of hours shopping and thinking of ways to make Tessa pay for giving his whereabouts away to her friends—each more arousing than the next. The back of his .truck was now full of groceries and household supplies, the sort of stuff he never kept on hand, And he was randy as a goat.

It looked like he'd bought the whole grocery store. He had taken up three carts, tipping a couple of store employees to help him push them along. Chicken, salmon, shrimp, spices, cooking oil, flour, sugar, pasta, eggs, butter, fresh fruits and vegetables, canned stuff, and God knew what else. He'd gotten a few practical things from the hardware store—a lock for his office door, tools to install it. But the fact that chocolate and a plant with pink flowers on it had made into his truck only proved that he was more in need of that medical leave than he'd like to admit. One of those bullets must have lodged in his brain.

And then there was the espresso machine.

He'd stopped to get her a vanilla latte, when he'd seen it sitting on display in the coffee shop. A few inquiries and helpful suggestions from the baristas, and he'd found himself purchasing the machine, together with fresh-ground coffee and several bottles of vanilla syrup.

He wasn't playing house, he told himself. This wasn't romance. He had no interest in the concerns of home and family. He didn't want to be someone's provider. He was just trying to make her stay more comfortable. After all, she had to eat.

The kitchen table and chairs would arrive later.

Okay, so perhaps some part of him wanted to make up for having been a jerk this morning. He'd come out of the bedroom, angry with himself for having lost control of the situation, and he'd taken it out on her. He'd gotten angrier when he realized he'd made her sore, angrier still when she lied about it, and even angrier when she'd tried to hide her hurt feelings behind a smart mouth. In the end, he'd managed to wipe the happiness off her face completely—which was no doubt exactly what some part of him had been trying to do.

He parked, carried a couple of sacks of groceries to the door, and punched in the access code. He had expected to find Tessa waiting nervously for him, sure she'd been tipped off by her friends that she was in big trouble. Instead she was in his bedroom having what sounded like a serious conversation on her new phone.

He carried in her computer and her box of files, then the potted plant, then the espresso machine, and last the groceries, catching snatches of conversation.

"I'm glad you're settled, Mom. It sounds like you've made good friends."

Her mother?

Definitely a serious conversation.

He slipped out of his jacket, removed his harness, and set about putting the groceries away, unable to keep himself from overhearing. Or was he eavesdropping?

At one point in his life he'd have given anything to have a mother. Starved for a mother's love, he'd taken affection from any woman who would give it, picking flowers for his father's whores, defending them from his father's temper, even taking a blow or two that hadn't been intended for him. He wasn't sure when he'd realized they didn't care about him, that he was nothing more to them than the brat of the man who controlled their lives.

Was a similar scenario playing itself out here? Was that why he'd come home with flowers? Was that little boy still inside him starving for a woman's kindness?

You're a pathetic son of a bitch, Darcangelo.

"I need to go, Mom," he heard Tessa say, her words jerking him back to the moment. "I'll be in touch."

She stayed in the bedroom for a while, and he imagined she was crying. Then he heard her gasp and turned to find her staring into the kitchen, a look of amazement on her pretty face.

"Double coupons," he said, feeling at once stupid and intensely gratified.

"I was wondering what you were going to eat. That can of chicken noodle soup was mine." She smiled, then frowned. "Why are you putting the cereal with the lightbulbs?"

In short order, she'd taken over the entire procedure, emptying the bags into cupboards, explaining to him how a kitchen should be organized. He leaned against the refrigerator, crossed^ his arms over his chest, and watched as she bustled about, her delicious ass doing things for his underwear that Calvin Klein couldn't possibly have envisioned.

"I always put spices together with salt, pepper, and baking goods and keep that near the stove," she said. Then she grabbed the dish soap from where he'd stowed it next to the salad dressing. "You definitely don't want to put cleaning products with… Oh, Julian! Azaleas!"

She'd discovered the plant.

She sniffed the blossoms. "Is this for me?"

"Guns and weights make for great decorating, but I thought you might appreciate something a little more feminine."

She looked up at him through those big blue eyes. "Thank you."

She set it on the windowsill, picked at the leaves, gave it a little drink of water, the attention she lavished on it making him smile. Then, when she seemed satisfied, she went back to putting groceries away, chattering about how canned goods should go together, apparently unaware that Julian didn't give a damn about green beans right now, but was biding his time until she got to the right bag.

But she found the espresso maker first. It made her squeal and earned him a quick kiss on the lips—nice, but not enough.

"You have no idea how addicted I am to this stuff." She held a bag of freshly ground coffee beans to her nose and inhaled with a moan. "Heaven!"

His patience snapped.

He walked across the room, fished around, and handed her a grocery bag she had yet to delve into. "Let's see if you know where to put these."

She reached in and pulled out a box of condoms. And another. And another. And another. And another.

"Extra Sensitive. Warming Sensations. Twisted Pleasures. Tropical Delight. Mint Tingles." She read off the names, then looked at him with a straight face. "I'd put them in the bedroom or the bathroom."

"That's where you're wrong." He wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her against him, reaching through the opening in the front of the boxer briefs she was wearing to stroke her. "They go here."

Her head fell back, and she whimpered. "I want to, but don't think I can!"

And he remembered. She was sore,

"No problem. The solution is on the tip of my tongue."

An hour later, Tessa lay with her head on Julian's bare chest, her body still shaking from sensations that had felt almost too good to be true. He had a prehensile tongue—that was the only explanation.

"When you tell your friends about this, be sure to tell them about the swirly-sucky thing," he said, his hand stroking her hair, his voice rumbling deep in his chest. "If you're going to share details, you might as well be thorough."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She looked up at him, saw the knowing grin on his face, and knew exactly what it meant. Somehow he knew what she'd told Sophie. Heat flooded her face. "My new cell phone is bugged!"

"No. I met them all. Your friends were sitting in a little Toyota in the newspaper parking lot, watching every move I made. We had a nice little chat."

So that's why Kara had called five times.

"But how did they know where you… Oh! Oh, my God!" She remembered telling Sophie that Julian had gone to get her suitcases from the rental car. Sophie had clearly wasted no time in rounding up the others. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean—"

In a blink he had her on her back, arms pinned above her head. "Rule number six: don't tell your friends where I'm going or what I'm doing. This time it was cute. Next time it might get someone killed."

Chapter 21

"The bottom line, Ms. Novak, is that Lonnie Zoryo wasn't just a rapist and killer. He was Darcangelo's best hope for bringing down the same ruthless trafficker who got away from him three years ago, a man who hasn't got a shred of respect for women or for human life. If we'd have allowed word of Zoryo's arrest and suicide to become public, we'd have greatly reduced his value to this investigation."

Tessa listened to Chief Irving's explanation, searching for the reassuring lines of right and wrong, for the simplicity of black and white, but finding only complicated shades of gray. "The autopsy report states that the suspect had a broken nose sustained during his arrest."

"The report also states that the suspect put a loaded 9mm semiauto to Special Agent Darcangelo's head. Zoryo's lucky he wasn't shot then and there. The information is in the report and in order, Ms. Novak."

So it seemed. And yet…

"You bent the rules, sir." She came right out with it. "You took public documents out of the system and hid them away, interfering with the free flow of information."

"Let me tell you what the free flow of information would have accomplished," Chief Irving said, his temper picking up a notch. "Absolutely nothing. The man we're looking for makes the average rapist/serial killer look like a choirboy. Temporarily withholding information gave us a week to follow the leads Zoryo gave us without tipping off his boss. We're trying to save more young women from suffering Maria Ruiz's fate, Ms. Novak."

"The end doesn't justify the means. We have laws—"

"Yes, we have laws. And so far the man who kidnapped, enslaved, and murdered Maria Ruiz has evaded every goddamned one of them."

"Is this standard procedure for the DPD?"

"Of course not. I think you know that." He paused for a moment. "And now I'm going to ask you to please withdraw your request for information, at least temporarily. If you want to crucify me and Special Agent Darcangelo and the entire DPD, that's fine, but wait until we've brought this bastard down."

Torn between her professional obligations and her own feelings, Tessa didn't answer right away. Tom would expect her to tell Chief Irving to stuff it and start asking questions
on
the record. If she hadn't watched Maria die, if she hadn't seen the brutality of it with her own eyes, she might have done just that. After all, the police department, under pressure from a federal agent, had covered up an arrest and a jail suicide.

But it wasn't as simple as that. Not by any means.

Just as this was no ordinary investigation for Tessa, it was clear to her that this wasn't a standard murder probe for the Denver police. What would she have done in Chief Irving's place? She didn't know.

"What about the deaths of his fellow agents three years ago? You must have reviewed his files if you agreed to take Special Agent Darcangelo into your department."

She'd asked the FBI spokeswoman for the same information an hour ago and had been told to go fish. State open-records statutes didn't apply to federal agencies, they'd reminded her. She'd been invited to resubmit her request under the Freedom of Information Act, but she'd already been told to expect a year's wait for a response.

"You'd best ask Darcangelo. I don't feel authorized to speak on that subject, apart from assuring you that after reviewing those events, I felt no qualms about working with him."

She drew a deep breath, took the plunge, imagining the way Tom's face would turn purple if he knew what she was about to say. "Okay, sir, I'll formally withdraw my open-records request on the condition that you honor your agreement to inform me fully once this investigation is wrapped up."

"You got it. Cop's honor."

Tessa hung up her phone, sat back in the kitchen chair, and gave a sigh of relief. If she'd have found out Julian had conducted an illegal arrest and interrogation, if she'd have discovered that he'd brutalized his suspect, if she'd found out that he was a liar…

Thank God she hadn't! She didn't want to know that the man who'd saved her life, the man who made such incredible love to her, the man she cherished was dirty.

She sipped her homemade latte, willed herself to relax, found she couldn't.

Reading the arrest and autopsy reports for this Zoryo jerk had given her a glimpse at what Julian did for a living, and the thought of anyone holding a loaded 9mm to his head sickened her. How could anyone cope with that kind of fear and danger every day of his life?

She guessed that explained why he was never without his gun, even in the bathroom, why he never seemed to sleep deeply, why even when he smiled there were shadows in his eyes.

She'd had sex with him a dozen times at least, had been staying with him since Friday night—three days and three nights—and yet she didn't know him that much better than she had before he'd brought her to the safety of his home.

Yes, she now knew he was a martial-arts expert, capable of killing with his bare hands. She knew he liked his salsa hot and ate peanut butter from the jar. She knew how to make his entire body jerk with a flick of her tongue. But she didn't know
him
. He never asked her for anything, never talked about himself or his life, never shared his concerns unless they related directly to her.

And yet, strangely, she felt closer to him than she'd ever felt to any man. Okay, so maybe that wasn't saying much. It could be that her feelings were nothing more than the intoxicating result of the physical intimacy they'd shared—hours of soul-shattering sex. Either way, she wished she could touch him inside, wished she could reach that part of him he kept hidden, wished she could drive the shadows away.

Sometimes when they made love, he seemed to open up, telling her with his body that he cared for her, seeming to need something from her that went beyond the physical. But no matter how passionate or expressive the sex, no matter the tone of his voice when he called her name, no matter how tightly he held her afterward, his reserve never completely slipped.

The space between them served as a constant reminder that this wasn't permanent. He would be leaving her life as soon as his assignment was completed. The distance left Tessa on the brink of a happiness she couldn't quite claim, knowing the loss that would follow. It was like standing on the edge of a sunrise.

She rose from the new kitchen table that served as her desk, walked to the back door, latte in hand, and tried to shift her thoughts back to her investigation. Outside, sunlight struck diamonds off the snow. Icicles dripped from the eaves. A crow stood in the bare branches of a small tree and croaked its opinions to the world.

She'd turned in today's article early, having had lots of time to work on it over the weekend while Julian was away. A follow-up to her last piece, it included an interview with the U.S. attorney's office, as well as State Department officials, describing the breadth of the human-trafficking problem, both in the United States and globally, and what steps the country was taking to combat it. The work had given her something to do during the long, dark hours besides wonder whether Julian was still alive.

He'd been out until the early morning hours both Saturday and Sunday nights doing God knows what. He'd come in, tense and angry, had taken a shower, and then made long, slow lnve. tn her She'd's»iven him evervthintx she. conlrt trieri tn ease the darkness she felt inside him, then had fallen into an exhausted sleep beside him.

And here she was thinking about him again when she should be working.

She turned back toward the table, set her latte down, and gathered up her notes from the State Department interview. Her gaze drifted to the page, and she smiled. The spokesman had used the term "Red China"—a phrase she'd thought had gone out of usage before she'd been born. How very Richard Nixon of him. Perhaps he'd been working for the feds since—

What color Mafia?

Syko's words came back to her in a rush of adrenaline.

Red
Mafia.

She shuffled through documents until she pulled out Lon-nie Zoryo's autopsy. Her gaze darted over the page, looking for one thing. And there it was.

"Birthplace," she read aloud. "Gzel, Russia."

She picked up her secured phone and dialed the State Department.

Julian punched in his code, unlocked the door, and stepped inside, shutting out the night behind him. It felt so damned good to be home.

Home?

When had he started thinking of this place as home?

The answer slept on the couch, one small foot peeking out from under the quilt she'd taken from his bed. She'd been in the middle of reading something when she'd dozed off, the pages scattered across the floor beside her now-empty hand. Her face was relaxed, her lips parted, her lashes dark on her cheek. He'd told her more than once that she shouldn't wait up for him, but he knew she had trouble sleeping when he wasn't here.

He stood for a moment, watched her sleep, drank in the sight of her safe and sound, feeling the familiar stirring in his chest. Then he walked quietly off to the bathroom, threw his clothes into a heap on the floor, and stepped into a hot shower, his skin covered with the stink of cigarettes, cheap women's perfume, and violence.

Tonight had been productive, but it had also been hell. He'd spent the afternoon tracking down some of the leads he'd gotten from Dr. Norfolk and had located two more cribs, both of which seemed to be doing a booming business. He'd called them in to Irving, put them under surveillance, and then headed over to Pasha's. For a while he'd watched from the hotel room window down the street, where cameras were still rolling twenty-four-seven. Then, when the place looked busy, he'd walked across the parking lot and slipped into the slimy skin of Tony Corelli.

He'd watched Irena dance, bought her a couple of drinks, and was pushing her for a private invitation to the back rooms when a big brute with no neck and a thick Russian accent had come out of nowhere, grabbed Irena by the arm, and demanded she come with him.

"The lady's already occupied," Julian had said in his best Brooklyn Italian.

The bastard had snarled at him, called him a
huyesoska
—a cocksucker, if Julian remembered his Russian—then grabbed him by his leather jacket and tried to throw him out of his seat. Julian might have dropped him to the floor, but just as the bastard grabbed him, he'd caught a glimpse of the tattoo peeking out from beneath the asshole's shirt.

The Tiger.

He'd allowed himself to be flung aside, then watched as the man who was in all likelihood Zoryo's replacement dragged Irena through the crowd toward the guarded doors. The hopeless look in her eyes as she'd looked back at him had been a knife to his gut. He'd forced his feelings aside, shut his emotions down, and let her go.

The bartender, Chet, who'd become Tony's good friend, had taken pity on him, poured him a double whisky, and explained that Sergei was new and had taken a special interest in Irena. "But just between you and me, Tony, the guy's a prick!"

Julian had played pathetic, sucking down the whisky, angling for sympathy. "Man, you got all the luck. You've probably boned every dancer here, even my Irena. What's a guy gotta do to get some action?'

Chet had seemed to measure him. "I don't get you, Tony. You're young and good-looking. There's gotta be lots of women want to get in bed with you."

Julian had shaken his head, then looked guiltily up at Chet, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I like 'em young."

Ten minutes later he'd been scoping out hidden cameras and alarms as he was led behind the guarded doors to a private room in the back. Chet had set him up with a young, dark-haired girl who said her name was Luisa and who claimed to be from Florida but whose Spanish said Colombia. Julian had found himself in the situation he most dreaded—being put together with an underage victim he was expected to fuck.

So he'd acted like the part of the randy bastard, forking over the cash, running his gaze over the girl, trading filthy comments with the bouncer. Then the door had shut, leaving him alone with her in a room equipped for more horizontal entertainment than that offered out front. He'd pulled her onto the squeaky little cot, muttered reassurances in her ear, and after a few minutes of PG-rated cuddling, feigned a terminal case of limp dick. Cussing, he'd released her and pretended to be suffering the biggest humiliation of his life.

"Don't worry, baby. I ain't angry with you. Damn it! This never happens!" Feeling older than Father Time, he'd stroked her young cheek with his knuckles, watched the relief in her eyes. "Don't tell no one, okay, baby? I'd be real embarrassed. Here. This is for you—as long as you don't say nothing."

Knowing she'd keep his "secret," he'd handed her a hundred, waited a few more minutes, then strutted out into the hallway like a stallion who'd just had his favorite mare. He and Chet had spent the rest of the evening sharing dirty jokes and big grins, with Julian tipping in twenties.

"Man, if you need anything—
anything
—you come to Tony, and I'll set you up just like you did for me," he'd said.

He'd even bought Sergei a drink when the bastard reemerged an hour later, Irena nowhere in sight.

"Sorry for the misunderstanding, buddy," he'd said, giving Sergei a friendly slap on his beefy back.

Julian had left Pasha's hating himself but armed with the information he needed. The place was employing underage girls, some of them likely trafficked, and offering far more than private lap dances. It was likely also the hub of activity for Burien's Colorado empire—a distribution center, a money-laundering operation, a place where men with illegal tastes could meet their needs.