Hard Evidence (6 page)

Tessa tucked her camera back into her purse and walked the length of the alley, finding a few more examples of graffiti, some from harmless taggers, the rest from the eloquent spray can of Syko and Flaco. She headed back to the sidewalk and continued down the street.

It was a bright, sunny day, the sky wide and blue as only a Colorado sky could be, and she realized with a sense of relief that she'd gone at least an hour without thinking of Julian Darcangelo and his lethal lips. She'd no doubt overreacted, imagined more heat and finesse in his kiss than there actually had been. She'd been afraid for her life, after all, adrenaline surging through her system and heightening her senses. He probably kissed like a fish.

Her spirits lifted a notch, and she decided to knock on a few doors.

No one answered at the first three houses on the block. The fourth was home to an elderly African-American couple who wanted to talk about their grandchildren but knew nothing about gang activity or the shooting.

"We don't read the papers," the husband told her. 'Too much bad news."

The fifth house was inhabited by several college students, one of whom was home—an Anglo kid with spiky brown hair.

"Whoa, yeah," he said when she told him about the shooting. "Yeah, I read about it in the
Indy
. Are you the chick who wrote that? I've seen that car around—the one with the hot rims. Hot car."

But he couldn't tell her who drove the hot car, nor did he recognize her description of the victim. And though he'd seen boys he thought were gang members hanging out on Colfax, he'd never seen them come this far into the neighborhood.

Four houses farther down, she spoke with a young Asian-American mother while her two toddlers ran laps around her ankles. The woman said she'd read about the shooting but had seen neither the car nor anyone who looked like a gang member. But when Tessa described the victim and asked her if she'd ever seen four young women walking together down the sidewalk, the look of surprise on the woman's face was unmistakable.

"Oh, gosh! Yes, I think I saw them once or twice. Tyler, stop it!" She reached down, separated one child from the other. "I think I saw them a few times this summer while I was working in the garden—four Hispanic teenage girls and an older woman. I can only garden on the weekends when my husband, Terry, is home. Were they gang members?"

"I don't know, but I'm trying to learn all I can."

"Tyler!" The woman gave an exasperated moan. "I guess that explains why the police were at their house that night. They probably came to tell her family she was dead, didn't they?"

"I imagine so." Tessa felt her pulse quicken. "You know where her family lives? Can you show me which house it is?"

One of the little angels let out a piercing wail.

'Tyler and Sasha, I'm going to put you both in time-out! You're not going to print my name, are you? I don't want my name in the paper, especially not if there's a killer out there."

"I understand. I won't use your name if that's what you'd prefer."

The woman picked up her crying daughter and led Tessa out onto her porch. "Third house down and across the street. A lot of people come and go from there, mostly men. It's been pretty quiet since the police were there."

Tessa counted the houses, saw a dilapidated white bungalow with a black roof. "Thanks so much. You've been a huge help, Ms.—"

"Aito—Wendy Aito. Good luck." Then the woman vanished indoors, balancing her daughter on her hip, her son in tow.

Tessa crossed the street, thinking of ail the things she'd like to tell the victim's family.

I wish I had been able to help her, but I froze. I'm sorry.

It happened so quickly, I didn't have time to react.

I'm so, so sorry.

Tessa approached the house, felt a strange sense of misgiving, thrust it aside. Ms. Aito had said this was where the girl's family lived. It wasn't the killer's hideout. She walked up the cracked sidewalk, up the front steps, and knocked on the door.

No one answered.

She knocked again.

Still no one came.

She knocked a third time and had just fished a business card out of her purse when the door opened to reveal a little old woman with bowed shoulders, tight white curls, and thick glasses. She was using a walker.

"I don't want any!" the woman said in a thin, trembling voice.

Tessa held out her card. "I'm not selling anything, ma'am. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk."

"Speak up!" The old woman tapped her ear, pointing out her hearing aids. "Can't hear a thing. Needs a new battery, but I don't get out much. Come in."

Tessa walked inside.

Julian watched Tessa enter the old lady's house, watched her come out twenty minutes later, saw the old lady point to the rear of her home.

"Oh, for God's sake!"

Chief Irving was right—she was persistent.

Irving had ripped Julian's head off this morning for the kissing stunt at the hospital.

'Tessa Novak is not just a reporter, Darcangelo. She's a member of the
Denver Indy's
elite Investigative Team and the best cop reporter I've known. Half of my men are scared shitless of her. The other half think they're in love with her. And I'll tell you something else:—I respect the hell out of her! I've spent the better part of three years trying to convince her we're not crooks. Now do you want to tell me why you dragged her into a linen closet and kissed her yesterday? She's calling it assault, and I'm just damned grateful it's not on the front page this morning together with your goddamned name!"

Assault? Julian supposed it
had
been involuntary. Then again, he hadn't wanted to kiss her, either—at first. Besides, her tongue had found its way into
his
mouth, too.

But he hadn't told Irving this. Instead, he'd taken responsibility for his actions and made it clear that he'd had few options that didn't include making a scene or leaving bruises on Ms. Novak's pretty skin. Then he'd gone to the morgue to watch the ME dissect Zoryo. Though the lab results weren't in yet, the cause of death looked like suicide by asphyxiation.

Still angry as hell about losing Zoryo, Julian had spent the afternoon brooding and sitting in his truck down the street from the basement apartment, writing down the license plate numbers of all the men who'd driven up, parked their nice cars, and walked around back expecting a little forbidden action, only to hurry away when they saw the police tape. He would send officers to question each and every one of them. Once he told them about the dozens of DNA samples the cops had acquired from the victim's body, the sheets, and used condoms, they would crack like eggshells and tell him anything he wanted to know.

He'd spotted Tessa several houses down the street, the sight of her both pissing him off and causing a chemical reaction that had his blood heating by a few degrees.

It's called "lust," Darcangelo.

He'd watched her progress as she went door to door, enjoying the sway of her hips in her navy blue skirt, the bounce of her golden curls against her tailored jacket, the feminine shape of her legs. And he'd wondered what in the hell he was going to do with her.

She walked to the back of the house, saw the police tape, and stood there, staring at it.
Then she ducked beneath it.

And then Julian knew.

Chapter 6

Julian made a call on his radio. Then he grabbed a pair of cuffs, slipped them into the pocket of his jacket, climbed out of his truck, and walked round to the back of the house. He knew the DA would drop the charges, but at least he could teach her a lesson.

She was at the bottom of the back stairs, peering through the door's little window, so preoccupied with her prying that she didn't hear him approach.

"Be damned glad the three bears aren't home, Goldilocks. You're under arrest."

She gasped, whirled about, looked up at him. Then her big, blue eyes narrowed. "You!"

He lifted the yellow tape, motioned for her to come up and out. "Crossing police lines is a municipal offense, but obstructing government operations is a felony."

"What government operations?" She climbed the stairs, her heels clicking on the concrete, then ducked under the tape.

"Hands behind your head. Fingers laced, feet apart. You know the drill."

"You can't be serious!" She stared up at him as if he'd gone insane.

"I've never been more serious." He rested his hand on the small of her back, propelled her away from the hazard of the stairs, the silky softness of her curls beneath his palm.

She knocked his hand away. "Don't touch me!"

"Assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, failure to follow a lawful order." He looked at her over the top of his sunglasses, entertained by the look of astonishment on her face. "You're building quite the rap sheet, Ms. Novak."

She gave a little feminine cry of rage, dropped her purse onto the ground, and assumed the position, fury on her pretty face. "Chief Irving is going to have your head!"

She was probably right. Still, he couldn't help but smile. Compared to the hardened killers he usually dealt with, this was going to be like arresting Barbie. "I think he might demand to know why you were snooping around on a case he's asked you to drop."

"I don't answer to Chief Irving! You do!" She turned her head and glared at him. "Besides, I wasn't 'snooping around'! I thought the girl's family lived here. I wanted to offer my condolences."

"You should have sent flowers." He walked up close behind her to search her, saw her stiffen. She really
didn't
want him to touch her. Or did she?

He reached around to feel between her breasts with the edges of his hands. "You have the right to remain—"

The moment he touched her, she gasped and jerked her arms down to her sides, tottering on her heels and falling back against him.

Had an adult male done that in the middle of a bust, Julian would have assumed the suspect was gearing up for violence and would have subdued him. But Tessa wasn't the murderer-rapist he was used to frisking, and he found her skittishness both amusing and strangely appealing.

He steadied her, placed her back on her fancy feet. Then he grasped her wrists and forced them back to her head. "Easy, Tessa, I'm not going to molest you."

He worked quickly, his hands finding their way over her narrow rib cage and her gently rounded belly, down her slender waist and the flare of her hips, up the sleek length of her calves and thighs. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."

The words came automatically—and it was a good thing, because the thinking part of his brain had shut down. It didn't help that everywhere he touched her, she tensed—her shoulders, her belly, her thighs. As an agent, it was second nature for him to be aware of even the subtlest motions of those he took into custody; it was a skill that had kept him alive. But this was something different.

It was physical. It was chemical. It was damned distracting.

And it told him something he didn't necessarily want to know: Tessa Novak might look cool and aloof, but inside she was fire.

Down, boy.

"You have the right to speak to an attorney and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense. Do you fully understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"

"Go to hell!" Her voice had lost some of its defiance.

"Use of fighting words." He took her wrists, bent her arms behind her back, and slipped the cuffs onto her wrists, leaving them looser than he would otherwise. "I hope you've got a good lawyer. A cozy stay at Club Fed is looking more likely by the minute."

A black-and-white slid up to the curb, its lights flashing.

Right on time.

"Maybe while I'm in booking I should file charges against you. How about kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, and false arrest for starters? That might make an interesting news brief, don't you think?"

He jerked her about to face him, leaned down close, and lowered his voice to the tone that frightened grown men with guns. "This isn't a game, Ms. Novak. I know things about kidnapping and sexual assault that are beyond your worst nightmares. If I see my name in your paper, heads will roll, starting with yours."

Her eyes grew wide, and her breath caught, but her chin came up.

Julian felt an absurd impulse to kiss her.

He thrust the impulse aside, reached down, picked up her purse, and searched it, while Petersen escorted her to the cruiser. Wallet. Sunglasses. Lipstick. More lipstick. Nail file. Tampons. Keys. Half a dozen pencils. Loaded .22. Notepad. Digital camera.

He scrutinized the last two and saw she was looking into a gang angle—a fact that bothered him. He didn't like the idea of her on the streets tangling with gangbangers.

"Sorry to see you under these circumstances, Ms. Novak," Petersen said, his hand on the top of her head to guide her inside the vehicle. "We'll get you down to the station and get you processed."

Julian placed her purse in the front seat. "She's got a loaded double-deuce in her purse, Petersen, though I'm not sure she knows how to use it. And be sure to book her on one count of falsifying information on a driver's license while you're at it."

"What?" she cried. "You're just making stuff up!"

He pulled off his shades, met her gaze, saw the outrage and disbelief in her eyes. "It says you weigh one-fifteen, but I know for a fact you're not a pound under one-twenty."

Her cheeks flushed crimson. "Oooh!"

Hungry and thirsty, Tessa sat in booking on a molded chair of orange plastic that was bolted to the floor—and which desperately needed to be scrubbed—her legs and feet bare and freezing. A few chairs down, a filthy man with a scraggly red beard and tangled blond hair sat in dirty jeans and an even dirtier plaid shirt, his gaze sliding over her body as if she were naked.

"What you in for, baby?"

"Castrating some guy because he annoyed me." He stared at her for a moment, the lust vanishing from his eyes, then crossed his legs and looked away. "Bitch," he whispered.

Tessa still couldn't believe she was here. In booking. In the Denver jail. Under arrest for multiple felonies. She kept expecting someone to tell her it was all a joke or a terrible mistake and release her. But nobody was telling her anything. They hadn't even let her make her single phone call.

Officer Petersen had driven her downtown and escorted her to a controlled checkpoint. "Welcome to the Denver Hilton," he'd said.

He'd uncuffed her and asked her to remove first her shoes, which were passed through a little window one by one, and then her pantyhose. Next, a female guard had given her a thorough pat down, touching the few body parts Julian hadn't. After groping her, the guard had escorted her through the checkpoint to the waiting area, where, one by one, new arrests were called back to be fingerprinted and photographed.

Tessa felt humiliated—and furious. She knew it was against the law to cross police lines, but journalists did it all the time, usually with the cops' tacit approval. Never had Tessa heard of a journalist being busted for ducking under the yellow tape. And the rest of it—he was just making it up.

Obstructing government operations? It would never stick. Neither would assaulting a police officer. How could she possibly assault a man who was so much bigger and stronger than she was? Julian was probably some kind of black belt on top of everything else, but even if he'd been a ballerina in a pink tutu, he'd have been able to take her down without breaking a sweat.

He'd nearly frightened her to death, sneaking up behind her like that. Then he'd put her through a humiliating pat down—

Oh, God, she couldn't think about that. She couldn't.

She couldn't help
but
think about it.

She'd tried to play it cool, to act like getting frisked by six foot three of dark-haired, potent male was nothing more than an irritation—like getting stuck in traffic. But the moment he'd touched her, she'd lost her resolve, jerking her arms down, losing her balance, falling backward into the hard wall of his chest.

Easy, Tessa, I'm not going to molest you.

What in the hell had been wrong with her? She'd watched dozens of arrests during her career, had researched Koga arrest-control techniques. She'd known what he was going to do.

Sure, but you didn't know how it would
feel,
did you
?

He'd stood so close behind her, his presence overwhelming. She'd felt his breath against her hair, heard the tight creaking of his leather jacket, smelled his spicy aftershave. She'd even sensed his body heat. His big hands had seemed to burn through her clothes, scorching her skin as he'd worked his way over her. And when his hands had slid over her pantyhose and up her thighs, she'd actually felt herself grow wet.

How could her body respond like that when she hated the man?

Okay, so maybe she didn't hate him, but she certainly didn't like him. Twice now he'd used force to intimidate her. And he'd found it amusing. She'd seen the humor in his eyes when he'd looked at her over the top of his sunglasses.

You're building quite the rap sheet, Ms. Novak.

Well, she'd be the one laughing when Chief Irving busted him down to dogcatcher.

Then again, something told her Chief Irving didn't have much control over Julian. Maybe it was the fact that Julian looked nothing like her idea of a undercover cop, plain and invisible. Or maybe it was his cockiness, an air about him that said he took orders from no one.

What had he been doing there? Obviously he'd been watching the place. Did he expect whoever had rented the apartment to return?

Be damned glad the three bears aren't home. Goldilocks.

What had he meant by that? Perhaps he'd been referring to the three surviving sisters. But why would they pose any threat to her? Or maybe he was referring to the killer, to whomever had been in the car that night. But that made no sense, either. Wendy Aito seemed certain the girls lived in the house, and Mrs. Davis, the little old lady who rented the upstairs, said they lived there, as well.

"They had a lot of male visitors," she'd said, in a tone that made it clear she disapproved.

Why would the girl have been running away from her home? Domestic violence? A boyfriend turned violent? Some kind of gang raid? Whatever the case, no one lived in the basement apartment now. From what Tessa'd been able to see, the apartment was empty.

'Tessa Marie Novak!"

Tessa cringed inwardly at the sound of her name shouted through the booking area. She was the only woman in the room. Couldn't they have just motioned for her?

A short cop with cropped dark hair and a mole on his narrow chin fingerprinted her, took her mug shot, then motioned for her to stand on a scale. The red digital number raced up to stick at 124.

It says you weigh one-fifteen, but I know for a fact you're not a pound under one-twenty.

Bastard!

"This way." The cop spoke to her in a bored voice, motioning her to follow him toward one of a half dozen holding cells.

Small rooms with thick glass windows, they looked something like fishbowls for people. She'd seen them before, but she'd never noticed their finer points—steel bunk, steel sink, visible steel toilet. No privacy. No comfort.

"If I might ask, sir, when do I get to make my phone call? And is there any way I can have a blanket or get my shoes back? My feet are freezing."

He ushered her into a vacant cell. "The chief is on his way to see you."

Finally
! "Do you know when—?"

The thick steel door shut with a heavy click.

Tessa paced in her cage for what seemed forever, then, stomach growling, she sat on the steel bunk, pulled off her suit jacket, and draped it over her chilled legs and feet. She'd counted the tiles on the floor twice by the time Chief Irving appeared on the other side of the glass.

She stood, slipped back into her jacket.

A key in the lock. A metallic click. The door swung outward.

"Chief Irving, I am so glad to see you!"

She took one look at his face and knew the feeling wasn't mutual.

Julian watched on the monitor from the booking control room as Tessa followed Irving out of the holding cell. She looked pale and shaken as she walked up to the front counter, signed for her personal belongings, and walked on her still-bare feet toward a dressing room. He turned the dial, followed her with the camera, and saw her wipe her eyes. Was she crying?