Intimate Desires (The Love and Danger Series) (3 page)

Walker looked from his partner and best friend, then to the body that was being zipped up by the coroner’s crew.  “Looked like an overdose to me.”

Sam twisted his shoulders, trying to release the tension that had built up.  “Yeah.  I know.  But she swears the guy never did drugs.  That he was just a bit confused.”

Walker sighed
, shaking his head with mock regret.  “Soft heart and a great body.  You’re in trouble.”

Sam looked back at his friend and partner, wanting to punch him for some reason that he didn’t completely understand.  “She’s just the coffee shop owner.  I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Walker’s snort caused the coroner’s team to turn around, wondering what could possibly be humorous in a situation like this.  Walker immediately turned away, shaking his head at Sam’s comment.  “Like I said, you’ve got it bad.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed and he turned away.  Walking over to the medical examiner who was writing up notes before leaving the scene
, he bent down and examined the victim.  “Any reason to think this isn’t an accidental overdose?” he asked, wondering why he was even going down this path.

The medical examiner’s eyes widened and he stopped writing.  “No.  But I’ll test the chemicals in the needle anyway.  It will probably come back as heroine.”  Joe, the medical examiner
, looked at Sam carefully.  “Why?  What are you thinking?”

Sam rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the fatigue of the last few days starting to catch up with him.  They’d been working hard to clear up cold cases, having some luck, but mostly just running into dead ends.  “The lady,” he said, stabbing his thumb in the direction of the
back door to the coffee shop, “says this guy didn’t do drugs.”

Joe shrugged his shoulders and finished writing up his notes. 
“Got it.  I’ll run a postmortem drug test, find out if there’s anything unusual about the case.  But if the results come back positive for street drugs, it will take a few days to complete the autopsy and come to any verifiable conclusions.”

Sam knew all
this.  An hour ago, this looked like a regular overdose.  He and Walker had even wondered why they had been called to the scene.

Now, looking at the site, he took in things he hadn’t noticed before. 
Walking back to Walker’s Jeep, Sam looked around.  “Why did the guy decide to OD here?” Sam asked, looking at the alley.  “This area looks nice and clean, even the dumpsters had been emptied yesterday.  There’s no trash around, nothing to hide behind if someone comes along while doing the act.”

Walker’s eyes narrowed and he looked at the area along with Sam.  There was silence for a long moment as they both looked around.  “If the guy were a drug addict, why would he travel so far from his source to get his fix?”  Both men knew the psychology of a druggie.  Get the fix fast, and get the high faster.  The druggie might travel far enough to be hidden from passing traffic, but there were no known drug dealers in this area.  Or at least none littering the street as there were in other areas of downtown Chicago. 

Walker nodded, seeing the site with new eyes as well.  “You’re thinking your lady is onto something?” Walker suggested.

Sam thought about correcting his partner about the woman being “his”, but then thought better of it.  “I think there might be more to this than we’d originally thought.”

Walker bent down, his eyes taking in other details.  “There’s no traffic back here after nine or ten o’clock at night.”

“Whic
h means it would be an easy place to hang out.”

Sam looked around.  “And easier to inject without being noticed,” he offered, not ruling out an accidental overdose.  But not accepting it
as an absolute anymore either. “The apartments behind this fence would lower privacy significantly.  If I lived there and saw a vagrant walking by, I might call someone.  Maybe the police, but definitely the apartment manager.”

Walker nodded his agreement.  “You’re right.  It isn’t a great place to inject. 
Too much potential to be seen.  The solitude is only superficial.  I can’t imagine the residents around here ignoring possible crimes.”

The
y both stood up and walked back to Sam’s SUV.  “Let’s just wait for the tox report from Joe.  If the needle was filled with a street drug, he’ll know in about twenty minutes.” 

Right then, the back door to the coffee shop opened and Sam’s eyes caught
sight of the woman again.  She was holding several cups of coffee while another staff member held out a tray of sugar, sweetener and cream. 

“Anyone
need a cup of coffee?” she offered.

Sam watched as she smiled at each man, holding up a cup to him and offering a greeting.  Even Walker got a smile and a laugh at his joke.  But when Sam approached, she wouldn’t look him in the eye.  “You doing okay?” he asked, watching for signs of shock.  What he got was even more interesting.  As she handed him the last cup of coffee, her cheeks, and even her nose, turned an adorable shade of pink. 

“Oh, I’m fine.  I’m sad of course, but…” She shook her head, her eyes glancing to the side where George had been laying only a few minutes ago.  “Yes.  I’m fine.  Much better than George, of course.”

“Yeah.
  He’s having a pretty rotten day.”

She bit her lip,
then looked at his chin.  “You promised to check the stuff though, right?  You weren’t just blowing smoke?”

He smiled gently.  “I’ve already spoken to the medical examiner,” he assured her.  “We’ll know in a few minutes if it was a street drug.”

Her full, lower lip was once again caught between her pretty, white teeth.  “But even if it was a street drug that killed him, he wasn’t a drug user, Officer Jeffers.”

“Detective,” Sam corrected.  “And you can call
me Sam.”

Hannah felt a warm glow come over her but still stepped back.  She didn’t want a warm glow.  She didn’t want to feel those warm
fuzzies or the wobbly knees.  She’d done the whole marriage and forever thing.  It hadn’t lasted longer than it took for her ex-husband to realize that she didn’t have what it took to make him happy.  Not even close!  So men were off of her agenda for the next few centuries. 

“Cream?” she offered, not calling him anything this time. 

She ignored the way his smile made her feel all tingly inside and focused on his chin.  His chin was so much safer than those crystal blue eyes.  And besides, it was a very nice chin.  She liked the stubble that was already forming on that chin. 

She sighed and backed up another step.  “Well, if that’s all you need, I’ll get back to work.”

She almost tripped as she spun around, trying to get back inside before he stopped her.  Or she stopped herself by doing something ridiculous.  Like reaching up and finding out what that interesting stubble on his jaw felt like. 

When the door closed behind her, she took in a deep breath, closing her eyes as she leaned back against the
door, trying to get her traitorous body back under control.

“Hannah?” Debbie asked, looking at her strangely.  Debbie was her assistant manager and a great woman with two kids and a husband who was the s
weetest man around.  He gave Hannah hope that someday she might want to explore the male/female thing again.  “Are you okay?”

Hannah’s eyes popped open once again and she stared into the amused eyes of Debbie
who was still holding the tray of cream and sugar. 

“I’m fine!” she jumped up, pushing herself away from the door. 
She couldn’t look into Debbie’s eyes, afraid of what she might see.

Debbie laughed softly as she followed Hannah back behind the counter.  “You’ll be fine as soon as you let that
studly detective have his wicked way with you.”

Hannah almost dropped the pot of coffee she’d been carrying.  “What?  Why would you say something like that?”  She busied herself cleaning up the counter now that there were only two or three people in line and the rest of her team could handle them. 

Debbie grabbed the cleaning cloth out of Hannah’s hands.  “Because I’ve never seen you so flustered just by talking to another human being.  Because you’ve never encountered a man as hot and yummy as that Detective Jeffers.  And because you blushed.  You never blush.  In fact, I was starting to think you didn’t know the difference between males and females, since you never show any reaction to any man that comes through here.  Even though some of them would sever a limb just to get a smile from you.”

Hannah stared at Debbie for a moment, then threw back her head and laughed.  “You’re ridiculous,” she said, thinking that all of Debbie’s statements were
crazy.  Well, not about the blushing part.  That had been true although it wasn’t relevant. 

“Uh huh,” she said and tossed the cloth back at Hannah.  “Tell me that when the oh-so-gorgeous detective comes strolling back in here, asking you out to dinner.”

Hannah’s heart leapt at the possibility, but then she shook her head.  “He has more important things to do than to stop by here.”

Debbie rolled her eyes but didn’t go into any more details since one of the
ir regulars was trying to get Hannah’s attention.

Hannah quickly moved forward, eager to put the handsome detective out of her mind. 
“Hi Mark.  The usual?” Hannah asked, grabbing a cup and mixing up a hazelnut latte with soy milk.

The nice looking accountant who worked across the street came in about the same time every morning, always with a smile and a big tip. 
“You know it, Hannah,” Mark replied, shuffling down the aisle.  “How have you been today?” he asked, adding in a dollar to the tip jar. 

“Crazy day,” she replied, thinking of poor George.  She wished she’d gotten to know him better now.  He didn’t deserve to die like that.  He should have been home with his daughter, enjoying life and trying to get help for his memory. 

“Always is, isn’t it?” he asked.  “But at least it’s Friday, right?”

Hannah mixed in the hazelnut syrup, adding in an extra dollop just because Mark was such a good guy.  “Friday is just another day for me,” she said.  “You corporate types have the weekend off.  I get Monday off,” she smiled.  “Here you go!  Have a great one!”

Mark took the coffee and smiled back, looked like he was about to say something else but then shook his head and headed out of the shop.

Debbie looked at Lilly, one of the other staff members still on hand until the lunch rush
died down, both of them rolling their eyes.  “She has no clue,” Debbie said.  Lilly agreed and Hannah just looked at them as if they were losing their minds.

“We got the report back,” Walker announced, stepping into Sam’s office and flopping his enormous, muscular frame onto the only available chair.  “Your woman was right.”

Sam was about to yell at Walker about breaking his chair but sat up straighter in his own when his partner’s words sunk in.  “What do you mean?”

Walker tossed the report into the middle of Sam’s desk.  “It’s been labeled a
suspicious death.  No street drugs in George Clemons’ system.”

Sam pulled the report around, astounded.  “What was in the needle then?” He looked at the report but the numbers and chemical abbreviations didn’t mean anything to him. 

“Potassium chloride,” Walker announced smugly. 

Sam looked up, not sure he’d heard correctly.  “Isn’t that the stuff they use for lethal injections?”

Walker nodded.  “The very same.  It’s also used during heart surgeries, in water softening agents and in fertilizer.”

Sam rolled his eyes.  “Don’t even pretend you knew all that before Joe explained it to you.”  His eyes went right back to the report.  “So Joe is going to do a full autopsy?”

“Yep.  And we need to find a murderer.”  He leaned onto the back legs of the chair, causing a horrible creaking noise.  “So I guess you get to go back to your little lady and interrogate her.”

Two other large shadows appeared in Sam’s office, crowding in and grabbing the report.
  Colt and Brock glanced at both Sam and Walker as if they went out of their way to annoy, berate and tease each other every day.  Which they did.  “When did Sam get a woman?” Brock Transom asked, another homicide detective and sports buddy.  “Sam doesn’t deserve a woman.  I think it’s my turn for a woman.”

Colt chuckled.  “
When did we start to take turns?”  He looked at his friend across the desk and laughed, suddenly seeing the obvious signs of a man, perhaps not in love but definitely in lust.  “Damn buddy!  You run into a leggy blond and come off the market?  If we’re taking turns, it is definitely mine.”

“Back off,” Sam grumbled, snatching the report away from
Colt to get a better read on it. 

Brock, Colt’s partner,
laughed as well and snagged the report again.  “Sam already has too many women.”  He turned to Colt and punched him in the arm. “And you’re an ass, so your turn is skipped.”

Sam almost growled with frustration as he leaned over and snagged the report again.  “No one is getting this lady. 
So just back off.”

The three men looked at one
another with astonishment, Walker raising his hands as he said, “I told ya.” 

Colt chuckled and tossed the foam basketball into the plastic hoop over the doorway, making a perfect score
, which wasn’t much of accomplishment since the office wasn’t large.  “No problem.  That’s the second time I’ve heard the word ‘lady’ used in reference to this mystery woman.”  He smiled with mischief.  “Definitely not my type.”

Sam ignored their taunts and brought them all back to the more pertinent issue. 
“So we have a homeless man with family in a different state, who was murdered by potassium chloride last night and propped up against the fence outside of a coffee shop.  Does anyone else think that sounds odd?” 

“Yeah.
  Something is definitely rotten,” Colt agreed.  “So I guess we’d better figure out what happened.  Our first stop should probably be to check out this ‘lady’ that keeps coming up.” 

Sam stood up and shoved Brock and
Colt out the door.  “Get out of my way,” he grumbled.  “I’ve got police work to do.”

Walker moved his legs
to the side in the nick of time to avoid getting kicked, then sighed.  “He’s going back to her,” he told the other two. 

“Need some company?” 
Brock asked even while the three of them were pulling their jackets on that would cover their service weapons. 

“No!” Sam called back, but there was no stopping
Colt and Brock from tagging along.  “You guys solve your own murders.”

“Ours are at a dead end, no pun intended,” Brock called out.  “And we need a cup of coffee to get a surge of energy.”

“Get coffee in the kitchen,” Sam stated firmly as he pulled his keys out of his jeans pocket. 

Colt
chuckled, undeterred by his friend’s angry tone.  “I’m guessing the coffee where you’re going is a whole lot better.”

Since there wasn’t anything Sam could do to stop them, he simply ignored them.  Jumping into his truck, he started the engine just as
Walker was latching his seatbelt. 

Five minutes later, the four of them
were pulling up in front of the small coffee shop.  Sam looked around with different eyes this time, seeing the street, the intersections, the stop sign versus the stop light at the next corner.  This part of town was the pricey area where specialty shops and quaint restaurants vied for space with the towering office buildings.  He could see how the coffee shop would thrive in this area with so many people coming to work.  The subway stop was two blocks away. There was plenty of space to park and easily get out again.  And there were droves of office workers who would stop by before, during and after work for a break and better tasting coffee than what their offices would provide. 

But his eyes also noticed other things, like the constant foot traffic, the restaurants that would have potential witnesses to any crimes, the sidewalk vendors, the windows on the second floors of the small shops, the apartment building behind the shops…of all the places to commit a murder, this would be the last place he would do it. 
Especially leaving the body out in the open. 

Walking into the dim interior of the coffee shop, he was immediately struck by the rich smell of coffee and something sweet he couldn’t immediately identify. 
He also noticed that none of the chairs matched.  Each one was painted a different color with odd shapes or patterns on the backs and seats.  The tables seemed to be some sort of mosaic under glass and the walls had paintings instead of advertising on it.  Water colors and oils, he supposed but that was the extent of his knowledge of art. 

His eyes immediately
skimmed the patrons, each one he classified as either corporate worker, soccer mom, idly wealthy or college student.  He even recognized the expensive clothes on the college kids versus the ones that were barely making ends meet, probably going to school on a scholarship like he’d done. 

His mind quickly categorized all of the patrons, but he didn’t see the one person he
needed to talk to.  Walking up to the counter, he stepped in front of a pretty, older woman.  “I’m looking for Hannah Murphy.  I spoke to her earlier this morning.  Is she still here?”

The woman looked up and smiled.  “Hannah?  You’re looking for Hannah?  Of course she’s still here.  She’s almost never anywhere else.  She’s back in her office.” 

“Thanks,” Sam said and turned back to the three men standing behind him with serious expressions on each of their faces.  “Wait here.  I’ll go talk to her.”

The woman behind the counter perked up.  “Are you all detectives?” she asked.  “Is this about George?”

Sam walked away, hearing Walker step in and start asking the blond what she knew about George while he went in search of his prey.  It wasn’t hard to find her.  She was sitting in the tiny office he’d noticed earlier, staring at the wall with a cute grin on her face, twirling a pen in her fingers. 

“Have a moment?” Sam asked. 

Hannah heard the deep voice and jumped out of her chair, almost falling to the ground when she landed, not to mention the pen that went flying across her office in the tall man’s direction. 

When she’d finally gotten hold of herself, she looked up into those crystal blue eyes and every part of her screamed out a warning.  She clenched the arms of her desk chair and tried to contain the blush, but it was pointless.  Even acting as if her face weren’t flaring with embarrassment wasn’t an option since the knowing look in those blue eyes told her that she’d been caught.  Oh, he might not know the exact details of how she’d been picturing him naked, her fingers running over all those fascinating muscles under the black tee-shirt, but her blush was probably enough to give him a pretty good idea. 

“I’m sorry,” she gasped and tried to straighten herself, pulling her sweater back down over her jeans and pushing her hair out of her eyes.  “What can I do for you Detective?” she asked, hoping she only sounded flustered to her own ears. 

Sam stepped into the tiny office, gesturing to the lone chair in the corner.  “Mind if I ask you a few more questions?”

That startled her and she nodded her head.  “Of course,” she replied. 

As soon as he stepped into her office, she knew that this was going to be bad.  His shoulders were so
broad, he had to angle his body slightly to step closer to her desk.  And his body was enormous, dwarfing the metal chair that most people could fit into perfectly.  “What’s going on?” she asked, then remembered the horrid subject of the morning.  “It wasn’t an overdose, was it?” she asked, her heart aching for the old man who had died last night. 

“I’m afraid not,” he said.  “You were right.  The needle in his arm didn’t contain a street drug. 
Although, the medical examiner hasn’t ruled out suicide.”

Hannah shook her head.  “George didn’t show any of the normal symptoms of suicide.  And just as hard as it would have been for him to have gotten drugs and followed through on injecting them, he wouldn’t have had the mental capacity to follow through on a suicide.  No, I don’t think so.”  And then it hit
her what the alternative was.  “Oh,” she sighed unhappily. 

Sam watched all the emotions run through her mind, every one of them showing on her lovely features. 
“What do you know about Mr. Clemons?” he asked.

Hannah sighed
as she thought back to the various conversations she’d had with the elderly gentleman.  “George was sweet, kind, never intrusive.  He liked to laugh, always had a joke to share whenever I brought him coffee.  He would play chess at the park, but he couldn’t always remember where he was.  I spoke to someone in the city about getting him medical help, but they couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t agree to their assistance.  They could intervene if a relative declared him incompetent.  He told me one day that the city was trying to track down his daughter, but I don’t know who he’d spoken to.”  She looked down at her pencil.  “But he wasn’t suicidal.” 

“Do you know any of his friends?”

She shrugged.  “George pretty much kept to himself.  He chatted with some of the people over at the chess park, but I didn’t get the impression that he was close to any of them.  I don’t think he had the social skills any more.  Maybe he had them at some point in his life, but,” she looked down sadly, “not anymore.”

Sam nodded, writing things down in his notebook
, then looking back at her from across the small, purple and yellow desk.  “The estimated time of death was six o’clock last night, give or take an hour.  Can you think of anything out of the ordinary that happened last night?”

Hannah thought back carefully.  “I leave here about five o’clock each day and my night manager takes over.  We close at nine, but Dave would have mentioned if George were sleeping behind the shop.  The last thing we do is take the garbage out to the dumpsters.”

Sam’s eyes narrowed.  “The dumpsters were empty this morning.  Do you know what time the trucks come through?”

Hannah
instantly realized how important this question was simply by the intensity of Sam’s eyes.  “Um…I don’t know exactly, but it has to be before five o’clock in the morning.  I get here by that time and the dumpsters are already cleared out.”

His eyes narrowed on her pretty face.  “You work twelve hours a day?  How many days do you work?”

Hannah shrugged.  “That’s the life of a small business owner,” she explained.  We work long hours, don’t get vacation or sick days and sometimes I work seven days a week if a virus is making the rounds of my employees.  And since we come into contact with thousands of people each week, viruses can hit us pretty hard at times.  We sanitize the store as much as possible, especially the counters where people touch everything all day long, but nothing is perfect.”

Sam didn’t like that idea
.  She looked fragile, soft and delicate.  She looked like the kind of woman he’d like to pamper, which was an odd thought.  “When is your next day off?” he asked.

She had no idea where this was going, but her nerves were suddenly on high alert. 
“Um…I work this weekend, but I’m off Monday.”

He sat back, tucking his notebook into his pocket. 
“How about if I take you out to dinner tomorrow night.  I’ll have more information about George’s situation and maybe you can give me some additional insight.”

Hannah’s breath caught in her throat and she actually thought about the possibility of saying yes. 
Instinctively, she knew that the invitation was more than just a dinner invitation to talk about the mysterious death.  “Um…why don’t you stop by here any time and I can answer your questions?” she offered as an alternative. 

He chuckled. “Afraid of being alone with me?” he asked softly.