Unforgivable (34 page)

Jonah glanced back over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just … nothing. What were you saying?”

“I said, do you remember what I told you? About steering clear of Mia’s? You should still do that. Until we get an arrest in this thing.”

“When do you think that will be?” She stopped at her car and turned to look at him.

“Soon, I hope.”

“And what does that mean, exactly? Since I don’t speak cop.”

“It means I’ll let you know. Until then, be careful.” He took her keys from her hand, then popped the locks and opened the door for her.

“Careful, meaning … ?”

“Meaning use your head, Sophie. Don’t go to Mia’s. Don’t go to Ric’s. Until this is over, stay away from her.”

CHAPTER 23

Mia stared out the window of Ric’s truck, struggling to keep her emotions in check as he drove across town. Her mind was reeling—from his words, from their fight, from the undeniable reality that after months of her imagining it, this man was finally taking her home with him.

The reality wasn’t much like the fantasy.

In her fantasy version, they would have been out for a long, quiet dinner together. Over coffee or maybe drinks somewhere, he’d have given her one of his dark, seductive looks and suggested that they go back to his place, where he’d pull her into his arms the second they got inside the door.

But he hadn’t said a word to her since their fight in the hallway. And the hostility inside his truck was so thick she was having trouble imagining him even touching her, much less sweeping her off to bed. The dark looks were there, but they were far more angry than seductive, and she got the distinct impression that any attraction he might have felt for her was buried under a smoldering layer of fury.

He’d blown up. He’d lost his temper. He’d done it in front of an audience, too, which he must really hate and which probably accounted for at least some of the animosity coming off him right now. She didn’t know a lot about Ric—way less than she would have liked, given how she felt about him—but she knew that he was a private person. He didn’t broadcast his emotions, and yet tonight they’d erupted from him in front of three people.

You think that wouldn’t cut me off at the knees, Mia?

She wasn’t done thinking about what that meant— what all of his words meant, including the ones that were easy to decipher.
You’re acting like a spoiled brat.
Not only did he think she was oblivious to what he and Rey and Jonah had done for her, but he also thought she was oblivious to what Frank had done, a man who’d sacrificed his life to help her. For Ric to believe that she could be that callous and insensitive wounded her.

Mia’s phone sounded from the depths of her purse as Ric swung into a driveway. She checked the number and turned off the ringer, then watched with surprise as Ric rolled down his window and tapped a code into a keypad. After passing through an electronic gate, he drove around a four-story stucco apartment building that backed up to some sort of greenbelt. He parked his truck and grabbed her duffel and computer bag from the backseat.

“I can get that,” she said.

He shot her a glare and slung everything over his shoulder before shoving open the door.

Mia slid out of the pickup, empty handed except for her purse. He led her to a glass door, punched in another code, and held the door open as she stepped into a warm
lobby with Saltillo tile floors. He walked ahead and jabbed the elevator button.

This was definitely not what she’d pictured. She stepped inside the elevator and glimpsed his reflection in the mirrored doors as they rode up to the third floor.

“Nice place,” she said. “How long have you lived here?”

“Couple years.”

“Lot of security.”

He glanced at her in the doors just before they dinged open. “My old neighborhood was getting sketchy. I didn’t feel good about Ava coming in and out of there, so I moved.”

He led her down a carpeted hallway, and her stomach danced with nerves as she watched him unlock his door. Then he pushed it open, flipped on a light switch, and ushered her inside.

“It smells so clean,” she blurted.

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Were you expecting gym socks?”

“No, I just …” Her gaze skimmed over the shiny tile foyer, the living room sparsely furnished with a glass coffee table and a masculine black leather coach, the beige carpet lined with vacuum tracks. “I guess I didn’t know you were so tidy. It looks better than my place.”

“The cleaning lady came this week. I haven’t had time to mess it up yet.” Ric set her bags on the floor beside the door.

Mia dropped her purse next to the bags and glanced around. There was a dark corridor to her left—the bedroom, presumably—and beyond the living room a darkened kitchen. The dining area was empty, but there were
two wooden bar stools pulled up to the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen.

She became aware of the silence. Ric was watching her with one of those simmering looks again, one of the hostile ones like she’d been getting in the car. She felt a rush of insecurity, followed by a surge of annoyance.

“Don’t look at me that way,” she said.

“What way?”

“You’re the one who insisted on this. I can just as easily stay at a motel.”
Or Scott’s house.
But something warned her not to say that, or he might go ballistic again.

His phone buzzed, saving him from a response. He glared at her as he pulled it from the pocket of his slacks.

“Santos.” His eyes stayed on her as he listened. He turned and tossed his keys onto the table by the door. “Yeah.” He turned back to Mia. “I have to take this.” He hesitated, and something flickered across his face. Uncertainty? Concern? “If you’re hungry, I can order us some dinner or something.”

It was his way of answering the motel comment.

“I’m fine. I had a bite after work.” She nodded at his phone. “Take your call.”

He took the phone into the living room, where he switched on a lamp.

Mia looked around again, absorbing more details this time. On the hallway table was a heap of unopened mail. Several fliers lay on the floor and looked as though they’d been slipped under the front door. Mia picked them up. Pizza coupons, a notice about an upcoming visit from a pest-control company. She tucked the fliers under the stack of mail.

Ric stood at the bar now. He had his sleeves rolled
up and one hand braced against the bar as he spoke to someone in low tones. In the yellow lamplight, the lines of his face were sharp, and she could see the tension there as he talked. Was it his brother? Jonah? She didn’t know everything that had happened tonight, but apparently, the investigation was in disarray. She got the sense that Ric and Jonah were being set up to take the fall if the case fell apart, which seemed increasingly likely. The DNA results that afternoon might have been the final nail in the coffin.

Mia scooped up her duffel. She felt nervous, jittery. Her instinct was to organize something or maybe cook, but she couldn’t do that now. The very last thing she wanted to do was show up at this man’s home for the first time and start acting like his mother.

She forced herself to move from her spot and cautiously began exploring. The first door on the right was a bathroom, where she saw a pink toothbrush in a cup beside the sink. She peeked into the room across the hall and flipped on the light. An entire wall was papered with posters of teenage boys, which confirmed her guess about the owner of the toothbrush. A turquoise bedspread covered the twin bed. Beside it was a desk that seemed to have been converted to a makeup table. Mia’s gaze scanned the row of lipsticks and nail polishes before she turned off the light and continued down the hallway.

The master suite looked much more like Ric. King-size bed, black bedspread, a dresser topped with loose change, deodorant, a box of bullets. On the corner was a framed photograph of Ric and a beautiful young girl in a green soccer uniform. He had his arm hooked playfully around her neck as they both smiled out at the camera.
The girl had smooth olive skin and thick black lashes and looked so much like her father that Mia’s heart turned over. Her gaze went back to Ric, who appeared more relaxed and happy than she’d ever seen him.
Look how much he loves her,
she thought, and felt a pang of yearning.

She turned away from the picture and surveyed the rest of the room. In the corner was a weight bench and a stack of impossible-looking disks and barbells. She walked over and ran her fingertips over the cool metal bar. She pictured him lying back on the bench, straining as he pressed up the weight. A memory of their night together came back to her, and her legs went weak.

She sank onto the bench and closed her eyes. Okay, honesty time. She could no longer lie to herself about what she felt for this man. She was in love with him. Not a crush, not infatuation—as she’d felt so often in the past—this was love.

But what did he feel?

You think that wouldn’t ruin my fucking life?

If something happened to her, it would ruin his life. He’d said that. But did he mean that as a cop—as in if he couldn’t protect her, he’d feel like a failure professionally? Or did he mean it as a man—if something happened to her, it would take away his chance to be happy?

She had so little to go on with him. But she did have her instincts. And her instincts told her that this man wasn’t going to be at all like what she’d pictured when she’d pictured being in love. This man wasn’t going to give her wine and roses and pretty words. He was a cop, and his hardened, streetwise attitude affected everything he did.
He didn’t use words much, and when he did, they weren’t often pretty. And he sure as hell didn’t walk around with his heart on his sleeve.

But she loved him anyway. And she thought that maybe, just maybe, it was possible that he loved her, too. All of that hostility could have more to do with him not knowing what to do about his feelings than about him not having feelings.

Mia took a deep breath and gathered up her courage. Before she could change her mind, she strode into his bathroom and stripped off her clothes. She folded them neatly and left them on the counter beside the sink. Then she turned on the water, and when it was scalding, she stepped under the spray. She tipped her head back and let it wash over her, clearing away all of her doubts and confusion. She might not know what he wanted, but she knew what
she
wanted, and damned if she wasn’t going to try to get it.

Ric inventoried his refrigerator as his brother filled him in on the latest developments in the case. In a nutshell, everything was screwed. Lane’s lawyer was screaming witch hunt and threatening lawsuits. The only good news was that the press hadn’t got wind of the story— a circumstance Ric figured would last about another five minutes—so both sides had an interest in keeping a lid on things. But everyone on the task force was running for cover, and Ric, as Rey had predicted, was being offered up as a scapegoat for today’s fiasco.

“What are you going to do?” his brother asked as Ric grabbed a couple of beers and took them into the living room.

“I’m going to work the case, like always.”

“This isn’t like always. This isn’t anything like always.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Ric sank onto the sofa and twisted off the bottle caps. “But what do you want me to do? I can’t just manufacture evidence against the guy. I’m going to have to keep digging.” He lifted the beer to his lips and paused. Pipes hummed at the back of the apartment, and a vision of Mia in his bathtub flashed through his head.

“You know, you could be off base on this thing,” Rey said. “Maybe Jessup’s right.”

“How’s that?”

“Maybe we should be looking at someone else.”

Ric set down his beer. His brother had a point. Ric’s cop intuition had told him repeatedly that Lane was their man, but the physical evidence didn’t lie. Still, he might just be missing something. Ric figured he had about one more day to salvage the case, or his reputation as a homicide detective was trashed.

“Give me twenty-four hours,” he said.

“What happens in twenty-four hours?”

Ric had no idea, but he needed more time. “I’ve got a couple of leads left. Just don’t let them pull the plug yet, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Like it’s my call. I’m just an agent. You want any favors, you should be working on Singh, but I hear you fucked that one up from the first day.”

“She still doesn’t like me, huh?”

“She thinks you’re a loose cannon. Plus, she’s political, and she wants to cover her ass. Just a heads up, I wouldn’t be surprised if you and your partner get kicked from the task force by tomorrow morning.”

“Stall them. I need another day.”

“What are these leads, anyway? This is no time to hide the ball.”

Mia walked into the foyer and crouched down beside her purse. Her hair hung in messy wet curls around her shoulders, and he watched her dig around for something. Her feet were bare. Her legs were bare. And she wore a gray hooded sweatshirt that looked familiar.

“Ric?” Rey said.

“What?”

“What’s this evidence?”