Czytaj książkę: «In Harm's Way»

“You’re a dangerous man to know, Detective,” Robin told him.

He released her hand and sat back, smiling a bitter smile. “Yeah, I can be that,” he admitted. “If I find out you’re jerking me around, you can count on it.”

Mitch knew the value of intimidation and was in no way opposed to using it when the time was right. So why did it make him feel so rotten, playing the big, bad cop with Robin? He knew she hadn’t killed James Andrews, but he did sense she was hiding something. Why didn’t he feel justified in shaking her up a little?

Dear Reader,

As the year winds to a close, I hope you’ll let Silhouette Intimate Moments bring some excitement to your holiday season. You certainly won’t want to miss the latest of THE OKLAHOMA ALL-GIRL BRANDS, Maggie Shayne’s Secrets and Lies. Think it would be fun to be queen for a day? Not for Melusine Brand, who has to impersonate a missing “princess” and evade a pack of trained killers, all the while pretending to be passionately married to the one man she can’t stand—and can’t help loving.

Join Justine Davis for the finale of our ROMANCING THE CROWN continuity, The Prince’s Wedding, as the heir to the Montebellan throne takes a cowgirl—and their baby—home to meet the royal family. You’ll also want to read the latest entries in two ongoing miniseries: Marie Ferrarella’s Undercover M.D., part of THE BACHELORS OF BLAIR MEMORIAL, and Sara Orwig’s One Tough Cowboy, which brings STALLION PASS over from Silhouette Desire. We’ve also got two dynamite stand-alones: Lyn Stone’s In Harm’s Way and Jill Shalvis’s Serving Up Trouble. In other words, you’ll want all six of this month’s offerings—and you’ll also want to come back next month, when Silhouette Intimate Moments continues the tradition of providing you with six of the best and most exciting contemporary romances money can buy.

Happy holidays!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

In Harm’s Way
Lyn Stone

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LYN STONE

loves creating pictures with words. Paints, too. Her love affair with writing and art began in the third grade, when she won a school-wide prize for her colorful poster for book week. She spent the prize money on books, one of which was Little Women.

She rewrote the ending so that Jo marries her childhood sweetheart. That’s because Lyn had a childhood sweetheart herself and wanted to marry him when she grew up. She did. And now she is living her “happily-ever-after” in north Alabama with the same guy. She and Allen have traveled the world, had two children, four grandchildren and experienced some wild adventures along the way.

Whether writing romantic historicals or contemporary fiction, Lyn insists on including elements of humor, mystery and danger. Perhaps because that other book she purchased all those years ago was a Nancy Drew mystery.

This book is dedicated to

Alice and Richard Edge,

a beautiful, gracious lady and

a true Southern gentleman.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

“So, what’s your take on it, Kick? You think she did him?” Mitch Winton asked his partner in a low voice as he studied the woman in question just visible through the doorway to the bedroom.

The woman sat on the edge of the bed, her hands clasped in her lap, back ramrod straight. Mitch couldn’t see her face. She kept it turned away, probably so she wouldn’t have to look at the body again. One of the uniforms stood just inside the room with her.

Kick Taylor nodded. “She did it all right. No reason to think otherwise.”

“You question her yet?”

“Just the prelim I got on tape. This one’s a real ice queen. Cool as they come, not giving us squat.”

“Let me hear what she’s got to say.”

Kick hesitated, then handed Mitch the small tape recorder. “Not much to it. She’s been sitting like that since I got here. Davis and Mackie said she’s been in there the whole time. Didn’t even come out to answer the door when they responded.”

“She phone it in?”

“Affirmative.”

Mitch sighed. Why couldn’t he have just said yes? “So how’d we get on call tonight? Did I check the wrong roster?”

“Smith’s baby’s due anytime. I volunteered to switch with him and Williams.”

“He asked?” Mitch would be surprised if he had.

“No, I offered. Sorry I forgot to tell you. It won’t mess up your vacation, though. I can handle this one myself.”

There were perils in being gung ho, Mitch thought to himself. The captain had teamed them up a few months back when Kick had transferred from Vice, hoping Mitch could tamp down a little of Kick’s enthusiasm. He was a case hog. Still, there was no way he could have known about this one before it happened.

Homicide detectives were supposed to appear a little jaded, at least experienced. It didn’t give any of the principals involved a warm, fuzzy feeling if one of the people in charge acted as if they were working their first murder and their whole career depended on an immediate arrest. It was a whole lot different from Vice where Kick had spent his last five years.

“You’re looking too cool for words,” Mitch commented as he squatted and visually examined the dead man. White male, on the green side of forty, about six feet tall, exceptionally well dressed, probably considered good-looking without that hole in the center of his forehead. “Love the tie.”

“You talking to him or me?” Kick asked, methodically inching his way around the body counterclockwise, looking for traces of evidence like he was employed by forensics.

“You. The ducks are a nice touch.”

“Thanks,” Kick replied, smoothing a palm over his expensive neckwear, offering no explanation for what he was doing so well turned out this close to midnight on a Wednesday. He was a night owl and there was plenty to do in Nashville all night long. Probably got called in off a hot date.

Mitch admitted to a little envy. He had just about forgotten what a date was like. He’d been sound asleep when the phone rang. He suddenly felt very over-the-hill for thirty-six. Homicide was a bitch at any time, especially the middle of the night. Another hour and he would have been off the clock for two whole weeks.

“The weapon,” his partner said, pointing to a Beretta lying on the floor near the body.

“I guessed,” Mitch said dryly. One of the techs was getting ready to bag it. “Anyone hear the shot?” Mitch asked.

“Haven’t had a chance to ask yet. Why don’t you go on home?”

Mitch snorted. “What? And miss all this fun?”

The print lifters were busy dusting things while Kick measured a stain he’d found near the coffee table. The medical examiner would be arriving shortly to take charge of the body. Mitch knew there wasn’t much he could discover here that Kick and the M.E. wouldn’t.

Again he glanced through the door at the witness, or suspect, or whatever she would turn out to be. She hadn’t moved. Or relaxed. “She live here?”

“Nope, but she is still the missus. Says she just flew down from the Big Apple. Andrews must have been expecting her. Wine’s in the fridge, glasses were out, little napkins, nuts and stuff. All scattered now, of course, but he had it ready at one time.”

“Looks pretty straightforward,” Mitch said. “Not much question about cause of death. Single shot to the head. No sign of a break-in?”

“Nope. He opened the door and let her in.”

“Maybe he let someone else in first? Let’s try to keep an open mind here.”

Kick snorted. “Don’t you be fooled just because she’s a looker. Pretty fingers can pull triggers, too, y’know.”

“You want to stick one of those fingers in a light socket right now and save the state a trial? How about some proof first, huh?” Mitch felt obliged to point out that the investigation was not complete. Kick was acting as if he had the case sewn up.

“I’m working on it, okay?” Kick snapped.

Mitch ignored his attitude and returned to examining the body. “Died where he fell, looks like.”

Kick mumbled an agreement, engrossed in an address book he’d found in the drawer under the phone. “Captain was looking for you this afternoon after you left. Wanted to see you before you took off. Something about that shooting I guess. The guy still alive?”

“Last I heard.” Mitch glanced around at the living room. “Whoever did this left a big enough mess, didn’t they? You got things covered?”

“Absolutely. You can go ahead and leave.” Kick inclined his head toward the woman in the bedroom. “I’ll take her in soon as I get through here.”

“I’ll do it,” Mitch said. “I stopped off and got an unmarked in case you’d apprehended somebody.”

Kick frowned at him. “And let you play Sir Galahad to Princess Sureshot? Not hardly. I’m transporting, Mitch, and interrogating her.”

“No, you’re going to stay here and question the neighbors,” Mitch informed him firmly, unsure why he was pulling rank on Kick. He had never done that before, and it bothered him to do it now. But his partner was being too close-minded about this whole deal. He had already decided they had their shooter. Mitch just wanted to make sure Kick wasn’t taking the easy way out.

“Checked her for powder and printed her yet?”

Kick looked up, his lips tightening. “Not yet.”

Mitch called Abe Sinclair over and quietly ordered him to do a quick paraffin test on Mrs. Andrews to detect whether she had any gunpowder residue on her hands and then get her prints. He wanted all the bases covered.

Then Mitch moved away from the body, got as isolated as he could in the middle of a busy crime scene and turned on the recorder. He put it to his ear and listened to Kick’s curt demand that Mrs. Andrews tell in her own words what had transpired. Following was the brief statement she had given. Very brief.

He could see her better from where he stood now. Abe was in there now, doing his thing with paraffin. She appeared almost oblivious to the process. Classic profile. Perfect hair. Lovely. She was thin, no, slender. Beautifully dressed in a beige suit and gold earrings. Tasteful. Cool, just as Kick had said.

From this distance she didn’t look all that upset about what was going on. At any rate, she wasn’t sobbing her heart out, not that that meant anything necessarily. Could be in shock.

Her voice on the tape was soft and cultured, but with almost no inflection. A pleasant-sounding computer robot came to mind. She referred to the victim by name, not using the we pronoun that would indicate they’d had a happy relationship. Of course, if she’d killed him, she would want to disassociate herself, not think of him as half of her couple.

As he listened, she made it clear she had touched the body while checking for signs of life. Or maybe to explain away any forensic evidence that might turn up later. She admitted she had touched the gun before she thought what she was doing.

When the tape ran silent, he clicked Stop, stuck the recorder in his pocket and entered the bedroom. With a jerk of his thumb, he ordered Abe and the officer who’d been keeping watch over her to leave them alone.

“Mrs. Andrews?” he greeted her. “I’m Detective Winton. You’re the one who discovered the body?” He sat on the edge of the chair located about three feet from the bed, so that he faced her.

“Yes,” she whispered. Then she looked up at him with beautiful, dark-fringed blue eyes that badly needed to weep. He knew better than to feel sympathy for her. You didn’t last long in this business if you couldn’t stay detached. This was the hardest part of the job, but it usually wasn’t quite this hard.

He had seen faces filled with sorrow more times than he could count, but he couldn’t recall one that had moved him quite the way hers did now. Why was that? Instant attraction, yeah. But it seemed more than that, something he couldn’t get a handle on and name.

Getting thunderstruck by a woman was a new experience for Mitch and he didn’t much like it. His defenses wouldn’t go up like they were supposed to. He probably should let Kick take over right now, but he couldn’t make himself do that. Not when she was looking up at him with those soulful eyes, as if she was depending on him to get this right. And not when Kick was ready to hang her on the spot.

Mitch prided himself on judging character. Women seemed easier to read than men. Their emotions were usually closer to the surface, somehow more accessible. That was a sexist view, he knew, but he’d found it to be true, anyway.

Either Robin Andrews cared for that man on the floor and was grieving, or she had delivered the shot that killed him and was terribly sorry about it. “Did you kill your husband, Mrs. Andrews?” The question had slipped right out of his mouth before he could catch it.

Damn. Mitch almost pounded his head with his fist. He wasn’t supposed to put that to her yet. She hadn’t been read her rights, unless Kick had done it off tape, which was almost surely not the case.

Mitch hoped she wouldn’t confess right now. If he was being perfectly honest, he hoped to hell she didn’t have cause to confess at all. It surely would cut down on the workload if he could just haul her in and not have to track down some unknown, but for some inexplicable reason he just didn’t want her to have done it. The thought rattled him.

Women were perfectly capable of murder. However, as a man brought up to revere women, he had to keep reminding himself of that. Finding it hard to believe that the gentler sex would do such a thing was his one huge hang-up and he worked hard at concealing it and compensating for it. But he didn’t want to overcompensate. It was a problem.

He wished to hell another team had caught this one. He obviously needed a good night’s sleep.

Robin couldn’t believe this was happening. “No. I didn’t kill him. I’m the one who notified the police,” she explained.

“Sorry. Won’t get you off the hook.” The detective shrugged as if he didn’t care one way or the other. “Sometimes a perpetrator will call in the crime, tryin’ to throw off suspicion,” he continued in that maddeningly slow drawl of his. “But we’ll get around to that in a little while. For now let’s just clear up a few things. Minor points, really.”

He pulled a small black notebook out of his pocket and smiled at her when he successfully located the ballpoint pen to go with it. Had Columbo started out like this? Robin wondered.

She hated his Southern accent. It poured out like thick molasses. Sinfully rich and dark. It made her want to finish his sentences for him. When he spoke in sentences.

Robin riveted all of her attention on him simply because it was something to think about other than what had happened in the next room. She couldn’t deal with that yet.

Her first thought was that this man didn’t look official. He hadn’t shaved. His dark-brown hair needed a trim, and he must have thrown on yesterday’s wrinkled clothes. He wore khaki slacks, a UT pullover and a windbreaker. He wasn’t even wearing socks, just scuffed leather deck shoes. He looked entirely too casual, too rumpled and laid-back for a detective. Since he didn’t look official, Robin didn’t trust him to act officially. She didn’t have much trust in men, anyway. Certainly not this one.

Worst of all he had a smile and an attitude that were working hard to make her drop her guard and lean on him. She quickly realized just which way she would fall if she did that.

“Did you see anybody when you came into the building? In the parking area? Driving away?”

“No,” she answered simply, in the second or so that he provided between each of his questions. He looked and sounded lazy. Or maybe only tired. Suddenly Robin was horribly afraid this man was going to lock her up just because she was handy instead of pursuing the person who had really killed James.

She shuddered, took a deep breath and clasped her arms tightly across her chest. James was dead, murdered, lying lifeless in the next room. The chilling horror of it made her shiver again, but she couldn’t put it out of her mind for more than a few minutes no matter how hard she tried. He was not going to let her.

“You say you flew in from New York just to visit your husband?” the detective asked.

Robin didn’t want to talk about her reasons for being here. She didn’t want to talk at all. Shouldn’t he be ordering people out to look for James’s murderer? Setting up roadblocks or whatever they did down here to catch a criminal? If they all moved and talked at this man’s speed, it was a miracle they ever got anything done.

“Mrs. Andrews?” he prompted, more firmly this time. “Why did you come here?”

“To visit,” she said, her words more clipped than usual.

“Does that mean you have one of those, ah, long-distance—” he paused to make a little questioning gesture with one hand “—what do you call ’em?”

“Separations,” Robin supplied. “James and I have been separated for almost a year.”

He frowned and made a note. “Okay. Were you on friendly terms with your husband, Ms. Andrews?”

“Yes,” she said with an emphatic nod. “James and I had been friends for several years before we decided to get married. After about six months he and I both agreed it was a mistake. He transferred to Nashville right after we separated, and I stayed in New York. His company has an office here.”

“Yeah, Townsend, Inc., you said. So what are you doing here visiting him if you’re not together any longer?”

Robin explained, “He called me at home last week and asked if I planned to fly down to Florida to visit my mother. I usually go for her birthday and he was aware of that. He wanted me to schedule my flight through Nashville and stop over so that we could talk.”

“Unfinished business?” Those penetrating blue eyes focused on her like lasers.

Robin bit her lip and glanced around the room, determined to concentrate on her answers rather than the horror that threatened to tear her apart if she let it.

James was dead. She didn’t love him, but she still liked him. He might have had a weak will where other women were concerned, but she figured she was as much to blame for that as James. The spark between them had been just that, a spark, not the fire they’d first thought it was. It had gone out more quickly than it had erupted. But fortunately it hadn’t destroyed their friendship.

The detective cleared his throat to get her attention. She gave it, studying his face, trying to guess what he would ask her next. This man was about to arrest her. She could feel it.

“I asked if you had unfinished business with your husband?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Also he…he wanted me to bring him something he said he’d forgotten when he moved down here. A computer disk.”

“Music?”

“No. Something to do with his work in the insurance company, he said. He told me he didn’t want me to mail it, because he was afraid it might get lost.”

“You didn’t mention that when Detective Taylor taped your preliminary interview.”

She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “He didn’t question me. He only said to tell what happened after I arrived here.”

“So you brought what your husband wanted you to bring and, in addition to that favor, he planned to discuss something important with you?” he asked slyly. “Maybe he wanted to reconcile?”

“No, he didn’t. James and I are just friends now.” Then she remembered and corrected herself. “Were just friends.” Her voice only broke a little.

“I wonder why you didn’t get a divorce.”

Robin exhaled slowly. “We discussed it several times. I thought we should. But he…” She hesitated, unsure whether she should have admitted this. “Maybe he was ready to start proceedings. He didn’t say on the phone.”

“And now a divorce won’t be necessary,” he commented, shaking his head, sounding sad, looking sad. She resented the implication he made, and hated his acting as if he were concerned. Damn him, did he have no decency? The man she was married to had just been killed. But he was doing his job, wasn’t he? He had to eliminate her as a suspect.

She had to be precise, give the detective all the information he could use and suggest things he might do to establish her innocence. If she didn’t do that, whoever killed James would get away with it. And she might be blamed.

She drew in another deep breath and released it carefully, trying to gain a little control over the tremor in her voice. “I took a taxi from the airport and arrived here about ten-thirty, give or take ten minutes. I’m sorry I didn’t look at the clock more closely. You could verify the time with the cab company. Oh, and the plane was delayed for over an hour,” she informed him, remembering that detail suddenly, thinking it might be crucial. “It was Flight 1247, American. Check the passenger list.”

“Good idea. I’ll do that,” he agreed, as if that hadn’t occurred to him before. “So you got here and…” he prompted with an expectant look.

Robin rushed to explain, “James was…was like that when I found him. The door was unlocked, the rooms were wrecked, and he was just lying there. Like that.”

It felt surreal, all of it. James’s death, her second recitation of the events, this detective’s quiet questions in the deep, velvety voice. She looked at him again, puzzled by his unassuming manner. It was as if he did this every night. Did he? This was Nashville, not New York. Did people get killed here so regularly that it didn’t faze him at all?

Robin’s breath felt jerky and shallow as her gaze strayed to the door of the living room, through which she could see James. He lay sprawled facedown on the floor beside the coffee table, a dark pool of blood encircling his head. His eyes were open. A camera flashed.

She closed her own eyes tight. “Could…could they cover him? Please?”

“Sure they will. Don’t you worry,” he said, his words soft with faked compassion. It had to be faked. Why would he care if James lay there so exposed or that she might worry about it? He hadn’t known James and didn’t know her.

He went on. “As soon as they do what they have to do, they’ll cover him up. Why don’t you sit back on the bed a ways, ma’am. Then he won’t be visible to you. It bothers you, doesn’t it,” he asked gently, “seein’ him that way?”

Though he spoke softly, he watched her with an intensity that scraped across her exposed nerves. His words and relaxed attitude didn’t match those keen, narrowed ice-blue eyes that watched her like a hawk. A circling hawk about to dive at its prey.

“Of course it bothers me! He was a good man and he’s dead,” she said, choking on the words. Robin covered her eyes with a trembling hand and shook her head. “Please, Officer Wendall—”

“It’s detective, Detective Winton,” he corrected without a trace of impatience. He nudged her free hand and she looked down to see him offering her a pristine, neatly ironed handkerchief with a blue W embroidered on one corner.

Robin blinked. She didn’t know men did that anymore. Offered their handkerchiefs. Hesitantly she took it, though she had no idea why. She wasn’t even crying. Her throat hurt, her heart ached and she was terrified, but her eyes felt dry as dust.

“Are you going to arrest me?” she asked. It came out a bit more sharply than she intended. Had she sounded guilty?

He smiled. It was a quick little expression of what looked like sympathy. She knew better. “Not right now,” he assured her, then added, “but you do have to come downtown with me and give a written statement.”

“I told you everything.” She inclined her head toward the living room. “The other detective has it on tape and now you have notes.” She looked at the small tablet he’d been scribbling on.

“We’ll need another, more formal statement, ma’am. In more detail, and in writing this time.” He held up a hand when she started to object. “I realize you have other things to do, but I know you want to help us all you can.”

“Of course,” she replied. What else could she say?

“Good. You’ll be able to call his family, yours and anybody else you want to once we get to the precinct, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t touch anything else in here. You know, like the phone over there? I need to look around a little more before we go. You just sit right there for a while longer.”

She knew she had already contaminated the crime scene, even touched the gun. A stupid thing to do. How many times had she seen people do that on television and thought they were absolute idiots? Now she figured it must be a reflex or something. God, she wished she had left it alone.

She had felt James’s neck for a pulse. How could she not have done that? He might have still been alive and she could have helped him. But she couldn’t. He was already cold. The memory of his chilled skin made her fingers twitch.

Then she’d grabbed the phone in the living room to call for help. To make matters worse, she had rushed into the bedroom to get away from the terrible sight of death and wait for the police to arrive.

The covers had been torn off the bed and she was sitting on the bare mattress, so hopefully she hadn’t disturbed much in here. There would be fibers from her clothing, she guessed. She glanced at the satiny surface of the bedding. Could they take fingerprints from this? Why hadn’t she just backed out of the apartment and called from an outside phone?

As many times as she had seen it happen on TV and in movies, watched stupid people walk in after a murder and handle the very things that would incriminate them, it had never once occurred to her that she shouldn’t touch anything until after the fact.

She looked at her hands with the traces of wax residue on both sides. Why had they done that? Had the policeman said why? He had mumbled something about the fingerprinting, she thought.

There was also blood on her hands. James’s blood. On her hands. From the carpet where she had knelt beside him.

Suddenly Robin felt sick, ready to throw up. There was little time to debate whether she would destroy evidence in the bathroom. Better there than in here. She jumped up, rushed for the toilet and heaved until she couldn’t. Since she hadn’t eaten anything after breakfast yesterday, there was nothing in her stomach to lose.

Robin straightened, brushed her hair back behind her ears and turned to wash her face. The sight of James’s bottle of favorite aftershave sitting there on the counter top was the trigger. She saw it, sank to her knees, clutched the detective’s handkerchief to her face and wept uncontrollably for the man she had once thought she loved.

James shouldn’t be dead. He was only thirty-seven, too young to die, only six years older than she. Who would do such a thing to him? To anyone? He wasn’t bad. He didn’t deserve this.

She recovered from her crying jag, washed her face, scrubbed the blood off her hands and sat down on the closed seat of the commode to wait. Her legs felt too unsteady to carry her back into the bedroom just then.

After what seemed an eternity, the detective approached the open door of the bathroom. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I’m not okay.”

He came closer and frowned down at her with what looked like worry, then brushed her bangs off her forehead with the tip of one long finger. She should have avoided his touch. It was inappropriate, certainly, but it seemed oddly comforting and not in any way threatening or suggestive.

At that moment the thought reoccurred that he was very dangerous. Handsome men almost always were in one way or another, and she rarely met one she liked. Usually she could figure them out, however. Not this one, not this detective.

He was being nice to her, but only sporadically. He believed she had killed James. She could see it in his eyes and tell from his questions.

If he considered her guilty of murder, why would he bother to pretend concern? To win her trust, Robin supposed. To trick her somehow. Yes, that must be what he was doing. She had to be very careful.

“Let’s go on downtown now and get you a good shot of caffeine. I could use some of that myself. It won’t take long to do the statement, I promise.”

Gently he took her by her elbow and helped her stand, his grip steadying rather than forceful. He slid the strap of her purse, which she had left lying on the bed, over her shoulder. Then he escorted her out through the trashed bedroom and the dreadful scene of the murder, remaining between her and James’s body, so she couldn’t see it, even peripherally. No matter what else he might do later, she did thank him for that small kindness. He could have made her look again.

She wondered where her suitcase and laptop computer were, but was afraid to ask. Robin guessed they would both have to be searched before she was able to retrieve them.

She wondered if the detective had searched her small shoulder bag while she was in the bathroom. Winton, she reminded herself. Detective Winton. She must try to remember his name.

The upstairs apartment opened to a breezeway with stairs back and front that connected the two buildings of the four-plex. Neighbors in nightclothes stood in their doorways, observing as she and Detective Winton exited the building. He led her straight to a light-colored sedan parked beneath the streetlight.

An ambulance had pulled up on the sidewalk, lights flashing, back doors open, waiting. There were a number of uniformed police and several other vehicles forming a kind of perimeter around the building’s entrance. Beyond the semicircle of authorities, a news team interviewed people within the small crowd that had gathered.