Sergeant Ross wove through the desks toward him. “Some woman named Mahoney, out in receiving. Says the mayor sent her.”
“I didn’t get a call from Henley’s office.” Even as he completed the sentence he dug under the folders on his desk to the stack of pink message slips the secretary had stuck in his hand the last time he came in. He’d been so besieged, he’d never gotten to them. Henley’s message was the sixth one down. He swore under his breath. “Yeah, all right. Tell her I’ll be out in a minute.”
He shrugged on his suit jacket, but didn’t bother putting on his tie. It was late, he was wiped out and hungry and suddenly wishing he’d left with the rest of his squad. He scanned the message slip again. Erin Mahoney. He smiled wryly. Boy did that name bring back memories. None good. He’d known an Erin Mahoney growing up. She was two years younger than him, but she’d made his life hell right up until the last day of fourth grade when she’d blessedly moved across town.
He spent a moment wondering whatever happened to her, then chuckled. Probably torturing some poor insurance salesman husband and wreaking havoc with the PTA. The image made Brady feel better. He only had to deal with murderers and reluctant witnesses. And whatever flunky Mayor Henley had just shoved in his path.
Still smiling, he pushed through the door, then stopped in his tracks. Her back was to him…and what a back it was. Tall and shapely, with deep auburn hair, she wore a suit so beautifully tailored it almost made him wish he’d taken up Uncle Mike’s offer to work at his clothing store instead of entering the police academy eleven years ago. Never before had a tape measure held such erotic possibilities.
His appreciative smile froze when she stopped chatting up the desk clerk and swung around to face him.
“Terror Mahoney.” He’d said it under his breath, but the mischievous light that twinkled in her bright green eyes signaled that she’d heard him.
“Why if it isn’t Crybaby O’Keefe.” She laughed when he scowled. She turned back to the very attentive desk sergeant. “Thank you, Sergeant Ross,” she said, then bent gracefully and snapped up her briefcase. Despite his dumbfounded state, or maybe because of it, he followed her movement, causing him to reflect on just how much finer a pair of basic black high heels could make prizewinning legs appear.
She walked by Brady in those basic black pumps and opened the door he’d just come through. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Her bright smile and knowing look made it clear she knew exactly where he’d been looking, and that she’d absolutely planned it that way. It was as if the intervening twenty years had never happened. She’d been in his face for less than a minute and she already had him on the defensive. Her weapons had changed a bit—okay, a lot—but they were still just as effective.
Well, he told himself, he was no longer a skinny little ten-year-old. Nor did he adhere to the code of honor that said a man didn’t stand tough against a woman. The first time a woman had pulled a gun on him had ended that notion. Erin’s weapon of choice had always been her mouth.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to ask you to postpone this little chat until tomorrow?” he said. “I was off duty about—” he glanced at his watch “—yesterday.”
“I know it’s late, but I’ve been in meetings with the mayor all day. Henley is expecting me in his office first thing in the morning. I need to talk with you before then. I know Henley left a message with you.”
Resigned, Brady sighed, and motioned her toward his desk. “Over there, second desk on your right.”
She turned around, causing him to stop short. “Is there somewhere a bit more private? This is…delicate.”
She smelled good. Damn good. No delicate little floral scent for Terror Mahoney. No, she ambushed men right up front with something spicy and cinnamon sweet. Of course, anything would smell good to him after fourteen hours of bad coffee. Or so he told himself. “You’re here about the Sanderson murder, right?”
“Yes. Can we use an interview room or something?”
“Everyone here knows the details, Ms. Mahoney.”
“First I’m Terror, now I’m a Ms.?”
He found a smile even if he did have to grit his teeth to form it. “When I saw you I remembered you as an eight-year-old pain in the ass. Now I see you’re going to be a twenty-eight-year-old pain in the ass. But I’ve matured.” He swept a hand in front of him. “Have a seat, madam?”
She didn’t scowl. In fact, she laughed and looked him over. “Yes, you have matured.” Her gaze traveled up his chest and over his face. “Quite well, I must say.” She smiled. “And it’s Miss.”
He swore he felt that look ripple over every bristle of his five o’clock shadow. Damn, he was more exhausted than he realized. Brady thought he had done an admirable job of not noticing she’d also matured quite well. Of course he’d noticed, only a dead man wouldn’t have noticed. But at least he hadn’t been obvious about it. “You didn’t turn out so bad either,” he managed to say.
She laughed again. “Boy, how much did that hurt?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she folded her long frame into the metal chair. She crossed one leg over the other, and it would have taken a far better man than him not to be aware that her legs truly did go on forever.
He’d always thought he was that better man. He didn’t thank her for proving otherwise. He tore his gaze away from the forest-green suit she was wearing, trying hard not to think about how it seemed to have been stitched directly onto her body. He usually gave less than a damn about his suits or how they fit, but she made him feel exceedingly rumpled. One more point against her.
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, ignoring that he was long overdue for a haircut, and sat behind his desk. He was hip deep in the city’s most sensational murder investigation in years. The last thing he had time for was the testosterone tango. And he had less than no time to play with someone like Erin Mahoney. She’d obviously spent the last twenty years honing her warrior skills to dangerously new, and exceedingly feminine, heights.
“So, what does the mayor want to know?” he asked. Business, this was going to be all business. Short, not-too-sweet, and over. “And since when are you working for him?”
“He wants to know exactly what you know about who killed Morton Sanderson and why. And since about nine-fifteen this morning when he hired my firm to help him out with his little…media concern.”
“Firm? You have a firm?”
“You’re not the only one who grew up and got a responsible job, O’Keefe. I’m in public relations. Mahoney and Briggs. Perhaps you’ve heard of us?”
Public relations? Terror Mahoney? He’d have laughed, except one look at her expression told him she was waiting for exactly that. So he shrugged. “Sorry, no, I haven’t.”
She shrugged as well, not remotely offended. “We’re small, but we have a solid reputation.”
“What is it, exactly, that you do?”
“I’m a consultant. People hire me for all kinds of reasons. Self-promotion, business promotion, media liaison—”
“Ah. A spin doctor.”
Her smooth expression didn’t falter. “In this case, it’s my job to make sure said media doesn’t turn this thing with Sanderson into some kind of salacious, kinky-sex droolathon.” At his look of disbelief, she amended, “Okay, more than they already have.” She lifted a hand. “I’m not here to make your life difficult.”
Now he had to laugh. “At no time in our mutual past history have you done anything but make my life as difficult as possible. The only change I see now is that you’re getting paid to do it.” He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “Nice work if you can get it.”
“It