hid her sensuous body. He’d gazed at the pictures in her file and had to appreciate the package. She was a looker, all right, but that was a prerequisite for being a thousand-dollar-an-hour whore.
Tomorrow evening would provide the opening he’d been looking for, he realized. She’d be at the cookout, everyone at this end of Atlantic Beach Road would come, and he’d strike up an innocent conversation, slowly ingratiating himself and subtly pumping her for scraps of information. He’d find out quickly enough whether there was any reason to question her further, which he’d do over the next week. Then he could end this fluff and get back to the city and do his real job.
As he approached, Leslie was almost at the stairway over the seawall. He ran up and decided to “accidentally” bump into her. “Sorry,” he said, panting, “lost my balance.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “No harm done.”
“I’m Brad DeVane.”
“I know. Suze told me.”
“God, Suze is a piece of work,” Brad said, shaking his head. “She grilled me like a well-done steak yesterday. She’s the mayor but should be chief of police. Or maybe an FBI interrogator.”
Leslie’s laugh was as deep and warm as her sexy voice. “She really does want to know everything about everyone. I got the same third degree. Nice to meet you. I’m Leslie Morgan.”
Not using Carolynne. “Nice to meet you, too. Did you just arrive? I didn’t see you here yesterday.”
“Yeah. Late this afternoon. I’m here for the month. You?”
“For another week, anyway. A long overdue and, I’m afraid, much-needed vacation. And before Suze warns you off, I’m a cop.”
He watched Leslie’s expression and saw a tiny wariness creep in around her eyes. “I’m not sure I’ve ever known a cop up close and personal. Where do you cop?”
“New York City. I hear a little Big Apple in your accent. You, too?”
“Guilty. Manhattan born and bred. What kind of cop are you?”
“You mean good cop or bad cop, like in the movies?”
“I’m sure you’re a good cop.” She looked him over thoroughly. “You’d never pull off ‘bad cop’ with your looks. I meant do you drive around in one of those marked cars or are you a detective?”
He didn’t want to tell her that he was temporarily assigned to a desk so he slipped back into his previous job, the one he was trying to forget. “I’m a sergeant in the Chinatown area. What do you do?”
“I’m part of a small business in Midtown. We do remodeling.”
He wanted to invite her to dinner and pump her for information immediately but he knew it was too soon. God, she was quite something as she gazed at him with those wide-set hazel eyes. Actually he wanted to ask her to dinner just to get to know her but that wasn’t why he was here. “Did Suze tell you about the cookout tomorrow evening?”
“She did. I’ll be there. You?”
“With bells on.”
“Good, I’ll see you then, if not before.” She started up the stairs and Brad watched her behind, not as well concealed as she might think since the baggy shorts tightened over an A+ ass as she climbed. Yes, this assignment might just have delicious fringe benefits.
The apartment was dark, dingy, and smelled of stale whisky and garbage. A woman screamed at a man who leaned out an open window, a child held in front of him by one arm. Brad focused on the baby’s red overalls and black shoes as the man dangled the boy highabove the concrete. He tried to approach but with every step the man got farther away, the room longer and narrower. He tried to shut out the shrieks of the child but as hard as he tried the screams penetrated more deeply into his brain.
He knew his partner Pete was behind him, but when he swivelled his head all he could see was the screaming woman, her mouth wide, her face distorted. The man’s fingers uncurled and the child fell from his grasp. Although he knew it was a physical impossibility, Brad dove to catch the toddler before he hit the ground and, in diving, he exposed his partner to the gunman’s revolver.
His heart pounded, his breath came in short gasps as he watched the baby who kept falling and falling. He wanted to run back down the stairs but he knew that he wouldn’t be in time to save the kid. “He’ll kill him!” the mother cried. “Do something! Stop him!”
Then shots, flashes of light, pain, screams. Then terror and nothingness.
Brad awoke drenched in sweat as he always did, his tongue rubbing over his broken front tooth. It took a trip to the bathroom and a full glass of water before he finally stopped shaking. Damn, he swore, returning to his bed. This is so fucking stupid. You see it in the movies, but it doesn’t happen in real life. Okay, the department shrink said he’d probably have nightmares but it just wasn’t his thing. He didn’t have posttraumatic stress. He wouldn’t allow it. Shit, I sound like a macho jerk.
This was part of the reason the department had given him this assignment, paid two weeks of rent on this house to get him close to Leslie. He needed space, his boss had argued, a little time to deal with it all, and it wouldn’t hurt to let his leg heal for a week or two more. And his brain.
He tried to get back to sleep but shards of the dream kept interfering so, after half an hour of fruitless attempts, he untangled the sheets from around his waist, dragged on a pair of trunks, grabbed a towel, and headed for the water. He knew it was foolhardy to swim alone but this seemed the best way to work off the dream.
Half an hour later, tired from his exhausting swim, he climbed back into bed and fell into a light, but refreshing sleep.
Earlier that evening, when she returned to the cottage, Leslie spent an hour prowling. Downstairs, the building had a spacious living room, furnished in contemporary comfortable: the sofa upholstered in a floral print with two generously stuffed chairs in coordinating fabrics, wicker coffee and end tables, brightly colored ginger-jar lamps, and several pieces of colorful pottery. The kitchen was large and, as the agent had said, completely equipped with dishes, pots and pans, and, surprisingly, a closet filled with condiments and spices, probably left by previous tenants. She found lots of closet space for her market purchases and checked on the perishables she’d put in the large refrigerator earlier.
The small dining area contained a light colored wooden table with four chairs with padded seats and a sideboard that held place mats and tablecloths. A pair of ceramic candle holders with matching salt and pepper shakers graced the center of the table. The downstairs bathroom was functional, with towels, floor mats, and lots of small bars of soap.
The upstairs bathroom was luxurious, with a Jacuzzi tub and French hand-held shower. Leslie glanced at the space on the floor between the toilet and the tub, then remembered that she’d left her scale at home. She’d use the zipper test. If her pants still closed, she’d forget dieting—well, sort of.
The three bedrooms were similar, each room in white with a different muted shade. She put her suitcases in the pink room, as she thought of it, because the drapes, spread, and cushions on the white rocker were all the same soft rose and beige stripe, with lamps and small dishes scattered around in coordinated shades of rose and tan. The four-poster bed was also white, as was the dresser and mirror. The other rooms were clones of the first, one done in moss green, the other in robin’s egg blue.
There was a good-sized-screen TV in each room and when she snapped on the one on her dresser, she was delighted to see that she got more than a hundred channels. She could be happy here, she realized, at least for a month.
Back downstairs she set up her laptop computer on the dining room table and hooked the dial-up wire to a phone jack in the kitchen. Now she could check on her e-mail messages and work on her schedule for September. No! she told herself. She wouldn’t think about September. Not for quite a while yet.
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