fingers splayed across her collarbone and down to the V-neckline of her sweater.
Masterson’s gaze zeroed in on the spot. Then he looked at Mac’s face and spoke as if Mac could see him. “Sorry you got hurt. I’m sure this will turn out to be a routine investigation. We appreciate your cooperation.”
“Yeah.” What part of Eli’s words was Niederhaus agreeing with? “Sorry you got hurt, too.”
With a nod of their heads, the two detectives left, closing the door softly behind them. Julia curled her arms around her middle, wondering if her imagination had gotten the better of her. Had she read something into their visit that wasn’t there because she was already such an emotional wreck? She’d discovered she was a pro at misreading men and their intentions.
That’s when her skin started to burn beneath Mac’s hand.
Though the pressure of his hand never increased, what had seemed like an intimate stamp of possession, of protection, at the very least, now weighed down upon her like a confining manacle.
Maybe Mac sensed the change in her from wary to self-conscious. Maybe the involuntary shiver that shook her was enough to repel his touch.
He lifted his hand. The throaty whisper at her ear startled her, yet rooted her in place. “Easy, Jules. Your heart’s racing like a comet. Something wrong?”
She couldn’t help but think of that night, half a lifetime ago, when he whispered to her so gently. The voice was deeper now, more hoarse than it had been back then. But the effect was still the same. The unadorned words comforted her battered soul, and her mind raced with hopeless possibilities.
But she was no foolish teenager anymore. She was smart enough to recognize compassion for what it was. She was smart enough to walk away.
She walked all the way to the front door, where she locked the dead bolt and reattached the chain. “I’m okay,” she reassured him, trying to reassure herself. “I spooked myself somehow. Probably fatigue. It’s been a long couple of weeks for me.”
She turned around to see Mac’s questioning look. A crease formed in the scar tissue beside his eyes as he squinted to focus on something he could not see.
“You are a rotten liar.”
She longed to put a complimentary twist on his words, but could only come up with sarcasm. “Gee, thanks.”
“They spooked me, too.” He stepped out, stumbled through the obstacle course, with a clear destination in mind. Julia went to help him, but he clamped down on her arms when he felt her touch, and gave her a little shake. “Tell me exactly what Masterson was doing.”
The sharp clip in his raspy voice was a welcome relief to the tender touch of a moment ago. She could handle Officer Taylor, crime-scene investigator, a lot more easily than Mac, the hero, who triggered those silly, sentimental feelings from her youth.
“Nosing around. He seemed interested in the stuff on your bookshelves.”
“I have crap on my bookshelves.” He cast her aside with a sense of urgency, an intellectual ferocity that wasn’t directed at her. He headed toward the corner of the room, rammed his hip into the desk and cursed. Julia hurried to his side as he fumbled around the desktop, rearranging the existing mess by creating another.
“Mac, what is it?” This frantic burst of energy worried her more than her suspicions surrounding Niederhaus and Masterson. She captured both of his hands in hers to stop his search. “What’s wrong? What do you need?”
“Where’s the damn phone?”
Chapter Three
Mac waited with exhausted patience while he was transferred from the Fourth Precinct desk to his cousin, police captain Mitch Taylor.
“Mac.” Did he imagine the caution in the phone greeting? Or had he developed a paranoid mistrust of all his senses?
“Am I under investigation?”
“So much for small talk.”
Mac shook his head, bemoaning his crass impulse. He hadn’t asked about Mitch’s pregnant wife, or checked how the precinct was getting along without their forensic chief. He breathed in deeply, trying to slow down the rest of the questions careening through his brain.
Autumn air and sunshine teased his nose. Jules. Sticking by his side to keep him from totalling his body and ruining his recovery.
The suspicions he’d sensed in her had put him on guard in the first place. He remembered her rapid pulse, beating beneath his fingertips. The way she’d backed into him, seeking safety.
He’d reacted on instinct, holding on to her, offering her a bit of reassurance, as if he was like any other man.
As if he could protect her from any real threat.
“Mitch? I know I’m officially on leave. But if you’ve got any answers for me—”
“I know, I know. You’ve got plenty of questions.” Mitch was more than a cop. He was an adopted big brother. They’d grown up together. Mac drew on that connection to get a glimpse of the truth.
“I just had a visit from Internal Affairs. They wanted to know if I thought Jeff Ringlein’s death was suicide, and if he intended to kill me. What’s going on?”
The heavy sigh at the other end of the line wasn’t a good sign. “Jeff was under investigation at the time of his death.”
This was news to him. “Then why are they just getting around to asking me questions now?”
“You were in the hospital for five weeks, bud.”
“Before that. Why the hell didn’t anybody tell me there was trouble in my department?”
“You know I don’t have any influence with Internal Affairs. They’re a separate investigative unit. I can’t tell you anything.”
Intellectually, he knew his cousin’s hands were tied. But the frustration eating through Mac’s reserve of patience threatened his ability to think rationally. And, dammit, he needed that ability right now. He needed to think, to ask the right questions, to put the clues together in a way that made sense.
And then he felt the gentle grip at his elbow. The strong hand to anchor himself to in a flood of fear and panic. Jules.
Just as she had reached for him when he’d been so disoriented earlier, she reached for him now. Even that most impersonal, professional of touches grounded him in the chaos of his own personal darkness. Julia’s strength allowed him to tap into his own strength.
In a much calmer voice, he pressed Mitch for information. “I’m guessing this has something to do with missing or tainted evidence.”
“Mac—”
“There’s no other reason to destroy a crime lab. We’re not street cops. We’re not first on the scene. We’re the detail guys. The nitpickers. We don’t arrest people and send them to prison.”
“Your testimony can.”
“We’re the scientific backup to a good case.” He shook his head, running on pure speculation at this point. “I think Jeff was in trouble. I.A. seems to think so, too. He was destroying evidence the night I found him in the lab.”
He heard the whistle of breath from Mitch. “You sure? That would definitely interest Internal Affairs.”
“What interests me is why Jeff would do it. Was he taking a payoff? Protecting someone? Afraid of someone?”
“You’re getting ahead of yourself, Mac. This isn’t your case. They were probably just checking you out as a character witness.”
Mac remembered Julia’s bossy accusation when she’d caught Eli Masterson snooping through his things. He couldn’t equate that protective tone of voice with any innocent activity.