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Excerpt from

Guarding Suzannah

Book 1 in the Serve and Protect Series

by

Norah Wilson

Copyright © 2010 Norah Wilson

Published by Norah Wilson

 All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 Detective John Quigley stepped inside Courtroom 2, closing the door quietly behind him. One or two people in the small gallery glanced up at him briefly, then returned their attention to the front of the courtroom where a young patrol officer was being sworn in.

Quigg took a seat, glancing around the drab, low-ceilinged, windowless room. Provincial Court. Nothing like the much grander Queen’s Bench courtrooms upstairs or the Court of Appeal chambers on the top floor. But aesthetics aside, they did a brisk business here. In the fifteen years Quigg had spent on the Fredericton force, he’d been responsible for sending quite a few customers through these doors. Doors that all too often turned out to be the revolving kind, the kind that spit offenders right back out on the street to re-offend.

On that thought, Quigg glanced over at the accused. Clean shaven and neatly dressed, he sat off to the right, beside the Sheriff’s deputy. His long hair, drawn back into a ponytail, glinted blue-black under the fluorescent lights. If he were conscious of Quigg’s scrutiny, he didn’t betray it with so much as a twitch of a muscle. Rather, he kept his flat, emotionless gaze trained on the witness.

“Your witness, Mr. Roth.”

At the magistrate’s words, Quigg faced forward again.

“Thank you, Your Honour.” The Crown Prosecutor adjusted his table microphone and directed his first question to the witness. Mike Langan, the impossibly young looking constable in the witness box, responded, his answer clear and concise.

Over the next fifteen minutes, the prosecutor methodically built his case with one carefully chosen question after another. Constable Langan’s manner in the witness box was confident and assured. He referred often to his notebook, which appeared to contain copious, comprehensive notes. Quigg unclenched his fingers and leaned back into his seat. What could go wrong?

Everything.

His gaze slid to the one area of the courtroom he’d so far managed to avoid, the defense table. Suzannah Phelps. There she sat, primly erect, all that straight blond hair pulled up into a knot at the back of her head. Even under the black tent-like court robes, she still managed to look model elegant. His pulse took a little kick.

Dammit, why did he do this to himself? He didn’t have to be here. He was off today. He didn’t have even a glancing involvement with this case, or with Constable Langan.

Because you’re a bloody masochist.

“Any questions on cross, Ms. Phelps?”

The magistrate’s voice cut into Quigg’s thoughts.

“Just a few, Your Honour.”

A few? Yeah, sure.

“Please proceed.”

Quigg glanced at Langan, saw the younger man tense. Relax man. He tried to send the thought telepathically. Don’t let her get to you. Don’t let her see you sweat.

“So, Constable Langan, you didn’t actually see my client flee the crime scene?”

“No, ma’am. Not from the actual scene. But I did see a man fitting the robber’s description running just four blocks from the scene.”

“And who provided this description?”

“The shopkeeper.”

“And the description was…?”

“Native … er, First Nations individual, average height, stocky build, long black hair worn in a ponytail.”

“Were those the shopkeeper’s precise words? First Nations individual?”

“Huh?”

“Did the shopkeeper describe the perpetrator as Native? Native American? First Nations?”

“Not exactly.”

Quigg sank lower in his seat, suppressing a groan. This was gonna be a train wreck and Langan didn’t even know it yet.

“Exactly how did he describe him, then?”

“He made it clear that the individual was Indian.”

“Those were his words, then? Indian?”

“No.” Constable Langan shifted, glancing down at his notebook.

“What were his precise words, Constable?”

Langan glanced at the judge, then back at Suzannah Phelps. “I believe his precise words were, wagon burner.”

“Which you took to mean a member of the First Nations?”

“Yes.”

Quigg massaged his temple. Ah, Christ, here we go.

“Thank you, Constable.”

Her voice was polite, prim, even. Which just served to show that sharks came in all kinds of guises.

Suzannah glanced down at her notes, then back at the hapless witness. “So, Constable Langan, could you take a guess how many males from our Native population would fit that description?”

“Objection, Your Honour. We have eye-witness testimony from the shop owner that the accused is the individual who committed the robbery. He was picked out from a lineup containing no fewer than ten Native men of similar ages and builds.”

Finally! An objection from the Crown. Quigg resisted the urge to rake a hand through his hair.

“As my learned friend knows, I could cite dozens of cases where eye-witness identification put innocent men behind bars,” responded Suzannah. “And those were cases where the perpetrators’ faces were not partially obscured by a kerchief.”

“Point taken.” The judge leaned forward. “Your objection is overruled, Mr. Roth. You may proceed, Ms. Phelps.”

“Thank you, Judge.” She turned back to the witness. “Again, Constable Langan, in your opinion, can you tell me how many males of Mi’kmaq or Maliseet descent could answer to that description: medium height, stocky build, black hair?”

A pause. “Quite a few, I would imagine.”

“A majority of them?”

“Possibly,” Langan conceded.

“Then any Native male observed within a reasonable radius of the crime scene might have fit your description?”

“Maybe. But then again, there aren’t a lot of them in this particular shopping district.”

Mother of God. Quigg sank even lower in his seat.

“Ah, so my client shouldn’t have been there in the first place, in an exclusive shopping district?”

“That’s not what I meant.” Langan’s face hardened. “This particular Native male was fleeing capture.”

“Is that so?” She made a show of reviewing her notes. “Was my client running when you first spotted him?”

“No.”

“When did he start running?”

“When I cut him off with my vehicle. He was walking fast—I mean, real fast—down the sidewalk, in an easterly direction. I pulled into an alley, blocked him off.”

“And then he fled?”

“Yes. He turned and fled back in a westerly direction.”

“Were your red and blue bar lights flashing when you executed this maneuver?”

“Yes.”

She shuffled some more papers. “Is it conceivable that my client’s flight might have been an ingrained response to perceived police harassment?”

“No!”

“No? Constable Langan, are you a member of a visible minority?”

“No.”

“Objection!”

The judge held up his hand in the prosecutor’s direction. “Overruled.”

“Imagine for a minute that you are a member of a visible minority. What might you do if a police cruiser were to suddenly swing into your path like that?”

Constable Langan bristled. “The guy had the money on him. The exact amount that was later determined to be missing from the cash register.”

“Ah, so now we have a First Nations male, walking where he ought not to, with more money in his pocket than he should have?”

“Money he stole from that shopkeeper at knifepoint!”

Damn, the kid was losing it.

“Ah, yes, the knife.” Suzannah flipped the page on the legal pad in front of her. “A knife which bore no fingerprints and which you haven’t been able to tie to my client.”

“He dumped it down a sewer grate a block from where he was apprehended, two blocks from the scene. He still had the polkadotted blue-and-white handkerchief in his pocket. Give or take the coins in his pockets, he was carrying exactly the amount of money that was stolen. He was ID’d by the shopkeeper…”

Quigg closed his eyes, pressing a thumb and forefinger against his lids. Inside his head, he heard the theme from Jaws.

“Thank you for that summation, Constable, but I think the Crown was planning one of its own.” She flipped another page on her yellow pad. “Since you’re feeling so loquacious, maybe you can answer this question for me—do you yourself ever carry a handkerchief?”

Langan blinked.

“Would you like me to repeat the question, Constable? When you’re off duty, wearing your civilian clothes, do you ever carry one of those polkadotted handkerchiefs? Shoved in a front pocket of your jeans, maybe, or in your coat pocket?”

Five more minutes. That’s all it took to completely decimate the Crown’s case. Not that Roth surrendered without a fight. He called the shopkeeper and adduced his evidence. Evidence which the defense challenged effectively. But by the time Suzannah finished her summation, she’d planted more than just the seed of reasonable doubt. No one in the courtroom was surprised when the judge pronounced his verdict without even a short recess. Not guilty. The prisoner was released.

Quigg stood and slipped out the door as quietly as he’d slipped in.

 

* * *

 

Suzannah stood, turning to scan the gallery. The seats had emptied out, apart from her client’s two female cousins. Certainly the owner of the gaze she’d felt boring into her back for the last half hour was gone.

“Congratulations.”

She turned toward Anthony Roth, whose lean, dark features were wreathed in resignation. Fiercely competitive, he hated to lose, but he was a good prosecutor. He knew his role wasn’t to secure a conviction at any cost; it was to get to the truth.

“Thanks.”

“And you made yourself a brand new friend on Fredericton’s finest, too. Quite a day.”

She grimaced.

When young Mike Langan had finally been excused from the witness box, his body language as he jammed on his hat and tugged at his Kevlar vest had screamed exactly how he felt. Suffice to say he wouldn’t be joining the ranks of the Suzannah Phelps Fan Club any time soon.

That’s how it goes, Suzie-girl. You didn’t get into this business to make friends.

“Couldn’t be helped,” she said lightly. “You know I had to play the cards I was dealt.”

“Of course. I’d have done the same thing in your shoes.” Roth swept his briefcase from the desk. “Fair warning, though. It’ll be different next time we cross swords over this guy.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

His lips lifted in a cynical smile. “Right.”

As soon as the Crown Prosecutor moved off, her client moved in. Gripping her hand in a two-handed clasp, he pumped it enthusiastically. “Thank you, Ms. Phelps.”

“You’re welcome, Leo.” Suzannah withdrew her hand.  “You still interested in a job at the graphics studio I mentioned?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

She plucked a business card from her briefcase and handed it to him. “Give this lady a call. She agrees you have talent, but you’d have to prove yourself.”

The card disappeared into Leo’s huge hand. “Thanks, Ms. Phelps. This is great.”

“And you’d have to stay clean, Leo. You understand?” She caught his gaze and held it. “Squeaky clean. No more altercations with the police.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do. You put a foot wrong after this, they’ll be watching.”

He cast a sideways glance at his cousins. “Gotcha.”

“Good. Now get out of here.”

He grinned and was gone.

Suzannah turned back to the desk, her smile fading as she began packing her note pads, law books and files back into the big hard-sided court bag.

Dammit, she’d won, hadn’t she? Why didn’t she feel better?

Made yourself a brand new friend today …  Roth’s words echoed in her head.

“Oh, for pity’s sake.” She was such a baby sometimes. Shoving the last file into her bag, she glanced around the courtroom. Normally, she’d adjourn to the ladies room to remove her court garb, but she could do a striptease in here today and there’d be no one to witness it.

One tug and the white tabbed collar came off. Then the robe, over the head like a choir gown. She ran a hand over her hair to make sure it hadn’t come loose. Satisfied, she folded the robe carefully, stuffed it into a blue velvet sack and pulled the drawstring tight. There. Street ready. She smoothed her pinstriped skirt, slung the sack over her shoulder, hefted her bag and headed for the exit.

Despite the quick change, her getaway was not as clean as she would have liked, however. In the corridor, she ran into Renee LeRoy, half-assed reporter and full-fledged pain-in-the-ass. Suzannah searched her mind for the name of the local weekly Renee worked for, but it eluded her. Not that it mattered. She avoided reading her own press if she possibly could, especially anything this particular woman might have to say.

Well, at least this explained the sensation she’d felt of being watched back there in the courtroom. Suppressing a groan, Suzannah tacked on a pleasant smile. “How’s it going, Renee?”

The other woman didn’t smile back. In fact, her face was set in grim lines more reminiscent of a Russian forward in the ’72 Canada/Russia hockey series than a female reporter. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Suzannah chastised herself. Her dislike of Renee LeRoy had nothing to do with the other woman’s appearance and everything to do with her attitude.

“I see your client walked away a free man.”

Oh, hell, here we go again. The woman was a broken record. “The burden of proof always rests on the Crown, Renee,” she said reasonably. “This time, they failed to meet that burden.”

“Thanks in no small part to you.”

“Why, thank you.” Suzannah offered a wide if disingenuous smile. “I’d be flattered, except I think any reasonably competent criminal lawyer would have secured an acquittal under the circumstances.”

The reporter’s eyes narrowed. “Doesn’t it keep you awake at night, Ms. Phelps? Doesn’t your conscience ever bother you, knowing you’re helping guilty men go free?”

Suzannah’s lips thinned, along with her patience. Was a little open-mindedness from the press too much to ask? “What would bother me is to see a conviction entered on the quality of the evidence we saw today. My client deserved to be acquitted. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a schedule to keep.”

A minute later, she descended the steps of the Justice Building and crossed the parking lot. The sun had already begun to dip behind the tallest buildings, casting long shadows. Even so, heat rose from the asphalt in shimmering waves.

All of southern New Brunswick had been gripped in a heat wave since the July 1st Canada Day holiday. Like the rest of her pasty-faced compatriots, Suzannah had welcomed the first real taste of summer. Now, almost three weeks later, she cursed the humidity that made perspiration bead between her breasts before she’d even reached her car.

She thought briefly about stowing her case in the BMW’s trunk, but decided that would require too much effort. Instead, she hit the button on her remote to release the door locks. She opened the back door on the driver’s side and tossed the garment bag onto the back seat. She’d started to swing the heavy bag into the vehicle when a flash of color from the front passenger seat caught her eye. She lost her grip on the handles, and the bag collided with the car’s frame and thudded to the pavement.

Oh, God, no. Not again.

 

* * *

 

“Can I give you a hand with that?”

She seemed to just about come out of her skin at his words, whirling to face him. Wide blue eyes locked onto him, and for an instant, Quigg saw fear. Not surprise. Not your garden variety momentary fright when someone startled you. This was real, raw fear. Then it was gone, and she wore her smooth Princess face again.

“Thank you, no. I can manage.”

Her voice was cool, polite, completely assured. Had he imagined the blaze of fear?

Bending, she righted the briefcase, deposited it on the car’s seat and closed the door. She must have expected him to move on, or at least to step back, because when she turned, she wound up standing considerably closer than before. Closer than was comfortable for her. He could see it in the quick lift of her brows, the slight widening of her eyes. But she didn’t step back.

Neither did he.

Damn, she was beautiful. And tall. In those three inch heels that probably cost more than he made in a week, her gaze was level with his. Throw in all that long blond hair that would slide like silk through a man’s hands, and a body that would…

“You’re that cop.”

He blinked. “That cop?”

“Regina vs. Rosneau.”

“Good memory.” They’d secured a conviction on that one, but her client had taken a walk on appeal. Though in truth, Quigg hadn’t minded over much. The dirtball had done it, all right, but strictly speaking, the evidence had been a bit thin. One of those fifty/fifty propositions.

“Regina vs. Haynes. That was you, too, right?”

Okay, dammit, that one still stung, although the insult was almost two years old now. Two defendants, separate trials, separate representation, each accused managing to convince a jury the other guy’d done it. Of course, Quigg could take consolation from knowing the noose was closing yet again around Ricky Haynes’ good-for-nothing drug-dealing neck. Haynes had since moved outside the city limits, beyond municipal jurisdiction, but Quigg had it on good authority that the Mounties were building a rock-solid case against him.

Yes, he could take some consolation in that. Some small consolation. Not enough, however, to blunt the slow burn in his gut right now.

“Keep a scrapbook, do you, Ms. Phelps? Or maybe you cut a notch in your little Gucci belt, one for every cop you skewer?”

Something that looked astonishingly like hurt flashed in her eyes, but like before, it was gone before he could be certain he’d really seen it. Then she stepped even closer and smiled, a slow, knowing smile that made him think about skin sliding against skin and sweat-slicked bodies fusing in the dark, and he knew he’d been mistaken. When she extended a slender, ringless finger to trace a circle around a button on his shirt, his heart stumbled, then began to pound.

“Definitely not the belt thing,” she said, her voice as husky and honeyed as his most sex-drenched fantasy. “At the rate you guys self-destruct under cross, there’d be nothing left to hold my trousers up, would there, now, John?”

Then she climbed in her gleaming little Beemer and drove off before his hormone-addled brain divorced her words from her manner and realized he’d been dissed.

Against all reason, he laughed. Lord knew it wasn’t funny. Certainly, young Langan wouldn’t share his mirth.

Of course, the whole thing defied reason, the way it twisted his guts just to look at her. She was rich. She was beautiful. She was sophisticated. She was the daughter of a judge, from a long line of judges. She was … what? He searched his admittedly limited lexicon for an appropriate term. Kennedy-esque.

Meanwhile, his own father had worked in a saw mill; his mother had cleaned other people’s houses. Suzannah Phelps was so far out of his league, there wasn’t even a real word for it.

She was also the woman not-so-affectionately known around the station house as She-Rex. And worse.

Much worse.

Except she hadn’t looked much like a She-Rex when she’d spun around to face him, her face all pale and frightened.

Quigg turned and headed for Queen Street, where he’d parked his car. What had spooked her? Not his sudden appearance. He was sure of that. She might not have much use for cops, but she wasn’t scared of him.

Maybe it was something inside her car.

He’d reached his own car, which sprouted a yellow parking ticket from beneath the windshield wiper. Great. He glanced up, searching traffic. There she was, at the lights a block away.

What could be in her car to make her look like that? Or was he completely off base? Was it a guilty start, not a frightened start? Hard to say. She’d masked it so quickly.

Damn, he was going to have to follow her.

Climbing into his not-so-shiny Taurus, he fired it up, signaled and pulled into traffic.

Even at this hour with the first of the home-bound traffic leaving the downtown core, tailing her was child’s play. As he expected, she headed back to her office. No knocking off early for Suzannah Phelps. She probably put in longer days than he did. Two blocks from her uptown offices, she pulled into another office building’s parking lot. Quigg guided his vehicle into the gas bar next door and watched Suzannah drive to the back of the lot where she parked next to a blue dumpster.

Pretending to consult a map he’d pulled from his glove compartment, Quigg watched her get out of the car and scan the lot. Then she circled the BMW, opened the passenger door and pulled something out. The car itself blocked Quigg’s view, but he saw a flash of mauvey/pinky floral patterned paper. Then she lifted the dumpster’s lid and tossed the object in. Quickly, she rounded the car, climbed in and accelerated out of the lot.

Quigg watched her vehicle travel east along Prospect. When she signaled and turned into her office’s parking lot, he slipped his own car into gear. Thirty seconds later, he lifted the lid to the dumpster.

Flowers? She’d been scared witless by flowers?

More likely by who sent the flowers, he reasoned. Maybe they still had a card attached. Out of habit, he patted his pockets for latex gloves before remembering he didn’t have any on him. He wasn’t on duty. He had some in a first aid kit in his car, but he wasn’t about to dig them out. This wasn’t an investigation.

Well, not a sanctioned one.

Grimacing, he retrieved the prettily wrapped bouquet with his bare hands. The florist’s paper appeared pristine, undisturbed, as though Suzannah hadn’t even looked at the contents. Carefully, he peeled the paper back. Then he dropped the bouquet back into the dumpster.

Holy hell! Long-stemmed red roses. Or rather, what he suspected used to be red roses. Now they were more brown than red. Rusty, like old blood. Dead. Probably a dozen of them.

His mind whirled. How had she known? She hadn’t even opened the wrapper.

Because it wasn’t the first time, obviously.

Because they’d been deposited in her car, right there in the barristers’ parking lot, while she was inside defending Leo Warren. While a commissionaire kept an eye on the lot. While her car doors had no doubt been locked.

No wonder she’d been spooked.

He picked up the bouquet again and examined it closer. No card. There’s a surprise, Sherlock.

Why hadn’t she told him? She knew he was a cop.

Domestic. The answer came instantly. Had to be. She knew the source, but wasn’t prepared to make a complaint because she didn’t want to make trouble for the jerk who’d done this, thereby increasing his rage. How many times had he seen that age-old dynamic in operation?

Except he hadn’t expected it from Suzannah. She was too much of a fighter. What could be going on in her head?

Quigg tossed the bouquet back in the dumpster and closed the lid. Climbing back into the Taurus, he sat for long moments.

He should leave this alone. He knew it.

He also knew he wasn’t going to.

“This, you dumb-ass, is how careers are ruined.”

But she’d called him John. Back there, outside the courthouse, she’d called him by his Christian name. Nobody called him John, except his mother. It was Quigg, or Detective Quigley, or Officer, or even Hey, pig! But back there, while her index finger had traced delicate circles on his chest, she’d called him John.

Stifling a sigh, he keyed the ignition and slipped the Ford into gear.

 

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Excerpt from Nightfall

Copyright  © 2011  Norah Wilson

Chapter 1

 

AIDEN AFFLACK HUMMED to himself as he lifted the brass doorknocker to summon St. Cloud Police Chief Weldon Michaels to the front door of his Carrington Place residence. Rapping twice, he stepped back.

What was that tune running through his head? It had been with him since he’d risen this evening.

Audioslave? Nope.

Queens of the Stone Age? Un-uh.

Collective Soul? Yeah, yeah, that was it. Definitely. He cricked his neck one way, then the other and felt the satisfying crack. Ooh, I’m feeling better now.

The curtain in the bay window twitched, but Aiden feigned obliviousness. From inside, he clearly heard Michaels jam a clip into an automatic weapon. Aiden rolled his eyes. Nobody trusted anyone anymore.

“Who are you and what do you want?”

The voice came through the door. A very cautious man indeed.

“I’m a friend of your wife’s,” Aiden called. “Well, more a friend of a friend, actually, but I have a personal message for you, from her.”

“Nice try. Now move on, before I call the cops.”

Aiden thought about knocking the door in. It was solid oak with a good deadbolt on it, but it could have been made from cardboard and paperclips for all the challenge it would present. On the other hand, there was no reason to get messy.

He cleared his throat, did his best to summon a puzzled tone. “Well, hell, I thought you were the cops. Do I have the wrong address? I’m looking for Chief Weldon Michaels. Got a message for him from his wife Lucy. Pretty woman, ’bout an inch over five feet, brown hair and eyes? Oh, and a real cute little daughter. What’s her name?Devon? Any of this sounding familiar?”

Silence for a few heartbeats. “What kind of message?”

“She wants to come home, but before she can see her way clear to doing that, we need to have ourselves a talk.”

Another pause, then the sound of the deadbolt retracting. The door cracked open, and Weldon Michaels peered out past a security chain.

God save me from fools. Growling, Aiden pushed the door open. The hardware anchoring the security chain tore free from the wall. Before Michaels could cry out, Aiden stepped inside and closed the door behind him. In the next heartbeat, he seized Michaels’ right wrist and squeezed until the other man screamed and dropped the pistol he held. It hit the hardwood floor with a clatter but didn’t discharge.

“A gun?” Aiden released the other man’s hand. “Now I ask you, what kind of a greeting is that?”

Michaels — clearly a slow learner — reached for a second weapon jammed into the waistband at the small of his back. Before he could get to it, Aiden had Michaels face down on the floor with his right hand way closer to his right shoulder blade than God ever intended it to go.

“Jesus, my arm. You’re breaking it!”

“Not even close. You develop a feel for these things,” he said conversationally. “It’s sort of like braking when you’re driving on ice. You gotta find the threshold.”

“No, my shoulder! It’s gonna pop! I swear to God!”

Aiden reefed Michaels arm a half inch higher, eliciting a scream, followed by a stream of curses.

“See? Still plenty of play. It’s a feel thing. Now are you gonna behave yourself if I let you up?”

“Christ, yes! I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Atta boy.” Aiden helped the other man to his feet. “Now, let’s go plug the code into the alarm, shall we? And don’t fuck with me. If the alarm company or the cops call in a minute to ask if everything’s okay, things will be very much not okay for you. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Aiden “helped” Michaels to the alarm panel, where he keyed in a five-digit number. The winking red light went out.

“Good man. Now we’re going to need your handcuffs. I know they can’t be far away, since you laid hands on that pistol fast enough. So be a darling and let’s go fetch them.”

Michaels swore again.

“I know, I know. It’s gotta sting, getting cuffed with your own bracelets, but look at it this way: they’ll be a helluva lot more comfortable than the alternative if you force me to improvise.”

Michaels sagged. “In that drawer.”

A minute later, Chief Weldon Michaels sat cuffed in one of his own kitchen chairs, a sturdy-looking oak proposition. Michaels somehow managed to look both scared and pissed at the same time.

Aiden took a seat at the table, placing both guns — one retrieved from beneath the telephone table in the entryway and the other from the small of Michaels’ back — on the gleaming wood surface. “Okay, Weldon — may I call you Weldon? — we need to talk.”

Michaels glared back. “You’re wasting your time. I don’t keep anything of value of here, at least nothing portable enough to carry off. And damn you, you’ve already scored both my guns. I suggest you just let yourself out and get while the getting’s good.”

“You think I was bullshitting earlier, don’t you? You think I was feeding you a line about your wife to get inside?” Aiden leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up to rest on the table. “That’s rich.”

Fear flashed in the other man’s eyes, which he quickly attempted to hide with bravado. “Look, mister, if you have a message for me, let’s get on with it.”

“Afflack.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’re gonna call me mister, you might as well make it Mr. Afflack. Or Aiden, if you prefer.”

Another flash of fear. Aiden could almost hear the wheels turning in Michaels’ head. He’s shown me his face, given me his name. There can only be one reason for that…

“Not to worry, Weldy. I think I’ll call you Weldy.”

Michaels tensed. Testing the cuffs and the strength of the chair’s spindles, no doubt.

Aiden sighed. “For Chrissakes, I’m not planning to kill you. I’m just going to spend the night here chatting, much like we are right now.”

Michaels blinked. “Spend the night?”

“Forgive me. It’s probably horribly uncomfortable with those cuffs on. Let me just deal with these nasty guns. Then I’ll take the bracelets off so we can talk all civilized-like.”

Aiden picked up the SIG 9mm with his left hand, grasped the barrel with his right. Closing his eyes, he slid his hand up and down the barrel a few times to attune his mind to the metal. Then he bent it effortlessly.

“Jesus Christ!”

Aiden placed the ruined pistol back on the table, picked up the .22 and repeated the process on the gun’s short barrel.

“What the … how’d you do that?”

Aiden shrugged. “A parlor trick. You should see what I can do with a dinner fork.” He stood and extracted the handcuff key from the pocket of his worn jeans. “Now, about those cuffs…”

Michaels shrank back.

Aiden lifted his eyebrows. “What? You’d prefer to keep them on after all?”

The other man collected himself, embarrassment staining his cheeks. “Of course not. Please remove them.”

Aiden obliged.

As soon as his hands were free, Michaels immediately started massaging his sore right shoulder.

“Ah, yes, the shoulder. Sorry about that.” Aiden gave him his best aw shucks smile. “But I couldn’t have you putting bullet holes in me, could I?”

Michaels said nothing, but the stiffness in his face spoke volumes. Good. Get brave, you miserable little wife-beating worm. Get angry. Give me a reason to hurt you again.

Michaels cleared his throat. “So, this message from my wife?”

“She wants to come back toSt. Cloud. In fact, she’d like to move back into this very house, seeing as she put so much sweat equity into it.” Aiden glanced around at the tastefully appointed kitchen. “I must say she did a great job.”

“Of course she can come home. That’s all I’ve wanted since she left.”

“Ah, but there’s a catch, Weldy. You can’t stay.”

Michaels made a choking sound, but quickly found his voice. “She thinks I’m just going to clear out of town?”

“That would be ideal, but no, I don’t think she expects that. It will be sufficient if you leave this house and never darken the door again.”

Michaels started to bluster that he owned the goddamned place and no one could put him out of it, yadda, yadda, yadda.

“Save it,” Aiden commanded. “You see, I know what you did to her, Weldy.”

A pause. “I don’t know what she told you, but—”

“You systematically isolated her from her friends and pressured her into quitting work. Then, when you got her where you wanted her, you escalated the abuse. You terrorized her, Weldy. You threatened the life of her child if she tried to leave you. Is any of this sounding familiar? No? Well how about this: you used your position and power to convince her that escape was impossible.”

Michaels leapt up, his face wreathed in fury. “You don’t know the first fucking thing about my family.”

Aiden swung his feet to the floor, but remained in his chair. “Oh, I know quite a bit, Chief Michaels. For instance, I know you’ve been abusing the police resources at your fingertips to search for her, ensuring she had to stay on the run, unable to stay anywhere for any length of time. I know she’s terrified for her life and that of her daughter.”

“If she’d just—”

“Shut up, Weldy, and listen. I’m the messenger, and the message is that it’s over. She’s coming back, and you, my friend, are going to become the most obliging, most accommodating, most respectful ex-husband on the face of the planet. Oh, and you’ll relinquish any rights to the child.”

“Fuck you.” Powered by rage, Michaels gripped the table’s edge and overturned it, then bolted for the door.

Grinning, Aiden swept the table away as if it were constructed of matchsticks and gave chase, overtaking his quarry in a blur of speed. By the time Michaels reached the door, Aiden lounged against it, the picture of indolence.

“Going somewhere?”

“Jesus!”

Michaels’ face suddenly looked like it was stretched too tightly across the underlying bones. Shock did that to some people. With others, their faces went slack, as though—

“Who are you?” Michaels rasped. “Dear God, what are you?”

Aiden allowed his smile to spread, noting the precise moment when Michaels caught the first glimpse of his grossly elongated cuspids. This time, Michaels’ face slackened.

“I’m glad you asked.”

 

* * *

 

Sam Shea burrowed deeper into her denim jacket and shifted her legs yet again. The August night was soft, and three hours ago she would have called it warm. Now, however, dew was beginning to form on the blades of grass around her. Only the patch beneath her butt and outstretched legs remained dry as she sat propped against the base of a gargoyle statue.

Yes, a frickin’ cement gargoyle. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot of choices about where to pitch her tripod. It was the only spot in the vicinity where she could get far enough away from the ubiquitous streetlights to see even the brightest stars in the sky. Rural shoots were so much easier.

Of course, it was anybody’s guess what she was here to capture. It might have nothing to do with celestial bodies. On the other hand, what else could it be?

Well, okay, ninety minutes ago, she’d have laid bets that she was here for an electrical storm. The flashes of lightning had started to the south, illuminating the suburban landscape in an eerie purplish light. Counting the seconds between flash and boom, she tracked the storm from nearly ten miles off. She’d pack up and head for the car when it reached six miles, the safety zone. No photo was worth getting killed for, especially when she could get a decent shot from the relative safety of her rented Acura. But the storm had veered off at the last moment, making a retreat to the car unnecessary.

So if it wasn’t a fantabulous light show, what the heck had drawn her here?

For the first time in a very long time, she wondered if her vision had let her down. Right place maybe, but the wrong time? Or maybe there was another Carrington Place in St. Cloud, and she’d camped at the wrong one. But what were the chances of that in a city of just over 100,000 people? Of course, maybe there was another Carrington Place in an entirely different St. Cloud.

Except she knew she wasn’t wrong. She was never wrong. She’d thought so once, six years ago. After five hours of nothing more dramatic than the occasional distant meteor streaking across the night sky, she’d given up her post in disgust and gone back to the dubious comfort of her motel bed. The next morning, she’d found the local coffee shop abuzz about the dishwasher-sized meteorite that had crashed to earth in a pasture eight miles out of town. The same pasture where she’d abandoned her vigil at 4:00 am. If she hadn’t bailed out, it would have made a hell of a photo.

No, she wasn’t wrong. Despite the boredom of the past few hours, the raw energy that had drawn her here still persisted. Something was going to happen here, dammit.

For the umpteenth time tonight, she flicked on her hand-held infrared spotlight, lifted her infrared binoculars to her eyes and did a ground-level scan. Two houses down, a skunk made its leisurely way across the front lawn, oblivious of the surveillance. Nothing else stirred. With a sigh, she lowered her binoculars and flicked the light off.

No light show in the sky. Nothing interesting on the ground.

She leaned back again, wriggled her butt into a more comfortable position and glanced up at the leering griffin’s massive head. “Don’t let me nod off, okay? I’d hate to miss the fireworks. Or whatever we’re going to have.”

Predictably, the griffin made no reply.

“Okay, be like that,” she muttered. “See if I—”

The sound of a door closing — specifically, the door of the two-story house directly across the street — cut short her one-sided conversation with the gargoyle. Automatically, she reached for the floodlight and the binoculars.

There! A man — rendered slightly greenish, thanks to the infrared technology — gliding out the flagstone driveway.

Quickly, she traded the binoculars for the tripod-mounted digital camera, flipping it to NightShot mode. A quick look through the viewfinder confirmed the target was out of range for the camera’s infrared illuminator. Dammit. She squeezed the trigger switch on the spotlight again, locked it in the on position, planted its legs in the soft earth and trained it on the adjacent driveway. This time when she found her subject through the viewfinder, her mouth went dry.

Dear God! If she could give the fiercest storm a corporeal human body, this is what it would look like. Beauty and violence, all rolled up in one gorgeous, terrible package.

Zoom, focus.

God, what a face!

Hard zoom, focus, click.

Without conscious thought, habit took over as she snapped picture after picture.

She watched him draw out a cigarette and apply a flame to it. Fascinated, she watched him inhale deeply, remove the cigarette from between sensual lips, then exhale. Then he lifted his lids and looked directly into her camera lens.

Sam pulled back, shrinking closer to the gargoyle’s cold cement base. He can’t see me. Not from this distance. He’s standing in the light and I’m buried in shadow. And he sure as hell can’t see my spotlight.

Carefully, she leaned forward again to peer through the viewfinder. And there he was, still staring straight into the camera. And then — holy mother of God — he smiled at her. A knowing, toe-curling, sex-drenched smile.

She jerked back again, but this time, she failed to suppress a gasp. Not that it mattered, because he was gone. Vanished. She searched the sidewalks for his retreating form, but he’d melted away as completely as the smoke from his cigarette had dissipated in the night air.

She exhaled the lungful of air she’d been holding. Whew! That was … interesting.

But even more interesting was the dawning conviction that nothing more was going to happen here. As she sat there bringing her heartbeat under control, she realized that the muted anticipation that kept her rooted to this spot for half the night had dissipated. Interesting, indeed.

Well, no point hanging around now. She got to her knees and packed her gear. Before stowing the camera, she flipped back through the pictures she’d captured to make sure she hadn’t imagined the last minutes. She hadn’t  There he was. Even frozen in greenish miniature, he emitted an improbable dynamism. She frowned. Could he be the force that had called her here? A shiver lifted the hairs on her arm. It didn’t seem very likely. Of course, the alternative to that scenario was that her vision had been just plain wrong, which was even less palatable than the thought that a man might have drawn her here.

Sighing, she shut off the camera and tucked it carefully in the carry tote. With a last glance around the empty streets, she headed for her car. Ten minutes in a hot shower and a few hours sleep on the pillow-top mattress at her hotel would fix her up. She’d figure this thing out in the morning.

 

* * *

 

An hour later, she turned on a lamp and crawled out of bed. The dream would just keep coming back if she didn’t write it down. She found a pen and hotel stationery and scribbled the words St. Cloud, riverbank under the bridge, tomorrow night. Call and postpone your flight!

There. Maybe now she could sleep.

Three hours later, after a poached egg and a cup of room-service coffee, Sam uploaded the images from her camera’s flash card onto her photo viewer, a task she would normally have done last night. Backup was critical in this business. But since she hadn’t captured anything saleable, she hadn’t bothered. Now, she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw confirmation that the upload was successful.

She paged quickly through the first few photos, which she’d taken merely to fine-tune her settings. The house across the street with its foot lighting, the row of streetlights marching west, the retaining wall behind her. Then she reached the first shot of the man.

Ugh. Monochromatic green. NightShot was useful for surreptitiously framing your shot, but you then had to switch modes to get a normal-looking color shot. Of course, that required using a visible flash, which in turn required her to be considerably closer to the subject. It was great for photographing small critters in darkness, but not so great for capturing people. It just wasn’t socially acceptable to creep up on a stranger and blast their night vision away with a blinding flash.

Especially this stranger.

She bent closer to the display to inspect her work. She’d zoomed in on the guy, but it was a full-body shot rather than tight to the face. He looked taller than she remembered, but the wide shoulders and narrow hips were the same, as was the longish, wavy hair. He wore what appeared to be a leather jacket over a dark shirt and dark pants.

She pulled back, feeling oddly disappointed.

He had the kind of body that would make any woman look twice, no question about it. But she just wasn’t feeling that same gut punch she’d felt last night. Guess she could chalk last night’s reaction up to jet-lagged giddiness and the late hour.

She toggled up the next photo, and oh, baby, there it was, that thrill low in the belly.

A high forehead pleated in a frown, and a straight nose. Several strands of curly blond hair spilled forward to graze high cheekbones, partially obscuring his eyes. At least, she thought his hair was blond. It was too pale to be otherwise. The light also illuminated lean cheeks, a strong chin and an unsmiling mouth. Beautiful. Stern. Forbidding.

She advanced the next photo, and sucked in her breath on a hiss.

His face was tilted toward her to better reveal a sinfully gorgeous male mouth, but that wasn’t what set her heart to pounding. It was his attitude of sharpened senses. She could swear he was scenting the night breeze through those flared nostrils, his head cocked to catch the slightest sound, eyes searching the darkness. She leapt out of her chair, overcome by the sensation that she was about to be discovered.

God, woman, get a grip. She snorted at her own panicked reaction. He couldn’t see her. Not now, and not last night, either. At most, he may have suspected he was being watched and played to a possible audience, but standing under the streetlight like that, looking into the deep shadows… No, there was no way he could have seen her.

She seated herself in front of the viewer again and toggled up the next photo. Despite being prepared this time, her heart still jolted in her chest.

He was looking straight at her!

And oh yeah, he’d known he had an audience. An appreciative audience. Unlikely as it seemed, he must have sensed her. Awareness was written there in his face, in the lift of an eyebrow and that sensual, full-lipped smile.

Sam expelled her breath. “Well, aren’t you all that?”

The unknown man smiled back from the photo, his NightShot-glowing eyes maddeningly unreadable.

Magnetic.

The word slid into her mind, making her lips tighten. Last night, she’d allowed herself to contemplate the idea that this man might be the force that drew her here. The idea was no more palatable in daylight than it was in the dark of night. To think she might have delayed her return to Sioux City after the Montreal gallery opening, extending her Canadian trip to come to St. Cloud, New Brunswick, to take a photo of a mere man?

No. No way. It didn’t bear thinking about. She’d been mistaken about the time and location, that’s all. There was a first time for everything, right? Besides, last night’s vision had rectified the mistake. She now had a very clear idea where she needed to be and when.

She toggled the cursor, but there were no more images. Sam moved backwards to the final picture, the one where she was sure he knew she watched him, and shivered.

Maybe she’d do a little research, for curiosity’s sake, starting with finding out who lived at that Carrington Place address she’d camped outside of last night. Maybe something would surface to explain why she’d been called there.

Four hours later, she had a fix on the owners, a couple by the name of Weldon and Lucy Michaels. A Local Google search revealed that Weldon was the chief of police here in St. Cloud, but turned up nothing on Lucy. Well, that let out anything nefarious going on inside that house, him being the chief of police and all.

She pushed thoughts of Michaels and his late night visitor to the back of her mind and turned her attention to preparing for tonight’s stakeout. After studying maps at the library, she drove unerringly to the downtown, parked in a parking garage, and set out on foot with her camera bag slung over her shoulder. A four-minute walk connected her with the riverfront walking trail, and another ten minutes put her practically in the shadow of the bridge. The grass was tall here, with a couple of distinct trails leading down the embankment toward the river. This was it. This was the place. She fished her digital out of her bag and took a couple of shots.

The sound of crunching gravel alerted Sam to the presence of another pedestrian. She glanced up to see a young man approaching from the west. As he neared, she noted industrial facial piercings and a faux-hawk.

She lifted a hand. “Excuse me, could I—”

“Sorry,” he said, side-stepping her. “I don’t pose for tourists.”

As if. Before she could correct his assumption, he’d walked on. She jogged to catch up.

“Hey, if I wanted to take your picture, I wouldn’t want to do it here. I’d want to do it in a studio, or at least with the proper lighting equipment to do you justice. But that’s not why I stopped you. I just have a question.”

He slowed. Apparently flattery worked. “Whatcha wanna know?”

“Those paths back there, the ones leading down to the river. What’s that all about?”

He shifted the bag he was carrying from one tattooed shoulder to the other. “Homeless.”

Sam felt the truth resonate inside. Yes, that fit with the feeling the dream had left her with. “Is anyone down there now?”

Judging by the look he gave her, she expected him to say, What am I? Kreskin?, but what actually emerged was, “Dunno. Maybe. Or maybe they’d be out hustling for handouts this time of day.”

Sam chewed the inside of her lip. “The police don’t object to them living down there?”

“The cops?” He snorted. “Don’t imagine they give a rat’s ass where they sleep at night, long as they’re outta sight. All they really care about is keepin’ the panhandlin’ under control.” He glanced up the trail, obviously wanting to be on his way.

“Thanks for your help.”

“No problem.” He hiked his bag up and walked off.

She lifted her camera and took a few shots before crossing the neatly mown green to the taller grasses. She picked the closest path, which also happened to be the most well-worn, and descended the embankment, pausing occasionally to take more pictures. Passing through a thin belt of trees, she emerged to find a hard-packed footpath paralleling the river’s edge.

The smell assailed her immediately. There was the usual pungent river smell that made you think of mud and fish and silt and organic rot, but underlying it was the unmistakable odor of human urine. Ugh. She snapped another picture.

She turned west and walked toward the bridge. Before she got twenty yards, she spotted the first makeshift shelters. Made from a mishmash of plywood, corrugated cardboard and blue plastic tarpaulins, the flimsy structures huddled just inside a thin belt of trees she’d just come through. No wonder none of this was visible from the walking path. For that matter, it probably wasn’t terribly visible from above either, save perhaps for a few flashes of blue through the canopy of leaves.

Briefly, she thought about following the path all the way to the bridge and out the other side of the copse of tree. The riverbank appeared to be deserted, but she couldn’t bring herself to go further. Deserted or not, there was something invasive and ugly about wandering past these squalid refuges like a sightseer, camera in hand. Plus, frankly she was scared. These people couldn’t or wouldn’t be integrated into normal society, often due to chronic mental illness. It was the same in cities all over North America. Bursting at the seams, psychiatric hospitals everywhere disgorged their long-term residents into their streets to make do the best they could.

She retraced her steps and continued west along the trail until she found another path in the tall grass. As she expected, it led down to the river, then back toward the treed area that concealed the tent community. Again, she ventured only far enough down the path to spy where flashes of blue tarp began to reappear. Though less plentiful on this side, she counted six structures, some of them no more than lean-tos.

She turned and looked west. Less than a mile away, tall condominium buildings and a handful of old brick office buildings rose up against the skyline. Sighing, she retraced her steps up the incline, through the tall grasses to the manicured green bisected by the graveled walking trail. Just like that, she was back in the shiny clean St. Cloud of the tourist brochures.

She turned back eastward and followed the trail for a hundred yards or so before veering off toward the concealing ribbon of brush and trees that shielded the shelters. A handy thing, that little green belt. It kept the homeless out of sight and out of mind for the tax-paying, job-holding, upstanding citizens ofSt. Cloud. That same invisibility kept the ire of the police off the backs of the vagrants.

She followed the tree line with difficulty. The grass here was knee deep, and without benefit of a beaten path, it conspired to trip her with every step. But just the other side of the bridge, she found what she was looking for — the perfect vantage point for surveilling the area later tonight.

Tucked just inside the tree line, it afforded enough cover for her, and offered the best view she was likely to get of the encampment below. Also ideal was the positioning of the streetlights on the four-lane bridge above and the towering light standard that illuminated the walking trail behind her. With any luck, there should be sufficient light to monitor goings on without having to constantly sweep the area with her infrared equipment. Likewise, it was close enough that she could step out of the tree line quickly if the commotion tonight turned out to be a light show in the sky.

Satisfied, she trekked the short distance back to her car. Just one more task and she could go back to her hotel and catch a few hours sleep. Stashing her equipment in the trunk of the rental, she walked half a block to Queen Street and found a payphone. She located the general number for the St. Cloud Police Department, plugged a quarter into the phone and dialed it.

When the receptionist answered, Sam instructed the woman to put her through to Chief Michaels, employing the tone she’d learned in her first year in business-for-self. The trick to obtaining cooperation was not to demand it, but rather to simply take that cooperation for granted. Faced with such easy, inherent authority, most people gave her exactly what she expected. The St. Cloud PD receptionist was no exception.

The phone rang twice in Michaels’ office before it was answered. “Chief Michaels,” a voice clipped. “Who am I talking to?”

“Good afternoon, Chief. I’m a reporter for—”

“Whoa. You can stop right there, lady. We have a communications officer who handles press inquiries. Call the switchboard again and they’ll route you—”

“You had a visitor last night. Is that right, Chief Michaels?”

A pause. “I’m going to transfer you to my personal line. Please hang on.”

She heard him make the transfer. Before his personal phone could manage a full ring-burst, he’d picked it up.

“Dammit, what more do you people want from me?”

You people?

“I’m sorry,” he said, rushing to fill the silence. “I’m just a little tense. The moving company is there right now, packing up my belongings. I’ll be out by nightfall, just like I said.”

Sam blinked, listening to his ragged breathing. What the devil was he talking about? Channeling that voice of authority again, she went fishing:  “Very good. And the rest?”

“I won’t hurt her again, I swear it. I won’t even make contact. She can move back tomorrow. I’ll give her a divorce, full custody ofDevon, the house … whatever she wants.”

Holy crap! What had she stumbled into?

“Hello? Hello?” The chief’s voice rose on a note of panic. “Are you still there?”

“Relax, Chief. I’m still listening.”

“You have to believe me! I’ll never lay a hand on Lucy again. On either of them. God, I won’t even breathe in their direction. You’ll see. You can watch me as closely as you like.”

He’d been abusing his family? Bastard. “You can bet we’ll be watching,” she said in her silkiest voice. “Need I tell you what we think of recidivists?”

“No, ma’am. I’m sorry. Jesus … my ulcer. I have to go. I’m sorry.”

The line went dead. Slowly, Sam hung up the receiver. Well, well, wasn’t that interesting? Chief Michaels’ late-night visitor had been a friend of Mrs. Michaels. And a very persuasive one, by all appearances. What could he possibly have said or done to reduce the chief of police to the jabbering wreck she’d just talked to?

She thought about the photos back in her hotel room and the peculiar energy that had emanated from Michaels’ caller, and decided he was probably quite capable of decimating stronger men.

No matter. It was none of her concern. Michaels was still alive and well, and presumably newly embarked on the straight and narrow.

But who was the mystery caller? The estranged wife’s new boyfriend? Hired muscle? Some vigilante out to avenge victims of violence? Random whack-job?

Well, she wasn’t going to solve that mystery here, standing in a phone booth.

Correction — she wasn’t going to solve that mystery at all.

Stepping out of the phone booth, she headed for her rental and the promise of a nap back at her hotel room. She had to be fresh, had to focus on tonight. Whatever the reason she’d been called to St. Cloud, it would all become clear tonight.

 

 

Nightfall is available until February 27, 2013 at the price of just 99 cents, at these ebook retailers:

 

Amazon.com  |  Amazon.co.uk (£0.77 )  |  B&N  |  iTunes  |  Smashwords

 

 

Posting the excerpt from Guarding Suzannah last week was so much fun, I’m going to do it again for Book 2 in the series, Saving Grace.

 

 

To set the scene, Fredericton Police Detective Ray Morgan has been forced to take the wife he believes has been unfaithful on the lam with him while he tries to figure out who is trying to kill them. She’d shocked him to the core  a week ago when she’d announced she was leaving him to go join some unnamed other man, but she’d wound up crashing her car on the way out of town and no longer remembers anything. Not the name of the guy, not even the fact that she was having an affair. Her neurologist says the memories may come back, but she needs time and peace and rest. That plan goes out the window when bullets start flying and Ray gets jammed up by an internal investigation he fears is a frame job. He has to keep them safe until he can unravel the mystery and safely go back to his life. What he doesn’t count on is falling in love with his wife of five years, for real this time.

 

 

Ray was right, Grace thought, as she clutched the towel around her shoulders. Her hair had always been her “thing”. A full, rich sable, it fell perfectly straight with the lightest encouragement with a brush and blow dryer. Everything else about her might be forgettable, but people noticed her hair.

It seemed only right somehow that she should sacrifice it.

“Okay, give me some guidance, here.”

Poor Ray. He’d dodged bullets back there in that parking lot without breaking a sweat, but his hands were shaking now. She pretended not to notice.

“Just comb out a small section, then pull it tight between your fingers.”

“Like this?”

“Closer.”

“Forget it, Grace. I’m not cutting it that short. There’d be nothing left for the hairdresser to fix.”

“But that’s hardly short enough to make any difference.”

They compromised, agreeing on a mid-length.

“Okay, what now?”

“Just angle your fingers like so.” She used her own fingers to demonstrate.

“Like this?”

“Perfect. Now snip away.”

He muttered something that sounded like “Hail Mary,” and snipped.

The coppery lock fell onto her denim-covered knee. No going back now. For a moment, panic assailed her.

“Grace?”

She cleared her throat. “That’s good. Keep going.”

The second lock fell, this one hitting the newspapers, joining Ray’s impossibly blond hairs. She blinked rapidly. It was just hair. An external manifestation of her stupid vanity. She would not cry.

Besides, her old precision haircut was fine for the woman she’d been before this nightmare started. The new Grace needed something different. It was going to take all the courage she could scrape together to get through this. Just as her smooth coif had given her poise and polish, maybe a sassier color and a rough-and-ready cut would lend her the edge she needed.

Image was everything, right? Fake it until you can make it.

“What do I do with the front?”

She glanced up at Ray. His mouth was set in that way that made his jawbones stand out, the grooves bracketing his mouth deeper than ever. He looked like a man completely out of his depth and hating it.

“Leave it fairly long, about so.” She indicated a spot at the level of her cheekbone.

“Christ, I’m probably making a mess of this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “With all the mousse and hair spray I bought at that drug store, I could probably make it look like the CN Tower, if I wanted to.”

That earned a laugh, but when he made the next snip, his jaw had again taken on that grim line. The chair wasn’t high enough, she noticed. He had to bend to do the job, which must be killing his back.

And that’s not all she noticed, now that her panic had passed. His hands were clumsy in her hair, compared to the brisk competence of her stylist. But they were gentler, too. He separated the next section delicately, easing the comb through a snarl. She shivered.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt.”

But it did hurt. Quite suddenly, it hurt a lot. It hurt that this was the first time he’d voluntarily touched her for so long, apart from that display they put on for the clerk.

And, oh, that scene in the office! She dropped her eyelids, her face heating at the memory. The way he’d touched her….

She clamped down on the warmth flooding her belly. Nothing had changed. Their performance had been necessary to divert the clerk’s attention.

Still, awareness shimmered through her when he pushed his fingers through her hair again.

“Almost done. Then you can get that cold towel off your shoulders,” he said, obviously mistaking her shiver.

True to his word, he was soon finished. Grace didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when he pronounced her done. Removing the towel from around her neck, she strode to the closet-sized bathroom to inspect her new appearance. She flipped the switch for the overhead light and froze.

Yikes! Was that really her? Her eyes looked huge, her chin more pointed. Lord, it even seemed to lift her cheekbones.

Ray’s reflection appeared behind her in the mirror. “What’s the verdict?”

“Wow.”

“Sorry,” he said gruffly. “I told you it was a mistake.”

“No, it’s good. You did a better job on me than I did on you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Really. A little mousse and a blow dryer and it’ll kick butt.”

He just regarded her in the mirror, unspeaking, a yellow-haired stranger.

She pushed a tendril of hair behind her ear and sighed. “I suppose I should style it now, so we can hit the road.”

“No, let’s get a few hours sleep first. We can finish our transformations in the morning.”

She met his gaze in the mirror. “I thought we were going to sneak away under cover of night?”

He shook his head. “Better to blend in with rush hour traffic tomorrow morning than travel tonight. I just wanted to pay for the room in advance so we wouldn’t have to show ourselves to the clerk after we’d morphed.”

“We actually get to grab some sleep?”

The corners of his mouth turned up at her obvious relief, his eyes crinkling the way she loved. She smiled back into the mirror. For a few seconds, despite their altered appearances, they were the old Ray and Grace, but then his face sobered again.

“You take the bed; I’ll sleep in the chair.”

He turned and left the bathroom, leaving her staring into the mirror at the empty spot where he’d stood. She drew a deep breath, then followed him.

“That’s not going to work, Ray. You’ll insist on driving tomorrow, which is fine, but that means you’re the one who needs the rest. I’ll take the chair tonight, then doze in the car tomorrow.”

“I can sleep anywhere, Grace. It’s part of the training. You, on the other hand, would sit awake all night, and we can’t have that. We’re both gonna have to be sharp.”

And you’d rather wake up with a cricked neck, a sore back and a killer headache than share that bed with me.

She felt like crying again, which was really stupid. He’d slept on the couch every night since she’d come home from the hospital. Why should it hurt that he sleep elsewhere again?

She shrugged and turned away. “Suit yourself,” she said, picking up a t-shirt and disappearing back into the bathroom.

 

 

Just for fun, here’s an excerpt from Guarding Suzannah, Book 1 in my Serve and Protect Series. The books are available singly, or you can get them all at once in the box set.

 

 

“Rise and shine, sweetheart.”

Suzannah groaned and tried to burrow deeper into the pillows, grasping at the threads of her lovely dream. Hard masculine hands on her body, gravel-voiced words of praise in her ear, hot mouth blazing over her skin….

“Come on, Suzannah. I got a dog at home whose gonna pee on my brand new speakers if I don’t get home and let him out.”

Her eyes flew open. John Quigley. He’d stayed last night, and now he was in her bedroom. She jackknifed up, the twisted sheets pooling in her lap. “Of course. Go. Yes. By all means.” Oh, Lord, she was stammering.

“It’s early yet, barely dawn. I’d stay longer, but the dog….”

“The speakers. Right.” She pushed her hair back from her face and glanced at the digital alarm. Not yet five a.m. She glanced back at John to find his face had changed, sharpened with an edgy, dark intensity.

Oh, hell! Her nipples thrust sharply against her thin cotton tank, thanks to that dream. A dream in which the man standing by her bed, mere inches away, had played a starring role. For a wild, terrifying second, she visualized herself reaching out to touch him as she might have in the dream, her caress bold, sexual, deliberate. There wasn’t a shred of doubt in her mind that he’d answer her need with gratifying urgency.

The idea was scary, dizzying, thrilling, incredibly powerful. Then sanity returned.

She sank back down onto her pillows, pulling the covers up to her chin and burrowing back into her pillow as though to go back to sleep. “Okay,” she mumbled through the sheets. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Whoa, whoa. Don’t go back to sleep just yet. I need you to throw the deadbolt behind me. It’s getting lighter by the minute, but I’d feel better if the bolt were thrown.”

Damn. “Okay.” She sat up again, this time with the sheets modestly clamped to her chest. “Give me a sec. I’ll drag on a robe and meet you down there.”

His eyes said eloquently that he wished she wouldn’t bother with the robe, but he merely nodded and withdrew.

The moment she heard his tread on the stairs, she leapt out of bed. Damn it, damn it, damn it! She strode into her walk-in closet and yanked a silk robe off a hanger with less care than the garment deserved. Of all the men in her world for her to fixate on, why this one? He was arrogant, pushy, exasperating in the extreme. Too tough, too forceful, too … yang.

And he was a cop.

So why did her body light up for him as it did for no other?

Chemistry. Random, unreasoning, unfortunate chemistry.

She pulled the robe on, wrapping it around her. Well, she never had been very good at chemistry back in school. And she’d get along very well without it fogging her brain again, thank you. On that thought, she cinched the belt of her robe tightly around her waist and marched downstairs to lock Detective John Quigley out of her house, and with any luck, out of her life.