The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception Read online

  Seated across from her, Blake knew the minute he’d lost her. One second, her eyes were all dreamy, a sexy little smile playing with her mouth, and the next, her cheeks didn’t have any color and she’d withdrawn into herself. And it didn’t take an Einstein to figure out that her mind was back at the police station with that murdering ex-husband of hers. And he was jealous. He wasn’t happy about it, but he couldn’t avoid the truth when it slapped him right in the face. Somehow, without quite knowing how it had happened, he had come to think of her as his.

  God, he had to get this caveman stuff under control, he told himself. But even as he lectured himself to get a grip, he pushed his iced tea and place setting across the table. When Sabrina blinked in surprise, he grinned crookedly and moved around to slide in next to her on her side of the booth. “You look a little lonely over here all by yourself, Jones. Mind if I join you?”

  Since he already had, she could do nothing but laugh. “Don’t mind me, Nickels. Make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks. I think I will.” Slipping an arm around her shoulders, he drew her flush against his side, unmindful of who might be watching. It wasn’t until then that he realized just how badly he’d needed to have her back in his arms. “You know, Jones,” he confided huskily as he trailed his fingers up and down her arm, “I could get used to holding you. You’re real…touchable.”

  Watching her, he caught a wisp of a smile, then he felt it, that softening that always seemed to steal his breath when she leaned against him, letting him take her weight. “We’re supposed to be working, Nickels.”

  Her tone was gently reproving—but she didn’t pull away. Encouraged, Blake blatantly caressed her. “I am, sweetheart. I’m working real hard at controlling myself.”

  “Blake!”

  “I just love it when you cry out my name that way,” he growled outrageously. “Do it again.”

  She laughed, she couldn’t help herself. “Stop that!” She giggled, casting a quick look around. “I swear, I just can’t take you anywhere. We’re in a public restaurant, for heaven’s sake!”

  Unrepentant, he leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “There’s not another soul within twenty feet, and he’s half-asleep. Which is what we would not be doing if we were back in my bed,” he muttered roughly for her ears alone.

  Telling her exactly what he would do to her if they were back in his apartment, he watched in growing satisfaction as the color flowed back into her pale cheeks, and her eyes lost that haunted look. And while she might have been chilled by her own thoughts only a few moments ago, the lady definitely wasn’t cold now. Leaning more fully against him, she was warm and soft and responsive, and she never even flinched when the waiter brought their food, then quickly left them alone.

  If he thought he was pulling a fast one on her, however, she quickly set him straight once the waiter was out of earshot. Capturing the hand that had dropped to her knee, she gave his fingers a warning squeeze. “You think you’re pretty tricky, don’t you, Nickels?”

  “Who? Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You can cut the innocent act, cowboy. It’s not working. The day you’re innocent is the day the Alamo becomes the next Disneyland. You’re not the type to seduce a woman in a public place. You’re trying to take my mind off Jeff.”

  Amusement glinting in his eyes, he leaned down and brushed a kiss across her mouth. “So how am I doing?”

  Surprised that he even had to ask, she grinned. “I’ll let you know later—when we’re alone.” When he groaned, she only laughed and pulled his arm from around her shoulder. “Eat, Nickels, before your food gets cold.”

  For the next twenty minutes, by unspoken agreement, they avoided any mention of Jeff or the murders or the evidence that Sam Kelly was even now collecting against her former husband. Concentrating instead on their food, they enjoyed each other’s company as if they didn’t have a care in the world. They traded stories about their childhoods and colleges and every boss they’d ever had, then argued good-naturedly over their favorite movies. By the time they stopped to catch a breath, their plates were clean and they were both more relaxed than when they had walked in.

  That couldn’t last, however. As they headed back to the police station, Blake shifted the conversation to the weirdest stories they’d ever covered, but Sabrina couldn’t concentrate. Tension crawled along her nerves, wiring her, and her steps unconsciously slowed as the station grew closer and closer. For the first time in her life, she actually dreaded a press conference.

  “You start stiffening up again and I’m going to have to kiss you right here on the street in front of God and everyone,” Blake warned as he laced his fingers with hers. “You’ll get through this, Jones. Just don’t beat yourself up over it. None of it was your fault.”

  She could have told him it was too late for that—somehow, she should have seen this coming—but they’d reached the front steps of the station by then and it was time to go back to work. Resisting the sudden childish need to cling to his hand, she gave his fingers a quick squeeze, then dropped them, squared her shoulders, and marched up the steps.

  When Sam Kelly presented himself to the press at seven in the morning, he didn’t look as though he’d been up all night. Clean-shaven and neatly dressed in a gray suit and white shirt that didn’t show a single wrinkle, he walked into the media room with a confident step and took the podium like a man who was well used to taking control. All business, he greeted the crowd with a brisk good-morning and, without bothering to glance at his notes, began to relate the details of the arrest of Jeff Harper.

  “Mr. Harper was taken into custody at 2:23 this morning at his home on O’Connor Road. He initially resisted arrest, but there were four uniformed officers on the scene and he was quickly subdued. Presently, he is being charged with the murders of Charlene McClintock, Tanya Bishop, and Elizabeth Reagan.”

  “Why not Denise Green?” Jason McQuire, a reporter for the local ABC affiliate, called out. “Are you saying that Harper didn’t kill her?”

  “No,” he said carefully, “I’m saying that he’s not currently being charged with that murder. The M.O. in Ms. Green’s murder was slightly different, and we’re not booking anyone until we’ve had a chance to sift through the evidence more thoroughly.”

  Seated next to Sabrina at the rear of the room, Blake spoke up. “When did Jeff Harper become a suspect?”

  His expression grim, Sam said, “Right after Sabrina Jones got the first note about Tanya Bishop’s murder. We knew the murderer was somehow linked to her—it was just a matter of finding out how. As most of you may or may not know, the suspect is Ms. Jones’s ex-husband.”

  “Did you find physical evidence linking him to the crimes?” a reporter from Austin asked. “Is that why you were at his house so long?”

  Automatically taking notes, Sabrina listened as Sam described the extensive evidence found at Jeff’s home. A gun—an unregistered .38 wiped clean of fingerprints—and a stash of bullets were found in the garage, wedged up in the rafters behind a box full of Christmas ornaments. They wouldn’t know for sure until ballistics tests were done, but Sam and his men were pretty sure it was the same .38 used to kill the four women. The fact that it had been wrapped in various items of clothing that were believed to have belonged to the victims and were taken by the killer as trophies only added to the conviction that the gun was the murder weapon.

  A radio reporter from the nearby town of Seguin said, “So the evidence you have presently is circumstantial?”

  His mouth tightening, Sam nodded. “Obviously, we’d like an eyewitness or a confession, but given what we’ve got, we’re sure we have the right man. The gun and clothes didn’t just walk into Harper’s garage by themselves and hide. And we have three witnesses who will testify to seeing a car matching the suspect’s in the area at the time two of the murders were committed.”

  “What about an alibi?” Blake asked.

  “Mr. Harper claims he was at home with his w
ife at the time of all four murders, but when we questioned the wife, she couldn’t corroborate that because she was asleep each time and couldn’t guarantee that he was in the house or not.”

  Stricken, her hand flying across her notebook as she jotted down notes, Sabrina wanted to cry out that this was all a terrible mistake. It had to be. But even as she tried to find an explanation for the facts that Kelly had so clearly laid out before them, her own professional objectivity forced her to admit that the evidence was damning. If it had pointed to the guilt of any other man but Jeff, she would have believed it in a heartbeat.

  Sick at the thought, she had to force herself to concentrate on the task at hand. “What broke the case for you?” she asked Sam. “It couldn’t have been the recovery of the murder weapon. You didn’t find it until you went in to make the arrest, did you?”

  “No, but we knew it was on the property somewhere—”

  “How?”

  “We got an anonymous tip around seven-thirty last night,” he admitted. “And before you all start throwing questions at me, there’s not a lot I can tell you about that,” he said quickly when most of the inhabitants of the room perked up in interest. “The call came in over a 911 line from a pay phone across the street from the Alamo. As you know, that area is usually crowded with tourists, especially in the middle of the summer, and no one noticed anything. We do know the caller was male, but that’s about it. He claimed he preferred not to give his name because he’s a neighbor of Harper’s and has to live on the same block with him. If he was mistaken in what he had seen, he didn’t want the suspect to know that he was the one who had turned him in. That’s all I can tell you.”

  The roomful of reporters had no intention of letting the matter drop with that, and started firing questions at him. There was, however, little else he could add. If he had any other information, it wasn’t for public consumption until the trial, which wouldn’t be for months. Minutes later, the press conference broke up.

  They rode back to the Daily Record in silence. His attention divided between his driving and Sabrina’s withdrawn figure, Blake ground a curse between his teeth. He’d watched her all during the press conference, watched her agitation as she jerkily scribbled notes, watched her almost visibly flinch as Kelly gave an accounting of the evidence. She hurt, and it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching for her. She hurt, and he hated that.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t understand how she could have any kind of feelings for the bastard who’d had her looking over her shoulder every time she stepped outside. Harper had threatened to kill her, for God’s sake! For no other reason than that, Blake would have liked to hang him up by his thumbs and leave him to twist in the wind. That, however, wasn’t going to make Sabrina feel any better, and that was his only concern right now.

  Braking to a stop at the curb in front of the Daily Record, he frowned. She was safe now. It was all right for him to let her out of his sight. The rational part of his brain knew that he could let her go back to her life and not worry about some sleazeball stalking her like a hunter after his next big kill. The nightmare was over, the danger past. He no longer had to feel responsible for her.

  But even as he silently acknowledged that, he was reluctant to let her go. They needed to talk. But they couldn’t do it now, not when they each had to get back to their papers and write their accounts of the night’s events. Over the course of the next twelve hours, there would be recaps of each murder to do and interviews with Harper’s friends and neighbors. And one with Harper himself if he could get it, he silently acknowledged.

  Just the thought of that should have had him making his excuses so he could get to the jail and convince the man to give him an exclusive. Instead, he said, “Do you want me to come in with you? I can wait while you write your story, then take you home so you can get your car.”

  Sabrina hesitated, wanting to jump at the offer, but she knew she couldn’t. He had his own story to write, and she couldn’t take advantage of him that way. But Lord, how she wanted to! For the first time in her career, she dreaded writing a breaking story. Just thinking about Jeff and the hatred he must feel for her made her want to jump into Blake’s arms. But she was no longer in danger—she no longer needed his protection. Her heart ached at the thought of going back to an adversarial relationship with him, but she was the one who had insisted only a few weeks ago that there was no place in her future for him or any other man. She couldn’t cling to him now.

  Reluctantly, she shook her head. “Thanks, but that’s not necessary. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me, and you’ve got your own work to do. I’ll get a ride.”

  He wanted to argue—she could see the struggle going on his eyes—but she didn’t give him the chance. Reaching for the door handle, she said huskily, “I’ve got to go.”

  He made no move to stop her, but just as she stepped out of his truck, he warned, “You haven’t seen the last of me, Jones. When things calm down a little, we’re going to talk.”

  His words carried the hint of a promise—and a threat. Her heart doing a flip-flop in her chest, Sabrina watched him drive away and bit her tongue to keep from calling him back.

  Fitz told her later that her piece about Jeff’s arrest was one of the best she had ever written, but Sabrina took little pleasure in the compliment. She’d tried to divorce herself both physically and emotionally from it and write it as she would any other story, but she just couldn’t do it. By the time she finally finished, she was drained. Her head ached and her eyes burned, and all she wanted to do was go home and sleep around the clock.

  But in spite of the fact that she had started work before four that morning, her day had hardly begun. She had a whole string of interviews she had to conduct, starting with the crime scene investigators who had uncovered the evidence at Jeff’s house and continuing right down to the snow-cone seller at Alamo Plaza who might have caught a glimpse of whoever had made the anonymous phone call about Jeff to the police. But first, she had to have wheels.

  When one of the sports reporters heard she was afoot, he volunteered to give her a ride home since he was headed in that direction. She jumped at the offer, and a few minutes later, had him drop her off at the corner half a block from her house. At barely ten in the morning, it was already hot, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to walk down her own street without feeling that someone was watching her.

  It was heaven.

  Martha Anderson was, as usual, outside in her front yard gossiping over the hedge with Gwen Richards, the widow who lived on her west side. The two were fast friends who kept an eagle eye on the neighborhood—a leaf couldn’t fall without them knowing about it. Reassured that some things remained consistent, Sabrina waved gaily at them, then hurried up the porch steps to her front door. Both women waved back and continued to talk to each other as if they didn’t have a care in the world, but Sabrina wasn’t fooled by their nonchalance. They weren’t called “the Newspapers” by the rest of the neighbors for nothing. The minute Sabrina was safely inside her house, the two old ladies would call everyone on the block to let them know she was home.

  Grinning at the thought, she let herself inside. Silence closed around her immediately, clammy and thick, intimidating. Unable to stop herself, she shivered, the pleasure she expected to feel when she walked through her front door just not there. She wanted to forget Jeff and the sick murders he had committed, but all too easily, she found herself remembering the night after the awards banquet when she’d come home with Blake to find her front door unlocked and the threatening note waiting for her on her kitchen table.

  She shouldn’t have come here, she thought. Not yet. She wasn’t ready for the memories or the nagging silence of her own thoughts. She should have just grabbed her car keys and gotten the hell out of there. But it seemed like ages since she’d been home. Her plants needed watering, and there was mail to go through. She could take a few minutes to see to those things, then grab a quick shower. Maybe then sh
e’d be able to get through the rest of the day without going quietly out of her mind.

  She had just started to water the ivy in the kitchen when there was a knock at the front door. Not really surprised, Sabrina’s lips twitched. If her calculations were right, it had taken Martha all of two minutes and twenty-five seconds to get away from Gwen and make her way over there to find out where she’d been for the last two nights. That had to be a record even for her.

  Her eyes starting to twinkle, she turned back to the front door. But it wasn’t Martha standing on her porch, or even Gwen. It was Louis, and he looked extremely upset.

  Chapter 11

  “My dear, I’d just heard about Jeff’s arrest on the radio when I saw you walk up. I know you’re divorced and all, but you must be devastated. Is there anything I can do?”

  Sabrina appreciated his concern, but she couldn’t take any sympathy right now, not when her emotions felt as though they’d just been put through a food processor. He was, however, only being kind. Her smile forced, she said, “Well, it was something of a shock, but I’m coming to grips with it. And I don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “That’s the important thing,” he agreed gruffly. “He’s behind bars now and he can’t hurt you. You probably have a million things to do, but I just wanted you to know that if you needed to talk, I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

  The throbbing of her head intensifying, Sabrina reminded herself that he’d been a good neighbor to her over the years, and she couldn’t be rude just because the last six hours had been rough ones. “I’ve got to get back to work in about an hour, but I’ve got a little time now. Why don’t you take a seat on the porch swing and I’ll fix us something cold to drink,” she suggested. “I’ll be right back.”

  Leaving him on the porch, she hurried back to the kitchen, trying to remember what she had in the house to serve him. She knew he didn’t like sodas, so that left iced tea or lemonade and she wasn’t sure she had the makings for either. Of course, there was always water, but—