Lethal Attraction: Against the Rules\Fatal Affair Read online

  “After dinner. I’d like to go back there anyway. Poke around some more.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She turned off her computer and the lamp on her desk. “It’s not a date.”

  “Semantics,” he said as he followed her from the office.

  “It’s not a date.”

  *

  Over thick-crust veggie pizza and beer at a place where everyone seemed to know Nick, Sam asked him about Patricia Donaldson.

  “Who?”

  “According to his parents, she was a high school friend of John’s who lives in Chicago.”

  His eyebrows knit with confusion. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “He sent her three thousand dollars a month, has for years, called her several times a week and talked for as much as an hour.”

  Nick shook his head. “I don’t know anything about her.” He seemed puzzled, distressed even. “How’s that possible?”

  “Did you know he was into porn? Big time into it?”

  Pausing mid-bite, he returned the pizza to his plate and wiped his mouth. “No. How do you know?”

  “It was on his home computer.”

  His expression shifted from startled to disgusted. His breathing slowed as he fixated on a spot behind her. He was quiet for a long time. “I wish I could say I’m totally surprised, but I’m not. He took such chances with his reputation and his career.”

  “What else besides this?”

  “Women. Lots of them. It was like he was looking for something he just couldn’t seem to find. He’d be all hot over someone and a week later she’d be history.”

  “Did they have anything in common?”

  “They were all blonde and well endowed. Every one of them. One Barbie doll after another. It got so I didn’t even bother to make the effort to remember their names.”

  Sam swallowed the last of her beer in one long sip and had to admit she felt recharged after the meal. “Christina Billings sent over a list of the women he’d dated during the last six months. We’re working through it now. I bet we’ll find his killer among the Barbies.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You said it was a crime of passion, right?”

  She nodded.

  “None of them were around long enough to feel the kind of passion you’d have to feel to do what was done to him—except Natalie, but that was over and done with years ago. If she were going to kill him, she probably would’ve done it a long time ago.”

  “We’re going to talk to her tomorrow.”

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Keep up this pace. It’s relentless.”

  “You spent a night in your office this week. You do what it takes to get your job done. That’s all I’m doing. Usually it’s worse than this. I often have multiple cases going, but thanks to the forced vacation my load has been light lately.”

  “But dealing with murderers and victims and medical examiners…It’s got to be so draining.”

  “It can be. Other times it’s exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like putting all the pieces together and coming out with a picture that leads to conviction.”

  “Did you always want to be a cop?” He hadn’t asked that question the first time they met, when she had just made detective.

  “That subject is kind of complicated.”

  “How so?”

  She fiddled with the handle on her mug. “I’m the youngest of three girls. I think I was about twelve when it dawned on me that the only reason I’d been born was because my father wanted a son so desperately.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “Oh, yes I can. My mother all but told me.”

  “Sam…”

  She hated the sympathy that radiated from him. “So, knowing I’d disappointed him just by being born, I set out to win his approval every way I could think of. Name a high school sport—I played it. I went with him to Redskins games, Orioles games. He even branded me with a boyish nickname.”

  “You’ll be Samantha to me,” Nick declared. “From this moment on.”

  She sneered at him. “I don’t let anyone call me that.”

  “You’re going to have to make an exception because to me there’s nothing boyish about you. You’re all woman. Every beautiful, sexy inch of you.”

  Her face heated under the intensity of his gaze. “I’ll allow an occasional Samantha, but don’t overdo it. And not in front of anyone else.”

  “I’ll save it for only the most important, private moments,” he said with a grin that melted her bones. “So, you became a cop to please him, too.”

  “Huh?” she asked, captivated by his hazel eyes.

  “Your father.”

  “Oh. Right. At first that’s what it was about. I won’t deny that. But I discovered I have a knack for it—or I thought I did until recently.”

  “You do. You can’t let one incident shake your confidence or your faith in yourself.”

  “You sound like the department shrink,” she said with a chuckle. “And while I know you’re both right, there’s something about a dead kid that shakes you to the core even when you know you did everything right.” Sam fixated on a spot on the wall as the horror of it all came back to haunt her once again. She’d never forget the sound of Marquis Johnson’s agonized shrieks after his son was hit by gunfire.

  “What happened that night?”

  The sick weight of it settled over her and turned a stomach so recently satisfied by food. She’d had a hard time choking down anything for weeks after the incident. “I’m not supposed to talk about it. I have to testify at the probable cause hearing next week.”

  Under the table, he took her hand, linked his fingers through hers and resisted her efforts to break free. “Stop,” he said softly. “Just stop, will you?”

  “Someone might see,” she hissed.

  “No one’s looking at us, and the tablecloth hides a world of sin. There’s nothing quite like a good tablecloth.”

  Sam gently extricated her hand and folded her arms while pretending not to notice the wounded look that crossed his face. “I’ll bet you’ve done your share of public sinning.”

  “I’ll never tell,” he said, his lips quirking with amusement. “Is it so difficult for you?”

  “What?”

  “Sharing the burden.”

  “It’s impossible,” she confessed. “My inadequacy in that regard has caused me some major problems in my life.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “The marriage kind for one.” She wished for something else to drink since her mouth was suddenly as dry as the desert. Glancing at Nick, she found him watching her with the patience of a man who had nothing but time. She reached for his half-empty glass of beer and took a long drink.

  “Why’d you get divorced?”

  Sam mulled it over, wondering if she should have this conversation with a man she was wildly attracted to but who was off limits to her. After a long pause, she decided what the hell? Why not? “My ex-husband claimed I didn’t need him.”

  “And did you?”

  “No,” she snorted. “He turned out to be a total loser.”

  “Since he failed to deliver a couple of critically important messages, I’d have to agree with you there.”

  “I made such a big mistake with him,” she sighed. “I didn’t see him for what he really was until it was too late. I didn’t listen to people who tried to warn me.”

  Nick straightened out of the slouch he’d slipped into. “Was he…I mean…He didn’t hit you, did he?”

  “No, but it almost would’ve been easier if he had. At least I could’ve fought back against that. His thing was passive aggression. He wanted total control over me. I let it go on for far longer than I should have because I didn’t want to admit I’d been so incredibly wrong. Damned foolish Irish pride.”

  Despite her resistance, Nick moved closer. “I want to w