Lethal Attraction: Against the Rules\Fatal Affair Read online

  “You think it’s possible?” Freddie asked, full of youthful exuberance.

  “It’s solid, Cruz,” Sam said. “Good thinking.” She paused, thought for a moment and decided. “I want you to go to Chicago and talk to Patricia Donaldson. I want to know if her kid is John O’Connor’s son. I want the whole story. Tell her she can either spill it to you, or we’ll get a warrant for DNA. Don’t come back until you know every detail of her relationship with O’Connor. He went out there the third weekend of every month. I want to know if he was banging her. I want to know how. You got me?”

  “Without you?” His normally robust complexion paled again.

  “A bomb just blew off your training wheels, Detective.” Sam winced at the pain in her chest as she rose. “Get your ass to Chicago.” She grabbed the lapels of his ever-present trench coat and pulled him down so his face was an inch from hers. “You get yourself hurt in any way, and I’ll kill you. You got me?”

  “Ma’am.” He swallowed hard. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She retrieved the paper with her ticket information from her purse. “Be on that eleven o’clock flight and get back here as fast as you can. Report in tonight.”

  “Watch your back, Cruz,” Malone added. “If they’ve got eyes on Sergeant Holland, they’re on you, too.”

  “Yes, sir.” Freddie stood there for a second longer, beaming at the two of them.

  “What the hell are you standing there grinning like a goon for?” Sam asked.

  “I’m going. I won’t let you down. I’ll call you as soon as I’ve got anything.”

  “Go!” After he scrambled through the ER doors, she glanced at Malone. “Sheesh, was I ever that green?”

  “Nope,” he said without hesitation. “You came in with the sensibilities of a captain. Why do you think I’ve been watching my back all these years?”

  Staggered by the compliment, Sam stared at him. “I’m sorry if I’ve let you down.”

  “I’ll bet your friend is wondering where you are. Why don’t you go on back and check on him? I’ll give you both a lift when he’s sprung.”

  She rested a hand on his arm. “Don’t let them take me off O’Connor, Captain. Don’t let them.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Sam made her way back down the long hallway, pausing just before Nick’s room to lean against the wall and collect herself. She couldn’t stop thinking about what Malone had said. Was she in love with Nick? Is that why she’d allowed things with him to progress even though she knew it was wrong and could get her into a shit load of trouble? Had she maybe always loved him? Way back to the first time they met?

  With a soft groan, she tipped back her aching head. She hadn’t loved Peter but discovered that far too late. When Nick failed to call her after their night together—or so she thought—she’d been seriously depressed. Peter came to the rescue, offering a shoulder to cry on and a friend to lean on. It had been easy, too easy she later realized, to get swept up by him.

  Now, on top of everything else she’d learned about him, she knew he intercepted Nick’s calls while pretending to offer comfort, proving he was an even bigger asshole than she had given him credit for being. He had robbed her of a lot more than four years of her life. He had taken her self-esteem, caused her to question her judgment, stolen her self-respect and left her confidence in tatters.

  A smart woman would be leery of making another mistake after the whopper she’d made with Peter. A smart woman would go slow with Nick, would take her time, would make sure she was doing the right thing. As the clank of metal against metal reminded her she had a very angry man to deal with, she decided she clearly wasn’t as smart as she’d always thought.

  Pasting a big smile on her face, she stepped into the room, her stomach aching from the tension. “Great! You’re all done.”

  All but smoking with rage, Nick said, “Get these things off me, Sam. Right now.”

  “I’d be happy to.” She dug the key out of her pocket and dangled it in front of him. “But before I do, let’s get one thing straight. I need you to stay out of my work stuff. Agree to that, and I’ll let you go.”

  “How do you know I don’t plan to let you go once you unlock me?”

  The question sent a surprising jolt of fear through her. “Well, I guess that’ll be up to you, won’t it?” she said with more bravado than she felt.

  “Unlock me. Now.”

  “Not until you agree.”

  “I’m not agreeing to anything while I’m locked to a bed. If you want to unlock me and talk this through like rational adults, then that’s fine.”

  She studied his furious, handsome face for a long moment. “You’re awfully sexy when you’re pissed.” Leaning down, she kissed the bandage over his left eye.

  The kiss seemed to defuse him, but only somewhat.

  “I’m sorry I locked you up.” When his face twisted with skepticism, she said, “I am sorry. But you have no idea how difficult it is to be a woman in this profession or the daughter of a fallen hero. The last thing I need is some guy on a white horse riding to my rescue as if I can’t handle things myself. As it is, I spend most of every day waiting for it all to blow up in my face.”

  “Like it did today?”

  “A joke?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re joking about a bomb?”

  “Sorry,” he said with chagrin, “it was too good to pass up. Doesn’t mean I think it’s funny. Quite the contrary.” With his free hand, he captured one of hers and brought it to his lips. “Unlock me. I promise not to kill you.”

  Knowing that was the best she was going to get and encouraged by the tender gesture, she released the cuffs.

  He made a big dramatic show of rubbing his sore wrist for a minute before he got up to reach for his jeans and sweater.

  Still uncertain about just how angry he really was, Sam stayed on the far side of the bed while he got dressed. She winced at the flash of pain that crossed his face as he slid his injured foot into an old running shoe the cops had brought from his house.

  “Um, Captain Malone is going to take us…well…I guess to my house if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” he said in a testy tone.

  Swallowing the lump in her throat, she added, “I’d appreciate it if you don’t discuss what happened earlier with him.”

  “What? That my girlfriend or sex buddy or whatever you are was nearly blown to bits in my front yard? I shouldn’t mention that?”

  She rubbed at eyes gone gritty with exhaustion. After an almost-sleepless night with him, she’d planned to catch a couple of hours on the plane if her nerves allowed it. “I’m asking you to do this for me. He was a lot cooler about me getting caught with you than I expected him to be. It would just be better if you stayed out of it.”

  He came around the bed and backed her up to the wall. “You want me to stay out of it?”

  “Um, yeah, that would help.” Only her hands on his chest kept him from completely invading her space.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, Samantha. I’ve been the guy behind the guy my whole career, and that’s fine with me. But if you think, for one second, I’m going to ride shotgun in my personal life, you’ve got the wrong lapdog on your leash.”

  While she should have been pissed at a comment like that, she was ridiculously turned on. She looped a hand around his neck and brought him down for a kiss intended to make him forget all about being mad with her.

  With his hands on her hips, he jerked her tight against him.

  “I don’t want a lapdog,” she said when she finally came up for air. “That’s not what I’m asking you to be.”

  “What are you asking me to be?”

  “Do we have to decide that right now? It’s bad enough the whole town’s going to know we’re sleeping together.”

  “Damage done,” he said with a bitter laugh that jangled her already frazzled nerves.

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your job isn’t on the lin