A Fine Specimen (8 page)

“You should be okay
taking the bus in the mornings. I’ll be driving you home in the evenings.”

“I— Okay.”

“You don’t talk to
anyone here.” Nail it down. “Understood?”

She nodded, eyes huge.

Christ, he had to get
out of there. She was unspeakably beautiful with the flush of the orgasm
pinking her cheeks. Alex knew that if he didn’t go now, he wouldn’t be going at
all.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She nodded again.

“Lock that door.” He
stepped out and waited as she closed the door, locked it, and didn’t leave
until he heard the scrape of the chair on the floor and the bump as it was
leaned against the door.

Okay
, he thought.
I can go
now
.
But he
didn’t. He stayed right where he was as if his feet had been nailed to the
stained carpet and stared at the door. For five minutes, ten, until he finally
told himself to stop being such a dickhead and get out of there. His heart
thundered as he walked down the dim corridor.

Why the fuck had he done
it? It was going to make for complications and he didn’t need that.

He didn’t need
complications, he didn’t need
her
.

He didn’t need anything
or anyone, except maybe Angelo Lopez. Behind bars.

The next day, Caitlin
did her best to stay out of Alex’s way. Luckily he was ignoring her too, which
was good because, after all, what could she say?
Sorry I behaved so
unprofessionally. It’s just that you smelled so good and felt so good and
tasted so good I simply lost my head.

How could she say that?

She couldn’t even begin
to imagine what had gotten into her, except that she had been taken utterly and
completely by surprise. Lieutenant Alejandro Cruz had seemed so…so incredibly
un-kissable—right up until the moment he’d kissed her.

And kissed her and
kissed her and touched her and made her come.

Wow, that was another
surprise. Caitlin had had what she considered the requisite number of lovers
for her age and socioeconomic status. Not too many, not too few. None
particularly memorable and not one—not
one
!—capable of making her climax
within a few moments with only what her grandmother would have called heavy
petting.

If anything, she was
slow to climax, as a couple of former lovers had complained.

Not with Lieutenant
Alejandro Cruz, oh no. A kiss and a touch and it was like holding a match to a
fuse. She’d simply blown apart.

It was all immensely
embarrassing.

Even more embarrassing
was the fact that she hadn’t slept all night, and not just because the bed was
hard and lumpy and smelly. She’d tossed and turned until the sky outside her
window turned gray. The whole night she’d relived every second, from the moment
his mouth had touched hers. She’d squirmed with embarrassment, it was true, but
also with heat.

Even the memory of the
few moments with him had been way more exciting than actual sex with her last
two boyfriends.

Caitlin felt irrevocably
changed. Instead of being a rather uptight scholar who was better with books
than men, she’d morphed into a siren, a woman who could tempt a man as luscious
as Lieutenant Alejandro Cruz—even if only for a few moments—and who could
climax almost on demand.

Wow, that put her up
into sex goddess country.

Pity her sex goddess
phase was so short-lived. The instant Alex had lifted his mouth from hers,
he’d
morphed right back into Mr. Hard-Ass. You’d have thought that a man who had
taken a woman to climax in four minutes, tops, with only his mouth and his hand
would have had a self-satisfied look on him, happy to have strutted his stuff
so successfully. Maybe looking forward to Stage Two on the bed, naked.

Instead, Alex had looked
appalled, as if he wanted to arrest himself. Then he’d gone into protective
overdrive as he backed away, pretending his only concern was keeping her safe.

His backing away was the
cue for her head to start working again instead of other body parts. And as
soon as the blood returned to her head, she was stricken with remorse. What had
she been thinking? Of nothing at all, apparently.

God, she’d made a
terrible, terrible mistake.

Caitlin prided herself
on her professionalism. Melting in the arms of a man she’d just met and who was
crucial to her work was as nonprofessional as it got. Caitlin would never get
anywhere, all her sacrifices would be in vain, if she became the kind of woman
who hopped into bed with the first authority figure who crossed her path.

So now that she was
clear on the fact that Alejandro Cruz messed with her mind in a major way, she
had to avoid him as much as possible and keep her cool when she couldn’t.

Caitlin had precious few
resources in this life. She had little money, no status, no job, with only the
possibility of the fellowship. The only real things she could count on were her
mind and her reputation. If she wasn’t careful, Alex Cruz would destroy both.

When she’d walked into
the station house at 8 a.m., together with the incoming morning shift, Caitlin had
resolved to stay well out of Alex Cruz’s way. It wasn’t hard to do. She hadn’t
even caught a glimpse of him during the entire morning, which she happily spent
interviewing officers.

She didn’t see him, but
she did, however, get an earful
about
him.

Every single interview
eventually veered, sooner rather than later, to the subject of the Loot. They’d
start out with a discussion of, say, cycles of criminal activity, work
schedules or local crime patterns, and within five minutes the officers were
discussing the man everyone knew was slated to become the new captain. That was
the only thing the officers really wanted to talk about—Alejandro Cruz.

They loved him. They
hated him. They respected him. And they all deeply, deeply wanted him to get a
life so he would get off their backs.

Kathy Martello told
Caitlin about Cruz’s background. “Alex was a punk himself once. Long time ago,”
Kathy told her over a cup of the bitter station-house brew. “It’s how come he’s
so good at catching criminals. He knows how they think. He knows exactly what
makes them tick. Alex’s got one of the highest arrest and conviction rates in
the state, did you know that?” Kathy had shaken her head in admiration before
sipping her coffee. “Guy’s a genius at anticipating a criminal’s next move,
it’s like he’s got a sixth sense for it. And with all that, for all his smarts,
he doesn’t have a clue about emotions or feelings. Not his or anyone else’s.
Not a clue.”

Ben Cade, the meat
mountain, was even more direct. Caitlin interviewed him in the interrogation
room. He was huge, jovial, dressed in vibrant, clashing colors.

Caitlin found out that
Ben had been an insurance adjuster before becoming a cop, that he had another
ten years until retirement and that he was dating a pretty Frenchwoman who had
just moved to Baylorville to open a French pastry shop. He was studying French
to impress her.

“Alex’s a great guy, a
great cop, the best, but I guess he gets a little…single-minded, some might say
obsessed, when he’s on someone’s trail. Hasn’t had a Sunday off in years,
hasn’t gotten laid in—”

He broke off, eyed
Caitlin and sighed. “Anyway, right now he’s got Angelo Lopez in his sights and
I tell you he eats, sleeps,
breathes
the fuck— Er, Lopez. He’s always
got Lopez’s file in hand. But Alex’s gotta let off steam somehow or he’s gonna
blow. Years ago, when he joined the force, he was a real okay guy. We’d go out
drinking and carousing.” Ben smiled reminiscently and shrugged a broad plaid
shoulder. “Which is prob’ly why my second wife divorced me. Anyway, Alex had a
string of women panting after him then. But he just got so wrapped around the
axle on this job, it’s all he can see anymore. He’s been a mean-tempered
sonovabitch lately, I can tell you that. There are a lot of officers who’d be
really happy if he…you know…got hisself a life. Lightened up a little. Met some
nice girl, settled down some, got laid on a regular basis, know what I mean?”
Ben’s eyes bored directly into hers. “Toot sweet.”

* * * * *

In the early afternoon,
while Caitlin was finishing her second interview with Kathy Martello, Alex
showed up.

Caitlin was startled.
She’d already told him she was planning on leaving early and taking Saturday
and Sunday off. Her plan was to take the 2:30 bus back to the hotel, go over
her notes and write them up. Over the weekend, she’d take the bus into town for
her meals. There certainly wasn’t anyplace in Riverhead she’d trust enough to
eat in.

She wouldn’t be
traveling back to Riverhead in the evening again until the beginning of next
week. She hadn’t expected to see Alex Cruz until Monday evening.

Alex stood in the
doorframe, filling it, glowering. He turned to Kathy Martello. “Sergeant, there
you are. I want that report on the Branson shooting on my desk by Monday
morning.”

“Yes sir,” Kathy said.
She looked up at him. When he gave no sign of moving, she added, “Was there
something else, sir?”

Alex turned his scowl on
Caitlin and she straightened in her chair. Was something wrong? Why was he
looking at her like that? “Tomorrow evening,” Alex said, pointing a finger at
her. “I’ll pick you up at 7:30 at your hotel.”

“Tomorrow…evening?”
Caitlin repeated, bewildered. Her brow furrowed. She couldn’t make sense of
what he was saying. “You’ll pick me up—” She blinked. “Why?”

“Dinner,” Alex said, jaw
muscles bunching, and turned away.

Caitlin could hear his
footsteps echoing down the corridor. Confused, she turned to Kathy Martello.
“Dinner?”

“Dinner.” Sgt. Martello
kept her expression bland. She pursed her lips. “You know—that meal you eat in
the evenings?”

“I know what dinner is,
I just…” Caitlin made an exasperated sound and rolled her eyes. “Why does
Lieutenant Cruz think he has to feed me?”

“I think—now don’t quote
me on this—but I think that Alex was looking at it more like a…a date. You
know? You’ve just been asked out on a Saturday night date, hon. That’s my
reading of it, anyway. Though I’ll agree the invitation left a lot to be
desired.”

“A
date
?” Caitlin
asked, turning the incident around in her mind.
That
was an invitation
to a dinner date? Not where she came from. Even the geekiest scholar with the
most abysmal social skills could do better than that. “I don’t know…it didn’t
feel like he was asking for a date. It felt more like a…a summons.”

“Alex is a little, um, authoritarian
at times,” Kathy said kindly, hitching her gun belt.

Caitlin sat still for a
moment, thinking it over before starting to gather her papers. She wrinkled her
nose. “Maybe he’s taking his feelings of responsibility too seriously. He feels
like he has to take care of me, not just ferry me back to my hotel. For Ray’s
sake.”

“Nope, honey,” Kathy
Martello said as she walked out. “Take it from me. You’ve just been asked out
on a guy-girl kind of date by the Prince of Darkness.” She waggled her fingers
and grinned wickedly. “Have fun.”

* * * * *

There was a message
waiting for Caitlin at the Carlton when she got back to the hotel at three.
Hassan stepped warily out from behind the curtain that separated his office
from the front desk area, saw that she was unaccompanied and visibly relaxed.
“Miss Summers,” he said gratefully. “You’re alone.”

“That’s right, Hassan.”
Caitlin smiled at him. “May I have my key?”

He handed her the key,
which he kept in his pocket, and an envelope. “This came for you about an hour
ago, miss. A young lady left it.”

“Thank you, Hassan.”
Caitlin checked the back of the envelope. It was from Samantha Dane, her former
college roommate. Sam had found a good job in Baylorville as executive
assistant to a major industrialist, one of the backers of the Frederiksson
Foundation. She was one of the reasons Caitlin was hoping for the job at the
Frederiksson.

If Samantha was writing,
then there was news about the fellowship.

In her room, Caitlin
dumped her bag on the bed and opened the envelope. She hastily read the
contents, hissed “Yesss!” and pumped her fist in the air. She did a little
victory dance around the tiny room, trying not to bounce off the walls, then
sat down on the only chair and read the note again, more carefully this time.

Hi Caitlin, your mom
told me where to find you. You weren’t in, I don’t have your cell number, so I
decided to drop by and leave you a note. I just had to give you the good news
right away! The Frederiksson Foundation Board meeting was this morning and
you’ve just been approved for a one-year fellowship, renewable for two years!
The fellowship grant is $45,000 a year. The Board will be making the public
announcement on Thursday the 14th, so you should be getting official word by
Wednesday, at the latest. You start on Monday the 18th. Congratulations! I’ll
be out of town for ten days, but let’s go out to dinner to celebrate when I
come back. Love, Sam.

Caitlin sat back in the
chair, her mind swirling. Sam’s words floated in her head, bright and golden,
lighter than air.

One-year
fellowship…$45,000.

In a daze, Caitlin
called her mother with the news and received her congratulations. She sat down
on the bed, took a deep breath and finally let her feelings rip. There were a
lot of them and she let them all out in a whoosh.

Elation. Excitement.
Relief.

It had begun.

After so many years of
hard work and study, her life had finally begun. She’d been stuck in
studenthood for so long, it felt as if she’d been living in a cloister. She
loved academic life and she was happy with her chosen course but she was also
soooo ready to go out into the world and
live
.

God, there was so much
to do! Close down the furnished rental in Grants Falls, find something suitable
here in Baylorville, find some cheap furniture… Well, not
too
cheap.

Finally, some
money
.
Real money, not a few miserly dollars hoarded from waitressing tips. God, she’d
been living off student loans and what she’d managed to save from odd summer
jobs for so long, it felt strange to think of actually having money, like an
adult.