Armed and Fabulous (Lexi Graves Mysteries) (36 page)

"Yay us," said Lily,
skipping
out ahead.

"What about my car?" I asked as I slid into the passenger seat of Solomon's shiny
,
black Lexus. My car might not be chop shop desirable
,
but I didn't fancy its chances outside the bar
over
night.

"Don't worry about it. I'll deal with it," said Solomon as he leaned around me to reach for the seatbelt.
I held my breath as h
e buckled it
after I fumbled it
. He pulled away and fired up the engine.

By the time we got home
,
Lily was half asleep in the back seat so I woke her up and Solomon helped me
walk
her into her apartment. He waited in her living room while I rolled her into bed, taking a moment to pull off her shoes and pull up the blanket.

"You're
z
the bes
h
t," slurred Lily. "Hunting murderers
h
is
so
oo
much fun."

"Yeah.
Load
s," I sighed
as I
went to get her a glass of water. She was asleep by the time I got back. Using my key to her place, I locked her door behind us and walked up the stairs, conscious all the time of Solomon just inches behind me.

"Thanks for coming to get us," I said,
unlocking
my door and holding it open for Solomon. He slid inside and pushed the door shut behind him.

"No problem."

"Do you want a hot drink before you go
?
O
r is this the part where you take advant
age of me?" I said, half joking, as it suddenly occurred to me that we were very alone
, sobriety was a vague memory,
and I had no idea of how to play the situation
.

Solomon
moved
closer and I took a step back, pressing
my body
against the wall
that divided
the small hall from my bedroom. His eyes bored into mine as he placed a hand either side of my shoulders. My heart beat a faster tempo as he stooped, his mouth
irresistibly
close to mine. He kissed my cheek first, then his lips brushed my jaw, moving closer with each butterfly kiss until his lips met mine, gentle at first, then teasing, then passionate. I responded like kissing Solomon was second nature and his hands wrapped around my waist, pulling me into him. His body was hard and unyielding
,
and when I ran my hands down his back to rest in the hollow just above his butt, he sighed
.
H
is hands
edged
lower, pulling at my top to run over my bare skin underneath, spanning my waist. Judging by
his
gentle rocking
against me, and the extra hardness pressing
into
me, he was just as excited as I was about this new development.

Almost reluctantly
,
he pulled back, his hands still warmly gripping my waist. "I'm not going to take advantage," he said, and for a moment
,
my heart fell. "But that doesn't mean this is over."

"No?"

He kissed me again, slowly this time, taking his time to suck my lower lip,
ent
angl
ing
his tongue with mine. "No," he said, and left, leaving me flushed and panting against the wall.
In the morning
,
I would feel relieved, I decided. Solomon was not a man to
get involved
with lightly.

"Wow," I said to the empty hall.

Chapter Eleven

It wasn't easy to concentrate on work with the pressure of Solomon's kiss burning my lips,
while
Maddox smolder
ed
only
a
few desks away. Maddox struck me as a straight talking type, so
when
he said nothing about Lily's
and my
drunken shenanigans the night before, I assumed Solomon simply hadn't told him. A large part of me was
quite
relieved. However, Maddox also
di
dn't mention our future date
.
I spent a good few hours having an internal dialog about whether it
was just
a joke to him, after Vincent's invitation, or he simply
didn’t have the time to do
anything about
it.

Several times, I hovered the mouse pointer over the IM box
,
and several times I stopped, tel
ling myself that not only was Maddox
my boss here, and so
r
t of my boss on the taskforce—
though, come to think of it, I seemed to have unwitti
ngly taken a volunteer position—
I had kissed his colleague
.
I also di
dn't want to come off as needy.
Kissing Solomon
—what
was I thinking? What was I doing enjoying it? What was I doing analyzing it
endlessly
when what I
clearly
needed was a cold shower
, not to mention
some serious gossip time with Lily?

"You're looking very serious today.
”

I jumped at the sound of Maddox's voice. Tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ear, I loo
ked up. "I'm very busy," I said, trying not to sound too surly
as guilt prodded me
.
I had kissed him, and then kissed his colleague. Big oops.

"Do you have time for lunch?"

Duh. I always had time for lunch. "I guess," I said, looking forlornly at the stack of typing Dominic
delegated to
me. Seems like he was taking Dean's
apparent
absence as
his opportunity
to catch up. I just couldn't get
motivated
about it.

"It'll be here when you get back," said Maddox, apparently deciding I had some newfound work ethic. I did
too
, but not for this job.

"That's what I was afraid of."

I grabbed my purse and followed Maddox out, walking
abreast
across the park to the cafe. We got sandwiches and drinks, Maddox
’s treat
, and we took a booth in the corner.

"This is going to start office rumors," I said.

"Eating sandwiches
or
…
this?" Maddox's hand landed on my leg and slid a little further up, sending tingles through my spine.

A smile played on my lips.
Perhaps the ‘d’ word was back on?
"Definitely that."

"I was going to kiss you
,
but Anne just walked in and she would probably combust."

After what I'd seen last night
,
I doubted a kiss would even
raise
Anne
’s eyebrows
.

"Raincheck," I said, just in case he thought I was passing.
F
lirting away my lunch hour seemed
like a lot of
fun,
but
I had to get serious.
I dropped my voice, "So what's happening with you
-
know
-
what?" I was going to say
“c
ase
,”
but that sounded
too
ominous
.
I knew Maddox was concerned about
public conversation,
what with the walls having ears and not knowing who
m
to suspect. Somehow
,
I didn't believe that there were no suspects at all. I wondered just how much he held back
from me
.

"I'll tell you while
we walk back." Maddox demolished his sandwich and unscrewed the cap of his mineral water. "In short, not a lot."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Neither, so far."

I ate my sandwich quickly and we gave our table
up
to
a pair of
hovering office workers
;
then walked slowly back to Green Hand.

"We got the coroner's report back on Tanya Henderson, aka Tallulah.
We got her ID from a wallet in the jacket she checked.
The shot killed her, obviously, and there weren't any defensive wounds.
No epithelials or other trace evidence.
"

"She didn't see it coming until it was too late," I concluded
and Maddox nodded
. "Does that mean she knew her killer?
Possibly t
rusted him?"

"It's a possibility that she felt certain nothing was going to happen to her. Or
maybe she
thought she was too valuable to off. We're checking
into
her history."

"Did you check her keys?" I asked. "It was odd that one wasn't on the key ring."

"Everything is being check
ed. Your lead on the call center
was good."

"Thank you."

"We have a couple of people looking into what was set up there
,
but so far
,
it looks
shady
. I hope it's the key to blowing open the fraud case."

"I thought you had a bunch of information." I was fishing and he knew it.

"Some. Enough to show fraud, but not
enough to find the perps
, or how they are getting away with it
. We always knew there was an inside man, and everything points to Dean. His mortgage, his expensive tastes and ha
bits, the low pension pot all ga
ve him motive to go for a big time payoff from the company he
dedicated
his life
t
o. He had access to every part of the building and could feasibly have set up a fake office for claims. But without him, we don't have a lot to go on. If he w
ere
alive
,
we could have threatened prosecution and flipped him
, like I
tried to do
the night he died
. As it is, we need the rest of the team
now. And the money,
"
he finished.

"Do you have any ideas who they
could be
?"

"None. They might work for the company, or maybe not. It's a complicated thing. We're lucky to have the FBI involved. Their pockets are deeper than ours
when it comes to surveillance for a case like this
."

I'd heard plenty of times how badly
the
cutbacks had hit Montgomery. It wasn't just the PD that suffered, but every peripheral service
connected to
them. Victim support barely supported itself now.
Only c
ut and dried cases were welcome at the
precinct;
every other resource was stretched beyond capacity. There were plenty of petty crimes that didn't get more than a cursory glance before
being
filed
“
unsolved.
”
They simply didn't have the manpower to pursue everything.

"Hurrah for the spooks," I said.

"
That’s CIA,” corrected Maddox. “
I looked for you yesterday. You leave early?"

"Who me? No."

"Didn't think so.
” He laughed. I felt certain my time
card
would be signed. “
Do anything good?"

"Hung out with Lily. You?"

"Hung out with the team."

"Bet I had more fun." I
wasn’t
sure last night counted as fun. One day
,
I hoped to look back on it and laugh, or preferably, wipe it from my memory. I wasn't sure about the bit
with
Solomon.
I wasn’t sure Maddox skirted the truth just as much as I had.

"I can't gamble on a bet I'll lose." We neared Green Hand and Maddox slowed his pace, forcing me to match him. "I want you to be careful, Lexi. Two people are dead. Two people
that
we
know
of," he
emphasized
. "The information you got already is good, but I don't want you asking the wrong person the wrong question. Saturday night could have
been
a lot worse." Maddox really didn't need to spell it out. A minute earlier and we might have been staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Are you saying I'm off the case?"

"I think it's for the best. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Keep my pretty little
mind on
typing and filing, huh?" I said, struggling to keep my cool. The only good leads he'd gotten so far had come from me, as far as I could see. "Got it." I heard a huff of annoyance from Maddox as I stalked off
,
but I didn't turn back
or
even think about apologizing.
So I was good enough to kiss, but not good enough to work with?

It was petty
,
but I ignored Maddox for the rest of the afternoon
.
A
s soon as
I
finished Dominic's work
overflow
, I grabbed my purse, dumped the files on Dominic's desk and left.