Cuff Me (16 page)

T
raveling with another person could cause turmoil in the most stable of relationships.

And Vincent and Jill were anything but stable.

Still, Jill was looking forward to their California trip. Maybe the new environment was the change she needed to clear her head.

Jill drained the last of her coffee, washed the cup, and dried it. For the first time ever, she wasn’t the one rushing around, and the extra time felt decadent.

Vincent had texted her earlier saying that he was running late. Not really his thing, but the guy was allowed to oversleep now and then. God knew she’d done it a handful of times.

When he pulled up outside her apartment, she was ready, wheeling her bag down the drive.

“Morning!” she said as he came around the back of the car and practically threw her bag in the trunk.

He grunted.

Jill sighed. “Have you had your coffee yet?”

“Yes, I’ve had my coffee,” he snapped.

“Okay, so the bad mood is just…”

He slammed the trunk and returned to his side of the car without responding.

“Well, this should be fun,” Jill muttered as she got into the passenger seat.

There were several tense moments of silence before Jill turned to face him. “I thought we were done with this.”

“Done with what?”

“The silent treatment.”

“I’m not being silent,” he snapped.

“You’re also not using more than, like, five words in a sentence.”

“Never bothered you before.”

Well, it bothers me now!
she wanted to scream.
It bothers me now because I need to tell you something important.

Like the fact that I ended my engagement, and…

He crossed the console and flipped on the radio. Loudly.

Guess they were done talking.

Maybe he’d just woken up on the wrong side of the bed, but she was getting tired of this.

They’d been making slow progress toward getting back to their normal selves since the sort-of fight after the disastrous Holly Adams interrogation, but now it felt like they were back to square one:

Lying to each other.

Jill glanced down at her left hand. The ring felt like a mockery now. It was a mockery. She was no longer engaged.

For a moment, she dreamed about tugging it off. Chucking it out the window and telling Vincent the truth. The whole truth.

Instead, she pressed her lips together and looked out the window.

She let him have his silence. Hell, she wanted it. Maybe the big grouch was finally starting to rub off on her after all these years.

Vincent’s bad mood persisted all the way to the airport.

All the way through the security line.

Continued even when she waited in a ridiculously long Starbucks queue to fetch him a coffee.

By the time she was buckling her seat belt, Jill was starting to wonder if Anth had been completely wrong about Vin’s feelings for her. Because the man sitting beside her was hardly a man in love. Or even like.

She glanced over. He was a man who…

He was stiff as a board, his knuckles actually white where they clenched the armrests.

Concerned, she set her stuff on the still-vacant window seat to her right and put a hand on his arm. “Vin? You okay?”

He gave her a stiff nod, but his eyes never stopped darting around the plane.

“You are not,” she accused. “What’s going on? Did you see something?” she asked, subtly glancing around in case it was his cop instincts on high alert.

Another shake of his head, this time in the negative. Jill opened her mouth again, but he uttered a curt “Drop it.”

“Fine,” she snapped.

Jill put her headphones on and pulled out her e-reader to open the romance novel she’d been waiting for weeks
to find time to read. Just let him dwell on whatever had crawled up his butt.

It wasn’t until the plane pulled away from the gate that Jill had the happy realization that in an almost unheard-of stroke of aviation luck, the window seat next to her had never been occupied.

Not that she minded the middle seat, but it was a long flight. A little space wouldn’t hurt, especially since her only company was a suddenly-grumpier-than-usual Vincent.

Jill glanced around to make sure the flight attendants wouldn’t gripe at her if she switched seats as they were doing their slow taxi, only to freeze when she saw Vincent’s face.

He wasn’t pissed. Wasn’t grumpy.

He was
scared
.

Oh.
Oh!

Immediately, Jill tugged off her headphones, dropped her e-reader into the seat pocket in front of her, and tucked her arm into his.

He didn’t even glance down.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

No response.

“Vin.” She shook his arm. “You’re scared to fly? Is this why you were so grumpy all morning?”

“Shut up, Henley.”

She smiled then, careful to keep the smile gentle and not mocking.

The man was really, truly scared, and as someone with a not-so-minor spider phobia, she understood what it was like to be crippled by an irrational but unavoidable terror.

Jill forgot all about moving to the other seat, and
instead let her fingers run along his forearm where it gripped the armrest like a lifeline.

She vaguely remembered a couple years ago when the Moretti family had flown to California in the days after Christmas to visit Marc.

Vin had stayed behind, and she’d given him so much crap.

She regretted that now, because clearly it hadn’t been a callous move so much as a terrified one. She should have known that only something major would have kept him from his family.

The plane slowed to a stop, and she could hear his breathing, slow and controlled. The plane stayed still for several moments as the pilots waited permission from air traffic control, or however that worked.

Then it moved forward. She felt Vin’s muscles jerk under her fingertips, his previously slow and controlled breath now coming hot and panicked where it ruffled against her hair.

Jill knew the moment the plane left the ground because Vin went all the way rigid, and her next move was purely reflexive.

She slid her fingers over his forearm, trailed over his wrist until they reached his palm. The second their fingers were aligned, his bigger hand crushed over hers. They were holding hands.

It wasn’t a romantic handhold. Or a sexy one.

He was practically crushing her fingers, and sweat was beading on his forehead.

But it was important, all the same. Important that she be there for him.

“It’ll get better in a moment,” she said, just as a particularly rough bit of air jerked the plane.

“How do you figure? We’re a couple thousand feet in the air,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It’ll smooth out once we reach cruising altitude. Takeoff’s always the worst.”

So was landing. But she didn’t mention this.

Jill silently prayed that it wouldn’t be a particularly turbulent flight, and her prayers were answered when the plane eventually leveled off and the jerking stopped.

Eventually the flight attendants made their “coming through the cabin with drinks” announcement, and even better, the seat belt light went off.

“Do you need to go to the bathroom?” Jill asked.

“I’m not a child, Henley.”

“I’m just saying, you might want to go while the seat belt light is off.”

He gave her the side-eye. “It comes back on sometimes?”

Vincent still hadn’t released her hand.

“If it gets bumpy,” she said patiently. “Vin, have you never flown before?”

“I have,” he grunted. “A couple times.”

“And this um, fear—”

“It’s
so
much more than fear.”

She smiled. Good for him for not trying to puff up his chest about it. “Has it always been there?”

“Pretty much. Never figured out how to reconcile willingly putting one’s self inside a tin can hurled through the air with a couple sticks attached.”

“Sticks?” she asked. “Oh. You mean the wings?”

They hit another bump, and he exhaled, clenching her hand even more firmly.

“Let’s talk about the case,” she suggested, trying to get
his mind off the tin-can-with-sticks scenario. “Did you get that e-mail I forwarded to you with the article about Kathryn DeBorio…?”

Slowly, slowly, Vincent’s breathing evened out as he answered her questions. His grip on her fingers eased somewhere over the Midwest, the pad of his thumb lightly stroking along her forefinger as they talked.

Eventually they exhausted the case and moved on to his family. They discussed Anth’s overprotective almost-father tendencies, Elena’s recent moodiness, his parents upcoming anniversary, and what the kids should to do celebrate… he asked about her mom, which she answered. Asked about the wedding, which she didn’t.

Jill found herself surprised when she felt the subtle downward dip of the plane’s nose signaling their initial descent. She was fairly certain Vincent in all his sweaty tension wouldn’t agree, but it was one of the shorter flights she could remember.

Six hours had felt more like two.

Jill told herself it was just because she’d let herself get wrapped up in conversation. She was a talker after all.

Vincent’s grip tightened slightly during the bumpy descent, although he seemed less on the verge of death than he had during takeoff.

She felt the rough bump of the wheels hitting the runway. Felt the familiar pressure of being pulled forward.

She grinned at Vincent and squeezed his fingers. “We did it.”

Well,
they
hadn’t done anything.

But he’d survived, and that was something.

He didn’t smile back.

Nor did he release her hand.

Not until they reached the jetway and the Fasten Seat Belt sign clicked off did he finally, finally let go.

And before he did, he briefly, roughly jerked her hand to his mouth. Pressed his lips against the back of her hand just briefly.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

Vincent stood then, easily maneuvering their bags out of the overhead compartment, but Jill stayed seated a bit longer under the guise of putting her stuff back in her bag.

In reality, she paused because she wasn’t quite ready to stand, too worried that her legs would be shaky.

Not from the flight.

But from the realization that she could still feel Vincent Moretti’s lips burning against the back of her hand.

V
incent and Jill were still operating under the assumption that Lenora Birch had been killed over professional jealousies or vendettas, rather than personal ones.

Their bosses, however, wanted no stone left unturned, particularly given the cost of sending two of their homicide detectives to California for three days.

Which was how Vincent and Jill came to find themselves on the back patio sipping iced tea with James Killroy, an aging but still relevant action star.

And Vin would never admit it—not in a million years…

But he was starstruck.

Vincent wasn’t a movie buff by any stretch of the imagination, but like most guys, he enjoyed a good espionage movie. Enjoyed the car chase movies. Enjoyed blow-’em-up movies.

James Killroy had been the king of those types of movies a decade earlier, and just last year had topped the box offices with a blockbuster about an aging spy brought back into active duty.

Of course, his brooding stare and perfect delivery of one-liners wasn’t why they were here.

“You’re sure I can’t offer you anything stronger?” James asked, lifting his own whiskey in question.

Jill smiled politely. “Normally I’d love that pinot grigio you offered, but alas… working.”

The older man studied her. “Working on the murder of Lenora Birch.”

“Yes sir,” Jill said, giving that perky smile that turned most men to mush.

If James Killroy turned to mush, he was too good of an actor to show it. The man wasn’t cold, or even chilly, but he was definitely holding himself at a distance. He was trying to figure them out as much as they were trying to figure him out.

“You and Lenora were… romantically involved?” Jill asked.

“Hmmm,” James said in confirmation, leaning back in his chair and staring down at the amber liquid in his glass. “Long time ago. Long time.”

“Thirty-eight years ago,” Vincent supplied.

James laughed. “A bit long to have me on the short list of murder suspects, wouldn’t you say?”

Jill gave another one of those sweet smiles. “We’re looking into everyone from Lenora’s past who was in New York at the time of her murder.”

“Well… I can assure you that I wasn’t in New York to see Lenora Birch. It was my son’s twenty-first birthday.
He attends Fordham. I flew in to take him to a ridiculously expensive dinner, then paid for him and his friends to go out and celebrate—safely.”

“Your son’s birthday just happens to be the same night that Lenora was killed?” Vin asked skeptically.

James stared at Vincent over his glass, and Vin felt an honest-to-God urge to fidget. “Yes.”

“I assume you’ve checked the hotel security cameras at the Westin where I was staying. I got back to the hotel before ten.”

Lenora had been killed sometime around ten thirty.

“At this point it’s just a couple of questions—due diligence,” Jill said. “You and Ms. Birch… there’s an eleven-year age difference there.”

At this, James smiled. “Yes. And trust me, if there’s ever an older woman for a twenty-two-year-old kid to become enamored with, it’s Lenora Birch.”

“She was quite beautiful,” Jill said.

“Yes, but that’s not what I mean.”

“Oh?” Jill asked.

James sat forward, setting his glass on the table. “I met Lenora at a film premiere. It was one of my first movies, and my role was barely large enough to warrant an invitation. Lenora had nothing to do with the project, but back then premieres were fewer… all the big names in Hollywood leaped at the chance to attend. To stay relevant.”

“Who made the first move?” Vin asked.

“I did,” James said with a small smile. “The studio hosted a party after the viewing. I’d had one more drink than was smart—enough to make me stupidly bold. I saw her standing near the bar, and I just… talked to her.”

There was no softness in the way James told the story;
he might as well have been talking about his experience at the car wash.

“And she responded,” Jill said.

James shrugged. “I think she was amused. Perhaps flattered. At thirty-three she was still beautiful, but she was always incredibly aware of her advancing years. Always worried about the hot young starlets on the scene who would steal her throne.”

“But nobody ever did,” Jill said. “Not really.”

“No,” he said, picking up his whiskey again. “Lenora was one of the true greats. Her looks started to change, certainly—the ingenue shifted to the sophisticate shifted to the powerful dame. But her acting only improved with each change.”

“You dated for three years,” Vincent said. “What was the relationship like?”

The actor rolled his eyes. “This can’t possibly be relevant to the case.”

“It is if you killed her,” Vincent said, hardly believing he uttered that sentence to James Killroy.

The older man studied him for several moments, then tipped his glass in Vin’s direction. “You’re direct. I like you. And even though the question is bullshit… The relationship was… stable, at least compared to some of the more volatile relationships I was involved in before and after.”

“Stable?” Jill prompted.

“Lenora was a calm woman. Difficult to rattle even when I left water rings on her expensive coffee table, cigarette burns on her vintage couch. She’d express displeasure, certainly, but she never really got angry. Not with me. Not even when I deserved it, which was often back then.”

“You were happy.”

James rolled the glass between his two palms. “Happy enough. I learned from her. She seemed to enjoy me. I wasn’t always faithful, and I suspect she wasn’t either, but it worked for us.”

Vin’s eyes narrowed just slightly, his hero worship of James Killroy taking a sharp hit just then.

Vincent might not believe in true love and happily-ever-after, but he absolutely believed in fidelity. It was part of the reason he steered clear of traditional relationships. If he wasn’t one hundred percent sure he wouldn’t be tempted by another woman, he didn’t pretend to commit.

“How’d the relationship end?” Vincent asked James.

“Honestly? I barely remember. There was no fight. No big blowup. My career started to pick up, and hers had never slowed down. Our paths crossed less and less. Our schedules rarely overlapped. I’m not even sure I remember having the conversation that things were over. They just… were.”

“How’d you feel about that?” Jill asked.

James smiled grimly. “Not murderous, if that’s what you’re getting at. Seriously, I understand you two are just doing your job—I do. Hell, I’ve played a homicide detective once or twice…”

Yeah, because that’s the same thing, Vin thought.

“… but honestly, check with the hotel. I was back in my room by ten. Ordered a movie—one of those boring, award-winning types. Was asleep by midnight.”

“We’ll check the cameras,” Vin said, setting his iced tea on the table, sensing that they were done here. Admittedly the man didn’t seem particularly torn up about the violent death of an old lover, but there was no spark of any kind when James spoke of Lenora.

Not passion, not anger… barely even interest.

“Mr. Killroy,” Jill said, scooting forward in her chair as they all prepared to stand. “We’re currently operating under the assumption that whoever wanted Lenora dead was perhaps motivated by a professional slight, rather than a personal one.”

The actor nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense. The only time the woman got fired up was if she thought something would negatively impact her career.”

Vincent and Jill exchanged a look. It was almost comical how often that phrase was being uttered.

“Does anyone come to mind? Anyone who who might have had some sort of professional vendetta toward Lenora.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Sure, tons. Hollywood’s a competitive, sometimes vicious place. But everything I could think of… they’re old. Decades old. Lenora’s screen time has been limited to minor, grandmotherly roles in the past couple years, and anything before that…”

Again with the shoulder lift. “Who has the energy to hold on to anger for that long?”

Who indeed?

If they knew that, perhaps they’d have their killer.