Dead on Arrival (18 page)

“You are one hell of a cook, Nightingale,” Dano said as he took another bite of potato pancake. “Damn. I'm impressed.”

My CSIC (Catholic School Induced Conscience) said I should tell him the truth, but for the moment, I reveled in the compliment and thought, hell, he might be lying about something much more serious than potato pancakes so why not let him believe the cooking was mine?

I really didn't want to like him. I really didn't want to think of this as a date. I really didn't
want
him to be guilty!

“Thanks,” I muttered and stuffed my mouth with a glob of sour cream. Yuck! I cut a piece of pancake and ate it to wash down the sour cream.

Dano glared at me. “What's wrong?”

I waved my hand and took a sip of wine. “Oh, nothing. Just too much sour cream.”

“That's not what I mean, and you know it.”

He almost sounded angry. At least he did sound serious. Wow. Suddenly my mind snapped to attention, and I touched my finger to the pink locket, that I'd used once already on this case, hanging around my neck. A Jagger present. A very appropriate, albeit not romantic, present. Pepper spray. The locket contained pepper spray for me to use on my case. Yes, Jagger did not trust me with a gun. Something about my foot and shots being fired—by me.

But one of these days….

While fingering the locket, I also ran through the self-defense moves Jagger had taught me. I only wished I didn't have to use them on Dano since we'd done other moves that were much more pleasant…Geez. Just my luck.

If I didn't keep reminding myself that Jagger wasn't here, he actually didn't come, then I might start to get a bit frightened. When I looked across the table, with the handmade crocheted tablecloth, I found it hard to believe this guy could be a criminal much less a murderer.

“How's Pansy?” I asked.

Dano paused.

Why? What made him do that? I headed into investigative mode and decided no matter how hot or how much I liked this guy, I had to find out the truth very soon.

He then looked at his food. “She's had a setback.”

Damn! “What kind?”

“Fever. The report is that she started talking, but with her temp 103, it seemed she wasn't making any sense.” He took a sip of his wine and looked at me.

To whom? Maybe what Pansy was saying made perfect sense to my case. “Interesting. What was she saying?”

“Jennifer went to visit her and said she kept repeating Sky's name over and over.”

Gulp. I wished I could share what I knew about Sky and Pansy with Dano. Maybe he even knew about it or knew something that would make sense. “Hm. That doesn't make sense to me. Does it to you?”

Dano sipped his wine and shrugged. “Guess it might.”

Bingo. “Might? How's that?”

“Well, he worked for her. Sky's only been at TLC a few years, but he used to take Pansy on helicopter rides. She was interested in flying them.”

That's not all she was interested in.

“Hm. Maybe she was interested in Sky too.” I forced a chuckle.

Dano didn't join me but said, “Naw. Pansy's not interested in boys.”

“She's gay?” I nearly choked on my wine. What about the sex chair and the fact that she'd mentioned Sky's name to Lilla and I?

“Not gay. I think neither. She's never really had a life outside of work.” He wiped a dollop of applesauce up with the remainder of the potato pancake and stuffed it into his mouth. Stella Sokol would be thrilled to see a guy enjoying her work of art like that.

“Neither? How can you be sure?”

He wiped a napkin briskly across his lips. “I'm not. Just guessing and frankly, Nightingale, I couldn't give a shit.”

Well I certainly could!

Damn but it was romantic cleaning up after our meal. Dano was cute and said whoever cooked shouldn't clean, but in my gut I knew I should be helping. So, we did it all together and now sat on the couch in the living room with some soft piano music playing in the background. Romantic? Yeah. Did I wish I didn't keep noticing that stupid cabinet in the kitchen while cleaning up? Damn it. Yeah.

I had to go check it out soon or my hormones might betray me. Hey, I was human and didn't feel as if Dano was really a threat. However, I drew the line at making out with a possible criminal, so I had to get myself into gear so I could shift into another kind of gear.

Dano reached over to put his arm around me. With the other hand he touched my cheek very gently, running his finger down to my lips, which he encircled.

Oh, boy….

“Hey, I have to use the little girls' room.” I removed his hand reluctantly and got up.

“No problem. I have a few phone calls to make anyway.” He got up and walked to the front door.

“Where are you going?” Did he accept that too quickly as if he didn't care? Hm.

“Oh, this thing doesn't get very good reception in this old place.” He held out his cell phone toward me. “Gotta go outside each time I want a clear, uninterrupted call. Take your time. Help yourself to more wine too, and feel free to refill mine.”

When he stepped out and closed the door, I looked up to Heaven and winked. “If only you'd make each and every case this easy.” With that I hurried into the kitchen to the cabinet—that could make or break my night.

Or make that more than just this one night.

I kept looking at the front door to make sure that Dano hadn't popped back in. Certainly he didn't suspect me of anything. Of that much I was sure. Because if ER Dano had suspected me of being about to snoop, he wouldn't have left me alone in the house. Nope. I never got any sense of suspicion on his part.

Since the coast looked clear, I hurried into the kitchen, propping the swinging door open a crack in order to hear the front door open. The whiteness of the place gave an eerie feeling, whereas when I first saw it, it looked as if it belonged in a featured article of
House Beautiful
.

Had to be my CSIC acting up, but since I had a job to do, I pretended I'd gone to public school as a kid and was Lutheran. That helped a bit as I walked to the cabinet where the papers had been stashed.

When I touched the cabinet's door handle, I half expected the papers to be gone when I opened it.

But there they sat. All in a messed up pile but still there. Dano really hadn't suspected me of anything and must not have known that I'd already seen them.

I looked toward the door and listened for a few seconds. Nothing except the grandfather clock's gongs signaling the hour. It had been dark outside for a bit, so I realized that anyone walking by the bay windows could clearly see inside the kitchen. Realizing that gave me pause, but I turned back to the matter at hand, deciding I had to take chances in this business.

The papers on the top were all about overcharged payments made by TLC. Things like extra charges for oxygen or nurse transport when other documentation showed that these were not the case. Plus, I knew the ambulance charge was a flat rate, and it was against the law to charge for some things individually.

I read through several more papers and found out that Sky's flights were making much more money than they should. Hm. Insurance companies were being charged for ground miles, which included every twist and turn of streets, instead of the air miles, which were direct shots through the air.

Yep. A big difference.

Sky's signature was on several of these forms.

I leaned against the counter to digest this information. My potato pancakes started to rise in my throat. Was Sky somehow involved? Did he fall in love with Pansy and then decide he wanted to get ownership of TLC by using her—and she found out?

Jilted lovers again.

They made great suspects.

A few of the other papers had notes in the margins. Handwritten notes that I would bet my life were in Dano's handwriting. I'd read some of his daily run sheets, and the writing looked the same as far as I remembered. Only on these, he'd explained how medications could be double charged. When the paramedic cracked open the glass vial of a medication to give to a patient, the half-full vial was to be turned into the ER nurse for replacement.

But Dano's note said some of the medication could have been replaced with water, and when the nurse went to discard it, she'd never know. The patient would be charged for the medication, and the paramedic could have used the rest on him or herself or sold it in one of the crack houses over on Lincoln Street. Lord knew those poor souls would buy just about anything.

After going through everything that I read, I really wasn't convinced of anything. As a matter of fact, I was more confused. Dano's notes almost sounded as if he were—

“What the hell are you doing with those?” he said from behind. “Now what, Pauline?”

The hair on the back of my neck stood. My heart started to race. In the glass of the cabinet door, I could see the serious, almost threatening face of a very pissed ER Dano. And in his hand was a shiny metal object.

A knife. A
knife
!

“No!” I screamed and swung around to defend myself against a knife wielding ER Dano. Although my instincts had been wrong about him, I wasn't going to let my feelings get in the way.

My life depended on it.

After all, he'd killed Payne, stabbed Pansy, and had hid the fraud evidence in his house!

Without another thought and in only a few seconds, I had the pink pepper spray locket in my hands, aimed, and sprayed.

“Aye!” he screamed and dropped his knife.

I went to kick it to the side, but Dano grabbed me by the shoulders.

“What the hell? That feels like a freaking habanero pepper in my face! Goddamn! Even my ears burn. Jesus! What the hell are you—” He nearly shook me so hard I was about to knee him in the groin when I caught a glimpse of the knife near the kitchen table.

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

Cell phone.

Dano's cell phone lay on the floor.

He'd let me go and hurried to the sink to run water over his face. Between breaths and gurgles, he cursed at me and asked over and over why the hell I sprayed him.

I couldn't take my eyes off the phone.

Dano didn't have a knife. But did that make him any less guilty of everything else?

I hurried to his side and grabbed the water sprayer to help. “I thought you…you had a knife. I thought you were going to…what the hell are you doing with all those papers, Dan?” I kept spraying until he pushed my hands away, grabbed a towel, and stood up.

His face was brighter than a boiled lobster.

“You're gonna have to explain that one, Nightingale. That is, if I live. My eyes are crying like a damn baby's. My mouth is drooling like a freaking waterfall!”

“Oh geez. And your nose is running like a sick kid's. I am so sorry!” Despite the look he tried to give me through his pain, I said, “Get your shirt off. The effects won't be as bad.” I grabbed his shirt and tugged.

“Yeah, not as bad,” he muttered.

The spray obviously caused the mucus membranes of his nose and throat to swell, which made it difficult for him to breathe. His eyes had swollen shut, and I knew beneath the reddened lids there were as bloodshot as if he'd drank a case of tequila.

He kept cursing and mentioning my name over and over.

“Get to the shower!” I yelled, half pushing him toward the downstairs bathroom that did, in fact, have a shower hose attached to it despite the clawed foot antique tub.

“Did you kill Payne?” came flying out of my mouth as I undid Dano's belt buckle.

Dano managed to open one tiny slit of his left eye and somehow glared at me. “What the hell is wrong with you tonight? No, I
didn't
kill anyone.” He stood closer to me, probably to see me better. “But the thought has crossed my mind this very second.”

I fingered the locket.

He grabbed my hand and yanked it off, breaking the clasp! “You can't be trusted with that thing. Thank God you don't carry a gun. I still want to know what the hell you are up to!” He shoved off his jeans and stood there in his boxers.

I stood my ground instead of giving in to the flight-or-fight response that my adrenaline was pumping out. Actually my first choice was the flight one. Okay, the
very
first one had something to do with seeing him in his boxers. “I need to know. Are you involved in the fraud at TLC?”

He paused.

My mouth dried.

“How do you know about that?” he asked, very seriously.

“It…doesn't matter. Are you?” My nursing nurse's nature had me wanting to gently wipe the water from his eyes and face. He looked so miserable—and I had caused it. But I held back with Jagger's words, “and don't go nursing the criminals” he'd once said to me.

But I couldn't believe I was standing here with a criminal.

It seemed like hours that I stood in the kitchen grilling ER Dano, sans clothes and now only with a towel wrapped around his waist, about my case until he finally started to recover from the pepper spray. I knew if he'd meant to harm me, he could have done so a long time ago.

Had to be a good sign.

Actually, he became very cooperative about the questioning and actually made sense a few times, but right when I thought I'd figured him out, he'd get back on the “what the hell are you up to?” line of questioning.

“Make me some tea to ease this feeling in my throat,” he said. It really wasn't a gruff order, but then again he didn't say please either.

However, I was pleased that he hadn't done anything to me…yet. When I went to put a teabag in a mug and pour tap water into it, he said from behind, “Don't you know how to make proper tea? Boil it.”

Shades of Stella Sokol.

I boiled his and nuked mine, and in a few minutes we were sitting at the table. His face looked much better although still a bit pinkish.

And here I sat not sure if I should feel badly or not.

Dano took a sip of tea and looked me in the eye. “Who do you work for, Pauline?”

Yikes. He'd used my first name as Jagger always did with his no-nonsense voice. As I sat there contemplating a lie, I realized there wasn't a scared bone in my body.

ER Dano had to be clean. I just felt it.

“The more important question, Dan, is why do you have all that evidence of fraud at TLC?”

He didn't even look surprised which surprised the hell out of me—and maybe did scare me a bit. Then again a con man usually could play a poker face like a gambling Vegas billionaire.

I swallowed and sipped then swallowed and sipped a few more times. When I looked him in the eyes, I said, “It shouldn't take so long to answer truthfully.”

Dano chuckled, then started to laugh. “You are one hell of a woman, Nightingale.”

Now I've faced murderers before, several times as a matter of fact, and even had them make attempts on my life, and with my limited knowledge of psych, I could sense the nefarious personalities of these folk when it came right down to it.

And I didn't sense it now.

Dano's laughter wasn't eerie, or scary, or nefarious. It seemed to come from deep within him and from humor.

“What is so funny?” I had to ask.

“It just dawned on me. You think I'm involved in the fraud and the stabbings.”

“And that is funny
because
?”

“Because, granted, I'm a burned out paramedic, suffer nightmares from the job, don't put up with any crap from anyone. Anyone. And have little patience for the newbies although I always get assigned them, but I am not a killer or a thief.”

He had me convinced
, was my first thought, however logically I knew I couldn't just believe his words. Probably I wanted to believe them, and that was confusing me. But I looked him directly in the eyes and said, “Prove it. I need proof.”

Dano glared at me for a few minutes.

I swallowed several times and fidgeted with my tea mug. Feeling like a bug under a microscope, I also fidgeted in my chair until I said, “Stop that! Tell me the truth now.”

He calmly got up and went to the cabinet that I'd been snooping in. When he pulled out the rest of the papers, he shuffled through them and handed me several. “Read.”

I read all right and had to push my jaw back up off my chest several times. Slowly I set them down, “Then who killed Payne and stabbed Pansy?” the stupid question came out before I could think since I was so flawed (and, yes, relieved) that Dano was not guilty of anything other than gathering inside information for one Global Carrier Insurance Company—the biggest one that Fabio dealt with in his agency.

Dano shook his head. “I thought you cared about me?”

Oops. “I did…
do
.” I set the papers down, got up, and went to place my arms around his neck. “You have to believe me that I never wanted you to be involved.”

And his kiss said more, a hell of a lot more, than any words could.

When he started to nuzzle my neck, he said, “If I knew who hurt Pansy and killed Payne, don't you think I'd tell the cops?”

Preoccupied by his hands running over my body in oh so delicious places, I barely remembered what he was talking about. In a few seconds I leaned back, looked him in the eyes, and said, “Yes, I do.”

“Then sex isn't out of the question once I recover from your attack?”

Thank goodness he was smiling his dynamite ER Dano, sexy girls-can't-keep-their-hands-off-of-him smile.

I ran my fingers down his chest to grab onto the towel. “Not at all.”

His lips covered mine and despite his earlier “discomforts” he lifted me up and carried me into the living room where soon my clothing lay in a pile on the floor—right after I'd yanked off Dano's damp towel.

It didn't take me long to forget my concerns about Dano. Actually, as he ran his hands across my breasts so very gently in the afterglow of our lovemaking, it seemed like a dream. Well, this very moment seemed like a sexy, unbelievable dream, but any thoughts that he was a criminal seemed like ages ago and not very real.

I turned toward him, taking his now very pale pink cheeks in my hands and kissing his lips with purpose. “I am so sorry.”

He kissed me back, running his tongue inside my mouth until I thought we could do…it…again. “Fagetaboutit. You've worn me out.” He playfully pinched my nipple.

“I really do want to forget it all but need to make it clear. The job stuff. Not the sex. I'm sure you're wondering who I am.”

He wrapped his leg across mine. “Nope. I know you rather intimately now.”

I smacked his hard chest. “Ouch. Well, I need to make it all clear.” And I really did. I couldn't start a relationship on a lie, so I told ER Dano who I really was and who I worked for, leaving out Jagger's identity—or what little I knew about it.

Dano leaned back, looked at me, and smiled. “I was wondering when you'd get around to all that.”

I felt my eyes widen a hundred times larger. “You…were wondering?” I wrinkled my forehead. “I'm not following.” But my investigative abilities were sending out signals that said, he knew. He knew. He knew all along!

He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “We're straight now, Nightingale. Straight.”

When he held me closer, I wanted to go on and on asking questions, but this felt so right that I shut my mouth. But in my mind I screamed, Jagger!

Jagger had to have already told him!

Of course, Jagger always managed to finagle us into getting jobs in the companies that we were investigating, and it made sense that one of the employees would have to know who we were.

While Dano kissed me deeply, sensually, and well, damn hotly—the last thought on my mind was: I'm going to kill Jagger!