Deadly Sins (13 page)

“Who is your alibi, Logan?” Archer was clearly running out of patience.

“He obviously doesn’t have shit, Sheriff,” the detective sneered. “Or he would have given it. And any alibi he could have would only be a suspect in the crime.” He pulled the cuffs free from the back of his jeans. “Now, how are we going to do this?”

Logan had parted his lips to order the sheriff to go straight to hell when a determined, clearly imperious knock sounded at the back door.

He knew who it was. He would know the attitude behind that summons anywhere in the world.

His guts tightened in the knowledge that she was going to be drawn into this.

That the one person in his life whom he’d managed to protect from his own personal hell, would now be thrown smack in the middle of it.

It didn’t matter if she lied or if she told the truth, she would be drawn into it.

She would become a part of his nightmare, and there was no way he could keep her out of it.

The knock came again.

Logan stared back at the sheriff coldly. He wasn’t about to open that door and invite Skye into the confrontation beginning to heat up between him and a detective Logan couldn’t even blame for his arrogance.

Unfortunately, Archer wasn’t nearly as stubborn. Before Logan could stop him the sheriff stepped to the door and jerked it open.

The first thing Logan heard was a hard, furious puppy snarl.

What started it, Skye’s surprise or the puppy’s sense of the tension, Logan wasn’t certain.

A second later the puppy had nearly managed to jump from Skye’s arms. Archer jumped to catch the puppy, dragged her against his chest, then gave a surprised yelp as two tiny canine teeth raked his neck before he could shove the bundle of fur back to Skye.

The dog didn’t want Skye. A puppyish, furious bark emitted from her immature throat, a furious part wiggle, mostly jump, and she was out of Archer’s arms.

A tiny little bundle of apricot fur and too-delicate bones was heading for the floor.

Logan jumped to catch her, reaching out for her and managing to catch the still-snarling little heathen before she managed to bounce to the floor.

And did she wiggle around wanting to be petted? As Logan set her on the floor, hoping Skye would just leave, he found out fast that being petted or helped, unless by him, wasn’t on the pup’s agenda.

Logan stared down at his shoe as the pup plopped next to him, laid her little snout on the toe of his sneaker, and stared back at the world, utterly content, if a bit drowsy.

The first pup he’d owned had been calm and laid-back. This one was anything but.

“You are going to have to do something about her.” An imperious feminine finger pointed to the dog as Skye stood at the doorway, clearly displeased.

“Really?” Logan’s brow arched mockingly. “I’ll get right on that. You can run on home now.”

He wanted her out of here; he did not want her involved in this.

“Oh, can I?” Delicate fingers spread out on her hips as one cocked and a tiny fragile foot pointed out confrontationally. “Well, that just sucks for you, Callahan, because you owe me. That little monster has made my life hell.”

“I didn’t tell you to take her out of here.” For the briefest second, Logan almost forgot about the detective determined to take him out in handcuffs.

“The hell you didn’t,” she argued fiercely. “That’s exactly what you told me.”

“So I’m an asshole,” he reminded her, keeping his voice cold. “Now, can you come back later, I’m a little busy here.”

“She has not allowed me to sleep since I took her Saturday night. She destroyed a new pair of designer jeans, a silk blouse, and nearly gnawed the leg of my antique coffee table in half. I must have been insane. She has tried to destroy everything in my home in her attempt to get to you. What do you do? Bewitch females? I will never, ever make such a decision again at three in the morning unless there’s a gun to my head.”

Skye was incensed. Until Logan looked into her eyes and saw, rather than anger, a cool, determined purpose.

As though somehow, she knew exactly what was going on.

Logan bent, picked the puppy up by her scruff, and, holding her back from him, stared into the dark brown eyes as the apricot pup hung from his grip.

Who would have figured? He’d ignored the animal for a week, other than providing food and water. Now she was the key to proving that once again, he hadn’t killed anyone. Because Skye had just informed both of them that she had been with him, the night, the hour, he needed an alibi for.

Wiggling in his grasp, the little mutt stared back at him with eyes he could have sworn were almost wise and a canine smile of bliss.

Shaking his head at the irony of it, Logan set the animal back on the floor, unsurprised when she flopped on her belly at his feet and laid her wrinkled little face on the toe of his sneaker.

“Sheriff Tobias, Detective Staton, meet Skye O’Brien,” Logan introduced them as he met Archer’s gaze intently before glancing back at Skye.

“Nice to meet you.” She blew away the introduction before turning back to Logan, an expression of frustrated feminine fury creasing her brow, but it sure as hell wasn’t filling her eyes. “Look, she wants you; not me. Now, you can take her and love her or you can watch her die of a broken heart on your back porch. Your choice. Five days of this is more than enough for me.”

“Five days ago at three in the morning?” Archer’s tone was harder now. “Was this Saturday night, Ms. O’Brien?”

“Drop it—”

“Yes, it was; why?”

Skye crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at Logan.

Her gaze flicked back to the puppy as she lay at his feet, the cute little face relaxed in bliss as she watched everyone with drowsy unconcern now that she lay where she wanted to be.

“Ms. O’Brien, could you and Mr. Callahan possibly discuss the pup later?” Impatience could be heard in the detective’s voice as he glanced at her, his gaze definitely irritated.

Irritation seemed to be the normal attitude when dealing with Logan Callahan.

She could definitely understand it.

“Or you could tell me what you meant by being here at three in the morning five days ago,” the sheriff ordered.

He expected her to lie; she could see it in his face. If she were going to lie, then she shouldn’t have run here the second her contact had informed her of what was going on.

Skye cleared her throat, as though comfortable, looking between the two men. “What did you do, turn me in for trespassing?” She doubted it. “Hell, Callahan, you didn’t seem the vindictive type to me.”

“Go home, Skye,” Logan snapped, and she could see the anger beginning to burn in his gaze.

Now wasn’t it just too bad that he was getting all angry with her?

Archer’s lips quirked. “I promise I’ll stop him short of vindictiveness. Now, if you would just tell us where Logan was about three o’clock Saturday morning, then we could just leave the two of you alone.”

“Like hell,” the other man murmured.

She pressed her lips together in irritation.

“Specific times, if you don’t mind,” the detective stated then, causing Logan to shoot him a warning look.

One the detective ignored.

Skye wanted to roll her eyes, but the look on the sheriff’s face wasn’t exactly inviting.

“Times.” Cocking a hip, she glared back at Logan before turning to the sheriff again. “I left my house at two o’clock Saturday morning and slipped around Mr. Callahan’s, then into his side yard, hoping the puppy wouldn’t bark at me like she usually did when I
trespassed.
” She pretended to glare at Logan. “I don’t know what time I made it to the back porch, but I was there, playing with the puppy, when He-Man here jerked me into the house about three thirty. We had coffee, sniped at each other a few minutes, long enough to learn he doesn’t like puppies or babies. He does kiss like a pirate though, I was able to re-affirm that.” Archer seemed to almost choke. “Daylight was just coming over the mountains when I left for my house.” She glared at the puppy then. “With the Tasmanian Devil there.”

The puppy yawned before blinking back at Skye innocently from the toe of Logan’s sneaker.

The sheriff let out a sigh that sounded amazingly relieved as Logan, arrogant male that he was, simply glared at her as though she had just committed a crime.

“I so can’t believe you turned me in to the sheriff,” she muttered, shooting him another one of those mocking glares. “That was such a sissy move, Callahan.”

His brow arched instantly as his eyes gleamed with a moment’s amusement. “Sissy?”

“A man does not call the sheriff over piddling trespassing episodes,” she accused Logan in irritation. “Besides.” She turned to the sheriff. “It was a humanitarian act. He was letting his puppy lie under the patio and cry all night.” She pointed to the little hellion. “If he continues to be a crybaby over a little trespassing, then I may press charges for animal cruelty.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed warningly as the sheriff seemed to have a scratch in his throat that caused him to cover his mouth to cough. The detective just looked even more pissed than he did when she arrived.

And she had no doubt he was. She knew exactly what was going on. Her own contact, the only person in the county who was aware of her background, had just gotten off the phone with her as Archer and the detective showed up.

“This has nothing to do with trespassing,” Logan finally assured her with icy disdain. “I needed an alibi.”

She saw it then. That glimmer of some emotion in his gaze that she hadn’t been able to truly decipher until now.

And it was sorrow.

“An alibi?” She frowned among the three men as though completely in the dark. But she knew his sorrow. “What sort of an alibi?”

“A friend was killed this morning,” Logan stated, his expression tightening as the grief in his gaze darkened the green further. “She was murdered.”

Skye blinked back at him. “And they believe you did it after this town’s history of attempting to frame you?” she asked incredulously before turning to the sheriff, then the detective. “Are you insane? Have you heard of lawsuits? Do you know he could sue the entire county for such harassment after the past he and his cousins have with this place? Archer, I’m completely disappointed in you.”

“She’s lived here six months and already knows our entire history,” Logan growled to the sheriff then. “This town is like a fucking information sieve. They can’t keep shit to themselves.”

“That’s any town, small or otherwise, in any part of the world,” she informed him as she turned back to the sheriff confrontationally. “Rumor has it you’re his friend, Sheriff. Shame on you for coming here accusing him.”

“I wasn’t accusing him, ma’am. I was the one trying to save his ass.” Archer frowned at her before glancing at Logan once again. “I just needed to know where he was. That’s all.”

There was obviously more to it.

She knew there was.

The tension in the room was enough that even the puppy lifted her head with a bemused expression.

“Well, now you know,” Skye informed Archer with blatant hostility.

“I’m taking the word of a woman who obviously has a sexual interest in the suspect,” the detective stated coldly.

“Oh, but I assure you, you will take my word for it.” Skye dropped any pretense whatsoever of being the innocent, offended neighbor.

She was about to completely blow her cover, and likely piss Logan off for the next decade.

But she was tired of this particular little game.

She’d spent nine years training and serving as a highly regarded undercover agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These three men might be completely unaware of her background, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to use it.

Detective Staton sneered back at her. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, Ms. O’Brien, but I don’t have to take your word for jack shit.” He gripped the butt of his weapon at his side as he turned to Logan. “Let’s go, Callahan.”

“Now hold on, Staton,” the sheriff injected.

“No, Sheriff, you hold on,” the detective snapped furiously. “This has been a comedy of errors since we walked through this damned door. A woman is dead, her body found in your county, naked, tortured, raped, and her goddamned throat sliced. I’d be a fool to take her word for anything.” His finger stabbed in Skye’s direction insultingly.

Her brow arched. “I suggest you contact your local FBI office, Detective Staton. While you’re doing that, I’ll make a call to the Director of the FBI in DC, then I’ll contact his wife, Lena, who considers me more or less a part of the family. I’ll even shed a few tears when I tell her how rude you’re being to me. Tell me, how do you think that’s going to go over?”

Logan stared at her, careful to keep his expression completely blank, to show no outward emotion. Not anger, not suspicion, and certainly not the betrayal crawling up his back like invisible fingers of savage fury.

He could feel it burning in his gut, racing through his senses, and for one insanely violent moment he was ready to put his fist through the wall.

He should have just told Archer about the phone call to Saul Rafferty. Hell, he wished he had just told Archer and that bastard detective about the inside video footage, time-stamped and including audio.

He could have gotten rid of the half-hour portion that showed him with his head and his fingers buried between the little betrayer’s legs. He could have told Archer why it was deleted and then refused to open the back door when she came knocking.

“You need to leave now.” He opened the door politely. “Good-bye, Ms. O’Brien. And don’t worry about the pup; I’ll take care of it myself from now on.”

Skye stared back at him silently now, all too aware of what she had just revealed and exactly how quickly the knowledge would spread through town once each authority had filled out his paperwork.

She was smart enough to know, though, that very, very soon she was going to have to tell Logan anyway. Tell him that as a matter of fact she had been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since she was twenty-two years old.

But she didn’t have to tell him the whole story right now. Not yet. Her heart might not survive the rejection from the man who was slowly stealing her heart.