Faces of Evil [4] Rage (21 page)

Dan set his hands on his hips. “Why did Gabrielle call you?” He hated that the question came out with a little more disbelief than he’d intended but it was done.

“Like I told Harris, she wanted to talk about Larry. Evidently there was trouble in paradise.”

“But you don’t know exactly what she wanted to talk about,” he countered.

Sylvia folded her arms over her chest and hiked up her chin. “God, you sound like Harris. I just told you she wanted to talk about Larry.
To me
. There was a problem. She was worried and now she’s dead. Do you get that?” she demanded. “You should be looking more closely at Larry and whatever problem he has or is involved in.”

Dan plowed his fingers through his hair. “Do you know how this sounds?” Surely she did. Sylvia was an extremely intelligent woman. “You’re the scorned ex-wife. You would love to see him go down for this. That’s what everyone will think.”

Sylvia laughed. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. But I do care that no one, not even the woman who stole my husband, deserved to die like this. You and Harris need to get your acts together. This murder had something to do with Larry. I heard the fear in her voice, Dan. Do you have any idea how much courage it must have taken for her to call me?”

That part he got. “Jess
is
investigating Larry. Anyone close to Gabrielle is a person of interest. You know how this works. She’s not going to ignore the possibility that Larry was involved. Coming here all worked up about this doesn’t lend any more credibility to your claim, Sylvia. You have to know that, too.”

She dropped into the nearest chair. “Maybe that was an excuse.”

Dan went on alert. “Is there something going on with Nina?” Just saying her name out loud resurrected memories he’d just as soon leave dead and buried.

Sylvia shook her head. “She’s not responding to the treatments the way we’d hoped. I’m not so sure she’s going to come around this time.”

Nina had been such a fun-loving, warm person. Or so it seemed. Dan had run into her at a fund-raiser. It had been nearly a decade since he and Jess ended their relationship. He’d decided it was time to settle down. Somehow he was always trying to find a way to get over Jess. Nina had presented the exact opportunity. She had been adventurous and his parents had fawned over her. She was a senator’s daughter after all. Only the senator’s family had been keeping a deep, dark secret. And Dan had almost paid the ultimate price for their vanity.

He forced away the memories that didn’t need revisiting. For years he had worked vigilantly to prevent himself from recalling those horrors whenever he thought of Nina.

“We’re considering moving her to a clinic in New York where they’re seeing better results with this intense therapy that has failed so miserably here.”

“How’s the senator handling this?” Dan could just imagine. Nina was his baby girl.

“Exactly like you think,” Sylvia admitted.

Nina suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. She’d shown the signs for years. The family had ignored them. Then, six months after she and Dan married, she went over the edge. How she’d made it through law school and started her own practice by the age of twenty-eight he would never fully understand. She’d tried to kill Dan with his own service revolver and he’d had no choice but to admit he couldn’t handle the situation. The family had resumed her care and the divorce was hastened along. Irreconcilable differences. That was all the world would ever know.

Dan had visited her every month for a while. But his presence only seemed to agitate her, so eventually he’d stopped going.

Then he’d stopped thinking about that side of her. He chose to remember the intelligent, vivacious woman he’d first fallen for.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Sylvia shook her head. “Afraid not, Chief. The demons in her head don’t want to let go and we just can’t seem to find a way to oust them.”

“I truly am sorry, Sylvia. I wish there was something someone could do to bring her back.”

“Me, too.” Sylvia straightened her shoulders and shoved her hair behind her ears. “So tell me about you and Harris. How long have you been in love with her?”

Dan held up his hands stop-sign fashion. “I’m afraid that topic is off limits.” He smiled in spite of himself. “Besides, I’m certain she would tell you that she doesn’t have time for that kind of stuff.”

“She’s the one from high school, isn’t she? The one you followed to Boston?”

Why bother lying? She’d only dig up the answers later. “Yes. Yes, she is.”

“So did she break your heart or did you break hers?”

He shrugged. “I think there was mutual damage.”

“I see.” Sylvia stood. “I hope you know what you’re doing this time.”

Dan frowned as he pushed to his feet. “We’re lucky to have her in the department. I’m damned glad she accepted the offer.”

Sylvia stopped at the door and turned back to him. “I wasn’t talking about the job. I was talking about the falling in love again.” She lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Or maybe you never really fell out of love.”

“Good night, Dr. Baron.”

“Make sure she follows up on this Larry thing,” Sylvia urged.

“You have my word.”

She searched his face a moment. “That means a lot, Dan. There are few men on this planet who are as good as their word, but you’re one of them and I appreciate that. I hope Harris does as well.”

And with that off-handed compliment, the senator’s elder daughter was gone. Dan watched her back her Lexus onto the street and drive away.

He closed the door and locked it.

The ego-driven male side of him wanted to argue that Sylvia was going overboard in her assessment, but he couldn’t do that. There was some part of how he had felt about Jess at seventeen that he had never gotten over. Through three marriages and countless relationships she had always been there, haunting him.

How she felt was far more difficult to measure. What her ex, Duvall, wanted was as clear as a bell. He hadn’t sent one of his underlings here to look into the Lopez family situation. He had come personally. Dan suspected the man was having second thoughts about having left Jess in the lurch.

If Jess was really smart, she’d tell them both to go to hell.

Dan chuckled. What a mess they had made of that aspect of their lives.

He checked the time. Almost midnight. Maybe he’d do a drive-by. If her lights were on, he’d call to see how she was doing.

He should probably just go to bed and forget the whole thing. Jess was, as she reminded him quite often, a grown woman who was highly trained in the art of self-defense.

But if he didn’t go he’d never get any sleep.

His cell chimed to alert him to an incoming text.

He grabbed it from the coffee table and checked the screen.

Night Burnett.

Jess
. He smiled as he sent her a good night.

She was okay. Now maybe he could get some sleep.

Five Points, Wednesday, August 4, Midnight

I
t was almost time.

Lori didn’t want him to go. She trailed her fingers along his bare torso. He shivered. She loved when her touch did that to him.

“You know what you’re doing?” Chet murmured.

“Umm-hmm.” She made circles around his navel with the tip of her finger and then moved downward. He gasped. Her fingers curled around him and the rock-hard feel of him was her cue. She rolled atop him, pushed up to a sitting position. “I know exactly what I’m doing.” She rocked her pelvis gently against his.

He groaned. “It’s late. What about that no spending the night rule?”

She ground fully against his erection, making him growl. “Rules are made to be broken.”

He reached up, wrapped his arms around her, and rolled her onto her back. She gasped.

“Don’t toy with me, Lori,” he whispered against her lips. “You know what I want.”

She did. Oh man, she did. Determined to maintain her independence, she had fought him for all these months. He wanted a real relationship. One with commitments. She had fully believed she wasn’t ready for that. That level of commitment hadn’t been in her five-year plan.

Two weeks ago her life had changed. That sick bastard Matthew Reed, Eric Spears’s protégé, had kidnapped and tortured her and two other women. He’d murdered one right in front of her. During those seventy or so hours one thing remained steady on her mind: this man. If she survived, she promised herself that she would not take him for granted ever again. She would take nothing for granted. Not her mother and her sister or her friends. Not one second of her life from this moment forward was going to be a throwaway moment.

She wanted to live every minute of it to the fullest.

“I want the same thing,” she confessed. “I really do.” She caressed his jaw. “It’s time.” She slid her hands over his back.

He rolled off her. Before she could ask what was wrong, he’d dragged on his boxers and walked away.

What the hell? She pulled on her abandoned tee and joined him at the kitchen sink. “Okay, so what did I say wrong?” Jesus Christ this relationship thing was as frustrating as hell.

“I know why you’re doing this and it’s a mistake.”

“I thought I was doing what you wanted.”

Disappointment flared in his dark eyes and she instantly recognized her mistake.

“What
we
want,” she amended.

“When you skate that close to death, it makes you afraid of what the next hour will bring. You grab on to everything you can as fast as you can so you don’t miss anything.”

So maybe she was more transparent than she realized. He’d zeroed in on exactly how she felt. “What’s wrong with choosing not to take life for granted?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. But this ferocity you feel will wear off in time. And then what happens to us?” He reached out, twirled a wisp of her hair around his finger. “I love you, Lori. I want you to want this because you love me, not because you’re afraid of what might come next. There are no guarantees when it comes to life. But I can guarantee that I will love you with all I’ve got for the rest of my life, whatever else happens. If that’s not enough, there’s nothing more I can say or do.”

“It’s enough.”

Chet pulled her into his arms. “If that’s really how you feel, what would you like to do about that?”

Her heart was thundering. Was she really going to do this? Yes. Yes, she was. “I think we should try out living together.” She laughed at how embarrassed she felt at saying the words out loud. “See if we can do it without killing each other or having it interfere with work.”

“There are more rules about that,” he warned. “I’m senior to you and we’re assigned to the same team. There could be career consequences.”

That was the only part that worried her. “I know.” She wasn’t looking forward to dealing with those issues. “I’ll talk to Jess. See what she thinks.” Lori looked him straight in the eye. “Jess’s friendship beyond the job means a great deal to me. I don’t want to lie to her. Ever.”

“Same here. I respect the chief too much to do that.”

Had they really made this decision? “So, what do we do next?”

He grinned. “We pick the place. Yours or mine?”

She backed out of his arms and walked to the middle of the room. “There’s no privacy here.” She turned back to him. “And when you have Chester he probably wouldn’t be comfortable here.”

A big grin spread across Chet’s face. “Do you have any idea how happy that makes me?”

Confusion had her making a face. “Your son being uncomfortable?” The kid was cute—for a kid. And he was the light of his father’s life. Lori recognized this was a package deal. She would adjust. Hopefully.

“No.” He was really grinning like a jackass now. “The idea that you would think about his comfort makes me extremely happy.”

She decided to say the rest of what was on her mind. There should never be any misunderstandings between them. “I wasn’t expecting to have children in my life at this point. I had that penciled in a few years down the road.” She tried to smile but her lips trembled with the effort. “But I love you. Chester is your son, and that makes me love him too. I want to be a part of his life because he’s a part of yours.” She took the few steps to the bed and plopped down on the foot of it. “After my father died my mother wouldn’t even think about another man, much less look at one.” Even as a teenager she’d recognized her mother’s loneliness. “I remember thinking how much she and my father must have loved each other for her to feel as if no one else could ever take his place.”

Lori pulled her knees to her chest and hugged herself. “But I was wrong about that. I mean, they did love each other that way. But years and years later, after my sister went off to college, Mom and I were talking and she said something I totally didn’t see before. She told me that at first the idea of another man was unthinkable. But eventually she got lonely, even with two girls to keep her running. But she never dared consider having anyone else in her life because she was terrified that she would be forced to choose, on some level, between him and us.” Lori blinked back the tears. “My mother sacrificed her own happiness because she was afraid. I don’t want to live in fear like that and that’s what that son of a bitch did to me. He made me afraid.”