Florida Knight (3 page)

Kate hadn’t expected him to be whimsical or clever. He was right, of course. She had a stereotyped niche in her brain labeled “Cops,” and she was finding it difficult to see him as the all-too-human man he obviously was. He was also beginning to interest her. Her reactions to him, as a state cop and as a man, might frighten her, bu
t the situation was intriguing.

“The knight who hit Mark—that’s my brother—tells me he had trouble with his lance, the balance wasn’t right. That’s how he happened to strike Mark in his visor. Afterwards he discovered his lance was metal, not wood. A substitution had been made. We questioned the kid who fought him, the two squires at that end of field. They were all Mark’s friends, traveled the circuit with him.” Michael shrugged. “I’m told I frightened them half to death, but the truth is, in the end I had to believe them. It’s about ninety-nine percent certain they had nothing to do with substituting a metal lance. So I began to look farther back, check what’s been happening at other Medieval Fairs over the past few months. Have you heard any rumors?”

The question was sneaked into his narration in what Kate supposed was his best interrogation mode. It was effective. Words tumbled out as she hastened to reply. “After the accident at the Fair in
Manatee
Bay
, rumors started. A whisper here, a whisper there. Other accidents. Odd, unexplained incidents. The vendors aren’t as close as the traveling performers since we don’t all go to the same fairs, but the gossip travels fast once it begins. So, yes, there was talk.”

“What about LALOC . . . they have any problems?”

The question was so soft, so casual, Kate almost missed the significance. She should have made the connection, she realized. The rumors at the Fair, the incidents at LALOC events. Analytical, wary, she was about as far from naive as one could get. She should have
known
.

Accidents were not tolerated in LALOC, the Lords and Ladies of Chivalry, an organization dedicated to re-enacting the Medieval world in the twenty-first century. The whole idea was to have fun while re-creating a time when the ideals of chivalry prevailed. Tolerance of idiosyncracies was high. Tolerance of anyone getting hurt, physically or mentally, was rock bottom. Kate was not part of the hierarchy of LALOC, but she’d witnessed one of the odd occurrences and heard about several others. The most recent rumor was that the problem of safety was on the docket for LALOC’s upcoming Kingdom Board meeting.

“Yes,” she nodded, “there’s been some trouble. It seemed accidental at first. Nothing worse than upset stomachs after a feast. Then it was a king snake in a cabin. Scary, but not dangerous. But, believe me, the screams still echo in my dreams. The worst I’ve heard of so far was an arrow that lost its blunt in a melee. Miraculously, it bounced off the chest of someone with studded leather armor.”

“Would it interest you to know that according to LALOC’s national office these incidents have happened only in
Florida
?”

“But the Fair incidents have happened all over the country,” Kate countered.

“Right.” It was as if he were patting her on the head, murmuring a patronizing,
Good Girl
. “So we need someone in the local LALOC who also occasionally travels the Fair circuit as a vendor.”

“Namely, me.”

“You got it.” Kate hadn’t thought it possible for his black eyes to turn more sardonic, but they did. She felt sliced, diced, turned inside out. He was playing with her. There was no way she was going to get off the hook. She was his, for whatever he wanted, however long he wanted it.

Stall. There had to be a way out of this. Ten minutes of Michael Turco were more than mind or body could stand. He threatened her hard-won control of her life. He terrified her. Rapidly, Kate reviewed their conversation, summoned up a question: “What were the incidents on the Fair circuit?”

“Just thefts at first. Vendors coming back to their booths in the morning to discover their trunks had been ransacked.”

“Oh, no!” Kate, knowing full well the hours and the agony necessary to create artistic treasures acceptable for the premier Medieval and Renaissance fairs, was genuinely shocked.

“The tent over a booth collapsed in upstate
New York
, right on top of several thousand dollars worth of pewter and crystal. Then a privie—some damn kind of port-o-pottie—blew up in
Chicago
. . .”

“Blew up?” Kate echoed.

“Well, not like in dynamite,” Michael admitted. “Just a great whoosh of you-know-what that nearly gave some poor guy a heart attack. Then in
Arizona
a dragon ride started spouting real fire. After that, it got worse. A kid got a broken arm in
Kansas City
when a harness broke on the
Climbing
Tower
. The worst—before Mark—
was in
Michigan
when the sword swallower discovered the hard way that someone had honed his blade to razor sharp.”

“Was he okay?”

“Oh, yeah. You don’t swallow swords unless you know what you’re doing, but he required a few stitches. I think he retired.”

Silence closed in on Kate’s small office. They were in a Mediterranean-style building constructed in the heyday of
Florida
development only a few years before the stock market crash of 1929 brought on the Great Depression. Once a dormitory for a military school wealthy enough to bring its students south for the winter, the structure now housed a mini-mall and offices with apartments above. In the corridor outside, Kate knew, were the bustling sounds of
boutique
shoppers, restaurant patrons, people wanting to hire a
wedding planner, a disc jockey, private detective, or
attorney. The world of the brand new twenty-first century. Yet here, behind the door with Kate Knight and Michael Turco, was a world hundreds of years removed. A world of kings and queens, lords and ladies, knights and fair maidens, wizards and sorcerers, warlocks and witches.

“Are you saying we have a psycho out there?” Kate asked.

“Possibly. Since the fairs are run by a variety of organizers—some local, some professional—and your LALOC is separate from all of them, it took a long time before anyone even recognized we had a problem. And
why
is even tougher to figure.”

“So it’s a psycho,” Kate repeated.

“So we—the state of
Florida
, my brother and I—need your help.”

How low, how underhanded could you get? The man was a real piece of work. Kate knew, absolutely knew, she was going to hate what he wanted her to do, but he’d boxed her into a corner with no exit. Refusing to help was like rejecting the American way, let alone the glorified ideals of the Age of Chivalry.

Kate heaved a sigh more heart-felt than the one which had echoed from Barbara Falk’s office. “So what do you want me to do?”

Chapter 3

As they’d talked, Michael leaned closer and closer to Kate, using sheer physical bulk to emphasize his words. By this time they were nearly nose to nose. Truth was, the blasted woman seemed to pull him in like a magnet. Appalled, Michael snapped to attention, his back perpendicular to Kate’s desk. He fought a panicked urge to spring to his feet, to put the width of the room between himself and this strange attraction. Couldn’t let her see he was running scared. Amazons were absolutely, positively, not his type. And, besides, this was business. Strictly business.

Careful, Turco, careful.
One wrong move could shatter his plans into ineffectual dust. “Medieval Fairs don’t come along often,” Michael noted, easing into the problem with what he hoped was sufficient subtlety. “But LALOC has meetings each weekend, though they’re pretty much a closed corporation—“

”Anyone can come to an event,” Kate broke in. “Anyone at all. They just . . .” She lifted her chin, let her gaze slide away toward a spot somewhere beyond his left shoulder. Whatever thought had just occurred to her, it seemed to spark a wicked gleam in the depths of those huge green eyes. “The only requirement is a costume,” Kate announced.

“A
costume
?” Michael glared. No way in hell.
Fool!
Of course he had to have a costume. He should have known.

“Guests can be any race, religion, or gender persuasion, but they have to wear a costume,” Kate declared. “Any time period up through the Renaissance—though that line’s gotten kind of hazy, what with all the men who want to dress as cavaliers.”

“Cavaliers?” Michael echoed, resenting his ignorance.

“Something like The Three Musketeers,” Kate explained with a tolerance that caused his teeth to ache. “You know—tall boots, short capes, big hats with ostrich plumes, rapiers, lots and lots of swashbuckle.”

Momentarily distracted from his bad humor, Michael gaped. “Men
want
to dress like that?”

“They look glorious,” Kate assured him. “Lots of black velvet. Very pettable.”

“Oh, shit!” Kate’s face might be perfectly straight, but Michael knew she was pulling his leg. She had to be. “Okay, let me get this straight. If I want to attend one of these weekend meets, I have to wear a costume?”

Kate caught his gaze and held it. This time there was no mistaking the smug look, the mocking twinkle in the depths of her sea green eyes. “Right,” she affirmed. “And we call them Events. The weekend meetings,” she clarified, “we call them
Events
.”

Events. They’d sure be
Events
if Michael Turco had to make a g.d. fool of himself in a costume. The shine on his black dress shoes was suddenly of intense interest as Michael avoided Kate’s challenging gaze. Amused condescension, that’s what he’d seen. The fool woman was enjoying this. Gloating while watching him squirm. For the first time since Michael had seen his brother’s bloody head lying on the scuffed green turf of the tournament field, his determination wavered. He was asking to be set down among a bunch of people wearing costumes? He’d be in costume himself? To even consider it, he had to be out of his mind.

“You don’t have to be a cavalier,” Kate offered. “You can be a barbarian raider from before the Conquest. You could be an itinerant knight or . . .”

Michael’s head shot up. “A Black Knight?” he snapped.

“Yes, of course. Except, ” Kate added hastily, “you can’t really be a knight until you’ve learned to fight and won enough battles to be declared a knight.”

Michael stared in disbelief. “
Learned to fight?
” he echoed.

“Learned to fight the LALOC way,” Kate elaborated in a tone sharply reminiscent of his high school history teacher expounding to a class comprised primarily of jocks.

Then, suddenly—just as his temper simmered toward boil—Michael realized he’d won his personal battle with Kate Knight. Somewhere in their sparring she’d accepted the idea of hi
m
joining LALOC. His lips curled in a surge of satisfaction. “So you’re willing to introduce me to LALOC,” he purred.

Kate’s chair creaked as she leaned back, staring up at him, eyes wide and wary. “You don’t need me,” she countered. “I told you, anyone can go. All you need is a costume.”

“No way. I need someone on the inside to vouch for me. Someone to say I’m okay, that I am who I say I am. And that definitely won’t be Lieutenant Michael Turco of the FHP.”

She didn’t explode, as he’d expected. Kate went very, very still. And pale. Even her lips—her full, shapely lips—were pale. Less kissable lips on an attractive woman Michael had yet to see. She seemed to bristle like some porcupine about to throw its quills.

“You want me to
lie
to my friends?” Kate breathed.

His only choice was to fall back into police mode. “Standard undercover procedure,” Michael declared. “That’s why I’m here. That’s why Bill Falk steered me to you. I need your help.”

“My help to fool my friends!”

“If that’s what it takes to find this psycho, then absolutely ‘yes.’”

“You’re despicable!”

Michael actually grinned. He’d been spoiling for a fight. Someone to yell at, someone to arm-twist—figuratively speaking. Someone to blame for Mark having to learn, by baby steps, to live a life that would possibly never be the same.

“Despicable,” he drawled. “Now there’s a fifty-cent word. Must come from working in a lawyer’s office.”

Kate rolled her chair back so hard she hit the office equipment table behind her with a thud that rattled her teeth. As the copier and the fax machine thumped back into place, Kate bounded to her feet, fists clenched. But her belligerence wasn’t as effective as it usually was. Her Nemesis had also shot to his feet. In spite of all her inches, she wasn’t looking down on Michael Turco, she wasn’t even nose-to-nose. He topped her by at least five inches, compounding the intimidation of towering physical bulk by an infuriatingly feral grin, his strong white teeth flashing.
The better to eat you with, my dear.

“Out!” Kate ordered, even as she knew there was no way Lieutenant Michael Turco was going to move unless he damn well wanted to. “Get out, I can’t help you,” she hissed, hoping he hadn’t heard the slight hitch in her voice. Legally, she didn’t have to cooperate. Morally, she was on shaky ground if she didn’t. Professionally, she could be in serious trouble.