Internal Affair (3 page)

“That’s enough,” he all but growled. He stood staring down at her, his chest heaving. Breaking his gaze, he looked out into the bull pen. Although she’d shut the door, it was flanked by long windows with open blinds. She didn’t turn around to check but could imagine others were watching them.

With a huff, Callaghan sat down. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blow up at you. It’s just that what happened to Finn in particular still gets to me.” When he looked at her again, fear showed through his eyes and she knew it was tied to how he must have felt seeing his brother come so close to death.

Now she felt bad. She squirmed in her chair a moment and swallowed hard. “No, I’m sorry. You asked me how I was sure about you, and sometimes, well often,” she admitted with a ruthful smile, “I get so caught up in chasing the truth and solving a puzzle, I lose sight of the fact that it involves real people and their lives. It was insensitive of me to answer your question with such cavalier honesty.”

She leaned forward. “Look, sir. I don’t know if your father was involved with the mob or was otherwise on the take. From what I can see in the record, the idea doesn’t jibe with the man being described. The weird thing is that there’s nothing official, no investigation ever started against him. It’s as if the idea of his being dirty just popped up out of thin air.”

“Rumor, innuendo, whispers at his fucking funeral while he and my mother were being lowered into their graves.” Callaghan’s voice caught, and a shudder ran through him.

His obvious vulnerability got to her, brought out all kinds of instincts in her, not necessarily maternal ones, either. Because she could picture herself getting up and putting her arms around him, she gripped her briefcase hard and planted both feet on the floor.

“Yes, that’s how it looks to me, too. If your father had been dirty and the other dirty cops had been there, why wouldn’t they stomp on any rumors? It could only lead to more questions unless someone was trying to deflect all of the mud onto a dead man. The whole thing smells off to me, and even if it’s true, his killers, your mother’s killers, need to be brought to justice.”

Callaghan closed his eyes briefly. “Amen to that. My brothers and I have been trying to figure this out since it happened. You say you want my help?”

Parker nodded once sharply. “Yes. Like I said, it makes sense to me that you’d know things that could be useful, and I really doubt you’re dirty.”

“Okay.”

She couldn’t keep the smile back, then lost it quickly. “You have to understand, though, that I go where this takes me. If your father was dirty, I won’t sweep it under the rug.”

Callaghan put his elbows on his desk and drilled his stare right into her. “Neither will I. I want the truth, whatever that may be, although I’m confident my father was clean.”

“Just so we’re clear.” She pulled out her phone. “Let’s set up a day and time for me to interview you.”

He raised his eyebrows at her use of the word “interview” and shook his head. “It has to be at night, and I suggest my house.”

She blinked back at him. His house? No, no way. That would be too intimate a setting, and her weak body already had too many bad thoughts about this man as it was. “Why not here?”

Callaghan’s gaze swept the area behind her for a few seconds. “Too many eyes and ears. It’s not safe.”

She frowned. “We’ll be in a private room, of course. Not
here
, here.”

He shook his head again. “This thing, it goes too deep and too wide. It crosses districts and ranks. I don’t trust talking about this anywhere but my home turf, which is my home itself. If you’re uncomfortable meeting me alone, I can have my cousin, Regan Malloy, join us.”

What an odd offer. She knew about his cousin, of course. The woman had just closed a serial killer case and received a commendation for it. If her presence was supposed to assure Parker he wasn’t going to “silence” the nosey internal affairs officer forever like this was some kind of cheap thriller, what stopped the cousin from being an accomplice?

He rubbed at the back of his neck in a nervous tell, and it hit her that he was referring to her being a woman alone with a strange man. And, yeah, that idea again goosed her supposed-to-be slumbering libido.

She squirmed in her chair, giving him her own tell about her state mind. “Oh, ah no, that’s not necessary. If you think it’s more prudent to meet at your house, then that’s fine. I, ah, trust you to be professional.”

Callaghan smiled grimly. “Yeah, that’s me, always the guy you can trust to do the right thing. Is Friday night at eight okay? I have a busy few days ahead of me.” He furrowed his brow. “Unless of course, you have plans? I just realized it’s a pretty common date night.”

For most people, it was. Just not for her. She stood up, suddenly done with this exhausting conversation and the annoying sexual need trying to claw its way out of the box she’d stuffed it in.

“No, I have no other plans,” she replied curtly. Holding out her hand over his desk, she added, “I appreciate your time, sir.”

Callaghan stood, too, and clasped her hand in his. A noticeable spark jumped between them. They pulled away simultaneously and stared dumbly at each other for a few seconds.

“It’s, um, dry in here, huh?” the lieutenant said, taking a step back and bumping into his chair.

Parker was equally ungraceful as she scooted back toward his door. Static electricity? Sure, that’s what had happened. “I’ll see you Friday, sir.”

“Wait,” he called when she turned to grab the doorknob. She looked over her shoulder. “You need my address.”

“I have it already,” she said in a voice that managed to be both breathless and squeaky. God, what a hot mess she was turning into in the blink of an eye. “Bye,” she said and practically ran out of his office.

She ignored the stares of the other cops. She always did.

Chapter Two

Daire gave the big open room that served as both living room and dining room one more critical glare and decided it would do. Christ, Jesus, when had he ever fretted over housecleaning this much? Sometime around never, he figured. Sure, he’d gotten on his brothers’ cases about picking up after themselves, and they’d vacuumed and cleaned the kitchen and bathrooms maybe twice a month. Not up to their mother’s standards, of course, but good enough for three guys. More than. So why had he left work an hour early to chase dust bunnies and put fresh towels in the downstairs half-bath?

It wasn’t as if he were having a date over. Parker Li, the woman who’d coolly and neatly sliced his balls off in his own office, didn’t count as any kind of date. The better description for her would be the enemy, except if there was any chance she sincerely wanted to solve his father’s murder and exonerate him, then Daire had to agree to help her. Making sure his home didn’t look like a demilitarized zone counted as just good manners, nothing more. Which didn’t explain why he’d changed his clothes twice in the last hour.

God, he was acting like a dope, but he found it difficult to ignore how his body had reacted to the woman. As soon as he’d caught sight of her in his doorway, every cell in his body had stood up and taken notice. That was true even though he knew she had to be from internal affairs, and that never bode well. It remained true even after she started in about his parents’ murders and he’d thought she was digging up dirt on his old man. That’s the part that rankled the most. His dick should have shriveled up in his pants at that point. Instead, it had steadily gotten harder and harder, not flagging even when he’d gotten mad at her detached description of Finn’s torture.

He didn’t think she’d noticed at the time. Tonight would be different, though. He had to make sure to keep his unruly body under control while they pored over whatever she brought. Keeping his mind on the awful task of once more reliving his parents’ murders agonizing detail by agonizing detail would definitely help. As should his jerk-off session in the shower earlier.

He’d felt like a tool doing it, but at his age, it should help. The evening would probably be a bust anyway and end quickly. He couldn’t imagine what she had that was new and helpful in the way of evidence. He certainly wasn’t going to share what Ronan and Diego had dug up at Mahurin’s place and kept from being logged in as official evidence. As an internal affairs officer, Li would hang them all out to dry for it. So, yeah, likely he would be wasting his time.

The doorbell rang, and his heartrate kicked up a notch. Damn it. Rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms against his thighs, he made himself walk slowly to the door and open it. A blast of cold air preceded his visitor, yet he hardly noticed it. Parker Li stood bundled up on his front stoop, her pert nose and sharp cheekbones a little red.

She blinked at him a few times before tugging down the scarf wrapped around her lower lip. “Hi, I hope I’m not too late.”

Daire stared dumbly at her for a few seconds before standing aside to let her in. “Ah, no, not at all.”

She whisked by him in a flurry of puffy coat and fly-away wool. “Good. I had to park a couple of blocks away. I’d forgotten how hard it is to park in a neighborhood not your own.” So, that explained her red-tinged face.

He closed the door. “Yeah, it can be a problem. I should have recommended that you Uber it.”

Parker placed her bulging briefcase on the floor between her legs as she pulled her outwear off. “No, that’s okay. I wanted to drive so there’d be no third-party record of my coming.”

Her words startled Daire. He froze mid-reach for her things. “You’re really worried about that?” He agreed with her, of course. He’d been the one to insist on this private meeting because he believed there were too many dirty cops lurking around. It surprised him, however, to hear she felt the same.

Li handed him her coat, scarf, and hat. Her hair flew up with static electricity, the real kind. Not the kind they both had tried to fool each other and themselves into thinking sent that spark of awareness between them when they’d shaken hands. As tiny as she was, she looked like a school girl patting her hair back into place. The look she gave him, however, was that of a mature woman. It conveyed how stupid she found his question.

“Yes, and I thought you were, too,” she replied, giving his home the onceover.

Daire took her things over to the pegs screwed into the wall by the front door and hung them up. “I do. I just didn’t think you did. I mean, I hear myself say I can’t trust too many people on the force and it sounds crazy. Like I think I’m in some kind of thriller with Denzel Washington and maybe Charliz Theron.”

When he turned back, he found her already laying her briefcase on the dining room table. He went to join her, grateful he’d settled on a long sweater to wear with new jeans, because fuck it all, the sight of her slender form in casual clothes had roused his slumbering cock. Apparently, he wasn’t so old that he couldn’t get hard twice in one hour. Shit.

“I can understand your feeling that way. Since we met in your office, I’ve been mulling this whole thing over some more.” She tossed a glance at him over her shoulder and gave this tiny, strangled sounding cough before returning to her task. “Anyway, my boss thinks Mahurin and this other cop we’ve linked to him, Forrester, are one-off rogues. He wants me to wrap it up quickly and move on.”

Daire joined her at the table, although he walked to the other side. Best to keep the big, oak table between them. “You don’t think so.”

Slapping a file down, she pierced him with a fierce glare. “No, I don’t think so. Neither of these people strike me as being particularly bright, yet I’m still digging out bank accounts and safety deposit boxes where Mahurin stashed a lot of money. He’d been on the take for years. How did he manage it without being caught unless someone else or multiple some ones directed him?”

“Not Forrester?”

“No way. Forrester’s much younger, a few years ahead of you, I think, at the academy, and did a really lousy job of covering the money trail. There have to be others around Mahurin’s age involved.”

She pulled out a small netbook computer and placed it next to her files. “I have more stuff on this and figured we could go over it and see what, if anything, rings bells for you.”

Daire nodded once in agreement. “Sounds like a plan. Um, can I get you anything to drink?” He scratched the back of his head as he asked the question, feeling far more awkward than a man of his age should around a woman.

“Do you have any green tea?”

Daire racked his brains. Finn kept some different teas for the Keurig. “I think maybe I do.”

Li gave him a bright smile. Every thought in his head fled in the presence of the sheer beauty of her face. It was perfect in every way. Before, in his office, he’d been too wrapped up in suspicion and anger to really allow himself to study it. Inappropriate as it might be to do it now, he couldn’t help himself.

If someone had asked him not an hour ago if he had a “type” when it came to women, he’d have said tall, leggy, and stacked. He’d also always been drawn to the cool beauty of blondes as a nice contrast to his dark hair. Now, all of that flew out the window. Petite, slender in perfect proportions, with midnight hair to rival his own and deep brown, almond-shaped eyes he could just fall into and never leave again. Not a lick of make-up covered her skin, yet it glowed with a radiant beauty that hadn’t been caused by mere cold.

She stared back at him unblinking, and even though her height forced her to tilt her head up to look at him, she didn’t appear diminished at all. This was a woman of power, and she knew it. He would bet his left nut she’d finished at the top of her class at the police academy and could hold her own against far larger opponents. Maybe she could hold her own against him. Somehow, the thought that she might be able to pin him down excited him, or at least his cock, even more. Shit, did that mean he was like Regan’s boyfriend, Kyle? Did he want a woman to tie him up and beat his ass? No, probably not. He really liked the idea of wrestling around with her, though.

She cleared her throat delicately, signaling he’d stared a little too long. He broke eye contact guiltily and embarrassed for being caught ogling her. With a jerk of his body, he went into the kitchen to hunt up k-packs. He almost crowed in triumph when he found some green tea ones, happy to be able to give her what she wanted. He ran the water through it and brought her tea in one of his nicer mugs. It counted as such because there were no chips in it and it didn’t contain any snarky sayings.