Internal Affair (9 page)

His breath labored as his climax built, and soon he couldn’t hold off on the main event. He raised Parker’s slender legs, parting them. With the utmost care, he pressed his cock into her wet cunt. Her slick walls clasped him tightly, welcoming him in. He eased all the way in and held still, letting the pleasure build. Soon, though, his discipline snapped and he began thrusting fast and hard. He tightened his fingers around his cock, massaged his balls with an equally fast tempo. His breath labored, grunts flew out of his mouth. He let himself go in rare fashion, shouting out the moment cum pulsed from his cock. Instead of slowing down, he sped up his efforts. His hips pumped wildly while his fingers crushed whatever flesh they held.

When he could come no more, he collapsed against the shower wall with a cry of almost despair. The vision of Parker still swam in front of his closed eyes. He no longer took pleasure in it.

With the gradual return of his clarity of mind, misery washed over him. Not only did he have to resist the lure of his fantasy woman, but when the investigation ended, he might forever associate her with his parents’ murders. Not as the woman who helped to exonerate his father, but as the one who proved him guilty.

Chapter Five

A red-haired Amazon answered the door and peered down at Parker. To be fair, the woman wasn’t exactly oversized. Being only five foot three, meant Parker perceived lots of woman as being worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records. This had to be the cousin, Regan Malloy. She examined Parker as if she were a bug under a microscope for a few seconds before standing to one side.

Parker took the gesture for the invitation it undoubtedly was, albeit a reluctant one, and stepped inside the cozy familiar home. The day had been a pretty warm one for the time of year, so she had a light jacket on she didn’t bother to take off in the entryway. As soon as she entered the room, the low murmur of voices abruptly stopped and seven pairs of eyes turned her way.

The Callaghan brothers were out in force, their sexiness and charming good looks on full display. Even if she hadn’t seen Ronan’s picture in his parents’ murder file, she would have picked him out easily. Although they were different in many ways, the brothers still had a certain commonality to their faces. They were joined by three other men, equally attractive, two dark and one very fair. She picked out Caruso and Nieves easily enough from prior meetings and process of elimination. That left the blond as Malloy’s boyfriend. He made an interesting contrast to the darker men, and his stylish, yet professional, clothing set him apart, too. She wondered why he had come, then remembered he was a lawyer and probably just as protective of his woman as the Callaghan brothers were. That left Cassidy Barnes as the other odd person in the group, except her skills as a coroner would be critical to their investigation.

Daire didn’t let more than a second go by before he rushed to her. He gave her a brief smile. “Thanks for coming over.”

He reached for her jacket, which hung on her body still. His hands by necessity touched her shoulders and arms while he tugged it down and off. A shiver ran through her she couldn’t suppress despite her resolve to be cool and collected this evening. It had been a pointless exercise in self-castigation. Not even a roomful of other people served to keep her desire at bay.

“Thanks,” she murmured and walked to the large dining table, lugging two extra heavy briefcases.

“Let me help you with that.” As the closest person to her besides Daire, Ronan tugged one of her bags from her hands.

A low menacing sound, kind of like a growl, passed over her head. Ronan stared back at its source, a taunting look if ever she saw one. She wanted very badly to glance over her shoulder but didn’t. Whatever had transpired between the brothers, and she had no doubt the noise had come from Daire, she didn’t want to face it. Hard enough to keep herself under control. She didn’t need to know what was going inside Daire’s head.

She didn’t get more than a step closer to the table with her remaining bag before someone deftly liberated it from her grasp. She frowned at Daire’s back as he brought it over to join the first one Ronan had laid down. Really, she wasn’t so small and weak that she needed help. Knowing she’d be talking to a bunch of hands if she tried to make that point, she let it go. The blond stepped into her path before she managed another two steps.

He actually stuck out his hand. “Kyle Ramsey.” Tamping down her impatience, Parker shook it. “I’m Regan’s boyfriend,” he added quite unnecessarily.

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ramsey. Are you here to help?”

“Not exactly.” Before he could say more, Regan joined them, grabbing her man by the waist and holding him close.

“He’s a worrier,” Regan said, then rolled her eyes in a woman-to-woman silent communication that made Parker like her right on the spot. “He just wants to make sure you’re not entrapping me or something.”

Kyle slanted his eyes toward his girlfriend. “That wasn’t exactly my concern.”

Yes, it is,
Regan mouthed when he looked away again.

Parker tried to throw the other woman an understanding look. “Please let me assure you, sir, if what we’re doing ends up being a problem with the department, I’m the one first and foremost in the crosshairs. I believe this investigation matters enough to take the risk.”

Ramsey studied her for a few seconds. She met his gaze steadily. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, then.” He pulled Regan in even closer and placed a noisy smack on her lips. “I’ll see you later tonight, but don’t forget we promised the girls we’d take them shopping tomorrow.” When Regan made a sick face, he laughed and kissed her again. “I know.” With a nod at Parker, he left.

Eventually, Parker made it to the table. The Callaghan extended clan ranged themselves around it and silently watched her unpack her netbook and all of the paper files she’d amassed. Since her last time at the Callaghan home, she’d spent a long rest of the week painstakingly putting together as much information as she could about Rory Callaghan, his graduating class, and his partners. She’d also printed out multiple copies of her spreadsheet so everyone could look at it together if they wanted.

It unnerved her a bit how all these people were willing to put this responsibility in her hands. Forget the department’s protocol of assignments, this mattered on a personal level to everyone else in the room. They’d already devoted, in the case of the brothers and their cousin, years to this effort. Their trust in her, especially Daire’s, humbled her.

Before she could bring them all up to speed, Cassidy leaned over the table. “We got pizza delivered. Would you like some?”

Parker couldn’t hold back the grin. “No Chinese?” Daire grinned in response, but Cassidy and the others froze, uncertain of how to respond. “Sorry. Inside joke. I’ve had dinner, thanks.” She took a deep breath. “So, here’s what I’ve got.”

****

Daire stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining area and gave himself a couple of seconds to appreciate the scene before him. Almost all of the people closest to him sat around the old table, poring over pictures and spreadsheets and Parker’s copious notes on both. It looked right, damn near perfect, for Parker to be in the midst of his growing family. The hideousness of the reason they were gathered didn’t diminish the fact, either.

He’d also noticed how quickly and easily his family accepted her as one of their own, even though she wasn’t like the other recent additions to his growing brood. Unlike Michael, Diego, Cassidy, and even Kyle, she wasn’t there as a devoted lover or partner. Still, no one taking in the scene would notice that fact. She fit, here in his house and his life. Too bad it was only temporary.

She smiled up at him in brief thanks when he handed her the soda he’d gone to fetch. He so wanted to take the empty seat next to her, but as that would only give his dumbass cock the wrong idea, he went back to his seat at the head of the table. Ronan looked at him out of the corner of his eye and tapped a piece of paper next to him with Parker’s notes typed up and a departmental head shot. He and the others had been giving each other those kinds of subtle messages all evening. They’d all gone over the trove of pictures Diego found in Mahurin’s hidey hole so often, it was easy to spot the overlaps even though most of the people had aged. Parker’s files were allowing them to match faces with names more readily, at last.

Guilt ate away at him, though. He hated keeping her in the dark about the photos, yet didn’t see any way around it. If they copped to what they’d done, she could still bring them up on charges. He didn’t know her nearly well enough to trust her with the truth. If it were only his career and life on the line, it would be one thing. He couldn’t bring his brothers and their families down with him. Kyle might be a great attorney, but no one was that good.

The truth was they had broken the law and continued to do so even now. The only person even remotely in the clear would be Cassidy. She’d never looked at the other stuff, even though she had to know about it. Ronan and Diego didn’t keep secrets from her or each other. The coroner pored over the autopsies Parker had procured, seemingly as unaware of the secret communication among the others as much as Parker was.

Or maybe not.

With an audible clunk on the wood table, Parker set her drink down. Everyone’s head came up to look at her, and she swept them all with a stern look. “What the fuck am I missing here?”

The swear, coming from a heretofore prim kind of woman, startled Daire. Painful as he found it to lie, he continued to do so because his brothers came before anyone and everything, even his own happiness. “What do you mean?”

By way of response, Parker leaned over and snatched up the paper Ronan had just pointed out. She held it up. “What do you all know about this guy that I don’t?” When Daire and everyone else merely blinked back at her, she let out an exasperated sigh. “I’ve been catching these subtle gestures among you all night. Obviously you know something I don’t. What is it?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t going to tolerate any more prevarication.

Ronan stood up. “I like her,” he said with a wink at Daire. “I’ll be right back with an answer for you.” He directed the remark to Parker before heading for the stairs.

Daire jumped up. “Ronan, wait.”

“It’s okay,” Diego assured him. “We talked about it already and agreed to come clean if push came to shove.”

Daire looked around the table. Everyone, Cassidy included, nodded in agreement. With a suppressed groan, he sat back down. This had the makings of a disaster. He couldn’t bring himself to even glance at Parker as she sat quietly waiting for Ronan to return. In short order, the box of evidence they kept secreted upstairs was plopped down on the table. Ronan pulled the top off and gestured toward the box with a flourish.

When Parker reached over to stick her hand inside, Ronan blocked her. “Before you look in here, you need to understand one thing. Only Diego and I knew where this box came from. We’re the only ones who will suffer any consequence for holding onto it.”

Daire opened his mouth to refute that assertion. He’d be damned if he let his brother and his sort of brother-in-law take the fall for this. At the other end of the table, Cassidy made a noise that sounded like a whimper. Diego immediately wrapped a protective arm around her, and Ronan hurried to do the same.

Parker slowly stood up and pulled out a handful of pictures. She gave each one a quick perusal before placing them on the table and digging for more. Silence sat so thickly around the room, he could have cut it with a knife. No one stirred an inch, barely breathed, while they waited for her to say something, anything.

Finally, without looking at anyone, she said, “I assume this box has been hiding in this house for many years, undoubtedly compiled by your father before his death and only recently found by one of you while looking for something else. Not realizing the importance of what’s in here, you’ve been going through it as a kind of nostalgia, looking for pictures of your father from his career.”

At that moment, Daire fell hopelessly in love. Forget her beauty and innate ability to set a man’s cock on fire. Parker Li had just protected his family because it was the decent thing to do. He saw standing before him a woman dedicated to rooting out bad cops, not just carving notches on an imaginary belt to get ahead. She represented everything his father had taught him made someone worthy of wearing the badge.

For the first time, too, he truly believed they would find his parents’ killers. With Parker Li in their corner, how could they possibly fail?

He nodded at her. “Let me show you the matches we think we have so far.”

****

Living in Boston, a walkable city with a decent public transit system, Daire didn’t need to do much driving. He still owned the car he bought in college, rarely pulling it out of the driveway. Still, he liked driving and hated being the passenger. Perhaps it was his need to be in control that made him squirm like a two-year old as Parker drove them down Route 128. Or it could have been the way the demure woman acted like a maniac behind the wheel.

Not that she wasn’t a good driver. Her skills were admirable even as they raised the hair on his arms. She kept her hands firmly in the ten and two position and utilized her blinkers when changing lanes. He just wished she changed them less often and at a slower speed.

After a marathon night of poring over everything with his family, they’d identified about a fifth of the people on Parker’s list as suspected to be on the take. A huge number that spoke of not just organization but determination as well. Cassidy had also flagged a few autopsies as being suspiciously cavalier about the manner of death. Words on paper weren’t any kind of substitute for examining a body, but coroner notes hinted at murder more than suicide. Whether that meant the medical examiner in the cases was dirty, too, or just under pressure to come to a pre-ordained decision, there was no way of knowing. Given that, over the years and cases, the coroner had been different people, the answer might be a little of both.