Perilous Curves Collection (BBW Romance) (9 page)

While the jacket did smell like someone had thrown up on it, I felt like a bitch for scaring the old man. The tactic, however, worked like magic. Max immediately started to remove it.

"Hold on, Max." I needed him to stay in the jacket for a bit. "I think the cops will want to take it over to Arby's and see if the owner needs it back."

As soon as the word "cops" left my mouth, the old man spit at the floor. I raised my hands to calm him. "Now, you don't need to worry about the cops--"

Max spit again and I smiled. Clearly the old man had more than a little history with law enforcement. "Just don't peel it off yet, okay? Pastor is cool for now and Craig here is going to stay with you until we can swap jackets."

When I stood, Craig pulled me aside. "Just how do you plan on getting the lead dicks out here? I thought Corbin wouldn't okay it?"

I threw Diamond a wink and started walking across the bay, keying in the number to the Masonville crime tip line. Diamond was right -- if Corbin thought the jacket would help Alex, he'd never send the detectives out. But if the homicide unit got an anonymous tip that they thought would help convict Alex, they'd make it to the shelter in far less than the 30 minutes it had taken me to reach the place.

********************

Twenty minutes later, I stood outside the building, pleading on my cell phone with the Arby's manager for the woman to put a lock on the dumpster until I got there. Finishing the call, I turned to see an unmarked police car roll to a stop behind my sedan. There were two cops inside, the driver probably in his late thirties and clearly the junior of the two.

The window on the car was down. I could hear the older detective arguing with his younger partner.

"You know the Serrano kid did it! Just look at his old man..."

I spun until I faced the shelter's front window, pulled my cell phone out and turned the recorder on before cranking the microphone up to full volume. I was less than three feet from them and the older guy had a loud mouth -- I just hoped it was loud enough to pierce the street noise.

"Just because your mother-in-law has to live with you now doesn't mean the kid's a killer, Hicks."

I watched their reflection in the shelter's front window. They had gotten out of the car and were casually inspecting my damaged bumper.

"Davies, Serrano kicked all those old people out--" Hicks argued.

"C'mon, your old lady's mom has been living with you since the building's owner went bankrupt couple years ago. Serrano's owned it, what, six months?"

"He could have let them move back in..."

"It's a shithole! Nobody's been in it except for scavengers and meth heads for almost two years."

Hicks shook his head. "Look, Davies, all I'm saying is that rich people like Serrano and his kid don't give a shit about people like me and you, the vic, or that hot little piece of dark meat the kid was banging."

My hand curled tight around my phone but I managed not to turn and junk punch Hicks. Just like Alex's washed-up, politicking attorney, every police force has at least one asshole on it, and sometimes that asshole manages to ruin someone's life for a very long time. It was Alex's dumb bad luck that Hicks was that asshole and had caught his case. The detective had a hard on against Dante and was taking it out on the boy.

"He isn't even American, the father," Hicks said as Davies opened the shelter door for him. "His mother got off the boat from Cuba already fat with him in her stomach and now he's the one driving around with a car worth more than my entire pension!"

Maintaining my composure, I waited until the cops went inside before quickly replaying the recording. Aside from the occasional whoosh of a passing car obscuring a word or two, the phone had recorded the conversation perfectly. Smiling, I pocketed my new ace in the hole and stepped over to my car.

Craig would keep Hicks and Davies waiting, but I didn't want them to realize I'd been standing out on the curb during their ill-advised conversation. I quickly removed a dark red jacket from my dry cleaning bag and swapped it out for the plain black one I had on. Then I pulled my hair into a high, tight bun and fished through the center console for a pair of momma's reading glasses. Last, I grabbed my heavy forensics bag from the trunk and shuffled back inside to bunk twenty-two.

"Hey, Max." I threw the old man a wink.

He gave me an easy, familiar grin, tilted his head and winked back.

"You ready for that trade now?"

Hicks took a step towards me, his voice too loud when he spoke. "Bum's gonna need to give us a sample."

Smiling, I reached into my bag and removed a swab and evidence bag. "Max, did these gentlemen mention that they are cops?"

Max immediately turned his head to the side and spit on the floor.

"Your sample, detective. Now, about the dumpster at Arby's..." I handed the swab to the cop, my smile three times wider and brighter than the second before. I might not be able to bitch slap Hicks like I wanted to, but he was going to have to get down on his knees to collect Max's spit from the floor.

Grimacing, Hicks wiped the swab across the floor while Davies bagged the jacket.

"We'll send a patrol car," Davies said.

I nodded -- it was more than I had hoped for.

When the cops were gone and Max was back to snoring, Craig hooked my bag and gave the lapel of my red jacket a flip. "This wasn't what you went out in."

"Nope."

He shrugged, willing to let me keep it a mystery for the time being.

"Ray's jacket won't mean much until trial," he warned.

"I know." I wasn't looking forward to explaining it to Dante. Even if Alex's DNA wasn't on the jacket -- hell, even if they pulled a serial killer's DNA off the jacket -- the prosecutor would likely just change the theory of his case and keep Alex as a co-conspirator in the murder of Ray Epps. It was all about saving face. Having worked both sides of the crime scene, I'd seen it done a million times.

I held little hope that Alex's case wouldn't be a million and one.

Chapter Nine

The dumpster dive proved fruitless. The cops didn't find the cell phone or bag anything else. They did, however, leave with a CD capture of the video stream from the cameras pointed at the drive-thru window and inside registers.

Leaving Craig to collect contact information from the employees working the late evening shift last Friday, I drove to my office for a solo strategy session. I felt down. Sure, I'd made progress on Alex's case, but it wasn't enough to get him out of jail.

Whatever was on the Arby's video wouldn't do any good any time soon. The prosecution would sit on it as long as they could, even if it meant a killer was walking the streets of Masonville. And there was no way in hell Arby's corporate overlords would give me a second copy any sooner. They'd direct my inquiry to general counsel, who'd call the prosecutor and that would be the end of that.

Fuming, I stepped off the elevator to find Dante standing outside my office. He had a tube of papers in his hand and was impatiently slapping it against his outer thigh. When he saw me, he stopped and thrust the tube forward.

I unrolled the papers to find three pages worth of names, contact information and notes on who saw whom on the site and at what time. I didn't want to think how many of his employees he'd sat on to get that level of detail. "Impressive. How long have you been here?"

"About ten minutes. Craig said you were on your way back." He moved with me as I stopped in front of the door and inserted the key in the lock. "Your phone was going straight to voicemail."

"Sorry." I scooped my cell out and tried to switch it on. "Battery's dead."

"Happens."

He didn't sound nonchalant and I tensed when he followed me into my office. He wanted a run down, no doubt, even if Craig had given him a partial one already.

I plugged the phone into its charger before dropping my bag next to the desk. "So you know about the jacket?"

"Yeah, and the empty dumpster."

Sinking into my office chair, I felt the day descend on me all at once. My shoulder hurt like a motherfucker and I felt only a fraction closer to getting Alex out of jail. That meant I was only a fraction closer to getting Dante out of my life once more and that couldn't happen fast enough, as far I was concerned.

He paced around my desk, then took up a position behind me at the window. Trying to track his movement was pure torture. That little fender bender had done a number on my neck, too, and I felt all the more fragile for it.

"So what happens with the jacket?"

"It gets sent to the state crime lab..." I paused, bracing for Dante's reaction at what came next. "A month or so from now, they'll come back with results."

I felt the chair tilt slightly as he rested his hand on its back.

"A month!"

"Standard time. Could be longer." I swiveled my head to look at him and winced from the pain. "And it won't matter if Alex's DNA isn't on the jacket. All the prosecutor has to show at the preliminary hearing is that a crime was committed and there's reason to believe Alex did it. The threshold of proof is very low. Between the fight and a shaky alibi--"

Dante glowered at me when I said the alibi was shaky. I raised my hands in mock supplication. "I'm not saying you lied about Alex being with you, but it doesn't cover the whole window of time Ray could have been killed in and lots of family, friends and lovers give fake alibis. So the court won't care."

"This whole thing..."

"Is fucked up, I know." I rested against my chair back, my head unintentionally pressing against Dante's hand. "It's why I mostly do defense work now."

"So what's next?"

I felt him finger a strand of my hair. He had always been a hands-on lover, only curbing the constant display of affection when we were around my parents. Reminding myself we weren't lovers any more, I tried to shake his hand away.

Another bolt of pain shot through my neck and I cried out.

"It's that bag of yours," he said, his hand closing around my left shoulder. "I noticed in court you were babying this side."

His thumb pressed against the muscle in gentle exploration, but I cried out again.

"It's not the bag." I corrected. "It's from the fender bender I got into this morning leaving--"

I froze, realizing I was about to mention Gabriella. Alone with him in my office, both of us clearly feeling vulnerable, I didn't want to open that can of worms. "Leaving the dry cleaners," I finished.

"Mm-hmm." His other hand on my opposite shoulder, Dante held me in place. He started to massage the sore spot. His breath left him in a loud, shaking exhalation. "Was that before or after you visited Gabriella?"

My whole body went stiff. I was in dangerous waters, swimming with a shark. Dante may be out of his comfort zone with Alex's case, but he knew how to handle people. Most of all, he knew how to handle me.

I tried to slide forward, out of his reach and away from the hypnotic rub of his hands on my body. He moved with me until he had me blocked by my desk in front and the chair around the rest of me.

"Liv, baby..." His hand moved up from my shoulder to stroke my neck. "You know--"

I raised my hands, brushing him away and pushing back from the desk. "I know
your son
is sitting in jail and either one of us dredging up the past isn't going to do anything to get him out in the time I have left."

I stood and gathered the papers he had brought. When I went to move around the desk, he stepped in front of me. "You won't quit after the week, Liv. You'll see this through."

Shaking my head, I tried to spin on my heel and go around the other side of the desk, but Dante gently caught me and turned me back towards him.

"Look," I whispered. "Most of this is up to the attorney now."

He cupped my face. My psyche still recovering from yesterday's kiss, I was terrified he was going to do it again. He didn't -- not yet. Instead, he looked into my eyes for a long, hard minute. "No, it's not. There's a killer to catch. That's what it will take to get Alex out and clear his name."

His hands moved through my hair and he stepped close enough I could feel the brush of his chest against mine as he breathed. I forced my eyes to stay open. I wanted to close them, to lean the rest of the way into Dante's body and let him wrap his arms around me.

"You'll see Alex the rest of the way through, Liv. You won't walk out on him."

Walk out.

That was exactly what I needed to do -- before this went too far. I untangled from Dante's embrace and headed for my cell phone. I felt his chest brush against my back as he planted a thick arm on each side of me.

"Livvy, you're not walking out before we talk. Love, please..."

"Stop calling me that!" I spun in his arms. Not the smartest thing I could have done; it put us chest to chest.

"It just comes out, Liv." Capturing my head, he eased me away from the small side table my phone and charger were on and gently pushed me against the wall. "My leaving twenty years ago is clouding things right now."