Snowfall (11 page)

“I heard that.”

“Just proving your chest isn’t the only big body part you have,” Caitlin yelled, then rolled her eyes.

She’d been referring to his ears, but knowing Connor McKee, he was going to assume she was referring to what lay south of his belt buckle. If her lower lip hadn’t been so sore, she would have bitten it.

To her relief, he said nothing, although she was certain she heard him laughing. Completely furious that she’d let herself be baited, she stabbed a fork into her eggs and ate, not stopping until her plate was empty and her stomach was full. She felt better for having eaten the meal, even if she’d made a fool of herself in the process. Shoving her chair back from the table, she carried her plate and cutlery to the sink, then poured herself a cup of coffee with the full intention of going back to her office when her phone rang.

“Yes?”

“Miss Bennett, Mr. Workman is here to see you.”

“Good morning, Mike. Send him up.”

“Good morning to you, too, miss. I trust you’re feeling better?”

She smiled. “I’m fine. How’s that new grandson?” She was picturing the security guard’s smile as she asked.

“He’s just great, and thanks for asking.”

Mac walked into the room behind her as she was hanging up the phone.

“Who was that?”

Caitlin turned, gauged the distance between them and decided it was safe.

“Aaron is on his way up. I’m going to get dressed. Please let him in.”

An eyebrow arched. “You’re dressing for him?”

Caitlin grinned before she thought. “He thinks I’m a heathen because I don’t get out of my nightclothes unless I’m going out.”

His other eyebrow arched. “You really stay in your pajamas all day?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes…well, most of the time, yes. So what? Just because I’m Devlin Bennett’s daughter doesn’t make me some social butterfly.”

He eyed the belligerent thrust to her chin and resisted the urge to grin. Damned if he wasn’t starting to understand her need to assert herself. It couldn’t have been easy being Bennett’s daughter. The man had been on the cover of every important national magazine, had been written up constantly in the newspapers, as well as serving as a constant source of news for the television network.

“Easy, Caitie. That wasn’t a dig. Actually, that could be considered quite sexy.”

Her eyes widened and her heart skipped a beat.

“What do you mean, sexy?”

“A woman in her nightclothes is a woman one step away from bed. Some men might take that as an invitation.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Caitlin said, praying that her shock didn’t show. “But some men also eat with their fingers and burp for their own entertainment, and it doesn’t endear them to me, so I’m thinking that the playing field is even. Just let your brother in when he rings and stop baiting me. My head hurts too much to argue with you.”

The devilment in his eyes faded immediately. “Did you take your pain medicine this morning? How long were you working before you stopped? Sitting at that computer can’t be good for you, with your side so bruised.”

Taken aback by his concern, Caitlin sputtered, then was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door.

“That’s Aaron,” she said, bolting out of the kitchen and down the hall.

Mac shook his head as he answered the door.

“Good morning, little brother,” he said, as Aaron sailed into the room.

“Good morning to you, too,” Aaron said. “Where’s Caitlin? Did she get any rest? Are you behaving yourself?”

“She’s getting dressed, and I suppose she slept…some, at least. I woke up to hear her typing in her office.” Then he frowned. “And just for the record, I resent the implication that I would behave inappropriately.”

Aaron sighed. “You know what I mean, so don’t be so huffy. I just want you to be nice.”

“If I was any nicer, I could be looking at getting sued for child support,” he muttered. “Want some coffee?”

Aaron nodded, too stunned to speak. He stared at the set of Mac’s shoulders as he strode from the room, then listened to the sound of slamming doors and banging crockery before he started to smile. He was still absorbing the child support crack when Caitlin entered the room.

“Aaron, how good of you to stop by.”

He blinked. Caitlin was coming toward him with a forced smile on her face. For once he didn’t even notice what she was wearing. He loved her as much as it was possible for him to love any woman. He couldn’t marry her, but Connor could. Of course, that all hinged upon mutual desire. But from the way Mac was acting and the fake smile on Caitlin’s face, something was up. He just didn’t know whether it was good or bad.

Seven

S
ylvia Polanski’s apartment was a total surprise. It was chic, understated and obviously very expensive. Whatever Sylvia’s profession, she had been successful at it.

Paulie Hahn picked up a small porcelain statuette of a shepherdess and turned it over, looking at the stamp on the bottom.

“Dresden,” he said, and set it back on the table where he’d found it. “Sylvia Polanski might have been a hooker, but she had good taste.”

“We don’t know she was a hooker,” Sal said, as he poked through a desk drawer for something that might give them a clue as to who Sylvia’s killer could be. “Just because Neil said it, that doesn’t make it so.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?” Paulie asked.

Sal shrugged. “He’s all right. Just got too much hair.”

Paulie grinned. “We aren’t gonna find anything here to link the two women.”

Sal straightened and turned. “Why do you say that? Have you gone psychic on me?”

“Because the two women don’t connect,” Paulie said. “Donna Dorian was a twenty-year-old university student still living with her mother. Coroner said she was a virgin before the rape. Sylvia Polanski is in her thirties, right?”

“Yeah, but—”

“I think Neil was right. I think she was a hooker. You heard what the super said when he let us in. She slept all day and was out all night. She didn’t bring anyone here. This was home. So she’s either got a place somewhere in Manhattan where she takes her johns, or she uses their places.”

“We don’t know that,” Sal said, pushing a drawer shut and opening another.

Paulie shrugged. “Well, if she
is
a hooker, she’s a high-class one. Lofts like these rent for a pretty penny. She was either independently wealthy or damn good at her job.”

“Hey, look at this,” Sal said, as he pulled a small leather-bound book from beneath a pile of receipts.

“What is it?”

Sal whistled between his teeth. “It’s what my old man used to call a ‘little black book.”’

“Let me see,” Paulie said.

Sal handed it over.

“Man, look at all these names and numbers.”

Sal studied it a moment and then handed it back to his partner. “Okay, so it looks like Neil might have been right after all.”

“Unless she’s their stockbroker or something, I’d agree.”

Sal turned, scanning the room for a new place to search when he saw a photo on the wall near the windows. He walked over for a closer look.

“This must be her,” he said, pointing toward the picture. “She was a fine-looking woman before that crazy son of a bitch got a hold of her.”

Paulie looked. “Yeah. Let’s take it with us. It’s a damned sight better than the one the coroner will send.”

Sal laid it beside his coat and kept on digging. A few minutes later, he turned up a small address book with what appeared to be personal phone numbers.

“I think I just found her next of kin,” Sal said. “What looks like her mother’s phone number is in here.”

Paulie frowned. “That’s the worst thing I hate about working homicide. It’s your turn to break the news.”

Sal sat down on the sofa and picked up the picture, staring intently at the woman’s face. Dark, shoulder-length hair and dark eyes—and a real pretty mouth. He laid the picture aside.

“You know, you have kids. Raise them the best way you know how, then they turn to shit like this. No woman I ever heard of made plans to give birth to a hooker.”

Paulie shrugged. “You think too much, Sal. Come on, this place is giving me the creeps. We’ve got her book. We can run the names and phone numbers from the office. Let’s get out of here.”

Two days later

Awakened by the sound of the wind, Caitlin quickly became aware of a distinct drop in the room temperature. She opened her eyes to darkness and then glanced at the clock. Almost 3:00 a.m. If she didn’t turn up the heat, it would be freezing in the apartment by morning. Reluctantly she turned on the light and then crawled out of bed, moving quietly through the house in her sock feet until she reached the living room. With instinct born of familiarity, she felt along the wall for the thermostat, upped it a couple of notches until she heard it kick on and then headed back to bed. But when she got to the hall, she stopped abruptly. Connor was standing in her doorway wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s getting colder. I just turned the thermostat up a bit,” she said. “Sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t wake me. I wasn’t asleep.”

When he took a step forward, the light spilling out of her bedroom wrapped around his body, bathing it in a warm, soft-white glow. Breath caught in the back of her throat. His chest rippled with muscles the weight lifters called six-packs, and his sweats rode too low on his hips for her comfort. Instinctively she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and took a slow breath, trying to remember what they’d been saying. Sleep. It was something about not being able to sleep.

“You said you couldn’t sleep, are you ill?”

“No.”

“It’s almost three.”

Mac watched the panic on her face and wondered if his was as obvious. This attraction to her was scary as hell.

“I know,” he said, and took another step toward her.

Caitlin shrunk within herself, too scattered to move.

“Do you suffer from insomnia?” She thought she heard him sigh.

I’m suffering all right, but it’s not insomnia, you little witch, it’s you.

He eyed her tousled hair and fading bruises, as well as those ridiculous flannel pajamas, and wondered why in hell he kept dreaming about making love to her.

“I guess it’s something like that.”

“There are some sleeping pills in the bathroom,” she offered. “But don’t take more than one or you’ll sleep through tomorrow.”

“I don’t do drugs,” he muttered.

Caitlin felt herself bristling. “Are you insinuating that I do? Because if you are, I can assure you that—”

The next thing she knew, he had her pinned against the wall, his hands still gentle on her shoulders.

“I wasn’t insinuating anything, you ungrateful little wretch, but if you’re about to light into me again, then I may as well give you something real to be pissed about.”

Before she could answer, he lowered his head. She felt the warmth of his breath and then his hands sliding from her shoulders to her back, urging her toward him.

She put her hands between them in reflex.

It was a mistake.

Instead of pushing him back, she found herself stroking his chest, pausing as the ricochet of his heartbeat seared into her palms.

Then she made her second mistake.

She looked up.

“I warned you,” he whispered.

His lips were warm, the pressure gentle yet persistent. Caitlin lost all sense of self. The danger to her life, the blizzard outside—all of it was gone. Everything that had come and gone before seemed frivolous and shallow. Right now—at this moment—she felt reborn. She was starting over with just one kiss.

It wasn’t until she moaned that Mac came to his senses. He immediately turned her loose, certain he was hurting her.

“Oh hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Then he shoved his hands through his hair and looked away, unwilling to face any more of her accusations. “The only thing I seem to get right around you is an apology.”

Caitlin stared at him in confusion. Her head was spinning, her heartbeat out of control, as she tried to come to terms with what he was saying. The imprint of his mouth was so real she had to touch her own lips to assure herself he was gone. At that point, she drew a shuddering breath.

“I don’t know where you got your information, but I wasn’t the one complaining.”

Then she lifted her chin and walked into her room, quickly closing the door behind her before she followed her own impulse to invite him in.

Staggered by what he’d done, Mac stood in the hall, seriously considering the option of going in after her. Fortunately sanity returned. Cursing himself for a fool, he turned abruptly and strode into his bedroom, dropping to the side of the bed in quiet dismay.

He’d learned long ago that, between midnight and morning, caution had a tendency to go to hell. He’d come to protect her, not complicate her life even more. And, he reminded himself,
he
didn’t want any complications, either. He wasn’t a settling down kind of man, and Caitlin Bennett wasn’t anyone’s one-night stand. The fact that their mutual attraction left her angry and confused and him hard and hurting was too damned bad.

But as the wind continued to shriek outside the building, his worries became true fears. How long could they hold out against this growing attraction when there was a blizzard snowing them in?

Buddy paced the floor of his apartment, wishing he’d gone in to work. It was just after daybreak, and even though he’d taken a personal day off, he thought about reconsidering. He paused at the window and frowned.

The wind was fierce, the snow blinding, slowing vehicles to a crawl. Pedestrian traffic was sparse, and those who dared to venture out spent more time holding on to their coats and trying to stay on their feet than getting to any particular destination. He shuddered as he turned away, revamping his previous thoughts. Work be damned. There were other ways to occupy his time besides freezing his ass off.

The euphoria of killing the hooker had passed, leaving him with the unpalatable fact that no matter how many substitutes he killed, his target still lived.