Tainted Mind (14 page)

Vivi concurred with that. After taking one last look, she began directing Ian and Marcus on how to best preserve the evidence for transport. By eleven thirty, Carly was done with her collection, and both the body and the evidence were on their way to the lab.

“Carly, Wyatt, you two are on today. Marcus, take the afternoon off. We need to rest while we can. Vivienne and I will drive up to the lab in Albany to oversee that part of the investigation. We'll keep you updated,” Ian directed his team. They took his word without complaint and headed in their respective directions. Then Ian turned to her.

“Lunch at my place, you can switch your laundry, then we'll head up to the lab together?”

“That your plan?” she responded, her lips lifting into a small smile.

“Come on,” he lifted his eyes at her teasing. “Let's get cleaned up and fed.”

When they entered the house he offered to switch her laundry for her, claiming a finicky dryer. But modesty got the best of her and she didn't want him handling her lingerie any more than he already had the other day, so she declined. It wasn't that what she was washing was embarrassing—it wasn't too sexy or too plain—it was just a little more personal than she was willing to get at the moment. Ian gave her a look that suggested he knew what she was doing and thought her ridiculous, but he didn't say anything.

He popped back into the laundry room a few minutes later, as she shut the door to the dryer. Startled by his sudden appearance, she spun around. Three bras were hanging from her first two fingers and several panties dangled from the rest. She froze in that tableau for a moment. His eyes went to her undergarments and fixed there for long enough to let his, and her, imaginations go to work, then they traveled back to her face. He hitched his hip against the dryer, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked every bit the male he was.

“You can hang those to dry,” he said with a nod to the rod and hangers behind her. But it wasn't a suggestion, it was almost a dare.

She narrowed her eyes on him. “You just want to see my underwear.”

He tilted his head. “I'd rather see them on, but I do have a good imagination.”

It wasn't often that she was speechless, but she was now. Flirting had never been her strong point—having started college at sixteen and never having gone through that stage of discovery with boys her own age, she'd never had any practice, never really had the chance to develop the skill. And because of that, she intentionally tried to keep games, and flirting, out of all her relationships.

She cleared her throat. “I'll take these outside to dry. You can start the machine.”

C
HAPTER
10

VIVI TOOK LONGER THAN NECESSARY
to lay her clothes out in the trunk of her car. It wasn't ideal, but it was the best place to dry her things out of the view of someone who was supposed to be a professional colleague. Although, even before his explicit comment, she suspected they were headed in the more-than-colleagues direction.

Ian came out the back door as she was headed toward it. He had two paper bags with him, one of which he handed to her.

“Turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, mayo, and mustard, an apple, and a bottle of water,” he said, heading toward his Jeep without breaking stride. “I figure we can eat in the car, if you don't mind?” He seemed to be asking more because manners dictated it than because he thought she might object. Which she didn't.

They headed out, turning toward the Taconic Parkway, which would take them to Interstate 90 and into Albany. Once they were on the parkway, Ian reached for his lunch bag. Rather than watch him juggle the driving and the unpacking of his lunch, Vivi grabbed it from him, pulled everything out, including the paper towel he'd packed—which made her smile—and set it all up within his reach. Once his was ready, she did the same with hers; she hadn't realized how hungry she was until she took her first bite of the sandwich.

“Thanks for the lunch. And the use of your washer and dryer,” she added.

“Thanks for helping me solve a crime spree,” he countered

They ate in silence for several miles, and then she asked the question that had been on her mind since they'd gotten back in the Jeep. “Why did you say that?”

Ian cast her a glance before returning his eyes to the road. “Say what?” He wasn't playing dumb; he wanted to hear her say it.

“That thing about wanting to see me in my underwear,” Vivi said.

“Because it's true.” His answer was annoyingly simple.

“I don't mean why did you say it, I meant
why
did you
say
it?”

He slid her another look, this one a bit longer. “Is this one of those woman things where if you say something twice, it has a completely different meaning than if you say it only once?”

Vivi was pretty sure her expression was about as blank as her mind.

“You know,” Ian motioned with his hand. “I don't like him like him, but I like him? Or, did you kiss him or kiss him kiss him?”

Vivi's lips twitched. “Hang out with girls much when you were a kid?”

“Evelyn Greene was my sister's best friend. Four years older than me and the undisputed hottest girl in town. I used to eavesdrop a lot.”

Vivi laughed softly, picturing it, which wasn't hard to do. “I don't mean why did you think it, I meant why did you put your thoughts into words,” she clarified, going back to the original question.

He changed lanes as they merged onto I-90 and shrugged. “Because I thought you should know. I thought I should put it out there.”

Vivi's eyebrow shot up. “Why would you think I should know that you want to see me all but naked. Because really, thanks, now I'm going be self-conscious about my butt every time I walk in front of you,” she grumbled.

“Believe me, you have nothing to be self-conscious about.”

“Was that supposed to make it better?”

She saw his lips fighting a grin before he spoke.

“Look, I don't think I'm too crazy to think that there's an attraction between the two of us. I put it out there in case you were thinking of ever doing anything about it. This way, if you do decide you want to do something about it, you won't have to spend any time wondering how I'll react. You'll know.”

“So you did it for me?”

Ian half shrugged. “You could say that. But it's not entirely selfless either. Obviously.”

“And if I don't want to do anything about it?”

“Your call.”

“Why can't it be yours? Why can't you make the first move?”

“Seems to me I did.”

Vivi regarded him before commenting with complete honesty. “You have way more guts than I do, MacAllister.”

“Optimism is probably a better word.” They drove for a few more miles as she considered the situation. He must have been doing the same because he asked, “You okay with this?”

Normally, she wouldn't be okay. Not at all. She wasn't very good at dealing with feelings, at least not her own, anyway. They made her uncomfortable because she didn't always understand them—or couldn't always rationally explain them—and so she did her best to minimize their intrusion on her life. But Ian had gone and laid it all out there—an attraction, a curiosity about each other that was more than professional. It was different, that's for sure. And she wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

But she hadn't been lying when she'd said that what he'd done had taken guts. She had a certain amount of respect for his approach. And that's what she sensed it was—an approach to dealing with something he wasn't quite sure about either.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Vivi responded.

Ian turned his head and gave her a quick glance. “That's it? You're okay?” The incredulity in his voice made her laugh.

“Yes, I promise, I'm okay. Everything is fine.”

She felt him study her out of the corner of his eye, even as he kept his eyes on the highway. And then his lips curled up into a very male smile. “Good then. We're okay.”

*   *   *

Ian kept a wary eye, and ear, on Vivienne for the rest of the drive. His gamble in the laundry room had been just that, a gamble. He hadn't been sure how she would take it. She could have laughed,
or she could have outright told him he was out of line, and she wouldn't have been wrong.

But he hadn't been attracted to a woman in a long time. Not like he was attracted to her. He wasn't a monk and had had his fair share of girlfriends and female companions. But there had been no one since he'd been hit by the IED. A year ago.

By the time he made it back to the states, he was pretty fucked up, both mentally and physically. And he hadn't allowed himself to consider any kind of relationship with any woman. Until Vivienne. He still wasn't sure if it would go anywhere, but he recognized a kindred spirit of sorts in her and so had to try.

He turned his head for another quick look. She was gazing out the window, lost in her own thoughts. She may not see herself as a warrior, but she was. In every sense of the word. And maybe that was what he was responding to. Maybe it was because he sensed she would understand. She'd been in the trenches. She would know.

He exited I-90 and made his way to the lab. After showing their IDs at the security gate, they parked and walked into the lobby.

“Have you been here before?” he asked Vivienne as he produced his ID again for the receptionist.

“Not to this lab, no.” She handed her ID over as well.

“And you're here to see?” the receptionist asked.

Ian looked to Vivienne to answer. He'd worked with the lab techs the day before but hadn't met her friend.

“Dr. Buckley,” she answered then turned to Ian. “He was one of my first students. It will be good to see him again.”

“Small world. Does that mean we'll get special treatment?”

“Yes, it does,” a voice behind them answered. Ian turned around to see a man entering the room. He was tall and looked to be part Southeast Asian, part something else. His facial features looked Indian, but his coloring was fair and his eyes were a lighter brown than the dark, almost black, of most Indian people.

“Sam.” Vivienne smiled and stepped forward. The two hugged and Ian caught a glimpse of the student in Dr. Buckley's eyes, still looking at Vivienne for approval, praise.

“Ian, this is Dr. Sameer Buckley. Sam, this is Deputy Chief Ian MacAllister.”

Ian held his hand out, and the good doctor had a straightforward, solid handshake with an expression to match it on his face.

“Have you signed in?” Dr. Buckley asked.

They hadn't, so Ian moved to do that. When he was done, he handed Vivienne the pen to do the same. “What's the date?” she asked.

“The seventeenth,” he answered. He expected a casual “thanks,” and when she said nothing, he turned. Vivi stood at the counter, pen in hand, with her back to him. An unusual stillness had come over her. “Vivienne, are you okay?”

She gave a little start, then finished signing in. “Yes, I'm fine. Everything is fine.”

Her tone was flat, as was her expression when she turned. She looked at Ian, then her eyes darted away. He frowned.

“Ready?” she asked, facing Sam. He nodded and led them through a door and into the main part of the lab. Ian followed behind Vivienne, only half listening to what the younger doctor was saying. Something had happened when she'd signed in, and whatever it was, wasn't good.

He'd pulled her into this investigation; was she doing something she wasn't ready to do? The more he knew her, the more he realized how hard it must have been for her to step away, even for a month or two. But something had happened that had taken her to that point.

Ian tried to think of her in a detached way but couldn't. She was healthy—he knew she ran, knew she was eating. But that was all taking care of her body. What about her mind?

“Ian?”

He came up short when Sam and Vivienne stopped. She was looking at him, a question in her eyes. He'd missed something.

“Sorry, woolgathering,” he said.

She tilted her head and studied him for a moment before speaking. “Not a problem. Sam and I are going to do the autopsy. Once we're done, we thought it might be a good time to go over all the evidence together.”

Ian gave a curt nod. “Sounds like a plan.”

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. “Do you want to watch?”

He thought about it for a split second. “Not if there is something more useful I could be doing.”

Vivienne glanced at Sam, who nodded. “We'll set you up with a computer that has access to all the databases I have access to,” she said. “I think it would be a good idea if you culled through some of the databases, like I did last night, to see what you can come up with.”

That sounded reasonable. “Do you want me to use the same parameters you used?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I want you to use what seems logical to you. Then I think we should compare what I came up with and what you came up with and see if we have any overlaps.”

Ian nodded in agreement and, fifteen minutes later, found himself sitting in front of a computer looking at empty query fields. He took a second to watch Vivienne walk away and thought that maybe the best thing he could do for her was solve this case. So, after giving himself an overview of the extensive databases open to him, he devised a plan to go to each and try as systematically as he could to find something—anything—that might help them.

*   *   *

Vivi stood at the door for a moment and watched Ian work. His eyes were fixed on the computer screen; he had one hand on the mouse and the other holding up a sheet of paper. She glanced at the clock. Four hours had passed and he didn't look any worse for wear.

“Ian?”

His head came around.

“We're done,” she said.

“Is it Rebecca?” he asked, still seated.

She nodded. “We were able to get a partial fingerprint. We matched it to a print she had on file for some work she did with a children's theater in New York.”

She watched a myriad of emotions flicker across Ian's face before he gathered all the printouts, slid them into a folder, and rose. She gestured with her head and he followed her out. They entered another room where Sam had taken over a table and spread out a number of the reports on the evidence collected from both victims. It wasn't the worst case Vivi had seen, but that wasn't saying much.