Tie Me Down: A Loveswept Contemporary Erotic Romance (16 page)

“What has he done?” His voice cracked like a whip.

“A couple of phone calls. An email today. It’s no big deal.”

“It’s a very big deal, and you know it.” He paused, took another deep breath. “I don’t want you near this guy, Genevieve.”

“Excuse me?” She couldn’t keep the shock out of her voice.

“You heard me. He’s dangerous and—”

“It’s my job to go near this guy, Cole.”

“It’s not your job to put yourself on the line for every sick fuck with a dangerous obsession,” he argued.

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. If it gives me a better chance of catching him, I’d talk to Satan himself.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why not? It’s the truth.”

Silence stretched between them as Genevieve tried to think of some way to make Cole understand. But she was so angry that he’d presume to tell her how to do her job that all she really wanted to tell him was to go to hell.

“Look, Genevieve, this guy can hurt you.”

“Really? ’Cuz I thought he wanted to take me to lunch.”

“You’re being irrational.”

“I’m being irrational? You’re the one telling me how to do my job.”

“It’s not like that.”

“It’s exactly like that, and I really don’t have time for it right now.” Glancing behind her at Shawn, who had returned with two bottles of soda, Genevieve felt herself grow even angrier. “Good-bye, Cole.”

She slammed down the phone with a satisfying thud. How dare he tell her what was too dangerous for her? How dare he tell her anything at all? They’d only known each other a week, and had been angry as hell at one another for most of that time. And he thought he could just call her up and apologize and everything would be okay? Even as he humiliated her in front of her partner?

Over her dead body.

Shawn cleared his throat. “Everything okay?”

The look she shot him should have had him bursting into flames. “Everything’s great.”

He tapped his hand on the desk. “Sorry. I was—… just checking.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t.”

“You know, the guy has a point—”

“Don’t you start too,” she growled. “If one more man tells me I might get hurt,
I’m going to hurt
him.
”

“All right, then. I’ll just, um”—he held his hands up in a gesture of surrender—“come back in a little while.”

“Good idea.”

Genevieve fumed as she watched Shawn walk away. What was it about the men in her life that made them think she needed protection? She’d been a cop for more than a decade and had always managed to take care of herself. This was no different. He wasn’t the first asshole to fixate on her and probably wouldn’t be the last. Sure, he might be a bit scarier than the average psychopath she ran into, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t handle him. Couldn’t handle herself.

She still didn’t believe Cole had done that. Who the hell did he think he was? He was the one who stormed out of her kitchen in a snit, and he was the one who hadn’t called her for four days. It took a hell of a lot of nerve for him to think that she would hide away like a good little girl just because he said so!

Frustrated, furious, Genevieve started pawing through the papers on her desk in an effort to get her mind off her anger. But as she straightened up the numerous files, her hand fell on the one that contained the results of Cole’s fingerprint run.

With rage coursing through her veins, she opened it and spent a long time studying the report of his arrest so many years before. The case had been dismissed, and she couldn’t help wondering why that was. Picking up the phone, she called a friend of hers on the LAPD. Maybe Tina could shed some light on the arrest—and subsequent dismissal. Fifteen minutes later, she was scanning the report Tina had emailed her, shocked at the amount of information that was attached to a simple misdemeanor assault charge. Skimming the report, she was about three-quarters of the way through the evidence that had led to his dismissal when she found it—a statement from Cole’s neighbor claiming that he had been under a lot of stress lately, due to the
brutal murder
of his sister.
In New Orleans.

Shock ricocheted through her, had her dropping the file as if it had suddenly grown fangs and a long, rattling tail.

Cole’s sister had been
murdered.

Brutally murdered.

Seven years before.

In New Orleans.

The words chased each other around her head, jockeying for position as she tried desperately to wrap her mind around them, her anger draining away in the face of her horror. Cole’s sister had been killed here. He was here, doing a documentary on sex and violence—trying to make sense of his sister’s death.

Was it any wonder he’d been so offended when she’d admitted she thought he might be a killer? Or that he’d freaked out when she’d told him she was being targeted? Knowing what she now did, she realized he’d exercised great control in reacting as calmly as he had.

Spinning back to her computer, she typed in
Adams
under Old Crimes and waited for something to pop. Nothing did, and then she remembered Cole’s comment about taking care of his younger half sister.

Her heart cracked wide open at the thought of him losing her. His clenched fists made much more sense, as did his inability to look at her while he’d talked about his family.

You must be close to your family
, she’d said to him.

Not so much anymore
had been his laconic reply.

Pulling up cold homicides, she went through all of them from 2002, but nothing popped. Went back to 2001 and forward to 2003 and still couldn’t find anything with Cole’s name on it. She knew he would have been involved in the investigation, knew the man she’d slept with four nights before would have been right in the middle of the case, raising hell. And yet there was nothing here, in the city. Nothing in the whole state of Louisiana.

Which got her curious enough to double-check his case from California. No, the detectives had verified that Cole’s sister had been murdered in the French Quarter in July of 2002, a few months before he’d been arrested. The last page of the report listed her name—Samantha Diaz—and Genevieve reared back in shock for the second time.

Though she hadn’t been on homicide at the time, she remembered that case, remembered—with perfect clarity—the terrible things that had been done to the young woman. She had been the fourth victim of a serial killer, one who had gone on to claim
two more before disappearing. He’d never been caught.

So where the hell was the file, she wondered. Turning back to the computer, she typed in Samantha’s name, but nothing hit. Typed in the two other names she could remember from the time period and still got nothing.

Suspicions aroused, Genevieve spent the next hour poking around for some clue as to where the files might have gone, but she could find nothing—not even proof that they had ever existed. Which was bullshit, because she knew the crimes had happened. Had watched the task force assemble every day as they tried to find the killer, all to no avail.

No wonder Cole was so dark and moody and controlling. With this in his past, it was a miracle he was as sane as he was. Murder like this—particularly unsolved—had a tendency to drive even the best-adjusted people to the edge of insanity.

“Hey, I was just talking to Jose.” Shawn came back all business, though he kept his distance. “He wants to poke around, see what he can find.”

“I’ll do that right now.” Smiling at Shawn so that he knew it was safe to return to his desk, Genevieve closed Cole’s file with a sigh. She didn’t have time to deal with his sister’s case right now, but she would get back to it. No one should have to go seven years without justice.

It was nearly six hours later when Genevieve finally shut her computer off for the night. Shawn had already left, claiming he had a lead to check out on his way home. Luc and Roberto had followed closely after.

She had stayed on, running through the files one more time in an effort to find the clues the killer said were there. Then had started on missing persons in an effort to figure out who he’d chosen for his latest victim.

But without clues and without the body, how could she decide if it was the teenager who looked like a runaway or the divorcée out for a good time? Either way, she hadn’t been able to leave—not when some woman’s body was out there, just waiting to be discovered.

Enough was enough—her stomach was grumbling, her head was pounding, and all she really wanted to do was crawl under her desk and sleep for about eight hours. But it was too early for bed, and she had something to do first. An apology that needed to be made before she could settle down for the night. It wounded her that she’d accused Cole of being insensitive to victim’s’ families when he himself was the member of one.

Outside, the heat and humidity were still going strong despite the waning sun, and she couldn’t help thinking about the body they had yet to find. If it was outside somewhere, they were in huge trouble—any evidence the guy might have left for them would be destroyed by the ever-present rain, humidity, and insects that were a part of everyday life in New Orleans. And they’d be right back at square one.

She shook her head, grimaced. Hard to be anywhere else when they’d never left the starting gate. Hard to believe she was waist-deep—and sinking fast—in the homicide investigation from hell, and she still couldn’t get Cole out of her mind.

Despite her determination to remain calm, her heart started pounding as she thought of him. Of her destination. It had been four days, more than eighty hours, since she’d seen him—not that the Ice Queen was counting—and since they’d had their blowup, and their conversation today hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. It was up to her to
make things right.

A cab cruised by and she hailed it, knowing if she walked home for her car she’d end up talking herself out of what she had to do. And she was exhausted, totally worn out—she didn’t have the energy to spend another night staring at the ceiling above her bed as she thought about Cole.

After finding out about his sister’s murder and rereading that sick email until she was nearly blind, it seemed ridiculous that she had ever thought Cole was the killer. The note wasn’t his voice or his style, and believing him guilty of murder seemed utterly ridiculous when she thought back on how tenderly he’d treated her.

Oh, it might not be another woman’s definition of
tender
, but Cole had understood her better than she’d understood herself. He’d given her everything she’d always craved in a sexual partner and hadn’t known to ask for, but had stopped the second she’d asked him to.

She would apologize and hope that he could forgive her doubts. Her only excuse was the fact that he messed with her head, her need for him so unprecedented—so outside the scope of her experience—that she wasn’t able to deal with it.

Yeah, it was lame, but it was also the truth. She didn’t know if Cole would believe her, but anything was better than not knowing.

* * *

He’d blown it.
The first relationship he’d been interested in pursuing in more years than he could count and he’d completely screwed it up. Could he have been more of a jackass?

He hadn’t meant to lose his temper when he’d talked to Genevieve—any more than he’d meant to order her around—but the idea of her in danger made him crazy. Losing Samantha the way he did had made him paranoid, particularly about the safety of the women he cared about. Just the thought that some sick asshole had targeted Genevieve made him want to punch his way through a wall.

But she didn’t know that, had taken his reaction as proof that he was a domineering asshole. Sitting moodily at his kitchen table, Cole tossed back a shot of Patrón and reached into his back pocket to pull out his wallet. Flipping it open, he stared
at the photograph he’d been carrying around for the better part of a decade. Rubbed a finger over the smiling face as he tried to think his way out of the disaster he’d created.

But for the first time in years, he couldn’t find a way out. He had pushed Genevieve too far, too fast, and had given her nothing in return. Nothing but bruises and half-truths and bristling masculine outrage. Was it any wonder she didn’t trust him?

With a shaking hand, he picked up the wide-bottomed bottle and poured a second shot. He needed to fix this, to go to Genevieve and apologize and hope she was understanding enough to forget about the fiasco of his phone call apology. He owed her that much.

Tossing back the second shot, he followed it with a lime chaser. Normally, he wasn’t much of a drinker, but he’d been going through tequila like it was water since hitting this town.

He grimaced. Who was he kidding? It was the situation, not the city. And while getting drunk might not be his first choice of ways to spend the evening, it was currently the best option he had. Because he doubted—severely—whether Genevieve would let him anywhere near her ever again.

His laugh, when it came, was harsh. Yeah, there was no way she’d let him do everything he wanted to her. No way she’d let him tie her up and fuck her hot, luscious body the way he was aching to. Dying to. Not after he’d told her to fuck off—and not in a good way.

When the doorbell rang, he was tempted to ignore it. He had the makings of a hell of a pity party going on and he hated to ruin that by letting some stranger into his lair, even temporarily.

But whoever it was was persistent, hitting the doorbell time and again until he finally gave up any hope of peace and solitude. He headed toward the front door with a growl, prepared to take his displeasure out on whoever was unlucky enough to be on the other side.

He was already cursing when he threw open the door. “What the fuck—” His voice died in midquestion, his eyes running over the familiar figure on his porch in disbelief.

“Can I come in?” Genevieve smiled uncertainly as she waited for him to pick his
jaw up off the floor.

“Sure. Of course.” He opened the door wider, moved aside so she could enter. And tried to get his alcohol- and lust-fogged brain to function.