To Trust a Stranger (31 page)

Mac glanced at his watch and smiled at her. Admittedly, it .was not a nice smile. More on the nasty side. But hey, sweetness and light was beyond him for the moment.

“I'd say you're shit out of luck, Miss America. It's four-fifteen. And I thought we agreed that you weren't going back to work today. “Oh no! It was Carlene Squabb.” Her face was a study in consternation. Then her gaze fixed on him, and darkened stormily. “And if you want to talk about attitudes, yours could use some major work} don't know what you're so grumpy about. You got what you wanted.”

“Me! Mac's gaze slid over her from the tip of her tousled black head to her delicate pink-painted toes, which he could Just see peeking out from under the layers of sheet, and he felt his sense of disgruntlement increase right along with other sensitive meters of his state of mind. “I don't think so. It wasn't me who said”-here he assumed his Debbie falsetto- “take me somewhere where we can be alone and take off all my clothes and fuck me until I scream. All I did was oblige. And darlin', you did scream.”

Julie's lips tightened and her eyes shot twin beams of pure fire at him. Then she seemed to make an effort to grab hold of her temper before she lost it entirely. Her fists clenched, her eyes closed-Mac imagined her mentally counting to ten-and she took a deep breath.

When she opened her eyes again the look she gave him was far cooler. Maddeningly so, Mac discovered. He'd rather by far fight with her than have her distance herself from him.

“Look, I'm not blaming you for this, okay? You're right, I wanted it, and nothing that happened here is your fault. I realize now that I'm in kind of an emotional state about ending my marriage, and having sex with you was a stage I had to go through to start really getting over it. If we could just put this whole thing behind us and forget it ever happened, that would be good.”

A beat passed while that sank in. So he was a phase, was he? Mac found that he liked that less than anything that had come out of her mouth since she'd started talking-and that was saying a whole hell of a lot.

“Not a problem.” Mac rolled off the other side of the bed and stood up, keeping a firm grip on the sheet as he went.

No point in letting her in on the fact that he was ready, willing, and able to go on to Round Two. He watched her gather up her bra and panties and realized that he was really, truly, royally pissed off. Which was stupid, he told himself She'd offered him every guy's wet dream on a platter-a mind-blowing sex session with a hot babe without any of the usual female icky-
poo
aftermath-and it was making him mad?

What the hell was the matter with him?

The obvious answer, of course, was that she was enough to try the patience of a saint, and he wasn't planning to put in for canonization any time soon.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” She was back in polite mode, which, he supposed, was no more or less irritating than anything else she'd done since she gotten her rocks off. He was fifty kinds of a fool to let her attitude get under his skin.

But he couldn't seem to help it.

“Help yourself” He gestured toward the bathroom, as polite as she was now, and awarded himself mental kudos for the poker-worthy cool front he was maintaining. As she headed toward the bathroom, she flicked him a sideways glance and one of her little Mona Lisa smiles. Then he was left to stare at his own bathroom door as it was firmly closed in his face.

Shit, he thought. That was just what he felt like, too: shit. Never in his life would he have imagined he could feel so crummy after such truly great sex.

What had just happened here?

Mac was still trying to figure it out as he rounded up his clothes from the floor, pulled them on, ran his fingers through his hair and headed toward the kitchen. The phone began to ring, but he ignored it. He had a pretty good idea of who it was, but he wasn't in the mood to talk to Hinkle just yet. He'd grab a beer, then maybe, if Julie was still in the shower-in his experience, women could drag a shower that should take them five minutes out for days-take a minute or so to upload the contents of Sid's files into his computer. After all, that was what this was all about, really. Not doing Julie. Getting Sid.

The sound of the shower followed him into the kitchen. Not imagining Julie standing naked under the spray required more effort than he was capable of at the moment. The ringing had stopped, he realized as he grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and moodily unscrewed the cap. Taking a swig, he headed on into the living room, only to stop dead on the threshold.

Josephine had the telephone cord in her mouth. The instrument lay on the floor, on its side, the receiver belly-up like a dead goldfish.

“Damn it, Josephine!” he barked. The poodle, not being stupid, jumped to her feet and bolted for the bedroom, still clutching the cord in her mouth, the severed receiver bumping after her across the hardwood.

Mac said a whole string of cuss words as he picked up the decapitated phone. There was nothing to do, he acknowledged, turning what was left of it over in his hand, except toss it. The thing was definitely dead.

Fortunately the extension in the bedroom could take over until this one was replaced. He unplugged the corpse from the wall outlet, and placed it on the end table beside his gun to await a decent burial in the garbage.

Chalk the death of his phone up as just one more in a series of things, large and small, that had not gone his way today.

Mac yanked open the curtains, hoping that an infusion of sunshine would improve his mood. The room was immediately flooded with light, which made him blink and revealed his every housekeeping deficiency from the cobwebs in the corners to the dust on the coffee table.

Great. He sank down on the couch, propped his stocking feet up on the coffee table, and took another swig of beer. His gaze fell on Julie's discarded dress, crumpled into a pale purple heap near the wall. If he was not a gentleman, he would just sit here and wait until she emerged from the bathroom to fetch it. If he was, he'd pick it up, shake it out, carry it back to the bathroom, knock on the door, and yell that he was leaving her dress on the doorknob for her when she was ready.

The decision wasn't hard. He stayed where he was, watching swirling dust motes joust in the sunlight and chugging his beer.

There was a knock at his front door. Mac frowned, and cast a glance over his shoulder out the front window. He and Julie had been inside for well over an hour. Mrs. Leiferman must be about to expire of curiosity by now. It wasn't her usual MO-his activities were usually only fair game when he was outside the house-but it was possible that the old lady couldn't take the suspense and had come up with bright Idea of coming over to borrow a cup of sugar or something of the sort.

But the tailored white pants leg he could see on his stoop did not belong to Mrs. Leiferman. It was definitely a male leg. It didn't take a genius to guess whose.

He got up and went to answer the door.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” Hinkle demanded in a furious tone the moment he opened the door, pushing past him into the house before Mac could say a word. “You got a spark plug loose, getting mixed up with that shit again? You got your panties in a twist about Sid Carlson, that's your business. But I'm not getting involved, you hear? That dude is bad, and you know it.”

“Hey to you too,” Mac said mildly, closing the door. Natty as always in a white suit with a black shirt and tie, Hinkle stood in the middle of the living room, arms akimbo, glaring at him. Mac walked over, picked up his beer from the coffee table, drained the last mouthful, and gestured at Hinkle with the bottle. “Want a beer?”

“Hell, no, I don't want a beer. I want to know what the hell you think you're doing nosing around Carlson again. Soon as I figured out who I was taking pictures of, I about crapped my pants. I tried to call you, but you're not answering your damned cell phone-again!-and when you picked up here, you didn't say a damned word. So here I am, asking you to your face: What the fuck are you doing?”

Mac thought about explaining that it had been Josephine who picked up, not he, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

Instead, he asked, “Did you get the pictures?”

“Did I get the-” Hinkle looked like he was about to blow a gasket. “It doesn't matter whether or not I got the pictures. We aren't going to use them. You hear me? Are N-O-T not. Remember the last time you tried taking him on? Remember that we were cops, back then? Remember things were going pretty good for both of us? And what did you do? You got a burr up your ass about Sid Carlson. You went after him, and he nailed your ass to the wall-and mine too. I'm not making that mistake twice, and neither are you, if I can help it. Face the facts, Mac: You aren't going to take Sid Carlson down. If you keep trying, he'll be the one taking you down, and this time I... “

He broke off, looking at something beyond Mac's shoulder, his eyes widening. Mac felt a premonition of disaster, and glanced around. Sure enough, there stood Julie, barefoot, his white bathrobe, so big on her that she looked like she was swimming in it, knotted around her waist. Her hair was twisted into a loose and fetching knot on the top of her head, her beautiful face was scrubbed clean, and her big brown eyes were questioning as they swung from him to Hinkle and back.

“Julie, meet my partner, George Hinkle.” There didn't seem to be much else to do, under the circumstances, but make the necessary introductions. To a certain degree, anyway. No need to reveal Julie's full identity, because if Hinkle knew exactly who she was he would freak for sure. The urgent question was, how much had she heard? Mac looked at her hard, but couldn't tell.

“Julie-Carlson?” Hinkle choked, staring at her as if she'd been a six-foot-tall spitting cobra instead of a ravishing babe in a bathrobe.

So much for keeping her identity to himself, Mac thought, grimacing. He was surprised his partner had recognized her at all, much less so fast. But then, the light was good in the room now, and Hinkle had been taking pictures of Sid, so he would naturally have Carlson on e brain. Plus, he'd been working security at her wedding, too, and a
looker
like Julie could be counted on to be remembered by any male between ten and ninety. And he could have seen her umpteen times since, for all Mac knew. After all, he also had a vested interest in keeping tabs on Sid, if for no other reason than to stay as far away from him as possible.

“Julie's a client,” Mac said, which was perfectly true even if it was obvious to the most casual observer that Julie was far more than that. After all, how many clients came strolling into his living room clad in nothing but his bathrobe, obviously fresh from his shower? None that he could think of.

“Hello,” Julie offered. She was unsmiling, but Mac still could not judge whether she'd heard more than she should.

“Shit,” Hinkle said, turning incredulous eyes on him. Mac met that dumbstruck look impassively. Recollecting himself, Hinkle swung his gaze back to Julie. “Meaning no disrespect, ma' am.”

Then his gaze moved to something on the floor, and his expression changed again. Following the direction of that appalled glance, Mac realized that his partner had just spotted Julie's dress. Julie apparently realized it, too, because she stepped forward and, with praiseworthy dignity, retrieved the garment, which she folded over her arm.

“You were at my house earlier, weren't you?” she asked Hinkle, her manner both direct and composed. Mac had to give her credit for not letting Hinkle-or him-see the embarrassment she had to be feeling.

I heard you talking to Mac over the phone. Did you-were you able to get pictures of my husband with his girlfriend?” Hinkle gulped. “Uh-uh .... “ His gaze shot to Mac. “Could I speak to you in private for just one minute?”

“He got them,” Mac said to Julie, who met his gaze with absolutely nothing that he could decipher in her eyes. “I'll just go get dressed.” She turned to head back into the bedroom, then glanced over her shoulder. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Hinkle.” Hinkle gave her a sickly smile. “You, too, Mrs.-uh-Carlson.” Julie's very lack of expression made Mac apprehensive. Either she'd heard something she shouldn't, or she was still wallowing in her
apresex
snit.

Silence reigned in the living room until it was interrupted by the barely audible click of the bedroom door closing. Then Hinkle, looking nearly apoplectic, turned on him with a vengeance. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded in a fierce whisper. “You're fucking Sid Carlson's wife, you dumb ass. Are you out of your tiny mind?” Denying it would clearly be a waste of time. Mac put the beer bottle down on the coffee table, stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, rocked back on his heels, and regarded Hinkle meditatively. “Like I said, Julie's a client. She hired me-us-to find out If her husband's cheating on her. As you saw, he is.”

“You’re fucking sleeping with her.” Hinkle did the best under his-breath yell Mac had ever heard. It wasn't loud, but it was forceful. “And there's no us in this. Uh-uh. This is you on your damn fool own.”

Mac pursed his lips. “Fine. I'll consider her a private client. That make you feel better?”

“No. No, it doesn't make me feel better. Who's going to know she's your private client, that's what I want to know? What are you gonna do, hang a sign around her neck? If Carlson gets wind that we're spying on him, we got a shit load of trouble. If he finds out you're also making it with his wife”-Hinkle visibly shuddered-”which he will do when lawyers get involved, you mark my words-he'll come after us-not you,
u.f
--with everything he's got.” Hinkle shook his head. “Been there, done that. I don't know about you, but nothing in that experience made me want to go down that road again.”