Unmanned (6 page)

7

Apparently it takes, like, forty-seven muscles to frown. Flippin’ the bird’s a hell of a lot easier.

—Amanda May Newton, aka the Magnificent Mandy

“D
ON’T YOU EVER LOCK
your damn—” Rivera’s words jerked to a halt.

I’m not sure why I felt the need to snap my legs off Mr. Manderos’s lap. It wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong. Nevertheless, I yanked away like a puppet on crack.

“Rivera!” I said. My voice sounded kind of sandpapery. I cleared my throat, reprimanded myself for my childish demeanor, and tried again, setting my feet primly on the floor and smoothing my slacks around my thighs. Classy as hell. “Rivera,” I said, tone sophisticated, mind screaming bloody hell, “you remember Mr. Manderos.”

The lieutenant remained silent. Something ticked in his jaw as he shifted his dynamite glare from Julio to me.

I cleared my throat again, then cursed myself for the weak-assed gesture. Rivera had no claim on me, hadn’t even said he
wanted
a claim.

Julio rose to his feet with a dancer’s grace and extended his hand, Spanish gaze earnest and level. “I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance,” he said, “but I would know the good senator’s son by reputation alone.”

For a moment I thought Rivera might drop the flimsy veneer of propriety and pop him in the face just for spite, but he took a step forward and shook the other’s hand, almost as if he were civilized. “You own the strip club,” he said. There was a buttload of feeling in that statement, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to interpret it.

“Sí,”
Julio said. “The Strip Please. And you are a lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department. Your father is very proud.”

The corner of Rivera’s mouth jerked, then, “Impersonating the senator doesn’t mean you know him, I see,” he said.

The two measured each other in silence. There was an odd history between them even though they’d never met. As I’ve said, Julio had, on occasion, spent time with Rivera’s ex-fiancée, who was, for a spell, Rivera’s father’s
current
fiancée.

This is L.A. We couldn’t recognize normal if it bit us on the ass. But then, why would normal bite you on the ass? Unless…Shit, was I drunk?

“You are correct,” Julio said. “I am being…pretentious. I do not know your father well.”

Rivera was still scowling. No surprise there.

“And yet I am certain he has great pride in you.” Julio nodded once, eyes narrowed. “Though he may not know how best to show it. It is the same with many great men.”

Rivera puffed an almost silent snort. “You think my father’s great?”

Julio was silent for a moment, studying him, then: “He has been that and more to me, Lieutenant. But in truth…” He canted his head, thinking. “…I was speaking of you.”

A flicker of uncertainty raced across Rivera’s hard-ass features. I soaked it in. Rivera is rarely uncertain. He’s often wrong. But he’s usually emphatically wrong.

“I didn’t see a car outside,” he said finally. “You take a cab here, Manderos?”

I tensed, but Julio didn’t seem the least concerned.

Maybe he spent every day giving women foot rubs and nobody had taken umbrage so far. Maybe he’d never met a man like Rivera, who took umbrage at sunshine.

“No. I felt Christina should not drive, thus I took the liberty of escorting her home.”

I could feel my pulse beating in my left eyeball. I could
see
Rivera’s in his.

“From where?” he asked.

“I stopped at her office. She seemed…distraught. Thus I thought it best that she have some time to relax rather than seeing to others’ problems.”

There was a two-beat silence, during which I fortified my defenses before Rivera inevitably turned on me. “You went to work?” he asked finally.

“I do serious work at my office, Lieutenant Rivera,” I said. It was sort of a preemptive excuse.

“Yeah?” His tone was stiff. “Lepinski still can’t decide about luncheon options?”

“Listen—” I said, but Julio interrupted.

“She is a very brave woman, Lieutenant.”

Rivera shifted his thunderbolt gaze back to his father’s look-alike. Gone was that moment of tender anger. Now all-out rage flashed across his features. “Are you aware that someone tried to kill her last night, Manderos?”

Julio hesitated an instant, then, “I was told that a man named Will died while visiting her.”

“Shot between the eyes,” Rivera said, “while, or shortly after, she was standing directly in front of him.”

Julio shook his head, his expression troubled. “This is a terrible thing indeed, but surely no one would wish our Christina harm.”

Rivera snarled a smile. “Hit men are funny.”

Manderos considered that a moment, then shook his head. “I do not believe that was his intent.”

“Really?” The lieutenant’s eyes were narrow. “Maybe you were a friend of Mr. Swanson’s?”

If Julio was getting tired of Rivera’s shitty attitude, he didn’t show it. “No, I knew no one by that name, but look at her,” he said. His tone almost seemed reverent. “Is she not beauty itself?”

My gaze skipped from one to the other. Julio’s eyes were soft and earnest. Rivera’s looked like they could scorch your shorts. “What the hell are you getting at?” he asked, shifting his glare to Julio.

Manderos shook his head sadly. “Surely you have not walked so long amidst evil that you cannot think of an innocent reason a man might wish to spend an evening with a lady of Christina’s caliber.”

Rivera turned his black eyes back toward me. His nostrils actually flared. I considered scrambling over the coffee table and out the front door like a shrieking virgin. “Nothing too innocent,” he said, then looked back at Julio, expression closed, eyes flinty. “Where were
you
last night, Manderos?”

For a moment Julio’s eyes widened, and then he smiled the smallest degree. “I was in the company of a friend, Lieutenant.”

“A friend who’ll corroborate your story?”

Julio paused, sighed. “A friend who is married.”

Rivera took a step forward. “So you have no alibi. Tell me, what made you decide to visit Ms. McMullen’s office this afternoon?”

“I wished to make certain all was well.”

“Why today? Do you stop by often?” He was starting to crowd.

“I fear my duties at the club keep me too busy to do as much socializing as I would—”

“Then why did you—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said, and stepped between the two. I should have done it sooner, but all this talk about beauty and innocence and the dark looks and the flared nostrils had pretty much unhinged my jaw. Still, enough was enough. “Julio…” I turned toward him, showing Rivera my back. “…thank you for bringing me home.”

His eyes were gleaming, but with anger or humor or some other emotion, I couldn’t tell. “It was an honor, Ms. Christina,” he said, and lifting my hand, kissed my knuckles with slow deliberation. His lips felt firm and shivery hot against my skin. “You will call me if ever you are in need, will you not?”

I cleared my throat and refrained from giggling like a nervous majorette. “Certainly.”

He nodded and turned toward the door. I followed him.

“Wait. You don’t have your car,” I said, but he smiled and turned in my mini-vestibule.

“I’ve no wish to intrude on your day any longer.” He glanced at Rivera. I could only imagine the lieutenant didn’t look any happier than he had during the first few months of our acquaintance. “I believe the two of you have much to discuss. There is a bus stop just around the corner. I have not been so long from my humble roots that I do not remember the value of public transport.”

He kissed my cheek. I didn’t turn to see Rivera’s reaction.

“I’m sorry,” I said instead, but Julio laughed and leaned close, lips nearly touching my ear.

“You need not apologize for a man in love,” he said quietly, and bidding Rivera adieu, stepped onto my stoop and shut the door.

I gaped after him. A man in…What?

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Rivera snarled.

I turned on him in a haze.
A man in…where?

“Fuck it! Why don’t you just put a gun to your damn head?”

I felt a little dizzy. “What are you talking about?”

“Shit!” He paced, jaw flexing. “He come to check out your garage, too?”

My brain shifted, ground gears, started spinning. “He’s a friend.”

“A friend!” He barked a laugh, jabbed a finger toward the door. “He’s a fucking gigolo.”

I felt my temper start to fume. “What other kind would there be?”

“You so desperate you’re willing to pay for it now, McMullen?”

I stopped the words about to spill from my mouth and took a cleansing breath. “Why are you here?”

“Why the hell was
he
here?”

“I told you. He’s a—”

“He’s a damn murder suspect!”

My hands went numb. “What?”

He glared at me. “He was at Salina’s house the night she died.”

I blinked, paused. Feeling was already tinkling back to my extremities. “So were you. So was I, for that matter.”

He held my gaze for another second, then jerked it away, pacing again. “He’s a damn whore,” he said, but he sounded sullen now, seething.

“He’s a—”

“And my old man’s gopher,” he snarled. I couldn’t tell which term he found more distasteful.

“What does that have to do with—”

“What was he doing here? What does he want? Maybe the good senator
was
innocent of Salina’s death, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe from him.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Murder!” he growled, and stormed across the room toward me. “Death. Stupid-ass gigolos who think my father’s a fucking saint. Why was he here?”

“Is it so hard to believe a man would be interested in me just for me?”

“Damn right, it is,” he growled. “You know things. About my father. The real him. The shitty him.”

I felt strangely relaxed now, cool under fire. “So you think Julio Manderos came to my business, gave me a ride home, fixed me a drink, and planned to kill me so that I wouldn’t reveal the fact that he has doubled as your father.”

Rivera shifted his gaze away and back. “It’s possible.”

“Really?”

He fisted his hands and gritted his teeth, steadying himself. “Maybe you think his eyes are too fucking soulful for him to be dangerous.”

“You noticed.”

Control was seeping in by careful measures. “Oh, yeah. He’s dreamy.”

“Isn’t he just?”

“So tell me, McMullen, do you become fast friends with everyone who gives you a foot massage, or is it just men who look like my old man?”

“He’s not as old as—” I began, but stopped abruptly. “How the hell did you know about the massage?”

The room went silent, his jaw flexed. “It looked like he’d found your G spot. I assumed it was a massage. You want to enlighten me?”

I searched for one of those witty zingers I had contemplated moments before and snatched up the best one. “You’re an idiot,” I said.

The doorbell rang simultaneously. I jerked. “Who’s that?”

“Could be Charles Manson,” Rivera said. “Should I let him in?”

I gave him a glare and headed for the vestibule, but not too fast. With my luck, Manson would have been a pleasant surprise. “Who is it?” I called. “Sophie,” came the response.

The voice was trilling and feminine with a lilting foreign accent, but my pulse was still racing. Just because no woman had tried to kill me lately didn’t mean one wouldn’t soon. Maybe it just meant that my good luck was coming to a screaming halt.

Rivera eased up beside me, nudged me away from the door. Maybe I let him do so because I’m a perfectly secure woman with a Ph.D. and a mortgage, but maybe I was scared out of my mind. He opened the door. The woman on the other side was French—pretty, long hair blue-black and caught up at the back of her head, dark eyes expressive enough to make a weaker woman cry. Curvy enough to make anyone cry.

“Can I help you?” Rivera’s voice had softened toward human. What kind of freaky magic do these foreign women possess anyway? Besides the curves. And the hair. And the damn accent. I’m going to get me an accent.

“Yes. I hope so.” She gave him a smile from full, recently glossed lips. She wore a white blouse with a little ruffle down the front, and a red knit skirt secured around a ridiculously small waist with a fat belt. “Is this…?” She glanced at the scrap of paper in her hand and read off my address.

“Yes,” I said, elbowing forward. Move over, secure women with Ph.D.s, Christina McMullen was in town. “What can I do for you?”

She glanced past me. “Is, perhaps, Julio Manderos present?”

“Julio…Oh,” I said, noticing the paper bag that dangled from her hand for the first time. It was large and white and smelled like Shangri-La on steroids. “You’re from Melisse.”

“Melisse,” she said, correcting my pronunciation congenially. “
Oui.
He ordered lobster bolognese.” She glanced at Rivera.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice sounded like a jackhammer after hers. “He had to leave unexpectedly.”

“Oh.” She scowled. “That is too bad.”

A heavenly scent was wafting up from the open edges of the bag, firing up my taste buds. “But I’ll pay for the meal.”

“Pay!” She looked aghast, black eyes going dinner-plate wide. “Oh, no. Julio Manderos does not pay for his meals from Melisse. Not so long as I am present.” She handed over the bag with something of a flourish. “Enjoy,” she said, and narrowing her French fantasy eyes, slid her gaze up Rivera’s jean-clad body to his face. “You, too, Officer,” she said, and turned away.

8

Women have to be in the mood for sex. Men have to be breathing.

—Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons and Brainy Laney’s alter ego

“W
HAT THE HELL
was that about?” Rivera asked, but his voice sounded kind of hazy, his gaze still locked on Frenchie’s retreating form. “Form” being another word for ass.

I considered kicking him in the shins…“shins” being another word for balls. “Don’t ask me,” I said, scowling. “Do you know her?”

“No.”

“You sure?” It wasn’t like I was jealous or anything. But damn it, foreign women always make me feel kind of…lumpy.

She was still walking away, scarlet skirt snug across her bottom, then flaring to swish flirtatiously against the backs of her thighs.

“I’d remember,” he said.

Maybe it was hunger that made me want to drop-kick him into my dusty yard and lock the door behind him. “You sure you weren’t engaged to her or something?” I asked, tone sweet, lashes fluttering like discombobulated butterflies.

He glanced at me, snorted, and closed the door. “Still jealous, McMullen?”

I headed for the kitchen, put the bag on the table, and realized that if I killed him I could have all the…whatever the hell it was…for myself. “So that Julio Manderos,” I crooned, “isn’t he the dreamiest?”

A muscle jumped in Rivera’s jaw, but he turned away without strangling me, opened the appropriate drawer, and pulled out what I generously refer to as silverware.

I put plates on the table, added a mismatched pair of glasses, and opened the bag. After that it was all kind of a haze. I considered telling Rivera he wasn’t invited to share my meal, but in actuality there looked like there was enough for Genghis’s army—or me, so I put on my game face and dug in.

There were juicy tomato slices topped with cheese, and a lobster dish served in a sauce that made me glad to be alive.

By the time I was slurping up the last bite, Rivera was staring at me. I classily wiped my mouth with a napkin and refrained from belching.

“Does he come by often?” he asked.

It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. But then I remembered the foot massage. Which had been very nice, but juxtaposed beside Melisse’s lobster stuff…

I leaned back in my chair. “Manderos is a nice guy,” I said, wanting quite desperately to pop open my waistband and recline somewhere inconspicuous. “And maybe he was right. Maybe Swanson’s death didn’t have anything to do with me,” I said, and began clearing the table.

“You believe in the Easter Bunny, too?”

“I saw him at the mall. Just a couple months ago.”

“I’m staying,” he said, and tossed the empty cartons in the trash.

“Over my dead body.”

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.” The tic again.

His eyes spoke volumes. None of it was polite. “Listen, McMullen…” He glanced out the window, body tense. “Manderos was right.”

I scowled at him, waiting.

“You’re as sexy as hell.”

Swear to God, if he had morphed into a monarch butterfly and flown to Pacific Grove I couldn’t have been more surprised. I mean, yes, I knew at times that he was attracted to me, but…weren’t we fighting?

“Shut your mouth,” he suggested.

I did.

“You and me…” He glanced toward the window again, exhaled sharply. “Shit!” He looked back, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Don’t you wonder why we haven’t done it yet?”

“I thought it was because of your phone.”

“Fuck the phone!” he snapped. “I could take you right now. Thirty seconds. Just…” He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth. “Maybe I want more than that.”

“More…” I shook my head. “Like a week?”

“Like a fucking lifetime,” he said, and paced the length of my kitchen.

I felt the blood drain from my face. “What?”

“Why Manderos? Why him?” He had stopped abruptly, eyes sizzling with dark intensity. “Did you sleep with him?”

Something in me wanted to tell him the truth, but the rest of me was kind of spiteful and a little nuts. “Is that any of your business, Rivera?”

His brows dipped toward his ever-dark eyes. “Maybe I’d like it to be.”

My heart did a fish-flop. “Maybe?”

He blew out a breath. “You make me crazy.”

“I don’t think I can take all the credit.”

“Half the time I want to strangle you and the other half…”

My heart was beating a slow tango in my chest. “Does the other half last about a week?”

He chuckled and stepped forward. I stepped back, but not fast enough. He caught me, pinning my arms to my sides with his. “Maybe a month,” he rumbled.

I tilted my head back to watch him. “But you’re gay?” He pressed against me a little. “My next guess was that you were injured in the line of duty,” I said, “but I guess not.”

“Have you got a thing for him?”

I scowled.

“Manderos,” he said.

I shook my head. “He’s a nice guy, Rivera. I—”

“How ’bout my old man,” he asked.

“I don’t know if he’s nice or—”

“You got a thing for
him
?”

I didn’t answer right away. So this was jealousy. Who would have thought?

“You can tell me,” he said. “You wouldn’t be the first to fall for his shitty lines.”

So he was still hurting over Salina’s betrayal.

“One Rivera in
my
life is plenty,” I said.

He looked as if he might continue in the same vein, then changed directions, face tense. “I never said my family was normal. Not like the sainted McMullen clan.”

“Screw you,” I said, but the words were kind of breathy.

He moved a little closer. “You got a week?”

I swallowed and remained very still, lest the slightest motion tilt me over the horny line and into the humping-his-thigh region. “I was speaking metaphorically.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, and kissed me. My hormones fired up like cherry bombs. I kissed him back. I knew it wasn’t a good idea. But…some guy had died in my yard. And…well, hell, he’s got an ass tight as a cement mixer. I was panting like a racehorse when I reached for it, and that’s when his phone rang.

I broke off the kiss and said something nasty.

“What’d you say?” he asked, words a caress against my cheek.

Good God, I could still feel his erection against my thigh. Just sitting there, not doing anything constructive. “Nothing.”

He chuckled, delayed a second, then pulled his cell from his pocket. Flipping it open, he stared at the screen. “This could be important,” he said.

And twenty-one months of celibacy wasn’t? “Of course,” I said.

His eyes scorched me for a second, and then he pushed a button. “Mama,” he said.

I refused to let my jaw drop at the idea that he would choose a conversation with his mother over mind-imploding sex. If the world was fair, that alone would force him to give up rights to his Latin heritage.

“I’m not home right now,” he said, and watched me with smoldering intensity. I resisted squirming. And then it hit me. Maybe it wasn’t his mother at all. Maybe he called all his girls “Mama.” Except me, of course. “No.” There was another pause, a quirk of the lips. “I’m at McMullen’s.”

“Christina’s?” It was the first clear word I heard from the other end of the line. It
did
sound kind of like his mother. And her tone was thrilled. Mrs. Rivera and I had once bonded over a trough of liquor and talk about men having descended from the porcine species.

“I’ll tell her,” he said. “Tomorrow night?” There was more mumbling, then, “Okay. Everything all right?”

There was a muted answer.

“You sure?” he asked.

She must have assured him all was well, because he didn’t torpedo through the door to her rescue. Instead, he slipped the phone back into his pocket and glared at me.

I fidgeted a little, wondering if she’d told him something about our exploits from a couple months before. Maybe something I myself couldn’t remember. I’d been as drunk as a carny.

“Nothing’s wrong, I hope,” I said.

He narrowed his eyes. “She likes you.”

“That a crime or just a rarity?”

His lips twitched. “I don’t want to disappoint her.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going. “Okay.”

“So I figure we’ve got two options. We could do it right now before my phone rings again.”

I was holding my breath. “Do what ex-exactly?”

“Make her a grandchild.”

I stumbled back a step. “Holy crap! What? What’s wrong with you?”

There was a devil in his eyes as he stepped forward and pinned me against the wall again. His thigh settled with smug intimacy against my core. His lips slanted across mine. I felt my brain go numb, taken hostage by my ovaries.

“Was there a second option?” I rasped.

“No.”

“Oh.” I think I nodded. “Okay.”

He leaned in, eyes dark, hands hard and hot against my wrists. That’s when his phone rang again. He snarled, but a second later he released me, pulled out his cell, and flipped it open. “Yeah!”

Someone muttered something.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Another mumble.

“You’ve got the wrong damned number,” he said, and hung up.

Wrong number! Thank Jesus! It was a wrong number, I thought, but suddenly memories fired up, flashing suspicions in every inconceivable direction. “Who was that?” I asked.

He eyed me. He was still cradled between my thighs, still feeling like a million bucks against my needy stuff, but they say once burned twice shy. I’d been burned about seventy-seven times. The last pyro had been a paid assassin. Maybe. “You think it was a woman?” he asked, and flexed his thigh a little.

I swallowed. “Was it?”

“You still don’t trust me.”

I didn’t respond. His thigh was doing stuff again, but he took a deep breath through his nostrils and said, “Maybe we should go with option B.”

“Which is?” I didn’t really want to know, but it seemed polite to ask.

“Start at the beginning,” he said. “Get to know each other.”

“In a biblical sense or—”

“Talking. Maybe holding hands,” he said, and slipped his nails across my cheek. I shivered down to my psyche. “Did I tell you you’re driving me crazy?”

“You might have made mention.”

He exhaled carefully, not moving. “Maybe it’s time we figure out if we like each other, McMullen.”

“While we were doing that would we be—”

“No naked.”

“Ever?” Maybe I sounded a little like I was going to cry. Maybe I was.

He touched my cheek again. “Not until you trust me.”

“I…do trust you,” I said, but I didn’t sound very convincing, not even to myself.

“Last time I got an anonymous phone call you tailed me.”

“That’s ’cuz it was your fiancée.”

“
Ex
-fiancée.”

“Who you galloped off to at the first sign of—”

He was staring at me. I cleared my throat and looked away. “Okay. I see your point, but maybe you’re not so normal, either. I mean…” I nodded toward the front door where Manderos had exited. “…it was only a foot massage.”

The muscle again. “From a man my father hired to satisfy his girlfriends.”

“Is it his profession or the fact that he looks like your father that bothers you?”

His eyes fired up, but his tone was level. “Doesn’t matter how mad you try to make me, McMullen. I’m still going to get to know you…first.”

“You’re going to have to address your paternal problems if you’re ever going to move beyond your adolescent disappointments and heal the wounds that—”

“I’m going to get to know you even if you keep saying stupid-ass things like that.”

I scowled, drew a deep breath, exhaled. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll start slow.”

“Great. You don’t mind if I sleep in the nude, do you?”

I shoved him. He rocked back half an inch and laughed, but I gritted my teeth at him. “You’re not staying.”

“We’re never going to get to know each other if we don’t spend time together.”

My crotch was burning up. There were about thirty-four seconds remaining until I tossed him on the ground and had my way with him. “Now’s not a great time.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

And suddenly I remembered the Glock. It lay nestled beneath a couch pillow. I opened my mouth, but he beat me to the punch.

“Platonic,” he said, but his thigh moved just a little, making me teeter on the edge of stupid. “Like in fifth grade.”

“I kissed my first boy in fourth,” I rasped.

“Really?” He kissed the corner of my mouth. “Tell me about it.”

“You want platonic tonight, go see your mom.”

“I think I can fight you off.”

I gave him a look through my lashes then reached up and popped open the snaps on my slinky, tailored blouse. His gaze lowered. The smile fell from his face like a shitload of bricks.

“Maybe I’d better go,” he gritted.

“You bet your ass,” I said.