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“Really?” She sounded shocked.
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes. Are you any good?”
He grinned. “I’ve been told my marinara sauce is to die for.”
“Marinara sauce, hmm?” She sounded interested, almost in spite of herself.
“I also make a great meat loaf.”
“And you’re still single?”
He felt a pang, sharp and swift, but gone as quickly as it had come. Maybe too quickly. That was something he’d have to think about later. Now he shrugged. “You want to skip the Kung Pao Chicken for a home-cooked meal?”
“It’s tempting,” she told him, “but I’ve already ordered, and I really do have a ton of work still to do.”
“Maybe some other time?”
“Maybe,” she agreed vaguely.
It wasn’t an outright refusal, anyway. He decided to quit while he was ahead. “I’ll let you get back to work,” he said. “Make sure you lock up behind the delivery man.”
Dylan’s instincts had always been good. Of course, fifteen years on the force had taught him a lot about people and helped him to hone his natural intuition. But he was still undecided about the new assistant district attorney.
Were his hormones confusing the issue?
Possibly.
Probably.
He couldn’t deny that he was attracted to her. She was an attractive woman, and he was a fully functioning man with all the normal impulses. But he had no intention of acting on those impulses.
Despite his clumsy overtures, he kept his personal life separate from his job—no exceptions. To cross that line would hamper his objectivity, and without objectivity he couldn’t be a good cop. Dylan had always prided himself on being a very good cop. It was more than his job, it was his identity. And it was all he had left.
So he wasn’t happy that thoughts of Natalie Vaughn occupied an inordinate amount of his time. Of course, it didn’t help that she’d walked into the middle of a murder scene and thus firmly planted herself in one of his cases.
The investigation of which was proving to be surprisingly fruitful in the early stages. A .45 caliber pistol had been found hidden behind a bush outside Merrick’s apartment. Preliminary reports showed no prints on the gun, which wasn’t surprising. But the fact that the serial number on the weapon had been filed down gave him hope. It was unlikely the perp would have bothered with such a task unless the weapon was registered in his name. Or maybe he got the gun from someone else who’d used it for illegal purposes. In either case, once the lab guys retrieved the number, the police would have—if not the killer—at least a starting point in their search for whoever had pulled the trigger.
While awaiting the results from the lab, he had other avenues of investigation to follow—and one of those led him to Natalie’s hotel room.
She answered the door wearing her pajamas.
Silk, he guessed, based on the way the dark green fabric shimmered and molded to her curves. A deep V-neck revealed a tantalizing glimpse of cleavage and a simple gold heart on a delicate chain resting against her creamy skin.
He forced his gaze upward, noted that her eyes were more green than blue tonight, and shadowed with fatigue. Her face was bare of makeup, those full, lush lips unsmiling.
“What are you doing here, Lieutenant?”
“I needed to ask you some more questions about what happened the night of Merrick’s murder.”
She sighed. “I was really hoping to get some sleep tonight.”
“It won’t take long,” he promised.
She stepped away from the door to allow him to enter.
He took a quick survey of the room. The wallpaper was cream-colored with wide gold stripes, the carpet deep and plush, the furniture made of glossy cherry wood. Tasteful, classy. Of course, the Courtland Hotels had a reputation for luxurious accommodations and exceptional service—and a five-star price tag. Obviously the new A.D.A. was being well paid.
The queen-size bed was still made, although the spread was slightly rumpled and there were files and notes scattered on top. The television was on, but the volume was low. A small desk was in front of the window, a battered leather briefcase open on top of it. A single glass of red wine sat on the table beside the bed, half-empty.
“Can I get you a drink?”
He shook his head.
Natalie perched on the edge of the bed, gestured for him to take a seat.
He remained standing.
She picked up her glass, sipped.
“Were you drinking that night?”
“Do you disapprove of my having a glass or two of wine, Lieutenant?”
“I simply asked a question.”
“No, I wasn’t drinking that night,” she told him. “I’m only drinking tonight because I’m hoping that a few drinks might help me forget what I saw in Merrick’s apartments at least long enough to get some sleep.”
“It won’t,” he told her. It was always difficult to face death—violent death was the worst. The scene in Merrick’s apartment would have made a lasting impression on anyone, and he knew it would be a long time before Natalie would sleep without being haunted by dreams of what she’d seen. The realization stirred his compassion. “I wish I could tell you the memory will fade, but some memories never do. You just have to learn to live with them.”
“Do you?” she asked. “Learn to live with them, I mean?”
“There’s nothing else you can do,” he told her. What he wanted to do was to offer comfort and understanding. He knew how hard it was to face the darkness alone, and he wished he could spare her that.
Objectivity, he reminded himself, and took a mental step back.
“All right. Let’s get through your questions.”
He pulled the chair from behind the desk and straddled it, facing her. “What time did you receive the phone call?”
“Twelve-twenty.”
“You’re sure about that?”
She nodded. “I’d fallen asleep. The first thing I did when I heard the phone ringing was look at the clock.”
“Did the caller identify himself?”
“Didn’t we cover all this already?”
“I want to go over it again, to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”
She sighed.
“Did the caller identify himself?” he asked again.
“Not right away.”
“But he did give you his name?” Dylan prompted.
She paused, frowning. “No.”
“Then why did you assume it was Roger Merrick?”
“Because he talked about making a deal, and when I said he should talk to his lawyer, he said Hawkins couldn’t help him. I guessed his identity, and when I called him by name, he didn’t deny it.”
“But he didn’t confirm it, either.”
Her frown deepened. “No.”
“How did you know where to find him?”
“He gave me the address and I scribbled it down while I was on the phone with him.” She rose and moved toward the desk, her knee brushing against his thigh. Silk against denim, yet the brief contact sparked like flint on steel.
She froze, her wary gaze locking with his for just a second. But in that brief moment of connection, he saw it in her eyes: awareness, attraction. Then she turned away, rustled through her briefcase.
Dylan had to remind himself to breathe, to remember the purpose for his visit. He was here to do his job—it was his only hope of getting justice for Beth.
She handed him a single page with the hotel insignia at the top. He gave it only a cursory glance.
“That’s the address he gave me,” she told him.
“The address the caller gave you,” he amended.
“That’s what I said.” She picked up her glass again, her fingers trembling slightly. Was she shaken by their brief contact—or was her nervousness a result of the topic of their conversation?
It didn’t matter—he was here to investigate Merrick, not the A.D.A. The reminder didn’t cool his hormones, but it at least focused his thoughts. “What if I told you that Roger Merrick didn’t make that phone call?”
“But—but I spoke to him.”
“Had you ever spoken to him before?”
Natalie shook her head. “Why would I?”
He ignored her question to ask another of his own. “How long did it take you to get to Merrick’s apartment after you left here?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t remember.”
“Approximately?”
She shrugged. “Twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour.”
He’d followed the route earlier that evening. It had taken twenty-two minutes to drive from the hotel parking lot to the front door of Merrick’s apartment building.
“Did you leave your room as soon as you got off the phone?”
“No.” She studied the contents of her glass rather than meeting his gaze. “I tried calling you first. And when I didn’t get an answer…”
She hesitated, and he thought he saw a touch of color rise in her cheeks.
“When I stopped to think about it, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving across town at that time of night on my own,” she admitted. “It took me a few minutes to talk myself into it.”
The embarrassment, the hint of vulnerability, made him want to reach out to her, to offer comfort and reassurance. But he wasn’t her friend, he was a cop—and he needed to act like a cop. “A few minutes—five? Ten?”
“Maybe ten.”
“Which would put you at his apartment by one o’clock?”
“I guess so.”
He nodded. He’d been paged about fifteen minutes later, which corroborated her version of events. Almost.
He folded his arms over the back of the chair, his eyes locked on her. “I just don’t understand why Merrick would ask you to meet him on the other side of town if he was already here.”
Natalie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We checked the hotel’s phone records,” he told her.
“And?”
“The call that came into this room was made from one of the courtesy phones in the lobby.”
Chapter 4
Natalie shook her head, refused to believe it.
“Not only that,” Creighton continued, oblivious to the effect his words had on her. “But preliminary reports from the ME indicate that Merrick was killed sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 p.m. In any event, he was dead before you received that call.”
“Th-that’s not possible.”
“Science doesn’t lie,” he said.
It took a minute for the implications of what he was saying to sink in. She drew in a deep breath, determined not to reveal the hurt. “And if science doesn’t lie, you think I am.”
“I don’t disregard any possibility.”
She pushed her hair away from her face and realized her hand was trembling. She curled her fingers into a fist to hide this evidence of weakness. She was not weak. She was upset and tired, and she’d been ambushed in her own hotel room. But the mental reassurance did little to calm her quivering nerves.
