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For the first time, she looked a bit off balance. Good. He’d have to remember how he did that. He had a feeling he’d need to use it. Repeatedly.
“Wait a minute, I need to go over your reports so far.” There was a touch of nervousness in her voice now as she watched him clear his desk.
“I need to go home and get some sleep.” He scooped up the case files and piled them into a side drawer, then locked it. He dropped the keys in his shirt pocket, pausing by her chair as he rounded the desk. “And if you plan to accompany me to bed in hopes I talk in my sleep, I’ll save you the effort.”
“But—”
“Good night, Ms. Mahoney. Tell Mayor Henley that I’ll file my report with my captain as soon as I’m ready. Until then, he can contact Commissioner Douglas if he has any questions about the investigation.” Brady decided he’d rather deal with them directly than go through her anyway. And he was certain that confrontation would come sooner rather than later. But it wasn’t right now, and that was all he cared about at the moment.
He lifted a finger when she opened her mouth to speak. “As for the press, don’t worry. As a rule, I don’t talk to anyone about any of my cases. Ever.” His pointed look at her was clearly understood.
He was halfway across the room when he realized she wasn’t dogging his heels as he’d expected. At no time had Terror Mahoney ever given up easily. So he stopped and turned back. His grin widened. She didn’t disappoint. She was looking at the tag board where the officers hung keys to the squad cars when not in use, only she wouldn’t know what those keys were for.
“Mahoney,” he called out, causing her to swing around. He had to give it to her, she managed to look totally innocent. About as innocent as a barracuda in a school of guppies, he thought, but there was no resentment in it. Quite the opposite actually. But then, he was no guppy. He patted his pocket. “I’ve got the only set.” He saluted her. “Good night.”
With a rueful smile, she saluted him back.
He left the squad room feeling her eyes on his back. All up and down his back for that matter. His neck grew red, but he found himself smiling as he walked out to his car.
2
ERIN MAHONEY WATCHED with more than a little appreciation as Brady O’Keefe strolled across the street toward city hall. He looked good. Better than good, she amended as he drew closer, noticing he’d shaved.
Until he’d walked through that door last night, she’d had no idea Brady worked for the police department. In fact, she hadn’t even thought of him in years. But the surprise had been a pleasant one. She was fairly certain Brady did not share that sentiment.
Of course, thinking back, he had every reason to be wary. She’d been a real handful as a child. She’d come from a large family, middle child of seven, so her parents hadn’t paid strict attention to her. Heck, they’d hardly paid any attention to her. Which had suited her fine at the time. She’d gotten plenty of attention—both wanted and unwanted—from her six brothers. And she’d managed to grow up and be a responsible adult despite it all.
She supposed she should have known Brady would end up a detective. He came from a long line of cops. She knew his dad and granddad had been on the Philly force, as had an uncle. She thought again about the meeting she’d just left with the mayor and commissioner—the latter, still in bed with the flu, attending by phone conference. They’d sung Brady’s praises to the moon, regaling her with stories of the amazing feats of detective work that had led him to be one of the top-ranked detectives on the force. Pretty impressive for someone who’d just hit thirty.
They’d also made it clear, though she’d already come to the same conclusion, that he wouldn’t take lightly to their plan. However, they hadn’t backed down on it either. A lot was riding on making this situation go away quickly and quietly. They told her they expected her to live up to her own not-so-humble reputation and get the job done. Whatever it took.
And she’d decided what it took was for her and Brady to have a meeting when both of them were rested and thinking clearly. Hence her planned ambush on the steps today.
She watched as he dodged a turning car and rounded the back of a double-parked taxi. Good reflexes. For a scrawny kid, he’d sure…filled out. So much for thinking clearly, she thought with a laugh. But the man did make her hormones jump, there was no denying that. Of course, she was pretty sure that wasn’t one-sided. Not that she’d ever condoned using sex as a means to get the job done. Well, not directly anyway. Sex and sexuality were two distinctly different things. She never used the former, but she was acutely aware how to effectively use the latter.
Women had few enough weapons in the high-stakes world of career-building. She was a firm believer in using every one she had to its fullest potential.
The mayor had said “whatever it takes,” she mused, still watching him approach…and found the hard line she drew between sexuality and sex blurring just a teensy bit.
“Good morning.”
He looked more resigned than surprised to see her. “Morning,” he said. “I’m withholding judgment on the good part.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Judgment withheld permanently.”
She couldn’t help noticing that his voice was as rough this morning as it had been last night. Was it always that way? She shook that thought loose immediately. She’d really have to make a serious effort not to get so distracted here. This was business, not pleasure. Damn shame, that.
“Come on, I’m not so bad, am I?” she asked, unable to resist teasing him. Just a little.
He looked at her briefcase, then back up at her. There was the tiniest glint of teasing in his own incredible blue eyes. “Depends on what you have in there.”
She laughed now. “I assure you, I outgrew playing silly pranks a long time ago.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve always been one to believe things when I have concrete proof. Never go on hearsay. Gets you into trouble every time.”
“Not a bad motto, Detective.” Work, Erin, no more flirting. But that tiny glint was just too damn tempting. And this wasn’t really flirting. More like baiting. Twenty years later and she still couldn’t resist yanking his chain a little.
She grinned and held her arms wide. “Wanna frisk me?”
His eyes registered surprise, but only for a brief second, noticeable only because she’d been looking for it. So he wasn’t easy to knock off balance, she admitted. Not at age ten…and most certainly not now. Probably why it had always been so irresistible to try.
“I don’t frisk. I get search warrants,” he responded evenly. But again, there was that trace, that tiny little trace of appreciation in his expression that egged her on.
She dropped her arms to her side. “Killjoy.”
“I guess you’ll just have to hunt for other game today, Ms. Mahoney.” He nodded, then went to move past her. She reached out and held his arm, stopping him. He looked down at her from the step above.
Bad tactical error, she acknowledged immediately. She made a mental note of it, but had no idea where it got filed because he chose that moment to smile at her. A real smile.
“I’m not going to discuss the case, Erin. Not now. Not later. Not until after I’ve finished my investigation.”
She released his arm, but stepped up so they were on even ground. It didn’t give her much of an edge, she realized. Barely a sliver, in fact. His smile was gone, but only from his mouth. It was still there, all smug and male, in his eyes.
“You on your way in to see the mayor?” she asked, a touch of smugness in her own voice.
“I am.” The twinkle died. “Why?”
A hollow victory, she discovered. She liked the twinkle better, as it turned out. Eye on the prize, Erin, not his— “I’ll escort you in, then,” she said quickly.
“That’s not necessary,” he said.
She slid her arm though his and propelled him up the stairs before he knew what she was up to. Keep the opposition off balance she reminded herself, before they could do the same to you. “Well, I might as well walk you up, since I’ll be joining you.” She gave him a megawatt smile, then slid her arm free and pushed open the lobby door. “After you?”
He looked at her, then simply nodded and walked through. “Thank you.” Being the gentleman, he opened the inner door for her. “After you.” His seemingly benign smile, on closer inspection as she passed by, was actually a shade on the insolent side.
Rather than feel deflated, she felt…energized. She was also incredibly turned on, but that was a very unprofessional reaction, so she tried hard to ignore it. Crybaby O’Keefe? Making her hot?
Okay, she told herself as they headed to the mayor’s office. Playtime was most definitely over. She switched mental gears and worked on coming up with a quick game plan on how to handle the meeting. A meeting she hadn’t been invited to. But she was sure the mayor wasn’t going to throw her out. She merely had to engineer the thing from the start to go the way she wanted it to. She had no compunction in working the mayor to suit her own needs, even though he was her client. After all, as long as the outcome was what he’d hired her to accomplish, that was what was most important, right?
She caught a glimpse of Brady’s face as the receptionist led them back to Henley’s office. He looked as if he was going to war. And perhaps he wasn’t far off.
Going through the mayor to get Brady to do what she wanted—needed—him to do was really the only way. And it would tick him off. Big time. But maybe that was for the best, too. All this hormonal stuff sparking between them could only be a bad thing.
Really bad. Because it felt too damn good.
She used the moment Brady turned to close the door behind them to make her first defensive strike. His loss for always being a gentleman she told herself as she charged into battle.
BRADY CLOSED the door and turned to find Erin striding confidently across the expanse of carpet to intercept Henley before he could take charge of the meeting. Very effective, he thought, silently applauding the maneuver. He’d used the same one many times. Only he usually didn’t enter smiling. Or moving his hips like that.
She blocked his view of Henley, but he got the distinct impression the mayor wasn’t expecting them both. Hmm. So, the question was, had she been waiting for him to show up and use him as her entrée? Or had she just come out of the building and spied him on his way in? He bet on the latter.
He smiled. She’d probably gotten her battle plan in place with the mayor and thought it was her lucky day when she’d snagged him on his way in. Only he hadn’t succumbed to the sex-charged fog she’d effortlessly swirled around the two of them and answered all her questions without a fight. But she hadn’t pouted and given up, she’d merely switched tactics.
He liked that in an opponent.
The fact that there were still some remnants of that fog swirling around inside him was probably the reason he was being so damn reasonable about the whole thing. Well, that and the fact that pretty much nothing was going to make him change his mind about dealing with her on this investigation. Nothing short of the commissioner himself, ordering him to—
“Detective O’Keefe? Please have a seat. I have a phone conference ready to go with Commissioner Douglas.”
Brady kept his gaze averted from Erin and made certain the litany of curses running through his mind were not reflected in his expression. It wasn’t easy.
He sat in a purposefully relaxed manner. “Good morning, Mayor. Commissioner Douglas.”
“O’Keefe?” The commissioner’s scratchy voice rasped through the speakerphone.
“Yes, sir?”
“I want an update on my desk by noon. It will be couriered to me. In the meantime, I want you to stop giving Ms. Mahoney such a hard time here and work with her. I don’t expect you to compromise the investigation, but we have a press conference this afternoon and we need a concrete plan on how we’re going to handle this with the media. I don’t have to spell out for you the sensitive nature of this matter. Mayor Henley is grieving the loss of one of his dearest friends and—”
And the loss of almost five percent on the overnight polls, Brady added mentally, striving to hold on to his temper.
“The community is shaken up over the whole sordid ordeal. I know how involved this case is, which is why I brought Erin in in the first place. She will free all of us up to do our jobs and from having to deal with the press.”
“With all due respect,” Brady began, still not looking at Erin, “you’ve always allowed me to handle my investigations the way I see fit. And I don’t think allowing a civilian to be privy to the innermost details of a homicide investigation, especially this one, is a positive move.” He held up his hand when Erin tried to interrupt. “Furthermore, I’ve never had a problem handling the press and I don’t expect this case will be any different.”
The mayor cleared his throat. “Detective O’Keefe, no one is challenging the way you handle your investigation, but I think you’ll agree that, in the past, the relationship between you and the media has been somewhat…strained.”
“What he’s trying to say, O’Keefe,” the commissioner broke in, “is that you’re a stubborn pain in the ass and you don’t give a good goddamn what the media thinks of how you run things.”
Erin choked on a chuckle and Brady couldn’t ignore it. So he did the last thing she’d expect, he winked at her. The resulting flash of shock on her face was very satisfying. He turned back to the speakerphone and the mayor, who had missed the little exchange. “Very true, Commissioner,” he said. “So I don’t see why we should change what has always been an effective policy to date. I tell them nothing, they stew and dig harder, I tell them nothing, they fill their columns with wild speculation and false leads, then I solve the crime, it all comes out in the wash and we go on to the next public debacle.”
Erin crossed her legs the other way, costing him a split second in timing, but a crucial one as it gave her the opening she’d been waiting for. “Gentlemen, if I might intrude.” She turned that polished PR smile on him. He hated it, which for some strange reason, made him smile in return. That made her blink, even if only for a second.
Damn, but this was kind of fun. Fun in a very this-can’t-be-good-for-me way.
“Detective O’Keefe,” she said, the smile toned down now. Point for Brady. “I understand how pointless this may seem to you, but even you must admit that in an election year, something like this case can have far reaching consequences. This is no longer simply about solving a murder. It’s about protecting innocent people’s reputations and possibly their livelihoods.” She relaxed and exuded that “everything will be fine if you simply trust me” vibe. “I don’t have to know every gritty detail. I merely need a brief conference with you on how I want to handle this with the press. All I need from you are enough details to support my angle.”
“Your angle?”
Brady looked to the mayor, who had been watching them like someone at a tennis match. Henley seemed more than happy to allow Erin to handle things and didn’t use the moment to jump to Brady’s defense. Coward, Brady thought.
“There is a way to present the situation to the public,” she continued insistently, “even to feed their need for titillation, without compromising the innocent.”
Brady had to hide his smile when her last comment got a visible reaction from the mayor.
“Now, Ms. Mahoney,” he blustered, finally looking a little concerned, “I really don’t think—”
The confident smile returned. “Mayor Henley, we’ve been over this.” She leaned forward, oozing sincerity. “I know exactly what line to walk and how not to cross it.”
And Henley totally bought it. Brady swore under his breath, knowing he’d just lost this hand.
To her credit, she didn’t gloat. She turned to him and flipped open her Palm Pilot. With total businesslike mien, she looked at the small screen. “I can give you thirty minutes right now,” she said. As if he were the one demanding her time. Very clever.
Brady knew when to hold and when to fold. He also knew a new hand got dealt each round. So she’d won this one…it wasn’t as if she’d made a run on the house. Not yet, anyway.
He turned smoothly toward the mayor. “Can we use your conference room?”
The mayor didn’t bother to hide his relief. His mood was now as expansive as his smile. “By all means.” He waved them inside the long room that connected with his office. “I’ll have Teri come in with some coffee.”
“Thank you,” they said in unison.
Brady waited until the mayor’s secretary had come and gone, then took his time pouring his coffee. He even fixed Erin a mug. “Sugar?”
She eyed him warily now. “Black is fine.”
He slid the mug toward her and took a seat catty-corner to her at one end of the immense black table. With a relaxed smile that gave away none of what he was really feeling, he asked, “So, what is your angle?”
She leaned forward and pushed her mug aside. Folding her arms on the table, she looked him right in the eye. “Why don’t you tell me yours first?”
3
ERIN STUDIED Brady closely, but couldn’t tell what was going on behind those enigmatic eyes of his.
He shrugged, looking for all the world as if he couldn’t care less that the commissioner and mayor had basically just sold him down the river. “I don’t have an angle.”
“So just like that you’re going to give me everything I want?” Careful, Erin. Those eyes had flared, even if only a tiny fraction. At any other time she’d have jumped on that zap of electrical energy that had just shot between them. She would have worked it right up to the edge of professional acceptability. Meaning just enough to reduce her opponent to a quivering mass of hormones, but far shy of allowing him to believe it would ever lead to anything. Much less anything serious.
Now, fun and casual? That she might be up for. Just not with Brady. There was nothing fun or casual about Brady O’Keefe. Dangerous and unpredictable, that was Brady. She’d never encountered electricity of the type that seemed to flare up every time she came within ten feet of him.
But she didn’t lean back now. Because her job demanded she didn’t. And as long as she remembered she was here on a job, one that could push her small firm into the spotlight, she’d be fine.
When Brady didn’t respond to her challenge, she opted to take control of the meeting. Something she should have done last night. She cleared her throat and got to work. “I want to present this as a homicide. The brutal slaying of a well-known member of Philadelphia’s upper crust. We will focus on Sanderson’s numerous philanthropic contributions and what a loss his death will be to the underprivileged. We want to stir up outrage that such a worthy member of society has been taken from us. We want people demanding this obviously deranged killer be caught.”
“Erin—”
She talked over him. “I’m well aware that the media’s focus is going to be on the kinky sexual elements present at the scene of the murder.” She stopped and looked at him. “You have ruled this a homicide, am I correct?”
Brady stared at her for such a prolonged moment, she was certain he was going to balk, or get up and walk out. In the end, he did neither. But there was no electricity now. She wasn’t exactly relieved. Not a good sign.
“We’ll have the full report from the medical examiner later today,” he said finally. “But preliminary findings are edging toward heart attack.” He leaned back, but didn’t go so far as to smile smugly. Though she sensed he wanted to. “Not exactly the brutal slaying you are so anxious to depict.”
“So, he what then? Died of an overdose of sex? I mean, this is a murder investigation, isn’t it?”
“Right now we’re waiting to hear the final postmortem from Theo. Until then we treat it as a homicide. Once the results are in, we’ll rule whether there was foul play.” He looked her in the eye. “Or whether ol’ Morty preached hard-line morality to the people, while privately practicing something fairly…well, amoral, certainly by his own standards anyway.” He folded his arms. “You have an angle on how to play that possibility to the media?”
She swallowed a curse word and didn’t much like the taste. “Brady, if Sanderson is portrayed as some kind of sex pervert, there will be total chaos in the mayor’s political party while everyone tries to run and distance themselves from the guy. I’ve already got Henley’s campaign manager breathing down my neck over this.”
