Chapter Twenty-Six
Cole folded his arms above his head and smiled up at the ceiling. Despite everything, life wasn’t so bad. Carolyn swore and then laughed as she searched for the black pumps she wore to work. “I can’t see a thing in this mess.”
Boxes were stacked everywhere.
“Want me to put the light on?” he asked.
“No. Go on back to sleep. It’s early, but we’re busy at work and I have to go in. Stay and sleep.” She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned over to kiss him on the lips.
She’d called him unexpectedly and for the first time ever begged him to come over and spend the night. Told him she missed him.
Everything else paled into insignificance.
She slipped her hand over his chest as if she couldn’t stop touching him. He pulled her toward him for a kiss.
“I was thinking…” She said between tasty bites. “That rather than me moving to that new apartment all alone…” His heart stopped beating at the thought of what she might be about to say.
“We could maybe go to the next level in our relationship.”
He pulled away, heart pounding. “You want me to move in with you?”
Her expression, just visible in the glow of the alarm clock, grew uncertain. “Only if you want to. I thought we could try it. See how we fit.”
“We fit great.”
The timing was terrible. Everything was going to shit, but finally here was something he really wanted, going right. He could make this work in his favor. He drew her up until she was lying over him and then he rolled so she was beneath him, hands pulling her shirt out of the skirt she’d just put on so he could access her breasts. “I would love to move in with you. Hell, if it were up to me I’d take you to the best jeweler in town and—”
She placed two fingers on his lips. “One step at a time, lover.” He stopped speaking but his hands never stopped pulling that tight skirt up those delectable thighs.
He grabbed a condom and covered himself. She still wore the black heels and they dug into his ass as he entered her in one hard thrust. They began to move together, her as frantic for this as he was for her.
He wanted to be in her life for as long as possible. He knew the age difference wouldn’t be easy but so what? If people didn’t like it, fuck them. His secrets were another matter.
He should tell her the truth before she committed for sure but, hell, he’d tell her later when she was as sure about him as he was about her.
He raised her hips so he could thrust deeper and felt her start to lose it as her chin tipped up and she groaned. “I love you…”
He couldn’t hear the last thing she said because the blood was rushing through his ears and the tingle in his spine erupted to crash over his body in a tsunami of pleasure. She cried out at the same time and tightened around him, clutching him like he was her lifeline.
“I want us to be together now,” she sobbed.
“We are together.” He pressed his forehead to hers, their breath mingling, warm and damp on his lips. He didn’t want to move though they had to. “What time do you want me to help you move today?”
Her grin was so huge he could see it in the darkness. He hadn’t forgotten his promise although she hadn’t mentioned it again. He wanted to prove he was serious about her. He wasn’t some kid. He listened.
“Trent said he’d drop the truck off this morning and maybe load it up with some boxes before he left.”
“Trent has a key?” Unconsciously, Cole’s voice deepened.
“No, the super will let him in.” She touched his face. “You don’t need to be jealous. I love you, not him.”
One side of his lips curled. Epic. He started to get hard again. Honestly, he loved her so much he physically couldn’t get enough.
She pushed at him. “Nope. Get off me. I don’t have time. How about we meet here later so my boss doesn’t have a fit and you can attend that ethics class you mentioned?”
He laughed. “You’re such a rule follower.”
She bit his lip.
He reared back and swore, touching the sting. “But don’t worry. I won’t take it for granted.”
She pushed him off her and climbed to her feet. “You’d better not.”
He caught her hand. “I love you,” he said quietly.
“I love you, too,” she said. “Always.”
* * *
The hammering on Tess’s door sounded like someone was close to breaking it down. She was jerked out of a deep sleep and scooped up the Ruger from where she’d laid it on the carpet beside the couch.
Easing the drapes aside, she checked the side window. Dawn was skirting the horizon. Shadows blending into dull gray tones. One of the agents from Mac’s team, the bald guy she’d met earlier tonight, stood on the stoop. She ran her hand over her hair and gave up on trying to tame it. She had more important things to worry about than her appearance. She placed the Ruger beneath a throw cushion on the couch, then went to the front door and unlocked it. The Fed pushed past her, making her rear back in alarm.
“Can I help you, Agent…?”
He raked her with a hard, blue gaze. “Walsh. We met earlier, remember?”
She set her teeth. She didn’t appreciate people thinking she was dumb.
“Agent Walsh.” She nodded and gave him a stiff smile.
Hyperaware that the folder she’d found under Cole’s mattress was inside a plastic bag on a chest in the living room Tess closed the front door to block out the winter chill. Not taking that information to the nearest police station was no doubt a crime but Mac was the only officer of the law she trusted. She needed to speak to him before Cole discovered it was missing. Mac needed to question him, and fast.
She itched to call Mac again but needed to get rid of this guy. She forced herself to be polite. “What can I do for you, Agent Walsh?”
“What time did ASAC McKenzie leave here last night?”
Why did he want to know? Would Mac be in trouble if his colleagues found out the two of them had had sex? Of course he would. But lying might be worse.
“Why don’t you ask him?” she hedged.
“Give me a straight answer, lady,” he bit out.
Her head snapped up. What an asshole. “He left around three a.m.”
“You’re sure?”
Her brows rose and her smile was one of reproof. “Yes. I’m sure.”
She saw him glance into her kitchen, which she still hadn’t tidied after the break-in last night. She’d braced a chair under the handle of the back door and intended to call a security firm today to install an alarm system and new locks. Because the person who’d broken in last night might have a key…
The thought it might be Cole cracked her heart wide open.
Walsh’s eyes lingered on items scattered across the floor. Could he tell she and Mac had sex there? Or on the table? Or against the door she was now leaning against? Were her sins like bruises on bone and easy to spot?
“Why are you here, Agent Walsh?” she prompted. Had something happened to Mac? Was that why he wasn’t answering his phone? Or did he want her to stop calling him but lacked the nerve to tell her himself? Tess stayed very still, bracing for another dose of reality to smack her in the face. “Did Mac send you?”
Walsh’s eye twitched at her use of his boss’s name. Hell, she’d known Mac longer than this guy had been in the FBI, but she was supposed to pretend they’d just met?
“Why was he here so long after we left? I thought everything was cleared up?” Walsh’s blue eyes were sharp on her face.
A shiver of unease stole over her body and she turned away. She wasn’t ashamed of what they’d done but there was no way Mac would want it broadcast to the world and, frankly, neither did she. Their time together was private.
Was it illegal to lie? Or was it immoral to ask?
“We were talking about Eddie, trying to figure out who he might have gone to for help. Why are you here?”
Walsh watched her critically. “Can you confirm the time he left again?”
She didn’t understand. “I thought I just did?”
“Did something precipitate his leaving?” he pushed.
God, the guy was being an ass.
“He got a series of texts. Said it was his ex-wife and he needed to go and sort something out.” She crossed her arms as that familiar sense of awkwardness swept up her neck and into her cheeks. She doubted Mac would want her talking about this either.
“Was he angry?” asked Walsh.
She blinked in surprise. “No. I mean, he was irritated. Said she kept texting him and he wanted her to stop. He wasn’t angry.” He’d had too much mind-blowing sex to be truly angry. “He seemed frustrated and eager to do something about the fact she was texting him.” Too eager.
Walsh watched her face so avidly it was like he was scanning her micro-expressions for deceit. “Where were you?”
She frowned in confusion. “What do you mean, where was I? I was here. Obviously.” She opened her palms to indicate her home.
“Did you go out at all?”
Unease did a little somersault in her stomach. “I went to my brother’s house after Mac left, but Cole wasn’t there.”
“So no witnesses?” His tone said, how convenient.
“I didn’t say that. One of his roommates let me in. Dave… God. I forget his surname.”
“Address?” he pulled out his phone and eyed her expectantly.
Her mouth went dry as the Gobi Desert. Her nails bit into her arms through the wool of her sweater. Had someone else been murdered? Was their name in that file? Might she have saved them if she’d gone straight to the police? A terrifying thought occurred to her. “Please tell me Mac wasn’t shot?”
“He wasn’t shot.”
Relief wasn’t as enormous as it should have been. Walsh’s expression was too fierce and unamused. She was missing something. “What is this about, Agent Walsh?”
“Mac’s ex-wife was found murdered in the early hours of this morning,” he said without inflection. “Cops think he did it.”
“What? There is no way he killed her.” She clenched her fists. “He isn’t that sort of person.”
“I never said I thought he did it. That’s not my job.” Walsh’s eyes were like lasers cutting into her and she wanted to take a step back. “I’ll give it to you straight, Tess, as Mac seems to have a weakness for you.”
Weakness?
“I don’t care what happens to you”—holy crap—“but Steve McKenzie is a fine man and a helluva well-respected agent. He’s dedicated his life to law enforcement and now his career is going to be destroyed because he got involved with you.”
A rush of humiliation engulfed Tess. This was why she’d changed her name and concealed her background. Her truth had the power to destroy—and not just her own life but also the people who cared about her. Which wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.
Anger unfurled and took hold.
“Because he got involved with me? If he didn’t do it, he didn’t do it and his,” she tripped over the words, “association with me should be irrelevant. I thought you were supposed to protect the innocent, Agent Walsh?” She took a step toward him and his mouth tightened. She remembered shoving Mac into a wall earlier this morning and how that had ended. She stopped moving. The file sitting on the chest taunted her. Maybe she wasn’t as innocent as she wanted to believe. “Why are the cops even considering a man like ASAC McKenzie for murder?”
Walsh’s face went blank. “I can’t reveal the details of a case to you.”
Her mouth opened and closed in confusion. “Details? How can there be details if Mac didn’t do anything?”
He remained closed-mouthed and she stood in her hallway feeling impotent and alone. She had to talk to Mac. She didn’t know who else she could trust, certainly not Walsh. But she couldn’t give that file to Mac either. He was probably off the case and she was his alibi for another murder.
“How can I help?” she said finally.
She half expected him to tell her to keep away from his boss, but he didn’t.
“Get dressed and I’ll escort you to the PD to make a statement.”
She blew out a long breath. She could do that.
“Bring your cell phone.”
She nodded.
“Anyone see you and Mac between the time I left and the time you say Mac left?”
She shook her head.
“Pity.” He pinched his lips together.
She begged to differ.
“Corroboration would be useful.”
Her upper lip drew back. “My word isn’t good enough to count as an airtight alibi?”
His huffed out a dry laugh. “You ever heard of the word accomplice, Ms. Fallon?”
Her eyes bugged. What the hell? “You think I might be involved in the murder of a woman I’ve never met?” Her voice came out high-pitched and loud. What a nightmare.
He jerked his chin. “It’s not my case so I don’t think anything. But you might want to think very carefully about what you tell them, and I suggest sticking closely to the truth.”
As if she made a habit of lying?
Anger stained her cheeks and she glanced at the file folder on the side table. Guilt and shame warred within her. But logic won. “Did you ever stop to wonder why Mac’s ex-wife was killed now? Was he relieved of duty? Taken off the task force? Do you actually believe this is a coincidence? How about you really do your job, Agent Walsh?”
He stared at her without blinking and she knew she was supposed to be intimidated. But she didn’t scare easy. Never had.
All she actually wanted was to be left alone, but the world wasn’t letting that happen. So she’d deal.
She pushed past Walsh and grabbed her laptop and purse off the table. She placed the thumb drive and file folder inside, too. He eyed her with curiosity but she didn’t trust him enough to confide. She didn’t trust him at all.
No way Mac had killed his ex. Hell, she’d known he was honorable from the moment she’d first met him and she’d been ten. That hadn’t changed despite everything they’d been through together. She’d help get him out of jail, and then give this information to the FBI…but who?
She didn’t know. Her heart sank. What if Cole was involved? Could Mac save the boy she loved or was it already too late?
* * *
What seemed like an eternity later, Mac was still being questioned by local cops. He’d surrendered his service weapon, his backup, his cell phone, not to mention his goddamned pride because he wanted this over with. He wanted the cops to verify what he was telling them so they could move on and catch the real killer and he could go back to work. Apparently, they liked the color of his motive.
The young, female detective who’d been pushing him hard for the last hour shifted her chair to the side of the table, rather than sitting across from him—invading his personal space in a move designed to make him uncomfortable.
“So, you think the suspect was still in the house when you got there?” she asked.
With her attitude, he half expected her to pop gum. She reminded him of Dunbar, but Dunbar had a heart and a brain rather just a hard-on for some federal ass.
“Not necessarily in the house. I told you, I got a text telling me to come in when I was standing on the doorstep. The sonofabitch was watching me from somewhere.”
“But you didn’t see anyone?”
“No.”
“You didn’t touch anything?” the male cop asked. He appeared near retirement. Old enough to be the female detective’s father. Hell, Mac was theoretically old enough to be her father.
“I straightened a picture in the hallway outside the upstairs living room. It was crooked.” The killer had probably knocked it askew. “I touched the doorbell, possibly the knob of her bedroom. And I checked Heather for a pulse.” He wanted to scrub the whole thing from his brain. No one deserved to die like that.
“You didn’t touch any evidence?”
“I’m not an idiot.” This wasn’t his first rodeo.
“You don’t seem that cut up about her death.” The woman detective tipped her head to one side.
Man, he hoped he got to grill her on federal charges one day. He could not wait.
“I mean, you’re not exactly shedding tears. The uniforms who picked you up said you didn’t appear that cut up to them either.”
Mac stiffened at the expression “picked you up.” He hadn’t been picked up, he’d called the cops, come in voluntarily for questioning. But he didn’t say anything. He was a trained professional. People reacted in different ways to this kind of event and sometimes how they acted made them look guilty. If these two were any good at their jobs they’d know that.
“And you say you went over there to just talk to her?” the older detective said with a tired expression.
“I told you before.” He was beginning to realize how annoying repetitive questioning could be though he understood the reason for it—being an experienced federal fucking agent he appreciated all the ways cops tried to trip suspects. “The last few days she wouldn’t stop calling me. When I started getting texts tonight I’d had enough. I decided to go over there to persuade her that we would never get back together and that I didn’t want to hear from her again.”
“Persuade her?” the old guy asked.
“As in tell her I wasn’t interested.”
“I’m thinking your ex wouldn’t like the sound of that.” The female detective’s brown eyes gleamed like he’d given away something vital.
Mac leaned forward and spoke slowly in case they were both a little dense. “She never found out, guys. She was already dead when I got there.”
“Where were you again? Before you say you went over to Mrs. Surrey’s house?”
He eyed her. Her detective shield must be brand spanking new given her age and enthusiasm. That or she hated Feds. “I was in Bethesda, at a suspected break-in tied to my current task force investigation.”
She checked her notes. “I spoke to Agent Walsh. He said they all left that house around one. How come you were still there at three?”
No way was he admitting to having sex with Tess. Not even to save his career. Hell, he wasn’t sure which the Bureau would frown on more, murder or inappropriate relations with someone involved in a case.
“I had more questions for her.”
“I bet you did.” The young detective’s smirk was a work of art. “We’ll be checking that out with Ms. Fallon.”
Mac forced himself not to tense up when they mentioned Tess’s name. Of course they knew about her. This was a murder investigation.
The older guy took his turn. “Why’d your ex suddenly start calling you this week if you hadn’t seen her in two years?”
Mac rubbed his eyes, wishing to hell he’d handled this whole thing differently. Maybe Heather would still be alive then. But why was she dead? Who’d killed her? And why the hell were the cops still questioning him? “Heather’s pride was bruised from her new hubby screwing around on her and I just transferred to FBI HQ. She probably figured she’d be able to manipulate me into having an affair.”
“Manipulate, how?” asked the older guy, adjusting the belt that rested beneath his gut.
He gave the man a look. “How’d you think?”
“You thought she was going to use sex to snare you?” The female detective gave him a cynical sneer.
“Actually.” He leaned forward across the table, holding her gaze. “I think she was hoping to use sex with me to somehow get back at her current husband. Maybe make him jealous? Heather got most of her relationship pointers out of Cosmo. You questioning her actual husband this hard?”
She ignored that. “Did you have sex tonight?”
“I haven’t had sex with Heather since eight months before our divorce.” Fuck. How to not answer the question. He did not want to be in this fucking room. His sex life was not their business and if she pushed it he was getting a lawyer.
He stared at an ink spot on the table. Why had this happened now? Why two gunshots?
“Someone had sex with her tonight.”
Mac’s stomach lurched. Had Heather been raped? He blinked away the sharpness of tears. He’d learned young, never show weakness.
Funny, Tess had learned the same thing.
“Your ex cheat on you?”
He wanted to roll his eyes. “Yes, she did, with the guy she then married—Lyle Surrey. So if I’d been going to kill anyone it would have been him.”
The detective’s eyes gleamed brighter. “So you thought about it?”
Mac had meant it as a joke. “Why? Is he dead?”
Homicide cops usually had a dark sense of humor but these guys seemed like they both had a bad case of irritable bowel syndrome. He’d thought this was routine but things weren’t adding up. Like the fact it was nearly seven a.m. and they still hadn’t let him leave yet.
Damn.
“No. I didn’t think about killing Lyle. I thought about punching him in the mouth a time or two just to teach him some manners, but once I found out Heather cheated on me I wasn’t really interested anymore. He was welcome to her.”
“Not the forgiving type?” Detective teenybopper’s tone was snide.
“I don’t like liars, Detective.” He raised his gaze towards the mirrored glass where somebody important was bound to be staring back at him. He hoped to hell it wasn’t his boss. “And if I had decided to kill Heather I wouldn’t have been caught at the murder scene and you would never have found her body.” They’d taken his clothes for gunshot residue analysis. Thankfully they’d allowed him to grab clean stuff out of his go-bag so he wasn’t wearing jailbird stripes.
“Maybe it happened in the heat of the moment. You guys go at it for old times’ sake and then she says something to piss you off—”
“So I shoot her?” he said incredulously.
“Did you?”
“No. I did not shoot her. I did not have sex with her. I did not inflict any harm upon her person and nor would I want anyone else to harm her.” Was that clear enough for them? He scrubbed his fingers through his short hair. He bet he had more than one gray hair now. “Look, I’m in the middle of a big investigation that I need to get back to. When Heather’s texts started arriving in the middle of the night I decided I’d talk to her face-to-face and make it clear that she had to stop causing me grief.”
“Trust me,” the female detective told him. “Her texting you is not going to be your biggest problem anymore.”
“Cute.”
The detective leaned back in her chair and stretched her booted feet out to the side. “You have a temper, Steve?” She flipped the top page of her notes over the top of her clipboard. “Says here you punched a US marshal in the jaw last year, during that investigation into the mall attack in Minneapolis.”
Mac rolled his eyes extravagantly and crossed his arms over his chest. The guy had swung at him first. “Okay, I take it we’re done here? I told you everything that happened last night, including the fact that if you didn’t find her phone at the house the killer likely still has it and you need to track that shit the fuck down.” He stood. “So unless you’re gonna charge me, I’m outta here.”
“I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to leave, ASAC McKenzie.” The detective’s mouth curved the exact same degree as her elegantly winged eyebrows. “They’ve already taken you off the case.”
“What?” He sat back down. Fuck. “Why the hell would they do that?”
She admired her manicure. “Press has gone nuts about this whole murder thing. I spoke to your boss about an hour ago. He said that while you have the full support of the Bureau, blah, blah, blah, you’d been assigned desk duty until this murder investigation is concluded.”
“Is this a joke?” Mac closed his eyes for a moment. But he knew it wasn’t. “You’ve got nothing on me. The cell phone GPS data will confirm when I left Bethesda. No way did I have time to set up the text messages and kill Heather. Did the ME give you time of death yet?”
The detective’s mouth tightened. “Maybe you had an accomplice.”
His eyes widened. The idea that Tess might be dragged into this mess made his chest ache. After him being so sure she’d be the one to ruin his career, instead he was going to destroy her life.
“Anyway.” She gave her fingers a jaunty tap on the table. “We don’t need the cell tower information when we have solid proof you killed her. You should save us all a lot of trouble and just confess, Steve.”
He stared at her dumbfounded. What the fuck?
She leaned forward, mimicking and mocking him. “I guess you thought you’d committed the perfect crime to get rid of the annoying ex, huh? Set it up like one of these other murders going on around DC to confuse the issue, huh? Or maybe so you’d be in charge of that investigation, too?”
If she said “huh” one more time he was going to punch the wall.
“Only you’re not as smart as you think, ASAC McKenzie, because you forgot one of the most basic pieces of forensic evidence.” She stood up. “Your fingerprints were on the shell casings found at the scene. On the bullet casings next to your ex-wife’s dead body. So tell us again you didn’t touch any evidence or murder Heather Surrey.”