But her mind wasn’t on fish, it was on the man she’d come to meet. Setting down his menu, he sensed her entrance and looked in her direction.
Even at this distance, his eyes seemed to lock with hers.
“Him,” Rayne told the woman, pointing Cole out.
The woman inclined her head, turned on a very high, very thin, heel and led the way to the rear of the dining area.
Cole half rose as she approached the table and remained that way until she’d taken her seat. Old-fashioned manners. Who would have thought?
“Sorry I’m late,” Rayne murmured, accepting the menu from the hostess without looking.
He wore the same clothes he’d had on earlier, except for the coat, and looked as crisp and relaxed as if he’d stepped out of some magazine meant for the discerning man. Obviously his day had gone better than hers. In between her trip to the cemetery, she’d wrestled with a mountain of paperwork, then got called away to investigate a shooting at a convenience store. If she had her way, all convenience stores would be outlawed. Or at the very least, renamed inconvenience stores.
She was more than half an hour late. It was obvious by the set of his jaw that he didn’t like waiting. His tone did little to mask his shortened temper. “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind.”
“I don’t leave people dangling,” she informed him crisply. “When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Just not always in the allotted time frame,” she added after a beat.
She didn’t like being late, she really didn’t. Whenever possible, she went out of her way to try to be early. But most of the time it was as if the forces of nature conspired against her, by either causing her to sleep through what was the loudest alarm she could find, or by conjuring up extra vehicles on the freeway, or by arranging things so that they went awry.
“Admirable quality.” He saw his waiter approaching their table. “Do you want to order?”
Rayne nodded. She knew exactly what she was in the mood for and gave her choice to the waiter, passing on the drink. Cole, she assumed, had already ordered. “Been waiting long?”
“I was here at six.”
Which meant that he’d been sitting here for half an hour. She refused to feel guilty about that. She wasn’t the one repaving the main thoroughfare. “Maybe you should have picked an Italian restaurant. At least you could have nibbled on the bread sticks.”
“I would have ruined my appetite. Chinese food is worth waiting for.” He paused only long enough to allow his eyes to slide over her. “As were you.”
“Someone else might call that a line.”
“Someone else doesn’t know me.” He waited until the waiter, who’d returned almost instantly with their orders, set the plates down and withdrew. “I don’t waste my time with lines.”
Once the meal was in front of her, she realized just how hungry she was. The only thing supplementing the huge breakfast she’d had was an energy bar she’d found in the back of her desk. It had been far too long since her last meal. No wonder she felt a little light-headed.
“Then you’re nothing like Eric,” she told him as she dug in.
“Not really,” Cole said, noting Lorrayne was a woman who ate instead of picked at her meal. Considering how small she was, he had to admit he was pleasantly surprised. “How well do you know my brother?”
The information was at the tips of her fingers. The D.A. had already asked her the same question. She wasn’t the only Cavanaugh who was acquainted with the accused. Because her cousin Janelle, an assistant in the D.A.’s office, had also gone to school with Eric, the D.A. hadn’t assigned her to the case.
“We dated a couple of times in high school.” Then, in case Cole was attempting to recall whether he’d been aware of that sequence of events, she told him, “You’d left town by then.” He looked surprised that she would have known something like that. “You took up a great deal of the conversation on our first date. Eric idolized you. Said he wanted to be just like you, but didn’t have the discipline.”
And then she smiled.
He found the look disarming and infinitely appealing. He wondered if she used it as a weapon. “What?”
“As I recall, you didn’t have all that much discipline.” She’d made short work of her egg roll and was onto to the main course without missing a beat. “Didn’t you almost get expelled once?”
“Minor misunderstanding. They found some marijuana in Eric’s locker that was mine.”
“Was it?” Her tone was mild. A little too mild in his opinion.
“That’s what I told the principal.”
Her eyes met his. “That’s not what I’m asking.”
He’d never bothered telling anyone the real story. There didn’t seem to be a point. “Eric wouldn’t have been able to put up with suspension. He probably would have dropped out.” Not that graduating high school and going on to college had managed to do very much for his brother. It had been just another excuse to continue floating. Cole had hoped otherwise.
“So you took the fall for him. No wonder he thought of you as a saint.” She stopped to take a sip of her tea. “You didn’t drop out,” she recalled.
He smiled more to himself than at her. “Someone convinced me I needed an education.”
“Oh?” Interest peaked, she cocked her head. “Someone in the Addams Family?”
He grinned. The woman had remembered the analogy he’d made earlier. But there was no way that his grandfather could have been considered part of the circus that comprised his family except in the strictest sense of the word “family.”
“My father’s father. He was a black sheep, like me.” A fondness came into his voice. It was the money his grandfather had left him that now allowed him to do what he felt was his calling. And to be his own person, unlike Eric who had always been tied to his parents’ purse strings. “He was the one who told me that the way a black sheep keeps from getting sheered is by learning to stay ten steps ahead of everyone else.”
“And do you?” she wanted to know. “Stay ten steps ahead?”
He knew she was pulling information out of him. More information than he was accustomed to volunteering, but for now, it amused him to watch her at work. So he played along.
“At least five.”
Because she identified with what he was saying, she laughed softly. It wasn’t all that long ago that she’d followed the same path. “That sounds more like the credo of a con artist than an educated man.”
He thought of the paths he’d followed before he’d settled down to his present way of life. He’d been a little of everything, including a mercenary for a while, taking on all life had to give just to feel something, anything. Adrenaline coursing through his veins when his life was on the line in the jungles of Bogota was as close as he got to experiencing anything.
“I’m guilty of both.”
She was surprised he admitted it. “And are you still a con man?”
His smile locked her out. “At present, I’m a respected businessman.”
But she apparently wasn’t one to accept a locked door and back away. “What sort of business?”
He put it in the most nebulous of terms. “I buy houses that need work—then work.”
She’d done a little homework before coming to meet him. It helped to have an in with someone in the IRS. His last form had referred to him as a builder. And there had been numerous charitable contributions cited, as well. “You make it sound simple.”
He shrugged as he finished his main course. “At bottom, most things are.”
Finished, as well, she pushed aside her plate and reached for her fortune cookie. “Interesting philosophy. But it’s usually hard to get to the bottom.”
He watched her long, slim fingers crack the golden shell. “Never said it was easy.” He indicated the paper she cast aside. “Aren’t you going to read your fortune?”
“I don’t believe in the clairvoyant powers of a cookie.” But because he was watching her, she glanced at the slim paper.
You will find love soon,
it read.
Yeah, right.
She raised her eyes back to his face. “What do you want with me?”
The prepared answer was not the one that rose in his mind. The word “want” all but shimmered in front of him. A man could want a woman like Lorrayne. She was more than pleasant to look at, the rebelliousness in her eyes having not quite been tamed by the position she’d assumed. Everything appealing and attractive had conspired to join forces within Lorrayne Cavanaugh. The last job in the world he would have said she’d been drawn to was that of police detective.
But a police detective was exactly what he needed right now. If there were other needs unexpectedly raising their heads, he would just have to ignore them.
He was fighting the clock. The D.A.’s office was out for blood. Eric’s blood. Even if his brother wasn’t guilty, everyone thought he was and appearance was enough to appease the masses.
He had to change that. But he couldn’t do it alone.
“I want you to help me prove that my brother’s innocent.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m part of the Aurora police force.”
She began to refill her cup, but he took the teapot from her and did the honors himself. “I noticed. That’s why I came to you.”
Ignoring the tea, she began to slide out of the booth. “I’m afraid there’s more than a slight conflict of interest here.”
Cole took hold of her wrist. “Just hear me out.”
Training told her to shake off his hand and to keep walking. Instinct told her to stay. She’d learned that the Cavanaugh instinct was more than just a pleasant myth her father liked to regale them with. It was based on the truth. They could all testify to that.
With a sigh, Rayne settled back in the booth. “Okay, talk.”
Chapter 4
C
ole opened with his best offense. “You think my brother’s innocent.”
She realized that she was still letting him hold on to her wrist. Rayne pulled it away, dropping her hand in her lap. “What I think or don’t think doesn’t matter and it certainly doesn’t concern you.”
He frowned. “Don’t pull that ‘them versus me’ garbage on me. It didn’t do you any good then and it’s not going to work now.”
The man looked as if he was disappointed with her, but Rayne hadn’t a clue what he was talking about and she didn’t particularly care for his tone. “Then?”
He didn’t think that he needed to explain this part of it to her. She knew what she was like back then better than he did. “In high school. When you paraded around as if every day was Halloween because you were trying to get everyone as irritated and angry at you as you were with them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “So you got your degree in psychiatry, is it? Or was this part of your con man education?”
He wasn’t about to allow himself to be baited. There was too much at stake right now. He didn’t appreciate her making him feel as if he was standing on the other side of the fortress, trying to get in.
“That was part of my life’s education. Don’t play a player, Lorrayne. Don’t pretend that you’re part of the established order when you’re not.”
“I am a detective with the Aurora police department—”
He was losing ground and he knew it. He dug in harder. This was for Eric. “That doesn’t make you a robot.”
He was manipulating her, Rayne thought angrily. Or trying to. Which meant he was in for a surprise. Better men than he had tried to get her to do what they’d wanted and failed. “That also doesn’t make me an idiot.”
Impatience echoed in his voice. “Never said you were.”
No, not in so many words, she thought, but he still underestimated her. “But I’d be one if I let you just come in and use me to get your brother off.”
Cole sighed, struggling with his temper and wishing he had ordered a drink, a strong one. But he’d driven over here and the last thing he needed right now was to be pulled over and arrested for a DUI, which he could guarantee would happen if he downed the kind of drink he was thinking about.
“I don’t want to use you, I need you. To get at the truth.”
Everyone always said that, but they didn’t mean it. What they wanted was for the truth to bear them out, to yield the kinds of answers they wanted to find. “Well, right now the truth of the matter is, the D.A. thinks they have your brother dead to rights for the murder of Kathleen Fallon.”
He’d thought that she of all people’d know better. “You know how that works. Once they make an arrest, they stop looking around at anyone else and they start building a case.”
“They
have
a case, Cole.” She stopped. She’d never called him by his first name before. Her eyes narrowed. “I can call you Cole, can’t I, seeing as how you’re shouting at me?”
He made an effort to lower his voice and take some of the sarcasm out of it. “They have a
fabricated
case,” he insisted.
As far as the police were concerned, the case seemed very solid. “Your brother’s ring had Kathy’s DNA on it, not to mention that it left a pretty damn good imprint on her face, right in the middle of a fractured cheekbone. His prints were all over her apartment. He was seen entering that evening. The neighbors heard them shouting. She had a restraining order against him—do you want me to go on?”
Cole recalled what Quinn’s report had said. It looked pretty damning, but that didn’t change the fact that he knew down to the core of his bones that Eric couldn’t have done something like this. “He gave her that ring.”
It was her turn to frown. “So what are you saying, she punched herself?”
He didn’t appreciate being on the receiving end of sarcasm. The woman gave as good as she got. “No, but maybe she gave it to someone else and he used it on her.”
She supposed the theory had some merit, but he was clearly reaching. She would have done the same if it were her brother facing prison for the rest of his life. “They do that on TV shows and in the movies. Usually life isn’t that planned out.”
His eyes held hers. “Usually. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have happened that way. Someone could have set him up to take the fall.”
“So your theory is that an enemy set him up?”
“No, someone used him to cover up their part in the murder.”
She blew out a breath. If anyone overheard them, she’d have some explaining to do. It was like telling tales out of school. “Look, I’m not supposed to be discussing this—”
“Why? As you said, it’s not your case. That means you don’t have a vested interest in keeping your mouth shut, Lorrayne.”
She bristled. “My friends call me Rayne.” Her meaning was clear. She didn’t remotely consider him to be even close to that category. “You can call me Detective Cavanaugh.”
She wasn’t the kind to be bullied and he knew it. Though he hated doing it, he had no choice. She could very well be the key to unlocking this for him. He had no other options available right now. He threw himself on her mercy. “I will call you anything you want, just help me. My brother’s being framed.”
“Every family member wants to think that their brother, sister, mother, father, whoever, is innocent, but—”
He cut her off. “My parents don’t.”
Well, maybe that said it all, she thought. And Cole just didn’t want to hear it. “They’d be in a position to know, wouldn’t they? More than you.”
Cole fought to keep his voice from rising again. “The woman at the perfume counter in Macy’s department store knows more about my brother than they do. They were AWOL for most of Eric’s life.”
“And yours.”
He hadn’t come looking for her just to be drawn onto some imaginary couch and analyzed. “I’m not the one sitting in a jail cell.”
For a large part of her life, she’d shied away from really opening up to people. She recognized a kindred behavior in someone else. Apparently, Cole Garrison shared her reverence for privacy. Ordinarily, she respected boundaries, but the growing passion in his voice had aroused her curiosity. “You really love your brother, don’t you?”
Cole shrugged. The fact was a given, but not one he either voiced or debated. “He’s my brother.”
Her gaze never wavered. “That’s not an answer, that’s just a point of biological fact. Plenty of brothers can’t stand each other.” She fell back, appropriately enough, on something she’d read in high school. “If you remember your old English history, brothers have been known to kill one another.”
The woman had intelligent eyes. He could see she was constantly analyzing, dissecting, weighing. But that she had a taste for history surprised him. “There’s no throne of England at stake here. I’m all Eric has. I’m all he ever had. And I believe him when he says he didn’t kill her.” Cole leaned over the small table, pressing his case as his sense of urgency mounted. He needed to win her over. “Look, Eric’s a screwup, there’s no denying that, but you knew him. He’s harmless.”
She quickly picked up the word he’d used. “You’re right, I
knew
him,” she emphasized. “But I don’t know him now. People change.” Cole didn’t have to look any farther than his mirror to know that. “You did. You went from someone nobody thought would amount to anything and turned yourself into a businessman. Someone who does a lot of good without being asked or waits around to be acknowledged.” She saw the questioning look in his eyes and couldn’t help adding with a touch of smugness, “I like to know who I’m being propositioned by.”
Maybe it was the softening lighting, or maybe it was the word she’d used, but something stirred within him as he looked at her face. Something that was completely out of sync with what they discussed.
“When I proposition you, you’ll know,” he promised her quietly, so quietly that she could almost feel the words whisper along her skin. “This isn’t that time, Detective Cavanaugh. You’re interested in justice, I’m interested in justice—”
It took her a second to pull herself together. “And if justice means sending your brother to prison for murdering Kathy Fallon—?”
“It won’t. He didn’t kill her.” He was never more sure of anything in his life.
She fell back on the evidence again. “He stalked her. She had a restraining order against him. He was overheard threatening her—”
Cole shook his head. “He was drunk and hurt at the time.”
She smiled at him as if he’d scored the winning point for her side. “Maybe he was drunk and hurt when he killed her. Maybe she drove him to it.”
“Then we’ll find that out, too, won’t we?”
So he wasn’t asking her to get rid of evidence or to whitewash his brother. Well, at least there was hope for him. But that still didn’t change the situation she’d find herself in if she went at this full-tilt. And she wasn’t about to tell Cole that she’d been quietly looking into the matter herself. He’d only seize on that.
“The police department doesn’t like one of their own playing devil’s advocate and questioning the findings of their own people.”
The police department was no different from any other fraternal organization or company. But he didn’t see her in a traditional role. “Since when did you ever live by the rules?”
Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t like his assumptions, even if they were true. “For someone who didn’t speak two words to me before today, you seem to think you know me pretty well.”
He allowed himself a small smile as he recalled a far less complicated time. “You had a reputation around school. And, to be honest, I always thought we were kindred spirits.”
That was a crock and they both knew it. Back then he’d been one of the cool kids just because of his don’t-give-a-damn attitude. She’d just been considered someone on the fringe. “You wanted blue hair, too?”
She smiled then, slowly. He watched as a warmth filtered over her features.
“Inside,” he clarified. “Kindred spirits inside.” She wasn’t the kind of person anyone could snow, so he went with the truth. “You wore clothes like a clown.”
“And you looked like Darth Vader, dressed in black, dark and brooding.” And sexy, she added silently. But she was sure he was already aware of that. “At least my hair’s not blue anymore.”
His eyes slid over her appreciatively. The clothes she’d used to favor had been baggy and had hidden the trim figure she now displayed. “Your taste in clothes has improved a great deal, as well.”
She’d never liked the clothes she’d worn. She’d picked them out for a specific reason. “I wore those to annoy my father.”
That she’d done what she’d done to rebel was something anyone could have understood. But he found himself wanting to know, for no earthly reason he could pinpoint, what had prompted her to be so blatantly rebellious. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure anymore.” She looked at him sharply. “And it doesn’t have anything to do with the case.”
“So you’ll help?”
It wasn’t that he was wearing her down, she was just curious what he thought she could accomplish. “Just what is it you want me to do?”
“Be a police detective. Go over the evidence they have, talk to the same people whoever’s handling the case talked to—”
So far, he wasn’t being illuminating. “You can pay a private investigator to do that.”
He already had a private investigator. What he needed was something more. “You’re on the inside. You’re in a unique position—”
“Yes, to get my butt in a sling.”
The thought of actually viewing something like that was not without its allure. But he wasn’t here to be allured, he was here to try to save his brother the only way he knew how. “No, to make sure an innocent man isn’t railroaded into going to prison for something he didn’t do just because he was the wrong man in the right place.”
She sighed. The tea had long since grown cold. She drank it anyway and then set down the small cup. “Are you going to talk until I say yes?”
He nodded. Words were all he had. He knew that, besides looking like a blatant bribe, offering her money in exchange for her services would have gotten him tossed out on his ear long ago. “Pretty much.”
Her expression told him that he hadn’t won yet. “You might wind up with a very dry throat.”
“I’ll risk it.”
Something was happening here. Something she didn’t entirely like or approve of. She could feel herself reacting to him and that was just wrong. On a lot of counts. It was time for some air. “Look, the best I can do is say I’ll think about it.”
“Fair enough.”
She was sliding out of the booth. If he called for the check, he knew that by the time it arrived, the woman would be gone. Rising, he peeled off a hundred, far more than the two meals could have possibly approached, and left it on the table.
Surprising her, he took Rayne’s arm and guided her toward the entrance. The restaurant was nearly filled to capacity. People began to line the bar, waiting for a table. It took them a couple of minutes to reach the door.
When they did, he helped her with her coat, slipping it onto her shoulders. “For how long?” he wanted to know. “How long do you need to think about it?”
With effort, she turned her face away from his and pushed open the door. She really needed that air now. She felt far too warm.
The air hit her with a blast. It felt good. Sobering. “Until I come to a conclusion.”
Walking behind her, he wanted her to know something. “Any other time I’d back off, Detective, but we’re fighting the clock here. Eric doesn’t have very much time.” She turned to face him. The wind had picked up since he’d gone inside. Cole slowly raised up her collar, his eyes never leaving her face. For an instant, a very foolish instant, he felt like kissing her. He didn’t.
“Why don’t you sleep on it and give me your answer in the morning?” he suggested. “I’m staying at Hyatt Regency. Room 1440.”
She struggled not to let the shiver take possession of her body, telling herself it was only the cold, nothing more. “Not home?”
“Let’s walk to your car.” Not about to answer her, he took her arm and began to walk through the parking lot.