The frying pan sank below the suds, sending foam over the side. He ignored it. His attention was on his daughter’s last words. And her manner. “What kind of a favor?”
She was already out of the kitchen, heading for the front door and freedom. “The kind that needs doing.”
“Rayne—”
“Probably,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be sure to take an umbrella.”
Throwing open the door, she managed to make good her escape.
And come very close to slamming into Cole.
Swallowing a gasp of surprise, she took half a step back. With the door at her back, there was no place for her to go.
Instantly her temper flared. Was he spying on her? “I thought we had a deal.”
Amusement tugged on his lips. She looked breathless, as if she’d made a run for the door. Breathless looked good on her. He didn’t allow his thoughts to go any further than that.
“The thing about deals is that when they involve more than one person, as they perforce need to, they have a tendency to fluctuate.” Before she could say anything, he indicated his car parked across the street. He’d positioned it to look as if he was visiting the people on the other end of the block. “I did sit in the car and wait for everyone else to leave,” he pointed out. Which brought him to a question of his own. He’d counted more than half a dozen cars coming and going since he’d arrived. “Just how many people stop by here in the morning, anyway? I’ve seen less traffic at roadside diners during rush hour.”
He watched a hint of a smile curve her lips. “My father likes to feed the family.”
He came from an almost nonexistent family. His mother was an only child and his father had one brother whom he despised. Cole’d heard the feeling was mutual. The concept of a large family never quite registered, certainly not one that had enough members to make up a small country of its own.
“All those people were related to you?”
She nodded. “In one fashion or another. Siblings, cousins, about-to-be spouses to siblings.”
That took care of the adults. But there’d been more. “And the two kids?”
He meant Brent’s daughter and Clay’s newly discovered son. Something she didn’t feel she had the right to get into without Clay’s okay. “Long story.”
“Which you’re not going to tell me.”
Not wanting her father to see her talking to Cole, she began to urge him off the property. “Maybe some other time.”
Too late. Her escape was terminated. The door behind them opened and Andrew was in the doorway, giving Cole the once-over. Slowly.
Rayne held her breath. Waiting for an explosion of some sort to erupt.
“You must be Garrison.”
To her knowledge, her father had never met the man, now or when he was in high school. She blew out a breath. “How do you do that?”
Gray-blue eyes twinkled at her. “Trade secret. Keeps me one step ahead of my kids. A place where all parents want to be.” His eyes shifted back toward Cole, taking measure. Closely. He put his hand out. “Andrew Cavanaugh.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“We’ll see,” Andrew replied, dropping his hand to his side again. “Sorry to hear about your brother.”
Here it comes, Cole thought, bracing himself for a confrontation. Authority figures still had that kind of effect on him. And he on them. After all, this was Aurora, the place where he’d been the outsider. “He’s innocent.”
If Andrew heard the edge in Cole’s voice, he gave no indication. His expression remained unchanged. In stead he spared a glance at his daughter.
“So Rayne seems to think. You have anything to go on besides gut feelings?” He addressed the question to Cole.
“We’re working on it.”
Andrew nodded. Then, instead of a lecture, or the promise of one, he completely surprised Rayne by saying to Cole, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
With that, he withdrew, leaving Rayne standing on the doorstep with a stunned expression on her face.
Cole peered at her as the door closed behind them. “You okay?”
She shook her head, as if to free her brain of cobwebs. “Who was that masked man?” she murmured.
“What?”
Rayne waved her hand. “Nothing. It’s just that I would have expected him to say something about the possible fallout over what we’re doing.”
“Because he’s a straight arrow?”
She glanced over her shoulder, not completely certain that her father still might not come out.
“Because he doesn’t want me stirring up any trouble for myself.” She started to put on her coat. Cole took it from her, holding it so that she could slip her arms into the sleeves. She offered him an absent smile in response. “He tends to be very protective that way.”
“Maybe he thinks the truth is worth a little trouble.”
“Maybe,” she agreed.
She glanced over her shoulder one last time at the closed door. It just went to show her that just when she thought she had her father all figured out, he pulled something like this on her.
With a confused shrug, she headed toward her car. Cole took her arm. “You’re putting yourself out for me. The least I can do is drive.”
She didn’t want it on that footing. Didn’t want this getting any more personal than it had already gotten. Deep down, where it counted, personal had always scared the hell out of her.
“I’m not putting myself out for you,” she informed him, summoning her best professional, distant manner. However, she did take him up on his offer and walked over to his car. After all, it
was
a Porsche. “I’m doing it so that I can feel the right man is being charged with the crime.”
Experience had taught him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. What mattered was that it was there, that she was helping. Everything else, he had to remember, was secondary.
“Whatever works for you,” he said, opening the passenger side for her.
Right now, very little was working, Rayne thought as she slid into the seat. She glanced at Cole as he rounded the hood and got into the car beside her.
Least of all her willpower.
Chapter 9
R
ayne could feel frustration building up inside of her. She didn’t like going around in circles and that was exactly what they’d been doing since they’d arrived at Sunflower Apartments. Taking down statements and going nowhere.
As they left the apartment of a very talkative woman who’d jumped at the chance to have some live company instead of her daily dose of talk show hosts, Rayne glanced in Cole’s direction.
His face betrayed nothing but she could sense the tension inside. They needed a break in the case and they needed it soon.
They’d spent the better part of the day canvassing the area around Kathy Fallon’s garden apartment, talking not just to the neighbors who resided in close proximity, but to anyone who might have had an occasion to pass her apartment. The front faced one of the larger parking areas. Someone had to have heard or seen something useful. But finding that “someone” meant going door to door and talking to a great many of the people living within the two hundred and fifteen units that comprised the complex. Because it was a Tuesday and the middle of the day, not everyone was in.
Rayne kept track of the apartments where someone
was
in, making notes to which units had not opened their doors to them. By four, they’d made a good-size dent—and still gotten nowhere. No new piece of information surfaced to substantiate Cole’s idea that Kathy had been arguing with someone else the day she’d been killed.
No one responded in the apartment of the man who lived directly above Kathy. They returned three times to check. Each time the knock went unanswered. They needed a lead. Unrealistically, Rayne began pinning her hopes on him. She found herself as caught up in the case as Cole was.
Coming down the stairs after another futile attempt, Rayne stopped in front of Kathy’s apartment. Yellow tape still demarcated the area as a crime scene. She looked at the door for a long moment, fighting with her conscience. Her conscience lost.
“Come on,” she finally announced just as Cole had begun to walk to another group of apartments. Of the six apartments clustered there, they’d only found someone home in two of them so far.
He turned around and crossed back to her. “We’re leaving?”
Rayne took a deep breath. “No, technically, we’re violating a crime scene.” Reaching into the pockets of her coat, she took a pair of thin plastic gloves out of each of them. She held one set out to Cole.
Taking them, he looked at her. “How many pairs do you have there?”
“Just two.” She began slipping her pair on. “I like being prepared.”
And these days, she was, for anything that might come her way.
Except,
the voice in her head taunted,
for a man who looks like the personification of sin.
Rayne cleared her throat, as if that could somehow clear the thought from her brain, as well. “Sometimes one pair has a hole in it.”
Cole glanced down at the pair he was pulling on. “Mine looks okay.”
“Good to know,” she murmured.
Cole had his doubts about this. Though he wanted to prove Eric’s innocence at all costs, he thought of the ramifications of illegally entering a crime scene area. This wasn’t some TV crime show where anything went down. This was real. Everything had to be done by the book to stand up in court where documentation was paramount.
He stopped Rayne before she could move the yellow tape. “Won’t we be disturbing things?”
The crime scene was two weeks old and the tape scheduled to come down soon. Only a shortage of manpower had prevented it from happening already. “The detectives and forensics went over this place with a fine-tooth comb. Everything that needs to be recorded has already been photographed to death.”
He nodded toward the tape stretched out over the door and the banner that was strung up from one wall to the other in front of it, forming a tiny alcove of its own. “Then why’s the tape still up?”
“They haven’t gotten around to taking it down,” she assured him.
He looked around to see if anyone was watching. “Is there any point to us going in?”
“Two more sets of eyes. Fresh perspective,” she enumerated. She looked at him. “You might see something that everyone else missed.” At least, that was what she was hoping.
Unlike Rayne, he doubted they would find anything new. He didn’t know Eric anymore, not in the day-today, mundane sense of the word. Didn’t know his likes, his dislikes or what he did with himself when he wasn’t sitting in a jail cell.
What he did know was the essence of the man. Knew beyond reason that his brother couldn’t kill anyone. But as for being able to spot some kind of glaring inconsistency, Cole sincerely doubted that was going to happen.
But he said nothing, trusting in what he hoped were Rayne’s keen instincts. That and witnesses who hadn’t turned up yet was all he had to base his hope on.
Cole followed her lead, ducking under the first length of yellow tape. As he watched, she carefully broke the seal on the door. There was no way she could reseal it without showing signs of entry.
“Won’t they notice?”
She come prepared for that, too. Digging into her purse, Rayne held up a small roll of yellow tape she’d brought along.
“No,” she replied simply.
Cole shook his head. There was a great deal more to the woman than he’d thought at first. He thought of the reputation she’d had in high school. Back then, no one would have put anything past her. She lived her entire life on a dare.
“There’s still larceny in your soul, isn’t there?”
“Only the good kind.”
The door was locked, but she got around that, too. It wasn’t a difficult lock to pick. Easing open the door, she took two steps into the single-bedroom residence and came to an abrupt halt.
There were dried pools of blood on the beige carpet. A harsh chalk outline was all that was left to remind her that a flesh-and-blood person had died there.
Cole looked over her shoulder. “It’s not going to be easy renting out this place.”
That was where he was wrong. “A little sanitizing, a new carpet, you’d be surprised.” She got her wind back. Death always took it away from her. Maybe because it always made her think of her mother. “Some people,” she went on, “actually like living in a place where a murder was committed.” Turning around, she looked at him. “Makes them feel as if they’re living on the edge.”
He just shook his head. “Crazy world.”
“Amen to that.” Rayne scanned the area quickly. There was no sign of a struggle. If Kathy Fallon had offered resistance, it was minimal. “It was an easy kill. He caught her off guard.” Her eyes came back to rest on Cole’s face. “Like she felt that the person she was talking to couldn’t hurt her.”
“Most people feel that way unless the person they’re with had displayed violent tendencies before.” His mouth curved in an ironic smile. He was thinking of his own days in Bogota. “We’re all pretty much secure in our immortality.”
She wondered if he spoke from experience, or if it was just a philosophy he was tossing around. In either case, it made sense. But, “Maybe,” was all she allowed.
Methodically, Rayne began going through drawers, shelves, bedding, looking for anything that might give them a clue to the man—or woman—who had done this. She noted that Cole followed suit.
“Make sure you leave everything the way you found it.”
“This isn’t my first time.”
Her fingers froze for a moment. “You’ve gone through dead people’s apartments before?”
“Let’s just leave it at what I’ve said.”
He was stirring up questions in her head again, questions about who and what he was beyond the drop-dead gorgeous man in the next room. It occurred to her that she only had his word for his past. Maybe she should have done more than researched his present way of life, maybe she should have gone back over the past ten years before she’d allowed herself to feel comfortable around him.
Who was she kidding? She wasn’t comfortable around him. She felt as if she was just stepping onto a tightrope stretched out over Niagara Falls. One misstep and she would plummet.
The search, like their canvassing, turned up nothing. At least, nothing in their favor. There was a host of love letters from Eric that Kathy kept in a folder. If you despised the man or were afraid of him, why keep his letters? There was nothing damning in them. They were the sophomoric ramblings of a man in love. A man in love who had no love for grammar.
After reading through several, she stopped and shook her head. “How did they ever let your brother graduate high school? I don’t know which was worse, his grammar or his spelling.”
“Neither was a capital offense the last time I checked.”
His voice was weary, Rayne thought. He obviously felt as discouraged as she did. “Well, at least we know she knew her assailant,” Rayne concluded as she walked out of the bedroom. The room was beyond neat. The whole apartment was. She didn’t trust anyone who was so neat. It spoke of someone who was too controlling. Her own room looked as if it was home to several typhoons. “There’s no sign of forced entry, no breaking and entering.”
“Unlike you.”
Startled, she swung around to see that Longwell was standing in the doorway, his wide features creased with a disapproving frown.
“What are you doing here, Rayne?” he asked. Longwell fixed accusing brown eyes on the man standing next to her. “With him?” It was hard to miss the contempt in his voice.
Cole saw her lift her chin, pulling her shoulders back just a shade. Becoming defensive. For some reason she made him think of the statue of Justice he’d seen outside the courthouse. The word “magnificent” whispered along his brain.
“We’re just looking around,” she told the other policeman.
Longwell’s frowned deepened. He completely ignored Cole’s presence. “You’re violating protocol, you know that? It’s not your case.”
Rayne fell back on a friendship that was once far stronger than it was now. “Oh, c’mon, Longwell, we’re not disturbing anything.” She saw the look entering the man’s eyes as they passed over the area. Things began to fall into place. Because they’d once been close, she wouldn’t allow herself to take umbrage at the implication. “We’re certainly not going to plant anything. I just thought a fresh perspective—”
He cut her off. “You’re not supposed to think, not about this case.” Longwell waved her off. “Go think about your own cases. Just because you made detective faster than anyone in the department doesn’t give you the right to break rules—no matter what kind of bloodlines you have.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are
you
doing here, if you don’t mind my asking?” He’d popped up far too conveniently for her liking.
“The woman in 115 called me.” He nodded vaguely off in the direction of the apartment in question. “Said that there were two police detectives going around, asking questions.” His accusing look rested only briefly on Cole, dismissing him as money and no brains. “She’d already given her statement to me, and then to Rollins and Webber and she thought it a little odd that she was being asked again, so she called me. I’d left my card with her in case she remembered something,” he added.
Just her luck, Rayne thought. “Very efficient of you.”
Longwell laughed shortly. His lips didn’t curve. “You’re not the only one who wants to move up in the ranks.”
Since when had Longwell exhibited any signs of ambition? At the academy he’d preferred coasting to studying. Though bright, he did just enough work to pass and graduate. “I’m not trying to move up, I’m just trying to help a friend.”
“So, he’s a friend now, is he?” As if aware that he’d crossed over a line, Longwell sighed and relented. “You find anything?”
She frowned. “No, we didn’t.”
Longwell indicated the front door. “Then you two had better get out of here before I have to report this.”
His cooperation surprised her. This was more like the Longwell she’d once known. “Then you won’t?”
“No.” He put a condition on it. “Not if the two of you leave now.”
There was no point to remaining in the apartment, although she wanted to continue canvassing the area. But that was something they were going to have to do when Longwell wasn’t around. For now she nodded. “Fair enough.”
Longwell waited until she and Cole were both out before he followed in their wake. Pulling the door shut, he paused to look at the cut yellow barricade.
“I’m going to have to get some new tape—” He stopped as Rayne held up the roll she’d brought with her. “You turn into a Girl Scout?”
She grinned. “Something like that.”
Giving the roll to Longwell, she looked at Cole. The latter nodded his agreement. They’d been at it for close to eight hours, stopping only to grab something to eat at a drive-thru located in the shopping center a mile away. Maybe it
was
time to call it a day.
Taking her arm, Cole ushered her over to his car. Being around Longwell and the man’s smug attitude got under his skin. He was afraid he’d be tempted to say something.
“I’ll drop you off at your house,” Cole told her as he opened the door on his side. He could see Longwell watching them.
Rayne thought they should come back tomorrow to finish talking to the neighbors. One of them had seen something, even if they didn’t know they had. She was beginning to like Cole’s theory about there being someone else, even though some of the neighbors said that they’d never seen another man entering Kathy’s apartment, other than Eric and the police officer who’d taken Kathy’s statement.
Rayne replayed Cole’s words. He’d left something unsaid. “Where will you go?”
“To see Eric.”
“To question him some more?”
“To comfort him,” he contradicted. He felt sorry for his brother, now more than ever. From everything he’d seen in the apartment, Kathy Fallon had come across as a cold, controlling woman. Eric needed warmth. “He’s got to be down—and scared. I know neither one of my parents has been by and I doubt if any of the people he hung out with have bothered to pay him a visit.” They hadn’t as of the last time he’d spoken to his brother. “Eric didn’t exactly associate with people who knew the meaning of the word friendship.”