Deceive Her With Desire (9 page)

Ayden had no idea how big a haul they were making, Jameson hadn’t been willing to discuss that detail either. They were still parrying, like two fencers with swords, dodging and striking, neither willing to give up too much information.

Ayden had marked Jameson as their guy and he was putting all his eggs in that basket. Reluctantly, the guys in Boston agreed to the plan as he’d laid it out.

“Hey, Scott,” Harriman yelled from the bank of computers. “We’ve got a situation in Cutler. It’s coming across on the police scanner.”

* * * *

Glenn
Lafflin
, the Cutler chief of police, ushered Ayden in the backdoor of the small precinct and straight to his office. It was imperative none of the other officers see Ayden here. There was a high probability at least one of them on the small force was on Jameson’s payroll. The guys in Boston had done a thorough background check on
Lafflin
before they decided to bring him in, so only he was aware the DEA was in town. Sometimes it was good to have the cooperation of the local police.

Ayden hoped he didn’t end up regretting the decision.

In hindsight, he probably should have sent over one of the other guys so there was no chance of blowing his cover. But after Harriman heard the Cutler officers touting the arrest over the scanner, he needed to find out for himself who else was in the game. Ayden would be pissed if this arrest turned up nothing more than a teenage punk getting ready for the weekend.

“I don’t know, Scott.”
Lafflin
said. “The suspect looks pretty shaken up. Either there’s been a setup, or it’s one hell of an act.”

“Tell me again how you found the heroin.”

“We got a call into the switchboard at…” The chief consulted his notes.
“Approximately five-thirty.
An unidentified caller told us a street dealer was headed out of Cutler with drugs. Gave a detailed description of the vehicle and the time frame it would be on that particular road.”

“Did you ID the caller?”

“The only thing that showed up on the switchboard was some disposable cell phone number.
Can’t be traced back to the owner.
Probably ditched the thing after reporting to us.”

“How much was confiscated?”

“Five glassine envelopes.
We’ve had it verified. It’s pure heroin all right.”

“That’s barely a hundred bucks, maybe a little more if the guy sold it on the streets in Bangor, less, if he planned on using some of it himself,” Ayden said. With the fish he was hoping to land, this small amount was hardly worth making a fuss over. But the Cutler police were no doubt slapping themselves on the back. It was probably the most action they’d seen in years.

“You think we got some turf war going on? Some dealer stepping on another’s toes?” the chief asked. “Does seem pretty weird someone had all the information about the drugs.”

“Not sure.” Ayden hoped that wasn’t the case. He didn’t want anything to blow the deal with Jameson. “Other than the arresting officers, anyone talk to the guy?”

“It’s a woman. And no, I called you when they were bringing her in. I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence that the DEA is investigating heroin in our pretty little town and this happens.”
Lafflin’s
sizeable chest inflated. “I’ve been letting her stew while I waited for you.
Figured you’d want to hear it firsthand.”

“I appreciate that.” Ayden was becoming more and more convinced that the arrest was nothing of consequence. “I’m comfortable with you handling the interrogation. I assume you’ve got somewhere for me to watch?”

“Just had it installed beginning of this
year.
”
Lafflin
walked over to a small television and begin fiddling with the knobs. “You can sit right in my chair and see everything.”

Ayden settled in the high back office chair, thinking about the work he still had left to do when he got back to the condo.
Lafflin
continued to make adjustments on the television.

“There, best seat in the house.”

Ayden nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw Deirdre Tilling handcuffed to the table.

* * * *

Nausea rolled through her stomach and clogged her throat. Deirdre was in some kind of nightmare.

They’d brought her coffee, but her trembling hands weren’t able to pick up the cup without spilling the contents all over the marred table. So she sat in the metal chair, worrying her fingers, staring at the handcuffs on her wrists. How the hell had this happened?

They’d read Deirdre her rights at the truck, or had that been her imagination? She was having a hard time believing she couldn’t just pinch herself and wake up from this nightmare. Deirdre wasn’t sure she’d been charged yet, no one had taken her fingerprints or taken pictures, but she figured it was only a matter of time. Unfortunately, she had no idea what crime they thought she’d committed.

And to top it all off, no one knew she’d been arrested.

Mark had taken Rachel with him in the van back to the high school in Delmont while Deirdre had cleaned up in the garage. She’d been at least thirty minutes behind them leaving the estate. She wouldn’t even be missed until morning when she didn’t show up for work.

And the Cutler police refused to let her use the phone. Wasn’t she allowed one phone call? Or did that only happen in the movies?

Deirdre had no idea how long she’d been in the little room. She’d lost all sense of time since the four police cruisers had come at her with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They’d appeared out of nowhere, nearly running her one-ton off the road.

The officers had charged the truck cab with guns drawn, yelling incoherent sentences at her. One of them hauled her from the truck, throwing her to the ground. Absently she rubbed at the bruise on her cheek where it had slammed into the road.

The other three officers swarmed the truck like ants at a picnic. She was too frightened to protest even as the arresting officer groped her body a little too intimately. Deirdre had no idea what they were looking for until one of them produced something from beneath the driver’s seat. They waved the packets in her face accusing her of selling drugs. Pot didn’t come in crinkly cellophane packages. She still didn’t know what the bundles were. Whatever it was had been enough to have the police slapping cuffs roughly on her wrists, shoving her into a cruiser and bringing her to the police station.

She should be pissed. She’d done nothing wrong.

Instead, she was scared shitless.

The door opened and she jumped, unable to control the gasp of surprise at the unexpected intrusion.

“Miss Tilling, I’m Chief
Lafflin
.” The large man settled his sizable bulk into the chair across from her. His salt and pepper hair, well trimmed beard and ruddy complexion gave him a Santa Claus quality, but Deirdre didn’t fool herself into thinking there was anything jolly about the situation. “How about I take off those handcuffs?”

With a surprising gentleness, he slid a key in the metal and clicked the lock. Though they hadn’t really hurt, Deirdre rubbed at her wrists, savoring her freedom.

“You haven’t touched the coffee. Can I get you something else?
Water?
Diet cola?”

“No, thank you I’m fine.” Like hell she was. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“You’re welcome to call one if you’d like.”

“But I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Did the police officers tell you why you’re here?”

“They said they found drugs in my truck. But they’re not mine,” she add quickly. “I don’t know how they got there.” Of course she suspected it had something to do with one of the kids who’d been at the estate, but as scary as this all was, she refused to throw them under the bus until she talked to Mark.

“The truck is registered in your name as a business vehicle for,” the man consulted a clipboard, though Deirdre suspected it was more for dramatic effect, “Tilling Gardens and Plants.”

She didn’t want his deep voice and gentle demeanor to make her comfortable, but Deirdre found herself wanting to trust the man in uniform nonetheless. “That’s right. I’m the landscaping part of the business. I was leaving a job in Cutler when the police swarmed my truck like a SWAT team.”

The chief’s mouth lifted at the corner. “Has anyone used your truck today?”

“No, we were chipping wood into it all day.”

“So it was never out of your sight?”

When she’d walked the property with Jameson, trying to keep his conversation focused on the gardens and trees while her head was working out Austin’s odd reaction in the garage, she wondered if one of Jameson’s thugs had set her up. But admitting that may also throw suspicions on Mark and his students. “Well, I can’t say I was with it
every
minute today.
But yeah, basically.”

“Then how would someone have hidden the drugs without your knowledge?”

“I demand to see her,” a man’s voice bellowed. “No, you can’t stop me. I’m here with her lawyer.”

The commotion in the hallway happened only seconds before the door of the interrogation room flew open. Shawn Jameson strode in with a well dressed man in a business suit behind him.

“Mr. Jameson.” The chief stood. “What can I do for you?”

“This woman is an employee of mine.”

“Shawn I—”

He strode up to Deirdre and put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t say another word, Deirdre. I’ve brought my lawyer.”

Chapter 7

Ayden leaned over the steering wheel of the Saab in the back lot of the precinct. Darkness had descended hours ago, and night hadn’t been far behind. He’d been trapped in the chief’s office for over an hour watching Jameson’s blustery lawyer shout and pontificate about rights and amendments. The Cutler’s big arrest had turned into a three ring circus, with Deirdre sitting center ring. In the end, they’d charged her with only a misdemeanor possession, no intent to traffic, no court date or jail time.
A simple fine that could be paid through the mail.

Poor Deirdre
.

Who was he kidding? She had pulled the wool over his eyes and led him around by his dick. All fluttery lashes and innocent smiles.
“Innocent, my ass.”
Ayden slammed back into the seat, banging his head against the leather. Jameson had come to her rescue, his hands all over her as he’d led her out of the interrogation room. Unable to watch anymore of the dog and pony show, Ayden had turned off the cameras. He’d stewed alone in his confusion and anger until
Lafflin
had returned to his office informing him Jameson’s car had left the premises.

Yeah, Deirdre was definitely more than Jameson’s landscaper.

He started the engine and backed out of the back parking lot.

The way
Lafflin
had buckled under Jameson’s continued pressure to release Deirdre, Ayden wondered if the man remembered on which side of the law he stood. Obviously someone had tipped Jameson off to the arrest shortly after it had happened and Ayden hated to think the information had filtered through the police station. The slick businessman had practically been right on Ayden’s heels at the station.

 
He looked in the rearview mirror. Though there were no headlights behind him, he would take a circuitous route back to the 7-Eleven just to be sure.

Ayden had grilled the chief about the citizens of Cutler, specifically anything he knew about Jameson. But
Lafflin
knew the sophisticated businessman only as a legitimate real estate mogul and upstanding citizen who’d purchased the rundown estate on the hill. The police chief suspected Jameson had political aspirations from the contributions he’d made to the town library and the new elementary playground, but
Lafflin
couldn’t hold that against the man.

Ayden wasn’t sure he believed the story. Not after the way
Lafflin
had tripped all over himself in the end to make Jameson happy and cut Deirdre loose. It bothered him more than he wanted to acknowledge when Deirdre walked out of the interrogation room huddled against Jameson. He had no idea where the woman was now.

It shouldn’t matter. It
didn’t
matter.

He floored the pedal of the Saab, racing through the darkness, trying to outrun the prickly unease that had settled itself on the back of his neck.

The autumn night had turned cold, and the thin sports jacket did nothing to keep the chill from penetrating straight to Ayden’s bones as he ran through the house lots back to his condo. The timer had tripped the lights as usual and Ayden hoped whoever was watching believed he’d been tucked in since late this afternoon when he’d parked the Jag out front. Slipping through the glass slider, he headed straight for the fridge and a cold drink. He flipped a couple of CDs in the stereo just as the knock came at the front door.

He sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to make small talk with Ryan and Dave. Maybe he’d be able to beg off their Monday night football routine. He wanted time to figure out the events of the afternoon and reassess the players and their relationships.