Authors: Sarah Grimm
Paige knew now what she had to do. She had to work. Through work, she would find relief,
no matter how momentary. And were she to work long and hard enough, she just might
be able to fall into exhausted sleep. The kind of dreamless sleep where pain could
no longer reach her. Then, perhaps, she could let death go.
* * * * *
He shouldn’t have come by.
Not for the first time that night, Justin repeated his litany. He stood next to the
steel outer door, eyes scanning the deserted street behind him, and cursed under his
breath. The neighborhood wasn’t a neighborhood at all, but a nine-to-five business
district, already empty now that the sun hung low over the Pacific. The only light
for blocks, that didn’t come from the street lamps, spilled from the front window
of the two-story converted warehouse before him. Every other building was dark.
What sort of person chose to live like this?
The image of the cool, professional woman he’d met that morning settled in. While
shaken and upset, she’d still managed to portray elegance and success. From the severe
twist in her hair, right down to her reptile-skin heels.
Justin focused on the purse he held in his grasp. Though not as large as some women
carried, it was crafted from the same material as those fancy shoes she wore. He’d
bet his next paycheck the color was a perfect match to her suit and that the whole
ensemble cost more than all the clothes in his closet put together. He wouldn’t have
pegged Paige Conroy as the type to live like this. He’d figured her too patrician.
Justin skimmed his hand across the knotted muscles in his neck. He should have called
and told her where she could pick up the purse, instead of showing up on her doorstep.
He didn’t normally go for women like her—uptight and out of his league. She probably
didn’t even know how to relax, how to let her hair down and have a little fun.
The thought turned his frustrated breath to a curse. He hadn’t come to get to know
her better, or to see if those striking green eyes of hers had lost their haunted
look. He was here to work an investigation, to ask questions and get answers. Not
to see if her trembling had finally eased. His
job
brought him to her door, he reminded himself.
He only wished he believed it.
The sign affixed to the door read
Conroy Photography
. Justin rapped his knuckles twice into the center of it. Behind him, the unusual
quiet of the street unnerved him. The absence of everyday sounds—like traffic, barking
dogs or children at play—tightened already-tense muscles. Made him wish he had strapped
his Glock to his side before he’d left his home. The thought disappeared the moment
the door swung open.
Paige Conroy stood in the doorway, framed in the light from the room behind her. Gone
was the woman he’d met that morning, a woman who’d exuded a surprising strength and
professionalism. In her place stood a woman who unnerved him more.
Her hair hung down and fell in long, loose curls over her shoulder, nearly to her
waist. The fingers of her left hand were tucked in the front pocket of a pair of faded
jeans, worn white at the stress points and ripped at the knee. Old, comfortable jeans
that fit her like a second skin, drawing his gaze down her long length of legs and
to her bare feet. He took his time studying those feet, their red toenails and silver
toe ring that he found ridiculously sexy. Enough time that when his gaze returned
to her face, he found her frowning at him, her arms crossed before her.
“Sergeant Harrison, isn’t it? Can I help you Sergeant Harrison?”
Her tone was ice cold, her stance forbidding. He’d expected this, had been prepared
for it even. But he had not been prepared to discover that beneath her outward appearance
of strength, in a face washed clean of make-up, was a frailty that had been missing
that morning. Dark shadows and small lines of fatigue ringed her eyes.
The urge to pull her to him and offer comfort surprised him. She was unusually tall
for a woman. He stood six-foot-three and even with her feet bare, she nearly looked
him in the eye. He liked his women shorter—blonde and petite. Paige Conroy was neither,
but the thought of her in his arms, their bodies lining up perfectly, chest-to-chest,
pelvis-to-pelvis, warmed his blood.
“Sergeant?”
He raised the hand holding her purse before him. “I need to talk to you.”
She uncrossed her arms and grabbed the doorknob in her right hand. Her eyes iced.
Her back stiffened. He recognized her desire to close the door in his face. “Don’t
you mean you need to grill me some more?”
“I understand you’ve had a long day.”
“I doubt it.”
“There are some questions I need you to answer.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. Pushed the door open wider and motioned him in.
Their shoulders brushed as he stepped past her. She took an automatic step backwards.
“I’m not certain I can tell you anything more than I’ve already told you.”
Justin took a minute to examine his surroundings. Her studio should have felt cold,
the immense sea of neutrals and cool contemporary lines, but she’d managed to give
the place life. A splash of color here, a large plant there, it all worked together
to create a comfortable space. All about him, wood beams, polished to a shine, stood
out against walls painted bright white. Across the room, in the farthest corner, a
stool sat before a black screen. Lights, some hanging from the ceiling and some attached
to poles, surrounded the screen. Photographs, large black and whites lit from beneath,
hung strategically about, commanding attention.
“Sometimes a little time is all that’s needed to recall something new.”
“I haven’t remembered anything new.”
Her face was set. Tension radiated out of her like a physical force. She made no move
to hide the fact that she didn’t want him there as she skirted around him and crossed
the room to the sitting area centered before the large front window.
He waited until she settled into the corner of the couch before following. “Ms. Conroy,
what was your relationship with Detective St. John?”
“He was my friend.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Justin bent and placed her purse atop the table before her, alongside a stack of eight-by-tens
compiled of tiny photographs. “During the course of our investigation, we have uncovered
that you had a relationship with Detective St. John. Would you care to verify that?”
“Of course I had a relationship with him. As I have already told you, Lee and I were
friends.”
He nodded. And because he couldn’t stand not knowing, he reached down and picked up
one of the photo sheets. “Is this your work?”
Her feet hit the floor and she was off the couch like a shot. Her eyes locked onto
his hands. “Please don’t touch that. It has nothing to do with your investigation.”
“The pictures are so small. What do you use this for?”
She raised her left hand toward the sheet, then stopped. Her breath released on a
sigh. “They’re called proof, or contact sheets. The pictures are so small because
essentially it’s nothing more than a copy of the negatives.”
“Why do you copy the negatives this way?”
“It’s a roll’s worth of film on one sheet. With it I can evaluate the quality of the
negatives and choose which shots to enlarge.”
“Don’t most photographers use digital?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Sergeant?”
With her waiting impatiently at his side, Justin peered at the subject of the thirty
or so pictures that made up the proof sheet. The woman sat on the floor, straight
as a rail, her face away from the camera. All of her hair was pulled to the front
of her body, leaving the camera with a clear, unobstructed view of her nude back.
His eyes, as he was certain had been the photographer’s intent, traced the woman’s
every curve, every vertebrae down to the cleft just above her buttocks and to the
small, colorless butterfly tattoo therein.
“What do you mean unfortunately?”
Her slender brows drew together. A few seconds passed before she answered. “Artistically,
film is the superior medium. There’s a richness of color and depth that is lost with
digital. Too many people rely on photo editing programs instead of an effective use
of light and shadow.” She cleared her throat. “Why don’t you stop pretending an interest
in my work and just ask me what you really want to know?”
Although she was wrong about his interest in her work, Justin admired her fortitude.
He handed her the proof sheet. “What is it I really want to know?”
“You want to know whether I slept with Leroy.”
Her blunt statement took him by surprise. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Not recently.”
“Could you please clarify that?”
“I could. I won’t.”
“I see.” His lips curved. As perverse as it was, he enjoyed her spirit, her unwillingness
to give him the easy answer. ”You’re the one who brought it up,” he reminded her.
“Because you were afraid to.”
“I wasn’t afraid, I was…” His gaze slid down the length of her. “Distracted.”
“Right, distracted.” She curled her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down.
A jagged awareness shot into his gut. “Ms. Conroy—”
“There is no way that whether or not I slept with Lee is of any use to your investigation.
I did not kill him.”
“I haven’t said that you did.”
“You’ve insinuated it. You may be used to seeing death and dying up close and personal,
Sergeant, but I’m not. What I saw this morning sickened me. I still can’t get that
image out of my head. I still can’t even think about eating without my stomach turning.
I didn’t, I
couldn’t
do something like that to another human being.” Her eyes slid closed as she drew in
a shaky breath. “Especially not Lee.”
Justin couldn’t pinpoint an exact reason, but at that instant he believed her. Not
just about her relationship with the victim, but about her innocence as well. He had
to admit that he never held much conviction in her being the killer. Not with the
amount of strength it would take to hold down a man St. John’s size while he fought
for his very life. Unfortunate for her, he still had a job to do and in order to do
it, he needed to know as much as he could about the victim.
“Tell me about St. John.”
“I did that this morning.”
“How long did you know him? How did you meet?” He stepped around the low table and
walked toward her, firing off questions without allowing her time to answer. “Did
it have anything to do with his job as a narcotics detective? Was it before or after
his partnership with Preston? Why now, after more than two years, would he feel the
need to look into his partner’s murder investigation?”
All the color drained from her face. “Rick?”
Her hand reached out and settled lightly upon his wrist. She might as well have slugged
him across the jaw. His muscles tightened, his blood warmed and, unlike the rest of
him, his mind suddenly went soft.
“Are you certain?”
“Quite.” Justin dragged air into his tight lungs, bringing with it the soft, subtle
scent of her. A bolt of lust caught him right in the chest, then traveled downward.
He looked at her hand, at the long, slender fingers curled about his wrist. Such a
simple act of connection, a single touch, and with it she’d managed to throw him off
kilter. His mind fogged. He fought the urge to cover her hand with his own.
Irritated by his reaction, he shook his head; forced his mind to clear. He damned
his traitorous body’s reaction to her and voiced his original question. “What was
your relationship with Leroy St. John?”
“Friends, never more. We went out once, when I first met him, but the spark just didn’t
exist. We had no connection beyond friendship.”
He felt the loss of her touch as she moved her hand from his wrist. He didn’t like
the attraction he felt for her, or his relief at learning she’d never been intimate
with St. John. He didn’t have the time for a woman right now. Especially not
this
woman. “How long ago did you meet him?”
“Six years ago.”
“You would have been twenty at that time.”
She stared at him, her displeasure evident in her posture, in the glint of fire that
shot through her eyes. “You’ve done your homework.”
He’d done his job. Checked out her story. Looked into her background.
Paige Louise Conroy, born in Boston, Massachusetts, twenty-six years before to Joseph
and Elizabeth Conroy. Raised amidst wealth and privilege, she’d been expected to attend
law school and follow her father and mother to one of Boston’s most prestigious law
firms. She had the smarts for it; graduated from high school at sixteen, college by
nineteen. But instead of moving on to Harvard and marrying in her social class, as
her parents had hoped, she’d opened her own photography studio and fallen for a cop.
“A year after we met, Lee got a new partner,” she continued, as if background checks
were a routine part of her life.
“Rick Preston.”
“Yes.”
“Is that how you met Preston, through St. John?”
“He and Rick quickly became friends. Lee decided that Rick and I would get along well.
He introduced us.”
She didn’t elaborate further. She didn’t have to. Justin already knew what happened
next. They’d hit it off, Paige and her cop, hit it off well enough that they’d planned
to marry. Only, before the big day ever came, Rick Preston was gunned down outside
a local restaurant.
His hand unconsciously shifted to rest on his side. Taking a bullet. A cop’s worst
fear, his own worst nightmare. He knew the pain, the physical agony of it, but what
about the emotional scars? How would someone, a woman like her in particular, get
over witnessing her lover’s shooting?
He never got the chance to ponder further as her voice interrupted his thoughts. “As
for Lee reopening Rick’s murder investigation, I didn’t know he had. Not until you
just told me.”