Turn On A Dime - Kade's Turn (27 page)

“Thank you,” she said. “But I can’t accept this. It’s too much.” She tried to hand the keys back to him and Kade’s smile faded. She was really sucking the fun out of this.

Of course. The answer came to him in a flash. She wouldn’t accept a car from him, but she’d take it if she didn’t know it was a gift. And what did it matter, really? Hadn’t he bought it for her to use? Buying a car was expensive, and she didn’t have the money to buy even another piece of shit like the Honda had been.

“Please,” he scoffed. “It’s not like I bought it for you.” He took another swig of beer, forcing himself to be casual.

She looked at him, a question in her eyes as well as a little bit of hope, which sealed it.

“The firm bought it,” he lied. “An investigator has to have wheels. It’s a company car.” That only she was licensed to drive.

He could see the indecision on her face. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“You really think I’d just go buy you a car?” he asked. It was both expected and yet depressing when that sentence seemed to be what convinced her.

Then…she did something amazing.

Stepping out from behind the bar, Kathleen put her arms around him and squeezed.

For a moment, Kade did nothing. He was too surprised. Kade didn’t get hugged. He just…didn’t. He wasn’t
huggable
. Mona persisted now and again, but a hug from a woman in a gesture of friendship and warmth…it never happened to him. Ever.

Shaking himself free of his frozen shock, Kade raised his arms and gave Kathleen a tentative squeeze back. It felt awkward and good at the same time, though she didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t mention it.

“Thank you, Kade,” she said. “This is a huge load off my mind.”

Pulling back slightly, Kade looked down at her. With him on the stool, they were closer to the same height. Her blue eyes stared trustingly into his. The relief in her gaze made him ache to do more for her. Buy her a half a dozen cars, a house, a fucking yacht—pretty much anything she could possibly want, just to have her keep looking at him like he was her knight in shiny fucking armor.

“No problem,” he said, swallowing down words he shouldn’t say. He wanted to pull her close again, and not just for a hug, but knew he shouldn’t. Yet he was incapable of pushing her away. “And if you’d like to thank me further, I could give you a few ideas, several of which prominently feature those shoes you wore last night.”

That did the trick. She stepped away, slapping him lightly on the arm as her face flushed rose. “Drink your beer,” she said.

Moving back behind the bar, she took something out of her purse and handed it to him. “I took this cell phone from Adriana’s hotel room,” she said, “but it has a code on it. I thought you might be able to break it.”

“No problem,” Kade said, slipping the phone into his pocket. “I was able to trace the phone calls made to Freeman.”

“Who called him?”

“Someone with a lot of resources. Government resources.” That even he as of yet had been unable to trace to their origin.

“Blane said he thought that might be the case, that the Defense Department budget is supposed to be cut by billions next year.”

“Yep,” he said, pleased she’d made the connection. “Always follow the money, princess. Nine times out of ten, it’s all about the cash.”

“And the tenth time?” A smile played about her lips, entrancing him. She was playing with him. It made him smile a little, too.

“The tenth time is personal,” he said. “Everyone knows that.”

Kathleen grinned outright, and was quiet for a moment. Kade sipped his beer. It was nice, just being with her. He didn’t feel a pressing need to be something he wasn’t. He could just…be. He recognized the feeling as something unique to her, and was grateful for it.

She was wiping down glasses and Kade watched her work, admiring the smooth efficiency of her movements. That outfit showed a helluva lot of skin, and he committed all of it to memory, right next to the image of her wearing those peacock stilettos.

“Ryan Sheffield came by tonight,” she said, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I’m going on a date with him tomorrow night.”

Kade tensed. The words
I’m going on a date
were some of the last ones he wanted to hear come out of her mouth, much less if they involved someone on this case.

“You realize he works for the government,” he said. “He could be our mysterious caller. Or our shooter. Why the date?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t believe that. He doesn’t strike me as the type. And why not a date? Maybe he knows more than he’s telling, though. If he does, I’ll get it out of him.”

There were so many things wrong with that statement, Kade didn’t know where to begin. First, Kathleen was a woefully bad judge of character, as evidenced foremost by her trust in him.

Second, she couldn’t date him because Kade would have to beat the shit out of him. That was a given.

Last,
she’d get it out of him?
Please. Kathleen was about as threatening as a Chihuahua.

“And how do you plan on doing that?” he asked, electing not to piss her off by saying any of this to her. This should be good for a laugh.

“Men the world over have the same weakness,” she said with a shrug of one perfect, naked shoulder.

“Really? Do enlighten me, princess.”

Leaning over the bar as though to tell him a secret, she crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up and together. The Santa outfit already barely contained her breasts and now it seemed they were nearly overflowing the fabric’s ability to cover them. It made for an impressive display and Kade couldn’t stop his eyes from dropping to enjoy the view.

Glancing serenely up at him, she laughed, then said, “Breasts, of course.”

Kade swallowed, forcing his gaze back up to meet hers. Yeah, he’d tell her just about anything she wanted to know if she dangled the chance to get his hands and mouth on her.

“Point taken.”

She laughed again as she stood and Kade mourned the loss of the amazing view.

“What about Stacey Willows?” she asked. “You know she was murdered today.”

It didn’t escape Kade’s notice that she didn’t mention her close call. “So Blane said. What happened?”

“I walked in, said about five words, and she hit me from behind. Next thing I knew, I was waking up inside a closet. I managed to get out, and that’s when I found her. Dead. She said she was being threatened, too, that she was supposed to testify against Kyle.”

“And you were so sure she wouldn’t hurt you,” Kade couldn’t help reminding her. Her lips thinned but she didn’t respond. “I’ll check her phone records, too. But why would she knock you out? Were there signs of a struggle?” He was thinking out loud.

“You mean other than her slit throat?” Kathleen’s dry retort had Kade smirking again.

“Smartass,” he said. His brain was working, playing out the scene from what she’d told him. “If she knew her killer, she would have trusted him, let him into the house. Otherwise, there would have been signs of forced entry, a struggle, something to signify she’d fought.”

Kathleen frowned and Kade could practically see her thinking, remembering what had happened. “I don’t think there was any kind of a struggle,” she said at last. “Her body was right outside the door of the closet she’d stowed me in. Maybe she was going to show him she had me when she turned her back and he took advantage of the moment, killing her before she could tell him about me.”

Kade had come to the same conclusion, and he wondered if she realized just how close she’d come to dying. He’d felt the breath of death on his neck too many times to not feel its cold whisper now. “So it seems you’re lucky to be alive this evening,” he said.

She just shrugged, though her face paled, and guilt rose in him again. If he’d been there, she wouldn’t have gotten in that situation. And yet, she wasn’t dumb. She knew this case was dangerous and had elected to go anyway. It was a no-win situation for him.

“Any luck finding Bowers?” she asked.

Kade shook his head. “These guys are good. If he doesn’t want to be found, I don’t know if I’ll be able to find him.” Finishing his beer, he dug a ten from his wallet and tossed it onto the bar. Kathleen immediately snatched it back up and handed it to him.

“The drink’s on me,” she said. “It’s the least I can do.”

“The sooner I can track down who’s making these calls, the sooner we can catch whoever’s doing this,” he said. He’d slip the money in her purse later.

“Then go do it,” she said, waving him away. “I don’t need you dogging my every move anyway.”

“Since when?”

“Go home, Kade,” she said, taking him by the elbow and steering him toward the door.

He wasn’t letting her out of his sight, not after today, but if it made her feel better to think he had then Kade didn’t see the harm.

The thought again of how she could be dead on a slab in the morgue right now had him pausing on his way out the door. She looked up at him, her hair curling softly around her bare shoulders, her eyes so blue they appeared silvery in the low light.

Kade pressed his lips to her cheek. Her skin was like downy velvet and he lingered longer than he should have.

“Car’s parked out front,” he murmured in her ear. His hand brushed her shoulder and he felt a shiver run through her at the touch. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He felt her eyes on him all the way to his car.

Not too long after that, he saw her leave. He wanted to watch her reaction when she saw the car and he wasn’t disappointed. At first, she looked around as though expecting something else. Then she pressed the key fob and the SUV’s lights flashed. Her mouth dropped open in a little O and then she hurried as fast as her little legs would take her over to the vehicle.

She looked ridiculously tiny inside it, which was a good thing. If she got in an accident, chances were good she’d walk away. Kade imagined her checking out the interior—fully loaded, of course—and adjusting the seat and mirrors to suit her stature.

He followed at a respectable distance as she drove home and he waited in the lot the usual amount of time after her light went out before getting out of his car. He was nearly at her door when he saw a car swing into the parking lot.

Easing into the shadows, he watched as a man got out of the car and jogged up the steps.

Blane.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he blurted as Blane stepped onto the landing.

Blane looked just as surprised to see him. “What are you doing out here?” he asked, ignoring Kade’s question.

“I always wait until she’s asleep before I go in,” Kade answered. “It’s not like she’s rolled out the welcome wagon for me.” The words popped out without him really thinking about it first, and he wondered at his instinct to lie about the state of his and Kathleen’s relationship to his brother. Blane thought Kathleen hated him, and suddenly Kade didn’t want to alert him otherwise.

“I thought you two had declared a truce,” Blane said.

Kade shrugged. “You didn’t answer me. What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

“She called me.”

Kade’s gut twisted and it felt as though someone had sucker punched him.

Kathleen had called Blane. Her ex. She wanted
him
, not Kade.

It seemed Kade had been quite thoroughly friend-zoned.

Fuck.

“Yeah…yeah, sure, man,” he said finally. “You, uh, want me to stay?”
Please say yes please say yes please say
—

“I’ve got it from here,” Blane said, passing Kade to stand in front of Kathleen’s door. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

It was hard to breathe, a sharp pain digging into the center of his chest, but Kade forced himself to nod, act normal. “Got it. Okay then. Later.”

Jogging down the stairs, he didn’t turn to look back as he heard Kathleen’s door open and close. Gazing up at the apartment windows, Kade started the Mercedes. No way was he going to stick around, knowing Kathleen and Blane were having make-up sex just yards away from him. With one last glance to her darkened windows, he peeled out of the lot.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was the first night he’d spent in his own bed in weeks. The last person to have lain between the sheets had been Kathleen.

Kade stared at the rumpled covers for a long moment before sliding in. He pressed his nose to the pillow and inhaled deeply. Perhaps he only imagined it, but it seemed he could smell the faint trace of her perfume.

Turning on his back, he folded his arms behind his head and stared at the darkened ceiling.

It seemed impossible that this had happened, that he’d allowed himself to fall for some chick. Worse than that, she wasn’t even aware that Kade was in love with her. She still thought she was in love with Blane and hell, maybe she was. Enough women had fallen for Blane before, there was no reason why she’d be any different.

But she was attracted to Kade. She couldn’t hide that. And if she’d been a woman with fewer scruples, he would’ve had her in bed last night.

An image of her naked, Blane pumping between her thighs, flashed in his mind. It made him wince. Jealousy was a hot torrent in his veins, an emotion he’d rarely experienced. To feel jealous implied that he actually cared, and Kade didn’t care about much. Somehow, Kathleen had added her name to his very short list, then squirmed her way right to the top.

Tragic, innocent, vulnerable, good. All those wrapped up in a package so beautiful, it made his chest ache, and all of it equaled Kathleen—a woman he could never have.

He’d laugh at the irony, if it wasn’t so fucking pathetic.