Submission Page 12

  That was a dangerous question for a man to ask. I’d walked the earth long enough to know that. Still, for some stupid reason, I’d asked it.

  She blinked at me and I braced myself for recriminations.

  “Why did Jack call you ‘C’ back at the Gas Lantern?”

  Whoa. Not exactly what I’d been expecting.

  Not that I’d been expecting anything.

  I cleared my throat. “Jack often calls me ‘C.’ He does that with a lot of his customers, shortens their last name to the first initial.” I put my hat on the table. “Frankly I think it’s because he wants to cover his ass should anyone come up on some kind of most-wanted list. Plausible deniability.”

  I’d been trying to be funny. But Molly wasn’t smiling.

  Then it hit me. Her sister had referred to the man she’d been seeing as “C” in her diary.

  “You’re not implying what I think you are?” I asked, sitting back in my chair.

  I mean, what kind of man did she take me for?

  The type of man who would selfishly bang her, then leave her hanging in the morning.

  She shook her head and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m not implying anything. I guess all this—” she looked around “—is starting to get to me.”

  Just as she was starting to get to me in all the ways a man fears a woman getting to him. A way that made him want to move heaven and earth in order to please her.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe it’s getting to us both.”

  I ordered two coffees to go from the waitress.

  “So is there anything you want to share about what happened at the hotel yesterday?” she asked.

  I felt like a heel that I hadn’t been the one to tell her. “It pretty much went down the way the news reported it. Philippe Murrell was the copycat killer.”

  I didn’t know if she was aware she was rubbing her arms. “I can’t believe it’s the same guy I talked to outside the hotel.”

  “You probably weren’t in any danger. Philippe’s intentions were situational.”

  “Meaning he killed to try to get Josie to sell the hotel.”

  “Meaning that, yes.”

  “Strange way to go about it.”

  “I don’t think he’s in possession of all of his marbles.”

  Our coffees were brought to the table. I took the lid off mine and began pouring sugar inside.

  “Like a little coffee with your sugar?” Molly asked.

  I grimaced and let up.

  “Do you want some?” I asked.

  She shook her head, added cream to hers, then put the lid back on. “There’s one thing I was hoping you could do for me.”

  Uh-oh. Here we go.

  She reached to take something out of her purse. I recognized the diary of her sister through the plastic bag. The same diary in which Claire had mentioned that a married guy named “C” was her lover.

  “In the place I have marked, Claire mentions something about ‘C’ trying to physically take the diary from her.”

  I accepted the diary before I could consider that maybe it wasn’t a good idea. “And you think his fingerprints might be on it.”

  “Yes. I mean, I know that it’s been handled a lot since Claire died, but if there’s even a remote chance that the killer’s prints are on there—”

  “And are in our system.”

  She held my gaze. “No stone unturned and all that.”

  I nodded. It was the least I could do, I supposed, after my behavior over the past couple of days.

  I sat back.

  She gathered her things and began to get up. “Was there anything else?”

  I blinked several times. “I didn’t have anything.”

  “Good. So we’ll meet in two days? Would you prefer here?”

  I nodded.

  She didn’t comment but paused for a long moment, as if waiting for me to say something. But for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what she wanted me to say.

  “Good night, Alan.”

  “Um, yeah. Good night.”

  Then I sat there like an idiot and watched her walk out of the coffee shop. What else should I have done?

  16

  MOLLY RETURNED TO HER hotel room. She didn’t know what she’d expected. No, expected wasn’t the word exactly. Rather, she’d hoped that Alan would make some sort of definitive move one way or another at the coffee shop when she’d risen to leave.

  She closed her hotel room door behind her. Actually, he had made a move, hadn’t he? By not objecting to her leaving or suggesting perhaps she stay or that they go somewhere else, he was telling her that what had happened the other night had been a one-time deal. A brief night of sex.

  She picked up her purse and walked the rest of the way into the room, switching on lights, then tossing her purse to a nearby armchair. Hey, she was an adult. She’d had sex without the promise of more before. She could deal with it now.

  Or could she?

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said to herself aloud, hoping the sound of her voice would snap her out of her melancholy mood.

  When that didn’t work, she switched on the TV, flipping through a series of talking heads and commentators, movies and sitcoms, then pressing mute and turning on the radio instead. The tinny, mellow sound of the blues filled the room through the small speaker. She stretched across the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  And she was stupid, wasn’t she? What exactly had she expected? Or even hoped for? A liaison with the handsome detective to last the length of her stay in the Crescent City?

  Her mind froze on that thought. And he truly was handsome, wasn’t he? He had been since the beginning, but tonight…tonight she’d wanted to order him up from the menu. She’d felt the almost irresistible desire to lick his smooth jawline. Run her fingers through his neatly trimmed hair. Bury her nose in the crisp fabric of his shirt before kissing his clean-smelling neck.

  She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Sex. That was all she’d been looking for. To want anything more would be unrealistic. Alan was New Orleans to a tee. She planned on returning to Toledo. What future was there in that kind of relationship?

  None.

  The telephone rang on the bedside table. She lay still for a moment, almost afraid to hope that Alan might be calling her. Then she scrambled for the receiver, nearly dropping it before pulling it to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Molly? Jesus, girl, is that you?”

  Her mother.

  She was of half a mind to hang up on her, she was so disappointed it wasn’t Alan. “Hi, Mom.”

  “You mean you’re still there? I thought for sure you would have come home with your tail between your legs by now.”

  “They haven’t caught Claire’s killer yet.”

  “And what does that have to do with you?”

  How did she explain it in a way that made sense to her mother? Hell, how did she explain it in a way that made sense to her?

  “I’ve already told you why I need to be down here, Mom. Please don’t make me do it again.”

  “Okay, I won’t. If only because I don’t want to pay any more for the call than I have to.”

  That was Mom for you, forever budget-minded. “Was there something you wanted?”

  She sighed heavily. “That’s just like you and your sister. Treating me with disrespect.”

  “I do not disrespect you, Mom.” She reached for her purse and fished out the troll key ring. She rubbed the pad of her thumb against the ink across the plastic face.

  “Yes, you do. And so did your sister. I mean, just what the hell am I supposed to do with a box I can’t open?”

  Molly’s heart skipped a beat as she rose to her elbows. “Box?”

  “Yes, box. Your sister sent me this metal box about three months ago. Told me to keep it for her.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Didn’t I just say it was locked?”

  She’d said she couldn’t open it.

  “I’ve tri
ed just about every damn thing. Even asked the locksmith to open it for me, but when I told him it was Claire’s, he asked to see papers showing I’d inherited it. Can you believe it?”

  Molly smiled. Funny how her aggravating mother ran into problems like that all the time. Fate’s way of paying her back for her transgressions, she guessed.

  “Mom, I want you to send the box to me. Overnight mail.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I think I have the key.”

  Well, she didn’t physically have the key at that moment. Akela had it. But she could get it.

  “Well, if you have the key, send it to me.”

  “Mom, can you please just do as I ask?”

  There was a long pause. “What if there’s money in there?”

  Molly rolled her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her aching temples. “I’ll make sure you get every cent,” she promised.

  “You know how much it’ll cost me to mail this thing? Especially overnight?”

  “Take it to my office and give it to my assistant. She’ll send it to me.”

  That was a better alternative yet. She could imagine her mother going to the post office, hearing what it would cost to send the package overnight and sending it third class instead.

  At any rate, it would be the day after tomorrow before she’d see the package. So long as her mother got it to the office before nine tomorrow morning. Which she promised she would after Molly vowed to wire her any money she found inside.

  Molly decided she’d wait to find out if the key could indeed open the box’s lock. She had a strong suspicion that it would. If it had been a simple lock, her mother would have had no trouble opening the box. That she’d called in a locksmith was promising.

  There was a light knock at the door.

  She sat up. She had been thinking about ordering room service since she’d eaten only a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast and nothing else. She’d hoped that Alan might want to catch a bite.

  Alan.

  She got up from the bed, smoothed the covers, then stepped to look through the peephole. Sure enough, there he was, looking as good as sin and twice as tempting.

  I KNEW SHE WAS IN THERE. I’d heard her talking on the phone when I’d neared the door. Since she’d said “Mom,” I knew she’d been speaking to her mother.

  I took off my hat, then ran a hand through my hair. Hell, I wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t answer. I’d let her walk out of that coffee shop like it wasn’t any never mind to me what she did with her time. And even, perhaps, like she was wasting mine. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “Alan,” she said.

  I hadn’t realized she’d opened the door until I heard her say my name.

  Women. They sure knew how to make a man feel crazy just by whispering in a certain way.

  No, not all women. This woman knew how to speak in a way that made me crazy.

  “May I come in?”

  She seemed almost as knocked off center as I was. “Um, sure. Yes. Come in. Please.”

  I passed her and stood in the middle of the room that looked homier than my place, even though I’d been there for more than five years and she only a few days. Bottles of lotion were on the nightstand, papers and a laptop were on the desk, a newspaper was on a chair beside her purse and the television looked like it belonged in this century.

  “Has something happened?” she said, standing next to me.

  “Happened? Oh, you mean on the case. No, no. Nothing new.”

  But something had happened with me.

  Something important.

  Because after she’d walked out of that shop, I’d realized how much I wanted—almost needed—to be with her.

  “Oh. Okay. Um, would you like me to order up something from room service? Coffee? Or I think the minibar might have something….”

  She crouched down to break the seal on the small refrigerator and looked around inside.

  “A Coke ought to do it.”

  She looked at the small bottles of liquor she’d taken out, placed them back inside and grabbed the cola.

  “I’ll just go, um, get some ice,” she said.

  She grabbed the bucket out of the bathroom, then stepped out into the hall, leaving me alone in the room.

  I moved to the desk and eyed the papers spread across the top. Most of them I was familiar with. A couple of items I wasn’t. I picked up a small picture frame holding a shot of Molly with her sister, both of them smiling into the camera. Interestingly I found I could instantly tell the difference between the two. Claire was laughing almost too hard, posing for the camera, while Molly had a warmth and intelligence and subtle sexiness that spoke to the picture taker and reached out to me even from the inanimate photo.

  I put the frame back down when I heard the door open.

  Within moments she’d filled two glasses with ice and poured the Coke, handing me one.

  “Please, sit,” she said, indicating the armchair. She took her purse and the newspaper off it, then sat down on the bed.

  I sat on the chair.

  And felt even dumber than I had at the coffee shop.

  “So,” she said, obviously not feeling any better than I did. “What do we do next?”

  I squinted at her. Surely she wasn’t asking what I wanted to do? Because what I wanted to do was join her on that king-size bed.

  “I mean with the case,” she said, apparently catching on to the suggestive nature of her question.

  “Ah, the case. Yes.” I sipped the Coke, then put it down and wiped my hand on the front of my coat before placing the hat I held in my other hand on the desk. “I drove the diary downtown. Steven—that would be Steven Chan, the chief of forensics—won’t be in until tomorrow, but I left it there for him so he can take a look at it first thing.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.” Her head snapped up from where she was looking at the glass she held. “Should I have my fingerprints taken? You know, so they can be ruled out as the killer’s?”

  “That’s a good idea. Come on down to the station tomorrow and I’ll have one of the booking agents take care of it.”

  She nodded again.

  Then a silence ensued that I didn’t know quite what to do with.

  It wasn’t often that I was in this type of situation. And while I didn’t like it, I liked the alternative—leaving—even less. I’d rather be here and uncomfortable than away from Molly and wanting to be with her.

  She smiled. “Talk about your awkward silences.”

  I smiled back. Then I leaned forward, joining my hands between my knees. “Molly, look…”

  I’d started talking, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to say. Nothing and everything. Which could mean we could be there all night.

  “I just wanted to say that my last intention is to hurt you.”

  She bent her legs so that her bare feet hugged the edge of the bed. “Who said you’d hurt me?”

  “Your body language, for one.”

  She looked at her knees.

  “I’d never thought it a good idea for us to get involved.”

  “We had sex, Alan. We’re not involved.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.”

  She cocked her head, causing the highlights in her hair to shift under the lamplight.

  “You see, while I told myself that the reason we shouldn’t get involved—or become intimate, if that’s the description you’d prefer—was that we were working on this case together, the truth is I always knew, sensed really, that whatever happened between us would be more than just about…”

  “The sex?”

  “Yes.”

  She stretched her legs back out to hang over the side of the bed. “What are you trying to say, Alan?”

  I grimaced. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

  The ghost of a smile. “Not a chance.”

  I considered myself blessed that I was surrounded by smart women. I also considered myself cursed.
Because not only couldn’t I get away with lying to them, they wouldn’t let me lie to myself, either. Which was a major drawback.

  “Let’s just say that I’m coming to feel something for you that’s well beyond a physical urge.”

  “Urge?”

  “Intense need for you…physically.”

  She leaned her weight back on her arms against the bed, stretching out her torso. I gazed at her breasts and her narrow hips, then back up into her face. “And you’re feeling that need now?”

  Was I ever.

  “Show me.”

  17

  NOW THAT WAS MORE invitation than any twenty men could refuse.

  And I wasn’t about to refuse it.

  I stood up, shrugged out of my overcoat and laid it across the chair. Then I unbuttoned the cuffs of my new shirt and tugged the hem out of the waist of my pants, my gaze fused with hers while I stepped out of my shoes. She seemed intrigued by my actions. But if she’d been hoping for a full Monty, she wasn’t getting it. Instead I sat on the bed next to her, hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and stared at her.

  God, but she was beautiful. Especially when she was trying to work something out and couldn’t quite seem to wrap her mind around it. I watched as her tongue dipped out and moistened her lips, her pulse visible at the base of her neck.

  “May I?” I asked.

  The click of her swallow sounded above the soft blues playing on the radio. She nodded.

  I reached out and touched her hair. So silky. So pretty.

  “I thought you were asking for permission to kiss me,” she whispered.

  “No, Molly. I’ve done enough taking. From here on out, everything between us happens because you’ve made it happen.”

  “So,” she rasped, “you’re saying if I want you to get closer to me, I have to get closer to you?”

  I nodded, watching as she shifted so that her face was closer to mine.

  “And that if I want you to kiss me, I should kiss you?”

  I moved to nod again, then stopped when she leaned in, placing her lips gently against mine. I groaned and threaded my fingers through her hair so that they lay against her head. I kissed her back.

  Sweet Jesus, she was incredible. I kept thinking that if I tried hard enough to find a way to have her yet keep her away at the same time, I would find one. But she refused me that luxury, demanding all or nothing.