Читать книгу Their Baby Girl...? - Marie Ferrarella - Страница 14

Chapter 6

Warrick shook his head as he got up from the living room sofa. It was getting late and they had more than done justice to the pizza, if not to the quest for a suitable middle name for C.J.’s daughter.

The latter was not for his lack of trying. He glanced at the books on the coffee table. They looked as if they’d been run through the wringer. “You know, you’re impossible.”

C.J. rose, as well. She stretched before rounding the table to join him.

“No,” she said, “I’m selective.”

She wasn’t any happier about the situation than he sounded, but she was determined not to rush this process. Her daughter’s full name had to be absolutely right for her.

Warrick had another word for it, but kept it to himself.

“It’s just a middle name. Just pick one.” She glanced back at the books. “I don’t know, maybe I went through them too fast, but none of the names I looked at ‘feel’ right for my daughter.” She frowned.

Why did he even bother trying to win an argument with her? “You know, rather than Christmas, your parents should have named you Mary. Like in that nursery rhyme—‘Mary, Mary quite contrary.”’ He took a closer look at her. There were shadows beneath her eyes. He hoped her daughter would let her get a few hours rest. “Do you have to disagree with everything I say?”

“I don’t have to…” C.J. let her voice trail off. The further it went, the wider her grin became.

Warrick surrendered with a symbolic throwing up of his hands. He had to be getting home. There were a few things he wanted to check into before he went to bed. “You win. I give up.”

C.J. picked up the two books he’d brought and held them out to him, but he shook his head.

“You keep these and see if a name does ‘feel right’ to you.” He moved his hands around like a wizard conjuring up a spell.

C.J. put the books back down. “You’ll be the first to know,” she promised. She walked him to the door and opened it, then lingered a moment in the doorway. “Thanks for the pizza and the books.”

He pointed toward them behind her, a headmaster giving a pupil an assignment. “You’ve a week, Jones.”

She sighed. That did limit her time, she thought. “I know, I know.”

“Hey,” he leaned his arm on the doorjamb just above her head, “different strokes for different folks. It’s what makes the world go around.” He moved back a hair that was in her face. Her pupils looked as if they widened just a touch. He felt that same funny stirring in his gut. Again he locked it away. “You’re entitled to be a little strange once in a while.”

Warrick wasn’t sure just what made him do what he did next. He supposed it was a natural by-product of a good evening spent in the company of a good friend, although he’d never brushed a kiss on the cheek of any of the guys he’d interacted with on the basketball court, no matter how good a game had been played.

Whatever the reason behind it, the bottom line was that he leaned over and touched his lips to her cheek, as he’d done in the hospital.

This time it didn’t stun her. It didn’t even register because just then a cat unleashed a wild screech that sounded as if it was being vivisected somewhere in the vicinity. The unearthly noise startled her, and she jerked, turning her head, just as before.

But this time when their lips met, neither one of them sprang back. Instead they drew together. And allowed the unintentional meeting of two pairs of lips to instantly flower into something a great deal more lethal, a great deal hotter than simply skin against skin.

And a great deal more pleasurable.

He didn’t remember doing it. Didn’t remember taking hold of C.J.’s shoulders and drawing her up a little higher, a little closer, helping her along as she rose on her toes. Didn’t remember deepening the kiss, even though he did.

What he did remember was thinking that now he finally knew what it felt like to be kicked by a mule. Because something sure had found him where he lived and given him a swift, sound kick right to his gut.

Damn, for someone with just a tart tongue, she tasted sweet.

This wasn’t happening, it couldn’t be happening, she thought. But she was so glad it was.

For one long, everlasting moment, C.J. felt as if her connections to the real world had all been short-circuited and severed. There was no sky above, no ground below, no walls around to contain her. She was free-falling into an abyss, a wild swirling surging in her chest.

Warrick?

This was Warrick?

How the hell could this be Warrick? She’d worked alongside him for more than six years. Possibly, once or twice in an off moment, she’d fantasized what it might be like to be with him in some capacity other than his partner, but nothing that had momentarily traveled through her brain had been remotely close to this.

This was something she didn’t know how to begin to describe.

Was that her pulse vibrating so fast? Could he tell? What the hell was happening to her? She was melting all over him.

Limp, she felt limp.

No! No way this was happening to her, not here, not now. Not again.

The next moment, contact was broken. Whether she pushed him back or he’d done it of his own accord, she didn’t know. But the sky, the ground and the walls all made a return appearance.

It took all she had to remain standing where she was and not grasp the doorjamb for support.

Very slowly Warrick let out his breath. What he really wanted to do was gulp air in to replenish the lack of it in his lungs and maybe, just maybe, squelch this erratic hammering of his heart.

He looked at her, striving for the nonchalance that was one of the cornerstones of their partnership, hoping his voice didn’t give him away. “You’ve got to learn to stop turning your head at the wrong moment.”

She looked at him in surprise. Wrong moment? Did it feel like a wrong moment to him? It felt like a right one to her.

Careful, C.J. you’re vulnerable. This is what got you in trouble before. Think, don’t feel.

She clenched her hands at her sides, pressing her nails into the palms of her hand.

“Maybe if you stop going at my cheek like some hungry chicken pecking at scattered corn, there wouldn’t be any wrong moments.” One hand squarely against his chest, she pushed him over the threshold as she grabbed the door with her other one. “Thanks for the books, see you tomorrow. Bye.”

Warrick found himself looking at the closed door before he could utter a single word in response or defense. Just as well.

He drew in the air he so badly needed, then turned away and walked to his car on legs that were a little less solid than they had been when he’d made the walk to her front door.

C.J. stood leaning against the door, her mind numb. Which was fine. It went along with the rest of her body. Numb mind, numb body—it was a set.

Like someone waking up from a dream, not quite sure what was real and what wasn’t, she walked very slowly to the sofa.

And then collapsed as if every single bone in her body had just been pulled out.

“You’re here already.”

The sound of Warrick’s voice behind her had C.J. straightening slightly. She turned away from one of several bulletin boards covered with various pieces of the investigation, determined not to let him suspect that he was partially to blame for her getting only three hours sleep last night.

“Where else would I be?” Was it just her, or did her voice sound a little too high? Where was this nervousness, this uncertainty coming from? This was just Warrick, for heaven’s sake. A Warrick who had completely blown her out of the water last night. She cleared her throat. “We’ve got a serial killer on the prowl and we’re partners on the task force, remember?”

Feeling suddenly awkward, C.J. offered the box of doughnuts she’d stopped to pick up by pushing them toward him on the new appropriated conference table. “Care for a sugar high?”

Warrick made his selection without really looking, then took his prize to the coffeemaker. He’d already had a strong cup of coffee but he felt as if he needed another one. Even stronger this time.

Damn if he could explain why the sight of her alone in the room they had commandeered for their task force made him feel as if he needed to fortify himself somehow.

But it did.

She watched him pick up the mug that had once been white and start pouring. “You know, you really should wash that out once in a while. Bacteria breeds in cleaner places than that. Your mug must seem like Disneyland to them.”

“Adds to the taste of the coffee,” he muttered. Warrick took his coffee without compromise: black and hot.

She picked up her own half-empty coffee mug, now cooled to the point that it practically looked solid, and stared into it, thinking. The fluorescent lights overhead danced along the surface, adding to the trance.

She blew out a long breath. They could skirt around this, pretend it wasn’t there and it would continue to gain depth and breadth, like some white elephant in the living room no one wanted to acknowledge. Or they could address this while it was still in its infancy, clear the air and move on.

She’d always been one to grab the bull by the horns instead of leap over the fence, out of harm’s way.

C.J. set her mug down with a small thud, catching his attention. “We’ve got to talk about it.”

Warrick raised one eyebrow. “The case?” He broke off a piece of the doughnut and popped it into his mouth. A small shower of white powder rained down to the floor. “That’s why we’re here.”

He was playing games. “You know what I mean. What happened last night.”

Warrick looked at her pointedly. “Nothing happened last night. I was feeling a little protective, like a big brother I guess, and you turned your head at the wrong moment. We established that fact, remember?” He shrugged, washing the doughnut down with a sip of coffee. “If you’d turned it the other way, I would have gotten a mouthful of hair instead of a mouthful of lip.”

She scowled. “If I turned it the ‘other’ way, it would have probably been part of an exorcism because that would have meant my head was turned at a 180-degree angle.”

He knew better than that, she thought, exasperated. Why was he pretending that they hadn’t really kissed, not like partners, certainly not like a brother and sister, but like a man and a woman who wanted each other? They both knew they had.

He gave a short laugh and put a little distance between them, just for good measure. “There you go again, being contradictory. Arguing.” His eyes held hers, his voice lowering, underscoring his words, his feelings. He wanted this buried. “Well, I don’t feel like arguing, okay? Let’s just do what we’re being paid to do.”

Warrick gestured at the main bulletin board, the one that displayed photographs of the victims, both before death had found them and after. Below each young woman was a list of statistics: name, age, height, weight, what the victim did for a living and where the body was found. So far none of that or any of the other endless pages of data they’d collected was giving them any clues that went anywhere.

The next moment, before she could answer him, they were no longer alone. Whatever was to have been said had to be set aside for now.

Culpepper poked his head into the room. “Was that the sound of raised voices I heard?” He walked into the room. “Back one day and you two are at it already, C.J.?” And then he looked at the conference table. His eyes lit up. “Ah, doughnuts.”

He reached for one, but C.J. pulled the box away from him. He looked at her accusingly.

“Uh-uh, if you’re going to insult me, you can’t have any. I brought them.”

Culpepper folded his hands together, palms touching and held them up before her. “A thousand pardons, oh wisest of the wise. That was just my sugar-deprived brain, running off with my mouth. If you were arguing, it was only because Warrick was provoking you.”

C.J. laughed and pushed the box toward the heavyset man again. “Better.”

“No one was doing anything to anyone,” Warrick told the other agent firmly. He slanted a look at C.J. to get his point across. “Now feed your habit, Culpepper, and let’s get to work on this.”

C.J. tossed her hair over her shoulder, ready to do battle. “Fine with me. Let’s nail this son of a bitch once and for all before he finds another victim.”

C.J. glanced at Warrick’s profile, then lowered her eyes to her keyboard as he turned in her direction. Her fingers flew over the keys, drawing up screens she had already looked at a hundred times if not more.

She didn’t know which was driving her crazier: the fact that after a few days the murder investigation seemed to have ground to a halt again—this despite phone calls coming in all hours of the day and night from helpful and not-so-helpful citizens who gave information that only led to dead ends, if they led anywhere at all—or that there was this restless tension intermittently buzzing through her. A restless tension that seemed to rear its head every time she and Warrick were near one another.

C.J. flipped to another screen, scrolling down. She knew this was stupid. Warrick was right, she argued with herself, absolutely right. Nothing had happened. After all, it wasn’t as if he had actually tried to kiss her. It was a brotherly peck gone awry, that’s all.

She hit the keys harder. She saw Warrick giving her a curious look. Damn it all, no brother she knew had ever kissed his sister like that.

Quietly C.J. took a deep breath. She had to get a grip on herself and let this die a natural death. After all, what was the big deal? Okay, so they had reacted to each other like a man and a woman. She hadn’t been kissed by a man in almost nine months and he reacted like—well, like a man. All men took advantage of a situation if given the opportunity, some just less than others.

The kiss and her reaction had been an aberration, a freak of nature, like a thunderstorm in the wrong season, that’s all.

Why was she letting it creep into each night and snare a toehold on each day?

C.J. looked over to the main bulletin board. Her eyes swept over the faces of the women there, women whose likeness were imprinted on her heart. Rising, she crossed to it.

She had no business even thinking about something so petty as a kiss at a time like this. Warrick was her partner, her backup, her friend, and she was his. That’s all.

And that was enough.

Warrick looked at her over his computer. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she was studying the board intently.

“You’re being quiet again,” he observed. “It’s not like you. You make me nervous when you’re quiet.”

“Why, because you’re afraid I’ll pounce?” Not waiting for an answer, she turned from the board. “Just trying to get into the killer’s head.”

She looked over her shoulder, back at the board. Missing were the photographs of gruesome deaths, of savage beatings or stabbings. That wasn’t the Sleeping Beauty Killer’s style. Each victim was tenderly, perhaps even lovingly arranged. The latest victims even wore makeup that appeared to have been applied postmortem. They looked just like princesses waiting for their princes to come and wake them up. She chewed on her lips and looked at Warrick.

“You think he’s a mousy man? You know, someone who yearns after the unattainable?”

He had never been able to crawl into a murderer’s mind, maybe because he couldn’t begin to identify with the kind of person who would willingly, sometimes even joyously take another human being’s life. He marveled that C.J. could do it.

“Profiling’s your department, not mine.” Warrick moved over to the bulletin board with the map of Orange County on it. Each small pin designated a site where the victim was found. He wondered if there were going to be more pins before they caught the killer. “I just think he’s one sick bastard.” He looked at the blown-up photograph of the latest victim’s nails. “Someone who obviously has a nail polish fetish.”

Standing next to him, she studied the photograph herself. “Maybe not a fetish. Maybe he’s just trying to do something nice for them.”

He caught a whiff of her perfume. Light, stirring. He wished she wouldn’t wear it. Abruptly he directed his thoughts back to the conversation. “Not strangling them would have been nice.”

Half aware of what she was doing, C.J. waved her hand at him, asking for silence. She was piecing this together as she went. “I mean like the kind of thing a guy would do for his girlfriend.”

Culpepper came over to join them. “No guy I know paints women’s fingernails.”

C.J. frowned at the other man. “That’s because every guy you know has just learned how to walk upright without scraping their knuckles on the ground.”

“Hey,” Rodriguez protested, walking into the room in time to catch the tail end of C.J.’s comment, “I take exception to that.”

C.J. inclined her head toward the youngest member of their team. “Present company excepted, of course.” She became serious again. “But what I’m talking about is when a guy tries to pamper a woman.”

She looked from one man’s face to the other and knew that as far as they were concerned, she was speaking a foreign language. She turned her focus on Rodriguez. After all, he was the one who was getting married and should be informed about this kind of thing. Her guess was that he was generally ignorant of the little niceties that women craved.

“You know, draw her bath, wash her hair for her in the sink, do her nails.” Nothing. Rodriguez’s face was still blank, and Culpepper was laughing. She threw up her hands. “What am I, speaking in tongues here? Haven’t any of you guys ever heard of pampering a woman?”

Culpepper stopped laughing. “That kind of thing really turns women on?”

She patted his chest. “Try it tonight on Adele and see.”

He snorted, waving away the suggestion. “If I try washing her hair, she’ll probably think I was trying to drown her.”

“You’re not supposed to drag her by her hair to the sink,” C.J. pointed out, then shook her head as she looked at Warrick. “See what I mean? Neanderthal. I rest my case.”

Warrick had the impression she was saying more to him than the actual words conveyed. But then he told himself to knock it off, he was starting to babble in his head.

Wanting to kiss a woman did that to a man.

He shut his mind down.

Culpepper regarded her with blatant curiosity in his eyes. C.J. thought for a second that perhaps she had a convert. “How about you, Jones? Does that kind of thing turn you on?”

She might have known better. This was getting a bit too personal. “Solving murders turns me on.”

“Oh, tough lady,” Culpepper deadpanned.

“Yes, and don’t you forget it,” she cracked, returning to her desk. She wondered if another canvass of the area where the last victim was found would yield anything. Maybe someone remembered some thing they hadn’t mentioned the first time around.

She felt as if they were going in circles.

“Hey, Jones,” Rodriguez called. “I almost forgot. It’s your turn to field the crank calls.”

She groaned, rising again. The more time that passed since the murder, the higher the ratio of crank calls to actual informative ones. “What are they down to? A hundred a day?”

Rodriguez sat down at his own desk. “Give or take.”

She groaned louder as she walked into the adjacent room.