Читать книгу Falling For Him - Morgan Hayes - Страница 11

THE PATROL CARS WERE GONE from the front of the former Marmack Bed & Mattress Company when Claudia parked the Lumina along the curb. The yellow crime-scene tape had been stripped, as well, except for one broad band fixed over the suite door. James Silver’s office was clear of technicians and officers; the only remaining pieces of evidence that a crime had occurred were the black powder smudges and the dark stain on the floor behind the desk.

They spent an hour going through the PI’s file cabinets and drawers, sifting through endless paperwork on the remote chance they might uncover some lead. They listened to the incoming messages on Silver’s answering machine, but there were no obvious links to the man’s brutal slaying. Even so, Claudia confiscated the machine and its tape, boxing them up with several other items of possible relevance.

“Looks like you might have a next of kin here,” Claudia said eventually, breaking the silence.

Gavin glanced from the files he’d been searching to where she sat at Silver’s oak desk.

“Eileen Silver. Probably his mother.” She handed him the address book she’d just thumbed through. “It’s a Key West address. You might want to contact authorities down there to break the news to her, instead of telling her by phone. That’s about it though. No other Silvers or anything else that appears to be family.”

It was the most she’d said to him since they’d left Jimmy’s. From the moment he’d asked about Frank Owens, Claudia’s reserve had grown. Her response to anything he’d asked had been clipped and to the point, leaving him to wonder if perhaps he’d made his move too soon.

In retrospect, he might have done better to not bring up the subject of her former partner during their very first encounter. On the other hand, the conversation over breakfast had taken a natural turn in that direction. It might have seemed even more obvious had he not asked for her opinion regarding her partner’s death.

He watched her continued exploration of Silver’s desk. As the morning sunshine slipped through the wooden slats of the blinds behind her and touched the highlights of her cropped hair, Gavin thought of angels. The imagery struck him as ironic, especially considering the fact that Claudia Parrish was as likely a suspect as anyone in the ongoing corruption within the Homicide unit. After all, the evidence tampering hadn’t ended when Owens’s life had. And the most recent involved one of Claudia’s own cases.

Gavin hadn’t been surprised to learn of Judge Warner’s dismissal of the Brown case yesterday. Reports of the missing gun were in the file Gavin’s lieutenant had handed him five weeks ago—a thick file compiled by the previous IAD agent who had failed in his attempt to expose the corruption. Failed like the two IAD investigators before him. And it was because of their failures that Lieutenant Randolph had at last caved in to Gavin’s request to be reassigned to the case. Only this time, Gavin vowed, it would be different.

A year ago, Gavin had been appointed to oversee the first investigation into the corruption that seemed to surround Baltimore’s Homicide unit. Back then, however, the direction of the investigation had been dictated by others. By the time he’d come on board to head the probe, Owens was already IAD’s primary target.

From the start, Gavin had been uncomfortable with the case. He’d tried to turn it around, slow it down, anything to give him time to prove that Owens was truly guilty. He’d tried to reopen past investigations into Evidence Control and Violent Crimes, suspecting the problems might come from there instead, but the brass had only come down on Gavin for straying—Owens was their target. IAD had increased their pressure on the seasoned detective, stopping only once Frank Owens had killed himself. IAD didn’t seem to care, but Gavin had never been able to rest easy. He’d spent the past ten months wondering…suspecting Owens’s innocence and knowing that the man had died because of the investigation he had led.

He’d demanded to be taken off the assignment, and Lieutenant Randolph had complied. Since then, the probe had practically ground to a halt. Gavin had watched the blunders of the next three agents, until finally his conscience had forced him to step in. But he’d insisted they would now do things his way.

“I want to start from square one, Lieutenant,” he’d told Randolph. “I want to look into everything, not just Homicide.”

“Monaghan, you’d be wasting your time. We’ve done all that. The corruption stems from the Homicide unit. There’s no doubt. Weapons and critical evidence in murder cases are going missing, and someone’s taking a payoff. It has to be a detective, someone with connections to the street and the capacity to reach, and deal with, the suspects. No one in Evidence Control would have that kind of access.”

“Fine. Then put me undercover. Let me work within the unit.”

Lieutenant Randolph shook his head. “We don’t operate that way, and you know it. Only for extreme—”

“This is extreme, Lieutenant. A man lost his life. A good detective.”

“Let it go, Monaghan.”

“I can’t let it go. Frank Owens killed himself because of the allegations against him. And honestly, I don’t know for certain they were valid allegations.”

“Yeah, well, we also don’t know that he wasn’t guilty, do we?”

“No? Then how do you explain the fact that the evidence tampering hasn’t stopped?”

Randolph handed Gavin a file.

“What’s this?”

“Claudia Parrish. Owens’s partner. The one person who was probably close enough to him to know about the corruption, and the one person who might be continuing his practices. Or, who knows, maybe she was in on it from the start? She was the secondary detective on all three of Owens’s bad cases. It could have just as easily been her taking payoffs from the start. It could have been her implicating him.”

Gavin opened the file and fingered through the reports as Randolph continued.

“And just recently, Detective Parrish had a case of her own go bad. No doubt, it’s going to be thrown out of court just like Owens’s were.”

“So she’s your target?”

“Definitely.” Lieutenant Randolph nodded, and Gavin experienced déjà vu. This was the Frank Owens investigation all over again.

“I’m not going on another witch hunt, Lieutenant,” he said, closing the file, prepared to hand it back if his superior disagreed. “We do this my way, or I’m out. If Claudia Parrish is guilty, if she is the source, I’ll flush her out for you. But I’m not starting any fires until I know for certain.”

Fortunately, Randolph had accepted his terms. And by the end of the afternoon, they’d compiled a cover story for Gavin, right down to the believable detail of his having been the commissioner’s chauffeur. With a false background in place, coupled with the fact that IAD so rarely went undercover, Gavin felt confident he would raise few, if any, suspicions from the detectives he’d be working with. Most importantly, from Claudia Parrish.

Now, in Silver’s office, knowing Claudia for barely five hours, Gavin wasn’t sure what to make of her reaction to his bringing up the question of Owens’s death. She’d defended the integrity of her dead partner, as Gavin would expect any respectable detective to do, and her voice had remained relatively calm throughout. But her expression had wavered, and in it Gavin sensed the emotion just beneath her calm exterior.

After five years with IAD, Gavin prided himself on his keen ability to read people. Claudia Parrish, however, seemed beyond his comprehension. Either her defensiveness was an honest response, or there was more behind the sharp tone she’d adopted seconds before she snatched up her coat and stalked out of Jimmy’s.

Gavin hoped her edginess was only exhaustion. He definitely had to be careful. He couldn’t afford to alienate Claudia.

She seemed calmer now, as she opened one of Silver’s desk drawers and lifted out another stack of papers. She, as well, had surrendered to the stifling heat of the office; her suit jacket lay draped over the back of one chair. When she stood at last and stretched, Gavin let his eyes take an appreciative sweep over her small, trim figure. Her short-sleeved turtleneck puckered where the leather straps of her shoulder holster pulled at the delicate fabric. But from there, the formfitting top left little to the imagination, hugging every sensuous curve leading to her slim waist.

Keeping an eye on Detective Parrish was certainly not going to be an unpleasant aspect of his assignment.

He watched her pace, admiring the lithe movement of her body. Fine lines creased her forehead, and Gavin wondered if she was thinking of Owens or Silver, or quite possibly both; he wondered if she, too, toyed with the theory that there may be some relation between the two deaths.

She stood at the window for a long moment, staring at the traffic crawling down Boston Street. When she turned suddenly, her gaze caught his, and Gavin knew she’d been aware of his perusal. But she remained silent. She returned to the desk and set to work once again.

A full twenty minutes passed before she spoke again.

“I think we might have something here,” she said so quietly Gavin had to look up to be sure she’d actually said something.

He crossed the office to stand next to her chair, as she flipped through one of two hard-bound journals.

“Silver’s date books?”

She nodded. “Obviously he didn’t want them found. They were jammed at the back of the drawer. Look at this.” She turned to the end of last year’s journal, traced one slender finger across the page and stopped at a scrawled entry.

“This was last December. Silver met with Frank. On the fifth. On the sixth. And here again on the eighth.” She pointed to one entry after the next, working her way to the date of Owens’s death.

“Of course he met with Owens,” Gavin offered. “You said yourself they were friends.”

Her hand trembled slightly as she continued through the pages, and he doubted it was from the four cups of coffee she’d had.

“But he documented the meetings. Made appointments. I doubt he’d do that if they were just social visits. And it appears they were discussing the allegations against Frank.” Her finger stopped at the bottom of the page. There, in bold, block letters was written: IAD. With a blue ballpoint, Silver had gone over each letter several times so that they practically glared off the page.

“And take a look at this.” Claudia opened the next journal. “After Frank’s suicide there’s nothing really. The entries are haphazard—scattered references to other cases he was working, people he met with, names, numbers, addresses. Nothing remarkable until last week.”

Claudia drew Gavin’s attention to the margin. Again in Silver’s block letters: CC# 2L5915.

“What’s that?” Gavin asked, even though he recognized the number immediately.

“It’s the incident number from the investigation into Frank’s suicide.”

“So you’re suggesting Silver was looking into Frank’s death?”

She shrugged.

“Why now, after all these months?”

“I don’t know. But maybe that’s what got Silver killed.”

They were definitely thinking along the same lines, Gavin decided. He leaned closer, one hand on the back of her chair and the other planted firmly on the desk beside this year’s journal. He was close enough to smell that subtly provocative perfume of hers again. And definitely close enough to feel the heat of her body as his hand brushed past her wrist to turn the page. He let out a silent breath, trying to ignore the way his body responded to that brief touch. He focused on the journal entries. Scanning each page, he noted names and numbers, none of which rang any bells. Until he reached the bottom of one page.

The date: October 13. Only three days ago. There was no missing it. The name was written out in bold red ink along with her home phone number and address: CLAUDIA PARRISH.

Gavin straightened abruptly. “I thought you said you hadn’t seen Silver since January.”

“I don’t know what my name’s doing in there.” Gavin pointed at the journal. “Well, my guess would be he intended to call you.”

“That might be, but I didn’t speak with him.” Did her voice carry a twinge of defensiveness? Gavin wondered.

“I didn’t,” she repeated, “I swear, I haven’t talked to Silver recently.”

He reached out and turned another page. October 14. Again, Claudia’s name, but with this entry there was a location scrawled on the line below: JIMMY’S.

Gavin didn’t have to say anything.

“I don’t know why he wrote these entries in his date book,” she said. “Obviously he intended to call me, but he didn’t.”

“You didn’t have breakfast with him two days ago?”

“No. I told you, until this morning I haven’t seen Silver since just after Frank died.” She must have noted the skepticism in his expression, because she added, “You don’t believe me?”

He shrugged. “I just have to wonder. After all, you did hesitate when we first arrived on the scene this morning.” As though she knew what was waiting for them in the office, Gavin thought but didn’t dare say.

“And I admitted to you then that I knew Silver. Of course I hesitated when I found out he was our victim.”

“So you don’t know what Silver was working on? There’s nothing you’re not telling me?”

She pushed the chair away from the desk and stood. “There is nothing I’m not telling you.” Her gaze locked with his. “What is this really about, Monaghan? Are you suspecting me of something? Because if you are, I’d appreciate if you’d just come right out and say it.”

He didn’t respond, but, instead, watched her, searching for something that might convince him she was telling the truth.

“You don’t trust me, do you?” she challenged. “You think I have something to do with this? With Silver’s murder?”

“Well, you can’t deny that it does appear a little suspicious. Our victim’s got your name, your number, even your address. And obviously he was intent on calling you, judging by the exclamation mark beside your name.” He picked up the journal. “Then a couple days later he turns up dead.”

He flipped a few more pages in the journal, but there were no more references to Claudia or anyone else in the last two days of Silver’s life.

“You gotta admit,” he said, “you’d be coming to the same assumptions if the tables were turned.”

“Assumptions? So what kinds of ‘assumptions’ are you making then? That he contacted me, and over a plate of greasy eggs we had a disagreement about Frank? And because of that, I came over here last night and shot him? Is that it? Well, I think you’ll find some flaws with your theory, Detective Monaghan. For one, I was on shift last night.”

“I didn’t ask for an alibi. But since you mention it, the squad wasn’t on until midnight.”

She let out a sharp breath, a caustic smile pursing her lips. “So just because my name’s in his date book you’re going to view me as a suspect? Is that it? Well—” she crossed the office and snatched the journal from his grasp, snapping it shut and practically tossing it back at him “—you’ve really got your work cut out for you then, Detective, because there are a hell of a lot of names in there.”

She turned from him, as if to storm from the office, but Gavin caught her arm. When she tried to tug free, he tightened his grip and pulled her around.

“Claudia, listen to me.”

He waited for her gaze to meet his and was struck by the quiet fury that darkened them.

“Look, I don’t want to get off on the wrong foot here.”

“Well, I’m not sure about the other units you’ve worked with, but accusations aren’t generally the best foundation for a partnership.”

“I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”

“No? It sounded like it to me.”

“I’m sorry. It’s my first case.” He tried to adopt a tone of sincerity, hoping to convince her. He couldn’t afford to lose her trust so soon, in spite of his own suspicions. “I just want to be sure I’m getting all the facts,” he said calmly.

“Truly, Gavin.” He was glad to hear her adopt a softer tone. “I have given you all the facts. I told you how I know Silver. I told you we had little contact in the past. And in spite of what his date book might imply, I never met with him two days ago. I’ll even go one step further and admit that yes, I was at Jimmy’s for breakfast that day. But I ate alone. I was going over my files to prepare for the arraignment hearing on the Brown case. I didn’t meet anyone at Jimmy’s. And I most certainly did not meet with James Silver.”

“All right. I believe you.”

Claudia looked exhausted, spent, even more than she had when he’d met her. She combed her fingers through her hair with obvious frustration as she closed her eyes and turned away from him. Releasing a long breath, she peered through the slats of the blinds and lifted a hand to her neck in an attempt to massage the stress that no doubt had settled there.

“Claudia, we’re both tired. Why don’t we call it a day? Get some sleep. We can box this stuff up, take it in, and look at it when we’re more awake. Less on edge.”

She nodded silently, her gaze fixed out the window.

Gavin tossed the two date books into the box, along with several other files he’d set aside, and folded the top closed. Claudia was still staring out the window when he came to her side and handed her her jacket.

“Thanks.” Even her voice sounded weary as she slipped her jacket on and tugged the bottom over her holster. “And I’m sorry for snapping. I need sleep.”

“No apology necessary.” He liked the smile that struggled to her lips, giving her mouth a wry but sensual curve. It was only a smile, Gavin reasoned; yet he felt himself respond—a low, warm tug deep in his gut—when he imagined what those lips might feel like against his.

But imagining was all he’d be doing when it came to Claudia, Gavin resolved as he turned from her to the box on Silver’s desk. Suspicions or no suspicions, she was definitely off-limits. He was hardly going to jeopardize his case, his entire career, for the sake of a woman. He’d never done it in the past, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now, no matter how alluring Detective Claudia Parrish was.

AFTER SHE AND GAVIN HAD closed up Silver’s office, Claudia drove them back to headquarters. Gavin’s car had been parked in a lot along the way, and she’d dropped him off before hauling the box of Silver’s files to Evidence Control. She hadn’t bothered to go back to the office after that, but went directly to the garage to get her own vehicle. It was noon by the time she steered her weather-beaten Volvo onto Shakespeare Street.

She parked halfway up the block, outside a yellow-brick three-story Victorian row house. Shouldering her briefcase, she took the marble steps to the massive oak doors and shoved one open.

From the first-floor apartment, she could hear Mrs. Cuchetta playing the baby grand piano she used for lessons, but as Claudia staggered up the stairs, exhausted, the thick walls of the old, converted row home swallowed the classical melody. And when Claudia finally closed her door behind her and threw the dead bolt, there was nothing but silence. Gratifying silence.

She dropped her keys onto the front hall table and stepped into the small but cozy apartment she’d called home for the past three years.

Shedding her jacket and holster and kicking off her shoes, she put some water on for tea.

On the corner of the kitchen bar, next to a mounting stack of bills, the answering machine blinked. She tossed a tea towel over it, covering the demanding red light. It hardly mattered; even before she’d finished pouring her tea, the phone rang.

“Faith, I just got in,” Claudia told her sister after being verbally censured for not returning her calls.

“Well, I wanted to be sure you were all right. October sixteenth and all.”

Claudia stirred sugar into her tea. Leave it to her little sister to remember anniversaries that weren’t even her own. Faith remembered everything to do with family; not at all like Claudia. The only things she managed to remember these days were the details of her cases. It hadn’t always been that way, of course. Before Frank’s death, before she’d immersed herself so completely in her work that it seemed there was nothing else, things had been different.

Now, faced with Faith’s concern, Claudia wondered if maybe she should never have told her sister. It might have been easier to let the secret die along with Frank, so that no one could remind her of the love she’d shared so briefly with him.

“Look,” Faith was saying. “Greg mentioned just this morning that it’s been a while since you’ve been out here. And you know it’s only a forty-minute drive. You’d think it was a forty-minute flight given the number of times we’ve seen you in the past year. So what do you say to dinner tonight? I know it’s short notice, but it wouldn’t be if you actually listened to your messages.”

Claudia didn’t respond. She yanked the tea towel off the answering machine, the red light blinking as insistently as ever. James Silver. What if he had tried to call her? With preparations for the Brown arraignment, she hadn’t checked her messages in days.

“Faith, I’ll have to get back to you on that. Maybe tomorrow? I’ve been up since yesterday morning. I’m exhausted. But I’ll call.”

There was a pause before Faith finally complied. Making Claudia promise to call, and assuring herself that her big sister was really okay, Faith at last hung up.

Claudia’s hand hovered over the answering machine for a moment before she at last pressed Play.

As predicted, three of the messages were from her sister. But there were five others—all hang-ups. Using her Caller ID, Claudia wrote down the number, and within a minute she’d confirmed her hunch. The Yellow Pages lay in her lap, open to the listings for private investigators.

James Silver had called her five times in the past three days. It didn’t surprise her that he hadn’t tried her at the office, not if her suspicions were correct. If Silver had been looking into Frank’s death again, then the Homicide office was the last place Silver would have risked calling. But why hadn’t he bothered to leave even one message? Maybe because he thought this too would be a risk?

Claudia stared at Silver’s ad for a long time, her mind staggering over the countless alternate scenarios that might have played out had he actually been able to reach her. Would he be dead now? Would they have uncovered something new about Frank’s death? Could she have intervened?

Switching off both the machine and the phone, Claudia moved to the living room couch and turned on the TV. But the aimless flicking through channels did nothing to divert her thoughts from Frank and Silver. If she knew one thing for certain, it was that Silver had been taking a second look at Frank’s death. It was the only explanation behind his attempt to reach her.

But why? What had prompted him to relaunch his investigation into Frank’s death?

Claudia set down the remote control and reached under the couch. She groped for the orange pressboard binder that had been hidden there, unopened, for at least six months. Sliding it out, she brushed the thin layer of dust from its cover.

CC# 2L5915.

It was one thing to remove a case file, or any portion of it, from headquarters. The breach of security was done on occasion by detectives and overlooked by their supervisors. But to duplicate an entire file, from cover to cover—all the reports from officers and supervisors alike, from the Chief Medical Examiner’s office and the various crime labs, interview transcripts, detective’s personal notes, even crime-scene and evidence photos—was completely against department policy. Not to mention punishable by suspension, Claudia thought, as she eased the thick binder into her lap.

For Claudia, copying the file had been worth the risk. Ten months ago she had believed that Frank couldn’t have killed himself, and that everything in the reports must have been a cover-up.

She probably should have destroyed the file once she’d submitted to the consensus that Frank had taken his own life.

Yet, now Claudia was grateful she had kept it. After all, maybe questions remained to be asked and answers to be found. Obviously Silver had believed so. But had there actually been new information? Or had he simply been grasping at the same old straws he’d had the last time they’d spoken?

Claudia opened the file, trying to avoid the pages of photos. She was unsuccessful. The four-by-six color images brought back that unforgettable night as though it had been only yesterday. She relived the disbelief and the horror. And then the utter emptiness she’d felt when she held Frank’s hand for the last time.

She remembered crying, and then Lori trying to console her. It wasn’t until Claudia had caught sight of the picture on Frank’s mantel—a photo of the two of them receiving their bronze stars—that Claudia had finally pulled herself together that night. For Frank, she’d kept up appearances. For him, she’d never once let on that he’d been anything but a partner to her.

Claudia stared at the open binder in her lap. The crime-scene photos blurred with her tears. Frank couldn’t have killed himself, she thought for the millionth time. The Frank she had known, the man she’d loved…he hadn’t been a coward or a quitter. And yet, what else could she believe now that all the reports were in?

God, but she missed him.

She missed his voice and his laughter. She missed the excitement of working a case with him, having him by her side and knowing she was with the best detective on the force. And she missed the little things about Frank—the familiar gestures and wisecracks that could bring laughter to any gray day, his knowing smile when he’d look up from his desk to where she sat across from him, the light that would touch his eyes when she’d open her apartment door and find him standing on the landing, and the way his hand had felt in hers—rough, warm and secure. She missed the feel of his body against hers, and she missed the way he’d whisper his love for her and tell her they would always be together.

But in spite of her longing for him, Claudia wasn’t certain she could ever forgive Frank for giving up. With the file open in her lap, she closed her eyes and settled her head against the top of the couch. Maybe that was the real reason she hadn’t gotten rid of the case file—maybe she felt that by hanging on to it she still held a piece of Frank. And maybe she would never be able to let him go. He lived in her heart, along with her anger and her resentment. No one could ever come close to touching her the way Frank had.

Inexplicably, Gavin Monaghan entered Claudia’s thoughts. She’d be lying if she said there wasn’t a glimmer of attraction there. It was certainly the first time she’d felt anything like it since Frank. And she hadn’t been the only one who’d toyed with such thoughts—she’d seen the way Gavin had looked at her when they were in Silver’s office.

She remembered the effect his smile had had on her when she’d dropped him off at his car and apologized again for her behavior in Silver’s office. He’d had every right to question her. If the roles had been reversed, she would have demanded the same from him. He’d accepted her apology and given her a smile. Her entire body had responded to that smile with a quick shiver of excitement.

Claudia closed her eyes. She had to push Gavin Monaghan from her thoughts. It was ridiculous to think she was attracted to a man she barely knew. She was, Claudia rationalized, only because he’d done a couple of little things that had reminded her of Frank. That was all.

Besides, how could she possibly have feelings for anyone when her heart still belonged to Frank?