A Fine Specimen (6 page)

Laughter rumbled in
Alex’s chest but he refused to give in to it. This was
not
a laughing
matter, damn it. He absolutely refused to be charmed by Caitlin Summers, no
matter how pretty, no matter how smart she was. She was going to be a burden
and a distraction.

He was going to open the
doors of his station house to her under duress and only because Ray Avery had
asked him to. And Ray was the only human being alive he’d do this for.

“Academic theory always
has a positive rebound effect on the object of its study, sooner or later,”
Caitlin said softly. “So you really won’t have been wasting your time or the
time of your officers.”

“Rebound effect?” Alex
heroically refrained from rolling his eyes. “You mean you think
you’re
going
to help
us
?”

Alex knew he was in
intimidation mode, but to his surprise, she didn’t back down. She clearly felt
she was on safe ground here.

Caitlin nodded. “Sure. A
large part of behavioral psychology is based on the fact that we’re animals and
we follow the rules any animal species does. You eat or be eaten. You mate and
defend your young. You keep the troop or the flock or the pride together and
orderly by following the rules of hierarchy. Aggression must be used under
controlled circumstances or the group suffers. In this one aspect, the human
species differs from all other animal species. No other species has as many
rogue elements as humans. No other species requires that a percentage of the
energies of the group go into keeping order. It’s also very unusual in
primitive human tribes. That’s what makes modern law enforcement so
fascinating.”

Alex grunted and looked
down at his plate, astonished to see that he hadn’t started eating yet. He’d
been starving and she’d made him forget his food. Ms. Caitlin Summers was
proving to be an even bigger distraction than he had originally thought. Not
much could get between him and one of Hank’s burritos when he was hungry.
Deliberately, he sank his fork into the now lukewarm burrito.

Caitlin tilted her head
and studied him. “Go ahead, Lieutenant. Why don’t you tell me about a case
you’re working on and I’ll tell you what academic theory can do.”

Alex stopped with his
fork halfway to his mouth, turning her words over in his head.

No. No fucking way.
Police business stayed in the force. He wasn’t about to go blabbing about their
problems to the first pretty face who asked.

And yet…and yet. Alex
was a good cop because he used everything he could, because he never spurned
help, because he thought outside the box. And this was a woman who’d spent
years studying law enforcement. Surely that counted for something…

Shit.

He was thinking about
it. What was the matter with him? Had he suddenly gone loco?

“You don’t have to give
me names or details, Alex. Just give me the general outline of the problem.”
Caitlin smiled at him, lips curving gently upward. It occurred to him that some
women were smart not to use lipstick. Her lips were a very pretty color all
their own—a smooth, glistening pale pink. He could kiss her without getting
glop on his face. His cock pulsed at the thought of kissing her, diving into
that pretty mouth, licking into it…

He jerked himself back
to reality.
Think about something else
, he ordered himself.

Ratso escaping and Lopez
laughing all the way to the bank came to mind, and his cock subsided.

“We’re looking for
someone,” he found himself saying.

“Someone?”

“Yeah.” Philosophically,
Alex finally put the fork in his mouth and started chewing. With an inner sigh,
he realized that he was going to tell her about Ratso Colby. He didn’t want to,
but he was going to anyway. “He’s the bookkeeper for the man we really want, a
major bad guy. We found out that the bookkeeper had been keeping the bad guy’s
accounts—and I’m not talking about filing for the IRS here. If we can get this
guy we’re looking for to talk, we can put the mobster away for a long, long time.
Unfortunately, word is out on the street that we’re looking for the bookkeeper,
so he’s on the run. From us and now from the mobster, who probably knows by now
what we’re up to.”

“What incentives are you
offering this bookkeeper to flip?”

She knew the lingo, that
was for sure. Not only that. With a stab of surprise, Alex realized she’d cut
straight to the heart of the matter. “Well, our bookkeeper has also been a bad
boy in the past—he knows it and
we
know it. There are two or three
counts we can nail him on. Minor things, but he’s been caught twice before and
this would be the third time.”

“Three strikes and
you’re out,” Caitlin said softly, her eyes never leaving his.

“That’s right,” Alex
said with rich satisfaction. “And our friend spent some quality time in stir
and hated it, and would do anything not to go back in. So we think he’ll give
us names and dates about how and where our bad guy washes his money whiter than
white. And so bang! We nail the bad guy.”

“And what happens to
the…bookkeeper?”

“Witness Protection
Program, probably,” Alex said, watching her as she winced. “What?”

“I imagine that’s as
unacceptable as prison for your bookkeeper. He’d be relocated somewhere at the
discretion of the Marshall’s office, given an identity they choose for him,
doing a faceless, nameless job the office chooses, always looking over his
shoulder…he’s in a tight spot.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s just
tough,” Alex said unsympathetically. “He should have thought of that before
going to work for Lo— For the bad guy. So, are you going to look into your
crystal ball and tell us where he is or not?”

Caitlin looked up
sharply but Alex wasn’t making fun of her. He wasn’t really sure if anything
she might say could be helpful, but he waited politely for her response just
the same.

“There are basically two
types of anti-predator behavior,” Caitlin said. “Escape behavior and crypsis,
hiding to make prey detection more difficult. Do you think he’s escaped?”

“No, he was spotted this
morning, as a matter of fact.”

“So there’s probably a
reason why he hasn’t fled and you might want to look into that. Maybe he’s
waiting for something or someone.”

Waiting.
Alex thought it over. He’d been astonished to
hear that Ratso was still around when it would have made sense for him to get
out of Dodge fast, what with both the cops and Lopez looking for him. The cops
to make him talk. Lopez to shut him up permanently. So why hadn’t he skipped
town? Something or…
someone
, she’d said.

Alex thought it over and
rejected the notion that Ratso had a love interest. The two things Ratso loved
most in the world were himself and money. Now money… Maybe he’d stashed away
some money and was trying to get his hands on it before leaving for good. It
was a line to pursue.

“Well,” he said,
signaling Martha, “this particular predator has to get back to work.” He
frowned as he watched her fumble with her purse. “What are you doing?”

Caitlin froze, blinking.
“Er…getting my wallet?”

His frown deepened.
“What for?”

Caitlin looked around
the four walls of the café as if they could help her. “Um…” She bit her bottom
lip. “To pay my share of the bill?”

Martha slipped the check
near Alex’s right elbow and Caitlin reached for it. Alex clasped her wrist,
feeling her skin warm and soft under his hand.

“No, really,” Caitlin
protested, “you must let me—” She pulled her wrist out of his grasp and knocked
Alex’s glass of ice water straight into his lap.

Alex closed his eyes for
a second against the icy wet sensation in his groin. As opposed to the burning
wet sensation of the coffee an hour before. He opened them to see Caitlin
Summers’ mortified expression.

Well, at least being
doused with ice water had made his dick go permanently down. Count your
blessings where you can find them, Ray used to say.

“Tell me the truth, Ms.
Summers,” Alex said dryly as he threw two tens on the table and stood up. “Did
my dry cleaner send you?”

“
What are you doing
here at this hour
?”

Caitlin jumped at the
harsh, deep voice behind her. She had no doubt who it belonged to. Lieutenant Alejandro
Cruz’s voice was unmistakable. It wasn’t just the deep timbre of his voice, but
the firm tone of command. Yes, it was definitely Alex Cruz.

She stretched and then
turned around slowly, blinking and trying to clear her head to deal with the
man. He always seemed to catch her at her worst moments.

They’d walked back to
the station house in silence after lunch, Caitlin’s cheeks red with
embarrassment. Alex had disappeared into his office and Caitlin had wandered
around, getting a feel for the layout, chatting with the officers.

After a couple of hours
observing the workings of the station, she’d asked Sergeant Martello if there
were somewhere private where she could do some paperwork. Sergeant Martello had
led her to a big corner room just off the squad room with INTERROGATION etched
on the frosted upper panel of the door, and Caitlin had simply dived into the
questionnaires.

She knew that
interrogation rooms were supposed to be windowless and featureless, stripped of
any decoration that could distract a suspect’s attention during the
interrogation so that the questioning could be focused. Almost a form of
sensory deprivation. Unfortunately, since there were so few distractions, the
room was also guaranteed to put her into a study trance, where she promptly
forgot about the outside world and about time passing.

The lieutenant brought
her back to earth with a thump. Reflexively, she glanced at her watch and was
horrified to see that it was almost quarter to eight.

“Oh my God!” she gasped,
rising and quickly shoving her papers together. In the windowless room, she
hadn’t been able to see day fading to night. “Thanks for reminding me how late
it is. I have to hurry. The last bus to Riverhead leaves at eight o’clock.”

He stuffed two big,
heavy books into her book bag and hefted a third in his hand. “I’m glad
these
aren’t landing on my foot,” he said wryly, then glanced sharply at her. “You
don’t have a car?”

“No.” Caitlin tussled
briefly with him over who was going to carry her heavy book bag, then let him
do it. She didn’t have time to waste arguing. It was a twenty-minute bus ride
and it would be almost completely dark by the time she got to Riverhead. And it
was at least a fifteen-minute walk from the bus stop to the Carlton. Ten if she
hurried. She would definitely hurry. The thought of walking through Riverhead
after dark was terrifying.

Caitlin ran down the two
flights of stairs to the ground floor, barely noticing that the lieutenant was
right behind her. She had to battle her way down through laughing, joking
officers walking up. The night shift was coming on. She was about to push her
way through the heavy oak front doors when her elbow was caught in a hard grip.

“Lieutenant,” she said
hurriedly, trying to tug her arm free while reaching for her books. His grip
didn’t hurt, but it was firm. “Thank you for carrying my book bag, but now I
have to run—”

He was glaring at her
grimly. “You’re not running anywhere, Ms. Summers, you’re coming with me.”

Caitlin stopped, all
semblance of thought flown from her head. In gripping her elbow, he had swung
her close to him. So close she had to look up to see his face. So close she
could see the beginnings of a dark beard—he was the kind of man who probably
had to shave twice a day if he went out in the evenings. So close she thought
she could smell him—a faint tang of soap and leather and gun oil—over the
station-house smells of must and sweat and disinfectant. Even though he was
glaring down at her, Caitlin had an insane desire to move even closer, to see
if he felt as wonderful as she remembered.

Temptations were there
to yield to—and she shuffled half a step closer to him.

Oh God, yes, he felt so
delicious. So very unlike anyone she’d ever touched before. Most of the men she
touched were students, with soft, thin limbs. Touching them had never been a
turn-on.

Last fall, she’d dated a
biology major who was hooked on weightlifting and could bench press her late,
unlamented car. He had muscles coming out his ears. He’d felt lumpy and hard,
like rocks in a sock. He had been so involved in his own body that kissing him
had been like kissing her arm. That hadn’t been a turn-on, either.

This
was a turn-on, feeling that strong, lean, fit
body against hers. The temptation to reach up and cup her hand to that dark
face, just to see if she could soften it up, was almost overwhelming.

Clearly the man played
havoc with her thought processes and that was dangerous as hell. This was not a
man you played around with. Not only was he tough and emotionally remote, she
needed his cooperation for the next week. Touching him was out of the question.

She curled her fingers
into the palm of her hand and stepped back immediately.

“I have to go now,
Lieutenant,” she said, trying to tug her arm free. “The bus—”

“I told you to call me Alex.
And you’re not catching that bus.”

Caitlin blinked. “I beg
your pardon?”

He released her elbow
and put a large hand to the small of her back. “You have to call me Alex if I’m
going to be your babysitter.”

Intimidating or not,
Caitlin felt her indignation rise at his words. She’d lost her father at a
young age and she’d held down a job of one kind or another since she was
twelve. She’d put herself through college and graduate school by dint of sheer
hard work and was used to taking care of herself. In fact, she prided herself
on her independence.

Caitlin stopped dead in
her tracks, glaring up at him. “I don’t
need
a babysitter, thank you
very much. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Which right now
means making that eight o’clock bus, otherwise I’m stuck without a ride and I
don’t have cash for a cab.” Caitlin was trying to be forceful and make him
understand that she had to get out of the station house fast, but he was almost
pushing
her to a side door.

“You have a ride,” he
said. “Me.”

“Lieutenant Cruz—”

“Alex.”

“Alex,” she said between
clenched teeth, and dug in her heels. This was terrible and counterproductive.
The last thing she needed was for him to feel that she was going to be a burden
on him. That would be giving him ammunition to get rid of her as soon as
possible. “There is no reason whatsoever for you to feel that you have to babysit
me, or feed me, or drive me around. Now, I would stay and argue the point with
you, but I really, really have to
catch my bus
.”She looked down
pointedly at her arm, where he still held her by the elbow. He dropped his
hand.

“Ray sent you.” The
lieutenant’s deep voice made the statement as if it were the clincher in an
argument. He shrugged.

Caitlin glanced at her
ancient cheapo faux Swatch and the panic rose.
7:55.
Another minute more
and she’d be too late to catch the bus. “I realize you feel you should drive me
back to the hotel, Lieutenant, but there’s no reason—”

“Alex.”

“
Alex
,” she
repeated, feeling hunted.
7:56.
“There’s no reason at all for you to
feel that way. Captain Avery didn’t expect you to look out for me. All he asked
was for you and your officers to give me some of your time.”

“Ray sent you. Frankly,
he would have my head if I let you wander around Riverhead all on your own at
night.”

Caitlin gritted her
teeth and swallowed her words. She knew perfectly well she looked younger than
her years. Part of it was that she dressed so badly. She simply didn’t have the
money to dress as an adult out in the working world. But the combination of her
looks and her clothes had people constantly underestimating her and it rankled.
She wasn’t a dummy and she wasn’t without street smarts. “I won’t be
wandering
around
, Lieu— Alex. I have every intention of being careful, believe me. I
know how to behave in dangerous areas. You really don’t need to worry at all.”

Caitlin might as well
have been talking to the wind. He’d taken hold of her elbow again in a grip
that was just shy of painful and totally unbreakable. She was being walked
toward a side door and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it,
unless she wanted to create a scene or leave her elbow behind. A big clock in
the lobby showed the time.
8:00.

Hell
, she though.
The bus has gone.

They exited through the
side door into a parking lot. The lieutenant—
Alex
—pressed something in
his jacket pocket and a sleek black car in a slot with “Lt. Cruz” stenciled on
the brick wall in front of it unlocked its doors for him with an
expensive-sounding
whump
. It wasn’t enough that he had police officers
and herself obeying him, Caitlin thought resentfully. Even his
car
sprang
to attention, damn his hide.

Caitlin sighed and thought
of her ancient car, Marvin, named after a particularly limp boyfriend who, like
his namesake, often left her flat when she needed him most. Marvin—the car—had
died a geriatric death last month and she simply had no money to replace it. It
hadn’t had a remote-control opening or power steering or air conditioning. She
was lucky it had had four tires, though all of them were bald.

Alex opened the
passenger door for her, releasing her arm only when she was settled in the
passenger seat. “Seat belt,” he said as he slid behind the wheel, cop to the
end.

“Yes
sir
.”

He glanced over, not
visibly disturbed by her slightly acerbic tone. “It’s the law, you know.”

Caitlin probably knew
the law better than he did. The law wasn’t the problem,
he
was. “Well,
the law certainly doesn’t say anything about feeling responsible for me or
having to accompany me to my hotel.”

He backed quickly,
skillfully out of the slot. “The law might not be clear on that point, Ms.
Summers, but there are rules.”

“Caitlin,” she said on a
sigh. “If you’re going to babysit me, we might as well be on first-name terms.”

Traffic was heavy. The
ride took almost forty minutes. Twilight was edging into night by the time Alex
pulled up in front of the decayed old hotel which had never seen better days.

Across the street from
the Carlton was a burned-out apartment building. To the right was a
rubble-strewn empty lot and to the left was a boarded-up building which,
according to the poster on the splintered door, had been condemned by the city
authorities, though no one had cared enough to actually demolish it.

The instant they’d
entered Riverhead at the Madison Street turnoff, the change was startling, like
day into night. The few people on the streets were badly dressed, some
stumbling, some simply standing, eyes blank, high on the drug or drink of their
choice. The buildings were old, built when people had stoops to beat the summer
heat. Many of the stoops had people sitting listlessly on the steps, a bottle
between their legs, staring indifferently at the few cars that drove by.

Riverhead had twice the
number of reported crimes as the rest of Baylorville, but the real figure was
much higher. Most of the crimes went unreported, for the simple reason that
most of the victims were criminals themselves. There was, on average, a murder
every three days, two rapes a week, four muggings a day and countless episodes
of domestic violence. About four million dollars in drugs changed hands every
day.

Then again, drug dealing
was just about the only viable economic activity in the neighborhood.

The life expectancy of
Riverhead residents was thirty years less than that of the residents of the
rest of the city, and for a good reason. If you lived here, you were poor and
either a drug addict or an alcoholic, maybe even both. Either that or you were
married to one or your parents were in the life. There was almost no hope of
escape from here except feet first in a coffin, which happened to a
statistically significant portion of the teenagers in Riverhead.

Alex had grown up
here—six blocks down and an alley over from the Carlton, actually. Even what
had passed for his family—a drunk of a mother and a drug-addict father—had
grown up here. Riverhead was in his genes. He’d been destined from birth to
live here and to die here. His fate was to end up like the other lost souls in
Riverhead—to live fast, die young and leave a big stain.

Thank God for Ray.

Alex remembered the
Carlton from his misspent youth. The Carlton was where businessmen from the
downtown area used to take the young, easy women of Riverhead for an hour on
their lunch break for a quick fuck.

No mistresses down here
in Riverhead, no fancy ladies set up in luxury flats, no expensive call girls.
The women here were lucky to get ten bucks for a blowjob in a car, maybe twenty
for a longer session in the Carlton, which helpfully rented by the hour.

A few years ago, there
had been a fleeting interest in cleaning up Riverhead. The Carlton had been
painted and the roof repaired, just enough of an effort to make it look like a
semi-respectable hotel. But now the paint was peeling again and Alex suspected
that it was being used for things more dangerous than a little illicit love.