Criminal Promises (8 page)

“When did she get out of
prison? Why is she in
my
house?” Maggie lowered her voice as they stepped
in the kitchen. Her jaw muscles ticked. “What is going on? What
have you brought to my home?”

He hadn’t brought Adalia
here. Adalia brought him. “Come with me.”

Grabbing Maggie’s elbow, he escorted her into
the living room. She’d asked him to make her feel safe. He wasn’t
off to a great start, but neither had he thought Adalia would walk
in the front door of a crowded house. He wouldn’t underestimate her
again.

“What’s going on?” Grace
asked.

Ignoring her, he met
Maggie’s gaze. “Stay here. Open the door for no one.”

He turned to go to the
office. She was on his heels. “Harte.”

Lowering his voice to keep
Jared and Grace from hearing, he shook his head. “You wanted me
here. Stay out of my way.”

She swiped her tongue over her teeth in a
slight sucking sound and turned back toward the living room. He’d
witnessed an inner strength beneath her fancy clothes, but now it
threatened to be trouble. He admired her for her even as he wished
it away. Her go-with-the-flow temperament had been replaced with a
new independence.

He went into the office with Craig and closed
and locked the door.

“Patrols are scouting the
area.” Craig reached into a box they’d brought in earlier and
pulled out some latex gloves. He tossed a pair to BD.

“She’ll be gone.” BD
caught the gloves and snapped them on. Shoving back his rage so he
could concentrate on the investigation, he noticed nothing appeared
to be out of place except his piles of boxes, but she’d had a
reason for being there. “She wouldn’t have shown herself to Maggie
without being confident she’d get away.”

“You shouldn’t take it out
on Maggie.” Craig sifted through the papers beside a comfortable
looking armchair. “She came to you instead of trying to follow
Adalia.”

“After following her
outside… She could’ve been hurt.” Adalia had been too close. “What
was Adalia looking for?”

“Nothing seems to have
been messed with. And why wait until we’re both here to come
in?”

“Power.”

Helplessness was an
unfamiliar feeling, but it was how BD felt at the moment. “Maggie
is a stay-at-home mom. She shouldn’t be on Adalia’s
radar.”

“It goes back to the
husband. It has to.”

Adalia wouldn’t have had much time. Craig
looked through the numerous books on the shelves. BD opened the top
drawer of Maggie’s desk to discover tidily organized pens, pencils,
paperclips, staples, rubber bands, scissors, a small tube of hand
lotion and a lip gloss. The second drawer was filled with
color-coded and alphabetized files he pushed backward and forward.
Finding nothing behind, between or under the files he flipped
through each one.

“If these were pleasure
reads, Sullivan must’ve been a blast.” Craig placed a book back on
the shelf and pulled out another one.

“Why?”

“Most of them make school
textbooks look exciting, or are written in bizarre languages and
symbols.”

“He was a linguist with a
specialty in ancient languages.” And yes, it sounded
boring.

“Whatever.” Craig
continued looking for anything Adalia left behind.

She always left something behind.

“Why come straight in
here?” Going through Maggie’s bills and personal documents was an
invasion of her privacy necessity did nothing to minimize. She had
never been just a part of the job and deserved better than this. He
shifted to another file. “It wouldn’t have taken long to plant
something or look for something obvious to her. She had to know the
house layout to target this room. How?”

“City Planning office
would have blueprints, or she’s been watching the place close
enough to know the layout.” Craig placed a book on the shelf and
turned. “I’m finding nothing.”

“Keep looking. At the very
least we’ll find a note.”

“She would have put it
someplace obvious.”

“Obvious to us or to
Mags?” Sitting back in the chair, BD looked around the warm and
welcoming room with a great view of the street through a large
grouping of windows. Walking to the window he turned. With the
blinds mostly open, it wouldn’t be hard to know what was in the
room. “To brave coming in here she would have had a plan. Precise
timing.”

“Makes sense.” Craig sat
another book back on the shelf.

“She’s been watching, but
she has help.” The mystery there was who?

“She thought this room was
the best place to find whatever she’s after.”

“She plays games, but is
methodical with them.” Viewing the room the way Adalia would have
seen it from outside, BD considered the options.

Discounting the bookshelves and the table by
the reading chair, the desk would’ve been the obvious choice. She
wanted her message to be received, but she’d want to control who
found it—Maggie.

Returning to the desk, BD sat and picked up
the mail in an envelope sorter. Flipping through the envelopes, he
found a paper folded neatly between two bills with Maggie’s name
scrawled on the outside.

“Found
something.”

Craig approached as BD opened the letter.

“The cops will not get in
the middle again. I’ll have the key to harnessing the
power.”

—Adalia

What had they gotten in the middle of, other
than a killing spree? What kind of power did she think she could
harness?

“Maybe she went a little
insane on the inside.” Craig sat on the corner of the
desk.

“What kind of key
harnesses power? Is she talking magic or something more
tangible?”

Craig grabbed a pencil and
began flipping it between his fingers. “You buy into
magic?”

“No, but if it means
stopping Adalia I’ll explore it.” He rolled his shoulders back.
Maggie was a room away and he felt her breathing down his neck. “I
have to end this fast.”

“Right.” Craig hesitated.
The pencil never slowed down. “Is there anything in her old
notes?”

BD shoved out of the chair
to pace. He couldn’t dodge the impotence of having his hands tied.
“I’m not seeing any connections.”

He had a promise to keep to Mike Sullivan and
a family to protect, a deranged killer to put back behind bars and
a strong desire to taste the forbidden to ignore. The promise and
the desire for Maggie proved the most difficult. In ten years on
the job, he’d never blurred the line of involvement. Craig the
Tender Heart took the lead when someone needed sympathy, but with
Maggie… The lines were more than blurring. They were vanishing.

Samantha’s death hadn’t been as grizzly as
Sullivan’s, but her face had flashed in BD’s mind as he’d sat with
Maggie’s husband. Then he’d followed Maggie to her bathroom, held
her while she threw up and comforted her while she wept.

One glance and she awakened everything he had
sworn to never feel again. A year of distance had changed nothing.
Her grief brought his back. Her family made him remember all he had
once wanted.

Her voice, slightly breathless, sometimes
skimmed over his skin in a feather-soft stroke. Samantha had
sounded the same at the end. Even as she’d said it wasn’t his
fault, his heart ripped to shreds.

In every obvious way, Maggie was nothing like
Sam. She preferred things orderly. Her understated sensuality hid
beneath tailored slacks and silky tops. Sam had been messy and
blatantly sexy with a preference for low-rise jeans and snug
T-shirts with outrageous sayings.

“Do you think Maggie would
know what key Adalia’s talking about?”

“I don’t know.” BD pinched
the bridge of his nose and forced his thoughts back to the case. He
could worry about Maggie’s appeal and Sam’s fading memory later.
Much later. “Right now she thinks Adalia’s here because of me. If I
ask her about this, she’s going to put things together.”

“Assuming she hasn’t
already.”

A possibility he couldn’t ignore.

“How are you going to
handle this?”

“No clue.” She would be
well armed with questions by now and she’d be relentless if he
didn’t have a great explanation. “What are the chances Sullivan was
having an affair with Adalia?”

“It doesn’t seem likely
from his file.” Craig waved his hands at the room. “Look around
this place. The man was a straight arrow. Dull.”

BD’s stomach knotted.
“Unless he was leading a double life.”

“Man, you can’t let her
know that’s crawling around in your head.”

“And I was thinking of
leading with it.” Without proof the supposition would only crush
her. He pulled a blank envelope from her desk, slipped the note
inside and handed it to Craig. “Take care of this and keep Grace
and the kids out of the way.” He turned to the door preferring an
old fashioned firing squad or a stoning. “I’ll talk to
Maggie.”

“I’m getting the better
deal.”

They stepped out of the office into silence
like the one from the other night.

Something was wrong.

Adrenaline flooded his
veins. If he found her in danger, he’d take out the offender. If he
found her safe…
She better hope she’s in
danger.
He couldn’t protect a woman
incapable of following orders and staying put.

Years of training had his blood slowing as he
went on the defensive. Adalia had not gotten in again so fast. They
pulled their guns. He went right toward the bedrooms. Craig headed
left through the entry toward the guest room and dining room. They
met in the living room and shook their heads. Empty.

The kitchen was empty
too.
Where are they?

“Grace’s car is still out
front.”

Half way across the kitchen to check the
garage, he heard a grunt and a thwack. The hair on his neck
quivered. He wanted to run across the room, jerk open the door and
barge in. Training had him waiting for Craig. Standing to the side,
he twisted the knob. Craig stooped down to go low.

After a brief nod, they
went through the door together.

Maggie shifted her weight and studied her
opponent. Taking her time to calculate the most effective attack,
she crouched, sprang and delivered a hard side kick. The punching
bag wobbled creakily in the brackets.

Who did Harte think he was? Lying to her
about his presence, letting her think he was doing her a favor.
Pretending he hadn’t known Adalia Wood was out of jail. Ordering
her around. Locking doors on her.

He wasn’t getting away with it.

Landing lightly on her feet, she eyeballed
the bag. Her knee ached, a little swollen from the branch incident,
but she was glad she’d changed clothes and sent the kids with
Grace. Sitting around the living room would’ve driven her
batty.

The woman who’d killed four people, including
Mike, was back. She couldn’t change it. She couldn’t accept it
without question. The state should’ve bumped up their schedule on
the lethal injection. They should have informed her of the
release.

Bouncing side to side on the balls of her
feet, she delivered alternating punches into the imaginary images
of Adalia Wood and Harte rotating over the bag. They were both
playing mind games with her. Both were doomed to failure.

“Sweet hell.” Harte’s
voice startled her.

She spun and looked into
his aroused blue eyes. “Go away.”

“Mags, where are Grace and
the kids?”

“I preferred not to have
witnesses when I sliced off your balls and roasted them for
dinner.”

“Well,” Craig cleared his
throat and backed toward the kitchen. “On that note, I’ll go take
care of…stuff.”

Narrowing her eyes she
watched Harte’s partner. “Chicken.”

“Smart.” He smiled as he
slapped Harte on the back hard enough to propel him three steps
forward. “I’m not the one on the chopping block.”

Turning to Harte, she waited eager to see if
he led with the truth or excuses.

“I told you to stay in the
living room.”

“I’m a grown woman. This
is my house. I chose not to.”

Shrugging, she turned back to the bag and hit
it again with a little less force. Twenty minutes of punishing hits
and kicks had her muscles burning. If she went much longer at that
rate she wouldn’t be able to move for three days.

“Next time, do what I
say.” He walked to the opposite side of the bag. “The empty house
worried me.”

“Awww. I might almost
think you gave a jackelope’s ass.” She slid her eyes back to the
bag before punching it hard enough to have the ceiling and floor
brackets rattling. “Except they aren’t real and you’re
lying.”

“Mags.”

Punch.
“Harte, if you ‘Mags’ me one more time I’m going to use your
face instead of this bag.”

Punch.

He cleared his throat.
“Maggie, I have a job to do. This may be your home, but there are
things I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

He paced the width of the garage like a caged
animal. The rage pulsing from him was so thick her sharpest kitchen
knife wouldn’t penetrate it. Watching him hold it in was amazing,
but didn’t change things.