Dangerous Kisses (Siren Publishing Classic) (13 page)

“You were busy. So was I. I left before you did, swung by here to, you know, lock up the detective me, then came to the bar. Anyway, Jerry and I didn’t find anything except financial records that substantiated Paul’s concern over the fate of the business. Unless one of the partners decided to get him out of the way so he would stop fighting the sell, then we don’t have any more evidence than we started with.”

“It would be a hell of a motive,” Drake said as he got up to refill his coffee cup.

“I haven’t talked to any of them myself, well, except for Brandon. But, according to Jerry, both Joan and Walter have airtight alibis.”

“What about Robert?” Drake took a sip of his coffee. “You never told me what happened when you went to see him yesterday.”

“He’s still on the list. Part of me wants to say he’s now at the top. He admitted to borrowing the knife from you, said he stashed it in his locker, but it wasn’t there when he cleaned the locker out after Paul fired him. As for his whereabouts during the time of the attack, he claims he was passed out cold on his couch in his apartment. The bartender at the downstairs bar corroborated part of that. She said Robert came into the bar between six and seven o’clock, drank himself stupid, and she cut him off around a quarter after nine.” Megan ate the last bite of her toast and spoke around it. “She said he was barely capable of walking when he left, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t faking it.”

Drake shook his head and chuckled dryly. “As much as I hate to say it, I don’t think that man has enough brains to fake being that drunk.”

“Whether he does or he doesn’t, he’s still your best chance at being checked off the list. He threatened Paul, he was in possession of the murder weapon, and had after-hours access to the facility.” Though he wouldn’t have been able to get inside the building through the back door she believed the killer had used. Debbie could have let him in, though. So far, it was the only probable reason she had been able to come up with for the girl being in the building so late. “Did you know Robert and Debbie were an item?”

“I’ve had my suspicions. I saw them getting pretty chummy around the aquarium a time or twenty. They tried to hide it, but they weren’t very good at it.”

“She was at his apartment when Cusack and I got there yesterday.”

“And now you’re thinking if Robert is the killer, she was his accomplice or something.” Drake looked doubtful. “I don’t buy it. She was there with me Friday night, doing her damnedest to pull Paul out of that tank. She wouldn’t have done that if she had helped someone murder him.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but I’m not dismissing the possibility. She’s lied about why she was there in the first place. I know it. I just can’t prove it, and I don’t know what she’s trying to hide.”

“Guilty by association.” Drake lifted a brow. “You know, she’s not the only one that’s going to be looked at that way if word gets around. What we did last night, my being here now, puts your badge on the line, doesn’t it?”

“You mean the fact that I fucked the prime suspect in a murder case, yes, Cusack will have my head on a platter if he finds out, even if I’m not officially on this case.”

“It was a mistake. We both knew you couldn’t really leave the detective at home. It shouldn’t have happened. It can’t happen again.”

Megan’s heart tripped. “I thought we were far from being through with one another.”

“We are but, damn, Megan. You’re putting your career on the line for me. That’s not what I want. I know it can’t be what you want. Cusack is ready to throw the book at me. I don’t know why in the hell he hasn’t done it already.”

“I’ll handle Cusack.” Megan walked to him, wound her arms around his neck, and locked her gaze with him. “You can handle me.”

A slow grin spread his too kissable lips. He dipped his head, his breath fanning her mouth when he spoke. “I’m actually starting to wonder if I
can
handle you.”

“Hmm.” Megan nipped his bottom lip. “I guess we’ll have to find out later, won’t we?”

* * * *

Megan stopped abruptly when she walked through the doors of the aquarium and Drake nearly plowed into her back.

“What’s wrong?” He did a quick scan of the empty lobby, noting nothing had changed since the night before. Outside, he had spotted Cusack’s unmarked car along with a police cruiser, Marie’s Buick Regal, and a Chevy Avalanche he believed belonged to Walter Samuels. Brandon and Joan apparently hadn’t yet arrived.

“Nothing.” Megan turned to face him. “You’re taking the lead from here. Walk me through it, tell me everything you did, anything you saw.”

“Okay, we might as well start here. I already told you I was making my rounds, feeding the fish, the penguins, et cetera, when Brandon found me and asked me to let him out of the building.” He turned to the doors they had just entered. “These doors were already locked. I let him out, relocked the doors with my own key, and went to the back through that door over there.”

As he started toward the employee door, he saw himself the way he had been that night, remembered how half of his mind had been ticking off the chores he still needed to finish while the other half had been fixated on Megan.

“I didn’t pay much attention to the lobby. It was empty, and there wasn’t anything I needed to do out here.” He felt her walking beside him and shot her a glance. She had told him not to leave anything out, so he didn’t. “I was thinking about you, about how fucking hot you looked that afternoon, and how I was tired of keeping my distance from you.”

She looked at him, surprise mingling with amusement in her eyes. “Was that when you decided to come by my apartment after you left here?”

“It wasn’t a conscious thought at the time, but, yeah, the seed was apparently planted then.”

“All right, hold up.” She stopped him before he pushed through the employee door to the back. “You just said this room was empty. You didn’t see Debbie in the gift shop when you passed by it?”

Drake turned, his gaze landing on the gift shop back near the front doors. He saw the room again as it had looked to him that night, the dim glow of the security lights, the brighter stream of the overhead fluorescent lights in the gift shop, and shook his head.

“The light was on. I remember that, but I don’t remember seeing her in there. Like I said, I was thinking about you and the fish.” He grinned and couldn’t help himself. “Hell, I was thinking about going fishing
for
you.” He looked back at Megan and saw her lips twitch.

“Wise guy.” She rolled her eyes. “Get serious.”

He stopped smiling and stared into her eyes. “I am.” But he did stop making a joke out of it. “I didn’t think anything about the light in there being on. Debbie has forgotten to turn it off plenty of times when she’s left for the night.”

“Okay, go on.”

Drake pushed through the employee door and led her to the access entrance to the penguins. “I barely had one foot through this door when I heard the scream.” As if sucked through a time portal, his world spun back to Friday night, to the moment he heard Paul’s horrifying scream. “I’m not going to describe that one for you. Let’s just say it was the worst sound I’ve ever heard in my life.”

He started walking again, leading her down the back halls, through the spectator area, to the viewing glass of the tiger shark tank. “I passed by here and saw a trail of blood in the water. I didn’t see the shark, didn’t see Paul until I got to the back, up to the top of the tank.” He moved the last few steps that took him to the employee entrance to the tank.

“I heard Debbie’s scream when I opened this door.” He pushed through the door, taking the steps two at a time to the room above. “By the time I got up here, she was at the side of the tank trying to get to Paul.” He spotted Cusack across the room, talking with a uniformed officer. The officer nodded at something Cusack said to him and left the room through the other entrance.

Drake turned to Megan. “That’s it. You know the rest. I dove into the tank, pulled Paul out, ordered Debbie to call for an ambulance, and he died right over there in my arms.” He pointed to the place on the floor where he and Debbie had dragged Paul’s body from the tank, shutting off the memory of his friend’s face, the pain and knowledge that he was about to die that Drake had seen in the man’s eyes.

Megan sighed. “You didn’t see anything else. You didn’t hear anything else?”

“Hell, Megan. At that point, a fucking grenade could have exploded in the lobby and I wouldn’t have known it. I was doing whatever I could to get to Paul, to keep him alive until help got here. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.” He raked a frustrated hand through his hair and started to say more when a sound caught his attention. He spun around, expecting to find Cusack walking across the grating surrounding the tank, but the other man hadn’t moved.

Megan put a hand on the back of his shoulder. “What is it?”

“I heard that.” Drake’s head spun, his memory searching, unconscious senses surfacing in his mind. He walked to the edge of the tank, took a few hard steps across the steel grating. “The steps outside that back door are made of the same material as this.” He stomped his foot, and the grating clanked. It wasn’t the exact sound he remembered, but the one he had heard seconds ago had been.

“That officer you just sent out the back, was he wearing boots, Cusack?”

Cusack shrugged and started toward him. “I didn’t inspect his feet, but I’m sure he is.”

Drake ignored the sarcasm in the sergeant’s tone and turned back to Megan. “You were right about that door. I don’t know how someone got in it, but I do know that’s how he got out.”

Chapter Six

They didn’t find any evidence outside the building to back up Megan’s suspicions or Drake’s memory. Not that Megan was really surprised. Cusack’s men had already combed every inch of the M.P. Colton Aquarium inside and out after she had discovered the knife.

Which leaves us no closer to finding out the truth than we were a few hours ago.

“He’s reaching.”

Megan startled at Cusack’s body pressed against her back, his whispered words fanning her ear. She stepped forward, putting distance between them as she turned. “You think Drake is making it up.”

“Damn right I do.” Cusack’s expression was hard, his tone callous. “And, if you weren’t fucking him, you would think it, too.”

It was all she could do not to gape at him. Was he guessing or did he really know?

“I spent over six months with you, Megan.” He kept his voice low, but it didn’t lessen in intensity or derision. “I recognize that look in your eyes. I knew it the instant you topped those stairs this morning. You fucked him last night. Are you going to try to deny it?”

She sighed, knowing full well
not
denying would give Cusack grounds to take her badge. Still, she went with the truth. “Yes, Drake and I spent the night together last night. Our relationship has nothing to do with this case.”

“Bullshit.” Cusack was livid. “You fuck the prime suspect in a murder case and you think the two can be separated? I should have you on report, Detective Pontius.”

“And I should have you on report, Sergeant Cusack, for not thoroughly investigating a crime scene the moment you walked into one.”

“What I walked in on here Friday night was the scene of an accident. There was no evidence to lead me to believe otherwise.”

“No, of course not, except for a freaking bloody knife not ten feet away from the body.”

“A bloody knife that belonged to your boyfriend, who just so happened to be in this room with the knife, the body, and a hell of a story to tell. He’s the one person connected to this case that doesn’t have a solid alibi.”

“His alibi is just as solid as Debbie Norman’s,” Megan fired back. “Or have you forgotten she was in this room, too?”

“I haven’t forgotten. She’s in on it. I’ll give you that, but it’s not Robert she’s protecting. It’s Drake Allen.” Cusack scoffed. “He’s probably fucking her, too.”

Megan balled her fingers into a fist. God, she wanted to slap him. She held back, but she made sure he saw her anger in her eyes. “Then why haven’t you brought her in? Interrogate the hell out of her.” Debbie Norman would crack under pressure. The girl was too weak, too susceptible to hold it together for long if she had somehow been involved.

“For the same reason I haven’t brought your boyfriend in. I’m waiting for him to hang himself. He’s one story shy of doing it, too, with the shit he’s making up now. He’s bringing you down with him, and you’re letting him do it.”

“I’m—” Megan broke off when a door somewhere slammed so hard they could hear it in the tank room. She exchanged a look with Cusack and double-timed it down the stairs and into the main hallway where she nearly plowed into Drake and the officer Cusack had ordered at Drake’s side while Drake fed the animals.

“Paul’s office,” Drake told her with a pointed look down the hall. “Had to be. It’s twenty minutes after eleven. Brandon and Joan should be in there with Marie and Walter by now.”

Megan started running again, this time in the direction of Paul’s office, with the others close at her heels. She saw Brandon walking briskly away when she rounded the corner to the next hall.