Dangerous to Touch (16 page)

“I have some work to do. Lacy’s going to take over for me for a while.”

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know. Do I have a curfew?”

Her face registered a mixture of hurt and surprise at his sudden personality change. Five minutes ago he’d been hanging all over her; now he couldn’t meet her eyes. Adding insult to injury, when he dropped her off at Pacific Pet Hotel, he didn’t say goodbye.

He headed home, needing some alone time to analyze the inconsistencies of the case. If he stayed overnight with Sidney, the only thing he’d be working on was going a few more rounds between her sleek, silky thighs.

As the headlights of his car hit his closed garage door, he noticed something taped to it. A manila envelope. Leaving the engine running, he got out, ripped the package off the door and sat behind the wheel to open it over his lap.

A dozen or so large, digitally printed photographs tumbled out.

At first, the images were so jumbled he couldn’t make sense of them. As the lines and shapes began to take form, he saw that they were extreme close-ups. The first depicted a woman’s round, supple breast, the upper curve framed by dark cloth, as if she’d lifted her top.

Sidney, he realized, his blood running cold.

Her legs, wrapped around his waist. The long, slender column of her throat. Her hands, clutching his hair as she climaxed.

There was only one full-length photo, and it was incredibly explicit. Their faces weren’t in focus, but what they were doing was clear. He was on top of her, pinning her beneath him, his pants pushed down his hips. His buttocks were clenched. Her hands were curled into fists, resting against the driver side door.

In contrast to the other images, which were vague and erotic, this one was shockingly graphic. It looked like a rape.

“That bloodsucking bitch,” he said, backing out of the driveway in a squeal of tires and heading south, toward Carlsbad, where Crystal Dunn lived.

Crystal was home, if the soft lighting visible through the small octagon-shaped glass window in her front door was any indication. She was also entertaining, judging by the dark green Jaguar in her driveway.

Straightening his shoulders, he knocked on the front door.

“Marc,” she said when she answered it, her expression revealing genuine surprise. “What brings you here?”

“I need to talk to you. Alone,” he added, knowing her latest plaything was lounging in the background.

Her eyebrows rose at his tone, but she stepped aside to allow him entrance.

It was a very cozy scene. Crystal was barefoot and casual in slacks and an ice-blue silk blouse, her pale hair cascading around her slender shoulders. Her coanchor was in his shirtsleeves, no tie or jacket, sipping red wine on her white leather couch.

“Brandon, why don’t you run to the store for me?” Crystal asked as he stood self-consciously. “I need some Evian.”

“Of course,” he said, slanting a glance in Marc’s direction. They’d only met once, but he knew the younger man recognized him. “Lieutenant Cruz,” he said quietly as he passed by, acknowledging his predecessor.

Marc didn’t grace him with a response. As soon as the door shut behind him, he strode forward, dumping the contents of the envelope out on her designer sofa.

Arching a brow, she perched her tiny little butt on the armrest and picked up the photos, studying them with mild interest. “This can’t be you,” she said unequivocally. Glancing up, she caught his sharp glare and looked again. “It is you! My God, were you drunk?”

“What’s your angle?”

Taking a sip of wine, she flipped through the photos once more.

“My guys didn’t take these. Whoever did used a telephoto lens with a nighttime scope, an expensive camera, no doubt about it, but consider the shots. Not one of them is worth a damn. How would we use this? Obscure close-ups and indiscernible faces?”

“Don’t mess with me,” he warned.

“Like I would,” she replied. Scorn blazing from her eyes, she shoved the pictures back into the envelope and returned them to him.

“You certainly have before.”

“Not when I had nothing to gain. You were taken off the case-”

“Because of you,” he interrupted.

“You have no leads, no suspects, no new information. I wouldn’t waste a moment of my time following you.”

He examined her cold, pretty face, knowing she was telling the truth. If he’d stopped to think, before flying off the handle, he would have reached the same conclusion. Crystal only made moves to feed her ego or her ambition; she was self-serving and unapologetic about it. Her ruthless personality had appealed to him at first, because he thought he’d finally found someone he didn’t have to pander to.

As it turned out, having a woman treat him as casually as he’d treated all the others wasn’t that much fun.

“Is she the one?” Crystal asked, her cool eyes assessing him.

“The one who what?”

Smiling slyly, she set her wineglass aside. “You never did me in the front seat of a car. Or on a picnic table.”

“You were more comfortable on your knees, if I recall.”

Her amused expression turned hard. “Do you even remember why you were there? In my dressing room that day?”

The question caught him off guard. They’d hurled insults back and forth, but never actually discussed the incident. Was she trying to claim he didn’t know what he’d seen? “I remember everything,” he asserted.

“Sure you do,” she said with a laugh. “You brought me flowers. It was a grand romantic gesture, for someone like you. Why did you do it?”

Women obsessed over insignificant details, he decided. “What difference does it make?”

“We had a fight the night before,” she continued, but it didn’t jog his memory. “I said I wanted to see you exclusively. I told you I didn’t want anyone but you.”

“Then you’re a liar and a cheat.”

“Goddamn it, Marc, I said I loved you. At the very least you should remember that.”

He shook his head wordlessly, surprised by her vehemence.

“Do you know what you said, in return? ‘Love someone else.’”

The conversation floated back to him, like a dream. He
had
said those exact words. God, he was a bitter bastard. “And you took my advice to heart, didn’t you?”

“You’re goddamned right I did. I thought we were over. If I’d ever, for one moment, imagined you’d be knocking on my door to apologize the next day, flowers in hand, I would have told Carlisle to take a hike.”

The self-righteous indignation he’d been carrying around for the past few years dissolved into faint regret. How ironic it was for him to be having this conversation with her, today of all days. Crystal was the only other woman besides Sidney he’d ever thought he’d loved, and the feeling was twice as unsettling the second time around.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

“Why?”

“Because, once upon a time, you were the one.”

“Oh, Marc,” she wailed, her blue eyes filling with tears. Taking his hand, she allowed him to help her up, and put her head against his chest. “You are so insufferable.”

M
arc left Crystal’s residence with his mind reeling and his shoulders taut with tension.

The photos in his possession were career-destroying. Unlike the shots from Guajome Lake Park, which had caused a minor stir, these would be the end of him. If she saw them, Stokes would have his badge for sure.

It seemed unlikely that Derek DeWinter had been the photographer. His residence was below the hill Sidney’s truck had been parked on, his line of vision obscured by orange trees. Even if he’d run to higher ground, he’d never have made it in time for the main event, which had lasted all of two minutes.

A friend or accomplice could have taken the shots from another vantage point, however, after a simple phone call. Marc would have to go out to Bonsall and scope the scene.

He decided to drop in on Tony first. It was late, and for once, his laid-back friend wasn’t happy to see him.

That made two of them. Furious with himself for getting caught on film for the second time that week, and with Tony for having shady business connections, he jerked his best friend outside by the front of his shirt.

Whispers began barking hoarsely from behind the screen door.

“Tell me about everyone DeWinter deals with,” he ordered.

“I already told you,” Tony returned, shoving him backward. “I don’t know.”

He bit off a curse, feeling his anger fade away, replaced by desperation. “Have you seen anyone outside my house today?” he asked. “Taping an envelope to my garage door?”

“No. Why?”

He groaned, rubbing his hand over his eyes. A riot of sensations from the past few days assaulted him. Sidney, lifting her mouth to his. Her body tensing as he thrust inside her. Him, burying his face in her breasts as he came. What sorcery had she seduced him with? He’d completely lost control, not once, or twice, but every damned time he touched her.

“You have to go out to Bonsall with me,” he said, shaking away the disturbing images. “Case the area.”

“Are you out of your mind? I’m not suicidal.”

“You said he wasn’t dangerous.”

“Men guard marijuana fields with shotguns, Marc.”

He remembered what Sidney had said about Blue being spooked by a gunshot. “I’ll bring my Glock. You still have that 9?”

“Christ,” he muttered. “Yeah.”

“I’ve got to change first,” he said, looking down at the way his pale gray T-shirt caught the moonlight. After he went inside to put on a black one, he left a text message for Lacy.

Just in case.

Tony joined him on the driveway, dressed in dark clothing as well, his long hair pulled back, a brown canvas knapsack slung over one shoulder. He looked like Che Guevara.

“Why are you bringing me along, anyway?” he said after he got in the passenger side. “Short on deputies?”

“You should be glad I’m taking you instead of DEA.”

He found the envelope on the floor mat beneath his feet. “What’s this?” he asked, thumbing through the photos. “Whoa.”

Marc felt heat rise to his face. With Crystal, he’d been too angry to be embarrassed. Now shame was setting in. Having a number of people bear witness to his most ham-handed sexual performance was excruciating.

“Where were these taken?” Tony asked.

“In Bonsall. A couple hundred feet from DeWinter’s.”

“Jesus, man. Couldn’t you have found a more private place?”

“Obviously I didn’t know we were being watched,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Who took them?”

“I don’t know that, either. Crystal said she didn’t.”

“Derek wouldn’t do this,” he asserted, replacing the photos.

“How do you know?”

“I stopped by his house earlier. He talked about her. Sidney.”

His eyes narrowed. “Talked about her how?”

“Like a guy who wishes he could have her,” Tony said. “Not like one who just watched her get it from somebody else.”

Marc struggled to control his jealousy, and lost. “He was planning on calling her?” he asked, his voice hard.

“Nah. He has a girlfriend. He was just…speculating. You know.”

“Bastard,” he muttered. “Did he read about her in the newspaper? Know she was involved with the investigation?”

“No. He didn’t mention it, anyway.”

“What else did he talk about?”

“His sister’s dialysis.”

Marc turned on the radio, noticing his friend’s nervous fidgeting. Tony’s ADD was acting up again. “Did you take your Ritalin?”

He scowled. “Hell, no. It makes me feel like a zombie.”

It made him act like one, too, so Marc was glad Tony wasn’t on medication. They both needed their wits about them this evening.

He drove past the orange grove where he’d parked Sidney’s truck the night before. Down the road a ways he found another secluded spot to park. From there he could see Derek DeWinter’s house and the rolling green hills behind it.

“The photographer would have been up there somewhere,” he said, pointing at a wide expanse of undeveloped land where sagebrush, beavertail cactus and manzanita grew wild. The native vegetation was interspersed with dry earth and flanked by rows of avocado trees.

It wasn’t easy terrain to cover, but they managed, cutting through groves and trampling over the thick brush.

“Madre de Dios,”
Tony whispered when they found it.

The field was so well camouflaged they were practically standing in the middle of it before they realized where they were. Waist-high stalks, bushy with immature buds, quivered in the gentle night breeze. Marc guessed there were about a hundred individual plants. A hundred thousand dollars worth of high-grade stuff.

Tony’s eyes went wide with greed and black with lust.

Marc motioned for him to circle the right side of the field while he started off toward the left. The terrain was loose and rocky, with no discernible path. Nor did there appear to be one particular vantage point from which the grower could keep an eye on the entire crop. It covered too much ground.

There was a flat stretch of land at the base of the hill where a number of large oaks stood alongside a tributary of the San Luis Rey River. A crop this size would require a lot of water, Marc reasoned. If DeWinter was hauling buckets by hand, he probably had to work all night, every night, toward the end of the growing season.

Even so, it wasn’t a bad gig for the amount of cash he could rake in.

Under the cover of oaks, Marc waited, hoping he would hear the sound of splashing water or tromping footsteps. After listening to his own harsh breathing, the buzz of insects and the muted gurgle of the San Luis Rey for what seemed like an hour, he gave up and stepped out of his hiding place.

Looking for Tony, he ran into Derek DeWinter.

DeWinter raised his rifle before Marc could reach into his shoulder holster. “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he ordered in a shaky voice, sounding more bewildered than authoritative. If Marc could take a guess, he’d say DeWinter had never pointed a gun at a man before, and wasn’t enjoying the experience too much.

“I’m a cop,” Marc said, lifting his hands slowly. “I’ve got a badge in my front pocket.”

DeWinter took in a sharp breath, but he didn’t respond.

“Drop the gun, Derek,” a voice said from behind him, and Marc wanted to groan at the poor timing of Tony’s interruption.

DeWinter whirled around immediately, pointing his rifle at Tony, and Marc had his Glock pressed against the back of his neck before he could blink. “Set it down, nice and easy,” he murmured. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

For a moment, Marc feared DeWinter wouldn’t cooperate. If he shot Tony, Marc would have to shoot him, and that would be a hell of a mess. Infinitely worse than losing his job over sexual misconduct.

When Derek engaged the safety and laid his weapon down, Marc felt almost dizzy with relief. Tony secured the rifle, and Marc put his gun away.

“Are you stealing my plants, Tony?” Derek asked in a hoarse whisper.

“No,” he replied, shooting a glance at Marc that promised vengeful retribution. “I would never do that.”

Derek looked back and forth between them. “What are you doing here, then?”

Marc brought his badge out of his front pocket. “Why don’t you invite us back to your place,” he suggested. “I’ll explain everything.”

It was well after midnight when he arrived at Sidney’s house. Lacy opened the door to him without a word, her eyes heavy from sleep, strawberry-blond hair tousled.

“What happened?” she asked.

“DeWinter’s got a couple of different buyers, one who comes down from L.A., another who meets him in Yuma. Last year, someone ripped him off an entire plant. About a pound. He has no idea who, or even when, exactly.” He shrugged. “It could have been anyone.”

She studied him carefully. “Are you taking over for me?”

“Yeah. Go on home.”

At the door, Lacy paused. Marc knew she was aware of his relationship with Sidney. She was a woman, and a cop, and therefore twice as intuitive. “Do you have any idea what you’re getting involved with, Marcos?”

She used the name on purpose, to get his attention. Marc’s greatest ambition in life was to be nothing like his father, who he’d been named after. In that, he’d failed. He couldn’t make a commitment to save his life. The idea of staying with one woman and giving his heart to her, knowing she might take it with her when she left, as his father had done over and over again, paralyzed him.

Every time he looked in the mirror he saw the old man’s face.

“No,” he said, blinking away that image. “I don’t.”

“Be careful,” she whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth. For the second time of the evening, he was caught in a tender, nonsexual moment with an attractive woman he cared about, but didn’t want to sleep with.

He was definitely losing his mind.

Before going upstairs to Sidney, he showered in her outdoor stall on the patio and put his dirty clothes in the machine to wash. Raiding marijuana fields was sweaty work, and he didn’t want her to know where he’d been.

It hadn’t escaped his attention that the man who’d spied on them could have wielded something a lot more deadly than a camera. Such as a sniper rifle.

While under his “protection,” Sidney had been in constant danger. He’d taken her to crime scenes, used her to lure out Derek DeWinter and allowed her to be photographed in a compromising position. Twice.

Yeah, he was doing a real bang-up job as her bodyguard.

In her room, she was lying on her side, fast asleep, both hands tucked under one cheek. Her chest rose and fell with even breathing, drawing his eye to the front of her dolphin T-shirt, which had ridden up above her cotton bikini panties to expose a silky strip of her stomach.

He lay down beside her carefully so he wouldn’t disturb her, getting as close as he could without touching her. For a long time, he watched her sleep, memorizing the lines of her face and the curves of her body, as if her image could sustain him.

Maybe if he concentrated hard enough, he could keep this part of her, a picture locked away inside him, to take out and cherish after he’d gone.