Don't Look Away (Veronica Sloan) (13 page)

He threw back his head and laughed. “Yeah, I guess you could ream me out without ever saying a word, couldn’t you?”

“Bet your ass.” Growing serious, she repeated the most important part of the conversation. “Seriously. Thank you.”

He shrugged. “Don’t mention it, partner.”

He got into the car and drove around the long, sweeping driveway, heading for the nearest parking garage. Ronnie stared after the car, thinking again how lucky she was that she’d drawn him for a partner. If he hadn’t found her in the basement the other night, she could have bled to death. He’d apparently picked her up and carried her through the darkness, upstairs, bellowing for help, and had refused to be kept out of the ambulance that had taken her to GWU Hospital. He’d hovered as much as her mother at her bedside, and while she knew he’d been angry at himself for being out of the room when she’d regained consciousness—leaving Sykes there to be the one she saw first—he’d managed to hide it pretty well.

Though they’d promised each other never to keep count, she knew this latest incident now put him one up on her in the saving-the-life-of-your-partner routine. She’d hauled his ashes out of the fire twice. The White House attack had made the third time her partner had done the same for her.

She owed him. Big time. Not for the first time, she wished she knew what, exactly, he wanted from her. Then again, fearing that he wanted something she was unable to give, perhaps it was just as well.

Never the most patient woman, she shifted on the uncomfortable stone seat, peering through the trees toward the parking deck, watching for Daniels. She did not, however, try to get up for a better look. Claiming she was fine was all well and good. Standing up and proving she
wasn’t
would be a sucker’s move.  

“Well, hello there Detective Sloan. I’m surprised to see you—and very glad you’re all right. You don’t look much the worse for wear.”

“Mr. Tate,” she said, eyeing Phineas Tate’s son, Philip, who’d just emerged from the building, a golf bag slung over his shoulder. Accompanying him was another man, about the same age, blond, also carrying a golf bag. He looked just as wealthy, jaded and lazy as Phineas’s son.

Tate was dressed in lightweight pants and a light colored shirt, his hair artfully messed, his glasses designer, his smile plastic. She wished she could like the man, especially because she so liked the father. But there just wasn’t much to like, as far as she could see.

“A little hot for golf, isn’t it?”

“I like to get nine holes in a few afternoons a week. Do you play?”

“No.”

“Too bad.” Then he pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, stepping over to eye her closely. “You really were hurt, weren’t you?” he murmured, as if just noticing her gauntness and the crazy-ass hair-style. And the fact that she was just sitting outside the building as if she’d lost the use of her legs. He glanced back at his golfing companion. “Detective Sloan was injured on the job. She’s quite the hero on the D.C. police force.”

The other man murmured something appropriate, still looking bored.

Ronnie shrugged. “I’ll be fine.”

“Terrible things happening,” Philip said, shaking his head and frowning. “Awful things.”

But apparently not awful enough to interfere with a golf game. Check.

“Listen, I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said. “I want you to know I am at your complete disposal. If you need me to run interference, or even serve as an
interpreter
, don’t hesitate to ask.” His words were accompanied by a hint of laughter.

“Interpreter?”

“My father and Dr. Cavanaugh are wonderful, brilliant people, but they’re, well, I suppose you’d call them eggheads. They tend to talk above everyone else and it can sometimes be hard to pin them down. They talk in big pictures, in concepts. I know as a police officer you’re probably more interested in detail and fact.”

“Yes,” she admitted, not liking to agree with the younger Tate, because of her loyalty to his father and her belief that the son was being slightly critical. That said, she knew Philip was right. Phineas Tate was a big picture person who sometimes seemed as though he lived in a very different world. They didn’t speak the same language.

“We’re going to miss our tee-time, Phil,” the man’s companion said, impatience seeping into his voice.

“Here,” Philip said, ignoring his friend. He dug into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a solid gold business card case. Flipping it open, he retrieved a pristine linen card and handed it to her. “My work, home and cell numbers.” His lips curled up a little in the corners. “Call me any time, day or night.”

She supposed that charm—and his looks and money—got him lots and lots of phone calls from just about any person he gave his card to. But she doubted he usually gave it to people like
her
. No, she definitely suspected his tastes ran in other directions.

Ronnie carelessly shoved it into her pocket. “Will do.”

He hesitated, as if waiting for her to say more, then finally added, “And if I think of anything I’ll call you as well.”

“Feel free. I can usually be reached at the precinct.”

His soft laugh said he’d gotten the message: She wasn’t handing over her private numbers.

“That’s all right, Detective Sloan, I know how to get you.”

That’s what you think, McSleazy.

He wasn’t getting her at all. Frankly, though, she suspected she was beginning to get him. The flirty-playboy thing was a little obvious and a bit overdone. She’d begun to suspect she knew why.

“Phil?” his friend prodded.

“Just a minute, I’m not finished. Look, why don’t you go start up the car and get the a.c. running?” he asked, tossing his keys to his blond friend.

The other man caught them, offered Ronnie a tight smile, then sauntered off toward the deck.

“I suppose you heard they have successfully extracted the device from the first victim?” Philip said when they were alone.

She nodded, immediately wishing she’d just mumbled a response. Jerking her head, especially out in the sunlight, was not doing her any good.

“I have been told that the device was a bit damaged.”

She sucked in a breath. “Is it salvageable?”

“Oh, I have no doubt of that. My father’s protégé, Dr. Cavanaugh, has been hard at work on it since yesterday. If anyone can retrieve the data stored within, she can.”

The chip being damaged and unusable was something she hadn’t even considered. That would suck beyond all rational possibility.

“Wait a minute,” she said, something just occurring to her. His words hadn’t quite penetrated her groggy, pain-filled brain at first, but now something he’d said really stuck out. “You said they extracted the device from the
first
victim.”

“That’s right.”

“Meaning…”

“Yeah, Sloan. Meaning exactly what you think it means.”

Damn. It was Sykes. She didn’t have to risk an aneurysm by swinging around to double-check that, she felt the man’s presence as he moved into place right behind the bench, dropping his hand onto it, near her shoulder. Not quite touching, but close enough that his fingertips brushed the cloth of her blouse.

He’d obviously come from inside the building; she’d had no idea he was here. He must have finished with his mysterious out-of-town business. Too bad Philadelphia was only forty-five minutes away by helicopter and he’d gotten back fast enough to intercept her before she’d had at least a little time to work on Leanne’s chip.

Thrusting aside all that, she asked the obvious. “Are you saying there’s been another murder?”

Sykes stepped into place beside the bench, his tall form thankfully blocking the sun from her aching eyes, at least for a moment. Of course, sitting there looking up at him wasn’t much better for her head, and might have made it spin a little faster.

“Yes. That’s why I was gone. Another O.E.P. test subject was murdered last night in Philadelphia. The methods used by the killer were familiar—disturbingly so. It looks like the cases have to be connected. There are just too many commonalities for it to be a coincidence.”

Well, that was a new wrinkle. Ronnie had felt pretty sure that Leanne’s murder had been a personal one, that she’d been killed by someone who knew her and wanted to make her suffer. But if another victim had turned up in another city, they’d have to reconsider the theory.

‘I’ll let you two get to work,” said Philip Tate, nodding pleasantly as he pushed his sunglasses back into place. “I’m sure I’ll see you later—I’ll pop into the lab when I get back to check on how you’re getting along.”

The guy acted like he was their boss or something. Ronnie managed to grit her teeth and smile faintly, again wondering about the mysteries of the gene pool that would give Phineas Tate a son like this one.

Once they were alone, Sykes murmured, “So, you heard I was going to be back and came up to meet me, huh?” His voice held not the faintest hint of irony. But she knew him well enough to know it was there.

“I had no idea where you went and wasn’t going to wait around for you.”

“Like I didn’t wait around for you yesterday?”

Hearing an almost offended note in his voice, she peered at him, trying to remember exactly what he’d said yesterday, about what he was doing and where he was going. “You mean you
did
?”

“Of course I did,” he snapped. “I told you I wasn’t snaking your case. We were asked to work on this together. Once you woke up and I confirmed you’d be fine and able to get back to work soon, I put off going either to your precinct to examine the vic’s downloads, or here to check out the chip.” He dropped onto the bench beside her, sitting close enough for their legs to brush. He invaded her personal space, not threatening, but intimate. As if knowing she was still a little unsteady and woozy, he put a hand on her arm, just above the elbow, holding her firmly but not tightly. “What’s it gonna take to get you to trust me?”

Hell, he’d have been better off asking what it would take to get her to sleep with him. That she was already considering. Trust wasn’t even on the radar. It was a much harder thing for Ronnie to give up than a piece of ass.

“I’m working on it.”

“I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”

“Yeah, it probably is. I have to work with you. That doesn’t mean I have to like you.”

“You mean you don’t?” His lips quirked.

“No, I don’t,” she snapped, angry at him for taunting her into saying it when they both knew it was a lie.

“You keep telling yourself that, Sloan.”

She would. Day and night until Sykes skipped on back up to New York where he belonged and she could work on forgetting him all over again.

He tilted his head, scrunching his brow as if trying to recall something important. “I’m curious, did you ever watch those old Charlie Brown cartoons when you were a kid?”

That question came totally out of left field. She slowly nodded. “Uh…I think so. The Christmas one, maybe.”

“Okay.”

She waited. He offered no further explanation. Finally, she snapped, “Well? What about them?”

“Oh, nothing, really. I was just thinking of how much you remind me of the character Lucy.”

Ronnie thought about it, trying to remember the cartoon. It had been years since she’d seen the old holiday special, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what he was talking about.

Except, she suddenly remembered what the character looked like. Indignant, she glared at him. “Was that a hair crack? I haven’t exactly had time to get it taken care of, you know.”

He snickered. “Not even close. I was thinking more along the lines of the way Lucy was always so rotten to Charlie Brown.”

“Awww, did I hurt your feelings Charlie?”

He ignored her. “And it was obvious to everyone that she was so abrasive and mean to him because she had such a thing for him.”

She could only gawk at him. “That’s some ego, Sykes.”

He turned to face her on the bench, draping one arm across the back of it, so close to her shoulders she almost felt the weight of it. “When are you gonna admit you’ve been thinking about me almost nonstop for the past few months?”

She grunted. “When are
you
gonna admit that not every woman’s dying to have you?”

“Not every woman,” he said. He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. The words he didn’t say hung there loud and clear between them in the silence.
Just you
.

She met his stare, held it, forced herself to remain completely noncommittal. She didn’t blink, she barely breathed, utterly determined to brazen-out the moment and not let him know she’d heard those words he didn’t say.

Finally, seeing the twinkle in his eyes as he realized she was, essentially, trying to engage him in a staring contest in some effort at domination, she grumbled, “Oh, shut up.”

That made him laugh out loud. Damn, he even had a sexy laugh—throaty and warm.

“So are you ever going to fill me in on this second murder?” she asked, shifting a little further away on the bench.