FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (22 page)

“Want to split up?” Dean asked. “Work our way through the room faster?”

Stacey shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know these guys. Some of them will do better with you—I’ll let you know which—but some won’t give you the time of day.” Not that they’d do much more for her. But at least she knew their weaknesses.

Spying a couple of the men Dick had named during her original investigation, a pair of roughnecks who lived downstate but came here to do their drinking and raise their hell, she strode to their table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. “Afternoon, gentlemen.”

They both eyed her sullenly. The smaller of the two, a weasely sidekick by the name of Lester, tried to act tough. If his big buddy weren’t sitting beside him, he would already be spilling his guts. “You looking for some company, pretty lady? You need a couple of men to remind you what you got between your legs—and what you ain’t?”

Feeling an almost tangible burst of heated fury from Dean, who stood beside her chair, Stacey shook her head once. Eyes narrowed, she dropped her elbows onto the table and stared, hard, into Lester’s bloodshot eyes. “You don’t want to compare balls with me, boy. Remember, I busted your naked ass for public indecency last year. So I know how
small
the chances are that you’ve got anything I’d be interested in.”

His companion, a big, hard-looking dude who rode one of the choppers outside, snorted at the put-down. “You better shut up while you can,” he told his friend. Lifting his mug of beer to his lips, he drained it. Streams of amber liquid and foam slid down either side of his mouth to soak his thickly bearded chin. When the mug was empty, he slammed it down, the table shaking beneath the force of the blow. As if both fortified and confident of the manly display he’d made of his supermacho ability to chug a beer, he nodded at Stacey. “Go ahead,” he said. “Ask whatever you want.”

“But—” Lester interrupted.

“If you ain’t smart enough to remember what she can do with that club on her hip, I am.” The man rubbed his head, obviously remembering when Stacey had stopped him from breaking any more furniture right here in this room during a bender last fall. The big man’s fierce frown faded. “Besides, I know what you want to hear about. That little Zimmerman girl was messed up, but she was a sweet young thing once upon a time. And if somebody really murdered her, chopped her up, and fed her to some wild pigs, I hope you fry the bastard.”

Hearing Dean’s disgusted sigh, she contemplated correcting the crazy story. But it was already too late. The rumor mill was hard at work, and no matter what she said, the stories would persist, growing wilder, until Lisa’s remains were found and the cause of death made public. And even then the conspiracy theorists would continue to embellish.

“I might not be on your side most of the time,” the burly guy added, “and I might hate your guts. But I’ll help if I can. For that little gal’s sake.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

She flipped open her notebook, not entirely surprised at the man’s reaction, because even tough guys had a code. His line between right and wrong might be wider than Stacey’s, but he knew enough to recognize when it had been crossed.

Cooperation from one of the most badass regulars at the skankiest establishment in the county, that was a good start. But she knew it wouldn’t last. If she got cooperation from everyone else in the place, she’d trade in her badge for a case of Mary Kay cosmetics and her squad car for a pink Cadillac. Because things were just never that easy.

They were looking
for Lisa Zimmerman’s body.

When he’d first heard the FBI was in Hope Valley, he hadn’t worried. What could that possibly have to do with him? He’d done nothing close to home in ages, nothing to draw attention to himself. His fun in the Playground couldn’t lead back here to his real door. He’d been far too careful for that.

Then he’d heard about them digging near Warren Lee’s place. That was a bit troubling, but still nothing to panic about.

Eventually, like always, the gossipers got everything jumbled up. The stories about Lisa’s disappearance and a potential murder victim being sought by the FBI had gotten twisted together into one big, very plausible rumor.

Then came the confirmation: It really was Lisa they were looking for.

As he sat alone in his most secret place Saturday evening—a room to which he alone had access, concealed from any prying eyes—he had to concede a certain sense of alarm. Not fear. He never experienced fear, just as he never experienced pain. He’d done far too much, inflicted agony and visited death on far too many, to worry about it coming for him. He was death, after all.

No, his concern was the inconvenience of it all. The descent of a bunch of FBI agents chasing bodies they would never find might interfere with his plans and restrict his movements.

It also might bring exposure of other things. Things he wasn’t responsible for.

Someone else was.

“You asshole,” he hissed, suddenly enraged. Because if those
other
activities were uncovered, the interest in those crimes might spill over onto him. People might come around, ask questions, do a search.

“Don’t panic,” he reminded himself, focusing on the main issue. Lisa.

How did they know she was dead? For the past year and a half everyone had accepted the fact that the little slut had run off somewhere on her own. Why had that changed? What evidence could they have?

“They’re bluffing,” he told himself. “They must be.”

Wanting a distraction from the worry, he busied himself tidying his special room. He kept it clean and normal-looking, on the off chance that anybody came in here. The idea of somebody invading his privacy, learning about his other life, was enough to make him sick. Nobody could interfere with that life. He wouldn’t allow it.

What if they know about the Playground?

Impossible. The security was rigid, the existence of it shared in cyber whispers. He doubted there was another person within two states of here who was a member.

Or perhaps his closest neighbor was.

That was one thing that made Satan’s Playground so wonderful.

But there had been a lot of extra security in recent weeks.
Maybe someone hacked in
. …

Maybe he should quit.

Bile rose in his throat at the very thought of it. Quit? Leave the only place he’d ever belonged? No. He’d never do that.

In fact, he’d do whatever it took to keep that world safe and intact. Including removing anyone who threatened its existence. FBI agents. The sheriff. Anyone.

He could. So easily. They would never even realize he was the enemy until he took their heads off their bodies. Just as he had with that girl from the mall. The loud one. The mean one. The one who had screamed awful language and was no lady, just another whore. She hadn’t used those words on him for long.

Almost smiling as he realized just how little anyone in this drab, colorless place knew him, he was startled by a sudden ding from his computer speakers. He had mail. Not in the playground, but an e-mail to the identity he wore in the dirt world.

Not recognizing the generic address, he almost ditched it as spam. But the subject message—
You’ll Want to Read This
—intrigued him. It seemed different, though it was probably someone offering to make him wealthy, or teach him the secret to better sex.

Ha.
There was no secret. Because sex could never be as good as draining the blood out of a woman until the light left her eyes and the spite left her lips.

Nothing could.

Bent over his chair, he leaned down and clicked on the message to open it, ready to delete it at once.

Then he read the words on the screen. His heart pounded.

He saw the image below the words. His pulse surged.

He read the final demand. And he slowly lowered himself to the chair.

The message was simple:
I know what you did
. Below it was a fuzzy, black-and-white photograph, apparently taken from a surveillance camera. It wasn’t very good quality. But it didn’t need to be. The image clearly showed the two most important things: his draped form putting a large, body-size wrapped object into the back of a truck. More disturbing—an easily recognizable license plate.

“No,” he began to whisper, the word rising in volume as fury crawled up his throat and began to choke him. “No! You can’t do this!”

But the message writer apparently thought he could.

The anonymous e-mailer wanted money. A lot of it, which he didn’t have. And he wanted it within seven days.

Or the picture would go to the FBI.

T
hough he’d seldom played
standard investigator games throughout his career, in the few times he’d done so, Dean had always found himself in the role of bad cop. His naturally stern, unsmiling demeanor and size made him the tough guy, the ball-breaker. He was the one ready to throw the book at a suspect, the angry official who’d convince the perp he’d spend the rest of his miserable excuse of a life in a ten-by-ten cell if he didn’t cooperate.

Today Stacey was bad cop.

And it was just about the sexiest thing he had ever seen.

“Don’t shoot me for saying this, okay?” he said as they entered her private office a few hours later. They’d interviewed most of the people at the tavern, except her brother and his friend, whom Stacey wanted to deal with on neutral turf.

She pushed the door shut behind them. “What?”

“When you grabbed that guy playing pool by the front of his shirt, and told him you were going to dig into his past until you found out if he’d stolen a piece of bubble gum as a kid, I almost got a hard-on.”

Surprised laughter erupted from her mouth. She probably wasn’t as surprised as Dean. That kind of frankness hadn’t been part of his vocabulary in a couple of decades. His ex hadn’t exactly been the sexy-innuendo type. She’d been a combination of Martha Stewart and Fran Drescher. Domestic wannabe with an annoying voice. And no interest in snappy verbal foreplay.

But with Stacey, he didn’t feel like he had to watch his mouth. In fact, he felt capable of saying absolutely anything. It was, after all, only the truth.

She hung her hat on a peg and slipped out of her uniform jacket, revealing a few more of the curves she usually kept buttoned up tight. “I guess most women wouldn’t know how to react to that. But since I’ve been pretty damn hot to see you handle the Glock on your hip, I think I get it.”

“Does that make us a couple of violence-loving wackos?”

Shaking her head, Stacey stepped closer. Closer. Until the tips of her boot-clad feet touched his shoes and their clothes brushed. The place was wrong; the timing was even more wrong. But everything else about the moment felt utterly right. So no way in hell was he going to put an end to it.

“No. I think it just proves what we were talking about earlier in the car. That we’re attracted.”

Then she proved the attraction. This time, his was the shirt bunched in those slim, capable hands. He was pushed until his back hit the door.

And he was being kissed.

Her mouth connected with his, hot and hungry. She parted her lips, deepened the kiss, all warm, spicy woman. Stacey tasted so damn good to him after the long drought of personal connection; she quenched his thirst, emptied and refilled him at the same time.

That slender body, pressed against the length of his, emphasized her femininity, despite her undeniable strength. The combination intoxicated him until he was almost out of his mind with the need to touch every inch of her.

He let her have control for a few seconds, then took it back, turning her, until she was the one backed into the corner. Their mouths continued to meet; they exchanged kiss after kiss. Each sweet, wet thrust of her tongue sent another surge of lust coursing through him and refilled the dry, empty well of physical need that had tormented him for so long.

Groaning low in her throat, Stacey pressed herself harder against him. “God, I’ve wanted this,” she mumbled against his mouth. Tangling her fingers in his hair, she kept kissing him, as if once she’d started she couldn’t possibly stop.

Not that he wanted to. Huh-uh.

Dean dropped his hands to her hips, sliding his palms across the generous curves to tug her even harder against his aroused body. When she felt the rigid proof of that arousal, Stacey sagged a little in his arms, as though her legs had suddenly lost all their strength. His hands and the office wall kept her upright, pressed against him, exactly where he wanted her.

Finally, though, voices from the vestibule pierced the hazy cloud of sensuality filling his head. With utter regret, he let go of her, ended the kiss, and stepped back.

They stood staring at each other for a good thirty seconds, both sucking in ragged breaths, both asking a million silent questions, and answering them with only their eyes.

“You are going to come over for that beer, right?” she asked once they both seemed to have gotten it under control.

He nodded, then had to at least pretend to play the gentleman. “I don’t expect—I mean, just a beer is fine.”

“Yeah, uh, I don’t think so.”

Wondering how this woman could so easily work him straight from pulsing desire into pure amusement, he had to laugh. “I bet you were hell on wheels growing up.”

“I didn’t play with dolls, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her lashes half lowered, her mouth suddenly twisting down. “Except when I babysat Lisa.”

She’d been a passionate, wild woman in his arms a moment before. Now the regret almost visibly washed over her. She’d allowed herself to forget for a moment. But he knew those snatched bits of happiness wouldn’t drive away the guilt until this case was solved.

Still, she made a concerted effort. “Enough. My brain is ready to explode from the defensive ramblings of a dozen drunks. And I am sure I reek from having been inside that place for so long.” She glanced at her watch, then bent over her desk and scrawled an address and directions on a small sheet of paper. “Let me go home and shower. Then you can meet me at my place in forty-five minutes or so.”