Flawless (6 page)

She could also tell that he knew there was more to the story.

“You were buying diamonds?” he asked her. “Instead of coming to work?”

She accepted the bar rag from him, sank into the chair behind the desk and studiously scrubbed at her face. “No, and I'm sorry. I didn't think that the bar would be this busy. I—”

The door burst open. Danny rushed in and hurried over to her, dropping to his knees by the chair. “You're really all right?”

She nodded. “I'm fine.”

“Oh, my God, when I saw...” Danny sounded sick and shaky.

She patted his red hair gently, reassuringly.

“Kieran, you went there to talk to Gary Benton, didn't you?” Declan demanded.

She went very still, looking at Danny. “Yes,” she said.

“Kieran, we all love Julie. She's been our friend since we were children. I don't like Gary one bit myself, and the way he's treating her is awful. He's a total jerk, and we should all be looking forward to the day when Julie is finally rid of him. I should have expected... Well, he was in here this afternoon, right? You don't need to answer. Bobby O'Leary told me he was. And then you got upset and went to tell him... Well, I don't care what you thought you were going to tell him. It's only by the grace of God that you're alive and well. Kieran—let this be a lesson. Stand by Julie. Be there to listen to her, to hold her hand. Help her make the split final. But stay away from Gary Benton.”

“You're right,” she said, still staring warningly into Danny's eyes. He opened his mouth as if he was going to admit the truth. She shook her head and looked up at Declan. “You're right. It's just that... He had the nerve to come here!”

“And if he comes again, we have to let him in. And we won't throw him out unless he starts causing trouble or gets in a fight or something—and there's no spitting in his food or his drinks, either. All three of you—you and Danny and Kevin, too—are off pursuing careers, which is wonderful. But the bar is my livelihood—and it's all our heritage and what you have to depend on, too, if life doesn't work out for some reason. We will not discriminate against anyone, do you understand me?”

“It's not illegal to discriminate against assholes,” Danny said.

Declan shook his head in aggravation. “Danny!”

“Sorry. All right, if the jerk comes in, we won't show him the door,” Danny said.

“Kieran?” Declan said.

“Hey, I served him coffee without throwing it on him—or even accidentally spilling a single drop,” she said.

“Good. But in future, stay away from him, let someone else take his order. Please,” Declan told her.

She nodded grudgingly.

“Now go home, kid—you don't need to be here. Mary Kathleen is on the floor with Danny, and I have the bar. We're fine. Kevin's been behind the bar with me, but as soon as things slow down I'll send him home, since he has an audition tomorrow. So go home. And not to be rude, but I suggest you take a bath.”

The door opened again. It was Kevin this time.

“It's slowed down. Maybe the crowd was just waiting to applaud Kieran and now they've all gone home to talk about her. I've got my car, so I can drive Kieran home on my way.”

“I can get home—” Kieran began.

“With me,” Kevin said.

“Declan said you have an audition in the morning. You need to go straight home and get your beauty rest,” she said, smiling. “Although you're beautiful no matter what.”

Kevin winced. “Men aren't beautiful!” he said.

“Ouch,” Danny said, laughing. “He's a manly man, you know.”

“What about you? You have work tomorrow, too,” she reminded him. Danny was outgoing, and despite the problems he'd had in the past, he was a keen historian and the tour company he worked for loved him.

“I'm off tomorrow,” he said. “Sundays and Tuesdays, remember? I'll help Declan until closing,” he assured her.

She looked away, still uncomfortable that they weren't telling Declan and Kevin the truth but absolutely certain that she didn't want to tell them more than what they already knew.

“Well, in my mind, Kevin, you
are
beautiful!” she said, returning to a safer topic. “And you'll be great tomorrow. Break a leg.”

“Thanks. And I'm going to my car now, and you're going with me,” Kevin said.

It would be worse to argue than to go along. She said, “Okay, thanks. I could walk it if I wanted to, and I know the subway like the back of my hand, but a ride from my twin will be nice.”

Kieran stood, hugged Danny and Declan, and then followed Kevin out of the office through the side door. He slipped an arm around her shoulders as they walked down the street.

“That must have been scary as hell,” he told her. “How the hell you didn't lose it, I don't know. I don't think I would have coped as well.”

“Thanks—but I think you would have done everything exactly the way I did. We were brought up to do the right thing. Maybe kids remember even more when they've lost both parents,” she said.

“We're not kids,” he said quietly.

He didn't say anything more until the attendant had brought his car down from the garage nestled in the next block, and then it was only to thank the man and give him a tip. They were parked in front of her apartment before he finally said something else to her.

She moved to get out of the car, but he stopped her.

“Kieran, I don't know what you told Declan, and I don't intend to say another word. But I think there's more to the story of why you were in that store. Something to do with Danny. I don't even want you to tell me—unless there comes a point when you need to for some reason. Danny is
my
baby brother, too, and Julie's also
my
friend. But don't go getting yourself into trouble because the two of them have concocted some wild scheme. You're a therapist now—talk them out of it.”

She leaned over and hugged him tightly. “Best twin in the world,” she told him. “But I swear with my whole heart, I will not get into any trouble with those two, and I'll make sure they don't get into trouble, either. I'd like to believe that...”

She hesitated.

“That they learned something from what happened to you today?” Kevin asked her drily. “Never mind—I meant it when I said I won't make you say anything. You always keep my confidences, so I don't expect you to break anyone else's trust. But if you run into a problem again, keep me in the loop.”

“I swear,” she promised.

He nodded and smiled, then watched until she was safely inside her building.

Upstairs, she threw off her jacket and tossed down her bag, then headed into the bathroom to give her face a good scrubbing. When she saw herself in the mirror, she realized stronger action was called for, so she stripped and jumped into the shower.

It wasn't that late when she dried off, feeling like a new woman, but she didn't want to see more of herself on the news, and she was exhausted. She lay down to sleep, but her heart kept pounding. She couldn't deny it. She was worried.

Hiding what she, Danny and Julie had been up to from Declan and Kevin had proved easier than she had thought it would.

But she was dreading the next day and her time with the FBI agent with the dark hair and deep smoky voice and those light eyes that seemed to look into her with the power of an X-ray machine.

* * *

Craig Frasier sat in the office in the near dark, alone except for the skeleton night staff. He'd made Mike go home, knowing that he was being obsessive and not wanting to drag his partner into the pit after him.

He simply didn't believe that they had caught the thieves they most needed to catch: the ones who killed.

The thieves themselves denied it, and their guns had been fake.

But he understood the desire in law enforcement to believe a case was closed, and a lot of people simply didn't want to accept the idea that there could be copycats out there—copycats whose MO was so perfect in every detail...except that the guns they carried were real. The prevailing belief was that there was only one set of thieves who, having established that they were willing to kill to get what they wanted, no longer felt the need to carry real guns and had switched to fakes in order to create confusion and make a case for a lighter sentence if they were caught.

The NYPD had made the arrest. The charges would be up to the district attorney's office. Somewhere the powers that be, whose influence went far beyond his own, were arguing about that right now.

They wouldn't ask his opinion.

But that didn't matter. What
did
matter was whether there were still killers out there—and he was willing to bet cash money that there were.

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. He thought about the way things might have ended—and how that too-attractive-for-his-own-good redhead had actually had the sense to do something other than scream and expect the world to save her.

She'd saved his ass—or would have, had the gun been real.

He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking about her. She hadn't wanted any attention from the press; in fact, she had paled at the very mention of it. Strange. Most beautiful women—no, she wasn't just beautiful; she was stunning—welcomed attention. As gorgeous as she was, she could have been hitting the stage or a runway somewhere, a tall, blue-eyed redhead with legs that stretched forever. But instead...

He reached into his pocket for the card she had given him. Fuller and Miro. He knew the names; they and their employees were often called in as consultants. The Behavioral Science Unit of the bureau was in Virginia, and they were called in on the most puzzling or unusual cases, especially when local police asked for help. Otherwise, the New York office often looked to local talent to untangle the psychology of a captured killer or profile one who was still at large.

Therapist. And bartender.

Quite an intriguing combination.

For someone who had such talents—and had saved both his ass and her own—she had acted very strangely.

Almost as if she were...guilty herself.

He mulled over the thought. Then, standing up, he stretched and walked to the coffee machine in the break room. He needed to go home and go to sleep, but he could use a cup to get that far. The coffee here was wretched; they kept a regular pot instead of investing in pods. But that was all right. Wretched coffee was still better than no coffee.

He lifted the cup to his lips and realized that in the midst of the fray, she'd reminded him of someone.

Of Caroline.

He smiled at the thought.

Caroline had been blessed with that same ability to think on the spot, to behave rationally and, most important, to know when to hold—and when to fight back like blue blazes.

He hadn't really thought about her in years now. And truthfully, she had been nothing like Kieran Finnegan. Caroline had been a petite blonde with hazel eyes and a smile as big as the world.

He felt a dull ache and shook off the thought. He hadn't allowed himself to get morose in years. It had all been so long ago. And yet he knew that when Caroline had died, something in him had died, too. He'd lost the ability to get close to a woman. No matter who he met, no matter how sure he was that he wanted to find something close to what they'd had somewhere along the line, he'd just never met anyone with her fire and humor, charm and...
heart
.

He drained the coffee, returned to his office and turned off the computer. It was time to go home.

And if he thought about it, he was intrigued.

He forced his mind back to the case. Maybe she could help by watching the video surveillance of the deadly robberies and spotting something one of the men she had encountered had done that was different from what was on the tapes.

And maybe he could find out just what she was hiding.

CHAPTER
FOUR

THE FIELD OFFICE
was toward downtown on Broadway, not very far from Finnegan's Pub, but, with traffic, Kieran knew it would be a thirty-minute trek from the Midtown offices of Doctors Fuller and Miro. She had barely gotten to work before a black sedan with a black-suited agent—wearing black-framed sunglasses—arrived to pick her up.

She had only just slipped into her own office—a small room not much bigger than a walk-in closet, but at least it had a window—when Dr. Allison Miro came to her door. She was generally a stern-looking woman with her slim, perfectly compact body and short, crisp, iron-gray hair, but that morning she gazed at Kieran with concern and compassion.

“Kieran, dear girl, thank the good Lord that you're all right. When we saw the news...well, we were quite concerned. Anyway, you're a heroine, my dear. We're so proud of you.”

Kieran was startled when Dr. Miro walked over to where she stood by her desk and hugged her. It was a slightly awkward hug. Kieran wasn't expecting it, and Dr. Miro was a good half foot shorter than she was. The older woman didn't seem to notice that Kieran rocked back slightly, startled, before hugging her back.

“I'm fine, really, and I'm not a hero, just a survivor,” Kieran said.

“Kieran!”

She recognized the deep, rich, masculine tone, and she looked up to see that Dr. Fuller had joined the party. Her employers were a living representation of “the long and short of it.” Dr. Bentley Fuller was six foot three, lean and fit, and he could have starred in a “male enhancement” advertisement. He was about fifty—a ruggedly handsome fifty. She knew he maintained his health and physique by religiously adhering to the strict tennis-playing schedule he'd set for himself.

He walked over to her, leaving Dr. Miro sandwiched between them in the cramped space.

The two doctors were not a romantic duo, but they shared the same interests and respected one another's work ethics. Dr. Miro was a grandmother. Dr. Fuller had a lovely—equally tennis honed and perfect—blonde wife. She was a kindergarten teacher, and, in Kieran's opinion, very sweet. She and Bentley were as perfectly matched as a set of Barbie and Ken dolls.

“Thank God you're all right,” he said.

She extricated herself from Dr. Miro's hug and stepped back, smiling. “You two deal with some of the most hardened criminals in the NYC system. I managed—with the help of an FBI agent—to escape squirt-gun-toting thieves. Thank you so much for caring. I truly appreciate your concern.”

“Of course, of course,” Dr. Fuller said. “And you need to go. I came to tell you that your car and escort are here.”

“Oh, yes, sorry. I didn't have a chance yet to ask you if I could take the time—”

“You know how much we value our relationship with law enforcement. Take all the time you need,” Dr. Miro said.

“Thank you. I'll be back as soon as—” She broke off. She'd been about to say
as soon as possible
. She restructured her reply. “As soon as I've done everything I can possibly do to help.”

But what that was, she really didn't know.

Dr. Fuller shooed her out of the office to where her “man in black” was waiting in reception. Jake, the receptionist, wasn't so much as looking at the agent. He was making every effort to look busy. The agent just stood there with his expression impassive and his hands folded behind his back.

He escorted her out, and she saw that his car was double-parked; apparently, for him, that was legal.

He opened the door for her and she stepped in. He was polite without showing the least emotion; she felt as if she had stepped into a movie about alien pod people.

The drive was silent, which made it feel even longer than she'd known it would be.

When they finally arrived, she discovered that no matter who you were, you went through the security screening. As she stood in line she realized that a lot of very normal people worked in the building. Three women in line in front of her were holding their Starbucks cups and chatting as they waited to go through the metal detector; behind her, two men were arguing over the virtues of an iPhone versus an Android phone.

Once through security, she was whisked up an elevator. The doors slid open, and she exited directly into a clean and sparse reception area where a young woman, who had apparently been waiting for her, greeted her then led her down a hall to a small office with a table that held a computer and several sheets of photos.

“I'm Millie,” the young woman told her, shuddering slightly. “Sounds ancient, doesn't it? Short for Millicent. I don't know what my parents were thinking. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? A soda or a bottle of water?”

“I'm fine, thanks,” Kieran murmured.

Just then Craig Frasier stepped through the still-open door and said, “Morning, Millie. I'd love some coffee. Miss Finnegan, won't you join me?”

“I'll be right back,” Millie said cheerfully.

“Thank you,” Kieran said, as the other woman left.

Agent Frasier was wearing a suit very much like the one her escort had worn, though he had left off the sunglasses—inside, at least. She was struck again by the man's rugged good looks and masculine appeal. She had seen several men down in the lobby who were tall, honed like steel and handsome. She was starting to think that it was an agency requirement. Or perhaps the job just called for people in good enough shape to jump over fences and coordinated enough to run through a traffic jam.

Agent Frasier smiled at her. “Thank you for coming in,” he said.

Did I have a choice?
she wondered.

“Of course,” she said. “My employers understand my need to be here—they are frequently called in to work with law enforcement. They do psychological profiling, decide whether a defendant is fit to stand trial, that sort of thing.”

“Yes, I know,” he told her, but he didn't elaborate on
how
he knew. She wondered if he'd worked with either of her bosses or if he'd run a background check on her.

“There are three pictures in front of you,” he told her, all business. “I'd like you to look at them.”

She nodded, sat down and glanced at the photos. They were of the thieves, and they were dressed completely in black—right down to their ski masks.

She looked over at him. “They're in ski masks.”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I'm not sure why I'm doing this. You've already caught the thieves who took me hostage.”

He smiled. “Lift that top sheet. There are four mug shots underneath. Those are pictures of the men we caught last night, minus the ski masks. What I'd like you to do is take the shots from the jewelry store last night—from their security tapes—and line them up with the mug shots. Then I'd like you to compare them with some other pictures I have of a different robbery.” He hesitated and then said, “I don't mean to lead the witness, but I don't believe they're the same men.”

Millie returned just then with a tray that held a coffeepot, two cups, cream and sugar. Agent Frasier thanked her and asked Kieran how she liked her coffee. She said, “Just cream.”

He poured her a cup, added cream and handed it to her. Then he sat opposite her and sipped his own coffee. The room grew very quiet.

At first Kieran felt unnerved. He sat there in silence, leaving her to study the photos, but there was no way for Agent Frasier to be in a room and not be noticeable.

She tried to give her attention to the pictures. The sooner she did what he'd asked of her, the sooner she could leave.

To her surprise, she quickly found herself deeply involved in what she was doing. According to their mug shots, the men who had been arrested the night before were Sam Banner, Robert Stella, Lenny Wiener and Mark O'Malley. She glanced at their faces and the stats on their mug shots, and then at the security stills, comparing carefully. Finally she went through them, pointing. “Mark O'Malley was driving the van, obviously. Looking at height and build, I think Sam Banner was the one who dragged me through the store and down the alley.”

Agent Frasier nodded. “All right. Now I want you to compare them to the men from the other robbery.”

He got up and moved to stand behind her, then pulled another sheet of photos from the bottom of the stack. “I realize it's difficult, but do you recognize the men from yesterday in any of these other photos? The way they stood? Something else? I can show you some video, too.”

She was acutely aware of him behind her. The fabric of his suit, the heat of his body, the scent of his aftershave.

“Uh, video would be great.”

He reached over to tap the keyboard. His nails were neatly clipped. His fingers were long, and she was certain that his hands would be powerful.

She swallowed and tried to concentrate.

After a minute, she miraculously managed to do so. She took control of the keyboard herself, running the footage and stopping it when something struck her.

“There,” she said, pointing. “That's Sam Banner. You can tell by the way he's standing and by his height.”

“All right,” Frasier said, “what about this footage?”

He reached over again and cued up a new video.

“No, no, I don't think that's Sam Banner. They stand completely differently. Sam keeps his legs apart. He's angled, almost as if he's casual about what he's doing. This man, he stands straighter, and he's visibly tense. Watch his head move. He's jerky. He looks—”

“As if he's nervous and liable to pull the trigger any second?” Craig asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Just my opinion based on my observations, of course,” she said, swiveling her chair to look up at him.

He smiled. “Educated opinion, though, right?”

She shrugged. “Honestly, if you asked one of my bosses to—”

“Your bosses weren't in the van with me,” he said, and walked back to take his seat.

She'd been about to stand; her work here was done.

But the way he sat, leaning forward expectantly, his eyes probing...

No, she wasn't leaving yet.

“So what were you doing at the store yesterday?” he asked.

She immediately felt defensive, but she tried not to do any of the things that would betray her nervousness. Blinking, wetting her lips...

“A friend works there,” she said. “I went to see if he was there. Well, all right. He's not really a friend. He
was
a friend. Not anymore.”

He looked down a moment, a slight smile curving his lips. “Care to explain?”

She shrugged uncomfortably and looked away, but she told herself that was okay. Explaining an awkward divorce would make anyone uneasy.

“Gary Benton was—is—married to a close friend of mine. They're going through a very nasty divorce. I went to see him to remind him that they were adults and that...” She felt herself stiffen, but she was so angry at Gary that she couldn't help it. “She went out of town to give him space, and he locked her dogs in a crate and didn't feed them or let them out the whole time.”

“She should have called animal control,” he said.

“The logical answer, of course, but she was too upset to think straight, and—” She paused and looked away again. “She went to the store and said some pretty awful things. I went to ask him to stop being so nasty and trying to upset her. But he wasn't there and, well, you know what happened next.”

He seemed to believe that. “Well, thank you again for your help,” he told her. “I'll get you back to work.”

“Thanks,” she said.

He rose. She kept sitting.

He smiled at her. “I meant that literally.
I'll
get you back to work.”

“Oh! Okay, thank you.”

She stood quickly, dismayed to feel herself blushing.

She felt his hand at the small of her back as he politely ushered her out.

She told Millie goodbye and passed another half dozen men and women in well-tailored suits as they left the building, walking past the line where people were still lined up, chatting as they waited to pass through security.

She noticed an interesting group waiting their turn. They weren't in suits and didn't look at all like members of the FBI.

“Who are they?” she asked.

“A teachers' group,” he told her.

“Oh?”

“They're going to take a class in keeping schools safe.”

“I didn't know the FBI offered anything like that.”

He flashed her a smile. “We're a friendly crowd, not the enemy,” he said.

“I wasn't suggesting that. I just never thought of the FBI as being so...open-door,” she told him. “Practically warm and cuddly.”

“Well, that depends on who you are and what you're up to,” he told her.

A car was waiting for them. Double-parked again, she noticed. Craig Frasier seated her before walking around to slide into the driver's seat himself.

“In a city full of very different crimes, I find this to be an especially interesting case,” he said as he drove.

“I think it's a terrifying case,” she said. “Men holding up jewelry stores and killing people, but making it look as if other people are the killers.”

She realized from his expression, which had hardened as she spoke, that he was accustomed to dealing with people killing people. That had to be difficult. Then again, she had known when she took her job that she would be dealing with criminals whose behavior made her brothers' previous escapades look like child's play.

“Actually, I was referring to you,” he said.

“Me?” She prayed there was no fear—or guilt—in her voice.

“Bartender by night, assistant crime fighter by day.”

“I'm a psychologist, not a crime fighter.”

“A therapist.”

“Yes.”

“What sort of cases have you handled?”