Kansas City Secrets (18 page)

She tugged against the hand on her arm. “I'd tell his superior officers the truth. You're crazy.”

“Oh,
I'm
crazy? Says the thirty-something recluse who lives inside a fortress, dresses like an old maid and is afraid of her own shadow? You think they'd take the word of a murder suspect over a respected member of the court?” His moist breath spit against her ear. “Whatever you think you have with him is done.
I'm
the man you need. You're going to marry me.”

Her hips butted against his desk. His thighs trapped her. “Never. You threatened to kill me, Howard.”

“I would have married you and made the threats all go away. That was the plan. I wanted you so scared that you'd have to come out of that cave you hide in and turn to someone for help. And it was working until Krolikowski came along.” He flattened his hand against his chest. “It was supposed to be me. For six years I've planned how we would be together. I showed you more patience than any normal man could. I set it up so that
I
was the man in your life.”

“You were my friend.”

“People have married for less.”

“I don't love you.”

“That doesn't matter. We could have a successful business partnership. I'm more mature than my brother ever was. I wouldn't make demands on you.”

She lowered her chin and shook her head. “That damn money.”

“Now that's hardly ladylike. Krolikowski's bad habits are rubbing off on you.” He spoke to her cowed head. “I've earned you, you freak. I sided with you against my brother's memory. I was loyal to you. I did everything I could for your loser brother. Who else would have you?”

“If that's the deal you're offering, I'd rather be alone.” When she zeroed in on his Italian loafers, she felt a flare of red-haired temper flooding through her. She was done being the Bratcher brothers' victim.

She brought her heel down hard on his instep and shoved her shoulder into his chest, freeing herself. Howard stumbled back into a bookshelf and she ran for the door. “Max!”

All she had to do was scream if she was in trouble, and he'd come running. No matter how many floors or doors were between them. He'd promised.

“Max!” Ignoring Howard's threat, she threw open the door.

“Your choice. His career is over. You will not leave me for him.”

“I was never yours.”

He cinched his hands around her waist and tossed her toward the desk. She bruised her hip against the corner, but he was there before she could scramble away, capturing her against the solid oak. “He's rough, exciting, animalistic, I bet.”

“What is wrong with you?” Rosie clawed at his neck, beat at his chest. “Get your hands off me. He's going to arrest you.”

Howard bent her back over the desk, his thigh sliding between hers. She slapped at the hand that skimmed her breast. “Is that how you like it? Rough? I don't have to be a gentleman. All these years I thought that was what you wanted. But I could send you a few more love notes if you want.”

“Get. Off. Me.” Her shoulder hit a coffee mug, sloshing the hot liquid onto her arm. Forget the Colonel's empty Army pistol. She reached up, closed her hand around the mug and tossed the hot liquid in his face. She wasn't the only one screaming when she ran for the door. “Max!”

But she'd only riled the beast. Before she made it to the door, Howard caught her and shoved her up against the bookshelf. He closed his hands around her neck in a choke hold that cut off her voice and her breath and stuck his red, scalded face near hers. “I always wondered what it was like when Richard got rough with you.”

Rosie twisted, gouged, kicked. She tried to suck in a breath, but the sound gurgled in her throat. Her chest constricted. Ached. Howard had lost it. There was no reasoning with him now.

“Rosie!” A fist pounded on the locked door.

Maybe Howard hadn't heard the same angry shout she had. He tightened his grip around her neck. “There
is
a little rush to this, isn't there? I can feel the pulse points beneath my thumbs. Does it hurt? Do you feel like doing what I ask now?”

Pound. Pound. “Rosie!”

She scratched at his injured hand, but she was getting weak. She needed air. White dots floated across her vision and the room tilted.

“If you don't say yes to me, I'll make sure you go away for Richard's murder. I know enough details about your relationship to make you look guilty as sin. I'll even defend you...and, sadly, lose your case.” He nuzzled her ear. “What will it be? Boyfriend or me? Prison? Or marri—”

The frame around the door splintered and the heavy oak swung open beside her. Max rammed Howard like a linebacker, tearing his grip off Rosie, freeing her. The two men flew across the desk and Rosie collapsed to her knees. She sucked in a deep breath that scratched her throat and filled her deprived lungs with precious oxygen. A chair toppled, another broke.

“Max.” Her voice came out in a hoarse croak. His fist met Howard's jaw with a thud, and the attorney's head snapped back. “Max!”

“You keep your hands off her. Understand?”

Howard laughed in response, not putting up any fight. “Temper, temper, Officer. Oh, I am so reporting this. Cop Attacks Attorney.”

“The attorney's a nut job.” Max flipped Howard facedown on the carpet, put his knee in the man's back and cuffed him.

His grizzled jaw was tight when he reached over to touch Rosie's bruised neck and arm. “He hurt you.”

“I'm okay. I'll be okay.” Her voice was getting stronger. The room blossomed with color again after she'd nearly passed out. Max's blue eyes. The red blood at the corner of Howard's mouth. Rosie pushed to her feet, leaning on the shelves for support. “Howard sent those threats. It makes sense. He knew the details of my relationship with his brother. He wanted to scare me so I'd turn to him. Fall for him, maybe.” Howard giggled like a child as Max helped him into a chair. She averted her gaze from those crazy cold eyes and looked to the man who had saved her. Again. “I turned to you, instead.”

“You're sure you're okay?” He palmed the back of her neck and pulled her onto her toes for a quick, hard kiss that left her a little breathless again. His chest expanded in quick, deep inhales after the brief fight and sprint down the hallway. “Thank God you can scream, woman. I don't want to think about what could have happened if I'd been even a few seconds late. I had the receptionist call 9-1-1. Uniformed officers should be here any minute.”

In the meantime, Rosie didn't complain when he hooked his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She was quickly learning that this was where she felt the safest. “He was no better than Richard. How do I keep attracting these winners?” she added, the sarcasm clear, even in her husky tone.

Max went quiet for a few seconds, then covered the silence with a wry little laugh. “I'll throw his butt in jail for a very long time.”

But Rosie tugged on his shirt, stopping him midreport. “Howard didn't kill Richard. He's hardly a perfume kind of guy. And how would he get his hands on RUD-317?”

“He could be the Bratcher in that pharmaceutical trial Dr. Wells is holding on to.” He tapped the shoulder of the curiously subdued man sitting on his cuffed hands. “Hey. How about it, Bratcher?”

Howard grew more subdued as the manic thrill he'd discovered when he'd been choking her subsided. She could tell he was thinking more like a lawyer than the man with the violent obsession who'd brought a baseball bat and terror to her home. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Can I at least book him for making terroristic threats to you?”

“Be my guest.” Rosie nodded, wishing she felt more relief at finally identifying the man who'd preyed on her darkest fears.

Max didn't seem to think this was over yet, either. “We've got two perps—Howie here and the woman who killed his brother six years ago. Ah, hell.” Max pulled her toward the broken door to look out into the lobby but stopped when he realized he'd be leaving Howard unguarded if he went any farther. “Charleen Grimes just left with her attorney.” He pulled out his cell and punched in a number. “I'm calling the team. We're gonna end this thing.”

* * *

M
AX
 
LEANED
 
AGAINST
 
the Chevelle's front fender while Rosie finished giving her statement to Olivia Watson. He nodded to Jim Parker, walking past with a large evidence bag holding the black sweatshirt hoodie with the torn sleeve he'd found in the trunk of Howard Bratcher's car.

A car. Why couldn't the attorney drive a fancy green pickup truck like the one Arlene Dinkle had reported seeing in the neighborhood? Now that would make the puzzle come together all neat and pretty. But Bratcher didn't own a truck. Maybe it was nothing but coincidence that an unidentified vehicle would show up in the same time frame as each of Bratcher's visits to Rosie's house. But, like most of the cops he knew, Max didn't like coincidences. If a good cop looked hard enough, there was almost always a rational explanation out there somewhere. Did the green truck mean someone else was watching Rosie's house? Their killer, perhaps? Or had Arlene made the whole thing up?

The truck wasn't the only piece to the puzzle that was bothering him. The summer night was still plenty warm, but Rosie kept running her hands up and down her bare arms as she and Liv talked over by Liv's SUV, as though she had a chill she just couldn't shake. Max wanted to put his hands there and warm her up. No, what he really wanted was to get her out of here—away from the flashing lights and endless questions and Howard Bratcher locked in the back of Trent's SUV to someplace quiet where they could be alone. Where he could hold her long enough to chase away that chill.

“Did you send a unit to keep an eye on Charleen Grimes?”

Max pulled away from the car at the approach of his lieutenant, Ginny Rafferty-Taylor, straightening to a civilian version of attention as his team leader came up beside him. “Yes, ma'am. If she goes anywhere besides home or her shop, or does anything suspicious, we'll know about it.”

“In the meantime, we got a copy of that list of drug test patients and research and production staff from Endicott Global. Katie's going over it with a fine-tooth comb to see if Charleen's name pops—or any other family or business associate who could have gotten her access to the drug.” The lieutenant tucked her short, silvery-blond hair behind her ears and leaned her hips back against the car the way he had a moment earlier. “You did good work today, Max.”

He slid his fingers into the back pockets of his jeans and shrugged his frustration. “I haven't solved our case yet.”

“Take the compliment. We've been working this murder for six years now. This is the first forward progress we've made in almost that long.” She nodded toward the conversation wrapping up near the building's front door. “Miss March filled me in on the threats Howard Bratcher made against your badge, too. Don't worry. I've got your back. I didn't settle for just anybody on my squad. You were all handpicked for your various expertise.”

“I gave Bratcher a fat lip.” He eyed the purple bruises already appearing on Rosie's pale skin as she paused beneath a streetlight before crossing the street to join them. He felt his fingers curling into fists again. Was that supposed to be his area of expertise? Laying a guy out flat for nearly squeezing the life out of a woman? “I suppose I have an anger management class in my future?”

“You were protecting someone you care about.” The lieutenant leaned in and whispered, “Besides, didn't I ever tell you I have a soft spot for big guys who are good with their hands?”

“No.”

She squeezed his arm before walking away to her car. “You should meet my husband sometime.”

Max chuckled. “Yes, ma'am.”

Rosie exchanged good-nights with the lieutenant before joining Max at the car.

“Cold?” Max brushed his hands over the goose bumps dotting her arms.

She shook her head and shivered anew. “Confused, maybe. Disappointed in my inability to function out in the real world.”

“That's harsh.”

“Tonight made me feel like I'm not meant to be anything more than a prize to be stolen or swindled. Howard was so angry. Just like Richard.” She raised her gaze to his. “Why couldn't I see it? Why did I think Howard was my friend?”

“Because you've got a heart, Rosie March.” He opened the car door and pulled his black leather jacket from the backseat to drape around her shoulders. “Here. I think it's human nature to trust people, to want to see the best in them. Especially if that's the way they want you to see them. Most people keep their deepest thoughts and insecurities and shortcomings hidden. Good people and bad.” He freed a couple of tendrils from the collar of the jacket. “I'm glad the bad things in this world haven't warped you like me yet.”

She linked her fingers with his and held on when he would have pulled away. “I'm always going to believe you're a good guy, Max. Thank you. I can never repay you for listening to me, believing me. Jimmy would have been proud of you for standing by me and helping me get Howard out of my life.”

“Just promise me if you meet anyone else named Bratcher, you'll run the other way instead of making friends.”

At last, she smiled. “I promise.” She braced her free hand against his chest and stretched up to kiss his cheek. “You did great, Sergeant. Thank you.”

“Why does that sound like goodbye?” He tugged on her fingers and led her around to the passenger seat. “I live in your basement.”

“But I thought—with Howard under arrest...”

This mission wasn't over yet, as far as he was concerned. “There's still a killer out there I'm looking for. And we've stirred up enough of a hornet's nest today that I'm not letting you out of my sight until we identify the woman who was in Bratcher's bedroom that night and I can close my case.” He opened the car door for her to get in. “Buckle up.”