Kill Shot (14 page)
“You didn’t wear your uniform today?” She opened the oven and lifted out the lasagna with oven mitts.
“Qualls idea. He thinks rich people deserve special treatment.”
She looked him over, smiling her approval. “As special as you in that suit?”
He smiled back at her. “Thanks, babe. I’m going to change and wash up.” He hung up the suit and reemerged in jeans and a tee shirt.
Micki lit a candle and sank into a cross-legged position on the carpet beside the coffee table. “Come on down. I took the liberty of serving you, Officer Osmond.”
“Thanks, Micki. This means a lot to me.”
“Even if it’s not from scratch?” She dimpled mischievously.
“You know what I mean.” He couldn’t tell her the emotions he was feeling just having her near, having her prepare a meal for him, trying to please him. He was touched that she’d made the effort, that she hadn’t pushed him away.
She tilted her head to one side, a question in her expression. Then she smiled. “Yeah, I know.”
#
CHAPTER TEN
“Where are you going?” His fingers circled her wrist as she bounded out of bed. “It’s Saturday. We can sleep in.”
Micki slipped her wrist from his grasp. “I have a wedding this afternoon.”
He gave her a look that made her want to climb right back into his arms.
She swallowed hard, stifled the desire coiled in the pit of her stomach. “No, really. I have a million things to do before the event. I have to be prepared.” She turned to the closet and searched through the garments she’d brought.
“I’m prepared.” He flashed a grin.
She turned back to him with a smile. “You’re like the Boy Scouts, always prepared.”
“I aim to please.” His voice dropped to a lower register and went all smoky.
“I have no complaints.” Resolutely, she turned back to the closet and took out the pantsuit she usually wore to weddings. It was a neutral gray that went with any décor and let her blend into the background. She could climb, stretch and squat without fear.
“Don’t you need a wedding date?”
“I’m the photographer. I travel light.”
“Nope.” He swung his legs out of bed. “Today, you have an escort. Call me your assistant. Order me around. You should enjoy that.” He crossed the room naked, joining her by the closet.
Micki drew in a breath, something about the way his taut muscles rippled under his skin. “I...uh.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. What shall I wear?”
“Pants and a dark shirt. Be inconspicuous.”
“No one will even know that I’m there.” Oz disappeared into the bathroom.
“Right,” she muttered under her breath. “No one will notice a six and a half foot Adonis in a wedding party of sasquatch.”
“I’m only six foot four.”
#
Oz proved to be useful, after all. He unloaded all her equipment and helped her set up. True to his word, he tried to stay out of the way and look unobtrusive. Only one of the bridesmaids tripped when she met his dark gaze. Another merely tried to dazzle him with a flirtatious smile while leading the wedding parade down the aisle.
Micki took shots of the groom and his attendants at the altar and the bride and her entourage making their way down the aisle to meet up with them. She asked Oz to bring her a filter she’d left in the car. Then she trotted upstairs to the choir loft for a few elevated shots of the couple making their vows. Zondra’s ten foot train trailed down the altar steps, making a dramatic statement against the dark burgundy carpeting.
Micki took a couple of wide-angle shots of the entire church from above. She turned to dash back down for the final wrap and gasped as she ran smack into pony-tail man in the stairwell.
He slammed her against the wall and held her there, his rock-hard body pressing against her. He smelled like some musk-based men’s cologne and expensive cigars.
Terror quivered in her gut, pounded her chest. “I’ll scream,” she rasped out.
His gaze was riveting. Green eyes with flecks of gold drilled into hers. “Not a good idea,” he whispered. “I can snap your neck before you open your mouth.” His breath caressed her cheek. He studied her with the fascination of a feral animal about to devour his prey.
Micki’s stomach roiled in fear, but she struggled to maintain a cool façade. “What do you want?” she ground out through her teeth.
He raised his brows and tilted his head with a glimmer of a smile. “Ah, she understands. I want all of the back up of the photos you shot in the park. Everything.”
“Those photos are my income. I have to deliver the finished pictures.”
He ground his forearm into her throat. “Not if you’re dead.” He watched her struggle for a moment before relaxing his arm to allow her to breathe. “He’ll pay you for the photos, but he wants everything. Photos, files, backup disks, flash drives...everything.”
The hairs on her neck stood at attention. “Pay?” Micki held his gaze.
“He’ll give you fifty thousand for everything.”
She struggled against the arm that restrained her. “That’s not enough to restore my reputation. If I fail to come through with someone’s wedding pictures, nobody will ever hire me again.”
A smile played around his mouth. He looked away as though he might laugh, but continued to hold her in his grip. When he turned to face her, his gaze fixed hungrily on her lips. “You’re really somethin’. I coulda gone for you in another place and time.” The smile was back when he met her eyes again. “He said I could go as high as a hundred thou, but that’s it.”
She released a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
“Okay? Just like that?”
“I’m in business to make money.”
“Me too.” The smile split into a grin. “Tomorrow. Get everything together and I’ll let you know when and where.”
She nodded and he kissed her cheek before letting her slide to the floor. When she’d struggled to her feet, he was gone.
Her heart thudding in her ears, Micki ran down the stairs and out the side door. She looked all around, but there was no sign of the pony tail man. She sprinted back into the church just in time to capture the bride and groom kissing and when they were presented to the guests as husband and wife.
When the happy couple left the church and the guests were milling about, Micki found Oz. Relief flooded through her when she saw his face. “It was the pony tail man. The man who hit me. He was here, up in the choir loft.”
Oz gripped her shoulders, frowning as he gazed into her eyes. “Crap! Did he hurt you?”
She hesitated a moment. “Not this time. He threatened me, but he didn’t hurt me.”
“Which way did he go?”
“He’s gone, Oz. He offered to pay me a hundred thousand dollars for
all my back up of the park photos.”
“There must be something on there that really has him scared.”
Micki sucked in a breath. “This guy doesn’t know how to be scared. He was cool and controlled, like an android, and he wasn’t afraid of getting caught. He kept referring to someone else. A man.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said, ‘He authorized me’. I guess pony tail guy is just a hired hand.”
“He’s on someone’s payroll. We have to go back to the pictures.”
Micki bit her lip. “I, uh...kind of agreed to sell them to him for the hundred thousand dollars.”
“What?”
“Oz, I didn’t exactly have a choice. The alternative was for him to snap my neck.”
Anger flashed a warning in his eyes. “Right under my nose! I can’t take my eyes off of you for a minute.” He pulled her into a rough embrace.
She tried to pull away, but he held her fast. “I have to go now. It’s time to take the formal pictures of the wedding party.”
“Don’t disappear again.”
“I promise,” she said.
After she shot formal group photos of the wedding party at the church, she and Oz went to the rented hall for the reception. Micki continued to work through the photos of the bride and groom smushing cake into each other’s faces, the tossing of the requisite garter and bouquet and finally the bride and groom waving from the back window of the white limo.
Micki signaled to Oz that she was done.
“Let’s get out of here.” He’d learned how to collapse her tripod and pack her equipment into his car.
Micki leaned across to open his door, thinking that he’d never take the time to have the electric lock repaired.
#
Later, Oz and Micki met Lieutenant Qualls and Aida in the lab. He’d related the facts pertaining to Micki’s encounter with the pony tail man to his supervisor.
Qualls sorted through the enlargements of Micki’s park shoot. “Kiddies playing, joggers jogging and lovers hugging. Nothing looks sinister to me.”
Oz looked at each photo as Qualls handed them to him. “No offense, Micki, but I don’t see anything worth a hundred thousand bucks.”
Micki shook her head. “I don’t either.”
Aida squinted through a magnifying glass. “We’re going to make another sweep through these pictures and examine them microscopically until we find what we’re missing.”
“This guy.” Qualls stabbed his finger on a picture at the children’s park. “I ran him through the system and he’s got a rap sheet.”
“A sniper?”
“A perv. He exposed himself to some elementary school kids. Served six months and got counseling but he’s not supposed to be anywhere near kids. I had him picked up.”
“Is he connected to Micki in any way?” Oz asked.
Qualls shook his head. “He didn’t know anything about the photos, but he’s going to serve out the rest of his sentence.”
Oz skewered Micki with a glance. “Can it be a coincidence that my girlfriend identified Laurel Jobe as being the woman in the clinch and that the body pulled from the lake was the boyfriend of the Jobe’s nanny?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Qualls said.
Aida looked up from her file. “Speaking of Randal Knox, the coroner’s report came back. The cause of death was blunt force trauma. He has a skull fracture to the frontal lobe.”
“Damn!” Oz said. “Knox was one big guy. Someone was looking him in the eye and hit him with something hard enough to crush in his skull.”
Aida peered at him over the top of her glasses. “His tox screen came back positive for steroids. He didn’t get to be so big without a little help.”
“That explains his angry outbursts.”
“Roid rage,” Qualls said.
“Let me see your magnifying glass, Aida.” Oz held it to the picture of the kids playing in the children’s park.
“That’s her.”
“Laurel Jobe?” Micki asked, crowding closer.
“No, it’s Lissa Montgomery, the Jobe’s nanny.”
They took turns examining the young woman sitting close to the sand box. The toddler in the stroller was occupied with some object in his hands, but Lissa seemed to be engrossed in a book.
Aida frowned and pushed her glasses back up on her snub nose. “Let me see if I hear you correctly. You’re saying that this girl, Lissa, is in the park with the Jobe baby, while her employer, Laurel Jobe, is hooked up with Jason Best a few hundred feet away? All the while, her former boyfriend, Randal Knox is going into the lake at around the same time?”
They all stared at her mutely.
“Nah. Too much coincidence.” Aida gave them a little smile. “I don’t see anything else. I’ll keep looking, but it certainly appears that this case is tied to the Jobes.”
Lieutenant Qualls led Oz and Micki into his office. Several officers spoke to Oz. They looked at Micki, curious as to whether she was in custody.
Shyly, she slipped her hand into his. He glanced down at her and smiled, giving her hand a little squeeze. She looked ill at ease, triggering his protective instinct.
Lieutenant Qualls closed the door to his office and offered Micki a chair.
“Two things,” he said. “First, Oz, you seem to have established a rapport with the girl, Lissa. I want you to question her again, but show up when you can talk to Laurel Jobe or Hobart Jobe or both. Don’t be confrontational. Just ask some general questions and see what you get.”
Oz felt a leap of excitement in his chest. “I’ll do that first thing tomorrow morning, Boss.”
“Second, Miss Vermillion, I hope you got a good look at the man who assaulted this time. I want you to look at some mug shots and try to identify him.”
Micki nodded. “He’s supposed to contact me tomorrow about meeting him to sell the park pictures.”
“So Oz said.” Qualls frowned. “Don’t worry. When he contacts you, we’ll be ready for him.”
#
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Oz presented himself at the Jobe penthouse again the next morning. He showed his badge when the door was opened.
A young Hispanic man stared at the badge with an expression akin to horror. He identified himself as Javier Solis, the chauffer.
