Little Belle Gone (8 page)

“Yeah, okay, just let me finish gathering up his stuff, unless you think all of it needs to go into evidence?” The idea turned over in his head, and his training kicked in. If the last week had been abnormal, that meant that someone else was taking care of the dog. Seeing the box of toys already gathered in her arms, he sighed.

“Actually, I think we should. Set the box down. I’ll get the C.S.I.’s to collect all his stuff right away and process it first. He should be fine in your apartment for a few hours while they clear it. You can take some food out of the bag for him, but wear gloves.” She smirked at him as she wiggled her fingers in the air. How had he not noticed she was wearing gloves already? Was he really that distracted around her? Leaving her to ready the dog, he stepped out into the hallway. He had a few more instructions for the uniform, but more importantly he needed to clear his head. A feat impossible to accomplish in her presence.

“Six, right?” A few minutes later they were standing in the elevator again with the other uniform. She nodded and he pressed the button and took a step back, coming close to her side. Bucky leaned toward him and sniffed at his gray sport coat. The little guy was cute, he had to admit. He liked dogs, though his tastes usually ran to the big slobbery kind. Smiling at the white fluff-ball, he scratched behind his ear absently as the elevator lurched and the doors opened again. Holding the baggie of dog food under his arm, he followed his k-9 laden partner down the hallway to her door. He watched as she rummaged in her small bag for her keys and as the door swung open, he stifled a gasp. Her apartment was nothing like he had pictured, though in truth, his imaginings were somewhat unrealistic to start with. He had pictured cold, uncomfortable, and sparse furniture, with more punching bags than pillows. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Her apartment was plush and stylish. Comfy and elegant tan furniture was accented by light blue walls and a variety of colorful throw pillows. A well equipped kitchen opened onto the perfectly appointed living area. The only thing that didn’t seem to fit the HGTV-esque space was the huge, built-in shelving unit covered in DVD cases and surrounding an erection-inducing wide-screen, flat-screen TV.

“Is there something wrong with my apartment, Detective Barrow?” The amusement in her voice was tinged with a little impatience, as she let the door swing open for him to follow her inside.

“It’s...great, just not what I expected, that’s all.” He cleared his head and moved into the entry, closing the door behind him. The idea that he was standing in her place, where she spent her evenings, where she slept and relaxed, was almost more than he could stand. Moving quickly, he slid into her kitchen and put the baggie of dog food on her counter. Watching her welcome the dog made him tense. The scene before him was far too familiar, too casual. He was having a hard enough time controlling his attraction when they were on the job, but here, in such a private setting, his feelings were becoming more than he could hold back. “So, if you’re finished I think we should get going.” Looking up from the dog she was furiously petting, her smile hit him like a bullet. She nodded and stood up, as if to move to the apartment door. Snapping her fingers she changed direction and opened a closed door along the far wall. Remembering the layout of the apartment they had just left, he pinched his eyes closed for a split second before forcing them open again. Sure enough, it was the door to her bedroom, the last room he felt comfortable taking in just now. It was soft and fluffy and feminine. A thick, enticing, down comforter, covered in a pale lavender print duvet, spread messily over a large queen-sized bed. Around it on the floor lay intimate articles of clothing and the distinct smell of her shampoo and perfume wafted out to him. In an instant he was rock hard and panting.
Holy shit, that’s her bed, those are her P.J.s from last night
. He nearly rushed her, drug her into his arms, wanting to fall upon her, a man in heat.

“I just need to grab something first. I’ll be right out.” Her voice carried from somewhere inside the hidden part of the room she had just opened.
Oh thank god,
she didn’t know, hadn’t seen his utterly vulgar, masculine reaction. Rushing to the sink, he ran the cold tap and splashed a bit into his face. Hearing her returning, he pulled his hand across his still smoldering features and rushed out into the hallway. He had already been struggling with sensual dreams and fantasies about her, now it would be unbearable. He knew what her bed looked like, knew that she wore to sleep, a skimpy tank-top and shorts set made of silk, both images that he knew would come back to him tonight as he stood in the cold rain of his shower shamefully caressing himself in her stead. Her voice shattered his thoughts as she brushed past him in the hallway heading for the elevator. He hadn’t heard what she had said, but he had certainly felt the brush of her shoulder against his. Looking up confused, he found her pressing the elevator button and staring at him with that wonderfully casual smirk of hers.
Perfect
. Now that she was comfortable with the idea of being his friend, he was decidedly not.

“Well, you coming?”

If only
....

The ride back to the precinct had been awkward, though she wasn’t really sure why. For one blissful moment she had actually felt comfortable letting someone, a man, into her life, but immediately after leaving her apartment he had turned cold, distant. Fear gripped her. Had he seen something in her apartment that he found offensive, or worse, repulsive? She had gone back over her rooms in her mind as he drove them to the office. Maybe he didn’t like dogs...no, he had petted Bucky in the elevator and it had appeared genuine. Her movie collection maybe? Surely that wasn’t it, most of her titles were action thrillers and sci\fi classics. What man doesn’t like those? Her bedroom?
Oh god, the bedroom.
She hadn’t pushed the door closed when she had gone in to run some water in the tub for Bucky. He had gotten an eye full of her most private place. Going over what might have been visible from where he stood, she took each item in turn, starting with the duvet. Though lavender was perhaps not the most serious color, it was her favorite, and after all, she was a girl. He couldn’t possibly have been caught off guard by that. There had been cloths on the floor and the bed wasn’t made, maybe he thought she was a slob. That made more sense than anything, but it wasn’t true. Normally she was very tidy. Part of her wanted to break the silence by declaring that, as she had already told him, she had been up late and that she only barely woke up in time to meet him that morning for coffee, let alone clean up her morning mess.

“So, I was wondering if you wanted to do a little combat training with me tonight? I know you were just joking around earlier, but I think it might be good for us to know what each other is capable of, physically speaking.” His voice had started out strong, but the strangely ambiguous ending had been accompanied by a strain in his tone. She didn’t really care if his meaning had been shady, she was just so relieved that he wasn’t frosty anymore.

Smiling slightly out her window, she answered in her most nonchalant voice. “Sure, but
when
I kick your butt you aren’t allowed to seek revenge.” His snort of derision had them both laughing and her heart fluttered into a feverish beat. Just when she felt the wall around her heart starting to crack, they pulled into the parking deck under the precinct building and the moment was lost. Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the contemporary office of Detective Arrons, listening to his preliminary findings. She flinched when he confirmed that the same phrase had again been carved on the victims’ chests under their clothes and that the weapon appeared to be the same from the last murder.

“We’ll know more when the coroner finishes his autopsy. Those findings should be on my desk around six this afternoon, but there are three bodies ahead of your case. As for the coat you found in the podium, Cord, it is definitely from your building and the name tag on it read Barry.” Elizabeth nodded, recognizing the name.

“Thanks, Jack.” Hearing Barrow’s voice beside her curled her fingers, it took so little for him to affect her. Their appointment that evening kicked her in the heart. It was one thing to hear his voice as he sat next to her, dressed in a suit, in front of a colleague. Here she could maintain a professional facade. It was quite another to be dressed sparsely and wrestling around with him on exercise mats. For a moment she thought she should back out, say she had other plans or needed to go home early. Bucky would make a great excuse and it would be so easy to squirm out of the appointment, but she didn’t actually
want
to. As much as the idea frightened her, it also excited her, more than she cared to admit.

After leaving Arrons’ office, he had taken her to a late lunch, but their conversation had been limited to the case and clues. It had been exceedingly pleasant and for the first time she actually felt like a normal, socially healthy, young woman. She was excited to think that she was fully capable of having a friendly professional relationship with a member of the opposite sex. It was a feeling she didn’t know she craved until she had a taste of it. Now she longed to feel that way all the time, and since she had only felt it with him, it made her want to be around him even more. After lunch, he had taken her by a pet store so she could pick up some things for Bucky, but when he took her back by her place to drop them off, he had waited in the car. It had bothered her, but she decided that she wouldn’t push it.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon interviewing Carl’s co-workers at the insurance firm he worked for. They described him warmly and confirmed both that they hadn’t heard from him in a week and that that wasn’t out of the ordinary for him. He was an independent claims adjuster, which meant he worked from home almost exclusively. They called him when there were things he needed to look into and it had been a slow week. In truth, he could have been dead for a week and they wouldn’t have realized it. With Pam being a housewife, their witness list was exceedingly short and had provided them with little information. Bruce had not been much better. He didn’t see them come in that morning and, aside from the message he had left on their machine, he hadn’t been in contact with them directly in over a week. As for the tampered with surveillance camera, that was the first he had heard of it and Elizabeth was quite sure that if she hadn’t been standing there he would have accused Barrow, and the rest of the force, of being the ones who broke it.

No closer to an answer, they had grabbed take-out on the way back to the office to wait on the coroner’s report. They ate and talked a bit at their desks. Their conversation, while not work related, gave her little about him. He shared none of his past as they discussed politics and books, though she did learn that he was very well read and possibly even more intelligent than herself, which made the need to be near him even stronger. But their pasts was not part of the discussion. The reserved way he guarded his secrets, just as she guarded hers, peeked her curiosity. After dinner, she managed to slip away from him for a few minutes. With her new found, and overwhelming, desire to know her partner came the confidence to scan his file, the very same one she didn’t dare look into yesterday. Sadly, aside from his home address and a few details on his education, and impressive arrest record, the file provided her with nothing ground breaking. She would simply have to find him out the old fashioned way.

At nearly eight-o-clock it became clear to them that no such report was forth coming. Stretching in her desk chair, Elizabeth looked over at him laid out in his, his feet propped on his desk and his head leaned back against the top of his chair. He looked as if he was asleep, but for some reason she knew he wasn’t. “Ready for that sparing match, Matthew? I didn’t get my workout in today and it doesn’t look like anything is going to happen tonight.” Sitting up in one smooth motion, he opened his cool blue eyes and ran them over her face.

“Sure, why not. Meet me in the gym downstairs in ten minutes.”

This is a terrible idea...
he chided himself, as he waited just off the elevator in the basement training center. He had tossed his gym bag down near a mat only to discover that there was not another soul to be seen in the expansive gym area. The weight benches sat still and the sparing mats were open and lonely. He prayed that her gym clothes were half as modest as her work clothes. In the ten days he had known her, the most skin he had seen from her was on the night he had mistaken her for a high school student. His heart skipped a beat as the plaid skirt and knee high white socks of that wicked uniform, covering so little of her supple body, came rushing forward from deep in his memory. Sucking in a ragged breath, he ran his hand over his face in an attempt to wipe the tantalizing image from his mind. Just as his heart began to calm, the doors to the elevator opened and she stepped out. For a moment she just stood there grinning at him. He almost turned and ran away, but the delightful curve of her mouth pinned him to the ground.

Leaving him slowly, he watched her eyes move across the deserted gym and, seeing the same unease wash across her that he had felt, made him even more nervous. It was bad enough he felt apprehensive about being alone with her, thinking that she felt the same way about him was too much to bare. “If it makes you uncomfortable to be alone down here we can always do this another time.” The words choked him as he forced them out. As uncomfortable as the idea of placing his hands on her tantalizing body in a room where they were all alone made him, he wanted it far more than he cared to admit. He had given her the ability to end this before it began and part of him was terrified she would take his proffered out. While he watched her struggling with his suggestion, his eyes slid over her.

She stood before him dressed for combat. Her feet weren’t shod, but wrapped in cloth strips, martial arts style, and she was wearing skin tight black spandex exercise pants that ended just below the knee. A three inch section of her mid-drift, her belly button in the center of it, gleamed ivory before the lose rim of a cut up t-shirt she wore to cover her lavender sports bra. The shirt had no sleeves or collar and hung loosely, draped over one slender shoulder. Her hair, that blessed waist-length sheet of dark red, was French braided, the tail of which hung over her bare shoulder, the end resting against the swell of her breast. He nearly fainted. He already knew she was gorgeous, but this was too much. She was perfect. Her body was curvy, but taunt, strong, yet supple. A wondrous mixture of luscious plump breasts and round hips paired with a flat abdomen and narrow waist, her body was a banquet and he was famished, so much so that he mouth began to water.