Night Sins (4 page)

“If I need a sex toy, I'll consult a mail-order catalogue,” he said darkly. “Don't rock my boat, Agent O'Malley. I don't like troublemakers—whether they look good in panty hose or not.”

He drew in a breath as he stepped back from her and wrinkled his nose as he caught an odd scent. “Interesting perfume you're wearing. Cheddar?”

Her cheeks bloomed pink. “I spent half the afternoon in the cheese factory, tracking down my apartment keys.”

“You
have
had a rough day. I prescribe meat loaf,” he declared. “Maybe a glass of wine. Definitely a piece of carrot cake . . . God, I'm starving,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his flat belly as he headed for the door.

Megan followed hesitantly, trying to decide if dinner with him would be a chance to start fresh or a continuing exercise in conversational combat. She wasn't sure she had the steam left for either, but she wouldn't let Mitch Holt see that. Despite his professions of enlightenment, she knew he would be both colleague and adversary. She had learned long ago to show no weaknesses to either.

CHAPTER 3

D
AY
1
7:33
P.M.
         21°

H
e didn't look bad with his clothes on, either. Just a casual observation, Megan told herself as Mitch hung their coats in the cloakroom at Grandma's Attic. He had dressed in dark pleated trousers, an ivory broadcloth shirt, and dark tie with a small print she couldn't make out. He'd combed his hair—or tried to. Tawny brown and thick, it stubbornly defied the stylish cut that was short on the sides and longer on top. He parted it on the left and had a habit of brushing it back with his fingers. Not a vain gesture, but an absent one, as if he were used to having it fall in his eyes.

Megan had made her own repairs, slipping into the ladies' room at the station. The hair got a quick brushing back into its simple ponytail. The lips got a slicking with gloss. She tried to rub the mascara smudges out from under her eyes, but discovered to her dismay the marks were natural, the telltale signs of fatigue. Her face was chalk white, but there was nothing to be done about it. She didn't wear much makeup as a rule and carried nothing with her.

No matter, she told herself as she glanced around the restaurant. This wasn't a date, it was a business dinner. She wasn't out to impress Mitch Holt as a woman, but as a cop.

The restaurant was crowded and noisy, the air thick with conversation and the warm, spicy smell of home cooking. Waitresses in ruffled muslin aprons and high-necked blouses with puffed sleeves wound through the array of mismatched wooden tables with heavy stoneware plates and trays laden with the special of the day. Grandma's was housed in a section of a renovated woolen mill. Its walls were time-worn brick, the floors scarred wood, and the ceiling beams exposed. A row of tall, arched windows had been installed on the street side of the main dining room. Lush ferns in brass pots hung from an old pipe that ran from wall to wall parallel to the windows.

Household antiques decorated every available spot—copper kettles, graniteware coffeepots, china teapots, kitchen utensils, butter churns and wooden butter molds, salt boxes and blue Mason jars. Steamer trunks were strategically located around the dining room to be used by the waitresses as serving tables. In addition to the more mundane items, there was a marvelous collection of ladies' hats that dated back a century. Broad-brimmed hats wound and draped with yards of sheer fabric. Pillbox hats and hats trimmed with ostrich plumes. Driving hats and riding hats and hats with black lace veils.

Megan took it all in with a sense of delight. She loved old things. She enjoyed hunting through flea markets for items that might have been heirlooms, things passed down from one generation of women to another. There were no such things in her family. She had nothing of her mother's. Her father had burned all of Maureen O'Malley's things a month after she had abandoned the family when Megan was six.

The hostess greeted Mitch by name, eyed Megan with interest, and led them back to a booth in a raised section of dining room where things appeared less hectic and the noise level was cut by the high walls of the booths.

“It's the usual madness,” she said, smiling warmly at Mitch. She looked mid-forties and attractive, her pale blond hair cut in a pageboy she tucked behind her ears. “And then some, with everybody gearing up for Snowdaze. Denise said she might come for the weekend.”

Mitch accepted a menu. “How's she doing at design school?”

“She loves it. She said to tell you thanks again for encouraging her to go back—and to look her up sometime when you're in the Cities. She's dating an architect, but it isn't serious,” she hastened to add, her gaze darting Megan's way with a gleam of sly speculation.

“Nnnn,” Mitch said through his teeth. “Darlene, this is Megan O'Malley, our new agent from the BCA. She's taking over Leo Kozlowski's job. It's her first night in town, and I thought I'd introduce her to Grandma's. Megan, Darlene Hallstrom.”

“Oo-oh!” Darlene cooed, the exclamation spanning an octave as she gave Megan a plastic smile and a once-over that scanned for signs of matrimony. “How nice to have someone new in town. Is your husband working in Deer Lake as well?”

“I'm not married.”

“We-ell, isn't that interesting.” She ground the words through the smile as she thrust a menu out. “We all sure liked Leo. Have a nice dinner.”

Mitch heaved a sigh as Darlene swept away, skirt twitching.

“Who's Denise?” Megan asked.

“Darlene's sister. Her
divorced
sister. Darlene had ideas.”

“Really? What did your wife have to say about that?”

“My—?”

Her gaze pointed a straight line to the hands that held the menu. The gold band on his left ring finger gleamed in the soft light. He wore it for a variety of reasons—because it helped to ward off prowling females, because it was habitual, because every time he looked at it he still felt the sting of grief and guilt. He made the excuse that he was a cop and cops were perverse by nature and Catholic in their guilt if not in any other way.

“My wife is dead,” he said, his voice a hard, cold whisper, the emotional shields coming up around him like iron bars. Nearly two years had passed and the words still tasted like the glue of postage stamps, bitter and acrid. He hadn't gotten any better at saying them. He fielded sympathy as awkwardly as a shortstop with a catcher's mitt.

“I don't talk about it,” he said flatly, mentally drawing a line in the sand and chasing her back to her side.

His pride and sense of privacy shunned the sympathy of virtual strangers. And simmering beneath that boar's nest, feeding on it, was the anger, his constant companion. He contained it, controlled it, ruthlessly. Control was the key. Control was his strength, his salvation.

“Oh, God, I'm sorry,” Megan murmured. She could feel his tension across the table. His shoulders were rigid with it, his jaw set at an angle no sane person would challenge. She felt as if she had trespassed on sacred ground.

She propped her elbows on the table and rubbed her hands over her face. “You're batting a thousand, O'Malley. If there's a pile of shit to be found today, you'll step in it with both feet.”

“I hope you're not referring to the cheese factory,” Mitch said dryly. He forced a wry smile. “I'd hate to have to send the health inspector down there again.”

Megan peeked out at him from between her fingers. “Again?”

“Yeah, well, last year there was a minor incident involving a mouse tail and a brick of Monterey Jack . . .”

“Gross!”

“Les Metzler assures me that was a one-time thing, but I don't know. Personally, I make it a policy not to buy cheese from a place where the gift shop also features taxidermy.”

“They don't,” she challenged.

“They do. I can't believe you didn't see the sign when you were out at the factory.
Metzler's BuckLand Fine Cheese and Taxidermy.
Les's brother Rollie does the taxidermy. He got hit in the head with a rolling pin as a child and became obsessed with roadkill. He's not quite right,” he said in an exaggerated whisper, twirling a forefinger beside his temple. Leaning across the table, he glanced around for eavesdroppers and whispered, “I buy my cheese in Minneapolis.”

Their gazes locked and Megan felt something she didn't want or need to feel. She jerked her eyes down and studied the pattern in his necktie—a hundred tiny renditions of Mickey Mouse.

“Great tie.”

He glanced down as if he'd forgotten what he was wearing. All the cynicism melted out of his smile. The rough edges of his face softened as he ran the strip of burgundy silk between his fingers. “My daughter picked it out. Her tastes run a little off the
GQ
scale, but then, she's only five.”

Megan had to bite her lip to keep from sighing. He was the chief of police, a big tough macho guy whose main fashion accessory was probably a nine-millimeter Smith & Wesson, and he let his little girl pick out his neckties. Sweet.

“A lot of cops I know don't have the fashion sense of a five-year-old,” she said. “My last partner dressed like a bad parody of a used car salesman. He had more plaid polyester pants than Arnold Palmer.”

Mitch chuckled. “You didn't list fashion police in your oral résumé.”

“I didn't want to overwhelm you.”

They both ordered the meat loaf. Megan declined the suggestion of a glass of wine, knowing it would aggravate her headache. Mitch asked for a bottle of Moosehead beer and made a point of noticing the waitress—a blond girl of eighteen or nineteen—had had her braces removed. The girl smiled shyly for him and went away blushing.

“You seem to know everyone here,” Megan said. “Is this one of those hometown boy-makes-good stories?”

Mitch pulled apart a dinner roll, steam billowed up from the center of it. “Me? No, I'm a transplant. I put in fifteen years on the force in Miami.”

“No way!” She gripped the edge of the table as if the shock had knocked her loopy. “You moved
here
from
Miami
? You gave up
Florida
to live in this godforsaken tundra?”

Mitch arched a brow. “Am I to assume you don't like our fair state?”

“I like summer—all three weeks of it,” she said, her voice crackling with sarcasm. “Fall is pretty, provided it isn't prematurely buried under ten feet of snow. That's as far as my love goes, despite the fact that I'm a native. In my opinion, life is too damn short to have half of it be winter.”

“Then why do you stay? With your qualifications, you could probably have your pick of jobs in a warmer climate.”

He recognized the defenses the instant they switched on. They were a mirror image of his own—built to protect, to deflect, to keep outsiders from moving in.

“Family complications” was all she said, turning her attention to a dinner roll. She picked a chunk out of it and played with the bread between her fingers. Mitch didn't probe, but he wondered. What family? What kind of complications would make her duck his gaze? Another loose thread for him to worry at. Another puzzle piece to define and fit.

She tossed the conversational ball back in his court. “So what'd you do in Miami?”

“Homicide. Did a stint on the gang task force. My last two years were on the major case squad. Tourist murders, socialite drug busts—high-profile stuff.”

“Isn't life around here a little slow for you?”

“I've had enough excitement to last me.”

Another answer with a past, Megan thought, glancing at him through her lashes as he took a long pull on his beer. Another reason to steer clear of him in all ways but the professional. She didn't need anyone else's emotional baggage. She had enough of her own to fill a set of Samsonite luggage. Still, the curiosity itched and tickled, the need to solve riddles and uncover secrets. She attributed the need to her cop instincts and denied that it had anything to do with the guarded shadows in his eyes or with some convoluted desire to comfort a man in pain. If she had a brain in her head, she wouldn't think of Mitch Holt as a man.

Fat chance, O'Malley, she thought as he took another swallow of Moosehead, his eyes narrowed, firm lips glistening with moisture as he set the bottle down. In the subdued light of the booth, his five o'clock shadow seemed darker against the lean planes of his cheeks, the scar on his chin looked silver and wicked.

“So how did you end up in the frozen North?” She ripped another chunk from her roll.

Mitch shrugged, as if it had been a random thing of little consequence, when that was about as far from the truth as any lie. “The job was open. My in-laws live here. It was a chance for my daughter to spend time with her grandparents.”

Their salads arrived, along with a member of the Moose Lodge, who wanted to remind Mitch that he was to speak at their Friday luncheon. Mitch introduced Megan. The Moose man looked at her and chuckled as if to say “great joke, Mitch.” He shook the hand Megan offered him, giving her a patronizing smile.

“You're Leo's replacement? Well, aren't you cute!”

Megan bit down on a caustic reply, reminding herself she had asked for this assignment.

Mr. Moose departed and was quickly replaced by one of the organizers of the Snowdaze torchlight parade, who went over details regarding the barricading of the streets involved. The introduction ritual was a near replay of the one before it.

“She's Leo's replacement? Easier on the eyes than ol' Leo, eh?”

Megan gritted her teeth. Mitch diplomatically refrained from comment. The meat loaf arrived and parade man took his leave, winking at Megan as he went.

She stared down at her plate. “If one more person calls me cute, I'm going to bite them. Is it 1994 or have I fallen through a time warp?”

Mitch chuckled. “Both. This is small-town Minnesota, Agent O'Malley. You ain't in the big city anymore.”

“I realize that, but this is a college town. I expected attitudes to be more progressive.”

“Oh, they are,” he said, dumping pepper on a mountain of scalloped potatoes. “We no longer require women to hide their faces or walk three steps behind men.”

“Very funny.” Megan cut into her meat loaf and thought the aroma of herbs and spices might just induce her to fall face-first on her plate and inhale everything on it.

“Seriously, Deer Lake is very progressive as small towns go. But the men you're likely to meet in the line of duty are going to be from the old school. There are still plenty of guys around who believe the little woman should stay home darning holey socks while they're off whooping it up at the NRA meeting. You can't tell me you haven't run up against your share in the departments you've worked.”

“Sure I did, but in the city the threat of lawsuits means something,” Megan replied. “You seem to have made the adjustment to small-town life without any trouble. What's your secret? Besides having a penis, I mean.”

“Gee, honey, I'm flattered you noticed,” Mitch drawled.

Poor choice of words there, O'Malley.
“It was kind of hard to miss, considering what you were wearing when we met.”

“I feel so cheap.”

She made the mistake of giving him a look, and her gaze locked onto his again like iron drawn to a magnet. God, of all the rotten luck. Attraction. A rare phenomenon in the life of Megan O'Malley. Naturally, it would strike when she least expected it, least needed it. Naturally, it would be sparked by a man she couldn't touch. Old Murphy and his laws of irony had nothing on her.