Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride (34 page)

“I didn’t think so.”

“Nina, it’s always a mistake to fall in love with the investigating cop. You’re scared, you’re looking for a hero. I happen to fall into the role.”

“But you’re not playing a role! Neither am I. Sam, I care about you. I think I’m falling in love with you.”

He just looked at her without speaking, his silence as cutting as any words.

She turned away, so that she wouldn’t have to see that flat, emotionless gaze of his. With a forced laugh she said, “God, I feel like such an idiot. Of course, this must happen to you all the time. Women throwing themselves at you.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it? The hero cop. Who could resist?” She turned back to him. “So, how do I compare with all the others?”

“There aren’t any others! Nina, I’m not trying to shove you away. I just want you to understand that it’s the situation that’s pulled us together. The danger. The intensity. You look at me and you completely miss all the flaws. All the reasons I’m not the right guy for you. You were engaged to Robert Bledsoe. Ivy League. Medical degree. House on the water. What the hell am I but a civil servant?”

She shook her head, tears suddenly filling her eyes. “Do you really think that’s how I see you? As just a civil servant? Just a cop?”

“It’s what I am.”

“You’re so much more.” She reached up to touch his face. He flinched, but didn’t pull away as her fingers caressed the roughness of his jaw. “Oh, Sam. You’re kind. And gentle. And brave. I haven’t met any other man like you. Okay, so you’re a cop. It’s just part of who you are. You’ve kept me alive. You’ve watched over me….”

“It was my job.”

“Is that all it was?”

He didn’t answer right away. He just looked at her, as though reluctant to tell the truth.

“Is it, Sam? Just a part of your job?”

He sighed. “No,” he admitted. “It was more than that. You’re more than that.”

Pure joy made her smile. Last night she’d felt it—his warmth, his caring. For all his denials, there was a living, breathing man under that mask of indifference. She wanted so badly to fall into his arms, to coax the real Sam Navarro out from his hiding place.

He reached up for her hand and gently but firmly lowered it from his face. “Please, Nina,” he said. “Don’t make this hard for both of us. I have a job to do, and I can’t be distracted. It’s dangerous. For you and for me.”

“But you do care. That’s all I need to know. That you care.”

He nodded. It was the most she could hope for.

“It’s getting late. We should leave,” he mumbled. And he turned toward the door. “I’ll be waiting for you in the car.”

N
INA FROWNED
at the computer-generated sketch of the suspect’s face. “It’s not quite right,” she said.

“What’s not right about it?” asked Sam.

“I don’t know. It’s not easy to conjure up a man’s face. I saw him only that one time. I didn’t consciously register the shape of his nose or jaw.”

“Does he look anything like this picture?”

She studied the image on the computer screen. For an hour, they’d played with different hairlines, noses, shapes of jaws and chins. What they’d come up with seemed generic, lifeless. Like every other police sketch she’d ever seen.

“To be honest,” she admitted with a sigh, “I can’t be sure this is what he looks like. If you put the real man in a lineup, I think I’d be able to identify him. But I’m not very good at re-creating what I saw.”

Sam, obviously disappointed, turned to the computer technician. “Print it up anyway. Send copies to the news stations and wire services.”

“Sure thing, Navarro,” the tech replied and he flipped on the printer switch.

As Sam led Nina away, she said miserably, “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t much help.”

“You did fine. And you’re right, it’s not easy to recreate a face. Especially one you saw only once. You really think you’d know him if you saw him?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure of it.”

He gave her arm a squeeze. “That may be all we’ll need from you. Assuming we ever get our hands on him. Which leads to the next item on our agenda.”

“What’s that?”

“Gillis is already at the hospital, pulling those treatment records. He’ll need you to interpret a few things on the encounter form.”

She nodded. “
That
I know I can do.”

They found Gillis sitting in a back room of the ER, papers piled up on the table in front of him. His face was pasty with fatigue under the fluorescent lights. It was nearly midnight, and he’d been on the job since 7:00 a.m. So had Sam.

For both of them, the night was just beginning.

“I pulled what I think is the right encounter form,” said Gillis. “May 29, 5:00 p.m. Sound about right, Miss Cormier?”

“It could be.”

Gillis handed her the sheet. It was the one-page record of an ER visit. On top was the name Lawrence Foley, his address, and billing information. On the line Chief Complaint, she recognized her own handwriting: Laceration, left forearm. Below that, she had written: forty-six-year-old white male hit by bicycle in crosswalk. Fell, cut arm on fender. No loss of consciousness.”

She nodded. “This is the one. Here’s Robert’s signature, on the bottom. Treating physician. He sutured the cut—four stitches, according to his notes.”

“Have we checked out this name, Lawrence Foley?” Sam asked Gillis.

“No one by that name living at that address,” Gillis informed him. “And that’s a nonexistent phone number.”

“Bingo,” said Sam. “False address, false identity. This is our man.”

“But we’re no closer to catching him,” stressed Gillis. “He left no trail, no clues. Where are we supposed to look?”

“We have a sketch of his face circulating. We know he was wearing some sort of uniform, possibly a bellhop’s. So we check all the hotels. Try to match the sketch with any of their employees.” Sam paused, frowning. “A hotel. Why would he be working at a hotel?”

“He needed a job?” Gillis offered.

“As a bellhop?” Sam shook his head. “If this is really Vincent Spectre, he had a reason to be there. A contract. A target…” He sat back and rubbed his eyes. The late hour, the stress, was showing in his face. All those shadows, all those lines of weariness. Nina longed to reach out to him, to stroke away the worry she saw there, but she didn’t dare. Not in front of Gillis. Maybe not ever. He’d made it perfectly clear she was a distraction to him, to his work, and that distractions were dangerous. That much she accepted.

Yet how she ached to touch him.

Sam rose to his feet and began to move about, as though forcing himself to stay awake. “We need to check all the hotels. Set up a lineup of bellhops. And we need to check police reports. Maybe someone called in that bicycle accident.”

“Okay, I’ll get Cooley on it.”

“What we really need to know is—who is he after? Who’s the target?”

“We’re not going to figure that out tonight,” said Gillis.

“We need more to go on.” He yawned, and added, “And we need some sleep. Both of us.”

“He’s right,” said Nina. “You can’t function without rest, Sam. You need to sleep on this.”

“In the meantime, Spectre’s at work on God knows what catastrophe. So far we’ve been lucky. Only one bombing casualty. But the next time…” Sam stopped pacing. Stopped because he’d simply run out of steam. He was standing in one spot, his shoulders slumped, his whole body drooping.

Gillis looked at Nina. “Get him home, will ya? Before he keels over and I have to drag him.”

Nina rose from her chair. “Come on, Sam,” she said softly. “I’ll drive you home.”

Heading out to the car, he kept insisting he could drive, that he was in perfectly good shape to take the wheel. She, just as insistently, pointed out that he was a menace on the road.

He let her drive.

Scarcely after she’d pulled out of the hospital parking lot, he was sound asleep.

At his house, she roused him just long enough to climb out of the car and walk in the front door. In his bedroom, he shrugged off his gun holster, pulled off his shoes, and collapsed on the bed. His last words were some sort of apology. Then he was fast asleep.

Smiling, she pulled the covers over him and went out to check the windows and doors. Everything was locked tight; the house was secure—as secure as it could be.

Back in Sam’s room, she undressed in the dark and climbed into bed beside him. He didn’t stir. Gently she stroked her fingers through his hair and thought,
My poor, exhausted Sam. Tonight, I’ll watch over you.

Sighing, he turned toward her, his arm reaching out to hug her against him. Even in his sleep, he was trying to protect her.

Like no other man I’ve ever known.

Nothing could hurt her. Not tonight, not in his arms.

She’d stake her life on it.

T
HEY WERE SHOWING
his picture on the morning news.

Vincent Spectre took one look at the police sketch on the TV screen and he laughed softly. What a joke. The picture looked nothing like him. The ears were too big, the jaw was too wide, and the eyes looked beady. He did not have beady eyes. How had they gotten it so wrong? What had happened to the quality of law enforcement?

“Can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man,” he murmured.

Sam Navarro was slipping, if that drawing was the best he could come up with. A pity. Navarro had seemed such a clever man, a truly worthy opponent. Now it appeared he was as dumb a cop as all the others. Though he
had
managed to draw one correct conclusion.

Vincent Spectre was alive and back in the game.

“Just wait till you see how alive I am,” he said.

That Cormier woman must have described his face to the police artist. Although the sketch wasn’t anything for him to worry about, Nina Cormier did concern him. Chances were, she’d recognize him in a room of anonymous strangers. She was the only one who could link his face to his identity, the only one who could ruin his plan. She would have to be disposed of.

Eventually.

He turned off the TV and went into the apartment bedroom, where the woman was still asleep. He’d met Marilyn Dukoff three weeks ago at the Stop Light Club, where he’d gone to watch the topless dance revue. Marilyn had been the blonde in the purple-sequined G-string. Her face was coarse, her IQ a joke, but her figure was a marvel of nature and silicone. Like so many other women on the exotic dance circuit, she was in desperate need of money and affection.

He’d offered her both, in abundance.

She’d accepted his gifts with true gratitude. She was like a puppy who’d been neglected too long, loyal and hungry for approval. Best of all, she asked no questions. She knew enough not to.

He sat down beside her on the bed and nudged her awake. “Marilyn?”

She opened one sleepy eye and smiled at him. “Good morning.”

He returned her smile. And followed it with a kiss. As usual, she responded eagerly. Gratefully. He removed his clothes and climbed under the sheets, next to that architecturally astonishing body. It took no coaxing at all to get her into the mood.

When they had finished, and she lay smiling and satisfied beside him, he knew it was the right time to ask.

And he said, “I need another favor from you.”

T
WO HOURS LATER
, a blond woman in a gray suit presented her ID to the prison official. “I’m an attorney with Frick and Darien,” she said. “Here to see our client, Billy Binford.”

Moments later she was escorted to the visiting room. Billy “The Snowman” took a seat on the other side of the Plexiglas. He regarded her for a moment, then said, “I been watching the news on TV. What the hell’s all this other stuff going on?”

“He says it’s all necessary,” said the blonde.

“Look, I just wanted the job done like he promised.”

“It’s being taken care of. Everything’s on schedule. All you have to do is sit back and wait.”

Billy glanced at the prison guard, who was standing off to the side and obviously bored. “I got everything riding on this,” he muttered.

“It will happen. But he wants to make sure you keep up your end of the bargain. Payment, by the end of the week.”

“Not yet. Not till I’m sure it’s done. I got a court date coming up fast—too fast. I’m counting on this.”

The blonde merely smiled. “It’ll happen,” she said. “He guarantees it.”

Ten

S
am woke up to the smell of coffee and the aroma of something cooking, something delicious. It was Saturday. He was alone in the bed, but there was no question that someone else was in the house. He could hear the bustle in the kitchen, the soft clink of dishes. For the first time in months, he found himself smiling as he rose from bed and headed to the shower. There was a woman in the kitchen, a woman who was actually cooking breakfast. Amazing how different that made the whole house feel. Warm. Welcoming.

He came out of the shower and stood in front of the mirror to shave. That’s when his smile faded. He suddenly wondered how long he’d been asleep. He’d slept so heavily he hadn’t heard Nina get out of bed this morning, hadn’t even heard her take a shower. But she’d been in here; the shower curtain had already been damp when he stepped in.

Last night someone could have broken into the house, and he would have slept right through it.

I’m useless to her,
he thought. He couldn’t track down Spectre and keep Nina safe at the same time. He didn’t have the stamina or the objectivity. He was worse than useless; he was endangering her life.

This was exactly what he’d been afraid would happen.

He finished shaving, got dressed, and went into the kitchen.

Just the sight of her standing at the stove was enough to shake his determination. She turned and smiled at him.

“Good morning,” she murmured, and wrapped her arms around him in a sweetly scented hug. Lord, this was every man’s fantasy. Or, at least, it was
his
fantasy: a gorgeous woman in his kitchen. The good morning smile. Pancakes cooking in the skillet.

A woman in the house.

Not just any woman. Nina. Already he felt his resistance weakening, felt the masculine urges taking over again. This was what always happened when he got too close to her.

He took her by the shoulders and stepped away. “Nina, we have to talk.”

“You mean…about the case?”

“No. I mean about you. And me.”

All at once that radiant smile was gone from her face. She’d sensed that a blow was about to fall, a blow that would be delivered by
him.
Mutely she turned, lifted the pancake from the skillet, and slid it onto a plate. Then she just stood there, looking at it lying on the countertop.

He hated himself at that moment. At the same time he knew there was no other way to handle this—not if he really cared about her.

“Last night shouldn’t have happened,” he said.

“But nothing
did
happen between us. I just brought you home and put you to bed.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Nina, I was so exhausted last night, someone could’ve driven a damn train through my bedroom and I wouldn’t have moved a muscle. How am I supposed to keep you safe when I can’t even keep my eyes open?”

“Oh, Sam.” She stepped toward him, her hands rising to caress his face. “I don’t expect you to be my guardian. Last night, I wanted to take care of
you.
I was so happy to do it.”

“I’m the cop, Nina. I’m responsible for your safety.”

“For once, can’t you stop being a cop? Can’t you let me take care of
you?
I’m not so helpless. And you’re not so tough that you don’t need someone. When I was scared, you were there for me. And I want to be here for
you.
”

“I’m not the one who could get killed.” He took both her hands and firmly lowered them from his face. “This isn’t a good idea, getting involved, and we both know it. I can’t watch out for you the way I should. Any other cop could do a better job.”

“I don’t trust any other cop. I trust you.”

“And that could be a fatal mistake.” He pulled away, gaining himself some breathing space. Anything to put distance between them. He couldn’t think clearly when she was so near; her scent, her touch, were too distracting. He turned and matter-of-factly poured himself a cup of coffee, noting as he did it that his hand wasn’t quite steady. Her effect, again. Not looking at her, he said, “It’s time to focus on the case, Nina. On finding Spectre. That’s the best way to ensure your safety. By doing my job and doing it right.”

She said nothing.

He turned and saw that she was gazing listlessly at the table. It had already been set with silverware and napkins, glasses of juice, and a small crock of maple syrup. Again he felt that stab of regret.
I’ve finally found a woman I care about, a woman I could love, and I’m doing my best to push her away.

“So,” she said softly. “What do you propose, Sam?”

“I think another man should be assigned to protect you. Someone who has no personal involvement with you.”

“Is that what we have? A personal involvement?”

“What else would you call it?”

She shook her head. “I’m beginning to think we have no involvement at all.”

“For God’s sake, Nina. We slept with each other! How can two people get more involved than that?”

“For some people, sex is purely a physical act. And that’s all it is.” Her chin tilted up in silent inquiry.
For some people.

Meaning me?

Damn it, he refused to get caught up in this hopeless conversation. She was baiting him, trying to get him to admit there was more to that act of lovemaking than just sex. He was not about to admit the truth, not about to let her know how terrified he was of losing her.

He knew what had to be done.

He crossed the kitchen to the telephone. He’d call Coopersmith, ask him to assign a man to pull guard duty. He was about to pick up the receiver when the phone suddenly rang.

He answered it with a curt “Navarro.”

“Sam, it’s me.”

“Morning, Gillis.”

“Morning? It’s nearly noon. I’ve already put in a full day here.”

“Yeah, I’m hanging my head in shame.”

“You should. We’ve got that lineup scheduled for one o’clock. Bellhops from five different hotels. You think you can bring Nina Cormier down here to take a look? That is, if she’s there with you.”

“She’s here,” admitted Sam.

“That’s what I figured. Be here at one o’clock, got it?”

“We’ll be there.” He hung up and ran his hand through his damp hair. God. Nearly noon? He was getting lazy. Careless. All this agonizing over him and Nina, over a relationship that really had nowhere to go, was cutting into his effectiveness as a cop. If he didn’t do his job right,
she
was the one who’d suffer.

“What did Gillis say?” he heard her ask.

He turned to her. “They’ve scheduled a lineup at one o’clock. Want you to look at a few hotel bellhops. You up to it?”

“Of course. I want this over with as much as you do.”

“Good.”

“And you’re right about turning me over to another cop. It’s all for the best.” She met his gaze with a look of clear-eyed determination. “You have more important things to do than baby-sit me.”

He didn’t try to argue with her. In fact, he didn’t say a thing. But as she walked out of the kitchen, leaving him standing alone by that cozily set breakfast table, he thought,
You’re wrong. There’s no more important job in the world to me than watching over you.

E
IGHT MEN STOOD
on the other side of the one-way mirror. All of them were facing forward. All of them looked a little sheepish about being there.

Nina carefully regarded each man’s uniform in turn, searching for any hint of familiarity. Any detail at all that might trip a memory.

She shook her head. “I don’t see the right uniform.”

“You’re absolutely certain?” asked Gillis.

“I’m certain. It wasn’t any of those.”

She heard an undisguised snort of disappointment. It came from Norm Liddell, the D.A. who was standing next to Gillis. Sam, poker-faced, said nothing.

“Well, this was a big waste of my time,” muttered Liddell. “Is this all you’ve come up with, Navarro? A bellhop roundup?”

“We know Spectre was wearing some sort of uniform similar to a bellhop’s,” said Sam. “We just wanted her to look over a few.”

“We did track down a police report of that bike accident,” said Gillis. “The bicyclist himself called it in. I think he was worried about a lawsuit, so he made a point of stating that he hit the man outside a crosswalk. Apparently, Spectre was jaywalking when he was hit on Congress Street.”

“Congress?” Liddell frowned.

“Right near the Pioneer Hotel,” said Sam. “Which, we’ve found out, is where the Governor plans to stay day after tomorrow. He’s the guest speaker at some small business seminar.”

“You think Spectre’s target is the Governor?”

“It’s a possibility. We’re having the Pioneer checked and double-checked. Especially the Governor’s room.”

“What about the Pioneer’s bellhops?”

“We eliminated all of them, just based on height and age. No one’s missing any fingers. That one there—number three—is the closest to Spectre’s description. But he has all his fingers, too. We just wanted Nina to take a look at the uniform, see if it jogged a memory.”

“But no one in that lineup is Spectre.”

“No. We’ve looked at everyone’s hands. No missing fingers.”

Nina’s gaze turned to number three in the lineup. He was dressed in a bellhop’s red jacket and black pants. “Is that what all the Pioneer’s bellhops wear?” she asked.

“Yeah,” said Gillis. “Why?”

“I don’t think that’s the uniform I saw.”

“What’s different about it?”

“The man I saw in the ER—I’m just remembering it—his jacket was green. Sort of a forest green. It was definitely not red.”

Gillis shook his head. “We got us a problem then. The Holiday Inn’s uniform is red, too. Marriott’s green, but it’s not located anywhere near the bicycle accident.”

“Check out their staff anyway,” Liddell ordered. “If you have to interview every bellhop in town, I want this guy caught. And I sure as hell want him caught before he blows up some high-muck-a-muck. When’s the Governor arriving tomorrow?”

“Sometime in the afternoon,” said Gillis.

Liddell glanced at his watch. “We have a full twenty-four hours. If anything comes up, I get called. Got it?”

“Yes, sir, your highness,” muttered Gillis.

Liddell glanced sharply at him, but obviously decided to drop it. “My wife and I’ll be at the Brant Theater tonight. I’ll have my beeper with me, just in case.”

“You’ll be first on our list to call,” said Sam.

“We’re in the spotlight on this. So let’s not screw up.” It was Liddell’s parting shot, and the two cops took it in silence.

Only after Liddell had left the room did Gillis growl, “I’m gonna get that guy. I swear, I’m gonna get him.”

“Cool it, Gillis. He may be governor someday.”

“In which case, I’ll help Spectre plant the damn bomb myself.”

Sam took Nina’s arm and walked her out of the room. “Come on. I have my hands full today. I’ll introduce you to your new watchdog.”

Passing me off already,
she thought. Was she such a nuisance to him?

“For now, we’re keeping you in a hotel,” he said.

“Officer Pressler’s been assigned to watch over you. He’s a sharp cop. I trust him.”

“Meaning I should, too?”

“Absolutely. I’ll call you if we turn up any suspects. We’ll need you to identify them.”

“So I may not be seeing you for a while.”

He stopped in the hallway and looked at her. “No. It may be a while.”

They faced each other for a moment. The hallway was hardly private; certainly this wasn’t the time or the place to confess how she felt about him.
She
wasn’t even sure how she felt about him. All she knew was that it hurt to say goodbye. What hurt even worse was to look in his eyes and see no regret, no distress. Just that flat, unemotional gaze.

So it was back to Mr. Civil Servant. She could deal with that. After the trauma of this last week, she could deal with anything, including the realization that she had, once again, gotten involved with the wrong man.

She met his gaze with one just as cool and said, “You find Spectre. I’ll identify him. Just do it soon, okay? So I can get on with my life.”

“We’re working on it round the clock. We’ll keep you informed.”

“Can I count on that?”

He answered with a curt dip of the head. “It’s part of my job.”

O
FFICER
L
EON
P
RESSLER
was not a conversationalist. In fact, whether he could converse at all was in question. For the past three hours, the muscular young cop had done a terrific sphinx imitation, saying nary a word as he roamed the hotel room, alternately checking the door and glancing out the third floor window. The most he would say was “Yes, ma’am,” or “No, ma’am,” and that was only in response to a direct question. Was the strong, silent bit some kind of cop thing? Nina wondered. Or was he under orders not to get too chatty with the witness?

She tried to read a novel she’d picked up in the hotel gift shop, but after a few chapters she gave up. His silence made her too nervous. It was simply not natural to spend a day in a hotel room with another person and not, at the very least, talk to each other. Lord knew, she tried to draw him out.

“Have you been a cop a long time, Leon?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Does it ever scare you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Never?”

“Sometimes.”

Now they were getting somewhere, she thought.

But then Officer Pressler crossed the room and peered out the window, ignoring her.

She put her book aside and launched another attempt at conversation.

“Does this sort of assignment bore you?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“It would bore me. Spending all day in a hotel room doing nothing.”

“Things could happen.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be ready for it.” Sighing, she reached for the remote and clicked on the TV. Five minutes of channel surfing turned up nothing of interest. She clicked it off again. “Can I make a phone call?” she asked.

“Sorry.”

“I just want to call my nursing supervisor at Maine Medical. To tell her I won’t be coming in next week.”