Seductive Reasoning (TASK FORCE HAWAII Book 1) (5 page)

“Does that mean you think he didn’t feed her?” Marcus asked.

“I am sure he fed her something, but not in the last seventy-two hours.”

“He knew his time was ending,” Cat said. “No reason to keep feeding her.

Emma nodded. “Okay, is there anything else you need me for?”

He blinked as his mind went completely blank. For a second, he couldn’t come up with a word. She was leaving already? He hadn’t talked to her in close to four weeks, and now she was popping off just like that.

“Not really. Do you have another job?”

Emma had a wealth of contracted work she handled. Most of it was done over the Internet, but he knew that every now and then she would get a local job.

“No. I want to start on this. I have an idea.”

Which meant she was going to run with it, and he needed to let her go.

“Answer when I call.”

She grabbed up her messenger bag and started toward the door.

“I’m not your dog, Delano.”

The door shut just as the snickers started.

“That woman definitely knows how to handle you,” Marcus said.

“You want to work graveyard tonight?” Del asked.

Marcus shook his head, but he didn’t stop smiling. Del missed the days of being in the Army and just looking at one of his lieutenants would cause them to pass out. This team was seasoned and tended to know just how to handle him. Dammit.

“So, McGregor, you and Cat go do another canvassing of the site. I assume that traffic cams picked up nothing?”

“I haven’t talked to Charity, but I know she was going through them. I’m sure we’ll hear from her if she gets a hit,” Adam said

“Nothing yet, when I was down there,” Elle said. “She was still going through all the footage.”

Del nodded. “Marcus, see if you can call her friends again. We’ll leave the family alone for now, but make sure there was nothing different in her life. We need to start looking for patterns, so we can put the word out.”

As everyone left, Adam approached him. He kept looking at Del, as if he wanted to offer him some advice. Adam always had advice.

“What?”

“The best thing you could do is take her to bed. It would relieve some of that tension.”

Del didn’t respond. He didn’t want to. Bringing her in had been smart for the case, but not for his peace of mind. She tested him on so many levels, but she had no idea. Or pretended not to. Just being in the same room with her drove him to distraction. He headed to his office and tried to look busy. Which he should be, but he had to get his head unscrambled. Spending time with Emma always left him like this.

“Boss?”

He glanced up at Adam standing in his doorway. He saw the expression and knew exactly what it meant.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Adam sighed. “But you should. Otherwise, you might end up shooting someone.”

“Namely you,” he growled.

Adam spread his arms out with his palms up. “Listen, I’m just trying to help here.”

“Then maybe you can go make the announcement about the identification of the body.”

“No, thanks. I handled the family, and that was enough.”

He sighed and stepped into his office. “They already knew. It was hard not to.”

Adam pursed his lips. “How did they find her to begin with? Was there a witness?”

He shook his head. “A call. So there was a witness, we are not sure who, though. Or, it could have been the bastard himself. They have the tape and are supposed to be sending it to Charity.”

“What kind of call?”

“An anonymous one from a payphone down the street.”

Adam folded his arms as he leaned against the doorjamb. “That sounds too convenient.”

Del nodded. “Check with Charity and see if they sent it. If not, check with dispatch and get it to her ASAP. Maybe she can line up any traffic cams with the phone too. Carino was in charge until we took over. But I doubt he has anything more than we do. Plus, he’s still considered a
haole
, so you might get further than either one of us.”

Adam nodded. “Got it.”

He turned to leave, but paused to look at Del. “You know, Emma really has no idea of your attraction.”

Del said nothing but stared at him unblinkingly. Adam was the brother he never had, especially since neither of them had a brother. He’d been welcoming and eased Del’s first year. He knew without a doubt he would have not made it through the first year with him.

“No comment?”

“What do you want me to say?” Del asked, trying to keep his voice level.

“I thought you might want to share a little. Talk it out.”

Del rolled his eyes. He had a good family, but they were Italian. There was a lot of yelling, lots of eating, and lots of love. When it came to his love life, there wasn’t much discussion—other than his mother pointing out that he hadn’t given her any grandbabies. His father had been gone most of the time, serving overseas in places that he now knew about all too well. But, even so, Joe Delano did not discuss things like feelings.

Adam had been raised differently. His father had died in the line of duty with HPD, and he had been raised in a houseful of women and girls. He always wanted to share things that were just…wrong. Or maybe it was just Hawaiians. Lord knows his landlord always wanted to talk to him about Del’s lack of a love life.

He realized Adam wasn’t going to leave until he answered him. “No, I don’t want to share. I don’t want to talk about it, because there is nothing to talk about.”

Adam just shook his head as he walked away with a smile on his face. Maybe if Del said it out loud enough times, he could force himself to stop thinking about her all the time.

Fat chance, Delano.

T
he wail
of a woman crying pierced his thoughts. Dammit, he was trying to concentrate and she would not shut up. They never did. He could hear it seeping from the room he had built. He didn’t feel any kind of remorse. Why should he? Women deserved nothing more than what he offered—an escape. They would no longer be tied to the convention of this world. They would be free of their baser needs.

The sobs grew louder. Bloody hell, this one was louder than usual. She just would not shut up. It was time for another injection, so he could work on his art again. They were always so much better after he gave them something to calm their nerves. He went to the cabinet and pulled out the syringe. It was so much easier to keep the women quiet when he worked on them.

Working in silence was a must.

I
n the seventy
-two hours following the discovery of Grace Singh’s body, Del had been put through the wringer. The press had hounded him, and all of the elected officials felt the need to tell him how important this was. It wasn’t like he was smart enough to understand anything.

Del tossed a few aspirin back and took a swig of his cold, stale coffee. The bitter taste was so strong it almost made his eyes water.

“Living the life, Delano,” he said, to nobody in particular.

His head had been pounding for two days. He’d only gone home to take a shower and get a change of clothes. He needed sleep…a lot of sleep. Unfortunately, Jin had found out where he lived and had hounded him there until he threatened her and her station with a lawsuit. At least there he could claim it was private property. But, she was always waiting for him when he showed up at the office.

On top of all of that, he hadn’t heard from Emma. He had made sure not to bother her, because he knew what she was like when she got in the
zone
. He really did worry about his safety when he interrupted her. Still, he wanted to know what she was working out, and he wanted to make sure she wasn’t zoning in too much. She had a tendency to forget about everything else while she worked.

“Hey, Boss,” Adam said when he stuck his head in his office.

The last few days had been tough on all of them—especially Adam. He’d been in law enforcement in Hawaii longer than any of them, and locals often went to him with their problems. HPD had been relentless, and Adam had done his best to shield Del. He had a better temperament than Del. The constant second-guessing from HPD was starting to get on Del’s nerves. It wasn’t that it was a slight at him. It was, but he was more pissed off that they were attacking his team. His team had not been in charge of the search and rescue. But for some reason now, they were supposed to solve a case with almost no evidence or leads in less than four days.

“Yeah?” he asked, as he took another swig of coffee, quickly remembering it was stale. Fuck, that was nasty.

“Have you talked to Emma?”

Del shook his head and moved the coffee cup farther away. “Not yet.”

Adam sighed and walked into his office uninvited. It had been like that since Del had hired him. While it had annoyed him at first, Del had realized it was just part of the way Adam operated. He didn’t bug Del unless there was something important to discuss. Now Del knew to pay attention.

“Do you think she’s still working on this?”

He grunted as he started going through his emails. Fuck, Satan had to be behind the idea of email. He’d just checked it half an hour ago, and there were one hundred new ones. If one more politician emailed him, Del was going to hunt down the bastard and punch him in the throat.

“Boss?”

He looked up and realized Adam was waiting for an answer. “Of course she is.”

Adam looked out into the squad room, then shut the door to Del’s office.
Dammit
, he would never get any peace, even from his own team. If Adam closed the door, he felt they needed to share again.

“Why do you say it like that?”

He shrugged. “Emma always finishes what she starts. It’s an illness almost.”

“Hmm.”

He did not like the sound of that hum. When Adam had time to think, it usually ended badly for Del. “What?”

“You seem to know her well.”

“I told you. I dealt with her when her brother had that business before. You were the one in charge of her that night.”

“Yeah, but she has never connected with me like she has with you.”

Del thought it best to ignore Adam’s needling. “You’ve worked with her for the last few months. You’ve seen her obsession. She latches onto something and doesn’t let go. It’s why she makes so much money testing games. They know she will go in and test every angle there is and then some. When they get the report back from her, they know how to make it more difficult, or easy, depending on what they want to do with it. It is just the way her brain works.”

“Man, that’s a lot of words about a woman you claim not to have the hots for.”

“Listen, I know that you like to talk about feelings, but I don’t have the time. We have the mayor and the governor breathing down our necks, and that damned Jin Phillips is stalking me. She wants a fucking interview. I don’t have the time or energy to even think about a love life.”

“Ah, so you
do
think about her that way.”

Fuck. He needed some sleep. How did Emma operate on no sleep? He had been trained in the Army to go without sleep, but right now, even after drinking a ton of coffee, he couldn’t seem to concentrate. He was too old for this kind of sleep deprivation. Of course, just thinking that pissed him off. Seriously, he wasn’t even forty yet. He’d just hit mid-thirties this year, but he was already thinking like he was middle aged.

This case had been driving him mental—as Emma would say.

He didn’t address Adam’s assertions, but he did say, “We should probably check on her.”

“Did you call her brother?”

He nodded. “He said he talked to her yesterday morning when I called him last night. He assured me they were all keeping tabs on her.”

All of them understood her interest could often turn to obsession. He was sure a shrink would say it had to do with her losing her family at the age of fifteen. Add in that she survived the natural disaster that had destroyed her family, Emma was a prime candidate for having issues. The fact that she had this one quirk was easy enough to deal with. Tag teaming with her family seemed to help.

“But you haven’t talked to her?” Adam asked.

He shook his head. It was the end of the workday, and while he had called her several times, she had not answered.

“You might want to check on her. You know how she can get,” Adam said.

“What?”

“Just like you said. I have seen her like that. Remember that first case we were on with her, the dog fighting ring?”

Emma had been devastated that people were abusing dogs that way. They had caught the case thanks to a fight between two of the operators, which had left one of them dead. The investigation had uncovered a multitude of activities, including prostitution and drug selling. Emma had obsessed about the dogs so much so that she hadn’t slept for a week.

“I’m sure her brother will keep an eye on her.”

But he knew better. Sean did overprotect her to a point. At the time of their blow up, he had noticed that her older brother was giving her more space. It had made Del even more nervous about her well being. The woman needed a keeper.

“Go on and check.”

Del looked up from his email. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“I have a love life, and to prove it, I have a date tonight.”

“Jeanine, the coffee girl?”

He nodded. “So go check on Beautiful Mind.”

Damn, he forgot about that nickname the team had given her. All of them were very careful not to use it around her, but it didn’t mean one of them wouldn’t slip up. They didn’t mean anything by it and, in fact, it made her part of the team. Del was just worried she wouldn’t understand it because things like that often didn’t make sense to her.

“Hell, you could walk over there, Boss.”

Del knew too well where she lived. He had avoided it as if the plague had been detected there. It was almost too much temptation, but he went out of his way to go down a couple blocks so he didn’t stop by. It would be too damned easy to come up with a work excuse to stop by there and say hi.

“I always thought it an odd choice,” Adam said.

“What? Where she lives?”

He nodded. “She survived a tsunami. Why would she live right there in Ala Moana, with the ocean just out her window?”

“I don’t know.”

But now, he wanted to know. He wanted to know why she would choose a condo right next to the ocean. Was she crazy, or did she have the need to prove something?

Dammit. His infatuation with her was getting stupid. It was definitely making him stupid. When he got stupid, people got hurt. Del had promised Sean he would do everything in his power to keep her safe. Obsessing about her, or just how she would sound when she moaned his name…

Fuck
.

“You just need to go by and check on her. She’s bound to have found something by now.”

He hesitated, not wanting Adam to think he was going because he told him to go. But Adam smiled.

“If anything, just get out of here for awhile. You need a break.”

“That’s definitely true. I can’t think in here.”

Adam remained silent as Del picked up his gun and shoulder holster. After slipping it on, he grabbed his cell.

“Call if anything breaks.”

“Always, Boss.”

He didn’t pay attention to the looks he got as he strode to the back of the building. He would walk it out, get his mind back into the game and return.

He was not going to show up at Emma’s condo.

“
W
here’s he going
?” Marcus asked as they watched Del walk down the hall to the back door.

Adam smiled. “Beautiful Mind.”

“Okay, who has today’s date?” Cat asked as she and McGregor joined them. “I know I have Tuesday next week.”

Adam knew that if Del had any idea they were all betting on when he and Emma would end up in bed, there was a good chance they would all get written up, or shot. Probably shot. But it was their way, and there had been running bets since she had first joined the team. Hell, what could he say? They were detectives, and it didn’t take much to detect the heat between those two. Emma and Del both were attracted, and they were completely oblivious about it. That made it even more fun for the team.

“Not sure, and we agreed we needed verification,” Floyd said.

“How the bloody hell are we going to get that?” McGregor bellowed. The damned Scot was loud, and that was saying a lot considering Adam’s family. All the women in his family were damned loud. But the man always seemed to shout every comment or question.

“I don’t know, but we all agreed to it,” Adam said just as Elle joined them.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Beautiful Mind,” Cat said as she wiggled her eyebrows.

“Oh.” She said nothing for the moment. “I have today.”

McGregor looked at her. “You bet on it?”

She shrugged, but said nothing as her cheeks burned. Adam blinked. It was hard to remember that Elle was often times shy around all of them if she wasn’t talking a case.

“There is no verification. Who has the sheet?” Cat asked.

“I think Drew is keeping it,” Elle said. She pulled out her phone to text him.

“And I didn’t say it was going to happen, but he’s on his way over there now,” Adam said.

As usual, they ignored him. If there was a chance someone was going to cash in, they paid attention to nothing else.

“Yes, Drew has it,” Elle said.

“Hey, who has tomorrow?” Cat asked, as they crowded around Elle to find out what days they had picked for the month.

Adam sighed. It was a really good thing the boss wasn’t there. Worse, he was worried what the team would do to verify the bedding. One thing they took almost as seriously as their job, and that was the contests that involved money. Some offices had fantasy football, they had bets on each other’s sex lives.

They were strange, but they were ’
ohana
.

E
mma tugged
her T-shirt over her head, then grabbed her panties. After she pulled them on, her stomach rumbled. Her appetite was roaring to life now that she’d stepped back from work.

She felt better now after a shower, but her head was still fuzzy. Too many thoughts crowding her mind. She knew she was in a bad place, obsessing about the assignment, but she couldn’t figure a way out of it.

Her brother had always told her to step back, look at the issue from another angle. If that failed, he told her to take a shower. It hadn’t helped, although she didn’t smell that bad anymore.

When her stomach grumbled again, she realized she needed to get something to eat. She went to her kitchen, but before she could open the fridge, there was a knock at her door. She frowned. Usually, the doorman told her if someone was coming up.

Another knock.

“Open up, Taylor. I know you’re in there.”

Del
. Her heart skipped with delight, as she tried to fend off the inevitable dizziness she had around him. What was it about this man that just the sound of his voice made her want to giggle? It was one of the reasons she had done her best to stay away from him for most of the last two days.

She walked to the door but did not open it.

“I heard you walking to the door.”

He was as bad as Sean and Randy. They could track a person’s movements. It was probably from their training. All three of them had worked Special Ops in the military.

She knew he wouldn’t go away, so with a sigh, she unlocked the door and opened it.

He had his mouth open to say something, but snapped it shut. He was probably going to yell at her. The man was always yelling at her one way or another. In emails, in texts, and the worst, in person. And
dammit
, a girl could only take so much. When he got all mouthy with her, she just wanted to kiss him.

She needed a therapist and maybe medication. Definitely medication.

When he continued to stare at her, she gave in. “What?”

His gaze slipped down her body, and she felt it as if he were touching her. When he met her gaze, he swallowed.

“Do you always answer the door dressed like that?” he asked, his voice sounding strangely strained.

She looked down and realized she wore only her massive shirt. Sure, she had on a pair of tiny little panties, but that was it. The man was making her lose her head.

“Come in.”

She turned around, fighting the heat that was flaming her face. Seriously, she might have a one sixty IQ, but she just did not seem to be able to use any of her intelligence when he was around.

“I just got out of the shower. Give me a second.”

She didn’t look to see if he followed. He always did, for some odd reason. From the moment she hit him with that board, he always appeared and watched out for her. It was odd enough that Sean, and to an extent Randy and Jaime, kept an eye on her. She had been on her own so much in the last eleven years that she was accustomed to handling her life without intervention.