Slow Heat (6 page)

“Hello, this is Maggie O’Malley,” she stumbled. Had the people in the KFA office already warned him she’d be calling? He didn’t say anything, so she forged forward. “Earlier this week you…” She let her words trail off. What did he do? Maggie bit her lower lip but then decided the heck with it. Why mince words? “Earlier this week you dragged me out of my office so that cops could take me to the police station and question me for twelve hours.”

“Okay,” he said when she paused.

“I want to hire you to find out who is really guilty.”

“I’m a bounty hunter.”

“You’re required to be a licensed investigator in the state of California in order to be a bounty hunter,” she said, reciting the words she’d already rehearsed for when he told her he couldn’t do this. Granted, he hadn’t said no yet. But she was ready to challenge him so he would say yes. “Which means if you wanted, you could investigate this for me.”

He said nothing. Maggie sighed. “May I come over and discuss this with you?”

“That’s fine.” Micah hung up.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “Don’t say bye.” But she already knew he wasn’t blessed with manners. This also meant he knew she had his address, which they’d given her in the KFA office. So he’d already talked to them and knew she’d be calling. “And that tells me he was intentionally rude.”

Her stomach twisted into a ball of nerves as she drove through traffic and across the interstate toward Micah’s home in Santa Monica. Although raised in LA, this was a town Maggie wasn’t overly familiar with. Her friends used to rave about the roller-coaster rides on the beach, and all the shopping they’d done after going to the amusement parks. Maggie had always worked after school, then there was college. Now she worked even harder. No roller-coaster rides for her.

She relied on Google Maps on her phone to make sure she didn’t get lost. So when her phone rang, Maggie glanced nervously up and down a strip mall as she pulled off the road and into its parking lot and stopped her car. Over half the shops in the mall had gone under; boards covering windows were spray-painted with bright graffiti. She prayed they weren’t gang signs and that she hadn’t parked on some gang’s turf just so she could answer her phone.

“Hello, Mom,” she answered and realized if she told her mother to hurry up because she didn’t like where she’d parked, her mother would want to know why. She couldn’t exactly tell her that she couldn’t read Google Maps on her phone and talk on it at the same time. Her mother would then want to know where she was going.

“Will you be home soon?” her mother asked.

“Sure. Why?”

“Deidre and Bernie are here.”

“They are?” Maggie saw her older sister Deidre more often than her other brothers and sisters since she lived the closest. But Bernie, her younger brother, had been on the road with his band for almost a year. “I didn’t even know Bernie was in LA.”

“We found out earlier today. I just got off the phone with Annalisa.”

Maggie’s radar went up instantly. “What are you doing, Mom?”

Annalisa never talked to her parents, not since they’d made a scene in front of her boyfriend because he was black. Maggie talked to her baby sister from time to time, but for the most part Annalisa had cut all ties with the family.

“Aiden just showed up. And I’m making my famous sausage meatballs,” her mom informed her, neatly avoiding the real meaning behind Maggie’s question.

Maggie groaned. She wouldn’t set her mom off. Maggie couldn’t remember the last time her entire family had been under one roof. There was only one reason why they would all be there on such short notice. “Did you tell everyone the police talked to me, Mom?”

“Everyone is worried about you, sweetheart. As they should be. We’re family and we stick together when something bad happens.” Her mother lowered her voice as she continued. “And yes, I told your brothers and sisters. Of course, everyone is worried about your Uncle Larry, too.”

Suddenly it all made sense. Her mother was doing this for her father. Maggie’s dad hated all of his children being so spread apart. If the world rotated on its axis the way John O’Malley would have it, all of his children would be on the same block they lived on and cranking out grandbabies for him to spoil. Her parents had fought terribly after Maggie got home from the police station. It had made Maggie sick. Her mother’s health wasn’t great in the best of times, and she’d looked seriously run-down the past day or so. But her mother had rounded up the family, not just because they would all want to know about Maggie, but to make her father feel better.

“You’ll be here soon?” Her mother barely made it a question.

Well, that would cut into the time she might need to persuade Micah to help her. If she didn’t show up at the house soon, her parents would send the O’Malley army out looking for her. After promising not to be long and using the argument that traffic was a nightmare, Maggie got off the phone, confirmed where she was on Google Maps, and drove the last few blocks to Micah’s house.

Micah Jones didn’t live as extravagantly as the Kings did. Maggie parked in front of a run-down small house with a narrow cracked cement driveway leading up to a detached garage. After confirming it would be a twenty-minute drive, at least, to her house from Micah’s, Maggie got out of her car and locked it.

“Stay calm,” she ordered herself, and did her best to ignore her pounding heart when she walked up the drive to the front door.

*   *   *

Micah watched Maggie O’Malley walk up to his house through his partially closed living room curtains. There had been something about her auburn hair, pulled back from a face with very little makeup, that at first he’d thought made her look innocent. Now, watching her as she looked down, stepping over the cracks in the drive, with her hair today tucked behind her ears and partially covering her face, he had a chance to see Maggie in a new light.

Most of the time when people were released because charges couldn’t be pressed, they started living under the radar, or they ran. Then their name would inevitably pop back up on the bounty hunter’s list. They’d been released. They’d taken off. The DA or FBI finally had viable evidence to book them but couldn’t find them. Once again, it became the bounty hunter’s job to track them down. Micah was actually starting to like this line of work. At least as a bounty hunter, he still got to hunt and capture. He just didn’t kill. Money wasn’t everything. Peace of mind often proved just as necessary and desirable.

Maggie wasn’t running. Four days ago the police had let her go. If he were to step outside it wouldn’t surprise him if he found an unmarked car parked somewhere on his street. They would be watching her. And more than likely right now they were as confused as he was. If she was guilty, why would she return to the bounty hunter who very well may be asked to track her down in the near future?

Maggie walked in front of the window without looking in his direction and tapped on his door. She was possibly one cocky bitch. Maybe she believed she could outsmart him. Micah had no problem tangling with a beautiful young lady.

Or the possibility existed that she truly was innocent.

Micah stared at his front door. Maggie rapped on it several times. He no longer saw her through the window. He waited a breath then unlocked and opened the door.

“Micah Jones.” She combed her fingers through her hair, dragging long, thick strands to the back of her head where they fell and draped around her oval-shaped face. It fell as it did in those shampoo commercials, thick, shiny, healthy-looking hair that was tangle-free. She absently tucked one side behind her ear. “We haven’t been formally introduced.”

That was an understatement. “We already know each other.” Micah stood to the side, pulling his front door far enough open for her to enter. Maggie remained standing in the doorway.

He seriously doubted someone who was working in a club that was a cover for money laundering—guilty or not, Maggie had to know that much—was going to stand on propriety and not enter a single man’s home without introduction. Maybe she was trying to make an impression. He wasn’t going to discuss shit with her while she stood on his front stoop. There was some outstanding spy equipment out there, and LAPD probably had their share of it. Microphones could pick up conversations easily a block away while a couple of bored cops sat in their car and listened.

Micah cleared his throat. “Welcome to my home, Miss O’Malley.” He leaned on the doorknob with one hand and stared at her bright blue eyes. “Are you going to stand in the doorway and interview me, or come in?”

Maggie shot him a scathing look. It disappeared quickly and she took a step into his living room. Micah began closing the door, forcing her to enter farther. He watched her look around his place. When she turned and faced him, clasping her hands together, her expression was blank, relaxed, and impressively unreadable.

“Since this is your area of expertise, and not mine, I don’t feel there is a need to interview you. I’m here to hire you to find whoever is truly guilty of this money-laundering crime the police believe I committed. How much do you charge?”

Micah hid his smile. Already she was reaching for her purse. If she paid him cash, he’d be obligated to turn the money in and determine if it was part of the cash being laundered. He doubted she could write a check. Micah was pretty sure her accounts had been frozen.

“That all depends on what you want me to do.” He closed and locked his front door then moved around her, leaving the living room for his adjoining dining room. There was no dining room table—just two sets of bookshelves and his extra dresser, where he housed clothes he didn’t wear as often and other odds and ends he preferred not to be on display if anyone were to come over. Such as his guns, and the knife collection his uncle had given him at his confirmation. “Apparently you believe, as the police do, that Larry Santinos was only a front man and not the brains behind all this.”

“Uncle Larry still claims he hasn’t done anything wrong,” she said from behind him. It wasn’t clear by her tone if she believed that or not.

Micah entered his kitchen, flipped on his light, and opened his refrigerator. He would process her slowly. “Do you want a beer?”

“No, thank you.” She was still in his living room.

Micah twisted off the cap of one bottle of beer and held another bottle in his hand. He kicked the refrigerator door shut with his boot and sauntered back to his living room. Maggie remained in the middle of the room where he’d left her.

“You sure?” He held up the unopened bottle.

Maggie shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking,” she began, and looked around his living room. She looked everywhere but at him.

Micah set the unopened bottle of beer on his coffee table then walked around it. He cleared the stack of newspapers from the corner of the couch, dropped them to the floor by his feet, then sat. He wasn’t going to take the lead here. Taking a long sip of the cold beer, he studied Maggie O’Malley.

“What am I thinking?” he asked, tilting his head and watching her as she appeared to become more and more uncomfortable. He hadn’t asked her over to his place. This was her show, and he’d let her play it out. He didn’t see any reason to go out of his way to make her comfortable. Unless, of course, she thought that he was considering how she would look naked. In which case, if she were to oblige and show him, he’d make her very comfortable.

She was thin, but not anorexic like too many women were these days. The straight-cut tan skirt she wore hugged her curvy hips and flat tummy. It showed off long, slender legs that at the moment were pressed tightly together. Her anklebones touched each other and her brown sandal straps draped over slender, small feet. Her toenails and fingernails were both painted pink.

He let his gaze travel back up her in the next moment. Micah had no intention of making her anymore uncomfortable than she was making herself. He didn’t have to gawk to appreciate how her sleeveless fluffy-looking sweater had a deep V-shaped collar. It ended just above the middle of her breasts. This was the second time he’d seen her and the second time she’d worn clothes that showed off her cleavage. Her decent-sized boobs were obviously something about herself that she liked. He most definitely appreciated the view.

Micah would never reveal to a soul how many people he’d killed in his life. He’d killed more than one incredibly beautiful woman in cold blood. None of them glowed the way Maggie did. Even as she fidgeted, either waiting for him to say more or choosing her words carefully, he sensed something in her that he didn’t often see.

Was it innocence?

He already knew she was a spitfire. She was intelligent enough to manage the books for a nightclub, legitimate or not. Micah knew better than to pass judgment this soon.

Maggie met his gaze with a mixture of awe and fear, and something else, not quite so subtle, but Micah was aware of it nonetheless.

Curiosity. Lust. Sexual awareness.

“If you think I’m guilty, this isn’t going to work,” Maggie snapped suddenly. If that’s what she thought he was thinking, she was way off base. Her eyes narrowed, and her pencil-thin eyebrows closed together. “Tell me that you were simply doing your job earlier this week and we might be able to work together. But, Mr. Jones, if you believe I am guilty of stealing money from my own club, then I want to know right now.”

“I honestly don’t have an opinion one way or another.”
Spitfire
might have been an understatement. Maggie had a serious Irish temper. “Prove to me you’re innocent.” He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, and rested his boots on his coffee table.

Maggie watched the act, swallowing slowly, then licked her lips. He could see the bra line through her sweater and as he watched, her nipples grew hard, puckering slightly against the fuzzy material.

“How can I prove my innocence?” she demanded, extending her arms and then dropping them, sighing loudly. Her blue eyes flashed vibrantly, and for the first time her gaze traveled up the length of his body. “I don’t even fully understand what they’re trying to charge me with.”

“You don’t?”