Smoke and Mirrors (25 page)
Authors: Jenna Mills
"Oh, Derek," she moaned. "Derek."
* * *
"I know, Cass. I know about you and Mansfield."
Cass finished taping the last box and looked up. Gray stood across the
room,
his baggy sweats a stark contrast to his grim expression.
"What, Gray? What is it you think you know?"
Sunshine streamed through the window. The purple Barney curtains were packed now, along with the matching comforter. "I warned you not to cross the line."
She surged to her feet and marched across the room. "Look, big guy, if you have something to say,
say
it. If you don't—"
"You're sleeping with
Mansfield
."
She stilled. There it was, heaped out on the table between them. Cass knew she should feel a twinge of regret, maybe even shame, but she didn't. Couldn't. What she and Derek shared was too special to make her regret one second she spent with him, one decision she'd made. He'd stayed with her through the night, making love with her, tenderly sometimes, urgently others. With the first fragile light of dawn, they'd tackled Jake's room, packing boxes, he holding her when the memories grew too great and she dissolved into tears. Together they'd fended off her ghosts.
Mansfield
was not the man they thought he was. Drunken and disorderly conduct, petty theft and DUI, all committed by a man under the age of twenty-one, didn't mark him a bad seed or a criminal. They equated rebellion, pure and simple.
"I sleep in my own bed," she said, "in the privacy of my own home." She knew the best defense was a potent offense. "How would you know what happens here, unless you've been following me?"
"Cammy." The harshness drained from his face, replaced by an empathy she hadn't expected. "Don't try to outinterrogate the interrogator who taught you everything you know."
"Who I sleep with is none of your business."
"It is when it's the man we're trying to bust."
Cass dragged a hand through her damp hair, evoking memories of the way Derek had washed it less than an hour before. Never had she known a routine task like sudsing shampoo could be erotic, that hands could feel
so
incredible as they massaged the pressure points along her head.
"He's innocent," she blurted. "I don't know what the hell is really going on, but I do know Derek is not the front man. He's being set up, framed…
I just don't know by whom or why."
"Don't think so, Cass." His eyes gentle, he reached out and cupped her cheek. "If you were thinking clearly, you would see how irrational that is.
Mansfield
's our man, and we all know it. Coincidences don't just happen."
Platonic affection had always marked her relationship with Gray, but now his touch reminded her too much of a parent trying to talk sense into a willful child. She stepped back and glared at him. "I know what I'm doing. Can't we just leave it at that?"
"What you're doing is living a lie. You have to break it off."
"Don't you remember what happened when you tried that with Dawn?"
"That was different. She wasn't a suspect. And at least I tried."
"You think I haven't?" The memory of Derek's devastating lovemaking burned through her. Not just the physical aspect, but the emotional bonding that punctuated it. "It's too late for turning back. If I tried, Derek would never fall for it. All he'd have to do is touch me and I'd be lost."
His expression hardened. "Cass, this breaks every rule in the book. If you won't listen to reason, I have to turn—"
She shoved hard against his chest. "You son of a bitch! Did I turn against you when you couldn't stay away from Dawn? You jeopardized everything, Gray. Everything. Your life, Dawn's. Mine. But I never turned my back on you."
"That was different."
"That's right. It was you and not me. But this is my life we're talking about. My life. Don't you dare take it away from
me.
"
"I'm not trying to take it away from you. I'm trying to help you, spare you more pain. With
Mansfield
in as deep as we think he is—"
"He's not. But even if he were, I'd deal with it." She hardened her voice, her eyes. "I've made my bed, Gray, and by God I'm going to lie in it. You can support me, or you can condemn me. The choice is yours."
* * *
He was flirting with danger. The
Almost
The jagged skyline sprawled before him, cold and sterile. Not far away, waves lapped against the edges of the lake, yet no beach greeted them. Only rocks shattering their eloquence and sending them crashing back toward the lake.
How fitting.
Footsteps fell against the pavement. He spun toward the sound, searching for the source. Twice before he thought he'd heard an approach, but he'd come up empty-handed. Now shadows snaked among the columns, making it hard to tell fact from fantasy. Some would call him a fool for conducting the meeting here, in plain view of
Over the past few weeks he'd lost his edge. Tonight he was determined to get it back.
He saw him then, stepping from the shadow of a column. "Good evening,
amigo."
Santiago Vilas stopped a good ten feet away. Dressed in all black, he blended perfectly with the shadows, the only giveaway the glowing tip of his cigarette. "And to you, my friend."
He'd waited so long for this test. Now he simply wanted to savor. Tonight the last piece of groundwork would be established, the beginning of the end.
Trust was a heady goal, one that would be secured with a simple exchange.
Under Vilas's trench coat a bulge could be seen, a package. "Nice
evening,
isn't it?" he said at last, his voice deceptively bland.
Vilas glanced around the deserted parking lot before answering. "It will be nicer once we seal the deal."
"So it will." He made a drawn-out display of glancing toward the jagged skyline. It was morbid and he knew
it,
but every time he saw stone and glass skyscrapers jutting toward the sky, he thought of ancient cemeteries, their weathered tombstones jutting up from the ground. "After tonight there's no turning back. Have you come prepared
for that?"
"You insult me,
my friend. You,
after all, have
kept
me waiting for a very long time."
He slid his band inside his coat pocket and withdrew
a
thick manila envelope. "Shall we trade, then?"
A feral smile twisted Vilas's lips.
His gloved hand
vanished behind his coat, and his eyes narrowed in anticipation. He withdrew the package. "This has been a long
time coming."
"That
it has." He held
out the envelope and exchanged it for the package. While Vilas thumbed through the unmarked
bills, he inspected the long-awaited samples.
Small change compared
to
what lay
ahead.
The sweet taste of success mingled with adrenaline. Finally. After months of planning and waiting, the game had begun.
He let his pleasure trickle into his eyes, his smile, his voice. "You've done right by me," Derek drawled. "Just as I knew you would."
* * *
Cass stood frozen, as stiff and unmoving as the massive column that supported her. The past blurred with the future, right with wrong, cop with woman. Two days. That's all Gray had given her to prove Derek's innocence. This morning forty-eight hours hadn't seemed like enough time, but in the end a few hours had been all she needed.
Disbelief and horror crashed down like an avalanche.
She'd followed him, expecting him to go to his grandfather's house. Answers lived there, she knew, she had only to find them. But he hadn't gone north as she'd expected, he'd ventured down to the lakefront. Now she knew why.
She watched Derek nod curtly at Santiago Vilas. The wiry Latin man smiled in return, then turned and slithered away. Derek stood there a moment longer, watching, waiting,
obviously
not trusting Santiago Vilas enough to turn his back on him. The moonlight shimmered against the coal black of Derek's hair, making him look as fierce and dangerous as she now knew him to be.
Her blood quickened, anyway.
Shock numbed her to the bite of the wind, but not the churning of her stomach. She'd let infatuation blind her to reality. She'd let herself forget everything she knew to be true about Derek Mansfield.
She'd convinced herself he was innocent.
She'd let love create the biggest lie of all.
Now the truth threatened to destroy her. Derek Mansfield was everything she'd ever thought him to be. A pusher, a user, a criminal.
Worst of all, he was also the man she loved.
* * *
"Everything went off without a hitch," Derek drawled into the phone. "Just like I knew it would. Tomorrow—"
Cass came into view, strolling down the hall to his penthouse. He'd sent for her an hour before, but he sensed no urgency to her pace, no excitement. Her eyes were eerily hollow.
"I'll call you back," he said curtly, hanging up the phone as he buzzed her into his office.
She entered, but didn't cross to him. Just stood there, shoulders
back,
chin angled, eyes cool and reserved.
"Afternoon, fearless." Caution and concern exploded through him. He'd never seen her like this, so distant, so aloof. He eliminated the space between them.
"You're a sight for sore eyes," he tried, drawing her stiff body into his arms and tracing his mouth along hers.
Under the gentle persuasion of his lips, she softened. Her mouth returned the hello, though it didn't invite him in.
"You okay?" he asked, alarmed by the difference. Everything had been fine the last time he'd seen her. They'd finally torn down their walls and invited each other in. Cassandra LeBlanc was a rare woman, not at all like his mother or Sasha or Marla. She wasn't using him for any ulterior motive. She wasn't going to walk away when she had no more purpose for him.
The realization opened up a whole new world, one where love could erase the lies he'd been forced to tell. "Cass, honey?"
A thin smile touched her lips. "I didn't get much sleep last night."
"You didn't get much sleep the night before, either." The memory of just how he'd kept her awake burned through him. "Why don't you slip into the other room and take a nap for a while."
"I'm on duty."
"I'm the boss," he reminded. "You do what I say, remember?"
She didn't laugh the way he wanted her to. "Really, Derek. I'm okay."
Like hell she was. Something was wrong. It wasn't like her to be reserved. She was his fiery angel, his brave, fearless vixen. He couldn't stand the thought of her backing down now, when victory lay so close at hand.
Derek took Cass's icy hands in his and drew them to his lips. "Come away with me."
She went very still. "What?"
"To
Scotland
. Let me show you the land, the life I've built there, away from all this."
His words, the ragged hope underlying them, destroyed what little willpower Cass had left. Her grand, foolish illusions lay shattered, but her heart didn't seem to give a damn. It beat anyway, defiantly, valiantly, commanding her not to forfeit what she felt for Derek.
Felt. That's what it kept coming down to.
Part of her wanted to yank her hands from his and run as fast and far as she could. But the other part, the part that knew no boundaries when it came to him, just wanted to fling
herself
into his arms and let his heat soak into
her.
She couldn't seem to get rid of the chill deep inside.
"Cass? What is it? What's wrong?"
I love you.
But the words wouldn't come. They couldn't. They were lodged behind the truth. "I've just got a lot on my mind," she hedged. "Why don't you—"
The ringing telephone interrupted her words. Once. Twice. Three times. But Derek made no move to answer. "Aren't you going to get that?"
"It's not important. You are."
The iron-clad cocoon the cop had built around the woman's heart started to crumble. "Derek, don't do this to me."
"Do what?"
