Split Second (57 page)

H
arvey greeted Nick at the door with an impressive growl, teeth bared and his upper lip curled back. Maggie smiled at Nick’s surprise even though she had warned him.

“I told you I have my own private bodyguard. Down, Harvey. Actually, we’re temporary roommates.” She petted the dog’s head, and his entire hind end started wagging. “Harvey, this is Nick. He’s one of the good guys.”

Nick extended an apprehensive hand for the dog to sniff. In seconds, Harvey decided Nick deserved the royal treatment, and the dog stuck his snout in Nick’s crotch. Maggie laughed and pulled back on Harvey’s collar. Nick seemed more amused than embarrassed.

“So I see you have him checking out other things for you as well.”

His comment caught her off guard. She led Harvey into the living room, hoping Nick didn’t notice.

“I just moved in last week. I don’t have a lot of furniture yet. I barely got some of the blinds up late last night.”

“It’s an incredible house, Maggie,” he said, wandering into the sunroom and looking out at the backyard. “Pretty secluded. How safe is it?”

She looked up from the alarm system she was resetting. “About as safe as I would be anywhere. Cunningham has me under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Didn’t you notice the cable TV van down the street? He says it’s so we can catch Stucky, but I know he thinks it’ll protect me.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

She opened her jacket to show him her revolver in her shoulder harness.

“This is the only thing that I find convincing these days.”

He smiled. “Geez, I get so turned on when you show me your gun.”

She found herself blushing from his innocent flirting. Immediately, she looked away. Damn it! She hated that he could get her pulse racing by his simple presence. Had it been a mistake to invite him here? Maybe she should have sent him back home to Boston with Will.

“I’m going to check if dinner is possible. I only have the very basics.” She retreated to the kitchen, wondering what she would do if he went beyond flirting. Would she remember to act sensibly? “Would you mind taking Harvey out in the backyard?”

“No, not at all.”

“His leash is by the back door. Press the green flashing button on the security system.”

“It’s a little like living in a fort.” He motioned to the sensors and the alarm boxes. “Are you okay with all this?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

He shrugged and met her eyes. She realized he was feeling helpless, as though there must be something he should be able to do.

“It’s part of the job, Nick. A lot of profilers live in gated communities or houses with elaborate alarm systems. After a while you get used to having an unpublished phone number and making certain your address isn’t listed in any directory. It’s all a part of my life, the part Greg didn’t want to deal with. Maybe he shouldn’t have had to deal with it. Maybe no one should.”

“Well, Greg was a fool,” he said as he snapped the leash onto Harvey’s collar. Harvey licked Nick’s hand in advanced appreciation. “But then, I sorta see Greg’s loss as my gain.” He smiled at her, then pushed the green button and let Harvey pull him into the backyard.

Maggie watched them, wondering what was it about this man and that lean body and those charming dimples that could so easily stir up feeling and emotions she hadn’t accessed in years? Was it just a physical attraction? Did he simply set off her hormones? Nothing more?

When she met Nick last fall in Platte City he was a cocky, arrogant sheriff with a playboy reputation. Immediately, she had been annoyed with herself for being attracted to his charm and classic good looks. But over the course of that terrifying, exhausting week, she had the opportunity to see a sensitive, caring man who truly wanted to do the right thing.

Before she left Nebraska, he had told her that he loved her. She wrote it off with all the other confusing emotions people think they feel after being thrown together during a crisis. In Kansas City, he said he still cared about her. Now that he knew she was divorcing Greg, she wondered what Nick’s intentions were. Did he really care about her, or was she only one more notch he wanted to carve in his bedpost?

It didn’t matter. She didn’t have the energy to entertain such thoughts. She needed to remain focused. She needed to start listening to her head and her gut, not her heart. And more importantly, she didn’t want to care about someone who Stucky could take away from her in a split second.

What Gwen had said last night about Stucky coming after her stayed with Maggie, gnawing at her. Although she honestly didn’t believe Gwen needed to worry. They all believed Stucky had chosen women who were mere acquaintances of hers, in order to make it impossible to predict who his next target might be. But the fact of the matter was, Maggie had few people she allowed into her life. Gwen claimed it was because she wasn’t over the loss of her father. What a bunch of psychobabble that was. Gwen believed that Maggie purposely made herself off-limits, emotionally, to her friends and co-workers. What Maggie called professional distancing, Gwen called fear of intimacy.

“If you don’t let people in, they can’t hurt you,” Gwen had lectured in her motherly tone. “But if you don’t let people in, they can’t love you either.”

Nick and Harvey were coming back, Harvey carrying the bone Maggie had bought him. She thought he had taken it out and buried it because he didn’t want it. Instead, the fresh hole under the dogwood was merely for safe storage. She certainly had a lot to learn about her new roommate.

As soon as Nick unleashed Harvey, he bounded up the stairs.

“He looks like a guy with a mission.” Nick watched.

“He’ll plop down in the corner of my bedroom and gnaw on that thing for hours.”

“The two of you seem to be getting attached to each other.”

“No way. The smelly brute goes home as soon as they find his mom.” Or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Fact was, she would feel horribly betrayed when Rachel Endicott showed up and Harvey ran to her without so much as a glance in Maggie’s direction. The thought alone felt like a stab. Okay, maybe not a stab—a poke or a pinch.

The point was, Gwen was full of crap. Letting anyone in, including a goddamn dog, usually ended up hurting like hell. So she protected herself. It was one of the few things in her twisted life she could protect herself from. One of the last things she could have control over.

She realized Nick was leaning against the kitchen counter, watching her, concern clouding his crystal blue eyes.

“Maggie, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she answered, and his smile told her she had hesitated much too long to convince him.

“You know what?” he said as he walked slowly across the kitchen toward her, stopping directly in front of her, his eyes holding hers. “Why don’t you let me take care of you for one evening?”

His fingertips stroked her cheek. The familiar current of electricity raced through her, and she knew exactly what he meant by saying he wanted to take care of her.

“Nick, I can’t.”

She felt his breath in her hair. His lips didn’t pay attention to her words as they traced where his fingers had been. Her breathing was already uneven by the time his lips brushed hers. But instead of kissing her, he moved to her other cheek. His lips moved over her eyelids and nose and forehead and hair.

“Nick,” she tried again, only she wondered if the word was audible. Her own heart beat so noisily in her ears, she couldn’t hear herself think. Not that her thought process was in any kind of working condition. Instead of concentrating on what his hands and lips were doing, she kept thinking about the edge of countertop that was cutting into the small of her back as if that would allow her to hang on to reality and not be swept away.

Finally, Nick stopped, his eyes meeting hers, his face still so close. God, she could easily get lost in his eyes, the warm blue oceans. His hands caressed and massaged her shoulders. His fingers strayed inside her collar to gently touch her throat and then the nape of her neck.

“I just want to make you feel good, Maggie.”

“Nick, I really can’t do this,” she heard herself say while the flutter in her stomach disagreed with her words, screaming at her to take them back.

Nick smiled, and his fingers caressed her cheek again.

“I know,” he said, taking a deep breath. There was no disappointment or hurt, only resignation, almost as if her response had been a foregone conclusion. “I know you’re not ready. It’s too soon after Greg.”

It was great that he understood, because Maggie wasn’t sure she did. How could she explain it to him?

“With Greg, it was so comfortable.” It was the wrong thing to say. She saw the wounded look in his eyes.

“And it’s not comfortable with me?”

“With you, it’s…” His fingers were distracting her, still exploring, making her breathing uneven. Was he trying to change her mind? Did he realize how easy it could be to change her mind? “With you,” she tried to continue, “it’s so intense, it scares me.” There, she said it. She had admitted it out loud.

“And it scares you because you might lose control.” He looked into her eyes.

“God, you know me well, Morrelli.”

“Tell you what. When you’re ready, and I’m emphasizing when. No ifs,” he said, his eyes not letting her go, his fingers still touching her. “I’ll let you have all the control you want. But tonight, Maggie, I just want to make you feel good.”

The flutter reawakened, immediately kicking into overdrive.

“Nick—”

“Actually, I was thinking maybe I could fix you dinner.”

Her shoulders relaxed immediately, and she sighed with a smile. “I didn’t realize you knew how to cook.”

“There are a lot of things I know how to do that I haven’t shown you…yet.” And this time, he smiled.

M
aggie couldn’t believe such delicious aromas were coming from her kitchen. Even Harvey had come down for a look and a closer sniff.

“Where did you learn to cook like this?”

“Hey, I’m Italian.” Nick faked an accent that sounded nothing like Italian as he stirred the tomato sauce. “Don’t tell Christine, okay?”

“Afraid you might ruin your reputation?”

“No, I don’t want her free dinner invitations to stop.”

“Is this enough garlic?” She stopped chopping and mincing long enough for him to examine her progress.

“One more clove.”

“How are Christine and Timmy?” Maggie had grown attached to Nick’s sister and his nephew in the short time she had spent in Nebraska.

“They’re good. Really good. Bruce has taken an apartment in Platte City. Christine’s making him earn his way back into their lives. I think she wants to make sure his philandering days are completely over. Here, taste this.” He held the wooden spoon out to her, keeping an open palm underneath to catch any drips.

She took a careful lick. “A little more salt and definitely more garlic.”

“So can you tell me anything about this Tess who Will is so crazy about? Any idea what happened to her?”

Maggie wasn’t sure where to begin, or how much she wanted to share. All of it was still speculation. She watched him take salt in the palm of his hand, make a fist and sprinkle it into the simmering pot. She liked the way he moved around her kitchen, as though he had been fixing her dinners for years. Already Harvey followed him, anointing Nick the new master of the house.

“Tess was my real estate agent. She sold me this house, then less than a week later, she disappeared.”

She waited, wondering if it would sink in, if he would make the connection on his own. Or was she the only one who could see that connection so clearly? He came over to the island where she sat on a bar stool and minced garlic. He poured more wine into both their glasses and took a sip. Finally, he looked at her.

“You think Stucky’s murdered her?” He said it calmly and frankly.

“Yes. Or if he hasn’t murdered her, she may be wishing he had.”

She avoided his eyes and pretended to concentrate on the pieces of garlic. She didn’t want to think about Stucky carving up Tess McGowan or playing his little torture games with her mind and body. Now Maggie’s mincing had turned into vicious chops and hacks. She stopped herself and waited for the beginning fury to settle back down. She handed the cutting board to Nick.

Thankfully, he took it without commenting on the slight tremor in her hands. He scraped the garlic bits into the steaming sauce and immediately the new aroma filled the kitchen.

“Will told me there was a car parked outside Tess’s house that morning he left.”

“Manx ran the license-plate number through the DMV.” It was one of the few things Manx had grudgingly shared with her. “The number belongs to Daniel Kassenbaum, Tess’s boyfriend.”

Nick glanced over his shoulder. “The boyfriend? Did anyone question him?”

“My partner did, briefly. Manx promised he would question him in more detail.”

“If he saw Will leaving her house, then he should be pissed. Maybe Stucky doesn’t have anything to do with her disappearing.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Nick. Apparently, the boyfriend doesn’t much care that Tess is missing or that she may have been cheating on him. My gut tells me Stucky has everything to do with this.”

Maggie’s cellular phone rang, startling both of them. She grabbed her jacket and searched until she found it in the breast pocket.

“Maggie O’Dell.”

“Agent O’Dell, it’s Tully.”

Damn it! She had forgotten all about Tully. She hadn’t called him, hadn’t even left him a message.

“Agent Tully.” She probably owed him an apology or at least an explanation.

Before she had a chance to say anything he said, “We’ve got another body.”