Sweet Dreams Boxed Set (26 page)

Damn him.

Bennett’s gaze raked over her.  “Officer Chambliss,” he said, referring to the cop who was all too eager to toss her into a drunk tank some place and forget about her. “You know who this woman is, right?  Senator DuLane’s daughter?”

Her eyes squeezed closed. Was Bennett really trying to ruin her night or what? Now she’d be in jail
and
on the scandal page of the local paper.   Mentioning her father wasn’t going to help anything. The guy was dead and buried, and before he’d been put in the ground, he’d wrecked more than his share of lives. 

Maybe that was why Bennett mentioned him. To remind me that he hasn’t forgotten.

Or forgiven.  

“Did you give her a breathalyzer?” Bennett asked as he tilted his head to the side.

“Y-yes, of course!” The redheaded cop said quickly.

“Is she drunk?”

“Not legally,” Officer Chambliss was forced to admit, “but…you should have seen her dive off that float!”

“I wish I had,” Bennett muttered.

Ivy glared at him.

“Someone could’ve been hurt,” the young cop blustered. “Someone could’ve—”

“If she’s not legally drunk, then we can’t hold her.” Bennett’s voice was as mild-as-you-please. “Trust me on this, buddy, you don’t want the headache that she will bring your way.  Not when you’re still new to the force.”

She held her breath. Hoping. Praying—

“I’ll take care of her,” Bennett offered. His badge was clipped to his belt, gleaming dully. Other than the badge, he didn’t look like a cop at all. He just wore jeans, a loose shirt, and a rather battered looking coat. “I’ll make sure that she doesn’t jump off anymore floats tonight.”

Officer Chambliss hesitated.

The stupid cuffs bit into her wrists. She was wearing her Royal Ladies of Poseidon outfit, a thin bit of silk and lace that barely skimmed the top of her thighs. Sure, she had on tights, but the get-up was supposed to be seen from the perch of a float, not all up-close and personal.  Ivy felt way too exposed, especially with Bennett’s gaze raking over her.

“She won’t cause any more trouble,” Bennett said. “I promise you that.”

He shouldn’t make promises that he couldn’t keep.  Bennett didn’t know her well, not anymore.  She excelled at trouble. She wasn’t the good girl he remembered. Not even close.

That girl was long gone. Being good didn’t solve problems. Taking risks—finding danger—that was the way to get the job done.

But the uniformed cop nodded and the guy actually freed her from the cuffs.  Ivy exhaled on a harsh sigh of relief. It wouldn’t have been her first visit to the jail—unfortunately—but she was very glad she wouldn’t be returning that night.

“She’s your problem now,” Officer Chambliss growled then he turned and climbed into the driver’s seat of his patrol car.

Ivy glared after him. “I’m not a problem! I’m a person! You aren’t any kind of—”

Bennett snagged her wrist and pulled her toward him. “If you antagonize him, you
will
find that sweet ass of yours tossed into the patrol car.” His fingers slid over her inner wrist. “Were the cuffs too tight?”

Her pulse raced beneath his touch, and Ivy tried to jerk her hand away. Bennett shook his head and kept his hold on her.

“I have to look for the woman,” Ivy told him quickly. “I don’t know what you heard about what happened tonight—”

“I heard you jumped off a float.”

She rolled her eyes. “I saw a man, okay? A masked man with a knife. He was stabbing a woman who was wearing a gold evening gown.”

He kept rubbing her wrist.

“Stop it,” she ordered, refusing to be shaken by him or his touch. “This is important! I think—I think the woman may be dead.”

He let her go.

Ivy swallowed and tried to settle her nerves. Bennett was the lead homicide detective in the area. If anyone could help her, it would be him.  “Please.” And she
never
begged him, but she was begging right then. “I’m not crazy. I’m not drunk.  A woman was hurt tonight, and I’m afraid he killed her while the crowd just cheered around him.”

He searched her face. She stared back at him, her whole body tense.

Then Bennett swore. “Shit. Show me, now.”

She nodded quickly and spun on her heel. Bennett would get to the bottom of this nightmare. He was a good cop, even if he did have a tendency to piss her off way too much.  Piss her off, turn her on, far too many things that she couldn’t think about in that chaotic moment.  She’d taken about four steps when he grabbed her and pulled her back.

“Bennett—”

He put a coat around her shoulders. His coat.

She blinked up at him.  They were all the way down in Mobile, Alabama, right on the Gulf Coast, so it wasn’t as if they were experiencing arctic conditions, but the night was definitely crisp.  She could feel his warmth, clinging to that coat. She could smell his rich, masculine scent wrapping around her.

“You were shivering,” he muttered. “Don’t make a deal out of this, Ivy.”

No deal
.  She pulled the coat closer and got back to the business of returning to the crime scene. She was actually relieved to have Bennett with her. Until a few months ago, he’d been working with the FBI’s Violent Crimes division. She didn’t know what had occurred, but he’d left the Bureau abruptly and come back home. Some folks had whispered that he’d gotten burned on his last big case.

She couldn’t ever imagine the guy getting burned.

The parade was over, so that meant that the streets had cleared out—ghost town kind of clearing.  That was the routine.  Parades equaled people packing the downtown area, but as soon as those parades were over, people vanished. They went home, they went into the restaurants, or they hit the balls. 

So it was easy to cut through the streets and find her way back to that terrible spot. 

“Right here.” She paused across from the Square, her gaze on the abandoned building. Historic, beautiful, but now seemingly forsaken.  The windows were covered with boards, and the ornate railing on the front of the building was coated with peeling paint. “They were right here. I saw the man. I saw his knife.” She whirled toward Bennett. “He stabbed her. I yelled for him to stop. I yelled for help, but no one heard me.”

His gaze held hers. 

“He had on a mask,” Ivy continued quickly. “Like mine, but white.” And she could not remember which Mardi Gras society was wearing the white masks this year—but she would be finding out. She wasn’t walking away from this situation, no way. 
I’m a PI. I can handle this.
So she wasn’t a cop with a badge. That didn’t mean she couldn’t help people. She’d spent the last few years of her life taking cases so that she could
help.

And atone for the sins of the past.

“His mask covered his full face.” It hadn’t just been a partial mask like the one she wore. “I didn’t imagine what happened.  This was real!”

He brushed past her and pulled out his phone. A quick tap on the screen, and a bright light illuminated the scene.
Flashlight app.
“There’s no blood,” he said.

The cop—Officer Chambliss—had told her the same thing after his big two-second search of the scene.

Bennett kept shining the light. “If someone was stabbed, there’d be—”

He broke off, and his light hit the faint spots on the ground. Spots that had been hit by dozens of shoes as the crowd left the parade. Spots that could be—

“Blood,” Ivy whispered. 

Bennett glanced at the building.  “You say the guy and the victim vanished?”

She nodded.

“If he was dragging an injured woman—or a dead body—he couldn’t move very fast. Or very far.”

Her gaze cut to the building.  “The front door is locked.” There was a giant chain and a padlock in front of the main doors and all of the windows on that side were boarded up.

“Then he didn’t go in that way.” Bennett hurried around to the rear of the building. He slid into the narrow alley way and stopped near a dark door. Bennett reached for the knob, but a quick twist showed that the door was locked.

Dammit. She’d hoped—

“Stand back,” Bennett directed.

He lifted his foot and kicked that door open.

Her jaw dropped when the wood splintered. “Wait! Aren’t you supposed to have a warrant or—”

He was already rushing inside, his light sweeping the floor. So…
No warrant
. She hurried after him, her steps slower because that darkness inside was so heavy and thick. The place smelled musty and old and when Ivy felt something—
not a rat, not a rat!—
race across her shoe, she screamed.

Bennett grabbed her and yanked her against his chest.

Get your control. You’re a PI for goodness sake. Act like it.

“Ivy?”

She sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry.” She’d panicked. That happened in the dark when
things
were coming at her.

He let her go.  His light swept the area once more, flying across the dirty, dusty floor. Yellow eyes gleamed back at them as a rat scurried for cover.

That rat ran right across a pale, slender hand. 

Ivy’s heart stopped. “Bennett?”

He’d seen the hand, too, and he was already kneeling beside the woman.  A woman in a glittering, golden gown. A woman with long, dark hair. 

A woman who lay in a pool of blood.

His fingers pressed to the woman’s throat, but Ivy already knew they were staring at a dead woman. 
I could have saved her! I had the chance…

Bennett slid away from the body. “Don’t touch anything,” he ordered, voice curt. ‘I’ll call this in and get a crime scene team down here.”

She wasn’t touching anything. She was barely breathing, much less moving. When Bennett’s light had fallen on the victim, she’d seen that the woman appeared to be in her mid-twenties.  Her face had been chalk-white, her hair thick and dark as it spilled onto the dirty floor. 

“All dressed up,” Ivy whispered.
And nowhere to go…

***

They’d found the body.  Too fast.

His eyes narrowed as he slid back into the shadows. He’d just left his sweet victim there for a little while. The crowd had thinned, and he’d come back, ready to move his precious prey.

But she wasn’t alone.

And all of his plans were about to get
screwed.

He hunched his shoulders and turned, hurrying down the street.  The night hadn’t gone at all like he’d planned. 

Not at all…

His mask was in his pocket.  His fingers slid inside and touched it. He felt so strong when he wore his mask.  And his victims knew—he was invincible.

The cops won’t stop me. No one will.

Maybe he would show his new prey the mask. She could get up-close to it and then…
then she’ll see all of me.

***

“No!” Ivy snapped at him and, if it had been brighter, Bennett was sure that Ivy’s brown eyes would be spitting fury at him.  “I’m the one who saw the attack! You don’t get to just—just shove me into the back of a car and send me off in the night!”

Sighing, Bennett kept his hold on the patrol car door. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what I get to do.”  Blue police lights flashed around the scene. Reinforcements had come running at his call. Unfortunately, they hadn’t come in time to help the victim.

“I
saw—
”

“You said that you saw a man in a white mask.  A guy wearing a tux. You couldn’t tell me his hair color, his eye color—”

“I told you he was tall,” she cut in, her words shooting out fast. “About your height, with broad shoulders. He was fit. Strong.”

Since he’d dragged a dead woman into an abandoned building without anyone noticing, it stood to reason that the guy was fairly strong. And as far as being around Bennett’s height…
we’re looking for a perp who is close to six foot three.

“I can help!” Ivy told him. “Let me stay.”

No way.  “The crime scene techs need to work.” He inclined his head toward her. “I got your statement, and I’ll follow-up with you tomorrow if I have any other questions.”

Her jaw dropped. “That’s it? I see a murder and you just let me go?”

“What do you want me to do?”  He eased closer to her. He had always been drawn to Ivy. “Keep you?” The words hung in the air between them, and he thought about just what he would do if he ever did get to keep the lovely Ivy. 

She’d been his first crush, though he doubted she realized it. But then, most of the guys in their class had been drawn to the gorgeous Ivy.  It was hard not to look at Ivy and want.

Wide, dark eyes.  Full lips.  Creamy skin.  If Snow White were real and strolling around town, causing trouble, he figured she’d look just like Ivy.

Ivy had high cheek bones, a delicate jaw, and a body that had obviously been built for sin.  He’d imagined that body—them together—too many times.

But what he’d
never
imagined, that would be Ivy, tangled up in a murder scene.  He should have, though.  Especially with all the drama that her family liked to cause.

DuLane Investigations.
That particular PI business had been in operation since Ivy’s grandfather opened it up back in 1970.  It was a business known for attracting scandal and raising serious hell.

“Officer East will escort you home,” Bennett told her, aware that his voice had roughened. Ivy could look for trouble elsewhere. This case was his.  “He’ll make sure that you arrive safely.”

“It’s not my safety that we need to worry about,” Ivy argued quickly. “I can take care of myself. There’s a killer out there! We need to focus on stopping him.”

Because he didn’t realize that.  His hands curled around her shoulders and he pushed her into the back of that car. “You saw the killer,” he told her bluntly. “Did you ever stop to think…maybe he saw you, too?”

Bennett heard the quick hitch in her breathing.

That’s right.
“So, yes, I believe you can protect yourself.” He’d seen her at a shooting range before, and he knew she’d gotten her black belt in Tae Kwon Do by the time she was fourteen. “But you’re getting a police escort home. It makes me feel better, all right?” He eased away from the car.