The Mak Collection (20 page)

“This could be considered tampering with evidence. This is a fucking murder investigation for Christ’s sake, and you’re withholding potential evidence!”

“You guys had your chance,” Makedde declared, her tone steady. “I told you everything I knew about the affair. You searched her flat top to bottom.
You must have found the ring and didn’t think anything of it. That’s not my fault. And after the way you reacted the last time I came to you with information, you can bet I wasn’t eager to come to you about this.”

Andy continued to pace the room. He slipped the ring in his pocket and anxiously ran a hand through his hair.

“OK, maybe I should have told you about this guy, but I couldn’t, you know?” he said. “We didn’t have anything on him but her scrawl, and even that was vague.”

“Well, the ring’s not vague.”

“The ring may change things. Look, there are things I can’t tell you,” he said.

“I know.”

Andy stopped pacing and came over to her on the couch. He squatted down, and gently rested his hands on her knees. Makedde was closed off, her arms tightly crossed, eyes deceptively dry.

“This is my job on the line. The more I tell you the deeper I get.” He reached over, and with a single fingertip, gently traced an imaginary line down her cheek. “I’m in deep enough already,” he said.

“Andy, what about…”

In an instant his mouth was upon hers. They embraced one another eagerly, kissing long and hard. He pushed her back onto the couch, and she slid her
hand over his shirt, down the small of his back to feel the firm strength of his buttocks.

“God, you’re frustrating,” she murmured.

Andy gently trailed his tongue down her neck.

“Do a Sean Connery for me,” she whispered.

At first he seemed surprised by her request, then he smiled. “The name is Bond, James Bond,” he said in a perfect, mellow Scotch accent.

Meow.

“More,” she said, wrapping her legs around him.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Miss Money Penny—”

“More!”

“Um…One Vodka Martini, shaken, not stirred.”

She kissed him again. “Oh James…” she said, giggling.

Hours later they lay naked and exhausted on crumpled sheets. The room was dark, save for the tiny flicker of a candle near the bed.

“Hummaganna,” Andy mumbled unexpectedly.

Makedde opened her eyes. “What?”

“Hmmff.” He shifted and flinched. “Go away. Hmmff.” His eyes were still closed.

“Go away. Hmmff. Cassandra,” he continued to mumble. “I want the car, dammit,” he suddenly blurted more clearly. “Bitch—”

Makedde jabbed him hard in the ribs and he
stopped. She didn’t have the heart to let him sleeptalk himself into saying something he’d regret. “Mmm,” he murmured, barely opening his tired eyes. He rolled the other way and they stayed quiet for a while, but she wasn’t quite ready to drift. As her mind wandered, curiosity drew her irresistibly to seek answers.

“I hope you don’t mind my asking,” she queried softly, rolling over to spoon his body. “But you told me about Rick Filles and his photo studio in the Cross. What was it like?” Andy rolled onto his back and tilted his face to her, his eyes still closed. “I’m sure you can at least tell me about that. Can’t you?” she prodded.

“Sure,” he mumbled, half awake. “Wait.” His eyes snapped open. “How did you know his studio was in the Cross? I didn’t tell you that.”

“Didn’t you?” She let out a little laugh, thinking of the ridiculous measurements she’d quoted. “Let me tell you, that man sounded like a real sleaze.”

“
Sounded
like? You didn’t talk to him, did you?” He was suddenly very awake.

“Just for a moment. I wanted to hear his ploy. It was harmless.”

“Fucking hell!” He sat up and slammed his fist down violently, shaking the bed. While Makedde lay stunned, Andy closed his eyes and shook his head, making an effort to calm himself. He took several deep, deliberate breaths, and she imagined him counting to ten. Anger management.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Andy asked her, sounding a little more controlled. “You’re impossible. You can’t do stuff like that!”

“I didn’t leave my number or anything,” she protested, deciding to sit up in bed as well. “I said I was Debbie; a six-foot, blonde, double D cup lingerie model.”

His gaze made a detour to her breasts as she sat up. “Well, I think Debbie would’ve had a more enthusiastic response than the lady we sent in,” he said dryly.

“What happened?”

Andy took her hands in his, peering at her sternly under furrowed brows. “You have to promise me you’ll stop this. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, so long as you promise to stop chatting to suspects and putting yourself in danger.”

She batted her mascara-smudged eyelashes. “I promise. So, why do you suspect this guy?”

“Well, we have to pursue all possibilities, and Rick is just one of them. The first two known victims were in the sex trade and may have answered the sort of ad that he placed.”

“You can’t possibly be suggesting that Catherine would answer an advertisement like that?”

“No. I doubt that,” Andy agreed. “But despite popular fiction, serial killers aren’t robots. Sometimes they change tactics. Your friend may have been a
victim of opportunity that doesn’t fit with the other crimes.”

“So you sent an officer to pose as a model for this guy?”

“Well, we
tried
. Constable Mahoney, the one who drove you home the first night. She was a bit nervous I think—”

“Wait a second…you sent Karen in?”

“Well, yes…”

Makedde tried to imagine the look on Karen’s face when the photographer asked her to stick out her chest and suck on a Chupa-Chup. “Isn’t that like sending a nun to Hugh Hefner?”

In the dim light, Makedde could see that Andy’s cheeks had gone red. “As it turns out…yes. She’s the right age, and a good cop, but she just couldn’t pull it off. She was too embarrassed to be believable.”

“What happened?”

“After shooting one roll of film, he sent her home. She didn’t find anything suspicious in his flat, no bondage gear, nothing. Just stacks of porn, and a bit of lingerie.”

“Well, being a sleazebag doesn’t mean you’re a killer, otherwise you’d have to arrest half the photographers in Milan,” Makedde said.

“That bad?”

She rolled her eyes. “You have
no
idea. That kind of photographer doesn’t load his camera until the
clothes come off. This Filles guy probably didn’t even take any photos of Karen.”

“They do that?”

“Oh, yeah. They wouldn’t want to waste their precious film.” She paused. “Let’s not go there. Any priors or motive?” Andy stared at her. “What now?” she asked impatiently.

“Sometimes you sound just like a cop. Was this the dinner conversation at your house, or what?”

Makedde laughed. Her father had tried to keep his ongoing cases out of the dinner conversation, but, much to the chagrin of her mother, he couldn’t seem to help himself. It was pretty much all he had to talk about, and Makedde supposed that she didn’t help matters by egging him on. Her mother and her younger sister, Theresa, would sit in silent disapproval, leaving the table as soon as possible. But her father’s stories never put Mak off her food.

“Just answer the question, Detective,” she said, pushing Andy back onto the bed and pinning him down.

“Yes, he has priors.” Andy paused. “I really don’t like these crank calls you’re getting.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Mak straddled his naked hips and leant over him.

He tried to maintain his serious tone. “I don’t like the way you keep getting yourself involved in this.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just find the guy.”

“Easier said than done—on both accounts.”

“Any other leads, Mr Detective?” she asked, running a finger down his chest. She wanted to pin him down and keep him there. She wanted to take control. Makedde had forgotten how great it was to feel sexy, and she felt like a girl with a new toy.

“A couple…” He couldn’t keep his eyes from her breasts. “We’re still keeping Tony Thomas under pressure. A lot of dead ends—Oh, will you stop that? That tickles!”

She laughed and rolled off him.

Andy faced her, the humour gone from his eyes. “This guy, whoever he is, is a seriously sadistic bastard.”

“All the more reason to make sure he’s stopped right away,” she said. “What if you tried setting this Rick guy up with another model?”

He got her drift. “No, no. Makedde, get this stuff out of your head! You promised me you’d back off if I told you what we were doing.”

“But I could do a much better job—”

Andy gently covered her mouth with his hand, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Promise me,
promise me
, you won’t get involved. Let me handle this.”

She slowly nodded her head, and he removed his hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “You just can’t put yourself in danger like that. We’ve got an entire task force
working on this. We’ll catch him. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you.”

“Well, as long as you and your police pals take care of things, I won’t need to. But don’t blame me if I have to arrest someone—”

“What?”

Makedde smiled to let him know she was kidding.

“Impossible,” he muttered and tried to roll on top of her, but she flipped him onto his back and straddled him again, pinning his arms back. He grinned at her, visibly aroused by her assertiveness. “You are uncooperative, aren’t you?” he teased. The grin was wiped off his face when she reached under the bed and produced his handcuffs.

“What the—”

In seconds she succeeded in manacling his wrists. She snapped them on hard like a cop, and he winced at the brief pain. “I hope you have the keys,” she said. His eyes were wide. She’d been dying for the right moment, and now she had the big, strong detective naked and at her mercy, her favourite fantasy realised. Well, almost. Sean Connery in
Dr No
was her favourite, but this was a close second.

His mouth hung open in shock, a look she found titillating from such close quarters. She kept his bound arms pinned above his head, stretching his shoulders back. His underarm hair was soft and dark, and she inhaled his scent before devouring his
vulnerable body with kisses and playful bites. His nipples went hard, and she played with them with her tongue while he writhed.

He cleared his throat. “So, ah, you like to—”

“You talk too much, Detective,” she said, cutting him off with a firm hand over his mouth.

He didn’t protest.

Detective Flynn floated into the office on Monday morning, blithely unprepared for what was in store for him. He could taste Makedde on his lips, and his thoughts were still leisurely reclining with her in her bed. She had surprised him; she possessed a fiery sense of adventure but also a hidden vulnerability. Contradictory, that was the word for her. He was also excited about the new lead, thanks to the ring Makedde had found. It seemed that Mr Tiney Jr had lied to them. He
did
know Catherine. Andy looked forward to sitting that rich prick down in the interview room and putting the ring on the table in front of him. There’d be some frantic backtracking then.

It took a few moments for Andy to register the tense silence that pervaded the office. He wandered through, his usual steaming brew in one hand, and his pace slowed as he picked up on the foreboding atmosphere. His colleagues were looking up from their desks as he passed, their faces communicating unspoken pity. Something was very wrong. By the
time Andy reached his desk, his mood had started to sour.

Jimmy rushed over. “Kelley wants to see you right away. I don’t know who told him…”

Andy walked towards Inspector Kelley’s office in a surreal daze, Jimmy’s words fading like a distant echo in his head. He knocked lightly on his mentor’s door, and a dispassionate, “Come in,” was the only response. The Detective Inspector was looking out the window, and he didn’t turn to greet him. Even by Kelley’s reserved standards, this reception was unusually cool. The hot seat was pulled back from the desk, waiting.

Andy started to speak but Inspector Kelley cut him off. “Sit down, Flynn.” The chair creaked loudly as Andy sat. “You have something you want to talk to me about?”

“No sir,” Andy replied, momentarily puzzled. “Well yes, I have some new information about James Tiney Jr, but Jimmy told me you had something you—”

“I
really
think you have something you want to explain to me. And it better be damn good, Flynn.”

“Well, sir…if it’s about the headline on the soap star, it couldn’t be helped. We all knew it wouldn’t take the press long to pick up on it—”

He was cut off again. “You’ve become involved with a witness. You’ve compromised this investigation,”
Kelley said to the window with chilling detachment. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am.”

Andy looked at the back of Kelley’s head, wishing he could somehow reverse his mistake. How could he be so stupid to risk everything over a girl? “I’m sorry, sir. It was bad judgment on my part…”

“I’m taking you off the case.”

Andy was stunned. “But sir—” he began feebly.

“The decision has been made. I’ve saved your arse before, but that was different. I can’t sweep this under the carpet. We, and by that I mean you, are under a lot of scrutiny in this investigation.”

A year earlier, Andy had beat a suspected paedophile to a pulp in a blind rage. He had since found better ways to deal with his temper, at least some of the time. Kelley covered up the incident, probably because he secretly agreed with the justice of it, but sleeping with a witness was just plain sloppy. Andy knew that nothing he could say would change a thing, not once Kelley made up his mind. He had officially screwed up the biggest investigation of his career.

Andy stared hard at Inspector Kelley’s beautiful old, carved oak desk. It was part of a distant world he would never reach, a future pulled out from under his feet.

Kelley turned his eyes to his fallen protégé for one last moment. That look lasted no more than two
seconds, but its imprint lingered. “You have some vacation time coming, Flynn. Take it. I’ll put you on something else when I think you’re ready.”