Unleashed (11 page)

“Me and Kate. She helped me go through everything. Last week when she brought some stuff over here to store, she found a box of books she realized had belonged to James. That’s where I found the date book.”

“And Kate knows nothing about it?”

Caroline shook her head. “She may have seen it, but I don’t think she would understand the significance.”

“Kate was the only one to help you go through James’s things?”

Caroline nodded, frowning in confusion. “She was the only one I trusted to go through his personal stuff.”

Danny stared at the notes scribbled onto various dates, as though he could will the book to give up secrets that had been buried for nearly two decades. “Someone could easily hide information under the guise of helping you. Sometimes people closest to you are the ones who want to hurt you most.”

Caroline sat up straight on the edge of the bed, indignation evident in every line. “Kate would never want to hurt me.”

Danny held up his hands. “I’m not accusing her of anything. I’m just trying to get all the information I can.”

Caroline’s phone rang. “Speak of the devil,” she said as she looked at the display, shooting him a glare as she picked up the phone. “Hi Kate.”

He listened to her half of the conversation with one ear as he continued to scan the appointment book. Nothing but notes on groceries for the housekeeper to pick up, errands to run, appointments, various sports games Danny and his brothers had scheduled that she probably wouldn’t attend. Normal, everyday things you’d expect to find in the calendar of an affluent stay-at-home-mother.

“No, I’m okay. Really. No, you don’t have to stay with me. I don’t want to put you out.” Caroline’s eyes flicked in Danny’s direction. “It had nothing to do with me. Just the wrong place at the wrong time.” She rang off and met Danny’s questioning look.

“You haven’t told her about the notes?”

“Not the most recent one.” Caroline pocketed her phone and twisted her fingers in front of her. “She’s got enough on her plate with school and Michael. I don’t want to worry her anymore. Did you find anything in there?” She tilted her chin toward the book. “I’ve already been through it twice, but couldn’t find anything about James, or anything related to James. Maybe it’s just a dead end.” Her shoulders slumped, and he fought the urge to give them an encouraging rub.

Or even better, he could close the last few inches between them, lay her across that big bed and spend the next few hours making them both forget the rest of the world. Heat pooled between his legs and he licked his lips as the idea took hold. Maybe he could get some extra benefits out of their renewed acquaintance.

He saw the flash of awareness in her eyes right before they flicked nervously from his gaze. Her fingers shook a little as she brushed back a curl that had escaped from her sleek ponytail.

Yeah, she was feeling it too, the crazy chemistry that had erupted long ago in his teenage bedroom and had lain dormant until then. All it needed was a whiff of oxygen and it was roaring to life, white hot and undeniable.

Don’t do it, man. She’s nothing but trouble for you. She ate you up and spit you out before. What makes you think she won’t do it again?

But he was older by over a decade and infinitely wiser. He knew the difference between sex and love. Mainly that sex was an enjoyable way to pass some time with a woman and did a decent job keeping his thoughts from creeping over to the dark side, while love was a word people liked to throw around and use as an excuse for acting like a bunch of jackasses.

He’d been there, done that, and sure as shit wasn’t going back for more.

So why not add another dimension to his working relationship with Caroline? He hadn’t had a problem walking away from a woman since she’d left him. She wouldn’t be any different.

She knew exactly what was on his mind if the pulse beating in her throat and the flush across her cheekbones was any indication. Danny was pierced by a sudden, vivid memory of that same flush staining the creamy skin of Caroline’s stomach as her orgasm hit. By the time she’d finished coming, her tits would be suffused in the same rosy pink, the perfect backdrop to her diamond hard nipples.

He started to reach for her but before he could even get his hand up she darted away, skittering toward the door with her hands in her pockets, her eyes fastened to the floor like some secret to the universe was hidden in the pattern of her area rug. “You said you found some information too, about my husband. Maybe if we go through the book and you tell me what you found, we’ll figure out the connection.”

My husband
. Two words, and his cock shriveled like a prune. Danny thought of James Medford, his aging hands all over Caroline’s body on that enormous bed, and was afraid his balls were going to climb into his abdominal cavity. “Let’s go downstairs and I’ll tell you what we found.”

Caroline fought the urge to fan herself as she led him back downstairs. Her whole body felt lit from within. Amazing how his gray eyes could go from stone cold to liquid mercury in a split second. And that look still had the same devastating effect it had had on her when she was sixteen. Innocently wandering into his bedroom like a baby deer into a lion’s den. He’d lured her over under the guise of tutoring him in calculus, but Caroline was the one who’d received an education. Up until that night, she’d barely been kissed, awkward, mildly pleasant interactions of lips and tongue. By the time she left Danny’s room that night she’d been throbbing in places she didn’t even know she had, clinging to her virginity by the skin of her teeth.

Dwelling on memories like that could only lead to trouble. She needed to get away from him, away from the
bed
for God’s sake, before she did something royally stupid. It was a below the belt shot to bring up James, but thank God it had worked to distract him. Caroline liked to think she was older, wiser, and much more in control of her libido than she’d been as a hormonal sixteen-year-old. But she knew if Danny pushed it, she’d end up naked under him, over him, any which way he wanted her.

She ordered her body to cool down as she led him back to the kitchen and gestured for him toward the loveseat and armchairs that made up a sitting area in one corner. During the day, light flooded the kitchen through the windows and skylight, creating a sunny pocket of warmth where Caroline loved to sit and read or sketch plans for her latest project.

Danny ignored her and went straight for the refrigerator. “Do you mind?” he said over his shoulder as he pulled out a package of chicken breasts and a head of broccoli from the refrigerator. “All of a sudden I’m starving.”

“Can I help you find something?” Caroline called as he opened and shut cabinets, banging around in her kitchen like he owned the place. He ignored her, bent to open a door, and straightened with her spaghetti pot, which he quickly filled with water and put on the stove.

“I have some frozen lasagna and other stuff in the freezer if that’s easier.”

But Danny was rummaging in her pantry for more supplies. “Don’t tell me you still eat that shit,” he grimaced. “I told you that shit’s worse than army chow.”

Caroline couldn’t hold back a smile at the memory. Danny had been appalled when Caroline had opened the freezer at her parents’ house to reveal shelf after shelf filled with TV Dinners and Hot Pockets, and barely any other food in the house. Danny was obviously still an avid, though messy—she winced as a glug of oil sloshed over the side of the sautee pan onto her immaculate stove—cook.

Within minutes the water was heating and her kitchen was full of the aroma of garlic, chicken, broccoli, and whatever herbs he’d dug out of her spice cabinet. Her stomach, previously sour from stress and too much police station coffee, grumbled in appreciation.

“Did you know that James’s wife had land up in the Santa Cruz mountains?” Danny said and came to take a seat across from her.

Caroline frowned, trying to keep up with the swift change in subject. “No. Like I told you, after she died everything went into a trust for Kate to be managed by James.” Upon his death, control of the trust had passed to Caroline. “I haven’t looked at it closely recently, but I don’t remember any other property in the trust.”

Danny nodded. Dark stubble shadowed his chin. Even as a teenager he’d had a thick beard, and she’d loved to run her fingers along the raspy skin. She shoved her hands in her pockets to keep her tingling fingertips from venturing out on their own. “The area where the bodies were found is part of an open space preserve. There was a cabin up there, taken out by the landslide. It took a little digging, but we discovered that before it became open space, the title was held by Barbara Sanford. It was donated in 1991.”

Caroline’s stomach sank as she sat back against the cushions. First the book. Now the bodies were found on land that belonged to James’s first wife. “Jesus,” she shook her head in disbelief. “I thought James was hiding something towards the end, but I thought it was an affair.” Could he really have been responsible for those two bodies?

Could he really have—no she didn’t want to go there yet. The pang of hunger that had reared at Danny’s cooking died a swift death as her stomach fisted inside her.

There had to be another explanation, other than that she’d spent a decade married to a murderer.

“I never heard about any land, or any donation,” Caroline said. “We can ask Kate.”

Danny went to the stove, stirred his chicken and broccoli concoction and dumped pasta into the now boiling water. “Not yet. I don’t want to clue anyone in until we know who to trust.”

“We can trust Kate. I told you.”

Slabs of muscle shifted under his shirt as he shrugged. “We just got off a case where a woman killed her parents and plotted to kill her sister in a fake drug overdose.”

Caroline rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and the woman was Alyssa Miles and there were millions of dollars in blood diamonds to cover up.”

“Why would someone be after James and after you, if not to cover something up?”

“Kate has nothing to do with James’s death, and besides, she was too young when your mother disappeared to have had anything to do with that.”

Danny forked up a bite of chicken from the pan, chewed thoughtfully, then grabbed one of the dozen spice jars he’d unearthed from her pantry and threw in a pinch of something. “Maybe she was helping her mother cover something up. James and Anne were having an affair. Susan got angry, killed Anne, hid the bodies in the cabin.”

Caroline frowned, his emotionless theorizing sending a chill through her. How could he be so cold, referring to his mother as Anne, like she was a stranger. Then again, Danny had always been good at cutting off his emotions, separating himself, shutting out anything that distracted him from his duty. She had no doubt it had made him an awesome captain when he was in the Army.

But it had eventually made it impossible to have a relationship with him.

“What about the other body?” Caroline said.

“Was James into threesomes?”

“No!” Even the thought made her squirm.

“Not that you know of.”

“Besides, I thought the other woman died after your mother.” She watched to see if he reacted to her reminder of exactly who one of the victims was. Not even an eyelash quivered.

“Maybe. It’s hard to know for sure.” He opened a drawer and rifled through it. Caroline tried not to wince at the thought of him messing up her carefully organized utensils. She looked up and caught him watching her, his lips curved into the barest of smiles. Bastard was doing it on purpose, knowing how much it bugged her.

He used to do the same thing whenever he came over to her house. He’d pick a perfectly organized drawer and make a mess of its contents and ignore her pleas to stop. Only when she physically tackled him would he give in, and then because he was too distracted fooling around to mess with her anymore.

She wondered what he’d do if she tackled him now. Renewed heat pooled low in her belly, and she deliberately turned her back on him.

“Look, all I’m saying is in a situation like this, you can never rule anyone out. You never really know anyone as well as you think you do.” He deposited a plate on the low table in front of her chair and set the other in his lap as he settled onto the love seat. A size twelve black shoe thumped on the table and he shoveled a mouthful of garlic scented pasta and chicken into his mouth.

She thought of James as she picked up her plate and twirled the fork tines through the pasta. She’d been shocked enough when she believed he was cheating on her. The thought that he could be a murderer…She set the plate back down, unable to muster any appetite.

“What I don’t understand is why,” Danny said as he polished off his mountain of pasta in a matter of seconds.

“I don’t know why James would be involved with your mother, either,” she replied.

“Not that,” he shook his head and pinned her with an intent stare. “I want to know why you married him in the first place.”

Oh God, she so didn’t want to get into this with him. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to discuss the details of my marriage with you.”

“Why?” he scoffed. “You already admitted you thought he was playing hide the salami with another woman. He may have killed my mother. It’s not like you’re going to dishonor his memory.”

She bristled. Even if he hadn’t been a perfect husband, James had been good to her. And it wasn’t like she was wife of the decade either, marrying a man because he represented a safety net at a time when she was in a free-fall.

“Was it the money?” He sat back against the love seat in a casual sprawl, but she could see the tension rippling through every sinew. Danny was a predator, ready to pounce if she made one wrong move.

“Yes,” she said bluntly, shoving down the hurt at the disappointment in his eyes. He’d lost the right to judge her a long time ago. “At least that was part of it.” Caroline struggled to explain how weak she’d felt to a man who didn’t understand the meaning of the word. “He was safe, stable.”

“Since when did you need someone to take care of you? You were always kicking ass and taking names, keeping it together when everything else fell apart.”