A Righteous Kill (10 page)

Luca climbed the few steps to her arched door and paused in front of it, willing the anticipatory heat in his blood to calm. Taking a breath in through his nose he exhaled slowly through his mouth.

One… Two… Three… Four…

The door jerked open and Vince greeted him with his hand reaching into his suit coat for the Beretta he holstered next to his shoulder.

“Oh it’s you,” Vince said. “I thought it might be, but then you didn’t come in.” He reached to help with Luca’s bag and stepped back to let him pass into the small, cozy entryway. “It’s been bugging the hell outta me that this door doesn’t have a peephole.”

Luca almost forgot the townie had the hearing of a fucking owl. “Sorry, man.” He received a fist bump. “I was preparing myself for the smell.”

He inhaled. Her apartment smelled nice. The rank odor of death had been vanquished by lemons and something sharper, earthier.

“How is she?” Luca asked, surprised by how anxious he was for the answer.

“She’s acting just fine,” Vince shrugged. “She bought everyone processing the scene some lunch. Then, when they all split, she changed and I helped her clean up fingerprint dust and what not. She wiped everything down with essential oils and got rid of the smell. Either she’s coping very well, or she’s in denial.”

Luca tried not to let that trouble him. “Did CSI find fingerprints on this guy? Anything?”

“Do they ever?” Vince frowned.

“What about on the note?” A message was new. They could examine the handwriting. Process the paper and the ink. Maybe it would give them
something
.

Vince just shook his head.

“Is that you, Agent Ramirez?” Hero’s voice called from inside.

“Yeah.” Luca stepped around the entry wall into the living room and his jaw hit the floor.

Hero bent over the ornate black table, her weight resting on her elbows, studying some papers spread out in front of her. She’d changed out of her dress into a maroon tank and grey, stretchy yoga pants that clung to her ass like a second skin.

All the muscles clenched in his stomach. He tried to block out all the dirty things he could do to that—

“You hungry?” she asked, throwing a glance over her shoulder.

Moisture flooded his mouth. Fuck yeah, he was hungry. But it wasn’t dinner he wanted to eat on that table. He dragged his gaze away from her tempting curves. Her eyes. He should be looking at her eyes.

“I was just about to order out for dinner.” Her mouth lifted in an inviting smile.

Christ, he was in so much trouble.

“Sure,” he called, turning to Vince. “You staying for dinner?” Careful to keep his tone casual, he hoped his desperation didn’t show.
Don’t leave me alone with her yet.

“Nah. Semester finals just ended and I have plans to get rowdy with some graduate students at O’Hearne’s tonight. New England Revolution is going to beat Real Salt Lake on the big screen and I’ll be in the mood for a victory dance after.” Vince clapped Luca’s shoulder and wagged his brows before grabbing his suit jacket from the rack. Luca knew what
dance
was a euphemism for. “But you kids have fun.”

Almost supernatural hearing but the observational skills of an ostrich. Wasn’t it their job to read people?

“Thanks for everything, Agent Di Petro,” Hero called without looking up from her menus.

“You’re going to have to start calling us by our first names, especially in front of people.” Vince threw a flirty smile in her direction. “I’ll show up tomorrow in appropriate artists attire.”

“Maybe I’ll even teach you something,” she volleyed back.

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Vince lifted his chin at Luca. “It’s been quiet, but I’ll be close if anything goes down. Later,
homes
.”

Luca had changed his mind. It was time for Vince to take his easy wit and wicked smile somewhere-not-Hero’s-house. He shut the door behind his partner more firmly than intended. Then locked it. And put the chain on.

“So what are you in the mood for?” Hero asked from the table.

Was she kidding? Even if she offered what he knew she wasn’t offering, Luca wouldn’t have been able to decide. Naked. He was in the mood for naked, hard, and wild. And that was a fucking dangerous mood.

“I’ve got Chinese, Thai, Indian, pizza…”

She shifted her weight from one bare foot to another and scratched an itch on her calf with a manicured toe. The movement did something amazing to her ass. He got a little lightheaded as all his blood rushed south. What was the last thing she said?

“Pizza’s good,” he managed. Besides, she should probably eat something carby and greasy. It’d do her some good.

He stooped to grab his overnight bag and move it next to the detestable couch, hoping to avoid looking at her as much as possible. He leaned to set it and his laptop down, trying to find a pillow that didn’t have some kind of East Indian pattern, fringe, or sequins on it.

He failed.

“Great. Gino’s makes this veggie pesto and pine nut pizza on a gluten-free crust that is just incredible.”

The needle scratched on his inner soundtrack and he straightened. “Pesto and pine nut better be some kind of chick code for pepperoni, sausage, and extra cheese,” he warned. “And what’s wrong with plain old red sauce?”

“Do you know how much processed sugar they use in those sauces? Besides, I’m a vegetarian. Doesn’t it say
that
in your little FBI profile?” She turned to face him, her eyebrow cocked in a dare.

“Vegetarian?” He made a face. It was kind of like she’d just told him she believed in fairies but not shaving.

And he
knew
that wasn’t true. Well, at least the shaving part.

“Yeah. If you knew what digesting meat did to your insides you’d give it up, too.”

He snorted. “I’d rather die.”

“And you will. Slowly. Of stomach cancer.”

This conversation just went somewhere he really hadn’t wanted it to. And he sure as shit wasn’t eating pesto and pine nuts on gluten-free cardboard. Why did she have to mess with pizza? It was an absolute good.

“What about Chinese?” he suggested, hoping he conveyed more diplomacy than disgust.

“Okay,” she picked up the Chinese menu and handed it to him. “Great idea, I’ll grab the phone.” Brushing by him, she snatched her cell off the bar counter.

He inhaled. Because of her, the smell of earth, herbs, and cocoa butter would be permanently tattooed in his nasal cavity.

That was okay by him.

“Hi, Mr. Huang? Yes, it’s Hero, how are you?”

Obviously she ate Chinese a lot.

“Mexico was beautiful…” Her face fell and she took a long breath. “Yes... I’m glad to be home. It’s been…” Her eyes flicked to where her missing fridge had gone. “eventful… Yes, delivery.” She brightened again. “I’d like the wok-fried veggies with tofu, no sauce and…” She looked at Luca expectantly.

Blech. Luca grimaced. That didn’t count as food. That was just roughage you put down to help you digest real food. But he was hard pressed to argue in front of Mr. Huang.

“Beef lo mein,” he supplied, going for the meat and gluten double-whammy. “With a side of those cream cheese wontons, extra deep fried.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but repeated his order into the phone. “Yes, I am entertaining company… Okay, thank you, Mr. Huang. You tell Mrs. Huang and Johnny Li that I said ‘hi’ okay?”

She hung up. “I need a shower, do you mind listening for the door?”

“Of course not.” Luca eyed the door to the bathroom that also connected to the apartment’s one bedroom. Hero’s bedroom. “I was just going to do a little work. Do you mind if I spread out on the floor here?” He pointed at the Persian-looking rug in front of the couch.

She paused for a moment, studying him, and then looked at the floor. Luca could only guess what she was thinking.

“Of course not,” she echoed.

Luca glanced around her apartment. It looked like Bollywood barfed all over the Tai Pan Trading Company in here. Aside from the ridiculous couch facing the wall of windows on the side of the house overlooking the river, a few papasan chairs and a gigantic Lovesac completed the receiving ensemble. All were strewn with loud-colored throws and—what do you know—more pillows. Some bookshelves lined the wall by the entry door, mostly stocked with books on art, pottery, random new age topics, and romance novels with no apparent organizational system. He looked closer. Maybe they were color coded? Other arbitrary tables and surfaces were littered with countless pieces of pottery, vases, dried flowers, and weird trinkets that ranged from Indian deities, to Buddha, to a crushed velvet picture of Jesus in a garish frame.

The dark wood doors to her bedroom and bathroom huddled next to each other on the long wall that ran from the entry all the way past the kitchen and created the shortest hallway in the world. At the end of that hall, Luca knew a small cellar-like room held her pottery wheel, an electric kiln, and floor to ceiling shelves full of pottery in different stages of becoming.

Luca liked how the kitchen, tiny dining room, and living room all shared one huge loft space with high ceilings. Sure as hell blew his beige apartment with beige walls and beige furniture out of the water. Just one thing was missing.

“Do you have a TV? I’d like to catch the game while I sort through some papers.”

“I don’t.” She walked to a closet with funky handles, pulling out a large, fluffy teal towel and a candle. “Don’t really need one.”

Wait. What? “You never watch TV?”

She shrugged. “I’m usually too busy, and if I have a show I’m following or something I just watch it on my laptop or someone else’s house.

“Oh.” Luca supposed he could watch on his tablet, but he missed his fifty-five inch flat screen with a physical ache.

Hero paused in front of the bathroom, her hand on the doorframe. An uncomfortable awareness paralyzed Luca and from the worry in her eyes, he could see she felt it too.

This was probably a bad idea.

Other than the fact that the very sight of her affected how his pants fit, they were incompatible in every way. No one would believe that they were lovers. Let alone in a committed relationship.

He was in the FB-
fucking
-I. Couldn’t they come up with a better cover than this?

“All right, well… I’ll be out in a bit.” She shut the door behind her and the sound of the shower starting broke his daze.

He dropped onto the couch and sank in way further than anyone should be able to. The only thing to recommend this piece of furniture was that it faced away from the bathroom. Only a thin slab of wood separated him from Hero’s naked body. This very moment she’d be stepping into the hot spray, water sluicing down her lithe body, dripping into the hot crevices he’d yet to explore. He shouldn’t be contemplating pitting his strength against the door. Besides, she didn’t lock it.

He clenched his jaw and started counting to ten.

Luca looked up at the wall of windows and remembered something she said at the hospital. For the millionth time. Hell, sometimes in dark moments he’d close his eyes and picture it. Hero admitted to walking around naked in her home sometimes. Unconcerned that anyone with a telephoto lens or a penchant for roaming the woods alone could watch her every move.

The thought chilled him. He stood to let down the blinds and closed the curtains, but paused to scan the tree line and the swath of river turned black by the gathering shadows. If John the Baptist was out there watching, he’d already know that their relationship was a hoax. They were too careful not to touch. They never kissed. Didn’t act like two people in love.

Because if they did, there was no way he wouldn’t have followed her into the bathroom.

***

Hero stepped from the steam into her bedroom and made her way to the dresser. She grabbed a lacy matching pair of panties and bra. Just because Agent Ramirez was in the next room.

It wasn’t that she
planned
to show them to him. You just never knew.

The shower had washed away fingerprint dust and negative energy. Hero hummed as she lathered with lotion and threw on black silk pajama bottoms and a grey cotton top with a black shiny
om
symbol. Running her hands through her wet hair, she padded into the living room.

Eschewing all the uber comfy furniture, Agent Ramirez sat on the floor in the middle of an organized mess of files, legal pads, and paperwork. His laptop glowed to one side, and an almost finished box of Chinese food was discarded to the other. Though he’d abandoned his suit jacket, he still wore his work clothes and shoes, which were
nice
. His only concession to comfort was rolling up his shirtsleeves and loosening his tie.

Hero liked how the creamy almost-white of his shirt contrasted with the light brown of his skin and shadowed his dark eyes with something a little sinister. She had to admit to herself that if she’d met him in a dark alley, she wouldn’t assume he was fighting for the good guys. Not because of his race, but because of the tension coiled in his muscles. Because of the simmering heat rolling beneath the smooth skin. Because every feminine instinct she had warned her of an approaching predator every time he was in the room.

“Your dinner’s on the table.” He never looked up from the report he read.

“Thanks.” She picked up the recyclable brown box—Thank you Mr. Huang—and grabbed some chopsticks before walking over and plopping herself, cross-legged, on the edge of his organized chaos.

“What are you reading?” She popped a baby corn cob and some watercress into her mouth.

Luca looked up from his report, but his eyes snagged on her lips closing over the chopsticks.

She drew them out slowly. Just because. Then licked them.

“Father Michael’s interview report.” He fixed his stare firmly back on the paper. “He left the country two days after your attack, the morning after we questioned him.”

Defensiveness for Father Michael surged inside her. “He always goes to Rwanda for a few weeks before Christmas to take the money and donations from the Thanksgiving fundraiser. He wants to make sure they get to the women and orphans.”