Deathblow (26 page)

And, of course, as soon as he said that, as soon as he set her at ease, she
wanted
more. Which was really weird, today of all days—with her aching all over. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange. She’d been beaten up this morning. And she knew what Joe’s touch would be like. She could sink into his gentleness.

Actually, she was already doing that, more relaxed than she’d been all day. She pondered that for a moment. “So the town Casanova is a snuggler?”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to protect.”

“Mum’s the word.”

“I’m still hoping the word is
hot sex
, actually. I’m just saying I’m willing to wait for it.”

“Technically, those are two words.” Again, she smiled into the night.

She could get used to this, him, his easy, laid-back ways, his arms around her, the promise of passion in the future. “I don’t want to fall in love,” she blurted, then caught herself.
Oh God.
She really needed to shut up.

“Okay.” He didn’t sound concerned. “Mind if I ask why?”

“When Keith gets caught….” She paused, trying to pull her thoughts together. “I need time between that, dealing with that part of my life being finally over, and whatever I do next. I need to figure out what I’m doing. I need to grow into a person who will make good relationship decisions. I don’t ever want to be the way I’ve been with Keith. I want a balance of power.”

He didn’t say anything for a while after she finished. Then: “How about this? Whatever happens between us, you’re in control.”

She so wanted to believe that. But he was the wonder boy of Broslin. “How many women have you told that before?”

“None. And I’m not a total dog. I don’t chase after every skirt.”

“Just the short ones?”

“I like short skirts.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “But since I met you, I haven’t been able to think of anyone else. I should see if there’s a pill for that.”

Her heart lurched.

“But you’re in charge,” he added. “I mean that.”

He did, she could tell, and it stunned her. He wasn’t exactly a Type B personality. He’d been a professional athlete and now he was a cop. Why would he ever give up control like that?

She had a difficult time accepting the only answer that came to her—that Joe Kessler, small-town hero, Officer Cop Casanova, really cared about her.

Joe carried her up to her bed before he left the next morning, covered her up, brushed a kiss over her lips when she sleepily murmured something unintelligible. He stood over the bed for a long second.

Wendy and Justin were in his life. In his house. He didn’t want them to leave.

For the first time, he could almost understand Keith Kline. Not the violence, never that. But the concept that if a man was lucky enough to have a woman like Wendy in his life, he would fight like hell to keep her. Although, he knew that wasn’t Keith’s motivation. What Keith had done was about control, not love.

Joe paused by the bed for another second to watch Wendy sleeping peacefully. She would always be part of his life on one level, because they were going to have a baby together. But passing a kid back and forth between them wasn’t enough. For the first time ever, he wanted more.

He could see them as a family.

But could she?

How many times had she told him that she wanted nothing to do with him?

He went downstairs, bothered by that thought.

Mike was waiting in his cruiser outside. He got out of his car, his face haggard as if he hadn’t slept much last night.

“Door is open. Don’t forget to lock it behind you,” Joe told him.

“I’m sorry, man. I was sitting out here like an idiot yesterday. I had no idea that freaking bastard got to her. I’m not going to let her out of my sight today, I swear.” Mike sounded as miserable as he looked, no jokes this morning.

“I appreciate it.” Joe nodded. None of them had expected Keith to actually show up. Hell, if he’d known, he wouldn’t have gone to Philly.

“Keep an eye out for a short Mexican guy. Paco,” he told Mike.

“For what?”

“He cut Wendy’s brake lines. I got tangled up with him in an unrelated case. If Keith could track down my house, so can Paco.”

“Nobody’s getting through me,” Mike promised.

As Mike lumbered up the driveway, Joe hopped into his shot-up Camaro and made a note to call Artie about scheduling some bodywork. As it was, it hurt to look at the car. And the bullet holes would draw attention too. But he didn’t dwell on that as he drove down the street. He thought about Wendy.

He wanted her, he wanted their baby, raising the kids together as a family. He wanted it all, wanted everything.
Shit.
When had that happened? The thought should have made him feel trapped. Instead, the possibility of a future with her made him feel happy.

He drove to the station where he had to fill out another injury report for Leila’s files.

“How bad is it? No bullshit.” The captain watched him through narrowed eyes.

“It’s nothing. My cell phone took most of the hit. I was stuck in a basement, had to shoot my way out. I shot down the first guy, clipped the second, ran out of bullets so the third one got me before I rushed him.”

“How did you get out?”

“Grabbed their guns and climbed the dead guy to push out a window. Then up to the roof, since there was a bloody war going on on the ground.” He’d used missing stones and window sills as stepping stones. “I picked off a few gangbangers from up above.”

“You went missing.”

“Might have blacked out up there for a spell. The wound bled a little.”

The captain shook his head. “You lost enough blood to pass out.”

“All replaced. A pushy nurse dripped a whole bag of IV fluids into me in the ER.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re fit for duty.”

They spent ten minutes arguing over whether or not Joe should go back on sick leave. He won on that, so after he was done at the station, he drove into Wilmington.

The day before, Wilmington PD had searched the city for Keith while the captain and the rest of Broslin PD had combed Broslin, but Joe wanted to take a shot at it. He knew where Kline lived, where he worked, which country club he golfed at, what restaurants he liked for lunch. He was determined to find the bastard.

He planned out his morning as he drove, where he wanted to go first. But then his thoughts returned to Wendy.

The plain truth was, he wanted her. He wanted to keep her in his life. He needed to figure out how to accomplish that.

He hadn’t come up with any brilliant ideas by the time he reached the insurance company where Keith Kline worked.

“We had police here already,” the department director told him, an older guy who looked near retirement. He wore an impeccable three-piece suit, Italian leather loafers, and an old-fashioned gold signet ring. “Keith didn’t come in yesterday, and he hasn’t shown up yet today either.”

“Does he have a personal relationship with anyone at the company?”

“Sure. He’s a great guy. He goes out golfing with the other brokers all the time. Some people grab a beer after work now and then. He’s fun to be around. Outgoing. Good at sales.”

“Any female friends? Maybe something that goes beyond friendship?”

The director shook his head. “I don’t think so. But we do have a company policy against fraternizing with coworkers, so if people do date, they usually don’t flaunt it around the office. But I’ve never noticed Keith spending extra time with anyone like that.”

“Any history of violence?”

“Look, he’s a great guy.” But something in the man’s tone changed.

Joe waited him out.

“It wouldn’t be fair to besmirch his reputation because of one mistake.”

“This is a police investigation,” Joe reminded him.

The man pressed his lips together. “He had an argument over a project with a coworker six months ago. Keith threw a chair in the heat of the moment. A laptop got knocked off a desk and broke. He paid for damages, made apologies. He worked it out with HR.”

Joe asked a few more questions, but none of the responses proved helpful toward figuring out where Keith might be, so he ended with, “Could you show me his office?”

The man hesitated, but only for a moment. “I’ll have to call security to let you in. The other officers yesterday already looked through it,” he added.

“I’d like to check it again, if you don’t mind.”

The man called security and walked him over. They only had to wait a couple of minutes before a uniformed guard showed up with a master key and let them in.

The director stayed. “If you want to take anything, I’ll need a warrant. He has client files in here. Those are confidential.”

Joe nodded. He wasn’t particularly interested in the client files. He wanted to get a better feel for the man, for the way he thought, to figure out where he’d go to hide.

Keith would have known that he’d gone too far, that Wendy would have to go to the hospital, that there’d be police involved. So where would he go to regroup? Not far. He wouldn’t leave everything behind and take off permanently.

Nobody had seen him attack Wendy, no witnesses. He was probably thinking right now that all he needed was a good lawyer and any charges would be dismissed. The case against him was too weak to go to court.

Joe’s job was to make it stronger. He looked around carefully.

Keith had plenty of awards and certificates on his walls, clearly driven at work. He had pictures, taken at golf courses, with what Joe assumed were key clients, but nothing personal, no pictures of his son or Wendy.

Joe hesitated over the photo of a boat. “His?” Maybe he had a boat Wendy didn’t know about.

But the director shook his head. “I rented that for the department for a team-building event last year.”

Too bad. If the boat belonged to Keith, they might have found him on it.

“Are you aware of any favorite places he has, where he goes on vacation, any suggestions where he might be?”

“Home? He takes golf trips to Myrtle Beach, but not this time of the year.”

Joe planned on checking Keith’s penthouse apartment next, although he didn’t think Keith was dumb enough to be sitting on his couch, waiting for the police.

He thanked the director, but then he thought of something else on his way down. He got off the elevator on the next floor and asked the first person he saw, “Could you tell me where I might find the HR department?”

“Third floor.”

“Thanks.” He got back on the elevator and went down one more level.

The HR department had its own reception desk, so he headed there. He flashed his badge and asked to see the head of the department, a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Lashanda Jefferson.

She was nearly as tall as Joe, wore her hair in a tight bun, dove-gray suit well cut and crisp, fancy high-heel shoes, no jewelry, no frills. She had a let’s-get-it-done air about her, reminding Joe of Leila. If she kept her department as shipshape as Leila kept the station, they were in good hands.

Joe flashed his badge. “I understand that one of your employees, Keith Kline, had some issues about six months ago and worked out some kind of deal. I need to find out more about that.”

The incident had to have an HR report written up about it. That would prove that Keith had a history of violence, which would improve the chances of the assault and battery case going to trial. As it was, the attack on Wendy would come down to Keith’s word against hers. Her injuries had been documented at the hospital, but she had no way to prove that Keith Kline had been the attacker.

The HR manager flashed a tight smile. “I’m sorry, Officer. I can’t discuss employees. If you want to look at Mr. Kline’s file, you’re going to need a warrant.”

“But there’s a file?”

“All incidents requiring disciplinary action are fully documented,” she said smoothly.

Joe called that in to the captain on his way to his car. The crime had been committed in Broslin, Pennsylvania, but Keith worked in Wilmington, Delaware. Not only a different jurisdiction, but a different state. Fact was, the captain had more pull, more weight to negotiate with Wilmington PD than Joe.

Asking for help didn’t bother him. He’d learned team-playing on the football field. It didn’t matter who scored any one point; everyone worked together to make the team win.

He drove to Keith’s apartment building next, a fancy place with a doorman whose uniform looked like a theater costume for the toy soldiers in the Nutcracker: red wool with golden braids.

“Mr. Kline is not in,” the old guy informed Joe, as stiff as an English butler.

“Can you tell me when you saw him last?”

“Yesterday morning.”

Joe flashed his badge. “I’d like to go up anyway.”

“May I enquire why?”

“I’d like to talk to his neighbors.”

“I’d better announce you.”

But Joe had lost patience with protocol by that point and strode by the man to the elevators. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

He went all the way up. There were only four apartments on the top floor. He knocked on Keith’s door first, just in case. “Police, open up.”

No response came. Wilmington PD had been here yesterday, according to the captain, with a search warrant. Keith hadn’t been home. The cops didn’t find anything that pointed to his whereabouts.

Joe knocked again, louder.

A neighbor stuck her head out the door to scrutinize him, an elderly woman holding a tiny white dog under her arm. They wore matching pink tops. At least the dog didn’t have on sequined gold pants with it. The woman dripped jewelry, and Joe could swear the dog’s collar had gemstones embedded in the leather.

Since he wasn’t in uniform, he pulled his badge and held it up as he strode over. “Officer Joe Kessler, Broslin PD. I’m looking for your neighbor, Mr. Kline.”

“I haven’t seen him in a couple of days. I’m sorry. What’s this about? The officers yesterday wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Official police business.”

She flashed an annoyed scowl. She didn’t look like the kind of person who was used to others naysaying her.