Doing It Right (20 page)

“No,” she said at last. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can. Climb in, put it in first, stomp on the accelerator—that’s the pedal on the right—”

“I’m aware of how to drive a stick, thank you.”

“Well. ’Bye.”

Still she stood there, looking up at him with an expression he couldn’t read—surprise? Shock? Bewilderment? Helplessness?

Don’t.

He took a step toward her.

Bad idea, man.

There was no room between them now.

Dude, you will be so completely sorry.

He cupped her—hot—face in his hands and eased his mouth to hers, touching her soft lips with his, then easing them apart with his tongue as he tasted her, touched her tongue with his, breathed in her scent, let his fingers plunge through her wild curls, testing their texture, tasting her mouth, her ripe, sweet, mouth, feeling the excruciating pain explode through his testicles and race up to his kidneys, watched her tip away from him as the gravel rushed to his face. The rocks should have hurt like hell but they felt like moss, and then nothing felt like anything, and he went bye-bye in his head.

“T
om, you’ve got to come see,” Kat said urgently, waving her hands before his face. Her big brother ignored her, as was the purview of older brothers the world over, still chatting on his cell phone as he shrugged into his suit coat, shut down his computer, maneuvered his way around the stacks of legal files, and followed her out the door to the parking ramp.

“Yes—yes! Come on, you aren’t really … you are? For God’s sake, of course you need a bigger house—the governor’s mansion wouldn’t be big enough—What? Uh-huh. Other than take in more foster kids than Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie put together, you—Yes? She did not—Well, tell her I’m keeping an eye on both of you …”

Kat noticed other women checking her brother out, not that she could blame them. Except for the tie—a nightmare of green spots on a barf-brown
background—he was a good-looking man in his mid-thirties—dark blond hair cropped short all over, tall and athletic—he took pleasure in kicking Judge Kimmes’s ass every week at racquetball—with the light blue eyes that were, except in her case, the Wechter trademark.

“… she did? Oh boy. Didn’t I tell you? I told you, you’ll have your hands full. What is this, your third baby in how many—No! That’s really pretty. Yeah, I have to—my sister’s here and I’ve got to—Okay. Say hi to Kara for me. I’ll talk to you later, Jared. Oh, hey, doc, it hurts when I do this. Yeah, yeah, don’t do that. ’Bye.”

Tom slapped his phone closed and looked at her. “What in the world is so important in the middle of a Friday afternoon? I’ve got cases to prep for and—”

“Deals to make, no doubt.” She puffed a curl out of her face. Of all the days to forget a hair clip or a rubber band. “Come look what I’ve got.” She looked around, but the police station was two blocks over—parking was lousy in Minneapolis on game nights. She’d been lucky to get this close to his office. “Maybe we should get a cop.”

“Katherine Anne Wechter, what have you done now?” Her brother asked this in his thunder-court voice, the tone that made criminals cower and bailiffs grin and judges widen their eyes. His sister had heard it all her life, and it made her roll hers.

“Simmer down, D.A., which I’ve decided stands for Dickless Ass—”

“Don’t say it.” He looked around the parking
ramp. “Why in the world did you drag me to your—” He fell silent as he heard the furious thumping coming from his sister’s trunk.

As they got closer to her Mustang, they could hear muffled commands—”Help! Police! Anybody! Kidnapping! Help! Call a fireman! Get the jaws of life!”

Kat whacked the trunk with her fist. “Quiet in there. You’ll use up your oxygen and suffocate.”

A furious volley of kicks, followed by—”You bitch! You … you sneaky kissing robotic weird nutso psychotic kidnapping whack job!”

Her brother’s blond brows shot up and he tried to loom over her, another trick that had never worked. “Kissing?”

She waved it away. “It’s probably the fumes. He’s delirious.”

“Kat, what have you done?” He asked this in the tone she liked best: the tone of a broken man. And he used her nickname, which he almost never did. The entire family, from her mother down to Great Uncle Daniel, hated her nickname. Leftovers from a bad night, they thought. Given to her by the Bad Man who tried to do things to her, him and his friends.

Her true name, she had secretly thought, from that night and forever more. A Kat, not a kitty to be coddled and petted. A Kat.
Kat
, complete with claws and teeth.

“I captured a car thief. Now you can arrest him.”

“Arrest him? I’m not a cop, darling little slightly dim sister.”

“Well, we’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants.”

“You captured a thief?” His brows crinkled together into one big blond angry eyebrow. “You actually grabbed a strange man and stuffed him into the trunk of your car and drove him to my office?”

Whap-whap-whap
from the trunk. “She seduced me first! Vile betrayer!”

“Katherine …”

“Don’t worry, Tom. You worry way too much. I had it all under control.” She decided not to mention leaping onto the hood. Or much of what followed. She leaned forward and whispered, “I’ll unlock it and you grab him while he’s disoriented.”

“Wait—”

Click
. The trunk swung open. They both stared down at the addled thief, who had both hands clamped over his eyes. “Help!” he yelled. “Kidnappers afoot!”

“See?” Kat said triumphantly. It was too bad, because he was really a fabulous-looking man, but the law was the law—he had to go. “I got him. Now you get him.”

Her brother had bent over to get a good look at the hardened thug. “Katherine …”

“I told you,” she told the thief. “Crime doesn’t pay. It’s practically my family’s motto.”
My boring, staid, low-risk family.

The thief’s hands lowered slowly and he blinked painfully at them. “Other than my mother’s funeral, this is possibly the worst day of my life.”

Her brother was still staring. She wasn’t surprised.
The whole family coddled her, ever since The Thing That Happened When She Was A Teenager. Like she couldn’t take care of herself—a woman in her late twenties! Like she couldn’t handle anything some car thief yo-yo threw at her.

“Oh God, Katherine, Katherine, what have you done now?”

“Made the streets safer once again,” she said, trying not to overdose on the triumph.

Her big brother was cringing inside his suit jacket, seeming to lose weight before her eyes. She was afraid, for a moment, that he was going to fall into the trunk with the car thief.

Finally, he asked, “Chester McNamara?” in a doom-laden voice.

The thief squinted at him. “Oh. Hi, Tom.”

!!!!!!!!

She gasped like a landed trout, before managing to spit out, “You two know each other?”

“Detective McNamara, this is my sister, Katherine Wechter. Katherine, this is Detective McNamara.”

She leaned against her car so as not to fall into the trunk.

“Y
ou are not.”

“I am.”

“No.”

“Yes, I really very am.”

She hid her face. “No.”

“Yup.”

“So I take it, your cover, she is blown,” her brother said in an awful fake accent.

“I’m not sure. I was supposed to be at the shop with a lister, ah”—he squinted at his watch—”half an hour ago.”

“A lister?” she couldn’t help asking.

“It’s an A-list of desirable cars to steal,” Tom answered absently. “Bad guys put in orders just like you do when you order a car from a lot.”

“And somebody wanted a Ford Mustang?”

“Sure,” the thief—er, Chester—said. “Happens all the time.”

“So when you said it was a matter of life and death …”

“Sure. Mine. I mean, if I don’t show up, my cover’s blown and they’ll track me down and shoot me in the face. If I show up, they might figure out I’m an undercover cop and shoot me in the face. If—”

“Enough with the shooting in the face!” Kat realized she’d been cringing on her trunk and abruptly stood. “Okay. Let’s figure this out.”

Chester and Tom looked at each other, then at her. “This is police business, Katherine,” her brother began in that so irritating tone. “You—”

“Kathhhhherrrrinnnnnne,” Chester teased.

“Shut up,
Chester
. Staying away isn’t an option?”

Her brother rubbed the throbbing vein between his eyes. Hee! She loved when that happened. “We’re not having this conversation with a civilian.”

“Hey, at least one of us isn’t a scum-spewing lawyer.”

“What did Mom tell you about that?” he whined.

“Baby.”

“Risk-taker.”

“Suit.”

“Psycho.”

“Uh, Wechter siblings? Simmer down.” Chester was looking between them both with not a little wariness in his eyes. “I think we can safely say, due to your assault on a police officer and subsequent kidnapping of same—”

“You were
stealing
my
car
!”

“—that the case is fucked at any rate.
Capiche
?”

“All the lawful owners would have gotten their property back,” her brother said in that snotty tone she despised. Her brother was born with a ramrod up his butt; she wondered how their mother managed to change his diapers. Hell, he probably changed them himself.

“There isn’t anything you can do? And by the way, you can’t cry kidnapping if you didn’t show me I.D.”

“She’s on to us,” Chester stage-whispered to her brother.

“Goddammit! Nine months of undercover down the drain because you picked my sister’s car?”

“Hey, it was on the list.”

“That make and model?”

“And the license plate.”

Her brother scowled, obviously mulling that one over, when Kat piped up, “Well, let’s give it to them.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re going to chuck all that budget money down the drain? Oh, the voters’ll
love
that.”

Her brother cringed. “Leave that to me,” he said with a complete lack of conviction.

“Where were you supposed to drop the car off?”

“Stop!” her brother screamed, his fair face flushing the color of a ripe beet.

“Chop shop in the warehouse district.”

“What part of ‘Stop!’ are you not getting, Detective?”

“
I
don’t work for you,” she pointed out.

“You’re not too big to spank,” Thomas growled back.

She ignored him, as she had most of her life, and turned to Chester and his pea green eyes. “Well, how many can there be?”

“What?”

“Chop shops. I mean, this is Minneapolis. Hardly a hotbed of crime.”

She slammed the trunk shut, snatched the keys out of the lock, and climbed into the driver’s seat. She started the car, and glared at the two men who were gaping after her. “Well?” she demanded. “You coming?”

Her brother actually stamped his foot. “No.”

“Uh.”

“Chester. No.”

“Uh … it might work.”

“You’ll both get a bullet in the face for your trouble.”

“What is this obsession with bullets and faces?” Kat bitched.

“I said
might
work.” Chester touched his mouth. “Ummm. How come you never mentioned you had a crazy gorgeous sister?”

“For obvious reasons, McNamara, and just forget it.”

“And let her go out there alone? It’s almost dark.”

“At least let me—” But McNamara was gone, long legs scissoring into the passenger side. He put out a hand and gave Tom the—Was that the … ? Did he dare to … ? No, that was a
thumbs
up. “Cheer
up!” he called as she squealed out of the parking space, ruffling her brothers three-hundred-dollar Men’s Wearhouse suit. “We’ll think of something.” “I’m telling Mom!” Thomas called after the Mustang, and she flashed its lights in saucy reply.

“I
know why I’m doing this,” Chester said, “but why in the world are you doing this? You’re not a cop. You’re a—What are you?”

“A boring rich person. No day job.”

“Thus the sweet car.”

“Thus.” She took an illegal left and scooted up into the right-hand turn lane. “Warehouse district, coming up.”

“So why are you doing this? I mean, any sane woman would have let me take her car. Especially a rich sane woman. But you kidnapped me and drove me to the D.A. And now you’re driving me back to the bad guys.”

“Thanks for the re-cap. Because I wasn’t, you know, standing right there or anything.”

“I’ve been working with your brother for over a year. He never mentioned anything about you. Specifically, I mean.” Chess cringed as she squealed
around a corner. She was—almost—a better driver. Certainly more reckless. “Just that his folks were still together and he had six brothers and sisters.”

“Sheep,” Kat muttered.

“What?”

“Sheep. They’re very risk averse.”

“You mean they’re sane and sensible.”

“Boring and overprotective.”

“Well, rich people usually are.”

“I’m the only one who’s rich.”

“How come?”

“Civil lawsuit in my favor,” she replied shortly, neglecting to put on her turn signal as she took a right. “Tons of money I’ll never use.”

“And you’re—” Bracing himself on the dashboard: “Yellow light yellow light
yellow fucking light
!”

“Will you calm down? How can an undercover cop have nerves of spaghetti?”

“Bad
guys
don’t scare me.”

She quirked a dark brow at him and he determinedly ignored the stiffening in his pants. His balls still throbbed, but in a much more interesting way. “How about bad girls?”

“Mmmmph.”

“So it’s Detective Chester—”

“Chess, please, if you love me.”

“It’s a little soon for—”

“Left, left,
left
!”

She swung left, ignored the squealing brakes behind her, and swung into the parking lot of a block-wide city garage.

“Okay,” he panted, clutching his chest. “You stay
here. I’ll tell them it took a while to find the car they wanted, but I’ve got it now. You’ll—”