Sweet Seduction Shadow (17 page)

Ben's hand came up and cupped my cheek in a move so tender it rocked my soul and cracked open my heart a little further. His thumb brushed my skin gently as his chocolate coloured eyes peered into mine. I breathed out a long puff of air, feeling all the tension of the morning dissipate and relaxing into the sensation of his touch on my cheek.

He had such a way about him. He represented strength and vitality, two qualities I craved with equal desire. But it was more than that, more than what people saw. Ben Tamati also represented love and freedom. Things I never thought I'd ever have.

And here they were. In front of me. Watching me with deep unfathomable eyes.

He was beautiful.

He was perfect.

And I think I could honestly say now, that
he was mine
.

A smile crept over my face, I could feel my lips stretching, my cheeks lifting. I watched as Ben took the transformation in, his eyes never leaving me, darting from lips to cheek to eyes to hair and back again.

"Worth it," he whispered, voice low and rough.

I nodded. Yes, he was worth it. He was worth everything I had.

I don't know how long we sat there, taking the other person in. Savouring the moment. Breathing. Being
alive
. It was Ben who broke the glorious spell we were under.

"Pierce is a police detective," he said, and with those few words changed the atmosphere in the room completely. I understood their necessity, but I still hated their invasion. "He's the one who hired ASI, and in particular me, to follow you."

"Why?" I asked.

"Red, you gotta know, I want to tell you. Everything. But I signed a contract and if I break it, I fuck not only myself but Nick and ASI." I nodded, disappointed, but completely aware of why he couldn't say more. "But I will not leave your side in there. And I will not let anything bad happen. I will stand between you and him, lay down my life if I have to. But you are no longer alone. Understand?"

Oh God, did he have any idea what he had just given me? I lifted tear filled eyes to his and saw the answer on his face. Open, honest, and completely connected to
me
.

"Thank you," I whispered and received one of those soft kisses of his on the lips, and a murmured, "You're mine now."

I had never felt such joy in my life before. Who gave a shit what would happen next, what this Pierce guy would mean for my future. For this moment, in Ben's arms, I would even face off against Roan Fucking McLaren.

"You ready, sunshine?" Ben said, moving toward the door of the room.

I pulled back on his hand and cocked my head. "Sunshine? Why
sunshine
? Red I understand, even when I was brunette, I kind of understood still. But 'sunshine' I just don't get."

Ben stopped in his tracks and devoted his complete attention to me. "Really?" he asked, voice light and playful. "I thought it was obvious." I shook my head. When he spoke again his tone had deepened, carrying a more significant weight than before. "Because the moment you entered my world, you set it alight. Until there were no more shadows left to hide in."

I stared at the man before me and just breathed.

Interrogation room one was just that. It held a desk with four chairs; two on each side, a microphone in the middle of the table that obviously led to a recording device and cameras mounted in the corners to capture video of the interview. It didn't have one of those one-way mirrored windows, but then I supposed the video footage could be watched somewhere just as easily.

It also held a man. The guy who greeted us with a straight face and hard eyes, was dressed in casual jeans and a polo shirt. His dark brown hair had a slight curl and was long enough to brush the top of his shoulders. The curl made it dishevelled, the length made me think he went undercover a lot. He had a goatee too. I'd never liked beards. Roan had a goatee as well. It made men look sinister, in my eyes.

Something must have shown on my face, I don't think this man missed a thing. I tried to re-school my features, to disguise the instant dislike I felt at his appearance, but his dark eyes narrowed and the intense look of before became menacing instead.

"Take a seat," he instructed. His voice was firm, unyielding. My eyes automatically sought reassurance from Ben. He was staring daggers at the cop. Not an impassive look on his face at all.

I sat numbly in one of the chairs opposite where the cop stood, feeling nothing like numb inside. My heart rate was too fast, my breathing too ragged. Sweat coated my palms. I rubbed them down the skirt I was wearing, over my thighs, feeling increasingly dirtier as the day wore on. Had I only been at work this morning? So much had happened in such a short amount of time.

Ben's hands came down on either side of my shoulders. A move that spoke volumes and made the cop become statue still. His eyes trailed over Ben's fingers as they gently rubbed along my collar bone, then up his strong arms to land on Ben's face. I have no idea what mask Ben wore, the cop was the one looking impassive now.

"Do you know who I am, Ms Monaghan?" he asked, eyes still on Ben.

"I know you're a police detective and your surname is Pierce," I said, my voice sounding way stronger than it felt. I was so very proud of myself right then.

"Ryan Pierce," he said, finally returning his eyes to mine. I wish he hadn't. "And do you know why I am here?" he asked, voice level, devoid of inflection, matching the look on his goatee covered face. My eyes skipped off to the side of the room. I couldn't look at him. He was too much like Roan, but then he was also nothing like him at all.

Roan had a nasal sounding voice, as though he spoke every word through his upper palate. Pierce's was deep. Roan had a hooked nose and black hair. Pierce's nose was perfectly shaped, but nondescript and his hair was a dark brown, not nearly as black. Roan was tall and lean, his strength hidden behind his lanky physique and all the more deathly because of its façade. Pierce was broad in the shoulders, his arms bulged with muscles. His strength was on display for all to see.

Yet right now, he was Roan McLaren to my eyes, despite my head trying to tell me otherwise. I think it was the threat he represented. Roan equalled threat. So did Detective Pierce.

"Well, Ms
Monaghan
?" he asked, my surname - real surname - emphasised as though making a point. I got it. I disliked him even more.

"You..." I stopped and swallowed painfully past my dry throat. Ben offered a shoulder squeeze as encouragement. Pierce didn't miss the move. "You want something from me," I said, finally finding enough saliva to form the words.

"That's a very general statement," Pierce pointed out.

"Then why don't you clarify it, Detective," I spat back, forcing myself to look the man in the eyes. It was hard, but I've had to do harder things in the past and now was not the time to forget everything my father had taught me.

He stood motionless for several seconds, then pulled a chair out and abruptly sat down. The change in his position, from leaning, towering, over me, to sitting on my level on the other side of the table, was entirely intentional. Everything this man did was planned. Just what did this move mean? Giving me a false sense of security maybe?

"We've been watching you for a while," he said casually. He didn't look at Ben when he said that, his eyes were on me. I forced myself not to show a reaction. I knew Ben had been following me for three weeks, because this man hired him to. His statement wasn't a surprise. I think he was hoping it was, despite Ben's obvious support at my back.

"When did Ben show himself?" Pierce asked, as though he wasn't looking for a reason to have Ben's arse.

I debated lying, but what was the point? My first look at Ben was only a couple of days ago.

"Three days ago," I said testily.

"You don't seem surprised that he's been following you, so I assume someone let it slip before then."

He wasn't happy. It made me feel angrier for some reason.

"I've known I was being watched for almost three weeks now. I never saw him, until he saved me from being hit by a car three days ago. I recognised his cologne when he grabbed me from the road where I had fallen. I had smelled it the first time I felt the itch."

Pierce looked at me for a suspended moment, clearly taking that all in.

"I'm a very observant person, Detective Pierce. I've had to be."

"What's the itch?" he asked, shifting forward in his seat.

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling the weight of Ben's hands still resting there. It gave me such an unfamiliar sense of comfort. Reminding me I wasn't alone in this, even if Ben hadn't said a single word.

"I get an itch between my shoulder blades when I think someone's getting close. It's like a bullseye is being painted on my back. I know then it's time to leave. To move on and hide again."

Pierce's eyes flicked up to Ben's. It was quick. Unplanned. A reaction he failed to hide. I had no idea what it meant.

He cleared his throat and shuffled some papers on the table top in front of him. They'd been inside a nondescript brown manila folder. He picked one sheet out and briefly scanned it, then turned it around to face me, letting it rest in the space between us. I kept my eyes on him. He was the threat, not the paper.

"We've been following you for longer than three weeks, Ms Monaghan," Pierce admitted, with a hint of smugness tainting his words.

I forced myself not to show a reaction, but inside my heart had started pounding, making it difficult to hear his next words.

"Dunedin was when you were first brought to our attention," Pierce was saying, my brain trying frantically to piece the puzzle back together. Otago University had been the next location I'd gone to after Christchurch. I'd poured coffee there, at the University Cafeteria. I'd lasted eight months.

I left because I felt my cover had been blown. I thought it had been blown by Roan, not the police.

"Then you popped up in Kaikoura," Pierce said, sliding a second sheaf of paper on top of the last.

I still hadn't looked at them, I had no idea what they meant, my eyes were all for the fierce gaze of the detective before me, as he slowly, calculatedly, pulled apart the past five years of my life.

"Then again in Cardrona," he added, another sheaf of paper joining the first two. Then another on top of that as he said, "A station in the High Country near Geraldine." And another piece of paper got added to the pile. "Then an orchard in the Hawkes Bay near Hastings."

My work history, save for the time I spent with the Devil's Henchmen in Christchurch, laid out before me with casual ease. I'd tried so hard to hide. And I had obviously failed.

"Do you deny being in any of these locations?" the detective asked.

"No," I said, not willing to give anything further away. There was no point in lying, but expanding on that statement right now would have been a mistake. I was being interrogated, Pierce was not here to help, he was after something. That much was clear.

I held his intense gaze with a neutral one of my own. I refused to crumble under his scrutiny.

"You've led us on a very long and criminal chase," Pierce said, my face almost giving away my surprise at his choice of words.

It hadn't occurred to me that I would get arrested for my fake IDs. I should have considered that, but somehow I'd thought the cops would have more pressing cases to pursue, than one stray woman using false identification in order to hide from a drug lord.

Pierce picked up the sheets of papers again and splayed them out across the table between us. My eyes remained on his.

"Take a look," he instructed.

I blinked, felt Ben squeeze my shoulders in support, and lowered my eyes to the documents. They were police reports of some description. It took me several seconds to comprehend what it was I was reading. In Dunedin an armed robbery of a pharmacy on the corner of Cumberland Street and Saint David Street had been attributed to one Sarah Monaghan.
Pseudoephedrine
used in the manufacture of Methamphetamine drugs had been taken. Drugs Roan made and sold. I leaned forward and shifted the report closer to me.

Security footage of a girl matching my description had been given as evidence. A grainy still from the video was included in the report. Short black hair, temporary tattoos and leather clothing. I hadn't worn my previous Christchurch disguise in Dunedin. I'd worn grunge clothes, had slightly longer mousy brown hair and an earring in my nose.

I moved the next sheet closer. Several similar pharmacy robberies, one where the elderly owner had been subjected to hours of torment late at night, locked in a storeroom out the back while the "robbers" destroyed the chemist's shop and cleaned out his safe of Pseudoephedrine based drugs and cash. I swallowed thickly, reading the line that said,
A woman matching the description of Sarah Monaghan and answering to the name "Sarah", was the one to physically manhandle the victim
.
When shown a picture of the suspect he confirmed her identity.

She'd been described as pale, wearing black leather clothing, had short black hair and obvious tattoos. When I'd been in Kaikoura I'd worn cute white shorts and tight fitting T-shirts, had long dusky blonde hair and had actually managed to get a tan. I pulled the next sheet closer.

Again and again, aggravated assaults, armed robberies, disorderly and dangerous behaviour was attributed to me - all crimes that Roan's men frequently performed. If they didn't have security camera footage with grainy images of a woman who vaguely looked like me, when I was in Christchurch at the mechanic's shop, then they had a witness who confirmed my identity when shown a picture.

It was surreal.

It was wrong.

"None of these are me," I said, pushing the pile back towards Pierce with a determined shove of my hand.

Pierce made an incredulous grunting sound on an expelled breath of air.

"You were identified at each scene."

"It wasn't me," I repeated, arms crossed over chest. Pierce's eyes tracked the movement.

"I hardly think now is the time to deny it," Pierce said evenly. "You've admitted being in these locations, we know it's you."

I pulled the first sheet back towards me and pointed at the date of the crime. "One week after I left Dunedin." The next sheet, finger stab at the date. "Three days after I left Kaikoura." The next sheet. "One day after I left Cardrona." And then the remaining sheets of paper, individually slammed back down on the surface of the table. "Two weeks after I left Geraldine. Four days after I left Hastings.
Not...me!
"

Pierce held my defiant gaze for several long seconds. Then stiffly leaned forward and flicked through another stapled document, which was three or four pages long. He moved the reports closer to compare and finally, after a minute of assessment, looked back up at me.

"None of your jobs, in your next chosen location, started before these dates. There is no way of knowing whether you had left those locations and begun a cover elsewhere when these crimes were performed."

"I was no longer working at my previous employment when these were done. I'd already moved on," I pointed out.

"Granted your employers hadn't seen you when these happened, but you could easily have stayed around to commit the crimes and then moved to your next location," Pierce shot back.

I shook my head at him in bewilderment. This guy had me pegged for nasty things I hadn't even done. Things that made it look like I was still trapped in McLaren's world. My eyes flicked back down to the grainy image on the first report. The girl in the photo could have been identified as me, she looked close enough to my Christchurch disguise and appearance to warrant it, but I knew it wasn't me. I had never been to any of those premises, at those times, and had never worn the Christchurch outfit at those locations.

I sighed, trying to get my anger and increasing unease under control. I pulled the first report over, leaned across the table and pointed to the description of the clothing the suspect had worn.

"I wore leathers in Christchurch. I worked for one of the Devil's Henchmen in his mechanic shop. I put on temporary tattoos, dyed my hair black and blended in. It's what I do. As soon as I knew my cover was blown, I dyed my hair brown, slipped on some grunge appropriate clothing and placed a stud in my nose. So I would fit in at Otago University."