Too Charming (26 page)

She moved her eyes up, away from the hypnotic sight of his Adam’s apple and into his even more hypnotic eyes. Electricity sparked between them. Those silver pools darkened and burned into hers, the intensity of his gaze sending her highly
sensitised body into meltdown.

He cleared his throat. ‘Megan.’

Just her name, said in a husky murmur. Involuntarily she swayed towards him, her head tilting up towards his. His mouth descended, those clever, sensual lips gently touching hers, nibbling, probing. A soft moan escaped her and he took that as an invitation to dive deeper. Suddenly his strong arms were pulling her tighter towards him, his mouth was plundering hers and the kiss was taking on a life of its own. No longer gentle, testing. Now it was hot, fierce. In the back of her mind she was trying to remember why this wasn't a good idea, but her body wasn't interested.

The door to the bathroom slammed and Megan jumped out of Scott’s arms, her heart racing.

His lips tugged in a reluctant smile. ‘Not a good idea, I guess.’ His voice sounded thick and throaty.

She could only just manage to shake her head. ‘No.’

‘Ready Megan?’ Ann was back in the room, her expression leaving Megan with no doubt that her friend had a pretty good idea what she and Scott had just been up to.

As they all walked towards the front door, Scott tugged her gently
back and whispered in her ear, ‘You and me. We’re not over, Megan. Not by a long way.’

His words were still ringing in her ears, and the feel of his breath still warm on her neck, when she reached the car.

‘Well, what did you think of his theory?’ she asked Ann brightly as they set off. She knew she sounded false, trying too hard to be casual, but prayed Ann wouldn’t notice.

‘I think it’s in Scott’s best interests to put forward any scenario that takes the heat off his mother.’

Yes, that’s what any normal police detective would think, Megan conceded. One who wasn’t as hopelessly involved in the case as she was. ‘Do you really still think Cathy Armstrong murdered the call girl in a fit of jealousy?’

Ann studied her,
then let out a resigned sigh. ‘No, I guess I don’t. I agree she’s an unlikely murderer.’

Neither of them spoke again for a long while and Megan began to find the quiet between them awkward. She sensed there were things Ann wanted to say but that she was keeping quiet. Showing Megan a kindness and respect that, after the display she’d just put on in Scott’s living room, Megan knew she didn’t deserve. ‘Ann, I’m sorry about what I think you saw back there.’

‘You mean the part when you found you had something in your eye and Scott had to get really, really close to you in order to try and fish it out? Using his tongue, and going via your tonsils, which I have to admit was an interesting technique.’

Laughter burst out of her. ‘I knew that was why you’d slammed the door.’

‘Good job I did, or I’d still be stuck there, cowering in the hallway, trying not to watch while—’

‘I think we can stop there.’ She glanced at Ann and smiled, but then remembered the circumstances. ‘I know it was unprofessional. I shouldn’t have let it happen and I’m really sorry you had to see it.’

‘The only thing I saw,’ Ann replied quietly, ‘was two people who clearly care a lot for each other, sharing a passionate embrace. I’ve tried hard to hate the man,’ she added with a rueful smile, ‘but that’s hard to do when I can see how crazy he is over you.’

Though something warm unfurled in her chest, Megan knew Ann wasn’t seeing the whole picture. Sure the heat was still there between them, but there was so much gunning against them, too. The way their jobs clashed, his inability to commit. Oh, and the small fact that she might still end up having to charge his mother with murder.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Megan’s beef with Scott had often been that he was too charming, too sure of himself. Traits that were both out in full force as she watched him chat to the call girls the following morning. Though they’d answered the door angry at being disturbed so early – just after nine o’clock, a full three hours after Megan herself had woken up – following a few minutes of banter with
Mr Charm, they were like bees swarming round a flipping honey pot, Megan thought with disgust.

The wink he gave her as he walked away said it all.

‘You enjoyed that, didn’t you?’ she asked testily.

‘I can’t help it if women find me attractive.’ He shrugged and then made a great show of sighing deeply. ‘It’s a hard cross to bear sometimes, but, hey, if I bring a bit of sunshine into their lives …’

‘Jesus, cut the crap will you please? I’ve only just had breakfast.’

‘We got what we needed, didn’t we?’ he pointed out calmly. ‘They’ve agreed to go and talk to
Reg, while wearing a wire. Now all we have to do is follow them, wait and listen.’

There he went again. ‘There is no
we
in this, Scott. At least not as in you and me.’

‘Hey, come on. Give me a break. I got them to wear the device, didn’t I? The least you can do is let me hear what it picks up.’ His voice was seductively persuasive, but just short of whining.

‘The least I could do was not let you anywhere near this ruddy investigation,’ she mumbled in reply, narrowing her eyes at him. ‘That would have been my most sensible course of action.’

‘Ah, but then you wouldn’t be quite so far down the line of catching the real killer, would you,’ he goaded.

Reluctantly she let him into the car. ‘Look, I’ll take you back to the station. There you can pick up your car and go about your business.’

Once more he eased his long legs into the passenger side. ‘Okay, but you know I’m only going to follow you, don’t you? So really, you might as well keep me in the car with you. At least then you’ll
know what I’m up to.’

She kicked him out at the station, even though she knew full well he would probably do exactly as he threatened.

And he did.

An hour later she was parked up near
Reg’s office, watching out for the two girls. Scott was in his own car, right behind her. At least he had been, when she’d last looked in her mirror.

There was a tap on her window. ‘Any suggestions of what we could do while we wait?’

The glint of mischief was back in his eyes. There was no doubting what he was thinking. ‘You can go and make yourself useful and find me a coffee,’ she told him firmly.

‘What am I now, a gopher?’

‘White, no sugar, preferably a latte.’

She smirked at his retreating back. Smirked even more at the look on his face as he returned five minutes later, a paper cup in each
hand, only be told that he’d missed all the excitement.

‘I don’t bloody believe it,’ he complained, thrusting the cup at her through the window. ‘What happened? What did he say?’

His frustration was almost comical. ‘Let’s just say we now have evidence that he is paying off a vice cop.’

‘And?’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re sure there is an
and
?’

‘Has to be. You wouldn’t have such a smirk on your face if there hadn’t been.’

‘Smart arse.’ She took a slow, measured sip of coffee, deliberately baiting him. She should leave it at that. Should tell him that the contents of the taped conversation were police business, not his. Then again, if it had been her mother who had a potential murder charge hanging over her head … ‘
And
Reg told them that the last girl who started to ask questions about that arrangement ended up dead. They’d better butt out, now.’

‘Bingo.’ He felt the relief drain through his body. When he straightened up, his legs had definitely lost some of their steadiness. Slowly he walked round to the passenger side and slipped into the seat.

‘It isn’t enough, Scott.’ Megan was studying him, her eyes serious. ‘It’s a pretty strong indication that it wasn’t your mum, but you know better than I that in a court of law—’

‘I know.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘But it’s looking a hell of a lot better than it was this time yesterday.’

‘I also think it could look even better if we’—she looked at him hard—‘that’s we as in the police. Anyway, if we keep tabs on Reg, we might find what we’re looking for. He’s scared shitless that the cops have been asking so many questions. I’d like to bet that his next move will be to speak to the one man he thinks can fix it for him. Foster.’

‘And if you happened to be there, listening in …’

‘Exactly.’

Scott looked at her.
This stubborn, strong, sexy little detective who had snuck under his skin all those months ago. And stayed there. She’d put her job on the line for him these last few days. He knew that. There was no way she should be letting him anywhere near the case, and yet she had. She’d listened to his ideas, even shared, to some extent, what she’d learnt. Enough to reassure him that things were moving in the right direction. Now she was calmly telling him she’d found a way to end it. ‘Megan, I …’ He stopped short, stumped, too overwhelmed to continue.

‘Yes?’

‘You don’t know what it’s meant to me to—you know—to work with you on this.’ He closed his eyes, willing the words to come. ‘I just wanted to say, well, obviously, thank you, but really that isn’t enough.’ He swore softly.

The look she gave him was half quizzical, half teasing. ‘Scott Armstrong, are you actually stumbling over your words? What happened to
Mr Smooth?’

He laughed, appreciating the release of tension. ‘It’s kind of hard to play that part when the woman you’re trying to impress knows every damned thing about you.’

‘Impress?’

‘Yes, you know I still am. Trying, at least. God, Megan …’

She put a hand over his lips. ‘No, please. Now isn’t the right time.’ She started up the car. ‘I need to get back to the station, update the team and sort out how we’re going to catch our two suspects red-handed.’

She appeared so detached, he thought as he climbed out of her car and walked towards his own. It left him wondering if there was ever going to be a
right
time in Megan’s book. He was falling more and more in love with her and yet she was pulling further and further away. As he watched her drive away, his heart felt like a lead brick in his chest .

The plan, to keep a trace on Blake, might have been a simple one, but Megan had to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to arrange for a surveillance team to bug his phone. She figured there was a chance he’d talk to Foster over the phone, though she doubted either Blake or Foster would be that stupid. But at least they might be able to glean some further information. Like details of a meeting that she and the team could then secretly witness, while the two men dropped themselves in it. Then, hey presto, they’d make the arrests and this whole saga would be over. What could possibly go wrong?

She grimaced to herself. Of course there was always the fact that Blake and Foster wouldn’t talk on the phone at all. Or that when the two of them did get together, despite the best listening devices in the force, they wouldn’t actually be able to hear what they were saying. Or if they could hear the conversation, it wouldn’t actually relate to the killing at all. So, actually, there was a fair amount of room for disappointment and failure. Much like her love life.

God, when Scott had told her he was trying to impress her … her heart tightened painfully at the memory of his words and the blazing sincerity in his eyes. If only she could believe him. If only she hadn’t been so badly let down before by a similar, dazzling charmer. Then she might have been brave enough to risk giving Scott another chance. As it was, she, Megan the invincible, was too damn afraid to go down that route again.

The phone on her desk sprang into life. She knew exactly who it would be.

‘Heard anything yet?’

Megan looked at her watch. ‘I’ll give you the same answer I gave you five minutes ago. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, get off this line and go and do something useful.’

‘Like finalising the case to get Kevin Rogers acquitted you mean? I think when you finally get Blake and Foster in your interrogation room, that case might get settled before it even reaches court.’

She had to concede he might have a point. ‘I don’t care what you do. Just stop annoying me.’

He chuckled. ‘I guess annoying is okay. It’s a reaction, at least, even if a bit negative. I’ll have to work on making your reaction towards me more positive, once we’ve caught the bad guys.’

‘There is no
we
, Scott,’ she warned him for the umpteenth time, sounding more and more like a broken record. ‘You have to leave this to us.’

‘I read you, Detective, loud and clear. However, I don’t believe there’s any rule to prevent me from taking a drive past the station in a while. It could be that, by sheer coincidence, I’ll then find my way to the same venue as you. Once I’m there, I might even park and rest for a while.’

Megan knew she’d already overstepped the boundary of what was right and wrong regarding Scott’s involvement in this case, and that was putting it politely. Actually she’d leapfrogged over it so far she almost couldn’t find her way back. She also realised that to stop him from witnessing, at a safe distance, what would hopefully be the final act in the drama would be pretty mean. That was supposing she could stop him, which she doubted. ‘Fine. As long as resting in your car is all you’ll be doing. Now get off the phone. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.’

‘I bet you say that to all the guys,’ she heard him drawl before she put the phone down on him.

It was several agonising hours later when she received the call from the surveillance team. They had details of a rendezvous between the two suspects, thirty minutes from now, in an old warehouse that Blake used to own.

Megan quickly put in calls to Ann and the two armed officers who were going to back her up, and dashed to her car. The warehouse was a good twenty minutes’ drive from the station. The very last thing she wanted, after all this, was to miss the damn meeting because of traffic.

Weaving her way through rush hour, she was very much aware of the sleek black sports car on her tail. A tall, dark-haired man at the wheel.

Trying to keep up with Megan, Scott found himself driving like a maniac. Controlled maniac, he liked to think. His car was, after all, designed to take corners at sixty miles an hour. It was just the other road users that weren’t too happy about it. He doubted the police would be either, if they caught him.

It was worth the risk, though. He wanted to see the two men go down for this one.
Reg Blake for being an evil bastard to his mother, shoving her on drugs, framing her for murder. A true gentleman. Then there was Foster, the cop turned dirty. He wanted to watch him nailed as a warning to all other cops who thought they were above the law. Able to twist the facts to suit their purpose. He hadn’t been able to prove that’s what had happened in his father’s case. At least getting Foster would be some small consolation.

He followed Megan to a run-down, disused warehouse on the outskirts of a trading estate. Once there he parked a discre
et distance away and cut his engine. In the gloomy light he could just about make out Megan’s car ahead of him, tucked in the car park of an empty office building, right opposite the warehouse. Scott hazarded a guess that nobody used any of the buildings in this part of the estate. Many were boarded up and all were badly in need of repair.

He hit number one on his speed dial. ‘What’s happening?’

‘If you stopped bloody calling me every five minutes I’d be able to find out,’ she shot back.

He loved it when she was slightly pissed with him. Hell, he just loved it when she was taking any sort of notice of him. ‘Okay. Just tell me if you’ve seen them yet.’

‘No. It’s all clear. I’m about to tape a listening device to the outside of the warehouse so we’ll be able to hear any conversation when they turn up. If they turn up.’

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

‘God, I don’t know, there could be any number of reasons. They found the bug, they suspected we might be listening in so they were speaking in code—’

‘Have confidence in yourself. I have.’

There was a moment’s pause. ‘Thank you,’ she replied softly. ‘Now get off the phone so I can do my job.’

He obeyed, watching as she moved out of her car and efficiently wired up the warehouse.

Time seemed to stand still. He sat, waiting, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as dusk turned slowly into evening. It was probably only ten minutes since they’d arrived, fifteen at a push, but finally he heard the sound of an engine. He pressed speed dial again.

‘I hear a car.’

‘Yes. Foster, I think.’

He swore. ‘Where’s your back up?’

‘I told them where to meet me. They’ll be here soon. I thought you had confidence in me?’