Waking Nightmare (12 page)
For a moment Abbie’s heart seemed to stop. It was all she could do to force air into her lungs. With studied nonchalance, she picked up her fork and finished her meal. “Because only women would be interested in clothes? You’ve never met my hair stylist.”
“Okay, maybe a guy. Definitely someone who knows how to get to you.” Although she refused to lift her gaze, she could feel his eyes on her. “An ex-boyfriend maybe. Do you have someone who might have followed you here? Someone pissed off at you?”
At first she was so relieved to have him shift his suspicion from a female intruder to a male, that she missed the note in his tone. Surely it was her imagination that there had been a hint of something other than professional interest in the conjecture.
Dodging both, she lifted her glass and drained it. “Hard to imagine anyone being pissed off at me,” she said in her sun niest voice as she set the glass back on the table. “I’m absolutely charming.”
When she would have reached for her purse, he stilled her action with a hand over hers. “So you’re not going to tell me?”
Ignoring the pounding in her veins, she gave him a blank look. “There’s nothing to tell.” It wasn’t necessarily a lie, she thought, nudging aside a sliver of guilt. She’d probably jumped to conclusions last night. There was no good reason for Callie to have followed her here, after months of avoiding all contact.
But good reasons were frequently absent from Callie’s behavior, especially if she’d gone off her medication. And any explanation about her sister would lead to revelations that she had no intention of making. Not to this man.
Their gazes did battle for long moments. Long enough for her to see that his eyes weren’t always glacial. That they could warm with interest, concern, and maybe something a bit more personal.
He withdrew his hand and she squelched an uncustomary note of regret. She didn’t do personal. Hadn’t for more years than she could count. And it was better that way. Less complicated.
“When will you know whether you have a match between the blood in the vehicle and Billings?” She took a ten out of her purse and handed it to him for her share of the bill. He waved it away, and handed the check and payment to the waitress, who’d stopped by his side again.
“The sample has already been delivered to the lab. It’s not a complicated test. They’ll probably run it first thing in the morning.” At Abbie’s raised brows, he gave a sardonic smile. “I don’t know what strings Dixon pulled to get this case stamped high priority, but I’m not complaining. The district attorney’s office has already drawn up the paperwork for a warrant on Juarez’s apartment, so we’re ready if the results come out the way I expect them to.”
He stood, and she followed him out of the restaurant. The street beyond the diner’s parking lot was nearly deserted. It was after midnight. If Savannah had a bustling nightlife, it was located far from here. “If and when a search is conducted on Juarez’s place, I’d like to be there,” Abbie said as they stopped next to her car.
“No problem. You’ve earned that, after today.”
She nodded, satisfied. If it had taken the events of the day to gain a measure of the man’s respect, the hours had been well spent. Even with the stiffness settling in one knee, warning her that she hadn’t escaped the scuffle with the suspect unscathed.
“Why don’t you give me your cell number, in case I need to reach you after hours.”
As she rattled it off, Ryne punched the number into the directory of his cell. She watched him complete the action, feeling for a moment like a high school girl giving the most popular boy in school her phone number. She shook her head to rid it of the mental flash. She definitely needed some sleep. She hadn’t spent her high school years dating, and if a guy anything like Ryne Robel had approached her, she’d have run in the opposite direction.
“Got it.” He flipped the phone shut and slipped it in his pocket, extracting his card and handing it to her. “You’ll want to program yours with my numbers, too.” Seamlessly, he switched subjects. “Did the glass company get to your place today?”
She took the business card and slipped it into her purse. “They’re coming tomorrow. Security company will be there at the end of the week.” He didn’t look pleased by her answer, but she hadn’t been able to arrange anything faster. “I doubt the intruder is coming back anyway. They’ve already seen there’s nothing there to steal.”
“I could call the security company for you. Sometimes they need a push. . . .” At the look on her face, he held up his hands, as if to stave off an argument. “Okay. End of the week it is.”
She started the car door. “Thanks for the meal.”
As he opened his mouth to reply, his cell phone rang. Abbie paused, looked back. If this was a new lead reported in the case, she wanted to hear about it. If it was something more personal, well, she could always apologize for eavesdropping.
Ryne turned half away as he answered with a curt “Robel.” She noted the sudden stillness that came over him as he listened for a few moments. Then he threw her a glance, his expression a mask of grim satisfaction.
“Good work. This might be the lead we’ve been waiting for.”
Her pulse jumped. The call had to be about the case, but from whom? CSU? One of the other detectives? With mounting impatience, she tried to discern an answer from the one-sided conversation, but he was maddeningly reticent.
“You thought right. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
As he tucked the phone away, she demanded, “What is it? Did CSU find something else in the vehicle search?”
“You could say that. Balkins said they would have missed it completely if they hadn’t pulled out the backseat. It was wedged down pretty tightly. . . .”
He had to be doing this on purpose. “
What
was? What did they find?”
What
was? What did they find?”
He grinned at the impatience in her tone. “A syringe. And it’s full. Looks like we’ve finally caught a break.”
“If the contents can be matched to the tox reports,” she cautioned, but the statement was automatic. She could barely restrain the wild leap of anticipation at the news, and impulsively reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “This could be big.”
He covered her hand with one of his, squeezed lightly. “Yeah, well, we’re due, right? I’ll have to be pushier than ever to get the lab to get at this right away, but . . .” He shrugged. “I can do pushy.”
“Don’t I know it.” Belatedly, she became aware that she was still touching him, and withdrew her hand, ignoring the lingering heat on her flesh. A wave of self-consciousness flooded her, and silence stretched, grew awkward.
Ryne relieved it by saying, “I’ll let you know if something else comes up. But right now I have to get back to headquarters.”
“Sure.” A measure of relief surged through her. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Abbie watched him as he moved away, considered the fact that maybe she hadn’t changed as much as she thought over the years.
She’d been out of high school a dozen years and men like Ryne Robel still had her running in the opposite direction.
On the way home she dialed her sister’s number again, expecting, and receiving, her voice mail inviting the caller to leave a message. Abbie checked her rearview mirror as she spoke while backing out of the space. “It’s Abbie. I’d really like to talk to you, Callie. Can you call me back tomorrow?”
She hung up, strangely relieved not to have reached her. Callie hadn’t returned her messages for months, so nothing had changed, really. It was probably a stretch to believe her sister had gone from being incommunicado to following Abbie to Savannah. For the first time since she’d searched her house yesterday, she began to give real credence to the possibility that the break-in was exactly what she’d tried to convince the police of—an act of a vandal.
She turned at the light and headed toward her house on a street almost devoid of traffic. It was sad, but she’d find it infinitely preferable to handle a routine B&E than to deal with the unexpected appearance of her sister.
The smoke hung low over the pool tables, and music blasted from the aged jukebox in the corner. Callie Phillips raised her glass and the bartender obediently tipped another two fingers of cheap Tequila into it.
“Hey, baby.” The man plastered against her right side leaned down to bite her neck. “Your ass is ringing.”
She slapped his hand away when it would have reached for the cell phone clipped to the back waistband of her low-rise jeans. “Doesn’t matter. Everyone I want to talk to is right here.”
The man on her left slipped his hand into her tight bra top tank and cupped her breast. “And what if we’re tired of talking?”
She turned to look at him through alcohol-hazed eyes. She’d long since forgotten his name. Or that of the other man. Names didn’t matter anyway. Nothing mattered but the familiar hunger that was rising, that could only be put to rest one way. Well, any number of ways, actually. And she was betting that the two unshaven tattooed men who’d been buying her drinks all night would be only too willing to help in that area.
“We don’t have to talk, sugar.” He squeezed her breast roughly, and the pain made her catch her breath. Sent excitement humming through her veins. Yeah, these guys would do just fine.
A fight broke out at the pool table in back of them. The bartender leaped over the bar with a club and waded into the fray, swinging indiscriminately.
“Cops’ll be here in a few minutes.” This from the guy on her right. “Time to choose who you’re leaving with, baby. We gotta get out of here.”
A smile curved her lips as she dropped her hands to the crotch of each, squeezed suggestively. “No reason to choose, boys. I can handle both of you.”
She ignored their quick muttered discussion and slid off the bar stool, stretched, then walked toward the exit, certain they’d follow. When it came to sex, people were predictable. Didn’t matter who they were. Where they came from. Women could always be counted on to mix sex with messy other emotions, like fear, guilt, and “love.” And men could always, always be led around by their cocks.
She paused at the door and checked over her shoulder, un-surprised to see the two men trailing close behind her. It was good to know that the men in Savannah were no exception.
Ryne straightened from his stance against the wall of the crime lab conference room, relishing the look on chemist Mark Han’s face when he walked through the door and saw who had “urgent business” with him. The scientist worked in the drug identification section and Ryne had worked with him before. He was good, but famously irritable. At least around Ryne.
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