Wicked Release (20 page)

Her eyes flicked down to his hand, still on her hip. “Then what are you doing?”

“We may be expected to kiss at this party. There are occasional games that require it.”

She stepped back, forgetting that the wall was right behind her. The back of her head slammed into the plaster and she winced. “So . . . when that time comes, we'll kiss.
If
it's even needed.”

“Have you seen a couple kiss for the first time? There are nerves. Jitters. People bumping their heads against walls,” he chuckled. “First kisses are awkward and this group? They will know. They will know right away that we'd never kissed, let alone had relations before.”

“Relations. Sounds like something my grandfather would say.”

“I don't love being compared to a grandparent, but hey . . . whatever gets you in the mood.”

Jess shoved his hand off her hip. “I do not need to be in any ‘mood.' Consider me mood-less, buddy.” But even through her objections, she could feel that he was right. If they had their first kiss in front of a crowd, she would be a basket case. She'd fuck the whole thing up.

Even as she pushed his hand away, it found its way back to her body, this time around her back, as he pulled her close to his body. “Elliot—”

But he didn't allow her to object further. He bent low, pressing his lips to hers, curving his fingers around the back of her neck and scooping into her hair. Her lips molded around his. Lips so different than Sam's. Not so needy, not as though he desired her, but like she was an item on a checklist to be crossed off. He was a good kisser. There was no doubt about that. But yet, she felt . . . nothing. Not a thing. No stirrings or dampness between her legs. There was no steely erection pressed against her hip. And with those flannel pajama pants he was wearing, she should have felt something if there was in fact something there to be felt.

She opened her eyes midkiss, his lips still working against hers, and she studied his face. He looked pained, the lines around his eyes pinched. As she pulled back, he opened his own eyes to find her looking at him.

“We're not gonna be playing Romeo and Juliet anytime soon, are we?” Jess laughed and despite the tears in his eyes, a smile cracked through like a bit of sunshine peeking through a storm cloud. A foreshadowing of better days to come.

“No, I don't think we are.”

“But at least now it won't be awkward to fake it.”

“That was my first kiss since . . . since . . .”

“I know,” Jess interrupted.

“You do?”

“Well, I guessed. You should relax your face more when you kiss me. It looked like you were in pain—” Jess reached out, brushing her fingertips along his brow and he pulled back like he'd been burned.

“Don't touch my face,” he snapped.

“What?”

“Just . . . don't. Especially not at the party. It will be a dead giveaway.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Fine. Whatever. When you kiss me again, keep your face relaxed. Talk about dead giveaways . . .”

“Okay . . . I get it.”

“Or I'll bite your lip and really give you something to wince about.”

“And the student becomes the master,” he joked.

There was a terse pause and silence filled the room with something thick and heady. “Hey, Elliot . . . do you think . . . after all of this, we'll stay friends?”

Hell.
If she thought the room was filled with something tense before, now she was utterly drowning in it.

“Friends?” he asked, his voice a short, hard staccato.

“Yeah. You know . . . friends. People who care about you, who you hang out with but don't fuck.”

“I don't have friends,” he answered simply.

“Well, that's sad. What about Lyle? Simon?”

“They work for me. That's not a friend.”

“Don't you get lonely?”

“I never used to. Until your sister. And now—” His voice cracked and Jess jumped in to spare him.

“Well, I was thinking . . . I have no family left. And you and my sister were in love. It kind of, sort of makes you, I don't know . . . almost like a brother to me.” Her face burned with an immediate blush as she realized how ridiculous she must have sounded.

“A brother,” he said. She was about to tell him to forget it; he was taking way too long to think it over. “I'd like that,” he said. “I mean . . .
after
all this. For the next few days, if I'm gonna be kissing you, I think it will forever damage me to think of you as a sister.”

Jess chuckled. “Deal. Come Saturday, I'll think of you as my brother.”

Her phone buzzed from the nightstand, Sam's name lighting it up. Jess grabbed it and spoke into the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Jess. We have another murder.” Sam's gruff voice vibrated through the phone and she could hear—no, feel—his sadness and frustration. “Come down to the Eastern Promenade near the dog beach as soon as you can. Bring your camera. We don't have another photographer yet and we need you to take this one. Just for tonight.”

“Of course. Not a problem.”

“Jess,” Sam said, and dropped his voice to a whisper. It sounded even more muffled than usual. “It's Dylan. Dylan's been murdered.”

32

J
ess rushed around the room, throwing Cass's paperwork along with what little of her own things she'd brought back into her overnight bag. Grabbing her sister's gown off the hanger, she balled it into a wad, stuffing it inside as well. That was why she didn't bother to own nice things herself—they typically ended up wrinkled and on the floor within a day.

Elliot reached inside the bag, taking the gown back out and hanging it up again. “Why don't you leave this here? I'll have Simon dry-clean it tomorrow.”

She was too exhausted to argue.

After grabbing her work clothes, she stuffed her legs into her jeans, not even bothering to take off her pajama shorts. Same with her tank top; she slipped her button-down shirt over top and slid into her blazer. Thank God she'd thought to grab her camera before leaving her house that night.

“Where do we need to get you to?”

“Eastern Promenade. Just—oh, shit. Shit! The ferry? When was the last ferry?”

Elliot looked startled by her outburst. “About an hour ago. It's not a problem. I'll take you on my boat. I assume someone can give you a ride home after?”

“It's so late . . . you don't mind?”

“I don't think we have much of a choice. Unless you prefer to take a midnight swim? I wouldn't recommend that, personally. I've only ever swum from Peaks Island to Portland twice and both times I had Lyle follow me in the boat in case I got caught in an undertow.”

Jess just stared at him in disbelief momentarily before shaking the fog from her mind.
Is this guy for real?

He smoothed her dress on its hanger, placing it carefully back in the closet. “Of course, I don't recommend that at all unless you've been training for a triathlon.”

Jess laughed, but it came out choked-sounding. To avoid that hard stare of his, she grabbed the rest of her things, checking to make sure she had all the paperwork and her camera. Anything else she forgot, she could get later. “All right, Mr. Howell . . . lead the way to your yacht.”

“Howell?”

Jess gave him a gentle push on his shoulders, urging him out the door. “Oh, come on. Did those rich parents of yours not allow you to watch Nick at Nite?”

“Actually, I don't come from money. As a kid, we were very poor. We couldn't afford cable. Hell, we couldn't even afford a refrigerator.”

As they stepped outside the night's chill whipped across her face and neck and Jess shrugged her overnight bag higher onto her shoulder, her camera bag hitting her hip as they walked toward the dock. “Seriously? But . . . but you just seem so proper. Like you went to the best prep schools and—”

Elliot stepped aboard the boat, holding a hand out for her to guide her onboard. “Nope. Not even a little. I got a liberal arts degree at Southern Maine Community College and later took a two-week course to get my real estate license. I thought I'd be drowning in college loans forever.”

“Your family, are they—”

“I was the oldest of four. My younger brother died when I was twenty. I'm paying for one of my sisters to study at Oxford now. And the other is significantly younger than me. She lives with my aunt.”

Jess peered at him as the boat rocked, mimicking her own feelings about this guy. Just as she thought she had a firm grasp on who he was, just as her feet were steady, a new wake knocked her off balance. “And your mom?”

“She passed away as well.” He was quiet a moment, turning the key. As the boat growled to life, its engine was louder than a nursing home on bingo night. Jess opened her mouth to speak and without even turning around, Elliot cut her off. “And before you ask . . . I never knew my father.”

The boat vibrated beneath her and Elliot rushed to the ropes, untying them and tossing them onto the dock. Moving back to the helm, he turned the wheel, pulling the boat carefully away from the dock. “Have a seat. There's water in the fridge below if you need it and if you lift up that bench, there are blankets inside.”

Jess stumbled back, sat down on a cushioned bench, and watched in awe as this strange and powerful man got her safely ashore.

 

Sam circled Dylan's body, taking a moment to stretch out the kinks in his neck.
Fuck. Poor kid.
His guts twisted and Sam had to blink through the spots circling in his vision. Sam bent to his knees, shining his flashlight over the powdery corpse. Dylan's lips were a purplish color, his eyes dilated and cloudy as they stared blankly ahead.

“I'm sorry, kid,” Sam said.

“What do you think the cause of death is?” Matt asked, standing above him.

“I can tell you that it looks like an OD.”

“Agreed,” Christine, their medical examiner, chimed in from beside him. “There's no external wounds. No sign of a struggle. Without getting him on the table, I'd have to concur that it was likely an accidental overdose.”

Sam shined the flashlight on Dylan's nose and just below his eyes. “What about that redness at his nose? And the slight bruising beneath his eyes.”

Christine looked closer, but shot Sam a look that said
you don't look like the medical examiner here
. “Could be anything. Sometimes redness around the nose and bruising of the eyes is simply a side effect of an overdose. Like I said, I'll know more when I get him on my table. Don't expect me to pull any rabbits out of hats here, Sam. It could be something, or it could be nothing. Fact of the matter is, we just don't know yet.” She tucked silky black hair behind her ear and checked her watch with a sigh. “And I won't be able to move the body until your photographer gets here either. Where is she?”

Damn good question.
Sam had called Jess over thirty minutes ago. “She's on her way. Did you get hair samples and fingernail swabs?”

“I've done literally everything I can without moving the body or disrupting it for imaging. Call me when the photographer's here.” With that, she turned away in a huff.

Sam crouched down once more as emotion twisted inside of him.
Why the hell did this kid go back to drugs?
He seemed genuinely surprised and upset when Sam had told him about the recent fatalities related to O. For once, Sam had actually thought he may have changed a kid's life, convinced him to take the better path.

“You couldn't have done anything else, man. This isn't your fault,” Matt said, practically reading his thoughts.

“Mattie, I don't think this was an overdose. It just doesn't make sense. Thirteen hours after he gives up information for our drug bust, he ends up dead? Why was he getting high alone on the beach? This kid was a social user. He did it to connect with friends and as a social outlet.”

“Maybe the friends got freaked out and left him here.”

“Why isn't he dressed warmer? He looks like he's in pajamas, for Christ's sake.”

Matt scratched his goatee. “I don't know, Sam. Maybe it was a last-minute thing. Maybe he was high before he left the house and didn't get dressed properly.”

Anger swelled in Sam. How was it that his own damn partner didn't see how this crime scene didn't match up? “Are you fucking kidding me right now? You don't find this situation strange? We saw him this morning. There was no bruising around his eyes and nose. That's a sign of an altercation right there.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, it's suspicious. But Christine's right. We won't know anything until we open him up. And even then, you—
we
—need to tread lightly. Convince Straimer if it is a murder and go from there. No one here even knows you interrogated this kid. And they
can't
know, Sam.”

Sam kneaded the back of his neck, working out the knots. “Jesus. When did you become my voice of reason?”

“Just call me Jiminy Fucking Cricket.”

Larger waves started slapping against the shore and Sam looked up to find a boat approaching the docks. Several of the uniformed officers ran where the boat was headed in an effort to intercept anyone from entering a live crime scene. Squinting, Sam looked closer and saw Warner at the helm of the boat. With Jess standing just behind him, camera slung diagonally across her body. “Fucker,” Sam cursed, but quickly tamped the flare of anger back down. This is what they needed. They needed their relationship to look more real. And what was more real than them showing up via boat together to a crime scene?

Jess's curly hair whipped around her face, wild and free like she herself once was. She hopped off the boat and turned to leave, but Elliot grabbed her hand, tugging her close to his body.

Sam couldn't watch. Even if it was fake—and he hoped it was—it was like a searing hot dagger being pushed through his flesh.

Time passed slowly despite the fact that he knew Jess was rushing to get over to the body. One button on her shirt was open, revealing a wrinkle of a tank top and a strip of tanned flesh at her abdomen. Sam wet his lips and as their eyes connected he could feel their chemistry in every inch of his body, clear down to his toes. It left a surge of prickling through to his core.

“You're late,” he said as she approached.

“I'm sorry,” she panted, out of breath from her jog down the dock to the crime scene. “I got here as fast as I could. The ferry doesn't run this late—”

“The body's over there. You know what to do.” He wondered if his face looked as stern as his voice sounded, but then again, if she and Elliot had roles to play, then so did he. That of the jilted lover.

“Is it definitely Dylan?” she asked, pain glistening in the depths of her brown eyes.

“It's him, all right.” Sam turned and walked away from her.

“You just need the usual shots, right? Nothing out of the ordinary—”

He spun around quickly, underestimating how close she was to him. He stumbled, his hands landing on her rib cage, thumbs brushing the underside of her taut breasts. He took a sharp breath before forcing his hands back to his sides.

Sam's cock grew hard within his pants, but he ignored the sensation. Ignored the ways this woman could turn him on and heat him up like a fucking campfire. Finally, he answered her question.

“You know what I need,” he said, before he turned and walked away.