Chasing Venus (22 page)

But then he pulled back
and shook his head.
 
“Don’t look at
me like that, Annie.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want
something I can’t give you.”

What she wanted, she
hadn’t given voice to yet, not even to herself.
 
So when he took her hand and led her to
the bedroom they had come to share, it was by silent agreement that they took
their usual separate places.
 
Leaving Annie awake and unsettled to greet the dawn.

When Annie rose the
next morning, she was exhausted.
 
It
seemed to her, though, that Reid was a new man.
 
The demons that had possessed him the
night before appeared to have vanished with the moon.
 
So much so that he went for an early
run, for while she was lolling in bed trying in vain to doze off again, she
caught a tantalizing pre-shower peep show as he peeled off his jogging gear.

He stood at the tall
bureau naked to the waist, his sweaty tee shirt spread-eagled on the carpet,
his well-muscled back and arms available for her perusal.
 
It was impossible not to admire the
perfect V of his torso, the way the broad shoulders tapered to that narrow
waist.
 
She lay still, her lids
barely open, taking in the view as he removed his sport watch and kicked his
running shoes into the corner.
 
Muscles rippled and sinew stretched beneath his sweat-slick skin.
 
His abdomen was flat as a chalkboard,
his shoulders wide as a desk.
 
It
was a reminder, as if she needed one, of how strong he was, how big, how much
sheer male power was encased in that tall, lean body.

He glanced at her to
make sure she was still asleep and she caught the motion in the nick of time,
lowering her lids just enough to be convincing.
 
She heard him move and seconds later the
bathroom door closed and the shower began to pound.
 
Annie flopped onto her back.
 
It was as bad as staring at a buffet
table with an empty stomach and not a penny in your purse.
 
You wanted, wanted, wanted … but you
couldn’t have.

Actually, she probably
could have.
 
Another amendment: she
knew she could.
 
She could storm
into that bathroom and throw back the shower curtain and do whatever she felt
like.
 
She doubted he’d protest.
 
And she wouldn’t regret it for a long
time, not for days, weeks maybe.
 
But someday she would.
 
When
she couldn’t forget him.
 
When she
couldn’t get over him.
 
When she
would remember not just that body that should be a crime but all those damn checkmarks
patrolling his positive column.

Slowly it came back to
her, the moment hours before when he’d come so close to kissing her that she
could almost conjure the feel of his mouth on her lips.
 
What had he told her?
 
Don’t
look at me like that, like you want something I can’t give you
.
 
That was a warning bell if ever she’d
heard one.
 
Hell, it was a symphony
of sirens.

She forced her bones
out of bed.
 
By the time Reid was
out of the shower and clothed, she had rededicated herself to her purpose:
finding the killer, saving herself, restoring her life.
 
The life she’d fought hard for,
post-Philip, and did not want to lose.
 
“I was thinking more about Frankie,” she told Reid.

He was combing his hair
in front of the mirror above the tallest bureau.
 
He met her gaze in the glass.
 
“Agent Frankie.
 
And?”

“I think you’re right
that we should consider him a suspect.”

He nodded.
 
“What made you change your mind?”

“Mostly that I think
it’s possible, like you said, that he had a beef with Elizabeth Wimble and Seamus
O’Neill, too.”

“What kind of beef?”

“Well, in the last few
years I remember people talking about how he didn’t have any clients that were
real stars.
 
That he used to but
didn’t anymore, not with both Maggie and Michael letting him go.”

“Okay.”
 
He sat down on the bed, which she’d
straightened, and gave her his full attention.

“It’s true that he
still would’ve been earning commissions off the books he’d
repped
for Maggie and Michael, but any agent wants star clients on their roster,
writing new books they can sell.
 
So
it’d be only natural for him to have approached both Seamus and Elizabeth.
 
Maybe he tried to sign them and they
gave him the cold shoulder.
 
That
could well piss him off.
 
I also
remember something he said to me at Maggie’s funeral when he first told me I
hit the list.
 
‘I told you I’d make
you a star,’ he said to me.
 
At the
time it went right over my head but it kept coming back to me yesterday when I
was replaying that conversation in my mind.”

Reid shook his
head.
 
“But that’s not such a weird
thing to say, is it?”

“It puts a lot of
emphasis on
his
role in my becoming a
bestseller.
 
I don’t know, it struck
me.”
 
So did another thing: the way
Reid listened to her.
 
It was
another way he differed from Philip, who had seemed to thrive on disputing
every word she spoke.

She went on.
 
“And I think he got into financial
trouble, another reason to want more star clients.
 
There was a lot of gossip about how he’d
run through all the money he made on the pro wrestling circuit but still liked
to live large.
 
He owns a mansion in
Hancock Park and throws lavish parties.
 
Lots of people thought he had the property mortgaged to the hilt.
 
And speaking of the mansion …”
 
She hesitated, not sure that Reid would
buy into this part of her reasoning.
 
“I know where it is.
 
I’ve
been there.
 
We could go in when we
know he’s not home and look around, try to find something incriminating—”

“Whoa, slow down.”
 
Reid catapulted off the bed.
 
“We’re not breaking into anybody’s
house.
 
We’ve got to do everything by
the book.”

“How are we supposed to
do that?
 
We have to do everything
on our own.”

“No, we don’t.
 
I’m having breakfast with Simpson.
 
I intend to get him interested in
investigating Frankie.”

“Simpson’s sold on the
idea that I’m the killer.
 
Why would
he go to the trouble of investigating somebody else when he’s already got an
APB out on me?”

“Because he’s required
to give weight to new information.
 
If I go to him and present compelling reasons for him to look in another
direction, he’ll do it.”

Annie did not share
Reid’s confidence on that point.
 
“Look, I know you want to work within the system.
 
But the system has failed me.
 
I need an outside-the-box approach
here.”

“Have you considered
the fact that even if we found something in Frankie
Morsie’s
house, it would be inadmissible in court?
 
It would have been found via an illegal search.”

“But we wouldn’t
actually take anything.
 
If we found
something, we’d leave it.
 
Then you
could tip off Simpson and he could get a subpoena to search the premises based
on probable cause.”

“What would we even be
looking for?”

“I don’t know.
 
Bloody clothes still in the washing
machine, a book on how to poison with curare, a crochet hook like the one used
to stab Elizabeth.
 
I could try to
get on to his computer and see what he has related to the killings.
 
You never know until you go in what
you’re going to find.”

“And you think he would
just leave this evidence lying around?”

“I know from all the
research I’ve done that murderers keep all kinds of crazy incriminating stuff.
 
You know that, too.
 
And now, with all eyes trained on me, if
Frankie is the real killer, he’s probably feeling pretty cocky.”

“Annie—”
 
Reid gave her a look that let her know
just how cockamamie he judged this scheme.
 
“What about how dangerous this would be?
 
If Frankie
Morsie
is the killer, it’s foolhardy to go anywhere near him.”

“I said we’d do it when
we knew he wasn’t home.”

“That’s an enormous
risk, one I’m not willing to take and sure as hell am not going to let you
take, either.”

She set her hands on
her hips.
 
“Let me take?
 
Let
me take?”

“That’s right.
 
Let
you take.”
 
He got in her face.
 
“Because the quid pro quo of my helping
you is that
I’m
the one who calls the
shots.
 
I am already far out on a
limb for you, Annie.”

“I understand that.
 
And I appreciate it.
 
Hugely.
 
You know I do.”

“Harboring you here is
illegal.
 
I’m not going to start
breaking more laws just because you’re getting impatient.”

She threw out her
hands.
 
“Well then, what do you
propose?
 
We’ve got to figure out
who’s doing these killings, if not for me then for whoever is next on the
victim’s list.”

She watched him take a
deep breath.
 
“You do not need to
remind me of the obvious.”
 
He
glanced at his watch.
 
“I have to
meet Simpson.
 
We will talk about
this later.
 
And Annie, I mean
it.
 
I am not going to let you risk
your safety.
 
You hear me?
 
You do what I say.”

*

The
zen
state Reid had attained in his run was long gone.
 
Frustration with Annie had dissipated it
like smoke from an incense stick.
 
Maybe, he thought as he barreled the truck out of his driveway, it was
fortunate he had somewhere else he had to be.
 
He could use the time to cool off.
 
He got on the freeway and headed for
downtown.

The 5 was easy to
navigate this early on a weekend: there were few other vehicles to slow him
down.
 
Reid kept a lead foot on the
gas and watched the city’s skyscrapers emerge from the haze.

Every important thing
that had ever happened to him had happened in this town.
 
He was born here.
 
He grew up here.
 
His dad had been on the force here, and
his Uncle Benny, who’d died in the line of duty.
 
He’d met Donna here, and lost her
here.
 
Crimewatch
had been created here and would stay here until the
suits pulled the plug.
 
He was a
hometown boy with a ginormous, superficial, ridden-with-evil hometown, but one
he loved all the same.
 
And he knew
that even the tiny, quaint hometowns had their own slice of evil’s pie.

It amazed him what
Annie still didn’t understand about the evil all around her.
 
Still, after everything she’d gone through.
 
He exited the 5 and accelerated the
truck up the ramp that would dump him onto city streets.
 
She was like him six years ago, when
Donna was alive and he was an arrogant 29-year-old son of a gun who didn’t
realize that evil could get you—
you
—in
a heartbeat.
 
He learned that lesson
in the moment when one heart ceased beating and another broke in two.
 
In that instant he understood that you
don’t take unnecessary chances with your life.
 
You don’t flip off the hothead who cut
you off on the freeway.
 
You don’t
trade insults with the gangbanger who’s getting on your last nerve.
 
And you sure as hell don’t chase a
gun-toting thief when you’ve got your fiancée in your goddamn truck.

Reid got it from that
moment on.
 
He got it good.
 
But Annie still didn’t, which was why
she and her naïve spitfire spirit could possibly think it made sense to break
into the home of a man who might be a serial killer.

He shook his head,
thinking of Annie.
 
He recalled her
face from the night before, when she’d crouched at his feet and listened to him
rant about Bigelow.
 
Then new
descriptions of her nosed their way forward.
 
Sweet.
 
Understanding.
 
Warm.
 
Trusting.

It certainly hadn’t
started out that way but now the trust in those green eyes of hers looked as
deep as the sea.
 
He wasn’t sure he
deserved it.
 
Oh, he’d do his
damnedest to keep her safe and try to nail the real killer; she could trust him
in that regard.
 
Yet the two of them
were edging dangerously close to striking a whole different kind of bargain,
the kind that a man and a woman made alone in the dark.
 
The kind that required the ultimate
trust.
 
What Annie didn’t know was
that he wasn’t free to make that deal.
 
That deal was one unfulfilled promise away.