“Who found her?”
“Don’t know. The first officer on the scene responded to an anonymous call around 6:00 a.m. It’s anyone’s guess, other than that.”
“Got an ID on her?” J.R. asked.
Sal checked his notes. “Yeah. Sylvia Polanski, age 33. Got an address in Queens, although we haven’t checked it out yet.”
J.R. moved toward her body, silently observing the condition of her clothes.
“It will be hard to tell if this one got raped,” he stated.
Sal frowned. “Why’s that?”
“Looks like a hooker to me,” J.R. said. “Depending on the number of johns she had last night, she could be carrying multiple DNA.”
“How can you tell she’s a hooker?” Sal asked. “More than half her clothes are missing.”
J.R. pointed to her right foot. “I could be wrong,” he said. “But the only women I’ve seen walking around these snow-packed streets in three-inch heels are hookers.”
Sal nodded. “You might be right, and then again, she could have been coming from a Christmas party somewhere.”
“Maybe so,” J.R. said. “What do you want us to do?”
Amato sighed. “Hell if I know,” he muttered, then shook off the feeling of helplessness. “Well, it’s damned cold. You know where the homeless go when the shelters are full and it starts to snow.”
“Inside or underground,” Trudy said, well aware that there was an entire community of homeless people who lived beneath the city.
But the thought of prowling through the cavernous recesses gave her the shudders. Instinctively she felt beneath her coat for her gun, relaxing only slightly as she felt the bulge beneath her fingers.
Amato pointed toward the crowd. “You and Neil check around. See if you can come up with any witnesses, however reluctant they might be. It’s a long shot, but right now it’s all we’ve got.”
J.R. paused, glancing down as two men from the coroner’s office began putting Sylvia Polanski’s body into a bag. The photographer had finished and was nowhere in sight.
“Got any leads on the first victim?” he asked.
Amato shook his head. “Hell no. That would be too easy. Now go find me a witness. We need to get this sicko off the streets.”
“Come on, Red, let’s shake the mattress of Mother Earth and see what crawls out of the cracks.”
Trudy popped a piece of gum into her mouth and winked at Amato. “My partner is cuter than yours…and poetic, too.”
Amato chuckled at the delicate ribbing between Neil and Kowalksi, accepting it as the stuff that only partners could say to each other and get away with, and then watched the coroner’s men carrying away the body of Sylvia Polanski. As he turned, he saw Paulie heading his way.
“Did you tell the lieutenant?” he asked.
Paulie nodded. “He’s not a happy camper.”
Amato shuddered. “Hell, neither am I. We’ve got to go all the way to Queens to check out the vic’s address.”
Paulie pulled the collar of his coat up around his ears as they started up the stairs.
“Look at it this way,” he said. “Maybe there will be something in Sylvia Polanski’s apartment that will break this thing wide-open.”
Sal snorted beneath his breath. “Yeah, and maybe there will be a one-way ticket in my Christmas stocking to a place where it never snows.”
“I like the snow,” Paulie said as they exited onto the street.
Sal wrinkled his eyes in protest of the cold blast of air, then looked up at the gray morning sky with a shudder.
“Then you’re gonna be a bundle full of joy today,” he said. “It’s starting to snow again.”
Mac woke abruptly and sat straight up in bed, his heart pounding, his face covered in sweat. When he realized he’d been dreaming, he sagged with relief. He didn’t know where the hell that nightmare had come from, but he didn’t want to go back there again. He’d been dreaming of Caitlin, and as dreams went, it had been a doozy. Only she kept turning into a woman from his past, and that was where the nightmare had come in. Only once in his life had he considered marriage. Her name had been Sarah, and she’d died in his arms. He’d watched the cancer ravage her body until there had been nothing left but a shell. He’d sworn to himself never to care for another woman in that way again. Then he’d met Caitlin, and she’d haunted his dreams ever since. Most of the time he told himself he didn’t even like her. But then there were the times when he wondered if he would ever get enough of her. Staying in her home—under these conditions—was getting to him. He didn’t want to fall in love. It was easier and safer being in hate. As he sat, debating with himself about the wisdom of lying back down and trying for more sleep or making coffee instead, his focus began to shift.
Click, click, click.
The sound was faint and slightly familiar as he reached for a pair of sweats. After a quick trip to the bathroom, he finished dressing, then left his bedroom, following the faint, repetitive clicks into the hallway of Caitlin’s apartment. He paused outside a partially open door, then looked inside.
Slowly he relaxed.
It was Caitlin at the computer, and the sound he’d been hearing was nothing more sinister than the click of her keyboard as she typed.
He grinned at the way she was sitting. Perched on the edge of the chair, as if readying herself to bolt. Her knees were bent, her legs locked around the legs like a bareback rider on a pissed-off horse. An old chenille bathrobe hung over the back of the chair, as if discarded in a fit of disregard, while the blue flannel pajamas she was wearing bore a scattered array of white fluffy clouds. Her hair was piled up on top of her head, secured by a piece of brown plastic that slightly resembled the rib cage of a small dinosaur. Her bruises were turning green, and one of the stitches over her eyebrow poked out from her forehead like grass in need of cutting. If all his senses had been in good working order, he would have been bordering on a good laugh over her lack of fashion. Instead his thoughts were wavering between admiration and pure attraction.
He had to give it to her. She was tenacious. Aggravating, but tenacious. He liked that in a woman. And then, the moment he thought it, he flinched. He wasn’t supposed to like Caitlin Bennett. She damn sure didn’t like him.
Having settled that in his mind, he quietly backed out. But instead of walking away, he hesitated, listening to the steady click of the keys and wondering how a mind like hers worked, developing the intricacies of her bestselling stories without mixing up or losing track of all the facts. Even if they didn’t like each other, it didn’t hurt to admit that she had skill. That wasn’t giving her any slack. He was only acknowledging her place on earth, just as he would expect her to acknowledge his.
He had been a cop—a protector and purveyor of justice. She was a writer—a creator of worlds and magician of words. It was fair to say that they both had their place.
He frowned and walked away. It was just unfortunate that, for the time being, they were forced to carry out their roles beneath the same roof.
He turned up the thermostat as he entered the kitchen, then walked to the window and pulled the curtains aside.
Well, hell. It was snowing again.
His bones had gotten too used to Georgia winters to tolerate this much cold for long. As he ran water into the coffeepot and then spooned coffee into the filter, he kept reminding himself that he wouldn’t be here forever. But he knew that when he left, things would never be the same.
A short while later he was taking strips of bacon out of a skillet and laying them to drain on paper towels when Caitlin wandered into the room.
“You’re cooking,” she said, her eyes wide with interest.
Before Mac could answer, she had ducked under his arm and snagged a strip of bacon.
“Um,” she said as she took a bite, taking care to chew only on the right side of her mouth. “I love breakfast food,” she added, blessing him with an unusually friendly smile.
“Yeah?” he said, staring at a tiny bacon crumb at the corner of her mouth.
“That one’s burning,” Caitlin offered, pointing to the last strip still in the pan.
Mac cursed softly as he quickly retrieved the bacon from the burning grease.
“I’ll eat it,” he said, and laid it on his plate as he took the skillet off the heat. “Want some eggs?”
“Scrambled?”
He reached over her head to the cabinet above and took out a small glass bowl.
“Sure. How many?” he asked as he started breaking eggs into the bowl.
Caitlin’s eyes widened. When she ate eggs, which was rare, she only cooked one at a time. And if she hadn’t lost count, he’d already broken six into the bowl.
“Oh…just one,” she said, pointing to the thick, yellow mixture he was beating into a fluff.
He paused and looked up. “One?”
She nodded.
His gaze slid from her face down the front of her body all the way to her sock-clad feet and then up, moving more slowly as he traced the faint outline of curves hidden beneath the baggy flannel pajamas.
“You need to eat more than that,” he announced, then poured the bacon grease into a bowl, dumped the eggs into the skillet and began to stir.
“Are you saying I’m skinny?” Caitlin asked.
The tone of her voice made the hair crawl on the back of his neck, but he held his ground.
“Did I say you were skinny?” he drawled as he dumped a good-sized portion of the cooked eggs on her plate and then emptied the rest onto his.
“No, but you—”
“Do you think you could eat toast, or is your mouth too sore?” he asked, completely ignoring the fact that she was pushing herself toward pissed.
“Um, I, uh…”
“Your eggs are getting cold,” he said.
Caitlin frowned. He made her so mad. He’d all but called her skinny, and now he was completely ignoring the fact that she wanted an apology. With a frustrated sigh, she snatched the plate from the counter, filched a couple of extra slices of bacon and headed for the table. It was hard to demonstrate an effective stomp when her body was this sore, but she did the best she could.
“You weren’t hired to be my cook,” she said and, the moment she said it, could have kicked herself all over the room.
He stiffened, then turned, his face a study in disbelief; he picked up his plate, his face red with anger.
“Actually I wasn’t hired to be anything,” he said, pointing a fork in her direction. “If you will remember, Aaron asked me to help. I did not come because I was being paid, nor do I want any money from you. Now, if you don’t mind, I wish you would take a deep breath and eat your breakfast without saying another goddamned thing to me.”
He strode out of the kitchen, carrying his food with him.
Caitlin’s eyes filled with tears as she watched him leave. She tried to take a breath but choked on a sob as she looked at her plate. A second passed, then another and another, while huge, silent tears rolled down her face.
Why do I feel this constant need to hurt his feelings? Why am I such a rampant bitch when he’s around? This isn’t me. This isn’t who I am.
To her dismay, she heard him coming back into the kitchen and scrambled for a napkin to blot her tears, but it was too late.
Mac had come back for his coffee but got a kick in the stomach instead. He took one look at the tears on her face and groaned. They’d done it again. His shoulders slumped, his hands twitching at his sides as he dropped his head.
“Goddamn it, Caitie, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
She looked up, her face still streaked with tears.
“I was rude. I had it coming,” she whispered. “I was raised with better manners. I don’t know why I behave this way around you.”
Mac sighed, then crossed the room and pulled her out of the chair and into his arms, taking care not to hold her too tight.
“I’m sorry.”
Stunned by the thunder of his heartbeat against her ear, she couldn’t find breath to answer. And then his hands slid across her back and she felt as if she were being cradled.
“I’m sorry, too,” she mumbled.
Mac leaned back, wanting to see her face, but she wouldn’t look up. Sighing, he tilted her chin with the tip of his finger until they were eye to eye.
“Truce?” he asked.
Another set of tears pooled and rolled as she nodded.
Mac’s gaze slid downward. He found himself staring at her mouth—at the slightly swollen bottom lip as well as the tremble in her chin. His resistance crumbled. Well, hell. He was already in trouble, but what he was about to do was going to make it worse. He exhaled softly, then lowered his head. The last thing he remembered before the floor tilted beneath his feet was thinking how unbelievably soft her mouth was and how well she fit in his arms.
Time ceased.
It wasn’t until he heard Caitlin moan that he realized what he’d done. He tore his mouth from her lips and held up his hands in surrender. She looked as stunned as he felt. His voice softened, even though his words were still taunting.
“Don’t hit me, Caitie. You’re in no shape for me to hit back.”
Caitlin shuddered, then took a deep breath, as if coming out of a trance.
“You wouldn’t hit me,” she stated. “You don’t like me, but you wouldn’t hit me.”
Mac frowned. He didn’t want her to be forgiving.
“I don’t kiss women I don’t like. At least, I didn’t used to,” he muttered, then grabbed his coffee from the counter and stalked out of the kitchen.
Still reeling from the feel of Mac’s mouth on her lips, Caitlin sat down at the table, picked up her fork and started to take a bite of her eggs when Mac’s parting shot finally sank in.
“Oh,” she said, and then laid down her fork. “Oh my,” she mumbled, and looked up in disbelief. “Oh my Lord,” she moaned, and cast a frantic look toward the door where he’d disappeared.
When had animosity turned into attraction? Better yet, what in the name of God was she going to do about it? She was on the verge of panic when Mac yelled at her from the other room.
“Are you eating your breakfast?”
The bubble burst.
Attraction? That wasn’t attraction she’d felt. It was insanity. Chalk it up to the truck bumper colliding with her forehead.
“Are you minding your own business?” she muttered.