The Perfect Stranger (15 page)

Glen frowned. “Someone wasted him. One shot, straight through the heart. Coroner thinks he was dead before he hit the ground.”

John thought so, too. “Anyone here when it happened?”

“Not when we arrived,” Glen said. “No. But the brother talked to Lambert earlier and says he was here with a woman.”

John felt himself go very still. “A woman?”

Glen glanced down at the small notebook in his hand. “Dawn, Marcel said. Nathan had been seeing her for a few weeks.”

Less than ten feet away, Marcel lowered his face into his hands, and started to sob.

“We’ve put out an APB,” Glen was saying, “but the brother doesn’t know her last name or where she lived. He just says there’s something off about her, but Nathan refused to see it.”

The noose wound tighter, deeper. “Anything else?”

“Not much. His tuxedo jacket is missing, but there’s no way to know about anything inside the house yet. He did receive several calls on his cell phone tonight, most from a number registered to a Joe Smith.”

The name kicked through John. “Joe Smith?”

“Cute, huh?” Glen scowled. “Oh, and one other…from Francois Hebert.”

And after each call, Lambert had been increasingly agitated. Standing there watching the man’s brother try to gather himself, John realized his mistake. He’d been seeing the night through the eyes of a jealous lover—not a cop. The jealous lover had seen only a man who wanted to get a beautiful woman in bed. But the cop…

If the cop had been looking, he would have seen a criminal running scared.

Against a gray sky, the three gangly young men stood on a dock, each holding up a string of fish. Their clothes were plain, khaki shorts and knit shirts. It was a nondescript pose in a nondescript place, completely devoid of any telltale sign to pin the picture to a particular decade.

Except for the subjects. In the torn old photograph they couldn’t be more than twenty. Now, they were well into their fifties. At least the one who still lived was. One had been gone for almost twenty years. The other, only a few hours.

“What the hell is Uncle Troy doing with the Lambert brothers?” Cain looked up from the picture. He’d arrived less than fifteen minutes before, courtesy of a phone call from John. He knew Lambert was dead. He knew John didn’t want Saura left alone. But considering the warm hug he’d given her, she doubted he knew about the blood she’d washed from her hands. “Did you know about this?” he asked Gabe.

Their cousin let out a rough breath. “No.”

Cain twisted toward her. “And where did you say this came from? Lambert’s house?”

“In his study.” She’d seen the picture while waiting for Nathan to take a call, had for a brief moment thought the man in the middle was Gabe. “I—I thought Gabe should see it. Look…” She pointed to the right side of the photograph, where a young Nathan stood. “There was someone else there.” A shoulder and pants leg were visible to his left, the face and body torn away. “If we find out who that person is—”

“No.”

The edge in her cousin’s voice stopped her. Saura looked up, felt the chill in his eyes clear down to her toes.

“The only thing this picture proves,” he said very slowly, very carefully, for one fractured heartbeat reminding her desperately of the eloquent attorney he’d once been, “is that Nathan Lambert was an even bigger son of a bitch than we thought.” His eyes went cold.
“They were goddamn friends.”

With the finality of a closing argument, he laid the picture face down on the table, then walked into the kitchen, leaving a stunned Saura alone with her brother, and the truth.

It wasn’t just a picture she’d given Gabe. Or a lead or a clue, as she’d intended. But in telling her cousin of Lambert’s death, she’d given him closure.

“What if it wasn’t him?” She looked up at her brother. “What if we were wrong about Nathan Lambert?” For so long she’d allowed herself to see him only as a threat to her family. The man who killed her uncle. But tonight, in those final hazy minutes, there’d been a sorrow in his eyes completely at odds with the monster she believed him to be. “What if he wasn’t responsible for Uncle Troy or Alec’s death? What if he knew something, and that’s why he was killed?”

“Don’t.”

The sound of John’s voice rushed through her. She turned and found him standing inside the front door.

T
he sight of John, so tall and isolated, with his dark hair cut brutally short and the hoop in his left ear, did cruel, cruel things to the equilibrium Saura had been trying to find. Everything tilted, blurred.

“Don’t start second-guessing yourself.” Her heart slammed as he started toward her. “Just because the man loved his son doesn’t suddenly turn him into an innocent victim.”

“I know.” But she didn’t know what she saw in John’s eyes. They were even more closed than when he’d left almost two hours before. She felt herself move toward him, made herself stop. Now was not the time to reach for him, to feel anything other than cold, rational resolve.

“His son?” Cain came up beside her. “What does he have to do with anything?”

The lines of John’s face tightened. “Nothing.”

“I’m not so sure,” Saura said. “There was something in his eyes.” A look she knew well. And for a crazy moment, there in the shadow of the gazebo, she’d forgotten. Everything. Except what it was like to love, and to lose. “It was almost like…fear. When he came back from that last call, I could almost feel the fear coming off him.”

A harsh sound broke from John’s throat. “You felt what he wanted you to feel,” he said. “He was trying to soften you up, keep you off balance.” Something indefinable hollowed out his gaze. “The second he could get you to see him as a grieving father, he owned you. From there—”

“No.” She stepped closer but did not allow herself to touch. “That’s not the way it was.”

She would have sworn he winced. But before he could tell her how wrong she was, as he so clearly wanted to do, Cain was there, the hot, burning look in his eyes so murderous she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. “Someone want to tell me what the hell’s going on here?”

She’d expected anger. She’d expected a lecture. She’d expected her brother to tell her how careless she’d been, to outline every risk she’d taken.

She’d not expected the sadness. She’d not expected Cain to close his eyes, only to open them a moment later and look at her as though she’d just ripped his heart out. He’d said her name—much as he’d sometimes spoken Renee’s name, when he thought her investigation into a crime syndicate had gotten her killed. Then he’d said four simple words.

This has to stop.

A full hour later, the memory wouldn’t stop needling. Saura let the warm water of John’s shower sluice down on her body. He’d barely said a word since insisting Lambert had been playing her. He’d stood aside while Cain took her hand and told her it was time to quit punishing herself. Time to quit playing with fire.

Time to live again.

He didn’t understand, she thought, reaching for a well-worn bar of soap. Neither of them did. She knew it was time to live again. That’s why she’d gone after Lambert, not because she had a death wish. It was a
life wish
she had, a life wish which had driven her not to protest when John had assured Cain that he would drive her home. He just hadn’t specified
whose
home. They’d sped south in his restored Mustang like the strangers they’d never been. Not talking. Not touching.

She’d gotten the sobering impression he didn’t trust himself to do either.

Maybe that should have scared her. Maybe she should have insisted he turn around and take her home, rather than let herself step foot in his house. Stand naked in his shower and wash the nonexistent blood from her body.

But that would have been the easy way out, and Saura had never been much on easy. So she rinsed the soap from her body and turned off the water, stepped from the shower and reached for the towel.

It was time to show John the files.

Through the darkness he saw her. She paused across the room, hair tangled and dress torn, her eyes unnaturally dark against a face unnaturally pale. But she didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t need to.

John saw, and he felt, and he knew.

On a purely guttural surge of adrenaline, he broke the stillness and kicked out his leg, spun, then struck with his other leg. Higher. Harder. His arms came next, striking with razor precision. Now was not the time for mercy. For distractions. He had to stay sharp, keep his senses alive. All of them. Not just those that fired every time he saw her. Thought of her. The senses that ground through him even now, playing the sound of gunshots over and over, remembering the sight of her lying beneath Lambert.

She wasn’t supposed to be there, damn it. Not in his darkness, not in his house. His shower. But even with the bandanna over his eyes, he knew he would find her, exactly where he’d seen her.

Very little surprised John. He’d taught himself to be ready for anything, to walk through each moment without letting it affect him. He’d held the hand of a dying man and absorbed the tears of a grieving mother, he’d walked into darkened buildings and faced a meth-crazed junkie over the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. But until he ripped the damp cloth from his eyes and saw her standing exactly where he’d known she would be, his breath had never flat-out stopped.

The sight of the hair slicked back from her face, his flannel shirt hanging from her shoulders and her feet bare, fed some place inside of him, some place dark and cold and festering. Pale pink, damn it. Her toenails were painted pale pink.

“The spare room is down the hall,” he said, wadding the bandanna into a tight ball. “Second door on the right.”

She didn’t move. “Trying to get rid of me?” she asked with the whisper of a smile. “You could always take me home, you know.”

She’d been in his shower. Naked. Using his soap. Now she wore his clothes. “No.”

Her lips, untouched by makeup, curved. But not into a smile. “No what?” she asked. “No, you’re not trying to get rid of me? Or no, you’re not going to take me home?”

A sharp twist pierced him. He’d had no choice but to bring her here, into his home, no matter how strongly his professional instincts had objected. He wanted to hate her for that, for forcing his hand and infiltrating his investigation, his life, for tangling their fates so tightly together that he couldn’t so much as breathe without it affecting her. This wasn’t what he wanted—her standing barefoot in his living room, a few feet and the buttons of his work shirt all that separated them. But he’d never be able to live with himself if he let her go, either.

They would find her. Maybe the cops would get to her first. Or maybe it would be Lambert’s assailant. The end result would be the same. The fact that she was a Robichaud wouldn’t spare her.

And it would be his fault. His fault because he’d been too damned weak to let her stay.

“They know you were with him,” he said, because he had to say something, damn it. Saura Robichaud was not the kind of woman to be led blindly through a minefield. “Lambert’s brother told them.”

“I have nothing to hide.”

“Yes,” he said very quietly. “You do.”

“The authorities need to know—”

“What? That you were investigating Lambert? That you suspected him in Alec’s death? Do you really think that will buy you anything?” The question practically tore out of him. “You’re a Robichaud. Your family’s contempt for the man is no secret.”

Her eyes flashed. “I have proof—”

“You have nothing.” For the first time he allowed himself to move, striding toward the old trunk where he’d left the files. He’d reviewed everything except one disc, which was encrypted. For that, he would need Tara. “Names and dates and places, but nothing signed in Lambert’s blood. Nothing to prove it was him.”

“You don’t know that.” Her denial was uncharacteristically soft, almost bruised.

He twisted toward her, felt the punch low in his gut. “Say I’m wrong,” he said. “Say there’s something on the disc. And the cops know it was you who took it. Then what? You really think whoever killed Lambert is going to let you get away with that?”

He saw the realization come over her.

“Maybe these files can prove Lambert killed Alec,” he said, “but at what cost? Lambert is
dead,
Saura. Dead. Someone
killed
him.” With her standing only a breath away. “It’s only a matter of time before they come after you, too.”

She held his gaze for a long moment before looking away, toward the display box mounted on the opposite wall, where his father’s badge mocked him.

The urge to smash a fist through the glass stunned him. “I knew better.” He ground the words out. “I knew better than to use you like that, to dangle you like bait—”

She spun on him so fast he didn’t have a chance to prepare. “You did what I asked you to do,” she reminded him, and her eyes practically glittered. “It was a chance I had to take.”

Because she didn’t care. Because no matter what she said or how strenuously she protested, Saura Robichaud didn’t care whether she lived or died.

But he did, damn it. “Just like leaving Lucky’s with a stranger.” The denouement was flat, a sour conclusion after a marathon interrogation. Everything she’d said, everything she’d done, had simply brought them right back to where they’d started.

There was a calmness to her that had not been there before. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Or maybe it was simply that you wouldn’t let yourself feel it if I did?”

Something jagged flashed through the brown of her eyes, but before she could speak, he fired another round. “And Lambert? You still think he wouldn’t have hurt you?”

She remained so very, very still, looking at him for the first time as though he was the one with a weapon in his hand.

“No matter what lies you’ve told yourself,” he pressed, “somewhere inside you know the truth. We both do. Lambert wasn’t going to let you walk away tonight. He had plans for you.”

“And we had plans for him,” she reminded.

But he was beyond the point of hearing. “Do you have any idea what it was like?” he asked her. “Sitting in that stupid little van, listening to the two of you? Hearing you laugh and listening to you breathe, knowing that when I heard nothing he was touching you, that his hands or his mouth—”

Now she moved. She eliminated the distance between them, stopping only a motion away from connecting. “Tell me something,” she said.

He watched her mouth form the words, reminded himself of all the reasons he could not touch.

“Who is it you don’t trust? Me…or yourself?”

The words stung him like acid rain, and all that control, all that rock-solid iron body armor, started to crumble. “I let you go that night for a reason, Saura. If I’d wanted to, I could have stopped you.”

Her chin came up a notch. “I know.”

But she was still here, damn it. She was still looking up at him as though everything in her world somehow depended on it. “You just don’t know when to be afraid, do you?”

Her smile was so damn sad he felt it move through him like a dull knife. “I never said I wasn’t afraid.”

The admission rocked him. “Do you have any idea,” he asked, barely recognizing the rough edges to his own voice. “Any idea at all what it did to me hearing those shots and not knowing? Running and wondering and—”

“I know.” The words were so muted everything inside him froze. She cradled his cheek. “I’m here,” she said, and somehow the words soothed, even as they blistered. “I’m safe.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not.”

But she didn’t heed his warning, closed the gap between them, bringing her body against his and pushing up on her toes. “I’ll take my chances,” she murmured, and then her mouth was on his, gently at first, little damning kisses along his lower lip, at the corners, soft, sweet. Urging. Then stronger. Harder. Her mouth parting, her tongue teasing.

And he couldn’t do it anymore, couldn’t pretend a part of him hadn’t died when he’d heard those shots, couldn’t hide that he had gone to his knees when he’d found her unmoving beneath Lambert. From the moment he’d found her pulse, when her eyelids had fluttered, the need to drag her into his arms, to put his mouth to hers and never let her go, had pounded through him. But he’d resisted. He’d tried so damn hard to be the cop, to focus on what needed to be done.

Even if that meant lying.

Even if that meant violating everything he’d always believed in. He’d tampered with a crime scene. He was withholding evidence. He was breaking so many rules and laws—

All to keep her safe. Saura. That was all that mattered. Keep her safe, make sure no one found her, hurt her. Not even himself. But the feel of her pressed against him, of her cool, soft hands moving along his arms and around to his back, of her mouth whispering against his, erased everything else. There was only her, and him, and the need that had tortured for six weeks, since the night he’d made love to her, then let her walk away.

On a hard rush he closed his arms around her and tried not to crush, opened his mouth to hers, and quit being a cop.

Sometimes fear punished, and sometimes it paralyzed. But other times it seduced, drawing you to the edge and tempting you to look over, to see what lay on the other side. To wonder. To want. For so long Saura had believed being afraid meant being weak, so she’d elbowed it aside and charged forward, never realizing that to fear was to feel, to be alive.

Now she knew, and now she would not let herself retreat. The quickening was too strong. She’d not expected this, not expected him. When she’d walked into the den and found him in nothing but a pair of sweatpants and a bandanna around his eyes, moving his body with exacting discipline, she’d been certain he was going to shut her out.

She’d been wrong.

He crushed her in his arms, the struggle that defined him played out in his kiss. Desire clashed with restraint, hot and greedy, but tragically gentle, sensuous, as if he wanted to savor every broken second. Every sigh. Every taste. His mouth moved against hers stronger, more demanding. His arms held her close, while his hands roamed her back and tangled in her hair.

She shifted, loving the way his hands caressed her body, the thick ridge pressing into her abdomen. Pulling back, he looked down at her, his eyes glittering with that impossible combination of need and restraint. Valiant down to his last, bitter stand, she realized faintly, and her heart did a long free fall through her chest.