ToServeAndProtect (22 page)

He grabbed her right thigh and braced her leg in the
crook of his elbow, then did the same with the left. Rising above her, using
his legs for leverage, he forced her thighs high into her chest. The angle
thrust his cock deep into her channel. Fast and hard, he brought her to the
brink of orgasm. He rode the crest of release, plunging into her liquid sheath
with fierce drives.

She writhed beneath him, riding a building wave of
release. Incoherent praises begged him for more.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh Dustin. Yes. Harder.” She anchored
herself to the bed and to Dustin by grasping his arms. Half moon digs from her
nails cut into his flesh. A devastating orgasm ripped through her body.
Convulsions locked her tight to his shaft, her cunt milking his cock.

Muscles clenched, and he couldn’t hold on. Her orgasm
abruptly sent him spiraling into oblivion. Fire raged through his groin. His
cock pulsed, shooting hot jets of cream deep into her core. He continued the
easy slide into her still quaking channel until the last of his orgasm robbed
him of thought. He rolled to his side, drawing her into the circle of his arms.

“Oh, my god.”

“Good?”

“Incredible. I think I can sleep now.” She curled
against him. He kissed her temple, combing a damp tendril of hair from her
cheek. Emotions twisted in his gut. What had he done? He was exactly where he
wanted to be—in bed with McKenna. He’d done something he’d never done before,
he’d involved himself with a key person of interest in a murder investigation.

Chapter
Fourteen

Tyson reached for the phone. The alarm clock glowed
5:16 a.m. The comforter and sheets lay crumpled on the floor, and Dawn slept
naked beside him, her firm bubble butt pressed against his hip. Her airbrushed
tan still looked pale against his dark, well-worked body.

“Jones,” he said as quietly as he could.

“You’ll have to leave her,” Richard Jasper said with a
laugh. “Feds are climbing all over us. They want everything we got on the
investigation. Seems the Marino’s are out for blood. Every lead the feds have
brings them back to Dr. Porter.”

“Be there in twenty.” He hung up and grabbed his
pants. “I won’t be long.”

Dawn rolled over and lazily opened her eyes. “I’ll
wait right here for you.” She hugged the pillow.

Tyson pulled the sheets up. “Don’t answer the phone.”

“Afraid your girlfriend will call?” she snapped then
burrowed beneath the covers. “I’ll tell her you’re busy.”

“I will be…with you as soon as I get back. Stay in
bed.”

Tyson felt tension building in his neck and shoulders
as he made his way to the station. He stalked into the building. Richard was
the first person he saw. “Couldn’t we do this later in the morning?” he asked
irritated and strode to his desk.

“Evidently the feds have surveillance on the Marino’s.
Their intelligence says all three brothers are on a plane bound for Los Angeles.”

“Dustin and the princess.”

“You got it. They think she knows something. You
better talk with the captain because you aren’t going to like the theory the feds
have come up with.”

Tyson knocked on Captain Baird’s office door then
entered. “Detective Jones, agents Peters and Cole. They’d like to have a talk
with you about McKenna Porter.”

Tyson shook hands with the two federal agents and then
sat down. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“We’re interested in your opinion of the case.” Agent
Cole stated.

“Basically, we’ve got a few pieces to a puzzle,” Tyson
said. “The problem, we got more than one puzzle. So far we can connect the
Marino’s to Dr. Porter and his research, but we can’t make a connection to the
murder. And we can’t exclude McKenna Porter as a suspect. Nothing fits.”

Agent Peters said, “We feel the note left for Ms.
Porter proves Dr. Porter told her about his activities. If she knew he was
embezzling money not only from the Marino’s but also from Ronac, perhaps she
threatened to expose him if he didn’t come forward.”

“If your theory suggests she had nothing to do with
the murder,” Captain Baird asked, “why would she threaten to expose him and
then kill him?”

“Our profile of the case suggests the daughter had
nothing to do with the murder,” Agent Cole stated. “I suspect her story is
exactly as she told you with the one exception of the note. She knew what Dr.
Porter was up to.”

“She’s lucky she wasn’t in the house at the time of
the murder,” Peters added. “She very likely would’ve met the same fate.”

Agent Cole clasped his hands together. “The Marino’s
are on their way to Los Angeles. Detective Pearce is going to need assistance.”

Tyson stood. “Dustin can handle it. All he needs is a
heads up that the Marino’s are on their way.”

“All the same, Tyson,” the captain said. “See if
Pearce can speed it up and get the hell out of there. I want him back on our
turf where we can protect Ms. Porter. And Tyson,” he said as Tyson was walking
out the door. “Great work.”

“Thanks.” He closed the door and went to his desk.

Richard pulled up a chair. “So what do you think?”

“If the princess has been playing games all along.”
Tyson leaned back in his chair. “Dustin is going to be pissed.”

* * * * *

Dustin and McKenna stopped for bagels with cream cheese
smears for breakfast before driving to Torrance to look up Elliot’s girlfriend.

“I can’t believe how scared I am. What’s she like?
What does she do? Did they work in the same field? Elliot never dated. I mean,
I’m sure he had relationships, but I was never privy to the details.” She
twisted her lips into a smirk. “I thought my mother was the love of his life.
Maybe she just made him hate women.”

“We’ll discover what else they were. What we know is
they were secretive about their relationship. I have to wonder why?”

McKenna thought back to her father. It wasn’t hard for
her to reason why. Since his death, she had learned more details about Elliot
Porter than she’d ever known. She didn’t like him. All she’d ever wanted was a
family like Dawn had. Whether out of spite or selfishness, he had denied her a
mother to confide in and a father to lean on. She bowed her head and twisted
her mother’s ring on her finger. Her mother had gotten out easy. If she had
lived, McKenna had no doubt Elliot would have punished his wife every day for
her infidelity. After all, in his own way it was exactly what he had done to
her. “I keep thinking about Roslyn. Another woman hurt because of Elliot.”

“He was murdered. You can’t blame the pain she’ll feel
on him.” He stopped at a red light and glanced at McKenna. Then he turned
right. “Who knows, maybe Roslyn killed him.”

Dustin pulled into a quiet neighborhood at the base of
Palos Verdes Peninsula. Pastel colored stucco houses all of similar design
sat back from the street. Vinyl fences and painted mailboxes—this was middle
class America.

Dustin drove slowly, looking for her address. “Here it
is.” He pulled into the driveway and set the parking brake. “Are you ready?”

“Oh, yeah.” This time she waited for Dustin come
around the front of the vehicle and open the car door for her. “Thank you,” she
said, swiveling her legs and stepping out.

Yellow marigolds bloomed brightly in the beds along
the walk. A welcome mat on the front porch and a wooden plaque with
The
Meadow’s
carved into it hung by the front door underneath the porch light.

McKenna pressed the doorbell. They waited for a minute
or two. “Maybe she’s at work.”

Dustin walked to the end of the porch and peered into
the garage. “No car, damn.” He walked around the side of the building and tried
to find a window without blinds so he could see inside.

“She’s not home,” a small voice called from the other
side of the hedge. A little woman with a wide brimmed straw hat on her head and
a garden trowel in her hand came around the corner.

“Excuse me,” McKenna said, walking across the
driveway.

“I said, you can quit knocking and ringing her
doorbell. She’s not home.” The little woman folded her arms under her drooping
breasts. “If you tell me who you are, I might know something about it.”

Dustin presented his badge. “We need to speak with
her.”

The woman’s lips formed an O. “She’d been gone at
least a week. Kind of funny if you ask me. One day she’s happy and talking
about putting in some kind of fancy bathtub in the backyard. I told her the next
thing you know, kids will be breaking into her yard having orgies. All young
people think about is sex. Have you watched TV lately? All I see is this one
trying to get in bed with that one. Damn disgraceful. In my day, you couldn’t
swear on television.
I Love Lucy
, now there was a great show. Don’t you
agree?” she asked McKenna. “You never saw Lucy and Ricky in bed together.”

McKenna smiled. “I especially liked the episode where
Lucy smashed grapes into wine with her bare feet.”

“Young people,” she said shaking her head. “At my age
got nothin’ to do but sit around watch TV and wait to die. I told my Edgar
before he died last year, I will not get a new refrigerator. I’ll be dead
before I break it in. Then the old thing goes kaput and I had to buy one anyway.”

“Do you know when Ms. Meadows will be home?” Dustin
asked, finding an opportunity to interrupt.

“Well, that’s what I was getting to before you
interrupted.” She turned to McKenna. “Is he always impatient?”

“Yes.” McKenna glanced at Dustin and chuckled.

“Anyway, with all the smut on TV not much else to do
except watch out the window. Rosie always had a smile for me, but last week she
was really testy.” The old woman looked affronted while she spoke. “Told me to
get in my house and mind my own business. I’d never been so insulted. Why, all
I did was ask her where she was going. I mean, who moves out in the middle of
the night? Her car was full of clothes, and I know she wasn’t going to the
laundry-mat.”

“Moved out?” Concern laced Dustin’s tone. “When?”

“Oh, she tried to tell me she was just going on an
extended vacation, but when the truck came the next morning, I knew she was
lying. Was a day a person wouldn’t talk to elderly folk with such disrespect.”

“A moving van or a pick up truck?” Dustin questioned
further.

“One of those moving companies that advertise cheap
rates. You know the ones that take longer because they take your stuff along
with someone else’s. Bradford Moving, I think the name was.”

“Any idea where she went?”

The woman shook her head. “I can’t say for certain she
did move because the moving men didn’t take her furniture. You tell me, who
takes big moving boxes on vacation? I figure it’s a matter of time before she
comes for the rest of her things. Her landlord isn’t going to be happy about it
either. Good renters are hard to find. Rosie lived here a long time. The
landlord owns that house next to hers.” The woman pointed. “And I was talking
to Mrs. Sapwoods and she told me that Rosie paid up her lease. Now you tell me,
does that sound like someone who’s coming back?”

“Thank you for the information,” McKenna said,
disappointed. Dustin gave her a bit of comfort by putting his hand on her lower
back. “You never asked why we’re interested in Ms. Meadows.” McKenna took a
step closer to the woman. “She’s a friend of my father’s. I’m afraid I have
terrible news. Of course, I’d want to talk to her in person.” She reached into
her purse for a scrap of paper and a pen. “If she happens to return, would you
give me a call? Our hotel isn’t far from here.”

“Oh, dear.” The old woman put her hand over her mouth.
“There was only one man in Rosie’s life. I always thought he was too old for
her, but you young girls seem to go for older men.” She glared at Dustin.

“I never met Roslyn. How old was she?”

“Oh, I think it was her thirty-sixth birthday back in
April. She went on some fancy cruise to Mexico with her boyfriend. Oh, I hope
that wasn’t your father.”

“Dr. Elliot Porter. He was murdered a few weeks ago.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry for you, dear.” She put her hand over
her heart. “Rosie’s boyfriend couldn’t have been your father, I saw him last
week. I can’t remember his name, but I know Elliot Porter doesn’t sound
familiar.”

“Does the name Marino ring a bell?” Dustin asked.

The old woman’s face lit up. “Well, yes, it does,” she
said excited. “Why my Edgar’s favorite team was the Miami Dolphins. He was
disappointed Dan never got a championship ring before he retired.”

“Thanks for your time.” Dustin waved and turned toward
the car. McKenna followed him.

“Great.” He held the car door open for McKenna.

“I thought she was sweet.”

“I’d move if she were my neighbor. No privacy. I’ll
bet she’s got the scoop on everyone within a six block radius.”