Daddy With A Badge

“Sounds like you have great friends.” Gresham looked genuinely interested in her well-being.

“I do. And I’m very grateful.”

“Guess I envy you. This job being what it is I’m never home long enough in any one stretch to do more than nod at my neighbors in my place in Alexandria.” Holding his mug in front of him, he wandered around the room, inspecting the eclectic memorabilia.

Holding his own mug, sipping occasionally, Rafe waited politely until she settled into the corner of the plush sofa with its heavenly eiderdown cushions before taking the chair opposite. Face impassive, he watched her steadily. The body language was classic, the dominant male of the pride sizing up his prey—or his next mate. Her skin warmed, then grew tight and itchy. She refused to squirm.

Cupping both hands around her mug, she lifted it to her lips. She inhaled the steam, then took a sip. It was an old habit of hers, stimulating both senses simultaneously.

“What are those, toys?” Gresham asked, pausing in front of a curio case.

Some toys, Danni thought with a private moment of amusement. According to Raine, several of the small carved figures inside were worth more than the Lexus she still mourned.

“Those are Chinese chop marks. Mandarin warlords used them to make their marks on correspondence and military orders. Jade is relatively soft, so that it can be carved with the mandarin’s name, like a stamp.”

“Clever.”

Rafe lifted one sun-bleached brow and tilted his head slightly. As a signal it was so subtle it would have eluded anyone but a trained observer. She herself wasn’t completely certain until Gresham ambled over to another easy chair and settled comfortably.

Apparently Rafe had decided they’d succeeded in putting her at ease.

Looking deceptively relaxed, Seth took a couple of quick sips of coffee, then set the mug on a beaten silver coaster he took from the ornate holder on the table at his elbow. After producing a small notebook and pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat, he flipped to a clean page, then glanced up. Not at her, she noted, but at Rafe.

On the other hand Rafe was looking at her, a level, steady gaze that seemed to peel away the confident façade that had been her only protection in recent weeks. She felt a flare of resentment, and then humor surfaced. What difference did it make if he saw through her to the scared, humiliated woman beneath? she thought. Once a man had seen a woman naked, there wasn’t much left to hide.

“I’ll tell you all we know, and then I’d like to ask you some questions,” Rafe said, his mouth curving slightly, but not far enough to engage the comma shaped creases that she knew bracketed his mouth when he truly grinned. “Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.” Feeling a little chilled in spite of the warm tights and fleece sweatshirt that reached nearly to her knees, she curled herself a little deeper into the cushions, then rested her mug on her thigh.

Rafe took a sip, then leaned forward to rest both forearms on his splayed thighs, his coffee mug held between both large, callused palms. It was a masterful use of body language, an optical illusion of sorts that made him look smaller and less intimidating as well as encouraging her to think of him as a friend instead of an adversary. She had to admire his savvy, but then, he had undoubtedly undergone expert training in one of those ultrasecret facilities outside Washington.

In this case, his attempt to manipulate her only put her more on guard. She took a sip of her too-sweet tea and contrived not to grimace at the syrupy taste.

“Folsom was born in L.A. in 1952 and grew up in Las Vegas. The details of his early years are sketchy, but we know his mother was a part-time blackjack dealer and full-time prostitute. Folsom’s first brush with law enforcement came at the age of eleven when he was picked up for trying to use a credit card he’d boosted from one of his mother’s johns.”

She realized he was waiting for her to comment and roused herself to admit, “He told me he grew up in a house on Philadelphia’s Main Line and that his parents were killed when their yacht capsized in a storm off St. Thomas when he was a senior at Andover.”

Gresham glanced her way. “That’s one of his favorite scams.”

“One of his favorite scams? That implies there are more.”

Rafe flicked a look toward his partner. Gresham’s face turned red. Clearly a blunder on the young agent’s part. The mom in her wanted to pat his head and tell him this lion’s roar was worse than his bite, but she wasn’t all that certain she would be telling him the truth.

“Folsom’s wanted for a long list of similar felonies,” Rafe said without changing his tone.

“How long a list?”

The hesitation was little more than a flicker of the thick curly lashes framing those sage green eyes. “Fourteen that we’ve definitely traced back to him. Possibly more.”

“He’s swindled fourteen other women before me, and he’s still running around free?” she asked, both incredulous and outraged.

Perhaps a less self-assured man would respond defensively. Rafe merely nodded. “He’s been arrested five times. Only three of those arrests resulted in prosecution. Twice he was acquitted when the victim recanted her accusation under oath.”

“And the third trial? Was he convicted?”

“He never went to trial.” Something shifted deep in his eyes, and she felt her own narrow.

“Why not?”

His mouth flattened, and his eyes were suddenly haunted by some dark emotion. “The complainant was shot and killed before she could testify.”

Danni’s lungs seemed incapable of inflating, and then suddenly, they drew in air in a violent rush. “Are you saying Jonathan murdered her?” she cried after forcing the air out again.

“We don’t know that for sure.” It was the literal truth, no more, no less. The man who’d pumped nine bullets into Alice—and four into him—had matched Folsom’s general height and weight, but so did half the adult males on the planet. The shooter’s hair and face had been covered by a ski mask, his eyes hidden behind dark glasses. In Rafe’s gut, however, he knew Folsom had either pulled the trigger or hired it out. Either way, the bastard was directly responsible for Alice’s murder.

Danni’s face was still too pale, and her eyes told him she was still grappling with another shock. “But…but you, personally, think he…Folsom did it.” It wasn’t a question. Even though he hadn’t moved, he suddenly felt his back smash up against a solid wall.

The truth or a lie? Though it gave him no real pride to admit it, he had the knack of telling either with equal credibility. Because lying grated against every principle of decent behavior his parents had instilled in him, however, he preferred to stick as closely to the truth as the circumstances of the interview permitted. More importantly, the quick intuitive tug in his gut told him she would resent a lie if it was ever revealed. Which, in his experience, had a way of happening at the worst possible moment.

He sat back and kept his gaze steady on hers. “Yes, I think that one way or another he was responsible. The evidence was too sketchy to make a case, however, and the charges against him were dropped. We kept him under surveillance, of course, but he managed to slip out of town undetected during a bad snowstorm.”

It jolted her, he saw, but she pulled herself together enough to ask calmly, “When…when did this happen?”

“December 2nd last year.”

“I met Jonathan on December 27th.”

“Where exactly was that, Doctor?” Seth asked.

“On board the SS Holiday Pleasure. My father and my brother had arranged for the cruise as a surprise.”

“You went alone?”

“Yes.” She took a breath, then looked down at her hands. Her nails were filed short with clear polish. She wore no rings. A platinum-and-emerald wedding set had been included on the list of stolen property. Hers from her marriage to Fabrizio, he assumed.

“My daughter Lyssa was severely injured in the accident that killed her father. She was in ICU for weeks with major internal injuries and then in and out of the hospital for months after that.” She drew a breath. “The paramedics said that it had been a miracle Lyssa had survived. As it was her legs had been broken and one side of her face had been badly cut.”

“No airbags?” Gresham asked quietly.

She shook her head. “My husband had just finished restoring an old Jag XK-150 and he’d driven it that weekend because he wanted to show his father. The state trooper who investigated said he probably would have survived if he’d been driving my Lexus or his Cherokee, both of which have airbags.”

“You weren’t with them, then?” Rafe asked, although he was pretty sure she hadn’t been.

“No, Mark and Lys had gone down to the vineyard for the weekend, but I’d stayed home to catch up on case notes.”

“Vineyard?” Gresham asked.

“Mark’s family owns Fabrizio and Sons Wine. My father and brothers run Mancini Vineyard. The two properties adjoin one another in the foothills west of Ashland which is close to the California border.”

Gresham’s eyes lit up and he broke into a grin. “Great wines! I especially like Mancini’s Pinot Noir.”

Rafe shot him a look and he lost the grin.

“Thank you,” she said with a brief smile.

“How is your daughter now?” Rafe asked before lifting the mug to his mouth for a sip.

“Bouncing back, finally, but it was a long haul.”

“How about you? Are you bouncing back, too?”

Following his example she took a sip and tried to decide how much of herself to reveal. “It’s funny,” she said finally. “I ran a workshop in grief management when I first started practicing. I had all the tools, but somehow I was so busy taking care of Lys and trying to keep my practice going I guess I forgot to use them.” She lifted an impatient hand and skimmed back the thick hair that still shimmered like a raven’s wing in the sun when she turned her head. Her face had grown pale, highlighting the freckles splashed over the bridge of her nose. He’d counted them once between teasing kisses. Now he no longer remembered—or cared—how many there had been.

“I had sort of a meltdown on what would have been our twelfth anniversary. My family was already worried about me, and after that my father decided I needed to get away and relax. He arranged everything, even had my secretary reschedule my patients for the ten days I’d be away. I flew from Portland to L.A. the day after Christmas and boarded the boat the next day. I met Jonathan when he sat next to me at dinner the first night out.” Her face tightened. “If he’d come on to me, I might have been suspicious, but he was a perfect gentleman.”

She rubbed her palm up and down her arm as though trying to warm herself. “It seems even more horrible when I think about him touching me with the same hands he might have used to…to kill someone.”

Suddenly, her cheeks turned the color of putty, and sweat broke out on her forehead. With a garbled moan, she set her mug on the glass-topped coffee table, then struggled to push herself out of the deep cushions.

Rafe put his own mug on the table with a sharp crack and got to his feet. Gresham did the same. Rafe reached her first.

“Danni—”

“Don’t, please,” she cried before clamping her hand over her mouth. Before he could stop her, she pushed him away and spun around to race toward the back of the house and the bathroom he remembered seeing there.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.