Kiss of death

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WHITNEY WAITED UNTIL they had driven away from Saffron Blue before adding, “In retrospect, I should have had some idea, but I didn’t. When Ryan went out in the evening, I believed he’d gone to the hospital.”

“At some point you must have wondered. What made you suspicious?”

She considered his question for a long moment. “I’m not sure exactly. It was just a vague feeling I had that something was wrong.” She hesitated again, uncertain how much of her personal life to reveal. She hadn’t even told Miranda much except the barest details. Somehow she felt Adam would understand. Or maybe she just needed to talk to him, to feel closer.

Doing her best to keep her voice steady, she continued, “To be honest, a lot had been wrong in our marriage for some time, but I’d chalked it up to the stress of a pressure-packed residency followed by the difficulties of setting up a new practice. Then I began to have the feeling it was something…more. I was taking his suits to the cleaners and discovered a hotel receipt. Then I knew. I thought it was just another woman, which would have been bad enough. Now I know he was also gambling and I never knew it.”

“Babcock told you today at lunch?”

She picked up something in his tone that she couldn’t quite interpret. “Yes, Rod was in La Jolla taking a deposition. He asked me to meet him for lunch. His firm had begun to review my property agreement. He doesn’t want me to sign until he has the details about the toxic-waste report.”

They were on the freeway now, heading back toward the house. Adam was staring straight ahead and didn’t respond for a long moment. “Babcock could easily have discussed this with you over the phone.”

For a second, her heart forgot its rhythm. He couldn’t be jealous, could he?

“I think it’s more likely Babcock wanted to see you again. To learn if you’d found out anything more about Miranda.”

She was a tiny bit disappointed, she confessed to herself. Adam wasn’t jealous. He was merely being a detective and analyzing the situation critically. “Well…he did ask if I’d discovered where Miranda went. I told him about her Volvo being in the airport, but I didn’t tell him how we knew.”

“He didn’t ask?”

“No. Do you think that’s unusual?”

“I’m not sure what to make of the whole situation. Babcock claimed not to know your cousin, right? And you didn’t look familiar to him even though you closely resemble Miranda.”

“That’s right. He really seemed to be telling the truth. If he wasn’t, he sure fooled me.” But Ryan had deceived her, too, and she knew him a lot more intimately. How could she be certain the lawyer had been telling the truth? Something stirred deep in her brain, but she couldn’t quite bring it to the surface.

“Maybe I ought to talk to Babcock.”

She recalled the attorney’s parting words to Trish Bowrather. “Tomorrow night, Rod will be at a reception Trish is throwing for one of her artists. I promised to be there. You could come with me. We might catch him off guard that way.”

He grinned at her and winked. “Good idea.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Adam asked,

“Did that woman who phoned to interview you about taking care of her dog ever call again?”

With all the excitement, Whitney had forgotten all about it. “No. I never heard from her, and she didn’t leave any message on voice mail.”

“I’ll bet she’s linked to whoever tried to kill your cousin. They wanted to be sure she was home.”

The second he said it, Whitney realized Adam was right. “Of course. The call came to Miranda’s telephone. It was the first time I’ve ever used call forwarding to my cell. Now that I think about it, the woman sounded funny. It wasn’t just her accent-calling the dog a poo-dell. It might have been a man disguising his voice.”

Adam turned onto Torrey Pines Road. “I keep going back to motive. It’s the detective training.”

“You told me crimes of passion and money were behind most murders.”

“True, but at John Jay we learned to analyze carefully. Crimes of passion usually involve a weapon that’s handy-a knife, or more likely, a gun.”

“It calls for premeditation to construct a pipe bomb. It may be relatively easy to make but it takes planning. It’s not something a rejected lover usually does. They like to make it more personal. Look you in the eye so you know who’s killed you.”

Her stomach flopped. As much as she’d come to despise Ryan, Whitney couldn’t imagine killing him. She couldn’t envision hurting anyone or anything.

“The more I think about this, the more I’m inclined to believe Miranda knew something, and someone wanted to silence her forever.”

Again something niggled at the back of Whitney’s brain. Then she realized what was troubling her. “You know, Miranda had keys to a lot of homes. She went in when the owners weren’t there to feed or walk their dogs. She told me about an incident when she’d been accused of stealing a woman’s ring.” Whitney explained the insurance fraud scheme that had finally been uncovered, clearing Miranda’s name.

“It’s possible Miranda saw something or came across something,” Adam said.

“I was around her for several days. She didn’t seem jumpy or nervous. She didn’t act like anyone was after her.”

“Yet she was preparing to vanish. What could Miranda have seen or found that would make her run but wouldn’t panic her into leaving instantly?”

Whitney slapped her thigh with the open palm of her hand. “I’ve got it! The owners weren’t due back for some time. When they returned, they would discover…whatever. That gave her a chance to leave without rushing.”

“Possibly, but if she stumbled on something illegal or life threatening, why didn’t she go to the police?”

Whitney hesitated a moment, not wanting to verbalize her suspicions. “She stole something from one of the homes and knew they’d discover it when they returned. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they go to the police? Why try to kill her instead?”

Adam considered this for a moment. “Because whatever she found was illegal. That’s the only reason I can think of that would account for everyone dodging the police. Most likely it was drugs.”

“I doubt it. What would Miranda do with a load of drugs? Don’t you have to have a network-”

“Could have been drug money. If you report a theft of a lot of cash, you’d better have a good explanation for where you got it.”

“That must be it,” Whitney told him. “Miranda stole someone’s cache of drug money. It doesn’t have anything to do with the strip club.”

Adam turned up their street. “I’m not sure. There’s a missing link somewhere. Miranda goes to work at Saffron Blue because she needs money. Then she quits just when she’s making the really big tips in the back room and continues to walk dogs. A year and a half later, she skips.”

“I can’t explain it entirely, but the list of her customers is in my BlackBerry.”

“The list she gave you, right? Miranda is one smart cookie. If she stole something, she probably deleted that particular client. What we need is her cell phone records. She must have called those people to make arrangements to care for their pet.”

“Shouldn’t we tell Detective Romberg what we know? He’ll have more manpower to chase down leads.”

He slowly nodded. “As much as I hate to rely on The Dud, we need help.”

They pulled into the driveway of Calvin’s home. They’d left the house and yard lights on. In the shadows, Whitney could make out the charred skeleton of the cottage.

When they stepped inside the back door, Adam punched in the alarm code. He checked the panel on the security system to make certain no one had entered, then reset the alarm.

“Should we take a closer look at the photos of Miranda at the beach?” Whitney asked as they got out of the car.

“Let’s go for a swim first. It’s a perfect night for it.”

“Unless there’s a swimsuit in those bags of clothes, I don’t have anything to wear.”

“I won’t mind if you don’t wear a stitch,” Adam teased. “Or you could strip down to your undies. Won’t that work?”

“I guess,” she replied, attempting to keep the excitement out of her voice.

Adam unlocked the door. “Meet you in the pool. I’m going to call Romberg first.”

Whitney knew better than to tempt fate by getting out of her clothes to take a swim in her underwear. But she decided to do it anyway. All the dogs were huddled inside the door to the maid’s room. She nudged them aside, except for Jasper. As if launched from a cannon, the little dog bolted out of the room. No doubt he was streaking upstairs to find Adam.

Still puzzled by who’d left her the clothes, Whitney dumped the contents on the bed. Some items still had their price tags. She found shorts, capris, assorted tops and a few dresses. No swimsuit.

She changed into the black bra and thong she’d purchased at Wal-Mart. It wasn’t any more revealing than a bikini-if she were in Rio. Covering up with a bathrobe she found among the clothes in the bag, Whitney grabbed a towel and left the room. Da Vinci, Maddie and Lexi followed her outside.

Adam hadn’t come down to the pool yet so she took the opportunity to quickly get out of the robe and submerge herself. She released a pleasure-filled sigh as the warm water welcomed her. She looked down and decided the wavering water obscured the view of the demibra. If she kept her back away from Adam, the thong would just appear to be skimpy panties.

“That was fast,” Adam called as he walked outside in swim trunks. “You found a bathing suit?”

“No. I couldn’t get that lucky. I’m in my underwear.”

“Want me to turn off the pool light?”

“Good idea.” The light at the bottom of the pool went on automatically each evening, but it wasn’t necessary for swimming.

He switched off the pool and yard lights, saying, “I spoke with Romberg. He contacted everyone on the client list. No one reported anything missing. He did the usual background check. Never can tell what you’ll turn up that will lead to an arrest. Nothing much surfaced. A DUI. A guy behind on child support. A few unpaid parking tickets.”

“Did Detective Romberg like our theory about drug money?”

Adam walked down the steps at the shallow end of the pool. Jasper parked himself next to the other dogs at the edge of the water. “Yeah. He’ll look into it. The guy’s under a lot aof pressure to solve this. Pipe bombs are rare. Just say the word bomb and everyone thinks terrorists.”

“Miranda couldn’t have come across a terrorist plot, could she?”

Adam moved through the water and stopped a foot from her. “What do you say to letting the police handle it tonight? Tomorrow we can check and see what they found.”

“Okay,” she whispered.

The small waves his body generated lapped seductively against her skin. Above them a crescent moon gilded the water with beads of sparkling light. The moonlight played across the hard contours of his bare chest. There was something mesmerizing about his looks. His eyes were intense, but not that much different than other blue-eyed hunks. His lower lip was full, yet determined. She’d seen other lips that had been almost as intriguing. His angular face emphasized a strong jaw that sported a slight cleft in his chin. She’d studied other men’s facial structure and found them equally as masculine. What set Adam Hunter apart, she realized, was her reaction to him.

Yes, other women found him attractive. She’d noticed them sneaking second looks, but she was captivated by him in a way she hadn’t been drawn to another man. Not even Ryan. True, she had been taken with her ex-husband, but this was completely different, and it frightened her. Those feelings were too complex to analyze with him standing so close. She sucked in a breath that seemed to vibrate through her entire body.

Adam’s eyes scanned her alluring figure. The caressing moonlight played across her soft skin and accentuated the sheer black bra lifting her full breasts. Her slim body nipped in at the waist where a thin band of black held up a small triangle of black satin. He’d seen bikinis that revealed more. None of the women wearing them had been this hot.

This sexy.

He extended his arms. “Come here.”

She edged closer and her eyes glinted in the moonlight. The irises were wide and banded by a slim hoop of silver. He studied her mouth with its irresistibly full lower lip. He could feel her mouth against his, had been imagining it all day. Reliving those potent kisses.

Primitive desire coursed through him, hot and powerful. In a heartbeat he was dealing with a world-class hard-on. He reached out to pull her into his arms. She halted, a mischievous smile playing across her lips. She pivoted, jackknifed and dove away. With a few swift strokes and flutter kicks, she was across the pool.

Out of reach.

He was about to go after her when Whitney flipped over and backstroked toward him. The sexy bra lifted her breasts upward and emphasized the flatness of her tummy. The swatch of black silk between her thighs shimmered in the dim light.

Yeah, oh, yeah.

He was in real trouble here. ’S okay. He’d been through hell and survived. He intended to live each day, each moment to the fullest. Right now every fiber of his being screamed for this woman.