Mistletoe and Murder

Chapter Twelve

“Romana?” Patrick North, bundled up and ready to leave the hospital, did a frowning double-take in the entranceway. “Why are you here?”

Romana walked back and forth near the double doors, swinging her arms to warm them. “I’m waiting for O’Keefe. He must have taken the polar route.”

“Maybe he was a taxi driver before he became a cop.”

A laugh escaped. “Why, Patrick, was that a joke? I’m proud of you.”

“Wait until I’ve had a few drinks tomorrow night. I’ll be the life of the party. Except-I’m worried about Fitz. She asked me to go with her. They’re honoring Dr. Gorman.”

“I know.”

“Too bad he won’t hear the accolades. He’ll sleep through them like he slept through most of his later autopsies.”

“Must have been some trick. Asleep holding a scalpel.”

“It was a Pavlov’s dog thing. Gorman saw a corpse and went through the motions. Eventually, we just started sitting him in the corner and carrying on by ourselves. It was our secret. I don’t think he ever clued in.”

A picture of Belinda’s silver watch appeared in Romana’s head. “‘May our secrets live on,’” she recalled.

“‘Forever.’”

“Please?”

“It’s an inscription. On a watch.” As a stream of exiting visitors swished through the doors, Romana halted. “You said you overheard Belinda telling someone that Jacob wanted her dead. Do you have any idea who was on the other end of the phone?”

“I thought maybe a woman, but only because I figure women talk to women more than they talk to men.”

“Belinda talked to you, and you’re a man.”

“Talked to, yes, but didn’t confide in. Sure, she’d tell me about men she knew who wanted her, but not usually their names. She’d say things like, ‘this guy came on to me’ or ‘this cop’s been after me to go out with him.’”

“This cop?” Intrigued now, Romana caught his lapel and eased him out of the doorway. “Did she actually say, ‘this cop’?”

“Yes, a few times.”

“Did you get a sense of who ‘this cop’ was?”

“I assumed she meant Knight.”

“Why would you assume that?”

“Because she knew him, and she let everyone know she knew him.”

Romana wanted to get this absolutely straight. “So sometimes she’d say Jacob Knight, and other times she’d say ‘this cop.’ Is that right?”

“I guess so. I never thought about it possibly being two different people.” He gave his head a perplexed shake. “Are you saying that some other cop might have killed her? Because I heard her say Jacob Knight-and she used his name-wanted her dead.”

Romana’s mind raced. “He wouldn’t get her a restraining order.”

“He wouldn’t-what?” Perplexity became outright confusion. “Okay, I’m lost. Belinda asked Knight for a restraining order? Against who?”

“Answer died with her, Patrick.”

“Really lost now. How does Belinda asking Knight for a restraining order change what I heard her say on the phone? Or does it?”

“Jacob wouldn’t give her what she wanted, so in her mind, maybe he wanted her to die.”

“Ah-h-h.” Comprehension dawned. “Because whoever she wanted to keep at bay had threatened her life. Knight knew that, but still wouldn’t cooperate.”

“It’s a wild theory,” Romana acknowledged, but she let it build. “So now we have ‘this cop’ who might not be Jacob and a statement you overheard that could be construed in more than one way.”

Patrick hunched his shoulders against the wind that gusted under the overhang. “I’m glad I’m a doctor and not a cop. My head hurts just thinking about where you’re going with this.” Relief blossomed as he looked past her. “Thank God, O’Keefe’s here. You can bounce your wild theories off him. Let me know if you hear from Fitz.”

O’Keefe raised a hand to Patrick in parting. “Sorry I took so long, Romana. Plumbing problem in my basement. Where’s Jacob? And what kind of a wild theory was Patrick talking about? Does it involve Critch?”

“Doesn’t everything?” She scraped her fingernail over his tie. “You have a red stain, Detective.”

Grinning, he buttoned his coat. “I stopped for a chili dog. Three minutes at the drive-through. Come on, into my car.

We’ll discuss wild theories and how to get red sauce out of polyester.”

Romana set a forestalling hand on his arm. “Jacob went to meet someone, Mick. He left you a message about it. It’s someone he’s known for years with an expensive habit to support. He had that determined-cop gleam he gets in his eyes when he knows he’s in for a challenge.”

“Poison darts weren’t enough, huh?”

“No, they just pissed him off. And scared the hell out of me. Dr. McGee says a direct hit could have killed him.”

“Or you.”

“That’s not the point, is it? The brakes failing felt like a warning, like he was playing with us. Hurting Jacob’s neighbor, taking Fitz, that’s torment. Tonight was an attack.”

O’Keefe unlocked the door of his serviceable Escort. “You’re not exactly easing my mind here, Romana.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. I’m piecing it together, trying to get inside Critch’s head, trying to see if he even has a plan.”

“Oh, I’d say he has one. Could be it’s been modified a time or two, but ultimately he’ll know how he wants it to play out.”

“Not exactly easing my mind here, O’Keefe.”

He chuckled at the sarcasm. “Let’s do it this way. You tell me about your wild theory, and I’ll tell you about Jacob’s post-Academy days, with his veteran partner and an overeager rookie who now has an expensive habit to support. One homicide turned vice cop named Gary Canter.”

MIDNIGHT CAME AND WENT. Belinda’s murderer came and went. Fitz shivered in the dark and the cold, but the fact that she was alive to shiver spelled hope to her.

Twice now she’d cooked meals for her captor, but always with one hand shackled to the leg of a heavy table. Like a dog in the backyard, she had a long lead, but chained, could go no farther than the kitchen. And so far the key to the cuff on her wrist had eluded her.

But tomorrow was another day, and it would bring another chance. Her lucky third chance, she prayed.

“Help me, Ro,” she whispered out the tiny window in front of her. “I swear I’ll never steal again. Just help me make my Christmas miracle happen.”

And with her cousin’s voice urging her on, she began to plot.

ROMANA WAS DOODLING A PICTURE of Warren Critch’s face when the door to Denny Leech’s apartment opened and a bandaged head with long white hair and a pink ball cap poked out.

“Thought I heard something.” She surveyed the lobby before drawing a baseball bat from behind her back. “I’m glad it’s you, dear.”

Romana stayed where she was, on the upper step outside the elevator. “I’m waiting for Jacob. His captain told me he checked in at 1:00 a.m. and said he was going home for a while. How’s your head?”

“Too tough to crack, but I wish I’d thought about ripping off that ski mask.”

Romana doodled a mustache onto Critch’s face. “What did he say when he knocked on your door?”

She snorted. “Claimed he was a courier with a package from my daughter in Columbus. I checked my security monitor, but it was all wiggly lines and fuzz, so, stupid me, I opened the door and, whoops, he grabbed me.”

Romana heard a sound at the entrance and glanced up. Jacob came in, pocketing his keys. He seemed more surprised to see the two women talking than he was by Romana’s actual presence.

“Suspicious of everyone and everything, this one.” Denny beamed at him. “But he’s a cutie, and I’d give my painting arm to be thirty again.”

With a wink, she picked up her bat and disappeared back into her apartment.

“You live in a building of night owls, Jacob.” Romana doodled a dart with mistletoe leaves plunged into the center of Critch’s forehead. “Your upstairs neighbor invited me to join him for coffee and a hands-on demonstration of his spa tub. And the one on the mezzanine level has been in and out of his place twice with a suitcase. He’s either re-creating a scene from Rear Window or he takes very short business trips. I’ve been here only forty minutes.”

“He makes jewelry. His suitcase is his sample case.”

She smiled, closed her notepad. “Jewelry samples at

1:40 a.m.? Like I said, Rear Window.” She couldn’t read his expression as he walked toward her, but his smoky-green eyes elicited a shiver of anticipation. “It isn’t that I’m not glad to see you, Romana, but why are you here?” She stood, set a hand on the railing. “You have my Christmas tree. And Fitz’s.”

“You weren’t home, so I dropped them off at Fitz’s place.”

Her eyes danced. “I’d say I was sorry I missed you, but here we are, so I guess it’s all the same in the end. How was your meeting?” He kept coming, hadn’t broken eye contact yet. “What meeting?” Her long coat swirled around her ankles as she descended the stairs. “I talked to O’Keefe.” “Probably made his night.”

“He told me about you and your first partner. He also mentioned another rookie and a vehicle pursuit that got out of hand.”

“O’Keefe does like his stories.”

“Yes, he does. At the wheel in this one was Sergeant Harry Plant. Next to him was his rookie partner, Officer Gary Canter. Police vehicle overturned. Plant was DOA. Canter almost lost his right leg. He was in rehab for months. A second patrol apprehended the runners. Veteran officer Roy Cleary, rookie officer Jacob Knight. Officers Cleary and Knight received commendations for their backup effort, which resulted in the arrest and conviction of a dealer with warrants in five states.

“Rookie officers Canter and Knight worked hard and eventually wound up in the homicide division, but, unlike Knight, Canter took a bit of a backslide. In and out of rehab, and not because of his leg, at least not directly because of it.” Close enough now to touch, she ran light fingers over the top of his jeans. “That was about it for the story, except O’Keefe says that painkillers are just as addictive as street drugs, and Canter’s had a hard time weaning himself off them.”

“There was nerve damage,” Jacob told her. Those mesmerizing eyes locked on hers. “Canter preferred painkillers to pain. Sometimes it affected his ability to function.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Jacob, truly sorry. Gary Canter was nice to me when I was a rookie myself.” She teased him with her hands. “So why did you come home? Dull shift or the aftereffects of curare poisoning?”

“I have some time owing. Mick told me he took you back to your place, but you weren’t there when I stopped by, and I couldn’t see you visiting your brothers at one in the morning.”

She grinned. “I have friends, you know. Maybe I had a sudden urge for a girls’ night.”

“If you had, you’d have gotten it going before one in the morning.”

“Your point.” She looked up at him, directly into those smoky green eyes. “Are you going to kiss me, Detective, or do I have to undress you right here in the…”

He hauled her into his arms so fast, she missed the move-ment-lost her train of thought, obviously, and her breath along with it.

If she’d been worried about any residual effects from the curare, that thought scattered as well. Poison restricted, it inhibited, but Jacob showed no sign of either. The bulge in his jeans proved that, and invited Romana to explore.

He kept his mouth on hers, changed the angle of his lips, but didn’t stop kissing her. She went airborne for a moment when he scooped her up, but she settled herself against him quite easily. He hit the elevator call button with his elbow, and only dragged his mouth from hers when her breath gave a small hitch.

“What?”

“Gun in my ribs.” Capturing his chin, she brought his head back around. “Relax, Jacob. I’m not made of glass. You swept me off my feet, literally. It’s so…”

“Romantic?”

“You made that sound like a bad word.”

“My inflection must be off. I meant to sound horny.”

“Oh, well, you don’t need words to convey that message.” Swinging her legs, she bumped her hip against the front of his jeans. Her tongue slid along the side of his jaw. “I feel so ‘You Tarzan, me Jane’ right now. Push the button for your treehouse elevator again.”

The heat that flared between them amazed her. The fiery ball of it erupted in her head, melting everything inside and snaking down low into her belly.

He held her against him while she ran her hands over his shoulders and chest. His mouth fed on hers. His tongue was hot and wet, and she met it with an eagerness she couldn’t recall feeling before.

She heard the swish of a door, the grind of an engine, the clunk of metal cables. Then another swish and the music of the city washed over her.

She smelled paint and clay and a hint of spice. The night moved from shadow to pearled light around her. Red, to gold, to green.

When he set her down, her boot heels echoed on a bare wood floor. For the sake of her balance, to say nothing of her whirling thoughts, she dragged her mouth free.

“Heart’s going to explode,” she breathed. “Honest to God, I can’t get air when you kiss me. Did you take lessons as a kid?”

His lips moved into a vague smile. “Jungle training. I took a hostel trip to Africa after high school. Got lost, got found, got out.”

Got laid as well, she imagined, but whatever he’d done, wherever he’d done it, it had certainly worked. Her limbs felt weak and wobbly, her skin burned and her mouth tingled as if she’d been shot with electricity. And what had it been-five minutes since he got there?

The light continued to slide from red to gold to green. The play of it danced across his narrow, watchful features.

She wanted him to smile again, just a little, to lighten the load that seemed to weigh so heavily on him. She wanted even more to tear at his T-shirt and expose the hard, smooth flesh beneath it.

With a hand on her arm, he urged her forward. “Are you sure you want this to happen?”

She pressed her lower body against his erection. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come. This isn’t a new thing between us. It’s an old spark that never quite had a chance to ignite.”

He halted his mouth a tantalizing inch from hers. “You don’t know anything about my past.”

Desire shot through her in sharp little bolts. Need cramped between her legs. She felt the insistent throb of him and wanted it inside her. Deep inside. Where all that wonderful heat could explode into liquid fire. Maybe she should rip off his shirt at that.

This time, it was Romana who captured his mouth while her hands worked at the snap of his jeans. “I know what I need to know. I promise, I’m not made of glass or anything so fragile it shatters at the mere suggestion of imperfection. It’s cold outside, it’s hot in here. There’s danger in both places, but this is the danger I choose.”

Finally, she won that smile. Jacob threaded his fingers through her hair, held it off her face as he stared into her eyes and murmured, “I hope you’ve chosen well.”

Romana reveled in the alternating Christmas hues that streamed through the window. It was the only light source in the room and it worked. It enhanced.

She heard carolers far in the distance. Also fitting. Chestnuts roasting, fire burning, Jack Frost outside, Jacob hot and hungry for her inside-it was everything she needed right now. Well, that and to get the stubborn fly of his jeans undone.

With his mouth devouring hers, he stripped away her coat and scarf. Her clingy black top went next, then her jeans, her oldest and snuggest-fitting pair.

“Boots and black lace lingerie. I like it.” While her fingers continued to work the zipper, he swept her back up into his arms and somehow managed to set his mouth on her breast.

“Ah-h-h…” Desire spiked through her, and she marveled that her heart didn’t stop dead in her chest. But when he lifted his head, she simply pulled it back down. “God, don’t stop.”

Her bare legs swung over his arm. She started to wriggle free as he approached the dark shape that had to be his bed.

She wanted him under her, not the other way around. He was still fully clothed-although she’d managed to get rid of his jacket. It was her turn to savor, to pull off his T-shirt and jeans and see that smoothly muscled body of his naked and ready for her.

Anticipation gleamed side by side with the hunger in Jacob’s eyes. “Not a chance, Romana.” He deposited her on the mattress. “I want to look at you.”

She hooked a booted leg around his hip and tugged him with her. “Look all you want, Knight, but I expect the same privilege.”

Amusement won out. Righting himself, he held his arms to the sides. “Go for it, then. I figure I’ve got about ten seconds of self-restraint left.”

Thankfully, the zipper worked this time. She dragged off boots, jeans and black boxers, then caught back a breath.

“Okay…hah…” Shoving at his shoulders, she straddled him on the mattress. “That’s ten. Now kiss me again, and make me crazy.”

It surprised and touched her that he took his time, that he laid her gently on the sheets and began to stroke her as if she were a priceless musical instrument. He ran his hands over the silky flesh of her stomach, then lower until his fingers slipped under the strip of black lace between her legs.

She gripped his arms, dug her fingernails into his skin. She arched her body up into him, arched her head on the pillow.

Her body hummed, even her skin felt alive. And alight. God, it felt as though fireflies were whizzing around inside her, sparking everything they hit.

He bent his head, and through the lace of her bra, drew her nipple into his mouth. She bowed up to meet him, wanted quite badly to remove the barrier between his tongue and her breast, but couldn’t form the words.

Threads of thought were all she had left. She took him in her hands and, even with only half of her brain functioning, managed to see his eyes go dark. And darker.

It wasn’t about power, but there was something incredibly arousing in realizing she had as much of it as he did.

Sensation rocked her from surface to fiery center. Hunger turned to need as his fingers moved inside her. The room and the night spiraled away. There was only Jacob now and the erotic things he was doing to her. With her.

He was beautiful, truly beautiful to behold. She had enough of her wits remaining to acknowledge that. Smooth flesh over sleek muscle and bone. Romana wrapped her legs around him, stared up into his eyes and knew, simply knew, this was right. It was good.

She held on to him, felt his hand leave her and his body rise up. The black lace vanished. He moved between her legs, bent to kiss her once more.

He drew the moment out, like a long, lovely note of music. Unwilling to wait another second, Romana closed her fingers around him and took him inside.

“Not going to live through this,” she murmured, then bit her lip around a sound that might have been a scream. She was wet and ready, and she matched his rhythm perfectly.

Something danced in her head as he drove himself inside her. A word, a feeling, pure wild sensation-she didn’t know or care. He filled her up, that was all that mattered. His hands and mouth touched and tortured her. But it was a delicious torture.

He surged against her and she swore, just for a moment, that her bones dissolved. And still she reached upward toward that exquisite peak.

Her nails bit into his shoulders. She squeezed her legs tighter, caught back a quick breath-then hovered, like a child on a roller coaster. Heart pumping, adrenaline flowing, flushed and breathless, waiting for the headlong rush.

It came in a burst of heat and a flash of light. The plunge through colored darkness that was her climax. And Jacob’s.

“Okay… Ah… That’s it.” She shook the hair from her face, felt the dampness of his skin against hers. “I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Might never think again.”

Jacob dropped his forehead onto hers. “It’s all about nature, isn’t it? Souls meeting, connecting, remembering.”

She managed a smile. “I gotta tell you, Knight, that’s a way more profound thought than I can form right now.”

“Spectacular sex must make me profound.”

“Only spectacular?” She blew at his hair, slid her arms around his neck and nipped his bottom lip. “Guess I’m losing my touch. I expected at least earth-shattering or maybe mind-numbing.”

“Believe me, Romana, I’m numb and shattered.”

“Me, too.” Her eyes twinkled and a laugh bubbled up. “But believe it or not, I’m also hungry.”

He couldn’t even lift his head to stare at her. “You’re joking. You want food?”

She teased him with her lips and eyes, feathered her fingers over his buttocks. “I didn’t say I wanted food, I said I was hungry.” Using her free leg and both of her hands, she switched their positions. “But this time, Detective Knight, I get to feed first.”