Ring Of Deception

Uncover the scandals and secrets in this reissue of Sandra Marton’s reader-favorite story!

His most prized jewel . . .

Hard-edged, intimidating detective Luke Sloan is working undercover on a jewel theft when he meets fiery Abby Douglas. Her distracting beauty and sharp tongue initially put her on his list of suspects, until Luke realizes Abby needs his protection.

As they work together, Luke wonders if his original instinct was right—Abby’s sensuous curves and intoxicating allure threaten to cut through his cold, cynical facade. As the desire simmering between them reaches the boiling point, Luke realizes he might be the person Abby needs to be protected from . . .

A Forrester Square novel.

Originally published in 2003.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE ALARM ON LUKE SLOAN’S clock radio went off at 6:00 a.m.

Luke rolled over on his belly, reached out and slapped it to silence with a perfect aim born of familiarity.

Five minutes later, the alarm screamed again. This time, he let it ring long enough for the unholy shrieking to pierce his sleep-fogged brain. Then he opened one eye, reached out and flipped the switch from Alarm to Radio.

“Cloudy this morning . . . ” a voice said with effusive good cheer, “with showers this afternoon and evening. Heavier cloudbursts possible overnight and tomorrow . . . ”

Luke grunted. Rain and more rain. What a surprise. The guy doing the weather sounded as if he’d just discovered he was living in Seattle.

Rolling onto his back, he stacked his hands beneath his head as the weatherman finally shut up and an old Doors tune came on. Jim Morrison still wanted somebody to light his fire. Luke listened for a couple of minutes, then decided the only thing that would get his fire lit was a pair of extra-strength aspirin.

He sat up, silenced the radio and headed for the bathroom. His head hurt, his mouth was dry and his sinuses felt like they’d been stuffed with quick-hardening cement. It would have been nice to blame it all on last night’s celebratory stop at the Nine-Thirty-One Tavern with Dan, but he couldn’t.

Dan had ordered a beer; Luke had ordered a shot of rock and rye.

“Cold coming on,” he’d said when Dan looked at him as if he’d just sprouted horns.

“Ah.” Dan had nodded as he scooped up a handful of peanuts and popped a couple in his mouth. “I was wondering why you looked like day-old crap.”

“Thank you,” Luke replied. “I really needed to hear that.”

“Why don’t you come home with me? Molly made chicken soup yesterday. A couple of bowls, you’ll feel like a new man.”

“Thanks, but I think what I need is a good night’s sleep.”

Lacey, a stacked brunette barmaid with a way of looking at Luke as if he had a big red S on his chest, leaned over the bar.

“How about coming home with me? I’ll open a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. It’s not homemade, but there are other things I can do to make you feel like a new man.”

“Oh, to be thirty-five and single again,” Dan joked.

Luke had grinned and exchanged the expected male-female banter with Lacey, but he’d gone home without either Lacey or a cup of Molly’s soup. He loved Molly like a sister. As for Lacey . . . a man would have to be blind not to see that she was a stunner.

But if he went home with Dan, Molly would ply him with soup while she talked up her latest “find,” a single woman who was, she’d assure him, everything he wanted in a woman.

And if he went home with Lacey, he’d just complicate his life. She’d ply him with the lush pleasures of her body, and afterward, she’d expect . . . what? Maybe just a smile. Then again, based on the looks she’d been tossing at him lately, maybe more than that.

More was the last thing Luke wanted. As the saying went, he’d been there, done that—done it legally, moreover, marriage license, chapel and all—and it hadn’t worked.

So he was, as Dan had pointed out, thirty-five and single. He liked it that way. Besides, he wasn’t the kind of guy who could do a one-night stand with a woman who wanted more, and then keep seeing her day after day, which was how it would go with Lacey. Nine-Thirty-One was a hangout for the precinct detectives, so he’d had to pass—if reluctantly—on Lacey’s generous offer.

Luke flushed the toilet, went to the bathroom cabinet and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Hell, what a mess. His green eyes were red-rimmed, his nose was pink, and the light stubble on his jaw made his high cheekbones stand out in stark relief.

Forget a pair of aspirin. Four was more like it. He dumped the tablets into his mouth, turned on the faucet, cupped his hand under the water and gulped some down. Then he shucked off his white boxers, stepped into the shower and turned the water as hot as he could stand it.

Hands flat against the tile, head bowed so the water could beat down on the nape of his neck, Luke gave himself up to the heat and the steam. Steam wasn’t chicken soup. Nor was it an old-fashioned sweat lodge, the kind he’d tried years ago while visiting an Oglala Sioux cousin in North Dakota. But after a few minutes, between the aspirin and the warmth, he began to feel better.

Naked, just a towel wrapped around his hips, he walked into the kitchen of his condo, took a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and lifted it to his lips.

One thing about living alone, you could do stuff like that.

Back in his bedroom, he pulled on a pair of running shorts, ancient Nikes and a faded T-shirt emblazoned with a Thunderbird clasping a whale in its talons. Then he pulled his long black hair back from his face and caught it at the base of his neck with a narrow length of rawhide.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Not that it mattered. Luke ran in all kinds of weather. Besides, he thought wryly, a run in the rain would either cure his cold or give him pneumonia . . . and at least there was a cure for that.

An hour later, he came puffing back into his apartment, soaked to the skin but feeling closer to human. The light on his answering machine was blinking. Luke hit the play button. The message was probably from Molly, calling to scold him for not coming home with Dan for a cup of her homemade penicillin last night.

But it wasn’t Molly, it was the captain’s clerk, calling to tell him that Lieutenant McDowell wanted to see him at 8:00 a.m. and would that be convenient?

Convenient?

Luke shot the answering machine a look that some of the suspects he’d questioned during the past four years, ever since he’d made detective, would have recognized. The lieutenant or the clerk must be having a good laugh—except that nobody had ever seen either of them smile, much less laugh.

Maybe he’d heard the message wrong.

He toed off his Nikes, tugged his soaked T-shirt over his head and stripped off his shorts. The phone rang just as he reached toward the play button.

“Sloan.”

“Molly wants to know how you’re feeling.”

Luke smiled, tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder and headed for the bathroom.

“Better than yesterday, and curious about today.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“I just got a message from the captain’s clerk. The lieutenant wants to see me when I get in.”

“And?”

“And . . . I don’t know anything more than that.” Luke hesitated. “Dan? You think maybe the lieutenant developed a sense of humor?”

“See, I knew you should have come home with me last night. You need Molly’s soup, Luke. You must be running a fever.”

“You could be right. Either I’m hallucinating, or the message on my machine says I should see him at eight . . . if it’s convenient.”

“If it’s . . . ?” Dan gave a gusty sigh. “Man, you’re in deeper do-do than usual. What’d you do to piss him off this time?”

Luke grinned. “Nothing more than usual. Why?”

“Well, last time I know of he used the word convenient was maybe three, four years ago. Right before you got made. He asked Rutledge if it was convenient for him to stop by his office at six one evening. You ever know Rutledge? Tall, mustache—looked like John Q. Public’s idea of a detective.”

“Yeah, I heard about him. The guy who couldn’t have found an elephant in a phone booth with a sack of peanuts in his pocket.”

“That’s the one.”

“So? What happened?”

“McDowell told Rutledge he was putting him on a special detail.”

Luke opened the shower stall door, turned on the water, then closed the door again.

“Which was?”

“Which was, handing him over to that TV anchor with the hairpiece for a PR stint. Well, he wasn’t an anchor then, but you know who I mean—the guy who can’t walk by a mirror without kissing his reflection. After a week, even Rutledge was going nuts.”

Luke sat down on the closed commode. “In other words,” he said slowly, “‘convenient’ is a polite way of saying ‘smile and grab your ankles, pal. You’re about to get screwed.”

“Yeah,” Dan said mournfully, “and not by a babe like that lady last night. What? No, Molly. Honey, I was just—of course not. Would I even notice another woman when I can come home to you? Molly. Baby . . . ”

Luke chuckled. “See you in an hour.”

He put down the phone, stepped into the shower and turned the water on full force.

Dan tended to look at the down side of things. Rutledge had always been an ass; he’d deserved an assignment that paired him with another ass. But Luke knew he was—well, without being too immodest, he was good. He cleared most of his cases and he had an impressive arrest record.

During his five years in uniform, he’d taken down more than his fair share of the lowlifes he encountered. Once he’d been made a detective, he’d busted burglars, pornographers, a child kidnapper and a killer.

Turning his face up to the spray, he let the warm water do its job.

No way would the lieutenant waste him on some idiotic PR thing.

No way whatsoever.

* * *

BY EIGHT-FIFTEEN, LUKE KNEW he was right.

The lieutenant didn’t want to waste him in an idiotic PR thing. He wanted to use him in something worse. He hadn’t said so. Not yet, but Luke could feel it coming.

First there’d been a handshake and congratulations about yesterday’s collar. He and Dan had put in two months working on a dozen cases of home-invasion robberies and finally caught the vicious SOB who’d been busting into the homes of the elderly, stealing whatever he could, and beating up the frail victims just for kicks.

“Good job, Sloan,” McDowell said, to start their meeting.

Then he motioned Luke to a chair and made what was supposed to be some meaningful small talk along with lots of serious eye contact.

The lieutenant, like most of the bosses, had taken a management seminar on how to encourage subordinates to feel like part of the team. The looking-deep-into-the-eyes thing was one of the techniques.

Luke knew that because he’d leafed through a syllabus he’d found lying around.

Lieutenant McDowell wasn’t particularly good at the deep eye contact. He’d come to the department from the mayor’s office, and if he had something to tell you, he had a tendency to yell and get red in the face.

That he wasn’t even raising his voice, but was doing this by the syllabus, made Luke nervous.

Then he offered Luke a cup of coffee. Starbucks, by the taste of it, and one thousand percent better than the sludge they brewed in the squad room.

“Cream?” the lieutenant asked, and that was when Luke knew that whatever came next would not be pleasant.

“No,” Luke said politely, “I’m fine.”

“Sound a little husky, Sloan. Got a cold?”

“I do, yeah.”

“My wife swears by horehound drops. Might want to try some.”

A polite invitation, coffee, an offer to add cream to that coffee, and now some fatherly advice. No, this was not good.

“I’ll do that,” Luke said, and waited.

McDowell sat back in his chair and tented his fingers under his chin. “Well,” he said, “you must be wondering why I called you in today.”

Luke said nothing. Back when he was a marine, he’d learned the drill. Keep your mouth shut and wait. You’d find out what was going on sooner or later. That worked in a cop’s world, too.

McDowell cleared his throat, rose from his desk and walked to a wall map of Seattle. He stabbed a finger at the northwestern section of the city and raised an eyebrow at Luke.

“Some very expensive real estate up here,” he said.

Luke muffled a sneeze. “Uh-huh.”

“I guess you’ve heard about the robberies in the area the last few months.”

Now they were getting down to it. Luke began to relax. Maybe he’d misjudged things. Maybe McDowell was the victim of another management seminar, this one on issuing summonses to his office that didn’t sound like summonses.

“I heard something about a cat burglar doing his thing.”

“At first. But our perp’s gone from playing it cool and careful to strong-arm tactics. Comes in when he knows somebody’s home, frightens them half to death, roughs them up if they don’t move fast enough.”

“Sounds like a real nice guy.”

“Uh-huh. His taste is good, too. He takes only what they call estate jewelry, meaning it’s old and expensive.”

“What more do we know?”

“Well, we had a report of one of the missing pieces possibly turning up on the market.”

“Possibly?”

“Yeah. And not in your usual kind of market, Sloan. This wasn’t a pawnshop.”

“What was it, then?”

The lieutenant sat down behind his desk. “Ever hear of the Emerald City Jewelry Exchange?”

“Sure. Big place, expensive by the looks of it. On a street over in Belltown.” Luke cocked his head. “Wait a minute. Are you saying somebody at Emerald City is fencing stolen jewelry?”

The lieutenant allowed himself a quick smile. “I’m not saying a thing. Not yet.”

“But?”

“But a lady called last week, all upset. Said she’d just come from there and swore she spotted a necklace that was the duplicate of one stolen from her. It was lying in a corner of a display case.”

“And?”

“Let’s put it this way. The lady in question is ninety-three, wears a hearing aid in each ear and glasses thick as Coke bottles. During the original interview, she told the detective who took the squeal that she’s being pestered by aliens from outer space who talk to her through her Persian cat.”

Luke grinned. “Uh-huh.”

“The detective paid her another visit, chatted with a maid who said the old girl’s okay most of the time but, well, every now and then she has a little trouble with reality.”

“Not the world’s most reliable complainant,” Luke said with a nod.

“On the other hand, the maid was with her that day. She says when the old woman gasped and pointed at the corner of the case, she looked, too, and she thinks maybe it really was the necklace.”

“Maybe?”

McDowell shrugged. “‘Maybe’s’ about it.”

“Did they say anything to anybody in the store?”

“No, not a word. They went straight outside and phoned us.”

“So, what we’ve got is an old lady with a screw loose, and a maid who thinks maybe she saw something . . . and maybe she didn’t.”

“Exactly. That’s why we have to move carefully on this.”

“I assume somebody checked the display case in the store.”

“Sure. The detective went in, she took a look, didn’t see a thing.”

“And she interviewed the people who work at the exchange?”

McDowell shifted uncomfortably in his swivel chair. “The place is owned by Julian Black. Name ring any bells? No? Well, Black’s at the top of the food chain. Good-looking guy, rich, supposed to be as honest as George Washington . . . and he’s active in civic affairs.”

Luke folded his arms. “You mean, he knows all the right people.”

“You say that like it’s an obscenity, Sloan, but that’s how things work. Black’s on a first-name basis with the governor, he served on the mayor’s recent ad hoc arts commission, and I’d be a fool to drag this department into a swamp until I know how deep the mud’s going to get.”

“Simply interviewing his clerks wouldn’t be . . . ”

“It would,” McDowell said firmly. “Seattle’s best families buy their toys at Emerald City. The last thing people like that want is cops swarming over the place, giving it a bad name.”

“Yeah. Okay. I can see that.”

“I thought you would. That’s why you’re going to set up a surveillance.”

Luke nodded. He hated doing surveillance. It was almost as dull as watching grass grow, but that was where he’d figured this was going.

“Okay.”

“You’ll have a camcorder so you can get tape of anything that looks interesting.”

“Where am I doing this? In a van on the street or is there a parking lot?”

For the first time since their meeting had started, McDowell looked uncomfortable.

“We’ve arranged for you to set up the camera and equipment across the street, at a place where you can have an unimpeded view of the exchange, where you can hang around for hours and nobody will figure you for a cop.”

Luke frowned, thought about the street the exchange was on, and came up with what he assumed was the place he’d be setting up shop.

“I’ve got it. That caf;aae—what’s it called? Caffeine something.” He snapped his fingers. “Caffeine Hy’s. Yeah, I guess that’ll work.” He grinned as he began to rise from his chair. “Although I’ll probably swear off coffee by the time I—”

“Not the coffee shop.”

“No?” Luke sank into the seat again. “Maybe I’m thinking of the wrong street.”

“You’ve got the right street, Sloan, just the wrong spot for the stakeout.” McDowell picked up a pencil and tapped it on the edge of his desk. “You’re going into the Forrester Square Day Care Center.”

Luke blinked. “What?”

“I said, we’re setting you up in—”

“A day care center?”

“Right.”

“Day care for what?” Luke said slowly. “Dogs? Cats? Canaries?”

“Very funny.” McDowell’s voice was flat. “Kids. Babies through kindergarten. You’re going to be a teacher’s aide.”

Luke stared at the lieutenant. He thought about what he knew about kids, which was exactly zero. He thought about what he wanted to know about kids, which was even less than that.

“Is this a joke?”

“The center is directly across from the exchange. It has a window in a fairly quiet location that looks out on the street.” McDowell tugged a file toward him, opened it and quickly scanned the top page. “There are three owners—Hannah Richards, Alexandra Webber and Katherine Kinard. Our people have spoken with them—well, more specifically, with the Kinard woman and her attorney. She’s agreed to cooperate.”

“Lieutenant, whoever came up with this plan is crazy. Excuse me, sir, for being blunt, but setting up a surveillance in a day care center, asking me to deal with babies is—”

“I came up with it,” McDowell said, his eyes riveted to Luke’s. “And I’m not asking you, Sloan. I’m telling you.”

“I don’t know the first thing about kids.”

“You’ll learn.”

“I don’t like kids.”

“Ever spent any time around them?”

“No!”

“Well, that’s why you think you don’t like them. You’re a quick study, Sloan. Just pay attention to what Ms. Kinard tells you, you’ll be fine.”

“Lieutenant,” Luke said desperately, “a female detective would—”

“The place is open Mondays through Fridays, so you won’t be able to use it for surveillance of the jewelry exchange on Saturdays. Dan Shayne will take Saturdays. He’ll set up in a van on the street. Other times, he’ll do whatever legwork, paper stuff you might need.”

“Lieutenant. Really, a woman would—”

“Here’s what little we have on the Emerald City Jewelry Exchange, its employees and Julian Black.”

McDowell got to his feet and held out the folder, indicating the meeting was over. Luke stared at him for two or three seconds. Then he stood up, too.

“Susan. Susan Wu,” he said desperately. “She’s one hell of a good detective, she has grandchildren, she likes kids.”

“An excellent choice.”

Luke let out his breath. “Well, then, sir . . . ”

“Unfortunately, Wu is in the hospital with appendicitis.” McDowell shoved the folder at Luke and fixed him with the sort of look he remembered from his days in the corps. “Anything else, Detective Sloan?”

Luke had taken on men twice his size, fought battles he’d never expected to win, but he wasn’t a fool. There was no way to win a war with McDowell unless he wanted to find himself in uniform again.

“No, sir,” he said, took the folder and went to meet his fate.

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, LUKE SAT in a chair, staring at a woman seated behind the business side of a desk so neat and uncluttered it made him nervous.

Katherine Kinard wasn’t making him nervous, however. What she was doing was pissing him off. From the look on her face when he’d walked into her office and introduced himself as the detective who’d be working undercover at her day care center, he might as well have been Ivan the Terrible.

“You?” she’d said, her eyes round with shock. “You’re the undercover police officer? But my attorney—Daniel Adler—said you’d be . . . He spoke with someone in your department, and they promised him you’d be a woman.”

Luke lifted one dark eyebrow. “Trust me, Ms. Kinard. I’m not.”

“He said you’d be middle-aged and motherly, someone the children would love.”

“Believe me, I’m no happier about this than you are.”

“What do you know about children, Officer—Officer . . . ?”

“Detective. Detective Luke Sloan. I don’t know a damned thing about them.”

“We don’t curse at Forrester Square Day Care, Detective.”

“I’ll bet you don’t.” Luke glared at his supposed new employer. She glared back. “Look, I told you, I’m no happier than you are, but—”

Katherine held up her hand, reached for the phone and punched a speed-dial button. “One moment, please, Detective. No, don’t bother getting up. I’m going to call Mr. Adler and see what he . . . Daniel? Yes, it’s Katherine. I’m fine, thank you. Look, Daniel . . . ” She rolled her eyes. “That’s great. Yes, it is difficult to get tickets for . . . Alexandra is fine, too, thank you. Yes. Much better. She’s even starting to talk about moving out of my place and getting an apartment of her own. Right. I do see that as a good sign.”