The Redemption Of Rafe Diaz

“What happened after he hit you?” Rafe asked.

Allie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up on the kitchen floor. He had plenty of time to kill me, too.” She lifted her gaze to meet Rafe’s. “I don’t know why I’m still alive.”

Rafe’s mouth tightened. “The fact you are tells me he knew for sure you didn’t get a look at him.”

“Which is fortunate for me. Not for your client if he’s innocent.”

Rafe stared at her.

Seven years ago, she hadn’t known Rafe all that well. Still, Allie had been well aware that there had been something about Rafe Diaz, and it wasn’t only his dark, go-to-hell looks. He’d exuded some sort of innate, brooding sexiness that seemed to promise endless nights of pleasure. Watching him now, she realized that hadn’t changed.

Dear Reader,

Reconciliation. I have a soft spot for a story that brings characters back to someone they loved and lost. So, I thought, what about writing a connected trilogy of books about three couples with shared pasts? Stories where passion is intensified by memory and by deferred longing. And where better for lovers to come together again than in Reunion Square, an almost mystical enclave of quaint shops and businesses?

Three women. Three men from their pasts. Three different journeys that take us to the “ever after” part of love that was destined to be.

In the third of these books, lingerie shop owner Allie Fielding stumbles over the murdered body of a customer. To add to her shock, the private investigator who shows up to interview her is the man she helped send to prison. Hired by the slain woman’s accused lover, exonerated P.I. Rafe Diaz believes his client is innocent. And though dealing with the woman whose testimony put him behind bars stirs up a past Rafe thought he’d dealt with long ago, it also unlocks a passion neither of them expected.

Suspensefully,

Maggie Price

The Redemption of Rafe Diaz

Maggie Price

MAGGIE PRICE

Before embarking on a writing career, Maggie Price took a walk on the wild side and associated with people who carry guns. Fortunately they were cops, and Maggie’s career as a crime analyst with the Oklahoma City Police Department has given her the background needed to write true-to-life police procedural romances which have won numerous accolades, including a nomination for the coveted RITA® Award.

Maggie is a recipient of a Golden Heart Award, a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews, a National Reader’s Choice Award, and a Bookseller’s Best Award, all in series romantic suspense. Readers are invited to contact Maggie at 416 N.W. 8th St., Oklahoma City, OK 73102-2604. Or on the Web at www.MaggiePrice.com.

For my girls, Roxie and Lexie.

Thank you for all the joy you add to my life.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Prologue

Annoyed, exhausted, Allie Fielding whipped her Jaguar into the driveway of the two-story condo in one of Oklahoma City’s poshest neighborhoods. The dinner meeting she’d attended with board members of the investment empire she’d inherited had run late. She could have headed home after that, if only Mercedes McKenzie had shown up as scheduled when Allie closed her shop before the meeting.

I should have gone home, Allie thought as she studied the condo. She frowned when she found herself comparing its dark windows to sightless eyes. In reality, she knew that going home hadn’t been an option. Not while she still had the hot pink garment bag that held the silk robe, red beaded bustier and two come-and-get-me sexy lace teddies she’d designed. The order had been rushed due to Mercedes’s needing the lingerie before she and her lover left for Paris at midnight. Allie felt certain if she didn’t drop off the items now, the long-legged redhead with a practiced pout would call, claiming some catastrophe had prevented her from showing up at Silk & Secrets, and from returning Allie’s phone calls. Then she would wheedle Allie into making a delivery to the airport.

“No problem,” Allie muttered. She was determined to prove herself in a career that had no ties to the Fielding empire her father had amassed. Some people might think Franklin Fielding had willed his fortune to his sole biological child out of love. Allie knew better. The idea of his money falling into the hands of someone with no Fielding blood coursing through their veins would have struck him as even more reprehensible than leaving it to the daughter he’d never wanted and had shunned.

As for the empire, her father’s name was the one investors, board members and bankers related to, and his was the one they trusted. So she used it—grudgingly. Her own business, however, was her baby. She’d put all of her skill and experience and creativity into building it from the ground up. She would tend and nurture—and, yes, deliver items to the recalcitrant mistress of some wealthy man willing to buy her drawers full of lingerie.

But Mercedes had morphed into more than just a client, Allie reminded herself. The woman was dead-on savvy about fashion. At Allie’s urging, Mercedes had begun designing the line of jeweled evening bags that were currently flying off the shop’s shelves.

Allie climbed out of the Jag’s cool comfort into the hot night air that was as dry as old bones. While she retrieved the garment bag off the Jag’s backseat, the wind gusted, dragging strands of her blond hair from its sleek chignon.

The garment bag draped over one forearm, she headed up the drive, promising to treat herself to a glass of cold wine and a hot, frothy soak in sea salts as soon as she got home.

Although the neighborhood had private security patrols, she couldn’t bring herself to abandon her one-of-a-kind designs on the front porch. So she continued toward the rear of the condo, the click of her heels echoing against the driveway, mixing with the sound of a car’s engine thrumming to life.

Glancing over her shoulder, she caught the gleam of ruby-colored taillights as the car sped past.

She followed the lighted walk around the side of the condo to a patio furnished with iron tables and cushioned chairs. Overhead, tree branches swayed. In one corner of the patio, a fountain gurgled, its water bubbling into a brass sea shell. It was hard, in the middle of so much motion, to believe she was entirely alone.

The thought raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She skimmed her gaze across the patio. Then quickened her steps toward the back door.

There, Allie noted a dim light glowing behind one of the condo’s closed shutters.

She draped the garment bag over a chair, then opened her purse. After jotting a message on a sticky note, she pressed it against one of the glass panes in the back door.

And gave a startled gasp when the door slowly swung open.

“Mercedes?” Allie stared into the dimly lit kitchen. In the shadows, just visible across the room, the refrigerator groaned, cycling through a new tray of ice cubes. The clatter as they fell into their bin was as startling as a gunshot.

Allie pressed a hand to her throat. Her pulse pumped.

“Get a grip,” she whispered, even as the sudden sensation of being watched spread goose bumps over her skin. While the shiver worked down her spine, Allie caught something out of the corner of her eye.

She turned her head, looked down. Froze.

She was being stared at, all right, although it seemed the eyes watching her saw nothing.

Mercedes was sprawled inside the doorway, her well-toned body awkwardly turned on one side. Her pale face was propped on one outstretched arm as if she’d settled down for a lazy nap in the mint-green silk robe Allie had designed. But her eyes were open. Wide and unblinking.

Allie’s body went numb. She stopped breathing but realized it only when black cobwebs began to encroach on her vision.

Reaching out, she gripped the edge of a counter and forced air in and out of her lungs. Had Mercedes slipped on the marble floor? Allie wondered as her gaze flicked to the four-inch stilettos strapped to Mercedes’s feet. Fallen and hit her head? Did the blank stare signify death? Or could she just be unconscious?

The possibility the woman was alive propelled Allie forward.

“Mercedes?” Allie dropped to her knees. With trembling fingers, she nudged aside Mercedes’s diamond bracelet and pressed her fingers against the inside of the woman’s wrist, searching for a pulse. Allie felt no sign of life.

“Oh, God.” Confirmation the woman was dead tightened the knots in Allie’s stomach. Her blood pounded through her ears and she imagined she could hear the swish of it in her veins. Nine-one-one, she thought, her breath going shallow with the panic she felt closing in on her. She had to call 911.

Pushing herself up, she backed toward the open door while tugging her phone out of her purse.

The door’s sudden swing toward her was her only warning she wasn’t alone.

The heavy wood rammed against her shoulder. The force of the impact knocked the phone from her grasp and shoved her sideways.

A shriek rose up her throat when a dark form lunged from behind the door. She had less than a heartbeat to react before something hard slammed against her left temple.

The blow exploded stars behind her eyes. She landed hard on her side, the pain in her head a brilliant orange and red. Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs while the marble floor seemed to tilt crazily beneath her.

Then everything went black and the world ceased to exist.

Chapter 1

Rafe Diaz’s long stride took him swiftly across the grassy, tree-shaded area that formed the center of Oklahoma City’s Reunion Square. He was a tall man, nearly six foot three, with a rangy disciplined build he’d honed to pure muscle during the years that others had control over his life. His slacks were black, his white dress shirt starched, the collar open. He’d bought his functional gray sports coat off the rack.

He strode past several boutiques, an antique shop and a bakery before halting on the sidewalk outside a wide display window that glinted in the morning sun. While he watched through the glass, the hot wind raked through his black hair like wild fingers. Rafe didn’t notice. Not with his attention focused on the woman inside Silk & Secrets.

Allie Wentworth Fielding, heiress, socialite and party girl. Former centerfold model. College graduate. She was as stunning as he remembered, in a slim yellow business suit that managed to look both professional and feminine. The trio of gold chains draped around her neck added flash. A small, sparkling clip held back one side of her shoulder-length, honey-blond hair. Her eyes were laser blue and whispered of seduction from beneath thick lashes. Her skin was luminous, her lips glossed in warm coral that might make a man fantasize the heat was kindling for only him.

The sudden fire blazing through Rafe’s blood had nothing to do with desire. It came from biting anger over how much had been stolen from him. Anger he didn’t know he still harbored until his newest client had brought up Allie Fielding’s name.

Seven years had passed since Rafe last laid eyes on her.

Seven years since he’d sat in a courtroom and listened to her testimony that had helped put him in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

He knew she’d told her version of the truth. Knew the evidence pointed to him. Still, he’d lost two years of his life and the chance to pin on a cop’s badge—the only career he’d grown up wanting.

Curling his hands into fists, he shifted his gaze to the clock in the brick tower in the center of Reunion Square as it began to bong in slow, ponderous tones. Rafe counted the nine strikes while waiting for the resentment chewing at his insides to ease. He was free, dammit. Had been for five years. During that time he’d carved out a life for himself. It wasn’t what he’d grown up envisioning, but it was enough.

He was his own boss. He lived alone. By his own design there was no one he had to answer to. For a man whose freedom had once been snatched away, having total control over every aspect of his life was all that mattered.

When he felt steadier, he turned his gaze back to the woman on the other side of the shop’s window. He watched in silence while she arranged a pair of shoes on a velvet-draped pedestal positioned beneath a single spotlight. The shoes were embroidered and beaded, and looked like something Marie Antoinette would have worn.

Or a pampered, spoiled socialite with money to burn and country-club parties to attend.

While Allie positioned a small placard beside the shoes, Rafe focused on the dark bruise marring her left temple. Only a few days had passed since she’d found Mercedes McKenzie’s body and gotten clubbed by the killer.

Standing beneath the strengthening sunlight, Rafe knew if he’d been gazing at any other woman, he’d be thinking about the fear that must have spiked into her when the killer lunged from behind the condo’s kitchen door. And the pain she’d surely suffered when he slammed a fist against the side of her head. But this was Allie Fielding, and his foremost thought was that she could have wound up as dead as he had felt when she testified against him.

Rafe rolled his shoulders in a futile attempt to ease the tightness that had settled in them. He reminded himself he was here on business anchored in the present, not the past. There wasn’t room for emotion, not when his client’s freedom was on the line.

Rafe had already acknowledged the irony that this woman might hold the key to his latest case. He’d been hired by Hank Bishop, the man accused of Mercedes McKenzie’s murder. Bishop swore he was innocent, and Rafe knew all too well that being accused of a crime had nothing to do with guilt. He was positive Hank Bishop was innocent, just as he had been.

“Get this over with,” Rafe ground out as he headed toward the shop’s beveled-glass door.

This time, he had no intention of allowing Allie Wentworth Fielding to play a part in robbing a guiltless man of his freedom.

Allie finished positioning a Plexiglas display cube over the shoes on the pedestal just as the chime at the shop’s front door sounded. Her mouth curving to greet the morning’s first customer, she gathered up her dust cloth, then looked across her shoulder.

And felt her heart clench.

Rafe Diaz.

She made herself turn slowly to face him. Emotion exploded through her. Each second seemed endless, drawn out, excruciating.

The same way it had felt in the courtroom during her testimony.

He was as tall as she remembered, but more muscular. Not even the gray sports coat could conceal shoulders that looked like he tossed around hundred-pound weights on a regular basis. His skin was the same burnished olive, but his face had changed. Hardened. Lines had scored into the corners of his eyes and mouth, giving him a taut aura of danger that hadn’t been there before. Looking so dark and foreboding, he could pass for a bad guy. But Rafe Diaz had never been a bad guy, and Allie had spent years dealing with the pangs of conscience over the part she’d played in sending an innocent man to prison.

The cool disdain in his dark eyes sent the message he hadn’t forgotten—or forgiven—her involvement, either.

Her fingers clenched on the dust cloth. “Rafe, what…are you doing here?”

“Business.”

Her gaze swept across the racks of silky lingerie and shelves of feminine accessories. “You came to buy something?”

“Hardly.” He kept his gaze locked on hers as he moved to the waist-high glass counter near the door. “I’m here on my business, not yours.” He pulled a card out of the inside pocket of his sports coat, laid it on the counter and waited.

The fact he hadn’t walked to her and handed her the card indicated he didn’t intend to make their meeting easy. Fine, Allie thought, as she moved toward the counter, her heels echoing against the polished parquet floor. After what he’d been through, she couldn’t exactly blame him for holding a grudge.

She stowed the cloth under the counter, then took in the information on the card. “What business does a private investigator have with me?”

“Hank Bishop’s my client. He’s been charged with murdering Mercedes McKenzie.”

“I heard he’d been arrested.” Allie swallowed hard. She hadn’t yet been able to rid her mind of the vision of Mercedes lying dead on the condo’s kitchen floor. “What has Hank Bishop hired you to do?”

“Prove he’s innocent.”

“Do you believe he is?”

“I believe in giving him the benefit of the doubt.” Rafe dipped his head. “Not everyone who gets arrested is actually guilty.”

Ouch. Allie felt heat flood into her cheeks. “No, they’re not.” She laid the card aside. “You were innocent, Rafe. As much a victim as Nina was, but in a far different way.”

Even after so many years, Allie still shuddered at the horrific memories. For the pain her best friend suffered. And what Rafe must have endured. “Does it make you feel better to hear me say you were innocent?”

She saw a shadow of emotion move in his eyes before the shutter came down. “What I want to hear from you are details. What happened when you found Mercedes McKenzie’s body?”

Allie eased out a breath. Okay, so his coming here didn’t include clearing the air about the past. Talking about finding a dead body wasn’t high on her list of subject matter, either.

“I went over everything with the police,” she said. “Several times.”

“I’m not the police.”

She hesitated when a long-ago memory stirred inside her. Nina, her best friend and roommate who’d been dating Rafe, had mentioned his driving goal was to be a cop. His conviction ended that dream. And though it had been expunged as if it had never happened, Allie didn’t think any police department would hire a man who had served time in a state penitentiary.

“I want whoever killed Mercedes put away, so I’ll tell you all I know about that night,” she said quietly. “But I’m still a little unsteady from the experience. I’d prefer to talk over there.”

His gaze tracked hers to the plush sitting area tucked into one corner of the shop’s main showroom. “Fine.”

When she moved past him, she caught the tang of masculine-scented soap. She had to stop herself from turning her head, inhaling deeply of the scent that was indescribably male.

As she walked across the shop, she was acutely aware of Rafe moving behind her.

Allie settled onto the powder-pink love seat. “You might as well get comfortable,” she said, gesturing toward the upholstered chair on the opposite side of the round glass coffee table.

Instead of sitting, Rafe stood behind the chair. “About that night?” he prodded.

She leaned back against the love seat’s cushions and met his waiting gaze. “All I saw was a dark form lunge from behind the door. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. I’m sure the police had reason to arrest Hank Bishop, but it wasn’t because of anything I told them.”

“He was arrested because he was Mercedes McKenzie’s lover,” Rafe said. “He owns the condo she lived in, his prints are all over everything, his DNA is on the sheets, he has clothes there. And he has no alibi for the time of the murder.”

“So Bishop could have killed Mercedes and assaulted me.”

“Could have, but didn’t,” Rafe said. “Do you know the exact time you got to the condo?”

“Right at nine-thirty. I paid attention to the time because I was miffed I had to deliver lingerie that Mercedes was supposed to have picked up here earlier.”

“Did you see anyone else? A neighbor out smoking a cigarette? Someone walking a dog, maybe?”

“No.”

“Did you hear anyone?”

“No,” Allie said, then paused. “I heard a car start. And saw it speed by the driveway.”

“Going which way?”

“East.”

“What kind of car?”

“It was too dark to tell. All I saw were the taillights.”

“How many?”

She blinked. “What?”

“How many taillights? What shape?”

She arched a brow. “The police didn’t ask me such specific questions.”

“I believe in being thorough.”

You would have been a good cop, Allie thought and felt a wrench of regret for the unfair hand life had dealt him. “The taillights were round. Two on each side.” She tried to picture something about the car during the few seconds she’d glanced its way. “I think they were high up, close to the lid of the trunk.”

Rafe nodded. “You didn’t see enough of your attacker to ID him. But did you get a sense of anything about him?”

“No, there wasn’t time. Everything happened so fast. Too fast.”

Before she could block it, the vision flashed in her head of the dark form lunging at her. The fear came barreling back, sending a wave of nausea lurching in her stomach. Leaning forward, Allie propped her forearms on her knees and shut her eyes against the blinding white spots spinning before them. God, would the image never start to fade?

“Are you all right?”

She flinched when Rafe’s voice came from just beside her. She hadn’t even heard him move. “I’m…fine.” A sheen of clammy perspiration enveloped her entire body. “Fine.”

“Fine, hell,” Rafe muttered. With one hand, he shoved her head between her knees. “You’re as white as chalk and about to pass out. Take deep breaths.”

With her head spinning and her vision dimming, Allie had no choice but to obey. Please don’t let me heave on his shoes, she prayed as she dragged in a series of shaky breaths against the nausea churning in her stomach.

Keeping his hand pressed against her spine, Rafe lowered himself onto the arm of the love seat. Despite her dazed senses, Allie felt the pressure of each of his fingers through the fabric of her suit, all too aware of the latent strength in his touch.

“You have some water around here?” His voice had lost some of its hardness.

“There’s…a small refrigerator off the fitting room,” she said, keeping her eyes on the blurred toes of her yellow leather heels.

“Where’s the fitting room?”

“Just beyond that arched doorway.”

Without further comment, he rose and disappeared out of her line of sight, his footsteps hollow echoes as he headed across the shop.

Lord, Allie thought. How many times over the five years since his release had she thought about contacting him? Or writing him a letter to let him know how horribly sorry she was. In the end, she’d done nothing. There was no way to make up for the wrong that had been done to him. That she’d done.

Rafe returned, unscrewing the lid off a bottle of water.

Bracing herself, Allie eased upright and took the bottle from him with both hands. “Thanks.”

She sipped slowly, concentrating on the simple act of swallowing the cool liquid.

When her vision came back into focus, she saw that Rafe had relocated behind the upholstered chair. “Feel like continuing?” he asked, his dark eyes measuring her.

“Yes.” She lifted her free hand to her bruised temple, felt her fingertips tremble against her tender flesh. “I keep telling myself that it’s over, that I’m safe. Then I see this blurry shadow careen from behind the door. I was so afraid.”