Dangerous Liaisons

Jake felt his spine stiffen. “What does the card say?”

“‘Phillip, we’ve only just begun. Yours, Nicole.”’ Gianos shook his head. “The patrol cop mentioned that when she questioned Taylor, she claimed her association with Ormiston was purely business.”

“Yeah, that’s what Jones told me.”

“Maybe that’s true,” Gianos observed. “All I know is if a woman sent me a basket of goodies with a note like that, I’d get the idea her interest in me went beyond business. If the woman looked as good as Nicole Taylor, I’d welcome that interest.”

“Holy hell,” Jake muttered.

Gianos and Smith headed out the door just as Upchurch returned with a sheet. The M.E.’s assistant and one of the lab techs rolled Ormiston’s body onto the sheet.

The toothpick in the side of Upchurch’s mouth seesawed as he inspected the front of the dead man. “No sign of trauma on his neck, no blood visible.” Upchurch raised a shoulder. “Too early to tell, Sarge, but this death might be a natural.”

“And it might not be,” Jake countered.

“Might not.”

Jake knew that Gianos had been on target to turn a suspicious eye toward the muffins. At a death scene, you looked at everything that way.

Staring down at Ormiston’s body, Jake expelled a slow breath while his mind worked. Muffins were mostly carbohydrates, which the body digested faster than fats and proteins.

“Upchurch, I need a quick autopsy,” he began. “The M.E. needs to pay close attention to the stomach contents, the degree of digestion. Make sure he knows I want a tox screen on body fluids for poisons, both for time of death and cause of death.”

Upchurch cocked an eyebrow. “Poison, huh?”

“It’s possible,” Jake said, then headed for the kitchen.

She’d had to keep busy, or go crazy.

Gnawing her bottom lip, Nicole stared down at the folded sacks, empty foam containers and cups she’d aligned beside her on the back seat of Jake’s car. Now that she’d finished the task and had nothing to occupy her mind, she was again conscious of the clutching nervousness in the pit of her stomach.

At least she felt a little more calm in the back of Jake’s car with its windows rolled down than she had in the police car with its cagelike effect.

In an unconscious gesture, she flipped her thick blond braid behind her shoulder, then twisted her fingers together while she gazed out the open window at the massive brick house. She had found Phillip’s body nearly two hours ago, and her hands had yet to stop trembling. Except for attendance at an occasional funeral, she had never gotten close to a dead body. Certainly had never discovered one. Or touched one.

She’d done all three tonight.

Closing her eyes, she fought back a wave of unsteadiness. She concentrated on taking deep, controlled breaths, tried to remember the breathing exercises Sebastian had taught her to battle stress. The only thing closing her eyes did was bring a clear picture of Jake into her awareness.

He had looked grim, rugged and all-business when he’d climbed out of his car, this car, and headed across the lawn toward Phillip’s house.

She had thought constantly about him since her brother’s wedding. Crazy thoughts, she acknowledged. Thoughts she should have easily discarded because she knew the type of man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, and she was certain Jake Ford wasn’t even close. Still, she hadn’t managed to rid her mind of him. Not since they’d danced…

The next instant the door beside her swung open, snapping her eyes open.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

In the wash of light from the street lamps, Jake’s eyes looked almost black as he leaned through the open door. “Uh…waiting for you. The female officer told me to stay—”

“The trash, Nicole,” he stated through his teeth. “What the hell did you do to my trash?”

“Oh.” Her gaze dropped to the sacks and empty containers sitting in rows beside her. “When I get nervous, I have to have something to keep me busy. To keep my mind focused.”

His gaze stayed on her face, frank and assessing, as he propped a forearm along the top of the car’s open door. “Sorting trash gets your mind focused?”

“It helps.” No way was she going to admit that all she’d gotten from sitting in his car and organizing fast-food sacks were thoughts that had focused on him.

He swung the door open wider. “I need to talk to you. It’d be easier if we both sit in the front seat.”

“Okay.” She had answered what seemed like a million of the uniformed officer’s questions, and she doubted she could give Jake any more information. On a sigh, she slid out of the car into the warm night air. When she turned to face him, she discovered that, without the strappy heels she’d worn while they danced, she was a full head shorter than he.

His eyes were cool, very cool, as they inched down her body, taking in her white, oversize dress shirt, navy leggings, thick socks and workout shoes. His slow, measured assessment filled her with unease. She wasn’t sure if it was the man or the cop—or both—who made her feel as if she were not being looked at, but into.

The sound of muted conversation pulled her attention toward the sprawling brick house. The wheels of a stretcher holding a black body bag clattered as two men rolled it over the doorstep and onto the porch.

Her throat tightened. “He must have had a heart attack.”

Jake closed the car’s back door with a quiet snap, then turned. His handsome face held no expression. “What makes you think that?”

“Phillip confided in me that he’d had a heart attack a few years ago. It was a mild one, but enough to have him start working out and eating right.”

“Phillip,” Jake echoed. A muscle in his cheek jerked, but his eyes stayed level on hers. “Right now his death is unexplained. That’s how I’m investigating it.”

He leaned around her and pulled open the front passenger door. The movement brought him close enough for her to catch his warm, musky scent. For a mindless moment, they were back on that dance floor, their bodies swaying in slow, seductive unison. As if feeling again the heady sensation of his thumb against her wrist, she curled her fingers over her palms.

He pointed toward the front seat. “Climb in.”

He said the words with such quiet authority that she instantly complied. She watched as he skirted the hood, pulled open the door, then settled behind the wheel.

“Tell me about Ormiston.” As he spoke, Jake propped his wide shoulders against the car door and dangled one hand over the steering wheel.

Dressed in a rumpled chambray shirt and worn jeans, black hair on the shaggy side, Jake might come across as relaxed. Not to her. Nicole considered herself an expert when it came to reading people, and she saw the leashed intensity in the alert tilt of his head, the sharpness in his dark gaze.

“Phillip was a client of Meet Your Match.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe six months. I’d have to check his file for the exact date he signed his contract.”

“Did you know him before he became a client?”

“No.”

“He just walk in off the street and sign on?”

“Well, I did meet him at a charity fund-raiser and gave him one of my cards,” she amended. “He showed up in my office the next day and signed a contract.”

“Did you and Ormiston go out?”

She blinked. “I don’t date my clients.”

“Why were you at his house tonight?”

She told him the same thing she’d told the female officer, ending with “It wasn’t like Phillip not to call the office when he was scheduled to. Wasn’t like him to miss a racquetball game. I was concerned.”

“Was he scheduled to play racquetball with you?”

“No, Sebastian. They played a couple times a week.”

“Is it standard operating procedure for you to drop by each of your client’s houses to check on their welfare?”

“Of course not. Phillip had been having…problems and I felt he needed special attention.”

“What sort of…problems?”

“He was unhappy that I had yet to connect him with a woman whom he felt would make a suitable mate.” She lifted a shoulder. “I understood his impatience. His wife passed away two years ago. He was lonely, and at a point where the loneliness was turning into depression. I’m a firm believer some people aren’t meant to live their lives alone. Phillip is…was one of them.”

When Jake didn’t shoot back another question, Nicole realized he’d turned his head to stare out the windshield into the dark night. He seemed lost in thought, his profile hard and unyielding. As she studied him, the weak light from the street lamps seemed to shift, and for a brief instant, she saw what she thought was utter desolation in his eyes.

A quick, surprising tremor around her heart had her leaning to touch his arm. “Is something wrong?”

He jerked his head around so fast that she snatched her hand back. His eyes were hooded, his face as expressionless as carved stone. “So, Ormiston was unhappy you hadn’t managed to find him ‘Miss Right.”’

She took a deep breath. Whatever brief emotion she’d seen in his eyes had been replaced by a chilling remoteness.

“Yes, Phillip was unhappy. Some clients have a hard time at first understanding how long it can take to find their perfect match.”

Jake flicked a look over his shoulder toward the house. “Ormiston was loaded. Seems to me he’d have no problem getting a date.”

“He knew quite a few single women, but no one he wanted to get serious about. He ran a huge, thriving funeral business with locations all over the state. At the minimum, he put in sixty-hour work weeks. That limited the time he had to make connections. Phillip wasn’t a twenty-year-old man who wanted to hang out in singles’ bars, hoping to meet someone.”

“How many women did you fix him up with?”

“Quite a few over the past couple of months.” Frowning, Nicole shoved her braid over one shoulder. “Phillip claimed nothing clicked with any of his dates, which surprised me.”

“So, you had a dissatisfied customer on your hands. Was he planning on ending your association?”

She linked her fingers, twisted them. “Yes. The last time I saw him he said he wouldn’t renew his contract.”

“When was this?”

“A few days ago.”

“Where?”

“At Sebastian’s.” She looked out the windshield just as the black station wagon into which the men had loaded the body bag crept slowly along the street. Sadness for the man she had known settled inside her. “I guess none of that matters now,” she added quietly.

“Since Ormiston thought he got a raw deal, he might have planned to bad-mouth your company. I doubt that would have made you happy.”

In the next heartbeat, Nicole vividly understood that the man with whom she shared the car’s close, intimate confines was not conducting an interview, but an interrogation. It wasn’t fear that stiffened her spine, but temper.

“Of course that didn’t thrill me. I’m in business to make my clients happy. I feel a lot better when I succeed at my job. Don’t you?”

“There’s a lot of people behind bars who can swear to that.”

“Are they all guilty?” she asked coolly.

He gave a short laugh. “Most claim they aren’t.”

For a slow, languorous moment he studied her, his dark eyes on hers. Watchful. Nicole tried to ignore the knots that tightened in her stomach.

Finally he asked, “Do you think Ormiston would have been happier if you had agreed to go out with him?”

His question caught her like a slap in the face. “What makes you think he wanted me to go out with him?”

“You slide your business card into his pocket at a charity to-do. The next morning he shows up at your office. Not hard to figure out what was going on.”

“Nothing was going on, Sergeant. I don’t date my clients.”

“But he did ask you out, right?”

“Once, after he signed his contract.” The lethal sureness in Jake’s eyes brought all of her nerves swimming to the surface. “I refused, and Phillip didn’t ask again. I told him to be patient, that we’d only just begun looking for his perfect mate.”

Jake reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small plastic bag. “‘We’ve only just begun,”’ he murmured, angling the card inside the bag until it caught light from the nearby street lamp. “Sounds familiar.”

As she read the message with her name below, a shiver skittered like a bony finger down the back of Nicole’s neck. She lifted her gaze. “Why do you have the card in a bag?”

“It’s evidence.”

“Of what?”

“That you sent Ormiston a basket of muffins.”

“Of course I sent them.” She forced her voice to remain even while anxiety shredded her insides. “I don’t understand—”

“Did you bake the muffins?”

“No, I bought them.”

“Where?”

She gave him the name of the bakery a few blocks from her office. “I have an account there.”

“Why did you send them? If Ormiston was going to cancel his contract, why bother with muffins?”

“He called my office yesterday, said he’d decided to renew his contract. I had my assistant order the basket, with directions to deliver it to Phillip’s office.”

“Why muffins? Why not a bottle of wine? A couple of cigars?”

“Like I said, Phillip was into healthy living. The muffins were low fat.”

Jake held up the plastic bag. “Is this your handwriting?”

“No, I told my assistant the message I wanted on the card. He dictated it when he placed the order.”

“So you didn’t go to the bakery? You didn’t pick out the muffins? Didn’t deliver them yourself?”

Her hands and her jaw constricted with equal force. “I’ve never seen them. My assistant, Melvin Hall, ordered the muffins over the phone. He’s never seen them. Are we done, Sergeant? It’s been a hell of a day and I want to go home.”

“Almost.” Jake slid the bag back into his shirt pocket. “How did you get in here tonight?”

“The guard on the gate let me in.”

“So, you’ve visited Ormiston’s house so many times that the guard recognized you?”

“I’ve never been here before tonight.” She raised her chin. “I guess the guard thinks I have an honest face. When Phillip didn’t answer the guard’s call, the guard buzzed me in so I could leave a note on Phillip’s front door.”

“Did you leave a note?”

“No, I found Phillip’s body instead. Are we done?”

“For now.”

She shouldered open the door, was out of the car like a shot.

“Hold on.”

She’d taken two steps when he caught up with her.

“I said hold on.”

She wheeled on him just as he snagged her elbow. Momentum had her stumbling forward, her body colliding with his. For a split second, she had the impression of slamming into rock-hard muscle.

“You said we were done.”

He reached out his other hand when she teetered. “You’re upset. I want to make sure you’re okay to drive.”

“Of course I’m okay!” she flung back, jerking from his hold. “I’m used to finding dead bodies. Touching them. Accustomed to getting grilled by a cop. A cop who accuses me of…of…”

“I haven’t accused you of anything, Nicole.”

“Sending bakery muffins!” she shot back.

His mouth quirked. “So far, I’ve restrained myself from hauling you in on that charge.”

She closed her eyes for an instant. “Was Phillip poisoned? Was there something in the muffins?”

“I have no idea.”

“Then why were you asking—”

“It’s my job to ask,” he said quietly, his face awash in light and shadow as he gazed down at her. “I told you up-front I’m investigating this as an unexplained death. That means I work it as a murder until I can prove it wasn’t.”

“What if it was?”

“Then I’ll find out who did it.”

She shook her head. “Do you think Phillip was murdered?”

“Nobody knows until the M.E. knows.” He shrugged. “Until then, I have to ask a lot of people questions. I may have to ask you more. That’s because I can’t exactly ask Ormiston.”

She dragged in a shaky breath. “You may be used to dealing with death on a daily basis, but I’m not. I can’t believe this happened to someone I know.”

Eyes narrowing, Jake studied her face. “If you don’t feel up to driving home, I’ll take you.” The concern in his voice tugged at something deep inside her. “I have to go see Ormiston’s son,” he said quietly. “It’ll be no problem to take you home first.”

They were standing close, their bodies more casual than intimate, and she knew full well what was between them was business. Yet, the thought of again sitting beside him in the close confines of his car sent a pool of heat spreading through her belly that made her legs go weak.

That heated weakness had her remembering how she’d succumbed so easily to another man’s touch. How a twin flood of need and desire had swept her away until she’d nearly drowned. How she’d hurt when she discovered the truth about the man she’d known next to nothing about when they’d rushed into marriage. How easily he’d betrayed her trust.

Never again, she reminded herself. She’d resolved a long time ago that logic—not emotion—would guide her on her search for her soul mate.

Right now, logic told her to run as far away from Jake Ford as possible.

“Thanks,” she said, taking a step backward toward her Jaguar. Then another. “I can drive myself.”

Chapter 3

“Yeah, yeah,” Jake said into the phone the following morning as he rocked back in his city-issue desk chair. “Cárdenas’s girlfriend didn’t show last night at that apartment building like you told me she would. You know what that means, Julio?”

“What?”

“You gave me bad information.”

“Look, man—”

“No, you look. Cárdenas shot a seven-year-old boy just for standing on a street corner. His girlfriend can make him for the homicide. I want her.”

“She got wind you’re looking for her, so she’s lying low.”

“Not low enough so you can’t sniff her out,” Jake countered. “I told you, you want my help with that warrant hanging over your head, you’ll get me a line on where I can find her. Tonight.”

Jake slammed down the receiver on a curse. Almost immediately, the phone rang. He snagged it up, checking the clock above the assignment board where grease-penciled letters displayed each homicide team’s working cases. Nine-o-five. He needed to be at Ormiston’s office when it opened at ten, and he hoped this was the call from the M.E. he’d been waiting on.

It was.

“I just finished the autopsy on Phillip Ormiston.” The deep timbre of Dr. John McClandess’s voice boomed across the line. Jake pictured the man eternally garbed in a white lab coat, his gaunt face sharpened to the bone, black eyes vibrant, gray hair combed back from the temples. “My assistant left a note saying you wanted me to call with my preliminary findings.”

“That’s right.” With his desk in its usual state of avalanche, Jake had to dig to unearth a pad and pen. “So, Doc, do we have a healthy man who dropped dead of natural causes?”

“We do not. As you said, the victim was healthy. He didn’t have a heart attack. Didn’t suffer an aneurism or a stroke. I have ruled out natural death as the cause.”

Jake tensed. “Was it something he ate?”

“You’re referring to the muffins, which my assistant mentioned in his report.”

“Right.” Jake pictured again the stunned disbelief that had settled in Nicole’s blue eyes when she realized where his line of questioning about the muffins she’d sent Ormiston was headed. That look had haunted him throughout the night.

“I see in the report that you’ve sent the muffins to Sky Milano in your forensics lab. A chemical analysis needs to be run just to be sure, but I doubt Sky will find anything suspect.”

“Good.” Jake didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until the word came out in a hiss. “So, what did kill Ormiston?”

“I found a minute puncture on the right side of his neck,” McClandess answered. “He was given an injection, Sergeant. Of what, we won’t know until the toxicology results come back. Whatever substance he was injected with caused the muscles necessary for respiration to shut down. Official cause of death is respiratory paralysis.”

Jake’s eyes narrowed. “So, the guy suffocated?”

“Basically, yes.”

“You got any idea what it was someone pumped into Ormiston?”

“It’s conjecture at this point. Certain drugs could bring on that kind of paralysis. A few poisons come to mind, too, all undetectable except by chemical analysis.”

“How fast can you get the tox test results to me?”

“A week.”

“That’s too long, Doc.”

McClandess sighed. “I’ll put a rush on the tests, but I can’t promise anything. Our lab is as backlogged as OCPD’s.”

“Yeah.” While his mind cataloged the steps he needed to take to get the Ormiston investigation rolling, Jake rubbed his gritty eyes, then glanced at the tidy desk that butted against the front of his. Whitney had a few days to go on her honeymoon. He hoped to hell she was enjoying herself.

“Okay, Doc, what’s your best guess on time of death?”

“The air-conditioning in the house was on a low setting. The victim was lying on a marble floor, which cooled his body at a faster rate than normal. I estimate Ormiston had been dead about five hours before he was found, give or take an hour.”

Jake slashed notes across the pad. He knew that establishing time of death was more elusive than most people thought. It couldn’t be pinned down exactly unless the death was witnessed or the victim’s Timex stopped ticking during the crime.

“So, you’re saying the killer showed up at Ormiston’s house between four and six yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes.”

Jake tapped the end of his pen against the notepad. They hadn’t found an appointment book at Ormiston’s house to indicate he had anything scheduled yesterday afternoon. Jake hoped his luck would change when he got to Ormiston’s office.

After checking a few more facts with the M.E., Jake hung up, eased back in his chair and gave an idle glance around the office.

At this time of the morning, most of his co-workers were out on calls, doing follow-ups or cooling their heels in court. Only two other cops—Grant Pierce and his partner, Elizabeth Scott, were at their desks. Scott, an expert on statement analysis, had replaced Pierce’s mentor, Sam Rogers, who’d died of a heart attack. Jake made a mental note to ask Pierce how Scott was working out before he shifted his mind back to his case.

“Respiratory paralysis,” Jake muttered, his gaze settling on the notepad. “By injection.”

Nothing at the crime scene indicated the killer had gained entry other than by knocking on the front door. There had been no sign of a struggle. No defensive wounds on Ormiston’s hands to indicate he’d tried to protect himself. It was logical, then, to go with the assumption that the two knew each other, that Ormiston felt no immediate threat, even trusted his killer to some extent. Could be a family member, Jake mused. A friend. Maybe someone Ormiston knew on a more casual basis. Someone he’d dated?

Last night, the guard at Stonebridge had copied the log of every person and vehicle who’d gained access to the gated community in the past twenty-four hours. The only person logged in to see Ormiston was Nicole Taylor. That didn’t mean a lot, Jake acknowledged. The list didn’t cover people who Ormiston might have buzzed through the gate while the guard wasn’t around. It also didn’t list everyone who lived there, or the yard crews, housekeepers and other service workers who knew that month’s security code. And Jake knew that the killer could have parked his car outside of Stonebridge, scaled the seven-foot brick wall that surrounded the complex, then walked to Ormiston’s house. If that were the case, the killer had to be in good shape.

Maybe someone who owned a gym and played racquet-ball on a regular basis?

He opened his desk’s bottom drawer, hefted out the yellow pages and checked the address for Sebastian’s. Lifting a brow, he realized the gym shared space in the same building with Meet Your Match, Nicole’s dating service.