Stephanie Doyle - Suspect Lover

The silence above her was deafening.

Then finally he said, “I don’t know what to say to that.”

“I don’t need you to say you love me. But I think I need to know that someday you could.”

More silence. “I have to go.”

Caroline jerked her head up. “Go?” She hadn’t figured on that. Hadn’t guessed he might run.

He disappeared behind the partition that separated the bedroom from the master bath and closets and came back dressed in sweats, his feet halfway shoved into sneakers.

“I’m going to the office. I need to think.” He walked past her to the door, stopped and turned. “I never considered that I would hurt you. When I decided to do this.”

She smiled sadly. “Never thought that anyone would fall in love with you?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a problem. Isn’t it?”

He left and Caroline felt the air being sucked out of her with his departure. Maybe she’d been stupid to confront him. Maybe she should have given it more time before she pressed him.

But she wanted him. All of him. Unexpected, but there it was. And she knew, knew, that he felt something for her. He had to. He couldn’t touch her like he did and not be unaffected. But he was fighting it.

The important thing to remember was that this was only a skirmish in the war. Looking at it strategically, he hadn’t said he loved her. But he also hadn’t said that he couldn’t love her. Instead he had retreated.

A very un-Dominic-like thing to do she imagined. On some level she frightened him and that could only be possible if he was vulnerable. That was good.

Rolling back onto the bed she tugged the covers over her and willed herself to relax. Only a battle. Still a long way to go. When he came home they could talk again. This time without the yelling. Over time she would convince him that there were worse things than being loved by his wife.

And she would tell him that she wasn’t leaving.

She sensed that he needed to hear that. It had to be the first thing she said to him the next time she saw him. Everything depended on it.

“Are you looking at me funny?”

Lieutenant Mark Hernandez of the San Jose police force asked the uniformed officer standing next to him in Dominic Santos’s fancy top-floor office.

Mark had been staring out the window overlooking the city, wondering why a guy who had all of this would have done what he’d done. His disgust at the waste must have shown on his lean angular face because he could have sworn that the officer was looking at him strangely.

“No, sir.”

Mark leaned toward the man who was still more kid than cop. He checked his surroundings, then asked in a low tone, “You got a cigarette?”

“You quit, sir.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

“No, sir.”

“No, you don’t have a cigarette?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, now you’re messing with me.”

“I’m really not, sir.”

In dire need of a single puff of smoke, Mark walked out of the office and surveyed the lobby, hoping to find someone whom he hadn’t expressly forbidden to give him a cigarette. Instead he spotted the secretary who was still sitting behind her desk, apparently waiting for her boss to come walking down the hall any minute.

“We’re done questioning you. You’re free to go.”

She looked at him, her face expressionless. “I work here.”

“Trust me when I tell you your boss won’t notice your absence.”

“Mr. Santos wouldn’t do what you think he did.”

A loyal employee. It wasn’t such a bad quality. “Go home. Serena, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“He’s not coming in today.”

Her face fell and it seemed as if his words had finally registered. She pulled her purse out of a drawer and headed for the elevators. The doors slid open and as Serena stepped into the elevator, another woman got off.

She looked first to her right, then to her left as if searching for the appropriate direction to take. Not an employee.

She spotted him and headed his way with purpose.

She was short with dark messy hair that made her look like a pixie who had recently rolled out of bed. When she stopped in front of him the top of her head barely met his chin even though she was wearing what looked to be three-inch-high black pumps.

“You got a cigarette?”

The question caught her off guard. Then she assessed him. “Just quit, huh?”

“Okay, now you’re messing with me.”

“Quit years ago. The patch helped.”

He pushed up the sleeve of his already-rolled-up Oxford shirt. On his upper arm was what looked to be a large Band-Aid.

“Give it time.”

“Right. Oh, by the way, I’m police Lieutenant Mark Hernandez. I’m investigating a homicide. And you are?”

The woman reached into the small purse that hung over her shoulder and pulled out a square wallet Mark recognized instantly as identification.

“Special Agent Eleanor Rodgers. FBI.”

She flipped open the wallet for him to see.

He studied it and saw that it was legit. “Don’t you guys always come in twos?”

“You’ve been watching too many movies. What’s the situation?”

“The situation is that Denny Haskell, partner and senior programmer, is dead. Murdered. His car was urged off a cliff where it burst into flames. Dominic Santos, another partner and CEO, is missing. The wife hasn’t seen him since the night before last. The only person we know he talked to was his vice-president, Steven Ford. He called Santos here at his office yesterday morning to tell him about Haskell. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since. I’ve got an APB out on him but so far no luck.”

“You think he did it?”

Mark shrugged his shoulders. “I sure would like to talk to him about it. What’s the FBI’s interest in this?”

“The company is about to be awarded a prominent government contract to supply encryption software for the electronic data transmission of medical claims.”

“Huh?”

“Washington was going to give Santos tax dollars. A lot of them.”

“Checking up on the investment, then,” Hernandez decided.

“Denny Haskell was Encrypton’s head programmer. The government needs to know what’s going to happen next. I’ve been sent to monitor the investigation and report back to my superiors. I’m not here to interfere.”

“Encrypton,” Mark said. “Isn’t that where the super-hero is from?”

“That’s Krypton.”

“Right. Right.” Like he didn’t know where the super-hero was from. But he figured with the FBI it was always best to play the part of the local yokel. The less credit she gave him, the more obvious she might be regarding her motives. Besides, he knew with the FBI that there was usually more to the story. “You found out about this pretty quick. That identification says D.C.”

She hesitated for just a beat. “Haskell’s death was picked up on the wire yesterday. I was told to come out here immediately and check it out. I wasn’t aware that Mr. Santos was missing until just now.”

“Why you? I mean, why not some S.A. from the L.A. or San Francisco office?”

“I have a particular talent.”

He lifted his brow. “That sounds interesting.”

She smirked and he sensed he gave away his lurid thoughts. But really, a pixie with a particular talent? There was no way he wasn’t going there.

“But you don’t smoke, so sadly you’re no good to me. Also, you’ve got something on your nose,” he told her brushing the right side of his own nose.

She swiped at it, but the tiny red mark remained.

The elevator door dinged and this time a haggard-looking guy, tall, blond, typical California, got off. Hernandez had already spoken to him. The third partner.