Ridley Pearson - Pied Piper

The bounce in his step had little to do with the promise of a nooner, and everything to do with a light flutter in his chest. He didn’t tire of this new woman in his life, didn’t look for ways out of their next encounter. As unlikely a match as he might have ever imagined, he nonetheless felt an attachment, a profound desire, a need, to spend increasing amounts of time with her. The hotel rendezvous was getting old; he wanted to share a bed, a sunrise, a shower, a cup of coffee. He wanted to test himself, to see how real or unreal these feelings actually were. He believed he wanted a relationship with her-an unthinkable thought given his history. He felt terrified to mention this change in himself, partly because she remained always at an arm’s length. He hoped like hell that wasn’t part of his attraction.

He rode the elevator to the seventh floor wondering if he was in control or on a leash, light headed and slightly afraid. The idea of sleeping with the teacher had always appealed to him-he had done so more than once-but his current arrangement threatened his career, not just an A in math.

He knocked sharply, already aroused by expectation. The door cracked open, and by the time he stepped inside, she was nothing more than a terry cloth robe walking away toward the bed. Then the robe fell away as LaMoia helped the door shut and threw the security bar in place. He turned to face a black teddy overflowing out the top with soft flesh, and tight and bulging where her legs met.

He hurried out of his crisply pressed jeans. Every square inch of her was darkly tanned, no bikini line whatsoever as she unsnapped the teddy in three short pops.

“Leave it,” he said. She enjoyed instruction.

“Come and get it,” she offered, “though not necessarily in that order.” She grinned behind eyes flashing with excitement.

In the bedroom, Sheila Hill put rank aside and willingly took orders.

The resulting forty minutes of athletics left the thick scent of woman in the air and a sheen on their skin, the bedding off the mattress and Sheila Hill still on all fours, her hands holding loosely to the headboard, her glistening back heaving from her panting.

“Oh, God,” she said deliciously, “you’re going to kill me if we keep this up.”

“It would be more fun if we didn’t have to leave,” he risked saying. “If we could wake up at three in the morning and go again.”

“Not this lifetime,” she quipped. “I like my job. Besides,” she added, “my bed never would have made it through that.” She let go the headboard and slouched down so that her head found the pillow but her buttocks remained hoisted high in the air.

With her he found himself in a nearly constant state of arousal. He felt seventeen again.

She lowered herself and stretched out, and he wished she would have stayed like that a little longer.

“They can’t dictate what we do in our off hours,” he reminded.

“One of us would be off the task force in a heartbeat. Flemming would see to that. Count on it. It would look wrong, and it would damage both of us. We’ve been over this. God …,” she moaned. “Get me a cigarette, would you?”

He obeyed, though he wondered why. No woman had ever ordered him about.

“And the lighter,” she reminded.

He didn’t like the smoking, but he never said anything. He climbed off the bed and found her purse and delivered the cigarettes and lighter. She rolled over, her upper-chest rash red and shiny with sweat, lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. “Okay, fun is fun, and that was fun! But we’ve got work to do.” She worked the cigarette down hungrily, arched her back and lifted her pelvis. “God, you’re something,” she whispered through the smoke.

“A dinner over at your place, early to bed but not to sleep. Who’s going to know?”

“We start that, and it won’t stop.”

“So?” he complained. “What’s wrong with that?”

She said soberly, “We agreed up front about all this, John.”

“Things change.”

“This hasn’t. We’re attracted to each other. We enjoy each other’s company. The sex is out of this world-and I mean that. But we’re both Crimes Against Persons, we’re both on the task force; that’s conflict of interest. That’s a no-no. We are not taking this to the next step. Not so long as the present situation exists.”

LaMoia felt a tightening in his throat and chest, and felt almost obliged to break something. “Bernie says the glass chips are automotive.”

She rolled up onto an elbow and cast a knee forward. She looked like a model to him despite a few extra pounds. He would never get tired of looking at her. He had tired so quickly of the others. She smiled coyly, “You got this when ?”

He gave her the answer required of him, “This morning, Captain.” She knew immediately that he had received the information ahead of yesterday’s four o’clock.

“Well, you little shit.” She grinned widely. “I love the way you operate, you rogue son-of-a-bitch. Have I told you that?”

He wanted a different statement of love from her, and the comment stung him in a way she wouldn’t understand.

“The glass is from a side window, not the windshield. They picked up some tiny lettering on one of the chips. Ironically, the Bureau may be able to help us trace the manufacturer.”

“Ford Taurus?”

“No.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“The pollen has been passed along to the botany department at the university for analysis. If Flemming finds out and grabs the sample, there’s not much we can do. The university needs federal money. The Bureau can make up all kinds of shit to justify taking the samples.”

“Flemming doesn’t need any justification. He’s going to do what he likes.” A seagull cried outside the window. LaMoia looked up to see a gray and white blur. A second echoing cry, farther away. He wondered about the Shotz baby and if she was crying too.

“Yeah, Flemming’s little speech,” she said to herself. “Got to respect him, though. Did you know that he worked that CEO in New Jersey found buried alive? Intelligence dug this up,” she said, meaning Boldt.

LaMoia could feel her nervousness. He didn’t want to operate in Flemming’s shadow any more than she did.

“Consulted Hale from the start of this-from San Diego on. They’d worked other kidnappings together. Didn’t bring Hale or Kalidja on until Portland, after he’d cleaned house a few times.” She added softly, “He meant what he said about walking right over us. But then again, he doesn’t know us.”

LaMoia had not seen her like this-Flemming had knocked the wind out of her, not an easy thing to do. “Hale bothers me,” he confessed. “He’s Flemming’s hit man. He’s the one that’s going to do the damage, if any’s done. Flemming keeps himself squeaky clean. Knows what he’s doing. Fraternity types were never my favorites.”

“Hale is ambitious. Tough. He’s married-the only one of the three of them who’s married. Three kids. He must feel these kidnappings as much as Boldt and I do. Yet Flemming’s the one who’s all passionate about the kids. Protecting his rank is more like it.”

“That’s not how it felt to me. He meant that shit.”

“Hale made a name for himself with the Bureau down in Texas by solving some border kidnappings-kids-Mexican fathers taking their kids away from Mom and back across the border. I agree that Hale’s the wild card. We keep an eye on him.”

“And Kalidja?” he asked, appreciating the information.

“Boldt couldn’t dig much up. Came out of the Washington Metropolitan Field Office. Background in analysis is about all that Boldt did find. That would imply she’s Flemming’s fact-checker. But she may be more than that: With her ties to Washington, Flemming buys himself a field agent with good contacts at headquarters. He gets a spy; a liaison. With the kind of heat he must be taking-”