Joan Pickart - Body of Evidence

He gave her an irritated glance, but then looked back at Colin. “I’d be crazy to kill Franklin. He was the goose that laid the golden egg.”

“That goose, if you recall, wound up as dead as your partner. So did he want out? Did he want to put an end to your little scheme? Is that why you killed him?”

“I didn’t kill him. This is insane.”

“Insanity is overrated as a defense,” Darien said, letting her disdain show in her voice, knowing it would needle him, coming from her. “And by the way, your alibi didn’t hold up. Your assistant could only swear you were at your office until ten. Not late enough to save you, Desmond.”

Reicher looked at her as if he wished he could send her the way of the women he’d already sold into hell.

“Look, we know you and he were in on this slavery ring,” Colin said. “You’re going to go down for that. Which makes you the most likely suspect for the murder, too, unless you can give us a very good reason to go looking elsewhere.”

“The very good reason is I’m not a fool, Detective,” Reicher snapped at Colin. “I did not kill Franklin Gardner. And whatever else you think you’ve got, you will never be able to prove I did because it’s not true.”

“What’s bugging you?” Colin asked, judging by the crease between her brows that Darien wasn’t happy about something. “You did great with him.”

“Thank you,” she said, with that smile that he’d finally had to admit knocked him for a loop every time. It was so warm, so gentle, so…personal, that it was hard not to read too much into it.

“You earned it,” he said. “So what’s putting that furrow in your forehead?”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, something’s bugging me,” he said, and she looked at him quizzically. His mouth quirked wryly at one corner. “After all this, my gut isn’t cooperating.”

“What do you mean?”

He let out a compressed breath. “I believe him.”

Her forehead immediately cleared. “You do?”

“I know, I know, it’s crazy, but slime that he is, I don’t think he killed Gardner.”

“Neither do I.”

He blinked. “You don’t?”

“I believe him, too.”

“He had to have known killing Gardner would cause more trouble than it was worth.”

She nodded. “The only way I could reconcile it was if he killed him in an out-of-control rage, and…”

When she hesitated, he finished it for her. “And Desmond Reicher has never been that far out of control in his entire lifetime.”

“Exactly. He’s too cold, calculating. He would never act without figuring what it might cost him first.”

“Same conclusion I came to.” Colin sighed audibly. “I just don’t know where that leaves us.”

“At square one?” she suggested wearily.

“Well, not quite,” Colin reminded her gently. “We did just put a forced prostitution ring out of business.”

“Yes, we did. No way now Reicher could pick a new partner and start again, or try to carry on alone.”

“And when they trace the other end of the chain, we might just save some of those girls.”

She brightened at that. “I hadn’t thought of that. Now that would be worth it all and then some.”

“I thought you’d like that.”

“I do. But now what? And what if we’re wrong about him not killing Gardner?”

He shrugged. “He’ll still get turned over to the feds for the forced prostitution charges. That will hold him for a long time. More than long enough for us to keep turning over rocks and looking for anybody else that might crawl out.”

She yawned suddenly, then embarrassedly apologized. “Sorry. Guess it’s catching up with me.”

“We’ve been pushing pretty hard for days now, and it’s-” he glanced at his watch and was surprised himself “-it’s nearly eight. Let’s knock off, get some dinner and some sleep.”

“Food? Real food?”

“Honest. Then we’ll start fresh in the morning.”

“Early,” she said.

“Of course.”

He grinned at her, and got himself that smile again. He could get used to that, he thought. And before he could recoil from the danger of that thought, she was on her feet. She grabbed her coat and, seemingly without embarrassment, his hand, tugging.

“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t care where, as long as it’s food I didn’t cook on dishes I don’t have to wash.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to ignore the heat that shot through him at even her casual touch.

This could be a long night, he thought. In more ways than one.

She shouldn’t have had that second glass of wine, Darien decided too late. She didn’t drink often, didn’t like the feeling of being out of control, but tonight she’d been having trouble winding down and thought it might help. She needed sleep, after too long with too little, but her mind wouldn’t slow down. She knew too many cops went down that road too far to get back, so she was in little danger of following, but still, she could understand how it happened when you felt like this.

Right now, she felt full of good food and a bit buzzed. And it was not a bad feeling. But then, neither was sitting across the table from Colin Waters. She’d liked his looks before she’d ever spoken to him, but now that she’d spent hours and days on end with him, she liked him as a person as well. She liked the way he handled himself, the way he’d let her deal with Palmer, the way he’d subtly warned the man when things got out of line. She liked that he gave her a chance to prove herself before he passed judgment, and that he didn’t belittle her instincts, even though they weren’t honed with as much experience as he had.

And most of all, she liked the way she felt when he looked at her with approval in those amber-gold eyes.

“Thank you,” she said suddenly.

“For what?” he asked, clearly surprised by the out-of-the-blue gratitude.

“For not making this harder than it had to be for me. I knew there was going to be a certain amount of resentment to deal with. I’m grateful to you for not being part of that.”

“Even if I had been,” he said, “I’d be over it by now. You do your job, you give it full effort, and you know when to back off and learn. That’s all I ask from a new partner.”

This reminded her of something she’d been wanting to know. “Your former partner retired?”

He nodded. “Sam had thirty years on. He taught me most of what I know.” He grinned. “Sometimes, he just let me learn the hard way. He called it tough love.”

“Sounds like quite a character.”

“He was one of the best. Before he left, I tried to thank him for all he’d done. He said the best thanks I could give him would be to pass it on. That way he’d feel he didn’t do those thirty years just for a paycheck.”

“I’ll have to look him up and thank him some day.”

“He’d appreciate that.”

A few minutes passed as the check came, Colin insisted on paying, saying she could pick up next time. The idea that there would be a next time, and conceivably a next and a next, both thrilled and frightened her. She could so easily get into trouble with this man, and trouble was just what she didn’t need now, on a new job that was already hazardous enough, in too many ways to count.

And then he looked up, caught her staring at him, no doubt with everything she was thinking showing plainly on her face.

“This way lies trouble,” he said softly. “For both of us.”

She didn’t, couldn’t, pretend to misunderstand. “I know.”

“Are we going anyway?”

“Do you want to?”

“I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “I hate being a cliché.”

She knew he meant the cliché of cop partners falling for each other. She’d had the same thought herself more than once since they’d started working together.