Mariah Stewart - Last Look

“Guess you’re on your own from here on out.”

“Not necessarily.”

“If my name is out there, it’s out there. Mancini can’t be too happy about that.”

“John doesn’t know yet. I thought I’d wait until the morning to call in.” He locked his hands in front of her and just let her lean. It felt solid and right, letting her rest against his chest, and he felt her relax. He realized he’d wanted his hands on her from the moment he’d first seen her on the dock that first day.

He wished he didn’t need sleep as much as he did.

“I’m wondering if I shouldn’t just leave tomorrow instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop,” she said, thinking aloud.

“Let’s just wait and see. There’s a chance the reporter’s already forgotten about you.”

“If he’s anything like the reporters I know in Florida, that’s one slim chance.”

She turned to say something else, lifting her face to his. Her mouth was so close, so pretty. He leaned toward her just as his cell phone rang.

He glanced at the clock and frowned. It was ten minutes after one in the morning. He eased her forward so that he could get up to retrieve the phone which he’d left on the desk.

“Shields.”

He listened without saying a word.

“But-all right. Yes, I understand.” He closed the phone. To Dorsey he said, “There’s something John wants me to check for him. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He averted his eyes and grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair. “Thanks for the pizza and beer. And the conversation. And the company.”

He went to the door and stopped. “Come lock up after I leave.”

“I will.” She got up off the bed and followed him, her eyes on his face. “Are you going to give me a hint?”

“It’s nothing, no big deal,” he told her. “Just something John wanted me to check into for him.”

He smiled and paused, his hand on the door handle. He turned and leaned over just a bit and kissed her lightly on the mouth, a kiss meant to promise something more some other time. Her arms wound around his neck and pulled him close, demanding he kiss her for real, her mouth insistent and needy. He met her demand, his hands on either side of her face, and felt the heat rise between them. He broke away slowly, with the greatest reluctance, and kissed a trail from her lips to her chin.

He sensed she was waiting for him to say something more, to give some explanation, but he could not. Instead he held her at arms length and merely repeated, “Lock up.”

He blew out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding and walked out the door, closing it behind him. He hadn’t been able to look at her face, didn’t want to see the questions he’d find there. There was nothing he could have said, no way he could have told her what he’d just heard.

He walked quickly in the general direction of his room. He stood in the shadows for a moment, scanning the parking lot for news vans or stubborn reporters who might have hung around hoping for some action. When he was satisfied there was no one there to follow him, he walked to his car, got in, and drove off into the night.

Something was going on, and she was being kept out of it. After they kissed-after that amazing kiss-Andrew had bolted out of her room as if he’d been shot. What the hell was up with that?

That had been the last thought in her mind when she’d finally fallen asleep the night before, and the first thought she’d had when she’d awakened the next morning. It rankled. One minute he was kissing her like she hadn’t been kissed in a long time, the next, outta there.

She’d expected, sooner or later, to be cut out of the action. She’d accepted that if her identity became known, she’d back out gracefully. That had been understood from the start, and she had no problem with that.

The problem was that she knew her identity as Matt Ranieri’s daughter was still under wraps. Sure, there was some danger of it coming out, what with Chief Bowden giving a reporter enough to figure things out with, if he were so inclined. But she hadn’t heard anyone say it. It wasn’t on the morning news. And if no one was saying it aloud, the story wasn’t out there yet. Which meant she was being cut out of the investigation for another reason. And that had not been part of her agreement.

The question had nagged at her all night. What was going on, and why hadn’t she been brought into it?

She’d called Andrew’s cell phone twice already without a response. The first time she figured he might be in the shower, the second time had been within the last five minutes. Where was he?

She took a quick shower and towel-dried her hair. Since she wasn’t working and could wear whatever she pleased, she dressed in a short jean skirt and a tank top. She brushed her hair out while she watched one of the network morning shows. There was a segment on kiddie-pool safety, followed by an interview with a popular romance novelist who was on tour with her latest book. When the show went to a commercial, Dorsey switched off the TV and tossed the hairbrush into her suitcase.

Dorsey tied back her hair, slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops, and grabbed her purse. She’d stop at Andrew’s room and see if he wanted to join her for breakfast. Assuming, of course, that he was there.

Which he was not, she discovered when she knocked on his door. She glanced around the parking lot and realized his car was gone.

Damn, she thought. He’s not back yet. Where the hell did he go?

She fished the keys from the bottom of her bag as she walked to the car. The least he could have done was given her a heads-up that he wasn’t coming back.

It was obvious there’d been something on the tip of his tongue before he’d left her room the night before, something that had nothing to do with the electricity that had passed between them when he’d kissed her. It had something to do with the call from John, any idiot could figure that out.

“It was nothing,” he’d said.

Right. At one in the morning? Your boss calls at 1 A.M. and it’s nothing? Who did Andrew think he was kidding?

Dorsey drove to the diner she’d seen a few blocks from the motel on the way into Hatton and took a seat at the counter. She wanted a real breakfast, one with toast and eggs and bacon and home fries-not grits, she specified to the waitress who took her order-and coffee.

While she waited for her food, Dorsey tried again to reach her father without success and was forced to leave another message. “This is your daughter. Please call me as soon as you get this message.”

What the hell was it with the men in her life today?

Not that Andrew was a “man in her life,” she reminded herself.

When she was alone, she could admit to herself she liked him a lot more than she’d expected to. More than she really wanted to. Her fingers traced the path his lips had taken the night before, from her mouth to her chin. Best not to dwell on that. She recalled in excruciating detail what happened the last time she got involved with someone she worked with. Of course, she apparently wasn’t working with Andrew, not anymore.

She finished her breakfast and paid her bill, then walked outside from the cool air-conditioned diner into the muggy morning. What to do with herself now, was the question.

She drove back past the motel to see if Andrew had returned, but he had not. She drove past the Randalls’ house on Sylvan to see if anything was going on there, but all appeared quiet. She swung around to Paula Rose’s street and drove slowly past the church. Kids were gathering outside, with backpacks over their shoulders, and coolers at their feet. Judging by the number of adults who had gathered around the church van, there was some sort of picnic or outing planned. She slowed again as Paula Rose came out of the back of her house and walked across the parking lot to the church next door. She chatted with the maintenance man Dorsey and Andrew had spoken with.