Kara Lennox - One-Night Alibi

“You better do what you’re told,” the man growled. He was shoving something into Jazz’s hands.

“What the hell are you doing? Not here.” She glanced over, saw Hudson and went pale, though her hand did reflexively close over what Hudson could now see was a thick wad of folded bills.

“Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you.” The man grabbed her chin and swiveled her head, forcing her to face him.

Hudson sighed. He set the bag with his cold medicine on the hood of his car and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. In a matter of seconds, he had summoned backup.

Acutely aware of the fact he was unarmed, he approached the confrontation. “Excuse me, is there a problem here?”

“Mind your own business,” the man barked. Then he saw the badge Hudson had casually slipped out of his pocket.

That was when Jazz cut and run. She let go of the money in her hand, and several twenties fluttered to the ground.

“Hey!” The man took a couple of steps in the direction Jazz was fleeing, sprinting faster than a girl in four-inch heels ought to be able to run, but Hudson snagged the man’s arm.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to put your hands on this wall, here.”

“What for?” he asked haughtily.

“I’m arresting you for solicitation of a prostitute.”

“Are you out of your mind? Do you know who I am?”

Great. Another entitled rich guy who thought he deserved a pass because he wore a suit and had a family.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” With that he pushed the uncooperative suspect against the wall. “Now put your hands against the wall and spread ’em. Unless you want me to add resisting arrest to the charges. You have the right to remain silent...”

As Hudson continued the Miranda warning, the man finally complied, but not silently. “You are going to be very sorry. I’ll have your badge.”

“No, you won’t,” Hudson said in a bored voice. “You’ll be too busy hiring a lawyer and trying to hide your little indiscretions from your wife and your boss and your golf buddies.”

“I was not paying that girl for sex!”

“Those twenty-dollar bills all over the ground say differently. Oh, and by the way, you’re overpaying. In addition to being a dirtbag, you’re a sap.”

Hudson probably shouldn’t have added that last part. Baiting a suspect who was not cuffed was on that list of things cops learned not to do. But Hudson was really sick and really annoyed that he was probably going to have to spend his morning filling out a report.

Without warning, the man swiveled around and took a swing at Hudson. It was a clumsy punch, but the man had some heft, and a strength born of outrage on his side. His fist landed in Hudson’s solar plexus.

Then the idiot made a break for his car.

Hudson didn’t think—he just reacted. He lit out after the man, tackling him in the parking lot before he’d got ten steps. They both went down, hard.

A Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department squad car pulled into the parking lot just then and came to a stop mere feet from Hudson and his suspect, who was still struggling. Deputy Allison Kramer got out, shook her head, then held out a pair of cuffs.

“Need some of these?”

Hudson took them without comment, flipped the man onto his stomach and cuffed him, then hauled him to his feet with Allison’s help. The man’s face was now scraped and bloody, his nose possibly broken. He’d lost his hat and sunglasses in the scuffle.

“Holy crap,” Allison said.

“He bolted,” Hudson said in his defense, thinking she was reacting to the suspect’s condition.

“No, it’s not that. Do you know who this guy is?”

“Franklin Mandalay III,” the suspect replied haughtily. “Young lady, I want to file a formal charge of assault. I was minding my own business when this scruffy, disreputable individual attacked me. I was committing no crime. I had no weapon—”

“Save it,” Hudson said impatiently. “Allison, I’ll meet you at the station.”

But despite his best attempt at indifference to the name Franklin Mandalay, Hudson’s stomach felt queasy. If he had to get into a scuffle with a suspect, why did it have to be one of the most influential attorneys in Houston? Especially since his only witness had flown the coop.

CHAPTER ONE

HE ARRIVED LATE to the wedding reception, but that was par for the course for Hudson Vale. He would probably be late to his own wedding, in the unlikely event he ever got married.

A young valet with frizzy brown hair and big black glasses took the keys to his Z, whistling in appreciation. “Awesome. You restore it yourself?”

“Every square inch.”

Ordinarily, Hudson took pleasure when someone complimented his ride. But these days, it was hard to take pride in anything. He’d been officially stripped of the one thing he was really proud of. Without the gun and the badge, he was just another guy. No, not just another guy. Another suspect. Scum, in other words.

One week after his scuffle with Franklin Mandalay, Internal Affairs was still investigating.

Hudson headed for the massive front door of Daniel Logan’s River Oaks mansion, which looked like the manor house of an English village, not an oil billionaire’s home smack in the middle of Houston. He hadn’t really wanted to come to the wedding. He barely knew the bride, Daniel’s former assistant Jillian, and had only met her groom, Conner, once. But his friends at Project Justice had wangled him an invitation. They’d also made him promise to come, knowing he needed to get out of the house. Knowing he needed distraction.

Now he wished he hadn’t listened to them. He wasn’t fit company. He’d quickly pay his respects to the bride and groom, say hi to his friends, then make his escape, thereby convincing everyone he was doing okay.

Which he wasn’t.

The front door opened by itself, and a butler-type person gestured him inside a cavernous foyer every bit as opulent as Hudson had heard. A trickling fountain that would have been right at home in ancient Rome echoed against the marble floor and walls, and a stained-glass window cast colored bits of light like confetti over the far wall. From somewhere in the distance he heard faint strains of a country-and-western band, but this room was an oasis of quiet and dignity.

A plump young woman sat at an antique side table guarding the doorway leading to the rest of the house. She silently handed Hudson a pen adorned with a big white feather and pointed toward the guest book. The book was almost filled.

He smiled at the girl out of habit, because he always smiled at young women. She looked down and blushed. He wondered what her story was; had she been stuck behind the guest book because she was the awkward ugly duckling, or had she chosen this job because she wouldn’t then be forced to mingle?

Hudson felt a fleeting urge to ask her. But his insatiable curiosity about people—especially women—often got him into trouble he didn’t need.

Case in point: when he saw two people arguing in a parking lot, when he was sick and off duty, he could have looked the other way. But no, he just had to get involved. Not that he could see himself reacting any differently. He couldn’t stand to see a woman being bullied, and as a cop it was his job to uphold the law, on or off duty.

He bit his tongue and walked past the girl into a living room that could have housed a couple of Sherman tanks. A few people sat on plush white sofas and chairs in this serene room, talking in low tones, but live music beckoned from outdoors. A roving waiter with a tray of full champagne glasses offered Hudson his choice, but champagne wasn’t his deal, so he passed and headed through a Spanish-tiled solarium to the flagstone patio, where most of the guests had gathered to eat, drink and dance.