Kara Lennox - For Just Cause

“He wouldn’t have shot us,” Claudia said. “I could see it in his face. It was all bravado, an empty threat. Still…”

Billy wasn’t so sure.

“He would have been justified, you know,” Claudia continued. “We practically committed a home invasion. It’s legal to protect your domicile with deadly force.”

“It all turned out okay.”

She turned toward him, suddenly fierce. “Don’t ever do that again. Not when I’m along for the ride.”

“Now you see why I didn’t want you to come with me?”

“You shouldn’t be allowed to roam around loose without a handler. You’re dangerous.” She took a deep breath, started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Angie was lying.”

“No kidding. I don’t have to be a body language expert to figure that out. Maybe she did kill her father and frame her mother. She’s clearly a sociopath.”

“No, not a sociopath. Sociopaths are better liars.” She said this with such assurance, it made Billy wonder if she had more than just clinical knowledge to back up her claim.

“Still, she’s a bad seed,” he said.

“I’ll agree with you there. Not a pleasant person.” Claudia paused, weighing her words. “She didn’t kill her father—she was telling the truth about that. But she was definitely hiding something. Maybe it’s just her drug use, but maybe it’s something else.”

“If I could get her in an interrogation room, I could break her. Your body language tricks only take us so far. A confession would be a whole lot more useful.”

“Can we get her arrested?”

Billy thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Doubtful. If we’d seen any obvious evidence of drugs sitting around, we could call the cops and have her hauled in. But we didn’t.”

“She’s stealing from her father’s estate.”

“Unless Theresa really did give her permission to sell the stuff. If she’s mad at her sister, she might have.”

“She didn’t. I’d bet my career on it.”

Billy wasn’t so sure, and the police wouldn’t take Claudia’s word for it.

“Let’s go talk to Theresa and see what she knows about the estate, or old coins, or whatever.” Claudia seemed recovered now from her fright. The pink had returned to her cheeks, and she had the gleam of excitement in her eyes. Billy knew that gleam. She was on the hunt.

He glanced at his watch. “I should get back to the office.”

Her shoulders slumped with disappointment. “It’s your call.”

He grinned. “I’m kidding. I am dying to find those coins now.”

“Damn it, Billy.”

“What? Why are you mad?”

They were still in the Pecan Grove subdivision; Claudia had been turning on streets randomly. Now she pulled over to the curb again and reached for her Day-Timer, flipping pages of her notes. “I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at me for not catching on that you were teasing. It should be child’s play. Ah, here it is, Theresa’s address.” She plugged it into the GPS. “It’s not far, only a couple of miles.”

“It really bugs you that you can’t read me like a book, doesn’t it?”

“Frankly, yes.”

“Did it ever occur to you that some people don’t like to be read?”

“Only people who have things to hide.”

Maybe he did have things to hide. Or at least, things he didn’t want every random stranger to know about. Was that so wrong?

“So no one is allowed to have a secret?” he argued. “Everyone has to be completely up-front about every single part of their past, every single thought that goes through their heads?”

“I believe in honesty,” she said.

“You don’t have any secrets, then.”

She hesitated a beat. “No.”

“Nothing in your past that you’d prefer people didn’t know about.”

“I’m not ashamed about anything I’ve done.”

“How many men have you slept with?”

“Billy! Good God, that is none of your business.”

“Wow, must be a lot.”

“I don’t believe you! How could you even— That is so inappropriate—” She sputtered to a stop.

“I’m just trying to prove a point! Everyone is allowed privacy—in their homes and inside their heads.”

“And I say if it’s on their face or in their gestures or their posture, and I’m adept at figuring it out, then the information is fair game. Everyone reads expression and body language. I just happen to be better at it than most people.”

“And I’m better at not being read than most people. So that means I’m dishonest? Lady, where do you get off?”

“There, right there. That is the first honest emotion I’ve seen from you. You’re in perfect congruence—chest thrust forward, arms splayed to take up as much room as possible in a classic male territorial display—”

“Stop reading me!”

“And you just crossed the line from irritated to really angry.”

“Ya think? And yet you don’t stop.”

“I can’t help it.” Her eyes inexplicably filled with tears.

“Here,” he said gruffly. “Read this.” He leaned across the gear shift, pulled up the parking brake and kissed her.

* * *

CLAUDIA’S SENSES SWAM as she leaned in to the kiss. Billy might have thought he was unreadable, but she’d seen the kiss coming a split second before he’d carried through with his intention.

And she’d welcomed it.

That was just crazy; she was mad at Billy. They were having an argument. And yet she’d felt this insane need to connect with him. He’d shown her only a tiny sliver of his true self just then, the self he wanted to protect from her prying eyes, and all at once she’d felt simultaneously guilty and turned on.

She believed very few people had seen what she’d just seen—the real Billy Cantu. And she wanted more.

He reached up to tunnel his fingers through her hair, settling his hand on the back of her head so he could hold her a willing prisoner.

She inhaled sharply as his tongue invaded her mouth. Of course his kiss would not be tentative. Billy didn’t have a tentative bone in his body.

Or maybe he did; what the hell did she know? He was a mystery she desperately needed to unravel. How could she feel such a profound attraction to someone she didn’t even know?

Though she would have been happy to make out in the front seat of her car for the rest of the morning, Billy gradually pulled away, ending the kiss with a series of gentle nibbles. They separated, but only by an inch or two, and she studied his eyes, trying to figure out his motive here.

Was this a display of dominance? Or had he really wanted to kiss her?

His pupils were dilated. She thought she saw desire there, but maybe she was seeing only what she wanted to see.

“Can you read me now?” he demanded.

“No.” The word came out a whisper.

He released her and sat back in his seat, and she almost whimpered at the loss of his touch. “Good. ’Cause you’d probably slap me.”

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

“No. You need to be off balance once in a while. For your own good.”

He was wrong about that. She’d spent the first half of her life off center, shuffled into the care of one ambivalent adult after another, never sure if the new place would be a safe haven or a house of horrors.

Off balance wasn’t where she cared to be.

And yet…the excitement generated by her uncertainty felt good in a deeply visceral way.

She pulled herself together, straightened her hair, blotted away the smeared lipstick with a tissue and added fresh. Finally she got back to the business of driving, following the instructions of the by-now-impatient GPS.

“Destination on the left,” the bland voice informed them as Claudia cruised slowly past.