Sandra Marton - Ring Of Deception

Still, he went back.

There was something about the beauty of the place, the cool green of the forest, the thunder of the ocean on the rocks, the piercing blue of the sky, that drew him. A tribal elder had once told him that no matter how you tried to deny it, ancestral memories beat forever in your blood . . . even if that blood was half white.

Or maybe it was because, sometimes, just being where he’d grown up could evoke memories of his mother, how it had been when he was a little kid and she was alive.

She’d been a good mother. Warm. Loving. Devoted. He was sure she’d have defended him from harm, real or imagined, every bit as fiercely as the Douglas woman had defended her kid this morning.

Abby Douglas was some piece of work. No question about it, she’d have taken him apart if she’d had to. Well, not really, but she’d have tried.

Luke drank down the last of his coffee.

Was it fear of the predators who seemed to roam the streets of towns and cities, preying on the innocent, that had made Abby come at him as she had?

That kind of fear was valid. It was a new, terrible reality in American life, but somehow he had the feeling there’d been more behind Abby’s reaction than a concern that he was a child molester. He thought again about that look he’d seen in her eyes, the set to her mouth that suggested she’d been expecting trouble to come looking for her and the kid, and that she’d been expecting it for quite a while.

Sure, he had nothing to base that observation on, but he’d been a cop for too long to discount intuition, a sort of sixth sense you developed after a few years on the job.

His told him there was more to the Douglas woman’s response than met the eye.

He’d have to check it out. He’d have to check out Abby Douglas, anyway, now that he knew she worked in the Emerald City Jewelry Exchange.

Damn.

Luke sat up straight, aimed the empty cup at the trash can near Katherine Kinard’s desk, then smiled when he sank the basket, stopped smiling when he remembered the director’s words as she’d watched him setting up his stuff.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you spy on people,” she’d said with all the righteous indignation of a civilian who wanted safe streets but didn’t want to know how cops kept them that way.

What would Abby Douglas think if she knew he was a cop? Would she look on him as a necessary evil, the way Kinard had? Or would she see him as a sexy knight standing between her and all that was bad in the world.

Lots of women did.

He shut his eyes and thought about their first meeting.

This morning, he’d imagined she wasn’t his type. How could he have thought that? She was definitely his type. Curvy. Fiery. She smelled good, too. He’d noticed when she’d come at him like a tiger. She smelled of sunshine. In a city like Seattle, that was one very appealing scent.

If things were different, if he wasn’t here to do a job, if she was just a woman he’d met somewhere . . .

Except, she wasn’t.

Luke sat up straight, opened his eyes and put them to better use by leaning forward and peering through the lens of the miniature camera, a tiny marvel of silicone chips hidden inside what looked like a perfectly normal box of nails he’d stood in just the right place on the windowsill . . .

“Whatcha doin’?”

Luke jerked his head back so fast he slammed it on the window frame. A little boy stood in the doorway, one finger jammed up his nose.

How many kids were in this building? Fifty? A hundred? A million, easy, and every last one of them seemed determined to find his or her way in here.

“I’m working,” Luke said shortly, and reached for a tape measure.

“Are you Katherine’s husband?”

Luke shot the kid a look. “No.”

“Are you her boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Are you Emily’s daddy?”

“Am I . . . No, I’m not. Why would you think I was?”

“‘Cause she’s tellin’ everybody you’re big and brave and smart.”

Luke gave a weary sigh. “Don’t you have a place you’re supposed to be, kid? Isn’t it juice time, or milk time, or bathroom time?”

At first, he’d been more polite to the wanderers who drifted in to see him. They asked questions like, where were the apples? The chalk? The Scaredy Cat Scooby-Doo doll—whatever in God’s name that was. His answers had ranged from “What?” to “I don’t know,” and back again.

After a while, he’d stopped answering at all. Maybe if he pretended the munchkins weren’t there, they wouldn’t be.

It was a clever idea, but it hadn’t worked. This kid was living proof of that.

Luke flashed him another look. “Did you ever hear of a handkerchief?”

The kid yanked his finger from his nose, checked it for signs of life, then hid his hand behind his back.

“Emily thinks you’re nice, but I don’t.”

Well, at least he’d made a good impression on somebody.

“I’d be nicer if you took a tissue from that box on Ms. Kinard’s desk and used it.”

The boy shuffled his feet. Then, to Luke’s surprise, he edged over to the desk and plucked what looked like most of the tissues from the box.

“Her name’s Katherine.”

The kid wiped his finger on the tissues, dug around in his nose a little, then dropped the mass of paper in the trash.

“Emily says you’re a carpenter.”

“She’s right.” Luke measured the wall, marked off a couple of spots. “That’s what I am.”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Working,” Luke said irritably. “I just told you . . . ”

He paused. Was that a different munchkin voice? He looked around and saw that it was. The first kid had been joined by another. This one had a smear of jelly on his chin and wore pants that sagged in the seat.

“Yuck,” the nose-picker said, and took off.

Yuck? Luke frowned. Surely a case of the pot calling the kettle black . . . except the new kid shuffled forward, and Luke’s nostrils crinkled as he caught a whiff of something.

He had the sudden unhappy feeling he knew the reason those pants were so saggy.

“I gotta go potty.”

“Right.” Luke stood up. “Well, that’s not my problem. Where’s your teacher?”

“I gotta go now,” the boy said, and jiggled from one foot to the other.

Luke muttered something. He put down his tape measure, grabbed the kid’s hand and marched him out of the office.

“Hello,” he called to the world in general.

“Luke?” Katherine Kinard came quickly toward him. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for help. This kid—”

“The children are not your responsibility.”

“Damned right, they aren’t.”

“Your language . . . ”

“Maybe you want to discuss my language later. Or would you rather do it now, while this kid poops all over your floor?”

Katherine’s eyes widened. “Joshua,” she said, “do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“Uh-uh. Not anymore.”

Luke laughed. He couldn’t help it. Katherine gave him a baleful look and held out her hand.

“Come with me, Joshua. I’ll take you to the toilet and then we’ll find your play group.”

“‘Kay.”

“Mr. Sloan, wait in my office for me, please.”

The “please” changed nothing. The words were an order. Luke thought of telling the director what she could do with her orders, but he knew that would be a mistake. He needed her cooperation for however long he was going to be here. So he kept his mouth shut, strolled back to the office and settled a hip against the desk.

The lady wanted to talk? Fine. So did he. By the time she returned minutes later, he was more than ready.

“Ms. Kinard.”

“Mr. Sloan.”

Katherine closed the door, clearly a sign she meant business.