Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

She was everything to Matt, as he was to her now. And so far the world was letting them be.

And it was … divine.

Chapter 44

Red Hot Mama

“Step into the light or I’ll shoot,” she barked out, although if he was armed he could have shot her anytime before this. That he hadn’t was promising.

The knife assailant was history, though.

“Now,” she said in the same brusque, mean-business tone. That didn’t mean her heart wasn’t pounding from the attack, the escaped perp, the new mystery.

He obliged.

Oh, my God.

Not Max Kinsella, at least, but the only other man capable of laughing at her when she had a Beretta aimed at his heart. Her eyes began to adjust to the bright headlights of the table lamps. If this man was an enemy, he was one who relished her discomfort more than her death.

“I like you even better in this outfit,” Dirty Larry said from the dark side of the living room. “You are a lady with more secrets than a Swiss bank account. Maybe now is the time to tell me some.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, just as brusque, even if a bit relieved.

“When a woman leads me on and then ditches me, I find out why. I’m a cop, Carmen. You can’t play me like a junior-high swain.”

She lowered her gun, and tried to calm her pulse.

The uplighting from the table lamps cast Larry Paddock’s face into a creepy, half-lit mask.

“So you’re really ticked?” she said.

“No.” He sat down in the chair. “I’m turned on. Always love a good chase. And curious.”

She edged nearer, the gun lowered but still clutched in both hands, although the knife wound was starting to throb now. “So you let a perp escape to get one up on me?”

“The fence is a cinch to scale. You know that; I know that. I’d just got in the front when that scuffle broke out in the hall. That was one gone breakin artist. Besides, I was more curious about why you were here than he was.”

Dirty Larry stood and came toward her. “And I was really curious about if you would actually deliver what you were promising tonight if whatever this was hadn’t been on your mind. So I really came here after you.”

His words and tone could have been sinister or sexy. Molina wasn’t sure which motive was scarier. She was sure her heart was still beating like the proverbial trip hammer and it should be slowing down by now.

Was it Dirty Larry or dirty tricks?

The two table lamps were beginning to spin around each other and the gun was sliding from her hands. She managed to push the safety on as the bright lights circled her head. That damn knife wound must have been longer and deeper than she’d thought.“Jesus,” she said, meaning the prayer.

“Christ!” she heard him say, meaning the swear word. And then she went to heaven.

Molina woke up, immediately aware that she’d passed out and not happy about it. If word about the “swooning lieutenant” got around the department it would be way worse than being outed as the “crooning lieutenant,” fourteen years of blood, sweat, and rank were cooked.

She was on her back.

Bad.

On a bed.

Worse.

On a strange bed.

Worst.

Maybe on Max Kinsella’s bed.

Unthinkable.

She focused slowly, ignoring the burning pain in her side and the ugly pull of adhesive tape along her ribs.

The nightstand lamp was blinding her, but she made out that old devil silhouette in a chair by the wall.

Dirty Larry.

He lifted a forefinger to catch her attention. It was hovering over an open cell phone.

“One button punched,” he said, “and the EMTs come to deal with your knife wound. You want?”

“No!”

“Okay, it’s your funeral. I don’t think the wound is that bad, but you should get better medical attention than me.”

Molina patted her side. Her turtleneck sweater was down and her yoga pants were up, holding on a long expanse of gauze and tape, but they certainly hadn’t been while she was out cold.

“You can carry a lot of dead weight,” she told him.

He chuckled. “More like drag, but you didn’t know the difference at the time. Whoever lives here has a hell of a lot of first aid stuff in the bathroom, which looks like the ones at the Luxor.”

“You mean like a fancy, dark tomb fit for a pharaoh?”

“Right.”

“Figures.”

“You know the resident?”

“Maybe ‘knew,’ maybe ‘ex-resident.’ A magician.”

“Yeah, that was a magician’s bathroom. It felt like being pent-up in one of those tricky disappearing boxes. So. How do you feel?”

“Still woozy.”

He lifted a glass of water. “Here’s some Tylenol. Sure don’t want to give you aspirin. Can you sit up to take it?”

“Sure,” she said, then tried. “Oof.”

He came over to pull her upright against the pillows. It hurt. “Sure you don’t want medical help?”

“Would you?”

“No.”

She took the pills and the water glass and choked down the three caplets. Then she swung her legs to the floor.

“You ready already?”

“I’ll have to be by tomorrow morning. Might as well be now.”

“What’s the deal here?” he asked. “This is the house I tailed our little former redhead to. Now I tail you here.”

“I thought the person who lived here might be my stalker. I decided to find out.”

“Who lived here?”

“A missing magician.”

“Isn’t that redundant?”

“Not in this case.”

“So who had broken in before you did?”

“I don’t know.” Molina put down the water glass. She wasn’t sure if her attacker had broken in before, or after, her. “Help me up and let’s go see.”

He came to pull her up. It got as near as close dancing, and he enjoyed that.

“You like having the upper hand, don’t you?” she said. “Always.” He leaned near and whispered in her ear, “I’ve seen London, I’ve seen France, I’ve seen—”

She laughed. “Shut up.” But she thought: Sinister, or sexy?Somehow that question seemed even more appropriate in Max Kinsella’s ex-house.

Because he was gone for good, one way or another; that she knew now, no matter the props still stored here.

Able to lurch around on her own power, she first visited the room across the hall from the closet where she’d hidden.

She paused in the doorway to aim her high-intensity flashlight over the huge piece of furniture looming against one wall, almost a room in itself.

“What the—?”

Larry ambled into the flashlight beam to eye it up close. “Shit! This is right up my alley.”

“What do you mean?” The flashlight illuminated a vivid brocade surface, fret-worked uprights, and a brocade canopy.

“Opium bed.” Her light caught his grin. “Now that’s a crib fit for taking one of your velvet gowns off in, Carmen.”

She ran the light over the massive outlines, grander and larger than a four-poster bed. A small flare in the pit of her stomach said he was right. Madre de Dios! What she didn’t need to deal with right now was a crazy UC guy for a lover. But she sensed something perversely sexy about getting it on with Larry in Max Kinsella’s abandoned digs, and Larry was picking up on that like a good cop should.

In fact, the place reeked of hidden sex. She was sure TempleBarr was a phantom of the erotic opera that had occurred in some of these over-the-top rooms. Now the rooms held a darker ambiance. Whoever had broken in tonight had broadcast a subtle, homicidal presence. And that wasn’t sexy, just sick.

She limped over to the wall of doors and jerked back the first of several mirrored sliding doors.

“Oh, my,” Larry breathed in her ear, having followed her. “Lions and tigers and bears have been busy in here.”