Frowning, she went through the photographs again, and then focused on the one that was taken on the morgue slab. There was a strange rash on the lower abdomen, a reddening of the skin, as if the victim had been sunburned—

As her cell went off, she answered it without looking at the number. “Carmichael.”

“Hello.”

The deep voice sent a burst of heat right through her core. Matthias.

For a split second she wondered how he’d gotten her number. But then she remembered that she’d given him her business card—and written the thing down.

“Well, good morning,” she said.

“How you doing?”

In her head, a Ping-Pong match started up between what Tony had told her in the car and what that kiss had felt like. Back and forth, back and forth—

“You there, Mels?”

“Yes.” She rubbed her eyes, and then had to stop because the bruised one didn’t appreciate the attention. “Sorry. I’m okay, how are you? Any more memories coming back?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.”

Mels straightened in her chair, her interest shifting, locking on. “Like what?”

“I don’t suppose your Nancy Drew would mind checking something out for me?”

“Absolutely. Tell me what you want to know.” As he spoke she took notes, writing down names, murmuring uh-huhs at the pauses. “Okay. This is no problem. Do you want me to call you back?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

There was a strange pause. “All right,” she said awkwardly. “So I’ll call you—”

“Mels…”

Closing her eyes, she felt him against her, his body pressing in, his mouth taking over, that dominance that was intrinsic to his personality coming out.

“Do you know what happened at your hotel last night?” she said abruptly.

“Yeah. I spent hours thinking about you.”

She closed her eyes briefly, fighting the seduction. “The police found a dead body. That had a very fancy bulletproof vest on it.”

Another pause. Then an even response: “Huh. Any suspects?”

“Not yet.”

“I didn’t kill him, Mels, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“That’s what you’re thinking.”

“Who are these people to you?” she cut in, making little boxes around the names he’d given her to research.

“Just things that have bubbled up.” His voice became distant. “Look, I’m sorry I called you about them. I’ll get the info somewhere else—”

“No,” she said firmly. “I’ll do it and I’ll phone you back.”

After she hung up, she stared into space. Then she rose from her desk chair and went down a couple of cubicles. Leaning over the top of yet another gray partition, she smiled in a fake way that her colleague didn’t know her well enough to spot. “Hey, Eric, what’s up?”

The guy’s eyes shifted away from his computer monitor. “Hey, Carmichael. What can I do you for?”

“I want to know about that murder at the Marriott.”

The reporter smiled, all cat-and-canary. “Anything in specific?”

“The vest.”

“Ah, the vest.” He rifled around the paperwork on his desk. “The vest, the vest…” He pulled a sheet free and spun it to her. “I found this on the Internet.”

Mels frowned as she read the specs. “Five thousand dollars?”

“That’s what they cost before they’re customized. And his was.”

“Who the hell can afford that?”

“Exactly what I’m asking myself.” More rifling. “Big-time security firms are one. U.S. government is another—but not for your Joe Schmo FBI agent, mind you. You’d have to be very high-level.”

“Any VIPs in the hotel?”

“Annnnnd that’s what I looked into last night. Officially, the staff can’t give out names, but I overheard the night manager talking to one of the cops. There’s nobody special under their roof.”

“What about that area downtown?”

“Yeah, I mean, there’re some big businesses around the neighborhood, but they were all closed as it was way after normal business hours. And it defies logic that some dignitary was walking around Caldwell and one of his security team happened to go rogue and get his throat in the way of someone’s knife.”

“When did it happen?”

“’Round eleven o’clock.”

After she’d left and gone to the crime scene. “And no clue on the identity?”

“Not a one. Which brings us to the next hi-how’re-ya.” Eric chewed on the end of a blue Bic. “No fingerprints.”

“At the scene?”

“On the body. He didn’t have any fingerprints—they’d been etched off.”

Mels’s ears started to ring. “Any other identifiers?”

“A tattoo, apparently. I’m trying to get some pics of it as well as the body, but my sources are slow.” His eyes narrowed. “Why all the interest?”

Fancy bulletproof vest. No prints. “What about weapons?”

“None. He must have been stripped.” Eric leaned forward in his chair. “Saaaaay, you’re not trying to sweet-talk Dick into getting you a byline on this, are you?”

“God, no. Just curious.” She turned away. “Thanks for the info. I appreciate it.”

22

When the phone rang about a half hour later, Matthias just stared at the thing. Had to be Mels getting back to him.

Damn it, this was a mess….

After Jim had taken off to go do breakfast or errands or some shit, naturally, the first thing he’d done when he was alone was call Mels and try to find out if that story was true about the father and the son up in Boston. It hadn’t dawned on him that she’d have heard about what went down in the basement, but come on, sloppy thinking much? It was all over the cocksucking news. Even nonreporters who didn’t keep up with that kind of shit knew.

The phone stopped its electronic ringing. But she was going to redial.

God, her voice when they’d spoken. She’d sounded suspicious, and in so many ways that was the best thing for her. Yet it killed him.

When the phone started going off again, he couldn’t stand it. Grabbing his cane, he walked out the door of his room and headed blindly for the elevator. As he took it down, he had no clue where he was going. Maybe breakfast.

Yeah, breakfast.

It was what people did at nine a.m. all over the country.

Annnnnd, of course, the only restaurant that was open for business was the one he’d gotten to know intimately the night before—and as he walked past the colored glass wall, he decided to go off Marriott property to—

“Matthias?”

At the female voice, he pivoted around. It was the nurse from the hospital, the one who’d given him a helping hand, so to speak. Outside of work, she was fresh as a daisy, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a pale dress hanging below her knees.

She kind of looked like a bride.

“What are you doing here?” she said as she came over. “I thought you’d be home recovering.”

As people walked by her, they all stared, men with hot speculation in their eyes, women with varying degrees of envy and dislike. Then again, she was stupidly beautiful.

“I’m okay.” He tried not to stare at her. It was like looking into the sun, painful on the eyes. “How about yourself?”

“My mom’s come into town. Or rather, she was supposed to be here by now. Her flight was due in a half hour ago, but it got delayed in Cincinnati because of storms. I’ve been debating whether to wait or go home—we were going to have breakfast. Is that where you’re headed now?”

“Ah, yeah.”

“Well, then, how about we go dutch. I’m starved.”

Her black eyes positively sparkled, to the point where they made him think about the night sky. But it wasn’t enough to make him want to cop a squat in the—

“Okay,” he heard himself say, like some third party had taken over his mouth.

Together, they walked over to the maître d’s stand.

“Two,” Matthias said as the man did a double take at the nurse, and then froze like a deer in the headlights, apparently struck stupid by all the lovely.

“I’d like a window seat,” she said, smiling slowly at the guy. “Perhaps over…”

Not the window he jumped out of, Matthias thought.

“…there.”

Bing-fucking-o.

“Oh, yes, sorry, right away.” The maître d’ got with the program, snagging a couple of leather-bound books and leading the way. “But there are some better views across the room, overlooking the gardens?”

“We don’t want the sun to be too bright.” She put her hand on Matthias’s arm and gave him a little squeeze, as if she wanted him to know she was watching out for his bad eyesight.

Man, he really didn’t like her touching him.

As they walked across the room, the nurse created a total stir, men peering over the tops of their Wall Street Journals and their coffee cups and sometimes their wives’ heads. She took it all in stride, like it was just the normal course of things.

After they sat down in front of the window he’d violated with Jim, coffee materialized, and they mulled over the menus. The civilized bullshitting that came with picking and choosing among the fifty different plates of good-morning got on his nerves. And he didn’t want to eat with her, although to be fair, he didn’t want to eat with anybody.

The stuff with Mels was the problem. Yeah, he’d called her with that info search, but the bigger truth was, he’d just wanted to hear her voice.

He’d missed her through the night—

“Penny for your thoughts?” the nurse said softly.

Matthias looked out the window at the building across the alley. “I just realized—I don’t know your name.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought it was on the whiteboard in your room.”

“Probably was, but it could have been in neon lights and I don’t know if I’d have noticed.”

This was a lie, of course. In fact, there hadn’t been a nurse listed, just a doctor, and there hadn’t been a name tag on her scrubs.

Which seemed a little strange, come to think about it….

She took an elegant hand and laid it on her breastbone—which seemed like an invitation to check out her cleavage. “You can call me Dee.”

He stuck with her eyes. “As in Deidre?”

“As in Devina.” She glanced away, as if she didn’t want to go into it. “My mother has always been a godly woman.”

“Which explains your dress.”

Dee shook her head ruefully and smoothed the skirt. “How did you know this getup isn’t me?”

“Well, for one thing, it looks like it belongs on a forty-year-old. The jeans and parka are more your age.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty-five-ish.” And maybe that was why he didn’t like her touching him. She was so young, too young for someone like him.

“Twenty-four, as a matter of fact. It’s why my mom’s in town, actually.” She touched her sternum again. “Birthday girl.”

“Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Your father coming in, too?”

“Oh…yeah. No.” Now, she closed up completely. “No, he’s not coming.”

Damn it, the last thing he needed was to get all into her personal shit. “Why not.”

She fiddled with her coffee cup in its saucer, turning it back and forth. “You are so odd.”

“Why.”

“I don’t like to talk about myself, but here I am babbling away.”

“You haven’t told me much, if that makes you feel better.”

“But…I want to.” For a split second her eyes dipped to his lips, like she was wondering things about him she really, really didn’t need to. “I want to.”

Nope. Not going there, he thought.

Especially not after Mels.

Dee leaned in, those br**sts threatening to break out of that dress. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Great. Wonderful. Fucking perfect.

In the tense quiet, Matthias briefly eyed the big window next to them. He’d already been out the thing once.

If things got awkward, he could do it again.

Mels hung up her office phone and leaned back in her chair. As the squeak sounded, she made a new tune out of it, rocking back and forth.