Flawless(17)

“Kieran, I don’t know what you told Declan, and I don’t intend to say another word. But I think there’s more to the story of why you were in that store. Something to do with Danny. I don’t even want you to tell me—unless there comes a point when you need to for some reason. Danny is my baby brother, too, and Julie’s also my friend. But don’t go getting yourself into trouble because the two of them have concocted some wild scheme. You’re a therapist now—talk them out of it.”

She leaned over and hugged him tightly. “Best twin in the world,” she told him. “But I swear with my whole heart, I will not get into any trouble with those two, and I’ll make sure they don’t get into trouble, either. I’d like to believe that...”

She hesitated.

“That they learned something from what happened to you today?” Kevin asked her drily. “Never mind—I meant it when I said I won’t make you say anything. You always keep my confidences, so I don’t expect you to break anyone else’s trust. But if you run into a problem again, keep me in the loop.”

“I swear,” she promised.

He nodded and smiled, then watched until she was safely inside her building.

Upstairs, she threw off her jacket and tossed down her bag, then headed into the bathroom to give her face a good scrubbing. When she saw herself in the mirror, she realized stronger action was called for, so she stripped and jumped into the shower.

It wasn’t that late when she dried off, feeling like a new woman, but she didn’t want to see more of herself on the news, and she was exhausted. She lay down to sleep, but her heart kept pounding. She couldn’t deny it. She was worried.

Hiding what she, Danny and Julie had been up to from Declan and Kevin had proved easier than she had thought it would.

But she was dreading the next day and her time with the FBI agent with the dark hair and deep smoky voice and those light eyes that seemed to look into her with the power of an X-ray machine.

*

Craig Frasier sat in the office in the near dark, alone except for the skeleton night staff. He’d made Mike go home, knowing that he was being obsessive and not wanting to drag his partner into the pit after him.

He simply didn’t believe that they had caught the thieves they most needed to catch: the ones who killed.

The thieves themselves denied it, and their guns had been fake.

But he understood the desire in law enforcement to believe a case was closed, and a lot of people simply didn’t want to accept the idea that there could be copycats out there—copycats whose MO was so perfect in every detail...except that the guns they carried were real. The prevailing belief was that there was only one set of thieves who, having established that they were willing to kill to get what they wanted, no longer felt the need to carry real guns and had switched to fakes in order to create confusion and make a case for a lighter sentence if they were caught.

The NYPD had made the arrest. The charges would be up to the district attorney’s office. Somewhere the powers that be, whose influence went far beyond his own, were arguing about that right now.

They wouldn’t ask his opinion.

But that didn’t matter. What did matter was whether there were still killers out there—and he was willing to bet cash money that there were.

He leaned back, rubbing his eyes. He thought about the way things might have ended—and how that too-attractive-for-his-own-good redhead had actually had the sense to do something other than scream and expect the world to save her.

She’d saved his ass—or would have, had the gun been real.

He drummed his fingers on the table, thinking about her. She hadn’t wanted any attention from the press; in fact, she had paled at the very mention of it. Strange. Most beautiful women—no, she wasn’t just beautiful; she was stunning—welcomed attention. As gorgeous as she was, she could have been hitting the stage or a runway somewhere, a tall, blue-eyed redhead with legs that stretched forever. But instead...

He reached into his pocket for the card she had given him. Fuller and Miro. He knew the names; they and their employees were often called in as consultants. The Behavioral Science Unit of the bureau was in Virginia, and they were called in on the most puzzling or unusual cases, especially when local police asked for help. Otherwise, the New York office often looked to local talent to untangle the psychology of a captured killer or profile one who was still at large.

Therapist. And bartender.

Quite an intriguing combination.

For someone who had such talents—and had saved both his ass and her own—she had acted very strangely.

Almost as if she were...guilty herself.

He mulled over the thought. Then, standing up, he stretched and walked to the coffee machine in the break room. He needed to go home and go to sleep, but he could use a cup to get that far. The coffee here was wretched; they kept a regular pot instead of investing in pods. But that was all right. Wretched coffee was still better than no coffee.

He lifted the cup to his lips and realized that in the midst of the fray, she’d reminded him of someone.

Of Caroline.

He smiled at the thought.

Caroline had been blessed with that same ability to think on the spot, to behave rationally and, most important, to know when to hold—and when to fight back like blue blazes.

He hadn’t really thought about her in years now. And truthfully, she had been nothing like Kieran Finnegan. Caroline had been a petite blonde with hazel eyes and a smile as big as the world.