Flawless(27)

She moved to get out of the car, but she was too late. He was already out of the driver’s seat and coming around. He opened her door, and she scrambled out as quickly as she could. For a moment she was standing on the New York street just staring up at him. He was a foot away, but that was too close. The man was built like steel and seemed to tower over her, and while she wanted to run, she also wanted to reach out and touch him and find out if he was still somehow flesh and blood, despite the way he looked at that moment. His eyes were on her, and she was drawn to return his stare, as if he were somehow compelling her to. The man was almost impossibly attractive. She certainly didn’t meet people like him every day. She found herself feeling sorry about saying goodbye, despite the way he seemed to be using X-ray vision to peer into her mind. Something stirred within her, and she wished she could meet him again in the pitch-dark, could simply touch him, feel him and...

Her fantasies moved in a very dangerous direction, as in hot, wild, wet sex, and she felt her face turning every shade of red.

She had to get away.

She reached out a hand to shake his. “Well, goodbye,” she said awkwardly.

She felt the length of his fingers curling around hers and the solid strength in his hand. And he smiled.

A smile that seemed to say that he was sure she was guilty as hell of something.

“Goodbye, Miss Finnegan,” he said. Then he headed back around the car to the driver’s side. She watched him, knowing she should turn and head into her building.

He paused right before he slid into the driver’s seat. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing one another again,” he told her with a wave.

She did turn and flee then.

She had to forget him, forget her guilt, forget the whole situation.

And forget her totally inappropriate—and quite frankly, embarrassing—fantasies.

*

“So, how did the assessment go?” a deep, gruff and familiar voice inquired.

Craig looked up. He had been in his office with Mike, the two of them studying the manifests of stolen property and comparing them to the items stashed by the jewel thieves, and retrieved by the police when they executed their search warrants.

That Eagan was looking in on them—rather than summoning them—was somewhat surprising.

“Your trip to Rikers with Miss Finnegan. Did it help you any?” Eagan asked.

Craig nodded. “Her conversations with the suspects reinforced my belief that there’s a second gang out there—one that copycatted our guys, but with real guns and killing.”

“You going soft on the guys you picked up?” Eagan asked him. “Because you lived? I mean, that’s a good reason, but I want to make sure that’s not the only reason.”

“When have you known Craig to be soft?” Mike asked.

“Hey,” Craig protested. “I told you from the get-go that it looked like two groups. I’m waiting on the guys in Tech. They’re making comparisons of the footage from the different locations. But study the footage again, sir,” he told Eagan. “Miss Finnegan pointed out a lot of differences in the way the men stood, in their body language—I’ll be happy to show you.”

“I’ve looked at that footage so many times now that I’m all but blinded,” Eagan said. “Here’s the problem—the DA’s office isn’t on board with there being two sets of thieves. They want to go for federal prosecution and maybe even the death penalty. They want this over with, and they’re going for the big win. That’s a hell of a big bill for the Justice Department.”

“And it’s crazy,” Craig insisted. “Look, I’d happily throw the federal book at the murderers, but only if they really are the murderers. But what’s that saying? ‘It’s better that ten guilty men go free than one innocent man is wrongly convicted’? Something like that, anyway. William Blackstone, I believe.”

“Very big-picture of you, buddy,” Mike said. “Especially when a majority of the city is screaming for blood, afraid someone here’s going to get killed.”

“That doesn’t make it right,” Craig said.

“I didn’t say that it did. I’m just seeing it from the point of view of the victims’ families and playing devil’s advocate,” Mike told him.

“Neither of you is a prosecutor,” Eagan told them. “And neither am I. If you feel strongly, get out there and prove the existence of the second gang. In the meantime, I’d like to speak with Miss Finnegan myself. After today she’s both victim and consultant.”

Craig glanced at his watch. “I doubt she’s still at her office. It’s almost six. Only underpaid federal employees with no real lives work all hours of the day.”

Eagan grinned. “I feel the need for a Guinness. Want to join me?”

Craig wasn’t sure if he was eager or loath to join Eagan. The woman was going to think he was stalking her.

Maybe not a bad thing. She was hiding something from him, and he needed to know what it was.

“I could use a beer,” Mike said, watching Craig, a light in his eye betraying the fact that he was amused.

“Well, there’s two of you, then,” Craig muttered.

“She’s a lovely young woman,” Mike told Eagan.

Craig groaned. “What the hell. It’s true that I have no life. Oh, yeah. And that I’m horribly underpaid. Let’s go get a beer.”