Flawless(77)

She inhaled slowly, staring at him. “You have professional reasons why you can’t tell me certain things. Well, I have a profession, too, and I often speak with people in confidence. I have no information that would help you identify whoever’s out to get me, even if I were to break a professional confidence. All I have is something my...client overheard.”

“Kieran, I don’t know what you think your obligation to your client is, but if you’re holding back information that could help stop or solve a crime—”

“I’m not!” she snapped, cutting him off.

“I wish you’d reconsider and tell me what you know.”

“Oh, so my professional obligations aren’t as important as yours since I’m not some hotshot FBI agent? I already told you, I don’t know anything that would help solve the crime, and whether you think I’m worthy or not, I will not betray a professional confidence. You have your secrets, and I have mine.”

“Like your brothers’ sealed juvenile records?” he asked.

She froze. “How dare you?” she said angrily, leaping to her feet and staring down at him. “They never did anything that truly hurt anyone else. They turned the tables on a few bullies, stole candy a few times. They never used violence, much less a weapon. They were a bunch of kids who suddenly lost their mother and started acting out. My brothers are good people, Craig Frasier. And if you try to go after them, I can promise you a fight.”

“Good people—and good thieves,” he said, smiling slowly. “Here’s the thing. I’m a government agent. I need a warrant if I want to search a place. I need to go by the letter of the law. But I sure would love to see Jimmy McManus’s phone without leaving a paper trail. Like I said, good people and good thieves.”

“You want one of my brothers to steal Jimmy’s phone?” she asked, confusion replacing the anger that had animated her features only a moment ago.

“I would never say that. I could never say that,” he told her.

To his amazement, she suddenly smiled. “Piece of cake. You don’t even need my brothers for that. In fact, I’d rather not tempt them. It hasn’t always been easy, keeping them on the straight and narrow. Well, except for Declan. He’s purer than the driven snow.”

“What are you saying?”

“I was always the best thief in the family,” she said. “I’ll get that phone for you. Tomorrow night, if you like. I don’t think Jimmy has missed his five o’clock Guinness in a decade.”

“It would be interesting,” he said, “if he happened to lose it and you happened to find it.”

“Interesting is my middle name,” she said. Then she turned and headed into the bedroom.

He stayed on the sofa, considering his options.

A moment later she poked her head out of the bedroom doorway. “Are you coming, Agent Frasier? You’re welcome to the sofa, of course. As I said, I’d never be so rude as to leave you in the hallway, but if you’re here to watch over me...this is where I’ll be.”

He knew he should say something, but the fact that she was naked had him too stunned to speak.

He rose and started for the bedroom, then turned back to double-lock the front door.

That done, he realized that he was more than a little shaky.

She meant too much to him. And that was dangerous.

The thought made him careful. He made a point of setting his Glock on the bedside table and folding his jacket carefully. Then his arousal got the better of him and he began to disrobe in haste.

She was lying naked on the sheets, hair spread out on the pillow like a dark angel’s wings.

He slid onto the mattress beside her, held her, felt the warmth of her body envelop him.

He was in deep.

Way too deep.

Anger, passion, confusion, need, chemistry...they all seemed to combine that night. They made love urgently, then gently, then urgently again. In the end they lay spent and exhausted in each other’s arms, drifting in an otherworldly afterglow, wondering whether what they’d shared had simply been sex done right, or whether their feelings came from someplace deeper and more powerful than pure physical passion.

She curled against him, and he thought about all the things he could say.

I care about you so much...

You’re so beautiful...

I think I’m falling in love...

He didn’t have time to say anything, because Kieran spoke and suddenly the magic was gone and reality was back in charge.

“What’s up with Joe?” she asked. “Why does Detective Mayo have me looking for customers named Joe?”

He held her more tightly, picturing Maria Antonescu dead in the alley just outside the store.

“The dead girl from the last robbery, Maria Antonescu...she was seeing a guy named Joe. And,” he added almost unwillingly, “we think Finnegan’s is one of the places where he hung out. We’re trying to ID him. Any idea who Joe might be?”

She shook her head. He felt her hair shift against him as she lay with her head against his shoulder.

“I went through our credit card receipts from the past few weeks and gave everything I found to Detective Mayo. I even gave him all the information I could on the men I knew. The thing is, lots of people pay cash. Or they’re with other people and someone else picks up the bill. Even if you follow up on every Joe I found, there’s no guarantee you’re going to find the Joe you’re looking for.”