Black Ice (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (2 page)

Thin sheets of ice slickened the roads, making them extremely dangerous. Funny, she thought. The weather man only promised more sleet and snow in the near future. She lifted her coffee cup to her lips and gulped a large amount down. She’d skipped breakfast before she left and regretted it now. It would probably be a long day, and she needed all the energy she could get.

She glanced at her map again and wound her way through the city of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. With the meandering nature, she could understand completely how the victim wrecked her car.

Blake parked on the side of the road and climbed out of the car, coffee cup in hand. She bundled herself in a thick parka, gloves, and even a scarf to fight off the freezing conditions. However, the wind still seeped through all the layers to chill her bones.

She made her way through the mess of people, all officials, to find the coroner, Damian Harper. It’d been nearly three hours since Lou called her to report, and the mess she expected appeared non-existent.

She pulled out her badge and flashed it to the coroner. “What happened?”

He pursed his lips, looking at the body. “Well, upon first arrival, the officer on the scene claimed the vic slid on a patch of black ice and swerved across the street to hit the tree.” He walked toward the opposite side of the road and pointed to a fairly large patch of ice. “But that’s not all we found. Once he approached the driver, he spotted small dots of brake fluid in the snow.” Harper led her over to the car and pointed out the drops. “. If you look, the line has been cut intentionally, leading us to believe someone planned this.”

Blake nodded staring at the line and the red fluid that’d gathered in the snow beneath it. She knelt down and stared at the car. “This is going to the M.E., right? When can we expect those results back?”

Harper shifted his clipboard to the side. “We won’t know for a couple of days. I have my suspicions on how the vic died, but with reason, Dr. Gloria Maynard will do an autopsy and those things take time. She said the workload increased since three members of her team are out.” He reached for the purse on top of the Jaguar. Wearing his gloves, he pulled out the license and held it up so she could read it. “Take a look at the vic’s name.”

“Sophie Stevens.” Blake met Harper’s eyes. “As in Robert Stevens, CEO of Stevens Enterprises?”

He nodded. “She has his last name, but she’s his stepdaughter. I didn’t put two and two together until my assistant told me Stevens Enterprises rented out the entire Snowflake Lodge for his Christmas party this weekend.”

Blake stared at the picture, hating the woman immediately for looking beautiful even in her snap shot. Nobody looks good in a mug shot, especially when it’s taken by the Driver and Vehicle Services. “Is this her car?”

“No. It’s registered to a Rick Romano. If gossip serves, he is the supposed fiancé of the vic.”

Blake glanced at the hunched over body lying in the driver’s seat. A trail of blood oozed from a cut on Sophie’s head, running down her face and dripping haphazardly onto her lap below. A cut brake line, a patch of black ice, and a car that wasn’t even hers. Who wanted Sophie Stevens dead?

* * * *

“If you knew how to do your job, you’d be done by now.” Ryder James barged into Blake’s hotel room and snatched the file from her hands. “Who have you contacted?”

Her jaw clenched as she turned to face him. Narrowing her eyes, she replied, “Family. The fiancé. The Lodge. That’s normally procedure.”

He met her eyes. “I don’t need any lip from you. A simple answer will suffice when addressing me.”

He watched her jaw clench. Blake Warren didn’t let anyone get the best of her. The straight-laced cop abided by every law, spending most of her time putting the bad guys behind bars instead of enjoying her life.

He had transferred departments a few months ago and had yet to see her do anything social with anyone. He knew from all the dickheads on the force she didn’t date. They repeatedly asked her out and repeatedly, she shot them down. Rumor had it she was a virgin, which headed the top of interesting things to talk about in Grand Rapids. But Ryder didn’t care about her personal life. He hated working with partners, even the hot Detective Warren.

“You, Detective James, are not my superior.” She snatched the folder away from him and sat on the bed to look through it. “I’ll talk to you any damn way I please. If you can’t handle that, walk away right now.”

Ryder watched her a moment before he snatched the desk chair and pulled it beside her. “If we’re going to work together then one of us has to take the lead and the other follows along. I always take the lead.”

She made a noise in her throat that could have been insulting if he cared what people thought of him. “I don’t want to work with you any more than you want to work with me. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll see who solves the case first, huh?”

He grabbed the folder again. “No. You tell me what we’re dealing with, and I decide what to do next.”

“No.” She grabbed the folder and initiated a tug-of-war over it. “Give me the damn file.”

Ryder jerked the paper documents hard, bringing her and the folder into his possession. Blake landed against his chest, eye to eye with him. “If you don’t want to do things my way then
you
can walk away. Simple as that.”

Her breasts pressed against him, and for a moment, he allowed himself to take pleasure in that. He could have kissed her if he wanted, just leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. But as quick as she landed against him, she pulled away, hand still on the folder.

“Give me the damn papers.”

“No.” He tugged at the folder, freeing it from her grip. When she tried to grab it again, he stood, holding it out of her reach. “And people wonder why I hate working with partners.”

“You think you’re funny don’t you? Domineering man up against the helpless little female. Whatever, buddy. I come from a long line of police officers, and I do my job damn well. So stop preventing me from my task and give me the file!”

“Not until I read the file and see what I’m up against.” They sat nose to nose, and he could feel her accelerated breaths against his lips.

For the life of him, he didn’t know what had come over him. He wanted to kiss her. Bend her over the desk behind her and press his body against hers. He knew even thinking that would lead to nothing good, but right now he didn’t really give a damn. Something about Blake made him want to know more, and he didn’t care about the consequences. He wanted to know how her lips tasted. He wondered if her skin felt as soft and creamy as it looked. He wanted to know what she felt like beneath him, surrounding him.

He sighed, pushing those thoughts away. Working relationships that turned to sexual relationships didn’t work. Relationships in general didn’t work.

“If you’d been on the scene when called, you wouldn’t need to read the basic information now, would you?

“Victim is Sophie Stevens, age twenty-five. Blonde hair, blue eyes. No prior record for anything more than looking like a supermodel in this humble town, but then again, no man in this area ever held it against her. She drove her fiancé, Rick Romano’s, car into a tree. A new Jaguar XK with a cut brake line suggesting a planned homicide instead of an accident. That’s all the damn file says so give it to me now.”

He had to give it to her. The lady had a mean bite. “Why don’t you want me to read the case file?”

“Because you’ll screw my order up. You’re already screwing everything up by simply standing here, breathing my oxygen.” She snatched the file from him and slammed it against the hotel room’s desk. “I’m going to the lodge. You can go to hell for all I care.”

Ryder leaned back in the chair, amused. “You’d miss me too much.”

She licked her lips. “I’d miss you like I’d miss the plague.”

“Who are you talking with first?”

“Family. You can have the boyfriend.”

His lips twitched. “You don’t tell me how to do my job, little girl.”

“Fine. I’ll question them by myself. It always takes a woman to do a man’s job anyhow. Why would working with you be any different?”

He stood and met her eyes. “I like your original plan best. You do your thing, I’ll do mine, and we’ll see who ends up on top, ’kay?”

His blood boiled in his veins though it wasn’t for the usual reasons his former partners gave him. No. He liked Blake Warren way too much, and it was a damn shame. Ryder grabbed his coat and headed to the door.

He needed to question the family. If his gut feeling meant anything, stepdaddy had some explaining to do.

* * * *

“You have to go with him, you know that, right?” Betsy, her partner, said on the phone.

Blake pursed her lips. She’d escaped to the bathroom for a private conversation with her real partner and left Mr. High-and-Mighty alone. “If I don’t make it back, you’ll know I killed him and am on my way out of the country to Fiji or Tahiti where it’s nice and hot and the boys are half-naked.”

Betsy snorted. “I didn’t just hear that. But, if you go, promise to take me with you.”

Ryder James. Just thinking the name brought up a mixed array of emotions. He shouldn’t be anything but her partner but moments ago when they fought over the file, she envisioned more.

“He’s impossible.”

“Most men are.”

With Betsy she never had trouble. From the moment they met, they became best friends. They played off each other’s talents. Where Betsy gained confessions from suspects, Blake knew how to look at the big picture and bring justice to order.

She missed her partner, her best friend.

“What should I do?”

“Grin and bear it, sweetie. There’s not much else you can do.” Betsy paused. “At least he’s a hottie. It would really be a pisser if he wasn’t much to look at, considering you have to spend all that time, day and night,
alone
with him.”

“Are you insinuating I should seduce my partner?”

“Who me? Nah. All I’m saying is, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

After they hung up, Blake grabbed her coat, shoved her arms inside the sleeves and left. She needed to talk with Betsy. Her partner and best friend kept her sane. Ryder wouldn’t screw this up for her. She’d worked her ass off in school and on the force to prove she was just as good as any member of her family. He would not make her look like a fool because of his inflated ego. She wouldn’t allow it.

Just as she suspected, he sat in the parking lot in the navy colored detective-issued Town Car, waiting for it to warm up. Naturally, he decided to drive, she mused. All part of his warped need for control
. You can have the drive to the lodge, Ryder James, but I’ll have the drive back.

She reached for the door handle and pulled, finding the door locked. She banged her fist on the window. “Open up.”

The jerk smiled. “Why would I do that?”

“Because I have a gun and a mean sense of humor.”

“I’m not scared of your little gun. You probably can’t hit your target anyway.”

“Open the door, James, before I break out the window.”

He grinned and pressed the door locks. After Blake situated herself inside, she slammed the door and looked over at him. The damn man enjoyed himself.

“I love it when you talk dirty. Turns me on.”

She didn’t even bother with a rebuttal. “Drive the damn car.”

He put the car in reverse and backed up. “Where are we going?”

“Southside.” She shivered and reached out to flip the heat on full blast.

“Cold, Warren?”

“I’m not going to bother answering your ignorant questions.” She propped her elbow against the door and rested her cheek against her fist, her mind focusing on the case.

From the evidence she gathered, the initial target was Sophie’s fiancé, Rick. The brake line had been cut. Blake didn’t know why Sophie drove that car last night and hoped to find out some answers.

The vic had no priors against her. Rick, however, had several. Forging checks and laundering money could land him a few enemies. Sophie came from a rich family. Plenty of suspicion and plenty of motive.

“Who do you think did it?” Ryder’s voice drew her out of her thoughts.

“I don’t know.”

He scoffed as he stopped at a red light. “You’ve got to have some kind of gut feeling. Do you think it the vic’s boyfriend or the girl he banged on the side?”

“What girl he banged on the side? No one mentioned a girlfriend in the file or even rumors of a girlfriend.”

“Oh, come on, Blake.” He turned in his seat to face her. “Every rich man has a bimbo on the side, right? Isn’t that what women like you think? The whole men are pigs scenario.”

“You don’t know anything about me, so I advise you to keep your mouth shut.” She shook her head and glanced out the side window. “The boyfriend has motive, but you know as well as I do, everyone remains innocent until proven guilty.”

Ryder turned back to drive through the green light. “That’s a crock, and you know it. You’re guilty until proven innocent. That’s why we have trials and defense lawyers. Whoever puts up the best case wins.”