Close Encounters (7 page)

Lee cut off her growing objections by covering her mouth with his. He used his tongue, letting it duel with hers and kissing her with a slow sensuality that was thorough and exact. He wanted to bring her to his level of need. And he had no intention of repeating what had happened two nights ago, when they’d skipped the foreplay and he’d reached his climax still tense and hot. He’d left Karen feeling edgy and tight, disconnected and disoriented. He needed tonight to be different.

Karen sighed, short and quick, and she touched him again, with a knowledge that sabotaged his best efforts to prolong the moment, deepen the eventual release. She guided his penis into her body. Lee’s weight and urgency kept him firmly in place, but her heaving set the rhythm. His physical exhaustion had done him in, and he had no choice but to let her lead. Thank God she knew what she was doing.

The pressure in his loins gathered swiftly, its strength spiraling into a throbbing force. Lee pumped against Karen, trying to bury himself, trying to satiate the hunger and fill the hole at the center of his being. Trying to dissolve the persistent image of another woman.

He groaned when the explosion came. His heart raced to keep up with the all-too-brief euphoria. The fall back to earth was equally swift.

And still he wasn’t satisfied.

As his passion died, it was replaced with an odd and unexpected hollowness. For some reason Lee was reminded of the conversation he’d had with Erica earlier that afternoon about the things that were important in his life, and their order of priority.

His daughter was right. He liked being a cop. He liked the excitement, when there was any. Most of police work was mundane, routine; it was about the anticipation of excitement. Always being alert and at the ready. It was consuming. It took its toll.

Becoming a cop had not been his first career choice. But then, he had not actually
had
a first choice. He’d been good in sports, especially baseball, but there had been no hope that he would be invited down to the minors. His father had been a middle-management civil servant in a job he’d complained about all his life. He’d died at fifty-five of a massive stroke. Getting accepted into the police academy had been both the best and the worst thing to happen to Lee. Being a cop had given him focus and a career, had taught him about discipline, loyalty, and responsibility. He’d learned to think and make quick decisions, to be a leader.

Still early in his career, Lee had met Beth Summers, a judge’s clerk, during a case that had gone to trial, and he’d realized he was ready to settle down.

The bad thing about being a cop, Lee had figured out later, was having to deal almost exclusively with society’s rejects. The dysfunctional, disenfranchised, mentally ill, and seriously dangerous men and, increasingly, women. Carol Taggart had brought him up short.

Her getting caught in the line of fire had reminded Lee that the streets and the night did not belong exclusively to the undesirables. His close encounter with her had forced him to see that he had forgotten the most important element of his work—to serve and protect. Ever since that night he’d been questioning his job, his responsibilities. Himself.

The respect and authority he’d built up over the years had come, admittedly, at a very high price. He’d given up almost everything for it, including his marriage and a close relationship with his daughter. Maybe even his soul…

He didn’t know what it was going to take to make his world right again. Lee felt himself being shaken again and opened his eyes. Karen was standing over him, dressed in a clingy black dress that came to mid-calf, her breasts tantalizing mounds that jiggled slightly when she moved. Her blond hair was twisted and pinned high on the back of her head, exposing her long, slender neck. There was no trace of the fetching tease who had just seduced him.

“You’ve got two minutes,” Karen said firmly.

Lee heaved himself up to the side of her bed, a little let down by her lack of tenderness. In bed Karen Sorano was everything he wanted, but beyond that, he didn’t have a clue about how they might fit into each other’s lives.

Lee was dressed and putting on his coat when his cell phone beeped. Karen was standing by the open apartment door with keys in hand.

“Yeah,” he answered, walking past her into the hallway.

“Lieutenant, this is Dave Portland from the forensic lab.”

Lee hazarded a glance at Karen as they boarded the elevator. She was paying no attention to the call. “Yeah, Dave…”

“I take it you don’t want to wait for the official report.”

“That’s right. What’s the story?”

“We know that your perps were using Glock semiautomatics too, so it was almost an even playing field.”

“And?”

“Well, we’ve narrowed the search to guns at the scene. We figure there were four. We’ve compared casings to see which ones match police department issue. We’re pretty sure we have the bullet that hit the civilian, but it’s pretty beat up. The lab wants to do one or two other tests.”

“Can you give me anything?” Lee asked.

“Based on what we see so far, the bullet in question is probably one of ours.”

There was no jump in his heartbeat. Lee was numb. Bewildered. “
Probably.
Any chance—?”

“We ran everything twice, Lieutenant, just to make sure.”

Lee clenched his jaw. “Right. Listen, I appreciate the call.”

“Sure thing.”

He put the phone away and stared at the floor indicator over the elevator door.

“Are you okay?”

Lee shifted his gaze to Karen’s face. He wanted to be able to tell her. He wanted someone to listen and understand. But he couldn’t take the chance. And that’s not what he got from Karen anyway.

“I’m fine,” Lee finally responded.

“You know, if you have to leave…”

“I can drop you off. But I think I’ll pass on dinner.”

Karen nodded, accepting his sudden reversal of plans without question. “Maybe it’s just as well.”

He watched her artfully pull loose some of the hair from her twisted hairdo into tendrils around her neck and ears, her attention diverted to the evening ahead.

“Maybe it is.”

Barbara drove around the block twice before she finally slipped into a parking space and turned off the engine. She sat staring out at the street, watching who came and went.

It seemed a perfectly normal residential block off White Plains Road in the Bronx, made up of elderly Italians and Jews, middle-aged couples who couldn’t afford the suburbs, and genXers who weren’t paranoid about who they lived next to. This neighborhood was way out of her jurisdiction, and Barbara was always careful never to use the same route twice when she came here. She knew she was playing a dangerous game, but she knew how to take care of herself.

It was getting cold in the car. “Come on, come on,” she muttered. She checked the time. She would wait another five minutes and no more.

She squinted again at her watch. “Fuck,” she said under her breath.

When she looked up again, a familiar tall figure was casually approaching the building to her left. She watched for some sort of signal. He glanced around and, with an inclination of his head in her direction, quickly stepped into the lobby of the building. Barbara got out of her car, locked it, and crossed the street to follow.

The man had just opened the inner door when Barbara caught up with him. They entered together and headed for the elevator, Barbara just a little behind him. Their silence continued on the ascent, as if they were strangers. He stared indifferently at the door, his face obscured by the bill of his baseball cap. Barbara stood against an adjacent wall and stared at him. The elevator stopped and he stepped off, turning sharply to the right. She followed him. He opened the door of one of three apartments at this end of the hallway. He held the door open for her, finally acknowledging her presence. She went in.

Barbara felt a rush of excitement, tinged with fear. She waited by the door as he entered the room to his left and switched on a light. He turned to face her, and a slow smile spread over his handsome features. The sexy quirk of his mouth, the challenge in his eyes flooded Barbara with unadulterated desire. Mario was definitely the wrong man for her, except in one way. But too many bad experiences had shown Barbara that there simply weren’t enough of the right kind to go around.

“Whose place is this?” Barbara asked, carefully keeping her emotions in check.

He took off his hat and began to work on his coat, staring at her all the while. Using just his fingertips, he pulled a gun from beneath his sweater and held it out for her to see. With a slight motion Mario released the cartridge clip and dropped it onto a chair.

“Friend of a friend. She’s cool. Better yet”—his grin widened—“she ain’t here. Somebody died and she went home to the Dominican Republic. We’re home alone.” He laughed.

Barbara accepted the explanation and began to ease out of her own coat. She let Mario see that she was strapped, too, but she had no intention of unloading.

Boldly Mario began to undress right there. Barbara’s mouth went dry, and her heart fluttered. She was wet between her legs. She stared unabashed and unblinking until he stood there naked, with a full erection.

Mario clearly enjoyed her reaction to what he had to offer. Barbara could no longer hide her need to have him bury himself deep inside her.

But she couldn’t get undressed holding her weapon. Seeing her dilemma, Mario chuckled seductively. “Don’t worry. The only gun I’m gonna use to shoot with is this.” He shook his penis at her.

Barbara set her gun on a table, out of his reach. She took off her clothes. Finally they both stood naked. Barbara’s chest rose and fell with her breathing, her breasts quivered, her nipples were tender and distended. Mario’s gaze became slumberous with lust.

“Que chula tu es, mami,”
Mario growled at her, continuing a guttural recital in Spanish of what he wanted to do to her. They came together with a physical heat that was more combative than it was loving. Their mouths locked in carnal need.

Barbara let her hands slide over Mario’s firm, well-proportioned body. She enjoyed the taut male sinew in his back, his shoulders, his buttocks. He flicked his hips against her, making his ultimate intention obvious. In contrast, his kiss was almost tender, achingly slow. His hands spread over her back, cupping her butt and holding her still while he did a steady, slow grind against her.

Barbara felt like she was suffocating. Burning up. Moisture gathered on their skin where their bodies pressed together. She finally pulled her mouth free and gasped, so dizzy with craving that a whimper rose in the back of her throat.

“Aiyeee, goñyo,”
she hissed urgently.

“Quidado, mami,”
Mario whispered against her neck, continuing to rotate his hips. He gave a snort of amusement. “See… you thought I tried to fuck you over, right? I’m here, ain’t I? You could arrest me right now if you wanted to…”

“Shut up, Mario,” Barbara snapped in a burst of anger even as she let him maneuver her backward toward the sofa. Just as quickly, her annoyance was gone. “Just do it… do it,” she urged.

She sank onto the cushions, positioning her body to make it easy for him, watching as he stood above her, lewdly massaging himself. Barbara knew exactly what he wanted, but she wanted something from him first. She leaned back until her head rested on the back of the sofa, her butt on the edge. She slowly spread her legs.

Mario went to his knees. He grabbed her thighs and held them open with his forearms. He bent toward her. Barbara sighed and closed her eyes, blood throbbing in her temples as she waited for the contact of his mouth. Her stomach muscles contracted when it came, and her hands combed through his hair as she felt herself succumbing to the absolute bliss of his darting tongue.

She offered herself up willingly, totally forgetting her oath of duty, her pledge of loyalty… the threat of ruination. For the moment she and Mario were complicit and in sync. Their coupling was not pretty or romantic, but that wasn’t what they wanted from each other.

And neither was disappointed.

“S
O, THEN, YOU’RE SAYING
that you just happened to be on Tenth Street when the… ah… the incident happened?”

“That’s right. I was out with my dog,” Carol said softly.

She stared at the man sitting opposite her in the hospital’s visitors lounge. She didn’t like it that the three police officers were making her feel as if
she
was being held suspect.

So far the questions had been very specific, and sometimes repetitive, as if the men were hoping she would trip up and forget an earlier answer. Both Matt and her father had urged her to have a lawyer present, but she still didn’t think she would need one. After all,
she
was the one who’d been shot. She had no intention of being difficult or evasive. She had nothing to hide. Besides, there was a lot about those few hours that she simply didn’t remember.

“Do you always walk your dog at four-thirty, five o’clock in the morning?”

Carol tried not to take offense. “I walk Max when he needs to be walked. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”

The officer returned her stare with blank acceptance.

“What I’m trying to get at, Ms. Taggart, is whether it was usual for you to take your dog out at that hour.”

“No, it wasn’t. But I woke up suddenly. I think Max took it as a signal.”

The officer lifted his recorder from the side table to check on the amount of tape remaining. Carol glanced at the two other officers, who were standing like sentinels near the door.

“Now, what can you tell us about the men that night?”

“The men?” she asked blankly.

“You said you were grabbed. By whom?”

Carol remembered only one man that night … someone in blue. Bending over her while she lay on the ground. Telling her to stay still, that she was going to be okay. She frowned in concentration, trying to conjure up the rest of the men, the rest of the scene.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember anything about the men who grabbed me. I … never saw their faces.”