Exposed (30 page)

“Nope.”

He ate his sandwich and watched her get to work. She tugged the sleeves of her sweater up, and he noticed the bandage again. He didn’t buy for a minute that the injury wasn’t hurting her.

“The matting part is the trickiest.” She leaned over the table and made a mark with her pencil. “It’s really all about measuring.”

“Measure twice, cut once.”

She gave him a startled look.

“Something my grandmother used to say. She liked to sew.” He popped the last bite of meatball into his mouth.

Maddie nestled the cardboard against the paper cutter, then slid the blade down. She turned the cardboard ninety degrees and made another cut. And another. And another. Then she removed the center rectangle and stepped back to survey her work. She laid the mat aside and pulled out a fresh sheet of cardboard.

“Want some help?” he asked.

She lined up the blade. “Your hands are big.”

“So?”

“This requires precision.”

“I can be precise.”

She glanced up at him, and her cheeks went pink. Yes, he was thinking about sex. No surprise there.

“Fine.” She stepped back. “Give it a try.”

He dusted his hands on his pants and then stepped up to the paper cutter and aligned the cardboard so that the edge was flush against the side. When he slid the blade down, it bit into the cardboard at an angle, making a sloped edge.

She leaned in to study his effort. “Not bad.”

She lifted her gaze, and he felt a pang of lust. She had that effect on him. It was the way she smelled, the way she talked. It was the way her sweater draped over her breasts.

It was the way she looked at him, as if she knew that right now, he was picturing her standing in his kitchen wearing only his wrinkled shirt.

He could see what she was thinking, too:
Not
happening
. The expression on her face was crystal-clear. She expected him to put the moves on her, and she was braced to resist.

Brian suddenly felt determined. He wanted to prove something to her. He wanted her to take him seriously. He wanted that even more than another night of them burning up the sheets together, a night that would no doubt be followed by a morning in which she’d slap him with her regrets.

As he looked down into her dark brown eyes, he realized something else. He wanted a relationship with this woman. A real relationship, and he didn’t give a damn about any of the crap she seemed to think was an obstacle.

He didn’t believe in obstacles. Obstacles could be overcome. He planned to convince her of that fact. He also planned to convince her that he was capable of more than just a hot bout of sex after a few too many drinks.

Maddie cleared her throat, breaking the silence. “You smell like CLP oil.”

“How do you know about CLP oil?”

“My dad.” She stepped away from him. “He used to use it to clean his guns.”

He watched her as she busied herself cutting another mat. “I was at the range this afternoon.”

She looked up, and he nodded at the pistol sitting on the shelf beside her photography books.

“When was the last time you had some target practice?” he asked.

“It’s been a while.” Not meeting his gaze, she selected a print and positioned it carefully on one of the
mats she’d cut. “You know, I’ve been thinking about this witness-protection thing.”

“What about it?”

“It seems pointless. I mean, why spend federal resources to protect a witness who didn’t really witness anything?”

“We’ve established that
they
think you witnessed something. That’s why they tried to kill you.”

“Maybe so, but the point is, I
didn’t
witness anything. I can’t testify at trial, so why would the government spend money to protect me?”

Brian gritted his teeth. It was the exact point Cabrera had made at a task-force meeting that morning. The prosecutor in charge of the case had made it, too. Maddie Callahan was a problem, yes, but not one the U.S. Marshals wanted any part of.

Which meant she was Brian’s problem. He and Sam had managed to convince everyone that they needed to keep a team guarding her, but that was an imperfect setup. Not to mention temporary.

“We’re working on a solution,” he said.

Maddie taped another photo, and he noticed the tension in her face. She was feeling the stress of this. It was weighing on her. It was weighing on him, too, and spending a second consecutive night not getting any sleep on her sofa wasn’t likely to change things.

“Well, could you work faster, maybe? I don’t know how much longer I can do this. My department’s shorthanded. I’ve been pulled off the call-out rotation. I’m running out of desk work, and my colleagues have been nice so far, but it won’t be long before they get sick of covering for me.”

“What’s the e-mail you’re waiting on?”

“What?”

“You’re waiting on an e-mail. What is it?”

She slid a look at her computer. “Ben. He said he’d get me something by tonight.”

“That new software program?”

“How’d you know about it?”

“Talked to him about it the other day. He thinks he might be able to bring those faces into focus, from the bank stakeout. We might ID our mystery accomplice.”

“Which might be the break you guys need to get a warrant for Mladovic,” she said. “Or possibly a lead on Jolene.”

Brian checked his watch. It was after eleven, and he was having a hard time picturing the Billabong kid spending his Friday in front of the computer. He was probably home by now. Or out with friends.

Or maybe, just maybe, he was about to send Maddie an e-mail that would be the break they’d all been waiting for. And maybe whatever it was would put an end to this suckfest of a week and give Brian a chance to make the arrest that had gone from being a goal to being a full-fledged obsession.

Brian glanced at Maddie’s computer, where absolutely nothing was happening. If he wanted a break in this case, he was going to have to find it himself.

Scott awoke to a persistent tapping sound. He chalked it up to the woodpecker outside his window, but as the haze of sleep lifted, he realized it wasn’t outside his window but at his front door.

He swung his legs out of bed and glanced at the clock: 7:05. He’d meant to run this morning. But realistically, that plan was nixed last night, when he’d given some guy at the pool hall a chance to win his money back—which he hadn’t.

Scott pulled on some jeans and crossed his house.

Tap-tap-tap
.

It was a woman’s knock, which meant either his sister had a bee in her bonnet or an ex-girlfriend had come by to see him.

Scott checked the peephole. Wrong on both counts. He pulled opened the door.

“I was about to give up on you.” Rae Loveland tipped her head to the side and crossed her arms. “I figured you were an early riser.”

“Why’s that?” He raked a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know. The Navy background? Aren’t sailors
trained to get up early so they can scrub the decks and all that?”

“SEALs work weird hours.”

He regretted saying it the second it was out. He knew plenty of guys who used their SEAL status—or in his case, former SEAL status—to impress women, but Scott didn’t need to. He hadn’t used the ploy in years.

So why the hell was he using it now, at freaking 0700 in front of Rae Loveland?

“Would you like to have breakfast?”

Scott stared at her. Now that the shock was wearing off, he noticed her outfit. Instead of her typical business suit, she wore snug-fitting jeans, a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and loafers.
Loafers
.

He glanced down at his own feet. They were bare. So was his chest. And he noticed she was making a big effort not to look below his neck, as if she were completely immune to his half-naked body.

But he knew better.

And this conversation was a little surreal.

“Breakfast,” he stated.

“You know—eggs, bacon, orange juice?” She glanced at her watch. “It’s got to be quick, though. I need to leave at eight.”

“Gimme a sec.”

Five minutes later, he was folded into the passenger seat of her Honda Civic as she pulled into the parking lot of the Pancake Pantry. Scott had never been to the restaurant when it wasn’t jammed with people, but it looked as if they’d beaten the Saturday-morning hangover crowd.

An annoyingly chipper hostess showed them to a
booth near the back and handed them sticky menus.

Scott sat down and flagged a passing server. “Two coffees. Black.”

“And we’re ready to order, if you don’t mind,” Rae said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

They placed their orders, and the waitress rushed off. Scott leaned back against the seat and scanned the crowd.

“How’d you know how I take my coffee?” Rae asked.

“You strike me as the no-nonsense coffee type.”

“Hmm. Good guess.”

The word
guess
seemed loaded with meaning, and it took him a moment to get it. They’d never had breakfast together.

Christ, please tell him she wasn’t going to go there this morning. She was about six years overdue for an apology, but he wasn’t up for it right now.

“You’re probably wondering why I asked you here.” She leaned forward on her elbows, and he caught a glimpse down her shirt. White lace, just a hint of it. Scott wasn’t feeling sleepy anymore. And the apology was suddenly seeming very doable.

She watched him expectantly, and he dragged his attention back to what she’d said. “I figure you like the pancakes?”

“I do.” She smiled. “But there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. I went to Sherwood Oaks to visit a client last night.”

“Not alone, I hope.”

“If you’re referring to my safety, don’t worry. I was armed.”

Scott gritted his teeth.
Armed
. Yeah, right. He happened to know that Rae Loveland had a concealed-carry permit. He also happened to know that she’d gotten it less than a year ago, which meant she was probably a lousy shot.

“Next time, take someone. You shouldn’t be going out there by yourself. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“Anyway,”
she said, clearly annoyed. “I was meeting with a client in an apartment there. It’s a single-family dwelling, but a lot of different people seemed to be using it as a crash pad.”

“Who’s the client?”

“Chico Gutierrez.”

“Shit, can’t you get any decent clients? That guy’s bad news. And that neighborhood is a war zone.”

“If by decent you mean wealthy, then
no
, I can’t. I’m a public defender. I defend members of the public who can’t afford legal counsel.”

“Waste of a fancy law degree, you ask me.”

“I didn’t.” She looked really ticked-off now, and he knew he needed to shut up. She obviously hadn’t invited him to breakfast so he could pick on her.

“What’s Chico’s problem? He selling dope again?”

“Actually, no, he’s cleaned up his act. But he’s got a court date coming up. His wife’s in rehab, and he wants custody of his kids.”

Scott kept his opinion of that to himself, as she probably didn’t want to hear it.

Their coffees arrived. Rae took a sip, then closed her eyes and gave a low moan.

He had a white-hot flashback: Rae Loveland underneath him with that same blissed-out look on her face.

She opened her eyes. “I forgot how good their coffee is here.”

Scott shifted in his seat. “So what happened with Chico?”

“Nothing. But someone showed up to talk to his brother, Luis.”

He waited. He’d seen Rae in the courtroom enough times to know she had a point coming.

“The man was white, blue eyes, crew cut. He spoke with a heavy accent that sounded Russian.”

That caught his attention. The case Maddie was working on involved some extremely unsavory people from eastern Europe.

“You sure it was Russian?” he asked.

“Not at all. I don’t speak Russian—that’s just what it sounded like.”

Two platters arrived. Scott doused his eggs with hot sauce and waited for her to continue.

“They had some sort of business together, and they took it into the other room. But I overheard what they were saying, and it sounded like a gun sale.”

That explained why she’d decided to come to him with this. “You witness the transaction?”

“That’s a guess, based on snippets of conversation. But I did some poking around. Luis has some weapons charges on his record. He was busted last spring for unlawful possession of a firearm, and before you ask,
no
, I didn’t represent him. Someone else caught that case.”

“Go back to the European guy. What’d he look like?”

She drizzled syrup over her pancakes and seemed to think about it. “Five-nine, one-fifty, stocky build, scar on his left cheek. Crew cut, like I said, and blue eyes.”

“Not bad.” Clearly, she picked up on details.

“Anyway, I’m pretty sure the guy sold a gun to Chico’s brother. When they were wrapping up their meeting—this was in the other room—I heard him tell Luis something about how he should get that cobra off his hands because he’d recently used it to shoot a fed.”