Gone Too Far (7 page)

“Mary Lou left San Diego six months ago,” Sam said with remarkable patience, considering he was answering the same question for what had to be the seventeenth time that hour. “She served me with divorce papers the next morning. It was an amicable parting. We both agreed that our marriage wasn’t working and we were taking steps to end it.”

He looked exhausted. His clothes were rumpled and looked slept in, and, with his hat off, she could see that his hair really was as long and shaggy as she’d thought. Thick and brown, it was sun streaked and wavy as it touched his shoulders. It was faintly reminiscent of the style so beloved by teeny-boppers in the early 1970s. He looked like he might’ve been trying to pass as David Cassidy’s bigger, meaner, Navy SEAL brother.

His face—the part that showed above his beard—was tanned.

Whatever he’d been up to in the months since she’d seen him last, he’d been spending quite a bit of time outdoors. And that beard was another clue as to where he’d been—he was sporting a full one instead of the neatly trimmed goatee and cowboy-style mustache that he usually favored. The beard, along with his non-Navy regs length hair, told Alyssa that he’d probably been spending a great deal of time in a country that started with the letter A and ended in “stan.”

The fact that he hadn’t shaved upon his return was another hint that he—and probably the rest of Team Sixteen—were intending to go back there in the very near future.

And yet, despite all that excess hair, he was still striking looking. Tall and muscular, with blue eyes and a killer smile, he was loaded with pure alpha male charisma. It was quite remarkable, actually. Just during his walk from the parking lot into this building, female heads had turned.

Alyssa had stopped counting at seven.

And that was without his smile up and operating.

Alyssa had always thought that Sam Starrett’s built-in drool factor was something of an embarrassment to the human race, in particular to the females of the species. She’d hoped that most women were smarter than that—that most women had learned to avoid men like Starrett, who obviously could kick all of the other men’s butts and look good doing it, but who had little to redeem him when it came to sensitivity or responsibility.

And then she’d gotten to know Sam.

No, actually, first she’d slept with him. Which proved that she at least wasn’t smart enough or strong enough to be able to avoid the biologically preprogrammed Darwinian allure of the alpha male, aka
Homo jerkus
.

The really stupid thing was, she’d hated Sam Starrett’s guts for years. He was crude, he was rude, and he was so completely full of himself. She’d needed a bottle of ibuprofen and a day off after spending just five minutes in the same room with the man.

But he
was
gorgeous.

And in his own special redneck, Texas cowboy, foulmouthed way, he was quite funny. And unbelievably smart.

And had she mentioned gorgeous?

Alyssa had been doing okay keeping her distance from him, though. Until she’d had a family crisis.

Because her littlest sister had died due to complications surrounding a late-stage miscarriage, Alyssa had been beyond frightened when her other sister, Tyra, had gotten pregnant. Alyssa spent nine nerve-wracking months anticipating another tragedy before Tyra finally went into labor.

And upon hearing the news that the baby had been born and both mother and daughter were healthy, Alyssa had had something of an emotional meltdown.

And Sam Starrett had been there.

He’d been both sweet and kind.

He’d gotten her drunk, too, the son of a bitch.

And sleeping with him had suddenly seemed like a really great idea.

Alyssa still dreamed in vivid detail about that first night they spent together. She’d never had sex like that before in her entire life. The night was a blur and some parts of it she still couldn’t quite remember, but some of it she would never forget if she lived to be two hundred. The intensity of what they’d shared had scared her to death, and in the sane light of morning, she’d made it clear to Sam that their encounter had been a one-time thing. There would be no repeats.

But then she ran into him again, six months later, in a hellhole of a country where the passengers of a commercial airliner had been taken hostage by terrorists.

And again, he was gorgeous. And funny. And smart.

And rude and horrible.
And
sweet and kind.

And again, she’d been drinking, and going up to his room had seemed like a brilliant idea.

That second time, they’d been on the verge of something more. A real relationship. Alyssa had just started to get to know Sam—and actually found herself liking the arrogant prick—when he’d received the news that a former girlfriend, Mary Lou Morrison, was pregnant.

He’d rushed off to “do the right thing” and marry Mary Lou, and that was the end of that.

Except Alyssa had never completely been able to forget about him.

And now Mary Lou was dead.

Or
was
she?

Alyssa had taken a quick look around the inside of Janine’s house before following Manuel and Sam downtown.

Two things stood out.

The first was that, though the house was occupied by three people—two women and a nineteen-month-old girl—there was only one body in the kitchen. Which meant that the other woman, presumably Janine, and Haley were still alive and out there somewhere.

But they’d taken nothing with them when they’d left. There were empty suitcases in one of the bedrooms, and no telltale spaces in the closets or drawers where clothes had once been kept.

Toothbrushes were out in the bathroom. A fairly battered and probably much beloved Pooh Bear was in Haley’s crib, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. An opened bag of Pampers sat on the nursery floor.

Wherever Janine and Haley had gone, they’d left in a hurry, taking absolutely nothing with them.

Which made Alyssa wonder if whoever had shot and killed Mary Lou hadn’t simply taken Janine and Haley and killed them in another location.

Although why do that? Why not just kill them all at once in one giant bloodbath?

But if they weren’t dead, or if they weren’t being held against their will, why hadn’t they surfaced? Where had they gone? Why hadn’t they told someone that Mary Lou was dead?

The second thing Alyssa had noticed was Mary Lou.

Kind of hard to miss her.

Alyssa had met Sam’s wife only two or three times over the past few years. The woman she remembered had brown hair and was voluptuous, not particularly tall, and definitely prone to carrying some excess weight.

She remembered a very young, very tired-looking woman with a pretty face, a slightly upturned nose, and gracefully shaped lips.

The shotgun blast, plus the heat and maggots, had altered the details of her appearance in a very major way. She had brown hair, yes. And was relatively short of stature.

But other than that, the woman on the kitchen floor could have been practically anyone who’d been dead for three weeks’ time.

Three
long
weeks’ time.

Alyssa now pushed the intercom buzzer, and in the interview room, Manuel Conseco picked up the telephone.

“Yes,” he said.

“I have a question for Lieutenant Starrett,” Alyssa said. “And several for you, as well. Will you put me on the speaker?”

“Of course,” Manuel said. He made an adjustment to the telephone. “Go ahead, Ms. Locke.”

“Lieutenant, how positive are you that the woman in the kitchen is your wife?” she asked.

Sam glanced over at the mirrored window that allowed her to see him without his seeing her. Her anonymity was completely unnecessary in this situation, and she hoped he knew that she wasn’t in the observation booth by choice. She was there because Manny Conseco had put her there.

“I’m pretty positive, ma’am.”

Ma’am.

There had been a time where Alyssa had been dying to hear him call her that, for him to show her a little respect. But now, after the intimacies they’d once shared, it felt odd.

When they were just having a conversation or standing in the same room together, it was possible for her to pretend that Sam Starrett
hadn’t
licked chocolate syrup from her naked body. But for some reason, when he called her ma’am, she was instantly reminded that he had.

And, worst of all, it was hard to believe that he wasn’t reminded of it, too.

Oh, God.

“Well, I don’t know how you could be so sure,” she said, dragging her attention back to the situation at hand. “I went in there, Lieutenant, and saw her. Was she wearing some kind of jewelry or . . . ?”

“No,” Sam said. He was emotionally wiped, and it sounded in his voice. “But she had on this pair of boots I bought for her last year. It’s Mary Lou.”

“I have a sister,” Alyssa reminded him. “She’s about my height and weight. Back when we lived together, she borrowed my clothing all the time. What does Mary Lou’s sister Janine look like, Lieutenant?”

Sam looked at the mirror again, and his gaze was suddenly sharp. “A lot like Mary Lou,” he said, and he didn’t sound quite so tired anymore. “Holy Jesus. Where’s my brain been?”

“We don’t know that it’s
not
Mary Lou who’s been killed,” Alyssa warned him. “There are two women missing. There’s a fifty percent chance that it
is
your wife who’s dead.”

“Ex-wife,” Sam said. “She signed those papers I was coming here to pick up—they were right on the kitchen counter.” He turned to Manuel Conseco. “Are we doing some kind of positive ID thing with Mary Lou’s dental records?”

“It’s standard procedure, yes.”

“And have we established yet when the death took place?” Alyssa asked.

“We’re working on that, as well,” Conseco told her.

“I want a call with that information, as soon as possible,” Alyssa ordered. “And I want absolutely nothing about this case leaked to the media—is that understood?”

“I believe I am familiar with how to do my job, ma’am,” Conseco said dryly.

Guilty as charged. “My apologies, Mr. Conseco,” Alyssa said. “This one’s particularly important. Max Bhagat will be coming down himself tomorrow.”

Sam glanced at the mirror again at that, but then quickly turned his attention back to Conseco. “Am I done here?”

“Yes,” Alyssa answered for him. “Thank you very much, Lieutenant. You’ve been very patient. If there are any other questions, we’ll be in touch.”

Sam looked over at the mirror again as he swept his hat off the table, and she knew there were plenty of questions unasked—but they were questions
he
wanted to ask
her
.

“Can I give you a lift somewhere?” she added. She might as well get this over with, otherwise he’d simply show up later tonight at her hotel. And Lord knows, she wanted to keep this man far from her hotel room.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

She stood up, and one of Conseco’s assistants led her out of the observation room and back to the lobby.

Where Sam’s friend Noah Gaines was still waiting.

He rose to his feet when he saw her.

“Well, I’m impressed,” Alyssa said.

He was a good-looking man, almost as tall as Sam and nearly as muscular, with broad shoulders that filled out his business suit very nicely. He had light brown eyes behind glasses, that, at first glance, made him look as if he might be playing at being a scholar, like a football linebacker who was attempting to prove to the world that he had a brain.

At second glance, and after exchanging a few sentences with the man, it was obvious that he was a scholar who simply took very good care of one very nice body.

It was a very nice body that had a wedding ring on the left hand.

“We were in there a long time,” Alyssa continued. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“Is he all right?”

“He’s not being held,” she told him. “But until we can establish that he was miles away from here at the time of Mary Lou’s death, he’ll be considered a suspect, which doesn’t make him very happy. I’m doing what I can to make sure that doesn’t take any longer than it has to.”

“He’s lucky to have you as a friend,” Noah said. It was obvious that he was curious about her.

“How long have you known Sam?” Alyssa asked. He wasn’t the only one who was curious.

“We’ve been tight since seventh grade,” he replied. “Although to be honest, we haven’t been in touch much since my grandfather died a few years ago. I haven’t spoken to him in months. Maybe that’s why he never told me about you.”

There was an awful lot loaded in that statement. “There’s nothing to tell,” Alyssa said coolly.

Noah just smiled, and it was clear he’d learned a lot from his childhood friendship with Sam Starrett. He had the same kind of killer smile. “If you say so.” He turned, because there came Sam, escorted out to the lobby by Manuel Conseco.