Lethal Confessions (31 page)

At first, Luke thought Kozak’s history didn’t fit with his idea of a serial killer. But Robitaille had reminded him that serial killers often appeared completely normal, holding down good jobs and generally acting as upright members of their communities. And Kozak did have a record of violent crime before allegedly straightening himself out.

Even after the relaxing meal, Robitaille was still taut with energy. When she braked in the parking lot at HQ, she left the car running with her hand on the gearshift. Pushy jumped out and headed to his car, which was parked a row over. When Luke didn’t move, Robitaille glanced over her shoulder at him, her eyes questioning.

He got the message.
Get moving, pal.

He would. But first he had some business to conduct with her.

“I’m not leaving quite yet,” he said in a quiet voice. He got out and climbed back into the front seat.

Robitaille’s body language almost always radiated intensity, but the way her slender hands gripped the steering wheel, she looked ready to rip it right off the column.

“I need a favor,” he said.

A flicker of surprise crossed her fine-boned features, and she seemed to relax. “Yes?”

“Remember that little girl I’ve been visiting at the Children’s Hospital? Alicia Trent?”

She nodded.

“I’ve been lining up friends and celebrities to visit her while she’s waiting for surgery, and I figure she’d really enjoy meeting a detective. Especially one of the female persuasion. You haven’t got any spare time—I know that, Amélie. But it would mean a lot to the kid if you could get down there for even half an hour.”

She let out a tiny sigh, dropping her hand to her lap. When finally she turned toward him, Luke saw, in the fluorescent glow of the parking lot lights, that her eyes had softened.

“Of course. No problem,” she said in a gentle voice.

Luke smiled, relieved out of all proportion. “That’s great. I really appreciate it. You’re going to love Alicia. Just let me know when you can make it, and I’ll go down with you.”

She offered a faint smile. “I’ll look forward to it. But, frankly, I’ve never been very good with kids. Just ask my sister.”

Luke didn’t believe that. “But your nephew loves you within an inch of his life. He was all over you last night before dinner.”

She laughed. “Cooper knows who butters his bread. What I lack in auntie skills, I make up for with goodies his parents won’t buy him.”

“That’s what aunts and uncles are for,” Luke said, envying her. He’d never have a nephew.

“Toys and ice cream cones,” she said. “And commiserating when Mom and Dad are meanies. But you know what the best thing about it is, Beckett?”

He shook his head. How could he?

“Being able to enjoy the kid and then make your escape back to peace and quiet. That’s something parents can never do.”

He blinked, surprised. “Sounds like motherhood isn’t too high on your list of priorities.”

She suddenly looked achingly sad. “I don’t want to be my mother. Motherhood almost wound up killing her, and I’m not that strong. Not in that way.”

Luke merely nodded, even as he fought an impulse to pull her into his arms. Robitaille must have watched her mother descend to the depths of hell after her daughter was murdered. She clearly didn’t want to talk about the death of her twin, and he was determined to respect her privacy. If that meant not talking about it, that’s what he would do.

“I understand,” he said, sad for her, and strangely for himself, too.

She seemed to shake it off, morphing back into the scrappy cop. “Yeah, well, then you’re better than my parents. They’re still fixated on my so-called biological clock. Maybe you could straighten them out for me.”

“I’d better take a pass on that, Detective,” he said with a little chuckle at her jest. “I’m thirty-six. They’d probably tell me to take care of my own damn clock.”

She laughed, a genuine, sweet sound. “So they would, Beckett. So they would.”

Luke couldn’t hold off anymore. “Amélie,” he said in a low voice, slipping his hand behind her neck. He leaned into her as he gently brought her head toward his. He half-expected her to give him an elbow smash to the jaw.

Wonder of wonders, though, she didn’t. She closed her eyes as he drew her toward him, parting her lips on a sigh as he claimed them. Still, her nearly rigid body unconsciously communicated her need for control.

He traced the outline of her lips, probing with his tongue as she held the flat of her palm against his chest. Despite the half-hearted resistance, she soon opened to his insistent demand and their tongues met in a hot, wet embrace. Luke stroked the back of her neck and ran his fingers through her fragrant hair as he lost himself in the sweet softness of her.

“Beckett, no,” she whispered as she broke the kiss.

Not this time, sweetheart.
He pulled her closer. “Don’t fight what you really want. Not anymore.” He claimed her mouth again, and she gave a soft moan that sounded like surrender. But still, her hands resisted him and her body remained taut, unyielding—obeying the part of her brain that must be demanding she push him away.

Not that he could blame her since they were making out in a police parking lot, in full view of anyone passing by.

Sighing, he slid his lips along her cheek until they brushed the soft flesh of her ear. She shuddered against him.

What the hell, he thought. He might as well take the risk. “I want you to come home with me, Amélie. Tonight.”

She made a distinctly unladylike grunt and gave him a short but powerful push that threw him back onto his seat. Only half-surprised, he watched her toss her hair and straighten into a ramrod posture, hands on the wheel at ten and two.

“What I may or may not want, Beckett, doesn’t mean a goddamn thing. Now, get out of the car before I throw you out.” She sounded both pissed off and frustrated.

Luke had a hard-on like a Patriot missile, but did as she asked with as much dignity as he could muster. He figured he could look at what had just happened either as a rejection or as a beachhead. He chose the latter.

Robitaille had thrown up her walls again. But, after tonight, it was only a matter of time until her defenses gave way under the relentless siege he had planned.

Amy’s nerves jangled like wind chimes in a gale. She’d almost succumbed to her desire for Beckett and straddled him right in the front seat of her car, giving him exactly what he obviously hungered for. And in the middle of the goddamn PBSO parking lot, no less. Her body had taken charge for those couple of minutes that had seemed more like an hour—a skyrocketing, sensual hour. Denial was out of the question. When Beckett kissed her, her brain had gone AWOL, completely checking out. The seductive heat of his mouth and hands made her forget everything but him and what he was doing to her.

If he hadn’t broken the spell by asking her to go home with him, she might have been well and truly lost. But his bold invitation had short-circuited the blazing sexual connection and shocked her brain back into reality mode, even as images of the two of them tangled up in his sheets danced around in her head.

No way could she have sex with him. If she did, she knew in the depths of her heart that everything would spiral out of control. Beckett would use her and then discard her, and that just couldn’t happen.

Never.

Hot sex wasn’t worth the emotional pain. Nor was it worth the damage it would do to their working relationship, at what could be a critical point in the investigation.

Amy blasted up the interstate heading home, her jaw clenched so tight she knew it would bring on a migraine if she didn’t snap out of it and relax. Damn Beckett. Why did he have to jump her like that? And why did she have to respond like a love-struck cheerleader when the quarterback throws his arm around her for the first time? Tomorrow, she’d demand that he back off completely. If he balked, she’d go to Cramer and recommend he be removed from the investigative team. That would suck, but she couldn’t let him mess with her head in the middle of the most important case of her career.

Ten minutes later, she pulled into her driveway and cut the engine. But she didn’t make a move to get out. Instead, she stared straight ahead at the dark outline of her house, her mind still stuck on Beckett and wondering if he’d decided to head home or…

Well, she didn’t exactly know what rich, retired baseball players did with their evenings. Since she’d turned him down and left him in something of a state, maybe he’d look for other company. More compliant company.

It sure wouldn’t be hard for him to find
.

Her stomach twisted at the thought of him in the arms of some tarted-up, twenty-something bar chick like the hotties they’d seen at Chester’s. Would he take someone like that back to his fancy house?

Yesterday, on a whim, she’d looked up his address from his license record and plugged it into Google Earth. It turned out he had a good-sized piece of property in one of the classiest sections of Palm Beach. One of those El-something streets south of Worth Avenue. The street view had given her a reasonable glimpse of the house’s exterior, but it had only served to whet her curiosity. The sprawling, two-storey home overlooked the Intracoastal Waterway, but appeared relatively modest by Palm Beach standards. Given what she knew about the salaries of baseball superstars, she was surprised he didn’t have something considerably more grandiose.

The car’s engine ticked and clinked as it cooled. Other than that, she couldn’t hear another sound in the quiet neighborhood. Darkness enveloped her house, making it look empty, almost eerily so, and suddenly she felt terribly alone. She stared at the front door, her heart beating hard in her chest as she willed herself to go in. Almost hyper, she drummed a tattoo on the steering wheel and tried to push the memory of Beckett’s searing kiss and enveloping warmth out of her mind.

What the hell was wrong with her?

The thought of trudging into that dark, lonely house felt like it would be a sort of surrender. One of those small, seemingly insignificant acts that later turn out to be turning points in life.

Screw that
.

She fired up the engine and screeched back out into the street. With a silent apology to the neighbors, she gunned it and headed back toward the interstate.

When it came to Robitaille, Luke was feeling like he was standing at the plate with the winning run on base and the game on the line. Confident, but not at all cocky or arrogant. Just quietly sure of himself. Sometimes he would get the RBI that won the game; sometimes he would strike out and feel like a goat. But he always knew one thing for certain—he wouldn’t leave anything on the field. If he didn’t get the game-winning hit, it would never be for lack of an all-out effort.

Despite his confidence that Robitaille would eventually come around, he still faced a tricky problem. She’d jacked his hormones so high he just might cripple himself. A multitude of options for a solution had presented themselves as he drove home to Palm Beach. His black book? Nah, that didn’t appeal. Checking out one of his favorite bars? He was in no mood to shoot the breeze with fans. A cold shower? That would have been an unwelcome last resort.

Instead, he found himself pounding a treadmill in his mini-gym, rivers of sweat pouring down his body as he pushed himself even harder than he had in his morning workout. He’d run until his knees started to howl, then he’d work with free weights before grabbing a shower. A long,
hot
shower. After that, he’d pour himself a snifter of Courvoisier, and by around midnight he’d be dozing off in front of some old movie on AMC, the frustrating encounter with Robitaille not much more than a fuzzy memory.

Over the hum of the treadmill and the pounding of his feet, the gate intercom sounded its distinctive loud ring. Who the hell was out there this late? He shut down the treadmill, threw a towel around his neck, and went to find out.

Monday, August 2

10:45 p.m.

Amy glowered at the intercom box bolted onto a metal post outside the imposing gate.

“Who is it?” Beckett’s disembodied voice sounded annoyed.

“Beckett, you’d better let me into this damn fortress fast before I change my mind.”

She swallowed hard, forcing down the choking sensation in her throat. How could she have let herself give in to this insane impulse? She would look like six kinds of fool to Beckett.

He didn’t answer, but the white metal gate smoothly opened as Amy fidgeted with the gearshift. She was equally divided between keeping the transmission in drive and jamming it into reverse. When she lifted her foot from the brake and the car started to inch up the slight incline of his drive, it felt like the vehicle was on remote control.

Feet planted apart and arms crossed over his chest, Beckett stood in the doorway as she pulled up under a portico. Warm light from twin, lantern-style porch fixtures bathed his buff torso in a golden sheen. Except for a towel around his neck and a pair of low-slung sweat shorts, he was naked. As she let her hungry eyes roam, her doubts fought a losing battle with her libido.

She slid out and slammed her car door. “Don’t talk,” she snapped.

His mouth opened, then shut. His gaze was hot, but he also looked ready to laugh.

Swearing under her breath, Amy pushed him inside, and then shoved the ornate wooden double doors shut behind them. Beckett’s eyes narrowed, amusement replaced with an intensity of emotion she couldn’t read. She didn’t care. She was making a mistake of herculean proportions and she damn well wasn’t going to let herself overthink it. If she had her way, Beckett wouldn’t be doing much thinking for the next while, either.

When she lunged into him, he was ready, easily absorbing her charge and folding her into his brawny arms. Her face angled up toward his, the tips of her shoes barely touching the foyer’s ceramic floor as he pulled her into a secure embrace. She kissed him hard, diving her fingers into his thick hair as she inhaled his musky scent, all hot and damp. All powerful male. All sensual and wonderful.