Material Witness (2 page)

Or come back here again.

Maureen would definitely make her
come back.

Cassie shuddered at the thought. One
evening out of her life in a bar with grease-lined walls and people was enough
for any self-respecting woman. She was staying put until she gathered all the
information she needed, and then she was hitting the pavement, back to her
comfy but small apartment with locks and security in the nice section of the
city.

CJ Carmen, the main character in all
her crime novels, would have the stomach to dance right up to any one of these
thugs and demand the information she needed. Too bad Cassie didn't have CJ's
gumption.

That was the good thing about being a
writer. No matter what problem she encountered in a book, she could keep
working at it until she got it right. You couldn't do that in real life, and
Cassie knew that painfully well. In real life, Cassie didn't have the grace and
fluidity of CJ Carmen or the confidence with which she moved. She valued
control in a world that was filled with so little of it.

Cassie took a deep breath and
gathered all the courage she could muster. She’d created CJ Carmen. She could
create a little gumption, too. If she had to take notes from someone, Mr.
Smokey Blue Eyes seemed the most harmless of the bunch.

Which didn't say much for the
clientele in Rory's.

* * *

He was a dead man.
Jake Santos glanced at the clock over
the line of liquor bottles neatly stored behind the bar and recalled the first
rule of surviving undercover law enforcement.
If your informant is five
minutes late, you’ve waited four minutes too long
. He’d been sitting there
for fifteen minutes.

Ty would be pissed
.

Jake couldn’t say he’d blame him
either. His former partner had taken a bullet for following emotion instead of
the rulebook. But Angel had been insistent. This case was so close to breaking
wide open that another few minutes may be worth his time.

Taking a long pull on his beer, he
let his eyes crawl through the seedy bar. Scum bred scum, and Rory's was about
as close to the bottom of the barrel as a person got. Most everything illegal
that happened in Providence started with a handshake right here at one of these
tables.

Where the hell was Angel?

He tossed a ten-dollar bill on the
bar and waved to the bartender. As he turned to take one last look at the room,
he saw her again. Yeah, he’d noticed the leggy brunette “lady” at the far end
of the bar for the past fifteen minutes. It was kind of hard not to notice
someone who looked as out of place here as his grandmother would.

He dragged his gaze from her legs and
let his attention drift upward toward her painted cheeks. Her dark eyes were
the most prominent feature of her round face. Her eyes—from this distance they
looked sable—were bright and wide, but not as if she was supporting a habit,
like most other women who took to the streets. She appeared more curious than
anything as her gaze swept the thinning room, almost as if she were taking
mental notes.

Jake cursed under his breath. He
didn’t care how much paint she had on her face, he’d bet his next paycheck she
wasn’t a hooker. The only thing they gave a damn about was getting money for
their next fix. This one…she was looking for something and it wasn’t a john.
She was tugging at her slinky red dress, trying to hide her God-given assets
instead of advertising them like most other “ladies,” was another telltale sign
she was way out of her comfort zone. No matter how much her high cheekbones
were tinted with color to disguise her innocence, it was there just like a neon
sign that screamed “hands off.”

And her eyes were too curious.
Curiosity like that was going to get her mugged, raped or dead before the night
was over.

Jake took another pull from the
bottle, grimacing at the warm taste of its dregs. He placed the empty bottle in
the perspiration ring it had left on the polished bar. He didn’t give a damn
what this woman’s reason was for being here. Now that Angel was a no show, Jake
was pissed. After weeks of gaining his trust, Jake was sure tonight he'd get a
personal introduction to Ritchie Trumbella, bringing him closer to making a
case against the local crime boss that would finally lead to an arrest.

But Angel wasn’t here. There were
only a few locals drowning their sorrows at the bottom of a glass before
staggering home. Well, them and the Painted Lady at the end of the bar who he
knew was headed for trouble.

Jake groaned inwardly. He'd been
fooled before. It may have been a long time ago, but his memory was long. The
way she was casing the place…

Damn. He was a cop. A good one, too.
And Jake knew that if he didn’t get this woman out of Rory’s fast, he’d end up
reading her obit in the
Providence Journal
tomorrow morning.

He motioned to the bartender when he
appeared in front of him. Sliding off the barstool, Jake tossed a crisp
twenty-dollar bill to the finely polished surface of the bar and tipped his
empty beer bottle toward the woman in red.

“Send another one down to the end,
and get whatever she's having.”

“Diet soda,” the bartender said,
stretching his wiry gray eyebrows up in a salute. His chipmunk cheeks glowed a
shade darker with amusement.

“Diet…”
Jesus
. There had to be
one hell of a story attached to this woman. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear
it.

He pushed an errant wooden chair back
into place against a table as he made his way toward the end of the bar. As he
got closer, Jake noticed her eyes were impossibly dark, almost black in color.
It was the kind of deep color that made a man fall into them in a drugged daze.
Her mouth twitched slightly. His eyes fixed on the small beauty mark just to
the side of her lips, and he wondered if she'd put it there as part of her
disguise or if it was natural. He fought the sudden urge to brush his thumb
along her cheek to answer his question.

“Have another?” Jake said, sliding
into the stool next to her just as the bartender served the drinks and dropped
the change from his twenty on the bar. Leaving the money in place, he pushed
the soda the bartender just served next to the woman's already nearly full
glass.

The delicate features of her face
registered steep panic. If every other signal she’d given off hadn’t been
enough, this one just clinched it. There was no way this woman was working.

Jake's chest squeezed uncomfortably
with an emotion he didn't feel very often and wished he could will away now. He
almost felt bad for the girl, scared even. Did she have a clue what she'd
gotten herself into by coming here? And dressed like
this
?

“Thank you,” Painted Lady said
softly. “But I already have a drink.” She tilted her slender shoulder slightly
and…she blushed with the gesture. Good Lord, when was the last time he'd seen a
woman's cheeks turn color for something so minuscule? You'd think he'd just
asked her to take her clothes off for a strip search.

“This your first time?”

“Ah, no,” she stammered, averting her
gaze.

Definite amateur.

“What's your name?”

Curling her fingers around the
sweated glass, she took a quick sip of her soda. Those dark eyes glanced away
for a second before zeroing in on him like a radar lock. The blushing woman was
tossed aside like a crumpled piece of yesterday's news. A seductress on the
prowl had taken her place.

Jake's insides kicked hard and then
squeezed into a tight knot. He hadn’t been in the company of a woman in… He
couldn't recall. It had been way too long if he couldn't remember the last time
he'd had sex.

It had been his choice, of course.
Women his age wanted a commitment and he was damaged goods, too detached for
intimacy or some such shit the department shrink had said. Who the hell needed that?

And how else could it be? A cop
needed focus. He couldn't be effective in his job with his mind clouded with
thoughts of someone at home. He'd seen just how distractions could destroy, not
only a cop's career, but his life.

Jake focused on the woman's lips,
unable to pull his eyes from the sheen of moisture settled there. With a move
that seemed too natural to be deliberate, she ran her tongue over her top lip
and wiped it clean.

Heat prickled his skin beneath his
heavy jacket and settled like warm molasses in the center of his belly. He'd
have to deal with his sexual appetite some other time. He was working and this
woman was off limits with a capital “O.”

“My name is CJ,” she finally said.

After a moment, her penciled eyebrows
lifted slowly, and she cocked her head to one side. It took a minute for Jake
to realize she was waiting for him to respond.

“Jake.”

“Nice to meet you, Jake.” She thrust
her hand out, apparently to shake his.

He nodded and gripped her tiny hand.
It was silky soft and lost in his much larger one. She quickly snatched her
hand away and rested it in her lap by the hem of dress. Another strange move.
She was too nervous, too polite, and she was starting to lose some of the
confidence that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

“Is that your real name? Jake?”

Lifting his beer to his lips, he
asked, “Why would I lie?”

“Oh, I don't know. I can think of a
hundred reasons why a man would want to hide his true identity.”

“For instance?”

“You have a wife at home?”

He paused, staring at her. “Would
that bother you?”

Jake had to keep himself from
laughing as he took a pull from the bottle. The way CJ rose up high on her
stool, he was sure she was about to say yes, which for some strange reason,
made him feel good. If she were really a hooker, she wouldn't give a shit if he
had a Mrs. at home. He’d be just money to her.

“That's your business. Not mine,” she
said.

He nodded again. “Damn right. But I'm
not married.”

He couldn't fathom why, but Jake
wanted her to know that fact. It shouldn't have made a difference. There was no
way he was going to take this woman to bed. But he didn't lie when it came to
relationships. Lies were too easy to trip over. He’d learned that one the hard
way early on in his career.

“Are you waiting for a friend?” she
asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you don’t work here. That much
is clear. You weren’t sitting with anyone or even talking to the bartender. I’m
just wondering why someone like you would come to a place like this. What
brought you here?”

His lips lifted up at the corners.
“Do you always ask so many questions of people when you first meet them?”

She shrank a little in her seat.
“Well, I…”

“What about you?”

“I asked you first.”

He frowned “For the record. Men tend
to avoid questions in places like this.”

She looked startled. Then, almost as
if she were storing that tiny bit of information away for safekeeping, her face
changed.

“What do men such as yourself like?”

Jake couldn’t help but laugh. This
whole picture was too absurd. He didn't know if he should be hauling CJ out of
here to make curfew or lock her up for the worst solicitation he'd ever seen.

Why did his mind keep settling on
pulling her into his arms and wiping that God-awful mask off her face so he
could really look at her?

Lord, he was long overdue
…

He needed a weekend off. Something to
remind him he was still among the living where men and women and sex were
concerned. Where he didn't worry about streetwalkers who needed rescuing.

He turned, about to give CJ an earful
when a gust of cold wind pulled his attention back toward the open barroom
door. The smell of cold March air freshened the dank odor of the room.

The man of the hour had arrived.

Jake fought to keep his reaction from
showing as Ritchie Trumbella strolled into the bar like a king with his court.
The two women draped on each of his arms looked much like CJ with their
bodyhugger dresses and 4-inch stilettos. As soon as Ritchie greeted three men
sitting at a table, he motioned to the women to move along. They walked to the
end of the room toward the restroom while Ritchie surrounded himself with the
rest of his entourage.

Damn! Where the hell was Angel
tonight?

The older couple that had been
arguing most of the evening quickly got up and left the bar.

Jake turned to CJ and saw that her
eyes were like saucers, glued to the presence of this new man. If she didn't
already know him, she was definitely intrigued. And he wanted to know why.

His gut twisted with her interest.
And a sudden emotion that vaguely felt like…annoyance. Regardless of what he'd
set out to do, he didn't want CJ to meet Ritchie Trumbella any more than he’d
want his own sisters to meet the man. Trumbella was bad news and the sooner CJ
understood that, the better off she'd be.