One Wrong Step (4 page)

J
ohn stepped into the elevator and immediately noticed the fancy brass no smoking sign posted beside the door.

Jesus, he wanted a cigarette. He rode up the three floors to Celie’s apartment, desperately wishing for just one drag, or even a piece of freaking Nicorette gum. Quitting smoking sucked, and he couldn’t have picked a worse month to do it.

He’d spent all afternoon trying to talk to Celie, but her number wasn’t listed and she’d spent the day away from home. John had dropped by her building three times since noon, and each time the burly guy in the lobby had said she was out. Finally at 5:15, when the doorman or security guard or whatever the hell he was had called up to her apartment yet again, she’d picked up.

John tried to imagine what she’d do when she saw him. Would she invite him in or tell him to get lost? He figured his odds were pretty evenly split.

The last time he’d seen Celie had been just after Feenie’s wedding reception last summer down in Mayfield. Celie had left her car at the church, and John had offered her a ride home. He’d known she was going through a rough time, and he’d meant to play it cool, to give her plenty of space. But his noble intentions had evaporated after that first kiss on her front porch.

She’d been backed up against the front door, looking flushed and tousled and sexy as hell. He still remembered her mouth, all red and swollen from where he’d nibbled on it. God, she’d tasted so sweet, and not just her mouth either. Her skin had tasted sweet, too, that pretty stretch of it from her neck all the way down to the top of her party dress. He remembered kissing her there, listening to her uneven breathing, getting revved up for all the things he’d been waiting to do with her for ages.

And then she’d shut him down.

“You have to leave,” she’d said, reaching for the doorknob.

“
Why?
”

She’d fumbled with her keys, finally shaking them loose from this ridiculously tiny black purse. Then she’d turned and looked at him, and he’d never forget her face.

She’d looked appalled.

“I can’t sleep with you. Don’t you understand?”

“I understand we both want each other. What else—”

“Don’t you
get
it? I can’t do this. I’m
married,
for crying out loud!”

Now he stood in front of her door again, wondering if he should expect another brush-off. She was no longer married, which was definitely good. But the fact that she’d moved all the way to Austin and neglected to call him wasn’t what he considered a positive sign.

He couldn’t focus on that right now. Celie was mixed up in some kind of trouble, and he needed to help her.

He took a deep breath and lifted his hand, and the door swung open before he could knock.

“McAllister!”

And then she was in his arms, all soft and warm. He stood there, amazed, as she melted right into him, instantly reminding him how good she always smelled, like woman and strawberries and some kind of soap. He glanced inside and noticed the two men standing in her living room.

“Got company?” He shifted her so she was standing beside him, his arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders.

“Oh, um, yeah.” She tried to step away, but he kept her planted right where she was.

John didn’t like the idea of men, period, lounging around Celie’s apartment, but these guys were especially bad. They both wore suits, which in Austin usually meant you were headed to a funeral or to the state house. These guys were headed to neither, which made them feds.

Both men stepped forward. One was young, maybe late twenties, with dark hair and a smarmy smile he probably practiced in the mirror a few hundred times before going out on a date. The other one was older. His dark hair was gray at the temples and he had crinkles around his eyes. He was ripped, though.

Something about the older agent seemed familiar. Then John placed him: he’d been on the scene at Feenie’s house the night Robert Strickland skipped town.

John looked down at Celie. She’d been crying, over her dead ex-husband, no doubt. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring squeeze. “Care to introduce me?”

“Oh…yes. I’m sorry,” she said, regaining some of that southern gentility she’d been raised with. “John McAllister, this is Special Agent Nick Stevenski and Special Agent Mike Rowe. They’re with the FBI.”

John shook hands with both men.
Back the fuck off,
he telegraphed mentally. Rowe raised his eyebrows, clearly getting the message.

“I was just apologizing because we’ll have to postpone the rest of our interview.” Celie turned to John with a plea in her eyes. “I’m running a little behind. Can you give me ten minutes to change before we go?”

Go?

“No problem,” he said. “Take your time.”

Rowe cleared his throat. “We’ll talk tomorrow, then. How about ten a.m.?”

“I’m working tomorrow,” Celie said quickly.

Rowe looked perturbed. “Any chance you could get the day off? We need to go over a few more details.”

John felt her tense. She did
not
want to talk to these guys, and he couldn’t blame her. The FBI had practically set up camp in her front yard for weeks after her ex’s disappearance. It had been a nightmare for her. And now here they were, back for an encore.

“I’m in charge of the Easter party tomorrow. There’s no way I could disappoint the kids again.” She smiled weakly. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Fine,” Rowe said. “We’ll come by in the afternoon. Four o’clock.”

He made his way toward the door without waiting for a reply. Stevenski trailed behind him, smiling as he walked past Celie.

“Nice meeting you, Ms. Wells.” He gave John a curt nod. “Mr. McAllister.”

“Later, fellas.” John slammed the door behind them. He turned back toward Celie, who was staring at the door and looking dazed.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No.”

Right. Dumb question. “You want to talk about it?”

She gave him a wobbly smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Cecelia Wells lived in a fortress. Rowe scrutinized the place—for the second time that day—as he made his way across the visitor parking lot. The building was composed of white limestone and stucco, the type of architecture Rowe had seen everywhere since he’d come to Texas. The sprawling complex perched atop a cliff overlooking some hills or greenbelt or some sort of park. Cecelia’s unit faced west, and during the hour-long interview Rowe had noticed she had a spectacular view.

Knowing what he did about Cecelia, though, he doubted she’d picked the place for the scenery.

Rowe unlocked the Buick and squinted up at the third floor, counting the units until he located Cecelia’s. The apartment was nice, but small compared to the other luxury units at The Overlook. Hers was the smallest unit available, in fact, just eight hundred square feet. Rowe had garnered these and other details from the well-heeled young leasing agent at The Overlook’s front office on the way out.

“Quite a place she’s got there,” Stevenski said, following Rowe’s gaze.

“Yeah,” Rowe agreed. “Pricey, too. For Austin, at least. How do you think she affords a place like that working at a battered women’s shelter?”

Stevenski shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe she’s got a rich family.”

She didn’t. Rowe was thoroughly familiar with Cecelia’s background, having done some of the original legwork on her over a year ago when her husband’s name had cropped up in connection with the Saledo cartel. Rowe knew everything about Cecelia’s past, including the fact that her mother, a widow, lived in Mayfield and was comfortable, but by no means wealthy. Cecelia’s late father had been a chemical engineer.

“Nah,” Rowe said, “she doesn’t come from money. You read her file?”

“I skimmed it.”

Rowe slid behind the wheel. The car was a piece of crap, but budgets were tight throughout the Bureau, and the San Antonio field office wasn’t high on the list when it came to spreading money around. Making matters worse, San Antonio’s current SAC, or special agent in charge, wasn’t much of a diplomat. At a time when most of the Bureau’s money and talent was being thrown at the antiterrorism campaign, George Purnell had been banished to Texas to deal with drug traffic and money laundering. Apparently, the SAC had had some sort of falling out with the top brass in Washington. His situation was similar to Rowe’s, actually, only Rowe’s previous home had been Chicago.

The car felt like a sauna inside, and Rowe flipped on the air-conditioning. A blast of hot air shot from the vents.

“She’s not at all like I thought she’d be,” Stevenski said.

Rowe knew what he meant. Based on Cecelia’s file, his partner had probably expected to meet a real ballbuster. Instead, he’d met a weepy, pudgy-cheeked blonde.

“She really claw a guy’s eye out?” Stevenski asked.

“Yep, she really did.” Rowe paused at The Overlook’s wrought-iron gate, waiting for it to open.

“And that was, what, ten years ago? She would have been a kid at the time.”

“Yep,” he said again. Cecelia Wells had been twenty-two, definitely a kid in Rowe’s book, when she’d been raped, beaten, and left for dead behind a bar in downtown Austin. She’d been a senior at UT, just one semester shy of graduation, when she’d decided to go out drinking with some girlfriends on Sixth Street. She’d peeled off from the group early, then been accosted in an alley on the way to her car. Rowe had read the police report, and the attack had been horrific. Cecelia Wells was a mere five feet three, 110 pounds at the time. The man ultimately convicted of assaulting her was six feet tall and 200 pounds, almost exactly the same size as Rowe. For a woman that small to actually
claw
the guy’s eye out…Well, suffice it to say she must have been experiencing some serious panic. The rapist had been unarmed, thank God, or he almost certainly would have killed her.

And the eyeball thing wasn’t even the most impressive part. After the trial, Cecelia had made a few public statements, becoming somewhat of a spokeswoman for sexual assault survivors. In subsequent years, she’d dropped off the map, though.

“She’s tough,” Rowe said. “She may have been shaken up today, but she’ll get over it. She just feels responsible.”

She felt that way because Stevenski and Rowe hadn’t been entirely candid with her. Yes, her ex-husband had had a few drinks when he lost control of the Explorer, but he hadn’t been on drugs. And some black-on-blue paint transfer on the rear fender indicated he may have had a nudge into that rock wall.

Rowe turned onto the highway and glanced at the clock. He needed to track down that reporter from the crash scene. He definitely should have talked to her by now, but she hadn’t returned any of his phone calls.

“You ever hear back from that woman at the
Herald
?” Stevenski asked, reading his mind.

“No, and I’m beginning to think she’s dodging me.” Rowe checked his phone, but still no messages. “Looks like I need to pay her a visit.”

Celie sat across the table from McAllister and wondered how the heck he’d talked her into this. One minute she’d been thinking up a tactful way to get him out of her apartment, and the next minute they were in his Jeep on their way out to dinner. Forget that she felt—and looked—like roadkill, and that going out was the very last thing she wanted to do tonight. Somehow McAllister had convinced her that whatever her problems, she’d feel better after a stiff margarita and some Mexican food.

And, just like that, she’d said yes.

So now here they were, at a loud Mexican dive sandwiched between a Laundromat and a Goodwill shop. McAllister claimed it was the best Mexican food in town, but Celie had her doubts. The place was wall-to-wall kitsch, down to the Elvises-on-velvet and neon beer signs decorating the walls.

She snuck a glance at McAllister over the top of her menu. Austin agreed with him. His skin was tan, his hair streaked gold from the sun. Clearly, he’d been spending time outside, probably water-skiing, or rappelling, or practicing one of the many daredevil sports he was so fond of. Whatever he’d been up to, he looked good. Better, even, than he had last summer back in Mayfield. How was that possible? How was it that as time ticked by, men got better and better looking, while women just looked more and more used up?

That’s how Celie felt these days. Exhausted by an endless series of trials and disappointments. And with each passing day, the things she wanted most for herself seemed to move further and further out of reach.

“You’re not going to cry, are you?” McAllister asked, not looking up from his menu.

“Huh?”

“Your chin’s quivering.” He laid his menu aside and met her gaze. “And you can cry all you want, honey, but just let me know ahead of time so I can change your margarita to a double.”

“I’m not going to cry,” she said, meaning it. “I spent most of the day at the police station and on the phone with my former in-laws—who hate me, by the way. I’m all cried out.”

He watched her for a long moment. “I’m sorry about Robert,” he said.

He didn’t really look sorry about Robert, but he seemed genuinely sorry she was upset.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t look so guilt-ridden. It’s not your fault.”

Hello, Robert. Rumor has it you’re dead.

You’d like that, wouldn’t you?

She wished, for the hundredth time that day, that their last conversation hadn’t been so awful. She shook her head. “I just keep thinking if I’d said something different, he never would have taken off like that.”

McAllister frowned. “You didn’t lend him your car?”

“God, no! That’s the last thing I would’ve done. He swiped my keys while I was in the bathroom getting him some aspirin.”

“Why would he steal your car?”

“Transportation, I guess,” she said. “Our conversation wasn’t real friendly, and he left in a big huff.”

A waitress stopped by to drop off their drinks and take their orders, and Celie was grateful for the interruption. She didn’t really want to get into all this, especially with McAllister. She’d learned he was a reporter first and foremost, and anything she said might later become fodder for a news story. It was uncanny, really, that whenever something traumatic happened in her life, John McAllister seemed to be standing around with his notepad. It was one of the reasons she didn’t trust him.