Perfect Fling (16 page)

“It’s Rockford.”

“What do you have for me?” Cole asked, eager for any news that would end Erin’s nightmare faster.

“When do I get you back?” the other man asked.

Cole wasn’t in the mood for games. “Never, if I don’t get some answers.”

Rockford cursed.

Cole braced his free hand beneath his head. “Not joking.”

“I can’t believe you’re threatening to sacrifice everything for a piece of ass.”

Cole clenched his jaw tight and he actually thought he might burst a blood vessel. “Talk about her like that again, and I’ll offer my services to the federal government instead.”

His boss let out a low groan. “She’s not just your baby’s mother.” Another round of cursing commenced. “And I’ll be losing you anyway.”

“No, you won’t. Give me what I need and I’ll be back before you know it.”

He could hear the sound of shuffling papers in the background. “Victoria Maroni went AWOL on Witness Protection after she testified.”

Cole bolted upright in bed. But instead of swearing up a storm or going crazy, everything inside him went silent, much as it did when he was undercover and things were about to come to a head. “The Feds didn’t follow up on her?”

“Why should they? She did her job, testified, and the guy was convicted. They won’t spend man power or money to keep track. She’s not their problem anymore.”

But she was his, and Cole had just gotten proof that Victoria had dropped off the grid.

He ran a hand through his hair. The crazy woman could be anywhere, including Serendipity. But how the hell could she have been in such a small town all this time and not have drawn attention to herself? Unless she just came and went, slipping in and out unnoticed.

“You there?” Rockford asked into the silence.

“I’ve got to follow up on something. I’ll be in touch.”

“Hey! I got you your information. You owe me—”

“Talk to you later,” Cole said, disconnecting the call. He immediately dialed Mike. “Pull photos of Victoria Maroni. Show them to John Brass, see if she’s the brunette who hired him.” Cole felt certain she was behind the shooting and was now stalking Erin, but he wanted to build an airtight case.

“Who was that?” Erin asked, joining him in the bedroom.

“Where’s your mom?”

“She left.” Erin pointed to the phone, indicating she expected an answer.

“That was Mike.” He explained everything he’d learned up to that point.

“So basically all we have now is confirmation.”

He nodded.

“That and a buck fifty will get me a bus ticket.” She began pacing back and forth on the plush cream carpet.

“But now we have a face. Your brothers know who to look out for. It’s a small town and if they show her photograph often enough, someone’s bound to have seen her.”

Erin paused. “Okay, I’ll think positive,” she said, correctly interpreting his unspoken message.

“Good.”

“Cole?”

“Yes?” he asked.

She stepped to the bed, settling next to him. His T-shirt was huge on her leaner frame, but he liked her in his clothing. It was a damn fine view, especially since he wouldn’t be seeing her undressed anymore.

“My mother told me about the clothes you had her buy.”

“They’re hanging in your closet. I brought a few shopping bags of things in too.” He hadn’t wanted to go through the more personal items.

“I’m . . . well, thank you. It was beyond sweet of you to have her replace everything and—”

“You lost everything. It was the least I could do.” He really didn’t want her making him out to be some sort of nice-guy hero. Just because he replaced her clothes didn’t mean he could give her what she expressly said she wanted.

His head pounding, he rose to his feet.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

This was it. “Moving my stuff into another room.”

Erin reared back as if he’d slapped her. Exactly how he’d felt on hearing her words, knowing that each time he indulged in her sweetness, he was hurting her more and more. Yet he wasn’t doing this for payback. He really was trying to be a decent guy. Sleeping with her when she wanted more? That would be more cruel than pulling back now.

She folded her arms across her chest. “That night at Joe’s, you agreed. Whatever it is, for as long as it lasts. Isn’t that what we said?” Her voice quivered, but she kept it together.

“That was before I realized how much I’m hurting you. I’m in, we sleep together, you hope for more, I pull away . . . it’s a vicious cycle. You deserve better. At least now we both agree on that.”

She looked down, ran her tongue over her lips, clearly collecting her thoughts before speaking. Finally she raised her head and looked at him head-on. “You know I said that out of frustration. I’m pregnant and hormonal. This whole enforced confinement thing is getting to me and it hasn’t even started yet. Don’t use my stupid words, said in the heat of the moment, as any kind of agreement. I told you all along, you’re not the man Jed says you are.”

“But I told you all along, I’m not the man for you. As soon as this stalker situation ends and you’re safe, I’m expected back in Manhattan. They’ll brief me and send me back undercover for who knows how long. I can’t call. Text. Check in at all. It’s not any kind of life you’d want.”

“Says you.” Anger shimmered in her eyes, which narrowed.

“Someone has to be rational.”

“And you telling me what I can or can’t handle, or better yet, what I do or don’t want in my life, that’s rational?”

“Yes.”

She blew out a long, clearly pissed-off breath. He waited for the explosion he felt sure was coming. Instead she turned and in silence started for the door.

“Where are you going?”

She swung back around. “I don’t know. But I have thirty-five hundred square feet to find a place far away from you.” With that, she walked out.

And Cole’s headache turned into a full-blown pounding in his temples.

• • •

Cole didn’t know how much more of this he could
take. Two days had passed since he moved out of the master bedroom. By dinnertime on Monday, Erin had gotten over her fit of anger, but as the next couple days passed, Cole realized she’d changed the rules between them drastically.

Whereas she’d been letting him cook for them both when they were at her house, insisting she clean up in exchange, now she was taking care of herself. She beat him to the kitchen for every meal, heating up her mother’s food, adding a premade salad for dinner, also courtesy of her mother, and leaving him to figure out his own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Of course, he was free to join her, she’d told him, and to eat whatever she was having if he wasn’t in the mood to cook. But she wasn’t doing anything
for
him.

She handled her own laundry but didn’t touch his. Straightened up the master bedroom and bathroom, along with anything she used in the kitchen, but left him to clean up after himself. She was perfectly pleasant and completely aloof, treating him like . . . she’d treat any bodyguard who’d been hired for the job.

No,
he realized. Knowing Erin, she’d be nicer to someone hired to watch over her than she was to him. In fact, he felt sure she’d offer to heat up a second slice of lasagna along with her own, or pour a salad into an extra bowl.

He’d thought she wasn’t angry at him anymore, and maybe she wasn’t—but she clearly had an agenda. One he’d yet to figure out. All he knew was that they were in the same house, living even more separate lives than before they’d started sleeping together again.

She was back in independent Erin mode, and as much as he respected it, he hated it at the same time.

He stalked to the sliding glass doors of the kitchen and looked out, only to see her sitting in a lounge chair, a glass of water on the table, along with an e-reader of some sort beside it. She talked on her cell phone, waving an animated hand in the air.

But what struck him hardest was the bathing suit she’d chosen. Alone and away from friends, family, and prying eyes, Erin had chosen a purple bikini. A two-piece number that left nothing to the imagination.

The all-purple top exposed her now even more generous cleavage, while the bottom was the same color, cut high on the thigh, but a white band cut across her belly, and she’d rolled it down lower than necessary, enabling her to tan. He took in her generous curves and her softly rounded stomach and ground his teeth so hard, he wondered if he’d crack a molar.

Torturing himself wasn’t his style, and he’d just turned away when the doorbell rang.

Grateful for any reprieve, he went downstairs to answer it, surprised to see Mike and Cara waiting on the front porch.

He let the couple inside. “What’s up?” Cole asked, hoping like hell he wasn’t in for any kind of brotherly lecture.

“Cara wanted to see how Erin was doing and I figured I’d tag along.”

“Erin’s out back. I’m sure she’ll be happy to have company.” Since she wasn’t including him in her daily interactions and plans.

“Let’s all go out back. It’s nice out.”

“This way.” Cole led them to the kitchen and the sliding doors, taking them out back.

Erin didn’t seem all that surprised to see them, and when Cara stripped off her top, revealing a bikini that Mike couldn’t stop ogling, Cole wondered if Erin hadn’t invited the couple over without his knowledge.

At this point, nothing Erin did should surprise him. Acting like the host of the house, he offered everyone a drink, brought sodas out back, and finally got himself settled in a chair next to Mike.

“You look like hell,” Mike said, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“Thanks. Aren’t you two supposed to be at work?”

Mike grinned. “It’s Cara’s day off and I’m the boss.”

“Any news?” Cole wanted Victoria caught already.

Mike shook his head. “Positive ID on Victoria Maroni as the one who paid Brass to shoot Erin, but that’s all. In the meantime, I’ve got people watching Erin’s house and your apartment. We’ve both got people in Manhattan covering Maroni’s favorite places before she went into Witsec. And we’re discreetly showing her picture around Serendipity at places like the supermarket or Joe’s. Nothing.”

Cole exhaled low and hard. “I’m losing it,” he muttered.

“I noticed there’s been no looks between you two, no little touches, what gives?” Mike eyed him warily.

Cole didn’t have much to lose by telling the truth. “You’ll be happy to know I’ve come to my senses. I’m giving Erin space until this is over and I’m gone.”

Mike raised an eyebrow. “You are one stupid fuck. Almost as dumb as I was,” he said, laughing.

“What’s so funny over there?” Cara called out.

“Mind your own business, baby.”

“You’ll pay for that later,” she promised, blowing him a kiss.

Erin let out a gleeful laugh, obviously appreciating her brother being put in his place by his wife.

Cole merely rolled his eyes.

“Hey, don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Mike told him. “So what happened between you two? Why aren’t you still behaving more like a couple?”

Cole adjusted the frames of his sunglasses and looked over the freshly manicured lawn. “There’s nothing going on between us anymore.”

Mike rocked forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his knees, staring at Cole like he could see inside his skin. “When my sister’s happy, that makes me happy. So when she convinced me she could get that from you, I backed off. What’s changed?”

Cole didn’t do the buddy-buddy talk thing, but with Mike pressing him, he had no choice. “Once she’s safe, I’m back to work. You tell me if it makes any sense to keep up something that has to end. Especially when she’s admitted she wants more than I can give her. Being with her only hurts her and that’s not something I ever wanted to do, no matter what you might think.”

Mike studied him, assessing him in silence. “How about this,” he finally said. “You play things your way . . . for now. But when you’re losing your mind over losing her and you don’t know which end is up? Call me. I’ll kick your ass the way Sam kicked mine.”

Cole didn’t know what Mike meant, and before he had a chance to ask, both his and Mike’s cell phones rang.

His gut screaming, he answered. Mike did the same. Both men had brief conversations, then, hanging up at the same time, met each other’s gaze.

Mike merely nodded, giving Cole permission, not that he needed it.

Cole turned to the women. “Erin?”

Mid-laughter over something Cara said, Erin turned, her beautiful face void of expression when she looked at him.
Intentional, no doubt,
he thought, his heart lurching. He ignored the sensation.

“What is it?” she asked.

Though he wished he could handle this without involving her, he knew she’d never forgive him for keeping her in the dark. “Enforced confinement has just come to an end. Sam just arrested a woman lurking outside your back windows.”

Cole and Mike headed to the precinct, leaving an
angry Erin behind with Cara. Although she wanted to be there, and Cole respected the desire, both he, Mike, and Cara thought it was a bad idea to put her in the same vicinity as the woman stalking her.

Now, at the precinct and knowing Victoria was a room away, Cole wanted to burst in and question her himself, but Mike refused. “Let us do our jobs. Sam’s in with her now.”

“Then let me watch.”

Silence settled around them in Mike’s office as the other man studied Cole. “You look ready to explode.”

“You’re damn right. But I know how to keep it together.”

Mike inclined his head. “Let’s go, but don’t make me regret this.”

A few minutes later, Cole found himself on the opposite side of the glass, watching Sam and Victoria, knowing she couldn’t see him.

He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and studied the scene in front of him.

Sam sat with his back to the mirrored window. Victoria stared at him, while Mike studied her. Granted, it had been a while since he’d seen her last, but she looked . . . different.

He braced his arm on the wall and leaned in closer, trying to figure out what was off. “I want to hear.”

“You promise to stay calm?” Mike asked.

Cole nodded.

Mike flipped the switch, turning on the sound.

“Let’s try this again,” Sam said. “What’s your name?”

“Is he kidding?” The muscles in Cole’s arm strained from holding back his anger.

Mike placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. “Listen.”

“How many times do we have to go over this? No matter how often you ask me, the answer’s the same. Nicole Farnsworth.”

“Victoria’s maiden name is Farnsworth. Parents are rich. Disapproved of their daughter getting involved with a known mob guy. She ran off with him anyway,” Cole said.

But why wasn’t she owning up to who she was?

“Did you fingerprint her?” Cole asked.

“I checked when we arrived. She was printed and booked for trespassing as soon as she came in. We’re running her prints.”

Cole set his jaw. “What about the rest of the charges? Attempted murder, stalking . . .”

“We’ll get there. For now, we just need enough to hold her.”

Cole studied the woman carefully. Same dark hair, longer than he remembered, but again, time had passed. She dressed differently than Victoria. More casual. Victoria was always well-groomed, to perfection, in fact. Full face of makeup, dark lipstick, hair teased. This Victoria was . . . softer.

That was the word he’d been searching for. Softer. More gentle. And she said her name was Nicole.

Cole narrowed his gaze, then pulled out his cell and dialed. “I need information on Victoria Maroni’s siblings. ASAP,” Cole said into the phone, then hung up without waiting for a response.

“You think she’s telling the truth?” Mike asked.

Cole nodded, hating what that meant. “The woman in there with Sam? She couldn’t spend five minutes with Vincent Maroni and not get eaten alive.”

Mike swore. Cole understood, because it meant Victoria was still out there. At least Erin was with Cara, a trained police officer, which soothed him—just barely.

Mike picked up the phone in the room and dialed. “Put a rush on those prints.”

“Let’s go with my gut on this and assume she’s telling the truth. I can get more out of her than Sam, so will you let me in there now?” Cole asked.

“You can’t interrogate her like a cop.”

“I am a cop,” he reminded the other man.

“Out of your jurisdiction. But I agree. Your personal stake in this might get her talking—assuming she feels bad when she finds out what her sister’s done.”

Cole nodded. “Let’s go.”

Before they could walk in, an out-of-breath rookie burst into the room. “Prints you requested, boss.” He handed a file to Mike, who opened the folder, scanned the results, and nodded at Cole.

“Let’s do this thing.” Mike opened the door.

Sam and the woman across from him turned their way, as Mike, followed by Cole, stepped into the small room. A table, the two chairs, dingy walls, and not much else.

“What’s up?” Sam asked, rising from his chair.

“Seems she’s telling the truth.” He slapped the folder onto the table.

The other woman jumped at the loud sound. Cole would have felt sorry for her if this mess weren’t so serious.

“I
told
you I’m not Victoria,” she said, pinning Sam with a triumphant look that had her cheeks flushed pink with victory. The other man actually squirmed.

She surprised them by rising from her seat.

Mike stepped in front of the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”

She blinked, startled that the answer wasn’t obvious to them. “I’m not the person you’re looking for, so I’m leaving.”

The hell she was. “Not so fast.” Cole braced his hands on the table. “You were still found trespassing, and we have questions about your sister, so
sit
.
Down
.” His voice rose and the woman flinched.

Cole realized his initial impression was right. She was nothing like her sister.

Before he could moderate his tone, Sam jumped from his seat so fast his chair hit the wall behind him.

“Back off,” the younger Marsden snapped at Cole. “This isn’t your interrogation.” The easier brother was suddenly every inch the defender, the in-charge cop Cole knew him to be.

“Everyone calm down.” Mike stepped to the table as Sam righted his chair. “Miss Farnsworth? This is Detective Cole Sanders. He’s NYPD and he has a—”

“You’re Cole? The same Cole my sister’s gone crazy over?” Her light blue eyes settled on his.

“What do you know?” Cole asked, controlling his frustration with her lack of answers. Sam was right. Scaring her wouldn’t accomplish his goal of getting her to talk.

“Why don’t you sit back down?” Sam asked, gesturing to her chair.

She lowered herself into her seat.

“Drink?” Sam asked.

Mike whipped his head around to stare at his brother.

“No, thank you. I’m fine.” She shot Sam a grateful look before glancing at Cole. “Before I answer your questions, I want to know what my sister’s been up to. You tell me that, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Cole glanced at Mike, then Sam. “You don’t know? You haven’t been in touch with her?”

She folded her arms across her chest and waited. Apparently she was serious. They answered her first. Maybe there was more steel in Nicole’s spine than Cole had previously thought.

Knowing whose jurisdiction he was in, Cole deferred to Mike. “Well?”

The other man shrugged. “Tell her what she wants to know.”

Cole did. From the shooting to disabling Erin’s security, breaking into her home and destroying her clothes, he ran down a laundry list of what they believed Victoria had done to Erin.

Nicole Farnsworth’s face paled. “It’s worse than I thought,” she said, more to herself than to him.

“Now will you tell us what’s going on with your sister? When you last spoke to her, what you know, and why you were at Erin Marsden’s, looking into her side window?” Sam asked, his voice gentler than Cole had ever heard him.

Cole shook his head, hoping the other man knew what he was doing.

“First drop the charges against me,” she said, taking all three of them by surprise.

Cole stiffened. “That wasn’t the agreement. You asked what your sister had done and we told you.”

“Well, forgive me for not thinking about everything important all at once. It’s not like I’ve been arrested before! Cuffed, printed, humiliated—” She scowled at Sam. “I’ll tell you this. I was trying to find out what was going on with my sister, if she’d gone looking for this Erin. And I was going to warn Erin, if I saw her.”

“By lurking at her windows and scaring her?” Cole asked in disbelief.

“If I rang the doorbell and either one of you saw my face, would you have let me in for conversation and coffee?” she asked, her sarcasm thick.

Sam let out an unexpected chuckle. “She’s got a point.”

“Shut up,” Cole muttered.

“Drop the charges or I want my lawyer.” Ignoring Cole and Mike, Nicole’s gaze settled on Sam, as if she’d already figured out he was the key to getting what she wanted.

Or she was just responding to the same mental deficiency that had hit Sam.

Mike groaned. “I’ll take care of it. Meanwhile,
you
.” He pointed to Nicole. “Talk. This is my sister’s life we’re talking about.” Mike stormed out and slammed the door without looking back.

Silence surrounded them, until Sam cleared his throat. “We’ve all got a personal interest in this case. Erin’s my sister too. We need whatever information you can give us about your sister and her plans. Start from the last time you heard from her.”

Nicole ran a shaking hand through her hair. “It’s not that simple. Vicky’s always been . . .
unstable
is the best word I can give you. She has emotional issues.” She hesitated, as if debating how much to reveal.

Cole decided to let her do this her own way in the hope of slowly gaining her trust, and with it, more details.

“To start with, she’s always been needy, and transferred that need from man to man.”

“Her husband treated her like dirt,” Cole said bluntly.

Nicole swallowed hard. “Well, she didn’t get much attention from our parents, but going out with Vincent got them to notice her enough to forbid the relationship. She ran off with him anyway. I didn’t hear from her often over the years, but after the raid and Vincent’s death, we had the first long talk we’d had in ages.”

“What did she say?” Sam asked.

Nicole clasped her hands tightly together on the table. “She called against orders, I’m guessing, to tell me she was going into Witness Protection because she had to testify in a federal case against some of Vincent’s business associates. But once it was over, she was going after the one man who really loved her and treated her like a queen.” Her blue eyes leveled Cole with an icy glare. “I’m not saying she’s rational, but if you led her on in any way, so help me—”

Damn, Cole was tired of that accusation. “I was nice to her,” he said through gritted teeth. “I talked to her like she was a lady, something she didn’t find much in her husband’s crowd. I felt sorry for her, if you want to know the truth, but no sane person would mistake my behavior for anything more than simple human kindness or friendship. And once she learned I was there undercover, it should have been perfectly obvious why I befriended her in any way.”

“You needed information from her.” She scowled.

“That, and frankly, once I realized she wasn’t in on anything within the organization, I thought I could protect her when things went down. That’s it.” Cole spread his hands wide, indicating he’d done what he could to help her sister.

She stared at her intertwined hands for a while. Finally she looked up at Cole, but let her gaze settle on Sam when she spoke next. “He just said no sane person would mistake his behavior as genuine interest. Well, Vicky’s bipolar.” She choked over the word.

And there it was, Cole thought as he leaned against the wall. Finally they’d gotten the truth. Now to find out whether, beyond wanting to help her sister, Nicole would be willing to help them too.

“Thank you for that,” Sam said, his hand covering hers. “Is she on medication?”

Nicole swallowed hard. “Supposed to be. But she has a history of stopping when she’s feeling good, of refusing to believe she needs to live on them in order to function in the same world as the rest of us.”

So they were dealing with a sick woman. Cole hoped that was better than her being purely delusional. Maybe there were threads of humanity in there that they could work with.

“Did she tell you where she was going when she left the program?” Cole asked.

Nicole shook her head. “I asked, and she said that Cole was meant to be hers and she was going after him. That’s when I knew she was probably off her medication and I tried to keep closer tabs on her, but she never answered her phone, and her contact was sporadic.” She twisted her hands together in a way that had to be painful. “Then, a few days ago, she called in the middle of the night, hysterical. She was rambling about how this Erin Marsden was ruining all her plans. She said something about watching Cole, waiting for the right time to approach him, but Erin was in the way.”

“That’s another thing that doesn’t make sense. Why didn’t she just come find me right away?” Cole asked.

“From what I could understand of her rambling, when she first came to town, she watched. She wanted to get an idea of your life. And she saw Erin leaving your apartment.”

“That was over four months ago!” Cole’s head nearly exploded.

“I know. Like I said . . . bipolar. She’s always spent more time plotting and planning than doing. But when she makes a move, it’s big.”

“Like running away with Vincent,” Sam said.

Nicole nodded.

“When did you hear from her again?”

“The day she saw Cole and Erin talking at some coffee shop. She went ballistic. I guess that’s when she started targeting Erin specifically, but I didn’t know she’d hired someone to shoot her! I didn’t think she was violent.” Nicole lay her head in her hands and moaned. “I don’t know what to say.” She lifted her pain-filled eyes to Sam’s.

The way she kept focusing on Sam and not Cole, despite Cole’s connection to her sister, he knew he hadn’t imagined the connection there. Interesting.

“Do you know where she’s hiding out? Because this is a small enough town that we’d have had a sighting by now if she was living here,” Sam said gently.

Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I don’t even know how to tell you this.”

Cole’s nerves jangled. “What is it?”

“Last time Vicky called me, it was right before the weekend. She was hysterical because she’d been setting up a special place for the two of you to live and she found out Erin was pregnant.”

“Where is this place?” Cole asked.

Nicole spread her hands wide. “I don’t know.”

“Who would?” Cole asked.

She shrugged, looking helplessly at Sam.