Secrets and Seduction: 5 Romance Novels (95 page)

“Yes.”

“We’re officers Turner and Martinez,” the shorter Latino cop, who must be Martinez, said. “The lady may want to wait outside.”

Since Michael knew that wasn’t an option, he ignored it, instead asking, “What happened?”

“Drug overdose,” Turner, the white cop, answered. “Cocaine. There’s white powder in her nose. Do you recognize her?”

Michael shook his head. “I’ve never seen her before.”

“Were any of your employees working tonight? Maybe she was partying with them. Drugs and sex sometimes go together. She looks like a high-priced call girl, so maybe it was one of your married employees.”

“Other than my security team, none of my employees was scheduled to work.” Michael tried not to stare at the young woman. She had large breasts that amply filled the lacy bra. Her dark thatch was evident through the lacy panties. He wished Ileana wasn’t standing here. He wished he wasn’t, either.

“It seems an odd place for a sexual tryst,” Michael remarked, forcibly not looking at Ileana. Now it seemed sordid that he’d had sexual thoughts about her the day he’d met her. “If this girl was a professional, you’d think she’d take her John to a hotel room.”

“Sometimes illicit thrill enhances the experience,” Turner said. “And if your employees are dealing drugs out of your warehouse, and she was trading sex, what better place to do it?”

“My employees aren’t dealing drugs here,” Michael retorted with force. No, not that.

“We’ll have to investigate that angle, Mr. Ziffkin,” Martinez said. “After all, she died on your premises.”

God, he didn’t need that kind of negative scrutiny.

“And if it was an accidental OD, why did whoever was with her run?” Turner added.

Worse and worse. Michael looked around and cleared his throat. “Where are her clothes?”

“We haven’t found them,” Martinez replied. “Whoever was here might have carried them off to hide her identity.”

“She looks like a co-ed,” Michael blurted. “Not a drug addict.”

“I don’t think she was a co-ed.” Ileana’s quiet voice broke the sudden silence.

Michael stared at her. She shuddered. Quickly he slipped out of his suit jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She closed her eyes, inhaling, and snuggled into his jacket. He tried to ignore how her actions aroused him. When her brown eyes opened, she gave him a look of approval, which caused warmth to spread through his chest.

“Why do you think that, miss?” The last word of Officer Martinez’s query contained an additional question as to her identity.

“I’m Ileana Alvarez Calderon. I have the Sight, inherited from my maternal grandmother. I dreamed of this woman last night. I sensed danger.”

At the cops’ disbelieving frowns, she continued, “You don’t have to take my word for it. I recorded my vision in a notebook. You’re welcome to look at it or interview my family about what I’ve told you. My visions have never been wrong.”

“Was there anything else in your dream?” Martinez asked. “My great aunt had the Sight.”

“No. I woke up disturbed because I almost never dream about strangers.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to call Homicide,” Martinez told his partner.

While the cops made the call, Michael drew Ileana outside. He was still reeling from her revelation—the Sight. His brother Rick’s wife saw the dead. Charlie’s fiancé could find objects by touching something related to them. How bizarre that Michael should also meet a woman who had psychic abilities. He’d never believed in psychics, but his brothers accepted that aspect of the women in their lives.

As he turned to Ileana, he found her staring at him, her brown eyes clear, her gaze unwavering. He realized she was waiting for his reaction to what she’d said. She looked the same as before—sexy, exotic, desirable. Her pronouncement was simply another layer of the things he was learning about her. She lived in a world apart from his. Of course some of her beliefs would differ from his. He was glad she was different.

A compulsion he could not deny made him lower his head to hers. Her brown eyes widened. Her lips parted with a puff of warm breath just before his lips touched them. Hers were warm and soft. They molded to his as though made for him. A groan slipped from him. He had to fight the urge to grip her hard and rip the form-fitting dress from her body, so he could bare her tender flesh to his desires. He wanted to take her right here and now, fusing their bodies so they could never be parted.

With a soul-jarring wrench, he lifted his head. He was panting as though he’d run a mile. Ileana’s face was flushed, her eyes filled with desire. Their circumstances came back to him in a rush. This was not the time or place.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“I’m not. I enjoyed it.”

He took a step away from her so he wouldn’t kiss her again. But he so wanted to.

The medical examiner and homicide detectives arrived within minutes of one another. Michael, Ileana, and John Tessla stood within view and earshot of the proceedings. The detectives mentioned getting the narcotics squad involved. Michael couldn’t believe that a young woman who looked like that would choose to come to a warehouse in this section of town in order to do drugs and have sex. It just wasn’t logical.

Ileana leaned against him and he wrapped his arm around her. He couldn’t help noticing she fit perfectly in his arms. He nuzzled her silky hair, breathing in the scent of something exotic and spicy.

Michael heard footsteps coming towards them and John heading away to meet whoever it was. Michael let security deal with it. John would chase off gawkers or the press. A moment later, two sets of footsteps approached them. Must be more police.

Michael turned and looked straight into his brother Rick’s eyes.

Michael’s gut tightened like it had every time he’d seen his brother since Rick moved back to town six months ago. Michael tensed, wondering why his brother was here. As far as Michael knew, this wasn’t Rick’s territory.

“Rick. What are you doing here?”

His brother looked relieved. “I heard about a possible homicide at Citadel. I was worried.” For a moment the echo of Billy’s ghost haunted Rick’s brown eyes. Then he took in the woman in Michael’s arms. A dark eyebrow lifted in query.

“As you can see, I’m all right.” Michael’s arm tightened around Ileana. “Ileana Alvarez Calderon, this is my brother Rick Ziffkin. He’s a homicide detective with Miami PD.”

Ileana held out her hand and Rick shook it. “It’s nice to meet you. Michael mentioned your wife is having a baby. Congratulations.”

Rick beamed. “Thanks. We’re pretty excited about it.”

“I’m sorry about...” Ileana began.

Michael suddenly realized what secret Ileana knew that Rick didn’t. He gripped her forearm. “Ileana, no.”

Her startled gaze flew to his. He shook his head slightly.

Rick frowned, looking back and forth between them. “Sorry about what?”

Ileana searched Michael’s face. He knew she didn’t understand. How could she?

“It’s nothing,” Ileana answered.

Michael relaxed his grip and rubbed her arm in apology.

“I should find out what the detectives know,” Rick offered. He moved to the group around the body where handshakes then ensued.

Michel took the opportunity to pull Ileana out of earshot. “My parents don’t want my brothers to know. Rick’s got the impending baby to worry about, and Charlie’s getting married next weekend. My mother doesn’t want them to worry.”

“But they have a right to know.”

“It’s my mother’s decision, not yours.” The words came out more sharply than he intended. When Ileana raised her chin, he tried to smooth things over. “I’m sorry.” It didn’t help that he agreed with her.

“I’d be so hurt if my father kept his health problems a secret from me.”

“It’s only for a little while. She wants them to be happy.”

Ileana reached for his hand. “What about you?”

It was a rapier thrust to the heart of the matter. “I’m their oldest son. They depend on me.”

Her smooth palm cupped his cheek. He was nearly felled by the tenderness of that touch. “You’re a good man, Michael Ziffkin.”

He couldn’t help it then. He gathered her against him until her heart beat against his. She wrapped her arms around him. He leaned his cheek against her hair and sighed, closing his eyes. He would gladly have stood like that forever, but minutes later someone cleared his throat.

Michael sighed, lifted his head, released Ileana, and faced his brother. “What did you find out?”

“It’s possible the body might have been dumped here. There’s a small needle mark in her arm, but not junkie tracks.”

“You mean somebody dumped her here because she OD’d?”

Rick inhaled. “No. We think somebody might have killed her and left her here.”

“To implicate Citadel in drugs?” Michael demanded.

Rick frowned. “Do you suspect something?”

“I had a break-in at one of my warehouses the other day. And merchandise turned up missing at another warehouse. Now this. I don’t think it’s a series of random events.”

Ileana gripped his arm. “If you do business with Mohamed Abdul as well as with Calderon and Hernandez, your buyers are being targeted, too.” She explained the other break-ins to Rick.

“It sounds like I’m being softened up for protection money. Maybe the whole industry is. It’d be a great way for the mob to move drugs, too.”

“If that’s true, Michael, you could be in danger,” Rick said.

“Nonsense,” Michael scoffed. “It’s Citadel’s money and connections they want.”

“You are Citadel. There’s no board, no corporation. There’s only you. That makes you vulnerable.”

Michael tried to hide his surprise that Rick knew anything about his business. He’d thought his brother was wrapped up in his new wife and gestating child. “This is all conjecture anyway. It’s just a gut feeling. I have no proof.”

“I’ll notify the major crimes unit. They’ll want to talk to you. Probably as soon as the M.E. rules on cause of death.” Rick looked over towards where the black body bag was being lifted onto a gurney. “Maybe sooner.”

“I’ll tell them what the families know,” Ileana offered.

“Families?” Rick asked.

“Cuban-American merchant families. Calderon is the oldest and strongest.”

“So you met through business?” Rick mused.

“Yes,” she said.

Michael had to stop his brother from probing deeper. After only one date, he and Ileana couldn’t explain what they were to each other. “Should I take Ileana home or do you think major crimes might want to talk to us tonight?”

Rick didn’t look fooled by the change in topic. “I have a friend over there. Let me call him.” He pulled out his cell phone and stepped away to make the call.

“You don’t have to do this,” Michael told Ileana.

“The police need to know what we know. You want to protect me because I’m a woman, but right now I represent Calderon.”

Michael smiled at her. He liked her gutsiness. It reminded him of his mom. Wouldn’t that surprise his mother? The thought sobered him. He wasn’t planning any kind of long-term relationship with Ileana. He didn’t know what Ileana had in mind, either.

“This has been a crazy evening,” he mused.

“Just like last time,” she agreed.

“How did you foresee our evening ending?”

The small smile that tugged at her lips, combined with the sultry look of her cat-slanted eyes, made lust kick Michael in his lower body. He began to harden.

He swallowed. “I don’t want to misunderstand.”

“I don’t think you do,” she purred.

He prayed the cops wanted to talk to Ileana and him in the morning.

But God hadn’t been answering Michael’s prayers lately. Rick returned to announce, “My friend will meet you at the Front Street station. I’ll follow you down there.”

“You don’t have to,” Michael objected. “I know Analise isn’t feeling well.”

“She’s not going to sleep until I get back. There’s a full moon tonight. She wants to visit some friends later and dance in the moonlight.”

Michael frowned at his brother’s smile.

“We’re going to the cemetery,” Rick explained. “The ghosts like to dance by the full moon.”

“I don’t understand,” Ileana said, frowning.

“His wife talks to the dead,” Michael explained.

Ileana stared at Rick. Her mouth opened in an O-shape. Before she could make inquiries, Michael guided her towards the door. He told John Tessla where they were going and to lock up after the detectives were finished.

In the car, Ileana spoke. “Your brother seems nice.”

“Yeah.”

“Does his wife really talk to the dead?”

“She says she does and Rick believes her. He’s never seen any ghosts but he says he’s felt them.”

“How do you feel about me having the Sight?”

How did he feel? Slowly he explained. “I have no first-hand experience of the supernatural. I never believed in it before. Yet now I have a sister-in-law who talks to the dead. I’ll soon have another who can locate stolen objects with her mind. You say you dream what will happen. I guess anything’s possible.”

“Thank you for accepting it.”

Michael shrugged. “About Rick. He’s going to be curious about you and me. We’ve only had one date, and, well...I like my privacy,” he finished.

“I think I understand. Are you close to him?”

Michael sighed. “Not anymore.”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you talk about it?”

Michael watched the traffic while he waited for the red light to turn green. He knew Ileana was staring at his profile. “We had a younger brother, Billy. He was a brilliant biochemist working in a research lab. He said he was going to cure cancer some day.”
Don’t think about that.
“But he was murdered two-and-a-half years ago in New Orleans in a robbery gone wrong. They never found his killer.”

“How awful. Rick is a homicide detective. He couldn’t solve the case?”

“He wasn’t one then. I think he became one to help. But even he couldn’t find out who did it.”

“And you blame him?” she gasped.

Michael glanced at her. “Hell no.” No, he blamed himself. “But Billy’s murder broke us up. It was hard to talk to one another afterwards.”