Suspect Passions (13 page)

Regan turned and walked out of the apartment, leaving Syd with a hunger she knew no one else could fill and an ache that prevented giving chase.

Gil Brady caged a fresh beer between his fingers and avoided Syd’s questioning gaze. He’d asked her to meet him at the Cop Out for a drink on the way home from his Saturday shift. He hadn’t talked much about his wife in a few days, and Syd hoped that was good news for their marriage. His sullen demeanor said otherwise.

“Well, we’ve covered every call you went on today,” she said after they’d spent half an hour. “Are you ready to tell me why we’re really here?”

Syd knew she sounded short but she’d been irritable since last night. Images of Regan Desanto kissing and touching her body resurfaced when she least expected them, constricting her breathing with jolts of emotion too intense to categorize. Her entire day had been an exercise in self-control as waves of desire overtook her when she should’ve been thinking of other things.

She decided she must have been more tired than she realized. She’d not only allowed Regan to take charge of their interaction, but she’d enjoyed relinquishing control. Normally her submission in sex play was a conscious choice and was still about
her
control. While partners appeared to be in charge, the final decisions were always hers. But with Regan, she’d simply let go and felt completely safe. Even more telling was her inability to verbally respond when Regan disengaged, practically insulted her, and left. Her usual reply would’ve been some quip about what Regan was missing, but Syd felt like she was the one losing out.

She wondered what was happening to her. Her life was getting more bizarre by the day. Last night she’d kissed her attorney, loved it, and wanted more. Today she couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was infuriating. Still, her distraction level was no excuse for being unkind to Gil. “I’m sorry for being snappish. Something’s bothering you…want to talk about it?”

Gil looked around the club again before finally asking, “What’s so special about this place?”

“What do you mean?”

“My wife loves it. It looks like any other bar to me.”

“I’m not sure I can answer that one. Jesse runs a tight ship and doesn’t put up with any nonsense. That makes all kinds of folks comfortable coming here.”

“All kinds of folks, huh?” His slow, deep voice sounded flat and sarcastic.

Syd detected an unasked question. “What do you want to know, Gil?”

“I wish my wife could read me as well as you do.” He took a long pull from his beer. “Do you meet other women here, you know—like that?”

Syd felt the blood rush to her face. She and Gil were developing a friendship, but they’d never discussed her personal life. It seemed he was more comfortable avoiding that specific topic.

“I have, but mostly I come to support Jesse. If you’re asking if gay men and women hang out here, the answer is yes, but so do straight people. It’s not strictly a gay-and-lesbian club.”

“I think Priscilla meets women here.” The look on Syd’s face must have been one of obvious shock because Gil added, “It’s just a feeling I get. I don’t think she’s sleeping with another guy. She says she loves me and wants our marriage to work.”

“Then why would she want to meet women?”

“That’s what I need your help with. I was thinking you—”

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard me out.”

“The answer is still no. I’m happy to offer advice, but I’m not going to be bait for some experiment to lure your wife.”

He grimaced. “It’s not like that. I just want you to help me stake out the place and see if she shows up. Is that too much to ask?”

Syd had a shaky gut feeling that told her to haul ass in the opposite direction. But Gil was becoming her friend and he was confused and worried. “Why don’t you just ask her outright? Sneaking around spying on her is not the way to build trust in your marriage.”

“I need to know the truth. Please, Syd. There’s nobody else I can ask.”

The desperation in Gil’s voice tugged at Syd’s heart. Her head said this was a bad idea but her heart was just beginning to understand that strong feelings for another person could create internal turmoil that had to be resolved. She wanted to help. “And what happens if she
is
sleeping with women?”

“I just want to know if she still loves me. Nothing else matters.”

Syd couldn’t believe she was letting her emotions rule her judgment, but Gil needed a friend and she was it. “When do we start?”

“How about right now? I left my car at the station so she won’t see it. We can use the parking garage across the street for high-ground surveillance.”

Syd finished her martini and walked to the bar to pay Jesse.

“Do you know what you’re doing, Syd?” Jesse nodded toward Gil. “He’s—”

“Don’t be crazy. We’re just friends.”

“But do you know who that is?”

“Of course I do. I introduced the two of you. He works on my squad.”

Gil walked up behind Syd. “You ready?”

“Sure.” Syd gave Jesse a reassuring smile, touched by her obvious unease. It felt good to have someone who looked out for her. “See you later, Jess.”

She and Gil exited the club and climbed to the fourth floor of the parking structure. An hour later, staring out into the night, she wondered what she was doing. She was perched on the fourth floor of a parking deck with a squad mate spying on his maybe-cheating, maybe-lesbian wife. This was crazy.

“Hey, Syd, get over here. There she is. How did she get in without us seeing her?”

Syd rushed to Gil’s side and peered below. “She probably went in the back door.”

Two women exited the Cop Out holding hands and leaning into each other. A tall, mocha-skinned African-American in tight leather pants and T-shirt pinned a short blonde with pale skin against the wall and kissed her roughly. The tall woman plunged her hand under the blonde’s skirt, eliciting a loud moan of pleasure that resounded off the building-lined street. Muscles rippled along the stronger woman’s back as her hand worked feverishly between the blonde’s legs.

A shiver shot up Syd’s spine, and the hairs on her neck prickled to attention. Her mouth felt dry and sticky as she recognized the woman humping the blonde as her sometimes-paramour Lacy.

When she found her voice she asked, “That blonde is your wife?”

Without turning to face her, Gil said, “No, the other one.” His voice held no hint of anger, only sadness.

“
That’s
Priscilla?”

“Yep. We can go now. I’ve seen enough.”

Stunned, Syd allowed Gil to lead the way down the stairs. She didn’t trust that her mouth wasn’t still hanging open. “Lacy” was actually Priscilla, Gil’s wife. She had trouble believing it. Jesse’s anxious face flashed through her mind. She knew.
This
was what she’d been trying to warn her about. Lacy was obviously a regular, so she must have been in the bar with Gil occasionally. Syd couldn’t remember ever seeing them together, but the last eight months had evaporated into a haze. She had to wonder what else that she’d forgotten or suppressed would come back and bite her firmly on the butt.

“I’m really sorry, buddy.” And he had no idea just how sorry she was. She wanted to tell him the truth, but her mother used to say, “If it ain’t a gift, don’t give it.” Syd wondered if she was just being a coward. Maybe she would let him know, but not right now. Not after what they’d just seen.

Gil stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her. “Please don’t spread this around.”

“I won’t. Trust me. What are you going to do?”

Most men would’ve charged their wife’s lover like a raging bull and done serious bodily damage. Maybe it was just Gil’s nature to take things in stride. His self-discipline had probably made him an excellent soldier. It was certainly an asset for a cop.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I need some time to think. All I really want to know is if she still loves me. I think I could forgive everything else.”

They circled around the back of the parking deck, Gil’s shoulders slouched as he moved like a man carrying too much pain. Syd didn’t linger, afraid she might somehow reveal her role in Priscilla’s double life. As she walked home she felt as though everything around her was changing form. Another piece of her life had suddenly been twisted into a new shape. She was disoriented, no longer at home in her world. Yet she wasn’t sure if she wanted things to go back to the way they were before the shooting. Could she just step back into her life as if none of this had happened? Syd didn’t think so.

Things kept changing around her, but there was more. She was changing too.

*

Crushed Diet Coke cans filled the wastebasket near Regan’s desk, and scattered papers covered the floor of her den. She’d received the files she requested from the chief and had been reading ever since. Saturday had blurred into Sunday with little sleep as she tried to forget kissing her client. But the memory was branded into her mind just as Syd’s touch was tattooed on her skin. A foreign longing permeated her entire being. Her skin prickled with sudden shudders of sensory recall. Muscles in her legs and arms tensed and simultaneously weakened with a yearning so intense it seemed to attack the very framework of her body. Nerve endings quivered with an appetite for something obscure to her sexual palate but vital to her emotional survival. She felt like a live electrical wire severed from its source and floundering dangerously.

What about this particular woman affected her so powerfully? Syd would look great fighting crime in her uniform or making dinner wearing only an apron. She was certainly attractive, with a body that curved, dipped, and swelled in exactly the right places. One of Regan’s fetishes was full, soft breasts that she could nurse, tease, and suck. Syd’s fit the bill perfectly. Burying her face in cleavage and being surrounded by the yielding mounds could almost bring Regan to orgasm. She also enjoyed rounded hips that she could hold and sink her fingers into while making love.

Her body thrilled as she remembered the masterful feeling of holding Syd’s breasts in her hands and manipulating them into pinpoints of arousal. She’d wanted to take Sydney Cabot right where she stood, on her loft balcony, for anyone who cared to watch. Her restraint had been so weakened by their interaction that she’d blatantly disregarded the voice of reason that screamed in her head, grabbing and clawing her flesh like a cannibal hungry for her next meal. And when her lips touched Syd’s she was lost. Truly, deeply, irrevocably lost. She knew she could never go there again, or she wouldn’t be able to leave. It had taken all her willpower to walk away that night.

Regan quivered, and the file she was holding fell from her hands. Looking at the papers on the floor, she realized she’d been staring at the same pages for almost an hour, but only now did she grasp their significance. Syd had only one reported use of force in her twelve-year tenure with the police department—the fatal shooting of Lee Nartey.

That was unheard of in police work. Most officers used their mace or ASP batons numerous times, in addition to physical restraint. To have no reported instances was unusual. However, reports of on-duty injuries seemed to be in abundance in Syd’s history. These documents, one after the other, told the story of an officer more interested in verbal than physical resolution to dangerous situations. Syd tried to talk suspects down, which often worked. Other times her repeated attempts at communication annoyed an already-hostile suspect and he took out his frustration on her. Copies of medical-services forms detailed Syd’s many visits to the city nurse or hospital for injuries ranging from a bloody nose to stab wounds.

Regan shivered at the thought of a weapon piercing Syd’s soft skin and causing her pain. Her temper flared and she wondered why Syd hadn’t defended herself better. Taking a sip of lukewarm Diet Coke, she smiled at her protective attitude. If Dean Bell thought this file would help his case, he was mistaken. These documents squarely supported Syd and the training she received from the city.

Regan sighed in relief and reached for the yellow padded envelope marked Confidential. This was possibly the last obstacle between Syd and a complete dismissal of the case, and it was the file Regan feared most. She ripped the protective tape from the envelope and emptied the contents onto the floor. Several lined index cards fanned out around her. Each contained a woman’s name, address, and telephone number, along with a brief summary of an unsatisfactory personal encounter with Syd. As Regan read the reports, her spirits sank. “Unsatisfactory” seemed to be a relative term. The women’s issues centered mainly on dissatisfaction with the longevity of their interaction with Syd, not with her performance during it. Six women in the past twelve years had an encounter or a relationship that ended badly enough for them to complain to her boss.

If six had come forward, how many more had not? The memory of kissing Syd suddenly felt cheap and inconsequential. She was just another dissatisfied customer and the thought sickened her. Forcing the unpleasant idea from her head, Regan willed herself to examine the cards more closely. Most of the complaints had occurred during the past eight months, since the shooting. This fact seemed to support her theory that Syd had tried to assuage her professional guilt through personal pleasures. But, with one exception, none of the incidents had been pursued beyond the collection of preliminary data. Taped to the back of one of the index cards was a microcassette tape marked “Gina Lorrey complaint; received by phone.”