The Wharf (8 page)

Folding her arms, she leaned against her door. “Or maybe Bannister was about to give me more details about Walker’s scheme, a scheme he didn’t want revealed, something Walker may have told him in prison.”

“It’s in the warden’s hands now.”

She glanced down at her own palms, still stained with Bannister’s blood despite the towelette. “My hands.” Her gaze shifted to his shirt. “And your shirt. I’m so sorry. I ruined your shirt.”

“This old thing?” He plucked the black T-shirt away from his chest. “I can toss it. It’s seen better days.”

And now it could die happy after having this woman pressed against it for five whole minutes.

“At least it’s not soaked through. Is it?” She tapped a finger against the stiff cloth of his shirt.

“I don’t think so.” He pinched the hem of his shirt and yanked it up, exposing his stomach and chest. Dropping his chin to his chest, he said, “Nope. It didn’t go through.”

When he looked up, she dragged her gaze from his bare skin. A rosy color stained her cheeks and she expelled a quick breath through parted lips.

Good to see his charms held some fascination for her.

The shutters dropped over her eyes again and she made a turn for the door. “I’m going to scrub my hands with soap and water and get to bed. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

He let his T-shirt fall. “Sweet dreams. I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast at nine.”

* * *

I
T TOOK HER
three tries to unlock her door with Ryan still breathing down her neck, his muscles covered only by that thin black T-shirt.

When the green lights finally signaled success, she gave him a halfhearted wave and scurried inside the room, letting the door shut heavily behind her.

Why had she fallen into his arms so easily? Did she have a choice? She’d just discovered a dead man awash in his own blood, for heaven’s sake! She would’ve fallen into the arms of that homeless guy if he’d been handy. Ryan had just been handy.

But did handy have to feel so good?

She cranked on the water in the shower and stepped in. She cupped the little bar of soap in her hands as she held them beneath the warm stream. She lathered up her hands again and again, watching pink water swirl down the drain. The red from the scrubbing soon replaced the red from the blood. She toweled dry and dropped the towel to the bathroom floor.

Tomorrow she’d face the day with a fresh outlook. The warden at Walla Walla would handle Daniel Walker and get him off her back. Then she’d be free to pursue the Brody story.

Back on solid footing, she wouldn’t need to run to the all-too-welcoming arms of Ryan every two seconds. Then she could get started on what she had come here to do—prove Joseph Brody’s guilt as the Phone Book Killer beyond a reasonable doubt.

* * *

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING
, she didn’t even try to race Ryan downstairs. Let him have that petty victory. But as luck would have it, she beat him anyway. She took a table on the rim of the hotel restaurant and positioned her chair to face the lobby.

She generally liked to be waiting for her subject because she felt it gave her the upper hand, an opportunity to study her specimen before he knew he was being observed. In Ryan’s case, it had the opposite effect.

As soon as he appeared in the lobby, her pulse quickened.

He exchanged a few words with the hotel clerk at the desk that had the clerk smiling from ear to ear. The hostess at the restaurant practically tripped over herself waving him to the table, and more than a few female heads turned as he threaded his way through the tables.

When he aimed that smile her way, Kacie experienced that newly familiar feeling of heat surging through her body and tingles spreading through her lady parts.

“Good morning. How’d you sleep?”

“Surprisingly well.” To keep busy, she stirred way too much cream in her coffee. “Last night... Well, not that I’m happy someone is dead, but it’s almost a relief to have Walker’s threats out in the open. The warden can deal with him now.”

He took his place across from her. “I wouldn’t waste any tears on Bannister. The cops found two knives on him—one in his jacket pocket and one in his boot.”

She choked on her sip of coffee. “He could’ve...”

“That’s right. He could’ve been planning something for you. Maybe he didn’t have any more information about Walker. Maybe he wanted to get close to you again.”

“So, in a weird way, I owe Walker a debt of gratitude for getting rid of Duke Bannister.”

“In a
really
weird way. I’m glad you’re feeling better.” He called the waiter over and ordered a cup of coffee.

“I’m ready to put all this behind me.” She meant not only Walker and Bannister but also her insane attraction to Ryan Brody. She’d have to suppress that and get down to business.

“I hope you can. I hope the warden at Walla Walla deals with Walker.” When his coffee arrived, he pointed to the cream next to her saucer. “Any of that left?”

She shoved it across to him. “We’re going to take our first field trip to the Golden Gate Bridge. Are you okay with that?”

His spoon stopped short of his coffee and he sucked in a quick breath. “I don’t think we’re going to find any evidence there.”

“This first part—” she drew a circle on the table with her fingertip “—isn’t about finding evidence. It’s more about setting the mood. This has to be a story as well as just a report on the facts of the case. You know that, right?”

“I read your book.” He rested his chin on top of his steepled fingers.

“I hope it’s not going to be too hard on you.” She laced her own fingers in her lap, resisting the ridiculous urge to caress his forearm.

“It won’t be easy going through it all again, but if it proves my father’s innocence, I’ll walk through fire.”

He may have to before this was all over because she planned to reveal his father as a killer. Then all this tension between them would blow up into smithereens.

They finished their breakfast and headed out to the parking structure where Ryan had left his car, a small SUV. He maneuvered through the streets of the city like a pro and pulled into the visitor parking for the bridge.

Kacie released her seat belt. “Where’d you learn to drive like that? I thought you lived in a little hick town up north?”

“I drove all around this city as a teenager. I wasn’t always a hick.” He winked at her.

“Hey, I’m not casting stones. The town I live in is no thriving metropolis.”

He rested his hands on the steering wheel. “Did you grow up there?”

“My parents are in Seattle. I grew up there.”

“And your sisters?”

“My sisters? How did you know I had sisters?” Her heart drummed a beat in her chest. Had he been checking up on her? How much could he have discovered through his police connections?

“Yesterday during our interview, you told me you had two older sisters.”

“Oh yeah. One still lives in Seattle—married, children—and the other lives down in L.A., engaged.” She’d have to watch her tongue around him.

She scrambled from the car and grabbed a light jacket from the backseat.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he ambled to her side of the car and peered at the blue sky. “Not sure you’re going to need that.”

“It is a nice day, but it’s always breezy on the bridge.” She draped the jacket over her arm. “Ready?”

They crossed the parking lot and walked toward the pedestrian entrance. When they reached the walkway, tourists, cyclists and photographers joined them, while cars whizzed past on the road.

Ryan walked beside her, his head turned toward the bay. Did the view bring him pleasure, like it did most of the other pedestrians, or pain?

He stopped and grasped the low barrier, hunching his shoulders. “This is it.”

She drew beside him, drinking in the view of Alcatraz and the city skyline floating between the blue of the bay and the blue of the sky. “This is a beautiful stop, but there are so many great views.”

“No, I mean, this is it.” The wind played with his hair, flattening it against his head as he looked down.

Then it hit her and her stomach dropped. “This is the exact spot where your father died?”

“This is where he jumped.”

This time she did reach out, covering his hand with hers. “I’m sorry. We didn’t have to... You didn’t have to...”

He cranked his head around and his eyes blazed at her for a second. “You wanted to come here. You wanted to come and see where it all ended. Well, this is it. This is the spot.”

A muscle twitched in her eye. Was he angry at her for foisting this on him? Ryan seemed like such an easygoing guy, but his hard mouth and harder eyes hinted at depths of rage she hadn’t seen or expected.

Would this rage bubble over when he found out the truth?

By then she’d be far away, her lifelong goal reached. She brushed a wisp of hair from her face. “Do you want to leave?”

His shoulders dropped and he ran a hand through his thick, windblown hair. “No.”

“His body was never found.”

“Currents carried him out to sea.”

“Were there any witnesses?”

“One.” Turning sideways, he leaned on the barrier. “A woman was taking in the early-morning view. She’d noticed a man quite a distance from her. She watched as he climbed over the barrier and disappeared.”

“She called the police?”

“She used one of the phones on the bridge to call the coast guard, but his body never turned up.”

Kacie shivered despite the sun on her back. “Their station is so close I’m surprised they didn’t find him.”

“It happens. The current was swift that day. The police found my father’s jacket and wallet on the ground and later they located his car in the parking lot—the same lot where we just parked.”

“Have you or your brothers ever spoken to this witness?”

He cocked his head and pressed his back against the barrier, spreading his arms along the top like a tourist posing for the camera. “I never have. If they did, they didn’t tell me about it.”

“I’d be curious to talk to her, if she’s still alive. Do you know?”

“I know she was a young woman—early twenties.”

“Do you remember her name?”

“I don’t, but it would be in the case file for my father’s suicide, and that’s at the department.”

“You can get your hands on that, right? You’re the victim’s son and you have connections.”

“Uh-huh.”

His gaze shifted away from her face and over her left shoulder. This visit had really affected him.

She cleared her throat. “I’d like to have a look at that file. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes can yield some new insight.”

“Uh-huh.”

His eyes narrowed and his body tensed.

“Do you want to...?”

He swore and pushed past her.

As she stumbled, she twisted around just in time to see him lunge over the barrier—another Brody over the bridge.

Chapter Six

The barrier dug into his rib cage as he balanced on top of it, his hand grasping the straps of the woman’s backpack.

“Don’t do this.”

She turned her head to look up at him with blank, red-rimmed eyes.

Kacie ran up beside him and dug her fingers into his arm. “What are you doing?”

“Call the cops from the phone. There’s a woman on the ledge.”

Kacie gasped and spun around.

The woman below him continued to stare at him, but she’d stopped struggling. She’d dropped to her knees on the steel ledge that ran almost the entire length of the bridge. There was nothing between her and a long drop into the choppy bay.

“Are you ready to come up now? Think about your family.”

She sniffled and straightened up to her full height.

Ryan still held on to her backpack, but she could slip out of it at any second. He extended his other arm. “Grab on to me.”

She glanced back at the endless sky in front of her, and Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. Then she wrapped her hands around his arm.

He braced his feet against the barrier and hoisted her up and over it. She fell on top of him with a squeak, then rolled off him and curled into a fetal position on the ground.

Several pedestrians had watched the drama unfold. They formed a semicircle around him and the woman, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five.

Kacie pushed through the onlookers. “The cops are on their way. I can see one coming on his bike.”

The officer rode up with another officer right behind him. They dispersed the crowd and crouched beside the woman, who was still coiled into a ball.

Sirens followed, and the woman was lifted to her feet and bundled into the back of the squad car. The officer on the bike asked Ryan a few questions, got his name and number and pedaled off.

“Oh my God. I can’t believe that happened right when we were here.” She’d clapped a hand over her mouth and her eyes widened above it.

“It’s a shame it happens at all. That woman was clearly in need of some help.”

“Ryan Brody, you’re such a hero. You put yourself in danger to save that stranger.”

“Not at all. I was never in any danger of going over. She was small and light. Ask me if I’d have done it for some big bruiser.”

Like Dad.

“I’m sure you would’ve tried. How often are people rescued from suicide attempts on the bridge?”

“I like to think more than are successful. The authorities try to keep a close eye on the activities up here.”

“A closer watch than in your father’s day.”

“Definitely.” He flexed his fingers, which had cramped up while holding on to the woman. “Now, let’s get some lunch and visit the station for that case file. Unless you didn’t get everything you needed here.”

“Are you kidding? I got more than I bargained for.” She touched his shoulder. “Thank you for coming here with me today. I see that it was difficult for you.”

He stopped walking because he didn’t want her to remove her hand from his arm, to scare her away. “Just because it’s tough doesn’t mean you flinch or turn away.”

“Of course, if you hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have saved that woman’s life. She might not feel thankful now, but maybe she will later.” She smoothed the material of his shirt before dropping her hand. “It all happened for a reason. Now, let’s get that lunch.”