Dangerous Waters (25 page)

Oh, hell.

What had she just done?

His body was still draped over hers, heavy, solid, their skin sticky with sweat and sin. His breath was in her ear, heart pounding against her back, still deep inside her, pulsing, their hearts beating in rhythm. Part of her craved that closeness, that connection that fused them like metal alloy. She’d never experienced anything like it before and didn’t want it to end. But no matter what she thought of Finn Carver, his brother was still a suspect in jail. She closed her eyes and pushed back against his bulk. “Let me up.”

He was watching her with raptor-like intensity. He could read her expressions as easily as she read his. “Dammit, Holly.”

She shifted restlessly. He withdrew and dealt with the condom. A freakin’
condom
because they’d had freakin’ kitchen countertop sex, and she’d never had kitchen countertop sex before with anyone, let alone someone involved in a murder investigation.

“I can’t believe I did that.”

“
We
. We did that.”

“I know, but if anyone finds out I did it with you,
I
will lose my job. You’ll probably get a goddamned high-five.”

His face went hard. Eyes cold and brilliant like Arctic sunshine. She tried to take his hand, but he pulled away.

Cold air brushed across her bare skin, and she grabbed her bra and panties, struggled into them in the close confines of the kitchen as he watched her with a gaze that turned molten again and made her feel weak inside. What was wrong with her? She didn’t do this sort of thing. She didn’t have time.

He reached out and untwisted her bra strap, and she froze, wishing she could melt into him as he ran a finger over the bare skin of her shoulder. She wished circumstances were different. That she could drag Finn to bed and go for seconds. That she could kiss him in public and hold his hand and, hell, just lick him all over.

But she couldn’t.

She’d screwed up.

What had she done? What kind of cop behaved like this?

If she had any integrity at all, she’d step down from her position as primary investigator. She started to hyperventilate, the air never quite reaching her lungs. Each breath getting tighter as panic spiraled. She held on firmly to the sink in case she fainted.

His fingers squeezed her shoulders. “Don’t.”

She swore and then struggled into her uniform, doing up her belt, heavy with equipment and responsibility. A headache throbbed through her temples as she tucked in her shirt, pulled her hair back into its ubiquitous braid.

“Are you OK?” Finn asked, sounding level and resigned.

Her heart squeezed and she thrust away from the sink. “I’m good, but I need to go—”

“Wrongs to right, bad guys to catch.” His eyes glittered in the darkness as he stood back to wave her through. Not level and resigned at all. Pissed as a two-headed rattler.

She walked past him and he let her go. Out into the darkness where cold air bit and remorse flooded her.

“Come back anytime, sweetheart,” he called after her. “Always happy to take one for the team.” He slammed the door, and the sound echoed through the night like leftover thunder.

She ran down the stairs, not mad with Finn, but heartbroken. Because she hadn’t just hurt him, she’d lied to him about it first. And she knew from personal experience that was the deepest kind of betrayal.

Her cell rang just as she hit the bottom step. “Rudd,” she answered.

“I missed it.” Messenger sounded agitated and on edge.

“Missed what?”

“Rob Fitzgerald used the call box to phone the hotline with the tip about the knife.”

Holly’s heart pounded and she stopped moving.

A truck drove past, going from the dive shed toward town, and the hairs on Holly’s nape snapped taut as she recognized Fitzgerald behind the wheel. He waved, and she nodded and held his gaze as he drove past.

“The call was made only an hour before someone used that same call box to lure Brent Carver to Gina Swartz’s house.”

Probably to try to frame him for murder.

“I want everything on Fitzgerald.
Everything
.” She stared after his taillights.

All the turmoil and uncertainty about what she’d just done with Finn evaporated as her heartbeat steadied. She radioed Malone to come pick her up in the RCMP vehicle. They were getting closer, she could feel it. And she was about to spend the night with memories of Finn keeping her warm as she staked out their prime suspect.

The next morning, Holly watched through the hardware store window as an IFIS guy with circles the size of Kansas around his eyes sampled the town call box for DNA and fingerprints.

“Do you remember anyone using that phone yesterday morning, Mr. Toben?” she asked. She’d spent a sleepless night watching Fitzgerald’s house from a high point in the motel parking lot. But his truck hadn’t moved until 7:30 a.m. when he’d headed off to work.

Grant Toben scratched his iron-gray hair. “I don’t spend my time gazing out the window, young lady.”

Young lady
?

“I appreciate that, sir.” She smiled, but it was getting harder and harder to use her charm when she had a weapon and a badge. “However, you have a great view from here.” The store sat just across the parking lot from the public phone that had been used to make both calls yesterday morning. Had the murderer expected cops to already be on scene or had they scored a lucky break? Had the killer wanted to hurt Brent Carver, place him at the scene, or just get him out of the house long enough to plant the murder weapon? Maybe it was all of the above because he made a hell of a slam-dunk murder suspect.

“Where’s Mike? Maybe he saw something.”

“I do remember seeing that young man from the marine lab down here.” He scrunched up his features, lips disappearing beneath his thick moustache.

“Which one?” Holly pressed.

“Don’t know his name. Tall, lanky fellow. Brown hair hanging down over his shoulders like a girl.”

Holly hid her excitement behind neutral features and held up a photograph of Rob Fitzgerald.

“Yup.” Grant Toben nodded nonchalantly. “That’s the guy. And I remember thinking it was strange because I know he has a cell phone because whenever he’s in here he can barely take his eyes off the damn thing long enough to carry on a normal conversation. Scourge of modern society, those damn things.”

“I’m going to need you to make a statement, Mr. Toben.” She nodded to Rachel Messenger to finish conducting the interview, and although the news was exactly what they’d hoped for, it was hard to feel excited. Deep inside, she felt like a fake. Someone impersonating an officer. The sort of cop she and her father had always derided over dinner because even though the evidence pointed the other way, she had been intimate with someone involved in the investigation, and no matter how incredible it had been, it was still wrong. She glanced outside and caught Furlong’s glance. She thanked Toben and headed outside. “He identified Rob Fitzgerald as using the call box yesterday morning.”

“Nice one. Let’s pick him up. Any idea where he is this morning?”

“I assume he’s still at the dive shed.” Freddy Chastain was supposed to be keeping an eye on him without tipping him off. Not easy in this part of the world.

Furlong looked at her oddly. “You OK?”

The thought of seeing Finn again was unsettling. She’d treated him the same way Furlong had treated her, and she knew how bad that felt.

“Just tired.” Right now she was so busy keeping up her own deception she couldn’t really condemn anyone else’s, not even Furlong’s.

“Let’s go pull this guy in for questioning.”

She should be buzzing. They had a viable suspect, one who wouldn’t tie her up in an unwinnable conflict of interest. But she felt hollow. Ashamed of how she’d treated a man she cared for.
Really
cared for. Messenger came out of the hardware store, and they all climbed into the SUV and headed back to the marine lab.

She’d messed up everything. She’d finally fallen for a guy, and not only had she screwed up her job, she’d walked out on him after mind-blowing sex. And now she was going to have to pretend nothing had changed. That he hadn’t rocked her world and hadn’t moved her so deeply she was still shaken to the core. She was going to have to pretend he was just one in a long line of people she’d interviewed who meant nothing to her. Because otherwise, everything she’d ever worked for was in jeopardy.

She couldn’t risk it. Not even for Finn Carver—who might just be the goddamn love of her life.

Finn surfaced, the seawater on his lips failing to obliterate the taste of Holly imprinted there. She’d walked away. Hell, he’d always know she wouldn’t stay, but somehow last night
had caught him like an uppercut to the heart. Unexpected. Raw. Pain.

Which was the other reason he should have steered clear of her in the first place.

He’d worked his balls off, first prepping for the day’s dives. Cleaning and double-checking equipment. Getting two boats ready for an easy wreck dive on the lee side of one of the Broken Islands. Then he’d maxed out on dive time, spent as long as he could under the clear, blue water. Pushing his body, pushing the limit. And still he felt like a damn fool for giving a shit about what a woman had done to him.

They’d had off-the-charts sex. She’d got off. He’d got off. Everything should be golden.

Which was
not
what he was feeling right now.

He spat out his regulator and pushed his mask onto his head. “Darren—watch your ascent rate next time. Otherwise, you guys did great.” He swiped water off his face and kicked toward the boat where the rest of the students were already on board. Rob was in charge of the second boat and flashed him the hand signal to say everything had gone as planned. Finn hauled himself out of the water.

The eyes of his fellow divers glowed; mouths hovered on the brink of jubilant grins. Nothing could beat a good dive except, maybe, spur-of-the-moment kitchen sex.

“Everyone have fun today?” Inside, his body hummed with unreleased tension. Brent was in a goddamn cell, and Finn had been shagging the cop who’d put him there. He was an ass. He knew better than anyone not to let people get too close. So why the hell had he made such an elemental mistake with Holly? Why couldn’t he resist the pull that existed between them?

Once everyone was sitting down and the equipment secured, he opened the throttle on the way back to his suddenly stagnant, frustrating life.

Rob followed him closely, and they both slowed down when they got inside the inlet. They drew up to the dock and tied up. He made sure the students grabbed their gear to wash it down before hefting his own equipment over his shoulder and striding up the wooden boards.

The RCMP cruiser rolled down the hill, heading toward them at a slow crawl. He could see Furlong driving—bastard—and Holly sitting beside him, avoiding his gaze.

What the hell did they want now, or were they just en route across the inlet, going back to the hotel? He turned away, didn’t care.

Sure
.

The students milled around waiting for Rob to unlock the dive shed. It was a pain in the ass to have to be so much more careful than before. He heard car doors slam, boots crunch as the police started doing whatever the fuck they needed to do.