“So how’d it go with the porn queen?”
He jerked up, realizing he’d been daydreaming. “Huh?”
“Lots of sex shots?” Trudeau asked.
“That’s boudoir shots, pal. She gets testy if you even hint about anything lewd. Straight photography so far.”
“How about video? Sylvestri’s got associates distributing bootleg porn.”
“No video equipment that I’ve seen. What Samantha does is, uh, tasteful.” Trudeau would laugh him out of the station if he tried explaining what she’d said about forgetting society’s rules and finding that special double image and true beauty. “No crotch shots or throbbing members.”
“Damn.”
“She seems clueless about Sylvestri. She thinks he loaned her his bookkeeper because he’s generous. My take on her is she’s just naive.”
“After half an afternoon? What the hell did you do with the woman?”
Fondled dildos, dressed store dummies and came this close to ripping off her clothes.
He remembered her bracing that black corset against the mannequin and asking him, What do you think? He’d never been into kink, but if she wanted it, he’d bring the cuffs.
If he weren’t working the case, of course.
If he weren’t a changed man.
“We talked. Setup…inventory. I studied her…books.” Yeah, right. “I’d bet my badge Sawyer’s not involved in whatever’s going on. But I’ll poke around some more.”
“You bet. You poke around.” It was a standard Trudeau remark, nothing more, he knew. Mark would never believe Rick had done what he’d done. His gut clenched as he gathered up his notes. “Gotta meet with the lieutenant before I head out.”
He left, thinking about the implication of Mark’s remark. Had he been too easy on Samantha? Getting personal with suspects blurred your instincts. That’s why there were regulations against it. There were reasons for most rules, he’d learned over the years. You broke the rules and the rules broke you. Sooner or later.
He hadn’t always felt that way. He’d done what he wanted pretty much until Brian had died. As a kid, school had bored him, so he spent his time screwing around with friends and girls and engines.
Pushing an engine to its limit in the desert late at night made him feel fully alive, with every breath shooting down his lungs, sending fresh blood to the tips of his toes and out the top of his head.
There’d been plenty of tickets, the accident that had messed up his back. Minor troubles, really, but life had been full. And he’d kept on living it—wide open—until his brother’s death had hauled him up short.
Rick had been twenty-five, working in an auto shop, living cheaply to sock away money for a muscle car, doing freelance magazine photos. He’d been in the sack with a nameless girl when his cell phone wouldn’t stop ringing.
It was a buddy with the Phoenix P.D., who’d called to tell him his brother, a defense attorney, had been shot dead in the apartment of one of his clients, a drug dealer, who’d been killed, too.
The cops had kept the negative stuff out of the report—one time he’d been glad someone bent the rules. Brian’s death had been tough enough on his parents without the rest.
Like the flip of a switch, a finger snap, Brian was gone and Rick had realized he’d been tossing away his own life as though it didn’t matter. But it did. It mattered a hell of a lot.
He had to do something to make up for his brother. Something straight and strong and right. School took forever, so he applied to the academy and he’d been on the job four years.
He liked the work. Loved it, really. His parents seemed pleased, maybe proud.
From time to time he’d had to defend his brother’s reputation—sometimes with his fists—from older cops or attorneys who made cracks about him.
His brother had done some good. He’d just been limited. And, dammit, he was Rick’s brother, for better or worse.
And now he was gone, before he’d had a chance to figure it out, settle down, have a family of his own. So Rick would do it for him. For himself, too.
But lately he’d been isolated. The dates had fizzled; he’d been bored. Maybe that was why Samantha had hit him like a Mack truck. She would be something else in the sack, for sure, with all that sweetness coupled with her fire to get busy. That was funny. But out of the question. Even without the case to consider, he wasn’t looking just to get laid. He wanted a wife, two-become-one, all that jazz.
He could see making an exception for her. If only he weren’t working for her. If only he weren’t a cop and she a suspect. If only everything were different.