A Grand Seduction Page 21

  “Ridelle Walters.”

  The sizzling touch of his hand partnered with that smile to instantly unlatch her virtual chastity belt. Shifting sideways on his stool, he rested one elbow on the bar and the other on his chair back, hands folding in front of his torso. “Live here in Quakertown?”

  “Yeah. I’m not a native though. I’m a transplant from the Poconos. You?”

  A quick shake of his head tousled the sheen of reddish-brown. “New York, as I’m sure my dashing lilt gives away. I’m here on business.”

  “What kind?”

  “The stressful kind.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry.”

  “You aren’t. I just don’t find shop talk very useful when trying to dazzle a beautiful woman.”

  The word beautiful danced through her midsection. “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “That depends. Is it working?”

  Ridelle gazed in front of her, twirling the stem of her empty glass between her fingers. “It’s not failing.”

  “That settles it. You’re obviously a skilled diplomat. White House publicity rep?”

  A grin twisted one corner of her mouth. “Hardly.”

  “Professional schmoozer, certainly.”

  She laughed, offering a small shrug. He sat as she twirled, obviously waiting for an answer she couldn’t give. There was the truth, and then the stylized version she told her family. But hell, this was just a stranger in a bar. Besides, hadn’t hecleverly dodged the same question?

  Abandoning her thoughts and the glass, she turned back to him. “So, Warren. Do you dance?”

  His smile lit all the stars in her heaven. “Willing to risk finding out?”

  Their turn around the intimate scrap of dance floor was an odd blend of comfortable and electric. He lead them through the sultry rhythm with little difficulty—what little there was due to Ridelle’s own propensity for trying to take over. Soon, his motions had her feeling as they they’d been melded in each other’s arms for a lifetime. Every glance smoldered, every brush of his legs shot molten flame straight to the join between her thighs. Hell, under his sexual scrutiny even the seam of her pantyhose rubbed a maddeningly erotic pulse against her crotch. Her cheeks burned with a flush that had little to do with dance exertion.

  With a slow bass-pounding beat in the background, he drew her close and dipped his head so his mouth hovered by her ear. His breath against tender flesh sent a thrill through her. “Would it be too forward to say I’m dying to kiss you?”

  Ridelle would have replied had her heart not been thudding so hard against her throat. Instead, she let her lips brush the answer against his cheek. When he turned to claim her, the kiss was tender and none too brief. Her groin flooded with sensation, heavy with a desire that the position of their bodies told her he was feeling also. He smiled down at her, cradled her hand against his chest, and took her on a starry-eyed exploration of how sexual an art dance could be.

  In what seemed a matter of moments, two hours had passed and they’d moved off to a small corner table. Ridelle alternating between studying a tiny flame dancing in the red glass holder between them and admiring the way it reflected the heated glow in his eyes.

  Finally, Warren glanced regretfully at his watch and broke silence. “Well, I’ve got an early start in the morning.”

  Ridelle offered a wan smile. “I should go, too. But I enjoyed tonight.”

  “Enough to give me your number?”

  Enough to give him more than that, right outside in her backseat. “Do you come down from the city often?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll be back and forth for a bit. I’m…” he paused, as though gauging whether to continue. When he continued, his tone was serious. “I’m following some leads on a case.”

  She blinked. “Case?”

  “I’m a homicide detective.”

  Homicide detective. The words sank like lead in her gut.

  He caught the look on her face. “Sorry. I warned you about my shop talk. Hope that doesn’t scare you off?”

  She fought to keep stress and quiver out of her voice “Was someone around here murdered?”

  “Not here—this isn’t my jurisdiction. There was a motel shooting up in my neck of the woods.”

  Holy God. She swore her heart beat stopped, and expected herself to slump over dead at any second. “I think I read something about that in the paper. The wife did it, I thought?”

  He shook his head. “Possibly, but we’re looking at other possibilities.”

  Her heart restarted, hammering against her ribs as though they were a panic button. Stay calm, Ridelle. Shut up.

  Nervous words babbled out despite the warning. “You think someone in Quakertown was involved?”

  “I can’t really discuss specifics. I’m just following all possible leads. Which for now,” he said as he stood up, “means I’ll be around. So if you have that number?”

  With that, the serious tone was gone and the heavenly smile back.

  What now? Cough up her home number to the last man she wanted knowing anything about her? Damn, if living in a podunk of eight thousand wasn’t turning into quite the bitch. If only she’d lived in the Big Apple, they’d have drank the night away with five thousand other bars between them.

  Of course, she wasn’t obligated to give him the number. But if she balked, would it look suspicious?

  She hoped the hesitation wasn’t obvious as she snatched the pen and business card and scribbled her number on the back. She considered the time-honored bar tradition of giving a phony number. Of course, that would look suspicious to a cop, too. Besides, she’d given her full name like an idiot. And she was listed. Also like an idiot.

  She handed over the goods, thinking how convenient it would be for him to ring her up should his “leads” somehow cast an eye her direction. Why were all the good ones bad ones for her? Shit.

  He offered her another card as he tucked the damning information away. “Here’s my card, so you know I’m legit and not some crazy stalker.”

  Ridelle would have preferred “crazy stalker” on his calling card to the NYPD logo she glimpsed. Warren walked her out to the parking lot, waiting as she climbed inside her car. Leaning down, he took her hand in both of his, and to his credit the warmth that flooded into her made a damn admirable attempt at dethroning her guilt-laced nerves. Almost.

  “Thanks for helping me pass an otherwise dull evening,” he said. His lips brushed the back of her hand, the bare tip of his tongue sending a stab of lust straight through and into the seat beneath her. “I’ll call you.”

  With that he closed her car door and wandered to a dark sedan. She watched him go, willing her pulse to steady enough for the drive home. While she’d have felt quite different about things a few minutes ago, she couldn’t help but feel his final words sounded like a threat.

  Or worse, a promise.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  You’re sure he was talking about the same case?” Fran asked. “There isn’t exactly a shortage of homicides in New York.”

  The quartet, minus one, huddled at her townhouse, sipping coffee to ward against the few effects of the late hour Ridelle’s panicked phone call hadn’t chased away. Missing was Twyla, who hadn’t been able to get away.

  “I’m sure.” Ridelle sat cross-legged on the floor, too numb for her usual back-and-forth routine. A persistent wind moaned outside, adding to the general unrest and sense of peril headed their way. “He said motel shooting, and when I mentioned the wife being involved, he knew what I was talking about. What the Hell is he doing here?”

  “Maybe Lanie followed you guys. You know, the day you went up there to meet her?”

  “How? She doesn’t have a car. You had to pay a cab to drop her at the bar.”

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” Dominique said, almost as if to herself.

  “Yeah, sure. A hundred mile coincidence,” Ridelle said. “We’re not exactly in The Apple’s back yard, you know.”

&nb
sp; Fran stared into her coffee cup. “Lanie must have told.”

  “Told what?” Dominique smoothed hair tied up into a hasty bun. “She didn’t have our names or a location.”

  “Actually, she thinks Cindy and Angel are big-city girls,” Ridelle said. “So how would that lead them downstate?”

  “The wife, then,” Fran said. She thought for a moment, then nodded. “She knows enough to know we’re local.”

  “But not who was involved,” Dominique said, “or even what counties we live in. We’ve been careful about that.”

  “I thought she supposedly had too much to lose to say anything anyway?”

  “She does,” Ridelle said. “Maybe she thought she could bargain her way out of the murder or something.”

  Dominique frowned. “By admitting she’d done something almost as bad to set it up in the first place? That would make things worse for her, not better.”

  “I don’t know. But something led the cops to Quakertown.”

  Fran’s already pale complexion drained. “The cell phone.”

  Doe eyes narrowed on her. “What about it?”

  “When Lanie called you, it was late. We figured it was after she’d already been released. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe they traced the call.”

  “Traced it to what?” Ridelle looked back and forth between the two women. “It wasn’t to a land line. With a cell, you could be anywhere when someone calls. And the phone was even signed up under a different area code.”

  “Fran has a point,” Dominique said. “What if they have a way?”

  “Then they still don’t know who we are or where we live, exactly,” Fran said. “So we’re okay for now. But I’d ditch that phone pronto.”

  Dominique studied her fingernails, as though some secret answer to their mystery was hidden within. “Let’s do it.”

  “Okay.” Ridelle groaned as she got to her feet, knees cracking and popping with the effort.

  “Wait.” Fran’s gray eyes widened, churning like a stormy sea. “What if it wasn’t an accident?”

  Ridelle frowned down at her. “What wasn’t?”

  “Meeting that cop.”

  They stared at one another, a thick silence whispering all sorts of unpleasantness.

  “What if he knew who you were?” she went on after a moment. “What if he’s trying to get close to you, see if you let something slip?”

  “Close enough to stick his tongue down my throat?”

  Dominique pulled herself up to her statuesque height. “I think that unlikely. If police suspected Ridelle, he’d have questioned her, not bought her a drink and rubbed her up on the dance floor.”

  Fran sighed. “Are you sure, Dom? Really sure? He could be undercover.”

  The woman shrugged. “As certain as I can be. But telling her he’s a cop kind of blows the undercover angle. I still think we should find a new home for that phone—at the bottom of the Delaware. Just in case.”

  “What if he’s tailing her?” Fran stood up now as well.

  Dominique eyed her for a moment. “Give Frannie the phone. You do have it with you, I presume?”

  Ridelle nodded, pulling the device from her handbag. Frannie took it with a curled lip, holding it as though tainted with the plague. “Why me? What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “Take it to Twyla. Andy works in Jersey, so she’s got a built-in reason for leaving the state if anyone is watching. She can dump it around there. Oh, and have her wipe the hell out of it first, to lose any fingerprints.”

  Without a word, the three headed for the front door. Ridelle paused as she grabbed her scarf. “What if he calls? I gave him my home number.”

  “Be nice.” Dominique batted her eyes beguilingly. “See if you can’t wriggle him between your thighs. Bet if he’s got something specific on you, that’s not a place he’d want to visit. Wouldn’t that be unethical?”

  Pulling on her coat, she turned to them both. “Meanwhile, don’t act so cagey. No more late-night, panicked meetings. No discussing anything over the phone, and I mean anything more interesting than our latest manicures. For all we know, he doesn’t suspect Ridelle at all.” She glanced at the girl, raising a brow. “Let’s not give him a reason to start.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Warren stared at the phone, tapping the card in his hand on the desk. Nearly four days had gone by since the night he’d discovered the most amazing pair of cocoa brown eyes he’d ever seen, and he hadn’t called her. Normally, he’d have made the big follow-up call to a beautiful woman the next day, hopefully before his charm had worn off and other guys had swooped in. But he’d been too busy running down a variety of dead ends on the Harrison case, along with one or two others he was working. Women like Ridelle didn’t stay dateless for long. She might wind up another dead end now that he’d waited so long.

  “You gonna call her already, or am I gonna have to do all the work around here today?” Liebowitz slurped his name brand coffee with audible gusto.

  “I was just thinking.”

  His partner snorted. “Thinking’s got nothing to do with it. Can’t believe you stopped off at a bar and scored when you were supposed to be working the case.”

  “I didn’t score, and since when can’t a cop have a few minutes off duty every now and then?”

  “Since he didn’t bother to take his partner along in case she had a friend.”

  “She was alone. And all we did was dance.”

  “I’ll bet. At least you got something out of that trip. Sure as hell not any new leads. Could’ve at least questioned her while you were doing the take-me-now tango.”

  “She didn’t know anything but what the papers printed.”

  “Yeah well, while you were off greasing your pistol, I got a statement from the cab driver. Backs up Lanie’s story about a woman paying her fare to the bar on the night of the murder.”

  “But no description of said female.”

  “Better than what you got.”

  “Highly debatable, friend.”

  The phone in front of Liebowitz jangled. As he grabbed for the handset, Warren jumped to make his own call while his partner would be too busy to eavesdrop. To his disappointment, an answering machine picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Hi, it’s Ridelle. I might be here, I might not. Either way, you know the routine, and keep it short. This thing cuts off after thirty seconds. Ready, set, go.”

  “Hi Ridelle, it’s Warren Ross. Up for dinner tomorrow night? If Atlas has time to put down that big blue ball, of course. If you like Thai, I’ll bring take out from the best place in the city.” He recited his number and clicked off to find his partner watching. “Yeah? What are you looking at?”

  Liebowitz grinned, waving a scrap of paper. “Looks like it’s my turn to score.”

  “What is it?”

  “That was the bartender who was on duty at the Night Cap the night of the murder. Seems he just now remembered something about a different woman Harrison was hangin’ out with. Guess you’re not the only one doing the take-me-now-tango in bars. Now we just have to find out who else he was dipping.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Ridelle rose to take her plate to the kitchen, beating down a stomach-turning roil of nausea as she did. The food wasn’t to blame, though she had choked it down to override her sudden lack of appetite. No, the problem here was the company.

  “How was it?”

  She flashed a weak smile. “Heaven. Thanks for bringing dinner.”

  “Glad you like Thai.”

  “I love it.” At least, she did when it wasn’t brought in by a cop who might be plotting her relocation to a twelve-by-twelve cell.

  “Good. That’s one of my fifteen dating requirements.”

  Despite herself, a grin twisted the corner of her mouth. “Fifteen?”

  He stood, too, grabbing take out containers and sauntering to the kitchen, where he tapped a finger on the fridge. “By the way, number thirteen is this.”

  “Refrigera
tors?”

  “What’s inside.”

  “Man, you’re a tough date.” To put it mildly

  “Mind if I throw these in?” He held up a box of chicken curry and another of ginger beef.

  “So you can inspect my innards to see if I pass?” Her plate in the sink, she turned with a sardonic expression and crossed her arms.

  “I’m sure your innards are more than passable.” The smile burned into her cheeks. “But if you’ve got something to hide…”

  Panic stabbed at her chest as he trailed off. Jesus, what was he playing at? Down, girl. Don’t freak out.

  She shrugged. “Be my guest. If something jumps out and bites, though, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The door opened to a guffaw of laughter, and after a quick perusal and shove to offload leftovers, he shut it again.

  “Well? Do I pass number thirteen?”

  “My kind of woman.”

  “Sorry about the mess. Most of that stuff isn’t more than a couple of months old.”

  “You’ve got more than a carton of yogurt and mineral water in there. I appreciate a woman who is willing to eat. Bonus points scored for the longnecks beers in the back.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been known to toss back one or two. Good for the complexion.”

  His eyes still shining with mischievous delight, he took a step forward. Ridelle suddenly realized just how small the kitchen was—and how close he was to her. Her stomach rolled again, and she swallowed it down hard, fighting the urge to back away. This was no time to panic.

  The cop thing aside, he was even more handsome than the smoky lights of the bar had revealed. He smelled clean and woodsy. The smile was back, startling her with an intensity she hadn’t quite remembered from the night they met. He was tall, but not to a neck-wrenching degree. And he looked at her as though no other girl could ever possibly exist. Only an insane woman would be in the least bit put off by such a package.

  Or a guilty one.

  She waved toward the living room. “Care to get comfortable? I could crack open one of those talls for you.”