Valentine's Day Is Killing Me Read online

  “We don’t need to come up with the culprit,” Shanna said. “Let the police do their job.”

  “Shanna, don’t you see? You’re the prime suspect.”

  She froze. “What?”

  “And if we don’t come up with some reasonable doubt—like, say, another suspect—in the next five minutes, the rest of your Valentine’s Days are going to be spent in prison.”

  She was the prime suspect? She was?

  Shanna stared at Calder, feeling dizzy and nauseous. Her mouth was suddenly dry. Her tongue felt thick and swollen.

  She didn’t do a damn thing wrong. She stayed in her cubicle, did what was asked of her, and kept her hands to herself. Everything was going to be fine.

  Riiiight.

  Don’t freak, she told herself silently. Calder was here. He wouldn’t let them take her away. Calder, the guy who just vowed to risk his life for her. The same guy who also just suggested that she’d bumped off her boss.

  Shanna hunched her shoulders. She was so going to fry. To a crisp.

  “Poisoned?” she heard Calder ask. Shanna froze, tuning back in to the conversation.

  “There are many poisons that can cause cyanosis. You know, the skin turning blue,” Anteros explained. “Anything from a plant, spider bite, or a chemical.”

  “That’s strange,” Shanna murmured.

  The officer picked up on that right away. “Why?”

  “I can imagine a stabbing, or a shooting,” Shanna said. “Even pushing her in front of a bus.”

  “Shanna,” Calder said with warning, “now is not the time to critique a murderer.”

  “But poisoning?” She clucked her tongue. “It doesn’t fit Angie. It’s not aggressive enough.”

  “Murder is always aggressive,” Sergeant Anteros said.

  “Well, fine.” She rolled her eyes. “If you look at it that way.”

  “You’ll have to excuse her,” Calder told the investigating officer. “She’s in shock.”

  “Ms. Murphy, did you bring her coffee at any time during the day?”

  Shanna huffed and looked at Calder. “Why does everyone think I’m the lackey?”

  Calder shrugged.

  “So,” Anteros tapped his pen against his notepad, “that’s a…”

  “It’s a no.” She returned her attention to the sergeant. “A big, fat one.”

  “You sure? Not even a cup?”

  “No one touched Angie’s coffee mug,” Shanna explained. “She never let it go. I bet she never washed it.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

  “Do you know what she had to eat or drink?”

  “No. I only saw her drink from the coffee mug.”

  “There’s more than one way to poison someone,” Calder said. “Sergeant, you might want to look at those flowers on Shanna’s desk.”

  “Hey!” Shanna jumped up from her seat. “Those are mine.”

  Calder ignored her. “They were given to Angie. Who knows what’s in them. Inhale and you’re dead.”

  Anteros gave a nod at one of the officers listening in. “Bag ’em.”

  “Well, thanks a lot, Calder. My one and only bouquet of roses, and you’re going to have them dissected.”

  “Did she give away anything else she received today?” Anteros asked.

  “She passed out the chocolates. Oh, man.” Shanna sat down with a thump. “I knew this Valentine’s Day was going to be the death of me.”

  “Are you okay?” Calder asked.

  “I’m feeling a bit weird.” She looked up at him. “Tell me the truth. Am I turning blue?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Oh, good. Wait, there was also the cupcake.” She paused and waved the concern away. “But it should be okay. Megan made one especially for Angie.”

  The sergeant perked up. “Especially?”

  “But I doubt she ate it. Everyone knew that…” she drifted off. No one would put poison in the food. They would put it in a gift Angie couldn’t refuse.

  “Knew what?”

  “You know,” Shanna said, standing up and staring at the open doorway of Angie’s office. “Maybe we’re looking at the murder scene the wrong way.”

  “How so?” Calder asked.

  “You need to see it from a girl’s point of view.”

  “You’re saying the murderer was a woman?” Anteros asked.

  “No, but the victim is. And a princessy girl, at that,” she added in a confidential voice. “Rather than thinking how the murderer would administer the poison, let’s look at how the victim would accept it.”

  “Shanna, I don’t know if this is a good—”

  “Take the flowers, for example.”

  “What about them?” Anteros looked at the flowers in Angie’s office and the ones on Shanna’s desk. “Which ones?”

  “Both are beautiful. No woman could resist. But Angie could. Why? She was never into flowers, and she easily got rid of the second bouquet because she didn’t want her husband to see them.”

  “Okay, so they might not be in the flowers,” Anteros admitted. “But we need to check them anyway.”

  “And the cupcake,” Shanna continued. “I’m betting Angie didn’t even take a bite. Not even out of courtesy.”

  “We can check on that.”

  “And the teddy bear?” Calder asked.

  Shanna chuckled at the idea. “No way was Angie going to cuddle that thing.”

  Calder nodded in agreement. “Got it.”

  “Putting poison in a chocolate box is too risky,” Anteros decided. “You wouldn’t know how long it would take for her to get to the one filled with poison.”

  “And the murderer wouldn’t know that Angie was going to be generous about it,” Calder added.

  “It’s more than that,” Shanna said. “The murderer knew Angie well enough to know she probably wouldn’t eat the chocolates.”

  Calder squinted as he tried to understand. “So why would anyone send her chocolate?”

  “Oh, Calder,” Shanna said with a sigh. “You have so much to learn.”

  “Where was the poison?” Calder asked.

  “The necklace,” Shanna said.

  “Necklace,” Sergeant Anteros repeated.

  “The necklace!” Realization dawned on Calder. “I noticed she was wearing a diamond necklace when she told you about Megan.”

  “Yep, it was on her desk when she came back from lunch.” Shanna leaned her hip against Kerry’s desk. “This all makes sense to me. A woman can resist chocolate if she’s determined to stick to her diet, but no woman—especially a princessy one—can resist trying on expensive jewelry. It doesn’t even matter who it’s from.”

  The guys stared at her funny.

  “Doesn’t everyone know that?” she asked.

  The guys looked at each other and shrugged.

  “Apparently not.”

  “How can someone poison another with a necklace?” Calder asked.

  “How should I know?” She shrugged. “That’s not my expertise.”

  Calder shook his head. “I don’t buy that theory.”

  “Hey,” she flattened her hand against her chest, “I couldn’t resist the necklace.”

  “You tried on the necklace?” Calder’s face paled.

  “No—I mean, I almost put it on. But considering how my luck has been going, I knew I would get caught.” Wow, who knew her bad luck would actually turn good? Shanna’s knees got a little shaky just thinking about it.

  “The necklace was in your possession?” Sergeant Anteros interrupted.

  “Yeah,” she glanced at him, “I signed for it.”

  “I’ll get you your own damn diamonds,” Calder said in a soft growl.

  Shanna smiled. “That’s very sweet of you, but—”

  “I can’t believe that you are so hung up on Valentine’s Day that you almost wore a poisonous necklace.”

  “I didn’t know it was poisonous,” Shanna said, her patience wearing thin.

  “Enough!” the investigat
ing officer raised his voice. “We don’t know if the necklace is poisonous, or if we are purposely being led in the wrong direction.”

  Shanna glared at Anteros. “Hey!”

  “Ms. Murphy, is there any reason why you would want to kill the victim?”

  “Sergeant, I just solved the mystery for you and this is the kind of gratitude I get?”

  “You had the necklace in your possession, you were the last person to see her alive,” Anteros said, beginning to list the evidence.

  She raised her palm at him. “Don’t even go there.”

  “Witnesses say you had an argument with the victim.”

  Shanna crossed her arms. “She started it.”

  Anteros pointed at her computer. “And this afternoon you were looking online for plane tickets to Calcutta.”

  “Calcutta?”

  Shanna looked at Calder. “Did you know that there’s a strong movement against Valentine’s Day in parts of India?”

  “Ms. Murphy!” Once again, the investigating officer raised his voice. “Is it true that you were angry with the victim because she made you work late on Valentine’s night?”

  “Let me put it to you straight. My Valentine’s Day already sucked. Why would I purposely make it worse by spending it at a crime scene?”

  “She does have a point,” Calder inserted.

  “If I was going to do it, I would have done it yesterday so I would have today off from work.”

  “Ms. Murphy,” Anteros said over Calder’s groan, “please retrace your activities on Valentine’s Eve.”

  Shanna’s eyes lit up. “Valentine’s Eve?”

  “I mean, yesterday.” A blush crept up the officer’s neck and spread in his face. “February 13.”

  “Sergeant Anteros,” Shanna asked, tilting her head to one side as she studied him, “are you married?”

  The investigating officer had the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. “Um, no.”

  Shanna smiled. “You should really meet my sister.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Only you would try to hook up your sister with the investigating officer at a crime scene,” Calder said as he drove his sports car down the rain-soaked Seattle streets.

  “Donovan Anteros is a romantic,” Shanna decided as she curled into the warm leather seat, enjoying the simple pleasure of sitting next to Calder. “He would be good for Heather.”

  Calder glanced over at her. “You didn’t even like him until he said the words ‘Valentine’s Eve.’”

  She arched her eyebrows. “I was gradually warming up to him. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’m still waiting to hear it.” She made a give-it-to-me motion with her hand.

  He sighed. “You were right. The back of the necklace was coated with poison.”

  “I know!” She slapped her hand against her leg. “I still can’t believe it. I hope they catch Ted-Ed-Fred—”

  “Stan,” he corrected.

  “And put him away for life!”

  “Wow. You’re taking this to heart,” Calder said as he took a turn.

  “Any guy who turns a beautiful and romantic Valentine’s gift into the means of murder,” Shanna said, raising her finger to make a point, “is obviously twisted and should not be a member of society.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I should have guessed it when Angie’s husband hadn’t dropped by the office to pick her up. Someone who catered to her every whim would not make Angie wait that long. How much do you want to bet that he’s already out of the country? Probably left Monday morning.”

  “Stan is the prime suspect,” Calder reminded her as he slowed the car down. “He hasn’t been charged with anything.”

  Shanna sat up straight. “You know, this is wrong.”

  “It’s called the legal system.”

  “No, not that.” She noticed they were in front of Calder’s town house community. “You were supposed to take me home.”

  “I changed my mind,” he said as the entrance gates slowly opened. “You’re staying with me tonight.”

  Her breath caught in her throat as excitement trickled through her veins. “Oh, I am?” she asked, her voice huskier than she intended.

  “Yeah.” He turned and looked at her, doing nothing to hide the possessive gleam in his eyes. “You are.”

  So he wasn’t going to woo and court her into it. He wanted to claim her, and he wasn’t going to wrap up the primal feelings with civilized words or traditions. Honestly, was she going to quibble about it? No.

  But she wasn’t about to fall into bed with her ex-boyfriend at the first opportunity. She had standards. She’d wait until he begged. “Don’t you think it’s too soon?”

  He parked his car in his garage and closed the door with the push of a button before he answered. “Do you?”

  She could lie and say she needed time. But all he would have to do was touch her and she’d start mewling and clawing his back like a cat. “I guess my question is, why am I staying with you tonight?”

  “’Cause I need you with me.”

  He said “need.” She’d count that as begging. “Well, if you put it that way…” Shanna said, unsnapping her seat belt. She leaned over and kissed him.

  The first touch instantly blew her away. Her lips tingled, her veins fizzed with excitement. She felt the kick, the insistent throb deep in her belly, the buzz skittering up her spine.

  She gasped with surprise when Calder lifted her from her seat. Shanna stared at him wide-eyed as he carried her across to his side. She straddled him, her skirt bunching up around her bare legs.

  She saw the desire and the need stamped across his face. Shanna inhaled the faint scent of his cologne as she curled her hands behind his head and kissed him.

  The taste of him was addictive. She had no idea how she managed to go so long without him. All thought fled from her mind as his hands glided along her bare thighs.

  She needed to press her skin against his. Share her heat with him. Shanna pulled Calder’s shirt free from his trousers as her kisses grew rough and frantic.

  Their ragged breathing echoed in the silent car. The insistent throb between her legs was suddenly too much. Shanna bucked and flexed against Calder. She rubbed against his hard cock and closed her eyes, craving him. She was ready to take him right there and then in the front seat. Sooo ready.

  Calder shifted forward and turned. She opened her eyes and realized the interior lights were on. Then she noticed the dinging bell. He nudged the door open with his elbow.

  “Where—”

  “Bed.” His hands shook slightly as he grabbed the keys from the ignition. “My bed.”

  She liked hearing those words coming out of his lips, reddened from her kisses. But that’s not the point! “We’re doing just fine—” she squealed as he dipped her back, her hair cascading behind her and out of the car.

  She clawed the tight muscles of his shoulders as he guided her out of the car. Falling on her head would put a damper on her plans. Shanna wrapped her legs tightly around his waist as he stood up. She noticed he didn’t grimace or buckle under her weight. She liked that in a man. Her man.

  Her kisses grew wet, slick, and slid along his strong chin. Where was he going to claim her? she wondered as he walked, carrying her with him. The wall? The trunk of the car? Anywhere was fine as long as it happened right now.

  Calder managed to open the door and step inside. He slapped the light switch on the second try and she saw the long flight of steps all the way to the first floor.

  Shanna unwrapped her arms from his neck. “Put me down,” she said, her lips against his jaw.

  Calder seemed reluctant to let her go. “Not yet.”

  Didn’t he get it? Shanna wondered as she wiggled against him, her heart pounding fiercely. If they didn’t race to his bedroom on the second floor—right this very second—she was going to take him on this very hard, very cold tile floor. Especially if he didn’t stop touching her like that.

  She had to hurry them, or
their reunion wasn’t going to turn out as she had planned. Shanna grabbed the hem of her sweater and shucked it off. She shivered as the air brushed against her heated skin. She froze when she captured Calder’s hot, dark gaze.

  Need slammed against her, knocking the breath out of her lungs. Desire rippled across her skin. Something powerful hummed inside her, like she was ready to burst into someone bold, beautiful, and free.

  Shanna met his eyes as she brazenly reached for the back of her bra. Her chest rose and fell as she unhooked the strap and peeled it from her body.

  Calder leaned down to taste the slope of her breast and she felt herself being lowered. Her fingers bit into his arms as he laid her on the steps. The carpeted edges bit against her shoulder blades and the small of her back. Strangely, she didn’t care.

  Her fingers fumbled against the front buttons of her skirt. She couldn’t get them unfastened quickly enough. She managed to undo a few by the time Calder shucked off her ankle boots and tossed them down the stairs. Shanna yanked off her skirt and panties, kicking them to the side.

  She lay sprawled before Calder, naked and willing, her long hair fanned across the step above her head. She parted her legs and opened her arms, urging him closer.

  Calder hovered above her, bracing his arms by her head. He dove for a ferocious kiss, darting his tongue deep into her mouth. She greedily suckled his offering when his hands skimmed down her curves before cupping her sex.

  Shanna arched against Calder’s hands as his finger stroked against her slit. A moan caught in the back of her throat as he rubbed small, teasing circles against her clit. She tossed her head from side to side as pleasure pulsed from her center until every inch of her skin tingled.

  She murmured incoherently as Calder dipped his fingers into her wet core. With a knowing curve of his fingertips, he pressed against that secret spot.

  Shanna was pretty sure she screamed. Her voice was definitely echoing in her head. But once he replaced his hand with his mouth to suckle her clit while stroking that special spot, she was cocooned in a white silence.

  Dark spots danced before her eyes as she slowly recognized the slanted ceiling above her. The carpet underneath her back pricked against her skin. She was limp, still shuddering, when she heard the rustle of Calder’s clothes. She blinked as she heard the clatter of keys and the thud of his wallet hit the tile floor.