CAPTURING CLEO Read online

  “No, I’m not hungry,” Russell said as he stepped back and let Cleo rise from the booth on her own. “I’ll ride with you guys, if that’s okay. I can pick up my car later.”

  Luther growled and took Cleo’s arm, and she shook him off with a muttered and sardonic, “The more the merrier.”

  He drove Cleo to the lot where her car was parked, Russell chattering away in the backseat. Luther tuned the kid out, and apparently so did Cleo. Russell was not deterred; he talked about the weather, a movie he saw last night, the traffic. Inane, polite, irritating chatter. He was still talking when Luther pulled into the lot where Cleo’s car was parked.

  She exited the car quickly, and Luther did the same. When Russell tried to open his door and join them, Luther pushed it in and glared through the window. The kid got the message and settled back with that damnable smile on his pretty face.

  Cleo wasted no time. She had her keys in her hand and had inserted one into the door lock, as Luther came up behind her.

  “Put a peephole in your door,” he ordered.

  “Mind your own business.”

  “And move that damn spare key.”

  She had the door open. “Screw you, Malone.”

  Oh, he could only wish... He shook the inappropriate cravings off and grabbed Cleo’s arm, preventing her from slipping into her Corvette and out of the parking lot.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  She stared at the hand on her arm. “Neither do I,” she said frostily.

  For a second, a long second where nothing moved, Luther wondered if either of them was talking about Jack Tempest, murder, or grapefruit.

  He didn’t release her. Not yet. “I’d like to believe your ex committed suicide, but I don’t.”

  Some of the toughness faded from her face, leaving her looking momentarily vulnerable. “Neither do I.”

  “Like it or not, the grapefruit means you’re involved.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said.

  “So put a peephole in your door and move that friggin’ key.”

  She almost smiled. The tension faded for a moment and she was more tempting than ever. For a second he saw the unguarded Cleo, a real warm woman who needed to be scratched behind her ears until she purred. “I’ll think about it.”

  He released her, and she immediately opened her door and dropped into her seat. Before she could close the door he leaned in, placing his face near hers. He could almost see every muscle in her body tense, and her eyes—golden eyes that had been almost laughing a moment ago—became guarded. She didn’t like it when he got too close, he’d sensed that from the beginning. Tough.

  “Like it or not this is my case, Ms. Tanner, and alibi or no alibi, you haven’t seen the last of me.”

  She said something obscene, and he withheld a smile. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  “Not if I can help it,” she said, reaching past him to grab the handle and pull the car door closed. He barely had time to jump out of the way.

  She jammed the keys into the ignition, then hesitated. After a moment she rolled her window down and lifted softened eyes to him. “I didn’t mean that,” she said, almost apologetically. “About my mother.”

  He couldn’t imagine why she was telling him this, but he nodded as if he understood completely.

  “True, we get along much better when she’s in Montgomery and I’m in Huntsville, but...” Her face fell. “Crap. I’m going to have to call and tell her about Jack. She hated him more than I did, but she will want to send flowers to the funeral.” She rolled her eyes in disgust. “It’s the right thing to do, you know.”

  “Do you want me to make the call for you?” he asked.

  She laid her strangely golden eyes on him, no longer angry. This Cleo was guarded but honest. She was a little afraid, a little shaken, and she refused to admit to either. Still, the strength that put fire in her eyes and a sassy retort on her lips was there, as much a part of her as her shape, her mouth, that amazing head of hair. He wanted, more than anything, to kiss her.

  “You would do that?” she asked.

  “If you want me to.”

  “No, thanks. I can handle it.” She shook her head, slightly. “God, Malone, you would have to turn out to be a nice guy.”

  “You make that sound like a bad thing.”

  “It is,” she said as she began to roll up her window.

  This was a bad idea. Cleo was a suspect in a murder, and even though he’d dismissed her as a viable option, she was connected to the investigation. She was off-limits. This was his damn job, and he never mixed business with pleasure. He couldn’t start now, no matter how tempted he might be.

  Cleo was talking to herself as she drove away. He couldn’t hear her, but he saw her mouth move. Maybe she was cursing his name. Then again...

  “Now, that’s a woman,” Russell said.

  Luther turned around to see that the kid was leaning against the car with an annoyingly jaunty air. “Too much woman for you,” he said as he headed for the driver’s side.

  “But not for you,” Russell said with a smile, hurrying to the passenger seat so he wouldn’t be left behind.

  “Maybe she is,” Luther said, starting the engine. And then he thought about the way she’d looked fresh from bed, in her cat nightshirt with her hair going in every direction; the expression on her face, the fire in her amber eyes when he’d licked the jam off his finger, and the hint of vulnerability that had flashed over her face when she’d agreed that somehow she was involved in her ex-husband’s death.

  “Then again, maybe she’s not.”

  “Did she do it?” Russell asked as Luther pulled onto the street. His bright smile faded rapidly as they got back to business.

  “No.”

  “Does she know who did?”

  Luther sighed. “I’m not sure. I’m going back to the club tonight. Whoever did this might be there to see Cleo’s reaction to the murder. If he’s fixated on her, he might be there every night.”

  “So what are you gonna do, take up hanging around bars as a part of the job? Can I come?”

  Luther opened up his very clean ashtray and plucked out a peppermint, unwrapping it expertly and quickly. At times like this, he wanted a cigarette so bad he could almost taste it.

  Truth was, another pair of eyes would be a good idea. Russell looked at everything from a different slant. Like it or not, that made them good partners. What one missed, the other often saw.

  “Sure,” he said. “Don’t forget to bring your ID.”

  Russell growled, and Luther smiled. The last time they’d gone out for a drink, Mikey had gotten carded.

  “Dress casual, and let’s go in separately and keep it that way.” Yeah, another pair of eyes would be great. “There’s a barmaid about your age, pretty girl named Lizzy. You can cozy up to her and pick her brain over the next few days.”

  Russell nodded. The kid loved undercover work, even something as simple as this. “That’s great. What about Cleo? Should I try to pick her brain, too?”

  It was true, Luther usually let Russell interrogate the women. They just seemed to crumple when he smiled and asked them questions. A woman who was intimidated by Luther would fold in a heartbeat for Mikey.

  He had a feeling Cleo never folded. Besides, she’d chew the kid up and spit him out before he had a clue he was in trouble. Besides...

  “Cleo is mine.”

  Chapter Four

  The last person Cleo needed or wanted to see, as she pushed through the club door, was Malone. The man was a menace. He stood at the bar talking to Edgar as if he owned the place. Confident, supremely relaxed, he looked like he belonged here as much as she did. It was her place!

  He turned to watch her walk toward him, his eyes squinted against the afternoon sun that shone brightly behind her as the door swung slowly shut.

  “We’re not open yet,” she said.

  Malone nodded to Edgar. “He let me in.”

  First Syd and now Edga
r. Her friends were turning against her. Cleo gave Edgar a warning glare, and received a shrug in return. She headed for the office, and heard the annoying clip of Malone’s step as he fell in behind her.

  “I suppose you’re here for a reason,” Cleo said, without glancing over her shoulder.

  “Maybe I just wanted to say hello.”

  Cleo snorted softly as she opened her office door. “You don’t strike me as a social butterfly, Malone. I doubt you ever drop by anywhere just to say hello.”

  Every nerve in her body went on alert when he shut the office door behind him. She didn’t like being this close to him, pinned in, wondering why he was here. She didn’t have to wonder long.

  “Jack didn’t jump,” Malone said curtly.

  Her heart lurched. “How can you be sure?”

  “He was probably unconscious when he went off… when he died. There was a substantial amount of a drug in his blood, not enough to kill him, but more than enough to knock him on his ass for a while.”

  Cleo rounded the desk and sat down. Something about Malone and the news he always carried with him made her knees weak. “Maybe he took it on purpose. Trust me, Jack wasn’t above a little recreational—”

  “No grown man uses furniture polish for recreational purposes,” Malone interrupted. “Even if it is a furniture polish that takes a nasty turn when ingested.”

  Cleo tilted her head back and looked up at the detective. Usually she didn’t care for this position. She preferred eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose, but not right now. “So somebody gave Jack something to make him easy to handle, and then pushed him off the roof?”

  Malone stood on the other side of her desk, his eyes on her. Did he still think she might’ve killed Jack? For the first time, Cleo was really scared. No one had wanted to see Jack dead more than she. If she were investigating the case, she’d definitely suspect herself.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Malone continued. “There are easier ways to kill an unconscious man than throwing him off a roof. It looks like he was already out of it when he was taken up there. That wasn’t easy.”

  Cleo swallowed, wanting nothing more than for this man to leave. Quietly. Without another word. Without another opportunity for argument. “Why are you telling me this?” Malone placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers. There it was, that eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose.

  “I don’t think you killed him,” he said. “But I think you know the man who did.”

  “How do you know it’s a man?”

  “Ever tried to drag a body up several flights of stairs, across a roof, and then toss it over the side? There was a four-foot railing. Whoever tossed Jack over had the strength to lift that unconscious body over the rail. You don’t have that kind of strength.”

  She wanted to argue with him. These days she didn’t let any man tell her what she could and could not do. But he was right. She’d be a complete fool to argue with him about that particular point.

  “Why do you think I know the man who killed Jack?”

  Malone shook his head. “If whoever did this just wanted Tempest dead, he could’ve poured more furniture polish down his throat, or smothered him with a pillow. The job could’ve been finished in any one of a dozen other ways that were simpler and cleaner than this. That’s not what happened. When the killer tossed Jack and the grapefruit over the side of the building, he was sending a message.”

  “To me?” Cleo whispered.

  “To you.”

  Malone backed away slowly and withdrew a small notebook from his jacket pocket. A slim pen followed. The way he sat there, half sitting, half leaning against her desk, made his dark jacket gape open. His shoulder holster rested at his side, snug and somehow natural looking against the plain white shirt. The gun housed there was small, but deadly-looking.

  “I’m going to need the names of everyone you’ve dated in the past two years.”

  “I don’t date.”

  Malone latched his dark eyes to hers. “Come on, Ms. Tanner. You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  His skepticism stole away her fear and made her angry. Thank goodness. She much preferred anger. “I have my own business, Detective Malone. It keeps me quite busy.”

  “Too busy for...” He let the question die away.

  “Yes,” she snapped. “Too busy for.”

  He closed the notebook and returned it, and the pen, to his pocket. Very smoothly, he traded the implements of his profession for a wrapped candy, a strawberry-shaped sweet he deftly unwrapped and popped into his mouth.

  “What’s with the candy, anyway?” she asked sharply. “You have a sweet tooth or something?”

  “I ask the questions here.”

  She ignored him. “Are you determined to buy your dentist a new car?”

  He laid his dark eyes on her. “If you must know, when I quit smoking I relied on candy to help me get by. Now I have to find a way to get rid of the candy.”

  Cleo smiled. “Oral fixation.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You just traded one oral fixation for another.” She rather liked the fact that such a hard, seemingly perfect man had a weakness. Even if it was for something so ordinary as hard candy.

  “Thank you, Dr. Tanner,” he said dryly. “Now that we’re through analyzing me, let’s get back to—”

  “So the only way to get rid of the candy,” she interrupted, “is to trade it for another oral fix. Back to cigarettes?” she teased. “Or maybe you can start sucking your thumb.”

  Cleo was so sure she had the upper hand with this latest turn in the conversation, and then Malone threw her for a loop without uttering a single word.

  He stared at her mouth.

  “I, uh, haven’t dated in the past two years, I swear,” she said, lowering her voice. “To be honest, it’s been a lot longer than two years.”

  Malone allowed his gaze to drift upward. “There must’ve been someone.”

  Cleo shook her head, feeling guilty about not telling Malone the truth when he’d asked about the roses. Knowing what she knew now, she had no choice.

  “I have had a secret admirer sending me notes and flowers for the past four months,” she said, trying to sound casual. “It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time when—”

  “A secret admirer?” Malone asked, shooting up off the desk to stand tall, and menacing, before her. “And you just now tell me about it?”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  She took a deep breath to calm herself. Malone had every right to be peeved, but there was no reason for him to lose his cool. She was certain the man who’d written her those innocent letters couldn’t possibly be a murderer. “The letters are very sweet, and he sends me flowers about once a month. That hardly makes him an obsessed madman.” Should she tell him about Eric and her stray thought that he might be the man sending her notes and roses? No. Eric didn’t have a violent bone in his body. Turning Malone on him would be downright cruel, and senseless. There was no way Eric could’ve killed Jack.

  But she was going to have to talk to Eric and Edgar about lying for her. Their intentions had been good, but sooner or later the truth would have to be told. Sooner would be better.

  “Tell me you kept the letters,” Malone muttered.

  Cleo sighed. “Yes. They seemed more like fan letters than any kind of threat.” She slid open the bottom drawer of her desk and riffled through the small stack of bills there. She kept the notes and other fan letters she got on occasion just beneath the bills. As she searched, a sharp discomfort grew. “They’re not here,” she said.

  “What?” Malone rounded the desk and dropped down to his haunches to search the drawer himself. He pulled out his pen and used it to lift the bills and other papers in the drawer, being careful not to actually touch anything.

  “I’m telling you,” Cleo said, “they’re not here.”

  “When did you see them last?”

/>   “A few days ago,” Cleo said. “Maybe last week.”

  “Don’t touch anything else,” he ordered, glancing up at her. “I’m going to have the office dusted for prints.”

  Cleo grinned. “Do you have any idea how many people are in and out of this place? And I haven’t polished this desk in… okay, I’ve never polished this desk. It’s got to be covered with prints.”

  “It’s a long shot, I know,” Malone said as he stood. “But right now, it’s all we’ve got.” He offered his hand to help Cleo to her feet. “Except you.”

  For a split second he’d thought she was lying. How did a woman who looked like this one go so long without a date? He could see guys lining up to date Cleo, and he could see her going through them the way a normal woman went through tissues. Use one and toss it away. Grab another.

  But that thought hadn’t lasted long. The man-eater toughness was a part of her act; it was the way she kept men away. Thanks to Jack, he imagined.

  Luther sat at a table near the center of the room. From here he could see everything. Lizzy, her long brown ponytail swaying as she leaned against the bar; Edgar barely mouthing the words to the song Cleo was singing; customers scattered about the room with drinks before them and their eyes and attention on the stage.

  And Mikey, sitting in the corner. Once he’d come in and made himself comfortable, he’d started hitting on Lizzy. Pretty successfully, too. In his jeans and denim shirt, and wearing that devil-may-care smile, Russell looked nothing like a cop.

  Right this minute, Russell behaved as all the other customers did. He stared at Cleo and listened closely. The place was very quiet as she sang. No one so much as whispered. Luther had scanned the room for a potential obsessed secret admirer, for a potential killer, but had seen nothing suspicious. So now he listened, too.

  She sang old forties tunes, mostly, in a resonant voice that filled the room and seeped beneath his skin. Cleo Tanner was a smart-mouthed, tough broad, but when she sang… when she sang there was nothing else. He could see it in her eyes, in her relaxed posture. She didn’t care if anyone listened, if the room was full or empty. She sang from the heart.