To Die For

don’t think I’m involved in this at all, other than just being there by an accident of timing. I can’t help you by pointing a finger at someone who might have it in for me. Besides, Nicole was the type of person who regularly pissed people off.”

“Do you know any of those people?”

“She annoyed every woman who belongs to Great Bods, but men tended to like her because she had this syrupy sex-kitten act. It was definitely a man who shot her, though, which seems wrong, but brings up the question of jealousy. Nicole is-was-the type who’d play the jealousy game.”

“Did you know any of her boyfriends, or was there one in particular?”

“No, I don’t know anything about her private life. We weren’t best buds; we never chatted about personal things.”

He hadn’t once taken his gaze off my face, which was beginning to make me nervous. See, his eyes are kind of pale, that shade of green that leaps out at you if the person’s hair and brows are dark, which his were. On a blond you wouldn’t notice eyes like that so much, unless he wore black mascara-never mind. Wyatt wasn’t the mascara type. The point is, his gaze was piercing. When he stared at me, I felt sort of pinned.

I didn’t like him this close. I functioned much better when he was at a distance. If we had been in a relationship, it would have been different, but we weren’t, and after my last experience with him I wasn’t willing to put myself on the emotional line with someone who blew so hot and cold. But he was so close I could feel the heat coming from his legs, so I moved back another inch or so. Better. Not perfect, but better.

Damn him, why couldn’t he have stayed outside in the rain? Detective MacInnes had things handled in here. If Wyatt had just stayed outside, I wouldn’t be having these very acute memories of how his skin smelled, how he tasted, the sounds he made when he was so turned on-

Nope. Don’t go down that path. Because when he’d been turned on, I had been turned on, too.

“Blair!” he said, a little forcefully.

I jumped and refocused, and hoped he hadn’t been able to tell where my thoughts had wandered. “What?”

“I asked if you got a good look at the man’s face.”

“No. I’ve already told all this to Detective MacInnes,” I repeated. How long was he going to keep asking me questions I’d already answered? “It was dark, it was raining. I could tell he was a man, but that was it. The car was a dark four-door, but I can’t tell you the make or the model. I’m sorry, but if he walked into this office right now, I wouldn’t be able to identify him.”

He watched me for a minute longer, then stood and said, “I’ll be in touch.”

“Why?” I asked in obvious bewilderment. He was a lieutenant. The detectives would be handling the case; he’d just be overseeing the big picture, distribution of manpower, okaying stuff, things like that.

His mouth thinned again as he stood looking down at me. No doubt about it, I was irritating the hell out of him tonight, which gave me a great deal of satisfaction.

“Just don’t go out of town,” he finally said, though he actually growled the sentence instead of saying it.

“So I am a suspect!” I glared at him, then reached for the phone. “I’m calling my lawyer.”

His hand slammed down on mine before I could lift the phone. “You aren’t a suspect.” He was still growling, and now he was way too close, bent over me the way he was, his green eyes fairly snapping with temper as he glared back at me.

Ask me if I know how to leave well enough alone.

“Then I’ll damn well go out of town if I want to,” I said, pulling my hand out from under his and crossing my arms.

Chapter Four

So that’s how I wound up at the police station at midnight, in the custody of a very irate police lieutenant.

He hauled me into his office, plunked me into a chair, barked, “Now, stay there!” and stalked out.

I was fairly bouncing with temper myself. I’d given him what-for all the way down to the station-without using swear words or threatening him, of course, which would probably have given him a reason to arrest me for real, which I’m sure he would have done because he was that mad-but now I’d run out of things to say without getting into personal territory and I didn’t want to do that, so I was frustrated on top of being mad.

I surged to my feet as soon as he closed the door behind him, and just to show him what’s what I went behind the desk and sat in his chair. Hah!

I know. It was childish. And I knew that, childish or not, it would get his goat. Getting his goat was turning out to be almost as much fun as making out with him.

The chair was a big one. It needed to be, because he was a big man. It was leather, too, which I liked. I swiveled all the way around in it. I looked through the files on his desk, but I did it fast, because that was probably a misdemeanor or something. I didn’t see anything interesting about anyone I knew.

I opened the middle drawer of his desk and got out a pen, then searched the other drawers for a notepad. I finally found one, plopped it on top of the files, and began writing a list of his transgressions. Not all of them, of course; just the ones he’d committed that night.

He came in with a Diet Coke in his hand, stopped dead when he saw me sitting at his desk, then very carefully and deliberately closed the door and in a low voice of doom said, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Writing down all the things you did so I won’t forget any of them when I talk to my lawyer.”

He plunked the Diet Coke down on the desk and jerked the pad away from me. Turning it around, he looked at the first item and his dark brows snapped together. “ ‘Manhandled the witness and caused bruises to her arm,’ ” he quoted. “That’s a load of bullsh-”

I lifted my left arm and showed him the bruises on the underside where he’d gripped my arm while he was bodily forcing me into his car, and he stopped in midword. “Ah, hell,” he said softly, temper fading. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Yeah, sure; that’s why he’d dropped me like a hot potato two years ago. He had definitely hurt me, no denying that. And then he hadn’t even had the decency to tell me why, which was what had really made me mad.

He hitched one hip on the edge of the desk and continued reading. “ ‘Unlawful detainment. Kidnapping’-kidnapping?”

“You forcibly took me away from my place of business and drove me to another location where I didn’t want to be. Sounds like kidnapping to me.”

He snorted and continued reading my list of grievances, which included bad language, a snotty attitude, and poor manners. He hadn’t even thanked me for the coffee. Oh, there were other legal terms in there, too, like coercion, badgering, and harassment, refusing to let me contact my lawyer, but I hadn’t let any detail slide.

Damn his hide, he was smiling by the time he got to the end of the list. I didn’t want him to smile. I wanted him to realize what an asshole he’d been.