“What’s up?” Trixie shouted and leaned on the bar. Her dark eyes, lined with heavy makeup, looked them up and down. “I’d be happy to talk to you guys, but the stink from the overflowing garbage can back here is making me wanna puke.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Olivia said in a huff as she lifted the hinged section of the bar and stuck her hand out. “Give it to me. I’ll take it out.”
“I knew it.” Trixie laughed, tied off the overstuffed bag, and yanked it out of the can. “No one hates a messy bar more than Olivia,” she said as she handed it to her boss.
“Let me take that.” Doug grabbed it, and his eyes met hers, but she didn’t let go.
“You’re going to take the garbage out for me, detective?” she asked incredulously.
“Call me old school, but taking out the garbage is a man’s job.”
Her challenging gaze didn’t falter. “I assure you that I’m quite capable of handling this myself, and in case you haven’t noticed… I’m a woman.”
“I noticed,” Doug murmured.
For a moment, neither moved. Her green eyes glittered, and just when he was going to relent and let her take the damn garbage out herself, she let go of the bag.
“Fine.” She spun around. “Follow me.”
“Be right back, Tom.” Doug said without looking back.
Doug didn’t hear Tom’s response, or anything else for that matter. All he could hear was the thundering beat of his own heart. It was ridiculous to insist on taking out her garbage, at least by the standards of today’s society, but Doug was old-fashioned. He couldn’t stand there and watch the most beautiful, sophisticated, sexy woman he had ever laid eyes on carry a smelly bag of garbage into a crappy city alley.
He followed her down a narrow hallway to a black door with a red sign above it that said
“You’re quite the gentleman, detective,” she said quietly as her eyes locked with his. “Your mother raised you well. I should thank her.”
“Not really.” Doug’s jaw clenched, and his hands curled at his side. “She died when I was little. Don’t remember much about her.”
“I see,” Olivia said on a sigh. “Then I suppose I only have you to thank.”
As if reading his dirty mind, she leaned closer so that they were only a breath apart, and just as he was about to throw caution to the wind, she pulled back. She raised a finger to her lips and looked past him to the dumpster.
“Did you hear that?” She cocked her head and listened intently.
“I don’t—” She pressed one long finger to his mouth, silencing him, and making every inch of him harder than a rock.
“Quiet, or you’ll scare it,” she whispered.
Olivia dropped her hand from his lips and stepped around him. She made no sound as she moved across the pavement toward whatever it was that caught her attention. Doug watched her prowl toward the back wall, and as she squatted by the back of the giant steel structure, his fingers wound around the butt of his gun. He took two steps closer as she reached behind the dumpster, whispering soothing sounds the way one would to a baby.
A minute later, Olivia stood with a grin on her face and a dirty white and black kitten mewling in her arms. She whispered into the ear of the pathetic-looking creature, and she turned those large, soulful eyes to Doug. As she peered over the quivering ears of the orphan, his heart squeezed in his chest. He didn’t think she could get more beautiful, but he was dead fucking wrong, and he wished like hell he could trade places with that cat.
“I don’t think she’s hurt,” Olivia said.
She held it up and inspected it top to bottom as she walked past Doug to the door of the club. Olivia tugged the door open with one hand, cradled her charge against her chest with the other, and looked at Doug, who had not moved.
“I’m sorry.” Her face fell, and she spoke quickly. “You’re trying to run an investigation into a murder, and you’re wasting time with me throwing out garbage and rescuing stray cats. Please, come in my office while I clean her up, and I’ll answer any questions you have.”
Doug didn’t move but kept his eyes locked with hers as she continued to stroke the now quiet kitten’s head. This woman was an enigma. A total mystery. One minute she was a tough-as-nails businesswoman fighting for the right to take out her own garbage, and the next she was a complete sucker for a stray kitten.
“No problem.” He ran a hand over his hair and shook his head as he walked toward her. “I have no shortage of questions.”
They reached the door marked:
The dog snarled, while the black and brown fur on his hackles prickled in warning, but Doug stood calmly staring the dog down. He learned a long time ago that if you showed fear, you were a dead man, and that was true whether you were facing man or beast.
“Van!” Olivia snapped her fingers, and the dog whined before sitting reluctantly at her feet. “No.”
The dog growled at Doug before he turned his attention to the tiny kitten in Olivia’s arms. He sniffed it and whined, his curiosity clearly getting the better of him.
“You’ll meet her in a minute. Go to bed.” She pointed to what was obviously the dog’s bed in the far corner, and he obediently trotted to it but shot Doug a look of contempt over his shoulder as he settled.
Van and Doug looked back to Olivia and the cat. She had gotten an old towel from a drawer in her desk and promptly cleaned the kitten off, which was met with a series of mewling protests. Doug watched her intently and so did the dog. Then to Doug’s great surprise, Olivia wrapped the kitten in the towel and placed it on the bed next to the enormous German shepherd.
“You were homeless once too,” she said to the dog as she scratched him behind his ears. “Remember? Well, she was in a stinky old alley, which makes the pound you were in look like the Ritz Carlton. So be nice. Oreo is part of the family now.”
Doug held his breath, certain that the dog was going to gobble the cat in one big bite. However, as Olivia stroked the kitten’s head, the dog sniffed it and began to lick it and clean it as if it were a puppy.
“Oreo, huh?” Doug raised his eyebrows. “That’s a ballsy move, naming it after a cookie and then putting it in front of that big brute.”
“Van is probably more of a pussycat than the pussycat.” Olivia sat in the leather chair behind her desk and folded her hands in her lap, as if she were the one interviewing him, keeping one eye on the unusual duo. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“A concept I’m familiar with,” Doug said evenly.
“Sorry.” She straightened her jacket and brushed cat hair off it. When her eyes locked with his, he noticed her body visibly tense. “I guess I’m a sucker for strays and hard-luck cases. I seem to have a talent for rescuing the needy. Now, what did you want to ask me, detective?”
Doug cocked his head, moved closer to the desk, and didn’t take his eyes off hers. He studied her carefully and could tell that he had her on edge, but what he
“We had another murder victim turn up.” He watched for her reaction, but her face remained calm. “She had the stamp from your club on her hand, just like Ronald Davis.”
Doug pulled the picture from his notebook and held it out to Olivia. Olivia tried to maintain that serene facade, but he didn’t miss the tiniest widening of her eyes when skin met skin. She cleared her throat, tore her gaze from his, and turned her attention to the photo.
“She’s dead?” Olivia asked tightly as she looked at the girl’s graduation portrait. They pulled it from her high school website because Doug was not a fan of bringing morgue photos on civilian interviews. The smiling face full of hope was a far cry from what he had seen earlier today. She turned her stormy eyes back to his. “You think that
