Cassidy and the Princess Page 7

  “I’ll have someone in an attic three houses down. They will have a direct view of what’s going on outside,” he added.

  Marise felt a little overwhelmed. She was used to a lot of people around her—her mother, her partner, her coach. But all these hard-eyed strangers with guns were a different matter altogether.

  “Is anyone going with us to the hospital?” she asked MacKay.

  “Just Manny and myself,” he said.

  Just. She felt safe with that just.

  He made a phone call, while she prowled around the room, stopping at the fireplace with some photos on it. A man and woman together with two children. She readily recognized the boy as Cassidy. The woman was exotically beautiful with red hair and striking green eyes, and she wore a bolero jacket over what appeared to be a red silk blouse. The man next to her, on the other hand, looked quiet and dignified and lacked the open smile that his companion had.

  Another picture, obviously taken years later, portrayed three small girls, two dogs and a cat. And finally, in a third frame, was a young girl in a ballet costume. Marise wondered whether the children in either photo belonged to him.

  “Those are nieces with the dogs,” MacKay said.

  Marise had been so enraptured by the photo that she hadn’t noticed he was off the phone.

  “They’re beautiful,” she said. “How old are they?”

  “Four, six and eight,” he said.

  “And the girl in the ballet costume?”

  “Manny’s daughter. She’s my godchild.”

  Manny joined them then. “She skates, too. She would love to meet you.”

  “I would like to meet her, too,” Marise said. She’d always enjoyed talking to young skaters. She turned back to Cassidy. “Your mother and father?”

  He nodded.

  “Are they still alive?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “They are that.” His tone was wry.

  She must have looked surprised.

  “They’re the Fighting MacKays,” he explained, resigned bitterness shading his voice. “They live apart, but they revel in battling each other. I was just talking to my mother. I was to go over there tonight for supper.” He hesitated, then continued, “She intends to bring over some food tonight.”

  “Is it safe?” she asked.

  “I think so. The detectives are here. And only death or a hurricane could stop her. Probably not even a hurricane.”

  Marise glanced at the picture again, and the smile. She thought she would like the woman.

  MacKay pulled on a sports jacket over his shirt. He went to the door and glanced out, then led the way to the garage and the car, holding the passenger door open for her. Manny had followed and stepped into the back seat.

  The garage door opened.

  It was beginning.

  She was a good actress. Cassidy noticed that right away.

  The hospital personnel had not been happy at the idea of pulling identification photos from thousands of files, but Marise Merrick’s charm soon had three people scurrying back and forth.

  Only Cassidy knew that she hadn’t seen enough to identify her attacker, that this was an exercise for the benefit of one unknown person who was probably miles away.

  Manny was doing some prowling of his own, trying to learn if anyone was showing an undue interest in what was transpiring in the administrative offices.

  Marise continued to study photos for four hours, while MacKay perused the personnel files, noting names he planned to run through the police computer. But as she looked increasingly uncomfortable, he rose. “You’ve had enough,” he said.

  “I can stay longer,” she protested.

  But she couldn’t. She had deep shadows around her eyes, and she’d been moving restlessly, as if sitting in one position so long had become uncomfortable. She was probably still bruised.

  He felt like a bully—a feeling that had never occurred to him before when he worked with a civilian.

  “We’ve made our point,” he said. “We’ll be back tomorrow, and let everyone know it. We’ll also have more people who believe you can recognize him.”

  “How many officers do you have?” she asked.

  “As many as I need for a week,” he said. “You are very high priority,” he added.

  “And after a week?”

  “It will be reassessed,” he said honestly, and he saw the fear come back into her eyes.

  She tried to hide it. “That’s just as well. I have to get back to…the competition.”

  His eyes held hers. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Neither here nor anywhere else.” He hadn’t meant to say that. He didn’t even know if it was a promise he could keep. After a moment, he added, “We’re trying to find a decoy to fit your description. So far, no luck.”

  But he would keep her safe. One way or another. He had no choice now that he’d prompted her into making herself a target. He held out his hand, taking her much smaller one in his fingers. The contact was warm, and the warmth became heat, and the heat became electric, spreading sparks throughout his body. The air was suddenly close, dense, filled with the expectancy that precedes violent storms, and a palpable tension radiated between them.

  He swallowed hard, trying to understand why he couldn’t take his fingers away from hers, his gaze from the dark blue eyes that were swirling with need and a bewildered understanding.

  Desire. Hunger. Need.

  Caution.

  His was a body full of writhing reactions and equally writhing emotions, and he didn’t recognize any of them.

  He called himself every kind of fool, and yet the electricity remained, the attraction growing more irresistible. He didn’t know how long he would have stood there, if the door to the room had not opened.

  She jerked away. He balled his fingers into a fist, feeling the heat from her touch like a brand, burning deep inside.

  “I’m going on break,” said one of the clerks who had been assigned to help them. She looked at them, her head swiveling from one to the other, as if she recognized that something momentous had just occurred.

  It wasn’t momentous, Cassidy told himself. It was merely an attraction that could be controlled.

  Had to be controlled. For both their sakes.

  The restaurant—no, it was a tavern, according to the sign in front—was dark, noisy and crowded. It smelled of beer and chili and something else that made Marise’s nose twitch with anticipation.

  This was an adventure. A dangerous adventure, but an adventure just the same. Something far removed from the routine of hotel dining rooms and watching everything she ate. Recklessness was stimulating.

  “It’s…very different,” she said, taking in the eclectic atmosphere and clientele that seemed to be a mixture of businessmen, students, white-collar workers and sports fans—who sat at the bar and cheered action on television sets located throughout. She couldn’t help but catch MacKay’s surprised look.

  Had he expected her to dislike it? A test of some kind?

  “Yep,” Manny said happily. “Manuel’s is unique. Every cop and politician in this end of the city eats here,” Manny said. “So do a lot of the sheriff’s deputies. And it’s probably the safest place in Atlanta.”

  “The guy has to be working alone,” MacKay said. “He probably wouldn’t have had time to learn that we were there today and follow us. And both Manny and I kept watch. No one followed us.”

  “Don’t we want someone to follow us?”

  “Yes, but only when we’re prepared.”

  “It didn’t take long for him to find me at the hospital.”

  Manny looked stricken at the comment. She glanced at the man beside her. A muscle throbbed at his throat.

  “Next time, you won’t be alone,” Detective MacKay said.

  She tried to concentrate on his words, but she couldn’t. Something else was happening. She had been aware of an attraction the first time she met him. She’d been stunned at the hospital when their hands met and seemed t
o melt into each other. Instantaneous combustion. And now, when her leg accidently touched his, she felt another unwanted surge of heat gallop through her traitorous body.

  A waiter in an apron came over to them, and Manny looked at Marise with an eager gleam in his eyes. “The chili dog is the specialty.”

  She read the menu with an unknown sense of freedom. Paul would feel every ounce of additional weight, but she could lose it in three or four days. “A chili dog,” she said almost defiantly. “And iced tea.”

  Manny ordered two chili dogs despite MacKay’s raised eyebrows and meaningful look at his shape. MacKay then ordered a chili dog and iced tea, too.

  She looked around the tavern. It had character. It had tables with carved names and initials, and an array of photos behind the bar.

  MacKay was watching her carefully, as if she might stand up and run out the back door.

  “I like it,” she said again.

  “You’ll like it even better when you have the chili dog,” Manny said with a grin.

  She smiled at him. “Detective MacKay showed me a picture of your daughter.”

  His broad homely face broke into a wide smile. “She takes after her mother.”

  “I would love to meet her.”

  The smile turned into a beam. “She would be beside herself.”

  She looked at the man next to her. “When?”

  MacKay hesitated. And some of her enthusiasm paled, along with that odd sense of anticipation she was feeling. Was he wondering whether putting them together might place the child in harm’s way?

  “If you don’t think…” she started haltingly.

  His lips became less grim. “We’ll arrange something. Perhaps tomorrow afternoon.”

  “She has practice then,” Manny said.

  “Then, I can watch her,” Marise said, enthusiasm bubbling up inside her. She loved working with young skaters. She loved children, in fact, and someday wanted a bunch of them. One thing that had kept her from accepting Paul’s proposal was knowing he wanted to continue skating indefinitely and avoided any talk of children.

  MacKay looked at his partner. “I don’t like the idea of possibly leading the killer to Joey, to someplace she might be vulnerable.”

  Marise was plunged back into reality. For just the barest of seconds, she had felt that MacKay wasn’t overly worried that the killer was being led to her. But then, she wasn’t a child. And she had agreed, knowing full well the dangers.

  “No,” she agreed. “Of course not.”

  “We can guard you while you’re here,” MacKay said, evidently reading her thoughts. “But if anything goes wrong, the killer could try to use Joey.”

  Manny’s grin disappeared. For some reason it didn’t seem odd to Marise that she thought of him as “Manny,” but tried to keep thinking of his partner as “Detective MacKay.” Or just MacKay. Manny looked like a big teddy bear, and his face was open, his smile immediate and real. Cassidy MacKay, on the other hand, was reserve personified. He rarely relaxed, and on the rare occasions that he smiled, his lips barely moved, one side quirking upward. Usually, the smile was gone so quickly, she wondered whether she only imagined it. She felt as if he were always testing her in some way, that he was not quite sure she was strong enough to do what she’d agreed to do.

  He would learn that it took more discipline and determination to get where she was today than probably to be a cop. She had skated through intense pain. She’d competed when she had a temperature raging over one hundred and three. She had practiced until she could barely walk to her room and then ached all night, muscles contracting until she wanted to scream. And yet, she would be practicing the next day, knowing she would face a similar sleepless night.

  As for danger, she risked major injury every time she went on the ice. Lifts, throws and twists, especially the death spiral, could easily end in injury. Even the unison skating—for which she and Paul were particularly known—was dangerous. One misstep, one back spasm, one second’s hesitation, and she could fall, her head dangerously close to his blades.

  Still, it was obvious Cassidy had doubts about her staying power.

  Well, he would learn.

  The food came. The hotdog was steaming and covered with chilies and onions. It smelled better than anything she could remember. She bit into it, and it tasted every bit as good as it had smelled. She ate the rest of it as if she were Tantalus unchained. She was as hungry as the mythical figure condemned to stand in water without drink and see a fruit-laden tree he couldn’t reach.

  Then she looked up and saw the two detectives watching her. She licked her lips as she finished off the last piece of bun.

  “Would you like another one?” Manny asked.

  Yes. No. She shouldn’t. “Thank you,” she said a little primly. “I would.”

  MacKay raised an eyebrow. But he said nothing, merely signaled the waiter and pointed down at her empty plate.

  She felt ridiculously content. Her senses were all alive. Just as they always were in those first seconds when she and Paul skated out on the rink. But at those times she was concentrating with every fiber of her being, her body reacting to Paul’s and to the music and the audience.

  She’d never felt that way off the ice. Not until now. She felt the electricity of MacKay’s body, the warmth of Manny’s smile, savored the sense of adventure and freedom and recklessness despite the awareness that a killer was out there.

  And she enjoyed the bemusement that changed MacKay’s face, making it look more human. She remembered the photos on his fireplace. Parents. Nieces. Godchild. None of a wife or children of his own.

  Had there been a wife? One who had disappointed him? Marise had hesitated to ask. It was none of her business.

  Yet her leg—the one that periodically, accidently touched his—felt so warm. And the core of her so…needy.

  The second hotdog came, and suddenly she was no longer hungry. Even the smell didn’t tempt her. She realized that the first one had filled her but that it had taken a few moments for the knowledge to reach her brain. But she didn’t want MacKay to know that.

  She picked it up and took a bite, aware that chili had smeared across her lips and even part of her chin. Then she set it back down. She didn’t have to prove anything to anyone.

  Her eyes met his, and they weren’t amused. Instead, they seemed to smolder. MacKay filled her consciousness. She felt as if they were centered in a field of energy, two lodestones being pulled inexorably together.

  The surrounding voices faded. The televisions muted. Then she realized she hadn’t taken a breath for several seconds. She forced herself to breathe. She moved her hand, and it accidently touched his leg. She saw him flinch as if it burned him.

  Then he moved, taking a wallet from his pocket, and she saw that his hand was none-too-steady this time. That surprised her. She knew how affected she’d been; she hadn’t expected that he would be affected in the same mind-numbing, soul-searing way.

  Earth shattering.

  Chapter 6

  Cassidy was stunned. He’d known attraction in the past, but nothing like this. He’d even loved dearly, yet he had never known the pure physical fist-in-the stomach impact he felt now.

  Something this powerful couldn’t last. It was the attraction of opposites, of two people who knew there was no future. A singular moment in time that some twisted jokester had arranged to bedevil him.

  He had never believed in glances across a crowded room. Still, from the moment he had first met her, something had sparked between them, and now it was multiplying in intensity at an astounding rate.

  He couldn’t remember when he’d been speechless before, powerless even to make his limbs move normally. He had to command his fingers to steady.

  But he had never seen anything so sensual, so appealing, as the eagerness and pure joy with which she had consumed a simple hotdog. He had chosen this place partly in self-defense. Although he and Manny frequently ate here, he’d thought her taste would run to somethin
g fancier. Perhaps he’d even wanted to see a momentary disdain.

  The opposite had happened; the crack in his heart’s defenses widened.

  He looked at Manny, who was regarding him with astonishment of his own.

  Holy hades, was he that obvious?

  He paid the bill, then slipped out of the booth, forcing himself not to offer her a hand. He knew what would happen. That heat. He didn’t need that. Not now. Hell, not ever.

  He’d had one disastrous marriage. He didn’t plan to involve himself in a relationship that could only end in another failure.

  He led the way out, greeting a few regulars, and paused at the door. Although he thought it too early for the killer to have traced them, he wanted Manny to get the car and drive it to the entrance.

  As Manny left, Marise looked up at him with those blue eyes that seemed even bluer and deeper and darker than before. As they’d walked out, she turned every head, and for the first time in years he felt a stab of jealousy and possession.

  He touched the small of her back with his hand in a gesture he knew was telling everyone that she was his.

  She wasn’t. She never would be.

  But she stiffened, and he knew the electricity that he felt in his hand flowed to her body. It was a darn good thing that they would be sharing his house with two detectives.

  Otherwise…

  Manny drove around, and Cassidy guided her into the back seat of the car. Then they were off again.

  Marise was silent for a while, but then she asked, “What happens now?”

  “No one but my department knows you’re staying with me,” he said. “If anything happens before tomorrow, we’ll know where to pinpoint our search. If it doesn’t, we’ll return to the hospital tomorrow afternoon and drop a few hints. If nothing happens then, we’ll leak your location to the newspapers. Though I expect they’ll have the information by then.”

  He saw her shiver slightly. He wanted to touch her but he’d done that enough today. He’d never considered himself a masochist and he didn’t intend to start now. He needed to stay as far away from her as possible.