Things to take his mind off the rape victim he’d watched being loaded into an ambulance at three that morning. What in the hell a middle-aged married woman had been doing out in a deserted school parking lot by herself in the middle of the night, he didn’t know.
But he hoped to God she lived to tell him. One way or another, as the newest detective in the Special Victims Unit, he was going to find out.
His place was ready, new furniture assembled, grill put together, salad made and steaks marinated by five. Up in the master-suite loft, Ryan showered, pulled on some jeans and a black T-shirt, ran his fingers through his hair—then decided to shave again. Just for something to do.
Ten minutes later he still had forty minutes to kill. Avoiding the king-size bed, avoiding thoughts of his dinner guest in that bed, he checked his cell phone for messages.
Nothing from work. Good. Sometimes it was nice not to be needed.
Needed. He adjusted his jeans. Ryan wanted to be needed. Bad.
He needed his watch.
Walking around the massive bed to the nightstand where he’d left the timepiece his father had given him when he’d made detective—it had a tiny recording device built into it—Ryan glanced at the comforter.
It was clean. The browns and beiges were kind of masculine, but then, he was a guy. Guys tended to be masculine.
The sheets were light-colored. While he tried to see them from a woman’s perspective, a thought occurred to him. He hadn’t changed them in a while.
Never seemed to have the time.
He had twenty minutes right now.
Only because he so rarely had extra time, only because he needed to take advantage of that time to accomplish something, Ryan changed his sheets.
He’d just finished when the doorbell rang.
HE’D SEEN HER in jeans before. Several times. Just didn’t remember them fitting those long, feminine thighs quite so well. The white, short-sleeved T-shirt covered the waistband. As long as she didn’t move.
“Wine?” he asked, handing her a glass as she sat in the wicker rocker he’d purchased that afternoon.
She lifted her hand to take the glass. “Thanks.” Ryan had to turn away before she noticed his reaction to the thin strip of lightly tanned stomach she’d exposed.
He’d have raised his gaze to avoid that possibility, except that her breasts, which were round and full and completely framed by the tight shirt, were far too much temptation.
He was a solitary man. With a job to do. People to protect.
Maybe he should go next door. That way he wouldn’t see her. Wouldn’t flirt with temptation. He could cook on his neighbor’s grill and courier the steaks over….
“I talked to Scott Markovich today.”
The kid who’d beat up his stepdad. The bastard dad was going to live. Thank God. As it stood, Scott had been charged with assault, which was a lot better than murder.
And talking about work was a lot better than…anything else.
“And?”
“I think he’s protecting his mother.”
“She was out of town when the incident took place.”
Audrey’s hair fell forward across her shoulder as she shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I think she was there. I think she’d been drinking again.”
“I thought the court ordered that she’d lose custody of Scott if she went back on the juice.”
“Right.”
Realization dawned and Ryan blurted, “She knows what happened that night.”
“I think so.”
“And she won’t speak up because she was drunk.”
Audrey shrugged.
“She knows what that SOB was going to do to her son.”
“That’s my guess.”
Ryan swore, his mind racing ahead—and back at the same time. Going over the reports he’d practically memorized, looking for clues he’d missed. Trying to figure out how he was going to prove Audrey’s theory.
“Her sister wasn’t her only alibi. There was the bus driver who took her to Detroit,” he reminded her.
And maybe the guy was dating the sister. Or had lied for favors. Maybe he’d been drinking on the job and couldn’t remember who he’d transported and had lied to save his ass.
Maybe…
“There was the woman who sold her the ticket, too,” she added.
Didn’t mean she got on the bus. “No passengers remembered her.”
“It was the middle of the night,” Audrey said, not that he hadn’t already been thinking the same thing himself.
“There were only two of them and they were both asleep,” he finished for her.
The evidence was mostly circumstantial. But Scott had openly threatened to kill his stepdad the previous year. And there was no denying that the kid had used the crowbar on the man’s back. The only question was why.
“If we can get it on the record that she was there that night, we can subpoena her to testify. If her husband had been about to rape her son, any halfway-decent attorney should be able to get a self-defense dismissal out of that.”
Her eyes had the fire of battle, the glow of an imminent win, and Ryan was almost a little sad that she’d opted not to practice law. She’d make a damned good prosecutor. And Lord knew the world needed them.
But she was young. Fresh out of law school, he figured, based on the fact that she’d taken the bar exam the previous year. There was time.
“As strongly as I believe you,” he said, sitting down beside her, wishing he’d opted for the footed double swing rather than two chairs, “I can’t put theory on report.”
“I think I can get Scott to talk to you, if you’re willing.”
Sitting forward, Ryan almost spilled his drink. “Hell, yes, I’m willing.”
“It’ll have to be tomorrow. They’re moving him to a facility in Dayton until his trial. Something about bed space in the non-sexual-offense unit for fifteen-year-olds.”
“Fine.”
The Reds game might have to wait. His dad would understand.
SHE’D HAD BETTER steak. Apparently Ryan liked them very well-done. But Audrey couldn’t remember anyone whose company she’d enjoyed more.
“I like how you think,” she told him, trying not to overreact as he sat next to her on the darkened patio, handing her the half-glass of wine she’d requested.
His eyes, as they stared at her, glistened with two white spots, a double reflection of the moon shining overhead. “You like how I think? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” She should go. Before she did something she’d regret. “I like the way your mind works, your take on things. You’ve got all these theories that are just a bit outside the norm, and yet I agree with them, you know? I like listening to you talk.”
And if she didn’t shut up she was going to ruin a friendship before it had the chance to exist.
Because her next sentence wasn’t going to be about liking his conversation.