Wedding Takedown. Geri Krotow

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СКАЧАТЬ low, probably trying to convince him not to hurt her. After he threw her out here, she asked me for help, Rio. She was still alive, but the second shot killed her.” Her insides turned bilious as she recounted the horror. “I’m sorry.” She turned and tried to run but ended up on her knees at the side of the barn door, retching. Rio kept his hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. The reassurance in such a simple gesture was immeasurable. She soaked up his energy, hoping it would soothe her heaving stomach.

      Facing him again, she tried to look anywhere but at Meredith. “I’m sorry.”

      “Nothing to apologize for.” His eyes were dark and unreadable.

      “You’ve never barfed at a scene, I’ll bet.”

      “You’d be surprised.” Gently he led her off to the side, away from Meredith’s still form. “Keep telling me what you remember, Kayla.”

      “Okay.” She clasped her hands in front of her. If only she’d come tomorrow morning, instead...

      “Did he see you or your van?”

      “No, I don’t think so. The van’s too far down the drive and he didn’t come outside until after he threw her out here. He heard me and asked ‘Who’s there?’ He knew I was out here, heard me, but you showed up and spooked him. I made it look like I was running into the darkness around the woods, but then I doubled back and hid behind one of the buildings next to the barn. Right after I heard sirens and then saw the lights from what must have been your car, I saw him run past, not looking for anyone, from what I could tell. When he took off for the woods, I went inside.”

      Thank God.

      “It might have been me, but probably it was the sirens scared him away.” Rio paused. “Any chance it was a woman with a deep voice?”

      She shook her head.

      “No, I don’t think so. It definitely sounded like a man and he had heavy footsteps. The silhouette was masculine, large. I heard him urinate against the side of the building. And he’d started to pull apart the pile of hay bales where I was hiding. Most women can’t lift a bale and toss it as quickly as he did. If I hadn’t made a run for it, or you hadn’t shown up, he’d have seen me within seconds.”

      Rio’s expression remained neutral except for the compassionate light in his eyes. A light she’d once thought he might be able to focus on her for more than a round of mind-blowing sex, a light that might warm her long past the early heat they’d shared. But Rio was a cop, from the top of his raven hair to the bottom of his sexy feet—which she’d noticed on the few occasions she’d seen him naked. He had limitless compassion, for victims and the community he protected. There wasn’t any room for personal relationships in Rio’s world. And no room for understanding her need to have a man with a more stable profession in her life.

      She’d tried dating a cop, another SVPD detective, before Rio and it didn’t work out, either. Of course, now that same cop was engaged to her friend Zora, so the reality was that when things were supposed to work, they did.

      She and Rio weren’t supposed to work.

      As soon as she’d found out Rio was a cop, she’d felt the warning tugs from her heart but ignored them. Because she and Rio had shared a chemistry she’d never experienced before. But in the cold mornings after they’d made love, she’d had to get honest with herself. She couldn’t take the chance of a future full of loss due to Rio’s profession. Once she’d found out he’d been assigned to work her brother’s case, she’d used that fact to call off their brief relationship.

      “If it hadn’t been me, someone from SVPD would have been here. We weren’t going to let you get hurt.” Rio’s confident tone was another one of his professional tools. She didn’t disagree with him, but she acknowledged that if the killer had decided to shoot through the hay, she might be lying here as dead as Meredith, who was sprawled in the mud path with her briefcase in front of her and all her pretty floral files spilled out in a haphazard fan. Organization didn’t matter in death.

      “Detective Ortega, we’ve got some footprints out behind the barn and Officer Pasczenko found two shells.” A fresh-faced police officer stood next to them, his eagerness to get the job done reassuring in the dark night.

      “Tell the forensics teams. They’ll be here soon if they aren’t already.”

      “You want me to tell them, Detective?”

      “That’s what I said, Officer Ogden.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      The officer’s obvious pride at being trusted to complete the communication would have been heartwarming if Kayla wasn’t frozen in shock.

      “This was supposed to be a simple trip to do some preplanning for a wedding.”

      “Whose wedding?”

      “Cynthia Charbonneau. The mayor’s daughter. She’s planning a last-minute ceremony for next weekend. Her mother called and offered me a generous retainer fee for the extra work it’s going to take. I couldn’t turn her down, even in the middle of the spring rush.”

      “Would you have otherwise?”

      “Turned her down? No, I don’t base my business on rumors about my clients. And she’s been a good regular customer—she has a standing order for a fresh arrangement each week.”

      Rio’s silence conveyed his agreement. Damn it, but she wished she wasn’t still so in tune with him. That she didn’t notice that in his black T-shirt and the casual blazer he looked like some kind of freaking model.

      It would be much easier if Rio looked like a toad.

      But even if he looked like the ugliest creature on earth, she’d still have a problem. Because Rio Ortega was the most loving, most generous man she’d ever met.

      He was also the most career-driven—at times arrogant but always professional—law-enforcement worker she’d ever known. And she’d known plenty.

      “Do you think it’s true, Rio? Do you think the mayor rigged the election?”

      “I can’t comment on that, Kayla. But what I can say is that if it smells like manure, chances are that’s what it is. No matter how pretty the field it’s in.”

      “You’re never short on your own kind of poetry, Rio.”

      “You should have stuck around, Kayla. I could have regaled you with all kinds of fancy words.”

      The heat in her cheeks was immediate, as was her desire to close the short distance between them and press her body against his. But anger reined her in as she realized that was his intent—to remind her of the hot nights they’d spent together when she’d agreed to date him late last fall.

      Before he’d told her he was a cop. A detective. His not telling her about his career was what she’d used as her defense against his potent invitation to take their relationship deeper. She’d argued that she couldn’t be with a man who wouldn’t reveal who he was or what he did right from the get-go. The mere thought of being with someone who went undercover for unknown lengths of time stressed her out.

      And admittedly she still felt a little stupid for not facing her trepidations about his СКАЧАТЬ