Hidden Agenda. Maggie Price

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СКАЧАТЬ personas are engaging in illegal activities, we’d have money for nicer clothes. I’ll have to think about my wardrobe. Maybe wear quality stuff I could have bought in a consignment shop.”

      When he remained silent, she asked, “Am I off base on the clothes deal?”

      “No, you made a good point.” He angled his chin. “I’m trying to picture you wielding a shovel. Hoisting bags of manure. The image won’t gel.”

      “Proves you don’t know anything about me.”

      “That’s a fact.” He didn’t want to, either. Unfortunately, this assignment required him to get to know her.

      Just then the door swung open. Linc’s shoulders tensed instinctively when Don Gaines stepped in.

      The detective’s dark, deep-set eyes flicked from Carrie to Linc, then back to Carrie. “You’d be Carrie McCall.” Stepping to the table, he offered his hand. “I’m Don Gaines. I was out of the squad room when you got introduced around.”

      Carrie offered a smile and her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

      Gaines looked back at Linc, handed him a message slip. “I took a call from a detective in Tulsa. He wants to talk to you about a homicide they had over the weekend.”

      Linc bit back a curse when he read the victim’s name. Arlee Dell had a mountain of priors by the time his name came up as a suspect in a series of home invasions Linc investigated. He’d pulled Dell in a couple of months ago, but could never prove his connection with the crimes, so he’d walked. Linc suspected Dell pulled another invasion two weeks ago where an elderly couple had been tied up, tortured and strangled.

      Linc met Gaines’s gaze. “Thanks, I’ll give the cop a call.”

      “He said Dell was shot,” Gaines added. “Twice in the heart, once in the head.”

      Linc tightened his jaw. The man who had once been his closest friend was a good, thorough cop. Had Gaines also picked up on the fact that over the past year and a half a number of scum handled by SEU cops had wound up shot in the head? If so, Gaines would know Dell was victim number seven.

      A knot settled in Linc’s gut as his mind worked. In college, Gaines had been crazy about Kim; though she’d chosen Linc over him, his feelings for her had never cooled. Gaines blamed Linc for Kim’s death. He would like nothing better than to see Linc pay for what had happened to her. Was that why Gaines had gone out of his way to deliver the phone message? Linc wondered. Because he wanted Linc to know he’d connected the killings that had commenced one month after Kim’s body had been found tossed in a ditch?

      While his mind continued its systematic, methodical analysis, Linc felt a cold realization settle inside him. Suspicion. As a cop, he lived with it, always casting as wide a net as possible, encompassing every possibility, distasteful or not. Which was why he now found himself wondering if the deep loathing Gaines felt for him had, over time, taken on an intensity so dark that Linc had failed to see it. Was Gaines so obsessed with making Linc pay for Kim’s death that Gaines had decided to make him a mark for the murders?

      After all, Kim’s killer had never been found. The bastard had escaped justice, just as the now-dead seven other maggots had. It was possible a grieving husband might begin a killing spree to avenge his wife. If that husband were a cop, he would know how to get away with those murders. The last of which occurred during the past weekend. Somewhere in Tulsa. Linc had spent the weekend with Kim’s family in Claremore, a twenty-minute drive from Tulsa.

      Linc’s sense of unease gathered strength when he remembered sitting at his desk last Friday, telling Tom Nelson his weekend plans. Gaines could have overheard the conversation. He knew where Kim’s parents lived.

      Linc lifted his eyes from the message slip. He could read nothing in Gaines’s face. Linc couldn’t afford to trust, to discount, to filter possibilities through a screen of denial the way most people did. He’d learned a long time ago that the simple truth of the world was that people, even otherwise decent people, regularly did rotten things to others. Now, Linc needed to figure out a way to find out if Gaines had allowed himself to step over the line. If he’d become one of the people they had both spent their lives pursuing. If his bitterness over losing Kim to the man who he blamed for her torturous murder burned so hot he would commit seven homicides with the intention of pinning them on his former friend.

      Gaines nodded to Carrie. “Hope to work with you soon.”

      “Same here.”

      Gaines flicked Linc a look before walking out.

      “That homicide sounds serious,” Carrie commented.

      Linc’s shoulders felt like high-tension wire, and a stone had lodged in his chest. “Isn’t every homicide?”

      “Real serious. If the head shot came after the victim was already dead, doesn’t that sound like the work of a pro?”

      McCall might be his new partner, but she was an outsider. Linc had no intention of discussing this with her. What he did plan to do was find out what the hell was going on. And who was behind it. And if he was some bastard’s intended patsy.

      A sick, seething anger swirled in his gut.

      “Work of a pro,” he repeated, a slash of the anger sounding in his voice. “You gain that expertise watching Mafia movies?”

      Her eyes went as cold as winter. “I’m not some green rookie, so spare me the attitude. I’ve snagged calls to enough homicide crime scenes to know how to spot the work of a pro.”

      “Maybe you should have transferred to Homicide.”

      “No.” Now her eyes were as deep and dark and potent as her voice. “I’m right where I should be.”

      “I need to return this call, then go by Quintana’s office.”

      “Fine.”

      Rising, Linc scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. He wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but he now felt its dark, menacing presence aimed directly at him. His new partner, however, wasn’t to blame for whatever problems he had, he reminded himself.

      “Sorry about the attitude, McCall. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

      “No problem.” She shrugged. “I’ve got a tough hide.”

      He skimmed his gaze down her face, her throat, elegant and thin. Her hide didn’t look so tough to him, he thought as he headed out the door. It looked like cool, creamy silk.

      Two hours later Carrie had a headache that was almost off the chart. She knew it was partly due to the stacks of printouts, mug shots and reports piled on the table in front of her. Her brain had simply overloaded on the names and images of people who frequented The Hideaway. Then there was the stress that came from spending time in close proximity to the man presently seated across the table.

      She cast him a quick glance. Linc sat in silence, studying a report, his jaw set, the look in those intriguing golden eyes disturbingly detached.

      After returning, he had not alluded to what the Tulsa detective told him about the homicide. Nor mentioned why he’d swung by Quintana’s office after that. Carrie hadn’t asked. Couldn’t ask. The last thing she dared СКАЧАТЬ