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  He rolled to a stop near the police barricade blocking off the crime scene and parked on the street away from the news trucks and the pack of reporters lingering nearby.

  He spoke into the Bluetooth hidden in his helmet. “Call Reggie.”

  Reggie Watts had found his way off the same streets as Cam thanks to the judge who’d scared them both straight. He’d gone from delinquent to detective, his eye always on the next step up the ladder towards headquarters. Cam gave him crap about it, but at least Reggie had a plan that went beyond next week. Cam didn’t have a plan that went past the next day.

  His brother in everything but blood picked up on the second ring. “Not a good time.”

  “No shit.” Was there ever a good time with the lives they led? “I’m down the block and need in.”

  “No.” Flat and unequivocal, Reggie sounded as hardnosed as he looked.

  Cam dialed back the annoyance that flashed up like a fire from the pit of his belly. This wasn’t the time for Reggie to start toeing the line he’d blatantly ignored for so long. Cam had to make him see that. “The makeup artist, she’s a friend.”

  Reggie snorted. “Assuming this is the same person you know, I’m not walking you behind the tape to see the person who’s being a total pain in my ass.”

  “Sounds like Drea.” He couldn’t keep the grin out of his voice. The woman didn’t just lack a poker face, she didn’t have a poker mouth, either. If she thought it, she said it.

  “She doesn’t like cops,” Reggie groused.

  “Lots of folks don’t like cops. Shit, I remember when you didn’t like cops.”

  “Can you get her to give more than a perfunctory statement?” Reggie had lowered his voice, but there was no mistaking the growing frustration in his tone. “This scene makes me twitch, and I’ve already had a call from the commissioner, an alderman, and the husband’s attorney demanding a quick resolution one way or another.”

  “You think it was murder?” Cam asked.

  “That’s what my gut is telling me, but I won’t know for sure until the ME gives her report. It looks like everyone and their dog hated the vic, and right now I have more suspects than my bottle of Tums can handle.” Reggie sighed. “The more detail I can get—and the sooner I can get it—the faster I get this stink bomb off my plate. If you can get that woman to talk so I can eliminate her from a long fucking list of potentials, then I’ll welcome you with open arms.”

  Cam should gracefully accept victory. But he couldn’t. Things didn’t work that way between brothers. “So you admit that you need my help to do your job?”

  “I’m hanging up on your sorry ass.”

  As always, he’d taken it a step too far. “Get me in and Drea will talk.” The words rushed out before Reggie got pissed off enough to hang up.

  The only sound Cam heard was the blood rushing through his ears. If Reggie turned him down, he’d still find a way in, but when he had a choice, the easy route was usually the fastest.

  “She better,” Reggie said finally. “Or else she’s going to be spending time down at the station as a material witness with new jewelry, courtesy of the state. We’ll see if that gets her to say more than the bare minimum.”

  There was no way in hell he could guarantee Drea talking, but he wasn’t about to make that confession. “Meet me on the north side of the barricade.”

  Reggie grunted his assent, and Cam hung up.

  He pushed aside his collection of burner phones and the change of clothes he always kept in the Victory’s saddlebag and made space for his helmet. He scanned the area around the blue and white sawhorses spanning the four lanes of Fifth Street. A couple of uniforms stood with their thumbs hooked in their belts, chatting with the reporter from Chanel Four. Otherwise it was a ghost town. All the activity was happening in front of the brownstone, which was exactly why he wanted to get Drea out of there—cops made them both twitchy.

  “She’s back here.” Reggie said as he led Cam into the brownstone’s foyer, which was big enough to land a Huey helicopter. “We had to move everyone inside after a couple of reporters got close. You walk where I walk and stay the fuck out of the front room.”

  No wonder Reggie was in a surly mood—even for him. With a vic who obviously had more money than God, the top brass had to have his balls in a vise already. “What’s in the front room?”

  “My scene, which you are not screwing with.”

  Cam gave a one finger salute to his friend’s back as he steamrolled down the hall. “Got it, detective.”

  His steps slowed as he near the open doorway to the front room. The unmistakable sounds of the crime scene investigator’s camera flashing buzzed over the low hum of shop talk. A young beat cop covered in nervous sweat stood guard outside the entry. The way his unblinking eyes looked anywhere but at Reggie left little doubt as to who had shredded that guy’s hide enough to warrant soaking his Haines undershirt.

  “Don’t even look in there,” Reggie grumbled as they made their way past an empty, giant-ass fish tank next to the rookie.

  “Why not?” Cam asked, stilling in front of the door and craning his neck enough to see a blonde sprawled out on the floor, surrounded by cops and evidence markers.

  A wide wall of one pissed off detective stepped between Cam and the open door. “Because that’s my crime scene, and I don’t even want you breathing in its direction. The chief will have my ass if he hears you’re here.”

  “He isn’t still mad?” The chief had had a hard-on for Cam’s extinction for the past six months.

  “Numbnuts.” Reggie pinched the bridge of his wide nose and muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like “help me baby Jesus” before taking a deep breath and nailing Cam with the dead-eyed, no-shit glare of a detective with fifteen years under his belt. “It was his daughter.”

  “His full-grown daughter.” Shayna Harrison. Tall, lean, and a little bit mean—just the way Cam liked them. They’d spent a weekend naked and happy until the chief found them playing Adam and Eve at the Harrison family cabin. How was he supposed to know she’d blown off a cousin’s wedding for wild monkey sex in the woods? Not that the chief gave a flying fuck about that little detail. “She had fun.” More times than Cam had fingers and toes.

  Reggie maintained his deadpan stare. “Then go crash one of her crime scenes.”

  “Point taken.” Another flash went off in the front room. “How’s Drea?”

  “Silent.” The other man pivoted and strode down the hall. Cam followed, but the man had taken only a few steps before his phone rang and he held up a hand for Cam to stop walking. He grumbled and answered the call. “Hello, chief. Good to hear from you again.” He strolled a few feet away.

  Cam hung out near the wide staircase, which gave him the perfect vantage point to check out the brownstone’s interior. Cops and crime scene technicians covered the place, but all the real work was being done in the front room. A detective whose name Cam couldn’t remember sat in an alcove the size of a normal Harbor City apartment’s bedroom with a man dressed up like he was playing the butler on some BBC America show. There were lots of hand gestures and rapid-fire lip movements. Cam wasn’t close enough to make out what was being said, but the detective was taking copious notes.

  Reggie clipped his phone on his belt and looked at Cam. “Let’s go. You’re on.”

  He followed the detective into a room that was so white it was like walking into a cloud, but instead of soft and fuzzy, everything had sharp edges and that don’t-touch-a-thing vibe that rich people’s houses always seemed to give off.

  Drea stood at the window, her bright yellow shirt and orange skirt like a rebellious fuck you to the room. Or maybe that was because of the way she narrowed her eyes and cut a go-take-a-hike glare for him and Reggie.

  “I told you everything I have to say already,” Drea said. “If you think he’s going to soften me up, you’re seriously confused.”

  “I thought you two were friends,” Reggie snarled under h
is breath.

  “We are—”

  “We’re not,” Drea said at the same moment. “Now, am I walking out of here, or do I have to call my lawyer?”

  Everything about her screamed “I’m in control,” but he couldn’t help but notice the cracks in the illusion. The drumbeat she tapped out on her thigh. The way her gaze shifted from side to side. The thread of worry that snuck through the thick weave of hardass in her voice.

  If he didn’t know her better, he’d think she was guilty of something…and Reggie didn’t know her at all.

  She may not want him here, but he wasn’t going anywhere without her.

  “Drea, I’m here to help.” Cam crossed the room to her side. “If you want to get out of here anytime soon without going to the station, you need to tell Reggie everything you know. I don’t like cops any more than you do, but you can trust him.”

  If he’d just said the Easter Bunny was hidden somewhere in the snowy white room, she couldn’t have looked less skeptical than she did standing there with her hand on one jutted out hip. “I already gave my statement. You want more? Make an appointment with my lawyer. I know what this looks like, and I’m not taking the fall for it.”

  “What does it look like?” Reggie asked.

  Drea didn’t hesitate. “Murder.”

  The word punched Cam square in the gut. She was right. And with her piss-poor attitude, she made an easy target for the police to focus on. Not that Reggie was a lazy cop, but in this kind of high profile case, he may not have much of a choice. The brass would want it tied up with a bow before the evening news if at all possible. Even if they couldn’t convict her, she’d be labeled the prime suspect. In the eyes of the public, she’d be guilty.

  “What makes you think it’s murder?” Reggie asked as he pulled out his little black notebook.

  “Because Mrs. Orton was a freak about germs and being healthy. She wasn’t sick.” The steel melted from her spine. “There wasn’t any reason for her to die like that.”

  Reggie shrugged noncommittally as only a cop could. “The medical examiner will determine cause of death. I’m just here to figure out what happened. I need your cooperation. Now we can wait for a lawyer down at the station, or you can tell me what you know here and then go home.”

  Drea locked her gaze on Cam. Her crossed arms practically screamed “don’t mess with me or I’ll tear your head off,” but he couldn’t help noticing the glimmer of fear in her dark eyes.

  Cam nodded. “You can trust Reggie. We grew up together, he’s good people.”

  She weighed his words with a long silence before relaxing her stance. “I got here at 3:45. Fergus showed me into the salon. I set up my stuff and a couple of minutes later Mrs. Orton came in.”

  “Is this the first time you’ve been here?” Reggie asked.

  Drea shook her head. “Mrs. Orton is a regular.”

  “How would you gauge her mood? Did she seem upset? Angry? Scared?” He jotted notes down.

  “She was snarly, but that was par for the course with her.”

  He glanced up. “With you or with everyone?”

  That earned him a chuckle heavy on the bitter and light on the humor from Drea. “She didn’t discriminate when it came to throwing her attitude around.”

  “Take me through what happened.”

  “She came in upset.” Drea shivered and rubbed her bare upper arms. “Supposedly she’d caught her husband with another woman.”

  Reggie didn’t pounce, but the tension in his large frame dialed up from ten to one hundred. “How do you know that?”

  “Fergus told me.”

  He flipped through his notes. “The butler?”

  She nodded. “I’m not sure if that’s his exact job title, but yes.”

  “And was Mr. Orton home at the time?” Reggie continued with the interrogation, keeping his focus mainly on the notepad, but no doubt noticing every detail about Drea’s body language.

  “No.”

  “What happened then?”

  Drea shrugged. “She sat in the chair, and I applied her makeup.”

  “Did you use anything unusual?” Reggie gave Drea his full attention. “Anything new?”

  She shook her head. “Like I told you before, Mrs. Orton was very particular about what makeup she wore. It was always the same brands. Every time. The only change up was the colors used.”

  “So you used the makeup she provided?”

  “No. I brought her preference with me.”

  “And Mrs. Orton had the seizure right after you applied the lipstick?” Reggie’s voice was dead serious.

  Drea nodded.

  That little tidbit set off Cam’s warning sirens. Not good.

  Reggie closed his notebook and deposited it in his inner jacket pocket. “Can you think of anything else?”

  Drea opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head.

  Christ. So she had a possible motive, opportunity, means to kill Natasha Orton, and she was obviously holding something back. She may not be the only suspect, but even Cam had to admit she was a mighty good one.

  Chapter Four

  A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: Serving its purpose without obstructing the view. - Sophia Loren

  As she strutted across the police line, Drea sucked in a sweet breath of freedom. The city’s summer stink—a mystery mix of hot dog water and urine—wafting up from the sewer grates had never smelled so sweet. Even if her escort was Cam Hardy, who’d insisted on driving her home.

  “Here we are,” Cam said.

  She stopped dead in her four-inch Jimmy Choo leopard-print pony-strap sandals. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  With its black, red, and shiny stainless steel design, the motorcycle looked sleek, dangerous, and oh so bad for her. Like Cam, it was the last thing she wanted in her life. What she needed was to be alone in her own space, to lose herself in solitude until her heart stopped trying to make a jailbreak from her ribcage. Then she could form a plan. There was no way in hell she’d end up dying behind bars. Not like her father had.

  Cam unzipped the leather bag secured to the back of the bike and pulled out a bright crimson helmet before turning around to face her. He must have seen the worry on her face, because his usual cocky grin melted into a soft smile.

  “Don’t worry.” Low and steady, his words wrapped around her like a safety blanket, giving her second thoughts about kicking him to the curb.

  Then she looked up and forgot to think at all. Staring into his hazel green eyes was like tumbling down a rabbit hole. Unsettling. Thrilling. Totally uncertain. She knew that feeling all too well, and it made her wish she’d gotten one last between the sheets session before cutting off his hot ass. Unbidden, her fingers rose to her lips.

  He took a step forward, close enough to touch, and damn she wished he would. He was just what she needed to take her mind off this mess. But that’d bring its own problems. She couldn’t let him in again. Not after he’d laid what was supposed to be a secret bare to the world.

  Cam’s gaze lowered and zeroed in on her mouth. He leaned down and brought his lips close enough to her left ear that his warm breath made the sensitive spot behind her earlobe sizzle. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  Her belly flipped before it flopped. She wanted—no, needed—to believe him. The shock of realization acted as the trampoline at the bottom of the rabbit hole, bouncing her back to reality.

  She inhaled a shaky breath and took a step back to allow some much needed air between them. “Is that ever the case with you?”

  “Honey, that’s always the case with me.” He winked and handed her the helmet.

  It weighed more than she expected, and she eyed it skeptically. “This is going to fuck up my hair.”

  Cam chuckled. “I doubt if anything or anyone fucks with your hair or any other part of you.” He swung a long, muscular leg over the motorcycle and sat down before revving the engine. “Unless, of course, you want them to.” There was that tradema
rk cocky grin. “Come on, live a little.”

  What the hell? It wasn’t like the day could get any worse.

  She pulled her long, straightened hair into one hand and held it close to her nape, put on the helmet, and got on the motorcycle. There wasn’t much room on the seat for her nowhere near tiny ass, but she tried to keep as much space as possible between herself and Cam’s denim clad butt without falling off the back of the bike.

  What was she supposed to do with her hands? Hold the back of the bike? Put them around him?

  “I’m not going to bite.” His voice came through the helmet’s bluetooth-enabled speaker, soft and tempting as all hell. “You better hold on if you don’t want to bounce off.”

  That did it. Against her better judgment, she scooted forward on the leather seat, making sure her orange chiffon French Connection skirt stayed tucked under her thick thighs. The action would ensure she didn’t give Harbor City a show when they went flying down the streets, but the filmy material provided little protection from the instant click of awareness that hit as soon as she settled in with her center against Cam.

  Heat rushed through her, battling with the instant thrill from the speed at which they took off from the curb. Acting on instinct, she wrapped her arms around Cam’s solid torso, and they shot through the intersection. They took a right onto Harbor Parkway, heading straight for her apartment downtown.

  She should have been petrified with the speed, the turns, and Cam. Instead, she felt exhilarated as they whizzed past block after block of people hurrying from one place to another. She’d never been so alive.

  Drea’s legs and more northernly body parts were still vibrating from the ride over when she unlocked her apartment door and took a step inside. Keeping her hand on the door, she pivoted to block Cam’s entrance. He spared no more than a brief glance at her hand as he squeezed his big body through the small opening between her and the doorframe.

  “A chameleon would have a heart attack in here,” he quipped as he made a slow circle and took in her decor.