And the money’s usually invested—”
“With the Dispersion Committee deciding where to spend it.” Sully’s own precinct had benefited from the fund the previous year, getting allocations for new squad cars. “Why wasn’t the money invested?” Judith might offer him that much, at least. “Why was it available for a cash transfer?”
“Because someone was planning to steal it?” she said dryly.
Cute. “Not my father,” he stated once more. “My brothers and I are convinced he stumbled onto an embezzlement scheme at Police Plaza.”
Her eyes widened in astonishment. “You think somebody other than your father was going to steal the money?”
Sully nodded, choosing to ignore her sarcasm. “We think Pop withdrew the money, then hid it, so whoever was planning to steal it couldn’t do so.”
“Then why didn’t your father contact Internal Affairs?”
“Because somebody at I.A. is involved?” he suggested.
Her soft grunt of protest did odd things to Sully’s blood, both warming it and making it race. For a second, she sounded like a woman being pleasured in bed, an impression that was undercut by her words. “Steele, that’s stretching. Your father’s guilty. He took seven million in cash. It’s a fortune in public money. No one would have let him take it from a bank, but years ago, he worked a mob-related bank heist at People’s National, so the banker felt he knew him.”
“The banker did know him.”
“The banker thought he was honest,” Judith clarified.
“Pop is honest,” Sully shot back.
Again she uttered that soft grunt that made Sully wonder if she’d sound like that while making love. If making love was the right terminology. After all, she was brilliant. She’d been at the top of her class in law school, and like many overachievers, she was tightly controlled, her manner challenging. Possibly, that control would extend to the bedroom.
Yeah, she was the kind of woman who’d let her mind get in the way of what her body wanted in bed, Sully figured. But then again, he could be wrong. Judith was also beautiful and inaccessible—a dangerous package. Maybe she was the type who was all-control until she suddenly let loose like an animal. Sometimes when he thought about it—which, of course, he tried not to—he imagined having hard, urgent sex with her. Hands roughly pushing up the hemline of her conservative skirts, buttons popping off blouses that covered small, firm breasts, panties trapped around thighs…
“About an hour ago, I met some eyewitnesses who placed your father at the Manhattan Yacht Club,” she was saying. “They saw him there late last night, boarding a boat named the Destiny.”
Realizing his mind had strayed, and that his mouth had gone dry, Sully pulled his attention back to the case. He nodded. “Right. That’s the boat that exploded off Seduction Island early this morning. Did your informants say he was alone when he boarded?”
She hesitated. “Witnesses didn’t mention seeing anyone else on deck.”
“Could he have handled the craft by himself?”
“Is he good with boats?”
“Yeah. As far as I know. He likes to fish.” It was the only outdoor activity his father enjoyed. Sully’s middle brother, Rex, was a fisher, too, so it was a shame the two had never gotten along well enough to share the experience.
Judith was nodding thoughtfully. “If your father’s used to fishing, he could handle the boat. It was sizable, but not a problem if he knew what he was doing. I’m leaving from here to take a team to the island. A Realtor, Pansy Hanley, says the explosion woke her. Maybe she’ll remember something. The local PD’s been diving into the wreck since it happened.”
Rifling a hand through his short hair, Sully bit back a sigh as he thought of Seduction Island, a small key off the coast of New York, it lay to the south of better known harbors such as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. “My brother Rex is heading down there, also.”
Judith stiffened. “Pardon my saying so, Steele,” she said, “but it’s awfully nice of me to come down and tell you what’s going on—”
“Not really,” he swiftly countered. “You said Joe sent you. You came here to get information, not give it, Judith.”
“However, I am apprising you of the investigation.”
Her tone was meant to remind him that she didn’t have to. “Then please continue,” he stated.
She didn’t speak for a minute, and Sully suspected she was holding her breath and counting to ten. “I can’t have you, Rex, Truman or anybody else interfering with my investigation,” she warned succinctly.
Sully’s temper was growing shorter by the minute. “Our father vanished,” he reminded her. “He was aboard a boat that exploded. The Steeles need to know if there was foul play.”
“You don’t trust me to do my job?”
He set his lips in a grim line. If there was anyone he’d trust to get to the bottom of his father’s disappearance, it was her. She was rumored to be the best, not that he’d tell her that. “That’s not the issue, Judith.”
She merely stared at him, her gaze cool. “If you Steeles withhold information, I’ll arrest each and every one of you for aiding and abetting a suspect.”
“He’s our father, not a suspect.”
Their gazes locked, and Sully couldn’t believe the ease with which Judith maintained eye contact. Most people withered under the stare he’d perfected for years. Calculated to unnerve the hardest of criminals, his unflinching, penetrating gaze usually made people fidget immediately.
Keeping his voice low, still overcorrecting for a temper he was on the verge of losing, Sully said, “My father could be dead. You realize that, don’t you? The Destiny exploded.”
She nodded curtly. “We haven’t found any bodies.”
He knew that, too. According to one source, a sandbar off the coast was positioned so that Augustus’s body might have washed up there, if he was dead. But Judith was right. There’d been no sign of any bodies. Nevertheless, Sully’s gut tightened. No one in the Steele family would rest easy until Augustus was found. Rex and Truman were pulling out all the stops—Rex by heading to the island, Truman by calling his contacts around town.
Abruptly, Sully broke eye contact with Judith and circled the desk. For a barely perceptible second, she looked as if she wanted to back across the threshold, and when he stopped before her, her body became almost unnaturally still, as if she were determined not to react. The only thing Sully saw moving was the pulse in her throat, which he could swear was now ticking more rapidly. His attention lingered a second too long on a smooth hollow beneath her ear, then drifted down her slender neck to where pale gray silk draped creamy skin, looking like expensive ribbon on a velvet-wrapped present.
She might be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, but her personality, quite simply, sucked. “I’d like to know one thing,” Sully couldn’t help but murmur, coming
