style="font-size:15px;"> “Don’t know, don’t care. It’s you Palmer wants, not me.”
Always a sobering thought. From Geri’s perspective, however, the spin was more positive.
“Great hands, great hair, great face, great body.” She pushed on her stomach. “Is there a way to lose twenty pounds in five minutes?”
“Yeah, drop your briefcase. Oh, damn. Palmer’s coming out.” Vanessa started to turn, but checked herself. “Wait a minute. I’m off duty. I can walk.”
“Good luck with that in those heels.” Geri drew up to her full height of five feet four inches. “Good evening, Captain Palmer.”
“Ms. Kruger. I don’t care if you are off duty, Connor, we’re going to talk. You, me and Agent Maguire here.”
Of course he’d have a guy name. Geri’s lips curved into a knowing smile. Vanessa braced and turned. “Agent Maguire,” she acknowledged, and was surprised by the quick surge of—she wasn’t sure what—that jolted through her. Could have been lust. Or appreciation. Whatever it was, it mingled swiftly with suspicion. “Why do I need to talk to a federal agent?”
Palmer glared. “Courtroom time make you dense, Connor? I know you know about Mara Chan. That makes three of your old college roommates dead inside ninety days.”
“We weren’t roommates.” But it was a technicality, and Vanessa was dragging her feet, something she rarely did. “I don’t want a leave of absence, Captain, and I don’t need a federal agent breathing down my neck.” She flashed Agent Maguire a quick smile. “No offense.”
“I’m used to it.”
Geri chuckled. “Great voice,” she mouthed to Vanessa, before holding out her hand. “I’ll take that as my cue to exit. Nice to have almost met you, Mr. Maguire.”
His answering smile was friendlier than expected. “You, too, Ms. Kruger.”
Geri gave Vanessa a discreet nudge. “Stay safe,” she whispered, and headed for the door.
“No objections, Connor,” her captain warned. “We’ve got three dead Berkeley women on our hands.”
In actual fact “we,” meaning the San Francisco Police Department, didn’t have any dead Berkeley women on their hands since none of the victims had lived or died anywhere near the Bay Area. But Vanessa kept her mouth shut and waited for him to drop his bomb. He always did. It was the reason homicide detectives liked him. Or didn’t, depending on their dispositions.
“I want you to listen to Agent Maguire. Moreover, I want you to cooperate with him.”
As bombs went, it was far from unanticipated. Still…” I don’t need a babysitter, Captain.”
“You need what I say you need. Agent Maguire will talk, and you’ll listen. But not here.” He dismissed the still-bustling room. “Some place where you can actually hear what he’s saying.”
As if to emphasize his point, a detective and a uniformed officer ushered a young man in handcuffs through the door. The man had blood on his shirt, had lost several teeth and was shouting every four-letter word in the English language, along with a few Vanessa recognized as Dutch.
Palmer stuck his face in hers. “Go,” he said softly. “Pick a restaurant. Dinner’s on the department. And don’t tell me you’ve already eaten, because I know your routine.”
Vanessa wondered if either man understood Dutch, but she held her tongue and forced a smile. “Do you like Armenian food, Mr. Maguire?”
“Rick,” he replied with a quirk of his lips. “I’m good with anything.”
Especially women, she imagined. But that was an unfair thought that he’d done nothing to deserve. Yet.
“Right. Well.” She considered clipping her hair back, then saw no less than three detectives firing visual bullets at Rick Maguire’s back and reasoned that a fast escape might be prudent.
“I won’t go into hiding.” She shot the warning over her shoulder as they worked their way through the room.
“That’s between you and your captain, Detective.”
She relented. “Vanessa’s fine. But you can eighty-six the charm. I’m not easily wooed.”
“You’d rather be treated like one of the guys?”
“I’m okay with it.”
“How often does it happen?”
She glanced back. “Do all Feds ask sexist questions?”
“Only when challenged by beautiful women.”
“I’m a cop.”
“And a beautiful woman.” Reaching around her, he pulled the door open. “You want to get to the point, am I right?”
“It’d be nice.”
“Okay, we’ll start with your dead friends. Then, we’ll move on to your former Berkeley College connection. Finally—” his dark eyes met hers “—we’ll deal with the fact that someone broke into your home last week and went through your bedroom closet.”
RICK LET HER DIRECT HIM to Grant Avenue, to the Dragon’s Gate. Not that he needed a human GPS. He’d spent a good portion of his youth in San Francisco, sharing houses with friends as aimless as he’d been back then, soaking up the atmosphere of a lost era, and hoping for the smallest scrap of inspiration as to where his life should go.
“Is this your car?” Vanessa inquired from the passenger seat.
He watched her run a finger over the soft leather armrest and grinned. “About a third of it. I’ll be making payments for a few more years.”
“Quite a few, I imagine. I have an aunt in Bodega Bay. Her husband had a Porsche. He ran it into a northbound train one night, died on impact.”
“There’s an uplifting story.”
“He was dying anyway. A crash was the better way for him. It was a freight train. No casualties except my uncle, his Porsche and a whole lot of sugar.” She motioned forward. “Park anywhere. We can talk while we walk.”
“To the Chinese-slash-Armenian restaurant?”
It was her turn to grin. “Armenian food’s great, but you absolutely have to eat Chinese when you come to San Francisco.”
He couldn’t argue with that. Nor could he keep his eyes from straying to her legs when he opened the door for her. The fact that he knew she knew he was looking and didn’t bother to tug her skirt down intrigued him. Coy, Detective Connor wasn’t. Inherently seductive, he suspected she was.
Temperatures in and around San Francisco had been uncommonly high for several days, or so Rick had heard. The thermometer still hovered in the mideighties, and it was almost 9:00 p.m. But Rick was accustomed to DC summers. Nothing on the west coast could touch the cloying heat and humidity
