Chapter Eighteen
Ethan spent the following morning with Heath Ford, meeting him for breakfast downtown at the Copper Kettle Café, not far from the police station.
“You were right,” Heath said from across the red vinyl booth where the two of them sat waiting for their orders to arrive. “The guy’s definitely not in the system. No DNA, no fingerprints, zip, zero, nada.”
Ethan nodded. “I had a hunch. The crime scene was chaos. It was almost like he was leaving clues on purpose, daring us to find him.”
“We’re looking for similar cases—homicides or unsolved rapes—particularly anywhere in the Dallas area.”
“He thinks he’s too smart to get caught.”
“Then he’s in for a big surprise.”
Ethan took a drink of his coffee, set the heavy china mug back down on the Formica-topped table. In the background, the clatter of silverware competed with friendly conversation. “You talk to the other girls at the club?”
“Talked to them all,” Heath said, picking up his mug and blowing across the top to cool it down. “Got nothing we could use.”
“No one hanging around, giving Mandy or the girls any trouble?”
“We got a few names. Guys who could get a little pushy. They’re either in the system or have valid alibis. Got nothing that matches the evidence left at the crime scene.”
“What about surveillance tapes? Someone lurking in the parking lot? Someone around Mandy’s car?”
Heath just shook his head.
The waitress arrived, a saucy little blonde. “Bacon and eggs for you, cowboy,” she said to Ethan, setting the hot plate in front of him. The delicious aroma made Ethan’s stomach rumble.
“The usual for you, Detective.” The glance the woman cast at Heath said she was at least half-smitten. “Corned beef hash and eggs over easy, just the way you like.”
Heath winked at her as she set his breakfast in front of him. “Thanks, Sissy.”
“My pleasure,” she said in a sultry drawl that suggested she had already had the pleasure in a lot more personal ways.
Sissy took off to another table and Ethan and Heath both dug into their food.
Ethan shoveled in a bite of crispy hash browns, then took a drink of coffee.
“You know, looking at the crime scene got me thinking. Who isn’t in the system these days?
DNA I can understand; it’s still fairly new.
But no prints, no hospital visits, nothing that came out of the school system?
Even real estate salesmen are fingerprinted these days. ”
“Gotta be someone off the grid.”
“Definitely someone who lives out in the country,” Ethan said.
“Or did,” Heath added.
“We need something, anything that will point us in the right direction.”
“Maybe something will turn up.”
“Tour leaves Dallas on Sunday. We’ve got a show in Atlanta Wednesday night.”
“You think this new guy will follow the tour?”
Ethan’s shoulders tightened. “He might. If he comes after one of the women, we’ll be ready.”
Heath took a drink of his coffee. “Like I said, maybe something will turn up before then and we’ll be able to bring him in.”
Ethan nodded. “At least we’d get one of the crazy bastards off the street.”
“I’m going insane,” Meg said. “I can’t stand being cooped up in this hotel a minute more.”
“The show’s tonight,” Val reminded her. “We’re supposed to relax and get mentally prepared. And you might recall, there’s a murderer out there stalking us.”
Meg, Val, Isabel, and Carmen Marquez all sat in Meg’s suite. All of them were top models. Working together on the tour, the four of them were becoming good friends.
“I do not know about you,” Carmen said in her soft Spanish accent, “but I am going out.” She tossed the heavy, cascading black hair that fit perfectly with her big dark eyes and flawless olive complexion.
“I do not care if I have to ask Bick Gallagher to take me. It would be worth sleeping with the devil himself for a little fresh air.”
All of them broke into laughter. The guy might be well-built, with the blond good looks women usually liked, but he was also a conceited jerk. No way would any of them invite him into her bed.
Meg tossed a smile at Dirk, who stood next to the elegant moss-green draperies, his shoulder propped against the wall, a frown darkening his face. Meg figured he didn’t like the thought of any of them sleeping with Bick.
“Maybe we could talk Dirk into taking us out,” Meg said sweetly, pretending he couldn’t actually hear.
Izzy and Carmen both jumped up from the sofa and hurried toward him, two lionesses on the hunt.
“You would do this for us, yes, Dirk?” Carmen leaned close. “Please say you will.”
Dirk took a step back. “No. No way in hell am I taking four women out of this hotel. God knows how much trouble you could get into.”
“We just want to get some lunch,” Meg purred.
“Somewhere nice,” Isabel added.
“Anywhere but here,” Carmen finished.
Dirk cast Val a hard glance. “What about you? I don’t hear you chiming in.”
Meg bit back a laugh at Val’s falsely innocent expression. “We wouldn’t give you any trouble, Dirk. We promise. We’d do whatever you told us.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll just bet.” He flicked a glance at Meg, who batted her eyelashes and tried to look seductive. One thing Dirk didn’t try to hide: He wanted her. Unfortunately, Meg also wanted him.
“Just lunch, right?” Dirk said.
Sensing victory, Meg smiled. “That’s all we have time for. We don’t even have time to shop.”
Dirk looked relieved at the news. “Where do you want to go?”
The girls glanced around. “Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek?” Izzy suggested. “I was there a few years ago with my sister.”
“A mansion . . .” Carmen said thoughtfully. “Sí, that sounds like the perfect spot for lunch.”
When Val and Meg grinned and nodded their agreement, Dirk blew out a breath. “Fine. I’ll call down and arrange for a limo to pick us up. We can wait for the car in the lobby. Let’s go.”
Carmen’s black brows shot up. “Dios mío, what are you talking about?” She planted her hands on her hips. “We cannot go dressed like this.” She looked down at her khaki Capri pants and flat brown sandals. “We must all go and change.”
“Jesus, I knew this was a bad idea.”
“You said we could go.” Isabel pouted, her full red lips curling down in a way that made her look even sexier than usual.
“Please, Dirk,” Meg pleaded. “It won’t take us long to get ready.”
Dirk grunted. “I’ll believe that when I see it.” Izzy and Carmen both opened their mouths to argue, but he held up a hand. “Okay, fine. I’ll have the limo pick us up in thirty minutes. Will that work?”
“I’ll make a lunch reservation for twelve thirty,” Val said, smiling, clearly eager to go along with the plan.
“Fine.” Dirk walked to the door and pulled it open, walked out into the hall to talk to the guard. Izzy’s suite was on Meg’s floor, Val’s two floors up. Carmen’s suite was on the floor below.
Leaving Meg in her room under the protective eye of the security guard, Dirk walked the other three women to their rooms, alerted the guards on each floor, then came back up to Meg’s.
Thirty minutes later, they were all together in the lobby, ready to go to lunch.
Meg ended up sitting next to Dirk in the long black stretch limo that comfortably seated nine.
She told herself to ignore the way her heart was racing, ignore the hard shoulder and sinewy thigh pressing into hers.
But she couldn’t ignore the look of burning intensity in Dirk’s hazel eyes.
The girls were chatting, laughing, excited to be out of what felt more like a prison than a luxury hotel. All Meg could think of was the man on the seat beside her.
“I wish it was just you and me in here,” Dirk said, low enough so no one else could hear. “I’d close the privacy panel, strip you naked, and tell the driver not to stop all night. I’d have you every way I could think of and start all over again.”
Oh, dear God! Meg could hardly breathe and her insides had gone completely liquid. “You shouldn’t talk like that, Dirk Reynolds. You’re supposed to be thinking about keeping us safe.”
“I think of that, Meg. No way would I let anyone hurt you.”
“Except you.”
“I wouldn’t hurt you, honey. I’d never do that.”
Her eyes stung. She couldn’t remember a man affecting her so strongly. “Not on purpose, but in the end that’s what would happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
Across the way, Val laughed at something Izzy said, and Dirk bent to whisper in her ear. “No more sleeping on the sofa. Tonight when I come to your room, I want to sleep in your bed.”
For too many reasons to count, that wasn’t going to happen.
Meg flashed him a teasing smile. “We’ll flip for it, macho man. Winner gets the bed. Loser sleeps on the sofa.”
Dirk groaned.
“We’re here!” Izzy clapped her hands excitedly as the car pulled up in front of the Mansion Restaurant, one of the most elegant dining rooms in Dallas. Outside the window, a white-coated valet hurried to open the limo door.
“I hope the food is still good,” Izzy said. “My sister Gina had the tortilla soup and the chicken tagliatelle pasta with pesto and sun-dried tomatoes. I had the lobster macaroni and cheese. Everything was amazing.”
“Pasta sounds fantastic,” Val said. “I’m starving.”
Dirk got out first, took a moment to check their surroundings; then Izzy scrambled to get out of the limo. As Carmen reached the door, a pair of long legs encased in black denim appeared in view.
“What the hell’s going on?” Ethan’s voice could have cut through nails.
Carmen tossed her thick black hair and smiled up at him. “Dirk—he is taking us to lunch,” she said as she climbed out, making Ethan’s scowl go even darker. “You are just in time to join us.”
As Meg slid out, she didn’t have to look to know where that scowl was directed. The knot that appeared in Ethan’s jaw when Val stepped out of the limo erased any doubt.
Meg glanced at Dirk and both of them grinned.
“You should have called,” Ethan said darkly. In concession to the heat, his shoulder holster was gone, his pistol clipped to the leather belt at his waist. Val could see the slight rise hidden beneath his T-shirt. She found it oddly comforting.
“When I got back to the hotel and you weren’t there, I was afraid something had happened,” he said. “I tried to call, but you didn’t pick up.”
She glanced down at the petite white leather handbag she carried. “I couldn’t fit the phone in my bag. I didn’t think I’d need it before we got back.”
His jaw tightened. “From now on, you keep it with you. Understood?”
“You could have called Dirk,” she argued. “Meg and I were with him when you left.”
He tossed a hard look over his shoulder. “I tried. Call went straight to voice mail.”
Dirk checked his cell as he moved the women toward the door. “Sorry. Looks like I let the battery go dead. Won’t happen again.”
Ethan’s eyes cut back to Val. “Like I said, if you were going to leave, you should have called. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
“I wouldn’t go off by myself. We just wanted to have lunch. Dirk agreed to take us.”
Ethan scrubbed a hand over his face. “Dirk’s a pushover. I would have said no.”
Val just smiled and sailed past him into the opulent restaurant. “That’s why I didn’t call.”
Ethan muttered a curse she couldn’t quite hear, but his mouth edged up as he stepped in behind her. He’d been worried about her. Aside from Mom and Pops, no one had worried about her since she was ten years old.
Last night she’d been nervous about Ethan staying in her suite, but after the private supper La Belle had provided, he had simply escorted her upstairs, thoroughly checked the suite, and left.
Ten minutes later, he’d returned. He was being discreet.
He didn’t want trouble with Beau and neither did she.
He’d arrived with laptop in hand. Once inside, he set up at the dining table and went to work answering his e-mail and checking in with his office. Val sat on the sofa in front of her own laptop, doing her best to concentrate on the Internet courses she had let lapse for the past few days.
When she glanced up, Ethan was on the phone talking to Detective Hoover, the man in charge of the investigation in Seattle. From what she could hear, nothing new had turned up on the case.
All evening she worried. Would Ethan break the rules and kiss her again? Would she be the one to break the rules?
In the end, he suggested they end the evening early and go to bed. Bed. Just watching his lips move when he said the word had her nerves humming.
“You’ve got the show tomorrow night,” he reminded her. “You need to get some sleep.”
As if that was going to happen with him in the other room. But she didn’t say that to Ethan.
In the morning, he left the suite before she woke up, leaving a note saying he had gone to his own room to shower and change, then returned.
He was all business, as he usually was, worse since their ill-fated kiss.
He escorted her to the theater for rehearsal, left her with Dirk and the rest of the La Belle security team, and went to meet his police detective friend.
Now he was here at the Mansion, standing next to a lovely arched window in the dining room, long legs splayed, hands crossed in front of him, watching over them with those intense dark eyes that missed nothing.
Seated at a round linen-draped table, Val’s gaze went past the other three women to where he stood. She wondered if he would be as distant tonight, as calmly in control as he had been last night.
She wondered if he would continue to ignore her.
Val shot him another glance. She had never been very good at being ignored.