The Cop Read online

  Only J.C., he thought as desire turned white-hot and the flash fire took them both.

  16

  “IF I NEVER GO TO another garden party, it will be too soon,” Nik said as Theo and Sam Schaeffer joined him at one of the bars that had been set up at intervals along the lawn.

  Theo laughed, a rich sound that merged into the chatter of guests and the soft melodies of a string quartet playing at the far end of the pool. Nik’s remark even drew a smile from the usually sober Sam Schaeffer.

  The two had arrived thirty minutes earlier and had very skillfully made the rounds. It never ceased to impress Nik that his brother could fit in so easily in these kinds of sophisticated surroundings. Of course, Theo had much more experience at these kind of functions. During the three years his brother spent in the D.A.’s office before he’d left to open his practice as a defense attorney, he’d had to accompany his boss to a lot of political functions. But from the looks of it, Theo had taken to the social stuff like a fish to water. He must have spent ten minutes talking to J.C.’s older brothers. Nik had found them a bit stuffy, but Theo had looked perfectly at ease with them. In fact, it looked to him as though his brother was actually enjoying himself.

  Mentally, he shook his head. “There isn’t even any decent food.” Nik returned his gaze to J.C., who stood about ten feet away shaking hands with the latest young man her stepmother had introduced her to. Cole Buchanan and Pepper Rossi were selecting food from a table nearby, and Pepper’s brothers, Matt and Luke, were just a little farther away near the pool.

  Handling security at an outdoor party was not a piece of cake by any means, and Nik wanted it over. He wanted to take J.C. away right now and feed her. She hadn’t had a bite to eat since they’d arrived, and she’d only picked at her breakfast at the hotel. Neither of them had brought up what had happened between them during the night.

  There was so much he wanted to say, needed to say. So much he wasn’t sure he would ever find the right words. He was in love with her, and there were moments during the night that he was sure that he’d seen the same feelings in her eyes. But he wanted words. And it had been the wrong time to press for them. He’d wanted her safe first.

  Not that he was sure that she was safe here. He scanned the grounds again. The lawns were spacious, the pool area carefully landscaped, as were the tennis courts beyond.

  He’d had a bad feeling ever since they’d arrived, and in spite of the fact that he knew that J.C. was being guarded by the best, his thumbs hadn’t given him a break. He’d wanted the damn party over from the moment Alicia Hensen Riley had eased J.C. away from him for a private talk.

  He’d used the opportunity to quiz the mayor about whether or not he’d had any personal time with Frankie Carlucci at the charity ball. J.C. had been right. The only time her father had seen Frankie was at the table on that balcony.

  Nik had managed to rejoin J.C. several times since then only to have her stepmother step in and draw her away on some pretext or other. J.C. had warned him that her duties at the party would include meeting and greeting a series of eligible bachelors that her parents would lob at her like so many tennis balls. By Nik’s count the blond, preppy one she was currently smiling at was bachelor number four. Under other circumstances he might have been jealous, but he was too damn worried for that.

  Theo nudged him in the side. “Check out a new arrival at nine o’clock.”

  Nik shifted his gaze to the side of the house and saw Michael Dano shaking hands with the mayor. At his side were Mario’s wife, Deanna, and her son, Eddie. Like Theo, Michael Dano seemed to fit right in at the party. Nik was willing to bet that the man would be Alicia Hensen Riley’s choice for bachelor number five. “What are they doing here?”

  “I imagine they’re representing the Oliver family. The Olivers have always been loyal supporters of Mayor Riley,” Theo replied. “Roman can’t be here, Mario won’t leave the hospital, and Sadie and Juliana are missing. It looks as though Michael, Mrs. Oliver and her son are stepping in to fill the gap.”

  Nik’s eyes never left Michael. “Dano’s been with them how long?”

  “Three years,” Theo said.

  “What do you know about him?”

  “I met him for the first time when Sam and I were at the hospital this morning.”

  He turned to Theo. “Were you able to talk to Roman?”

  “No. I’ll be going back this afternoon. But the surgery was successful. The doctors are optimistic that he’ll make a complete recovery.”

  “Good news.” Nik allowed himself to savor it for a moment. “And the bad news is he’ll be charged today, won’t he?”

  Theo said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say. He and Kit needed to come up with some clue that might point the investigation in a different direction. So far Cole and the Rossis hadn’t uncovered anything useful in the financials of the two families. It didn’t help that they’d had to interrupt their work to come to a garden party to provide security for J.C.

  The mayor and his wife were now greeting Captain Parker and Commissioner Galvin. When a waiter paused and offered a selection of fancy finger foods, Nik shook his head, and Theo selected a toast point with—Nik suppressed a shudder—caviar. “I bet if they’d let J.C. cater it, she’d have drummed up something more substantial than finger sandwiches and fish eggs on toast.” At Mayor Riley’s insistence, he’d tried the caviar earlier, and not even the crisp and fruity chardonnay the bartender had recommended had been up to the task of washing the flavor away.

  “Actually, the caviar is quite good,” Theo remarked. “So is the wine.”

  Nik met Sam Schaeffer’s eyes and awarded Sam points when the young man rolled his. At least there was someone at this shindig who agreed with him. Though why Theo had brought his intern to a social event was something that Nik wanted to ask him.

  “Sam here prefers the food that Dad serves at The Poseidon.”

  So Theo had taken his intern to The Poseidon, too. Mentally, Nik raised his eyebrows, more curious than ever about Theo’s intern. They seemed to be joined at the hip.

  “Actually, people never come to these things for the food,” Sam said. “They come either to be seen or to watch.”

  Nik studied Sam. It was the most the young man had said since Theo had introduced him in Parker’s office. There was something vaguely familiar about him. Now that he thought about it, Nik was almost sure that he’d seen those intelligent brown eyes before, and there was something in the cadence of the way he spoke…but he couldn’t jar the memory loose. “You’ve been to a few of these, I gather.”

  Sam wrinkled his nose. “More than a few. I try to survive by people watching. J.C. is talking right now to Hale Dashwood.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nik flicked a look in J.C.’s direction. “And he would be?”

  “A soap-opera star who’s just made the transition to big-screen stardom. He played the second lead in Bruce Willis’s last film, and he’s here in San Francisco filming a romantic comedy with Jennifer Lopez. So he’s on the A-list when it comes to parties. It’s a real coup that the Rileys got him to come.”

  Though Theo was discreet, Nik didn’t miss it when his brother laid a hand on Sam’s arm and the young man shut up. Nik might have pushed the conversation further just to see what would happen if he hadn’t been interrupted by his aunt Cass’s arrival.

  “I’m late,” she said in a breathless voice, adjusting the straw hat that was threatening to slip off of her head. “Fashionably so, I hope.”

  Because he was closer, Theo hugged his aunt first. “What a lovely surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here, Aunt Cass.”

  Nik was surprised, too. As far as he knew the only person in their family who was on the “A-list” was Theo.

  Cass pressed a hand against her chest and drew in a breath. “Alicia Hensen Riley is a new client, and she invited me to come just this morning. I had to rush to get myself together, and then I had to help Helena pack.”

  “Helena pack?” Ni
k and Theo spoke in unison.

  Nik could have sworn that Cass blushed.

  “Oh, my. I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I promised.”

  “She’s decided to go back to Greece?” Theo asked.

  “I thought she and Dad had sorted things out,” Nik said. “They looked happy enough when they ran out of the restaurant in the middle of the lunch hour rush.”

  “They were back dancing up a storm last night,” Sam added.

  “She’s not going back to Greece,” Cass said. “I can tell you that much. At least not anytime soon.”

  Nik watched his aunt’s eyes darken. “Maybe for their…” She cut herself off by placing the palm of her hand over her mouth. Then dropping her hand, she glanced around the lawn. “I have to find Mrs. Riley. I think she’s worried about J.C.” Cass placed her free hand on Nik’s arm. “But I think everything will be just fine.”

  Nik frowned as he glanced around the party, too, but there was nothing untoward happening, nothing that indicated anything was going on other than a boring social function that people attended to either see or be seen. However, think wasn’t the word he wanted to hear from his aunt. He wanted her to say she knew that everything would be fine.

  His damn thumbs were burning now, and he was pretty sure that something bad was about to go down.

  It was then that he spotted the mayor and his wife, hurrying forward, hands extended to a couple who had just stepped around the corner of the house.

  Frankie and Gina Carlucci had arrived.

  “Shit.” He’d taken one step forward when Commissioner Galvin and D.C. Parker stepped directly into his path.

  J.C. BARELY SUPPRESSED a yawn as she continued to smile at bachelor number four, Hale Dashwood. That couldn’t be his real name. It occurred to her that “Arthur Varden” would suit him to a T, and she barely kept herself from laughing. She could feel Nik’s eyes on her, and while she knew that Cole Buchanan and Pepper Rossi were standing only a few feet away, it was the fact that Nik was watching her that made her feel secure.

  She’d really hated leaving the hotel this morning. There was so much that she needed to say to him, so much she needed to hear him say.

  But for the moment, she didn’t dare take her focus from Hale. Instinct, honed by years of experience with the type of man Alicia always sent her way, told her that Hale liked to be the center of attention.

  “Your parents throw a lovely party.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “I’m new at this game, myself. But once I got the film with Bruce Willis, the invites just kept rolling in. The problem is I never know quite what to talk about. My publicist says I need to brush up on my small-talk skills.”

  J.C. tuned Hale Dashwood out. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d chosen acting as a career so that he could escape from himself by pretending to be other, much more interesting, characters. Of course, it would help if she could drink the wine that she was holding in her hand, but she didn’t dare. Not on an empty stomach.

  When was the party going to be over?

  “…had to hire three different stunt doubles when I took that fall out of the helicopter with Bruce.”

  “What?” J.C. asked, suddenly tuning back in.

  “I couldn’t do the stunt because I have this thing with heights. I’ve been in therapy but—”

  J.C. grabbed his arm. She barely kept herself from shaking him. “I want to know about the stunt-double part. Who hired them? Where did they hire them?”

  Hale beamed a smile at her. “Funny you should ask. Last party I went to someone wanted to know about stunt doubles, too. I guess you never know just what will make a conversational hit at one of these affairs.”

  “NO SCENES,” D.C. Parker muttered under his breath to Nik. “The Carluccis are here as guests of the mayor.”

  “You knew they were coming?” Nik asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Parker said. “But I’m not surprised.”

  Nik glanced over to where J.C. was still talking to the A-list movie star, Hal Something-or-other, and satisfied himself that Cole Buchanan was close by. The Carluccis were still chatting with their hosts.

  “I’m going to the hospital right after we take our leave of the mayor,” Parker said to Theo. “I’ve held off longer than I should have.”

  Shit, Nik thought as he swung his gaze to his brother. To his surprise, he saw that Theo once more had placed a hand on Sam Schaeffer’s arm. The young man looked very pale. Why?

  Something was flickering at the edge of his mind when his aunt’s laugh distracted him. He glanced over to see that she and Commissioner Galvin were holding hands. His aunt Cass was blushing again, and she looked somehow younger.

  First his father and Helena, and now his aunt and the commissioner? What in hell was going on with his family?

  J.C. FELT THE little spurt of adrenaline and she tightened her grip on Hale’s hand. “Do you remember who asked you about stunt doubles?”

  Hale’s smile faded a bit. “Not really. These parties are such a crush. And I’m not good with names.”

  It’s probably hard to remember other people’s names when you’re so focused on yourself, she thought. “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “A man.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  Hale’s smile brightened again. “Sure. Character study is my strong suit. He walked with sort of a swagger, and he had longish hair. A lot like the way I wore mine in my soap days, but I thought he was a bit old for the style.”

  “How old?”

  “Oh, late thirties, early forties. The wife was younger. I’d say in her early twenties. Very attractive if you like the blond-bimbo type. A lot of men do. Now my type is more—”

  J.C. tightened her grip on his hand. “What else do you remember about the man who asked you about stunt doubles?”

  Hale frowned in concentration. “Well-dressed. I asked him for the name of his tailor. The jacket was real snakeskin, I think, and he had a nice diamond on his pinky. Not my style, but I complimented him on it, and that’s when he asked about hiring stunt doubles.”

  J.C. wondered if Nik’s thumbs were pricking. “Did you tell him where he could hire one?”

  “Yeah. Why not. Might as well spread the wealth. My publicist says—”

  Once again, J.C. stifled the urge she had to shake him. “Who did you send him to?”

  “I gave him the name of the best casting outfit in L.A. You should see the double they hired for me.

  Almost identical.”

  J.C. couldn’t help but think of fate. What were the chances that she would run into Hale Dashwood and he would hand her the key to putting Frankie Carlucci behind bars?

  “WELL, IT’S SUCH a lovely surprise to have run into you, Chad,” Cass said.

  Chad, Nik thought with a frown. His aunt and Galvin had only met three minutes ago and they were already on a first-name basis. And Commissioner Galvin still hadn’t released Cass’s hand.

  He liked that about as much as he liked the fact that J.C. was now holding the A-list movie star’s hand. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alicia Hensen Riley approaching J.C. Good, he thought. It must be time for bachelor number five. Just as he’d thought, she had Michael Dano in tow.

  “I really must speak to my hostess,” Cass continued, “and let her know that I’ve finally arrived. I’m so late.”

  Nik glanced over to the spot where he’d last seen the mayor talking to the Carluccis. He stiffened and scanned the lawn when he saw Mayor Riley and Frankie still talking, but there was no sign of Gina.

  “Nonsense,” Galvin was saying. “The garden party lasts for another hour. We’ve arrived in prime time, so to speak. C’mon, I have to speak to my hostess, also.”

  Hand in hand, Cass and Galvin walked toward J.C., Mrs. Riley, the movie star and Dano.

  “Your commissioner moves fast,” Theo murmured.

  He sure as hell does, Nik thought.

  “It reminded me a bit of that scene in Romeo a
nd Juliet when the two kids first meet at the Capulets’ party,” Sam said.

  D.C. Parker chuckled. “I can vouch for Galvin’s character, guys.” Then he spoke in a lower voice to Nik. “Be nice now. The mayor and Frankie are headed our way.”

  “I want to get J.C. out of here,” Nik replied.

  “Even if you’re right about him,” Parker said in the same low tone that only Nik could hear, “Frankie won’t try anything here. Too many people would see it.”

  Nik recalled the mezzanine at the St. Regis’s grand ballroom. This is exactly when Frankie would make his move, he thought. Right now when he had the perfect alibi.

  “CASSANDRA ANGELIS, you already know Alicia,” Commissioner Galvin said, “but I’d like to introduce my niece and godchild, Jude Catherine Riley.”

  J.C. stifled her impatience as she held out her hands to Nik’s aunt. She had to get to Nik and tell him what she knew. But he was talking with Frankie and her dad, and she couldn’t very well tell Nik with Frankie standing right there. They’d need to contact the casting company in L.A. and get the proof first.

  “It’s such a pleasure to finally meet you,” Cass Angelis said.

  Once the older woman’s hands closed over hers, J.C. felt her nerves begin to settle. For the first time since she’d left the hotel with Nik that morning, the ball of fear in her stomach eased, and she had the sudden impression that she and Cass were alone in the garden.

  “Nik is a good man,” Cass said.

  “Yes.” J.C. nodded.

  “He doesn’t have the spit and polish of Theo or the sweetness of Kit.” Cass squeezed J.C.’s hands. “But he takes care of his own. You can trust him.”

  She could, J.C. realized. And she did. Nik had told her that his aunt Cass had special powers. It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed him, but she hadn’t realized what that could mean until now.

  The moment that Cass released her hands, J.C. was once more aware of the string music and the chatter of voices. She returned her uncle Chad’s hug, then turned to find Cass holding her mother’s hands. J.C. had the impression that her mother was experiencing that sense of stillness that she’d just experienced.