She concentrated on the tension leaving her body through her fingertips. Slowly, her churning thoughts eased. She was tired, she realized, but then she hadn’t slept more than an hour or so the night before.
“Are you comfortable, Michelle?”
“Yes.” She hadn’t realized she was going to answer until she heard her own voice.
“I’m going to ask you some questions now. Can you answer some questions for me?”
“Yes.” Odd to hear her own voice when she hadn’t intended to answer. It was as if someone else was answering. What if he asked her about Bayou Lafourche? Would she tell the truth?
“All right. I want you to think back to January 10. It was a Monday. Rainy and cold, I think. Do you remember what you were doing that day?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
Michelle relayed a condensed version of her day, ending with her leaving Tulane for home.
“I want you to stay relaxed, Michelle. I want you to concentrate on the tension flowing out of your fingertips. The tension has left you. You are relaxed. You feel warm and safe. Can you feel how heavy your arms are?”
“Yes.” She was tired, on the verge of sleep, and felt as if she were floating inside a cloud.
“Where did you go after you left campus, Michelle?”
“I went home.”
“Did you have a visitor that night?”
“Yes. Armon came over. I knew it the instant he knocked on the door. He had this special knock he always used. I was happy to see him.”
“Did you let him in?”
“Yes, of course.” A shadow invaded her consciousness. A dark flash. Like the shadow of a thunderhead on a sunny day. “He seemed upset.”
“How so?” Betancourt’s voice cut in, deep and impatient.
“Armon was…acting strangely. He seemed edgy. Distracted. I was worried about him.”
“Did he tell you why he was upset?”
“I asked, but he just laughed. He wouldn’t say.”
“What happened next?”
Dark images hovered at the edges of her consciousness. Shadowy figures. Voices. Anger and fear. She wanted to know the truth, but the darkness terrified her. She knew the truth lay in the darkness, but the part of her that was afraid didn’t want to bridge the gap. “He asked for coffee. But I got the impression he was stalling. I went to the kitchen, to give him some time.”
“You made coffee?”
“Yes.” The image of Armon’s smiling face came to her so clearly that she almost raised her hand to touch him. “He was quite the coffee connoisseur. He liked it strong, with chicory.”
“What happened after you made coffee?” Betancourt asked.
Her chest tightened, making it difficult to breathe. Armon’s image flickered, darkened. “Something’s wrong.” Fear encroached, creeping over her, like quicksand, sucking her down.
“Michelle? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” Vaguely, she was aware of her breaths coming too quickly, but she couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs.
“Easy, Michelle.” It was Dr. Witt’s voice, steady and reassuring. “You’re calm and relaxed, remember? You’re safe here. Your limbs are heavy. Your eyes are closed. Can you take a deep breath for me?”
A breath shuddered out of her.
“Yes, that’s good—”
“What happened after you made coffee?” Betancourt pressed.
“I walked back to the living room.” The scene flashed like a strobe in her mind’s eye. Vivid. Terrifying.
“What do you see?”
Adrenaline cut through her belly. “I…don’t know.”
“Tell us what you see, Michelle.”
The barrel of a gun. Her gun. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. Part of her didn’t want to know what had happened, didn’t want to step into the darkness and relive the horror.
“What happened?” Betancourt’s voice. Angry now. She pictured him leaning toward her. Too close. Too aggressive.
“Lieutenant, please.” The doctor’s voice almost broke her focus, but she got it back.
“Armon. Standing in the foyer.” A sob rose from deep in her chest, but she choked it down. “He sees me, but he doesn’t let on. He doesn’t want the man at the door to see me.” She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Could only watch in frozen terror as the man in black raised the gun.
“What man? Who is it?”
The blast deafened her.
A high-pitched mewl broke from her throat. Then she was running. To Armon. Kneeling at his side. She smelled gunpowder, the coppery scent of blood. Horror pooled in the back of her throat.
“Dammit, what do you see?”
The barrel coming up, pointing at her. Blood on her hands.
Her concentration shattered, the images scattering like a glass thrown violently to the floor.
“Oh, God, no!” Her eyes snapped open. She blinked, focused on the two men standing over her. Dr. Witt in his white coat and baggy pants. Detective Betancourt staring at her as if he wanted to shake the information out of her.
She looked down at her hands, expecting to see blood. None there, but she could still smell it. Warm and sickly sweet. Nausea seesawed in her stomach. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“I’ll get you some water.” Dr. Witt made for the cooler against the wall.
Stomach clenching like a fist, Michelle rose abruptly. The room darkened, swayed. “Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Easy. Just take it easy.” Betancourt reached out to steady her. One arm went around her shoulders. The other hand circled her left biceps.
His touch was amazingly gentle for a man who didn’t seem to know the meaning of the word. A contradiction to everything Michelle knew about the hard-nosed detective. For an insane instant, she wanted to melt into his arms and just let him hold her for a while. It seemed like an eternity since anyone had held her, since a man had held her. But Betancourt was not only a man, she reminded herself, but a cop with a job to do.
“You’re shaking.”
She had to get out of there. The walls were closing in. Claustrophobia threatened. She wanted to wash her hands even though she could plainly see there was no blood on them.
Easily, she broke from his grip and stumbled to the door. By the time she reached the hall she was running. She heard someone call her name, but she didn’t stop.
Betancourt followed her to the end of the hall and watched her disappear into the ladies’ rest room. Frustration coupled with another emotion he didn’t want to acknowledge sent him to the door, where he knocked hard enough to hurt his knuckles.
“Michelle? Are you all right?”
There was no answer. Not that he’d expected one. “We need to talk,” he said to the door.
“Go away, Betancourt.”
He looked down at his shoes and smiled despite the frustration flaring through him. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d talked to a woman while staring at the exterior of a closed door. What the hell was it about women and doors? “We made some headway, Michelle. We need to talk about it while this is fresh in your mind.”
No answer.
“I’m not going to go away until we talk.”
No answer.
He wanted to punch the door. “Michelle? Are—”
A female dispatcher opened the door, then shoved past him with a glare. “Men’s room is down the hall on the right, Betancourt.”
Chagrined, Philip stepped back, cleared his throat. “She’s a witness in a case. Is there anyone else in there?”
The woman shook her head, then continued down the hall.
Without preamble, he opened the door and peered inside. Michelle faced the sink, watching him in the mirror with dark, wary eyes. She looked as fragile as porcelain standing there gripping the edge of the counter with white-knuckled hands. Dampened tendrils of hair framed her shock-paled cheeks. Most of her makeup was gone, washed away by the water she’d splash
ed on her face. But rather than detract from her appearance, the dewy skin and rose-petal mouth added a great deal of appeal.
Philip stepped into the room and let the door close behind him. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a brother who went to prison?”
She stiffened. “My brother isn’t relevant to any of this.”
“Everything is relevant when there’s an unsolved murder.”
“Get out, Betancourt, or I’ll have you arrested.”
He stepped toward her, anger pumping through him with every beat of his heart. “What else haven’t you told me?”
“I’ve told you everything that matters.”
A fresh burst of temper ripped through him. “I’ll be the judge of what matters and what doesn’t.” He crossed to her, stopping an arm’s length away, knowing he was too furious to get any closer.
“You’ve been yanking my chain,” he growled. “Letting me beat my brains out trying to get to the truth, when all the while you’re keeping secrets. I damn well don’t appreciate it.”
Her suit jacket lay in a heap on the counter. Through her silk blouse, Philip saw the outline of a lacy bra and the swell of her full breasts. Hell of a time to notice she was built just the way he liked.
Steeling himself against her, he raised his eyes to hers. “Was that a performance in there a moment ago, too?”
Color rose high in her cheeks. “You’re a jerk.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“That wasn’t easy for me, damn you!”
A sliver of satisfaction that he’d managed to rile her temper slid through him. “The truth, Michelle. That’s all I want.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“You’ve lied by omission. Don’t spew semantics at me. That really ticks me off.”
Defiance burned in her eyes. “Maybe you can’t handle the truth. Maybe you’re not smart enough to see through all the irrelevant stuff, Betancourt. Maybe I don’t trust you to do the right thing if you know too much.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Philip’s temper spiked another notch. “I know about your record, Michelle. About your arrest as a teenager.” He was fishing; he didn’t know for certain she had a record, only that she’d been arrested.
Turning from the mirror, she faced him, the quick rise and fall of her chest revealing he’d hit a nerve. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What was the charge? You want to share that with me?”
“I don’t have a record,” she said hollowly.
“State of Louisiana archives don’t lie.”
“They don’t always tell the whole story, either.”
“What story? Talk to me…”
Frustration billowed through Philip when she stared silently back at him. He didn’t want to push her too hard, not after what she’d just been through. He didn’t want her to pull away just when she was beginning to trust him. But, dammit, she was keeping things from him; she’d lied to him. The hell of it was he didn’t think she was lying about Landsteiner.
“All right.” Philip rubbed his hand over his face, mentally changed gears. “What happened in there a few minutes ago? Did you see who murdered Landsteiner?”
Her gaze remained level on his. “I saw…someone. A man. The murderer, I think.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see his face. He wore some type of mask. A ski mask…maybe. I’m not sure.”
Philip cursed—he’d wanted something solid, a name or description. “Think you can give me a physical description?”
“Maybe. I’ll try.” Turning, she punched soap from the dispenser into her hands and began scrubbing them. “Whoever it was, he wanted to kill me.”
The urge to protect rose inside him with surprising force. “How do you know that?”
“The gun. He pointed it at me.” Her voice quavered, and she closed her eyes. “I thought he was going to kill me. He could have. I don’t understand why he didn’t.”
“Maybe he knew you wouldn’t be able to identify him. Maybe you weren’t his target. Maybe Armon was.”
She choked out a humorless laugh. “I just stood there. Frozen. I watched him gun down Armon and did nothing. Oh, God.” Turning to the sink, she bent and splashed water on her face once more.
Philip watched, feeling more for her than was prudent. “Do you think you can come back in and answer some more questions?”
“Don’t make me do that. I can’t handle it right now.”
“It’s important, Michelle.”
With her hands against the counter, she leaned forward and let the water drip from her face into the basin. Pain shone in her eyes when her gaze met his in the mirror. “I watched him gun down Armon, and I didn’t do anything to help. Armon might have lived had I…done something to help him.” She closed her eyes. Giant tears squeezed through her lashes.
Philip didn’t want to believe her. Dammit, he didn’t want to feel anything for her. Her story didn’t add up. There was something amiss. But despite all the evidence denoting guilt, he didn’t think this woman was capable of cold-blooded murder.
“If that’s how it happened, then it wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly.
“No, maybe it wasn’t my fault. After all, I didn’t pull the trigger. But I didn’t stop the killer. I didn’t help Armon. Maybe that’s why I blocked the memory. Maybe I froze while he lay on the floor bleeding to death.”
“Armon was killed instantly. You couldn’t have helped.”
“Maybe I ran—”
“I don’t think you ran.”
“Then why the hell can’t I remember?”
“We all have protective mechanisms, Michelle. Human beings are amazingly resilient when it comes to ugliness and violence.” Philip wasn’t so sure about himself. He hadn’t been very resilient in the aftermath of the Rosetti case. He sure as hell hadn’t enacted any kind of protective mechanism. Maybe that was why the death of that Algiers shopkeeper ate at him like acid.
Michelle yanked a paper towel from the dispenser and blotted her face. “Do you think I killed him?”
“You’re a suspect. You had motive, means and opportunity. There’s too much evidence against you for you not to be a suspect.” He didn’t like the way the words felt coming off his tongue. Oddly, they no longer rang true. “Any other cop would have—” Philip stopped dead. What was he thinking? He shouldn’t be discussing this with her.
“Would have what, Detective? Arrested me?”
Damning himself for the mistake, he remained silent, watched the emotions scroll across her face.
“You’re wrong about me.” Her hand trembled when she shoved a stray strand of hair away from her face.
“I don’t think so.” Philip wanted to touch her. Just to stop the shaking. He couldn’t stand there and do nothing while she came apart right before his eyes. “Tell me what you know, Michelle. Level with me. Tell me what you’re hiding.”
His eyes never leaving hers, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She was soft. Warm. He felt the tremors ripping through her, and he wanted to stop them, only he didn’t know how. Her scent drifted lazily through his brain, an intriguing mix of baby powder laced with the heady scent of woman. Lord, he’d known better than to touch her. But logic fled the moment he’d looked into her eyes and seen the kind of pain no one should have to deal with alone.
She turned to face him. “I didn’t kill Armon.”
She uttered the denial with such heartfelt intensity that, for an instant, Philip’s doubts fled. “Even if I do believe you, I’ve still got to run this investigation the best way I know how. I’ve got to do my job, Michelle. That means leaving no stone unturned. You know how it works.”
Her eyes hardened. “Oh, I think I’ve gotten the gist of it, Detective.” She used his formal title with a hefty dose of sarcasm. “You don’t believe that a woman from a poor background can have a wealthy man for a friend. Your small, dirty mind has conjured up all sorts
of juicy scenarios that have warped your objectivity.”
Philip’s temper spiked anew. “If we’re going to work together and figure out who killed Landsteiner, that giant-size chip on your shoulder has to go.”
“Go to hell, Betancourt.”
Her previous statement had hit home, extinguishing Philip’s temper. Surprising himself, he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “You’re real tough, aren’t you?”
Another tear slipped free. “I hate you.”
“This is a hell of a place to discuss this.”
The way she was staring at him wreaked havoc on his willpower. She looked vulnerable and tough at once, standing there with tears on her cheeks and hurt in her eyes.
He wanted to kiss her. Wanted to devour the mouth that had lied so easily to him. The realization came out of nowhere, startling him and sending a rush of blood to his groin where arousal flared hot and deep. He tried to shake it off, but his body refused. He felt himself tumbling forward, closer to her, until her scent surrounded him, drugging him with the kind of need that could drive a man insane.
Damning the consequences, Philip lowered his mouth to hers.
The intimate contact went through Michelle like an electrical storm, sending sparks from her brain to her toes and every nerve ending in between. His mouth was warm and softly demanding against hers. Surprise melded with heat, and before she fully realized the dangers, she responded, lifting her arms to broad shoulders where rock-hard muscle corded with tension.
His breath quickened at her response, warm and sweet against her cheek. When he used his tongue, she opened to him. He explored her mouth brazenly. Slow heat wound through her. Her breasts grew heavy. Her nipples beaded, though he hadn’t touched her there. Gentle hands skimmed down her sides, pausing at her hips. He held her in place against him, just close enough so that she could feel his arousal against her cleft.
Michelle knew better than to respond to a man like Betancourt. But the inner warning came too late for common sense to save her. The moment his lips touched hers, her judgment fled, along with the last vestiges of her sense of self-preservation.