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  When a gruff male voice answered, finally, I gave the description of Ruben’s car. After the annoyed desk sergeant asked for more specifics, I returned to the room. Phone still at my ear, I said to Rita, “You didn’t get any of the numbers on that plate of his?”

  She shook her head, then squinted. Like it hurt. I bet it did. “I could kick my own ass for that.” She looked a little dejected now. Jiggling her hands against the sides of the bed, twisting them, her soft eyes begging me to help her.

  I turned away, spoke quietly to my guy in records, then hung up. I remained in the doorway, trying to keep a professional distance. Not likely.

  “If we can track down the car, we might be able to find out some information from your friend Ruben. I’ll head over to the King Kong and see what the manager and housekeeping have to say.”

  She yanked at her wrist restraints, hard enough to make herself wince, then tilted her head to one side. Like a golden retriever might when it wanted to go outside. When she lifted her dark eyebrows and smiled at me, I could see what she’d looked like as a teenager. In fact, she wasn’t all that far out of her teens. Which made me feel like a sleazy geezer at twenty-eight and change.

  “You’ve heard my whole story, Detective. So why not let me come with you? Take advantage of how much help I can be. Instead of leaving me hogtied like this. I can tour you around west Dusky, introduce you to the pertinent folks. We can track Ruben down together.”

  If she hadn’t been so pretty, I might have done the smart thing. Said no, said goodbye. And headed out alone to see if her story had any iron to it. I could have avoided all the bullshit that followed. But the late afternoon sunlight streaming in the single barred window across from her bed caught the gold streaks in her hair. When she realized how I was looking at her, her face blossomed. It budded and petaled. I know that sounds weird, but that’s exactly what happened. I was there, I know, I saw it.

  For a moment, a long warm moment, her eyes held mine. Meanwhile, my poor brain had dropped down to my waistline, then headed farther south. As Rita would say.

  Clearly I was not thinking clearly.

  I sighed. “Let me see what I can do.”

  Her grateful smile melted something inside me that had been hard ice sculpted for a really long time. I didn’t like how much happiness I felt right then. Didn’t trust it. Didn’t even want it.

  I knew I’d have to get permission from the doctor on duty. I’d need the verbal okay from the Captain, too. I’d have to keep a very close eye on the girl. She could have all sorts of motivations for wanting to come out on the hunt with me. But with the right people signing off, I could go ahead and check her out of the hospital. She didn’t belong here anyway, I reassured myself as I approached the small Indian man in a starched white lab coat who would instantly approve my request for discharge.

  I decided to check in with my boss later. After I had something concrete to show him was what I told myself at the time. But, really, I just didn’t want him to say no. No, leave the witness where she is. I didn’t want to hear that and have to repeat it to her. I didn’t want to disappoint her.

  When I headed back to the room, I had a steely-eyed nurse in tow. Someone strong and silent to remove the restraints and help the girl get dressed. So I could take her with me. Get to know her a little better while I made sure her story checked out.

  I was thinking with my dick, all right. And this, ultimately, was what Rita Deltone was counting on.

  Chapter Five

  I helped Rita into the passenger seat of my Prius. Her T-shirt and shorts were splotched with blood, and she had hospital slippers on her small tanned feet.

  “Your shoes are at the station, I would imagine.”

  She said nothing, just wrapped her arms around her middle. Like she was cold. I powered down her window, let the Florida sunshine warm her up.

  “We’ll stop at your place so you can change,” I offered, and she nodded, moving her head carefully. “Tell me immediately if you don’t feel well. Doctor said you really should be on bed rest with observation for another twenty-four hours.”

  “Maybe we could do that at my place, too,” she joked. Then she shrugged and said, “I’m fine. Just a whopper of a headache. And my wrists hurt.”

  She showed me the red marks again. The raw scrapes from the trusses. She’d already pointed out the angry inflammation several times. Once when the nurse removed the cloth ties and again in the elevator. This time I pretended not to notice. I looked both ways before pulling out of the lot and joining the thick traffic that oozed down U.S. 1.

  “What’s with the fuel-efficient car, Detective? This little eco-vehicle sure is cute, but it ain’t you.”

  My wife’s car. She’d taken mine when she moved out. The new Mustang.

  I glanced over at my passenger. She was turned sideways in her seat, looking straight at me. Maybe through me.

  “I’m an earth-conscious kind of guy, Ms. Deltone. I try to leave the campfire a little better than I found it.” Something else my dad used to say. “Why? You picture me driving a black and white?”

  We left Federal for the two lane heading west. I’d plugged her address into the GPS, and I knew exactly where she lived. Bad neighborhood. The kind that made me grateful I could carry a handgun. But, in the arms-loving state of Florida, everyone carries a handgun.

  “Oh, I see you as a sports car type. Definitely a convertible man. Top down, top shirt unbuttoned, ocean breezes streaming through your long auburn hair.” She laughed. “I know, you’ve had that regulation length buzz cut since, what, high school? ROTC? But how I see you is different.”

  My blush was making me hotter than hell, so I rolled up my window and blasted the AC. “Why are we talking about me, Ms. Deltone? We should be talking about you. Who was it you wanted to text back there, in the hospital?”

  “Nobody. It can wait.” She faced forward, flipped down the vanity mirror behind the sun visor. “I look like old barf on a china plate,” she said. “Not too appetizing.”

  I said nothing. Was she fishing for a compliment? This lake was dry. But my legs belied me, jumping around like they’d just been Tasered, doing a nervous dance on the pedals. I was already way out of control around this chick, but I wasn’t letting anyone know that. Least of all, me.

  When I parked in the lot for the drab brick apartment complex, we sat in the car for a minute. The sun was still hot but on its way down for the day. Relief would come soon. I cracked open my door, letting in the heat.

  She said, “I don’t suppose you want to come up for a drink.” Like we were on our first date.

  I snorted, got out of the car. She tried to climb out her side, but I’d locked her door the moment she got in. Only I could let her out.

  The uneven distribution of power turned me on, I must admit. It got me hard. I’d spent three or four hours with this woman, and I swear I’d been hard for most of that time.

  I unlocked her side and opened the door, reaching in to help her out. But she bent down, ignoring my outstretched hand. She removed the slippers and tossed them in the back of the car, climbed out on her own. Her steps were sure, even without shoes. The steaming asphalt didn’t seem to bother her. I’d have been hot footing it across the parking lot to the grass myself.

  The late afternoon sun beat down on us like it was high noon. I was sweating profusely as we made our way through the treeless vista. I hate west Dusky. All sprawl, no appeal. Florida, old Florida, was once a place of natural beauty. Wide blue skies, puffy white clouds, miles and miles of grassy river water. Tropical birds flying overhead, gators in the crystal clear lakes, snakes basking on flat rocks. But we’ve paved all that over, put up wall to wall ugly dwellings and their bubbling tar parking lots. Now we sprint from our air-conditioned cars to our carefully chilled homes and back again. What a waste.

  I followed her up to the side door, a thick metal one with peeling gray paint. When she realized she didn’t have her key, since her purse was down at the station,
she led me around the building to the front lobby. A black man lugging a big cardboard box was coming out the glass doors, so I held them open for him and we slipped inside.

  “We can go by the station and pick up your belongings after you change,” I offered. She’d need her keys to retrieve her car. And I wanted a look at her cell phone. I wanted to check her call history. I also wanted Ruben’s contact information, his business card. I planned on speed dialing him, see what I got.

  She nodded okay, led me to the stairwell and up three flights. I enjoyed the bounce of her buttocks in the too tight, too short cutoffs. Even the bloodstains on the back pockets were a turn on. I was in over my head on this one.

  It was somebody’s real estate marketing ploy to call the room she lived in a studio. Hot plate in one corner, single bed in another, clothes on a rolling rack by the saggy armchair. Only one small dusty window overlooking other depressing buildings with small dusty windows. The walls were a dirty white, and the top two layers of paint were peeling. The place was hot, stuffy, and smelled like her. Peppery, but somehow exotic and sweet.

  When I declined her offer of a cold drink, she took a moment to water a browning spider plant hanging by the window, dousing it with a glass of tap water. Then she excused herself to change out of her bloodied clothing.

  At least she had her own bathroom. Lots of times rooms like hers come with a shared toilet down the hall.

  She left the door open just enough that I could see in. And if I moved to the middle of the room, I could see what needed to be seen. She had to have known that. No way she didn’t think I was going to take the opportunity to look at her while she undressed.

  Her naked body was incredibly lovely. Sinewy, taut, yet curvy and smooth. She reminded me of a white marble statue of a goddess. Diana, maybe, goddess of the hunt.

  With more willpower than a man can be expected to summon, I managed to walk to the far end of the apartment. I made it a point to stare out the window at the neighbor’s clothesline, the banner display of torn undershirts, a pair of extra-large mauve undies. Life can be so tawdry when you’re poor.

  She came up behind me and placed a hand on the small of my back. I was sweaty, nervous about what I had seen, her nakedness. So even though I half-expected her touch, I flinched. She laughed. Her dress was short, peach-colored, and made of thin cotton. Her flip-flops had seen better days. Still, she looked enticing.

  “Nice damn view, ain’t it? Really gets me into a mood, this place. Maybe you can see why the money Ruben promised me sounded so good.”

  I could. I did. I looked down at her, and we both smiled a little. Another human moment. Something shifted inside me. I held myself in check, however, with another mighty display of will.

  “You ready?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to go by where I work first. I need to tell my boss I won’t be in tonight. Make sure he has the coverage. My friend Sandy will work for me. She owes me.”

  I started to say no, handing her my phone to call it in instead, but she shook her head. “See, the Kettle of Fish is right nearby. We can stop in and ask Chito about Ruben. See if anyone saw him after…”

  Her body quaked a little, enough that I asked if she were okay. “You need to sit for a minute?” I leaned in, grabbed her shoulder. I had a good foot on her, maybe a hundred pounds.

  She tightened up in my grip. There was strength underneath her thin muscles, a kind of small, compact power. Her breath smelled like spicy pineapple, her hair like tropical fruit. If she’d looked up at me in that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to resist.

  “I’m okay, thanks,” she said in a whisper. “Just freaks me out. I get tetchy when I think about it. The big guy I didn’t know, he was already dead. But the little guy, we talked. He was weird, kind of creepy. I know he was fucked up, and he hurt me. But still, it’s hard to believe he got killed. While I was in the room.”

  “Whatever is in that case Ruben wanted you to find for him must be very valuable. It must be worth a significant amount of money. After all, two people have been murdered in cold blood over the contents of the lambskin briefcase.”

  She eased out of my grasp. “I don’t want to think about that. Now that I’ll never get any of the money, I just want to forget about it.”

  This irritated me. “You feel cheated? Like they owed you some of their stash?”

  She walked away.

  “The money, the drugs, whatever’s in that case, you think you deserve a cut?” I followed her across the small room toward the door, but I didn’t want to leave. What I wanted was to push her down on the unmade bed and make mad, intense, mindless love to her. I wanted to fuck some sense into her silly head. “You still think they owe you something for your trouble?”

  When she stopped suddenly, I bumped into her. The heat coming off her backside was enormous. Maybe I wasn’t the only one with a raging passion.

  “I’ll help you find Ruben, Detective. But know this. It won’t improve my life, not even a little bit. I’m already struggling to stay afloat in a shit-water flood. With a hospital bill, missed days of work, a criminal case, and a head wound? This is no bullshit, my life has only gotten worse since I met Ruben Drake in the Kettle of Fish.”

  She was right. But this only made me want to fuck her more.

  When she opened the door, the real world rushed in. She was a kid in trouble, and I was a cop on duty. Instantly, I was glad I hadn’t acted on impulse. I wanted her, but that was not going to happen. Not while I was working on the case.

  She waited for me to exit, then shut the door behind us.

  “I’ll help you find Ruben,” she said. “He conned me. He deserves to be punished. But putting that guy behind bars won’t solve any of my problems.”

  We walked down the stairs, stepping around a bony guy in a dirty tan suit. He clutched a bottle wrapped in a brown bag.

  “Maybe I never should’ve left Lemon Run,” she said wistfully.

  “Maybe not. But you did, and now this is your life, Ms. Deltone. What you choose to do with the rest of it is up to you.”

  I sounded like such a douchebag. But what was I supposed to say? You done good, girlfriend? Maybe Lemon Run offered a better life for a rural girl like Rita Deltone.

  A top-heavy woman in neon orange polyester tights was bent over a plastic basket of laundry, blocking our way through the narrow lobby. The old bird pawed through raggedy clothing and towels, searching for something in the mess. As we squeezed past her single file, the woman looked up, gave me a knowing stare. Her black eyes glittered.

  I held the door for Rita, following her out of the building.

  The old lady called after us, “One day you’ll forget all this.”

  Chapter Six

  When we arrived at Burgers Plus, the joint was hopping. My stomach growled with anticipation and unmet desire. I found myself wishing we were there on a date. A nice, relaxing dinner date.

  I followed Rita back to the kitchen. The smell of hot grease was intoxicating. I must have looked like a hungry pup because she read my face.

  “Want a burger to go? I can order some food from the chef. Juan’s a good friend.”

  I nodded. “If that’s okay with your boss. Seems like the kitchen’s pretty busy.”

  Rita waved to a swarthy, sweaty cook flipping burgers on a vast grill. He yelled out, “Rita Rita Meter Maid,” and gave her a chin’s up.

  “We won’t ask my boss,” she said to me. “But I’ll talk to him while Juan makes us some food. You want onions?”

  I told her to load it up, then stood against the wall, out of the way of the bustling waitresses running in with orders and out with trays loaded with food. I watched the scrambling kitchen workers piling corned beef on rye bread and roast beef on thick French bread rolls. The overheated and loud room filled my head with the primal smell of grilled meat. I felt like growling, tearing into something bloody.

  After Rita finished chatting with the chef, she waved me over
. We walked past the ovens, past the coolers and dry storage and freezers, to a row of rooms off a narrow hallway. She stopped before a plywood door with a small sign that said King.

  “Name or title?” I asked her.

  She laughed. “Both. Marty King is the king of shit. But he likes me, so I get a lotta hours. And the tips are awesome on weekends.”

  Mr. King came to the door tucking in his shirt. Apparently unembarrassed to be caught dressing, he buckled up his Gucci belt and smoothed down his silk tie. “Baby,” he said to Rita. “What the fuck happened to you?” That’s when he noticed me. “And who’s this joker?”

  Rita announced in a chipper voice, “Mr. King. This is Detective Liam Donell. I’m helping him find the person responsible for my injury.” She touched her forehead while enunciating each word. As if he had either a hearing problem or Down’s syndrome. “So, may I have tonight off? I’m not very attractive right now. Nobody would want me to serve them.”

  “Not true,” King said. “You’re always gorgeous. But sure, go do your thing. I’ll get Sandy to stay on tonight. She needs the money anyway.” He gave me the once over. “You want some dinner, officer?”

  My stomach grumbled in response.

  “Tell Juan to fix him something, Rita.” His smile was slippery. “I like to keep Dusky Beach’s finest happy.”

  Most criminals did. King’s wide body blocked my view into the room behind him, but I managed to peer over his balding dome. A dark-haired girl in a green leather office chair by King’s massive and messy desk was only half-dressed. And young. Too young.

  He stiffened when I gave him a hard cop stare. “Thanks for the food. I may be back sometime. Without Ms. Deltone.”

  “You come by anytime. Happy to feed ya,” he told me, not meeting my eyes.

  His smile slid right off his face when I said, “Maybe I’ll do that. I’ve heard interesting things about your staff.”