Fatal Exposure (9 page)

Brynn rose and joined him at the sink. “You don’t believe he abused her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You mean you don’t want to know.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“You didn’t have to. He’s a cop. He’s so high up he’s out of reach. He can do whatever he wants, and no one gives a damn, no matter who his victims are.”

Parker’s jaw went hard, the accusation hitting too close to home. His father had been above the law—or so he’d thought. “That’s not true.”

“Right.” She scoffed in disbelief.

His own temper flared, her poor opinion of the police force rankling him. “Listen, Brynn. I don’t care who he is, whether he’s the head of C.I.D. or some derelict on the street. If he’s guilty, I’m going to find out. But I have to follow the law. I can’t accuse him without proof.”

“Proof?” Incredulity rang in her voice. “You saw that photo.”

“It isn’t enough. It’s
not,
” he continued when she opened her mouth to argue. “I agree that it looks bad. And I’m willing to investigate. But an accusation like this could destroy his life. I can’t do that to him until I’m sure.”

Her eyes flashed. She propped her fists on her hips. “And what about the children he’s destroyed? Don’t you care that he ruined their lives?”

“Of course I do.” The thought of a helpless child suffering such depravity made him ill. “But I still have to have some proof.”

Knowing he hadn’t convinced her, he shoved his hand through his hair. “Listen. My dad was the perfect father. He coached Little League and soccer. He led my Cub Scout troop. He was a cop, a hero. Everyone thought he was great, especially us—until the news came out that he had this whole police bribery thing going on.”

She went still. “You’re saying he wasn’t guilty?”

“No. He was guilty as hell. There wasn’t any doubt. And when he realized he couldn’t hide it...” He inhaled, anger and sorrow churning through him, even now. “He ate his gun. He took the coward’s way out, leaving me to deal with the mess.”

She pressed her hand to her throat. “You’re not saying... You didn’t find him?”

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes, struggling to block out the memory of the gore. “I heard the shot and went inside the house.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Parker. I didn’t know.”

“Tommy never told you?”

Her eyes still huge, she shook her head.

“The point is that it ruined our lives. My mom just shriveled up. Her mind went AWOL overnight. She died soon after that. And you saw what happened to Tommy. He’d been using drugs before, but the suicide pushed him over the edge. He got hooked and ran away.”

“And you?” she asked, her voice wavering slightly.

“I dealt with it.”

“It couldn’t have been easy.”

“No.” They had been the worst years of his life—his mother in full retreat, his brother determined to self-destruct, Parker’s integrity under fire at work. “But I know what it feels like to have your world fall apart. I know what an accusation like this can do—not just to the person who’s accused, but to everyone around him. And I can’t inflict that on anyone until I’m sure.”

Her gaze held his, the sympathy in her eyes reeling him in. And a sudden longing whispered through him, the temptation to tug her close, to bask in her comfort and warmth and feel that he wasn’t alone.

She reached up and stroked his jaw, the slight touch jump-starting his pulse. And another emotion washed through him, a need so sharp it stole his breath. He grabbed her wrist, stilling her hand, keeping her soft, delicate fingers trapped against his jaw.

His heart tapped a ragged beat. Sudden heat thickened his blood. And, without warning, far more than sympathy crackled between them. That hunger simmering beneath the surface exploded to life, too potent to ignore.

His gaze fell to her mouth. She moistened her lips with her tongue, sending a swift shaft of heat arrowing straight to his groin. His body went taut, the insistent urge to touch her flaying his blood. He wanted to inhale her arresting scent, make her breath turn jagged and fast, feel her bare skin slick against his.

Unable to resist, he pulled her against him.

“This is a bad idea,” she whispered, her gaze fastened on his mouth.

“Really bad.” But then why did it feel like the only thing he’d done right in a long, long time?

He released her hand, then slid his thumb along her jaw, tilting her chin toward his. He plunged his other hand through her hair, wrapping the silky strands around his fist the way he’d ached to, the shimmering satin igniting his nerves.

Her eyes fluttered closed. He bent his head, the erotic scent of her filling his senses, her nearness weakening his restraint. Then he slanted his mouth over hers, her thrilling taste turning his blood hot. Wreaking havoc on his good intentions. Incinerating his resolve.

Her lips parted, allowing him entry. Making a low, rough sound of approval, he hauled her more fully into his arms, taking her lips in a hungry kiss. His body went rock-hard, the alluring feel of her blurring his mind. He dropped one hand to the small of her back, aligning her lower body more firmly against him, and the feel of her hips cradling his shaft nearly sent him over the edge.

She was sultry, delicate, soft, as exciting as he’d imagined, her intoxicating taste driving him wild.

But this was nuts. She was a suspect, a person of interest in his brother’s case, no matter how crazed she made him feel.

With effort, he broke the kiss. His breath sawing, his heart thundering, he pulled her head to his chest. Then he closed his eyes, struggling to regain control, but it took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to forget his honor—or his sanity—and give in to the explosive hunger riding them both.

After a moment, he eased back farther, putting some badly needed space between them. He couldn’t screw this up. He had too much at stake. But the sight of her kiss-swollen lips and her eyes dark with desire nearly brought him to his knees.

She cleared her throat and stepped back, a soft flush staining her cheeks. “Listen, Parker. I can’t... This isn’t...”

“I know. Bad timing.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, but the raw need in her eyes contradicted her words, tempting him to forget his good intentions and yank her back into his arms.

She nodded. “But about Hoffman—”

“I still need proof.”

“I know. But I’m worried about those kids.” Fear crept back through her eyes. “I’m scared he’ll hurt someone else.”

Parker understood. And without warning, snippets from Brynn’s file flitted through his mind, hints at the evil she must have endured—assuming her accusations were true. But he didn’t dare go there just yet. It would make him way too crazy to think of what she’d suffered and how badly she’d been betrayed. He had to try to stay impartial for now.

But he had the sinking feeling it was far too late for that. That kiss had just blown away any objectivity he’d had.

“We’d better go,” she said. “It’s time to meet with Jamie.”

“Yeah.” They had to find that prostitute, the one with the borrowed necklace—their only clue right now. “But Brynn...”

Pausing, she glanced back.

“I give you my word. We’ll get to the truth.” Because if someone had killed Erin Walker, Parker intended to bring him down.

No matter who the hell he was.

* * *

Brynn snuck a glance at Parker’s profile as they walked along a side street in search of Jamie, her head still spinning from that kiss. She’d spent the thirty-minute drive from Parker’s condo to downtown Baltimore in a haze of lust, unable to focus on a single thought. Even traipsing through the chilly evening air hadn’t helped. Just the sight of his hard-planed face, the memory of that wicked mouth on hers, sent thrills shuddering and skipping through her veins.

But it was learning about his background—the crushing disillusionment he’d suffered about his father, how he’d struggled to hold his family together after that weak-willed man checked out—that really demolished her equilibrium, making it impossible to stay detached. Parker was more complex than she’d expected, more human, a man she was rapidly coming to respect.

But she couldn’t afford to think like that. That killer might be searching for her. A dangerous predator was on the loose, preying on innocent kids. And getting involved with a cop could be suicidal, no matter how much she wanted to trust him—or how delirious he made her feel.

But oh, that man could kiss...

Still struggling to pull herself together, she glanced down the darkened street, noting how oddly empty it seemed. No hookers sauntered past. No men loitered or milled around. An occasional car drove by, heading to Garrison Boulevard a block away, but the street was strangely subdued. Across from a broken streetlight, two teens loitered on the steps of a row house, talking on their cell phones. But Jamie was nowhere in sight.

Brynn braved a peek at Parker, another sizzle of awareness scattering her pulse when he met her eyes. “I’ll ask those guys if they’ve seen her,” she said, hoping that putting some distance between them would get her mind on track.

“I’ll do it.” He loped up the sidewalk. She followed more slowly, her gaze roaming from the impossible width of his shoulders in his leather jacket to the sexy fit of his faded jeans. She stifled a sigh. She had it bad, all right. Just looking at Parker put her hormones in overdrive. But it was time to get a grip.

The two boys rose as Parker approached. But then they took off running, slipping into the shadows beside the house. “Hey!” he called, but they vanished into the night.

Parker swung back around, a scowl on his handsome face. “What the hell?”

“They probably realized you were a cop.” Not a popular profession in this part of town. But where was Jamie? And why were the streets so deserted? This time of night, more people should be hanging around.

Brynn frowned at the murky shadows, apprehension plucking her nerves. Smashed glass littered the street. A gang-tagged car sat rusting by the curb. A black cat slunk past, then squeezed under a chain-link fence, disappearing into a weed-choked lot.

Something is about to go down here.
The street was too quiet. Tension screamed in the air. “I don’t like this.”

“I agree. Something’s off. Let’s get out of here.”

Glad he hadn’t resisted, Brynn turned back toward Parker’s car. But then a woman emerged from an alley half a block away. Heading in the opposite direction, she strutted down the sidewalk, her high-heeled boots and spandex skirt advertising her trade.

Brynn placed her hand on Parker’s arm. “Hold on a minute. Maybe I can get her to talk.”

She jogged after the woman to catch up. A lone car rumbled past. The hooker ran into the street to flag it down, then let loose with a stream of obscenities as it sped off.

“Excuse me,” Brynn called out. She hurried past the junked car.

The hooker spun around to face her, her heavily made-up eyes narrowing to slits. She looked about sixty, but was probably closer to Brynn’s own age, with tricolored hair resembling a rat’s nest atop her head. Her huge breasts swayed in her halter top.

“I’m looking for Jamie,” Brynn said. “She hangs out near here. Do you know her?”

The woman backed up and shook her head. “I got nothing to do with her.” She spun around to leave.

“Wait!” Brynn lunged forward and stopped her, unwilling to give up yet. “Please. She’s my friend. I really need to talk to her.”

The hooker blinked. “How you going to do that?”

This time Brynn went still. “What do you mean?”

“She’s dead.”

“Dead?” Brynn gaped at her in disbelief. “But...that’s impossible. I talked to her yesterday, and she was fine.”

“Gangbangers,” the hooker told her as a deep rumble drummed the air. “They...”

A low-riding car turned onto the street, its headlights cutting through the gloom. Suddenly all business, the hooker pulled down her top to reveal more cleavage, stepped off the curb and thrust out a heavy hip. But then her dark eyes bulged. Her jaw went slack, her face turning stark with fear. Swearing, she whirled around and fled, moving faster than Brynn thought possible on her spiked heels.

“Wait!” Brynn called, but the hooker darted between two sagging porches and disappeared.

Still reeling from the news about Jamie, Brynn headed back down the sidewalk toward Parker, one eye on the approaching car. She couldn’t believe that Jamie was dead. Why would gang members kill a young prostitute like her? Unless Jamie’s murder had something to do with
her...

The lowrider car puttered closer. The deep blast of its subwoofers vibrated the ground. The feeling of imminent danger mounting, she hurried to catch up to Parker, anxious to get off the street.

But then the lowrider drew even with them and stopped. The passenger window rolled down.

The barrel of a gun appeared.

Parker lunged forward and knocked her down, shoving her to the sidewalk behind the gang-tagged car just as they opened fire.

Chapter 8

B
rynn lay plastered under Parker, bullets thudding and pinging into the car beside them, his heavy body pinning her down.

Gangbangers were trying to kill them. They had to get out of there fast. She shoved against Parker, her survival instincts shrieking at her to run, but his dead weight kept her trapped.

“Don’t move!” he shouted into her ear. “Stay behind the engine block.” Pulling his pistol from his back holster, he leaped to his feet and returned fire, the deafening barks making her flinch. She crawled to a crouch, the cement rough on her palms, and searched for a way to escape. But they’d never make it. The nearest house was half a dozen yards away—and they’d be dead before they ran three feet.

Parker ducked behind the car again, a battle raging in his dark eyes. “I said to stay down,” he growled, whipping out his cell phone. He lifted it to his mouth.

Brynn’s heart stopped. He was going to call the police. She grabbed hold of his wrist. “No, don’t!”

“What?”

“Don’t call,” she begged as incredulity flooded his eyes. “I can’t... I’ll explain later. Please,” she added, praying he’d listen.

He stared at her for a heartbeat. Then another barrage of gunfire broke out, and he swore. He pocketed the phone and waited a beat, then jumped to his feet and pumped out several more rounds. Brynn clapped her hands to her ringing ears.

She knew Parker thought she was insane. It was lunacy to resist calling for backup when they were pinned behind this car. But the police meant involving her stepfather—a danger she couldn’t afford.

Wishing desperately that she still had her handgun, she scoured the street, frantic to find a way out. But the narrow trees wouldn’t offer protection. The nearby porches were too exposed, assuming they could make it up the steps. Farther down the street was that empty lot—but it was still too far away.

She beat back a swell of panic, the feeling of helplessness she most despised. She was
not
going to die here. She refused to let these street punks do her in after everything she’d endured. She spotted a bottle in the gutter and grabbed it, marginally reassured. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but at least she could try to fight back.

Parker crouched beside her. He ejected his spent magazine, took another from his holster and slammed it into his gun. Something moved at the edge of Brynn’s vision. Her panic exploding, she whipped up and hurled the bottle at their assailant—just as a shot barked out. The bullet went wild, and she flung herself back down. Parker jumped up and got off several more rounds.

The car’s engine roared. Tires screeched, a thick, choking cloud of exhaust billowing past as the driver gunned the accelerator and peeled off. Her heart still stampeding wildly, Brynn rose and peered around. Smoke swirled through the haze from a nearby porch light. The stench of sulfur permeated the air. She drew in a breath, the abrupt silence reverberating in her eardrums, her legs trembling so badly she could barely stand.

“Why didn’t you stay down?” Parker raged. “You could have been killed.”

“He was going to shoot you.” She heaved in another breath. “Did you get him?”

“Yeah.” His expression still fierce, he took her arm. “Come on. We need to get out of here before they come back.”

The gang would retaliate, all right. Parker had just provided them with another reason to want them dead.

But why had the gang attacked them to begin with? And why had they done Jamie in? Her thoughts winging back to the teenager, she raced after Parker down the empty street, her feet crunching over broken glass. This couldn’t be a coincidence. That gang had gone after Jamie right after Brynn had talked to her.

Jamie was dead because of her.

Hardly able to grasp it, she hurried toward Parker’s truck. He beeped it open, and she dove inside, but she couldn’t avoid the truth. All these years she’d guarded her secrets. It had been the only way to keep her friends safe. Even now, years of ingrained caution were clamoring at her to run, stay quiet,
hide.
But that strategy no longer worked. Innocent people were dying because of her. First Tommy. Now Jamie. Even her agent had nearly lost her life.

She might even be responsible for Erin’s death. Her continued silence had enabled a dangerous predator to operate undetected, harming untold numbers of kids.

She stole a look at Parker’s profile, her stomach a flurry of dread. But no matter how much it scared her, she knew what she had to do. She had to reveal what she’d witnessed that awful night, why she didn’t want him to call the police.

And how she’d caused his brother’s death.

Parker cranked the truck’s powerful engine and sped away from the curb. Fastening her seat belt, she scoured her mind for another option, but that gang had forced her hand. She had to make a leap of faith and confess the truth.

She just prayed that Parker would believe her—or neither of them would survive.

* * *

Brynn was still gathering her courage half an hour later as she huddled on the leather sofa in Parker’s condo, clutching a throw blanket over her shoulders in a futile attempt to warm up. Her hands were like blocks of ice. The adrenaline dump from that shooting had left her so shaken she could hardly hold on to a thought. But she had to pull herself together fast.

Parker came through his kitchen doorway, cradling a crystal tumbler in each big hand. “Vodka,” he announced, handing her a glass. He took his seat on the sofa beside her, making the cushions sink. He’d removed his leather jacket and pushed up the sleeves of his faded blue Henley, exposing the sinews of his muscled arms. Warmth beckoned from his solid frame, making her yearn to lean close.

Instead she sipped her vodka, shuddering as it burned her throat. “Did you find out anything?” She’d heard Parker phoning his coworkers for information as he’d poured their drinks.

He nodded, his dark eyes grim. “They received a discharge call, a report that shots were fired. They sent a patrol unit to investigate.”

“Do they know that you were involved?”

“They’ll figure it out eventually. They can trace the shells to my gun. But unless they find something that connects it to Jamie, they won’t investigate it for a while. They’ve got too many homicides to deal with first. That buys us a couple of days, at least.”

Brynn took another swallow of vodka. Baltimore was a violent city. Unless there was a victim, a simple report of shots fired would be a low priority. “What about Jamie?”

“They found her in Lincoln Park. That’s a standard spot for a dump job. Rigor mortis puts her death at around six last night. She still had money—several hundred bucks—so it wasn’t a robbery. All signs point to the Ridgewood gang.”

“That’s what the hooker said, that the gang killed her.” Like the execution she’d witnessed years ago. Brynn closed her eyes, bile swarming through her belly at the thought. She could only pray that Jamie hadn’t suffered, that the end had been mercifully swift.

“It’s my fault,” she admitted, feeling sick.

“Why do you say that?”

Brynn shifted her gaze to him. She took in his dark, knitted brows, the stark, steely planes of his thoroughly masculine face. He looked dependable, invincible, strong.

Leap of faith,
she reminded herself. She had to trust him. She could no longer do this alone. She took a gulp of vodka for courage and shivered hard. “I didn’t tell you, but the night you found me, the night you came to my house, my agent, Joan Kellogg, had been attacked.”

“The one in Alexandria?”

“You know her?”

He shook his head. “Just her name.”

Of course he would know all that. He was a detective—a darned good one since he’d managed to track her down.

“That’s where I went after you left my house,” she continued. “I wanted to warn her that you’d shown up and that the media could be next. But when I got there, she’d been attacked. She said the guy was after me. He was Caucasian, with black hair and a snake tattoo.”

“The Ridgewood gang. That’s their symbol.”

Brynn nodded, then choked more vodka down. “That’s not all. I thought someone was following me when we met at the coffee shop the next day. But I figured I’d imagined it. Or that maybe I’d lost him. I must have been wrong. He must have followed me to Jamie. Although I don’t know how....”

“Why would the gang be after you?”

Good question.
Knowing the time had come to answer, she swallowed hard. “I’m not exactly sure. It’s a different gang. But I think it’s connected to a gang execution I witnessed fifteen years ago.” She forced herself to meet his eyes. “That was the day your brother died.”

Parker went stone-still. His gaze didn’t veer from hers. A clock ticked in the kitchen, in time to her thumping heart. “I told you I met Tommy on the streets,” she continued. “We were friends. Just friends,” she added in case he was wondering. “I was really young. And I...I was a real mess back then.”

She’d been so incredibly damaged, so utterly alone. So terrified and furious at the world. Betrayed by everyone who should have helped her. She’d gone berserk whenever a man came near.

But Tommy had been different. He’d never looked at her in that sick, sadistic way she’d come to associate with men. He’d wormed through her defenses, renewing her hope that good people still existed, even if a monster had preyed on her.

“I had two other friends, two girls I hung around with,” she continued. “They’d run away, too. Haley got pregnant, and her family disowned her. Nadine was a little older, seventeen, I think. Her family was Middle Eastern. They were trying to force her into an arranged marriage. They threatened to kill her if she didn’t obey.” A threat they intended to carry out, even now, if they ever caught up to her.

“We stayed together for protection at first. It’s not easy to survive on the streets without a pimp.” And Brynn would have killed herself before she’d let a man touch her again.

“None of us knew how hard it would be. The hunger, the violence... We weren’t prepared for that. So we stuck together to survive.”

She slid Parker a glance. He sat immobile, tension rippling from his steel-hard frame. “Tommy watched out for us, too. He kept the men away, made sure they knew we weren’t alone. He was kind to us.” She paused. “You have no idea how rare that is on the streets.”

Parker looked away, his Adam’s apple working in his whiskered throat. Her heart rolled, knowing how painful this had to be for him to hear.

“We tried to help him, too,” she said, her own chest tight. “We made sure he had blankets and food. We took him to the needle exchange. He...he wasn’t alone, Parker. We’d formed a family of sorts.”

Parker set his glass on the coffee table, then pressed his fingertips to his eyes. The slump of his broad shoulders, the anguish seeping from his powerful body made her yearn to console him, to wrap her arms around him and hold him close. But she had to tell him the rest before she lost her nerve.

Even if he despised her when she did.

“I had a camera, an old thirty-five-millimeter Yashica. It belonged to my father—my real father. He was an amateur photographer. He mostly took nature shots. We used to go on long hikes through the woods... He taught me how to see things differently, to look at the colors and light. He made everything seem beautiful, magical.” She’d only been five or six, but she still remembered those days vividly—the enchantment, the wonder, the joy. They’d been the best days of her life.

“That camera...it meant the world to me.” It was her prized possession, her only link to her beloved father, and the only thing that had kept her sane. “Anyhow, I got it in my head to photograph an abandoned warehouse near Orleans Street. It had the most amazing historic details. And it...affected me somehow, how sad and ruined it was. I wanted to capture it on film.

“It was dumb. The C.D. gang owned the streets around there. The City of the Dead. They ran the heroin trade back then. Tommy tried to convince me not to do it. So did Haley and Nadine. But I wouldn’t listen. I thought I’d be safe if I went early enough in the day.

“I went the next afternoon. Nadine and Haley insisted on coming with me, even though they didn’t approve. But we’d gotten a late start. Haley had found a stray cat.” Even then Haley had been a nurturer, trying to rescue everyone in sight.

“And Tommy?” Parker asked, his voice unsteady.

“He wasn’t around when we woke up. I didn’t know where he’d gone. When we got to the warehouse, Haley and Nadine refused to go inside. They were smart.” Brynn stared, unseeing, at her glass, a cold pit forming around her heart. How many times had she wished she could relive that moment and listen to them this time? “I thought I’d be okay.”

She’d never been more wrong.

She drained her glass of vodka, set it on the coffee table and pushed it aside. Then she pulled the blanket closer around her in a useless attempt to warm up. “I started taking pictures. It was a big place, the walls all covered with gang tags.” Another warning she’d ignored. “I kept going in deeper, where there wasn’t much light. The shadows brought out the textures in the walls, little fissures and defects that the sunlight hid....”

Just like with people. Their real nature emerged in the dark.

Shivering, she pulled her mind back on track. “Then I heard voices. I thought it was just a drug deal. I should have turned around.” Another fatal mistake.

“The next room had a big window along one wall, the glass all busted out. It looked out at an inner courtyard. The voices were coming from there, so I went to see. A man was kneeling on the ground. He had his back to me, and I could see that his hands were tied. He was crying.”

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memory of that horrific, high-pitched sound. A man reduced to his most primitive instinct, whimpering and pleading for his life.

“I couldn’t see his face, but he looked older, middle-aged. He had a bald spot, and he was wearing a blue plaid shirt and slacks. Not the kind of clothes someone younger would wear.”

“He was forty-five.” Parker sounded numb. “His name was Allen Chambers. He was a heroin addict from Dumfries, Virginia. His hands weren’t bound when they found him, but there were bruises on his wrists.”