Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (8 page)

Chapter Ten

Eva was the absolute last person Cam expected to find on his porch when he answered the doorbell, and the unexpected punch of seeing her again after days of no voluntary contact from her left him breathless. She looked…exhausted. Her white dress shirt hung wrinkled and untucked from her jeans. Mud coated her boots. She’d given up on any semblance of a fashionable hairstyle and had pulled her straight locks back into a sloppy ponytail that had long since wilted.

She opened her mouth, but no sound emerged.

Cam pulled the door wider. “Want to come in?”

“No.” The word sounded forced, as if she had to speak around an obstruction in her windpipe to get it out. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders under her favorite leather jacket. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do.” He scanned the street behind her, half-expecting to see snow because of the bite in the air. Nope, not yet. On its way, though, or so said the talking heads on
The Weather Channel
. The early winter storm was supposed to hit most of the east coast fast and hard, with The District and Baltimore sustaining the brunt of it. The roads would be a mess by morning and although it wasn’t yet eight p.m., everything was quiet, everyone tucked up cozy inside their homes in anticipation—the kind of dead stillness that only happened during the wintertime, as if even the city herself was holding her breath waiting for those first flakes to fall.

“I’d prefer to talk inside,” Cam said after a drawn out silence. He wore only his sweatpants and an old Air Force T-shirt he’d had since basic training and the cold stung his bare skin. “It’s freezing out here.”

She hesitated. “Is Vaughn home?”

“No. He’s working a case and will probably be at the office most of the night. If not all night. You know how he gets. Dog with a bone.”

After another beat of hesitation, she stepped inside. As she passed, the trace scents of recent death and clean snow trailed in behind her. No wonder she was tired. She’d probably been working since he last saw her this morning.

Eva stood in the center of his living room like a stranger who had never been here before. Swung her arms at her sides, then seemed to realize what she was doing and crossed them in front of her.

Yeah, this wasn’t awkward at all.

“Have a seat,” Cam said and motioned to the only furniture in the room, a giant, L-shaped sectional. When the doorbell rang, he’d been sitting at the end with the built-in recliners, his computer on his lap. He’d spent the day combing through his old cases, trying to figure out who’d want him dead, running checks to see if anyone he’d put away had recently gotten paroled. So far he’d only come up with two names—Arnold Mabry and Tom Lindquist. Mabry was a factory worker who killed his second wife in a fit of passion after finding her in bed with his adult son from his first marriage. He’d made some drunken threats during his arrest, but Cam didn’t see him as a real suspect in the murder-for-hire plot. Lindquist, on the other hand, basically beat the system and had all but gotten away with the premeditated murder of his next door neighbor over a property dispute. The guy was a vicious bastard, who still occasionally harassed Cam in subtle ways that stopped just short of being illegal.

Cam would look into them both, but he wasn’t convinced of their involvement, and other than those two, he wasn’t having much luck with his search. He’d handled a hell of a lot of cases over the years, had pissed off a lot of people, which meant he was in for a lot of digging.

The woman standing in front of him right now was the only person he’d consider asking for help, but he didn’t want her involved any more than he wanted his brothers asking around. If the danger was real, it was his to deal with, and he wasn’t about to let anybody he cared about get caught in the crossfire.

As casually as possible, he shut the lid on his laptop so Eva wouldn’t see the screen.

The TV was on
Investigation Discovery
, but he hadn’t been paying much attention to the true-crime show about a serial killer and picked up the remote to shut it off. He regretted it immediately. The sudden lack of background noise only deepened the awkwardness between them and all sorts of off-limit thoughts rushed in to fill the empty silence between his ears. He wanted to scoop her up and take her into his room. Strip her out of those day-old clothes and hold her under the spray of his shower until she relaxed. Help her wash away the remnants of what must have been a hellish day. Then fuck her until she completely forgot about it.

And he was wearing sweatpants. Perfect. No hiding the perky reaction of his cock to those thoughts. He dropped to his seat on the couch. “So what’s up?”

Genius, Wilde.

Despite his invitation to sit, Eva stayed rooted where she stood. “I need to get a statement from you.”

Cam fumbled the remote still in his hand, caught it before it hit the floor, and set it aside. Okay. Not what he’d expected her to say. “Excuse me?”

“This morning, a 9-1-1 call from a concerned civilian led officers to an empty parking lot, where they discovered a deceased white male slumped beside a Dumpster. We eventually identified him as Steven Donald Goodman, better known as—”

“Soup.” Cam’s heart plunged into his gut. “Aw, shit. What happened to him?”

Appearing more at ease in her role as detective, Eva finally moved around the end of the couch and sat down—as far from him as she could get and still be on the same piece of furniture. She withdrew a small notepad and pen from an inner jacket pocket. “There was some blood on the scene, but we’ve concluded it was from a nasty hit to the head when he fell. It appears to be a drug overdose. No other outward signs of trauma besides the head wound, and he presented all the symptoms. But, you know, unattended death. We have to investigate.”

“Goddammit.” Cam slapped his knee, mostly out of an impotent sense of frustration. But he wasn’t surprised. Soup had been on a downward spiral for a while now. It was only a matter of time until this happened.

Except…

At any other time in his acquaintance with Soup, he’d one-hundred percent buy into the death by drug overdose theory. But it was one hell of a coincidence that he’d asked Soup to dig up more information on man who wanted him dead and now Soup was no longer drawing breath.

Too fucking much of a coincidence.

He opened his mouth to tell Eva about it, but clamped his jaw shut without making a sound. If nothing else, Soup’s murder told him he was dealing with someone very dangerous, someone who had no qualms about killing whoever stood in the way. He couldn’t get her involved in this. Wouldn’t take the risk she’d get hurt.

“What I need to know,” Eva continued, drawing him back to the conversation, “is why he was wearing your old Carhartt jacket when he died.”

Shit. To a suspicious mind, the presence of his jacket on a dead man probably didn’t look too good. At least, it wouldn’t if he were investigating this case. “How do you know it’s mine?”

“Oh, don’t even. You wore that thing for how many years?” She rolled her eyes, and he had to hide a smile. This was more like it: Eva falling back into their old habit of friendly bickering, all awkwardness gone.

“I know that jacket when I see it,” she added. “The hole in the armpit. Coffee stain on the sleeve. Broken zipper that only you can work. With your connection to him and your habit of giving away your clothes…” She shrugged and crossed her legs, balancing her notebook on her knee. “Doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out where the jacket came from. Since he hadn’t sold it for dope yet, I concluded you had contact with him recently. I need an official statement so I can wrap this up, go home, and finally go to bed.”

Eva. In bed. Naked.

No, not an appropriate line of thought.

Cam made himself focus on the conversation and not on how good she looked, even wrinkled and muddy, but his gaze kept wandering to her lovely long legs. He remembered the feel of those legs clenched around his hips as he—

“Wilde!” Eva’s sharp voice broke through his wandering thoughts. “Focus.”

He shook his head to dislodge the fantasy of having her wrapped around him again. But, man, he couldn’t seem to help himself.

He wanted her. Still. Always.

Shifting in his seat, he hoped she was far enough away that she wouldn’t notice his cock’s growing interest. “Uh, yeah.” He voice came out rusty and he took a second to clear his throat. “I saw Soup yesterday and gave him the coat.”

“All right,” she said, her tone much cooler than it had been. And there was the awkwardness again. “What about the five hundred dollars in the pocket?”

His entire attention refocused on the conversation. “How much?”

“Five brand new hundred dollar bills,” she said.

Christ. Had Soup accepted a down payment for the hit? A thread of betrayal weaved through his gut even though he shouldn’t feel anything at all. Soup hadn’t been a friend. Had barely been an acquaintance.

“Do you know where he could have gotten that much?” Eva asked.

“No. I paid him twenty after he gave me some info. As far as I knew, that was all the cash he had.”

“What info?” she asked.

Yeah, definitely not telling her that. “Something about the case my brothers and I are working. Nothing major.”

“Okay,” she said. “So you didn’t accidentally leave any money in the jacket?”

“Hell no. I had the two tens in my jeans pocket, that’s it. I left my wallet locked in my car, just like I always do when I meet an informant. Besides, I don’t often carry around five hundred in cash.”

“I didn’t think so.” She jotted a few notes, then closed her notebook and stood. “Thanks. I need to go write up my report.”

She was fast. Almost made it to the door before he caught her wrist. “Whoa. That’s it?”

“Yeah.” She feigned nonchalance with a shrug. “Like I said, it looks like a straight forward drug overdose. I only needed your statement so I can write up my report. Once we get the toxicology and autopsy results, we can close it out.”

“That’s not what I meant, Eva.”

“I know what you meant,” she snapped and twisted out of his grasp. “But I can’t deal with…” She waved a hand in the air between them. “This. Us. Not when I’ve been awake over twenty-four hours and—and with everything else. I can’t.”

To his complete surprise, tears welled in her eyes, but they didn’t spill over. She’d never let them spill in front of him, and that fucking stung. “Come on, Eva. Talk to me.”

“Fine.” She met his gaze and her hand settled lightly on his chest. He was ninety-eight percent sure she had no idea it was there, but he sure as fuck knew and his heart damn near leaped out to meet her palm.

“I don’t want to lose our friendship,” she said matter-of-factly.

Friendship. Right. He exhaled and backed away a step so he could think without her hands on him. Her eyes rounded as if she just realized what she’d been doing, and she crossed her arms over her chest, the tips of her cheeks turning red. He’d always adored that blush. As tough as she was, she could never hide her emotions because her skin showed them all—embarrassment, anger, frustration.

Lust.

Oh, yeah. This particular blush was more lust than anything else. She projected all kinds of I-want-you-naked vibes, and it was driving him crazy because she was so freaked out about it, and he had no idea how to put her at ease.

He cast around for something comforting to say…

And settled on lying through his teeth.

“What are you talking about? We’re not gonna lose anything.” Even as he laughed it off, he felt like a complete ass. She hated liars, and here he was feeding her the biggest line of bullshit ever. “That night in Key West? It was one night of drunk sex. No big deal.”

She dropped her arms to her sides and the splashes of color he loved so much drained right out of her complexion. “I thought…with the things you said…you don’t want more than that?”

Fuck yes he did, but not until she was comfortable with the idea. He forced a chuckle, relieved when it came out sounding natural and not like a frog had taken up residence in his throat. “C’mon, you know me. Am I the type of guy to settle down and do the relationship thing? Nah. We’re good. Still friends.”

…

Ouch.

No. She shoved away the completely ridiculous spike of pain his words sent spearing through her chest. This was a good thing. He didn’t want any kind of relationship with her beyond their friendship. She should be relieved. Dammit, she
was
relieved.

So why the hell was her throat tightening up?

Exhaustion, that’s why. She was too damn tired to be having this conversation with him. “I need to go.”

As she spun away, his sigh was noisy and full of resignation. “Let me get my jacket.”

“What?” She whirled around in time to see him open the closet and pull out a pair of beat-up Nikes, which he slipped his bare feet into, and his new winter coat. Oh, hell no. The whole point of leaving was to escape him. “I’m perfectly capable—”

“It wasn’t an offer,” he interrupted with a scowl as he stuffed his arms in the sleeves. “It was a statement of fact. You’ve been awake too many hours to be driving anywhere and I’ll feel like shit if you fall asleep at the wheel and kill yourself.”

Well, that was a cheery thought. And, she realized, a very real possibility since her eyelids now weighed about fifty pounds each. “What about my car? I’ll need it tomorrow for—”

“I’ll drive yours and take a cab home.” He picked up his wallet from the foyer table then opened the door for her and stood aside, motioning her to go first.