The Woman Who Wasn't There Read online

  He had a feeling she had more than enough to give. After finishing his coffee, he set the cup down, not willing to leave just yet. He wanted to know more, anything she was willing to share.

  “So how did this morning’s raid go? Since we didn’t get in a call, I take it the subject of this raid turned out to be breathing.”

  She grinned without realizing it. “Inhaling actually.”

  It took him a second to draw his eyes away from her expression. He felt like a man in a trance. Or a man who’d just been kicked where he lived. By a mule with heavy iron horseshoes.

  “Come again?”

  “The guy we were raiding was smoking marijuana.”

  Nodding as he took in the information, Troy drew the logical conclusion. “So he was busted.”

  When he saw Delene bite her lower lip, something stirred in his belly. He had a sudden urge to do the same, to gently chew on her lower lip and sample the taste of her mouth. No doubt about it. The more he saw the lady, the more he wanted to see her. And to win her over.

  He’d never felt quite this determined before.

  Because she wasn’t answering, he revised his guess 180 degrees. “He wasn’t busted?”

  Delene shrugged, looking away. Troy reached across the small table, putting his hand over hers to get her attention. She jumped, pulling back as if he’d just burned her.

  “I’m not wearing a wire, Delene. I’m not here to trap you,” he assured her. “You can trust me.”

  It was the first time he’d used her first name. He was getting much too personal. She needed to resurrect the space between them. “I don’t make it a habit to trust anyone, Detective Cavanaugh.”

  But he saw something in her eyes. Something that spoke to the very core of him. Something vulnerable. And he wanted to protect her. To make her feel safe even if she wouldn’t admit that she felt exposed.

  “Don’t you think it’s about time you called me something a little less formal than Detective Cavanaugh?”

  Her eyes met his. She refused to give an inch, knowing if she did, she’d be losing a mile. “No.”

  “Okay.” He inclined his head indulgently. “I can wait.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Most other men would have walked out by now. Or at the very least, uttered a curse and written her off. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  He was smiling at her. Damn him, why did he have to have such a sexy smile? She could feel its effects right down to the pit of her stomach, to the ends of her toes. She blamed it on not having made love in five years. More. It had been so long, she wasn’t even sure if any of the equipment involved still worked.

  “Why would you wait? Why are you bothering?” she demanded, her tone rising along with her ire. “Is this some kind of a conquest thing with you, Cavanaugh?” She deliberately used his last name to let him see that no headway was made. “Do you have to break down the resistance of every woman in the world?”

  “That’s not fair,” he protested and then flashed a wide grin she knew any woman with a pulse would have found irresistible. “I haven’t met every woman in the world.”

  Delene pushed her chair back, narrowly avoiding bumping it against the back of another. “I have to get back.”

  He caught her by the wrist before she could turn from the table. His grip was easy, but firm. “What the hell are you running from, Delene?”

  Her chin shot up. She felt herself spoiling for a fight. It made things easier. “Who says I’m running?”

  His grip remained fast. “For one, the track marks across my body every time I try to get to know you a little better.”

  “Don’t try,” she told him firmly. “Get it through your head, Detective Cavanaugh, I’m not interested. I know that must seem hard for you to accept, given your looks and your track record with women, but I am not interested,” she repeated.

  “Number one, I’m not proposing marriage here—”

  Her eyes clouded over until they looked like the sky just before a thunderstorm. “I’m not interested in a roll in the hay, either.”

  He glossed over her words as if she hadn’t even said them. “Number two, how would you know anything about my so-called ‘track record’ unless you’ve been asking questions about me, which would indicate at least a mild interest on your part?”

  “Interest is the wrong word, Cavanaugh.” Then, before he could say anything to contradict her, she continued. “If I had a snake in my backyard, I’d sure as hell be asking people questions about how to get rid of it.” Delene silently dared him to put a positive spin on what she’d just said.

  Instead of commenting on her less-than-flattering analogy, he shrugged, deliberately taking no offense. “Again, what are you afraid of?”

  “Detectives who won’t take no for an answer.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, still holding on to her wrist. Then slowly Troy opened his fingers, releasing her. Surprised, Delene grabbed up her purse again, ready to make a quick retreat. She had just cleared the table when he said something to stop her in her tracks.

  “Who are you, Agent D’Angelo?”

  Because a couple of people around the table were staring at them, she sank back down in the seat she’d vacated, her tone dropping as her knees did. “Is this some kind of philosophical question?”

  “No, it’s a very basic question, really.” He watched her expression, her eyes, confident that he could pick up any telltale sign of lies. “There’s no record of you that goes back beyond five years.”

  She knew better than that. She’d overseen its addition herself. “There’s my college transcript.”

  “And only that.” Brenda, Dax’s wife, had told him it was no great obstacle to change the name on the transcript.

  When Delene looked at him quizzically, he elaborated. “No clubs you might have joined, no canceled checks paying for your rent or schoolbooks. No charge card receipts.” It was as if she hadn’t existed outside of the university halls—if she’d actually attended there in the first place.

  Delene met his gaze head-on. She’d prepared this answer long before he had ever come on the scene. “I didn’t have time for clubs, I was too busy with school and work. And I always paid in cash.”

  “How?” he wanted to know. “There’s no employment record dating back across that time to coincide with your social security number.”

  She was ready for this, too, like lobbing tennis balls back over the net. “I was paid under the table. It was a research project,” she added before he could ask.

  He still had a question. “What project?”

  The man made her think of a relentless machine, unable to stop coming no matter what. “It folded.”

  The hell it did, he thought. She’d made it up. The whole thing. “There’s no driver’s license dating back beyond five years,” he pointed out.

  She spread her hands wide, her face the picture of innocence. “Didn’t drive.”

  Troy looked at her. Her expression was immovable. What she maintained could be possible. But it was highly improbable.

  “At first I thought you might have been in the witness protection program, but that didn’t seem right. What would you be doing working for the county in that case? That kind of job would be too high profile for someone who might have given evidence against someone important enough to have landed you in this setup. Then I thought that maybe you were working undercover.”

  Delene pulled her purse more tightly to her as she laughed shortly. “For five years?”

  “Deep cover,” he emphasized. He’d explored that avenue too, thanks to a few informants, and had come up empty. “But there aren’t any irregularities within the department big enough for you to explore this intently.”

  “How would you know?” She leaned forward, a mocking expression on her lips. “Or are you clairvoyant, too?”

  “No,” he answered easily, “but I’m a Cavanaugh. That means I’ve got an unlimited supply of eyes and ears out there, collecting information for me.
You may not know this, but there are a lot of avenues to tap into to find out about a public servant. But all the avenues led nowhere. I couldn’t find out anything about you, Agent D’Angelo, except that you’re one of the most intriguing, most attractive women I’d ever come across.”

  Flattery, empty flattery. She’d been here before. “And you want to go to bed with me.”

  A smile slowly curled along his lips. There was no point in denying it. She wouldn’t believe him anyway. And there was something to be said for the truth. “The thought has crossed my mind.”

  “So, it’s just sex.”

  He studied her for a moment. She thought she saw amusement in his eyes and took offense. It was safer than falling into the hole that look created.

  “I take it your homework on me wasn’t very thorough, either. It’s never ‘just sex’ when I’m with a woman, Agent D’Angelo. There’s always a lot more involved.”

  Suddenly she felt as if she were sitting on a sailboat made of tissues. She took the offensive again. “Do you give references, too?”

  He laughed. “That would be telling, and a gentleman never tells.”

  “I wasn’t aware that you knew what the word gentleman meant.”

  He leveled a gaze at her that pinned her in place. “That’s not fair.”

  No, she supposed it wasn’t. But she didn’t feel very much like being fair. Not when she was under attack. Not when she felt herself in the very real danger of losing the battle. Because somewhere during this little exchange they were having, she’d realized that she wanted to go to bed with Troy Cavanaugh probably just as much as he wanted to go to bed with her.

  Maybe more.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  Mayday!

  The urgent cry echoed through Delene’s brain over and over again. Now that he was no longer holding on to her wrist, she knew it was time to get up from the table. Common sense told her she should be walking away from Cavanaugh and out of the coffee shop as quickly as possible. Before she found herself in danger again.

  In danger of what? Of coming under someone’s thumb again? That was never going to happen and she knew it. She was too distrustful, too vigilant for that to be a real threat. She wasn’t nineteen and impressionable anymore.

  In danger of falling in love again? Fat chance, she sneered silently. To love someone, she had to be able to feel something, and as far as she was concerned, she was pretty much dead inside. Russell had conducted a scorched-earth policy through her soul, making it impossible for her to feel anything for anyone, other than perhaps a little compassion. Love didn’t enter into the picture. And trust was a big factor here. To love, she would have had to trust—and she trusted no one.

  That left her only with a physical reaction. She supposed she was only human. Humans reacted to stimuli and Detective Troy Cavanaugh was nothing if not stimulating.

  She looked at him for a long moment, debating her next move. Retreat? Or charge?

  If you entered a dark room and you thought your imagination was going to run away with you, see things that weren’t there, you’d turn on a light, right? A light that illuminated all the corners, broke up all the menacing shadows. You’d take action, you wouldn’t remain in the dark, huddling in fear.

  If she walked away from this now, a part of her was still huddling in fear. She’d come too far for that to be true.

  Still looking at Troy, Delene squared her shoulders like a warrior on the battlefield, about to engage in combat. Ready to dispel the shadow of attraction and send it into her past.

  “Detective Cavanaugh, would you like to come over tonight?”

  Troy stared at the woman across from him. Was he hallucinating?

  Had he still been sipping his coffee, he had a feeling the black liquid would have found its way out again in a less-than-fine spray. She was kidding, right? Baiting him.

  Each time they ran into each other, Delene D’Angelo had parried and blocked his every attempt to get close to her. There might have been more than the usual amount of attraction humming between them, but there was also a barbed-wire fence separating them, and that put a rather large crimp in his getting to know her.

  There had to be something he wasn’t getting.

  Had he been a resident of the ancient city he’d been named after, a name that had been heaped on his shoulders because his mother had been reading The Iliad when he was born, he still would have been one of the people voting against taking the huge wooden horse inside the city walls.

  At least not until it had been carefully examined.

  On the surface, the invitation sounded simple, very blatant. But the woman extending it wasn’t either simple or blatant. Troy was cautious when it came to traps.

  So rather than accept, he moved forward on his seat, looked her right in the eyes and asked, “Is this a test, Agent D’Angelo?”

  Delene smiled. “No test.”

  He was far from convinced. “If I said yes,” he began, “what would the next words out of your mouth be?”

  She gave him a straight answer. “I’d talk about a mutually acceptable time.”

  His expression didn’t change. “Just like that?”

  Neither did hers, but inside, she had to admit that she was somewhat amused, not to mention amazed that he didn’t jump at the opportunity, seeing as how she was convinced that sleeping with her had been his goal right from the beginning. Men like Cavanaugh were all alike.

  And yet he wasn’t saying yes. “Just like that,” she echoed.

  He wasn’t buying it. There had to be something behind it. Was she working with Internal Affairs, after all? But he had no reason to suspect that the department would find anything wrong with two consenting adults consenting.

  What the hell was going on? “You’ve stonewalled me at every turn, made me feel as if I was attempting to tread on holy ground in muddy combat boots every time I began to get a little personal and now, all of a sudden, you’re inviting me to your apartment.”

  When she was satisfied that he was finished, she nodded. “Pretty much what you just said, yes.”

  “Okay, so what’s the catch?”

  She knew that the more innocent she looked, the more suspicious he would probably be, but she didn’t know any other way to state this. “No catch.”

  He eyed her more closely. Maybe she was just inviting him over, nothing else. No, she wasn’t ten. She had to know the implication behind her words. Didn’t she? “You are saying what I think you’re saying?”

  It felt nice to have the clear upper hand with him for a change. Her mouth curved as she played out the moment, trying not to wander off into those two dimples gently indenting his cheeks. Her heart fluttered before she could stop it.

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  He took a breath, then drawled, “That somewhere along the line during the evening, clothing will become optional.”

  She heard herself laugh. The sound took her by surprise. As did he. Troy Cavanaugh wasn’t nearly as crass as she’d first thought he was. In addition, he had a way of phrasing things that took the edge off the situation and yet, made things tighten in anticipation all through her body.

  “Yes,” she said softly, so that there would be no doubt, “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Anticipation had the very tips of his fingers tingling. She was a lady he was going to deeply enjoy pleasuring. But there was still something he had to know. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

  She shifted, uncomfortable with the term he’d used. “Heart has nothing to do with this, Detective Cavanaugh. This is just about sex.”

  The hell it was. His eyes held hers. If there was a way of finding out the truth, it would mean looking into her soul. “Not that I have anything against ‘just sex,’ mind you, but you thought that was all it was before. What changed?”

  She was brutally honest in her answer. As it was, she was living enough of a lie. “I decided that it’s best to meet things head-on instead of letting them f
ester.”

  Fester. Now there was an image to keep in your head when you were making love. He laughed, shaking his head. “You do like to sweet-talk a man, don’t you?”

  She hadn’t thought it was going to take this much convincing. She hadn’t thought there would be any convincing at all once she made her proposition. She decided to let him know exactly what she was thinking. “We’re attracted to each other.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “That attraction keeps coming up, getting in the way of the investigation.” She didn’t add that it was getting in the way of her thinking process, as well, because she was only just now admitting that to herself.

  Troy grinned. The dimples deepened. “I thought it was adding a nice little coda. Not that I’m not intrigued by your offer.” He held up his hands to forestall any thought of her rescinding the invitation.

  “It’s not an offer. It’s a suggestion,” she corrected. “A way for us to move on and put this thing completely behind us.”

  She made it sound only slightly more palatable than drinking hemlock. “We are talking about making love here, right?” He peered up at her face. “And not a proctology exam.”

  “We’re talking about having sex,” she said. “What time’s good for you?”

  It took effort for him not to laugh. She seemed too dogged about this, almost clinical. “Just about any time you mention,” he told her. His eyes swept over Delene’s face slowly as he took full measure of what she was saying.

  Something quivered inside of her. She ignored it. “Seven o’clock all right with you?”

  “Do you mean a.m. or p.m? Not that it matters,” he explained, his voice feathering over her despite the crowded conditions of the coffee shop, “but I don’t want to show up at the wrong time.”

  “I meant p.m.” Damn it, why were her insides suddenly decomposing to the consistency of Jell-O? “I said tonight,” she reminded him, biting off the words.

  “Just getting my facts straight.” He stared at her for a long moment. The smile on his face faded a little. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”