Remember the Night (Men in Blue)

  “I didn’t kill Armon.”

  Michelle spoke 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. You know how it works.”

  Her eyes hardened. “But 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 Armon, that giant-sized chip on your shoulder has got to go.”

  “Go to hell, Betancourt.”

  Surprising himself, he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “You’re real tough, aren’t you?”

  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.

  Oh, how he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to devour the mouth that had lied so easily to him…

  “Wow! Mega-talented Linda Castillo delivers a powerhouse punch in Remember the Night, a steamy tale of passion and intrigue in the Big Easy.”

  —bestselling author Merline Lovelace

  Dear Reader,

  Once again Intimate Moments is offering you six exciting and romantic reading choices, starting with Rogue’s Reform by perennial reader favorite Marilyn Pappano. This latest title in her popular HEARTBREAK CANYON miniseries features a hero who’d spent his life courting trouble—until he found himself courting the lovely woman carrying his child after one night of unforgettable passion.

  Award-winner Kathleen Creighton goes back INTO THE HEARTLAND with The Cowboy’s Hidden Agenda, a compelling tale of secret identity and kidnapping—and an irresistible hero by the name of Johnny Bronco. Carla Cassidy’s In a Heartbeat will have you smiling through tears. In other words, it provides a perfect emotional experience. In Anything for Her Marriage, Karen Templeton proves why readers look forward to her books, telling a tale of a pregnant bride, a marriage of convenience and love that knows no limits. With Every Little Thing Linda Winstead Jones makes a return to the line, offering a romantic and suspenseful pairing of opposites. Finally, welcome Linda Castillo, who debuts with Remember the Night. You’ll certainly remember her and be looking forward to her return.

  Enjoy—and come back next month for still more of the best and most exciting romantic reading around, available every month only in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  REMEMBER THE NIGHT

  LINDA CASTILLO

  This book wouldn’t have been possible without the love, support and knowledge of many people, most of whom aren’t named. To Mom and Dad, who taught me to dream big. To Debbie, Jack, Kim and Mike, for opening their homes and their hearts. To Mami and Papi and all their children—for welcoming me into the family with open arms. To my intrepid critique siblings—Cathy, Diane, Jennifer and Vickie—for picking me up when I couldn’t do it on my own. And for Ernest, for loving me—and showing me what a hero really is.

  LINDA CASTILLO

  knew from a very early age that she wanted to be a writer. Her dream came true the day Silhouette called her and wanted to publish Remember the Night.

  She loves the idea of two fallible people falling in love amid danger and against their better judgment—or so they think. She doesn’t hesitate to put them through the emotional wringer. She enjoys watching them struggle through their problems, realize their weaknesses and strengths along the way and, ultimately, fall head over heels in love.

  Linda spins her tales of love and intrigue from her home in Dallas, Texas, where she lives with her husband and three dogs. She’d love to hear from you at P.O. Box 670501, Dallas, Texas, 75367-0501.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 1

  Philip Betancourt parked his unmarked cruiser on the street and watched the swarm of blue uniforms converge on the old Victorian, wondering what he’d find inside besides a dead body. Not far from the French Quarter, the house stood among century-old live oaks, tumbling wrought-iron fences and vacant lots, in a neighborhood that had been on the decline since his academy days a decade ago.

  He got out of the car and shivered as cold January rain crept down the collar of his trench coat. Hell of a night for murder, he thought, and started for the house.

  There were enough flashing lights to land a 747 right there on the street. A patrolman stretched yellow crime-scene tape around the front porch. A paramedic unloaded a gurney from an ambulance parked curbside. Curiosity seekers crowded the sidewalk and spilled into the street.

  Philip had seen a lot in the five years he’d worked homicide, but had yet to figure out why people found murder so damn interesting.

  Flashing his badge at the patrolman, he ducked beneath the tape and ascended the steps to the porch. The house was divided into four apartments. Philip made a mental note to question the other tenants as soon as possible. He believed firmly in the forty-eight hour rule. If a homicide wasn’t solved in those first crucial hours, the trail ran cold. Nothing bothered him more than the thought of someone getting away with murder. Except, perhaps, the thought of a murderer outwitting him.

  On the porch, a uniformed cop took a statement from a black woman wearing a colorful sarong and headdress. Straight ahead, the front door stood open and a corpse lay in the foyer. The body was draped, but Philip could tell by the protruding wing tips the victim was male. A rather affluent male, judging by the label on the sole of the shoes. A crimson stain the size of a saucer stood out starkly on the light blue cover. Bending, Philip pulled the cloth aside and looked into the pale, staring eyes, wondering who had seen fit to put a bullet in the man’s chest.

  “About time you showed up, Betancourt.”

  Dropping the cover, Philip straightened and smiled at the short black man sporting a double-breasted suit and garish tie. Cory Sanderson had been his partner for the last year, and despite his outlandish fashion sense and gigolo grin, there wasn’t a man on the force Philip trusted or respected more.

  “Hell of a way to start the new year,” Philip said, scanning the room. The apartment was meticulously clean and smelled faintly of coffee. A vase filled with grocery-store flowers sat in the center of a scarred coffee table. Opposite, a yellow-and-green-striped sofa with a homemade patch on the center cushion was piled high with pillows. He knew immediately the apartment belonged to a woman.

  “What do we have?” he asked, as the initial jab of excitement scuttled through him. It was a sort of dark antici pation that had little to do with the actual loss of a human life—and everything to do with the challenge of solving the crime.

  “Male Caucasian. Late fifties. Looks like he took a slug in the chest. We’ve got one witness. Female Caucasian. Mid-twenties. No sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle. No visible marks on the woman.”

  “Whose apartment is this?” Philip asked.

  “The female witness.” Cory responded with the calm professionalism Philip admired despite the fact that his partner was still considered a rookie within the department. “Came in on a 911 call about an hour ago. Patrolman secured the scene. Medical examiner’s on the way along with the lab techs and photographer.”

  Philip nodded, pleased by his
partner’s thoroughness.

  “Neighbor claims to have seen a man dressed in black running down the alley,” Cory said.

  “Patrolman check it out?”

  “Yeah. Nothing.”

  They were standing in a large living room with worn cypress floors and high ceilings spotted with rust stains. An old-fashioned bay window shrouded with lace faced the street. Farther back, Philip saw a kitchen adorned with antiquated cabinets, peeling linoleum and appliances from the fifties. Whoever lived here had somehow managed to transform shoddy into quaint.

  He walked into the kitchen and looked out the rear window. A wooden staircase descended to a narrow courtyard where barren clay pots lined crumbling brick walls.

  “How’d your date with Chrissy go?”

  Philip winced at his partner’s question, wondering if it was worth the trouble to make something up or just tell the plain ugly truth. Hell, it wasn’t the first time a man had been left in the lurch by a woman. In his case, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

  “Let’s just say we didn’t hit it off.” Since Philip’s divorce a year ago, Cory had taken it upon himself to set him up with every available female south of Lake Pontchartrain.

  Cory shot him a surprised look. “Don’t tell me you blew it with Chrissy.”

  Trying to make small talk with a woman who spent her days selling herbs and little bottles of scented oil guaranteed to cure everything from irregularity to impotence had been no easy task. But, determined to succeed in the ever-baffling world of dating in the nineties, Philip had tried. He’d even been arrogant enough to believe he’d somehow managed to pull off mission impossible—until she’d excused herself to use the powder room and never returned. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so foolish. He’d sat at the table in his dinner jacket and tie in one of Vieux Carré’s best restaurants for nearly half an hour before realizing she wasn’t coming back. The hell of it was he didn’t even know why she’d left.

  “Next time you get the urge to play matchmaker, my friend, remind me to schedule a root canal.” At thirty-seven years of age, Philip was old enough to know when he was out of his element. He was probably one of the few men on earth who was more comfortable at a murder scene than at a table making small talk with a woman.

  Cory grinned. “I thought you had this dating thing down.”

  “Yeah, I thought I had the marriage thing down, too.” Philip hadn’t intended to sound angry. He certainly hadn’t intended to sound bitter. To his disgust, he accomplished both.

  “You know what your problem is, Betancourt?”

  “I have the feeling you’re going to tell me.”

  “You don’t know how to treat a woman.”

  A laugh squeezed from Philip’s throat. “Good thing I have the veritable expert as a partner.”

  “I’m serious, my man. You’re obsessed with the job. You’re about as fun as a rock. No wonder Whitney left you for that lawyer.”

  The last thing Philip wanted to talk about was his ex-wife. Either of them. “Don’t you have a murder to solve, Cory?”

  “Last lady I fixed you up with told me all you talked about was the job, man.” Cory rolled his eyes. “Number one rule—don’t talk about dead folks over étouffée. Turns women off.”

  “Yeah, Cory, all I ever think about is murder. Hell of a thing to do in our line of work.” Not wanting to discuss the tattered remains of his personal life, Philip wandered into the hall. He’d sworn off women the day his divorce was final, and had yet to regret the decision.

  At the end of the hall, he peered into the bedroom. His gaze skimmed over an old brass headboard and threadbare quilt. The sight of the woman standing at the window halted him dead in his tracks.

  For a split second he stopped being a cop and simply admired the view from a purely male perspective. She wasn’t beautiful in the classic sense. Sun-streaked brown hair that hadn’t seen a decent cut in some time fell in unruly tendrils to her shoulders. Thick lashes fringed eyes dark against a pale complexion. She looked distinctly French with her imperfectly shaped mouth and exotic eyes.

  Philip heard Cory behind him, but he didn’t look away from the woman, wasn’t sure if he could. “Who is she?”

  “Michelle Pelletier. She’s the one who called 911.”

  Philip’s eyes continued their perusal. A pair of denim shorts revealed runner’s legs, straight and strong with just enough flesh to intrigue. Her thighs tapered to shapely calves and delicate ankles. The small red spot on her left knee could have been a rug burn. He made a mental note to have one of the lab techs get a photo of it later. In the back of his mind he wondered if she was a witness—or the killer.

  Easing his gaze away from those long, distracting legs, he looked at Cory. “Do we have a name on the vic?”

  “No positive ID yet, but the witness says his name is Armon Landsteiner,” Cory said. “We’re checking it out.”

  “The name sounds familiar.”

  “It should. If the body in the foyer belongs to the Landsteiner I’m thinking of, his son is the lawyer who got the Rosetti case thrown out last year.”

  Philip’s stomach tightened at the mention of the Rosetti case. He’d spent eight arduous months working a protection money racket that had left one Algiers shopkeeper dead and two others so scared they wouldn’t talk to police. He’d worked the case with a vengeance, going by the book down to the letter—until the day he’d followed Rosetti into that warehouse without a warrant. Philip had called it hot pursuit, but the judge had called the evidence inadmissible. Thanks to hot young defense attorney Baldwin Landsteiner, Philip hadn’t gotten a conviction.

  “If that were Baldwin Landsteiner lying there, I might just change my philosophy about there being justice in the world,” Philip said.

  “It gets worse. If that’s the Armon Landsteiner, his wife, who died several years back, was the sister of Victor Desjardins.”

  “Damn, you’re just a fountain of pleasant information tonight, Cory. You got any bad news?” Philip didn’t like hearing the district attorney’s name mentioned in the same breath as the word homicide.

  “Desjardins is going to get his briefs in a wad over this one,” Cory said.

  “Yeah, then he’s going to make our lives a living hell.” Philip despised high profile cases. It wasn’t so much the public scrutiny that bothered him—he was more than confident in his abilities as a homicide investigator—but the politics. He’d never been good at making people happy. In fact, he was pretty adept at keeping most people in a constant state of righteous indignation. The only good thing about that was they usually left him alone to do his job.

  “Do we have a weapon?” he asked.

  Cory flipped a page on his notepad. “Patrolman found a nine millimeter Beretta next to the body. It’s been bagged and tagged.”

  Philip contemplated the woman and realized he’d been putting off asking about her. Something about her nagged at him, like the beginnings of a headache. She wasn’t wearing shoes. Odd for January, he thought, and wondered if there’d been some hanky-panky going on before the murder. “Do we have any details on the woman?”

  “Twenty-seven years old. Says she worked for Landsteiner as an intern at his law firm. She’s a student at Tulane.” Cory hit Philip with a lopsided grin. “At this point we’re not sure how helpful she’s going to be.”

  The woman turned from the window. From the hall, Philip made eye contact. Her gaze was level, wary and unmistakably intelligent. The word lush came to mind and lingered. At the same time something dark and hot and completely unexpected stirred low in his gut.

  Shaken by his response, he broke eye contact and stepped back. “What do you mean?” he asked Cory.

  “She says she doesn’t remember the shooting.”

  That stopped him. Philip swung his gaze to his partner, not missing the flash of amusement behind the chocolate-brown eyes. “If I heard you right, that isn’t even remotely funny.”

  Cory raised his hands in defense. “I haven’t
questioned her. Patrolman talked to her while his partner secured the scene. Just preliminary stuff.”

  Philip swore. The humor of the situation eluded him, especially knowing the D.A. might have a personal stake in the case. “Lapse of memory due to alcohol or drugs?”

  “Doesn’t appear that way. Patrolman said she was hysterical when they arrived.”

  “Pretty damn convenient,” Philip muttered under his breath. The last thing they needed was a complication, especially a complication with legs that could stop traffic on a superhighway. “I’m going to go talk to her. Call in a female patrol, will you?”

  “Sure thing.” Cory started down the hall, then turned and grinned at Philip. “Remember your sensitivity training, Betancourt. I have a feeling you’re going to need it on this one.”

  “Tell that to the corpse.”

  Philip entered the room to find the woman sitting on the bed with her face in her hands. Slender shoulders slumped forward as if the weight of the world rested on them. It could have been a posture of anguish or perhaps grief, but he refrained from making judgments based on body language alone. First impressions could be fatal if misunderstood.

  The moment he stepped through the door, her head snapped up. Praline-brown eyes swept to his, and the world seemed to stop. She was the most striking woman he’d ever laid eyes on. She reminded him of a rough-cut diamond, unpolished and hopelessly flawed, but with a definite sparkle just beneath the surface.

  An oversize Tulane sweatshirt fell over a pair of frayed denim shorts that reached modestly to midthigh. No makeup. No jewelry. Once again the shorts bothered him, not only because her legs were distracting, but because it was January. Philip wondered why she wasn’t crying. Most women cried when they were faced with something as terrible as death. Despite his efforts not to allow it, his eyes traveled the length of her until he found himself staring at toenails painted an intriguing shade of burgundy.