Dancing with Detective Danger
Lynn Crandall
Dancing with Detective Danger
Lynn Crandall
Avon, Massachusetts
This edition published by
Crimson Romance
an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.
10151 Carver Road, Suite 200
Blue Ash, Ohio 45242
www.crimsonromance.com
Copyright © 2012 by Lynn Crandall
ISBN 10: 1-4405-6405-1
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6405-5
eISBN 10: 1-4405-6406-X
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6406-2
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © 123rf.com
To Mike
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Also Available
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my favorite detectives, technology experts, and therapist for their excellent and willing help in building a story with true to life and flawed but redeemable characters. I also want to thank my family and my friends, especially HiDee Ekstrom, for their support and encouragement, and members of my writing group. I also am grateful to my editor at Crimson Romance, Jess Verdi, for her direction and insights. And a special thank you to my husband for always being there with patience and encouragement. Love always.
Chapter One
Even very renowned professional private investigators have a bad day now and then. Twenty-six-year-old Sterling Aegar knew in her heart that she and her sister qualified as professional PIs and serious career women. But sometimes things simply happen. Not everything can be controlled, she assured herself. Still, she silently surveyed the scene of her latest case and wondered if anything else could go wrong this morning.
The woman’s nude body lying submerged in the nearly overflowing tub looked oddly serene. Her eyes seemed almost peaceful and her hair floated like a blonde halo around her head.
“Nice doggie,” Sterling’s sister, Lacey Aegar, cooed, but the large German Shepherd staring at her didn’t buy it. He’d surprised them when they’d stepped into the room because he was tucked nearly behind the bathroom door. Standing now between the door and the tub, he continued to growl nastily.
“Look at those teeth!” Though her heart beat emphatically, Sterling barely moved her lips as she spoke under her breath to her sister, not wanting to draw attention from the snarling dog. “Well, sis, what does the private investigator’s manual suggest we do at a time like this? I seem to have left mine back at the office.”
“As if such a manual exists.” Sterling glanced around the marble-floored bathroom, looking for something, anything, to protect herself and her sister from the angry dog. Her gaze paused at the sunken tub adorned with elegant brass fixtures.
Warning flags had gone off inside Sterling’s head from the moment she and her sister had walked through the opened front door of the pricey condo. Especially attuned to her gut instinct, Sterling always paid attention to its prompting. Sometimes it took time to play out, and following the thread took patience and persistence. Yet a keen awareness and respect for instinct and intuition was something she knew stood her well in many investigations, so she didn’t take the uneasy feeling lightly. The warnings this morning seemed to say, Beware. Something about this new case is not as it seems. So finding a dead woman in the course of a standard surveillance and infidelity investigation was not only completely unexpected, it confirmed the instinctive suspicion Sterling felt thrumming in her middle.
“Why do these things happen to us?” Sterling said softly.
“Because, sister dear, we are cursed.” Lacey appeared quite at ease.
Sterling frowned at her. “Quit teasing. This is serious.”
“I’m not teasing. The curse is from Mom’s side of the family,” she said. “Probably some great-great-great grandfather spit on someone’s grave and bingo, generations suffer a curse. Although, the case could be argued today that we’re lucky. Mr. Teeth could have attacked us at the front door.”
“Lacey!” Sterling hissed. “We’ve got to do something. We can’t stand here all day. That dog is guarding his beloved mistress, and he doesn’t seem to have any sense of humor about us barging in.”
“Yeah, poor fella. Do you think he understands that she’s dead?”
Sterling rolled her eyes. “Why is it people always feel more compassion for animals than for humans? I mean, the woman is dead, Lacey. And excuse me, I’ll wait until later to offer the dog my condolences, if you don’t mind.”
“Hmm, you’ve got a good point. Let’s just back out of the room.”
Sterling swallowed hard, held her breath, and glanced at Lacey. “Okay, now … slowly.”
Sterling took one step back simultaneously with Lacey, but the dog leaned menacingly toward them, bared his teeth, and growled a warning.
“Isn’t that just like a man,” Lacey said. “He doesn’t want us to get too close, but he doesn’t want us to leave, either.”
“Will you quit with the quips?”
“Maybe he doesn’t like my outfit.”
“Yeah, that’s it. He’s offended by your clothes.” Sterling rolled her eyes again at Lacey, who was dressed stylishly in a denim micro-mini skirt over black leggings and a simple gray tunic. Several delicate, long silver chains layered under a metallic bohemian scarf completed her look.
“There is nothing wrong with my outfit, little sister,” Lacey said.
“Okay, big sister. It wasn’t me who made the suggestion.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable with my style of dressing. I’m only thirty years old. I can have fun with my clothes. You should lighten up, too.” Lacey slanted her head in Sterling’s direction, as though suggesting her sister’s clothing choice left something to be desired. “Now, let’s concentrate on getting out of here. I’ll distract Mr. Teeth and you try to get away.”
“Are you nuts? Do you know what teeth like that can do to your skin? I’m not leaving you.”
“Right. Well … ” Lacey glanced around. “I’m sure there are plenty of toxic sprays or sharp objects in here somewhere, but I hardly dare move, even if I would be willing to hurt him in that way.”
“Oh, no, we wouldn’t want to hurt the vicious dog. Don’t you have something in your purse we could distract him with? Something to eat? You’re always munching on something.”
“What a brilliant idea!” Slowly, Lacey opened her purse and drew out a bag.
“A sandwich?” Sterling knew she shouldn’t be surprised, but the sight of two pieces of bread and some meat coming out of her sister’s purse seemed a bit odd even for Lacey. “Okay, you can fling it out the door and down the hall away from us. When he goes after it, we’ll head out the door. On three, throw it and run.”
“On four. You know how I hate odd numbers.”
Sterling sighed. “You’re such a mess! Okay, on four. One, two, three, four!”
Lacey aimed for the hallway and miraculously, the dog immediately ran after the bait, a limp slowing him a little. Sterling exchanged a quick knowing look with Lacey.
Before the dog had a chance to reconsider, Sterling followed her sister through the front door and down the street to where Lacey’s compact car was parked.
Safely inside the vehicle, Lacey turned to Sterling. “That was fun,” she said, a wry smile lifting her lips. “Are you okay?”
“Sure. Are you?”
“As soon as my heart rate slows I’ll let you know,” Lacey joked.
Sterling’s attention landed idly on a robin pecking at blades of new spring grass and she imagined the dog already back beside his owner. Deliberately, she set aside the uneasiness churning in her stomach. She picked up her cell phone from the car seat and punched the numbers for the Laurelwood Police station.
• • •
From the stucco-colored leather couch and leaded glass coffee table smartly arranged in front of the stone fireplace to the fine art prints hanging on the walls, the living room of the deceased woman spoke of money — lots of it. With the insistent barking of the confined German Shepherd echoing from another room, Sterling stood watching the plainclothes officers and detectives working the scene, her thoughts drifting in all directions.
This could have been her life — working a crime scene with fellow police officers. She’d fulfilled her childhood vow to herself to honor her father by following in his footsteps and graduated from the Police Training Institute at the top of her class. With single-minded dedication, she’d picked up the cause: fighting to keep the city safe from the kind of scum that had killed her father.
Putting in her time as a beat cop on the Laurelwood streets was part of the job, so she’d issued her share of parking tickets and speeding citations. She’d put her all into it from the start, but always with her sights set on making detective. On someday, preferably as quickly as possible, getting knee deep into fighting the bad guys. A palpable impatience had ramped up her ambition, but it wasn’t an ambition solely to make a name for herself or to rise through the ranks. Sterling had wanted … needed to make a difference in her own way, to ensure innocent people didn’t suffer the needless pain that had torn at her family after her father’s murder. Policing the streets helped calm the inescapable sorrow.
She searched the room for someone who looked in charge and finally landed on one officer. “Excuse me, you’ve gotten our statement, I’d like to leave.”
Pulling up from his scrutiny of an area of the living room, the officer stared for a moment at Sterling, then cleared his throat. “I’m not in charge and we’re waiting for the detective who is. He should be arriving soon.” The officer turned back to his work, dismissing her.
Back in her corner of the room, Sterling’s stomach knotted as her thoughts about her past naturally turned to Ben. Ben Kirby had been a part of her life from the moment they’d met on the job. As an undercover detective on the Drug Task Force, he’d shown her the edge. He didn’t merely patrol the city, he prowled it, daring the dealers and runners to make a move. And when they did, he was there to pounce on them without mercy. Ben went after his targets with no thought of a safety net. Get the job done, take down the low-lifes, get them into a cell. Granted, the mid-size, Midwestern town of Laurelwood was not a hotbed of evil, but it did have its share of crime. And Ben didn’t give a second thought to laying his life on the line for the sake of justice. And that was the problem in their relationship. The way he lived scared her but she had thought she could handle it. Turned out she couldn’t.
But that was history, Sterling thought with an internal shrug. She drew in a deep breath and checked her wristwatch uneasily as the officers made their way through the evidence collection. Sterling hadn’t seen or spoken to Ben in two years, so thoughts of him had no place in her mind, she told herself as she let the hard, familiar ache in her heart bury itself again.
She glanced again at her watch, then over at Lacey who nonchalantly fingered her curly red hair as she stood talking with two of the investigators.
Sterling’s agitation was growing — she and her sister had already relayed to the officers the details of finding the dead woman. She felt fidgety, ready to get out of this place. It was prompting thoughts from her past that did no good to rehash.
A detective caught Sterling’s eye and walked across the room. “Ms. Aegar, I want to go over this again. You and your sister found the body at eleven A.M., correct?”
Sterling tapped her foot. “Yes, that’s correct,” she said with forced calm. Patience was not her strong suit, but she didn’t care. The pressure inside her was building and the walls were drawing in on her. “Like I said, we’re private investigators. We were on an assignment. We rang the doorbell. No one answered.” Deliberately, she drew out the words, wondering how many times the simple story needed to be spelled out for this guy.
“So you two just went in anyway.”
His tone of voice made her bridle. “I told you, we were on assignment. We rang the doorbell, we knocked, no one answered, and in fact, the door stood slightly ajar. We went in. We looked around. When we walked into the bathroom we found the woman and the dog.”
“That’s when you saw the body submerged in the bathtub.”
“Bingo! I think you’re finally getting the picture,” Sterling exclaimed. She didn’t attempt to hide her impatience.
“You know I could book you on breaking and entering. What kind of an assignment were you working on?”
Sterling squared her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. “You know that’s confidential.”
“Are you saying you’re not willing to cooperate with the police?”
“Is there some point to all of this interrogation?” Sterling hedged, for no other reason than this guy’s superior attitude was making her skin crawl. Normally, cooperating with the local law enforcement was standard operating procedure, a logical and necessary SOP. But she was having a bad day and this guy needed to be taken down a notch. “Do you think I’m lying? Maybe you’d like to frisk me to make sure I’m not withholding a murder weapon or something.” She heard footsteps coming up behind her but kept her glare pointed at the officer.
“Don’t bluster at the officer, Sterling. He’s just doing his job.”
The deep voice at her shoulder startled her so intensely her breath froze in her chest, but she squelched her reaction. Deliberately, she turned to face the man. “Hello, Ben. What are you doing here?” She’d forgotten how much taller he stood above her. His dark hair was shorter than two years ago, making his cobalt blue eyes more vivid and his strong jaw more imposing.
“I work investigations now.” His smile reached out effortlessly and grabbed her unwilling heart, but Ben seemed unaware.
“Really? That explains the suit.” Sterling turned back to the officer, struggling to keep her voice steady, emotionless, despite the seismic quakes coursing through her body. “Do you have any other questions?”
“Well — ”
“We won’t be needing you any further right now, Sterling,” interrupted Ben, clearly the detective in charge. “But if we need to get in touch with you, where would we find you?”
As if he doesn’t know. “Our detective agency’s number is in the book.” While it was true that Ben hadn’t ever actually stepped through her agency’s door, she knew he would have kept tabs on her office location if nothing else. That was just the kind of cop he was.
“You and your sister are still in the private investigating business?” Innocence dripped from Ben’s richly masculine voice.
“Ben Kirby!” Lacey stepped up and warmly wrapped her arms around him.
“Hi,
Lacey.”
It was so “Lacey” to walk right up to Ben as though no time had passed and nothing had changed. But Sterling stifled a grin at Ben’s obvious discomfort with the display of affection in front of his fellow officers, his arms stiff at his sides. “Ben’s working investigations now, Lacey.”
“Well, that’s good, Ben, if it’s what you want. You’re not living on that edge anymore, rubbing arms with drug dealers? Do you miss it?”
“No, I’ve changed.” He tucked his head for just a moment, but Sterling still cringed, suspecting his comment was actually aimed at her.
“It’s nice to see you. It’s a wonder we haven’t bumped into you before. But then, Sterling and I don’t usually run across dead bodies in the course of our work. Our cases tend to be more like backgrounds and investigating insurance and disability claims and — ”
“Ben was just asking about our work,” Sterling interrupted. Leave it to Lacey to lay out all the boring details in the first four seconds.
“How nice.” Lacey shot Sterling a quizzical look.
“And I was just telling him that Aegar Investigating is thriving. So we’d better get to the office, Lacey. We have work to do.” With one parting look up into Ben’s face, Sterling led her sister outside.
“Geez, sis, what was your hurry? Feeling a little uncomfortable? I can see why. Ben looks great. And the electricity between the two of you — wow! It was unmistakable.”
Sterling took in a deep breath and slowly let it out, letting her sister ramble on as they walked to the car. “Don’t start with me, Lacey. You know there’s nothing between Ben and me.”
“Okay, okay. Don’t get all edgy. I just think it’s interesting that after all this time we run into him.” Lacey smiled a whisper of a smile, suggesting she wasn’t giving up at all.
“I don’t think it’s one bit interesting.” Sterling climbed into the passenger seat of Lacey’s car and deliberately avoided looking at the condo as her sister started the engine. “What is interesting is the fact that we stumbled into a murder scene. It’s the first really exciting case we’ve come across in a long time.”
