The Stroke of Midnight Read online

  She kissed him that way, knew he felt the same by the trembling muscles in his arms as he supported himself above her.

  Her eyes opened to his. “Not slow,” she said. And with a groan edged by the faintest hint of a growl, he took possession of her mouth again.

  Devon’s thoughts didn’t scatter so much as disintegrate, a flame held to a wisp of fine cotton. Her hands closed around him, urging him on. In answer, he flicked his tongue over her nipple, suckling her until her head thrashed on the pillow.

  Devon gasped to breathe, but neither of them were finished yet. She was still spiraling upward through the clouds. He kissed her long and deep and then, pressing his palms onto the mattress, levered himself up so that he could enter her.

  Not for a moment did she hesitate. If there was a flicker of doubt, she ignored it. Only the pleasure broke through to engulf her.

  Desire rocketed her to the summit, and over, until, in free fall, she careened out of control and with no idea of how hard she might land.

  One climax, two. Sensations overlapped. He was inside her, and she loved him. For now, it was all that mattered.

  She lay still for a long time afterward, limp with exhaustion, drained of every thought she’d previously possessed.

  A near dead weight on top of her, Riker made an unintelligible sound and started to roll away. Then his eyes fastened on hers, and he stopped.

  “That was incredible, Devon.” His breathing still ragged, he toyed with a strand of her hair. His lashes lowered to shield his eyes. “I didn’t mean for this—I should have told you something first.”

  Devon ran her fingertips experimentally along his spine. “There was nothing I needed to know.” She’d convinced herself of that. A stray thought hit her, and her gaze steadied. “Nothing medical, right?”

  “No.” He squashed that concern cold. “It was...” She felt his gaze where it lingered on her slightly swollen lips, heard the quiet sigh that issued from him. “Unimportant.” As carefully as he might handle a piece of Doulton china, he pressed a kiss to her mouth. “Nothing we can’t hash out tomorrow.”

  BUT IT WAS a tremedous relief to him that they had no time to hash out anything the next morning. In truth, talking was the last thing on Jacob’s mind when he cracked his eyes to a pale gray dawn and felt Devon nestled as trustingly as a child next to him.

  As if cued, she rolled onto her back, stretched like a creamfed cat and smiled a blissful smile. “You’re better than beef stroganoff any day, Riker.” Then her eyes flew open and she sat sharply upright. “What time is it?”

  Jacob focused. “Eight—damn—forty-five.”

  Devon made a strangled sound and jumped from the bed. She paused briefly in her hands-and-knees scramble to locate her clothes to grin at him over her bare shoulder. “Helluva night, though. What was it you kept insisting we talk about?”

  Jacob called himself a gutless coward as he countered with a casual, “It’ll keep.” Pulling on his jeans, he zipped up and crossed to the door. “Toast? Coffee? Cold stroganoff?”

  Rocking back, Devon sighed. “Coffee, please.”

  “Instant?”

  “Whatever’s fast. We have a staff meeting scheduled for ten o’clock. Even allowing for Warren’s opening bluster, I’m going to be late. He’ll probably insist on escorting me to the Kat tonight as punishment.”

  “The Kat?” Already in the kitchen doorway, Jacob frowned. “Do I know about this?”

  She skidded in, combing her hair with her fingers. “Christmas cocktail party. Us, our AM sister station, local VIP’s and anyone else who wants to pay the two-hundred-dollar entrance fee to crash. All proceeds to charity. Dinner and wine complimentary; drinks not. Alma rented the top floor of the club and hired a local jazz band. Is that mine?” She pointed to a steaming mug.

  “Mmm.” One dark brow arched. “Black tie or casual?”

  Sipping, she made a see-saw motion. “In between. I picture a nineties style Thin Man crowd. Boisterous but not wild. Word has it that our new deputy mayor enjoys a good Christmas tipple.” A glance at her watch as she swallowed and her cup hit the counter.

  In a move that appeared as natural to her as it was foreign to him, she set her hands on his shoulders and kissed him hard on the mouth. “Have a nice day, Riker.”

  Jacob’s first inclination was simply to gape. But he shook himself and managed a rough, “You too, angel.”

  Where had that come from? Baffled, he blinked, glanced away. He of all people never used pet names. Or had this been more along the lines of a Freudian slip...?

  Devon hesitated, but fortunately had no time to stop and ponder. Staff meeting in sixty minutes, and she still needed to shower, make up and dress. Most of all, though, she needed to get out of Riker’s apartment before she thought too deeply about the endearment. Men had been known to call women ‘angel’ without it meaning anything sinister.

  But what on earth was Riker feeling? They’d made love three times last night, yet despite the intimacy, that guard wall of his had scarcely cracked. She, on the other hand, had bared a great deal of her soul to him. No skeletons lurked in her closets, at least none of significance. Was it so difficult for him to set aside his own barriers for one short night?

  She disregarded the apprehension that challenged her current tunnel vision and raced down the stairs. Barefoot, with her hair tumbling into her sleepy eyes, she glimpsed the shadow beside the newel post at the last second and barely missed crashing into its owner.

  “Good morning, Devon.” Mouth downturned, Andrew surveyed her disheveled state. “You seem in a hurry.”

  Devon forced a smile and more patience than his disapproving expression warranted. “I am. Excuse me, Andrew.”

  He caught her upper arm before she could skirt him. “Did you spend the night with a friend, I wonder?”

  This time, her smile was as succinct as her response. “That’s none of your business. Let go.”

  Instead, he gave her arm a shake. “You didn’t answer my note,” he said in a tone just short of a snarl. “I thought you had better manners than that.”

  “And I thought you’d have the good sense to check your answering machine. I left a message. Let go of my arm, Andrew. Now.”

  Either her words or the level glare that accompanied them worked, because his fingers loosened their grip.

  Devon jerked free the rest of the way. “Go to work,” she said flatly. “And next time don’t accuse until you’re sure.”

  “I thought the messages were all complaints and appointment changes.” Now he sounded whiny. “I’m sorry, Devon. What about—”

  “No. Thank you.” She cut him off, moving around him to her door. “You might mean well, but I don’t respond nicely to manhandling. Goodbye, Andrew.”

  The door closed on his raised finger of protest. Devon clicked the deadbolt, spied the wall clock and promptly forgot all about Dr. Andrew McGruder. She had less than fifty minutes to reach the station.

  Within thirty, she was showered and dressed in a purple skirt suit with a plain black silk tank top beneath the V-necked jacket, a pair of black suede pumps on her feet and subtle amethyst studs adorning her earlobes. Snatching up her purse, she made a quick final check in the mirror and reached for her black cape. She’d just gotten her ring nicely tangled in the wool when her sharp eyes spotted the folded red paper on the carpet near the door.

  Panic leapt into her throat and lodged tightly. Had the paper been here when she came in? She hadn’t noticed it. But then, she’d been distracted, hadn’t she?

  Devon stared for a full minute before she summoned sufficient courage to bend over and grab it from the floor. It was, after all, only paper.

  Nevertheless, her heart stuttered as her trembling fingers unfolded it.

  Gold lettering...

  Devon’s eyes closed then slowly opened on the neatly scripted words.

  You cannot win, Devon Tremayne.

  Who “morns” an angel such as you.

  I know w
ho you really are,

  who you always have been.

  You will not be either of you much longer.

  AS A RULE, Jacob enjoyed the bustle of a newsroom, or any other room where affable chaos reigned. Today, for some reason, he simply couldn’t face it. Rudy had a computer at his place. He’d use that, breakfast on Mandy’s over-spiced Christmas cake and do his utmost not to dwell on the more phenomenal aspects of the night he’d just spent with Devon.

  He drove too fast along the snowy Philadelphia streets. He brooded, remembered and brooded some more. He actually stooped to snarling at the toothy adolescent whose snowball smacked wetly against his rear windshield.

  Not that the kid cared, or that doing it improved Jacob’s mood, but he had to exorcise his guilt pangs somehow before they chewed him up and spit him into the gutter.

  He whipped into a parking space beside a four-foot snowdrift outside Rudy’s modest townhouse. A layer of white clung to the trim and low eaves like sugar frosting.

  Mandy had gotten Rudy to set up a rosy-cheeked Santa and his workshop elves. For her grandchildren, Jacob supposed, feeling suspiciously like Scrooge. Lucky kids to have someone who encouraged them to believe in magic. The world was comprised of lies—that had been his dreary knowledge since the age of eight. God, what an old prune his great-aunt had been. And she’d done her level best to mold Laura into her likeness, would undoubtedly have succeeded in spite of the cancer that had finally sunk its deadly fangs into her aging liver, if Laura hadn’t committed the unpardonable sin of preceding her to the grave twelve months earlier.

  Twelve months. Strangled at twelve midnight. A Christmas angel pendant. Jacob fought to combat the chill that prickled his skin.

  “Well, hello there, stranger.” Mandy greeted him from the doorway, arms folded, her chewing gum and blue eyes both snapping nastily. “Too long a time, no see. How goes the fakery?”

  He winced but didn’t show it. “Not great. Is Rudy around?”

  Her lip curled. “Gone to the store for smokes. You wouldn’t know anything about the relapse, I suppose.”

  Halting at eye level with her, Jacob shook his head. “I don’t need more guilt, Mandy.”

  “What do you need?”

  “Rudy’s computer.”

  “Something wrong with yours?”

  “I don’t have access to police files.”

  Her irritation broke and she chortled. “Since when has that ever stopped you?”

  His shoulders hunched. “I’m running out of time, Mandy.” To say nothing of enthusiasm for this charade. “I need to get in and out fast.”

  “Well—I guess it’d be okay.” She nudged the door open wider with a fluffy pink foot. “But you mark my words, Jacob Price, she’ll find you out, and then you’ll be in hot water.”

  “I already am,” he muttered.

  Five minutes later, he was settled in Rudy’s den, surrounded by child art that he realized with a pang belonged to him. Home-framed drawings hung lovingly alongside Rudy’s two awards for Officer of the Month.

  Riker’d won seven of those awards already, and he was only thirty-six. Dugan had eight, but then he was well into his fifties.

  Knuckling a tired eye, Jacob punched up the file on Devon. Assault with a deadly weapon, namely a gold-bladed knife. Prints too smudged to identify. Origin of knife, unknown. German made, circa the early 1900s. Investigation continuing.

  A tiny portion of the weight on Jacob’s chest lifted. He hadn’t left any clear prints when he’d packed the knife away. So far the frame fell flat.

  “Who’s Ralph ‘Brando’ Severs?”

  Mandy’s voice startled him. He fixed on the screen and reached absently for the nut cake and coffee she offered on her antique Coca Cola tray.

  “Just a guy I met. He died of a drug overdose.”

  “I can see that. Found him in the water, huh? Rolled in himself or was dumped, do you think?”

  “The water’s secondary.” Jacob ran the file. “It was the heroin that killed him.”

  “Too bad.” Mandy sounded genuinely sorry. “So many junkies; so few cops to police the dealers.” Jacob hit a series of keys. An image appeared, prompting her to let out an approving, “Ooh. Very nice. Is that Brando?”

  “No.” Sitting back, Jacob studied the man who had, until recent years, sported a short blond haircut. Brown-green eyes stared solemnly back at him. “He shouldn’t have been able to get this.”

  “You’re mumbling, Jacob.” Mandy tapped the top of his head. “Who shouldn’t have been able to get what? Who is this guy?”

  “It’s Joel Riker’s official departmental photo. One of Devon’s co-workers hacked in and snatched a copy of it. He shouldn’t have been able to.”

  “Why not? Cops are allowed within ID range of the media. Why not a visual on computer?”

  “Because Riker does a lot of undercover work in homicide.”

  “Says vice here.” She used a glossy red fingernail to point.

  “He started in vice, Mandy, then transferred to homicide. If Jimmy Flaherty can access his photo, what’s to stop any other halfway good hacker from doing the same thing? Even with long hair and stubble, Riker could be made from his picture.”

  Mandy cracked a canny eye. “He could be made...or you could?”

  Jacob conceded the point with a shrug, reached for another piece of cake and slouched back to think. Ten seconds later, Rudy’s grumbling entrance shot a hole in that prospect.

  “Dugan’s crawling up one side of me and down the other, kid. Wants to know have you eighty-sixed the impersonation or not?”

  “Tell him yes.” On a hunch, Jacob used two fingers to punch in the name Angela. “Nothing,” he said when the computer came up blank. “I wonder if she was out of state.”

  Bewildered, Rudy demanded, “Who?”

  “Whoever Angela is.”

  “Forget her.” If the chair had swiveled he would have jerked it around. Instead, he grasped a handful of Jacob’s black sweater and gave it a vigorous shake. “Dugan’s not gonna buy a half-baked ‘yes,’ then obligingly scuttle off to a dark corner.”

  “Fine. Let him arrest me.” Jacob directed his gaze at the monitor. “Until he does, I’m going to keep trying to nail the creep who attacked Devon.”

  Rudy’s mouth opened, ripe for an argument. Only Mandy’s well-aimed tap in the shin silenced him.

  Jacob saw it, together with the look which passed between them, a look that spoke of promised explanations and smoldering indignation. Ignoring both, he returned to his musings.

  Jimmy Flaherty should not have been able to access Riker’s photo. At the very least it should have taken him a month or more of worming to do so. Had he gotten lucky? Did he know someone on the force? Disregarding the hows, why hadn’t he exposed the fraud to Devon? Where had he gone yesterday afternoon? He’d already ducked out by the time Jacob reached the newsroom.

  “Hell, if not yesterday, he’ll spill the truth today, won’t he?” Vexed, Jacob cursed the corner he’d painted himself into, then abruptly shoved back and located his jacket.

  Rudy, forestalled by Mandy’s hand on his arm, settled for shouting, “Where are you going?”

  Jacob’s gaze landed on a happy, bright-eyed helicopter he’d finger-painted at age five. A wry smile tugged on his lips when he recalled that he’d wound up more brightly painted than the ’copter. “To cut a deal, if I can.” At the doorway, he glanced back. “For what it’s worth, the old woman would be proud of me.”

  Rudy made a scornful sound. “Are you proud of you, kid?”

  The smile returned faintly to Jacob’s lips. “I don’t know what I am anymore, Rudy. And that’s the problem in all of this. I don’t know what the hell I am. Or who.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Roger from production’s been calling Jimmy’s apartment every hour. No one’s seen or heard from him since yesterday afternoon.”

  Devon had to shout to make herself heard above the jazz music of Philadelphia’s
trendy new Kat Club. Black-and-white etchings of jazz musicians blowing saxophones and trombones adorned three of the four walls. The tables were laid with black toppers over white cloth; the floor was a polished swirl of black, gray and white granite; the band might have come straight out of the late thirties.

  Riker, in a black suit, leaned closer to shout back. “Has he ever pulled a disappearing act before?”

  “No.” The shrill first bars of the song mellowed to a more acceptable level. Devon blew at her bangs and repeated, “No, never. It isn’t like him, Riker. Maybe we should, uh...”

  “Break into his apartment and check it out?”

  “I’d have phrased it differently myself.” She followed his restless eyes around the crowded room. “What are you looking for?”

  “Anything that strikes me as wrong.”

  She accepted a glass of punch from a passing waiter. After the note she’d received, she preferred not to think what “wrong” might entail. “As crowds go, this is a fairly normal one. Where politicians rub elbows with the media, nothing’s likely to get too weird.”

  A man’s arm suddenly weighted down Devon’s shoulders from behind. With it came a gusty breath from Warren Severen’s throat.

  “Here she is, the woman of my dreams.” He puckered, aimed for her cheek and wound up stumbling as Devon maneuvered herself neatly out of range.

  “Forget it,” she murmured when Riker’s eyes flashed. “He’s easily avoided and seldom tries twice in one night.”

  “Jerk,” Riker muttered into his glass.

  “If that’s all he is, I’ll be happy.” She shivered despite the cloying warmth of the club. “I wish I could remember whether or not that note was on the floor when I got home this morning. If not, then Andrew...”

  “Then Andrew what?”

  Devon spun. The man standing there looked peevish despite his splotchy cheeks and over-bright eyes. “Andrew! What are you doing here?”

  He peered through his lenses at Riker, then shuffled conspiratorially closer. “I wanted to talk to you. I play your station in my office. I heard about this party tonight so I wangled a ticket. I paid the price,” he added with a defensive lift of his head. “Can we talk? Er, privately?”