The vibration of his cell lying on the bed stand roused Rafe from a light sleep. He struggled to remember why his head pounded as the naked ass tucked against him and the warm body attached to it tortured his hard-on. He swung his gritty eyes toward the alarm clock sitting beside his cell phone and watch on the bed stand.
Eight-sixteen! He should've been in the office already. In the fraction of a second before he saw the black strands of hair draped over Isabella's face and remembered the events of last night, he reached for the phone and swung out of the bed.
In the bathroom, he sat on the closed toilet seat and flipped open the cell. "Hashemi."
"Agent Hashemi, you'd better get down to the office right away." The normally unflappable voice of his assistant quavered through the receiver.
"What's wrong, Mrs. Roberts?"
"Detective Jensen is waiting for you." She paused and lowered her voice, heavy with disapproval. "Waiting. In your office. You know I don't like anyone going in there when you're not here."
Marilyn Roberts had been with Rafe nearly seven years, his first secretary – assistant she insisted on being called – in his Los Angeles office. She organized his life and ran his office with military efficiency. She protected him with the ferocity of a pit bull and made the best damn coffee he'd ever tasted. But she was a little obsessive about the sanctity of his office.
It was in his best interests to keep her happy. "I'll be there right away," he promised, closing the phone.
He relieved himself, flushed the toilet, and stared at his scruffy reflection in the bathroom mirror. He splashed cold water on his face, washed his hands, and brushed his teeth. The rest of his grooming he left for later. By now he was sure the bathroom noises had woken Isabella up, and he was already regretting his lapse of judgment last night.
When he opened the door, she was sitting upright, her legs crossed yoga-style, her hair in wild tangles around her naked shoulders. The bed sheet covered what he vividly remembered as very full and beautiful breasts.
She smiled. "Hi."
He smiled back and sat on the edge of the bed smoothing a black strand from her cheek. "That was my office," he said tilting his head toward the open bathroom door where the cell phone lay. "I'm sorry, but I have to leave."
"Oh." Her face deflated like a disappointed child, and after a moment she scrambled off the bed and retrieved the tee-shirt from the floor. She pulled it over her head and tugged downward, but the shirt barely covered the tops of her thighs.
"Hey, you don't have to go, though. I have to put in a few hours following up on that incident at Stuckey's. I'll be back by noon." He glanced at the bedside clock. "One at the latest. I promise."
"You know, really, I should just go. This…" She waved her hand vaguely at the jumble of bedclothes. "This isn't… I don't usually… "
"Look, stay, relax, have some coffee." He walked to the closet and pulled out his blue striped dress shirt. "I'd like to see you again. Honestly. So, if you feel the same, stay until I get back."
Isabella lifted one dark eyebrow and he knew he'd tossed out too casual an offer.
"Or leave a phone number, okay?" he said hurriedly.
She gave a tiny nod and appropriated the bathroom. Moments later he heard the water running. As he dressed in fresh underwear and socks, his mind raced with a dozen questions about what the investigators had discovered last night. Nothing definite or Max would've tagged him. Still, he needed to get there as soon as possible.
He glanced toward the closet where last night's jacket hung, Lupe's information folded carefully in the inside pocket. Christ! Last night he'd let his senses get so addled that he'd risked blowing his informant's cover. Let his guard down so that he hadn't even seen the attack in the alley coming. Gotten entangled so deep with a woman that he'd taken her back to his apartment when the smart thing to do would've been to put her in a cab and send her on her way.
Now his white-knight conscience was intervening. He sighed heavily. God knew, he was no saint, but something innocent and almost virginal about Isabella made him believe her. She'd told the truth. Last night wasn't typical behavior for her.
He opened the closet and grabbed his tan suit and silk tie off the clothes dowel and finished dressing. Gathered his briefcase and holstered his weapon. When he heard the water shut off, he listened at the bathroom door. He rapped softly.
No answer.
"I'm sorry, Isabella," he said through the door. "I really am. But I've got to get to work."
The door eased open and Isabella stepped through the archway. Desire shot through his loins like a flame-thrower's sword. Steady, he warned himself, but his heart thundered in his ears like a herd of mustangs and his forehead felt suddenly clammy.
He shoved aside the shards of lust that ran through him. At least he could keep his hands off her now and not complicate an already awkward situation.
They hadn't really had sex, not the real kind, the kind that could get her pregnant or… Jesus Christ, what had he been thinking of? Taking a strange woman to his apartment, to his bed? Doing those intimate things to her body.
He wouldn't go there again. Wouldn't compound the problem.
Decision made, he reached for his suit jacket. "Look, it's late and I've got to get to work… " He shrugged helplessly. "Uh, why don't you grab some coffee and, uh, maybe you can let yourself out. Last night was great, but… look, we hardly know each other and… maybe last night was a mistake," he ended in a rush.
"A mistake," she echoed, her eyes wide with an emotion he couldn't read.
He watched the heightened color edge upward toward her face and clenched his jaw. "You seem like a nice girl. I'm sure you're not used to hopping into bed with strangers, so let's chalk this… situation up to the intensity of the attack or too many drinks, and leave it at that."
As he closed the door behind him, he reminded himself again of the reasons last night should never have happened. First, agency matters ought to be at the front of his mind at this delicate stage of his investigation. Also, he had no business taking advantage of Isabella.
Last night neither had been thinking straight.
"You're telling me that isn't blood in the alley?" Rafe tented his fingers, elbows resting on the arms of his desk chair, and tried to stare down the homicide detective who sat across from him in his East Temple Street office.
"Oh, it's blood all right, Hashish," Jensen answered, throwing in the nickname because he knew it pissed Rafe off. "Crime scene says animal, not human, but they need to run forensics to be sure."
He spread his hands, palms up. "So, my good friend, you wanna tell me what this is all about?" He eyed Rafe speculatively. "And while you're at it, what about that cut on your already fucked-up ugly mug? How'd you get that?"
Max Jensen had always been too observant for his own good, starting during their Stanford undergraduate days when he'd noticed Dr. Henderson's preoccupation with his computer during class. At the mature age of nineteen, Max had sucked Rafe into breaking into the lab to screw around with Dr. Henderson's settings.
The straight-on hetero porn Henderson had been salivating over became heavy-duty gay porn. A joke, but Rafe always wondered if atonement was why Max had gone into law enforcement instead of being some computer geek mixing things up in the Silicon Valley.
"My face met the butt-end of a door," Rafe answered in a way that should warn Max off. "Find anything else in that alley?"
"Yeah, a lot of garbage and crap." Max laughed. "What were you expecting?"
Rafe ignored the question. "What about the bartender?"
"One Joseph X. McHenry."
Rafe lifted his brow. "X?"
"What can I say?" Max shrugged. "Xander, go figure."
"Any record?"
"About as long as your arm, but nothing in the last seven years. He jumped the SHU in oh-three and has stayed below the radar since." Max pronounced the acronym "shoe."
"The Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison?"
"Yep, that one, where we keep some of our most violent criminal offenders, lucky us."
"How'd he manage to get out?" Rafe asked.
"Everything's about DNA now. Old Joe was doing life without parole in the SHU on a rape-murder charge with special circumstances. And then bing, DNA exonerated him." Max's face tightened in anger. "Never mind that the bastard committed dozens of crimes he was never convicted of."
"But he's stayed cleaned since?"
"Yeah, the lucky son-of-a-bitch."
"Known associates? Dirty pee test? Carrying?" Rafe knew most parolees got violated on one of these charges.
"Wouldn't matter," Max said.
"Right, exoneration, not parole."
The state retained a hold on a released offender who waived his Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights to get parole. He could be stopped and searched, any time, any place, all without a warrant because of his parole status.
Most parolees reverted right back to the life. Joseph X. wasn't on parole, but Rafe still wondered how a guy with his record had managed to avoid getting busted on one charge or another.
"There was something in the blood, though," Max added. "Mostly animal blood contaminated by a bunch of gunk." Rafe raised his brows at the unscientific term, but the detective continued. "Crime scene techs speculated about trace amounts of human blood along with the animal blood."
"You think someone tried to cover up the human blood?"
"Could be, amigo, could be." Max pushed his long, lanky form out of the chair and adjusted his shoulder pistol before turning to the office door. "I'll give you an update as soon as the lab report's complete."
His hand on the doorknob, Max turned around and eyed Rafe speculatively. "So, if you're not going to tell me how you got that goose egg on your head or what put that shit-eating look on your face… "
Remembering last night, Rafe suppressed a smile.
"A broad? Jesus, Rafe, you finally got laid?" Max smacked his palm against the door and laughed. "When were you going to tell me about her?"
"There's no 'her' to talk about. Someone I met at Stuckey's." He leaned back on two legs of his chair, tossed the pencil on his desk, and tried to speak casually. "Ended up taking her back to my apartment. Had to, as a matter of fact."
Max moved back into the room, sat down, and leaned forward eagerly, a salacious look on his face. "Had to?"
Rafe waved a hand. "Long story."
"Hubba-hubba, old man. So, did she spend the night?" Max pretended to pant like a dog. "What's her name? Goddamn! You old devil."
"Don't get so excited. It was just a casual thing, you know? Besides, nothing happened." Not much, anyway, he amended silently.
"No, I don't know." Max waved his ring hand in the air. "Hello, married ten years. Leg shackles and all. The only way I get lucky is through hearing your escapades. At least tell me her name. Give me a bone, here, Hash."
Rafe chuckled, the sound of her name sexy as it rolled off his tongue. "Isabella. No last name. Bella," he said, the taste of it on his lips still feeling great. "Maybe she'll leave her phone number."
"You dick, you didn't get it last night?"
"What I got, Maxwell, was a frantic phone call from Mrs. Roberts about you in my office early this morning."
Max grinned liked an idiot while Mrs. Roberts appeared from nowhere and stood beside him, her eagle eye piercing him. Max jumped up, snapping his jaw shut.
Giving him a scathing look, she spoke to Rafe. "Agent Hashemi, excuse me, but your eleven o'clock appointment has been waiting quite a while. Assistant District Attorney Torres," she added, clearly believing he'd forgotten.
A short, middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense attitude, Marilyn Roberts put everyone from the governor to the custodian in his place. She always called Rafe by his title, expected him to address her as Mrs. Roberts, and reminded him of his sixth grade teacher who'd scared the hell out of him. Privately, he called her The Little General.
Rafe looked at Max and shrugged. "Sorry, this guy's been deflecting my emails for over a week. He has case files he doesn't want to hand over."
"Oh?" Max peeked his head out the door at the lone figure fidgeting in the waiting room.
"Send him in, Mrs. Roberts." Rafe moved behind his desk and pulled out a folder that contained ADA Torres' emails.
If not the smirk on Max's face, then at least the puzzled expression of Marilyn Roberts should've warned Rafe.
She never lost her composure, never missed a beat even in the worst situations, and absolutely never seemed confounded. "Him?" she questioned, raising both penciled brows until they seemed to disappear into her very black hairline. "I don't think so, Agent Hashemi."