“Are you sure I can’t tempt you?”
Chapter 6
Cruz’s eyes went slowly, disbelievingly to hers. “What?” he croaked.
“Go ahead. Live dangerously,” she urged.
It seemed an eternity before his fantasy-filled brain correctly interpreted her meaning, and noticed the cheeseburger she was holding out to him. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. “I think you’re the one living dangerously.” More dangerously than she knew, he thought grimly, because her words, on the heels of his very impure thoughts, were enough to incite a saint. Which he definitely wasn’t. “And I think it’s safe to say that you could tempt me very easily,” he added with blatant meaning. “But not with that cheeseburger.”
Madeline’s eyes, full of fun a moment ago, grew uncertain. She lowered the sandwich and reached for her glass of milk, her hand a little unsteady. What had caused such a drastic change in his mood? she wondered. One minute he was lecturing her about her eating habits and the next he was talking as if… well, as if food were the last thing on his mind. But surely he hadn’t meant his words to sound that way. Had he?
“When they haul you into the operating room to unclog your arteries, remind me to say ‘I told you so.’” He changed the subject purposely. The last thing he needed was to be sidetracked by his awareness of her. He was no longer certain he could keep that out of their partnership, but it would surely help if he could restrain his overactive imagination. He chewed reflectively. He’d never before had such a problem. He was a master at separating the different areas of his life into neat compartments and never letting them mix. No woman had been allowed to creep into his thoughts when he was working, and that made Madeline even more troublesome. It was impossible not to think of her when he was working by her side eight hours a day. But he was going to have to be sure that his thoughts of her pertained only to the case. A week ago he would have been positive that such a thing would be easy. Now he was not so certain.
He finished eating before Madeline did, and she knew it was because of the difficulty she was having swallowing. She was thankful when the meal was over because, although he seemed to have no problem reverting back to his usual carefree manner, it was hard for her to forget his words. But she must have mistaken his meaning. He didn’t seem bothered at all now, just slightly impatient as he waited for her to finish.
She rose. Cruz followed, and his gaze went to her plate. The lettuce and tomato that she’d taken off her sandwich were piled neatly in a corner of the otherwise empty dish.
“Don’t tell me,” he drawled. “You don’t eat red things, either.”
“I’m sure you can find more interesting things to worry about than what I eat,” she said. She would copy his indifferent manner if it killed her. But she was startled when, at the door, he turned to her and took her jacket out of her hands.
“Put this on,” he ordered brusquely. “It’s a little chilly outside.”
She allowed him to help her with the jacket and walked out the door, puzzling over his abrupt mood changes.
Madeline drove for the rest of the afternoon, at Cruz’s direction. Three times he ordered her to stop the car and they got out. Each time they talked to men who were unenthusiastic about their presence there. All of them professed to have reformed, swearing that they were currently living saintly lives. None admitted to having any information that would help the investigation.
The next few days were spent in much the same way. After several mornings of sifting through the pages of serial numbers, they admitted defeat. No match for the number of Stover’s gun could be found. Nor were they having any better luck following up Cruz’s idea in the afternoons. It seemed as if the case were leading them to one dead end after another, and that made suspicion bloom in Madeline’s mind.
Was Cruz doing this purposely? The people they’d talked to were small-time, and none of them admitted to hearing of any AK-47s being sold on the streets. She had to wonder if this was just a wild-goose chase Cruz was leading her on; something that wasted a lot of time and energy, but brought them no closer to the supplier. It was what she would do if she was involved in the deal-come up with ideas that led the investigation farther away from her.
Her suspicions were strong enough that on two nights she left headquarters, and drove directly to the Internal Affairs building. She spent hours poring over her data bases, bringing up the names of people in the area who’d been convicted for selling guns illegally. She eliminated those whose addresses were no longer in the Philadelphia area, and those still in jail. When she’d finished, she had a list of several names. Madeline was bemused to note that many of the names matched those of the people Cruz had found for them to talk to. But when she crossed them off the list there were still a few individuals she hadn’t heard Cruz mention.
She studied the information she could find on each of the people on the list, and finally decided that their best bet would be to check on one Jose Valdez. He had twelve arrests and nine convictions, all on charges ranging from illegal sales to possession of firearms. She decided to wait and see if Cruz would mention him.
Because if he didn’t, she would.
By midweek their search had yielded no results. Madeline frowned slightly as they pulled away from the last man they’d talked to. The similarity was a red flag to her. Things didn’t stay that quiet on the streets. There were always people on the fringes, uninvolved but aware of everything that occurred. It was impossible for everyone they talked to to be ignorant of the gun sales. If gang members could get their hands on the weapons, the word had to be out there.
Which left a couple of possibilities. Either their hunch was wrong, and no one dealer was supplying the punks with those guns, or the supplier was someone so powerful that the thought of crossing him had scared everyone into keeping quiet.
She immediately discounted the first possibility. She didn’t believe in coincidence. Those gangs hadn’t all chosen the exact same kind of weapon by chance. So that left the second choice. An interesting idea, but it didn’t help pinpoint the supplier’s identity. There were numerous underworld toughs whose names alone would be enough to strike terror on the street. It could be any one of them. Or none of them.
It could even be… Her eyes slid to the man next to her. It was time, she thought, for her to change the course of this investigation. Cruz obviously wasn’t going to mention finding Valdez. Either he didn’t know of the man or he didn’t want her talking to him. So she would mention him, and closely observe Cruz’s reaction.
But before she could carry out that plan, he spoke. “Maybe we’ve been going about this all wrong.”
For a moment she wondered if he’d read her mind. “How do you mean?” she asked cautiously.
His face was pensive. “Maybe we’ve been approaching this too directly. If the supplier isn’t an unknown on the street, he could be someone no one is willing to tangle with.”
His thoughts so closely paralleled her own that Madeline was shocked. Finally she said, “You mean it could be someone people fear too much to cross?”