The Deception Read online

  She looked over her shoulder toward the door as if she still might run. “I was hoping to hire Mr. Garrett. He’s supposed to be very good.”

  “I’m very good, Kate. And I know you. I want to help you.” He rolled out a chair at the long oak conference table, and she eased down onto the seat.

  Jase took out a chair and sat down beside her. “So your name is Kathryn, not Kate?”

  “Kathryn Gallagher. I use Kathryn in business but my friends call me Kate.”

  “Kate then.” Surely they were friends. He knew the exact shape and size of her pretty breasts, the weight of them in his hands. He knew the softness of her lips and the way they tasted. “All right, Kate, let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened to your sister.”

  She took a deep breath, but remained perched on the edge of her chair. “Her name was Christina. We called her Chrissy. Two years ago, Chrissy ran away from home. She was...she was only sixteen. The police say she was murdered, but they don’t...they don’t know who did it. They say there’s a good chance they won’t be able to find out.”

  “So you want to know what happened to your sister.”

  She seemed to collect herself. “That’s right. I want to hire a private detective, someone who’ll help me find out who killed her. Are you a private detective?” she asked again.

  “I’m licensed. I’m also a bail enforcement agent. That’s how I make most of my money.”

  Her dark blond eyebrows arched up. “You’re a bounty hunter?”

  “That’s right. That’s why they call me the Hawk. I hunt criminals for a living, and I’m good at it. Very good. You want to find the man who killed your sister? Finding people is what I do.”

  Silence fell. Neither of them moved. Jase was afraid if he wasn’t very careful, he would scare her away for good.

  “Let me help you, Kate,” he said softly.

  “I don’t...don’t think it’s a good idea. We have a certain...history. What happened could get in the way.”

  He never let pleasure interfere with business. He wouldn’t do it now. Seeing Kate again only doubled the attraction he felt for her, but pursuing her could wait until the job was done.

  “I won’t let anything that’s happened between us interfere. You won’t, either. We’ll find out who murdered your sister, and I’ll help you bring them to justice.”

  She looked at him for several long moments, trying to gauge his sincerity. Since she could see he meant every word, Kate relaxed back in her chair.

  “I believe you will,” she said. “All right, Hawk Maddox. If you want the job, you’re hired. But you have to forget that night in the parking lot. You have to pretend it never happened.”

  Amusement touched his lips. “I won’t forget it, Kate. But I’ll put it aside—for now.” Color slid into her cheeks. “We’ll get this done and go on from there. That work for you?”

  She looked nervous again. “I’m not...not completely sure.”

  “Why don’t we try it for a while and see?”

  Some of the stiffness eased from her shoulders. “Fair enough.”

  He had the job, Jase thought. Now all he had to do to gain Kate’s trust was to find her a killer. A look passed between them, and the air in the room seemed to thicken and heat.

  The sooner he got the job done the better.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kate could hardly believe it. Jason Maddox, the last man in the world she wanted to see, was sitting right beside her. Worse yet, he was the man she had just hired to help her find Chrissy’s killer. What the unholy hell had just happened?

  “So...um...where do we start?” she asked, accepting whatever circumstances fate seemed to have set in motion.

  “I need to take some notes,” Maddox said. “I’ll be right back.” He rose from the swivel chair next to hers, and she tried not to think how good he looked in a yellow knit pullover and dark blue jeans.

  But the pullover stretched over his powerful chest and an amazing set of biceps, one with a tattoo of an eagle perched on a globe and the words Semper Fi inked beneath it. She had noticed it that night in the parking lot.

  She blocked the thought as he walked away and tried not to notice his long legs, broad back and round, muscular behind. She felt like fanning herself. Just looking at all that hard masculinity made her face feel warm.

  He disappeared out the door, returned a few minutes later with a lined yellow pad and sat back down at the conference table.

  “In my line of work you have to be pretty tech savvy, but writing things down helps me focus and gives me something solid to look at.” He clicked the end of his pen and settled back in his seat, stretching those long legs out in front of him.

  “Tell me about Chrissy.”

  She forced herself to concentrate, thought of her sister as a child, and warm memories slipped through her.

  “She was a beautiful little girl. By the time she was a teenager, she was gorgeous. Blond hair and big blue eyes. She was always popular in school. In her freshman year, she was a cheerleader.”

  Kate told him how she and Chrissy had been raised in Rockdale, a tiny town northeast of Austin, how Chrissy had always hated it and wanted to move to the city. “I left for college as soon as I finished high school, and as she grew older, she got so envious. She couldn’t wait to be old enough to leave.”

  “Were the two of you close?” Maddox asked. Kate forced herself to think of him that way, as Maddox, not Jason, not the man she had kissed, then seduced in the parking lot, not the man who had held her when she cried.

  “She was eleven years younger, so no, we were never very close. By the time Chrissy was in high school, I was working in Dallas. By then, Mom and Dad were fighting all the time. That’s when Chrissy started having trouble with drugs and alcohol. When Dad left home, things got worse.”

  “In what way?”

  “Mom couldn’t control her. She was constantly in trouble at school. I tried to talk to her, but it didn’t do any good. She was sixteen when she ran away. My dad was remarried and living in New York. Mom blamed herself. She died later that year.” And Kate missed her every day.

  “The cops never came up with any information on your sister’s whereabouts?”

  “The police did everything they could to find her, but it was like she had vanished into thin air. I never saw her again, not until I went to the morgue.” She glanced away, the pain still close to the surface. “If I’d known she was in Dallas, maybe I could have found a way to help her. At least talked to her, done something.”

  “Maybe that was the reason she came here. She wanted to see you again.”

  A lump swelled in her throat. “There’s a chance, I guess, but it never happened. I wish it had.”

  Maddox made notes on the yellow pad, but she thought he was using it more as a tool to connect with a client than a way to jog his memory.

  “I need to see the police report,” he said. “See what they’ve got on the case so far.”

  “They said she was using the name Tina Galen. According to Detective Benson, she was a heroin addict and a prostitute. God, just saying it hurts.”

  “Benson’s the lead on the case?”

  “Yeah. He seemed like a real dick, but I guess I could be wrong.”

  Maddox’s lips twitched. “You’re not wrong. Benson’s definitely a dick. I still need to talk to him, see what I can find out.” They continued for a while, Maddox asking questions about Chrissy, anything she could remember that might help him. He asked her to get him a photo, the most recent one she had.

  “I’d like to get started on this,” he said, rising from his chair.

  Kate stood up, too. “I want to help. I’ll take some time off so we can work on this together.”

  “You can trust me to handle this, Kate. You don’t have to get involved.”

  She straightene
d her shoulders. “That’s not an option. I failed Chrissy before. I won’t do it again. I’m going to do everything I can to help find her killer and bring him to justice.”

  Maddox studied her face. She could almost see his mind working behind those intriguing blue eyes. “All right, we can do that. As long as we’re just digging up information and following leads. But if things get dicey, I take over and you stay out of it.”

  Kate didn’t argue. Arguing hadn’t worked with Benson, and she had a hunch it wouldn’t work with Maddox. It didn’t matter. Whether he approved or not, she wasn’t stopping until Chrissy’s killer faced justice.

  “You parked in the front or the back?” he asked.

  “I’m out front.”

  Maddox walked her to the front door of the office. “I’ll need your contact information.” A corner of his mouth kicked up. “Just Kate isn’t going to work this time.”

  A memory arose of those lips moving hotly over hers, and desire clenched low in her belly. It was ridiculous. She tried to tell herself it was just that she hadn’t been with a man in over six months, not since her breakup with Andrew. But the truth was, she was wildly attracted to Jason Maddox.

  She forced herself to concentrate. Pulling a business card out of her purse, she turned it over and wrote her personal information on the back, including her address and cell phone number. She handed Maddox the card.

  “‘Gallagher and Company Consulting,’” he read. “Owner and Management Analyst.” He glanced up. “What’s a management analyst do?”

  She smiled. “We study a company’s efficiency, its systems, that kind of thing. Then we recommend ways to increase productivity and make it more profitable.”

  “Sounds useful.” He pulled out his cell and punched her number into his contacts. “Your turn,” he said, then rattled off his number and waited while she added it to her phone.

  “I researched your rates and how all of this works,” Kate said. “Don’t you need money up front? A retainer of some kind?”

  A smile lightened the blue of his eyes. “Are you good for it?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “I’ll call you as soon as I talk to Benson. With any luck we can meet up again tonight.”

  Her breath caught. Meet up again tonight? She hadn’t thought that far ahead, but she hadn’t imagined seeing him again so soon.

  “If I have something, that is,” he added. “Like I said, I’ll call you.” Maddox pulled open the door, and waited for her to walk out onto the sidewalk.

  Kate headed for her car and didn’t look back. For the first time it occurred to her that what had happened with Jason that night in the parking lot wasn’t the problem.

  It was the temptation he posed in the days ahead.

  * * *

  Jase left the office still reeling from the stroke of good fortune he had been handed. Kate Gallagher was more than just a hookup that hadn’t actually happened. She was a successful businesswoman. She was beautiful, smart and determined. She appealed to him on a half dozen different levels, attracted him in a way few women ever had.

  She wanted to help with the case. Letting her work with him would give her a chance to get to know him.

  Which was good news and bad.

  Jase wanted Kate in his bed—no question about it. He wanted to have sex with her for hours on end. Make that days on end, possibly weeks.

  But he wasn’t a relationship kind of guy, at least not for any length of time. He led a hard, fast life and always had. There was no place in that kind of life for a woman.

  He shook his head, amazed he had gotten as far as even thinking about it. But with her sister dead, Kate already had more than her share of trouble. She didn’t need more from a guy like him.

  On the other hand, Kate needed his help. She was determined to find the man who had murdered her sister, and Jase didn’t believe she’d give up until she did.

  But hunting a killer was dangerous. In his line of work he’d learned that firsthand. He’d known Kate only briefly, but holding her while she cried made him feel protective of her. No way was he trusting Kate’s safety to someone else.

  Jase left the office, his first stop the morgue. According to Kate, Dr. Jerome Maxwell was the medical examiner who had handled her sister’s case.

  For a bounty hunter, the right contacts meant the difference between success and failure. Jase knew Jerry Maxwell. He’d helped him locate his grandson, who had dropped out of school and was hanging around with a bad crowd. Jase had found him, talked to him, helped set him straight. The boy was back in class and doing well.

  “Hawk,” Maxwell called out as Jase walked through the door. “It’s been a while. It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too, Jerry.”

  “Have a seat.” Maxwell sat down at his desk, and Jase sat down in the chair beside it.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need information on a dead girl named Christina Gallagher. Died a little over a week ago.”

  Maxwell nodded. “Homicide victim. I remember her sister, Kathryn. Beautiful woman.”

  “Yeah, well, according to Kate... Kathryn... Christina was beautiful, till she started doing drugs.”

  Maxwell located the file, set it down and slid it in front of Jase. He flipped it open to the photos of the victim. Pale, emaciated, eyes sunken in, Chrissy Gallagher looked nothing like her older sister.

  “Cause of death was blunt force trauma,” Maxwell said. “She was very badly beaten. There was bruising on the torso and face, but it was a blow to the head that killed her. Looks like it was made with a bat of some kind, or something shaped that way.”

  “What else?”

  “Needle marks indicate heavy drug use. Multiple fractures and contusions, some several years old, others recent.”

  Jase looked up. “She left home at sixteen, been missing two years. The cops told Kathryn that Christina was a prostitute.” He looked down at a photo of Chrissy’s bruised and battered body. “Whoever was pimping her out wasn’t kind.” He glanced over at the doctor. “What about DNA?”

  “No skin under her nails, nothing like that. Probably too drugged up on heroine to fight back.”

  “Recent evidence of sexual intercourse?”

  “No semen. The guy used a condom, so again no DNA, but there was a great deal of bruising around the vagina.”

  “So the sex wasn’t for pleasure.”

  “Not unless she liked it rough, which could be the case. There were ligature marks on her wrists and ankles. Both old and new.”

  Jase frowned, thinking of the pretty young girl who had left home at sixteen and the broken young woman in the photos. “Maybe she wasn’t working the street by choice.”

  Maxwell pushed his black-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “It’s possible.”

  “She was young when she left home. She would have been a likely candidate for trafficking.”

  “It’s also possible being tied up was her specialty. Johns pay extra for certain kinks.” Maxwell sifted through the photos, pulled up one Jase hadn’t noticed. “She had an interesting tattoo on her neck right here.” He pointed to a photo. “Red. Just behind her left ear.”

  “Shaped like a pair of lips...or more like a red lipstick mark left from a kiss.” Jase pulled out his cell and took a photo of the tattoo. “Ever seen a tat like that before?”

  “No.”

  He went through the rest of the file, his mind spinning with possibilities. None of them good. He wished he didn’t have to tell Kate.

  He stood up from his chair. “Thanks, Doc. I appreciate your help.”

  “No problem.”

  Jase left the building. Maybe there was more going on here than a john roughing up a whore and accidentally killing her, he thought. But first, he needed to talk to Detective Benson.

  * * *

 
The Dallas police station on Lamar in downtown Dallas was a fifteen-minute drive on I-35 from the medical examiner’s building out on North Stemmons. The female officer working the front desk called upstairs so Benson knew Jase was coming. He crossed the bull pen, waved to a couple of cops he knew on his way to Benson’s desk.

  “Maddox.” The detective didn’t bother to stand. “Since when are you working a murder case?”

  “The client’s a friend. The dead girl’s her sister.”

  Benson grunted. “Kathryn Gallagher—the royal pain in the ass. It’s her, right?” Benson was one of those people who was always in a bad mood. It fit with his perpetually wrinkled suit, and the lines in his face that made him look like an English bulldog.

  “It’s her,” Jase said, his own irritation growing.

  “Figures.”

  “Why? Because you know what a pain in your ass I’m going to be if you don’t give me what I need?”

  “Take it easy. What do you want to know?”

  “I’d like to look at the file.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “Fine. I talked to the coroner. Cause of death was blunt force trauma.”

  “That’s right, she was beaten to death. Probably a john who got carried away.”

  “Maybe. She had a tattoo of a kiss on her neck. You ever seen one like it?”

  “No.”

  “ME says there wasn’t any semen so no DNA.”

  “Nope.”

  “What about prints?”

  “Remains sat outside all night. It was rainy, muddy. Got nothing we could use.”

  “Where was the body found?”

  “Old East Dallas. Alley behind Mean Jack’s. You know it?”

  “I know it. That the primary crime scene or was she killed somewhere else?”

  “The body was moved. We haven’t found the primary yet.”

  “What about her phone? Did you find it?”

  “No. She had a webpage with a customer contact number. Number belonged to a burner.”

  “Give me the number.”

  Benson looked down at the file and rattled it off.