Lying Eyes Read online

  Her ecstasy, too, and perhaps their lives.

  Slowly, she closed her eyes. She no longer needed to see. She wanted to enjoy the fire Carlo's wandering hand had kindled deep in her core—a flame that hadn't burned for far too long.

  "He's gone," Carlo whispered, releasing her after a final caress.

  No, no. Not now. It's been too long since anyone held me close.

  All the undercover officers in the building couldn't have held her still as a sensual release overtook Allison. Her entire body shook. She squeezed her eyes shut, clamped her jaw to keep her passionate moans from escaping, and pressed her thighs together, prolonging her ecstasy.

  Carlo—bless him—licked the sensitive bare spot behind her ear and kissed her neck with tender care.

  "Hot damn," he murmured, pressing against her as he again tightened his hold.

  Her passion gradually faded, her good sense returned, and she squirmed to free herself from his grasp.

  "Sorry," Carlo said, chuckling as he rolled off her and sat, peering around.

  I'm not the least bit sorry, just too embarrassed to look you in the eye.

  "See anyone?" she asked, sitting, too, and straightening her shorts.

  "No, last I saw of the perp he was heading for the east elevator."

  "Good."

  "I guess you know it's your fault we were in danger."

  "How did you arrive at that unbelievable conclusion?"

  "It's your fault I didn't grab my radio before we left my room."

  "You're blaming me for your memory lapse?" she asked, spoiling for a fight.

  "If you hadn't strolled into my room dressed like the centerfold in some fitness magazine I wouldn't have almost dropped my teeth and forgotten my radio. That failure could have gotten you killed."

  "Stop beating yourself up. You kept me safe."

  "But if I'd had my radio I could have called for backup the minute you warned me the perp was closing in on us. I'd not only have saved your life, the perp would be under arrest. Where is your radio?"

  Ignoring his question, she smiled sweetly at him. "Next time I'll put my tunic on before knocking on your door."

  A muscle in his tight jaw twitched. "There isn't going to be a next time."

  Don't count on it, Buster. Unless you get lucky and catch the perp, we're going to spend two more days in close quarters. It will be a tossup to see who gets lucky first.

  She grinned smugly. I can't wait.

  Carlo grabbed her hand. "Let's get the hell out of here. I've had enough excitement for one day."

  "Really?"

  I haven't had nearly enough.

  Chapter Eleven

  "Well?"

  "Not yet."

  "Why not? I've given you plenty of time."

  "I almost cornered them on the fourth floor, but there must have been a back door. She and the uniform gave me the slip."

  "Damn. Have you thought about what will happen if you aren't given another chance?"

  "Sure. I'm not feeble minded. I worry about it all the time."

  "Good. Stay awake tonight. This might be your last chance to sneak into the girl's room while she's asleep."

  *****

  Allison knocked on the door connecting their hotel rooms.

  "Carlo? Ready to eat?"

  "Yes, but not another dumb banquet," he said, opening the door and quickly closing it half-way.

  "Hey!"

  "I'm not sure I can spend the evening with you without ripping off your skimpy dress."

  She laughed. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

  "Perhaps, but I've had even nicer thoughts. What color is that?"

  "Roughish purple, the sales lady said."

  "Humph. Nothing roughish about you. You're the most straightforward woman I've ever met. Sit a minute. I need to notify the team."

  She sat.

  He dialed.

  She adjusted her mini skirt.

  His gaze locked on the swatch of bare skin above her knees.

  She stood and tried sitting again.

  His ears turned red and his voice cracked as he said, "Captain?"

  Grinning, she checked the depth of her plunging neckline in Carlo's mirror.

  His half-closed eyes met hers is the silvered glass.

  Her grin turned smug.

  His eyes bugged. "Yes, we're leaving for the banquet now."

  Carlo gulped. "Right."

  He disconnected and radioed the team. "Allison is leaving her room."

  Following her to her door, he stuck his head out and checked the hall. "All clear."

  She stepped outside, smiling widely at his disgruntled sigh.

  He soon came out his door, greeted Marsha and Susan, and stalked to the elevator in silence.

  "What's eating him?" Marsha whispered.

  "I'm not sure," Allison said.

  "Sexual frustration, if you ask me," Susan said with far too much certainty. "I had three brothers, so I recognize the symptoms."

  The women laughed.

  Carlo scowled. "Wonder what they'll do to the chicken tonight?"

  "I haven't a clue," Allison said. "What's your favorite food?"

  "My mother's pasta frizzoli and tiramisu."

  She grinned. "Neither one of those is standard banquet fare."

  "Doesn't keep me from dreaming about it though."

  "Maybe you'll get to dump me and eat with your mother on Sunday night."

  "That's my plan."

  The dumping? Or the eating?

  The spring went out of Allison's step and she trudged into the crowded banquet hall and located acceptable seats.

  The feast was about what she expected, a lukewarm entrée and too-cold white wine, but the speaker was entertaining. She filed out of the hall in a better mood until Carlo bumped into a tall uniformed man.

  "Link? Why are you here?"

  "I heard there was a problem at the Caprice, so I stopped by after my shift to lend a hand."

  Carlo squeezed Allison's waist, signaling her to remain silent, she supposed.

  "A problem? I haven't heard anything about any problem. You must have the wrong hotel, but as long as you're here, let me introduce you. Allison Marble, this is one of my co-workers, Sergeant Lincoln Knox. Allison is a television reporter from San Diego. She's attending this conference, too."

  Gazing at Link, she smiled as she shook his hand.

  He gave Carlo a thumbs-up and asked Allison, "Having a good conference?"

  "The best."

  "Good to hear. Don't let me keep you. Nice meeting you, Allison. Maybe I'll see you around."

  "Over my dead body," Carlo muttered.

  As Link hurried away, she turned to Carlo, perplexed.

  "I don't know what the hell he's doing here," he said, lowering his voice. "And I sure don't want him sticking his nose in this. The Captain promised complete secrecy about the cash."

  "You're right about his eyes. The entire time we spoke he kept staring past my shoulder instead of into my eyes."

  "Mine, too. When we were kids, he had an open expression. I could guess what he was thinking without him saying a word. Now, when I look into his eyes I see dark shadows, making me wonder what he's hiding, never a good feeling for a cop."

  "I guess in your field you put a lot of faith in what you read in a man's eyes."

  "Reading most people I meet is easy. Take you, for example. You have honest eyes, innocent, yet intriguing. Eyes that make it difficult for anyone to glance away."

  He grinned apologetically. "I'm not accustomed to staring truth in the face. In my line of work, truthfulness is the exception, not the rule."

  "Where are we heading?" Susan asked.

  Carlo turned to Allison. "Would you like a night cap before we go to the room?"

  She readily agreed.

  "You two can hang around the lobby for a while," he said to Marsha and Susan. "I'll let you know when we're heading to the room. We shouldn't be long."

  "Good," Susa
n said. "We're planning to gather in my room and roast Carlo, and can't start without Allison."

  *****

  A bald man quietly played ragtime on the baby grand piano in the busy lobby bar, but Carlo got lucky and found a vacant loveseat they sank onto.

  Allison glanced around admiring the exquisite live floral arrangement on the piano and loving the relaxed way Carlo settled in and casually stretched his arm across the back of the loveseat. The closeness of his body warmed her. She fanned herself with her conference badge.

  Across the lobby she observed Link—Sergeant Knox—shake his fist in the face of some stocky, well-tanned man. Before she could call Carlo's attention to the twosome, the other man moved out of sight and Link disappeared down the stairs to the parking garage.

  Their drinks arrived and Allison forgot the incident as she sipped her margarita while Carlo flirted with an attractive blonde member of the hotel security staff.

  Allison pulled out her cell phone, quickly reviewed the story she'd spent the early morning hours writing, and emailed it to a friend responsible for uncovering human interest stories for a San Diego newspaper.

  As she pressed Send, Carlo cut his conversation short and scowled as he turned to her. "What the hell did you just do?"

  "Not that it's any of your business, but I filed another story."

  His eyes widened. "Please tell me it wasn't about what's going on here?"

  Counting to ten, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. "You think I'm stupid."

  "Not stupid, unthinking."

  "Thanks a bunch."

  The muscle she was becoming all too familiar with twitched in his jaw. "Allison, tell me what you did, or I'll turn you over my knee and paddle you right here and now."

  "Ooh, that sounds like fun."

  "Allison..."

  "You win. I sent a human interest piece about a young woman from Turkey I met in the hotel gift shop to a reporter for the San Diego Union-Tribune. I'm hoping he knows someone who works for the LA Times. The woman I wrote about is part of this hotel's housekeeping staff. Her pay barely earns enough to keep food on the table for her mother and toddler son. She's foolishly set her heart on landing a cashier's job in the gift shop or the bar."

  Carlo thought a moment. "With tips I suspect she makes more cleaning rooms for hotel guests than she would in the gift shop."

  "My assumption, too. She needs to train for a higher paying job, possibly in accounting. I suggested she enroll in an online class, not realizing she didn't have a computer or access to the internet."

  He grimaced. "I doubt she can afford either one."

  "That's why I told her about adult education classes. Some courses provide everything she'll need, or she could enroll in an online class and use a computer at the library. San Diego's new downtown library has a well-staffed computer lab devoted to helping adult women become computer literate. Maybe she can find a similar program here."

  The hardness around Carlo's eyes softened. "You're something else."

  "I'm not sure what you mean?"

  "In the short time allotted you to shop for makeup, a complete stranger confided her hopes and dreams to you. Now you've shouldered the responsibility of finding her a better paying job."

  "One with benefits, I hope, but that's not why I wrote the story. I encouraged the readers to be on the alert. There's always someone less fortunate who needs a helping hand, not just a handout."

  "That's exactly what I meant. You view the world through rose-colored glasses and need to be more careful. Someday one of your hastily made assumptions may backfire and bite you on the butt."

  "I doubt it. I always expect the best from the people I meet, and I'm yet to be disappointed."

  "If you assume those people are all as open and trustworthy as you are, you're setting yourself up to be hurt."

  Allison shifted in her seat so she could look Carlo in the eye. "What's wrong with my outlook?"

  He swirled the last of his beer around in the bottle and swallowed it. "It would be fine if we were living in a fantasy world. We are not, Allison. Accept it, and move on."

  "And become bitter like you? No thanks. And while we're having this heart-to-heart, you should try freeing the barbed wire guarding your heart and let yourself feel for a change. Despite what you think, it's not unmanly to have feelings and express them."

  His grip on the empty beer bottle tightened. "We've beat this dead horse long enough. Ready to go to the room?"

  "You obviously are."

  Based on Carlo's tight expression, my heated words derailed any hope of us having a relationship. I don't regret my outburst. The air needed clearing, for all the good it did.

  Disappointed, Allison stood.

  "What's in store for tomorrow?" Carlo asked warily.

  "More of the same, I suppose."

  "I'll text the team and let them know to gather in your room to rehash today's happenings and decide if any of their instructions need to be changed."

  As she headed to the elevator, Allison again felt eyes watching her. She straightened her spine, shrugged her shoulders, and walked faster, determined not to glance around or share her feelings with Carlo.

  He'd laugh at her. Instead, she sharpened her tongue by picking another fight with him in the elevator before joining the team in her room.

  Good thing she had, she thought five minutes later, seated on her bed and listening to Marsha rake Carlo over the coals. "Don't ever tell me to take a break while I'm on stakeout again. You forgetting your radio caused us to miss the perfect opportunity to corner the perp. We would be sleeping in our own beds now it you hadn't slipped up."

  "Sorry," Carlo said, leaning so far back in a straight-backed chair the front legs lifted off the floor. "I promise not to forget my radio again."

  Allison grinned. "At least you remembered your gun. Where was it concealed?"

  He gave her a smartass grin.

  "Why don't we use Allison for bait to draw this guy out in the open?" Susan asked.

  Carlo's dark eyes flashed as the legs of his chair crashed to the floor. "No. We're not putting an innocent woman at risk. Not on my watch."

  "But she—"

  "No. Unless we run out of options, Allison is not becoming a target."

  I already am, Carlo.

  Chapter Twelve

  Carlo's unrelenting refusal to use me to draw the perp out of hiding doesn't make sense, Allison thought as she strode across the hall to Susan's room. I'm the one the perp is after. Why keep me under tight restraints? If the perp grows too desperate, he may try something in a crowded workshop.

  "Can you talk some sense into Carlo?" she asked as soon as Susan opened the door.

  Susan tossed a delighted grin at Marsha. "Looks like we picked the right night for our roast."

  "What has Carlo done now? Nothing a little champagne won't make better, I hope," Marsha said, filling another flute.

  "Lead me to it," Allison said, her jaw tight and fists clenched. "He's driving me crazy with his mothering tactics, smothering me. All I'm asking for is freedom to be myself, freedom to do my own thing without Carlo peering over my shoulder and dictating my every move."

  "Tiresome, isn't it?"

  "And boring. I couldn't even enjoy a margarita without him spoiling my mood. Doesn't he ever take a break? Go fishing or something to take his mind off drug lords and crime?"

  Susan and Marsha exchanged amused glances. Then Susan dug in her purse, removed a five-dollar bill and passed it to Marsha with a grim smile. "Looks like you win this round."

  "What was the wager?"

  "Susan bet Carlo would romance you in the bar," Marsha said, laughing as she pocketed the money.

  "I wish. Always-on-duty Demetri called me on the carpet before our drinks arrived."

  Marsha sighed. "What's he upset about now?"

  "I emailed a story I wrote about the immigrant woman we talked to in the gift shop to a newspaper for publication. He went ballistic, convinced I'd spilled my guts a
bout this case. Does he always believe the worst about everyone?"

  "Sometimes it's what keeps his team alive," Susan said with a shrug.

  Allison dipped a potato chip in blue-cheese dip and munched before commenting. "I've discovered he does have a few soft spots."

  "What? Tell us," Susan pleaded.

  "For one, he likes cats."

  "Like we didn't know. He keeps a photograph of Snookums on his desk," Susan said.

  "And he's thoughtful to the extreme where his mother is concerned."

  Marsha and Susan exchanged surprised glances. "Funny, he's never mentioned having a mother to us."

  "Perhaps because he's as tight-lipped as a shy two-year-old where personal things are concerned. I wouldn't have known anything about his brothers if Hanson hadn't told me, to keep me from sticking my foot in my mouth," Susan said.

  "What about his brothers?" Allison asked, determined not to betray a confidence.

  Susan and Marsha exchanged another glance. "It will be better if Carlo tells you, not us," Susan said.

  "Oh." I already know. "What else?"

  Marsha grinned. "Carlo has the most incredible curls."

  "The kind you can't wait to plow your fingers through," Susan said dreamily.

  "I noticed," Allison said, running her fingers through her curls.

  "Promise you will tell us if you get to," Marsha said dreamily.

  "How long have the two of you had crushes on him?" Allison asked.

  "Since the first day he walked into Central," Susan confessed.

  "Me, too. He held the door to the briefing room open for me that morning. When I walked through the musk-and-Zest cloud surrounding him and entered the room I decided this clean, buff man is all mine."

  "Did you ever act on your decision?" Susan asked.

  "I tried, but was rebuffed at every turn. I decided he'd been hurt badly by some female in his past dumb enough to reject his advances."

  Allison frowned. "You think a woman hurt him?"

  "I don't," Susan said. "He's too strong for personal rejection to scar him. There's something else bothering Carlo. Something we may not live long enough to uncover."

  Marsha chuckled. "He does keep his sails trimmed close to the wind."

  "His handsome face closely shaved, too. I keep fantasizing about running my tongue around the deep cleft in his chin," Susan said, pouring another round of champagne.