Playing Dead Part 10

"He was in the Marines?"

"No. The Air Force."

She didn't say anything, but he saw her mind working behind those incredible blue eyes.

"When I was growing up in Santa Barbara, I didn't have plans for my future. My dad was the district attorney, and I was a beach b.u.m."

"Somehow, that doesn't fit. I don't see you lying around on the beach working on your tan."

He laughed. "No, lying around wasn't my style. Surfing was. Surfing and diving. Travis-Travis Cole, my closest friend since we were six-and I spent every afternoon on the waves or under them. And we cut enough cla.s.ses that I had to study my a.s.s off to pa.s.s my finals."

"Your dad didn't like that."

"h.e.l.l no. He didn't like Travis, who was from a wealthy family. They had the kind of money that seemed to grow on trees. I didn't have the same advantages. We weren't poor by any stretch, but putting me through college and law school like my father planned would wipe out their savings account." Mitch heated with regret remembering when he told his dad he'd be a lawyer over his dead body. Rod Bianchi was dead less than a year later.

"I joined the military right out of high school to get away from Dad. It was the military or college, and I really didn't want to go to college. I wanted to travel the world with Travis on his yacht, diving in the tropics and surfing waves that hit empty beaches. But I couldn't do it. I told myself it was because my mom would be devastated, but in truth I was still under Dad's thumb. No matter how many shenanigans I pulled with Travis, I kept going home and asking for forgiveness."

"You probably would have gotten bored with that after, oh, ten or twenty years."

He nodded, gave her a half smile, though his memories were of an unhappier time.

Something pa.s.sed across Claire's expression that told Mitch now was the time to get her to talk about her dad, but then it was gone and she said, "So you joined the Marines because he had been in the Air Force."

"Yeah."

"And why'd you leave?"

"My dad died. Heart attack."

"I'm sorry."

"He was a workaholic. On the job 24/7. He didn't know the meaning of the word relax, and his doctor had been warning him for years that if he didn't slow down or take care of himself, he would die early. Rod Bianchi didn't believe him. He was in shape, worked out at the gym every morning, ate healthy. He died at his desk."

"And you came home to be a beach b.u.m?"

"I considered it. But I ended up going to college. Travis got tired of traipsing across the planet, so he joined me. We got a place on the beach and spent a lot of time on the waves, and a little time in cla.s.s."

"How'd you end up becoming a writer?"

Now they were getting into the lies. It had felt so good to tell Claire the truth about himself that he dreaded the next sentence that came out of his mouth.

"I worked on the campus newspaper. I liked it, and when I graduated I took a job on a paper in the south. Then moved my way up the Eastern Seaboard. Came back to California when my mom died. When my grandmother pa.s.sed a year later and I had a bit of money, I decided that if I was ever going to do something big, I needed to try now. So I'm trying to write the Great American Novel."

The lies came off his tongue effortlessly, but he wished his heart wasn't so twisted. He wanted to tell Claire everything-how he joined the FBI because he thought that would have pleased his father, the man he had fought with only days before he died. How his mom had blamed him for his dad's early death.

Instead, he created a fictional past for Claire and hated himself for it. He couldn't tell her he thought her father was innocent, or that he had intentionally befriended her in order to capture Tom O'Brien.

Claire took his hand and kissed it. "You'll have to teach me to surf someday."

"There're no beaches in Sacramento."

She raised an eyebrow. "Really? Guess we'll have to head to the coast for a weekend sometime."

His heart did a flip and his hand tightened within her grasp.

"Guess we'll have to," he said thickly.

Instruments were being tuned in the bar, and Claire smiled. "That's Finnegan's Wake."

"What?"

"The band. Named after the cla.s.sic Irish folk song. A homage of sorts. This is their first time here."

"I thought this was a British pub." He pointed to the British flag hanging on the interior gla.s.s windows of the converted warehouse. "And isn't that Queen Elizabeth?" he said, gesturing toward a mural.

She laughed. "Come on, let's dance."

Mitch had seen Claire dance before, but not when they'd been together. When he'd been watching her, following her.

Her body moved erotically back and forth to the fluid tempo of music as he danced with her. Seeing her so free was a treat. Every morning when they talked she was on guard and cautious. Now . . . was this the real Claire? Was this the woman she'd have been had her life not been turned upside down when she was fourteen? Or was this the woman she'd become because of the murders? She danced for herself, no one else. Tonight, she seemed relaxed. Almost . . . happy. Happy with him.

She couldn't possibly know how her movement affected him. Her eyes closed and she wore that half smile Mitch loved so much. At this moment, her entire demeanor said "peace," when usually Claire seemed to struggle so.

She opened her eyes, looking right at him, all her beauty and charm and those seductive bright blue eyes focused on him. She wrapped her hands around his neck and closed her eyes again. The music had changed to something more folksy. Whatever it was, she liked it and moved accordingly.

"I love . . ."

"What?" he said, unable to hear her over the noise.

She stood on her tiptoes and leaned against him until her lips practically touched his ear. Her warm breath had him holding his. "I love this song."

She rested her head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her tight against him. The dance floor wasn't large, about ten feet square, and more people joined them, pushing them closer. She kissed the side of his neck and Mitch held her tighter, one hand on the small of her back, the other on her neck.

Throughout the evening they danced, they drank a bit, and Mitch wanted to be nowhere else in the world but with Claire.

She wrapped an arm around his waist at the end of the evening and said, "That was fun."

"I agree."

They walked out to the parking lot, arm in arm. Mitch unlocked the pa.s.senger door for Claire. He'd taken out everything that might identify him as an FBI agent. His gun was in his trunk. He felt naked without it, but Claire would have been able to see-or feel-the piece on him.

"Wow, chivalry," she said and turned to face him.

She kissed him. Everything about Claire was larger than life, and her kiss was nothing less. Her mouth parted and her tongue found his. She tasted of hops and peppermint. Her hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him down to her, her fingers rubbing his muscles, his hair, his shoulders. Her lithe body molded to his and all Mitch wanted to do was take her to his bed, right now.

His mouth opened to suggest it, but he stopped himself. He was staying at Nolan's house. Nolan had a d.a.m.n congressional medal of honor on his wall with the salutation "Special Agent Nolan Ca.s.sidy" plus a bunch of news articles in his den, extra guns in his bedroom. d.a.m.n.

"Come home with me," Claire murmured.

Was she drunk or just tipsy? What was he thinking? It didn't matter! She was Tom O'Brien's daughter. He couldn't sleep with her, no matter how much he wanted to.

He was about to protest, but instead pinned her to his car and kissed her as hard as she'd kissed him. Their bodies were as close as possible while still being fully clothed. He held her chin, kissing her repeatedly, not wanting to give up this moment.

Reluctantly, he pulled himself away. Her blue eyes looked black in the yellow light of the parking lot. Her skin was flushed, breathing heavy, lips red and lush.

"I want to." He swallowed. "But-"

She put her finger to his lips. He kissed it and she smiled. "No buts. No promises. I want to, you want to." She gave him a feather of a kiss that was as erotic as the deep kiss a moment before.

"Claire."

He wanted her.

He couldn't have her.

"I'll take you home," he said.

If she was hurt by his rejection, she didn't show it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her. He wanted to make love to her.

But not like this. Not with lies between them.

He drove the short distance to her house.

"Thanks," she said, making a move to open the door.

"Claire-" He took her arm, pulled her across the middle seat, and kissed her. Long and hard, showing her his feelings when he couldn't speak the whole truth.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay?" he whispered as his lips pulled back, lightly touching hers, teasing both of them.

"Okay." Her voice was hoa.r.s.e.

"Good night."

" 'Night."

He watched her walk into her house alone, and he prayed he had the willpower to resist her next time they went out.

And he knew the only way he'd be able to resist her would be if he never saw her again.

But that wouldn't happen.

ELEVEN.

Steve walked through the door of the Fox & Goose at seven thirty. Mitch had to get him out of there before Claire showed. He doubted Claire would be early, but he wanted Steve gone by eight thirty.

"You started without me." Steve slid into the chair next to him and motioned to the waitress to get him what Mitch was drinking.

"You're late."

"Got a lead on the Pinter case, but it didn't pan out. Arrested one of his minions, though, practically a kid-but with two hundred counterfeited credit cards in his possession."

"No s.h.i.t."

"Credit-card fraud is out of control, and until we get the big players like Pinter we'll never even make a dent." He shook his head. "Here we are, at one of Claire O'Brien's favorite hangouts. But of course you already knew that."

Mitch said nothing. What could he say?

"If Meg finds out about your off-duty investigation of Tom O'Brien, that's one thing. You get a slap on the wrist. But if you're involved with Claire, that's a whole different ball game."

"It's not like that."

"So what the f.u.c.k is it like?"

"It's complicated."

Steve sipped his beer. "Dammit, Bianchi, I went to bat for you today with Meg. I told her I needed you as a partner, that you are invaluable to the squad. So no more bulls.h.i.t."

"I wouldn't put you at risk, Steve."

"Why are you obsessed with Tom O'Brien? Just because he saved your life three months ago? Or is there something else you're not telling me?"

Mitch didn't want to talk about his own father railroading another innocent guy into prison. It still burned him and he hated that he came from the same gene pool as Rod Bianchi. But Steve was smart, maybe he'd see the same problems with the O'Brien conviction that Mitch saw. That while Mitch couldn't right the wrongs committed by his father long ago, he could help another wrongfully convicted man find justice and exoneration.

"Let me lay out what I know," Mitch said. "The fact that Oliver Maddox is dead makes it even more suspicious." Mitch filled Steve in on Maddox looking into an appeal of O'Brien's death sentence. "What if Maddox had real information?"

"And the real killer didn't want it to get out?" Steve shook his head. "This is a wild-goose chase. Maddox's death was probably an accident. Dozens of people drown in the Delta every year. Most are accidents."

"Convenient accident," Mitch said.

"Could have been suicide."

"By drowning? Rare. Let's wait until the autopsy tomorrow. And we have the meeting with the detective in Davis. But look at the facts. Maddox disappeared two days before O'Brien was moved into the general prison population. He was actively looking into the O'Brien case, had met with O'Brien at Quentin, and phoned him six times after that meeting. There was a meeting scheduled on the books for the Monday after Maddox disappeared."

"How'd you find that? I didn't see it in the file from Quentin."

"It wasn't, but when I interviewed the warden and the head guard of North Seg, I got a copy of the schedule. It wasn't in the file because Maddox never showed up. He was already dead."

"You're certain it's murder."

Mitch nodded. "Steve, I'm sure as h.e.l.l not perfect, but you know I'm a good cop. I smelled murder the minute I saw the body."

"I'm not going to doubt your instincts, Mitch. They've been right on the money in the past. But this time you're too close to it."