One Hot Target Read online

  JR stroked her hair, murmuring, “Baby. It’s okay.”

  “Now,” the cop insisted.

  “Carmen. Come on. You need to help the police.”

  With a loud sniffle, she pulled away from his embrace, nodding. “Okay. Sure.”

  JR produced one of his snowy-white handkerchiefs and offered it to her. She took it with a grateful smile. Even with mascara-smeared cheeks, her small, elegant nose red from crying, her lids puffy and her streaky blond hair in need of a comb, she was still the most beautiful woman he had ever known.

  And, as it had for years when he gazed at her, his heart turned over in his chest with an all-too-familiar, painful thud. Unrequited love was the pits.

  He turned his attention to the cop. “Officer, what is it exactly you need from Ms. Coyle?”

  “That’s Detective,” the cop said in a deep, rich voice that made JR wonder if he was a singer in his spare time. “Detective Marshall.” He fished around in an inner suit pocket and came up with a business card, which he handed to JR.

  “Macklin Thurgood Marshall, Jr.,” JR read aloud. He raised an eyebrow. “I’m impressed.”

  “And you are…?”

  “Stanton Fitzgerald Ewing, JR to pretty much everybody,” he told the older man, withdrawing his silver card case and handing one of his law firm’s business cards to Marshall.

  As the older man glanced at his card, JR could tell the moment he noticed the Esq. after his name, because an expression of displeasure crossed his coffee-colored features. JR had seen it before—yet one more protector of the people’s safety who was not thrilled with yet one more protector of the people’s rights. Marshall slipped his card into one of his pants pockets, then, having decided to deal with him instead of a teary woman, said, “Look, Counselor, I have Ms. Coyle’s preliminary statement, but we need to talk to her some more.”

  “Is she a suspect? Does she need a lawyer? Because I was on the phone with her when the shots occurred and I can vouch for—”

  Marshall interrupted him with an impatient wave of his hand. “No, she told us all about that, and she’s been cleared. We just need her statement to be as complete as possible, and she’s obviously in no shape to cooperate with us now. Tomorrow morning will be fine.”

  All right, then, JR thought with a mental sigh of relief. Carmen wasn’t in trouble. This time, anyway. He put a finger under her chin and lifted it, so he could look into her eyes. “Okay with you?”

  She nodded, then sniffled.

  “Come home with me now?” he added.

  She nodded again, grateful tears brimming above her lower lashes, then leaned against him. JR turned his attention back to the detective, his arm firmly around Carmen’s shoulders. “We’ll be there in the morning. How’s nine?”

  “Fine.”

  Marshall ushered them down the escalator and out the employee entrance so they could avoid the crowds. JR kept his arm around Carmen the whole time, escorting her to his car. As he did, he used his free hand to call his secretary on his cell, instructing her to put off the last two appointments of the day and the first one in the morning. He was a patent and intellectual property rights lawyer who worked in a large firm; none of the appointments were emergencies or he’d have had one of his associates take care of them.

  He opened the passenger door for Carmen and watched her get in and buckle her seat belt. “Where’d you park your car?”

  She shook her head. “I sold it. I took the bus here.”

  “You sold your car?”

  “Yes.” She leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. The skin around her mouth and eyes was white. She’d really been through it, he thought, hurting for her as though it had happened to him.

  But…she’d sold her car? he thought, walking around to the driver’s side. He frowned but knew now wasn’t the time to question her further. What would she do for transportation? he wondered. Los Angeles and the surrounding environs were not friendly to carless citizens.

  In silence, they headed away from the Westside mall and made their way toward his condo in Santa Monica. Carmen opened her eyes when they pulled into the underground parking lot, took JR’s arm as they rode the elevator up to the seventh floor, and the moment he opened the door, hurried right over to the large picture window that faced the ocean. Hugging herself, she stood there, staring out at the cloudless blue sky of early autumn, at the late afternoon surf, the tall palm trees, the joggers, dog-walkers, tourists moving along the palisades that overlooked the beaches below.

  She loved this view, had often teased him about how their friendship was contingent upon his continuing to live in this Ocean Boulevard condo, so she could look out his window. There was something, she would say, about the pristine, picture-postcard prettiness of his view that made her feel clean and calm in a way that nothing else did.

  “Do you want a shot of something?” he asked her. “Brandy?”

  She turned around, her expression wistful. “Hot tea?”

  “I think I can rustle some up.”

  By the time he got back with her cup of hot tea and a plateful of her favorite cookies—which he kept in the house for when she visited—Carmen was curled up in her usual place at one corner of his large couch. Her feet were bare; her rubber thongs were on the floor being sniffed at by Owl, his aging tomcat. The Nordstrom shopping bag rested against the sofa.

  Noting that Carmen was trembling, JR pulled the afghan off the back of the couch and covered her up to her chin, tucking it behind her shoulders and over her bare feet. As he did, she offered a sad, tired smile. “You’re the best.”

  “Drink some tea,” he said.

  She reached an arm out from under the afghan and took a sip.

  He lowered himself onto the adjacent armchair and leaned over, with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped between his legs to keep himself from sitting next to her and pulling her into his arms again. She aroused all kinds of protective feelings in him, but if he gave in to them whenever he experienced them, how would he ever get on with his life? “Better?”

  She took another sip of the hot liquid and nodded. “At least I don’t have to pay for the suit.”

  It was one of Carmen’s classic non sequiturs, but he was used to the way she leaped from subject to subject, often without verbal signals to let the listener in on the fact that she was doing so. “Suit?”

  “Remember I was trying on a business suit when we were talking? I used the jacket to try to stop the bleeding.” At the last word, she began to tremble again and had to put the cup down. “Oh, God, the blood, JR. I was covered with it. They let me wash up and put on my own clothes before they interviewed me. I’m not used to seeing real, live blood. I mean, you know, outside of a movie or TV show.”

  “Yeah, that must have been rough.”

  She rubbed her hands together, blew on them, then picked up the cup again. “The poor woman. They wouldn’t tell me her name.”

  “They’ll release that information after they’ve notified her relatives. What happened? Do you want to talk about it? I mean, can you talk about it?”

  She took another sip then set the cup down and pulled the blanket more tightly around her slim body. “No. It’s okay. I think he used a silencer.”

  “Did you see him? The shooter?”

  “Only a glimpse from the back.” Her brow furrowed. “Actually I don’t know if it was a he.” He watched her face, usually so lively—not now, of course—and always so expressive that you never had to guess at what Carmen was feeling. “It could have been one of those really athletic women. Nowadays, it’s kind of hard to tell, you know?”

  He waited as her brow furrowed some more in thought. “The sound,” she went on after a while, “the silencer. It wasn’t like a gunshot, but kind of a popping noise. And then there was this smell.”

  “Graphite.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Mac said.”

  “Mac would be Macklin Thurgood Marshall, Jr., I take it.”

  “
Some name, huh?” Her smile was a ghost of its usual open and joyous self, but it was, at least, a smile. “Like the Supreme Court justice.”

  “Thurgood Marshall,” JR said. “The first African American to sit on the court. He was a pretty great man.”

  She nodded. “I remember. Anyhow, Mac said that, about the graphite.” Out of nowhere, her eyes filled again. “Oh, JR. I felt so…helpless.” The tears brimmed over and slid down her cheeks.

  Again, he ordered himself to stay right where he was. Which did him no good whatsoever because years of conditioning, years of taking care of and comforting Carmen, were just too ingrained. He moved onto the couch and gathered her up in his arms, even pulled her onto his lap. As usual, she buried her face in his neck and he smelled her hair, always clean and with a subtle lime scent from the herbal shampoo she used. Her body was long and lean, but there were soft places, lots of them, and he exerted all the discipline he’d honed over the years to keep his own body’s reactions to a minimum.

  “It was so awful,” she whispered.

  “I know, baby.”

  He wanted to hear the entire story, from beginning to end, but that could wait for later. He held her some more, let her cry, almost felt like crying himself. When Carmen hurt, so did he.

  After a while, she lifted her head and gazed at him. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Falling apart on you.” She moved off his lap and curled up into the corner of the couch again.

  He stared at her in disbelief. “You just tried to save the life of a murdered woman. If anyone has the right to fall apart, I’d say it’s you.”

  “No, I need to be stronger. You told me I needed to be stronger and you were right.”

  For a moment, he blanked. “When did I say that?”

  “The other night, remember? When I was whining about Tio and how I had no idea he’d been dealing? And how it just about broke my heart when my landlady came to the door asking for the back rent? Remember? And you told me that I sucked when it came to choosing men, and that I needed to grow up and start to take responsibility for myself, and needed to get a real job, and that I was on the verge of being pathetic?”

  He groaned. “Did I really say all that? That you were pathetic?”

  “On the verge, you said. And yes, that was the very word. Pathetic.” The look on her tear-streaked face now was earnest and not at all accusatory. “You said that what had been sort of cute when I was younger wasn’t cute anymore. Remember?”

  He winced. “Ouch.”

  Oh, yes, JR remembered, and he felt like a bastard. Damn. Had he really been so harsh with her? But he knew the answer. He had. He’d already made up his mind that he had to end their connection before he lost whatever chance he had at happiness, so he’d decided to let her have it with both barrels. He’d given Carmen—whom he’d known, it felt like all his life—a no-holds-barred talking-to. He’d listed her crimes: always arriving late for appointments, forgetting to return library books, letting her cell phone messages pile up so no one could get through, borrowing money and taking forever to pay it back, running out of gas because the gauge was broken and she’d forget to have it fixed.

  He’d spared her nothing. He’d told her that all of that behavior was getting old and that she’d only gotten away with this stuff because of her sweet personality and the fact that she never capitalized on her beauty.

  That last part, the reference to her beauty, she’d protested heartily because she was honestly unaware of just how attractive she was. Which amazed him; hell, all she needed to do was look in the mirror and there it was. But still. She was that rarity. A naturally lovely woman without vanity or self-absorption or a sense of entitlement. Also without much self-worth. But one with a kind heart.

  Also, he was discovering, a stout one.

  In short, the one woman in the world for him.

  But his feelings for her weren’t returned. He’d approached it, kiddingly, over the years. “Hey, Carm, what’s your view on best friends falling in love?” “Hey, Carm, ever thought about the two of us? You know, later on down the line when we’ve had our flings with people we’ll never marry and are ready to settle down?”

  And she’d laughed and told him to stop kidding with her; or told him she wasn’t in his league and he could do a lot better; or told him that boyfriends were easy to find, a good friend much rarer. All those little sayings women came up with when they just weren’t into a guy.

  She liked bad boys, destructive creeps who reeked of mindless testosterone and who were good for the short run only. Maybe it had to do with that low self-esteem and her image of herself as being not quite good enough to fit into her brainy, high-achieving family, but really, who cared why?

  Facts were facts. It wasn’t going to happen between the two of them.

  JR knew his looks were okay, his testosterone level healthy, that he’d attracted his fair share of interesting, interested women over the years. But, basically, he was just too straight-arrow for Carmen. He wasn’t given to sneering or dressing all in black or letting his beard grow just enough to look as though he need a shave but didn’t care. She was plainly and simply not into him, on a man-woman level, at least. Oh, she loved him, would give her life for him. As a friend.

  And the other night, when he’d finally decided to break her hold on him, he’d let it rip. He’d been paternal and judgmental and, yeah, unkind. Maybe he’d wanted to drive her away. Whatever his motives, she’d heard him, taken it in, had not been in the least offended. She’d actually thanked him.

  “Carm,” he told her now, “you can grow up tomorrow. You saw a woman die today and it’s okay to need comfort for that.”

  “You sure?” Huge brown eyes, sad eyes, unsure-of-herself eyes, gazed at him, asking for permission.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Okay, then.” She offered up a weak smile. “Just for today, I’ll let you pamper me. I still have to get a job. But I’ll do a Scarlett O’Hara and deal with it tomorrow.” She yawned and then stretched. “Right now, I think I have to take a nap.”

  He got up from the couch and watched as she stretched out and pulled the afghan up over herself. “Will you call Shannon?” she asked with another yawn. “Tell my sister what happened and not to worry and that I’m okay?”

  “Sure.”

  In a matter of seconds, she was fast asleep.

  He stood over her a while longer and watched her, watched as the late afternoon shadows crossed her lovely face and made the pale blond streaks in her hair—all natural—glisten white. Watched her tremble occasionally, as though dreaming of something fearful.

  And as he gazed at her, he felt that strong, soul-deep ache that he associated with Carmen only, felt the yearning to make love to her, to take her pain from her and let it be his. It was a yearning so deep it was as if a chunk of him didn’t belong to himself, but only to her, to this woman who called him friend.

  Chapter 2

  As they sat side by side on a bench at the West L.A. police station, Carmen took a sip of awful coffee and glanced over at JR’s profile. He had such a nice face. More than nice, actually. As he’d aged, he’d grown quite handsome. His hair was thick and light brown, worn short. His eyes were the nicest pale blue. His English ancestry—family lore had it that he was descended from royalty—was evident in the high-bridged, finely chiseled nose, the firm jawline and thin mouth. As she took in the expensive, gold-rimmed eyeglasses he wore, suddenly she remembered another pair of glasses—bottle-thick with black frames and truly ugly.

  He’d been wearing them the day she’d met him, twenty-two years ago. She was seven and he was eight, a friend of her older sister’s. Shannon, who was always adopting misfits, had dragged him home with her from their school for brainy kids. He’d sure been one of those—dorky, nerdy, skinny and just loaded with brains.

  He still had the brains, of course, but the other adjectives no longer applied. Today, he was wearing one of his beautifully cut suits, this
one charcoal-gray with a pale gray shirt and matching tie. She’d never been a woman who liked men in suits, but with JR she made an exception.

  She noticed a tiny nick on his chin where he must have cut himself shaving. She licked a finger and rubbed the redness away.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, startled.

  “Cleaning you up, so nothing can take away from your gorgeousness.”

  “Cut it out,” he said good-naturedly.

  Smiling to herself, grateful she’d been able to get her mind off yesterday’s tragedy, even for a moment, Carmen took another sip of the disgusting police coffee. She was not a morning person and would take all the help she could get in waking up.

  Detective Marshall appeared from behind the reception desk and motioned Carmen and JR to come with him. He looked even more tired today, she thought, noting the deep lines around his mouth and the way his shoulders slumped in his well-worn suit jacket, this one a dark plaid. He led the way down a hallway and into a large room filled with desks set at odd angles.

  His was piled with folders and paperwork and a few family pictures in frames, which she didn’t get a chance to examine before he indicated she should sit in the visitor chair adjacent to his desk. Then he went to another work station and brought over a chair for JR.

  As he did, he said, in that really cool, deep voice of his, “Counselor, I have some regards for you.”

  JR noticed a subtle lessening of yesterday’s thinly veiled hostile attitude on the part of the detective and wondered what had caused it. “Really?”

  “Yeah. A buddy of mine, Jacob Johnson, knows you. Said you used to be a deputy D.A. before you took on your present job. He also says you were really helpful with his dad. George Frederick Johnson? You helped get him into the VA.”

  “Of course. George. How is he doing?”

  “Better. They got him on meds now, so he’s not violent anymore.” He turned to Carmen. “Your boyfriend here, he kept my friend’s dad out of jail, wouldn’t take any payment.”