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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Y ou’re brilliant.

Eve didn’t know why those words lit up her entire body—Rembrandt probably meant it as a throw away comment, something he might say to Burke, or even Silas if he helped him track down a lead.

So she should simply calm down. Stop thinking about the way he straddled that chair, his forearms ropy and strong, resting on the back. The way he leaned past her, pointing at the screen, surrounding her with his scent—a mix of the sultry summer air and a thoroughly masculine residue of his morning exertions. Stop thinking about the softening timbre of his voice when he looked at her as if seeing her for the first time and said, I think I would start all the good things sooner.

All the good things.

As if they included her.

I could kiss you.

He hadn’t meant that, either, but the shock of those words still sluiced through her.

She turned off the shower and let her body shiver for a moment before she stepped out and grabbed a towel. The weariness of the day had sloughed off her, but she still longed for her warm bed, if she could get her brain to shut off.

Tracking down the leads with Rembrandt only stirred up more questions. Like, where in Ramses’ or even Gustavo’s resume did it mention familiarity with bomb making procedures? More likely, they’d befriended someone inside the ICDL who could handle explosives.

Maybe they needed to take another look at the ICDL, something she’d mention to Rem—Inspector Stone—in the morning.

Despite what he said, she needed to stop thinking of him as Rem. As if they were more than work acquaintances. She couldn’t deny that something about him, however—an aura of confidence, even the brazen courage to run after his hunches—nudged at a place inside her that longed to step outside her methodology and lists to follow her instincts.

What would you regret?

His question rattled inside her as she pulled on a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and fuzzy socks for her perpetually frozen toes and headed downstairs to her freshly tiled kitchen. A light glowed over the stove and she opened the refrigerator. One of her brother’s beers remained, but she grabbed a yogurt and headed over to the counter to fetch a spoon.

The knock at the door made her jerk. She turned. Glanced at the clock. After midnight.

She slowly slid out the drawer at the end of the counter and eased out her police-issue Glock.

Not that a criminal would knock, but…

Holding it at her side, she flicked on the porch light. Her brother had suggested a stained glass door, so she couldn’t make out the figure standing there.

She glanced through the sidelight window.

A man. He had his back to the door, but wore a pair of dress pants, no jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled up, wide shoulders, lean waist?—

“Inspector Stone?” She opened the door and he turned.

The shadows of the overhead light against the two-day growth of his whiskers turned his face gritty, and the look in his blue eyes suggested all business. He glanced at the Glock in her hand and raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, good idea. For the record, I like the preparedness, but I promise I’m not here to attack you, rob you, or in any way cause trouble.” His mouth cranked up one side.

She glanced at the gun, then set the weapon on a table by the door. “It’s late. So?—”

“Like I said, good choice. Keep that instinct. But…I need your help, Eve.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and then gave her such a sheepish, almost boyish look she didn’t know what else to do.

“Come in.”

He stepped over the threshold. “Nice place. Smells like you’ve been working on it.”

“Yeah. My brother just finished the kitchen, but I’m about done with remodeling. I just need to paint the dining room and add a deck.” She walked past him and turned on a family room lamp. Light washed over her leather sofa, across to her fireplace. “I’ll be happy if I never remodel again.”

A low chuckle rumbled through him. “I’ll remember that.”

The way he said it made it sound like they were already friends, and would be for a long time. She turned, her gaze quick over him. He stood in her entry way, watching her, and his shoulders lifted and fell, his expression suddenly awkward, as if realizing he had bridged the line between work and her personal life.

In fact, wait— “How did you know where I live?”

He lifted one side of his mouth. “Eve. I’m a detective.”

Oh. Right.

Something she couldn’t identify slipped into his gaze and she was suddenly, keenly aware of the fact that indeed, he’d stepped over that line, right into her living room.

Oh boy. “How did it go with Ramses?”

“He’s out of pocket. Burke is staked out at his house, but…I gotta get into that data base of distributors of Good Earth coffee in our area.”

“Tonight?” She didn’t mean it quite how it sounded, but?—

“I know it sounds crazy, Eve, but I just…” The look in his eyes turned solemn, even a little fierce. “I just know that there will be another bombing in the morning, and we have to figure out where.”

It was how he said it, so much conviction, so much oomph in his voice, she felt it to her bones, adopted it and made it her own. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He blinked at her.

“How can I help?”

He drew in a breath, as if surprised, but he had called her brilliant.

And sure, Rembrandt might be a little impulsive, maybe even had a dark side, but no one could accuse him of giving up. Or not caring about the people who had lost their lives—who could lose their lives—if the bomber wasn’t found.

No wonder he never had any cold cases.

“I was thinking your brother?—”

“Asher?”

“Can he really hack into websites?”

“I think so. But?—”

“Is he still living with your parents?”

Now this was weird, because?—

“You mentioned that he was younger than you, so I just assumed.”

Oh. But he swallowed, rather oddly.

“Yeah, he’s at home. I think. Probably.”

“Let’s go.” He started toward the door.

“I’m in my pajamas.”

He glanced at her. “Those are your pajamas? Trust me, you’re fine.”

Hmmm.

He opened the door. She took off her socks, slipped on flip flops and headed outside.

A black Camaro sat under the lights. The sight of it stirred a dangerous flame inside her. Like she might be in high school, sneaking out of—or in this case, into—her house.

She settled in beside him and as he turned the car over, a classic rock tune queued up. “Lonely People,” by America.

He was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he headed towards Minnetonka.

“You know where my parents live, too?”

He glanced at her, then, a deer in the headlights expression. “Uh, no, I was guessing?—”

“Don’t give me that. You’re a detective.”

“Sorry.”

“You’re as bad as my dad. This is why I had no dates in high school. Dad did a background check on everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Maybe just the troublemakers.”

“You like the troublemakers, Eve?”

Her eyes widened. “What? No.”

He was grinning, though. 38 Special’s “I Want You Back” came on and he started to hum.

“I prefer to stay out of trouble, thanks.”

“Which is why you’re here, about to sneak into your old house?—”

“You asked me for a favor.”

“Yes.” He glanced at her. “Yes I did.”

“I don’t get into trouble.”

“I know that.” Still singing, still grinning.

Fine. “I was thinking about the coffee shop bombing, and I was wondering how Ramses or Gustavo might know how to build a bomb. What if they had an accomplice? Someone they met along the way that could add terror to their protests.”

His smile faded and he nodded. “Yeah. That’s another angle we need to take a look at. Maybe your brother can hack into the ICDL site and get a list of their members.” He turned off Hwy 7, onto Vine Hill, then west on Cottagewood. Arching cottonwoods and poplars dissected the night sky, clear and dotted with stars. A golden moon hung over the lake as they turned onto her road. He dimmed his lights and pulled to the side of the road, across the street.

“Now what?” Eve asked.

“Now, we go in there and get your brother.” He turned off the car.

“How?”

“Through the garage? Is your dad home? And now I’m having this creepy déjà vu high school flashback.”

“Of what, sneaking into your girlfriend’s house?” She didn’t know why she asked that.

“Nothing that crazy—I was never big on overactive dads with baseball bats—just sneaking out of the house with the boys. You know, to climb the water tower, shoot BBs at the local squirrels.”

“What?”

“Calm down—we always missed.” His eyes shone, the moonlight casting over his face, turning it mysterious, shadowed, tempting. “I didn’t have a girlfriend in high school.”

“Not one?”

“I played football and…aw, I didn’t really know what to say…” His smile faded.

Behind his eyes, she saw it. The wounds of his loss still open, enough to keep people at arm’s length.

All except her. That fact twined through her, turned the air between them thick and sweet, tugging her in.

She could too easily fall for a guy exactly like Rembrandt Stone.

“Well, I didn’t sneak out—or have any boyfriends sneaking in—so it’s highly likely we’re about to get busted.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He got out, closing the door quietly behind him.

She came around the car and when he took her hand, the warmth of his grip only ignited the surge of electricity buzzing under her skin.

“Stay along the edge of the driveway and the motion detection lights won’t flicker on.”

“See, you have done this before,” he said as followed her. The lights stayed off and they reached the garage door.

“Maybe you should stay here,” she suggested

“I’m not afraid of your dad, Eve.”

The man could quite possibly read her mind.

“But I am,” she whispered and patted him on the chest. Was his heart racing?

So, not as calm as his voice let on. Interesting.

“Fine. Hurry. And if you need me, do something, like make a noise, or scream, or call my name?—”

She pressed her hand to his mouth. “Shh.” Then she let herself into the garage.

Funny how in the thick of night, the familiar seemed foreign, riddled with danger. She nearly tripped over the lawn mower and right into a box of Christmas decorations. But she brailed her way to the back door, eased it open, and reminded herself to mention to her mother, sometime, casually, to lock the garage door at night.

The refrigerator hummed and she tiptoed through the kitchen, then up the stairs, avoiding the third step, right side, then into the hallway and right to her brother’s bedroom.

His light was off, but when she opened the door, he looked up from where he sat at his desk, the glow of his computer screen lighting his face, bulky earphones cutting off any sound. She put a finger to her mouth and shut the door.

“What?” he whispered as he pulled off his earphones.

“I think I need your help.” She eased over and glanced at some sort of computer game on the screen. “Can you really hack into things?”

He frowned. “Why?”

“I need help with a case. Hacking into a database in Chicago to get a list of addresses of local coffee shops that carry a particular coffee.”

“Really?” His voice raised a little. “Does this have to do with the bombings?”

She again pressed her finger over her mouth. “Can you do it?”

“Sure,” he turned to his computer.

“Can you do it from my computer?”

He considered her a moment, then scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. I think so.”

“Stay behind me, and don’t make any noise,” she said, but he stopped her with a hand to her arm.

“Sis. You’re talking to the master. Watch and learn.”

She might not know Asher as well as she thought. They were outside in moments, going out his upstairs window, onto the roof and climbing down a ladder conveniently—and possibly permanently—propped against the roof.

“Dad thinks I’m working on the gutters. Summer project.” He winked as he followed her toward the garage.

Rembrandt emerged from the shadows. Held up a hand as Asher spotted him. “I’m with Eve.”

She sort of liked how he said that.

“Nice wheels,” Asher said as he climbed into the Camaro.

Rembrandt’s voice filled the car, a delicious tenor as he sang along to a song from Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle.”

They pulled up to her dark house and she led Asher into her den, firing up her computer.

Rembrandt stood behind them, watching.

Eve gave Asher the rundown of the case, what they’d found, and when he pulled up the distributor’s site, he shooed them out of the room. “I could use a pop, though.”

She fetched it, then found herself sitting on the counter in the kitchen, watching Rembrandt drink the beer Samson had left in her fridge.

He leaned against the opposite counter. Glanced at the clock.

“You really think another bomb is going to go off?” she asked, studying the little pucker of worry between his eyes.

He nodded. “Bombings are designed to make the news, to scare people out of their normal routines and to make a point. I think we’re onto something with this ICDL group. The first one got our attention. The second scared us into staying away from coffee shops. A third one alerts us to their mission and makes us sit up and listen. Their threat is not only credible but irrefutable. They want to force people to pay attention. Yeah, there’s another one coming. And I can’t live with myself if we don’t stop it.” He stared at his beer. “I don’t want it haunting me for the rest of my life.”

The way he said it, goosebumps lifted on her skin.

“I was thinking about what you said at lunch about regretting things…yes, I’d want to save my friend, but maybe if I did, I would have never become a CSI. And then…well, I might end up being, I don’t know, a doctor, or even, a barista. I could have been one of those victims at the coffee shops.”

He looked up at her.

“I’m just saying that if we did everything differently, we’d still have to learn the same lessons, somehow, right? And if we didn’t, maybe one small change would make everything different. Even, much, much worse.”

She wasn’t sure where that philosophy came from. “I guess I just think that everything happens for a reason. And going back to change it would mean we’d be a lesser person for the lack of the lesson.”

He looked at her, nodding quietly, his blue eyes in hers, as if hanging onto her words.

The expression threaded through her, tugged, and maybe that’s why she slid off the counter. Why she walked over to him.

He watched her the entire way, his gaze on her turning warm, hot. He swallowed, his breaths rising and falling.

She hesitated only a moment before she put her hands on his chest. Contoured, warm, his heartbeat pounded under her hand.

He set his beer on the counter beside him.

“Eve,” he said quietly, his voice more of a whisper.

“Everything happens for a reason, Rembrandt. Like you appearing on my doorstep tonight.” Her pulse thundered in her ears, her words crazy, daring. You like the troublemakers, Eve?

No. Just this one.

So, before her common sense could grab a hold, she rose up on her tiptoes, caught his eyes?—

He took a breath in, and his hand tangled into her hair. “I like your hair down…”

Aw. She simply couldn’t—or didn’t want to—stop herself. Maybe driven by the impulse, the uncanny sense that she belonged, somehow, in Rembrandt’s arms, and he, in hers…she kissed him.

For a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. And for a split second, a fear sliced through her that?—

Um no. Because just like that, he came alive. He pulled her into himself, kissing her like he’d been holding his breath, waiting. As if, like her, the urge had lingered in the back of his mind for two days.

He tasted of the beer he’d been drinking, and her body responded, leaning into his exploration.

She hadn’t kissed many guys in her life—few, actually—but she knew the difference between a fumbling boy and a man who knew what he was doing.

It sent a dangerous, delicious spark through her. Troublemakers, indeed.

Rembrandt Stone. She wrapped her arms up, around his shoulders, closed her eyes, and a small, intimate humming sound emerged.

It only ignited a tiny growl from the back of his throat.

Apparently Inspector Rembrandt Stone was all business, whether he was solving crimes or making a move. Strangely, deliciously, he kissed her almost like he knew her, maybe better than she knew herself, his kiss soft, then deepening, then again lingering, making her ache for more.

This man. Her fingers played with the button of his dress shirt, then found his hot skin and the fine hairs of his chest. Yes, she heard the sirens, sensed the dangerous pull of him, but now ignited, she hadn’t the power to stop.

Didn’t want to. Because something about his intoxicating presence made her feel alive, brave and yes, even brilliant. Every part of the person she longed to be.

“Okay, I think I figured it out—Whoa!”

Her brother came skidding into the room and Rembrandt jerked away from her, his hands on her arms to steady her.

“Sorry!” Asher turned, about to exit?—

“No, it’s okay, Ash—” she started, but Asher had already fled.

She laughed.

Not Rembrandt. His eyes widened and something that looked horribly like guilt flashed across his face. “Um…I…”

Oh, for Pete’s sake, they weren’t teenagers. “Take a breath, Rem.” She patted his chest, then pushed him away, completely aware that her wet hair lay in tangles, her skin probably flushed red, and surely anyone could see her pounding heartbeat.

Still, no regrets here.

“What did you find, Ash?” She followed him into the den, keenly aware of Rembrandt behind her, and when Ash sat down at the computer, she noticed Rem run a hand behind his neck, glance over at her, then away.

Rembrandt Stone looked suspiciously like he might be freaking out.

Huh.

So maybe the guy didn’t break the rules often either. So much to learn about him.

Rem crossed his arms over his chest, planted his feet and stared at the screen, at the listing of stores, with addresses.

“There are five stores that carry this coffee in the Metro area,” Asher was saying. “Two, of course, are the locations of the previous bombs, but there are three more, two in Minneapolis, one in St. Paul.”

“Can you print out the addresses?” Rembrandt said, his tone now all business.

“Sure.” Asher hit the print button and Rembrandt walked over and stood over the printer, as if he could magically make it print by glaring at it.

Asher glanced at her, grinned. Eve hit him on the back of the head.

The printer spit out the list and Rembrandt took it. Returned to Asher.

“Okay, now I need you to hack into the International Children’s Defense League and see if you can get me a list of names.”

Asher lifted an eyebrow. “Um, if it has private donors, it’ll be an encrypted site. It’ll take time.”

“How much time?”

“Hours. Days, even.”

By the look on Asher’s face?—

“You don’t know if you can do it,” Eve said.

Asher shrugged. “I’ll try.”

Rembrandt checked his watch, something that looked like an antique. She’d noticed it the first day—and the fact that John Booker had one that looked just like it. Must be a department thing.

“It’s after 3 am. I’d better get you home, kid.”

That was probably the right decision. But she glanced at Rembrandt, searching for something that might indicate he was coming back…

He didn’t look at her, staring at the printout.

Okay, and now they were back in middle school.

Asher got up and headed to the door.

She caught Rembrandt’s arm, and he turned. Barely met her eyes.

“What’s going on?”

He drew in a breath. Then, oddly, lifted his gaze to hers, reached out and touched her cheek. He drew his thumb down it in a caress, a gesture so sweet it left her wordless.

“I don’t want any more regrets,” he said quietly.

Then he walked out the door behind Asher, and closed it.