Alpha Ascending Page 11

  “No,” she said, shaking her head when he tried to reach out. “Why?”

  “What kind of question was that? You know why.”

  Her face was scarlet. “We can’t.”

  He took hold of the anger rising in his chest. “What do you mean we can’t?”

  “I’m a detective,” she said. “This is unprofessional. I shouldn’t have … gone back to Blood Moon.”

  “I’m not a suspect anymore. And we’re two consenting adults.” She more than consented; he could still smell her arousal. “We can do what we want.”

  “We just can’t, okay?” she bit out.

  “Give me one good reason why not?” He raised his voice, but couldn’t help it. Even his wolf was mad, and he could feel it urging him on to make her theirs. It should have surprised him, since his wolf never cared about his other women before, but he was too frustrated, too angry to care.

  “I …” She bit her lip and turned away. “We just shouldn’t.”

  Then it dawned on him, the real reason why she pulled away. She still thought he was capable of cold-blooded murder. Maybe not Thomas Dixon, but her question earlier about Kevin Hall pretty much confirmed it. He was a fool for acting on his attraction to her. She was human, he reminded himself. She would never understand.

  “Lucas—”

  This time, his name from her mouth was like a dagger slicing through him. He leaned forward and rapped his hand on the barrier, signaling to Reyes to disengage the locks.

  “It’s unlocked.” He didn’t look at her, only hearing her sharp intake of a breath before the door opened. When it slammed shut, he remained still. When the scent of orange blossoms and olives began to fade, he gave a second rap on the barrier.

  “Sir?” Reyes asked as the barrier began to lower.

  “Home.” His throat felt tight as he tried to control the rage of his wolf. His fingers gripped the seats, and though he heard the sound of claws ripping into the leather, he ignored it.

  As they drove back to his townhouse, he vowed to forget about Sofia Selinofoto. He’d acted on impulse tonight, and no matter how sweet her taste or soft her body, he wasn’t going to go near her. But he only hoped she wouldn’t cross him again, because if she insisted on digging up the past, he wouldn’t be able to control his actions or his wolf next time.

  Chapter Eleven

  No matter what Sofia did, she couldn’t keep her mind off what had transpired Saturday night. When she trudged up to her apartment, it felt like she was in a dream—or nightmare. The full force of what happened didn’t hit her until she was inside her apartment. Her lips burned at the memory of his mouth on hers.

  What had possessed her to do that? To confess to him what had been in the back of her mind all this time? Lucas acted so differently that night, and she had to begrudgingly admit that a small part of her admired him for literally getting his hands dirty to help out her dad and grandfather at the restaurant. He didn’t complain or think any job was beneath him—a far cry from the rich boy she thought he was.

  She didn’t want to ride home with him, but at the same time, she did. To be alone with him, in that small space, breathing in his aftershave that reminded her of summers spent at the shore. And God, his kisses and his hands—they were like a drug. Strong enough to make her forget reality—that even though he wasn’t a suspect in Dixon’s murder, there was still the question of what happened to Kevin Hall.

  Sure, it would have been easy to just forget it. But she couldn’t. Her mother’s words came back to her. A year before her tragic death, she told her mother that she wanted to be a cop like her. Sergeant Nadia Selinofoto had beamed at her and told her to remember one thing: Always do what’s right. Even if the whole world is against you.

  And she was doing the right thing. That’s why she helped arrest Derek, and that’s why she wasn’t going to get involved with Lucas.

  By the time Monday rolled around, she was exhausted and miserable from lack of sleep. She was so distracted, she didn’t even notice her phone ringing and completely missed the call. When she picked up her cell, she glanced at the number and frowned, then dialed it. “Hello? I missed a call from this number. This is Detective Sofia Selinofoto.”

  “Detective, this is Morales from the Tech Division,” the voice on the other line replied.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I have that contact you were looking for. A Miss Caroline Devereaux.”

  It took her a second before she recognized the name. The girl Kevin Hall and Lucas fought over. “You did?”

  “Yep. It took a while because she moved to France when she was eighteen. Then she got married a few years ago and changed her name, but I have her number and address for you in Nice.”

  “Can you email it to me?” She rattled off her email address, then thanked Morales for his help.

  Caroline Devereaux. It felt like it had been ages since she started this case, but really it had only been over a week. With everything that was happening, she had even forgotten to check the other information she dug up on Devereaux.

  Swiveling her chair around, she faced her computer screen and clicked her mouse cursor on the bookmark she saved. She had found an old social media profile for Caroline, but the last update was years ago.

  The profile photo showed a gorgeous, blonde, and green-eyed teenager. Her smile was wide and her face shone with the vibrance of youth. Caroline Devereaux was stunning. It was no wonder two boys fought over her.

  Lucas fought Kevin Hall over her.

  A twinge of jealousy made her stomach clench. That was a long time ago. Did Lucas still hold any feelings for her?

  Not liking the direction of her thoughts, she clicked through the rest of her photos. It was the usual stuff a teenage girl might post—selfies with her friends, studying in the library, vacations with her family. After a few clicks, she stumbled upon a selfie of her and a boy about her age, their faces pressed together, and a cartoon heart drawn around them. “KH + CD 4EVER” proclaimed the caption. Kevin Hall. She clicked again. More photos. Them at the school cafeteria. At a diner sharing a milkshake. Wearing formal clothes at prom.

  Something she didn’t find, however, was Lucas Anderson. In fact, he didn’t have any social media profiles. He was maybe only a few years older than her, so she knew he wasn’t some old fuddy-duddy who didn’t like technology; in fact, Sofia had a profile herself, though she didn’t really post anything. It was strange, really. He didn’t have a social media presence and there weren’t a lot of articles about him or his family. He did say they were private. And she thought back to the kidnapping—if she or any of her future kids had been kidnapped, she’d be afraid of what info was out there on the Internet.

  Aside from having no recent postings, there was nothing odd about Caroline Devereaux’s profile. There really was nothing odd about it, except that there had been nothing posted in years. The last post was a picture of a cabin surrounded by pine trees and the caption, “Grad weekend! Woohoo!”

  She had been so engrossed in her research that she almost forgot the contact details Morales was sending over. Sure enough, her married name, address, and phone number were in her inbox. Checking the time, she guessed it was evening in France, so maybe she was home. Her hand hovered over her landline, hesitating for a moment, then proceeded to dial the number.

  “Bonsoir,” came the feminine voice.

  “Bonsoir. Er.” None of her high school French was coming back to her. Damn. “Uh, hello. Speak English?”

  “Yes, I speak English.” The accent was pure American. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Detective Sofia Selinofoto from the New York Police Department. May I speak with Mrs. Caroline Laurent, formerly Devereaux?”

  There was a long pause before the voice spoke again. “This is she.”

  She let go of the breath she was holding. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Laurent, but I need to speak to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Lucas Anderson.�
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  Another long pause. She could practically feel the hesitation through the receiver. “Mrs. Laurent?”

  “Look, I know what you’re going to ask me about. And I can’t talk about what happened that night.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “I’m not supposed to.”

  Her firm answer made her think that she was either protecting Lucas or something stopped her from talking about that night. Like an NDA. “Will you talk about Kevin Hall?”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. “Did Lucas do something? Is he under arrest?”

  “He’s part of my investigation.” Technically, still true. “If you can’t talk about Lucas Anderson, can you at least talk about Kevin Hall?”

  “If you think Lucas Anderson did something bad … you’re wrong!” Her tone was vehemently defensive. “He would never—”

  “Kevin was your boyfriend, right? Did Lucas try to steal you away from him?”

  “What?” came the incredulous cry. “No! Of course not. Lucas was sweet and I knew he had a big crush on me for years, but he would never do such a thing.”

  “Then why did they fight that night?” She ignored the knot in her stomach as she continued. “I think his jealousy reached a breaking point and he snapped.”

  “Ha!” Caroline bit out. “Lucas isn’t like that. I’ve known him since we were kids.”

  Her detective’s instinct flared and she knew this was the breaking point. Years of experience interrogating all kinds of criminals and witnesses taught her when to push and when to pull back. Now was the time to drive Caroline over the edge. “Then why did he kill Kevin Hall?”

  “He was protecting me!” Caroline exclaimed. “And my baby! I was pregnant, and I told Kevin it was his, and you know what he did? He laughed.” There was righteous anger in her voice as she went on. “We’d been together a year. I … I’d never been with anyone, and the night of homecoming we had sex. Then I found out I was pregnant … I was so happy! I loved Kevin. And then during the graduation party, I thought it would be romantic to get him alone in the woods and tell him. He thought it was a joke, then when he realized I wasn’t kidding, he became angry. Real Angry.”

  Sofia swallowed the lump in her throat that began to build when Caroline started talking. She was just glad she wasn’t interviewing her face to face. Domestic abuse cases were one of her least favorite types of crimes to investigate. She would rather work for a dead victim than face a living one. Still, there was no going back now. “And then what happened?”

  “He slapped me so hard I fell. Then he denied it was his. Accused me of being a slut. He knew about Lucas’s crush on me and he said that we … that the baby was Lucas’s. His buddy Jeffrey had been there the entire time, just watching. Kevin made Jeffrey call Lucas so he could confront him. In the meantime, he was kicking me while I was still down.” Her voice trembled, and Sofia could tell she was trying hard not to cry. “Lucas came right away. Kevin turned his anger at him and started screaming at Lucas. Then Lucas saw me and—” She let out a gasp. “Goddamn you! How did you—?”

  “What happened, Caroline?” she pressed on.

  “You sneaky bitch. I’ve already said too much.”

  “Caroline, if you don’t tell me what happened next, I’m going to have to go after Lucas.”

  “Fuck you. If it wasn’t for him, I might have lost my baby that night, and I would never have my sweet Amelie now.” She paused. “And I swear to you on her life, Lucas Anderson is not a cold-blooded killer.”

  Before she could ask more, the click from the other end of the line told her that Caroline had hung up on her. She thought about calling her back, but she knew it would be fruitless. For one thing, the other woman could just ignore the phone, and short of flying to France, she didn’t know how to make Caroline reveal to her what really happened that night. And another? A seed of doubt planted itself in her brain. It was small; minuscule, really, but enough to make her rethink the whole thing.

  If it was truly a case of defending Caroline or himself, why didn’t Lucas just let the authorities take over? If the cops had been called, they would have seen Caroline, match the evidence to Kevin Hall and arrested him. Even a cop fresh out of the academy would have arrived at the same conclusion. There might have been other witnesses too, some who would collaborate Caroline’s story.

  A good lawyer could plead down to manslaughter, and a great one would have been able to ensure Lucas Anderson never saw the inside of a jail cell. Why go through all this trouble to cover up the whole affair and settle the civil suit out of court? To spare Caroline the humiliation? To preserve his family name? It seemed a little extreme.

  It didn’t matter anyway. Her instincts were telling her to believe Caroline. Caroline was telling the truth. And if she had been in his situation and saw a man beating up a helpless, pregnant woman, she would have done what it took to protect her.

  She knew all that she needed to know: Lucas was not a murderer; he was a protector. Causing someone’s death was not something easy to deal with, and she understood most of all.

  Always do what’s right.

  And sometimes what was right wasn’t always the same as what was lawful.

  Sometime that afternoon, Captain Bushnell called her in to talk. She finished her phone call and entered the captain’s office, then sat on the chair opposite him.

  He was at his desk, scribbling down on a notepad. “Anderson’s alibi checks out,” he said without looking up. “We have a written statement from his security detail from that night, plus GPS logs of their whereabouts.”

  So that meant he was definitely cleared of the Dixon murder. It was back to square one on his case. “Was there anything else, sir?”

  “Yes.” He put the pen down and looked up at her, the clear blue pools of his eyes boring into her. “The stuff about Fenrir and Anderson … you need to drop it.”

  “Sir?” Her hands balled into fists.

  “Aside from all these coincidences, do you have anything definitive? Any proof of criminal activity? From Fenrir or Anderson?”

  Her heart sank. Of course not. All the other cases she found were only mildly related to Lucas Anderson. It was what lead her to the kidnapping case, but there was no definitive proof of wrongdoing. Her gaze lowered to her lap. “No, sir.”

  “Then it’s best you focus your time and energy on your other active cases.”

  “Sir?” Her head snapped back up. “What about Dixon? He’s still a victim.”

  “I know that, Detective, and I’m not saying to drop his case. But obviously, you’re going to have to look at other angles.” He sighed. “Maybe this business with Bianchi has you so tied up in knots that you’re not seeing things clearly.”

  Her hands clenched in her lap. Did he think she was incompetent?

  “It’s not that I don’t think you can’t do your job,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I can see it in your face. I’ve never doubted you, Selinofoto. Not even when Aarons was here. I’m just saying that maybe you need a break. Why don’t you take tomorrow off? Get refreshed and have a clear head for when you start again.”

  “Sir, my caseload is all backed up and—”

  “Should I make it an order?” When she sank back into the chair, he continued. “It’s just twenty-four hours. You can do whatever you want, just don’t think about work or Bianchi.”

  Bushnell obviously wasn’t going to budge on this. “Fine. I mean, yes, sir. Is that all?”

  He gave her a curt nod, and she stood up, then went straight out the door. Marching back to her desk, she sat down, staring at the blank screen of her computer.

  It wasn’t like she had never been wrong. When she was fresh out of the academy, she didn’t yet trust her instincts. But over the years, she had honed them, and she knew when to trust her gut. She knew something wasn’t right. She’d thought the worst of Lucas, that he had a taste of violence when he was a teen and then he became a cold-blooded killer. But clearly, she had added one and on
e and came up with three.

  She rubbed the bridge of her nose with her fingers. How could she have been so wrong? Maybe Bushnell was right. The past couple of months was wearing her down, and between what happened with Derek and now the Bianchi trial coming up.

  Or maybe Lucas Anderson was making her instincts go haywire. Things hadn’t been the same since the first time she walked into Blood Moon. Since she first set her eyes on him.

  And then last night happened. A strange feeling came over her, and now that she knew Caroline Devereux’s side of the story, she realized what it was: guilt.

  Something inside her yearned for him, and she told herself it wasn’t that she wanted him. Well, she had wanted him last night, but that was a moment of weakness on her part. But she needed to see him, and this time, she had to do the apologizing. She cringed, thinking of how he was the one who came to her to say sorry the other night. Not only that, he had worked so hard in the kitchen and helped out her family without expecting anything in return.

  She gathered her things, determined to see him. It was the least she could do. She would explain what happened and then while they wouldn’t part as friends, she could at least clear her conscience. Yes, that was it. That was the only reason she found herself driving to the Fenrir Corp. building. She knew he would still be there, working late. She parked her car on the curb and waited.

  After what seemed like forever, she saw the glass doors open and a familiar figure walk out. Lucas looked incredibly handsome in a dark formal suit. However, her heart sank when she realized he wasn’t alone. A tall, blonde woman dressed in a floor-length dress was beside him, clinging to his arm. She looked up at him, smiling as he bent down to whisper something in her ear.