Deadly Reunion. Lauren Nichols

that she’d given him a compliment, and jerked her gaze from his to dig her keys from her purse.

      Her red Chevy Blazer was parked just inside the perimeter of the lot. Lindsay unlocked it with the remote pod dangling from her key chain.

      “You asked inside how we could change my mother’s mind. The answer to that is, I don’t know.”

      He frowned. “I was hoping you’d spoken to her today with better results. God knows I didn’t get anywhere talking to your brother’s thug friends last night.”

      Then he’d been working, not playing last night, Lindsay realized, feeling a little lift. He hadn’t been entertaining Brandy or some other woman who was into six-pack abs and sexy eyes. “You spoke to his friends?”

      “For all the good it did me.”

      “Who? And what did they say? Were they any help?”

      She saw him check his watch, then frown. “Do you have be anywhere in the next hour or so?” he asked.

      “No.”

      “Then lock your car back up and let’s walk down to the harbor for something to eat. Nothing fancy—just some takeout. We can walk and talk while we stuff our faces. I skipped breakfast, and my stomach’s damn near digesting my backbone.”

      Lindsay hesitated, her thoughts skipping from what people would say, to what John would think, to what her mother would feel. And then to what she felt. Finally she nodded, hit the remote lock on her key chain again and slipped her keys into the pocket of her khakis. She wasn’t hungry, but something he’d learned might change her mother’s mind about the search. Because beneath all the bravado, attitude and irresponsibility, her brother had been a good kid at heart. She was convinced that he could’ve changed in time, especially with Ike’s guidance and his dogged insistence that Ricky shape up. They owed it to themselves—and her brother’s memory—to find out what had really happened.

      Twenty minutes later, with gulls wheeling and calling raucously in the clear sky over the docks, they strolled along, Ike alternately speaking and washing down his breakfast croissant with a foam cup of black coffee.

      Lindsay found herself studying the full, masculine slope of his mouth too often, remembering things she shouldn’t. Feeling things she shouldn’t. At least she’d agreed to let him buy her an iced tea, and that had given her something to do with her hands. She’d had them in and out of her pockets a dozen times since Ike’s fingertips had grazed hers earlier and a jolt of pure, shivery electricity had shot up her arm, then detoured south. She didn’t need any more chemistry today. She needed information.

      “In the end, all I got was attitude,” Ike continued. “They’re either too connected, scared spitless beneath all their cocky speeches, or they’re as clueless as we are.” He paused. “But even if they don’t know who’s at the top of the heap, they do know something.”

      That disturbed her because on Thursday night, he’d said that the narcotics officer who’d arrested Ricky believed her brother had been involved with a minor organization. “When you say ‘top of the heap’ are you talking about mob connections? Because I just can’t see Ricky getting involved with people like that.”

      “I’m talking about the person pulling the strings, whoever he is. There are enough drug peddlers in this area and the surrounding states that the head guy doesn’t have to have a last name full of vowels.”

      Frowning, he pulled his sunglasses from the breast pocket of his blue knit shirt, offered them to her, then, when she shook her head, slipped them on. “When I was at the gym this morning, Tank gave me a couple of names I hadn’t heard before. I’ll check them out tonight—unless your mother has a change of heart.”

      “Tonight? Why do you have to do this in the dark?” Old fears returned, the same fears she’d had to deal with whenever he left home with a fugitive contract in hand. “Why can’t you talk to these people during the day?”

      He seemed amused by that. “Because these aren’t the kind of people who surface during the day. Tank gave me their street names and told me where they hang out.”

      “But they have to live somewhere.”

      “I’m sure they do, but I don’t have their addresses, and Ma Bell doesn’t list names like Ace and Creamer in the phone book.”

      “Ike, I don’t like this.”

      “I’m careful. You know me.”

      Yes, she did know him. Too well.

      Water lapped at the pier pilings and tethered rowboats bobbing outside one of the rental shops as they left the harbor and started up the asphalt path to the main street.

      He glanced down at her, then laughed. “Relax.”

      Lindsay glared at him and sipped her tea, remembering the scar from a gunshot on his left side. Recalling the night she’d nervously prowled an E.R. waiting room while a doctor sutured a cut over his right eye. It was healed now, reduced to a fine white line mostly hidden by his dark eyebrow. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen again.

      Still…he was strong and fit, every bone, muscle and sinew in his body ready for whatever came along. He also owned most of the crime-fighting paraphernalia police officers did—handcuffs, weapons, body armor—and his SUV was equipped with leg shackles for transporting skips.

      The fact remained that in her opinion, he didn’t always use sound judgment.

      She glanced up at him again. “Are you taking someone with you?” When he was on a recovery job, he generally partnered up or phoned the police for backup.

      “Hardly. This is personal.”

      “Then wear your vest if you go to Old Port tonight. Don’t leave it in your car.”

      Grinning, Ike drained the rest of his coffee, then deposited the foam cup in a trash receptacle they passed by. “You shouldn’t say things like that, Linz. I’ll start thinking you care.”

      Lindsay sent him a withering look. Just once, she’d like to have a postdivorce conversation with him without Ike baiting her or ticking her off. “Just sympathizing with my fellow medics and EMTs. They’re the people who have to rush to a scene when some idiot forgets to use common sense.”

      “Nag, nag, nag,” he drawled, but there was an easy humor in his tone and she had to smile.

      Her smile wobbled a bit, however, when they reached her car, and she set her drink on the roof before slipping her keys from her pocket. Because suddenly, she didn’t want to say goodbye. She sensed that he felt it, too, that old connection they’d always had, kicking in. If she didn’t count the last few stressful minutes, her walk to the docks with him had been…almost nice.

      “Call me,” he murmured seriously. “You have my cell phone number. I’ll hang around for a while. Tell your mother I’ll do it any way she sees fit. But make her understand that no matter what she thinks of me, she owes this to her son.”

      “Ike, all I can do is try.”

      He removed his glasses and his darkly compelling gaze held hers. “Try hard. I think the clock could be ticking on this one.”

      She was just opening her car door when he touched her, his callused hand warm on her upper arm. “Linz?”

      Lindsay turned around to meet the question in his eyes. Then in a flash, whatever he was about to say vanished in the wake of something more basic. More elemental. Her pulse quickened and an age-old heat surged in her veins.

      A split second later, his mouth was on hers, her heart was pounding, and Lindsay was clutching his broad shoulders and kissing him back for all she was worth.