A Dangerous Game Read online

  “And here I thought you had the night off. Like it was one of those kinds of normal days for you when you were only going to work ten or twelve hours.”

  “This one had nothing to do with me.”

  “Hmm. If they don’t have some sick scum of the earth for you to be finding, Kieran will come up with something.” He was silent for a minute. “Actually, come to think about it, with what you’ve got on your hands already, you probably shouldn’t have gotten involved with a crazy Irish lass like my sister.”

  “Yeah. Probably not,” Craig agreed.

  “A bit too late.”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “So someone shoved a baby into her arms, and then ran out and got stabbed. That the gist of it?”

  “That’s the gist of it.”

  “And it’s your case?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “I know you,” Declan said, “and so I also know that I don’t really need to be saying this, but...watch out for my sister, huh? Even if she’s quiet and acts tough, you know she’s got to be really shaken tonight.”

  “I do. And,” he added softly, “you know I love your sister.”

  “I do,” Declan said with a slight smile. “I’ll go back and see the cook.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Shepherd’s pie?”

  “Always good.”

  Declan started to head to the back. “Oh, sorry—you guys want something to drink?”

  “I’ll get it,” Craig said, leaning over the bar for a couple of glasses. As he did so, Kieran came to his side.

  “Shepherd’s pie. And—”

  “Soda water, please,” Kieran said softly.

  “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Honestly,” she assured him.

  They sat at the bar. Declan came back with dinner for the two of them; Finnegan’s was famous for its shepherd’s pie. It was a standard, almost always available.

  Declan and Mary Kathleen both came behind the bar as the place began to wind down in earnest. Only a few patrons, just finishing up and paying their checks, remained.

  “Anything new?” Mary Kathleen asked Craig.

  He arched a brow. “Not since I walked in here.”

  “Sorry,” she murmured. She looked at Kieran. “What was this woman like? Did she say anything at all that would give you a clue about who she was, where she came from—or about why she would leave a baby?”

  Kieran frowned. “No. She didn’t speak that much. She said my name, and not much more.”

  “She knew your name?”

  “Well, surely no one would choose a random person in any old office and just toss them a baby!” Kieran said.

  “But, she didn’t ask for Dr. Fuller or Miro, right? She asked for you?” Declan asked, frowning. He glanced at Craig.

  Inwardly, Craig groaned.

  Now everyone was worried about Kieran.

  Naturally, he was worried, too.

  “Did you let the doctors know what happened?” Declan asked.

  “Of course,” Kieran said. “I called them...they had to know. The woman came to their office.”

  “The whole city knows by now, I’m sure,” Craig said. “The street was crawling with reporters by the time we headed here. Hopefully, that will be a good thing. Someone out there might know who the woman was—and where to find the baby’s mother.”

  “I hope so,” Mary Kathleen whispered.

  “Okay, let’s clean up and call it a night,” Kieran said. She stood and started picking plates up from recently vacated tables.

  Declan looked at Craig with a shrug.

  Craig knew all the Finnegan siblings well—he was pretty sure that he knew what they all might be thinking: better get involved; make it your case. This is haunting Kieran, and therefore, she will definitely be haunting you!

  Twenty minutes later, they were at Kieran’s apartment, which he had mostly been calling home as well for at least the last year. They still used his place now and then. Somehow—though he couldn’t remember the last time they’d slept apart—they were still maintaining two apartments. They really needed to get rid of one of them. His apartment was larger—they both actually liked it better. But Kieran’s was in the Village, and often more convenient when they’d been out for a night, and they had gotten into the habit of staying there.

  More of his things were even at her place, rather than his own.

  Not even the sushi bar/karaoke place on the ground floor of Kieran’s apartment building was still going, and the streets surrounding St. Mark’s Place were quiet, as well.

  Kieran seemed really tired as they trudged up the stairs past the silent bar and to her apartment level. Of course, she was tired. She’d worked some grim cases with him—little could have been much worse than some of what they’d already seen, endured and survived—but it had to have been traumatic for her, having a baby thrust into her arms.

  And seeing the woman who had entrusted that baby to her staggering down the street with a knife in her back...

  He intended to give Kieran whatever space she needed; respecting that might be a need to curl up in bed with her own thoughts, praying for sleep.

  He was startled when she turned to him with a grin. “Race you to the shower!” she said, and she was gone.

  Racing to the shower.

  He’d thought she’d be so exhausted.

  Apparently not.

  He followed her.

  There were, of course, all kinds of ways to deal with strange happenings.

  She was already naked, beneath the spray of water. He hesitated at the door, then left his Glock in the bedroom and shed his clothing.

  He stepped into the tub. She was instantly in his arms.

  Sometimes, people just needed to be held.

  And sometimes, they needed more.

  Her lips moved over his throat and chest, while her fingers danced down his torso. Her touch...the water...

  He was instantly aroused.

  They kissed and teased in the water. They lathered one another, intimately.

  Then she laughed and moved away, escaping from the shower.

  They’d long ago realized that for a man Craig’s size, making love in the shower wasn’t particularly erotic. It could be awkward, and slippery in the wrong way.

  But heading out of the shower could be completely wonderful, catching up with another with clean flesh, sliding into a damp embrace with token pats from towels, and then falling down into the bed, the coolness of the sheets against the heat of their flesh.

  Foreplay quickly became something urgent, something needed, something more and more passionate with each brush of their lips, with the intimacy with which they caressed and kissed one another, with which their eyes met, and they came together at last.

  Craig loved Kieran; she loved him. There was no question about that.

  It still amazed him how intense their connection could be.

  Just as it amazed him that they could live together, sleep together, wake together each morning, and still find it so new and exquisite every time they made love.

  He thought that she would want to talk as they both came down after a sweet and wicked climax; she did not.

  She curled against him, sighed and seemed to fall asleep almost instantly.

  He dozed himself, but woke when she moved. He guessed she hadn’t been sleeping at all.

  She crawled as silently as she could out of bed, wrapped herself in a terry robe and headed out to the living room.

  He followed, and found her looking out the window on what remained of the night.

  She didn’t hear him at first.

  He sighed softly. “Kieran?”

  She started and turned to him. “Craig, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s Saturday—and yo
u actually have time off. You can sleep as long as you like.”

  “I was planning on sleeping past four in the morning,” he assured her. “Come back to bed.”

  “I can’t forget that woman, Craig. I just can’t forget her.”

  “I know. Come back to bed.”

  “Kidnapping. That’d be an FBI matter,” Kieran told Craig.

  “We don’t know that it was a kidnapping. Maybe the woman was the baby’s mother—or grandmother. Maybe she just wanted the child to be safe. Kieran—”

  “Kidnapping,” Kieran said. “Craig, you know that poor little girl was taken from somewhere.”

  “At the moment, the case belongs to the cops. The Bureau might be brought in, but right now, it’s not my call. We work hard to keep our relationships between agencies all nice and copacetic. I’m not running down there and demanding that we take the case. I’d be put in my place in two damned seconds,” he told her.

  “But it must be kidnapping. You can talk to Egan, at least, okay?”

  “I will speak with Egan—when it’s possible to speak with my director, I promise I will.”

  “Really?”

  “I just told you that I would.”

  “What if he fights you on it? What if he’s dismissive?”

  “I’ll fight back.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll push and be obnoxious and call in all kinds of favors, okay?”

  “Yeah. Okay. I like it.”

  He led her back into the bedroom and she slipped into his arms. Resting against his chest, she fell asleep.

  He thought about his promise.

  He hadn’t seen the woman, had no connection to the case, and in his life, he’d seen too many murders.

  But he would keep his promise, and he was damned determined that they’d get to the bottom of what was going on.

  The woman had known Kieran’s name, and she had brought the baby straight to her, and that could mean...someone out there would be wondering just what Kieran knew about the woman, the baby—and the killer.

  And that meant that Kieran might well be in danger now herself.

  * * *

  It was her fault, and she knew it. Craig was up early.

  She’d finally fallen asleep. But knowing she’d kept him up meant that guilt riddled her. When he got up to leave and head into the office, she got up to start the coffee.

  She pulled out her laptop. She had a desktop computer at work but had it networked with her laptop—it was a good setup. It had often enough saved her from having to go back into the office over a small detail—a note that one of the doctors might need, or even something that she wanted to reread herself to help her with a case they were working on.

  She often interviewed and provided therapy for abused women—and occasionally men. It was certainly not in the same number, but there were men who suffered from abuse. One of her recent cases, Harold Lenin, was certainly that man—he’d been given black eyes by his wife, broken bones and tons of bruises. He’d kept silent through the years, a sad, cowed, little man. He was learning how to live again, recovering from his gunshot wounds.

  He wouldn’t receive any more of them. His wife had shot him while they were up on the roof. She hadn’t been familiar with the gun and the kickback had sent her over the roof—and down thirty-five floors.

  A lot of the people on the street that day had needed therapy, too.

  Oddly and sadly, there were many such cases. They were also working on one case in particular now in which a man had snapped—and killed his wife. An all too common occurrence. As it turned out in depositions from neighbors and his own children, his wife had physically and mentally abused him for years, striking him constantly in the head. Apparently, for a few decades, he—like poor Harold—had just taken it.

  His lawyers were still trying to plea bargain his case. Was it self-defense? He had finally slugged her back. He was a big guy; she’d fallen hard across the room, struck the edge of a credenza and dropped dead.

  The reports issued by Kieran’s office would be incredibly important in what kind of punitive measures the man would face. He had killed his wife, and the prosecution was arguing it hadn’t been self-defense, not by the legal definitions that usually set someone free in a courtroom. And women and children were far more often victims of this kind of violence.

  Her cases were often very sad, and frustrating. Kieran could usually work really hard and with tremendous empathy and still go home at night. But this thing with the baby...

  None of the cases in their office at the moment seemed to have anything to do with an infant.

  Ah. What about Melanie and Milton Deering?

  At the offices of Fuller and Miro, they were also working with a scary pair—a murderer and his bride. The question was just how much the bride knew about the murder—and if she had participated.

  Yes, looking at it all, Kieran felt a bit overwhelmed by the number of bad cases on the books right then.

  But nothing that might have to do with a baby.

  Her newest case was Besa Goga. Her crime had been biting. She’d bitten the cable man. At the rate cable men actually showed up in the city of New York, it might be unusual that more people didn’t strike out in one way or another.

  How had the woman known about their office?

  “Who were you?” Kieran wondered aloud. “Why me?”

  And then she wondered how the baby was doing.

  Fine! The baby was going to be fine!

  She looked at her computer again and then emailed Drs. Fuller and Miro, asking them if they could think of anything at all that might help figure this out.

  Of course, maybe it wasn’t that much of a dilemma. People knew about Fuller and Miro—they were rock stars in their chosen field. Not that being celebrated by your peers meant anything to the general public, but the doctors were known for their talents and the way they helped law enforcement. Word of mouth. In the same way, people knew about Kieran. She had managed to get her name in the paper a few times—she felt lucky the police had helped her avoid the media last night.

  The thing was, they weren’t out there in the same way as true stars or personalities—actors, musicians, artists, performers—but neither were they any kind of secret.

  So what did that mean? Had that woman just known that getting the baby to someone in that office would guarantee police—and help?

  Why not just head to a police station?

  Kieran yawned.

  It was Saturday. She could go back to sleep.

  She headed to her room and crawled into her bed.

  Two minutes later, she was up again.

  She showered and dressed. She was tempted to call Craig, but she absolutely refused to allow herself to do so. No sense driving him crazy at this point, too.

  She had the thought that it was too bad that—at this moment—the apartment was almost spotlessly clean. She might start cleaning spotlessly again. No, she would find something else to do.

  But it was Saturday. For many places in the downtown area, it was a slow day.

  But, Finnegan’s was a popular pub, the kind of place people were willing to take the subway or cab to reach, even on a weekend.

  Perfect.

  She would go to work!

  She headed into the bedroom for her jacket and purse and then paused. She’d left the television on.

  And she was staring at a reporter who was talking about the murder. And the baby. And she suddenly found herself sitting at the foot of the bed.

  Watching.

  Even though there was nothing the reporter could say that she didn’t already know.

  * * *

  Craig headed into his own office, determined that he’d call his director, Richard Egan, the minute it hit nine o’clock—even though he doubted that Egan ever slept that late
, Saturday or no. But nine seemed a respectable hour.

  He didn’t have to wait, however. Marty Kim—Craig’s favorite “kid” in the technical assistance division, stopped by his office, looking in. “Hey!”

  “Hey, yourself. Working Saturday?”

  “I am. Running some facial recognition programs and the like. I’m not surprised to see you.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nope. Egan just said you’d be in.”

  “He did, did he?”

  Marty grinned. He was tall and thin with a great boyish face. Marty had no desire to be a field agent, but he loved analysis and could coax amazing information from any database.

  “He’s waiting for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  * * *

  The supervising field director was in his desk chair, swiveled around to study the flat-screen television set up on the wall of his office.

  It was tuned to the news. And they were rehashing the story over and over again, as they tended to do. A reporter was standing on the street in front of Kieran’s office building in Midtown, telling her audience that as of yet, the police had no identification on either the woman or the infant.

  Egan looked at Craig. “It’s not a major election year. This poor woman’s murder and the abandoned baby have become a media obsession.”

  “Yes, sir. That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

  Egan nodded, then shook his head.

  “Kieran is involved. Then again, Craig, she’s not. The baby was handed to her, but that’s where it ends. Child Services has the baby. She’s out of it now.”

  “But she’s not. The press doesn’t have this, and I hope that they don’t wind up with it, but when the murdered woman gave Kieran the baby, she asked for Kieran by name. This woman went up to the offices of Fuller and Miro at a time when she knew they were closing down. And she knew Kieran by name, and possibly knew she was usually the last one out.”

  Egan turned his attention back to the television. The anchor was showing pictures of the baby, and a sketch that had been done of the dead woman by the NYPD composite artists, showing her as she might have looked in life. Craig figured it was a good idea—getting the picture out there might be their best way and only hope for an identification.