Ring Of Deception

Luke had grinned and exchanged the expected male-female banter with Lacey, but he’d gone home without either Lacey or a cup of Molly’s soup. He loved Molly like a sister. As for Lacey . . . a man would have to be blind not to see that she was a stunner.

But if he went home with Dan, Molly would ply him with soup while she talked up her latest “find,” a single woman who was, she’d assure him, everything he wanted in a woman.

And if he went home with Lacey, he’d just complicate his life. She’d ply him with the lush pleasures of her body, and afterward, she’d expect . . . what? Maybe just a smile. Then again, based on the looks she’d been tossing at him lately, maybe more than that.

More was the last thing Luke wanted. As the saying went, he’d been there, done that—done it legally, moreover, marriage license, chapel and all—and it hadn’t worked.

So he was, as Dan had pointed out, thirty-five and single. He liked it that way. Besides, he wasn’t the kind of guy who could do a one-night stand with a woman who wanted more, and then keep seeing her day after day, which was how it would go with Lacey. Nine-Thirty-One was a hangout for the precinct detectives, so he’d had to pass—if reluctantly—on Lacey’s generous offer.

Luke flushed the toilet, went to the bathroom cabinet and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Hell, what a mess. His green eyes were red-rimmed, his nose was pink, and the light stubble on his jaw made his high cheekbones stand out in stark relief.

Forget a pair of aspirin. Four was more like it. He dumped the tablets into his mouth, turned on the faucet, cupped his hand under the water and gulped some down. Then he shucked off his white boxers, stepped into the shower and turned the water as hot as he could stand it.

Hands flat against the tile, head bowed so the water could beat down on the nape of his neck, Luke gave himself up to the heat and the steam. Steam wasn’t chicken soup. Nor was it an old-fashioned sweat lodge, the kind he’d tried years ago while visiting an Oglala Sioux cousin in North Dakota. But after a few minutes, between the aspirin and the warmth, he began to feel better.

Naked, just a towel wrapped around his hips, he walked into the kitchen of his condo, took a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and lifted it to his lips.

One thing about living alone, you could do stuff like that.

Back in his bedroom, he pulled on a pair of running shorts, ancient Nikes and a faded T-shirt emblazoned with a Thunderbird clasping a whale in its talons. Then he pulled his long black hair back from his face and caught it at the base of his neck with a narrow length of rawhide.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle. Not that it mattered. Luke ran in all kinds of weather. Besides, he thought wryly, a run in the rain would either cure his cold or give him pneumonia . . . and at least there was a cure for that.

An hour later, he came puffing back into his apartment, soaked to the skin but feeling closer to human. The light on his answering machine was blinking. Luke hit the play button. The message was probably from Molly, calling to scold him for not coming home with Dan for a cup of her homemade penicillin last night.

But it wasn’t Molly, it was the captain’s clerk, calling to tell him that Lieutenant McDowell wanted to see him at 8:00 a.m. and would that be convenient?

Convenient?

Luke shot the answering machine a look that some of the suspects he’d questioned during the past four years, ever since he’d made detective, would have recognized. The lieutenant or the clerk must be having a good laugh—except that nobody had ever seen either of them smile, much less laugh.

Maybe he’d heard the message wrong.

He toed off his Nikes, tugged his soaked T-shirt over his head and stripped off his shorts. The phone rang just as he reached toward the play button.

“Sloan.”

“Molly wants to know how you’re feeling.”

Luke smiled, tucked the phone between his ear and his shoulder and headed for the bathroom.

“Better than yesterday, and curious about today.”

“Why? What’s up?”

“I just got a message from the captain’s clerk. The lieutenant wants to see me when I get in.”

“And?”

“And . . . I don’t know anything more than that.” Luke hesitated. “Dan? You think maybe the lieutenant developed a sense of humor?”

“See, I knew you should have come home with me last night. You need Molly’s soup, Luke. You must be running a fever.”

“You could be right. Either I’m hallucinating, or the message on my machine says I should see him at eight . . . if it’s convenient.”

“If it’s . . . ?” Dan gave a gusty sigh. “Man, you’re in deeper do-do than usual. What’d you do to piss him off this time?”

Luke grinned. “Nothing more than usual. Why?”

“Well, last time I know of he used the word convenient was maybe three, four years ago. Right before you got made. He asked Rutledge if it was convenient for him to stop by his office at six one evening. You ever know Rutledge? Tall, mustache—looked like John Q. Public’s idea of a detective.”

“Yeah, I heard about him. The guy who couldn’t have found an elephant in a phone booth with a sack of peanuts in his pocket.”

“That’s the one.”

“So? What happened?”

“McDowell told Rutledge he was putting him on a special detail.”

Luke opened the shower stall door, turned on the water, then closed the door again.

“Which was?”

“Which was, handing him over to that TV anchor with the hairpiece for a PR stint. Well, he wasn’t an anchor then, but you know who I mean—the guy who can’t walk by a mirror without kissing his reflection. After a week, even Rutledge was going nuts.”

Luke sat down on the closed commode. “In other words,” he said slowly, “‘convenient’ is a polite way of saying ‘smile and grab your ankles, pal. You’re about to get screwed.”

“Yeah,” Dan said mournfully, “and not by a babe like that lady last night. What? No, Molly. Honey, I was just—of course not. Would I even notice another woman when I can come home to you? Molly. Baby . . . ”

Luke chuckled. “See you in an hour.”

He put down the phone, stepped into the shower and turned the water on full force.

Dan tended to look at the down side of things. Rutledge had always been an ass; he’d deserved an assignment that paired him with another ass. But Luke knew he was—well, without being too immodest, he was good. He cleared most of his cases and he had an impressive arrest record.

During his five years in uniform, he’d taken down more than his fair share of the lowlifes he encountered. Once he’d been made a detective, he’d busted burglars, pornographers, a child kidnapper and a killer.

Turning his face up to the spray, he let the warm water do its job.

No way would the lieutenant waste him on some idiotic PR thing.

No way whatsoever.

* * *

BY EIGHT-FIFTEEN, LUKE KNEW he was right.

The lieutenant didn’t want to waste him in an idiotic PR thing. He wanted to use him in something worse. He hadn’t said so. Not yet, but Luke could feel it coming.