On Dangerous Ground Read online

  “Grant, I can’t—”

  He raised her hand, pressed his firm lips deep in the center of her palm. Her eyelids fluttered shut for a brief instant while her stomach dropped to her toes.

  “Someday you’ll let me in, Sky. Someday you’ll trust me enough.”

  Chapter 4

  “How did you convince Ellis Whitebear to give us a blood sample so fast?” Sky asked forty-eight hours later.

  “It wasn’t fast,” Grant stated, momentarily sliding his gaze off Interstate 40 and onto Sky. “Not in my book. It took me two days to convince his attorney, Marcia Davis, that it was in her client’s best interest to give up some blood. I should have had her eating out of my hand in one day, tops. I must be getting rusty.”

  Sky angled her chin. “The legendary Pierce charm not what it used to be?”

  “You tell me, Milano,” he said, flashing her a grin while he passed a slower stream of traffic. “You’re the one who climbed into my car at the mention of a double-chocolate giant gulp shake. I figure I was pretty charming.”

  “You did okay.”

  Grant heard the thread of emotion in her voice, saw the change in her eyes before she shifted her attention out the passenger window. Her gaze seemed to lock on a highway sign serving notice that the first exit for McAlester, Oklahoma, was one mile away.

  He frowned. After they’d passed frequency range, he’d switched off the police radio; now, cool, silent air and Sky’s light, tempting scent surrounded him as he studied her out of the corner of his eye.

  She looked calm and relaxed, sitting with her legs crossed demurely in the passenger seat of the detective cruiser. Her dark hair was pulled back into its usual prim bun; wire-rims perched high on her perfectly shaped nose. The crisp cotton blouse and dove-gray slacks she wore magnified the image of a poised professional.

  The casual exterior didn’t fool Grant. He noted the way nerves had her right foot jiggling at intervals. Saw, too, the white-knuckled grip she had on the handle of the tackle-box-size evidence collection kit she’d placed between them on the front seat. She looked, he decided, about as relaxed as a coiled spring.

  Something had happened. Between the time she’d stood outside the Training Center and opened up to him about her rape and a couple of nights later when he’d returned from Texas, something had happened. His frown deepened as he reviewed in his mind how he’d walked into her apartment and found every light in the place switched on, music blaring and a jittery chemist about to consume a pot of radioactive coffee that could have kept an entire task force awake for a week.

  Whatever it was that had Sky climbing the walls two nights ago had not eased its grip.

  Silently Grant studied her profile, taking in the shadow of weariness at the corner of her eye, the fatigue that turned her face pale. An air of vulnerability pulsed off her flesh in faint, tense waves.

  During the drive, he had asked her what was wrong. Several times. Each time, she had shaken her head in denial. Each time, the wary strain in her eyes had deepened.

  He rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to loosen the muscles that had knotted there. He would wager half his stock options that the Benjamin/Peña cases were only a part of the reason she was so uptight.

  Sky and another chemist had worked grueling hours over the past two days, rechecking and verifying every test result on the evidence from Mavis Benjamin’s homicide. Then the recent Peña murder. While the chemists had slaved over their instruments, Grant had tracked down and reinterviewed all the witnesses who’d testified in Ellis Whitebear’s trail. So far, all test results, all witnesses’ statements—everything—had checked out.

  They would know soon enough if vials of blood had somehow been mislabeled two years ago when samples were taken of all the maintenance workers at the apartment complex Mavis Benjamin had managed. Grant’s cop instincts told him that wasn’t the case. Sky was too good a chemist, too organized and meticulous in her work habits for a glitch like that to have happened. Because his gut told him that she’d labeled the vials correctly from the start, he was back to asking the question of how a death row inmate’s DNA had shown up on a bandage at a recent homicide?

  No matter how long it took, no matter the number of chess pieces he had to shuffle around on a mental game board, he’d find the answer. Just as he would dig until he knew what had happened after Sky opened up to him about the rape, and why her gaze now went instantly wary whenever he got within five feet of her. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that she’d reinforced the barrier she’d built between them six months ago.

  Dammit, Grant thought as he pushed the cruiser forward in a burst of speed, she could reinforce all she wanted, but it wasn’t going to work. Not this time. She wasn’t shoving him out of her life again when this investigation ended.

  He tightened his grip on the steering wheel as conflicting needs waged a battle inside him. She’d survived the worst kind of hell a woman could endure; he understood that. He didn’t want her hurt further by his conjuring up pain-filled memories. Still, he and Sky deserved the chance to find out exactly what they could come to mean to each other.

  He wanted the chance anyway, Grant amended, holding back a sardonic laugh at the irony of it all. He’d never had the inclination to dip below the surface with any woman…until he’d met Sky. She was the one woman whose thoughts he wanted to share, and couldn’t. Whose trust he’d asked for, then been denied even a crumb of that trust.

  Biting back frustration, he slid his gaze across the cruiser’s front seat. She had no way of knowing that he’d set more than just the goal of getting Whitebear’s blood during this day trip to the state prison. He was also determined to find out what had caused her to block off a part of herself again.

  Once he knew the reason, he would get a handle on how to deal with it.

  He jabbed a hand through his hair, barely aware of the eighteen-wheeler that shot by at breakneck speed. His other immediate goal was to get a handle on exactly what was going on inside him.

  He’d lost count of the times he’d asked himself that very question since he’d pressed his lips to Sky’s palm and urged her to trust him, to let him back into her life.

  Why, he wondered, was he so ready to give her another shot at his heart?

  Maybe losing Sam was the reason, Grant mused. He dealt with death every day, but those deaths weren’t personal. When Sam died, Grant had lost a partner he re spected and cared for. Nothing Grant could do would bring Sam back. Sky, on the other hand, was alive, and he wasn’t going to step back and lose her, too.

  He wasn’t a fool. No way did he intend to leave himself wide-open again. Still, those few moments when he’d held her hand and felt the alluring jump in her pulse played in his mind far too often for him to ignore the knowledge that he couldn’t just stand by and let her push him away again. And he wouldn’t—by God, he wouldn’t—let her walk away from him. Not unless they’d dealt with whatever was between them, and decided it wasn’t enough.

  Maybe that was the decision they would make; maybe it wasn’t. Just how deep the emotions went on either side, he didn’t know. This time, he planned on hanging around until they both had a chance to find out.

  “What did you tell Whitebear’s attorney?” Sky asked. She moved her hand from the evidence collection kit, then twisted her fingers in her lap. Grant could almost see her nerves pulsing. “Marcia Davis has to be suspicious of why you’ve asked for more of Whitebear’s blood.”

  “She is.” Easing out a slow breath, Grant forced his mind to business. Talking about the case was preferable to the silence that had hung between them during the four-hour drive. “I reminded her that the DNA we found at the crime scene is her client’s. That’s why a jury sent him to death row. But something’s come up on another case, and I want to double-check a few facts.”

  Sky furrowed her brow. “She accepted that at face value?”

  “No way. But I pointed out that Whitebear’s position can’t get much worse, no matter wh
at samples he gives over. She couldn’t argue that.”

  Grant clicked on the blinker, then swung onto the McAlester exit. “At first, Davis told me she had to think about letting Whitebear give us more blood, then she hung up. What she did after that was make a few calls to see if she could find out what I’m up to. The people she contacted clued me in on that. Since you and Lieutenant Ryan are the only ones who know all the details, Davis struck out. That’s when she agreed to our taking the blood sample.”

  Grant steered around a corner. A huge banner stretched across the sunbaked road, welcoming them to McAlester’s 48th Annual Prison Rodeo.

  “I was in high school the last time I made it to the prison rodeo,” he commented as he headed the cruiser in the direction of the state prison. “Have you ever been?”

  “No.” Sky shifted her gaze from the banner to give him a speculative look. “I’m having a hard time picturing you at a rodeo.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Upbringing, Pierce. You’ve got all those blue-blooded genes coursing through your veins. I figure rich kids like you grow up attending the symphony and assorted fundraisers on breaks from private school.”

  “I admit I did my fair share of hanging out at the country club,” he commented, then cocked his head. From the moment they’d met, it had been so easy, so comfortable to slide into a give-and-take banter with Sky. “Then one night I tagged along with my brother, Nathan, and a few of his pals when they hit a country-western bar. I not only got introduced to some great music, I developed a true appreciation for women wearing skin-tight jeans and cowboy boots.”

  “Nothing like a well-rounded patron of all the arts,” Sky murmured.

  “That’s me. Nathan and I came to the prison rodeo a couple of years running. Everybody has a good time, a few get a little rowdy, then everybody goes home at the end of the weekend.”

  “Except the inmates,” Sky pointed out as the sprawling prison came into view.

  “So true.”

  Under the glaring noonday sun, the whitewashed buildings gleamed like a peaceful oasis in a mirage. The ten-foot-high chain-link fence topped with swirling coils of razor wire and gun towers placed at intervals were stern reminders that murderers and assorted other morally bankrupt humans inhabited the surreal setting.

  “You and I played a major part in putting Whitebear in this place,” Grant stated. “As far as he’s concerned, our visit today will be about one point more popular than that of the guy who brings him his last meal.”

  “If it turns out I made a mistake and he doesn’t belong here, he’ll be glad we came.”

  “I get the feeling nobody made a mistake,” Grant stated, his brow furrowing.

  “I hope you’re right.” Sky raised a hand, palm up. “If you are, we’ll just need to figure out how Whitebear’s blood wound up at the Peña crime scene.”

  “Yeah.” Grant pulled the cruiser to a halt in the prison’s visitors’ parking lot. He opened his door and stepped into the oppressive summer heat that nearly took his breath away. Leaning back inside the car, he retrieved his suit coat, then hooked it over his shoulder with one finger.

  “Ready?” he asked, slipping on his dark glasses as he walked around the cruiser to Sky’s side.

  “Ready.” When she replaced her wire-rims with sunglasses, Grant noted that the dark lenses made her skin even paler in contrast. He fought the maddening need to grab her shoulders, shake her, demand she tell him what had put the hollow look on her face and wariness in her eyes.

  Instead, he set his jaw and walked beside her in silence along the tree-shaded sidewalk toward the prison’s double front doors.

  As she moved, Sky shifted the evidence kit from one hand to the other. Tools of her trade, Grant thought. He knew the kit held syringes with sterile blood collection tubes and specially treated index-card-size absorbent paper onto which blood could be transferred so no refrigeration was needed. Also in the kit were alcohol swabs, combs, paper bindles, bandages, even smelling salts for use on the occasional squeamish donor.

  As they neared the entrance, they came abreast of several well-kept wooden houses that had once been residences, but now served as offices for some of the prison’s staff. Looming over the homey structures were the whitewashed buildings that made up the prison’s main body.

  Grant pulled open one of the double entrance doors, welcoming the blast of cool air that gushed out. Sky stepped past him through the door; her tantalizing scent drifted out from her flesh and wrapped around his senses.

  “Sky,” he said quietly.

  Pausing, she traded glasses, then turned to face him. “Yes?”

  The weariness in her blue eyes pulled at him. “When we’re done here, let’s stop and get something cold to drink.” And talk, Grant added silently.

  “I want to get back to my lab as soon as possible.”

  The knots he only now realized had been in his stomach since they started their drive tightened.

  “I’ll get you back.” He walked toward her, keeping his eyes locked on hers. “But we’re going to have a talk first.”

  Her face went deadly pale. “No, I—”

  “Help you?” asked a uniformed female guard behind the glass-fronted visitor’s desk.

  Grant caught the stiffening in Sky’s shoulders beneath her crisp white blouse as she turned and walked to the desk. There they informed the guard of their business, then showed their identification. Sky handed her purse to the guard; Grant unclipped his holstered 9 mm Glock from his belt. He removed the clip, unchambered the remaining round, then passed the automatic and ammunition through the small security window. The purse, weapon and ammunition went into a locker behind the desk. A second guard with a thick gray mustache and sharp eyes went through Sky’s evidence kit. Satisfied there were no concealed weapons or contraband inside, he handed it back to her.

  Grant followed Sky through a metal detector, then down a ramp and through two sets of sliding steel doors. Their shoes sounded hollow echoes along the short hallway where a heavyset guard with a flat stare unlocked a door to a small room that was routinely used for attorney-client visits.

  Grant nodded to the woman with a hip propped against the small table in the center of the room. “Counselor,” he stated.

  “Hello, Pierce.”

  Marcia Davis was a slim, compact woman in her mid-fifties with salt-and-pepper hair cut in a short, no-frills bob. She met Grant’s gaze with dark brown eyes that gave no hint at her thoughts. He had dealt with the attorney from the indigent defense fund on several other cases, and he knew her to be intelligent and stealthy. As always, Grant planned to watch what he said in her presence.

  He lifted a hand in Sky’s direction. “Sky Milano, meet Marcia Davis.”

  The attorney pushed away from the table, giving a slight nod. “You testified in one of my cases last year,” Davis stated, returning Sky’s handshake. “The Tobias case.”

  “I remember.”

  The attorney glanced across her shoulder at the guard who stood waiting at the room’s entrance. “Has Jason Whitebear signed in yet? He wanted a few words with his father before we got started.”

  “No, ma’am,” the guard stated.

  Davis checked her watch. “I’ve got another appointment in Tulsa in a couple of hours, so we won’t wait. We’re ready for you to bring in Ellis Whitebear.”

  The guard nodded. The thick metal door with a small window in its upper half closed behind him with a firm thud.

  “One thing, Pierce, before my client gets here,” the attorney said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Here it comes, Grant thought, meeting her gaze squarely. “What’s that?”

  “Why don’t you tell me the real reason you need more of my client’s blood?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Grant watched Sky move to the far side of the table, then open the lid of her evidence kit. With efficient ease, she pulled on a pair of thin surgical gloves.

  “I told you the reason,” he stated,
focusing his attention firmly on the attorney. “Something’s come up on another case, and I want to double-check a few facts.”

  “Hogwash,” Davis returned evenly, sliding her sharp gaze Sky’s way. “Something’s come up on this case or you and your chemist wouldn’t be here right now.”

  Grant raised a shoulder. “Your client’s guilty, or he wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “Is he?”

  “His DNA was on a dead woman’s dress.”

  Davis kept her eyes on Sky. “Was it Whitebear’s DNA on Mavis Benjamin’s sleeve?”

  “Yes,” Grant said, then waited until the lawyer shifted her gaze back to him. “It was.” Until a test told him different, it was.

  “Do you have new evidence that impacts my client’s case?”

  “No.” Grant kept his eyes locked with hers. As a police officer, he had an obligation to report evidence, not rumor, innuendo or hypotheses. At this point, he wasn’t sure what the hell he had regarding the two-year-old homicide case.

  Pursing her lips, the attorney tucked a wayward strand of salt-and-pepper hair behind one ear. “I’ll tell you what, Pierce. You and Sam have always been upfront with me.”

  “Sam’s dead,” Grant countered instantly, then set his jaw against the now-familiar curl of regret that settled inside him.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Davis continued. “He was the best homicide cop I’ve ever dealt with. Sam once told me the way he proved someone guilty was to try to prove them innocent. Every step he took where he couldn’t do that made that person’s guilt more likely.”

  Grant arched an eyebrow. Sam had pounded that philosophy into his head when they’d first partnered in Homicide. “Your point, Counselor?”

  “My point is that I had a great respect for Sam and I figure you learned from him, or he wouldn’t have kept you on as a partner very long. I’ve always known you to tell the truth, Pierce, even if it might not advance your own case. Whatever’s going on that involves my client, I trust you to do what’s right.”