|
Image coming soon! |
SO, ARREST ME! Kate Lawrence, prized TV journalist, wants police Captain Cole Adams out of control and in her bed – even more than she wants the latest scoop. And she thinks she knows just how to do it. Having an opportunist like Kate Lawrence assigned to his precinct to cover a politically hot case sticks in Cole’s craw, but he will not let her get to him so that she can run roughshod over his precinct to further her career. No matter that she’s the hottest little number he’s come across - ever. But he’s underestimated his opponent. And Kate’s having a ball showing him just how much. Especially when he turns the tables and shows her just how in control he can be. |
|
So, Arrest Me! | |
| Captain Cole Adams sat behind his scarred desk balancing his
chair on its legs, idly running his thumb along his inlaid silver belt
buckle as he stared at the precinct’s T.V. The vein over his left eyebrow
throbbed as he watched Kate Lawrence flash her trademark smile for the
viewers. “I swear that woman needs a good spanking.” His First Lieutenant chuckled. “Can I do the honors?” Patrick Lynch unwound his lanky frame and headed to the under-the-counter refrigerator tucked in the corner of Cole’s office. Poking in his dark head of hair, he fished around for a Sprite. Cole’s gaze stayed riveted to the screen as Kate Lawrence, mike in hand, swept her hand across the scene behind her. Her cameraman had panned the bushy area of Central Park and focused on the jutting mound of granite, the exact location Cole’s detectives had identified as the place of homicide. And the investigation had barely begun. Cole gulped the last of his Coke and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “The press was told to keep quiet about the exact location. That woman does not listen. Ever.” “To you?” Patrick grinned, tipping the Sprite to his lips and returning to his chair. He crossed a long leg over one knee. “To anybody.” Cole crushed his Coke can and tossed it in the wastebasket. “No other reporter has released that information. Just her.” Cole turned back to Kate Lawrence’s image. The cameraman had moved in for a close-up. She was reeling in her audience with that well-rehearsed voice, husky and seductive, her lips polished to a wet bronze, setting up for the kill. “Typical,” he mumbled. “You really don’t like her, do you?” Patrick said. “I’ve never met her. It’s what she does I have a problem with. Watch.” “But the real question remains,” Kate Lawrence purred. Here it comes. “Why are the police withholding information from a public whose safety is in jeopardy? Our safety. The safety of women.” Her blue eyes brightened with indignation. “She is so predictable.” “People say she’s brilliant.” Patrick hit the remote and turned up the volume. “You’ve seen the way politicians fall under her spell, saying things you know they later regret.” “She’s an opportunist,” Cole said. “Not brilliant. You know as well as I do that reports like hers can jeopardize an investigation. Everybody seems to get that but her.” Kate Lawrence wrapped shimmery tapered nails around the base of the mike and practically licked it. Cole threw up his hands. “Oh, now you know that was on purpose.” Patrick groaned. “She’s smart all right.” Cole watched the crowd on T.V. grow quiet. They hung on her every word. All Kate Lawrence had to do was lick her lips and she’d have the men believing every syllable. She drew out the moment. Cole tensed. “I wonder what she’s got up her skirt this time.” “So do I.” Patrick laughed. “Maybe that wind will kick up more and we’ll get to see.” “Turn up the volume,” Cole said. “On behalf of the citizens of our community...” Kate Lawrence blinked and took a breathless little pause. “I’m begging the police to tell us what we need to know to protect ourselves.” Cole rolled his eyes. “I don’t know,” Patrick said. “She’s beggin’ you, Cole, and she’s pretty persuasive.” Cole grunted and ripped open a strip of beef jerky. “If the rumors are true,” Kate Lawrence continued. Cole’s fingers froze. “The killer left a note—” “Shit.” Cole threw down the jerky. “How the hell did she know that?” He turned to Patrick. “That detail was too damned specific to have been a lucky guess. Somebody leaked it.” Patrick had enough sense to mute the T.V. “We’re the only ones who knew,” Patrick said. “That information has never left this room.” Cole scrubbed a hand down his rough-shaven face. “Damn. She found it out somehow. Maybe someone overheard us. We’ve got to watch who’s around.” On the T.V., the wind had whipped up. Cole watched Kate Lawrence slap at hair the color of honey. Long strands of it kept flying across her face while she lifted the mike to her admirer beside her. The man beamed into the camera for his thirty seconds of fame. “She’s got him eating out of her hand.” Patrick laughed. Cole wasn’t amused. He was watching Kate Lawrence hold up the picture of an unauthorized vehicle seen in the vicinity days before, turning left of Park Drive South through a closed off area by West 67th. He wished she’d just stick with reporting her local interest stories and stay out of the police’s way. When the phone rang and the caller I.D. recorded the commissioner’s number, he glanced at his watch. If the commissioner was calling at 9 p.m. it couldn’t be good. Cole waved at Patrick to leave. “Get some rest tonight because when forensics gets back to us it’ll be a circus.” Cole waited until the door closed before he picked up the receiver. “Commissioner, it’s Cole. What’s up?” “You tell me, and it better be good.” “It’s only been ten hours—” “The victim is Congressman Tyndale’s niece.” Shit. Cole wasn’t surprised the Vic was high profile. The fact that she was discovered in Central Park West was only the half of it. Her jogging outfit would have cost Cole a week’s salary, and her manicured hands couldn’t have come within ten feet of dish water. “You sure?” “The Congressman’s sister called him when the news hit. Her daughter jogged that route every morning. When she didn’t answer her cell, her mother went to her apartment. Her daughter wasn’t there and the dog hadn’t been let out. She called her brother, the Congressman, immediately. Within the hour the daughter’s dental records were faxed to the medical examiner. I just got the call confirming the I.D.” Cole ran a hand through the top of his unkempt hair and let out a breath. “You know what this means,” Commissioner Moore said. “Every elected official in the city is going to be dogging us and trying to tell us how to do our job.” “And how fast to do it. You got anything yet? The media’s already hounding me.” “Like I said, it’s been ten hours.” “Keep me updated.” “You got it.” “I mean it, Cole. Keep me up on every development. I don’t care how small. Despite your stellar record since I brought you here from Austin, there’s still people who think you’re just a cowboy and I’m a traitor for not promoting within the ranks. Both our jobs could be on the line with this one.” Jack Moore had been singing the same refrain since Cole’s cobra boots hit Manhattan’s payment one year ago. But this time Cole knew it was true. Cole didn’t want to screw this up either. If he returned to Texas, his life-long friend’s death would only haunt him. He was glad when his sister encouraged him to move here, closer to her and his nephew, because although he and Mark should have thought twice before volunteering for such a risky assignment, Cole couldn’t help but feel guilty that he was the one alive. Despite that, job security wasn’t foremost in Cole’s mind now. A young woman, just starting her life, had been killed a few blocks from his precinct. “You have my word, Jack.” “Good.” Cole replaced the receiver and glanced back at the T.V. He had been idly flipping through the remote and went to turn it off when he saw Kate Lawrence staring back at him. This time, a local reporter was recapping earlier news and he was talking to her via telephone. Close up, Lawrence looked no older than the victim, only she was very much alive. Color brightened the pale skin along the line of her high cheekbones. The thought that she was standing out in the cold, clutching that damned mike, still surrounded by a crowd of onlookers, irritated him. She should be out on a date or with friends having fun. Cole grabbed his worn buckskin jacket off the hook and headed out. The squad room was relatively quiet. He gave a nod to his staff as he left, sobered by the thought that the press would be all over them come tomorrow. He thought of Kate Lawrence heading up the posse, and frowned. | |