Controversy Read online

  The man might as well have socked her in the gut; his sudden change in demeanor confirmed he carried bad news.

  “It’s one of my sisters, isn’t it?”

  “Um, no, ma’am. We—”

  “My baby brother?” But wait. He’s in Georgia.

  “No, ma’am. We—”

  She gasped. “My father! It has to be my father. What was it—heart attack? Stroke? I told him about mixing that Viagra with his heart medication. But he never listens.”

  Detective Dekker’s frown deepened. “No. That’s not it.”

  “Stepmother? Though I’m not too crazy about her. I’d call her a gold digger if my father had any money,” she added absently. “No one knows that much about her, she just popped up—”

  “Ms. Matthews—”

  “Adams.”

  “Right,” he snapped with impatience.

  She caught the underlying hint and shut up—but, damn, he was fine.

  “Ms. Adams, we’re here regarding your husband—”

  “Ex-husband.”

  He drew a deep breath. “Right. Mr. Matthews is missing and his, ah, lady friend suspects foul play. She suggested we come and talk to you.”

  Lady friend? “I knew it.” She swore under her breath. “I’ll kill him.”

  Detective Dekker’s brows jumped and crinkled his forehead.

  Embarrassment burned Michael’s face. “I’m sorry. Figure of speech. You were saying?”

  Dekker glanced over his shoulder at his partner and then returned his attention to Michael. “Ma’am, do you mind if we come in?”

  It was Michael’s turn to glance back over her shoulder and assess her pigsty of a house. Why, oh, why hadn’t she cleaned up?

  “Ma’am?”

  “Um…sure.” Reluctantly, she stepped back, pulling the door with her and allowing the two officers to enter.

  Kyson crossed the threshold and made a sweeping glance around the quaint, although cluttered, house.

  “I just moved in,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Um, like I was saying, Mr. Matthews’s place of residence appears to have been ransacked pretty badly, so our department concurs with Ms. Delaney’s assessment and believes there’s foul play at work here.” He walked farther into the house, not sure what to make of the place.

  Delaney—probably a hooker. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, closing the door behind Dekker’s partner.

  Grudgingly, Kyson returned his attention to the striking beauty, despite the bed-tossed hair, smudged makeup and mismatched plaid and polka-dot pajamas. The woman must’ve had one hell of a night.

  “Ma’am,” Griffin said when Dekker couldn’t stop staring, “can you tell us where you were last night?”

  “Yes. With my sisters. We went out for drinks at the Peppermill.”

  “All night?” Kyson asked, his voice returning.

  “Until it closed,” she said. “We were out celebrating.”

  Kyson lifted an inquisitive brow.

  “My divorce,” she answered the unasked question. “It was made final yesterday,” she supplied.

  Kyson reached for his pen and flipped open his notepad again. “And your sisters will verify this?”

  “Yes,” she clipped with a hint of anger.

  “Their names?” Griffin asked.

  “Sheldon, Frankie, Joey and Peyton.”

  Kyson glanced at his partner.

  “Yes. Yes. We all have boy names. Next subject.”

  “What time did you return home?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea. I passed out in the backseat of my sister’s car. They put me to bed and I didn’t wake until you guys started pounding down the door. For which, by the way, if there are any damages, I’ll be suing the department.”

  The partners exchanged weary looks.

  “When was the last time you spoke to or heard from your husband?”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Excuse me,” Kyson said. “Your ex-husband.”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “A week ago—maybe two.”

  “Ms. Delaney says you were stalking Mr. Matthews,” Griffin tossed in. “Any truth to that?”

  “Absolutely not!” she shouted, but then followed it up with, “I was spying on him.”

  Kyson suspected someone had spiked his morning coffee—either that or he’d stepped into the twilight zone.

  “You weren’t stalking, you were spying?” Griffin asked with his pen poised above his notepad, just like Kyson’s.

  The woman nodded. “I suspected he was having an affair, but I couldn’t catch him. I take it that this Ms. Delaney is his elusive ho.”

  Kyson chuckled.

  “Ms. Delaney just identified herself as ‘a friend,’” Griffin informed her.

  “Uh-huh,” she said, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.

  “Do you mind if we sit down and ask you a few more questions?” Kyson asked, not ready to leave.

  She considered the question and then shrugged again as if to say “why not?”

  He and Griffin followed behind her as she led the way to the living room. Kyson’s eyes locked on the way her hips rolled and her butt swayed with every step she took. She was the kind of woman Southern men like him would just sop up with a biscuit and suck on the bones for a few hours.

  “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

  “No,” Griffin said, casing the room.

  “I’d love some,” Kyson contradicted, mainly because he wanted to see her walk some more.

  She caught on; but instead of calling him on it, she flashed him a smile. Two dimples winked back before she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Kyson’s heart jumped while his erection pressed against the line of his pants. He needed to sit down.

  “So what do you think?” Griffin whispered. “You think she’s hiding something?”

  “Don’t know,” he answered, and took a seat.

  “She’s sort of an odd bird, don’t you think?” Griffin asked. “When she opened the door, I thought we’d arrived at Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Plaid and polka dots?”

  Kyson’s mouth curled. “I saw that and then some,” he said, remembering the sight of her overflowing breasts. She certainly had more than a handful. He licked his lips. His mouth was dry as a desert.

  Griffin chuckled. “Didn’t know you had a thing for crazy women.”

  “They keep life interesting.”

  Michael searched all of the cupboards and cabinets and came up empty. Just her luck. She was out of coffee. An amazingly gorgeous man was in her house and she couldn’t even offer him a decent cup of coffee.

  “Maybe there’s some downstairs,” she muttered.

  Last week, Michael’s father had given her boxes of canned food and whatnot from his overflowing Costco stock. There had to be some coffee down there.

  “Just a minute, guys.” Michael exited the kitchen with a pasted-on smile and raced to the door leading down to the basement. “Make yourselves comfortable, I have to get a new can of coffee.”

  “That’s okay, ma’am,” Detective Dekker said. “We don’t want to put you through any trouble.”

  “No trouble,” she lied. “Be back in a moment.” Michael took off down the stairs. “C’mon, girl. Get it together,” she coached. If she played her cards right, she might get Detective Fine’s phone number. She clicked on a light.

  “Where the hell did all this mud come from?” Michael glanced around and noticed the back door cracked open. “What in the hell?” She went and closed it. “Just more work that needs to be done,” she mumbled and made a beeline to the piles of boxes from her father.

  “Coffee. Coffee. Where’s the coffee?” She dug through the canned goods and spotted the familiar burgundy canister. “Gotcha!” She smiled.

  Pivoting on her heels, her gaze scanned across the basement and crashed into a horrific sight.

  She jumped, screamed and dropped the can of coffee.

  T
here, sitting before a cinder-block wall, looking bruised and battered, not to mention, tied in a wooden chair with his mouth duct taped, was her missing ex-husband, Philip Matthews.

  Chapter 3

  Remembering the cops upstairs in her living room, Michael clamped a hand over her mouth, but continued to stare wide-eyed at the angry face of her ex-husband. What in the hell did she do last night?

  Phil rocked and bucked in this chair. No doubt his mumbled words behind his taped mouth were a long fervid stream of expletives and, given the circumstances, she didn’t blame him. A lean five foot ten with hair shaved so low one would question whether to call it hair at all was still neatly groomed, but one would not miss the ugly purple-and-blue bruise against his left temple or the trickle of blood from his lips. His sable-brown eyes were wild and angry.

  Again, she didn’t blame him.

  Michael stomped over to a squirming Phil and ripped the duct tape from his mouth.

  “Ow!”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  His eyes rounded incredulously. “What does it look like?” he hissed. “I finally decided to take a vacation and spend it tied up in your basement.”

  “Ms. Adams?” Detective Dekker’s voice floated down and filled the basement. “Do you need any help down there?”

  Phil filled his lungs with air, but before he could yell for help, the duct tape was back wrapped around his mouth and she clamped her hand over it for good measure and plopped down into his lap to prevent him from bucking and rocking the chair.

  “Uh, no. I have everything under control.”

  “You’re sure?” The top stair creaked, letting her know that he was about to come down. “I thought I heard you scream.”

  “Rats!” she shouted, and cut her gaze back to her ex. “I seem to have a rat infestation. I’m on my way back up.” With her free hand, she reached for the roll of duct tape on a cluttered shelf.

  Dekker paused. “Are you sure you don’t need help?”

  “Positive.” She waited.

  And waited.

  Then finally she heard his weight shift on the stairs. Thinking he was about to descend, her heart plunged to her toes and all she could see in her mind was Detective Dekker slapping handcuffs on her wrists and sending her off to spend the rest of her life behind bars. Wasn’t kidnapping, like, a federal offense?

  For whatever reason, God had mercy on her soul and the cop went back upstairs and closed the door.

  “Mmphf. Mmmugh,” Phil muttered behind his sealed lips.

  “Oh, shut up!” she snapped, removing her hand from his mouth. “I can’t think with you doing all of that.”

  He glowered.

  “What?” she challenged. “Just because I don’t remember what happened last night doesn’t mean that you didn’t deserve it.”

  Phil shook his head and rolled his eyes. Undoubtedly, he was thinking that she’d finally snapped and lost her mind. Actually, it looked as if she had. Michael glanced down. She had a lot of questions, but she didn’t take the tape back off because she didn’t trust him not to shout for help.

  “I’m sorry about this,” she said. A half truth, but she would examine that later. Right now, she took the roll of tape and wrapped so much of it around his head his eyes bulged. “I’ll be right back.”

  Michael raced out of the basement and up the stairs. She had to get those cops out of her house quick, fast and in a hurry, but she was at a loss as to how she could do that without raising suspicions.

  When she rushed into the living room, she was stunned to see Frankie and Sheldon there, shaking hands with the officers and smiling a little too openly at her dream lover.

  Heifers.

  Four sets of eyes swiveled in her direction. She told the first lie that came to mind. “Looks like I’m out of coffee.”

  Frankie frowned. “All that coffee Daddy packed up for you?”

  “Well, I couldn’t find it,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Frankie insisted, heading for the basement door. “I helped him pack the cans myself.”

  “Don’t go down there!” Michael barked, jumping in front of her sister.

  “What in the hell?” Frankie leaped back and stared at her sister as if she’d grown two heads. “What’s gotten into you?”

  The detectives stared at them.

  Michael laughed to defuse the situation. She needed to step up her game. She was usually cooler under pressure, but something about being under Dekker’s close scrutiny frayed her nerves.

  “Um, I, uh—there’s, um…” Calm down, Mike. Calm down. “Rats!” She remembered. “Big. Huge. Rats. Trust me. You don’t want to go down there.”

  “I guess we’re going have to skip out on the coffee anyway,” Detective Griffin said. “Your sisters here corroborate your story.”

  “Rats?” Sheldon echoed, looking over Michael’s shoulder and toward the door.

  “Yeah,” Dekker added with a soft smirk. “Sounds like you got pretty lit last night.”

  “Speaking of which,” Frankie said, reaching into her expensive bag. “P.J. sent you this bill for her having to have the car cleaned.”

  “Figures.” Michael snatched the bill from her hand.

  “Maybe we need to get the exterminators here,” Sheldon said, still frowning at the door. “If the problem is really bad, maybe it’s not too late to get you out of the lease.” She sidestepped Michael.

  Michael blocked her again. “Trust me. You don’t want to go down there.”

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of rodents.” She shoved Mike out of the way. “If this is a serious problem then we need to jump on it.”

  There was nothing else to do but to watch Sheldon plow through the door. “You coming, Frankie?”

  Frankie laughed as if to say “get real” and turned her attention back to the cops. “I’m sure Phil is fine,” she assured them. “While he and Michael were married, he had a habit of disappearing. Isn’t that right, Mike?”

  “Uh?” Mike tore her gaze from the door, lost in what was being said.

  “Phil,” Frankie stressed.

  Michael panicked. “What about him? I don’t know where he is!”

  Frankie frowned.

  Sheldon bolted back through the door with wide, wild eyes, and slammed it behind her.

  “What the hell?” Frankie asked, turning.

  Michael quickly moved to Sheldon’s side. “I told you not to go down there,” she said.

  “My goodness.” Frankie joined her sisters by the door. “Is it that bad?”

  Sheldon panted as if she’d run a marathon. Her shocked gaze swung from Michael to the two officers.

  “Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  Michael jumped in before Sheldon spilled her guts. “I take it you saw the big rat downstairs?”

  “Rat?” she echoed.

  Michael swore if she was hauled to jail she’d strangle Sheldon first before they carted her off.

  “Rat!” Sheldon affirmed, nodding, finally catching on. “Huge. We need to, uh, get someone here quick to, um, handle it.” She swallowed.

  “Damn.” Frankie glanced around. “If they’re down there, they can be up here, as well.” In dramatic fashion, Frankie leaped up onto the leather couch. “I’m allergic to rodents.”

  Michael shook her head at her sister’s diva-esque tendency. They’d all grown up digging in the dirt and climbing trees, but ever since Frankie married up, she acted as if she was born and raised in Beverly Hills.

  “Maybe I should check it out for you,” Dekker suggested.

  “No!” Michael and Sheldon shouted, both crowding and blocking the door.

  Detective Dekker jerked back, but then his eyebrows crashed together.

  “It’s already dead,” Sheldon lied to cover.

  Michael nodded, unable to speak. She was too busy praying for another miracle.

  A phone chirped and Detective Griffin reached into his jacket while Detective Dekker reach
ed into his back pocket.

  This is it. I’m about to be handcuffed and dragged out of here in my pajamas like an episode of Cops.

  Instead, Detective Dekker produced a business card. Cops had business cards?

  “If you do see or hear from your husband—”

  “Ex.”

  He smiled and amended, “Ex-husband, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. My cell phone number is on the back.”

  One miracle delivered.

  “Thanks,” Michael said, taking the offered card and slipping it into her pajamas top and down her bra. “If I hear anything you’re on the top of my list.”

  Kyson didn’t hear a word she said. His attention was focused on that lucky card he’d passed her. He’d watched the whole thing as if it played in slow motion.

  “I don’t see what the big deal is,” Frankie interjected. “No body. No crime.”

  “We gotta roll,” Griffin said, cutting into Kyson’s X-rated thoughts. “We have a new lead.”

  When Kyson didn’t respond, he walked over and clamped a hand down on his partner’s shoulder. “Let’s go.” Griffin chuckled. “One of Matthews’s neighbors called, said she thought she’d seen something suspicious this morning. Thinks she got a good look at a car peeling out of the neighborhood.”

  That damn Neighborhood Watch gang, Michael thought.

  Kyson nodded and then returned his attention to the unique and unusual Michael Adams. “Make sure you use that card,” he said. It was the only thing he could say without spelling it out to her that he wanted her to call whether it was in regard to her missing ex-husband or not.

  Griffin muttered something beneath his low laugh and then led the way back to the front door. The Adams sisters followed.

  “Could you be any more pathetic?” Griffin asked when they climbed into Griff’s late-model Mercury Sable.

  “What?” Kyson laughed, though he knew exactly what his partner meant. He had acted like a teenager with a crush on his high-school teacher.

  Griff shook his head and started the car. “I don’t know, Kyson. You need to leave this one alone. Something tells me Ms. Adams eats men like you for breakfast.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”