Traitor, The by Jo Robertson Read Free Book Online Page A

hurriedly.
    She gave a tiny nod and appropriated the bathroom. Moments
later he heard the water running. As he dressed in fresh underwear and socks,
his mind raced with a dozen questions about what the investigators had
discovered last night. Nothing definite or Max would've tagged him. Still, he
needed to get there as soon as possible.
    He glanced toward the closet where last night's jacket hung,
Lupe's information folded carefully in the inside pocket. Christ! Last night he'd
let his senses get so addled that he'd risked blowing his informant's cover.
Let his guard down so that he hadn't even seen the attack in the alley coming.
Gotten entangled so deep with a woman that he'd taken her back to his apartment
when the smart thing to do would've been to put her in a cab and send her on
her way .
    Now his white-knight conscience was intervening. He sighed
heavily. God knew, he was no saint, but something innocent and almost virginal
about Isabella made him believe her. She'd told the truth. Last night wasn't
typical behavior for her.
    He opened the closet and grabbed his tan suit and silk tie
off the clothes dowel and finished dressing. Gathered his briefcase and
holstered his weapon. When he heard the water shut off, he listened at the
bathroom door. He rapped softly.
    No answer.
    "I'm sorry, Isabella," he said through the door. "I
really am. But I've got to get to work."
    The door eased open and Isabella stepped through the archway.
Desire shot through his loins like a flame-thrower's sword. Steady, he warned
himself, but his heart thundered in his ears like a herd of mustangs and his
forehead felt suddenly clammy.
    He shoved aside the shards of lust that ran through him. At
least he could keep his hands off her now and not complicate an already awkward
situation.
    They hadn't really had sex, not the real kind, the kind that
could get her pregnant or ... Jesus Christ, what had he been thinking of? Taking
a strange woman to his apartment, to his bed? Doing those intimate things to
her body.
    He wouldn't go there again. Wouldn't compound the problem.
    Decision made, he reached for his suit jacket. "Look,
it's late and I've got to get to work ... " He shrugged helplessly. "Uh,
why don't you grab some coffee and, uh, maybe you can let yourself out. Last
night was great, but ... look, we hardly know each other and ... maybe last
night was a mistake," he ended in a rush.
    "A mistake," she echoed, her eyes wide with an
emotion he couldn't read.
    He watched the heightened color edge upward toward her face
and clenched his jaw. "You seem like a nice girl. I'm sure you're not used
to hopping into bed with strangers, so let's chalk this ... situation up to the
intensity of the attack or too many drinks, and leave it at that."
    As he closed the door behind him, he reminded himself again
of the reasons last night should never have happened. First, agency matters
ought to be at the front of his mind at this delicate stage of his
investigation. Also, he had no business taking advantage of Isabella.
    Last night neither had been thinking straight.
    #
    "You're telling me that isn't blood in the alley?"
Rafe tented his fingers, elbows resting on the arms of his desk chair, and
tried to stare down the homicide detective who sat across from him in his East Temple
Street office.
    "Oh, it's blood all right, Hashish," Jensen
answered, throwing in the nickname because he knew it pissed Rafe off. "Crime
scene says animal, not human, but they need to run forensics to be sure."
    He spread his hands, palms up. "So, my good friend, you
wanna tell me what this is all about?" He eyed Rafe speculatively. "And
while you're at it, what about that cut on your already fucked-up ugly mug? How'd
you get that?"
    Max Jensen had always been too observant for his own good,
starting during their Stanford undergraduate days when he'd noticed Dr.
Henderson's preoccupation with his computer during class. At the mature age of
nineteen, Max had sucked Rafe into breaking into