Hooked

didn’t want Eileen to know about this. Not yet. Not until he figured out what to do. One thing came to mind, but he doubted it would work. What did he have to lose? He picked up the phone and called Mario Russo.

Chapter Twenty-Five
    A Double Case of History

    L inc stood in the doorway of Tawny’s building. Get in your car and go home . But he couldn’t. He had to see her, talk to her. He pressed the buzzer. No answer. She said she had errands, but that was hours ago. He pressed the buzzer again and waited a full thirty seconds before she answered.
    “Who is it?”
    “Walsh.” Silence stifled the street sounds. “Buzz me in.”
    “Why are you doing this?”
    “Buzz me in and I’ll tell you.”
    “Please, Walsh. Go away.”
    “If you don’t let me in, I’ll push every button on the panel. Tony will let me in; someone will.”
    This time he waited longer. He had his finger on Ambrosio’s bell when the door buzzed. He pushed it open and bounded up the stairs.
    She stood at the open door, without makeup, wearing a pair of baggy shorts and a tank top, no bra. Flip-flops on her feet. She’d pinned her hair up, but tendrils fell carelessly around her face. She was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.
    “This is a mistake,” she said.
    “I don’t think so, and neither do you.” He kicked the door closed and moved into her.
    “It’s lust. Plain, unadulterated lust.”
    “It’s more, but it’s that too.”
    “I can’t fight it, Walsh. I want to, but I can’t.”
    “Then don’t.” He put his arms around her and drew her to him. She didn’t resist. He kissed her hair and her eyes and her mouth, and she returned the kiss with the same passion. When their lips parted, he held her close, his face buried in her hair. She smelled of soap and a hint of the citrusy jasmine perfume she always wore.
    “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted any woman. So much, in fact, that it physically hurts. But that’s not all I want from you.” He lifted her chin, and they stared into each other’s eyes. “Do you understand?”
    “I don’t understand any of this.” She nestled her head in the crook of his neck. “I’m not used to these feelings, and I never thought I’d feel them. I’m confused, Walsh. You’re confusing the hell out of me.”
    “Because you’re holding back, afraid I’m going to hurt you. It’s happened before, and you’re never going to let it happen again. That’s the rub, isn’t it?”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Don’t I? Marblehead High School . Senior year. I don’t know the particulars, but I know enough.”
    She moved away from him, her cheeks flushed a brilliant rose. Covering her face with both hands, she said, “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You had to put my life out there for all your cop friends to salivate over.”
    He pulled her arms down and sandwiched her face between his hands, forcing her to look at him. “I didn’t do that. I got the information through a private source.”
    “Why?”
    “You gave yourself away the night we shared the pizza. I knew you were hiding something. I wanted to know you, to understand you.”
    She drew back from him. “Oh, you mean to find out what ghastly event in my life turned me into a whore?”
    Shit! This wasn’t turning out the way he’d planned. But then, what did he expect? He’d invaded her privacy, dug into the ugly corner of her life that shaped it. He felt his face twist in the harshness of her words.
    “Don’t like that word, do you? What would you prefer? Call girl? Prostitute? Hooker? Harlot, tramp, slut? All good words meaning the same thing. And they all describe me.”
    “Don’t.” He moved to her, but she stepped out of his range and turned, facing the waning light outside the window, made even dimmer by the shade from the surrounding buildings. “You want to know me? Okay, Walsh. I’ll take you back to the summer after I graduated high school. You’re so hungry for the sordid details I’ll give them to you, straight from the horse’s mouth. You won’t have to dig into hospital records or newspaper articles.”
    “You don’t have ―”
    “No, you went to a lot of trouble to find out, you should know everything, not only what some hacker dug out of the dirt for you. It’s what you’ve wanted ever since we met.”
    He could see her reflection in the glass.
    “Now you will,” she said, meeting his gaze in the window with a cold, solid