Murder Deja Vu

referrals, she’d never popped up on the radar. Only after another working girl blew the whistle on her did the NYPD get the lowdown.
    He flashed the badge a second time. “Lincoln Walsh, special investigator, NYPD.”
    “My, my,” she said, with an air of feigned surprise. “What’s a New York City detective doing all the way down in South Carolina? And why would he be after me?”
    He lowered himself into the chaise. “I’m investigating what we believe to be a sex crime.”
    Her expression changed to one of amusement, her voice husky and suggestive. “Have I committed a sex crime? Something…kinky, perhaps?”
    He knew only one way to play a woman like this―by her rules. “I don’t know, have you?”
    “Hmm, let’s see. Nope, not today, unless masturbating is a crime. You see, I was horny this morning because, would you believe, I woke up all by my lonesome.” She glanced at his bare ring finger. “You know how it is.”
    Linc felt a tug in his boxers. Jesus, he was turning into those drooling losers watching from the safety of their beach chairs. He leaned closer, feeling her body heat slam into him, and brushed his lips close to her ear to speak. “Had the same problem myself this morning. Now if we were together we wouldn’t have had to resort to such artificial stimulation.”
    “Oh, I doubt your bosses would approve, Mister―what did you say your name was?”
    “Walsh. Lincoln Walsh.”
    “Ah, Bond. James Bond,” she said, mimicking the famous line.
    She was poking fun at him, but he forgot the mockery when she shifted toward him onto her hip, and those beauties shifted with her. No silicone either. They were the real thing. Damn bikini triangles barely covered her nipples. She took off her sunglasses and matched his stare.
    A few fine lines crinkled the corners of bright, turquoise eyes. Thick dark lashes. No mascara. No makeup at all. The report said she was thirty-two. He wasn’t good at judging age. Everyone appeared younger these days. Maybe it was diet, more exercise, nip and tuck. Forty was the new thirty. Wasn’t that what people said? After a couple of Mid-East tours, he looked and felt every minute of his thirty-eight years.
    Thirty-two wasn’t old for a call girl. Experience meant a lot to men who paid for women costing as much as Tawny. Did a few tiny creases mean the end of an illustrious career? Was that why she quit? He had to admit his division spent more time tracking perverts after prepubescent girls, not women aging like fine wine.
    “You guys are all so predictable,” she said, snapping him back to the present and her beautiful Caribbean eyes with the long, thick lashes. “For your information, I’m not a working girl anymore. I’ve retired. This is the first vacation I’ve taken by myself in years. I even got my neighbor to water my plants, and you’re intent on ruining it for me. What’s so important that you followed me down here?”
    He saw a couple watching as if they were in the middle of a triple-X-rated skin flick. The woman nudged her husband and he slammed his slack-jaw shut.
    “We need to talk, and this isn’t the place. Can we go to your room?”
    “I told you, I’m not in the life any more. You’ll have to find someone else to get your rocks off. And if you persist, I’ll report you to your—what division did you say you were with?”
    “Such sarcasm. Go ahead. I’m with sex crimes, but my boss will make you the same offer I’m going to. And he might not be as…accommodating.”
    She studied him a long minute, then stood up. So did he. She was almost his height and still flaunted that teasing half-smile. Moving in chest to chest, she said, “Give me a hint. What’s this all about?”
    He breathed in a flowery scent he couldn’t name. Jasmine, maybe. He wanted to move back, but he liked the feel of her against him. She was trying to fluster him and damn if she wasn’t succeeding. You’re a cop, Walsh. And she’s a pro. Be cool. “Four hundred thousand you earned from Fortune 500 acquaintances and a member of New York’s Five Families, all in an offshore account you forgot to pay taxes on.” He watched her. “Oh, and a dead hooker named Sarah. Ready?”
    All the points he ticked off got her attention, but the last item stopped her cold. Her breath hitched, and every muscle froze. She regained her composure in the same length of time it took to bat those baby blues. She draped her beach cover-up over her shoulders, and