Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen 3)

going to find the story and they were always going to spin it to sound as salacious as possible. It’s their job.”

She settled back in her chair. “So you think you have new information?”

She seemed determined to keep things professional. Maybe that was for the best. He’d come for a mission, not a woman. “I’m approaching the investigation from a new angle. It wasn’t hard to do. There was really only about a week of actual fieldwork put into the case. I was surprised at how thin the file was.”

She put a hand up. “I don’t want to know how you got a copy of that file.”

He was resourceful. He was also good at flirting with secretaries. “I’ll keep that to myself. Anyway, NCIS closed the investigation into my father’s case after his death was ruled a suicide.”

“There was no one to prosecute. It didn’t seem right to drag his name further through the mud. I actually had some say in making that call. I asked Bill and Jim to stop looking into it because they would have had to question your mother. I didn’t want to put her through that.”

He could understand her decision. “I appreciate that, but I think there’s more going on here than the report suggests. Did you know the girl my father was accused of sleeping with had disappeared?”

He used that bland euphemism. What his father had been accused of could be construed as anything from statutory rape to sexual assault of a minor.

“No. I wasn’t aware of that.” She took a sip of the wine he’d brought. “But she was a teenage prostitute with a history of running away. It’s not so surprising that she would go missing.”

“But Amber Taylor went missing before the investigation was closed. No one on your staff ever spoke to her. There’s no record on file to indicate they even attempted to contact her.”

She raised an elegant brow in surprise. “Really?”

Dax nodded. “The only evidence against my father is that videotape and the testimony of two of his aides.” For Dax, those clues made an awfully thin reason to tear a man’s reputation apart. Even if he’d been proven innocent, the damage would have been done. His father’s career had ended the minute he’d been called a pedophile in public.

“Maybe they didn’t need to talk to Amber Taylor. Those two aides of your father’s gave very in-depth interviews,” Holland explained. “They were good witnesses from everything I understand. I know Jim felt like they were solid and so did JAG.”

The Navy’s legal arm had been all for prosecuting his father. They would have a much harder time if they tried to prosecute him today since all their evidence was rapidly vanishing. “Did you know that one of those two aides was recently murdered?”

“What?” Holland reared back. “No.”

He’d been fairly certain she was out of the loop. “He was transferred out of NOLA about a week after my father died. He was killed in Puerto Rico during a mugging.”

“I will admit it’s odd, but it doesn’t prove anything.” Even as she spoke, her brow furrowed, a sure sign that her thinking cap was on.

Making her think was exactly what he’d hoped for. “I don’t have to prove anything. I simply have to prod your curiosity enough to look.”

“You think you know me?”

“I do know you, Holland. You’re smart and quick and you like to see justice done. You also liked my father.” In fact, Dax was counting on it.

That’s why he’d come back to New Orleans in the first place. He’d asked for the training assignment. Hell, he’d practically begged for it because he needed to be here if he was going to convince Holland to reopen his father’s case. He didn’t trust anyone else to look at it with a fresh, fair approach.

“I can’t deny that,” she murmured.

“In fact, you like my whole family and you hate what happened to us. If you could give us any respite at all, you would work day and night for it.”

“Now you’re playing to my ego.” A hint of an amused smile crossed her lips.

“Is it working?”

“You know it is,” she replied. “I’ll look over what you have tonight, but I can’t promise you anything.”

“All I want is a shot at convincing you.”

“Like I said, I’ll read your file. I really was sorry about your dad. I’m also sorry I didn’t reach out to you. I should have. We were friends once.”

“Why didn’t you? You’ve stayed in touch with Gus and Mom.”

She sighed. “I got buried in work. They were here and you weren’t. It seemed easier to let it go. And you were so angry. I’ll be honest, I was afraid you would tear me up. Sometimes people lash out when they’re in as much pain as you were. Your world had crumbled under your feet. I didn’t want to be collateral damage.”

“You were right to stay away. I was so angry I couldn’t think straight. When the allegations came to light, I learned some things about my father I didn’t want to know.”

“But you don’t believe he raped a fifteen-year-old girl.” It sounded like a statement of fact rather than a question.

Dax nodded. “I think my father was set up. There are too many coincidences, and I question how so many people with critical information about the case suddenly disappeared when they were no longer needed.”

“Be careful, Captain. You’re starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. Why would anyone want to ruin your father? No one came after his money from what I can tell.”

No, they’d come after his reputation. “I don’t know why someone would do this.” Dax sucked in a deep breath. Now he had to drop the hammer. Holland wasn’t going to like this part, but he couldn’t hold off any longer. Either she would help him . . . or kick him out. “I also don’t understand why, after all of that, they felt the need to murder him.”

She closed her eyes briefly but seemed calm when she opened them again. “I was wondering if we would get there. Your father was found with a single gunshot wound to the head from a pistol registered to him. His fingerprints were the only set we found on the weapon.”

“But you know that sometimes evidence lies.”

“Very rarely.”

“But it can, and sometimes you have to rely on instinct, even when the evidence points to something else. You handled a case a few years back concerning the murder of an ensign. Your partner wanted to close it because all the evidence suggested his girlfriend attacked him in a fit of rage. She’d been drunk and blacked out.”

“Again, I probably don’t want to know how you learned about that. And yes, I should have closed the file. It seemed open and shut, but there was something about the girl. At the end of the day, I didn’t believe she was truly capable of violence, even when she was drunk. I dug further and found out the ensign had been brutally hazed by a superior and he intended to go to command the day after his murder. His CO was brought up on charges and is serving a life sentence.”

“You listened to your gut and you were right. I know my father was incapable of committing suicide.” Now Dax had proof. “Before he died, Dad left me a letter—not a suicide note.”

She frowned. “I didn’t see anything about that in the file.”

“Because I didn’t find it until right before I had to rejoin my ship. My dad didn’t like e-mail. He felt it was impersonal. He wrote a note asking me not to make any judgments until we talked. He told me he had something important he wanted to tell me and asked me to please come home so we could talk. After I really thought about it, I realized my father wouldn’t have been contemplating suicide if he’d written that note.”

He’d found the letter while cleaning out his father’s desk. His mother couldn’t stand to go into the room, so it sat untouched, right down to the glass half full of Scotch his father had been drinking. Another clue. That ridiculously expensive Scotch had been a gift from a friend. If his father had been planning on killing himself, he would have at least finished his damn drink. But he didn’t use that logic on Holland. He hoped the letter would be enough.

She shrugged. “Dax, he didn’t mail it.”

At least she wasn’t calling him by his rank or last name. He would take every little victory he could. “It was stamped and ready to go. My father didn’t make decisions on a whim. He wouldn’t have written asking me to come home and later that night blow his brains out. My father was a fighter.”

“The vile crime he was accused of could make anyone want to die.”

He leaned forward, looking her right in the eyes. “Holland, I want you to take everything you know about my father and listen to your instincts. Think about who he was when you read that file. If you can still tell me you believe one hundred percent that he was guilty and that he killed himself, I won’t bother you again.”

Dax would find another way to clear his father’s name. He wouldn’t stop, but he prayed she was still the same woman he’d known before, the woman Gus and his mother believed in.

“All right. I’ll look through it. Then we can talk. Eat your gumbo. I made a chess pie for dessert. So tell me how the boys are doing. I haven’t talked to Zack in a while.”

It was his cue to back off. She was going to read his file and make a judgment call.

He found it very interesting that she’d just happened to bake his favorite pie. Maybe she hadn’t forgotten him, either. “He’s drowning himself in work, but Roman is watching out for him. Now, if we want to change the subject to something more pleasant, I could tell you about how Mad got his ass kicked by a Parisian prostitute last month.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, please do.”

He smiled as he started his tale, happy to make her laugh for once.

* * *

Holland eased out onto her balcony, closing the door behind her as silently as possible since she had an unexpected overnight guest. After dessert, Dax had helped her do dishes. Afterward she’d told him to wait in the living room while she put on a pot of coffee. She should have shown him the door because it had been almost ten, but she’d enjoyed the evening with him. After they’d gotten the business out of the way, he’d told her stories about his friends and talked about some of the antics of his crew. She’d laughed and laughed.

It was the nicest evening she’d had in a long time. When she’d walked out with his coffee, the captain had been asleep on her couch. She hadn’t had the heart to wake him. He was likely jet-lagged as hell and probably hadn’t slept much. So she’d eased off his shoes and covered him with a blanket.

Then she’d sat at her kitchen table with the cup of coffee and his file. And she’d read.

Now as morning dawned, she looked out over the city. Even the Quarter was quiet. She liked this time, right before the sun came up. The streets had been cleaned from the nightly debauchery, and just for a moment everything seemed fresh and new again.

The sky was beginning to light with pinks and oranges as she thought about the man sleeping on her sofa. From what she could tell, he hadn’t moved an inch. He must have been exhausted. After reading his file, she’d tried to get some sleep herself. Instead, she’d dreamed of him and of what might have been if she hadn’t walked away.

Holland didn’t regret it exactly. She liked her life. It was filled with good work and good people, so why did she feel restless the minute she thought of Daxton Spencer? Why did she want more simply because he walked through her door?

“Do you ever think about it?” he asked behind her suddenly.

It was as though her thoughts had awakened him. Holland hadn’t heard him open the door, but now she could sense him behind her. She didn’t need to turn around to know he would look adorable slightly rumpled. It wouldn’t make him any less sexy.

“Yes.” She knew what he was asking and she didn’t bother to prevaricate.

He moved in behind her, cupping her shoulders with his warm, solid hands. She wanted nothing more than to lean back into the strength of his body. “I think about it all the time, Holland. Why did you run away from me?”

“I wasn’t ready for anything serious,” she replied honestly. “I also wasn’t sure I could handle your lifestyle.”

“The military lifestyle? You grew up in it.”

She didn’t turn to look at him because this conversation had grown so intimate so quickly. “Yes. I watched my mom pine for my father every day until she died. I then watched my father turn bitter and angry because he didn’t get the life he’d been promised. He was supposed to work hard and then one day he could come home and be with her. But she wasn’t around for the good part. Regardless, she never complained. I guess some women are built for life as a military wife. I’m not.”

Dax turned her to face him. He’d taken off his dress shirt and stood there wearing a tight tee that clung to his every bulging muscle, along with his khaki pants from the night before. She’d been right. He looked rumpled and adorable and delicious all at once. He’d definitely filled out, and she couldn’t help but sneak a peek at his sculpted, bronzed shoulders. He practically made her mouth water.

“That’s ridiculous,” he shot back with a shake of his head. “When two people want each other, they work it out. Holland, I’ve never stopped wanting you.”

She had to smile. “Even when you were dating that supermodel?”

He sighed. “She needed a date to an awards show. Mad and Gabe were escorting her friends. I happened to be in town so I agreed to help out.”

He’d looked gorgeous in his dress whites escorting the stunning model to the Oscars. The pictures had been everywhere, and she’d felt a truly illogical tug of jealousy. “So it was just a favor and you didn’t sleep with her or anything.”

Even in the low light of dawn, she could see the way he flushed. “I haven’t been a saint, but then, you walked away from me.”

And he’d walked into the arms of god only knew how many women. This was another facet of his life she wasn’t sure she could handle. He would always have women hitting on him, trying to tempt him. The fact that he had a girlfriend or a wife would simply make them try harder.

“I wasn’t judging you, Spencer. I was simply pointing out that our lifestyles couldn’t be more different. You date supermodels and actresses. I date cops.”

When she dated at all.

He shook his head. “Yes, you date cops. Many of whom used to be military. I find it funny that seven years have passed and we’re right back to where we started. Except this time, there’s nowhere to run. I’m going to be around, Holland.”

Oh, but she was still safe from him. “Yes. You’re going to be around and I’m going to be investigating your father’s death, so now we have a conflict of interest. We’re not going to date and I’m not going to kiss you again.”

She knew what that would lead to and she wasn’t sure she could afford the price to her heart. He might stay around for a while, but he would ship out again and she would be alone. That arrangement might work with another man. She might be able to live in the moment and enjoy the time they had together. But she would always want more from Dax Spencer.

His eyes lit up. “You read the file.”

“I did and I’m not promising anything except that I’ll ask a few questions and see what I can come up with.”

Dax was right. No one had put much work into the case. Holland tended to think it was because the whole office had been sidetracked by the whirlwind of the press at the time. When the thick of the story had blown over, there had been no reason to further investigate. Admiral Spencer had been dead, and dragging his family through more mud seemed both unnecessary and unkind.

But so many loose threads and coincidences made her uneasy. Too many skirted this case. One of the two main witnesses was dead. The second had been shipped out almost immediately following the admiral’s suicide. And the girl at the center of everything was missing—and had been since almost the beginning.

How could she not be suspicious?

And when she’d really thought about the admiral, truly listened to her instincts, s

he had to agree that he hadn’t seemed like a man capable of killing himself in that manner.

“You’re making the right call.”

She could practically feel the satisfaction pouring off him. “I thought about everything you said and it stirred up something I’d forgotten. Something Gus told me afterward.”

His jaw tightened. “Gus found him. I wish she hadn’t seen that.”

“But he would have known that Gus would be the one to find him,” she pointed out. “His office was set back far enough that it’s possible no one would have heard the gunshot.”

Dax nodded. “Dad often worked late at night. Mom can be a light sleeper. He had the office insulated so he could play music, regardless of the hour. He preferred Chopin and Liszt. He didn’t like quiet. I think he spent too much time on ships. The quiet bugged him.”