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She decided to focus on the latter point. “And exactly what is your work? You were clearly looking for something in that building and it wasn’t me. Wasn’t a painting, either.”
“Speaking of that.” Adam put a hand on his hip and stared her down. “How did you know we’d be at that building?”
She’d stalked Luke, of course, but admitting that was out of the question. “I got lucky.”
Adam snorted. “Right.”
“Don’t worry about Claire and her snooping. I’ve got this situation under control,” Luke said.
Situation? She assumed that was his new pet name for her. Interesting how he couldn’t use his arm and was six seconds away from passing out but still thought he was in charge. Only the Y chromosome could result in that kind of bent logic.
Luke inhaled. “Just call the office—”
“You mean your antique storefront or your real job …” She hesitated until she knew she had their joint attention. “Whatever that job actually is.”
Luke scowled in her direction before turning back to Adam. “Go back to the scene,” he said. “Claire and I are going to have a little talk.”
She noticed Luke sounded more like police and less antique expert by the minute. “I’m fine, but thanks.”
“Then?” Adam asked.
“I’ll bring her in.”
“Never going to happen.” And she meant it. Injury or not, she would knock Luke down, press against his wound. Do whatever it took to stay free.
The idea of sitting in a cell and depending on the services of a court-appointed defense attorney made her head spin with fear. She knew how the system worked—poor people lost. Despite everything she had done in the last two years to escape her past, she had somehow slipped back into a situation where she had nothing. The exact place she’d spent her entire adult life trying to avoid.
“One more thing.” Luke used his good hand to cuff Adam’s shoulder. “This all stays between us.”
“How exactly do I explain the dead guy in the alley?”
Claire shook her head. Antiques experts. Right.
“You’ll think of something. I just need a little time with Claire.”
“How much?”
“Some. Might need a cover, too.” When Adam started to argue, Luke stopped him. “This isn’t up for debate.”
Silence lingered while Adam just stood there. When he finally spoke again, he sounded anything but convinced. “You’ve got twenty-four hours.”
Luke nodded. “Agreed.”
“Not by me,” she muttered.
“Just be careful.” Adam grabbed his keys but not before shooting Claire one last warning glare.
She waited until the door closed to say anything. “I get the distinct impression your friend doesn’t like me.”
“And here I thought you weren’t good at reading people.”
She picked up a damp towel and wiped the area around Luke’s wound before taping a bandage over Adam’s surprisingly professional stitching. The process took a few minutes. Rather than haggle and argue, she used the quiet to come up with a plan to leave Luke before Adam’s twenty-four-hour deadline expired.
She saw the mess of ripped paper and blood-drenched pads on the table. “You’ve ignored this question so far, but care to tell me why a businessman keeps a syringe in his bathroom?”
He smiled in a way that was more warning than welcoming. “Why? Want to learn a new way to get rid of your next husband?”
“I see you’ve decided to be as much of a jerk as possible.” She threw the towel on the table and plunked down in the chair Adam had abandoned.
“Some people like me,” Luke said.
She didn’t doubt that one bit. From creeping around and watching him for the past few weeks, she knew about his dating life. Women came over, stayed the night, and a new one showed up a few nights later. It was an endless parade of blondes and brunettes, each one looking easier than the one before her.
But that wasn’t Claire’s business. Her focus was on clearing her name. Like it or not, she needed help for that. When the whole town judged you guilty, you had to find someone who didn’t. Luke didn’t fit in that believer category yet, but she hoped he would.
“What’s the plan now?” she asked.
“You tell me what happened to your husband.”
She hated that word because it made Phil sound special, and he wasn’t. “And then?”
“I’ll decide that after I hear what you have to say.”
“How is that fair?”
“Do you have a choice?”
She didn’t.
Chapter Three
Four hours and two confusing explanations from Claire later, Luke was ready for a handful of painkillers and a bed. But thanks to his unwanted female sidekick, he didn’t have the option of the sweet oblivion of sleep.
They stood at the double doors to his office suite. He positioned his body in front of Claire to block her as much as possible from the security cameras he knew were shooting them from all angles.
Following her gaze, he looked at the words stamped on the door: Recovery Project. On the outside, the fifth-floor office on a side street in the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C., housed an antiques salvage operation. In reality it served as headquarters for an off-the-books agency tasked with finding missing people, both those who wanted to hide and those who prayed for rescue. That’s what he did for a living. He hunted people.
Since he didn’t directly work for the government, he didn’t have to obey its stringent rules. The Recovery Project was the place the guys with the real badges came when they needed the dirty work done. Luke and his team worked outside the law. They flashed fake credentials or whatever else it took to get in the door and never asked for credit when they succeeded in reaching their goals. To Luke’s way of thinking, they accomplished more in one day than most law-enforcement agencies could manage during a year-long sting operation.
Lights on the security panel flickered when he swiped his key card through the reader. The doors to the main reception area opened with a click. The place was in after-hours mode, dark except for one small lamp in the lobby area. Just as he expected—quiet and empty. It was about time something worked right today.
He had called seven times on the way over, trying the main number and then each private line to make sure they’d be alone. The idea was to protect Claire’s secret for a few more hours. The gun tucked into his sling protected him from her. If she made a move in any direction he didn’t like, he was ready.
Not that he could shoot her. Despite everything that happened between them before and everything bubbling under the surface now, physically hurting her was out of the question. But the desire for emotional revenge had not dulled since she’d left him holding a stack of bills for a wedding that never happened.
He had spent those first days dreaming of her coming back to him broken and despondent, begging his forgiveness for leaving. In his fantasy, he turned her away. He would listen, laugh in her face and walk off. That proved to be much harder in real life. Those chocolate-brown eyes and body born for the bedroom were enough to drive any sane man to do something really stupid. She had done it to him. Likely did it to most men unlucky enough to cross her path.
No, he couldn’t push her out of his head. But he could threaten. Oh, boy, could he threaten.
“What is this place?” She walked up to the receptionist’s desk and fingered the business cards piled there in individual holders.
He started to follow her and groaned when the swift shuffle to the side sent pain rippling down his injured arm. “My employer.”
“Ready to tell me what you really do for a living?” She glanced around at the stark white walls that gleamed despite the relative darkness. “Seems sort of modern for a place that supposedly deals in antiques.”
“We find them. We don’t collect them.”
“For some reason I doubt you do either of those things.”
When she leaned against the counter, her hair caught the light. Mahogany replaced the rich brown color he remembered. He guessed the longer, darker look was part of her disguise. Little did she know, all the dye in the world couldn’t cover her high cheekbones and smooth skin. Purple or green hair, he would know her anywhere.
“Let’s move on to a conversation I actually care about. Your missing husband,” Luke said.
“Former.”
Luke refused to let that distinction matter.
“The divorce is final, but the financial settlement wasn’t signed. That’s the point of the murder, wasn’t it?” When she ducked her head, he lowered his to meet her eyes. “Right? With Phil dead and the money issues not resolved, you would inherit. With Phil alive and the agreement signed, you got whatever the prenup and final paperwork said.”
“I see you’ve been reading the newspaper again.” She picked up a business card and tapped it end over end against the counter.
“You would have been a very rich widow.” He watched the card twirl faster between her fingers. “You know, if you hadn’t actually been caught in the act.”
“I was set up.”
“Tell me again why I’m supposed to believe that.”
“We’ve been through this. I told you the entire story twice on the way over here.”
He folded his hand over hers. The goal was to stop the annoying clicking of card against counter before his head exploded. At the touch, he felt a shot of a different kind. The feel of her soft hand beneath his brought back a flood of memories. Skin against skin, touching her, making love to her. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to picture her sprawled naked across his white sheets.
When the image refused to leave his mind, he shook his head to knock it out. He also pulled back his hand, because touching her skin was just plain stupid.
“Let’s go to my office,” he said.
“This should be interesting.”
That was just about the last word he’d use. But rather than debate, he slid his fingers under her elbow and steered her down the short hallway to his room. Letting her peek into an area so private made him nervous, but it was better to bring her here than drag her to his house. Here he would stay focused and he could make sure she only saw what he wanted her to see.
The conference rooms, computer rooms and most of the back half of the space were off-limits to visitors and anyone else who failed to get through the retinal scanner and other security measures in place there. That included Claire. Especially Claire.
He swiped his key card at the second door on the left and punched in his code. When the door unlocked, he gestured for her to move inside ahead of him.
The spare and minimalist look of the rest of the space continued in here. No dark heavy wood or oil paintings featuring somber sixteenth-century faces. He preferred clean lines, a comfortable leather chair and a desk sturdy enough to hold the stacks of documents piled on top of it.
Not that the papers contained anything of value. Everything on his desk was there for show. The actual work files sat secured in his hidden safe along with his removable computer hard drive and every other piece of confidential information from his cases. She would see what he wanted her to see and nothing else.
He waved at the black chair in front of his desk and took his seat behind it. With his computer switched on and his mind engaged, he was ready to hear her story one more time.
“Again,” he said.
“You’re going to type with one hand?”
Her reminder made his arm ache even more. Thanks to her presence, he had to skip the heavy-duty painkillers and go with antibiotics and aspirin for the injury. The combination wasn’t working. Every nerve ending throbbed.
“I’ll get by.” He stared across the desk right into her dark eyes. In that moment he wondered if he really would survive a second round with her. Last time she won, but he vowed to be the victor this time.
IF HE WANTED to be some sort of martyr and plow ahead with questions when he should be in a hospital, Claire wasn’t about to argue. She needed his help. If she tried to tell him how to provide it, his testosterone would kick in and she’d never get through this uneasy alliance.
“It was three weeks ago. Phil called and asked me to come to the house,” she explained.
“Is that normal?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Luke leaned back in his chair. Held on to his injured arm while he did it. “According to everything I’ve read, the divorce wasn’t exactly amicable.”
She had known the accusations would come eventually. Still, the idea that Luke so readily believed the absolute worst of her stung. “You mean because Phil told everyone who would listen that I was a whore.”
“I was trying to be tactful.”
“Why start now?”
“Fine.” Luke tapped his fingers against the space bar on his keyboard. “He accused you of sleeping around.”
“I didn’t.”
Luke hesitated before tapping again. “Okay.”
“You believe me?” Something deep inside her chest tightened into a hard ball while waiting for the answer. It was as if every cell waited to see what he would say.
Instead, he waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “It’s not important. Not my business.”
Yeah, well, it mattered to her. But she refused to justify or explain. If Luke was so determined to judge her guilty on that point, let him. She knew she had damaged his ego when she walked out. A man didn’t forgive that sort of thing easily. But no matter how much he hated her, the important thing was that he believe in her story enough to help her.
“Why did you go to the house?” he asked.
“It was stupid.” In hindsight, the dumbest move of her life, even less intelligent than her marriage. “Phil called and said he wanted to come to a reasonable financial resolution. Asked me to come over to talk. I should have questioned the change in him, but I was so relieved. And when I got there everything was wrong.”
The scene unfolded in her mind. The dark first floor. Music playing in the background. The strong odor of cleaner. She had called Phil’s name from the front door, but no one answered. When she heard a thump upstairs she figured he was moving stuff around and couldn’t hear her. She followed the curving stairway to the second floor. There was a light on the landing and more spilling out of the master bedroom down the hall.
“I walked into our old bedroom. Something seemed off. My jewelry was on the bed, the same items Phil insisted I stole when I left the first time. He must have had them all along.”
“Anything else? Was anyone there?”
The remembered smell filled her head. It was a mix of sickening sweetness and harsh cleanser. The same wave of dizziness that hit her that night flowed through her again.
She could hear the floor creak as Luke shifted around in his seat. She knew she was safe in his office, but she couldn’t pull her mind from the memory.