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“Just relax and tell me what you saw.”
Luke moved his hand over hers. She didn’t even realize she had twisted a business card in her palm until Luke slipped it out from between her fingers and put it on the desk.
As soon as the warmth of his skin came, it left again. His hand was back at his keyboard, but the touch had returned her to the present. She could finish the story. She had to finish.
“There was blood splattered on the walls and on the floor. I remember kneeling, looking around trying to figure out what I was seeing. Then I heard the sirens.”
“The police.”
“Yeah, but it still didn’t sink in. Even seeing the cleaning bucket didn’t compute.”
“And that’s where the police found you.”
“On the floor by the bloodstain.”
“They say you killed Phil and hid the body.” Luke’s hand hovered over the keys. “That they caught you cleaning up the scene.”
“But they conveniently forget that Phil made a call from the house only a short time before that.” She scoffed. “I mean, did he turn into smoke or something?”
Luke nodded. “Admittedly, the timeline is going to be the prosecution’s weakness at trial.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence. Maybe you should be on my defense team.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Phil set me up with a brilliance I didn’t know he had in him. He called his brother that night and claimed I broke in.” The prosecutor depended on the delay in calls from Phil to Steve to the police to explain the problem. “The theory is that I killed a 190-pound man and hid the body within a fifteen-minute window.”
The evidence didn’t fit. The fact that everyone refused to see that made her seethe in frustration.
“I’m assuming you deny killing him.” Luke said it more as a fact than a question.
“I can’t kill someone who’s not dead.”
Luke began typing. Even with one hand, he moved fast. Images flipped by on his screen. She could see him trying to log in passwords as fast as possible. Probably feared she would somehow break into his system.
A Web site she recognized popped up. “Wait, you’re with the FBI?”
He smiled. “Definitely not.”
“But you just entered a password to get on their system.”
“True.”
Lines of information filled his screen. She leaned in closer to see.
He eyed her for a second. “Sit back.”
“But that said something about Homeland Security.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“We’re talking about my life here, Luke.”
“This is confidential information.” He said the words but didn’t do anything to hide the monitor from her view.
“Then why do you have it, Mr. Antiques Expert?”
Another window opened. This one had the D.C.
Police logo on it. A few more strokes and Luke entered another password. The page that popped up looked like a bank statement.
“Other than violating about a thousand state and federal laws, what are you doing?” she asked.
“Checking for evidence that Phil is alive. Phone and bank records. Something that would support your theory about Phil setting this up to make it look like you killed him so he had cover to run.”
“That’s exactly what happened.”
Luke’s gaze did not leave the monitor. “So you keep saying.”
“You don’t work for the FBI.”
“I already said no.”
“Or the police.”
“Still no.”
Wariness spiraled through her. He had access to all sorts of information he shouldn’t have access to. “Exactly what side do you work for?”
Luke stopped typing long enough to stare at her. “Do you really care?”
“Yes.” She said the word but didn’t mean it. Her question wasn’t about following the rules. It was about trying to figure out who he was—the man he claimed to be or the one who carried a gun.
Luke hit a few more keys and then sat back in his chair. “There’s nothing on Phil. No sign of life at all. He hasn’t accessed any account or anything else in the three weeks since he disappeared.”
“The man is a multimillionaire.”
“I seem to remember you mentioning that when you left me for him.”
She dug her fingernails into the arms of the chair to keep from shaking him. “Phil has money hidden all over the place.
“None of it’s moving.”
Luke didn’t believe her. The fact hit her with enough force to push the breath out of her lungs on a whoosh. Desperation bubbled in her stomach. She had to move before it ran up her throat and she embarrassed herself.
She got up and paced the few feet between her chair and the open door to the office. A few steps and she could hit the hallway, run as fast as possible for the door and hope his injury slowed him down enough to let her get away.
“Don’t even think about it.” Luke issued the threat without moving an inch.
If he worried that she was about to make a break for it, he sure wasn’t showing it. Open hand, relaxed shoulders, even a small smile playing on this mouth. Yeah, he was sure he had her under control. She saw it in every line of his body.
He was hiding more than his real profession. Behind the passwords and key cards there might not be an easy way out of what looked like an otherwise normal office. Still, she had to try.
She moved her foot closer to the hallway to test her theory. If the door slammed shut and locked her in, she’d deal with his anger then. It wasn’t as if Luke trusted her, anyway. He probably expected her to bolt. Was waiting for it.
She inched the same foot outside the office. Her gaze stayed locked on Luke. He taunted her by leaning back further into his oversize leather chair. With one last deep breath she stepped out of the doorway. She turned her head to look down the hall.
A second later the barrel of a gun pressed hard against her forehead. She bit back a scream as she stared into the blue eyes of a stranger dressed all in black.
Adrenaline pumping, she raised her hands in surrender. “It’s okay. I’m here with Luke.”
The other man’s smile never reached his eyes. “Luke who?”
Chapter Four
Blood thundered in Claire’s ears. If her heart drummed any harder, it would come right out of her chest and land on the floor at her feet.
With Luke injured and her without a weapon, she tried to use reason to keep the big guy with the gun from firing straight into her forehead. “Listen to me. We can work this out.”
“I doubt it.” Black-haired and well over six feet, the guy radiated danger. His arm stayed straight and the gun never wavered. If ever there was a man ready to shoot first and talk later, it was him.
“You don’t want to do this,” she said, trying to stall for time as she mentally searched for a way out of this.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
At this range, there was no way the guy would miss unless he was cross-eyed, and she was just not that lucky. Not lately. If something didn’t change, she’d die with the presumption of guilt tied around her neck.
And Luke, injured and vulnerable. She didn’t want to think what would happen to him. Her only hope was for the meds to wear off and his brain to kick-start him into action. That even now he had his gun drawn and was working on a plan to free them.
“Phil’s just using you.” She didn’t have any money, her ex saw to that, but maybe this guy didn’t know the intricacies of her financial settlement. Only possible if he never watched the news or read a paper.
“Phil who?”
“I can beat his price. Whatever he’s giving you to do this, I’ll double it.” A total lie, but she was desperate to keep the conversation going and the gun’s trigger exactly where it was right now.
The guy pursed his lips as if considering the deal. “Interesting.”
“Problem out there?” Luke asked from inside the room.
Her heart dropped at the sound of his deep voice. She closed her eyes in defeat. Maybe Luke really was an antiques dealer. Seemed a guy with a badge would be smart enough to understand the benefit of sneaking up on a situation like this rather than announcing his presence.
“Are you going to answer him?” the guy asked.
She thought she heard a touch of amusement in his voice, which made about as much sense as everything else that had happened in the past hour. “No.”
“You should.”
She took that as an order. “We have company.” She shouted that obvious assessment to Luke. She wanted to tell him to bring his gun, but she was pretty sure that would tick off the guy who wanted to put a bullet through her brain.
After a bit of paper shuffling and chair squeaking, Luke appeared in the doorway. He stared down at the gun. Up at the guy. Didn’t show an ounce of surprise.
“Ahhh, I see you weren’t kidding.”
Her hands balled into fists. “That’s all you have to say?”
“No.” Luke stepped into the hall and leaned against the wall. If the other man’s presence worried him, he sure didn’t show it. “I saw you two on the monitor.”
“What monitor?” she asked.
Luke hitched his chin in the general vicinity of the gun. “Ease up. You’re scaring her.”
Oh, he was way past that point. “Lowering the weapon would help. I can’t go anywhere, anyway.”
The mystery man’s shoulders relaxed. “I wouldn’t let you.”
“Looks like we have an agreement, then.” Luke rubbed his shoulder. “Holden Price, this is the infamous Claire Samson.”
“Wait, you know him?” Her heart flip-flopped at the thought. When she tried to turn her head to let Luke see just how angry she was, the gun scratched her skin. “Uh, could you call your friend off?”
Holden looked her up and down. “When I’m ready.”
“Lower the weapon,” Luke ordered, his voice suddenly stronger and harsher. “Now.”
Holden hesitated before pulling the gun back closer to his side. “What’s going on?”
“So that’s a yes?” She looked back and forth between the men. What she really wanted to do was knock their heads together as payback for scaring the crap out of her. “You two do know each other.”
“We both work here,” Luke said.
“Now that we’ve cleared that up, why is she here?” Holden still held his gun at the ready. A fact that kept Claire on edge.
“We had an incident.”
It was as if the testosterone had rushed to Luke’s brain and swamped his common sense. She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s a little more than that. You were shot.”
Luke shrugged on his good side. “Yeah, like I said, an incident.”
“I know about the alley. I’ve already been there to make sure Adam has everything under control.” Holden nodded in the direction of the sling. “You okay?”
Since Holden actually frowned, looking as if Luke’s health mattered, Claire decided to let the gun threat slide. Luke might not understand how serious his injuries were, but from the way Holden’s eyebrows snapped together she assumed he got it.
“Will be,” Luke said.
The color had returned to his cheeks, but the dark circles under his eyes just kept getting darker. She was convinced he’d drop over at some point. Probably right when she’d need him to show off those impressive shooting skills of his, because that was how her life worked at the moment.
“You should be at home resting,” she pointed out. “It’s not normal for most people to get shot. Not even for supposed art dealers.”
“Antiques,” Holden muttered.
