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“Let’s go to my office,” he said in a low voice, turning on his heel to lead the way.
She had no choice but to follow.
Chapter 4
The moment Matt pushed the door open and walked into his spacious glass-enclosed office, the phone on his desk began ringing.
Talk about timing. An exasperated sound escaped his lips, and he looked over his shoulder at Natalie. “Do you mind if I get that?”
She gestured toward the multilined console on his desk. “Go ahead.”
His being on the phone would give her a few more seconds to pull herself together, she thought. She hadn’t realized seeing him again would affect her like this, shaking her to the core. If anything, his physique seemed more buff, harder, somehow. And looking into his blue eyes had her reliving bits and pieces of the past that made her feel so vulnerable. So much for being over him.
“Schaffer,” Matt said as he put the receiver to his ear.
Natalie caught the shadow of a frown forming on his lips just before he turned his back to her. Matt lowered his voice, and even though she couldn’t actually make out all the words, there was no missing the annoyed undercurrent.
“I don’t have time for this, Scott,” Matt finally said, cutting his older brother short on the other end of the line. He’d been in town less than two weeks and already Scott was seeking him out, dumping his problems in his lap. He wasn’t about to allow himself to get sucked back into this kind of a rut again. He was done with all that. Done. “This time, you’re going to have to bail yourself out of trouble.”
The voice on the other end of the line begged indulgence.
Because this was his brother and because, God-only-knew-why but family still meant something to him despite all the turmoil it had caused in his life, Matt spared his older brother a minute more.
He sighed again, weary. “All right, I’ll call you later. Until then, don’t do anything stupid.” Matt broke the connection before Scott could add another layer to the tale of woe that he’d been spinning.
Replacing the receiver in its cradle, Matt turned back around to look at Natalie. She looked stern, he thought. And beautiful despite her frown. “Sorry.”
Her eyes met his. Hers were unfathomable. “Of course you are.”
He would have had to have been deaf not to hear the sarcastic edge in her voice.
He had it coming, Matt thought, and he couldn’t blame her, not after the way they had parted company. But he still felt in his heart that he had done the right thing.
Even if it hurt like hell at the time.
He wasn’t exactly feeling terrific right now, he realized. Eight years and he still wanted her. Maybe even more than ever. He’d often wondered over the years, in isolated moments when he found himself alone, if he would ever get over her. He had his answer now. And it was a resounding “No.”
She didn’t need to know that, either, he thought, doing his best to appear impassive.
The next thing out of Natalie’s mouth threw him for a loop.
“Did you have my sister killed?”
It took him a second to find his tongue. “What?” The implication behind the question had him reeling. How could she even think that? “Do you actually believe that I would be capable of something like that?”
Though she was certain that she gave no indication of it, she was struggling against her attraction to him. The fact that she could feel that, after all that had happened, disgusted her. She was supposed to be a stronger person than that. Right now, Natalie felt as if her emotions had been dumped into a blender, the button set on “high.”
“I discovered a long time ago that I’m not exactly a great judge of character.”
He had that coming, too, Matt thought. He refrained from commenting on her words. Instead, he answered her unsettling question.
“No, I didn’t kill Candace.” And then he hit her with a question of his own. “What could have possibly been my motive?”
She’d asked because her father had planted the idea in her head, but she didn’t want to bring him into the conversation just yet. “When they found her, Candace’s ring was missing.”
He stared at her, stunned. “Robbery?” he asked in disbelief. All right, his family had had some shady dealings in the past, but he himself had never been found guilty of anything. Had never traveled on the wrong side of the law. “You think I killed her to rob her?” Even as he said it, it sounded ludicrous. Matt looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t believe you believe that,” he told her quietly.
She didn’t know what to believe. Her heart told her that Matt had nothing to do with this, but her heart hadn’t exactly been batting a thousand.
“I really don’t care what you believe,” she informed him coldly. “The ring is worth millions. People do a lot of things for a lot less.”
“People, maybe,” he allowed. “But not me.” And then the import of what she was saying hit him. “You’re talking about the Tears of the Quetzal? That was the ring that was stolen?”
“As if you didn’t know. Someone saw you escort Candace out.”
They were attracting attention despite the closed door. Some of the people in the outer office kept glancing in their direction. Matt walked over to glass walls and one by one lowered the blinds, giving them privacy.
It also created a sense of intimacy that he really didn’t want. Right now, it only complicated things. But he wanted prying eyes even less, so he left the blinds where they were. “A lot of people saw me escort Candace out.”
“How far out?” Natalie challenged heatedly. “To your car? Maybe you decided to take her for a little drive and wound up at her place?”
Candace and Natalie might have been twins but he had never met two sisters who were so utterly different, not just in looks but in personality. He had never experienced the slightest attraction, not even momentarily, to Candace.
“I walked her to the entrance,” he told Natalie. “Where she went from there and with whom, I have no idea.” She looked unconvinced. “I can show you the tape that verifies that.” Although, he thought, he shouldn’t have to.
“Tapes can be doctored,” she countered. “As I remember, you were pretty good at that sort of thing. ‘Enhancing’ I think you called it.”
That both wounded and irritated him, but he let it go. Instead, he appealed to her logic. Her logical mind was one of the things he’d loved about her.
“Natalie, think about it. What could I do with the ring if I did take it? I can’t fence it. It’s not some little piece of glitter. This rock is famous. Pieces have been written about it. A lot of people know what it looks like.”
Everything Matt said made sense, but she wasn’t willing to let him off the hook just yet. She needed more answers. “My father says he’s into your family for a lot of money.”
He was surprised her father had admitted that. Arrangements had been made secretly, so no one would know that Rothchild was in financial trouble.
“The family lent him money, yes.”
Matt couldn’t help thinking how ironic that was. Eight years ago, Harold Rothchild had come to him for the express purpose of buying him off. The man had offered him a quarter of a million dollars if he promised to disappear and never get in contact with Natalie again. Angry and offended because he knew that in Rothchild’s eyes, he wasn’t good enough for Natalie, he’d told her father what the man could do with his money and his offer.
And then, days later, his brother had succeeded in doing what Rothchild couldn’t. He’d succeeded in making him leave Natalie, but for completely different reasons.
Natalie was looking at him suspiciously. They both knew what her father thought of the Schaffer family. “Why would your family give him a loan?”
Because Rothchild had told Natalie about the loan, he didn’t feel bound by the initial promise of secrecy surrounding the deal. “Your father overextended himself. A note was due on his casino, and he stood to lose everything.” He shrugged carelessly, his custom-made jacket rustling. “I was in a position to help.” He’d been the one who had brokered the deal, acting as a go-between with his family and Rothchild.
That didn’t answer her question. She pinned him with a look. “Again, why?”
He’d asked himself the same thing. This was a man who, eight years ago, would have gladly seen him run out of Vegas on a rail. But then he rethought his position. “Because he was your father, and I thought that what happened to him affected you. If he had to file for bankruptcy, your inheritance might be in jeopardy as well.” He smiled at her. “Let’s just say I thought I owed it to you.”
Damn it, his smile wasn’t supposed to affect her anymore, wasn’t supposed to make her knees feel weak. She was a cop, for God’s sake.
“You don’t owe me anything, Schaffer,” she told him, her voice edged with steel. “Except for straight answers.”
“I gave you that,” he told her. “I didn’t kill Candace. I didn’t have her killed, either,” he added, covering all his bases. That, hopefully, out of the way, he had questions of his own. “How did she die?” he wanted to know.
She didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, she looked at him for a long moment, debating whether or not she believed him. God help her, she did. Did that make her a fool?
After a beat, she decided there was no harm in answering. The papers would be carrying the story soon enough, and the media always had a way of ferreting things out.
“My guess is that the blow to the back of her head did it. And whoever was there got in a few licks on her face as well.” Natalie shuddered. Had Candace suffered before she died? Lord, she hoped not. “Revenge, hatred, I don’t know.”
His eyes held hers. “And you thought I would do that?”
She gave him a nonanswer. “I had to ask.”
He had a lot coming to him for the way things had ended between them, but not that. “No, you didn’t.”
Her temper flared. “Yes, I did,” she insisted, struggling to keep her voice under control. “Because I don’t know you.”
Yes, you do, Natalie. In your heart, you know me, he thought. And then another thought hit him. “Let me ask you a question.”
“All right.” Not knowing what to expect, she braced herself. “Ask.”
He sat down on the edge of his desktop, crossing his arms before him. “Have the rules changed since I left Vegas?”
He looked relaxed all of a sudden. Why? Where was he going with this? She became suspicious. “Depends on what kind of rules you’re talking about.”
He watched her expression as he spoke. “The rules that say a detective with a personal stake in a case isn’t supposed to be allowed to investigate said case.”
He should be the last one to talk about rules, she thought angrily. “No, they haven’t changed,” Natalie replied stoically.
Matt spread his hands in a silent question. “Well then, why—?”
She stopped him before he could go any further. “My captain put me on bereavement leave.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Well, not only did she not know him but he obviously didn’t seem to know her, either she thought bitterly. “Do you honestly expect me to sit with my hands folded and not even try to find my sister’s killer?” she snapped.
“No,” he admitted, “I expect you to do exactly what you’re doing. We have that in common, you and I.” Their eyes met, and she wanted to look away, but found she couldn’t. “We’re both loyal to our families—even when they don’t deserve it.”
She took offense for her sister. “You’re a fine one to pass judgment.”
“I was talking about my own family,” he clarified quietly, and with those few words, he effectively took the wind out of her sails.
“Oh.” For a second, she was completely at a loss as to how to respond.
Sensing her discomfort, Matt changed the topic. He always had been in tune with her. “So, you’re a police detective.”
She looked at him warily. “Yes.”
He smiled. It went straight to her belly. “Can’t say that’s something I saw in your future.”
“I don’t think there was anything you saw about my future.” She couldn’t refrain from making the dig. It kept her from demanding to know why he had walked out on her all those years ago without so much as a word of explanation.
There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but he didn’t. They would all sound like excuses. And he knew she was better off this way. And safer. That had always been his goal, the motive behind his actions, to keep her as safe as possible. And that meant they couldn’t be together. But if he’d told her the truth back then, she wouldn’t have allowed it to keep them apart.
It was better this way. If he’d begun to waver in his decision, Scott’s phone call had convinced him otherwise.
“I’d like to see those surveillance tapes from last night if you don’t mind,” she said crisply, her tone indicating that even if he did mind, she would still find a way to view them.
There were an awful lot of tapes to go through. They had a hundred different cameras just on the ground floor alone. That made for a great deal of viewing time. “What exactly is it that you’re looking for?”
She wanted to say “anything suspicious” but she kept it succinct. “I want to see if Candace went home with anyone, or if anyone followed her.”
There, at least, he could be of some help. “Well, I don’t know for certain if anyone followed her, but I can tell you that when she left here, she was alone. I stood at the entrance and watched her for a few minutes to make sure she didn’t double back.”
He made Candace sound like some sort of undesirable. Granted her sister had been loud and tended to be outlandish at times, but she’d never been barred from any place. Casinos vied for her attendance.
“Exactly why was she escorted off the premises?”
“You’d have to take that up with Luke Montgomery,” he told her.
His answer wasn’t good enough. “You have no thoughts on that?” she wanted to know. “No impressions as to why he’d ask you to remove her?”
He told her what he knew. “They looked like they were quarreling when Montgomery signaled for me to come over.”
The bartender had said the same thing. “Quarreling? Quarreling about what?” Maybe Montgomery sought Candace out later in her condo, to pick up in private where they had left off. She needed to know the nature of the argument.
Matt made an educated guess, based on what he knew about Candace. “I think your sister wanted to cause a sensation with her ring, and Montgomery wanted the focus to remain on the gems at the gala. Montgomery went to a lot of expense to get celebrities to donate the jewelry and get them all under one roof and, well, Candace always had a way of making love to the camera, to the exclusion of everyone else.”
Natalie’s eyes narrowed. “I guess you would know about the lovemaking part.” The retort was out before she could prevent its emergence.
She’d managed to catch him completely off guard. “Excuse me?”
Oh, he was good, Natalie thought. He really looked as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Give it up, Matt. Candace told me that she thought you were really good in bed. One of her ‘better’ lovers, I believe she said.”
For a moment, he was speechless. “Candace would have no way of knowing that.”
She wasn’t about to be taken in by his act, no matter how much part of her wanted to believe it. “Oh, don’t bother playing innocent with me, Matt. Why would my sister lie?”
“The last thing I am is innocent,” he informed her. “But I never made love to your sister and as for why she would lie to you, I could think of a dozen reasons. Her being a pathological liar would be at the top of the list.” He saw that made Natalie angrier, but he stood by his statement. “I think, between her lifestyle, the booze, the drugs and the men, your sister lost her grasp on reality a long time ago.”
Incensed, heartbroken and still in shock at seeing Matt after all this time, Natalie found herself in a very fragile state. Far more fragile than she ever thought she would be. Without thinking, she reacted, defending a sister who could no longer defend herself. She took a swing at Matt.
He caught her by the wrist, stopping her fist from making contact and then quickly caught the other when she switched hands.
Furious, she tried to pull free. “Let me go,” she fumed.
