Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021

by Anna J. Stewart

  He pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick email.

  Bryce swiveled his head to look at his partner in the investigation. “What was that all about, anyway? ‘Wouldn’t want to feel responsible’? Did you really think that would help get answers? I had it under control.”

  “Did you?” Troy crossed his arms. “Your good-cop tactic wasn’t working any better than my bad-cop one.”

  “You both did a lousy job, if you ask me.”

  His cousins looked back to Travis and said in unison, “No one asked you.”

  “Why the hell were you pressing her so hard, anyway? She said she doesn’t know anything.”

  Troy chuckled. “Good thing suspects—and witnesses—never lie to police.”

  Bryce shook his head. “There was a reason we didn’t want you to hang out during the interview.”

  “So that you two could push her around? I don’t think so.”

  Troy tilted his head to the side, studying Travis the way the officers had Tatiana earlier.

  “Why are you so protective of her, anyway?”

  “I would be for any colleague being badgered by police.” Then why had his whole body tightened over that question? And why had he been tempted to throw himself on the conference table between law enforcement and his colleague?

  Both men stared down at their notes rather than look at him. They didn’t buy his story, either.

  “I’d hardly call that ‘badgering,’” Bryce said. “You might want to witness a real interview with a suspect.” His head lifted. “On second thought, don’t.”

  “Tatiana is our brand-new co-CEO. I couldn’t have her being harassed at work on her first day.” Travis rubbed his sweaty hands on his suit slacks. Why couldn’t he stop babbling? He might as well announce that he’d slept with her.

  Troy cleared his throat. “About that. Have you considered what impact Miss Davison’s presence might have on Colton Plastics?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but of course I have.”

  In fact, he’d thought about it constantly since learning about her father’s alleged involvement in the second murder. He could just hear his own dad’s I-told-you-so over that one. Nothing like having Frank Colton as his own personal doomsday predictor to provide helpful information like the statistic that forty-five percent of all new businesses failed in the first five years. Or that growing too fast could be the death knell for those few companies that had survived. What helpful tidbit would his dad offer now about the impact of negative publicity in tanking a growing company, even one like CP that was already ten years old? So much for him proving to his dad that he could blaze his own trail outside of law enforcement like so many relatives or even the shipping business like Frank.

  Travis shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind, where they belonged. “Why are you asking about her impact now?”

  Bryce pointed to the conference room’s four windows, all shielded from the morning sun with slatted blinds. “You might want to look outside.”

  Foreboding settling in his gut, Travis rushed over to the window. News vans from every regional TV station he could name were parked in the Colton Plastics lot one floor beneath them, mobile communications satellites mounted on top, antennae poking into the sky. A dozen reporters and camera operators milled around and through the painted parking spots. They appeared to be setting up cameras for remote feeds.

  “What the—” He whirled and faced his cousins. “You brought them all here?”

  Troy scoffed. “No, we didn’t bring them. They just showed up.”

  Bryce stepped to one of the other windows, out of Travis’s reach. “They’re obviously following the investigation. Two murders in Grave Gulch? A potential serial killer? There hasn’t been news like that around here in thirty years.”

  “But Melissa, I mean, Chief Colton, said police hadn’t released—”

  Troy waved his pen to interrupt him. “Two murders. One city. They’re sniffing out a bigger story. That’s kind of their job. And if they’re able to get anyone to speak on the record about this suspect, they’ll have their lead stories at five, ten, and eleven.”

  Travis braced his hand on the wall and stared out the window again. One outlet was already taping, its reporter standing in front of the custom stone-and-brick sign Colton Plastics had added to the campus last year. “What about this morning? How did they know you were coming here today?”

  “That I don’t know,” Troy told him. “Someone’s not being careful enough with the investigation details or sharing something they shouldn’t be with the media.”

  “Gives me a lot of faith in local law enforcement, family or not,” Travis said sarcastically.

  He took one last look at the crowd building on the ground below and stalked back to the chair he’d vacated. He should have sat, but he paced instead.

  “It’s a good guess that she’s still somewhere in the building.” Travis jutted his index finger toward the windows. “She won’t walk out through that. Why didn’t either of you mention what was happening in the parking lot earlier?”

  Still leaning on the wall next to the glass, Bryce shrugged. “We doubted that information would help us to get the interview we needed. Did we mention we’re tracking a probable serial killer?”

  “You’re willing to do anything to get the information you want, too.”

  Troy shook his head. “Not anything. Anyway, we’re just doing our—”

  “Jobs?” Travis finished his sentence for him. “Was it your job to come bother Tatiana on her first day at Colton Plastics? Only her second back in the country? She isn’t even accused of a crime, and yet you’re treating her like she’s a murderer. It’s not her fault that her dad is—could be—you know...”

  “Come on, Travis,” Bryce said, straightening his tie. “We didn’t mean to upset her, but, like Detective Colton tried to say, we’re just doing our jobs.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to do them somewhere else.”

  “What do you mean?” Troy asked.

  With a sweep of his hand, Travis indicated the conference room, where no work had taken place all morning. “I mean that you’ve disrupted our business enough.”

  Bryce held out one hand, palm up. “It wouldn’t have taken so long if she’d just answered our questions instead of trying to avoid them.”

  “Tatiana just didn’t know anything. So why don’t you search somewhere else for clues and leave her the hell alone?”

  He needed to stop, but he couldn’t do it, even if his cousins had to be wondering whether he was being so protective over Tatiana for Colton Plastics or for himself.

  “You know we can’t do that,” Bryce said.

  He did. That was the most frustrating part. “You can’t force her to give you information she doesn’t have.”

  Troy touched his index finger to his lips. “How can you be so sure that she doesn’t know anything? You’ve said you barely know her.”

  “I am.” He straightened his shoulders and glared at them, responding to the first question while skipping the second.

  As the detective and the special agent exchanged a skeptical look, Travis refused to listen to his gut, which concurred. He might have been intimately familiar with every curve, dip and taste of Tatiana Davison’s body, but outside of bed they were almost strangers. It didn’t matter if that night of wine and conversation had tricked them into believing differently.

  A chime on his phone announcing a new email saved him from having to answer the question. He nabbed the device off the table before the other men had a chance to sneak a peek at the screen. It was from Jan.

  T is in her office and indisposed...

  His chest tight, Travis scanned the rest of the message before looking up again. Indisposed? What did that mean? He’d worked with Jan a long time and had always appreciated that she never
held back details. Was she being vague because she worried that his email might be read by someone else? Travis tilted the phone so that only he could see the screen.

  “Is that from Ms. Davison? Will she be returning?” Troy asked.

  “Afraid not,” he said in answer to both questions. “She had to go into a meeting and won’t be available for the rest of the day.”

  Bryce’s jaw flexed, the first sign that his remarkable cool had been pushed to its limit. “We’ll need to talk to her again.”

  “I’m sure she will be happy to set up another appointment with you tomorrow. She said she will be available after office hours.”

  Travis was making the story up as he went, but he didn’t care. He needed to see for himself that she was all right. If the only way to do that was to toss an FBI agent and a police detective to the curb, where they would be surrounded by hungry reporters, then so be it.

  He crossed to the door and pulled it open, indicating for his cousins to exit ahead of him. Both men tucked their notebooks in their pockets and followed his instructions. Instead of waiting for Jan to guide them from the building as was usual practice, Travis led them to the elevator himself, rode with them and guided them to the security station next to the main entry.

  Both men slid into their coats and crossed through the exit gate, next to the metal detectors, where they would have had to show their badges because of the weapons they carried.

  Bryce stopped and turned to face him. “We’ll see Miss Davison tomorrow.”

  “Just Miss Davison,” Troy added. “Or she can bring legal counsel, if she prefers.”

  Travis’s chest squeezed at the thought of even more police officers crowding around her and tossing questions that she couldn’t answer. Or wouldn’t. Still, there was no way he could volunteer to accompany her again without raising more questions about her innocence or their connection.

  Bryce and Troy left through the revolving door, neither looking back at him. Several reporters rushed toward them and shoved microphones in their faces, but both men declined to comment.

  After taking a last look to ensure Bryce and Troy hadn’t stopped to speak to the media, Travis hurried to the elevator. Both cars were currently on the third floor, so he took the stairs instead. The interview with his cousins would probably make family events even more awkward, as if he didn’t feel maladroit enough around many of them. Mavericks weren’t supposed to fit in, he guessed, and not everyone could have the kind of job his father considered honorable. He couldn’t worry about that now, or even think about all those media trucks in the parking lot. His only concern was about the woman who’d gone from confidently marching into Colton Plastics on the day of her interview to hiding in her own office now. He had to make sure she was okay.

  * * *

  At the loud knock outside her office door, Tatiana lifted her head from her hands and patted her damp hair again. She hadn’t bothered to fix her makeup a second time. This morning had been a chorus of humiliations, and she still had more rounds to sing.

  “Come in.”

  She hoped it would be Jan stopping by to check on her again, but Travis pushed open the door instead and poked his head inside.

  “They’re gone.”

  She let out her breath in tiny spurts. “Thanks.”

  “They won’t stay gone.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you all right?”

  The worry creasing his forehead as he scanned her face, her hair, and her hands shamed her even more. Whether she had a good reason or not, she’d run out of that meeting. Another shining moment on a glistening first day on the job. Now in addition to worrying about the PR nightmare she’d brought to Colton Plastics, he probably questioned her professionalism, too.

  “I’m fine.” She was nauseated again from the mint toothpaste she’d used to brush away the evidence of vomiting, but she didn’t mention that. “I thought Jan would have passed that along already.”

  “She did. I wanted to check for myself.”

  He continued to watch her until she couldn’t sit still in her chair. She’d looked for a moment earlier to tell him her news. He probably thought his day couldn’t get much worse. It was about to.

  “Sorry for running out of the interview.”

  “Can’t blame you for that. It was getting intense in there.”

  She folded her arms, hating that he would think she couldn’t handle a heated discussion, but that only sent sharp pains through her tender breasts. More reminders of the bombshell she had yet to drop.

  “I was feeling, well, ill.”

  Concern etched his features. “So, that’s why Jan said you were ‘indisposed.’”

  “I’d hoped she’d missed that.” Great. Someone had overheard her while she was facedown in the porcelain throne. Her facilities weren’t as private as she’d thought.

  “You do look a little pale,” he said, watching her again. “Even more so than earlier.”

  He’d noticed it during their meeting while she’d still believed she was keeping it together?

  “Do you need to go home early?”

  “On my first day?” She shook her head, though it sounded like an amazing idea. “Some example I’d be setting to the staff.”

  “We wouldn’t want them to catch anything, either. You did just arrive from overseas.”

  He didn’t have to explain that one. Anyone who’d lived through the recent pandemic that affected so many would never take world travel lightly again.

  “No, I’m fine. Really. It’s just, well...”

  As she let her words fall away, Travis nodded.

  “It probably wouldn’t be a good time to leave the building, anyway.”

  She’d glanced down at her folded hands, but at his comment, her chin jerked up. “Why is that?”

  His gaze shot to her office windows, through which he probably could see into his own office on the opposite side of the courtyard.

  “Right. Neither of us have a view of the parking lot.” He tilted his head to the side. “Didn’t Jan tell you?”

  “We didn’t exactly have time for a heart-to-heart.”

  “About the media. They’re staked out down there.”

  She became light-headed as she leaped to her feet too quickly. Travis didn’t appear to miss that she held onto her desk to steady herself before rushing past him and out the door. “Can you see them from the conference room?”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer, continuing down the hall instead. Once inside, she jogged straight to the window. They were there. The vans. The camera operators and reporters milling around and jockeying for the best positions. It was just like last time. Worse.

  “Are they all here for me? How did they even find me?”

  “I don’t—”

  Tatiana jerked her head to look back at him. “Did you make an announcement in the local paper’s business section?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “Well, don’t,” she spat.

  “Guess that’s not going to make a difference now.”

  “Who tipped them off that I would even be here?” Her cheeks heated, and sweat made her silk blouse cling to her skin.

  “No one seems to know the answer to that.”

  “It’s not supposed to be like this.” Her head was spinning, and she couldn’t make it stop. “I thought the circus would go away when Dad was released. I was going to get a fresh start here. But it’s happening again.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll figure—”

  “No, it’s worse,” she said, trampling his words. “Those reporters won’t leave me alone. The story’s going to be everywhere. People love to read about serial killers. We don’t even have time to develop a good media strategy. They’re already here.”

  Tatiana hadn’t heard his approach, but suddenly his hands were
on her shoulders, applying gentle pressure. She knew better than to trust anyone, especially now, but she was tempted to sink back against him.

  “It’ll be fine,” he said. “We’ll figure out something.”

  Only it wouldn’t, and they couldn’t. She shifted her shoulders until he lifted away his hands and took a step back with a mumbled “sorry.”

  She shook her head to wave off his apology and stared out at the media frenzy on the parking lot below.

  “My dad’s status as a fugitive and possibly a serial killer isn’t the only problem affecting us.”

  “There’s more?”

  He stepped to the window next to where she stood and looked out, as if searching for the answers she’d yet to give.

  “I won’t let them get near you again.”

  His crossed arms and tight jaw told her he meant it.

  Then he drew his eyebrows together, and twin vertical lines appeared on his forehead. “Wait. Are you talking about us as in Colton Plastics or as in—”

  “Us,” she finished for him.

  His shook his head. “There’s no reason for them to find out about that night. It’s no one’s business, anyway. And we agreed there wouldn’t be—”

  “The baby’s going to be tough to hide,” she blurted.

  His hands dropped to his sides. “Baby?”

  Automatically, she rested her hand across her tummy and covered it with the other one, shielding the embryo nestled inside her. Then she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “I’m pregnant. And the child is yours.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “A baby?” Why couldn’t he stop repeating that question? He’d heard what she’d said, but the words seemed to be suspended in the air around them. Tatiana was having his child? With steps that he hoped looked steadier than they felt, he moved to the conference table and sank into a chair.

  “Yeah. It came as a surprise to me, too,” she said.

  “So, this was the ‘other matter’ you were trying to tell me about when the SWAT team showed up.” At her nod, Travis continued, “How long have you known?”

  She slumped into the seat next to his and peeked at her watch. “About two hours and eleven minutes now.”