Hailey didn’t miss the implied lecture. Peter Kauffman isn’t Roarke-related business, or I’d know. That means the call is personal, and that’s unacceptable. Make it quick. Your father’s lawyer is waiting.
On this one thing, Hailey knew she’d win. For the first time that day, a smile spread across her face. No way she’d ditch Pete for her father’s stuffy lawyer. She pushed the intercom button. “Thank you, Mrs. Florentes. Get Mr. Arnold coffee or anything else he’d like and make sure he’s comfortable. I need to take this call, and I may be a while.”
A disapproving harrumph came over the line. Hailey only smiled wider.
She picked up the phone, kicked back in her father’s plush leather chair and swiveled to look out the seven-teenth-story window at the skyline of downtown Miami. “Now this is a surprise. Word is you’re hunkered down nice and cozy in New York with the Euro-babe.”
“I should be so lucky.”
Hailey smiled wider. As her ex-husband’s business partner at Odyssey Gallery, Pete was one man she knew well and trusted implicitly. She considered him a personal friend and always would. “Of course, it begs the question. What are you doing calling me when you’ve got the Eurobabe all to yourself? Come on, Pete. Make my day and tell me she’s not enough woman for you or any other man.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not with Maria.”
Something in his voice made her sit up and shuck the sarcasm. Pete was rarely serious. A joker. A playboy. Everyone’s friend. He had those good-boy looks and that old-school attitude that put people at ease right from the start. Underneath that laid-back personality, though, Hailey had always sensed a hint of something dark, a past he never talked about. Which was why his suddenly serious tone set off big red flags in her mind.
“Well, now,” she said. “That’s a surprise. Lisa told me Rafe’s been trying to get in touch with you.”
“I lost my cell. How’s Rafe’s mom?”
Lost his cell? Pete? Uh-huh. Riiiiight.
Hailey watched a news helicopter circle the downtown area. “Stable. For now. She’s hanging in there. But they’re not sure how much longer.”
“Dammit. I should be there for him.”
Hailey’s chest grew tight as she thought about Teresa Sullivan. A woman who’d been more of a mother to her in a few short years than her own mother had been to her in all her thirty-four. Though Hailey and Rafe had divorced shortly after their impromptu never-should-have-happened Vegas wedding, they were still friends. And Teresa would always be family.
“Where are you?” she asked, pushing aside the pain just the thought of Teresa’s illness brought.
In the background she heard springs squeak, like from a mattress. “I don’t know. Somewhere in south Jersey, I think.”
“You don’t know?” Just what was going on? Last she’d heard from Rafe, Pete had left the wildly successful auction with the Art Institute of Athens’s slinky Maria Gotsi in a fancy limo and disappeared into the snow. Rafe had told Hailey he suspected the two were on the verge of something serious, though they all hoped that wasn’t the case. Maria was a tiger shark.
“It’s a long story.”
Hailey thought about what waited for her on the other side of the door. “Start talking. I’ve got lots of time, trust me.”
It didn’t take as long as she’d expected, but she had to finally shut her mouth so she’d stop saying, really? and are you serious? Because she was slowing down the flow. And because even she recognized she was beginning to sound like a broken record.
She knew about Pete’s shady past dealings. Hell, she’d been married to a thief who’d worked for him, so none of that was a surprise. She also knew he’d cleaned up his act over the past few years. So it wasn’t what he was saying that had questions firing off in her brain, rather what he was omitting.
Which, of course, piqued Hailey’s interest. On both a personal and professional level.
“You get a good look at the guy in the park?” A burst of excitement rushed through her. She’d been off the police force now for three weeks while she stepped in to help her father’s company during his illness. He’d asked for her help specifically, and she’d agreed only out of some morbid sense of guilt. This was not the job she wanted to be doing. And her father knew that. As soon as he was better, she was on her way back south.
“Yeah. Stocky. Medium height. About fifty, I’d say. Good shape for his age. Gray hair. Said his name was David Halloway.”
She made a note on the pad on her desk. “You don’t think he was FBI after all?”
“No. Definitely not. Hinted he was, though. Somehow he knew Slade, so he could have been CIA, but I doubt it. Gut feeling says INTERPOL.”
“Hm. Interesting. I’ve got a friend with INTERPOL. Jill Monroe. She used to be with the Miami PD.”
“That’s why I called.”
She didn’t miss the frown in his voice and smiled. It was sappy and pathetic considering she was now running a multimillion-dollar company, but it felt good to be needed. Not just used.
Hailey made another note. “I’ll call her. See if she can look him up.”
“I’d appreciate it. I also need some background information. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got a few other things I need to wrangle, and considering what’s happening with Teresa, I don’t want to bother Rafe.”
“I’m happy to help out. What do you need?”
“Cash first of all. I don’t want to use my credit card in case they’re tracking me, and I’m about zapped out of funds. Can you get to Odyssey and have Liddy wire me some money?”
She made a note to call his assistant. “No problem. What else?”
“I need a list of addresses for the people Kat worked with in Cairo.”
Hailey scribbled on the pad at her elbow as he read off names. “I can do that, too. But why don’t you take the easy route and just ask her where these people are?”
He didn’t answer, and his silence made her pen stop its furious chicken-scratching. “Oh,” she said as understanding dawned. “She’s not there, is she?”
“Bingo.”
“What did you do to her?”
“Why do you assume it’s something I did?”
She smiled again. “Wild guess.”
“Well, on this one you’re wrong.” There was definitely a defensive tone to his answer. And it made Hailey sure there was more he wasn’t saying. A lot more.
Not that that was any of her business, though it was an interesting twist of events. Pete the ultimate bachelor had the hots for some wily Egyptologist, and she’d just ditched his ass for greener pastures. No wonder he was pissed.
“I’ll look them up for you,” she said to cut the guy a break. “Anything else?”
“Yeah.” He hesitated. “I could use a plane.”
Her brow shot up. “You want to take the Roarke Resorts’ Bombardier for a test flight while the bad guys are out there tailing your girl?”
“It’s not for a test flight,” he said. “I need to find her. Fast.”
Whoever this Katherine Meyer was, she’d done one helluva number on Peter Kauffman. “I don’t know,” Hailey teased, leaning back in her chair. “I could get into serious trouble appropriating company resources for private use like that. It goes against Roarke Resorts’ company policy.”
“Screw company policy. Like you’ve never broken the rules before?”
“Me?” She feigned shock. “I’m a police officer, Kauffman.”
“Was a police officer, Roarke. And not a very good one to begin with. Look, can I have the goddamn plane or not? I don’t have time to charter my own, and I don’t have a fucking clue where I’m headed yet.”
Desperate. Oh, yeah. He was seriously fucked.
“Relax. Don’t get your panties in a bunch. Of course you can use it. I’ll call right now and have Steve fly up to Philly. He’ll take you wherever you need to go.” She dropped the teasing since it wasn’t doing much to lighten his mood and steered back to what was imp
ortant. “Where will you be in an hour? I can probably get everything you need by then.”
“I’m not sure.” He hesitated. “Tell you what, I’ll call you. It’ll give me time to get a disposable phone and do a little research on my end.”
“Okay. Will do. And Pete?”
“Yeah?”
“She was wrong. Not to trust you. You’re one of the most dependable men I know.”
He was quiet so long, she wasn’t sure he was still there. Then she heard static, and his voice, filled with something that sounded oddly like regret. “Yeah, well, I never gave her many reasons to trust me.”
Before she could ask what that meant, his voice hardened. “I’ll call you in an hour, Hailey. And thanks.”
Then he was gone.
Hailey set the receiver down and stared at the notes she’d just made. She had roughly sixty minutes to do all the things Pete needed done in addition to running background checks on Katherine Meyer, David Halloway and Aten Minyawi. She’d definitely heard that last name before, she just couldn’t remember where.
As she reached for the phone again, she briefly remembered her father’s lawyer was sitting outside waiting to see her. Screw it. He could just go on waiting. She had more important things to worry about than Daddy’s will. There would always be tomorrow.
Kat stared out the bus window as she passed through the quiet streets of suburban Raleigh, North Carolina. Dusk was just settling in, and her butt hurt from the hours she’d spent on the Greyhound that had brought her here.
She’d switched to a Capital Area Transit bus once she’d reached Raleigh and was now tooling through North Raleigh on her way to the Brentwood neighborhood she’d marked on her handy little map. She seriously hoped the address she had for Charles Latham was still correct. It had been six years. It was possible he’d moved. Or died.
She prayed it wasn’t the latter. Of the four other archaeologists who had worked the tomb with her in Cairo, he was the only one left alive. A chill spread down her spine at the thought, but she pushed it aside. Car accident, heart attack, stroke—all normal ways to die. All ways that didn’t attract attention or cause questions. Even for men in their forties and fifties.
Convenient.
Too convenient as far as Kat was concerned. She’d kept tabs on everyone for safety reasons over the years. And when her colleagues had mysteriously started dropping off the radar, she’d known things still weren’t safe. It was part of the reason she’d stayed in hiding so long. Last she’d heard, Charles was still alive—though barely. He had cancer—inoperable—and was slowly dying. Had Busir let him live because the SOB had known Charles’s days were numbered anyway?
Possibly. Or the more likely answer was he’d been in on the smuggling ring with Busir from the very beginning.
Kat shifted in her seat, unsettled by the thought. Someone had to have been feeding Busir’s group information. Since her life—and Pete’s—was on the line, she intended to find out who that was. Even if it meant facing Charles Latham and wringing his dying neck to get the info out of him.
Kat glanced at her watch. It was nearly four o’clock. She wondered how long Pete had slept before he’d realized she was gone. He’d been exhausted, had nearly passed out after they’d made love.
Warmth rushed over her skin at the memory, and she closed her eyes and breathed deep. It had definitely been the wrong thing to do, but when he’d looked at her…oh, man, every one of her arguments had crumbled in her mind. She suddenly hadn’t been able to remember why she couldn’t have him. He’d tasted so good, felt so divine, and the things he’d done with his fingers and tongue had driven her completely wild until every no was a yes and she’d been begging for more.
The driver called out the stop as the CAT bus slowed, and Kat’s thoughts wound back around to what she had to do next. She grabbed her backpack from the floor and stood. The doors slammed shut behind her as she stepped off the rig, and the bus let out a whir as it pulled away from the curb. She glanced around the aging neighborhood and checked the map she’d picked up at the transit station. Three blocks over, one block up.
“About time you got here.”
Kat’s pulse nearly stopped at the familiar voice, and she looked toward the bus stop where a man she couldn’t see was sitting on a bench reading a paper. As the paper slowly lowered, she drew in a sharp breath. “What are you—”
“Doing here?” Pete finished. “What the hell do you think I’m doing here?”
He rose, crumpled the paper and tossed it in a garbage can next to him.
He’d changed. He wasn’t wearing borrowed jeans and an old parka anymore. He was decked out in tan slacks, a white button-down and a slick leather jacket. He looked of power and money and ultimate sex appeal.
And there wasn’t one thing friendly in those eyes of his when they stared her down.
“How did you find me?”
“You mean after you fucked me senseless and left?” His eyes flashed. “That, by the way, was a great diversion. Can’t just wait for me to fall asleep on my own, so you screw me until I pass out and speed the whole process along. I’ll have to remember that one for future reference.”
Oh, yeah. This guy was way past irate and moving into livid territory. “That’s not what I—”
“You really don’t want to push me right now, woman. Because if you do, I guarantee one of us is going to get hurt and the other’s gonna get tossed in jail.”
She drew a sharp breath at the bite in his words and cut off her apology. Okay, she’d been wrong. His anger at Marty’s garage was nothing compared to what he was showing her now.
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “How did you find me?”
“I know how to do research, too.”
Right. Of course he did. And he’d known who she’d worked with in Cairo because she’d told him and because he’d met many of her colleagues when he’d dropped by her work site. “Why are you here?”
“Two reasons.” He eyed her with flat, emotionless eyes. “One, because any way we slice this, I’m screwed. I go back to Miami now, pick up my life, and I’m gonna have some Middle Eastern badasses hunting me down trying to get to you. That’s not my idea of fun. So I don’t particularly see much choice in where I go or what I do. Until we figure this out, you’re stuck with me.”
Which obviously pissed him off, judging from the way that vein pulsed in his temple.
“And the second?” she asked warily.
He clenched his jaw as his eyes took a slow stroll across her features. “The second is because I want my pendant back.”
That wasn’t the answer she’d expected.
“You know,” he said in a slightly amused voice, “I couldn’t quite figure out why you were at the auction. When I first saw you in Pennsylvania, I stupidly thought it was because of me. But we both know that wasn’t the reason, was it?”
Kat opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off.
“Then,” he went on, “after you left me in the park, I realized you’d forgotten your bag. I opened it. Hell if I know why. I just did. And that’s when I saw it.” His eyes sharpened. “You weren’t at that auction to see me. You went there to steal from me.”
“That’s not what I—”
“Don’t lie to me, Kat. Not now. Not after everything I’ve been through because of you.”
He was right, but it wasn’t the whole truth, and if she told him the real reason, she knew he wouldn’t believe her. In his current mood, she figured it was better not to add more fuel to his fire.
She closed her mouth quickly.
“It took me a while to figure it out,” he said, “but I’ve had a whole day to do nothing but think things through. Why is the pendant so important, Kat?”
There was no reason not to tell him, so she didn’t even try to hedge. “It was hollow. I tucked a memory stick inside. From my digital camcorder.”
“Why?” It wasn’t a question but a demand, and he wasn’t asking because he was
curious, but because his life hinged on the answer.
She glanced up the quiet neighborhood. Porch lights were flickering on here and there, but there wasn’t another soul out this evening. And while the temperature in Raleigh was a good fifteen degrees warmer than it had been in Philadelphia, Kat was frozen inside.
Frozen because of the icy look of revulsion on Pete’s face. She’d much rather remember him in the throes of passion than like this.
“After that SCA agent was killed,” she started, “and nothing came of the report Sawil filed about the missing artifacts or Dr. Latham’s complaints, I decided to set up a camcorder in a corner of the collection room just to see what was happening after hours. It had a motion sensor, so I knew it wouldn’t trip unless someone was in there.”
“Did Ramirez know about the camera?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t tell him about it. Then that night, after you…left.” She swallowed hard, pushed that particularly horrid memory away. “He came and told me he’d found something I needed to see. I didn’t think of the camera until we got to the tomb. I only went with him because…”
She hesitated, unwilling to dive back into the root of her problems with Pete.
“You went to see if I was in the tomb,” he finished for her.
Her chest squeezed tight because that was exactly why she’d gone there that night. “Yes.”
“Then what happened?” he asked with no reaction whatsoever to her revelation.
“Then,” she said, forcing herself to go on because it was clear he didn’t want to rehash anything regarding their relationship, “we heard Busir and his partner. They weren’t in the collection room. They were deeper in the tomb.”
“And?”
She looked down at the ground.
“Don’t think about lying again, Kat. I want the whole truth this time. Not the watered-down version you fed me before.”
She took a steadying breath so she could get through it. “I didn’t want to go farther inside, but Sawil said we needed the proof. I…I followed. It was dark. I couldn’t see more than an inch in front of my face. Sawil disappeared. I didn’t know where he’d gone. I called out to him, but there was nothing. Then…the next thing I knew, someone had me by the hair. I heard two voices. Shouting. And someone growling in my ear that I was ruining everything. I was scared, and I fought back. I remember struggling, hitting the wall, going down. Then heavy breathing, like he was coming for me. I reached out, and luckily, somehow managed to grab a pick one of the workers had left behind. I struck. I’m…pretty sure I got him in the face.
Stolen Heat Page 21