She seemed to hesitate. “Samantha.”
“Thank you.” One barrier down, he thought studying her. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she was hiding something from him. If it had anything to do with his sister’s hit-and-run, he would find out what it was. One way or another. “Samantha, if you’re serious about helping me, then you will come with me now.”
“COME WITH YOU?” Samantha hadn’t been able to hide her surprise. He’d caught her off guard. She’d known he would come back tonight. He was the kind of man who would demand answers and not give up until he got them.
But she worked behind the scenes at Weddings Your Way as an agent. And that’s the way she liked it.
“Go where?” she asked.
“I have the keys to my sister’s condo and I found what I believe is her new address,” he said, sounding almost embarrassed. Obviously he hadn’t known where his sister now lived.
He sighed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he scrubbed his hands over his face. “I can’t go over there by myself.”
Samantha swallowed, hearing again the raw pain in his voice, and had she been closer she would have placed a hand on his arm and tried to reassure him. But this wasn’t some groom having second thoughts. This was a man whose sister was lying unconscious in a hospital room, possibly dying, a man who was more than a little suspicious not only of Weddings Your Way and why his sister’s accident had happened out front—but of Samantha Peters as well.
Samantha had shielded herself from this kind of pain, this kind of intimacy. It was why, after completing her training with the FBI she’d taken the job Rachel had offered her. Samantha wanted to work behind the scene. She didn’t want to get close to the victims—let alone the killers.
“I know what I’m asking is an imposition,” Alex said not looking at her. “But I can’t face it alone. I think Preston has been living with her,” he continued before she could say anything. “There might be some clue as to where he is at Caroline’s place. Or a number or address that would give me an idea how to reach his family. Something.”
“Caroline’s friends don’t know?” The moment she asked, she realized how foolish the question had been.
He raised his head and met her gaze. “Frankly, I don’t know any of her friends. Before yesterday, I hadn’t seen Caroline in months.”
“And the rest of your family couldn’t help?”
His smile held no humor. “My father thinks my concern is premature. He insists that he has left a message for Preston and expects to hear from him soon. He’s convinced there is no problem.”
“Maybe that’s the case.”
But clearly Alex didn’t believe it. Samantha had to admit she was starting to have doubts, as well. It had been hours since the accident. Preston should have checked his messages and called by now.
“You think something has happened to him?” she asked. She’d feared Sonya’s abduction was much bigger in scope than any of them suspected.
“That’s just it, I don’t know what to think,” Alex said. “You saw my sister earlier today. She seem upset to you?” He nodded as if he already knew the answer.
“Something was wrong,” he continued. “And I haven’t the slightest idea what it was. All I know is that my sister asked me to meet her here today. So where was her fiancé? My sister is fighting for her life and needs him and yet no one can reach him. Don’t tell me that doesn’t make you wonder. I have to find this Preston Wellington III and satisfy myself that this guy is on the up-and-up.” He rose to his feet.
She had no choice but to go with him even though every instinct told her to watch herself closely. She’d seen the way Alex had been studying her. He was suspicious. Which was only natural under the circumstances.
But she had reason to be suspicious of him as well. All she had was his word that Caroline had told him to meet her here today.
Even if Alex Graham was telling the truth, he unnerved her, threw her off balance and made her feel exposed. And that made him dangerous. She would have to be very careful around him.
She pushed out of her chair and reached for her purse, remembering that her gun wasn’t in it. “Just give me a minute.”
Chapter Three
Samantha was seldom surprised by a man. But Alex, she realized, could turn out to be the exception. He led her to an older model pickup parked at the curb. That didn’t surprise her as much as the music that came on when he started the truck.
Country western. He grinned and turned it down. “I’m a big Willie Nelson fan,” he said almost apologetically.
There was something so refreshing about Alex—and at the same time, she didn’t dare relax around him. Her instincts told her he was trying to get her to lower her guard around him. And she had to wonder why.
The cab of the pickup felt too confined, too intimate. And she was too acutely aware of the man behind the wheel.
Alex, though, seemed relaxed as if relieved to have her with him. Because he thought she was doing this out of the kindness of her heart? Or like her, did he have his own agenda?
She hadn’t been paying much attention to where he was driving. He had large hands and he held the wheel like a man who enjoyed driving and drove well.
It wasn’t until he pulled to the curb and let out an oath that she looked around.
He had stopped in front of an old five-story building on the edge of an area of the city that had gone to seed long ago. “This can’t be right,” he said handing the address to Samantha.
“It’s the address you have written here,” she said, equally surprised. The neighborhood had a deserted feel to it and had for blocks. “It looks like some sort of renewal project.”
“My sister can’t possibly live here.”
A set of headlights flashed behind them, followed by the single whoop of a siren and the flash of blue from a light bar. Samantha looked in her rearview mirror as a patrol car pulled up behind them. Not a cop car but a private security company.
“I’ll handle this,” Alex said and climbed out to walk back as a uniformed man exited the patrol car.
“Wait—” But her words were lost as the door closed. She picked up her purse from the floorboard, slipping her hand in to close her fingers around the grip of the gun she’d brought as she watched the two in the side mirror.
She waited, reading their body language, one hand on the gun, the other on the door handle. She didn’t like the looks of the neighborhood and she knew some of the types who filled security cop openings. This one was late middle age, Hispanic and looked harmless enough.
She saw the security guard point in the direction of the building with the address Alex had found for Caroline.
A moment later, Alex started toward her. The guard climbed back into his patrol car, but didn’t leave.
She released her hold on the gun and put her purse back down as Alex opened his door and leaned in.
“You’re right about this being a renewal project,” he said. “It seems my sister owns it and is its first resident. She lives on the top floor of this building.”
He looked as skeptical as Samantha felt. Why would Caroline Graham live here when she could afford to live anywhere? There had to be a mistake.
Alex shut the car door and came around to open hers. As she got out, she looked back at the security guard still sitting in his car behind them. She could see his face under the streetlight and she knew he could see hers, as well.
She gave him a small smile and a nod. The guard would remember her if she needed to come back here.
Alex used one of the keys on the ring he said he’d found in his sister’s purse at the hospital and braved the elevator although it appeared to be new and in good condition. It hummed up to the fifth floor and opened.
“What the hell?” Alex said beside her.
Samantha was equally surprised to find the hallway under construction. The location was questionable although she suspected it would have a great view of the Atlantic and was on the edge of an area
that was obviously seeing some positive changes. But this place didn’t appear to be finished.
“I don’t believe this.” Alex shook his head and didn’t step out of the elevator for a moment as if only more convinced he had the wrong place. “Caroline can’t be living here.”
Apparently she was. At least according to the address Alex had found. And what the security guard had told him.
“Seems to be undergoing a renovation,” Samantha said following him as he finally stepped off the elevator into the unfinished hallway.
He shot her a disbelieving look. “The Caroline I know—or knew anyway—wouldn’t be caught dead living under these kinds of conditions.” He realized what he’d said and grimaced. “It’s just that she’s always demanded the best that money could buy and had enough money that she never had to compromise.”
“I’m sure there is an explanation,” Samantha said as she watched Alex try several keys before the knob turned and the door swung open.
From what she could see, most of the condo was walled off behind large sheets of plastic with work being done behind them. “Maybe she saw it as a good investment. Investing does run in your family, right?”
Alex shot her a smile. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s working.”
She pushed aside a corner of the plastic into what was the living room and adjoining kitchen. There was new Sheetrock on the walls and new tile on the counters and backsplash in the kitchen. But the cupboards were still missing and there was Sheetrock dust everywhere.
In fact, Samantha could see tracks in the thick white dust on the floor. Alex might be feeling better about all this, but she wasn’t.
Something was wrong here. She just didn’t know what yet.
She followed Alex as he pushed aside another plastic area and opened a door on the right. The master suite and bath—and obviously the first rooms completed because it appeared someone had been living in there. There was carpet on the floor, the rooms were furnished and several items of discarded clothing lay across the foot of the crumpled sheets and duvet on the large unmade bed.
Samantha spotted two champagne glasses and an empty bottle on one of the nightstands. She itched to collect both for prints but couldn’t in front of Alex without making him suspicious. Wedding planners usually didn’t run fingerprints as a sideline.
She would have to come back for them.
ALEX HAD HOPED he’d find something in his sister’s condo that would convince him he had nothing to worry about when it came to his sister’s fiancé. But coming here had done just the opposite.
What the hell was going on with Caroline?
“Well, this was a mistake,” he said and noticed the way Samantha moved to the closet but was careful not to touch anything as if this was a crime scene.
Is that what she suspected? he wondered with a jolt. That Caroline’s hit-and-run wasn’t an accident?
She seemed to scan the clothing inside as if looking for something in particular.
“I’m telling you my sister can’t be staying here,” he said. “Look, when I asked my father, he said that she was in the process of moving and had most of her stuff stored at the house.”
“Isn’t this her clothing?”
He glanced into the closet. While the walk-in closet wasn’t overflowing with clothing so it couldn’t be Caroline’s—at least not yet—there were enough items to make it clear that someone had been staying here.
That’s when he noticed a purse on the top shelf with an odd-print scarf tied to the strap.
“That’s hers,” he said. “I saw her with it one day uptown.” He didn’t mention that he’d ducked in a store to avoid talking to her. It had to be hers. He remembered the unusual scarf.
“I smell her perfume on some of the clothing,” Samantha said from inside the closet. “I also recognize one of the dresses she wore at an appointment I had with her.”
Her movements were slow, purposeful. He found himself watching her rather than looking for evidence of Preston Wellington III in the condo.
At first glance, Samantha Peters wasn’t the type of woman a man would even notice. Hell, he wouldn’t have given her a second glance under other circum-stances. It was the way she dressed, he realized with a jolt.
Not that he knew anything about women’s clothing, but even he could see that the suit she wore was too large for her slim, small frame, the cut all wrong. She wore it like armor, as if protecting herself, he thought with surprise.
And her hair. It was colored too dark for her pale skin and cut shoulder length, long enough that it often covered part of her face.
And those tortoiseshell glasses. The frames took away from the gold in her brown eyes.
He frowned, wondering why she dressed like that. The woman was too savvy for it to be anything but a calculated choice. Almost as if she was hiding from something, he thought, even more intrigued.
He realized she was looking intently at one of the men’s shirts hanging in the closet. “What is it?”
She let go of the sleeve. “Nothing.”
Like hell. As she came out, he slipped past her to reach for the shirt, wondering what she wasn’t telling him. Was she trying to protect him? Why else wouldn’t she tell him?
One glance at the shirt and he saw it was old, looked more like it might belong to one of the construction workers. “Her fiancé left behind only his old clothes, nothing he would bother to come back for. Is that it?”
She turned from where she had stopped midway into the room. “None of this proves anything.”
“You still want to believe this guy really loves my sister and isn’t just using her, don’t you? I admire your optimism,” he said as he joined her in the middle of the large room. “I guess optimism is something you have to have in your line of work given the divorce rate, but I’ve got to tell you, I don’t like any of this.” He glanced around the room. “What the hell is Caroline doing here? You’ve seen her more than I have the last six months. Doesn’t this strike you as odd?”
Samantha seemed to hesitate. “A little. Maybe.”
He looked at her and shook his head, unable not to smile. He actually did admire her for holding out hope that Preston Wellington III was a good guy with good intentions.
“Earlier today I had the feeling that Caroline wanted to tell me something and that’s why she asked me to meet her at your office.”
“You had no idea what it was?” she asked.
He shook his head. “But I can think of only one reason my sister would be living like this. She’s broke. What if her fiancé has taken all of her money and skipped out on her and that’s what she was going to tell me today?”
Samantha frowned. “But why go to the trouble of moving the wedding up three months if that’s the case?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe she thought she could save the relationship by getting him to the altar sooner.”
“Wouldn’t she just elope if that were the case?”
He laughed at that. “My father would cut her off without a cent of her inheritance if she did. No, she has to go through with the big wedding. It’s required of the only daughter of C. B. Graham and she knows that.”
“They were celebrating something,” Samantha said as she nodded toward an empty champagne bottle and two glasses on a nightstand beside the bed.
He’d been so upset over everything he hadn’t even noticed them until now. What would Caroline and Preston have had to celebrate? “He was probably just saying goodbye and she didn’t know it,” Alex said as he moved closer, noticing the lipstick on the rim of one glass and feeling a horrible sinking feeling as he imagined maybe one of his sister’s last happy moments.
That’s when he saw it.
He let out a curse.
“Nonalcoholic champagne?” Turning, he stalked into the bathroom where he found what he was looking for in the small wastebasket beside the commode.
“Holy hell, Caroline’s pregnant,” he said as he came out of the bathroom
and saw Samantha Peters’s expression.
She didn’t look the least bit surprised and he realized she’d already figured it out and was way ahead of him.
Hell, he had the feeling she was way ahead of him on a lot of things.
SAMANTHA SAW ALL THE COLOR suddenly drain from Alex’s face.
He grabbed for his cell phone, panic in his expression. “No! The accident today.” He hurriedly tapped in a set of numbers. “Oh, no.”
Samantha went into the unfinished living room while he called the hospital. She stepped through a break in the plastic and opened one of the windows, needing fresh air as she said a short prayer for Caroline’s baby.
She caught movement from the dark shadows of a building across the street. Someone had been standing there looking up at Caroline’s building. The security guard? She couldn’t be sure. But why wouldn’t he just wait in his car on the street? Unless he needed to relieve himself and couldn’t leave the area until his shift was over.
Behind her she heard the rustle of plastic and said another silent prayer before turning. Alex pulled aside the plastic and stepped through into the dimly lit unfinished room.
She held her breath, afraid.
The confirmation of a pregnancy explained a lot—the change in the wedding plans, the way Caroline had looked yesterday, pale and shaky in Samantha’s office—and, unfortunately, possibly the missing fiancé.
“I just talked to the doctor. The baby’s okay,” he said, breathless and scared but looking relieved.
Samantha released the breath she’d been holding and smiled at him, surprised by the tears that misted her eyes. “I’m so glad.”
He nodded and pushed aside the plastic again so they could step back into the bedroom out of the construction area. She watched him move to the middle of the room, his back to her, as if he didn’t know where to go or what to do next. She knew the feeling.
After a moment, he faced her again and she saw that he was angry. “You knew she was pregnant.”
“I suspected,” she admitted. “She wouldn’t be the first bride to move her wedding up because of a pregnancy.”
B. J. Daniels Page 3