Challenging Matt

by Julianna Morris

  All at once a new picture came into her head and Dorothy put a fresh canvas on her easel. She squeezed paint onto a second palette and began applying it in broad, bold strokes, letting emotion guide her. A sunset this time, one that was wild and furious over a churning ocean with towering waves.

  It was 2:00 a.m. before she stopped, and when she did, she was calmer. Strangely, the painting was one of the best she’d ever done. Turning off the lights, she curled up on the daybed along the wall, the canvas illuminated only by moonlight.

  Perhaps now she could sleep.

  * * *

  CONNOR SAT IN his Jeep, watching Dot’s house and street. The protection detail knew he was there every night, but they were too wary to question it. All except Riley, whose sense of humor was becoming dangerous to his health.

  Each evening Connor had watched the blue of the summer sky gradually deepen until stars winked into view. While they’d passed the summer solstice, this far north of the equator they still had daylight until nearly ten o’clock. And each night the lights in Dorothy’s windows rarely turned off until the early morning hours.

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, his gaze continually sweeping the neighborhood. It was possible the attack on Layne and Matt had just been a warning, an attempt to scare them off the investigation.

  Or maybe not.

  Connor admired Layne’s determination to prove her uncle’s innocence. But poking a snake wasn’t a good idea, especially when you didn’t know where the snake was hiding its head.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  LAYNE WALKED OUT of the Babbitt offices on Friday with Annette and Regina, trying to look inconspicuous. Matt had asked her to stay inside for lunch until everything was resolved, and while she hadn’t promised, she’d said it wasn’t a big deal because she usually ate a sandwich at her desk.

  Unfortunately, she’d forgotten her promise to help with the wedding shower for Phil Stanton and his fiancée. And honestly, who would try to hurt her in broad daylight, with half of Seattle’s office workers taking lunch, as well?

  “Layne, what do you think about getting cupcakes for the wedding shower?” Regina asked. “They can make them look like a cake, but it’s easier to serve and very fashionable.”

  “It is?”

  “Oh, you.” Regina affectionately hooked her arm through Layne’s elbow and pulled her forward. “How will you ever plan your own wedding if you don’t know these things?”

  Layne’s heart gave a painful bump as she thought about Matt. No. Absolutely not. She wasn’t going there. Matt had made it clear he didn’t plan to ever get married.

  She waved her free hand. “I’ll just go away to get married and not worry about the fussy details.”

  “Mmm,” Annette said dreamily. “Destination weddings can be fabulous. But I still want a formal occasion, with white roses and tulle everywhere.”

  “How about some color to perk it up?” Regina asked practically.

  “Yeah, peach tulips would be nice,” Layne added.

  Annette turned to her with an astonished expression. “Perfect. What made you think of it?”

  “Just did.”

  Actually, Layne had been remembering the flowers from Matt. They were starting to fade, but were still lovely. Not that she could say anything about them. Her friends would ask questions and she didn’t want them to suspect there was a man in her life, however temporarily. They’d never leave her alone about it.

  “We’d better hurry if we want to get everything done,” she said.

  “Gifts first,” Regina pronounced. “The right gifts can take forever to find and we only have two weeks. We can always order the food from McGinte’s if we run short on time.”

  “Everybody uses McGinte’s,” Annette objected. “It’ll look as if we didn’t try to do anything special.”

  “Everyone does it because they’re good and reliable,” Regina retorted. “Don’t forget what happened with The Other Place.”

  Annette shut her mouth. The Other Place, previously known as Jeri’s Catering, was infamous because two Christmases ago they’d delivered the wrong food order, thirty minutes before the end of the party. It wasn’t the caterer’s first mistake with a Babbitt order, but it was their last.

  They went down to their favorite galleria. By unspoken agreement they fanned out in each shop, looking for anything suitable. It was hard. The forty-something couple still hadn’t registered anywhere and Phil was unfailingly cheerful without ever saying anything important.

  Layne was evaluating a crystal vase in the third store when a low “psst” caught her attention. It was Matt on the other side of the glass shelves, looking furious.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered around bookends depicting the Seattle Space Needle.

  “Guess. I thought you ate lunch at your desk.”

  “I usually do.” Layne cast a quick glance around, checking both for her friends and whoever had called Matt to tell him she’d left the Babbitt. Honestly, this wasn’t kindergarten; she was capable of making her own decisions. “I thought nobody from Eisley security was covering me at work.”

  “Yeah, because you eat lunch at your desk. Fortunately I asked Connor to keep a guy on, in case you pulled a stunt like this.”

  She put the vase back on the shelf. “It isn’t a stunt. Annette and Regina asked if I’d help with a wedding shower, but I’d forgotten until they suggested going out to shop at lunch.”

  “You could have called me before leaving.”

  “Nobody is going to try something in the middle of the day.”

  “You don’t know that.” Matt sounded harassed and she almost felt sorry for him. “Just don’t do it again.”

  Layne frowned. “Do you know something I don’t?”

  Matt got a “busted” expression. “I was going to break it gently, but somebody tried to get access to your safe deposit box a few days ago using a fake ID.”

  “How come you know and I don’t?”

  “The bank supposedly left a message on your home phone for you to come in and have everything transferred to a new box, with new keys. Luckily Connor has those connections I’ve told you about. When I told him about your safe deposit box and that you suspected an attempted break-in at the house, he looked into it. They know you at the bank and called the police when it happened, but the woman got suspicious and left. She had your key, Layne. Somebody didn’t just try to break into your house—they got in and stole it.”

  Layne gulped.

  She could have been followed to the bank and overheard asking for a large box, suitable for documents. It hadn’t been a private discussion. Or somebody could have gone through her recycle bin and seen the bank’s discarded safe-deposit literature.

  “The bank gave me two keys. I put one on my ring and the spare in my jewelry box.”

  “That’s probably where most women keep something like that.”

  “Layne?” called Annette from across the shop. “We’re going next door, unless you found something we should consider...?”

  “No, but I’m still looking,” she called back. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Matt waited until the two women had disappeared, then came around and took her arm. “I’ve called Detective Rivera, so he’s on it. Shall I have Connor sweep your house to be sure there aren’t any surprises left behind, like a bug?”

  “Does it have to be Connor?”

  “I’ll ask Riley. He’s as good as Connor with electronics.”

  “Fine.” Then her eyes widened. “Oh my God. If there is a bug, that means someone could have heard us in...uh...my bedroom.”

  “Don’t think about it,” Matt said hastily. “And try not to give your protection the slip again.”

  “You can’t try to give someone the slip if you don
’t know they’re there.”

  “Whatever.”

  He left and Layne hurried next door to find her friends. They were debating whether Carl Abernathy would like to “give” a basket of luxury spa items for the bridal couple. Not being a gift-shopping, wedding-shower-throwing type of guy, he’d tossed them two hundred dollars to help pay for the food and a present.

  “Come on, we’re talking Carl. He’d fire us on the spot,” Layne announced. “Spa items? And the label says, ‘for the Perfect Sensual Retreat with Your Man.’ He’d have a stroke if his name turned up on this.”

  Regina hastily returned the basket to its display. “Right. What about a toaster or coffee grinder?”

  “Not a toaster,” Annette protested. “That’s passé.”

  “It’s better than making the boss see red and threaten pink slips,” Layne said firmly.

  She glanced around to spot the Eisley security guy following her, but he must be pretty good at staying out of sight. Things were getting serious, sort of like being in the middle of a movie, except it was a lot more fun watching Julia Roberts evade bad guys than doing it herself.

  * * *

  LAYNE WAITED IN her garden while Riley searched the house. She’d intended to stay inside, but it was creepy watching him search her personal space, using weird electronic devices to make sure someone else hadn’t been there, too.

  “I supposed Riley has ‘connections,’ too,” she muttered to Matt who was waiting with her.

  “Probably. Connor personally selects each member of his staff, and they require certain levels of skill and training and experience to make the cut. And commitment.”

  “Must be fun. Like belonging to a clandestine organization with limitless funds.”

  “Not quite limitless,” Matt said drily. “But security for personal and business concerns is important to my grandfather. He makes sure our security staff have whatever they need. Well, I make sure of it now. Grandfather put a large discretionary fund at my disposal to manage the family concerns,”

  “So you do more than run the Eisley Foundation.”

  Matt shrugged. “Yeah, though I have nothing to do with his company. Grandfather has let a board of directors handle that since he became passionate about philanthropy. And it still makes more profit than he could spend in a hundred lifetimes.”

  Layne couldn’t imagine having so much money, but it made her understand Matt better. Maybe being raised with so much wealth made it hard to find meaningful challenges. For that matter, Matt’s own grandfather, after becoming obscenely rich, had looked for new frontiers in philanthropy.

  “Did you hear about the argument Aunt Dee had with Connor?” she asked Matt lightly.

  He groaned. “You mean the cinnamon rolls. She walked up to the security van with a pan of rolls and knocked on the door. But it wasn’t an argument. Connor simply explained it isn’t a good idea to advertise that men are stationed in a van, hanging out in the neighborhood.”

  “It gets better.” Layne laughed, remembering the conversation with her aunt early that morning. “Since then she’s brought them all sorts of things like banana bread, cookies and sandwiches. Oh, and thermoses of coffee. Then she goes back to get the thermos so she can refill it.”

  Matt stared. “Connor must be pulling his hair out. I know Dorothy is being thoughtful, but doesn’t she understand the team doesn’t want attention drawn to them?”

  “Being thoughtful is the reason she fed them cinnamon rolls,” Layne explained with a grin. “Everything else is to annoy Connor.”

  “That doesn’t sound like your aunt. She’s so...” Matt stopped as if hunting for the right words. “I don’t know, gracious and ladylike.”

  “She’s a pissed-off woman, not a helpless damsel in a fairy tale,” Layne retorted.

  Still, she understood what he meant. Since Uncle Will’s death, Aunt Dee had often seemed almost ethereal, but now she was angry, vital and bursting with life. At least that was something meeting Connor O’Brian had done; it had woken her up.

  “By the way, Connor is looking for Brandi Porter,” Matt said. “But there’s nothing on her so far.”

  Layne glanced at the house, then back at Matt, grateful they hadn’t discussed Brandi after returning the night before. If there was a bug, the person who’d planted it could now be looking for Brandi, as well.

  Just then Riley appeared at her back door. “Hey, Layne. I found a device under the coffee table, but nowhere else in the house. I’ve deactivated it so they’ll just think it’s stopped working.”

  “Nothing on the phone?” Matt asked.

  Riley shook his head. “Use a cell from now on, though. It’s unlikely somebody will tap into the line outside the house but still possible. A cell scanner is also possible, but they’re harder to get.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The two men shook hands and Layne tried to think of everything she’d discussed with Matt in the living room or on the phone with someone else. It wasn’t good. All sorts of things had gone on there...including hot and heavy foreplay.

  “What about notifying the police?” she asked Matt.

  “We should let Detective Rivera know, but my guys have resources that he can’t access, at least not until it becomes an active investigation again. Here, use this—it’s from Connor.”

  He pulled a gift bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to her. Inside was a smartphone.

  “No.”

  “Yes. Unlimited minutes. Internet surfing. Everything at your fingertips. Don’t refuse because it was Connor’s idea.”

  “I’m not, I just can’t accept. And it wasn’t his idea—you’ve been trying to get me to take a new cell phone for at least two weeks.”

  “He suggested it, too. Consider it another loan. Connor wants to make it up to you and Dorothy and this is one way of apologizing.”

  Yeah, as if Matt wasn’t ultimately footing the bill. For all the bad things the press had said of him over the years, he was generous. And the raw emotions he’d shown when talking about his friend with ALS...Layne’s throat still tightened whenever she remembered.

  “Only a loan,” she relented, feeling herself slide further down the slippery slope she’d worried about when he convinced her to use the Volvo.

  But now she was pretty sure she knew one of the things waiting for her at the bottom...a shattered heart.

  * * *

  MATT STILL DIDN’T fully understand why Layne was so stiff-necked about taking anything from him, but he was getting the idea that he should figure it out. And not just because she was someone he thought well of. If he didn’t understand more about human nature, his work at the foundation wouldn’t be effective.

  On the party circuit everyone had been happy to let him pay for things. If the thought had occurred to him that they were leeches, it really hadn’t bothered him that much. After all, somebody had to pay and he had plenty of money.

  Then there were people like Terry and Layne, who were damned stubborn about accepting anything.

  People have dignity, you know. And pride.

  Layne’s declaration had frustrated him, but she was right. Leeches didn’t have pride or dignity, most other people did. And people in need deserved to be respected, the same as anyone else.

  Layne was sitting on the edge of a chaise, and Matt sat next to her. “I hate bringing this up, but was there anything in the autopsy that might help?”

  “Not that I saw. I’m going to look at it again, but I’ve been too busy. Or maybe I’m procrastinating.”

  Perhaps. But considering the shadows beneath Layne’s eyes and the faint hollows in her cheeks, she needed to spend less time working and investigating, and more time sleeping. Now, Matt could think of a way to burn up nervous energy that usually ended in relaxed sleep at the end. In fact, lately it was getti
ng hard to think of anything else.

  It was a thought. She hadn’t taken their first night together too seriously—something that still bugged him a little—so maybe a second time would be all right.

  * * *

  CONNOR CURSED A blue streak at his computer. He’d gone back to his office, still looking for information on Brandi Porter’s whereabouts and kept coming up dry.

  The sooner everything was resolved and the case cleared against William Hudson, the better. It wasn’t Dot or Layne’s safety he was especially worried about—unless they did something off-the-charts idiotic, nothing should happen to them with his team in place—but Dot was making him insane.

  Yet a reluctant admiration filled Connor as he thought about Dorothy’s defiant delivery of coffee and food to the security van. She was doing it purely to aggravate him. If she wasn’t so damned beautiful, he’d...

  No.

  Dorothy’s beauty had attracted him initially, but it was more than that now. She was warm, intelligent and had a lively wit. Her husband’s death had wounded her spirit, but not killed it. And somehow, despite everything, she still seemed to have a belief in people.

  Except in him, of course.

  He didn’t blame her for being angry, but it would be better if she cooperated with the security team.

  He looked back at his computer. The one thing Connor had learned about Brandi Porter was that she’d visited the hospital emergency room several times, a victim of suspected domestic violence. If she’d gone into hiding from an abusive husband, she could be impossible to find.

  And there was another alternative, as well.

  Sighing, he began searching death records for Washington and the surrounding states.