Could this be what he had been waiting for? Was the woman standing in front of Ruby the key to unlocking Joseph’s secret? Was Ruby awaiting some message from her, maybe even a payment that she in turn would deliver to Joseph? It would be an ingenious way of conducting that kind of business.
Antonio turned his attention to the young mother. With each thrust of her hand through the large purse, she grew more flustered. The baby started to fuss, and she automatically abandoned her search to soothe the child. That was when he knew she was no front. If she was involved with any drug other than an aspirin, he was a monkey’s uncle.
She was simply a customer who had forgotten her wallet. Or maybe someone in the crowd had stolen it. A gathering like this, with so many people packed closely together, would be an automatic draw for a thief looking for an easy mark. It would also explain Ruby’s tension, as she would obviously be anxious to prevent a scene. Antonio moved closer in case she needed his help.
“I’m sorry,” he heard the woman apologize. She sounded close to tears. “You might not believe this, but I used to be the most organized person you would ever want to meet. Since Olivia’s birth, though, it’s all I can do to get dressed in the morning. My house is a mess. I’m a mess. I can’t remember the last time I slept through the night or took a bubble bath or wore a shirt that didn’t have spit-up stains on the shoulder. All I wanted to do today was to buy a painting for my husband’s birthday, and I couldn’t even do that right. And you really don’t need me unloading all this on you, do you? What you need is for me to find my wallet.”
“Unload on me all you want,” Ruby said. “I understand perfectly. Believe me. Please, take your time. You’re doing just fine.”
Though she sounded calm, even compassionate, Antonio heard an underlying strain. It had cost her to speak those words. Why?
“No, it’s not okay,” the woman protested. “I’m really holding things up. Look, could you do me a favor? Could you hold Olivia for me? With both hands free, I’m sure I’ll find my wallet in no time.”
A look of what Antonio interpreted as pure panic crossed Ruby’s face. “I…I don’t think…”
“Please,” the woman pleaded. “I don’t want to put her on the floor. And I don’t want to hold up the line any longer. I’m sure the people behind me are in a hurry to get home.”
Seemingly lost for words, Ruby simply stared.
A look of comprehension crossed the woman’s face. “Look at your nice suit. Of course you don’t want to hold her. Why don’t I just go to the end of the line. By the time I make it back up here, I should have my act together.”
Antonio was about to step in and announce that he would hold the baby, when Ruby stood.
“I’ll hold her,” she said in a low voice.
“But your suit…”
“Don’t worry about my suit. It’s stood up to stronger stuff than messy fingers or spit-up.”
Antonio received a vivid image of Ruby in the attic of the Bickham mansion, her hair mussed and her suit a total loss from the dirt streaked on it. Whatever was bothering her, it wasn’t worry about her suit.
“Thank you.” The woman beamed and held out her arms.
There was a noticeable hesitation before Ruby took the little girl. “Why don’t you try the diaper bag?” she suggested, her gaze riveted on the child. “Maybe you put your wallet in there by mistake.”
“Thanks. I will.”
Antonio watched in fascination while Ruby first held the baby away from her gingerly. Then, her throat working, she cradled the little girl to her breast. Dropping her head, she pressed her lips to the child’s forehead while chubby fingers reached up and grabbed a lock of her hair. She murmured something low and indistinguishable beneath her breath.
“Found it!” the woman exclaimed in triumph, holding up the missing wallet. She held out her arms for her child. “Thank you so much for holding her.”
As reluctant as she had been to take the baby, Ruby now seemed even more reluctant to relinquish her hold on her. After gently disengaging the little girl’s fingers from her hair, she returned Olivia to her mother.
She must have sensed his presence then, because her gaze flew immediately to his. Antonio was astonished to see the shimmer of tears and a deep, private anguish in the depths of her eyes. The look caused a lump to lodge in his throat and made him want to take her into his arms and offer what comfort he could.
Ruby let out a long, shaky breath and turned her attention back to Olivia’s mother. “She’s a beautiful child. You hold on tight to her, okay?”
“Thanks, I will.”
After the woman paid, Ruby pulled her compact from her pocket and repaired the damage Olivia had caused. Then she closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked directly at Antonio. The anguish, if indeed it had ever been there, was gone. As was all other emotion.
She turned her attention to the people still waiting in line and flashed her patented smile. “Next, please,” she announced in a clear, calm voice.
Why had the baby affected her so? He never would have pegged Ruby for the maternal type. He’d been wrong about her before; he could be wrong about that, too. Did she want children and Joseph not want any? Was that one sacrifice she was going to have to make in her quest for money?
He knew the problem was one he would ponder endlessly while lying awake that night. If only he didn’t have such a penchant for solving puzzles, he might find himself sleeping better. Who was he kidding? Even if he knew all there was to know about her, he would still find Ruby to be the most fascinating woman he’d ever met.
A tap on his shoulder made him start. Turning, he saw Joseph. Had the man witnessed the scene with Ruby and the baby? Had he witnessed Antonio’s complete absorption in it? Worse, had he caught a glimpse of exactly how Antonio felt about the woman he believed belonged to him?
“I’m glad I caught you before you left,” Joseph said. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
Damn. He had to have seen something. Might as well get this over with.
“Of course. I’ll come straight to your office.”
“No need,” Joseph dismissed with a wave of his hand. “What I have to say will just take a minute.”
Antonio braced himself.
Joseph beamed at him. “You did a good job today, Michael. I’m very pleased.”
Antonio blinked. This wasn’t exactly what he had been expecting, but he’d take it. “Thank you.”
“Ruby told me what a good job you did at the Bickham estate, also. She said you two work well together, that you make a good team.”
Had she really said that? “It went…well.”
“I just wanted to let you know that you both will be on the road again this week.”
Antonio went still. “Oh?”
“I just snagged an estate in Cleveland that I need you two to value for me.”
“I see.”
“The arrangements have all been made. Ruby has the particulars.” Joseph took a step, then halted and turned back. “Oh, and Michael? When you return, we need to have a talk. I think it will be beneficial for us both.”
Instead of congratulating himself that he seemed to have gained Joseph’s confidence, all Antonio could think about was the following week. He was going to be alone with Ruby. Again. How on earth was he going to keep his hands off her?
In the end it turned out to be much easier than he had anticipated. First of all, they drove separately. Second, they ate their meals apart. And third, she never got close enough to him for them to brush arms, let alone for him to wrap his arms around her.
Though Joseph had, once again, put them in adjoining rooms, this time they were in a sixteen-story hotel in the heart of downtown Cleveland. The only time Antonio saw Ruby was while they were working, and she was studiously polite in his presence. If any of the items they valued thrilled her or if she found any long-lost love letters, she kept it to herself.
The vans arrived on the third day. This time
he and Ruby were supervising the loading. As before, in West Virginia, Antonio inspected them. And as before he was disappointed to find nothing incriminating. He was beginning to believe the entire operation was a wild-goose chase.
It was while he was pacing the outside length of one still-empty van that the truth hit him. Excitement mounting, he counted the number of paces it took him to traverse the trailer’s exterior. Then he climbed inside and took another count. He was right. The inside of each van was shorter than the outside by a good foot. There must be a false wall at the end of the compartment.
When he knocked, the hollow sound greeting his ears increased his excitement. Since the entrance wasn’t on the inside, where it could be seen by someone like himself, it had to be underneath the trailer.
A quick, furtive search confirmed his suspicions. Above the tires was a narrow, sliding door. It was awkward to reach, but when he opened each one and peered up inside, he found enough room to store a large cache of drugs. Bingo.
Laura ducked into an empty room when she heard Michael approach. His footsteps echoed on the hardwood floor as he neared her hiding place. Holding her breath, she plastered her back to the wall. She let it out slowly when the echoes of his footfalls faded away.
Heart thundering, she rushed to the first moving van and peered underneath, the way she had seen Michael doing when she’d come to fetch him before his lunch grew cold. Suddenly, as she looked at the sliding door, everything fell into place. She’d known Joseph had to be transporting the drugs in the moving vans, but she’d always assumed he’d been using the furniture as a hiding place. Now she knew why she had never found any evidence to support her suspicions.
She knew something else, too, and the knowledge made her heart ache. Michael Corsi was definitely involved. He had to be. Otherwise why would he have been looking under the van?
Chapter 12
H and rubbing the back of his neck, Antonio paced his hotel room. When he tired of that pastime, he moved to the window that looked out over Cleveland’s darkened city skyline and the shore of Lake Erie. The view from the twelfth floor was breathtaking, not that he derived any pleasure from it.
With a long sigh he returned to his pacing. A glance at the bedside clock slowed his steps. It was almost ten o’clock, and he still hadn’t called his contact officer. Now that he knew how Joseph was bringing the drugs in and shipping them out, he suddenly found himself hesitant to report his findings. Hence the pacing. He was literally dragging his feet; postponing a job he knew he had to do.
As if of its own volition, his gaze traveled to the door connecting his room to Ruby’s. Just how involved was she in all this? Would his phone call ensure her an extended stay in a facility of the State of Pennsylvania’s choice? He tried to picture Ruby behind bars and failed. She would never survive.
Even if she was completely innocent, it was a certainty she would hate him for taking away her meal ticket.
Stiffening his resolve along with his shoulders, Antonio put his hesitation behind him. He was a cop. He’d sworn to uphold the law, regardless of his personal feelings. To do less would bring dishonor to all the men and women who had served faithfully before him.
It was time—past time—to report his discovery. Joseph Merrill had to be stopped. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
If that brought Ruby down, too, and if it made her hate him, he would have to find the strength to deal with it.
When she heard Michael leave, Laura waited two minutes before picking the lock on the connecting door. Once again she searched his belongings. This time, however, with secret compartments on her mind, she discovered what she’d missed the first time: a hidden partition in his suitcase.
Inside the partition was a notebook. Letting out a long breath, Laura removed it from its hiding place. Her hands shook as she opened it.
The pages were filled with Michael’s handwriting and outlined everything that had happened since he started working for Joseph, including his need to gain her confidence to find out how much she knew. It made her shiver to learn he had searched her belongings, just as she had searched his.
The one thing the notes didn’t detail was the kiss they had shared, and what exactly, if anything, were his true feelings for her. Nor did they detail why he was looking for the drugs and trying to win Joseph’s confidence.
For long minutes she stared at the words filling page after page. Then, carefully replacing the notebook and making sure there was no evidence of her search, she retreated to her room.
She heard Michael return ten minutes later and waited an additional ten before slipping out her door. The pay phone she chose was three blocks away. Her stomach felt as if it was tied in a thousand knots by the time her call was picked up on the other end.
“It’s me,” she said.
“You have news?”
“Yes. I’ve discovered how Joseph is distributing the drugs.” She explained about the false compartments.
“Excellent work, Laura. I knew you could do it.”
“I thought you’d be pleased.”
“Is something wrong? You sound rather…odd.”
She squared her shoulders and launched her attack. “Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. Who the hell is Michael Corsi?”
The emotions flowing through her made it impossible for Laura to fall asleep. Arms folded beneath her head and eyes wide open, she lay in bed, lights blazing, staring up at the ceiling.
She couldn’t believe it. Like her, Michael was a cop. He was a good guy. And she was falling in love with him.
At last she understood the source of the discontent that had plagued her over the past months. She’d attributed it to a need for a long vacation, and while that need still existed, the real reason for her unrest was suddenly clear. Finally, after four long years, she was coming alive again. Undercover work, which had sustained her through the darkest period of her life, was no longer enough. She needed more. She wanted more.
She wanted to paint again.
She wanted to play again.
She wanted to live again.
She wanted Michael.
Slowly but surely, step by step, she was putting the past behind her. While she would never forget her husband and child, and would always feel a residue of pain thinking about them, she finally acknowledged that she had to go on living. Which meant she also had to acknowledge that Jacob and Jason weren’t coming back, and that it was perfectly right and okay for her to have feelings for Michael Corsi.
Jacob would have liked him, Laura realized. Even more important, he would have encouraged her to move forward with the relationship.
One question remained in her mind, and it was huge, especially after what she’d read in his notes. Did Michael kiss her because he was truly attracted to her, or was it just for the job? Since she’d been forbidden by her contact officer to tell him what she knew or to reveal who she really was—for safety reasons Erik wouldn’t even tell her Michael’s real name—it was a question she couldn’t ask. Yet.
Things were coming to a head. Hopefully, she would discover both the source and the destination of Joseph’s drug operation any day now. And when she did, she would have her answer. She prayed it was the one she wished for.
Laura’s gaze wandered from the overhead light to the two bedside table lamps to the bathroom light. She knew now why she had let them blaze twenty-four hours a day for the past four years. She’d been keeping them on for Jacob and Jason.
Slowly she climbed out of bed and, one by one, turned them off. A lone tear traced its way down her cheek when she reached for the last switch.
“Good night,” she whispered to the darkness.
“Mind if I join you?”
Antonio looked up from the newspaper he was reading while waiting for his breakfast order to arrive. His mouth nearly fell open when he saw Ruby standing at his elbow. Before he dropped it, he quickly replaced his coffee cup on the saucer.
She wore a pair of navy-blue cropped pants and
a crisp white blouse that she’d left untucked. Barring that morning in the park, she was the most casually dressed he had ever seen her. Even more incredible, she was smiling at him. Ruby was actually smiling at him.
“Excuse me?” he said, certain he hadn’t heard her right.
She looked amused. “I was wondering if I could join you.”
He glanced around the dining room. There were plenty of empty tables. It wasn’t as though the place was jammed and she had to sit with him.
Surprise had him stammering. “N-not at all. Have a seat.”
“Thanks.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. Nodding at the newspaper, she asked, “Anything important I should know about?”
He couldn’t remember a word of what he had read. He tried refolding the paper into its original neat rectangle, but succeeded only in making an ungainly mess. With a shrug he thrust it onto an empty chair.
“Murder. Mayhem. Corruption. Scandal. The usual.”
“Just another day, huh?” Humor twinkled in her eyes.
This was the Ruby he’d thought he had seen the moment their gazes had first met. The Ruby he’d wanted to get to know. Or, to be brutally honest, the Ruby he had wanted to sleep with. No hard edges. No fake smiles. No tension. No disapproval. Soft. Supple. Warm. He had never seen her so relaxed, so…accepting of him.
If he let it, she would go straight to his head, and that would be a big mistake. Because the only reason he could think of for her sudden thaw toward him was Joseph. Joseph wanted her to sound him out about something, and most likely that something had to do with whatever it was Joseph wanted to talk to him about when they returned. He’d thought it was about the drug business. Now, with Ruby smiling so brilliantly at him, he prayed it wasn’t.
Still, unwise or not, when she looked at him the way she did now, all he wanted was to plunge into those bottomless green eyes of hers.
The waitress came and took Ruby’s order. When she left, Antonio slid his hands down his jeans-clad thighs. “I take it you’re no longer mad at me?”
Laura and the Lawman Page 18