by Lisa Jackson
“You knew I’d be back in a few days. I had my cell phone. You could have asked.” Liam’s temper was escalating.
“You didn’t say you were leaving the country. So, where is she? Why did she run? Did she admit to being part of this?” He slapped a hand down on his thigh, hard, his face mottling with red.
“No.”
“She tell you that her family was in on it? Harold Stemple’s hanging out in prison, maybe acting the model prisoner. But his fingers are all over this. He probably hired someone to kill DeGrere to keep him from talking!”
“With all that money he’s making in prison, working in the laundry or whatever?”
“He could have some cash tucked away. He is a thief, y’know. Suspected in dozens of burglaries.”
“That’s a pretty big leap, Dad. To think Stemple used all his secreted cash to pay a hired assassin to kill DeGrere on the first day he’s out—”
“Well, what did she say?” Geoffrey demanded, waving away Liam’s argument with a wide arc of one hand. “Huh? Your wife? What did she say?”
Back to Rory. “I never found her. She was gone by the time I got there.”
“Jesus Christ.” He shook his head and moved his wheelchair back and forth two inches, the way he always did when he was agitated, a nervous display that bugged the hell out of Liam. “I thought at least you’d get something done. Learn something from her.”
Liam held on to his temper with an effort. “Mickelson’s still on the case. It’s the one that got away from him. He’s doing it on his own.”
“Well, that’s something,” Geoff allowed.
They heard a commotion in the hall and then a familiar male voice, calling aloud, “Hallloooo!” as the den door was yanked open and Derek appeared, wearing a construction vest. “Hey, brother!” His face broke into a wide smile. “Saw your car. On my way to work.”
It was all Liam could do not to glance at the clock.
Geoff said, “Then you probably guessed we were in a meeting.”
“I’ll leave if you want,” Derek answered, unperturbed at his father’s icy tone.
“No need,” said Liam. “We were finished anyway.”
“Do I detect some tension?” Derek asked, looking from Geoff to Liam, brows lifted.
“You read my mail,” Liam said.
Derek’s eyes widened, then he shrugged a little. “Oops.”
Geoff said a bit belligerently, “There aren’t any secrets in this family. We all work together, and I still run the company.”
“I beg to differ, Dad. Brother Liam’s the one who’s in charge. And he’s doing a good job, right? The Hallifax building still has months before its renovation is complete and the apartments are renting at warp speed. And they’re fucking expensive.”
“None of that talk.” Geoff glowered, and Liam wondered for a moment if he was referring to Derek’s swearing or the fact that Liam’s idea had been successful, especially when both Geoff and Derek had been lukewarm about the project from the get-go.
“I’m just sayin’ that Liam’s got the touch. Good job in putting him in charge, Dad.” He walked to the glass doors and stared out at the pool where Stella was sipping a mimosa, sunbathing, and flipping through a magazine.
Liam gazed at Derek, wondering what his brother was up to, needling their father that way. However, Geoff remained stoic as he ignored Derek and said to Liam, “I don’t care how you get rid of your problem, just don’t let it get in the way. Hallifax is on time, the last I heard, which was last week. I need daily reports.”
“I’m not sidelining you,” Liam told him, facing his father once more.
“I didn’t say you were. I just want the business to run efficiently. And I’m not sure about those last hires. Les Steele and Jarrod Uller? Never heard of ’em.”
Liam said, not for the first time, “They came from Barlow Development and—”
“Those fuckers at Barlow,” Derek growled.
Geoff snapped, “Derek!”
“Steele’s built apartments all over the city,” Liam went on, ignoring them both. “Uller’s worked with him on every one. To get Steele to move and become our foreman and project manager required Uller. They’re a package deal and they’re doing a good job.”
“Except for the vandalism,” Derek pointed out.
“Yes, except for that,” Liam said evenly.
“Well, don’t hire anyone else,” Geoff grumbled. “Eats up all our profits.”
Liam thought of Vivian’s job request and grimaced to himself. Or, at least he thought he’d hidden his expression until his father asked, “What’s wrong?”
After a moment of indecision where both Derek and Geoff were looking at him expectantly, Liam decided on honesty. “Your daughter would like a job with the company.”
“My—? Vivian?” Geoff’s look was almost comical. “She hasn’t worked a day in her life!”
“That’s not true,” Liam began, but Derek barked out a laugh and overrode him. “Viv wants a job at the company? Because she’s divorcing Javier and needs some dough?” He let out a deprecating snort. “Perfect.”
“What would she do?” Geoff asked in disbelief.
Liam said, “I don’t know. Before I walked in here, she just asked if she could work for the company.”
“Well, there’s nothing for her to do,” Derek put in.
Geoff shot his eldest son a dark look. “She doesn’t deserve a job, but you do? Is that what you’re saying?” He turned back to Liam. “She asked you, not me?”
“She asked me to ask you. Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters!” He pointed both of his thumbs at himself and demanded, “What have I been saying? This is my company and these are my decisions!”
“Well, she’s living here now. And she’s right outside that door.” Liam pointed to it. “Call her in here and tell her what you just told me. Now, I’m going to check on Hallifax and then I’ve got a meeting with the city planner.”
“The city planner,” Geoff echoed.
“About the parking issue on the east side.”
His father grunted. “At Flavel? Those homeless people still in the way?”
“Yep,” Derek said with a nod.
Liam responded a bit tensely, “I’ll say it again. Their camp is sanctioned by the city. The problem is with our tenants.”
“Those losers we’re trying to boot out of there,” Derek agreed. He shrugged as if there wasn’t anything much to do. “Don’t worry. I’m on it.”
The old Flavel building on the east side of the Willamette River had been purchased from Geoff’s ex–business partner, James Flavel, and then taken on by Derek, who’d made bad choice after bad choice, back when he’d still been interested in management. The result was the building had deteriorated to the point of almost being condemned. It was the biggest bone of contention between father and son because it was one of the main reasons, if not the only reason, Geoff had bypassed his elder son completely in favor of his younger, to head Bastian-Flavel Construction. Derek had used some less than legal tactics to remove the tenants who were behind in their rent. The result was that lawsuits had abounded and it had taken them to this point, years later, before the path was clear to move forward in renovations, though there were a number of groups in the area opposed to gentrification, so the project had gone fallow. Currently Bastian-Flavel Construction’s main project was the Hallifax building, another older apartment project which was in a more centrally located neighborhood and considered to be a hot property.
“They can lawyer up all they want. Their leases and their lawsuits are done,” Derek said darkly. “Assholes.”
Liam didn’t wait to hear any more. He had enough on his plate without playing referee for his family or revisiting old gripes about company decisions. “I’m outta here,” he said, then walked out of the door and spied Viv still hovering in the hallway.
“You’re on deck,” he said. “I told Dad you wanted a job.”
“And—?”
“And you need to talk to him yourself. Consider the ice broken.”
He made his way to the front of the house, backed his SUV out of the circular drive because Viv hadn’t moved her damned Mercedes squatting like an oversized toad and still blocking the drive. Then he drove away from the house, leaving the estate on the riverfront in his rearview. Just another day in the life of the Bastian family—his family, he reminded himself. Did he really blame Rory for running the first chance she got? The answer: Yes. She was his wife, or had been, and would be for a few more days. Until he could finish the divorce papers.
If that’s still viable. Now you know she’s alive, the lawyer may have to take a different tack.
His cell phone, which he’d left in the car, made a noise and at the first traffic light he checked it. Bethany. Two messages asking that he call her. He would. Just not now. He drove to the south waterfront and the Bastian-Flavel offices, and when he stepped onto the street, he saw Rory walking down the street, away from him.
Rory . . . !
Liam’s intake of breath was harsh, and his heart seemed to stop as he saw the long, dark red curls bouncing against her shoulders, the smooth gait of her steps. He strode forward rapidly, intent on grabbing her by the arm, darkly furious. After all the running away, she was here? Now?
“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, holding back the roar of fury that threatened to engulf him as he spun her around.
She nearly stumbled, staring at him in surprise, her eyes wide, her mouth an O of shock. It wasn’t Rory, he realized instantly, just someone with her same hair and body type.
“I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry,” he stammered, feeling the fool. The past few days, being caught up looking for her, had obviously affected him and his judgment more than he’d realized. As he released the startled woman’s arm, he remembered the first time he’d met Rory, when he’d bumped into her and she’d stumbled on that steep Seattle street years before . . . “Thought you were someone else.”
“I guess,” she said sardonically, recovering herself. He half expected her to scream for the police, but she merely gave him a long look from head to toe, as if memorizing what the crazy man looked like, and twisted on her heel away from him.
“Jesus,” he muttered, irked at himself. He headed in the opposite direction, glancing back once to see her enter an office building several blocks down the waterfront. She really looked nothing like Rory, he realized.
He was chasing shadows. Had been for five years.
Definitely time to move on.
Definitely.
* * *
It was late night, a strip of moonlight barely illuminating anything in the older building that was under a major, major redo, as Teri Mulvaney stumbled up the stairs, trying to avoid the broken glass and pieces of material that made an obstacle course in this dim light. It was a real bitch trying to see where the hell she was. And from the outside the building looked like this huge monster with smashed-out eyes. The windows were a mess. Lots of spiderwebs crisscrossing those panes. Somebody had bashed them up but good.
“I—ooh!” She sucked in a breath as her ankle twisted. Fought back a shriek of pain that came out as a moan. Holy shit.
“Shhh,” her guide admonished in a whisper. “Can’t have anyone see us.”
“I know,” she whispered back, trying to sound upbeat, though her teeth were clenched.
She shouldn’t have worn her strappy heels, Manolo Blahniks, no less! The ones her ultra rich, ultra snobby bitch of an ex-sister-in-law had tossed her way in a lackluster show of generosity. Sure, they weren’t exactly her size, a little pinchy around the toes, and therefore her heel hung over a little, but so what. They were Manolo Blahniks. Cost a fortune that she didn’t possess! But they just weren’t made for this dead-of-night outing. If she’d had any sense at all she would have called off this “date” before it began.
But he was handsome, in that way she liked. Not too handsome. Just kind of bad-boy, ride a motorcycle and do a little slap and tickle to get the juices going handsome. The kind of guy that could get you into a lot of trouble. Just like she liked. She’d met him at Waterfront Park. He was just standing, watching the river, and she’d left a nearby bar and was walking, well, okay, stumbling a little, toward the street, intent on getting an Uber and hoping her credit card wasn’t maxed out. You know how those things go. Make a payment, gain a little breathing room.
He’d seemed like a ghost in the dark and she’d come up on him suddenly. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied, turning to look at her. That’s all it had taken. One look. She’d felt herself go hot and melty in her core, and he’d sensed it and simply moved a hand forward, catching her arm, dragging her to him. He’d started exploring her body immediately, taking all kinds of liberties. She’d pretended to be affronted, but, well, she had been kind of drunk, and it had felt a little good, and she’d been so lonely since her breakup with that asshole Karl. Still, when he’d wriggled his hand up her short skirt and stuck his fingers inside her, she’d slapped at him and told him to stop. Her mother had raised her right. He’d skipped first and second base and slid straight into third, and that just wasn’t right.
“Oh, baby,” he’d breathed in her ear, his fingers caressing hard, and Lord if she hadn’t almost climaxed standing on her tippytoes in those heels that wanted to sink into the soft earth.
Had she whimpered? She was pretty sure she had.
“You want me to stop?” he groaned, his fingers stilling.
God, no. No! But nice girls would ask for a kiss first, so she’d turned her lips toward him.
“Say it,” he ordered, his own lips a hairbreadth from hers.
“Say what?”
“Say you want me to stop.”
“I want you to . . . ooohhh . . . !”
She’d come right then and there, pressing herself to his marauding hand, holding on to his shoulders, knees weak, body quivering, desperate for more contact. “Harder,” she’d begged, pressing her hand on top of his, squirming against his hard fingers. He’d laughed and complied, rubbing her like she was a magic lamp, and she’d felt like one, bursting through to a shimmering climax, releasing a genie of desire, screaming silently in her throat.
Well, at least she’d thought it was silent, until his hands came around her neck and he whispered, “Quiet, beautiful.”
Beautiful. He’d called her “Beautiful.”
She’d been in lust like never before. He wouldn’t tell her his name, which drove her insane, and caused her to masturbate when they weren’t together, just thinking about him. She called him Duke in her mind, which was her boyfriend’s name from two years ago, a real asshole, but she was still kind of habanero-hot for him.
From that first meeting, they’d met by the water every night for two weeks, kissing and rubbing and getting each other off. Though she’d certainly given as good as she’d got, he’d never fully climaxed, though she did on a regular basis with barely a tease to the clitoris. Crazy!
Then last night he’d said, “Wanna have some real fun?”
“Sure.”
So, he’d told her to go to the bar and toss back a few cocktails, just to get the juices flowing. No problem there. Alcohol was her favorite sexual lubricant.
Then he’d come around for her in a pickup. Said he knew a guy who worked for a construction company and was borrowing it for a while. He got her off as they were driving along, and by the time they got to their destination, she was clinging to his shoulder while his right hand idly played with her in a way that made her want to shriek and claw and bite.
But now they were here, and she was picking her way through what had to be a hard-hat zone. Some old building under serious renovation.
“I wanna fuck on the top level,” he said.
“Yeah? I don’t see any elevator,” she quipped, finding herself really funny. Those huckleberry-and-lemon martinis had gone down icy cold. She reminded herself to thank him for the ext
ra dollars he’d given her to help get her drink on.
“We gotta go up five flights,” he said.
Well, she was kidding about the elevator. Surely he knew that. She hurried up the first flight, missed a step near the top, and came down hard on her knee. She yowled with pain, but his hand swiftly came over her mouth.
“Shhh. Gotta be cool, baby, or they’ll come for us. Gotta be real quiet.”
They? The building owners? The police? She whimpered, but managed to shake off most of the pain as they climbed what felt like more than five stairways, finally reaching the top floor. The moon put a white spotlight on them.
“There we go,” he said, turning her to face him.
Finally, they were going to get down to business. Enough with all this handsy stuff. She wanted him inside her right now! Sure, she would have preferred a bed. The last time she’d screwed in the great outdoors was on a beach, and she’d gotten sand up her crack and it chafed and felt like forever to get it all cleaned out.
She saw him take off his backpack, dropping it to the ground. He took a couple steps forward, looking over the edge of the building. “You can see the river,” he said, pointing to the dark waters of the Willamette a number of blocks away.
She tiptoed closer, to stand beside him. She didn’t do well with heights and it was a long way down.
He came up behind her and tickled her, scaring her. “Stop it!” she cried, hanging on to his arm with a death grip.
“What, you’re afraid of heights?”
“Yeah, I am! Gawd . . .”
He turned her around to look at him. Now her back was to the edge of the building and that didn’t sit well with her, either. The moon was to her right now, leaving them in darkness.
“I’ve never heard you like this,” he said, amused. “Kind of bitchy . . . naggy.”
“Come on,” she said, trying to drag him away from the edge.
“I want to do it right here. Standing up.”
“I want to lie down.”