Bait

by Mia Carson

  Tim sank into his chair, holding his head in his hands. “Yes, they did, but I had nothing to do with it. I noticed some irregularities a few days ago, but IT said it was merely a glitch and once they corrected it, there were no more problems.”

  “Until the money disappeared,” she supplied without looking at him.

  “Yes, until then,” he agreed, the familiar anger returning to his voice.

  Her polite demeanor faltered at his tone. She flipped her notepad shut with a snap and leaned back in the chair, her right leg crossed over her left as he watched her right eye twitch. “I’m going to ask you straight up, Mr. Jones. Did you steal money from your clients in preparation to run off with it and disappear?”

  Tim’s head shot up at her bluntness, eyes wide. “No, I didn’t,” he exploded, standing from his desk and flattening his hands against the surface. Her hands tensed, the left shifting closer to her gun. He closed his eyes and reeled in his anger. “I’m sorry for my outburst. It’s been a long morning and I don’t need someone else accusing me of doing something I did not do.”

  “I didn’t accuse you of anything,” she replied hotly. “I simply wanted to see your reaction.”

  “What?” he asked and resumed his seat, annoyed with her antics. “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “Because reactions give away much more about a person than words do.”

  Tim folded his hands on his desktop. She had a point, but it didn’t mean he agreed with her methods. “Did I pass your test?”

  She studied him, her grey eyes obviously seeing more than merely his face. She pushed her tongue behind her upper lip and huffed to herself before she gave him a solid nod. “Your anger is real enough, and it’s clearly not directed at me.”

  “You don’t think I did it?”

  “I never said I did.”

  “Wait, you’re merely going to take my word for it? Just like that?” What type of detective was this woman? Was she new to the job? His eyes darted to the phone on his desk as he considered calling the station and asking for a different person to investigate.

  “You’re clearly distressed, Mr. Jones,” she pointed out. “No man in his right mind would steal that amount in his own name and from his own computer. It’s too easy to track a trail with digital fingerprints. Unless you’re an idiot—which, judging by how you built this company, you’re not—then someone is trying to set you up.”

  Tim sighed in relief, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head back. “Do you mind telling the board members what you just told me?”

  “I’m afraid me believing you innocent isn’t actual proof.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I’m still going to have to clear you completely, and that’s going to be a bitch to do with your name on everything.” The amusement was gone, replaced with what Tim could only describe as a look of regret.

  Tim’s lips tugged into a grin at her bluntness again. He found it quite refreshing compared to most other women he knew who liked to play games. “Tell me what you need.”

  “All the files pertaining to the clients who lost money, access to the company’s accounting, and I will have to speak with several other members in the company.”

  “Of course.” He rested his hand on the stack of files at the corner of his desk. “I was going to look through these myself first but couldn’t exactly focus today. You can take them tonight.”

  Chris’ eyes darted from the files to Tim’s face. “You certainly are different,” she whispered.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Nothing. I’m used to working with snobby, rich bastards who aren’t as cooperative as they should be with the person trying to save their asses.”

  “And I take it I’m not one of these snobby, rich bastards?” he asked, admiring her subtle beauty until his gaze drifted down to the gun holstered at her side and the badge on her belt. She was the detective on his case. Whatever thoughts his brain considered having about her needed to stop, now. Besides, she darted from amusement to annoyance in seconds, and he wasn’t sure he could deal with someone driving him crazy endlessly throughout the day.

  “Not yet, at least. I’ll speak with you again once I have a background on these clients. I don’t have to tell you not to leave town, do I?” she asked, one perfectly shaped brow arching as she stood.

  “No, I’m not leaving town.”

  “Good.” She opened her mouth to say something else, but her grey eyes glimmered with a sudden look Tim could only describe as regret before she cleared her throat and shook her head. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything helpful, give me a ring. My cell is on the back.”

  “I guess asking you out for coffee as thanks would be out of the question?” The words slipped out before he could stop them, and Tim waited for her to reach across his desk and deck him. But she laughed instead, the full sound reaching deep inside him and brushing across the pang in his chest. “Is that a ‘yes’ laugh or ‘I’m way out of your league’ laugh?”

  She stood and stashed the files in her messenger bag. “That is a ‘you have no idea what the hell you’d be getting yourself into’ laugh.”

  “Are you one of those crazy detectives?”

  Chris’ face went blank and her eyes narrowed as she slung the bag across her body. A flare of anger flashed across her face and her hands flattened on his desk before she yanked them back and turned away from him. “I have my moments. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Jones.”

  “Tim,” he corrected as she rushed towards the door. “Please, call me Tim.”

  She paused once her leather jacket was back on, covering her shoulders and her holster. “Tim, then.” She stepped one foot out then paused. “And no.”

  “No? To what?”

  “Coffee, genius. I can’t be fraternizing with a suspect.”

  Tim’s excitement petered out. “Right, suspect. I forgot about that part.”

  “Listen, Mr. Jones—”

  “Tim,” he reminded her, hating being addressed so formally.

  She pursed her lips. “You look like a pretty honest guy, for once, so don’t worry until I tell you to worry, all right? I see cases like this all the time, and you’re working with one of the better detectives on the force. Sit tight and don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like trying to solve this on your own, Timmy,” she added with a brief grin. She stomped out of his office without another word, leaving him holding her card and watching her ass in those tight black pants and the knee-high boots.

  She was certainly not the detective he expected, and damn, was he happy for small miracles. If he did go to jail, he wouldn’t mind a sexy woman in black leather putting handcuffs on him and taking him away. But she told him not to worry, and for the moment believed he wasn’t involved in the theft.

  With the brief interview over, Tim gathered his jacket and briefcase, shut off his desk lamp, and left the office for the day. A few employees still finishing their work glanced up suspiciously as he walked to the elevator, but he simply smiled at them. They might think he was a thief, but he knew the truth and would stick to the truth, no matter what. He played with the idea of using the detective’s obvious attraction to him to his advantage, but hell had no fury like a woman scorned. If it went wrong—like all other past relationships in his life had—she could easily drag him off to jail without a second thought.

  When he neared his old, red Mustang, he realized how much he wished she’d said yes to coffee. She was unlike any woman he’d met, and only knowing her on a professional level seemed like a waste of a chance at what could be a fiery relationship. Throwing his stuff in the back, he tugged his phone from his pocket and texted the personal cell number on the back of the card. The message sent about coffee Friday afternoon—to go over the case files, of course, and fill her in on any questions she might have by then, he slid behind the wheel and drove into the storm. She couldn’t turn him away if he had information pertaining to the case, could she? />
  Rain continued to fall as he parked outside the front of his house. Home was an old brick townhouse with stones framing the windows and door he’d renovated a few years ago. Evergreen shrubs lined the front in the tiny mulch bed, overgrown from his lack of tending to them. He kicked his shoes off and hung up his dripping jacket on the coatrack.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he called out in a mocking tone. An answering meow met his words, and he grinned, crouching down to pick up the black and white cat that darted out of the living room. She purred in his hands as he held her to his chest and flipped on lights on his way to the kitchen. Lightning lit up the skies and the answering thunder caused his cat to hiss angrily and snuggle deeper into the crook of his arm.

  “It’s going to be a long night, I’m afraid, Mini,” he told her.

  She meowed loudly in his arms as if in protest. He pulled out her food from the fridge, and she hopped onto the counter immediately, waiting for him to set it on a plate. Once she was fed, Tim returned to the fridge for a beer and a slice of leftover pizza from the night before. Such was the life of a bachelor. The magazines and newspaper articles always commented on what an exciting life he must live, being one of the richest men in the city and able to have any woman he wanted. Tim learned early on, though, if he didn’t want to worry about money, he couldn’t blow it whenever he wanted. He had to be smart and pay attention to his habits, stopping them from growing bad before he lost everything he worked so hard to achieve.

  “Yeah, and then you go and get robbed anyway,” he grumbled around a mouthful of stale, cold pizza. “Maybe we should have lived it up a bit, huh?” He ran his hand down Mini’s back, thinking about Detective Chris Harrison.

  Now there was a woman he wished he’d had a chance to meet back in the early days when he was still a ruffian and lacked any real cares in the world. Before he had anger problems over losing essentially the only family he had. Back when he wasn’t worried about carrying on his dad’s name and finding a way to honor his dead parents. His eyes drifted to a picture of them hanging in the kitchen. He toasted his beer to them with a bitter grin.

  “Here’s to you guys. I hope I don’t lose it all,” he whispered then chugged until the bottle was empty. He set the empty bottle by the sink and marched upstairs to change out of his suit.

  Chris’s serious grey eyes remained with him as he pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and wandered back downstairs to snag another beer and plop on the couch to watch TV. He itched to do some research on the case, but she told him not to, and he had no real access to the files anyway.

  But Nick might.

  He searched for his cell, cursing when he had to run all the way back upstairs for it, and dialed his assistant. Three rings passed. “Nick?”

  “How did the interview go with the detective? Did he put you through the wringer?”

  “No, she didn’t, actually.”

  “Wait, she?”

  “Yes, a very attractive, sexy she,” he mused. “Listen, do you still have access to the accounts online?”

  “I do, but you know I can’t get as far into the system as you could.”

  “No, but it might be enough for what I want you to do.”

  “Are you trying to get me fired?”

  Tim shrugged one shoulder. “I’ll compensate you for it if you’re caught.”

  Nick groaned curses on the other end of the line. “What are you hoping to find?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but for now, I want you to keep an eye on my accounts with Sal. I don’t trust him.”

  “You and me both,” Nick agreed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “And keep me posted. If he does anything strange, let me know.”

  “He’s one of the partners. Do you really think he has anything to do with this?”

  Tim tugged at his beard. “Out of everyone at the company, he’s the only one who seems not to like me. I’m not about to let him off the hook until he proves he’s not as big of an asshole as he acts.”

  “If he was embezzling funds, it would make sense to use your accounts to do it, I guess.”

  “But we need proof it wasn’t me,” he muttered. “Keep an eye on him and watch out for yourself.”

  “Will do. See you in the morning.” Nick hung up, and Tim tossed his cell on his bed.

  “Yeah, in the morning, when I may or may not still be a partner.”

  At least Harrison had faith in him that he was not behind the theft. As he spent the rest of the evening watching a cheesy romance movie and throwing back another few beers, his thoughts continued to wander to those first few moments of meeting her. The sound of her laughter brought a smile to his face, but he remembered the sudden flare of anger in her eyes and the way she immediately turned down his first offer for coffee. There was much more to this woman than the hard-ass detective he saw this evening.

  Seeing her again wasn’t simply about finding proof of his innocence. He wanted to know why such a strong woman appeared ready to break at the mention of being a crazy detective. Something had happened to her, and Tim wanted to find out what.

  Why? You can’t get close to this woman, remember?

  Maybe, maybe not, but he couldn’t simply let it go. With one glance, she’d managed to quell his anger and didn’t even flinch in the face of his rage, which typically sent others scurrying for cover. There was a time in his life when he saw bitterness every day and his job had been the only thing that pulled him out of it. It was his turn to help someone else get out of the same slump.

  He only hoped he knew what he was getting himself into.

  Chris parked her bike outside the brick and stone apartment building, grabbed the heavy messenger bag off the side, and trudged through the puddles on the sidewalk to the entrance. Thankfully, she was on the ground floor and the first apartment inside to the right. The sparse apartment greeted her with dark, cold arms as she swung the door open, dropped her things haphazardly in the front hall, and shut it behind her.

  She unzipped her left boot, hopping on her right as she struggled to pull it off, and did the same with the other. Tossing them aside, she padded down the hall to the kitchen, flipping on that light next. A few of the bulbs flickered overhead and she glared at them.

  “Buy lightbulbs,” she whispered to herself and yanked open the fridge.

  Leftover Chinese sat on a shelf beside a pizza from a few days ago as well as a six-pack of beer. None of it looked appetizing, so she slammed the fridge and threw her wet jacket over the back of two kitchen chairs left surrounding a table filled with dents and divots from her nasty habit of digging her pocketknife into the wood when she’d had a bad day. A dartboard hung on the far wall surrounded by holes in the wall from all her missed throws. She passed her bedroom and ducked into the bathroom instead, turning the knob for hot water. Steam filled the bathroom as she stripped out of her clothes and sank into the water up to her chin.

  Meeting Timothy Jones had not been as bad as expected, and as much as she didn’t want to admit it, the man intrigued her. He was nothing like Jeff, but she did see a bit of herself in him. The quick switch to anger when someone questioned his intentions and how seriously he took his job.

  That, however, did not make up for Chris stuck with yet another fraud case when she should be hunting down Jeff’s killer. The water near to overflowing, she turned it off and closed her eyes, willing herself to hear his voice call out to her from the kitchen. Or the bedroom, asking her how pruney she would let her fingers get before he would eventually come and collect her, laughing as he picked up her wet body and took her to bed. She scrunched her eyes so tight they hurt, but her memories of him slipped away until all she saw were her hands covered in his blood as he died in her arms.

  “Damn it,” she snapped, opening her eyes wide and glaring at the ceiling.

  Four years to the day since she lost Jeff, and the pain had not lessened, not even close.

  The bath did little to soothe her, so she climbed out, threw on a pair of sweat pants a
nd a tank, and lugged the bag of files to her kitchen table. The six-pack nearby, she started with the first one, the words blurring together as her focus waned. Merriweather meant well when he transferred her out of homicide, but the boredom of these cases was slowly killing her. Her phone dinged again, reminding her she had an unread message from Tim.

  Wondering what the man wanted already, she dragged her phone over and swiped her fingers across the screen. “Well, he’s certainly persistent,” she murmured.

  He’d asked her out for coffee again, insisting it was only to talk about whatever questions she may have about the files. She didn’t reply and turned her phone off in case he decided to message her again. Any other day, she might be willing to entertain the idea of coffee with a sexy, bearded man and what it could turn into. But not today.

  When her eyes went crossed from reading too much, she snapped the file closed, and taking the six-pack with her, she retired to bed, hugging close the pillow Jeff used to sleep on. She buried her face in the fabric, breathing in deep. The scent of the Old Spice he insisted on using was still there, lingering to remind her what she’d lost. Chris fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming of a very different day in that alley, a day where she’d saved him.

  Too bad when she opened her eyes the next morning, it was still only a dream.

  Chapter 4

  “Have some more, Chris,” Cheryl, Sergeant Merriweather’s wife said, offering her the plate of burgers again. “You hardly eat anything.”

  Chris shot a glare at her Sarge. “Is that right?”

  “I was merely making an observation,” he replied without looking her way.

  “My eating habits are none of your business,” she informed him but placed another burger on her plate. “I’m only doing it because Cheryl’s cooking is a hell of a lot better than mine.”

  Cheryl beamed at her. “Don’t I know it.”

  “One time. I set the kitchen on fire one time,” Chris mumbled as the two little girls opposite her giggled. She rolled her eyes but had to smile at the happy sounds of Merriweather’s daughters’ laughter. “Anything else your darling husband has told you?”