So why did Beau Riley bring out the worst in her?
She knew the answer to that. He made her nervous because she was wildly attracted to his dark good looks and his solid strength, even though she knew how foolish it was.
Jen grinned again. “Now that was definitely a man-trouble sigh. Come on, spill. Who is he?”
“No one,” she lied. “You happily married new brides just can’t believe any woman in the world could possibly be content without an H-word of her own.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it. Married life is fabulous.”
“You’re lucky. You found a good one.”
Jen smiled, a slightly besotted look in her eyes, and Elizabeth returned her smile thinking of Jamie McKay, Jen’s husband, who had red hair and a boyish face and taught math at the high school. He was kind to children and puppies, likely never cheated on his income taxes and didn’t make Elizabeth the slightest bit nervous.
Jamie McKay wasn’t Beau Riley, though. When Jamie looked at her, she never once felt as if she’d been thrown headlong into the current of a wild, raging river and couldn’t manage to find a single safe handhold.
“Okay, if you’re not thinking about a man,” the teacher said, “does whatever’s troubling you have anything to do with Tina’s death?”
Jen knew about the circumstances of Alex’s mother’s death. She had been at lunch with them the week before when Elizabeth had spilled all to Grace Dugan and asked for her help, which had led to Beau.
“How’s the investigation going?” Jen asked.
“Fine. After class I’m meeting the…the detective who is looking into the case.”
Rats. She could feel the heat seep into her skin just mentioning Beau Riley and knew she must be blushing for the whole world to see. Jen was too sharp not to notice.
Sure enough, the teacher grinned. “This detective. Anyone I know?”
“He’s that friend of Grace’s she mentioned at lunch last week. Her partner at Seattle PD.”
“Oh yes, I believe I met Detective Riley before Grace had her baby. Bedroom eyes, hunky shoulders, calls everyone ‘ma’am’ in that slow, sexy drawl. Is that who’s helping you?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth mumbled. “That would be Beau.”
“It’s all making sense to me now.” She gave Elizabeth a teasing grin, then turned serious. “This detective, is he as convinced as you are that Alex’s mom didn’t commit suicide?”
“No. But he’s keeping an…an open mind, which is more than the other detectives were willing to do. They saw a stripper with a…drug habit and automatically assumed the worst. But they didn’t know her.”
“Neither did I. But she must have been someone pretty special.”
Elizabeth lifted her gaze from the construction paper pumpkins, astonished. The bare facts of Tina’s life that Jen had heard sounded sordid and harsh. “Why would you say that?”
“A few reasons. First, she gave birth to a sweet little boy like Alex, and when she found out she was in trouble, she had the courage and strength to find a better situation for him at Harbor View with you.”
She paused, then smiled gently. “And because something about her inspired such loyalty and devotion in her friend, who would go to any lengths to find out what happened to her.”
The pumpkins blurred to orange blobs as tears burned her eyelids. Oh, she needed that reminder. It didn’t matter how nervous Beau Riley made her, how much of a fool she made of herself over him, how awkward she felt. Tina mattered. Tina and Alex.
“Thank you,” she murmured to Jen.
“For what?”
“Giving me a little much-needed perspective.”
“Anytime. Now why don’t you tell me more about this gorgeous cop.”
To her vast relief, Elizabeth was spared the necessity of answering by the return of the children to the classroom.
* * *
She was late.
Beau took another bite of the chili dog he’d just bought off a street vendor and scanned the sidewalk in front of First Federal. No sign of any champagne-blond high-society types. Maybe her limousine had a flat or her round of golf at the country club went long.
No, that wasn’t fair. Yeah, he had a deep-seated prejudice against the rich and famous. He had his reasons. About twenty million of them, give or take a few million—the money his grandmother had loved above all else, the fortune she had sacrificed everything to protect.
The fortune she had left to her only surviving relative, despite the fact that he’d walked away from her when he was sixteen and never once looked back.
It all sat gathering interest in some fund administered by his grandmother’s trustee in Big Piney, Georgia, waiting for Beau to claim it. He never would. At least not for himself. He didn’t want it. He just had to find the right charity to dump it into and then he would be free of that monkey on his back.
No, it wasn’t Elizabeth’s fault that he’d come to associate wealth with amoralistic elitists who thought their money gave them license to get away with whatever they damn well pleased.
As much as he’d like to, he was having a hard time placing Elizabeth in the same category as his grandmother. Not when she played trucks with her nephew and cared so passionately about what happened to a tired, drug-addicted stripper.
He found a convenient pillar in front of the bank to lean against, then scanned the street for her again. He could wait a few more moments for her, then he’d have to get back to work or face Charlie’s wrath.
He was just about to check his watch again when he spotted a familiar figure. His squeaky-clean, eager-beaver partner was crossing the street toward him—at the light, of course. The kid had probably never jaywalked in his life.
“There you are!” Griff exclaimed, juggling a bowl of what looked like blobs of white goo. “Why did you run off? One minute you were there picking up that tube of nitrate poisoning, the next you were pulling a disappearing act on me.”
Beau scowled. It probably hadn’t been too nice of him to try to ditch the kid. Gracie would have his butt if she found out about it. The kid was his partner and they were supposed to stick together.
But damn it, he was meeting Elizabeth on his own time. This was his lunch break, and he sure as hell didn’t feel like baby-sitting for someone who ate bean curds and dressed like a young, upwardly mobile stockbroker.
“You’re a detective now,” he answered. “Trained to locate missing persons. Maybe I just wanted to give you a little test. See how well you would do.”
“Hate to break it to you, but you were fairly easy to find. All I had to do was follow the smell of congealed beef lips and here you are.”
“This is a work of art.” Beau took another bite of his chili dog and made a big show of enjoying every mouthful.
“Right. And that sound I hear is your arteries hardening.”
Griff leaned against the other side of the pillar. He wasn’t a bad cop. For a relative rookie, he had pretty spot-on instincts. Hell, under other circumstances, Beau might have even enjoyed being the senior partner, pushing his weight around, showing the kid the ropes.
But no matter how hard the kid tried, Griff wasn’t Gracie.
“So you want to tell me why we’re casing a bank? You got a night job I don’t know about? Like maybe moonlighting as the inside man to a bank heist?”
He waited to answer, not sure how much he wanted to tell his partner. “I’m waiting for someone,” he finally admitted.
“By any chance does that someone look like Grace Kelly and have legs a couple miles long?”
Beau followed the direction of Griff’s besotted gaze and found Elizabeth making her graceful way through the lunch-time crowd of businessmen with briefcases and women in suits and gym shoes.
He didn’t like the little hitch in his heartbeat at the sight of her. Didn’t like it one bit. He also didn’t like this urge he had to order his partner to keep his damn puppy-dog eyes off Elizabeth Quinn’s legs.
“You’re la
te,” he growled at her.
She nibbled her lip and looked away. “I-I’m sorry. After school Alex couldn’t find one of his favorite toys and he wouldn’t settle down for Luisa or eat lunch until we found it and by the time I changed my clothes we were too late for the f-ferry and had to wait for the next one and then we ran into road construction…”
She paused to take a breath, color high on her cheekbones, and he felt like a major hard case.
“I do appreciate your help and I’m very sorry to keep you waiting,” she finished.
“Did you bring the death certificate and the executor paperwork?”
Again she nibbled that scrumptious-looking lip. “Yes. I have them right here.”
She extracted them from a slim burgundy leather attaché and handed them over.
He studied the papers for a few moments, aware of the censure in his partner’s gaze at his abrupt tone. Looks like as long as they were teamed up, Beau would always be the one who got to play the bad cop. Griff just didn’t have it in him yet.
“This should do the trick,” he said after examining the documents. “I have the key here, so let’s get this over with.”
“Somebody want to fill me in?”
Beau glanced over at his partner. “Not really. You were supposed to be occupied with your tofu crap while I help Ms. Quinn here with a little business.”
“My tofu crap can wait. Ms. Quinn, I’m J. J. Griffin, partner to this ill-mannered primate. What kind of business?”
Elizabeth took his offered hand. “A friend of mine, Tina Hidalgo, was killed a few weeks ago under suspicious circumstances. Detective Riley has been kind enough to help me look into her death.”
“Oh, the strip—” Griff winced as Beau cut off his word by the simple but brutally effective method of grinding the heel of his boot over Griff’s preppy loafers.
“The exotic dancer,” Griff dutifully corrected himself.
“Yes,” Elizabeth murmured. “We found a safe-deposit key in her belongings and we’re here to see what’s inside.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Yes,” Beau growled at the same time Elizabeth shook her head.
“Of course not,” she said, with a warmer smile than she’d ever bestowed on him. He wasn’t sure why that smile made him so cranky—and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Annoyed and out of sorts, he led the way inside the bank and asked the first available teller who handled the safe-deposit boxes.
“That would be Teresa Myers. Over there.” She pointed to a woman of about forty with a teased red dye job and thick eyeliner sitting at a desk across the bank.
Again he took charge. “I’m Detective Beau Riley, Seattle PD. This is my partner, Detective Griffin, and Elizabeth Quinn. We need to look at the contents of a box belonging to Tina Hidalgo. I don’t have a number but we believe it’s located at this branch.”
She took the key from him and examined it. “Yes, this is one of ours. But, Detective, you know I can’t allow you access to any safe-deposit boxes unless you have a warrant or are accompanied by the box holder.”
“Ms. Hidalgo is deceased. And, yeah, we have her death certificate and this is the executor of her estate.” Impatient, he cut off the clerk before she had a chance to give her spiel.
After that Ms. Myers was all too eager to help. “What was the name again? Hidalgo, did you say?”
At his nod she typed a few keystrokes on her computer then pointed to her monitor. “Here we go. Tina Hidalgo, box 1684. It’s one of our smaller boxes. According to our records, she hasn’t been using it long. Ms. Hidalgo only registered for her box four weeks ago. On the first of the month. Does that information help?”
Two days before her death. He saw the fact as even more of an indication that whatever was inside the box was significant. “It could. Thank you. Can you let us in the vault now?”
“Yes, but I’m afraid I can only let two of you in at a time. I’m sorry, those are the bank rules.”
He smiled at her. “That’s no problem at all. Detective Griffin won’t mind waiting for us outside. It will give him a chance to finish his delicious lunch. Isn’t that right, Detective?”
His partner made a face but didn’t press the issue. The clerk picked up a master key then led them to a thick metal door, which she unlocked and held open for them.
Elizabeth hadn’t said anything since they approached Ms. Myer’s desk. She looked tense, apprehensive, her mouth in a tight line and her shoulders stiff. Probably scared to death about what they might find inside. He wanted to comfort her—at least give her arm a reassuring squeeze or something—but he wasn’t about to get kicked in the teeth again.
“Let’s see, 1684. That should be on the south wall, near the bottom,” the bank clerk said. “There it is, three rows down, fourth box from the left. As I’m sure you know, Detective, it takes two keys to unlock the box, the one you have and my master key here. After we open it, I’ll leave you alone to look through the contents. Ready?”
He saw Elizabeth draw in a deep breath and hold it as he stuck the key in the slot and twisted. Ms. Myers did the same with her master key, and he heard the snick of the tumblers releasing, then the small door swung open.
CHAPTER 7
“I’ll just leave you two alone now so you can look at whatever is inside. I’ll be right outside if you need anything else.”
Elizabeth barely heard the bank clerk. All she could focus on was the stutter of her heart in her chest and Beau’s hands on the small metal tray inside the safe-deposit box.
She was vaguely aware of the woman leaving them but she couldn’t see anything but Beau pulling out the contents of the box with what seemed like excruciating slowness. She wanted to tell him to hurry at the same time she wanted to tell him to shove it all back inside.
Within this simple container might lie all the answers to whoever had killed Tina, and Elizabeth suddenly wasn’t at all sure she had the strength to look inside.
The air was cool inside the small vault, probably to protect any heat-sensitive documents, and she shivered as Beau pulled out the contents. She couldn’t stand not knowing so she peered over his shoulder, then blew out her pent-up breath, deflated.
A few papers. That was it. Not money, not jewels, not rare coins. Just a letter and what looked like a bank savings account passbook.
“Oh. Is this all?”
Her disappointment must have filtered through into her voice because Beau sent her a small smile that managed to make her feel considerably warmer in the cool air. “Whatever they are, they have to be important somehow. Tina obviously was concerned enough about them to go to all the trouble of placing them here. If nothing else, it helps us draw a picture of the last few days of her life. At some point she visited this bank and opened a safe-deposit box to protect something she considered valuable.”
He paused and studied her for a moment then handed her the box. “Maybe you ought to have first crack at looking through whatever’s inside. She was your friend. She might have left you a message or something.”
These rare bouts of thoughtfulness from such an abrupt man completely disarmed her. The small, steady heat from his slow smile kindled to something considerably warmer.
“Go ahead,” she murmured. “You know the kinds of things that might be…pertinent to the investigation.”
He crossed to a small table and two chairs set up against one wall for patrons and took a seat. After a moment Elizabeth joined him across the table, focusing on steady breathing to calm her nerves.
She was suddenly painfully conscious of the fact that she and Beau were alone in this small, cramped space, and he seemed to be using up every available liter of oxygen.
She took a breath to settle herself down as Beau pulled out the passbook first. “Looks as if she had an account at a different bank. Washington Federal.” He opened the first page. “It’s in the name of Alex Hidalgo.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Alex? She had an account for Alex? She ne
ver said a word about it.”
“Maybe she started a college fund or something.”
Before she could answer, Beau turned the page to the most recent transaction on the account. His dark eyes widened and his jaw sagged. “Whoa! Hell of a college fund. According to this, there’s a hundred grand in the account. That should be some serious interest by the time the kid graduates from high school.”
“A hundred thousand dollars? That’s impossible! Where would Tina get that kind of money?”
Even before she finished asking the question, she knew the answer. Not precisely, maybe, but she knew Tina wouldn’t have been able to come up with that kind of cash through any legal means.
She and Beau had had a similar conversation a few days earlier, she remembered, when going through Tina’s things at Harbor View, about the appointment Tina had apparently made for Alex with Dr. Zacharias and the cochlear implant clinic.
She gasped. “Wait! Maybe this was the money she was going to use to pay the hearing clinic.”
“Maybe. But where did it come from? There’s only one deposit listed here, for the full amount. It was deposited the same day she secured the safe-deposit box, two days before her death.”
“It might have something to do with the letter.”
Again he paused, his gaze on her. “Do you want to read it?”
She shook her head. “Go ahead.”
As Beau pulled a single sheet of vellum from the envelope, something about the stationery niggled at her but she didn’t have time to think about it before Beau began reading in his deep voice with the soft, barely perceptible drawl.
“My dear,
I can’t tell you how your letter stunned me—and then filled me with indescribable joy. How I wish you had come to me earlier, at least once in the past five years. If only I had known, I would have done everything in my power to help you. You have to know I would never have left you to deal with such an outcome alone. I must tell you, Tina, you were a shining ray of joy during a dark time for me, and I am sick indeed that I repaid you so cruelly by abandoning you at such a critical hour. Still, I’m elated that you’ve decided to tell me the truth now. Of course I’ll help you, in any way possible. I’ve deposited the amount you requested in the account set up in the child’s name. I will respect your wishes to stay away for now and not complicate matters further, but I beg of you to reconsider. I want nothing more than to have a relationship with my son. And with you, if you can ever find it in your heart to forgive an old fool.
Safe in Your Arms Page 7