To Laney, With Love

by Joyce Sullivan

  And he wasn’t leaving her alone. At least not until he got her safely back home to Ottawa and Josh.

  “Face it, Forbes, your life is a mess,” he muttered darkly. At least the boys were okay and safe with his mom.

  But how he was going to get through the next few days—or the next week—sharing a hotel suite with Laney, he had no idea. He couldn’t be in the same room with her without touching her. Sooner or later she’d begin to suspect how he felt about her. Hell, maybe she’d made that sudden declaration last night out of reaction to their all-too-brief kiss two nights ago.

  Ben splashed water on his face and hoped a cup of black coffee would improve his mood. At least they’d be driving the Sea to Sky highway in daylight. It would be easier to keep an eye out for trouble.

  But the only trouble Ben experienced as they drove to Vancouver in the dented sedan was in making conversation. He’d never been so tongue-tied. So afraid of saying the wrong thing. It was a relief to arrive at the rental-car agency and deal with the practicalities of filling out the incident report and being issued a new car. Checking out the arrangement of the buttons on the dash of the replacement sedan gave him something harmless to talk about at every stoplight on the way to Connoisseur Specialty Wines.

  Still, despite his resolve to keep his distance, he couldn’t prevent himself from hustling around the car to open her door. Or protectively settling his hand on the small of her back for a fraction of a second as he ushered her inside the office building. Old habits died hard.

  He even tried to open the door to Graham Walker’s company for her, too. Tried, anyway. The etchedglass door was locked.

  Laney knocked on the door. “Maybe Dallyn Vohringer closed up for today out of respect for Graham.”

  Ben peered through the glass, noticing the reception area was lit only by the natural sunlight streaming through the window. Then he noticed the empty display case and the empty space where the word processor had been on the receptionist’s desk. The reception area had a vacated air. “Cleared out is more like it,” Ben said.

  “What do you mean?” Laney pressed her nose against the glass. “Oh, my God. Do you think he’s skipped town?”

  “Possibly. Either that, or the police did a search and seized everything. Let’s try the office next door. Maybe they’ll know what happened, or they’ll let us use a phone to call McBain.”

  They were about to enter the neighboring dentist’s office when a hostile voice stopped them in their tracks. “You have a lot of nerve. What are you doing in my husband’s place of business?” Kristel demanded with cold fury, hugging a stack of empty cardboard boxes to her chest.

  Ben had visions of a catfight erupting in the hallway as Laney squared off against Kristel. “We’d hoped to have a word with Dallyn Vohringer, but he’s obviously not here.” Laney went on to explain the vacated state of the office.

  “Nonsense!” Kristel marched past them to the office door. “Of course Dallyn’s here. He’s expecting me. We have an appointment. He probably decided to give me a hand and packed up some of Graham’s belongings on his own.” Juggling the boxes with one arm, she rattled the knob, her eyes scanning the reception area as if she expected Dallyn to appear at any second.

  He didn’t.

  “Do you have a key?” Ben asked.

  Kristel dropped the boxes. They landed on the carpeted hallway with a soft thud. “Of course, I have a key.” She dug into her purse, her face pale and pinched above the collar of her black turtleneck sweater. She wore a black wool blazer, matching slacks and high-heeled pumps. “I brought Graham’s keys with me just in case. We’ll just see what’s going on. I talked to Dallyn yesterday on the phone. He specifically asked me to come at eleven.” Kristel stuck the key in the lock.

  A thorough search of the office indicated that everything was gone except the heavy pieces of furniture, the phone books and the company stationery. Nothing personal had been left behind in Graham’s office. The photo on the desk had disappeared, as well.

  “I can’t believe Dallyn would take all Graham’s things,” Kristel murmured, grasping the edge of the desk for support. “Maybe the office was burgled.”

  Ben decided Kristel had led a far too sheltered life. “Thieves usually leave a mess and some sign of forced entry,” he said dryly. “If the police didn’t do this, I’d say Dallyn had a hand in Graham’s murder and he left because he has something to hide. We should call McBain right away.”

  Kristel produced a cellular phone from her purse, but she insisted on trying Dallyn’s home number before Ben contacted the police. There was no answer. Laney asked if Kristel could call the receptionist, but Kristel informed them that calling Bree would be redundant, since Dallyn and Bree were living together.

  Ben felt his anxiety increase as he was patched through to McBain. McBain told him the police couldn’t have already searched the office because they were waiting for the judge to sign the search warrant. Ben swore softly, seeing the chance of finding Graham’s or Reese’s killer slipping away from them. Dallyn could be anywhere by now. Had he done such a meticulous cleanup job to hide evidence? Or did he plan on setting up shop in another city?

  “Wait a minute, I have an idea,” he told McBain. “I heard Dallyn mention a warehouse when we were here the other day. Maybe we can find him there. He could clear out his office overnight, but it might take longer to empty a warehouse. Let’s hope Dallyn isn’t the type to walk away from tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of wine.”

  Ben heard the rattle of papers over the line. “What warehouse?” McBain groused. “We don’t have any information about an address for a warehouse belonging to the company.”

  “Hold on.” Ben turned to Kristel. “Do you know where the warehouse is?”

  “It’s on the waterfront. I’ve never actually been there,” she admitted. “Graham pointed out its general location to me once when we crossed over the Second Narrows Bridge. I think I know which street it’s on, but I don’t know the name.” Determination lit her pale features. “I’m sure I could find the street if I drove over there. I don’t want Graham’s killer going unpunished.”

  “Good enough. We’ll follow you,” Ben said, noting Laney give Kristel’s arm a faint squeeze. If Dallyn Vohringer had killed Graham, then Kristel was as much a victim as Laney.

  Ben addressed McBain on the phone and told him they’d touch base as soon as they had a street name or a location. McBain said he’d have some men dispatched to the general area.

  Ben and Laney followed Kristel’s sinfully red sports car through the Gastown and Chinatown districts. She finally pulled over on Wall Street and parked her car. Ben parked behind her and helped Laney out of the new rental car.

  Kristel gestured at the corrugated metal warehouses and dockyards lining the waterfront as they joined her on the sidewalk. The Burrard Inlet looked like a rumpled gray blanket beneath the cloudy sky. “I think it’s somewhere around here,” she said.

  Ben squinted at the company names painted on the warehouses, most of them weathered by the sea air. Not a Connoisseur Specialty Wines sign in sight. There weren’t too many people in sight, either. “Let’s start knocking on doors,” he suggested.

  They split up, maintaining visual contact for safety. Laney and Kristel took the west side of the block, Ben took the east. Ben asked questions at four different places before he came upon a derelict tucked out of the salt-tanged wind in a niche between the wall of a building and a Dumpster. The elderly man in green khakis, mismatched running shoes and a stained navy raincoat unbuttoned over a tweed sports jacket, was curled up on a bed of yellowed newspapers, the neck of a plastic bottle sticking up from a scrunched brown-paper sack he held in his hand. The man opened his palm as Ben passed. His eyes were a dull, muddy brown; his beard, gray-streaked and sparse.

  “Got any spare change, mister?” The man’s arm trembled.

  Ben dug in his pocket, knowing he shouldn’t, that the old guy would probably buy more of whatever was in that bott
le rather than a square meal, but he couldn’t walk by and pretend he’d never seen him. He bent over and dropped ten dollars worth of coins in the old guy’s hand. The old guy had been somebody’s son. Was maybe somebody’s father. The chapped, gnarled fingers curled around his shiny booty.

  “Bless you,” the man muttered.

  Ben shook his head. “No, bless you.” He crouched down to the old guy’s eye level. The smell from the Dumpster was past ripe, but Ben had smelled worse at landfills. “This is a pretty good spot you got. You wouldn’t happen to have noticed any crates of wine being delivered to a warehouse around here, would you? Maybe they throw stuff out—broken bottles you find in the garbage.”

  “Who wants to know?” the man asked suspiciously. He tucked his booty protectively in his pocket. “You police?”

  “Who me? Nah. My hair’s too long. I’m just making a delivery for a friend and I think I should have written down the address. I sure as heck don’t see no Connoisseur Specialty Wines along this street.”

  “Con’seur, hey, hey.” The man snorted and pointed down the block. “It’s over thataway, son. There ain’t no sign, but it’s the dark green buildin’ with the black stripe. The door’s around back. But I wouldn’t recommend you drink that ’spensive stuff. I’ve had better-tasting vinegar. Give me a three-star sherry any day.”

  “Thanks. You saved me a lot of trouble.” Ben rose and slipped a twenty out of his wallet. The old guy’s eyes widened as Ben held it out to him. “Spend it on some food to go with the sherry, okay?”

  “Hey, hey.” The old guy burst into a creaky song as Ben jogged down the street to tell Laney and Kristel he’d located the warehouse.

  He was relieved to see Laney and Kristel being moderately civil to each other. They called McBain on Kristel’s cellular phone and advised him of the possible location. Together, the three of them skirted the green building to the door at the rear to await the police. There were no vehicles parked in the lot. And no windows to peer through to see if anyone was inside.

  “How do we even know this is the right building?” Laney whispered, when Ben tried the door marked Office and discovered it was locked. The wide delivery door was padlocked, as well.

  “That wino probably sent us on a wild-goose chase,” Kristel said, her mouth drawing into a tight frown. “We could be wasting time.”

  Ben stared at the lock, thinking. Had the old guy sensed a sucker and misled him? “Let’s try Graham’s keys. Maybe one of them will fit.”

  The fifth key he tried fit the office door and turned in the lock.

  Ben opened the door partially, then paused.

  “What are you waiting for?” Kristel asked. “Let’s go.”

  Ben looked at Laney and abruptly closed the door. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “Who knows what we’ll find inside? Laney’s already been set up once. This time we’ll wait for the police and let them handle it.”

  Chapter Ten

  The warehouse was deserted. Dallyn Vohringer had cleared it out, too, leaving behind a row of tables and chairs and a few empty cardboard boxes. In frustration, Ben kicked at a computer cable on the concrete floor. Vohringer’s timely disappearance put Laney farther down on the list of suspects in Graham Walker’s murder, but Ben would have felt a lot better if Dallyn was in police custody.

  “Are you sure the door was locked, Ben?” Kristel asked as she surveyed the warehouse.

  Ben stiffened. “Yeah, I’m sure. The key fit. You can try it yourself.”

  “This can’t be the right place,” Kristel insisted. “Wine must be stored under carefully controlled conditions and I don’t see any evidence of those measures being employed. The temperature would fluctuate too greatly in a building like this.”

  “Maybe Dallyn took it all with him,” Laney suggested, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

  The RCMP constable from the Vancouver division, who seemed to be in charge, inserted himself into the conversation. “May I ask why you were at Connoisseur’s offices this morning, Mrs. Walker?”

  Laney clenched and unclenched her fingers in her jacket pockets as she listened to Kristel’s tearful recital of how she’d made an appointment with Dallyn to collect her husband’s belongings. The woman was a fine actress. She’d even earned Ben’s sympathy. But Laney couldn’t help wondering why Kristel was in such an all-fired rush to collect Graham’s belongings? The man hadn’t even been buried yet.

  Come to think of it, Laney wondered if her husband’s other wife hadn’t been leading them around by the nose the whole time. But then, how could Kristel know they’d planned to visit Connoisseur Specialty Wines this morning?

  “What about you and Mrs. Dobson?” the officer asked Ben and Laney.

  Casting a glance at Kristel, Laney explained to the strapping blond officer that she’d wanted a second look at a photo on Graham’s desk. “I thought the photo might prove Mrs. Walker wasn’t being completely honest with the police and knew Reese before he’d faked his death. She may have even assisted him.”

  Kristel gasped. “How dare you insinuate such a thing! I met Graham in March.”

  Laney wheeled on her. “I’ll dare anything to get to the truth so I can go home to my little boy and tell him what’s become of his father.” Laney told her about the watch she’d seen Graham wearing in the photo.

  “That’s your evidence? Graham owned several watches.” The condescending sarcasm in Kristel’s voice gave Laney hackles. Laney knew the woman was lying through her pearly teeth and perfect lipstick. She just wished there was some way to prove it. Too late, Laney realized that even if the photo wasn’t missing, the matching watch had been in her jewelry box and had been stolen during the burglary of her home.

  To herself, she sounded like a bitter ex-wife. And jealous. And Laney didn’t like the feeling one bit.

  Yes, she’d see this situation right through to the end. Then she’d put it behind her and start looking to the future. Maybe date again. Perhaps marry again. She had no idea what the singles scene was like, but there had to be tons of men out there—equally as appealing as Ben—who’d make great stepdads for Josh. Before she knew it, she could be on a romantic Alaskan cruise herself, dancing the night away on the deck of the—

  Laney smiled to herself as the name of the cruise ship she’d seen emblazoned on the life preserver in the photo of Graham and Kristel popped into her mind.

  This was one little pertinent piece of information she could hardly wait to share privately with McBain.

  McBAIN PROMISED to check out the passenger lists for the cruise ship when they stopped by the RCMP detachment in Whistler on their way back to their hotel. He also informed them that they’d verified the warehouse on Wall Street was rented to Vohringer Imports and Exports. An APB had been issued for Dallyn Vohringer, but they hadn’t had any luck in tracking him down yet.

  “However,” McBain added, “we thought you might like to know we noticed something odd about the silverware we found on the dining-room table. It doesn’t match any of the flatware found in the rest of the house. Mrs. Dobson seems fairly certain she didn’t touch the silverware on the table, so on a hunch we sent someone up to Christine’s. And bingo, it’s from their restaurant.”

  Laney tried to assimilate what McBain was driving at. “Someone stole it from the restaurant after I left?”

  McBain nodded. “That’s what it looks like. It’s possible your husband showed up for his lunch with you and left when he noticed this person. It also explains why he sent you a message via the young woman.”

  Laney felt the load of guilt she’d been carrying lessen somewhat. So Reese hadn’t left specifically because of Ben. And judging by the romantic mood in the chalet when she’d arrived, Reese had been looking forward to their reunion. There was some comfort in that, at least. Though, who knew how much Reese had planned, and what the killer had contributed.

  “So it couldn’t have been Kristel,” Ben said. “Reese would never have dared inviting Laney over t
o the chalet if he suspected Kristel was following him. But Reese might not have wanted to be seen by his business partner when he was supposed to be in Europe. Which leads us back to why Dallyn would want to kill Reese in the first place. Maybe the loan Reese gave him came with a price Dallyn didn’t want to pay anymore.”

  The meeting ended with Laney feeling optimistic that the police were on a more realistic route to arresting Graham Walker’s killer. The thought Dallyn might have gone so far as to break in to her home to set her up was creepy, but one she found more tolerable than being imprisoned for a crime she hadn’t committed. For the first time in days, Laney slept deeply and awoke just before noon to the delicious smell of richly roasted coffee and cinnamon French toast.

  Ben had ordered in room service for breakfast. Laney tightened the sash of her mint-green plush robe around her waist and tried to ignore the leaping flutter of her pulse when she entered the communal area of their suite and saw him at the table, his head bent over the sports page. His midnight hair was slightly damp, the ends curling at the back of his neck. He wore a blue sweatshirt and jeans.

  A bout of longing hit her in the solar plexus. Laney pasted a confident smile on her face, told herself she was being ridiculous, and marched toward the table as if having breakfast with Ben was an everyday occurrence in her life. “Hi, can anyone join the party?”

  “Sure, it wouldn’t be a party without you,” Ben rejoined with a grin. An utterly adorable speck of powdered sugar clung to his chin. “Sit down, I ordered plenty. I noticed you haven’t been eating much lately.”

  Sexy and considerate. Laney decided no single woman could resist the impact of Ben’s smile when she was clothed in anything short of a suit of armor. Beneath the soft folds of her robe, she could feel her breasts grow heavy with golden heat.

  “Looks like you’re already throwing confetti,” she said, playfully dabbing at the powder on his smoothshaven jaw. But her teasing laughter died in her throat when her gaze locked with Ben’s.