by Gina Wilkins
Tara heard something rustle in a corner, followed by what sounded like an animal squeaking. She lifted her chin and hid her fear, determined that she could act as casual about this as Blake.
A gruff voice spoke suddenly from the shadows. “Hey, Blake.”
Blake stopped. Tara looked cautiously around, but couldn’t see the man who’d spoken.
“Hey, Spider,” Blake answered casually. “How’s it going?”
“Can’t complain. You?”
“Oh, the usual. Someone’s trying to kill me. I think I’m being framed for a murder. You know...same old grind.”
Spider gave a raspy chuckle. “You really need to get a job with a bit more excitement in it.”
“Yeah, I was thinking of taking up accounting.”
“Like anybody would trust you with their money. What’s that you’re wearing on your arm?”
Tara glanced automatically at Blake’s arms, wondering what in the world the guy meant.
“This is my friend, Tara,” Blake answered, and Tara frowned in sudden comprehension. “Tara, say hi to Spider.”
“Hello, Spider,” she said a bit coolly.
“Nice to meetcha, ma’am. You a spook, too?”
“Tara’s not a P.I. She’s a lawyer,” Blake answered for her.
“Oh. A lawyet.”
The tone of revulsion in which the man repeated her profession made Tara’s frown deepen.
What might have been a faint ripple of amusement lay beneath Blake’s voice when he spoke again. “She just got fired.”
“You don’t say.” Spider suddenly sounded more approving. “Well, what brings y’all to my humble abode?”
“The Willfort robbery.”
“What about it?”
“I’m looking for the paintings,” Blake answered lightly. “Don’t care about the rest of the stuff, just the art.”
“Can’t help you.” Spider’s rejection sounded friendly enough, but firm.
Tara looked inquiringly at Blake.
“Can’t or won’t?” Blake asked.
“Can’t, Bubba. Ain’t no one knows where they are. At least, not so’s I’ve heard.”
Now it was Blake who frowned. “You haven’t even heard a rumor?”
“You doubtin’ my word, Blake?” The voice had gone very quiet.
Blake sighed loudly. “You know better than that, Spider. I’m just frustrated, that’s all.”
“Yeah, well...” The other man grudgingly accepted the implied apology.
“If you ask me,” Spider said after a moment, “there’s somethin’ fishy about that whole thing.”
“I’m asking you,” Blake said.
“No one’s talking about it. Matter of fact, everyone seems to be real careful not to talk about it, if you know what I mean. This ain’t no ordinary, everyday B and E.”
“So you don’t think it’s local?”
“Hell, I’m sure it ain’t. If anybody would know, it’d be me.”
Blake pulled something out of his jeans pocket, and laid it on top of a broken crate. “I appreciate this, Spider.”
“Hey, that’s what friends are for, man,” the disembodied voice drawled. “You take care, ma’am. Don’t let this rascal get you into more trouble than you can handle, you hear?”
Tara didn’t quite know how to answer that, since in her mind, it was already too late. She said only, “Goodbye, Spider.”
Blake turned and led Tara out of the building without another word.
THOUGH rr WASN’T significantly brighter outside, considering the heavy cloud cover overhead, it felt almost like stepping out of the night and into the day. The odors of the alley weren’t notably sweeter than those inside the old warehouse, but it was still fresh air. Blake inhaled gratefully, wondering how Spider could stand to spend so much time in that tomblike environment.
He released Tara’s hand so that he could open the driver’s door to the truck and let her slide in. Surreptitiously, he flexed his fingers, which had gone rather numb. He’d been impressed by how well she’d handled the admittedly strange encounter with Spider, but the way she’d gripped Blake’s hand had hinted that she wasn’t quite as calm as she’d acted.
“Are you okay?” he asked, turning to her as he got in behind the wheel and closed the door.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you,” she answered with almost humorous politeness.
“You weren’t frightened in there, were you?” he asked, his hand still tingling as the circulation returned slowly to his fingertips.
“No, of course not,” she replied, daring him to doubt her.
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned across the seat and settled his lips warmly, firmly on hers. And, after only a momentary hesitation, she responded.
By the time he drew back, she had lost that slightly stunned look she’d worn since they’d left the warehouse. She blinked as though just waking up from a bizarre dream—which only made him want to kiss her again. So he did.
“I really have to stop doing this,” he murmured against her lips.
“Yes. You really do.” Her voice was husky.
Reluctantly, he straightened, started the engine and backed carefully out of the alley.
His meeting with Spider hadn’t been as productive as Blake had hoped, but it had certainly given him some things to think about.
THE RAIN STARTED almost as soon as they were back in the truck. Torrents of it slashed across the windshield, accompanied by rumbling thunder and buffeting wind.
“Where are we going now?” Tara asked as Blake drove onto the freeway. She’d had to raise her voice somewhat to be heard over the storm.
“Another motel, I think,” he replied. “We don’t want to be combing the streets for information in this weather. And I’ve got a couple more calls I want to make. This time, we’ll find a place on the other side of Atlanta—Monroe, maybe.”
She nodded. She no longer questioned Blake’s cloak-and-dagger games. After meeting Spider—sort of—Tara was prepared for anything.
It was close to lunch time when they arrived in Monroe and spotted a likely-looking motel. A fast-food restaurant with a drive-through window was nearby, so Blake stopped there first, saying they would eat in their room, where they could talk in private.
Again, Tara waited in the truck while Blake rented a room. He wore his black cowboy hat again, and strolled through the rain with the same lanky-cowboy walk he’d feigned before. Tara wondered what name he’d given this time.
An odd feeling rippled through her when it occurred to her that she had just spent the night with a man whose real last name she didn’t even know. She was going to have to find out more about Blake before she trusted him much further with her life, she decided with a frown.
They managed to get inside without getting thoroughly drenched. Then they sat cross-legged on separate beds to eat.
“Where did you meet that Spider guy?” Tara asked as she unwrapped her sandwich.
“Around,” Blake answered vaguely, lifting a soda can to his lips. He took a drink, then asked wryly, “He’s quite a character, isn’t he?”
“To say the least.” She shook her head, remembering the bizarre encounter. “Why didn’t he want us to see him?”
Blake shrugged. “It’s just a little quirk he has. He’s, er, shy.”
“Yeah. Right.”
She ate a french fry, then said, “I have to admit, I didn’t understand half of what you guys were talking about. Did you learn anything useful from him?”
“Maybe.” Blake seemed to drift into his own thoughts.
Tara cleared her throat, determined to be brought up to date. “And...?”
“What? Oh.” He gave her a faintly apologetic smile. “Spider has what you might call an inside track on tracing stolen merchandise. Even if he can’t lead me right to it, he can generally point me in the right direction.”
“But he couldn’t even do that in this case.”
“Right. He hasn’t heard a word, and that’s
odd, considering how much was taken and how much publicity the robbery got.”
“He seemed to be implying that people are actually afraid to talk about the robbery.”
“That’s exactly what he was implying,” Blake said with a nod.
“If only we knew what the man at the gallery wanted to tell you about the robbery,” Tara said wistfully.
“We’ll just have to find out on our own,” Blake said bracingly. Then added with a bit less confidence, “Somehow.”
He tossed his trash in a wastebasket and reached for the telephone.
“Who are you calling?”
“I know someone in the insurance company who might have something useful for us.”
“But will you be able to reach him on a Saturday?”
“Good question.” He turned his attention to the telephone.
Deciding to give him at least a semblance of privacy, Tara busied herself clearing up the rest of the trash from their lunch.
She wondered if she should call her parents after Blake finished with the phone. She didn’t know what she’d tell them, but she certainly wouldn’t want them calling her apartment and having a strange man answer, assuming the jerk was still haunting her home, waiting for her to return. She shuddered at the very thought.
She didn’t expect them to call, since she’d led them to believe she would be out of reach for several weeks. She’d told herself she’d needed that time to pull herself together, to get on with things after the disaster at Carpathy, Dillon and Delacroix. Still, maybe it would be best to make sure.
Blake slammed the telephone down with a muttered curse. “Answering machine,” he said in response to Tara’s questioning look.
“I suppose you don’t want to leave this number.”
“That wouldn’t be my first choice, no.”
Tara sat on the edge of the other bed and ran a hand through her hair. “What next?” she asked wearily, feeling as if they’d been on the run for days.
Knees touching hers, Blake leaned forward and took her hands—a habit of his that she was beginning to like a little too much. “You holding up okay?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him without quite meeting his eyes. “I just hope you know what you’re doing by not going to the police.”
“Sweetheart, I’m not sure I know what I’m doing at all,” he answered wryly.
“What’s the worst that could happen if we go to the police?”
“We could be jailed for theft—if not murder.”
“They have no evidence.”
His eyebrow rose. “They have witnesses who saw us at the gallery, talking to the man who was murdered minutes later. Who knows what other evidence has been planted against us?”
“And if we don’t go to the police?”
“Then we try to find out what’s going on without letting the killer find us first.”
Tara supposed she should appreciate Blake’s honesty. He certainly wasn’t sugarcoating anything. But maybe just a little sugarcoating wouldn’t hurt?
No. She wanted the truth, she decided. She was no meek victim, needing to be protected from the facts. Though neither of them had intended it to happen, she had become a partner in this investigation—and she expected to be treated like one.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked again.
A loud clap of thunder prevented him from answering immediately. The lights in the room dimmed for an instant, making Tara hope fervently that there wouldn’t be a power outage.
“Maybe we should just wait out the storm for a while,” Blake suggested. “I’ll try at regular intervals to reach Bill—the guy from the insurance company. After that...we’ll play it by ear.”
They’d been doing that all along, as far as Tara could tell.
ANOTHER QUIET MOTEL room, the only sound the steady pounding of rain against the window. Another cozy area, where two beds filled up most of the space. Another stretch of time with nothing for Blake to do except watch Tara and secretly wonder what it would be like if they were to spend that time making good use of one of those beds.
Needing to burn his restless energy, he began to pace, his hands in his pockets. He wished idly that he had something to juggle.
Tara sat cross-legged on one of the beds, watching him. He could almost feel her gaze following him around the room, which seemed to get smaller each time he crossed it.
“Feeling a little claustrophobic?” she asked finally.
He stopped pacing and lifted one shoulder. “Maybe a little.”
“I’d have thought a P.L would be used to this sort of thing. Don’t most stakeouts consist of long hours of boredom and inactivity?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “But at least I feel like I’m in charge when I’m on a stakeout. I know what’s going on.”
“How long have you been a private investigator?”
“Close to ten years now, I guess.”
Tara’s eyebrows lifted, as though his answer had surprised her. “How old are you?”.
He didn’t mind the personal question. “Thirtyfour.”
“Oh. I thought you were younger.”
Leaning back against the dresser, with his legs crossed in front of him, Blake chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Still, you were very young when you got started. Was your father an investigator? A police officer, perhasps?”
Blake’s quick laugh was rough-edged. “No, my father wasn’t a cop. He would have been appalled at the very idea.”
Blake’s father hadn’t had a lot of faith in cops. Or in anyone else who represented stability and authority.
“Would have been?” Tara repeated, picking up on the wording.
“He died when I was barely fifteen.” Blake kept his voice light, but his smile had vanished.
“What about your mother? Is she still living?”
“They died together, in an accident.” An accident Blake still felt responsible for, after all this time. An accident that still haunted him at times when he let his guard down, or on those rare occasions when he thought wistfully of someday having a home or family of his own.
“Oh, Blake, how terrible for you. You were so young to lose them both. I’m so sorry.”
“It was almost twenty years ago,” he reminded her, uncomfortable with her sympathy.
“But it still hurts,” she said, a bit too perceptively.
He was silent for a time, then cleared his throat and answered candidly. “Yes. I still hate hospitals. My mom lived a few days after the accident, and I’ll always associate the sounds and smells of hospitals with her death.”
Blake shook off the painful memories. “What about your parents?” he asked, sensing that she wanted to make conversation. Maybe she was fighting a touch of cabin fever, herself.
“Still living in Honoria, Georgia, the little town where I was born. My father’s a small-town attorney, my mother’s a schoolteacher. We’re the respectable branch of the McBride family,” she added wryly.
Respectable. A word that had never been applied to Blake’s family. Which only served as another reminder of how differently he and Tara had been raised. “Is that right?”
“Oh, yes. Mom and Dad haven’t caused any scandals in thirty years. My younger brothers and I were almost perfect children. I went to Harvard. Trevor works for the State Department in Washington, D.C. My youngest brother, Trent, is a senior at the Air Force Academy. All in all, we’re a model of respectability, unlike the rest of the McBrides. Or at least we were—until I managed to get myself fired,” she added, apparently trying without success to keep the bitterness from her voice.
Sounded as though her family could have modeled for those Rockwell paintings she’d asked about at the art gallery. Or starred in one of those TV sitcom families Blake had watched—and sometimes secretly envied—as a child.
He looked at Tara speculatively. “You haven’t told your family yet about what happened at the law firm, have you?”
She looked away
from him. “No.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged.
“Are you afraid they won’t understand? That they’ll be disappointed in you?” He’d have thought a family like the one she’d described would have immediately rallied around one of their own who’d fallen on hard times. At least, that was what he’d always imagined typical families did.
She shook her head. “I know they’d understand, and they would be there for me, even if they were disappointed. I just haven’t been ready to talk about it yet. To anyone.”
She’d talked about it to Blake, a little, he couldn’t help thinking with a touch of satisfaction. He wondered what bothered Tara more—the loss of her position, or the humiliation of feeling as if she’d failed at something. “Did you like your job?” he asked.
She hesitated so long that he suspected she didn’t quite know the answer. “I didn’t dislike it,” she said finally. “It was a job, you know? I was good at it—despite the evidence to the contrary.”
“I never doubted that,” he assured her. “What happened?”
“I refused to sign off on something that a very important client demanded. It was a foreign tax shelter—very iffy. After researching it for months, I decided it was just too risky. I didn’t want anything to do with it. The client pitched a fit, the senior partners tried to pressure me into going along, and I refused. I thought, when it came to the crunch, my associates would back me. They didn’t.”
He scowled. “Even if you were right?”
She shrugged. “Their risk analysis showed that their liability wouldn’t be that great if everything fell apart. The client would take the fall...and there was a slim chance that I would take it with him. The partners would quietly pocket their huge retainers and look the other way. The client would just find some other attorney to do what he wanted, they said, and they intended to make sure that didn’t happen. So, they dumped me and promoted someone with a few less scruples.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I don’t know. I’ll hardly get a glowing recommendation from Carpathy, Dillon and Delacroix.”