Keeping tabs on the Tremaynes or keeping tabs on her? “So you don’t care whether Jackson’s prosecuted for the theft of the crown?” Her head began to spin. What was going on here? While her job required her to be whatever—or whomever—Alastair wanted, her other jobs had been focused on things, on information. Not people. She didn’t do well with people, emotions. Connections. She certainly hadn’t been this close to one of Alastair’s marks before, but his behavior had become unpredictable in recent weeks. Her original orders had been to keep her ears and eyes open, pry where she shouldn’t, and report back. “I don’t understand. I thought you wanted—”
“I want Jackson Tremayne to pay for his crimes,” Manville blasted, and Laurel jumped at the vehemence in his voice. “Your understanding is not required, only obedience. If you can’t live up to your part of our arrangement, say the word and we’ll end things right now.”
Laurel squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers going numb around her phone.
“I’ll take your silence as agreement. Get to work, Laurel. You have a lot riding on this.”
She dropped the phone once he disconnected, shoved trembling hands through her hair. This job was supposed to be simple, just like the others: come in and question whether Jackson Tremayne was guilty of grand theft and let the chips fall where they may. His print had been found, but his alibi was good. Not infallible, but good. Except with each conversation with Alastair Manville, she was feeling more like a pawn in his private chess game. Something more was going on here; something larger, dangerous even. This situation was unlike any game she’d played before. What she wouldn’t give to be able to walk away.
Some days, today for instance, she felt like Charlie Brown kicking that stupid football out of Lucy’s traitorous hands. Every time she got close to her goal, someone moved the target.
But not this time. No, this time, when this job was done, she’d walk away from TransUnited Insurance and untie the leash Alastair Manville had knotted around her throat five years ago. Soon she’d be able to walk back in through the door to the only home she’d ever really known and begin again.
Soon, she’d be able to leave Laurel Scott behind once and for all.
But for now, she had something more important to take care of.
She hauled herself and her belongings up and hurried over to her desk where she flipped on her laptop and clicked open the online chat program to log in. She set her dinner on the table before she headed into the bathroom. She emerged from a quick shower minutes later rocking her plaid flannel boxer shorts and ratty Keith Urban T-shirt. She knotted her hair up with a black scrunchie that had seen better years, and waded through the pile of sweatpants, T-shirts, and socks covering the copper-colored carpet and dotting the unmade king-sized bed.
Her hotel room—whichever one she inhabited at the time—was her sanctuary, hence her built-in budget for paying the maid a generous stipend to leave her room off the cleaning schedule. Practicality aside, Laurel knew how someone would react if they walked in here and found the mishmash of charts, photographs, news articles, and smatterings of notes and Post-its taped onto the wall above the desk as if she were some kind of stalker or serial killer.
Serial killer? Laurel shrugged that one off. Stalker? She stopped unloading her dinner—a steaming cardboard container of stuffed cannelloni—and looked at the black-and-white photograph of the Tremayne family, unease prickling the back of her neck. Nathan stared back at her, that damnable grin striking like an arrow. All charm, that one. Charm she thought she’d prepared herself for, but coming face-to-face with the man had nearly knocked her out of her shoes.
The gentle strength in his hand when he’d held hers hinted at what she could see was a fit form. He’d been tall enough for her to look up to, but she preferred to meet a man eye to eye if she couldn’t look down on him. It leveled—or elevated—her playing field, and right now, she’d need every advantage she could get.
Laurel blew out a breath as she unloaded her dinner. Oh, that smile of his. Nerves she thought she’d trained long ago jangled to life as she recalled the way he’d looked at her; as if he were peeking behind the tailored curtain of her perfectly practiced persona.
Nathan Tremayne was a man who saw too much. For that reason alone, she should stay far, far away. She stabbed a plastic fork into the accompanying side salad.
If only she could.
How many days had she been waiting for an opportunity to connect with someone from the Tremayne family? Long enough she’d developed an affinity for Lantano Valley, California, a town she grudgingly had to admit was an oasis compared to her usual surroundings.
Since starting her job at TransUnited Insurance, there were few places Laurel had traveled to she’d liked and even fewer where she’d felt at home. Lantano Valley was . . . well, home was the only word she could use to describe the city nestled comfortably between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. Lantano Valley was as idyllic as promised. With its mixture of eclectic artist neighborhoods, middle-class communities, and welcoming atmosphere, the town could entice even the most jaded of individuals.
All the more reason to get out of town sooner than later. She didn’t need to know how perfect life could be here. She didn’t want to know. Taking down one of the most prosperous, not to mention most admired, families in Southern California would mean never being able to look back, but it would be worth it.
She looked down at the neon orange sticky note she’d tacked dead center on her board with her block lettering: freedom.
Once again, her gaze landed on the image of Nathan Tremayne and his picture-perfect family in the throes of wedding bliss as they celebrated the recent marriage of daughter Sheila to technology wizard Malcolm Oliver.
The nausea passed, as it always did, and the unease uncoiled in her belly as she popped open the pasta container and let the steam and promise of tomato, basil, and melting cheese distract her. Picture-perfect or not, the Tremayne family had secrets; if those secrets were the price they’d have to pay for her freedom, so be it. And nothing was going to get in her way.
No matter how charming Nathan Tremayne might be.
She settled in her chair, glanced at the clock on the computer and tapped the keyboard, awakening the screen just as the call bell jangled.
Laurel clicked to answer and the weight of obligation and the heaviness of the day dropped away at the sight of her six-year-old daughter, with her crooked gap-toothed smile and uneven red pigtails sticking out from either side of her head. “Hey, Jelly Bean.” Laurel swallowed around the tears in her throat as she reached out and stroked her finger against the screen. How long had it been since she’d touched her baby? Cuddled her? Stroked her soft hair? Held her while she cried, or even walked her to school? The longing lodged like an anvil in her chest as she struggled to breathe. “Did you have a good day?”
“I had an awesome day!” Joey’s green eyes went wider than her smile. “Poppy came with us to the railroad museum. Did you know he knows everything about trains?”
“I did know that.” Laurel leaned her chin in her hand and stared at her daughter. If she’d had any doubts her life as a system-locked foster kid would mean she’d be unable to love her own child, they’d vanished the instant this bundle of life had been placed in her arms. Arms that felt more empty than ever. “Poppy knows everything about everything. But first things first. Do you have your dinner?”
“Yep! Mac and cheese with broccoli.” Joey lifted the bright yellow bowl to the screen and picked up her fork. “Burt’s eating, too.” She waved the worn stuffed monkey that had been her companion ever since Laurel had sent it to her from England two years ago. “What do you have?”
“Pasta. And salad and bread.” Laurel lifted each in succession but refrained from revealing the miniature chocolate chip cannoli she’d surrendered to on her way through the bakery at J & J Markets. Another reason to leave Lantano Valley as soon as poss
ible. She’d gain twenty pounds if she kept eating this way.
“Before we eat, I want to see again,” Joey said in that tone that slipped around Laurel’s heart like a lasso.
“Again?” Laurel tried to laugh as she unplugged her laptop and carried it over to the window. Pulling open the curtains, she aimed the camera outside at Lantano Valley, the mixture of old and new architecture, buildings of all shapes and sizes arcing into the skyline and welcoming even those with less than pure intentions into its depths. “That enough?”
“I think this is my favorite place yet,” Joey announced. “When you come home and we decide where to live, I want to live there. Lantano Valley. I’m writing it down in my dream book tonight.” Laurel was glad Joey couldn’t see her as she blinked away tears. Anger mingled with cemented regret. All the time she’d lost with her daughter, every day that passed, if only she’d resisted temptation five years ago. If only she hadn’t stolen that sculpture and trapped herself in criminal servitude . . .
Laurel shook her head and cast away the lament. She’d never get back the time she lost, but she wasn’t going to lose any more. That said, when it came to showing Joey Lantano Valley again, she’d have to find a way to decline. She didn’t want her daughter getting her heart set on something—and someplace—that could never be theirs. “We’ll see, baby girl. Right now, I’m starving and I want to hear about your day. So get to it. And don’t leave out one detail.”
Chapter Three
“You’re going to need this.”
Nathan glanced down at the beer Malcolm Oliver pushed into his hands the second Nathan entered his sister and brother-in-law’s loft. The stacks of packing boxes and rolls of Bubble Wrap had yet to be utilized thanks to his sister’s indecision about where to move.
Never one to refuse a drink, or a warning, Nathan accepted the bottle.
“Mew.”
He glanced down to find Sherlock, his sister’s little black kitten—almost cat—kneading his leather loafers. The feline’s attention felt oddly calming after the chaos of the day. The open-air loft might have provided the peaceful retreat he’d been hoping for were it not for the bass-heavy music pounding from Sheila’s art studio in the spare room under the stairs.
“Jesus, I’m not that late, am I?” Nathan glanced at his watch and avoided Malcolm’s irritated look before he stooped down to scoop Sherlock into his hand. The cat nuzzled his head against Nathan’s arm and settled into the crook of his elbow, blinking sleepy arctic blue eyes at him. Nathan scratched Sherlock behind the ears and felt the vibration of the cat’s purr against his arm. He’d never been an animal—let alone a cat—person, but Sherlock had him reconsidering his solitary living arrangement. “On a scale of one to ten, how mad is she?”
“The scale does not go that high, my friend.” Malcolm toasted him with what appeared to be lime-infused club soda, looking more than comfortable in jeans, T-shirt, and bare feet. He’d dealt with a lot these last few weeks, not the least of which was the arrest and pending prosecution of his father Oliver Chadwick, for trafficking in stolen artwork. Malcolm’s dark hair had grown a bit shaggy, his complexion a tad pale, but there was a brightness in Malcolm’s eyes that eased Nathan’s mind. That expression, along with the gold wedding band on his finger, managed to pull a smile free from Nathan’s souring mood. “Trust me. If I wasn’t under doctor’s orders not to drink, I’d be nine sheets to the wind by now.” Malcolm headed into the gourmet galley-style kitchen and shouted over his shoulder. “I ordered takeout and I’m about to put it on the table, so see if you can pry her out of there, will you? Maybe then we can have a conversation that doesn’t include Jimmy Page screaming in my ears.”
Doctor’s orders. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that his longtime best friend and college roommate was gearing up for his second go-round with chemo for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. A certain uneasy knot formed in Nathan’s belly. The Tremaynes were more intimately acquainted with cancer than most families. Colin, the youngest Tremayne sibling, had died of leukemia, and not a day passed that Nathan didn’t wonder how his little brother would have turned out. Better than him, no doubt. Familiarity with a situation, however, didn’t take the sting—or the fear—out of a family member’s diagnosis. Times like these, Nathan’s pride for what his sister Morgan had accomplished in establishing the family’s pediatric cancer center expanded exponentially, proving without question she was the strongest of all of them.
They were all banking on the promising treatment Malcolm would start in a few weeks, but chemo of any kind wasn’t a cakewalk for anyone involved, especially not when it came to a recurrence. Adding the stress of Jackson’s self-imposed inquest, Nathan couldn’t help but worry for Malcolm’s state of mind, which no doubt was adding to Sheila’s anger issues.
“Maybe you should rethink going back to the Bay Area for your treatments,” Nathan shouted back before the loft went eerily silent. Malcolm let out a long huff of relief as Nathan’s ears cleared. “You don’t need the media crunch that’s about to land on us on top of everything else.” Which was why Nathan was determined to have any focus on his family removed.
Malcolm looked longingly at Nathan’s beer before shrugging one shoulder. “Nah. Sickness and health, remember? You guys are stuck with me. Besides, I’m fodder for the tabloids no matter what these days. Comes with the territory when they think you have more money than God.”
“Not God,” Nathan joked, wanting to ease the tension in the day in some way as Sherlock wobbled his way up Nathan’s arm toward his shoulder. “Bill Gates maybe.”
“Sherlock, that’s enough.” Malcolm swept around the counter and plucked the cat off Nathan’s arm and set him on the floor, where Sherlock rediscovered Nathan’s shoes and batted at a tassel. “As much of a magic touch with the feline persuasion as the feminine variety.”
“Yeah, right.” If only. A not so unwelcome image of Laurel Scott drifted through his overcrowded mind again, bringing to mind tantalizing thoughts of jasmine and endless feminine curves. Dark, chestnut hair that looked like silk spilling around Nathan’s hands. Distracting! Not to mention dangerous. As convinced as he was of his father’s innocence, Laurel had made no secret of the fact she believed Jackson guilty of stealing the crown. At least he hoped that’s all she suspected him of stealing. If she was sniffing around the Nemesis case, too, like Evan had suggested she might be . . . all the more reason to stick close to her for the time being.
“Yeah, right sounds about right,” Malcolm said with a grin. “What was that look for? And don’t tell me it’s the cat.”
“Definitely not the cat.” Nathan’s choice at this moment was obvious. Confide in his friend about the stunningly distracting woman he’d met less than an hour ago—a woman he very much wouldn’t mind getting to know better, were circumstances different. Or venture into Sheila’s fortress of solitude where certain death or at least a major dose of pain awaited him. “I’m, um, I’d better check in on Sheila and let her know dinner’s almost ready.”
“You do that,” Malcolm chuckled, looking as healthy and unburdened as Nathan had seen since his friend had returned to Lantano Valley. All the more reason to get his father and family in the clear. They had an even more important fight ahead of them.
Not wanting to leave temptation within Malcolm’s reach, Nathan carried his beer with him and knocked on the studio door. When an answer wasn’t forthcoming, he pushed open the door and poked his head in. “Sheila?”
“Yeah.”
Huh. After knowing her twenty-nine years, that was a tone he didn’t recognize. “Should I have worn protective gear?”
“An hour ago I might have said yes. Come on in.”
He stepped inside and closed the door. He saw bare, paint-splattered legs first, feet hooked on the rungs of a bar stool peeking out from beneath an enormous five-foot-square canvas perched on what Nathan considered an anemic-looking easel.<
br />
“Veronica came through as Dad’s lawyer,” he said as an icebreaker, glancing around the glass jars of brushes, flammable thinner, and more tubes of paint than Picasso probably used in his entire lifetime. “Not that she was happy to be dragged back into a criminal case. Told her she was the only one we could trust given the circumstances.”
“I’m betting you’re going to owe her a case of her favorite Bordeaux.” Sheila’s voice echoed from the other side of the canvas.
“Try two,” Nathan muttered. “But it’s worth it. Didn’t take her more than a couple dozen words and one document and poof! Dad was out. Not that he ever should have been in.” When Sheila didn’t respond, Nathan’s desire to defend their father reared. “There’s a reason behind what he’s doing.”
“Really?” Sheila poked her head around the edge of the canvas, blinking overly shocked green eyes in his direction, her lashes fluttering like a first-year debutante. She had paintbrushes sticking out of her mussed hair, spatters of blue and yellow paint on one cheek, and she’d been gnawing on her lower lip to the point she’d made it bleed. “Because I’d hate to think our father would have exposed the family, his business, the Tremayne Foundation, and the Pediatric Cancer Treatment Center to a publicity nightmare—not to mention a criminal trial—for the hell of it.”
Great. Sheila was picking up Morgan’s penchant for four-letter words. “Are you painting him in effigy?” Sheila painting at all was a positive step forward. Not too long ago grief had bottled her up and she’d stopped painting, and in the process nearly lost herself. Malcolm had been the one to pull her free, a debt Nathan knew he’d never be able to repay.
“What’s going on, Nathan?” The uncharacteristic fear in his sister’s voice scraped the edges of his heart. “What’s Dad doing?”
“Protecting us. I don’t have all the answers yet,” Nathan hedged, before he admitted to himself she needed to know as much as he did, at least. “But it seems as if our father has a past none of us knew about. He wants us to come to brunch on Sunday where he plans to explain in detail. In the meantime, I’ve got some feelers out to our connections, asking if anyone’s been contacted about the crown. If we can get a line on whoever stole it, we’ll be a step closer to getting Dad out from under. Whatever happens, Sheila, I’m going to take care of it.”
Trouble with Nathan Page 3