Intrigue Me

by Leigh, Jo

  “Dr. Cassidy,” she said, holding out her hand. He took it, but he didn’t miss a second of her head-to-toe examination of him. “Heather Norris.”

  “Have we met?”

  She shook her head and then took a seat in the blue wing chair, crossing her ankles and resting her feet at an angle. “No, we haven’t. I admit I’m breaking the rules somewhat by coming to meet you without an introduction.”

  “What rules?”

  She didn’t shrug, but she did move one shoulder forward, which did interesting things to her bodice. “The Hot Guys Trading Cards. All those women scrounging for cards, it wasn’t for me. But I was stunned to find out that a man like you would make yourself available like that.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”

  Ms. Norris looked honestly surprised. “I was told all the men on the cards had to give their consent.”

  This was getting weird. “What cards?”

  She opened her purse and pulled out what looked like a baseball card. He was forced to go to her to get it, and he didn’t make it back to his seat when he really looked at it. His picture was on the front. His name and the clinic’s phone number were on the top right, another name and number on the top left. Josephine Suarez. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  The back of the card made him sit down. It was exactly what Ms. Norris had said. A trading card. But a damn weird one. It got his career right, but then it stated that he wanted to get married, that his favorite restaurant was a home-cooked meal, that his passion was using his skills to help people, and then came something called the bottom line, whatever the hell that meant. It said “Has a great heart.”

  “What the hell is this?”

  “You really didn’t know about the card? How is that possible?” Her confused expression seemed genuine. “Looks like I hired Lisa for nothing,” she murmured.

  “Lisa?” He studied the woman more closely. “Who are you?”

  She blushed. “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. I assure you, I would never have come here if I’d known the card was made without your consent.” She put her hand on the arm of her chair, but she didn’t stand. Instead, she looked at him once more, this time with an arched eyebrow and a hint of a smirk. “Do you have time for a drink?”

  It was just past 6:30. He would have said no in a heartbeat if she hadn’t mentioned Lisa. But she had, and he wanted to know why. “Sure.”

  18

  LISA KEPT STARING at her cell phone. It was after 8:00 and she still hadn’t heard from Daniel.

  She’d texted him twice since he’d told her he’d be home by now, and the second one had said Your place, I assume?, which he should have confirmed. Even if something was going on at the clinic or the Center, it wasn’t like him to leave things so unclear. In fact, she could think of only one time he’d been this late texting her about them getting together, and that was because he’d forgotten his cell phone in a different jacket.

  Maybe she should call him? Make sure they were still on for the night? After her talk with Logan, she’d been encouraged. Not enough to take her overnight things, though. History had taught her not to rule out Daniel’s decision not to accept her apology. If she’d been the one to suddenly discover he’d been using a false name and more, she’d be hard-pressed to forgive and forget. Unless there was a damn good reason.

  The only reason she had for any of her foolish moves was fear. Would he understand? Could anyone who hadn’t been through it truly know what it was like to be stripped to the bone of everything you’d believed to be sacrosanct? To find yourself with no means to eat, no roof over your head, no job? All at the hands of your best friend in the world?

  A number of people knew about what had happened to her. Everyone on the team of detectives working to find out who killed Tess and how she’d managed to do so much damage using one of the most sophisticated computer systems in the country. A few people had a good idea why Tess’s actions had led Lisa to resign from the NYPD. But she’d told her entire story to only one person, and that was her brother. He knew every last humiliating, devastating detail.

  Now she was going to tell Daniel. There were things she wanted to leave out but she wouldn’t. The story would make her look like a fool, but that was the deal here. If they were to be more than just friends with benefits, she’d need to start with a clean slate. He deserved to know exactly who she was and who she’d been.

  At least one troubling situation was behind her for the time being. She’d texted Heather, asking for a meeting tomorrow or the next day. Lisa doubted she’d still want her services. It wouldn’t hurt her feelings if Heather got angry. The woman was a cheater and money hungry to boot.

  Lisa checked her watch again. If he wasn’t there by 8:30, she’d call him one more time.

  Three minutes later, a taxi pulled up in front of his home. With fear in her blood, she stood up, panic warring with her attempt to act naturally.

  When she saw the look on Daniel’s face as he approached, her heart nearly stopped.

  * * *

  “I WASN’T SURE you’d be here.” Daniel unlocked his front door. He knew his voice sounded hard and distant, but there was no way he was going to pretend that he hadn’t learned the truth about Lisa, if that was her real name. Or that it hadn’t hurt him to the core.

  “I didn’t hear back from you.” She sounded like the vulnerable lover he’d felt so sorry for at the coffee shop. Was it an act? Had everything been an act?

  “I was meeting a mutual acquaintance.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  He stepped into his house, still not sure what to do next. “Heather Norris. Name ring a bell? Our conversation was very enlightening.”

  “Heather... She called you?”

  Daniel’s chest hurt. How much had he wished Lisa wouldn’t recognize the name. That she was innocent of Heather’s charges. “No. She came to the clinic. Showed me a trading card with my name on it. My real name. Pity I don’t know yours.”

  Lisa swayed to the right, and he readied himself to catch her if she started to fall, but he needn’t have bothered. He couldn’t be certain due to the quality of the outdoor light, but she looked very pale. He’d be pale, too, if he’d lied about who he was to someone who’d fallen...who’d cared about him.

  “I really do need to talk to you,” she said. “I had no idea Heather would contact you. I came here to explain—”

  “Maybe another time,” he said, not in the mood to hear more bullshit. “I’ll call for a taxi.”

  “No, wait. Please. I know you’re shocked and angry. I have no idea what Heather said to you. She barely knows me, and I don’t know her. But I do know you, and I’d like to explain. To tell you what I wasn’t able to this morning. Especially the parts where I was an idiot. And then I’ll go. No matter what you feel right now, please, I need to tell you.”

  He closed his eyes. He wanted her to come in. To straighten everything out so he could understand what she’d done, but he wasn’t sure that was possible. He’d tried to explain it all to himself, used the excuse that they’d run out of time when he’d had to go to the clinic, but for God’s sake, he’d taken her to his father’s grave and he didn’t know her name.

  He was probably subjecting himself to yet another round of torture, but he stepped back.

  She walked in, making sure they didn’t touch as she passed.

  Heather had said she’d fallen for Lisa’s spiel. The woman had been angry, and once he heard her story he understood why. The security firm Lisa’s brother owned looked completely legit. But Lisa had only taken her case in order to snag him for herself. Drain him dry and then move on to the other doctor on Lisa’s list.

  He’d known colleagues who had experienced precisely that. Dangerously good
actresses whose sole interest was money. So it wasn’t all that hard to believe, except... He clamped down on that thought. He had no idea who Lisa truly was, only what he wanted her to be. “I saw your website,” he said, as she made her way carefully to the living room.

  “You took down the airplanes.”

  Daniel’s hands fisted. “Don’t talk about my home. In fact, just...sit down. I’ll be back. I don’t think I can hear this without a drink.”

  The kitchen offered him a little relief. At least he couldn’t see her. Looking at her face, so familiar he’d been able to read every emotion in her gaze, was too much to handle. Ironically, he wanted to hire a private investigator to find out everything he could about Lisa McCabe. And Lisa Pine. And whatever other name she went by. Christ, he’d been a first-class idiot.

  He poured himself a scotch. It took a while for him to clear his mind. Images of her in his bed. Naked and gorgeous, falling apart as he brought her to climax. Kissing her until they’d both been breathless. How she must have laughed at him when she went home.

  He brought the glass to his lips, but didn’t drink. They’d had sex in the clinic. He doubted he’d lose his license over it, but it would be a nasty scandal. Maybe she meant to blackmail him. Too soon to tell.

  When he finally got it together, she stood where he’d left her. “Go ahead,” he said. “Say what you need to say.”

  Her face was as beautiful as it was tragic. No matter who she turned out to be or how real that expression was, he was so close to helpless around her that he had to hang on to his drink before he fell.

  “I told you a lot about what had happened to me when I was a detective. Every word of it was true. You won’t find it on any website, though, because the files at One Police Plaza had been breached, and they clamped down on that the moment they became aware. It didn’t happen only to me, but it did happen because of me.”

  Nowhere to look it up, then. As an opening gambit, that didn’t sit well. Daniel sipped his scotch and tried his best not to meet her gaze. He didn’t succeed.

  Interestingly, she didn’t cross her arms or try to cover herself in any way. Her arms were down at her sides where she rubbed her thumbs obsessively against the side of her palms.

  “The person who hacked the personnel files of five employees including me was someone I knew. She wasn’t working alone, but she sat at the helm of all the havoc. Her name was Tess Brouder, and she was my—” She took a deep breath. “She was my best friend.

  “We met in the academy. Bonded right away. There weren’t that many women in our group, but I think we would have been friends regardless. She was easy to talk to, funny, sarcastic. I helped her with the physical stuff—she wasn’t very strong, but she was determined. She helped me with the more personal side of things. We got an apartment together. Worked our asses off, but there was one thing we didn’t share.

  “I was hit on all the time. I don’t know why, except for the obvious, but it wasn’t just the guys in our class. It was instructors and goddamn people who should have known better. I didn’t realize it then, but I was still threatening. I understood it in high school and college, but I thought that part would change when I became a cop. It didn’t. I was a threat to other women, to men—especially those who were struggling in areas where I excelled. Looking back, I was naive. I kept my nose to the grindstone and did my best.

  “Tess was the only one I could talk to about it. But I didn’t think. It never happened to her. She was pretty in her own way, but she didn’t attract much attention. She was fierce in my defense and in chasing men away. She made sure we were together almost all the time. She made my life so much easier.

  “I’d never had a friend like her before. I would have done anything for her. I trusted her like I’d never trusted anyone. She knew my deepest secrets.”

  Daniel finished his drink. Her story sounded extremely familiar. Not getting hit on, but he knew the kind of men she was talking about, so he couldn’t find fault with that. But the trust thing? Lisa knew more about him than Warren. Than Eve. Maybe this was some kind of revenge. It wasn’t out of the question.

  Although, my God, she had to be an extraordinary actress because he could see the pain she was in. Feel it. Even after all he knew, he wanted to rescue her. Was it the power of her beauty? It certainly had been her looks at the start. He’d seen her and that was it—he wanted her. Maybe that had been the catalyst. That he was just one more dick who cared about her only because of her beauty. If that were true, he could almost understand it.

  “Then I discovered my bank accounts had been drained completely, my credit cards stolen and used in a way that even though the banks forgave some of it, I was stuck with a mountain of debt. Our rent hadn’t been paid in months. But I didn’t connect Tess with any of it. It never occurred to me that she was the only person who had that kind of access to my life. She acted as if she was as devastated as I was by the theft.

  “Unfortunately, the people who had to know what happened so they could investigate were the people I worked with. I was part of the team. No one could look me in the eyes. I tendered my resignation immediately. My brother helped me, but when I found out that it was Tess that did it...” She shook her head and looked away from him for the first time since she’d begun her speech. A moment later, she looked up again.

  “She was murdered, by the way. Executed. The reason hasn’t been determined. One thing the detectives discovered in the apartment where she was hiding was a flash drive containing a diary.”

  The last word had broken, and it looked as if Lisa was broken, as well. It would have been so easy to hold her. Soothe her. But he still couldn’t understand what that trading-card thing was about. What he’d heard from Heather. Why Lisa had come to the clinic at all, when Heather had paid for only an internet search.

  If all this was true then she’d had plenty of time to tell him that she’d given him a false name. Why wait so long? Had she planned never to tell him? Was she finally talking because Heather spilled everything?

  He’d honestly thought he could love Lisa. He probably already did. Otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt this much.

  “I—”

  “Just wait. I need time to think.”

  She paused, bit her lower lip. He wished she’d stop.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “That’s basically it. I came to the clinic because your education didn’t make sense. I had no intention of volunteering until you asked what I was doing there. Then, I don’t know, I got scared and used my mother’s maiden name instead of McCabe.”

  Her attempt at a smile nearly did him in. “It was supposed to be a fling. My first attraction in years, and definitely the first since I’d holed up in my efficiency. You were there for the rest, except the part where I realized I was falling for you. That was scary, but then, almost everything was. When you changed the rules on me, I don’t know. It all caught up with me. I thought the name was the least of it.” She sighed and tears traced down her cheeks. “There’s no reason for you to believe me. I don’t even blame Heather for whatever she did.”

  “Can you at least explain about that? About Heather?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I’m sorry. I can’t talk about a client.”

  He chucked out a bitter laugh. “What, private-detective-client confidentiality? That’s a new one.”

  She seemed to be held together by sheer will. She wiped her face clean as she walked to the couch, but she didn’t look at him until after she’d taken her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “I hope you can believe that I’m sorry. You’ve been wonderful. I was actually—” Her shoulders fell. “I’ll find my way home.”

  He stood, but he didn’t move. She did, though. She walked out and closed the door behind her.

  The urge to give chase was there in his chest, all the way to the bone, but he honestly didn’t know if he could trust h
imself around her.

  He wanted to believe everything she’d said. He could almost hear his father laughing at him.

  * * *

  THE TEXT ON Lisa’s monitor blurred. Again. Damn tears and the way she couldn’t turn them off. It hadn’t helped that she’d stayed up all night, going over and over what she’d done wrong.

  The words from Tess’s diary had spelled it all out. Her “friend” had listed her faults in stunning detail. Lisa had tried not to believe them at the time, but now they came back to mock her: Selfish. Thoughtlessly cruel. Egotistical. Narcissistic. The most repeated accusation was that every achievement of Lisa’s hadn’t been an achievement at all. Just others letting her win. Teachers giving her higher grades than she deserved. Men wanting her because of her looks and nothing more.

  She wasn’t convinced she was all of those things, but some of them made her squirm.

  Although...Daniel wasn’t some idiot to be manipulated. He was brilliant. Far more brilliant than anyone she’d ever met. He might have had sex with her because he was attracted to her, but why on earth would he take her to his father’s grave if she was nothing but arm candy?

  And why had he believed her yesterday at the coffee shop and not last night? What had Heather said? Despite how it looked, Lisa had meant no harm. By any other name, she was still Lisa. And her heart was just as vulnerable.

  He’d surprised her yesterday. All she’d wanted to do was tell him the truth, but then he was gone, and she hadn’t had a chance to tell him everything. Now, of course, she realized she shouldn’t have said anything until she’d had time to think.

  That was what he’d asked for. Time to think. And all she wanted was to stop thinking. Everything in her hurt. Her bones, her muscles, her skin. Her eyes burned; her lower lip was a wreck. She’d thought she’d lived through the worst pain of her life. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She’d tried so hard not to love him. But she’d failed at that, too.