Dirty Little Secrets (Romantic Mystery) Book 1 in the J.J. Graves Series
Page 24
Rachel’s voice cracked on a sob, but she pulled herself together. She hated to show any weakness. Especially in front of a stranger. Valentines did not cry. Her father always told her their enemies would constantly look for vulnerabilities, chinks in their armor. So she’d stood dry-eyed next to her father at the funerals of her mother and sister, though she’d been dying on the inside. If she could hold it together then, she could sure as hell hold it together in front of Shane Quincy.
Rachel took a few minutes to gather her composure and was thankful Shane stayed silent. The rain had picked up and was coming down in blinding sheets, but Shane handled the truck smoothly, focused on the road ahead. She hadn’t seen him lose that focus in any of the situations that had been thrown at them so far.
She spoke softer as she continued. “Just as I was packing my things away for the day a Fed-Ex package landed on my desk. Someone at the front desk had signed for it and sent it up. Since it was sent to me at work I figured it was work related and shoved it into my briefcase. I didn’t give it another thought until I unlocked the front door of my apartment.”
“Let me guess,” Shane said. “Someone had searched your apartment.”
“Searched is too kind a word for what they did. They violated every inch of every space. Drawers were upended and furniture had been slashed to ribbons. My desktop was smashed to pieces on the floor and my laptop was gone. I took one look at the mess, turned around and got out of there.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t run into the person responsible.”
“Believe me, I know. I found out later that night on the news that my doorman’s body had been found in the alley with multiple gunshot wounds.”
“What did you do?”
“I took a taxi to the South Side and stayed in a dirt cheap motel until the next morning. I didn’t sleep a wink that night and jumped at every sound. When I opened the package that had been sent to me, I knew I held the power to destroy a lot of people’s lives. I think my father knew he probably wouldn’t live to see all the wrongs made right, so it’s up to me now.”
“That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone you love,” Shane said skeptically.
“My father was a good man,” Rachel insisted vehemently. “He’d want me to do the right thing.”
“So why are you in Louisiana instead of testifying before a grand jury, and how do you know that your father told Angelo he gave you a copy of the list?”
This guy was a hard nut to crack. It was a good thing Rachel wasn’t looking for sympathy, because she felt sure he didn’t possess the emotion. Her voice frosted over and was hard as ice when she continued.
“Because the police discovered a message when they found my doorman’s body in the alley. Angelo’s men had carved a warning into the poor man’s chest, demanding that I turn over the list or I’d be next. A news camera got it on film, and I saw the whole thing with the rest of the world on the ten o’clock news. The next morning I borrowed a car from the lot of the motel I was staying at and drove back to Chicago.”
“When you say borrowed, I take it you mean stole.”
“Are you going to let me finished the story or not?”
“By all means,” he said.
“I was at my bank just as they were opening, and I told the clerk I needed to put some things in my safety deposit box. My father made sure I was prepared in case something like this happened, so I removed a duffle bag from the box similar to the one you carry. It was full of cash and ID’s, an extra set of clothes and a couple of wigs. I made a copy of the papers and put the originals in the safety deposit box. I changed clothes and hair in the restroom and walked out the front door without anyone noticing.”
“I can put two and two together and assume you sent the copies of the papers you made to someone in Dallas. But that still doesn’t answer my question. How are you supposed to turn this evidence over to the FBI if you’re running away?”
Rachel looked at Shane and wondered not for the first time if she was getting more with him than she’d bargained for. She was out of people she could trust. The list had been short to begin with, but now most of them were dead, and she didn’t want to involve her two closest friends in anything that could get them hurt. Trusting a stranger might be her best shot at survival. Or Shane Quincy could be working for her Uncle Angelo and kill her for the large price that had been put on her head. Her instincts were failing her, and for the first time she wondered if she could even trust herself.
Shane noticed the sudden fear in her eyes but stayed silent, quietly driving the stolen truck along rutted and muddy paths. They’d be in Texas before they hit a highway that wouldn’t jar teeth or spew mud onto passing cars.
“You’re not going to get rid of me so easy now,” Shane said. “Whoever’s after you could have burned down my house and they destroyed my business. I’m in this for the long haul, so you might as well stay on for the ride.”
The quick show of fear she’d displayed disappeared. Shane felt her cool stare and the calculating gaze of her weighing the odds of putting her safety in his hands. He kept his grip relaxed over the steering wheel and waited for her to make up her mind.
“Fine, but I prefer to treat this as a business relationship.”
His curse was short and obscene, but she wasn’t rattled.
“Hear me out,” she said. “I don’t like being out of control, and I’ve never had much faith in my fellow man. In my world people don’t just do things for others out of the goodness of their hearts. But money, honor and pride are always important. Especially in my family. So it makes sense to hire you and your agency to track down the list and protect me when I hand it over to the FBI. There’s no reason I’d have to testify. I have no knowledge of any business dealings my father had going and don’t care to. We’d have a binding contract until I feel I’m in no further danger. And if you do happen to be working for my Uncle Angelo, just know that what I plan to pay you for your services will be far more than anything he could ever dream to offer you. Uncle Angelo doesn’t hold the strings to the Valentine bank accounts since my father’s disappearance. I do.”
Shane clenched his jaw and the throbbing pulse in his neck told him just how pissed off her proposal made him. He’d been through horrors she could never dream of, serving and protecting his country while watching his friends die. Did she think he knew nothing of honor? Of pride? But then he closed himself off to his anger and analyzed the real reason for being so upset, just as he’d been taught to do in the Marines. Yes, he was offended that Rachel didn’t trust him more, but he could hardly blame her for that when he hadn’t trusted anyone but himself in the last two years.
The problem was that he wanted her. All of her. He wanted to know everything about her. What made her tick and what made her laugh. And how her body would feel wrapped around his in the middle of the night. And if she paid him for his services, then his pride and honor would be at stake. Two things he’d never been able to compromise. Which meant that Rachel Valentine was off limits.
“Fine,” he agreed. “But you’ll have to be satisfied with a verbal agreement. Organization at my office is a little spotty right now.”
About the author:
Liliana Hart is the pseudonym for an author of more than a dozen books. She lives in Texas with her husband and cats, and loves to be contacted by readers.
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Links To My Other Books:
Dane
Thomas
Riley
Cooper
All I Want for Christmas
MacKenzie Box Set (includes the 5 books listed above)
Cade
Whiskey Rebellion
Whiskey Sour
Dirty Little Secrets
All About Eve
Paradise Disguised
Catch Me If You Can
Double Jeopardy
The Madam Duchess
Who’s Riding Red?
Goldilocks and the Three Behrs