by Dale Mayer
“Good,” she said with spirit. “How do you think I ended up in Sticks’s arms in the first place?”
“I just wish you’d ended up in my arms instead…” he muttered. “That’s where I wanted you to be. I wasn’t impressed that you were with him.”
She smiled, a part of her heart and mind that had been determined to stay apart started to melt. “And that’s where I wanted to be. But you were part of that world and I wasn’t staying there.”
“And you did something I always wanted to do – you managed to leave.”
“Sorry.” That was a sobering thought. It must have been hard for them to see her pop in and out like she was out on a jaunt when they were stuck in that world. “That was a tough childhood for you. At least you got out eventually.”
He shrugged and placed the laptop and file folders on the floor beside him. “See the good thing about that – is it’s over. I survived and grew out of that stage and made something of myself in spite of it all.”
“And where does that leave us now?” she asked curiously.
He caught his breath.
She didn’t have to be psychic to feel the air crackle and the atmosphere suddenly heat up. Damn he was hot. And she wanted him…like now…
“Where ever we choose to be.”
Her lips quirked as he sidestepped the issue.
“Scared?” She slid closer, shoving the bedding back and coming up onto her knees. “I promise to be gentle.”
His gaze widened in shock, and a half laugh snort escaped. “Really? Are you sure about this? Like maybe wait until you have a better idea of who you are and what you want at this stage of your life?”
Her grin widened. “I am married and living with my husband while I heal from the traumas I’ve recently experienced. Both physically and mentally. I’m sure psychically is another level of damage.”
“You are, and recovering is the important term here.” But his gaze was hot and his voice strangled.
She had to consider his note of caution. “I am better and getting better every day.”
“But not fully healed.” He took a deep breath as if trying to interject some control into the situation. “And not fully aware yet of the choices in your life and the events that brought you here to me.”
“Ha, I tried to get to you a long time ago.” She stared around the room and wondered if he was right. She wanted him sexually, but how much of that was a good thing. Did she want him because he’d saved her? No, because she’d wanted him a long time ago… So what was the right step to take now?
With a heavy sigh and shooting him a disgruntled look, she said, “You know being too reasonable and sensible isn’t good for the soul.”
It was his turn to smirk, but there was a calming of the heat in his eyes, regret was there too. Did she want to push it? Or was that taking advantage of the situation? And maybe she should let things happen in their own time.
Damn it.
She flopped back into the bed, her head hitting the pillow with more force than necessary and groaned. “Fine then. Don’t make love to your wife,” she snapped in a laughing tone. “See if she cares.”
“Is my wife protected,” he asked in a strained tone. “Because I sure as hell didn’t think to bring condoms with me.”
She froze. Then rolled over to look at him. “I have no idea.”
“Exactly,” he said ruefully. “And I’d love to make love to my wife, but at the moment my wife isn’t exactly sure who she is.”
Hannah laughed. “Details, details.”
He grinned and reached over to turn out the light. He snuggled under the covers beside her.
After a moment she said, “You’d better add it onto the list.”
A thick silence filled the air.
“Add what?”
“The doctor’s visit so I can find out what I need to do.”
And just in case he was going to be obtuse, she added, “So that you can make love to your wife.”
He snorted. “What if I said my wife can make love to me any time?”
“I’d be riding in less than five minutes.”
“Fuck.” But his voice was strained, guttural.
“Exactly.” She smirked and happy now, said, “Sweet dreams.”
And closed her eyes.
*
He might never sleep again. His mind had conjured up the image of her naked, head thrown back riding him and hard. And hard was now the reality. Damn it. The need ripping through him was so strong it was all he could do to lie there still. She had to know the shape he was in. The damn bed was vibrating with his shaking.
She on the other hand appeared to have no problems. He could hear her deep gentle breaths as she lay on the bed beside him. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and hold her tight. Tonight he’d have to be satisfied with lying at her side. He didn’t trust himself to do more than that. To distract his body, he started running through the information he’d learned today and how it could impact their situation. He still couldn’t believe she was Candy. Yet it all made a stupid kind of sense. As he and his friends had been playing at being a big tough gang to make themselves feel more powerful in this world so had she. At least she’d survived the process. He shuddered at her going straight to the college after other men. He was never going to have a daughter.
And speaking of daughters, he hadn’t managed to track down very much information about her extended family. The grandparents had been killed in the B&E, but there was no evidence they had any extended family close either. There appeared to be only her father. And worse, Trevor hadn’t been able to find family on her father’s side. If she lost her father she’d be all alone. Then she’d probably say she was all alone now.
Unable to sleep, Trevor sat up quietly, brought his laptop out again and turned it on.
He wanted to re-read the statements of those he’d gone to school with. See if something had been overlooked.
His phone buzzed with an incoming text. From his assistant. The office had been broken into.
God damn it.
He’d half expected the father to make a dick move like that but had hoped he wouldn’t. Of course the police found out it was a junkie looking for a score that could never be traced back to Hannah’s father. He slid out of bed and walked to the far side of the room. He phoned his assistant. “How bad is it?”
“Both front windows were shattered.”
Trevor frowned. “Why the big windows?”
“A stupid prank? Kids,” Leo said. “Who knows?”
“Anything taken?”
“We all had our laptops with us, your wife even has the spare so those are all accounted for. It looks like they tried to snag the printer and either decided it was chump change or too big to deal with.”
Trevor nodded. “We got the big one just a few months ago.”
“The filing cabinets are under lock and key and in the back room. It doesn’t look like they even went in there. Of course it’s a storage closet so they might not have thought it worthwhile. Your desk was upended.”
“Well,” Trevor exclaimed. “Sounds like they were either searching for something or just wanted to mess the place up.”
“That’s my take. The police are here now, and I’ll stay while they do their thing. They’ve found several sets of fingerprints, so we’ll need to run comparison prints from us so they can cancel out our prints.”
“Okay, keep me posted. I’ll come down if I’m needed.”
“Not to worry. Get some sleep. I don’t know what was behind this, but it looks like someone is trying to hurt you. If someone was looking for something in particular, then I’d be very careful – because they didn’t get it.”
Chapter 30
The next morning Hannah rummaged in the kitchen to make coffee. She could do that much. Breakfast seemed a little beyond her. She’d woken up bright and cheerful, had a shower and immediately felt tired and worn out. It made no sense. She’d have stayed dirty if she thought that was going to b
e the end result.
There was bread on the counter. She popped a piece into the toaster and turned to stare out the window while she waited. It was going to be a glorious day. Unfortunately, they’d be inside for most of it. Still that didn’t mean they couldn’t take time to enjoy it. There were parks at the mall. A large greenway that boasted paths on either side crisscrossed throughout the city as well. She’d love to do a long walk.
If it was safe, she’d also love to go to her house and get a few things. She’d rather do that than shopping for clothes. She had lots at home. But home was actually one of her father’s estates. Had her father changed the locks? Or could she go in and get her belongings?
“Thoughts?” Trevor’s sleepy voice sounded behind her. “Coffee smells good.”
“Just thinking we should go to my house and collect my stuff. And I was hoping for an update on Tasha.”
“I honestly haven’t had too much time to look for her, sorry. After the documents are legally filed Monday and we’re in the clear – then yes we can do both of those.”
“Ouch. Sorry, I forgot that part.”
“Not an issue. A lot has happened in a short time. Hard to remember everything. As long as she wasn’t in the store at the time of the fire, which apparently she wasn’t, then we’ll contact her as soon as we can.” He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, tugging her back against his chest. “Did you sleep well?”
She snuggled in close. “I did. You?”
“Not as good as it could have been.” She sensed a hesitation. Twisting in his arms, she stared up at him and saw the heavy shadow on his chin, the drained look to his features.
He reached up and rubbed his face. “Sorry, I haven’t shaved. My shaver isn’t recharging here. When we’re out shopping I’ll pick up another one.”
She rubbed the soft hair on his cheek and grinned. “It looks good on you.”
“I’m not keeping it. It’s scratchy and hot.”
“Reminds me of a walk on the wild side.” She reached up and kissed him.
He gave a shout of laughter. “In that case, it’s definitely coming off. Back then we could only grow super fine and splotchy beards. But we tried hard and the sparse hair growth added to the whole scruffy look.”
She grinned. “Well, whatever it was – it worked for you guys.”
“Only to the girls who were looking for the same thing.” He leered at her, causing her to giggle.
“Oh my, don’t you look fine.” She batted her eyes and he laughed, hugging her close.
“You are very cheeky this morning.” He released her and stepped around to pour coffee from the pot for them both. “I’m glad to see it.”
“I am feeling better, you, however, look to have more weighing you down.”
“Yeah, I do.” He held out a cup for her. “The office was broken into last night. My assistant called from the scene while the police were there.”
“Oh my God,” she cried. “Was he working there? Did he get hurt?”
Trevor shook his head. “No, he was at home at the time. There is a bunch of damage that insurance will cover but we don’t know if this was a random attack or if they were looking for something or if it was a warning.”
She sucked in her breath. “Likely a warning. From my father.”
He nodded. “That’s my first impression but we can’t count on that yet.”
“Do you need to go there this morning?”
Again he nodded. “Yes. We’ll stop by on our way to the mall.”
“Right.” She stared out the window. “What a pain.”
“The mall or the office?”
She laughed. “Both really. I have a ton of clothes at home so don’t need to buy new ones, and you certainly didn’t need this extra headache.”
“Your clothes might not still be there.”
“I thought of that,” she said in a pensive voice. “In the scheme of things there isn’t much there I care about, but there are a few things of my mother’s.”
“Like what?”
“Her diary for one.” She sighed. “I never did open it. I loved her so much and the guilt just crippled me.”
“Maybe we will swing by then. See if we can find that.”
She glanced over at him. “What value would it have?” She frowned at him, not sure she wanted anyone prying into her mother’s personal thoughts. It felt wrong. Intrusive. And it was the last thing she had of her mother – sharing that felt like a betrayal.
“We need to confirm how she died. And if she had any worries, fears, idea of her impending death.”
Hell. She was going to have to read the diary. And share with him.
“I wouldn’t want her diary to become public knowledge, and neither would I want to lose it.”
“Understood. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. If there is evidence of her own demise, you might want to consider that justice has a price. And sometimes lack of privacy is part of it.”
*
He didn’t want her worrying about the diary. He’d seen enough cases where someone held privacy at a higher value over truth. That couldn’t happen in this case. She needed to be safe. And he needed to stop being harassed. If her diary held any nuggets of truth then he needed to hear them. And as soon as possible. And that brought up a possible reason for the break in.
Could it be someone was looking to see what he was up to? Cases he was working on, evidence he’d collected? And possibly stop him. Not that a break in would do that. A fire might though. He frowned, thinking about it. He had an offsite storage locker, but only for old files.
“We can leave right now, if you’d like.” Hannah leaned against the counter in front of him, munching on a piece of toast. “It’s obvious we need to go as soon as possible.”
He glanced down at his coffee and wondered, but that inner prodding wouldn’t stop. “Let’s go,” he said. He threw back the rest of his drink and rinsed the cup under the tap.
Within five minutes they were on the road. He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t nine yet. On a Sunday morning. The roads were empty and the sun was shining bright. He felt foolish. But he hadn’t done this job for so long to ignore his instincts. He pulled up beside his ground floor office and stared at the large plastic sheets over the windows. His office was in a general office building. He had a small sign but generally he didn’t have much in the way of walk in traffic. It wasn’t the nature of his business. Outside he checked the ground around the broken windows and quickly realized that was likely how the intruders had broken in. He unlocked the front door, wondering what the point of locking it now was but…
He stepped back to hold the door open for Hannah who stared at the broken glass on the ground. “It was Will,” she said softly. “I can feel him here.”
Trevor froze. “You can feel him?”
“Sure. I’m the one who shatters when he gets too close, remember,” she said, her voice droll.
He did remember but had no idea she’d recognize Will’s signature after the fact. Interesting. “Can you feel someone else with him or was he alone?”
She closed her eyes and stood still. He watched the tight aura open up slightly and a wisp of energy slide out away from her body. Like any animal that was hunted, it took stock of the situation then dashed back under cover into safety.
“I’m only feeling Will’s energy,” she said. “But I don’t know if that’s because I can’t in theory recognize other people’s energy or if, in fact, Will was alone.” She turned to give him a lopsided grin. “So no help there.”
“It’s a help already. If this was done by Will, then either he was acting alone or this was done on your father’s orders.” He glanced at her. “Would Will do something like this on his own?”
“Oh absolutely. He has a lot of free rein these days.”
“Because your father lets him have it, can’t control his pet or because he doesn’t care what Will does?” He studied her, curious to see her reaction to his comment.
“I don’t know,” she said. “All three are possible. I haven’t spoken to my father – outside of the lovely hospital visit – in months. I’m not sure what his mental state is these days. At the hospital though, he was as bullish, arrogant and controlling as ever.”
He had been, but that could have been bluster. Something to consider. “You are his only child.”
“Maybe,” she said cheerfully. “At least I’m the only legal one. Given my mother has been gone over fifteen years, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear he’d fathered a half a dozen other kids with his ex-mistresses.”
“Do you have any names of these so-called mistresses,” he asked when she finally walked into his destroyed office.
“No, and I don’t remember them. Wanda has been his main squeeze for years.”
Goodman might not have wanted any more legal heirs either. They did have a tendency to want inheritances early. Not that that was the case with Hannah. More likely her father had changed his will so she’d never be able to inherit, given his opinion of her mental state. Handling his vast business dealings would be well over her head. A trust was more likely. He doubted he’d have cut her off, because in his mind she couldn’t live an independent life, and she was still his responsibility. Even if only for show.
He’d like to think that Goodman loved his daughter.
But he’d been in the business a long time, and too often the relationship between family members was anything but love.
Chapter 31
The office looked terrible. Hannah stood in the open doorway and wanted to cry. It had been such a nice office. But not only had the intruder – Will – she would have said it was Will’s handiwork from the get go – broken in, but he’d destroyed damn near everything he could get his hands on. The desks had been stomped, and from what she could see, one had been severely broken. The other two had been metal and he’d tossed those. The drawers had been pulled out and dumped. Still, for all the two-year-old temper tantrum effect, the place wasn’t going to take too much to set to right. At least she hoped. There were office things like staplers and pens and scissors all over the floor. Pads of paper had been ripped and thrown. Loose sheets on the floor.