Midnight Betrayal

by Leigh, Melinda

  Nudging the dog aside, he sat up and stretched. A cotton blanket fell down to his waist. She’d tucked a pillow behind his head too.

  He got to his feet and used the convenient half bath off the foyer. His socks were silent on the tile as he returned to the kitchen. The open floor plan flowed right into the living room, taking advantage of the expansive windows with their stunning views of Rittenhouse Square and the city beyond. Her apartment was twice the size of Pat’s house, and it was fitted out like a magazine spread in granite, leather, and gleaming wood. He ran a hand across the smooth, black counter and spotted an empty wine cooler underneath.

  The Rittenhouse was one of the most exclusive residences in the city, with condominiums that provided all the amenities of the attached luxury hotel. He couldn’t even imagine what this three-bedroom unit cost. Just how wealthy was she? Conor brushed his unease aside. It wasn’t like he could ask her for a bank statement, but the House Beautiful decor was one more example of the fundamental difference between them. Not that her income should affect their relationship, but putting the dollars aside, their lifestyles highlighted that they lived in different worlds.

  A short hallway branched off the kitchen. The closed door at the end must be Louisa’s room. Last night he’d seen her more relaxed than ever in snug yoga pants and a loose sweater instead of one of her suits. A blast of need zoomed through him. He wanted to see her wake up. All that blond hair would be down on her shoulders, her eyes sleepy, her body warm . . .

  The dog whined at the door. Conor turned around. He’d walk the dog before he left, and maybe bring Louisa coffee.

  He slipped into his shoes, grabbed her apartment key from the bowl in the hall, and opened the hall closet. Kirra’s leash hung on the back of the door. He walked the dog through the square to Nineteenth Street and ducked into La Colombe for two large coffees and muffins. When he let himself back in, the condo was still quiet. Last night, Louisa had eaten the baked potato and salad for dinner. She’d chopped the remaining steak and green beans and left them in the fridge.

  Conor put the bowl on the floor for the dog. “You wouldn’t be getting this kind of service at my place. Hamburger is high-end on my budget.”

  A door opened, and a bleary-eyed Louisa shuffled into the kitchen. She was still wearing the snug yoga pants from the night before, but a heavy sweatshirt covered her to midthigh. Her tousled, just-out-of-bed hair tumbled onto her shoulders and made Conor want to take her right back to bed.

  She blinked at him in surprise. “Oh, you’re still here. I thought I heard you leave.”

  Had she purposefully waited to come out until she thought he was gone? Had he overstayed his welcome? Sleeping over, even innocently, was a huge step considering that before yesterday, they hadn’t seen each other for six months. “Do you want me to go?”

  “No.”

  “Good.” Because no matter how many reasons his brain came up with to walk out the door, he didn’t want to. He crossed the tiles and handed her a coffee. “I walked the dog. We went for coffee.”

  “Thank you.” She stared at the cardboard cup in her hand. Her gaze fell to the fuzzy slippers on her feet. “I should change.”

  A worried hand touched her neck, but her throat was bare. No pearls to play with this morning. She wrapped the other hand around her middle, and the vulnerability in her posture cracked his resolve to keep his distance.

  “Don’t.” He let a hint of desire heat his eyes. “I like the casual you.”

  Her hand fell. She stood in the middle of her kitchen, lost. Allowing Louisa a few minutes to compose herself, he filled Kirra’s bowl with fresh water. The dog hadn’t eaten much of her breakfast. The vet had said to give her appetite a week. But if she wasn’t eating by Monday, she was going back.

  “Sit down.” His hand brushed her arm as he passed her in the narrow space between the counter and the island. “Where are your plates?”

  She pointed toward an upper cabinet.

  “Blueberry or cranberry?”

  “I don’t usually eat breakfast.” She slid onto a stool.

  “I’m not usually awake for breakfast.” He put the muffins on plates and set them on the shiny, black granite. “I close the bar most nights. I don’t usually get to bed before three.”

  She selected the cranberry nut muffin and picked at it. “Your siblings don’t take turns?”

  “Pat takes a couple nights, but Danny moved to Maine, and we don’t let Jaynie close the place alone.”

  “So you assume the bulk of the responsibility.”

  “I live alone. It’s easier for me.” Conor shifted on his stool. “You’ve met most of my family. Tell me about yours.”

  Sadness filled her eyes. She abandoned the muffin. “There isn’t much to say. I’m an only child.”

  “Are you close to your parents? Do you miss them?” he prodded. Her reluctance to talk about her family was a red flag. After Barbara, the fact that Louisa wasn’t being totally up front with him should be a deal breaker.

  “My mother died when I was ten.”

  “I’m sorry. I lost my parents when I was twenty. Jayne and Danny were younger. It was much harder on them.”

  “You and Pat raised them, right?” She neatly turned the conversation back to him. No surprise.

  “Pat did most of the work. I was in college at the time. Pat had been running the bar with my dad, but he couldn’t raise Danny and Jayne and take care of the business solo.”

  “You left school.”

  “That wasn’t a big deal.” He shrugged it off. At the time, he didn’t have the time or the desire to return to college.

  “What was your major?”

  “I was doubling in education and history.”

  “You were going to be a teacher.” Louisa set down her coffee.

  “I was.”

  “Weren’t you disappointed?” she asked.

  “Not at all.” That level of grief was all-consuming and didn’t leave room for much else. “My parents’ deaths changed my whole perception of the world. It was like someone took a Technicolor film and made it black-and-white. All that mattered was getting Danny and Jayne through it. They were just kids.”

  Like Louisa. So maybe he could cut her a break for holding back on him.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said. “It wasn’t my original plan, and there were some lean years, but I’m a successful businessman. I like the way my life turned out. After being my own boss for all these years, working for someone else isn’t that appealing.” He got up, put his plate in the dishwasher, and tossed his cup in the trash. “What’s the plan for today?”

  “I’m due at work at nine. I’d like to stop by Zoe’s apartment to speak with her roommate, then swing by the boyfriend’s before they both head off to classes or work. If you’re available . . .”

  “Kind of early for visiting.”

  “Yes, it is.” Determination flattened her close-lipped smile. “But there’s no time to waste with social niceties.” Her eyes strayed to the clock on the microwave. “Zoe has been missing for thirty-two hours.”

  “In that case, I’m available.” Ugh. He hadn’t meant for that to sound like a double entendre.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Then I’ll go get dressed.”

  I’m glad? What did that mean? “Could I use your shower?”

  She pointed to the other end of the apartment. “There’s a guest suite through that doorway.”

  Her guest room was stocked with toiletry essentials. Conor liberated a toothbrush from its packaging. He scratched his jaw. He should find a razor, but the small cut on his cheek was nearly gone. Shaving would just irritate it.

  As he stripped down and stepped naked under the hot spray, he quelled a mental image of Louisa doing the same, but the vision of her willowy figure, slick and wet, wouldn’t stay gone. He turned the spigot to
cold. In his head he ticked off the reasons this undefined thing, whatever it was, between them wouldn’t work. They had nothing in common. Their entire relationship was based on time shared during bizarre and terrible circumstances and his inexplicable compulsion to peel away the layers of Louisa’s personal defenses. They hadn’t spent a normal five minutes together. They hardly knew anything about each other, and every time he tried to get a glimpse of what lay beneath her perfect exterior, she put up a wall.

  But his brain was definitely not running the show. He was operating on instinct, on a gut feeling that when he finally got to her core, what he discovered would be worth all the work.

  And he didn’t mean core in a sexual way. OK, he did, but it wasn’t his primary motivation. He’d learned his lesson. Sex wasn’t enough.

  Thirty minutes later, they walked a block to the parking garage where Conor had left his car. He opened the passenger door for Louisa.

  With a graceful twist, she lowered her body into the passenger seat. Conor slid behind the wheel.

  “Your car looks wonderful.” Louisa ran a hand across the leather dashboard. “I wouldn’t know it was the same vehicle you were driving last spring.”

  “Thanks.” He shifted the Porsche into gear and pulled out into traffic on Eighteenth Street. “It’s a hobby. I buy beat-up old cars and restore them.”

  “Will you sell this one now that it’s done?”

  “Probably. I like a project.” He stroked the steering wheel.

  A bicyclist shot out from between two parked cars. Conor braked. Louisa gripped the armrest.

  “What’s wrong?” He steered around a double-parked delivery truck. The taxi driver in the next lane blew his horn and flipped them a middle finger. Conor waved him off.

  Louisa gasped, her body stiffening in the seat. “I haven’t adjusted to the traffic.”

  “It is rush hour.” Conor turned onto Walnut Street and made his way to the ramp that led onto I-76 East. Less than a mile later, he exited onto University Avenue. They drove through the main campus, and Louisa directed him toward blocks of row homes that had been converted into student housing. “Where to first?”

  Louisa gave him the address of the off-campus apartment Zoe and Isa shared. Conor wove through the city streets and parked at the curb near the converted row home. They rang the buzzer for Isa’s apartment, but she didn’t answer. They returned to the car, and Louisa left a voice message for Isa.

  “I asked Zoe to call me when she got home.” Conor stared down the quiet tree-lined street. “But when she did, she said, ‘I’m almost at my place.’ At the time I assumed she was calling from outside because her roommate was asleep inside, and Zoe didn’t want to wake her up.” Conor closed his eyes and tried to replay the call in his head. He’d been half-asleep. “To make a call, she had to be aboveground. It must have happened between her house and the subway station. Except the police said she never got on the subway.”

  “Maybe she took a bus or the camera just missed her somehow. What about campus security?”

  “Timing would be key,” Conor agreed. “Unless she got into a car willingly. Maybe Zoe was walking home in the dark. She was tired and upset. It’s six or seven blocks from the subway station or bus stop. She calls me just to get that out of the way. She just wants to be home. It’s been a crappy night, and she wants to go to bed. She hangs up the phone. A car pulls alongside her and offers her a lift.”

  “Heath would fit that scenario,” Louisa mused. “He’d be apologizing, asking her to forgive him.”

  They looked at each other. The night could have played out just like that.

  “Right. Let’s go talk to Heath.” Conor pulled out into traffic.

  Louisa gave him the address.

  “How did you find out where he lives?”

  “I paid for an Internet search,” Louisa said. “If he lived in student housing, we’d be out of luck, but he lives off campus in a private residence.”

  Conor found the street, circled the block until he saw a spot, and shoehorned the Porsche between a Ford Escape and a Nissan Maxima parallel parked at the curb.

  Heath lived in a stately three-story town house. Though renovated, the building’s age showed in the slight tilt to the stoop and the blackened patina of the bricks. In Philadelphia tradition, a waist-high black wrought-iron fence encircled the tiny front yard. The gate was propped open with a fist-size rock. They went up the wide cement steps to the covered porch, and Louisa pressed the doorbell.

  Conor leaned a shoulder against the side of the building and watched Louisa slide into the mask of stiff formality she’d worn back in Maine. She’d used that attitude on him when they first met. Why had he thought it was hot? What was it about that haughty profile that sent his engine into overdrive? Most women flirted with him. Why did he want the one who required effort?

  “You’d better stay out of sight. He might not open the door if he sees you.” The grin and the conspiratorial tone behind it were damned sexy.

  Conor stepped to the side of the door, out of the peephole’s view.

  The door opened.

  “I’m Dr. Hancock. I’m looking for Heath Yeager.”

  “I’m Heath.”

  “Do you have time to talk?” she asked.

  “I guess, but I only have a few minutes until I have to leave.” Heath opened the screen door.

  The door opened inward, and Louisa stepped over the threshold into a small foyer. “Thank you.”

  Conor followed. “Good morning, Heath.” He echoed Louisa’s overly cheerful inflection.

  Heath took a surprised step back. The side of his jaw where Conor had popped him was puffed out and bruised. “Hey, what’s he doing here?”

  “Mr. Sullivan and I are trying to find Zoe.” Louisa tilted her head at Heath. “Surely you’d like to do the same.”

  “I guess.” Heath looked doubtful. “I mean, yes. I want to find Zoe. But why him?” He jerked a thumb at Conor. “I heard he’s the prime suspect.”

  “So you remember me? I thought maybe you were too drunk.” Conor kept his distance, slouching against the far wall.

  Heath’s face went blank, but thoughts churned in his eyes. Would he throw a fit about Conor’s presence or play it cool? “I remember you.”

  What was the kid hiding?

  Apparently choosing to be cooperative, Heath led them down a short, narrow hallway into the living room. The house was tall and narrow, with an open kitchen and living space on the first floor and probably four or five bedrooms and a couple of baths on the two upper floors. High ceilings were set off by fat architectural molding. The corner fireplace appeared original. Aged pine floor gleamed with a smooth matte finish.

  Heath didn’t lack for any of the amenities. A large flat-screen TV hung on the living area wall. Electronic tablets, a cell phone, a laptop, and game controllers were scattered on a round table in front of a leather sectional sofa. Stainless-steel appliances equipped the adjoined kitchen. Three pizza boxes were stacked on the black granite counter. Next to them, someone had erected an impressive four-tier beer can pyramid.

  “Nice place,” Conor said. “How many of you live here?”

  “Four.”

  “The same guys you were with Monday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “What else do you remember about that night?” Louisa asked.

  Heath turned around and retreated behind the L-shaped counter. “Coffee?”

  Conor shook his head.

  “No, thank you,” Louisa said.

  Heath filled a steel travel mug. “The night is sketchy. I drank way too much, and I’m well aware that I acted like a jerk.”

  Conor played along. “Alcohol makes lots of guys act like assholes.”

  Heath nodded. “I feel terrible about what happened. I never thought . . .” He swallowed and pinched the bridge o
f his nose. “I never thought anything would happen to her. I figured she’d take the subway or bus home.”

  “No one could have expected her to disappear.” Louisa placated him. “We just want to find her. Did you hear from her at all after you left her at the bar?”

  Heath’s eyes darted sideways. With jerky movements he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of milk. “Um. Apparently I texted her after I got back here, but I don’t remember doing that. I was pretty wasted.”

  “What did you say to her?” Louisa asked.

  He over-tilted the jug, splattering milk down the side of his mug and onto the counter. “I called her a bitch and some other names.” He lifted his chin to let them see his misty eyes. “I’m not proud of it.”

  Though Heath gave a soap opera–worthy performance, Conor wasn’t buying into the sad act. This guy didn’t need alcohol to be an asshole.

  Louisa pressed. “Did she answer you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I guess whatever happened to her had already happened.” He swiped a finger under his eye.

  “I have to go.” Heath picked up his backpack.

  “One more question,” Conor said. “Who picked Sullivan’s?”

  Heath’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t remember. We’d already been to two bars. We didn’t really have a plan.”

  Escorting them outside, Heath locked the front door and jogged down the steps.

  “Thanks for talking with us,” Louisa said as Heath went through the gate and turned down the sidewalk.

  Conor and Louisa walked back to the car.

  “He’s playing us.” Conor opened the door for Louisa.

  “Probably.” With a graceful body twist, she slid into the leather bucket seat, a feat that should have been awkward given the snugness of her skirt.

  Conor watched her long legs swing under the dashboard. This morning’s suit was a pale, practically colorless gray. The tailored cut showed off her slim form, and the forest-green blouse made her eyes greener. She didn’t put anything on display, but her prim and proper suits made him more eager to get a glimpse of what lay beneath all that silk. He was hopeless.