“First or last name?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know,” Jordan said. “It could be either.”
Henry’s face brightened. “Mr. Swinburn had a partner in his real estate firm, James Lassiter.”
“I’d like to talk to this Lassiter,” Jordan said. “Do you have his address?”
“I’ll get it for you.” Fiona disappeared into the apartment.
“If we’re going to call on James Lassiter, I’ll need a rental car,” Jordan said. “May I borrow your phone book, Mr. Erskine?”
Henry looked puzzled. “Did you come in a taxi? I didn’t hear it arrive.”
Jordan shook his head. “My boat’s moored at the dock. Is it okay to leave it there for now?”
“I don’t see why not,” Henry said. “And if you need transportation—”
“The Lincoln will attract too much attention,” Angel said with a shake of her head.
Henry smiled, rearranging the angles of his long face. “I’m offering you my personal vehicle.”
Clasping a sheet of pale blue writing paper, Fiona returned to the porch. “Here’s Mr. Lassiter’s home and business addresses and phone numbers.” She handed the sheet to Jordan, then patted Angel’s hand. “I do hope this Lassiter can help you find the wee lass.”
Angel hoped so, too. Checking with David’s partner was all they could do until Maggie Henderson allowed them access to the house and David’s records.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jordan sped through the main gates of the Swinburn estate on Henry’s vintage Harley-Davidson. The chrome-and-black machine glinted in the sunlight, and behind him, Angel clutched his waist. Her distinctive features were hidden, like his, by the black-visored helmets, but they provided perfect disguises. Even Frank and Sidney wouldn’t recognize them.
The surge of the powerful chopper reminded Jordan of his first assignment on the Sunset Bay department, working traffic control with the motorcycle squad. He had been green and idealistic, ready to make a serious dent in crime and disorderliness.
Jenny hadn’t graduated from high school yet.
He opened the throttle, drowning his nostalgia in the distinctive roar of the Harley’s engine. If he could find Brittany and clear Angel, he might atone in some small way for what had happened to Jenny.
And if he failed Angel as he had Jenny? He shoved the painful thought away, refusing to contemplate living with that outcome.
Before he and Angel left the Erskines, he had called the real estate office. Lassiter’s secretary said he was out for the rest of the day, appraising a ranch for sale near Arcadia. Jordan expressed an interest in viewing the property as a prospective buyer, and she had given him the location.
As the sun rose toward noon, Jordan revved the cycle beneath the overpass of I-75 on a two-lane country road and left the sprawling suburbs of Sunset Bay behind. Once they had exited the city, the air seemed fresher and cleaner. His somber mood, generated by unhappy memories, lifted, and for the first time since Jenny’s death, he derived pleasure from his surroundings.
They passed several groves, some heavy with Valencia oranges and others emitting the heady perfume of orange blossoms. In one wide pasture, a herd of Brahman cattle gathered beneath the shade of a solitary tree. Nearer their destination, they crossed a bridge over the wide, crystal-clear waters of the Myakka River, its banks lined with live oaks and cabbage palms.
With Angel gripping his waist and the seductive heat of her breasts against his back, he imagined a languorous picnic on the riverbank before making love to her and watching passion darken the brown of her eyes beneath the shade of oaks shrouded in Spanish moss.
The vortex of a passing truck, hauling citrus to a concentrate plant, shook the cycle and blasted his daydream to shreds. Just as well. The detachment he’d struggled to maintain since he first met Angel had never been more essential. With two killers on her trail, one slight distraction, as on the night Jenny had died, could precipitate instant and irrevocable disaster.
Angel tugged on his sleeve and pointed ahead. A weathered wooden sign indicated the entrance to the property where they’d been told they’d find James Lassiter. Jordan slowed for the turn, then accelerated up a long, sandy driveway to a cracker-style house with a tin roof and broad, covered porches, set among a stand of pines.
His senses heightened. If James Lassiter was Frank and Sidney’s boss, Jordan would soon find himself face-to-face with the man who wanted Angel dead. Angel’s midriff, pressed against his waist, reminded him of the absence of his gun. Unable to rely on its protection, he concentrated on his surroundings, alert to any sign of danger.
In front of the house, Jordan parked the cycle behind a black BMW, the only vehicle in sight. He hopped off and removed his helmet. Angel dismounted and tugged off her helmet.
“Hello!”
From around the corner of the house, a tall and lanky stranger appeared, dressed in khaki slacks, a green golf shirt and tasseled loafers.
He approached them in the drive. “You folks shopping for property?”
“James Lassiter?” Jordan said.
“That’s right. The office send you?” He stuck out his large hand and plastered a phony salesman’s smile on his gaunt face.
“In a manner of speaking.” Jordan shook his hand and scanned the property, making certain Lassiter was alone. “I’m Jordan Trouble, an investigator for Michael Winslow.”
Lassiter’s smile froze, then melted into a distrustful glare. “What do you want with me?”
“I’m looking for my daughter,” Angel said. “I’m Sara Swinburn.”
Lassiter’s expression softened. “Sorry, didn’t recognize you at first, Sara. Your hair’s different. But why come to me looking for your child?”
“Before David died, he hid Brittany from me. You were his partner, so I thought—hoped—he had told you where he took her.”
Lassiter glowered. “David may have been my partner, but he damned sure wasn’t my friend. I only recently discovered he embezzled over a hundred thousand dollars from the office accounts. You did me a favor, Sara. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have stolen me blind.” Lassiter’s face darkened with rage. “And if he hadn’t been dead already, I might have killed him myself when my accountant uncovered the theft.”
“My daughter—” Angel appeared close to tears.
“Do you know anything about Ms. Swinburn’s daughter?” Jordan demanded.
Lassiter relented and abandoned his scowl, apparently touched by Angel’s distress. “I’m sorry, Sara. I can’t help with your little girl. I hadn’t talked to David in weeks.”
“Any objection to my searching David’s office?” Jordan asked. “He might have left some record of Brittany’s whereabouts.”
“Be my guest. And if you don’t find anything there, ask his secretary.”
“She’s working today?” Jordan said.
Lassiter’s lips curled in disgust. “She better not be. I fired her over the embezzlement Figured she was in on it with David. The two of them were very...close, if you know what I mean.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows and wondered if David’s secretary had been part of the reason for Angel’s divorce. “Swinburn and his secretary were having an affair?”
“For the past five years.” Lassiter slid a bewildered glance at Angel’s stunned expression. “Sorry, Sara. It wasn’t my place to intrude.”
“Can I have the secretary’s name and address?” Jordan asked.
“Bunny Shelton. I don’t know where she lives, but she should be in the phone book.”
“Listed under Bunny?” Jordan said doubtfully.
Lassiter shook his head. “Under her husband’s. name, Jim Shelton.”
“James Shelton?” Angel’s eyes met Jordan’s, and he knew what she was thinking. Another James. If Lassiter hadn’t hired killers to track her, maybe Shelton had.
“Yeah.” Lassiter’s look was puzzled. “You know him?”
“Never heard of the guy. Do you know any oth
er friends or associates of Swinburn’s who were named James?”
Lassiter’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Just a tip we had about who might have Brittany.”
The Realtor thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry.”
Jordan swung onto the cycle, and Angel climbed behind him. “We won’t take any more of your time. Thanks for your help.”
“No problem. By the way, in your investigation, if you come across what David did with my money—”
“I’ll let you know.” Jordan started to put on his helmet, then stopped. “Just one more question.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know two guys named Frank and Sidney?”
Lassiter shrugged. “I know a couple of Franks, but no Sidney. Why?”
Jordan gauged Lassiter’s response. He was either telling the truth or the world’s best liar.
“It’s not important. Thanks again.”
Jordan made a sweeping survey of the outbuildings and the windows of the apparently deserted house before turning his back on them, then pulled on his helmet and gunned the cycle toward the highway.
AFTER THREE HOURS of digging through files in David’s luxurious downtown office, every muscle in Angel’s body ached. She rolled her shoulders and stretched, but the physical soreness was nothing compared to the pain in her heart. Every minute that passed without Brittany weighed on her chest like a rock slide, suffocating her with worry.
“You haven’t eaten.” Jordan closed the drawer of the file cabinet he’d been searching and pointed to a submarine sandwich, untouched on the desk in front of her.
She shook her head. “I’m not hungry.”
She couldn’t force food past the anxiety that constricted her throat. From the corner of David’s desk, a brass-framed collage of Brittany’s snapshots reproached her inadequacy and tortured her with memories—Brittany feeding seagulls at the beach, shaking hands with Mickey at Disney World, riding her first tricycle and pirouetting in her red velvet Christmas dress.
“Remember what Mrs. Erskine said?”
She started at Jordan’s words. Staring at her daughter’s pictures, she had forgotten he was in the room. “What?”
“Swinburn’s housekeeper insisted he loved Brittany and wouldn’t have done anything to harm her.”
“Except steal her from her mother.” Bitterness almost choked her. “We haven’t uncovered a single clue to where she could be.”
Jordan crossed the room and perched on the corner of the desk. “No clues on Brittany, but we did find another James.”
“Carleton James?” Although she had come across the name in David’s personal telephone directory, Jordan hadn’t located anything in the office files to indicate the man had been David’s client.
Jordan’s midnight-blue eyes glowed with interest. “The mysterious Carleton James, a multimillionaire whose source of income is a well-guarded secret.”
“How do you know all that?”
“When I worked fraud, we had a former accountant on the team who could follow money trails like a bloodhound. Rooted out the income and outgo of every high roller in the county. Except Carleton James. Our mystery man, one of the county’s greatest philanthropists, seen in the limelight only at every charitable function and never anywhere else, is lousy with dough that seems to materialize out of nowhere.”
“But nothing connects him to Brittany?”
He leaned forward and smoothed the back of his hand down her cheek in a comforting but sensuous gesture that vibrated her nerve endings like the plucked strings of a guitar. “If he hired Frank and Sidney to kill you, he may also be responsible for Swinburn’s murder.”
The brief excitement of Jordan’s touch withered and died, and she avoided facing him. Carleton James hadn’t killed David. She had. But if she confessed to Jordan, in his disgust with her, he might abandon the search for Brittany, and she couldn’t risk that. Once her daughter was in her arms again, Angel promised herself, she would come clean with Jordan and her attorney and face the consequences. But not before Brittany was safe.
“Why are you doing this?” She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Searching the office?”
“Helping me.”
“You came looking for me, remember?” He almost pulled off his attempt at nonchalance, but in spite of his casual tone and self-deprecating smile, the pain she remembered from their first meeting filled his eyes.
“You didn’t have to help me. You could have said no.”
“Nobody else was around to give you a hand, so you could say I was elected by default.”
“You could have backed out anytime, or handed me over to Michael or any of your detective friends, but you didn’t. Why stick with someone who is—” she faltered, almost blurting out her guilt “—who might be a killer?”
He dropped his cavalier manner. The agony in his eyes spread across his face, and his voice thrummed with unfamiliar intensity. “Let’s just say there’s another angel I owe a debt to. By helping you, who knows? Maybe I can clear my tab.”
Shaken by his admission and anguished expression, she turned away, pulled a wastepaper basket from beneath the desk and swept her uneaten sandwich into it. “Let’s find Bunny Shelton. Maybe David left Brittany with her.”
“Whoa! Hold on.” Jordan grabbed the trash basket and pulled out the sandwich.
She stared, puzzled. “If you were that hungry, all you had to do was ask.”
He didn’t stop with the submarine but continued to remove wadded pieces of paper from the trash and smooth each one on the desk.
“My investigative skills are rustier than I thought,” he admitted, continuing his search. “The trash should have been the first place I checked. Sometimes I find my best clues in the garbage.”
His enthusiasm was contagious, and she joined him in retrieving and examining the discarded papers. “Why wasn’t the trash emptied before now? The office looks as if it was cleaned recently.”
“The basket was shoved into the kneehole and the cleaning crew probably missed it.” He scanned the top of the page he had just opened. “Pay dirt!”
Her pulse quickened. “Something about Brittany?”
When he finished reading, his excitement deserted him, and a disquieting somberness took its place. Folding the paper quickly, he shoved it in the breast pocket of his sport shirt.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“Just a little something I’ll check out later.”
“You’re making the same mistake you made before.”
“What’s that?” As if attempting to distract her from his find, he flashed a crooked grin, appealing enough under different circumstances to melt her heart.
But she was on to his trick. If he had been born a dog-instead of a human, with his dark, soulful eyes and sun-kissed skin and hair, he would have been a playful golden Labrador, diverting attention from any misbehavior with his dynamic charm.
His smile widened under her scrutiny, confirming her appraisal. Definitely a golden Lab, with a wagging tail and winning way that would guarantee endless handouts and frequent liaisons with the canine equivalent of femmes fatales in backyards all over town.
Resisting the impulse to return the grin, she refused to allow his devil-may-care charisma to deter her—not when her daughter’s life was at stake.
“Something significant is on that paper,” she said, holding out her hand, “and I need to know what it is.”
“I don’t want you to worry about it.” His smile didn’t waver. “Let me check it out first.”
“You can’t keep it from me.”
Lunging for the paper in his pocket, she tripped over the leg of the desk and stumbled against him. He locked his arms around her, breaking her fall against the broad expanse of his chest.
With her face crushed to his neck, the thundering tempo of his pulse vibrated through her, magnified by the sizzling heat of his skin. A virile combination of sunshine, sea and masculinity filled h
er nostrils, and hot longing zigzagged through her like high voltage. Shaken by her involuntary response, she pushed away and regained her feet.
His look of boyish, lovable charm had disappeared. No longer the affable golden Lab, he’d become a sensuous, powerful and dangerous wolfhound. Desire flushed his face and burned in his eyes like blue flames, igniting a corresponding conflagration deep inside her.
Her hand still rested against his chest where she had braced herself to push away, and the paper in his pocket crinkled, reminding her of Brittany. She snatched her hand back as if the contact had burned.
What was wrong with her? What kind of mother surrendered to seduction when her daughter needed her?
The same kind of mother who killed her daughter’s father.
Her passion dispersed beneath the cold dousing of logic. With a swift flick of her hand, she removed the paper from his pocket and moved away to read it.
“Angel, don’t!”
The tension in his voice flooded her with fear and made her pause. “Why shouldn’t I read this? What’s so terrible about it?”
He pulled her back into his arms, this time with a tenderness at odds with his previous urgency. “It may not mean anything, but I don’t want you to worry. Please, let me look into it.”
She was tired of operating in the dark, without memories to guide her. She wanted facts, no matter how distressing they might be. Twisting in his embrace until her back was against his chest, she unfolded the sheet of watermarked stationery to find Carleton James’s letterhead engraved at the top.
“‘Swinburn, return what’s mine,”’ she read aloud, “‘or I will take what’s yours.’”
“Cryptic, isn’t it?” Jordan’s arms tightened around her waist.
She forced herself to voice her fear. “Do you think he was talking about Brittany?”
“I’ll have to watch his house for signs of her. Talk to his employees. Eventually question James himself.”
“I’m going with you.”
She sensed the refusal in his stillness before he spoke. “That’s not a good idea.”
A Woman of Mystery Page 10