Yours for the Night

by Samantha Hunter

  “I know that,” he said, not wanting her to think that he was thinking about his late wife when he was with her. When he was with Tiffany, he didn’t think about anything else. She was everything he needed.

  In the stretch of silence, she nodded stiffly.

  “I am tired, actually. It’s probably not a bad idea for us to rest up tonight,” she said softly.

  Garrett knew something had changed, shifted between them. He’d messed up somewhere, but he wasn’t sure how to fix it. Being married, and then out of commission for a long while, had left him out of practice on how to handle the more complex parts of a relationship.

  Everything with Lainey had been easy because he hadn’t known anything back then. They’d learned together. Additionally, he hadn’t seen all of the things that he now knew were out in the world, things he saw as a bodyguard. He hadn’t known what it was like to lose someone he loved.

  Now he knew, and it changed everything.

  “Okay,” he said, leaning over to give her a long, soft kiss. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”

  She nodded, sort of, but didn’t answer. He wanted to kiss her until they both forgot all of the problems and complications, and could lose themselves in each other again, for the rest of the night. But that wasn’t the answer, as much as he wanted it.

  What was between them was uncertain right now.

  He was uncertain. It wasn’t fair to either of them to keep fanning the fire.

  From the sidewalk, he watched her drive away. Up in his room, he stowed the leftovers in the fridge, shucked his clothes and grabbed a bottle of scotch he’d left on the bar.

  He was tired, but sleep was a million miles away for most of the night. All he could think about was Tiffany in her bed—and in his heart.

  And what the heck he was going to do about it.

  * * *

  TIFFANY WAS BARELY able to hold back tears until she shut the door behind her, finally home, and they all came pouring forth. The pain in her temple was nothing compared to the sharp ache that Garrett’s words had triggered.

  His simple response that he wasn’t confusing her with his late wife told Tiffany exactly what she needed to know. She’d wondered what was bothering him, and why he hadn’t been entirely himself all day, and now she knew.

  So what? It wasn’t as if they had ever said they were anything more than a fling, but during several moments of their week, she’d thought, maybe…

  She could have sworn by the look on his face when he’d found her downtown that something special was happening for him, too. Underneath the anger had been concern, passion. Caring. Things on which to build something more.

  Or so she thought. She should have known better.

  Well, she’d known in her head, but perhaps her heart had started to hope…

  Big, big mistake.

  Clearly, he was upset about what happened to her, but it all still came down to losing his wife—that was the real trauma that haunted him. The worst part was, Tiffany couldn’t even be angry with him for that. How could she be upset with a man who loved so deeply and still suffered so much for the woman he’d lost?

  Except that she was here with him now, and she wanted more. More than a fling, more than sex. And Garrett was still stuck in the past as she was moving into her future.

  It was so typical for her to have found the man she could fall in love with, and he was completely devoted to his late wife. They’d obviously had a relationship that this silly fling could not measure up to.

  Wiping tears away and reaching for some tissues, she pulled herself together. She had to toughen up if she ever expected to be a good investigator. She’d already seen evidence of how love went wrong through her camera lens—take Marcus and Sally Hooper for example—and in her own life.

  “Love leaves you a jam every time,” she said to herself in her best Philip Marlowe.

  Staring at the ceiling, she got hold of herself and set her hurt aside. There was nothing she could do about that. But she could do something about the case.

  Refocus and get to work. Knowing that a man they had considered something of a family friend, with whom they had done business for years, made it even more personal. That made her particularly determined to figure out what was going on. She needed some hard evidence; she couldn’t just go to Detective Ramsey with her suspicions.

  Arthur Hayden appeared to have some gambling debts that he was working off—perhaps by sharing inside information with jewel thieves—but until she had proof, there was nothing the police could do anyway.

  She looked at the clock. This might be her only chance to find out what Arthur Hayden was up to. At the bar, he’d said that he was heading to New York that morning; which meant no one was home in his apartment.

  If she was going to find anything incriminating, it would be in the small apartment above the office where he ran his appraisal business.

  Hopping up from the bed, she changed into a pair of dark jeans and a dark sweater, tying her hair back and grabbing a set of lock picks she’d bought and hadn’t yet had the chance to use—not on a real lock, anyway.

  Arthur was gone, and she could have the run of his apartment and his office to try to find some evidence. Something that would be damning enough to take to Detective Ramsey, who could then bring him in for questioning, and hopefully solve the case.

  Tiffany opted to leave her gun at home—she didn’t feel comfortable enough with it yet, and took some pepper spray instead, along with a flashlight and her phone.

  Everything a girl needed for a break-in.

  She’d been to Arthur’s office many times over the years. She was glad to see how quiet the street was in the Lower Haight neighborhood where the office and his apartment were located. Only a few people were out for late-night walks with their dogs.

  Parking her car down the street from his address, she walked to the back and to her dismay, she had completely forgotten about the touchpad alarm system that protected the property. So much for trying out her lock-pick set.

  Not giving up, Tiffany searched around the base of the building for an open basement window, but they all appeared secure with cinder block. Then it hit her, and she smiled.

  The roof.

  She couldn’t cut through the rooftop, like the jewelers did, but these were residential buildings and might have doorway access or a roof hatch that she could get through. A friend of hers did that all the time when she locked herself out of her apartment. It was dirty, and there might be a drop to the floor, depending on where the hatch led, but it was worth a try.

  Ambling up the fire escape, she made it to the roof in seconds and gasped in surprise. It was lovely. Arthur and his neighbors had all planted rooftop gardens on the tops of their buildings and stepping over into the greenery was a nice surprise. Flowers bloomed around her, and small topiary trees in pots gave her some cover as she took a breath of cool air, looking up and smiling at the starry sky, standing amid the plants.

  She wished Garrett was here, sharing the stars and the adventure with her, but she supposed technically she would be involving him in a crime, so maybe it was better he was back at the hotel. Tiffany had the idea he didn’t much approve of her taking chances, but she had to get the evidence somehow, and she couldn’t just walk up to Arthur and ask for it.

  The roof did have a hatch, cleverly camouflaged behind several pots of thick gardenias, though it was locked.

  She hoped it didn’t have security, but there was no way to tell. She’d find out soon enough. Pulling out her pick set and flashlight, she messed with the lock, and while doing so, reminded herself to invest in some mini bolt cutters she’d seen for sale. The gardenias were pungent, and she had to stifle several sneezes as she worked, but the locks were stubborn.

  “Don’t bother,” Arthur said from behind her, making her fall backward in shock.

  “Those locks are unbreakable, unless you can saw or somehow burn them off. I’m not stupid.”

  Caught.

  Tiffany
supposed there was no way to talk her way out of this one.

  “I know you were involved in the robberies,” she said, deciding to confront Arthur head-on. He was a man, but an older man not much larger than she was, and she could probably fight him if she had to, especially since he didn’t seem to have a weapon.

  “You’re right, I was,” he said regretfully, shaking his head and walking back to sit in an ornate cast-iron chair.

  Hardly threatening.

  Tiffany got up cautiously, sliding her hand into her pocket and closing her fingers around the pepper spray just in case.

  “Why?” she asked, staying on her feet, not getting too comfortable with Arthur’s apparent acquiescence.

  He sighed heavily, tilting his head back as if to address the starry sky instead of her.

  “Money, of course. It started slow, after my wife died years ago. I would go out to the bar, to have some feeling of life around me. I eventually started playing some of the games, and sometimes I won. It was the most exhilarating thing I’d felt in a while, and before I knew it, I was hooked.”

  “And you got in too deep?”

  “Well, legally, of course, the bars can’t act like casinos—they can’t hold your debt or winnings—but what Freddie does with some of her special customers is lend them advances to play. So it’s more of a loan. I was okay for a while. I do well through my business, but with the recession, slower business, I got behind quickly.”

  “And who came up with the idea of robbing local stores to pay off your debt?”

  His head coming forward again, he looked her in the eye now. “I did. I was desperate. They made some serious threats, not against me—I would have let him kill me if it would have ended it, but they don’t get their money then. They knew about my family and friends. They have reach,” he said. “Helping them seemed like the only option, and they promised no one would be hurt. No one was killed in the robberies,” he said beseechingly. “No property was even damaged.”

  “No, but livelihoods and what people like my parents worked for their entire lives could be lost. Because of you,” she said accusingly, not letting him off the hook.

  “You’re right. That’s why I’m telling you this now. I can’t live with this, and it’s never going to stop. I thought maybe it would just be a few jobs, and when I saw the diamonds your parents had acquired, I thought that would be enough to end it for good.”

  “But they want to keep stringing you along,” she added.

  “Yes. With the interest they charge on the debt, I could be in this until I’m no longer useful to them, even though they have already been paid twice over. I knew I had to get out, and that you were doing some…investigating. It’s a federal crime, what they’re doing.... It crosses state lines. I can name names,” he said eagerly.

  “I know a police detective who can help,” she said, nodding. “Do you know where the diamonds and the other items went?”

  “I wasn’t involved in any way except letting them know where the special items were, the worth, any inside knowledge I had of the stores, that kind of thing.”

  “Like that my parents were out of town that weekend, and I was running the store?”

  “Yes, things like that. Vault makes, whatever details helped their team finish the job. After that, I have no idea what they do with the items,” he said, his head hanging again. “I am so sorry.”

  “Arthur, we should go. It’s probably not safe for us to be out here.”

  “They think I’ve gone to New York. I bought the tickets, went to the airport even, but then circled back here.”

  “Did you take your own car? A cab?” she asked nervously, looking around. It didn’t seem right that Freddie would be okay with letting Arthur off the leash so easily.

  “My own car,” he said hesitantly. “I could tell no one followed me.”

  Right. Everyone who had watched a cop show thought they knew how to spot a tail, but Tiffany knew that it was harder to spot a professional than someone might think, and the people who were involved with Freddie were professionals.

  “Let me call the detective I know, and he can meet us here,” she said, thinking that would be a better plan.

  Dialing Finn Ramsey’s number, it went to message. Frustrated, she said, “Call me.” And hung up.

  Pacing on the roof, a few minutes later, she tried again. Still no message. He was either on a call or not answering his phone. Maybe he was off duty, but Finn didn’t seem like the kind of guy to ignore his phone, no matter what.

  “Okay, we’re going to have to go. But we’ll take the back way around, through yards, down to my car.”

  Arthur nodded, and they made their way down to the driveway at the base of the fire escape as quickly as they could. Tiffany just couldn’t shake the feeling of unease, though it was probably because all of a sudden she was trying to get a prospective federal witness to safety.

  The game definitely changed quickly in the P.I. business.

  “This way,” she said, and motioned to Arthur to follow her, which he did, but as they started to make their way through a space between the houses, she saw two dark figures coming toward them on the other side.

  Turning, her pulse slamming, they headed back to the street, where there might at least be the safety of the streetlights and possible passersby, but no such luck.

  Another man waited patiently at the end of the driveway, illuminated in streetlight. It was the same guy from the back of Freddie’s club, and the way he held his hand under the front flap of his jacket told Tiffany all she needed to know.

  She walked up to him, remaining calm. There was no choice.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll believe we’re just out for a Thanksgiving walk,” she said pertly, making eye contact so the guy at least thought she wasn’t afraid of him as she started to pull the pepper spray from her pocket.

  “Not exactly,” he said just as casually. “And I’d think twice about whatever it is you’re retrieving from your pocket,” he said as she heard the footsteps of the other two men coming up behind them.

  Her fingers loosened from the spray can, and she pulled her hands out, showing empty fingers.

  The thug reached forward, pulling the pepper spray out of her pocket.

  “Nasty stuff,” he said, frowning. “I’d rather be shot.”

  She didn’t agree, but to each their own.

  He checked her other pocket, taking her picks and her cell phone. Suddenly, it started ringing, and people were getting knocked down and then up again. The thug actually laughed at that.

  “I love that song,” he murmured, shutting the phone off and putting it in his pocket.

  It had to be Ramsey. But with her phone off, now no one could track her signal, even if they thought to do so.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, eyeing the car at the curb, and assuming if they were just supposed to be killed, it would have happened already.

  “Freddie wants to talk. Get in the car,” he said.

  Tiffany nodded and let herself be ushered forward to the waiting vehicle. For the moment, all she could do was hope that she somehow managed to walk away from this alive.

  12

  GARRETT KNEW SOMETHING was wrong.

  He’d tried to call Tiffany twice, but no response. Assuming she was mad at him, he’d gone over to her apartment, only to find no one answering the door.

  So he picked the lock.

  No one home, and nothing disturbed, but his gut told him something was off.

  As he was searching through the place, he was relieved to find her gun still there, but it was obvious she had taken off somewhere.

  Maybe to her parents’ house?

  He didn’t want to worry her family without need, so he drove there himself, relieved to remember the way, and rode by the house, but her car wasn’t there.

  It was just then that his phone rang.

  Middle of the night and it was Ramsey. Not good.

  “What happened? Is Tiffany okay?” he as
ked without preamble as he answered, his mind zipping over all of the possibilities. He never should have let her out of his sight, though nothing had been amiss when he dropped her off—at least, aside of the personal tension between them.

  He’d been unable to settle down and absolutely unable to sleep. He’d missed Tiffany so much after coming back to the hotel by himself that he knew he’d been an ass worrying about being with her because of her profession.

  His brother Jonas confirmed as much in far more colorful language when Garrett had called him to make sure he wasn’t nuts for falling for a woman he’d only known a week.

  Jonas, who was usually brusque and blunt, often painfully so, though he had softened more since meeting and marrying Tessa, had said something that had shaken Garrett to his core.

  It can all be gone in a minute, Gar, and you know that better than any of us. So why waste time? Why second-guess it?

  It was all Garrett needed to tip him over into admitting his feelings for Tiffany—at least to himself. So when he’d called and couldn’t find her, he had an awful feeling that he might have missed his chance.

  That couldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it.

  “I was about to ask you that,” Ramsey said just as tersely, shaking Garrett out of his reverie. “I got two calls from her a half hour ago, but I was in the shower. I noticed the messages as soon as I got out, called back, no answer. Seems off. She sounded…intense.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Just to call her back, that it was important.”

  “Can you track her cell signal?”

  “Already tried. Phone is off. So I take it you don’t know where she is?”

  “No. Not at home, not at her parents or with me. How about her car’s GPS?”

  “Working on that now. Waiting on a call.”

  “I’ll be at the station in twenty minutes,” Garrett said, hanging up and focusing on driving the unfamiliar