Robbins and Zuker exchanged a glance.
Paulina didn’t want to speculate what that glance meant. She was concerned about Gil. It wasn’t fair that he was about to be told two people he loved had been murdered within six weeks of each other—and Mikey was still missing. “Please. You can be there with me. I just think it would be easier to hear from someone who isn’t a complete stranger. Since time is of the essence, I suggest I call Mr. Boyer and tell him I’m on my way over with new information. Will that suffice?”
“All right,” Robbins conceded.
“Thank you. I’ll bring my file. I’m sure you gentlemen will have questions for me later.”
Gil had disobeyed her order to go home and rest. She tracked him down at his office. She had a feeling he was trying to keep himself busy. He agreed to wait for her.
Zuker handed off Mikey’s identifying information to another team of investigators who’d been sitting in the restaurant next to the office. It would be taken down to the station ASAP.
Paulina followed behind Robbins and Zuker’s unmarked police car to a new office building in Kanata. The golden haze of the late-afternoon sun glinted off the copper-tinted windows. She parked in a spot beside them. Robbins informed her she could have ten minutes alone with her client as she locked her blue Toyota Corolla. They’d wait out in the hallway.
The reception area was sleek and high tech with surrealistic artwork spotlighted on the walls. The receptionist’s desk formed a dramatic sweeping arc against a mauve wall.
“Paulina?”
She turned at the sound of her name and saw Gil standing in the hallway to her left. He’d been talking to a petite and very pregnant brunette. “Thanks, Renée, we’ll finish this later,” he said.
Paulina studied him carefully. Dark rings showed under his eyes. He’d been waiting for her. He’d said her name like a question. Tension emanated from him like an energy field. His office must be equipped with shower facilities. He’d showered and changed into a pair of tan cotton twill pants and a beige-and-white sweater.
“Hi,” she said softly. “Can we talk in your office?”
“Sure.”
She made certain he closed the door. His office was masculine and sleek, too. Jet black furniture, glass shelves, a black leather couch. A state-of-the-art personal computer sat on his desktop.
“Would you like a coffee?” he asked.
“No.” Paulina wet her lips nervously. “Gil, sit down on the couch with me.” When he’d joined her, she turned toward him, their knees barely touching. Her eyes met his. In the indigo depths, she saw fear.
“I don’t want to hear this, do I?” Gil asked, his voice husky.
Paulina clasped his arm, trying to transmit some of her strength to him. “The police were waiting at my office to talk to me. I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but they believe they’ve found Cindy’s body.” Paulina saw the shock register in his features and felt her heart constrict. Tears stung her eyes. “They don’t know where Mikey is, but they’re already working on finding him.” She told him the few details she knew. Beneath her fingers, the muscles of Gil’s arm grew rigid. His face had a white gleam of marble. He was looking at her, but Paulina knew he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing Cindy.
“I know this is a lot to take in, but I need you to listen,” she said gently. “For Mikey’s sake you can’t fall apart right now.” She calmly laid out the steps of what would happen next, finishing just as a brisk knock sounded on the door.
She introduced Detectives Robbins and Zuker. Gil handled the questions well. He asked if he could have a few minutes to inform Renée, his senior analyst, of the situation, then they left for the morgue. Robbins made it clear Gil was riding with them.
Paulina tailed them, diumming her fingers restlessly on the steering wheel. Apprehension snaked through her abdomen. She could see Gil conversing with the detectives. She knew darn well the police already considered him a suspect.
Good investigators never overlook the obvious. Paulina certainly didn’t intend to. She switched on her flasher to change lanes and exit the Queensway. In fact, her first order of business toward finding Mikey was satisfying herself that Gil wasn’t involved.
THE MORGUE AWAITED THEM. Paulina decided telling Gil about Cindy’s death and walking this seemingly endless basement corridor of Riverside Hospital was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
It was almost as hard as attending her father’s funeral. She’d enjoyed four special years working side by side with her dad in his private investigation agency. There were all those other children out there missing a parent. Children who were left wondering—feeling unloved and unwanted—just as she had. Every child she found and reunited with a searching parent healed some of the hurt in her own life. Paulina and her mother were still caught in an emotional stalemate, which she hoped time and understanding would resolve. Now Paulina was keenly aware that Mikey could never be reunited with his parents.
The realization seeped like a damp chill into her bones. Paulina shuddered. It didn’t help that their footsteps echoed off the walls of the corridor like the displaced heartbeats of the deceased who’d been wheeled down to the morgue.
“I hate this place,” Gil muttered under his breath.
“Me, too.” Paulina kept a secure hold on his arm as they were shown into a room where a sheet-draped form was laid on a stretcher. She steeled herself to remain detached as the sheet was lowered. But she couldn’t remain detached from the sight of Cindy’s body—or from Gil’s sharp intake of dismay. Cindy’s face showed the violence of her death.
A rush of sympathy cascaded from Paulina’s heart to her stomach. She squeezed Gil’s arm to remind him he wasn’t alone. That he had someone beside him who cared.
“Is this Cindy D’Angelo?” Robbins asked him.
Gil nodded. “Yes, it’s her.” His fingers trembled as he gently touched a lock of Cindy’s blond hair. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely. The rawness of his reaction brought a hot flow of tears spilling onto her cheeks. He turned away and Paulina slipped her arms around him as a sob racked his body.
THIS WAS A NIGHTMARE. Gil tried to keep his irritation with the police questions under control. How many times would they ask him when he last saw Cindy? Had they had an argument? What had he been doing in her apartment? What had he done with her things? Why had he hired Paulina? Why had he and Paulina gone to Winnipeg? Didn’t he find it odd that his brother had been killed six weeks ago—and now his sister-in-law? Did Ted and Cindy have any enemies?
The questions spun around in his head like a giant wagon wheel. At its hub hovered the most crucial unanswered question of all: What had happened to Mikey?
Gil wanted to slam his fist a few hundred times into whoever had killed Cindy and taken his nephew. He just hoped that whoever had kidnapped Mikey had wanted him enough to take care of him properly. But there were too many sickos out there for that thought to bring much comfort.
He tried to follow Paulina’s advice to answer the questions candidly. But for an interview, this felt a lot like an interrogation. The sickening realization that they thought he might be involved slammed into him like a shoulder in the gut. Nausea rose in his throat. Jeez, if they talked to that waitress, Gil figured his goose was cooked.
At least Robbins told him the police were scouring the area where Cindy had been found, knocking on doors and asking if anyone had seen her with Mikey. Mikey’s picture would be plastered all over the six o’clock news. Hopefully, someone would call in with a tip. Gil had offered to post a reward for information, if Robbins thought it would help.
He wished Paulina were here, holding on to him, grounding him to reality. But she was in another room at the police station answering questions, too.
A uniformed officer entered the room and handed Robbins a piece of paper. Gil wondered what the hell was on the paper. Robbins read it with a great deal of interest. The skin prickled on the back of Gil’s neck.<
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“Mr. Boyer, where were you last Wednesday afternoon?”
Gil had to think back. “I’m not sure I—wait a minute.” He snapped his fingers. “I was installing a system for a client, Robert Fielding, a CPA in Vanier.”
“What time did you finish?”
“I’m not sure—between five and six. The accountant’s office should be able to verify I was there.”
“What did you do afterward?”
“I went jogging along the Rideau Canal,” Gil said cautiously. “Then I went home to shower and eat dinner. Why?”
“Based on the stomach contents, the autopsy report estimates Cindy died between noon and eight last Wednesday evening.”
“Wednesday?” Gil felt as though the world had dropped out from underneath him. He was painfully aware that Vanier was a ten-minute drive from the Byward Market. Robbins was eyeballing him as though he had Mikey
- stashed somewhere. “Well, we know she had breakfast at Joe’s Diner that morning,” Gil said, trying to piece together Cindy’s last morning. “That alley’s gotta be a couple of miles from the Market. Was she killed there or just um…” he struggled to find a better word than dumped. Dumped sounded as if she had no value and that simply wasn’t true. A tightness gripped his throat and wouldn’t let go. “Or just left there?”
“She was left there. What color interior is your car, Mr. Boyer?”
Oh, God They do think I did it. “Charcoal gray.”
“Some burgundy carpet fibers were recovered from Cindy’s clothes, which indicates she was transported in a vehicle. Can you think of anyone she knows who owns a car with a burgundy interior?”
“No,” he said, battling off another siege of frustration.
“I realize these questions seem pointless, but most people are killed by someone they know.”
Yeah, well, hell, Gil wasn’t going to sit around while Robbins played around with possibilities that included suspecting him. “Does the autopsy report say anything else that might help pinpoint Cindy’s killer?”
“She was strangled with a two-inch-wide ligature.”
Gil’s stomach heaved. Sheer pride and self-discipline kept him from spilling his guts in the wastebasket in the corner. The damn room was airless. Gil ran a shaking hand across his damp forehead. He dreaded going home and calling his parents in Kingston. Ted’s death had struck them hard. This would—
Gil wasn’t even aware that Robbins was still talking until the detective slid a business card across the table toward him. It took a few seconds to register he was being dismissed.
“My number’s on the card, Mr. Boyer. Call me or Detective Zuker if you remember something you think could be important. Ms. Stewart is waiting for you out in the hall. She’ll drive you home.”
Gil practically sprinted for the door. He was reassured to find Paulina sitting primly in a straight-backed chair. The strength of her indomitable spirit gave her skin a soft pearlescent glow. She rose in an elegant fluid motion and looped the spaghetti strap of her purse over her shoulder.
“You hanging in there?” It sounded more like an order than a question of concern. He felt immeasurably better just being within touching distance of her.
He squared his shoulders. “Yeah.” He fell in step beside her as she walked toward the exit.
Once they were outside, he took several reviving breaths of the autumn-crisp air. Then he told her about the interview and the autopsy report. But he couldn’t tell her they thought he did it. The injustice of it was just too painful to acknowledge. What if she started wondering if he’d done it? She unlocked the passenger door for him. He put his hand on the door, to stop her from opening it as if he was an invalid. “So what do we do now?” he asked.
Her eyes were so serious.
“That depends.” She crossed her arms at her waist. The dark print of her dress emphasized the swell of her breasts. “Do you want me to continue with my investigation or do you want the police to carry on from here?”
“I want you to continue. Hell, all the police want to do is ask me questions.”
Her gaze flicked toward the police station. “You’d better get used to it. They’re going to ask a lot more.”
Gil slid into the passenger seat feeling as though his stomach wanted to leap out of his body. Now what the hell did she mean by that?
GIL HAD TOLD HER to make herself at home while he went upstairs to change and call his parents. Paulina figured she had ten, maybe twenty minutes tops to scout out the house. She slipped out of her shoes and walked soundlessly in her stockinged feet over the pale polished bois franc floors. The house was enormous. Thirty-five hundred square feet, at least. What more did he think he needed to provide a family? She checked the kitchen first. There was no baby formula in the refrigerator. She peeked in the cupboards. No sign of baby cereal, canned formula or baby bottles.
No smelly diapers in the trash.
She quickly checked the downstairs guest bath, then walked through the formal dining room and scanned the family room and living room for baby paraphernalia. Gil’s taste in furnishings ran to the exquisite. A fossilized stone dining table, pickled pine and buttery soft sage leather sofas.
Paulina glanced up the gracious curved staircase. The house had a central hall design. She counted six doors upstairs. The double door to the master suite was closed. The others were open. She quietly mounted the staircase, counting off the rooms. A guest bath. A guest bedroom appointed with a queen-size bed. An exercise room with weight-lifting equipment. Two bare rooms.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she heard the murmur of Gil’s voice. He was still on the phone. Heart pounding with nervousness, she tiptoed across the plush sage carpet to the guest bath and eased open the cupboards. No diapers or other baby stuff. No baby smell lingering in the air.
Mikey had not been here recently.
Feeling reassured, Paulina suddenly realized she could no longer hear Gil’s voice. He was off the phone! The door to the master suite opened with a faint click.
She schooled her features to innocence. “There you are. I just came up to make sure you were all right. Did you tell your parents?”
“Yeah. I told them we could talk about the funeral in the morning. Mom thinks we should wait with the arrangements until we know what happened to Mikey. I asked her about Cindy’s parents. She doesn’t know their names either, but she thinks Cindy’s from Edmonton originally.”
“Well, that’s a place to start.” Paulina laced her fingers through his. The warm bond sent a shiver through her. She still hadn’t grown used to touching him. “Come downstairs. I’ll fix you a drink. Are you hungry? I could make you a sandwich or something. But I warn you I’m not much of a cook.”
“A beer sounds good. I’m too worried about Mikey to eat. I was thinking I could have some posters run off tomorrow. Pay some teenagers to hang them all over the city.”
“That’s a good idea.” They walked into the kitchen. Paulina let go of his hand and opened the refrigerator. She retrieved a bottle of beer and a vegetable juice. She had to drive home soon and do some work. She took a glass from the upper cabinet nearest the dishwasher.
“Hey, that’s pretty good,” Gil commented, twisting off the cap. “You already know your way around my house—or at least to what’s important.”
Paulina flushed. His remark landed a little too close to the truth.
They sat at the counter stools. The curtain of night stretched ominously beyond the picture window as though its inky folds deliberately concealed the name and face of Cindy’s killer and Mikey’s abductor.
“You never told me what we should do next to find Mikey,” Gil said, after a few minutes of silence.
Paulina ran her hand through her hair. “That’s because I’m still working on a plan. I need to go home and think about it. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right first. We’ll talk tomorrow. The police are doing a lot of legwork, so everything possible is being done. They’ll ensure Mikey’s photo receives ple
nty of media coverage. I’ll concentrate on a more personal angle, like discovering the identity of the blond-haired man with the athletic build.” She set down her empty glass.
Gil glanced at his watch. “It’s after nine o’clock. You should go home, then—and think. I’ll walk you to the door. What’d you do with your shoes? You’re barefoot.”
“In the foyer. I didn’t want to scratch your floors.”
There was an uncomfortable moment after she slipped on her navy slingbacks, when she looked up at him to say good-bye. She knew he needed to be alone with his grief and she had work to do, but it was hard to leave him.
He reached out and touched her wrist. “Paulina?”
Her breath snared in her throat. He had the darndest way of saying her name—like a question. “Yes?”
His hands settled on her shoulders. Her heart started to pound with a dizzying beat. “Could I kiss you?”
Was he crazy? Yes, in a way, crazy with grief and worry.
“Gil,” she said softly, shaking her head. This case was rattling her nerves. No, her client was rattling her nerves. It was up to her to keep a level head. “I’m the last kind of woman you should be wanting to kiss.” She didn’t know if she was trying to convince him—or herself.
“I know. I recognize a career woman when I meet one. But I still want to kiss you. I’ve wanted to since last night.” His fingers lightly grazed her jaw.
Paulina bit her lower lip as a tremor shot through her body.
“Let me, just once.”
She knew she shouldn’t, and yet she felt her resistance crumble like a stone wall giving way to a strong and insistent wind.
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