by Kara Lennox
“Maybe lunch is a good idea.” Beth would no doubt have some distracting story to tell during lunch. She was one of those people to whom strange things always happened.
“Did someone say lunch?” Mitch Delacroix slipped through the open office door behind Beth.
Great. Now Raleigh’s office was Grand Central Station.
“I’m trying to drag Raleigh’s nose away from the grindstone,” Beth said. “Want to come with us?”
Mitch looked undecided then abruptly shook his head. “Can’t. Meeting. I just stopped by to give you this, Raleigh.” He held out a bulging manila folder.
Raleigh couldn’t remember asking Mitch for research with any of her cases. She must have looked at him blankly.
“Griffin Benedict?”
“Ohhh.” She slapped a hand to her forehead. “Mitch, I’m so sorry to have put you to a lot of trouble for nothing. I don’t believe Griffin Benedict will bother me again.”
Mitch shrugged. “It’s okay. Digging up dirt on people is fun for me, you know that, and I didn’t have anything else urgent—or half as interesting. Glad you worked it out, though.”
He handed Raleigh the folder. “Enjoy it. Then shred the contents, okay? A few bits and pieces in there aren’t, ah, fully in the public domain.”
Meaning he’d done some hacking. On her behalf. Raleigh felt guilty as hell.
She set the folder on her desk, grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Does Lancer Steak-house sound okay to you? They have good lunch specials.”
“Wait!” Beth’s single word stuck her to the floor.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to look inside the folder?”
“No way,” Raleigh said. “I no longer need information on the man. It wouldn’t be ethical for me to snoop—”
“Ethical, shmethical. This will make excellent lunch entertainment.” Beth grabbed the folder. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t think we should read the information on Griffin,” Raleigh said again a couple of minutes later as she signed out. Celeste seemed to be heavily involved in a Danielle Steele novel.
“But aren’t you curious?”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
Celeste gave a disapproving harrumph, reminding Raleigh that even when she seemed not to be paying attention, she was. Celeste was a little sharper than most people gave her credit for.
“Look, Beth,” Raleigh said once they’d exited the building into a gloomy, overcast day. “I think I’ve convinced Griffin of my innocence. He’s not going to print any lies about me. End of threat, as far as I’m concerned.”
“But you don’t know what he’s really planning to write. Even if he told you he believed you—reporters can say anything. You should be ready. Just in case. Knowledge is power.”
“And you’re grasping at straws because you’re nosy. I had a hard enough time ejecting him from my apartment yesterday—”
Beth gasped. “He was in your apartment?”
Raleigh’s face warmed as she imagined what Beth was thinking. “I brought him there to show him evidence that would exonerate me. He seemed convinced. He even warned me that I might be in danger.”
Again, Beth gasped. “Maybe you are!”
Raleigh waved away her concern. “People who commit crimes with paper and computers seldom turned to guns, knives or bombs. He was just trying to manipulate my feelings, so I would agree to…” Agree to what? She wasn’t sure.
“Anyway,” she concluded, “I’m done with him.”
“Well,” said Beth, “if you won’t look at the folder, that’s your business. But I’m going to check it out.”
Raleigh knew she wouldn’t dissuade her friend, so she didn’t argue further. In truth, she was curious about the contents of that folder.
Getting Griffin to leave her apartment hadn’t been easy, but evicting him from her mind was proving impossible. She kept seeing him as he’d looked, large and masculine and utterly out of place in her feminine living room. Her stomach swooped every time that image jumped into her consciousness.
His presence had felt exciting and dangerous, representing everything she tried to avoid in her life. Part of her had wanted to grab a broom and sweep him out into the hallway; another part had almost invited him to have dinner with her. She loved to cook, yet how long had it been since she’d done more than toss a frozen dinner into the microwave?
She and Beth headed for Lancer and got a booth in the back with a bit of privacy. After ordering, Beth opened the folder with obvious anticipation and began sifting through the contents, scanning pages that interested her.
“Seems the journalist has been the subject of more than a few interviews,” she said.
Raleigh put her fingers in her ears. “La la la, I’m not listening.” But of course, she was.
“Born and raised in Houston,” Beth said as she scanned one of the articles, which looked to have been copied from the internet. “Humble beginnings, broken home, rags to riches…wow, he really overcame some tough odds to get where he is.”
“If that’s even true. He could have made it all up. Not all reporters check their facts.”
“He went to University of Texas on a scholarship. Good for him. Oh, look, his college transcript. Almost straight A’s.”
That was a little surprising. Raleigh would have pegged him as the kind who partied his way through college.
“Graduate school, University of Oklahoma,” Beth continued. “I wouldn’t have guessed he was the academic type.”
“I wouldn’t, either.” Raleigh was getting sucked in, despite herself.
“He’s not all about books and classrooms, though. He has a black belt in judo.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me.” The way he moved, so decisively but at the same time with grace, suggested some type of athletic training.
“Seems he paid his dues, working at small papers, stringing for the wire services, freelancing for magazines, including—” Beth smiled “—Soldier of Fortune.”
“A magazine for mercenaries and assorted gun nuts. Nice.”
“Then the Telegram hired him. That’s when he started to make a name for himself—oh, look at this. A copy of his driver’s license. He lives on The Heights Boulevard. Cool neighborhood.”
His address put him squarely inside the Loop. The Heights was an up-and-coming area with plenty of young professionals and lots of parks for them to play in on the weekends.
“Here’s the ‘Most Eligible Bachelors’ story. Want to read it? That’s totally available to anyone, no invasion of privacy.”
“I’m not interested,” Raleigh said flatly as she copped a peek at the color printout of the story, which featured a large picture of Griffin leaning against a brick wall, looking tough and slightly cynical—and heart-stoppingly gorgeous.
Beth sifted through a few more photos. “Seems he was into the club scene for a bit—pretty models hanging on him. He doesn’t look particularly happy.”
Which gave Raleigh a perverse sense of satisfaction. From her ivory tower, she liked to think that no one in the club scene was happy, filling their empty lives with drinking and drugs and meaningless banter.
“Poor guy,” she said. “Rough life having to hang with gorgeous women.”
“The boy likes to drive fast. Look at all these speeding tickets. His car insurance rates must be through the roof.”
“Beth, enough.”
“Wait—oh, hmm. Interesting.”
The waitress chose that moment to bring their salads and baked potatoes. Beth closed the folder and suddenly seemed keen on loading her spud with butter, sour cream and bacon.
Raleigh added a few drops of dressing to her salad and a sprinkle of pepper to her potato. They ate for a few minutes in silence before Raleigh couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What’s so interesting?”
“Hmm?”
“You saw something in that folder and you said, ‘Hmmm. Interesting.’”
“Did
I?” Beth pretended to look confused. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“Okay, I’m a big liar. I’m fascinated. There, satisfied?”
Beth grinned and opened the folder back up. “He was nominated for a Pulitzer. Did a piece on war orphans in Afghanistan.”
“I remember that story,” Raleigh said suddenly. “It ran in the Telegram’s Sunday magazine, couple of years ago.” She apparently hadn’t paid much attention to who had written the piece, but now the details poured back into her mind. It was one of the most compassionate, emotional pieces of writing she’d ever read. Griffin hadn’t just reported a sad situation, he had immersed himself in it. Those children and their tragedy weren’t simply statistics to him. They were real people he’d taken the time to know.
The story had made her cry.
It was hard to dislike, or even dismiss, a man like that.
RALEIGH TOLD HERSELF a million times that it didn’t make any difference whether he truly cared about his subjects or was an opportunistic paparazzo. He was not her concern anymore.
When she returned to the office, she had an email from Daniel advising her that Channel 6 had aired a small story during their Noon News about the handgun found in the water heater. Amazing how he always seemed to know when anything involving Project Justice aired or was printed or tweeted.
With a knot in her stomach, Raleigh watched the video clip attached to Daniel’s email. A female reporter with a heavy drawl interviewed the property owner who had found the gun when he’d replaced his water heater.
“I wasn’t living here at the time,” the neighbor said. “But it freaks me out that a murder weapon was right here under my nose.”
“Alleged murder weapon,” Raleigh murmured.
The report showed some photos of the rusty-looking gun, then focused on the homeowner’s over-blown emotions concerning the discovery.
At the very end of the piece, the reporter said only that the gun was too corroded for identification.
Huh. Second reporter to bring up the corrosion. Someone from the police department was feeding information to the press. It somehow made her feel better that Griffin wasn’t the only one who knew things. He didn’t have magical powers, he merely knew a blabbermouth cop.
But the media was wrong about one thing. Although the gun was corroded, it wasn’t beyond hope. Praktech Laboratories, a highly regarded independent lab that did specialized evidence analysis, was working on the weapon.
No one from the station had contacted her for information. In fact, Project Justice hadn’t been mentioned. Maybe that was a good thing. It was hard for her and the other investigators to do their jobs in a fishbowl.
Though she loved her work, Raleigh was glad when her workday was over and she could head home. She parked her Volvo in the garage beneath her building, then unlocked the steel security door and climbed the stairs to her third-floor apartment. Her heart lifted as she entered her beautiful oasis and saw Copper bouncing around on his hind legs, wanting to be held.
Raleigh picked up the little dog and pressed her face against the soft fur. Nothing relieved stress like a warm, furry little dog. She hugged him until he squirmed to get down.
“Did ya miss me, boy?” she asked.
Jason had given Copper to Raleigh as a gift not long before he died. They used to bring him to the office, where someone was usually around to take him out for walks and keep him company. Bringing him to work at Project Justice wasn’t practical, though. Now, a neighbor walked him at midday, but he spent quite a few hours alone.
Copper had been a great comfort to her in the days after Jason’s death, the one constant in a world gone topsy-turvy. She wouldn’t know what to do without him.
She quickly changed into a Houston Astros T-shirt, a pair of sweats and walking shoes. This was her favorite time of day, taking Copper for his walk, when she could clear her mind and stretch her muscles. Her building had a gym she could use anytime, but she preferred a peaceful walk.
Raleigh grabbed her cell phone from her purse and stuck it in her pocket, then clipped Copper’s leash to his collar and took him downstairs via the elevator—the stairs were a bit much for his tiny legs.
Irving, the doorman, greeted her with a nod and opened the door for her. His presence was Daniel’s doing. Usually only the most posh apartment buildings enjoyed such a luxury, but Daniel was serious about his employees’ safety, and a number of them lived at this address.
Soon she and Copper were on their way along their usual route, surrounded by commuters and pedestrians heading home, but still alone.
Her thoughts turned to Griffin, and that war-orphan story he’d written. She couldn’t figure out who he really was—bottom-feeder reporter, out to nail a sensational story no matter who he had to stomp on, or a compassionate journalist, shining a light in dark corners, revealing truths? It bugged her that she couldn’t peg him. She was normally pretty good at peeling away fake facades and ulterior motives, but she didn’t feel she’d figured out the real Griffin Benedict.
She was only a couple of blocks from home when her cell rang. This time, it played the theme song to the Perry Mason show.
“Very funny, guys.” Someone at the office was always downloading ridiculous ringtones onto her phone. She still had no idea who the culprit was.
She stopped to let Copper sniff at a particularly intriguing bush as she dug the phone out of her pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Anonymous.
A lot of the people she talked to, like cops and other lawyers, were freakish about privacy. With a shrug, she answered. “Raleigh Shinn.”
The weird, tinny voice that greeted her sent a shiver through her body. “Miss Shinn. It’s not a good idea to continue your quest to free Anthony Simonetti.”
“Who am I speaking with, please?” She ordered her voice to remain calm, though she felt an urge to fling her phone into a nearby bush as if it were a poisonous snake.
“Who I am is not important. You should know, though, that the man is guilty.”
“Really? What makes you such an expert on the subject?”
“He told me he did it. He had no reason to lie. The right man is paying the price for that murder.”
“Who are you? I can’t take you seriously until I know who I’m dealing with.”
“You’d better take me seriously. Or it’s more than your reputation on the line.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m an Astros fan, too.” The caller disconnected.
Raleigh suddenly felt as vulnerable as if she were walking naked down the street. The caller could see her. Right now.
She whirled around, checking out nearby cars and pedestrians. No one acted suspiciously. But all those buildings surrounding her, all those dark windows.
In a hurry to get somewhere safe, she picked up Copper and walked—quickly but not running—toward the front door of her building.
She’d almost made it to a safe haven when she heard footsteps behind her. Faster, closer.
“Raleigh, wait up.”
She whirled around and nearly collided with Griffin. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“What happened? Who was on the phone?”
“How did you—”
“I was watching you, okay? You looked upset. No, you looked terrified.”
“I have to get inside. Someone is watching me. Some one besides you. He…he saw what I was wearing.”
Griffin tensed and looked around, automatically moving to shield her from the street. “C’mon, let’s go.” He put an arm around her shoulders and escorted her the half block to her door. The doorman gave her a questioning look.
“It’s okay, Irving, I know him.” She didn’t, not really. But his concern seemed genuine.
Once in the safety of her building’s beautiful lobby, she took a few deep breaths.
“Tell me what happened,” Griffin said gently.
She couldn’t help herself—she spilled everything. “Anonymous caller. He
was using something to change his voice, so he sounded like a robot, or a computer.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not in so many words. But he was watching me. He knew what I was wearing. Oh, God, it was so creepy.”
It had to be the same person who’d given Griffin the bogus information, and made the deposit. Which meant Griffin was right. Her enemy was upping the stakes. His veiled threat could mean anything, up to and including physical harm.
“You should call the police,” Griffin said.
“Yes. Right.” She still had her cell phone in her hand. Halfway through dialing 911, however, she stopped. “The police won’t care. They have better things to do than track down crank callers.”
She knew the drill. First of all, they couldn’t get access to cell phone records without a court order. Even if she cleared that hurdle, tracking down the call wouldn’t help. Her caller could have used a pay phone or a throwaway cell. Criminals were savvy these days. They watched crime shows like everyone else and knew how other criminals had been tripped up.
But the police wouldn’t go to that much trouble, anyway. They would write it off as a joke or assume she was trying to generate publicity to support some crazy conspiracy theory regarding Anthony. She wasn’t exactly tops on their list of lovable people right now, since proving Anthony’s innocence would be a huge embarrassment to them.
She would tell Daniel about it. He had access to all kinds of security experts and bodyguards. He would know what measures were appropriate. Daniel didn’t much care for law enforcement, as a rule, and could she blame him, after he’d spent six years on death row?
“Should I be worried that you’re still watching me?” Raleigh asked. “You did receive the email I sent, right? With the real cell phone bill, and the names of the bank employees?”
If he heard her question, he was ignoring it. “I knew there was a story here. I couldn’t give up. And I was right. Someone is out to get you.”
Raleigh’s knees felt shaky. “I could use a glass of wine. How about you?” It was the least she could do after he’d come to her rescue. He’d seemed genuinely concerned.
Unless…he’d been the one to make the call? How stupid could she be that she hadn’t considered that possibility before? Quite a coincidence, Griffin just happening to be Johnny-on-the-spot when she received a personal threat.