by Jane Godman
“What can we do to help?” Nancy clasped her hands together as they made their way back out into the tiny yard.
“Two things. You can lend us a flashlight. And once we’re gone, you can blow the dust off that landline of yours and call the police,” Bryce said. “Tell them there’s a guy outside acting suspiciously.”
Tanner provided the flashlight and Bryce tucked it into the waistband of his jeans before hauling himself up the wall. When he reached the top, he swung himself over. Steffi listened until she heard him dropping down the other side. Tanner placed his hands around her waist and boosted her up until she was able to catch hold of the top of the wall. Once she was there, she hoisted herself up. Clinging on with both hands, she looked down at Bryce. He had his arms outstretched.
“Let go. I’ll catch you.” Suddenly, it seemed a long way down. “Trust me, Steffi.”
Why did he have to say that? Why did he have to make this about trust? She had been fine until then, but as soon as Bryce said that word, she froze. Her rational mind and her emotions became disconnected from each other. Her brain was telling her she could do this, that jumping from this height wasn’t a problem. At the same time, her body was displaying all the signs of terror. Clinging to the wall as if her life depended on it, refusing to let go, unable to relinquish control and put her trust in the man below her. Even though she knew Bryce wouldn’t let her down. How can you know that? She groaned. This was not the time for that doubting voice to creep in.
“We have to go.” Bryce’s whisper was urgent. “Erik might decide to check out the rear of the property anytime now.”
He was right, and she was being foolish. She remembered the picture in the back pocket of her jeans. This was for Greg. Taking a deep breath, Steffi let go of the wall and slithered down into Bryce’s waiting arms. She caught a glimpse of the tension on his features.
“When are you going to trust me without having to think about it?”
He set her on her feet, and, without waiting for an answer to his question, led her back toward the car.
Chapter 14
Bryce drove away from the coast toward the San Diego Botanic Garden. The rental car’s GPS led them to a quiet road and he pulled over, eyeing the apartment block across the street. The building was mostly in darkness, with only one or two windows lit up. He consulted the piece of paper on which Nancy had written the address.
“This is it.”
Steffi didn’t reply. She had been silent since they had left Nancy and Tanner’s place. Huddled down in her seat, she appeared to be wrapped in her own emotions. Bryce assumed it was because she had been unable to trust him at first about jumping from the wall. That bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He understood why she was so vulnerable and insecure. Witnessing the murder of her parents at such an early age, and by a man she had thought of as an uncle, had destroyed her ability to trust. He got that. As a consequence of what she had been through, Steffi had erected huge barriers between herself and the rest of the world. She lived behind them, in her own protected space. If she ever left that safe haven, it was on her terms and she quickly retreated back behind the barricades when things got tough. He suspected that, until three months ago, tough had meant something as simple as an inappropriate touch or an unkind word.
When he had seen her relax and hug Nancy, he knew it was a momentous moment for her. He just wished she could open up in the same way with him.
Greg’s and Bliss’s murders might have forced Steffi to leave her safe place physically, but emotionally those barriers were as strong as ever. Increasingly, Bryce found himself wanting to tear them down, to show her what life could be like. That a little danger could be fun and exhilarating. Only he didn’t know where to start. They had a physical bond that went beyond anything he had ever known, but they had a tacit agreement not to go past that. Talking? Sharing feelings? Not going there. It wasn’t just Bryce keeping his distance. Steffi had made it clear. Their relationship was about sex. Nothing more. Hot sex with a Hollywood superstar and no strings. It was every man’s fantasy. It should make his blood sing, right? He shouldn’t get this weird feeling of incompleteness every time he thought about it. He shouldn’t want to take her by the shoulders right now and try to convince her that, even if she never trusted anyone else in her life ever again, she could trust him.
None of this fit with his own feelings of detachment. He was being shaken up and forced to confront a side of himself he had kept hidden. While Steffi had been building her walls, Bryce had been dealing with his own issues in a different way. If he refused to acknowledge he had feelings, he didn’t have to deal with them. It was a principle he had clung to ever since his return from Afghanistan, and it had worked just fine. Was he about to abandon it now? Let Steffi get under his skin? For what? When this was over and Walter was behind bars, they’d both look back on this time with an incredulous shake of the head and a smile... Bryce behind his desk in Stillwater and Steffi on a film shoot in some glamorous location. Their worlds may have collided briefly and dramatically for these brief moments, but nothing had changed. They lived totally different lives.
Bryce huffed out an impatient breath. He should probably concentrate on how he was going to break into that apartment without getting caught, rather than on his wounded male pride.
“Steffi?” She seemed to rouse herself from a trance. “This is Bliss’s apartment building.”
He made a move to get out of the car, but Steffi placed a hand on his arm. “Wait.” When Bryce turned back to her, he could see by the golden glow of a nearby streetlight that her expression was troubled. “How did Erik know we were at Nancy and Tanner’s place?”
Bryce sat back in his seat, considering the question. He glanced around the deserted street and in the rearview mirror. “You think we’re being followed?”
She shook her head. “You made sure we’re not. But Erik knew we were going to be at Simply Bee tonight.”
He frowned. “Walter can’t be monitoring our calls. Vincente is the only person who knows I have this number.”
“And we didn’t call Nancy and Tanner to tell them we were coming.” Steffi hitched in a breath. “The only people who knew we were going there tonight were my parents.”
Bryce took a moment to process what she was saying. “You think Walter has been to your parents’ place? That he coerced them into giving him that information?” No wonder she was so quiet.
“How coincidental would that be?” Her hand was shaking as she raised it to her throat in a panicky gesture. “No, either Walter has had someone at their house or has been monitoring their calls the whole time since I went on the run—which would be crazy, even for Walter—or my parents let him know we would be at Nancy and Tanner’s place tonight.”
* * *
“What makes you think your parents told Walter we would be at Nancy and Tanner’s place tonight?” Steffi saw the concern in Bryce’s eyes as he asked the question. Was he wondering if she had finally become unhinged? If the stress had gotten too much for her? She wouldn’t blame him if that was the way he was thinking. “Why does that have to be the solution instead of a coincidence, or Walter somehow watching us, or monitoring their calls?”
“It’s not just the fact that Erik knew we would be at Simply Bee tonight. That could be explained away by the things you’ve just said. But I remember the way Walter spoke about my adoptive parents when we were in his house in Stillwater.” She twisted her hands in her lap as she spoke. This was not something she wanted to say out loud. It wasn’t even a suspicion she wanted inside her head. “I thought it was strange at the time, but I was so caught up in everything else that was going on that I didn’t have time to stop and think about it. I was too busy focusing on the existence of Greg’s cell phone.”
Bryce frowned as if he was trying to recall exactly what Walter had said. “I know he said he didn’t
hurt your adoptive parents, but I don’t remember much else.”
“When he talked about searching for me, Walter said he already had their address. Not that he found their address. Not that he tracked them down. He said he already had it.” Steffi recalled how much those words had bothered her, even though she had pushed them to the back of her mind.
“Are you sure?” Bryce asked.
“Absolutely.” That word brought with it a renewed certainty in what she was saying. “And that’s not all he said that was odd. That whole conversation stuck in my mind because it was so strange. When I said my parents were good people, Walter agreed with me. He said he knew they were. And he knew my real name was Steffi Grantham. But that’s not all. He called them by their first names. He called them June and Todd.” The words were tumbling out in a frantic rush now as if they were in a desperate hurry to be heard before they slipped away and were lost. “As if he knew them.”
“How could he know them?” The gentle note in Bryce’s voice incensed her. How dare he humor her?
“I did not imagine those things!” She turned around in her seat to glare at him.
“Steffi, I’m not suggesting that you did. I’m asking a serious question. What do you suppose the things Walter said to you actually meant?” Bryce took her hands in his. “Do you really think Walter knows your parents? And that they would tell him where you are? Is that what you are saying? Because, if Walter knew where you—a witness to the murder of your parents—lived all these years, why wouldn’t he just have killed you?”
His touch had the effect of causing the anger and tension to ooze out of her and she slouched back in her seat, the fight going out of her. “They raised me. They gave me everything. Yet I’m suspecting them of doing something that would harm me. What sort of person does that make me?”
“One who is under immense pressure.” Bryce slid an arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer. “We don’t know how Erik found out where we were tonight, and right now it’s not worth speculating about it.” He tilted his head to scan her face. “Do you want to call your parents and speak to them before we go into Bliss’s apartment?”
“No, it’s late, and I don’t want to worry them over something that’s probably just my imagination. I’ll call them in the morning.”
“Talking of calling people—” he gave an apologetic grimace as he took out his cell phone “—I need to check in with Vincente.”
Steffi watched his profile as he called his brother’s number, letting her eyes roam over his strong features. She was only half listening to his conversation with Vincente. There was something about the quality of Bryce’s voice that soothed her. Idly, she wondered what had come first—attraction or being tuned in to that frequency in his voice that massaged her psyche. She couldn’t remember. Their first meeting seemed so long ago. Was it possible for a person’s character to show in their voice? If so, then Bryce’s deep, warm tones would represent his finest qualities. They indicated that he was a good person.
The thought took her back again to that troubling conversation with Walter about her parents. The floodgates of doubt had been opened in Steffi’s mind. Other memories began to surface, insidious things that bothered her. Once she began to dwell on them, she couldn’t shake off her misgivings.
Bryce, with that knack he had for knowing when something was worrying her, ended his call and turned to look at her. “What is it?”
She gave a shaky laugh. “Now I really am being foolish. It’s just—” She might as well say it. It didn’t sound any more irrational than the things she’d already told him. “When I called my parents to tell them Greg was dead, they didn’t seem surprised, even though it hadn’t hit the news.”
“That does seem strange.” Bryce spoke slowly as though he was carefully absorbing her words.
“And at the start of the conversation, June tried to get me to go straight to the police and give myself up. But when I spoke to Todd, he tried to persuade me to meet him in San Francisco. He said he wanted to be with me to support me when I gave myself up.”
“Well, that would make sense,” Bryce said. “I can imagine how he would want you in their home so they could be with you when you talked to the police.”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you? And because I had no intention of giving myself up, I didn’t think too much of it. Until now. But June and Todd don’t live in San Francisco. As far as I know, it’s a town that means nothing to them. It certainly means nothing to me. Their home is in Sheridan. Like you, I grew up in Wyoming.”
“So why, when their home is in another state, did Todd ask you to meet him in San Francisco?” Bryce was starting to look as bewildered as Steffi felt.
“I don’t know. But Walter Sullivan is meticulous about detailing his movements on social media, so it will be easy to find out where he was that day. If Walter was in San Francisco, I guess we’ll have the answer to the question about whether my parents know him or not, won’t we?”
* * *
The apartment complex comprised four buildings arranged in a square around a central garden. Each building was two floors high. Bliss had the corner apartment on the second floor, farthest from the road. From Bryce’s perspective, the location was ideal. While Steffi held the flashlight, he was able to get a good look at the front of the apartment without risking being seen.
There was no alarm, which was a bonus. There were only two possible ways of getting in from this level. One was through the front door, which, since it was solid wood with a substantial lock, didn’t appear promising. The other was through a small window to the left of the door. Bryce figured if he could pry it open, he could just about fit through it...but that would mean damaging the window.
“The apartment would be left wide-open after we’ve gone,” he explained. “If we’re wrong, and Bliss is alive, I don’t want her to get back from Africa to find the place has been stripped bare while she’s been away.”
“We’re not wrong,” Steffi said quietly.
“Even so, it doesn’t feel right to leave her stuff exposed to looters.”
He signaled to Steffi to switch off the flashlight and, keeping to the shadows, they followed the wall of the building around to the rear of the apartment block. Looking up at Bliss’s home, Bryce could see a small balcony. French windows opened from the apartment onto it.
“That’s the way in.” His voice was low as he pointed upward.
“How will you get up there?” Steffi whispered back.
“I’ll have to drop down from the roof.”
“How do you plan on doing that?” The words started out as a squeak, but she managed to get her voice back under control.
It was a good question and one to which there was no immediate answer. Bryce took a moment to study the garden. It was an unimaginative layout, with a few low-level shrubs, some tired-looking palm trees and two large maples. He studied the closest of these thoughtfully.
“That’s how,” he said at last.
Steffi followed his gaze. The tree was a few feet shorter than the building itself, and Bryce figured if he climbed it, he would be able to scramble across from the highest branches and onto the roof. That was his plan. Since it was the only one he had, he turned a confident face to Steffi.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
He slid down the wall into a sitting position, slipping off his boots and socks and rolling his jeans up to midcalf. “As a kid I was the champion tree climber of Stillwater.”
“I hate to break this to you, but you are not a kid anymore. And we didn’t come here so you could relive old times.”
He handed her his boots, the flashlight and his cell phone. “Once I’m on the roof, go up and wait for me by the front door. I’ll let you in that way.”
“Okay. And if you don’t make it to the roof, it was nice knowing you.” Althoug
h she attempted a quiet laugh, he could hear the nervous note in her voice.
“Do you trust me, Steffi?” He took her face between his hands, dropping a kiss onto the tip of her nose.
“I want to.” The whispered words tugged at his heartstrings. Although her inability to trust him was frustrating, he was beginning to understand how much it defined her.
Making his way swiftly across the open stretch of garden, Bryce launched himself at the tree, grappling his way onto the lowest branch. He soon discovered there wasn’t much dignity involved in climbing trees as an adult. It was a case of groping and clawing his way up, testing out and finding the branches that would hold his weight. He also had to make sure he did it in silence. Any grunting, groaning, creaking of branches—crashing to the ground—would alert the residents to his activities. Choking back the occasional curse that rose to his lips when his hands or feet slipped, he managed to reach the higher branches and was able to contemplate the sloping roof.
From this angle, his plan appeared more ambitious than it had from the ground. The distance between the tree and the roof was greater than he’d calculated and he would have to reach up higher than he’d expected to catch hold of the edge of the roof tiles. If he missed? He looked down through the leaves, catching a glimpse of Steffi’s upturned face in the moonlight. That was a hell of a long way to fall.
He waited for a few minutes, expecting it to come crowding in on him. He anticipated the familiar tightening in his chest and the prickling sensation up and down his spine. Next would come the feeling that giant, invisible hands were pressing down on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs so he couldn’t take a complete breath. Then he would get the urge to run, to hide, to curl up in a ball. To do nothing because he was worthless, hopeless. And that would be it. Paralyzing, illogical fear would have him in a death grip.
But it didn’t happen. He could breathe normally. He felt nervous, but so would anyone who was about to throw himself from the top of a tree onto a roof. He even felt a little bit of the old adrenaline rush he used to get before a mission or a cage fight. Looking down, he gave Steffi a thumbs-up. She probably couldn’t see him, and it didn’t matter. The gesture was more for himself than for her anyway.