Hush

by Karen Robards

  Awareness hung in the air between them, hot and steamy as the vapor drifting out of the bathroom around him.

  All of a sudden, she was possessed by a nearly irresistible impulse to grab the hem of the T-shirt she was wearing and pull it over her head and let it drop to the floor. Naked except for her panties, she would walk over to him, tug at that towel . . .

  His mouth hardened. A kind of shutter seemed to drop over his eyes. They went unreadable, opaque.

  She wasn’t fooled. She’d seen the fierce carnality in his gaze.

  He wanted her. She had no doubt about that whatsoever. What made it so difficult was that she also wanted him.

  And they were alone and half naked and there was a bed and . . .

  Stop.

  “I’m done in here. Be my guest,” he said, as cool as if he’d never heard of sex, as if the air wasn’t thick with it.

  “Thanks.”

  He moved to the closet and opened the door, and she walked past him into the bathroom.

  And made the mistake of glancing at him as she did.

  He had his back to her. A few stray water droplets glistened in his hair, and his shoulders—his wide, bare shoulders—flexed as he reached inside the closet for his clothes. His strong back, the classic V of his torso, the slightly damp bronze of his skin, drew her eyes, made her breathing quicken and her pulse flutter.

  He was so very male.

  He was naked beneath that towel.

  She wanted to touch him. No—she wanted to fuck him.

  There it was, the truth, put in the crudest possible terms.

  Forget it. There’s too much at stake to—literally—screw it up.

  Closing the bathroom door and shutting herself in against temptation, she found herself wrapped in the warm, steamy air from his shower. She smelled the faint scent of menthol, saw his razor on the vanity, and realized that he had shaved: his square jaw had been minus last night’s stubble.

  She was just getting all intrigued at the thought of Finn shaving when she saw something else on the vanity: her purse.

  It was a small purse, expensive, quilted black leather, discreet designer logo. A long, cross-body strap. The top closed with a zipper. The zipper could be locked closed by securing the pull with a small leather tab.

  Last night, she’d taken it with her when she’d gone into the bathroom, and left it there. She hadn’t thought a thing about it.

  Until now, when she saw that it was zipped tight and the leather tab was snapped closed.

  She never, ever used that leather tab.

  Finn had gone through her purse.

  Outrage flooded her, and reality followed close on its heels.

  He might be protecting her, and she might be depending on him to save Emma and keep the bad guys from the door.

  But she couldn’t trust him.

  He was still an investigator, and she was part of his investigation. The key to it, even.

  The stupidest thing she could do would be to let herself forget: we’re not on the same side.

  If she’d been toying with the idea of laying the whole sorry story out for him, of asking his advice on how best to handle it, of throwing herself and Margaret on his mercy, she was now officially over it. Telling him that she knew where the money was could only end in 1) all the money, including Margaret’s, falling into government hands; 2) at best, klieg lights of suspicion focusing on her and Margaret; or 3) the loss of any leverage she had to get federal authorities to help in saving Emma. Without the giant carrot of the missing money to keep them interested, Finn—and whatever resources he was bringing to bear to find Emma—might well disappear.

  Knowledge is power, she reminded herself grimly. Once she shared what she knew, her power to get anybody to do anything would be gone, too. She would basically be at the mercy of the government.

  Of Finn.

  Yeah. Not gonna happen.

  Blocking Finn and everything else out of her mind, she made quick preparations for what was sure to be a long and harrowing day: she took a shower, washed and blow-dried her hair, applied a minimum amount of makeup from the small kit in her purse, and popped more Tylenol. The only thing she had to wear was her dress from the night before, and it was in the closet. Wrapping herself in a towel, she stepped out of the bathroom.

  Finn stood in front of the window—the curtains were open now, allowing pale, early morning sunlight to flood the room—talking on his cell phone. He was wearing one of his white shirts with charcoal-gray trousers, and, having apparently heard the bathroom door open, he broke off his conversation and turned to look at her as she emerged.

  Sweeping him with an unsmiling glance, feeling his gaze on her all the while, Riley retrieved her clothes from the closet and went back into the bathroom to dress.

  Even though she’d done her best to brush it off the night before, the sparkly evening dress still had dust on it. She put it on anyway: she would change into clean clothes at Margaret’s. Her ruined pantyhose had been discarded the night before. Without them, the bruises on her legs were noticeable, but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Slipping her bare feet into her too-high-for-daytime heels, she picked up her purse and left the bathroom.

  “Ready?” Finn cocked an eyebrow at her as she walked out into the bedroom. He was knotting his tie in front of the mirror over the chest. It was such a domestic kind of thing to be doing, and he looked so damned sexy doing it, that her heart picked up the pace and she felt herself growing all warm inside simply from watching. As soon as she realized where her unwary libido was taking her again, she stiffened and her indignation at him bubbled up before she could put a lid on it.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked. She was standing near him, just a few feet from the chest. Her tone was polite. Too polite, as she watched him raise his clean-shaven, deeply tanned, and way too masculine chin as he pulled the long end of his tie down through the knot. He threw her a bemused glance. “What?”

  “In my purse. When you searched it.”

  He frowned at her as he eased the knot up into position and smoothed the tie with one hand. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you were in my purse. You made a mistake: I never snap this little tab.” She wiggled the tab in question at him by way of illustration.

  His eyes as they met hers were totally unreadable. “When I went into the bathroom, your purse had fallen over on its side. Some things were spilling out. I pushed them back in and zipped it up so it wouldn’t happen again.”

  The explanation was reasonable. It might, Riley thought as she held his gaze, even be true. Then again, it might not be. She couldn’t actually remember whether she had zipped her purse closed before leaving the bathroom the night before, so she had no way of knowing for sure.

  “Oh,” was what she said. Kind of anticlimactic, she had to admit.

  “Yeah, oh.”

  “I’m sorry if I was wrong.”

  “You should be.”

  His gaze swept her. She turned away, walking toward the window, and was conscious of him watching her as she stopped to look out. It was going to be another hot one. The sun was already bright and it was—a glance at the clock told her—not quite 7 a.m. Traffic was moving along the street in front of the hotel. She could see a gas station with a convenience store attached, a strip of small businesses including a pizzeria, a payday loan establishment, a dry cleaners, and an apartment building.

  Somewhere out there, Emma was enduring God knew what.

  Her hands, which had been casually resting on the windowsill, clenched into fists.

  Finn said, “You always dress like that for work?”

  Her brows twitched together. She swung around to face him. “Like what?”

  He was shrugging into his shoulder holster. Who would have guessed, she thought semi-bitterly, that she apparently had a thing for men with guns?

  “Like you’re on the hunt for rich husband number two.”

  �
�What?” That was so outrageous that she glared at him. “For your information—not that it’s any of your business—I had no idea Jeff was rich when I met him. He was just this really sweet, cute, kind of lonely guy. And as for husband number two”—she laughed—“that’s a joke. You couldn’t give me one on a platter, rich or not. And yes, I always dress like this for that particular job. Don expects me to.”

  “Oh, yeah. Don.” Finn was in front of the closet now, pulling on his jacket, solid charcoal gray like the trousers. “Mr. Cowboy Hat with the five kids who can’t keep his hands off you. He who you’re after?”

  Sparks shot from Riley’s eyes. He met her furious glare blandly. She was just about to let fly with a suggestion for what he could do with himself and his dirty mind when something about his expression, about the quirk at the corner of his mouth, about the way he was watching her, clued her in to the truth. Her anger dissipated like air escaping from a balloon. Her expression must have changed, because he lifted his eyebrows at her and said, “What?”

  “You’re just trying to distract me, aren’t you?” Remembering the comment about her snoring, which had come right on the heels of the morning’s first alarmed thought of Emma, and, with more reluctance, last night’s incendiary kiss, she was sure of it. She eyed him crossly. “Stop doing that. I’m not five years old.”

  “Worrying yourself sick isn’t going to do Emma any good,” Finn said, in a tacit admission that she was right. By underlining that he could tell when she was thinking of Emma, it was also an admission that he was far too good at reading her, which she made a mental note to remember. “At this point the people who took her don’t have any reason to hurt her, and we’ve got the best agents in the world pulling out all the stops to find her. I need you to focus on what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Get George to tell me where the money is.” Her voice was flat.

  “That’s it.” Pulling his zipped and apparently packed suitcase out of the closet, he said, “You got everything? We need to go.”

  Her purse hung from her shoulder. She picked up her phone, which was on the table beside the bed. She’d brought nothing else.

  “Yes.” As she followed him to the door and, when he opened it, preceded him through it, she absorbed the significance of his packed bag. “You’re not planning to come back here?”

  “Don’t know.” They walked to the elevator. “I’ll have to see how things work out. We’ll stop by Margaret’s house, then head for Stringtown and—”

  The elevator arrived, interrupting. There were other people in it, and more in the lobby partaking of the free breakfast. The buzz of conversation, of activity, filled the air along with the scent of bacon and toast.

  Finn nodded at the buffet. “How about we grab a coffee and a couple of doughnuts to go?”

  Riley was too tense to be hungry. She was already thinking ahead to how she would tell Margaret about Emma, and the knot in her stomach multiplied by about ten. But she nodded. If they didn’t get something to eat here, she had little doubt that Finn would stop at a drive-thru on the way.

  She could understand. He was a big guy. He needed food. Didn’t mean she had to participate.

  A few minutes later, armed with coffee and, in Finn’s case, a couple of chocolate-covered doughnuts, they were in the car pulling onto the expressway. Traffic was already heavy. An anxious glance at the clock reassured her: there was still plenty of time before Margaret got up.

  “How is this going to work, exactly?” Riley asked, watching as Finn, with one hand on the wheel, demolished his second doughnut in maybe three bites, then took a gulp of coffee. As much as she needed the caffeine, she’d taken a couple of sips of her own coffee and put it back into the cup holder. Her stomach was rebelling against even that small amount of liquid. “I’d rather you didn’t go in with me. I’d like to talk to Margaret in private.”

  “I wasn’t going to go in with you. The less you’re seen with me, the better.” He chugged more coffee. “It’s possible that whoever is holding Emma is watching Margaret’s house, although the team on that is reporting no evidence of surveillance. But I’d rather not take the chance.”

  Riley shivered inwardly at the idea of what her being spotted in Finn’s company might mean for Emma. But without him, she was positive that Emma’s chances would be far worse.

  You did the smartest thing. . . . She knew it, but still she couldn’t help feeling afraid.

  Stay cool.

  She said, “You have a team watching Margaret’s house?”

  “At this point, we have a team watching everything.”

  Riley wasn’t sure how she felt about that. But she was for whatever it took to get Emma back and keep Margaret safe.

  It just means I have to be extra careful.

  “While you’re in there, pack a bag.” Gulping coffee, Finn glanced in the rearview mirror, then changed lanes. “You’ll be gone overnight at least.”

  Riley hadn’t thought of that.

  “I can’t leave Margaret alone tonight,” she protested. In fact, leaving Margaret alone to go with Finn immediately after breaking the news of Emma’s kidnapping struck Riley as a really bad idea, too. Margaret would be distraught, to say the least.

  Finn drained the last of his coffee. “Can’t be helped. It’s a seven-hour drive to Stringtown. No way are we making it there and back, and then you have to meet with George.”

  Riley watched him put the empty cup into the holder. “I thought the FBI flew its agents all over the place.”

  “Car’s way more anonymous. We want to stay under the radar. I’d have to request a plane, which involves a lot more people, which means a lot bigger chance of it getting to the wrong ears.”

  At the thought of what those “wrong ears” might mean for Emma, Riley felt a fluttering of panic. She instantly resigned herself to traveling by car and being gone overnight.

  As they reached their exit and Finn turned down the off-ramp, Riley unsnapped and unzipped her purse, and pulled out her phone.

  Braking for the red light at the intersection, Finn looked over at her. “Calling somebody?”

  “Bill Stengel,” Riley said, having hit on what she considered the best solution under the circumstances. “He’ll be glad to come over and stay with Margaret while I’m gone. He’ll keep her calm if anybody can.”

  Finn looked a question as the light changed and he drove on.

  “Family lawyer,” Riley explained, already punching in Bill’s number. “He and Margaret are good friends. In fact”—she broke off as the truth of what she was about to say truly hit her for the first time—“I’ve always thought Bill had a little crush on her. I think he’d like to be more than friends. At some point. When Margaret’s ready.”

  “Hmm.” Finn didn’t sound particularly interested in Margaret’s love life. “You planning to tell him about Emma being kidnapped?”

  Riley gave a slow nod. “At least, I think Margaret will want to. He’s one of the few who’s stood by her through this whole thing.” She looked worriedly at Finn. “Do you see any reason why we shouldn’t tell him? He won’t be able to be much help to Margaret unless he knows.”

  “Not as long as you trust him to keep his mouth shut and stay the hell out of it.”

  Bill’s phone was already ringing. Final decision time: she nodded. “I do.”

  But Bill didn’t answer. Riley left him a message asking him to come to Margaret’s house as soon as possible, hoping as she disconnected that she would be able to stay until he got there. Then she called in sick to both her jobs. She hated to do it, but there was no other choice.

  By the time she finished, Finn was pulling into the strip mall closest to the entrance to Margaret’s subdivision.

  As he drove through the nearly deserted parking lot around behind the Kroger that anchored one end, Riley was surprised to see a yellow cab parked beside an overflowing dumpster.

  She frowned.

  Finn said, “I told you, I don’t want you to be seen
with me any more than necessary. If there is surveillance that we just haven’t spotted yet, they’ll be busting their asses trying to identify me if I drive you home.”

  What felt like an icy finger ran down Riley’s back. “They’ll know I went to the FBI.”

  “Yeah.” Finn pulled up beside the cab. “Take the taxi to Margaret’s house and have him wait while you’re inside. Then have him bring you back here.” At what must have been the alarmed look on her face he added, “I’ll be keeping tabs on you, don’t worry. The only time you’ll be out of my sight is when you’re actually in the house.”

  Riley took a deep breath and nodded.

  He asked, “You have money?”

  To pay for the cab, he meant. From that, Riley surmised it was a real cab, and not some kind of FBI plant. Probably. And not that it mattered.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He stopped the car. She was about to get out when he said, “Riley. You need to bring me Jeff’s SIM card. There might be information on it that can help us find Emma.”

  — CHAPTER —

  TWENTY-ONE

  Riley got out of the car without answering.

  Jeff’s SIM card.

  Finn’s tone made it clear that he was sure she had it. And that he thought she could bring it to him when she returned.

  She never would have admitted to possessing it, never would have given it to him, but Emma’s kidnapping had changed everything.

  It was, indeed, in Margaret’s house, hidden among Riley’s things. Which wouldn’t be hard for him to surmise, especially if he had gone through her purse looking for it and had come up empty.

  She would comb the SIM card, go through everything that was on it as best she could in the limited amount of time she was going to have, delete anything she found that needed deleting, and then hand it over.

  And pray that he and/or the team going over it wouldn’t find anything incriminating that she missed.

  Jeff might have been looking at something she didn’t even know about when he was killed. Maybe there was something on there that would lead to whoever had killed him, and maybe whoever had killed him now had Emma.