Luke dragged in a choppy breath, rubbing his cheek as he followed her into the kitchen. “Don’t leave. Please.”
Without a word, she snatched her car keys from the bowl on the table and turned towards the bedroom. Moments later he heard the bedroom door slam.
Cheek smarting, he paced the hallway, making contingency plans in his head. She was one determined lady and he was in unfamiliar territory. Normally, in these situations, it was easy remaining detached. But not this time.
Fuck!
Minutes later she emerged, face set with grim determination as she strode towards the kitchen door.
“Ally. Calm down.”
She didn’t even afford him a sideways glance.
As she opened the door, he reached above her head and pushed it closed, keeping his hand there, not knowing what else to do.
For long moments, neither of them moved.
Then she slowly turned around. “It’s not entirely your fault. I broke my own cardinal rule.” The certainty in her voice matched the awful resignation in her eyes.
Luke pushed himself off the door and tried swallowing the lump of fear in his throat. He didn’t like the sound of this. “What do you mean?”
She hitched her bag further onto her shoulder. “In a broad sense, staying away from men like you. Like Martin, and my father.”
Unable to restrain himself, he stepped into her personal space. It wasn’t fair play, but she couldn’t deny their chemistry anymore than he. Cardinal rule or not.
“You’d rather settle for a man like O’Callaghan?”
She rolled her eyes, unimpressed.
He reached out and captured her wrist in a firm hold, satisfied at her soft gasp. He had no qualms upsetting her if it meant keeping her safe.
“I can stop you.” He raised her trapped hand and dropped his voice half an octave. “I’ll prise the keys from your fingers and disconnect the spark plugs.”
She stared up at him, eyes two huge pools in her pale face. “But you won’t.”
Despite her confident tone, her pulse fluttered beneath his fingers. “You’d never restrain me against my will. Me, or any other woman.”
She would never know how much he envied her astute judgement of character. If only he’d possessed the same skill, her brother would still be alive.
“How can you possibly know that?”
“I just do.” She jerked free of him. “Now let me go.”
***
Luke zipped up the backpack containing his laptop, tapes and files and hoisted it onto his shoulders.
In the shed he called Tom.
“Hey Luke. Heading back early?”
Luke breathed a sigh of relief. He’d taken the liberty of installing live tracking software on Ally’s mobile. Provided she carried it with her, they could pinpoint her location.
“You got her up on screen, Tom?”
“Yep, around Campbelltown. You’re not with her?”
“Not exactly. She’s driving back alone.”
There was a moment’s silence before Tom spoke again. “What happened?”
Luke lifted the Harley off the rack with a grunt. “She took me off the case.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you one day, when I have a week.”
“Was she serious?”
“Oh yeah, left me stranded without a car. I’ve got the bike, but she’s half an hour ahead and I need to stop for fuel.”
“Does she want me out of the apartment?”
Luke donned his helmet, heard Tom through the inbuilt blue tooth. “With a bit of luck she’ll have calmed down by the time she gets there. She’s pissed off, but it’s me she’s got the beef with.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t take your eyes off her location. I’m assuming she’ll head to the apartment. Buzz me if she goes elsewhere.”
“Okay.”
Luke shifted the bike into neutral and rolled it out of the shed. “When she gets there, tell her I’m on my way.”
“All right.”
“And Tom? If our guy sees that photo in the paper, it could push him into making a move.”
“I’m on it.”
Luke punched in the security code, dead locked the door then turned and swung his leg over the bike. It spluttered as he started the engine, before settling into its familiar throaty growl.
Then he kicked up the stand with a booted foot and roared off down the driveway.
Luke had just passed through Pheasants Nest when his phone buzzed against his chest. He hit the button on his headset and spoke to Tom.
“Allegra just left. Sorry man, I couldn’t hold her here.”
Luke frowned at his watch, his heart jackhammering in his chest. She’d made good time, must have pushed that turbo charged Golf to the max.
He spoke into the small microphone. “Where’s she headed?”
“Work. Said she’d sleep on the couch in her office. She took the dog next door, grabbed some clothes and took off.”
Luke let go of his breath, his mind shifting to the U.S. Consulate building. “That’s not a bad outcome all things considered. It’s a large firm, there’s always someone in there.”
“Even on a Sunday?”
“Yep. And the corporate section has a rotation shift, so they’re working the same time zone as the Northern Hemisphere.”
And then Tom voiced the question already on his mind. “What if our guy works for the firm?”
Luke opened the throttle and overtook a B-Double truck. He had to push aside his personal feelings for Allegra, and think of her as just another client. She might have fired him, but he wasn’t going anywhere until she’d arranged for someone else to take over.
And only then if he couldn’t talk her around.
And if she were just another client, he wouldn’t be concerned with the office staff. The trail of evidence pointed to the boarding house, the absent owner and the old Toyota.
“It’s a calculated risk we’re going to have to take,” he said. “The searches I did on the staff failed to throw up any red flags.”
“What’s our next move then?”
Luke checked his watch. “Lock up the apartment and head over to the boarding house, relieve Nat. I’ll head straight into the city.”
“Okay.”
“Keep a good watch on the GPS Tom. Make sure she gets there.”
“I’ll buzz you if there’s a problem.”
Apart from the annoying babble of a second rate, reality TV program coming from the landlady’s bedroom at the end of the hallway, all was quiet in the boarding house. The old bitch had looked them all up and down with her beady little eyes when she’d come home around dinner time, as if she suspected half the place to be missing.
It put him on alert. As did the photograph of Allegra in the newspaper with that security expert she’d hired to hunt him down.
Impotent rage skittered along his veins as he stared at the newspaper photograph in the weak light. Tomorrow she would pay for that betrayal.
In the gloomy bedroom, he took a gym bag from the bottom of the wardrobe and put it on the bed. He unzipped the bag, shoving aside the numerous packets of prescription drugs he’d stolen, and pushed enough rope, a half roll of masking tape and a soft cloth inside.
He turned and opened a drawer, felt around under the clothes until his hand touched the cold handle of the knife. He added it to the bag. A small bottle of liquid solvent followed. The ether should knock her out long enough for him to get her out of the city. Last of all, he slipped the newspaper photograph inside.
“Say goodbye to him,” he whispered, “tomorrow you belong to me.”
Chapter Sixteen
“Wake up.”
Josie’s voice filtered through to her, and for a moment Allegra wondered how. She certainly hadn’t been dreaming of Josie.
She cracked an eyelid to find her P.A.’s concerned face hovering over her. And then it all came rushing back.
“Al, are y
ou okay?”
She struggled into a sitting position, wincing at the crick in her neck and squinting at the sunshine pouring through the window. “What time is it?”
“Seven thirty.” Josie sat beside her on the couch. “Things must be bad if you’ve slept here.”
Allegra massaged her temples. A headache lingered and she wanted to curl up and go back to sleep.
She smothered a yawn and turned away from Josie’s scrutiny. “I need a shower.”
“Hung over?”
Allegra couldn’t help smiling at that comment. “I wish!” She leaned over and squeezed her secretary’s hand. “There’s no need to worry, Jos.”
Allegra reached for her mobile which lay on the small table beside the couch. No messages. She stared at the screen, torn between relief and disappointment. Was Luke on his way to the boarding house? He was stubborn enough to ignore her directive.
Nausea churned her stomach. “Do I look as bad as I feel?”
Josie nodded. “You look like crap.”
Allegra rolled her eyes and pushed herself off the couch, grabbing her tote and suit from the small closet. At nine o’clock she’d call the firm currently handling their security work, the ‘second raters’ as Luke called them.
Now that was karma.
***
The grey-haired woman who opened the door of the boarding house looked weighed down by life, despite her weekend away in Newcastle.
Luke trailed her limping figure down the central hallway, scrutinising the run down inner city terrace as he went. They passed a common room where a number of frail men watched the morning show on television. Luke doubted any of them were agile enough to climb onto a first floor balcony and swing a lump of wood.
The woman ushered him into an untidy home office where he took a seat among towers of dusty papers and watched as she closed the door.
“Thanks for seeing me.”
A wooden chair creaked beneath her bulk as she sat opposite him and leaned fleshy elbows on the small desk. “What’s this about my car being at Bondi?”
Luke slid a business card across the table. “An incident occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning. A Toyota Corolla registered in your name was seen three times on Old South Head road on Friday night. You told my associate you hadn’t loaned the vehicle to anyone?”
The woman shook her head. “Nope, nobody had permission to use it. It’s right there in the garage but someone’s been in it all right.”
Luke’s senses went on high alert. “Go on.”
“The seat was pushed back. I couldn’t reach the pedals.”
“How far back?”
“About three notches.”
Luke mentally calculated the guy’s height.
“The petrol gauge was lower, and it was parked too close to the garage wall. I could barely squeeze inside.”
“Did you take the car keys away with you?” Had the car been hotwired?
“Nope, I left them in here.” She opened the top drawer of the desk and held up a bunch of keys. “I keep this drawer locked.”
“Where do you keep the key to the drawer?”
The woman reached across the desk and lifted the lid on an old cigar box. “In here.”
Luke sighed and leaned back in the chair. “Not exactly high tech security?”
A snort. “Not exactly a high tech kind of place.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “Any idea who took it?”
“No, but you can cross off that lot in there.” She inclined her head in the direction of the living room. “They’re harmless. It’s the ones who work during the day I don’t trust. Most are on parole.”
Luke took a copy of the sketch from a leather document holder. “Recognise this guy?”
She groped for a pair of eyeglasses dangling from a cord around her neck and slid them onto her nose.
Luke held his breath, heart beating out some undiscovered rhythm. He had to find this guy before Ally gave him his marching orders a second time.
The landlady wrinkled her nose, head inclined to one side as she perused the sketch. Finally, she looked at him over the top of the narrow lenses. “Does look a bit like one of the blokes here I suppose.”
Oxygen flooded into Luke’s muscles, the adrenaline dump electrifying his nervous system. He’d have the bastard back in prison like a shot if that’s the hole he’d crawled from. He wanted him as far away from Allegra as possible.
Leaning forward in the chair, he stared hard at the woman. “Tell me about him.”
***
Allegra stared at the flashing cursor, her fingers poised on the keyboard. If that reporter had more information about Martin and Luke’s relationship, and why Luke felt responsible for her brother’s death, she intended finding out. Time to do a little investigation of her own.
Before she lost her nerve she typed in the reporter’s name. Selecting ‘Images of Tony Grantham’ from the list of websites, Allegra caught her breath at the grey-haired, middle aged man who stared back at her. It was him, the one never satisfied with merely reporting the facts of the case. He’d lie in wait and follow her down the street, all the while probing for a loose-lipped comment from her client.
She’d noticed him just the other day, at the bail hearing for the bikies’ chapter leader. Luke had brushed him aside as he’d ushered her into the interview room.
She closed the page and opened a website dedicated to Grantham. A former foreign correspondent, he’d reported from numerous war torn countries before being injured by insurgents in Iraq.
Allegra reached for the phone and buzzed Josie, asking her to get Grantham on the line. What on earth was the guy doing reporting for the social pages?
She glanced at her watch. Eight thirty. No point in delaying it further.
She needed to replace Luke.
Her hand hovered above the phone. Just who did she think she was kidding? A man like Luke couldn’t be replaced, not without lowering the standard considerably. How could anyone make her feel as safe as he did?
Allegra smoothed a hand across her stomach, the ache in her midsection tangible. Was she destined to live her life comparing his razor sharp wit and rugged toughness to every man she met? Not to mention his looks and the way he made her feel.
She jumped as the phone buzzed. “Yes, Josie.”
“I have Tony Grantham on the line.”
“That was quick.” Allegra leaned back in the chair, her hands beginning to shake. “Put him through.”
She waited as Josie connected the call.
“Hello, Mr. Grantham.”
“Ms. Greenwood.” The reporter’s voice was crisp and clear. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling re the article in the ‘Word about Town’ yesterday.”
A hint of wariness crept into his voice. “Not thinking of suing, I hope.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “Well that depends, it’s partially inaccurate. Luke Neilson and I met barely ten months ago.”
There was a brief silence. “I’ll admit that part was supposition.”
“Hence your phrase ‘it is believed …?’”
“That’s right.”
Allegra clicked her tongue. “Well, that’s neither here nor there. I’m more concerned how you knew Luke was Martin’s superior.”
He didn’t answer, and a long silence stretched between them.
“Mr. Grantham.” Allegra cleared her throat. “I don’t have to tell you how secretive the SAS are. If you possess information concerning my brother’s death, I’d be interested in learning it.”
She held her breath as a longer silence stretched between them.
“Why don’t you ask Neilson?”
Allegra put down her pen and stared at the scribbles she couldn’t remember drawing on her legal pad. “He’s under an oath of silence.”
“Oh.”
“Can you help me or not?”
“Can I have your assurance you won’t sue?”
“Yes.” Allegra tur
ned towards the window and stared at the river of workers rushing through Martin Place. “Do you need it in writing?”
A faint chuckle. “Not really, but you could loosen the leash on your post-court interviews.”
Allegra bristled. The bloody hide of the man. “I shouldn’t have to point out that Australia has an open justice system; members of the public and the media are allowed to attend Court. Surely, if you’ve watched the proceedings, an interview isn’t necessary.”
“It’s all about getting the jump on our competitors.”
“I can’t discuss details of a case, you know that.”
“I’m not asking for details. Just give me first crack at some general questions, like, ‘where to now’ or ‘how are you holding up?’”
Allegra gritted her teeth. It wouldn’t hurt to indulge him a little if it meant finding out how Luke was responsible for Martin’s death.
“I’ll agree to that. Tell me what you know.”
“Well—I don’t have specific information concerning your brother, only knowledge of why that mission ended so badly.”
Blood roared in her temples. Grantham had firsthand knowledge.
“I was at the military hospital when they were brought in. Your brother and Neilson were both critical. Word had it they were given faulty intel—from rogue Afghani soldiers.”
Allegra went weak all over, her legs trembling under the desk as she remembered the scars on Luke’s body. A bullet wound, close to his spine.
She moistened her parched lips, somehow forcing out the words. “They were led into a trap?”
“Yes.” The reporter’s voice softened. “By Taliban sympathisers.”
Allegra tightened her grip on the phone, not trusting herself to speak.
When she didn’t reply, Grantham continued. “Neilson took it hard. As Troop Commander he trusted the Afghanis, convinced they were aligned to the coalition.”
She wanted to slam down the phone and cover her ears with her hands. But she could only listen on in horror.
“He went back for one more tour after that. Then got out and set up his business.”
Another silence stretched between them, the only sound Grantham’s breathing over the telephone line. “I’m sorry about your brother,” he said eventually.
Hot Lawyers: The Lee Christine Collection Page 17