by Lauren Carr
The elevator doors opened, and Dallas practically leaped off the car and ran down the hall. She arrived at the hotel room’s door and rushed to open it and slip inside before anyone else could recognize her. Collapsing onto the bed, she waited for her heartbeat to slow down and then realized she was still clutching the business card the woman had handed her. All that was printed on it was a phone number—there was no name, address, or any other information.
“This is getting very old, very fast,” Mac told Gnarly while peeling off yet another pair of evidence gloves and tossing into the trash bin after examining the German shepherd’s excrement. “You ate those rings two days ago. How much longer can you hold on to them? You better not have left them in the park when you went running with David.”
Gnarly gazed up at Mac, a curious expression on his face.
With a sigh filled with disgust, Mac led Gnarly back out onto the street, where he heard his name being called out among the street noises. “Mr. Faraday!”
He made a complete turnaround before he spotted a middle-aged woman dressed in a worn khaki jacket trotting down the steps of the News Corp Building’s main entrance. Huffing from shortness of breath, she said, “I recognized you from the news.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Polly Langley.”
Hesitant, Mac shook her hand. “This is Gnarly.” Sitting between the two of them, Gnarly sniffed at her jeans before cocking his head at her.
“He must smell my cats,” she said. “I have two calicoes.”
Anxious to return to his investigation, Mac asked, “How can I help you, Ms. Langley?”
“They won’t let me inside the building,” she said. “I talked to the police this morning, and they won’t tell me anything except that Carl wasn’t scheduled for an interview with Yvonne Harding last night—”
“What connection—”
With a gasp, Polly clasped her chest with both hands. “I’m so sorry, I should have explained it to you. Carl was my fiancé.”
“I thought he was married,” Mac said before shrugging. “Well, I guess since his wife, Ruth Rubenstein, was murdered, technically, he wasn’t married.”
“Carl left Ruth more than a year ago, when he fell in love with me. We were living together and wanted to get married, but Ruth refused to divorce him. And since New York is a community-property state, if he divorced her, he would have had to pay her alimony—half of his work salary. It wouldn’t have left us enough to live on.”
“Are you sure you want to be telling me this, Ms. Langley?” Mac asked. “This all sounds like a very good motive for him to kill his wife.”
Polly vigorously shook her head. “Carl had an airtight alibi. The police know that already. We had friends over for dinner, and we all watched the ball game. There were six of us there the whole evening. Our friends didn’t leave until after midnight.”
Mac was confused. “Then why do you need my help?”
“Carl didn’t make up this interview with Yvonne Harding,” Polly said. “It’s all over the news that he came here last night to kill her for getting Ruth murdered—”
“When actually, Yvonne did him a favor,” Mac said. “With Ruth dead, he was free to marry you and to keep his paycheck.”
“You sound just like everyone else, Mr. Faraday,” Polly said. “The truth is, Carl was a kind and gentle man. Truly. I get migraines, and when I do, Carl takes such tender care of me. He brings me herbal tea. He keeps the lights dim so that my head won’t hurt so bad. Why, the other night, I got one of my headaches during the game and had to lie down. Carl entertained all of the guests, and he came in at every commercial to check on me.”
“And then after the murder of the wife he hated, he rushed out to file a lawsuit to profit from her death.”
“You make him sound like a selfish opportunist,” Polly said, sniffing at him. “Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same thing. Put yourself in his shoes. You’re working every day and barely getting by, and you’re married to a bitterly jealous old hag who’s happiest when she’s making those around her—even total strangers like that writer she drove to suicide—miserable. If an opportunity to grab a brass ring and to start over presented itself, you wouldn’t grab it?”
“Sometimes,” Mac answered slowly, “when you find yourself in a position like Carl found himself in, you have to ask yourself how much your happiness is worth. I don’t know the particulars of Carl’s finances, but I suspect that, considering Ruth was officially branded a troll, he would have been way ahead if he’d cut his losses and removed himself totally from her.”
With bitter anger in her tone, Polly said, “Easy for you to say—you’re a multimillionaire.”
“I wasn’t always a multimillionaire,” Mac said. “Before my inheritance, I did have to ask myself that very question. It was hard, but I cut my losses and walked away from a very bad situation to start over. Sometimes you have to take the less traveled path to find happiness and peace of mind.”
He could see by the deep frown on her face that his advice was not what she wanted to hear.
“Think about this, Ms. Langley,” he said. “If Carl had walked completely away from Ruth back when he moved in with you—if he had turned his back on the opportunity to play the role of the mourning husband—then he wouldn’t have opened the door for whoever framed him. And he would be alive right now, and the media wouldn’t be portraying him as a killer.”
Dallas was more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
David had been very specific about their plan. He’d even made her repeat it to him. As soon as she got up to their room, she was to close all of the blinds. Then she would text him the room number. The number only. Not “room” or “rm.” Nothing more than the number. Out on the street, once he received the text, David would wait seven minutes—not five or ten—before crossing the street and going up to their room.
The deluxe room was decorated in elegant European furnishings that included a balcony overlooking the city. After tossing her shopping bags onto the king-sized bed and closing the curtains, Dallas sent the text to David and waited.
It was eerily quiet.
Outside, she could hear the traffic. After five months of living in the city, she had managed to tune it out. Now she could hear not only the buzz of vehicles rushing to navigate the heavily congested streets but also the ticking of the clock on the nightstand. Like an ominous symbol of their time running out, the ticking became louder with each passing minute.
Eleven minutes had passed since Dallas had texted him the number, 939.
Dallas was pacing long before the seven minutes had passed. She would’ve felt better if they had given her a room facing the same street David was waiting on so she could see him out the window. As it was, she had no idea if the police had spotted him or not.
No, they’re looking for a blond-haired man in jeans, sports coat, and a blue sweater—not an expensive leather jacket and a fedora. But then I’ve straightened my hair, put on a ton of makeup, and changed my clothes completely, and that woman in the elevator still recognized me. Who was she, anyway?
Dallas picked up the card she’d placed next to her handbag. Is she a friend or a foe? Seemed friendly enough. She tucked the card into her wallet.
What time is it now? Fourteen minutes had passed since she’d texted David the number.
Hearing a sound in the hallway, she hurried to the door and peered out through the peephole. The room across the hall was receiving room service.
David, where are you? Grabbing the burner phone, she pressed in the message, “Where R U?” Recalling David’s warning to only use the phone when absolutely necessary, she paused with her thumb over the “send” button.
No. She deleted the text and resumed pacing from one end of the room to the other, stopping during each pass to peer out the window and down to the street for any sign of the police moving in.
>
To her calculation, he should have been knocking on her door five minutes ago. A lot can happen in five minutes. How long did it take David to take out both of those cops trying to kill them? It was a matter of seconds.
Hearing a movement outside the door, she ran to look out the peephole. The server was wheeling the cart away.
With a curse, Dallas backed away from the door. David, if you’re dead, I’m going to kill you. She threw herself onto the king-sized bed. As soon as her body made contact with the mattress, she heard a rap on the door. A shriek escaped her lips before she ran to it and grabbed the lever. She was about to throw it open when she remembered to be cautious. She peered through the peephole and saw David’s fedora.
“Who is it?” she asked in a seductive tone.
“Tony.”
Throwing open the door, she reached out, grabbed him by the front of his jacket, and yanked him inside. Before David could object, she threw her arms around him and smothered his face with kisses, forcing him to ease her inside and close the door behind him while she clung to him.
“You had me worried sick!” she said between kisses. “What took you so long? You said seven minutes. It’s been over fifteen.”
David tossed his hat onto the bed. “I got lost.”
Dallas released him. Her mouth dropped open. “Lost? I left you across the street. How could you get lost?”
Hurrying back to the door, David opened it slightly to hang the do-not-disturb sign on the handle. “As luck would have it, I came in at the same time that a big group was checking in. There was a huge crowd around the elevators. Not wanting to take a chance, I took the stairs.” He plopped down onto the bed. “When I came out of the stairwell and onto the ninth floor, I was completely turned around. I’ve been wondering the hallways for the last five minutes, looking for the room. Then just as I found the right corridor, there was a server coming down the hall. I had to duck back into the stairwell to wait for him to leave.”
Climbing into his lap, she straddled him and shook him by the shoulders. “Well you had me worried sick. The least you could have done was call me to tell me that you weren’t dead. That would have been the polite thing to do.”
Dropping back onto his elbows, David grabbed her arms to make her stop shaking him. He looked up into her light-brown eyes. A grin crept to his lips. “I’m sorry. Next time I’ll call to tell you I’m not dead.”
Their eyes locked in a long gaze.
Fearing what would happen next, David eased her off him and moved over to the love seat. After shrugging out of his jacket and draping it across the arm of the small sofa, he slipped off the new boots, which had begun to hurt his feet.
He considered switching back to his regular shoes. The last thing he needed if he suddenly had to run was a pair of boots that weren’t broken in. He was staring at one of the boots in his hands when he became aware that Dallas was sitting on the bed directly across from him.
“I’m famished.” She stretched across the width of the bed to turn on the desk lamp. “Are you hungry, love?”
David did not miss the pet name that she had called him. He had grown accustomed to her terms of endearment. “Sweetie.” “Sweetheart.” “Dear.” “Darlin’.” “Honey.” Even “puddin’.” But “love.” That was different.
“I’m not hungry,” he said. “You go ahead and order whatever you want from room service. We’ve taken too many chances being out in public. We should stay put in this room until Mac and Ed make some progress.”
A slow grin came to her lips. “Oh, neither of us is goin’ anywhere.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?” David asked, but she already had the phone’s receiver to her ear.
“Are you sure you don’t want a New York strip?” Dallas asked with her finger poised over the room-service button on the phone.
“Salad with grilled chicken is fine,” he said while digging through her bag for the case file she’d smuggled out of the News Corp Building. “I don’t want anything heavy in case we need to get moving fast.” Upon finding the folder, he opened it on the seat next to him.
Using her Jersey-girl accent, Dallas put in her orders. When she ordered a bottle of wine, David cast a side glance in her direction.
As soon as she hung up, she slid down to the foot of the bed, where she perched with her chin in her hands. With a sigh, she gazed at him. Seeing a hint of annoyance, she asked, “What?”
“You shouldn’t have ordered the wine,” he said.
“Why not? I thought you drank.”
“I do, but we need to be one hundred percent,” he said. “If things go real bad real fast, like they did this morning, we need to have our wits about us. Alcohol, big steaks, and rich desserts will slow us—and our reaction times—down. Understand?”
“Understood,” she said so seriously that David wondered if she were mocking him.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I hate to be a wet blanket, but one of us has to be the adult if we’re going to get through this alive.”
“You only want to keep us both safe.” She reached over to brush her fingertips across his thigh. “I get that.”
Grasping her hand and taking it off of his leg, he studied her long, elegant fingers. Unlike most women he knew, she kept her fingernails short and unpolished. “I think you’re resourceful enough to take care of yourself.”
She slipped off the bed. “I realized somethin’ while waitin’ for you.”
Saying nothing, David stared down at her bare feet.
She lifted the suede poncho up, slipped it over her head, and allowed it to hit the floor next to her. David slowly moved his eyes up her body and saw that underneath the poncho, she was wearing a burnt-orange turtleneck sweater that hugged every sensuous curve of her luscious body.
“You haven’t once talked ’bout Chelsea,” she said. “No attempts to call her. No mention of her. Have you even thought about her today?”
“This was a mistake,” David muttered. She moved toward him until she was standing before him. She rested her hands on his shoulders. Her firm stomach was at his eye level. Placing his hands on her hips, he kissed her stomach—once, twice, and again and again, pressing his lips and face longer and harder against her body each time.
Uttering a low moan, she kneaded his shoulders and back.
“You feel so good,” he breathed.
She dropped to her knees in front of him.
Caressing her face in both hands, he locked eyes with her as he ran his fingers through her long, straight, silky hair, allowing them to travel down to the very ends of it until he was brushing his fingertips up her soft arms to her shoulders and then up her neck. After tilting her head back, he covered her mouth with his, kissing her fully, tasting her as deeply as he could, and trying to commit the essence of her to his memory.
“David,” she whispered when he pulled away. “I don’t know what’s going to happen later, considering what happened today, with the police, and with whoever sent those dirty cops after us. But I want you to know … no matter what happens … that I love you. I’ve loved you ever since I laid eyes on you.” Gazing up at him with moist eyes, she smiled tenderly.
Struck by the sudden, unexpected declaration from who had to be the most beautiful woman he had ever met—the woman who was kneeling before him and declaring her love for him—David let out a deep breath. “It is so easy to fall in love with you.”
She lifted her face to his. Closing her eyes, she waited for him to take her in his arms, pick her up, and carry her over to the bed to make passionate love to her.
Instead, he said, “But I can’t.”
Feeling him lift his hands from where he was caressing her, sensing him pull away and stand up to put distance between them, she opened her eyes and turned to where he had retreated.
“I’m so very sorry,” he said. “I’m not going to s
ay I don’t have feelings for you. I do. I’ll even admit they’re growing stronger the longer we’re together … but I’m engaged.” He raised his voice. “I’m getting married on Saturday.”
“Do you think I want to break you and your fiancée up?” Dallas rose to her feet.
“Oh, so you don’t want to break us up? You just want a roll in the hay—all casual, with no strings attached?”
Dallas placed her hands on her hips. “I’m not that type of woman.”
“If you’re not, why did you just now—”
“You can’t pick your family or who you fall in love with,” she said. “Do you think I wanted to fall in love with a guy who’s getting married to another woman in a few days? If I had my pick, I’d fall in love with a guy who wasn’t already picked, but that’s not the cards we’ve been dealt.”
“Well, before we play this hand, I strongly suggest we reshuffle the deck,” David said. “I’ve already been there and done that. Chelsea and I had a really good thing going back a long time ago, and I let my hormones take over and ended up hurting her bad—really bad. When I remember the look she had on her face when she found out”—he shook his head—“I never want to hurt someone that badly ever again.” He sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve spent the last few years making it up to her and winning her trust again. Now I’ve made a commitment to her, and I’m not going to go back on my word again.”
Refusing to reveal how deeply his rejection was cutting her—and it was cutting her like a knife—Dallas stared at him with wide eyes.
The knock on the door signaled the end of their conversation. “Room service.”
David took the gun out from the back of his waistband. “I’m going to wait in the bathroom for them to leave and make sure all is clear. After they’re gone, I’m going to take a shower. You go ahead and eat.”
He opened the door and stepped into the bathroom.
“Sugar,” she said to stop him.
