Natalie stared at him in surprise. “You knew Anthony?”
“Only by reputation,” Frank was quick to amend. “We had a mutual acquaintance.”
Before she could ask him who that acquaintance might be, Frank leaned toward her. His voice lowered ominously. “Your ex-husband was into some dirty business, Natalie. I’d hate to see you get drawn into something you can’t handle.”
“What kind of dirty business?” she asked quickly.
“Dealings with the underworld,” Frank said. “Anthony Bishop had his fingers in a lot of pies.”
“Do you know something about his murder?”
“I don’t know anything,” Frank replied. “But I hear things. And the word on the street is, you could be in a lot of trouble.”
“With whom?”
He shrugged, obviously having said all he intended to.
“I’ve been accused of Anthony’s murder,” she said desperately. “If you know something that could help clear my name, please tell me.”
“Just be careful,” Frank said. “Be careful who you trust.”
He stared over her shoulder, and Natalie glanced behind to see that Spence had left their table and was walking toward them.
She turned back to Frank, but he had already melted into the shadows near the restaurant.
* * *
“WHAT DID HE WANT?” Spence asked.
“I’m not sure. He…warned me.”
“About what?”
“About you, I think.” She looked up to find Spence staring down at her, his gaze hard, suspicious.
“And what did you say?”
“I didn’t say anything, but I can take care of myself. I know better than to trust the wrong people.”
“Do you?” They walked in silence for a moment, then he asked suddenly, “How long have you known Frank Delmontico?”
“Five years. He was already in the building when I opened my store. Why?”
Spence shrugged. “He looks familiar to me.”
“You said you were here before…right after Anthony’s…death. Maybe you saw him then.”
Spence shook his head. “It was too early in the morning for the restaurants and shops to be open. I know I’ve seen him somewhere before, though. Sooner or later, it’ll come to me.” He paused for a moment, as if in deep concentration, then asked, “Who owns the store on the top level?”
“Blanche Jones. She’s a good friend of mine.”
“We might want to come back and talk to both of them. Find out if either of them saw or heard anything unusual the night of the murder.”
“The police have already questioned them both,” Natalie said. “I talked to Blanche the day after it happened.” Blanche had been very distraught to learn that Natalie had been arrested for Anthony’s murder. She’d been so upset, in fact, that she could hardly talk at first. Finally, she’d settled down and told Natalie that the police had been around, asking a lot of questions. Unfortunately, Blanche had closed early that night and had been home at the time of the murder. She hadn’t seen or heard anything that could help Natalie. As for Frank, Blanche couldn’t say.
“The police might not have asked the right questions,” Spence said. “Tomorrow, I think we should come back and talk to them.”
Natalie didn’t point out that she hadn’t agreed to work with him. But he’d frightened her with what he’d told her earlier about the investigation coming to a halt because the police had their suspect. If they weren’t looking for the real killer, then who would?
At least Spence was a professional, an FBI agent. Who better to have helping her?
Someone you can trust, a little voice reminded her.
Unfortunately, no one filled that bill at the moment.
She sighed wearily. “All right. I guess it won’t hurt to talk to them.”
Another uneasy silence fell between them. They strolled along the Riverwalk, and Natalie tried very hard not to remember the last time they’d walked here together. But Spence’s presence was making it difficult. He wasn’t touching her, but she couldn’t help remembering when he once had. He wasn’t looking at her, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the way he used to.
At the bottom of the steps that would take them to the street level and the parking lot where they’d left his car, Spence stopped and gazed down at her. Behind them the music and laughter faded away. The Christmas lights seemed to dim, and the only thing Natalie was aware of was the way his eyes deepened, and the way his lips opened, and the way her heart pounded inside her.
For a split second—an eternity—no one said anything. Then, very softly, Spence said, “Why did you marry him?”
He was still gazing down at her, and Natalie’s breath caught in her throat. It was seven years too late to be having this conversation. Too late to change anything. But she found herself answering him anyway. “I married him because he was here and you weren’t.”
“As simple as that?” His voice turned bitter.
“No.” She glanced away from those probing eyes. “There wasn’t anything simple about it.”
“Did you love him?”
“No.”
Her blunt answer seemed to surprise him. “Then I repeat, why did you marry him?”
To get back at you, Natalie thought. To prove to you that I was better than a one-night stand and to prove to myself that someone else wanted me, even if you didn’t.
And because she’d been nineteen, and pregnant, with nowhere else to turn.
Natalie had always wondered how differently things might have worked out if her parents hadn’t been out of the country back then—if she’d had their love and wisdom to rely on. But as it was, she’d had no one. And the shame and embarrassment of what she’d done had made her unable to confide in her mother by letter or over the telephone. She knew her parents would have been devastated, and her father would have turned down an important promotion—an opportunity he’d worked for all his life—just to come home and be with her.
And Anthony had been there—an older man guiding her, protecting her, providing her with a solution that seemed to be the best for everyone. At that time, Natalie had no idea that he had his own hidden agenda, his own secret reasons for wanting to marry her.
“Why, Natalie?”
She sighed, trying to diminish the painful memories. “What difference does it make? It was all a long time ago. Anthony’s dead and—”
“You and I are still here.”
“So?”
The breeze loosened her hair, and automatically he reached up to smooth back the stray lock, then trailed the back of his hand down the side of her face.
And everything stilled within her.
“You still feel it, don’t you?”
“No!”
He smiled slightly. “So emphatic. You didn’t even have to ask what I was talking about. You know why? Because you do still feel it. It’s still there.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted, her nerve endings dancing along her spine.
“Then let me explain.”
Before Natalie had time to turn away, before she even had time to catch her breath, he reached out to remove her glasses. His mouth lowered to hers.
And seven years vanished.
The moment his lips touched hers, she was once again that lonely, vulnerable nineteen-year-old and he was… Spence. A brooding, complex man who stirred powerful emotions inside her. A man who had always made her tremble at his nearness. A man who made her want nothing more than to be the one to turn on the light in his cold, dark, dismal world.
The kiss was surprisingly gentle. No demands, no recriminations, and for the moment, no regrets. Just a soft melting of souls as his fingers wove through her hair and his lips moved against hers.
A thousand emotions raced through Natalie. She’d forgotten this side of him. The tender, warm, caring side that, with just one kiss, could somehow bring her to her knees.
She wanted to slip her arms around his waist and hold hi
m close. She wanted to tell him how many times over the years she’d dreamed of this moment. She wanted to share with him her most precious of secrets.
But she did none of that. Because even with his lips pressing against hers, even with his heart hammering beneath her splayed hand on his chest, she knew that all of this was a lie. Spencer Bishop was a lie. A chameleon as talented and ruthless as his brother. A man who was not what he seemed. A man of secrets…
She pulled away and he let her go. Her fingertips trembled against her lips as she gazed up at him. “Why did you do that?” she whispered.
“To prove a point.”
“As simple as that?” she asked, using his own bitter words. She almost expected him to come back with hers. Nothing about it was simple. The kiss had undoubtedly complicated their already complex lives.
But Spence simply shrugged, his shoulders lifting slightly beneath the black leather jacket he wore. “As simple as that.” His eyes never wavered from hers. “At least now we know what we’re dealing with.”
He said it so matter-of-factly, he might have been talking about a case instead of a kiss. Natalie didn’t know why his tone suddenly angered her. “And what is that?”
“For a smart woman, you can certainly act dense when it suits you.”
Her anger blossomed, mercifully dimming the other emotions storming through her. “I’ve made too many stupid mistakes in my life to ever claim to be smart. Letting you kiss me just now was one of them.”
“Why?”
“Because—” Because it had stirred to life emotions that were best left dead. Because it had made her feel weak and vulnerable when she needed to be strong and invincible.
He’d trapped her and he knew it. His green eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Because you know I’m right,” he said softly. “The attraction is still there.”
“Yes, it’s still there,” she acknowledged, lifting her chin in a tiny act of defiance. “But I don’t want it to be.”
He reached out and slipped her glasses back on her. The act was oddly gentle, belying the darkness in his eyes. “We don’t always get what we want, Natalie. Haven’t you learned that by now?”
* * *
SINCE THEY’D BEEN GONE longer than Natalie had meant to be, she called the hospital from Spence’s cellular phone. Her mother answered and assured her Kyle was fine. Natalie could hear murmuring in the background, then her mother said, “There is just one tiny problem.” Kyle’s voice rose in distress, but Natalie couldn’t make out what he was saying. “He wants to talk to you.”
When Kyle got on the phone, Natalie asked quickly, “What’s wrong, honey?”
“It’s Fred.”
“Fred? What about him?”
“I forgot to feed him before I left, and now Grandma says I can’t go home till morning. He’ll starve to death.”
“No, he won’t. He’ll be fine until we get home. Turtles don’t need much food.”
“Fred does. And besides, you always say I’ll get sick if I don’t eat right. I don’t want Fred to get sick. You have to go feed him, Mom. You just have to.”
“Honey, Fred will be fine—”
“Please, Mom. If he gets sick…”
Natalie winced. If Fred got sick, Kyle would never forgive her. He thought the world of that turtle, ever since he’d rescued it from a drainage ditch after a rainstorm one day.
She sighed. “All right, I’ll go feed Fred, if it’ll make you feel better. But you have to promise me you’ll try to get some sleep. That’s the deal.”
“I promise,” Kyle said, smothering a yawn. It seemed she’d said the magic words.
She hung up and glanced at Spence. “Do you mind? Kyle insists that I go home and feed his turtle before coming back to the hospital. I know he won’t get a bit of rest if I don’t.”
Spence shrugged. “It’s no problem for me.”
Natalie gave him directions to her bungalow-style house in Alamo Heights, a few blocks from her parents’ home. Spence pulled into the driveway, and Natalie reached for the door handle. His arm shot out to stop her.
“Better let me check it out first,” he said. “Where’s your key?”
Natalie glanced at him in the dark. “I’m sure everything’s fine.” Why wouldn’t it be? Unless he suspected something. Knew something…
Natalie couldn’t help wondering what Irene’s next move might be. And if Spence was in on it.
“Blame it on my training,” he said, accepting the key she handed him. He got out of the car, then bent down to ask, “Do you have an alarm?”
She shook her head. The crime rate in her area was low. She’d never felt the need for a home-security system, but as she thought about the phone call she’d received earlier, the threatening tone in the man’s voice, she shivered, suddenly glad that Spence was with her.
She watched him disappear inside her house, and then waited for the lights to come on, expecting him to reappear at any moment to give her the all-clear sign. But the house remained dark and he didn’t come back.
Minutes passed.
Natalie began to get really nervous. What in the world was keeping him? She hated to think the worst about him, but what if he was in her house, searching through her things, looking for evidence that would convict her of Anthony’s murder? He and Anthony had never gotten along, but Spence had said himself tonight at dinner that Anthony had still been his brother, and blood, more often than not, was thicker than water.
And that disconcerting thought brought her back to Irene. Just how far would Spence be willing to go to help his mother? To perhaps get in her good graces for the first time in his life.
Natalie got out of the car and stood for a moment, staring at the darkened house. Something was wrong inside. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. Something was definitely wrong.
She walked to the front door, pushed it open, and stepped inside. Her hand automatically sought the light switch, and when the light came on, she gasped in terror at the destruction that lay before her.
The room had been thoroughly ransacked. Books had been flung from the shelves, chair and sofa cushions slashed, paintings ripped from the walls. Every vase, jar and glass box had been smashed into a million pieces and every drawer had been jerked free of her desk, the contents dumped on the hardwood floor.
But the cruelest destruction of all was the presents under the Christmas tree. Their colorful paper and ribbons were shredded and crumpled, the boxes plundered.
And Spence was nowhere to be seen.
Natalie stood for a moment, taking in the devastation as her heart hammered inside her. Her fear subsided and anger plunged through her at the violation. These were her things. Her personal belongings. She’d worked long and hard for every last one of them, and now someone had come in here and ruthlessly destroyed her possessions. Her home. Her sanctuary.
Thank God, Kyle wasn’t here to see this, she thought. Thank God, he was safe in the hospital with her mother to watch over him. For a split second, Natalie was almost grateful to the driver who had rammed into their car earlier. Otherwise, she and Kyle might both have been at home tonight.
As Natalie gazed around her ruined living room, she realized that whoever had done this would not have let a woman and a small boy stand in his or her way. Whoever had done this had been in a rage, although, for the life of her, Natalie didn’t know why.
Then another thought occurred to her. What if whoever had done this was also responsible for the accident earlier? What if it had all been coolly calculated?
Natalie wasn’t sure which scenario scared her the most. She started across the floor, her feet crunching on bits of broken glass as she made her way toward the dining room and the kitchen beyond.
She called Spence’s name but he didn’t answer. A shiver of alarm scurried up her spine. Supposing whoever did this was still here? Supposing Spence had walked in and surprised him? Supposing—
By this time, Natalie’s heart and imagination were both working overti
me. She tried to calm herself by glancing around, looking for the phone. But a noise from the kitchen startled her again. Someone was in there! She started to turn and run for the front door, but something stopped her; some instinct that told her Spence might be in trouble and need her help.
Without thinking, Natalie crossed the dining room and pushed open the kitchen door. Moonlight poured in through the double windows over the sink, but it still took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. She reached for the light switch just as her gaze dropped to the figure lying on the floor.
Natalie’s heart slammed into her chest. She started forward. A movement just inside the door caught her attention and she whirled, but not in time to save herself. Without warning, something flew out of the darkness to strike her left temple.
White-hot pain pierced through her head, and then mercifully everything went black.
CHAPTER NINE
Natalie opened her eyes. It took her a moment to get her bearings as she lay there, trying to focus. Trying to remember.
Then it all came back to her. The destruction to her home. The hand flying out of the darkness to strike her. And the body lying on the floor.
Spence!
Natalie tried to get up, but pain shot through her skull and a wave of dizziness washed over her. She tentatively probed her temple with her fingertips, and felt the knot where she had been struck. But when she brought her fingers down, they were dry. No blood, thank God.
Then…what were those stains on her clothes? Natalie sat up and stared down at the front of her white blouse. In the moonlight, she could see the dark drips across her chest and for a moment, she wondered if she’d sustained another injury. But other than her head, she felt no pain.
Gingerly she touched the spots on her blouse and found they were still wet. When she lifted her fingertips to her nose, her stomach rolled sickeningly at the unmistakable metallic scent.
Dear God, she thought. It was just like the night Anthony had been murdered. She’d been knocked unconscious, and when she’d awakened, her clothes had been stained with blood. Anthony’s blood.
Not again, she thought dizzily. Please, not again.
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