She had a point, Logan thought. It seemed they had themselves another suspect—at least in the case of her husband’s murder.
WATCHING LOGAN GO THROUGH the last of Kyle’s documents, Elise started when she heard a muffled rattle. “What was that?”
“What?”
“A noise—I just heard a noise,” she said, checking her watch. A few minutes before eleven. “It sounded like someone was trying the front door.”
“Are you sure you’re not just jumpy?” Despite the objection, Logan handed her the ledger. “I didn’t hear a car come up the drive.”
“Neither did I.”
Quickly she stuffed the ledger back into the safe, then took the folder from him and did the same. She set the money pouch back into place—everything just as she’d found it—then closed the safe door and spun the dial. By the time she swung the portrait back into position against the wall, Logan had turned off the room lights.
Fighting her rapidly escalating alarm, Elise silently moved across the study to join him at the door. They stood there, huddled together, too close for her comfort. The warmth of his body heated her insides, a sensation that quickly spread. She couldn’t move away from him even if she wanted to. And perhaps it was his very closeness that kept her from panicking while she was stuck someplace she shouldn’t be. Waiting. Listening.
Then she heard it—the sound of heels clicking across the hallway floor. Someone had just come in the front way.
Opening the study door a crack, Logan whispered, “Go!”
No time to ask questions. No time to panic. Still, her pulse was racing. Thinking equally fast, she went, but away from whomever had returned home.
The clicking stopped. “Nicole?” came Carol’s voice. “Hel-l-lo?”
Elise slipped into the powder room and flushed the toilet, took a calming breath and exited making noise, acting as naturally as was possible under the circumstances.
“Oh!” She feigned surprise when she came face-to-face with Carol, who stood stiffly in the middle of the living room. “You gave me a start.”
“Did I?”
Carol sounded disbelieving, so Elise was quick to reassure her. “I was in the powder room and didn’t hear anyone come in.”
Carol was still staring strangely at her. Elise’s pulse began to pound. Did her sister-in-law recognize her? Was she caught for real?
But when Carol shrugged and swayed across the living room to the liquor cabinet, Elise realized the other woman had been drinking heavily.
“I need a whiskey,” she announced. “Can I pour you one?”
“No, thanks. I had milk with Eric before he went to sleep.”
“Milk?” Carol laughed. “Whatever turns you on, I guess.” She took a slug of whiskey. “That’s better.” Then she plunked herself down on the couch in a very unladylike manner.
Elise’s heart fell. With Carol parking herself in the living room, Logan was trapped like a rat in the study. Elise tried not to let the situation get to her, lest she become useless.
If Carol passed out, Logan would undoubtedly be able to slip by her.
In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to bond with the woman, try to get some information out of her. She sat on a chair opposite.
“I’m surprised that you’re home so early.”
“Fund-raisers bore me to tears.”
“I hope your brother won’t be too disappointed that you left early.”
And how had she gotten home? Elise wondered. Taxi?
Carol laughed. “Not hardly. I did Kyle a favor by leaving with one of his contributors. I got him an extra generous donation to his campaign.”
Elise didn’t ask how. After Kyle’s comment about the married contributor, she feared she knew. Carol was disheveled. Her hair was wild, her lipstick gone, and her dress twisted as if she’d straightened it quickly.
“I’m amazed a woman with your looks didn’t have an escort to such an important function.”
Carol took a long slug of whiskey and swayed toward Elise. “My idea of a hot escort wouldn’t fit in with the social snobs who come to these soirees.”
“Really?” Thinking about the photograph in her pocket, Elise smiled conspiratorially and hoped that Carol was drunk enough to let down her guard. “And what kind of man would that be?”
“One who likes to get down and dirty. One who doesn’t care what anyone else thinks.”
“Sounds fascinating. Does he have a name?”
“Rafe,” Carol said defiantly, licking her lips. “Rafe Otera.”
“Very exotic.”
“Mmm, in every way. He makes a woman feel like, well…” She squirmed in her seat. “…like a woman. But Kyle wouldn’t approve if he knew, of course. He’d rather have me boinking his contributors or political allies. And Diane wouldn’t have someone like Rafe in this house. She’s just like Mother. You should have heard her rage against my brother Brian’s choice of wife. You would have thought coming from a blue-collar background was a crime.” Carol’s mouth spread into a Cheshire grin. “But what Mother didn’t know didn’t hurt her, if you get my drift.”
Elise’s breath caught in her throat. “You snuck him into this house under Minna’s nose?”
“Under everyone’s nose.”
Elise’s pulse threaded unevenly and her mind raced. Everyone? Did that include her and Brian? Without asking directly, how could she find out if this Rafe Otera had been here on the night of the murder? But Carol’s smile faded and she staggered to her feet, and Elise figured that she had gotten all she could out of her sister-in-law.
“You can go if you want, now that I’m home,” Carol said. “The kid’ll be okay.”
No way was she going to leave her son in the care of a drunk woman.
“I think I’ll wait until Diane comes home. I’m sure she would expect that of me.”
“Diane expects a lot of things. Well, whatever your pleasure.” Carol stopped and refilled her glass, then wandered off to the staircase. “’Night.”
“Good night.”
Elise picked up a coffee-table book on collectibles and pretended she was browsing, in case Carol looked back. She glanced up once as the other woman got to the top of the stairs, but Carol just stopped long enough to empty her drink glass before going on to her room.
Waiting only until she was certain Carol had passed out on her bed upstairs, Elise sneaked back to the study and opened the door.
“Logan, you can come out now,” she whispered.
No answer.
Heart pounding, she flipped on the light and looked into every corner. The room was empty. No Logan. No sign that the room had been disturbed.
Logan Smith had disappeared as silently and enigmatically as he’d arrived.
Chapter Eleven
Elise was sitting on a couch paging through the book of collectibles when she heard the car pull up a mere half hour later. She checked her watch. A quarter to midnight.
Her heart began to beat faster at the prospect of facing Kyle and Diane and Minna after going through their things, and even though she was certain that Logan and she had left no trace of their search, sweat trickled down her spine.
It didn’t stop trickling, not when Kyle and Minna walked by without so much as looking her way, not even when Diane thanked her profusely and handed her a bottle of expensive champagne in thanks for the rescue.
By the time Elise escaped and shot across the yard and into the house, she was perspiring from head to toe and breathing heavily. She got as far as the kitchen, where she set the bottle of champagne down on a counter and then clung to it with both hands, gasping for air.
“Panic attack?”
Elise whirled to see Logan standing barefoot and nearly bare-chested in the doorway. Making a garbled noise rather than actually speaking, she nodded. This was worse even than the one she’d fought off during her escape from prison. Worse, perhaps, because she’d put it off.
“Let me help.” He came up behind her. “Put your head below
your knees.”
Following instructions, she doubled over and felt his hands slip around her waist to steady her. Each finger’s length made an impression along her rib cage.
“Slow down your breathing,” he instructed. “Lengthen each breath. Let go of the fear.”
Easy for him to say, she thought, too aware of him pressed up against her. She knew how to deal with these attacks by now, and once she’d managed, it took only a moment for the technique to work.
“Better,” she rasped, regaining control, thinking she would recover more quickly if only he would step away from her, give her some space.
“Then, nice and slow, lift from the waist.”
Doing so, she became even more aware of him. His hands burned into her flesh below her breasts, right through the cotton top. And if her heartbeat didn’t settle into its normal rhythm, it had more to do with that touching than anything. The panic was quickly receding, to be replaced by other sensations equally disturbing, if in a different way. Her breasts tightened and her nipples pebbled.
“Raise your shoulders…” Logan commanded “…and now your head.”
She did so and breathed an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Thanks. I didn’t always have panic attacks. Just for the past three years.” Starting with that night she’d found Brian murdered. “They only last a few minutes, anyway.”
Logan began massaging her shoulders. “You need to learn some relaxation techniques.”
“Right.” She laughed. “I can just see me doing yoga in the middle of being discovered.”
“Discovered doing what?”
“Whatever,” she hedged, thinking about her escape plans.
Undoubtedly he was looking for information she wasn’t ready to give and her staying here gave him the opportunity to ask. But, whether or not it would be the smart thing to do, she couldn’t just walk away from him. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone just yet.
So when he said, “Champagne, huh? Is that to toast our success?” she replied, “Why not?”
Whatever our success meant—undoubtedly something different to him than it did to her. But what? she wondered. What was Logan’s stake in this? Maybe a little tongue-loosening champagne would help her find out.
Elise opened a cabinet door and checked out the contents. “I’m not sure Miss Henrietta had champagne glasses.”
“Anything will do.”
In one sharp movement he peeled the foil covering the cork. She watched his hands, mesmerized by their surety as he placed both thumbs below the cork and squeezed.
Their gazes caught and her body tightened as if his hands were still on her.
The cork blew and the bottle opening foamed. Nervous laughter spilled from her throat when she hadn’t even known she was capable of laughing.
“Quick, take a sip,” he said suggestively, holding out the bottle.
The devil made her do it—reach out with her tongue and trail it up the neck of the bottle along the foaming champagne. As she did, every fiber of her woman’s being tensed, because she imagined doing this to Logan—licking him, tasting him, savoring him.
“You have a mustache,” he murmured, leaning forward to lick it off her upper lip. Then he chased it with a swallow of champagne from the bottle itself. “Great year.”
He offered her the bottle. It had to be the circumstances, the rush of adrenaline that accompanied a close escape, because when she reached out she almost dropped it when their fingers touched, and she lit from the inside out like a skyrocket.
Tilting back the bottle, she took a long-long sip. Well, a slug, really, a sip being too ladylike for the way she was drinking.
“I think we succeeded,” he murmured.
“You mean, getting the proof?” The Cayman Island receipts meant nothing to her, but she wanted to know what they meant to him.
When he said, “I meant getting you relaxed,” she figured she wasn’t going to find out, unless he decided to let her in on his own purpose here.
Still, she was more relaxed than she’d been in a long time, Elise realized, from her head going light with the bubbly all the way down to her toes.
“It feels good.”
She wondered if she was feeling this way because of the adrenaline high…or because of him. It was getting harder and harder to fight her attraction to Logan.
He took another drink. “You know what else would feel good?”
“Hmm.” She was afraid to ask.
“A full-body massage.”
“For you or me?”
“Yes.”
She laughed again, spun around and reached into the glass cabinet, pulling out what looked suspiciously like jelly jars mixed in with crystal.
“Why, Miss Henrietta,” she murmured. “You did have a sense of whimsy.” Logan poured and Elise toasted. “To Miss Henrietta Parkinson, one of the kindest human beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
“How so?”
“When I moved next door, I was a naive if intelligent girl from a blue-collar family. Miss Henrietta kindly Emily-Posted me in the social graces. Taught me how to set a formal table—while she was drinking out of jelly jars along with her china. To you, Miss Henrietta,” Elise said, raising her gaze and lifting her glass.
Look after Brian, she thought, her eyes misting over.
As if Logan could tell she what she was thinking, he said, “Maybe tonight’s the wrong night for that full-body massage, after all.”
“Maybe another time,” she agreed. She knew what she had to do first.
ELISE HAD TO SAY GOODBYE to Brian, to the only man who had ever meant anything to her…until Logan came along.
When Brian was buried, she’d been behind bars. No funeral for her, no grave, no last goodbye. No wonder she couldn’t properly mourn him. Or perhaps she couldn’t stop.
But it was time, Elise knew, and so she rose before dawn and dressed in the dark. Then, Logan’s car keys in hand, she sneaked out of the house without making a sound.
Getting behind the wheel, she headed for the cemetery. She arrived with dawn and the opening of the gates.
North Shore Cemetery was as beautifully kept as the suburbs it served. Beds of flowers and sheltered areas with benches where visitors could sit made the place seem welcoming. Her mother had given her the grave site information, so she didn’t have to stop to ask about it and raise anyone’s suspicions.
She found the family plot easily. A huge headstone in the center announced Charles’s death, the name and dates inscribed on the left, the right side and plot remaining vacant so Minna could join him someday.
No such thought had been put on Brian’s headstone, of course. The Mitchells hadn’t wanted her to be joined with him in life, so it was no surprise they’d denied her a place near him in death.
Not that being next to him was her place any longer. She was young and had a whole lifetime ahead of her. A lifetime to live and love someone else.
Logan?
Despite his initial suspicion of her, he’d come around. She didn’t know why he was giving her so much of his life, helping her so she could get Eric away from her in-laws. She only knew she was grateful. And she couldn’t deny her growing feelings for the man. But what good would they do her when she would soon be gone, forever?
Still, they had time. Not quite a week. But even if it were only a day…
Swallowing hard, she knelt on the soft earth of Brian’s grave and put out a hand to touch the headstone, where she traced the B of his name with the tip of her forefinger.
“I miss you, Brian,” she whispered, following the curve of the R. Tears welled in her eyes. “I’ve kept you alive in my heart and mind.” She followed the straight line of the I. She blinked and tears rolled down both cheeks. “I didn’t know how to let go…” The A. The tears became rivulets. “But now it’s time.” She let her finger linger on the N.
Eyes streaming, Elise sat back on her heels and let herself remember the good times. The day he’d proposed to her…the day they�
�d married…the day Eric was born. Days she would never forget.
But already the other memories were slipping away and the closeness they’d once had, a memory she’d clung to while incarcerated, was fading fast. With a sob, she lowered her head and let her tears fall to his grave. After a time, the flow slowed and finally stopped.
“I’ll take care of our son,” she promised him, slashing at her eyes and nose with her sleeve. “I’ll make sure Eric is safe.”
Kissing her fingers, she touched the headstone, rose and stepped back. Her eyes swam with tears again, but inside she felt at peace with this.
“Goodbye, Brian.”
Time to let go at last.
LOGAN SAT ON A DECK CHAIR, strangling a mug of coffee and staring out at the lake, trying to make up his mind.
What to do?
Not even seven in the morning and Elise was gone, and so was his car. What about the boy? Had she taken Eric, as well? Made her getaway without so much as saying goodbye?
That’s the way it’ll happen, a little voice said. Now or later. She’ll simply disappear when you least expect it.
He took a bracing swig of coffee which he’d made too strong.
Had it happened yet? Had Elise taken the foot tunnel into Mitchell House—as he had the night before—to steal away her son? Only one way to find out. Go next door and ask, thereby alerting the Mitchells, whether or not Elise had already acted. And whether or not she had, Logan didn’t really want to alert anyone.
He just wanted to know.
If Elise was gone, he’d lost her forever, of that he was certain. Gideon had armed her with multiple identities, and that wall safe held enough money to get her anywhere in the world she wanted to go.
But only by staying and fighting could she clear her name. Only then could he contemplate some future with her in it.
If she feels the same way you do, that damn voice said.
How did he feel?
Logan didn’t know the answer to that, either. He only knew that when he was around Elise Mitchell, he came alive in a way he didn’t remember ever doing in the past. A simple thing like her entering a room put his vital signs on alert.
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