by Abby Gaines
“Don’t you dare reduce your life to nothing more than your work,” he snarled. “Damn well pull yourself together and get on with the job you’re here to do. You can deal with those jerks at the association when this mess is over. In the meantime, stop your whining.”
Holly’s jaw dropped and she stared at him.
Jared unclenched his fists and said more calmly, “This thing with the CPA crowd won’t affect your work for me, since you won’t be the one signing off on the accounts. Now, are you going to live here or not?”
She nodded, the fight momentarily sucked out of her. She was still trying to figure out if she should feel shamed or enraged. And people said she was insensitive.
Before she could tell Jared what she thought of his people skills, the phone in her hand rang again, startling her. She read the display: Summer.
“It’s my sister.” She pinned a smile to her lips so she would sound cheery when she said, “Hi, there.”
“What’s with the fake happy voice?” Summer demanded.
So much for that idea. “Nothing,” she said.
“Holly, tell me.”
“Just a silly mistake. The FBI think I stole some money and I have to…deal with stuff.”
“That’s terrible!” Summer sounded even more shocked than Holly had been. “I’m coming back,” she said instantly.
“No.” Holly managed to inject her usual authority into the word. “I want you to stay where you are. You need that job.”
“But I want to help,” her sister protested.
“I know, and it’s sweet of you. But there’s nothing you can do. I just have to work through this. It’ll be fine.”
By the time she managed to convince Summer to stay in Portland, Jared was looking at his watch. Too bad. She wasn’t about to apologize for talking to her sister.
“I have to get to work. Let’s meet tonight and discuss progress,” he said.
Holly seized the chance to wrest back some control. “I’ll need more time to get up to speed.”
“Tomorrow morning, then.”
“Sunday night,” she said firmly. “I’ll spend the weekend thinking about your options.”
“Are you charging me your exorbitant hourly rate for the time you spend thinking?”
“It’s the most valuable time you’ll get out of me,” she said with no false modesty. “If you don’t want to pay for it, I won’t think about your deals and we’ll go ahead with whatever any other accountant would recommend.” She held the door of her apartment open. “In which case, yes, we can meet tonight and this job should be all over in a week.”
Jared didn’t budge for maybe half a minute. “Sunday, then.” He handed her the key card. “This will get you in and out. I’ll have Janine, my PA, collect your stuff from your friend’s house and drop it here.”
“I thought you said I could go out.”
“If people see you arriving with your baggage, they might guess what’s going on.”
She scowled. “If you had this all worked out, why did you take my clothes to AnnaMae’s in the first place? You could have brought them straight here.”
“I couldn’t bear to see you in that navy suit again.” He grinned, dispelling the tension of a minute earlier. “And I wanted to see your face when your underwear showed up at the window.”
“Great,” Holly said wearily. “A client with the mental age of a twelve-year-old.”
And, damn him, he threw back his head and laughed.
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK that night, Jared tapped on her door with what he considered admirable restraint. She’d had ten hours. Surely she had something to show for them, no matter what she’d said this morning. He was curious to see how she’d got on—and warmed by the thought of exchanging more of the banter that both frustrated and elated him. He was certain Holly enjoyed it as much as he did.
He knocked again, tapping his foot as he waited, but again he got no response. He frowned. She wouldn’t have gone out. She had all she needed for her work, and Janine had stocked the refrigerator. Maybe Holly was in the bathroom. He waited another minute before he struck the door with the heel of his hand.
When she still didn’t appear, an unexpected wave of terror flooded him.
She wouldn’t.
“This will be the end of me,” she’d said about the call from the CPA association. She didn’t mean it like that. Holly was strong. A survivor. But hadn’t Jared thought the same about his brother?
The roar in Jared’s head reached a crescendo and he pounded on the door. “Holly? Let me in or I’ll break this door down,” he yelled, loud enough for his words—and his fear—to penetrate the thick wood and the soundproofed walls.
Just as he was about to make good on his threat, he heard the scrape of the chain. Another second and the door opened. Holly stood there, alive and well, blinking.
“Where the hell were you?” He pushed past her into the room, where a quick glance told him nothing sinister had happened. His fear dissipated in an instant, to be replaced by a surge of adrenaline, or relief, or just plain anger. He grabbed her by the shoulders, trembling with the effort not to shake her.
Holly had no idea why Jared was so mad. But the tremor in his powerful fingers told her he was struggling not to take it out on her in some physical way.
“Don’t you dare,” she warned.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, injecting the words with cold fury, “scare me like that again.” Then he hauled her close and lowered his mouth to hers.
If this was a kiss, a small part of Holly’s brain registered, it wasn’t like any she’d had before. The rest of her brain struggled to deal with the instant response of every nerve ending to Jared’s touch. But when she realized she’d already parted her lips to the invasion of his tongue, that now her hands had wound around his neck and into his thick, dark hair, Holly dismissed her brain and instead surrendered to the incredible experience that was Jared’s kiss.
He devoured her with a hunger that should have horrified her. Instead she explored his mouth with a greed that equaled his, moved eagerly under his insistent hands, which pulled her against his hard length.
Then, as if sanity returned to both of them in the same instant, they sprang apart, Holly stumbling. Unable to meet Jared’s eyes, she busied her hands tucking in her shirt, which had made its way out of her jeans, embarrassed to find she was breathing heavily. The only consolation was that Jared looked equally discomfited, tugging at the collar of his shirt, running a hand through the hair she’d mussed.
Now Holly noticed the pallor of his face, which emphasized the darkness of his eyes. But she could see he was more than furious; he looked positively spooked. So instead of castigating him for kissing her—and in all fairness, how could she when her response had suggested she was desperate for his touch?—she said in the mildest of tones, “What do you mean, scare you?”
Jared shut his eyes. When he opened them, the anger was gone, his voice was calm. But she sensed the huge effort that it cost him. “When you didn’t answer the door I thought maybe you’d overreacted to this FBI thing and…done something stupid.”
It wasn’t like Jared to employ a euphemism when plain language was available. “You thought I’d killed myself.”
He flinched. “You were upset this morning.”
“You’re right, killing myself would be stupid.” Her acerbic tone seemed to reassure him, and he let out a breath. “I’m innocent and the investigation will prove it. So throwing myself out a penthouse window would achieve very little.”
“Only a sore head,” he agreed, sounding almost his normal self. “They don’t open and the glass is extra tough.”
She grinned at the release of tension. Jared smiled back. His relief added warmth to the smile, setting off a fluttering somewhere around Holly’s midriff.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded before his charm overcame her resistance. “I told you I didn’t want to see you before Sunday night.”
“I’m ord
ering Chinese takeout. Do you want some?”
“No, thanks. I’ll cook something here.” There was an awkward pause. Holly figured Jared really wanted to know how her work was going, but she’d told him she wouldn’t be ready to report back until Sunday, and she meant it.
“Why didn’t you answer the door earlier?” he asked suddenly.
“I was concentrating. It can take a while to get through to me when I’m engrossed in my work.”
Jared nodded.
“Why would you think I would kill myself? It seems…somewhat extreme.”
In an instant, his expression shuttered. “I’ll leave you to it.” He made the distance in his tone a physical reality by heading for the door he’d so recently threatened to break down. As if the sight of it had triggered his memory, he turned on his way out. “By the way,” he said carelessly, “that kiss—it won’t happen again.”
CHAPTER FIVE
WHO WOULD HAVE guessed that the mother of prosperous accountant Holly Stephens would reside in a second-rate trailer park?
Certainly not Special Agent Simon Crook, if he hadn’t known her record. But the local cops had been bitter about their past encounters with Mrs. Stephens, so Simon had a good idea whom he was about to meet. And he was pretty sure he would find the answer to Holly Stephens’s guilt or innocence right here. Like mother, like daughter.
The Stephenses’ family home was no better and no worse than the other trailers surrounding it, with a couple of rooms tacked on the front. Venetian blinds obscured any view of the interior, and would have made the place look abandoned if not for the plants that flourished in the tiny front yard.
Special Agent Andy Slater dismissed the inhabitants of the trailer park an hour east of Portland in two words: white trash.
Simon frowned. Andy was a good agent, but he had trouble shaking off his Southern attitudes. “Some of these people work hard for a living,” he said.
“This one doesn’t.” Andy gestured toward Mrs. Stephens’s door. “Leastways, not so’s we know.”
He had a point. Crook knocked on the door, which shook in its flimsy frame, and waited. No answer. What a surprise. In his experience trailer-park dwellers were universally hard of hearing when the law came calling.
But they knew Margaret Stephens was at home. They’d stopped at the euphemistically titled Management Office on their way in, and the old guy there had confirmed it. “Don’t often go out, that one. No car.”
Crook knocked harder. “Mrs. Stephens,” he called. “FBI. Open up.” Silence.
“Break it down,” Andy said laconically.
Simon assumed—hoped—Andy was joking, given they didn’t have a warrant. Still, he was mentally judging where he would best apply his shoulder to the door if they did have one, when it opened.
“What do you want?”
For a second, he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he was here. But Margaret Stephens’s truculent greeting and the startling contrast between the hostile words and her husky voice weren’t to blame for his momentary amnesia. No, it was Mrs. Stephens herself.
He’d expected a woman as scrawny as her daughter, but from poverty rather than fashion. Someone plain, like Holly, but made even mousier by her circumstances.
There was nothing scrawny and nothing plain about Holly’s mother. Wild waves of thick, chestnut hair framed a face dominated by eyes as green as envy and a wide, full mouth that was positively sinful. He knew her to be forty-nine years old, but she was the most stunning woman he’d seen since…
Okay, so the woman was…voluptuous. But she was also a druggie and goodness knew what else.
“Mrs. Margaret Stephens? Can we come in? It’s about your daughter.”
She regarded them with suspicion. “Summer’s working in Portland during her vacation.”
“I’m talking about Holly.”
“Holly?” Shock provoked her to take an instinctive step backward, and the two agents took advantage of it, stepping inside. “Is my baby hurt? Dead?”
“She’s okay,” Simon said quickly. “We just need to ask you a few questions.”
The inside of the trailer was at first glance no more promising than the outside. Shabby furnishings—a couch that looked as if ninety percent of its stuffing had disappeared years ago, a threadbare rug, a Formica dining table with matching chairs so old-fashioned they were trendy again—all spoke of a woman struggling to survive.
If Margaret Stephens had made any money out of drugs, she must have blown it all.
Crook shifted his scrutiny from the furnishings—and did a double take.
“What the hell—?” Andy was also looking at the walls.
Not that a lot of wall was visible. Paintings, all sizes, covered just about every square inch. Crook surmised they were intended as art, given they were executed on canvas. But there any resemblance to the impressionist and modern masters he’d studied in high-school art class ended.
Some of the canvases bore swirling swathes of color, others seemingly random splashes and splotches. A few comprised collections of tiny dots.
“My three-year-old paints better than this crap,” Andy muttered, not quite under his breath.
Simon saw Mrs. Stephens’s face redden. What did Andy think he was doing, antagonizing her before they had any answers to their questions? Not to mention being downright rude on a subject he probably knew less about than Simon.
“Shut up, Andy,” he said. “Show some respect.” He sensed rather than saw the woman’s surprise, and took immediate advantage of it. “Mrs. Stephens, we need to—”
“It’s Maggie,” she interrupted him with quiet force. “I don’t use Stephens much these days. Should’ve dumped the name when its owner dumped me.”
The local cops had no record of Mr. Stephens ever getting into trouble. Maybe he’d had enough of his wife’s shenanigans and gotten out of here, like any decent guy would.
“Like I said, ma’am—” he couldn’t bring himself to use her first name “—we need to ask you—”
“What did you say your name was, Officer?”
Crook felt heat at the back of his neck. He hadn’t introduced himself, a clear breach of protocol. “Special Agent Crook.”
“I suppose your first name is Small-time?”
Beside him Andy sniggered, and Simon felt the heat intensify. “This here’s Special Agent Slater,” he persisted. “Mrs.—uh—ma’am, if you want to help your daughter, you’ll answer our questions.”
He’d hit upon the magic words. Maggie Stephens sat on the worn-out sofa and gave them her full attention. She didn’t invite them to sit, but Crook pulled a couple of dining chairs out and passed one to Andy.
In as few words as possible he outlined the theft Holly’s clients had suffered and made it clear Holly was a suspect.
“Holly would never do that,” her mother said. “She’s honest, like me.”
He frowned. He couldn’t resist pointing out the flaw in her logic. “Ma’am, I understand you have several criminal convictions. Claiming Holly takes after you may not help her cause.”
Maggie’s remarkable green gaze didn’t waver. “Holly is a woman of strong principles,” she said. “She wouldn’t betray those for money.”
She said “money” with a genuine contempt that Simon envied. But with retirement looming he couldn’t be complacent. And he wouldn’t want to live in a trailer park….
“When did you last speak to your daughter?” He didn’t imagine they were best buddies. Young Ms. Stephens looked as if she’d gone all out to get as far away—philosophically, if not geographically—from her upbringing as possible.
So he wasn’t surprised when the mother said, “Maybe three or four months.” Which probably meant six months.
“Does she ever talk to you about her business partner, David Fletcher?”
Maggie Stephens shook her head. “She mentioned him when they first set up the business, but not lately.”
“What did she tell you about Fletcher back
then?”
“Is your first name Murray?”
The unexpected question threw him off track. “What? No. No, it’s not.”
“It’s just you look like a Murray.”
What was that supposed to mean? Most likely it means this woman’s a fruitcake. “We were talking about Dave Fletcher,” he prompted her again.
“Holly said he wasn’t particularly bright, but he was reliable and good on detail.”
“You’ve got a good memory. She said that—what, two years ago?” Andy sounded plain skeptical.
“My daughter and I don’t talk much.” She addressed Crook as if Slater wasn’t there. “So when we do, I hold on to that conversation for a long time.”
“Then you should remember what you talked about last time you spoke,” he said.
Maggie Stephens shrugged. “Is your name Horace?”
“No.” Even as he willed himself not to respond to her provocation, he was faintly stung she would even suggest it.
“Wayne?”
An improvement on Horace, at least. Crook shook his head. He was more than familiar with delaying tactics. If he told her, she’d just think up some other way to bug him. “What did you and Holly talk about last time you spoke?” he repeated coldly.
She shrugged again. “She told me her business was going well, and the twins were doing okay at college, far as she knew.”
“The twins?”
“Summer and River. They’re nineteen. Holly is paying to put them through college.” Her voice was devoid of expression where Crook might have expected pride or gratitude. He left aside the subject of why Maggie might not be pleased her kids were going to college, and focused instead on the potential motive for fraud she had just presented.
“That’s a big financial commitment for Holly,” he said conversationally.
She saw right through that. “Holly is very generous with her money. Sensible, too. She doesn’t spend what she doesn’t have. And the only money she has is what she’s worked for.”
The questioning went around in circles for another fifteen minutes. While Crook didn’t think she was lying, Maggie had been interrogated by authorities often enough that she knew how to annoy a federal agent, and how to say nothing that was of any use. Every so often she’d ask, “Is your name Kevin?” Or Peter, or John or whatever. Crook was pleased with the way he kept his cool, especially in the face of Slater’s growing and ill-concealed amusement.
