Why did his betrayal hurt her when she hadn’t loved him? It must be the dishonesty. After watching deceit tear her mother apart, the injustice of it had stuck with her. That was why she was so careful about the men she chose to see. But being careful didn’t seem to do any good.
“What was the woman’s name?” Lincoln asked, ever the cool head. Kirby’s lover going missing was pretty significant.
“Tory,” Bonnie said. “Tory Von something. Von Every.” She turned to Sabrina, who saw her concern. “Sorry. I thought you knew. The police seemed to think you had a motive to kill him.”
And what other motive could there have been other than jealousy? She was furious with Kirby for lying to her, but he hadn’t deserved to die for it.
She swatted the air with her hand, perfecting a blasé attitude. “Oh, stop. Why does everyone think I was seeing Kirby? Seriously, we were just friends.” But he had wanted more, and hadn’t been honest about Tory.
When Bonnie looked at her funny once again, Sabrina checked on Lincoln. As she suspected, he’d noticed the change in Bonnie. Now he wondered why her closest friend had thought what everyone at OneDefense had. Sabrina wasn’t ready to get into that. Lincoln believed her, but her relationship with Kirby, however brief it had been, was too personal. And too complicated.
Seeing that Bonnie’s awareness of Lincoln stopped her from questioning her further, Sabrina stood up and turned her back on both of them. She could hear Bonnie’s silent question: Why was she claiming she and Kirby hadn’t been involved romantically? And why did it bother her so much that he’d lied to her? Going over to a bookshelf, she inspected the framed photographs mixed among books there. It always warmed her immeasurably to see the picture of them just after college.
Lincoln appeared beside her. She looked up at him, at his eyes she was beginning to love so much, the knowledge in them. There was speculation, too. He wasn’t stupid. He knew there was something she wasn’t saying.
When he put his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed, a gesture of reassurance, she was taken aback. Rather than suspicion, she received understanding from him. Was he trying to get her to talk? Or was he sincerely by her side?
The look in his eyes made her yearn for the latter. Anxiety over how much he’d probe kept her from falling for it. She could not tell anyone about her relationship with Kirby, not in any great detail.
“Oh. I almost forgot. Someone came to see me last week,” Bonnie said, effectively stopping Lincoln from starting any kind of interrogation.
Sabrina fully expected one to come, however. She faced Bonnie. “Who?”
“He said his name was Pasquale.” She stood and went to the kitchen, where her purse hung from the back of a kitchen-island chair. Digging inside, she procured a business card. “He was looking for you.” She walked over to Sabrina, who was stunned into motionlessness.
She took the card. Pasquale Manco’s OneDefense business card. The Italian she’d met once. Kirby had introduced him as OneDefense’s vice president of domestic sales, and a friend.
“What did he want?” she asked.
Lincoln remained quiet, keeping his observations to himself for now.
“He didn’t say. Just said that if I ever saw you to give you that card and tell you to contact him.”
“How did he know to come to you?” Sabrina asked.
“Kirby. He said Kirby talked of you often, and said once that you had no family except for a close friend. Me.”
Sabrina had talked of Bonnie with Kirby. She’d told him a lot of things, things that, in retrospect, perhaps she shouldn’t have. There was that trust issue again. Why was it so hard for her to pick out men who were trustworthy? Kirby had seemed to be that kind of man. How could she have determined he wasn’t sooner than she had?
Thinking about the time they’d spent together, she couldn’t come up with a single example. She’d never suspected he was having an affair with a married woman, and she’d never suspected that Wade was crooked.
Sabrina met Lincoln’s patient eyes and contemplated figuring out a way to meet Pasquale by herself. What did he know?
Chapter 6
Sabrina was agitated after they left Bonnie’s house. Lincoln figured she’d try to ditch him if she could. That was why he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. He took her to an internet café, where he looked up information on Pasquale Manco. Sabrina sipped on a latte, her clear, pretty eyes watching him, while he watched her with sexual desire he tried to smother. It was chilly, the overcast sky darker than before and promising rain. Lincoln closed his session on the computer.
“Well? Is he a pedophile?” she asked. When he looked up to acknowledge her, she said, “Drug addict? Thief?”
Recognizing her teasing, he stood and went to her. Close. “No.”
She didn’t move, even though she had to feel crowded. “He’s got no criminal record. You can go ahead and call him.”
Pulling out her phone, she used the card Bonnie had given her and pressed the numbers on her smartphone, then turned on the speaker.
“Yes?” Pasquale answered.
“Mr. Manco?”
“Who is this?” he queried in accented English.
“Sabrina Tierney.” There need be no further introduction.
Lincoln waited out his lengthy pause.
At last, he said quickly, “We need to meet, but we must be very careful. I have obligations tonight and an early meeting tomorrow that will last most of the day, and a dinner with a client tomorrow night. I can meet you the following day. Can you be at my home by 7:00 a.m.? I should not be missed at work, and in case I am being watched, I should adhere to my schedule.”
“Are you being followed?” Sabrina asked. And was his phone being tapped?
“I do not believe so. I have searched for listening devices as well and have found none. Can you come to my home?”
Lincoln gave Sabrina a nod.
“Of course,” she said.
They’d meet at midnight if he had something important to tell them.
Pasquale gave her the address, which Lincoln wrote down. “Please ensure you are not followed. I risk much by speaking with you.”
“We won’t be followed.”
She disconnected and went with Lincoln outside. Thunder rolled with the imminent threat of rain. In the rental, Lincoln began to drive.
“What does Pasquale know about you and Kirby?” he asked.
She turned her head toward him, picking up on where he was going with this. He’d tried to get her to talk after they’d left Bonnie’s, but she hadn’t budged. It looked as if she wasn’t going to now, either. She didn’t reply.
He asked the same question he’d asked after leaving Bonnie’s. “If Kirby wasn’t the reason you took the job, what was? And don’t tell me it was because of the money.” That was what she’d said before.
“It was,” she said nonchalantly, or a good imitation of it.
“Omitting the truth is enough, Sabrina. You don’t have to lie on top of it.” He rarely lost patience, but he was close to losing it now. He saw her notice.
“I’m not lying. Kirby offered me a lot more money than my other job was paying me. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
That he believed. “Then that was one reason you took the job. What was the other?”
She turned her head forward and again didn’t reply. At least that was better than lying. Whatever she had to hide must be pretty important to her. Pretty illegal. Pretty dangerous....
“You got me drawn into this. I need to know everything you do.”
“I didn’t draw you into anything.”
No, he’d been a good Samaritan and gone to her aid. Now an illegal gun dealer would like to see his life end as much as he’d like to see Sabrina’s.
“If
Kirby wasn’t your lover, who was he to you?” She had to give him something.
“A friend.”
Something more than that, her standard answer. Friends, not lovers. It started to rain, big drops splattering on the windshield. “Did you know he was going to be at the gun show?”
“No.”
“But you hoped someone like him would be,” he surmised. “Someone from OneDefense?”
She said nothing, confirming what he already suspected. Going to that gun show had been no coincidence.
The violent lurch of the steering wheel and the drag of the rental car to the right interrupted his thoughts. They’d just gotten a flat tire.
With a soft, startled inhale from Sabrina, he pulled over to the side of the road. The rain had picked up, more big drops connecting on the windshield. That would make for an inconvenient tire change.
Popping the trunk, he climbed out and hurried to the back, ignoring the uncomfortable pelting of rain. Traffic passed in both directions, splashing water but avoiding them. Sabrina appeared at his side, surprising him. A lot of women would stay in the car.
Lifting the stowage well cover, he discovered it void of a spare tire. No spare? In a Mercedes? Had the car come from the factory that way or had the rental agency neglected to replace it? It didn’t matter. They had a flat, it was raining and they had no way of fixing either.
The rain gathered intensity as a torrent unleashed.
“Well, we could go to the beach for a while,” Sabrina called into the din.
Was she joking?
With her mouth crooked and her eyes playful, her hair getting drenched along with her clothes, she began to do hot things to him. Yes, she was joking.
“No?” she teased. “What do you want to do while we wait for the car to be fixed?” Stepping back and planting her legs a bit wider, she gave a grand sweep of her arm as rain dripped from her chin and hands. “Can’t get any wetter than this.”
Interpreting her meaning much differently than she’d intended, he laughed and then put his hand on her back. “Come on, we’ll go somewhere dry to call the rental company.”
Jogging across the street, they headed for a strip mall with Haute Cakes Café in the middle. Under an archway, they reached the courtyard. No patrons sitting outside today. Lincoln opened the door for Sabrina, and, dripping wet, they entered.
A woman at one of the smaller tables inside looked up, her yellow Lab doing the same from where it sat docilely beside her.
Sabrina cooed and knelt to pet the dog, who began licking her wet face.
“You’re making me miss my Maddie.” Sabrina stood, smiling a hello at the woman, who beamed pride over her dog.
“They let me bring her in until it stops raining,” the woman said.
The restaurant allowed dogs on the patio.
“Lucky dog,” Sabrina said.
The outer walls were all glass, and the café was open, giving the feel of still being outside in the torrential rain.
Lincoln followed a hostess to a table. “Arizona is taking good care of Maddie.”
“I know. I just miss her.”
“It hasn’t been that long since you last saw her.”
When she turned back to send him a “really?” look, he understood. Maddie was adorable enough to miss in a very short period of time.
Sitting across from her, he called the rental company. A representative told him someone would be sent with a new tire. With any luck, by the time they finished here, the car would be ready. He figured it would take at least an hour.
They had a little time to kill. He sat back and looked at Sabrina; her hair was wet, but she was still beautiful. He tried to minimize how her silly side appealed to him, her easy way of dealing with the rain. She was a brave woman. Independent.
She looked back at him, and soon they were both sort of grinning at each other. New attraction flared, smoking hot. He busied himself with checking out the restaurant and what he could see of the patio. Nothing unusual. No one noticed them.
“Why martial arts?”
Sabrina’s question brought him back to her. This was beginning to feel like a date.
“What made you start teaching it?” she amended.
Was she trying to get to know him better? He wanted to get to know her. In an intimate way. “It was just a natural progression. I started doing it as a kid and it stuck.”
“What do you teach?”
“Karate and kickboxing mostly. I started working out with kickboxing and then got into karate.” He enjoyed it; that was how he’d gotten into it. “Why human resources?”
“I went to college right after high school. Who knows what they want to do with their life at that age?” When she smiled at the self-criticism, he saw a deeper part of her, one he sensed she rarely revealed. “I picked business administration because it was broad. It applies to all types of companies. But it’s dry as hell.” She laughed. “I’m good at what I do, but come on. It’s not space travel.”
He chuckled at her funny humility. “What would you do now? If you could start over?”
She leaned back, her head tipping dreamily and eyes roaming the restaurant. She captivated him.
“Probably go back to college for a different degree. I love anything to do with history. Artifacts. Doesn’t matter what kind. Each one has a story to tell. Where they came from. The people who created them or used them. It’s fascinating.”
Why was he so into her? From the moment he’d seen her move in next door, he’d been physically attracted; now it was her mind that had him entranced, a woman who was a person of interest in two murder cases and was hiding something.
His phone rang. It was the rental car company. Their rental was ready. That hadn’t taken long. He was a little disappointed.
“Time to go,” he said.
Neither of them moved to leave. They’d still be together but not like this, on a date. He couldn’t figure out why he liked that so much. He wasn’t known to be a soft guy. Sabrina softened him, though.
Finally, he stood.
Sabrina did, too, seeming as disappointed as him. He held the door for her. It was still raining outside, but not as hard as before. Under the overhang of the roof, she stopped and looked into the rain.
“Do we have to?” she asked.
“You didn’t have a problem with it before.” He let the door close behind him.
“That was before we sat down in there.” And talked. Connected.
She faced him. “You know, one of my favorite things to do is go to museums.”
Why was she talking about this? Was it just for something to say? Something to cover up what was really going on here? This burning curiosity of each other?
“Not institutions,” she said, stepping toward him. “Although I still love those. I like them specialized. Private.”
“Private is good,” he said. Some privacy would be nice right now.
“Historic houses. Local history. I could spend hours doing just that.”
He could spend hours naked with her. As he continued to look at her, she grew aware of how sexual his thoughts had become and she got uncomfortable. She fidgeted, shifting her feet, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding his eyes. He hadn’t meant to make her feel that way. He was flattered that she felt free enough to talk to him that way.
How many chances had she had to share the things she loved with people? He didn’t think there were many, judging by her excitement now and the way she hadn’t wanted to leave the table in the middle of talking. But why did she feel she could share it with him?
When she started to turn away, he looped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. “I think it’s great that you have such a passion for private museums.”
The O of her mouth and wide, startled
eyes made him want to kiss her. Her body felt hot. Her hands were on his chest, and her breasts were in slight contact along with them.
“My mother collects antiques and donates them to private museums across the country,” he said. “I know of a few in Colorado I could take you to.”
Her stunned look smoothed into warm delight, and he questioned the wisdom of making future plans that involved her. Making her happy overrode any adherence to that warning. And as she relaxed in his arms, sort of melted there against his chest, doubt scattered. As he continued to look into her eyes, she responded with a sultry droop of her eyes. Unable to resist, he dipped his head and kissed her.
Her indrawn breath and sliding of hands up his chest made him ignore her warning not to do this again. She wanted him to. Angling his head, he kissed her more deeply, holding her tighter. This was different than the last kiss, a lot more urgent, rampant with passion.
He backed her up against the trunk of a palm tree that sprang up from a square in the patio, not caring about the rain. Sabrina didn’t, either. She gave back what he initiated, even digging her fingers into his hair. Her breathing was ragged. So was his. He wanted to take her back to the hotel.
The sound of footsteps broke the spell. Lincoln lifted his head and stared down at her.
“Sabrina Tierney?” a man asked from behind him.
Sabrina instantly tensed.
Lincoln turned to see two uniformed cops standing there in the rain. Someone had recognized her in the restaurant and called the police. If he’d have been paying attention, he might have been able to get them away from here in time. But being with Sabrina, talking to her, had lowered his guard.
Assaulting a police officer was sort of out of the question, but if he didn’t do something, Sabrina might be arrested. Him, too.
“Are you Sabrina Tierney?” the officer repeated.
“No. I’m Remy Lang.”
“The police in Denver told us you were living there under that name. Sir, would you step away from her?”
Armed and Famous Page 8
