Good. He had made her mad. Anger was easier to deal with than hurt. “I’ll need your full cooperation.”
“You’ll have it. Just tell me what to do.”
He took a deep breath. As long as he concentrated on the plan, he wouldn’t do anything foolish, like kissing her again. “First, you’ll search your father’s office, just in case Lashner overlooked something important.”
“Do you really think he’s left anything incriminating for me to find?”
“Probably not. Ben had Harper search Lashner’s office today—”
“Today? Why not weeks ago?” she asked.
“Today was Harper’s first chance to sneak in without breaking locks and raising Lashner’s suspicion that someone is on to him. Harper told Lashner’s secretary that Ben needed a contract Lashner was working on.” Josh’s pulse rate eased as he focused on the task at hand and avoided the bright look in her eyes.
“Did Harper find anything?”
“If Lashner did keep anything significant there, he removed it after the explosion.”
“So searching Dad’s office is probably a waste of time, too.” Resignation weighted her voice.
“It’s crucial to the plan. When you visit the plant complex, you have to appear as if you’re collecting your father’s belongings. You can’t tip off Lashner’s men that clearing Frank’s office isn’t your reason for being there.”
“While I’m in Dad’s office seems like a perfect opportunity for someone to—” her voice faltered, and she straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat before continuing “—for someone to kill me.”
He slowed his steps, but stopped himself from reaching out to her. “Lashner won’t try anything in the plant complex. He can’t risk a murder investigation at Chemco tainting his efforts to sell the formula. Much better for him if you simply disappear.”
“If there’s nothing in Dad’s office and Lashner’s men won’t make their move in the plant, why am I going there?”
“To flush out his accomplices without giving away your hiding place at Ben’s.” Outlining the details of the scheme to trap Frank Winters’s killer made it easier to suppress his need, but fear for her replaced his longing. “We must assume Lashner will have a man waiting at or near the plant, ready to follow as soon as you leave. Once you’re far enough away from Chemco, he’ll probably grab you, first chance he gets.”
“Not if you’re with me.”
“I won’t be.” He grasped her arm, pivoting her back in the direction of the diner.
“Why not?” Her voice was sharp with alarm. She stopped and dug her heels into the sand. “Aren’t you supposed to be protecting me?”
“We’ll take separate cars. If they see you with me, they’ll sense a trap. There’s a rental car parked beside my Chevy in the diner lot You’ll drive it, and I’ll follow at a safe distance. I’ve arranged for Jim Dexter, an ex-policeman friend of mine, to wait near the plant as backup.”
She scrunched her face in concentration. “So you believe Lashner’s men won’t approach me until after I’ve left the plant complex?”
“I’m assuming—hoping they’ll pick up your trail there, then follow to discover where you’re staying.”
“But I’m staying at Ben’s. I can’t lead them there.”
He shook his head. “I’ve rented adjoining rooms at a nearby motel, one for you, the other where Jim Dexter and I will wait. When Lashner’s men make their move, we’ll grab them.”
“What if they reach me before you do?”
Her voice held no fear, but she seemed so petite, so exposed, his heart lurched with apprehension. He dug into the pocket of his jacket and withdrew the metal canister Sal had given him. “Carry this where you can reach it quickly.”
She accepted the cylinder without hesitation and hefted it in her small hand. “Mace?”
“Pepper spray. If they close in, blast their faces. The spray’s effects will immobilize them until I arrive.”
He started to remind her to remain upwind of the spray so she wouldn’t be affected, but he feared the extra instruction might slow her response. Pepper spray was disabling, but only rarely fatal. He’d rather take the chance of her receiving a nasty dose than dying at the hands of Lashner’s thugs.
She rewarded him with beaming admiration. “You think of everything, don’t you?”
God, I hope so.
“Just follow my directions,” he said, “and you’ll be fine.”
Chapter Seven
Morgan drove the rented Lexus to the gatehouse at the Chemco Industries complex and handed her driver’s license to the security guard.
A thin young man in a neatly pressed uniform studied her name and picture. “You’re Frank Winters’s daughter?”
“I’m here to clean out his office.”
He bent down until his friendly face was level with her car window. “Your father was well liked by everyone, miss. If you need a hand with anything, just call security. We’ll send someone right away.”
In the control center behind him, an array of video monitors displayed rooms and exteriors of buildings throughout the plant. Knowing her movements inside the complex would be reflected on those screens bolstered her courage. The guard’s watchfulness made a surprise attack by Lashner’s men inside the plant unlikely, just as Josh had assured her.
“Thank you,” Morgan said. “Everyone’s been very kind.”
He straightened, returned her license and, reaching inside the control center, hit a lever that opened the steel gates to the grounds of the plant.
Casting a nervous glance at the rearview mirror, she drove through. Moments ago, when she had turned off the highway into the industrial park where Chemco was located, she had lost sight of Josh, who had been trailing her in his car. To pick up her voice, he had to be somewhere nearby. The transmitter range of the mike she wore was only a half mile or less, unless she remained out in the open.
The medical tape adhering the wire to her body itched against her skin, reminding her of Josh’s warm hands and the agonizing pleasure of his touch. Her lips tingled with the memory of his kiss, tantalizing and forbidden. As unforgettable and thrilling as it had been, she wouldn’t kiss him again.
Kissing him was too dangerous.
She had professed a willingness to take risks, but giving in to her attraction to Josh was a gamble she wasn’t prepared to take. For every fragment of information she gleaned about him, contradictions arose. She must trust him to protect her, as Ben had hired him to do.
But she refused to trust him with her heart.
On the beach, when Josh had kissed her so unexpectedly and tenderly, she had responded with wanton desire. But just because her body betrayed her didn’t mean her common sense had deserted her. If she ever gave her heart, it would be to a man like Ben Wells, gentle and kind and dependable, a man she could rely on to be who and what he said he was.
Maybe a relationship with Ben wouldn’t produce the skyrocketing excitement she felt with Josh, but alone in the world with her father gone, she needed a man she could count on, a man with no secrets.
Josh whatever-his-last-name-was was full of secrets. She had seen them, lurking in the beguiling depths of his disarming brown eyes.
Tonight, after Josh had caught one of Lashner’s men and turned him over to the police, she would never have to see Josh again.
Temptation would depart with him.
Even more important, her father’s killer would be brought to justice and the dangers of the gasoline substitute exposed. Then she could settle down to a quiet and peaceful existence.
If she was lucky, Ben wouldn’t want their marriage annulled, and she could devote herself to caring for her invalid husband. After all, he seemed to enjoy her company and had encouraged her to consider his home her own.
So you’ll risk your life, but not your heart? an inner voice scoffed. Where’s your real courage?
“Shut up!” she snapped aloud, and hoped Josh hadn’t turned on his rece
iver.
At the administration building, she parked in the reserved space still marked with her father’s name and locked the car. A light wind carried the lingering stench of ashes from the scarred earth across the street where demolition crews had scraped clean every vestige of the laboratory facility. Lashner had wasted no time in destroying any evidence the arson investigators might have missed.
She turned her back on the place where her father had died and headed up the wide walkway toward the entrance. Lights blazed in several offices as cleaning crews performed their nightly rounds. She discovered the entry doors unlocked, probably for the custodians.
In the dimly lit lobby, Morgan entered the elevator and poked the button for the third floor. Her last visit to her father’s office had been at Christmas, when she had dragged him away for lunch. Her dad had loved his work so much, he had to be reminded to eat.
Anger toward Lashner overrode her grief and trampled her fears. He had struck down her father in the prime of his life, and she could not allow Lashner to go unpunished.
Her heart vaulted into her throat when the elevator stopped on the second floor. Josh had insisted she’d be safe inside the plant, but she didn’t feel safe. She felt alone and exposed. She should have taken the stairs, but she’d been so obsessed with castigating Lashner, she hadn’t considered his men might trap her in the elevator.
She held her breath as the doors slid open.
A heavy-set woman in a polyester uniform with Sunshine Custodial Service stitched above the breast pocket was dumping plastic bags of trash into a receptacle on a cleaning cart and whistling an off-key tune.
At the sight of her, Morgan relaxed, then tensed again as she realized a woman who could be carrying a gun would be as dangerous as any man. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and gripped the cool, reassuring metal of the pepper spray canister.
“Didn’t know anyone was working tonight except us,” the cleaning woman said pleasantly and dragged her cart onto the elevator.
Before the doors could close, Morgan slipped off. Watching the illuminated indicator above the door, she waited until the elevator stopped at the third floor and continued to the fifth before she took the stairs. At the third-floor stairwell’s glass-paneled door, she paused and scanned the empty hallway. If the cleaning woman had exited the elevator on this floor, she must have entered one of the offices.
Morgan burst from the stairwell entry and scooted across the hallway to her father’s office. She was reaching in her pocket for his keys when she noticed the strip of bright light beneath the door.
Someone was inside.
Her instincts said run, until she remembered the mike that connected her to Josh and security’s hightech surveillance cameras. She’d have help in minutes if she needed it, With the pepper spray firmly in one hand, she tried the door with the other. It was unlocked. She pushed the door open, prepared to fight or flee.
“Hello, Morgan, I was waiting for you.” Brenda Jernigan, her father’s longtime secretary, sat at her desk and welcomed Morgan with a too-bright smile.
Weak-kneed with relief, Morgan stuffed the aerosol can into her pocket, stepped inside and closed the door. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
She hadn’t seen Brenda since the funeral. The woman’s plump, middle-aged face still displayed the ravages of grief. Redness rimmed her eyes, and dark circles marked the skin beneath them. Morgan had always suspected Brenda’s interest in her father had been more than professional. His secretary had unquestionably taken his death especially hard.
Brenda gave her another watery smile and rose from her desk. She looked ready to burst into tears. “I wanted to be here in case you had questions or needed help. You ought not tackle such a sad task alone.”
“You shouldn’t have—”
“Besides—” Brenda’s nonchalance was obviously feigned “—I have work to catch up on.”
Morgan repressed the grief Brenda’s sympathy reactivated, and gave the older woman a hug. “I’ll call if I need you. Thanks for being so thoughtful.”
Brenda returned the hug, then grabbed a tissue. After a quick wipe of her eyes, she swung open the door to the inner office. “Nothing’s been touched. I set a box on his desk, if you want it for carrying things.”
Morgan entered her father’s inner sanctum and closed the door. The woodsy aroma of his pipe tobacco permeated the room, and when she closed her eyes, she could almost believe her father stood next to her.
But he wasn’t there, wouldn’t ever be there again.
She opened her eyes and scanned the room, wondering where to begin. A framed picture of her with her father, displayed prominently on his desk, had been snapped last summer on a vacation to the Keys. Suntanned and windblown, they had laughed at the camera, blissfully unaware that less than a year later, he would be dead.
No time for memories now.
She choked back tears and began combing his desk, glad for the presence of Brenda and the cleaning crews in the building. Between them and the watchful eye of plant security, a confrontation with Lashner’s hirelings was unlikely, as Josh had promised.
She opened the top desk drawer and rummaged through its contents. Josh had instructed her to search for any documents or memos that might implicate Lashner, in case they had overestimated him and he had failed to remove incriminating evidence.
She scoured the desk, closets and the adjoining efficiency kitchen. After completing her inspection of the bottom drawer of the last file cabinet, she rose and stretched the cramps from her back and aching legs. Even though she hadn’t really expected to find anything, she was disappointed she had uncovered nothing to tie Lashner to her father’s death.
Brenda’s empty box would not be needed. Her father had been a meticulous man who neatly compartmentalized his professional and private lives. Everything, except the framed photograph, related to his work. If he had kept this year’s journal at the office, someone had already seized it.
“Finished already?” Brenda asked when Morgan entered the anteroom.
“There wasn’t much. Dad must have kept personal things at home.” Her glance fell on a small fire safe, half hidden by Brenda’s L-shaped desk. “Unless something of his is in the safe.”
Brenda shook her head. “I don’t know why he bought that safe. He only kept one thing in it.”
Morgan raised her brows. “Dad bought it, not the company?”
“I never could understand him spending his money,” Brenda said, “because he used it for company business. He had a special file, one of those big accordion ones, that he placed in the safe every night.”
Morgan kept her voice casual. “What was in it?”
“Oh, I never read it. But I watched him gather papers once and a bound book and shove them into it.”
A bound book. The missing journal?
Morgan grew hot and cold simultaneously. “You’re certain the papers weren’t personal?”
“Your dad loved his work,” the secretary said with another teary smile, “but not even Frank used chemical formulas to record his personal documents.”
“Do you mind if I take a look at the folder, just in case?”
“I don’t mind,” Brenda said with a breezy wave of plump hands, “but you’ll have to ask Mr. Lashner for it. He came in the day after your father…the day after the fire and requested all Frank’s formulas. Said he didn’t want Frank’s untimely death to halt progress on an important project.”
Morgan’s hopes plummeted. The missing journal, which might have proved enough to hang Robert Lashner, had probably been destroyed by now.
She hadn’t found anything to incriminate Lashner, but she suspected Brenda had other useful knowledge. The woman had worked for her father ever since he started at Chemco and knew more about Frank Winters than his own daughter did. Brenda had kept track of not only Frank’s business appointments but his social calendar, too.
If the mysterious Josh really had been Frank’s friend, Brenda would know.
>
Before Morgan could voice her question, she remembered the microphone between her breasts. No need to antagonize Josh with her inquiries. After springing the trap for Lashner tonight, she wouldn’t need any corroborating information about the handsome private investigator. She would never see him again.
“Thanks, Brenda.” She turned to leave.
“Wait. Where are you staying? Mr. Lashner said I should be sure to find out.”
“With friends. Leave a message on Dad’s machine if you need to reach me.” Morgan slipped out and closed the door before Brenda could ask more.
The deserted stillness of the hallway roared in her ears. In her father’s office with Brenda within shouting distance, Morgan had felt safe. Engrossed in her search, she had managed to forget briefly not only her hidden wire but the impending danger. Now the prospect of imminent peril swept over her with a vengeance, and she wondered if her courage was equal to the task ahead.
She was so wrought up that when the stairwell door clicked shut behind her, she jumped like water on a griddle and bounded down the stairs. Blood booming in her ears rendered her deaf to all other sounds. Had someone followed her, she couldn’t have heard their approach.
When she reached the lobby, she ducked her head and whispered into the open neckline of her blouse. “I hope you’re close by. I’m in the lobby now and will be leaving the plant in a few minutes.”
Images of Josh, his broad shoulders hunched over the receiver, his attractive face solemn as he monitored every sound, sustained her courage.
She exited the building and, restraining herself from running, marched purposely down the front walk. Her skin prickled ominously.
Someone, somewhere, was watching.
At her car, she dropped the keys and had to grope along the asphalt in the dark to find them. With wooden fingers, she unlocked the door, climbed inside and hit the control that activated the electric locks.
She caught her breath, along with the new-car scent of the interior, and doubted the luxurious, latest-model Lexus with its front and side air bags was really a rental car. Wherever Josh had acquired it, she was grateful, remembering the hit-and-run driver who had rammed her Volvo outside the cemetery. Only her car’s side air bags and its indestructible chassis had saved her then.
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