“I know how to skim money off the top of any organization,” she said. “But laundering the kind of cash that’s sitting in that offshore account is more complicated. I need a partner.”
“You want me to help you wash that money?”
“And the money we will acquire from Rayner’s operation,” she said. “He’s set to go even higher than Witherspoon. I see our partnership as an ongoing enterprise for the two of us.”
“Where does Nyla fit into this plan?”
Millicent waved that aside. “She doesn’t.”
Burke looked thoughtful. “You’re saying I don’t need her any longer.”
“I know you planned to marry her for the money. Hell, the whole office, including Witherspoon, figured that out. But Nyla’s inheritance has vanished, hasn’t it? I’m the only one who knows where it is and how to get it. All we have to do is figure out how to bring it home and scrub it clean without making Nyla or the cops suspicious.”
“You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Burke was amused. “You really do need someone to launder the money.”
“Either that or I have to go live on some no-name island for the rest of my life. I like it here. Not much in the way of shopping on those no-name islands.”
“I’d want a guarantee of a fifty-fifty split.”
“Of course.” Millicent raised her glass. “Like I said, partners.”
Burke tapped one finger on the table. “What makes you think you can trust me?”
“Isn’t it obvious? We need each other.”
He drank some more of his martini while he considered that. It was time to tighten the leash, she thought.
“Here’s the thing, Burke. I’ve got proof that you were blackmailing Witherspoon because I’m the one who made those monthly payments. I traced them to that account in New York months ago. That evidence will be sent to the police if I were to, say, suffer an unfortunate accident.” Millicent used her fingers to make a very precise triangle around the base of her martini glass. “Proof of blackmail will put you right at the top of the suspect list in the Witherspoon murder.”
Burke looked impressed. “I do believe that we have a partnership.”
“Excellent.” She pushed her empty glass aside and reached for her purse. “Would you care to go somewhere more private to celebrate?”
“Where do you suggest?”
“My apartment is within walking distance.”
Burke smiled slowly. “That sounds very convenient.”
Twenty-Seven
You can’t just give me this gorgeous bowl,” Grace said. “It’s too much.”
“Too much what?” Julius asked.
“Too much of a gift,” she shot back.
He drove into the parking space in the condo garage, shut down the engine and turned to look at her.
She sat in the passenger seat, cradling the carefully wrapped art glass with both hands as if it was a priceless gem. It wasn’t priceless. Granted, he had just paid far too much for a glass bowl that couldn’t even be used to serve salad, but it wasn’t priceless.
What was priceless was the look on Grace’s face when he handed the art glass to her and told her that it was hers. She was still arguing.
“What am I going to do with that bowl?” he asked patiently. “I’m not into art glass. You’re the one who picked out the damn thing so I’m assuming you like it.”
“I love it. It’s gorgeous. I can see it now displayed under the right light in the right place in a room. It will glow like a big, multicolored diamond.”
“Fine. Go ahead and display it any way you want.”
She stared at him, shocked. “You mean you don’t like it? You should have said something when we were looking at the auction items before the event. I would never have chosen a piece this pricey.”
“It’s not like there was any cheap art there to bid on. Look, it’s a glass bowl. It’s nice. But art is not my thing.”
“Art is good for you. It stimulates the senses.”
He looked at her for a long moment, savoring the sight of her sitting there in his car. In a few minutes she would be standing in the front hall of his condo. It was after midnight and neither of them had wanted to make the hour-long drive back to Cloud Lake. The only question was whether Grace would be sleeping in the guest bedroom or in his bed.
The low-grade fever that had been heating his blood since the night he met her rose a couple more degrees.
“Trust me,” he said, “my senses are already running in overload condition. Not sure I could handle any more stimulation.”
Her brows snapped together. “What are you talking about?”
He decided not to answer that question. Instead, he got out of the SUV, circled behind the vehicle and opened the door on the passenger side.
Grace handed the package to him with both hands.
“Hold this while I get out,” she instructed. “And for goodness’ sake, be careful with it.”
He tucked the package under one arm. The bowl was surprisingly heavy. He reminded himself that large hunks of thick glass were always weighty objects.
With his free hand, he assisted Grace out of the high front seat. He was learning to enjoy watching her bail out of the vehicle. She never did it the same way twice but it was always interesting. Tonight her stiletto heels made the disembarkation process something of a high-wire balancing act. She negotiated the exit with her customary fluid grace, bouncing a little on the toe of her right foot before she got both feet on the ground.
“You need a ladder for this sucker,” she said.
He smiled. “I’ve been meaning to ask you if you ever studied dance.”
“Not unless you count aerobic exercise classes,” she said. “Why?”
He closed the door of the SUV. “Just wondered. You move like someone who’s had some training.”
“Here, give me that bowl.” She took the package from him.
He pocketed the keys. “I wasn’t going to drop it.”
“Maybe not but it’s clear that you are not going to treat this work of art with the proper respect.” She held the package in both hands. “Besides, someone has to handle the suitcases.”
“This is true.”
He opened the cargo bay of the vehicle and smiled a little at the sight of the two bags inside. He liked the way his duffel looked sitting next to Grace’s little roll-aboard suitcase. It was as if they belonged together, he decided.
He hauled both bags out of the SUV and closed the rear door.
“Elevator’s that way,” he said. He angled his jaw to indicate the center of the garage.
She started toward the stairwell and elevator lobby, clutching the package with great care.
“You know, if you really don’t want to keep this bowl you could give it to one of your relatives,” she said. “Or a close friend.”
Her refusal to accept the bowl as a gift was starting to annoy him. “It’s yours.”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to bite my head off.”
“I didn’t bite your head off,” he said. “I’m just stating a fact. The damn bowl is yours.”
“Thank you.”
Her excruciatingly polite tone was even more irritating.
“I can’t believe we’re arguing over a damn bowl,” he said.
“It is a little weird, isn’t it? The thing is, I’ve never owned an expensive piece of art.”
“Neither have I, at least not as far as I know. The interior designer who did my condo spent a fortune on what she called finishing touches but I don’t think any of it qualifies as art. Just expensive stuff.”
“You’re rich,” Grace said. “If you don’t collect art, what do you collect?”
“Money, I guess. I’ve never had the urge to collect anything else.”
“Like I said, you’re bored.�
�
He was about to tell her that the one thing he had not been lately was bored—not around her—but the sound of rushing footsteps echoing in the stillness of the garage stopped him cold. Shadows shifted in the yellow glare of the fluorescents.
Two men dressed in black clothing exploded out of the dark valley between a car and the concrete wall. One moved toward Grace. The second attacker gripped a length of pipe in both hands. He lunged at Julius.
Julius dropped the duffel and the suitcase and sidestepped the swinging pipe. The length of heavy metal sliced harmlessly through the air at the place his rib cage had been a heartbeat earlier.
The attacker staggered back a step, caught his balance and tried for another swing. Julius rolled once across the floor, slamming into his assailant’s legs. There was a solid thud and a grunt when the man hit the ground.
Julius got to his feet, grabbed the pipe and wrenched it out of the attacker’s hand. The man on the ground barely noticed. He was too busy clutching at his midsection and trying to get some air into his lungs.
Julius whirled around and saw that the first man had Grace backed up against the wall. He held the point of a knife at her throat.
“Don’t move, bitch,” the knife man hissed. “We just want to have a little quality time with your boyfriend. It’ll all be over real quick.”
“It’s over now,” Grace said. She looked at Julius.
The knife man automatically glanced over his shoulder. He looked stunned when he realized that his companion was groaning on the floor of the garage.
“Don’t move another inch,” he snarled at Julius. “I’ll cut the bitch’s throat. I swear I’ll do it.”
Julius knew that panic and adrenaline were driving the bastard now. The situation on the ground had shifted on him. He and his partner were rapidly losing control.
Grace was still clutching the package that contained the art glass. She rammed it straight up in front of herself, raising it high. The force of the upward momentum pushed the attacker’s arm aside, briefly deflecting the blade.
She kicked the knife man in the groin, the toe of her stiletto striking its target with a speed and accuracy that told Julius it was not the first time she had practiced the maneuver.
But she could not keep her balance in the heels. She dropped the package on the concrete floor and went down hard next to it.
The knife man staggered backward, clutching at his privates. Julius kicked his legs out from under him and grabbed his arm, twisting hard.
The knife man screamed. His blade clattered on the concrete floor.
Grace kicked off her shoes, scrambled to her feet and sprinted toward the fire alarm on the wall. She pulled it hard, filling the garage with screeching noise.
The door of the stairwell burst open. Julius saw the familiar face of the night-shift doorman, Steve.
“The cops are on the way,” Steve yelled above the shrill sound of the alarm.
The combination of that news and the unrelenting shrieks acted like a tonic on the two assailants. The one who had wielded the pipe staggered to his feet with astonishing alacrity and charged toward the alley door.
The knife man tried to follow but Julius grabbed him and swung him around.
“You pulled a knife on her,” Julius said. “That’s not allowed.”
He delivered two quick, hard chops. The knife man went down again. This time he stayed down.
Julius briefly considered trying to snag the one who had brought the pipe to the party but gave it up as a lost cause. The bastard had a head start.
“We’ve got the security camera video to give to the cops,” Steve shouted over the alarm. “I saw them attack you but it took me a few minutes to get down here.”
Julius nodded and looked at Grace. She was bending down to examine the package that contained what was left of the art glass. The lumpy condition of the wrapping paper was mute testimony to the fact that the bowl had not survived in one piece.
She straightened and turned around. Julius opened his arms. She walked straight to him. He hugged her close.
“It was so beautiful,” she said against his chest.
“Yes, it was,” he said. “I was wrong about it.”
“How is that?”
“I thought that it would never serve any useful purpose.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Twenty-Eight
You know,” Julius said, “I was hoping this evening would end somewhat differently.”
Grace met his eyes in the mirror, aware that her emotions were all over the place. Among other things she was experiencing an irrational urge to laugh. It was the adrenaline, she thought, or, rather, the aftereffects. The fierce rush of biochemicals that had flooded her bloodstream during the course of the assault in the garage was fading, leaving her shaky and unnerved.
She was pretty sure that Julius had to be buzzed on similar discordant sensations but if that was true, he was doing a much better job of concealing it. More practice, maybe.
The camouflage of calm control was not quite perfect, however. She was sure she could detect a little ice and fire in his eyes.
They were standing side by side at the twin sinks in the master bath of Julius’s condo. The police had taken their statements, arrested the knife man and departed. They had promised to call with any updates.
She contemplated Julius’s reflection in the mirror and wondered why he looked so disturbingly sexy. The last thing she ought to be thinking about at that moment was sex. But she found herself fascinated, not just by the heat in his eyes, but by small details—his rumpled hair and the careless way his black tie hung loose around his neck.
En route to the huge bathroom he had removed his tux jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. His ebony-and-gold cuff links were sitting on the black granite countertop, gleaming in the glow of the bathroom light fixtures. The collar of his crisp white shirt was open, revealing a hint of dark, curling chest hair. There were some smudges here and there but on the whole he reminded her of James Bond after a tussle with one of the bad guys.
Breathe.
Not that she was having an anxiety attack, not yet, at any rate. That would probably come later, in the middle of the night. Stupid damn nerves. She reminded herself that she had packed her emergency meds.
One decision had just been made—the big decision of the day—the issue of where she would spend the night. She would have to sleep in Julius’s guest bedroom. She could not abide the thought of waking up in his bed in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. Not the most romantic scenario. If she was going to succumb to a case of what the Victorians had called shattered nerves, she wanted to be alone when it happened.
But in the meantime, she could not seem to stop thinking about sex. She wanted to hurl herself into Julius’s arms again, just as she had following the assault downstairs. But this time she wanted to carry him off into his bedroom and throw herself on top of him.
Breathe.
She exhaled slowly, with some control, and took stock of her own image in the mirror. She did not look at all sexy. She looked like she’d been dragged through a couple of alleys and dumped on a back step.
The hair she had so carefully pinned up into a sophisticated knot had come down in the course of the short, violent struggle in the garage. Her dress was ruined. The skirt had ripped open at the seam and split halfway up one thigh. She figured that had probably happened when she kicked the knife-wielding attacker between the legs. The sides and back of the garment were torn and stained with garage floor dirt. She knew that when she took the dress off she would find bruises on her hip and shoulder. She had scraped one knee on the concrete. It oozed a little blood. The heel of her left palm was raw. The soles of her bare feet were covered in grime.
She was uncomfortable but the real pain from her bruises and scrapes hadn’t struck yet. That
would probably come later, like the nightmare and the anxiety attack.
In addition to sex, she longed for a shower. She understood the latter. She needed a shower. It was the desire to ravish Julius that she could not wrap her head around. She had never wanted to be in a man’s arms the way she wanted to be in Julius’s arms tonight.
Breathe.
She gripped the front of the sink with both hands to steady herself.
“How, exactly, did you expect the evening to end?” she asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” Julius said. He considered the question briefly. “Maybe with a nightcap to celebrate the fact that for the first time ever no one fell asleep during the Speech from Hell.”
“A nightcap,” she repeated without inflection.
She focused on that thought, keenly aware that Julius was watching her in the mirror. His mask of cool control slipped a little more, revealing the stark hunger in his eyes. The stirring sensation deep inside was becoming intense. The atmosphere crackled with tension. She tightened her grip on the sink.
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t use a drink,” Julius said. “I sure as hell need one.”
She nodded slowly. “A drink is an excellent suggestion. But I think I need a shower first.” She shuddered. “That creep in the garage touched me.”
Julius’s eyes went stone-cold.
“They were waiting for us,” he said. “We were not just a couple of random victims. They were there because of us.”
She shivered. “The one with the knife said something about spending a little quality time with my boyfriend.”
“Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. You’ve got a stalker but I’ve got a few old enemies of my own.” Julius frowned in thought and then shook his head. “Can’t see any of them resorting to low-end street talent like that pair in the garage, though. The people I’ve left on the ground can afford better.” He paused. “Or they would do the job themselves.”
“I’m sure neither of those two men was my stalker. I’ve never met either of them.”
Trust No One Page 17
