Police Business

by Julie Miller

  “What did the detective do?” Frown lines had formed between Gabe’s dark eyes, as if he was assessing the need to bring a few choice words or even legal action against Detective Rodriguez.

  Thinking it best to keep her observations to herself, she stopped beside Gabe on the landing. She had plenty of other things to be upset about tonight. She didn’t need her pseudo-big brother to overreact. “He didn’t do anything. I started the evening on such a high note and then all this mess happened. I was just looking for a scapegoat to pin my frustrations on.”

  Her excuse seemed to appease his sense of family honor. He relaxed by straightening his tie against his starched collar. “The good news is that Valerie’s okay, right?”

  But Valerie wasn’t okay. Claire raged against the futility of trying to convince anyone to believe the impossible. “If she’s in Nassau, then what did I see in Dad’s office tonight?”

  “Apparently, nothing.”

  “I want that to be true, Gabe. But I know what I saw.”

  He lifted one eyebrow in an arrogant arc and shook his head. Dressed to close a deal, Gabe buttoned the jacket of his pin-striped suit and dismissed her like everyone else had. “You know, Claire, this game you’re playing is probably upsetting to Cain on two levels. He’s not just worried about you, but now he’s got to have some doubts about Valerie’s well-being. She’s been his right hand at the company for a lot of years. Losing her would be like losing a part of himself. So give it a rest, okay?”

  Though it clearly wasn’t his intent, something in Gabriel’s words triggered an idea that might help this all make sense. “Did Valerie have access to all of Dad’s files? Did she know about his current negotiations?”

  “She does know about them.” Gabriel emphasized the present tense with a nod. “So does the rest of the board. You want to kill us off, too?”

  “This isn’t a joke.”

  “The hell it isn’t.” Gabe had moved beyond big brother into company man mode. He clutched her shoulders and hunched down to look her in the eye. “You need to forget this fable. We have a business to run. We have deals on the line, new hires to consider. Valerie’s on vacation. She’s safe. Now let it go.”

  Valerie knew the company inside and out. She knew her father’s secrets and the family’s history. There had to be a motive in there somewhere for killing her.

  “I’m not trying to hurt Dad,” Claire insisted, latching on to Gabe’s wrist and giving it a squeeze. If she didn’t love her father so much, she might have already accepted what everyone else believed. “I’m worried about him. That man said there were other people on his list. What if Dad’s in danger? What if you are?”

  Gabe straightened with an exasperated smirk. “First, Valerie’s dead, and now you’re trying to knock off Cain and the rest of the family, too?”

  “No—”

  “I tried. I give up.” Gabe leaned down and kissed her on the forehead before releasing her. “Goodnight, Pipsqueak. I have a meeting to get to.”

  Dismissed. Again.

  “At this time of night?”

  He was already loping down the stairs. At the bottom, he turned to doff her a salute. “I didn’t say it was a business meeting.”

  Ah, yes, the life of one of Kansas City’s most sought-after bachelors. “Have fun.”

  “I intend to.”

  As he strode out the front door, Claire summoned half a smile and headed for her room. Her stepsister Gina was probably out on the town, too. Seemed Claire was the only Winthrop heir who didn’t have a life. No wonder everyone was so ready to believe she’d make up a horrible story about their dear friend and loyal employee being murdered.

  Claire set her purse on the chaise at the foot of the canopy bed, then neatly placed her shoes inside her closet. She’d bet good money that A. J. Rodriguez had a life, too. Between his work and those poet’s eyes—set in the middle of a face carved by classic Mediterranean ancestry and chiseled by real-world experience—his life would definitely be full of interesting adventures and relationships.

  Her life wasn’t full of anything.

  She unbuttoned her skirt and stepped out of it as it slid to the floor. She tossed her jacket onto the bed, unhooked the shell she wore and slipped it over her head. The hose went next. Then the pearl earrings.

  The pearls. “Oh, gosh.”

  Claire dashed back to the bed and dug inside her jacket pocket to find the strand of pearls and loose beads she’d managed to retrieve. She felt guilty at seeing the legacy from a mother she barely remembered in such sorry shape.

  She pulled a velvet pouch from her jewelry armoire and slipped the pearls inside. Setting the pouch beside her purse she made a mental note to take them to the jeweler’s shop tomorrow after school.

  School!

  Claire silently cursed the powers that be for ruining the good memories of what had happened earlier that night. In all the chaos, she’d completely forgotten to tell her father about the Forsythe School’s offer to hire her as a full-time counselor. She’d forgotten to tell him about the honor the students had given her, naming her as their favorite paraeducator.

  Hoping to recapture even a smidgen of the excitement that had thrilled her so earlier, she picked up her jacket to look at the pin. And frowned.

  “Where…?”

  She checked both lapels—looked at the material and crunched the pink silk beneath her hands to verify what her eyes were telling her. “Where’s my pin?”

  She dug into the pockets, wondering if she’d forgotten that she’d taken it off earlier. Only, Claire didn’t forget things.

  “I want to wear it tomorrow to show the kids.”

  She dumped out her purse next, checked the bag of pearls. Then she was on her hands and knees, retracing her steps across the plush carpet. She was nearly frantic by the time she pulled a robe on over her slip and ran barefoot through the hallway and down the stairs. She ran past the door to the study where her father would be working or reading at his desk while Deirdre briefed him on the final plans for the party she was hosting tomorrow evening.

  Nothing.

  Claire rubbed her fingers against her temples, too late putting up a fight against the tension that throbbed inside her head. She didn’t hallucinate murders. She didn’t lose gifts. She didn’t forget things.

  Her Volvo.

  Cinching the sash of chenille at her waist, Claire darted outside, down the steps misted with rain. The bricks were cold beneath her bare feet as she dashed around to the detached multicar garage beside the house. She punched the entry code into the keypad and hurried inside as soon as the lock released and the door went up. Inside, she switched on the light before closing the door to the night and the rain.

  Claire wiped the dampness from her face and hurried past her father’s Range Rover and stepmother’s Lexus. She crossed the empty stalls where Gabe and Gina parked their cars and climbed in behind the wheel of her sensible beige Volvo. She turned on the interior lights and searched it from top to bottom.

  “Where are you?” she muttered to herself, feeling her self-assurance spinning beyond her reach. She crawled over the seats into the back and dipped her fingers into the seams between the cushions, checking impossible places for the missing pin she’d worn on her lapel.

  Nothing.

  Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and she gave in to the urge to lay her face in her hands and cry in weary frustration. She mentally retraced her steps from the time she’d signed her thank-yous at the podium during the banquet to the moment she saw that bullet hole in the middle of Valerie’s forehead.

  In between, she distinctly remembered pinning that gold medallion onto her lapel. There was no way around it. She’d have to go back to her father’s office and search for the pin. And if she couldn’t find it there, then she didn’t even want to consider the possible explanations for its disappearance.

  She didn’t hallucinate. She didn’t forget things.

  Claire screamed at the thump on her car window a
nd jumped halfway across the back seat. The flashlight beam shining in her face blinded her to the man outside. She slid her back clear against the opposite side as the door opened and a pair of khaki slacks and a gunbelt came into view.

  “Miss Winthrop?” She heard the buzz of sound, but waited for the man to lower the light and for her startled fear to unstop her senses before she could see his lips and decipher his words. “Miss Winthrop? Is something wrong?”

  Gradually, the words and the face of the estate’s nighttime security guard came into focus. Claire pressed her palm against her racing heart and released a deep breath of recaptured sanity. “Aaron.” She said the black man’s name, reassuring him that she knew where she was and whom she was with. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry about that.” He turned off the flashlight and hooked it back on his utility belt. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I lost something. I was looking for it.”

  She became aware of the bare skin beneath her palm the same time Aaron’s questioning gaze swept down to the thigh-bearing hem of her crumpled-up robe. Right. She might talk a good game, but sitting there crying, half-dressed in the back seat of her car in the middle of the night wasn’t going to convince anyone that she wasn’t crazy.

  Quickly tugging her robe down to her knees and pulling the collar tight around her neck, Claire scrambled out of her side of the car. “I lost a piece of jewelry. A small gold pin.”

  He stood and closed the door, speaking to her over the roof of the car. “I haven’t seen anything like that. But I’ll keep my eyes open for it.”

  Claire summoned a smile to thank him. “Well, good night.”

  She felt the vibration of his footsteps through the concrete floor and knew he was jogging up beside her even before his fingers brushed her elbow. It was just a polite gesture to get her attention, but Claire flinched all the same and spun around.

  “Sorry.” He nodded toward her right ear. “I guess you couldn’t hear me.”

  Guess she didn’t know how to relax when the only person who might believe she’d witnessed a murder was the murderer himself.

  But she felt a twinge of guilt as Aaron tipped the bill of his uniform cap in apology and held both hands where she could see them. “The rain’s coming down a little harder now, miss. Let me grab an umbrella and walk you back to the house.”

  “That’s not necessary. I—”

  He opened the garage door to a curtain of gentle spring rain. She’d get soaked to the skin wearing what little she had on, and would no doubt have to explain that to her father. He’d be just as worried about her catching cold as he was about her making up gruesome stories of murder and cover-ups.

  “Besides,” Aaron explained, “Chief Tucker called and said I should keep an extra close eye on you tonight.”

  Security Chief Tucker? Claire frowned. “Why?”

  “I didn’t ask. I just obey.”

  Had her father ordered his security staff to watch over his handicapped daughter? Didn’t anyone believe she could take care of herself? Think for herself? When would she be old enough for her family and friends and employees to start thinking of her as a capable, competent woman?

  Resigned to the practicality of Aaron’s suggestion, Claire linked her arm through his when he offered it and huddled against him beneath the umbrella. She fell into step beside him, her toes splashing through the puddles. “Thanks.”

  He said something back to her, but the rain muffled the sound receptors in her ears. She wasn’t paying much attention to Aaron, anyway. Claire was more aware of the uneasy sensation that tickled the back of her neck and raised goose bumps across her skin.

  Someone was watching her.

  Maybe it was just the hypervigilance of the Winthrop security guard. Maybe it was the metaphoric weight of her family’s smothering protection. Maybe it was the chill of the rain itself.

  Aaron walked her up to the front door and stood on the porch until she closed and locked the door behind her. Dutifully deposited back inside her sheltered ivory tower.

  Claire shivered as she clutched her robe around her and climbed the stairs.

  The feeling of being watched from the darkness never left her.

  A.J. IGNORED THE FIRST TWO RINGS of the telephone to finish scrolling down the list of Winthrop Enterprises’ holdings on his computer screen—Australia, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Japan…

  “Maldición.”

  He muttered the curse under his breath. Something about last night’s events at the Winthrop Building still didn’t feel right to him. So when he was done typing up the facts in his report, he’d done a little extra poking around. It had become almost a hobby of his over the years—digging up bits of information about Cain Winthrop and his import-export empire. He never knew when some nugget of info would bring him half a step closer to uncovering the truth about his father’s death.

  But reading through the corporation’s annual report was turning into information overload. The business paid out a fortune through customs, but apparently took in nearly three times as much in profits. Jewelry, furniture, cars, collectibles—even exotic animals made the list of items the company transported across international trade lines. It was too much to make sense of in one sitting, with one set of eyes.

  He’d have to get Banning to take a look at the report to see if Mr. Logic could narrow down the facts and figures into something that might actually prove useful—like a dirty little secret that money, time and power couldn’t quite hide, or the name of a security specialist who terminated employees. Permanently.

  But the detailed research would have to wait. Banning had gone to lunch with his wife Kelsey. Funny how newlyweds always seemed to have time for each other, no matter how busy their respective schedules might be.

  A.J. looked across to the empty desk facing his. Hell. A man didn’t have to be a newlywed to make time to spend with the woman he loved. His partner, Josh Taylor, had been married two years, had two little girls and still grinned like a lovesick puppy at the mere mention of his wife’s name. He’d left by 11:30 to accompany his wife on some sort of newborn health checkup.

  He couldn’t afford to feel envy at his friends’ happiness, though. What would be the point? A.J. didn’t have time for a wife or a girlfriend. He’d date, get a little lovin’ when both parties were willing, but he’d never get serious. His job demanded too much of his time; his work entailed too many risks.

  So, while he saved some poor woman from certain heartbreak by remaining unattached, A.J. sat alone in a sea of empty desks.

  He’d lost count of the rings and thoroughly depressed himself before he picked up the receiver. “Rodriguez.”

  “A.J.” Maggie Wheeler, the desk sergeant with a body like Xena and the face of a farm girl, topped A.J. by two inches and worried him with the shadows in her hollow eyes.

  “What’s up?”

  “There’s a deaf woman here to see you. I told her you were on your lunch break and she said she’d wait. But she’s pacing the floor by the elevators, so I thought it might be something important.”

  A.J. slid his gaze across the floor toward the main desk. Even though his view was blocked by several carpeted partitions, he could picture the petite blonde with the delicate features and surprisingly solid grip wearing a path in the floor on the other side. “Claire Winthrop?”

  “Yeah.” Maggie’s surprise was evident. “You expecting her?”

  “No. But send her on in.”

  “She’s a pretty one, A.J. Is there something you’re not telling—?”

  “No.” He cut off the friendly curiosity he heard in her voice and hung up. Maggie wasn’t a gossip, but it would only take an innocent remark and Josh’s sense of humor to create rumors of a whole sordid new love life between the taciturn cop with the stitches on his face and tattoos on his back and the virginal young heiress.

  He knew how to put up with the teasing, knew how to put a stop to it if he needed to. But he had a feeling that Claire Winthr
op wouldn’t appreciate the joke.

  A.J. stood, tucking his black T-shirt into his jeans and combing his fingers through the top of his thick, short hair. Not that he wanted to impress the prim and proper heiress. But it might be nice if he didn’t scare her away.

  Maggie appeared beside the partition that separated the elevators and check-in desk from the Fourth Precinct’s Detectives Division offices. She pointed him out, and an instant later a flash of black slacks and gold jewelry hurried around the corner.

  What the hell? A.J. shifted onto the balls of his feet, his protective radar buzzing on full alert. Claire’s blue eyes were wide and dark, boring into his. Her mouth was pinched into a thin line. Her fear was a palpable thing, a force he felt clear across the maze of desks between them.

  “Claire?” There was no polite Miss Winthrop, no How may I help you? Was she hurt? Had she located a bloody chair mat? “What’s wrong?”

  He slipped around the desk to meet her partway and she ran right up to him. He planted his feet and grabbed her by the elbows to steady her as she latched on to his upper arms and curled her fingers into cotton and skin. She shook him, clung, pleaded with her hands as she rattled off her greeting. “I can’t get anyone to listen to me. I looked all over my father’s office. I talked to the custodial staff, nagged the office assistants. I’ve checked at home. At school. Everywhere. We have to find it.”

  “Slow down. Find what?” The body? Give it up already. He’d talked to Valerie Justice on the phone himself.

  “The pin my students gave me. The Forsythe School’s name is engraved on it. I can’t find it anywhere.”

  He cupped his palms around the knit sleeves of her jacket, and the flex of muscle and bone underneath. “You want me to find a missing pin?

  “No… Darn it!” She thumped his shoulder with a painless fist.

  A.J. resisted the urge to grin at her ladylike curse.

  “He took it! The hit man.”

  He saw little that was ladylike in the drill of her gaze. A.J. quickly released her, damning his errant radar for tuning in to her frightened innocence instead of her crazy lies. “Miss Winthrop, I have serious work to do.” He peeled her hands from his biceps and pushed them down to her side. “I will type up your deposition for you to sign, but it won’t go any further than that because there’s nothing to investigate.”