by Shayla Black
Mystery followed Osborne out the door, down the stairs, and to the bank. It was a sterile environment that tried to look friendly, with posters of people supposedly happy about taking out loans. Or maybe she was just feeling cynical right now because she was miserable thinking about Axel, not to mention worried that someone would try to kill her.
Within moments, a female bank employee in gray pants and a blue sweater had given her a form to sign and checked her ID. Everyone followed the woman with the flowing brown curls into the room with the safe-deposit boxes, passing row after row of the drawers in different sizes. Toward the back, the bank’s officer produced her key. Mystery fished the other from her purse. Together, they opened the dual locks and withdrew the box from its slot to place it on the lone table in the adjacent room.
“I’ll leave you to look through the contents. When you’re done, let me know.” The young woman gave her a bland smile, did a double take as she discreetly checked out Heath, then melted away.
Osborne stepped back. “Would you prefer for me to stay or go?”
“I think I’d like to do this alone,” she murmured, both because it was true and because she wasn’t sure she could trust him. “Thanks for understanding.”
“Of course.” He turned away and headed out of the vault.
“I won’t leave you unprotected. Don’t ask that of me.” Heath crossed his beefy arms over his chest.
“I wouldn’t.” Mystery shook her head. “I want you here.”
She kind of wished Axel was here, too, but refused to dwell on what wasn’t and might never be again. Then she took a deep breath, wondering if she could ever really be ready to face whatever her mom had safeguarded for her, shut the door to the private room, and lifted the box’s lid.
Inside, she found some jewelry, including some diamond earrings that had once belonged to her maternal grandmother. Julia had worn them on her wedding day, and they’d become a gift, as Mystery had heard the story. She also found a gorgeous cross made of rose and yellow gold entwined with lovely flourishes and embellishments. The center sparkled with a diamond that had to be at least a carat. Where had that come from? She didn’t remember her mom wearing it.
Mystery also found what looked like some letters to her mom from her dad. Instantly, she recognized her father’s handwriting on the yellowed envelopes. Based on the postmark of the first few, they had been written during their courtship and the early days of their marriage.
Despite their ill-fated union, these notes had been valuable to her mother. Mystery already knew that her father kept some from his late wife locked in his desk, along with a collection of her pictures. They’d loved each other completely and passionately once. Why had her father never tried to be a better husband? They’d both been human, filled with insecurity and capable of stupid mistakes. Had her mother somehow failed to understand that?
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Mystery sniffed them away. Now wasn’t the time to get philosophical. She had to carry on.
She didn’t see anything else at the bottom of the box. So odd . . . It didn’t seem possible that these few pieces of jewelry or the dozen love notes would really be worth killing or dying for.
“That’s it?” Heath looked over her shoulder. He sounded as puzzled as she felt.
“I guess.”
Mystery lifted the earrings out of the box, wondering what her mother had been thinking when she’d placed them here for the last time. Had she known she’d never wear them again?
Swallowing back a lump of grief and loss, she tucked the diamond drops in her ears and closed her eyes. The earrings weren’t heavy. In fact, she barely felt them, but wearing the gorgeous glittery things made her feel somehow closer to her mom.
She touched the cross with a reverent finger, tracing the lines, before picking it up and fastening it around her neck. The cross fell just below the hollow of her throat and felt shockingly cold against her skin. Then again, the necklace had been sitting untouched by human warmth for sixteen years.
“Let me look.” Heath took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him, studying her with intent, dark eyes that missed nothing. “It’s brilliant, but it isn’t you.”
“The earrings or the cross?”
“The cross. It’s too ornate compared to your usual jewelry. The earrings look perfect, simple but elegant.”
Mystery didn’t have a mirror so she couldn’t comment. Heath was probably right, but she wanted to wear the cross. It made her feel as if death, along with nearly a decade and a half, didn’t separate her from her mom.
She lifted the stack of notes to open the first one and peek at the contents. As she did, she noticed something totally new underneath.
A little electronic disc of some sort, small and almost square. The kind capable of holding a tell-all book that might have gotten her mother killed?
Mystery’s blood turned to ice.
Heath took the disc from her numb fingers. “It’s an SD card. We need to read this quickly and decide on our best course of action.”
She knew that, even if everything inside her violently disagreed. “How?”
“My laptop is in the car. It will read this disc.”
Just like that, he’d open his trunk, and inside two minutes she would be reading whatever secrets her mother had kept until the day she died. Was she really ready for this?
Did she have a choice?
“I’ll read on the drive back to Aunt Gail’s farm,” she murmured.
He gave her back a soothing pat. She may have insulted or upset him at the café today, but he’d put all that aside to comfort her because she needed it. Mystery wished she could have loved him in return. Heath would be a devoted protector and lover. He could be serious or funny. He was highly intelligent and had a great sense of adventure. Unfortunately, kissing him hadn’t given her a fraction of the giddy, heart-beating thrill that simply being in the same room with Axel did.
She shoved the letters and the SD card in her purse, leaving the jewelry on. She signaled to the bank manager that she was done. Once the empty safe-deposit box was locked up, she signed the paperwork necessary to terminate the box, then left with Heath and Osborne, the attorney mentioning just a few more papers she needed to sign in his office.
A warm breeze brushed her face and the late afternoon sun blinded her as she walked between them back to the office building. The attorney led the way, while Heath watched her back. Heart pumping, Mystery kept vigilant, almost expecting someone to jump out at her and demand she turn over her mother’s effects.
Inside the office building again, the air was almost too still. The carpenters renovating the empty suites on the lower floors were either packing up for the day or already gone.
Finally, they reached the fourth floor and Osborne’s office again. Inside, they found Aunt Gail reading a paperback she’d likely pulled from her purse, and sipping coffee. She’d poured several other cups and left them on the corner of the desk.
As soon as they entered, she jumped out of her seat. “Were you successful?”
Mystery didn’t really want to talk about it, but of course her aunt wanted to know what her only sister had left behind before her death. “Yeah. I found letters and jewelry.” She showed off the earrings and the cross. “And some other stuff. We’ll look at it more carefully in the car.”
“Excellent. Coffee?” Aunt Gail asked her.
“Sure.” Mystery didn’t actually want any, but as evidenced by the cookies and lemonade, the woman liked to feed others. She didn’t want to refuse, so she set it on the desk in front of her.
“No, thank you,” Osborne murmured as he retrieved some papers in a folder. “At my age, caffeine past noon keeps me awake half the night.”
“Luckily, I haven’t run into that yet.” Her aunt took another sip. “I sleep like a baby. Heath?” She all but pressed the cup into his hand. “It’s really delicious. I noticed you drank nearly a whole pot this morning. You’ll appreciate this brew.” She turned to th
e attorney. “What sort of beans are these, Mr. Osborne?”
He smiled almost smugly. “It took me over a decade to find the perfect coffee. It’s a Kona-Colombian blend. I have it specially roasted in Mexico, but it’s about the best coffee I’ve ever tasted.”
“Wonderful.” Her aunt all but moaned around the lip of her Styrofoam cup, then turned to Heath. “Cream or sugar?”
“Black is fine.” He sniffed the brew, then sipped it. “It’s strong, the way I like it.”
Her aunt smiled, then settled back into her chair, shoving the book in her purse as Mystery and Osborne got down to business.
Several conversations and a handful of forms later, she stood and shook the attorney’s hand. Her aunt did the same. Heath nodded. As Mystery looked his way, she noticed he was slow to push away from the wall.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Sure.”
He looked pale. His lids drooped tiredly. His mouth looked a bit slack. Mystery didn’t think he felt all right. But she knew the stubborn man. He could have a limb hanging off or be dying of a hemorrhagic fever and he’d still insist that he felt fine.
With a sigh at his stubbornness, they made their way out the office. Heath stopped at the receptionist’s desk. “Can you show me where to find your loo?”
At the slur of his words, Mystery frowned and wrapped a hand around his arm.
The woman barely peeked over her magazine to send him a confused stare. Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “Loo? I’ve never heard it called that, but no way am I lifting my skirt for a total stranger—I don’t care how hot you are—and showing you my—”
“He means the bathroom,” Mystery clarified for the clueless receptionist.
She had the good grace to turn pink. “Sorry. Across the hall, to the right of the elevator. Second door.”
Heath nodded. “Thanks.”
When he tripped over his own two feet heading across the open space, Mystery tugged on his arm. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
His expression looked a tad unfocused until he blinked and spent some effort focusing on her. “I’ll be all right. The jet lag and lack of sleep lately just have me a bit knackered.”
While his answer made sense, his words sounded even more slurred than before. Mystery didn’t like it.
“You want more coffee?” she asked.
“No. I’ll step in there and splash some cold water on my face.”
“We’ll wait in the car,” her aunt said, tottering on her feet. “I’m afraid I find myself a bit dizzy, too.”
As the woman put a hand to her head, Mystery watched them both, wondering if someone had slipped something in their coffee. After all, she and Mr. Osborne had been the only ones not to drink it.
With a nod, Heath shoved the car keys in her hand, then pushed into the restroom, not quite steady on his feet. As she watched him with a concerned frown, her aunt nearly lost her balance while standing perfectly still. Mystery cursed. She didn’t want to leave either of them alone.
Axel would really have come in handy right now, a voice whispered in her head. Yes, he would, but she needed him for far more than helping her ailing traveling party. Her heart needed him. As soon as Heath reached the car, she’d return to the café and hunt her man down. They had to talk. She just couldn’t believe that today’s lunch was the end of them. It couldn’t be. Mystery didn’t think she could live without him. She didn’t really want to try.
Was this why her mother had taken so long to work up the gumption to leave her father? Had she known it was in her best interest but she just hadn’t been able to break away from the charismatic man she’d fallen for?
Disquieted by the parallel between her life and her mom’s, she turned to Aunt Gail, firmly focusing on the present. “I’ll help you to the car.”
The older woman gave her a shaky nod, then grabbed her arm to steady herself. “Thank you.”
“One second.” Mystery leaned her aunt against the railing, then pressed against the door to the men’s room. “I’ll be back to help you as soon as I can.”
She heard water splashing, heard him grunt out an answer. He didn’t sound good, and she wondered what the hell was going on.
As Mystery raced back to her aunt’s side, foreboding gonged through her belly. Everyone around her today seemed afflicted by some ailment. Had someone concocted a ploy to get her alone? But who could have tampered with Axel’s bladder, as well as Heath’s and Aunt Gail’s equilibrium? She would have suspected the attorney, but he hadn’t been at the café. She’d love to blame Patrice, but shouldn’t any drug the skanky waitress put in their food have taken effect within thirty minutes?
Thankfully, Mystery guided her aunt down the stairs, and she seemed to recover a bit with the exertion. Outside, the brisk wind in her face revived her a bit, too.
She helped Aunt Gail around to the passenger’s door and opened it for her. “There you go. Get settled, and I’ll be back with Heath in a moment.”
“I don’t think so.” The older woman reached into her purse with a tight smile. When she withdrew her hand, she pointed a small gun right a Mystery’s heart. “Give me the keys and get in. Where you’re going, Heath will only be in my way.”
Chapter Eighteen
WHEN the taxi rolled up to the attorney’s building, Axel didn’t see Heath’s car parked along the street or in the adjoining lot. He cursed. He’d waited nearly twenty minutes for the shuffling old driver to show up in the first place. Thanks to the delay, he had no idea where to find Mystery, Heath, or her aunt now.
He pulled out his phone again and tried to dial the bodyguard. Nothing.
“Can you wait here? I’ll be back in five minutes.”
Axel didn’t even hang around for the taxi driver to acknowledge him. In less than an instant, he slammed the door and ran into the building, pausing to look at the directory to find the attorney before he darted up the stairs, taking two at a time until he reached the lawyer’s office.
At his approach, the receptionist sighed as she lowered her magazine, then blinked, gave him a once-over, and smiled sweet as pie. Axel didn’t have time for her games.
“Mystery Mullins and her party, how long ago did they leave?”
The fortyish woman with her teased highlights gaped at him. “Just a few minutes.”
“Did they say where they were headed?
She shook her head. “Not to me. Wait one second.” She picked up the office phone and presumably called Mystery’s mother’s attorney. A moment later, she hung up. “Ms. Mullins didn’t say anything to Mr. Osborne, either. The man with her asked me for the loo. That’s British for the restroom.” She acted as if the knowledge made her superior. “I directed him across the hall, and they left.”
Another freaking dead end, damn it. But Axel could stand to hit the head again, so he jogged in the direction the receptionist had gestured. As he walked in, he spotted Heath coming out of a stall, looking paler than a sheet.
“You’re here. Thank God. What the hell happened to you?” Axel asked.
“I think I was drugged. It was the coffee in the lawyer’s office.” He grimaced. “I nearly passed out, then realized what had happened. I made myself vomit. It’s still in my system, but I don’t think I absorbed all of the sedative.”
Maybe not, but he still looked damn weak. With a grudging sigh, Axel tugged down his zipper and used the urinal. “Where’s Mystery?”
“Why do you care?” Heath shot back. “You all but shagged that waitress at the café. Did you finish that, get bored, and decide to follow Mystery again?”
“No. Fuck off. The waitress admitted that she’s an actress and was paid to come on to me.”
Surprise rolled across Heath’s face, then suspicion took over again. “Why should I believe you? Why should Mystery?”
“If I have to lie to a woman to keep her, then I don’t deserve her. Seriously, someone staged the whole scene with Patrice at the café to separate me from Mystery. I’d susp
ect good ol’ Aunt Gail, but she has no money.”
Heath frowned. “If she intended to sell her sister’s secrets, she may have borrowed the funds against her forthcoming payday. Or perhaps she’s blackmailed someone into murdering Mystery.”
Axel hadn’t considered that previously—and didn’t want to now. “Where are Mystery and Gail?”
“They should be waiting in the car.”
