The Hill

by Carol Ericson

  He aimed some device at the wall and moved it across the area.

  “I was thinking the same thing. It must mean something for him to have taken that trouble.”

  Judd held something that looked like a microphone up to the four corners of the room.

  London ran her hands over her warm face and scooped her hair into a ponytail. “Is that thing supposed to beep or something if it finds anything?”

  “Sort of. I can’t detect any evidence of bugs in your place. It’s lookin’ good.”

  “That’s a relief. Maybe it’s over, Judd.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone tried to ruffle my feathers, but it’s not working. Maybe they’re done now. I attended the board meeting today as CEO.”

  “I’d feel better about that theory if Griff’s body hadn’t been hanging outside the trash room of your building. That’s more than ruffled feathers, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Of course. I didn’t mean to make light of Griff’s death at all. Maybe that part of it was a big mistake.”

  “And the text messages leading you to his body? Those were a mistake, too? Somebody wants to do more than ruffle your feathers, London.”

  She jumped up, tossing her hair over one shoulder. “If someone wants to kill me, why doesn’t he just take his best shot?”

  “Hey.” He dropped his microphone and took her by the shoulders. “Don’t say that. Nobody’s going to hurt you. Not while I’m on the job.”

  She didn’t break away from him and he didn’t let go. Instead she stared into those fierce blue eyes—ferocity on her behalf.

  “Judd, do you think it’s all connected?”

  “What?”

  “The threats, the note, the article, your father, my father—us.”

  His grip on her shoulders softened into a caress. “How?”

  “I’m not sure. It occurred to me when I was looking through the pictures on my father’s laptop. Why now? Why did Mary deliver the note? Who put the article on your bike? Someone’s tracking our movements—yours and mine.”

  “Maybe it’s all one big coincidence, London.”

  She ran her thumb between his eyebrows, smoothing out the crease there. “You don’t really believe that. Stop trying to make me feel better. We both know none of this is coincidence. How did you wind up taking that job for Bunny anyway?”

  “I told you. A buddy of mine had the job and couldn’t make it.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He called, said he had an easy gig with good pay and needed someone to cover for him.”

  “Had you ever covered for him before?”

  “No, he always needs the money.” His hands slid from her shoulders to her upper arms. “I’m glad I did cover for him.”

  “I am, too. It’s almost like fate. Our pasts are tied together somehow.”

  He traced his finger along her jaw. “It’s not just the past, is it?”

  Her lips parted as she panted out a breath. Would he acknowledge the connection they had in the present? Should she? She needed to tread lightly. You didn’t corner a man like Judd Brody.

  “Whatever is in our pasts is affecting the present. Forces beyond our control are bringing us together, and those same forces are going to bring us resolution.”

  Judd threw back his head and laughed. Then he tapped her temple lightly. “I think you’re getting carried away with all the fate stuff.”

  His laugh had broken the spell and brought her back to earth. “You’re right. It’s looking into the past, plus the time of day.”

  He glanced out the large window with the view of the city, lights twinkling in the office buildings. “The sun’s going down and I’m just about finished.”

  He turned abruptly from the window and stopped. He swayed to one side and then the other.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “A light. I saw a glimmer of light on that wall.”

  “That’s wallpaper.”

  “I know.” He crept across the room on silent feet. Extending his arms, he ran his hands across a portion of the wall. “London.”

  “What are you doing?” His manner and his voice had her heart tripping over itself in her chest.

  He pressed his fingers against a spot on the wall. “Turn on the lights.”

  She stumbled toward the lamp next to the couch and turned the switch. “What do you see? Is it a bug? I thought your secret-agent equipment didn’t detect any of those.”

  “It’s not—” he scratched his fingernails against the wallpaper “—a bug.”

  “I don’t get it.” She swallowed, her throat dry.

  He landed his fist against the wall. “What’s on the other side of this wall?”

  “It’s the other unit, the one I bought to have the floor to myself.” She inched toward him and the...thing on her wall.

  “What’s in that other unit?”

  “Nothing. It’s empty. Are you going to tell me what’s going on? What did you find?”

  He stepped back and tapped the wallpaper. “Look.”

  Licking her lips, she leaned forward. A round piece of glass or clear plastic caught the light. “What is that?”

  “It’s a simple device that’s allowing someone to see into your place.”

  “Th-that’s crazy. There’s nothing next door. There’s nobody there.”

  “Do you have the key? We’re going over there right now.”

  She headed for the kitchen, glancing over her shoulder at the wall. Judd had this all wrong. The walls in this building were too thick to allow something like that.

  She opened a cabinet and lifted a key ring from the rack. She twirled it around her finger. “This is it.”

  He followed her into the hallway, and she jerked her thumb to the left. “The front door’s that way.”

  When Judd reached for the weapon he’d shoved in his waistband, her heart started to gallop. She turned the key in the lock and Judd stepped forward, tucking her behind him.

  It reminded her of the other night. What would they find this time?

  He pushed the door open and walked into the entryway, leading with his gun.

  The layout of the condo mimicked her own, and she followed Judd down the two steps into the unfurnished great room. She flicked on the switch to the chandelier that hung above the dining area, and her nostrils twitched as an unpleasant smell wafted toward them. “What is that smell?”

  Judd lifted his nose to the air. “Smells like garbage...or something rotting.”

  “M-maybe a rat got in here and died.”

  “While eating take-out pizza?” He pointed to the large kitchen island that separated the kitchen from the dining area, littered with two pizza boxes.

  “What the hell?” She stomped toward the boxes and flipped up a cardboard lid. Half-eaten pieces of pizza emitted a rank odor and she pinched her nose as she gagged.

  “Looks as though someone has been making himself at home. Where’s the common wall with your living room?”

  “It’s back this way. It’s a downstairs office or bedroom. The whole place is unfurnished. With my father’s death and taking over the company, I haven’t had time to remodel yet.”

  She led the way and he followed close on her heels. She pushed open the door and pressed the light switch on the wall.

  A bubble of fear rose in her throat as her gaze tripped over a pillow on the floor next to the wall.

  “I—I didn’t put that there.”

  Still gripping his gun, Judd squeezed past her into the room and headed for the pillow. “Your living room is on the other side of this wall.” He pressed his hand against the wall’s surface and a piece shifted and fell to the floor.

  London jumped back. �
�What is that?”

  “Someone sawed out a piece of the wall.” He kicked it with his toe, then crouched down and stuck his head in the hollow of the wall. Then he cursed, his voice muffled. “London, you have to see this.”

  She willed her feet to move across the floor even though they felt like lead blocks. She knelt beside him, taking little comfort in his solid shoulder pressing against hers.

  “Put your eye to that plastic circle embedded in the drywall.”

  He shifted to the side and she ducked her head, pressing her eye against the circle. She yelped at the panoramic view of her great room. “That’s my place.”

  “Someone has been watching you, London. Watching you from this room.”

  Chapter Ten

  London fell backward and he caught her in his arms, holding her against his chest.

  Trembles passed through her body like waves and he rested his cheek against her hair. “Are you okay?

  She turned her head to look into his face, her eyes huge and round. “I can’t believe someone would do something like this. How in the hell did he even get in here?”

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s been here for a few days. Maybe he was worried that he’d be discovered after Griff’s murder and left.” He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her away from the wall. They both landed on the floor with her halfway in his lap.

  She folded one leg beneath her and leaned against his thigh. “Do you think Griff let them up here? I can imagine they gave him some line about getting some stories on the people who live in this building. Griff told us he’d cooperated with the paparazzi before.”

  She seemed to have recovered some of her composure—but she stayed in his lap.

  “That could be. He mentioned that he’d done it before without any bad consequences. I don’t see how a stranger or maybe more than one stranger could make his way into this unit, cut a chunk out of the wall, order pizza and spy on you without someone in this building helping him out.”

  She gathered his T-shirt in her fists. “Maybe if we leave everything as is and pretend we never found his little squirrel hole, he’ll come back and we can catch him in the act.”

  “I think the game is up for him. He literally destroyed his contact in this building by killing Griff. He’s not going to try to buy off another security guard—especially that guy down there now.”

  She released his shirt and rubbed her eyes, her knuckles digging into her sockets. “Now I’m sitting here thinking about all the stuff I did in that room over the past few weeks. Who knows? Maybe even longer than that.”

  “None of that dancing naked on the tabletops?” He tugged the end of one blond lock of hair hanging over her shoulder.

  She rewarded him with a shaky smile. “I thought I told you, all that stuff is behind me.”

  “Why?” He clinched the strand of hair and wound it around his finger. “Why are you trying so hard to run away from the old London? She sounds like a lot of fun.”

  “The old London made a lot mistakes.”

  “How many mistakes can a twentysomething make?”

  Her green eyes clouded over, and she stared out the window over his shoulder. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Do you think London Breck the CEO isn’t going to make mistakes? All you can do is be true to yourself.”

  “Do you follow your own advice, Judd Brody?”

  “I try.” He held her gaze even though the lie burned in his gut.

  “Right.” She fell back on the floor, crossing her arms behind her head and staring at the ceiling. “I have a new wrinkle to our contract.”

  “Oh?” He stretched out beside her, digging his elbow into the carpet and propping up his head. Was she going to put a moratorium on personal conversations?

  She rolled her head to the side. “I want you to move in—here.”

  He blinked. Move in to a posh Nob Hill condo? Next door to London Breck? He could do that.

  “Do you want me to watch you through that peephole?”

  She flung her arm out to the side, smacking him in the belly. “No. If you don’t mind roughing it, we can set up something for you to sleep on. I’d just feel safer having you close by.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He took her hand, threaded his fingers through hers and pulled it back onto his stomach. “I’m going to figure out who’s threatening you and why, and then I’m going to put a stop to it.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Judd, I think it has something to do with my father’s death, and I think it has something to do with the note he left me, which means it has something to do with your father.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Aren’t you curious about why your father jumped from the bridge? Especially now that his name has been cleared of the Phone Book slayings?”

  That familiar tightness crept into his neck and jaw. “He probably thought he was being set up and didn’t see a way out. Or he’d already planned to kill himself and the situation offered the perfect excuse. Either way, he took the coward’s way out.”

  She sat up, dragging her hand away from his. “You’re right. It does seem as if he was set up to take the fall. Certain items were found in his personal belongings, items that didn’t belong to him, right?”

  His heart tapped out a staccato beat. “Yes.”

  “Someone must’ve put them there, planted them so that suspicion would fall on him.”

  “My brother Ryan figured it was the real Phone Book Killer, Russ Langford. The man was a psychopath who murdered his wife and then went on a killing spree to cover the deed. Ryan believed Langford set up my father, too.”

  “Did he admit to it?”

  “No. He was killed by a police sniper before he did too much talking to Ryan.”

  “Did Ryan investigate any further?”

  “It was a touchy situation. It turned out the writer who’d been helping him, Kacie Manning, was Russ Langford’s daughter. She’d believed my father had killed her mother and then discovered it was her own father.”

  Her jaw dropped and she pressed her fingers against her lips. “And Ryan didn’t want to look into it any further?”

  “By the time they’d made the discovery, Ryan had fallen in love with Kacie. He took her back to Crestview with him, and his primary focus now is protecting Kacie and helping her heal from the revelations.”

  “That’s sweet and all, but this is your father.”

  He didn’t need London telling him that. “I think it’s safe to say that Langford set him up.”

  She raised her brows. “If you were working that case for me, I’d fire you. Shouldn’t a P.I. be curious about everything? You’re leaving no stone unturned for me. Why not do the same for yourself?”

  He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “It’s different, London. Nobody’s threatening me. My father’s already been vindicated.”

  “Not really.”

  “Sure he has. Langford admitted to being the Phone Book Killer, the newspaper printed a big article, case closed.”

  “Except your father jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge for some inexplicable reason.”

  He opened his mouth, but she held up her hand. “And you can’t forgive him for that.”

  His back stiffened, his repose no longer comfortable or relaxing. “I guess that’s something for me to deal with.”

  He rolled to his stomach and army crawled back to the wall. Then he sat up, picking up the piece of drywall and fitting it back into place. “As soon as I bring the rest of my stuff here, I’m going to dig that spy device out of the wall and patch this up.”

  “Should we try to get fingerprints?”

  “You can call the cops and tell them you had a squatter here. They’ll dust the place, but I doubt you’ll find anything. Someone is
not going to go through all this trouble and then leave a set of prints.”

  “It’s getting late.” She rubbed her belly. “And I’m hungry despite the disgusting smell in the other room.”

  “If you want to change, I’ll take you out to get something to eat and we can drop by my place to pick up my stuff.” He tapped the wall. “Do you even have a car here in the city?”

  “I do. It’s in the garage downstairs, but I don’t drive it much when I’m here. Since Dad’s death, Theodore’s been insisting on driving me around in that limo. But he keeps that at Dad’s place in Pacific Heights. Besides—” she leaped to her feet like a ballerina “—I like riding on the back of that Harley.”

  And he liked her there, her arms wrapped around him, her body pressed against his. He could get used to that.

  “Okay, let’s lock up and get some food.”

  She tugged at her skirt. “I’ll change first.”

  “I’ll come with you, but let me get rid of some of this trash first.”

  After this discovery, he didn’t want to leave London alone for a second. Maybe she had a stalker. Maybe it had nothing to do with her father—or his.

  He studied her profile as she locked up the condo, her jaw still hard and her mouth still tight. The stress had her all wound up. She didn’t need to hear his new theory right now.

  She waited for him by her own door while he dumped the pizza boxes into the trash chute. When he joined her, she dangled the key out to him. “You can take this one. I’m going to slip into some motorcycle-riding clothes.”

  “I guess that means someplace casual for dinner.”

  “I attend enough galas and functions and benefits where I have to get all decked out. Casual is good.”

  While she changed, he wandered to the big window that took up the majority of her east-facing wall. She had a view that commanded the best of the city—this city full of secrets and lies. Since he’d opened up shop as a P.I., it seemed as if he’d been privy to half of those secrets and lies.

  But he’d never taken a shot at why his old man had killed himself. Didn’t want to. Had never wanted to dig that deeply. Never wanted to care that much.