by Kara Lennox
“It’s not like I deliberately threw myself in its path.” He didn’t let her go, and she didn’t want him to. She would stay in his arms all night if he would let her. He was alive, he was okay.
Eventually two detectives showed up, along with a crowd of crime-scene investigators with their cameras and bags of equipment. One detective took Raleigh and Griffin downstairs to the building manager’s office, then put them in different rooms. Raleigh knew this was standard procedure, but she still felt like a suspect rather than a victim.
Several minutes passed before a detective joined her for her interview. And when the office door opened, her heart sank when she saw Lieutenant Abe Comstock standing in the doorway. Why, oh why had she antagonized the man mere hours ago?
“Looks like you got yourself in a might of trouble,” Comstock said as he pulled out a rolling office chair for himself, then rolled it way too close to where Raleigh sat on a small sofa with Copper in her lap.
Copper, who usually loved everyone, growled at the detective.
“You might want to back off a hair,” Raleigh said. “He’s upset and he might bite. Anyway, your intimidation tactics won’t work with me. I use them myself.”
Comstock nodded, awarding her the point, and backed away a couple of feet. “Sorry. I guess I forgot for a minute you’re a crime victim here, not a hostile defense attorney. Looks like you might have ruffled a few feathers.”
“You see?” She grabbed on to the thread of reasoning he’d given her. “Whoever the real murderer is doesn’t want me to prove Anthony’s innocence.”
“I confess, this turn of events has me wondering,” Comstock agreed. “But I have to consider all possibilities. Do you have any enemies, Ms. Shinn?”
Part of her wanted to hold back. Once this story broke, other reporters would be all over it, and she felt a strange desire to protect Griffin’s story. He’d worked damn hard for it, after all.
But she was an attorney, an officer of the court held to a higher standard than the average citizen. Plus, she wanted the police to find the person who had tried to kill her—fast.
“Someone’s been trying to ruin my reputation,” she said with a sigh. And she explained about the deposit, the altered phone bill, the threatening phone call. “The phone call seems to indicate the threats are related to the work I’m doing for Anthony Simonetti. But Griffin suggested it could be a smoke screen, to hide the perpetrator’s real identity and motives.”
Comstock nodded as he made notes. “Now I see why Benedict is hanging around you. This could shape up to be a real potboiler.”
“Whatever his motives, I’m glad he was there,” she added hastily. “He might have saved my life.” Part of her wanted to believe that Griffin was with her because he wanted to be there. He’d said he liked her. But how much of that was real, and how much was due to the article he hoped to write? The deeper he got into her psyche, the more compelling he could make the story.
She’d read his work. His stories read like bestselling fiction precisely because he did such a good job with the people involved. They weren’t just quotes or sources to him, they were real people with real lives.
The thought made her uncomfortable. She’d known he was using her predicament to help him get the job of his dreams, but was he using her?
“When can I return to my apartment?” she asked Comstock.
“Not for a couple of days. We need to get a ballistics guy in there, and given the number of bullets… Is there somewhere safe you can go?”
“I’ll figure something out. Could I get my purse and briefcase, at least? I left them both near the front door.”
“I’ll see what we can do.”
Raleigh followed Abe Comstock out of the office and into the marble-tiled lobby and found Griffin waiting for her. Someone had loaned him a shirt, a bit snug across his broad shoulders, but at least it wasn’t stained with blood. She wanted more than anything to return to the solace of his warm embrace. But what might have been appropriate in the midst of an emergency didn’t seem so now.
“How about we go to the hospital?” Raleigh asked.
Griffin frowned. “Not necessary.”
She shook her head. The big strong man didn’t want to show weakness. “Maybe you need a transfusion. Antibiotics.”
He shook his head. “I’m good. Stop worrying.”
His color was better, at least. And he was no longer wobbling like a colt trying to find its legs.
“What now?”
That question was answered when Jillian Baxter, Daniel’s ever-efficient personal assistant, waltzed into the lobby as if she owned the place. She had a knack for getting past guards and doormen. All she had to do was show them Daniel’s business card.
Jillian looked stylish and polished as always, her chin-length blond bob sleek and her skinny black jeans and gauzy striped shirt screaming classy-casual.
“Looks like you two have gotten yourselves into a sticky wicket.” Her voice held just the hint of an English accent. “I’ve got the limo outside. Daniel insists you both stay at his home for as long as necessary. The dog, too, of course.”
Griffin and Raleigh exchanged a look. “Did you call him?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Daniel has ways of finding out everything. He might have been listening to the police scanner.”
“Or,” Jillian said with a smile, “the building manager might have called him.”
“Oh, right.” Raleigh turned to Griffin. “Daniel owns this building.”
Ha. He’d known there was more to the story of why Raleigh chose to live here. Daniel apparently offered secure and convenient living spaces for his employees. Nice perk.
Griffin found the invitation to stay at Daniel’s home undeniably tempting. For one night, at least, he wouldn’t have to worry about Raleigh’s safety and he could get some sleep. He’d heard Daniel Logan’s River Oaks mansion was a veritable fortress with more security than the Pentagon.
“Maybe just for one night,” Raleigh said, echoing his thoughts. “We can regroup in the morning. If we’re lucky, the police will have caught the shooter.”
Griffin didn’t share her optimism. He was willing to bet their shooter hadn’t left behind a single fingerprint or shell casing. He’d covered his tracks pretty well so far—his phone call untraceable, his voice disguised. His initial communications to Griffin had been through throwaway email addresses that led to dead ends.
“All right. One night.” He wasn’t in any shape to get work done tonight anyway. His brain was sluggish from whatever drugs he’d been crazy enough to consent to.
“Marvelous.” Jillian produced a clipboard from her voluminous purse, reminiscent of Mary Poppins. “Griffin, given that you are a reporter, Daniel asks that you sign this before coming to his home. It’s just to protect his privacy.”
With a sigh, Griffin read the short document. It was a blanket off-the-record agreement, meaning he couldn’t write about anything he saw or heard in Daniel’s home. Normally Griffin wouldn’t agree to such terms. But he had no choice, not if he wanted to stay with Raleigh.
And he did. It wasn’t a matter of her safety anymore. They had both come close to dying tonight, and that meant they shared a bond no one else would understand. He simply did not want to be far from her right now.
He signed the form and handed the clipboard back to Jillian. “Your boss doesn’t miss a beat, does he?”
“He’s very thorough,” Jillian said cheerfully. “The limo is waiting in the garage.”
Griffin said nothing as he, Raleigh and Copper were safe in the back of the limo and Randall had pulled out of the garage. But he felt guilty as hell. He’d assumed he could keep Raleigh safe on a short trip from her office to her home. He’d picked up on a few useful skills when he’d written for Soldier of Fortune, hanging out with mercenaries who were constantly on the watch for snipers and booby traps.
But had he missed something, some clue that would have told a formally trained bodyguard
like Randall that something was amiss, and they shouldn’t enter her apartment?
Griffin sat across from Raleigh, next to the fridge, which he opened. Bottled orange juice, that should help. They always gave him orange juice when he donated blood. “Want anything?” he asked as he uncapped his bottle.
“Not right now.”
He checked to make sure the glass partition between front and back seats was up. “So, what did you tell the cops? I saw our buddy Abe Comstock hanging around.” Griffin was dying to know what Raleigh had revealed. He had fudged a lot, hoping to protect his story, but it would look bad if he and Raleigh had contradicted each other.
“Comstock questioned me, but he was actually pretty civil. I think tonight might have convinced him I’m onto something.”
“That’s good, at least.”
“I told him everything, Griffin. I’m sorry if that compromises your story.”
“It might.” He shrugged, as if he really didn’t care very much.
“No other reporter was there,” she reminded him. “No matter what some other reporter writes, your story will be better.”
He held his juice bottle up in a mock toast. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Griffin observed her for a while as she stared out the window. She still looked troubled. He wished there was some way he could reassure her, but bland, soothing words wouldn’t do the trick. Raleigh needed facts to convince her of anything, and facts about this situation were few and far between. He simply couldn’t connect the dots.
“Griffin, I’m really sorry about how I acted.”
Griffin struggled to figure out what she was referring to. And failed. Hadn’t she already apologized earlier? “What?”
“When you were injured. I…I was so busy worrying about the cracked glass on a photograph that I didn’t even notice you were dripping blood.”
Really? He honestly hadn’t been paying attention to her actions. He’d been pretty wrapped up with his own injury. “It was a confusing time. Everything happened fast.”
“Then, once I saw you were injured, I was still completely useless. I… I…” She swallowed, unable to continue.
“What are you talking about? You got me to the sofa. You brought me towels.”
“Before that. It was the b-blood.”
Griffin wanted to smack himself in the forehead as he recalled her tears. No wonder she’d been so upset. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in an incident that involved a lot of blood. He sifted through what he’d read about the accident that had killed her husband.
“You did fine.”
“I fell apart,” she corrected him. “I had some kind of flashback or something. To the day Jason died. Up until tonight, I never remembered what happened. But seeing all that blood must have triggered something.”
“Maybe you weren’t strong enough to handle those memories before,” Griffin said, wanting to offer some comfort.
“That’s not the point. What if you’d died? And there I was, a puddle on the floor, not even noticing. I was somewhere in the past, worrying about events that can’t be changed, instead of living in the present.”
Hallelujah. He’d known that for a long time. Now wasn’t the time to gloat, however. He capped his juice and stuck it in a cup holder, then swiveled from his seat to settle in next to her, sliding his good arm around her shoulders. “You are way too hard on yourself.”
“Someone needs to be,” she muttered.
“I don’t think so. I think someone needs to pamper you and take care of you—”
“I can take care of—”
“For one evening, okay? I’m not saying you can’t be independent and take care of yourself. But every once in a while, you need to let go. I admire that you are so passionate and dedicated to your work, and I even admire your loyalty to Jason. But there’s more to life.”
“Very profound. Since when did you become my therapist?” But she didn’t put a lot of bite into the reprimand, possibly because she knew he was right. She had to know.
“You’re wound up tighter than a coiled rattler.”
“Because someone tried to kill me. I’m en titled.”
“Just relax, would you? Lean back against me. Close your eyes.”
Surprisingly, she followed his directions. “I don’t like the pictures I see when I close my eyes,” she confessed.
“Don’t think about that. Listen to my voice. Drop your shoulders.” She had them hunched almost to her ears.
Gradually, her shoulders relaxed. Even Copper, who had been standing on his hind legs looking excitedly out the window, settled into her lap.
“Drop your chin to your chest—slowly. No jerking. Now, rock your head slowly and gently from shoulder to shoulder.”
She did as he said. “Hmm. This actually feels kind of good.”
If he’d had two good arms, he would have rubbed her shoulders.
“When we get to Daniel’s house, take a long, hot bath. Drink some wine.” Just thinking about Raleigh, reclined in a steaming bubble bath, made Griffin go hard. As close as she was now, he could smell her shampoo, something lemony. Her hair was no longer slicked back in its usual sleek style. At some point during the evening her clip had come loose. Now the auburn strands had fallen into tousled disarray, a bit of natural curl asserting itself.
He’d bet she hadn’t thought to look in a mirror lately. She would probably be horrified. But he liked the look.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. “This is nice.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I wish the limo ride was longer. It’s so quiet in here. Can’t even hear the traffic noises.”
“We could ask Randall to go around the block a few times.”
“Tempting. But Daniel will be impatient to see us and find out what happened firsthand.”
Duty again.
What would it take to get Raleigh to relax and put herself first?
CHAPTER TEN
SOON ENOUGH, the limo pulled up to an ornate, wrought-iron gate, which opened noiselessly. The limo glided through, then down a long driveway to a four—no, five-car—garage attached to the biggest private residence Griffin had ever seen, if he didn’t count the royal palace in Saudi Arabia.
The house was built of brown bricks that appeared worn by centuries of weather, like an abbey in the English countryside.
“No houses in Houston are very old,” he said. “Why does this place look…aged?”
“Daniel’s father had the bricks imported from Scotland. They were from a cathedral that was torn down.”
With the ivy-covered walls, mullioned windows and mature live oak trees, the house made quite an impression.
When the driver opened their door, Jillian was already standing outside the limo, waiting for them. “Sorry to bring you in the back way your first visit.”
“I’ve been here before,” Raleigh said as the driver offered his hand to help her out of the car. “For my job interview.”
“Oh, of course, I remember.”
Randall offered a hand to Griffin, too. He wasn’t in that bad a shape, was he? He climbed out under his own power with a nod of thanks to Randall for the offer of help.
“The front entrance is quite impressive, though,” Raleigh said. “We’ll have to show Griffin later.”
Why? I can’t write a word about it. Nor could he write anything about tonight’s incident. The story was too incomplete for Currents. And if he fed the information piecemeal to the newspaper—
Hell, he should resign from the Telegram. It wasn’t fair to accept a salary when he was holding out. He should bank on getting the TV job. It was a risk, but he wasn’t averse to risk, as his life up to this point proved.
“We’ll go in through the kitchen,” Jillian said. “If I’m not mistaken, Daniel will have dinner ready.”
She wasn’t mistaken. The smell hit him the moment he walked inside the house—roasting meat, garlic and onions and spices that immediately made his mouth water
and his stomach rumble. Now that the adrenaline rush had leaked away, he realized he was starving.
The limo driver disappeared, and Jillian led them down a long, tiled hallway into a kitchen the size of a gymnasium, where a chef in a uniform and a puffy hat worked over an indoor grill.
A chef. Daniel had a real chef, employed in his kitchen for every day. This kind of wealth was mind-boggling, and Griffin was once again irritated that he couldn’t write about it. The whole world would be interested in how Daniel Logan lived. He was a minor celebrity, this son of an oil billionaire who had spent six years in the penitentiary for a murder he hadn’t committed. His reclusive nature made him that much more intriguing.
“What is that animal doing in my kitchen?” the obviously French chef wanted to know. He stared down his nose at Raleigh and Copper.
“Just passing through,” Jillian said breezily. “Come this way, please.”
They ventured from the kitchen and into a great room with a vaulted ceiling, stone fireplace and several seating areas. At one end of the room was a carved mahogany bar, behind which Daniel himself stood, uncorking a bottle of red wine.
Copper leaped from Raleigh’s arms and ran toward the fireplace as fiercely as a five-pound dog could at a golden retriever, stretched out near the hearth as if there were a fire burning.
“Copper,” Raleigh said, “mind your manners.”
The big dog raised his head, then seemed to smile and wagged his tail enthusiastically as he lumbered to his feet. Copper went still as the retriever sniffed him.
“Tucker,” Daniel said to the dog, “be a good host and show your guest where the doggy door is. And share your dinner.”
The dog looked questioningly at his master.
“Go on, outside.”
Tucker was quick to obey, and Copper trotted at the bigger dog’s heels with a happy yip, having suddenly found a new friend.
“Are you sure…?” Raleigh looked worriedly after the dogs.
“They’ll be fine. Tucker is big, but he wouldn’t hurt a flea.” Daniel abandoned his task and came around to embrace Raleigh. “I am so glad you’re okay, Raleigh. When I heard what happened, I felt terrible. I’ve always prided myself on how safe that building is. Now I find out it’s not. I’m thinking of replacing all the windows with bulletproof glass.”
