She forced herself not to react, not to resist, to keep her muscles loose and her hands in sight. She knew guys like this. Guys like her father. They wanted a threat. Wanted a fight. They were itching for her to mess up, so they could prove what big badasses they were.
One of them snatched the gun from her belt. She hoped to God they didn't start waving it around. The G26 was one of the safest pistols designed, but you had to keep your finger off the trigger unless you intended to shoot.
"Police," she said as evenly as she could. "Identification—"
Hands fumbled at her waist, patted her sides, her breasts, her thighs.
She gritted her teeth. "Identification in my left back pocket."
They dug for it.
"You can't bring a gun in here," one of them said.
Yeah, she was getting that.
"I'm authorized to carry concealed," she said evenly. "I'm a—" Should she say detective? No, it would really chafe their butts to know she outranked them. Better if they assumed she was a patrol officer. "I'm with the Eden Police Department."
Her captor grunted. "Never heard of it." But he let up on her wrists.
Laura turned around and held out her hand for her ID.
He studied it one more time and then flipped it to her. She caught it one-handed.
Tweedledum—Dwayne—looked her up and down. "Sorry about the search."
Sure he was.
"Sorry about the gun." She extended her hand again. "I'll take it back now."
He hesitated.
"Mr. Ford is waiting," said the woman in the red suit.
Reluctantly he surrendered the Glock. Laura slipped it into its holster and adjusted her jacket.
He bared his teeth at her, not quite a smirk, not quite a sneer.
Something clicked. A memory. An impression. Keeping her face neutral, she asked, "Either of you know Pete Swirsky?"
Tweedledee's face scrunched. "Pete?"
"Swirsky?" asked Dwayne. "Sure. What's he up to?"
Laura's heart hammered. "I was hoping you could tell me."
He shook his head. "Nope."
"He's on vacation," the older man said. "Isn't that what you told me, he was on vacation?"
"Yeah. Vacation."
"When's he supposed to be back?" Laura asked.
The two men exchanged glances.
"What's this about?" Tweedledum asked.
Laura forced herself not to push. She wasn't prepared to conduct an interview. And while a good detective usually tried to break the ice at the start of an interview, getting felt up by your subject probably wasn't the best way to launch question-and-answer time.
She could get the answers she wanted later, from the security company's office. Or if they wouldn't speak with her, now that she was off the case, Simon could.
"Nothing. I just wondered if you knew him. Since you all work here."
"Mr. Ford is waiting," Ms. Power Suit repeated, an edge to her voice.
The guards shuffled their feet.
"Sure," Laura said. "Can't keep the boss waiting. Sorry."
She followed her guide across the marble floors, past massed green plants and trees in pots. It was like the lobby of some upscale, downtown hotel, complete with a massive counter at one end manned by twenty-somethings with toothpaste-ad smiles and navy blue blazers.
Phones rang. Red heels tapped. The air smelled of flowers. Laura's guide stopped by a pair of recessed steel doors and scanned the back of her coded ID badge over a dark panel in the wall. The doors slid silently open. Impressive. It was going to be tough proving a flaw in the system.
"Does this go down to the Bat Cave?" Laura asked.
The woman's face didn't even twitch. "Mr. Ford's office is on the second floor. He's waiting for you."
Okay, so Simon had hired the woman for her efficiency. It sure as hell wasn't for her sense of humor.
They rode up in silence. The doors slid open on more plants, more marble, a grouping of leather chairs. Another shiny young person occupied a slightly smaller desk guarding another set of doors.
"Thank you, Andrew," Red Power Suit said, clearly dismissing him. She picked up the handset on the desk. "Mr. Ford, Ms. Baker is here. You can go in now," she said to Laura.
The young man, Andrew, jumped to open the door. She didn't notice him close it behind her. Wowzers.
Simon's office was big—Trump-size—and furnished in ebony, charcoal and gray. Black leather chairs, crystal bowls, light fixtures that looked like they'd been grown out of rock or stolen from some museum of modern art. There was a sixty-two-inch plasma screen mounted on one wall, and enough computer equipment ranged around the room to upgrade the entire Eden Police Department. And the town library. Tall, tinted windows admitted the light and looked out on the park and reflecting pool.
Laura curled her hands into fists. She'd seen Simon's home before. She knew he was rich. But here, in the heart of his business operations, she saw more than wealth. She saw genius and ambition, discipline and drive.
What had it taken to build his empire? And what would he do to keep it?
He stood and came around his desk, backlit by the brilliant windows. And her heart stuttered helplessly.
Stupid. She couldn't help but be impressed. She didn't have to be intimidated.
She squared her shoulders and touched her elbow to her gun. "I see you found your office."
Simon stopped, warned by something in her voice. "So did you." He eyed her warily. When his assistant Carolyn had told him she was at the gate, he'd been glad. Grateful. Relieved. But now… "Why did you?"
"You told me to come."
Yes, he had. Before he'd offended her with his ill-judged crack about her father.
"You told me you were busy," he said.
"I am. I had to come into town anyway. The other end of town." She prowled his office, her hands in her pockets, her quick gaze taking in everything.
Something was wrong, Simon thought. Maybe he wasn't wise in the ways of women, but even an idiot could see the agitation seething beneath her cool surface.
Of course, where Laura was concerned, maybe he was an idiot, Simon thought ruefully. But something had happened to upset her.
"We're a little south of your jurisdiction, aren't we?" he asked mildly. "Or does the Chicago Police Department depend on Eden for backup?"
She snorted. "That'll be the day." She stopped pacing to face him, hands jammed in her pockets. "I did what you wanted. I went to look for him. My father."
She hurled the words like stones. But Simon recognized both her concession and her courage in making it.
"Did you find him?" he asked.
"Not the first place I looked. He'd moved," Laura explained when Simon raised his eyebrows. "Son of a bitch moved from our old house without leaving a forwarding address."
And without telling his daughter. He hasn't talked to me in ten years. Son of a bitch, indeed. "Then how did you find him?"
"I haven't yet. But I ran his license, got his new address."
"I could have gotten his address for you."
"I know. But maybe I didn't want to give you the satisfaction of knowing I was looking." She shrugged. "And maybe I hoped I could surprise you—locate my father, clear his name and solve the case, all on my afternoon off."
Her self-deprecating humor slid into him like a knife, pointed. Painful.
"Sounds like a plan."
"Oh, yeah. A great plan. Only none of his neighbors have seen him since the night you were attacked. Of course, I didn't talk to them all. Most of them were still at work."
"Did you go inside the apartment?"
She rolled a look at him, amused and disparaging. "How? The old man's been in the security business longer than I've been alive. He doesn't leave a spare key under the mat."
"You don't need a key. You're a police officer." And the old man's daughter, Simon thought, but now didn't seem the time to press it.
"I'm not on the clock. I'm not on this case." Laura
turned away, started pacing again like a cat in a cage. Graceful. Annoyed. "Anyway, I'd need a search warrant."
"Not necessarily. There are other ways to get in."
"Breaking and entering?" She shook her head. "No, thanks."
"I could go with you." He wanted to be with her.
"Right. And then we could both get arrested. Maybe they'd give us adjoining cells."
He wasn't used to having his ideas dismissed, he discovered. It was a novel feeling. And not a pleasant one.
"I meant, I could go with you when you go back to talk to the neighbors."
"You'd do that?"
"Why not?"
He'd succeeded in surprising her. But she recovered quickly. "I don't need my hand held, Ford."
"I intend to do a lot more than hold your hand," he said coolly. "Get used to it."
She narrowed her eyes. "That bump on the head obviously didn't damage your ego."
"My ego is taking enough of a beating from you."
"Well, there's one problem I can solve for you." She strode toward the door. "I'm leaving."
He put out a hand to stop her. "Don't go."
His fingers closed around her wrist. She hissed. But she didn't hit him. He supposed he should be grateful for that.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"Let go of my arm."
"Tell me what's wrong."
"Listen, I've been jerked around enough today," she said through her teeth. "Let go of my arm."
Jerked around…?
He studied her face, her eyes bright with temper, her mouth tight with annoyance. Or pain? Shifting his grip, he pushed her jacket sleeve out of the way to look at her arm. And swore.
A line of red blots decorated her arm, the first sign of bruising, the marks of someone's fingers. "What's this?"
She pulled her arm away and tugged her cuff to cover the ugly red marks. "It's nothing."
"It doesn't look like nothing. Who the hell did this?"
"The Brute Squad."
He frowned at her, uncomprehending.
She sighed. "Security. Downstairs."
His reaction was instinctive. Immediate. Savage. Someone had hurt her. "I'll fire them."
Her mouth dropped open. "You can't do that."
"Watch me." He strode to the desk to pick up the phone.
She followed him. "They were just doing their jobs."
"Not here. Not any longer. Carolyn, get E.C.I.P. on the—"
Laura reached across him and smacked her hand on the phone, cutting him off. "Your security responded appropriately to a perceived threat. Simon, I'm armed. My gun set off the metal detector in the lobby."
"So they manhandled you."
"Well, they had to do something. They can't let people walk into the building waving weapons."
"You were waving your gun?"
"No. But—"
"Did they search you? Touch you?"
"They disarmed me."
And left welts in the process. He reached for the phone again. "They're gone."
"For heaven's sake, Simon, you can't fire people for protecting you. Especially now, when you need all the protection you can get."
"That's beside the point."
"No, that is the point. You were attacked in your own home. You need your security personnel."
"Not if I can't trust them," he snapped.
Wrong answer.
Color flooded her golden skin. Simon cursed himself silently. Way to go, smart guy. The only thing he seemed to have a genius for was putting his foot in his mouth.
"I wasn't referring to your father."
She glared at him. "Don't patronize me, Ford."
"All right." He drew a deep breath. "I wasn't referring only to your father."
She nodded shortly, accepting both his implicit apology and the truth. And then turned directly to the subject at hand. "Who else don't you trust?"
God, she was amazing. He wanted to kiss her.
"Pretty much everybody," he admitted. "Being here at the office is tougher than I thought."
"Is your memory coming back at all?"
"Not really. I've kept most of my appointments. It helps to meet people one on one, to be able to put names with faces."
"But what do you talk about?"
He shrugged. "I ask Carolyn to bring me the relevant files before each appointment."
Laura grinned. "Smart."
"Desperate," he corrected. But his mouth curved in an answering smile. "They seem to want to do most of the talking anyway. I've been concentrating on sitting back and looking noncommittal."
"So you're functioning," she said with approval.
"To a degree. I'm making more notes than decisions."
"That's okay. You can learn a lot by listening."
"Yes. In fact—" He stopped. It was stupid.
"In fact…" she prompted.
"I get the impression I'm not usually perceived as a good listener," he confessed.
Actually, it was more than that. Worse than that. All day long he'd been aware of conversations stifled in his hearing, of subordinates stiffening when he asked for their opinions. His assistant Carolyn moved around him with the deliberate care of a demolitions expert. The young man in the outer office fidgeted every time Simon stuck his head out of his office.
The actual impression Simon received was that his employees perceived him as an autocratic, insensitive, impatient son of a bitch.
"No surprises there," Laura said.
"Do I seem … arrogant to you?"
"Some. But I meant more that you're used to being smarter than everyone around you." She shrugged. "Why should you listen to them?"
Her tone made it clear she didn't condemn him. He was amazingly grateful to her for that. He was struggling to understand himself. That she understood him, even a little, made him feel much less alone.
She shot him a narrow look. "That doesn't mean it would hurt you to accept other people's advice every now and then."
He controlled his smile. "Your advice, you mean."
"Well, yeah."
"I do," he assured her sincerely.
"Since when?"
He arched one eyebrow. "I'm following your recommendation to have a party this Saturday night."
"Really? Where's the guest list?"
He reached into his desk and handed it to her. "I'd like to review it with you."
She scanned the list quickly. "It's going to be hard to get this many people together on such short notice."
"Quinn's already made most of the calls. I assumed that would be easier for you, since you said you had to work between now and Friday."
Her lips curved. "I guess you do listen."
He liked talking to her, liked making her smile. So he added, "I also reviewed my tax returns for the past few years."
"Right. Like I would ever give you tax advice. We are so not in the same financial bracket."
"I wasn't looking at the tax tables."
"So, what were you…" Her eyes widened. "You were looking for the girl in the photograph."
He nodded. "I haven't found her yet, though. No dependents."
"What about child support, child tax credits?"
"No."
"Alimony payments?"
Was she only asking out of professional interest? Simon hoped not. "Nothing."
"That's disappointing," Laura said.
He regarded her with some exasperation. "On the contrary. I find it reassuring to know I don't have a child out there somewhere."
"Not one you're acknowledging, anyway."
He was stung. "You think I'd shirk responsibility? Abandon a child?"
She folded her arms. "It happens."
He studied her stubborn face and unhappy mouth, and awareness crashed on him like a wave. "Did it happen to you?" he asked gently.
"We're not talking about me." The chin came up. "Anyway, Tommy married me, didn't he? He supported us."
Big deal. Simon admired her loyalty to her dea
d husband, but any man who was a man would do the same. Wouldn't they? Wouldn't he?
The truth was, he didn't know.
"I've traced automatic transfers to various personal accounts," he said stiffly. "I haven't identified all of them yet. But—"
The door to his office opened, and a strange blonde sailed in like a swan, graceful, sleek and confident.
Carolyn darted in her wake, a ruffled duck defending her territory. "I'm sorry, Mr. Ford, she—"
"Honestly, Caro, it's not as though I need an introduction," the intruder said.
Very cool, Simon thought. Very beautiful. She wore her age—midthirties?—and her diamonds lightly.
Her amused gaze raked over Laura. "Although in this case I might. You would be…"
"Laura Baker." She kept her hands in her pockets.
"Interesting." The woman looked at Simon, clearly expecting him to introduce her. When he didn't, she shrugged and smiled. "I'm Mrs. Ford."
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
Laura balled her fists in her pockets. She didn't believe for one second that these two had ever been married. Maybe she didn't want to believe it.
The woman standing in Simon's office wearing Armani and an amused expression was at least several years older than he was. Her body was aerobically toned, her hair expertly highlighted, her makeup flawless. She probably drank the blood of virgins to stay young.
I'm Mrs. Ford.
Laura glanced at Simon to see how he was taking the news.
"That will do, Carolyn. Thank you," he said. The door closed quietly behind his assistant. Simon's face was blank. Polite.
Shock, Laura decided. Nobody's manners were that good. Her quick surge of protective feeling surprised her.
The woman's eyes slid to Simon. "I take it you haven't told her about me."
He crossed his arms, managing to mask his probable panic with indifference. "What's to tell?"
Oh, good job, Laura thought.
The perfect mouth pouted. "Darling, you'll hurt my feelings. After all we've been to each other…"
Bitch.
Think. A good detective resisted jumping to conclusions. It was up to Laura to weigh the evidence, to consider the options, to review the facts.
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