His gaze ran down the sleek lines of her body, lingering on her long, shapely legs. The legs of a dancer. She’d told him and Chase what she did before she met her late husband and it was easy to see how she’d caught his attention. She was a beautiful, sexy woman who was also smart and kind.
And rich as hell. She wouldn’t be interested in a simple guy like him. He wasn’t poor but he wasn’t wealthy. He came from a normal, middle class family. He liked pot roast and mashed potatoes. There was nothing special about him.
“I can teach you,” he offered. “You have this great pool—you should know how to swim, if only for your own safety.”
“I’m more of a lounge-by-the-pool-and-look-glamorous type,” she laughed. “But I do appreciate the offer. I think you would have made a good teacher.”
He couldn’t imagine a career he was less suited for. “A teacher? Why?”
“Because you’re calm. You would have kept your cool when some kid was being a smart aleck.”
She didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. “I doubt that very seriously. I work with animals because they’re easier than actual people. As for kids, well, I don’t have tons of patience so I can’t see me in the teaching profession. What about you?”
Willow scratched the dogs behind the ears. “What about me?”
“Do you have patience for children?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Alex never wanted kids and I was fine with that. I always thought that I wouldn’t want to bring children into this crazy world. After seeing what Evandria is trying to do, I’m more sure than ever.”
Evandria. They needed to make some decisions.
He sat down next to her on the pool steps. “Have you given any thought to what you want to do?”
“It’s just about all I’ve thought about.”
“Come to any conclusions?”
Ruffling the dog’s fur, she sighed in resignation. “I think we need to ignore what was in the files. For now, anyway. I think it could take us in the wrong direction. We should concentrate on learning more about Evandria and Alex’s real assignment, not that fiction that Caldwell was trying to feed us.”
“I agree but I know it wasn’t easy for you to make this decision.”
“It wasn’t,” she conceded. “But we need to stay focused.”
He was glad to hear that because he had a few ideas as to how to proceed.
“Good. Let’s talk about Alex’s personal effects. You said you cleaned out most of them from the house but are there places you didn’t touch?”
Frowning, she chewed on her bottom lip. “We have an apartment in New York but we didn’t keep much there to begin with. There’s also a condo in Vail. He liked to ski but there’s nothing there but sweaters. And then there’s the garage.”
“The garage? Is it near here?”
She nodded. “We have some land up in Pasco County. He had a huge garage built for his car collection.”
“And you didn’t clean it out after he died?” Josh pressed.
Levering up from the stairs, she grabbed a towel lying on the lounge chair. “There was nothing to clean out. It’s all cars and car parts. He didn’t have any personal items there.”
It was a long shot but worth the effort. “Take it from a guy. An automobile is personal.”
She rolled her eyes and held out a towel for him. “I don’t think you know how pathetic that sounds.”
He took it from her and wrapped it around his waist. “I do but that’s not the point. We’ll start there.”
“It’s a waste of time.”
It might be. Probably. Most of their investigation had been up to this point.
“Got a better idea?”
Her smile fell. “No, I don’t. I guess it’s worth a look but I want to go on record that I think it’s a waste of time. It’s a bunch of cars.”
Not much enthusiasm but he’d take it.
At this point, he’d try anything. Everywhere they looked, they came up empty.
Chapter Eight
Willow trailed after Josh, muttering under her breath as he pushed open the door of her late-husband’s luxury garage. Josh was a lovely man but he had a problem listening to her when she spoke. For example, she’d told him there was nothing to find here, but he’d completely ignored her and came out here anyway.
Typical male.
Okay, maybe not so typical. For one, he was more laidback than most of the men she’d met. In the last few days, she’d made a concerted effort to get a reaction from him that wasn’t an easy smile and a good-natured shrug. Basically, his attitude was whatever makes you happy. Frankly, it was a little unnerving.
“There’s nothing here to see,” she repeated again, knowing it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Josh was also a trifle stubborn, and when he got something in his head it wasn’t easy to change his mind. At dinner the night before he wouldn’t even take a bite of the fresh calamari, instead cringing in his seat in horror. The waiter had trouble hiding his grin of amusement as Willow assured her dinner companion that it did not taste like a rubber band. He hadn’t believed her.
Turning on his heel, he was wearing that smile again. The one that said he only wanted to make her happy but on this one little thing he was going to do whatever he damn well pleased.
“You’ve made your objections clear. Loud, clear, and frequent.”
Throwing up her hands, she perched on a stool next to a storage cabinet. “Go ahead. It’s your time to waste. But I’m not too nice to say ‘I told you’ so later.”
His brow went up, looking way too handsome at this particular moment. She wanted to be annoyed with him. “I’m shocked, Will. Shocked, I tell you.”
It was hard to stay mad at Josh. Not only was he easy to be around most of the time, he was easy on the eyes as well. Dark hair cropped short, a strong, square jaw, piercing blue eyes, and a body that spoke of regular, hard workouts. He had a small scar on his upper lip that she’d been dying to ask him about but she didn’t want him to think she’d been looking.
“The mechanic kept things here,” Willow explained patiently as he began to walk the expansive garage in a grid fashion. Alex had collected automobiles and this building housed twenty-five of them, along with cabinets full of spare parts that he had picked up for vehicles he hadn’t even purchased yet but wanted to. Spic and span, a person could eat off of this floor. It was a car junkie’s wet dream. “So I doubt Alex did.”
Josh looked over his shoulder. “The cars are still here.”
“So? I never sold them because the accountant said they were a good investment. Do you think there’s some hidden message in the letters and numbers on the license plates?”
“I never thought of that. It’s an interesting theory.”
Crossing her legs and huffing in frustration, she controlled the urge to hurl a wrench at his back. “It is not an interesting theory. It’s a stupid theory and I was only joking. Don’t patronize me, Josh.”
He walked from the far end of the building to stand in front of her, his cool gaze taking her in from head to toe and making her warm in response. “I was not patronizing you, Will. I was being serious. He may have requested certain plates for these cars. It’s something to look into, especially if we run out of leads.”
“We don’t really have any now. Only that we need to investigate the Evandria Council, and we’ll get to do that this weekend.”
“We also know that Evandria is some spooky shit,” Josh replied. “New world order stuff. Anytime I hear someone tell me they want to change the world for the better I always worry. What do they think is better and what are they willing to do to make it happen?”
That was the million dollar question. Did Evandria have anything to do with Alex’s death, and those of his two friends?
“Some people will do anything they can,” Willow said, recalling a few of the customers that used to come into the nightclub where she’d danced. “And some won’t do anything at all. The secret is
to know the difference.”
She’d learned fast. Who would be ruthless and cunning, men to stay far away from, and others who were kind and gentle. Those were men she felt comfortable with. When Alex had come into the nightclub that evening, he’d been somewhere in the middle. Handsome and dashing, he was no milquetoast but he wasn’t callous or brutal either. Just enough of a bad boy to catch her eye, but romantic enough to capture her heart.
Hands on his slim hips, Josh surveyed the cars all neatly lined up in five rows of five. “So tell me about these vehicles. Which ones were Alex’s favorite? Which was he thinking of selling? Are there any with funny stories attached to them like they belonged to someone famous?”
Standing, Willow studied the filled garage, trying to remember anything Alex might have said. “We didn’t talk about them much, to be honest. Cars aren’t exactly my thing.” She wandered down one aisle and up another. She stopped at a baby blue T-bird, year unknown. “His favorite color was blue. I remember when he bought this one. He was excited.”
“Good enough for me. I’ll give it a go-over.”
She didn’t know what that meant. Everything except registration had been taken out of these vehicles. Maybe the original tire jacks and spares remained but unless Alex had been using them to send surreptitious messages, they were out of luck.
Josh grabbed the cart from the wall and used it to slide effortlessly under the car. “You see, Willow, a man who loves a car this much has an obsession. He put this collection together carefully, thinking about each and every acquisition. But I also bet he didn’t let anyone around these cars unless he trusted them, am I right?”
She knelt down to peer under the car but all she could see were Josh’s legs and the bottom of his khaki cargo shorts. “He had one mechanic he let work on the cars. He’d take his friends in here but he kept the place locked up if that’s what you mean. Not that I cared one way or another. It wasn’t like I was dying to hang out here and discuss chrome.”
Sliding back out, Josh grinned. “Once again, I’m shocked, Will. You don’t have to stay for this. I have twenty-four more cars to check. This could take awhile.”
“What are exactly are you even looking for? Maybe I can help.”
“I don’t know. I just know that these cars are pretty much all we have left of Alex’s belongings. Bailey found the newspaper clippings in Frank’s possessions…I was thinking maybe we’d find something in Alex’s.”
It made sense. Kind of. “So you’re checking under the car? Do you think he wrote something on the exhaust pipe?”
“I’ll say it again, I don’t know. What I do know is I can’t sit here and wait for something to happen. I won’t let you get blown up like Peyton. We have to be proactive and that’s what I’m trying to be.”
She couldn’t fault him for that. Technically, he was risking his life by guarding her. The package bomb that had put Peyton in a coma hadn’t been an accident.
“Then I need to help. Tell me something I can do.”
“Check the interior of every car. Not just the glove compartment but under the dash, in between the seats and in the trunk. I realize this is a long shot but I can’t just sit idle. All the cabinets and drawers need to be checked as well.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.” She pointed the cabinets behind her. “I’ll start over there.”
They had to start somewhere and it was as good a place as any.
“My back is killing me,” Willow groaned as she finished checking the interior of the last car hours later. “And I found nothing. Can I say ‘I told you so’ now?”
Josh wiped his hands on a rag. “No, because I’m not done yet. And you shouldn’t look that happy about it, by the way. We want to find something, remember?”
“I remember,” she grumbled. “I wish we had found something. Honestly, I do.”
“As I said, I’m not done yet. I have two more cars to check underneath. It’s a real shame you don’t drive any of these. They’re just sitting here and rotting.”
Maybe she should sell them, investment or not. He was right. There was probably a collector out there who would think they’d gone to heaven to have these cars.
“I have someone come in and start them on a regular basis.”
“It’s still a crime. These were meant to be driven, even if only on a track. I’m not suggesting you drive down to the drug store in it.”
Confession time. “That’s good because here’s the thing…I’m actually a pretty awful driver.”
He playfully winced. “Don’t tell me you like to talk or text on your phone. That will get you killed.”
“I don’t,” Willow said defensively. “I just don’t like driving on busy highways. Local is all good though.”
“I wouldn’t suggest taking these cars on the freeway either.”
He rolled under the last car and she was quiet while he finished. It had been a long evening and although she’d warned him they wouldn’t find anything, she was glad they’d tried. It was better to be proactive than sit around waiting for someone to try to kill her. He came back out and hopped to his feet.
“I guess if we had found something it would have been too easy.” Josh’s gaze wandered around the large space. “I really thought something might be here. It would be the perfect place for a man to have personal things. A place his wife never goes, friends rarely visit. A man cave of sorts.”
“It was his man cave. He liked to come here and sit in the cars. He said it helped him think.”
“Where did he sit?”
She pointed to the Cadillac convertible. “He sat there, I think. That’s where I found him once anyway.”
Josh slid into the driver’s seat of the automobile. “Like this?”
She nodded, not sure where he was going with all of this.
He ran his fingers around the steering wheel and across the arm rest. His other hand ran up and down the leather interior.
“Actually, he reclined the seat,” she said. “Is that important?”
“I have no idea,” Josh declared. “I’m just trying to become Alex, to think like he might have when he sat here.”
Other than a Y-chromosome, Josh had little in common with Alex. Getting into his head wasn’t going to be easy, if possible at all.
Reclining in the seat, he was now staring at the top part of the windshield and visor. His fingers plucked a garage door opener from the passenger visor and held it up.
“Do all the cars have these?”
“Uh, I don’t remember. Hold on.” She quickly walked up and down the aisles. “No, none of them do but that would make sense if that was the car he drove most often.”
“Let’s see what it does.”
He positioned it in front of the garage door and pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
“It probably needs new batteries. I saw some in one of these drawers when I was here before. Can you check what it needs?”
“It’s probably double-A.” He popped the back off and smiled. “Or not. Take a look at this.”
Instead of batteries, there was a small gold key nestled there.
“I’ll be damned,” Willow breathed. “You were right. Something was hidden here.”
“A man’s cave is his castle.” His fingers had to wiggle it to get it loose from where it was wedged. “He wouldn’t hide anything where you could find it.”
He held up the key for her inspection.
“What is it to?” she asked, taking it from him and checking it for markings.
“That’s an excellent question, Will. Alex didn’t want anybody to find the key but he also wanted to keep it close. We just have to figure out what it opens.”
Chapter Nine
Willow held up the key in her left hand as she munched on a slice of pizza with her right. They’d taken a break to have a late dinner and knowing they wouldn’t sleep, they planned to try and find what the key might open even though it was getting quite late.
“It’s
small,” she said, turning it over in her palm. “Too small to be to a door or a vehicle.”
Josh reached for it and held it up to the light. “I think it’s too small to even be to a locker at the bus station or a safety deposit box.”
“You’ve seen too many movies. The hero and heroine find a key that fits a safety deposit box and all the answers lie within.” She snorted. “We should be so lucky.”
Setting the key on the table between them, Josh reached for another slice. “I wouldn’t be upset if that were the case but you’re right, things are rarely that simple. We need to look through Alex’s possessions again.”
“We already did,” she pointed out. “And came up empty.”
“But we didn’t know what we were looking for and now we do. We need to find something that has a small lock on it.”
“Maybe he had one of those diaries with the tiny lock on the outside. ‘Dear Diary, I kept more secrets from my wife today. She suspects nothing. Ha Ha.’ How about that theory?”
“You’re angry with him.”
Tossing the crust back in the cardboard box, Willow took a drink of her wine. “Duh. I’m livid. I was his wife and he shared nothing with me. His whole life is a black box and I’m on the outside looking in. I always was, if the truth be known. I was never an insider at any time of my life. I think that’s why I chose Alex. It was something I knew and was familiar with, orbiting around him like he was Louis the Sun King.”
“Did he ever tell you anything about his life?”
She shrugged, pushing the pizza toward him, her stomach satisfied. “Sure, some things. His family traveled quite a bit so a lot of the furnishings in the house are from those trips. He had a story for each one that usually included a luxury resort and a phalanx of servants. Sometimes he’d talk to me about his so-called business deals. He was sort of an errand boy for his father and he’d have meetings all over the world. Funny what a person remembers years later. He always talked about the people or the place. He never talked about the business. I didn’t care at the time because I thought it was boring.”
Midnight Of No Return (Midnight Blue Beach Book 2) Page 6
