by Joanne Rock
“The masquerade,” the tall man answered, pulling a yellowed sheet of old-fashioned parchment from a pocket of his trousers. “Our clue said the next wench would be wearing a white mask with poinsettias.”
He waved the silk in his hand like a pennant won in battle before making a lunge toward her.
Leaping backward out of his grip, she banged into a wall behind her. Nowhere to run.
“I assure you, I am not the next wench.” She gave them a moment to let the words sink in since the two of them appeared to have imbibed early and often. She prayed they were just drunk and not complete bastards. “It is a simple coincidence that I’m wearing this mask, because I didn’t sign up for any masquerade game.”
Her heart rate slowed by a tiny fraction as the men who’d jumped her seemed to weigh that newsflash. She hoped they would do the right thing and release her. Heaven knew, it seemed like a good sign they weren’t restraining her. But plastered, sexed-up males couldn’t be trusted to behave like gentlemen. They exchanged inscrutable glances now, and her fear factor spiked again.
What if they were too lazy to go find the woman who wanted to play this awful game of theirs?
In the wake of that worry came a dull thumping on the other side of the paneled door.
“Marie! Marie, are you okay?” a faint feminine voice called to her in time with the knocking.
Hope surged through her.
“That’s me.” She moved toward the door, shoving past the manhandling creeps who’d grabbed her. “My friends are looking for me.”
She could not imagine who would know she was in here, in fact, but the voice could have been shouting for Penelope, and she would have pretended it was her dearest and most protective friend in the world.
“But we’re playing a game,” the taller, more sloshed man explained patiently. He appeared confused and more than a little dismayed at the prospect of her leaving.
Marnie started banging on the door in response to whoever was on the other side.
“I’m in here!” she shouted for all she was worth. “Help!”
Swearing, the shorter, smarter man appeared to understand the potential consequences of holding a woman against her will as he moved away from her and toward a button now visible on the far wall. Jabbing at the small device with one chubby finger, he must have tripped the hidden door. All of the sudden, light spilled into the tiny closet.
There, centered in front of the door, stood Lianna with a worried frown.
“Marie!” she cried, wrapping Marnie in a hug that felt really, really welcome right now. “Are you okay?”
Marnie became aware of many faces swarming around behind Lianna. It seemed the whole card room, including the half-naked players who’d been involved in strip poker, had circled around the bookcase to find out what was happening behind the hidden wall.
As her eyes met their curious gazes, she realized she no longer wore her mask. Anyone here might recognize her. Anyone here could be the one who’d tried to set her up.
Ducking her forehead onto Lianna’s shoulder, she kept an arm locked around the other woman’s waist.
“I’m okay. I just want to go back to my room,” she whispered, wishing Jake was there. “I—don’t want to be alone yet.”
She’d said it mostly so Lianna would walk with her and help keep her at least partially hidden from the room full of prying eyes. But it was probably truer than she’d first realized, since her knees were still shaking from being grabbed and dragged out of sight faster than she could blink.
“Of course,” Lianna murmured soothingly, tucking Marnie close with one arm while she cleared a path with the other. “Coming through! Make way! Coming through, for crying out loud. Give the woman some room.”
Shoving her way through the crowd, Lianna blocked like a lineman while Marnie hurried along half a step back.
“How did you know I was in there?” Marnie asked once they’d cleared the thick of the crowd.
Closing in on the elevators, Lianna loosened her hold.
“I’ve been—” She seemed to hesitate and Marnie couldn’t imagine why. Unless, of course, the other woman felt bad about flirting shamelessly with Jake the night before.
“You’re my new hero,” Marnie assured her. “I really appreciate you knocking when you did because those guys really had me scared.”
She shivered again, thinking about what could have happened.
“Usually the girls who sign up for the masquerade games like that sort of thing,” Lianna murmured distractedly, peering around the main foyer of the resort as if she were looking for someone. “They really ought to have a sign near the masks in the costume shop so people don’t pick them up without knowing what they mean around here.”
“No kidding,” Marnie agreed, her whole body buzzing with the adrenaline letdown.
Damn it, where was Jake? More than anything right now, she wanted to feel his arms around her.
She moved to hit the button to call the elevator and realized Lianna was staring at her with an inscrutable expression. Despite the red sexpot gown falling artfully off one shoulder and the sprig of holly leaves tucked in her dark hair, she had a shrewd intelligence in her gaze.
“Although,” she began slowly, “why else would anyone purchase a mask?”
The question contained a note of assessment that made Marnie a bit uneasy.
“For fun.” She shrugged off the question. “The masks are beautiful.”
“Or some people wear masks to stay hidden,” Lianna mused. “But that would mean they know they’re being watched.”
Did Lianna know something about her purpose here? Could she know who was trying to frame her?
Confused and more than a little worried, Marnie didn’t want to step into the elevator cabin with Lianna, even though the lift had arrived and the doors had swooshed open in silence.
Lianna took a step closer to her.
“Did you know someone has been watching you?” she asked, her voice low. Threatening?
Marnie clenched her fists. She’d been ready to take on two full-grown men if they touched her tonight. There was no doubt in her mind she’d do some serious damage to the woman in front of her now.
“Marie,” a familiar voice called to her from the other end of the hall.
Both women turned to see Jake jogging toward them in his dinner clothes, the formal attire an enticing contrast to his raw masculinity. Marnie’s knees went weak with gratitude and relief.
“Thank God,” she murmured, not knowing who to trust and feeling as if she’d been ripped raw tonight.
“Don’t go anywhere near her,” he warned, though at first Marnie wasn’t sure which one of them he was speaking to.
As he stopped short between them, though, he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. Turning to Lianna, he spoke through gritted teeth.
“You’ve got some explaining to do.”
She shook her head so hard the holly berry sprig that had been perched in her hair fell to the carpeted floor of the main foyer.
“I didn’t do anything,” she protested, her voice sounding panicked.
But, oddly, she didn’t sound all that surprised by the accusation.
“I don’t understand.” Marnie squeezed Jake’s arm, feeling a strange twinge of empathy for the other woman who, after all, had just saved her from possibly being assaulted.
“She’s the one who’s been moving money around.” Releasing Marnie’s arm, he pulled a sheaf of papers that looked like computer spreadsheets from his jacket pocket. “She’s the one who breached the Premiere accounts and tried to frame you.”
9
“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.” Marnie bit her lip as she looked from Jake to Lianna and back again. “I’d never even met Lianna until yesterday.”
Jake kept his eyes on Lianna, who’d turned pale but hadn’t run. The elevator doors closed again, leaving the three of them together on the main floor.
“Well, Lianna?” he prodded, evidence in hand thanks
to the hotel’s computer database.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She shook her head, as if she could make the accusations go away.
“But you just said something about me being watched.” Marnie lowered her voice as a young couple came through the resort’s front doors into the foyer.
Sensing the need for privacy, Jake pushed the button for the elevator again.
“You’re coming with us until we get to the bottom of this,” he warned, knowing he’d never get away with that kind of intimidation as a cop. But as a P.I. operating out of state? He figured the rules were open for interpretation. Especially if it meant keeping Marnie safe.
“In the interest of privacy, perhaps that would be best.” Lifting her chin, Lianna was the first one to step inside the elevator when it arrived again.
Jake knew a seasoned criminal would have never gotten into the elevator with him. He also knew that whoever had tried to frame Marnie had laid too much groundwork to pull off this crime to make mistakes now. So between this small tip-off and the fact that Lianna Closson was willing to face his accusations, he had a pretty good idea she wasn’t the one who’d engineered the 2.5-million-dollar swindle.
But her vaguely guilty behavior told him she knew something, and he would damn well find out what.
Bringing her for questioning to the suite he shared with Marnie, he held the elevator door for the women as they arrived at their floor. Unlocking the door to the room, he tried to process Lianna’s behavior while Marnie spoke quietly in his ear, insisting that Lianna had saved her from—
“What?” He stopped cold inside the door to their accommodations as Marnie’s words finally penetrated the high-speed swirl of thoughts in his head. “Someone grabbed you?”
He tensed everywhere, already furious with himself for letting her out of the room. Out of his sight. Quickly, she recounted the ordeal along with Lianna’s role in saving her.
“I will find them,” he assured her. And gut them, he assured himself. “You’re certain you’re unharmed?”
His eyes roamed over every inch of her, looking for bruises on her arms or any signs of her dress being askew. The whole time he took his inventory, he had to swallow back fury by the gallon.
He flipped on more lights in the suite as he maneuvered her under the chandelier in the living area so he could examine her better.
Throughout it all, Lianna paced nearby. And though she appeared worried, she didn’t have the shifty look of a woman who was about to run. Despite the rumpled and well-used tissue in one hand, she seemed resigned to get to the bottom of this.
“I’m fine,” Marnie began, then stopped herself.
“Actually, I’m still a little shaken up.”
As if to prove the point, she held up a hand to the light. He could see her fingers tremble before she tucked them back into the folds of her dress.
This time, he swallowed back curses along with his anger. She didn’t need to hear it.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Hauling her into his arms, he held her. Absorbed the quivers vibrating through her. “Have a seat, okay?”
He shoved aside some needlepoint pillows in keeping with the elegant Victorian-style room, clearing a place for her. Lianna pulled a small lap blanket off the back of a chair near the fireplace and put it around Marnie’s shoulders.
And while that move won the other woman some points, it wouldn’t let her off the hook if she’d had anything to do with his case.
Turning to her, he gestured for her to take a seat on a nearby ottoman.
“How did you know she was in that room?” He’d get to the other stuff in a minute. Right now, he wanted to find out everything he could about the men who’d grabbed Marnie.
“I was in the gaming area waiting to—that is, I had a phone call to make before I could meet Rico tonight.” She peered over at the grandfather clock near the entry-way. “Another guy stood me up this week and I wanted to tell him that I was going to see someone else before I, you know, started hanging out with him.”
“How noble of you,” Jake remarked. “So you’re in the gaming room and you saw the men grab Marnie?”
“Marnie?” Her brow furrowed.
“Marie,” he clarified.
“Oh.” Her expression cleared; she was probably used to fake names being used by the guests of the Marquis. “No, I didn’t see them take her or I would have reacted faster. But I noticed her in the room one moment and when I looked for her the next moment, she was gone. And I just had a bad feeling about it since the whole place was so rowdy tonight.”
“You were looking for me?” Marnie asked, leaning forward on the sofa.
She seemed steadier now, though Jake noticed she hadn’t taken her hands off him since they’d returned to the room.
“I—” Lianna shifted on the ottoman, her velvet dress pooling around her high heels. “I’d been keeping an eye on you because I knew it was your first time here and this place can be a trip for newbies.”
Marnie appeared satisfied with the answer, but Jake sensed more to that story. Still, he left it alone for the moment in his rush to confront her with what he’d discovered earlier.
“Can you explain these?” He tossed the sheaf of computer printouts on the table and let her leaf through the spreadsheets, which showed her guest user account for the Marquis had been used to access the Premiere Properties account.
“I don’t even know what they are, so I’m sure I’m the last person who could explain—” Frowning, she ran her finger over the lists of numbers dates and accounts. “Wait. This is my user information and pass code for the resort’s guest volunteer system. I use this to sign up for work around the hotel.”
Marnie moved to sit beside Lianna. Whatever dislike Marnie might have had for Lianna at one time seemed to have vanished when the woman rescued her tonight. Was that part of Lianna’s plan? Had she sought to gain Marnie’s trust? Jake tried not to think the worst of Lianna, but his tendency to see those darker motivations were what had made him a good cop, and a good P.I. now.
“It looks like her user name masqueraded as mine to hack into the Premiere Properties accounts.” Marnie saw the implications immediately as she read over the sheets. Straightening, she gave Lianna a level look. “These papers suggest you used your access to the Marquis computers to frame me.”
“Frame you?” She shook her head, uncomprehending or doing a damn good job of looking clueless. “For what? I don’t even use a computer when I come here because there’s no access. I have to sign up for jobs before I arrive or else use the main computer downstairs, which I only did once and—”
“You brought your phone with you,” Jake pointed out, knowing she could connect through that if she wanted. “You said you were going to call that guy who stood you up.”
“Everyone smuggles in a phone here,” she argued, her voice rising to a higher pitch as she became noticeably agitated. “That doesn’t mean I brought a computer.”
“You could have internet access on the phone.” Jake watched as the woman’s eyes darted around the room, her pulse thrumming visibly in her neck. She was hiding something and she was scared.
“Are you a cop?” She looked back and forth between him and Marnie. “I want to know what this is about. You have no right to keep me here.”
Jake held up his hands, waiting for her to break. “No one is holding you here.”
Marnie, unaccustomed to interrogation, didn’t wait for the breakdown.
“You’ve been everywhere I’ve turned since I got here,” she told Lianna, still hugging the dark wool lap blanket around her shoulders. “As much as I appreciate you helping me get out of that hidden room tonight, I don’t believe you were keeping an eye on me just because I’m new to the Marquis.”
At first, Jake feared the comment would distract Lianna from her fears and delay a confession of whatever she knew. But then she pulled one of the needlepoint pillows into her lap and hugged it to her like a security blanket.
<
br /> Shoulders tense, she seemed to collect herself.
“Look. I haven’t done anything wrong. If I’ve been close to you the past two days it’s because this guy I was supposed to meet here—the one who stood me up—wanted to know about any new people who checked in this week.” She shrugged as if that was no big deal. “The Marquis is all about meeting new people, right? So I figured he just wanted to find out if there were any exciting strangers to, um, have fun with.”
She had Jake’s full attention now. And he had a damn good idea where the story was going. This was the missing piece.
“Right. You thought your boyfriend was on the lookout for new playthings, and being fairly liberal-minded yourself, that didn’t bother you in the least.”
Lianna frowned. “First of all, Alex is not my boyfriend. Second, I wouldn’t say—”
“Who?” Marnie interjected, her gray eyes locked on Lianna’s face. “Who did you say is not your boyfriend?”
“Alex,” Lianna repeated clearly. “Alex McMahon. He’s just some guy I met here last year. He got in touch with me after my divorce and wanted to see me this week—” Lianna stopped in mid-sentence. “Are you okay?”
Marnie folded her arms more tightly around herself. Her lips moved though no words came out for a long moment.
“Alex McMahon,” she finally repeated.
It was a name Jake wasn’t surprised to hear. A name that his investigation kept coming back to. But at least now, he had a solid connection to a guy with a lot more criminal smarts than Jake had given him credit for.
“We need to know everything about this guy,” Jake explained. “I’m a private investigator and I think he could be a threat to you as well as Marnie.”
He passed the woman his Florida P.I. license, even though it wasn’t worth all that much in a different state. Chances were good she wouldn’t know that.
Lianna looked over the license while Jake studied Marnie. Some color had returned to her cheeks by now, but her lips were drawn tight as her mouth flattened with worry.
