by Jami Alden
He motioned her to follow him around the back of the building. “I have your exam in my car,” he lied as they rounded the corner. “I think you’ll be pleased.”
“Oh thank God,” she sighed as he popped the trunk. “After I turned it in, I was sure I totally failed.”
He reached into his backpack and palmed a syringe full of Rohypnol as he simultaneously pulled out a blue exam book. He handed it to her and her eyes lit up at the score written across the top.
“Oh my God, I got a ninety-eight?” she exclaimed. Then she looked a little closer. “Wait, Eugene, this isn’t my test. This is from—”
The needle sank into her carotid and he depressed the plunger before she could finish. She gave a squeak of surprise and looked at him in shock, which quickly went blurry as the drug went rapidly to work.
“Whannareyoo dooin’?” she slurred weakly, pushing at his hands as he tipped her back into the trunk. She barely put up a fight as he pulled her phone from her hand and slammed the trunk shut.
Talia spent most of Friday moping around, too depressed even to work out.
So depressed, part of her wondered if she shouldn’t have taken Rosie up on her offer to join her on her camping trip to Yosemite. Rosie had texted her at ten-thirty to let her know they were on the road, and again three hours later to let her know they’d arrived.
Even so, Talia had called a few times, thinking that hearing her sister’s voice might help comfort her. Her calls went straight to voice mail, and Talia forced herself to give it up for the day. Even if she wasn’t the victim of spotty cell phone coverage, it was likely Rosario didn’t want to get stuck on the phone with her anxious, heartbroken sister when she wanted to enjoy time with her friends.
Though it stung, Talia couldn’t exactly blame her. Still, Jack’s call last night after she’d dropped Rosie off was unsettling on multiple levels. First there was Jack’s voice. Even over the phone, it had the power to reach down to her very core, touching her like a caress even as the sound of it ripped her to shreds.
God, she missed him.
Then, of course, there was the news he’d shared about Sutherland’s death. And though he hadn’t spelled it out, despite his denial and her belief in it, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the police were going to take a serious look at Jack for the murder. She resisted the urge to call Jack and check in.
Instead she kept an anxious eye on the local news, which was abuzz with the story of the violent hotel murder in an otherwise quiet part of town. So far there had been no stories about anyone being arrested for the murder.
She spent some time on the Internet looking for a likely retreat for the weekend, which only added to her depression. The only places with any appeal were way out of her price range, and the only places she could afford were either campgrounds or crappy motels. Neither of which would provide her any security if anyone came after her.
And that was assuming Jack was correct in his theory that (a) Margaret Grayson-Maxwell had sent someone after Sutherland in the first place and (b) she would have that person come gunning for Talia too.
So far nothing had happened, which seemed to support Talia’s decision to shut herself in her house all day and night, nursing her wounds, wallowing in her loneliness and generally feeling sorry for herself.
Saturday she woke up late, determined to kick yesterday’s depression aside, or at least beat it into submission with a brutal workout at Gus’s gym. After a quick text exchange with Rosie in which her sister gushed (as much as one could in a text) about how beautiful the view was from Yosemite Falls, Talia gathered her stuff and headed out.
As she climbed out of her car and walked through the front door, she got that strange little tickle on the back of her neck, that tightness between her shoulders like someone was watching her.
She whipped her head around and did a quick scan of the parking lot and the street that paralleled the front. There were two guys getting out of a car, talking as they approached the entrance, and a handful of women Talia recognized from some of Gus’s classes. Other than giving her a nod or a quick smile in acknowledgment, no one was paying her any particular attention.
Talia was about to step inside when she heard a voice calling her name. She turned to see Susie, rushing across the parking lot as she waved. “I was hoping that was you I saw pulling in ahead of me.”
Talia gave herself a mental eye roll at her own overreaction at being tracked by her friend. No, wait, she thought with a wave of bitter sadness. Susie wasn’t her friend. The only reason Susie had ever given her the time of day was because Jack had paid her to.
Even so, as Susie jogged up to the entrance, her blond ponytail bobbing with every step, Talia couldn’t help returning her timid but sincere smile. Whether it was a lie or not, Susie had treated her well. Even if her friendship wasn’t genuine, Talia had to give her credit for being a good person, and she felt pretty bad for her part in Susie’s restaurant getting trashed.
There was an awkward moment of silence; then they both started speaking.
“I’m sorry for—” Susie started.
“I’m so sorry about—” Talia said at the same time. She stopped. “You go first.” She opened the door so they could go inside.
“Okay,” Susie said with a smile. “I’m sorry I was such a bitch the other night,” she said as they walked toward the locker rooms.
“Are you kidding?” Talia asked as Susie held the locker room door open for her. “I’m sorry the psycho who came after me ended up trashing the restaurant.” She stashed her bag in a locker and waited while Susie did the same.
Susie looked at her, her blue eyes wide with concern. “I can’t believe he was murdered.”
Talia nodded. “Does Nolan know if they’re any closer to finding out who did it?”
Susie looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shook her head.
Talia got it. They were still looking at Jack as the main suspect. They were just waiting to get the evidence together to make an arrest. Talia looked at her watch. “We better get to class or we won’t get a good spot.”
“The good news,” Susie said with a falsely bright smile as they started for the studio for the cardio kickboxing class, “at least I guess you can call it good news, is that they found some things in his room to link him to the rapes. Philip can’t give me the details yet, but he’s pretty certain Sutherland was the one behind the attacks. Thank God they were able to catch him before…”
Her voice trailed off.
“Before he could take me,” Talia finished for her.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Susie said, reaching out to pat her shoulder as they paused in front of the studio.
Talia gave her head a rueful shake. “It’s not like I haven’t had the same thought a thousand times in the last few days.”
Another woman sidled by them and Talia could hear the heavy bass of the music, signaling the start of class. “Wait for me after,” Susie said as they entered the studio. “There’s more stuff I need to talk to you about.”
Talia had a good idea what some of that stuff was, and she wasn’t exactly eager to get into it. But for the next hour, she was able to shove it aside and lose herself in the loud, thumping music, the kicks, the punches, and the pleasure of putting her body through a strenuous workout.
Afterward she went with Susie to refill her water bottle before she had her one-on-one session with Gus.
“So I’m hoping to have the restaurant ready to reopen by July,” Susie said.
“Wow, that’s fast,” Talia replied. Jack must be throwing some serious coin at the problem to get it done so quickly. “I’ll contribute as much as I can—”
Susie waved her comment away. “I don’t want any money from you.”
Right, Talia thought bitterly, because Jack, massive foundation and all, can fund the entire thing ten times over.
“What I want,” Susie said, her falsely casual tone setting off warning bells, “is for you to
promise you’ll come back to work.”
“I can’t.” It was out of the question.
“Please?” Susie said, bringing her hands together in a pleading position. “I need you.”
Talia snorted. “More like you need Jack’s money. Don’t worry. Jack’s not going to give you the shaft just because you don’t take me back on.” She started to push past Susie.
Susie caught her by the forearm. “So I guess you know the truth, then?”
“That he had to bribe you to give me a job? Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a bribe,” Susie protested, “more like an investment to help me grow the business.”
“He gave you fifty thousand dollars to hire me,” Talia said, and jerked her arm from Susie’s grasp. “I’d call that a bribe.”
“Fine,” Susie said, and rolled her eyes. “But he did it as an investment, one that’s about to pay off. In part because of you.”
Talia felt a tiny burst of pride, one that was immediately squelched by the vivid memory of sloshing through the two inches of water on the restaurant’s floors. “Right, it was about to pay off until Suzette’s was flooded by the sprinkler system.”
“God, will you just give yourself a break?” Susie snapped, throwing her arms up in exasperation. “Whatever motivated me to hire you doesn’t change the fact that you’re damn good at your job. In the past eight months, you’ve saved me over fifteen thousand in overhead.”
“All of which can now go to repairs—”
“So what? With the new layout and expansions I get to make, we’ll make the money back in a year. And it’s not just the money.” She leaned close. “This thing with Philip, I really think it’s something special,” she said in a low voice, as though she would somehow jinx it if she admitted it out loud.
“He seems like a really great guy, and it never hurts to have a cop on your side.” Talia tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but there was nothing worse than hearing about someone else’s happy love life when your own heart was in a million pieces.
“That’s part of the problem, though. Between the two of us, we work such bad hours it’s almost impossible to make time to see each other,” Susie said. “If we’re going to have a chance, I’m going to need help managing the remodel and running the place once it’s open again. And you are the only person I would trust to do the job as well as I can.”
“Really?” Talia said, taken aback.
“Well, maybe not quite as well as I can,” Susie said with a wink, “but close enough that I’d feel comfortable going out on an occasional date without freaking out that stuff wasn’t getting done.”
Part of her wanted to brush Susie’s words off as blowing smoke, but Talia knew that if Susie was dead serious about one thing in her life, it was her business. “I’m flattered,” she said. “But I’m just not sure… Jack and I aren’t together—”
“Because of the investment?” Susie asked. “He just wanted to help you—”
“Going behind my back is not the way to help me,” Talia snapped. God, why was everyone so quick to defend him? “Just because it was done with good intentions doesn’t make it right.” When Susie would have replied, she held up a silencing hand. “It was the money and other things too, nothing I want to get into right now. Let’s just say it will be hard for me to be around him, and if he’s involved—”
Susie nodded. “I totally understand. Jack’s what we call a silent partner, and you’d never have to interact with him. Unless you wanted to, of course.”
Talia closed her eyes against the sting of tears. Hell yes she wanted it, wanted him. That’s what made it so dangerous.
“You don’t have to answer me now,” Susie said. “I’ll give you a call in a couple days and we can talk more about it.”
“Okay.” Talia nodded and started for the gym.
“Wait,” Susie said, and, ignoring the sweat from their workouts, grabbed her in a fierce hug. “No matter how we started out, you need to know that I truly consider you my friend. Whether you come back to work or not, if you need anything—shoulder to cry on over a couple glasses of wine—you let me know.”
Talia nodded and left Susie with a little wave. Though she was still bruised over the subterfuge, she knew Susie meant what she said.
If nothing else, Jack had bought her a friend.
Chapter 21
Jack waited a solid thirty minutes for Talia to show up. He spent most of the time calling himself a hundred kinds of idiot. He should be digging into Margaret Grayson-Maxwell’s financial records to find additional ties to Sutherland and see if she’d made any payments to other past associates of David’s in the past few days.
He should be trying to find Sutherland’s killer before the cops showed up to haul him away.
Instead he was lurking in his car across the street from Talia’s house, going over his manufactured excuse to check up on her so it would ring true when he gave it. Finally she was there, and even the glimpse of her through the window of her car was enough to ratchet his heartbeat up a few more notches. She pulled into her driveway, and as the garage door started to go up, he knew he needed to make his move.
He wanted—no, needed—to see her in person as though his life depended on it. And he knew once she got behind the locked door, there was no guarantee she’d let him in.
Of course, he could easily pick the lock and override the alarm system if she’d even bothered to change the access codes. But he figured breaking into the house when she didn’t want him there wouldn’t win him any points.
He got out of the car and sprinted across the street, ducking into the garage just as the door started to slam shut. He took some small satisfaction in the fact that even though Sutherland was out of the picture, she was still following the regular safety protocols, entering through the garage and not getting out of the car until the door was shut.
However, Jack had just proven to himself how easy that was to bypass providing you moved fast enough. He made a mental note to address the deficiency.
Talia got out of the car, and as she went to the trunk to retrieve her bag, he called her name.
She gasped and jumped about a foot but recovered quickly, landing in a fighting stance as she looked around the dim garage. He knew the second she saw him because her expression morphed immediately from fear to a ferocious glare. “You asshole! How long have you been hiding out in here?” She popped the trunk, got her bag out, and slammed it shut.
“Actually I was waiting across the street for you to come home. I slipped in the garage before the door closed.”
“Some foolproof security you set me up with,” she sniffed. She punched in the alarm code, opened the door, and walked inside, and he followed about three inches behind. She must have showered at the gym, because she was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and she smelled so good it was all he could do not to grab her close and bury his face in her neck.
He could see her hesitate, and he knew she was thinking about trying to slam the door in his face. She must have realized the futility, because she continued into the kitchen and let him in without a fight.
“Nothing is foolproof, which is why you have to be extra careful,” he said, his eyes tracking her around the kitchen. As he watched her slim, toned form moving underneath the layers of clothing, his hands itched to touch her.
He curled his fingers into fists, afraid that any moment his control would snap and he would reach out and grab her. “How was your workout?”
Her eyes narrowed into dark slits. “Did you follow me to—” Before she got the question out, she looked down at the gym bag she still held in her right hand. “Oh, duh.”
“I would have known without the bag. I’ve been keeping track of you through the GPS in your phone.”
Her jaw dropped. “Seriously? You’re still spying on me behind my back?”
“How is it behind your back if you knew I was tracking you and Rosie?”
“That was before.”
J
ack took a step closer, unable to stop himself. “I know you’re pissed, and I understand why. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped caring. Until we find out who killed Sutherland and why, I want to keep tabs on you, simple as that.”
“And then what?”
“I’ll go back to Seattle and you’ll never hear another word from me,” he said, the words burning his throat like acid. He took another step closer. “If that’s what you want.”
Her throat bobbed and he could see the tears in her eyes, and for a split second he saw the hurt that matched his own through the crack in her indignation. Dammit, if he could just push past the wall she’d put up and get her to move past her anger and give him another chance.
But she recovered swiftly, her stony expression back in place. “Why are you here? Did you find something out?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably. “I came to pick up a couple things. I left a T-shirt and a couple pairs of socks in the laundry the night I left.”
Her face suddenly flooded with color. “The socks are in the dryer,” she said, indicating with her thumb the direction of the hall closet where the washer and dryer were stacked. “And, uh, I think the T-shirt is in my bedroom.”
She disappeared upstairs and came back seconds later, the gray T-shirt with ARMY emblazoned across the chest balled up in her right fist. “Here.” She tossed it to him, and as the cloth unfurled, he caught the unmistakable scent of her skin clinging to it.
Jack’s mouth pulled up at the corners. She’d fished his shirt out of the laundry and had been sleeping in it. She wasn’t nearly so closed up as she pretended to be. He brought it to his nose and took another deep inhale. “Thanks.”
Her cheeks darkened to crimson, her dark eyes snapping with heat. “You came all the way over for a pair of running socks and a ratty T-shirt?”
“It’s my favorite,” he said simply.
