by Carmen Green
“You should call Alex and Danielle now. Marc might have said something to them about the necklace.”
She picked up the phone from the desk and began dialing. He listened as she left messages for each of them. When she’d finished, she resumed typing on her laptop and said not a word to him.
Okay. She was ignoring him. He got the message loud and clear and he’d let it go for now.
He looked at the list of airline flights Marc had taken over the past six months. He’d done a lot of traveling, going from the East Coast to the West Coast a few times a month. His job and three wives had kept him busy.
Chris wondered about Marc’s job. Marc had worked for Tyche International for four years, which was a year longer than his fake marriage to his first wife, Danielle.
The last time he’d spoken with Marc was two years ago. Marc had called him out of the blue. He’d wanted them to meet at one of the trendy restaurants in Los Angeles for dinner. He hadn’t wanted to go. Working twelve-to sixteen-hour days for two months trying to track down the group who’d stolen millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds in L.A.’s diamond district had left him bone-tired and frustrated.
When Marc asked him to be the executor of his estate because he trusted him to take care of his family, he agreed to meet Marc. His brother knew which buttons to push. Their father had died weeks before he was to marry their mother and without a will. Without his father’s military benefits, she had little money to support herself, Marc and him.
Once Marc had given him a preliminary copy of his will, which already named him as the executor, he and Marc had little to talk about to each other.
They might as well have been strangers. Marc talked about his job, the deals he’d made and the places he’d traveled. Looking back, Chris realized his brother had said very little about his wife that night. Make that wives—Marc had been “married” to both Danielle and Renee at the time. Marc could have said something to one of his coworkers. He wondered if one of them knew about Marc’s many wives?
He swiveled around in the chair to face Renee. She was frowning at the screen, typing fast and hard. Her body language shouted “Leave me the hell alone.” Although, now that he thought about it, he realized she hadn’t said a single curse word since he’d met her. He raised his brows in surprise when he saw her frown deepen and her shoulders hunch forward.
How long, he wondered, would she stare at the computer, pretending he wasn’t in the room? From the stubborn look on her face, he’d bet a very long time.
He’d love to pit his skills in persuasion against her stubborn will. She’d proven how stubborn she could be by refusing to settle Marc’s estate and refusing to meet with him after the funeral. She’d won those battles, but he was certain she wouldn’t win when she had to go against him in person. He thought about the kiss they’d shared and was sure that with time, he could turn her anger into passion. But time was the one thing they couldn’t waste if they were going to find the necklace.
“Giving me the silent treatment isn’t going to help us find the necklace.”
He could see the internal war on her face. Her frown remained firmly in place. Oh, yeah, she was still mad, but he also saw the speculation in her eyes as she weighed her choices. Talk or ignore him? He had no doubt that she’d talk.
* * *
She hadn’t handled that well. She’d been rude to him and having been too many times on the receiving end of rude behavior, she didn’t like being rude to others. Still, she did not want to talk to him. He hadn’t pushed her personal hot button. He’d hit it with a sledgehammer.
As a child, she’d had no control over her education. She went to school where her parents told her to go. Her parents had always made it seem as if they were giving up so much to send her to school, when in fact, they hadn’t given up a thing. The only time they really paid attention to her was when her grades were in. They hadn’t cared that she was lonely or scared. No matter how much she told them that she loved them and wanted to live with them, they’d brought her back to school and left her. Years later, Renee had begged to live with Aunt Gert, but she’d learned that it was useless to ask. Her parents wouldn’t consider it.
Her education wasn’t something she liked to discuss. When people learned that she’d never attended first through fifth grades, they looked at her as if she was some kind of a freak.
That’s what bothered her. Chris had been so sweet and kind with her last night, she didn’t want to see pity or disdain on his face when he looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s just that I’m really sensitive about my education.”
“I noticed, and we don’t have to discuss it if it bothers you.”
“I might as well tell you about it. It’s probably in the background check you ran on me.”
“What makes you think I ran a background check on you?” His tone was neutral. He had run a check on her and the other wives.
“I had you investigated, so I would think you would have done a background check on all three of Marc’s wives. Any one of us had reason to hurt or maybe kill him if we’d learned what he’d done to us. Just so you know, I had nothing to do with his death.”
“I know. You were working at the university library when Marc died,” he said.
Might as well get this over with. “I became a librarian because I like learning. I can see or read something once and have it down cold. I’ve always been that way.”
“A handy talent, especially when you’re in school.”
“Yes. It is. I attended boarding school in the first grade. Well, not exactly. I went to first grade for about two weeks, which was just enough time for the school to give the students IQ tests and get the results back. I tested very well and because of my test scores, I was offered several scholarships. My parents selected the scholarship offered by Brendan Academy. I started the fifth grade a few weeks later.”
“Your parents didn’t have a problem sending their six-year-old away to school?”
“My parents chose to send me to one of the best schools in the country for gifted students.” That was the standard answer she’d learned to give while growing up. It hadn’t helped when she first arrived. She’d cried herself to sleep at night, wondering what she’d done to make her parents send her away.
“If it were your child, would you make the same choice?” he asked.
“No. I got a great education but I missed out on a lot of other things.” Like birthday parties with kids her own age and going out on dates. Maybe if she’d dated more, she would have realized Marc wasn’t right for her before she married him.
“Marc thought my parents made the right decision. If we had children, he wanted them to go there. Start a new tradition. But I told him the only way my children would attend is if we’d moved close to the school so our child could come home every day.”
“That sounds reasonable.” It’s what her parents should have done for her.
“Thanks. Truthfully I don’t think we would have had children, even if he hadn’t had a vasectomy. Marc was rarely home and when he was, he was usually working.”
“Did he have friends at work?”
“He never mentioned anyone in particular other than his assistant, Bill Reynolds. They were in constant contact.”
“Reynolds,” he said, then turned in his chair and began typing on his laptop. “Marc wrote several checks to Bill Reynolds.”
“He did?” She walked to his desk and looked over his shoulder at his computer screen. Marc had written fifteen checks to Reynolds in a period of three months. She sucked in her breath. “That’s seven thousand six hundred and fifty-eight dollars and ninety-eight cents. What was Marc paying him to do?”
Chris thought that was a good question. He also wondered how she’d added up the sums of those checks so quickly in her head. He’d come back to that later. “We need to talk to Mr. Reynolds.”
“Marc gave me his telephone number. I’ll g
et it.” She marched to her computer.
“It would be better to talk to him in person. Can you take off from work this week?”
“That’s not a problem. My next contract with the library doesn’t start until next month.”
“Have you collected Marc’s personal items from his office?”
“No. Mr. Reynolds said I could get them anytime.”
“Perfect. Make an appointment to pick them up, but let him think you’re coming alone. If Marc was paying him that much money, he knows something. I plan to find out what it is.”
CHAPTER 8
Renee had no trouble making an appointment to meet with Bill Reynolds the following morning. They’d paid through the nose for round-trip tickets from Birmingham to Los Angeles, scheduled to depart the following morning. From the scant information he’d been able to find, Reynolds seemed to be your typical, middle-class employee. He had one speeding ticket last year and no criminal record.
Without Reynolds’s bank records, Chris had no way of knowing what he did with the money. If this were a case, he would have gotten that information.
The amount of information Renee had gathered had him shaking his head in wonder. Most of the information was a matter of public record, but the average person wouldn’t know where to find it.
“How did you learn to do all this?” he asked when the information just kept coming.
“I worked as an intern for an information brokerage firm. The company did everything from running background checks on potential employees to competitive analysis. My mentor was one of the best in the company. I almost accepted a position there when I finished library school, but I decided to get my Ph.D. instead.”
“So, that’s how you found all the information on Marc.” He smiled. If she were with the bureau, she’d be hell on wheels and he’d probably have to fight off agents left and right to get to her. She fascinated him.
She gave him a puzzled look. “I told you that yesterday.” At that moment her computer beeped. “Alex sent me an e-mail,” she said, then gasped in disbelief.
“What?”
“Look at this.” She turned the laptop around. “She used a purple font and it’s from her work e-mail account,” she said, stunned.
Chris didn’t know what amused him more: the girly-girl purple font Alex used in her e-mail or Renee’s shocked reaction. “Her family does own the company,” he offered.
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “A family-owned business is still a business. Who’s going to take her seriously if she sends e-mails that look like this?”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to be taken seriously.” Alex had been called the black Paris Hilton for her party-girl lifestyle.
“Oh, trust me. She wants to be taken seriously.” Renee picked up her cell phone and seconds later had Alex on the line.
While Renee talked to Alex about correct business correspondence, he read the e-mail message. Alex knew nothing about the necklace, but would ask a friend of a friend who was really into estate jewelry if she’d seen a necklace like that lately.
He doubted her friend of a friend would have seen the necklace. Most of Alex’s crowd was constantly in celebrity magazines. It would not be good for them to be photographed wearing stolen jewelry. For the past year, Alex had kept a low profile, no doubt due to Marc’s influence. He’d learned how to dodge the press from Danielle.
He watched her pace from one end of the office to the next. She seemed to know a lot about Alex’s company. “Alex, stop second-guessing yourself.” Renee put her hand on her hip. “Your business plans are fine. Wait, someone’s on the other line. Hang on a second.” She looked at the phone. “It’s Danielle. I’m going to put us on three-way.”
A few minutes later, Renee closed the phone. “Marc didn’t give the necklace to either of them,” she said.
“It was a long shot, but at least we know they don’t have it.
“Yeah. I would have been really ticked off if Marc had given it to either of them. I still don’t understand why he took the necklace.”
“Money.”
“That’s just it. He wouldn’t accept the money Aunt Gert wanted to give us as a wedding present. He wouldn’t even move into this house because he didn’t want her to lose the income she got by renting it. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Things don’t always make sense, especially when Marc is involved. He didn’t have to steal, but he was really good at shoplifting when we were growing up.”
“What? Are you serious?”
“Dead serious. I think the only reason he wasn’t caught is that we moved all the time. If we lived someplace for more than a year, store security would follow us around. They knew one of us was stealing, but they never caught him.”
“Did they catch you?” she asked softly.
“I never stole anything. I got caught trying to return a watch Marc had stolen.” Even now his stomach burned with anger and frustration. “He’d stolen a Rolex to give to Mom for her birthday. I told him to take it back because she’d get in trouble. She worked as a maid in a hotel and she’d cleaned a few houses for extra money. If she’d shown up at work wearing that watch, they would have accused her of stealing it. He wouldn’t take it back. He said it was time Mom had something nice. I took the watch back to the store but I got caught with it in my pocket.”
“How old were you?”
“Ten. They didn’t press charges against me because I didn’t have a record and when they reviewed the security video, they saw that I didn’t go in the area where the watches were sold. We ended up leaving because she couldn’t get extra work. Nobody wanted to hire a maid who was the mother of a thief.”
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
“I don’t need your sympathy. You need to understand that Marc was more than capable of stealing.”
* * *
It was darn hard trying to sneak glances at Chris while driving on I-459 to have dinner with Aunt Gert. Renee had driven to the bank where Aunt Gert’s safe-deposit box was located. Chris copied the dates from the log of the box.
He hadn’t said much since he told her about Marc stealing a Rolex. Her heart ached for the ten-year-old boy who’d tried to do the right thing and had it blow up in his face.
He was a walking anomaly. He could have easily become a thief like his brother, but there was a core of honor and justice that prevailed inside of him. She realized now that if she’d come to him when she’d learned the necklace was gone, he would have helped her. Because helping her was the right thing to do.
She’d done all she could to block him when he was trying be fair to the wives, and she’d used Marc’s actions as an excuse to treat him with distrust. No, she couldn’t put all the blame on Marc for the way she treated him. Chris was handsome, sexy and powerful. The attraction she felt for him shook her so she had acted like a jerk. He didn’t deserve it.
As she drove into the parking garage of the condominium complex, she considered apologizing to him, but didn’t. If she apologized, then she’d have to explain why. There was no way she was telling him that she was attracted to him. No way.
She would just have to be nice to him and put a damper on her attraction. It shouldn’t be hard. After all, he’d only be here for two weeks.
* * *
Chris scanned the lobby with its tan plastered walls and pristine-white columns as he rolled what Renee had called a scrapbook bag along the gleaming earth-tone terrazzo floor. The bag was shaped like a square, stumpy suitcase and weighed a ton. When they were leaving her house, they had a brief tug-of-war over the case. The war didn’t last long. He’d simply picked up the case and walked out the door. She’d had no choice but to follow.
Classical music played softly in the background. The building had elegance and money written all over it. A number of large, plush sofas and chairs where scattered around the area separated by large green plants. On one of the sofas, three older men looked up from behind newspapers. One man smiled when he saw Renee
and all three gave him a hard, assessing look.
Renee shifted one of the two plastic grocery bags in one hand and waved to the group. The three men nodded hello, but didn’t make any attempt to start reading their papers again. Chris positioned himself so he had a clear view of them. Something in the way they looked at him made him suspicious.
Renee walked to a large desk. Standing behind it was an older white man with thinning gray hair, wearing a black three-piece suit and a condescending look, and a young Hispanic uniformed security guard.
“Good evening, Mrs. Foster. What do you have in the bags?” The man’s pompous tone grated on his nerves.
“Groceries,” she replied. “I still haven’t received a copy of the amended homeowners’ agreement, Mr. Hall.”
The smile the man gave her was smug. “I’m sure the home office has mailed it. You should have it soon. May I?” He held out his hand.
Renee placed the bags on the counter. The man looked inside then turned to Chris. “Please sign the visitors’ sign-in sheet.”
Chris signed his name on the paper and followed Renee to the elevator and maneuvered the bag inside when the doors opened.
“What was that all about?”
She frowned. “About a month ago, Aunt Gert received a memo stating a change had been made to the homeowners’ agreement. Now, residents and visitors are allowed to bring two bottles of alcohol on the premises per day. Aunt Gert never received a copy of the new agreement. I asked Mr. Hall about it and he said contact the home office.”
“Is he the manager?”
“Yes.”
“Seems like an arrogant son of…”
“Shush.” She held her finger to her lips.
“Gun,” he added drily. “I do try to watch my language around you.”
“Thanks.”
“You don’t swear at all?” He had never met anyone outside of preachers who didn’t curse.
“No…well, okay. I did say two bad words when I went to the safe-deposit box and discovered Aunt Gert’s necklace missing.” Her face was red and she looked down at her feet.
