Be Your Everything [All for Love] (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (10 page)

A pair of small, silver earrings and her silver watch, and she was ready to go. The black pumps with the modest heel and the sexy peep toes were tucked neatly by the front door, alongside her purse. Heather toed into them, although they didn’t bring her any pleasure today, and snatched up the bag, letting herself out, locking up. She walked quickly and quietly down the hall to the elevator, deciding to take her car. There would be parking available in the company lot because of the early hour, and she could pick up groceries after work without having to haul them home on public transport. She actually felt pleased with herself for making plans and thinking ahead. Plus, she didn’t want the gallons of ice cream she intended to buy melting on public transport.

The elevator announced its presence with the usual bell tone and Heather wondered if she’d shut off the coffee. Of course she had. Her OCD tendencies increased when she was stressed. She sighed and hurried back down the hall. Obsessive compulsive. That was her. Matthew didn’t know how lucky he was to avoid her shit, although he hadn’t seemed to mind. And the coffeemaker was off. She retraced her steps and of course had to call the elevator back. So much for getting in early.

Playing the radio loudly all the way to work, listening to the weather forecast for the weekend, not that she was stepping outside her door, Heather tuned into some classic rock. She sang along with something about having a bad case of love before switching to country. That was worse. A heartache. Channel change. Everybody loving somebody sometime. The whole world was conspiring against her. She pulled into the lot and found a space marked for employees. It was scramble parking unless you were worthy of an assigned space, somewhere up around personal assistant level, and certainly above secretary. She shivered. Meredith was killed in this parking lot, quite late in the evening, stabbed and her purse stolen.

Heather used her pass card to enter the building and hurried toward the elevator, hoping the same security guard from yesterday wasn’t on. Gordon wasn’t the most astute guy in the world but even he looked a trifle suspicious of her glasses case story. But there was a new guy on the desk, someone she hadn’t seen before. Two young men were also standing there and she recognized them as working somewhere in the building. The guard raised a hand and beckoned to her. She went, puzzled. His name tag read Rodney. She had a budgie once named Rodney. And a crush on a Rodney in elementary school. And all her random thoughts weren’t distracting her from thinking about Matthew.

“Sign in, miss.”

Well, that was strange. Heather hadn’t heard of any new policies. Shrugging, she wrote her name, then printed it, her department, the floor and office number as requested.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She smiled at his politeness and made the elevator without further ado, joined by the other two eager beavers. After exchanging the obligatory comments on the weather, they got off at floors six and eight, and the car sailed upwards to number fourteen. Heather stepped off into a flurry of activity. A somewhat familiar blond man in a suit snapped his phone shut and approached her. Beyond him were a number of men and women in suits or windbreakers. The windbreakers were stencilled with POLICE in abrasive yellow, really hard to miss. Her stomach hurt and her knees wobbled as she added two and two and came up with the correct number. Matthew would be here. She’d been correct in her speculation of an undercover assignment.

“Miss Graham. I’m Bryce Olsen, lead investigator for Jameson and Company’s parent company. Please come with me.”

The security guard must have called up with her information and there’d been nothing out of the ordinary on the other two floors. She numbly followed Bryce Olsen, and realized he was the man who’d been with Matthew at the police station. A few of the other personnel looked at her, but without any real curiosity. They all seemed to have a job to do. She was led to one of the conference rooms. Files littered the table and a woman sat at one end, leafing through them, making notes. Another had a laptop open and was looking at the screen, then at the contents of a file. Heather’s stomach clenched with dread. This was clearly very, very serious.

“Please take a seat. Would you like some coffee? Water?”

“I think I should call a lawyer.” Heather wasn’t sure why she made the statement. Probably from watching so many TV cop shows.

Olsen looked at her sharply. “All right. Tell me if that’s what you want to do, although you might want to hear me out first.”

Heather thought a minute, then gestured for him to continue. She was scared to death and not just about the unknown. Matthew was here and she didn’t want to see him.

“We’re investigating a serious case of fraud, Miss Graham, Heather, involving this department. And more importantly, a murder.”

She couldn’t speak. Words literally failed her. She stared at him, shocked, and tried to breathe. Finally, “Murder?”

“Murder. And fraud.”

Screw the fraud. Who had been murdered? Matthew? She shook. Another man entered the room, a pistol in a holster on his hip. He looked at her in a calculating manner. Biting her bottom lip in an effort not to scream her question, clutching the edge of the table with both hands, Heather tried to breathe.

“Who was murdered?” she choked out.

“Meredith Fox.”

Relief overwhelmed her. She swivelled in her chair and put her head between her knees. A warm, familiar hand rested on the nape of her neck and she sobbed.

“Heather, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

She didn’t respond, didn’t dare. A male voice, probably belonging to the man with the gun, overrode Matthew’s. “Well, that was either the best acting job I’ve ever seen or she’s surprised her boss had something to do with the victim’s death.”

“Back off, McAllister.” Matthew’s voice held a note of deadly warning. Heather tried to raise her head and he lifted his hand, leaving her bereft. She swung back to face the table and looked at the wooden surface, tracing the grain with her eyes. Matthew was alive. Mr. Grayson killed Meredith? Matthew was alive. Breathe. New mantra.

“You’d better go, Manny,” Bryce Olsen spoke with authority.

“Yeah, Baker. Conflict of interest, remember?”

Manny? Baker? Manny Baker, not Matthew Bourke. Heather felt him leave, and the room became dimmer, colder somehow. A bottle of water materialized to her right and she caught movement across the table from her. She cautiously raised her eyes and met Mr. Olsen’s. Better she kept things formal. He switched a tiny recorder on and she realized there was a video camera on a tripod, focused on her.

“Do you still want a lawyer?” Mr. Olsen asked the question quietly, with no hint of anything other than interest in his tone.

Heather shook her head. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.

“You need to respond orally for the tape, Miss Graham.”

“No. No, I don’t want a lawyer.”

After confirming her decision he asked her to give her name and other relevant personal information. Then he jumped right in.

“You appeared shocked to hear Mr. Grayson is implicated in his personal assistant’s death.”

Heather nodded, then hurriedly answered. “I was shocked. I
am
shocked. He talks about her. He seemed to admire her. He hasn’t replaced her. It doesn’t seem possible.”

Her interrogator abruptly changed the topic, avoiding her unspoken question, like how did they know? “Tell me about your job description.”

She regrouped. That was easy. She gave a brief synopsis of her position, adding that she’d started out in the general pool before going to work for Mr. Grayson.

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Just over the year. I covered holidays, mat leaves, and sick leaves before that. I’ve been with the company for nearly eleven years.”

“And you’ve never wanted to work for just one person before that.”

Mr. Olsen made it sound suspicious. Not a question, but a comment on her intent. Heather looked at him with more confidence. She wasn’t as shaky now and she was feeling a little annoyed. She was also smart enough to know they’d be looking for anyone to drop in the shit with Mr. Grayson.

“I liked the unpredictability before. It was a challenge to adapt quickly and learn a new boss’s approach and expectations. I took a fairly boring job and made it interesting for me. This company has excellent benefits and a fair salary. How about you?”

Mr. Olsen’s calm
demeanor shifted for an instant. “We aren’t talking about me, Miss Graham. But I think I take your point. So what changed with Mr. Grayson?”

“I was turning thirty. I guess I thought I should have stability.”

“Why Mr. Grayson?”

“I covered for his secretary a number of times. She was older and not well. When she retired he asked for me. I suppose he was happy with my work.” Or maybe he recognized how disinterested she was in the job. Competent but content to keep her distance. Maybe Mr. Grayson carried out some serious shit right underneath her nose. And why wouldn’t he? He’d kept her at arms length, which was just fine with her.

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary about your boss in the past year or so?”

“Like what? I hardly see him. I answer the phones, schedule appointments, make his travel arrangements, type his reports and so forth as I’ve told you. I don’t take dictation. He does his own filing. He’s very private.”

“Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

“Mr. Olsen, most everyone I’ve worked for have their own preferences. Mr. Grayson was no different. I don’t know what you’re looking for. I try not to speculate.” Heather wished desperately she hadn’t thrown that flippant comment out to Matthew-Manny about bookies. She’d just said it because her boss was so anal about getting away for lunch on time, like he had a standing appointment. All she’d done was speculate.

Mr. Olsen asked
what felt like hundreds more questions. Heather answered them. It appeared they were looking for a piece of missing data. Well, they could have at her computer. If it was there she didn’t know what it meant. She wrote down her user ID and passwords and handed them over. It was a formality and she knew it. Their tech crew would have cracked her computer long ago. She debated mentioning Mr. G’s obsession with lunch hours and insistence on no one being in his office, especially when he wasn’t there. But Matthew-Manny already knew that, and she was damned if she was going to speculate anymore.

“You have a substantial amount in savings.”

Shit. Of course they’d know that. They would have looked into everything surrounding Mr. Grayson. “I’m thrifty. I save. If you know I have money in the bank, then you know it reflects my salary and my standard of living.”

Enough was enough. She
certainly wasn’t telling Mr. Olsen she was seriously considering going back to school. Matthew or Manny or whoever he was didn’t need to know any more personal information about her than he already learned. A flush of humiliation crept up her neck. She could feel it. How much did Olsen know? How much had Matthew-Manny told him about her? Had they laughed, jocks together?

Mr. Olsen reached out and turned off the tiny recorder, and got up to go shut down the video camera. “Thank you, Miss Graham. If you’ll sign this nondisclosure form, you may go.”

“Where?” Heather thought it was a fair question. She scrawled her name across the document after briefly scanning it. If she’d just donated her organs then they could take her heart first. Her neck still felt the imprint of that warm hand and she hurt all over, but mostly deep inside her chest.

“Wherever you like, except for this building. Especially your office. It’s being utilized.”

“And my job?”

“Once you’re cleared, Jameson and Company will place you again. Not in this department, but you’ll have employment here.”

Nope. She’d be a pariah, either too stupid to know what Grayson was up to, or implicated somehow. But Heather made herself nod and stood. Time to get out of Dodge. She hadn’t visited her mom in a while. And college started next month. Maybe she could apply in time and if she was lucky, there’d be a slot. Mr. Olsen came around to open the door for her. He offered his hand, but she pretended not to see it. He’d done her no
favors
, and was thick as thieves with Matthew-Manny. The way Olsen looked at her, well, he knew his partner had been in her bed. Maybe he knew her best talents there, too, if she had any.

Matthew-Manny was waiting for her in the hallway. She ignored him and walked past. He grasped her arm and forced her to stop. “We need to talk, Heather. I’ll be tied up here all day. I’ll call you when I can, and if you don’t want me at your place, I’ll meet you somewhere.”

She nodded and pointedly looked at where his hand gripped her wrist.

“Will you meet me, Heather?”

She nodded again.

“Promise?”

That was easy. Liars begat liars. “Yes.”

Matthew-Manny’s chocolate eyes studied hers. Heather lacked the energy to dissemble, and he seemed to confuse her flat affect for acquiescence.
Sometimes when one lives right, fortune smiles on one.
Mom’s vagrant shared thought. And this time she wasn’t going to confuse the fake fortune with the real one. She was going to get away. Matthew-Manny released her, letting his fingers drift over her hand in a whisper of promise.

Heather had an insane, momentary urge to throw herself at him and beg him to make this all go away. It passed, partly because the cop with the gun stood watching them with a cynical eye, primarily because she wasn’t stupid.
Fool me once…
She forced her feet into action and moved past the jerk, pretending he wasn’t there. She sensed Manny’s eyes on her until she turned the corner and headed toward the elevator. If she thought about him as Manny, rather than Matthew, the man she fell in love with and slept with, maybe he would fade from her thoughts. Because he likely wasn’t the same man, but a fraud, just like the one he investigated.