In a Heartbeat (8 page)

“I’m told you wanted to see me.”

His head shot up. “You!”

She frowned. “That’s the third time you’ve greeted me like that.”

“I’ll try not to make it habit-forming.” Just seeing her lightened his spirits. He struggled to keep a smile from tipping his lips. She needed to understand what she put him through. “Come in, sit down. We need to talk.”

She smiled tentatively, then hobbled toward the left chair in front of his desk.

He stood, then walked around the desk to close the door. “No crutches? How’s the ankle?”

She angled her body on the chair, then lifted the injured leg, now encased in a white plastic brace, only to plop it down on the seat next to her. The very seat he had intended to use. She smiled up at him, almost as if she had placed her foot there to keep him at arm’s length. “The doctor gave me this plastic ankle brace. See?” She tilted her leg from side to side. “It fits inside a tennis shoe. Not that it’s very fashionable.”

He noted her emphasis on “fashion” but couldn’t grasp the

significance.

Hank braced his hip on the edge of the desk and raised his foot to the same chair, inches from her tennis shoe. Ignoring her uncertain glance, he rested his forearm on the bent knee and leaned forward, effectively trapping her in the corner. Now he would get some answers.

“What happened to you Saturday night?”

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“Didn’t you see my note? I called my brother and asked him to pick me up.”

“Some note, all it said was not to worry. It didn’t say anything about where you had gone.”

She shifted in the chair, his gaze following her movements. Her black slacks stretched tight across her thighs. Slender thighs. Encased in very sheer stockings beneath those slacks, he imagined. His entire mouth felt as dry as the
Wall Street Journal
lying on his desk. He forgot for a moment what he wanted to ask.

She was too calm. Too well-rehearsed. He wanted to see her squirm and feel a fraction of the anxiety he had felt over her disappearance.

“You called your brother?” He leaned a little closer, cramping her space. “The idiot?”

“I shouldn’t have called him that. He just gets overly concerned for my well-being.”

“Yes, let’s talk about that well-being.” Now they were getting to the crux of the matter. “You were going to explain about those pills in your purse.”

She shifted in the chair, her eyes downcast. A knot formed in his chest. He wanted to reach across and shake the truth out of her. Instead, he opted for a confession. “You know, I tried to find you Sunday. I went to your house and that zombie next door said you hadn’t returned.”

“I told you.” She glanced up, her eyes narrowed. “I stayed with Stephen. It wasn’t right that I imposed upon you that way.”

“Imposed? I invited you. It wasn’t an imposition.” He stood, then paced around the perimeter of the office. “You want to talk imposition.

Let’s talk about how you landed in my lap headfirst. That was an imposition, but this—”

“Will you keep your voice down! Someone will hear,” she hissed.

“Besides, you know what I mean. You’re involved with someone.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it. I invited you to rest your ankle, not appease my perverse appetites.” He frowned down at her. “Tell me, were you afraid that I would take advantage of the situation—”

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In a Heartbeat

“No--” she injected.

“Or that I wouldn’t,” he finished.

She blanched.

“My God.” He stuttered. “That’s it. That’s why you left!” A pretty blush covered her cheeks. She turned her face to the wall, but he reached over and gently turned her face to his. The vulnerability in those sweet blue eyes squelched the joy of his discovery. His breath caught. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I was so worried and then—” His chin sank to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

Her fingers gently wrapped around his palm, tugging his hand from her cheek. “It’s not your fault,” she said. Her words rode on a current of sweet breath that warmed his cheek. Her scent, soft and inviting, penetrated his thoughts. “I never should have—”

“Philip!” a woman shrieked.

Elizabeth Everett, wrapped in a body-hugging sweater dress, glared from the doorway. “Am I interrupting something?”

Damn. He hadn’t expected her to arrive so soon. He hesitated, then straightened. “As a matter of fact, you—”

“You called and said we needed to talk. I drop everything, catch a plane to Ohio,” she glared at Angela, “and find this.”

“Knock off the dramatics, Elizabeth. Nothing was happening here.”

The woman was a hellcat. Owens’s offer of a million dollars might not be enough. “Ms. Blake and I were merely discussing—”

“Discussing?” She stepped closer, a smug smile firmly in place. “Is that what you call it when some sweet young thing spreads her legs for you in your office?”

Angela’s eyes widened into two blue ovals while his entire body went rigid. Clenching his hands into fists at his sides, he stepped between Elizabeth and Angela. “You have no right,” he growled.

“Excuse me,” Angela said behind him. “I think I should go.”

Hank motioned behind him for Angela to stay. If anyone should leave, it should be Elizabeth.

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“Right? I have every right,” Elizabeth screeched. “Is this what you wanted to discuss?” She pointed an accusatory finger. “Her?”

“Calm down. It’s not what you think,” he repeated. Although his words were directed to Elizabeth, his thoughts centered on Angie as she brushed past him on her way to the door. He wanted to stop her, wanted to explain, but it would be impossible with Elizabeth in the room.

Angela slipped through the open door, turned and attempted to pull the door closed quietly behind her. Elizabeth stepped in the path of the closing door, leveling her glare at Angela. “I won’t forget you.” She narrowed her eyes. “Nobody messes with what’s mine and gets off this easy.”

Goosebumps lifted on Angela’s arms. No one had ever threatened her before, especially with such pure hatred. She jerked the door free of the model’s grasp and pulled it closed.

“Jesus,” a man’s southern drawl sounded behind her. “What was that all about?”

Angela swirled around, practically ramming the controller’s chest. As the head of the accounting department and one of the few employees who had been with the company since it was founded, Tom Wilson could be crucial to her ability to earn that coveted promotion. He obviously hadn’t been overly impressed with her at that meeting last week. Now this.

“Mr. Wilson.” She stepped back, smoothing back the hair from her face. “I, uh, Mr. Renard had a visitor.”

“A loud one from the sounds of it.” He grinned at the feminine wail partially muted by the closed door. “Daddy won’t be pleased.” He turned to walk down the narrow hallway that connected “executive row” to the rest of the offices.

“Excuse me?” Angela hurried to catch up to him. She put her hand on Tom’s arm, partly to stop him, and partly to ease some discomfort.

The ankle brace hadn’t provided enough support for all the jerky turns and twists.

“What happened to you?” Tom glanced down at the bulky brace.

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“It’s just a sprain. Nothing serious.” She pulled her hand back from his arm and cocked her head up to him. “What did you mean when you said ‘Daddy won’t be pleased’?”

“That’s Elizabeth Everett in his office, isn’t it?” Angela nodded in response. “Her daddy owns this place.”

“No,” she gasped. “I thought someone named Jim Owens owned the company.”

“He does. Jim is her father. He told me once that Elizabeth’s agent made her change her name.” Tom ran a hand through his thinning gray hair. “Jim wasn’t too happy about that, either.”

“So Hank…Mr. Renard,” she corrected, “is dating the boss’s daughter?” Her breath escaped as if someone had punched her in the stomach.

“Why the surprise?” Tom teased, one side of his mouth curled up to a sneer. “In this business it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” He nodded toward the door. “Why else would he be here? He’s not old enough to know the business yet.” He turned and continued down the hall, but not before she heard his lowered tone. “Not like he should.”

Angela leaned against the wall. Mental tumblers clicked into place in a very unpleasant combination.
He’s a user
, a part of her brain screamed. He’s after her money. That’s why there were no pictures of Elizabeth in his room.
The man is pond scum. If he used one woman to
get ahead, he’ll use another.

The blood drained from her face. Hank already knew about her

“other” part-time job. He knew about the rules on relationships between auditors and their clients, and yet he still coerced her into his house. She gnawed at her lower lip. Stephen’s words from two nights ago haunted her.

“What do you know about this man?” he had lectured. “He could be a murderer, a pervert or something. How could you be so stupid, Angela?”

Oh, how she had defended him then, she remembered.

“Don’t be silly,” she had argued. “He’s no more a murderer than that guy next door. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel safe with him.”

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Of course, she really hadn’t felt safe alone with him. That’s why she’d called Stephen. She hadn’t been afraid he’d hurt her. It was something else, something she wouldn’t begin to try to explain to her brother. A tremor twisted deep inside her.

“Oh God.” Her head clunked back against the wall with a thud.

“What have I done?”

You trusted him
, a small voice reasoned.
And why not? What proof,
real proof, do you have that he’s not trustworthy?
She drew in a deep breath. There were two sides to every story, she calmly reasoned.
Don’t
judge him until you know his side.

She closed her eyes. “Don’t judge,” she repeated, as if the sound of her words would chase the other thoughts from her head. “Don’t judge.”

“Angela? Are you all right?” a woman asked.

Her eyes opened instantly. Mouthwatering smells drifted from the white bag tightly clutched in Cathy’s hand. The secretary’s lips thinned into a line of concern. “Is it your leg? Can I get you anything?”

Angela sighed, pushing away from the wall. “I’m fine,” she answered for the umpteenth time. “Just fine.” She walked unsteadily down the hall.

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“Max, I want to be out of here tomorrow,” Angela announced as soon as she returned to the conference room. “Where do we stand?”

“Well, I finished testing that stack of accounts payable invoices you requested.”

Angela eased down on one padded chair and propped her injured foot up on another. “Anything unusual?”

“Nope.” He stretched, the white cotton shirt pulled tight across his chest. “Looked pretty complete to me.”

“So every invoice had a copy of the purchase order and the receiving report, showing the warehouse received the goods ordered and invoiced, right?” Angie rattled almost routinely, her mind still occupied with her recent enlightenment. She shuffled the file folders, looking for the one with the audit program that documented completed versus uncompleted audit steps. The sooner she could distance herself from Hank Renard and his rude girlfriend the better.

“All except the direct ships.”

She paused in her search. “Direct ships?” Her mind shuffled through all the interviews with the various department heads, searching for where she had heard that term before.

“Yeah, that’s when the merchandise is shipped directly to a customer.” Max tugged at the bottom of his tie. “Sara explained it all to me.”

“Sara?” Angie drawled. “Another conquest?”

“No.” He laughed. “Tom Wilson wasn’t in his office, so I asked Sara about the invoices without receivers.”

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Yes, it was all coming back. The interview with Tom Wilson and the embarrassing confrontation with Renard. “Can you show me one?” she asked.

Max flipped through the stack of papers before sliding a page with navy blue letterhead across the table. “Most of the invoices from Timone Industries are direct ships.”

“Timone Industries,” Angela repeated, studying the letterhead. “It’s a local company, but there’s no street address, just a post office box.”

“Is something wrong with that?” Max started thumbing through the stack of invoices. “Lots of these vendors list PO box numbers along with their street addresses.”

“No,” she hesitated, not ready to disclose her “other” job to Max.

Having driven limousines all over town, she recognized most local street addresses. Several people knew of her brother’s business, but no one knew of her chauffeur sideline. She quickly modified that thought. One person, one possibly pond scum of a person, knew her secret.

“Now this street I know.” She tapped the ship-to address on the Timone Industries invoice. “Ritchton Street.” She propped her chin up with her right hand. “That’s not the best of neighborhoods.” She tried to remember the street, but her memory only dredged up images of refuse-strewn alleyways and vacant office buildings. She shuddered and the images disappeared. “Were any of the direct ships from someone other than Timone Industries?”

“There were only seven direct ships in the sample. Most were from Timone, but I think maybe there were one or two from somewhere else.”

He looked up at Angie. “Is something wrong?”

“I just want to be thorough, that’s all.” An uncertainty made her hesitate. “Could you do me a favor, Max?” She smiled sweetly. “Could you make a copy of this invoice for me?”

“Oh, I see how it works now.” Max laughed, taking the invoice from her. “You’re going to milk this ankle thing for all it’s worth, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” She laughed. “Only if it’ll work.”

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