Trust No One (18 page)

J
ulius eased out of her body. She winced a little because she was still so sensitive and he was so big. He searched her face and then lifted her gently down off the counter. Her legs felt weak. She grabbed the edge of the sink to steady herself.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She managed a weak smile. “Aside from the fact that I look like I’ve been run over by a truck, do you mean? Absolutely.”

“Got an affirmation for this?”

“How about
The truck that doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger
?”

He nodded with a sage air. “A very uplifting thought.” He checked his own reflection, grimaced and started to peel off his rumpled and stained shirt.

“You may have been hit by a truck,” he said, “but I look like I was standing on the tracks when the train went past.”

The crazy urge to laugh rose up inside her again. She managed to control it but she could not help smiling at Julius’s reflection.

“You don’t look so bad for a man who caught a bad guy this evening,” she said.

“Only after you took him down with that shot to his balls. And in stilettos, no less.” For the first time, Julius smiled with icy satisfaction. “I hate to say this because I sure as hell don’t want to encourage that kind of exercise, but we made a damn good team tonight.”

She smiled, too. “Yes, we did.”

Julius’s smile vanished. He watched her intently. “Where did you learn those self-defense moves?”

“It was part of the therapy that Mom prescribed after I stumbled into the Trager murder. I was having trouble sleeping. Nightmares.”

“Sure,” he said, as if sleep that was ripped apart by images of blood and panic were commonplace and only to be expected.

“I saw a shrink for a while but Mom thought the self-defense classes would give me a sense of control. I’ve kept up with the training.”

“It shows,” Julius said. “You move like someone who has studied dance or gymnastics or martial arts.”

“I’m not the only one who has had some training,” she said. “You’re good. Very good. The Marines?”

“That’s where it started. Afterward I did some martial arts to stay in shape. Like you, I keep up with the exercises.” Julius paused. “Back in the day when I was Harley’s fixer—”

“You mean when you were his executive administrative assistant,” she put in smoothly.

That surprised a short, harsh laugh out of Julius.

“Right,” he said. “What I was about to say is that fixing things for Harley Montoya occasionally got complicated. Some of his development projects were located in regions around the world where you could not always count on the support of local law enforcement. In addition, whenever Harley traveled to foreign job sites he was a target
for kidnappers. Grabbing foreign executives and holding them for ransom is a big business in a number of places around the globe.”

She nodded. “You were Harley’s fixer and his bodyguard. That explains a lot.”

“First time I’ve gotten into a fight here in Seattle, though.” Julius glanced down at his crumpled shirt. “Can’t remember the last time I had trouble in a parking garage.”

She smiled faintly. “They do say that parking garages are dangerous places.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” He studied her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She turned back to her image in the mirror. “I need a shower.”

“So do I.” He glanced at the big, elegantly tiled shower with its array of gleaming faucets, hand sprayers and water jets. “I think there’s room enough for two.”

“You
think
there’s room for two?”

“Never actually conducted an experiment.”

She smiled, pleased. “No time like the present.”

M
illicent pulled the tumbled sheets up around her waist and watched the vampire dress. The sex had been every bit as good as she had known it would be, fueled by the knowledge that, even though she controlled him for now, he was still dangerous.

Burke finished fastening his belt and came to stand at the side of the bed.

“That was definitely interesting,” he said.

“Yes, it was.” She stretched her arms high over her head and yawned. “Maybe we’ll do it again sometime.”

He smiled. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She settled herself more comfortably on the pillows, not bothering to cover her breasts. She had, after all, paid a lot of money for them. They were works of art and she liked to display them in the best possible light.

“One last question,” she said.

He paused at the door of the bedroom. “What is it?”

“I know that you were blackmailing Witherspoon but I wasn’t able
to find out what you had on him. Care to satisfy my curiosity? I must admit he always struck me as squeaky clean.”

“No one is squeaky clean.” Burke smiled. “Least of all Sprague Witherspoon. Shortly before I started dating Nyla, I did my research. I stumbled into the family secret almost by accident.”

“Well? What is the Witherspoon family secret?”

“Long before he reinvented himself as Sprague Witherspoon, rising star of the motivational seminar world, Witherspoon was someone else—Nelson Clydemore—small-time con and, eventually, ex-con.”

It took a second before the penny dropped. Then she started to laugh.

“Oh, that’s rich,” she said. “That’s just so entertaining. If only Kristy and Grace knew. They both believed that he was the real deal—a true believer in the positive-thinking crap.”

“Clydemore did three years for fraud,” Burke said. “According to the court records, he ran a pyramid scheme. It all fell apart when some of his clients got suspicious of results that were too good to be true and contacted the Feds. Clydemore went to prison and served his time. When he got out he assumed a new identity. He became Sprague Witherspoon.”

“Amazing. Does Nyla know about her father’s past?”

“No. She was born after he metamorphosed into Witherspoon, Motivational Guru. There’s no indication that Nyla’s mother or Sprague’s second wife knew the truth, either.”

“That explains why Witherspoon paid blackmail,” Millicent said. “You threatened to reveal his past. It would have destroyed his business.”

“Sure. But that’s not why he paid off on time every month.”

Millicent smiled. “He wanted to keep the secret from Nyla.”

“He knew that if he was exposed as an ex-con who had once run pyramid schemes, she would have been devastated and publicly
humiliated. Their relationship was already tense. He didn’t want her to become any more bitter and resentful toward him.”

“I see.” Millicent made a face. “Family dynamics can get very weird.”

“Yes,” Burke said, “they can. But sometimes they can be quite profitable.”

He disappeared into the living room. A moment later she heard the door close behind him.

Definitely dangerous, she thought. But then, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if there was not some risk involved.

She pushed aside the covers, rose and went into the bathroom to clean up. When she was finished she put on a robe and slippers and settled down with her laptop. Managing a lot of money in various fake accounts designed to throw the authorities off track was hard work.

The security intercom buzzed some time later. She smiled. He had come back for more. No surprise there. She was very good at sex and men got addicted very quickly to good sex.

She closed down the laptop, got to her feet and crossed the room to welcome back the vampire.

J
ulius stood beneath one of the showers and watched Grace enjoy the blasts of hot water that were striking her from all directions. She looked sleek and sexy with rivulets running off the points of her delicate breasts and disappearing into the crease that divided her buttocks. Her hair was plastered to her head and her eyes were closed against the force of the water.

He wanted to brace her against the wall and lose himself in her again but he knew that she was exhausted. He should have been exhausted, too. And he would be, eventually, he assured himself. The hard, fast, amazing sex had taken off some of the edge but it would be a while before he could sleep.

He was coming down from the wildfire high generated by the combination of the brutal encounter in the garage and the primal mating act that had followed. But now he was aware of another sensation, one that was equally elemental.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “And I’m ready for that drink. What about you?”

Grace opened her eyes. He could see her taking stock of her current status. A trace of surprise crossed her face.

“I’m hungry, too,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “Weird.”

“Not when you consider how much energy we expended this evening.” He moved out of the shower, allowing himself one last survey of his private mermaid. She looked so good standing there, nude, in the artificial waterfall.

He made himself turn away and finish toweling off. When he was done he wrapped the towel around his waist. Absently, he used his fingers to rake his hair straight back from his forehead. A sense of unfinished business made him pause.

Grace turned off the shower. He handed her a fresh towel and watched while she hastily wrapped it around herself. When she realized he was still looking at her she raised her brows.

“Something wrong?” she asked. “Aside from the fact that we got mugged tonight, that is.”

“Not sure yet.” He opened a nearby closet and took out the brown, freshly laundered robe inside. “Here, you can use this.” He eyed her left knee, which was still oozing blood. “We’d better cover that. Have a seat.”

She tugged on the robe. “Thanks, but I can deal with the bandaging.”

He was not in a mood to argue. He picked her up and set her on the edge of the counter. She sighed but did not protest.

He eased aside the flap of the robe and examined the raw scrape on her knee.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” he said. “But I’ll bet it hurts like hell.”

“A little,” she admitted. “But there’s no permanent damage.”

He opened a drawer and removed a tube of antibiotic cream. She stiffened when he used a cotton swab to dab the cream on her injured knee but she didn’t say anything.

He took out a box containing several sizes of bandages and selected one that looked like it would cover the scrape. He plastered it neatly in place.

When he looked up from the task he found her watching him with a very intent expression. The soft, seductive intimacy of the situation stirred his senses. He tried to shake off the rising tide of desire. She had been in a fight. She was hurt and would soon be feeling a lot more pain. She had to be exhausted. The sex would have to wait.

“That should take care of the wound,” he said. “You’ll probably be bruised tomorrow but I can’t do much about that.”

“Thank you,” she said. There was a husky rasp to her voice and a sultry heat in her eyes.

He had to be strong for both of them, he decided.

He lifted her down off the counter and set her on her feet. “I’m going to make a couple of sandwiches and dig out the whiskey bottle while you’re finishing up in here.”

“Okay.” She fiddled with the sash of the robe, managing to briefly expose one dainty breast. “This robe is . . . big.”

“It’s mine,” he said. “Sorry, I don’t have one your size.”

She appeared pleased by that information.

“Good,” she said.

“Good?”

She smiled and looked a little smug. “Never mind.”

Women. Sometimes a man needed a translator.

“I’ll go make the sandwiches,” he said.

When in doubt, talk about food.

He left the bathroom and crossed the bedroom to the big walk-in closet. He opened a drawer and pulled out a clean black crewneck T-shirt, briefs and a pair of well-worn jeans. He did not bother with a belt.

Barefooted, he went down the hall to the kitchen, turned on some
lights and opened the refrigerator. He had alerted his housekeeper that he would be spending the night in town. The Remarkable Renee, who came in once a week to clean, had gone grocery shopping for him. In addition to the wedge of cheddar cheese, dill pickles, bread and mayonnaise there was also a carton of eggs and a few other items.

Making the cheddar-and-dill-pickle sandwiches gave him time to think about something other than the fact that Grace was with him and that they had just had the best sex he’d had in a very long time, possibly in forever. Definitely in forever, he concluded.

By the time Grace came down the hall enveloped in his robe, her feet bare, he had the sandwiches and the whiskey waiting on the long, gleaming sweep of black granite countertop that served as his kitchen table. It also did duty as a lunch and dinner table when he was in the city. He never used the polished teak dining table and chairs in the dining room.

“Check your email,” he said.

She stopped, bewildered, for a beat. And then her eyes narrowed a little as understanding hit her.

“Crap,” she said. “Do you think . . . ?”

“Check it.”

“I had my phone off for your speech and forgot to turn it back on afterward, what with all the excitement.”

She went to the table where she had left her evening bag and took out her phone. She powered up the device and studied her messages. When she raised her eyes she looked bemused.

“No email from the stalker,” she said. “But what does that tell us?”

“It tells us that the stalker tried to send another kind of message tonight. He or she might not know yet that it didn’t get delivered as planned. I doubt if the guy with the pipe called his client to report that there had been a few problems and that his pal is sitting in jail.”

Grace took a deep breath and climbed up onto one of the high
stools. She watched him pour the whiskey as if she was mesmerized by the action.

“You think that there’s a connection between what happened tonight and whoever has been sending me those emails, don’t you?” she asked.

He swallowed some whiskey and lowered the glass. “I’m going on that assumption until proven otherwise.”

She propped an elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her hand.

“You’re in this mess because of me.”

“Stop,” he ordered. “We’ve already had this conversation. I’m with you because I want to be with you.”

“Yes, but—”

“Shut up and drink your whiskey.”

She reached for the glass.

He walked around the edge of the counter, sat down beside her and picked up a sandwich. “There is a slight possibility that tonight was all about me. You met my ex this evening.”

Grace paused, her whiskey halfway to her mouth. She stared at him, clearly shocked.

“Surely she wouldn’t hire two thugs to beat you up.”

“Probably not,” he agreed. “Diana has led a rather sheltered life. She wouldn’t know how to find that kind of muscle on the street.”

Grace gave him an odd look. “Who
would
know how to hire the sort of creeps who attacked us tonight?”

“Good question.” He took a bite out of his sandwich. “I’m thinking it’s probably the same bastard who isn’t afraid to handle a dead rat.”

“My stalker.”

“Yeah.” He took another bite and reflected on the evening’s events while he munched.

“Mind if I ask a personal question?” Grace said after a moment.

He shrugged. “Go for it.”

“You said earlier that the Hastings family company was digging its own grave. Do you really believe that?”

“Hastings is in bad shape and I’m sure the problems are inside.”

“Would Edward Hastings be capable of sending a couple of jerks to punish you with a beating?”

“If Ed blames me for his problems, it’s quite possible that he’d take drastic measures. But he and I go back a ways. I’m the one who hired him after he had a falling-out with his father and his uncles. Ed wanted to reboot Hastings and take it into the twenty-first century. But the old guard wouldn’t let go. So he walked.”

“He left Hastings and went to work for you.”

“Yeah, for about two years. Then his father had a heart attack and was forced to retire. The uncles realized they couldn’t handle Hastings on their own. They asked Ed to come back and take control of the company. He accepted the offer. Hastings started sailing into troubled waters a few months later. My gut tells me that if Ed was convinced that I was behind his troubles, it’s a lot more likely that he would walk into my office and take a swing at me, himself.”

“He wouldn’t hire someone to do that?”

“If he did hire someone to do the job he would have employed higher quality talent. I taught him that if you do use a fixer, you buy the best.”

Grace looked at him, eyes widening. “Wow. That’s cold.”

He shrugged and finished the sandwich. He refused to pretend to be something other than what he was—not with Grace. He’d tried to be someone else once before with Diana. Things had not gone well.

Grace drank some more whiskey with a meditative air and lowered the glass. “Maybe the police will be able to get some useful information out of the guy with the knife.”

Julius ran the scenarios in his head the way he did when he was
considering an investment, looking for the stuff that was hiding just out of sight in the shadows.

“My guess is that the guy with the knife won’t be able to tell the cops much about who hired him,” he said. “The deal would have been a cash transaction. No names. No identities. No good descriptions. What with one thing and another, I think we need to try another angle.”

“Such as?”

“We need to find a way to draw the stalker out of hiding.”

“How do we do that?” Grace asked.

“I’m not sure yet. But one thing is obvious—the bastard has a reason for stalking you. We have to find out what that reason is.”

“Well, if it’s Nyla, we know she wants the money she thinks I stole from her father’s business. I suppose I could offer to talk to her about it but there’s not much room for negotiation because I don’t have anything to offer.”

“What if the stalker’s goal isn’t the money?”

Grace drank some of her whiskey a little too quickly. She sputtered, coughed and lowered the glass. “What else could it be?”

“You’re sure there’s no ex in the picture who might have become obsessed with you?”

“Stalkers are by definition delusional and crazy,” Grace said. “I suppose it’s possible that someone from my past has gone off the rails and decided to fixate on me but I have to tell you, it’s highly unlikely.”

“I need a list.”

She blinked. “Of all the men I’ve dated in the past?”

He smiled. “That many?”

She grimaced. “I wish.”

“Relax, I don’t think we need to go back to your high school prom date.”

“That’s good because I’m pretty sure Andrew isn’t my stalker.”

“Andrew?”

“My date for the prom. I told you, he spent the evening whining to me because he had wanted to take Jennifer to the prom but she declined. He was deeply depressed about the situation. He asked my advice on how to attract her attention.”

“Did you tell him to think positive?”

“Pretty much,” Grace said. “First, I told him that Jennifer was all wrong for him. He didn’t want to hear that so I reminded him that he had a genius for computers. I told him to invent an addictive online game, get very rich and then go look up Jennifer.”

“Did that advice work?”

“Partially. Andrew did invent a successful social media program. He did an IPO that was valued at a few billion dollars and he did get very rich. But he didn’t marry Jennifer, which is a good thing because they would have been very unhappy together. He married someone else, instead—another very nice, very smart geek. It was a much better match.”

“What happened to Jennifer?”

“She married well and often. She is now on husband number three, I believe, and living in a mansion on Mercer Island. There is, according to Irene, a very big boat parked in the water in front of the house.” Grace frowned at the half-empty glass of whiskey. “I’m rambling, aren’t I? Way too chatty. I may crash soon.”

“That’s a good thing,” Julius said.

He drank some more of his own whiskey, letting the heat of the liquor relax him.

Grace made a visible effort to concentrate. “About this list you want me to make.”

He put down his glass. “I’m not asking for the names of your old boyfriends. What I want is a list of everyone who was closely connected to Sprague Witherspoon—his business and his family.”

“You’re convinced that whatever is going on in my world is connected to his murder, aren’t you?”

“I think it starts there. The vodka bottle thing can no longer be classified as a coincidence.”

“No,” she said. “Probably not. Okay, I’ll make up a list. But I can’t do it tonight. I can’t seem to focus.”

“Think you can sleep?”

She paused in mid-yawn and looked at him with a considering expression.

“What are my options?” she asked.

“Left side of the bed or the right side of the bed.”

“Choices, choices.”

•   •   •

J
ulius was watching from the shadows of the big bed as she emerged from the bathroom in a pretty yellow nightgown. She moved, wraithlike, across the room and climbed under the covers on the left side.

He turned out the lights and moved closer to her. She tensed a little when his arm went around her waist. He kissed her shoulder.

“Sleep,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

And she did.