A Murderous Game (34 page)

Gage raked his fingers through his
hair. Why hadn't Abby called? Maybe she didn't know. They'd both been running
late and unless someone had shown her a copy of
The Dish
, it wasn't
something she would have picked up on her way to work.

His phone buzzed and he grabbed the
handset. "Do you have Abby?" he asked urgently.

"No, the secretary at her
office said she wasn't there. I tried her cell phone and the number at her
house, and she isn't answering either. I have the detective on the line,
though."

"Find her," he ordered.
"Call Norwell's office back and see if she came in this morning.
If she did, see if they know where she is now."
He
closed his eyes. "Put Simms through."

"Do you want me to talk to
him?" Quentin suggested.

"I don't know what kind of
game you're playing, Simms," Gage growled into the phone, ignoring his
attorney, "but you picked the wrong man to play for a fool."

"Don't threaten him,
Gage," Quentin said, standing up.

"I take it you're referring to
the story in the paper this morning," Simms said with a calm that made
Gage want to shove his fist through the phone and deck the other man.

"You know damn well I am. I'd
like to know how that reporter got information no one but the police had access
to."

"You're assuming no one else
had the information. I suspect there are a number of people who knew about one
or all of the things mentioned in the article."

"Listen, Simms, someone in
your office leaked information to that reporter. If it wasn't you, then check
with that asshole partner of yours, but don't call me down there again and
pretend you want to play nice and then pull this kind of shit."

"I told you once I don't play
games, Faraday."

"Find the leak," Gage
said between gritted teeth, "and when you do, you'd better damn well plug
it." He slammed the phone back down.

Quentin closed his eyes and shook
his head. "I'm not sure what you hired me for. You don't seem interested
in following any of my advice."

Gage fisted his hands at his sides.
"They can't arrest me for asking questions."

"You stopped short of
threatening the man. Actually, a couple of the things you said could be
interpreted as implied threats."

The intercom buzzed again and Gage
dove for it, praying Grace had managed to track Abby down. He was half crazy
worrying about her. He pressed the button. "What?"

"It's Mrs. Carpenter,"
Grace said, and he felt a rush of relief.

"Put her through."

"She's not on the phone; she's
here."

"What do you mean she's
here?"

"Here, in our lobby. The guard
called a minute ago, and I had him send her right up. You were on the phone
and—"

Gage strode quickly out of his
office without listening to the rest of Grace's sentence. Abby was sitting in
the waiting area, wringing her hands. His first impression was that she looked
so small in the oversized leather chair. She raised wide, haunted eyes to his.
Someone
would pay for this.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

G
age had insisted on having
his driver take her back to her office. He'd tried to convince her to take the
rest of the day off and go
home,
promising to join her
there as soon as he could get away, but Abby couldn't do that. She wouldn't
hide, no matter how much she might want to. 

Why hadn't he told her about Dick's
involvement with the probe? Because he'd wanted to protect her from finding out
about the woman, she realized. He'd probably been furious when he'd discovered
what happened, but instead of ranting to her about her ex, he'd said nothing.

"You can let me out at the
next corner," Abby said to the driver. "I want to stop into the
drugstore, and my office is only a block from here. I can walk the rest of the
way."

"Mr. Faraday told me I was to
make sure you got back to your office."

"This is fine," Abby
assured him, managing a weak smile. "Thank you for the ride."

Several minutes later as she neared
her building, she heard someone call her name. Slowing her pace, she glanced
over her shoulder, but none of the people behind her seemed to be paying her
any attention.

"Abigail Carpenter?"

Abby's head snapped sideways, and
she was surprised to find herself looking into the face of the man she'd seen
talking to Harold Billings the day before. The same one she'd been sure she had
seen somewhere else. Despite the vague sense of familiarity, she took an
involuntary step back, as if some unknown force warned her to keep a distance.

"You are Abigail Carpenter,
aren't you?"

"Who are you?"

He smiled and she saw he had a
rather large gap between his two front teeth. Not that it mattered, but it was
the kind of thing she thought she would have noticed and remembered if she'd
been introduced to the man before.

"An acquaintance of an
acquaintance," he said, being vague.

"I'm sorry, I don't know you.
If you'll excuse me."
She hiked her purse strap up her
shoulder and turned away, an uneasy urgency driving her to get away from him.

"Wait," he said, tailing
her, "I've got an offer you might be interested in."

Abby stopped and faced him.
"Look, I don't know who you are, but if you're trying to sell me
something, I'm not interested."

"I'm not selling anything. I'm
offering you a chance to tell your side of the story."

It took a moment for his words to
sink in, but when they did, she wanted to scream. Stay calm, she told herself.
She didn't know for sure if she'd jumped to the right conclusion.

"Are you a reporter?" she
asked coolly.

"Give me an exclusive, and
I'll let you tell your story anyway you want."

"What's your name?"

"Luke Lerner, with The Dish,"
he said, parodying a bow and showing his gap again.

Anger was a white-hot thing flaming
through her veins, a wildfire threatening to burn out of control. Her eyes
narrowed beneath the heat of her fury.

"You want an exclusive,"
she said, her tone deceptively even. He was nodding and smiling again. She half
expected to see drool spill from his mouth.

"Go to hell, you slimy excuse
for a human being." She gave him the sweetest smile she could muster.
"There's your exclusive, you bastard."

She stormed off. Her entire body
shook with the force of her rage. She was surrounded by faceless people, just
forms and blobs creating a human obstacle course as she tried to wend her way
to her office as quickly as she could manage in high heels.

Someone brushed against her side.
"How long have you and Gage Faraday been lovers?"

Abby ignored him and kept walking,
her arms pumping at her sides.

"Did your husband know about
your affair? Is that why he turned to other women?"

"Stay away from me, or I'll
file a harassment report against you." She darted around an elderly
couple. He stayed with her.

"Is it true Gage Faraday and
your husband came to blows, and Faraday threw your husband out of your house
onto the sidewalk?"

Her breathing halted. Oh please,
she thought, don't hurt Gage because of me…please don't hurt him.

"Is it true, Mrs.
Carpenter?"

"No it's not true," she
lied, her voice not as calm as she'd like. "I don't know where you dug up
such a ridiculous story. Now leave me alone."

"That particular story came
from your neighbor, a Mrs. Henderson, who said she saw Faraday toss your
husband out the door. Would you care to elaborate, maybe explain what led up to
the altercation?"

Any control she'd managed to hold
on to snapped. She jerked to a stop, her fingers digging into the sides of her
legs. "You leave Gage out of this," she snarled.

Not realizing what she was doing,
she laid her palms against his chest and pushed with both hands. Caught off
guard, he stumbled backward a few steps before getting his balance.

"You can say whatever you want
about me or Dick in that excuse for a paper you slum at, but
leave-Gage-out-of-it."

"Or you'll what," he
taunted, "sick your lover on me? Tell me, how badly did Faraday want your
husband out of the way so he could have you all to himself?"

In a rare show of violence, Abby
fisted her hand and punched Luke Lerner square in the eye before he ever saw it
coming. Gasping, she stared in shock. She'd just hit the man!

"Hey, what's going on
here?" a
fortyish
man said, stepping between them
and taking Lerner's arm. "Do you know this man, miss? Is he bothering
you?"

"No, I, I don't know
him." Her mouth trembled, and she started to back away. "He, he won't
l-leave me alone," she stuttered, still stunned by what she'd just done.

"Let go of me," the
reporter said, trying to shake free.

"Leave the lady alone,"
she heard the Good Samaritan say as she wove through the throng of pedestrians
rushing to their next business meeting, or any of a dozen other places.

Her mind raced, crowding with
thoughts. Luke Lerner could hurt Gage. The police considered him a suspect in
Dick's murder. As long as he was connected to her, he was vulnerable. She had
to protect him.

~~~

Harold Billings heard a soft click
and looked up. Now here was a surprise, he thought, his gaze traveling over the
woman standing in front of his now closed office door. She regarded him with
barely concealed contempt, her high breasts rising with each heaving breath she
took. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

"Ah, Abigail, so you're back.
I was looking for you earlier."

She approached his desk with slow,
but angry strides. She had long legs, lovely legs. A few years ago when she and
Dick had rented a beach house down the Jersey shore,
Dick had invited him to come down for a few days. He'd seen her in a bikini. He
knew what she hid under her prim business suits, and he knew with whom and what
she'd been doing with that luscious little body of hers lately.

"I'll just bet you were,"
she said with a note of accusation. "Don't keep me in suspense. You've
made a point of avoiding me the last couple of days. Not that I'm complaining,
but I am curious why all of a sudden you would be looking for me."

"Why to offer my condolences,
of course. I mean, Abby, the papers, and with everyone talking about it."
He shook his head. "To be the object of such a titillating scandal, well,
it must be frustrating."

Her eyes narrowed. "Did Dick
tell you about his scheme to discredit GFI?"

He studied her a moment. "I'm
afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh," she said, wrapping
her arms around her waist, "I think you do. You told that reporter from
The
Dish
everything in his article, didn't you?"

Harold chuckled. "You wound
me. I shouldn't be surprised you'd try to blame me, though. You never did like
me, did you? Why is that, Abby?"

"It had to be you. He accosted
me out on the sidewalk a few minutes ago. It was the same guy I saw you talking
to out front yesterday, so don't pretend you don't know him. You already told
me Dick showed you my diary, and there are only a handful of other people who
know about it."

"Have you forgotten Dick was
one of my best friends? If he'd confided in me that he'd done something
illegal, I never would have told a reporter about it. And Senator Carpenter is
like a second father to me. Do you think I'd embarrass him by exposing his
daughter-in-law as an adulteress?"

She flinched at his insult.

"You're quick to blame
me," he said with a sneer. "But did you ever stop to think what you
saw yesterday was nothing more than a reporter stopping one of your coworkers
hoping to discover something?"

She eyed him in silence, as if
processing his words. She swallowed and the smooth skin on her neck rippled.
There was a question in her eyes now, as if she wasn't as sure as she'd been a
minute ago.

"I know you showed Mr. Norwell
that article on Friday. He told me you'd given it to him."

"He had a right to know. After
all, Faraday is a client, and it could reflect badly on the firm when people
find out the account manager handling his account is sleeping with him."

"So you were just protecting
the firm," she said sarcastically.
"Nothing but
altruistic motives?"

"Naturally."
He smiled. "What else?"

"You were upset when you lost
the
Riv
One account. I think you wanted to get back
at me because of it. And I'm not convinced you didn't tell that reporter about
my diary and about the Attorney General's investigation, maybe for the same
reason."

"I told you," he said no
longer amused with her accusations, "I'm not his source. Even if I knew
about the investigation, I wouldn't have discredited Dick's memory or hurt the
senator."

"Friends
even in death?"
She raised her eyebrows as if to mock him.
"How sentimental of you."

His fingers itched to slap her.
Miss high and mighty strutting around with her nose in the air all the time.
The bitch needed to be taught a lesson in humility. Maybe someday he'd get the
chance to do it.

"I don't think I'd talk to the
press again if I were you, Harold," she said, then turned as if dismissing
him and started for the door.

His jaw tightened. She had no
respect for him. She didn't realize what he could do to her if he wanted. She
was merely a woman, a small one at that.

"Is that supposed to frighten
me? If I decide to talk to the press, there's nothing you can do about it. You
have no influence over me, Abby, and I'm not afraid of you, so be careful who
you threaten."