B008DKAYYQ EBOK (15 page)

She laughed. “That would indeed be handy to know.” She helped herself to her own garbage bag and walked into the living room.
 

“I hope it’s okay that I barged in on you. I want to help, and A.J. extended the invitation.”

She knelt and began gathering the pieces of the Lego windmill and dropping them into the bag. “That’s A.J. for you. She invites strange men to my apartment all the time.”

“Strange, huh? But you like me anyway, right?”

Yeah, she thought. She liked him. The fact that he’d been there for her the day before had made him plenty likable. But now here he was again today. She could get used to this kind of attention. “As far as strange men go, I guess you’re all right.”
 

He chuckled. “I suppose that’s something. What’s A.J. bringing us for lunch?”

“Tacos.”
 

When he didn’t come back with a witty response, she glanced over to see that he was carefully extracting the photo of Austin on his bike from the debris. A lump immediately formed in her throat. She’d been leaving that task for when she felt stronger.

Cole held it out to her. “You could scan this in at work and use Photoshop to fix those scratches in a heartbeat.”

She took the photo and studied it. He was right. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Smiling, and feeling that perhaps all was not lost after all, she placed the photo on top of the entertainment center. “Thanks.”

Cole returned her smile. “Any time.”

Bailey held his gaze, surprised at the surge of affection that she felt for this man. And yet she had no idea why he would be here. Surely the lies Daniel had told him were enough to keep him away. More than enough, knowing Daniel.

A.J. chose that moment to return, letting out a sing-songy “I’m ba-ack” as she shouldered the door open and walked in, laden with enough tacos to feed the entire
Sun
newsroom.

Bailey thought she glimpsed a beat of disappointment in Cole’s expression before he turned to help A.J. unload the feast.

She knew the feeling.
 

* * *

Cole rubbed the back of his neck as he stared down at the spiral reporter’s notebook before him on the honey-colored table in A.J.’s dining room. In three hours, he’d scrawled ten pages of notes as he, Bailey and A.J. had re-created the past two weeks of Bailey’s photo-shooting schedule.

A.J. slid the notebook toward Bailey. “Is that everything?”

Bailey flipped through the pages, each one representing a workday. “I think so.”

Her voice was low with fatigue, and the combination of exhaustion and stress made her features look taut. He was surprised that she’d even had the energy to sit there and rehash two weeks’ worth of work after the emotionally grueling day she’d had.

During the cleanup, she had rested often, letting him and A.J. do the heavy lifting. But she’d had to make many decisions about what was salvageable and what should be tossed. Most often, the answer had been “toss it.” There’d been times when she’d looked as if she might crumble. But she hadn’t.
 

After they’d dropped several bags of garbage in the dumpster in the apartment complex parking lot, he’d been prepared to call it a day. But then A.J. had invited him to her place for dinner, earning a sharp look from Bailey that A.J. had responded to with a shrug. He’d started to decline, not wanting to wear out his welcome, when Bailey had smiled at him and sincerely echoed the invitation.

Now, he silently thanked A.J., though he wasn’t sure how keen he was on the fact that the woman was obviously playing matchmaker.
 

He wondered whether he could ask her what had happened between Bailey and Daniel, seeing as how Bailey had already given him the “go ask your buddy” answer. And that, he thought as he flexed his bruised knuckles, hadn’t gone so well.
 

He wasn’t even sure why he needed to know. It was none of his business, after all. And Bailey was nothing more than a new friend. He didn’t normally make it a habit to poke his nose into the past of new friends.
 

Except that what Daniel had said haunted him.
“I didn’t hit her.”

The thought of that large, muscular man striking the weary, slim woman who sat across from him made Cole’s stomach churn. Add to that the guilt he felt for his own unkind behavior toward her, however misguided it had been, and he wanted to prove to her that he was a good guy.

He also wanted to know the truth, damn it. That was his job, after all. Journalists chased the truth, and he was a reporter by nature. Lies and unanswered questions drove him nuts.
 

“So now that my schedule is written down, what do we do with it?” Bailey asked.

A.J. rubbed absently at one dark eyebrow. “I guess we could go over all the photos from these assignments. Maybe something will jump out at us.”

“We don’t even know what to look for,” Bailey said. “And don’t you think if something were going to jump out, it would have when I looked at them the first time?”

“You weren’t looking for anything suspicious then,” Cole said.

“What about the police?” A.J. asked. “We should turn everything over to them.”

Bailey shook her head. “It just feels like a big fishing expedition. We don’t even know for sure that the guy is after work-related pictures. And do you really think the cops are going to commit already short-handed resources to this? It looks like nothing but a B&E and a mugging to them.”

A.J. pushed back from the table. “I need more coffee. What about you guys?”

“Not for me,” Bailey said.

“No, thanks,” Cole said as he reached for the notebook. He didn’t want to turn anything over to the cops. He’d already run into resistance getting information from them about Bailey’s break-in. His usually chatty contact had failed to see the need for a
Sun
reporter to know anything about a break-in that hadn’t warranted even a brief story in the newspaper. Cole had acknowledged that he had a personal, rather than professional, interest, but that hadn’t made any difference. His contact had more time-pressing issues to deal with, she’d said.
 

“So when you download photos off the memory card in your camera, are all the photos from each assignment stored in the newspaper’s archive?” he asked.

Bailey shook her head. “Only photos considered good enough to keep.”

“What about the ones that don’t make the cut?”

“They’re deleted. We don’t want to eat up memory with unusable photos.”

“And the memory card?” he asked.

“Cleared to make room for the next assignment.”

Cole felt a moment of shock. “So our culprit could be after a photo that doesn’t even exist anymore?”

A.J., returning with a mug of steaming coffee, whistled low. “Wouldn’t that suck.”

Bailey massaged her forehead, as if her head ached.
 

“How many deleted photos are we talking about?” Cole asked.

“Hundreds,” Bailey said quietly.

Cole tossed his pen onto the table. “Well, crap.”

“So what we’ve learned here,” A.J. said, “is that unless this guy makes another move, it’s unlikely we’re going to discover on our own what he’s after.”

Cole ran a hand through his hair. “Or he could already have what he was looking for, if it was on the Mac or backup drive.”

Bailey got up. “I think I’m done for the day.”
 

Cole couldn’t blame her. She’d been fading since they’d eaten. He rose, too, then reached out and grasped her arm when she swayed. He started to ask her if she was okay but didn’t. She obviously wasn’t.

She gave him a smile that looked forced. “Thanks for all your help. I’m sure you had better things to do today.”

“I was happy to give you a hand. If you need more help tomorrow—”

“I’ve declared it a day of rest,” A.J. said. “She’s staying put on the sofa if I have to sit on her.”

Bailey’s smile turned amused. “It might be fun to put that statement to the test. I’m pretty sure I could take her.”

A.J. snorted. “Not even on a good day, trash-talker.”

Cole laughed. “I’m sure I could get our co-workers to pay to see you two go at it.”

“In mud and thong bikinis, no doubt,” A.J. said.

“Would you prefer Jell-O?”

“Only if it’s cherry,” Bailey said. “Not a big fan of orange.”

“Damn, orange is my favorite,” Cole said.

Still laughing, Bailey turned toward the hall leading to A.J.’s bedroom. “I’ll let you guys work out the details. Good night.”

Cole watched her go, liking the way her legs and butt looked in those shorts. He’d never really noticed how good—

A wadded napkin bounced off his forehead. He looked at A.J. “What?”

“You were just checking out my best friend’s ass.”

He grinned. Yeah, he was. Imagine that. “It’s nice.”

“What’s up with you? Last week you couldn’t stand to be on assignment with her, and now you’re ogling her rear-end and sticking to her like overcooked spaghetti.”

He shrugged. “I’m entitled to a change of heart, aren’t I? And, hell, aren’t you the one who’s been playing Little Mary Matchmaker?”

“She’s fragile right now, Goodman.”

“I know that.”

“I’m just saying you’d better not take advantage of her.”

Defensiveness caught him off-guard. “I don’t do crap like that.”

Placing her hands on the table, she stood. “I’m serious. If you hurt her, I’ll kick your ass.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Or I’ll have someone kick it for me. I know big ugly guys with muscles that’d make you pee yourself.”

He couldn’t help but laugh. “All right already. I get it.”

Her smile relaxed. “That said, good luck. You’re going to need it.”

Chapter 20

The sound of breaking glass snapped Bailey’s eyes open, and she lay still, holding her breath, disoriented and trying to remember where she was.

A.J.’s. Right.

She’d lounged away the entire day on the couch, just as A.J. had insisted. DVDs of old episodes of
Sex and the City
, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, several bowls of A.J.’s stove-popped popcorn, three cutthroat games of Sequence and a long, giggly phone conversation with Austin had kept her from going insane.
 

The creak of a floorboard outside the bedroom door had her pushing up to her elbows. “A.J.?”

As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the bedroom door open just a crack, letting the bluish glow from a hallway night light into her room.
 

Bailey sat up fully and clutched the covers to her chest. Was she dreaming? This had all the makings of a nightmare. Surely it was a nightmare.

“A.J.?”

A dark figure stepped silently through the door … a dark figure who was not her petite friend.

Bailey screamed and scrambled off the bed, fumbling across the bedside table for a weapon, anything, peripherally conscious of the dark shape rushing toward her. Her fingers closed over the smooth plastic of the phone, and she snatched it up, jabbing her fingers at 911. But the phone was unfamiliar, and she fumbled, screaming again when the intruder caught her around the middle and slammed her against the wall.

The impact knocked the phone out of her hand and the air out of her lungs. Fireworks exploded in her head and side, and she had to fight to stay conscious.
 

The intruder, his face shrouded by a balaclava, easily pinned her right arm between their bodies and flattened her left wrist to the wall beside her head. His free hand clamped over her mouth. Covered by a glove that smelled of cigarettes.
 

The mugger.

“Stop making so much noise,” he growled. “You wake up your friend and I’ll slit her throat.”

Bailey’s panic instantly shifted. Oh, God, A.J.
 

She forced herself to go still, focused on relaxing tense muscles.

“You going to be quiet?”

She nodded, though the pressure of his hand on her mouth kept her from moving her head much more than a millimeter. That seemed enough, and he edged back.

“What I want is simple,” he said. “Give it to me, and you’ll never see me again.”

Stark terror almost snatched away control. No, oh, no.
 

As if he’d felt her recoil, he braced his forearm across her throat and applied just enough pressure to cut off her air. “Don’t do anything stupid. No one has to get hurt. Understand?”

She nodded again.

He eased up on her throat. “You were at the park the other day. With a kid.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs in a spastic dance. This brutal miscreant had watched her with Austin. What if he’d done something then? Done something to
Austin
?

The forearm across her throat pressed in. “Don’t even think about denying it. I was there. He was taking pictures.”