Read Beneath the Surface Online
Authors: Cat Johnson
Beneath the Surface (6 page)
She’d never felt more confused in her entire life, and that must have shown all over her face.
“Beth. There will be plenty of time to doubt me later. If I’m lying you can take the story to the police or the damn
New York Times
if you want. But right now, what would it hurt to simply trust me? Please, let me do my job.”
Pulling in a deep, shaky breath, Beth nodded. Raising her voice, she called out, “Robby, take him down there. Do whatever he says but be careful. Lyssa, you come back to the office with me.” Then she looked back at Rick’s relieved face. “If you are lying, and if you get Robby hurt in any way, I will track you down myself. My father was a cop before he died. I know my way around a gun.”
Unexpectedly, Rick smiled. “You are full of surprises, aren’t you?
And
you can shoot. I knew there was a reason I was so attracted to you. I can’t wait to find out more later, and to repeat last night.” He grabbed her face and planted a big kiss directly on her lips. “Hold that thought.”
Then he and Robby disappeared down the dimly lit hallway, and Beth was left to worry. Two thoughts dominated her thoughts. One, she hoped Rick had told her the truth. Two, if he had been truthful and was correct about the massive amounts of drugs coming through here literally beneath her nose, and he and Robby were about to stumble directly into the middle of the whole operation, she really hoped he was carrying a gun. A big one.
Not too long after Lyssa and Beth had arrived back at the office, Robby hurled through the door, alone and flushed. “What the hell is going on and who is that guy, Beth?”
“Why? What happened?” Beth stood so fast, she sent her wheeled desk chair flying behind her. It crashed into the metal filing cabinet with a loud bang that did nothing to soothe her already jangling nerves.
“We got down to the elevator. He took one look at it, dragged me back down the passageway, made me swear to come right back here to you and not talk to a soul or he’d do all sorts of bodily harm to me. Then he disappeared.”
Beth sighed. So now Rick was down there alone, possibly with these drug runners. Should she call someone? If only he had given her the name and number of his contact at the NYPD. What if he needed help and his cell phone didn’t work down there? Her heart pounded. He could be killed and no one would ever know. Or, he could wrap up this case and disappear into his undercover network never to be heard from again. Or even worse than that, what if the entire thing was one big lie? Either way, truth or lie, what if she never saw him again?
“What do we do now?” Lyssa, looking relieved at Robby’s reappearance, had run over to give him a big hug. If only Beth could do the same with Rick.
The wheels squeaked across the tile floor as Beth pulled her chair closer to the desk and plunked her weary body heavily into it. “We wait and don’t tell a soul, just like he asked.”
“What is going on here, Beth?” Robby asked again.
“Honestly? I don’t know, Robby. I wish I did.” And that was the absolute truth.
The rest of the day passed in agonizing slow motion as the three kept busy, Beth in particular in an attempt to keep her mind off what could possibly be going on right beneath their feet. They remeasured the cracked Guastavino ceiling tile in the Whispering Gallery and reset the motion detector. She delved into the stack of paperwork on her desk she had been avoiding. Mostly, she watched the clock and jumped each time the phone rang or someone knocked on the door, but none of the calls or visitors was the one she wanted.
Finally, she went home for the day, holding tightly to the hope that she would find Rick waiting in the hall outside her door. Or maybe even inside her apartment. If he really were a cop, he could get in no problem, she supposed. It was all just so farfetched and confusing. It would be even if she weren’t sleep deprived from spending most of last night in the throes of passion with the man in question.
She arrived home seeing neither hide nor hair of Rick. She ate some leftovers in the fridge, but still nothing from him. She got ready for bed while keeping an eye and ear on the local nightly news on television hoping to pick up some clue that the police had been alerted to what he suspected. Nothing again.
Beth fell into a fitful sleep full of dreams about sex and guns, trains and drugs, and woke up possibly feeling more exhausted than she had before going to bed.
Chapter Six
“Hey Beth. Are you taking the tour today?”
She sighed. “Is it Wednesday again already?”
Robby laughed. “Yes. It is.”
Beth groaned. She had dreaded Wednesdays and those lunchtime tours for weeks now. They only reminded her of Rick. The day they had met. The night that followed. The fact she hadn’t heard from him in a month. Nor had she heard one word on the news about any drug ring busts, leading her to believe the whole story had been one big lie, which meant Rick was one big liar.
“Since you don’t look all that enthused about it, do you think I can give the tour?”
She glanced up when Robby began talking again and frowned. “You really want to?”
Robby nodded. “Yeah, sure. Classes end soon and graduation isn’t far away. I guess I’m feeling a bit nostalgic about leaving you and this job and all.”
Beth smiled. “I’ll miss you and Lyssa too. You better come back and visit though.”
“Oh, we will. And don’t be surprised if you see my resume and job application cross your desk, as soon as we get back from our trip across Europe. We’re taking the Eurorail.”
She laughed. “Haven’t you had enough of trains after this internship?”
He shook his head. “No way. I’m just getting started. Hey, it’s getting late. I’m gonna head upstairs now for the tour.”
Beth nodded. At least one of them was on the ball. “Thanks, Robby.”
Alone again in the office, she leaned her elbows on the desk and rubbed her face hard with both hands. She groaned when her cell phone rang in her bag. About two weeks ago she had stopped jumping each time her phone rang. That had been about the time she had given up on Rick. She located it in her oversized bag now and glanced at the caller ID.
It said
Private
which was not that odd since a few of her colleagues had unlisted numbers. With a sigh she flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Hi.”
“Rick?” Her hand holding the phone began to shake as Beth’s heart pumped harder.
“You remember me. That’s a good sign.” There was the sound of a smile in his tone.
“It’s been a month.” She struggled to control the shaking in her voice.
“I know.”
“Where have you been all this time?”
“Doing my job.”
“Why should I believe you? I haven’t seen anything about what you told me in the paper or on the news.”
“Ah. I guess you haven’t seen the noon edition of the paper yet today.”
Beth’s eyes opened wide. She grabbed her wallet from her bag and rose from her desk. She could probably make it to the newsstand and back without losing cell signal. Flinging open her office door, she stopped dead, face to face with a copy of that day’s paper lying on the ground in front of her door. She had no doubt who had placed it here for her and, since it had not been there when Robby left moments before, that person had to be somewhere close.
“Where are you?”
“Nearby. You can read the whole thing later, but it basically says the NYPD has had this station under surveillance for the past month in an attempt to find the source of the drugs passing through here. It wasn’t enough to just get the people transporting it, we needed the source too, to dry up the supply.”
While he answered, she picked up the paper and glanced at the front page. She looked at the article incredulously. “And did you get them?”
“We did. You did good, Beth. You and your two college kids not only gave me the lead that cracked this case, you also kept your mouths shut and allowed us the time we needed to finish it. I’m really proud of all of you.”
“I’m glad of that. That you got them, I mean.” But cracking a drug ring still did not make her feel any better about things between the two of them.
“So you’re not taking the tour out today?”
He must have been watching for her. Somehow that meant a lot. She swallowed hard. “No. Robby asked if he could take it today.”
“Too bad because I was hoping to ask you a question during your tour. There’s something I’ve been wondering since the day we met.”
“What’s that?” The sound of her pulse was now so loud she could barely hear herself talk.
“Why do the constellations look funny in the Sky Ceiling?” Rick asked. “I missed that part of your tour.”
Her heart fell. Silly her for thinking he wanted to ask her something serious, like out on a real date. She repeated by rote the line from the tour. “The Zodiac is reversed. The artist was inspired by a medieval manuscript that showed the heavens as seen from the outside of a celestial sphere.”
“Ah. That’s it.” He laughed. “You’re very sexy when you talk shop, you know.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, you are. In fact, I was hoping now that this case is wrapped up we could get together and talk shop again real soon. Maybe tonight, even.”
Beth swallowed hard and hesitated. She glanced down at the paper again. His name wouldn’t be in there if he actually were undercover. In fact, he was probably using a fake name to begin with, but she wanted to believe him so badly. Somehow, even without definitive proof, she did believe him.
“Come on, Beth. I know you’ve thought about me, about us, this past month. I also would bet a million bucks you haven’t been bad with anyone else since that night.”
She felt her face grow hot and heard him laugh.
“I would also bet a good amount of money that you’re blushing right now. Am I right?”
The fact he knew her so well, inside and out, literally and figuratively, was a big turn on. She hated to admit it, but it was. “Yes. You’re right.”
“So what do you say, baby? Meet me. We can do nothing more than have a meal together, if that’s what you want. At least until you start to trust me. Not that I’m saying I don’t think about taking you to bed again every five minutes, but I can wait for that. You’re worth the wait.”
Dammit, just hearing him talk made her heart flutter.
But what the hell kind of boyfriend would an uncover cop who disappeared for a month at a time make? She answered her own question. She didn’t care what kind of boyfriend he would make or if they had a future past the immediate one. She’d lived for too many years, thirty-five to be exact, worrying and over thinking everything in her life. Now for once, all she wanted to do was live. The decision was clear in her mind and the absolute relief of having made it, and feeling completely sure that it was the right one, made her laugh with sheer abandon.
“I say I want to be bad. Meet me on the platform for my subway line in ten minutes. I’m taking the rest of the day off. Maybe the rest of the week.”
She heard his low, sexy, satisfied laugh through the phone and knew it was going to be quite a day…the first day of many in the rest of her life she hoped.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cat Johnson is the author of contemporary erotic romance in genres including western, military, romantic comedy, multiple partner and paranormal. She is known for her creative research and marketing techniques. Consequently some of her closest friends/book consultants wear combat or cowboy boots for a living, she owns an entire collection of camouflage and western footwear for book signings and she’s sponsored pro bull riders.
Cat is the author of over a dozen full-length romance novels and numerous shorter works. She is contracted with Kensington Brava and Samhain Publishing.
For more information about the author, her blogs and all of her available works visit
www.catjohnson.net
.
ALSO BY CAT JOHNSON:
EDUCATING ANSLEY
Gossip Girl
meets the
Dukes of Hazard
with a whole lot of red hot sex thrown in–that’s
Educating Ansley
, the first title in the Cat Johnson
RED
line.
Connecticut’s rich and beautiful summer at mansions in the Hamptons not on a ranch in Colorado, but that’s exactly where society girl Ansley Craig’s been banished by her grandmother just for having a little too much fun at a graduation party.
She expects to find cows and boredom at the Kane ranch. What she doesn’t count on are the Kane brothers. Ansley may have the college degree, but Jeremy and Ryan are two cowboys who can teach her a few things she didn’t learn in school.
Reader Advisory: Expect one spoiled rich girl engaging in frequent sexual acts including multiple partner situations, same sex play, anal sex and even a roll in the hay.
THE EX-FILES
As “Plain Jane” Dolan—what an ex once called her—makes her way through her little black book and the men from her past searching for the Mr. Right who got away, there’s another man who makes his way into her little black panties. She can’t deny he feels oh so right.
Gorgeous and much too young Damian drips sexuality. He serves up both tongue-tantalizing cocktails and mind-boggling orgasms and Jane finds her post-date sexual encounters with the tempting bartender completely irresistible.
But her soul mate is waiting and there are still more men from her past to re-date—or are there?
Reader Advisory: Contains smoking hot sex with no strings--but with toys!
Visit http://catjohnson.net/books-2/
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