DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS (11 page)

“But the way you told that detective, you let him think I was getting the boxes for you. What if I tell him I wasn’t? Don’t you need a search warrant or a court order or something?”

He shook his head. “They were in plain sight. Sorry.”

She sent him a scathing look, then carefully got into his car and reached for the seat belt, pausing when she realized she couldn’t fasten it with her arm in a sling. “I don’t see why I have to wear this ridiculous thing. My shoulder isn’t bothering me that much.”

Ethan noticed her struggle. He said, “Hang on. I’ll get it for you.” He closed the passenger door and went around to get in on the driver’s side. As he reached across her for the belt, he caught a whiff of something sweet and citrusy. Unable to help himself, he turned his head slightly to breathe in the scent. A soft, choked sound came from her.

Embarrassed, he pulled back immediately, pulling the seat belt with him and quickly attaching it. “Sorry,” he said, starting the car as he glanced sidelong at her.

Her right arm came across her middle to cradle the wrapped left arm. She cleared her throat. “Detective?”

“It’s Ethan,” he said gruffly.

“I don’t want you looking in those boxes until I’ve had a chance to go through everything.”

He glanced over at her. “We can look at them together.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll take them to the station and you won’t get to see them at all until this case is over.”

She sniffed in exasperation and leaned her head back against the headrest. He could feel frustration and anger emanating from her in waves.

“Sorry,” he said for about the third time since he’d gotten to the accident scene. “I’m not just being mean. And you don’t have the authority to
allow
me to see the contents of those boxes. This is a murder investigation. Your dad’s papers are evidence. If I can find out who Darby Sills was blackmailing, I’ll be that much closer to the killer.”

After a moment of dead silence, Laney said, “Well, I can tell you for a fact that my father didn’t kill Senator Sills.”

“That
is
a fact,” he said carefully. “Indisputable, since your father is dead.”

“Oh, my God, do you think I killed the senator?”

“No—”

“You do. Pretty clever, huh? Shooting myself. Wait a minute. The crime scene techs checked my hands for gunshot residue, didn’t they? Have you figured out how I managed to graze my temple without getting powder burns on my face or gunshot residue on my hands? Well, let me just tell you right now. I am that good.”

He heard the pain and fear behind her angry words. “You know,” he said. “You’re allowed to be upset. You’re even allowed to be scared. A lot has happened to you in a short time.”

“Don’t patronize me,
Detective.
I am perfectly capable of handling things. But the very idea that you could think I had anything to do with the senator’s murder—” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat, trying to cover it, but he wasn’t fooled. If he looked at her right now, he knew that he’d see tears in her eyes again.

“So you can
handle things
when someone is murdered practically in front of you, you’re shot and two days later you’re rammed by a car?”

“Yes,” she said. She tried for a determined, confident answer, but her voice was meek.

“Well, you’re doing a great job,” he said as he pulled up to the curb in front of her house. He jumped out of the car and went around to open the passenger door. He held out his hand but Laney ignored it, climbed out awkwardly.

“Don’t bother walking me to my door,” she said. “I’ll be just fine.”

“Will you?” he asked as he closed the car door. “Okay, tell me this. Are you going to take those tablets the EMT gave you?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Have you got someone coming to stay with you tonight?”

“Why in the world would I need anyone to stay with me?” she asked.

When she fished her keys out of her purse, he took them from her and unlocked the door. He stepped inside and flipped on the lights, then examined her face. “You’re pale. You look like you’re about to pass out. Is your arm hurting?”

“A few bruises never bother gorgeous cops on TV.”

Ethan glanced at her in amusement. “The important word there is
TV.
Again—fiction.”

“Fine,” she said. She’d never realized how difficult it was to deal with a purely logical mind. She’d always been the most practical person she knew. But Ethan Delancey had her beat by a mile. Several miles.

“I have ibuprofen in that cabinet with the coffee cups.” She gestured. “There’s cranberry juice in the refrigerator. I’d like half juice and half water. No ice. But if you want something to drink, you can probably figure out where the ice is. I’m going to sit down in the living room. I’m feeling a little woozy.”

She sat down on the couch that had been her dad’s and did her best not to cry. She was upset. She was scared. Her shoulder hurt. And in a couple of hours, Detective Ethan Delancey would know as much about her father and his dealings as she did. And it was entirely possible that she herself would know more than she ever wanted to know about the man who’d raised her alone after his wife, her mother, died of alcohol poisoning.

“I’m going to get the boxes and bring them inside,” Ethan said.

Laney clenched her fists as the front door banged against the wall of her foyer. She aimed a scathing look toward the door, but truthfully, she was more angry at herself. “I should have put the them in my trunk,” she muttered. If she’d taken the extra trouble then, Ethan wouldn’t have seen them and she wouldn’t be torn between two choices—looking at her father’s papers in front of a detective or relinquishing them to the police. In either case, she probably wouldn’t get them back for years.

But at least if she looked at them here with Ethan, she’d know what was in them.

Chapter Seven

Laney yawned and tried to focus on the bank statement she was holding. She was having trouble keeping her eyes open. “What’s wrong?” Ethan asked. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, sorting through papers.

She looked up bleary-eyed. “What?”

“You groaned.”

“No I didn’t,” she said, although she knew he was right.

“You’re about to fall asleep, aren’t you? You should go to bed.”

“I’m not going anywhere and leaving you to go through my dad’s stuff alone.”

“Don’t trust me?”

“Not as far as I could throw you if you were holding both boxes,” she said, trying to suppress a yawn.

“Are you hungry? What have you eaten today?”

Laney opened her mouth to answer, but stopped. She couldn’t remember. She’d drunk a cup of awful coffee at the precinct early in the morning and had a couple of glasses of water during the day, but food?

“You haven’t eaten, have you? I knew it. I’m hungry, too.”

She thought about the pasta she’d never made the night before and her mouth watered. “I can make spinach pasta,” she said, then looked down at the sling on her left arm. “Or I could if I had two arms.”

Ethan rose to his feet. “I have two arms. I can make it if it’s not too hard.”

She stood, too, and stretched. “It’s not hard at all. Butter, garlic, frozen spinach, mascarpone cheese and Parmesan. Come on. We need to get the water boiling for the spaghetti.” She led the way into the kitchen. When she turned, Ethan was way too close to her.

Her little kitchen, which she’d always thought of as cozy and comfortable, suddenly seemed as small as a broom closet, with him standing there, towering over her by at least five inches.

He smiled. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch?”

“With the pasta sauce? It can’t be as easy as it sounds.”

She slid past him to open the refrigerator, doing her best to ignore his faint clean scent. “There’s a package of angel hair pasta in that cabinet next to the sink, and there’s a big pot in the cabinet below the counter.” Her voice sounded stiff to her ears, and higher pitched than usual. She cleared her throat as she pulled the thawed spinach, cheeses and butter out of the refrigerator one at a time.

“There’s no catch. Trust me, the sauce is just as easy as it sounds,” she said, answering his question. “My mother used to make it back before—” She stopped, then went on quickly, trying to cover what she’d almost said.
Back before she died from drinking.
“She always said it was a perfect date dinner. Said my father proposed over a big plate of her spinach pasta.”

While she’d been talking, Ethan had retrieved the pot and filled it with water. He set it on the stove and turned on the gas. Then he looked at her. “Perfect date dinner? Good to know.”

Before she could interpret the look he’d sent her way, he turned and grabbed a package of angel hair pasta from the cabinet. “This won’t take long to cook,” he said.

Laney set a skillet on the stove and awkwardly unwrapped a stick of butter, one-handed. With a knife, she cut half off and put it in the skillet. “Sounds like you know a little bit about cooking.”

“My dorm mates and I ate a lot of spaghetti and Tony Chachere’s in college.”

“Tony’s? That’s all you put on it?”

“Don’t knock it. It’s pretty good if you’re trying to eat cheap.”

Laney grabbed a jar of minced garlic from the refrigerator. She set it on the counter and tried to slide the sling back so she could hold it with her left hand. “Okay, that does it,” she muttered. “This thing’s coming off.” She reached behind her head, looking for the fastener.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Ethan said. “Give me that jar.” He opened the jar for her and she put a heaping teaspoonful in the melted butter.

“That’s a lot of garlic,” he said.

“If you don’t like it I might have some Tony’s,” she retorted.

He laughed. Unlike his smiles and smirks, his laugh was hearty and genuine. When she glanced up, his mouth was stretched wide and, she noticed with surprise, he did have laugh lines. They, along with his dark, serious eyes, were just about the only thing that kept him from looking like a teenager instead of a police detective who had to be in his early thirties. She felt laughter bubbling up from inside her. It had been days since she’d even felt like smiling, much less laughing.

She picked up the container of mascarpone cheese and tried to pry the top off, but with one hand, it was impossible. She growled.

Ethan reached over and put his hand on top of hers. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve got all this. Don’t get so frustrated.” He opened the container. “How much?”

“All of it.”

He emptied it into the skillet as she stirred. “Man, that smells amazing.”

“It is amazing,” she said. The bowl of drained spinach was covered with plastic wrap, which she managed to pull off with one hand. She dumped it into the skillet and began stirring everything with the tongs.

“Should I put the pasta in the water?” he asked. “It’s about to boil.”

“Sure. The sauce will be ready in about seven minutes or so. That should be just about perfect timing.”

By the time Ethan drained the angel hair, the spinach mixture was creamy and hot. She added a generous pinch of salt and handed Ethan the pepper grinder.

“About three turns ought to be good,” she said.

He turned the pepper grinder, then leaned over the skillet to take a deep whiff. “Wow. Is it ready?”

She nodded, grinning at him. “Except for the Parmesan.” He twisted off the cap for her and she added a generous portion to the mixture. “Now, pour the spinach sauce over the pasta and mix it, please?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He picked up the skillet and poured the sauce into the pot of drained angel hair pasta. Then using the tongs, he tossed the two together quickly. He turned to her with raised brows. “
Now
is it ready?”

She laughed at his boyish question as she reached into a cabinet and came out with two bowls. “Dish us up some and I’ll grab the jar of Parmesan in case we need more, although I don’t think we will.”

Within a minute they were sitting at her small dining room table and eating. “I have some wine,” she said. “But—”

“Yeah. Better not. You realize we’re only about halfway through the boxes.”

“I do,” Laney said, “but the good news is I found Dad’s bank statements.”

“Good, because what I’ve been sifting through are tax records and receipts from back in the nineties. When we finish eating, I’ll take some of those bank statements, because that’s where any indication of blackmail is going to be.” He gestured with his fork. “This is spectacular,” he said. “I can see why your dad proposed.”

“It’s magical food,” she said, smiling, too, as she shoved another forkful into her mouth. Tonight Ethan reminded her of how he’d been when he’d come to see her in the E.R. Gentle, kind and solicitous. But after his officious attitude in the interview room at the precinct, she’d decided the pain medication had made her dream that he’d been nice. Still, she could definitely understand why people talked about the Delancey charm, not to mention the Delancey good looks.

Ethan had on a white shirt, dress pants and leather loafers that would probably decimate her salary. It was the same uniform he wore at work, minus the sports jacket, but somehow tonight he seemed like just a guy, instead of a logic-driven, uptight police detective, concerned with
just the facts, ma’am.

In fact, he seemed like the kind of guy she’d always wanted to meet. Intelligent, considerate, funny.
Whoa.
Was she actually thinking about Ethan Delancey as a man she could date? She felt her face grow warm. She didn’t want him to ask her why she was blushing, so she stood to carry her bowl to the kitchen.

“Don’t even think about trying to do the dishes. I’ll take care of them.” He stood and picked up his bowl.

“I’ll let you. Isn’t it time to take the ice pack off my arm?”

“Probably. How does it feel?”

“Hard to say. It’s numb.” She flexed it gingerly. “It’s not as sore, though. Can you take it off?” She turned her back and held her hair out of the way.

When he touched her neck as he worked the ice pack out from under the sling, she shivered. His fingers were hot against her chilled skin, and she wondered if they would feel just as hot and make her just as tingly if he touched her in other, more intimate places.

“Got it,” he said and stepped around her to put it in the freezer.

She had to swallow before she could speak. “Thanks. I’m going to go back to the papers and leave you alone with the kitchen cleanup.”

“Are you sure you’re up for more sifting through piles?” he asked. “It’s after eight. You might want to take one of those tablets and head to bed. The EMT said to rest.”

Laney stared at him. “Go to bed? At eight o’clock? I don’t think so.”

“See. You’re already going against doctor’s orders. You sleep and I’ll finish going through the papers, then sack out on the couch.”

“Sack out—? Why?”

“Because somebody’s got to watch over you while you’re incapacitated.”

“I’m not incapacitated. It’s just a bruise and I am not going to sleep in a sling. And I’m sure not going to bed in the middle of the evening.”

“See. I can’t leave. I’ve got to make sure you follow doctor’s orders.”

“What you’ll do is go through the papers and then go home,” she said, angling a disgusted look at him as she headed back to the living room. Sitting down on the couch, she picked up the small pile of papers she’d been going through earlier. From the kitchen came the sound of water running and dishes rattling. She shook her head at the image of Police Detective Ethan Delancey washing her dishes.

Being nice and charming was one thing, but why was he talking about spending the night on her couch? She’d seen in his face that he knew the excuse of watching over her was ridiculous. But what was his real reason? She didn’t know, but she wasn’t comfortable with it, whatever it was. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep if he were out here on the couch. She’d lie awake knowing there was no way in hell he and she would ever get together, but wishing he was in her bed anyway.

Doing her best to shake off the picture of him lying on her couch in his shorts—or briefs, she picked up the first folded and rubber-banded pack of bank statements. She opened it and perused the first sheet. It was for the month of January, a year before her dad had died. It looked like she’d expected it to. Deposits, the monthly fee for the assisted-living facility, automatic payments for utilities and insurance, and cash withdrawals. Nothing unusual. She smiled wistfully as she looked at the withdrawals. He liked to play the slot machines, and went to Harrah’s casino near the Riverwalk once or twice a week. She’d often met him there or at a nearby restaurant for dinner.

She paged through the rest of the statements in the stack, which could almost be photocopies of the January one. With a sigh, she wrapped the rubber band around them and set them aside. Then she pulled eleven identical packets out of the box. There they were. Twelve years’ worth of Elliott Montgomery’s day-to-day life.

Ethan came back into the room as she was dumping the packets onto the floor and delving back into the box.

“What’s all that?” he asked.

“A dozen years of my dad’s life,” she answered, her voice breaking. “I never thought that checking account statements would be personal, but I can see his everyday life by looking at those sheets.” She felt her eyes fill with tears and blinked them away before Ethan could see how sentimental she was.

“You’re saying there’s nothing unusual. Nothing you wouldn’t expect. Withdrawals? Checks?”

“That’s right. All those statements, and there’s probably only a few dollars’ difference between one and the next.”

“So that’s checking and savings?”

She stopped. “Savings,” she said, looking up at him. “Savings. Oh, my God.” She started pulling papers out of the box. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember. After he died, I was surprised at how little money he had in savings.”

Ethan’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”

“He used to talk about the bonuses he would get from various companies at the end of the year—for doing a good job lobbying for them.” She shook her head. “When he went into the assisted-living community, we thought it would take everything he had to buy into it. Luckily, we were able to sell his house and that almost paid for the buy-in. His monthly rent came out of his checking account, just like his mortgage did in earlier years. But all that money that should have been left in his savings account—wasn’t there.”

“How much are you talking about?”

Laney hesitated. She’d learned a long time ago that most people were suspicious of lobbyists anyway. When—if she told Ethan how much money her father had saved, what would he say?

He met her gaze and she knew he’d picked up on her hesitation and the reason for it. “Laney, my grandfather was Con Delancey. I’m not going to pass judgment on your dad for what he did for a living or how much money he amassed doing it. All I want to know is how much money went missing from his savings account and when it happened.”

“He went into the assisted-living community six years ago. I have no idea how much money he’d put into savings during his life, but at the time we were calculating how much it would cost for him to live there, his balance was around three hundred thousand— No.”

She shook her head, not even able to allow the next thought into her head. “I don’t believe my dad was being blackmailed. He would never have done anything he was that desperate to hide.”

“How much was in the account when he died?”

“I—” she said, then had to swallow the acrid saliva that rose in her throat. The answer to that question made her nauseous.

“Laney? How much?”

“Around twenty thousand.” She could barely speak the words. “I wondered what had happened to the money, but I never even thought about—” She definitely couldn’t say that word in connection with her dad.

“Wow,” Ethan said. “In six years. That’s fifty thousand a year over and above his daily expenses. Was he that big a gambler?”