Golden Lies (8 page)

"I have to go," she added.

"So, you're afraid you can't beat me," he drawled. "I can understand that."

"I am not afraid of losing. Tell him I'm not afraid, Jerry."

The bartender laughed. "Why don't you show him, Paige? You like a challenge."

"I'm tired."

"Scared." Riley smiled as a spark of anger flickered in her eyes. He had the urge to provoke her, to do anything to bring down the wall she'd put up when he entered the room.

"Fine. You want a game, I'll give you a game."

"I want a game, Miss Hathaway."

"I should have my head examined," she muttered as she moved to collect the balls.

"What did you say?"

"She said she should have her head examined," Jerry said helpfully, a big grin on his face. "I take it you two know each other."

"Yes," Riley replied.

"Barely," Paige corrected. "Don't be nice to him, Jerry. I think he followed me here."

"You're stalking her?" Jerry asked, his smile vanishing. "Maybe you should get the hell out of my bar, then."

"No, no," Paige said quickly. "It's not that way. It's not personal."

"She's right. It's not at all personal. It's business."

"Mr. McAllister's grandmother is selling a statue to us," Paige added.

"
Maybe
selling a statue, if it ever shows up again." He gave her a pointed look.

"It will."

"I hope so."

Jerry moved toward the door. "All right then. I'm not getting in the middle of this. But I'm warning you, dude. You mess with her, you mess with me. Let me know if you need anything," Jerry added to Paige.

"Good friend of yours?" Riley asked as Jerry left.

"Yes, he is, as a matter of fact."

"I'm surprised. I didn't figure you for a Fast Willy's kind of girl."

"I don't think you know me well enough to make any assumptions about me. Not that that will stop you. Stereotyping is hardly confined to the rich, is it?"

"At least you admit you're rich."

"It's hardly a secret that my family is wealthy, but believe it or not, I'm nowhere near as rich as they are."

"Maybe not now, but I'll bet there are some hefty inheritances in your future."

"Not that it's any of your business."

"Until you return my grandmother's missing dragon, everything about you is my business."

"It's not exactly missing. It's just unaccounted for at the moment."

"Splitting hairs, don't you think? Why did your father take the dragon out of the store, anyway? I thought you had state-of-the-art testing equipment on the premises. Isn't that what your brochure says?"

"You've read our brochure?"

"I've read a great deal about your company in the past twenty-four hours."

"Then you shouldn't be worried."

"Maybe I wouldn't be—if you weren't worried. But you are, aren't you, Miss Hathaway? This isn't standard operating procedure. This isn't the way things normally go down." She glanced away from him, guiltily he thought. "I can't help wondering what's coming next."

"Nothing is coming next. You just need to be patient."

"I'm not a patient man."

"I can see that." She paused. "Do you actually want to play pool?" She waved her hand toward the table.

"Do you really know how to play, or did the red-haired guy give you a break?"

"Jerry give me a break? Not in this lifetime. And, yes, I do know how to play pool. Although at our house we refer to the game as billiards." An impulsive smile broke across her face as she said the word. "Or, as Jerry calls it, billiards." She added a British accent and a laugh that broke the tension between them. "My grandfather always refers to it as that."

God, she was beautiful all loosened up again, her long blond hair falling out of its ponytail, her slender body encased in tight-fitting sweats, a pair of running shoes on her feet. Looking like this, he could almost forget she was the princess of San Francisco and way out of his league. He could almost forget that this was business.

She cleared her throat. "You're staring." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I look a mess. My mother would have a fit if she knew I was out in public looking like this."

"I like it."

"You do?" she asked, amazement in her voice. "It's not at all appropriate."

"Who cares about appropriate?"

"I always have to be careful what I wear, because with my luck some photographer desperate for a photo to fill tomorrow's empty slot will snap me in my sweats and suggest that maybe Hathaway's is losing money, and the incident will be blown completely out of proportion."

"Gone a few rounds with the press, have you?"

"More than a few."

"Well, there's no paparazzi here. And I don't have a camera. Although I wish I did, because you don't look anything like the woman I saw earlier today. In fact, since you've been in this room, you've undergone several transformations. You remind me of a lizard I used to have as a kid."

"A lizard? I remind you of a lizard? That's quite a compliment."

He laughed at her look of outrage. "A chameleon. The kind of lizard that changes colors to fit its environment. That's what you do. And it was a compliment. I don't know many women who can be comfortable in the back room of Fast Willy's and the next day go to work in the executive offices of Hathaway's."

She frowned at him. "I still think you could do better than lizard if you're looking to give a compliment. It's no wonder why you had nothing better to do tonight than follow me around. That's what you've been doing, isn't it? I should call the cops."

"I don't think you want to call the police, not with my grandmother's dragon missing."

"I told you before—"

"I know what you told me before. But my instincts tell me something else is going on. Have you spoken to your father since we met earlier?"

"Since you've been following me, you know that I haven't."

"I thought he might have called you."

"He didn't."

"Is that unusual? Not hearing from your father when he has a valuable artifact out of your store?"

"Potentially valuable," she corrected.

"Oh, come on. If it was a fake, it would have been returned to us hours ago."

"There's nothing to worry about, Mr. McAllister."

"Riley," he corrected. "And I am worried, because as I said before -- you're nervous."

"Maybe I'm nervous because you've been following me around." She paused as her cell phone rang. She hesitated, then pulled out of her purse to answer. "Hello."

"Hello?"

Riley watched the color drain from her face. "Wh-what did you say?" she stuttered. "Where? When? Yes, I'll come right away."

"What's wrong?" he asked as she ended the call.

"My father," she said, her eyes dazed, frightened.

"Where is he?"

"He's in the hospital. He was attacked in an alley in Chinatown. He's in critical condition."

Paige found her mother in the waiting room on the fourth floor of St. Mary's Hospital. Next to Victoria was her closest friend, Joanne Bennett, another well-to-do socialite in her fifties, and Joanne's son, Martin, the object of their earlier discussion. A tall, lean man in his mid-thirties with perfectly styled dark blond hair, Martin was still wearing the charcoal gray Armani suit he'd had on at work earlier that day. While sometimes his never-a-hair-out-of-place demeanor annoyed Paige, right now she found it reassuring. Things couldn't be that bad if Martin looked so calm

Martin got up to greet her, putting his arms around her in a comforting hug. "It will be all right, Paige."

She wanted to linger. It felt good to let someone take care of her, but she knew she couldn't hide in Martin's arms. She had to see her mother's face, look into her eyes, and then she would know the truth. She pulled away and said, "Mother?"

Victoria's face was white. There were tight lines around her eyes and mouth. She'd come out of the house without touching up her lipstick, without wearing hose, for God's sake. In fact, she had on a blue skirt and a yellow sweater that didn't match, all the little details her mother took such pride in. It was bad. It had to be bad.

"How is Daddy?" she forced herself to ask.

"They don't know yet. He's unconscious. He has a bad gash in his head, maybe a skull fracture." Victoria cleared her throat as the words came out choked and emotional.

"But he's going to be all right? He'll recover?"

"I'm sure he will," Victoria replied, but there was no strength in her voice, no confidence, just fear. "The doctor said it may be awhile before we know anything."

"I don't understand what happened. Was he robbed? What was he doing in Chinatown?" The questions tumbled out of her mouth. "Did they find the person who did this to him?"

"Paige, slow down," Joanne chided gently. "There's time to know everything."

"Is there time? Are you sure there's time?" Paige asked, meeting her mother's gaze.

"I hope so," Victoria muttered.

"This is a private conversation. Do you mind?" Martin said.

Paige turned to see Martin bearing down on Riley, who had stopped a discreet distance away. She'd forgotten he was there, forgotten he'd given her a ride to the hospital.

"Are you with the press?" Martin demanded.

"He brought me here," Paige answered. "Riley McAllister, Martin Bennett." She turned to her mother, leaving the two men to shake hands or not. "Have you spoken to the police?"

"Just for a few moments. They don't know anything. Or at least they're not saying what they know. Someone found your father lying in an alley in Chinatown." Victoria put her head on her hand. "God. An alley, of all places."

Her mother's words created a vivid picture in Paige's mind, one of her father defenseless and in pain, maybe crying out for help, for family. Paige felt nauseous at the thought. "I don't understand how this could happen—"

"Paige, I know you're terrified, and you want answers," Joanne cut in with a compassionate smile, "but your mother is also upset, and she doesn't know anything more than she's already told you."

"Except that he was in Chinatown," Victoria said a bitter note creeping into her voice as she exchanged a pointed look with her friend. "Probably with that damn woman."

"Dad was with another woman?" It was too much to take in. Paige started to sway.

Riley was suddenly behind her. He caught her by the arm, and she sank back against his solid chest. His arm came around her waist. "Hang on," he said, leading her to a nearby chair. She sat down, and he pushed her head down between her knees. "Breathe."

"I'm okay." She sat back up. "I'm okay," she repeated, looking into Riley's skeptical eyes. "I just felt dizzy for a second."

"What can I do to help?" Martin asked, drawing her attention back to him.

She didn't know how to reply to that. What could anyone do to help except make her father be all right again? But Martin wanted to do something. "Maybe some water."

"I'll get it right away."

Riley took one of her hands in his and gave it a squeeze. "The hardest part is the waiting."

"You sound like you know something about it."

"I've done this a few times."

His compassionate gaze completely undid her. Was this the same man who had stormed into her office yesterday? Who had followed her all over San Francisco tonight and practically accused her and her family of lying and stealing? Because he wasn't acting like that man right now. He was acting more like a friend. And they weren't friends. She couldn't start thinking they were. He'd given her a ride because she'd been too frantic to get her keys in the lock of her car door, and he'd insisted she go with him. Why had he insisted? Probably to find out whether the dragon had come in with her father.

"You don't have to stay. I can get a ride home," she said. "This is a family matter." Paige dropped her voice down a notch. "As soon as my mother gets her bearings, she'll be horrified that you've witnessed such a private moment. And she doesn't need that right now. I'll find out about the dragon as soon as I can. I know that's your main concern."

"I do hope your father is all right."

Her eyes misted. "So do I. He's not the best dad," she whispered, "but he's the only one I've got."

Riley squeezed her hand once again. "Keep the faith."

His words brought back memories from the last time someone had said that to her, the night before Elizabeth died. She had been only six years old, but those words were forever burned in her memory.

Keeping the faith then hadn't stopped the worst from happening. And now it was happening again. Why? Was it a random attack? A mugging gone bad? Or something else?

He'd been in Chinatown—maybe with another woman. An affair? God, she didn't want to go there.

"Here's your water." Martin handed her a bottled water.