Her Man Friday (37 page)

On any other occasion, Lily might have found the room cozy in a macho, dark, film noir kind of way. But not tonight. Not when the house of cards the two of them had built together by hand over the last decade was about to come crashing down around them.

"Schuyler," she said when he remained silent. "Did you hear me? I said we have a problem."

He jerked off his tuxedo jacket and shirt—God alone knew what had happened to all the studs, because Lily sure wasn't going to ask him—and tossed both, without looking at them, onto an ox-blood leather chair near the bed. His bare back gleamed like gold in the soft light before he disappeared into a walk-in closet that was roughly the size of New Hampshire.

"Who the hell cares?" he snapped from inside.

Lily curled her fingers into fists. "I care, Schuyler. Our man Freiberger is looking to send me up the river."

"What are you talking about?" he asked, still not emerging from inside the closet.

"If he has his way, I'm destined for stripes."

"Lily. Darling. You want to tell me something that makes sense now?"

Lily wondered where to begin, then decided she might as well just start with that crystal clear moment when her entire life exploded in her face. "When I went up to my room to change for dinner tonight, who do you think I found there?"

Schuyler emerged from the closet then, tying the sash of a flowing midnight blue silk robe over his bare chest and matching pajama bottoms. "The big, bad wolf?" he guessed.

She nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

He sighed heavily, as if he really didn't want to be bothered by her this evening, then strode to the bar on the other side of the room and uncapped a bottle of cognac. "Join me?" he asked.

"You bet," she replied readily.

Lily, too, had finally changed out of her work clothes, but still considered it a bit early to be in her pajamas, so had opted for a pair of gray fleece sweats and an oversize, white man-style shirt. She'd pulled her hair to the crown of her head in a ponytail, and it tickled the back of her neck as she tossed her head to one side.

"I'm assuming," Schuyler said as he handed her a large snifter of cognac, "that this big, bad wolf is none other than our illustrious Mr. Freiberger?"

She nodded. "But I don't think his name is really Leonard Freiberger," she said.

Schuyler rolled his eyes. "Lily. Darling. That goes without saying. Did you honestly think it was?"

"I don't know," she said. "At this point, I have no idea what hit me."

Schuyler inhaled deeply again, and released the breath slowly. "So what happened?"

"He accessed my files, Schuyler. The ones in my laptop."

The snifter he had been lifting to his mouth stopped well short of completing the action. When he looked at Lily, she realized that he finally, finally, understood the magnitude of what had happened. "All of them?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, enough to think he's uncovered millions of dollars worth of fraud and theft."

Schuyler's entire body slumped forward. "Oh, fabulous."

"And he thinks
I'm
the one who's the thief."

That, at least, made Schuyler bark with laughter. "
You? A thief
? Oh, how wonderfully rich. Darling Lily steals millions. Film at eleven. What kind of idiot is the man?"

"One who has a little knowledge," she said. "And a little knowledge—"

"Is a dangerous thing," he finished for her.

"Especially in this case. I tried to explain—"

Schuyler's expression went utterly glacial. "You didn't. Tell me you didn't do that."

She hesitated only a moment before revealing, "He didn't give me a chance."

"Well, thank God for small miracles."

"But I would have told him the truth, Schuyler," Lily continued, wanting to make sure he knew where she stood on this. "I would have told him everything, if I'd thought he would listen."

This time Schuyler's expression punctuated his fear. "Lily, you can't do that. You can't tell him the truth. It would ruin everything."

"I may not have any choice."

"No. You promised me. Lily. You
promised
."

"But, Schuyler…" She exhaled a weary sigh. "He thinks I'm a thief."

"He'll get over it."

"No, he won't. He's not going to let this go." She might as well tell Schuyler everything. He'd find out soon enough. "He's preparing a report to take to the board of directors."

Once again, Schuyler's body slumped forward. "When?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "But I think it's safe to assume it won't take him long to put it all together. Or, at least, put together what he
thinks
is going on. And the only thing worse than him telling the board what he thinks is going on is having them find out what's
really
going on. You know how they are. You know how they'll react. You know what this will mean to the company. We have to tell Leo the truth."

Schuyler nodded, then took a slow, thoughtful sip of his cognac. Then, after he had swallowed it, he thought some more. Finally, he gazed down at her and said, "Well, Lily. Darling. I guess you're right. I guess you and I are just going to have to explain things to dear Leonard Freiberger, aren't we? And we're going to have to hope like hell that he understands."

Leo was still feeling a little numb as he lay awake in bed that night perusing the file on the Rigby Gang that Eddie had left with him the day before. The more he read, the more he berated himself for his own stupidity. Because considering her background, then right from the start, he should have been able to ID Lily as the likeliest suspect in the theft of the missing Kimball millions. If he'd just been thinking with his brain instead of his—

He growled under his breath and enjoyed another long, cool slug of Anchor Steam. If he'd just seen past what she appeared to be to find out who she really was, then none of this would have happened. He would have fingered her as the thief right off, would have collected all kinds of accolades from Kimball's board of directors—probably some he'd never heard before from Thesaurus Man—and by now he would have moved on to the next client. He would be feeling proud of another job well done, satisfied that another crook was behind bars, convinced that he had done the right thing.

Instead of feeling sick inside every time he thought about Lily and how he had fallen for her so completely, so profoundly.

So stupidly.

He'd spent the better part of the evening going over the rest of the files from her laptop that he'd duped onto diskette. And what he'd found had only reinforced everything he'd already known to be true. Lily was guilty of stealing tens of millions of dollars from her employer over the years and putting it into private accounts all over the world. He just wished he knew what had happened to all the funds once she'd removed them again. Had she made investments? Had she consolidated the cash in one big lump in Switzerland? Had she bought real estate? Jewelry? Bonds?

That was the one thing he continued to have trouble understanding. Why she was still at it—she'd made deposits into some of those accounts as recently as last month. She'd filtered off enough money by now to live in incredible luxury for the rest of her life. So why hadn't she gotten out while the getting was good and retired with her ill-gotten gains? Was she so greedy that even scores of millions of dollars weren't enough to satisfy her? Had she been trying to go for a cool billion?

And, dammit, how could he have been so wrong about her?

Because Leo did have good instincts, by God. Yet not one of them had kicked in to warn him to be careful where Lily Rigby was concerned. Oh, there had been moments there in the beginning, when he'd first come to Ashling, when he'd suspected her of being up to something, of hiding something. But he'd thought that something had to do with fulfilling the billionaire's needs in an area other than social secretary. He'd certainly never considered her a candidate for the role of corporate thief. Even now, after all he'd discovered about her, the thought of Lily committing acts of theft and betrayal just didn't sit right with Leo at all.

But there was nothing else that would explain why she had been playing fast and loose with Kimball's billions for years. There was nothing else that would explain why she had taken money—and she clearly
had
taken the money—and hidden it in personal accounts. There was nothing else that would explain why she had lied and misrepresented herself to Leo.

Nothing.

Another long, thoughtful pull of beer left the bottle empty, and he was rising to retrieve a second from the fridge when the telephone on his night stand rang shrilly to stop him. Who the hell would be calling him at two A.M.? he wondered. Either it was another drunk who'd misdialed Yellow Cab—whose telephone number was only one different from Leo's—or else it was something important. In either event, he really didn't want to hear about it.

In spite of that, he snatched the receiver from its cradle and snarled, "What is it?"

There was a slight hesitation on the other end, followed by a woman's voice asking tentatively, "Leo?"

"Lily?"

He cursed himself for the wistfulness he heard in his own voice, then gave himself a mental smack for the curl of heat that unwound in his belly. Gripping the receiver brutally, he added, "What do
you
want?"

There was another slight hesitation on the other end of the line, then she told him, "I need your help."

He couldn't quite halt the derisive chuckle that escaped him. "Again? Didn't you already try this once? Oh, wait," he went on before she had a chance to answer. "No, that was a favor you wanted earlier, wasn't it? Now you want help. Well, gee, isn't this just the biggest surprise I've ever had in my life."

Her voice was tinted with urgency and impatience when she said, "Just shut up and listen. The help I need is for Chloe, Leo, not me. Chloe's in trouble, and you're closer to where she is than I am, and I need for you to go get her. Please."

"Chloe?" he asked, his sarcasm dying a quick death, his concern rousing completely to take its place. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

"She just called here. To make a long story short, she's in a bar in downtown Philly with a man who's drunk and mean, and who's decided he's going to take her home with him tonight and make her his own. Am I making myself clear?"

"Shit," he hissed.

"I couldn't have put it better myself," she said succinctly. "She was with her friend Lauren, and the two of them evidently bit off more than they could chew, and now Lauren's abandoned Chloe, and she's all alone with this guy. She got away from him long enough to use the phone in the bathroom, but she doesn't think she can stall him much longer. Schuyler's gone out again somewhere, and I don't know where he is. I've tried his cell number, but he's not answering it. And even this time of night, it's going to take me a half hour to get into town. You could be at this place—"

"In fifteen minutes," he told her. "What's the name of the bar?"

"Smoky Joe's. It's on—"

"Oh, swell," he growled, interrupting.

"Do you know where it is?"

"Yeah, unfortunately I do. Look, a friend of mine lives a block away from the place. I'll call him before I go, and if he's home, he can run down and keep an eye on things until I get there. I'll be there myself in fifteen minutes," he repeated. "And don't worry. I'll make sure Chloe stays safe until you arrive."

"Okay. Thanks, Leo. I owe you."

You're damned right you do
, he thought.
And not just for this, either
.

She hung up before he could say anything else—not that there was anything else to say. So Leo stabbed a finger down on the disconnect button, then punched in seven numbers as he struggled into a pair of blue jeans.

Thankfully, Eddie was home. "Yeah, whaddaya want?" he asked when he picked up the phone. He was clearly wide awake, which wasn't surprising, seeing as how the guy did most of his living at night.

Leo reached for a navy flannel shirt and thrust his arms into it, cradling the telephone between his ear and his shoulder as he buttoned the garment. "Eddie, it's Leo Friday. I need for you to do me another favor."

Smoky Joe's was a pretty awful place, Leo had to admit when he arrived there less than fifteen minutes later. And it was fairly typical of antisocial, misogynist dives. Its walls were composed of fake wood paneling that sported dozens of broken, dirty neon beer signs and posters of large-breasted women straddling big, nasty-looking motorcycles. The population of the place was overwhelmingly male. Though not necessarily human, he noted. Still, most of the patrons present could at least qualify for primate status. Probably. And the place smelled really bad, too. Like bad beer, stale sweat, and mean men.

Several of those mean men glanced up at Leo's entrance, many of them appearing to welcome any diversion he might provide. Especially if that diversion included an opportunity for them to either A) beat the hell out of some undeserving individual, or B) beat the hell out of some undeserving individual.

Leo tried to look mean in return, which wasn't all that hard to do, considering the day he'd had. And he breathed a silent sigh of thanks when he saw Eddie seated at the bar, looking totally incongruous in his Armani suit and Gucci loafers. Still, his large size and that broken nose of his, not to mention those dark, Mafioso looks, always kept him from being bothered much by troublemakers. So far, he looked as if he were just sitting there minding his own business, nursing a bad beer. When he noted Leo's arrival, however, he jerked his head silently toward a booth in the back of the bar.

Way in the back of the bar, Leo noted when he turned his gaze in that direction. Back where it was very,
very
dark.

He strode forward slowly, cautiously, praying like hell that no one would interpret his simple mobility as a sign of aggression. It seemed to take forever to cover the fifty or so feet between him and that darkness, and he was grateful when Eddie rose from his stool to cover Leo's back. He'd just stepped into the shadows when he heard the low, lethal chuckle of a man who was clearly drunk and amorous—or whatever it was that passed for
amorous
among men like this. Then he heard what sounded like the terrified whimpering of a young, and very frightened, girl.