Obsession (40 page)

They both looked up when she appeared in the doorway. Her father’s expression made her think of a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. He looked guilty, alarmed, and definitely not glad to see her, which was so unlike him that her antenna instantly went up. The other guy’s expression was inscrutable.

“Jenna. I thought you weren’t working this weekend. ” Wetting his lips, Mike Hill glanced over his shoulder at the other man, who had straightened and was looking at her with a spark of unmistakable masculine appreciation in the depths of his mild blue eyes. It was only then that she realized that she was dressed for her dinner date in a sleeveless little black dress that showed off her curves—and no shoes. She hated heels, and had kicked off her pumps under her desk. The knowledge that she was standing there in her bare feet made her feel self-conscious, which in turn made her frown at him. “This is . . . this is . . .”

“Nick Evans,” the newcomer lied—although, of course, she’d had no clue then that it was a lie—stepping out from behind her father and holding out his hand. “You must be Mike’s daughter.”

“I’m Jenna,” she confirmed, shaking his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans.”

“Nick,” he said, smiling at her, and she had smiled back, both because he was a smokin’-hot guy and, she assumed, a client, although her father’s demeanor still made her wonder what was up with that. But when she taxed him on it, once they were alone, he steadfastly insisted that Nick was simply a new, potentially very big, account, and told her that as a firm they should do everything they could to keep him happy.

Poor trusting thing that she was then, she believed him.

After that, Nick was around a lot, at the office and, later, as weeks turned into months, out of it. He never worked with her or any of the associates; instead, her father kept him as his exclusive client, which, again, was unusual. But her father brushed off her questions, and—as she saw later, with the useless wisdom of hindsight—she was too intrigued by the guy’s good looks and easy charm to probe too hard.

The brutal truth was that during the course of bantering exchanges at the office and deeper conversations over cups of coffee and casual meals and the occasional poker game for three when she would, with increasing frequency, drop by her father’s house to discover Nick there, she developed a real thing for him. A major crush. The kind of chemistry-based infatuation that would make her heart speed up when he walked into a room, that would make her go all warm and fuzzy inside when he smiled at her, that would make her daydream with embarrassing regularity about what it would be like to just walk up to him, wrap her arms around his neck, and kiss him senseless like she was dying to do.

But she held back, because he was a client and coming on to him did not seem like the professional thing to do.

The thing was, although she could tell that he was attracted to her, too, although she could see the heat in his eyes sometimes when he looked at her, although she could feel the electricity sizzling between them when he walked her out to her car after dinner at her father’s house, say, or when he sat in her chair in her office with his feet propped on her desk while she tried to explain to him the intricacies behind different financial vehicles, he didn’t so much as make a move in her direction. He didn’t ask her out, he didn’t try to kiss her, he didn’t even make a suggestive remark. Not once.

He simply looked at her with eyes that she could swear burned for her and stayed strictly hands-off.

Until the day when she found out the truth.

It was a Thursday, a perfectly ordinary Thursday in late January, one of those cold, gray, slushy days when nobody wants to be outside. Wrapped up tight in her camel wool coat, with galoshes on her feet and her high heels in her hand, she was the last one out of the office, although not by much. Her father had stayed later than usual, leaving only some fifteen minutes before. It was full night at almost seven p.m., and she remembered thinking how tired she was and wondering whether, if she stopped by her father’s house on the way home, she would find Nick there. He’d been in her father’s office earlier, but he had left before she had a chance to do more than wave and smile at him through the open door.

It was embarrassing to admit even to herself, but she really, really wanted to spend some time with Nick, and that’s what she was thinking about when she left the building via the side door, which opened onto the parking lot that they shared with a couple of other businesses. The wind was blowing a few sparkly crystals of snow around, and the macadam was shiny-wet and ringed with the previous day’s snow. The smell of wood smoke hung in the air. There was no one, absolutely no one, in sight. She hurried through the dark parking lot with her shoulders hunched against the cold. She had almost reached her car—which she was careful to park under one of the two security lights, since it was almost always dark when she left work—when she happened to notice that her father’s gray BMW was still in the lot. Surprised, frowning, she changed course and went over to check it out.

What she found was her father lying motionless on the asphalt beside his car.

“Dad! Oh my God!” She dropped to her knees beside him, grabbing his shoulders, the slush immediately soaking her black pants from the knees down, as icy cold as she suddenly felt all over. “Dad! Dad!”

To her everlasting relief, he groaned and moved and opened his eyes. Her first, immediate, reaction was a wave of thankfulness that he wasn’t, as she had originally feared, dead.

“What happened? Did you fall?” Her voice faltered as she noticed that one eye was starting to swell up and his mouth was cut and bleeding. Her hands slid over the smooth surface of his navy overcoat, instinctively searching for other injuries. “Were you mugged?”

Glancing fearfully all around as the thought occurred—still no one in sight—she was already fumbling through her purse for her phone as she added, “Don’t move. I’m calling for an ambulance.”

“No! No, don’t call anyone.” His voice was surprisingly strong, and his grip was, too, as he grabbed her wrist to stop her from opening her phone. “Just get me into the car and let’s get the hell out of here. They might come back.”

He stirred like he was trying to sit up, but he couldn ’t do it, and panic clutched at her throat. Never in her life had she heard fear in her father’s voice—until now.

“
Who
might come back?” Pulling her wrist free of his grip, she flipped open her phone even as she cast another scared look around. “Just stay still. I’m calling the police.”

She was dialing 911 even as she spoke.

“No!” There was such panic in his voice that she paused with her finger poised above the last digit to frown at him. “Don’t you understand? You do that and they’ll kill me—they’ll kill us both.” Breathing hard, he managed to push himself into a sitting position, then flopped awkwardly sideways so that his shoulder was propped against the side of the BMW. “You gotta call somebody, call Nick.”

“Nick?” Uncomprehending, she stared at him.

That’s when her world as she knew it came crashing down around her ears.

“He’s FBI,” he said tiredly, closing his battered eyes and slumping against the car. Blood trickled from his cut mouth down over his chin, but she was too shocked to even think about trying to stop it. “Just call him, would you? His number’s on my phone. In my pocket.”

Still reeling, she fished out the phone, found the programmed number, and pressed the button. When Nick answered—a simple “hello” with no identifying information, which, in retrospect, said it all—her voice held no intonation whatsoever as she told him, “It’s Jenna. My father’s been hurt. He said to call you. We’re in the parking lot outside the building.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said, and he was. But with her father’s fear that “they” might return as an impetus, she had already managed to get her father up and into the backseat of his car. He was lying across the seats, breathing hard, and she was tucking his legs inside when she heard a footstep behind her.

“Hey.” It was Nick’s voice, she recognized it instantly, but it came too late to prevent her from whirling and jumping with fright. He met her gaze fleetingly, but his attention immediately shifted to her father. He leaned into the car. “You hurt bad?”

“A couple cracked ribs, maybe. I’ve had worse.” Mike’s voice sounded labored.

“Was it Manucci?”

“Yeah. He didn’t like the profit margin, so he sent two of his goons to let me know. Jumped me in the parking lot.” His voice changed. “They said that if things don’t improve, next time they’ll hurt Jenna.”

“Okay.” He withdrew from the car, shut the door on Mike, and caught Jenna, who was hovering behind him, by the elbow. There in the uncertain light of the dark, newly scary parking lot, he looked hard, tough, and in no way like the charming man she had come to have a major jones for. “I need you to get in your car and drive to Mike’s house. Stay right in front of me. I’ll drive him, and then I’ll come back for my car later.”

He was propelling her toward her car as he spoke, pausing only to scoop her heels and purse from the pavement where she had dropped them.

“You’re FBI?” she asked, still not quite believing it as she fished in her pocket for her keys. He nodded grimly.

“Yes.”

“But what’s going on?” Her head was whirling, and she knew she was in shock, but she still retained enough presence of mind to know that whatever was happening, they—she and her father and the firm—wanted no part of it. “Is it bad? Is it about us?”

“It’s not about
you.
” He took her keys from her and pressed the button to unlock her door, then opened it for her. “Get in.”

“What do you mean it’s not about me?” Panic tightened her throat and had her clutching at the sleeve of his navy jacket. “Is it about my father? Please, I have to know.”

“You probably ought to ask Mike.” Tossing her shoes and purse into the passenger seat, he disengaged her hands from his coat, bundled her inside the car, turned on the ignition for her, and pulled her seat belt around her. “Lock the doors. Drive. I’ll be right behind you.”

Then he closed the door on her, turned, and walked back toward her father’s car. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer as she watched his tall, broad-shouldered figure stride away across the wet pavement.

It was her father who told her the truth, late that night, after they had returned to his house and Nick had called somebody—another shadowy government doctor—who had come, patched Mike up, and left again. Mike was lying in his bed, propped up on pillows because breathing was difficult with his injured ribs. Holding her hand, he wept as he confessed that he was using the firm to launder funds for the Mob, channeling “dirty money” offshore and from there investing it in legitimate businesses and financial vehicles so that the earnings would appear legal. Crime boss Phillip Manucci was one of Hill, LLC’s biggest clients, although his dealings with the firm were known only to her father. Manucci was the target of Nick’s investigation, and he had simply followed the money to Mike Hill. The investigation was almost over, and it looked like it was going to bring down the entire Baltimore-and-D.C.-based faction of the Mob along with a dozen or more basically unrelated businesses that were, nevertheless, part of the web Manucci had spun to mask his crimes.

Hill, LLC included.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” her father said, clutching her hand as she sat on the edge of his bed, his usually cheerful face crumpled with worry and grief. “Money was real tight. I had you to raise, put through college. It started so small—I needed a loan to keep the business going, and Manucci was the only one willing to give me the money. Then he asked me for advice. What was I going to do, turn him down? Let me tell you, you don’t turn down Phillip Manucci and live to tell the tale. Then it just mushroomed from there. Soon there was no way out. I was in too deep. By the time Nick showed up, I’d been laundering money for Manucci for years. Once the FBI found me, I knew I didn’t have a choice. Like Nick said, if I cooperate with him I’ll spend a few years in prison. If I don’t, when Manucci gets wind of the investigation—and he will get wind of it, sooner or later—he’ll kill me without a second thought. And even if I was prepared to face that, now he’s threatened you.” His eyes closed, and he heaved a great shaking sigh as tears leaked out from under his closed lids. “I’ve made a hell of a mess of it, Jen.”

Listening, her stomach cramped. Her throat closed up. Always, all her life, her father had been her rock, the solid, sturdy presence at the core of her life. No matter how guilty he was, to see him brought so low both terrified her and wrung her heart.

“It’s okay, Dad,” she said, tears falling from her eyes, too, as she hugged him. “We’ll get through this together. Don’t worry anymore, please.”

She stayed with him until at last the pain pills the doctor had given him kicked in and he fell asleep. Then she headed for the living room. For her entire life, her father had done his best to care for and protect her. Now she was determined to do what she could to care for and protect him.

With that goal in mind, she went out to the living room to talk to Nick. He was sprawled on her father’s big leather couch, minus his jacket and tie now, his long legs stretched out in front of him, his hands folded behind his head as he watched some kind of sports show on ESPN. A black shoulder holster was slung across the left side of his chest, unmistakable against his white shirt. There was no mistaking the gun that was strapped securely into it, either.

The sight of that gun made her stomach knot.

His head swiveled toward her. His arms dropped and he sat up a little straighter.

“How’s Mike?”

“Worried. Scared.” She walked toward the couch and sank down beside him. Because her pants had been soaked, she was wearing a pair of her father’s silky pajamas with a matching robe that was cinched tightly around her waist. Her feet were bare. “Just like I am.”