Sex, Lies and Midnight (27 page)

For the first time since she’d met him, Hunter looked uncomfortable. He gave her an odd look, then inclined his head toward Simon.

“Simon?” Maya whispered.
No! Please, no.
Don’t let him have betrayed her. She knew it was a useless plea. Because her gut—her heart—knew he had.

She stared at him with devastated eyes. After a nod from Hunter, Simon cleared his throat and reported, “Three days ago I uncovered a cache of fully automatic lower receivers being ran through Black Custom Bikes. We ascertained by running the serial number that the weapons were meant for a military facility in Texas and were reported stolen a month ago.”

“You think my father stole illegal guns?” Maya asked in horror. She’d suspected it, but hearing proof was like a kick in the gut. Maya was horrified. Not only that she’d brought him here, but that she’d freaking paid him to come.

Which was worse? His betrayal of her? Or her betrayal of her father? Tears gathered, hot and aching, behind her eyes. But Maya refused to let them fall. There was no way she’d let Simon know how much he’d hurt her.

“WE DON’T THINK YOUR father stole the guns,” Simon insisted just a second before Hunter echoed his denial.

He couldn’t stand to see Maya so upset. God, this sucked. He’d spent the past twenty-four hours mentally tossing and turning between her and his career. But now when faced with the results of his inadvertent choice, he knew he’d made the wrong one. Maya should have come first.

“We think someone is using your father’s shop as a shipping point, hiding the weapons in crates of motorcycle parts,” Hunter explained. “Since this is the second setup in as many months, it’s clear someone is trying to set him up for an ugly fall.”

“Lilah was involved in this, wasn’t she?” Tobias asked. His tone more than his words made Simon turn and face the man he’d spent his entire career hoping to arrest. He looked as ashamedly angry as he sounded. “I was so focused on using her to get Maya home, I missed the signs that she was using me as well.”

Simon winced. Meeting Hunter’s insistent gaze, he sighed and, obeying the unspoken order, stepped forward.

“It wasn’t Lilah.”

“How do you know?” Caleb asked.

“She has an alibi.”

Simon wanted nothing more than five minutes alone with Maya. A chance to explain. To take Tobias’s advice and tell her how sorry he was.

He didn’t care about his promotion. He didn’t even care about his career. In this second, right now, he’d walk away from it all if it meant keeping Maya.

But that wasn’t his choice to make.

And from the look on her face, so coldly defensive and angry, their future had ended about ten minutes ago.

So he kissed happiness goodbye and continued with his report.

“Because in the time leading up to Jason Raines getting whacked over the head, Lilah Gomez was with me.”

“With you,” Caleb repeated. His face looked like it was carved in stone. Very angry, potentially violent stone.

“Stripping down to her underwear while she danced around the shop in the back of Black Custom Bikes. There are plenty of witnesses, since she was doing it right in front of the windows and the customers at Moonspun Dreams were in the audience.”

“Stripping.”

Simon glowered at Caleb, wishing the man would quit repeating everything he said. It wasn’t like Maya had missed the declaration the first time. Her teary-eyed glare made that abundantly clear.

“I didn’t ask her to, and had no interest in the show.”

Then, because he needed to get this over with so he could attempt to save the best thing that’d ever happened to him, he focused exclusively on Hunter. Just giving a report. No betrayal here, no expectations. Just the job.

“She was there from eleven-fifteen until eleven-twenty-seven. It’s been established that the victim was hit at approximately eleven-thirty. The attacker entered through the side door. It’s not clearly visible from Moonspun Dreams’ windows. Witnesses saw Jason Raines come around the building, pause for a conversation with Lucas, the mechanic, before Lucas drove off in the company truck to make deliveries. However, nobody interviewed saw anyone else coming or going.”

Unable to stop himself, Simon’s gaze cut to Maya for a brief second. Her lower lip trembling, she stared at him through betrayed eyes.

Damning himself, he forced himself to continue his report.

“Caleb has ascertained that there’s no way anyone could get from the front entrance of Black Custom Bikes down three businesses to the end of the sidewalk and around to the side door in less than five minutes. Whether she’s connected in some other way or not, Lilah Gomez is alibied for the actual assault.”

“Did you establish motive for her visit?” Hunter queried, his face expressionless as usual. “Other than her apparent desire to put on a show, that is.”

“The show was just that, a show, sir. While I have no doubt she’d have accepted an advance, my impression was that she had a more specific reason for her visit.” This time he didn’t let himself look toward Maya. He could hear her breath, shaky and rough, and knew she was crying. His gut clenched. He was the world’s biggest jerk.

“Barton.”

Hunter’s reminder pulled him back. With a grimace, Simon reluctantly continued. “From what I’ve been able to discern in my investigation over the past few days, Lilah Gomez’s primary goal is to extort as much money as possible from Black Custom Bikes. She’s promising customers favors, special deals and sneaking added features on to their orders in exchange for cash in her pocket.”

He glanced over at Tobias, noting that the older man didn’t look surprised. Did the guy know everything that was going on, and if so, why was Hunter even here?

“She’s…” Regardless of how much Tobias knew, screwing just sounded tacky. “She’s having an
affair
with Jason Raines. She made like she wanted to start something hot with me, but that was mostly theater.”

“Theater, my ass,” Maya muttered.

Bracing himself, Simon looked at her. Hair a little wild from shoving her fingers through it and her face tearstained beneath the fury, she was curled into her brother’s arms.

“I’m not saying she wouldn’t have given the opportunity, but I wasn’t interested in offering her a chance. And since sex wasn’t her actual motivation, she wasn’t pushing the issue.”

He winced at the watery snort of disbelief coming from Maya’s corner of the room.

“What was her real motivation?” Caleb asked, sounding like he believed not one word of Simon’s report.

“To hurt Maya,” Simon said simply.

Before anyone could react, the phone rang. Caleb released his sister to stride over and grab it.

“Black,” he answered.

Listening, his brow furrowed and he shot a glance toward Hunter.

“You’re sure?” He grimaced, then added, “Fine. Bring her in.”

Hanging up, he said, “That was the state police. They picked up the truck Barton I.D.’d. Lucas claims he’s making deliveries. They counted the crates. Same number Barton reported were loaded in the bed of the truck. They didn’t find any weapons.”

“Do you have an APB out on Lilah?” Hunter asked.

Stone-faced, Caleb nodded.

“She’s clearly involved,” Simon agreed. “But she’s not the mastermind. This is a carefully orchestrated ring. The drugs last month, now guns. There’s something bigger going on.”

Hunter nodded and Caleb jerked his head in agreement. Tobias looked resigned, but not surprised. Only Maya seemed upset.

“A crime ring? Apparently one that’s targeting my father.” She bypassed her brother to stomp over to Hunter and glare into his face. “What are you doing about this?”

“What am
I
doing?” Hunter actually looked shocked.

“Yes, you. You’re obviously in charge. What the hell are you doing to protect my father? To keep his good name from being dirtied by this ugly mess?”

Good name?

Caleb snorted so hard he almost knocked over his coffee. Even Tobias looked surprised at that declaration. Simon couldn’t hold back his own grin.

He had to hand it to Hunter, though. The guy didn’t even blink. Instead he gave Maya a look that was somewhere between sympathy and warning. “Ms. Black, I assure you, we’ve got this under control. Your father isn’t under suspicion, nor is he in danger.”

“We? Who the hell is
we?
” she demanded. Before Hunter could respond, she spun around and pointed at Simon. “You’re a part of his
we
. So you tell me. Who do you work for?”

Simon cut a glance at Hunter and got the go ahead. He steeled himself, then told her, “FBI.”

As if someone had poked a sharp pin in Maya’s balloon of angry energy, she simply deflated. Her shoulders drooped, her eyes filled with fear and she seemed to shrink. “FBI?” she whispered. “You used me. From the beginning. You lied about everything.”

“Not everything,” Simon protested. Then he stopped, shaking his head in regret. She was right. He had no defense. All he could do was take Tobias’s advice. “Maya, I’m sorry. I can explain everything, try and justify my choices. But none of that changes the fact that I hurt you.”

She gave him a long, indecipherable look. Then she stepped away.

“You hurt me, and you used me to hurt people I care about. You and I? We are through,” she told him, her words causing an actual pain in his heart. “Completely.”

With that and one last glare, she turned on her heel and stormed out the door.

Simon wanted to run after her, but he knew it was pointless. Hunter inclined his head to indicate that he had someone outside by now, ready to follow her and make sure she was safe.

“Son, you have some work ahead of you.”

Startled, he looked at Tobias. He’d been so caught up in having his heart ripped from his chest, he’d forgotten the other men were there.

“Work?”

All three nodded.

“On the case?”

They gave him pitying looks.

His gaze went to the door and he sighed and shook his head.

“No point. That particular case is clearly closed.”

Caleb looked smug. Hunter’s face was impassive, as usual, but there was a hint of sympathy in his eyes. And Tobias? He was grinning. Why? Some instinct told him that Simon’s main objective had been to bust him, and this was his revenge?

“I’m gonna do you boys a favor,” Tobias said expansively, taking a seat behind the desk, propping his feet up and leaning back in the chair with a wicked sort of look on his face. “I’m gonna tell you how to handle women.”

“Dad—”

“Don’t interrupt, Caleb. You might be sitting pretty with that sweet Pandora right now, but you’re going to need this information at some point. This, or a surefire method of groveling.”

Caleb’s brows shot up. He and Simon exchanged a look, then he plopped his butt on the other desk with a shrug and waited.

Apparently they were about to learn the ways of women from a master con artist.

Simon was so desperate, it was all he could do not to pull out his notepad and pen so he didn’t miss anything.

“The key to handling women is to ask yourself one single question,” Tobias instructed. “Do you care? If you do, you’ll do whatever it takes to make them happy. And if you don’t, just walk away. There’s no point in wasting your time.”

“That’s it?” Caleb asked.

“That’s it,” his father confirmed.

Caleb laughed. But Simon leaned back with a sigh. Simple, yes. But the wisdom of those words was unmistakable.

He definitely cared enough. Now he just had to figure out what it would take to make Maya happy.

14

MAYA CURLED UP ON THE bed with her laptop while Dottie rubbed her sweet furry head against her shoulder. She’d been comforted by the cat, by her old bedroom and by her dad’s cooking for the past two days.