Stolen Seduction (7 page)

questions without my attorney.”

His back went up. And whatever affable mood he thought they’d been working toward imploded.

“That’s entirely your choice. But there’s no reason—”

“Yeah. There is. Now if there’s nothing else, Detective, I’d appreciate it if you’d go. I have several

calls I need to make. Family to notify and responsibilities to see to. If you have any other questions,

have Detective Chen call my secretary and I’ll cooperate in any way I can. With my lawyer. Otherwise, this conversation is over.”

His eyes raked her battered face. Ran down to the V of her robe and back up again before he could

stop it. She saw, and pulled the lapels together.

This was better. Keeping things professional. Not falling back into lust with her like he’d been in

Florida. Or Puerto Rico. Or damn…in his apartment last night. She was right. She was a person of

interest in their case, and he was a detective investigating a crime he knew instinctively she was

somehow linked to.

Better. Easier. Definitely safer. Especially for her.

He pulled a card from his back pocket and handed it to her. “If you think of anything else, give us a

call.”

He stopped with one hand on the doorknob. But didn’t dare look back at her. “Why didn’t you just

tell him you were with me last night?”

Silence.

Then quietly she said, “Why didn’t you?” When he didn’t answer, she added, “That’s what I

thought. As far as either of us is concerned, it never happened.”

Hailey’s hands were shaking as she reached out to grip the edge of the couch. She wasn’t going to

hyperventilate, dammit.

Bryan was dead. Just like her father. Your participation is a matter of life and death. You’re the only

one I can trust. A chill slid down her spine. What if her father had been trying to tell her something

in that note? Was it possible his death hadn’t been an accident?

Heart racing, she reached for the phone and dialed the one real friend she had in the Key West PD.

Alice Hargrove answered on the second ring.

“Funny farm. What’s your emergency?”

Hailey’s mind spun. And because she’d been conditioned, she rattled off the first thing that came to

her. “You talking to me?”

“Better, H. But you need to come up with something more original than Taxi Driver. And a little humor in your voice would help. A takeoff on Paris Hilton would work better. Try, ‘I’ve lost my pinktutu’d Taco Bell dog.’”

Hailey closed her eyes. Normally Allie’s jovial personality eased whatever was bothering her. Allie’s humor had made her laugh when she’d been rejected for the detectives program, when she’d

been going through her divorce, even after the death of her father two weeks ago. But today it didn’t

do a thing to ease the sickness in her gut. “Allie, I need a favor. A big one.”

Allie’s tone grew serious. “What is it? And where are you? I left a message on your home phone

last night but you never called back.”

“Wisconsin. I came up to check on the new resort. Allie, Bryan’s dead.”

“No shit?” There was a long silence, and then Allie said, “Well, not to be morbid or anything, but

that isn’t exactly a bad thing for you, is it?”

Hailey cringed. A little digging and Shane would figure that out as well, if he didn’t already know.

“I’m pretty sure he was murdered. The police were just here questioning me.”

“What? Why you?”

Hailey ran her hand over her brow. The shakes were gone, thankfully. But she still felt like she

might throw up. “Because I went by the house yesterday before coming up here.”

“Well, technically it’s your house, right? How do you know he was murdered?”

“Because they wouldn’t have been here questioning my whereabouts if he hadn’t been. Allie, it’s

not going to take them long to figure out exactly what you just said. I have motive. I had means. I

have a crappy alibi.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up the train, circus-girl. What do you mean you have a crappy alibi?

Where were you yesterday?”

Hailey bit her lip. She wasn’t going to drag Allie into this. They were friends, but Allie was up for a

promotion. And unlike Hailey, she was a damn good officer.

“That doesn’t matter. Listen, I need you to do me a favor. My father was autopsied. I saw the final

report, but nothing stood out to me. Can you get hold of the report and have your dad take a look at

it? See if something jumps at him?”

Allie’s father was the Monroe County medical examiner. If ever there was a death expert, it was

James Hargrove. “You think your father didn’t die of heart failure like the ME concluded? And for

the record, I saw the way you changed subjects there.”

Hailey ignored the last sentence and focused on the important one. “I’m not sure. A few things he

said to me at the end don’t make a whole lot of sense. I’ve got this strange feeling he was trying to

tell me something. I was dealing with a lot right after his death. I didn’t read the report as carefully

as I could have.”

“Yeah, H, I can do that, but what does this have to do with Bryan?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a gut feeling. Something’s not right.”

“I’ll say. Stinky and Denmark come to mind.”

“I’ve never understood that saying.”

“Me, either,” Allie said. “I’m sure it offends someone somewhere, but I’m always offending people,

so that’s nothing new.”

This time when Hailey smiled, she did feel marginally better. If only for a second. But her smile

quickly faded. “You’ll never guess who the detective was that questioned me”.

“Howie D!”

Hailey couldn’t help it. She chuckled. Allie’s obsession with the Puerto Rican Backstreet Boy was

legendary. Through Hailey’s short marriage to Rafe, Allie had routinely pointed out that Rafe

looked like an older, taller version of the singer. A fact that used to piss Rafe off to no end.

“No. Unfortunately. Think tall, dark and brooding Chicago detective.”

“No!”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Allie whistled on her end of the phone. “What happened?”

Since Hailey had already told Allie all about Shane and their combustible chemistry, no explanation

was needed. She did, however, think it wise to omit the whole make-out session in his apartment

last night. “Not much. He insulted me. I insulted him. He tried to get me to confess to killing my

cousin. Match made in heaven, don’t you think?”

“Honey, we need to work on your man skills.”

“Among other things. Look, Allie, I gotta go. I’ll call you later.”

“You better. I’ll get in touch with my dad and get what you need.” Her tone grew serious. “And, H,

seriously, if you need anything else, call me. I mean it. I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’ll be fine. But thanks.”

Hailey hung up, then dialed the car service she frequently used. The door to the suite opened just as

she was hanging up. Billy stepped in the room carrying two paper cups.

She rose and took the coffee he held out for her. “What did the cops want?”

She took a long swallow and felt the bitter liquid slide down her throat and warm her iced-over belly. “Nothing. Maxwell was just in the area and stopped by to say hello.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed. “Bullshit. I remember the way you two were all buddy-buddy at Rafe and

Lisa’s wedding. This wasn’t a casual meet and greet.”

She sipped again but didn’t look away. No matter what Billy thought he knew or what he said now,

she wasn’t pulling him into this. One more run-in with the law and he was going to be in serious

trouble. And while Hailey could handle the fallout that would cause with her ex-husband, she

wouldn’t let it happen because she owed their mother. Teresa Sullivan was the mother Hailey had

always wished she’d had, and she was in the last stages of pancreatic cancer. If her youngest son

went to jail now, before it was truly over, it would kill her. Literally.

“You don’t think he’d stop by just to see me?”

“That’s not why he was here.”

With a frown she moved to sit in a side chair. “Some men do find me attractive.”

Billy chuckled as he dropped onto the couch, slipped off his flip-flops and propped his bare feet up

on the glass coffee table. “I know they do. That cop definitely does. But that’s not why he was

here.” He glanced down into his paper cup as a wicked smile spread across his face. “He thinks the

two of us are doing the nasty. And he was not thrilled with that idea.”

Considering the way Shane had put the kibosh on their little lip-lock last night, Hailey seriously

doubted he cared whom she did what with. “You say that like it grosses you out.”

“Don’t get me wrong, H, you’re hot and all that. But even if there wasn’t the whole ick factor because you’re family, Rafe’d kick my ass. Now, your sister”—his brow lifted—"that’s another story.”

Hailey pinned him with a look. Her sister, Nicole, was close in age to Billy’s twenty-seven, and everything Hailey wasn’t. Petite, naturally tan, stunning in a you-can’t-miss-me kind of way, and a total party girl. It made perfect sense Billy would find her attractive.

It was also the reason she needed him to get back to Miami and take care of that other thing she

needed done before Nicole got home from her trip to Europe.

“I called you a car. It’ll be here in a few minutes.”

He eyed her over the plastic lid. And though she tried not to let her anxiety over everything she’d

just learned show, he saw it. The guy was too smart for his own good. “You sure you don’t need me

up here?”

She shook her head. “We got what I wanted last night. The only thing I need from you is to handle

that other matter we discussed.”

His hazel eyes held hers longer than she liked. And her stomach tightened at the anxiety she hoped

he didn’t see. He was nothing like his brother, her ex. Light instead of dark, strongly resembling

their father’s Irish genes, while Rafe looked more like the Puerto Rican side of the family. Spontaneous where Rafe was careful. Cocky where Rafe was sure. Someone who did things his way and

because of it, was usually misunderstood.

She figured that last quality was why she liked Billy so much. Yeah, he made bad choices, and more

often than not it landed him in trouble, but in retrospect, he wasn’t a whole lot different from her. In

fact, as he studied her now with eyes that saw way too much, she realized she and Billy had way

more in common than she’d ever had with Rafe.

He finally broke the stare-down, dropped his feet and leaned forward. “What does it mean? The

number on the bottom of the statue? Twenty-five. Twenty-five what?”

“I don’t know.” More and more she was starting to believe maybe her father was trying to tell her

something. What if this crazy treasure hunt wasn’t really all that crazy after all? Who had killed

Bryan, and why? And what if the same person had had something to do with her father’s death?

The phone buzzed, indicating the car was there, the sharp sound like a chain saw cutting through

her thoughts.

She plastered on a smile as she and Billy said a quick good-bye. He grabbed his backpack from the

bedroom and told her he’d be in touch. As the door closed, she prayed his part of their little plan

went off without a hitch. Then dropped her head against the wood as soon as she was alone.

Way to go, Hailey.

Billy was the only person who could vouch for her true whereabouts last night and she’d just let

him go. If Bryan had been murdered, then she really was in deep shit.

She turned, braced her back against the cool door and stared across the suite. She needed to get out

of Chicago ASAP. Before the police figured out a reason to keep her here. Before Shane Maxwell

came back and questioned her all over again. If it weren’t for that meeting tomorrow morning with

the Lake Geneva planning commission, she’d be on a plane right this very minute.

Something inside her said sticking around was going to be bad news, just like it had been in that

bar. In each and every way she could think of.

Tony was in the car on the phone when Shane slid into the passenger seat. He pulled the door closed

and glanced at the construction site. Though this part of the resort was close to being finished, there

was no landscaping around the base of the building, just mounds of dirt and construction materials

strewn about under a thin layer of snow.

Tony flipped his phone closed and shot a look Shane’s way. “Get anything out of her?”

“Nothing more than you did.”

“She say what happened to her face?”

“No.” Shane’s jaw clenched as he stared at the resort. And thought about what she’d admitted to—

shit, being taken hostage by a jihad terrorist? Kauffman was at the top of his list of assholes to deck

the next time he saw the man, right after he pounded Billy Sullivan to dust.

His brain switched over to what she hadn’t admitted. “Could have been a random mugging.”

“You buy that?”

“No. Do you?”

Tony perched an elbow on the windowsill and shook his head. “No way. Just making sure you

don’t. Girl’s lying through her teeth.”

Hell yeah, she was lying. Big-time. And Shane wanted to know why.

He also wanted to know what Sullivan was doing in her hotel room. The kid was in his midtwenties.

She had to be at least six years older than the guy. What the hell did she see in a screwup like Sullivan? And if she was really with the loser, why the hell had her tongue been in Shane’s mouth last

night?

He raked a hand through his hair when he realized where his thoughts were going and tried to put

the visual of the two of them naked and sweaty out of his mind.