The Art Of Deception, Book Two, Stolen Hearts series, Romantic Suspense (7 page)

Gage straightened. “This isn’t the first time?”

“The fourth, I think.”

“Maybe you have secret admirer." If he found out who, he’d put the fear of God in them for scaring her.

Sophie snorted. “I don’t think so. I’m not exactly playboy material."

Was she kidding? Okay, maybe she wasn’t overly endowed, but she sure as hell had his interest.

He could tell there was something she wasn’t saying. “What’s your theory, then?”

“A couple of times.... Maybe it was more than that, but I just noticed the last two times...." She bit the corner of her mouth. “Forget it." She hopped down from the counter and started for the door. “It’s nothing. I’m being stupid.”

Gage caught her around the waist and set her back up on the counter. He planted his hands on either side of her again, entrapping her. “Bullshit.”

She looked as if she wanted to cry. “I think...I'm not sure, but...I think someone’s stocking my refrigerator with drugs. Using it as a... what do you call it...a drop off?”

Gage hovered above her like a huge predatory bird, his eyes eagle bright. He held himself so still, Sophie couldn’t hear him breathe.

She leaned backward, the only direction she could move away from him. Part of her had known he could be a dangerous man, but looking into his blue eyes that had turned cold and flat, she realized she’d never been this close to danger. Vince Gage didn’t belong in her world.

He pushed away from her and exhaled a long breath as if he had a leaky safety valve. She measured the distance to the door. If he was going to blow, she’d need a running start.

“I...I shouldn’t have phoned you." She’d rather he yelled at her than this unnerving silence.

He swung back toward her, pinning her to the counter with a glare. “Why did you? Why not just change the locks so everyone and their dog can’t troop through your apartment? Hard to make a drop when the door's locked, isn’t it?”

She picked at a spot of red paint under her fingernail as she tried to form the right answer in her mind. Only the right answer was the truth, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the truth.

“Sophie?” Gage pushed her hands apart.

“It has to be someone I know. If I change the locks that means they’d go somewhere else." And maybe get caught.

She couldn’t breath. She needed to get down off the counter and pace, get her blood flowing, her brain working. Only the kitchen was too small, and Gage too big.

“Do you think it’s Raphael?”

He was standing close enough that she could smell his scent. She felt embarrassed that she even noticed, because he’d just asked her if she thought the person she loved most in the entire world was a drug dealer. Although she’d asked for Gage’s help, part of her wanted to tell him to go to hell. But there was something steady and decent and honest about him, and that’s why she’d called him. She thought she might trust him.

“I don’t know. No." She shook her head. “Raphael would never do anything that might harm people.”

“Why did you call me? Why not Boston’s finest or DEA?”

“Because I don’t want to report it. I just want to talk the situation over, figure out who it is. Obviously, I can’t talk to any of my friends about my suspicions.”

The only sign of his agitation was the vein that throbbed in his forehead. The pulsing vessel ran almost parallel to the scar etched from the end of his eyebrow up into his hair.

“So you didn’t call me because I’m FBI.”

“Not really." She looked into his eyes, then away. Gage was one hell of a scary guy when he wanted to be. “I thought...you know. That maybe you could help. You do this kind of thing, right? Figure out who the bad guy is?”

“Yeah, and then I put them in prison. Usually for a long, long time. But that’s not what you want, is it, Sophie? You think this is a game, where if we all play nice, everything will turn out fine.”

He was right. She wanted to bend the rules to meet her needs, but that’s not the way things worked in Gage’s world. “I shouldn’t have called you,” she said again.

“Damn straight you shouldn’t have. Not unless you want this to be a formal complaint."

He crowded even closer, his stomach muscles, hard, pressing against her knees as he bent over her. “Did you think I’d lay my whole career on the line to make your messy problem go away? What was I supposed to get out of it?”

He lowered his head and nipped her earlobe, his low, seductive voice winding invisible strands around her, holding her enthralled. “Just how good are you, Soph? Good enough for me to sacrifice everything important to me?”

The way he said her name, Soph, as if he had the right to be intimate, shattered the illusion of being held spellbound. Her hand connected with his face in a loud smack.

Taking advantage of his surprise, she pushed him back, jumped off the counter and ran from the room. She streaked through her living room, straight to the door and yanked it open, then stood waiting for him, her hand on the doorknob.

The bastard. God, had she really convinced herself he was decent? Her body shook with outrage as she heard his steps coming down the hallway toward her. He thought he could intimidate her, just because she asked...because she asked.... Oh hell. She let the door swing shut and sagged against it, her stomach in an uproar.

Every word he’d said was true. She hadn’t thought it consciously, hadn’t schemed to seduce him, but still, the intent was there. Her stomach heaved again. How could she have done that? He was married, and it was obvious his career meant everything to him.

Gage eyed her from across the living room, the cheek she’d slapped still a bright red. Her own face turned a similar shade and she looked away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, staring at her hands.

“So am I.”

She glanced up at him. He didn’t look particularly sorry, which meant he didn’t mean it the way she hoped. He was sorry she’d acted like an imbecile. No argument from her on that one.

She cleared her throat and moved away from the door. “I guess you want to leave.”

“Tell me what you saw in the refrigerator that upset you." He frowned at her, looking formidable.

“It was a small can, like a tea canister or something that would hold coffee grounds. Black with a gold etching of a unicorn. I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago, but didn’t look inside that time."

She lifted one shoulder, let it drop. “I didn’t even notice it was gone until three, four days later.”

“And you didn’t look inside before it disappeared?”

“No. There were a lot of little bottles and things. You know, capers, anchovies, treats like that.”

“But it appeared again?” Gage moved closer to her. Instead of feeling threatened, her body relaxed as if she found comfort in his solid presence.

“Yes, about a week later, I guess. I wasn’t paying all that much attention. The canister was pretty, so when I saw it again, I...I looked inside.”

“And?”

“I thought it was going to be tea." She glanced up at him. He stood much closer to her than she’d realized. “It was a white powder.”

“A white powder." She heard the slight, disbelieving edge in his voice.

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t taste it?”

Her gaze locked onto his. “No, I didn’t taste it. Believe it or not, I don’t do drugs. So, even if I did taste it, if the powder wasn’t baking soda or something like that, I wouldn’t have known what it was.”

“So why did you think it wasn’t baking soda, or baking powder or icing sugar? Or Plaster of Paris. You’re an artist. All your friends are artists. There must be other supplies that are white powder.”

Did he think she was making all this up just to get his attention? “Why put it in my refrigerator, then? And why did it disappear? No one seemed to know what I was talking about when I asked them.”

He remained silent as he continued to frown at her. Finally, he nodded. “Give me a list of everyone who comes here and their addresses and phone numbers.”

“You’re going to help me?”

“I’m going to investigate an art fraud,” he said, carefully, looking her straight in the eye. “If I happen to stumble across something else along the way, well...." He shrugged. “We’ll see.”

Her breath escaped in a whoosh of relief, and tears pricked the back of her eyes. “Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for yet. Come on." He nodded toward the kitchen. “You can write that list of names while I tear your refrigerator apart.”

“Right." They were going back to the kitchen. Both of them. Back to that tiny room where Gage had frightened the dickens out of her–and turned her on so much the taste of desire still coated the back of her throat.

He’d barely touched her. Hadn’t even kissed her. What had she gotten herself into by asking for his help?

The third menacing note arrived in her mailbox exactly ten days after the first one. If there was a significance behind the dates when they’d been written or mailed, Sophie had failed to discover it.

The lacquered letter opener slipped out of her hand and fell beside the oak coat tree standing by the door of her apartment as she started to read.
Dearest Chickie
. The first note had started the same way. Only Ciro called her chickie, but all of her friends had heard him use the annoying endearment many times.

Dearest Chickie, When is a snitch not a snitch? When she’s dead.

She stood perfectly still and concentrated on pulling air in, then pushing it out of her lungs. Odd how the simplest tasks could become momentous under the right conditions.

She looked at the note again. Was it a death threat? The first letter had been worded in much the same way, but the message hadn’t been as frightening.
Dearest Chickie, When is a friend not a friend? When she’s a rat.
It had arrived two days after Gage started questioning the people on the list she’d given him.

The second hadn’t been a note at all, but a small package she naively thought was a present from her brother or one of her friends. She’d ripped the wrapping off to discover a rat trap. After she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet, she chucked the trap in the garbage.

Fifteen minutes later, her heart slowed to a normal rhythm, she retrieved the trap and put it in a large brown envelope with the first note. She’d read somewhere it was important to keep evidence of harassment. Things like notes and mementos helped the police to solve a case.

Not that the police were of any help to her. Especially the FBI. She’d phoned Gage when she’d received the first note, but before she could explain what she was calling about, he’d gone all official on her and informed her in that deep, gravelly voice of his that he had twenty other cases besides hers to work on. In other words, don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Hearing the impatience simmering beneath his words, she felt like a kid who’d run to the teacher to tattle on her friends.
Agent Gage, my friend called me a rat.
She apologized and hung up without mentioning the note.

But this one seemed more menacing. The word dead had been underlined. She should tell someone about the letters. Maybe mail both notes and the rat trap to Gage with an explanation. If he thought them important, he’d call her.

She turned to go to her bedroom to put the note with the other one, but her apartment door opened, and her brother stepped inside, carrying two brown paper grocery bags.

“Sophie." Raphael shook his hair back off his face and kicked the door shut. “What are you doing here?”

“Gee, I don’t know. I live here?” She folded the note and slipped it into her rear jeans pocket. Maybe later she’d tell him about the threat, after he gave her a rational-–and believable-–explanation why he suddenly felt the need to buy her groceries.

Raphael laughed and thrust one bag into her arms. “I mean, you’re usually working upstairs at this time of the day. Finish that landscape?”

“The owners picked it up yesterday. They weren’t too happy to hear Uncle Fred was the artist. What’s this?” Her stomach in knots, she tried to sound mildly curious as she hefted the bag in her arms.

He heeled off his wet shoes. “The men in your life have been giving me a hard time.”