Oh, man. Lisa was right. And Hailey had sensed it long before this conversation. She knew the statistics better than anyone: cops had lower life expectancies, higher divorce rates, higher instances of alcohol and drug abuse and, for some, suicidal tendencies. Considering everything she knew about Shane, none of that was a surprise. But now that she’d left law enforcement, and had—admittedly, if only to herself—begun to enjoy working in the private sector, could she handle all of Shane’s issues on top of her own? And if she could, would what she felt for him be strong enough to weather whatever his job threw at him next?
She didn’t know. And that, coupled with not knowing how he felt about her deep down, only made her heart pump faster as Nicole walked past Shane and around the table to peer over Billy’s shoulder at the numbers laid out in front of the men.
Nicole tossed the towel in her hands on the far counter and leaned over Billy to slide her arms around his neck and down his chest. “You guys have been arguing for an hour. No luck?”
Billy frowned. But he ran his hand down Nicole’s arm in a move that was so unconsciously tender, it made Hailey smile. She never in a thousand years would have guessed those two would hook up, but as her father’s unexpected death had taught her, she needed to let go of expectations. “No. Got any bright ideas?”
“Hmm.” Nicole bit her lip and reached past Billy to rearrange the numbers. “Let me see.”
Shane pushed back from the table and stopped at the counter near Hailey and Lisa to refill his coffee. “No way he’s Nobel Prize smart.” When both women smiled, he added, “Though if he ends up an ambulance chaser, it won’t surprise me. He argues like a damn lawyer.”
Hailey chuckled. And just as she was about to answer him, she heard Billy exclaim, “Say that again.”
They all turned to look toward the table.
“Florida Keys,” Nicole said, pushing up to stand. When she realized everyone in the room was staring at her, a sheepish expression crossed her face. “I mean. That’s what it looks like to me. Longitude and latitude.”
Hailey moved next to Nicole to look down at the numbers.
“See?” Nicole said as Shane moved closer to look as well. “Twenty-five degrees, three minutes, five seconds. Eighty degrees, thirty-eight minutes, forty-two seconds. The Florida Keys are north longitude, west latitude. The numbers are a location.”
“How do you know the coordinates of the Keys?” Rafe asked from across the table.
Nicole shrugged. “When I was in high school we had to pick a location and do a report on it. Numbers are something I never forget. And those are the coordinates of—”
Hailey placed a hand on her sister’s arm. “Daddy’s island.”
“His what?” Shane asked.
“My father bought an island in the Keys just after I was born,” Hailey said. “He used to take his sailboat there now and then. There aren’t any buildings on it, just grass and trees and—”
“Sand,” Nicole added, frowning.
Hailey nodded. “Yeah. I haven’t been there since I was a kid. I completely forgot about it.”
Suddenly, Nicole’s eyes widened. “What were the clues again in that letter from Daddy?”
Shane handed Hailey her father’s letter from the table. “The answer lies with me. The key is set in steel.”
“He was cremated,” Nicole said, thinking. “What does it mean, the answer lies with him?”
Shane’s eyes met Hailey’s. “You got a number for your father’s lawyer?” he asked. “I’ve got a strange hunch.”
“Yeah.” Hailey nodded, already reaching for the phone. So did she.
“What hunch?” Kat asked as Hailey reached for the phone.
It was well after three A.M., but Ron Arnold answered on the second ring. And the answers he gave to Hailey’s questions were a punch to the gut.
A lump formed in her throat as she thanked him and pushed end on the cordless phone, then turned to look at the expectant faces peering back at her. “Dad wasn’t cremated,” she told Nicole. “Mother ordered it, but Ron stepped in at the last second and intervened. Per the terms of his will, he wanted to be buried on his island.”
“No way,” Pete muttered from across the kitchen. “You think the sixth sculpture’s buried with him?”
It was beginning to look like the only answer.
“We need to have that body exhumed,” Shane said. “Dr. Hargrove thought your father had been cremated. If he wasn’t, they can run a tox screen and prove he was murdered.”
Hailey nodded slowly. Right. But if they left it up to the authorities to exhume the body, she wouldn’t get that sixth statue. And she needed it to lure out her father and Bryan’s killer before the cops tracked her down and carted her off to jail.
Even though it turned her stomach, she knew she only had one option. She also knew Shane wasn’t going to like it one bit. “Yeah, you’re right. But we have to do it first.”
She watched that lazy, relaxed mood Shane had been in crash and burn as he raked a hand through his hair. “You’re certifiable. You’re not digging up a grave to look for treasure. This is your father you’re talking about.”
“I know that—”
“She’s right,” Lisa said.
Shane glared his sister’s way. “You stay out of this.”
“Watch it,” Rafe said.
Lisa placed a hand on her husband’s chest. “Chill out, Rambo. We’re all sleep deprived here.” She glanced back at Shane. “You know as well as I do if the authorities dig up her father first, whatever’s in his coffin gets added into evidence. And if that happens, according to what you both told us about her father’s will and Bryan’s murder, Hailey won’t find out what this is all about or who set her up.”
“What about the second part?” Nicole asked quietly in the tense silence. “ ‘The key is set in steel.’ What does that mean?”
Hailey bit her lip and tried to think as Shane paced around the kitchen. “It could just mean the key he left for me. We never found out what it went to.”
“That’s not steel,” Shane said in a clipped tone. “It’s brass.”
Hailey blew out a breath. Yeah, he was definitely not happy.
“What else did he leave you?” Pete asked.
“Um. The key, the deed to his sailboat and—”
“The dagger,” Billy finished for her.
Shane stopped pacing.
“What dagger?” Rafe asked as Hailey looked toward Billy.
“It’s more like a letter opener,” Hailey told him, very conscious of the way Shane walked out of the room without a word. Okay, so he was pissed. What did he expect her to do? “Small, Italian. Daddy picked it up at auction several years ago. Supposedly it was used to kill Alessandro de Medici. The same person The Last Seduction depicts.”
“Maybe that’s the key,” Kat said.
Yeah, it could be. Hailey nodded. Her father’s dagger was definitely made of aged steel.
“Too bad it’s gone,” Billy mumbled.
Rafe glanced at his brother, and like a lightbulb going on, his eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know that? And while I’m thinking of it, what were you doing with Hailey and Nicole in the middle of all this in the first place?”
Okay, that was one part of this whole fiasco Hailey definitely did not want to have to explain to her ex-husband. “I told him about it,” she said quickly, shooting Billy a warning as she sat in the nearest chair. “But he’s right. It is gone. The last time I saw it was at the Roarke offices in Miami when I was attacked in the elevator. And if that’s the key to something my father designed, we’re screwed because according to Maxwell, they found it at the murder scene in Chicago. Whoever set me up did it well.”
Silence settled over the room. And a sense of defeat washed over Hailey. It couldn’t end like this. Not after everything that had happened. She closed her eyes and rubbed a hand over her brow.
A soft clank came from the table in front of her. And when she opened her eyes, s
he was staring at her father’s dagger. Almost as if she’d willed it into appearance. Only instead of gleaming under the kitchen lights like she’d envisioned, it was wrapped in a clear plastic evidence bag, labeled by CPD.
“Oh, shit,” Lisa muttered.
Hailey’s eyes shot to Shane, who had backed up to stand alone in the doorway.
Her mind flashed to their confrontation on the tarmac just before she’d gotten on her plane to come down here. He’d been pissed. And now she knew why.
He’d taken evidence. From a murder investigation. Long before he’d known whether she was truly innocent of killing her cousin. And he’d done it all for her.
Words lodged in her throat. She pushed up slowly from her chair.
He’d screwed his career. For her.
The phone on his hip rang before she could put her thoughts into words. He flipped it open, pressed it to his ear and said, “Maxwell.” A heartbeat later he added, “Yeah, Tony. I can talk.” Then with one last lingering look her way, he walked out of the kitchen.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shane rubbed a hand over his hair as he came back into the kitchen twenty minutes later. The news from Tony was good but not great. And he needed to talk Hailey out of this crazy grave-robbing idea before it was too late.
The kitchen was quiet and dark, a dim light shining above the stove. Lisa was the only person in the room, sitting at the table with her arms crossed over her chest.
Oh, yeah. He knew that look.
“Where’d everyone go?”
“To get some sleep,” she said. “Big day tomorrow.”
Oh, lovely. He definitely didn’t need this. “You’re not all going.”
She lifted one brow. “And you have me to thank for that. Rafe and Pete were more than happy to dump everything here and take off for a few days to help Hailey. As it is, I talked them in to letting Billy and Nicole go instead.”
“I don’t need Billy Sullivan tagging along.”
“Too bad. I hate to point this out, little brother, but this isn’t about you. It’s about Hailey. And Nicole. And where Nicole goes, Billy seems to want to go. So I think you’re stuck with them.”
Shane rolled his eyes. Just what he wanted—to have Sullivan and the Paris Hilton wannabe dogging them. Neither would talk a lick of sense into Hailey.
“I’m gonna try to get a few hours’ sleep.” He turned for the back stairs that ran from the kitchen to the second level.
“Hold on.” When he looked back, she pushed away from the table and came to stand in front of him.
She was almost a foot shorter than he was, and they didn’t share any physical characteristics other than the shape of their eyes. But personality-wise they were the most alike of any of his siblings—bullheaded, persistent, bordering on OCD, and overly perceptive, especially when it came to each other. He’d like to think those were twin traits, but something in his gut said even if they hadn’t been twins, Lisa would still be able to read him like an open book.
His lips thinned because he already had an idea what was coming. “What?”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Lisa—”
“No.” She held up a hand. “Don’t give me that. If what Hailey said is true, someone doesn’t just want her father’s company, they want to see her gone for good.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Is it?” Shadows played over her face and that fire red hair of hers as she stared at him. “Because I have a feeling you’re here for something else. And judging from the way you’ve been the last few months, I’m worried you might not be able to handle it.”
His jaw clenched. “I can handle it just fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I do, though,” she said quietly as he turned for the stairs. “A lot .”
“Well, don’t. I’m fine.”
He made it two steps before her voice stopped him. “One more thing.”
He heaved out a breath and gripped the banister. “What now?”
“Whatever it is you can’t seem to let go of, be sure you’ve got it under control before things go any further with Hailey. Don’t play loose and easy with her, Shane. Because no matter how tough she looks, that girl’s been through a lot. And I’m not so sure she’ll be able to handle it when you finally crash and burn.”
He should have reassured her he was keeping his distance from Hailey, that he was only here to help solve this puzzle, that he wasn’t interested in anything but making sure justice got served and that nothing happened to Hailey in the process. But there were too many contradicting thoughts running through his head for him to formulate a coherent sentence. And that little voice whispering See? Even Lisa doesn’t think you can save her was so damn irritating, all he wanted was his box of Tic Tacs and about three hours of peace. Instead, he said nothing and continued up the stairs.
The second level was quiet and dark when he reached it. Floorboards creaked as he moved down the hall. When he pushed open the door to his room, he did a double take.
Filtered moonlight through the window highlighted a trail of white specks along the taupe carpeting. He knelt to pick one up, only to realize they were Tic Tacs. His Tic Tacs.
What the…?
He closed the door and followed the trail around a corner, only to pull up short when he saw Hailey sitting on his bed, wearing nothing but that Bon Jovi T-shirt he’d bought for her in the Keys. Her curly blonde hair fell around her shoulders in a gentle sweep, her legs were long and bare, one sexy thigh crossed over the other, her eyes luminescent in the dim light.
He swallowed. Tried to kick-start his brain so he could come up with one logical reason for her to be in his room, dressed like that. But no matter what he tried, all he could come up with was how damn sexy she looked and what he’d wanted to do with her from the moment they’d first met.
“Did Chen have info about the investigation?”
He nodded slowly.
Their eyes held. She bit her lip. Swung her top foot slightly. His gaze went down the long, shapely line of her leg to her purple-painted toenails. “Good or bad news?”
His blood warmed. Don’t play loose and easy with her. “A little of both.”
She sat where she was a few seconds, then pushed up and crossed the floor to stand in front of him. The lilac scent he associated with her drifted around him, heightening his senses, reminding him exactly what she felt like, tasted like and what he would have done in the Keys if Billy’s phone call hadn’t interrupted them.
She won’t be able to handle it when you crash and burn.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, her blonde curls falling over her shoulder as she tipped her head to the side, “I think I’d rather wait and discuss Chen’s news later. Right now I’m way more interested in how you got my father’s dagger.”
Her eyes were the bluest he’d ever seen. Her skin, like porcelain in the low light. At that moment, even exhausted from everything that had happened the last few days, she looked like she could handle just about anything life threw at her. She was a thousand times stronger than he was on a good day, and they both knew it. Not physically, but mentally, emotionally, and God, he wanted to be part of that. To remember what it felt like. If only for a minute.
“If your department finds out—”
“They won’t. Evidence gets misplaced all the time.”
Her eyes held his. And quietly she said, “You took it before I even explained what was going on with my father’s will. Before you’d even made up your mind whether I was guilty or not. Why?”
He could give her a dozen logical reasons why he’d done what he had, starting with using it to lure out the real killer, to prove to the pompous Jim Hill at the DA’s office that he hadn’t been in on it with her from the start, to prove to himself his gut reaction was still right. But none of those were the real answer. And tonight at least, he was tired of pretending what was happening between them wasn’t personal. He reached for her left hand. Lifted it.
Ran his fingers down her smooth palm. “You’re left-handed.”
“I am.”
“I didn’t figure that out until I saw you boxing. But by then I already knew you hadn’t killed your cousin.”
“How?”
Don’t say it.
“Because the woman who came to my apartment the night her cousin was killed couldn’t possibly have kissed me like she did if she’d just committed murder.”
Too late.
Heat flared in the depths of her eyes, and in the silence between them he heard her heart beating just as fast and erratically as his. Slowly, she lifted her hand. One lone Tic Tac clattered against the inside of the plastic case as she tipped it from side to side. “I think you’re down to your last one. Do you want it?”
No, he wanted her.
She shook the mint into her hand, placed it between her thumb and forefinger and lifted it to his mouth. Her skin was silky smooth as it ran across his lips, then pressed inside to slide across his tongue. He tasted mint and her. Eyes locked on his, she slipped her fingers out of his mouth, brought them to her own succulent lips and licked first her thumb, then her forefinger before closing her lips around the digit and sucking.
Oh, man. She was playing him. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see the games in her eyes. He drew in a breath as he watched, felt all the blood in his head rush straight into his cock. And when she moved closer until her scent was a roar in his head and heat encircled his entire body, he knew his last thread of restraint had snapped.
“Do you feel like sharing?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Good.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Because wintergreen is my favorite flavor.”
He opened at the first touch, cupped her face in his hands as he slid his tongue deep into her mouth and reveled in the groan that came from her chest. The mint slid from his tongue to hers. Her hands trailed up his chest, around to the nape of his neck, her fingertips sending sparks of desire through every inch of his body. She moaned as he pulled her tighter to him and his erection pressed into her belly. Her hands tightened in his hair as his mouth slid across her jaw to find her earlobe and the soft skin of her neck.