Don't Look Down (20 page)

“Tom, did you get the e-mail I sent?”

“Rick.” Silence. “Yeah, it’s right here. Are you coming in today?”

“This afternoon. I have something to take care of, first.”

“Okay. No problem. We’ll have the updated pages ready for you.”

Richard actually held the phone away from his ear and looked at it. “You remember that the board’s coming in early,” he said after a moment. The way Tom obsessed over details, he should have been close to hysterics right then.

“You only called me an hour ago. We’ll be ready. I’ll talk to you la—”

“What’s going on, Tom?” he interrupted.

“Nothing’s going on. We’re just busy.”

“Is something bothering you? I told you I’d be ready for this.”

“I know.” More silence. “’Bye.”

The line went dead. Something was definitely up. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time Tom had hung up on
him
. He moved to hit the redial button, but a gleaming silver BMW pulled to a stop beside him. Shit. All right, he’d figure out what was bothering Tom later. It wasn’t as if he had nothing else to accomplish today.

“Laurie,” he said, stepping out of his car to hold her door open for her. “Thank you for returning my call. I know this is short notice.”

“Don’t worry; I’ll make sure you pay for it down the line.” She took his hand, holding it rather than shaking. “Let’s take my car. I’ve got all the maps and printouts.”

With a nod he went around to her passenger door and slid in. He would have preferred to drive, but if driving made her feel more in command of the situation, he had no problem with it. Especially since he had more on his mind than real estate.

“So, Rick—you don’t mind me calling you Rick, do you?”

“Not at all.”

“So, Rick, why didn’t you approach me day before yesterday to arrange a showing?”

“You seemed to have enough on your plate. I wouldn’t have disturbed you for business.”

“Business is business,” she said as they turned out onto the street and headed south. “There’s always time for it.”

That used to be his motto, until he’d met Samantha. His work ethic had slid into a definite secondary position, though he hadn’t realized it until lately. And it didn’t bother him nearly as much as he’d expected it to, or nearly as much as it would have a year ago.

Richard sent Laurie a sideways glance as she checked her mirror. He knew how to use people, to manipulate them into seeing his point of view, and he’d never lost any sleep over that fact. He did it the way some people were doctors and others were mechanics. And he happened to do it very well. Today he meant to use those skills to figure out whether Laurie Kunz had had anything to do with her father’s death. He’d been raised in the elite circle of which she was a part. Those people used money as a weapon. He had a shitload of ammunition.

The question was how hard to push. His own parents had died when he was still a teenager, but even half a continent away at a boarding school in Switzerland and separated from them for nearly a year, he hadn’t felt equal to any kind of task at all for several weeks. The fact that Laurie was out making real estate deals this morning didn’t make her guilty, but it did make him suspicious.

“My condolences again on the loss of your father,” he offered.

“Thank you. It’s been difficult, but Daniel and I are coping.”

“The two of you have always been quite close, haven’t you?”

“We try. It seems like the older we get, the more our interests diverge.” She signaled, turning left into a cozy tract of
two-story houses. As she steered past a street game of soccer, she smiled. “Don’t worry; I’m not showing you one of these. There’re some custom homes on the hill.”

“I trust you.”

“Speaking of which, you’re not thinking of selling Solano Dorado, are you? Because I’d be very hurt if you didn’t let me handle the sale.”

“No, no. I promised a friend I’d help her relocate to this area.”

“’A friend,’” Laurie repeated. “Would it bother you if I mentioned that I personally wouldn’t be…sad if you were to end up single again? Not that I wish your relationship with Miss Jellicoe ill, of course.”

He sent her another glance, making sure she saw it this time. “I’m flattered.”

Laurie smiled again. “Good.”

The houses along the crest of the hill were several degrees above those they overlooked. In addition they all seemed to have nice views of the ocean. Large yards, good for entertaining, and a half-dozen rooms, large foyers, and grand curving staircases. He made mental note of everything as they toured the homes she’d selected, but kept his focus on the realtor. The more he could get her to talk, the more he would find out.

“Are you going to keep Coronado House?”

“I’m sure we will. Dad was very fond of it.”

Kunz had also been killed in that same house, but Richard didn’t mention that. “You and Daniel both?” he continued instead.

She looked at him sideways as she showed him out of the house they’d just finished touring. “We’ll stay together unless I get a better offer. What do you think?”

Her
. Not Daniel. “What do I think?” he repeated. Of the house?”

“All right.”

He grinned back at her. “I’m thinking something more intimate. A condo—in a high rise. A yard would be at the bottom of the list.” Patricia would require a home where
she
could be the centerpiece. A garden would just be wasted space where she would complain about the cost of hiring someone to maintain the landscaping. But this outing had not been about his ex-wife as much as it was about Laurie and his impression of her.

“I have two on my list that might suit,” Laurie said, not consulting her notes; she would have every listing memorized.

“Let’s take a look,” he returned, gesturing her back to the car. “If you have time.”

“I have time for you.” They headed back down the hill.

“I should buy you lunch, then, for your trouble.”

“It’s no trouble, Rick, but lunch would be great.”

He nodded. “How about the Blue Anchor Pub in Delray Beach?”

“That’s the pub that came from England, isn’t it?”

“Transported stone by stone. There’s even supposed to be a two-hundred-year-old London ghost there. A murderess or some such thing.” Actually, Bertha was reportedly a murder victim, but the other depiction fit his purposes better.

“Ooh, spooky. It’s a date.” Laurie didn’t bat an eye. If she was a murderess herself, she was a cool-headed one.

“Good.” Perhaps a word like “murderess” hadn’t bothered her, but it was all part of the test.

“You haven’t mentioned what you think of Daniel and Patricia,” she said conversationally.

Richard kept his gaze on the road, but just barely. If he hadn’t had nearly twenty years of practice at hiding his thoughts and feelings, he wouldn’t have made it.
Daniel and Patricia
? Abruptly a few things made sense. That was
why Samantha had chosen to use Patricia to get into the Coronado estate. Which meant that Samantha
knew
, damn her. “I didn’t think it was any of my affair,” he said smoothly.

“That’s very…British of you, I guess. I was surprised to hear your voice on my answering machine, though. Your ex-wife and my brother are boffing, and aside from that, Patricia seems to think that you have some sort of vendetta against her.”

“She flatters herself.”

“Ah.
Now
you sound annoyed.”

He laughed. “What’s annoying is people dwelling on the past. There’s no profit, personally or in business, in looking behind you.”

“I’d like to think I’m a forward-looking gal, myself.”

Nodding, Rick turned his gaze out the window, though every ounce of his attention was on the woman in the driver’s seat beside him. “I’ve noticed that people who spend too much time in the past tend not to have a plan for the future.”

“We seem to have a great deal in common.” Laurie chuckled. “You know, I always wondered why you didn’t ask me out after one of those charity polo matches you and Daniel love so much.”

He nearly had once, a few months after his divorce. She was what had once been his type: attractive, self-assured, and used to being in the public eye. “You always had someone else attending with you,” he returned.

“As if that would have stopped you.”

That had been precisely what stopped him. He would never touch another man’s woman. That was one stricture he’d had even before the stickiness with Patricia and Peter. It was that sense of fidelity that he, and Samantha—surprisingly, given her haphazard lifestyle—believed in.
Given Laurie’s participation in his pseudo-flirtation, she didn’t seem as particular.

“Will your business concerns change at all with your father gone?” he asked, curving back to his topic of choice.

She shrugged. “Almost everything was put into a trust last year. Daniel and I have some decisions to make, and depending on what comes of it, I may divest myself of Paradise Realty.” Laurie sent him a smile. “Not before I’ve found the ideal property for you, of course. My clients never leave unsatisfied.”

“I don’t doubt it. But what would you do if you gave up your business?”

“Spoken like a true workaholic. I’d travel, I think, and my dad’s business would be more than enough to keep me occupied.”

“Charles would like that you’re willing to take over for him, I’d wager.”

“It would be stupid to let all of his work and connections fall into the hands of the sharks.”

He wondered if she would consider him a shark. As for what she was, he had a few ideas. Most people clung to the familiar in the face of tragedy and upheaval. Laurie was already considering changing careers. To Richard, that said she wasn’t all that fond of the real estate business. On the other hand, lack of satisfaction with a profession didn’t make anyone a murderer. Still, he meant to find a way to go through some of her business records.

By the time they’d finished looking through the two condos, Richard thought he’d found an acceptable residence for Patricia, but he meant to keep the search going a bit longer, anyway. While he’d discovered a few more things about Laurie Kunz, nothing definitively pointed toward her as a
suspect in her father’s murder. What he did have was a splitting headache, something that he assumed James Bond would never confess to.

But he didn’t intend to end this meeting empty-handed. Samantha wouldn’t be wasting time, and he—and the police—had a wager to win. “Is Daniel planning on joining you in the boardroom?”

“I doubt it,” she returned easily. “Business doesn’t interest him very much.”

“It’s a good thing he has you, then.”

“Ha. Tell him th—”

His phone rang, in Tom’s four-tone signal. “Yes?” he answered as he flipped it open.

“Okay, I can’t stand it anymore,” the attorney’s voice came. “Jellicoe went boating with Daniel Kunz.”

The breath froze in Richard’s throat. “Beg pardon?” he returned, keeping his expression perfectly still.

“She came in this morning and told me, then dared me to rat her out. But I don’t want to get blamed for not telling you if something happens, and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of your little whirlwind, so I—”

Rick snapped the phone closed. “My apologies, Laurie,” he said easily, “but I’ll need to reschedule our lunch. Would you mind driving me back to your office?”

She smiled. “No problem. I’m available any time. And I want to know more about the ghost.”

“Let’s do this again on Tuesday. Ten o’clock?”

“It’s a date.”

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up beside his SLR and Richard left the BMW. With a wave, Laurie backed out of the lot again and vanished in the direction of Coronado House. Richard closed himself inside the SLR and sat very
still for half a minute. Then he pushed in the key, pushed the start engine button, and headed toward the Sailfish Club.

Samantha helped tie the yacht back to the dock, then blew Daniel a kiss as she headed back up toward dry land and her car. He stayed on board, ostensibly to polish something, but she figured the boat was probably where he generally went to powder his nose. Tension ran through her shoulders as she reached the parking lot. He hadn’t been threatening, hadn’t done more than kiss her once and make a few naughty suggestions, and she still felt as though she’d made a narrow escape from a shitted-up burglary.

“Samantha,” Rick’s low voice came from in front of her, and she lifted her head. The gull-winged SLR was parked right next to the red Mustang, and Rick Addison leaned against the bumper.

“Fucking great,” she muttered, mustering a smile. “Hi.”

“You went out on the water with Daniel Kunz?” he asked, straightening.

“Are you chasing me around town, now? Because that’s not going to work.”

“Tom ratted you out.”

She shook her head, not even surprised. “I knew Captain Tight-Ass wouldn’t be able to resist telling you.”

“Then why’d you tell him?”

“Because I’m not an idiot.” She stopped in front of him, trying to gauge his mood. “Are you going to kiss me or shoot me?” she finally asked.

“I really don’t know.” He reached out and straightened her sleeve. “Did you know that Daniel is seeing Patricia?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me because…”

Samantha squinted one eye at him. “And when did you name your yacht
The Jellicoe
?”

He blinked. “Don’t change the sub—”

“Some guys tattoo their girlfriend’s names on their arms and shit. You named a boat after me.”

“I don’t like tattoos.”

Unable to help herself, she smiled. “You’re so damned cool, Rick. I’m the biggest boat in the marina.”

Rick blew out his breath. “What the hell am I supposed to do with you?” he murmured, taking her fingers and drawing her in close to kiss her.

She closed her eyes, relishing in the warm, intimate contact. “I’ll tattoo your name on my fanny, if you’d like.”

He made a choking sound that might have been laughter. “I don’t want to see my name on your fanny. I don’t need directions.”

That was definitely true. With the memory of her morning fresh in her mind and the relief that Rick wasn’t mad at her, she abruptly needed…She didn’t know what, but Rick could provide it. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, resting her head against his neck.