Fall Into Me (Heart of Stone) (13 page)

He
held me close until our bodies finally calmed and kissed me softly on the
cheek. "I love you, Nina. Thank you."

He
slid out of me and eased me down onto the bed, taking me in his arms. I looked
down our bodies to see our legs entwined as if we were one. With my head on his
chest, I heard his heartbeat slowly return to a normal rhythm. I'd never felt
so relaxed and safe in my life.

"Tell
me your favorite memory," I whispered against his skin.

"Right
now," he said. "I've never been happier than right now."

"Even
when we were together before?"

Tristan
sweetly pressed a kiss on the top of my head. "Every day is better than
the last one. No matter how happy I was then, I'm even happier now."

I
lifted my head from his chest and looked up at him. "Why?"

"Because
we've been given a second chance. Not everyone gets that in life. I've gotten
it twice now."

"What
was the first time?"

A
look of sadness settled into his face. "When I didn't die and the rest of
my family did."

"I'm
sorry. I didn't know. Well, you know what I mean."

He
nodded and forced a smile. "It's okay. I understand."

I
looked down at the tattoo on his chest and traced the outline of the two snakes
that formed an inverted heart over his left pec, lingering on the place where
they joined at a point. "What's this tattoo mean?"

"I
got it after the accident. A metal rod pierced me just above the heart there
where the scar is and continued to run through my brother's heart, killing him.
It symbolizes our twin hearts joined even in death."

"I'm
so sorry, Tristan. Were you identical twins?" I asked, hoping to lighten
the mood slightly.

"Yes.
We looked the same. Many people couldn't tell us apart, unless they knew us.
But we were like night and day otherwise."

I
heard something in his voice—a change in tone or a hitch that told me their
differences weren't as simple as that. "Who was older?" I asked with
a smile, knowing how silly the question was.

Tristan
returned my smile with a tiny one of his own. "Taylor was by seven
minutes. He never let me forget that he was my older brother either."

"I've
always wondered what it would be like to have a sister my same age. Kim is six
years older and we've never really been close. Those six years were always
between us."

"It's
like having any other sibling, just that you look exactly like another
person."

His
voice trailed off as his sentence ended, and I got the surest sense talking
about his brother was painful for him. I didn't want to ruin our time together,
so I hastily changed the subject. "Did you get the tattoo on your arm
after that one on your chest?"

He
looked down at his left arm and shook his head. "No, that one is from
those days before I became the man I am now I told you about. My wilder
days."

That
was a topic I wanted to hear more about. "And about this wilder days guy,
was he really different from the Tristan of now?"

He
hesitated a moment before he answered. "Yeah, a lot."

I
was nothing if not inquisitive, and this sounded like a mystery. "Tell me
about him. I can't imagine you were that different than you are now."

"I
can barely remember him anymore. He wasn't anyone you'd want."

"I
can't believe that, Tristan," I said and kissed him.

His
face told me he was uncomfortable. "You should. That man wasn't someone
who would deserve someone like you."

"I
probably would have been crazy about that man and he wouldn't even have known I
existed is more likely."

Turning
toward me, he lifted my chin with his forefinger. "Then he'd have been an
ass not worthy of your time."

"Tell
me about those wilder days, Tristan. I want to imagine you as the type of guy
you were then."

Instead
of telling me anything about his bad boy days, he rolled me onto my back and
pinned my hands above my head. He loomed over me, his deep brown eyes staring
down into mine, and said in a low voice, "I've got something far better in
mind."

By
the time I woke in the morning, Tristan was gone and I saw through the window
that snow was falling, covering the grass and making it finally look like
winter. My room was still warm, though, and my thought of venturing outside to
go to visit Jordan suddenly seemed like something for another day.

Thoughts
of the Atlanta suite filled my head, so after lying around enjoying memories of
my time with Tristan just hours before, I finally crawled out of bed to face
the day. Throwing my robe around me, I knew he'd be long gone at work, but I
walked to the kitchen for my morning coffee with the hope that he'd be there to
join me for breakfast.

Disappointment
washed over me as I rounded the corner and saw no one there. I understood a man
like him had to be a slave to his work, but always waking up alone in bed made
me feel as I was something extra in his life, like an addition he didn't need.

I
was being silly. I knew Tristan loved me, and the wonderful life he offered
didn't come easily for him. Being CEO of Stone Worldwide was a twenty-four hour
a day job, if the phone calls and emails he received at all hours of the day
and night were any indication. That we got to spend any time alone at all was
something I should appreciate instead of whining to myself about waking up
alone.

The
French Vanilla roast in my mug began to work almost immediately, and I was wide
awake in no time. Grabbing a sesame bagel Rogers had brought home from the
local bakery, I headed back to my room to get ready for my day of research for Atlanta.

Chapter Thirteen

Tristan

"Mr.
Stone, Mr. Dreger is here."

Ten
o'clock. Karl was getting a late start to his daily stalking today. I looked
over at the speaker on the edge of my desk and groaned. No day was a good day
to deal with him, but after the night I'd just spent with Nina, I didn't want
him to ruin how good I felt.

The
man himself opened my office door and without even being asked in made himself
at home on the leather couch on the side wall. A big man, his scalp showed more
of his large bulbous head every day, and he seemed to be gaining weight in
exchange for the loss of his hair. The seams of his suit pulled, as if at any
moment it was going to give way and cease to hold back the girth it was
containing.

I
crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. "Karl, what can I do for you
today?"

"You
know what I'm here about. It's the same thing every day. Your time is running
out. We've been patient, son."

"Don't
call me son, Karl. My name is Tristan Stone. My father was Victor Stone, not
you. So remember who the fuck you're talking to."

"Fine.
And you remember who the fuck you're talking to, Tristan. You aren't
all-powerful at Stone Worldwide. The Board has power too."

I
knew he was baiting me, but I took it all the same. "Power to do what?
This company has never seen better days. Everyone's making money, Karl. Are you
saying the Board isn't happy about that?"

"You
know what we're unhappy with. If you don't want all this to come to a
screeching halt, you have to take care of the loose ends. She can't continue to
be a risk to this business."

Ten
o'clock in the fucking morning and I already had a splitting headache, thanks
to this asshole. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I repeated to him what I'd
said so many times it was like the words were tattooed on my tongue.
"Karl, she has nothing. She knows nothing. She would never do anything to
hurt me, and that includes anything that would hurt this company."

"And
what happens when she finds out the truth? What happens if she finds out that
her father died because he couldn't keep his damn nose out of other people's
business?"

"She
knows her father's dead. Why would she find out anything about how he died?
That was years ago. There's no reason for her to go digging about it. It will
remain as it always has—an unsolved murder. So you and the Board can rest easy.
Nina cares nothing about that."

Karl
lurched off the couch and moved to stand in front of my desk. "You don't
have any silly romantic plans to tell her yourself, do you? You can't imagine
that would be a good idea."

I
nonchalantly pushed a pen back and forth across the top of my desk, praying to
God my plans to confess everything to Nina weren't written all over my face.
After her show of honesty about Cal the night before, I didn't want to go on
lying to her anymore. I could make her understand that no matter what my father
had done to hers, we could be happy together. I knew I could.

"If
you're done with your daily visit, feel free to let yourself out, Karl. And
don't feel the need to come back tomorrow. Nothing is going to change. Nina is
the woman I love—the woman I intend on marrying—so she's going to stay a part
of my life."

"Son,
you're not going to win this. We helped your father build this company into the
gem you now get to claim as yours, so we won't be cut out."

"Nobody's
trying to cut you out, Karl. You and the Board members are safe."

He
sneered at my comment, and in a flash, my patience was all used up. Standing
from behind my desk, I approached him until we stood toe-to-toe. "I'm
going to warn you just once, Karl. If I get the sense that you or any of your
friends in this even think about going through with your plans to hurt Nina,
I'll kill you myself. I'm not like you old men who won't get their hands dirty.
So remember that when you go back to them today. Let what happened with Victor
Stone and Joseph Edwards end with their deaths."

Karl
chuckled, but I heard the nervousness in his voice when he spoke. "Your
father always said you were the one not to cross. Everybody thought Taylor was the piranha, but your father believed otherwise. I guess he wasn't wrong. Fine.
You should know, though, that this isn't over."

I
turned away from him and waved him off. "Yes, it is."

He
stormed out, barking something at Michelle as he passed her desk, while I
thought about his comment about my father. Never close to me, my father had
always favored Taylor. They'd sit for hours talking about business, sharing his
favorite brandy and smoking cigars in his study as they plotted their takeover
of some helpless company one of them had spied in distress that day.

That
world had never appealed to me. Even now, I remembered the stink of their
cigars as I passed that room on my way out at night, never asked to join them
and happy for it. They were like strangers I was oddly related to but had
nothing in common with. I couldn't imagine sitting around in leather high
backed chairs playing like some captain of industry in their private, real life
game of Monopoly.

I
wasn't a saint, but I wasn't the kind of men they were. Maybe it was because
I'd never wanted this. I was happy living a life of excess and good times,
hurting no one but myself. Well, that wasn't exactly true, but I certainly
wasn't guilty of the things my father and brother were.

"Mr.
Stone, Mr. Knight is here to see you," Michelle announced over the
speaker, tearing me from my daydreams about the past.

What
was Daryl doing here today, a day early? "Send him in, Michelle."

I
prepared myself for Daryl's report on Nina's ex and more importantly, what had
happened with her father. Daryl came in with a bounce in his step he always
had, like the world's biggest leprechaun, and took a seat in one of the chairs
in front of my desk.

"Tristan,
I know I'm a day early, but I thought you'd want this information ASAP."

My
heart pounded against my chest at the thought that Daryl was about to tell me
something about Cal and Nina. I took a swig out of my water bottle and sat back
in my chair as I worked to calm my nerves. "What did you find out?"

"Which
do you want first, loverboy or the father?"

"Give
me the information on Cal Johnson first," I answered with a lump in my
throat.

Daryl
reached into his suit coat and pulled out a notepad. Looking up at me, he
smiled. "Loverboy it is. Let's just say your guy has gotten around. I
don't know how he does it, but on what amounts to a clerk's salary, this guy
has seen more ass than a toilet seat."

Fucking
fantastic. This day was just getting better and better. Forcing a smile onto my
face, I said, "Love the way you describe things, Daryl. What are we
talking about this for?"

"I
thought you wanted to know who he was fucking."

Leave
it to Daryl to make this amusing. I had said I wanted to know that, but only
because I was afraid the answer would be Nina. Chuckling, I said, "Okay,
is he fucking anyone interesting?"

"Not
in your league, but he does like women who have money. He's piss poor, but the
women he sleeps with aren't."

"What
is he, some kind of Casanova, Daryl?" I asked, sure my jealousy was
obvious.

"Not
as far as I can tell. Used to be some kind of college athlete. Rugby or something like that. Now he's just some guy who runs numbers at an insurance
company."

"Then
I doubt he's piss poor. Actuaries make good money. I think your detective
skills are getting rusty, Knight."

Daryl
raised his eyebrows at the joking insult. "You didn't let me finish. He
used to make good money at the firm he worked at before this one, but he was
fired under a cloud of suspicion that he'd stolen from the company. As far as I
can tell, he didn't steal money but was sleeping with the boss's wife. He
hasn't been able to get a decent job since. This one at Peak International appears
to be a favor from one of his college profs."

So
Cal was a philandering dick. I wasn't surprised. From what Nina had told me
about him, I hadn't expected much better.

"Does
he have a girlfriend now?"

"None
that I can find, but he's left a long line of girls behind him. Did you know
one of them is the daughter of the man whose murder you have me investigating,
Nina Edwards?"

"Yes,"
I answered, adding, "Nina is my fiancée."

"Ah,
I get it. Well, from what I can tell, she's not with him now. I can watch him
to see if they still speak, assuming you don't think they do."

"I
know they've met once recently. I don't think they'll be meeting again."

Daryl
grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "Okay, but it's not a big deal to
watch him for a little while."

I
thought about it and even though I knew I shouldn't, I nodded my silent
agreement to watching Cal Johnson.

"Okay,
onto bigger fish than our boy Cal. This Edwards thing is going to get ugly,
Tristan. I just want to warn you. The daughter's your intended and what I'm
finding out is bad. I don't know if you're ready for this."

I
leaned forward and planted my elbows on the desktop. "If you're going to
tell me you know who murdered Nina's father, let me save you the effort. My
father had Joseph Edwards killed. I just don't know why."

Daryl
twisted his face into a scowl. "You could've told me that when you set me
on this. Christ, I thought I was going to have to tell you that your own father
was responsible for the guy's death."

"I
know all too well what Victor Stone was capable of, Daryl. Joseph Edwards
wasn't the first person he had disposed of, and he might not even have been the
last. My father was every bit the monster you're going to tell me he was."

Shaking
his head, he frowned. "I don't have all the details yet. All I know is
that he was behind it. I haven't found out exactly why yet, but I do have one
piece of information I'm planning on acting on."

"And
that is?"

"There's
a storage facility in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania that Joseph Edwards stored
things in a week before his death. It's in his wife's name, though. Seems she's
been dead for years and he had her belongings stored there, but it's
interesting that he'd visit it right before he died. I think there might be
something useful there."

"Has
anyone opened the storage unit since then?"

"No,"
Daryl said, shaking his head. "The guy at the storage facility said that
their records show it wasn't opened for years and then one day Edwards came and
opened it just once. That was a week before he was murdered. Since then, it
hasn't been opened even one time. My guess is that your fiancée doesn't know
it's there."

Or
she didn't remember it was there, even if she had known about it. I doubted she
had since it was simply a place her father had kept her mother's things after
her death. There would be no reason to tell her about it since she was so young
when she died. But did her sister know about it, I wondered.

"When
are you planning to go out there? I want to know what you find."

"I
can go anytime you want. I was planning to wait until after the holidays, but
if you like, I can go sooner."

"I
don't want to wait, Daryl. Get out there tomorrow and find out what's in
there."

"Okay,
tomorrow I can do. I'll take a nice drive out of the city and do my best
Storage Wars impression. Christ, I have to admit I'm never a fan of digging
around these storage units. I think it's ever since that scene in Silence of
the Lambs. I'm always afraid I'm going to find some head in a jar. Remember
that scene?"

"Yeah,"
I answered absentmindedly as I thought about what he might find in Joseph
Edwards' storage unit. Daryl continued to ramble on about dismembered bodies
and other grotesque oddities he'd heard about being found in storage
facilities, but I wasn't paying attention. He had a tendency to go off on
tangents like that, so I'd learned to just wait until he was finished.
Ordinarily, I wouldn't give someone that much leeway, but Daryl was a decent
guy, even if he was a little weird.

I
stood from my desk and held out my hand to shake his, a not-so-subtle sign I
was ready for him to leave. Daryl took the hint and stood to go, still mumbling
about the things he could imagine uncovering the next day.

"Call
me as soon as you get in. I want to know everything you find," I said as I
escorted him out toward Michelle.

"You
got it. Talk to you then."

Dinner
was ready at five when I got home, but Nina was nowhere to be found. I quickly
hunted down Jensen, but he hadn't driven her anywhere all day. West reported
that she hadn't left, but he did think he'd seen her on the grounds within the
hour. The snow that had been falling all day had tapered off, but it was getting
colder now that the sun had gone down. I called her cell phone three times, but
it went directly to voicemail. Frustrated, I stuffed my phone back in my pocket
and set off to find her without even grabbing my coat, scared something might
have happened to her.

The
doctors had warned me that she may act abnormally at times because of her head
injury, so immediately I was concerned about her walking the grounds since
she'd never spent any time outside, as far as I knew. I hurriedly walked around
the house and then headed out toward the gardens, finally catching a glimpse of
her as I rounded the first stand of hedges.

"Nina!
Wait up!"

She
turned and waved at me, giving me the sense that she wasn't out there for any
dangerous reason. I jogged over to her and saw she was dressed for the cold
weather, so at least she wasn't wandering around half-clothed unsure of where
she was or what her name was.