Harlequin Intrigue, Box Set 2 of 2 (15 page)

Trent picked up on a small detail. “You said
was
. He died in a motorcycle accident. Did anyone ever investigate his death as a possible homicide?”

Katie shook her head. “ME's report said he died of head trauma. He suspected Dona was under the influence. He found a trace amount of drugs in his system.”

“But Mr. Dona passed about a month after Isabel's overdose,” the lieutenant confirmed.

“There's nothing suspicious about the timing of that,” Max groused with sarcasm. “Can anyone say retaliation?”

Trent agreed. “If Leland and Isabel were as close as the house mother claims, then it makes sense that he'd order a hit on Dona. It wouldn't be the first time an accident was staged to cover up a murder.”

Katie continued to read the information on her computer. “Even if Francisco Dona didn't provide Isabel with the drugs that killed her, Asher could have still blamed him. According to this, there were no signs of anyone trying to revive Isabel after she collapsed. There wasn't even a 9-1-1 call until her son, Matt, discovered the body.”

Even though they were talking about alleged criminals, Katie's voice trailed away in sympathy. She knew firsthand what it was like to deal with the death of a parent, and might even be remembering her own mother's murder. Trent pushed away from the wall where he was leaning, wanting to go to her. But the sharp blue gaze darting his way was a warning to keep his distance. Either she was telling him she could handle this or she was asking him to keep the complications of the relationship growing between them private.

“Great.” Liv's sarcasm matched Max's. “Another murder we'd like to attribute to Asher that we can't prove. How does this guy keep getting away with it?” She turned to Katie. “Can we at least talk with the ME who wrote the report?”

“That would be Dr. Carson.” Katie turned her focus back to her computer and pulled up the name on the report before shaking her head. “He retired with early-onset Alzheimer's a couple of years ago. Your brother Niall replaced him.”

Liv groaned at the latest twist. “Does anybody else think that if we could just shuffle all these players in the right order that we'd solve a half dozen murders and put Asher away for good?”

Trent and Max and Katie all raised their hands and Olivia laughed before Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor directed their attention back to the television. “He's leaving.”

Hand in hand, Leland Asher and Bev Eisenbach walked to a waiting limousine, where another group was waiting for him. Trent recognized Asher's longtime chauffeur and bodyguard and spotted a couple more thugs watching the audience like Secret Service men. A young man with glasses—Leland's nephew, Matt—climbed out of the long black car and extended his arm. The two generations shook hands before Leland pulled his nephew in for a showy hug and whispered something in his ear.

Trent couldn't be certain, but had Matt Asher arched his brows over the rim of his glasses and made eye contact with Bev Eisenbach before the hug ended? Or was he alerting the group to the fans with more questions and accusations surging their way?

Either way, Leland remained coolly unperturbed by the rush of attention and turned at the people calling his name.

“One last question, Mr. Asher.” A television reporter with long, dark hair thrust her microphone in his face. “How do you feel?”

“Like a free man.” Leland laughed and pulled up his pant leg to show off the parole bracelet on his ankle. “Except for the new jewelry the state has so graciously given me.”

He waved aside the follow-up questions and ushered Bev into the limo before he and Matt and the bodyguard climbed in behind her. The network camera panned the crowd, getting shots of protesters and supporters alike, people who thought, like the cold case squad, that Asher had gotten away with murder, and others—friendly plants, perhaps—who waved signs and shouted about “freeing the innocent.”

When the camera scanned back to the limousine driving away, a far too familiar image near the back of the crowd shot adrenaline into Trent's bloodstream. In three strides, he was across the office, tapping at the screen. “Are we recording this? Can we get a recording?”

Katie turned her laptop around and typed. “I can get a feed off the station's website. Wait...”

“What is it, junior?” Max asked.

She pulled up the website as they gathered around her. “I've got it. They're replaying the interview.”

“Freeze it. There.” Trent rested a hand on her shoulder and pointed to the man in the crowd who'd just snapped a photograph of the group at the limousine. Brown hair, long wool coat. Although he couldn't see the telltale shoes, he recognized the nondescript features and receding hairline. “That's John Smith. That's the guy who tried to break in to Katie's apartment.”

“Is he part of Asher's entourage?” the lieutenant asked.

“Is he a reporter?” was Liv's guess.

“Hold on.” Katie went for a more definitive answer. Using her mouse, she framed the suspect in the picture and clicked a screen shot of his image. “Now that we've got a face, I can blow it up and run him through recognition protocols. If he's in the system, I can track him down.”

She pulled back when a private investigator's license showed up on the screen, along with three different driver's licenses and a state ID card. John Smith apparently had several aliases he used, and not a one of them looked legit lined up like that. But there was at least one thing in common on two of the cards—an address.

Trent pulled his notepad and jotted it down. “That's downtown. Probably an office building.”

Katie looked up at Trent. “Go get him.”

CHAPTER TEN

Katie glanced over for the umpteenth time at her flowered bag sitting in the corner of the greenroom backstage, making sure no one had opened it to mess with the contents inside. Good. Still latched. Still safe.

Her research had indicated that her device had been hacked almost two weeks earlier. That day she'd taken Tyler to school, stopped by the coffee shop, gone to work, and hadn't left until it was time to pick up Tyler at his after-school club and go straight to rehearsal. And since she wouldn't count her son as a suspect, and no one at work had any reason to track her research since they could access the same info themselves, that left someone at the coffee shop or here at the show to have tampered with her hot-spot device.

Her money was on someone involved with the play—or who could hide out at the theater undetected. So her suspicions of everyone here were riding high. But since she was alone for the moment while Doug and the cast were onstage going over last-minute notes before tomorrow's final dress rehearsal, she figured it was safe to let the messenger bag out of her sight for the few seconds it would take her to hang up the costumes she was ironing in the women's dressing room.

She set the iron on its end and gathered up the long dresses she'd prepped for the last run-through before opening night and carried them into the women's dressing room. She could hear Doug Price's voice booming through the auditorium and was glad that Trent was in there with Tyler, maybe trading a wink or a thumbs-up to let her son know that Doug's dramatic speech about “moments” and bringing the audience to tears meant the temperamental director was pleased with the way the show had come together. She was doubly glad that Trent was there to keep an eye on Tyler, to make sure her son had nothing to worry about except remembering his lines and making his entrances.

Because they weren't safe. Not yet. The threat was still out there.

When Trent and Max had gone to John Smith's downtown address that afternoon, they'd found a ransacked office, a few drops of blood that indicated there'd been an altercation of some kind and no sign of Smith. A BOLO on the rental car hadn't turned it up yet, either. That meant Smith, whoever he really was, was still out there, still watching, still looking for a way to get to her. Whether he was a spy for Leland Asher or someone with a more personal interest in her, she felt less and less that keeping Trent at arm's length was a good idea. The only time she'd felt safe since finding that message scribbled in the snow, the only time that Tyler acted like a normal kid, was when Detective Dixon was around.

Katie caught a glimpse of her pale features in the bright lights of the dressing room mirrors and cringed. No wonder Tyler was scared for her. Sleep had been a rare commodity the past few days. She touched the shadows beneath her eyes and wished she had Trent's arms around her right now, so she could soak up the comfort of his warmth, be reenergized by the thrill of his possessive kiss and feel secure enough to drop her guard for a few moments and simply take a normal breath without looking over her shoulder or second-guessing every move she made and worrying about Tyler.

With the gun and badge on his belt, and the sheer size of those shoulders and chest, Trent didn't exactly fit the role of backstage parent. But he'd made it clear that until he could arrest John Smith and prove that the part-time private investigator/full-time con man was the person who'd threatened her, Trent was going to be spending a whole lot of time with her. His days, at work and here at the theater—and nights, too, sleeping just a few feet away from the guest rooms in his comfortable ranch-style house where he'd put her and Tyler.

Dear, sweet, solid...sexy, distracting, aggravating Trent. He made her feel all prickly inside when he caught her in the crosshairs of those steely gray eyes. And he hadn't been kidding when he'd told her a few nights earlier that a woman would know when she'd been kissed by him. After all these years—seeing him date other women, interacting with him herself—how had she missed discovering the difference between friendship and passion, between a chaste brush of his lips at her temple and that powerful stamp of perfection claiming her mouth?

And how was she was going to fit these deepening feelings for the man, this need for his strength and protection, this desire to hold and be held, back into the rules for emotional survival that had kept her safe and sane since her wild, violent and unpredictable youth? It was impossible to think of Trent as a friend while imagining what it would be like to give in to the temptation of his hard body and potent kisses again. Yet it was equally impossible to imagine how she could have gotten through this week in one piece without the friend she trusted implicitly at her side.

When she focused in on her reflection again, she realized she was stroking her own lips—missing, wishing, hungry for Trent's mouth on hers.

Good grief. Katie's cheeks flushed with emotion and she drew her fingers away from her sensitized lips. She was doing exactly what she'd told herself over and over that she shouldn't. She wasn't just attracted to Trent. She wasn't just turning to him as her cop friend to protect her from a dangerous situation. This wasn't just gratitude for helping her and Tyler time and again. She was falling for Trent Dixon. Falling for the vital, mature man her boy next door had become.

Laughter and the voices of numerous conversations and complaints woke Katie from her bothersome thoughts. Doug must have dismissed the cast and crew for the night, and they were making a mass exodus out the back workroom to the parking lot. Sliding her fingers through her loose hair, she pulled the waves off her face and groaned at the static electricity in the air that left her looking as if she'd just crawled out of bed instead of neatly downplaying the amorous turn of her thoughts. No amount of smoothing could give her a business-as-usual appearance, so she simply turned away from the mirror and hurried into the men's dressing room to pull the costumes that still needed ironing before anyone came in and questioned the embarrassed heat in her cheeks.

She exchanged smiles and a quick good-night with a few of the actors who'd left their coats or purses in the dressing rooms as she carried an armload of shirts and two of the specialty costumes out into the greenroom. She draped the shirts over the back of a chair and shook out the long black robe that belonged to the Spirit of Christmas Future.

A shadow fell over her as she spread the drapey material over the ironing board. Katie gasped, startled by the man in black standing between her and the exit door. She put her hand over her racing heart and dredged up a polite smile. “Hey, Francis.”

His beady dark eyes didn't smile back. “I don't want any wrinkles in that, understand? I want it to flow as I move, so it looks as though I'm floating across the stage.”

She watched the expressive gesture of his hand that demonstrated the undulating movement. “I do my best to make you all look good.”

“And I appreciate that. I know I come across as a bit of a demanding actor, but my drive stems from wanting to put on the best production possible.” His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as if the next few words were difficult to get out. “Your costumes have helped us achieve that.”

Really? A compliment from Francis? “Thank you.” He probably expected her to say something nice in return. “And, I must say, you're a very convincing Christmas spirit.”

He clasped his hands behind his back, but left little more than the width of the ironing board between them. She didn't know if he was watching to make sure she pressed his costume to his specifications or if he was so socially inept that he was unaware of how his proximity and the musky smell of a long night under stage lights filling the air between them could make her feel so uncomfortable. “It was nice to have you backstage tonight, Katie. Not out in the audience where you distract Douglas.”

So much for trying to get along with the man. Her hand fisted around the handle of the iron. “This again? Francis, what did I ever do to you? I'm a volunteer. I love doing theater. My son has made new friends and he's enjoying himself. I'm not looking for a relationship with any man here, and I'm certainly not interested in Doug.”

“Protest all you want,” he articulated in a disbelieving whine. “I see right through your little helpless-female-with-the-big-blue-eyes-and-perky-boobs act. Douglas doesn't want you for anything other than the thrill of the chase. And maybe to get lucky. If you're looking for a husband, I promise, he'll run as far from you as he can get.”

“That's insulting. I am a self-sufficient woman. I have a career. I'm raising my son.”

“That's probably why he cast him. Douglas took one look at you in auditions and—”

Katie shoved the iron at him, coming close enough to move him out of her space. “Shut up, Francis, or I will brand you.”

“How quaint. Resorting to violence in a meager effort to defend yourself. I was only trying to give you a friendly warning.”

“There's nothing friendly about these conversations. You want something from me. You're jealous or insecure or—”

“Heed my words.” He leaned toward the ironing board again, perhaps sensing she wouldn't really make contact. “You're not the first pretty woman he's hit on, and you won't be the last. If you're thinking you'll be cast in a show, or your son will get a better part the next time Douglas directs, you're mistaken. I know how power attracts women, and he's using his to entice you.”

“He's not a CEO, he's directing a play.” Katie plunked the iron down on the collar of his robe, ready to char an ugly hole straight through the heavy cotton if he said one more derogatory thing. She knew all about bullies like Francis. She'd grown up with one. “You need to heed
my
words. I am not the least bit tempted to sleep with Doug or whatever distasteful thing you're insinuating. If he turns you on so much, you can have him. With my blessing.”

“You crazy...” Francis grabbed her wrist and the iron, snatching them away from the smell of singed material. “Stop what you're doing!”

“What?” Anger morphed into fear in a single breath. His particular choice of words surprised her far more than the pinch of his fingers on her skin. Katie tugged at his grip. “What did you say?”

“I said to stop what you're—”

“Mom!” Tyler ran across the greenroom, dropping his book bag at the argument he'd walked in on and dashing around the end of the ironing board to stand beside her and pull on her arm. Oh, Lord. Her little man thought Francis was hurting her. “Are you ready to leave? I am.”

“Tyler—”

Francis set the iron down but left his fingers clamped over Katie's wrist. “Back off, Tiny Tim. I'm having a conversation with your mother.”

“Not anymore you're not.” A deeper voice entered the argument and ended it. Francis's eyes had barely widened with alarm before Trent was prying his grip off Katie's wrist.

Then he went up on his toes as Trent pinned Francis's arm behind his back. “How dare you?” he sputtered through his bushy black beard.

“Don't make me take you in for assault and harassment, Sergel.” Trent carried the vile man several steps away before positioning himself between her and Francis. The width and height of his shoulders and back completely blocked Francis from her line of sight. If the no-nonsense authority in his tone wasn't enough, Katie could well imagine the
just try something
challenge in Trent's expression that would keep any smart man at bay. “Whatever your beef with Katie might be, it ends now.”

“I'll thank you kindly to keep your hands off me, Detective.”

“I will if you keep your distance from Miss Rinaldi.”

“Very well.” Francis was rubbing his shoulder when he crossed the room to pick up his coat. “But don't say I didn't warn you, Katie.” Francis pulled on his long black coat. “Don't trust Douglas. There's been something wrong with this entire production. Strange things happening. People who don't belong hanging around. He hasn't been himself. You and your son are the only thing different about this show and any other play I've done with him.”

“Shut up, Sergel. Or Reinhardt or whatever your name is.” Trent took a step toward him, and Francis hurriedly grabbed his hat and scarf. “Not one more harsh word to this boy, either. Understand?”

With a dramatic harrumph and flourish of his long dark coat, Francis swept out of the room.

Trent turned. His gaze went straight to the wrist Katie was mindlessly massaging. “Everyone okay in here?”

Katie nodded. Physically, she was fine. But her brain kept flashing with images of messages scratched in the snow or smeared in lipstick. “Francis told me to stop what I'm doing.”

“What do you mean?” He reached over the ironing board and scrubbed his palm along the top of Tyler's head, reminding her son that the tension in the room had been neutralized and he could drop his guard and be a kid again.

Katie dropped her arm around Tyler's shoulders and hugged him against her hip, reassuring him with the same message, even though her mind was still racing with suspicion. “He used the exact same words—
Stop what you're doing
. That's just a coincidence, right? Do you think he could really hate or resent me so much that he would want to scare me by hiring that private detective or sending those threats?”

He nodded, giving her misgivings careful consideration. “I don't know. The threats could be some kind of weird jealousy thing—there's certainly something about that prima donna that's not right. But my money's still on Asher and your research.” He crossed to the sofa to pick up his coat and shrug into it. “I'll make sure Sergel leaves. You get all your gear packed so we can get out of this place ASAP.” After adjusting the hem of his short coat over his holster and badge, he plucked Francis's black robe off the ironing board and tossed it into the men's dressing room. “And forget about ironing that jackass's costume.”