High Stakes Seduction - Book 4 (9 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

MARIA

I watched my little sister head off toward her bedroom. I wondered who this guy Ryan was, and why she was suddenly interested in him. I knew she'd been seriously hurt by Antonio. Well, by his treatment of her, and his fascination with that Naomi woman.

I was dying to know more about Ryan. She hadn't mentioned anything about him when she returned from the cruise. It wasn't like Ange to be secretive, at least not with me. In fact, we shared almost everything, from our hopes and dreams, to our biggest fears, and even our snarky jokes.

But then, with all this Antonio stuff going on, I could imagine how confused she must be. And I knew my little sis, she’d tell me when she was ready.

I heard the phone ring in the other room, and Ange's muffled voice. Moments later she stepped out, her cheeks slightly flushed and her eyes sparkling. There was obviously something else going on here, something I didn't know about. But that's okay, I'd make her share with me when she came home.

"Okay, so I'm going to meet Ryan at Rosalie's for coffee. I promise I won't be more than a couple of hours. I called a taxi, so they should be here any time."

"No problem. I'll just have leftovers tonight; there's some of that yummy meatloaf still in the refrigerator. You have a good time, Ange, and don't worry about me. I have plenty of stuff to keep me busy."
Especially now that I'm drawing again
.

"Thanks, Sis. Is there anything you need me to pick up while I'm out?"

"No, thanks. I’m good,” I said with a shake of my head. Then it occurred to me to ask, “Why did you choose a coffee shop? Especially for a first date?"

"Oh! Well, this isn’t
date
date, just a sorta date, if anything. I didn't want it to be anything too formal." She scrunched up her face and looked away. I still didn't know what was going on, but honestly, I was relieved that she wasn't sitting home mooning over Antonio.

The honk out front told me the taxi was here. Angela gave me a peck on the cheek and left. I rolled over to my desk, and picked up my drawing pad. But this time I wasn't so much interested in drawing.

Instead, I turned on the computer and opened the folder with the images from Angela's cruise. She'd spent the last several evenings organizing them. I glanced through the folders and settled on the one with the volcano shots, especially the beautiful waterfall and the cute couple splashing each other.

I also liked the shots she'd gotten of the driver’s face, smiling, cheerful, a tooth missing from the left side of his grin, but happy-go-lucky. Then I noticed among all the other shots, some photos of people sitting near a large rock. What struck me about them was the way the light illuminated one side of their face and left the other in darkness. Like they were sitting around a campfire. It was almost as though there were two distinct sides to their faces, or that they were wearing masks. Now these were interesting, maybe even something I might try to paint.

I grabbed my watercolors, putting together a simple wash, and set to work capturing the images the way I saw them.

Chapter Twenty-Six

ANGELA

The taxi pulled up in front of Rosalie's. I searched the faces inside the diner, looking for Ryan as I paid the fare. I still hadn't found him by the time I stepped inside the door, but that was because he arrived just a moment later. Apparently I had beaten him to our rendezvous.

"Angela!" He smiled broadly as he spotted me at the counter. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Nope. Just got here, in fact, just a moment before you."

As the waitress led us to our table, he leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. "My goodness, it's really nice to see you." I just grinned at him, secretively loving the open attention.

"So, how's the D.A.s office doing? Got anything interesting going on?" I asked as we slipped into the booth.

"Oh you know, same old stuff. So what's good here to eat?" He stared at the menu.

"Just about everything's good. But you've been here before, right?"

"No. This is my first time. But I
am
hungry, I missed lunch today. Had something else to take care of."

"Well, it's simple fare, but that's what I like. Sometimes my sister and I come here when we want a home-cooked meal but don't want to be bothered with doing the cooking."

About then the waitress showed up, order pad in hand. "You ready to order, or you want the Daily Special? It's pot roast, comes with soup or salad. Gravy's really good tonight, and your choice of pie."

A little comfort food sounded good to me, and Ryan agreed, so we ordered the Daily Special, along with a beer for Ryan and a white wine for me.

"So," he said, leaning back and taking a long sip of the beer when she brought it to the table. "You're looking as lovely as I remember."

"And you're just as straightforward as I remember," I laughed back at him.

"What'd you expect? Comes with the territory, I suppose. I wouldn't know any other way to be."

"Well, it's charming,
and refreshing
, believe me. So, how long have you been with the D.A.s office? And how do you like it?"

"About eight years now. Hired right out of college. It's really the only place I've ever worked."

"You must see some pretty interesting stuff."

He laughed and rolled his eyes. "Oh, it's not all what you'd expect, especially after the 'reality TV' BS they show nowadays. I mean, it's interesting and all, but not exciting. Or not usually. But it can get pretty intense."

"But you like it?"

"Oh yeah. It does put you right in the middle of some pretty interesting stuff." He took another sip of beer. "So how about you? What's your line of work?"

"Right. We never got around to talking about work on the plane did we?"

"As I remember, we were having too much fun talking about other things." Then he winked at me, and I felt a little fluttering in my tummy. I liked this guy; he was cute, funny, and as far as I could tell, a good law-abiding citizen.
Not like some people I could mention.

But even if he was fun to flirt with, that wasn't the reason I was here.

"I'm in retail. An associate for Mancini Enterprises." I saw his eyebrows go up. "You know him?"

"In this town, are you kidding? Who hasn't heard of Antonio Mancini."

I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad sign.

"Ryan, how well do you know the D.A.? I mean, what kind of man is he to work for?"

"Oh, he's decent enough—a lot better than the last guy we had in there. I mean, it is my job to get along with him, he's my boss. But I'm Civil Service, he's elected. And that means my boss, the man 'in charge', could change at any time, depending on the whim of the voters. I'm just glad Stephens is not too far off from where the rest of us sit on most things."

I took another sip of my wine, trying not to appear too anxious. "Is he involved in the day-to-day running of things, or is he just a figurehead?"

"Oh, he's a hands-on guy. The last one, though, you could never find him—always at some kind of meeting or special session. Never in the office. I mean, Stephens has his share of those things, but he's good about keeping us in the loop, and when he's gone, we all pretty much cover for each other."

"Sounds like a nice place to work."

"Ha," he said. "Not so much, if you consider the kinds of people and the kinds of cases we have to work with sometimes."

Well, that made sense. Before I could ask him more, our dinner arrived. We spent the next fifteen minutes simply enjoying our meal in relative silence, with a smattering of chit chat.

I finished my pot roast and pushed my plate away, anxious to return to our earlier conversation.

"So, you trust Brad Stephens?"

"Sure. He's a pretty good guy, and a pretty good boss."

"Do you think he'll run for office again? I mean, would you like him too?"

"I've been through three D.A.s so far. And he's the best of the lot. So, yeah, I think he'll run, and I'd like to see him win. The voters seem to like him."

"Well, there are the rumors. You know, about his dealings with those consultants."

He looked at me for a moment, his eyes crinkling curiously. "Oh, I wouldn't pay any attention to those. That was just sour grapes—something drummed up to cast a bad light on him. You know, we had a full internal investigation, and there was never anything proven. Not even close."

"But how can you be sure? Doesn't that make you nervous, working for someone who could be doing something illegal?"

Ryan looked at me, eyes narrowed, a frown creasing his forehead. "What are you getting at, Angela? Why all these questions about Stephens? Just what is it you're interested in knowing?"

My stomach tightened at the sharpness in his voice. He'd never used that tone with me, and what had started out as a friendly dinner now felt more like an interrogation. In fact, that straightforwardness I had appreciated earlier was now directed at me, and it made me mighty uncomfortable.

I sat there for a moment, composing my thoughts. I wanted information, but I didn't want to get Antonio into trouble. I didn't trust Carmiante or Walker, and I had no idea what their plan was. But, just as importantly, I had no idea if Brad Stephens was involved in some kind of underhanded activity, or if he was just another victim who was in their way.

"Do you have some kind of special investigation going on right now?" I asked.

He huffed out a laugh. "Angela, there are all kinds of special investigations going on right now. I'll ask you again, what is it you're trying to find out? Specifics, Angela, specifics."

I swear, my palms were sweating. I rubbed my hands on my napkin, trying to calm my nervousness. I sipped my wine, soothing my suddenly dry throat.

"I've heard some things… recently. I can't tell you the… source, but what I heard was about… the D.A."

His nostrils flared as he inhaled a quick breath. "What about the D.A.?"

"Well, you see, that's why I asked what kind of man he was, and if you trusted him."

"Angela! Get to the point!"

I bit my lip, did I really want to name names? Where might that lead? Back to Antonio? That's not what I wanted. At least… I didn't think I wanted it to. I mean, I was really pissed at him, at the way he treated me, but I didn't want to do him harm, for heaven's sake.

"I saw the front page the other day," I started again. "You know, the picture about the donation to the Children's Academy?"

Ryan nodded, silent, watching me, his blue eyes piercing into me. Waiting.

"Well, I'm not so sure about the people who are on the Board of Directors of that charity. The things I've been hearing make me wonder if there's something else going on."

"Such as?"

"Such as
I don't know
… But the people I heard talking about it are not nice people. In fact, they're downright scary. So, what do you think?"

"About what?"

"About what I just said!” I sputtered out, exasperated. “There are some really sinister guys implying that there's something wrong with the South Side Children's Academy. What do you think about that?"

He looked at me a moment longer. "Do you have any specific information for me?"

"I can't say anything more than what I've already said. But you should look into it."
Dang
.
Why was he being so obtuse?
How many hints would I have to drop?

"Angela, there isn't anything to look into. Unless you have some specific information, there's nothing for me to check out."

"Oh come on, Ryan! Surely you can do some checking into the Children's Academy. At least into the background of those people on the Board of Directors. I think it might be very important."

He sat there silent, lost in his own thoughts, watching me as he finished his beer.

"I don't know. Sounds like a lot of innuendo to me." He picked up the check. "Maybe your imagination is overreacting."

"But it's not…" I protested. "There's something to what I heard. And it's… I know it's important."

"But, you won't tell me where you heard it or who you heard it from. You have to realize how unhelpful that is." He brushed his hair off his forehead as he stared at the space in front of his plate.

"I… I know. I'm sorry." I looked at him hopefully, imploringly.

He looked out the window, to the ceiling and then back at me. "Okay, Angela, but only because we almost went to high school together. And, no promises."

"Oh, thank you!" I leaned over, my arm pulling him close so I could give him a big, wet kiss on the cheek. "You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you say that."

He grinned. "Now see, that's all you needed to do to convince me in the first place."

Was he kidding? I couldn't tell. But suddenly I felt lighter than I had since we'd come back from the cruise. I still didn't know what was going on, but maybe someone else could get to the bottom of it.

At the front door, he hailed a cab for me. Then he turned, smiling that cute little smile of his. "Angela, seriously, if there's anything to this, I'll give you a call. I need to ask you something. And I need an honest answer.”

I paused, sensing his seriousness. “Yes, what is it?”

“Did you only connect with me to interrogate me about the Children’s Charity? Or…”

Looking into his eyes, I realized it wasn’t the only reason I’d wanted to see him again. I liked him. Quite a lot, in fact. It was easy to answer with an honest, “No. That’s not the only reason.” I looked down at my feet and then up at him again, wanting him to see from my face that I wasn’t just using him.

He smiled, one side of his mouth rising into a boyish grin. “Good, I’m glad because I'd like to see you again. I already know how you feel about basketball, so what about a movie sometime?"

A movie? A movie would be nice
, I thought. A normal date, a break from gala events, and having to worry about always being on display,
or on edge
. "Sure, that sounds like fun. Just give me a call."

That got a big grin. He opened the door to the cab, helping me inside. Then he leaned down and gave me a very sweet kiss, full on the lips. "Comedy or drama?" he asked.

It took me a moment before I understood what he meant. "Comedies are fun," I answered.
Lord knows I have more than enough drama in my own life right now!