Nobody's Angel (21 page)

“I don't want to think. I want to go home. They've already done their damage. What more can they do? Annie said they're installing new bolts in the morning. I'll stay with her until then.”

He wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her pretty head. He figured shaking was the last thing he'd do if he got his hands on her, though. “You want to think that through again? If they didn't find what they wanted in your apartment or your store, where do you think they'll look next time?”

“Who says there'll be a next time?” she asked fiercely, glaring out the windshield, her fingers glued to the steering wheel.

“Do you think this was all coincidence?” He didn't want to terrify her. He wanted her to be defiant and courageous and
all those insane things, because she would need it. “Do you really think that we were accidentally run off the road and some thief accidentally came along and stole your purse and that same thief accidentally turned up in Knoxville to search your stuff right after I accidentally got out of prison and found you?”

Her arms stiffened. Her mouth tightened into a pale line. He figured she would twist the wheel into a pretzel any minute.

“Tony is dead,” she said stonily. “No one survived the plane crash. No one could. It was in the mountains. In winter. It took rescue teams days to reach the site.”

“Maybe Tony
is
dead,” he agreed softly, “but he had friends. Maybe someone else knew about the money.”

She collapsed then. She buried her face against her arms, and her shoulders shook, and she seemed to melt into boneless jelly.

He squatted beside the car and caressed her leg through the jeans she'd borrowed from Elena. “Someone has to be after that money.”

She shook her head, whipping her fine hair back and forth. “Only Tony.”

Ah, he was beginning to see the hang-up here. He had his guilts; she had hers. He pressed her leg tighter to catch her attention. “Not your money. The other. The tons I'm supposed to have stolen.”

That caught her, all right. She lifted her head, and he could see the tears glistening in the blue of her eyes.

“They think
I
have
your
money?”

“The stolen money,” he said gently. “It's all tied together, don't you see? We're not the only ones who suspect Tony may have stolen from those accounts. And I'm not the only one who thinks you may have the clue to where the money is hidden. They just couldn't find you until I led them directly to you.”

“Remind me to thank you sometime.” She dropped her head back to the steering wheel, but this time she wasn't
shaking. “We've not exactly been hiding our presence. Anyone could have followed us the other day. That pickup …”

“It was a truck that hit us,” he agreed. “They could have seen us with Headley the night before, followed us to the motel.”

“Oh, charming. So now they think I'm in collusion with a criminal.”

“You could have found a better way of wording it.” He stood. “Let me get my stuff. I've already called Cesar. He should be here shortly. I don't think we'd better stay here any longer.”

She stared up at him. “You think they'd hurt your family?”

Well, at least she was thinking again. “They could have killed us both with that accident. What do you think?”

He wanted to smile at her two-syllable pronunciation of a four-letter word but he couldn't. He should have known this could happen, but he'd been focused on only one thing— himself.

Cesar's van rattled into the drive, saving him from any further introspection. Primeval instincts for survival came first.

“This is ridiculous.” As the car lurched into the gravel drive, Faith glared at Cesar's ramshackle boardinghouse near the community college. “We have no money, no jobs, and this is the next best thing to being homeless. Did anyone ever tell you that you're a bad influence?”

Adrian parked under the low-hanging branch of a willow oak and turned off the key. He supposed anger was better than her earlier hysteria, but not by much. He already felt cad enough without her rubbing it in. “We're just calling a time-out until we develop a better plan,” he reminded her.

“Cesar's roommate returns Monday,” she goaded him. “You'd better think quick.”

Swinging his duffel over his shoulder, he helped her out of the car, removed her box from the back, and led her toward the rickety outside stairs. He winced every time she limped.

“I could carry you up,” he suggested as she clung to the rail as if it were her crutch.

“Screw you, too.” Favoring her injured leg, she took another step.

That would suit him fine. One good long screw would go a long way toward taking some of the edge off. He could scarcely tear his gaze from the way her rounded posterior swung as she limped up the stairs in front of him.

One look at the interior of the apartment and he knew tonight wouldn't be the night he got lucky. “It's worse than a cheap motel,” he muttered as he threw the duffel and carton on the littered carpet. “Prison was better than this.”

Faith glanced around at the empty beer cans, the tottering stacks of books and paper, dirty dishes and glasses, and shrugged. “We can always check out the homeless shelters.”

“You're gonna rub this in, aren't you?” He peered into the filthy galley kitchen, then checked the tiny hall. “Two bedrooms. I recommend you take the one in back. It looks like it may actually have sheets.”

She sank onto the overstuffed couch instead. “I want a definite plan of action or I'm going to the police. I can't live like this.”

Heaving two dictionaries, a stuffed monkey, and a whiskey bottle off a battered armchair, Adrian collapsed into the seat and nearly sank to the floor. He leaned his head against the chair back and stared up at the ceiling. He thought he saw tomato spatters on the cracked and filthy plaster. “Do you really think the police will listen? Do you think they're even bothering to trace the bastard who broke into your places? The guy had keys. They're figuring it's a domestic dispute or that the crook is long gone.”

“The D.A. here will understand the significance if we explain it.”

“First, he'll throw my ass in jail for parole violation if he finds out I've been in Tennessee. Second, the break-ins are out of his jurisdiction. Third, we have no proof the accident wasn't an accident. And lastly, we'll just give him the idea to have someone tail us so he can lay his hands on the money first. And don't think he'll be much help if the bad guys get to us before he does. He'll count on going in and cleaning up
after. He doesn't have enough investigative force to do anything else.”

“Cynic,” she grumbled. “Paranoid cynic,” she amended.

“I prefer to think of it as realism. Give me credit for having a little more experience with the criminal justice system than you have.” If he'd had any character at all, he'd have been one of the good guys in white hats who represented the little people against the cold cruel world of that system, but no, he had to make his millions first. Somehow, he just didn't think his punishment fit the crime.

“All right, Mr. Realism, what do we do next, then?”

He wished he knew. Lifting his head, he tried a seductive leer. “Go to bed?”

She flung an empty beer can at him.

He caught and squashed it. “All right. Let's take the basics first. It's probably not safe to return home, agreed?”

“No,” she said mutinously. “They know there's nothing there now. Why should they go back?”

“Because you're there?” he suggested. That shut her up. “As I said, we can't go home. If this person is as dangerous as he seems, he could threaten our families, our friends, anyone within our vicinity. What would it take to break you?”

“Not much, but I'd have to make up a story to break since I don't know anything. Why didn't they continue following us around town if they think we know where the money is?”

“Good question.” Tossing the can up and down, Adrian thought about it. “Maybe they already know where the money is and they just want the keys? Maybe they thought you had the keys in your purse, and when they weren't there, they checked your places?”

“They couldn't open the boxes unless they were officers of the corporation. And Tony was the only other officer besides me.” She grimaced as logic returned them full circle to that unpalatable prospect.

She was sharp. If he'd had her around a few years ago, he'd never have gotten into this mess. She would have pulled him up short before his ego and ambition tumbled him over the edge. “Okay, but forging papers similar to the ones you have
wouldn't be difficult. The bank wouldn't know the difference.

And now they have your ID.”

“Sandra!”

He thought about that and shook his head slowly. “Sandra has the wattage of a Christmas tree bulb. She has a houseful of kids. Admittedly, she might know about the keys and the boxes and everything, but she couldn't personally carry this off. She'd have to hire someone.”

“Or someone could have found her in Florida after Tony's plane crash and made her think she had a lot more money coming to her. She probably went through Tony's life insurance pretty fast.”

“If she had the life insurance,” Adrian reminded her. “If you don't have a death certificate, what are the chances that Sandra managed to get one? She wasn't even his wife.”

Faith made an unladylike snort. “Maybe she had a husband like Tony had a wife. Or a lover. The whole world, or at least most of Charlotte, would know that money is still out there.”

“Well, that's helpful. Now all we have to do is suspect the entire city. I suggest we find the money and run.”

“I suggest you go to hell. I wouldn't touch that money if you buried me with it.”

“Rise right up out of the grave, huh?” He smiled at the tomato-splattered ceiling. She had pluck, Miss Faith Hope did. And integrity. Damned dangerous combination. That thought triggered another. “How much money is left in that nonprofit trust fund you set up from Tony's assets?”

“It's invested in stocks, and they've appreciated,” she said grudgingly. “The income goes to charity, but there's still a few hundred thousand or more.”

He heard her reluctance and figured she might be deliberately underestimating the amount, but she was trusting him a little more each day. Maybe if they could build up a few layers of trust … Experience had taught him not to hope.

“All right. Now, did you leave papers in your apartment or shop that would have let the thief know about the account?”

He heard her intake of breath and sat up straight again. She'd gone back to pale.

“It's all in my desk,” she whispered in horror. “I'm the trustee. I write the checks.”

He'd figured that. He'd seen what she'd done to help Annie and the shelter. That money hadn't come from singing in bars.

“Let's call Annie and have her gather up some of your things, including that checkbook and any ID you might have that the thief didn't take. You'll need to notify the bank if the checks are gone, and if they're not, maybe you could make a temporary donation to the homeless that we can repay later.”

She raised her eyebrows in question.

Adrian sighed. “To us. We're destitute and homeless, remember?”

She couldn't sleep. She might never sleep again. Her knee throbbed. Her skin felt too tight. Thoughts whirled and crashed in her pounding head. Her breasts ached.

That last brought her up out of the narrow bed. Tony had used sex as a sleeping pill. She'd be better off taking a Tylenol rather than consider the same thing.

It would help if she could label Adrian Quinn Raphael as a fast-talking con artist, an arrogant egotistical lawyer who was ruining her life, or any of those other things he deserved to be called. But no matter what else he was, she didn't doubt that he was also a worried man concerned about his family. That side of him appealed to her entirely too much for peace of mind.

How well did Tylenol mix with beer? She figured that's all she'd find in the refrigerator.

Anything was better than lying here tossing and turning, images dancing through her head of Tony rising from the dead and Sandra with ax in hand. The faceless, nameless driver of the pickup couldn't be as vivid as the monsters already inhabiting her mind. Any of them could easily drive her to the arms of the man sleeping on the other side of the wall.

She opened the bedroom door and heard voices. Her heart instantly hit a tattoo and she glanced over her shoulder at the garret window. She could climb onto the roof.…

A familiar velvet baritone stopped that thought in its tracks. Adrian was conspiring behind her back. She should have known.

She pulled on Elena's jeans under Adrian's long T-shirt,
then slipped silently down the hall to the shadows outside the littered living room. Adrian's cousin Juan now occupied the armchair. Cesar sprawled across the dilapidated couch. Beer in hand, Adrian paced the narrow space between, avoiding the stacks of books as if he'd memorized their placement.

“We can't know how desperate this person is,” Adrian said with an urgency that made Faith's skin crawl.

“We can't even know if he's more than a stupid crook,” Juan pointed out. “Kids have cars. They could have looked the shop up for a lark, took the cash, and gone on a drinking spree.”