Griffin himself was the one Paul Stratton had wanted to hurt—first by trying to lure him into publishing a bogus story that would hurt his reputation. Then, when that didn’t work, by outright killing him. The bullet that had come within inches of his heart had never been meant for Raleigh.
“Don’t hurt her, Paul,” Griffin warned. “This is between you and me.” What had been a professional rivalry had become a life-and-death struggle, as if they were two gladiators in an arena, the loser to be eaten by lions.
“Come get her,” Paul challenged again, now speaking in his normal voice. He was well back from the edge of the roof, where Griffin couldn’t see him. “If I see anyone but you coming up that fire escape, you can kiss Raleigh goodbye.”
Griffin looked around frantically. Where were the cops? Where were the Project Justice people?
His phone rang, and he answered it as he made his way to the alley.
“Benedict here.”
“Raleigh’s been taken hostage.” It was Daniel. “The police have a witness who saw her taken—”
“She’s right here, Daniel,” Griffin interrupted. “She’s on the roof of your own goddamn building. The kidnapper is Paul Stratton. I’m going in.”
“Wait, Griffin—”
He couldn’t wait for reinforcements. Every second Raleigh was in the hands of this crazed man was another second of mortal danger. Stratton was insane—surely he didn’t think he could get away with his mad plan now.
Unless he killed both Raleigh and Griffin. Made it look like a lover’s quarrel gone deadly…yes, that had to be what he had in mind. Even their deaths wouldn’t stop the freight train of Stratton’s downfall, but he was obviously too unbalanced to see that.
Stratton expected him to go up the fire escape. The moment his head cleared the roof, Stratton would shoot it off. There had to be another way.
Quickly he reversed his steps and rang the night bell at the Project Justice front door.
“Who is it?” came Celeste’s voice.
“Griffin Benedict. Celeste, Raleigh is being held hostage—”
The door buzzed and Griffin burst in. Celeste was already on her feet and, God help them all, she was holding the biggest handgun he’d ever seen—had to be a .50 caliber.
“I knew that fake cop was up to no good!” she declared.
“They’re on the roof,” Griffin said urgently. “How can we get up there besides the fire escape?”
Suddenly Celeste was all steely efficiency. “Down the hall, up the stairs.” She tossed him some keys. “The brass one with the round head opens the hatch to the roof.” She turned and headed for the front door.
“Where are you going?”
“Gonna create a diversion.” She grabbed one of the Mylar balloons tied to her chair, then took off toward the front door. The woman had to be in her seventies, but she could run like a gazelle even in her high-heeled boots. The flowers on her ridiculous hat bounced with every step.
Griffin didn’t have time to try to stop her. A diversion? What the hell did she meant to do? God forgive him for endangering an elderly lady, even if she was, by all accounts, a competent ex-cop and tough as a sledgehammer.
He barreled down the hallway and up the stairs two at a time. Three flights, and he reached the hatch. Brass key. Round head. The lock turned.
Griffin paused long enough to yank off his boots and socks—he would be quieter in bare feet. He opened the hatch two inches and peeked out. He could see them. Stratton still had his hand over Raleigh’s mouth, his gun pointed at her head as he held her against him like a shield and faced the fire escape, watching intently.
There was no way Griffin could get off a safe shot. Stratton left no part of his anatomy exposed for long, not from this angle. Even if Griffin shot him cleanly, Stratton’s hand might jerk and pull his own trigger, killing Raleigh.
Griffin spotted movement in the building across the street. He crossed his fingers that Daniel’s people had arrived. Not that they could stop Stratton if he suddenly tired of the game.
If anyone was going to rescue Raleigh, it had to be Griffin.
Slowly he opened the trapdoor a few more inches, enough that he could crawl through. Recalling his days of battlefield reporting, he moved silently as a cat, mindful that the slightest movement would cause the gravel to crunch.
Raleigh looked over and saw him. Her eyes widened and he froze, gun ready, in case she accidentally alerted Stratton. But the reporter’s attention was firmly on the fire escape.
“Benedict?” Stratton called out. “I’m not gonna wait forever for you to make your move. I’ll give you one more minute. Then your girl is history, and I’m coming after you. Your only chance to save her is to fight with me, one on one—if you’re man enough.”
Griffin didn’t believe it for a second. Stratton didn’t intend for either of his targets to live beyond the next couple of minutes to tell the tale.
Griffin made his way, duckwalking slowly when he wanted to run, the gravel biting into his bare feet. Finally he reached some cover behind an air-conditioning unit. He fell back on his martial arts training, breathing slowly, deeply but quietly, taking in as much oxygen as possible.
That was when he heard a noise on the fire escape. Oh, God. Not Celeste. Please.
Something rose above the roofline—hard to tell what it was in the darkness. It looked like…Celeste’s flowered hat.
Stratton didn’t even wait to see who it was. Obviously assuming the new arrival was Griffin, he shot.
Raleigh issued a muffled scream.
This was likely to be Griffin’s only chance, and he had to act fast, while Paul still pointed the gun away from Raleigh. In a split second he considered and rejected a number of judo moves, finally opting for a street-fighting all-out body tackle. He launched himself and hit Paul at knee level with the full force of his weight.
Raleigh, who’d been marking Griffin’s every movement, was ready. The moment Paul loosened his grip on her, she lunged for his gun hand. All three of them went rolling. Griffin landed on his injured arm, which sent stabbing pain through his whole body, but he had his gun in his other hand, and it was aimed at Paul’s head.
Griffin was fractional seconds away from pulling the trigger when he realized Raleigh had come up onto her knees, and she had Paul’s gun gripped in her duct-taped hands.
“Everybody freeze. Griffin, don’t shoot. We got him.”
It took all of Griffin’s willpower not to stare at her, but he kept his gaze on their adversary. “Raleigh, are you okay? Where are you hurt?”
During that half moment of distraction, Paul Stratton lunged to his hands and knees, then his feet. He was unarmed now but still dangerous.
“Down on your knees!” Griffin shouted the way he’d heard countless TV cops and a few real ones say. “Hands behind your head.”
Paul smiled a bit wildly and refused to obey. “Uh-uh. You think I’m going to let you humiliate me? Prove everything I wrote about Anthony Simonetti is a lie? That story made me who I am and you—” he pointed at Raleigh “—you were going to take that away from me. And you—” He turned back to Griffin “—you’re just a cocky kid, and yet the folks at CNI thought you were my equal. It shouldn’t have been a contest.
I won a Pulitzer!
I’m not about to let you take that job from me.”
Even after all that had happened, Griffin felt a grain of sadness for Paul Stratton, who was watching his career bleed away and couldn’t do anything about it.
“It’s over, Paul.”
“It’s not over until I say it’s over.” With that, he turned and ran full tilt to the edge of the building and, without hesitation, hurled himself over.
“No!” Raleigh screamed. She ran after Paul, but Griffin headed her off.
“You don’t want to look.” Paul might survive a three-story fall onto concrete, but chances were the outcome was messy.
As sickened as he was by Paul’s cowardly act, he was more worried about Raleigh, covered in blood and pale as death itself.
He took her into his arms. “Where are you hurt, baby?”
“It’s just a nosebleed. I’m fine.” She pulled out of his attempted embrace. “Paul shot someone. The fire escape. Who was it?”
Celeste. How could Griffin have forgotten? “Stay here.” He sprinted to the fire escape and, steeling himself, looked over the edge. Instead of a bloody tragedy, he was met with Celeste climbing up.
“What happened?”
“You’re okay? I thought you were shot.”
“No, but my hat didn’t fare too well. And that balloon is history.” She pointed to a crumpled bit of shiny Mylar clinging to the metal stairway railing below.
“Thank God.”
“You think I’m dumb enough to stick my head right into the line of fire? I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. What happened? You two okay?”
Raleigh had joined them. “We’re fine. Thank you, Celeste. Your actions saved my life. And you.” She looped her taped wrists around Griffin’s head and hugged him. “Thank you for coming after me. Thank you for saving me. I’ve never been so scared.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Awww, now that’s sweet.” Celeste beamed up at them.
“But that’s the crux of the story,” Pierce enthused. “And no one can tell it like you can. You were there, right in the middle of things. I can’t even imagine the ratings!”
Was this guy for real?
Ratings?
“Pierce, I wouldn’t write this story for CNI if you were the last news outlet on earth.”
“I…I beg your pardon?”
How soon they forget. “You sold me out. You told me I had two weeks. Then you ran with that piece of sensational crap on the basis of one lousy, anonymous phone call.”
“It wasn’t an anonymous call,” Pierce protested. “Stratton said he was you. We thought we were talking to you! You—Stratton—said to run with it.”
“Spin it any way you want,” Griffin said. “You still showed gross negligence by slandering Raleigh without even giving her the chance to defend herself. I can’t work for such an irresponsible organization.”
“But it’s nearly a seven-figure salary! You’re walking away from that?”
Poor guy just didn’t get it. “Yes, Pierce, I’m walking away. Not only that, but if Raleigh sues you, I’ll be her star witness.” Griffin disconnected the call and, with a shake of his head, resumed his packing.
Even if CNI hadn’t made such a monumental screwup, Griffin was pretty sure he wouldn’t have taken the job. He didn’t want to write the story.
Someone else would take care of that—probably every reporter in the country wanted a crack at it. Griffin had been bombarded with calls from journalists as far away as Uzbekistan, wanting the inside scoop.
Juicy stories used to get him all excited. Now that he was in the middle of a sensational mess, however, he found it not so pleasant. This whole experience had caused him to reevaluate his career aspirations. He loved digging for the truth, loved shining a light on wrongdoing, but he also realized that news reporting had the capacity to harm people. Poor Anthony Simonetti spent years in prison partly due to Paul’s overzealous—and inaccurate—reporting.
Maybe it was time for Griffin to dust off that novel he’d half written in college and finish it. He had a little money saved up.
As he loaded the last box onto a hand truck, he checked his watch. Only a half hour until his appointment with Daniel Logan. Daniel hadn’t said why he wanted to meet, but Griffin was pretty sure an apology for misjudging him was in the offing. And when a billionaire wanted to apologize, it was best to let him.
“Sure you won’t change your mind?” It was Marvin Gussler, his editor. He stood near Griffin’s desk, squinting through his thick glasses.
“I can’t believe you’d want me to stay,” Griffin said. “I was writing something for another news outfit while on your payroll.”
Marv shook his head. “You were tempted by a boatload of money. It happens. Doesn’t negate all the great stories you’ve written for us, and the ones you could write in the future.”
Griffin thought that was mighty broad-minded of the man. He shook Marv’s hand. “If I decide to go back to work as a reporter, I’ll talk to you first.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
Exactly thirty minutes later, feeling light and surprisingly optimistic about his unemployed status, Griffin was ushered into Daniel Logan’s private office. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was damn curious.
Daniel was all smiles as he came to his feet. “Griffin. Good of you to come.”
“No problem.” Griffin shook the man’s hand, and they each settled into chairs. Daniel’s was some high-tech office model that rolled and spun on a dozen multidirectional casters. Griffin’s was an enormous, plush wingback that looked out of place in the high-tech lair.
“First, I want to apologize for jumping to conclusions about your actions, about your character. I should have known better simply on the basis of my association with you. My first impression of you was strongly positive, and I’m rarely wrong in that department. I was an idiot to arrive at the answer I did, and I’m sorry.”
Griffin was impressed. Wealthy, powerful men seldom had to apologize for their actions. If they made a mistake, they hired someone to take care of it, or bought their way out somehow.
“I accept your apology. It was a tough, confusing situation. Maybe none of us were at our best.”
Daniel smiled. “Good. Glad that’s out of the way. Now we can get down to business. I understand you’ve left your job at the
Telegram.
”
How would Daniel Logan know that? The man had ears everywhere. “I need a break from news writing,” Griffin said.
“So you haven’t accepted a job elsewhere?”
“No.” A couple of newspapers and a wire service had put out feelers, but he hadn’t returned their calls. Maybe he would feel differently in a week or two.
“I have a proposition for you, then. How would you like to work for me?”
For a moment, all Griffin could do was stare with his mouth gaping open like a landed fish. “Doing what? Public relations?”
“God, how boring. No, of course not. I want you to work as an investigator at Project Justice.”
Of all the scenarios Griffin had imagined, this wasn’t one of them. “I thought all of your people were former law enforcement. Or lawyers.”
“Right now they are. But you’ve got the skills I need. You’re a good investigator, and you can handle yourself in a tight spot. You’ve also shown that you’re honest and ethical, and you have some knowledge of the law. All of those are qualities I value in my people, and I don’t care how you acquired them.”
Griffin didn’t reply right away. He was sorely tempted, but he’d just been through a life-changing event, which meant it wasn’t a good time to make snap decisions. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course. But, for the record, you’d be paid more than you would have earned from CNI.”
“Really.” He knew Daniel compensated his people well, but he’d had no idea. “You know, there is one problem.”
“Do you mean Raleigh?”
“Yeah.” He hadn’t seen her since that night on the roof. Once the police had arrived, they’d been separated and questioned for hours. Then Griffin had slept for twelve hours straight.
When he woke, he’d set about rearranging his life. He had called Raleigh and left a message on her cell, letting her know he was thinking about her, but that was as close as he’d gotten to talking to her.
He was in love with Raleigh—he was more sure of that than ever. But he also knew she wasn’t ready for a relationship, not the kind he wanted. She might never be.
But he would wait. If and when she
was
ready to love again, he’d be there.
“Raleigh might not feel comfortable working with me day in and day out,” Griffin said. “Things between us are complicated.”
“How about if I let you two settle that issue yourselves?” Daniel nodded toward the doorway of his office and Griffin turned to find a vision standing there. Raleigh—but not Raleigh. Instead of a boxy suit, she had on a colorful floral sundress that showed off her spectacular figure. She’d ditched the horn-rim glasses. Her ears were adorned with dangly gold earrings with little bells that tinkled with each move of her head.
And her hair—holy cow. No more slicked-back ponytail or matronly bun. Now her hair fell in shimmering auburn waves past her shoulders in an untamed waterfall of fire and autumn leaves.
On her feet, instead of low-heeled pumps, were a pair of gold sandals sporting red silk flowers.
Griffin’s mouth went dry. “Uh, hi.”
She smiled, looking more relaxed than he’d ever seen her. “Hi, yourself.”
Daniel rose and emerged from behind his computer console. “I’ll just go see about lunch.” Raleigh stepped inside, allowing Daniel to exit.
Griffin stood, unsure what to do now. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Daniel graciously invited me to stay on a few days so I can…decompress. He insists I continue my ‘vacation,’ and I guess that’s a good idea.”
“It
is
a good idea,” Griffin agreed. “You don’t want to go back to your apartment until the windows are repaired and everything gets cleaned up.” He was thinking specifically about the bullet holes all over the place, and the blood he’d smeared on her rugs and furniture.
“Oh, that’s all done. Daniel took care of it. I was there last night, in fact, straightening up. Changing a few things.” She flashed an enigmatic smile. “So, you’ve decided not to take the job at CNI?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I am. You’re too ethical to work with that sleazy outfit. But you probably have other options.”
“Everybody wants the story,” he agreed. “But they’re not getting it. I’m ready to put this whole thing behind me. It’s left a very bad taste in my mouth.” He still had trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that a colleague had been willing to commit murder for the sake of his ambition.
Raleigh’s forehead wrinkled with a worry line. “Does that mean you want to put me behind you, as well?”
“No,” he said bluntly. “I was out of my mind when I tried to cut things off between us. It was because I was scared of my feelings. I’ve never felt this way about any woman.”
He wanted to go to her, take her in his arms, kiss her until she swooned. But he couldn’t. Not yet.
“I know you’re not ready for that much intensity. I know you’re still healing. That’s why I didn’t give Daniel an answer. Seeing each other every day, working together and not
being
together—it would be tough. For both of us, I think.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.” She closed the distance between them and took his hand between both of hers. “I have something to show you. Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Griffin was consumed with curiosity, but he let Raleigh lead the way through the foyer and out to the driveway, where her Volvo was parked. Copper trotted behind them, and soon all three of them were seated inside the car.
“It’s nice to be able to drive myself around without worrying about someone trying to kill me,” she said lightly as she started up the engine.
It was nice. The weather was mild, the sun shining. Griffin opened his window. Copper, sitting in his lap, stuck his head out and barked at the wind. Raleigh turned up the radio.
Griffin noticed she was no longer wearing her wedding ring.
“I haven’t told you the good news yet,” she said. “The police finally got around to running the gun’s registration number. Guess who it belonged to?”
“Louis Costanza?”
“You got it. Plus, the missing bullet? It mysteriously showed up.”
“Someone in the Houston P.D. has a conscience.”
“They’ve matched the bullets. We have a murder weapon, traced to someone other than Anthony. The governor has stayed Anthony’s execution. They’re going to reopen the case, and I have high hopes Anthony’s conviction will be overturned.”
“Congratulations.” He was genuinely pleased for her. “But I thought you were on vacation.”
“I am. Beth is coordinating the evidence. She’s keeping me updated.”
“Guess we were wrong about your father-in-law. Have you checked on him lately?”
Raleigh smiled. “John’s prognosis is excellent. He’s too mean to die. I sent him a big basket of flowers and a card with a huge apology for arguing with him when he was critically ill.”
“That was nice.”
“Then I called Abe Comstock and told him how the Shinns reacted to the words
Swiss bank account.
Even though they had nothing to do with the money in my account.”
“Ooh, not so nice after all.”
“I’m done with the Shinns for good. Jason would understand.”
They rode in companionable silence. Griffin was happy just to watch the wind play in Raleigh’s gorgeous mop of hair.
“I like your hair that way,” he said after a while.
“Thanks. It feels nice just to let it go sometimes. I couldn’t find a blow dryer this morning. I think Jillian hid it from me. She’s been after me to try a different hairstyle.”
“And is Jillian behind the, er, wardrobe change?”
Raleigh blushed prettily.
“You do look beautiful. For the record, I like the suits and the bun and the glasses, too. The uptight librarian look turns me on.”
“Griffin!”
“It’s what first drew me to you. But today…” He couldn’t even put into words how hot he was for her. And maybe he shouldn’t try.
Raleigh drove downtown, to her apartment building, and into the garage. Griffin, more curious by the minute, followed her to the elevator. What was she up to?
“I just wanted to show you how nicely everything cleaned up,” Raleigh said. “I don’t know where Daniel gets his people, but they were fast and thorough. If I didn’t know, I would never guess what went on here only a few days ago.”
She opened her front door with a flourish.
Griffin was impressed. The French doors to the patio had been replaced. The rugs were free of shattered glass. The carpets and upholstery had been cleaned. He picked up a pillow from the sofa, remembering how he had used it to stanch the flow of blood from his arm. It looked immaculate.