Real Men Do It Better (25 page)

“What’s going on?” She let Joe lead her to the couch, sitting down nervously as Craig took the chair across from them.

“Your house was trashed yesterday.” Craig wasn’t one to beat around the bush, either.

As he sat down, his hazel eyes watched her closely, looking, she knew, for a guilty, frightened response.

“It was Grant’s house.” She shrugged. “If they just got around to trashing it…”

“It wasn’t trashed in the typical fashion,” Craig broke in. “The carpet was ripped through most of the rooms and pulled back. We’ve had a team going through it, but we’ve found nothing beneath any of it. We got there before every room was hit, but we’ve found nothing, and we know whoever went through it didn’t find anything.”

“The carpet?” She shook her head in confusion. “Why rip away the carpet?”

“They were looking for hidden pockets in the floor,” Joe said as he curved his arm around her shoulders, his fingers rubbing at her arm in comfort.

She glanced at him with a frown, shaking her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“The carpet could have been carefully cut to blend in with the nap of the material, but could be pulled away to access a hidden safe or loose boards in the floor where objects can be hidden,” Joe explained.

Maggie glanced back at Craig. He was watching her closely, doubtfully. He thought she knew where the information they were looking for was hidden. God, she wished she did.

“Did you check all the rooms after you saw where they were looking?”

Craig nodded shortly. “We had a team stripping carpet all night last night. We found nothing.”

Maggie rubbed at her forehead. Where would Grant have hidden that information?

“It could have been a lie,” she finally whispered, turning to stare at Joe dismally. “The journal was a lie, Joe. He could have lied about the information.”

“He had it, Maggie.” Craig informed her coldly.

She couldn’t sit still. She had fought to calm the fear rising inside her for the past week, to take one day at a time and pray the information would be found. Rising to her feet, she paced across the living room, listening distantly to Joe and Craig discussing the search the night before.

The house Grant had been so proud of would be a mess. The two-story brick colonial design had been a major buy for him. He had bragged about that house incessantly. Because it was better than Joe’s. Because as much money as Joe’s family obviously had, they weren’t real fond of sharing, because Joe’s house was so much smaller, so much less classy. She remembered how he would laugh about that. How Joe’s house, right down to the dank, unkempt basement, was so much less superior than the one Grant had managed to buy.

She paced to the edge of the room, turning back to stare at the two men as they continued to talk. Joe was frowning thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed as Craig explained the areas searched and how in-depth it had gone.

Grant wouldn’t have hidden anything in his own house. He would have known that was the first place they would look. He was smarter than that. He was demonic. He would have found a way to hurt Joe, even in this. She was actually surprised he hadn’t tried to frame Joe instead of her.

“We found several hidden caches of cash. Some drugs.” Craig was shaking his head. “And some more journals. Man, he was sick, Joe.”

Maggie watched Joe’s expression even out, become distant. Grant had nearly destroyed a part of Joe. The two men had been friends for most of their lives. Joe claimed him as a brother, a confidant. He hadn’t known the cruel, bitter side to Grant that she had.

“Any clues in the journals?” Joe leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees as he watched the other man.

“Pretty much what we found in the others.” Craig shrugged. “Different topics, same shit.” He shook his head wearily. “We really didn’t know him, did we?”

Grant had often laughed over that. How the others didn’t really know him, had no idea how much smarter he was, how he could always stay one step ahead of them. Especially Joe. Poor dumb Joe, he would snicker, who would never know how easy he was to fool, how easy it was to use him. Right down to the car Joe had treasured. The ’69 Mustang Joe cherished …

The Mustang. Grant had hated that car. He always sneered when he spoke of it, with an edge of smug satisfaction.

That taunting, self-satisfied gloat had always entered his voice.

She turned from the two men slowly, praying she appeared casual as she moved into the kitchen, toward the coffeepot. She didn’t know Craig well enough, and she could be wrong. And, oh God, if she managed to lead Joe to the information after all, he was never going to believe she had nothing to do with Grant’s illegal activities.

She pressed her hand to her stomach, breathing in deeply when she paused by the counter. If he didn’t believe in her, he would never have dared to risk a pregnancy with her, she thought with a surge of hope. Joe was very family-oriented. Even though he had many disagreements with his family, she knew he loved them and she knew he was fiercely protective of them.

She hated this. Hated the position Grant had placed her in. He was so lucky he was dead; if he weren’t, Maggie believed she would have been tempted to kill him herself at this moment.

As she reached for a coffee cup she heard the two men in the living room moving for the front door.

“Let me know what Johnson says,” Joe was saying as the front door opened. Maggie knew the “Johnson” in question had to be the DA she had met at the police station.

“Will do, and you watch your ass,” Craig grunted. “Hopefully this will be over soon.”

“Hopefully,” Joe answered just before Maggie heard the door close.

She left the cup sitting on the counter in front of the coffeepot as she waited. Within seconds, she felt him. First, it was just an impression of strength, of warmth, then his arms were coming around her waist and his lips were pressing into her hair.

“What’s wrong, Maggie?” His voice was husky, the dark undertone of arousal threading through it.

She breathed in roughly.

“Grant wouldn’t have hidden that information at the house.” Her heart was racing in fear. “It would have been too easily found. He didn’t work that way.”

“I figured as much.” He kissed the top of her head again before pulling away and allowing her to turn and face him.

Meeting his gaze wasn’t easy, but she did. She found the dark chocolate depths of his eyes filled with warmth and a question. The suspicion she had feared wasn’t there, but that did little to temper her fears.

“What did you remember, Maggie?” He tipped his head to the side, watching her closely as she clenched her fingers together in front of her.

“You’re so sure I remembered it? Not that I already knew it?” She was slicing her own throat, and she felt the breath strangling in her throat from it.

A small smile quirked his lips.

“I deserved that,” he admitted with a small nod of his head. “I’m not stupid, baby. You lived with him for two years. It’s only logical that you may have heard of something that you’ll eventually remember.”

“Not that I was working with him?”

“Maggie.” He reached up to push back the strands of hair that had fallen over her face back behind her ear. “I don’t believe you were involved with this, so let’s stop tiptoeing around each other and finish this up. If you’ve remembered something, then let me know. We’ll get this taken care of, get the danger off your back and start our lives together.”

She inhaled with a trembling breath, tears filling her eyes at the gentleness in his voice.

“Your car,” she whispered. “Grant was always going on and on about that Mustang. While you were talking to Craig, I remember how smug he acted the last time. The expression on his face. I think he might have hidden the information in that car someplace.”

His eyes narrowed as he rubbed at his jaw.

“He helped me put that car back together,” he finally sighed. “We worked on that for months.”

The painful knowledge that the man he believed was his friend had betrayed him still lingered in his eyes, in the tight grimace in his expression as he turned away from her.

“He would have hidden it where you would never think to look,” she pointed out. “He didn’t expect to get killed. This was insurance in case he needed to buy his way free of a conviction,” she said slowly. “The last few months, before he was killed, he was so certain he was suddenly better than you were. I never thought he would go this far.”

She had thought he was insane, not criminal. She should have known better, she admitted. Grant had dropped enough hints, she just hadn’t wanted to hear them.

“We’ll head back to Atlanta tonight.” He nodded abruptly. “The Fuentes family will know by now that I’m the one watching you. They’ll be watching my house. I doubt very seriously Grant was the only spy they had in either the Atlanta Police Department or the DEA. So we’ll go in quiet, check out the car, and if it’s there, we’ll head straight to the department from there.”

“What about Craig?” she asked nervously.

Joe’s broad shoulders tightened before he turned back to her.

“Craig’s my backup,” he sighed. “But at this point, I’m not trusting anyone else with your life.” His expression hardened as he faced her. “We’ll go in alone. I’m not taking any chances.”

“And if the information is there?” she asked him. She could see the doubt in his eyes that it could be.

“If it’s there, then we’ll do just as I said.” There was a fighting tension in his body now, a readiness that assured her he was planning, plotting out each move from here on out.

“And where will that leave us? Your DA, Craig, and everyone else involved will believe I knew where it was all along, Joe.”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it,” he growled. “And we won’t. The DA doesn’t give a shit one way or the other as long as he gets what he wants, and neither do the Feds. And I’ll make certain they don’t want you.”

Which didn’t reassure her on the fears rising inside her. But did it really matter? The main objective was to see if the information was there. If it was, then she would deal with whatever came later the best way possible. The way she had always dealt with unpleasantness. Straight ahead. She was going into this with her eyes open. Joe was here to get the information. If he believed in her, then he would trust in her. If he didn’t … Well, if he didn’t, then she would face it, and she would survive, just as she always had. The main thing was to get the proof needed and get Fuentes and his men off her back.

She nodded slowly. It was only a matter of hours before dark, and the trip to Atlanta wouldn’t take long.

“Do I need to pack?”

He shook his head. “No need. If the information is there then your part in this will be over. The DA won’t need your testimony or much of a statement. I’ll bring you back here until we’re certain it’s safe.”

But where would he be? Suddenly, she felt as distant from him as she had the first day they had come here. On the periphery of his life, a job, and nothing more. And the thought of that truly terrified her.

9

Joe could feel Maggie’s fear. Not her guilt, just her fear. It was amazing how easily he could read her. The way her green eyes would darken to the color of shadowed moss, the frown that puckered her brow. The way she caught the corner of her lower lip between her teeth and worried it absently. That was worry, concern, not guilt.

He remembered guilt. During the months they had spent together, Joe realized he had learned quite a bit about Maggie. Things he hadn’t known he had learned until this past week.

Guilt was a careful absence of expression. She had used it several times during their earlier relationship when she tried to deny that she was pushing for more—more commitment, more emotion from him. It was the way she would look down as she played with the hem of a shirt or she picked at her nails. It was the shadowed tone of her voice that deepened her accent. That was guilt.

What he saw now was fear, and it wasn’t fear for herself. It was the same fear she showed just before he took her virginity, staring up at him, her eyes dark, her teeth worrying that lower lip, that little frown between her brows. The fear of a broken heart, of putting herself in a place where she truly wasn’t wanted.

Maggie was easy to read, unlike Grant. Grant had been trained to lie—being with the DEA demanded a certain talent in subterfuge—and Grant had always done amazingly well at it. So well, in fact, that when it blended into the friendship Joe thought they had, he had never suspected.

Or maybe he had.

He remembered the uneasy feeling he had just before meeting Grant’s “fiancée.” The feeling that the other man was playing a carefully calculated game. Joe had pushed it behind him, especially after meeting Maggie. Little things, Joe admitted, that he should have taken into consideration long ago. Grant had shown brief spurts of mocking jealousy. It had made Joe uncomfortable at the time, though he had fought to ignore it. He should have never ignored it.

As he watched Maggie turn back to the coffee, he saw the sorrow in her eyes and knew he should do something, anything, to alleviate it.

She had no idea, even now, how much he did love her. Hell, he hadn’t known himself until early this morning, until the need to tie her to him for all time had overtaken him.

Primal. He had been like an animal taking his mate, and damn if he didn’t want to do it again.

He watched her, the defensive hunching of her shoulders as though expecting a blow, the careful movements as she poured her coffee. She kept her face lowered, but he swore he could feel the fear and pain radiating from her. As fiery as she could be, he knew Maggie had a core of sensitivity that was often her downfall. A sensitivity that would be breaking her heart right now. He bet dollars to donuts that her thoughts weren’t on herself, but rather on him, and how it would look to him that she had thought of a possible place Grant could have hidden the information.

Trusting might be the biggest mistake he had made in his life, as Craig obviously believed. Joe had fought trusting her, just as he had fought loving her once before. A battle he had lost, and he hadn’t even had the sense to realize it.