Tamara Billing, celebrity counselor.
Meredith Jamison, celebrity counselor’s sister.
It was clear who played the role of helper and who played the role of helpee.
Concern crept into her heart, and she tried to dismiss it. Wouldn’t her sister have called her sooner if something was wrong? Really wrong? And why was Tamara sneaking around with her own phone? The emotional distance between them wasn’t so great that Tamara would think she couldn’t reach out if she was in some kind of trouble. At least not as far as Meredith thought.
She cursed the fact that her sister had done away with her home phone in favor of her cell and scrolled reluctantly through her address book again until she found her brother-in-law’s name and office phone number. She’d do just about anything to avoid calling the man. The animosity was mutual, and likely—no, not just likely, definitely—the biggest source of discord in this sisterly relationship. But if anyone would know what was wrong with Tamara, it would be Nick. The one thing she couldn’t fault him for was his unwavering love for her sister.
With gritted teeth, Meredith dialed.
A crisp, feminine voice answered halfway through the first ring. “Johnson, Johnson and Levi.”
Meredith recognized the woman’s voice—Hettie had been Nick’s office assistant for years—but in an attempt to keep things impersonal, she replied in an equally professional tone. “Nicholas Billing, please.”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Billing isn’t currently with us.”
For a heartbeat, Meredith thought the woman was announcing Nick’s death. Then she clued in. “He doesn’t work there anymore?”
“Meredith? Is that you?”
She cringed as she realized that in her surprise, she’d given herself away. “Yes, it’s me.”
“Nick didn’t tell you he left?”
“Nick doesn’t tell me much nowadays.”
This time the pause was more than a little awkward. “Oh. Right. You know...we still miss you working around here.”
Meredith bit back an urge to remind the woman it had been five years, and instead asked, “Why did Nick leave?”
“I wish I knew. He said he was taking a trip. But he cleared out his desk and cut off his cell, too. Said he’d be getting a new number. When I made a joke about wondering if it was a permanent vacation, he didn’t seem amused. I don’t think anyone else even noticed. But a week’s gone by and he hasn’t come back— Oh, hang on.”
Hold music filled the earpiece and Meredith tapped her short, unpolished nails on the couch cushion beside her. Her brother-in-law’s departure from the law firm surprised her. He’d been working there for a decade—straight out of law school, in fact—and had to be close to making partner. Had he quit? She couldn’t imagine he’d been fired.
“Miss?” Hettie’s voice came back on the line, and it had become clipped once more. “I’m afraid I don’t have another number for Mr. Billing.”
Meredith frowned. “Is someone listening?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more details, but Mr. Howard has been assigned all of Mr. Billing’s cases, if you’d like to speak to him instead?”
The other woman didn’t wait for a reply and the hold music drifted through again. Meredith waited impatiently, and when Hettie came back on, it was in a much quieter, far more muffled voice.
“Sorry. The police just got here. And it’s kind of weird...they just asked about Nick, too.”
Meredith’s worry came back with a vengeance. She beat it back and reminded herself that Nick’s specialty as a defense attorney was white-collar fraud. He was considered an expert in the field, and though the police hated having to go up against him, they often used him as a consultant for their side. Or at least they had, back in the days when she worked with Nick. Still...
“Are they there for a case?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“I don’t know. I don’t have them booked in for anything. But maybe. You know Nick. He likes to keep the balance. I’m sorry, Meredith. I have to hang up. I hope everything’s okay.”
The line went dead, leaving Meredith staring down at the phone.
The police are looking for Nick, right at the same second Tamara comes asking for help? A coincidence?
Possibly. But if not, it added a whole new level of concern. Of course, if Tamara needed help with something Nick-related, Meredith was the last person she’d call. So that brought her right back to Tamara’s counseling business. And try as she might, Meredith couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She let out another sigh and decided that the best thing to do was to swallow her pride and make the three-bus trip across town to her sister’s mini-mansion. Before she could change her mind, she slipped into some jeans, ran a brush over her hair, brushed her teeth, then snapped up her purse and made her way the door. She swung it open, then froze.
On the other side, blocking the exit, stood a man. A stranger. Who, in spite of his slightly slumped stance, had to be well over six feet tall. At just a hair’s breadth over five foot ten, Meredith found it impossible not to notice when a man was that tall.
Even in heels, she thought, I’d need to look up at him.
And standing across from him like this, she felt damn near petite. Especially factoring in the wide cut of his shoulders and the way he took up the entire door frame.
He cleared his throat and slid his sunglasses up—which were entirely unnecessary anyway—from his face to sit on his dark, near-black hair, showing off the clearest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
An unexpected tingle of attraction swept through Meredith, temporarily overriding the ache in her head and filling it with dizziness instead.
Definitely too much wine.
Except his gaze raked over her, too, moving from her messy ponytail to her plain but fitted T-shirt to her slim-cut jeans. It was an appreciative look. One that said the immediate attraction wasn’t one-sided.
But there was also something about the way he took in every detail of her appearance that made Meredith think he never missed a thing. Which finally reminded her that as much as she was enjoying ogling him, she had no idea who he was or what he was doing on her doorstep.
Probably got the wrong apartment number.
The neighborhood where she lived wasn’t fantastic, but the one thing her building did have going for it was the glorified bouncer of a doorman. He wouldn’t let in a stranger, not without buzzing him up.
Meredith took a breath, cleared her throat and—sounding far too awkward considering it was her house and he was the one who didn’t belong—asked, “Um. Can I, um, help you? With something?”
His reply was a rumble that matched the day-old growth of beard on his ruddy cheeks. “Depends.”
She
