tell him myself,” Whit informed the officer, moving ahead of Ruiz and letting himself into the room that the officer was about to open up.
His back to the door, Kramer snapped, “Not yet,” thinking that he was being interrupted by one of the uniformed patrolmen.
“Yes, yet,” Whit retorted coldly as he came in. At an imposing six feet two inches, Whit took command of any room he entered. The interrogation room was no exception.
Both the detective and the young woman he had been relentlessly questioning for the past hour turned in Whit’s direction.
If there was a single point during the entire evening’s events that she could have broken down and cried, Elizabeth thought, it would have been this very moment.
The man she had been determined to avoid until she came to grips with her private situation had suddenly been cast in the role of a white knight.
Her white knight.
Elizabeth felt more conflicted than ever.
“Mr. Adair,” she cried, remembering where they were and that their relationship was supposed to be strictly business and nothing more. To her credit, she was positive that no one else even suspected that they were anything more than two people who happened to work together and, on occasion, share a car.
He deliberately kept his face expressionless. “Elizabeth, are you all right?” he asked stiffly. With what amounted to great effort, Whit successfully suppressed the desire to sweep her into his arms and seek solace in hers.
She didn’t answer his question. Instead, because she wasn’t sure what he’d been told, she said, “Your father’s gone. I am so sorry.”
He wasn’t about to respond to that or even react to it. He couldn’t, not without breaking apart, and an Adair had to always remember to save face at all costs. So instead, he turned to the detective, his anger barely under control.
“What is Ms. Shelton doing here?” he demanded.
Obviously stunned at being challenged, Kramer was caught off guard.
“We had some questions,” he began.
“So you decided to ask them in your interrogation room?” Whit wanted to know, his tone clearly indicating that the course Kramer had taken was completely unacceptable.
“I didn’t want her distracted,” Kramer answered coolly. After fifteen years, the detective felt he knew how to play the game.
It was a weak excuse at best and a lie at worst. Whit’s brilliant blue eyes narrowed as he pinned the detective in place.
“Is Ms. Shelton being placed under arrest?” he wanted to know.
“No, but—” Kramer’s voice cracked slightly at the obvious confrontation. He hadn’t expected it to come from the family.
“Then if she’s not under arrest, she’s coming with me,” Whit informed the detective. “Anyone with eyes can see that the woman’s in shock, not to mention that she’s in desperate need of a change of clothes.”
“They offered me some sweat clothes,” Elizabeth interjected, desperately struggling to keep from breaking down. “I think one of the officers just went to get them.”
The information had no effect on Whit. “They shouldn’t have brought you here in the first place,” he said tersely, his eyes never leaving the detective’s face.
Kramer had no use for people of privilege who believed themselves to be above the law and allowed to do as they pleased.
“I’m not finished questioning her,” Kramer informed Whit.
Whit was not about to back off. He wanted to get Elizabeth out of here. He had questions of his own he wanted to ask her, but first she needed to get away from the interrogation room.
“You are for now,” Whit told him. Getting behind Elizabeth’s chair, he took hold of the back and moved it out for her as she stood. “We’re leaving, Detective,” he told the other man. There was no room for argument with his tone. “If you have any further questions, Ms. Shelton will be happy to answer them after she’s had a good night’s sleep and a change of clothes.” He barely spared her a glance as he said, “Let’s go, Elizabeth.”
Her legs felt wobbly as she walked out with Whit, but she suppressed the desire to take hold of his arm for support. Elizabeth was exceedingly relieved to get away from the detective, whose questions had come at an ever increasing rate as his tone grew more accusing.
But her sense of relief was in conflict with the sorrow she felt for the man standing beside her in the elevator.
Though she was certain that he didn’t know it, she was aware of the case of hero worship that Whit harbored when it came to his father. Knew, too, that at least on the surface, her late boss had not demonstrated any sort of displays of affection for his son. For any of his children, really, except, from what she’d heard, his daughter. The youngest Adair appeared to be near and dear to the man.
“You should have called me,” Whit told her the moment the doors closed, separating them from the rest of the police-crowded floor.
He sounded even more distant than usual, Elizabeth couldn’t help thinking.
“The detective wouldn’t let me,” she told him. “He said I didn’t need to make a phone call because I wasn’t under arrest. According to him, we were only having a friendly discussion.”
“Friendly?” Whit questioned.
“It’s a new, really loose definition of the word,” she said sarcastically. Elizabeth sighed deeply, relieved beyond words even though her heart was very heavy. “Thank you for coming to get me. How did you know I was here?”
“Some detectives came to notify me about Dad. They had me come to the morgue to make the official identification.”
But she had already told them it was Reginald Adair, Elizabeth thought. “I guess my word wasn’t good enough,” she said with a shrug.
She would have wanted to spare Whit having to make the ID. Obviously the detective had had other ideas.
“You’re not the next of kin, I am,” Whit told her the next moment.
His voice was stony, as if he was doing his very best to keep any sliver of emotion as far away from him as possible, Elizabeth noted.
He hadn’t been like that the night they’d found themselves all but trapped in the hotel room, held captive by a freak storm.
As if on cue, the warmth, the tenderness, the passion that she had experienced that night came rushing back to her. She’d had no idea that Whit was that sort of a lover. He was so different from the way he usually acted around her. If anything, she would have said he was repressed, keeping all his emotions under virtual lock and key, so well hidden that no one would ever suspect that the man had cupped her face with his hands and initially brushed his lips against hers as lightly as a falling petal floats to the ground when cradled by a spring breeze.
That had been the start of it all—and had led
