a break: showing off their skills at the anniversary celebration. His apparent attempts to convince her to hire his buddies and him would be the ostensible reason for their spending time together in the next week, as he and his fellow multitalented officers watched over her and the Center.
And, he’d told her with determination, they would nab Farley.
When Travis and she reached the lobby, he told her to let him get out of the elevator first. She had been married to a man who had told her exactly what to do. Sometimes she had listened. Sometimes she hadn’t, yet she’d had to give up her public relations career in favor of his political one. As a result, there had been friction between them—she’d hated his commands—but there had been love, too.
Except—if Brad had known when to keep his mouth shut, when not to issue commands, might he still be alive today?
And their baby—
“Let’s go over exactly where you were standing, and what else you remember,” Travis said. “All right, Dianna?”
She had automatically responded, when he’d said to call him by his first name, that he should use hers as well. Even though it was the norm these days not to use the more formal title of Mr., Mrs. or Ms. whatever—or, in his case, Lieutenant—she now regretted the informality. It seemed almost…well, intimate, for the two of them to be on a first name basis. And Dianna did not want to be in the least intimate with any man, particularly not an officious officer of the law—even to support his cover.
“All right, Travis.” The coolness in her voice earned her a sideways look from the man who had been surveying their surroundings. Deliberately, she explained where her car had been parked both times and where she’d been standing. “The first time I saw him, he got out of a white car parked a few vehicles away in a reserved space.” She shuddered at the recollection. Farley had known where she was. Why not? She’d made no secret of where she now worked—in the building her husband had once championed that now bore his name.
It was no surprise, either, that he found her in the parking garage, near her spot at the time she usually arrived for work in the morning. If he had been watching her, he would know that.
“Are you all right, Dianna?” Travis’s deep voice rang with concern, and it snapped her from her reverie.
She looked up, focused on the planes of the face of the man beside her, the light shadow of beard barely showing beneath his rugged skin.
He was staring intently, as if he figured she would break.
She wouldn’t. But neither would she look, right then, at the confining walls of the parking garage. The cars that could disgorge Farley at any moment.
She described the scene she’d been reliving.
“And you think Farley knew this was your space, and that you would be there then?”
She nodded. “He got out of his car long enough to smile at me.” She cleared her throat. “He got back in and drove away.”
“I don’t suppose you got his license number.”
“Part of it—a California plate that began with 4ACR.”
Travis jotted it down in a small notebook he extracted from a pocket. “Probably rented with a false ID or stolen, but we’ll see if we can figure it out.”
“I’m not sure what kind of car it was, either,” she continued. “It was a sedan that looked like a high-end Japanese import. But when I saw Farley again, I didn’t see the same car, and that time he just seemed to disappear without driving away.”
“Okay. You’re doing fine, Dianna. Now, let’s go over this again.” Question by question, he led her carefully through the events before, during and after both sightings of Farley, continuing to make notes.
The telling became cathartic, for when she was done, she was able to lead him to where she had seen Farley each time, without hesitation. Without fear.
Except when, in the middle of her attempt to recall what Farley had been wearing, she took a step backward and a car horn sounded right behind her. She jumped, reaching out to grasp the nearest thing she could for comfort.
It turned out to be Travis’s hand.
He squeezed hers in return, pulling her out of the way by putting his other hand soothingly on her back.
Only it wasn’t soothing at all. It was unnerving to have her hand held, to be caressed, by a man, a stranger, in plain view of anyone who might be watching.
It also felt much too good. It had been a long time since she had been touched and held by any man.
That’s all it was, of course, her strange reaction to this undercover cop. A perfectly human, perfectly understandable response to the touch of another human being.
The car that honked rolled by, the elderly female driver scowling as if she considered anyone near her driving lane to be in her way. Dianna shook her head in exasperation, retrieved her hand from the warm clasp of Travis’s and took a few steps back.
“Look,” she said, “it’s not enough for you to understand what I’ve seen here. There’s a lot more…. I don’t know how much you know about Farley or what he did.”
She assumed he didn’t know everything—like the reputation she’d been burdened with—or he wouldn’t be here now.
“Some. But why don’t you tell me?”
As if she could compress years of anguish into a few brief sentences. But she had to try. “Do you know he once owned a small company that sold security equipment?” At Travis’s nod, she continued, “He blamed my husband for putting him out of business when a redevelopment bill Brad championed was passed and the building Farley leased was torn down. He got his revenge by killing Brad. And Farley’s knowledge of security—well, he’s elusive. He knows what the authorities look for and how to avoid detection. But he’s made sure that I’ve seen him.”
She waited for Lt. Bronson to suggest that maybe she’d seen him too much…but he didn’t. Thank heavens.
“Why?” he asked.
She waved her hand in frustration. “To scare me, I guess. But why he wants to, especially after all this time…” She shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“We’ll find out when we nab him. Meantime, if you think of anything else important, let me know.”
TRAVIS HAD NO INTENTION of admiring Dianna Englander’s guts.
Admiration was too close to the commencement of caring. And caring came too close to failure. And loss.
But he realized nevertheless, while he followed her slender, sexily swaying body as she hurried back toward the elevators, that he did admire her guts.
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out she was terrified by the man who’d killed her husband. But despite the traumatic recollections of seeing Farley that Travis forced her to relive, she came off cool and collected, if a little nervous.
All right, a lot nervous, he conceded as he watched her all but collapse against the elevator
