that leads up to it. Lilah mostly handles wedding cakes and I’ve got the bride’s dress and trousseau.”
Their business was pretty much what he expected, but it still didn’t explain why they’d been targeted for a robbery. Especially when it appeared as if the would-be thief was more hell-bent on destruction than any actual burglary. “I can’t imagine you make a lot of enemies in the wedding business.”
“You’d be surprised. It’s a competitive market.”
He heard the pride—and the unspoken words underneath the comment. “A lucrative one, as well?”
“It’s not nice to brag.”
“Facts are facts.” He shrugged it off but was curious about her response. With an attentive eye, he pushed past her beauty to focus on her more wholly.
There was an elegance to Cassidy Tate. A subtle grace that suggested good breeding and a veneer of class. Yet here she was, in one of Dallas’s up-and-coming neighborhoods, building a business with her friends.
He’d met more than his fair share of Dallas socialites, and while it wasn’t fair to paint them all with the same brush, his overall impression had been of money, polished beauty and the raw ambition to marry well. Beyond the polished beauty, he saw very little resemblance between that venomous set and the woman standing before him.
“Lilah thinks a competitor did this.” Cassidy fingered a length of lace in her hand. “I just don’t know if I agree.”
“The destruction suggests something personal.”
She shrugged. “Like the bragging, it’s not nice to go around accusing people of bad behavior.”
“And like I said, facts are facts.”
A loud shout from the back of the store had both of them rushing in the direction of Violet and Max. Tucker took off first, Cassidy in his wake, as they threaded their way through the destruction.
“What is it?”
“Look at this.” Max was on his knees in front of a small, squared-out area in the floor.
“A trapdoor?” Cassidy moved from her position behind him, and Tucker didn’t miss the way the casual brush of her arm lasered through him in a hot, heated rush.
“Have you ever seen this, Cass?” Violet stood on the other side of Max, pointing toward what appeared to be a filled-in hole.
Cassidy shook her head, confusion blooming in her eyes like a ripe flower. “No. Besides, I assumed this entire place sat on a slab of cement like all the other warehouses down here.”
Tucker had grown up in New York, so it had come as a surprise to him on one of his earliest architectural jobs that no one in Texas had basements. The region’s soil composition simply wasn’t conducive to a below-ground layer of structural support.
“It is strange.” Violet shifted around the perimeter of the small square of concrete, her heels clicking on the exposed slab of floor where they had pulled away the rug.
Tucker held back a smile at the way Max’s gaze tracked over the woman’s long legs before Cassidy’s voice pulled him back to the situation at hand. “Mrs. B. already had the rug in here when we moved in. Remember?”
Violet tapped a lone high heel. “That’s right. One of her selling points for the lease. Fresh carpeting throughout the office areas.”
Tucker glanced at Max, well aware the man’s thoughts matched his own. “Why’d you think to pull it up?”
“The rug had a tear in it when I came back here to inspect the office,” Max said. “If I hadn’t been looking for anything out of place I’d likely have missed it.”
“We didn’t even see it until I noticed that my desk was out of place.” Violet pointed toward the floor, and Tucker could see the indentation of where the leg of the desk had left an outline in the carpet.
Cassidy dropped to her knees and ran her fingers over the handle built into the concrete. “You think this is what the burglar was really after?”
At her light frown, Tucker dropped to his haunches beside her. “It appears so. Do you have any idea what your landlady might be hiding?”
“No.” Cassidy’s gaze never left the handle, but he saw the moment her puzzlement shifted to something more. “But if this was what the burglar was looking for, that means his first trip was unsuccessful.”
* * *
“Mrs. Beauregard can’t be responsible.” Lilah stood over the sealed entrance, her hands on her hips and a stain of chocolate smeared across her white chef’s coat.
“And she’s certainly not the type to hide things,” Violet added.
“How do you know?” Max piped up from behind her. “She’s your landlady, not your grandmother.”
Lilah and Violet turned at the same time, their eyes flashing. Where Lilah’s gaze was purely defensive, Violet’s held something more. Challenge?
Anxious to diffuse the situation, Cassidy stepped in. “Because she wouldn’t do that to us.”
“And, well—” Lilah broke off. “She’s old.”
Cassidy wasn’t sure age had anything to do with it but had to agree with Lilah that their sweet, twinkle-of-mischief-in-her-eye landlady seemed unlikely to be hiding secrets.
Especially secrets that would lead to danger.
Unwilling to let the jarring impact of the break-in further color her judgment of others—the accusations against Anastasia Monroe already sitting uncomfortably on her conscience—Cassidy held up a hand. “I was already planning on running this month’s rent check over to her during lunch. I’ll ask her about the hole when I go.”
“You can’t go alone.” Violet’s normally calm features were lined with concern. “Especially not about this.”
“Look. I’d already promised her I’d repair that tear in her grandmother’s wedding veil, which I was also planning to bring with me. I’ll use that as my way into the conversation. Besides, someone needs to stay here and wait for the alarm people to come check the system and reprogram a new code.”
“I’ll go with you.”
A small shot of pleasure wove through her at Tucker’s offer before she brushed it off. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it.”
“You already said earlier the woman has matchmaking on her mind. We’ll drop a few hints and make eyes at each other to keep her distracted.”
The image he painted was far more tempting than she wanted to admit, but Cassidy opted for casual nonchalance. “She didn’t get to eighty and remain wily as a coyote because she was dumb and easily played. We’re making too big a deal out of this.”
A slight grunt from the floor pulled their attention to Max, who tossed a wrench into the box by his side. “Damn thing’s shut tight,
