Ignoring the metallic drone of Deirdre’s shocked voice, Claire reached for the receiver. But her father blocked her path. “Sweetie, I’m only trying to protect you from embarrassing yourself.” He gently pried the phone from her fingers and set it back in its cradle. “Valerie is on vacation in the Bahamas with that gentleman friend she met on her last cruise.”
She watched his lips say the impossible. “No, she’s not. She’s—”
“I gave her a hug before she took off this afternoon. The temp who’s replacing her for a couple of weeks was there when I called for my messages at six.”
“But…” Claire’s lungs deflated, along with her conviction. She sank onto the desk chair’s brocade cushion. How could that be? She hadn’t hallucinated since that fever she’d had as a child. She’d seen that man. Seen that gun.
She’d seen that dead body.
Her father’s executive assistant could have been killed by mistake—a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The man in black and his accomplice might have come looking for her father, but found Valerie puttering about his office instead. The man she hadn’t seen might have been Valerie’s “gentleman friend.” Maybe he’d taken her there on purpose to get rid of her in some kind of twisted love triangle thing. Or maybe Valerie had lied to her father and never really left the building. Maybe she was part of some conspiracy, some plot to take advantage of her father’s wealth and worldwide trade connections, but her partners had betrayed her.
Why wasn’t the great Cain Winthrop concerned about that?
And what about the list? That’s number four.
The thin-lipped man with the pockmarked face didn’t seem to be the sort of person who would make a mistake.
Neither was she.
Trusting instincts that no one else seemed to think she had, Claire pushed to her feet. There was only one way to convince her father that he or his company might still be in grave danger, only one way to convince him to get help. With a resolute sigh, she strode back into the foyer to retrieve her purse. The staccato tapping on the stone tiles beneath her feet told her that her father and stepmother were following her.
“Valerie must have come back for some reason, Dad. Deirdre, would you call Rob and make my apologies for me? I’ll have to take a rain check on drinks.” She turned to her father, ignoring the worry that deepened the creases beside his eyes. “I’m sorry. But we have to go back to your office. Right now. And I want you to call the police on our way over. I won’t let this go until you do. Valerie’s dead.
“I’ll show you.”
Chapter Two
Using the beam of his flashlight to guide his way through the dark offices and hallway, the man with the long fingers paused in his work. Caution, more than curiosity, guided him to the shiny gold disk that had caught his eye. Squatting down beside the potted ficus tree, he picked up a small gold pin. Cheap, by the weight of it. He turned the trinket over in his palm.
Forsythe.
He couldn’t quite place the name, but he’d file it away in the back of his mind until he could.
Before he straightened, he lifted his gaze, studying the view from this vantage point. Interesting. A place to see, but not be seen. If anyone was of the mind to do so.
He’d been assured that the 26th floor would be abandoned after 6:00 p.m. That the cleaning crew wouldn’t arrive until ten o’clock.
Was the pin a result of sloppy housekeeping? Unlikely, given the money and expectations tossed around this place. Was it just coincidence that someone had lost this pin on this night—in this place with a camouflaged view of Cain Winthrop’s office?
In his business, it didn’t pay to count on coincidence. Had there been an uninvited guest at their meeting? A witness who could destroy years of hard work and cost him millions of dollars in potential profit?
His pulse didn’t quicken at the possibility; his heart didn’t leap into his throat. He closed the pin inside his palm and stood. This could be a problem.
The question was, did he tell his partner?
Or did he take care of it himself?
A.J. TUCKED HIS NOTEPAD AND PEN inside his leather jacket and knelt down to brush his fingertips across the polished sheen of the mahogany floor in the executive waiting area. While Josh did what he did best, and handled most of the interview questions, A.J. had taken his time to walk around the top floor and study every posh nook and imported treasure of Cain Winthrop’s state-of-the-art decor.
He wasn’t thrilled with the mix of eagerness and melancholy he felt at returning to the expensively hallowed halls of the Winthrop Enterprises Building. What had he been—seventeen? eighteen?—the last time he’d been here? He’d come in to see his father while Antonio, Sr. worked the night shift, vacuuming carpets and buffing floors, doing the minor repairs that kept the building in working shape.
He’d come here to bum money off the old man. Probably for something stupid, like the cigarettes he used to smoke or gas for the car he drove too fast and wrecked too often.
He splayed his fingers across the cool wood and admired the exotic decor, wondering if any of this was his father’s handiwork. Wondering how many times his father’s footsteps had crossed this floor.
Wondering why he couldn’t have appreciated his father for the man he was until it was too late.
Eighteen years later, A.J. had finally come back.
Not to pay homage to his father, but to investigate a homicide.
Customarily, though, when two detectives were summoned to the scene of a murder, there was usually a dead body involved.
A.J. rolled the kink from his bum shoulder and pushed to his feet, squinching his face against the three itchy stitches that closed the gash along his left cheekbone. If it weren’t for the location, he’d probably appreciate the diversion of a call. Even an apparent wild goose chase like this one was turning out to be. After the week of desk duty he and Josh had been assigned to following the explosion last month in front of the Jazz Note—which had sent him to the E.R. and stalled out their investigation into the drug dealer murders—A.J. was ready for a little action.
But coming to the Winthrop Building after all these years, looking Cain Winthrop in the eye and remembering the last words his father had spoken about the man, left A.J. feeling unsettled rather than relieved to be back in the game.
Despite the hysterical tinge in Claire Winthrop’s distorted voice, she seemed absolutely sure that she’d witnessed a murder here. Both times he’d asked her to relate her story, she’d been clear and vehement about her facts—and unable to explain why Winthrop’s office was spic-and-span tidy, with nary a bullet hole, speck of blood—or a body—in sight.
It wasn’t the first time someone had reported a crime in the Winthrop Building that evidence said hadn’t taken place.
No one had believed his father, either.
Well, one person had. One person believed Antonio Rodriguez’s story
