Chapter Seventeen
I’ve barely stepped out of the doctor’s office when Liam sends me a
text. How did the doctor go?
As well as any appointment that requires you stick your legs in
stirrups.
And? he replies.
And yes, I got a sample package of pills. It is 7 days before I’m
protected.
I can have a lot of fantasies in 7 days. What are you doing now?
Headed to walk by those properties and then do some research at the
library.
What research?
Don’t you have a meeting?
Yes dear, he jokes. I have a meeting. I’m actually being called back in
now. I’ll be tied up for a few hours but call me if you need me. I’ll answer.
He’ll answer, I type.
I stick my phone back in my purse and head for the bank. My stop is
disappointing. There has been no further deposit and I worry now, though
it hadn’t crossed my mind while Liam and I were together, that I might have
missed a message at the apartment. I find the door free of any plain white
envelopes and consider knocking on Jared’s door, but decide the mailbox is
a better option. A private note would not be left in a public place. Not one
that I wouldn’t find before anyone else. I don’t think I was given a key to
the mailbox. I’ll have to stop by to get one from Meg.
I’m about to turn back to the elevator when my door opens and a
big, burly man exits. I scream and I am pretty sure my heart ceases to beat
for a good sixty seconds. The door behind me opens and I whirl around and
run straight at Jared, who grabs my arms.
“Whoa. Sweetheart. Easy. What’s wrong?”
I blink up at Jared and my hands are all over his t-shirt that covers his
rock-hard chest when they should not be, but he is the closest thing to safe
I have right now. I turn in his arms and glare at the man in the front of my
door, who has on some sort of overalls and sports a beer belly and some
tools, and isn’t quite as scary as he was a moment ago. “Why are you in my
apartment?”
“Ms. Bensen?” he asks.
“Yes. Who are you?”
He chuckles. “You know people don’t normally get excited to see me,
but I don’t usually send them running into another man’s arms either. But
hey, maybe that explains why I’m not dating. I’m scarier than I thought.” He
holds up a key. “I changed the locks like you ordered.”
I let out a breath, and silently vow to make Liam pay for not warning
me. “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t know you were coming today.” And how did Liam
do this without a key but I quickly forget the question when I become
aware of Jared’s hand on my hip, his leg aligned with the back of mine. I
step forward, out of his reach, and accept the key from the locksmith, who
goes on to share some sort of mumbo-jumbo I do not hear.
Finally, he hands me the keys. “A maintenance guy came by and said
they had to have a copy of the key as the management company. I didn’t
give it to him. Didn’t know him from Adam. He wasn’t pleased.” He hands
me papers and I sign.
“Thank you,” I say and I mean it. “I’ll get keys to them.” Hopefully
never, I mentally add. I don’t care if I ever go back inside that apartment,
but if Liam leaves, I’ll have to.
Finally, the locksmith is gone and I turn to Jared, who looks way too
amused. “Stop laughing at me,” I order. “A single woman does not take a
strange man coming out of her apartment lightly. That is foolish.”
“I’m not complaining. It gave me a chance to get to know you better.
Of course, you almost ran me over in the process. Didn’t you know he was
coming?”
“No. Yes. I did, but it slipped my mind. I’ve been busy.”
“With the big, arrogant guy from the other day. Is he gone now?”
I grimace. “He’s not arrogant. And no, he’s not gone.”
“But he’s not here now.”
“No. He’s not here now.”
He motions to his briefcase. “I’m headed to a place around the
corner to drink a beer and get some work done. Want to join me?”
“Oh, ah, no. Thanks. I have some work of my own to do. I just came
by to grab a file.”
He stares at me, his brown eyes probing a bit too deeply, and I think
maybe Liam is right.
Maybe Jared is interested. I am so not equipped to handle two men
of their caliber in the same day. “You want me to walk you down?”
“Down?”
“To the street.”
“Yes. Sorry. The key guy rattled me. No. Go on without me. Thanks
for, well, keeping me from doing who knows what.”
His eyes dance with mischief, and a definite glint of warm brown
heat. “At your service anytime.”
He turns and saunters toward the elevator, all loose-legged
confidence in jeans, that bad-boy sexiness oozing off of him. I’m not sure
why I think the “bad boy” label fits him. It’s a feeling, like the familiar one I
normally have with him but I don’t today, and that bothers me almost as
much as when I do. I’m also not sure why I’m still staring after him when he
stops at elevator and turns to catch me watching him. He grins at me and
disappears inside the car.
***
I walk to the properties on my list I’m to visually inspect and report
on, and they all seem occupied and well maintained. Everything seems as it
should be, but my gut says it is not. At the final house on the list I find an
elderly lady sitting in a rocking chair on her porch, and I approach her.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m the property owner’s assistant and he just wanted
me to make sure everything is fine with the property.”
“Howard!” the woman calls.
An elderly man appears at the door. “What, Bella?” He smiles at me.
“Well hello, young lady.”
“Did you hire a management company or something?” Bella asks.
He frowns. “No. Why would I do that? Been owning this place for ten
years and done just fine by myself.”
My heart sinks. “I’m sorry. I must have the wrong address. I’ll correct
my records.”
It’s official in my book. Everything is not as it should be. I walk away
and make a beeline to the realtor’s office, or rather, the law office, and
even that is weird. It really is past due I find answers. My steps quicken and
it hits me that there is a positive note to today. I don’t have that “being
followed” sensation. Answers, however do not seem to be in my immediate
future. When I arrive at the Evernight office location, I find a sign that says
“out to lunch.” I glance at the time on my phone. How has it gotten to be
3:00? And how is 3:00 lunchtime?
I dial Meg again and leave a message and exchange another text with
Liam before I decide I’m heading to the library. In the time I worked at the
Central Branch in New York, I’d never used its resources beyond looking
through some books. I’d been paranoid about bringing attention to myself.
But then I took the job at the museum. I think I’m an extremist. I sure have
been with my willingness to let Liam in my life and no one else.
I start walking toward a library I spotted a few blocks away when
Meg calls back. “Sorry I missed you. Luke being out of town is killing me. I
have to keep running out to deal with tenants.”
I prepare to turn around and go back to Evernight. “Are you heading
back to the office?”
“I have another customer to deal with. You want to do happy hour?
There’s a restaurant/bar joint called Earl’s right around the corner from
your apartment. One of our customers took me there once. Looks like a
great happy-hour spot.”
I’ll do whatever I have to in order to find the answers I need. “I’ll find
it. What time?”
“5:30?”
“I’ll see you then.”
We end the call and I continue on to the library, still remarkably
without the sensation of being followed. I’m not sure if that means I’m
without prying eyes or if I’m calmer now, and not conjuring demons where
they might not be. Am I calmer now?
Once I’m at the library, I sit down at a long wooden table and
consider where to dig into research, and as always when I’m thinking about
the past, my mind radiates toward the tattoo on my handler’s wrist. If I find
a link to him, I find a link to whatever, or whomever, I’m running from. I
consider what I’ve already considered in the past. I’ve always been certain
the triangle shape relates to the pyramids, since my father had done much
of his work in Egypt, but I have nothing that makes the exact image of the
tattoo connect to anything that confirms this.
I shut my eyes and picture Liam’s tattoo. The numbers beneath it
form a triangle. I don’t like where my mind is going, and I pull my computer
out of the small leather briefcase Liam bought me while shopping, and
Google the “pi” sign. Nowhere is there a similar image with numbers
forming an inverted triangle. And the symbol on my handler’s arm was a
triangle with words inside, words that I’d thought to be another language,
but had since decided was some sort of coded message. It isn’t like Liam’s
tattoo at all. Not even close. My stomach knots. Except for the triangle. I
draw in a heavy breath. Liam’s interest in pyramids is a coincidence that’s
hard to ignore. But lots of people are intrigued by pyramids, I remind
myself he’s an architect, looking for an answer as to how they were
created. Perhaps solving the mystery is a personal challenge.
It’s a logical interest, especially for someone who mastered his craft
at such a young age.
I key “mathematical symbols” into my search bar and scan image
after image in search of the symbol I’m looking for. I find triangles but
nothing that is a real match. Same story I always end up with. Finally, I force
myself to stop putting off what I really came here for. Today I will do what I
haven’t had the courage to do ever. I walk to one of the tables with
archived material and search for old newspaper clippings of the night my
life changed forever. Or I try. There is not one single reference to a fire in
my hometown the year or month when it occurred. Nothing. That is
just…odd.
Back at the table, I Google my father and start listing every name
ever associated with him I can find. I’m surprised at how few links I find on
him, considering he was responsible for carving out more than a few pieces
of history. My heart squeezes when I think of being with him when one of
his great discoveries had been made. I shove aside the bittersweet memory
and refocus on research. What would make someone want to kill him, and
everyone he loved? What would make them hunt me down?
Maybe it’s not about his archeological finds. He sat on government
committees and became involved in international relations, and not long
before he died there was talk of his retirement from field work and a
political appointment in Washington. I shake my head. I don’t know where
this is taking me. I was young, and uninvolved in that part of his life. I know
nothing about it. If I’m still a target, and I am, then someone thinks I know
something I shouldn’t. It’s only logical. They can’t hurt my father by killing
me. He’s already dead.
I decide to make a list of everyone I ever knew or knew my family to
know, here and overseas, when my brother and I would go on digs with my
father. Next, I cross-reference it with the Google searches. I stare at the list.
It’s sixty names long and I don’t even know what I’m looking for. My first
instinct is to mark everyone off that has nothing to do with my father, but I
change my mind. I’ve hyper-focused on this being about him and his work.
It’s not about the money. It was never about the money. My mother’s
voice flashes through my mind. My mind was trying to tell me something,
but what? Who was she talking to?
Who was there that day?
***
Remarkably, I do not have a flashback while doing my research, and I
wonder if that has something to do with feeling like I’m taking control and
finding answers. At 5:00 I force myself to pack up and head to my meeting
with Meg. Finding Earl’s Restaurant and Bar is easier than I expect, and I
arrive at 5:15. A waitress points me to the left and I enter a bar area with
huge booths that sit on pedestals above rows of tables, and directly
opposite the huge wooden bar. I choose the booth at the very back where I
can see Meg when she enters, and I have plenty of room to put my
computer to use while I wait.
I’ve barely settled into my seat when a waitress appears to take my
order of a house red wine. I open my computer and look directly in front of
me and go still. Jared is sitting at the next booth over, facing me, his
computer open and a beer by his side.
I swallow the dryness in my throat and he motions to my table,
asking to join me. I nod, unsure why this makes me guilty. He’s a neighbor,
not my new lover, but I know Liam wouldn’t approve—and honestly, if I
found him having drinks with some hot woman, I wouldn’t either.
He slides into the half-moon-shaped booth, and to my relief, remains
directly across from me. “Past due we get some quality time together,” he
says, as the waitress sets my wine down beside me.
“I wasn’t aware we were trying to get quality time together.”
“Well, now you are,” he says with a smile, and there is this casual
sexy thing about him that screams completely relaxed and comfortable in
his own skin. And I’m sure many women would be comfortable in it too. But
not me. I prefer the edgy, dark thing Liam wears like a second skin.
“You really are a smartass, aren’t you?” I ask, but it’s really not a
question. He is.
“Most of the time.”
“Why?”
“Comes natural, like being arrogant does for your boyfriend.”
Boyfriend? Is that what Liam is to me? And somehow it seems too
small a word for him.
“I’d defend him, but I don’t think it would do me any good.”
“Good call.” Amusement fills his dark eyes and he is absolutely Mr.
Bad Boy Sexy in this moment. “What are you working on?”
“Just playing around while I wait for a friend to join me.” There.
Avoidance. I’m still good at it with everyone but Liam. “What about you?”
“I’m doing high-tech work on contract.”
“High-tech work? You don’t seem like a computer geek.”
“What do I seem like?”
“The long hair and ripped jeans and…well, something more…rowdy.”
He laughs. “Rowdy. I’m not sure how to take that, but basically I’m a
professional hacker. I’m hired to try to hack a site, and if I can, they then
pay me to make sure no one else can. I do a lot of defense contractor
work.”
Bad-boy hacker. That fits him. “Thus the Boeing shirt?”
“Thus the Boeing shirt. Normally I’m holed up in a hotel for a month
or so on a job, but a friend was laid off and had to relocate for a job, which
stuck him with the apartment. At six grand a month in rent, he was eager to
have someone supplement the cost.”
“Six grand? How big is your place? I only pay two.”
He laughs. “You must have a fan somewhere. There isn’t an
apartment in the building under six grand. We’re in prime real estate and in
the center of a high-profile restaurant and shopping area.”
“Oh, well, I think my boss owns the building.”
“Who’s your boss?”
I hesitate, not sure why. “Dermit Williams.”
“Never heard of him. I thought a big holding company owned the
building.”
“Hello!” Meg appears by the table, looking every bit the blonde
bombshell I can never be in a snug black dress and I’m rattled to realize I
hadn’t even noticed her approach. She hugs me and then glances at Jared.
“Good grief, woman, you hang out with beautiful people. I’m sitting with
him.” She scoots Jared over, and next to me. I’m ready to crawl under the
table.
“Please,” Jared says approvingly. “Come on in.” He glances down at
me. “Hope you don’t mind getting up close and personal.”
Somehow I am captured in his warm brown stare, and I feel the
connection in the pit of my stomach, more in the form of guilt than
attraction. Not that I am beyond seeing how hot this man is. He is, and if I
were any other woman, I suspect I’d be glad to be here, but I’m not. I’m a
woman who is crazy about another man, and the fact that Jared makes me
think of Liam speaks of just how intensely drawn to Liam I am. My cell
phone beeps with a text and Meg and Jared chat with the waitress while I
pull out my phone.
Where are you?
Earl’s. I met Meg for a drink.
I wait for a reply but don’t get one. Odd. I shut my computer and
stick it back in my briefcase, preparing for a fast departure if I get any more
uncomfortable.
“I will be soooo happy when Luke gets back,” Meg announces, and I
grab the opening she gives me.
“Did you ask him for that number I needed from him?”
The waitress delivers her wine and she thanks her before saying,
“Yes. And sorry. He won’t give it out.” She turns to Jared. “I haven’t been
introduced.”
“Jared,” he says. “And you are?”
“Meg.” She offers her hand and he turns to her and accepts it. She
bats her lashes in a flirtatious way I’ve spent too much time staying off the
radar to ever even attempt. I can’t see Jared’s expression the way he’s
positioned, but I can’t imagine there is a man on the planet who wouldn’t
pant over Meg’s ample beauty. They both settle into their seats again and
Meg asks,
“And what do you do for a living, Jared? Where are you from? Are
you single?”
I just about choke on a swallow of wine. Jared laughs. “Tech guy.
Texas. And yes”—he glances at me—“I’m single.”
I officially have cotton in my throat. I grab my wine and take a big
swig. Jared laughs, clearly amused at my reaction, proof my decision to stay
away from men while living off the radar had been a good idea. They send
my composure into the dumpster. Or, at least, men like Jared and Liam,
who are exceptionally…male.
“And how do you know Amy?” Meg queries Jared.
“I’m renting the apartment across from her.”
I tilt my head and frown, thinking of my extreme rent difference to
what Jared has stated.
“He’s staying in a friend’s apartment. That’s probably why you don’t
know him.”
“Why would she know me?” Jared asks.
“She works in the management office,” I supply.
“New, though.” She seems almost uneasy, but then being new is
never fun and she adds,
“I’m just learning the ropes and learning who is where and what is
what.” She sips her wine.
“This isn’t what I ordered. I’m going to the bar. Be right back.”
Great. Alone with Jared again. And why hasn’t Liam texted me back?
“Where are you from, Amy?” Jared asks.
On a conflicting note, I’ve been craving a chance to talk to him about
my hometown and avoided it at the same time. Apparently, I’m going to
talk to him about Texas. “New York. You’re from Texas, you said?”
“Yes. Ever been there?”
“No. Too many pickup trucks and football fans.” Lie. That is a part of
Texas that makes it Texas, and I miss it.
“And beer.” He lifts his bottle and takes a drink. “Us Texans like our
beer.”
Not this one. “You can keep it. I don’t like it.”
“Ever tried this one?” He shows me the bottle with some sort of
special import label.
“Never.”
“Try it.” He offers me his bottle. “It’s a different taste altogether.”
He wants me to drink from his bottle? “No. No thank you.”
Meg returns. “Ohhh, I’d love to try it.”
He hands her the bottle and she takes a sip. “German?”
“Yes. German.”
“Try it, Amy,” Meg encourages. “German beers are completely
different from the American version.”
Jared hands me the bottle, a challenge in his eyes. Somehow, I feel as
if me drinking from his bottle is some sort of ploy to tear down a wall he
thinks will let him get closer to me, but I feel like a deer in headlights, with
both him and Meg watching me.
I grab the bottle and take a drink, the bitter taste filling my mouth,
and I grimace a moment before awareness prickles down my spine. I glance
up to find Liam striding toward us, and he is not only the picture of male
perfection in his gray suit, his dark hair neatly groomed, his goatee finely
trimmed, his jaw is set solid, his eyes hard. He’s pissed. He saw me drinking
from Jared’s bottle.
He stops beside me and takes my hand. “Let’s go, Amy.”
I’m appalled. Did he really just order me to leave? “Liam—”
He lowers his head and presses his mouth to my ear. “Let’s go now.”
My emotions are a rollercoaster ride of anger, embarrassment, and
more anger. I slip my briefcase and purse on over my shoulder and scoot
out of my seat, and I don’t look directly at Jared or Meg. “I forgot we had a
dinner meeting tonight.”
“Amy—” Jared starts.
“Don’t,” Liam says sharply.
I pull away from him and start walking for the door. He’s behind me. I
don’t have to look to know. I feel the predator in him. Well, he’s going to
find out that this deer in headlights just grew fangs.