The Wharf. Carol Ericson
glanced up from the display to meet Ryan’s eyes, wide and questioning.
“Are you okay?”
The hostess backed up from the table. “I’ll let you two finish your business.”
Kacie dragged in a breath and released it through dry lips. “It’s my contact from last night. He wants to meet again tonight.”
“The ex-con?” He snapped his fingers for the phone. “No way.”
She raised her brows. When had she appointed him her master scheduler? She handed him the phone anyway, realizing she’d have a hard time saying no to this man.
He peered at the display and read it aloud. “‘Meet me same place as last night, same time. More info. DB.’”
He handed the phone back to her. “You recognize that number?”
“It’s the same one he used before and the same initials.” She pressed her damp palms against her napkin, still crumpled in her lap. “Maybe he knows about that doll. Maybe he saw who gave it to the homeless guy.”
“Maybe you should ignore him.”
“I can’t. He’s warning me about Walker.”
“Or he’s doing Walker’s bidding. You ever think of that?”
“Yes. I’m not stupid.”
“Oh, I know that, but you’re not thinking clearly right now. You are not going to traipse down to the wharf alone at eleven o’clock at night.”
“I have to go. He might have important information about Walker’s next move against me, maybe something I can give to the police this time.”
Ryan held up his hands. “You weren’t listening. I said you weren’t going there alone.”
A little thrill raced down her back. She couldn’t help it. “He’ll never talk if he sees you there.”
“Who said he’s going to see me?”
She waved her hand to indicate his imposing form. “Little hard for someone like you to blend in.”
“I have my ways.”
She added a tip to the bill and scribbled her signature. As she tucked the receipt in the side pocket of her purse, she said, “As long as you stay out of sight. I don’t want you spoiling my meeting.”
“How about saving your life?” He pushed back from the table and stepped around it to pull her chair out for her. “Is that okay with you?”
She nodded as silly schoolgirl butterflies took flight in her belly.
This was exactly the effect Daniel Walker wanted to have on her—wrap her around his little finger, tell her sweet little lies.
What could Ryan Brody’s motive possibly be? To make sure she wrote a favorable book about his father? She’d already told him she planned to do so. Did he doubt her?
She’d have to watch herself with this man, in more ways than one. Because she couldn’t let a sexy grin and a pair of strong arms deter her from exacting her revenge on his father.
Her mom deserved justice.
Ryan slung the towel over his shoulder, his gaze riveted on the pool area where three teenagers roughhoused in the water. They had to be the same ones from the night before.
He pushed through the glass door separating the weight room and the swimming area, and the humidity of the pool deck seeped into his flesh. The soles of his running shoes squished the wet tiles as he crossed to the edge of the pool. He squatted beside it and called out, “Hey.”
Three faces turned toward him, a sullen look already forming around the mouth of one of them.
He was the one who answered. “Yeah?”
“Were you guys in here last night? In the hot tub?”
The three of them exchanged quick glances, and another teen spoke up, an earnest look on his face. “Yes, sir. We were in the hot tub late last night.”
“Did you happen to see a woman out here?”
“Yeah, she went into the pool.”
“She was smokin’ hot for a cougar.” The first boy to have spoken up stuck his tongue out of his mouth and flicked it up and down.
Ryan’s hands, resting on his knees, curled into fists.
“Shut up, man.” The Boy Scout punched his friend in the shoulder, then turned his attention back to Ryan. “Why are you asking? Did something happen?”
Flexing his fingers, Ryan dropped one knee to the deck. “Someone played a trick on her in the sauna.”
The sullen one lost the attitude and the smirk and said, “She was still in the pool when we left.”
The other two teens nodded in agreement. “She was swimming laps when we bolted.”
“Did you see anyone else out here? In the gym?” Ryan pushed to his feet.
“No, sir.”
“All right. Thanks.” Ryan exited the pool area, mopping his face with the towel.
He believed them. According to the security guard, those boys were probably messing around in the business center at the time Kacie was in the sauna. Besides, would they play a trick like that on a smokin’-hot cougar?
They got half of that right. Kacie was smokin’ hot, but she was no cougar—at least not for him.
He filled up his water bottle from the gym’s dispenser and then tossed his towel in the bin. She’d shot him down when he asked her to join him for dinner that night, but they planned to get together before her meeting with DB to give him another crack at finding the guy in the law-enforcement database.
As far as he could tell, Kacie had spent the afternoon holed up in her hotel room—working, she said. He smacked the elevator button with the flat of his palm. That woman ran hot, very hot, and cold.
Women. He sure loved ’em, but he couldn’t even pretend to understand ’em.
He’d spent his afternoon dropping that doll off at the local precinct, touching base with his brother’s fellow officers and then tracking down his younger brother.
He knew Judd was going to be out of town again, but he’d managed to catch him for about an hour before he headed to the airport, this time to work for the Saudi royal family. His P.I. brother had been getting higher-end gigs lately, a step up from spying on errant spouses.
Ryan shook his head as he slipped his key card into his door. He’d barely recognized Judd with his suit sleeves covering his tattooed arms, his long hair slicked back.
Once again, Judd had offered up his apartment to Ryan, but Ryan had passed. Judd was careless with his business and his women. Ryan didn’t want any surprises in the form of irate females dropping in—either ones Judd had spied on for their husbands or ones he’d loved and left.
That was the excuse he had given Judd, anyway. If he took his brother up on his offer, he’d have to check out of this hotel. And Kacie Manning was in this hotel, one floor below him. He wasn’t going anywhere.
He showered, changed and ate a burger at the restaurant in the lobby. Then he showed up at Kacie’s door, five minutes early.
She’d stacked the remnants of her own room-service meal on the credenza. Papers and notebooks littered the desk around her laptop. She’d swapped her business attire for a pair of black jeans and a dark green top that accented the copper highlights in her hair and an expanse of soft, creamy skin above the neckline.
Wedging