Authors: Rita Sable
“Okay, I promise.” She pouted, reaching for the card. “Geez, I feel like a kid who’s been grounded and I haven’t even done anything to deserve it.”
Trevor stepped closer to the bed. “Come here.”
Cynthia crawled over to the edge and kneeled in front of him. He ran his hand down her wet hair and tipped her face up with his finger. “Don’t make me worry about your safety while I’m gone, Cyn.”
She started to say she’d promised not to leave but the words died on her lips. He smelled of soap and that pure, sexy male essence that was uniquely his. He pulled her up by the shoulders and brushed the lightest kiss across her mouth. She let the tip of her tongue touch his upper lip. He went from gentle to demanding in the flash of a heartbeat. He crushed his mouth down on hers. She quivered under the onslaught of his kiss and savored the full thrust of his tongue into her mouth, the exquisite pressure of his lips against hers. Just when she was beginning to melt into a puddle on the bed, he released her, leaving her gasping for air.
“Dammit, Trevor, that wasn’t fair.”
“I know. It’s a reminder there’s more where that came from, and if you want it, you’ll stay put. I won’t be long. There’s a fruit basket in the living room if you get hungry. I’ll leave the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door. I’ve sent orders that the maids are not to bother with this room, not until I return. Nobody knows you’re here and that’s the safest thing for you. Do you understand that?”
“Yes. Okay.”
She sank back down into the mattress. His hard kiss and the clean, masculine scent of him made her brain fuzzy and her body hungry with renewed desire. She took a deep breath to clear the sex-fog from her head.
“Will this be over today if you find Mr. Andrews? I’d kinda like to get back to my old life. I have a design to finish for a contest that’s due in two weeks and I’m running out of time to do my entry justice.”
He caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “I hope so. It all depends on if I find him. I should be back before lunch.”
* * * * *
At one p.m. Cynthia hung up the phone after an all-too-brief and disappointing conversation with the Humane Society. No pure white shorthaired cat of Moses’ description had shown up since yesterday. Fresh tears pricked her eyes. She felt like screaming with frustration and worry for his safety. The thought of her sweet baby outside, alone, fending for himself, was enough to shred her heart to pieces. She pictured him scared, hungry, cold and tired.
She sat on the couch wearing jeans and her favorite pale pink angora sweater, feeling heartsick and angry. She picked up the remote control and restlessly flipped through the channels on the TV, not really seeing any of the images that flashed across the screen.
Guilt hunted the edges of her mind like the rabid hound from hell. The more she tried to avoid it, the closer it got to biting her in the ass. It made her fidgety and stole her focus.
Her sketchpad and pencils lay scattered on the coffee table. Wads of discarded pages tumbled like paper snowballs on the carpet near the wastebasket. She couldn’t concentrate. Her creative spirit had apparently gone into hiding—and she knew exactly why.
The American Jewelry Designer contest deadline loomed closer and closer. She had precious little time left to create her contest ring. She couldn’t do any of it until she cleared her mind and satisfied her conscience. All of her sketches focused on a round stone of exquisite beauty. It would be so perfect…
That damned diamond and those cryptic numbers
.
What the hell should I do
?
Please
,
let Trevor find Mr
.
Andrews today
.
She wanted to give back the stone, let him and Trevor deal with it. Maybe then her fickle muse would return and this horrid nightmare would be done. But, what if Trevor didn’t find him today?
Trapped. She felt cornered without any escape from this tangled, dangerous mess. Trevor’s hotel room, as spacious as it was, made her feel claustrophobic too. If she couldn’t work and be creative, she wanted to go out. A brisk walk would clear her mind.
Agitated by her confinement, she stepped to the window and pulled the sheer inner curtain aside to look out over the city below. Heavy cloud cover turned everything into gloomy gray. The cold, damp weather glazed the window, dripped down the walls of buildings directly across from her view and settled into wet puddles on the streets. Morosely, she listened to the local weatherman on TV warn his audience of more snow on the way.
How can I fix this
?
I have to do something
!
A desperate idea formed in her mind. It was distasteful at best, cowardly at worst. She could write a note with the numbers she’d copied down from her examination of the diamond and leave it for Trevor to find when he returned. That’s what he wanted, right? He wouldn’t care that she disappeared from sight once he had what he needed. And when she found Mr. Andrews again, she’d give him the diamond.
Everyone would be happy. Best of all, she could avoid the painful emotions that no doubt would erupt if she had to say a formal goodbye to Trevor. Better to make a clean break.
She turned away from the gloomy window scene. People disappeared all the time in this city. Trevor would have what he came here for and her life would no longer be in danger, right? He wouldn’t look for her once he had what he wanted.
No. He was just doing his job. She meant nothing more to him than a means to finding the diamond.
And some really great sex
.
Confusion and anxiety tightened her stomach into knots. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the most logical thing to do was just give him the numbers and disappear. But where? Going back to her apartment was out of the question. Anyone looking for her would go there first. Most of her friends were married with kids—not a good choice to hide in their homes. Without her purse, credit cards and ID, she couldn’t fly to Chicago to stay with Paul either. He was out of town until next Saturday anyway and she didn’t have a key to his apartment.
The only place that offered her the sanctuary and secrecy she needed was her parents’ summer cabin on Little Saranac Lake in upper New York. Since they’d moved to Hawaii the place had been closed and put up for sale. The real estate agent updated her weekly because Cynthia was the only member of their family still living in New York and able to manage the sale.
Yes, the cabin. It would be isolated this time of year, free from vacationing families. An undisturbed place to work on her ring design. A place Trevor St. James wouldn’t know about.
She reached for the hotel phone on the table and dialed the number from memory. The real estate agent picked up on the first ring.
“Miller–Christensen Real Estate. This is Joyce. How can I help you?”
“Hello, Joyce. This is Cynthia Lyons.”
“Cyn, dear. How are you? It’s not Friday yet.”
“I know, I know. I’m not calling for an update. I need a favor. Is the key to my parents’ place still with the manager of the resort?”
“Yes. Why? Do you have someone who wants to see it?”
“Nope. Sorry. That’s your job. I just need a little R&R, get out of the city for a while.”
“Well, sure. Do you want me to call Mr. Snyder, let him know you’re coming so he can turn the heat up inside the cabin?”
“Yes. That’d be great. I’ll try to be there before nightfall. Thanks, Joyce.”
“No problem at all. How long will you be staying? Just in case I have someone call who wants to view it.”
Cynthia sighed. “I don’t know. A couple weeks, maybe. If anyone calls let Mr. Synder know to tell me and I’ll clean up the place, go into town for a while so they can see it. Okay?”
“Sure, dear, that will work. With the holidays just past things have been slow anyway. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thanks. Just let the manager know I’ll be there.”
“Will do. Goodbye, dear. Tell your parents I said ‘hello’.”
“Okay, bye.”
Cynthia hung up the phone, feeling marginally better about doing something proactive, instead of waiting aimlessly for fate to catch up with her. With any luck, Trevor would be grateful to get the numbers and solve his case. She knew he’d be gone the moment he had them. No doubt he’d be on the next plane back to London. He wouldn’t have second thoughts about her. Would he?
No. This “thing” between them, this unbelievable attraction and the incredible drive for mutually satisfying sex, it meant nothing more than that to him. She refused to believe otherwise. To do that meant she could have feelings for him, feelings that went deeper than she was ready to admit to. She didn’t need to earn a broken heart. Even though the ache had already settled inside her, she knew he didn’t care beyond getting his case solved. Trevor St. James, Interpol Agent, was simply doing his job and poor Cynthia Lyons just happened to be part of it.
She reached for her backpack and dug out the small notepad, tearing off the piece of paper with the numbers she’d copied. On a clean sheet she began scribbling out a note to him.
Trevor
,
I believe this is what you
’
re looking for
.
I
’
m sorry to do it this way
.
I was scared and didn
’
t really know if I could trust you until now
.
I hope to God I
’
m doing the right thing
.
Thank you
,
for everything
.
It meant a lot to me
.
I
’
ll never forget you
.
Cyn
She folded both sheets together and slipped them inside a hotel envelope, addressed to him. Her heart clenched painfully with this deceit and with the knowledge that she would never see him again after this. When had she become such an accomplished liar? He wouldn’t want anything more to do with her after this.
Under different circumstances would they have had a chance for a meaningful relationship?
Doubtful. He came from a different world and their paths weren’t meant to do more than intersect.
Cynthia stood up, determined not to think too deeply about what could have been. She placed the envelope in a prominent spot on the dining table, directly beneath the vase of beautiful white roses he’d given her last night. Seeing them made her heart twist in agony. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away.
She headed to the bedroom to collect her suitcase. Her eyes caught the special news announcement that interrupted the soap opera she’d been halfheartedly watching on TV. The footage came from one of the local news helicopters while it hovered over the choppy water of one of the city’s many rivers and seaways. Two police boats bobbed up and down in the water. The cameraman zoomed in, showing a man’s body being hauled out of the frigid-looking water and into a black body bag on board one of the boats. She grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume. The reporter’s voice explained what was happening.
“…the body of a man floating facedown in the Hudson River was spotted by two teenagers. Police recovered a wallet and a New York state driver’s license from his clothing. He has been identified as fifty-four-year-old Matthew Andrews, a resident of Brooklyn Heights.”
The female reporter sitting behind her television studio desk replaced the prerecorded helicopter footage and a still photo of the man’s face popped up in the corner of the screen.
Cynthia gasped, dropped the TV remote and clapped her hands over her mouth. Her legs gave out and she sank down to sit on the couch and listen more closely.
“Channel Four News has been informed by NYPD that Mr. Andrews apparently has no family members to contact or assist them with this investigation. Police are considering this a homicide and are asking for the public’s help with any information about him and this crime leading to his death. If you have information, you’re asked to please call the confidential police hotline number—”
Shock filled her with sickening speed. From head to toes, her whole body went numb. Matthew Andrews was dead. He’d been murdered and dumped into the deep, dark waters of the Hudson River. She shivered under a fresh wave of fear for her own life.
That meant Trevor wouldn’t find what he was looking for either. His investigation would be continuing and that meant he’d be coming back for her. She was his closest and only source of information on Mr. Andrews…and the diamond she’d protected so far. That meant the killers would want to find her too.
I don
’
t need this kind of trouble
.
I don
’
t want that diamond
,
I swear I don
’
t want it
!
Panic replaced the shock that had immobilized her. She jumped off the couch and grabbed the backpack, yanked it open and reached in blindly for the jeweler’s case on the bottom. When she had it, she opened it and very carefully lifted the bright stone from the hidden pocket it rested inside. Then she ran back to the dining table and dropped the diamond into the envelope with the letter for Trevor. This time, she licked it to seal the envelope shut. Her fingers felt like they burned when she let go. She rubbed them on her jeans.
There
, she panted,
that
’
s much better
.
So much better to get rid of it
.
Now
,
go
.
And don
’
t look back
.
Whether her decision to leave Trevor was rational or not the urge to flee and hide from everyone overruled every thought in her mind.
* * * * *
Trevor ground his teeth together in silent fury and worry. She wasn’t answering his calls to the hotel room. Damn it! Why didn’t Cynthia pick up the bloody phone? He hadn’t told her not to answer the hotel phone, just assumed she would do so.
He eyed the police forensic team that combed the rocky edge of the Hudson River for clues on the dead man. So far, the area appeared clean. Most likely the body had been dumped into the water from a boat, or from farther upstream. The soggy, partially frozen corpse had been whisked away to the coroner’s office for an immediate autopsy. He was pretty certain the two bullet holes in the chest would be the cause of death.