Risking Trust (13 page)

“It’s important to you and I want you safe. If getting you an alarm will do that, it’s a no-brainer.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’ll get your ass moving because my well-paid employees are waiting for you.”

She laughed as she circled the desk to grab her purse from the chair where she’d thrown it. She stopped in front of him.

“What?” he asked.

“I’m…overwhelmed. You didn’t have to do this, but you did it anyway. I’m not used to people putting me at the top of the list. It’s…well…nice. So, thank you.”

Score one for me
.
Even if I did drag you into my hell hole.
“I’ll even buy you a sandwich on the way.”

“What a guy.”

He pulled her suit jacket off the back of her door and held it for her. “You have no idea, babe.”

An hour later, Steve and Sammy walked through the house mapping out locations for window sensors, motion detectors and key pads while Michael sat with Roxann at the kitchen table finishing beef sandwiches from Portillo’s.

She swallowed her last bite of the huge sandwich. For such a skinny girl, she could put it away.

“I haven’t had a beef sandwich in a long time.”

“You used to love them.”

“I still do. I just don’t eat them anymore.”

Beef sandwiches were a staple for Michael. He couldn’t figure out if he loved the messy layers of roast beef and mozzarella or the memories the sandwich brought back. They had shared many late night munchie attacks over Portillo’s beef sandwiches.

He polished off his sandwich and crumpled the wrapper. “Phil did a nice job with today’s article.”

“He’s a pro.”

Roxann carried the wrappers to the garbage and, while over there, shot a look toward the living room where the guys worked. She motioned Michael to follow her and headed toward the back bedroom. Back bedroom?

Oh, baby.

Who was he kidding? Roxann pulling a nooner with two strangers in the house? Not to mention with him. Yeah, that’s dreaming.

She swung the door open and invited him into what used to be a bedroom, but was now an office. The walls were a dark, dark green and floor to ceiling book shelves lined the inside wall. The oversized desk sat buried under stacks of paperwork and folders. The office, despite the messy desk, was all her. Style and class.

After she closed the door behind them, he sat on the sofa and enjoyed the softness of good leather while Roxann curled her legs under her in the arm chair to his left.

“I’ve been thinking about the night Alicia was murdered. There hasn’t been much said about where she was. Phil told me she had an early dinner with friends.”

Michael shrugged. “I have no idea. We communicated through our lawyers. It had been that way since we split up.”

Roxann shifted a little and tapped her hand on the arm of the chair. “What would she consider an early dinner?”

“Anything before seven o’clock. Another thing we disagreed on. I like to eat by six.”

She tilted her head, waited a beat. “Okay. Going with an early dinner, would she have gone straight home?”

Hello? Hadn’t he just said he didn’t know? “I can’t answer that.”

“Remember I said I went to a PBA fundraiser that night?”

“And?”

“If she were having an affair with Carl, would she have the nerve to attend a function where he would be with his wife?”

Oh, yeah.
Michael scooted to the edge of the sofa. “Absolutely. She thrived on the rush of being somewhere she didn’t belong. And if she had a plan, she would have done anything to make sure she got what she wanted. We should check it out. Do you have any contacts at the P.D.? Anyone who could tell us who bought tickets to that event?”

“Sure, but I’ve become persona non grata since the first article on Carl and Alicia ran.”

“Where was the event?”

“The Legends Ballroom.”

No way. Could he get that damned lucky? Michael pulled his phone from his pocket with one hand and held a finger to Rox with the other. “Hang on.”

“What?” she asked.

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” He waited for someone in the Taylor Security call center to pick up. “Jackie, this is Mike Taylor. Will you check something for me?”

“Sure,” Jackie said.

“I think the Legends Ballroom is on the DSI client list. I need you to confirm that and then see if we have the security tapes from the last few weeks.”

He heard the clack-clack of a keyboard.

“Yep. We have the last twelve months.”

Yes
. He fisted his hand and pumped it. “Perfect. Thanks.”

Roxann leaned forward. “Does perfect mean you have them?”

“You can bet that beautiful behind of yours we’ve got ’em.” He stood. “I need my laptop out of the car.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m going to log into our system and pull up those security tapes.”

“It’ll be hours of tape.”

He grinned. “Not if we use facial recognition software.”

“Okay,” she said. “Now we’re getting somewhere, but if she went to that fundraiser, wouldn’t the P.D. know? Or maybe they know and they’re not telling the media.”

Michael shrugged. “All valid points. I know they haven’t asked for the security tapes yet. Those requests go through me. Let’s start with the tapes and see what we find.”

He hauled ass to his car, got his laptop and went back to Rox’s office while she grabbed them a couple of pops from the fridge. He sat in the guest chair and set the laptop on the edge of the desk. A ginger ale landed on a coaster in front of him and Roxann stepped back to look over his shoulder.

“How does this software work?”

Damn she was standing close. That fruity scent she wore jabbed right into him and he closed his eyes, let the idea of her being so close settle in. Her outer thigh brushed his arm and he imagined those long legs wrapped around him.
Woody
. God, he wanted her.
Stay focused
. What kind of a rotten son-of-a-bitch could he be that all he could think about was getting into Roxann’s pants when he was supposed to be finding Alicia’s killer?

Ass.

“Michael?”

He looked up and saw her staring down at him. “What?”

She smacked his shoulder. “The software. How does it work?”

“We add Alicia’s picture to the database and the software scans the images to see if there’s a match.”

Turning back to the laptop, he went into the folder marked divorce where all those telling photographs of his wife fucking other men were stored—yes, he had electronic files just in case the hard copies disappeared. He found a close-up of her full face. Bingo. He added the photo to the database and clicked back to the security tapes from the night of the fundraiser.

“Wow,” Roxann said, “all those links are the images we need to scan?”

“Each link is a different camera.” He clicked the first link and ran the software. Images flew across the screen and he waited. Would it be too much to hope that they’d find Alicia? Even if they did, what did it prove? Unless she appeared to be arguing with someone. Then this long-shot might pay off.

“I can’t believe it scans that fast.”

Roxann leaned forward for a closer look and her jacket brushed his shoulder. He angled away. He already had a raging hard-on and what was the point of torturing himself. A man could only take so much.

“This software is in development. One of our guys created it. There are other facial recognition systems out there, but we wanted to add some different features.”

She touched his shoulder to get his attention. Did she have to do that?

“So you develop your own software?”

Michael stayed focused on the laptop. No chance he could look at her right now. Not with the slugger he was sporting. “Not me, but my people do. Why not? I hire the best. Most of my people have been trained by the military or a federal agency and if they can come up with a way to improve on something, you’d better know I’ll support it.”

“That’s actually quite brilliant.”

Brilliant. Now he had to look at her. No man alive could resist a hot woman telling him he was brilliant. He wiggled his eyebrows. “I can be brilliant in other ways.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure.”

A beep sounded from the laptop.

“Saved by the bell,” she quipped. “No match. Darn it.”

He shifted front, tapped more keys. “That’s only one camera. We have all these other files.”

The images began to scroll again. “Hey, there’s Max giving his speech. He’s great at mesmerizing a crowd.” Roxann leaned forward again and her hip bumped the chair.

Dammit.
That’s it. Time out. Break. Take five. Michael gripped the arms of his chair and moved it left. “Rox, honey, you have
got
to step back.” He pushed his hands in front of him. “Or move that way.”

She tilted her head. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m trying to work here and you’re close, way too close, making me want things I shouldn’t want when searching for my ex-wife’s murderer. Between the perfume and the brushing against me, it’s sexual torture.”
Just step away from me and my woody
.

A wicked half-smile dripped across her face and Michael knew he was dead. Screwed. This woman challenged him in ways he didn’t want to admit and he was damned glad for it.

“Well,” she said, still smiling at him, but stepping back, “I wouldn’t want to give you any
discomfort.
”

Cooked. He stood, and before she could move, he took three steps forward, grabbed her around the waist and kissed her so hard he thought she’d slug him. Just crack him one good.

But he held on with one arm, keeping her against him while he put his tongue to work in her mouth. After five seconds of resistance, she gave in and kissed him back, but he pulled away, licked along her jaw and down her neck—the magic spot he remembered all too well—until she groaned.
That’s my girl
. He moved his hands over her breasts and she hissed at him, but ground her crotch against his hard-on.

Oh, yeah
. No more waiting. He shoved her blazer off her shoulders and she wiggled out of it while he kissed every available spot of exposed skin. Finally. He’d have a taste of Roxann again.

Then she tugged his shirt out of his pants and he had a mind-melt. Totally gone. Her fingers traveled across his belly and her touch was so friggin’ hot he didn’t know what to do with all the heat.

“I must be crazy,” she said, her lips moving against his neck.

Game on. He reached for his fly. All these years of fantasizing and he’d get his wish. He stepped back, reached up to touch her cheeks and grunted. “Totally destroying me.”

The computer dinged and Rox jumped backward, her chest rising and falling as she stared at him with narrowed eyes, so blue and focused. He could see the want in her stance, in the way she flexed and unflexed her hands at her side. Predatory. Hungry.

Something told him it had been a long time since Roxann had let loose on a man. And wouldn’t he love to be her next victim?

Another ping sounded from the laptop and she glanced at it. “No match.”

Fucking thing
. “Yes,” he said, “but we have other opportunities.”

What could she possibly be thinking?

Roxann shook her head and counted to ten. This man had the ability to turn her body into a vat of pure, hormone induced, burning lust. Sure he’d taken hours out of his day to supervise the installation of her security system, but did she have to turn into a sappy school-girl? All because he wanted her to be safe?

The answer was yes. Heaven help her. Every part of her felt scorched and needy and her cheeks burned with the embarrassment. If the computer hadn’t dinged, she probably would have had sex with him right in this room, with two of his employees working on her second floor.

No sense. But—
Lord
—it had felt good. All that lust and madness tearing around inside. The wanting. Fabulous. How had she lived without it for so long?

She blew out a breath. “So, wow. Pretty darn amazing.”

Michael grunted and stepped toward her for round two. Could she even take anymore?

Probably not without completing the mission. And would that be so horrible? To let go? To enjoy a man’s passion for nothing but the sheer pleasure of it?

A knock sounded on the door.

Michael laughed and Roxann threw her hands over her cheeks. “The computer is dinging, someone is knocking and I’m freaking out. I think the message is we should wait on this endeavor.”

“I can change the message. I’m brilliant at that too.”

The knock came again. “Mike?”

Michael groaned. “Sometimes brilliance isn’t everything.” He spun to the door. “Yeah. Come on in.”

Yes,
Roxann thought,
come in and save me from myself.

Sammy poked his head through the door and nodded at both of them. “We’re all set upstairs. Can we get in here to finish up?”

“Sure,” she said. “We’ll move to the kitchen.”

Where it’s safe
.

By the time the techs were done in her office, Michael and Roxann had finished reviewing the tapes.

“Not one darn match,” she said.
Totally unacceptable
. “How accurate is this software?”

Michael curled his lip. “That’s the thing. It’s 3-D technology, but if the security camera only caught Alicia’s profile, the software doesn’t have a full face print to analyze. It’s plausible that she was there, but the system didn’t pick her up.”

Roxann spread her fingers wide in front of her. “Okay then. We’ll just go through the tapes manually. Can you email me the camera footage?”

“Yeah. But, Rox, you said yourself it’ll be hours of tape. Plus, we’ll have to keep pausing it so we can study each image. It could take days. We’re not even sure she was there.”

Yes, originally the idea of going through hours’ worth of tape hadn’t appealed to her. It still didn’t, but she refused to take a defeatist attitude. And she wouldn’t let him do it either. Not when the possibility existed that his dead ex-wife could be on those tapes. “Would you rather go to prison? You’d have plenty of time then.”