Trusting a Stranger (15 page)

“Mmm-hmm.”

Drew slid an arm around her waist and clasped her elbow, then led her from the café to the street. It felt wrong to be in someone else’s arms. But she didn’t have the energy to pull away. Not even when she noted—rather vaguely—that they were heading in the wrong direction. They walked along in silence, Drew keeping Keira from stumbling, and Keira trying to grasp the elusive warning bells that kept sounding in her head.

They rang even louder as Drew paused in front of an older sedan.

“This isn’t your car,” she pointed out lamely.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not. This car belongs to someone else.”

“Who?” Keira wasn’t even sure why she asked.

“Mike Ferguson.”

A violent shiver wracked Keira’s body.

Mike Ferguson.
Calloway’s
Mike Ferguson. The killer.

“I don’t think I know him,” Keira lied.

“Don’t worry. You’re about to get to know him quite well, actually.”

Keira met Drew’s eyes, and they didn’t look like his eyes at all.

In fact, the man she thought she knew—the one who’d been her parents’ neighbor for nearly half a decade, who always had something nice to say about her clothes or her hair, and who mowed her dad’s lawn
just so
when they were on vacation—was gone.

If Keira bumped into a man who looked like this in a dark alley, she’d run screaming in the other direction. She wanted to run screaming
now.
But when she moved her legs, they turned to jelly and the sidewalk wobbled. Drew caught her.

“I’ve thought a lot about what I would do if you ever fell into my arms, Keira,” he said, his voice as dark as his expression. “It’s unfortunate that it ended up being like
this
.”

Keira flailed a little, but all she did was send herself into the side of the sedan. Her hips smacked the door handle hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Drew’s grip tightened.

“You should really be more careful.”

“I’m careful,” she said, her words slurred. “Usually.”

“Not careful enough. Not today anyway.” His voice dropped low as he went on. “If some killer
had
found you, and he
did
follow you here, he wouldn’t have too much trouble getting in. What if that happened?”

“Alleged,” Keira corrected, smacking her lips in an attempt to fend off the numbness that seemed to be overtaking her mouth.

“I’m not talking about Graham Calloway now, Keira.”

“Who
are
you talking about?”

Drew smiled.

He smiled.

And it was a terrible smile that bared his teeth and turned his face hard. A smile that said, “Me.”

Oh, God.

* * *

G
RAHAM
PULLED
OUT
the chair, straddled it and gave the mouse another click. In minutes, he’d had Keira’s name plugged in. Except his search had been almost fruitless. Only two things popped up—a link to her social media and a brief mention in a local paper.

After a swift perusal of the first, and a read-through of the second, he felt as if a few hours with her had taught him more than the virtual world ever could.

So much for the magic of Google.

Then Graham frowned. Hadn’t she said Dave told her that her accident was all over the news?

He tapped the keyboard again.

Keira Niles. Car accident.

Nothing.

Keira Niles. Rocky Mountains.

Even less than nothing.

Car crash, Rocky Mountain Resort.

Nope.

Maybe his search was too broad. Maybe her story hadn’t reached anything national yet.

Graham racked his brain as he tried to recall the name of the local paper.

Derby Reach Gazette?

He typed it in and the computer autocorrected it to
Derby Reach Post
, and Graham added her name once more.

“Nothing,” he muttered to the empty room. “What the hell is going on? I know she wasn’t
lying
.”

He was as sure of that as he was of the fact that her feelings for him weren’t phony. So if she’d been telling the truth... Graham’s fierce worry came back, stronger than before.

He pushed the chair back and, two seconds too late, realized he wasn’t alone in the house anymore.

“Dave was the one lying to her,” he said.

As if on cue, Dave’s voice came from behind him. “I’ll tell you what you want to know, Graham, if you agree to come with me.

Graham jumped to his feet two seconds too late and spun, prepared to throw a punch straight into his disloyal friend’s face.

Unfortunately, the other man had a pistol levelled at his chest.

For a long moment, Graham stared at the weapon and seriously considered whether or not to jump him anyway. He took a step in the other man’s direction, and Dave cocked the pistol.

“I wouldn’t move again,” Dave cautioned. “Not suddenly anyway.”

“Are you really going to shoot me, Dave?” Graham demanded coolly.

“I’d prefer not to,” the other man replied. “But I’ll kneecap you if I have to.”

“What
do
you want, then?

“The same thing you do. To make sure Keira Niles is safe.”

Graham shot Dave a disbelieving look. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

The policeman made an exasperated noise. “I’ve done everything I can. I took her off the mountain. I gave her strict instructions to stay home. I’m here now to—”

Graham cut him off. “Where is she?”

Surprise registered on Dave’s face. “She’s not here?”

“I thought she was with you.”

“Me? Why would she be with me?”

“Because she wanted to ask you why you stopped helping me. Because she’s stubborn as hell. Because I found
your
business card on the counter, and now she’s gone.”

“I wish she
had
called,” Dave replied with a headshake. “She was supposed to, if you happened to walk through the front door.”

“I didn’t come through the front door,” Graham muttered. “Where is she, Dave?”

The policeman lifted the gun and used it to scratch his forehead. “Motivation.”

“What?”

“Mike Ferguson’s guy...he must’ve followed us. Stupid of me, I guess. I took the man at his word.”

Graham’s blood ran cold. “You’re actually working with him.”

Dave didn’t respond to the accusation.

“I’ll take you to Keira,” he offered instead. “But I’m going to need you to put on my cuffs.”

Graham snorted derisively. “Like hell.”

“We don’t have time to fight about this.”

“Then give me the gun.” Graham shrugged. “Why would I even believe you know where she is?”

“What’s the alternative here, Graham? You think I’m going to have you slap on the cuffs so I can drag you to
jail
? Think about that for just one second. Your rear end is
my
rear end. If I turn you in, it’ll either come out that I’ve been helping you, and the justice system will take me down, or it
won’t
come out, and Ferguson will take me down instead. At least this way, we both stand a chance.” Dave paused and used his free hand to pull a set of handcuffs from his pocket. “I know that the second I let down my guard, you’ll beat the hell out of me.”

“I’ll beat the hell out of you if I even
think
you’re letting your guard down.”

Dave sighed. “Cuffs, Graham?”

Graham grabbed them from the other man’s outstretched hand. He held them for a second, feeling the rift between the importance of his past and the importance of his present widening. If he put them on, he might very well be sacrificing himself to the man who killed his wife and son. If he didn’t put them on, he might never get a chance to save the woman whom he was undoubtedly falling in love with.

Already fallen in love with
, corrected a voice in his head, and he gave the voice a mental nod.

Yes, he’d already found that crazy, can’t-live-without-her feeling.

And he knew what it was like to have no chance at all to save someone he loved.

It wasn’t really much of a choice at all. He slid the cuffs to his wrists and snapped them shut.

“Show me they’re secure,” Dave ordered.

Graham lifted his hands and tugged them apart hard enough to bite punishingly into his skin.

“They’re secure,” he replied coolly.

“Good.” Dave tucked his gun into his belt and stripped off his jacket. “I’m going to hang my coat over the cuffs, and we’re going to take a walk.”

“A walk?”

Dave shook his head. “No questions, unless they’re about the weather or the Derby Reach Cardinals. You’re going to stay on my right side—my gun side—just a little bit in front of me, but not so far in front that it looks forced. Got it?”

“Baseball, gun side, best buddies strolling through the neighborhood. Got it,” Graham agreed.

And as Dave led him through the house and out the front door, Graham realized he didn’t even have to ask where they were walking to.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Keira didn’t even
know she’d passed out until she was already struggling to pull herself into consciousness.

And wakefulness was unpleasant enough to make her wish she was still asleep.

Her eyes burned when she fought to open them. Wherever she was, it was dark, but that did nothing to relieve the sharp stab behind her lids. In fact, the rest of her hurt just as badly. Her head throbbed. And her throat ached and her wrists were on fire.

She was seated, but the chair dug into her shoulder blades and into the backs of her legs, too. She tried to adjust her body to ease some of the pain—
any
of it—and failed miserably. She was completely immobilized. And starting to sweat.

Where was she? What had Drew done? And
why
? Dear God... What about Calloway?

She might’ve cried, if she’d had the energy to do so.

“Water?”

The unfamiliar voice cut through the panic building up in her system. Abruptly, consuming something liquid was more important than being free, and she croaked out an assent.

“Please.”

A cool metal rim reached her lips, tipped up, then drizzled a stream of water down her throat. Keira sucked it back thirstily, and it was pulled away far too soon.

“It’s the sedative,” the voice told her. “It’ll make you crazy thirsty like that. But you don’t want to drink too much, either, or it’ll just come back up again.”

“A little more?” Keira pleaded.

The unseen man sighed, but he did lift the water to her mouth again, very briefly.

“Good enough,” he said. “In a few minutes, I’ll turn on the lights, but the sedative will have given you a wicked headache, too, and the light will exacerbate it, I’m sure. In the meantime...are you as comfortable as can be, considering the circumstances?”

Keira wasn’t sure how to answer. The speaker’s question was genuine sounding. Almost kindly. It was the voice of someone’s grandfather offering a child a sweet treat. But he clearly wasn’t there to rescue her.

“Ms. Niles?”

“I’ve been better,” she whispered hoarsely.

She could hear the shrug in his reply. “I suppose you probably have. Maybe we
all
have.”

“Are you going to cut to the chase, or just keep stringing her along?” snapped another angrier voice.

Drew.

“We can do things my way, or you can leave,” the first voice answered him in a restrained tone, then turned its attention back to Keira. “Should we try the dimmer?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer. There was a click, and the room was bathed in a low, almost tolerable light. Keira squinted against the watering of her eyes. She was in a formal dining room, pushed into a corner away from a heavy wood table. And two figures stood in front of her.

The first was the new Drew—his expression set in a cruel scowl.

The other was an older man whom she didn’t know, but who looked vaguely familiar. Even in the dim light, Keira could tell that he was a cut above average and he suited his voice perfectly. His gray hair was thick and styled, his suit well tailored and his skin ruddy in a just-returned-from-the-Bahamas kind of way. He offered her a smile.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay,” Keira agreed, her voice still burning like fire.

“You know Mr. Bryant,” he said pleasantly. “But I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure. I’m Councilman Henderson.”

Councilman Henderson.

Keira’s mind made the connection quickly. This was Calloway’s father-in-law. The local politician with the wild-child daughter and the high ambitions and the reputation that needed protecting.

“You recognize my name, I see,” he observed. “So that makes things a little bit easier. What I’m hoping is that we can make it
all
easy.”

“Easy, how?” Keira wanted to know.

“Talking to her is a waste of time,” Drew interrupted.

“If you weren’t perpetually tired of wasting time,” the older gentleman stated, “the painting would be in my hands and Holly would still be alive. I’ve told you before, there’s doing things. And then there’s doing things with finesse. Wouldn’t you agree, Ms. Niles?”

“Finesse didn’t bring you the girl,” Drew retorted before Keira could answer. “I did.”

“No,” the other man argued, still sounding patient. “Whatever drugs you fed her brought her here. And I’m damned sure asking her nicely would have sufficed.”

“You think
asking
her would have worked?”

“The girl is clearly in love with Graham and there’s not much a girl won’t do to protect the man she loves.”

Keira opened her mouth to argue, but couldn’t do it.

In love with him?

The realization made Keira’s pulse race again, this time joyfully. Yes, she
did
love him, in that fast-and-hard, head-over-heels way that people wrote songs about. Everything about Calloway sang to her, made her thrum with life. The accident, the rescue...all of that had sped up the process, but there was no doubt in Keira’s mind that the feelings were genuine. The very real likelihood of death intensified it all the more. And it made denying it impossible.

“I do love him,” Keira said, hearing the truth of the statement in her voice. “And I’d lie to protect him. But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’d lie,” Drew snarled. “But would you
die
?”

Keira’s reply was defiant. “Yes.”

“Good.”

He lunged at her, his hand drawn back for a blow. Keira braced herself, but he didn’t make it close enough to hit her. Henry Henderson’s fist closed on the back of Drew’s collar, and he dragged the younger man back so forcefully that he fell to the ground with a thud.

“You fail at
every
task I give you,” Henderson said, his voice betraying emotion for the first time. “You have no patience, no fortitude, no redeeming qualities. None. Now get out, guard the door and give Ms. Niles and me a few minutes alone.”

Remarkably, Drew didn’t even argue. He just pulled himself to his feet and slunk from the room. Henderson waited until the French doors were closed, then pulled out a chair from the table, seated himself and crossed his legs. When he turned his attention back to Keira, he was completely calm once more.

“Sometimes my sons forget who works for whom. My apologies,” he said softly. “Now, where were we? Oh, right. Asking first certainly wouldn’t have hurt. Ms. Niles, Graham Calloway has something I want. The man has been pouring his heart and soul out to you for days. He’s either told you what I want to know, or he’ll come here to rescue you and tell me himself. It’s a win either way.”

Keira barely heard what the man was saying. Her head was too busy trying to wrap around his first sentence.

His son.

No, not his son. His
sons.
Plural.

And Keira had a sinking feeling she knew who the other one was.

She needed to warn Calloway.

She stole a glance at Henry Henderson. He’d snapped up a newspaper from the table and turned his attention to what appeared to be a crossword puzzle.

Good.

Keira’s hands twisted behind her back in search of a vulnerability in the rope. And after just a few seconds of trying, she found a loose spot, no bigger than her pinky finger. She just barely managed to keep from letting out a relieved cry.

She looked at Henderson again. He face was placid, as if he had no care outside of what word fit into fifty-one down.

I’ve got one for you
,
Keira thought.
What’s an eleven-letter word for “drawing one’s attention away from something”?

D-I-S-T-R-A-C-T-I-O-N.

Keira closed her eyes for one second, dug her pinky into the loop, then opened her eyes again and asked, “What makes you so sure Calloway will come for me?”

Henderson blinked at her as if he’d completely forgotten her presence. Which she was damned well sure he hadn’t.

“Pardon me, Ms. Niles?” he said.

She was also damned well sure he’d heard her the first time.

“There’s a chance he won’t come.”

Henderson gave her a considering look. “Does he love you?”

Keira’s face warmed. “I don’t know.”

Henderson shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I believe he’ll come, love or not. He’ll feel responsible for you and obligation is a huge part of Graham’s makeup. But if I’m wrong—which
is
a rare occurrence—I do have another ace or two up my sleeve.”

The loop widened under Keira’s attention.

“Like what?” she asked.

Henderson shook his head. “I think that’s enough divulgence for the moment.”

He went back to his crossword.

Dammit
.

She had to keep him talking.

“What makes you think he even has this painting that you want?” she persisted. “He might not have it at all.”

An amused smile tipped up the corner of the older man’s mouth. “He has it.”

Henderson took another sip of his drink and scratched something else onto the newspaper.

Keira had worked her finger in up to her knuckle already, and on the other side, she’d found another loose piece.

“How do you know?” she persisted.

Henderson folded the crossword in half, set it on the table and placed the cup on top.

“He had thirty-two million reasons to keep it,” he told her.

It was Kiera’s turn to blink slowly, and she had to force her fingers to keep working.

“Dollars?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“But...”

“But what? You thought he was nothing more than an everyday hero, motivated by a general care for the well-being of mankind?” Henderson shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

Keira wiggled her wrists. There was definitely some extra room now.

“If Calloway had a thirty-two-million-dollar painting, and he cared so much about the money, why was he living in a shack?” she asked. “Why wouldn’t he sell it?”

“He’s greedy, not stupid. The first thing I did when my daughter died was to report it missing.”

“The papers didn’t say a word about it,” Keira pointed out.

A few more inches, and at least one hand would be free.

Henderson smiled again. “They wouldn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I didn’t report it to the police.”

Keira tugged a little harder on the rope and feigned confusion. “Why not the police? Wouldn’t they be the best people to track it?”

“I’m afraid not.” His tone was patronizing. “If a wanted criminal is going to sell a thirty-million-dollar painting, it’s not going to be through the appropriate channels. The people I reported its theft to are the kind who monitor the darker side of things, Ms. Niles. People like your friend Drew.”

“Drew?” she repeated.

One final little yank, and Keira felt the rope drop behind her. Quickly, she tucked her feet together under the chair to cover up the dangling evidence.

“The wannabe art thief,” Henderson clarified.

“Well. That explains his wannabe expensive taste.” Keira forced a laugh as she tried to take a casual look around.

The vase in the center of the table.

It was big and painted blue and probably worth more than a month’s worth of rent. But it also looked breakable. Into small, sharp pieces, preferably.

She’d have to find out.