Lilah fought the overwhelming urge to scream and instead focused on getting to Reed now that the air bags had deployed. The screech of metal had been unbearable—the entire crash happening as if in slow motion—and the subsequent explosion of the safety bags had only added to the sense of unreality.
With fumbling fingers, she managed to find the gearshift and slammed the car into Park. She had no idea if it mattered at this point but figured it couldn’t hurt.
“Reed.” When she got no answer, she tried once more. “Reed!”
“Hmm? Wh—” A hard moan accompanied his half-slurred question and she pushed at the heap of exploded nylon in their laps.
“Are you okay?”
With his head resting against the headrest, Reed turned toward her. His eyes had a dazed, unfocused look and Lilah could only send up a silent prayer when she heard the distinct sounds of sirens. “You okay?”
“I asked you first.”
A bit of the haze dissipated from his eyes and his brows narrowed in hard lines. “You could have been killed.”
“I think that was the whole idea.”
Before either of them could say anything more, blue-and-red flashing lights were upon them and there were professionals dragging open her car door hollering in strong tones to gain her attention.
In the continued unreality of shouting and motion and action, she couldn’t stop one lone thought from resounding over and over in her mind like a gong.
Reed had taken the wall for her.
* * *
Lilah heard them before she saw them. Two sets of frantic voices, followed by the calming presence of two deeper male baritones.
“Where is she?”
“We’re here for Lilah Castle—”
The two demands wove over top of each other as Cassidy and Violet practically attacked the night-nurse station in their rush to see her.
She heard the murmured calm of the nurse and the directions to her bay.
And then Cassidy and Violet were there, flinging back the curtain and rushing to the side of her bed and both talking at once and crying like babies.
Lilah thought she was strong. She’d held it together from the moment Reed had realized something was wrong, all through the ride to the hospital and the poking and prodding of the doctors.
She’d even stayed calm as she asked after Reed, questioning everyone who came to see her for an update on how he was doing.
But at the sight of her two best friends, tears she hadn’t even realized she held back opened with the force of a dam breaking.
“Oh. Oh no. It’s okay.” Cassidy had her first, pulling her close in a tight hug. Violet sat on the other side of the bed and Lilah felt herself pulled into a tight melding of arms and heads and murmured assurances that all would be well.
The three of them rode out the storm and a few minutes later it was Tucker’s warm voice that penetrated their sodden circle.
He leaned over Cassidy and pressed a kiss to Lilah’s head. “How are you doing, Champ?”
“If that’s a Rocky reference, I’d say it’s apt. I feel like I went about ten rounds with Apollo Creed.”
“Air bag?” Max asked, his supportive wince suggesting he’d done a tango or two of his own with an air bag.
“I never expected they’d hit so hard. Like a ginormous fist slamming into me all at once everywhere.” Lilah could still feel the moment of impact, the odd juxtaposition of the air bag’s power along with its ability to cushion the blow.
“What happened?” Violet’s soft touch smoothed several strands of hair behind her ear before she went into general mode. “And how?”
“Did you get any information on Reed?”
“Nothing yet,” Max said. “Let me go make a few inquiries.”
Tucker dropped a lingering kiss on Cassidy’s head. “I’ll go give Max a hand. I think the three of you need a few more minutes.”
They watched the men go before Violet shifted straight into inquisition mode. “Seriously, Lilah. What happened? Was it drunk driving?”
Lilah shook her head and tried to figure out where to start. She’d given the nursing staff her friends’ numbers to come get her, but she knew the details hadn’t been shared. “I was on a date with Reed. At Portia.”
At the mention of Steven’s restaurant, Cassidy squeezed her hand. “Why did you go back there?”
But it was Violet who honed in on the matter at hand. “A date?”
“A pretend date.” Lilah gave her a pointed stare before shifting toward Cassidy. “And we went to Portia because I had to. Steven played the gallant host with a free bottle of wine for our table, but Reed didn’t drink a drop. He was on the clock.”
“So it was just an accident?” Violet pressed.
Lilah hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. The past week had taken a toll on all of them and what was a danger to one was a danger to all.
“Lilah?” Violet pressed once more.
“Reed’s brake lines were cut.”
Violet and Cassidy went still, their gentle stares frozen in place.
“We obviously need to find out more, but Reed didn’t realize it at first and it was only once we were on Central and he needed to slow down that he realized he couldn’t.”
“Who does something like this?” Cassidy spoke first, disbelief layered beneath each word. “To you? And to a cop? Who does this?”
“Someone who wants me out of the way.”
* * *
Reed pushed one arm through his shirt, wincing hard at the stiffness in his body. Every muscle ached and he felt as if he’d gone up against a gorilla.
A gorilla with iron fists.
He’d checked out okay, with the instruction to mainline aspirin for the next few days and to come back immediately if he felt dizziness or any shortness of breath.
He’d felt neither until he imagined Lilah, lying broken beyond help from the crash.
Or what the crash could have been if he hadn’t gotten them off the highway.
“Graystone.”
Tucker Buchanan and Max Baldwin stood at the entrance to his room. “Gentlemen.”
“Cassidy and Violet are with Lilah,” Max said. “We thought we’d find you and find out what’s really going on. What the hell are you doing dating someone you’re supposed to be protecting?”
“While I’m quite sure Miss Castle can decide who she spends her personal time with, we weren’t technically on a date.”
Even if it gave every indication of being one, Reed decided to keep that thought to himself.
“So where were you? You’re both dressed up.” Tucker had seemed like the cooler head when they’d first met and his calmer tone and observant gaze only reinforced his straight man to Max’s “punch first, ask questions later” approach to situations. “It looks like a date.”
“We went to DeWinter’s restaurant. There’s some suspicion he’s involved in this case and Lilah thought this would be a way to suss him out. Pretending it was a date was designed to get DeWinter’s ire up.”
“DeWinter, as in her ass of an ex-husband?” Tucker asked.
“One and the same.”
“And the crash?” Max demanded.
Reed sighed. There really was no other way to tell it other than quick and clean, like tearing off a Band-Aid. “My brake lines were cut. Or they felt cut. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
Whatever Max had already lined up as a retort faded at the evidence of what Reed and Lilah had been through that evening. “Cut?”
“It had to have happened while we were at dinner. The car was fine before that. And after—”
“You were at Portia, right?” At Reed’s nod, Tucker continued, “With your car parked in a public lot with valets running all over managing cars.”
“We parked ourselves at the back of the lot. Lilah had some hesitation when we pulled in and I skipped the valet to spare her the embarrassment if she wanted to leave.”
Tucker shook his head. “Still. The parking lot’s not that big. How could no one have noticed someone messing with your brake lines?”
“All I know is that someone got to them.” He barked the response, not surprised when the bigger thought underneath rose up to slap at him. Someone got to Lilah, even under his protection.
“Mr. Graystone.” A young doctor, obviously consigned to the late shift, poked her head around the doorway. “I’ve left your completed paperwork at the desk. You’re free to leave with your friends.”
He nodded his appreciation, then stood and reached for his sport coat. The fabric was covered with the fine dusting of talc that came from the air-bag deployment and he briefly toyed with stuffing it in the garbage. “I’d like to go see Lilah.”
“If Cassidy and Violet will let you through.” Tucker pointed toward the hallway. “They had her surrounded like a human phalanx when we left.”
“Graystone. One thing.” Max stopped him. “Do you think DeWinter did this?”
Reed had been over and over it in his mind and he still hadn’t come to any conclusions. He’d confirm with Jessie in the morning, but they’d kept a pretty solid eye on DeWinter all through dinner. The man had made it his business to float around the restaurant or stand guard over his open kitchen. At no time did Reed remember DeWinter disappearing for an extended period.
Add on the sense he got Steven DeWinter didn’t like getting his hands dirty and Reed had trouble pointing the finger squarely on the man.
Of course, he had denied any memory of Robert Barrington and Charlie McCallum and had shown even less concern at the news both men were murdered.
“I really don’t know.”
Tucker glanced toward the door, his voice low. “We’ve increased our surveillance over Elegance and Lace, and Cassidy’s mentioned more than once how I hover closer than her shadow. I’ll attach myself to her if that’s what it takes, but I’m still concerned it’s not enough.”
“At least she talks to you.” Max’s disgust would have been evident even without the subtle sneer. “Violet seems to get a particular joy out of snubbing me.”
“I can get protection detail put on the office. We’ve already got uniforms driving by several times a day, but after tonight—” Reed broke off before pushing on. “After tonight the department’s going to take an even larger interest in this matter than they already are.”
Max shifted from foot to foot in the doorway, that small sneer still riding his features. The man was frustrated, Reed realized as he took in the pent-up energy.
And he likely cared far more than he wanted to let on.
“I’ll keep you both updated. Make sure you know what you’re dealing with.”
Max nodded, the acknowledgment of his contributions going a long way toward stilling the nervous motions. “We’ll do the same.”
They were good guys, Reed thought.
He’d done his homework on them when he first caught the case. Both were in their early thirties, friends since they’d been in the military.
Where they had architectural abilities in spades—and a new business venture in the private sector as further proof of those abilities—Reed’s digging had turned up some time on active duty, as well.
Apparently Buchanan and Baldwin were particularly adept at blowing things up.
The thought briefly jingled that they’d likely know their way around a car’s undercarriage, but he quickly dismissed it.
Although they’d held back a few key details at first—namely, their suspicions that something was housed in the concrete beneath Elegance and Lace—they’d been on the up-and-up since Robert Barrington’s attempted kidnapping of Cassidy.
To assume they’d set everything up to their own advantage didn’t play with any of the events since. Still, he’d have Jessie run a few more background checks on both of them. What they had done before the service. Any juvenile record, for instance, or anything to raise a red flag.
For no other reason, it would complete the file and turn away the suspicions of anyone else who might take a look.
And based on the cut brake lines, he was proof positive the department mechanic was going to find tomorrow morning, Reed knew he’d better have a full and complete file ready to review with his lieutenant.
* * *
The Duke refilled his bourbon and reviewed the details Trey had shared with him upon returning from the crime scene. He bumped up Trey’s on-scene report with the text message he’d received from his police department contact, only to find the same answer. By all accounts, the woman and the cop had walked away from the scene.
If they were unscathed was a different matter, but they had walked.
He ignored the strange sense of relief at that fact and focused instead on the matter at hand.
It had been four days and he still didn’t have the rubies. Four days that they lay in the possession of others, mere miles from him.
Out of his reach.
It was inexcusable.
With the methodological precision he prided himself on, he worked his way through the matter from the start. The information that had come to his attention via McCallum and Barrington.
Prior to that, the introduction made at DeWinter’s insistence.
And prior to even that, the small rumblings that had traveled in elite Dallas circles for years of crown jewels smuggled here from Great Britain after World War Two.
He’d hunted down the appraiser, Gunnar Davidson, who’d claimed to have seen the jewels decades before, and he’d befriended the man. With Gunnar now one of the city’s finest jewelers, the Duke had purchased copious amounts of pieces from the man, lining Davidson’s pockets with a sizable investment.
And then he’d used that trust to gain the information he truly wanted. A late-night drunken confession that confirmed the truth of the tale before he disposed of the man with a poison that mimicked a heart attack.
Gunnar had sung, telling a tale of rubies of immeasurable beauty. Nearly flawless in their perfection and passed down through history since the Renaissance.
They even carried their name from the period.
The Renaissance Stones.
Along with the name, they’d carried a supposed curse. The Duke had enjoyed that aspect of the story but paid it little attention.
Curses were for fairy tales and Halloween stories. He was far too practical to pay them any mind.
What he also knew was that things of rare and priceless beauty were worth killing for.
Perhaps that was the difference between those who believed in curses and those who didn’t.
He poured himself another finger of bourbon and let that thought take root. Those who wanted to assign supernatural happenings to inanimate objects did so because of the fear those objects elicited. But it was humans who created the fear, not the object.
And there were those who were more than comfortable preying on that fear, using it to their advantage.
Take the man who’d discovered the jewel in the seventeenth century. The poor sot had made the grave mistake of showing it off. Here he had a stone of immeasurable value and beauty and he’d passed it around like some prize.
The Duke shook his head at the vanity as he finished off his drink.
He’d learned early that showing off one’s most prized possessions led to greed and envy in others. Which meant it was better to enjoy them in private.
Always better.
But since the Renaissance Stone’s original owner wasn’t possessed of the same self-control, he’d shown the jewel to a Dutch merchant, one of the key movers and shakers in the Dutch East India Company. The Dutchman had killed for the stone and had then taken it home.
Where he made the same damn mistake.
Idiots, the entire lot of them.
“Darling!”
The soft words drifted down the hallway toward his sitting room. He’d been ignoring his wife of late, and still, she smiled and preened over him, happy to welcome him home.
He’d chosen well there. And she was one jewel he was delighted to show off as often as possible.
He stowed the phone he used for his personal business in his desk drawer, locked it away from prying eyes and stood. He left the empty glass on the blotter, sure in the knowledge the staff would pick it up in the morning.
They took care of him.
His wife took care of him.
Little did any of them know how he took care of everything else.
* * *
Lilah opened her front door, barely stifling a yawn as she stepped through the entryway and reached for the alarm keypad. Max had dropped them off with no small degree of reticence, but Lilah had been appreciative of the help.
The help and the fact that Violet or Cassidy hadn’t been their driver.
She loved her friends, but their questions about Reed had grown a bit much. Especially as she was still trying to get her head fully wrapped around her feelings.
Reed had insisted on staying with her, and she waited for him to close and lock the door before she reset the alarm.
“You’re quick with that thing.”
“I like to feel protected.”
He nodded, nearly asleep on his feet. She’d seen him pass on the pain medication, so she could only assume he was horribly uncomfortable and aching, as well.
“Thanks for seeing me home. Violet was ready to lock me up in her house and I wanted to sleep in my own bed.”
“Consider this door-to-door service.”
“Can I get you anything?”
“A large round of aspirin would be great.”
“Come on.”
She sensed his pain more than saw it, his gait stiff and heavy as he climbed the stairs behind her. Her three-story townhome had always seemed lovely and modern, but at the sheer exhaustion overtaking both of them she’d have gladly killed for something small—and all on one story—like Cassidy’s East Dallas bungalow.
Several small lights glowed when they reached the second-floor landing, setting off a mix of shadows as they moved toward the kitchen. Even with the horrible events of the evening, she couldn’t stop the small measure of calm that stole over her at the comforts of home.
“Sit down and I’ll get the aspirin and some water.” She pointed him toward her kitchen table before moving to the cabinets to snag two bottles of water and the economy-size container of aspirin.
Her heart stilled as she came back to the table. Reed was unmoving, his large frame bent over and his gaze dull on the top of the table. He still held his suit jacket—the piece looked as if it would never be clean—over his arm and she could see a large hole gaping at the seam of his shirt where the sleeve met the material that draped the body.
She jiggled the bottle so as not to come up behind him. “How many?”
“Can I have the whole thing?” His smile was gentle, but she saw the distinct note of humor in his eyes, and for the first time since he’d walked into her bay at the emergency room, she relaxed.
They were okay.
“Why don’t we start with three?”
“Three it is.”
He made quick work of the pills and the water, then seemed to notice the coat on his lap. “I should have left this behind.”
“I was thinking the same thing. You have any sentimental attachment to it?”
At the small shake of his head, she reached for it, their fingers brushing at the contact. Ignoring the searing heat that always seemed present between them, she took the coat and marched it toward her garbage can. “We’ll file this one away as the one thing this evening managed to kill.”
“Lilah. I’m sorry.”
She turned at that, the evidence her joke missed the mark stamped across the tired lines of his face in genuine distress. “No. I’m sorry. Gallows humor has always been a personal specialty and I need to remember not everyone agrees. Violet hates it.”
“You have reason to joke about death often?”
“Often enough.” She shrugged, surprised when the next words followed. “My father died when I was a kid. One day he was fine and the next he had an accident at work. A large TV monitor fell on him, of all things.”
“A TV?”
She saw Reed processing the information and quickly pressed on. Why she’d even started this she had no idea, but now that it was out she knew she needed to finish.
“The idea of it seems so strange now. We don’t have appliances that large anymore, especially not TVs and office equipment. But he was preparing for a presentation and they’d pushed several TVs into the conference room and he pushed the large cart the wrong way. The cart caught on the carpet and the size of the TV and the angle that it fell on his head—” She shrugged, the pointlessness of it all still a senseless waste twenty years later. “He never woke up.”
“How did you deal with it?”
“The same way you deal with anything, I guess. You soldier on. One foot in front of the other, day after day. My mom bore the brunt, as you’d imagine, but it was just the two of us. And after a long while we found our new normal. A life without him.”
“It doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
“No. It doesn’t.” She glanced around the room, the toasted-almond colors of her mother’s kitchen taking over her memories as her more modern setup faded from view. “After he died is when I started baking.”
“Oh?”
“My mom was sad all the time and I always had a few hours after school before she got home from work. I started baking box cakes because they were easy and I thought something sweet would make her smile. Then I graduated to decorating whatever I made. And then I got really adventurous and threw away the box.”
“Rebel.”
She smiled at that. “You could say that. I think she was just happy I stayed out of trouble. She used to take whatever I made into work and after a while I started getting feedback from her coworkers. And then I got a request to make cupcakes for one of the women’s kids. And it sort of steamrolled from there.”
Those days were such a distant memory, but it amazed Lilah how quickly she could take herself back there. The sadness and the fear something would happen to her mom. She’d worn it like a cloak, that fear that something random and unexpected would happen and then she’d be alone.
The baking had been an unexpected gift. When she focused on the whirling beaters or measuring ingredients or a particularly tricky decorating technique, she got lost in the moment, her restless mind settling as she worked through the challenge.
Those days had saved her. It had taken a long time to understand that, but she knew it now.
“It’s like you said earlier. You made something special for someone else. You gave them a memory.”
“I guess I did.”
The small light she kept on the edge of the kitchen counter spilled over them in soft golds. Even with the muted colors, she could see the dark gray of Reed’s irises. The shade was so compelling, just like the man.
He leaned toward her, his large body blocking out some of the light. She saw the small smile ghost his lips before he whispered against her ear, “Now I really do need to call Vice.”
“Why’s that?” She heard the breathy response and delighted in the raw emotion that coursed between them.
“You’ve clearly been a sugar pusher a lot longer than I realized.”
“I do have a lot of satisfied clients.”
His breath whispered over the shell of her ear before he ran his lips down the line of her jaw. “Besotted fools, just like me.”
As he finished the journey from ear to jaw, Lilah turned and met his lips with hers. The warmth of his mouth enveloped hers, the sweet moment punctuating a roller coaster of an evening.
And as she allowed the moments to swirl out like the finest threads of spun sugar, Lilah let loose on the tight reins of emotion she normally kept in check.
Here, in this moment, she was safe.