Secrets and Lies (2 page)

Her voice was so matter of fact that he wondered just how disturbed she was by the occurrence. Most of the women, hell, even some of the men, he knew around town had a tendency to panic about things of that caliber.

“Thena,” he leveled his tone. If she wasn’t taking this seriously he wouldn’t hesitate to lecture her about it. “You do realize that’s serious; right?”

“Of course,” she pushed a strand of curly hair behind her ear. “It’s just that I’m more concerned with what happened with my mother. I don’t care about who tried to run me down. That is, I don’t want you to work that case.”

He exhaled slowly, trying to keep his cool. When she walked into his office he had been all set to tell her no. She had told him about a dead body they had found on one of her construction sites. Then she told him that the woman was perfectly preserved. Eventually she got around to telling him that the woman looked just like her, only older, and that she knew it was her mother who had gone missing when she was ten years old. The woman had been adducted from the hospital parking lot after her shift. He made a mental note to himself to do research on the case. A doctor going missing had to make the news…but he didn’t remember the case. Why would he? If Thena was ten at the time then he was thirteen. At thirteen he was too busy tagging along with his older brother, Gavin, to worry about the news.

He virtually had to pry the information out of her. She had come to his office and then she wanted to clam up. He had looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Lady, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s going on.” Once she told him he understood her dilemma. This was personal. It wasn’t just about some dead body. This was about her mother. This was about closure.

For him it was going to be about more than that. She might not realize it, but she needed protection; she needed his help. He wouldn’t let anybody hurt her. She said she didn’t want him working the case from the angle of who had just tried to kill her—tough. He was going to look into both whether she wanted him to or not. In his book it was probably, if not definitely, related to her mother’s murder.

“So, Mr. McGregor; how much is your fee?”

“Thomas,” he practically ordered. He hated when people called him by his last name—most people anyway…especially beautiful women. “Two fifty an hour.”

She inhaled sharply. “Oh,” she lowered her eyes to the floor. “Wow…that much…”

He watched her nibble on her bottom lip as if trying to figure out if she could afford him. “If it’s a problem—”

“No…no problem.”

He could tell it was indeed a problem. Just how exactly was she planning to pay his fee?

“I can get the money.”

Get the money
—that meant she didn’t have it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what she was going to have to do to get it. He shifted his ink pen between his fingers. “Look, I’ll run a tab. If I get answers for you then you can pay the full amount in affordable installments; that won’t put you out,” and he meant that in every possible sense of the word. “If I don’t get answers for you then your case is on the house.” He never made a deal like that. He wasn’t sure why he was making it now other than the fact that he was probably thinking with the wrong head.

“I should pay you something for your time up front. I can give you two thousand today…if you’ll take a check. And I’ll pay you weekly if you want. It would probably be better for you.”

He shrugged. “A check is fine.” He watched her pull out her checkbook. Normally he only took cash or bank checks. He didn’t have time for bad checks that some people felt compelled to pass off. Cash up front was more his motto. At least cash was a sure thing and he didn’t risk putting in the work only to find out he wouldn’t be getting his money anytime soon. For her he’d take a check. She looked honest. He trusted his gut on this one and his gut was telling him he had to help this woman or she would be dead within days. He still had connections on the force. He would make some phone calls and see what he could find out come morning.

She tore the check from her checkbook and slid it across the desk to him. “Please don’t wait to cash that,” she said as he tucked the check in the file folder he was creating for her case.

“Planning to spend the money?”

“No. I just balance my checkbook every morning and if that check stays outstanding then it will make the process harder.”

“I don’t know many people who balance their books every morning.”

She shrugged. “Better to balance than to bounce.”

She was right on that count. Compared to the time she would spend balancing her checkbook daily, bouncing a check would cost her more in bank fees, not to mention creditor fees, than daily balancing would cost her in time.

Thena couldn’t believe her luck. She had literally ripped his phone number out the telephone book and called right away requesting he see her the same day. The secretary had pretty much put her off, but she assured her it was an emergency, that it couldn’t wait. The urgency in her voice must have rung clear because the woman put her on hold for two minutes before coming back and telling her six o’clock sharp was her time slot. If she wasn’t there on time then she could forget about showing up.

She was determined to be on time. She was early actually; as she often was when she had appointments, but this time she was nearly an hour early because this was too important to risk getting stuck in traffic. She needed help and his ad in the phonebook made him sound honest and dependable.
Former
Boston PD SWAT team member
, that’s what his ad had listed as credentials. She had to trust him. It didn’t hurt that he had been smart enough not to advertise with his picture. She wouldn’t have called him if he had gone the route of the other ads that had a big picture of some guy professing to be the best. How could anybody get away with following people if their picture was plastered all over the place?

Thomas’ office hadn’t been what she expected. He had impeccable taste. She expected some dingy closed in office with an old desk and an astray sitting in the center. She didn’t know why, but maybe she was thinking of an office out of an old black and white film. What she saw was a very well put together space. He had panoramic style windows, a big interior office space with an antique mahogany desk, classic black and white artwork on the walls and slate colored tile floors. He had a chandelier instead of a floor lamp, comfortable sitting chairs instead of the standard wooden chairs she had seen some office complexes install. There was an orchid on a corner table. It was fake; she could tell because she raised orchids and she could easily spot the difference between a real one and a fake one without getting too close. It was still a lovely addition to the office space. Even his computer station was sleek and stylish. Whoever his designer was maybe she should hire him, or her, to decorate some of the office spaces she built. She loved her architecture, she even liked her ability to design the space’s interior, but she wasn’t so stuck on herself that she couldn’t appreciate beauty and style when she saw it. Even the waiting area was sleek and stylish with plush chairs, great city views and an inviting atmosphere. Best of all, it smelled good, like being in the mountains after a hard rain.

It wasn’t just the office that stunned her. Thomas wasn’t what she expected either. She expected older, balding, and slightly overweight. What she got was a tall, perfectly fit muscular man with striking blue eyes and jet black hair that he wore long and pulled back in a ponytail. She imagined his hair was about shoulder length, maybe just a little shorter than hers. She wouldn’t have expected that. With a name like McGregor she would have been more inclined to expect a clean cut Irish man, not a cross between Pierce Bronson as James Bond, Steven Segal in his younger days meets GQ model with serious muscles. Two possible images she had of the man had been shattered with one look at him. When he had stood up to walk her out to her car she realized just how tall he was. Six four, she was sure of that because she was five four and he was at least a foot taller than she was. The man was big, all encompassing, and she imagined he could conquer a room just by walking into it.

Something in her had stirred the moment she saw him. Something primal and needy, and that scared her. He had asked her a question, something about why the body in the construction site was important to her and she had hesitated, not because she had no intention of disclosing the information, but because she was starting to wonder if she should have gone with one of those old, balding, slightly overweight guys instead. She couldn’t let a charming, incredibly good-looking man distract her. On the other hand, it was he who needed to avoid distraction more than she did.

Distraction didn’t seem to be a problem for him. She was wearing her dark blue skinny jeans that hugged her butt and curves in all the right places, the matching blue vest and a perfectly fitted blouse that showed just the right hint of cleavage. Not to mention the fact that she had on her almost knee length stiletto white boots that tied in the back. Most men gave her at least a second look for the boots alone, but he hadn’t even really looked once. Not that she should want him to; nor had she gone with the intent to impress and seduce. She had left from a day in the office, staying as far away from as many traffic and possible life threatening hazards as humanly possible. She worked on a new design to pass the time. If she hadn’t spent the day in the office she would have been dressed differently. Something in the recesses of her mind was glad she had been dressed to show her assets off in good fashion.

“Get a grip, Thena.” She admonished herself. “He’s just a man—an incredibly good looking man who’s probably great in bed…” she sighed. “But still, he’s just a man.”  She wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. She didn’t sleep around. She had one sexual partner in her lifetime and that man had been her steady boyfriend. She loved him, thought she would marry him, had given her heart and her body to him. And even with him, she could say now that she hadn’t felt the spark she felt tonight. Maybe that had been their problem. They loved each other, but they weren’t in love with each other. There was no real romantic spark—not like she had felt tonight. But with Kyle, she had the stability of friendship and it just felt like the natural progression to stay in the relationship they were in. The sex wasn’t bad, but the intensely passionate relationship she wanted, and they both deserved, just really wasn’t there.

She liked Thomas at first sight. She didn’t even know the man and she liked him. Then, the more she talked to him; the more she heard his voice, the more she wanted to know about him. She was there for a reason, a very important reason, and there she was imagining what could be with a man she didn’t even really know. She had clearly read one too many romance novels as a child. No wonder her father had been against her reading such “sorted” stories. He literally confiscated every romance novel she had, even the ones she had hidden under her bed and in her closet, and he burned them all. Unfortunately for him that act alone cost him a bundle in library fees, since most of them were borrowed books. She had to laugh. If it hadn’t been for her obsession with reading what her father considered “filthy” novels she wouldn’t know half as much as she knew about construction now. She didn’t doubt that he took her on site to work because he thought being idle in her downtime would lead to trouble. At the time she thought he was crazy, now she wasn’t so sure. She had just met Thomas; one touch from him and she was already thinking about doing something she read in one of those books.

She wasn’t into one night stands, but if she were going to have one—what a man to have it with. “He’s not even your type,” she told herself. “Get over it.” How could she when her body was still vividly remembering the strength of his hand and the thirst and hunger his touch had stirred within her. Every time she thought about his hands she thought of them holding her wrists to the bed while he let that luscious mouth of his explore her body. The image she had created was causing all sorts of problems for her. She hadn’t had sex since Kyle. She tried to chalk her lust filled fantasies up to just being hormonal…but hormones had very little to do with it. The man was a walking, talking fantasy machine.

Was she wrong for her thoughts? She was doing exactly for him what she hated for people to do to her. She hated when clients looked at her and started sizing her up for sex instead of work. At least she hadn’t been as blatantly obvious with Thomas as some of her clients had been with her, but still…maybe he didn’t want women who came into his office for help to have those thoughts about him at all.

She needed to stop thinking about the jolt of electricity that hit her when he had taken her arm in his hand to lead her out the office and to her car. Every bit of heat in her body sprung to life, warming her in the most intimate places. She wondered what would happen if he put that big, strong hand some place other than her arm. And then, when he actually did put his hand some place else she nearly melted from the heat. They had been walking out the door when he relinquished her arm and placed his hand on the small of her back. That was her spot, and while not every man’s touch elicited such carnal desires, this man’s touch had—more so than she had ever experienced even with Kyle.

She had things she needed to stop at the store for, but her appointment with Thomas had run longer than she expected and it was getting dark. She wanted to be home, inside with the alarm set before nightfall. She was afraid; whether she wanted to let anybody know that or not. While the cops may have thought last night was just an accident, some drunk driver enjoying Memorial Day to the fullest, she was sure that driver had been aiming for her, had been waiting for her to cross the street so he or she could mow her down.