Deadly Fall (9 page)

The air shuddered from her lungs as Augusta forced herself to move before she grew roots.

She eased the death grip she had on the ring of keys in her fist and did another visual sweep. Now that she was here, she was at a loss. Why was she even here? Why had she given in to that compulsion to look over the place she had once called home? And why was burning emotion still threatening to choke her as she stood there in the foyer?

Sucking in a deep breath in hopes that it would push everything rising in her throat down, she crossed the foyer and stepped into the sunken living room she and Drew had decorated with a bent towards mindless entertainment.

If she closed her eyes and tried really hard, she could see Drew stretched out on the L-shaped sofa in his navy track pants and bare feet, engrossed in a hockey game on the big screen television. Of course, the Rangers would have to be playing. It would be even better if they were in the lead, but they didn’t have to be. Drew was a die-hard fan.

Augusta smiled even as fresh tears prickled the backs of her eyes. Wouldn’t the readers of
Forbes
be surprised to discover that it took very little to please one of the most prominent businessmen in the United States.

Oh, God, Augusta. Not here. Not now.

She hurried up the stairs and into a converted storage room. After the conversion, she’d dubbed it the attic. She wouldn’t bother with the rest of the penthouse. Drew kept everything that was important in the attic.

Dim, yellow light illuminated the space, revealing the stacks and stacks of neatly labeled brown boxes against the walls. Leaving the door ajar, she went to the boxes against the left wall and began moving them out of the way. The boxes nearly reached the ceiling so she used a straight-back chair to bring down the top ones and stacked them randomly in the middle of the room. The bottom ones she merely pushed aside.

By the time she shoved the last box out of her way, her jacket was draped on the chair and a light film of perspiration coated her face. But she didn’t stop to rest. The specter of getting caught, no matter what excuse she had ready, lent her an urgency.

With both hands, she pushed her hair back from her face and got down on her knees. Bottom lip captured between her teeth, she carefully but swiftly felt along the bottom edge of the wall with her fingertips.

She felt the tiny break in the wood and pulled on the lever. A four foot-square section of the wood-paneled wall three feet above her bent head silently slid back, revealing the fireproof, stainless steel combination safe. Drew had said that very few people would think to crawl around on their hands and knees to find the key to open a safe.

Inordinately triumphant, Augusta made quick work of the combination lock. She pulled down on the handle, swung open the door and peered inside.

Her brows slammed together. The triumph she felt moments ago dissipated.

The safe where Drew had kept everything from a copy of his will to a bit of extra cash was empty. Even their platinum wedding bands and her matching engagement ring were missing.

Nick placed a mug of lethal-looking brew down in front of his partner, said, “Here you go. No sugar, lots of cream,” and sat.

“Thanks,” Ethan mumbled, not even glancing at the coffee. “Where’ve you been all afternoon?”

Nick’s gaze narrowed. He and Ethan have been partners long enough for him to recognize a stall tactic, but he played along.

“Taking care of our leak.”

Ethan’s head shot up. “Leak? Who?”

“Woodman,” Nick answered, his voice tight. “I asked him to look into Augusta’s finances and report back with any strange transactions.”

Ethan leaned back in his chair. “But he didn’t find anything.”

“No, he didn’t. But that doesn’t make good copy.”

His partner lifted a questioning brow. “He talked to a reporter?”

“Worse. He’s sleeping with one.”

“Shit. How did you find out?”

“I tracked down the reporter who wrote the story. She had a picture of them together on her desk.”

“Is he stupid?” Ethan didn’t wait for a response. “Have you told the lieutenant?”

Nick’s smile was grim. “Woodman’s no longer assisting on the case. In fact, I’d be surprised if he ever gets to work on another case. You know how the lieutenant’s wary of lawsuits. Augusta and her lawyer have a strong case for libel.”

“She won’t pursue that.”

“No.” Nick looked down into his black coffee. “Augusta doesn’t want to draw any more attention. She just wants everything to go away.”

Ethan rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Nick.”

There was enough dread in the sound of the voice of the man across from him that Nick paused, his coffee cup frozen in midair. Prudently, he set the cup on his desk, amid tall, precarious stacks of files. “What is it?”

“I just got off the phone with a detective on the San Francisco PD.”

The back of Nick’s neck prickled. “Why were you talking to them?” He already knew he didn’t want to hear the rest of what Ethan had to tell him. The answer was there in the bleak expression in his partner’s eyes.

“I was doing a further background check on Augusta Langan. There’s so little on her here, I thought there might so something more on the West Coast.” Ethan paused. “She has a juvenile record.”

“Those files are sealed tighter than Fort Knox,” Nick remarked, his lips barely moving.

“I couldn’t get to the files, but the detective I talked to recognized her name. He was an officer at the time and heard the talk.”

“He could be thinking of another someone else with the same name.”

“He described her to me perfectly. Apparently, she hasn’t changed much in looks over the years.”

“It’s a juvenile record. So she made a mistake when she was younger. A good majority of the population does,” Nick said, sounding as dismissive and nonchalant as he could manage, but the stranglehold he had on the arms of his chair betrayed him. “What was it? Petty theft? Criminal mischief? Disturbing the peace?”

“Attempted murder.”

* * * * *

She’d seen the lights on in Nick’s windows as she drove up to the condo building, so she was expecting him as she pushed the door of the loft open. In her head, she rehearsed what she would say to him about her brief outing. Out of a sense of self-preservation, she knew her trip to the penthouse would have to be kept to herself.

At first glance inside, she couldn’t see him. “Nick?” she called out, closing the door behind her and locking it automatically with a twist of her wrist. She put the brown paper grocery bag on the side table.

“Here.”

His voice came from the armchair facing the windows in the living room and was tight and edged with something that made her pause in the act of shrugging off her jacket. Perhaps he was angry because she had been missing from the loft when he got in. She hadn’t thought to leave him a note, but she didn’t think he would return before she did.

She took her time placing her jacket over the back of a chair. “When did you get in?” she asked, determinedly unruffled, even as she hefted the grocery bag in her arm and went into the kitchen. Wood creaked, and she knew he had followed her. She glanced up. He filled the kitchen entrance, and she had the faint sense of being cornered.

“About an hour ago. I left work early this afternoon.”

Augusta nodded absently, as if she was absorbed in the task of taking out the various food items and placing them on the kitchen counter with care.

“Where have you been?”

She held up the bag of tomatoes in her hand and said, “As you can see, I was at the store. Shopping for food. I wanted to make dinner as a thank you.”

“And you didn’t think to leave me a note to let me know where you were?”

She paused. She’d known this would be coming. But that didn’t mean she would put up with him treating her like an errant child. Knowing that wearing down her teeth wouldn’t help, Augusta forced herself to relax her jaw and uncurl her fists and flatten them on the cool counter. Once certain she would not lose her temper and start yelling at him like a crazy woman, as she had done earlier in the morning, she faced him. And bit back gasp. She would’ve taken a step back had the counter not been directly behind her. Nick wasn’t simply angry. He looked absolutely, coldly furious. She could read it in the unnerving expression in his eyes, the taut lines of his body as he stood there, both hands braced on the sides of the doorway. She had a feeling that if he didn’t have his hands there, they would been clamped on her shoulders and shaking her.

She took a deep breath. She wasn’t about to be intimidated, especially not by him. Her chin lifted a notch. “I thought I’d get back before you would. I apologize if you were worried.” She paused. “Or am I under house arrest?”

Beneath his dark tan, she could see the flush of anger darkening his face. It went with the muscle ticking in his clenched jaw. “Damn it, Augusta—” He broke off, tried again. “Considering the circumstances, didn’t you think I’d be worried if I came home to an empty apartment?”

“Look,” she began, “I said I was sorry. But I really didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t think,” he big off, cutting her off. “You may have book smarts, Augusta, but that seems to be it.”

“
What?
”

“You heard me.”

She fought back the red haze that colored her vision. “Look, aren’t you getting a little too worked up over something this…this trivial?”

Something flared in his eyes, making them seem even bluer than usual. He raked his fingers through his hair, then fisted his hand by his side. “Haven’t you thought about—” He cut off his own words with a sound very much like a growl.

“About what?”

“Nothing,” he bit off savagely.

It finally dawned on her. “Why are you really pissed off?”

“I talked to a detective with the San Francisco PD this afternoon,” he said finally, his gaze locked on her face.

She froze, muscles stiff, and lips barely moving, asked, “What did the detective tell you?”

“He didn’t give many details. He said you were charged with attempted murder when you were thirteen, but the charges were eventually dropped.”

She tried to swallow to moisten her dry mouth and couldn’t. It took effort to drag air into her lungs. With a detachment she didn’t feel, she asked, “What would you like me to say?” Unable to look at him, she let her gaze fall to the counter, to the pale fingers she knew were hers but couldn’t feel. “Or, rather, what would you like me to admit to?”

“I don’t want you to admit to anything,” he bit out. “I want you to tell me what happened.”

“So you can decide whether or not you can use it to make a charge of murder stick on me this time? Because if I’ve done it before and gotten away with it—or I would’ve had my victim died—why not try it again. Right?”

“Damn it, Augusta, how many times do I have to tell you I’m on your side? But how the hell am I supposed to help you if you keep secrets like this from me?”

“What happened eighteen years ago has nothing to do with Drew.”

“How the
fuck
am I supposed to know when you won’t even tell me what happened? How am I supposed to convince my superiors, my partner and the other people with a stake in this case to stop focusing on you when we find something like this in your past? I need to tell them something, and you’re the only one who can give me that something.”

The burning in her stomach made her clutch at it. “I would never do anything to hurt Drew,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “He and Adam are—were—the closest thing I had to family left. I adored Drew.”

“You still have to tell me about the attempted murder.”

Her gaze lifted to his. Augusta licked her dry lips, suddenly wanting a glass of water to wet her parched throat. “What happened in San Francisco wasn’t attempted murder. It was self-defense, pure and simple.”

He tensed, eyes darkening, but he didn’t move. “Were new charges brought up against your attacker?”

“Money and political power can buy a lot of things, Detective.”

She heard him whisper her name, saw the anger leave his face, saw him lift a hand and shrank back. His hand dropped.

“Augusta—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. That’s all in the past. It’s over and done with.” She would rather hear anger in his voice than put up with the pity that was written all over his face. She took a moment to try and solidify the jelly that were now her legs. “Maybe I should—”

“No.” His tone was sharp. “You’re not leaving. You’re staying here. We are going to drop this before we start going around in circles.”

Silent, she nodded.

“The next time you leave, let me know where you’re going and when you’re coming back.”

“That won’t be necessary since you promised I’ll be back in my home by tomorrow morning.”