Don't Look Back (10 page)

Peter hung up.

After a moment he realized tears were running down his face. He wiped them away impatiently. One mystery solved.

For a short time he and Michael Griffin had been lovers.

So that was really a relief because it was the uncertainty eating at him, right? And here was one uncertainty explained at last. Good news, really, despite the incontrovertible proof of the fool he had been, so no sense sitting here sniveling. He had probably made worse mistakes than that, starting with passing up the job in Boston.

He started as the phone at his elbow rang.

He picked it up and answered, only to discover it was the
Los Angeles Times
wanting an interview.

He declined and hung up.

Now Griffin's fury at his amnesia made more sense. Or did it? Why exactly was he so angry at Peter? He'd apparently done the dumping. It was a bit unclear. Unless he really did think Peter was ripping off his own museum. Was that why he'd broken it off between them? Did he believe Peter was a thief?

The phone rang again.

Peter picked up. Another newspaper. The blood was in the water, and the sharks were circling.

Peter declined the opportunity to appear as newsworthy chum—less politely than he had turned down the
Times
—and hung up.

He was still staring at the phone when it rang yet again. An unpleasant reminder that he had more pressing problems than the fact that Mike Griffin didn't like him anymore. Peter was jobless, soon-to-be homeless, and probably going to prison for theft.

He took the phone off the hook.

It wasn't until Peter was scraping his dinner plate into the trash that he suddenly registered the absence of his laptop on his desk. He went into the study, and sure enough it was gone.

A quick search of the bungalow confirmed what he already knew. His laptop was gone.

Heart pounding, mouth dry, he called Cole.

It seemed a long time before Cole came on the line, and the sick knowledge roiled in Peter's belly that Cole might simply refuse to speak to him at all. But at last Cole got on the line sounding friendly but wary.

"Peter! How goes it?"

"You mean aside from your firing me today? Well, I was arrested. But I guess you knew that."

"I know. I heard your friends Roma and Jessica were able to put up the bail for you. I wish I could have ... Well, you know that. But the conflict of interest between the museum and—"

"Thanks for your concern,” Peter bit out. “But that's not why I'm calling. My laptop is missing."

"Oh.” Cole said awkwardly, “Someone should have left a note for you. That laptop is museum property, as I'm sure you realize."

"For chrissake, Cole. You're acting like I'm suddenly an enemy. Like I can't be trusted—"

"No, no. It's not that,” Cole broke in. “It occurred to us, to Dennis, actually, that the police were probably going to confiscate your laptop anyway, and we wanted to download everything we might need before it disappeared for God knows how long waiting for you to go to trial."

"Waiting for me to...” Peter's voice gave out at the casual reference to his future trial date and probable fate.

"Pete.” Cole stopped. He said carefully, “We have to be realistic here."

Peter couldn't have spoken had his life depended on it.

"Angie and I are more sorry than we can say that things have worked out like this for you. We don't think you stole from the museum, but..."

Angie and I?

"Right. Thanks."

"We have no doubt that you're going to be proven innocent, but I'm sure you see what a difficult position this is for me. Regardless of my personal feelings, my first responsibility is to the museum."

"Yes, I got that. I assume you want me to turn over my keys too?"

"Your keys to the museum, yes. There's no hurry about the bungalow. You still have nine days to vacate."

Peter said, “That's ... kind of you. Nine whole days. Can you wait for the keys until tomorrow or did you want me to bring them to you right now?"

A pause. Cole sounded very subdued as he said, “We've been friends a long time, Pete. Try to look at this from my perspective."

"Through your ass, you mean? Because that's what you're talking through.” Peter slammed the receiver down with a shaking hand. The phone rang half a minute after that. He let it ring until it stopped, and then he took it off the hook once more.

It took him a long time to relax enough to fall asleep when he finally calmed down enough to go to bed.

He wasn't sure what woke him. The squeak of a floorboard? A shadow cutting across the band of moonlight through the window? Whatever the warning, Peter's eyes jerked open on the knowledge that someone was in his bedroom.

There was a moment of sheer and paralyzing disbelief, and then some instinct urged movement, and he rolled off the edge of the bed. The mattress next to his head jerked, he heard the weird, squished sound of a silenced shot, then another, then another.

Horrified, he recognized that someone was shooting at him. Unbelievably, someone had just tried to
kill
him.

There wasn't time to think it through. He reacted automatically, grabbing the brass clock off the nightstand and throwing it hard at the tall silhouette illuminated in the moonlight. It made a
ping
as it connected with the intruder's head. He staggered back and fired, hitting the lamp next to the bed a few inches from where Peter was crouched and getting off another shot into the wall behind the nightstand.

There was nowhere to go. Peter dived beneath the bed. The shooter came around the side of the bed, stepping on the small round rug beside it, and some instinct guided Peter to grab the rug and yank hard. The man went down firing. Plaster drifted from the ceiling and a window broke.

Peter was out from under the bed desperately wrestling for the gun. He knew he was fighting for his survival, and that the only rule was to survive the next minutes. It was quick and dirty and brutal. Using both hands, he wrenched the gun out of the man's hand and threw it across the room. The shooter punched him in the head. Dazed, Peter let go, and the man rolled away and scrambled for the door. His footsteps thudded down the stairs, a door slammed and Peter scrambled over to the phone. There was no dial tone.

He thought his attacker must have cut the phone line, and then he remembered that he had taken the phone off the hook before bed.

Legs wobbling, he went downstairs, replaced the phone, and called 911.

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"That is a beaut of a shiner,” a familiar voice said admiringly. “What's the other guy look like?"

Peter looked up from the earnest face of the young female cop taking his statement. Michael Griffin stood beside the kitchen table, his blue eyes taking in Peter's battered face.

Peter held an ice pack to his right eye, swollen and already darkening. In addition to the black eye, he had a bruise on his jaw—as well as other less visible parts of his anatomy—a chipped molar where his teeth had collided, and two sets of scraped and bloodied knuckles.

He said bitterly, “What makes you think there was another guy? Maybe I did this shaving."

Griffin gave a harsh laugh, but it was a sore spot with Peter. The crime scene personnel currently wandering around the bungalow had been unable to find where his assailant had broken in. The window of the kitchen door was still boarded up and no other windows had been broken. Nor had either of the locks on the doors of the house been picked or broken.

No one actually came right out and accused Peter of rigging the whole thing, but the fact that he was the primary suspect in the theft of a very valuable painting was obviously being taken into account.

Griffin flashed his ID to the female officer. “Thanks. I'll take it from here. This is part of my ongoing investigation."

She slid out of the breakfast nook, leaving her notes, and Griffin slid in to take her place. He eyed Peter unsmilingly, “You okay?"

"Great."

"I'm serious. Do you need medical attention?"

Peter shook his head.

"Okay. So what happened?"

So much for sympathy. Not that Peter expected it—although, knowing what he now did about their former relationship, maybe he was unconsciously looking for some sign ... but there was nothing. He nodded—gingerly—at the uniformed cop who was disappearing into the other room, and Griffin said, “I know. Let's hear it again."

Peter told it all again. How he had woken out of a sound sleep to find someone in his bedroom and twenty seconds later found himself fighting for his life.

"What woke you?” Griffin asked, watching him closely.

"I don't know. Or at least I don't remember. It happened so fast. I was only half awake."

"What made you roll out of the way of those bullets?"

So Griffin had already been upstairs, already heard what the investigating officers had to say. This was probably just a formality. He already thought he knew everything he needed to.

Peter said wearily, “I honestly don't know. There was a shadow over me, and I just ... jumped out of the way at the same time he started firing.” He added without heat, “I know you don't believe me. I know you all think this is part of some involved cover story."

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to.” He stared through his good eye at Griffin. It was so weird knowing what he now knew. He wished ... he wished he could remember their former relationship. He wished Griffin didn't hate him so much.

Not that Griffin was acting like he hated him. Tonight he was all business, cool and professional.

"They can't find how he broke in,” Peter said.

"Maybe he didn't break in."

"Yes, that has already been suggested."

Griffin offered the wolfish grin. “Has it? That's not what I mean, though. I don't think you're stupid enough to imagine something like this would work to divert suspicion from you for the theft of the mural."

"And yet you think I'm stupid enough to steal from the museum and then report it to the cops."

Griffin's gaze held his own. “No. I don't, frankly."

Peter sat up a little straighter. “You don't?"

"No.” Griffin added, “That doesn't mean that having gone to the police about the thefts—establishing a precedent—you couldn't have arranged to have the mural stolen in an attempt to make it look like part of the same pattern. This was a very different kind of crime. The earlier thefts were all small items easily pilfered. Taking the mural required planning and a partner."

Peter gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

Griffin eyed him for an assessing interim. “But I don't believe you were involved in that either."

"You don't."

"No."

"Then what
do
you think is going on?"

"I think someone wants you dead, Peter."

Peter opened his mouth, but he couldn't think of what he wanted to say. The truth was, as shocking as it was to hear it aloud, he had already figured that much out.

Griffin was watching Peter's face as he continued, “Either because this someone thinks you know something, or because it's too obvious you
don't
know anything and will make a better scapegoat dead than alive.” He glanced over the uniformed officer's notes. “Let's take it from the top."

Griffin was thorough, no doubt about it. By the time he had finished reviewing Peter's account of the night's events, the crime scene personnel had cleared out and the windows were growing light. Peter's bruised and pummeled body was beginning to ache. He hurt from his face to his left foot—where he'd accidentally kicked the dresser while he'd been wrestling on the floor. He was so tired he could barely concentrate—but no way was he going to spend the rest of the night in the bungalow, and he said so to Griffin as he at last concluded their interview and rose.

"Where do you plan on going?"

"A hotel."

Griffin was staring at him, his expression unreadable. “What hotel?"

"I don't know. Wherever I can get in this time of night.” He glanced at the window. “Morning."

Griffin said, “I'll make a phone call and get you booked into the Best Western."

As gallant gestures went, it wasn't much, but tiredness and pain had lowered Peter's resistance and he was grateful for any sign of kindness. “Thanks."

Griffin brushed it off uncomfortably.

Peter blurted, “I remember, Mike."

Griffin looked guarded, wary. “Oh yeah? What is it you remember?"

Peter met his gaze straight on. “Not everything. But I know we started seeing each other after I reported the museum thefts. Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Because we shouldn't have been seeing each other,” Griffin replied shortly. “I crossed more than a couple of professional lines when we started going out. You want the truth? I thought you were pretending you didn't remember about us for your own reasons."

"What reasons?"

Griffin raised a shoulder in a kind of who-knows-with-you gesture.

"Why did you...? Is that why you broke it off? Because it was a violation of professional ethics?"

Griffin's face tightened. “I thought you said you remembered?"

Peter admitted, “It's more that I finally managed to put two and two together. I don't remember...” He couldn't seem to look away from Mike's blue, blue eyes. Hot color flooded his face as he got out, “I've been having these dreams ... and I think they're about you."

"You
think
?"

Peter said, “I know it sounds idiotic, but ... the doctors were right. I think I didn't remember because I didn't want to—because it was painful. I've been taking a prescription for anxiety and depression since December."

There was a funny break.

Mike's brows drew together. “You're on antidepressants?"

"I quit taking them after I got out of the hospital."

"Hell. You're not supposed to just stop taking that stuff, you know. If someone gets hold of that information ... your credibility could be further damaged."

"I know. Judging by the number of pills in the bottle, I think I was in the process of weaning myself off them. Anyway, the point is, a couple of friends told me that after we broke up, I was pretty depressed."