Julie Miller – Last Man Standing (страница 11)
She’d dropped the towel.
A better man might have turned away, but Cole couldn’t. Slim and delicate from the nape of her neck down to the heel of her foot—with miles of smooth, milky skin in between—Victoria Westin didn’t look like any professor he knew. Even in black and white, she was tall, lean and sexy. His pulse quickened. His lips parted to accommodate the sudden heat inside that sought escape.
She’d pulled on panty hose, a slip and a plain green dress before he forced himself to blink and look away. He retreated all the way to his desk to grab his suit coat from the back of his chair and slip it on, needing the physical activity to work off the tension that made him edgy and horny and frustrated as hell. He needed a long workout in the gym or a stiff drink. He didn’t need to be dreaming up scenarios about slender redheads doing stripteases.
He was in one screwed-up mess, sitting on a time bomb. He’d uncovered dates and codes and had no clear idea whether they were legit or not, without outside verification. He hadn’t heard boo about his mother’s recovery from being attacked. And he was certain that someone in this house suspected he was a traitor. They might not know he was a cop, but he or she saw him as a threat.
How else could he explain the influx of invitations to sit in on every meeting? Not just with Jericho, but with Chad and his fiancée. Paulie. Aaron, too. Supervising deliveries, consulting on stock options, hiring accountants. Strategies for dealing with a relentless district attorney who’d published yet another interview about his determination to rid Kansas City of organized crime. He’d never been so popular.
What did they want him to say? That he knew the assistant district attorney personally? That ADA Dwight Powers believed Jericho Meade had gotten away with murder?
Someone was trying to keep Cole very busy, and feed him lots of misleading information in an effort to trip him up and reveal his connection to Dwight Powers.
“What the—?”
Victoria Westin had just slipped something inside the lining of her jacket. Cole moved closer to watch. She smoothed lipstick over her lips and smacked them together, studying her appearance in the mirror. The luscious shape of her mouth interested him almost as much as what she did next. Instead of replacing the cap, she unscrewed something from the bottom of the tube and tucked that into her jacket as well.
“What are you up to?” he whispered to the image on his screen.
Cole buttoned his jacket as she opened her door and peered into the hallway. He typed in a command and switched the view to the one from the upstairs hallway camera, and caught her slinking along the railing toward the landing’s sitting area.
“That’s beyond curious, lady. Who are you?”
Instincts borne of too many years on the job transformed his suspicion into a defensive awareness that radiated through his skeleton and sharpened every sense. He looked past her to the bigger picture on the screen.
Where was Aaron? Polakis was supposed to be watching her until dinner.
A nosy guest. A missing guard.
Too many unanswered questions.
When Ms. Westin peeked over the top of the banister before tiptoeing down the stairs, a plan took shape in Cole’s mind.
It was crazy. It was desperate.
But it was a plan.
WITH RIMSKY-KORSAKOV filling the room and the ear of whomever might be listening on the other end, Tori slipped out her door and made her way to the grand staircase.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
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