Dangerous Deception

She paused then to assess. His office was furnished in an eclectic style that mixed eighteenth century furniture with the functionality of the present. She had an impression of understated elegance with an edge of ruthless practicality. A bank of computers covered part of one wall, with the rest of the area utilized as a work space. His desk sat facing a huge row of windows overlooking massive oaks draped with Spanish moss encircling a small pond. There was a sitting area across the room, with wing chairs arranged in front of an ornate fireplace of polished walnut. Elegance, style and purpose. The room reflected all of that. She thought it was an equally accurate description of the man who occupied it.

The walls were covered in art that even her untrained eye recognized as genuine. During the short course of her marriage, she’d been dragged to enough museums and art showings to have acquired a modicum of knowledge. She recognized the small Degas hanging side by side with a painting of the French Quarter done by a local New Orleans artist. The next one, a surrealistic seascape was reminiscent of the Impressionist period. And hanging amidst them all, matted and framed with the same care, were three pictures obviously done by a child’s hand, with the name Ana scrawled in the corner of each. The detail was the only unexpected note in the space, but she was given no time to dwell on it.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Ms. Corbett?” With the door shut behind her, the warmth had vanished from his voice, to be replaced by polite interest. It didn’t escape her notice that he didn’t invite her to sit.

Reaching into her purse, she extracted an envelope. “I came to return something of yours.” When he made no move toward her, she approached him, took his hand and pressed it into his palm. Her gaze fixed on his, she curled his fingers around the packet, and tried to ignore the warmth that transferred at the touch. “I don’t keep money I haven’t earned.”

He glanced down, his expression blank for a moment. “Ah. I’d forgotten.” He tucked the envelope in the inside pocket of his suit jacket.

“I can’t remember ever being so careless with five hundred dollars, but I guess you had a lot on your mind.”

“I did, yes,” he replied.

Sensing that now-or-never time had arrived, Tori drew in a deep breath and barreled on. “Your visit got me a little curious.” Okay, it had gotten her a lot curious, but it seemed wise to gloss over that fact. “I couldn’t help wondering what could have been so important about a twenty-year-old case that would have had you looking up my dad again.”

He lifted an elegantly clad shoulder, the casual gesture at odds with his aristocratic bearing. “Nothing to wonder about, really. Just tying up some loose ends.”

He was, she decided studying him, lying through his perfectly even teeth. Running the tip of her tongue over the incisor she’d chipped slightly on Ralphie Lowell’s head in sixth grade, she considered how to proceed. Although she was something of an expert in the art of bluff and parry, he didn’t seem to be the type of man to appreciate such tactics. In the end she thought a straight forward approach would serve best.

“A man like you doesn’t check on ‘loose ends’ himself unless it’s a matter of some importance.” She found it a bit disconcerting to meet his expressionless regard but kept her own gaze steady. “You could have called, or had any number of your employees dispatched to make the inquiry. That you came in person tells me the nature of your visit was personal. Two decades ago you would have been what? Eighteen?” Her words brought a frost to his eyes that dispelled any pretense of civility. He wouldn’t appreciate that she’d researched him before coming here, although certainly he should have expected it.

She moved away from him, trailing her fingers over the back of a chair covered in midnight-blue leather with the texture of melted butter. “I’ve drawn some conclusions about what my dad might have been working on for your father. You never really said that day in the office.”

“I didn’t, did I? Most would consider that to mean I wasn’t interested in discussing it with you.”

His expression, she noted with a detached sort of amusement, had gone from frosty to glacial. She was certain she was supposed to be cowering before it. But she’d always had more courage than sense. “It occurred to me that you didn’t get what you’d come for on your visit.”

A sudden stillness came over him. “You mean you found the files after all?”

With no little regret, she shook her head. “The fire that destroyed Dad’s office wiped out an entire city block. No, I mean you came for answers but you didn’t find them.” Circling the chair, she dropped into it, tilted her chin toward him. “I’m offering to help you get them.”

His smile was somehow more insulting than his earlier dismissiveness. “An intriguing proposition from an equally fascinating woman. However, I’m not in need of the services you’re offering.”

“I think you are.” She doubted he was used to being disputed. A man didn’t rise to the level he had in the corporate world without encountering his share of yes-men. “Whatever brought you to my office was something you want to keep private, or you wouldn’t have come yourself. I can’t get you the files you’re seeking, but I think I could reconstruct the information that was in them.”

Reaching down for her battered briefcase, she placed it on her lap and snapped the locks open. “You said your father had hired mine. Given the time period you mentioned, I figured this might have been what Dad was investigating.” She handed him the stack of newspaper clippings, the headline of the one on top proclaiming, Tremaine Tot Returned Safely. The others in the pile were no less attention grabbing. Kidnapping Plot Foiled. Teenage Boy Local Hero. It wouldn’t do for Tori to admit to the curiosity that had kicked in as she’d started researching the Tremaine family. Growing up in Louisiana there was no way she could have avoided hearing the occasional talk about the tragedies that had dogged the prominent family all those years ago.

But immersing herself in the stories, she’d soon grown fascinated by the details. The passage of time didn’t lessen the horror felt at the thought of a three-year-old child being snatched out of her bed in the middle of the night; hadn’t dimmed the tragedy of the girl’s parents being killed in a car accident less than six months after her safe return.

Tremaine made no move to take the stack of articles, and his voice when it came was more than a little disparaging. “If you were half as careful with your research as you’d like me to believe, you’d have discovered that I’m no fan of tabloidism.”

Tori dropped the clippings back in the open briefcase. “And your family’s no stranger to it. I got that. But a good investigator uses every tool at her disposal, and newspapers are a great place to start.” Looking up again, she caught his gaze on her. “Do you have the name of the person who hired my Dad after your parents’ accident?”

He didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. She saw the answer on his face, in the deliberately blank mask that he’d drawn over his features. She sat back, a bit stunned. “It was you, wasn’t it? But you were barely more than a kid yourself at the time.”

“I’ve always felt that need dictates maturity more reliably than does age.”

She could wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. Even at twenty-eight her husband wouldn’t have approached anyone’s definition of mature. Which was only one of the many reasons he’d become her ex.

Thoughts of Kevin Stephen Corbett III were delegated to a particularly shadowy corner of her mind, where she preferred to keep them. “So you hired my dad to investigate your parents’ accident?” She didn’t need his answer to be certain she was on the right track. Which was fortunate, because he didn’t appear disposed to give her one.

“Ms. Corbett…” It was clear Tremaine had reached the end of his patience.

“Earlier you called me Tori,” she reminded him.

He drew in a breath, expelled it slowly. “Tori.” She decided her name had sounded better on his lips when it wasn’t uttered from a tightly clenched jaw. “The only help I was interested in you cannot provide. You can’t produce the files and, unfortunately for us both, your father can’t answer my questions.” He headed for the door, a not-so-subtle indication that the meeting was over. “Thank you for returning the money. I hadn’t expected it.”

“Then you must be used to dealing with a different caliber of people.”

He turned, his lips curving just slightly. “I think we can both be assured of that.”

“So if you’re the one who hired my dad after your parents’ accident, you’d have your own file on that investigation. He wouldn’t have kept anything of interest in his that he hadn’t shared with you.” She ignored his stoic gaze, cocked her head, mind still racing furiously. “And why now? I mean, what would suddenly make you start looking for information that’s more than twenty years old?”

There was a definite un-Bond-like muscle twitching in his cheek. “I just happen to have some spare time on my hands and thought I’d check into a few things I’d been wondering about.”

Tori shook her head, slouched more comfortably in her chair. “Now you’re not even trying. If you’re going to lie, make it believable.”

His eyes narrowed. Again she was given an impression of danger lurking just beneath his polished exterior. “Are you sitting in my office calling me a liar?” The lethal tone suggested that she backpedal, fast.

It was a suggestion she chose to ignore. “A not-very-good liar,” she corrected. “I’d think it was lack of practice, but given your experience in the corporate world, you must have plenty of that. So I figure it’s just me. You don’t know me, so you don’t respect me enough to expend the energy necessary for a really good story.” She waved a hand, indicating she wasn’t going to take offense. He appeared less than impressed with her forbearance. “I’ve given this some thought and I figure something had to have happened to torch your curiosity about those events.”

“You have an overactive imagination.”

She refused to take offense. “Uh-uh, just an ability to connect the dots. The FBI never did catch whoever kidnapped your sister when she was a toddler, but she was found safe and sound before your family paid a ransom. So it’s doubtful that you’re interested in that particular investigation. That leaves the one you hired my Dad for. Since you’ve waited this long, something must have happened recently to convince you there was more to the story.”

His face was impassive. “Are you finished?”

“Almost.” Something about his still air had a chill skittering down her spine. She’d trailed unsavory characters through the back alleys of New Orleans and never experienced this level of unease. Shaking off the reaction, she went on with more confidence than she felt, “You may not have gotten what you came for when you stopped by my office, but I can get it for you.” When he started to speak, she held up a hand to stop him. “I understand you’ve got a brother who has made a name for himself as a detective for the NOPD. He’s probably capable of acquiring certain types of information, as well, but it occurred to me that had you wanted to involve him, he would have been the one to show up at Landry Investigations, instead of you.”

She reached into her briefcase again, surprised to see her hands trembling, just a bit. Handing him a file folder, she said, “You came to me looking for answers of some kind, Mr. Tremaine. Whether you know it or not, you need me if you hope to find them.”

Chapter 2

Chewing on the inside of her cheek was a nervous habit she’d outgrown when she was twelve, so Tori willed herself to stop doing it now. But that flinty-eyed stare Tremaine arrowed at her after glancing at the pictures in the file folder would have mowed down the firmest intentions. “Where did you get these?”

“From a scumbag photojournalist who’s a great admirer of his own work.” Kiki Corday wouldn’t blink at the description, as long as he’d made a buck on the deal. He also never threw away a shot he’d taken as long as there was the remotest possibility he could still cash in this time. He’d certainly cashed in on it. “He assured me they wouldn’t have been part of the police file.”

“They weren’t.” Tremaine snapped the folder shut and thrust it toward her again. She felt twinges of sympathy and regret. Sympathy, because looking at old photos of the automobile wreckage that had killed his parents couldn’t be pleasant. And regret that she’d been the one to make him do so. “They also don’t prove a thing.”

“I disagree. They prove that I have sources you don’t.” She lifted her shoulders, then let them fall. “They prove you need me, or someone like me, if you want information. Check out the other contents in the folder.” With a visible show of reluctance, he did so. It took conscious effort for her to push aside a sneaky blade of guilt. James Tremaine was on a quest that was bound to stir up more than a few old wounds. She shouldn’t, wouldn’t feel responsible for his pain. She looked away from him, concentrating on the century-old oaks outside while he flipped through the reports and pictures in the file.

When he spoke, there was a strange note to his tone. “You have a copy of the sheriff’s accident report in here. How’d you get your hands on that?”

Her brows skimmed upward. “It’s what I do, ace. That’s why my license says Investigator. I investigate stuff.”

“I’ve always made it a point to avoid working with smart-asses,” he said mildly, continuing to flip through the file. “Bad for the blood pressure, and who needs the aggravation.”

It took a great deal of effort on Tori’s part to avoid a delighted grin. Not over the smart-ass comment, although truth be told it wouldn’t be the first time the description had been applied to her. But his comment could be interpreted, in a roundabout, insulting sort of way, that he might be considering working with her, couldn’t it?