Once Upon A Marriage

He looked over at her before he’d even started the vehicle. Tall, bright security lights popped on around them as dusk was turning to darkness.

“That’s why he asked me to lunch today,” she babbled, to fill the silence. “He wanted to tell me that he won’t be able to accompany me to the theater anymore. He and Rebecca are getting season tickets together.”

There. She’d told someone. She hadn’t even been able to keep a boring mama’s boy faithful to her.

Not that she’d tried. She’d told Burton, quite emphatically, that she was not and was never going to be interested in a romantic relationship with him.

“I’m happy for him,” she blurted next. Why didn’t he turn on the car? Get them home where she could take a hot bath and forget life’s little embarrassments?

Or cry in a glass of wine?

“The timing kind of sucks, though,” she added when he just sat there.

“Why’s that?”

He’d been listening to her. “You know, with Gabi and Liam all newlywed-like. At least I could count on Burton for a night out when I needed it.”

She couldn’t believe how selfish that sounded. Out loud. What about what Burton needed?

“I really am happy for him,” she said, feeling better for no reason whatsoever. As evidenced by the smile she sent Elliott’s way. She’d just needed to talk the whole thing through. Would have done so with Gabi by now if her friend were around more.

“I think you really mean that.”

“Of course I do. He’s a nice man. A good man. He deserves to be happy.”

He’d probably be faithful, too.

Marie kept that last thought to herself.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_a841714c-e430-5dc0-aaf9-77139c762fe6)

LIAM, WHO’D GRADUATED with a degree in finance and business administration, but a minor in journalism so he could pursue his first love—writing—had a full day at the Connelly Building on Thursday. Jeb Williams, his father’s bodyguard and also a financier on the top floor, had Liam’s back while he was in the building, but Elliott insisted on seeing the man to and from the downtown high-rise. Gabrielle first, then Liam. Reverse on the return. With time in between to watch the neighborhood around the Arapahoe. To talk to people. Get a report from the security guard checking residents in at the back door. Something was amiss. He just didn’t know what.

So there’d been a blue car with a stolen plate that had left when he approached. Didn’t mean it had anything to do with Liam Connelly. Or was any threat to Marie.

His gut was telling him not to walk away from this one. Not to let go.

Because there was something he hadn’t seen yet? Something he’d missed?

Or because he needed to believe there was still danger so he’d be forced to stay on this job?

Liam waited inside the employees’ private parking garage entrance to the Connelly Building until Elliott pulled up in the SUV. Finally. He’d been telling his client to take his safety more seriously since news of his father’s duplicity—and the company’s criminal activities—first broke.

“Williams is going to be calling you,” the expensively suited man said as he settled casually into the seat. Before Elliott could ask why, his cell rang and Williams’s name popped up.

“You got Connelly there with you?” The man, whom Elliott had first visited during his initial investigation of Liam on behalf of Barbara Bustamante, didn’t introduce himself.

“Yes.”

“Has he told you about the reporters?”

“No.” He didn’t look at his charge.

Pulling out of the darkened garage into bright sunshine, Elliott turned left, making another quick left to head toward the building that housed the public law offices where Gabrielle worked.

“He sent me an email while I was out. While he assured me he was going to be lunching in, after which I kept the business lunch I’d scheduled, he instead skipped out to a corner deli apparently to meet with his editor to go over last-minute edits to the May installment of the series he’s writing on his father’s life...”

The words earned Liam Connelly a sharp look from Elliott, but the financier didn’t seem to notice.

Elliott knew better. Liam Connelly was a smart man. He knew he’d made a mistake. He’d emailed Williams.

And warned Elliott.

Liam was an honest man. He also was his own man. He did what he thought was right. To the point of stupidity, in Elliott’s opinion. Not that he blamed the guy. Liam’s adamant independence was a product of growing up under the abusively domineering hand of a father who’d been determined to control him at all costs.

“Let me talk to him,” Elliott said now, breaking into whatever Williams had been about to tell him. “I’ll get back with you.”

He didn’t work for Jeb Williams. Didn’t really even know the guy. Other than to know that his initial association with Williams had inadvertently allowed him to walk into the perfect cover for the job he’d been on. And while Liam Connelly was paying him—a nonnegotiable term on Liam’s part, one that Elliott had fought—even Liam was unaware that he’d come to them initially through Barbara Bustamante. And was still on her payroll, as well.

“I screwed up,” Liam said as soon as Elliott slid his smartphone back into its holster.

“How bad is it?”

“That jerk reporter, Tarnished Truth...”

Elliott recognized the name. The sleazy reporter who sold his work to sensationalistic independent internet news sources had gone after Liam and Gabrielle back in February, lying in wait and then infusing slimy innuendo into the stories he reported.

“He must have followed me,” Liam said. “I can’t believe it was the coincidence he claimed that he happened to be there. He said that he thought he owed it to me, because of his unbecoming behavior earlier in the year, to let me know that there’s been some talk at a bar he hangs out at—some reporter hangout, according to him. Word is I’ve now taken over my father’s business.”

“You’ve taken on a more active role,” Elliott said.

“He claims that the rumor is that this whole scheme was prearranged, like Agent Menard and the FBI originally thought. That my father and I had some big plan to frame George so I could take over if the Ponzi scheme ever came to light.”

“They have reams of proof that George Costas was behind the fraudulent investments.” Elliott tackled the obvious while his mind worked furiously on the real piece of news.

The press—at least certain members of it—were still out to hang Liam. Probably because he was young, good-looking and recently married, making him of keener interest to their readers. He was good for drama to those who cared more about such things than about newsworthy facts. And a source of jealousy to a lot of people.

“You and I know all about the evidence against George. Doesn’t mean the press knows.”

“My understanding was that Costas could be close to a plea deal.” He’d heard that straight from Liam.

“That’s what Gwen Menard told me when I spoke with her last week.” The FBI agent who’d originally questioned Liam.

Talk of a plea deal was worth nothing until it actually happened. Could change in the space of a heartbeat—or a conversation. And until it was done, Liam and his father were going to be under attack.

Even after it was done the suspicious-minded would probably still doubt them. Still wonder. Still tell the stories conjured up by their conspiracy-theory mind-sets.

“I’m assuming you set him straight,” Elliott said, making the last turn that would allow him to pull up at the curb right outside Gabrielle’s building.