Page 21 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)

That white-hot episode in the conference room hovered between us in the silence, complete in every delicious erotic detail. She licked her lower lip until it gleamed. The look in her eyes was cautious, but a hint of a smile played there.

I scoped the room with my peripheral vision.

The bed, piled high with books, didn’t look promising, but the beanbag chair behind her had possibilities.

I could wedge her into it, pin her down with my weight, rock against her, slide into her—her body squeezing around my cock every time she came. Yes.

I reached out, letting my fingertips glide down her cheek, her soft throat.

Over her breastbone. I spread my whole hand over her, feeling the quick, hard throb of her heart beneath my palm.

My other hand slid up her thigh, gripping where the fabric of her stockings ended and soft, hot skin began.

The energy built between us, swelling into something inevitable.

She bit her lower lip, her breathing uneven.

Then it happened again—just like on the street. That ghostly sensation. Like a cobweb breaking across my mind. My guard slipping.

I froze, my grip tightening on her thigh. My eyes swept the small apartment. Nothing moving. Nothing changed. Just the sounds of the street outside.

“What is it?” Nell asked.

“Shhh,” I hushed her, reaching out with my senses.

Two steps took me to the barred window overlooking a blind courtyard filled with garbage cans. Empty. Just a couple of rats scrounging. But the feeling remained. And by now, I trusted it blindly.

I was being watched. The hairs on my neck stood on end.

My gaze landed on the smoke detector attached to the low ceiling. I reached up and carefully detached it.

“Duncan, what are you?—”

“Shhh.” I didn’t want to talk. Not with unfriendly eyes watching, unfriendly ears listening.

It was almost too easy. A tiny video camera was taped to the side of the black smoke detector, nearly invisible. The device had been gutted, its interior used to house a transmitter. I stared at it, cursing myself for touching it.

Finger-fucking the evidence.

Gant would lecture me. He never wasted an opportunity to give me hell.

“What on earth is that thing?” Nell’s voice was thin and high.

“A video camera,” I said. “Someone’s been watching you.”

She made a strangled sound and put her hand over her mouth.

Shit-eating bastards, violating her hard-earned private space. Watching while she undressed, bathed, ate, slept. Probably watching her now—seeing her hurt and scared. That infuriated me.

I laid the thing down on her table. “Don’t touch it,” I warned. “It might have prints.” I looked around the room again, trying to imagine where I would plant spyware if I were one of them.

She had an old-fashioned phone. I grabbed the horn, unscrewed the mouthpiece. Bingo. I shook the listening device onto the table without touching it, then answered the question in her eyes.

“A drop-in bug,” I said. “They’ve been monitoring your phone conversations.”

Her eyes were huge. “I ... but I talked to Vivi just this morning?—”

“We’ll discuss it later,” I cut her off. “Not here. Let’s just get the fuck out of this place. It makes my flesh creep.”

“Ah, y-y-yes,” she stammered, flustered. She looked around wildly. “Um ... what was I?—”

“Laptop. Clothes,” I reminded her. “Fast. Oh, and that phone? Leave it. It’s probably compromised, too.”

Her eyes widened. “But … my sister’s numbers are?—”

“Write them down. I’ll get you a new one. The laptop is probably?—”

“I can’t leave that,” she said. “It has all my scholarly work on it.”

“Fine. Tomorrow I’ll go through and make sure there’s nothing planted in it.”

She gave me an eloquent glance, but was quickly distracted when I started helping her, scooping stuff out of drawers at random.

That perked her right up. She shoved me away with an irritated sound and finished packing her clothes.

Then came the shoes, the toiletries bag—vials, bottles, tubes, packets of this and that.

And then it was the books. Fuck a duck. She heaved eight of them into the huge suitcase. Big motherlovers, too. The suitcase wheels were probably going to collapse.

I dragged her and her bag out the door after that, scanned the stairwell landing, then stuck my head back inside her door. I made an obscene gesture, for the benefit of any hidden cameras I hadn’t found.

“You’re not getting her,” I told the bug on the table. “Fuck off and die, shithead.” I slammed the door for emphasis.

The driver stowed the suitcase in the back, and took off. I was starting to feel the effects of the adrenaline crash, and I was grateful not to be driving myself. Nell was alarmingly quiet, throat bobbing. The silence was heavy.

I reached for the first thing I could think of to break it. “Do you have a copy of that letter your sister found?” I asked. “The one you told me about yesterday?”

“I have it scanned onto my computer,” she said. “Why?”

I shrugged. “I’m just?—”

“Interested. Yes. I’ve noticed. I’ll show you anything you want to see.”

I stared out the window, wondering what my next move should be. A Korean deli was coming up on the corner, with banks of multicolored flowers on display. “Stop the car,” I told the driver.

Nell looked startled as the car braked and I flung the door open. “Don’t worry,” I assured her. “This’ll just take a second.”

I stared at the flowers, at a loss, then grabbed a bunch of the best-looking long-stemmed roses out of a bucket. I handed the boy sitting next to the flowers a handful of cash and got back into the car.

“Here.” I handed her the flowers, realizing too late that the long, thorny stems were dripping all over her lap. I hadn’t even had them tied, wrapped, trimmed. But she looked at me, wide-eyed. Cautiously charmed. She sniffed them, sighed with pleasure.

She smiled at me. It had worked. Praise God.

After a moment, she reached for my hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I appreciate the fact that you’re interested. I’m probably still alive because of it. I just don’t get it. Why is this happening? It’s senseless.”

“Money,” I said.

She looked over at me, blankly. “Huh?”

“Money is why this is happening,” I repeated. “Money is always the reason.”

She looked doubtful. “Huh. Maybe you haven’t noticed this yet, Duncan, but I don’t have very much of it. Practically none, to be honest.”

I shook my head. “Even so. There’s a short list of motivations for crimes like this. Insanity, revenge, or money. I doubt you girls have pissed anyone off that badly?—”

“We haven’t. Not one of us. We’re a pack of goody-goody pussycats.”

I nodded. “Right. And there’s the murdered jeweler and his family, too, so I’d strike personal revenge as a motive.

We could consider revenge against your mother, but that falls pretty flat since she’s passed on.

Insanity’s a possibility, but there are the references in those letters, to maps, searches, keys, secrets.

Whoever this dickhead is, he’s invested a lot of time and money watching you and your sisters.

Whatever Lucia wanted you girls to find?

It means big bucks, and they won’t stop till they have it. ”

Nell massaged her temples. “It’s so ironic if that’s true.” She sounded exhausted. “We don’t need this money. We don’t give a shit about money. None of us do. All we want is to do our thing and live our lives in peace. There’s so much to freak out about, so much to be scared of. I’m … I’m in tilt.”

“Don’t think about it,” I suggested. “Just put it out of your mind.”

“Neat trick.” There was a smile in her voice. “And just exactly how do you suggest I manage that?”

It had been such a weird evening, I decided one more crazy risk wouldn’t change anything. I lifted her hand and gave it a long, lingering kiss.

“I’ve got a few good ideas,” I said.

She laughed behind her hand, and the vibrations in her shoulders went on for so long, I got nervous that she might actually be crying again. But when she looked up, she was smiling, even though her eyes were wet.

“Wow. I had no idea I was so damn funny,” I said. “Who knew.”

She threw her head back and wiped her eyes. “It’s not you. I just can’t believe it. I felt safe in my place after I put the alarm in. The thing cost a fortune. And the whole while, they were watching me. God, it makes my flesh creep. How did they get in there?”

“They probably wired the place before you even put the alarm in.” I handed her my phone. “Call your little sister. If she’s told you where she’s going on that telephone, tell her to change her plans.”

“Oh, God, you’re right. Vivi.”

She called, and I listened to her garbled, one-sided conversation for the rest of the drive to my Upper West Side condo. The driver pulled over at the lobby entrance. She was still talking as I paid him.

“... can’t stay with me there any longer, Viv.

Haven’t you been listening? They’ve been watching us all along!

We can’t go near the place until we fix this mess.

Go to Liam and Nancy’s … yes, I know, I know, but please, be a grown-up, Viv.

Being a fifth wheel is better than being stuffed into the backseat of a car .

.. oh, no, don’t worry about me. I’m staying with a friend. ”

Her eyes flicked to me. Her voice got defensive. “No, you don’t know him ... yes, it is a him, okay? And so? What of it?”

I heard a shrill burst of female verbosity from the phone, and Nell snorted. “If you must know, he’s the one who clobbered the kidnappers for me ... Yes! Of course I knew him before! He’s my new boss.”

Another impassioned burst from the phone.

“Look, Viv, I know it’s crazy, but can we thrash this out another time?” Nell pleaded. “Come to the seisiún at Malloy’s tomorrow night with Nancy and Liam, and we’ll talk there, okay? ... Of course. Of course I will. Okay. You be careful, too.”

She ended the call and handed the phone back to me. “She’s staying with an old art school friend that she met at the crafts fair by chance, and we never discussed that on the bugged phone or my cell, thank God. Snake Eyes has no line on her there.”

“Could you folks work all this out once you’re outside the car?” the driver asked, his voice plaintive. “I got another call. I gotta go right now.”

I led her into my building, dragging her huge suitcase behind me into the elevator. It whooshed up thirty-five floors, and I closed the apartment door after her, engaging the chain, the deadbolts, and the alarm.

I let out a long, relieved breath. Finally, I had her right where I wanted her.

Whoever would’ve thought it would take this goddamn much effort.