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At the moment, he’d said no, but he’d lied. Gabe needed to get her naked and underneath him. He needed to get his hands on her so he could assure himself that she was alive. Damn, he was the one who needed some comfort.
“You all right?” Dax crossed his arms over his chest as he looked over the mess of the parking garage.
Absently, Gabe thought they’d have to bring in a structural engineer to ensure that batshit crazy bitch hadn’t made the entire building unstable.
“Not really. I want to know everything about that woman.”
Dax nodded. “After the questionable catering receipts, Connor started working on it. He pulled Valerie’s records and found that she failed to disclose some time she spent institutionalized for emotional issues.”
“Are you kidding me? How the hell did she get hired?”
“C’mon, Gabe. You know that, by law, HR departments can’t ask about certain personal issues. She apparently tried to have that period sealed off, but Connor found it easily enough. Rumor is, she was also known around the office for being very willing to accommodate her male bosses.”
So she slept around. “I still don’t understand what she meant about Everly planting evidence against her.”
Dax’s brows rose as he thought. “I suppose she’s trying to persuade everyone that she didn’t embezzle any funds. It should be easy enough to prove. It’s a lot of money. If Valerie is guilty, I doubt she buried it in coffee cans in her backyard. We’ll figure it out, but I think it’s safe to say that attempting to murder Everly will likely carry a longer sentence.”
His heart rate ticked up again. “That’s not funny.”
“Too soon to joke. Got it. Sorry, man.” Dax patted him on the back. “Why was Everly down here?”
Gabe hadn’t thought about her reason for coming down here, only about getting to her so he could ensure her safety.
Luckily, one of the guards had seen her striding toward the parking garage. It had been simple enough to check her progress through security cameras and discover she was on the bottom level. What—or who—the hell was down here? Not her car. According to her, she usually rode the subway into work, and Dax had brought them here this morning in the limo.
“When the elevator doors first opened, she was talking to someone,” Gabe observed. “A man, I think. I thought he was just someone she knew. The asshole didn’t stick around to make sure Everly was all right. He might have been scared, but now I wonder. Most people would assume Valerie had simply had a car accident. They would make sure no one needed medical attention and give a statement to the police. Not this guy.”
“You thinking he knew otherwise and ran?”
“Something like that. Except he didn’t run away, he walked. Now that I think about it, he was surprisingly calm.”
“Sounds like Everly arranged to meet clandestinely with this guy. Gabe, have you stopped to think that she might have been meeting a reporter?”
He shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that, at least not knowingly.”
“A lot of women would enjoy the attention.”
“Believe me, not Everly.” Gabe wouldn’t believe that unless he caught her sitting in a newsroom and wired with a microphone, ready to go national.
He stopped. He trusted her. The realization stunned him. He really trusted her. He would believe whatever she told him because he knew this woman deep down to her soul. Oh, he might not know every detail about her—how she liked her eggs or her favorite things to do on a lazy Sunday—but he damn well knew her character.
“You’re sure?” Dax quizzed, but his smile made Gabe think his friend trusted her, too, and just wanted him to admit it.
“I’m sure. If she met with someone, then she thought that person could help. I’ll ask her about it.” He raked his hand through his hair, aware that he seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. “It’s past five-o’clock for her, as far as I’m concerned. She’s been through enough today. Why don’t you bring the limo around? I think the police are finishing up here, and the last thing I want to do is remain at the office.”
He needed to be alone with her. Seeing her almost die today, knowing he could have lost her irrevocably, had changed something inside him. Yes, last night had been harrowing, but he’d been a part of it, with her every step of the way. Today, he’d barely been able to do more than watch Valerie try to mow her down. He was furious Everly had put herself in a position to be the crazy woman’s target, but he knew damn well his girl hadn’t come here for selfish reasons.
Gabe knew he’d screwed up. He should have believed her when she’d sworn she and Mad hadn’t been lovers, but he’d been so sure she’d been lying because he hadn’t believed someone like Everly Parker existed. His cynicism might cost him the one woman he could love.
Shit, he’d thought about love again. He could definitely love Everly if he could break past her walls and earn her trust. She’d had them before he’d come along, Gabe was sure, but his idiotic comments to his sister and that damn report had turned her little garden partitions into a mighty fortress around her heart. And his lifestyle. He couldn’t discount that.
Goddamn it, he really needed to be alone with her, find out what she’d been doing here, who she’d been talking to, and how sweet she’d taste now that he knew his feelings.
Then he had to figure out a way to earn her trust again.
After a nod at the policeman she’d been talking to, she turned and walked back in Gabe’s direction, her fully restocked purse hanging at her side. The new dress she wore had a tear in the skirt and a giant smudge of dirt on the shoulder. She still looked so gorgeous he could barely stand not touching her. Even in the gloom, she practically glowed.
“The EMT cleared me. I don’t have any signs of concussion, so I won’t need any tests at the hospital. I think they’re done with the paperwork for the evening. I’ll have to go down tomorrow and they’ll need witness statements, but the security cameras should pick up most of the incident. I think it will be very hard for Valerie to say she missed that turn.” She put a hand on one hip, and her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to assume you found me using the security cams. You didn’t LoJack me in the middle of the night, did you?”
No, but Gabe was thinking he might try that next. He hadn’t liked not knowing Everly’s whereabouts. The damn woman so rarely stayed where he put her.
Was it wishful thinking to hope that he wouldn’t need measures that drastic? That the danger would finally stop? It looked as if Valerie was the bad guy in this mystery Mad had left behind . . . but Gabe wasn’t totally convinced. “The guards helped me track you.”
“All right. I’ll roll with it because I really am happy not to be a corpse. Any particular reason you decided to track me down in the middle of the afternoon?”
How did she manage to make him feel slightly guilty for invading her privacy instead of like a hero for saving her life? “We found proof that Valerie was the one who broke into your office. Then I . . .” How could he explain this without sounding like a loon? “I got a feeling you were in danger and that I should find you.”
“It didn’t help that no one could find Valerie, either,” Dax added.
“That makes sense. She clearly had it in for me—for all the wrong reasons.” She sighed. “I think the cops are assuming Valerie was the one who hired the Brighton Beach boys to torch Maddox’s house because he was obviously investigating
her.”
“It’s logical,” Gabe admitted. “I’ll feel better once we find the money she embezzled.”
At least it would prove that she was guilty, not merely unhinged.
“Yeah.” Everly sent him a contemplative stare. “I’ll look into her financials as soon as I can, but I’m still not sure she’d know how to blow up a plane.”
Dax cleared his throat. “Um, that’s not an issue anymore. While Everly was talking to the police, I got a call from Roman. The FAA has reversed its position on the crash. They say the chemicals found at the site were the result of cross contamination and not actually on board the plane. Apparently, there’s a chemical plant in the area that’s being investigated by the EPA for illegal dumping into the area’s waterways.” He swallowed. “They’re ruling the crash pilot error.”
Though he no longer apparently had the threat of a murder charge hanging over his head, a cold chill swept over Gabe’s skin. “Bullshit. Mad couldn’t possibly have erred so badly that his plane crashed.”
Everly looked frozen as well. “Are you sure? There was a storm
