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container of milk.
What the hell? He put the pan down. He wouldn’t be showing off his culinary skills today. They were going to the damn grocery store, because he couldn’t survive on rabbit food.
His cell phone rang. He’d already spoken with his mother, so it was likely either one of his friends or . . . “Hello, Gus. Are you doing all right?”
“I’m great. I got to eat reporter for dinner last night. Dumbass kid thought he could sneak into a press conference on his boss’s credentials. Have I ever properly explained how much I enjoy ruining the lives of the completely stupid?”
His sister was a pistol. “I know it’s a hobby of yours. Now ask me what you know you want to ask me.”
She let loose a long sigh. “Fine. How is she?”
Gus had missed Holland and had given him holy hell for their breakup and his impulsive marriage. “She’s Holland. She’s strong, but I hurt her.”
“Asshole, you practically eviscerated her.”
“You know at the time I thought she’d betrayed me in the worst way possible.” They’d been over this before, but he still felt the need to defend himself.
“At the time, I believe I told you there was something fishy going on, but does anyone listen to me? You all think I’m just a gorgeous warrior woman, but I have deep feelings, too. Well, not really, but I appreciate it when others have them. And I know when someone is hiding something, which Holland definitely was. Women like Holland don’t change, not for money or sex or fame. So you need to get on your knees and beg like a good man should.”
“Do you think I wouldn’t try that? She won’t listen to a word I say whether I’m on my knees or not.”
His sister scoffed and he could practically see her rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t talking about words, silly. I was talking about oral sex. You need to get down there and not let up until she’s had so many orgasms she’s too exhausted to fight you anymore. Trust me. This is a tried-and-true technique. I had to deal with a very obnoxious foreign ambassador last week. No one thought I could get him to move on trade concessions. But three hours later and the U.S. of A. had the deal of a lifetime.”
Dax’s ears burned. “Are you kidding me?”
“I’m a motherfucking patriot, brother. So I know of what I speak. Get on your knees and beg properly or I’ll come down there and make the noogie incident of eighty-nine look like a walk in the park. I want Holland as my sister-in-law.”
Damn, Gus really was mean. “And I want to give her to you, though for my own selfish reasons. But I don’t think she’s going to give in so easily. I really hurt her.”
“And she hurt you.” His sister’s voice softened. “Don’t give up. She loved you enough to let you go. You need to remind her that she loved you. She turned down that super cheesy engagement for a reason. Most women wouldn’t. That ring alone would have swayed the majority of women, but Holland didn’t even look at it. She just shook her head the whole time. You still have a shot with her.”
Did he? He couldn’t stand the thought that he didn’t. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Do. You’re a damn Spencer, Dax. It’s time you started acting like one. We don’t back away from the things we’ve done wrong. We fix them. You’ve spent the last three years of your life hiding and let everything slip away. I want my brother back.”
Damn, Gus was right. He had hidden away and licked his wounds and tried to forget.
He’d been an idiot. He should have stood strong, dug deeper, and figured the situation out. He should have been right back on her doorstep. He loved her. He’d never stopped loving her. If she’d kept up the ruse that she’d betrayed him, he should have made it plain that was unacceptable behavior and dealt with it. He should never have run.
Dumbass.
He’d left Holland all alone, abandoned. He’d left everyone who mattered to him when he really thought about it. And he’d done his father a grave disservice. Gus was right. Spencers didn’t shrink back when they’d done wrong. They faced it. Like his father would have faced a trial and fought like hell to reclaim his name and reputation. “Have you seen the pictures?”
He’d sent them to Connor and Roman the night before.
“Oh, yes. Roman tried to pretend they weren’t there. I guess he wanted to protect my delicate disposition.” She laughed. “But I know his passwords.”
“Augustine!” a masculine voice shouted.
So she was hanging out with Roman. Her voice went low. “You know the man has a weird Magnum P.I. fixation. So yes, I’ve seen them and I don’t believe them. They’re doctored in some way or he was drugged. Look at the sheets and the bedding. Do those look like they belong at a cheap motel?”
He strode to the table and pulled out the file. In seconds, he located the printed pictures, blown up to reveal the image’s finer details. He hadn’t paid any attention to the actual furnishings or appointments, only the two people. “I don’t know a lot about sheets, Gus.”
“Well, I do. Do you see how the sheet has a bit of a gloss to it?”
“Like it’s satin or something? You don’t think the motel had satin sheets?”
She made a gagging sound. “No one has satin sheets, brother. Seriously, leave the seventies behind. I’m saying that the sheets have a nice thread count. Higher than the crap they would have at a no-tell motel. Beyond that, I examined the corner of the third photo.”
He flipped through until he found the image she referred to. It was a picture with the sheets gathered around the couple on the bed. All of the photos had been taken from a single location in the room and captured the same general view. In this one, his father seemed to be on top of the young girl, his body pinning her to the bed. There was no way to miss the scar on his back. He’d taken fire once and the shrapnel left a silvery section of scars on his back, winding around to his chest. For a moment that was all he could see—the seeming proof that his father had been unfaithful and criminal. “I’m looking at it.”
“First off, this photo doesn’t look very active. Stop looking at it like a son and put your thinking cap on. I’m putting you on speaker because Roman’s poking me.”
“Hey, first off, I did not put her up to that crap with the Brazilian ambassador. I knew nothing,” Roman said quickly. “Secondly, I think she’s right about this picture. If these two are engaged in sex, why are his muscles so slack? She’s the only one who seems to have any motion in these photos. Hell, she’s the only one who looks coherent.”
Dax put his cell on speaker and laid out the photos. He’d spent so much time focused on that scar that identified his father. He’d seen these pictures through the eyes of a son betrayed and hadn’t truly studied them as an investigator. He forced himself to pull back.
The muscles of his father’s back were completely at rest. In every photo. The only movement he could discern was the girl’s. She pushed at him as though trying to fight off an attack. But Dax wasn’t convinced that one had actually happened.
“He’s drugged,” Dax said.
“We can’t know that beyond all doubt, but the lax state of the musculature leads me to believe that your father wasn’t as engaged physically as the people who sent these photos want us to think,” Roman said.
“Let me translate the lawyer speak for you,” Gus offered. “These pictures are complete bullshit.”
Roman sighed. “She’s probably right.”
“Of course I am. And I’m also right about the hotel,” Gus insisted.
“What about the motel?” Dax couldn’t think of what she was talking about.
“No. Not motel. That’s the whole point.” His sister was like a dog with a bone, but she seemed to be thinking without all the anger and disillusionment he had been.
“You think these photos were taken somewhere else?”
Dax turned because the voice had come from behind him. Holland stepped in, looking down at the photos.
“Holland? Hey, girl. You unders
tand that you have to fucking answer my fucking calls now or I swear to god I’ll send you a strip-o-gram an hour until you do,” Gus vowed.
Roman cleared his throat over the speaker. “She really will do that. I thought she was kidding. Imagine having to explain to White House security why ten strippers were requesting access to my office.”
Holland sniffled a little, and he could have sworn tears had welled in her eyes. “Hey, Gus.” She turned her attention right back to the task at hand. “What were you saying about the motel?” She touched one of the photos. “Oh, I see what you mean. Look at the clock. That’s not a cheap piece of crap. That’s a docking station.”
“Yes, it is,” Gus replied.
“Hell, I missed that,” Roman said, disgust in his voice. “I had one of those a few years back. They get outdated pretty quickly, but for the time it wasn’t cheap. I think one of the big luxury chains used to have those in every room.”
“The same one that uses Italian-made sheets.” Gus’s tone rang with triumph. “Look at the corner of the photo. There’s a tag hanging off. It’s hard to see but if you look through a magnifying glass that’s the logo of a very expensive Italian sheet maker. The sheets themselves are made of expensive percale. Hence the pretty sheen.”
Holland whistled. “She’s right. I splurged on some myself. They’re pricey. A seedy motel would never have the budget for these. The pictures must have been taken elsewhere.”
Dax thought back. He’d gone over his father’s every move a thousand times. “He’d been in London the week before.”
“You’re right,” Gus agreed. “He told me he’d been feeling really run-down while he was there, like he’d been on the verge of getting the flu or something. But what he’d been was drugged, and that’s when all of this went down. He’d been at a conference. Let’s check into that, see if we can find out anything.”
“No, Gus. There’s no point.” He hated to have to disillusion her. “I’ve already checked into the timeline.”
“There was no conference,” Holland said.
Dax speared Holland with a surprised glance.
She shrugged. “I made a timeline, too. I have notes on everywhere your father went for the six weeks preceding his death.”
“No conference?” Gus asked. “You think he was meeting one of his mistresses? If so, I can try to find out. I don’t recall him having one in Europe, at least not one that Mom knew about. But it’s possible.”
“Or he was there for another reason entirely and that’s what got him killed,” Dax said with finality. The truth seemed right at his fingertips. That trip to England must play into this.
Holland nodded his way, giving him support. “I know he stayed at a Gately Resort Hotel. They use the same sheets and bedding worldwide. Only the colors change. Roman, I’m going to bet you have some killer MI5 contacts.”
“I’ll get on it,” he replied. MI5 was England’s version of the FBI. “It’s been years, though. I don’t know what they’ll have. CCTV feeds are only kept for so long.”
“Try anything.” This was the first real lead they’d had in so long, and Dax meant to follow it as far as he could. “We’ll pull all his credit card records and try to figure out where he went while he was there. You two let me know what you discover.”
“Will do,” Gus said. “And you should really work on that other project we discussed.”
“Five hundred bucks says Dax is shit out of luck,” Roman offered.
Great words of encouragement from one of his best friends. Good to know he had support.
“Oh, I will take all of your money, Calder,” Gus shot back. “Bye, Holland. Have a good time with Dax. I’m coming to see you in a few weeks. Plan something fun.”
The line went dead.
He turned and Holland was still looking at that phone wistfully, as if she hadn’t wanted the call to end.
She’d cut herself off from everyone to save him. He had to find a way to give it back to her. Maybe Gus was right. Maybe charm would work. And oral sex. He was willing to give it one hell of a shot.
* * *
Holland stared at the screen, her mind wandering.
“Did you find anything?”
She shook her head as Dax brought her out of her thoughts. She’d been remembering those days three years earlier when she and Dax had finally come together and everything seemed possible. Today he’d lingered in her space. She sat at her laptop, running through reports and looking at his father’s credit card receipts from the London trip. Dax hovered right behind her, crowding her. She could smell the soap he’d used earlier, feel the heat of his body. Every now and then he brushed against her, skin to skin, and she remembered exactly how long it had been since she’d felt real lust.
Hours had passed, and now the day was sinking into night again. Dax was still here and he showed not a single sign of leaving.
“I have receipts for fuel,” Holland replied. “I found a rental car agreement, too. He bought gas twice. My question is why would he need a car in London? It’s so much easier to use public transit. Even getting to and from other major cities in England is easier to do on trains. So I think he was heading somewhere off the beaten path.”
Dax nodded. “Where did he purchase the fuel?”
She winced. “Just outside of London. It looks like he filled up the tank both times at a petrol station on the M25, the highway that runs around London. From there he could have gone anywhere, though I suspect he was heading north from the placement of the station.”
She wished she had better news. Hell, she wished she could simply solve the whole thing so he could go on his merry way and not sit across the table, tempting her with what could no longer be.
He’d behaved perfectly all day. He’d even brought takeout back for lunch so they didn’t have to pause long. He’d brought exactly what she’d asked for. A spinach salad. The bastard had also brought a muffuletta sandwich and a dozen macaroons from the bakery down the street. And pralines. He’d claimed they were a late afternoon snack. He’d even made her a cup of tea to go with it.
Damn man. Somehow her appetite had come roaring back, too.
She was already wondering if she could sneak in a glass of that stupidly excellent wine with whatever dinner Dax cooked up. He’d brought a sack of groceries in earlier with their lunch, claiming she needed a proper meal.
She’d really been skimping on her calories lately. Somehow she’d let Chad the Ass convince her she was carrying a bit too much weight. It had been a subtle thing, really. He’d mentioned his own diet and then somehow she’d started falling in line.
The realization was maddening because she wasn’t the sort to change for a man. And she was only eating the stupid pralines now because they tasted good.
Dax sighed. “That led us nowhere. And he didn’t use his credit card for anything but the gas and hotel.”
“He withdrew a thousand pounds sterling at Heathrow, so he probably used cash for everything else.”
“Damn it. What was he doing over there?” Dax sounded as frustrated as she felt.
Her cell phone rang. Holland looked down, saw who it was, and sent his ass straight to voice mail.
Dax speared her with a glance. “Should I have a talk with your erstwhile suitor?”
“He’ll eventually go away.” She was fairly certain of that. It was her uncle who wouldn’t leave her in peace. He’d left a single stern message asking her to call him because he’d heard that she was in serious trouble.
She was in serious trouble because she was already softening toward Dax. At one point she’d actually found herself nearly touching him like old times. She’d stopped short, before she’d lost her head in all his warmth and muscled goodness.
“How did you get involved with him?”
“How did you end up married to a woman you never even dated?” She sounded like such a freaking shrew. The words just popped out, bubbling up and exploding like a nasty volca
no of jealousy.
He sank into the seat beside her. “I was stupid and foolish and so angry I couldn’t see straight, so I got drunk as shit. I make lousy decisions when I’m drunk as shit, sweetheart.”
She stood up. “I’m not talking about this.”
“We have to.”
They did not. She shook her head and strode away, escaping onto the balcony for some fresh air. Her body felt tight, every muscle as taut as a bowstring. How would she survive being locked in with him for days? Weeks?
Fresh air didn’t help. The humid air dripped moisture. And
