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She left her hand beneath his, cast him a sidelong glance and remained quiet. Silent assent. He had stated their position, he had made his own boundaries clear.
The game had begun.
CHAPTER 6
JOHN COULDN’T BELIEVE that Bailey had actually met with Raymond Greer and Ford Grace, the two suspects highest on her list, without informing him. If it hadn’t been for the late-morning call he’d received from Grace himself, he would have never known where she was.
The woman was going to make him crazy, that was all there was to it. If he let her. The problem was, he damned sure didn’t know how to stop her. She was independent, she wasn’t subject to anyone’s orders, least of all his and he doubted she would follow them if she was. She had her own agenda in mind and she hadn’t yet deigned to inform him of what it was, exactly.
That wasn’t going to be allowed to continue.
He had a pretty good idea of what she was doing, but it was time he heard it from her. It was time he got several things aired out with her.
If she was still the woman she had been five years ago, then ordering her wasn’t going to work. But he knew what would work. He had learned that little lesson in Australia.
Pulling into the driveway of the Serborne mansion, he stared up at the imposing two-story cabin, if you could call a fifteen-room mansion a “cabin.” Huge windows looked out on the driveway as weathered cedar siding gave the structure an aged, welcoming look.
It was a home she had turned her back on. She’d had a family she’d walked away from, a fortune she had rarely dipped into. Because her father hadn’t believed in her, because his friendship with another man had been more important than his daughter’s belief that his friend had murdered his family.
A wife and a daughter who had be
en trying to escape him. She suspected Ford Grace had hired an assassin to create a convenient accident the night Mathilda and her daughter Anna had tried to run from the Grace mansion.
She was still searching for proof, still trying to prove to her father that the man he had believed in was a killer.
Tightening his lips in frustration, he moved from the SUV he had driven back, just as the butler opened the door for her.
With a quiet “Thank you,” she moved away from the employee who’d helped raise her and entered the house. John followed closely behind.
“Upstairs,” he told her, making certain his voice carried no farther than her ears. “We’re going to talk.”
Talk wasn’t all he had in mind, but it would be a good start.
“Of course.” Her tone was agreeable, but there was nothing agreeable in the tension that tightened her body.
It was hidden very well. To the casual observer, she was relaxed and smiling—but he knew her. He’d worked with her enough that he recognized the signs of stress ratcheting through her system. Stress that he didn’t think was entirely attributed to their lunch.
Not that Raymond Greer and Ford Grace couldn’t give the hardiest system heartburn. They could. Their self-importance could be sickening at times. But she had been raised here, she knew them, she understood that attitude and had developed her own, which she used with amazing grace.
Hell, there had been times he wished he had access to the financial freedom she had, but he was beginning to rethink that wish. It took a type of personality that he didn’t possess, that he would never be able to acquire.
Moving into the bedroom behind her, John closed and locked the door before moving to her dresser where she had positioned a white-noise device. Turning on the small electronic bug neutralizer, he turned back to her and watched her silently for long moments.
She didn’t appear the least nervous. Pulling off her leather jacket, she hung it in the large walk-in closet at the side of her room, then toed off her sneakers and placed them perfectly alongside designer shoes.
Returning to the bedroom, she moved to her dresser, removed her jewelry, and placed it in a small engraved silver box. She was quiet, her expression clear. But he could feel the tension emanating from inside her. Like a string wound too tight and humming.
“You should have let me know about the lunch,” he stated as he leaned against the wall and simply watched her. “We’re supposed to be working together here.”
Her head lifted, and their gazes met in the mirror. “Like you invited me to the meeting you had with the rest of your team this morning?” she asked.
John hid his surprise. How the hell had she known he’d had a meeting with the team?
Bailey’s lips quirked into a sardonic smile. “Don’t expect concessions that I’m not given as well,” she told him coolly. “I can be a hell of a team player if the team I’m on actually understands working together.”
His jaw tightened at the statement. “You’ll be a team player on this one regardless,” he informed her. “You’re going to have to accept that the team surrounding you will remain invisible, Bailey. It’s the only way to do this. Don’t make things harder than they have to be.”
“Simply accept that I’m no more than an asset in this little game then?” she asked haughtily as she turned around, her movements slow and deliberate. “Do you really think it’s going to be that easy, John?”
