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Even her face looked different, pale and taut with violet smudges beneath her eyes. No wonder Blake had accused her of being dead on her feet. She looked like a zombie.
She took off her pearl necklace and tucked it into the right pocket of her jacket. And then she swiftly stripped off the dinner suit, tossed the shredded panty hose in the wastebasket, and donned Blake’s black sweat suit and white socks. Her thoughts strayed to the image of Blake wearing the same clothes and she blushed. But she had to admit that they were much more comfortable than her own, at least for now.
The garments were too big for her, of course, but the tight bands at the wrists and ankles took up the excess length and the drawstring kept the pants from falling down. Hardly a seductive outfit, she thought critically... but then, she wasn’t planning to seduce Blake, she corrected herself hastily.
The thought had never even crossed her mind.
Liar, a voice inside her head taunted. She ignored it.
Leaving her hair loose to her shoulders, and combing it with her fingers for lack of anything better to use, she opened the bathroom door and stepped out, her jacket and skirt folded over her arm.
Blake hung up the telephone just as she walked into the bedroom. He looked at her with a slight smile. “You look much more comfortable.”
Feeling a bit self-conscious, she nodded and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yes, I am, thank you. Did you reach your friend?”
Something shifted in Blake’s expression. “Why don’t you lie down and get some rest,” he said, reaching out to pull down the spread on one of the beds. “We’ll talk later.”
Tara narrowed her eyes, staring at him intently. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing important.”
But he didn’t meet her eyes when he answered. Tara didn’t believe him. “You said you wouldn’t keep anything from me,” she reminded him sternly.
He sighed and looked at her. “Even if it’s something you really don’t want to hear?”
“Especially then,” she answered, and braced herself. “What is it?”
“My friend told me that a black sports car has been found abandoned at a motel in Marietta.”
“Yours?”
He nodded. “He said that the police are looking for the owner of the vehicle—a man who was registered at the motel as Bradley Hunter—for questioning in the art gallery robbery.”
“Is the car registered in your real name?”
He shook his head. “I have it on loan from a rental company in Atlanta. Bradley Hunter was the name I used when I rented it.”
“Do you ever use your own name?” she asked in exasperation.
“Not very often.”
She was too tired to pursue that particular oddity, considering what he’d already told her. “So, someone is trying to set you up as a robbery suspect. Maybe even a murder suspect.”
“It appears so.”
“Why?”
“Good question. I wish I had the answer.”
“Why hasn’t my name gotten out? We know they have it.”
“We know someone has it,” Blake corrected her. “We don’t know that the police do.”
She ran a weary hand through her hair, trying to find some logic in a situation that seemed to make no sense at all. “But why? If someone is trying to set us up, wouldn’t they want the police looking specifically for me?”
Blake reached down to lift her feet gently onto the bed. It was an indication of how tired she was that she didn’t resist when he eased her down against the pillows, much as he would a sleepy child. “We can talk after you rest,” he said, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her.
“You haven’t answered my questions,” she reminded him, settling more comfortably into the pillows.
