Leaning back in my chair, I played along. “You think so?”
“It’s so obvious.”
“Really? How?”
“I don’t know. Like how his voice changes when he talks about you. I can’t explain it, but I’m telling you, he’s dying to get you back. You’re the one who told him to bring me along tomorrow, didn’t you?”
“Not precisely—”
“Ha! I knew it. He always does what you tell him.” She laughed. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Thank him. I’m just looking forward to seeing you again.”
Ireland was the one person in Gideon’s family for whom he felt untarnished affection, although he tried hard not to show it. I thought maybe he was afraid to be disappointed or afraid he might ruin it somehow. I wasn’t sure what the deal was, but Ireland hero-worshipped her brother and he’d kept his distance, even though he needed love terribly.
“Promise me you’ll try to talk to him,” she pressed. “You still love him, right?”
“More than ever,” I said fervently.
She was quiet for a minute, then said, “He’s changed since he met you.”
“I think so. I’ve changed, too.” I straightened when Mark stepped out of his office. “I have to get back to work, but we’ll catch up tomorrow. And make plans for that girls’ day we talked about.”
“Sweet. Catch you later!”
I hung up, pleased that Gideon had followed through and made plans with Ireland. We were making progress, both together and on our own.
“Baby steps,” I whispered. Then I got back to work.
AT noon, Mark and I headed out to meet Steven at a French bistro. Once we entered the restaurant, it was easy to spot Mark’s partner, even with the size of the place and the number of diners.
Steven Ellison was a big guy—tall, broad shouldered, and heavily muscled. He owned his own construction business and preferred to be working the job sites with his crew. But it was his gloriously red hair that really drew the eye. His sister Shawna had the same hair—and the same fun-loving nature.
“Hey, you!” I greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, able to be more familiar with him than I was with my boss. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, darlin’. Mark is finally going to make an honest man out of me.”
“It’d take more than marriage to do that,” Mark shot back, pulling out my chair for me.
“When haven’t I been honest with you?” Steven protested.
“Um, let’s see.” Mark got me settled in my seat, then took the one beside me. “How about when you swore marriage wasn’t for you.”
“Ah, I never said it wasn’t for me.” Steven winked at me, his blue eyes full of mischief. “Just that it wasn’t for most people.”
“He was really twisted up over asking you,” I told him. “I felt bad for the guy.”
“Yeah.” Mark flipped through the menu. “She’s my witness to your cruel and unusual punishment.”
“Feel bad for me,” Steven retorted. “I wooed him with wine, roses, and violin players. I spent days practicing my proposal. I still got shot down.”
He rolled his eyes, but I could tell there was a wound there that hadn’t quite healed. When Mark placed his hand over his partner’s and squeezed, I knew I was right.
“So how’d he do it?” I asked, even though Mark had told me.
The waitress, asking if we wanted water, interrupted us. We held her back a minute and ordered our food, too, and then Steven started relaying their anniversary night out.
“He was sweating like mad,” he went on. “Wiping at his face every other minute.”
“It’s summer,” Mark muttered.
“And restaurants and theaters are climate controlled,” Steven shot back. “We went through the whole night with him like that and finally headed home. I got to thinking he wasn’t going to do it. That the night was gonna end and he still wasn’t going to get the damn words out. And there I am wondering if I’ll have to ask him again, just to get it over with. And if he says no again—”
“I didn’t say no the first time,” Mark interjected.
“—I’m going to deck him. Just knock his ass out, toss him on a plane, and head to Vegas, because I’m not getting any younger here.”
“Definitely not mellowing with age, either,” Mark grumbled.
Steven gave him a look. “So we’re climbing out of the limo, and I’m trying to remember that fan-f**king-tastic proposal I came up with before, and he grabs my elbow and blurts out, ‘Steve, damn it. You have to marry me.’ ”
I laughed, leaning back as the waitress put my side salad in front of me. “Just like that.”
“Just like that,” Steven said, with an emphatic nod.
“Very heartfelt.” I gave Mark a thumbs-up. “You rocked it.”
“See?” Mark said. “I got it done.”
“Are you writing your own vows?” I asked. “Because that’ll be really interesting.”
Steven guffawed, snagging the attention of everyone nearby.
I swallowed the cherry tomato I was munching on and said, “You know I’m dying to see your wedding binder, right?”
“Well, it just so happens …”
“You didn’t.” Mark shook his head as Steven reached down and pulled a bulging binder out of a messenger bag on the floor by his chair.
It was so packed that papers were sticking out of the top, bottom, and side.
“Wait ’til you see this cake I found.” Steven pushed the breadbasket aside to make room to open the binder.
I bit back a grin when I saw the dividers and table of contents.
“We are not having a wedding cake in the shape of a skyscraper with cranes and billboards,” Mark said firmly.
“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “Let me see.”
WHEN I got home that night, I dropped my purse and bag off in their usual place, kicked off my shoes, and went straight to the couch. I sprawled across it, staring up the ceiling. Megumi was going to meet me at CrossTrainer at six thirty, so I didn’t have a lot of time, but I felt like I just needed a breather. Starting my period the afternoon before had me riding the edge of irritation and grumpiness, with a dash of exhaustion tossed in for shits and giggles.
I sighed, knowing I was going to have to deal with my mom at some point. We had a ton of crap to work through, and putting it off was starting to bug me. I wished it were as easy to work things out with her as it was with my dad, but that wasn’t an excuse to avoid addressing our issues. She was my mother and I loved her. It was hard on me when we weren’t getting along.
Then my thoughts drifted to Corinne. I guess I should have figured that a woman who would leave her husband and move from Paris to New York for a man wasn’t going to give up on him easily, but still. She had to know Gideon well enough to realize hounding him wasn’t going to work.
And Brett … what was I going to do about him?
The intercom buzzed. Frowning, I pushed to my feet and headed over to it. Had Megumi misunderstood and thought we were meeting here? Not that I minded, but …
“Yes?”
“Hi, Eva,” the guy at the front desk said cheerfully. “NYPD detectives Michna and Graves are here.”
Crap. Everything else lost significance in that moment. Fear spread through me with crawling fingers of ice.
I wanted a lawyer with me. Too much was on the line.
But I didn’t want to seem like I had anything to hide.
I had to swallow twice before I could answer. “Thanks. Can you send them up, please?”
14
MY HEART WAS pounding as I hurried to my purse and silenced the burner phone, tucking it into a zippered pocket. I turned around, looking for anything that might be out of place, anything I should hide. There were the flowers in my bedroom and the card.
Unless the detectives had a warrant, though, they could only take note of what was in plain sight.
I ran to shut my door, then went ahead and shut Cary’s, too. I was breathing hard when the doorbell rang. I had to force myself to slow down and walk calmly to the living room. When I reached the front door, I took a deep, calming breath before opening it.
“Hello, detectives.”
Graves, a rail-thin woman with a severe face and foxlike blue eyes, was in the lead. Her partner, Michna, was the quieter of the two, an older man with receding gray hair and a paunch. They had a rhythm between the two of them—Graves was the heavy who kept the subjects occupied and off-balance. Michna was obviously good at fading into the background while his cop’s eyes cataloged everything and missed nothing. Their success rate had to be pretty high.
“Can we come in, Miss Tramell?” Graves asked in a tone that made the question a demand. She’d tied her curly brown hair back and wore a jacket to cover her holstered gun. There was a satchel in her hand.
“Sure.” I pulled the door open wider. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”
“Water would be great,” Michna said.
I led them to the kitchen and pulled bottled water out of the fridge. The detectives waited at the breakfast bar—Graves with her eyes pinned to me while Michna scoped out his surroundings.
“You just get home from work?” he asked.
I figured they knew the answer, but replied anyway. “A few minutes ago. Would you like to sit in the living room?”
“Here’s good,” Graves said in her no-nonsense way, putting the worn leather satchel on the counter. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind. And show you some photos.”
I stilled. Could I bear to see any of the photos Nathan had taken of me? For a wild moment, I thought they might be pictures taken at the death scene or even autopsy shots. But I knew that was highly unlikely. “What’s this about?”
“Some new information has come to light that could be related to Nathan Barker’s death,” Michna said. “We’re pursuing all leads, and you may be able to help.”
I took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m happy to try, of course. But I don’t see how I can.”
“Are you familiar with Andrei Yedemsky?” Graves asked.
I frowned at her. “No. Who’s that?”
She dug in her bag and pulled out a sheaf of eight-by-ten photos, setting them down in front of me. “This man. Have you seen him before?”
Reaching out with shaking fingers, I pulled the top photo toward me. It was of a man in a trench coat, talking to another man about to climb into the back of a waiting town car. He was attractive, with extremely blond hair and tanned skin. “No. He’s not someone you’d forget meeting, either.” I looked up at her. “Should I know him?”
“He had pictures of you in his home. Candid shots of you on the street, coming and going. Barker had the same photos.”
“I don’t understand. How did he get them?”
“Presumably from Barker,” Michna said.
“Is that what this Yedemsky guy said? Why would Nathan give him pictures of me?”
“Yedemsky didn’t say anything,” Graves said. “He’s dead. Murdered.”
I felt a headache coming on. “I don’t understand. I don’t know anything about this man, and I have no idea why he’d know anything about me.”
“Andrei Yedemsky is a known member of the Russian mob,” Michna explained. “In addition to smuggling alcohol and assault weapons, they’ve also been suspected of trafficking women. It’s possible Barker was making arrangements to sell or trade you for that purpose.”
I backed away from the counter, shaking my head, unable to process what they were saying. Nathan stalking me was something I could believe. He’d hated me on sight, hated that his father had remarried instead of mourning his mother forever. He’d hated me for getting him locked up in psychiatric treatment, and my being awarded the five-million-dollar settlement he thought of as his inheritance. But the Russian mob? Sex trafficking? I couldn’t comprehend that at all.
Graves flipped through the photos until she came to one of a platinum sapphire bracelet. An L-square ruler framed it—unmistakably a forensics shot. “Do you recognize this?”
“Yes. That belonged to Nathan’s mother. He had it altered to fit him. He never went anywhere without it.”
“Yedemsky was wearing it when he died,” she said without inflection. “Possibly as a souvenir.”
“Of what?”
“Of Barker’s murder.”
I stared at Graves, who knew better. “You’re suggesting Yedemsky could be responsible for Nathan’s death? Then who killed Yedemsky?”
She held my gaze, understanding the motivation behind my question. “He was taken out by his own people.”
“You’re sure about that?” I needed to know that they knew Gideon wasn’t involved. Yes, he’d killed for me—to protect me—but he’d never kill just to avoid going to jail.
Michna frowned at my query. It was Graves who replied. “There’s no doubt. We have the hit on surveillance footage. One of his associates didn’t take too kindly to Yedemsky sleeping with his underage daughter.”
Hope surged, followed by chilling fear. “So what happens now? What does this mean?”
“Do you know anyone who has connections to the Russian mob?” Michna asked.
“God, no,” I said vehemently. “That’s … another world. I’m having trouble believing Nathan had any connections. But then it’s been years since I knew him …”
I rubbed at the tightness in my chest and looked at Graves. “I want to put this behind me. I want him to stop ruining my life. Is that ever going to happen? Is he going to haunt me even after he’s dead?”