And the “in” that would allow her to find out who among them had raped Julie Fairbanks and not paid for the crime. Which would, hopefully, lead her to the mole in the Santa Raquel Police Department who put payoff money above the well-being of young women.
Leaning on his hand on the wall beside them, Colin asked, “Are you avoiding...”
“No.” She couldn’t lose him. Everything fell apart if she lost him. The Morrisons. Julie. Johnson...
Shaking her head at that last inane thought, she looked up at him. “I rarely work past midnight,” she heard herself telling him. “If you don’t mind the late hour, you’re welcome to stop by after that.”
She knew exactly what she was offering. She wanted to believe she knew why. She’d made a mistake and let things go way too far. But she couldn’t back out now. Not without risking the entire assignment. She couldn’t have him thinking that she had regrets.
Colin wasn’t the type of man who begged. Unless he was certain he was going to get what he was after. One hint from her that she wasn’t as interested as he was and he’d be out her door. Permanently...
She couldn’t lose him.
He put his hands in his pockets, drawing her attention downward, and she grinned. “I guess that means I’ll be seeing you?” she asked. Her body reacted to his in a way that shocked even Harris. She couldn’t wait for the moment she opened that hotel room door to him...
“I’ll be there,” Colin said. “Order something chocolate from room service.”
She was off at eleven and would bring a change of clothes with her to the station. Get out of her uniform in the backseat of her clunker, and then catch a cab to the resort. Unless there really did happen to be violence on her shift that evening.
She’d worked dozens of these events and mostly just got bored and waited for her dinner break. But there was always a first time.
In which case...she’d cross that bridge if she came to it. She’d call Colin with an excuse. And a promise to make it up to him.
Leslie Morrison got away with it—the lying excuses part. Allegedly.
She wasn’t going to borrow trouble.
She had enough of it on her plate already.
* * *
COLIN PLANNED TO show Chantel around the mansion, being certain to include his private quarters—and skip his sister’s—while Julie got lunch on the table. She’d been a little curt in her refusal to let Chantel help her, and he wanted to give his sister some space.
He also kind of liked the thought of having a picture of his very private space embedded in Chantel’s mind.
“What’s going on?” she asked as they stood in what had once been his father’s law library but was now Colin’s home office. “Did I do something to upset Julie?”
The genuine worry in her tone spoke to him more than it should have. He had it bad for her.
“No. She’d have canceled lunch if that was the case,” he assured quickly. If Chantel was going to spend time with them, she needed to understand. “Ever since... Julie isn’t good about handling personal tension. She can go head-to-head at a board table, but if it gets personal, she checks out. If she was upset with you, she’d more likely be bolted in her room right now, not getting lunch on the table.”
A vision of the bolted lock Julie had insisted they have installed on her bedroom door—one that had a keyed lock that he could enter in case of emergency—sprang to mind. Giving him a second’s guilt as he half disclosed the private information by his word choice.
Yet, he didn’t feel as disloyal to his sister as he might have, which kind of disturbed him. He felt safe speaking with Chantel—certain that he could trust her. And he’d seen men fall, lose everything, for trusting a woman who drove his dick.
That wasn’t him. He was too careful.
“So if it’s not me, what’s bothering her?”
Her gaze told him she wasn’t going to let this go.
“I’m not sure,” he said. But he had a good idea. The information just wasn’t his to give.
“It must have been something Leslie said,” Chantel continued, barely looking around the room where he’d spent so many of the important moments in his life. It was in this room that he’d told his father that he wanted to be a lawyer. It was also where he had learned of his mother’s death.
He’d been sitting at that desk, working on a case and waiting up for Julie, the night she had come in ravaged and broken after Smyth had drugged and raped her.
“She was fine until she was in the boardroom alone with Leslie...” She sounded as though she was realizing the facts as she spoke. And she probably was. Julie hadn’t been animated on the drive home, but she hadn’t been obviously upset, either.