His thumb tapped rhythmically against the steering wheel as the car drifted out of the small town—taking her farther away from her goal, and her passport.
‘It’s not stealing if someone’s already stolen from you,’ she offered, after considering her options. She didn’t plan to tell this arrogant stranger anything but she didn’t want to end up in a cell either.
His thumb tapped three more times. ‘No, actually, technically it’s still stealing.’
Great, the man wasn’t just a bullying jerk, he was a self-righteous bullying jerk—with eyes bluer than Daniel Craig. Her pulse spiked.
Get over the eyes. Looks can be deceiving—you know that.
‘How much?’
‘How much what?’ she asked, confused by the question.
‘How much did Demarest take you for?’
The toneless enquiry had all the pain and humiliation charging up her throat and threatening to gag her. She swallowed down the bitter taste. So she’d made a mistake. A stupid, selfish mistake by believing in a guy who had never been what he seemed. But she’d spent the last two weeks trying to put that mistake right—that had to count for something.
‘Not me, my father.’ She stared out of the window into the darkness. The car had reached the bluff over Morro Bay and even though she couldn’t see the ocean, she could sense it.
She hit the button to slide down the window, suddenly desperate for the scent of fresh air. The dry ache in her throat caught her unawares as the musty scent of earth, and sea and tree sap brought with it a vivid picture of Kelross Glen. The little Highland town in the foothills of the Cairngorms she’d spent the first twenty-four years of her life trying to escape. And every second of the last two weeks wishing she could return to.
She hit the up switch, sealing out the painful memories. She couldn’t go back, not until she made amends for Brad and the childish wanderlust that had drawn her to him in the first place. She had to get at least some of her father’s money back. And if that meant tracking Brad the Cad through every dive on California’s coastline—and putting up with the arrogant guy seated beside her—she’d do it.
‘How much did he take your father for?’ The sharp question jolted her out of her thoughts.
‘Twenty-five grand,’ she said. Her dad’s life savings. Peter MacCabe had believed he was giving Iona a shot at her dream—but Brad’s promises of setting her up as a wildlife artist in Los Angeles had been as false and shallow as he was.
She pushed out a shaky breath.
Stop being a drama queen.
Once she’d given Detective Sexy the slip and worked out a way to get back into Brad’s room, she’d finally be able to look for her dad’s money.
‘You don’t seriously think he’s got twenty-five grand in Irish bills stashed in his motel room do you?’
The incredulous statement had her head whipping round. And her eyes narrowing.
‘I’m not Irish, I’m Scottish,’ she said, indignation ringing in her voice—how come no one in California knew the difference between a Scottish and an Irish accent—hadn’t any of them ever watched Braveheart? ‘And I don’t see where else he would put the money. He’s not likely to be using a bank account, is he?’
‘When did he hit your old man?’
‘December.’
December the twenty-third, to be precise. What a merry Christmas that had turned out to be. To think she’d actually believed the story he’d told her about popping over to Inverness to get her and her father a Christmas present. Until her father had dropped the bombshell about cashing in all the bonds he owned to ‘give you a chance at happiness with your new young man.’ She hadn’t even had the heart to tell him she and Brad were hardly a love match.
‘That’s three months ago.’ She heard the note of pity in the detective’s voice, and hated him for it. ‘The money’s long gone by now.’
It couldn’t all be gone. Not all twenty-five grand. ‘How? He’s not exactly spending it on his accommodation.’
‘He’s got a cocaine habit. He could lose that much up his nose in a weekend.’
‘But…’ A cocaine habit? Was that why he’d seemed so fragile and vulnerable when he’d walked into The Kelross giftshop?
‘I’m taking it he kept that quiet while he was in…’ The detective paused. ‘Where are you from?’
‘The Scottish Highlands,’ she said absently.
‘So that’s why he disappeared from our radar for a couple of months,’ he murmured more to himself than her. ‘I figured he might have skipped town to avoid his marks, but I didn’t think he had the imagination to skip all the way to Europe.’