Afterglow (33 page)

Pale eyes locked with dark. The rush of heat was hard, fast, and overwhelming. It always was when he touched her. He dragged her face up to his and kissed her. She tasted of salt and a deep sadness that killed him. Rand gentled the kiss, lowering her to the floor and coming down on top of her.

He murmured, “We’ll figure this out. Together. I promise.” He pulled her T-shirt over her head and tossed it aside. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry.” He tugged her bra over her breasts because he couldn’t get to the clasp on her back.

Her nipples were a deep pink, hard and aroused, and she murmured low in her throat as he brought his mouth down to kiss her again.

Still kissing her, he pulled down the zipper of her jeans, shoved them down until he could wedge his knee in the fabric and maneuver one of her legs free. He ripped at the scrap of lace barely covering her, and wedged his hand between their straining bodies to free himself from his zipper as she clung to his shoulders.

He spread his hand under her to cup her ass, and with his other hand, guided himself into her wet heat. With a soft cry she wrapped her legs tightly around his hips and surged upward, meeting him halfway. He nudged her head back with his chin to expose her damp throat to his marauding mouth. Loving her, soothing her, arousing her.

He moved in counterpoint with her, feeling the way her body clung to his with each thrust and withdrawal. Feeling the shudder of her breath against his neck, and the wetness of her tears burning like acid against his skin.

She whispered, “Rand,” in a voice that shook, and he thrust faster, harder, wanting to give her pleasure and stop her pain. Anything to stop the tears. Her fiery hair clung to him in long silken skeins, the strong filaments and the sweat on their bodies binding them. She arched against him with each thrust.

He lifted his head to look down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips swollen; tears still leaked into her hair.

“God, I can’t get enough of you.” His voice was thick, his breathing labored as he pumped into her, feeling her body start to clench and tremble.

In response, she pressed her face against his chest and fell apart in his arms.

Only later, as he carried Dakota to the bed and covered her with the sheet, did he realize that other than that one involuntary use of his name, she hadn’t said a word the entire time.

RAND SAT WITH DAKOTA
in the offices of Paul’s lawyers in Rome. His father claimed there was an incriminating tape proving Dakota had been instrumental in his mother’s death. Rand wanted to see the damned thing with his own eyes.

He’d been here a couple of times, usually meeting with various lawyers on his father’s case at the prison. The law office, on the Piazza Venezia, was ultramodern, all sleek black leather, chrome, and glossy surfaces. It looked cold, intimidating, and expensive. A stunning blonde with a centerfold’s body sat behind a glass-and-chrome desk that was so minimalist Rand wondered how it stood upright. He figured the woman’s large breasts, displayed in a low-cut black dress, stood with the help of augmentation surgery.

The lawyer had agreed to see him as soon as Rand could get to Rome. He should—Rand paid him a fortune to be accommodating. They’d made it there by late afternoon.

They were in the reception area of the high-priced law office, Dakota flipping a glossy Italian fashion magazine on her knee. Her legs were crossed, one foot bouncing as if she had her motor running. Her hair was tamed into a shiny coil at her nape, diamond earrings sparkling in her ears. She looked effortlessly chic in slim black pants and an off-the-shoulder black top, high heels, and a black-and-white scarf tied around her waist. Full makeup camouflaged any hint of tears, and she’d applied a delicate spray of familiar spicy perfume, just, Rand was sure, to drive him nuts. He wanted to take her right there on the law office’s charcoal wool carpet. “You don’t have to go in with me,” he told her.

“Mr. Maguire?” An attractive brunette in a formfitting black dress similar to the receptionist’s came toward him with a polite smile. “Signor Mancini is ready for you now. Please come this way.”

Dakota tossed the magazine onto an almost invisible glass coffee table and rose with him. The woman led them down a wide, brightly lit hallway hung with modernist paintings that did nothing for him. Rand shot a glance at Dakota. She looked cool and unconcerned. Her lips twitched as she caught his eye. “Are you waiting for me to start sweating, Maguire?”

“I would be,” he admitted sotto voce.

Her chin lifted as she gave him a calm look from smoky eyes that held no remnants of her earlier tears. “I don’t have any reason to sweat.”

Yeah, maybe not. Then why was he?

Their escort opened a twelve-foot-tall black glass door and stood back. “Mr. Maguire and Dr. North,” she announced. Waiting for them to enter, she withdrew, closing the door quietly behind them.

The picture window on the far side of the room framed a spectacular orange sunset, the lights coming on in the square, and the immense white marble monument constructed for Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of Italy.

Octavio Mancini rose from behind the slab of black marble that was his desk and came forward, hand outstretched. “Rand, good to see you again.” He was a distinguished man in his late fifties, with well-groomed dark hair graying at the temples and a small, trim mustache. He shook Rand’s hand, then Dakota’s, then led them to a small grouping of chairs beside the large window.

A tray was laid out on another barely-there low glass table. It held an artful arrangement of bottles, glasses, an ice bucket, and small china plates and napkins for the array of appetizers.

“I appreciate you coming forward on my client’s behalf, Dr. North.” Mancini motioned for them to be seated, and took the chair with his back to the sunset. “However, I don’t think your testimony will be necessary. We have everything we need for a solid defense.” His voice was polite, but he was clearly not a fan. But then, he was paid to believe in the innocence of his client, and as far as client and lawyer were concerned, Dakota should be the one behind bars.

“Paul claims you have an incriminating video of Dr. North,” Rand said smoothly. “We’d like to view it.”

Mancini glanced from one to the other, clearly puzzled as to why Rand was here with her. “We have two. Which would you like to see?”

Dakota, in the process of sitting down, straightened, her body stiff.
“Two?”

The lawyer looked at Rand. “Is this something you wish to discuss in front of Dr. North, or should I have Rossella escort her out while we talk?”

“I don’t think so.” Dakota sat down, crossing her ankles as she leaned back in the chair, as if she had nothing to hide.

Rand’s gut told him to listen to the subliminal message in her expression and body language. “I brought Dr. North with me so we could view the tape.
Both
tapes, if that’s what you have.”

“Very well.” Using the phone on the table beside him, Mancini asked his assistant to bring the videos into his office. “She’ll be just a moment. Sanbittèr?” He indicated the bottles of the aperitif soda on the nearby table. “Or a glass of Prosecco perhaps?”

Rand refused. Dakota accepted a glass of the white wine, mostly, he suspected, because she needed something to hold. He had the insane urge to shift over beside her so he could hold her hand in a show of solidarity and support. Not that she looked as if she needed it. She was composed and clear-eyed as she sipped the extra dry white wine, that he knew she hated, as they waited.

“What are these tapes?” she asked, the wineglass cradled between her hands.

“The surveillance tape shows you arriving at the lab and scanning the files the night of the explosion.”

“Dr. Maguire asked me to scan some files for him a full two weeks
before
the explosion,” she said calmly before taking a sip of wine.

“With due respect, Dr. North, I have watched these tapes many times, and both tapes have been verified by my experts.”

Shit. This was not going to go well. He and Dakota both knew it. He didn’t know how she could appear so composed.

The door opened and the brunette returned with two boxes. She went over to the large-screen TV on the far wall, then glanced at Mancini. “Which one would you like to see first?” she asked, her English flawless and almost unaccented.

The lawyer addressed Rand. “Your choice.”

He wasn’t ready to hear what the second incriminating footage showed. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t Dakota on trial in Italy. The videos of her doing whatever she’d done were to be used for his father’s defense. If they were as damning as Mancini claimed they were, then she’d need a legal defense when she returned home. One damned thing at a time. “The lab.”

The video was a compilation of security footage taken, according to the date stamp in the corner, the night of the explosion that had destroyed the lab, killing more than a dozen people.

At just after 8 p.m. on February 8, it showed Dakota driving into the lab parking lot in her white Range Rover. Showed her brisk progress through the drizzle as she crossed the lot, where twenty or so vehicles were parked. The lab was operational 24/7. The lobby cameras showed her walking in, sprinkles of rain on her shoulders and hair. The front desk was dark and empty, no security guard to check her.

“Where was the guard that night?” Rand asked.

“I have no idea. The night
this
was taken, everyone was in the rec room, celebrating Thom’s birthday.”

Rand glanced away from the image of Dakota walking down the clinically bright hallways to her lab and turned to look at her. “Thom?”

The pulse throbbing at the base of her throat was the only indication she was not as sanguine as she appeared. “Thom Haller was the guard on duty the night this was filmed.”

“Jesus,” Rand muttered impatiently. She had no fucking idea just how bad this was for her. “Who’s on first? I just asked you—”

“Thom’s birthday is on January sixteenth.”

God. Even with irrefutable proof, she was trying to bullshit her way out of this. “You’re mistaken. This was taken on February eighth. Look at the date stamp.”

Her peridot eyes were unflinchingly steady as she said quietly, “I can read as well as you can, Rand. That date stamp was tampered with.”

DAKOTA’S HEART POUNDED LOUDLY
enough for her to hear as she observed herself walking through the empty halls. Her hands, wrapped around the cold glass, were clammy. The video hadn’t been taken the night in question, but someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make it look that way.

On the screen, she was wearing her black raincoat and boots. So it wasn’t as if her clothing changed along the way and the manipulation could be easily spotted. She could just as easily have been wearing jeans or a cocktail dress under that coat. She always wore that raincoat because it was Seattle. It always rained that time of the year.

Her hairstyle changed slightly as she walked down the corridor, though. When she was working, she always wore it in some form of a braid to keep it out of her face. For a good minute, she had a French braid. As she unlocked the door to the main lab, it changed to a fishtail braid for an instant, and right back to a French braid. When the cameras picked her up again as she sat at the desk and booted the computer, it was in the fishtail again.

“Look at my hair, Rand. My braid changes.”

“Looks the same to me,” Rand said, totally focused as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the screen.

“This wasn’t all taken on the same day, or even at the same
time
of day,” she said impatiently. “Not only is my hair different, look at the neckline of my coat.” She pointed. “Right there, you can see I was wearing a cream sweater!” A sliver of lighter fabric showed occasionally when she moved. But it was enough as far as she was concerned. “When I walked into the lobby earlier, I was wearing a gray blouse. You’re the security expert. Surely you can see this has been manipulated?”

He put up a hand to silence her. “Hold that thought. Let’s see the other one,” he told the lawyer, his voice grim.

Mancini rose and popped out the disc, replacing it with the other one. He resumed his seat and swiveled to watch the scene, not saying a word, his face a mask. Rand didn’t speak either as he saw her car pull up in front of his parents’ Seattle home, all decorated for Christmas. She remembered thinking at the time how odd it was, going to all that trouble, when the couple wouldn’t even be there for the holidays.

Seeing the image now, Dakota’s heart sank as she saw her arrival had been recorded.

Of course Catherine and Paul had surveillance cameras at their big, expensive estate. It had never occurred to her to try to avoid them. She’d been to the house twice, the first time for Rand’s and her engagement party.

She prayed like hell this wasn’t the video from that night. She’d had a little too much champagne, and although she hadn’t danced on the tables or run through the neighborhood naked, she had taken a little nap on Rand’s childhood bed for an hour while the party had been in full swing downstairs. Rand had teased her awake, but she was embarrassed to have conked out on one of the most magical nights of her life. Worse, at her future in-law’s home.

The second time had been when Rand’s mother invited her to come over for a cocktail and a girls’ chat prior to her and Rand’s February wedding. She hadn’t really looked forward to the social interaction one-on-one. She knew Catherine Maguire was clinically depressed, and according to Rand, her behavior was frequently erratic, and unpredictable, especially when she was under stress. The holidays, an extended vacation, and her son’s imminent wedding, were all high-stress situations.

Now that Dakota thought about it, she realized that she’d had the same sense of uneasiness with Catherine that she’d had with Paul at the lab, the feeling that at any moment something could go seriously wrong.