Nobody's Angel (36 page)

The toast popped, and she threw it on a plate and carried it to the table. “You're saying someone could get hurt or go to jail, aren't you?” She sat down and reached for the jam. “That means someone out there is either dangerous, powerful, or both. I don't understand why Tony wanted that kind of power.”

“Because Tony was a jerk. It's probably too soon, but you ought to call Annie and see if you've received any reply for your request for a death certificate.”

She carefully spread the jam to the edges of the toast. “You aren't certain Tony is dead, are you?”

That worry lingered in the back of his mind all the time. “He was playing in some pretty deep waters. He could be very dead. Or he could be hiding.” There, he'd said it. She would have thought it anyway.

She nodded. “Wonder if my attorney would consider continuing the divorce proceeding when the other party is presumed dead?”

He grunted. With anyone else, he might have laughed. The idea of Faith still being married to Tony was not a laughing matter, however. “He could serve papers to the grave site if there was one.”

“Let's not borrow trouble. Unless you have some evidence he's still alive, I'll just keep trying for the death certificate. You don't have any such evidence, do you?”

That, he could honestly answer. “Nope. I'm pretty much figuring Sammy is behind the break-ins. If his brains are as fogged as his sister's, threatening people locked in a bathroom is right about his speed.”

“And driving people off the road is something he's seen on TV. He thinks we'll just pop back to life after being flattened, like Wiley Coyote. Got it. Stupid is dangerous, but not powerful. Where does the power come in if Tony's dead and Sammy is stupid?” She waved her half-eaten toast in the air. “No, don't tell me. Heaven forbid that you should tell me anything. Let me guess—Tony's power broker, his investment banker, his partner in crime. Tony latched onto someone as crooked as he was. Charming.”

Adrian clenched his jaw and said nothing. If she kept it up, she'd have the whole thing worked out, right down to McCowan. Maybe while she was at it she could tell him what to do about the bastard once she did. Without evidence, his hands were tied.

She chewed thoughtfully, sucked a stray piece of jam from her finger, and drove Adrian's blood pressure straight through his eardrums. How the
hell
did she think he could concentrate when she did things like that?

“This crook must be big enough to be untouchable.” She narrowed her eyes over the rim of her cup. “It doesn't make
any difference. Once we find all the boxes and have Tony's books, they'll prove your innocence. If we're lucky, they'll also prove who the guilty parties are. We only have to wait. So, what's your problem?”

He had more problems than he wanted to count. This one, though, was hers as well as his. “My problem is that Sammy and friends don't know if we have access to those boxes or any other evidence that might implicate them. My problem is that they may choose to off us rather than speculate.”

“
Off
us.” She leaned back in the chair and rolled her eyes. “
Off
us? Is that something you learned in criminal school?”

“Yeah, right up there with how to strangle annoying females.” He shoved away from the table and stood up. “Now, we're going car shopping. Unless you have any better ideas?”

“Off the bad guy first,” she whispered softly.

Off the bad guy first.
It had sounded brave when she said it. At the same time, Faith knew how stupid it was.

She waved her hand to indicate erasing what she'd just said. “I mean, we have to go on the offensive. We have to nail the sucker.”

Adrian paced the narrow floor as if he'd rather be anywhere else, but somehow his problems had become hers, and neither of them would sleep at night until this was over.

When he started smacking his fist into his palm, she thought she ought to be concerned, but the more he boiled, the more she cooled down. His fury provided impetus. Her calm added focus. Crazy, but it worked.

He dragged out a chair and straddled it. She slathered jam on a piece of toast and handed it to him. Savagely, he tore into it.

He hadn't shaved this morning, and beard stubble darkened his jaw. His hair still hung half loose, and in the morning sun his earring sparkled against his brown skin. He should look like a dangerous criminal, but Faith's heart did a little jig of joy just watching him.

Finishing her toast, she let Adrian have his anger. He had a right to it. Just as she had a right to do what she thought best for herself. What an
adult
attitude. She might never manage a relationship again, but she finally had her head on straight.

He growled, drank his coffee, and polished off his toast. “You really can't do anything,” he reminded her. “I grew up in this town. You didn't. You don't know the political ropes.”

“If we were actually talking politics, I imagine I could out-think
the entire city council in my sleep, but I assume we're talking a different kind of political rope?”

He shrugged. “Semantics. Ropes are ropes. They'll hang you no matter what you call them. This isn't your fight, and I don't want you hurt.”

So, maybe he hadn't come quite as far as she had in interpersonal and personal development. She felt qualified to teach a college level course. “Let's get this straight one more time, Quinn.” Teacher to student, that was the tactic. “Someone ‘offed’ my car, my apartment, my shop, and terrorized my friends. They damned near killed us. I'm involved. I'm staying involved. And you have no power to change that.”

“Even if I tell you who else is involved, you won't understand the implications,” he insisted. “You still believe the cowboys in the white hats always win.”

“I will wear whatever color hat it takes to win,” she said coldly. “I will not take this lying down. Besides, whoever you're afraid of is thinking I'm a big zero and isn't even worrying about me.”

“Then he sure the hell doesn't know you.” Giving up, he drained his cup. “My money is on a guy called Al McCowan, Jr. Know him?”

Faith grimaced. “Porky. Sweats a lot. You'd think, with his money, he could afford a good daily workout in a gym.”

He sighed in exasperation, then jerked up straight and glared at her. “You're putting me on, aren't you?”

She grinned. “You're listening at last! Score one for the hottie in the earring.”

He choked on his last piece of toast, swiped his mouth with a napkin, and visibly restrained himself by clenching the chair back. Faith smiled sweetly and waited for him to calm down. Given the slow heat lighting his eyes, she didn't think it was anger skyrocketing his blood pressure this time. She really, really liked turning him on.

“I'm not going to live through this, am I?” he asked rhetorically. “All right, so what
intelligent
things do you know?”

“He's a lazy pig. His daddy isn't a bad man, just kind of busy and d istant. But Junior cheats at golf, likes cheap
blondes and changes them as often as he does cars, and has poor personal care habits,” she finished primly.

“You heard this from Tony?”

“No, from the women at the country club. What do you think they do while sitting around the pool and bar all day?”

“Gossip,” he said with disgust. “And not even relevant gossip. Knowing Junior is a pig gets us nowhere. And he isn't fat, just well-padded.”

“For your information, since you haven't bothered telling me, I'm trying to figure out why Junior would care if Tony or you fried in hell. It doesn't make clear sense. Junior's father practically owns Charlotte. If Piggy needs cash, he sells something. If he wants power, he has it.”

“McCowan is the lawyer Sammy ‘hired’ to help Sandra.” Adrian sat back and waited for her to take that in.

She widened her eyes thoughtfully. “That's definitely not the act of a sane man. Junior must be running scared over something.”

“And that something would have to be us. You were perfectly safe until we showed up at the bank.”

McCowan, Jr. Faith shook her head in disbelief. “He was the VIP waiting outside your friend's office that day. He saw us together.” She thought about it a moment longer. “He was a golfing buddy of Tony's. They both went to UNC. Junior could have afforded Duke, but my impression was that he didn't like exercising his brain, and it was easier being the rich frog in a poor pond.”

“Tony was growing pot with Sammy while in college.” Adrian dropped that little bombshell into the waters as if testing her.

Faith stood up and poured the coffee dregs from the pot. “He said he went hunting. I knew that was a lie. Tony didn't like dirtying his hands. I figured he was studying but didn't want to admit he needed to spend so much time with his books. I think I must have been insane back then.”

“Just very, very young.” Adrian leaned back in his chair and caressed her hip.

Faith almost dropped the coffeepot. She wasn't used to
these casual touches. She could get used to them real easily. Taking a deep breath, she tried to ice her hormones while repressed desire licked hot flames under her skin. “Anyway, I can't see him growing pot any more than hunting. I'd wager he went out and chose the fields, brought Sammy the equipment and seeds, and let Sam do the real work.”

Adrian waited until she had the pot on the burner and the coffee dripping before he hauled her down on his lap.

As if she'd done this every day of her life, Faith wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled against his shoulder, soaking up the closeness. This was much better than snapping at each other. She liked a man who understood that. “You can do what you will with my body, but you can't have my soul,” she quoted mockingly in his ear.

“What the hell would I do with your soul?” He kissed the skin above her scooped neckline and cupped her breast.

Faith smacked him and fought free of his grip. “You're not talking me out of this. If Junior is our guilty party, I'm nailing him to the walls of City Hall.” She retreated to her side of the table and sat down.

“Without whatever evidence Tony hid, we can't do anything but stay low. I have friends keeping an eye on Sammy and Sandra. I'll make a few phone calls and see if I can find out what Junior's up to these days, but my sources at that level have pretty well dried up since my recent incarceration.” He said that dryly, but anger rippled behind it.

“Junior must know there's evidence out there and that we have access to it,” Faith insisted. “Without Tony to connect them, he wouldn't come within a two-state distance of the Shaws. Why the Shaws?”

Adrian tapped the table with the sugar spoon. “Because they know there's money out there somewhere, and they're blackmailing him for a piece of it?”

“Junior could give them his pocket change, and they'd be happy.”

He reached back to the counter, grabbed the coffeepot, and freshened her cup before filling his. “Not if Sammy had some inkling of how much was involved. We're talking millions,
Faith. Tony might have emptied the trust accounts to a tune of one million, more or less, but the profits he could have reaped on that money in a bull market are tremendous. With his fa-ther's position at the bank, Junior would have had access to tons of confidential SEC information he could use illegally to bump that even higher.”

Faith whistled. “I hadn't thought of that. Junior couldn't allow his name on an account like that or federal regulators would have his scalp. Even if the account was in Tony's name, I bet Junior couldn't be listed as broker with those kinds of transactions going on.” Faith choked on her coffee as another thought occurred to her. “Sammy? Would they have put the account in Sammy's name?”

Adrian straightened his long legs under the table and rubbed her ankles with his toe. He was barefoot. “Pin the tail on the donkey. I'm amazed they didn't pin it on me.”

“What makes you think they didn't? If they forged your name on some of those transactions, they could have forged it on anything. Tony would have had your social security number from payroll records. You could be sitting on a few million.”

Adrian thought about it, but shook his head. “Too risky. If I ever discovered the account, I could walk out with it. If I were in Tony's shoes, I'd set up a simple trust account with myself as executor, Sammy as beneficiary, and McCowan's bank as the financial institution. Keep it simple.”

“Then Junior and Sammy would be scot-free. Why would they need me?”

“Unless they figure Tony kept memos or written records of other transactions up until the point he disappeared. I imagine he did, but Junior wouldn't worry about them while Tony was alive, because they'd implicate Tony as well. It's after Tony fell out of the sky that things got sticky.”

“Maybe some of the money was still there when Tony died,” Faith said softly, thinking fast. “Would Junior keep paying Sammy?”

“Probably not. Junior and Tony probably played it cool
during the trial, maybe even moving all the cash out of the fund to somewhere safe. That would have cut Sammy off.”

“The money we found could have been part of that?”

Adrian nodded. “Could be. Neither of them would trust the other. They may have paid Sammy off, told him the game was over, but he wouldn't have had any idea how large the pot was. Even with Tony buying Jags and Junior burning it on coke, they'd still have a substantial investment, mostly in stocks.”