Risking Trust (3 page)

“My favorite publisher. Good to see you,” Uncle Max said, smiling as he approached the table where she sat. His dimples shaved ten years from his features. Not that Max looked old, but with fifty-eight looming, the wrinkles around his blue eyes seemed to change daily.

Roxann offered a grin, an odd sensation because she was sure she’d never get used to being referred to as publisher. She’d always imagined her father gradually slipping into retirement. Not dying in front of her on his office floor. The thought clogged her throat.

“I thought lunch with my uncle would be a welcome relief.”

“Sorry I’m late.”

“Not a problem. People-watching is always entertaining.”

The Downtown Grill was the restaurant of choice when it came to servicing the city’s leading business people. White tablecloths and linen napkins gave it an elegant feel, but the place served the best burger in town.

Max planted a kiss on Roxann’s cheek, and did his habitual scan of the dining room before slipping off his uniform jacket and slinging it over the back of the vacant chair next to him. Often times, the uniform and its large gold buttons and silver stars, was more recognizable than the man, but Max’s powerful frame carried the flamboyant outfit with the ease of someone accustomed to authority. Next to the mayor, Max Hostetler was one of the most identifiable city officials in Chicago. And he wanted it that way.

“The usual, sir?” the waiter asked.

Max nodded, picked up his linen napkin and dropped it in his lap. “Thanks, Marty.”

The waiter skittered off and Roxann focused on Max. “Thank you for the help these past weeks.”

He shrugged. “We’re family, Rox. My sister needs me now.”

“I know, but a lot of people would go back to their daily routine. You’ve taken the time to be with Mom. I know it’s keeping her going.”

“What’s keeping
you
going?”

Their eyes met and Roxann breathed in. “I’m all right. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really thanked you for always being there for me.”

Max screwed up his lips. “That’s what we do. We help each other.”

“I just wanted you to know I appreciate it.” She sat back, fiddled with her fork. “Anyway, what’s new on the Taylor case?”

He smiled at her subject change. “Why?”

“Michael’s company acquired DSI.”

“Your security company?”

Roxann nodded. “It got me thinking about his wife’s murder. I don’t know how comfortable I am with the whole situation.” Not a
total
lie.

“Off the record?” Max teased.

She held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

He waited a beat. Deciding what to say? Not a good sign. “He did it, Rox. We don’t have it locked yet, but we’re confident.”

“You’re positive?”

“You sure you want to hear about this?”

No, but she needed a reason to risk her father’s dream. He had nurtured the
Chicago Banner-Herald
from a miniscule weekly to the second largest daily in the city.

“I’m sure.”

Max leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “There’s motive,” he said. “Plus, it was done by a pro. Snapped neck. The house was wiped clean, no forced entry. The killer either had a key or she let him in.”

“Based on that, you think it was Michael?”

“It fits with his background.”

Of course Max would say that. Michael, as an ex-Army Ranger, had seen and done horrible things during his stint with Special Forces, but she wasn’t about to convict him of murder because of it. “I don’t know, Max.”

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Don’t get caught up in this. Leave it to your newsroom.”

She ignored his condescending tone. “Alicia Taylor was a social person. She knew a lot of people. Maybe she had a falling out with one of them. It seems too obvious to be Michael and, frankly, he’s smarter than that. He’d know, based on their hostile divorce, he’d be the suspect.”

“That’s exactly why I think he did it.
I
think he’d had enough of the bullshit fighting. He went to talk her into settling their divorce, they argued, it got heated and he killed her. Happens all the time, Rox.”

Roxann clenched her teeth so hard she thought they’d crack. She didn’t mind Max disagreeing with her. Heck, that happened all the time, but treating her like an infant was unacceptable. She wanted to smack him on his buzz cut head.

“I know it happens, but they’d been doing battle for almost two years. If he intended to kill her, why would he wait so long? It doesn’t make sense.”

Max waved at a passing patron. “People do things when they’re enraged.”

“Enraged people don’t take the time to wipe fingerprints.”

The waiter appeared and they sat silently as their food was served. After the normal, ground pepper-parmesan-let-me-know-if-you-need-anything-else routine, Roxann went to work on her salad. She wanted Max to say they had other suspects and weren’t railroading Michael, but knew he wouldn’t.

Michael was right. The police had their own theory and were sticking with it. Max had unintentionally confirmed it. Her palms began to itch, the sure-fire tell something was up. She’d have to figure it out on her own though, because Max wouldn’t help. She never was one to balk at a challenge.

Roxann stood at the coat check waiting for her jacket when the city’s mayor walked through the restaurant’s front entrance.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor,” Max said to his boss.

Running into Douglas Richmond was always an event, whether it would be good or bad remained the question.

At fifty-five, the mayor was one of the most enigmatic public figures the city had known. He’d been in office ten years and with those ten years came a spotless city and, thanks in large part to Max’s top-notch police force, a dropping crime rate.

Still, people loved and hated the mayor’s outspoken ways. For months, the
Banner
had been running editorials on corruption rumors within the administration and it put the mayor at odds with the paper.

Roxann couldn’t help it if the
Banner
had a steady stream of information regarding someone on the mayor’s staff doing favors for some distant relative or friend. Even bribery allegations. Just her luck to run into the mayor the day after the paper ran a corruption story involving a streets and sanitation worker using city equipment to patch holes in his neighbor’s driveway.

She took the high road and offered her hand in greeting. “Mr. Mayor.”

“Roxann, I’m sorry about your father. We never agreed, but I respected him.”

“Thank you, sir.” That was something at least.

“You and Carl should set up a meeting to discuss your coverage of my office. Don’t know where that newsroom of yours gets this crap, but they’d better get their facts straight.”

Roxann pursed her lips to hide what would have turned into a face splitting smile. This was the mayor she knew.

“We can certainly set up a meeting, sir, but I can’t guarantee anything will change.” She pulled her hand from the mayor’s grasp. “Freedom of the press and all that.”

The mayor turned to his top aide, Carl Biehl. “She always was tough, Carl.”

“Do I need to jump in and protect my niece’s honor?”

Roxann slid Max a sideways glance. She didn’t need him playing white knight.

The hostess appeared. “Mr. Mayor, your table is ready.”

“Yes, thank you.” The mayor turned to Roxann. “Call my office to set up that meeting.”

Not a request, but an order. No use shaking hands after
that
exchange. “Have a good lunch.”

She watched the mayor make his grand entrance, stopping at tables, kissing cheeks, slapping backs. “He is the master glad-hander,” she said to Max.

“It works for him. He doesn’t seem too happy with you.”

“He’s mad because we quoted him when he called the mayor of Milwaukee a cheesehead.”

Her uncle let out a blast of laughter. “That was priceless.”

“I don’t know what we’d do without him. It’d be boring around here.”

“You’re right on that one.” Max sobered and touched her shoulder. “Set up that meeting. You don’t want him pissed at you all the time.”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re a newspaper. He’s the mayor. It’s normal for a politician to be mad at the media. Besides, if he didn’t give us so many opportunities to quote him, we’d lay off. He brings it on himself, and he does it intentionally. He enjoys us talking about him, Max, whether it’s good or bad.”

“It’s your ass, honey. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Roxann agreed with him on the ass part, but wasn’t at all sure she knew what she was doing. Particularly because she was about to call the man who almost destroyed her life and make a deal that might destroy her newspaper.

Michael sat in his office analyzing his company’s latest profit and loss statement and decided the increased P and the decreased L would never be a disappointment. It had been a tough fight, but the past few years had been fruitful and keeping things on the upswing took managing.

He sat back, took in the shiny chrome of his office, and let out a long breath. He’d paid that thief of a decorator a small fortune to do her magic and she’d achieved the right balance of functionality and form. He did have to replace the all glass desk that lasted one day before he sent it back for one with drawers. Who the hell could run a company without drawers? And he wasn’t talking about pants. The new desk, an inky, glass-topped, six drawer unit served him better.

A sleek leather sofa sat against the far wall with two bright red armchairs anchoring the sides. The decorator said the blast of color, in an otherwise black and chrome setting, fit his temperament. He tried to be insulted, but what was the point, considering he agreed with her.

Michael glanced at the neat stacks of files sitting on the desk. Nice and tidy. Security people needed to be tidy. If you couldn’t keep your workspace organized, how could you get some VIP from point A to point B without them getting shot?

The speakerphone came to life, tearing him from his thoughts.

“Roxann Thorgesson for you on line one,” his secretary—uh, assistant—said.

“Who?” Michael asked, not believing what he’d heard.

“ROX-ANN THOR-GES-SON,” the secretary repeated as if he’d suddenly gone deaf. He figured he deserved it, but still found it irritating.

“Put her through.”

The phone rang. What if it wasn’t good news? He snatched the handset before the call went to voice mail.

“Michael Taylor.”

“It’s Roxann. We should talk.”

The business voice. The voice that told him anything else would be off limits. Too bad.

Michael stared at his office door and realized she was about to agree to work with him. Why else would she want to talk?

“I’m all yours,” he said, keeping his tone casual.

“The police aren’t looking at anyone else for your wife’s murder.”

Michael collapsed back into his chair and a sharp, no nonsense throbbing began behind his right eye. He pressed the palm of his hand against the pain and wondered if he’d ever be free of Alicia. Or her death.

“She was not my wife.”

There was a brief pause and Michael imagined the famous eye roll. Roxann could roll her eyes so far up she nearly tipped herself backward.

“Regardless, I think there’s a story here.”

“You’ll give me access to your reporters?”

A long sigh came through the phone line.

“You’ve got Phil Dawson—as long as newspapers fly off the racks. I’ll pull him the minute I see fit though.”

“What about you?” he asked, hoping to throw her off-balance for even a second.

“What about me?”

“Do I get access to you?”

She laughed the sarcastic laugh of a woman only mildly amused. “Not on your life. And before I turn you over to Phil, I want to set some ground rules.”

He hated rules.

“Okay,” Michael said. “But you have to let me buy you dinner.”

“Why would I do that?”

“If we’re working together, we should be civil. Simple logic.”

“Nothing is ever simple in this business.”

Tough cookie.

“You used to be fun, Roxann.”

“I used to be a lot of things. You can buy me dinner only because I want to hear what you have on this story before I get anyone else involved.”

Okay then. A start. Michael reached for his cell phone. “How’s tomorrow night?”

“I can make it work. Seven o’clock at Cassatta’s. See you then.”

He hung up, punched her name into his phone along with Cassatta’s. Figures she’d pick the restaurant owned by her closest friend’s father. She’d feel comfortable there. Safe maybe? He didn’t want to think Roxann could be afraid of him, not after what they’d had together, but with his current status of murder suspect, he wouldn’t blame her.

He propped his feet on the desk and focused on working with Roxann. She loved a challenge and her instincts were always dead-on. If she thought there was a story to be written, she’d find it. She always had drive. Or was it a need for the truth that made her such a refreshing part of a sadistic world? Either way, he missed it.

“What are you doing?” Vic Andrews asked as he entered the office.

His partner wore chinos and a blue golf shirt and, in Michael’s opinion, took business casual to the boundaries of too casual. Plus, his normally scruffy hair looked exceptionally rumpled and Michael wondered about the fine line between fashion and a mess. Vic had recently started with the day old beard look that had the women in the office going nuts. This company didn’t need its already over-stimulated vice president becoming the sexual fantasy of half the female employees. What a shit storm that would be.

“You golfing today?” Michael asked.

Vic waved him off and dropped into one of the two guest chairs. Vic wasn’t big on rules either. “I asked you a question first.”

Michael pointed to his phone. “
That
was Roxann.”

“Ahhhh, the lovely Roxann with the most amazing legs you’ve ever seen.” Vic made a low growling sound.

Michael laughed. “No shit.”

And wouldn’t it be nice to have them wrapped around him.
Whoa. Down boy.
No sense getting Mr. Happy worked up.
Must be the fatigue.

Still, the legs got him every time. The first time he’d spotted them, he’d been twenty-seven years old, sitting on a folding chair in the miniscule backyard of a friend of a friend at a fourth of July party he hadn’t wanted to go to. Four weeks fresh out of the army, he’d been dealing with undiagnosed PTSD that left him exhausted and supremely strung-out. Between the lack of sleep and the nightmares, when he did manage rest, he hadn’t had a lot firing in the mental agility category.

But he’d gone to that party because he felt like crap and needed to get laid. A piss poor motivating factor, but the physical release would clear his mind.

On that summer night, the sky was clear, the air cooler than normal and filled with a mix of music and chattering voices from the crowd packed into the tiny backyard. He sat alone nursing his beer when the long-legged blonde entered the yard. She wore khaki shorts and a sweater tank top that clung to her lean form. The sleeves of the cardigan tied around her shoulders hung over her chest, but he saw enough to know he’d like to get his hands there. Her long hair, streaked with sun-drenched highlights, fell loose around her face and she tossed one side over her shoulder, exposing a softly sculpted cheek that he immediately wanted to run his fingers over.

Perfection.

Suddenly, his world didn’t seem such a fucked up place. Michael breathed in.
She’s the one.
What that meant in his horny-as-ever state, he wasn’t sure and didn’t necessarily care. He knew he had to have her.

A group of people huddled in front of him, blocking his view, and he shifted a little. The blonde stepped to the picnic table not ten feet from him and parked her trim ass next to five women.

Thirty minutes later he still sat there, watching and waiting, damn near mesmerized by her. She hadn’t so much as glanced his way, but she hadn’t glanced anyone else’s way either. He couldn’t call her aloof. Not with the way she laughed and yapped with her friends, but she had a quality to her he couldn’t define. Elegant maybe. He didn’t know, but it worked. Hard.

A few people stopped to say hello to him, but his attention stayed on the blonde. If she moved from that group, he’d be on her. No doubt.

The break came when the two women closest to her got up and left. She wasn’t alone, but the three remaining women were deep into their own conversation.
Take the shot.

He made his way to her, squeezing through the crowd that had once again gathered in his path. He stepped up to the table and set his beer down. She glanced at the beer, then brought her gaze, a blue-green that nearly stopped his heart, to his face.

“Hi,” she said.

“How do you feel about love at first sight?”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “I’m not sure.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m suddenly a believer.”

She rolled those amazing eyes and laughed at him. For a few seconds, Michael let himself forget about being a miserable bastard and soaked up the sound of her soft laughter.

She gestured to the seat across from her. “It’s too soon to tell, but you can have a seat and maybe I’ll let you know in awhile.”

Score
.

He dropped onto the bench and she propped her chin in her hand. “As opening lines go, I have to say, that one got my attention.”

He grinned. “It was a maiden voyage. And just so you know who it is that’s fallen in love with you, I’m Michael Taylor.”

“Hi, Michael Taylor, I’m Roxann.”

And damn those blue eyes glittered. So incredibly gorgeous. To Michael’s disappointment, Brian, the guy hosting the party, appeared. “Hey, Rox.”

Roxann-the-beautiful shifted to face him. “Hi, Brian. How are you?”

“Thanks for coming. Haven’t seen you since you got back from the Olympics.”

“You went to the Olympics?” Michael asked.

Brian snorted. “She was
in
the Olympics. Won a gold in the four-hundred relay. You grabbed a silver too, right?”

She smiled and the glow could have lit the darkened yard. “Yep. In the two-hundred.”

Beautiful, athletic and a competitor. God help him. Fried already and he hadn’t laid a hand on her.

Someone called Brian away—
thank you
—and he high-tailed it.

“The Olympics. That’s amazing. Do you still compete?”

She twisted her lips. “For fun. Now I have a big girl job.”

“What do you do?”

“I work at the
Banner-Herald”

To Michael, who was working a laborer job while he figured out how to use the skills acquired as an Army Ranger, the newspaper gig sounded pretty cool. “Are you a reporter?”

“No.”

“What do you do?”

“Whatever my father tells me to.”

“Your dad is your boss?”

She laughed. “My dad is everyone’s boss. He owns the paper.”

Michael’s euphoric high plummeted. Gone. That fast.
Fuck me.
This girl was so far above him he might as well quit now. If that didn’t suck the mother lode he wasn’t sure what did. He laughed his derision, slapped his hands on the table and stood. “Enough said. I’m leaving. I’m glad we met though.”

He started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm. “This from the man who just proclaimed his love?”

Could he possibly have a shot with this girl? “Honey, I’m a kid from the neighborhood. You’re so far out of my league I’ve got no business being on your planet.”

“Why do you get to decide I’m out of your league? I’ll make my own decision. Why not stay and see what happens?”

It made enough sense that he sat again and spent the next two hours hearing about the Olympics, her doubling up on classes to graduate on time and taking the job at the newspaper. When the party began to fizzle, he and Roxann moved to a 24-hour coffee shop two blocks away where they talked until six in the morning.

He finally walked her to her apartment and, as much as he wanted to, didn’t try to worm his way in. After all night together, he’d hoped he’d get his shot another time. A fast lay wouldn’t suit. That he could get anywhere. He’d wait it out. The beautiful Roxann Thorgesson was not a girl to disrespect. On any level.

Controlling the I-need-to-get-laid beast, he kissed her goodbye with a quick peck on the lips, waited for her to get into the house and walked home knowing he’d met the love of his life.

And now, sitting in his office, thinking about her long legs, he was surrounded by his hard-fought wealth and wreck of a life, and it made his chest ache.

“Mike?” Vic said.

Michael shook his head. “Yeah, sorry.”

“Does she still run?”

“I see her on the lakefront occasionally.”
When I’m standing on my balcony watching for her.

“She never wanted to coach?”

“Sure she did, but she was the heir apparent and her father expected her to work for the newspaper.”

“Sucks.”

“Yep.”

Michael linked his hands together and placed them on top of his head. Serving in Special Forces together had forged a bond between Michael and Vic and very little went on that the other didn’t know about. When two people watched men die together, perspectives on life changed. Maybe they didn’t talk about it, but they both understood it, and talking to Vic about Roxann brought Michael a sense of calm. It had been years since he’d spoken of her freely.

Hadn’t that always been the way with her? From that first night, her acceptance of a man who flinched at the sound of doors slamming gave him hope. Back then, any banging noise sent him ducking for cover, but she always took it in stride and never made him feel weak or less of a man for it.

“So, are you two doing the horizontal mambo?” Vic asked, his face a cross between amusement and curiosity.

Ball-busting. Great. Roxann had been special and Vic knew that. Michael sat up and put his feet on the floor. “I should knock you out.”

Vic put up two hands. “Whoa, boss. Chill.”

“She’s a responsible and savvy businesswoman. She has the chops to help me clear my name. That’s it. Got it?”

Vic grinned like the asshole he was. Michael had been played. The son of a bitch knew what buttons to push.

“Why are you here?” Michael asked.

“Crazy Tiffany. Mike, this chick is nuts.”

“Don’t I know it?”

Michael sat back while he waited for the latest gossip on Tiffany Limone, a twenty-four-year-old rising star they provided security for. A former pop singer trying to break into acting, she was a royal pain in the ass. As if he didn’t have enough to worry about with a murder hanging over him.

“What’s her problem now?”

“She wants another guy on her.”

“Jesus. She’s got three already. Who wants to kill her so bad they’d fight off three guys?”