The Shelter of His Arms (Harlequin Heartwarming) (8 page)

He’d be crazy to let himself get in any deeper before he had a clearer picture of what she was really like, and what they might be like together.

And getting romantically involved with her would definitely be getting in deeper. So deep, he suspected, that getting out again would prove very difficult. If not impossible.

“Travis?” she said at last. “Are you
sure
about this contract? Couldn’t Hank be wrong?”

As much as he wished that was likely, there wasn’t much chance of it. And he didn’t intend to lie to her. Downplaying how serious things were would be deadly dangerous.

“Hank’s not wrong very often,” he made himself say. “And in this instance, he got the word from one of his most reliable sources.”

“Then—”

“But contracts can be called off.”

“Really?”

Her hopeful look went straight to his heart.

“Really,” he said. “A hit man gets paid up front. So if whoever paid him changes his mind, what does he care? He’s already got his money.”

“Then...there’s actually a chance you could...”

“A very
good
chance,” he told her, sounding a lot more confident than he felt.

The truth was, he couldn’t do a thing about the contract unless he knew either who’d paid for it or who the hit man was. And Hank’s informant didn’t have a clue about the guy’s real identity. He’d only heard him referred to as the Ice Man.

Still, there was nothing to gain by dwelling on the negative. Especially not when, with any luck, he and Celeste would be able to figure out who’d hired the killer. Or at least come up with a probable suspect.

Telling himself it was time to get started on that, he said, “Celeste, I know this is an awful question, but I have to ask it. Can you think of anyone who might want you dead?”

While she stared at her shoes, he rapidly reminded himself how far he’d decided to go here.

He wasn’t about to get into the possibility that her mother’s “accident” had been step one in somebody’s plan to murder
three
people. Not yet, at least. It would only make her more upset.

Besides, after Hank talked to the investigating officers and learned what the witnesses had to say, he might conclude that Adele Langley’s death really
had
been accidental.

Regardless of that, though, the important thing right now was to figure out who was targeting Celeste.

Finally, she looked up again, her blue eyes dark with emotion, and said, “Travis, I honestly don’t have a clue who’d want to kill me.”

“No, I didn’t really think you would,” he said softly. “But somebody
does,
and he’s got to have a reason. And...Hank has a theory about that.”

“What is it?”

“Well...this entire conversation has to stay strictly between the two of us. You understand that.”

“Of course. I know you could get in trouble, and I’d never say anything to... You can trust me.”

He nodded, certain he could, yet feeling strange about the prospect of letting a civilian in on confidential police business.

That wasn’t how he’d originally intended to play things with her. And under normal circumstances he’d never have changed his mind. But these were hardly normal circumstances, so he simply ignored the uneasy feeling and began.

“Hank figures that whoever killed Steve is behind the contract on you.”

“What?” she whispered, her face growing pale.

After hesitating a second, he took her hands in his. Trying to comfort her hardly constituted as a romantic gesture.

She gazed at him for a long moment, then slowly shook her head. “I don’t understand. Are you saying Steve was murdered by this hit man who—”

“No, he was killed by an amateur.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m a detective,” he said, hoping she’d let it go at that. When she was already in a fragile state, hearing additional details about Parker’s death wouldn’t help.

“But how can you be
sure?
”

He hesitated again, then decided that telling her she didn’t need to know would be so patronizing it might only upset her more.

“Because a pro is concerned about the risk of getting caught,” he said. “So he chooses his time and place carefully. He doesn’t want witnesses. He just wants to do the job and get away from the scene as quickly as possible. That’s why he’ll often shoot someone in a drive-by or do it in a deserted underground garage.”

“What about those killings you see on the news? Where somebody gets murdered right out in the open? In broad daylight?”

“Those are usually mob or gang related. And they
want
witnesses because they’re sending a message.

“But we’re talking about someone who makes his living as a professional killer. Someone who’d rather not try sneaking into a secure apartment building like your brother’s, hoping he can get up to the fifth floor and back down again without anyone seeing him.

“Plus, he uses a serious weapon. He doesn’t take any chances on his victim living to tell tales. Whereas Steve was killed with a small pistol. A .38 caliber.”

“It was big enough to do the job,” she murmured.

“I...Celeste, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I’m minimizing what happened to him. I was only explaining how we know an amateur killed him.”

She slowly shook her head. “But an amateur kills him, then turns around and hires a hit man to kill me? Does that make sense? I mean, I live alone. And a woman would generally be an easier target than a man, wouldn’t she? So why...?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “The best Hank and I could come up with is that whoever’s behind this just decided not to press his luck.”

“But...couldn’t it be that the contract
isn’t
connected to Steve’s death?”

“It’s not
entirely
out of the question. Hank and his team are following up on a couple of other possibilities.”

“You mean other suspects.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“That doesn’t really matter, so—”

“But it
does!
Oh, I know you’re the expert here, but I’m the one somebody wants dead. And I need you to tell me every detail you can.

“It... Huh, I was about to say it would make me feel better, and that would be ridiculous. Right now, I don’t know what would make me feel better. But maybe something will strike a chord, because I’m part of whatever’s going on.”

He realized she could be right. She was coming at this from an entirely different perspective, so she might think of something he wouldn’t.

“Okay,” he said, then proceeded to give her a bare-bones summary of the stories about the burglars Parker overheard in the club and Evan Reese showing up at his door.

“Hasn’t Hank taken Reese in for questioning?” she asked when he was done.

“Not yet. There’s an added wrinkle with him. His uncle happens to be the first deputy police commissioner.”

“Ah. So
that’s
how he managed to cause you so much trouble.”

“Exactly. And now that we know who his uncle Fred is, Hank will handle him more carefully than I did. But Reese and the others may turn out to have airtight alibis. And if they do...

“Well, let’s get back to the likelihood that the contract’s connected to your brother’s murder. When his death means you inherit everything from your mother’s estate, the obvious question is who would benefit if you died?”

“I...”

“Do you have a will?”

“Yes, but—”

“Who’s your beneficiary?” He waited as she anxiously licked her lips—praying she’d give him a name, that she hadn’t bequeathed everything to some charitable organization.

“My husband,” she murmured at last.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Wednesday, October 6, 4:21 p.m.

H
ER
HUSBAND
.
Her estranged husband who was living with another woman. Travis’s thoughts had begun racing so fast they all deserved speeding tickets.

“But...Bryce would never in a million years have murdered Steve,” Celeste murmured. “Or hired a hit man to kill me.”

He nodded slowly, as if buying that, but he was actually recalling she’d mentioned that Bryce had offered his help when her mother died. And phoned her just the other day, after he’d “heard” about Steve.

Of course, the guy could have been calling out of genuine concern. Or maybe he’d had another reason.

He might have just been keeping in touch, making sure she didn’t suddenly decide to get away from her problems and take off. That she’d be where they were expecting her to be when the hit man came calling.

Focusing on her again, he said, “Celeste, is Bryce aware he’s your beneficiary?”

She gnawed on her lower lip for a moment, then said, “Yes. In fact, he drew up the wills. Shortly after we got married. His specialty is estate law.”

“You said wills? Plural?” Travis asked, telling himself to proceed as coolly as he would in any other interview situation.

“Yes. Two. Mine and my mother’s.”

“So...the survivor clause was his idea?”

“I’m not sure. Probably, though. Knowing my mother, she’d have left the details up to him.”

“Look...I’m going to ask you something you might think is none of my business. But how much is that estate worth? More or less.”

“I’m not exactly sure yet. It’s a few hundred thousand dollars, though.”

He didn’t press for anything more specific. “A few” left a lot of leeway, yet even as few as three was significant money.

“Would Bryce know the amount?”

Celeste shook her head. “My parents weren’t the sort of people who talked about their finances.”

“Still, after the will was filed he could have learned roughly how much was involved. And sometimes,” he added quietly, “greed makes a man do things no one would have ever imagined him doing.”

“Travis...Bryce just
couldn’t
be the one. But there’s something I might as well tell you right now. He doesn’t have any more of an alibi than I do for Saturday night.”

His adrenaline began pumping harder. “How do you know?”

“Because when he phoned to offer his condolences, he happened to mention he’d been home alone. Donna Rainfield has a part in a play, so she wasn’t there. But...that really just reinforces the fact he
didn’t
do it. If he
had
he’d have a solid alibi. Bryce is an intelligent man. He’d cover himself.”

Travis nodded once more, thinking that even intelligent men sometimes do foolish things. Or maybe Bryce figured that going with the home-alone story was smarter than concocting an alibi that would mean relying on someone else to lie.

A liar could always change his tune. Or try his hand at blackmail a few miles down the road.

“Let’s play around with the possibility it
was
Bryce,” he said. “Even if you’re sure it couldn’t have been,” he interrupted when Celeste started to say something. “Just let me ask you a couple of questions. How tall is he?”

She hesitated, as if uncertain she was willing to “play around” with this at all, but finally said, “Not very. In heels, I’m as tall as him. Why?”

“We don’t think whoever killed your brother was very tall.”

“Oh. But—”

“And what if he’d called Steve, said he wanted to talk to him about something. Would Steve have told him to come over?”

“Yes, of course,” she said slowly. “You know...this should have occurred to me before, but didn’t the concierge remember sending anyone up to Steve’s apartment that night?”

Travis shook his head. “Which probably means the killer either snuck past him or got in a back way. Otherwise, it would have had to be someone already in the building.”

“Like a neighbor, you mean.”

“Yes, but all the neighbors have been interviewed and none of them seems to have an even remote motive.”

Whereas the case against Bryce was looking awfully strong. When he drew up those wills, his marriage to Celeste had been intact. And if he actually was capable of murder, in the back of his mind he’d have been thinking that when Adele Langley died he’d ensure something happened to her son shortly thereafter.

Now, though, the marriage was over. So for Bryce to get his hands on any of the money something would have to happen to Celeste, as well.

“But...isn’t that kind of a standard thing?” she said. “The survivor clause,” she added at his puzzled glance.

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, whether it is or not, Bryce just isn’t a man who’d ever... Besides, he has to assume I’ve had a new will written. Naming a new beneficiary. I mean, I should have. Months ago. I just haven’t gotten around to it.”

After considering that, Travis said, “I need to make a call.”

* * *

S
NOOPS
HAD
WANDERED
into the living room, his desire for attention apparently stronger than his wariness of Travis, so Celeste sat stroking him while she waited for Travis to finish his conversation.

He’d phoned a lawyer he played handball with and explained the situation. Now he wasn’t talking, was just listening to what his friend had to say.

As the silence lengthened, she couldn’t stop herself from contemplating the possibility that Bryce really might have killed Steve.

Initially, she’d found the idea beyond belief, had been certain she couldn’t have been married to someone for three years without suspecting he was that morally corrupt.

Oh, she knew from personal experience he was hardly the most principled man in the world. But cheating on her wasn’t in the same league as murdering her brother and hiring someone to kill her. Just the thought of that...

She swallowed hard, feeling physically ill.

“I’m not sure,” Travis said into the phone. Then he glanced at her. “Have either of you started divorce proceedings?”

“No. I mean, I guess Bryce
might
have, but I’m pretty sure he’d have let me know before he did.”

Of course, maybe she shouldn’t be too sure about
anything
when it came to Bryce. And now that she was thinking about it, it seemed a little surprising that he hadn’t pressed the issue. Because she’d gathered that Donna Rainfield would like nothing better than to become wife number two.

Not that she knew Donna personally. They’d never actually met. But a few weeks after she’d left Bryce, one of his “friends” had invited her to dinner—then hit on her during dessert.

Before that, though, over the main course, he’d insisted on telling her all about Donna. And she sounded like the sort of woman who’d be thrilled to have a lawyer for a husband. Apparently, she had much more expensive tastes than an off-Broadway actress could indulge.

As for herself, she’d gotten as far as making an appointment with a divorce lawyer. But before she’d seen him her mother had been killed, and she just hadn’t done any more about it yet.

“Celeste?” Travis said, interrupting her reverie. “You don’t have children, do you?”

“No,” she said again, wondering if he imagined she had a couple hidden in a closet.

Then, as he was telling his friend she had none, she realized that, conceivably, she might have some who were living with Bryce.

Absently, she brushed her hair away from her face, thinking how very little she and Travis actually knew about each other. From there, her thoughts went scurrying back to what she’d been wondering about, on and off, from the first moment she’d realized how drawn she was to him.

Was she falling for the man himself, or for the emotional anchor he represented?

She was no closer to answering that question than she’d been in the beginning. Of course, if she ended up dead, the answer would be irrelevant.

As the truth of that sent a shiver all the way to her toes, Travis thanked his friend and clicked off.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, setting the cordless on the coffee table. “As long as you’re still legally married to Bryce and you’re childless, he’s entitled to half your estate if you die. That would be true even if you’d signed a new will that left him nothing.”

“But that isn’t right. I mean, it
shouldn’t
be.”

“Well, according to New York State law it is. All he’d have to do is file some forms in probate court. A procedure called ‘electing against the will.’”

She hadn’t known that, but Bryce would have.

“What did he tell you about the survivor clause?” she asked. “
Is
it a standard sort of thing?”

“Not when a mother’s leaving her estate to her offspring. It’s only standard in wills drawn up for a husband and wife—in case they’re in an accident together and both die.”

“But...if it’s common in at least some wills, Bryce probably just put it in because he was covering all the bases. He’s picky about details.”

Travis was silent for a minute. “Celeste,” he said at last, “
someone
wants you dead badly enough that he’s paid a hit man to make it happen. And thus far, the only person we know would gain from your death is Bryce.”

“Yes, but...” She paused, considering just how
much
he’d gain.

Her automatic reaction, when Travis had asked her what the estate was worth, had been to hedge a bit.

As she’d told him, her parents hadn’t been the sort of people who’d talked about their finances. And neither was she.

Besides, she honestly
didn’t
know the exact number yet. And even though she could have been a little more specific, she doubted it mattered.

The key thing was that he’d assumed it was enough to interest Bryce—and it would be.

Bryce made a lot of money, but he spent a lot, too. He liked the best of everything. And he must have told her a hundred times that he should have gone to medical school rather than law school because he’d be earning far more if he had.

“Look,” Travis said, “I’ll fill Hank in and he’ll start doing the
official
digging around about Bryce. But if there’s anything more I can come up with that might help, I will.”

“It doesn’t sound as if you’re really considering yourself off the case.”

“No. By the time Hank and I finished talking, we decided that he’ll keep sharing information with me and I’ll share whatever I can learn with him. But he’s got to focus on nailing whoever killed your brother, while I’m going to concentrate on the contract. I’ll track down his informant, see if I can get a lead on who this Ice Man is.”

She nodded, then said, “What about me as a suspect? Does Hank still think there’s a chance I did it?”

“No. Since he heard about the contract, he’s dropped the odds on that to one in a million. And as soon as I tell him about Bryce, he’ll be the primary suspect.

“Of course, if it turns out he’s
not
behind it... But it seems so obvious. And if we can turn up something that points more directly to him...”

“And if you can’t?”

“Hank will talk to him, anyway.”

“And say?”

“It depends. Maybe just come right out and tell him that somebody’s put a contract on you. See how he reacts.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. We do virtually anything we think might help us. And that includes telling a suspect facts about a case. Because if he’s guilty, he already knows them. And if he’s not, it usually doesn’t matter.”

“Ah.”

“But, look, while we’re trying to get to the bottom of things, you can’t stay here. This Ice Man will know where you live, and we sure don’t want him watching you coming and going.”

Her mouth went dry. She knew what Travis actually meant. They didn’t want him lurking in the street outside so he could shoot her when she walked out the front door. Or want him following her, just waiting for an opportune moment.

“No...no, of course I can’t stay here,” she murmured. “But where should I go?”

“You should come stay with me.”

* * *

I
T
WAS
ONLY
THREE
or four miles from the Upper West Side down to Chelsea, where Travis lived, yet in the rush-hour traffic Celeste guessed they’d be a good hour getting there. And the cat was doing his utmost to make her feel as if the trip might take forever.

Snoops was yeowling at full volume, protesting the torture of being confined in his carrier and forced to ride in a car. The hubbub outside—Manhattan going about its routine business—was a murmur in comparison.

“Does he do that very often?” Travis asked, glancing across at her.

He merely seemed curious, not perturbed about the possibility, but he had to be worried that he’d let himself in for some sleepless nights.

“Almost never,” she assured him. “Only in cars. He won’t be a problem in your apartment. Really.”

He nodded, then checked the rearview mirror again.

She resisted the urge to turn around and have her own look. There was simply no way the Ice Man could be following them.

Before she’d come out of her building, Travis had walked both sides of her entire block—peering into each parked car and every space where someone might have been concealed.

So the hit man couldn’t have been watching and seen them leave. But if Travis was positive of that, what was he so concerned about?

When he checked the mirror yet again, she said, “Do you think he could be back there?”

“No.”

“Then why do you keep looking?”

“Just habit.”

As they were inching ahead another couple of feet, the driver next to them leaned on his horn. The sudden blare made her jump, even though she was normally oblivious to the constant noises of the city.

“Celeste,” Travis said quietly, “you’re going to be okay. He won’t have the slightest idea where to find you.”

“He’ll try to, though,” she murmured, wishing she felt a lot braver than she did.

“Yeah, he’ll try. But none of your friends or relatives even know I exist. So as long as you don’t tell anyone where you are, you’ll be perfectly safe.”