The sound of hammering drifted up to them. “Glenn’s fixing the door.” Now she was grasping at straws.
He threw up his hands and gave her a look that indicated he thought she was a moron. “You think that’s the only way into this house?”
She knew there were a dozen ways in. She’d used several of them as a teenager returning home after her curfew. She raised her chin and prayed her voice wouldn’t reveal how much his questions heightened her own fears.
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted. Showing weakness in front of Joe Galtero was a big mistake.
His hands balled into fists at his side. “What if they come back and go for Michael instead of you? What will you do then?”
Her breath caught in her throat. She had a vision of the big hand that had connected with her jaw hitting her son.
“What if they use him to get you to talk?” His voice lowered menacingly as he leaned toward her.
She gulped in air, seeking calm, but the image of Michael in danger was too terrifying. “But I don’t know anything.” Her voice hitched and broke.
He shook his head and spoke as if she were a backward child. “Do you think that would stop them?”
It wouldn’t. The two men who’d burst through the French doors and cornered her in the kitchen had been vicious.
One had held her arms behind her back while the other had cursed at her and shouted questions about her father. When she’d tried to tell them she didn’t know anything, he’d hit her in the face. Hearing the police sirens, they’d gotten away by going through the utility room and out the door connecting the garage to the alley.
Shaking his head, Joe approached her the way he might a suspect with a weapon, slow and steady, a step at a time. His air of command left no doubt as to who was in charge. “Would you take a chance with his life?”
Distraught, she tried to think of an alternative to Joe staying with her. She had nowhere else to go. The people she knew in New York were more acquaintances than friends. Her friends here in San Diego had faded away when the scandal about her father’s company made the national news. Not surprising, since a lot of them had lost huge sums of money when Fortuna Investments went bankrupt.
He stopped in front of her and leaned down, placing his hands on the padded arms of her chair, caging her in. “What’s your answer? Would you take a chance with Michael’s safety?”
“Of course not!”
He leaned in so close she could feel his breath warm against her face. “That’s good, Nikki. Because the alternative is that I take the baby.”
It took a moment for his statement to sink in. Her ears heard his words, but her mind tried to shove away their meaning. She stared at him in disbelief.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she breathed, hating the quiver of fear she heard in her own voice.
She pushed back into the upholstery, needing the solid feel of the chair at her back.
“Take my son? To keep him safe?” He lifted a hand and stroked Michael’s head. “You better believe I would.”
Chapter 2
Joe set his gym bag down in the foyer of Nikki’s silent house and checked the lock on the front door. Every light in the place was on.
He’d parked in the alley and waited to bring his bag in until the black-and-whites and the news vans left. He had no intention of announcing he was moving in with Raymond Walker’s daughter.
From long experience he knew cops were almost as good as reporters at spreading news, and if the brass found out about his temporary change of address there would be hell to pay. This time his shield could be gone for good.
He’d ask for vacation time starting tomorrow. He had plenty of it saved up.
Listening to the stillness, he wondered if Nikki had gone to bed. Wondered if she still slept in the dark blue nightgown with the lace that barely covered her breasts and slits up both sides, revealing her long beautiful legs.
His body punished him with a familiar ache. Knowing he wouldn’t find any relief, he tried to redirect his thoughts.
The bruise on her jaw had to hurt. Would she be able to sleep? Rage at the men who had attacked her threatened to swamp him again, and he felt the urge to put his fist through a wall.
Tamping down his frustration on all points, he checked the repairs to the French door where the creeps had broken in. A good hard kick would bring the plywood down. Her neighbor might be a well-known architect, but he wasn’t much of a carpenter. Joe would reinforce it tomorrow.
Something about the break-in bothered him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He mulled over the file on the murder of Harriet Loper he knew forward and backward as he checked another set of French doors leading out to a small garden area on the side of the house.
Who were they working for? Walker’s partner, Gerald Marks? He had no doubts that Nikki’s father, along with his partner, was involved with the disappearance of funds and the murder of Marks’s secretary. Was someone else in on the deal? Someone who felt cheated out of his share?
Someone besides the police wanted to find Walker. One of the top executives in the company could be out for revenge. Several of the vice presidents of the corporation had lost everything after Walker and his partner skipped. And then there were all the investors who had lost millions.
He checked the latch on a double-hung window in the dining room then stood staring at the privacy hedges screening the front of the huge brick house. After more than a year of investigation Joe had yet to uncover what had really happened the night Walker disappeared.
Whoever had ordered the break-in knew Nikki was back. Both he and Mac suspected the thugs had been hired. White-collar criminals rarely did their own dirty work.
And why had she come back? Why now?
Joe didn’t believe in coincidence. Rarely did things that looked like chance turn out to be random happenings.
Methodically, he checked every remaining window in the dining room and living room. A year ago Nikki had insisted her father was innocent. She’d looked at Joe with those big blue eyes full of tears and he’d forgotten his job as a cop. He’d made a huge error and had not remained neutral.
She’d had so much faith in her father. At the beginning of his investigation he’d treated Walker as a victim, even though Joe’s instincts had told him differently.
That had been his first big mistake.
His involvement with Nikki had happened with lightning speed and consumed his every waking thought. McCully had been right. If he’d been thinking with his brain instead of his dumb handle, he would have had some perspective.
Even after he’d come to the conclusion Walker had planned the whole scheme, Joe kept looking for another explanation because he didn’t want Nikki hurt. He’d held off as long as he could, but when he’d finally explained the evidence he had, she’d accused him of using her.
Damn. He hadn’t used her. He’d tried to spare her. His mistake had been not telling her his suspicions from the beginning.
If anything, he’d slowed down his investigation because of her. Then she’d disappeared. And when she disappeared, Joe’d realized he’d been thinking with his crotch.
A year later he was still thinking with his crotch. Except now things had changed. They had a child together. He ran his hands through his hair, then rubbed his hand over the back of his neck.
He’d been so consumed by wanting her he’d tried to avoid losing her by not telling her the truth about her father. And the end result was he’d screwed up in the worst way.
He’d forgotten his duty as a cop.