He wasn’t married, wasn’t involved with anyone. Natalie could feel her heart do a little leap in her chest and she tried in vain to pay no attention to it.
“Good,” she responded crisply, “then you’re free to help.”
He pointed out the obvious. “I’m working,” but even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t an excuse. She was determined, and he was afraid that she would push too hard and get herself killed as well.
“We’re not going to Mars. We’re staying on the premises.” She frowned at him. “Now, are you going to help me?” She drew closer to him, as if her proximity would draw the words out of him. “Or do you have something to confess?”
Her scent filled his head, triggering memories. Nostalgia brought a side order of yearning with it.
Yes, I have something to confess. I never got over you. You’re a fever in my blood, Natalie Rothchild. And seeing you now has just made me realize that I was a fool to ever think I could put you behind me.
But he kept all of this tightly wrapped inside of him. If he said anything at all, then he’d wasted the last eight years trying to make a life for himself without her. So he kept his face impassive and glanced at his watch. “I can give you an hour.”
Eight years ago, he called the shots. This time around it was her turn. “You’ll give me as much time as I need,” she countered.
Amusement curved his lips. “You’ve gotten tougher since I last saw you.”
Her eyes met his for a long moment. “I’ve had to,” was all she said.
There had been five valets on duty last night. Because of the double duty they’d pulled, they were all off now and had to be summoned back to the casino.
“This is where your part comes in,” Natalie told him as he had the head attendant place calls to all five valets. Matt made no comment as he gave the attendant instructions.
One by one, the valets—all young, lean men in their twenties, came straggling in. They looked bleary-eyed and somewhat bewildered. The gala hadn’t ended until two in the morning.
Natalie decided that questioning them en masse would be simpler. In response, she heard the same story over and over again. Between regular guests of the casino and its accompanying hotel, and the attendees at the gala, all five valets had been kept hopping. They were far too busy parking and retrieving cars to take any kind of notice of the comings and goings of the attending celebrities for more than a fleeting second, if that long.
What it boiled down to was that they all assured Natalie that they hadn’t seen who Candace might have left with. Her optimism was flagging when the last valet suddenly remembered that he had seen the flamboyant young woman exchanging words with another woman.
“She didn’t exactly look pleased,” the valet confided to her.
She took a guess as to who the pronoun referred to. “Candace?”
The young man shook his head. “No, the woman Miss Rothchild was talking to.”
Excitement instantly sparked. “Could you describe her?”
The valet, Blake, looked at her sheepishly. “No,” he confessed. It took him a moment to continue. When he did, he avoided looking into Natalie’s eyes. “I was watching Ms. Rothchild. She was um, gesturing so hard that, um…” And then, because he seemed to suddenly realize he was talking to the dead woman’s sister, he abruptly stopped, red-faced.
It took no effort for Matt to read between the lines. “You were watching to see if her dress would stay put or fall off.”
The words sounded antiseptic, but the valet still looked somewhat embarrassed by what he’d accidentally admitted to. Still, he seemed aware that she was waiting for him to answer. So he made the admission to his shoes. “Yeah, that’s it.”
Natalie couldn’t begin to describe the frustration she felt. She grabbed hold of the valet’s arm and tugged, forcing him to look up at her. “You have to remember something,” she insisted. “Blonde? Brunette? Redhead? Tall? Short?”
The valet pressed his lips together and screwed his face up, hard. It looked as if he was straining his brain. Any second, Natalie was certain she was going to see steam coming out of his ears. Finally, he said, “She wasn’t old.”
“Great,” Natalie murmured. “I’ll put out an APB for half of Vegas.”
The valet looked genuinely contrite. “Sorry,” he apologized.
Matt put his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Blake,” he told him. “You can go back home now.” Matt looked at the other valets still gathered there. “That goes for the rest of you—unless anyone remembers anything else.”
“No.”
“Sorry.”
“Not me.”
“It was a busy night, Mr. Schaffer.”
Matt nodded. “I know. Get some sleep, you’ll be back on duty soon.”
The valets immediately cleared out, obviously relieved to be dismissed.
Natalie turned on Matt, her hands on her hips. He’d usurped her authority, just like that. “Maybe I wasn’t finished with Blake,” she said, struggling to rein in her irritation.
“What were you planning on doing?” he challenged. “Performing exploratory surgery on his brain to see if he was hiding something? The kid told you all that he remembered.”
Something was nagging at her. In Natalie’s opinion, Matt had been much too lax with the valets, almost eager to send them on their way—especially the last one. Was he covering for this Blake guy?
Or was he covering for someone else? She hated this feeling, but she just didn’t trust him. “And have you told me all you know, or are you hiding something?”
He could only shake his head. How many times were they going to go through this? “I’m the one who called the valets in, remember? And the one who got you a backup of the tapes.” He would have thought that the latter would have gotten him some goodwill. “When did you get so suspicious of everyone?”
There was no hesitation on her part. She fired back, “The day I found a note tucked under the pillow next to mine.”
What could he say to that? That he had done it for her own good? That it had killed him to leave her? That he’d looked back at her sleeping face, so peaceful, so beautiful, and had almost changed his mind? That he had almost torn up the note and had wanted nothing more than to take his chances? Except that the chances he’d be taking didn’t involve him, they’d involved her and he had no right to play Russian roulette with her life for the selfish reason that he couldn’t live without her.
He’d learned how to.
Matt said nothing in response. Instead, he asked, “Do you still want to talk to Montgomery?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “Then let’s go.”
Chapter 7
The automatic smile that appeared on Luke Montgomery’s lips as she entered his office, followed by Matt, faded instantly when Natalie confronted him with her first question.
It was obvious that Montgomery didn’t like being questioned or put on the spot, especially not by an LVPD detective that also just happened to be the daughter of a man who had once scoffed at his efforts to get started in the casino business. Harold Rothchild’s exact words had been that he would look forward to being a witness to his failure.
A