Chapter Four
Leo had ten minutes before Anja walked through his door, and he wasted the first eight of them pretending he hadn’t spent the previous four hours desperately trying not to come apart.
He started a fresh pot of coffee. Pushed his sleeves down, then back up, then gave up on them entirely. He glanced at his reflection in the microwave door and winced. His hair was standing up and his polo shirt looked as if he’d slept in it. He hadn’t, but hey, the night was young.
He didn’t bother fixing either one. There was something vaguely absurd about grooming for a woman who had spent an amazing night naked in his arms and then let him walk away without so much as a goodbye.
The coffee finished brewing. He grabbed two mugs, remembered she took hers with a splash of cream, and felt a stupid rush of relief that he’d bought half-and-half the week before on some instinct he hadn’t examined at the time.
His phone buzzed on the counter.
On my way up.
Two minutes later, a firm, unmistakable knock landed on his door.
He crossed the entryway in four strides, unlocked the deadbolt, and yanked it open.
Anja Johansen stood on his threshold with a bag slung over her shoulder, her light-blue eyes staring at him, and her hair coming loose from a braid. Every sensible thought in Leo’s head walked out the back exit and didn’t leave a forwarding address.
He’d forgotten.
That was the thing that hit first, and it punched hard.
He’d spent five months deliberately not calling her and even more consciously avoiding thoughts of her.
Somewhere in the silence of those months, his memory had softened her into something he could manage.
A general impression of hair the color of moonlight on water and blue-gray eyes.
A voice that could deliver a one-liner without moving her lips very much.
The shape of her in a black dress at a wedding reception, watching him without pretending she wasn’t.
The real Anja, framed in the golden hallway light with a faint flush across her cheekbones, was more beautiful than he remembered.
Standing five-eight, give or take an inch in her boots, her pale-blonde, almost white hair lay over one shoulder of a dark zip-front jacket cut for movement, with a black tee underneath and black yoga pants.
Her eyes were the same pale blue color he remembered, but he’d forgotten what they did up close.
She took in his entryway, his face, and the coffee mug in his hand in three methodical sweeps that finished before most people would’ve managed a “hello.”
Anja wasn’t dressed for him, but for whatever waited on the other side of his door. The fact that she was here because a dead man had told him she was the only person he could trust was somehow both the least and the most romantic thing that had ever happened to him.
His gaze lingered, and he didn’t say anything for a full ten seconds. Maybe twenty. Time stood still when he looked at her.
Nope. Not doing this twice in one lifetime.
But apparently he was.
Her mouth pulled into the amused, almost fond line he remembered, and she beat him to it before he could embarrass himself.
“Try to pace yourself, De Luca.”
A laugh escaped his throat, surprised out of him by the sheer mercy of being handed the joke before he had to reach for it. He stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She crossed the threshold, her shoulder brushing his as she passed. Leo caught a hint of something clean and fresh as he shut the door behind her and threw the deadbolt. The definitive click of the lock was the most comforting sound he’d heard all day.
Anja set her bag on the hardwood and turned in a slow half-circle, taking in his place. Leo watched her for one full second before dragging his attention back to the thing that had brought her here.
After four hours of panic, this had just become an operation with two people on it.
He’d take it.
#
Anja scanned Leo’s condo in one slow sweep.
It was bigger than she’d expected, and cleaner than any bachelor’s place had a right to be.
With an open floor plan, high ceilings, dark walnut cabinets, and black stone countertops, it was totally masculine.
Totally Leo. An east wall of tall windows showcased the St. Louis skyline in the distance.
The furniture gave off a polished, perfectly coordinated air that announced, “My sister hired a decorator.”
The scent of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air. Leo stood in the middle of his own kitchen, appearing unsure what to do with his hands. His white polo was wrinkled at the elbows from being pushed up, and a muscle worked in his cheek that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
“How many ways do you have into this apartment?” she asked.
“Front door. Service elevator at the back of the hall, locked from my side. Two balconies, both thirty-three stories up.”
“Who else has a key?”
“Chloe. The building manager has a master for emergencies.”
“Are there cameras in the hallway?”
“One at the elevator. One at each end of the corridor. Building security keeps the footage for forty-five days.”
She nodded and held up her cell phone. “I’m going to sweep your unit before we sit down. It’ll take ten minutes. Don’t follow me. Sit and drink your coffee and try not to listen to yourself think.”
His mouth curved sexily. “That obvious?”
“You’ve been alone in your own head for hours. Nothing good comes from that.”
He chuckled, and she busied herself with her phone to hide the shiver, pulling up the bug app.
Starting with the entryway, her sweep was methodical.
She checked every outlet, light fixture, and smoke detector.
Searched behind each piece of art on the walls and inside the cabinets.
The primary bedroom got the same treatment, and she kept her attention on the screen instead of on the hastily made bed with its black comforter, the paperback on the nightstand, or the knee-weakening trace of Leo’s lingering aftershave.
His condo featured a ridiculously large en suite with both a shower and a jetted tub.
She moved to the guest bedroom, the hall bathroom, and then the laundry room.
Off the hallway was an office with a framed baseball jersey hanging behind a tidy desk.
The app stayed silent the whole way through.
She returned and set her phone on the island. Leo was where she’d left him, probably trying very hard not to interrupt while she worked.
“Clean?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“You mentioned that on the phone.”
“I know. I meant it then too.” He slid a mug across the marble. “Cream’s already in. I remembered.”
She took a swallow and tried not to think about what that meant. The coffee was excellent, strong and hot, with just enough cream to soften the edge. He’d remembered from a single cup in a diner in St. Louis months ago. Most people didn’t notice details like that. Leo apparently did.
Drawer, she reminded herself. Later.
“Okay, De Luca.” She slid onto a stool and placed both hands flat on the island. “Start at the beginning. What the hell happened today?”
#
He told her, and she listened. He started with Bellerive, which surprised her.
Most people began with the worst segment and worked backward.
Leo told her about the eighteenth fairway and a client named Desmond Roule.
He walked her through the afternoon in chronological order, which was probably how he prepped a contract.
First the news alert on his phone and Vic Shaw.
Then a flashback to Tony’s Steakhouse three nights earlier and the exact phrasing Vic used about “If somebody tells you a story about why.” He recounted the drive back to Pinnacle and Marcy at her desk with a signed-for mailer.
Leo stopped there, pushed off the counter, and crossed to the oven.
“Leave it,” she ordered, and his hand froze mid-reach. “Keep going. I want the complete story before I touch anything.”
He gave her a crooked glance that translated into: you’re going to be difficult about this, aren’t you, and came back to the island. There was no wasted movement or fidgeting when he perched on the stool. He held himself the way athletes did when they’d been hurt and didn’t want anyone to notice.
“There’s a handwritten note from Vic inside the mailer, along with a thumb drive and burner phone, powered off. I tried a few obvious passwords on the drive and took it out when I realized I was being stupid. The burner has one contact. I didn’t touch it.”
“Good. What does the note say?”
“Basically, to trust no one. Not the cops, the feds, or my own firm, and to get the drive to someone outside the industry. It says Vic didn’t kill himself, the story I’m about to hear is a lie, and that my clients are next.”
Her pulse quickened, and the familiar, welcome jolt of her old detective’s brain dropping into place came right behind it.
“How sure are you that the note is really from Vic?”
“It’s his handwriting. I’ve seen it on a dozen contracts over the years. It’s shakier than I remember, but I’m relatively confident it’s his.”
“You’re a lawyer. You read people on paper for a living. If this were a document in a contract dispute, would you say the man who wrote it believed what he was writing?”
Leo didn’t answer right away. He considered his coffee, then her. “Yes. The phrasing’s too specific. The apology at the bottom is too human. He wrote it expecting to die.”
“Okay.” She tapped the island twice with a finger. “Walk me through the steakhouse. Every detail. What Vic was wearing. Where he sat. What he ordered. What he didn’t eat. Who else was in the room.”
“Anja—”
“I know it feels like I’m digging. That’s because I am. Memory diminishes in about seventy-two hours, and we’re already past forty-eight. If Vic revealed something that mattered, I need it out of your head and into mine before it goes.”
He nodded once, closed his eyes, and started talking.