Led into Temptation Read online

  “No.” Frowning again, she glanced back at the courtyard. “But once anyone discovered I wasn’t in Boston, this would be the obvious place to look.”

  “The FBI is not happy that you didn’t tell them your travel plans, but they had some information that I thought you should know.”

  “What?”

  “The reason the local police discovered you weren’t in your apartment is they received a call from one of your neighbors reporting that your apartment had been broken into and ransacked.”

  Fear knotted in her belly. “When?”

  “The neighbor wasn’t sure. Could have been either yesterday or earlier today. She discovered it when she got home from work this afternoon and let herself in to water your plants.”

  Naomi’s mind began to race. “Who?”

  Nate studied her. “Wild guess—someone thinks you hold the key to the money that Michael Davenport swindled his clients out of. And whoever broke in figured they could find it.”

  DANE RACED UP THE SERVICE STAIRS, taking them two at a time. It had cost him precious minutes to avoid both the courtyard and the lobby, but he didn’t want to attract either Naomi’s or her former boss’s attention. The last exit door only got him to the second level. He knew from the brief tour he’d given himself on the day he’d done his reconnaissance that the tower room was still two floors above him.

  The first flight of stairs was stone, and he raced up them and down the corridor. The paneled oak door to the tower room boasted an old-fashioned lock, and he wasted a few more precious moments getting past it. Then he stepped quietly into a dark stairwell. The cold hit him immediately and set his nerves dancing.

  The iron staircase rose in a circle into darkness. There was probably a light switch, but whoever was up in the tower room hadn’t chosen to flip it. He slowed his pace, climbing slowly so that he didn’t make any noise. And he listened. All he heard was the distant and muted sound of the sea.

  The darkness gradually dissipated as he rounded the last turn in the staircase and an open archway came into view. Dust motes danced in the streams of daylight pouring in through the circle of windows. The room should have been stuffy and heated by the sunshine, but it was bone-chillingly cold. And part of the room was blocked from his view. A tingle of warning snaked up his spine.

  He wasn’t alone in the room.

  Drawing out his gun, Dane gripped it in both hands, intending to fan the area that he hadn’t yet seen.

  As he stepped into the room, he caught the blur of movement to his right. He tried to swivel, but the blow to his temple sent him toppling to the floor. His gun skidded away. Basic survival instinct had him rolling, but not fast enough to avoid the second blow to his thigh. Pain sang up his leg, but he managed to scramble to his knees. Through the stars still spinning in front of his eyes, he saw Michael Davenport swing the poker up over his head.

  Dane threw up his hands but he wasn’t going to be able to avoid it. Michael Davenport had a good chance of finishing the job he’d started three years ago.

  Then there was another rush of cold and a flash of light behind him, and inches away from him, the poker halted in its downward arc as if it had slammed into some kind of shield. Davenport’s face had gone bone white and sweat sheened his skin as he stared at a space beyond Dane’s shoulders.

  Dane felt along the floor beside him and located his gun, but before he could raise it, Davenport took two stumbling steps back, then screamed.

  The sound filled the room muting the clatter of the poker as it fell to the floor. Then Davenport turned and ran from the room.

  11

  NAOMI’S HEAD WAS SPINNING as she let herself into her room. She had to think. Who had searched her apartment and what did Leo’s job offer mean?

  But her mind kept looping back to the scene in front of the hotel before reality had intruded. It had been so hard to shake Dane’s hand and say goodbye. She’d spent most of the ride home rehearsing the little speech. But there’d been a moment when she’d first taken his hand that the words, her promise— Everything had drained away. All she was aware of was the press of his palm against hers, the heat of his eyes on her skin and the intensity of the desire that burned so fiercely inside of her.

  She still wasn’t sure how her legs had carried her up the steps and into the lobby. No matter what her mind said, her body might not be able to give Dane MacFarland up. It was that simple. That basic.

  Of course, that was the whole problem with forbidden fruit. It tasted so good you had to experience it again.

  But evidently she hadn’t morphed totally into a new and reckless Naomi. She hadn’t followed her instincts, pushed him back into the Corvette, and driven off with him. There was enough of the old Naomi in her to make her want to keep her word, and she’d made the terms of her proposition clear.

  Big whoop!

  Sinking onto the foot of her bed now, she propped her elbows on her knees and cupped her chin with her hands. The fact that Leo King and Thomas Fairchild had been waiting for her in the lobby and insisted she join them for a drink had brought her back to earth with a little jolt.

  And the job offer. Why hadn’t she snapped it up? Was it because of Dane?

  The man had certainly gotten to her. When she’d entered the lobby, her aim had been to hurry to her room and spend a quiet evening, one in which she could relive every single moment of the time she’d spent on the beach with him.

  Okay, so what if that smacked of the way she’d handled her priest-crush at fourteen? After the afternoon she’d spent with Dane, wasn’t she entitled?

  Rising, she paced to the balcony doors and then back to her bed. For all she cared, the new Naomi could sue the old one. Or vice versa. And the dispute could be settled out of court since she was now going to spend her evening trying to figure out why Leo King wanted her back and why someone had ransacked her apartment in Boston.

  Okay, so the real world had come knocking at her door. What had she expected? Yesterday on the ferry ride over, she’d known that her retreat wouldn’t remain solitary for very long. For all she knew, some FBI agents had already checked in to Haworth House, too.

  Without realizing it, she’d paced back to the balcony doors again. For one moment, she was tempted to open them and see if she could catch a glimpse of Dane.

  Her hand was on the knob when she heard it—the sound of a thud overhead. Alarm shot through her as she looked up at the ceiling.

  Someone was in Hattie’s tower room.

  She raced out to the hall and down to the carved oak door. She was still a few feet away when she saw it was ajar. Her heart jumped to her throat and fluttered like a frightened bird.

  She’d locked the door when she’d left earlier, and no one but Avery on the hotel staff had a key. She reached for the knob, intending to pull it open, then froze when she heard the scream. A man’s scream, followed by footsteps thundering down the stairs. The door burst open, propelling her backward and slamming her head into the wall. Stars spun in front of her eyes, but she still caught a glimpse of the man as he tore down the corridor and through the door to the stone staircase.

  Shock hit first. Then as the freeze-framed moment burned itself into her brain, recognition sank in with the impact of a bare-fisted punch.

  In spite of the fact he was wearing a baseball cap, she wasn’t mistaken. During the past six months, she’d had plenty of opportunity to study that profile—the long, almost Roman nose, the smooth jawline. And the tattoo on his upper arm didn’t fool her this time.

  “Michael!” She’d intended to shout the name, but all she managed was a whisper of sound. She pushed herself away from the wall, intending to run after him.

  Then she heard the moan and whirled back to the staircase. The sound had come from Hattie’s tower room. Without another thought, she took the iron stairs two at a time.

  She found him sitting on the floor near the archway, holding his head in one hand. A fireplace poker lay near him.

  “Dane?”


  He got to his feet.

  “What happened? Are you all—” The sentence faded away when she saw the gun.

  Moving swiftly toward her, he tucked it into the back of his waistband in a quick, competent move.

  “What are you doing with a—”

  He stopped her sentence by placing a hand over her mouth and urging her back against the wall.

  A suspicion formed in her mind, and she tried to dismiss it. Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “We can’t talk here. Tell me that the cut on my head needs attention, and there’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom.”

  A cut on his head? A bubble of hysteria rose in her throat and she fought against it. When he removed his hand and stepped back, she saw the blood dripping down his cheek. He’d been hurt. For the moment, she focused her attention on that. “You’re bleeding. There’s a first-aid kit in the bathroom.” On shaky legs, she led the way.

  Once inside, he flipped on the light switch and locked the door. The room was small; a sink and a toilet lined one wall and a small stall shower filled the corner. He only had to take one step to reach the shower knobs and twist them. The sound of running water filled the space.

  “Why are you doing that?” she asked. Of all the questions tumbling around in her mind, that one seemed the safest.

  “Whoever was here may have bugged the room.”

  Michael—it had been Michael who was here. Why would he bug the room? And why would Dane—She thought of the gun again. “What were you doing here?”

  “I was on my balcony and I saw someone in the tower windows.”

  So you raced up here with a gun? Something squeezed around her heart. In a moment, she was going to sort through it, figure out what it meant. For now, to steady herself, Naomi opened the cabinet over the sink and located bandages, antiseptic, cotton gauze. Her hand only trembled a little as she lined them up on the glass shelf.

  When she closed the cabinet door, she saw his face in the mirror behind hers. With his hair mussed and blood on his cheek, he looked dangerous. Not at all like the man she’d spent the afternoon with on the beach. But hadn’t she sensed two men in Dane MacFarland from the very first?

  More questions pushed at the edge of her mind, but she ignored them and gestured him to sit down on the toilet seat. Then she focused her entire attention on the task. Noting the spot where the blood had begun to mat his hair, she leaned closer to examine it as she probed gently with her fingers. “It’s not deep. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”

  “Good to know.” His breath hissed out as she swabbed it with antiseptic.

  After pressing a clean piece of gauze over the wound, she replaced her hand with his. “Hold it there for a bit to stop the bleeding.”

  “You’re good at this,” he said.

  “I had a lot of practice while my sisters and I were growing up.” The fact that her voice was steady shocked her. Because her insides felt like jelly. And there was a tightness in her chest that was making it hard to breathe.

  She moved to the wall where he’d been standing so that she could face him directly. They were still close. Her knees were less than a foot away from his. If he stood up, there was no way to avoid contact. In spite of her questions, in spite of what had to be the answer, the thought of touching him triggered a surge of desire she was helpless to prevent.

  A tiny flame of anger flared to life inside of her, and for the first time since she’d raced up the iron stairs, her head began to clear. “You’re not a priest.”

  “No.”

  Though she’d known it, hearing him speak that one word sent a little stab of pain through her. That made her more angry. “Who are you?” she demanded. “FBI?”

  “No.”

  The one-word answers combined with his calm, even tone forced her to clamp down hard on her temper. She badly wanted to hit him. She’d give in to that temptation later. Right now she wanted answers.

  “Who are you then, and why are you really here at Haworth House?”

  Dane took a moment to study her. His brain was cooler now. They were in a locked bathroom, and there was little likelihood that Michael Davenport would be coming back. Something had happened out there, something he couldn’t explain. Davenport had had the poker raised over his head, prepared to execute the final deadly blow. Then he’d frozen in place. Dane didn’t think he’d ever forget the scream.

  For now he pushed that concern aside. Figuring out how to handle the current situation required his full attention. Naomi had had a shock, but she was rallying. Her hands had stopped trembling while she’d been fussing with his head, and she was pretty easy to read. Right now she was spitting mad. He considered how much to tell her.

  “Fine.”

  As she stepped toward the door, her leg brushed against his. The space was so confined that neither of them could move without touching the other.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, I’ll let you explain your presence in the tower room to Sheriff Kirby. He was still in the lobby a few moments ago when I came up to my room.”

  Rising, he slapped a hand on the door and managed to grab her wrist before she could unlock it. Clearly, she was going to have to have it all. “What was Kirby doing here?”

  She turned to face him, and they were close enough that their bodies brushed for just an instant. Dane felt the searing heat at each contact point. She felt it, too. He could see it in her eyes.

  She lifted her chin. “You answer my question first, Mr. MacFarland. If that’s your name.”

  Neither of them looked down at where his hand still gripped her wrist, but she had to be aware of how fast her pulse was racing. He certainly was. Very carefully, he released her and stepped back to sit down on the toilet seat. “My real name is Dane MacFarland.”

  She leaned back against the bathroom door and folded her arms across her chest. “And your real reason for being here?”

  “I’m looking for Michael Davenport.” He saw the flash of pain in her eyes and silently cursed himself.

  “Who are you working for?”

  “Myself. My brother Ian and I run MacFarland Investigations. But we don’t have a client on this one. This is personal. Three years ago I nearly had him, but he got away.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Not as long as the one I could invent to tell Sheriff Kirby. Of course, you may check out, but explaining yourself to local law enforcement might slow you down some.”

  Dane nodded. “Okay. Three years ago, I was hired by a bank in Kansas City to help them locate Davenport and to get back the money he’d swindled people out of. He was using a different alias, but the scam was pretty much the same. He started there with a local candy company and got them to turn over management of the employees’ retirement fund to him. In the process, he became engaged to the owner’s daughter. The man had a solid reputation, and when word spread of the initial profits his company was making, other investors came knocking at Davenport’s door. Then one day, he and the money vanished.”

  “That’s exactly what happened in Boston.”

  “Yes. He used the same pattern. But in Boston, he got some coverage in the press. That’s what drew him to my attention.”

  “How does he get away with it?”

  “He’s very good with computers. Everything looks fine on the surface. The money appears to be there. When the forensic accountants finally cut their way through the dummy corporations and fake investment reports, they discovered the money wasn’t there at all. Instead, it had been deposited into various local banks and withdrawn over time in such small enough amounts that it never triggered any warning bells. The largest amount they located was two million, and it had been withdrawn just a few days before Davenport had disappeared.”

  “What does he do—hide it in a mattress until he decides to take off?”

  “It’s not that easy to transport large amounts of cash. Or to hide them. A wire transfer to some offshore bank would be the easie
st way to go. But transfers can be traced. So I developed this theory.”

  Her brows shot up. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  The dryness of her tone nearly made him smile. “I developed a theory that proved correct in Kansas City. When Davenport thinks the scam has run its course, he withdraws the money in small amounts and purchases a portable artifact of appropriate value.”

  “Portable?” Her brow furrowed. “Like in Charade, the Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn movie where her ex-husband put all the money into a rare stamp.”

  “Something like that.”

  “It’s a way to launder the money,” she said in a musing tone. “Then when he’s safely established in a new identity, he sells whatever pricey object he has, deposits the money and starts a new scam.”

  She took a step away from the door as if she wanted to pace. Then she stopped and met his eyes. “You said you nearly had him in Kansas City.”

  “He was working with a partner, a woman. She helped him make his initial contacts, vouched for him. But she’d begun to mistrust him. Smart lady. Michael Davenport doesn’t play well with others. She managed to get hold of the artifact, a bronze figurine, and she was holding it until Davenport turned over her share of the cash. I approached her, and once she knew someone was on to her, it was fairly easy to convince her to help me set a trap.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was with her when he came to get it. We were standing as close as you and I are standing right now. He got in without my hearing him. He shot both of us. I survived. She didn’t.”

  Naomi’s hand flew to her throat. She wanted to say that Michael wouldn’t do that. But the man who’d run down the corridor, the man who’d hit Dane, wasn’t the man she’d known as Michael Davenport. He was a stranger.

  And so was the man sitting on the toilet seat, she reminded herself. The pain settled in her stomach this time, a dull throbbing ache. She really didn’t know him at all. “You think I’m Michael’s partner.”

  “No.”

  She saw the anger flash in his eyes and it did something to ease the pain.