Behind The Red Doors (Santori Stories #1)(29)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

Then she remembered the vault emergency phone. After stumbling to the end of the vault, she yanked the red handset from its cradle. No dial tone—Sills had thought of everything.

But he had underestimated Carter’s strength, even with his weakened leg. Emitting an animal-like roar, Carter put his large hands around the man’s neck and squeezed. Sills turned red, then bluish, and Carter didn’t seem to be letting up.

“Carter!” she shouted. “Don’t kill him!”

He looked at her, then at Sills, and released the man abruptly, leaving him gurgling and coughing on the floor. As soon as Sills got in a couple of good breaths, Carter knocked him out cold with a right hook.

After all the commotion and the danger, the sound of the upbeat jazz music overhead was almost ludicrous. Faith sagged against the wall, weak with relief. Carter pushed to his feet, massaging his leg and taking in ragged breaths, then came to her. “Are you all right?”

She fell into his arms and buried her face against his chest. His arms came around her and he shushed her, stroking her hair and her back. She soaked up his warmth and his comfort and his strength. She never wanted to leave the security of his embrace, the sound of his heartbeat. He cleared his throat and loosened his hold first, and she reluctantly followed suit. He put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes for several seconds, his expression soft and unreadable. His lips parted and she knew he was going to kiss her.

Sills moaned, and the moment was gone. Carter dropped his hand and sighed. “I guess I’d better take care of him.”

She nodded, hiding her keen disappointment, and smoothed her hand down her neck. It was a rather silly to grieve for a missed kiss when they were lucky to be alive.

Carter lifted the unconscious Sills to a seated position, removed the man’s jewel-filled jacket, and handed it to Faith. Then he grabbed Sills by the heels and dragged him out the vault door and into the showroom.

She held up the man’s jacket by the collar, then stared at the dazzling jewelry and loose stones scattered and winking on the red carpeted floor of the vault. A splendid mess. The man had nearly gotten away with a fortune.

She reached into one of the pockets and withdrew the Tiffany’s ring box. She lifted the lid, telling herself she wanted to make sure the precious ring was intact. It was, all one-plus carats of it, judging from her educated eye. The raised six-prong setting looked amazingly contemporary, but in 1886, situating the stone up and off the band so that light could pass through the facets was revolutionary, and unique to Tiffany’s. If this ring was one of the six-prong originals, it would be worth a great deal. She bit her lip. With this astonishing ring at his disposal, no wonder Carter didn’t want to buy Trudy a new one.

Faith looked over her shoulder, then slipped the ring from the box and onto her left ring finger. She expected it to stop at her knuckle, but it eased past comfortably, beautifully. She imagined the diamond danced with the fire of the many love stories it had represented over the past one hundred years. Her heart clenched. Trudy was a lucky, lucky girl.

Then she gave herself a mental kick and returned the heirloom to its box—there was way too much to do for her to be standing around pining for Carter and his ring. The police would need to be summoned, not to mention the company that owned the Valentino diamond, and the insurance company.

For peace of mind, she delved into one of the coat pockets until she felt the purple cloth used to wrap the Valentino diamond. She carefully unfolded the cloth and stared at the silver-dollar-size white diamond, brilliantly cut and virtually free of impurities, a nearly perfect specimen of nature. Filled with reverence, she tilted her hand to watch the light play over the stone. When she saw a shadow in the depths of the diamond, she stopped. She’d thought the stone was virtually free of impurities, and, indeed, it had appeared nearly flawless under her microscope. But there was definitely something suspended in the stone…a circle? No…a heart. No…she gulped…two hearts, overlapping. Stacy’s recitation of the diamond’s legend came back to her, but she shook her head. Impossible. She held the diamond closer, but whatever she’d seen—or thought she’d seen—was no longer visible.

Faith massaged her temple—she was starting to imagine things.

At the sound of Carter’s telltale heavy footfalls approaching her in the vault, she rewrapped the Valentino diamond. Carter flung the vault door wide as if it weighed nothing, then strode inside and headed for the file cabinet. “I cuffed Sills and locked him in the bathroom, but I want my gun before I call for a black-and-white.”

Faith looked over his shoulder. “Carter, the door!”

He turned. “What?”

It was like one of those bad dreams, where things move in slow motion. The heavy vault door bounced against its hinges and, with equal force, slammed shut with a vacuum seal.

Faith closed her eyes briefly. “Did you already call the police?”

“No, I told you—I wanted to get my gun first.”

“Oh. No.”

“What?”

“We can’t get out.”

A small laugh escaped him. “That isn’t funny.”

“Since I pressed that red button, the door can be opened only from the outside. With a code.”

“Isn’t there an alarm in here or something?”

“Deactivated.”

“Phone?”

“Dead.”

He pinched his nose with thumb and forefinger. “You mean we’re stuck in here until someone finds us?”

“Yes.”

“And when would that be?”

“My guess? Morning.”

Carter turned in a small circle, his gaze bouncing all around the room, as if gauging the boundaries of his confinement. No other doors, no windows, no skylight, no escape. Then he swept her from head to toe with a helpless expression that mirrored what she was thinking.

How would they ever make it through the night, alone in this tiny space, without doing something they would both regret?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Saturday night, February 8, 2003

WITH A GRUNT Carter returned the last of the metal shelves to its place. He dragged his hand down his face as the reality of their predicament started to sink in. The phone line had been cut. He didn’t have his radio. And the door could only be unlocked from the outside.

He really was going to have to spend the night in this vault with the woman who’d had his libido tied up in knots for an entire year.

“Find anything useful?” she asked.

“No.” He didn’t turn around—even standing as far away as possible, he could feel the pull of her on his body. “Were you planning to see anyone tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone who might be suspicious if you didn’t show up, enough to raise an alarm?”

“No. I was going home to try to get to bed early.”

He ground his teeth and turned. She’d extinguished half of the glaring lights, and sat leaning against a wall in the semidarkness. Her arms were crossed, in deference to the slight chill, and her long legs drawn up to the side. She had slipped off her high-heeled shoes and her modest skirt had climbed above her knees. She looked pale and tired and lovely. Every time he thought about Sills pointing a gun in her direction, nausea rose in his throat. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, then shivered.

He hesitated, remembering their earlier embrace and how he hadn’t wanted it to end, then walked over and gingerly lowered himself to sit next to her. His leg thudded with pain. When she moved an inch closer, he swallowed hard and draped his arm around her shoulder. She snuggled in close, the top of her head under his chin. He closed his eyes and gave in to the relief of having her near him and alive. His chest tightened involuntarily. Every day his job was to protect the innocent, but he’d never been so overwhelmed by the desire to safeguard one person. The silky slide of her hair against his skin, and the softness of her body against his chest, stirred his arousal and other emotions he couldn’t identify.

“This was all my fault,” they said at the same time.

She pulled back. Her eyes were luminous, as spectacular as any diamond ever mined. “It was my fault for not trusting your instincts. You tried to warn me about Sills. And I was the one who insisted that you not wear your gun.”

One side of his mouth hitched as he leaned forward and lifted his pant leg to reveal a small, holstered pistol. “As disarming as you are, sweetheart, I’d never relinquish all of my defenses.” Lot of good it did him though. With Sills’s gun trained on Faith, he wouldn’t have taken the chance that the man would have shot her as he went down. Carter shook his head. “No, it was my fault. I knew something wasn’t right, and I still let him get the upper hand.”

“Do you suppose he’ll be okay locked in the bathroom all night?”

“After what he almost did to you, do you suppose I care?”

At the flash of surprise in her eyes, he checked himself; he was revealing too much about the strange goings-on in his head. This woman had her sights set on happily ever after, and she might misconstrue his…concern for something else entirely. He cleared his throat. “I see you gathered up the jewels. That’s tampering with a crime scene, you know.”