White Lies (The Arcane Society #2)(25)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

She had refined her story as the months went by, perfecting it with additional phone calls to each of Clare’s prospective employers. It wasn’t that hard to learn the names of the charitable organizations that were considering her application. The world of charitable gift giving in the San Francisco Bay Area, after all, was relatively small.

No, she assured each scandalized board director in turn, there was no hard evidence implicating Clare Lancaster but it was common knowledge in certain circles in Stone Canyon that she had been intimately involved with the victim. It was also well known that Archer Glazebrook had pulled a lot of strings to keep his illegitimate daughter out of jail. He had only done what he’d had to do, of course. After all, he had the reputation of his family to protect. But everyone knew the truth.

The phone calls that had destroyed Clare’s engagement and her career provided some justice. But now, Valerie thought, she had to face the possibility that those calls were the reason Clare had come back to Stone Canyon. Last night Owen told her that Archer was setting up a charitable foundation just to make sure Clare had a job.

It was too much, Valerie thought. Her plan of revenge had backfired on her. Clare was going to come out of this smelling like a rose. She would have the Glazebrook money and the Glazebrook power behind her.

That wasn’t right. Clare should be made to suffer for what she did to Brad. She had to pay.

Valerie focused on the mountains, trying to concentrate. It was so hard to keep her thoughts clear these days. She desperately needed to talk to someone.

There was only one person who understood the pain she was going through; only one person on the face of the earth who had suffered as she had suffered when Brad was killed.

She reached for the cell phone.

Chapter Thirteen

This is personal.

That was nothing short of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, Jake thought. Way too much truth, probably. He had a strict policy when it came to dealing with the truth. He never used more of it than absolutely necessary when he was working. The truth often made people nervous. That was the last thing he wanted to do in Stone Canyon. It would only complicate an already extremely complicated project.

The smart thing would be to put some distance between Clare and himself until he had finished what he came here to do. But he was pretty sure that wasn’t going to be possible. Not now.

In spite of all the invisible flashing red warning lights going off around her, he felt compelled to get closer. Something inside him resonated with her gutsy attitude; made him want her on a visceral level. He had an overwhelming urge to find out how a woman who was clearly accustomed to fighting for everything she wanted responded when she went to bed with a man who applied the same technique to life. A man like him.

Dinner alone with her at the house had been a bad decision in what he suspected would be a long line of similarly bad moves. But somehow he could not bring himself to regret any of them. So much for the virtues of twenty-twenty foresight.

“It’s late.” Clare put down the empty teacup and checked her watch. “I should be getting back to the motel. Is the driver still around?”

“No.” He got to his feet, fighting a deep reluctance to let her go. “I’m going to drive you back to your motel.”

He backed the BMW out of the garage. When he bundled Clare into the front seat he experienced a proprietary satisfaction from the small act. His woman in his car. And they were going to drive off into the night together.

When he got behind the wheel the dark, intimate confines of the front passenger compartment closed around him, sealing his doom.

So why wasn’t he a lot more worried?

So he had a rule against sleeping with anyone involved in a case. So what? Rules were made to be broken.

Of course, things usually went south when that kind of thing happened, but what the hell.

Clare said little as he piloted the BMW out of the foothills and back toward Phoenix. He made no move to force the conversation. They had talked a lot this evening, sometimes dancing around each other’s subtle probes, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, sometimes smiling at the same ironic observations.

This was an opportunity to see if they could be quiet together.

By the time he drove into the nearly deserted parking lot of the Desert Dawn Motel, the question had been answered. The silence in the front seat had not separated them, he decided. Instead, it seemed to him that the sense of closeness had become more binding. There was always the possibility that, hungry as he was for her, he was misreading the feminine signals he was picking up but he didn’t think so.

He eased the car into a slot near the entrance, got out and walked with Clare to the lobby.

The same night clerk was on duty. He looked up from his magazine and gave Jake the same knowing smirk he had given him the night before. Jake contemplated the pleasant prospect of ripping the guy’s throat open with his bare teeth.

“I’m going to see the lady to her room,” he said instead.

Civilization at work. What a concept. No blood, no mess, no fun.

“Sure. Whatever.” The night clerk went back to his reading.

Jake took Clare’s arm and escorted her up the stairs. Then he guided her down the dimly lit hall, irritated again, as he had been the night before, by the knowledge that he was going to have to leave her here in this place with its dingy carpet and badly painted walls.

Clare got her door open and stepped across the threshold. She turned to look at Jake.

“Good night,” she said. “Dinner was terrific.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” he said. He braced one hand on the doorjamb. “Now promise me you’ll check out of this place tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll only be here tonight and tomorrow night,” she said. “No point moving.”

“You’re stubborn, hardheaded and you don’t take good advice well,” he said. “I like that in a woman.”

She opened her mouth to respond.

“But there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing,” he added before she could say a word. “I want you to check out of here tomorrow.”

She gave him a long, considering look. “I realize that you’re accustomed to giving orders but there’s something you’re forgetting here.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t work for you.”

“Probably just as well,” he said. “Because I’ve got a feeling that I would have to fire you.”

“For being stubborn and hardheaded?”