Seducing The Enemy. Emma Darcy
Читать онлайн книгу.
residential wings. Having identified himself to one of the officers, he was immediately escorted inside.
The next ten minutes were a blur. The only thing that really registered was the certain knowledge Barry was truly gone. The life that had made the person he knew so well was not there any more. The ambulance men wheeled the stretcher away, and under Daniel’s watchful eye, a proper decorum was maintained in the immediate vicinity until the departure of the ambulance could be effected.
The woman had been moved to an adjoining room. Daniel was asked by the police officer in charge if he would like to hear her statement, which was about to be taken. Determined to know the worst and deal with it as best he could, he quickly agreed.
His heart plummeted when he saw who the woman was. Isabel Mason! The supposedly purer-than-snow wife of the most vocal family-values politician in the current government. Barry was certainly going out with a bang! This scandal would reach epic proportions.
It amazed him that she looked so composed, sitting calmly at a table, sipping at a cup of tea or coffee. He would have expected her to be in floods of tears, or at least showing some signs of distress. Her hand wasn’t even trembling. A policewoman sat by her, but it seemed to Daniel no comfort was required.
“Miss Parker?”
Isabel Mason looked directly at the chief officer, as though it was she being addressed.
“Are you ready now?”
She was being addressed! Daniel frowned. Did she think she could get away with giving a false name?
“Yes.” A crisp consent. She glanced pointedly at Daniel, clearly wanting him identified.
“The deceased’s brother, Daniel Wolfe,” the police officer obliged. Then with an introductory wave, “Miss Annabel Parker.”
Annabel Parker? The journalist who’d been snapping at Barry’s heels over his dubious dealings? She was a dead ringer for Isabel Mason!
Then she looked at him directly, and twin bolts of green fire zapped his brain. It was a fierce mental blast, hurling him off into a far space where he existed only as some infinitesimal speck, too insignificant to claim her attention. Absolutely no help was required by this woman. Having disposed of him, she returned her gaze to the chief police officer and started her account of her meeting with Barry.
Daniel sat down. She certainly wasn’t Isabel Mason. She had the same glorious red hair, rippling down to swirl around her shoulders. And the same features, though there was something stronger about the bone structure of her face, a cleaner, sharper definition. The most striking difference came from within. This woman’s mind had a brutal force that was light-years removed from the soft, pliable femininity he’d seen emanating from Neil Mason’s wife.
He watched her mouth as she spoke. Words were shaped with precision, her lips firmly sculptured, not a trace of quivering uncertainty. He listened to what she said, fascinated by the cool, clear logic of her story. Brick by brick, she laid a convincing foundation for her convincing conclusion. It was a formidable performance.
He’d no sooner thought the word performance than she looked at him again, another stunning blaze that dared him to challenge anything she said. It promised she’d wipe the floor with him.
Daniel said nothing. He was too intrigued to want to do anything but watch her. She was magnificent. A unique entity. He’d never met anyone like her.
She wore black, a ribbed sweater that moulded superbly rounded breasts. A short, narrow skirt revealed long, shapely legs, sexily emphasised in black tights. She was tall, a good fit for him. What would it feel like to be entwined with a woman who was fired with an incredible store of secret energy? That could be an adventure worth having.
He’d like to know the rest of her, too.
She had everyone else bluffed.
Barry couldn’t have done it better himself, and he’d been a genius at sliding out of sticky spots. The story was completely sanitised of sex. The only scandal emerging from it would be a political one, and that had been brewing anyway.
Bravo, Annabel Parker!
The truth—whatever it was—was successfully skittled.
Daniel knew she was lying.
CHAPTER THREE
FREEDOM...
Annabel heaved a contented sigh. It was marvellous not to be constantly on guard. She revelled in the sense of tranquillity that flowed from this beautiful place in far north Queensland, thousands of kilometres away from the frenzy of scandals still breaking in Sydney. From this corner of her cabin, where only an insect screen separated her from the primitive splendour on view, she could gaze out over the lush rainforest to the sea and feel blissfully removed from the corrupt touch of mankind.
It was an illusion, of course. The cabin was part of a wilderness tourist resort built to capitilise on precisely this feeling. Nevertheless, great care had been taken to nestle it into the environment. None of the buildings was intrusive. They didn’t spoil. This was the only place on the planet where two world heritage wonders met—the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest—and the Coconut Beach Rainforest Resort offered the experience of both within a context of personal comfort.
The only sounds were made by birds and animals. No television or telephones in the guest accommodation. No newspapers. Even the people here went about their activities in a quiet and unobtrusive manner. Peace...sheer heaven to Annabel.
The weeks since Barry Wolfe’s death had been hectic and highly stressful. Thankfully, that was all behind her—the frantic substitution of herself for Isabel at the motel on that fatal night, the tension involved in giving a formal statement to the police, the seemingly endless inquisition by the media. Annabel felt she had more than earned this escape from the pressure of having to perform.
Izzie was surely safe now. They could both relax. If the photograph taken of her twin sister and Barry Wolfe entering the motel room could have disproved Annabel’s account of events, it would have surfaced when the news was hot. Or been used for blackmail before this. The danger was gone. Neil Mason would never find out that his wife had flirted with infidelity. Barry Wolfe was dead and buried.
Annabel ruefully reflected that she hadn’t wished him dead in the physical sense, yet she couldn’t regret his passing. The world was a cleaner place for it. Getting cleaner by the day down in Sydney, where the cover-ups were unravelling without any assistance from her.
Maybe it had been overly squeamish of her not to capitalise on the article she had written. Her editor had almost been frothing at the mouth for it. She’d worked so hard at putting the Barry Wolfe corruption story together, and it had probably been unprofessional not to go through with it, yet when it came to the point of deciding on publication the morning after his death, it had felt like overkill—brutal, unfeeling, unnecessary.
The man was dead. Not only that, she and her sister had been caught up in the circumstances surrounding his death. It made it all too personal, somehow. Besides, there was no moral gain in a public demolition of Barry Wolfe’s career when that career had died with him.
Definitely overkill.
She didn’t need that kind of professional kudos. She had only ever wanted the truth to come out so the corruption would come to an end. Which it had.
Although she had held back the damning article, she had been pressed into referring to her work on it, with the media demanding the reason for her meeting with Barry Wolfe in what was perceived as a clandestine manner. That in itself, plus details of her research, had raised enough questions to trigger an investigation.
Ironically, the finance minister’s death had exposed his cronies in corruption. Without his strong front to protect them, they were scrambling to explain their activities to the new minister, who was demanding accountability in no uncertain terms.
But Annabel didn’t have to think about any of it any more. The desired