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doesn’t tell me much nowadays.”
This time the pause was more than a little awkward. “Oh. Right. You know...we still miss you working around here.”
Meredith bit back an urge to remind the woman it had been five years, and instead asked, “Why did Nick leave?”
“I wish I knew. He said he was taking a trip. But he cleared out his desk and cut off his cell, too. Said he’d be getting a new number. When I made a joke about wondering if it was a permanent vacation, he didn’t seem amused. I don’t think anyone else even noticed. But a week’s gone by and he hasn’t come back— Oh, hang on.”
Hold music filled the earpiece and Meredith tapped her short, unpolished nails on the couch cushion beside her. Her brother-in-law’s departure from the law firm surprised her. He’d been working there for a decade—straight out of law school, in fact—and had to be close to making partner. Had he quit? She couldn’t imagine he’d been fired.
“Miss?” Hettie’s voice came back on the line, and it had become clipped once more. “I’m afraid I don’t have another number for Mr. Billing.”
Meredith frowned. “Is someone listening?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more details, but Mr. Howard has been assigned all of Mr. Billing’s cases, if you’d like to speak to him instead?”
The other woman didn’t wait for a reply and the hold music drifted through again. Meredith waited impatiently, and when Hettie came back on, it was in a much quieter, far more muffled voice.
“Sorry. The police just got here. And it’s kind of weird...they just asked about Nick, too.”
Meredith’s worry came back with a vengeance. She beat it back and reminded herself that Nick’s specialty as a defense attorney was white-collar fraud. He was considered an expert in the field, and though the police hated having to go up against him, they often used him as a consultant for their side. Or at least they had, back in the days when she worked with Nick. Still...
“Are they there for a case?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“I don’t know. I don’t have them booked in for anything. But maybe. You know Nick. He likes to keep the balance. I’m sorry, Meredith. I have to hang up. I hope everything’s okay.”
The line went dead, leaving Meredith staring down at the phone.
The police are looking for Nick, right at the same second Tamara comes asking for help? A coincidence?
Possibly. But if not, it added a whole new level of concern. Of course, if Tamara needed help with something Nick-related, Meredith was the last person she’d call. So that brought her right back to Tamara’s counseling business. And try as she might, Meredith couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She let out another sigh and decided that the best thing to do was to swallow her pride and make the three-bus trip across town to her sister’s mini-mansion. Before she could change her mind, she slipped into some jeans, ran a brush over her hair, brushed her teeth, then snapped up her purse and made her way the door. She swung it open, then froze.
On the other side, blocking the exit, stood a man. A stranger. Who, in spite of his slightly slumped stance, had to be well over six feet tall. At just a hair’s breadth over five foot ten, Meredith found it impossible not to notice when a man was that tall.
Even in heels, she thought, I’d need to look up at him.
And standing across from him like this, she felt damn near petite. Especially factoring in the wide cut of his shoulders and the way he took up the entire door frame.
He cleared his throat and slid his sunglasses up—which were entirely unnecessary anyway—from his face to sit on his dark, near-black hair, showing off the clearest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
An unexpected tingle of attraction swept through Meredith, temporarily overriding the ache in her head and filling it with dizziness instead.
Definitely too much wine.
Except his gaze raked over her, too, moving from her messy ponytail to her plain but fitted T-shirt to her slim-cut jeans. It was an appreciative look. One that said the immediate attraction wasn’t one-sided.
But there was also something about the way he took in every detail of her appearance that made Meredith think he never missed a thing. Which finally reminded her that as much as she was enjoying ogling him, she had no idea who he was or what he was doing on her doorstep.
Probably got the wrong apartment number.
The neighborhood where she lived wasn’t fantastic, but the one thing her building did have going for it was the glorified bouncer of a doorman. He wouldn’t let in a stranger, not without buzzing him up.
Meredith took a breath, cleared her throat and—sounding far too awkward considering it was her house and he was the one who didn’t belong—asked, “Um. Can I, um, help you? With something?”
His reply was a rumble that matched the day-old growth of beard on his ruddy cheeks. “Depends.”
She stared at him. “On?”
“On whether or not you’re Tamara Billing’s sister.”
And just like that, the vague worry that something was wrong swelled to a crescendo. The man standing in front of her was either a cop bearing bad news, or he was the source of the bad news himself. What she needed to do was find out which one applied.
* * *
Private investigator Samuel Potter watched the changing expressions on the blonde’s face with interest. Puzzlement. Irritation. Fear. Resolve. Then schooled blankness.
Mesmerizing.
The word popped into his mind, then stuck.
He hadn’t been expecting her to be so pretty. Or for her to have a soft, feminine voice that wrapped around him like silk and held him hostage. He hadn’t thought too much about her at all, actually. Except in terms of being a starting point for his missing-persons investigation, of course.
The second she opened the door, though, he’d been unable to stop himself from dragging his eyes over the length of those oh-so-long, trim legs, then up to her slim waist—visible even under that plain shirt—then across the swell of her breasts to that tied-up pile of hair.
Sam ground his teeth together.
Finding the target was his goal. Finding the target’s sister attractive...was not.
Focus.
He’d already lost the element of surprise, which was so key in getting people to answer questions honestly. Not that he assumed Meredith Jamison would be a liar, but he knew from experience that the more time people had to prepare, the more hesitant their replies became.
“Are you?” he persisted.
He was already sure of the answer. Her initial reaction had given it away. But Sam needed her to confirm it anyway. Thoroughness. A necessary part of his investigation.
“Am I what?” she replied.
Sam fought an unprofessional eye roll. “Are you Tamara’s sister?”
She bristled visibly.
She doesn’t like being the sister of an internet celebrity.
Sam noted that fact and automatically stored it in the back of his mind; it was the kind of thing that might come in handy later. His business was all about the details—reading people and using their “tells” to get to the truth.
“I do have a name.” Her tone was just shy of defiant, and Sam noted that, too.
“Which I’m hoping is Meredith Jamison,” he said drily.
“Why?”
“Why what?”