Jules figured she’d had a sure thing with Gary Coughlin last night, only to find out she was wrong. After bidding her father and Mona goodbye, she had glanced around to find the man gone. Vanished. He evidently had gotten tired of waiting for her conversation with Dalton to end. Maybe it was for the best, since impatient men had a way of annoying her in the bedroom.
She preferred a man who knew how to...savor. Hadn’t that been the very thing Dalton had hinted at last night? Slowly. Unhurriedly. Leisurely. She knew better than to think the conversation had only been about the wine. Sitting across from him, she’d seen all that heat in his eyes. At times, depending on what she said or her body movement, it had even turned into a blaze. It didn’t take much to turn him on. But then last night, she’d been just as combustible.
It had taken all her senses, common and otherwise, not to break down and invite him to her bed last night. It had been so long since her bed springs had gotten a good workout that even her mattress was screaming for her to get some.
Remembering what happened the last time she hadn’t locked the door when Manning wasn’t there, she locked the door behind her before moving toward her office. She would never forget how Dalton had walked in and found her alone, and she wouldn’t give him the chance to do so again.
Today, she had plans to spend her time doing research, and the first thing on her list was to obtain information on Marshall Imerson. Who was he? Why had Richard Granger selected him as a PI to find Sylvia Granger’s killer? Had he been one of Vidal Duncan’s picks, as well? Was he part of a PI firm, or had he worked alone?
It wouldn’t hurt to call around and talk to some of her buddies in the business who’d lived in the Charlottesville area a lot longer than she had to see if they’d heard or suspected anything about Imerson’s accident. Had it truly been an accident or a staged murder as Sheppard Granger thought?
She had been working for a couple of hours when her phone rang. It was Shana. “Hi, what’s going on?”
“We joined Dad for brunch, and you weren’t there. He said you told him you had to go into the office today. I thought you weren’t going to start a new case until after the holidays.”
“Have you forgotten I’m leaving town tomorrow to appear in court? I need to brush up on a few notes.” That wasn’t a total lie, she thought.
“I’d forgotten about your trip to Miami. What time does your plane leave?”
“Early. And I plan to stay and enjoy South Beach afterward for a couple of days, so don’t look for me until the end of the week.” She was hoping and praying that while in South Beach she would meet some hunk that had no qualms about indulging in a short, meaningless fling.
“I hope you enjoy yourself.”
Jules smiled. “I hope that I enjoy myself, too.”
*
“What do you want with me?” Dr. Sedrick Timmons asked, narrowing his gaze at the person who’d summoned him here to the abandoned warehouse in broad daylight.
“I might need you to arrange another death.”
A chill went through Sedrick, but he didn’t say anything. Little did this person know, but he hadn’t arranged the last one. They believed Richard Granger would have survived his heart attack if he hadn’t administered a certain drug to make sure he didn’t. Little did they know he hadn’t carried out their order to administer the drug. Richard had died of the heart attack, and he’d had nothing to do with it. But the person standing in front of him didn’t know that, and he wasn’t about to say anything different. Shiloh and Cassie’s lives would be in jeopardy if anyone found out the truth. As long as this person assumed he was one of them, his sister Shiloh, and Cassie Mayfield, his longtime girlfriend, were safe. Right now he wasn’t sure whom he could trust, and until he knew for certain, he would have to play along. “Whose death are you talking about now?”
“We haven’t decided yet whether we want a medical death or an accident, but wanted to put you on notice regardless. We’ll keep in touch. When the time comes, just do what you have to do and don’t disappoint us.”