Secure Location

chapter Four

Cruz whirled, lunged and managed to wrap a hand around one of Meg’s flailing arms. He yanked her back, hauling her against his chest. Her face was white and her eyes big with fear.

She’d been inches from going into the dark green water. What the hell?

She pointed and he saw a black-clad figure running up the stairs that led to the street level. “Stay here,” he said to her. He took the stairs two at a time, losing precious time as he dodged two women who were hauling a baby stroller down the steps.

He got up to the street level, scanned it in both directions and didn’t see anything. Damn it. There were a hundred ways for someone to get away. Stores to step into. Cars to hide behind. Buses to board. The list was endless.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Myers and felt his blood pressure increase when the phone rang three times. On the fourth ring, the man answered, sounding a little out of breath.

“Myers.”

“It’s Cruz Montoya.”

“Now what?” the man asked.

“Meg got pushed while we were walking along the River Walk. Subject ran up the stairs, disappeared into the 400 block of St. Mary’s Street. Caucasian. About five-ten and one-sixty. Dressed all in black. Had a hat on so I couldn’t see his hair. Moved fast so he’s either young or in good shape.”

“Got it. I’ll call it in. Is Meg okay?”

“Yeah. This time. You need to find this bastard.”

“We will.” Myers hung up. Cruz took one more look up and down the street. Nothing jumped out at him. Then he looked over the cement railing to make sure Meg was all right. The young men were surrounding her, way too close for Cruz’s liking. He charged back down the stairs.

He shouldered his way through the group and wrapped an arm around Meg’s shoulders. “Okay?” he asked.

She nodded. “He got away?”

“Yeah.” He turned to look at the group. “I’ve got this, guys,” he said. He kept the tone light because he really didn’t want to have to kick their drunk asses but he would if they didn’t back off and stop looking at Meg like she was dessert.

Liquor-provided bravado caused one to step forward. “Hey, we were just having a conversation with the lady,” he said, his words slurring.

Cruz shook his head. “She’s done talking for the night. Excuse us.”

He took a step forward and the guys were smart enough to let them through. He kept one arm around Meg’s shoulders, holding her close.

She wouldn’t have drowned. The water wasn’t that deep. He’d learned that much from the brochure he’d scanned in the hotel lobby while he was waiting for Meg earlier. Probably only three or four feet. But then again, if she’d have hit her head on the stone walkway, it could have been a very different story. Anger burned in the pit of his stomach. She had been deliberately pushed. The guy was getting more aggressive each time. Crimes against property were one thing. A personal attack took it to a whole other level.

“I called Myers,” he said. “I gave him a description, so maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Did you get a good look at him?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“I saw enough to know that he’s white, a little shorter and a little lighter than me, and he moves like a young guy.”

“Good arm strength,” she added, with a smile that trembled.

He tightened his grip and realized that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to have his arm around Meg. She fit. Always had. Always would.

Always wasn’t the same as forever.

She made that more than clear when they got to the hotel and she moved away. Cruz let his arm drop and tried to ignore the sharp pain of disappointment. She probably didn’t want Slater hearing that she’d been friendly with her ex.

“Will the list be ready yet?” Cruz asked.

“I’m sure it is.”

She led him to her office. It was just as big and impressive as it had been earlier that day but this time, probably because he wasn’t light-headed from just seeing her for the first time in a year, he noticed something else. It was bare, almost stark. Sure, there was the desk, credenza and matching chairs. But where was her collection of miniature glass giraffes? Or the Monet print that she loved? Or the brass bookends that she’d picked up cheap at a flea market but were so damn heavy that she’d had to give the guy an extra twenty bucks to carry them to her car?

“Where are your things?” he asked.

There was a slight hesitation before she answered. “Probably in a box somewhere that I never got around to unpacking,” she said finally.

Maybe. But she wasn’t making eye contact.

There was a manila folder on her chair. She opened it, scanned the contents and handed it to him. It was a list. Behind the single sheet, there was a stack of pictures. Head shots. Smiles. Happy new employees. He counted the pictures. “Only eight?” he asked.

“We have very low turnover,” she said. “Others quit but these were the ones discharged.”

He scanned the photos, separating white males from the rest of the bunch. There were three. Under each photo was a name and what he assumed was some kind of employee number.

He cross-referenced the pictures to the list and started sorting.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Thinking about motive,” he said. “I’m putting them in order of tenure, most to least. With seniority comes paid time off and company contributions to retirement plans. Things a person might not be able to replace right away, even if he did find other work. A guy with ten years of experience is probably more pissed off when he loses his job than the guy with eight months of time into the job.”

“Makes sense.”

There was one who had eight years of experience, one that had three years, and one that had five months. He pointed to the man with eight years of experience. He looked to be in his early forties, with a thin face, dark hair and thick black glasses. “What’s this guy’s story?” he asked.

“Mason Hawkins. Pretty quiet at work, although it was known by most everybody that he wasn’t all that happy with his job responsibilities. He applied for a couple higher-level positions but was never the chosen candidate. His attitude got in his way.”

“What was his job?”

“He was an accounts payable specialist and he made sure our bills were paid. Now, most invoices get paid electronically. Bank transfers from our account to our vendor’s account. He was fired because he processed invoices to vendors that didn’t exist. He’d deposited over thirty thousand into his own checking account over a period of eight months before he had the bad luck to need an emergency appendectomy which required his boss to step in for a few days. Bye-bye appendix. Bye-bye job.”

“Did you get the money back?”

“He was about five thousand short. He’s making monthly payments in lieu of us pressing charges.”

Cruz made a note of the man’s address. “What about Tom Looney?”

Meg studied the picture of the man, maybe early thirties, who had his straight brown hair pulled back in a stubby ponytail. “He worked in maintenance. Had a great record until he suddenly started missing work. Ultimately he missed so much time we had no choice but to let him go. I heard a rumor after he left that he’d lost his house.”

“Everybody’s got a story,” Cruz said, shaking his head.

“It’s what makes management really hard,” she said. “For every story you know, there are six that you don’t. It makes making exceptions really difficult.”

“Good judgment. Isn’t that what managers are supposed to have?”

“Easy to say. Suppose the manager knows that somebody is late for work because they’re working a second job to pay for their kid’s medical bills. He might want to cut that employee some slack. But the minute he does, that’s when he finds out that three other people are working second jobs—each with their own set of sad circumstances. So the manager fires the guy for being late and feels horrible about it or he lets it go and upper management is breathing down his neck for setting a poor precedent.”

“You’re pretty high up in the management structure. Don’t breathe so heavy.”

She smiled. “I’m working on that,” she said.

She was being too hard on herself. She was one of the good guys. Always had been. Hell, one Thanksgiving, there had been people sitting at his table that didn’t even speak English. She’d discovered in casual conversation that some of the housekeeping staff had no plans for the day and that had been the end of his opportunity to watch a football game in his shorts with a beer in one hand and a pretzel bowl close to the other.

That’s what made it so hard to believe that somebody at work would want to harm her. But it was the most logical explanation.

He picked up the last of the three photos. “What about this one?”

Meg looked at the picture of a man with dark hair cut in a buzz and a short-clipped full beard. He had very blue eyes, silver-rimmed glasses and looked to be mid-twenties. “Troy Blakely worked for a short time in security. He was let go after he got in a prolonged shouting match with one of our guests.”

“What happened?”

“We were never quite sure how it started. Troy was using the exercise room. We allow all of our employees to do so on their off hours, although they are clearly instructed to defer to our guests and that they should give up machines if guests are waiting.”

“Pretty reasonable.”

“We think so. Anyway, a female guest was working out in our exercise room and decided to switch machines. Troy was in the room and must have wanted the same machine. He supposedly started yelling at her.”

“Supposedly?”

“Yes. When our human resources manager investigated the complaint, she was unable to confirm exactly what happened in the exercise room. There were no witnesses.”

“So there were lots of machines probably available?”

“Yes. That’s what made this so weird. The guest said that she got scared and decided to leave the room. Well, the altercation between the two of them continued out into the hallway. We know this for sure because we caught it on camera. What we saw matched the guest’s story. She was trying to end the confrontation by literally running down the hallway. But Troy kept following her, kept yelling at her. He was waving his arms and pointing his finger at her. Very aggressive behavior. Fortunately, he never actually touched the woman so there was no assault or battery but it was clear that he had some kind of anger management problem. No hotel can afford to keep an employee who demonstrates those types of behaviors. He was terminated immediately.”

Cruz sighed. When he’d first become a cop, he’d been surprised at how damn angry people were. Angry about their lot in life and they took it out on coworkers, spouses and their children. Sometimes they were sorry afterward. The really sick ones thought they were justified.

He stuffed the photos and the list back in the manila folder. “Let’s get some shut-eye,” he said.

It took them five minutes to get to their rooms. She was silent for the whole trip. When she unlocked her door, he followed her in. “Get your things,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re sleeping in that room,” he said, pointing toward his room.

She bristled, drawing up to her full five feet six inches. “I am not sleeping with you,” she said.

He counted to ten before replying. It didn’t help. “Yeah, I don’t remember asking but I do remember you telling me a year ago that you weren’t interested.” It was petty and probably juvenile but damn, he was tired. He’d been up for almost twenty-four hours.

She seemed to shrink, like a balloon suddenly losing air. “But...” she began.

“Until we know who is behind this, everybody is a suspect, including the person who gave you the keys to this room. If somebody gets the bright idea of breaking in, a second or two of confusion will be all I need.”

“I got the key from a woman that I’ve known for over a year. She’s not going to harm me.”

“Everybody is a suspect. Including your boss.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed.

It was the second time she’d accused him of being ridiculous. The first had been after he’d said she wasn’t in charge of who got to vacation in Texas. Hell, she hadn’t even begun to see ridiculous. He had enough in him to go all night. Had been saving it up for the past year.

But given that he didn’t want to listen to her defend Boy Scout Scott, he tempered the urge. “Can we just go to bed? You, in there and me, in here. Separate but equal. Very politically incorrect.”

She massaged her temples and it reminded him of the day she’d had. She had dark shadows under her pretty eyes.

He shut up.

She let out a breath that she had evidently been holding. “All right,” she said.

He almost sighed in response. He was dead on his feet and he didn’t want to fight with her. Had always hated to see her upset and had been miserable the few times in their marriage when they’d argued about something stupid. She grabbed her dry cleaning out of the closet and the sack that had her other things. “My clothes go with me,” she said. Then she left, partially closing the door between the two rooms.

It opened again after just seconds and she tossed his bag into the room. It toppled end over end, before stopping when it hit the wall. It made him smile. Now who was being ridiculous?

He brushed his teeth and splashed some water on his face. Then he took his shirt off. He left his cargo shorts on because a good cop never got caught with his pants down or off. He pulled back the bedspread, turned off his light and lay back on the big bed.

It took her four minutes and eighteen seconds to turn her light off. Once she did, he could hear her sheets rustle. What the hell was she wearing to bed? She hadn’t bought pajamas. So, maybe it was one of her fancy new bra and panty sets.

Or maybe she was naked.

He closed his eyes and rested his forearm across the bridge of his nose, as if that would somehow be an extra level of protection against the images that were playing in his head.

* * *

MEG WOKE UP when she heard a knock on the door. She jerked up in bed and saw Cruz standing in the doorway between the two rooms, a coffee cup in hand. He was dressed in a fresh shirt and cargo shorts and his hair was still damp.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Seven,” he said, his voice husky. “You slept in your dress?”

Cruz Montoya was one of the sexiest men to walk the planet and he turned her on. Always. Still. And there was no way in hell she was letting him know that and double no-way that she was going to act upon it.

So she’d gone to bed with the only armor she had. “I thought the room might be chilly.”

“You can always turn down the air-conditioning,” he said.

“Whatever. I better get dressed.”

“Coffee?” he said. “I just made a second pot.”

Cruz loved coffee. And drank way more than he should. On the weekends it hadn’t been unusual that he’d get through two pots before she ever poked her head out of the bedroom. “No, thanks,” she said.

“What?”

She’d given up coffee when she’d moved to Texas. The smell of it had kept too many memories fresh. “It bothers my stomach,” she said.

“Have you seen a doctor?” he asked, sounding concerned.

“So that he could tell me good job? Drinking coffee is a vice, not a virtue.”

Cruz rolled his eyes. “Once you get showered and dressed, I’ll walk you to your office. By the way, I called your boss early this morning.”

“Why?”

“’Cause we’re buddies.”

She rolled her eyes this time.

“Because I wanted him to know what happened on the River Walk. I suggested that he assign a security guard outside your office. He said to consider it done.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

She wanted to argue that it was a waste of a resource but knew it was probably useless. Cruz had convinced Scott and there was no way she could persuade both of them. “Then what are your plans?”

“I’m going to track down Mason Hawkins, Tom Looney and Troy Blakely.”

She’d known Hawkins and Looney pretty well. They’d been at their jobs when she’d gotten hired. She knew Blakely less well. He’d come a couple months after her and his tenure had been short. She’d had no bad interactions with any of the men, hadn’t even been there when they’d been fired. Yes, she was administration but surely that wasn’t enough for one of them to hate her.

But somebody did. If it wasn’t hate, it was something close. The only person who really had a reason to hate her was Cruz and she knew he was innocent.

Well, Cruz wasn’t the only person. It was crazy to think that this had something to do with what had happened in Maiter but she couldn’t afford to be stupid about it. She was definitely going to need to talk with Detective Myers about what had happened twenty years ago.

“What are you going to say to Hawkins, Looney and Blakely if you find them?”

“When, not if,” he said. “I’ll find them. And I’ll have a reasonable conversation with them unless I think they’re involved in this. Then I’m going to start cracking heads.”

“Cruz,” she warned. “Detective Myers made it clear. He’s the investigator on this case. Not you.”

“Then he better stick close to my heels,” Cruz said. He backed away from the doorway. “Knock when you’re ready.” He pulled the door halfway shut and Meg heard the television click on.

She got out of bed, pulled the tags off her new underwear and grabbed a freshly dry-cleaned suit. She carried everything into the bathroom with her.

Thirty minutes later, she knocked on the adjoining door. Cruz didn’t look startled at the interruption and she had the sense that no matter how quiet she’d been in her room, that he’d heard and tracked every movement.

He saw too much. It made it even more important that she hide her thoughts from him.

“That’s a nice color on you,” he said, looking at her peach suit.

“Thank you,” she said. She couldn’t remember Cruz ever saying anything about her clothes. He’d always just let his eyes do the talking. Heat. Awareness. Want.

This felt awkward. Maybe because it seemed awkward for Cruz. Like he was saying it because he should and Cruz never did or said anything just because he was supposed to.

They left the room and walked toward the elevator. “You going to eat breakfast?” he asked.

“We keep some fruit and bagels in the executive break area. I’ll just grab something later. If you’re hungry, several places along the River Walk serve breakfast. Plus there are more choices up on the street level.”

“I’ll figure something out,” he said.

When they got to her office door, she saw Tim Burtiss sitting on a chair outside the door. He stood up when he saw them. “Good morning, Meg,” the man said.

“Hi, Tim.” She turned to Cruz. “This is Security Officer Tim Burtiss. Tim was our associate of the month in January. Tim, this is my ex-husband, Cruz Montoya.”

Cruz shook the young man’s hand. Tim was practically beaming and Meg was happy that she’d been able to slip in something about his recent recognition. Not only did it make the young man feel good but hopefully it would also send a subtle message to Cruz that this was one of the hotel’s best security guards. He didn’t need to worry.

It must have worked because Cruz didn’t ask him about his experience, to drop and give him twenty or to demonstrate that he knew how to use the baton that was clipped to his belt. All he said was, “I need to touch base with Meg’s secretary and then we can talk.”

Great. He wanted to meet Charlotte. Which would prompt the woman to ask about a hundred questions and she’d have answers for none of them.

Meg opened the door. Charlotte sat at her desk, a cup of coffee in one hand, a telephone in the other. She looked at Meg, then at Cruz, and told the person that she’d have to return the call. She put down the telephone with a soft thud.

“Good morning, Charlotte,” Meg said. She took a deep breath. “I wanted to introduce you to Cruz. Cruz Montoya. My ex-husband. Cruz, this is Charlotte Anderson.”

To Charlotte’s credit, she showed almost no reaction to learning that her boss had been married but had never mentioned it. Perhaps her lip quivered just a little and her eyes widened but other than that, she was the perfect example of professional control, as always. “Mr. Montoya,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Cruz is a police officer in Chicago and has been in contact with Detective Myers regarding the incidents.” Meg shifted her attention to Cruz. “Charlotte is aware of the telephone call, the note and the damage to my car and apartment.” She deliberately didn’t mention the River Walk shove and was grateful when Cruz didn’t, either.

“Charlotte pulled together the list of names that you reviewed,” Meg added.

“Thanks,” Cruz said. “Security Officer Tim Burtiss is going to be sitting outside the door. He’s going to need to know who is expected. Can you work with him on that?”

“Of course. Anything to keep Meg safe.”

“Great. Here’s my cell number in case you need to reach me.” He reached for a yellow sticky pad on Charlotte’s desk and scribbled down the number. He turned to leave and Meg followed him. Tim Burtiss stood up again.

Cruz nodded at him. “Charlotte will touch base with you on who is expected today. Nobody else gets past you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t let her leave. If she tries to, tackle her,” Cruz added.

The young officer looked at Meg and the tips of his ears got pink.

“He’s kidding,” she said.

“Only a little,” Cruz responded. He turned toward her. “Be smart, Meg. Please.”

She was going to be in her office with a guard. Cruz was the one who was going to be out, asking questions, maybe making people uncomfortable. He was the one who needed to be careful. She put her arm out, touched his shoulder.

He jerked back.

Had he felt the heat? The spark of connection? “Right back at ya,” she said, knowing it was lame. But the need to touch, the need to hold him tight, was almost overbearing.

He nodded. “I’ll see you tonight.”

She watched him walk away.

“Promise?” she whispered so quietly that even Officer Burtiss couldn’t have heard her.