Читать книгу Silken Threats - Addison Fox - Страница 11

Chapter 2

Tucker took note of Cassidy’s red-rimmed eyes and the supportive stance of her friends and knew her adrenaline rush had faded in full. Something primitive tugged at him, tightening his hands around the toolbox and drill he carried.

She could have been hurt. Worse, had she walked into her shop at the wrong moment, while someone was bent on destruction, she could have been killed.

Collateral damage to whatever else had taken place.

The Design District was an up-and-coming neighborhood but it still had some dodgy edges. Although any number of apartments and restaurants had sprung up around those edges in the past few years, slowly reclaiming the area as a trendy spot for work and play, the warehouses themselves could be prime picking for thieves. On their walk from their own offices, he and Max had thrown out various ideas as to who might benefit from robbing a store focused on weddings.

And when they came to the humbling realization that they knew next to nothing about weddings, Tucker knew they’d be a far better resource as a repair crew than as detectives.

That still hadn’t stopped him from placing a gun in the bottom of his toolbox for extra protection.

Tucker gestured his buddy through the door for introductions, and Max settled the large ladder they’d carried between them before turning to the women. He’d met Lilah earlier and had pinned her as the lighthearted one of the group, with her pink streak of hair, baker’s uniform and ready smile. She didn’t disappoint in that respect, that quick smile reappearing immediately along with a promise to provide goodies before she disappeared through the door that led to her half of the shop.

The other woman—Violet, with her long sweep of black hair and serious eyes—finished off the triumvirate, as he was quickly coming to think of them. She already knew Max from the neighborhood business meetings and Tucker finished off the introductions before setting his tools on the floor. “We came to help, so put us to work.”

“As far as we can tell, the main damage seems confined to up front in the showroom area.” Cassidy’s voice still held a slight quaver but he heard a note of steel clearly underneath. With each step and gesture toward destroyed merchandise or littered debris, the warrior goddess who had marched into her store this morning more fully reappeared.

Max followed Violet toward a heavy rack of dresses that needed righting, leaving Tucker a few moments with Cassidy. Her smile was warm and genuine and faded the last vestiges of her crying jag. “I can’t imagine Bailey was too happy to be left behind.”

“Since I left him with a rather large bone I suspect all’s right with his world.”

“Let him know a second one’s headed his way. A small token of my gratitude for the reassurance this morning.”

His gaze drifted toward a small corkscrew curl that had fallen out of her ponytail. The urge to reach out and tug that curl—as much to watch it spring back into place as to assuage his curiosity that her hair was as soft as he suspected—gripped him. With a step back, he let his gaze drift deliberately around the shop. “How long have you been in this space?”

“Almost three years now.”

“And you and your partners go to all those weddings?”

“Violet more than either Lilah or I. She’s a wedding planner so she’s much more involved in the actual event, as well as all the activity that leads up to it. Lilah mostly handles wedding cakes and I’ve got the bride’s dress and trousseau.”

Their business was pretty much what he expected, but it still didn’t explain why they’d been targeted for a robbery. Especially when it appeared as if the would-be thief was more hell-bent on destruction than any actual burglary. “I can’t imagine you make a lot of enemies in the wedding business.”

“You’d be surprised. It’s a competitive market.”

He heard the pride—and the unspoken words underneath the comment. “A lucrative one, as well?”

“It’s not nice to brag.”

“Facts are facts.” He shrugged it off but was curious about her response. With an attentive eye, he pushed past her beauty to focus on her more wholly.

There was an elegance to Cassidy Tate. A subtle grace that suggested good breeding and a veneer of class. Yet here she was, in one of Dallas’s up-and-coming neighborhoods, building a business with her friends.

He’d met more than his fair share of Dallas socialites, and while it wasn’t fair to paint them all with the same brush, his overall impression had been of money, polished beauty and the raw ambition to marry well. Beyond the polished beauty, he saw very little resemblance between that venomous set and the woman standing before him.

“Lilah thinks a competitor did this.” Cassidy fingered a length of lace in her hand. “I just don’t know if I agree.”

“The destruction suggests something personal.”

She shrugged. “Like the bragging, it’s not nice to go around accusing people of bad behavior.”

“And like I said, facts are facts.”

A loud shout from the back of the store had both of them rushing in the direction of Violet and Max. Tucker took off first, Cassidy in his wake, as they threaded their way through the destruction.

“What is it?”

“Look at this.” Max was on his knees in front of a small, squared-out area in the floor.

“A trapdoor?” Cassidy moved from her position behind him, and Tucker didn’t miss the way the casual brush of her arm lasered through him in a hot, heated rush.

“Have you ever seen this, Cass?” Violet stood on the other side of Max, pointing toward what appeared to be a filled-in hole.

Cassidy shook her head, confusion blooming in her eyes like a ripe flower. “No. Besides, I assumed this entire place sat on a slab of cement like all the other warehouses down here.”

Tucker had grown up in New York, so it had come as a surprise to him on one of his earliest architectural jobs that no one in Texas had basements. The region’s soil composition simply wasn’t conducive to a below-ground layer of structural support.

“It is strange.” Violet shifted around the perimeter of the small square of concrete, her heels clicking on the exposed slab of floor where they had pulled away the rug.

Tucker held back a smile at the way Max’s gaze tracked over the woman’s long legs before Cassidy’s voice pulled him back to the situation at hand. “Mrs. B. already had the rug in here when we moved in. Remember?”

Violet tapped a lone high heel. “That’s right. One of her selling points for the lease. Fresh carpeting throughout the office areas.”

Tucker glanced at Max, well aware the man’s thoughts matched his own. “Why’d you think to pull it up?”

“The rug had a tear in it when I came back here to inspect the office,” Max said. “If I hadn’t been looking for anything out of place I’d likely have missed it.”

“We didn’t even see it until I noticed that my desk was out of place.” Violet pointed toward the floor, and Tucker could see the indentation of where the leg of the desk had left an outline in the carpet.

Cassidy dropped to her knees and ran her fingers over the handle built into the concrete. “You think this is what the burglar was really after?”

At her light frown, Tucker dropped to his haunches beside her. “It appears so. Do you have any idea what your landlady might be hiding?”

“No.” Cassidy’s gaze never left the handle, but he saw the moment her puzzlement shifted to something more. “But if this was what the burglar was looking for, that means his first trip was unsuccessful.”

* * *

“Mrs. Beauregard can’t be responsible.” Lilah stood over the sealed entrance, her hands on her hips and a stain of chocolate smeared across her white chef’s coat.

“And she’s certainly not the type to hide things,” Violet added.

“How do you know?” Max piped up from behind her. “She’s your landlady, not your grandmother.”

Lilah and Violet turned at the same time, their eyes flashing. Where Lilah’s gaze was purely defensive, Violet’s held something more. Challenge?

Anxious to diffuse the situation, Cassidy stepped in. “Because she wouldn’t do that to us.”

“And, well—” Lilah broke off. “She’s old.”

Cassidy wasn’t sure age had anything to do with it but had to agree with Lilah that their sweet, twinkle-of-mischief-in-her-eye landlady seemed unlikely to be hiding secrets.

Especially secrets that would lead to danger.

Unwilling to let the jarring impact of the break-in further color her judgment of others—the accusations against Anastasia Monroe already sitting uncomfortably on her conscience—Cassidy held up a hand. “I was already planning on running this month’s rent check over to her during lunch. I’ll ask her about the hole when I go.”

“You can’t go alone.” Violet’s normally calm features were lined with concern. “Especially not about this.”

“Look. I’d already promised her I’d repair that tear in her grandmother’s wedding veil, which I was also planning to bring with me. I’ll use that as my way into the conversation. Besides, someone needs to stay here and wait for the alarm people to come check the system and reprogram a new code.”

“I’ll go with you.”

A small shot of pleasure wove through her at Tucker’s offer before she brushed it off. “I’ll be fine. I don’t want to make too big a deal out of it.”

“You already said earlier the woman has matchmaking on her mind. We’ll drop a few hints and make eyes at each other to keep her distracted.”

The image he painted was far more tempting than she wanted to admit, but Cassidy opted for casual nonchalance. “She didn’t get to eighty and remain wily as a coyote because she was dumb and easily played. We’re making too big a deal out of this.”

A slight grunt from the floor pulled their attention to Max, who tossed a wrench into the box by his side. “Damn thing’s shut tight, cemented into place.”

The challenge spurred Tucker into action and he joined Max on the floor, both of them searching the small area for a way to get underneath it. Cassidy didn’t miss Violet’s speculative gaze or Lilah’s breathless expectation as the men went to work attempting to get to whatever lay beneath the concrete flooring.

When they’d made no headway after ten minutes of prodding, tugging and putting their backs into it, the talk drifting to blowtorches and drills, Cassidy finally stepped in. “I’m not comfortable continuing to do this. It’s obvious whatever this space was created for has been sealed over for a reason. We shouldn’t keep prying. I’ll ask Mrs. B. about it.”

“And I’ll go with you.” Tucker gathered up the various tools he’d pulled out for their attempt at the sealed floor and dropped them into his toolbox, then stood.

“I really can go alone.”

“Humor me. You had a big scare this morning and while I believe you when you say your landlady is a sweet woman who is incapable of doing harm, I’d like to see for myself.”

“Tucker’s got a point,” Lilah piped up. A wicked light filled her dark chocolate gaze, and Cassidy fought the blush that crept up her neck, her cheeks going warm. “Distract Mrs. B. with visions of matchmaking and she’ll answer whatever you want.”

When Tucker only shoved his hands in his pockets, a small, impish smile on his face, Cassidy gave in. She’d learned long ago how to put a smile on her face and go with the flow.

She might as well put the skill to good use.

* * *

Tucker followed Cassidy’s directions as he threaded through downtown traffic toward one of East Dallas’s oldest and most well-heeled neighborhoods. The trapdoor Max and Violet had discovered in the floor continued to fill his thoughts. “Have you had any other problems since you moved into the shop?”

“Nothing. We get the same alerts as the rest of the neighborhood when a crime has happened, but for the most part we’ve been left alone.”

“And no one’s happened by or stopped in to casually ask questions? Maybe ask for directions, then start asking about the building?”

Tucker stopped at a light and glanced over toward her. The vivid blue of her eyes turned thoughtful before she shook her head. “No, nothing, but I will ask Vi and Lilah if someone’s come in.”

He didn’t want to scare her but after spending time inside the shop and seeing the destruction with his own eyes, he couldn’t quite chalk it up to a run-of-the-mill burglary attempt.

“I keep playing it over and over in my mind. I make wedding gowns. Why would someone want to destroy that?”

“Which takes us back to a competitor.”

Cassidy let out a hard sigh. “Which doesn’t play for me. I don’t have enemies.”

Tucker knew it wasn’t that simple, but he opted to hold his tongue as she tried to work through the angles.

“And then I come back to the alarm. No one has the code except Lilah, Violet and me.”

“Could either of them have given it out?”

“Nope. Lilah doesn’t even give it to her delivery teams. If she’s sending a cake out with someone else, she meets them at the store.”

“You’ve been in business awhile. There’s no chance she gave it to someone she trusts? Someone who’s been dependable trip after trip.”

“I just don’t see it. In fact, Lilah’s been the one of us who has been the most insistent about not sharing our alarm codes.”

He filed that one away, as well. The bright, happy baker seemed as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but someone that maniacal about giving an alarm code to what he’d expect were trusted employees seemed a bit off. “Yet someone got the code.”

“Yes.”

Cassidy tapped her fingers on her thigh, the nervous motion spearing through his chest. Tamping down on the surprising—and altogether uncomfortable—sensation, he pointed toward an upcoming light. “This is the turn, right?”

“Yes. Left at the light and then a right at the next one.”

Tucker moved through the light and drove toward one of the most elite neighborhoods in East Dallas. The homes were old—some of the oldest in the city—and the structures had great bones. Even more apparent was the fact that the owners in Mrs. Beauregard’s neighborhood took care of what was theirs.

Although he knew he and Cassidy could keep going round and round like this, there didn’t seem to be any answers to their questions. Recognizing this downward spiral, Tucker latched on to the opportunity to shift their focus. “I haven’t been over here before. These homes are spectacular.”

“Swiss Avenue was one of the city’s first Historic Districts, if not the first.” Her gaze drifted from the passenger window toward a home about half a block away. “Each one’s more beautiful than the next, but that one there on the corner is my favorite.”

He took in the neoclassic architectural style on the pristine white home that rose three stories and had to give her points for style. “It’s gorgeous.”

“A glittering diamond among diamonds, but extraspecial somehow.”

Her murmured words only added to his curiosity, especially combined with his observations of her earlier. Although she gave off the impression of wealth and that subtle society-girl vibe, maybe he was mistaken. “Are you from Dallas?”

“Born and raised.”

“What part of the city?”

“Not too far from here, actually. My mother grew up knowing Mrs. B., and I’ve known her my whole life. She knew about the business we wanted to start and offered us a great deal on the space we lease from her.”

Bingo.

Tucker prided himself on his ability to read a situation, and his impression of elegance and money was spot-on, especially if she had grown up nearby.

“What about you?” Her question pulled him from his musings, and he thought about how to answer what was—at its core—a simple question.

Even if his ability to give a casual answer would be a hard-won victory.

“A bit of a mutt. I moved around as a kid, then settled in upstate New York for high school before going to West Point. And then it was into the military.”

“You and Max were in the armed forces, right?”

He couldn’t hold back the cheeky grin at her clear knowledge of his background. “More details from Mrs. B.?”

“And Violet. That woman’s a walking social network. Not much escapes Vi’s purview.”

“Yes, we were. Part of the Army Corps of Engineers.”

As the words came out, Tucker waited for the inevitable drop in her smile—that subtle gesture that indicated she was disappointed he didn’t say they were with the Navy SEALs or Special Ops. His father still wore that look of disappointment every time his career came up.

“That’s so cool. So you went around blowing up bridges and building dams and stuff.”

He fought off the surprise at the interest sparking in her words. “A few times. Although I suspect the protectors of said bridges weren’t quite so happy with our efforts.”

She laughed at that—a deep, throaty chuckle that speared him down deep—before gesturing to the next driveway. “You’ve got a point there. The next one’s Mrs. B.’s.”

The house was a vision, and his innate appreciation of architectural lines and good old-fashioned home design approved of what he saw. They parked and he came around to help Cassidy out of his SUV.

The light scent of her—something along the lines of sweet lemons—greeted him, and his gaze caught once more on the vivid color of her hair. Shaking off the flight of fancy, he turned to stare up at the three-story home. “Does Mrs. Beauregard live here alone?”

“She does now. The girls and I have tried to convince her to get a live-in companion or consider moving but she claims she’s fine.”

“Max fights the same battle with his grandfather.”

“He used to date Mrs. B., you know.”

“How would I know that?”

A spark of mischief lit her eyes before she concealed them with a pair of sunglasses. “Consider yourself further informed on the Design District gossip chain.”

“So noted.”

Cassidy carried the fragile lace veil she’d mentioned earlier in both hands so he moved on ahead to knock on the door. The wide, thick entrance was offset by a large porch. He took in its simple comforts—an oversize porch swing, several plants and a pair of mud-caked garden shoes neatly lined up near the door.

When no sound echoed from inside, he knocked once more. “She knew you were coming, right?”

“Yes. I talked to her about it yesterday. She was so excited about getting the veil back.” Her voice remained level, and all hints of mischief in her gaze were gone, replaced by a thin sheen of concern.

“Is there a back entrance?”

“Knock once more.”

He did as she asked, then moved to look in the windows. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Would you hold this for me?”

He took the veil, the thin material weightless in his hands as she dug out a cell phone. She tapped the face and in moments he heard the ringing echo through the house. After four rings the phone went to voice mail, and Cassidy redialed once more.

When the ringing stopped a second time, Cassidy shoved the phone back in her purse and reached for the door. “This isn’t like her.”

She knocked before trying the handle, a small moue of surprise springing to her lips when the door slid open.

“Wait.” Tucker handed back the fragile lace before moving through the door. Concern had filled him on his walk through Cassidy’s shop this morning, but a decided sense of menace crept down his spine as he moved through Mrs. B.’s neat home. Foyer. Living room. Kitchen.

Cassidy saw the woman a split second before he did. She cried out before racing for the prone figure lying in front of the oven.