I waited for a response, but none came, which was fine. I didn’t want to deal with him. I was dying to know what Grace was up to. I didn’t have to wait long for her to join me.
Grace huffed as she hung her coat on the back of the barstool next to me. “I’m sorry. I saw your text but didn’t listen to your voicemail. I was too busy trying to find a hotel room. I struck out. So I have to drive home tonight.”
“No, you’re not. The roads are shit tonight.”
She frowned. “Yeah, and there’s not a hotel room available in town or anywhere nearby. I should’ve booked a room before I left Boston. But I planned on returning tonight, since the banquet was only two hours long.”
“Stay with me.” The words came out before I could think. The two of us in a hotel room was asking for trouble.
She gave me one of her ball-squeezing smiles. “What? No. Maybe I can stay with Fran in her dorm room.”
My gaze roamed her rosy cheeks, heart-squeezing brown eyes, and lips that were tempting me to kiss her right there in the bar. “Fran and Nora have a small room with twin beds. I have a suite. You can take the bed, and I’ll take the couch.”
Not the best idea, given that I was a second away from not being that gentleman I wanted to be, especially with how my damn body was going haywire as I looked at her in that tight-fitting dress.
Grace curled her hair around her ear. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Honestly, the way you look in that dress, probably not.” I chuckled nervously. “But we’re two grown adults.”
“Who are restraining from ripping each other’s clothes off?”
I smirked. “True, but I am not making a play until I talk to your brother. As I said, we do this right.” The sex would be off the charts—that much I was certain of—but I wanted more than just sex with her.
“Fine, I don’t want to drive home, and I’m tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. I could use a hot shower and a warm bed.”
I gave her one of the two room keys I had in my suit pocket. “Why don’t you go up and settle in? Room 426. I have phone calls to make.”
I needed to call Detective Stuart to see if he’d gotten his hands on my folder. If not, I needed to book a flight to Nashville. In the meantime, I could use another glass of bourbon or two. I would need all that liquor to help me pass out so I would keep my hands off Grace. As much as I wanted to be a gentleman, I knew that everyone had a breaking point—including me.
19
BRIAN
Two hours later, I walked into a quiet hotel suite, eyeing the closed bedroom door. I listened for a second, but it was dead quiet.
A light glowed from the table by the window, and a blanket and pillow were stacked on the couch with a note.Thank you. I’ll try not to wake you when I leave in the morning. Grace.
If the roads weren’t clear, she wasn’t going anywhere.
I kicked off my shoes, unbuttoned my shirt, tossed my phone on the couch, and grabbed a bottle of water out of the mini fridge.
Dropping down on the couch, I downed the cold liquid, feeling sleep coming on. I leaned my head back against the uncomfortable sofa and stared at the ceiling, my thoughts all over the place but mainly on the phone call I’d just had with Detective Stuart.
He’d still had no luck finding Sabine or her son, Harris. And he couldn’t keep pouring his time into helping me. He was working on another case that needed his attention. So I’d booked a flight to Nashville.
I could just sayfuck the folder. I could always get another birth certificate of Fran’s. Bank statements weren’t that important, although the account numbers were on them. My criminal mind was weary too. A good hacker could do just about anything, like drain my accounts.
But neither Sabine nor Harris struck me as a hacker, although I didn’t know that much about Harris. On top of that, there were two other items in the folder—a picture that I cherished and Social Security cards, Fran’s and mine. Identity theft was huge, and Sabine had always been desperate for money, in particular to pay for her sister’s medical bills. I needed to check my bank and credit card accounts.
I opened my bank account app on my phone. I blew out a sigh that I still had the money from the sale of the restaurant in my checking. My savings showed a balance of nine hundred thousand, which was correct. What I didn’t have access to on my phone were my offshore accounts that I’d set up many moons ago from working in the drug trade. I had a boatload of money in them. But there wasn’t a paper trail of those accounts in the folder Sabine had.
A scream tore through the suite, making me forget my problems. I leapt to my feet and ran into the bedroom. I stopped cold, my heart in my throat as the air left my lungs.
Grace was thrashing around, punching and kicking as though she were being attacked.
Frozen to a spot beside the bed, I wasn’t sure what to do.
“Get off me, you bastard,” Grace yelled. “I’ll kill you one day.” She flew up to a sitting position, breathing heavily, mumbling, and crying before her eyes flew open, looking as hollow as if she’d awakened from the dead.
