I’d accepted payment from you.”
Touché.
“What do you mean, the path of least resistance?” he asked as they climbed the stairs to the ornate, brass front door.
“I needed a place to live. I found this one at a good price, close to work, so I took it. No big mystery.”
But it was. He sensed she wasn’t telling him the whole story.
The lobby of her building was 1920s Art Deco splendor, with vaulted ceilings, square columns, potted palm trees and brass accents. The old-fashioned elevator was trimmed in brass, with one of those inner metal doors that had to be closed manually.
Inside the elevator, Raleigh stood as close to the wall as she could—as far away from him as possible—and looked anywhere but at him.
This was no good. He wanted her to be comfortable with him. When people got comfortable they let down their guard. Did this woman ever let down her guard?
They got out on the third floor. Raleigh extracted her key chain from her purse. The key chain was a basic, utilitarian ring with a small LED flashlight attached. It told him nothing about her except that she was practical. No tiny frames with pictures of children or a boyfriend, no souvenir trinkets from vacations, not even a symbol of her work.
He fully expected her apartment to be the same—dull, functional. So when she opened the front door and admitted him, he had a shock.
Clean, neat, organized—it was all those things. No surprises there. But it was colorful. Her walls were painted in vibrant shades of turquoise, moss green, rich gold. The hardwood floors were covered with good wool rugs in contemporary geometric patterns—no fusty Oriental rugs passed down from family. The sofa and two matching chairs were upholstered in cream-colored silk, with throw pillows in every shade of the rainbow.
She had art on the walls—real art, not just some boring framed picture of a mountain to fill a spot. The abstract paintings screamed emotion.
The room was such a contrast to the woman he had so far seen that he was confused.
“Do you live here alone?” Maybe a roommate was responsible for the decor.
Before she could answer, a rust-colored ball of fur streaked into the room, barking wildly.
“Copper! That’s enough,” Raleigh scolded. But she leaned down and scooped the tiny dog—a Pomeranian, Griffin thought—into her arms and let it lick her face. “Yes, baby, I’m home at a strange hour. I surprised you, didn’t I?” Her sweet, maternal-sounding voice was totally different than the voice she used with humans.
Finally she turned back to Griffin, looking slightly embarrassed. “Yes, I live alone except for this little guy. Why?”
He shrugged. “No reason.” Except that you have a split personality. “I never expected you to have an ankle-biter yappy dog.”
Raleigh set the dog down on the rug with a quick scratch behind the ears. “He’s an excellent watchdog. A woman living alone needs some protection.”
Griffin tried not to laugh. “Oh, yeah, he’s a big threat.” He stooped down and held his hand out. The dog eyed him warily. “I won’t hurt you, little guy.”
“If you’ll wait here, please, I’ll go get the phone bill. I know right where it is.”
As soon as she left the room, the dog ventured closer, sniffing the air. But when Griffin tried to pet him, he skittered away. That was when Griffin noticed an antique walnut table in a far corner of the living room that was covered with framed pictures and all manner of knickknacks—a potential gold mine of data.
Forget the dog—although the fact she had a pet was an interesting tidbit.
On closer inspection, he realized every one of the half-dozen or so pictures on the table was of a man—the same man. Some were formal portraits at different ages, others casual snapshots. In some, he was with a beautiful woman.
With a start, he recognized the woman as Raleigh. She wore her hair in a completely different style—loose and wavy. In one picture, it fell in loose auburn curls well past her shoulders. She didn’t wear glasses, clunky or otherwise, in any of the pictures. And her figure?
Yowza. Just as he’d suspected, she was a hot babe.
He quickly came back to earth, however. The man, obviously, was her dead husband, and this table was a shrine to his memory. There were framed ticket stubs to a Broadway show, dried flowers, a smooth stone probably plucked from a river or beach. A poem written in a girlish hand.
A widow was allowed to honor her husband, he supposed, but this was way, way over the top. It had been more than six years. Was she still that hung up on the guy?
It was hard to know what she must feel. He had never lost anyone that close. Maybe he’d never had anyone that close. He felt a pang of sympathy for the pain she must carry with her every day, though she didn’t let it show. He also felt a thread of regret for something in his own life that could never, ever be.
Not that he stood much chance of getting past the woman’s facade, given that his goal was to seriously tarnish her reputation and possibly cost her her job. But now, he didn’t even feel comfortable fantasizing. Her handsome husband, who would forever be young and smiling in her mind, would always stand squarely between them.
“I can’t find the damn bill,” Raleigh announced as she reentered the living room. “I tried going online, but my password isn’t working—” She came to a halt when she spotted him standing before Jason’s shrine.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop,” he said, actually meaning it.
“If I didn’t want people to see Jason’s pictures, I wouldn’t put them in the living room.” The frost was back in her voice.
Yeah, but how many people did she actually invite into her home? Not many, he guessed.
Griffin felt he ought to say something. “It must have been awful. You obviously loved him very much.”
Raleigh blinked several times. “I did… I still do. He was the—” Suddenly she hardened. “Oh, no you don’t.”
“I’m sorry?” What had he done now?
“You aren’t going to weasel personal information out of me using the sympathy card, just so you can exploit me in your damn newspaper.”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. He never claimed to be a paragon of virtue, but he wouldn’t stoop to exploit a woman’s grief for her husband. Her former marriage had nothing to do with the story.
“Convenient, you losing the bill.”
“I pay it online. It’s possible I didn’t get a paper one, and didn’t notice. Someone could have stolen it from my mailbox. The lock isn’t all that secure.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He congratulated himself for predicting the outcome of this meeting so accurately. Was he a good judge of character, or what?
“Of course you don’t believe me.” She shook her head. “I guess I can’t blame you for your suspicions. It looks bad. The phony bill, the deposit…”
“Yes, what about that deposit?”
“I don’t know where that deposit came from!” she said hotly. “It simply appeared. I called the bank, and they say it wasn’t an error. I can put you in touch with any number of bank personnel I spoke with, right on up to a vice president. Some of them, I spoke with long before my first meeting with you. The day after the deposit was made, in fact, I was on the phone, trying to figure out where that money belonged, because I knew it wasn’t mine. I took detailed notes during the conversation.”
He pulled out his notebook. “Okay, let’s have the names.”
“Mr. Temple. He’s a vice president. He’s the one I spoke with most recently. The