The Negotiator: A Games People Play Christmas Novella Page 5

  “May I come in? Just for a minute.”

  At the sound of the woman’s soft voice, Kayla dropped her feet to the floor and spun around to face the door.

  Now they were all staring at each other. Lauren had wondered what she’d do when or if she ever met the woman Carl had run off with. Now she knew. She’d shut down, afraid that talking might lead to babbling. Her head would pound and the whole world would close in on her until every sound became muffled.

  She used the silence to study the woman Carl had found so enticing. The one who helped him commit fraud and take a wrecking ball to her life. Lauren had seen photos. After all, when Carl disappeared, so did Maryanne. Her family and friends had grieved. Now she stood there, five-six or so and petite. Brown hair and brown eyes. Pretty in her oversized Nordic print sweater and down vest.

  She also looked terrified. Her gaze darted around the room and wariness showed in every inch of her face. She was younger—of course. She’d been twenty-four when they’d taken off for their pretend drowning. Lauren could only hope the other woman was wiser now.

  “Maryanne, this is my friend Kayla.”

  Kayla’s eyes bulged as she stood up. “Whoa.”

  “Wait.” Maryanne held up her hands as if in mock surrender. “I’m not here to fight. I swear.”

  Lauren was pretty sure she was the one with the right to kick and scream, but okay. “Come in.”

  She stood up then couldn’t remember why she’d done that and immediately sank back down in her chair again. With her fingers wrapped around the armrests, she waited for the anger to hit. Maryanne had walked away without debt. Even her college loans had been paid off by Carl.

  Maryanne also got Carl . . . though Lauren wasn’t completely sure the other woman had won on that score.

  “What are you doing here?” Lauren had a thousand questions but that seemed like a good place to start.

  “I’m sorry,” Maryanne blurted out.

  Lauren could see Maryanne drag in a long breath. Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away. The woman rubbed her hands together until her skin turned red. Then it hit Lauren . . . Maryanne might actually have loved Carl. He’d run away with her and come back yesterday professing to be home. Lauren had no idea what happened in between but she guessed it hadn’t been great for Maryanne. It’s not as if Carl changed into a better man while he was gone. His visit to her proved that.

  “For what?” Kayla asked the question with a bit of an edge.

  Maryanne flinched but didn’t come out fighting or run away. Lauren reluctantly admired that sort of spirit. She’d spent a lot of time hating this woman she only knew in photos. Now that Maryanne stood there, looking like she was held together with little more than rubber bands and spit, looming on the verge of breaking down, Lauren couldn’t muster any anger.

  “I didn’t know.” Maryanne swallowed, and when she spoke again her voice was louder. “He told me you were separated. When we started dating, I mean.”

  “Did he also tell you he planned to fake his death or did he spring that on you once you were out on the water?” Kayla asked.

  Lauren didn’t jump in and fix this for Maryanne. She’d made her decisions, including the one to walk into the office. Tears or not, she’d helped turn Lauren’s life upside down and Lauren was not ready to forgive that.

  Maryanne nodded. “I thought we were running away together. Then, once we were out on the water, he talked about the money and how he wanted out from under the debt. He said . . .”

  “What?” Lauren hated to ask but the not knowing would kill her.

  “He said you ran up bills he had no ability to pay and . . . honestly, he never said a good thing about you.”

  “To his mistress?” Kayla snorted. “Go figure.”

  “I didn’t know he was lying.”

  Lauren decided not to remind Maryanne about his big lie, the one about dying. She leaned forward with her elbows on the desk and silently begged the wrenching in her stomach to stop. “What happened once you were away from here, Maryanne?”

  “At first it was great.” She blew out a shaky breath. “Then he got . . . weird. Mean.”

  Lauren knew the real answer. “When the money ran out.”

  She knew how his mind worked. Money translated to calm for him. When the amount he stole from the business and their accounts was gone, he would have become accusatory and shitty. That described most of her life with him during the last few years of their marriage.

  Kayla’s eyes narrowed. “You came back with him. So did you think you were going to tell some wild story about being lost and then start over here?”

  Maryanne winced. “He disappeared three weeks ago.”

  “Weeks?” Kayla looked at Lauren. “Where has he been for all that time?”

  “In hiding? I don’t know but it’s a good question.”

  Maryanne’s words came rushing back to Lauren. “You said ‘disappeared.’ You mean he left you behind?”

  “In the Bahamas. Without a penny.” Maryanne glanced down before facing Lauren again. “It took me some time to figure out . . . you know. That he wasn’t coming back. Then I had to get the money together . . . He took the bit I had saved while waitressing there.”

  Kayla whistled. “Man, he was a jackass.”

  “What happened to him once he got back here? I read this morning . . . Then the police came to see me . . .”

  The woman liked to talk in sentence fragments. Lauren chalked it up to Maryanne’s strained emotional state. She got it. She had been the same way when Carl first left. Seeing his body on the floor yesterday had sent a renewed shot of anguish through her but it vanished as soon as it came.

  The guilt, the confusion—they would always be with her. The love died long ago, along with the trust.

  “Someone killed him.” Despite everything, it still hurt Lauren to say the words.

  Maryanne continued to hover by the door. She’d stepped inside but not far. “He died in your house.”

  Kayla shook her head. “It wasn’t her, if that’s what you’re trying not to ask.”

  “It really wasn’t.” Lauren’s heart raced. It was as if the anxiety built up inside her whenever she thought about Carl and what happened and their messed-up life together. Then it spilled out over everything.

  “What about Bob?” Maryanne didn’t clarify the question.

  Bob Andrews, Carl’s silent business partner. Silent even to her when they first launched the business. Another one of Carl’s secrets that he’d justified as a necessary business decision. Despite her protests, Bob also acted as their financial planner. He was the one who was supposed to be watching over the business and family investments and debts. The first one who showed up on Lauren’s doorstep with his hand out, asking for a loan repayment after Carl disappeared.

  Lauren couldn’t think about Bob, one of Carl’s oldest friends, without getting hit with a rage-induced headache. She’d never liked him. He was too slick. Talked too big. He’d always struck her as a blowhard. She and Carl had so many fights over Bob. “What about him?”

  “Bob knew.” Maryanne looked from Kayla to Lauren. “About Carl’s plans to leave. At least that’s what Carl said. He owed Bob and Jake money because of . . . you. Well, that’s what he said. With him dead, they were supposed to be able to collect on a separate business insurance policy Bob took out on Carl as part of them being partners or something.”

  A wave of dizziness hit Lauren. She was grateful she was sitting down. It was also a good thing she hadn’t eaten anything today because if she had she might just lose it.

  So much deception. So many lies. It was as if every man she knew thrived on messing with her. All but Garrett.

  She ran through the other information Maryanne had dropped. Bob was Carl’s original silent business partner. The same guy who tried to collect on an insurance policy and called in the loans on the business, plunging her deeper into debt after Carl first left. Lauren hadn’t seen him or heard anything about h
im in more than a year. That wasn’t nearly long enough for her taste. He was smarmy and a liar . . . and apparently so was Jake.

  “Why are you really here, Maryanne?” Lauren still didn’t get that part. If the plan was to hurt her, it wasn’t working. She just didn’t feel enough for Carl for that to happen. That lingering sense of nostalgia for the past and sadness for what happened to him was all she could muster. Those were enough to push her to want to solve his murder, but that’s all she owed him now.

  “I just needed . . .” Maryanne inhaled again, looking paler by the second. “I think I needed to see you. To take some sort of responsibility for hurting you.”

  Kayla frowned. “Have you done that yet?”

  “Kayla.” Lauren sent her friend the warning before looking at the younger woman again. They both knew what it was like to be screwed by Carl, though she doubted Maryanne understood the depth of the deception and how much Carl had used her when he swept her away on that boat and pretended to disappear. “Have you talked with the police about Bob?”

  Maryanne shook her head. “Not yet.”

  “Do it.” Lauren swallowed back the hard lump clogging her throat. “If you really want to do something for me, do that.”

  Maryanne hesitated a few seconds then practically ran out of the office. The second the younger woman left, all of the energy ran out of Lauren. She slumped back in her chair as her muscles shook.

  Concern filled Kayla’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.”

  “You don’t feel sorry for her, do you?”

  Damn but she did. A little anyway. “Don’t you?”

  Chapter Six

  Garrett hung up the phone from the briefing with Wren and Matthias as soon as Lauren walked in the door. Her cheeks were red from the wind and she rubbed her hands together despite the gloves. Christmas was coming fast, as was the snow. He’d hoped to be gone and in a cabin alone somewhere by the time both hit. He didn’t see that happening now.

  For the first time in years, he might not be alone on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. He had no idea what to think about that. He traditionally spent the day sitting, thinking, maybe listening to music. Nothing stressful. Not doing anything that made him think.

  Helping Lauren, finding Carl’s killer, would keep him busy. Detective Cryer made it clear there were a limited number of suspects—Lauren, Maryanne, Jake and Bob, the silent business partner. That was a tight pool and Garrett had already eliminated one of them. He needed to talk to her about the others so he could start putting the pieces together.

  Once he collected the information he’d pore over the records. Debate scenarios with the detective, Lauren and Matthias. Run through everything, then do it again. He negotiated for a living. He assessed and analyzed. He vowed to put all of those skills to work for her, no matter how long it took.

  He watched her peel off her winter coat and the bulky zip-up sweater she had on underneath. By the time she was done stripping out of her winter layers, he was sweating and she wore a white oxford shirt and faded jeans. The woman looked better in old jeans than most women he’d seen did in expensive ball gowns.

  She was so comfortable with who she was. He never appreciated how sexy that was until he met her. She might be mysterious and private but she held herself with a certain confidence that said she could handle anything, including kicking a little ass.

  Then he really looked at her. Saw the strain on her face. He knew why it was there but he asked anyway, giving her a chance to get it out. “You okay?”

  She treated him to a small smile as she plopped down on the couch next to him. “Kayla told you.”

  “Technically Kayla told Matthias, who called me.” Garrett was pretty sure they all knew how to send a group text but no one seemed to be using the skill. “Apparently we’re in seventh grade. Next thing we’ll be passing notes at recess.”

  She stretched her arm along the back of the sofa until her fingers just grazed his shoulder. “I’m not sure you still get recess in seventh grade.”

  He was dying to lift her, put her on his lap and take that shirt off. Seeing her was all it took. Hell, when she walked across a room his body flipped to launch mode.

  He fought to keep his voice steady. “Don’t ruin my bad analogy.”

  This time she really touched him. Her fingertips skimmed his arm. “She was pathetic, Garrett.”

  He could hear the concern in her voice. In her place he’d be celebrating, enjoying the fact that the other woman in his marriage had gotten dumped. Not her. No, Lauren was decent and kind. Tough on the outside but loving inside.

  That’s what attracted him at first. Her loyalty to Kayla. How hard she worked and the sound of her laugh.

  Damn, he had it bad for her.

  Which was why he was so desperate to protect her. She may not want it, but he planned to help anyway. “Is it possible she was playing you?”

  She shrugged. “I guess.”

  She didn’t sound convinced, so he tried again. Nudged a little harder this time. “She did run off with your husband and what little money you had.”

  “She didn’t exactly win anything with that move.”

  He let out the breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Every time he mentioned Carl he waited for a look of pain to shoot across her face. For any sign that she cared for him or still loved him. He couldn’t spot any.

  “True, but being left behind or tossed aside, or whatever happened, might have made her angry enough to kill him.”

  Lauren frowned at him. “She could barely finish a sentence.”

  The woman had been conned and still thought people were basically honest. He had no idea where that bone-deep belief came from. He sure didn’t share it. He’d seen the worst in humanity. Watched people destroy each other over things that didn’t matter. He hoped she never knew that truth.

  “Last I checked finishing a sentence wasn’t a requirement for killing.” Not that he’d ever seen. “Revenge, money, love . . . those are three of the top reasons.”

  She continued to toy with his sweater, twisting it in her fingers then smoothing it out again. “Maybe.”

  “I love that you want to see the best in her.”

  She snorted. “It’s not that. Don’t make me out to be a saint.”

  He found her to be pretty human. That was the point. Flawed and compelling and just secretive enough to have him wanting to dig for more. “Okay, then what is it?”

  “I know what it’s like to be a victim of Carl Gallagher.”

  He refused to let her wear that tag. Shifting on the cushion, he faced her head-on. “You are not a victim.”

  “What am I?”

  “A survivor.” His fingertips trailed over her cheek and down to her chin. “A really sexy survivor.”

  “Are you making a pass?” She smiled as she said the words.

  He totally was even though he’d promised he’d give her space. He’d never said it out loud but he’d thought it . . . and now he wanted to break that vow. “Would it work?”

  She scooted a little closer to him, closing the distance without saying a word. “I thought we established you have a green light.”

  “That wasn’t a temporary thing?” Please say no.

  “No.”

  He could barely hear over the buzzing in his ears. “Be sure, Lauren.”

  She didn’t hide her movements this time. She slid across the couch, or tried to. When that didn’t work, she lifted up on one knee and threw her other leg across his lap until she straddled him. Right there on the couch.

  “You are the one thing I am sure of.” She dipped her head and treated him to a very sweet lingering kiss.

  He wanted more and that scared the hell out of him. Not enough to stop, but a warning sign did flash in his brain for a second before he blinked it out. “Those are big words.”

  “I know.” She slid her hands around his neck. “What are you going to do about them?”

  The woman wanted a
gesture? Fine, he’d give her one.

  With both hands cupped under her ass, he found his balance and stood up. Took her with him and had to smile when she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  Her eyebrow lifted. “Impressive.”

  “I can only do that once a year. Don’t get used to the move.”

  “Noted.”

  Her smile nearly knocked him out. Warmth and longing thrummed off her. He could feel her need, her excitement. It ran through her and vibrated against him.

  He spun around, dropping them both on the mattress. She fell back and he balanced on top of her. They were fully dressed but he could feel every curve through their clothes. The scent he associated with her, the smell of fresh linen and a touch of flowers he could not name. He knew it came from her shampoo because he’d smelled it in the bathroom this morning after her shower. It had followed him around all day, baiting him.

  His fingers went to the small white buttons on her shirt. One by one he opened them, revealing inch after inch of bare skin. He skimmed his fingers over her neck and across her collarbone. Trailed them down her chest to the tops of her breasts.

  “You are so beautiful.”

  “And you are charming.” She tugged on his sweater, lifting it up his back. “Hot and charming with the touch of the devil inside you, I think.”

  That worked for him. The sweater didn’t. His skin was on fire and everywhere she touched came alive under her hand.

  She pushed up just enough to give him some room. He nearly ripped his sweater and tee to shreds getting them off. He wanted to strip it all off, but he slowed down. Just enough to savor her. To watch as her pupils dilated and her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip.

  She was sexy without even trying.

  Then her hands were on him. Trailing over his shoulders and down his arms. Skipping to his chest and traveling over his stomach. Every brush, every touch, had his breath hitching inside him.

  He kissed her then and tried to figure out why he hadn’t done it the minute she walked in the door. Their mouths met and his mind went blank. All thought dropped out of his head except for his need for her.