“So you think insider trading between Jefferies and Latimer happened, but not because Jefferies was so fond of Jacob. You think Latimer bribed Jefferies into giving him insider information, or Latimer would expose potentially damaging information about something that happened at that sleazy party?”
“It’s plausible, isn’t it?” Burt asked excitedly.
Harper put her elbow on her desk and rubbed her eyes, thinking furiously.
“It’s still very thin, Burt. You don’t have anything.”
“I know, but there’s
something
there. I can smell it. Something that makes it worthwhile to keep digging, right?”
“You never said what happened to Gina Morrow,” Harper said.
“She checked out of the hospital two days after the party.”
“And what else? There’s no other mention of her that you could find?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try to find her, though,” Burt said
A feeling of trepidation went through her. “I don’t suppose your friend gave you a copy of the official incident report regarding Gina Morrow and the party at Jefferies’s house?”
Burt grinned widely and pulled a piece of paper from his notebook. It sailed onto Harper’s desk.
“That was risky of your friend,” Harper said, staring at the faxed report.
“She’s a
very
good friend,” Burt said with a knowing smile.
“Not good enough of a friend to go public with her name, though. Get me another participant that will go on the record that Jefferies was throwing a hooker party, preferably involving underage prostitutes and illegal drugs.”
“No one is going to admit to being at a party like that!”
“Get me evidence of some kind of argument and falling-out between Latimer and Jefferies afterward that might indicate bribery as a motive for insider trading versus patronage on Jefferies’s part. And those things are just more simple building blocks to a story, Burt. At the moment, you’ve got absolutely nothing,” Harper said, standing.
“There’s no way! There was never evidence of a falling-out between Latimer and Jefferies,” Burt said, flying out of his chair. “If there’d been evidence of that, it would have come out in the SEC investigation.”
“Exactly
.”
“Come on, Harper. You have access to Latimer. You could just
ask
him why he refuses to associate with Jefferies.”
“I’m not asking him anything,” Harper fired back. “This isn’t a newsworthy story, Burt.”
“How can you say that when—”
“I can say it easily. Because the fact of the matter is, unless we get a confession from Clint Jefferies or Jacob Latimer that they were involved in insider training, there is . . . no . . . damn story,” she said succinctly, tapping on her desk. “Do you think you can get a confession from Jefferies or Latimer?”
“Of course not, but what about that police report? Doesn’t that mean anything?” He pointed angrily at the fax on her desk. Her gaze bounced off the piece of paper, and then zoomed back. She snatched up the report.
“Charleston,
West Virginia
?” she said hollowly, reading part of the printed address of the police department at the top. Shivers tore through her.
“Yeah. What’s wrong?” Burt asked, startled. “I
told
you Charleston. That’s where my friend finished school and where she works: the Charleston PD. Jefferies had a huge vacation home on a nearby lake there. He’s sold it since, but that’s where the party in question happened and where Jacob Sinclair worked for him. Why do you sound so surprised?”
She struggled to find her composure.
“I thought you meant Charleston, South Carolina, earlier, that’s all.”
“Why would you think that?” Burt asked, puzzled.
“Charleston, South Carolina, is a lot bigger town, isn’t it? I just assumed,” Harper eluded, waving her hand impatiently to distract him. In truth, she’d been put off the mark by the fact that Jacob had told her he’d grown up in South Carolina. Jacob had certainly never mentioned West Virginia. That would have stuck in her head, for sure.
“Look, you’ve got a
long
, long way to go if you want a credible story,” she told Burt, clearing her thoughts with effort. “I won’t risk you implicating the paper in a lawsuit,” she said with a sense of finality, handing Burt back the police report. She knew on the outside that she appeared calm. On the inside, her limbs tingled unpleasantly and a strange ringing had started in her ears.
Burt looked a little surly as he left her office, but at least he went without further argument. When he opened the door, she noticed Ruth leaning against a desk in the main newsroom, waiting for him. Harper had a distant, unpleasant thought that she was going to pounce on Burt in an effort to get him to tell her what he knew about Jacob.
She shut her eyes, trying to still a sudden dizziness.
West Virginia.
No. It couldn’t be.
But she’d been having all these weird, out-of-nowhere dreams and feelings of loss associated with her childhood . . . and now
this
?
It’s Mom and Dad being gone that’s bringing it all up the surface, one loss making me recall another so vividly.
But why
now
, when my parents have been dead for a year?
According to this document, Jacob had spent at least
part
of his youth in West Virginia. She recalled vividly being in the pool with him in San Francisco. She’d mentioned him knowing Clint Jefferies in South Carolina, and he hadn’t denied it or corrected her. Yet he’d clearly known Jefferies in West Virginia.
Cyril Atwater had told her that he was sure South Carolina had
not
been the state where Jacob had grown up. He had insisted Jacob had said he was from another state out east. She’d thought Cyril was mistaken at the time, but now . . .
There was no doubt about it. Jacob had deliberately been keeping where he grew up a secret from
her
—Harper.
Keep reading for an excerpt from WICKED BURN, available now from Berkley.
The goddamned walls in his temporary apartment residence might as well be made of cardboard, Vic Savian thought as he came into full wakefulness at the low, mellow sound of a voice emanating from the hallway. He’d never actually heard the mystery woman who lived across the hall from him speak, but he recognized her immediately, nonetheless.
Weird. Just her voice made his cock stir and stiffen against the cool sheets.
He’d seen her twice now, once in Louie’s—the steakhouse located in the lobby of Riverview Towers. The other time they’d been alone on the elevator together.
He’d have bet the finest stallion in his stable that she was as aware of him on that elevator ride as he was of her.
Sort of an understatement, actually, to say that Vic had been
aware
of her. He’d noticed everything about her . . . the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose, the movement of her lips when they closed and parted, the pulse at her elegant throat, the shape of her breasts beneath the conservative yet sensual silk blouse that she wore.
She was beautiful. Vic knew better than most how overused that word was when it came to women. But other descriptors—pretty, attractive, sexy—fell far short when it came to the woman across the hall.
She was luminous.
He liked women. He liked them smart, feisty, sexy, skilled, and hot. But this woman’s beauty irked him. He steered clear of beautiful women. Ever since the debacle with Jenny.
His head came up off the pillow when he heard her speak again. Did her voice sound strained?
When he heard a man respond in an angry tone, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his jeans.
* * *
“Evan, I’ve made it very clear where I stand with you. I’ve never played coy. And no, I can’t give you some kind of timeline as to when I might feel differently,” she said before Evan had the chance to say the predictable.
What was it about getting dressed up for a black-tie affair that made a man think he was going to get laid?
Niall Chandler wondered dispiritedly. God, she was an idiot. She should never have agreed to accompany him to the Chicago Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art fund-raiser tonight. As a member of the museum’s board of trustees, Evan Forrester had the potential to make her job very difficult if he chose to play the part of a rejected lover.
“You’re not even giving this a chance. Look, I don’t have any of the details, but I’d have to be an idiot not to know that I’m supposed to treat you like fine china, given all the vague references and dirty looks your boss is always giving me, not to mention that secretary of yours. But sometimes the only way to get over something is to just take the plunge. Come on, Niall . . . jump off that pedestal of ice, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “The weather down below is nice and hot.”
Niall’s eyes widened in disbelief not only at his knowing, almost sly tone but the fact that he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back, sandwiching her between the door and his body. She twisted her face away when he tried to kiss her, but he merely transferred his attentions to her neck.
“You were driving me crazy tonight in this dress,” he muttered against her skin. His hands began to press and slide along her back and waist.
“Evan, stop it,” Niall insisted. When he brushed aside her wrap and planted a kiss on the top of her right breast, her hand rose instinctively. He looked up when she gave him a hard, flat-palmed thump to the side of his head.
“Why . . . you little bitch, that hurt!”
Niall barely had time to register the tall shadow out of the corner of her eye before Evan cried out and winced in pain. He crashed loudly into the far wall of the hallway, then bounced forward, looking stunned and dazed. He grabbed frantically for his ear, as if to assure himself that it was still attached to his head. Niall realized that the man who stood with them in the hallway must have twisted it viciously before he threw Evan off of her.
“Get out of here,” the stranger said tersely.
Niall stared up at the man in amazement. His tone had been one of annoyance and profound distaste, as if he’d just come out into the hallway and seen a dog humping her leg instead of a man pawing her body without her consent. It was especially striking, that tone, since Evan was the picture of urbane sophistication in his tuxedo and black cashmere overcoat.
Her savior, on the other hand, brought to mind comparisons to ruthless cowboy outlaws and primitive, raw sex.
Niall blinked in surprise at her turn of thought. Well, it wasn’t the first time her mind had strayed that way against her will. It had done the same on the other two occasions she’d seen the man who lived across the hall from her, especially when she’d been forced to breathe his spicy male scent in the six-by-six-foot confines of an elevator.
He made her nervous, agitated . . . stirred up.
At least on the elevator he’d been wearing clothing, though. Tonight he wore nothing but a partially fastened pair of faded jeans that looked like they’d been washed and worn so many times that they’d shaped themselves perfectly to his lean hips, tight butt, and long, hard thighs.
Niall forced her eyes away from that compelling sight when she heard Evan speak.
“Who the hell are
you
to think you can tell me to leave like that?” Evan sputtered in furious disbelief. He took several rapid steps down the hallway, however, almost tripping on his own feet, when Niall’s neighbor abruptly lunged toward him. The tall man never responded verbally, but Niall thought she saw Evan’s answer in his rigid profile and steely gaze.
He’s the guy who looks like he’s ready to kick your ass from here to next week if you don’t get a move on
, Niall thought.
“You’d better just go, Evan,” she managed shakily. “Please,” she added when Evan opened his mouth like he was going to argue. He finally turned, keeping the grim, tall figure that menaced him in the corner of his eye until the last second before he headed down the hallway.
Niall exhaled unevenly when she heard the ding of the elevator door as it closed. She found it difficult to meet her neighbor’s stare.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You okay?”
His voice reminded her of a stark landscape of open plains domed with the vast mystery of a starlit sky.
“Sure.” She laughed a little unevenly. “Feeling a bit dense, actually. I didn’t see it coming.”
“How about a drink?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m all right. He just caught me off guard, that’s all.”
“I wasn’t asking if you wanted to have a drink with me in order to calm you down.”
Her eyes snapped up to his. For the first time, she saw that they were a light gray, the outer rim edged by a defining black line.
A second passed . . . then several. A tiny smile pulled at his well-shaped lips, softening the hardness of his mouth infinitesimally.
Had he really just propositioned her so casually? Niall questioned herself. And was she really considering taking him up on the offer?
Something flamed to life inside of her as she met his steady stare . . . something Niall had assumed had been snuffed out of existence three years ago. His lips twitched slightly, and she realized she’d been wrong.
What she experienced at that moment wasn’t anything she’d ever known in her thirty-three years of life on this planet.
“All right,” she agreed softly.
He stepped back so that she could move past him toward the door of his apartment. Niall noticed that he didn’t look smug at her acceptance.
Nor did he seem even vaguely surprised.
* * *
Niall smiled a moment later as she glanced around his living room while he moved about in the kitchen.
“I see we have the same decorator,” she said through the little window over the counter that overlooked the kitchen. She heard the anxious tremor in her voice and admonished herself for it. Just because she had agreed to have a drink didn’t mean that she was going to sleep with him—a complete stranger.