Intimate Enemy. Marilyn Pappano

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СКАЧАТЬ to the subject,” he said, knowing he sounded stiff and not caring. “Is Robbie involved in anything even remotely that could cause trouble for him?”

      “He’s a lawyer. He’s friendly with everybody. He’s a Calloway. Of course he could get into trouble. But that’s nothing new.”

      If trouble doesn’t find you, you go looking for it, their mother used to say. Was that after they’d gotten caught painting all the high-school windows in the school colors of blue and gold? Or maybe when Rick had gotten his nose broken in a fight after football practice and Russ and Robbie, despite being younger and smaller, had jumped in to help him. They’d held their own, too. Or the time they’d gotten caught racing for pink slips. Or…

      “Why are you worried about him?” Tommy asked. “Did he say something?”

      “Just to let you know if anything strange happened while he’s gone.”

      Tommy considered it while he ate the last of his doughnut, then shrugged again. “If he’s got a problem and he hasn’t talked about it with you or me, how serious can it be?”

      Good point. Robbie wasn’t the sort to keep things to himself. If he had a thought on something, and he always did, he shared it. He wasn’t a secretive sort of guy.

      Tommy wadded up his napkin, then stuffed it into the empty coffee cup. “If anything strange does happen, you know how to find me. Otherwise, I’ll see you around.”

      “Yeah,” Russ agreed absently. “I’ll see you.”

      “How was your frozen dinner last night?”

      Jamie looked up to find Lys standing in the doorway, a bag slung over her shoulder and two boxes in hand. One bore the green and red of the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop down the block; the other was from Luigi’s Pizza, no doubt bearing leftovers from Lys’s own dinner the night before.

      “Very good. Grilled chicken, bowtie pasta and fire-roasted veggies in a low-fat cream sauce. Yum.”

      “Uh-huh.” Coming closer, Lys set both boxes on the desk, then pulled two cans of diet pop from her bag. “Sounds better than it tasted, I bet. Any word on your car?”

      “I’m supposed to call the garage later today to get the bad news.” Jamie opened the pizza box and lifted out a slice heavy with toppings. “I love cold pizza for breakfast.”

      “I know.” Lys chose a glazed doughnut from the other box, holding it over a napkin, and settled into one of the two client chairs. Her slim sheath and three-inch heels were black and, with her sleek black hair and porcelain-delicate skin, should have looked stark, but it worked for her. It made Jamie, in khaki trousers and pale blue shirt, feel dumpy.

      “How long were you here last night?” Lys asked.

      “Not long. Half an hour, maybe.”

      “Any trouble?”

      Immediately Russ popped into Jamie’s mind. In anyone’s book, he was trouble with a capital T, but not, she was pretty sure, what Lys was referring to.

      “Anything new from your secret admirer?” Lys clarified.

      After another bite of pizza, Jamie told her about the nail-studded wood.

      As she’d feared, Lys looked concerned. “You think he wanted your tire to go flat so he could…play the white knight for you? Offer to change it? Give you a ride home? Jeez, Jamie…”

      “It could have been an accident.” She’d been telling herself that every time the incident came to mind, but she hadn’t managed to convince herself yet. “It could have just been kids being brats.”

      “Or it could have been a setup to get you in this guy’s debt—or into his car, alone somewhere. Did you call the police?”

      “No.” It seemed so petty. After all, no damage had been done, and the motive was purely speculation.

      “Do you still have the wood?”

      “It’s in the car.”

      Lys laid down the doughnut and held out her hand. “Give me your keys. I’ll put it in the vault for safekeeping. The police may want it later.”

      Jamie gave her the keys, then picked up the pizza again. Cold cheese, peppers, Canadian bacon and extra onions on a thin crust were particularly comforting this morning. She polished off that piece and made a good start on the next by the time Lys returned, wood strip in hand. She disappeared into the file room—an honest-to-God vault from the days when the building had housed a savings-and-loan—then returned to pick up her doughnut. “How did you find it?”

      “I didn’t. Russ did.”

      That made Lys sit straighter, alerting the way Mischa did to a squirrel intrusion. “Russ Calloway? He was poking around your car when this crap suddenly appeared?”

      “Russ wouldn’t have flattened my tire or changed it or offered me a ride home. He doesn’t want my gratitude, and I’m the last person in the world he would play white knight for.” Saying the words stirred an ache in Jamie’s gut. There had been a time when they’d meant so much to each other, when she’d had such hopes for their future. Now he felt nothing but hostility for her. How had they come to this?

      Well, for starters, representing his ex in their divorce hadn’t been the best way to stay on good terms with him. But someone had had to take Melinda’s case. The marriage was beyond saving, and Jamie had been new to town, looking for clients to build her practice. And Robbie had assured her it was okay. Russ was a lawyer himself. He would understand that it was just business.

      Yeah, right.

      “White knight, giving you a ride—those would have been secret admirer motives,” Lys said. “Russ Calloway wouldn’t have secret admirer motives.”

      Another twinge of pain. “And what kind of motives would he have?”

      “Stalker motives. Vandalism. Harassment. Pure meanness. He doesn’t like you, Jamie. He says horrible things about you. Maybe he wants to punish you. Maybe he wants to hurt you.”

      The pizza felt heavy and unwelcome in Jamie’s stomach. She set the remains of the second slice down and took a cautious drink of pop, grateful when it stayed down. “Not Russ. He’s a decent guy—”

      “Who’s mad as hell at you.” Lys leaned forward, her dark eyes troubled. “Who happened to be right there when the wood showed up. Who has access to wood and nails on the job site. You said he found it and was removing it when you came out. What if he was really putting it there? He’d have no choice but to take it out again or be caught.”

      Jamie pictured the scene from the night before in her mind—the dusky evening, the man crouched beside her car, his back to her. She hadn’t even recognized him until an instant before he’d turned; she certainly hadn’t seen exactly what he was doing. Had he been removing the wood strip…or wedging it in place?

      Common sense waved its little fingers for her attention. For God’s sake, this was Russ they were talking about. His feelings for her aside, he was a good guy, respected in business, СКАЧАТЬ