No Place To Hide. Madalyn Reese

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      He waited for Layne to introduce herself by title, but she gave only her name and stepped back in deference to Walter Hornsby. A giant in his mid-thirties, his job was to coordinate the practical aspects of the investigation—security and communication with the police.

      Hornsby gave his usual muttered greeting while Anthony watched Emma. She was an expert at reading people, but this time he could see her struggling. Good luck. He would enjoy watching her realize these three lived to annoy.

      Jim began. “Do I need a warrant to look at your computer?”

      “Not necessary,” Emma responded. “Be my guest.”

      While Jim clicked through messages, Layne’s eyes burned into his skull. Silence thundered through the room until she finally glanced at Emma.

      “Miss Toliver, is there somewhere I can speak to Mr. Bracco in private?” she asked.

      “No one will disturb you in the boardroom,” Emma said, “Anthony knows where it is.”

      He led Layne from the room like a man leading his own executioner to the gallows. Two doors down on the right was the boardroom, brightly lit by wide, paned windows and dominated by a long walnut table. The room smelled of aged wood, and the old leather chair he slumped into creaked beneath his weight.

      Layne sat primly, ankles crossed. She stared at him awhile before saying, “You were placed in protective custody for your own safety. I thought that was understood.”

      “It was.”

      “Interesting, as you completely disregarded our cautions this morning. Jim said you were already halfway here by the time he called you with the Internet service info, so I’d dearly love to hear how you knew about Emma’s e-mails before we did.”

      “I’m psychic?”

      Layne smiled. “She’s a beautiful woman. Lovely bone structure, and all that delightful blond hair. Given your rather…colorful past together, I would assume there’s unfinished business.”

      Anthony bobbed his chin, neither denying nor admitting anything.

      “You’re right,” Layne said. “It doesn’t matter, does it? But I must insist you share your insight with me. Frankly, I’m concerned I might have missed something in your e-mails.”

      Knowing he was being played with, Anthony lied, “It wasn’t anything concrete. There was a lot of publicity on what I did to Emma, and Doppelgänger could have seen it. Then Jim was talking about sympathetic symbols, someone this guy might relate to as one of my business victims, and it got me thinking. That’s all.”

      Layne shocked him by uttering two syllables that crisply defined her disbelief. “Pardon my French,” she added as an afterthought. “But I wasn’t born yesterday. Tell me the truth or I’ll start digging. You know I’ll find…something.”

      Purposefully mirroring Layne’s speech patterns, minus the French, he asked, “Hypothetically speaking, if I admitted I’d found out about the e-mails in a less…intellectual manner, would you find it necessary to inform Emma?”

      “That remains to be seen.”

      “Why are you threatening me? I’m not the criminal in this equation. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

      “Excuse my need to poke holes in your reasoning, but there’s a very dangerous man out there who disagrees,” Layne said. “In his mind you’ve done many things wrong. Now, I fully appreciate the fact that you’ve turned your life around, and believe me, I applaud and respect you for it. But if you hide things from us we can’t move forward.”

      With a sigh of defeat, Anthony said, “I have an insider here at the store. Charles, Emma’s goldsmith.”

      Layne’s brows shot to her hairline. “Dare I ask why?”

      “I tried to call Emma about four months ago. She was out so I got Charles instead, and we talked. I told him the truth about what really happened back then, and it sorta developed into something else. Anyway, Brady told him about the e-mails this morning, and Charles called me. You were gone. Jim was out. I panicked.”

      Ignoring his admission, Layne asked, “Sorta developed into what, exactly?”

      Anthony rubbed his eyebrows. “Emma didn’t have enough capital to get this auction lot of metals and stones she needed for Beautiful Things, so Charles and I rigged her bid. I’ve got about half a million sunk into her design label and she doesn’t know.”

      Layne was silent for a decade or so, then observed, “You can’t help yourself, can you? Emma’s a proud woman. If she finds out she won’t be amused.”

      “No, she won’t. After what happened two years ago you can imagine what she’ll think, but I took measures to make sure she’d never find out.”

      “Is there a chance she’d understand why you did it?”

      “Are you kidding?” Anthony asked. “I had my reasons, but at the time I didn’t know any of this would happen. So what’s done is done. There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

      “Agreed. However, we have a problem. If we’re to continue baiting this Doppelgänger creature—”

      Anthony interrupted, “No way. Forget it. I may not care much for the woman, but I can’t condone using her as bait. Besides, sooner or later her temper will take over and she’ll run for the hills. Maybe that’s for the best.”

      “You cannot allow that to happen. This is a game for him, Anthony. A sick, twisted game. He’s become fixated on Emma and we need to maintain his target area—the store—in order to trap him. If it closes or she leaves, he’ll believe we’ve cut off access, and I don’t want to imagine what might happen next. However, Jim, Walt and I have better things to do than play referee between you and Emma. That means you have an occupation now—to ensure the store stays open and she stays here, come hell or high water.”

      “I can’t!” Anthony argued. “She hates me.”

      “Then I guess you’d better remedy that, hadn’t you? Whatever you have to do to keep her here, you’ll do.”

      “No way. It won’t work. You haven’t witnessed her in action, Layne. If you want my honest opinion, Emma might be put to better use. Get her talking to this guy on the Internet. She’ll have him crying for his mommy inside of an hour.”

      “Interesting, but let’s put it this way. Either you keep Emma here or I’ll tell on you.”

      Anthony ground his teeth. “Speaking of sick, twisted games…”

      Layne smiled.

      Left alone with Jim and Walter, Emma worried at a thumbnail while the two men crowded over a file on her desk.

      This was insane. Absolutely insane. One minute she was stressed over business and now this. And no one seemed too interested in telling her anything.

      Taking matters into her own hands, she slipped behind the agents to see what was in that file.

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