“I’d prefer it if you were studying him from closer range,” Abbott said dryly. “Like with him behind bars. Go,” he said, waving Noah and Jack toward the door. “I’ll have a squad car sent to the Deli. Call me when the situation’s clear.”
Tuesday, February 23, 9:30 a.m.
Eve bought a coffee and blindly grabbed a magazine from the rack, trying to blend in with the other coffee-breakers. The Deli may have been just a sandwich joint in the past, but now it was an upscale bistro where students and professors-and cops-came to meet, greet, see, and be seen. Kind of like Ninth Circle, without the bad band.
“Now, he’s something,” the guy behind the counter said. Eve looked down, grimly unsurprised to see the face of Jack Phelps staring up at her. She’d “blindly” grabbed MSP. A Freudian slip. Yeah, right. The barista winked. “He can book me any day.”
“Yeah. He’s something.” Now Jack’s partner… was something else. Eve wished she knew what. She had told him she didn’t want him, told herself she couldn’t have him, but when she got scared, Noah’s had been the first number she’d dialed.
With a quiet sigh, she sat behind two officers who casually sipped their coffee. They might be the cops Noah sent or they might really be on break. Either way, she felt safer close by.
She flipped pages until she found herself looking at the picture of Noah Webster as she had before, so many times. Jack’s face was something. Noah, though… His face was rugged, hard. Thuggish was the word that always came to mind.
Dangerous. But his green eyes could be warm. And he makes me feel safe.
The bell on the Deli’s door jingled and she lifted her eyes to see Jeremy entering, searching the room. He came straight toward her table, giving her only a moment to debate asking the cops behind her for help should she need it.
If you do, you’ll be admitting working with them. She wanted to delay that as long as she could, for the sake of Noah’s investigation. The longer the Shadowland connection went undisclosed, the longer Noah would have to hunt a three-time killer.
“Can I join you?” Jeremy asked, breathing hard. “Thank you.” He sat, without giving her time to say no, then took off his glasses, wiping away the condensation that had formed by coming into the warmth from the cold. “You’re a hard woman to catch, Eve.”
She dug deep, found a tone that felt right. One that was wounded, but still bristling from her altercation with Kurt Buckland. “I didn’t realize you were looking for me.”
“Donner told me to watch, that you might go to the press. You little conniving bitch.”
To the press. Not to the cops. Donner had immediately assumed she’d grab notoriety versus doing the right thing. Why am I not surprised? “I didn’t go to the press. That guy came to me. And in case you missed it, I didn’t cooperate with him.”
“A very convincing act, but as you came here to meet him it’s not going to fly.”
Eve shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
He pointed behind her. “Your reporter.” Eve was stunned to see Buckland watching with a smug smile. How long had he been there? “You’ll be thrown out of the program for this,” Jeremy said with satisfaction. “You never should have been here anyway.”
She turned back to Jeremy, shaken, but hoping it didn’t show. “Why not?”
“Most of your undergrad work was online. Your degree’s from a state school.”
She tried to focus on the weasel in front of her versus the snake behind her. “So?”
“So you got in because you’re a little victim, not because you were qualified.”
There was venom in the man’s voice, jealousy in his eyes. “And you are qualified?”
His jaw cocked. “Hell of a lot more than you.”
And then she understood. “You didn’t make the cut. That’s why you’re Donner’s office assistant and not his graduate assistant.”
A muscle in his cheek twitched. “I made the cut. But they let you in instead just because some guy slashed you. They thought you’d bring an ‘interesting point of view.’ ”
That she’d been admitted on something other than her own merit stung. Buckland’s observing them made it worse. But Jeremy was no longer talking about the cops. Where are you, Noah? “How would you possibly know that, Jeremy?” she asked.
“I know everything,” he spat contemptuously. “I see everything. I know every medical fact, your grades, your favorite color, and that you hate beets and heights. I can see it all.”
I can see it all… Her grades, likes, dislikes… Sonofabitch. He hacked into my file. Eve didn’t know whether to laugh at the irony or be angry. In the end she did neither, opting for a weariness that was not an act. “I did not call that reporter today, so you can go back and tell Dr. Donner that whatever he was worried I’d say, I didn’t.”
Jeremy shrugged. “I’m not leaving until Donner gets here. If you didn’t tell the press, then you told the cops. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been with them last night.”
That was the first logical leap he’d made. “Donner’s coming here? Why?”
“To escort you back to his office, where he’ll formally kick you out of the program.”
Alarms went off in her head. Donner was coming. For me. “Which would open up a spot for you?” she asked, forcing a smile.
He nodded, graciously. “Yes.”
She kept her tone friendly. “So you think I went to the cops about… what?”
“Don’t know,” Jeremy admitted. His eyes dropped to the magazine. “That’s Webster, isn’t it? The cop that reporter saw you with.”
Indeed it was. And that was Webster, getting out of his car on the curb. He’d be coming through the Deli door in about ten seconds and would validate everything Jeremy and Buckland suspected. The seconds ticked and she made a decision.
There was a way to explain away her presence at both Christy’s and Martha’s homes yesterday, hopefully shutting down both Buck-land and Jeremy. She just prayed Webster would understand and play along.
She smiled proudly, running her thumb over the small photo. “Yes, that’s my Noah. I think he should have been on the cover, but I am a little biased.” She stood, waving broadly as the doorbell dinged and Noah came in. “Noah, honey, I’m over here.”
Webster’s eyes flicked down to the stunned face of Jeremy Lyons, then without missing a beat, he approached, his smile warm. Her heart thumped hard in her ears, harder in her chest. She knew what she needed to do. Channeling Greer and every imaginary character she’d ever created, she reached both arms up around his neck and pulled his faced down for a hard kiss on the lips, making it linger a few seconds longer than might have been appropriate.
His arms came around her naturally, as if they’d done this a thousand times. He was rock solid, just as she’d known he’d be. But his lips were far softer than she’d expected. And sweeter. And hotter. What have I done?
She eased back, rocked to the soles of her feet. There had been a split second of shock in his green eyes, quickly obliterated by a flare of desire. It was still there, tempered by his control.
Remembering what she had to do, she slipped her arm around his waist and turned back to Jeremy, whose mouth had fallen open. “Noah, I want you to meet Jeremy Lyons. He works for my graduate advisor, Dr. Donner.”
Noah shook Jeremy’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said, then put his arm around her shoulders, lightly squeezing.
“Likewise,” Jeremy murmured.
“So, Jeremy, now you know. We hoped to keep it to ourselves a little longer. You know how people talk. But…” Eve shrugged. “I guess the cat’s out of the bag, Web.”