Secret Star: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

Chapter 3

She felt like a weakling, but she didn’t go home. she’d needed friends, not that empty house, with the shadow of a body drawn on the floor.

Jack had gone over, fetched her bags out of her car and brought them to her. For a day, at least, she was content to make do with that.

Since she was driving in to meet with Seth, Grace had made do carefully. She’d dressed in a summer suit she’d just picked up on the Shore. The little short skirt and waist-length jacket in buttercup yellow weren’t precisely professional—but she wasn’t aiming for professional. She’d taken the time to catch her waterfall of hair back in a complicated French braid and made up her face with the concentration and determination of a general plotting a decisive battle.

Meeting with Seth again felt like battle.

Her stomach was still raw from the call she’d made to her aunt, and the sickness that had overwhelmed her after it. She’d slept poorly, but she had slept, tucked into one of Cade’s guest rooms, secure that those who meant most to her were close by.

She would deal with the relatives later, she thought, easing her convertible into the lot at the station house. It would be hard, but she would deal with them. For now, she had to deal with herself. And Seth Buchanan.

If anyone had been watching as she stepped from her car and started across the lot, he would have seen a transformation. Subtly, gradually, her eyes went from weary to sultry. Her gait loosened, eased into a lazy, hip-swinging walk designed to cross a man’s eyes. Her mouth turned up slightly at the corners, into a secret, knowing female smile.

It wasn’t really a mask, but another part of her. Innate and habitual, it was an image she could draw on at will. She willed it now, flashing a slow under-the-lashes smile at the uniform who stepped to the door as she did. He flushed, moved back and nearly bobbled the door in his hurry to open it for her.

“Why, thank you, Officer.”

Heat rose up his neck, into his face, and made her smile widen. She was right on target. Seth Buchanan wouldn’t see a pale, trembling woman this morning. He’d see Grace Fontaine, just hitting her stride.

She sauntered up to the sergeant on duty at the desk, skimmed a fingertip along the edge. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, ma’am.” His Adam’s apple bobbed three times as he swallowed.

“I wonder if you could help me? I’m looking for a Lieutenant Buchanan. Are you in charge?” She skimmed her gaze over him. “You must be in charge, Commander.”

“Ah, yes. No. It’s sergeant.” He fumbled for the sign-in book, the passes. “I— He’s— You’ll find the lieutenant upstairs, detective division. To the left of the stairs.”

“Oh.” She took the pen he offered and signed her name boldly. “Thank you, Commander. I mean, Sergeant.”

She heard his little expulsion of breath as she turned, and felt his gaze on her legs as she climbed the stairs.

She found the detective division easily enough. One sweeping glance took in the front-to-front desks, some manned, some not. The cops were in shirtsleeves in an oppressive heat that was barely touched by what had to be a faulty air-conditioning unit. A lot of guns, she thought, a lot of half-eaten meals and empty cups of coffee. Phones shrilling.

She picked her mark—a man with a loosened tie, feet on the desk, a report of some kind in one hand and a Danish in the other. As she started through the crowded room, several conversations stopped. Someone whistled softly—it was like a sigh. The man at the desk swept his feet to the floor, swallowed Danish.

“Ma’am.”

About thirty, she judged, though his hairline was receding rapidly. He wiped his crumb-dusted fingers on his shirt, rolled his eyes slightly to the left, where one of his associates was grinning and pounding a fist to his heart.

“I hope you can help me.” She kept her eyes on his, and only his, until a muscle began to twitch in his jaw. “Detective?”

“Yeah, ah, Carter, Detective Carter. What can I do for you?”

“I hope I’m in the right place.” For effect, she turned her head, swept her gaze over the room and its occupants. Several stomachs were ruthlessly sucked in. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Buchanan. I think he’s expecting me.” Gracefully she brushed a loose flutter of hair away from her face. “I’m afraid I just don’t know the proper procedure.”

“He’s in his office. Back in his office.” Without taking his eyes from her he jerked a thumb. “Belinski, tell the lieutenant he has a visitor. A Miss…”

“It’s Grace.” She slid a hip onto the corner of the desk, letting her skirt hike up a dangerous inch. “Grace Fontaine. Is it all right if I wait here, Detective Carter? Am I interrupting your work?”

“Yes— No. Sure.”

“It’s so exciting.” She brought the temperature of the overheated room up ten more degrees with a dazzling smile. “Detective work. You must have so many interesting stories.”

By the time Seth had finished the phone call he was on when he was notified of Grace’s arrival, shrugged back into the jacket he’d removed as a concession to the heat and made his way into the bull pen, Carter’s desk was completely surrounded. He heard a low, throaty female laugh rise out of the center of the crowd.

And saw a half a dozen of his best men panting like puppies over a meaty bone.

The woman, he decided, was going to be an enormous headache.

“I see all cases have been closed this morning, and miraculously crime has come to a halt.”

His voice had the desired effect. Several men jerked straight. Those less easily intimidated grinned as they skulked back to their desks. Deserted, Carter flushed from his neck to his receding sandy hairline. “Ah, Grace—that is, Miss Fontaine to see you, Lieutenant. Sir.”

“So I see. You finish that report, Detective?”

“Working on it.” Carter grabbed the papers he’d tossed aside and buried his nose in them.

“Ms. Fontaine.” Seth arched a brow, gestured toward his office.

“It was nice meeting you, Michael.” Grace trailed a finger over Carter’s shoulder as she passed.

He’d feel the heat of that skimming touch for hours.

“You can cut the power back now,” Seth said dryly as he opened the door to his office. “You won’t need it.”

“You never know, do you?” She sauntered in, moving past him, close enough for them to brush bodies. She thought she felt him stiffen, just a little, but his eyes remained level, cool, and apparently unimpressed. Miffed, she studied his office.

The institutional beige of the walls blended depressingly into the dingy beige of the aging linoleum floor. An overburdened department-issue desk, gray file cabinets, computer, phone and one small window didn’t add any spark to the no-nonsense room.

“So this is where the mighty rule,” she murmured. It disappointed her that she found no personal touches. No photos, no sports trophies. Nothing she could hold on to, no sign of the man behind the badge.

As she had in the bull pen, she eased a hip onto the corner of his desk. To say she resembled a sunbeam would have been a cliché. And it would have been incorrect, Seth decided. Sunbeams were tame—warm, welcoming. She was an explosive bolt of heat lightning— Hot. Fatal.

A blind man would have noticed those satiny legs in the snug yellow skirt. Seth merely walked around, sat, looked at her face.

“You’d be more comfortable in a chair.”

“I’m fine here.” Idly she picked up a pen, twirled it. “I don’t suppose this is where you interrogate suspects.”

“No, we have a dungeon downstairs for that.”

Under other circumstances, she would have appreciated his dust-dry tone. “Am I a suspect?”

“I’ll let you know.” He angled his head. “You recover quickly, Ms. Fontaine.”

“Yes, I do. You had questions, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, I do. Sit down. In a chair.”

Her lips moved in what was nearly a pout. A luscious come-on-and-kiss-me pout. He felt the quick, helpless pull of lust, and damned her for it. She moved, sliding off the desk, settling into a chair, taking her time crossing those killer legs.

“Better?”

“Where were you Saturday, between the hours of midnight and 3:00 a.m.?”

So that was when it had happened, she thought, and ignored the ache in her stomach. “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?”

“You’re not charged, you don’t need a lawyer. It’s a simple question.”

“I was in the country. I have a house in western Maryland. I was alone. I don’t have an alibi. Do I need a lawyer now?”

“Do you want to complicate this, Ms. Fontaine?”

“There’s no way to simplify it, is there?” But she flicked a hand in dismissal. The thin diamond bracelet that circled her wrist shot fire. “All right, Lieutenant, as uncomplicated as possible. I don’t want my lawyer—for the moment. Why don’t I just give you a basic rundown? I left for the country on Wednesday. I wasn’t expecting my cousin, or anyone, for that matter. I did have contact with a few people over the weekend. I bought a few supplies in the town nearby, shopped at the gardening stand. That would have been Friday afternoon. I picked up some mail on Saturday. It’s a small town, the postmistress would remember. That was before noon, however, which would give me plenty of time to drive back. And, of course, there was the courier who delivered Bailey’s package on Friday.”

“And you didn’t find that odd? Your friend sends you a blue diamond, and you just shrug it off and go shopping?”

“I called her. She wasn’t in.” She arched a brow. “But you probably know that. I did find it odd, but I had things on my mind.”

“Such as?”

Her lips curved, but the smile wasn’t reflected in her eyes. “I’m not required to tell you my thoughts. I did wonder about it and worried a little. I thought perhaps it was a copy, but I didn’t really believe that. A copy couldn’t have what that stone has. Bailey’s instructions in the package were to keep it with me until she contacted me. So that’s what I did.”

“No questions?”

“I rarely question people I trust.”

He tapped a pencil on the edge of the desk. “You stayed alone in the country until Monday, when you drove back to the city.”

“No. I drove down to the Eastern Shore on Sunday. I had a whim.” She smiled again. “I often do. I stayed at a bed-and-breakfast.”

“You didn’t like your cousin?”

“No, I didn’t.” She imagined that quick shift of topic was an interrogation technique. “She was difficult to like, and I rarely make the effort with difficult people. We were raised together after my parents were killed, but we weren’t close. I intruded into her life, into her space. She compensated for it by being disagreeable. I was often disagreeable in return. As we got older, she had a less…successful talent with men than I. Apparently she thought by enhancing the similarities in our appearance, she’d have better success.”

“And did she?”

“I suppose it depends on your point of view. Melissa enjoyed men.” To combat the guilt coating her heart, Grace leaned back negligently in the chair. “She certainly enjoyed men—which is one of the reasons she was recently divorced. She preferred the species in quantity.”

“And how did her husband feel about that?”

“Bobbie’s a…” She trailed off, then relieved a great deal of her own tension with a quick, delighted and very appealing laugh. “If you’re suggesting that Bobbie—her ex—tracked her down to my house, murdered her, trashed the place and walked off whistling, you couldn’t be more wrong. He’s a cream puff. And he is, I believe, in England, even as we speak. He enjoys tennis and never misses Wimbledon. You can check easily enough.”

Which he would, Seth thought, noting it down. “Some people find murder distasteful on a personal level, but not at a distance. They just pay for a service.”

This time she sighed. “We both know Melissa wasn’t the target, Lieutenant. I was. She was in my house.” Restless, she rose, a graceful and feline movement. Walking to the tiny window, she looked out on his dismal view. “She’s made herself at home in my Potomac house twice before when I was away. The first time, I tolerated it. The second, she enjoyed the facilities a bit too enthusiastically for my taste. We had a spat about it. She left in a huff, and I removed the spare key. I should have thought to change the locks, but it never occurred to me she’d go to the trouble of having copies made.”

“When was the last time you saw her or spoke with her?”

Grace sighed. Dates ran through her head, people, events, meaningless social forays. “About six weeks ago, maybe eight. At the health club. We ran into each other in the steam room, didn’t have much conversation. We never had much to say to each other.”

She was regretting that now, Seth realized. Going over in her head opportunities lost or wasted. And it would do no good. “Would she have opened the door to someone she didn’t know?”

“If the someone was male and was marginally attractive, yes.” Weary of the interview, she turned back. “Look, I don’t know what else I can tell you, what help I can possibly be. She was a careless, often arrogant woman. She picked up strange men in bars when she felt the urge. She let someone in that night, and she died for it. Whatever she was, she didn’t deserve to die for that.”

She brushed at her hair absently, tried to clear her mind as Seth simply sat, waiting. “Maybe he demanded she give him the stone. She wouldn’t have understood. She paid for her trespassing, for her carelessness and her ignorance. And the stone is back with Bailey, where it belongs. If you haven’t spoken to Dr. Linstrum yet this morning, I can tell you that Bailey should be meeting with him right now. I don’t know anything else to tell you.”

He kicked back for a moment, his eyes cool and steady on her face. If he discounted the connection with the diamonds, it could play another way. Two women, at odds all their lives. One of them returns home unexpectedly to find the other in her home. An argument. Escalating into a fight. And one of them ends up taking a dive off a second-floor balcony into a pool of glass.

The first woman doesn’t panic. She trashes her own home to cover herself, then drives away. Puts distance between herself and the scene.

Was she a skilled enough actress to fake that stark shock, the raw emotion he’d seen on her face the night before?

He thought she was.

But despite that, the scene just didn’t click. There was the undeniable connection of the diamonds. And he was dead sure that if Grace Fontaine had caused her cousin’s fall, she would have been just as capable of picking up the phone and coolly reporting an accident.

“All right, that’s all for now.”

“Well.” Her breath was a huff of relief. “That wasn’t so bad, all in all.”

He stood up. “I’ll have to ask you to stay available.”

She switched on the charm again, a hot, rose-colored light. “I’m always available, handsome. Ask anyone.” She picked up her purse, moved with him to the door. “How long before I can have my house dealt with? I’d like to put things back to order as quickly as possible.”

“I’ll let you know.” He glanced at his watch. “When you’re up to going through things and doing an inventory to see what’s missing, I’d like you to contact me.”

“I’m on my way over now to do just that.”

His brow furrowed a moment as he juggled responsibilities. He could assign a man to go with her, but he preferred dealing with it himself. “I’ll follow you over.”

“Police protection?”

“If necessary.”

“I’m touched. Why don’t I give you a lift, handsome?”

“I’ll follow you over,” he repeated.

“Suit yourself,” she began, and grazed a hand over his cheek. Her eyes widened slightly as his fingers clamped on her wrist. “Don’t like to be petted?” She purred the words, surprised at how her heart had jumped and started to race. “Most animals do.”