Page 40 of Unlikely Guardian

Man, she was a welcome sight, and there was no amount of denial that would make him feel otherwise. There went another slam of guilt. First, over Erica. Now, over this giddy feeling he got whenever he saw Lilly. It’d been that way since he’d kissed her the night before at her office.

Since giddy and guilt just didn’t go together with a police investigation, Jason renewed his vow to start rebuilding some barriers between Lilly and him. Not anger barriers. Not hate. Just a few mental fences to remind him that this was a woman his brother had loved. Even if he wanted her—and, yep, he did—having her would make them both miserable.

He needed to remember that.

She’d changed since he’d last seen her at headquarters and now wore a sleeveless silk dress that was the color of ripe peaches. One of the articles of clothing she’d no doubt had the cops pick up for her from her house. The dress suited her, skimming along her body and stopping several inches above her knees so that it exposed a great deal of her legs.

She was barefoot, and he could see that she’d painted her toenails pearl white. For some reason, even with the guilt-producing discussion he’d just had with Erica and the guilt/giddy pep talk he’d given himself, those bare feet captured his attention.

“What happened?” She followed his gaze to her feet and flexed her eyebrows. “Am I about to get a lecture on the dangers of going barefoot?”

“Not from me.” He forced a smile because he thought they could both use it.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“Erica’s leaving.” He kept his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Megan. Erica would want to say goodbye to her, of course, but he hoped she would save that goodbye for another day. “She’s packing her things now. Once she’s done, I’ll have the officer drive her where she wants to go.”

Lilly’s eyes widened, and she walked closer, until they were only a few inches apart. She touched his arm and it soothed him far more than it should have.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be. It’s for the best.” He hoped. Jason also hoped that Erica’s cool farewell wasn’t a smoke screen for some sinister plan.

Yep.

That paranoia was still hanging around and was snowballing out of control. It was mixing with Lilly’s scent and creating a fog in his brain. She smelled like cinnamon applesauce. Not exactly a scent that would normally turn him on, but it seemed to be doing the trick today.

“How’s Megan?” he asked. Best to keep the conversation on a safe topic.

She gave him a suspicious look, as if she’d expected him to say something else. But what he had on his mind, he had no intentions of saying.

“Megan’s napping.” Lilly checked her watch. “She fell asleep about fifteen minutes ago.”

So, it’d be at least an hour, probably twice that long, before she woke up. That would give Erica plenty of time to pack and it’d give him plenty of time to fill Lilly in on what had happened.

“Did you find out anything about Corinne’s car?” Lilly worked her fingers through the crown of her hair to scoop it away from her face.

“Yes.” And Jason hadn’t cared for the news any more than Lilly probably would. “Corinne reported it stolen, but she didn’t do that until several hours after the incident at the security gate.”

Lilly bunched up her forehead. “Why’d she take so long to report it?”

He’d asked himself the same thing. “Corinne said she didn’t notice that her vehicle was missing until she left work that evening. It wasn’t in the parking lot so she claims she has no idea who took it or when.”

“Do you believe her?”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. And it gets even better—guess who works in the same building as Corinne? Raymond Klein and Wayne Sandling. They’re partners in the consulting business these days, and they work just three offices away from her.”

“Sandling and Klein,” Lilly repeated. She pulled in a hard breath. “Their names keep coming up.”

Yeah, and not in a good way, either. Either of them was brassy enough to have taken Corinne’s car and driven it to the security gate.

“So, we’re not taking Corinne off our list of suspects?” Lilly asked.

“No one’s coming off that list just yet,” he mumbled, rubbing his hand over his face. “Worse, I might have to add a name to it.”

Lilly didn’t have to think about that for very long. “Erica?”

Jason didn’t know why it surprised him that Lilly had come up with the correct answer so quickly. After all, they’d had that whole trust discussion at headquarters. Plus, Lilly had spent the better part of a week under the same roof with Megan’s soon-to-be-former nanny. Lilly probably hadn’t missed the jealousy in Erica’s eyes. He certainly hadn’t. Just as he hadn’t missed Erica’s cool pseudo-goodbye that he feared would come back to haunt them.

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