Page 67 of Fatal Betrayal

"I can't think of anyone."

"What about Solange's son, Daniel?" he asked. "You must have known Daniel from the time Solange worked for you."

"Of course. Daniel was a good kid until his father died. Then his issues with drugs got bigger. I'm pretty sure he stole some jewelry from me. I couldn't prove it, and I confronted Solange about it. She denied it, said she checked his belongings, and then she quit. I would have pursued it, but it wasn't a big loss, and I felt sorry for Solange. I told her I didn't think she was helping her son by not admitting he had a problem. She said I was wrong, but I don't believe I was." Shana paused as her cell phone rang. "Hold on. Hello? Yes, I need to talk to you. One second." She put her hand over the phone. "I need to take this call. Are we done?"

"For now," Andi said. "Thanks for your help."

"I'm not sure I was of any help, but I hope Neil gets his kid back."

There wasn't a tremendous amount of empathy behind her words, but then Shana hadn't tried to hide her feelings about anything.

They walked out of the office and back down to the car. They'd no sooner gotten inside when Andi's personal phone dinged with several more texts in a row.

"Your father?" he asked.

"No. My furniture was supposed to be delivered tomorrow morning but now it's coming in less than half an hour. Damn."

"What's the problem? We can be at your place before they get there."

"If you want to get out and get a ride to your car, you can do that. You don't need to go to my apartment."

"I want to keep working with you. This won't take that long, right?"

"Probably not."

He could see that Andi didn't want to take him to her place. She'd always been prickly about where she lived. When they were kids, he'd chalked that up to her just hating to be at home. But it had probably been more than that. She'd never wanted to hang out at her house. Even when her parents weren't home, she'd always wanted to go somewhere else.

"What are you so angry about?" he asked, seeing the stony set of her profile as she drove home.

"It's inconvenient and I hate when people don't do what they say they're going to do. They said they would deliver tomorrow."

"I get it, but what's really bothering you is that I'm going with you, right? You don't want me in your apartment. You hated when I'd come to your house. You never wanted to hang out there."

"Because my parents were always fighting. It was embarrassing."

"Even when they weren't around, you insisted on going somewhere else. I used to tease you about it, remember?"

"I remember punching you when you annoyed me. I wouldn't make the same mistake."

He grinned at her sharp comment. He'd always liked the fire Andi brought. She could be irritating as hell, but she had always made his life more interesting.

His smile faded as he realized he was doing it again, forgetting why he hated her. Spending so much time with her was dimming his anger, his feeling of betrayal. He needed to remember the end of their friendship, not the six years before that. In fact, he felt a little desperate to hang on to the dislike, because hanging with Andi in his old bedroom, wanting to kiss her like he had when he was a kid, was messing with his mind. Kissing her had seemed impossibly complicated when he was fourteen, and it was even more complicated now. Maybe he should have gotten a ride to his car, instead of going to her house. Wasn't that just going to entangle them even more?

That question still echoed in his mind when Andi pulled up in front of a two-story townhouse in Santa Monica. It was at the end of a development of six matching homes, and it really didn't seem to suit her, because Andi had never been like everyone else. She'd always been one of a kind.

"I'll leave the driveway for the moving van," she said, as she got out of the car.

"Makes sense." He followed her into the house, the very empty house. There was no furniture in the living room, just a shiny hardwood floor and very white walls. The kitchen was slightly better with a bowl of fruit on the counter, along with a coffeemaker and a box of oatmeal.

"Looks like this delivery is coming in the nick of time," he said dryly. "How are you even staying here?"

"I have a bed upstairs and a coffeemaker. That has gotten me through the past two days. I got in late Monday night, started work Tuesday, and I've barely been home since then."

He moved toward the stairs.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I want to see your room."

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