Page 4 of The Criminal

That had always been Derek’s problem—no faith. Everything had to be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. I already had his proof. I’d show him.

I laughed. The deep, carefully cultivated laugh was sex and smoke. And as I hoped, it drew looks from other gala patrons. Derek, sensing the attention we were drawing, let go like I was radioactive.

“Here is your proof.” I raised the hand I’d been hiding in my skirt to show him my prize. His well-worn Casio G-Shock dangled between my thumb and index finger. “Like I said. You would never have caught me.”

I tucked the plastic watch in his breast pocket, smoothed his lapel, and gave him a bittersweet smile. I would happily wait another twenty years to see Derek Sawyer again.

I turned on my heel and stalked toward the exit without looking back. There was no reason. He wouldn’t follow. He never had.

Chapter 2

Derek

IwatchedAmberLee’sbutt as she walked away from me, my eyes glued to her retreating form—one more thing to feel guilty about. Besides being a jerk, I was checking out her ass—my dead best friend’s little sister.

My frustrated pulse pounded in my ears, and I clenched my fists so hard that my knuckles ached. I relaxed my jaw before my pissed-off expression scared one of the guests. I probably looked ready to strangle someone because I was: the ever-infuriating Amber Lee.

Or the restyled Lee Vance.

I resolved to start thinking about her like that. Just Lee. It would help to put some distance between my memories of her as a teen with black nail polish and a predilection for picking pockets and the fully grown woman I’d met tonight.

Unprepared wasn’t a big enough concept to cover tonight’s situation. I knew she was in Miami kind of like I knew the pope was in Rome. A fact that had little effect on my daily life. Amber Lee—er, Lee—was the last person I expected to see here. When I realized she had a watch in her hand, I jumped to the worst conclusion. To me, she was still a dishonest little thief, and my assumption made me an ass.

Seeing her all grown up was jarring. It knocked me off my game. Somehow, the past twenty years evaporated. I didn’t know what I’d been thinking. Rationally, I knew she owned a successful business here in the city. Her mother had boasted to me about it in the years before her passing. The stealing, pickpocketing, and shoplifting had been a rebellious teen thing—juvenile trouble.

Obviously, she quit after Ray died. She’d promised. Right?

A small part of me wasn’t convinced; her words were one thing, her actions another. I’d lost contact with her and had nothing concrete to assure me she’d reformed. The bragging of her proud mother during our semi-annual phone calls wasn’t reliable. Ms. Vance had lived a hard life since Ray’s death—battles with alcohol and then cancer. I’d done little things to help her when I could.

My brain ran in circles as I swiped a hand over my face. I’d be up half the night replaying the scene with Lee, dissecting it, looking for any hint that would prove her innocence or guilt. And the other half of the night I’d spend beating myself up for having shirked my responsibility to Ray. He asked me to look after his family. I should have done more. My chest tightened with remorse at the thought of having failed my old friend.

“Derek! Can you send hotel security to take a drunk off my hands?” Noah’s words crackled over the comms device in my ear and yanked me back to my duty.

“Roger that. Location?” I replied into the mic hidden in my sleeve.

“I’m on the east patio.”

On my cell, I typed a quick message to the head of OceanBlu security. Part of me was grateful for the drunk’s antics for drawing me back from my thoughts of Lee.

“I’ve got hotel security on—“

Noah’s curses cut off my reply.

“Son of a bitch, these are rented shoes.”

“Did someone just puke on Noah?” asked Quinn. She was the queen of our firm. Tonight, she manned the mobile command center in a hotel conference room with Simon, our computer expert. The rest of the time, she managed The Smith Agency office with a steel-hand-in-a-velvet-glove style that worked well for our ragtag group. John Smith’s name might be on the door, but Quinn was the company’s lifeblood.

“Yes! And in a potted palm tree! I thought rich people were classy?” The ridiculousness of Noah’s predicament should have had me chuckling, but I was still off-balance from my run-in with Lee. I listened to the rest of the team harass him with half my attention. In a moment or two, I’d cut them off. I was the ops leader, and we had a job to do.

“Simon has security video of the vomit.” Quinn laughed so hard she snorted. “I’m adding it to the agency’s greatest hits video archive. Wait until the Christmas party. It’s classic!”

“Alright, people, let’s calm down.” A chorus of yes sirs followed my command. “Quinn, status update, please?”

“Systems look good. Huh…hold on. The elevators in the lobby.” She paused and we all waited. I could imagine Quinn with her head bent over a computer, her fingers flying as she tried to figure out the situation. “The sensors must be malfunctioning. Sydney, you’re the floater, would you mind heading out and taking a look?”

Sydney confirmed.

A flash of white on the dance floor caught my eye. I turned, but it wasn’t Lee. The memory of her cool expression, midnight hair, and great ass flashed in my mind, the polar opposite of the laughing, curvy blond twirling around the parquet floor.

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