for a call from my assistant in San Francisco. I asked her to track down a few research leads for me. I…” She swallowed and looked up, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Alan Landau’s dead.”
“I know.”
Her eyes widened. “You know?”
He nodded. “Pete just told me.”
“I thought you went to the hospital?”
“I did. I stopped by the gallery when I was done.”
She braced a hand on the glass table in the breakfast nook and eased into one of the plush chairs. “Did you also know he was shot in the forehead, that they’re calling it a homicide?”
He shook his head slowly as his gut tightened. She didn’t need to know the details. Why the hell had her brother mentioned it?
She set her eyes on his from across the room. “Then you probably also didn’t know he had a crumpled piece of paper in his hand when they found him. And it had my name and flight number to Miami on it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Lisa ran a shaky hand through her hair and tossed the phone on the table. She glanced up at Rafe, who was still standing on the other side of the kitchen looking a little shocked himself. “Landau knew I was after Tisiphone. He was playing me.”
Silent steps carried him across the Mexican tile in the kitchen. He crouched in front of her, resting his hands on her thighs. “Are you okay?”
She looked down at his long fingers splayed across her bare legs. His skin was shades darker than hers, golden instead of pale, rough and rugged instead of smooth. Five minutes ago those hands had taken her to heaven, and all she’d been able to think about was destroying him with her body. Now that seemed trivial compared to what Shane had just told her.
Someone was dead because of her stubborn resolve to find the Furies.
“Lisa?” He squeezed her thighs. “Querida, look at me.”
She finally registered his question and blinked. “I’m fine. I…” Oh, God. “Who would have killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
He had an idea. And he wasn’t saying. She could read it in his eyes. “Winters?”
He was silent for so long, she wasn’t sure he’d answer. “Maybe,” he finally said.
“You think someone else is in on this, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
It bugged her that he didn’t trust her enough to confide in her, that he was holding back. Emotions were one thing, facts were another.
“They know we’re here,” she said, trying to fight back that pathetic hitch in her voice. She was tougher than this, dammit.
His fingers tightened on her legs. “They know we’re in the area. No one knows we’re here.”
She fought the urge to brush her hand across his stub-bled jaw. Sinking into him wouldn’t solve any of her problems, no matter how much she wanted it to, and needing him for anything other than sex was a really bad idea. “Rafe, they know you work with Pete. How long is it going to take them to figure out Pete has a sister with a house in the Keys?”
“Are you saying you want to quit?”
Is that what she was saying? Was it worth all this? Risking their lives for a piece of marble? Putting others in jeopardy because she couldn’t let go of her past? Were the Furies really going to change anything for her—if she found them?
A thousand questions ran through her mind, and she only had the answer to one. She wasn’t ready to walk away from this yet. Not without trying. Not without giving it one shot. And it wasn’t because of Rafe.
It couldn’t be.
He pulled her to her feet, as if he already knew the answer. “By the time they figure out we’re here, we’ll be long gone.” He brushed his knuckle over her cheek and half smiled. “Would I lie to you?”
She chuckled, despite the fact nothing about this situation was funny, and dropped her head against his chest.
“Why don’t you show me what you were working on before I distracted you?”
Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she remembered that sweet diversion and wished he’d do it again to get this pit out of the bottom of her stomach. But his mood had changed. His expression was soft, guarded, concerned. No longer that of the hot Latin lover who’d nearly devoured her minutes before.
Probably a good thing. Every time he touched her, she forgot about her self-imposed don’t-get-involved-with-someone-you-work-with rules. And that little voice in the back of her head saying This time could be different was getting harder and harder to ignore.
She