Assumed Identity - By Julie Miller Page 0,49
locked me in the fridge room tonight so that he could kidnap her. I don’t know how he got in. I was running late, but there should have been someone else here, waiting for us in the parking lot.” She spun around as a new concern hit her and hurried toward the door. “Are they all right? Did anyone else get hurt?”
Jake grabbed her arm before she could get by him and blocked her exit. Before she could voice a protest, he placed the envelope back in her hand and released her. “They all left.”
“They left?”
“Ten minutes after closing, your parking lot was empty.”
“You were watching. But...” She seemed to be having a tough time processing that she’d been abandoned by her employees. Shaking her head, she returned the envelope with Emma’s cap to her desk. “It must have been a miscommunication. Mark thought Leon was waiting for us—Leon thought Mark was.”
“One of them could have locked you in and then driven away.”
“I refuse to believe that.” Would she refuse to believe her employee was selling pictures that could have been of her or Emma? “Everyone here cares about my daughter. We celebrated her arrival. They all want to take care of her when she’s here. They wouldn’t put her in danger. What would be their motive for the assault and these threats?”
“You said you suspected someone was cooking the books.”
The fire in her eyes was coming back as she got defensive of her people. “Why go to all this trouble to cover up an embezzlement? We’re talking about two thousand dollars, not millions.”
“I’ve seen people do worse for less.” Had he?
“The people I know don’t act that way.”
“Then someone you don’t know waited until he could sneak in unnoticed.”
She drifted a step closer. “I thought you were watching.”
Jake braced his hands on his hips and squared off against her. “I thought you’d have enough sense to leave with the others.”
“If you’re going to spy on me, at least do a thorough job.”
“You’re not my responsibility, lady. I don’t owe you anything.”
He raised his voice to match the accusation in hers. The baby cooed in her bassinet, stirring in her sleep.
Robin palmed Jake’s biceps and nudged him out the door. “Could we take this out in the hallway so we don’t wake Emma?” She stepped into the shadows with him, resuming the discussion in a more rational tone as soon as she closed the door. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone come inside?”
She’d come to him for help, and now she was blaming him? “I left for a few minutes to see if I could find the car that was watching you the other night.”
“Did you see it?”
Jake scraped his palm over his stubbled jaw, stifling a curse. He was to blame. He’d dropped the ball tonight, getting distracted while the real danger was close at hand. “I thought I saw something suspicious, but I can’t be sure. There was a car out front pulling away when I ran back. Still couldn’t make out the driver. A guy in the car I’d been tailing snapped a picture of me and drove off in a hurry.”
“There were two men?”
“Possibly.” Maybe her assistant’s rendezvous hadn’t been about the pictures at all. Maybe it had been a ruse to get him away from the shop so an accomplice could get inside to Robin and Emma. Jake had suspected two people had been involved the night of her assault—the attacker and a getaway driver. Maybe the tag team had been back at work tonight.
“Jake. What are you thinking?”
“That it’s a good thing I came back.” He pulled the knife from his belt and slipped it back into the sheath inside his boot. “I may have scared off the guy before he could get to Emma. I made a lot of noise running through the alley.”
“Why would he want your picture?”
“That was the other guy. He may have been using the flash to blind me.”
When Jake pulled his pant leg down over the top of his boot and straightened, he could see she wasn’t listening to his explanation. She was staring at the weaponry attached to his leg. “Is that a gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know how to use it?”
Too well, perhaps. “Yeah.”
She tilted her eyes up to his. “Are you some kind of cop?”
I honestly don’t know. “Don’t worry. The safety’s on. It’s not going to accidentally go off around Emma. Or you.”
She touched her fingers to the middle of his chest. “That’s not what