sparked by his job, by Emilio’s crimes, but their bond was real. Truer than anything she’d ever experienced.
“Because of those high standards, I need you to double-check,” she said, pleasantly, but firmly. “We can’t have anything go wrong this evening. The event is too important.”
His grin fell as he studied her a long moment. “As you wish.” He bowed, with great formality—for some reason he did things with flourish around her—and headed to the kitchen.
As soon as he disappeared out of sight, Isabel grabbed her purse and hurried for the staircase. Max would only be gone for a minute, two at the most, and she needed every precious second.
She took off her heels to move quietly and faster. Holding her shoes in one hand, she padded up the steps and ran down the hall to Emilio’s office.
Grabbing the knob, she prayed the door wasn’t locked.
The knob turned. She ducked inside.
She caught her breath, letting the slightest bit of relief seep through. Her gaze darted around, finding the painting that concealed the safe. Many times, she’d been in here with Emilio while he wrapped up work on his computer and they’d had a drink together and chatted. It was in this room that he’d steered her toward running an art gallery and away from taking a low-paying job at a museum.
Mentally kicking herself for letting him use her, she hurried to the original Renoir she’d purchased on his behalf at Sotheby’s. She dropped her shoes, unlatched the right-side mounting on the painting and swung it out as one would a door.
The wall safe was sixteen by twenty, had a smooth matte-black finish, a biometric scanner and a handle. She pulled out the strip of tape, turned it the right way so his print was in the correct position and pressed it to the scanner.
A white beam of light ran across the thumbprint, once, twice, three times. Her chest squeezed, her pulse throbbing. Come on, work. Tension wormed in her veins.
The lock disengaged and the safe door popped open. On the bottom shelf were various documents and two envelopes. One addressed to her and the other to Miguel.
She took the one that had For Isabel scrawled across the front. The envelope wasn’t sealed. Quickly, she opened it and took out two sheets of paper.
One was a paternity test dated twenty-four years ago, stating that with 98.9 percent certainty Emilio was her father. Seeing it in black and white was like taking a blow to the chest.
The other sheet was a handwritten letter.
To My Beloved Isabel.
If you’re reading this, then I am dead.
A wellspring of emotion bubbled up inside, but Isabel closed the letter and stuffed it into her purse. Now wasn’t the time. All that mattered was the hard drive and saving Dutch. Not her deep-seated issues with her uncle who was in fact her father.
On the top shelf was an internal hard drive that’d been pulled from a laptop. There were three thumb drives beside it. Those could’ve been copies or contained completely unrelated data.
Not willing to take any chances, she snatched all four devices. She shoved them into the zippered compartment inside her purse and pushed the button on the degausser, activating it.
Isabel hurriedly closed the safe door, locking it, and put the painting back into place. She grabbed her shoes, whirled around to get the hell out of there and gasped.
Max stood in the doorway, watching her. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for Emilio.” Her heart fluttered like a caged bird’s wings. “I need to speak to him about Dutch.”
His gaze swung to the painting, down to the shoes in her hand and back up to her face. “What were you doing in the safe? Better still, how did you get into the safe?” He closed the door and walked toward her.
“I wasn’t in the safe.” She slid her hand in her bag and felt around for the Pacifier.
“I’m not sure what your uncle would do if he knew you were sneaking around in his office, rifling through his safe. But I don’t think you’d like to find out.”
She gripped the base of the stun baton and positioned her finger over the switch to flick it on if necessary. “I just want to find Dutch and I want to go. Please.”
He came closer, so light-footed that he didn’t make a sound. His hard gaze pinned her in place.
Waiting for him to be within reach, she steadied her breath, calmed her thoughts down to one. Freedom.