than Annie had ever run in her life—heels and all! Amazing what they could do when summoned.
Visions of the security guard coming out the door behind them, gun in hand, had her picking up the pace. Hardly the time to be noticing such a thing, but Jack’s hand felt strong and good holding on to hers. And it was kind of nice the way he squeezed hers between his as if he’d never let go.
A few seconds, and they were back in the parking lot. “Mind if I don’t get your door this time?”
“You’re forgiven this once,” Annie said, running around the Porsche and jumping inside.
Jack turned the key, and for one heart-stopping instant, Annie thought it wasn’t going to start. It did, and she slid down in the seat. “I’ll never be bad again. I’ll never be bad again.”
Jack looked over at her and laughed.
Laughed!
“Tell me what you could possibly find funny about this,” she said as he gunned the Porsche out of the parking lot, gravel and dust whirling up behind them.
“It’s not,” he said, straightening his expression into seriousness. “You’re right. Nothing humorous about it.”
Annie shot a glance back at the building. “I don’t see him.”
At the company entrance, Jack barely slowed down, sending a quick look both ways before shooting back onto the highway and flooring the car.
“Okay, so these cars do have a selling point,’ she said, flattened against her seat.
“If you need to get there fast—”
“I’m sure a big slice of their market pie must be the criminal element.”
Jack laughed again, sinking the gearshift into Fifth, and it felt as if they were flying. A mile or two down the road, he let up, and the car reluctantly settled into a speed that was in agreement with the law.
“Don’t think I’m not totally disgusted with you,” she said, arms folded across her chest.
“You probably don’t want to know what I found out, then?” The question held a teasing note.
“What?” So much for cool indifference.
“There’s a good bit of stuff in there that still has C.M. tags on it. But there’s a lot more, things recognizably part of the line, that have been retagged under another manufacturer’s name.”
Annie frowned. “Why?”
“That’s the question.”
“You think it’s stolen?”
“Kinda looking that way. But the trick is going to be figuring out by whom and why.”
“Would it have to be someone working inside C.M?”
“That would make the most sense. This address is listed as belonging to a legitimate customer, and it’s obviously not what it was supposed to be.”
“So maybe someone is reselling the product?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Annie’s stomach dropped. She felt suddenly sick. “Who would do something like that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someone with a grudge against the company or just plain old-fashioned greed.”
“Embezzling but with actual product instead of cash.”
“Yeah.”
“So one person or maybe a few are responsible for bleeding the company dry?”
“Could be,” Jack said.
“And yet the whole town is blaming you for it?”
“I’m not worried about that, Annie. It doesn’t matter what everyone thinks about me.”
“It does,” she said, sensing in the evenness of his tone that it really did matter to him. “Of course it does. And especially when it’s not true.”
He looked at her, taking his gaze from the road for just a moment, but it was long enough for Annie to catch a glimpse of something that looked like vulnerability there. He did care. She knew it somehow. Awareness of that stirred something inside her. Unexpected, but deep and real.
Annie...you are treading in dangerous waters.
No doubt.
“So what are you going to do next?” She sat straighter in the seat, put her gaze on the countryside rolling by her window and her thoughts on what they’d just discovered.
He reached for a piece of paper on the dash. Handed it to her and said, “This was the other place I wanted to check out. Shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes from here.”
“Are you planning to use your credit card there, too?”
“We’ll stick to legal looking around at this one.”
“You’re sure?”
He held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
“And you really were one?”
“Honest.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THIRTY MINUTES LATER, they pulled into the parking lot of another building that looked remarkably like the one they’d been in earlier.
Jack pulled into a parking space and left the engine running. “You wait here. I’ll be right back.”
“You’re not going in there, are you?”
“Just a quick look around the building.”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
Jack smiled. “Used up all my credibility this morning, I take it?”
“Approaching. What if someone comes?”
“Tell them I went in search