Secret Weapon Spouse - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,19

with Alex. She spotted him from a safe distance but avoided detection by parking some distance away and keeping to the darkness as she worked her way to Caroline’s condo.

There were no lights on in any of the buildings. Apparently it was true that Caroline’s was the only one occupied.

It definitely made things easier. Samantha let herself in. The lock for the front door took a little longer than she had planned. Seemed her skills were a little rusty.

She took the stairs to the penthouse condo using her penlight to open the condo door, then she turned off the light and listened to make sure she was alone.

Cautiously, she swung the door open and stepped in. The condo was pitch-black, no light coming in back here from the street. She heard nothing and smelled the same scents as before. If Preston Wellington III had come back here, he hadn’t been wearing his usual aftershave or cologne.

She moved by memory through the dark condo to the plastic curtain, aware that the windows facing the streets had no coverings. Any light could be seen from down below.

Slipping past the plastic, she found the doorknob to the bedroom, turned it and stepped in, closing the door behind her before she snapped on her penlight. In this room, there were thick drapes that covered the windows and let in no light and, so she hoped, let out no light.

Everything appeared to be just as it had before. She was reasonably certain that no one had been here. The champagne glasses were in the same place, the bed still unmade, the sheets rumpled, a few articles of clothing flung across the end.

As she moved to the bedside table, she pulled on the latex gloves and carefully collected the champagne bottle, placing it into one of the evidence bags then into her purse. She did the same with the glasses.

As she turned, she studied the room again trying to understand what might be going on with Caroline Graham. Samantha’s first guess was a lover. This could be a lovers’ hideaway that Preston hadn’t known about. Until recently. He’d definitely been here. Unless the lover wore the same aftershave.

Was it possible that Caroline was financing the entire building project for her lover? That might be enough to set off Preston Wellington III. But enough that he would hire someone to try to kill her in a hit-and-run?

Samantha made a mental note to have Clare run financial reports on both Caroline and Preston. But given the shirts in the closet, Samantha suspected there was another man besides the one she’d met with Caroline. And that raised the question of whose baby she was carrying.

Another possible motive for Preston Wellington III to commit murder.

Samantha felt a wave of disappointment. She’d believed that she’d been in the wedding planning business long enough that she could spot the couples who were truly in love and had a chance of making their marriage work. She would have bet all of her money on Caroline and Preston. They seemed that much in love.

She glanced at the rumpled sheets of the bed and to her chagrin thought not of the wedding couple—but of Alex. With a curse, she shut off the penlight and moved to the bedroom door. She knew only too well where those kinds of thoughts would get her.

She had just started to open the door when she heard a warning sound on the other side. Before she could react, though, the door flew open, slamming into her and driving her back. As she fell next to the bed, her shoulder bag smacking the floor next to her, she heard one of the expensive glasses shatter.

She groped for her bag—and her gun—as a dark figure filled the bedroom doorway. She couldn’t see his face. In the dim light coming in from the street through the plastic behind him, he was nothing more than a blurred silhouette.

But from his stance, she could tell he held a gun in one hand and he was trying to find her in the dark bedroom, no doubt afraid to turn on the light for fear that she would see him—and possibly get off the first shot.

Her hand found her bag. Carefully, she slid her hand in until her fingers closed on the gun’s grip.

ALEX GRAHAM couldn’t sleep. In the kitchen, he took a beer from the fridge and wandered through the house, feeling lost and unsettled.

He had way too much on his mind. Caroline. Preston Wellington III.