Someone to Watch Over Me

“It’s money laundering with a ‘cute’ twist. The only problem is the IRS just announced they’re going to start auditing taxpayers with credit cards from offshore banks, so Manning will show up on their radar screen.”

“Did you find any irregularities in Leigh Manning’s finances?”

“No, but Broadway stars don’t make nearly as much as I thought. Under her contract with Solomon, she gets twelve thousand dollars a week or five percent of whatever the box office takes in, whichever is greater. Based on my calculations, Blind Spot is taking in about five hundred thousand dollars a week at the box office, which means Leigh Manning should actually earn about twenty-five thousand a week, or one point three million per year. I checked with an agent over at William Morris, and he said those figures are about average for a Broadway star in a nonmusical role, although he thought the five percent was a little low for someone like Leigh Manning. Now, if she had an established Hollywood name, then her percentage of the box office would be bigger.”

Everyone was silent for several moments, processing the unexpected discovery that a socially prominent, “upright citizen” like Manning had evidently been getting his hands on illegal cash somewhere. How he had been doing this was a whole new question, and whom he had been doing it with was just as interesting. Valente, with his unsavory history of money-related indictments and charges, was the first known associate of Manning’s to come to Sam’s mind. McCord was clearly thinking along those lines, because the next question he asked the auditor was, “Did you turn up any business connection anywhere between Manning and Valente?”

“Not a one,” he declared. “But I turned up something else that may be of even more interest to you. In fact, I may have saved the best discovery for last. You gave me some miscellaneous documents and correspondence of Manning’s that you wanted me to look into, along with your notes on each subject.”

“Right,” McCord said when the auditor paused.

“Everything checked out, except one thing: According to your notes, Manning invested two hundred thousand dollars in Solomon’s play. The file you gave me contains duly executed agreements between Manning and Solomon that indicate two hundred thousand dollars did, in fact, change hands. But you know what I can’t find?”

McCord nodded slowly and emphatically, his lips drawing into a hard line. “You can’t find a check for two hundred thousand.”

“You guessed it. Manning must have given Solomon cash in exchange for a share in the play’s profits.”

“And,” McCord finished for him, “Solomon undoubtedly takes in plenty of cash at the box office during the run of a play, so Solomon would be able to take Manning’s cash and deposit it into his own bank without raising an eyebrow at the IRS.”

The auditor nodded. “My guess is that, knowingly or unknowingly, Solomon laundered two hundred thousand dollars for Manning.”

McCord looked at Sam, his brows raised in a silent question. You were there when we interviewed Solomon. What do you think?

After a moment’s contemplation, Sam answered him aloud. “I suppose it’s possible. On the surface, Solomon is a brilliant, talented . . . flake, but there’s more to him than that. He got pretty tough with you when he realized we were thinking of Leigh Manning as a suspect.”

“He’s no flake. He has enough business acumen to produce the plays he writes, line up his own backers, and maintain control over the production. According to what I’ve heard, that’s not the norm.”

Absently, Sam ran her hand around her nape, thinking; then she shook her head. “Solomon fancies himself a renegade, and I doubt he’d have a moral dilemma about laundering a little money for a friend, but at the same time, I don’t know if he’d do anything for anyone that would put him in jeopardy of going to prison.”

Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, McCord looked at Shrader and Womack. “You’ve already run a background check on Solomon, but now I want all three of you to start compiling complete files on him and his lover. Don’t stop until you can tell me their life stories with all the details, right down to which one of them wears the pajama bottoms, and which one wears the top.”

A prolonged silence followed the auditor’s departure while all four of them automatically focused on the new, pressing question about the source of Manning’s cash.

McCord walked around his desk and sat down across from her. Sam lost her concentration on the money issue, and her unruly mind focused instead on him. He looked preoccupied and distant—his brows drawn together, his hard jaw set with iron determination as he contemplated the game of human chess they were playing.

He’d invited Sam out to dinner a week ago, and somehow she’d gathered enough strength to decline. By then, her attraction to him had grown so powerful that she actually had to concentrate on breathing evenly when he was nearby. If she looked at his mouth, she wondered how it would feel to have those sculpted male lips on hers. If he was within arm’s reach, she had an insane impulse to trace her fingertip over the scar on his tanned cheek—and then lean forward and press her lips to it. If he wasn’t within reach—she wanted him to be.

The day he asked her to have dinner with him, they’d been in his office, combing through boxes of files and records subpoenaed from Manning’s apartment. Before Sam had finished quietly saying, “I think that would be a mistake for both of us,” she was already wishing she could take the words back. She felt much better when he said with a slight smile. “I’m sure it would have been.” And then—inexplicably—she felt much worse.

He had a wary, sardonic charm that captivated and disarmed her, and to make everything more complicated, she genuinely liked and admired every single thing about him. He wasn’t like any male she’d ever known before; he was smarter than she was, and she was very smart. He was wiser than she was, and she was pretty wise. He was stronger, tougher, and more astute than she was—and she loved the fact that he was those things. And she particularly loved that, unlike her brothers, McCord never felt a need to demonstrate that he was stronger, tougher, and more astute.

The telephone on his desk rang, and Sam watched his long fingers grasp the receiver and pick it up. He had beautiful, strong hands with well-shaped fingers—hands that would unerringly seek out every vulnerable spot on her body if she gave him a chance. But she wasn’t going to give him one.

He hadn’t repeated the dinner invitation or referred to it again. In fact, it was as if he’d never made the suggestion at all. He treated Sam exactly as he had before he’d asked and she’d refused him. No displays of wounded masculine ego. No subtle retaliations in any form. He still smiled at her when the occasion warranted, and he still frowned impatiently from time to time.

He was a splendid male in every way, Sam thought wistfully—a male who actually lived up to the fullest meaning of the word “manly.” He was what men were supposed to be and rarely were. He had principles and ethics. He dominated without ever being domineering; he taught without lecturing; he guided but never shoved—although he nudged sometimes.

He was a born leader—a natural, gifted leader. But she was not a follower. She could never let herself be that.

He was tough as granite and soft as a whisper—or he would be, she was certain, if he were properly matched with the right woman.

But she was not that woman.

To allow a relationship to blossom between them would have been pure folly for them both.

She jumped when she realized he’d hung up the phone and was talking to them. “As I started to explain a few minutes ago—” he said with his gaze leveled on Sam, silently prodding her to snap out of it and pay attention, “we’re going to be entertaining an uninvited guest this morning. Actually, this is an historic occasion, because this particular guest has made it a lifelong habit to throw our invitations into his lawyer’s trash can whenever we’ve urged him to drop by for a chat.”

“What?” Sam said with a chuckle at McCord’s unprecedented lapse into lengthy metaphor when he was usually so crisp and

frank.

“This morning, Valente’s lawyer called and invited us to a tête-à-tête at his client’s office,” McCord clarified, and Sam realized it was helpless frustration that was making McCord avoid stating the simple truth. “I, of course, declined. Buchanan then suggested we meet here, instead. I declined again. However, after he warned me of the tiresome legal papers he’d file if I didn’t invite him over here, I graciously agreed.” He glanced at his watch and said abruptly and with distaste, “They’ll be here soon.”

“Did Buchanan say what the hell he wants?” Womack put in suddenly, wiping off the lenses of his bifocals. He was so quiet at times that Sam would almost forget he was there, but when he spoke, he was surprisingly forceful and frequently caustic.

“He said,” McCord sardonically replied, “that he believes his client is the subject of our murder investigation and he wishes to spare all of us here the needless inconvenience and expense of pursuing a senseless theory.”

“I wonder what brought that on,” Womack said, his brows drawn together.

“For one thing, Valente knows he’s being tailed. He shook off the tail last night as soon as Mrs. Manning finished ‘chatting’ with the reporters and got into his car. However,” he continued with grim amusement, “one of our cruisers happened to spot Valente’s Bentley down at a restaurant on Great Jones Street. Guess which restaurant he took her to?”