The Quiet Storm Read online

  With kind regard,

  Andrew

  Oh, dear heavens. This was a letter from Alex’s father, the man Tina steadfastly refused to identify for all these years. Apparently, he was a wealthy man named Andrew, someone Tina had petitioned for help in the days before her death.

  Andrew. She frowned. She didn’t remember Tina ever mentioning an Andrew….

  Suddenly her breath caught and she felt the blood leach from her face as the pieces fell into place. All her thoughts and words became a tangled, jumbled skein, and for several long seconds she couldn’t manage to pick up a single thread.

  “What’s wrong?” Beau asked.

  “No,” she finally managed. The metal chair clattered back and hit the floor with a clang as she jumped to her feet. “No. It’s impossible.”

  “What, Elizabeth? Come on. Tell me. You look like somebody just socked you in the gut.”

  That described precisely how she felt. Queasy and breathless and stunned. “The…the letter is signed Andrew. My g-godfather’s name is Andrew and he uses exactly this kind of paper for his personal correspondence. Handmade Italian parchment. I buy him a supply every year for Christmas. He’s Alex’s father! Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Sit down.” Beau grabbed her arm and righted the chair, then guided her back into it. “Take it easy. This is all speculation. We don’t know if the guy is the same Andrew.”

  “It has to be! Beau, he was my father’s closest friend. How could he do this to Tina? He’s more than thirty years older than she was!”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  She closed her eyes and drew a shaky breath. “He and my father grew up together near Boston. They attended the same prep schools then lived together while they both went to Harvard, Andrew at the law school and my father at the business school. He’s a judge now and has a daughter around my age.”

  Just the thought of Leigh Sheffield was enough to send her straight into panic mode.

  Stupid cow. Stupid tongue-tied cow. You’re such an idiot you can’t even say your own name.

  Despite all the efforts of their fathers to throw them together as children, Leigh had despised and mocked Elizabeth from the cradle, it sometimes seemed. She had been relentlessly cruel, spurred on by her selfish, shallow mother, who had run away with a tennis pro six or seven years ago.

  Right before Alex must have been conceived, she realized.

  “You said he’s a judge?”

  “Yes. His name is Andrew Sheffield. He’s a…” She couldn’t remember the title for a moment but concentrated until it came to her. “He’s a superior court justice here in Seattle.”

  She jumped as Beau’s sudden pungent oath echoed in the small vault. “What’s the matter?”

  “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart,” he growled, “but this case just got a hell of a lot more sticky.”

  “Why? Do you know him?”

  “Yeah, you could say that. Andrew Sheffield has presided in any number of cases where I’ve been the primary investigator. I’ve testified in his courtroom half a dozen times. Right now he’s sitting the bench over a murder case I worked, one of the worst cases of physical and sexual abuse of a child I’ve ever seen. I’m scheduled to testify against the bastard next week. Judge Sheffield’s not going to be real crazy about hearing what I have to say in that case if he finds out I’m considering him a homicide suspect in this one.”

  She blinked at him. “You…you think Andrew killed Tina?”

  “I’d say this letter certainly puts him on my A-list of suspects.”

  “No! That’s impossible!”

  “Think about it, Elizabeth. If Tina was putting the squeeze on him over the kid, he had plenty of motive to shut her up.”

  “But in the letter he…he sounds thrilled about it, about Alex!”

  To her horror, her throat closed with emotion, and tears began to burn behind her eyes. She couldn’t believe it of Andrew. She couldn’t! It was like asking a child to imagine a benevolent, loving Santa Claus as Jack the Ripper. Andrew had never been anything but kind to her, more paternal than her own father. The idea of him killing Tina to hide their love child would have been completely ludicrous without the evidence inside the safe-deposit box.

  Andrew had always been her champion, interceding on her behalf with her father, even to the point of convincing Jonathan before his death that she could handle the responsibility of managing his charitable activities through the Quinn Foundation.

  She had an acute childhood memory of Andrew’s reaction after he overheard a particularly cruel taunt from Leigh once when they had come to Harbor View for dinner. Both she and Leigh had probably been around ten. At the time she had stammered terribly. Worse, she had tangled her words often, using wholly inappropriate ones, and Leigh had taken great delight in mocking her mercilessly for it.

  After sharply reprimanding his daughter with fury in his voice, Andrew had taken Elizabeth for a long walk along the shore. They had walked in silence for a long time and then Andrew had stopped her, pulled her into an embrace, then settled her onto a fallen log.

  “You are a beautiful, smart young lady, Elizabeth,” she remembered him saying in that commanding, articulate voice. “Don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise. Your words might not always come out the way you would like them but that doesn’t make what you have to say any less important than the words of anyone else.”

  He paused again for a long time, looking out at the water and the gulls diving and crying overhead, then he squeezed her hand, sorrow in his eyes.

  “Some people find pleasure in others’ pain. I regret deeply that my daughter is sometimes one of them. I pray you will one day be able to see the courage and strength inside you that I can see shining through.”

  She had treasured those words. Held them close to her heart through all the years she had tried so desperately to please her father.

  Dear heaven. She could never believe him capable of killing Tina.

  “You okay?” Beau asked softly. The quiet concern in his voice devastated her. Despite every effort she made to contain them, the tears burning behind her eyes spilled free.

  Under other circumstances she might have laughed at the sudden panic flaring in Beau’s eyes. He looked as if he would rather be anyplace on earth than trapped in a bank vault with a crying woman.

  When he pulled her into his arms and patted her head in an awkward, clumsy attempt to comfort, more tears welled up in her eyes and she thought she could almost feel the long, slow slide of her heart falling a little in love with him.

  “Don’t cry, Elizabeth. Please. We could be way off base here.”

  But they weren’t. Somehow, she knew they weren’t and she wasn’t sure if she could bear it.

  They stood that way for several moments with his arms around her while she wept softly. When she finally managed to rein in her emotions, she stepped away from him, chagrined at herself for losing control.

  “I’m sorry. You must think I’m nothing but a…a stupid baby. And I am.”

  “Of course I don’t think that. You’re not. You’ve had a shock. One thing I’ve learned after ten years on the job is that people react in different ways to hard news. Nothing wrong with crying.”

  He paused, then added gruffly, “Although to be real honest here, I have to admit I’d prefer if you wouldn’t do it again when I’m around.”

  She smiled a little at his tone, then glanced up to find him watching her with a strange expression. She caught her breath and for several seconds she couldn’t breathe. He wanted to kiss her. She could see it glittering in his green eyes like sunlight on the water and, oh, she wanted him to.

  Maybe if she gave in to the hunger for just a moment, his kiss would take away the bitter taste of betrayal in her mouth.

  Before she could think it through—before she could let common sense prevail and listen to the warning voice in her head—she leaned forward slightly until their mouths were only inches apart an
d parted her lips, the slow heat of anticipation uncurling in her stomach.

  That panicked look returned to his eyes, then he muttered a curse and captured her mouth with his.

  She sighed and settled against him. The kiss was soft and sweet, like taffy on a hot summer day. His skin was warm and smelled of his cologne, a rain-soaked forest of pine and spruce, and she inhaled it deeply into her lungs while his mouth caressed hers.

  The kiss deepened and she clutched at his jacket, hanging on tightly while the world began to whirl and tilt. A part of her mind knew this was wholly inappropriate. They were in a bank vault, for heaven’s sake, being closely monitored by what she was sure was all manner of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment.

  Under other circumstances she would rather have her derriere tattooed with a snake than be caught in the middle of an embrace like this where any stranger might see them.

  But how could she step away when she had thought about being in his arms like this, secretly yearned for it, since that evening on the Dugans’ deck months ago? When she had imagined his kiss so many times—and was discovering the reality of it far, far exceeded any fantasy.

  She would have to go back to her dull, insular existence soon enough. For now she wanted to savor every second of his kiss.

  He was dumber than a bagful of rocks. What was he thinking kissing Elizabeth Quinn—Elizabeth Quinn, for Pete’s sake!—in the safe-deposit vault of the First Federal Bank?

  What an idiot. What a complete and total moron he was to kiss a woman who had made it abundantly clear she wanted a personal relationship with him about as badly as she wanted a poke in the eye with a sharp pencil.

  Not that she was fighting him or anything. In fact, if he didn’t know better he would have thought she was as tangled up in their kiss as he was. Her eyes were closed, her breathing was quick and uneven and her hands clutched the lapels of his jacket as if they had both been tossed into the Sound and he was the only thing keeping her afloat.

  A momentary insanity, he was sure. Any second now she’d go back to freezing him out.

  But she didn’t. She just sighed and pulled him closer, nestling against him as though she wanted to crawl right inside his skin. Beau knew he should pull away from her. He could think of a million reasons he should not be doing this. Besides the fact that he was here in a relatively official capacity and the security cameras were recording every detail, the damn clerk could walk in on them any second.

  He had to stop. Somehow he had to find the strength to put an end to what was turning into the most erotic kiss of his life.

  Elizabeth sighed his name against his mouth, her fingers clenching and unclenching in the material of his jacket. He kissed her one last time, scrunched his eyes shut and wrenched away from her.

  “Well,” he murmured, after he finally caught his breath. “That was surprising.”

  She blinked rapidly, as if awakening from a particularly good dream, then color soaked her pale, delicate cheekbones in a fiery rush.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I don’t…I don’t know what came over me.”

  “I’m the one who kissed you. If an apology is called for here, I’m the one who should be making it.” But he wasn’t ready to apologize. Not when his blood still thrummed through his veins and his heartbeat was racing like a Thoroughbred heading for the finish line at Emerald Downs.

  “I allowed you to kiss me, though. No, more than that. I…I encouraged it. I shouldn’t have.” She colored even more fiercely, her gaze on the marble floor inside the vault.

  “Elizabeth, you couldn’t have stopped me. I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now. If I have half a chance I’ll probably do it again.”

  A complex mix of emotions flitted across her expressive features—dismay, denial and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a fair degree of intrigue.

  Before she could come up with some objection, he headed her off. “We need to sign these things and get out of here. I have to be back in court this afternoon, and Griff’s got to be wondering where we are.”

  After a moment she nodded and gathered her attaché then carefully pushed the chair back under the table. Just as he was reaching for the door handle, she laid her fingers on his arm. “Beau, I need to say…that is, I…thank you,” she finally murmured.

  He grinned and couldn’t resist. “For the kiss? Anytime, sweetheart. Just say the word.”

  The color that had begun to fade from her face flared back. “No. For comforting me back there. Being so understanding of my…ambivalence. I do want to know what happened to Tina but…I’m still terrified I’m not going to like the answers we come up with. You’ve been very kind to put up with me through everything.”

  “I’m not kind, Elizabeth. Not by a long shot.” He didn’t know why he felt so compelled to warn her, but he couldn’t let her think he was one of her smooth society escort types. He worked damn hard at being rough and abrasive and he didn’t expect that to change anytime soon.

  “I’m not kind,” he repeated. “I’m rude and bad-tempered and I don’t do anything unless it serves my own purposes. Remember that, and we’ll get along fine.”

  She looked startled, but before she could answer, he thrust open the door and walked back out into the bank.

  Chapter 8

  Beau and Elizabeth had been inside the safe-deposit vault for longer than thirty minutes but when they walked outside the bank after signing out the contents of the box, they found Griff waiting in front of the building like some kind of eager, faithful retriever.

  His partner spotted them and stood up, lobbing his empty lunch container into a trash can nearby. “It’s about time. I was just about to send for backup and storm the place.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize we had taken so long.” Elizabeth looked upset. “I’m sorry to monopolize your partner’s time.”

  Beau was disgruntled to see Griff’s irritation vanish in a heartbeat. The kid gave Elizabeth an infatuated smile. “Don’t worry about it. It’s a beautiful day, perfect for people watching. While I was sitting here, I saw six babies in strollers, twenty dogs on leashes and a class full of what looked like kindergartners out for a field trip.”

  Beau glowered. He didn’t doubt that J.J. was exactly the kind of man Elizabeth preferred. For some strange reason women went crazy for that pretty-boy face and smooth charm. Elizabeth didn’t seem to be any different from the other hordes of females who constantly crowded around Griff. Her answering smile was about twenty degrees warmer than anything she had ever given him.

  He didn’t want to stop and analyze why that bugged the hell out of him. How could she lock lips with him one minute then smile so pretty at his partner while she barely even looked at him?

  “People watching is one of my favorite things,” Elizabeth said with another smile. “Especially with the weather so mild for Seattle in October.”

  “I think if I spend enough time out here, I could see the whole human condition walking past.”

  Beau rolled his eyes. Human condition, his left butt cheek. What did a kid like Griff know about the human condition? “This is all very interesting, but we need to get back to work,” he muttered.

  “Mind if I ask what was inside the safe-deposit box?” Griff asked.

  Before he could tell his partner—again—to stay out of things that didn’t concern him, Elizabeth answered. “My friend was a single mother and items in her box referred to her son’s paternity.”

  “Is the father a suspect?”

  Elizabeth was silent, her features distressed again at the reminder that her godfather might have been involved in murder. He’d seen it before. It was always a bitter pill for people to swallow when they first realized someone they cared about and trusted might have committed a terrible crime.

  For one crazy second he almost grabbed her hand to give it a comforting squeeze but he checked the motion. He couldn’t show that kind of mushy softness. Not here, not with his rookie partner looking on with such undisguised interest.

  �
��It’s complicated,” Beau finally said. “But, yeah, he’s a suspect.”

  “What do we do now?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m assuming you’ll want to speak with Andrew. Take him down to the station for an interview or something, right?”

  Wasn’t that a lovely image? Him marching into Judge Sheffield’s office at the justice building and hauling him down to grill him in one of the interview rooms at the precinct?

  He grimaced, imagining his lieutenant’s reaction if he informed him the direction the investigation was taking—the investigation he’d been told was a waste of time.

  Charlie, I think I’ll haul in Andrew Sheffield—yeah, that Andrew Sheffield, the well-respected juror—and interrogate him about the illegitimate kid he fathered on a murdered stripper.

  That was sure to go over real well. He rubbed at the headache beginning to form behind his eyelids. How was he supposed to even bring up Tina Hidalgo and her son to Sheffield and still hope for any degree of judicial impartiality in the Benelli trial?

  He had worked so damn hard to build a strong case against Joseph Benelli. To find justice for little Laura Benelli who had endured unspeakable horror in her eight years on the earth. He couldn’t blow it now, not when they were so close to putting Laura’s son-of-a-bitch father behind bars for the rest of his life.

  “This is complicated, Elizabeth,” he finally said. “We need to figure out a strategy here.”

  Griff gave him an odd look. “What’s the complication? We just go to his house and ask him about his relationship to the deceased. We don’t need a warrant just to talk to the man.”