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  And gasped himself.

  His face white and his fingers trembling on the photograph of Margot kissing a man, Matthew straightened to his full height. “This man is my brother, Robert.”

  Mia stared at him, and the color drained from her own face.

  Matthew read the note: “Well done, Margot. Your fee is enclosed. Your services will be required again on July tenth at MacDougal’s on Water Street. Ten P.M.

  Mia’s knees gave out, and she dropped to the floor. She tried to form words, but no sound came out of her mouth. Matthew stretched his arm out to her, offering her his hand. The expression on his face snapped her out of her meltdown.

  “This doesn’t mean anything!” she shouted. “Whoever sent this note is the killer!”

  “Then what’s the money for, Mia?” Matthew asked coldly. “That’s fifteen hundred dollars. The pictures are proof that she was very likely the last person to see Robert alive, the note thanks your sister for a job well done, and the cash is her fee for murder.”

  “No!” Mia screamed. “No! You’re wrong!”

  The door to the apartment next door opened, and the woman who Mia had met earlier stomped out in her bathrobe. “I’m warning you, Margot. I hear one more peep out of your apartment and I’m calling the cops.” And then she stepped back inside her apartment and slammed the door.

  Matthew looked confused for a moment. “I guess I’m not the only one confusing you with your sister.”

  “Well, there’s a first for everything,” Mia said bitterly. Before Norman Newman’s accusations earlier this evening, Mia hadn’t been confused with Margot since sixth grade.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Mia stood and closed the door behind them. Her hands were shaking so hard she clasped them together to calm them. “My sister would never physically hurt anyone. I’d stake my life on that.”

  He stared at her, his expression unreadable, then handed her the folder. She looked at the contents again, the cash, the photo, the note.

  “I think we should take all this to the police, Mia.”

  She dropped to her knees again and wrapped her arms around her. Tears stung the backs of her eyes.

  Matthew knelt down next to her. She felt his arm around her. The heavy pressure felt good.

  “It’s okay, Mia,” he said. “No police. At least for the time being. We’ll get to the bottom of this ourselves, if we can.”

  Mia closed her eyes and let herself sag against him. Strangely, the warm, clean scent of him comforted her. She leaned closer, and her head dropped on his shoulder.

  He flinched, and she pulled away, her cheeks burning. What had she been thinking? This stranger, this man she’d met under terrible circumstances not more than an hour ago, wanted to go to the police and have an APB put out on her sister. Mia was important to him only because she was the link to her sister. She’d have to remember that. They were both using each other.

  He cleared his throat. “Will you be okay tonight?”

  She could manage only a weak nod.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  She nodded again. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’d better get going, then. I’ll see you here at nine A.M.All right?” He searched her eyes. She could tell that he was trying to determine if she’d really show up, or if she’d disappear in the middle of the night.

  “I’ll be here.”

  And she would be. Because for the first time in her life, Mia Anderson was going to use someone, too.

  Matthew lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling fan that provided the only relief from the sticky June heat. His air conditioner had conked out earlier in the week, but he’d been so focused on Robert’s death that he hadn’t even noticed how uncomfortable the still, warm air was.

  His chest slick with sweat, Matthew grabbed the T-shirt he’d peeled off a couple of hours ago and mopped his face and torso with the cool cotton. He wondered if Mia was asleep or if she’d been tossing and turning for the past two hours as he’d done.

  It was now three A.M., and he’d been unable to shake her from his thoughts since he’d gotten home at midnight. Was she telling him the truth? He’d find out. For now, it didn’t matter, as long as she was there tomorrow when he arrived. He’d uncover what he needed if he had her help.

  But help doing what? He’d been so focused on finding Candy—Margot—that he hadn’t even given two thoughts to what he’d do once he’d found her. That she’d run from him earlier this evening told him she had reason to be scared, that she was involved in Robert’s death in some way, however indirectly.

  But what he and Mia had discovered slipped under Margot’s door proved she was involved very directly.

  Someone had photographed her and Robert during two romantic moments in a Center City nightclub. Why? What was the fifteen hundred for? And what exactly were her services? Was she a hooker?

  Damn. He had so many questions and no answers.

  Matthew flipped onto his stomach and let the breeze from the ceiling fan cool his back, thoughts of Mia running through his mind. He found it hard to believe that identical twin sisters could be so different, but Mia seemed the farthest thing from a hooker or someone who’d cozy up with a married man in a bar.

  Then again, what did Matthew know about her? Nothing. All he did know was that his reaction to her when he saw her in the coffee lounge had been strangely very different from his reaction to Margot in the ice-cream parlor and on the street. He’d felt nothing but cold contempt for Margot, in Chumley’s and earlier this evening, yet when he saw Mia in her old sweats and paint-splattered T-shirt, fresh-scrubbed, her hair in a ponytail, she’d seemed so vulnerable, so real. Like someone he could have a real conversation with. Nothing like the fake plastic bleached blonde from Chumley’s.

  Stop it, Gray, he warned himself. Some soap and sweats doesn’t change who a person is. The sweetest-looking people can be pure evil.

  He’d learned that a long time ago.

  An image of Gwen Harriman popped into his mind, and instead of blinking her away the way he usually did, he let the memory of her face, the memory of their relationship, linger. It was good for him to remember. So he wouldn’t be taken in again.

  He’d never seen a more angelic-looking woman than Gwen Harriman. And despite his own rule never to get involved with a member of his own staff, he’d fallen hard for the beautiful twenty-two-year-old he’d hired as his secretary. Four years had passed since he’d fired her from his company and his life, but he felt the sting of betrayal as freshly as if it had all happened yesterday. Before she’d conned him, he’d thought he’d been proven wrong, that it was possible for him to fall in love, for him to consider marriage and family and a future filled with possibilities of the human spirit.

  He’d been wrong. Gwen had shown him how wrong he’d been.

  He hadn’t made any mistakes since.

  And he wasn’t about to start with another angelic-faced woman who most likely hid a serpent’s heart and poisonous bite.

  No. He would not make that mistake again.

  Especially not with the justice of his nephew’s father on the line.

  Chapter Five

  At eight forty-five the next morning, Mia began pacing the expansive living room of Margot’s apartment. There was lots of room to worry back and forth, given the lack of furniture. Margot had been living in this particular apartment for the past seven years, yet the place looked exactly as it had when Margot had invited Mia over when she’d first moved in.

  A coffee-colored leather sofa, no pillows, a huge wood entertainment center with all the trimmings, and a wall of windows with no blinds or curtains made up the living room’s decor. The only word Mia could think of to describe the room was cold. There was no color, no decorative touches, no artwork. No personal touches. Why wouldn’t Margot want to make her home comfortable? Surely she couldn’t find this austere apartment cozy?

  Then again, as Mia had already acknowledged, she hardly knew
her sister. The girl she’d once known had decorated her bedroom in the house they’d grown up in with crazy zebra stripes and hot pink, Margot’s feather boa collection all over the fun, zany room. Her room had screamed “Margot,” had screamed personality.

  And now this. Margot’s adult bedroom was no different from the living room. Beige, neat, and not a personal touch anywhere, save a photo of Margot, Mia, and their parents, the same one that Mia kept in her bathroom.

  Last night, when Mia had spotted the photograph between an array of expensive perfumes and a jewelry box, she felt a small sense of relief for the first time in hours. The photo faced the bed; it was clearly the first thing Margot saw when she woke up in the morning and the last thing she looked at before falling asleep at night.

  So perhaps I do know my sister, after all, Mia thought. No matter what the emotional or physical distance between them, she knew her sister’s heart.

  Margot wasn’t a killer. And she wasn’t mixed up in a murder. Mia had no idea what to make of the contents of that folder, but she would stake her life on one thing: Margot was being used as a pawn in someone else’s game.

  Mia simply had to convince Matthew Gray of that.

  She’d thought of little else last night, as she’d tossed and turned for hours in Margot’s huge king-size bed. The mystery of her sister’s sudden flight, the mystery of Matthew’s brother’s death, had been too much for her to even think about alone. So instead she’d thought about the feel of Matthew’s arm around her shoulder, her reaction to his nearness.

  His reaction to her.

  His flinch.

  She’d forgotten herself in that moment last night, forgotten that a man wouldn’t want Mia Anderson leaning on him, needing his comfort. She wasn’t the kind of woman who inspired feelings in men, whether desire or protectiveness.

  Stop it! she mentally yelled at herself. What the hell was she doing, standing here thinking like this? Her sister was in hiding, for God’s sake. A man was dead. A child was without a father. And she was whining about being unattractive to men.

  About being unattractive to Matthew Gray.

  The doorbell rang, and Mia practically jumped out of her skin. She glanced at her watch. Eight fifty-nine A.M.

  She took a deep breath and hurried to the door, peering through the peephole. There he was, looking as handsome as she remembered, if a bit rumpled and sleep-deprived. He hadn’t shaved.

  She opened the door, and his presence filled the doorway. As he stepped inside, the huge, empty apartment seemed small and almost claustrophobic.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “Morning.”

  He wore jeans, a white button-down shirt, and black shoes. Since Mia had left her own condo in a hurry last night, she’d had no choice but to select an outfit from Margot’s closet. Which meant tight jeans and a slim-fitting T-shirt were her only option if she wanted to dress casually. Margot didn’t own a single pair of jeans that weren’t form-fitting, and her T-shirts were all teeny-tiny V necks. At least her sister owned a few pairs of sneakers—without heels or diamonds encrusted in the laces, too.

  Mia noticed Matthew’s gaze rove over her, and she knew it had nothing to do with her. She looked like Margot, even without makeup. The long, blond shiny hair, the sexy outfit. She was the same old lie she’d been for the past five years.

  “Can I get you something, a cup of coffee?” she asked him. His nearness was overwhelming her, and she wanted to escape him for a few moments. “Margot doesn’t keep much in the way of food, just some olives and a few bottles of wine, but she does have good coffee.”

  He was glancing around the apartment. “Yeah, sure,” he said absently. “I could use some coffee. We can catch a bite a bit later.”

  Mia nodded and hurried into the kitchen. She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath until she let it out in one gush when the swinging doors came to a close behind her.

  She measured the water and added the coffee and washed the measuring spoon until it gleamed. Then, to procrastinate just a bit longer, she washed it again. You have to go back in there, she told herself. He’s not in charge here. He doesn’t make the rules. He doesn’t dictate your life.

  He’s not David Anderson, and you’re not that voiceless woman with no self-esteem. Do not let him bully you.

  A bit fortified, Mia took another deep breath and headed back inside the living room. Matthew was standing by the wall of windows, staring out at Center City. It was a gloomy, gray Saturday morning, not yet raining, but the clouds were threatening. At least the rain would help wash away some of the unseasonably warm weather, she thought dumbly, grateful to focus on something other than the situation at hand and why Matthew Gray was standing in her sister’s living room with his intense eyes and suspicions.

  “The coffee will be just a minute,” she said, taking a seat at the edge of the sofa.

  He turned toward her and nodded. “I think we need to figure out what the contents of the folder mean in terms of Margot’s involvement with Robert, what the person who hired her hired her to do in the first place.”

  “Where should we begin?” she asked and instantly regretted the question. Why was she giving him the power to make decisions that affected her sister?

  “Does she have a study or a desk in her bedroom?” Matthew said. “We could look through her papers, see if—”

  “Wait just a minute,” Mia interrupted. “I don’t know about rifling through her personal papers—”

  “How do you propose we find out what that folder was all about, then?” Matthew countered, those intense dark blue eyes trained on her. “Perhaps there are other folders, other photos, other notes.”

  Mia closed her eyes. Other photos ... other notes ... other evidence of Margot’s required services, whatever the hell they were ...

  Calm down, girl. Don’t get overwhelmed. Just think—and do what makes you comfortable.

  Problem was, everything connected to this situation made her extremely uncomfortable.

  Matthew sat down in the center of the sofa. “Mia, I’m a businessman. I certainly wouldn’t like it if someone went poking through my desk when I wasn’t around. But my brother is dead, and your sister is in hiding. We have no choice.”

  Mia felt her every muscle clench. He was right. They didn’t have a choice.

  I’m sorry, Margot, but we’re going to have to look through your personal things. I’m really sorry. I know how you hate people in your stuff.

  That was the truth. Once, when Margot and Mia were fifteen, their mother had been worried that Margot was smoking marijuana (she was), and Mrs. Daniels had rifled through Margot’s bedroom drawers for evidence. She’d even flipped through her journal to find out if Margot was writing about drugs. Margot had caught their mother red-handed reading her diary. She’d never seen her sister so angry as that day. Mia wasn’t sure if Margot had been angry that her mother hadn’t trusted her or that her mother had violated her personal belongings. She’d always figured it was a combination of both.

  I did it for your own good, for your own protection, their mother had said. And now that I know for sure you are smoking that funny stuff, you’re going to a rehab center ...

  The memory brought a gentle smile to Mia’s lips. Margot, who’d smoked pot a few times with her friends and whatever boyfriends she had at the moment, had been so scared by what she’d seen during her “weekend rehab” that she‘d never touched marijuana or any drugs again.

  Mia had never been a believer in ends justifying means as a defense, but she did know that Matthew was right in this particular case.

  “Margot has a desk in her bedroom,” she told him. “It’s locked, but I’m sure she keeps the key nearby.”

  He stood. At five-foot-seven, Mia always considered herself a tall woman, but Matthew towered over her.

  Mia led the way into Margot’s bedroom, uncomfortably aware of the king-size bed that dominated the room. “There,” she said, pointing unnecessarily at the desk under
the window. She went to the dresser and rifled through the jewelry box for the key. “Here.” She handed the key to Matthew. “I’ll go get us each a cup of coffee.”

  He nodded and set to work, and once again she was grateful for the chance to escape. Both from him and from what they might find in that desk.

  What had Margot been hired to do? Mia wondered as she poured two cups of coffee and put what little milk Margot had in a creamer. Clearly the photos and the cash had something to do with each other, but what? Had she been paid to kiss Matthew’s brother in a bar so that someone could take the pictures? Why?

  Mia realized she had some questions for Matthew. About his brother, Robert. Hadn’t Matthew said that Robert’s wedding ring and watch hadn’t been stolen? Why was a married man kissing her sister? Sticking his tongue in her ear? In a public place, no less.

  Don’t be naïve, she chided herself. Your husband was a married man, and that didn’t stop him from sticking his tongue and other parts of his body in women who were not his wife.

  White-hot anger burned in her stomach. How dare Matthew make Margot look like the bad one here! His own brother, a married man with a child at home, had been “all over” her sister in a bar. Perhaps Matthew should direct some of his anger toward his own cheating brother.

  Whoa, there, Mia. A little judgmental, don’t you think? You don’t know the situation or Matthew’s brother any more than he knows you or your sister. Find out the facts.

  She couldn’t help wondering what Robert Gray was all about. Perhaps the man had some enemies. Enemies who had nothing to do with Margot, nothing to do with a man and a woman sharing a few kisses and a few drinks in a bar.

  Then what was the note and the cash all about? a small voice in her head demanded as she set the coffee, creamer, and a bowl of sugar on a tray and carried it into the bedroom. And what “services” of Margot’s were “required on July tenth” at Mac-Dougal’s Bar?

  The only “services” that Mia knew Margot offered were those of interior decorator. Though her sister’s apartment wasn’t the best example of her skills, Mia had seen Margot’s work, well a few photographs, anyway. Margot was great at her job and quite passionate about decorating, albeit other people’s spaces and not her own. So what “services” were required at ten P.M. at a bar on a Saturday night? And why did those “services” involve risqué photographs and cash?