Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(65)

Kimball pointed down the hall in the direction from which he had come. “No secret stairway—you just push the panel. Go on up and it leads to my private rooms. Well, it leads to another panel, and then my private rooms.”

“Why were you sneaking down the back stairs?” Thor asked.

Sneaking. Wrong word.

“Special Agent Erikson—I do not have to sneak anywhere in my house,” Kimball informed him.

The door to Clara’s room opened and she stepped out, blonde and beautiful in a silk bathrobe.

“Hey!” she said. “Is everything all right?” She gave them all a dazzling smile. “I’m incredibly lucky—all of you keeping watch like this. Thank you, Mr. Kimball. With these gentlemen, it’s their work. You’re going above and beyond—hospitality, and guard duty. It’s all truly appreciated. I feel wonderfully safe here at night. Thank you!”

Kimball turned his attention to her. “I was hoping not to wake you, but I did want to make sure that you were all right. You are my guest—I’d loathe for any danger or any ill whatsoever to come your way in my house.”

“So kind,” Clara murmured. She looked them all over again like a sweet Southern belle. “Thank you all, and good night.”

She went back in her room and closed the door.

The three men in the hallway stood there in silence for a moment. Then Kimball cleared his throat. “Well, then, good night.”

He went back down the hallway. The panel he’d referred to looked like part of the wall. When he pushed it, however, it slid open. Then he disappeared into darkness.

“I don’t like it,” Thor said.

“At least we know it’s there now,” Jackson said.

“I don’t like that he came down here.”

“He makes no bones about the fact that he’s attracted to Clara,” Jackson said.

“I don’t care what he says about it being his house—he was sneaking around in it,” Thor said.

Jackson didn’t argue that. He thought that Clara was probably a good actress; she’d managed to still a possible fight with down-home Southern charm.

He didn’t have to ponder it long; her door opened again and she stepped out, looking anxiously at them. “He’s gone?”

They both nodded.

She swallowed. “He could have been coming to...well, it was slimy one way or the other, whether he wanted to kiss or kill me.”

“I’m coming in. I’ll get a chair and sit in front of the door while you sleep,” Thor said.

He waited for her to argue.

She didn’t.

“Now I’ll be looking in both directions,” Jackson said. “The two of you, get some rest. If anything goes on from here, the cops and I will handle it. Good night, Clara.”

He walked back to the living room. Clara had already turned to head into her room. When Thor entered and closed the door, she swung around to face him. “Amelia was here. She was here for quite a while.”

“And you learned...?”

“Nothing new, I’m afraid. Except, of course, that she thinks Kimball is after me, too, and that, considering the amount of money he has, she might have slept with him. And that she’s worried. She’s afraid she’s just stuck here because she wasn’t a very nice person. She loved living—and she’s just watching everyone else live.”

“It would be nice if she could help,” Thor said. “But maybe she will. Somehow.” He wondered what kind of wisdom it was to insist that he keep watch over her by being here, in her room. So close. She stood just feet from him and, looking at her, he felt his lips burn...with the memory that she had kissed him. The slinky bathrobe covered her completely, yet draped around the curves of her form evocatively. Some women might have known just how they looked. He didn’t think it was any kind of a ploy with Clara. She had thrown the robe on to open the door. It was her own robe, silky, comfortable.

Clara Avery didn’t need any kind of a ploy. She stood so close he could breathe in the delicate tease of her perfume.

“Well,” he said, determined that his voice wouldn’t be too husky, “you should get some sleep. And I’ll doze a bit here and there. I’ll take the chair from the dressing table and just put it by the door.”

“You need to sleep, too,” she said. “More than I do. I have to say, though, that I will sleep better with you in here.”

“Good,” he told her.

They still both just stood there.

“Amelia gave you nothing else?” he said.

“She told me that I should sleep with you,” Clara said, smiling drily. “Actually, she said I should sleep with one of you. And I explained that I’d known Jackson and that he was married and she wasn’t sure that would have bothered her, and...anyway, the upshot is that you’re the one she really thinks I should be sleeping with. She would have.”

“Oh,” he said. “And what did you tell her?”

“I tried to tell her that I wouldn’t sleep with anyone just because of circumstances.”

“No. You wouldn’t, would you?”

She shook her head.

When she spoke again, her voice was low and soft and as silky as the robe.

“I would sleep with you,” she said. “Not because of circumstances. But because...”