A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(43)

"Why?"

"She was already behind on her rent, and the doctor bills are starting to come in. I have some money. I was going to put the rest on my credit card this month, but I can't keep that up."

"Done." Relief rolled over Art. "How much?"

"Eight hundred would really help."

A small penance. Art checked his watch. He could make it to the bank, pull the money out of savings, drop it by and still get to the Monday morning board meeting on time.

Twelve minutes later, he emerged from the elevator on the fifth floor of Mission Hospital. He almost jogged down the corridor to Brian's room. Mike sat in the only chair.

"This is great," Mike said. "I appreciate it."

Art handed him an envelope. "If she needs anything else, more money, anything, let me know."

Mike waved him away. "This is a loan. One of us will repay it."

"Not necessary," Art said.

"It is. Now get out of here. Get to work."

Art left the hospital feeling better than he had since the accident.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


The familiar scent of cinnamon and allspice overwhelmed the smell of toner. Gwen knew Lance was behind her before she heard his voice or felt his hand on her back. She hadn't seen him since Sunday. He'd taken off yesterday, and she didn't blame him. With all the repairs he'd had to do, he'd worked the better part of five days and nights in a row. The rhythmic drone of the copy machine stopped.

"Hey there," he said. "I didn't want to startle you."

"Hey there yourself." She lifted her four-color fliers from the tray and examined them.

"What're you doing?"

"Baking brownies."

"I have good news." Lance's breath grazed the back of her neck.

She scooted away and turned to face him. "You do?"

"We have an offer."

"What? Already?"

"Remember that couple from L.A.? The ones you thought looked like aging drug dealers."

"The guy in leather and the woman in black?"

"The same. The offer came in this morning. It's low. We're going to have to negotiate and it might not fly but, hey, not bad for only having the place available for a couple of days. Especially under the circumstances."

"The lockbox company sent me an email. A bunch of agents have been through the house."

"Lots of action since Sunday?" Lance grinned. The look on his face reminded her of Jason when he beat a level of Dragon Quest.

Gwen set her fliers on a table and leaned toward him. "John Gordon was one of them."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. He was in Saturday night." Gwen lowered her voice. "He could've planted the cat."

"I'm still struggling with that whole idea. It's hard to believe he'd stoop that low."

"Why was he in the house the night before the open house then?"

Lance shrugged. "He wanted to see it before everyone else did?"

"He's been acting funny for the past two days."

"Funny how?"

"Funny, guilty funny. He asked me how the open house went."

Lance hunched his shoulders and brought his face closer to hers. "Caroline and Eric asked me how the open house went too. I think they're in cahoots. A conspiracy. Or, would it be a coup? Is it a coup when you're being deposed?"

Gwen slapped his shoulder. "Oh shut up. You're making fun of me."

"Listen, I think Bob and Betty had the most logical explanation. Everybody knows there was a murder in the house. Some whacko from the neighborhood either made a lucky guess about where the body was found or has a friend on the police force. It was a prank. A very mean prank."

"Really?" Gwen folded her arms across her chest. "When did they plant the cat then? I was there all morning, and you said yourself it wasn't there when you went upstairs with the flowers."

"The door was wide open. Someone must have walked in while you were in the kitchen."

Gwen didn't answer. That explanation didn't cover the cockroaches or the rat, neither of which she was willing to chalk up to coincidence. "If you're right we should take some security measures."

"Like what?" Lance pushed her fliers aside and sat on the copy room table.

"Motion sensitive lights. An alarm system."

"We can't put in an alarm system. We have a lockbox on the front door."

"We can. We just set the alarm to go off between the hours of midnight and five. We can do it remotely." Gwen sat up late the night before comparing the perks and prices of home security companies.

"Is there anything left in the budget for all this?"

"Not much."

"If we ask Fiona for more we'll have to tell her what happened."

"Right, but if we clean out what's left in the account and each throw in five hundred dollars, we can do it."

"You think it's going to do any good? If there's a lockbox on the property, agents can get in whenever they want."

"Not without our knowing about it, and not in the middle of the night. Besides, I thought you didn't think an agent was our problem."