The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(76)

A handsome, elegant-looking man got out from behind the wheel of the lead SUV.

“Your other uncle?” Catalina asked.

“Lucas Pine.” Slater got to his feet. “And I will just say that we can all be grateful he accompanied Victor here today.”

“Why?” Catalina asked.

“Uncle Lucas is the diplomat in the family,” Slater said. “If you ladies will excuse me, I’d better go take charge of things out there before Victor accidentally says something to offend the locals.”

Catalina waved him off. “Good luck.”

Slater walked through the restaurant and went outside to greet his uncles. He was joined by Euclid Oaks and the members of the town council. They all went forward to meet Victor and Lucas.

Olivia smiled when the handshaking began.

“Maybe this new alliance between the Fogg Lake community and the Foundation will actually work out,” she said.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” Catalina said. She watched Slater and Euclid lead Victor and Lucas toward the library. “Could be one of those the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend things.”

Olivia raised her brows. “Why am I getting the feeling that this situation is personal?”

“Because it is.”

Olivia watched Slater and the others disappear through the front door of the library. “How personal is it?”

Catalina glanced at her watch and did the calculation. “Slater and I have known each other for less than three days.”

“So?”

Catalina drank some wine and lowered the glass. “It’s been a very intense few days.”

“Well, damn. This is serious.”

“Who knows? Three days is not a long time. I think the odds are that Slater will go back to Foundation headquarters and good old Uncle Victor will send him out on another case. Slater will forget about me and whatever we have—whatever we had—together.”

Olivia got a thoughtful expression. “For what it’s worth, I’ve only known Slater Arganbright for a few hours, but I can tell you one thing.”

Catalina tried to suppress the little spark of hope that kept refusing to be extinguished.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Slater is no Roger Gossard,” Olivia said. “He wouldn’t dump a lover just because she became a liability to his brand.”

Catalina felt her spirits lift a little. “No, Slater wouldn’t do that.”

“Enough about you. Let’s talk about me. Does Emerson know what happened?”

“He knows some of it. I called him first thing when I realized that you were missing. He was really pissed and also hurt, of course, because he assumed you were a no-show on that last date. I let him know that you had vanished and that I was really worried about you.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He insisted that when I found you I was to call him immediately.”

Olivia sighed. “That’s all he said? You were supposed to let him know when you found me?”

“Immediately,” Catalina said, trying for emphasis.

“In other words, he didn’t charge through the front door of Lark and LeClair demanding to help you look for me?”

Catalina cleared her throat. “He’s not a trained investigator, Olivia. There really wasn’t anything he could have done. He was worried, though. Seriously worried.”

“Not worried enough.” Olivia swirled the wine in her glass. “If you went missing, Slater Arganbright would look for you until he found you.”

Catalina’s spirits rose a little higher. Once again she tried to squash them flat. “Well, he is a trained investigator.”

“That has nothing to do with it. I’ve got damn good intuition, remember? It may have let me down when it came to Emerson Ferris, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get a solid fix on Slater Arganbright. I don’t know if he loves you, but I know that you can trust him. If you ever went missing, he’d walk into hell to find you.”

Catalina took a deep, steadying breath. “Yes, he would do that.”





CHAPTER 36


This is an interesting little community,” Lucas said, clearly amused. “I don’t know of any other town that houses its dangerous prisoners in the basement of the public library.”

“It’s not like we’ve ever had a need to build a jail,” Catalina pointed out. She gave Lucas her brightest smile. “Not until this little problem involving a former Foundation employee and some clones from out of town.”

They were sitting at a table in the Lake View Café. Olivia, Victor and Slater were there, too. She and Olivia had each ordered another glass of wine. Victor, Lucas and Slater were drinking whiskey. Some of the Foundation cleaners who had arrived with Lucas and Victor were eating at other tables. The rest were guarding the two triplets and Nyla Trevelyan. Victor had reported that the three were starting to wake up but that they were still groggy and confused. Regardless of their condition, they were scheduled to be taken away from Fogg Lake first thing in the morning, as soon as the fog dissipated.

Victor looked deeply hurt by Catalina’s small slice of sarcasm.

“We are aware that the situation here in Fogg Lake was provoked by a former Foundation employee,” he said. “It was an unfortunate development—”