Benny stood stunned for a moment before closing the monitor and handing my camera back to me. Since I seemed to have his complete attention, I started the act. Breathing heavy, I curled my fingers into my handbag—a gorgeous silk clutch Cookie let me borrow—and leveled a determined, and slightly naïve, stare on him.
Clearly, I would not win the Patty Cakes Club’s fave person of the year award. Though he hid it well, Price was angry. He forced himself to stay calm as he sat back behind his desk. “And what kind of proof do you have?” he asked, his voice like ice water.
I let my gaze dart to my purse then back up, hoping I wasn’t overdoing the nervous damsel-in-distress bit. I had to sell it, not cram it down his throat.
“I have a USB flash drive I obtained from my employer, a lawyer who was shot a couple of days ago. He said it had everything we would need to put Benny Price—you—behind bars.”
Price calmed then. The corners of his mouth twitched, and I knew he had the flash drive. Maybe he would be just stupid enough to …
He opened his desk drawer and withdrew a flash drive. “You mean this one?”
Yep. He was precisely stupid enough. While my insides were doing a Snoopy dance, my outsides were starting to panic. Angel and Sussman had stepped from the room behind Price with a thumbs-up. The camera was recording.
“Can I go watch the strippers now?” Angel asked.
With teeth gritted, I shot him a quick glare, then continued to hyperventilate. Price smiled one of those superior smiles of Mafia bosses and nursing home directors. Sussman stood back, glared at him.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Angel said. Hopping over to me, he popped open the top button on my too-tight blouse, giving Price, and hopefully the camera, a nice shot of my cle**age. Price’s gaze landed instantly on the erotic zone. Danger and Will Robinson. Distractions extraordinaire. When he looked back up, a few strands of my hair had magically fallen to frame my face just so.
I pushed up my glasses in a nervous gesture. “I can assure you, that’s not the same one.” After licking my lips slowly in thought, I said, “He handed me a flash drive.… I know it has … he said it had evidence. It was encrypted, but—”
“Perhaps he handed you the wrong one?” Price offered politely.
“No, that’s not possible. He has … I mean, he has several thousand flash drives on his desk at any given moment, but…”
“I promise you, little beauty, my man took this directly off your lawyer. Seconds after he died.”
Little beauty? What was I? A racehorse? You’d think a man who hung around beautiful women all day could come up with something a little less corny.
While I was doing my best to hyperventilate without actually hyperventilating, Price stood, walked around his desk, and leaned against it in front of me. Partly, I was certain, so he could look down his nose while watching his newest victim squirm, like watching an ant burn through a magnifying glass. But a bigger part of the partly was so he could check out the girls.
Taking advantage of the situation, Angel went for another button, an evil smirk glittering on his face. I pretended to close my blouse and slapped his hand away in the process—the little perv. Angel frowned in disappointment.
“Were you after money?” Price asked, so cool an inferno wouldn’t have melted his bravado. He gestured for blondie to leave.
I gulped, unable to meet his stare any longer—in theory—and nodded.
He reached down and pulled off my glasses. Guilt, utterly remorseless guilt, oozed off him and pooled at his feet. “And you just decided to waltz in here and demand some from me?”
“Yes. I’m … in trouble. With the deaths of the lawyers at my firm, there’ll be an audit.”
“Ah,” he said, folding the glasses and placing them on his desk. “And you’ve been a naughty girl.”
“You … killed them? It was you?” Without raising my chin, I looked up at him through my lashes. He seemed to enjoy it.
“Of course not. I have men for that.”
Damn. Could he be any more evasive? I needed a confession, not a paltry assertion any lawyer worth his weight could weasel him out of.
I struggled to get to my feet, but he was ridiculously close. I brushed against him, making sure my shoulder grazed over his erection. “You sent men to kill my bosses? Why would you do that?”
As with most criminals, his arrogance was his downfall. He wrapped a hand around my arm and helped me up. “Because I can.”
After sucking in an appalled breath, I tried to wrench free of his grip. I pretended to pretend like I was pretending to be confident when I said, “I’m leaving.” He had just confessed to conspiracy. No way on Earth was I getting out of that office alive.
“What’s your hurry?”
“If I don’t show up by nine o’clock tonight, you will go to prison.”
Price glanced at his watch, then pulled me closer, encircled my waist with his arms. “That gives us almost three exquisite hours to find out who your friends are.”
Oddly, I was finding it easier and easier to act afraid. With a toss of my head, I gave Angel the signal. He nodded and took off, but Sussman stood there, cemented to the spot, a peculiar hatred seething in his eyes.
“So, in answer to your question, yes, I did kill those three lawyers.” He ran a finger along my collarbone, dipped it into my cle**age. “But you don’t have to be next.”
Yeah, right. I pushed against his chest all helpless-like. Seriously, how long can it take to storm into a room? All Angel had to do was tug on Uncle Bob’s tie, thus giving the signal for Ubie to send his men in with guns blazing. It wasn’t brain surgery.