His gaze sharpened on hers, and his lips pursed to emit a low whistle. "Inside the conduit crates?"
"Exactly! Order too much, hide the commodity inside the crates of surplus, and return them! If you had someone waiting at the other end in Seattle who could remove the commodity from the crates before it was discovered, you'd have a perfect setup."
"Crysta, you're incredible!" He threw another glance down the street. "How did you get all that by seeing a truck?"
"Because of what you said! Picking up a load at the docks! It could go just the other way, returning stuff to the docks."
He nodded. "Of course. Brilliant of me to bring it up, wasn't it?"
She laughed softly and rolled her eyes. "So now, Mr. Brilliant, put on your thinking cap. What could have been in those smaller boxes that I dreamed of?"
"Something illegal?"
"Sam, this is serious."
"I'm being serious. Something illegal. The problem is, I don't have an inkling what. I'll leave it to you. You're the one on a roll."
Crysta pressed her back against the tall chain-link fence. "I haven't an inkling, either." She stared at a crack in the concrete. "So let's play what if."
He took a spot beside her, his arm pressing against her shoulder. "What if?"
"Yeah, what if. It goes like this. What if Derrick noticed the surplus of conduit, discovered it was being returned and came up with the same idea that I did, that someone was using the returned crates to transport an illegal commodity?"
"Then he'd try to figure out what the commodity was."
"How?"
"I imagine he'd come to the warehouse and open the crates that were about to be returned."
"And what if, when he came, he saw some smaller boxes, stacked near the crates, that didn't belong in the warehouse?"
Sam nodded. "If it were me, I'd open one."
"And when you were about to, what if the culprits came?"
Sam, clearly warming to the game, glanced down at her. "I don't know about you, but I'd run like a scalded dog."
"And what if, while you were running, your silver-dollar buckle came loose from your belt? You couldn't risk going back for it."
"I'd pray the culprits didn't find it, because if they did, they'd recognize it and realize I might be on to them."
"And if they did find it?"
"They'd be edgy." Sam met her gaze, his mouth tightening. "Depending on the size of their operation and the money they stood to lose, not to mention the prison sentence they might face, they'd weigh their options. If the costs would be steep on all counts, they'd get rid of me so I couldn't squeal."
"And what if, after they got rid of you, your sister flew to Alaska, asking questions and not accepting that you were dead?"
Sam's eyes took on a shimmer of anger. "They might try to scare her off with a gaffed salmon in her bed. If that failed, they might try to kill her, making it look like an accident."
"More than that, they'd probably decide to bring their operation to a halt for a while. Wouldn't you? Think of it, Sam. You're missing. Your sister is stirring up suspicion. They wouldn't dare continue as usual."
He threw a quick glance over his shoulder at the warehouse. "They'd stop the smuggling operation until things cooled off and hide the evidence someplace."
"And the last place they'd hide it would be in one of the company warehouses!''
Sam frowned again and stroked his chin. "It wouldn't be easy to hide a lot of boxes. You couldn't very well bring them home—neighbors and guests might notice. You'd have to find someplace where storing a bunch of stuff wouldn't raise suspicion."
"Someplace dry, probably, and locked up, so no one could stumble across the evidence."
Sam nodded. After a long moment, he snapped his fingers and pushed away from the fence. "Come on! We've got some phone calls to make."
"To whom?"
"Public storage!"
Crysta caught his arm, pulling him to a stop. "Sam, we can't just start calling public storage places. What will we do, ask if anyone's unloaded a lot of boxes in one of their units recently?"
"Not just anyone, Riley O'Keefe."
"Riley? What makes you suspect Riley?"
"Number one, I don't like him. Number two, he's spending money like it's water. Number three, he's a warehouse supervisor. He could be responsible for placing orders or be in cahoots with someone in purchasing. Add that up, and you've got a logical place to start."
Chapter Twelve
From a nearby public phone booth, Sam called several public storage companies, impersonating Riley O'Keefe. With an adroitness Crysta couldn't help but admire, he told each clerk that he had lost the keys to his storage unit and, unable to get inside, was wondering if he couldn't beg an extra set. The first phone calls ended with the clerks trying to find his file and informing him that he must have mistakenly called the wrong place of business.
Just when Crysta was beginning to fear his plan would turn up nothing, Sam connected with a man who recognized O'Keefe's name. From what Crysta could glean from the conversation at her end, spare keys were, as a safeguard for customers, unavailable. If Sam's were lost, he would have to call a locksmith.
With a low laugh, Sam said, "You know, now that I think of it, I tossed out my copy of the rental agreement, since the number of my unit was on the key. I'll need it if I'm going to bring out a locksmith. Could you look it up for me?"
After a short wait, Sam thanked the clerk and hung up the phone. Turning in the restrictive confines of the phone booth, he graced her with a discouraged smile. "Well, I found O'Keefe's storage company, but it doesn't look like an easy entry into his unit is in the cards. A locksmith would demand identification to be sure he wasn't accessing someone else's unit."
Mind racing, Crysta stared at the phone book dangling from its chain. "Is easy a key word in that prognosis? Or are we at a dead end?"
Sam, clearly agitated, smoothed his windblown black hair with his palm, his brows drawn together in a thoughtful scowl. "We're so close. We can't let one little hurdle stop us."
Crysta's lips felt like rubber. "Sam, the only way into that storage unit is breaking and entering. That's illegal. We could get into serious trouble if we were caught, as in jail."
His gaze slid to hers. A long silence fell over them. Then, with a challenging grin, he said, "Maybe we can be roomies. Are you game?"
Crysta stared up at him, not quite able to believe that this man, so practical and analytical up to now, was suddenly willing to throw caution to the wind. "What about Tip?"
"We're not talking a life sentence here, Crysta. Jangles would take care of Tip. Right now, Derrick's life is hanging by a thread. I have to think of him."
Her throat felt suddenly tight. "Tip needs you, Sam. I don't want you doing something you may regret later."
His eyes darkened with emotion. "I can't let the possibility of a stint in jail stop me. Derrick might die. It won't be easy on Tip if I have to be away from him, but he'll survive it. The way I see it, I don't have a choice."
Crysta remembered all the times she had suspected Sam of being involved in Derrick's disappearance. She wished she could go back and undo that, but she couldn't. "Well, in that case, I can't think of anyone I'd rather have as a cellmate."
"Do you realize what all this means? Your what-if-game led us right to Riley. We're inches away from finding out what's going on. Once we do, we'll know who's involved and be able to question them. That means we could be inches away from finding Derrick."
Crysta couldn't contain a soft cry of joy. "Oh, Sam, how will I ever thank you?"
"For what?"
"For coming here with me, even though I had no proof to substantiate my dreams."
Sam gave a low laugh and, catching her totally unprepared, encircled her waist with one arm, hauling her against him. "The important thing is, we came! We're almost home free, Crysta!"
He ran his hand up the curve of her back. A shock zigzagged thr
ough her. Sam's grin faded, cuing her that what he had intended to be a quick, innocently affectionate hug had suddenly turned dangerous. She could feel his heart picking up speed.
Dropping her head back, she stared up at him with surprise on the one hand and a feeling of inevitability on the other. Since their forced embrace yesterday after nearly falling into the slough, both of them had been becoming increasingly attuned to the other. This was a natural, spontaneous culmination of that phenomenon.
"This is crazy," he whispered in a gravelly voice.
Before Crysta could agree, he lowered his head and touched his lips to hers in a shy, tentative caress. Then his arm tightened, pulling her more snugly against the hard contours of his body, destroying all illusion of separateness. The pressure of his arm forced her breath from her lungs, and, by necessity, her lips parted to release it, affording him a taste of her mouth and her a taste of his.
Crysta had been kissed many times and had long since come to the conclusion that kisses were, by their very nature, pretty much the same. Years before, she had abandoned any hope of breathless surrender and starbursts. A nice fantasy, but such things didn't happen in real life. Not to her.
Being so convinced of that, it was with considerable alarm that she realized she couldn't feel her sneakers touching the ground. For a moment she wondered if Sam, being so lofty, had plucked her off her feet. Then she realized that, though her eyes were open, she was losing her grasp on her sense of place. The phone booth began to swirl around her. The world had diminished to encompass only one thing: Sam Barrister. His mouth deliciously sweet and hungry. His arms, like velvet chains. His body, hard and demanding, making hers throb with longing in every deep, dark, secret place she had.
Coming up for air, Sam skidded his lips across her cheek, tasting her skin, his breath hot and quick. "I can't believe this," he rasped.
Crysta blinked, becoming aware of her surroundings by degrees. More than a little dazed, she pressed her cheek against his chest, listening to the wild beat of his heart as she looked through the glass wall of the booth—directly into the bemused face of an elderly man who stood outside, patiently waiting to place a call.
"Sam?"
"Don't say it. I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me. You must think—"
"Sam, there's a man staring at us." Crysta tried to disentangle herself from his arms.
Sam finally registered what she said and dropped his arms from around her, reaching for the booth door to effect their escape. The man outside winked at her and grinned.
"Sorry," Sam called.
"No problem. Most entertaining wait I've had in a long time." The old man tapped his cane merrily as he walked into the phone booth.
After putting several feet between themselves and their inadvertent voyeur, both Crysta and Sam blushed. Sam turned up the collar of his shirt and lengthened his stride. Crysta hurried to keep up, glad that the wind was tossing her hair around, hiding her face.
"Do you realize that I'm going to be forty-two years old next month? Forty-two!" Sam raked his fingers through his hair, looking so agitated that Crysta had to smile. "I can't believe I did that."
She shrugged, pretending an unconcern she was far from feeling. "We've both been in a pressure cooker for days. You let the lid off, that's all."
He slid questioning eyes to hers. "Is that all?"
The directness of his gaze made her cheeks grow warmer. "For now, it has to be. Until Derrick's found, Sam, I don't have the emotional energy for anything more."
He returned his attention to the sidewalk, his jaw muscle working. "I'm sorry I stepped over the line like that."
"No harm done."
The words echoed in Crysta's mind as they proceeded down the street. Though she would never admit it, she wasn't entirely sure she had emerged from the embrace unscathed. Sam Barrister could prove dangerous to the safe, comfortable world she had created for herself since her divorce.
After throwing his jacket over the barbed wire above them to protect them from injury, Sam made a stirrup out of his interlocked fingers and braced a shoulder against the six-foot chain-link fence that encircled the public storage yard. Grabbing the fencing, Crysta placed her foot in the cradle of his hands and pushed up, her heart skipping when Sam shoved her skyward so she could throw her other leg over the slanted guard of barbed wire at the top. Crysta felt so conspicuous that she cringed.
"You aren't supposed to do things like this until it's dark."
"We can't wait for darkness, Crysta. This is Alaska, remember? Waiting until after hours was the best I could manage."
In an attempt to dispel her nervousness, Crysta said, "I almost wish Todd Shriver had botched this idea by saying he couldn't wait for us. I've just discovered I have vertigo."
"Just fall in the right direction and land on your feet."
"That's helpful of you. You'd sing a different tune if it was your fanny planted up here."
She thought she heard him laugh and was pleased that he wasn't the type of person who clung to relentless grimness in sticky situations. Over the years, Crysta had found that a well-timed joke could make unpleasant circumstances a little easier to handle.
"Did Derrick ever mention to you that he wanted you and I to get together?" Sam called softly up to her.
Precariously straddling the wire fence, Crysta registered the question with puzzlement. "How on earth is that significant right now?"
"I was just thinking that he was right—we make a great team," he called back in a teasing tone.
At the moment, teamwork was the furthest thing from Crysta's mind. A sharp steel prong was biting through his jacket into her bottom. She gazed at the ground, which seemed a lot farther down on her side than it had on Sam's. To divert herself from the very real possibility that she might twist an ankle while jumping, she opted to focus on something unlikely. "What if they have Dobermans guarding the yard?"
"You read too many mysteries. Just jump."
"I do not." Crysta swallowed. Heights had always bothered her.
"If there are dogs, I'll hop over and play Tarzan. Jump, Crysta. If I try to come over while you're hanging up there, that barbed wire will cut you to pieces."
"It already is."
As carefully as she could, Crysta swung her other leg over and pushed off, suddenly airborne. An instant later, her flight came to an abrupt end when she hit the ground.
"I said to land on your feet! Are you all right?"
Crysta scrambled up, brushing dirt off her jeans. "So far. Hurry, would you?" She glanced over her shoulder, lowering her voice. "Someone's going to see us."
He chuckled. "You just don't want to be supper for a pack of Dobermans without me."
With amazing agility for so large a man, Sam scaled the fence. Never touching his torso to the barbed wire, he braced hand and foot on the top string and vaulted, landing beside her with far more grace than she had displayed. He tugged his jacket down from the top of the fence and pulled it on.
He flashed her a grin. "Jealous?"
"Since fence-climbing isn't on my list of necessary accomplishments, no. I only resent the fact that you didn't become a human pincushion up there." She fell into step beside him, rubbing the back of her leg. "That stuff is wicked."
His expression turned serious. "Are you okay?"
Crysta threw a worried glance at the fence. "I was until I looked up and saw that barbed wire from this side. How will we ever get out over that guard?"
"I'll find something for us to stand on."
As they rounded the comer of a storage building, they were confronted by a bounding, snarling Rottweiler, fangs gleaming. The dog, which at a quick guess weighed at least a hundred and fifty pounds, spotted them and came to a fast halt, swinging his massive head and snapping the air. Crysta's legs turned to water.
"Get behind me. Move slowly," Sam commanded in a smooth, silky voice.
Crysta was too frightened to move. Sam settled the matter by
stepping forward and sideways, putting himself between her and the dog. Then, to Crysta's absolute horror, her protector sank to his knees, commanding her to do likewise. If she was going to be eaten alive, she wanted to die running.
"I said get down," Sam whispered. "Put your palms on your knees. It's a nonthreatening position."
Shaking, Crysta dropped as if someone had dealt a blow to the backs of her legs. The Rottweiler tipped his head and threw one ear forward, clearly perplexed. After studying them a moment, he licked a string of foamy slobber from his chops and sat down, whining in bewilderment.
"Good dog," Sam praised him gently. Very slowly, he lifted his arm, hand dangling at the wrist. "Come here, boy. Let's get to know each other, hm? Come on."
The Rottweiler snarled. Crysta's skin prickled. What if there was more than one dog? She longed to look behind them but was too scared.
"Speak to him," Sam ordered.
Crysta's throat closed off. Working her mouth, all she could manage was a squeaky "Hello, doggie."
The Rottweiler barked, a deep, soul-shaking bark that made Crysta jerk. Then, as if he had looked them over to his satisfaction and judged them to be trustworthy, the dog stood and slowly approached, twisting his hindquarters about in what Crysta presumed was an attempt to wag his bobbed tail. Upon reaching Sam, the animal lowered his head and whined, bringing his nose up under Sam's palm. Sam visibly relaxed and smiled, accommodating the dog by scratching him behind his floppy ears.
"Some watchdog you are," he said with a laugh.
"Some Tarzan you are," Crysta inserted. "Down on your knees."
She placed a shaky hand on the Rottweiler's squared head, smiling in spite of herself. "Aren't you a nice doggie."
The creature responded by bathing her face with kisses. Crysta reared back, trying to protect her mouth. The dog butted her, and she nearly toppled. Sam grinned and rose to his feet.