Susan Mallery - Cinderella For A Night

She frowned in confusion. “Of course not. I have my own car and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t make you responsible for getting me back home.” She stared directly at him. “I don’t want anything from you. I meant what I said. I stayed to make sure you were all right.”

She meant it, he thought in amazement. Cynthia didn’t want money or attention or any of the other dozen things women expected when they were with him. She had actually been worried. With no thought of personal gain. Was it possible?

“Who are you?” he asked.

She smiled. “Obviously not Cinderella. It’s after midnight and I’m still here.” She waved a foot. “Shoes and all.” She pushed the cup of coffee toward him. “Here. This is for you. One of the waiters brought it for you and I said I’d bring it in.” She gave a tiny shrug. “It was my excuse to get closer to the room with the hope of seeing for myself that you were fine.”

He settled in the chair across from hers but didn’t touch the coffee. “I appreciate your concern.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. “I have to say, this is my first society function and it didn’t go exactly as I’d pictured it.”

“We don’t usually have murders here in Grand Springs. At least not at functions like this.”

Cynthia shivered. “So those poor people are dead? How awful. Do the police know what happened?”

He pushed the coffee back toward her. “Here. Drink this. You need it more than I do.”

She hesitated, then thanked him and picked up the cup.

“The police are still working on the details,” Jonathan said.

“Do they know who the people are?” she asked before taking a drink of the coffee.

“Yes. My half brother and his wife.”

Cynthia made a soft sound, then set the cup on the table. She stretched her arm across the table and placed her hand over his. “Oh, Jonathan. I’m so terribly sorry. You must be in shock.”

She blinked and he would have sworn there were actual tears in her eyes. As if she was wounded on his behalf. Did women really cry for reasons other than manipulation?

She squeezed his fingers, then released him. “I can’t know what you’re going through right now,” she said. “No one can. I lost my stepfather three years ago. I still remember the incredible pain and sense of loss. His being gone left such an incredible hole in my life. One that will never be filled.” She sipped the coffee again. “Frank, my stepfather, was more like an older brother than a father to me. We were so close and I loved him deeply. I comfort myself with the fact that I was able to tell him that at the end.”

She gave a soft cry, then pressed her free hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “That was so thoughtless. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse by pointing out the fact that you didn’t get to tell your brother goodbye.”

A single tear trickled down her cheek. She set the cup back on the saucer and brushed away the dampness.

Jonathan watched her with the interest of an alien visitor examining an unfamiliar species. He’d heard her words, knew their meaning, yet he couldn’t relate to anything she’d said. Her grief for her stepfather was genuine, as was her compassion for him. Yet nothing she said made sense to him.

“You’re not thoughtless,” he told her. “My brother and I weren’t close.”

There was an understatement, he thought. David had embezzled millions from him and had arranged to have him killed. Other than that they’d been what…like brothers? Not in this lifetime.

“How can you not be close?” she asked. “You grew up together, didn’t you? All families are close.” She paused as if considering her statement. “Okay, maybe not all. My mom had me when she was very young and when she turned eighteen, her family threw her out of the house. Even though she had a small child to raise. So I guess I can understand about you and your brother. It just seems so sad.”

She would be more upset if she knew the truth, he thought.

She stood up and paced to the far end of the room. Once there, she turned to face him. “I don’t mean to presume, but do you have any family to help you out?”

“Help me with what?”

She folded her arms over her chest. In her ball gown and tiara she should have looked foolish. Instead he found himself thinking that she was lovely and still looked too innocent for the likes of him.

She cleared her throat. “With the arrangements. I’m only asking because, well, you’re the kind of person who is known in the community. There have been a lot of articles about you in the newspaper and none of them has mentioned family, so I thought if you were alone, if there wasn’t someone to help, I would be happy to do that. Not that I’m trying to butt in or anything.”

She spoke quickly, as if she felt she had to get all the words out before he stopped her. Her posture was faintly defensive, yet he was the one wondering what she wanted from him.

When he didn’t speak, she drew in a breath. “There’s the funeral, then your brother’s things to go through. I don’t mean legal papers or a will, but rooms and closets. I remember how hard that was for my mom. I took care of it for her.”

“I hadn’t thought of any of it,” he said truthfully. A funeral. He would have to see about that. It would be expected. And perhaps for Lisa as well. As far as he could remember, she didn’t have any family, either. “Hell.”

She was at his side in a minute. She lightly touched his arm and gazed at him with sympathetic concern. “I’m so sorry.”

Her words and her barely there physical contact were all meant to comfort. Oddly enough, he felt comforted. He almost reached out to pull her close when the door opened and Stryker walked into the room.

“I’ve got some news,” the detective said, then stopped when he saw Cynthia.

“I’ll go wait outside,” she said instantly.

Jonathan surprised them all, including himself, when he shook his head. “You can stay.”

Stryker raised his eyebrows but didn’t otherwise comment. “All right. We’ve checked out the tickets to Rio. They’re one-way only, paid in cash. No hotel reservations, but an address of a private villa. We’re looking into that. Probably arranged through friends or a real estate agent who specializes in renting to those who wish to disappear. They left money in their joint checking account, but several large transfers have come through in the past month.”

Jonathan frowned. “As if they were cashing out other accounts? Funneling funds into one central bank, then removing them?”

“Exactly. It’s going to take us a few days to trace everything back to its source.”

“What about-”

But a soft cry interrupted his question. While he and Stryker had been talking, Cynthia had moved to the side of the room. Now she leaned against the wall and clutched her stomach. All the color had faded from her face, leaving her skin faintly gray.

Jonathan hurried toward her. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” she gasped. “It hurts. One minute I was feeling fine and the next-” She moaned and dropped to her knees.

“Call an ambulance,” Jonathan instructed.

“Already on it.”

He heard Stryker speaking into his cell phone. Cynthia huddled on the floor. When he tried to move close to her, she cried out again. A sense of helplessness filled him.

“What can I do?” he asked.

She raised her head to look at him. Pain glazed her eyes. She opened her mouth, either to say something or cry out again. Instead she sucked in a breath and fainted. Jonathan caught her as she fell. He pulled her close and stroked her damp face.

First his brother and Lisa, now Cynthia.

“The ambulance is on its way,” Stryker said, crouching next to them. “How’s she doing?”

“She collapsed. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but I have a bad feeling it has something to do with everything going on here tonight.”

He looked at the detective and knew the other man shared his sense of dread about the situation. The hell of it was there was nothing either of them could do except stay with Cynthia and wait for help to arrive.

“There has to be something you can do,” Jonathan insisted, even as he knew that losing his temper wasn’t going to make the situation any better.

“Right now our goal is to keep her stable while we wait for test results,” Dr. Noah Howell said calmly. “Once we know what is causing the problem, we can start treatment. Until we’re sure, we’re at risk of doing the wrong thing by acting without knowing what’s really wrong with her.”

Jonathan had never felt more frustrated in his life. He’d spent the last several hours dealing with situations he couldn’t control and now he was faced with one more. He knew if he could just do something, he would feel better. But he wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t a doctor. He hated feeling like this.

“Is she still unconscious?” he asked.

Dr. Howell nodded. “However, under the circumstances, that’s not surprising.”

It might not be surprising, Jonathan thought grimly, but it also wasn’t very good. Since fainting at the hotel, Cynthia had not regained consciousness. He’d accompanied her to the hospital where Noah Howell had examined her. For reasons that weren’t clear to anyone, her entire body was in the process of shutting down. If they didn’t figure out what was wrong soon, she was going to die.

A sense of powerlessness filled him. What was the point of being one of the richest men in Colorado if he couldn’t save Cynthia’s life?

“I have to get back to her,” Dr. Howell said. “I’ll let you know if there’s any change.”