“Tell me about it.”
“Why? Why in the hell would I want to get you involved in all this?”
He paused and briefly considered what he was about to say. He could walk away from this. She was obviously giving him the opportunity to do so. He could just say you’re right and escort her to the door and out of his life. As he looked at her, so tired, so alone, he spoke quietly and intensely.
“I want to help you.”
“That’s nice, but I really wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“How about ten years ago, Georgia, and you’re running from the cops for a murder you didn’t commit.”
She stared over at him, biting her lip. She wanted desperately to trust the man; it was an almost physiologically compelling need. And yet, as she stared down the hallway to where his study was, where she had previously seen the information he had obtained on her so easily, so quickly, the doubts came flooding back to her. Jackson was suspicious of the man. Who was he? Where had he come from? What had he done in his past life?
When she looked back over at him, he was watching her closely. He read the uncertainty, the suspicions there.
“LuAnn, I know you really don’t know me. Yet. But you can trust me.”
“I want to, Matthew. I really do. It’s just—” She stood up and started her ritualistic pacing. “It’s just that I’ve made a habit the last ten years of never trusting anyone. Anyone other than Charlie.”
“Well, Charlie’s not here, and from the looks of things, you’re not going to be able to handle this alone.”
She stiffened at the words. “You’d be surprised at what I can handle.”
“I don’t doubt that. Not at all,” he said in a sincere, if disarming, manner.
“And getting you involved means, ultimately, placing you in danger. That’s not something I want on my conscience.”
“You’d be surprised at how accustomed I am to dangerous things. And people.”
She stared at him, a glimmer of a smile on her lips. Her deep hazel eyes were intoxicating to him, calling up the fresh memory of their lovemaking.
“I still don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Then why are you here? In spite of how terrific this morning was, I doubt if you’re here for a nooner. You’ve got other things on your mind, I can tell.”
She sat back down and clasped her hands together. After thinking the matter over a minute she started speaking earnestly. “The man’s name was Thomas Donovan. He’s a reporter of some kind. He started investigating me.”
“Why? Why you? The murder?”
LuAnn hesitated before answering. “That was part of it.”
“What was the other part?”
LuAnn didn’t answer now; she looked at the floor. Imparting personal information to anyone other than Charlie went against every instinct she possessed.
Riggs decided to take a shot. “Did it have to do with the lottery?”
She slowly looked up, the astonishment starkly on her face.
“I knew your real name; something clicked. You won a hundred million dollars ten years ago, a lot of stories about you back then. Then you disappeared.”
She studied him warily, alarm bells ringing. His face, though, was one of complete sincerity, and finally that look subdued her suspicions, at least temporarily.
“Yes, I won that money.”
“So what did Donovan want? Your story on the killing?”
“Partly.”
“What was the other part?” he asked persistently.
Now the alarm bells started ringing again, and this time Riggs’s honest features did not silence them. LuAnn rose. “I’ve got to be going.”
“Come on, LuAnn. Talk to me.”
“I think I’ve said more than I should have.”
Riggs knew far more than she had already told him, but he had wanted to hear it from her. His source for the information on LuAnn had naturally desired to know why he wanted it. He had lied, or gotten close to it. He wasn’t going to give LuAnn Tyler away, at least not yet. He had no reason to trust her, and many reasons not to. But he did trust her. He did believe in her.
As her hand closed over the doorknob he called to her.