Read Online Red-Hot Vengeance by Sandrine Spycher - Free Book Online Page B

it have anything to do with that auction sale?” Carter looked up. “Yes, I did see you there,” Williams continued. “Lorraine’s not exactly happy with what you did to her.”
    “Lorraine? Who’s that?”
    “Officer Cowley.”
    “Oh. Well,” Carter looked above Williams’ shoulder and at the window. “Apologies, officer.”
    “Why does Vaughn want to kill you?” Williams asked again.
    Carter breathed in. “Because I sold her a fake ruby,” he said very fast so that he wouldn’t stop before the end of the sentence.
    “A fake ruby?” Williams raised an eyebrow.
    “Yes,” Carter admitted. “I made a forgery which looked just like the flower by that French dude.”
    Williams stared at him, still with his eyebrow raised. “You are exasperating,” he said, marking out each syllable.
    “Thank you,” Carter answered with the shadow of a smile.
    Williams knew he wouldn’t get anything from Carter. Not now. He got up and walked to the door. “You can keep the pillow,” he said. “I’ll see you later.” Carter watched him leave without saying anything.
    Carter cursed himself for having let his emotions show. Williams was right: that was unusual. He tried to calm down. Vaughn thought López was dead, and Farrell had vanished into thin air; thus the people he cared about were safe. And where he was, he hoped to be safe as well. But that meant he had to stay there. Carter sighed with a feeling close to despair. He felt like there was no way out. Carter was surrounded by dead ends.
    He looked at his wrists. Those things were starting be get really uncomfortable. He was pretty sure Williams and Cowley were still spying on him through the glass, so he took immense pleasure in displaying his escape skills. In a bit less than two minutes, he had dropped the first cuffs. Two more to go.
    **
    The handcuffs were piled on the table when Cowley came in. She stared at them and then at Carter. He lifted his hands, giving her a ta-daa look. Cowley dropped a file on the table. She was still fixing Carter coldly, but he held her look without a flinch.
    “How long did it take?” Cowley asked with curiosity, pointing at the handcuffs.
    “About two minutes each. Weren’t you watching?” he said falsely disappointed. “Had I known I was not watched, I’d be long gone from here.”
    Carter had just finished his sentence when he received Cowley’s fist in the jaw. The brutal shock as well as surprise took him off his chair. He rose from the cold ground and massaged his face.
    “Geez! You hit like a man,” he exclaimed.
    “No, better,” Cowley answered. “Most of my male colleagues hit hard, but can’t aim correctly. They always end up with bruised fingers.”
    Carter was about to talk back, but something extinguished the voice in his throat. Cowley’s comment reminded him of Farrell. It made the sting in his chest come back for half a second.
    “Sit down.” Cowley indicated the chair.
    Carter did as he was told without complaining, which made Cowley raise her eyebrows in surprise. She sat on the opposite chair and took a picture out of the file.
    “Nice,” Carter said when he saw the ruby.
    “Where is it?”
    “No idea.”
    “Seriously?”
    Carter lifted his eyes. He sat back, picked up the pillow (which had fallen when Cowley hit him), and just looked at her. “Are we really gonna talk about last year’s case?” he asked after a while.
    “Fine,” Cowley replied, playing his game. “What is it you wanna talk about?”
    “I’m sorry I hit you the other day, but you were kind of in my way, so…”
    “Are you really sorry or are you just being polite?”
    Carter grinned. “Granted,” he said.
    “Why do you have such a bad opinion about women?” Cowley asked, taking him aback.
    Carter laughed. “Because they, you , have been nothing else than troublemakers in my life. All manipulative liars with the disguise of a fragile, sometimes sexy, shape. Women are either too evil or too ignorant to be