To the Limit Read Online Free PDF Page A

his hand, far too aware of the strength and the heat and the roughness of his palm against her bare skin. "You know, I've had a bit of a rough night. If I were you, I wouldn't want to piss me off. Now get your hand off me."
     
    He gave her one of those "are you for real?" looks, then lifted his hand in an exaggerated show of submission.
     
    "You may have forgotten," he pointed out, and he didn't sound happy, "but I just got caught between a blonde and her bomber, all right? Further, I hauled your beautiful ass out of there or you'd be splattered from here to Miami by now. In my book that entitles me to more answers than you're entitled to questions.
     
    "Now obviously, we both have some kind of a... let's say vested interest in the elusive Miss C. Maybe we can be of use to each other."
     
    She didn't care if he'd walked over fire and chewed glass for her. Whatever he did now was too little too late. And she didn't trust him. "Fine. You go first."
     
    He pushed out a grunt. "Not gonna give an inch on this, are you?"
     
    "Now you're getting it."
     
    He slumped back in the booth and shook his head. "OK. Fine. I've been hired to find her."
     
    "That much I already figured. Hired by who?"
     
    "Her old man."
     
    Wrong, Eve thought, instinctively distrusting anything McClain said. Jeremy Clayborne was the stuff of legends and broad speculation. No one had seen him in years. Three years, to be exact. Word was the brilliant but eccentric businessman who'd made his fortune as, among other things, a firearms manufacturer had built the equivalent of a bunker in his twenty-story chrome and glass hexagon building in West Palm Beach. Word also had it that unlike Elvis, Clayborne had not left the building during those past three years.
     
    Three years almost to the day, in fact, that Tiffany, who had been under Eve's protection at the time, had nearly been abducted. Whatever Clayborne had been doing for the government at the time must have been big. So big that he'd insisted on and had been granted Secret Service protection for his daughter by none other than the president. Which was why Eve was on the scene in the first place.
     
    "You're telling me you spoke with Jeremy Clayborne?" she asked with enough skepticism to make him shake his head again.
     
    "No. I didn't speak to Clayborne. I spoke with Richard Edwards."
     
    OK. This, she could possibly buy. Richard Edwards was the gatekeeper of Clayborne's private fortress within a fortress that was rumored to be stocked with everything he needed to survive away from the public eye into the next millennium, regardless that he wouldn't be around to see it. Edwards, reportedly, was paid big bucks to protect his boss's privacy. He did it well.
     
    "When did you speak with Edwards?" she asked.
     
    "Last week."
     
    "Last week?"
     
    "Yeah. Seems our girl hasn't shown her face in Palm Beach for a couple of weeks—maybe three."
     
    Which was the same song Eve had been hearing all night at Club Asylum. Three weeks was a long time to be a no-show. And if Tiff really had been missing for three weeks, then Eve's speculation that it hadn't been Tiffany who had called last night was probably correct.
     
    So what did that mean? Were Tiffany's disappearance and the attempt on Eve's life two separate issues, or were they wrapped up in each other in some way?
     
    It made no sense at all that they would be. But then none of this made any sense.
     
    Why she cared what McClain thought also fell into that category, but she asked anyway. "Do you think it's possible that she was kidnapped?"
     
    "Whoa. Way off base. Edwards figures she's off on another lark, testing her boundaries, experimenting with her creativity or some such BS reserved for spoiled little rich girls who can't get their shit together."
     
    She studied McClain's face. "You just told me what Edwards thinks. What do you think?"
     
    He shrugged. "I think Edwards is right. He told me she seems to be dedicated, lately, to setting