Shadows At Sunset Read Free Page A

usual.
    â€œI’ll talk to my father when he gets back,” she said coolly, reaching for her purse. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Coltrane.”
    â€œColtrane will do,” he said. “And you haven’t finished with my help. You can’t get out of here without me.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œThe place has a top-of-the-line security system. No one can get in or out without the code once it’s past seven. It’s seven-fifteen, and I don’t think you have the code, do you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œAnd where did you park your car? In the garage in the building, right? There’s no other place to park around here. You won’t be able to get in there without a different code. If you want to get home tonight you’re going to need my help.”
    She would have said this was all some evil plan on the part of fate, but she didn’t tend to think fate had that much interest in one Jilly Meyer. She stared at Coltrane, her eyes narrowed as she considered her alternatives. She could call Dean, but he often ignored the telephone. Besides, he might be too drunk to answer, and she certainly didn’t want him driving to pick her up. God knew where Rachel-Ann was. And it had been so long since Jilly had been to the Meyer building that she no longer knew anyone who worked there who might be able to help her, with the exception of the draconian Mrs. Afton, and even Coltrane was preferable to the gorgon.
    â€œI’d like to leave,” she said in a steady voice. “Now.”
    â€œAnd you’d like my help? Pretty please?”
    â€œYes,” she said, hoping there was a special place in hell for men like him.
    â€œMy pleasure.” He flicked off the lights, plunging them into unexpected darkness just as she started toward him, and she almost slammed into him in her hurry to get out of there. Some blessed radar stopped her seconds before she did, but she was close enough to brush against his jacket, to feel his body heat in the enclosed area. It was unnerving.
    But she had learned years ago not to let her unease show, and she stopped, following him at a more reasonable pace, determined to keep her distance. Trust Jackson to put her at a disadvantage, she thought sourly. Not only did he ignore his daughter, but he sent The Enemy to deal with her. If she hadn’t been pissed off before she was pissed off now.
    The place was completely deserted, an astonishing circumstance. Jackson Meyer encouraged his employees to work long and hard, and he usually matched them in overtime. But there didn’t appear to be a soul left in the building as she followed Coltrane past the ghostly forms of neat desks, empty offices, echoing cubicles.
    She had no idea what the people who worked at those desks actually did, any more than she knew how her father made his money. Meyer Enterprises had been her grandfather’s company. He’d started out in real estate in the 1940s, buying huge tracts of land, derelict factories and ruined mansions. The place where Jilly lived with her two siblings was one of the old man’s last acquisitions before he died in the early 1960s, the only building that hadn’t been razed and redeveloped to benefit the endless coffers of Meyer Enterprises.
    And it never would be if Jilly had anything to say about it. It was one of the few things temporarily beyond her father’s greedy reach. Jackson Dean Meyer and his mother had had a falling out, and while Julia Meyer hadn’t been able to deed La Casa de Sombras to her three grandchildren outright, she’d still managed to keep Jackson away from it. It belonged to the three of them, Jilly, Dean and Rachel-Ann, for as long as even one of them wanted to live there. The moment the last one moved out it would revert to Jackson, and he’d have it torn down.
    He’d been trying to get them out for years. Threats, bribery, anger had made Dean and Rachel-Ann waver. But Jilly was