Quiver (a Suspenseful Romance Novel) by Emilia Beaumont Read Free Book Online Page B

entered the code 2-3-5-7-8 and pressed submit.
    “Please be right, please be right,” I chanted, waiting and willing the red light to turn off.
    The alarm chirped and the whole panel turned a quiet, calm green. I couldn’t believe my luck and slumped against the wall behind me.
    Realising I couldn’t waste any more time, I sprang upright and rushed up the stairs like a startled rabbit. I didn’t know what I was looking for - ever since the encounter, I’d studied each invoice and docket that came across my desk, but nothing seemed relevant, just everyday bills and orders. I made copies to disguise my search, so it seemed to my colleagues that I was busy.
    I entered Max’s cool, spacious office, which had large sash windows that overlooked the rear of the building. I was determined in my quest to prove the investigator wrong; Max wasn’t the type to be involved in anything illegal or dodgy. The office was still, and no noise travelled up from the front street. Max had set the desk in the middle of the room, and it was meticulously tidy. Everything, including the mounds of paper-clips, had its own space on the desk. Each pile of paperwork or stationery was like a secluded island; the wood of the polished desk flowed in between them like the sea, connecting them all.
    My head started to pound, the effects of cheap house wine kicking in, as I set about searching for anything I could find, beginning at the desk. Sitting down, I turned on the desk lamp and pulled open the top drawer. I carefully stacked its contents on my lap, upside down so that I could easily return them all in the correct order back into the drawer.
    As I made my way down through each drawer, I came across nothing that stood out. Only piles and piles of the same regular invoices and paperwork that I dealt with during the monotony of my working day.
    I placed it all back into the drawers, both frustrated and relieved, and I looked about the room. Spotting the cupboard in the corner, I quickly opened it, hoping not to find anything untoward. Imagining stacks of drugs, like in the movies, I was delighted that it contained only a vacuum cleaner, its handle propped upright, and a few dusty cleaning supplies standing like tired soldiers on a make-do shelf that’d been wedged and hastily nailed to the side wall.
    Exhaustion was setting in; there was nothing to find here and nowhere else to look. This was the only enclosed and private room in the office. All the filing cabinets were out on the main floor which we all shared, and I’d already checked them anyway.
    The handsome investigator had lied to me. Damn him!
    With the intention of leaving, I walked back into the middle of the room but noticed a small glinting keyhole set into the middle part of the desk… what looked to be a hidden drawer.
    My hands immediately went to pull it open, but the drawer wouldn’t budge. I rattled it again; it was locked. A locked drawer indicated that Max wanted to keep something hidden, and I wanted know what. I searched the corners of the drawers I’d already gone through for signs of a small key… nothing but lint and dust.
    I scoured the desk, hoping Max did not keep the key on him. I investigated the paperweights and ornaments without caring about their original placements when I put them down. I glanced over the pile of paper-clips in a small open tin - surely not, I thought. I swished my finger in the tin, prodding and moving the clips around. To my surprise, buried right at the bottom, a glint of brass, with its aging colour, shone through between the silver haystack maze of paper-clips. Plucking it between my fingers, I grinned like I’d just won a fairground prize.
    I didn’t waste any time getting it into the keyhole, and with a gentle clunk, the lock mechanism inside allowed me entry. The drawer slid out on its greased rails, and I gasped as I saw the contents.
    “Please, no,” I whispered. What had Max gotten himself into?
    Two black handguns rested upon