by Norah Wilson
~*~
Quigg grinned as he pulled up behind Suzannah’s car at a red light. The way her Beemer had shot out of the lot left no doubt as to her state of mind. Not that her haughty nose-in-the-air routine had left much room for misinterpretation. Damn, this was almost fun, almost worth the aggravation.
Her car surged forward again on green, and Quigg had to nail the accelerator not to get left in the dust. She’d be lucky not to get pulled over before she got home. His smile broadened. That’d be worth serious money, to see how she’d handle flashing lights in her rearview right about now.
His smile faded as he pictured the scene. She’d hate it. Hate that she’d given a cop a reason to pull her over, hate providing fodder for a little station-house gossip. She’d hate that she’d been goaded to recklessness by his yanking her chain.
Most of all, he knew she hated that he’d seen her peer out into the darkness and close the blinds, betraying an apprehension she’d deny with her last breath.
Damn, he shouldn’t have rubbed her pretty patrician nose in it. When had he become such a jerk? She was in danger, and he was getting his kicks out of needling her.
Granted, she made it easy. There was just something about that princess act of hers that made a guy want to take her down a notch or two.
Okay, maybe just guys like him.
But not anymore. He slowed and threw his right-hand turn signal on, following Suzannah onto her street. From now on, he’d be a model of restraint. No more baiting her.
By the time Quigg pulled up in Suzannah’s drive, she was already out of her car and moving toward the house, her posture regal, head held high on that aristocratic neck. Everything about her whispered wealth and breeding, while her self-assurance announced that she was a woman in control.
Except she wasn’t in control of what was happening to her now. Quigg had a mental flash of her pale face in the window at the office before she’d dropped the blind. Damn.
He climbed out of the Ford, pocketed his keys and caught up to Suzannah at the door. Wordlessly, he watched her produce her shiny new house key, insert it in the lock and open the door. He followed her inside, holding the door open a moment to inspect the lock. Good choice. It wouldn’t be easily picked or drilled. The floating collar around it made it impossible to get a grip on with pliers. Even an expert lockpick would probably take one look at it and move on to likelier prospects.
“Will it do?”
He closed the door, turning the deadbolt. “Yeah.”
She nodded curtly, quite a feat considering she managed to accomplish it without lowering her nose. “Then let’s get on with it, shall we? I’m sure you have better things to do.”
You got that right, lady, he thought, stung by her cool tone. There are plenty of places I could go where I’d be welcome. Plenty of places.
Instead of letting his irritation show, he smiled, his slowest, laziest smile. “It’s best not to rush these things,” dropping his voice an octave. “No telling what a man could miss out on if he goes too fast.”
For the briefest of seconds, something in her answered his blatant sexual innuendo, a flash of naked heat in those pale blue eyes. She smothered it quickly, but not quickly enough to stop the jolt of adrenaline that ripped through him, leaving his heart pounding.
“By all means, Columbo. Take your time.”
“You can count on it.” Casually, he made his way toward the back of the house to check the other door. He heard her move toward the kitchen.
Columbo? Is that how she saw him? Rumpled, short, middle-aged, with the face of a blood hound and a determination to match?
Quigg moved from room to room, checking the windows. Okay, maybe the image wasn’t that far off beam, except the height thing. He was not short. Not nearly as old, either. And he sure as hell hadn’t imagined the heat in her gaze a moment ago. Hell, every pore and follicle he owned felt like it had been singed by a flash fire. If she thought he looked like Columbo, then she obviously had a thing for Peter Falk –
A muffled exclamation from the kitchen drew his attention. Not distressed enough to send him barreling in there, but definitely annoyed. He finished checking the last window and headed for the kitchen, reaching it just in time to see Suzannah drop something into the garbage and close the lid. Correction, he didn’t really see her dump it. Rather, he heard it hit the bottom on the plastic-lined disposal unit with a loud thud.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. Just dumping some trash.”
Her face looked paler than it had earlier tonight when she’d peered so apprehensively out into the darkened parking lot. He strode to the garbage can. She made no move to stop him, although he sensed she wanted to. He arched an eyebrow at her, and she glared back at him as he stepped on the pedal to lift the lid. Taking his eyes off Suzannah, he dropped his gaze to see what she’d dumped so energetically.
Jesus! Roses. A whole bouquet of them. At least a dozen, he judged. But these ones were fresh, not like the abominations she’d found in her car that time. Perfect red buds, nestled among some ferns and lacy white stuff. Their delicate fragrance wafted up to him.
He lifted his gaze again to meet blue eyes gone stormy. “I take it these long-stemmed babies are unwelcome?”
She clearly deemed his question rhetorical, because she strode to the cupboard and jerked down a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Opening another cupboard, she nabbed two glasses. “Drink?”
He waved her offer off. “Your friend again?”
She nodded, poured a couple of fingers of whiskey into her glass and recapped the bottle. “Apparently, they arrived while the locksmith was working. She brought them in so they wouldn’t suffer in the sun.” She pushed a note across the counter top.
A quick look at the note verified that the locksmith had indeed carted them inside. Cripes, every man and his dog would have their prints on that vase. The stock clerk, the florist, the deliveryman, the locksmith, Suzannah. Taking a paper napkin from a holder on the counter, he folded it over the rim of the florist’s vase and lifted the arrangement out of the garbage can.
“Leave them,” she ordered when she saw what he was doing. “I don’t want to see them.”
“Suzannah, it’s evidence.”
“Evidence of what? That I’ve got an admirer?” She took a swig of the neat whiskey, swallowing it without a trace of a grimace. “I can hear the locker room patter already—Wow, I knew that Phelps broad was a bitch, but calling the cops on a poor bastard for sending her flowers? Wonder what she’da done if he was stupid enough to ask for a date?”
“Aw, hell, not this again.”
“I won’t go to the police with this, John.”
He couldn’t believe he was hearing this. “What? You said yourself you think it was the same guy. Suzannah, this guy is a serious wingnut. Has it occurred to you what he’s saying with the floral tributes? He’s showing you he can deliver good or bad, life or death.”
He saw the tremor in her hand. He also saw how quickly she lifted the old-fashioned glass to her lips to try to hide it.
“He’s delivering flowers. That’s it, that’s all.”
“He invaded your damned house.”
“Someone invaded my house,” she corrected. “There are break-ins every night of the week in this town, John. You know that.”
“Except this B & E artist didn’t help himself to anything. He just fondled your footwear.”
Her lips tightened. “By tomorrow, I’ll have this nice little alarm system to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“What about the slashed tires?”
She shrugged, took another sip of her drink. “You know my thoughts on that score.”
Quigg made a conscious effort not to grind his teeth. “And you know my thoughts on it. That wasn’t the work of a cop, and you know it.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Why won’t you face the fact that some nutcase is stalking you?”
“Someone is sending me flowers. That’s all I know.”
<
br /> “Then let’s start with that. We’ll get prints from the vase.”
“And what? Get all the florists in town to give you their prints so you can eliminate them?”
“Okay, then we start with the vase, the arrangement. How hard can it be to figure out where they came from? Once we know that, we can narrow the field down.”
“No, we can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“John, do you have any idea how many dozen red roses the florists around here send out every day? And that green vase?” She gestured to the arrangement which sat on the counter now. “It doesn’t get any more generic than that. Dozens of these orders go out every day, from dozens of shops, and every one of them looks the same. A little baby’s breath, a few ferns, and presto. They all use the same materials. It’s impossible to say where they came from.”
“But not impossible to find out which florists delivered to this address.”
“None of them have.”
He shot her a piercing look. “You’ve called?”
“Of course I called.” She rotated the glass in her hand, smoothing her fingers over the cut crystal. “I’m not being obstructionist here. I do want to know who’s doing this. But I don’t think your inquiries would get any further than mine did.”
“We could canvass the florists, see if there’s a pattern.”
She took another sip of whiskey. “You and whose army?”
“There can’t be that many florists.”
“Twenty-three in the immediate area. Probably another forty or fifty on top of that if you broaden your focus by an hour’s car travel in all directions.”
He grimaced. “Okay, what about how they get here? You think he’s delivering them personally?”
She cradled the glass in both hands as though trying to warm the contents. “I don’t know. He’s not using any of the local courier services, at least none that are talking. Could be using a taxi service. There are so many ways he could get the job done. A ten-spot for a wino, a pack of smokes for a middle-school student, a dime bag for a high-school kid.”
Quigg narrowed his eyes. “He’s delivering them himself.”
“Yes.” She looked down into the depths of her whiskey. “Yes, I think he is.”
“My God, he must be watching you, deciding whether it’ll be a live bouquet or a dead one based on your conduct.”
“Don’t you think that theory has occurred to me?” She lifted her gaze to meet his again, putting her glass down on the counter with a thump. “Though if that’s what he’s doing, I can’t for the life of me figure out what earns me a thumbs up and what earns a thumbs down. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.”
“That’s because he’s crazy,” Quigg pointed out. “Which is why you gotta phone this in, Suzannah. This is one weird duck.”
“I know you think I’m being reckless, John, but I’m not. Despite my ... aversion to relying on you guys, if I thought the cops could make headway, I’d call this in so fast your head would spin. But with all due respect, you guys aren’t going to learn anything more than I did, which is zilch. Why would I open myself to ridicule when I know there’s nothing to be gained?”
He dragged a hand through his hair. “Jesus, you got a real high opinion of us, don’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I think local police do a very good job, ninety-nine percent of the time.” A lone strand of hair had come loose from the elegant twist, and she brushed it behind her ear absently. “But I have a job to do, too, John. I know nobody down there likes me, but right now, they respect me. Some of them are maybe even a little intimidated by me in the courtroom. And that’s the way I intend to keep it. I’m not going to put that on the line unless I’m damned sure there’s something to be gained.”
“Okay, fine, you don’t want to go to the cops. Hire a P.I.”
“I already have. Several times, in fact. And no joy.” She paused to take a sip of her whiskey. “Either the caliber of the private investigators in this town is sub-par, which I doubt, or my friend is very smart. What I’ve concluded is that if I want to keep a security company on permanent payroll to sit in front of my house, my office and the court house, I can guarantee I’ll never get another floral arrangement. Of course, I’ll never know who he is, because he’s too careful to show himself.”
He glared at her. “How do you do it?”
“Do what?”
“How do you make the stupidest folly sound so damned reasonable?”
She smiled, one of those Mona Lisa smiles that made him think she knew something he didn’t. “I’m a lawyer.”
“Well, hell. What am I going to do now?”
“You’re going to finish checking the windows and doors and take your leave,” she said. “Then I’m going to lock up behind you, have a late dinner, read some case law I brought home, and go to bed.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He held up his hand when she would have interrupted. “And don’t even bother to remind me of our agreement. That was before your FTD guy reached out and touched you again. The deal’s off. You’re not staying here alone until after the alarm goes in.”
Her blue eyes cooled. “Let me guess. If I don’t invite you to stay, you’ll call your buddies and get them to sit on my house all night.”
“Or you could pack an overnight case and go to a motel for the night,” he suggested in his most reasonable tone. “Or stay with a family member.”
“I most certainly am not going to check into a motel in my own town. Can you imagine the gossip? Nor am I going to upset my mother with this.”
“Fine. Call your boyfriend, then, and tell him you’re coming for a sleepover.”
He’d thought her eyes cool before, but only because he hadn’t seen how glacial they could get. He was seeing it now.
“I don’t currently have what you so quaintly refer to as a boyfriend. But then, you knew that already, didn’t you, Detective? You’ve been poking around in my life how long?”
He grinned, which had the effect of producing a dangerous glint in her eyes. “It’s always good to have your conclusions confirmed.”
“Good? What’s good about it, I’d like to know?” She picked her glass up and drained the last bit of whiskey. “For instance, if I had a boyfriend in the picture, you wouldn’t be here right now. Or if you were, I’d get him to show you the door.” She thumped the glass down on the counter. “If I had a boyfriend front-and-center all the time, I probably wouldn’t be getting these stupid flowers in the first place.”
She grabbed the whiskey bottle, spun away and stashed it back in the cupboard.
“Of course! That’s brilliant. That’s just what you need. A high profile boyfriend.”
She opened the dishwasher and stashed her used glass inside. “Yeah, sure. Brilliant.” She closed the dishwasher with more force than was strictly necessary and turned to face him. “Let me just jump on the Internet and take care of that right now. Non-smoker preferred. Must have brawn. Brains an asset, but not strictly required. Duties include scaring off creepy stalker types.”
“Suzie, honey, your search is over.” He grinned at her expression. “You found your perfect candidate.”
“You?”
His smile broadened. “Me.”