The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception

by Linda Turner

  Steaming, she walked over to the kitchen wall phone, snatched it up, and punched in the number for information. Seconds later, she had his phone number and address. Scowling down at them, she started to call him, only to hang up before she completed the call. No, she thought, her brown eyes narrowing dangerously. Some things were better said in person. Not giving herself time to question the wisdom of her actions, she grabbed her purse and car keys and headed for the door.

  Blake and his grandfather were in the middle of watching a baseball game and arguing over which was the better team when the doorbell rang. Seconds later, someone pounded angrily on the front door. The old man arched a brow and said dryly, “Somebody sounds madder than a hornet. You expecting company?”

  “Nope. Not that I know of.” Pushing to his feet, Blake strode over to the apartment’s front door and peeked through the peephole. At the sight of Sabrina standing there, glaring up at him as if she could see him through the door, he started to grin. Evidently, she’d found out that he’d been asking around about her, and she was more than a little ticked about it. He could practically see the steam pouring from her ears.

  Pulling open the door, he made no attempt to hide his grin. “Well, well,” he drawled. “If it isn’t Ms. Jones. And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

  Giving him a look that should have turned him to stone where he stood, she didn’t wait for an invitation to come inside, but simply stepped around him and whirled to let him have it with both barrels. “All I can say for you, Nickels, is you’ve got a hell of a nerve. How dare you badger my neighbors and friends about me and pretend to be concerned about my safety when all you were really after was a damn story! Of all the low-down, underhanded, despicable—”

  “You tell him, missy,” an unfamiliar gravelly voice said encouragingly from behind her. “He ought to be ashamed of himself, and if he wasn’t too big to take a switch to, I’d do it for you.”

  Startled, Sabrina jerked around to find an old man seated in a rocker in front of the television and obviously enjoying her tirade. Mortified, she blushed all the way to her toes. Driving over there, all she’d been able to think about was what she was going to say to Blake when she saw him, and like an idiot, she hadn’t even stopped to make sure they were alone.

  Wishing she had a hole to climb into, she said stiffly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you sitting there.”

  “That’s all right.” He chuckled, rising to his feet. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard a woman give a man a piece of her mind. I enjoyed it.” Offering his hand, he stared down at her with sparkling green eyes that reminded her of Blake’s. “I’m Damon Finnigan, Blake’s grandfather. Most people call me Pop. You must be Sabrina Jones. I’ve read your stuff. It’s good.”

  Surprised, Sabrina blinked. “You read the Daily Record?”

  “He likes to keep up with my competition,” Blake confided as he shut the front door and strolled over to join them. “He’s one of your biggest cheerleaders.”

  “You’re damn right,” the old man agreed, giving Sabrina a playful wink. “If I was just a little bit younger, I’d give this young rascal here a run for his money.”

  “Pop—”

  “A run for his money?” Sabrina echoed in confusion, frowning. “What—”

  “Pop likes to tease,” Blake said, shooting the old man a hard look that should have shut him up. It didn’t.

  Unrepentant, his grin daring, his grandfather only laughed. “It’s one of my better talents, but I know a pretty woman when I see one. And so does Blake. He told me you were pretty, and he was right.”

  Swallowing a groan, Blake wanted to strangle him, but Pop had had his say and was obviously content to leave while he was ahead. “Well, I guess I’d better get out of here and let you two talk,” he said cheerfully, heading for the door. “I need to get home anyway. I don’t like to drive after dark.”

  “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Finnigan,” Sabrina called after him.

  “You, too, missy. And it’s Pop. Mr. Finnigan’s that old man that used to be my granddad.”

  With a promise to call Blake later, he shut the door on his way out, leaving behind a silence that all but hummed. Her temper now under control, Sabrina let the silence stretch a full minute before she said coolly, “I like your grandfather. He’s sweet. Too bad you don’t take after him more.”

  A dimple in his cheek flashing, Blake chuckled. “Actually, I’ve been told I’m just like him. I guess you’ll have to get to know us both better, though, before you see the similarities.”

  “Fat chance, Nickels,” she retorted. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I didn’t come here to be sociable. Especially with a rat like you.”

  Instead of insulting him, her hostility only seemed to amuse him. “No kidding? Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  “You are the most aggravating—”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Sneaky—”

  “I know,” he agreed cheerfully. “It’s deplorable, isn’t it? But my mother swears that once you get used to it, it’s one of my more endearing qualities.”

  Her lips pressed tightly together, Sabrina swore she wasn’t going to laugh. Damn the man, how was she supposed to tell him off when he agreed with everything she said? Stiffening her spine, she said through her teeth, “If that’s an invitation, thanks but no thanks. I’d just as soon cozy up to a snake. Any man who would go behind my back and grill my neighbors about me and the men in my life is a—”

  “Damn good reporter,” he finished for her easily. “Of course, I could have come to you for that information, but somehow I don’t think you would have told me that you spend your Saturday nights in bed with a good book.”

  “You’re darn right I wouldn’t have! Because it’s none of your business. And who said that about me, anyway?” she demanded huffily. “I have lots of friends and go somewhere almost every weekend.”

  “We’re not talking about friends here, sweetheart, but boyfriends. You know…men? Those good-looking, superior creatures who take a woman out, wine her and dine her, and sometimes want something more than a peck on the cheek in return? If you had any contact in the past with the pushy sort and offended him, he just might be the kind to hold a grudge and go after you and all the other women who gave him the cold shoulder over the years.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I am not the story here.”

  “Aren’t you?” he asked quietly. “Think about it. If any other woman but you had gotten the letter, you would be asking the same questions of her neighbors that I asked of yours. There’s got to be a personal link. If all the killer wanted was a forum to express his view, he could have sent the note to the editor for the letters column. But he didn’t. As far as we know, he hand-delivered it to you personally. There’s got to be a reason for that.”

  He had a point, one that made her more than a little nervous and irritated her at one and the same time. Tamping down the uneasiness that stirred in her stomach, she turned away to pace restlessly. “This is all just conjecture. It has to be. Don’t you think I would know if someone I knew was capable of murder?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” he said with a shrug. “Psychopaths are damn clever.”

  “But I don’t know any psychopaths.”

  “Not that you know of, anyway.”

  “Dammit, Blake, stop that! I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work.”

  “Oh, really? And what am I doing?”

  “You’re trying to distract me from the real issue here, which is you poking your nose into my life. It’s got to stop.”

  His eyes searching hers, Blake couldn’t believe she was serious, but there was no doubting her sincerity. She actually expected him to walk away from what could be the story of the decade because she asked him to. Roguish humor tugging up the corners of his mouth, he said, “Sorry, sweetheart. No can do.”

  “What do you mean…no can do? Of course you can! If you really want to find the murde
rer, go talk to the friends and family of those poor dead girls. That’s where the story is.”

  “Bull. You’re the story, Sabrina. We both know it—you just don’t want to admit it because it scares you to death.”

  “That’s not true! I’ve never been afraid of anything in my life.”

  “Well, you’d better be,” he growled, stepping toward her. “Because a little healthy fear keeps people like you and me alive. Whether you want to admit it or not, someone out there means you harm. Until I find out why the killer sent you that note and who he is, everything about you is my business.”

  “The hell it is!”

  “And if you don’t like it, that’s just too damn bad. Get used to it. I’m a hell of a good investigative reporter, so if you’ve got a secret, I’ll warn you right now that I mean to find out what it is. By the time I get through with checking you out, honey, there won’t be a panhandler on the street you’ve given a dollar to that I won’t know about.”

  She swore at him then, highly imaginative curses that didn’t include a single curse word but put him in his place, nonetheless. Against his will, he couldn’t help but notice that she was something to see when she had her dander up. Temper blazed in her dark eyes, and twin flags of color burned in her cheeks. Dressed in a red dress that would have looked like a sack on another woman but somehow seemed to emphasize her every curve, she looked soft and feminine and full of fire. And he couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted a woman so badly.

  The thought caught him off guard, killing the grin that curled his lips. This wasn’t the time to even think about getting romantic with a woman. Especially this woman, he told himself firmly. She wasn’t in the mood. Hell, she was practically spitting daggers at him and would probably scratch his eyes out if he so much as touched her.

  But even as he ordered himself to back away from her, he was eliminating the distance between them, as drawn to her as a moth to the scorching heat of a candle. And something of his intent must have gotten through to her because she faltered suddenly, her eyes wide, as he reached for her. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving in to temptation,” he said with a devilish grin, and hauled her into his arms. Before she could do anything but stiffen and gasp in outrage, his mouth was hot and hungry on hers.

  He’d only meant to catch her by surprise and steal a kiss that would shut her up, but the second his lips touched hers, there was a spark of heat, a flash of desire that caught fire like a gasoline spill, and in the next instant, he felt like he was going up in flames. Burning for more than just a taste of her, he could have no more stepped away from her than he could have cut off his right arm. Her name a prayer, a curse, on his lips, he dragged her closer and gave in to the need that had the blood roaring in his ears.

  Stunned, her head spinning and her knees threatening to buckle at any second, Sabrina clutched at him like a drowning woman going under for the last time. Trying to hang on to her common sense, she told herself that they had been headed for this from the second they met. Every time their eyes met, the attraction was there like a tiger hiding in the shadows, waiting to spring. She could handle it. She could handle him. Or so she’d tried to tell herself.

  But now, caught tight against him, every nerve ending she had throbbing from his closeness, she felt as giddy as a young girl being kissed, really kissed, for the first time. All her senses were attuned to him…his hardness, the feel of his heart slamming against hers, the underlying tenderness of his kiss, the rush of his hands over her. And with every slow, intoxicating rub of his tongue against hers, the craving that he stirred in her grew stronger, hotter. Her lungs straining, something deep inside her just seeming to melt, she crowded closer, aching for more.

  How long they stood there, lost in each other’s arms, she couldn’t have said. Magic engulfed them, holding the world at bay, and she was entranced. But it couldn’t last. His breathing as hard as hers, he wrenched his mouth from hers, glazed eyes sharpened, and suddenly they were both staring at each other in disbelief as reality returned with a painful jolt.

  Dear God, what was she doing? This was Blake Nickels, her adversary, the man who could irritate her faster than anyone else she’d ever known, and she’d kissed him like an old maid who’d been given one shot at Prince Charming.

  Stunned, her cheeks on fire, she never remembered moving, but suddenly half the distance of the room was between them and it wasn’t nearly enough. She had a horrible feeling that putting the entire state of Texas between them wouldn’t have been enough. She could still taste him, still feel him against her, still draw in the spicy male scent of him with every breath she took.

  And that frightened her more than a dozen notes from a killer. “I don’t know what you think you were doing, but if you ever do that again, you’re liable to lose a lip, not to mention a finger or two.”

  As shaken as she, Blake knew he should have taken the warning to heart and gotten the hell out of there while he still could. But the lady had just thrown down a gauntlet that no man with any blood in his veins could walk away from.

  His green eyes alight with wicked laughter, he took a step toward her. “I don’t know about you, sweetheart, but that sounds like a dare to me.”

  “Dammit, Blake, you stay away from me!”

  “Make me,” he said softly, and reached for her.

  Ready for him, she made a break for the front door, but she never made it. On the television, the baseball game was interrupted by a special report, and they both instinctively turned to catch it.

  “We interrupt scheduled programming for this breaking news story,” the local ABC anchorman announced somberly. “There has been another murder of a young professional woman. The police are still investigating the scene in the four-hundred block of San Pedro, but preliminary reports indicate that the murder appears to be similar to that of Tanya Bishop and Charlene McClintock. We hope to have more details at ten. At this time, we return to regularly scheduled programming.”

  Stunned, Blake and Sabrina stared at each other. A split second later, they were running for the door.

  Chapter 4

  Her name was Elizabeth Reagan. She was a twenty-eight-year-old loan officer for one of the city’s oldest and most successful banks. She made good money, had a lot of friends, and had a reputation for giving the shirt off her back to anyone in need. And she was dead, killed by a single bullet to the heart in her own living room while “Chicago Hope” played on the TV.

  Standing on the edge of the crowd that had gathered in the front yard to watch from a distance as the police investigated the crime scene, Blake questioned shaken neighbors and crying friends, but just as with the other two murders, no one had seen or heard anything. All the neighbors had apparently been home at the time, in their homes on a summer evening with their windows and doors shut and the air-conditioning on, totally oblivious to what was going on at Elizabeth’s house. Apparently, someone had walked in and shot her and not even a dog had barked a warning. She might have lain there for hours, staring glassy-eyed at her living-room ceiling, if the elderly woman across the street, a Mrs. Novack, hadn’t let her cat out and noticed Elizabeth’s front door standing wide open, all the lights on in the house, and her car missing from her driveway. She’d immediately called the police. It was a young rookie who’d been on the job barely a week who had made the grisly discovery and called for backup and Detective Kelly.

  Frustrated, unable to believe that three murders could take place in three weeks, apparently by the same killer, without anyone seeing anything, Blake slowly made his way through the crowd, asking the same questions over and over again. Did Ms. Reagan have any known enemies? Any old boyfriends who might hold a grudge? Any acquaintances that she’d recently argued with? And always the answer was the same. No. No. No. She was a sweet girl. Everybody loved her. Her killer couldn’t have possibly known her. It all had to be a tragic mistake—she must have surprised a burglar, who killed her and took her car.

  Kelly and th
e rest of the investigative team was still inside, but there was no sign of a break-in or forced entry, and nothing but the car seemed to be missing. Blake had barely finished questioning Mrs. Novack about whether or not the vehicle had been there at all that evening when a pale and drawn teenager pushed his way through the crowd and announced to the police that he was Elizabeth’s brother. He’d borrowed her car for a date after she got home from work and was, apparently, the last person who’d seen her alive. He, like everyone else, didn’t have a clue as to who could have killed her.

  Frowning, Blake searched the crowd of neighbors for Sabrina and finally found her talking to a young mother who was standing in the shadows under a magnolia tree, a curly-haired toddler clutched protectively in her arms. Throwing questions at her, Sabrina obviously wasn’t having any better luck than he was. The woman just kept shaking her head and wiping at the tears that trailed down her ashen cheeks. As he watched, Sabrina touched her arm in sympathy, but when she turned away, her jaw was clenched with frustration. He knew just exactly how she felt.

  Reading over the few facts he’d been able to gather, he swore. There just wasn’t much to go on. And what little he had been able to find out, he didn’t like the sound of. It went without saying that the victim was a young, single professional woman. She was also, according to the neighbors, petite and slender, with a cloud of black, curly hair that cascaded down her back. From her physical appearance alone, he could have been describing Sabrina.

  His expression grim, he tried to tell himself that he was letting his imagination get the better of him. Just because the killer had left her one damn note didn’t mean he’d started picking victims who looked like her. It was just a coincidence. But Blake was a man who didn’t believe in coincidence…especially when it came to murder.