by Linda Turner
Chapter 9
“You are so dead, Tremaine,” Tori muttered between gritted teeth.
The volume of the threat was muffled by the three hair dryers pointed in her direction. And it didn’t lack conviction, despite repetition. It was at least the third time in the past hour and a half that she’d threatened him with grave bodily harm.
Sipping at a very decent complimentary Chardonnay, James realized with a faint start of surprise that he was actually enjoying himself. Oh, there had been a few pangs of guilt when he’d noted the look of sheer terror on her face after he’d delivered her to the tender mercies of Claude—no last name needed—and his associates. He’d much preferred the mutinous expression that had followed when he and New Orleans’s leading and most temperamental hairstylist had discussed the styles that would suit her best. Or the lethal looks she’d shot at the women busily doing her manicure.
“Relax. Think of it as a disguise.” Temper, he noted, turned her eyes nearly gold.
“And so much less conspicuous than a rubber nose and multicolored wig.”
Being a cautious man, he carefully hid his grin behind his glass. The dryers shut off, and Claude wielded a styling brush with almost frightening competency. She would recognize the wisdom of the makeover once she got over her fit of pique. When one confronted the enemy, it paid to take him unaware, to don the mask that would be expected, and use it to disguise your real intent.
Certainly that was what his enemy appeared to be doing, and fairly successfully.
The truth of the thought burned, but it couldn’t be denied. Whoever was behind the messages could easily be someone who knew him well. Perhaps someone he did business with. Even trusted. Whoever was threatening him was going to be destroyed. That wasn’t a vow, it was a fact. It remained to be seen whether he’d be destroying friend or stranger.
“Monsieur?” Claude whirled Tori’s chair toward him and whipped off her cape with a flourish. James surveyed her critically. The new length suited her, he thought, barely topping her shoulders in a sleek style that had required deft styling and straightening. He’d ordered the color to be left alone, and commended himself on the decision now.
“Well done.”
Tori bolted from the chair and strode toward the door. “Wait.” He followed her, used his automatic start to turn the car on and the alarm off, then handed her the keys. “I expect it to still be there when I get out.”
“No problem.” She bared her teeth. “You could save me some trouble by lying down in front of it when you come out, though.”
Wincing, he turned to write Claude a very generous check to compensate him for staying open late. The man looked at it, then beamed, followed him to the door. “Anytime, Mr. Tremaine. It is my pleasure to serve you. You have but to call.”
Somehow James was certain that “pleasure” wasn’t what he was going to have in store for him on the way back to Tori’s house. He went to rejoin her at the car, and found it running, with the hood up and Tori bent, quite delectably over the engine. “It misses just a bit when it idles, do you hear that?” Although she didn’t straighten to look at him, he cocked his head obediently and listened, heard nothing but a car engine running. “Your spark plugs don’t look corroded but the points may need cleaning. I can take care of that when we get back to my place if you want.”
“That’s…ah…a very generous offer,” he said bemusedly, watching her thrust her fingers into the unidentifiable tangle of machinery without a care to the ensuing damage to her one-hundred-dollar manicure. “But it’s almost dark. Maybe we could put that off for now.”
She didn’t respond right away, which gave him time to appreciate the very feminine backside defined by her position. The casual clothing she favored did a masterful job of hiding the curves of her long, lean build. Crossing his arms, he angled his head for a better view. “Or, you could take your time, if you prefer. I’m in no hurry.”
Reluctantly Tori backed out from beneath the hood and straightened. Taking the handkerchief he held toward her, she said, “Well, okay, but you aren’t going to want to wait too long on something like this. Regular tune-ups really pay off in the long run.” Absently she wiped her hands on the handkerchief and handed it back to him, a part of her mourning when he slammed down the hood. There was no telling when she’d get her hands on an engine like this one again.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He waited to get in the car before continuing, “But if allowing you to tinker with my car is all it takes to distract you from your earlier death threats, I’ll count it as an action well worth it.”
“Hmph. Well.” She yanked her seat belt on, snapped it securely. “High-handed seems to be your MO, but I can’t say I’m surprised, all in all.”
He waited several moments for a break to appear in the heavy traffic before pulling away from the curb. “People will be less apt to give your presence with me a second thought if you look the part.” He allowed a meaningful pause to pass. “Whatever that part turns out to be.”
She lifted a shoulder, slid down to a more comfortable position in the seat. “Your attitude doesn’t surprise me.”
“And that’s supposed to mean…”
Tori lifted a shoulder, as if it didn’t matter. She wished, more than was comfortable, that it didn’t. “Let’s just say, I’m familiar with your type. Appearances mean everything to guys like you. What people think. What they say about you. I was married to a guy a lot like that. I was expected to transform myself into someone that would suit his idea of a fitting wife.”
“You’ve been married.”
The way he said it wasn’t a question, but still spoke of surprise. Slanting him a glance, she wondered at the cause for it. A person didn’t have to be a P.I. to figure that out since she didn’t share her dad’s last name. “To a guy who thought he could change me into a simpering debutante in twelve easy steps.”
“And you think that’s what I’m doing here.”
Pushing aside the edge of disappointment that threatened to well, she said, “Hey, don’t sweat it. You probably can’t help being that way. It’s the money or something, I don’t know. But just for future reference, I’ve been through one major silk-purse-out-of-a-sow’s-ear operation. Like the rest of my marriage, it was a miserable failure. You might want to consider that before you decide just what ‘part’ I’m to play in the next few days.”
He was quiet for a few minutes, long enough to have her regretting her unusual openness. The last thing she wanted to do was to let James Tremaine into her head.
But when he spoke again, there was genuine puzzlement in his voice. “Why do people get married if they just want to change their spouse into someone or something else?”
She gave a startled laugh. That was, and had been, the million-dollar question for the twenty-eight excruciating months of her marriage. “He seemed satisfied while we were in college. We had a lot in common—we were both on scholarships, and we were only children. But when we went back to Dallas, back to his family, his friends, his social group…” She shrugged. “The contrast was too much for him. And I couldn’t be what he wanted.” That fact had hurt far more than his infidelity. Because she’d tried. The memory of her attempts to meet with his approval could still make her squirm. She’d lost a healthy dose of her self-respect along the way. Although time had eased the pain of her shattered marriage, it hadn’t dimmed the resulting self doubts. It was difficult to trust her judgement again after she’d been so wrong about the man she’d married.
James pressed the gas pedal and turned the corner just as the light was turning yellow. “Your ex sounds like an ass.”
She laid her head back, smiled slightly as she watched the scenery pass by. “He is.” But thoughts of him didn’t wield the same sort of hurtful power they once had. He’d long since ceased to matter.
“I know people like that. They define themselves by a certain style of living, the right clothes, cars and vacation spots, as if the surface appearance is all that mat
ters.”
Without lifting her head from the soft leather headrest, she turned to face him. “As far as surface appearance goes, yours is pretty polished,” she observed dryly.
His teeth flashed. “Ah, that’s the thing about polish. It reflects back what the viewer expects to see. A smart man, or woman, cultivates that trait. Exploits it. It’s easier to take people unaware that way.”
Her eyes narrowed, half-admiringly. “That’s a very devious point of view.” Once he’d voiced it, she didn’t find his words surprising. She’d long suspected there was far more to the man than his meticulous tailoring. But what, exactly, remained a mystery.
He gave an elegant shrug. “You can’t tell me that your profession doesn’t call for the same thing. Fostering contacts, gaining their trust, requires donning a certain demeanor befitting the situation, or the people involved.”
She couldn’t dispute it. But the difference, which she didn’t bother pointing out, was that her job didn’t require her to live the pretense. Didn’t have her believing that was all there was. Not for the first time, she was convinced that there was far, far more to James Tremaine than met the eye.
With a start she realized he was pulling up across the street from her address. The curb directly in front of her house was blocked by a large truck, it’s side emblazoned with the name of a well-known boutique. Even window shopping outside the establishment made her billfold ache.
With a long-suffering sigh, she closed her eyes, wished she could transport herself elsewhere. Anywhere else. “I am not…” she enunciated precisely, “…wearing anything sleazy.”
James looked wounded. He parked, turned off the car and got out. “Would I dress you in something sleazy?”
“Yes,” she said decidedly, pushing open her car door. “If it suited your purposes, you definitely would.”
“Luckily for you, my purposes are better suited with you in styles of understated elegance.”
Even knowing it was a lost cause didn’t stop her from trying. “I’ve got my own style, Tremaine. I know what suits me.”
“Really?” He took her elbow in his hand as they went toward the house. “You couldn’t prove it with the flowered thing I found hanging in your closet. It was the only thing in there that might have been a dress, although it more closely resembled a shower curtain.” At their approach the truck doors swung open and a burly man carrying a clipboard got out the driver’s side.
Stopping in the middle of the street, she gazed at James menacingly. “You were in my closet?”
Exerting subtle pressure, he got her moving again. “I wanted to double-check sizes. You should be a perfect size six.”
“I’m a size eight.”
“Let’s see, shall we?”
“We’re looking for Tori Corbett.” The driver’s voice interrupted them. He took a pencil from behind his ear. “You her?”
Tori looked past him to where workmen were already wheeling racks and carrying boxes up the walk to her modest home. A shudder went down her spine. She detested shopping, and she absolutely loathed trying on clothes. She glanced longingly at her car, nestled snugly in the carport attached to the house. She could make it; she’d attended college on a track scholarship. Her keys were in her purse. In five minutes she could be a couple of miles away.
James stepped to her side then, effectively cutting off that means of escape. The image shattered, leaving her staring at a middle-aged man in a brown uniform, impatience stamped on his pudgy features. Gritting her teeth, she said, “Yes, I’m Tori Corbett.”
Two hours later she looked at the shambles of what used to be her living room and wanted to scream. After a great deal of strategic planning and direction from James, the workers had crammed the racks and stacked the boxes so as to leave a narrow traffic pattern through the room. Of course, she couldn’t get to the furniture or TV, but efforts to point out those details had been in vain.
The door closed behind the uniformed men, and she collapsed against a stack of boxes, knocking the lid of one loose to reveal very sheer, very exotic lingerie. With a look of horror, she dove to replace it, but not before James hooked his index finger in the strap of a daring lace teddy and drew it out to admire it.
“Nice.”
When his glance went from it to her, as if picturing her wearing it, Tori snatched it from him and crammed it back into the box, jamming the lid in place. “Somehow I don’t see how my choices in underwear can affect our investigation one way or another.”
“The investigation? No. My imagination, however…” His grin was wicked, seductive, and caused a shiver to shimmy down her spine. She damned both the cause and the reaction. “They took me seriously when I placed an order for a complete wardrobe. Can’t say that I can argue with their selections so far.”
She really, really wasn’t in the mood for exchanging suggestive witty banter with James Tremaine. To be truthful, she’d never had much experience with it, and definitely didn’t want to learn now. He’d shed his suit jacket and tie, and rolled up the sleeves of his white-on-white striped shirt. He’d pitched in and helped with the organization, and his hair wasn’t as perfectly groomed as usual. There was a lock, directly over one eye, that had tumbled free and gave him a faintly disreputable look. He appeared entirely too human and outrageously sexy. Under normal circumstances she might have found the combination nearly irresistible.
As it was, all she had to do was force her gaze away and note the clutter in her home to feel her resolve stiffen. “There is no possible way for one person to wear all this in a month, much less in the next week or so. It was a waste of money. I could have just picked a couple of outfits up for whatever event we’ll be attending. Now I’m just going to have to mess with sending most of this stuff back.”
“Actually…”
He let the sentence dangle until she looked at him again. Propping one shoulder against the wall he went on, “Since the purchases are in my name, the returns will have to be, too. They won’t accept any returns from you.”
“Of course not.”
Pretending not to notice the sarcasm in her voice, he suggested, “Why don’t you wait until tomorrow to try on the rest of this?”
Horror must have shown on her face then, because he hurriedly added, “Or not. What you’ve tried on so far fits, so the rest probably will. But it can wait until tomorrow to be put away. Just leave the tags on. That way anything you don’t use you wouldn’t have to keep if you don’t want to.”
She didn’t point out that just storing this amount of stuff was going to take up every ounce of closet space in the entire house. “Nice try, but I don’t think so. I’m going to have to spend hours going through this junk and setting aside the stuff I absolutely can’t wear.” The thought of the time it would require to do just that made her want to weep. So she bared her teeth at him and added, “Don’t worry, I’ll bill you for the hours.”
“I’d expect nothing less. But from what I’ve seen so far, there isn’t anything inappropriate in the entire collection. Remember, your goal is going to be to blend in. Think of this—” he gave an elaborate sweep of his arm “—as disguise.”
She went to one of the racks and pulled down a hanger with a very short, very low-cut cocktail dress in flaming-red sequins visible through the clear garment bag. “I’m guessing this will disguise very little, but maybe I’ll have to use my imagination.”
His smile was slow and wide and devastating. “Do. I’m certainly going to.”
She shook her head, careful to hide an answering smile. The last thing the man needed was encouragement. “I’ve discovered a new and alarming part of your personality, Tremaine. Depravity.”
His raised eyebrow didn’t dispute her observation. “I’m a man. And so will be seventy percent of the attendees at the expo. Any guy who gets a look at you in a dress like that isn’t going to be worrying about what you might be snooping into.”
Oddly enough his words cheered her. “That’s true. Maybe I’ll happen on to
some information that will clear this whole mess up.”
“Maybe.” Pushing away from the wall, he began to roll down his shirtsleeves. “In the meantime, have you heard from that friend of yours? Juicy?”
“I’ll reach out and nag him tomorrow.”
James went to the adjoining kitchen and retrieved the suit jacket and tie he’d hung over the back of one chair. She was too tired to even sneer at the care he’d taken with them. Shrugging into the jacket, he hung the tie around his neck and began moving toward the door. “You can call me after you contact him and let me know when we can see that reconstruction. I’ll want to be there.”
She followed him through the narrow pathway toward the door, a sudden thought occurring. “When was the last time you got some sleep?” Once she’d gotten home that day she’d hit the bed for a good six hours before stirring again. She was certain that he couldn’t claim the same.
“I plan on getting some. I’ll stay at the lake tonight.”
She trailed him out onto the porch and down the front steps. The night was clear, with a half-moon surrounded by a night sky of diamond-studded velvet. But any thought of enjoyment of the evening was shattered by the sight of her next-door neighbor walking quickly from his garage to his house.
Suspicion surged. “Dammit, Junior, what have you been up to?” James stopped and turned, his gaze going to the man Tori was already closing in on.
Joe Jr., neighborhood lech, affected a surprised look. “Hey, Tor, what’s up? You just get home?”
Rapidly closing the distance between them, she said between her teeth, “What were you doing in that garage?”
He hitched up his low-riding jeans with his free hand. “Hey, it’s my ma’s garage. Guess I have a right to be in there.”
“Don’t make me kick your ass again, Junior.” Reaching out, she grabbed a handful of his ribbed undershirt and yanked him closer. “So help me, if I go in there and find out you’ve set up your telescope again, you won’t be walking upright for a week.”