by Linda Turner
Recognition of that fact was anything but calming. Throwing back the covers, she noted that the clothes she’d shed the night before were lying in a heap on the floor beside the bed. She snagged her shirt and surveyed it resignedly. There were streaks of dirt down the front, and one sleeve was hanging by threads. Her pants weren’t in much better shape, sporting two ripped knees and covered with grime. It was difficult to say how much of the damage had been sustained when James had knocked her to the ground and covered her body with his and how much had come from the debris that had showered upon them.
That memory sparked another, and her fingers went to her head, probing tenderly. There was a sizable lump there, but she thought her hair should cover it well enough. The biggest problem right now was getting cleaned up and out of Tremaine’s house wearing little but the rags that her clothes had become.
Reaching for her purse, she dug out her phone and rang his cell number. From the look of the sun pouring in the windows, it was nearly noon. She knew him well enough to be certain that he wasn’t still in the house, enjoying some well-deserved sleep.
He answered on the second ring. “Tremaine.”
“Where are you?”
“Good morning.” His voice warmed several degrees, and so did her blood. “Did you just wake up? How are you feeling?”
“Taking inventory. I think I’ll live and if goose eggs and rags are in style, I’ll be the height of fashion.”
“If I remember correctly, the clothes need to be destroyed. Your new ones should have been delivered by now. Use the house phone to check with the maid.”
House phone. Maid. She definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore. “I’ll do that. You never told me where you are.”
“Approaching D.C. in the corporate jet. I decided to deliver the project personally.” A touch of dark humor laced his tone. “Call me paranoid, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance.”
“You had the jet thoroughly checked out?” She wasn’t able to keep the worry from her voice. She didn’t even try.
“Don’t worry, it’s secure. And I’m not alone, Jones is accompanying me. We’ll be back by the middle of the afternoon. You may as well take it easy. There’s a hot tub in your bathroom. Use it. You must be sore.”
“Thanks.” She tried and failed to remember the last time she’d sat naked in bed and talked to a man on the phone. Come to that, she tried to remember the last time she’d been naked with a man, period. And on the trail of that thought came a mental image of James in bed with her, his body as bare as her own, his skin against hers, limbs tangled, mouths melded…
The uncustomary thought had her throat closing. Where had that come from? She didn’t engage in fantasies about men she barely knew. Well, okay, Russell Crowe, maybe, but that didn’t count. She didn’t actually know him, so he was safe enough to star in the occasional X-rated daydream. Far, far safer than the man on the other end of the line, who would be all too available, all too tempting and maybe, just maybe, willing, as well. Her intuition about such things could be rusty, and God knows, it had never been too keenly edged.
“…today?”
Belatedly she realized James was talking again. “What?”
“Do you have anything planned that can’t wait until I get back today?”
“I’m going home.” She hadn’t realized just how badly she needed to until the words left her mouth. “I want to get a look at the house in the daylight, and see about repairing the windows and stuff.”
“Let me know if there’s anything you need.” There was a burst of static, before she heard him say, “…approaching Dulles now. I’ll call you later.”
“Later,” she echoed, but the line was already dead. It wasn’t until she’d lowered the phone to stare blindly at it that she managed to shake herself out of her funk and get out of bed. It definitely had to be related to the blow on the head she’d received last night, she excused herself. Because she’d never mooned over a man in her life. And she wasn’t about to start with one as totally unsuitable as James Tremaine.
Resolution filling her, she reached for the house phone, pressed the red button. “This is Tori Corbett, in—” she had no idea what room she was in “—the guest room? James ordered some deliveries…”
“Oh, yes, Ms. Corbett, they’ve arrived. Would you like them delivered to your room?”
No, definitely not. She didn’t think she could face that again. “Would you mind going through them and bringing me the most casual outfit you can find?” It shouldn’t be so hard talking to a maid, she decided, if she just pretended she was speaking to a clerk in a clothing store.
Come to think of it, that was one of the reasons she never went shopping. “Jeans, if you can find a pair.”
“Yes, Ms. Corbett.”
Hanging up the phone, she headed to the bathroom, becoming aware of a chorus of aches and pains from various parts of her body. She gritted her teeth and started thinking seriously of that hot tub James had mentioned. She may as well take advantage of it, before she called a cab and headed home. She had no intention of coming back here tonight, regardless of what James had to say about it.
Money worked magic, she mused a couple hours later, standing in front of her home. Workmen streamed in and out of the place. The windows had all been replaced, and the carpet ripped out. She wondered wryly whether James had intended to allow her to pick out new carpeting and furniture or if that would have been decided for her, too.
But when she saw one man wearing a home security logo on his uniform passing her to go back to his truck, she snagged him and asked what he was doing there.
“Orders from Mr. Tremaine, ma’am.” The worker, a tousled blonde just shy of thirty, gave her figure an approving glance before going on. “Putting in a state-of-the-art alarm system, and installing new dead bolts. The work will be finished by the end of the day, as promised.”
Clenching her jaw tightly, she nodded curtly and marched away. High-handed didn’t even begin to describe James Tremaine. He’d never know just how lucky he was to be a thousand miles away right now.
There was nothing she could do here, besides trip over the men he’d hired, so she went next door and knocked on Pauline’s door. Joe Jr. opened the door, peeked out and then made as if to shut it again.
“Wait a minute.” Tori pressed the heel of her palm against the door. “Where’s your mom?”
“Ma ain’t here. I put her on a bus to stay with her sister in Shreveport until I get things fixed up.”
Given Junior’s work ethic, Tori thought, the work could take years. “Have you called the insurance company?” Worry filled her at the financial hardship this might mean for the elderly woman. “Are they sending out an adjuster?”
“I dunno. That guy is taking care of it. At least that’s what he said.” Her expression must have been as blank as she felt because he added sullenly, “That guy you were with last night? Came by here this morning and said how he’d be sending workers over here once they’re done with your place. But then he started making threats and stuff. That is one mean dude.” A familiar whine entered his voice. “I don’t know what you’ve been telling him, but he’s got some wrong ideas about me. Dead wrong. He might dress all uptown but he’s got a vicious streak a mile wide.” The door closed a bit more. “And I’m not supposed to be within ten yards of you, he said, or else he’s coming back. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”
James had threatened Joe Jr.? Over her? It was possible to feel an undeniable warmth at his concern, she decided, while still wanting to throttle him.
“Wait.” It may have been the authoritative tone to her voice, but Joe stopped in the act of closing the door the rest of the way. “I wanted to ask you some questions about last night.”
“I don’t know nothing.” His voice was sulky, but he pulled the door open a bit more. “I told that to the cops. But if you asked me, that guy that was with you pissed someone off, big-time. And I can see how that would happen, because like I was sayi
ng, he’s…”
“…a mean dude. I remember.” She stared at the younger man, long enough to have him shifting from one bare foot to the other. “What were you doing in the garage last night, Joe?” she asked slowly, a thought beginning to form in her mind.
“Nothing.” The word was vehement. “It’s just like I told you last night, I was working on the car and I…”
“You told me last night you were fixing your mom’s radio.” She spun on her heel, jogged down the steps and toward the garage.
“No, wait!” Joe Jr. raced after her, stumbling over the hems of his low-riding jeans and nearly falling on his face. “The thing is, what you won’t understand is…”
She pushed open the door of the garage, unsurprised to see the telescope on its tripod once again. She looked from it to the slimeball standing in the doorway. “I’m really, really going to hurt you this time, Joe.”
“Don’t tell that friend of yours, he’ll kill me,” he babbled. “C’mon, I’m beggin’ ya. It’s not like I could see anything, anyway. You got curtains on all the windows. Thick ones, too.”
It took effort not to kick him in the teeth. “Why should I do you any favors?”
“Who’d take care of my ma if I wasn’t around? Huh? You gotta think of that.”
Pauline had seemed to do very well for herself until her bum of a son had shown up, but Tori left the thought unuttered. “How long were you at the telescope?”
“I wasn’t, I swear!” He hitched up the back of his pants and tried a sickly smile. “Really I was just trying to fix it and…”
“How long, Joe?”
“Oh, hmm, well just since you got home with the guy. And that truck came and I was just wondering what they were carrying in.”
“And you didn’t leave the garage until we left the house so you must have seen the guy who left the car there.” Having painted him neatly in a corner, she pounced. “What did you see, Joe? Who did you see?”
He was swinging his head wildly from side to side. “I didn’t see nothing, I swear. That big-ass truck was in the way about the whole time and I never saw the car until the truck pulled away.”
“And its driver?” she pressed. She was on to something and she knew it. She could tell by the way he began to sweat.
“I don’t know. I never saw anyone get out of the car.”
“But you saw someone, didn’t you, Joe? Something kept you in here until we left the house, and since you couldn’t see in my windows you had to be looking at something.”
The fight seemed to stream out of him them, and his shoulders slumped. At the moment he looked rather pathetic. “I was just checking out the sports car, the one that belonged to the dude, you know? And I saw a guy, but I don’t know who he was. He was just walking away, real fast like, when the truck pulled away.”
“Describe him.” Excitement began to pulse inside her. Maybe, just maybe, this would be the break they were looking for.
“A little guy. Shorter than me, about one-fifty. Bald, but not old. Had on jeans and a dark shirt.” He shrugged. “That’s all I noticed. I was looking at the car, you know?”
“And did you tell the detective this?” She already knew the answer to that question, even before seeing the hunted look on Joe Jr.’s face.
“I can’t do that. I’d have to explain how I seen him, you know? And then they’d start getting bad ideas about me, like that friend of yours.”
“You’re going to call the NOPD,” she ordered, “and ask for Detective Cade Tremaine. Then you’re going to tell him everything you just told me. Yes,” she retorted, when he began to shake his head again, “you are. I don’t care how you explain it. Tell him you’re a junior astronomer, if you want to. But you are going to talk to the detective right away. And if you don’t, the dude,” she mimicked him, “is going to come back. And he’s not going to be happy with you.”
He wasn’t eager, but he obviously feared James more than the police. After gaining his agreement to make the call and to look at some photos she promised to drop off later, she got into her car and drove to the office. It wouldn’t hurt to have him examine any pictures she could find of Cartwright and the CEOs of the other companies competing with Tremaine Technologies for this next contract. And she’d call Cade herself to suggest he have Junior take a look at the mug shots they had on file. Maybe something would pop that way.
And after she did all that, she had another stop to make. The sun was shining brightly, so she found her sunglasses and slid them on. This seemed to be her day for sleazeballs. Because she had every intention of paying another visit to Kiki Corday.
If Joe Jr. looked like an oily, wannabe Lothario, Kiki Corday reminded her of a man who’d long since traded away pride, and hadn’t missed the quality overmuch. His gut hung over his waistband, and the button-down shirt he was wearing was grease-stained. The few strands of hair that he still had were combed over his pink scalp and sprinkled heavily with dandruff. There was white powder all over his hands and dribbled down his chin. She’d obviously interrupted his brunch of Irish coffee and beignets.
The house he lived in seemed to have given up hope years ago. Even in this questionable neighborhood, his seemed to slump a bit more on its foundation. The siding seemed older. The roof sagged. She’d heard rumors that the man actually had a heck of a stash put aside. Tori thought it might be true. He sure didn’t spend anything on himself or his surroundings. The only top-of-the-line products he was interested in were cameras and photographic equipment.
Kiki pushed open the door minus a screen and greeted her with a grunt. “Yeah? You need more pictures? ’Cuz I got to thinking, I shoulda charged ya more. Those were high quality shots, every one of them.”
“Actually, I came to see if you were interested in a job.” She hadn’t run this by James, but after the decisions he’d been making for her recently, she dared him to disagree with this one. “Have you heard about the Technology Expo starting tomorrow?”
He licked the powdered sugar from his fingers. “Yeah, so? You need a press pass to get in. I already checked.” His expression went sly. “Not that I can’t get my hands on one, you understand, but there’s not likely to be anything of interest going on there, anyway.”
Meaning, he didn’t think he’d be able to sell any of the photos to a news rag. “Maybe it’d be more interesting to you if I can arrange for your admission, and pay you to take pictures.”
That piqued his interest. He held open the door. “C’mon in.” She did, gingerly. She’d been inside before, and each time the place seemed to get dingier. She could see the clutter in his kitchen from here. He’d been eating on a tray in front of the TV, she saw now. Filing cabinets lined one wall. She already knew there were more in the spare bedroom that served as his office. He never threw away a picture. That room would also be the only part of his house that he kept in halfway respectable shape.
“Here are some shots of people who’ll be there, that I’m especially interested in.” She handed him a manila envelope with duplicates of the pictures she’d shown to Joe Jr., who hadn’t seemed to recognize any of them. “I want you to mingle, seem to take pictures of everything, but the actions of these men are of particular interest. I want a shot of whoever they talk to.” She couldn’t be certain if Cartwright would be at the expo, but she’d included his photo just to be safe.
He grunted again, shook the pictures out and studied them. “How much?”
She quoted a price that had his eyes going beadier than normal. She knew it was too much when he smiled, revealing stained crooked teeth. “Sweetheart, for cash like that, I’d take pictures of myself getting up close and personal with a donkey.”
Tori didn’t have to feign the shudder that ran down her spine. “Consider this an advance against that, as well. I’ll arrange to have a pass delivered for you, and get you cleared at the door.” She edged toward the exit, anxious to be gone. After dealing with Joe Jr. and Kiki in the same day, she felt the need for another shower.
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br /> Once safely on the porch, however, another thought occurred. Speaking through the windowless door, she said, “Oh, and Kiki? Search your closet for something that might have been in style in the last decade, all right? And laundered in the last year or so.”
“You’ve been busy.”
The words seemed innocuous, but Tori was getting to know James well enough to know when he was displeased. She also knew him well enough not to care.
When she’d called Juicy earlier and prodded him about the project, he’d promised to have it done that evening. She’d relayed the information to James when he’d called, and they were on their way there now after he’d insisted on picking her up at her house, in a limo complete with driver, no less. She spent the trip filling him in on her day while trying to ignore her surroundings.
“I’ll make you a deal. You don’t rag at me for making decisions without you, and I won’t even start on what I found at my place this morning.”
He opened his mouth, then, with a quick glance at her, seemed to reconsider. “Well,” he finally said, “when you put it so charmingly… Was there something wrong with the arrangements I made? From the quick look I had, it appeared as though the workmanship was topnotch.”
For a man who’d risen to the position he had, he could be singularly dense. “It is. And though I would have preferred to be consulted before installing a new alarm and dead bolts, they seem top of the line, as well. Trouble is, I’m used to taking care of myself. And I don’t like people making decisions for me without consulting me first.”
“I’m sorry.”
The apology had her swinging her head around, gaping at him. There was a slight frown on his face, and his gorgeous profile was serious. “It’s a habit of mine, and one that regularly ticks my family off. I’m used to making judgments in my business and don’t always remember the need to consult others in—” he hesitated. “—my personal life.”