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Contents:
Prologue
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
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PROLOGUE
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She could hear herself shaking within the dark blue raincoat she had borrowed from Annie. Her telltale strawberry blond hair was twisted into a bun and tucked under Annie's hat. Annie's one-size-too-big navy pumps were on her feet. The disguise wouldn't work. Boyd would catch her. He'd stop her.
"I can't do this," she whispered.
But she opened the suite door anyway and stepped between Steve and Rick, her towering bodyguards. All one of them had to do was clamp a massive hand on her shoulder and…
Ducking her head a little, she nodded at the two stone-faced men and somehow made it to the elevator. Fingers trembling, she pushed the elevator call button once, twice, three times, and then sent up ardent, silent prayers that Rick and Steve wouldn't see the neon sign radiating around her: She's getting away! Stop her!
She heard the elevator coming, the soft clunk as it reached her floor, and surreptitiously looked around. She couldn't believe it—Rick and Steve looked bored. They were buying this!
The elevator doors slid open and she stumbled inside. She pressed the lobby button and, eyes glued to the floor, silently urged the doors to close and close now. They took a moment, then slid shut. The elevator began carrying her down through the Ritz-Carlton. Her fingers fumbled as they opened the top button of the raincoat. She grabbed her gold pendant and hung on for dear life. It had been her good luck charm for nine years. If she'd ever needed it to work, she needed it to work now.
She let herself take a breath and looked up to see her tense reflection in the brass plating of the control panel. This was insane. This couldn't possibly work.
A gentle settling, the doors opened, and she saw Boyd smiling at her.
A hand flew to her mouth to stifle her agonized cry in the same moment she realized the man wasn't Boyd. He was too tall. With a small gasp, she stumbled out into the rectangular hotel lobby, and the stranger stepped into the elevator. She looked frantically around, expecting Boyd to leap out at her from every corner. Two chandeliers cast a warm glow on framed antique tapestries and paintings. There was no one. Legs wobbling, she crossed the marble floor, not daring to even glance at the night desk clerk.
"Good evening, Miss Maguire," said the tall, discreetly muscular doorman as he held the glass front door open for her.
Pull yourself together, she ordered herself. You're almost free. She nodded at the doorman. "Evenin'," she said with Annie's faint Irish brogue.
"Would you like a cab?"
"Please."
She hadn't been on her own in nine years. She wasn't about to go walking around Manhattan alone after midnight. She wasn't that crazy, or that brave.
There weren't many cabs out at this hour, but Ritz doormen had special powers. In less than twenty seconds, a yellow taxi pulled to a stop before her at the curb. She stared at it, vibrating with excitement. She was doing it. She was really doing it! The doorman held the car door open for her and she climbed in to the cab's back seat.
"Where to, lady?" the cabbie asked with a pronounced Bronx accent.
"Jane!"
Boyd—flanked by Rick and Steve—was storming out of the Ritz lobby.
"Lock the doors! Lock the doors!" she screamed to the cabbie as she clutched at her door handle.
Boyd's ferocious face was pressed against the door window as he bellowed hateful, ugly words at her. She could feel him pulling on the door handle. He was pulling the door open. He was going to drag her back. He was going to win.
"Drive now," she yelled to the cabbie, "and there's an extra fifty in it for you!"
Tires squealed as the cab shot out into the late night traffic.
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CHAPTER ONE
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With a song in his heart, Duncan Lang stepped out of the yellow cab at the conservative dark blue awning of the Ritz-Carlton. A doorman in a conservative dark blue uniform held a glass door open for him.
"A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Lang."
"Thanks, Charlie," Duncan said with a grin at the doorman. "You've got a good memory."
"You were always a generous tipper, Mr. Lang."
Duncan chuckled. "Ah, my carefree youth. I'm afraid I'm a working stiff now, Charlie."
"Sorry to hear it, Mr. Lang."
Truth to tell, Duncan had been sorry too … until this morning's frantic phone call from Boyd Monroe.
He walked down into the small, rectangular Ritz lobby, liking its intimacy. There was a lot to be said for quiet elegance.
He stepped into the small wood-paneled elevator and rode up to the twenty-third floor, thinking about the first time he had visited the Ritz. It had been summer vacation. He'd been nineteen and riding this very elevator up to the Ritz-Carlton Suite to enjoy a midnight rendezvous with the delightfully demanding Comtesse Pichaud. They had met at one of his mother's boring parties and had … hit it off. The last time he'd visited the Ritz was over two years ago, to spend an equally delightful champagne weekend with Charmaine Relker.
As the elevator settled on the twenty-third floor, however, Duncan shoved the adventurous Miss Relker from his thoughts. He was about to embark on the first important job of his so-called career. He wasn't going to blow it by letting his mind wander libidinously through his past. Instead he was going to direct every ounce of concentration on his client. He had a lot to prove. It was time he began.
He stepped out of the elevator and walked up to the white door of the Ritz-Carlton Suite. He knocked three times and waited. Scant seconds passed before the door was jerked open by a glowering man who stood at only five feet seven inches, his body trim and compact, his graying brown hair cut almost to the scalp. He wore cowboy boots, tan slacks, a green shirt, and an innocuous brown sports coat. Most people would have walked right past him in a crowd and never noticed him.
But a life in the fast lane—no matter what his father said—had taught Duncan a thing or two. The gentleman reminded him of a German count he had met once, a control freak par excellence who had specified the exact temperature of the wine he wanted at dinner and had screamed at his waiter because the asparagus had not been arranged properly on his plate.
"Who the hell are you?" his client barked.
"I'm Duncan Lang from Colangco International, Mr. Monroe. I hope you haven't been waiting long."
"Duncan…?" Boyd Monroe sputtered. "I don't want you. I want Brandon Lang. I expect Brandon Lang!"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Monroe, but my brother is out of town on another case. I assure you that I—"
Mr. Monroe was turning an unattractive shade of vermilion. "I've heard Brandon Lang is the best and I want the best!"
Duncan had heard this song too many times in his life. "Well, you can't have him," he stated. "Brandon is contractually committed to another client. If you would like to wait for his services, I believe he'll be back in New York sometime next week. Good day, Mr. Monroe." Duncan turned away.
"No, wait!" Monroe yelled, grabbing his arm in a bone-crunching grip.
Duncan hid his smile. His years of experience wooing flighty paramours was paying off once again. "Yes?" he said.
Boyd Monroe glared at him. "I suppose you'll have to do."
"Thank you," Duncan replied, walking into the living room and glancing around. The Ritz had redecorated the suite since he had dallied with Charmaine. The living room was now mauve with white, gold-trimmed antique furniture tastefully arranged around the marble fireplace, but of course there was still the stunning Central Park view. He glanced through the terrace windows at the luxuriant ribbon of green rolling out through the heart of the
city. He hadn't really had a chance to enjoy the view on his last visit. Miss Relker had kept him much too busy.
"Sit down and let's get to work," Boyd Monroe ordered. "Jane's been gone nearly nine hours. God knows what's happened to her."
Duncan glanced at his client as he sat down on the sofa. Boyd Monroe was an overgrown bulldog. He would not be pleasant to work with.
Still, it was a job, and a big one. The Princess of Pop didn't disappear every day. He pulled from his inside coat pocket a small notebook and the Mont Blanc pen his mother had given him last Christmas, crossed one leg over the other, and adopted his most professional expression. "You said on the phone that Miss Miller left in a cab just after midnight last night?"
"That's right," Monroe grunted as he sat down in a chair opposite Duncan.
"Did you get the cab number?"
"No."
"Perhaps her bodyguards…?"
"They didn't either."
"Perhaps I could speak to them for a moment?"
"I fired them."
"Of course," Duncan murmured. The bodyguards were probably lucky they hadn't been vivisected. "You mentioned on the phone that Miss Miller wore a disguise to slip past her two bodyguards?"
"It wasn't that elaborate. Just her maid's hat and raincoat. Oh, and her shoes."
"And her maid is…?"
"Annie Maguire. It won't do you any good talking to her. She was in bed with the flu when Jane left."
"Perhaps she spoke with Miss Miller before going to bed, or heard something. I'd—"
"No," Monroe said flatly.
"Strike two," Duncan murmured softly to himself. "It would help me, Mr. Monroe, if you could go over the events of last night."
Boyd Monroe leaned back in his chair, thrust his expensive cowboy boots out before him, and scowled. It was not an attractive sight. "Jane did the last concert of her world tour at Madison Square Garden."
"Did anything happen there to upset her?"
"No."
Duncan had heard that word too many times in his life not to recognize when there was something behind it. "And after the concert?"
"We took the limo back here."
"No end-of-the-tour party? No signing autographs for devoted fans?"
"I don't allow Jane to associate with the minions, and I won't have her signing autographs. She'd be mobbed."
"I see," Duncan murmured. Minions? "During the limo ride back to the Ritz, did Miss Miller say anything to indicate that she was planning to leave?"
"Nothing. We just had the same old conversation."
"And that would be…?"
"Whenever we come to New York, she always wants to go window-shopping down Madison Avenue."
"And you said no?"
"Of course I said no!" Monroe barked. "She'd be recognized in two seconds. Besides, there wasn't time. We were going to catch a one o'clock plane back to Los Angeles today. She's supposed to walk into a recording studio tomorrow."
"A tight schedule," Duncan observed.
"She'd got to finish out her Sony contract by the end of the year, and she owes them one more album."
"Ah. Did you talk about anything else?"
Monroe shrugged in disgust. "Oh, she's been on a rag lately about changing her music. You've got to understand that I discovered her when she was seventeen and planning to become some sort of rock-and-roll hellion. I soon took care of that idiocy, but the rock-and-roll fantasy still pops up now and again. She's even been balking at signing a new contract with Sony, because she actually thinks she can cut it as a rock singer, that's how little she's grounded in reality."
From the wispy Jane Miller songs he had occasionally heard on the radio, Duncan would have to agree. The lady was not astute about her musical abilities. "Okay. And what happened when Miss Miller got back to this suite last night?"
"The usual. Annie was here and had her bath ready and her supper waiting."
"Did Miss Miller appear in any way unhappy or unlike herself?"
"Oh, she started some stupid argument about her supper."
"Her supper?"
"She'd had Annie send out for a cheeseburger, fries, and shake."
"And you said no," Duncan guessed, beginning to have a pretty good understanding of Jane Miller's manager.
"Of course I said no! I will not have her eating greasy red meat. It's disastrous for her digestion and her complexion. And she doesn't need the calories from the french fries and milk shake."
"I wasn't aware Miss Miller had a weight problem."
"She doesn't, and I intend to make sure she doesn't develop one. I had Annie order a lobster salad from room service."
"And Miss Miller objected?"
Boyd Monroe sighed heavily. "You've got to understand, Lang, that Jane Miller is basically a spoiled and demanding child. She throws a tantrum whenever she doesn't get what she wants. It's my job to make sure she doesn't get anything that will harm her. Conflict is inevitable."
"I see. Did anything else happen?"
Monroe scowled impatiently at him. "Annie placed the room service order and then went to bed. Like I said, she had the flu. I reminded Jane about today's plane and told her she could sleep in as late as she wanted this morning, then I said good night and went down the hall to my own suite."
"What made you suspect that Miss Miller was planning to leave?"
"Nothing," Monroe said in disgust. "About ten minutes later, I realized I'd forgotten to tell her about the press conference I'd scheduled for when we landed at LAX today. So I went back to her suite. It took a minute, but Annie finally answered the door, and that's when we found that Jane was missing. I dragged those two idiot bodyguards down to the lobby to try to catch her. She was getting in a cab. I shouted at her, but she drove off."
"And that's the last time you saw Miss Miller?"
"That's right."
"Did she leave any sort of a note?"
Monroe pulled a badly crumpled piece of Ritz stationery from his pocket and handed it to Duncan. It was all Duncan could do not to smile. Jane Miller's testy manager had obviously wadded the note up and hurled it against an unforgiving wall when he'd found that his bird had flown. He had probably even stomped on it a few times.
The handwriting surprised Duncan. It was tight and cramped, not at all the flowery and feminine handwriting he had expected from the renowned Princess of Pop. It was also brief and to the point.
Dear Boyd:
I told you I need a holiday and I'm taking one. I'll be riding the rails around the country for the next two weeks. Then I'll head for L.A. and cut the album. Don't worry.
Harley
"Harley?" Duncan said, handing the note back to Boyd.
"Her full name is Harley Jane Miller. I made her drop the Harley when I became her manager. It didn't convey the right image to the audience I wanted for Jane."
"Ah." Harley Jane Miller called herself Harley; her manager called her Jane. Interesting. Duncan considered his custom-made Loebs shoes for a moment. "Does she have any friends she might go to or who might help her?"
"No. Her work schedule keeps her too busy to do any socializing."
"What about family?"
"There's only her mother in Oklahoma. I called. Barbara hasn't heard from Jane since she left."
"As I understand it, Miss Miller is twenty-six years old and has just completed a three-month world tour. It makes sense that she would want to take a holiday to relax and regroup before going back into the studio to cut a new album."
"We're scheduled for a vacation in the Caribbean in three months," Monroe said flatly. "She knows that."
We? Duncan surreptitiously studied his client. Were Boyd Monroe and Jane Miller an item? He hadn't seen anything about it in the gossip rags, and they would have printed even the faintest wisp of a rumor. He noted the taut way Monroe held himself in his chair. No, from what he'd just heard and seen, Monroe was the overbearing father and Miss Miller the truculent child. Monroe wasn't using sex to hold her. He had staked everyt
hing on parental control, and it seemed to have worked, until now.
"What you don't understand, Lang," Monroe continued, "is that Jane Miller may well be twenty-six years old, but she's as innocent and naive as the day she was born. She has no idea how to take care of herself in the real world, therefore she is in danger every minute she's gone, and that's why you have to find her immediately. That means now, Lang. You've got forty-eight hours and then I call in the police."
"I don't foresee any trouble," Duncan said mildly as he stood up. "Colangco International's resources would put James Bond to shame. I'll need a recent photo of Miss Miller to begin. A publicity shot will be fine. There are undoubtedly a few shut-ins who don't know what she looks like."
"With her face plastered across a Times Square billboard?" Monroe demanded in disbelief.
"A photo would be helpful."
Grumbling, Monroe pulled an eight-by-ten glossy from his briefcase. Duncan took the picture and studied it a moment. Jane Miller's famous turquoise blue eyes stared back at him. Strawberry blond hair tumbled down past her shoulders. She looked like what her unpleasant manager said she was: a sweet, innocent, even virginal girl. Monroe was right. She'd never make it in the real world. He'd have to find her fast.
"Do you need anything else?" Mr. Monroe seemed eager to shove Duncan out the door.
"I'd like a moment to look around the suite, if you don't mind."
"You won't find anything."
It must be nice, Duncan thought, to live in such a certain world. "It'll just take a second," he said, standing up.
The living room and dining room were bare of any personal effects. The door to Annie Maguire's room was closed. The Princess of Pop's bedroom held more interest. An acoustic guitar stood in an armchair in the far corner of the room. Current issues of six different newsmagazines were stacked on one bedside table. On the other were four books, all pulled from the current nonfiction bestseller list.
"Miss Miller seems to be an avid reader," Duncan commented.
"I insist on it," Monroe said from the doorway. "She's got to be able to talk knowledgeably at any of the big social functions she has to attend."
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