STOLEN MOMENTS

by Michelle Martin

Harley grinned at her. "Count on it." For the last nine years, Boyd had relegated Jane Miller to whites and pastels only. "Let's start with basic black and work our way up," she said.

  * * *

  Harley dashed through the marble entrance into the RIHGA Royal Hotel that evening carrying six different bags of lingerie. She had just enough time to change and grab a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant before she went out to see her very first Broadway show. A well-dressed couple in their mid-thirties stepped off an elevator and she stepped on it, still amazed that a dye job and some contacts left her unrecognizable, and that Boyd still hadn't leapt out of the shadows to drag her back to the Ritz.

  She walked into her suite—small living room in forest green and white, a bedroom taken up almost entirely by a king-size bed, and a pale peach marble bathroom—and groaned as she stared at the couch and chairs and her bed piled high with boxes and bags of clothes. She'd have to pack if she wanted to sleep tonight.

  But for now, she took a quick shower and then pulled out the black sleeveless minidress she had hung in the mirror-lined closet that afternoon. She found the scandalous black silk panties and bra she had just bought that would make little Miss Jane Miller die of a perpetual blush, and the black cowboy boots. She wouldn't wear any stockings. She was going to be skimpy and sexy and daring tonight no matter how many times she heard Boyd in her head yelling "No, no, no!"

  She turned slowly in front of the full-length closet mirrors, staring at the brunette in the clinging black dress. It was still a shock to see herself so different from what she had been these last nine years. It set her to thinking scary thoughts about Boyd and Jane Miller and whose life was it anyway?

  She turned hurriedly from the mirror, grabbed her new money belt off the bed, and locked it in her room safe. Then she picked up the tiny black purse she had bought to go with the dress, checked to make sure she really had put in the two twenty-dollar bills, in case of emergencies, and her theater ticket, and headed out of her room. The time had come to meet the Great White Way

  .

  She ran into an immediate detour.

  She had just opened her room door, when she found a RIHGA manager in a navy blue suit about to knock on her forehead. He quickly lowered his knuckles.

  "Miss Miller?" he inquired.

  "Yes," Harley warily replied. She had had to identify herself to the RIHGA management—with strict promises of their secrecy—to get a room under an alias.

  "I'm Greg Crandell, one of the RIHGA's day managers. I'm afraid we have something of a problem. A gentleman was asking about you just a few minutes ago."

  Boyd. Harley's face felt frozen. "A gentleman? Medium height? Short brown hair? Wears cowboy boots?"

  "No. This gentleman more precisely fits the tall, dark, and handsome profile. And he wore English custom-made Loebs shoes."

  "And he was asking about me?"

  "Yes. From what one of our doormen said, the gentleman is apparently following you."

  Boyd had hired someone to find her. And he'd succeeded. An image of Boyd as every implacable horror movie monster she'd ever seen iced her lungs. "Does the gentleman have a name?"

  "Duncan Lang, of Colangco International."

  Harley winced. Trust Boyd to hire the best firm in town. She hadn't been able to pick up a newspaper or magazine these last nine years without reading about some security system Colangco had installed for a celebrity, or some case it had solved. "Where is he now?"

  "I believe," said Mr. Crandell, "that he is on his way to the Windows on the World restaurant downtown at the World Trade Center. At least, that's where I had our senior doorman tell him you had just gone."

  Harley took the young manager's hand in hers and gave it a heartfelt shake. "Mr. Crandell, you're a peach. I've got to get out of here, fast." She stopped as an absolutely brilliant idea lit up her brain. "And with your help, I think I can pull it off."

  * * *

  It was just after eleven o'clock that night when she walked out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre and turned right onto West Forty-sixth Street

  . She was actually humming one of the musical's tunes. It had not been great music, but it had been satisfying. Besides, she always loved happy endings. It had felt a little odd, at first, to be sitting all alone in a theater with hundreds of strangers around her, rather than standing on the stage and singing to them. She had scanned row after row looking for Boyd and not finding him. And then the show had made her forget herself, and forget being a stranger amidst strangers. If it hadn't been for the cramped seats, she would have felt entirely comfortable.

  "Wow!" She had just walked out onto Broadway. The hotel desk clerk had assured her she could catch a cab here. "Wow!" she said softly again. "It's like Christmas."

  Broadway and its sidewalks were packed with people who sowed beneath the colored lights that were everywhere, turning night into day. Electronic billboards with gold and silver and white lights towered up into the sky. Blue and green and red and every other color of lights shone from every Times Square building and marquee. Happiness and beauty enveloped her. Now she understood that old cliché "the city that never sleeps." Who would want to? She felt special just standing here on this warm night watching people who looked as happy as she felt, all of them bedazzled by the lights and the crowds and the fun emanating from every doorway. She couldn't stop smiling. Manhattan was a wonderful place to be.

  A cab didn't seem so important anymore. Her cowboy boots would get her back to her hotel. The cheerful crowd all around her made her feel safe. She'd be fine.

  With Greg Crandell's help, she'd managed to shake Mr. Duncan Lang off her trail, at least for the time being. The Manhattan night and her freedom were still hers for the taking.

  Strolling on a warm, muggy July night through midtown Manhattan was exhilarating. It was wonderful to breathe in real air and humidity, not air conditioning. It was wonderful to stretch her legs and swing her arms as she walked down a street, a real city street, in the city she had fantasized about visiting since she was eight. On her previous trips to New York, all she had ever seen was her hotel room, the inside of a limousine, and the stage she performed on.

  Well, not this trip! Even if it meant sinking the supposedly tall, dark, and handsome Duncan Lang in concrete and dropping him into the Hudson River, she would have her two weeks to explore the city she had loved from afar. Let Colangco International put that in its pipe and smoke it!

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  « ^ »

  It was almost seven o'clock at night when—more than disgruntled by his recent wild-goose chase to the World Trade Center and an entire day spent following his prey from cab to store to cab again, never quite managing to catch up with her—Duncan took a taxi back to the RIHGA, planning to stake out his elusive prey's room till doomsday, if necessary. He'd once waited beside the hotel room door of a plump heiress from Melbourne for thirteen hours. Room service had supplied him with the necessities of life, and she had made his wait more than worthwhile by supplying the remaining necessities of life. He depended on the Princess of Pop to provide a vastly different—but equally satisfying—denouement to this wait as well.

  He rode the RIHGA elevator up to the fiftieth floor and knocked on the door of Grace Smith, alias Harley Jane Miller, only to be confronted by a disgruntled Japanese businessman of about sixty in shirtsleeves, crumpled slacks, and black socks.

  It was the last thing Duncan had expected. "Excuse me," he said with a slight bow. "Isn't this Miss Grace Smith's room?"

  "No," the gentleman frostily replied. "It is my room. Good night."

  The door slammed in Duncan's face. This was not unduly perturbing. Many people—at least, many women—had slammed doors in his face. What was disturbing was that Harley Jane Miller would not be returning to this room. Maybe Emma had gotten the room number wrong. But Emma never got anything wrong. Ever.

  Duncan took the elevator back down to the RIHGA's low-key lobby, sat down in a soft pale green chai
r, and called his office on his cellular phone.

  "Emma?" he said in carefully modulated tones when she answered the phone on the second ring.

  "Hey, Sherlock, what's happening?" she said cheerfully. "Case all wrapped up?"

  "Not entirely. There is a glitch. A rather important glitch. You seem to have made a mistake."

  "A mistake? I don't make mistakes. Ever."

  "There is an exception to every rule. Our party, currently known as Grace Smith, no longer claims Room 5007 as her own at the RIHGA. Or perhaps you gave me the wrong room number?"

  "Let me check," Emma said in a low, quick voice. He heard the rapid clatter of computer keyboard keys. "Holy moly," she said.

  This was not reassuring. "Do I want to hear this?" Duncan inquired.

  "She checked out at six-ten this evening, and there's no forwarding address. You don't suppose… Could she have spotted you tailing her?"

  "Don't be insulting," Duncan said witheringly. "Besides, I've been one step behind her all day long. If I haven't seen her, she couldn't have seen me.

  "Then someone blabbed."

  Duncan swore, virulently. "I was hoping she wouldn't know I was on her trail until I had her safely in hand. I must not have been careful enough asking my discreet questions."

  "Now, now," Emma said soothingly, "don't take it so hard. These little glitches happen on any case. It's not your fault."

  "Dad would not agree," Duncan said bitterly. "Brandon doesn't have glitches on his jobs. Run another screen of Manhattan hotel reservation systems, Em. Look for variations on Smith and Miller. Throw in Jones for good measure. I should be back in about ten minutes."

  "You got it."

  Duncan tucked the phone back into his coat pocket, sighing heavily. He'd have to start checking the different taxi companies, looking for a single fare—who now had a lot of luggage—who had cabbed from the RIHGA that evening to somewhere in Manhattan. If the Princess of Pop had even stayed in Manhattan.

  She was just perverse enough to take that damned cross-country train trip after all. Feeling aggrieved, Duncan slid a stick of cinnamon gum into his mouth and walked out of the RIHGA. His first big case and he couldn't even find one measly female in his own hometown. He should never have joined the family firm. His father was right. He didn't have the skills or the persistence or the determination to do the job and do it well.

  By eight o'clock that night, he and Emma had come up empty and he sent Emma home. He sat in his chair, staring out his office windows at the beautiful nighttime skyline. How the hell was Miss Miller pulling this off? How had the innocent that Boyd Monroe described to him succeeded in eluding a trained investigator for nearly twelve hours?

  She might be pampered and spoiled, even bitchy, but a day on her trail had shown him that the Princess behind the dye job and brown contact lenses was more resourceful than he had originally thought, and that interested him. He began trying to put himself in Harley Jane Miller's shoes. If he was a bird just escaped from a gilded cage, where would he fly?

  Tuesday morning, Duncan walked into the office at seven. Emma walked into his office at eight and dumped a stack of newspapers on his desk.

  "Have you seen these?" she asked.

  He looked up from the report on Harley Jane Miller he was studying and glanced at them. "I saw a few of the louder headlines."

  PRINCESS OF POP DISAPPEARS! and JANE MILLER MISSING! and VANISHED! and PRINCESS POPS OUT! were some of the calmer media announcements.

  "Was this your idea?"

  "Nope. I've always believed in keeping a low profile," Duncan replied, turning a page of the report.

  "Then what gives?"

  "If there was a bookie at hand—and why isn't there, I'd like to know—I'd lay good odds that our beloved client Mr. Boyd Monroe has been busy. These have his bullish hoof-prints all over them."

  "Okay. But why would he want anyone to know that his meal ticket has run away from home?"

  Duncan leaned back in his chair and linked his hands behind his head. "Think about it, Em. Instead of one brilliant detective, Boyd Monroe now has hundreds of thousands of fans in this city alone looking for his vanished meal ticket. I knew he was cagey the first minute I laid eyes on him." But there was more to these headlines than managerial machinations. There was a feeling of anxiety, almost desperation to them. Was Boyd that worried that his Princess would be hurt on her holiday?

  "Swell," Emma said, "but what does this do to us?"

  "I've already brought in a second receptionist to handle the flood of calls—Mr. Monroe referred all tips to the agency—and I've ordered a case of aspirin."

  "You should have been a Boy Scout."

  Duncan grinned. "I was expelled when I was twelve for starting up a crap game with some of the other boys during one of those god-awful wilderness adventures. To work, Emma. Find me the hotel of Harley Jane Miller."

  "Aye, aye, sir," Emma said, saluting smartly.

  Duncan picked up her thorough report on Harley once again. If he could just figure Harley out—figure out what made her tick—he could find her, he was certain of it.

  He returned to her gestation years in Sweetcreek, Oklahoma. Now there was a hometown. Unlike him, the Princess of Pop had actually begun life as one of the little people. He stared at her senior year picture: short, spiky strawberry blond hair, no smile, direct gaze. She may have been a small-town rocker and he a prep school prisoner, but he knew that defiant look well. He'd been a rebel once himself. But she had ended up conforming, just as he had conformed. And here was the result. Duncan flipped through picture after picture of a meteoric career and found—not the expressive, rebellious face of Miss Miller's girlhood—but mask after mask after mask. He flipped back to the earlier pictures. Yes, BB (Before Boyd), every thought and feeling had been illuminated on her slightly freckled face for all the world to see. Something in Duncan recognized that Harley Miller. He saw a kindred spirit … and he was still going to put her back in the gilded cage of her choosing.

  All he had to do was find her. Duncan sighed and went through her history once again. Harley Jane Miller had been Sweetcreek's rebel with a cause: rock and roll. Then Boyd had come along and straitjacketed her into a pop persona she had once reviled. He had changed her wardrobe, her hairstyle, slapped on a lot of makeup, changed her name, even changed her voice from alto to soprano, and hired a voice coach to remove the Oklahoma twang from her speech.

  Duncan began tapping his desk with his middle finger. Nine years of living a lie could build up a lot of anger, or cunning, or both. He should know. He'd spent a lot of his youth alternately conforming to the mold his parents had cast for him, and rebelling against it. And when he'd rebelled…

  Duncan sat bolt upright in his chair. "Oh, she wouldn't! She couldn't!" He swung around to his computer and hacked into the RIHGA Royal Hotel's reservation system. He stared at the screen for a moment and then pursed his lips in an appreciative whistle. She had.

  "Watson," he called, "we've been duped."

  "What do you mean, Holmes?" Emma said as she left her desk and leaned against the doorjamb.

  "Get this," Duncan said. "Last night when we were trying to find Jane Miller again, you checked the reservation systems of every hotel in Manhattan, but it never occurred to either of us to check the RIHGA. Yes, Grace Smith checked out of the Royal RIHGA at six-ten last night. But what's interesting is that a Miss B. Monroe checked in one minute later."

  Emma blinked. "She used Monroe?"

  "Yep."

  "She changed her name and her room and she didn't go anywhere?"

  "Yep."

  "Jeez. Private Detective 101 never covered that gambit." Emma looked at Duncan queerly. "How in the world did you figure this out?"

  "Elementary, my dear Watson. In my youth, I too rebelled against parental control, just as Miss Miller seems to be doing now. On one memorable occasion, I tried to escape an interview with the second of my three prep schools by slipping the parental leash and using my father's name
to check into the only local hotel for three blissful days of freedom. If it hadn't been for my known penchant for pizza parlors, I'd probably be hiding out there still. There's no better way of getting back at an authority figure than by using something personal against him, and what's more personal than a name?"

  "Brilliant, Holmes."

  "Thank you, Watson."

  "But how did you guess she'd stayed at the RIHGA?"

  "I did not guess," Duncan corrected her sternly, "I deduced. Were I in Miss Miller's shoes and informed that I'd been run to ground, I would be peeved. I would want a little of my own back. I don't know about you, Em, but I feel downright asinine for not checking the RIHGA's reservation records last night."

  "Oh, she's good," Emma said admiringly.

  "I could like her a lot if my fee didn't depend on her not being quite so clever."

  "I suppose she's already checked out of the RIHGA today?"

  "Of course she has," Duncan said. "I'm starting the day where she left me last night—one step behind her again. But she made one mistake. Before, this was just a job. But with her room switch last night, she's made this personal. I can hear her chortling, Emma, and I don't like it. I'm going to get her no matter how many dodges she tries. Even if it means throwing out the damn book and winging it, I am going to get her today."

  "That's the spirit, boss. Never say die. I'll start another computer search through the hotels."

  Emma walked back into her office while Duncan stayed right where he was, his middle finger frenetically tapping his desk. There was a good chance Emma wouldn't be able to track the Princess on the computer. Miss Miller's native intelligence seemed to be in full bloom. She knew she was being hunted now, so she'd be even more careful. He would have to figure out what was going on in the Princess of Pop's mind if he was going to find her.

  Unfortunately, she was, to quote Yul Brynner's King of Siam, a puzzlement. She'd been making millions—and doing what Monroe told her to do—since she was seventeen. It begged the question: why break out now?