"But inevitable. We'll finish up this business with J.B. and see what happens."
"I'll finish up this business with J.B. and be on my way back to Boston."
"In addition to being stubborn, you're also bossy." He resumed walking alongside her. "I suppose you have instructions for me?"
"I don't need your sarcasm, Richard. What I need is for you to forget about romancing me." There, she'd said it, bald-faced lie that it was. What she needed was for Richard to put his arms around her. Or at least that was what she wanted. She continued valiantly, "This'll be easier on us both if you do."
"Tut, tut. You can mash me to a pulp, Sher, but you can't change the facts."
"I'm not trying to change the facts, I'm just trying to get you to quit distracting me."
"Then it's all right if I continue to want to make love to you, just so long as I don't mention it?"
"No!" She rubbed her forehead. Where had she gone wrong? All her options were being reduced to a jumbled mess. She didn't know what to do: keep an eye on Richard, find J.B. or go home. Everything seemed so impossible. "Don't think it, either. Richard, I just want to find my father."
He touched the stray lock of hair dangling over her ear, but didn't try to put it in place. His voice turned serious, quiet, with no overtones of banter or desire. "I know."
She glanced up, her gratitude shining in her eyes. "So you can be a gentleman, too."
"If pressed."
"I don't want to have to choose between finding J.B. and getting to know you. Please don't put me in that position."
"Fair enough."
Smiling, he brushed her cheek with his fingers, sending millions of tiny charges tripping through her body. She managed to ask, "So what are you going to do now?"
"Hire you, what else? Three hundred dollars a day plus expenses. Find J.B. for me. Get this over with."
"But…"
He fished a slim leather wallet from an inner pocket and handed her two crisp hundred-dollar bills. "Your retainer."
She willed herself to speak. "Richard, I can't possibly."
"Dinner and a good night's sleep will get rid of the jet lag. You'll be able to think more clearly in the morning. I'll see you at eleven, in J.B.'s office."
He kissed her lightly on the lips, right there on Leavenworth Street. Then he walked away, leaving her standing in the sunlight with two hundred dollars dangling from her fingertips. She was too stunned to move. Who on earth did Richard St. Charles think she was? He didn't even know her! She hadn't told him about J.B.'s phone call, about J.B.'s insistence on her looking out for the man he owed a hundred thousand dollars.
Obviously Richard had made a mistake. He shouldn't have hired her. He shouldn't have decided he wanted to make love with her. He shouldn't trust her.
"You're going to be disappointed," she said to the empty space on the sidewalk where he had stood.
Lucille Stein was back at her desk when Sheridan stumbled in and told her how she'd just squeezed herself between a rock and a hard place. "I don't know what to do," she lamented.
"What d'you mean? You're getting five hundred dollars a day to find J.B. and keep an eye on this character with the gorgeous eyes. So do it."
"I'm not a witch!"
"You'll think of something."
"It's unethical."
"Sounds to me like they both deserve to be played off against each other." Lucille handed her two hundred dollars in twenties and tens. "J.B.'s retainer for you."
"Oh, Lord."
"Me, I'd go out and have a big fancy dinner on the two of them."
Sheridan sighed and went into J.B.'s office. She put the money on her old desk and pulled up J.B.'s swivel chair. She moved the cigar boxes and old newspapers onto the floor. She got a dishrag out of the kitchen and dusted off the desktop. She brought the phone over and pecked out a number she could still remember.
Miriam Knight, a top metropolitan reporter for the Chronicle, answered on the second ring. Sheridan said hi and asked for everything Miriam had on Richard St. Charles.
"What in God's name are you doing messing with him?" Miriam asked.
"Bad news?"
"Only for those of us married with kids, m'dear. The man's got to be the sexiest thing going in this lovely city. He's straight, handsome, rich and dangerous."
"Dangerous? What do you mean?"
"Lives dangerously. Not your ordinary playboy, for sure. He's got all the right trimmings—style, money, reckless interests. You know, solo cruises to Hawaii, skydiving, fast cars, horses."
"Horses aren't a reckless interest."
"That's because they're one of your interests, and God forbid Sheridan Weaver should admit to any recklessness these days. Anyway, obviously he could have his pick of sexy women."
Sheridan said nothing, not wanting to incriminate herself. Of course, she had called Miriam because she'd known she could get this kind of information. Happily married though she was, Miriam kept track of San Francisco's available men.
"However, that doesn't seem his style. He was last seen escorting an assistant district attorney about town. Seems to go for intelligence and wit. Refreshing, huh? Usually your interesting, attractive, talented males don't go for like-minded women. Is he on your list, or are you on his?"
"I don't think I'm a like-minded woman."
"Ha! Get out of those stodgy business suits of yours, and I can see you two painting the town. What's your interest?"
"Strictly professional."
"Well, in case you're wondering, which you will no doubt say you're not, the assistant DA has been seen recently with a corporate lawyer. Perhaps she wasn't reckless enough for our St. Charles, hmm? Of course, we both know someone who's been known to jump out of airplanes, disarm desperadoes with a well-placed kick.
"Your imagination amazes me, Miriam."
"Reporters have no imagination. We just observe and deliver the facts. What else can I tell you?"
Sheridan asked about Richard's various assets and residences and learned that, if anything, he had downplayed his net worth. Miriam suggested it to be maybe ten cents under a hundred million.
"But apparently," she added, "he doesn't really give a hoot about money—although he has plenty. He inherited a bundle from a grandmother or something and has made clever use of it, mostly in investments. He bought a couple of small, floundering companies, cleaned them up and sold them at a profit. I don't think he has a controlling interest in anything right now. He's pretty much loaded and carefree. Disgusting, isn't it? Look, kiddo, if you've got anything for me—"
"I'll let you know."
"Good. You've been missed around town, you know."
"Thanks."
Sheridan called in a few more favors, and by the end of the afternoon, when she was bleary-eyed and starving, she had the addresses of Richard's assorted dwellings; the locations, makes and registrations of his assorted boats; and the makes and license-plate numbers of his assorted vehicles.
She figured she'd earned her day's pay from J.B.
Then she picked up the phone and made one last call, to Swifty Michaels, J.B.'s closest friend and longtime poker buddy. Swifty tried to pretend he didn't know a thing about J.B. being missing. "He's on a case, I thought."
"You know better. He sort of owes Richard St. Charles a hundred thousand dollars."
Swifty didn't even hesitate as, in Sheridan's opinion, he should have. "J.B. can take care of himself, Sheridan—not that he wouldn't like having you back in the business, you know. But you gotta leave him alone sometimes."
She twisted her mouth to one side, her suspicions growing. "Swifty, what do you know about the fake necklace?"
"Nothing. Not a thing."
"You're lying. Dammit, this is my father we're talking about!"
"Oh, sheesh, I got a steak cooking, and it's starting to smoke in here. Good talking to you, kid."
He hung up, and Sheridan decided she wouldn't charge Richard for today. But how was she going to find J.B. and keep an eye
on Richard?
By getting Richard to actively help her find her father. He liked living dangerously, didn't he? Probably he would get in her way, but at least she'd know where he was. She leaned back in her chair, imagining the two of them traipsing around San Francisco.
Fifteen minutes later she was ringing the doorbell to his house on Russian Hill.
5
It was a shingled house set behind a garden on a cul-de-sac off Green Street, not ostentatious, but not quaint, either. Standing on the landing, Sheridan could smell the rhododendrons and the first blossoms of the tiny yellow tea roses in the front garden. The fog had rolled in, and the air was damp and chilly. She had left her car parked in front of J.B.'s office and walked over, feeling at home again in this city where she had spent most of her life, but which she had chosen to leave.
Squelching a sudden image of herself walking home from work and putting her key in this door, she rang the doorbell. Thou shalt not covet thy client's house, she thought and waited.
Richard didn't come.
She pulled out her three-by-five cards and checked her notes; yes, this was the correct address. She rang the doorbell again and waited.
He didn't come.
She decided maybe his doorbell didn't work and tried knocking.
He didn't come.
She sighed. She was hungry, she was tired, she was frustrated and her ulcer was acting up. Her evening was not proceeding as planned. She had intended to talk Richard into going over to her favorite Chinese restaurant in Noe Valley. She would tell him about J.B.'s phone call; he would tell her exactly what had happened at the poker game a week ago. Richard St. Charles wasn't proving to be as predictable as most men. Not predictable at all, she amended.
Unexpectedly she felt a tug of loneliness. The fog will do that to you, she told herself, admitting at the same time that this wasn't the reason for her gloom. She still had friends in San Francisco. There were a dozen people she could call up and invite out for Chinese food on the spur of the moment.
But none would be Richard.
"If it's like this now after a day and a half," she mumbled to herself, "imagine what it's going to be like in a week when you have to go back to Boston."
He had upset her orderly existence, and she fervently hoped she had upset his. She pictured him climbing out of his Porsche, the sunlight dancing on his hair. No, a man like that didn't have an orderly existence.
"You shouldn't think about these things when you're this tired, Sher. Go home, get some sleep."
She plucked a rose, stuck it in her hair and walked back out onto Green Street.
Abruptly she stopped, her heart pounding. What if she'd lost him? What if her trust had been misplaced and Richard was after her father? Oh, God, have I blown it? J.B. had asked her to keep Richard out of his hair. To keep an eye on him. And she didn't have the faintest idea where he was.
"Damn," she said, thoroughly disgusted with herself. Preoccupied with her own strange loneliness, she hadn't considered that Richard could be chasing after J.B.
Or maybe not. Maybe, without actually saying so, J.B. had asked her to keep track of Richard, not because he, J.B., was worried about Richard's getting him into trouble, but because he was worried about Richard's getting himself into trouble. The man, she had to admit, did have that air of devilry about him. But whether J.B. thought Richard was a pest or a candidate for protection, Sheridan hadn't done her job.
She raced back to J.B.'s, got in her car and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, a picturesque town across the bay. The hills and skyline of San Francisco glowed in the early evening light, and it was almost as if she could reach across the icy blue water and touch the places she knew. The yacht club was easy to find. It consisted of a low cluster of buildings and an idyllic stretch of coastline, where numerous ships and boats of every size and shape bobbed in the water. Sheridan screeched into an illegal parking place next to the main building and was angrily waved at by the parking attendant. She jumped out, tossing him the keys. "I've got to find my father," she said, not having to try hard to sound winded and panicked. "He forgot his heart medicine—it's urgent."
She lied her way onto the terrace, too, where she found Richard, his back to her, looking out across the water at the lights coming on along the San Francisco skyline. He had a nearly empty drink in his right hand. Sheridan stood back, surprised at the physical jolt seeing him gave her. She wasn't only relieved, but thoroughly captivated. Even here he stood out. He was different, not because he tried to be, but because he insisted on being himself and only himself. He mimicked no one. His style, his build, his sense of purpose, were all uniquely his.
Or maybe her feeling for him made him seem that much more special. From twenty feet, without talking to him or looking at his face, she reacted to him palpably, uncontrollably, dangerously. In a sea of clones she was sure she could pick out the real Richard St. Charles.
She remained in the doorway, not moving toward him. He was safe. He wasn't out on a wild-goose chase after her father, getting himself and J.B. into deeper trouble, but here, having a quiet drink alone. And, she had to admit, he didn't look as though he needed her as a guard dog. She considered waltzing over to him and suggesting they have dinner together. But the club was elegant and formal, not at all like the Chinese restaurant she had had in mind. With her wrinkled clothes, scuffed penny loafers and hair sticking out everywhere, she felt like Cinderella before the ball.
And she thought, I'm not Cinderella to his Prince Charming, and I don't want him to start thinking I am.
Outside she told the parking attendant she'd accomplished her mission, then drove away.
Back in town she picked up some take-out Chinese food for dinner, as well as some croissants and orange juice for breakfast, and made herself at home in J.B.'s office. Unable to bring herself to sleep in her father's empty room, she slept on the lumpy sofa bed. For a long time she stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, thinking of J.B.… and, for a longer time, of Richard.
In the morning she called United Commercial and told them there'd been a family emergency, and she would be out of the office at least until the end of the week. She gave them J.B.'s number. By nine o'clock she was showered, fed and feeling businesslike and professional again. She shared her croissants with Lucille and updated her on her dual investigations.
"As far as I can see," Lucille pronounced, "they both deserve to fry in their own fat."
Sheridan agreed. "I just wish I'd gone ahead and told Richard about J.B.'s call. He's bound to take it personally."
"Of course he will. A man like that, a woman like you—things're bound to get personal."
Certain she had her infatuation with Richard under control, Sheridan drove out across the Golden Gate Bridge to talk to him at his yacht, where, she assumed, he'd spent the night. But he hadn't, and she had to turn around and drive back to the city. He wasn't at his house on Russian Hill, either. "There are just too many places that man can be," she muttered and went back to J.B.'s office. She had refused to panic. At six-foot-three and at least two hundred pounds, Richard St. Charles had to be capable of getting himself out of most of the scrapes he could get himself into.
His Porsche occupied her parking space in front of J.B.'s office. She had to go around the block twice before she could find another one and then had to walk.
Yet there was a spring to her step she couldn't fail to notice.
"Uh," Lucy said when Sheridan burst into the office, "your eleven o'clock appointment is here."
Sheridan winced. "Oops, I forgot."
He was pacing in front of J.B.'s desk, but stopped abruptly when Sheridan entered. "Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, not raising his voice.
She shrugged. "Out riding around. It's a lovely morning, haven't you noticed?"
Today he wore a mulberry shirt and cream pants, no jacket. Although it had started out cool, it was supposed to climb to eighty degrees by midafternoon. Sheridan had started the day in some semblanc
e of her old P.I. attire: jeans, jade-green cotton sweater and sneakers. Richard didn't seem to notice. He looked ferocious.
"I told you I'd be here at eleven," he said.
"I thought you were just kidding."
"I rarely kid."
"Of course not. I should have known."
"A parking attendant said you were out at the club last night."
Sheridan couldn't hide her surprise. Who was keeping track of whom? "How did you know?"
"Someone said I'd been watched by a disheveled woman in loafers. It could only have been you. I described you to the parking attendant, and he told me of your latest ruse."
Sheridan said nothing as she sat in J.B.'s chair. Richard didn't move, and she looked away, to no avail. She could still feel his presence, as if he were touching her. In her mind she could picture the tanned hard skin, the arrogant turn of his mouth, the black eyes, the wild hair. She shot him a look; yes, the reality measured up to, even excelled, the image.
"Why didn't you come over? We could have had dinner."
"You looked lost in thought. I didn't want to disturb you."
"You wouldn't have. I was thinking about you. Why were you there, Sheridan?"
Gotcha, she thought miserably, slouching. "I wanted to know where you were."
"Why?"
"To make sure you were all right."
"Why?"
He sensed something; she knew it. But what? How much? She looked up at him, realizing that none of her emotions were under control and that however capable and professional she was, she couldn't help wanting to know this man better. To, at the very least, be honest with him. "J.B. asked me to keep tabs on you. He knows you're not exactly thrilled with him, but he doesn't want to have to deal with explanations right now."
He didn't explode, which didn't make Sheridan feel any better. She would have been more comfortable if he'd gone for her throat, but he didn't move. There was no passionate feeling in the black depths of his eyes.
"Then J.B.'s been in touch with you." It was clearly not a question.
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