Angus's Lost Lady

by Marie Ferrarella

  “No, she’s coming to work with me,” Angus answered. He got in behind the wheel.

  Vikki slid the metal tongue into the slot on her seat belt. Angus listened for the telltale click

  “Can I get her tomorrow?” Vikki asked.

  “Vik, Rebecca isn’t a toy to be passed back and forth, she’s a person with feelings.” Looking over his shoulder, he backed out of the spot.

  “I know that.” Vikki looked miffed at the suggestion that she didn’t. “I just want to bring her in for show-and-tell. They never saw anybody with ’nesia before.”

  He slanted a look at Rebecca. She seemed to be taking it well, but he still apologized for Vikki. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be. At least I’m useful for something.” Turning, she looked at the little girl. “You clear it with your teacher, Vikki, and I’ll come.”

  He laughed, glancing on both sides of the car before pulling out of the complex. “I think I call that valor above and beyond the call of duty.”

  A smile that he was tempted to sample firsthand curved her mouth. “I think I’d call it fun.”

  Fun. He could only shake his head. “To each his own, Becky, to each his own.”

  They dropped Vikki off at school and went directly to the police station. Biordi was out on call, but he had left a message for Angus with the desk sergeant. There was no change in status. No one matching Rebecca’s description had been reported missing.

  It didn’t make sense to Angus. If she’d been his, he would have reported her missing fifteen minutes after she was late.

  He wasn’t being objective about this, he thought, driving down the street noted on the paper in his pocket. Hell, he’d stopped being objective when he had decided not to drop her off at the shelter.

  The entrance of the building that Angela Madison owned—where Ryan Madison supposedly worked whenever he felt like showing up—was located in the middle of a long, busy block in the heart of Bedford’s newly completed industrial area.

  Angus considered himself lucky when he found a parking place almost directly opposite the building. Ryan—Mrs. Madison had called to inform Angus—had taken great pains to tell her that he was going in on Monday to take care of a few details. Mrs. Madison figured the details were all located in strategic places on the body of the newest woman in his life.

  “It must be awful,” Rebecca said with a sigh when Angus explained this to her.

  “What is?” He wasn’t sure which part of his explanation she was referring to.

  “To know that the man you love is cheating on you.”

  “I don’t know about love, but there’s little doubt about the cheating part.”

  An eyebrow arched in surprise. “You don’t think Mrs. Madison loves her husband?”

  Angus laughed softly at the innocence of her question. He wondered if the woman she really was was this innocent. “I think Mrs. Madison wanted to wear her husband like a prized piece of jewelry. I doubt that love ever entered into either side of it, unless you’re talking about love of the good life or love of money.”

  It sounded like a sad commentary on two lives. “You really think rich people are that cold?”

  “Not rich people, just these rich people,” he corrected. “I did some checking and asking around. It was a match made in a bank vault. She had it, he wanted it.”

  “What did he have that she wanted?”

  Amused, Angus looked at her pointedly.

  “Oh.”

  Angus grinned. “Charm and looks gets ’em every time.”

  “If that’s true, why isn’t there anyone in your life?”

  She wasn’t being coy, he realized, but serious. Which left him at a loss for an answer.

  He was spared fielding the question. A dark limousine with plates matching the ones Angela Madison had given him drew up to the entrance of the Clarence Building. Madison had arrived.

  “Show time,” he said under his breath.

  Rebecca leaned over Angus, trying to get a better view, curious to see what Angela Madison’s money had bought and paid for. A well-groomed, strikingly handsome man emerged from the back of the vehicle.

  He looked awfully young from where Rebecca was sitting. She turned to Angus. “How old is he?”

  She was too close, he thought. Maybe bringing her along had been a mistake. “Not nearly as old as Angela Madison.”

  Madison said something to his driver, then stepped back on the curb as if to walk into the building. But the moment the limousine drove off, Madison was back at the curb, signaling for a cab. One arrived almost instantly.

  He’d obviously called ahead, Angus thought.

  “Looks like he’s taking his business on the road,” Angus told her. Making a U-turn on the island in the middle of the street, Angus followed the cab.

  It was a bonafide chase scene, even if it was in slow motion. Rebecca got into the spirit of it, sitting as close to the edge of her seat as her seat belt allowed. “I thought you said this wasn’t going to be interesting.”

  “I didn’t think we’d be going anywhere this soon. The man doesn’t even have enough brains to go in and let a few people in the office see him before he takes off.”

  His comment intrigued her. “Is that how you’d do it if you were cheating on your wife?”

  “I wouldn’t cheat on my wife,” he informed her. “There’s no point in being married if you’re going to cheat.”

  She liked his philosophy. The woman who got Angus was going to be a very happy, very lucky woman, she thought. A touch of wistfulness whispered through her. She couldn’t help wondering if she had a husband and if he felt that way about her.

  With each day that passed, the possibility that she was married seemed more and more remote. The thought didn’t bother her.

  “What are you going to do when he stops?” she asked, watching the cab intently.

  “Depends on where he stops.” The light was turning yellow. Angus sped up and just made it through in time. Though two cars separated them, the cab was still in sight. “Hopefully, it’ll be at a hotel. Once I get the photographs, it’ll be over.”

  She read into his tone. “You don’t like doing surveillance?”

  It wasn’t the work he minded, it was what it was tied to. “Not this kind.”

  She didn’t understand. “Then why do you do it?”

  “It pays the bills. In this case, it pays pretty well. Mrs. Madison is very anxious to get her hands on some incriminating photographs of her wandering spouse.”

  She couldn’t see him being a private investigator if he didn’t like it. “Do you work other kinds of cases?”

  He nodded. “I do a lot of background checks for places that require security clearance on their employees. And I used to try to locate runaways.” Those cases had been some of his most challenging ones—until Rebecca had walked into his office. “But I don’t handle runaways anymore. I had to give them up.”

  “Why?” Was he subtly telling her that he hadn’t been good at that sort of thing?

  He sometimes missed the travel, the challenge of piecing clues together. But he’d had no choice. “Taking those kinds of cases would have taken me away from home too much. I figure Vikki has had enough upheaval in her life. What she needs right now are roots and a father who comes home to her every night.”

  The next moment, they slowed down as the cab pulled into a parking lot of a hotel.

  “He’s stopping.” She didn’t bother disguising the excitement in her voice.

  “Looks that way.” Her reaction amused him. To him this was all routine, but he supposed there was nothing right now that was routine to Rebecca.

  Madison got out at the entrance of the Excelsior Hotel as soon as the cab stopped. In his hurry, he left the car door ajar.

  The driver called after him to shut it, then got out, grumbling obscenities about cheap fares. When he slammed the door, the sound echoed through the street. Madison was oblivious to the anatomical instructions hurled his way as h
e took the red-carpeted hotel steps two at a time.

  Fascinated, Rebecca kept her eyes on the man while Angus parked the car. “He must be in a hurry.”

  So should he be if he didn’t want to lose Madison, Angus thought. He leaned over the back of his seat to retrieve his camera case.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he warned as he got out.

  But she was already closing the passenger door behind her. “I’m coming, too.” It wasn’t a request until she saw the look of surprise on his face. “Maybe I can help.”

  He had no idea what she thought she could do, but he didn’t have time to talk her out of it now. Madison had already disappeared into the hotel. Besides, as long as she was with him, he could keep her out of danger.

  “All right, let’s go.”

  Slanting a look at her as they hurried across to the entrance, he couldn’t help thinking she looked like a kid at Christmas. At least this was taking her mind off her own situation, he thought. Maybe that was all she needed—to relax—and then she’d start remembering. Things had a way of linking up in the mind. Maybe he’d get lucky on two counts.

  They made it into the lobby in time to see Madison heading away from the front desk and toward the bank of elevators. Rebecca, energized, took the lead, quickening her step.

  “C’mon, you don’t want to lose him.”

  Wanting to keep a low profile, he’d intended to find out what floor Madison was going to by distracting the front desk clerk long enough to take a look at the computer screen. Riding up with his quarry wasn’t his first choice, but Rebecca seemed to have other ideas.

  They took the same elevator as Madison getting on just as the doors were closing. Rebecca stole a triumphant glance in Angus’s direction. Angus was beginning to get the feeling that whoever Rebecca was in her other life, the word reticent didn’t apply to her.

  When Madison got off on the eleventh floor, Rebecca followed in his wake, her hand locked tightly around Angus’s wrist.

  Pulling back just a little to give Madison time to get ahead, Angus whispered, “Whose case is this, anyway?”

  “Yours,” she answered automatically, her eyes trained on Madison.

  The man was handsome, she thought, in a plastic sort of way. On an absolute scale, he was better looking than Angus. But there was an electricity about Angus, an instant draw that seemed to be missing from Madison—at least at this distance.

  Maybe her knowledge of what he was up to was coloring her perception, she thought. But she doubted it. Angus was miles ahead of the man in front of her on any scale.

  Following a few feet behind, they stopped when Madison did. His hand on the doorknob, the man looked in their direction, mild suspicion crossing his picture-perfect features.

  Rebecca turned on Angus, her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me you forgot the card again.” She raised her voice in annoyance. “‘Don’t take your purse,’ you said. ‘You won’t need it,’” she added in a mocking, singsong voice meant to mimic him. “Now what are we going to do?”

  Recovering quickly, Angus picked up his cue. “Go down to the lobby and have them let us in. No big deal.”

  “No big deal?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “They’re going to have to change the access code for us. Again. They’re not going to be happy about it, Howard.”

  Bored, Madison lost interest in the exchange. If he wanted to listen to harping, he would have spent his evenings at home. A shapely brunette, clad in something that appeared vaguely translucent, was in the doorway the moment he opened the door. She purred a greeting and drew him into the room.

  Angus looked at Rebecca, new respect in his eyes. It was coupled with amazement. “That was very good.” He made a note of the number on Madison’s door. “Who’s Howard?”

  She had no idea. “Just a name that popped up in my head.”

  Howard Was he just a friend, or her husband? Lover, perhaps? Angus did his best to lock away the feelings that went along with the question. “Anything else popping up in there?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t even thinking about that. She was getting wrapped up in what Angus was doing. “Only that this is exciting.”

  That was the word for her, he thought, looking at her profile. Exciting.

  Chapter 9

  “So now what do we do?”

  He could feel the enthusiasm radiating from her. Somewhere along the line, between his apartment and the eleventh floor of the Excelsior Hotel, Rebecca had dealt herself in.

  The idea of being his not-so-silent partner seemed to please her. He supposed there was no harm in it. If anything, seeing his work through her eyes gave him a fresh outlook. Angus figured that could only help.

  If she brought this sort of excitement to a routine assignment, he found himself thinking, what could she do with lovemaking?

  That was something he wasn’t about to find out and there was absolutely no point in torturing himself by wondering.

  The thought refused to go away, though, hovering instead within the distant recesses of his mind. Curiosity, he’d long ago discovered, could be a damn annoying thing.

  Angus led the way back to the elevators. He only hoped that his luck, as far as. the Madison case went, was holding.

  “Now we go down and get a room around the corner from Ryan Madison and the current light of his life. And we hope that being on the eleventh Hoor mutes his sense of discretion enough to make him forget to draw the curtains while he grabs a little afternoon delight.”

  He pressed for the elevator. The doors seemed to open instantly, as if eager to please.

  She walked ahead of him into the empty car. “It’s only nine-thirty,” she pointed out.

  Leaning in front of her, Angus pressed the button for the lobby. “Poetic license. By the time they’re through, it might be afternoon.”

  Their car was an express, skipping the next ten floors and arriving at its destination in a matter of seconds. It took several more before Rebecca’s stomach caught up.

  She swallowed, and her ears popped. “They should book this elevator as a ride in an amusement park,” she murmured, linking her arm with his.

  She was doing things like that more and more, he noticed. Touching, making contact, using her hands as an extension of her voice and the personality he saw unfolding before him. It all came naturally to her, without any thought.

  Was the true Rebecca emerging? Or was this a part of herself she’d kept hidden when she was her usual persona? Would what he saw now—what attracted him so strongly to her—fade away and die once she remembered who she was?

  It didn’t matter, he thought. He wouldn’t be around to see or be affected one way or the other. By then, his job would be done and he’d have signed off.

  And as far as jobs, Angus reminded himself, he had one to see to now.

  The twenty-story Excelsior Hotel was shaped like an ornate horseshoe, its inner perimeter closing ranks around a huge circular swimming pool and recreation area built exclusively for the use of the hotel guests. Familiar with the hotel’s interior from past experience, Angus knew that there were a handful of rooms on each floor that faced one another. Privacy was maintained by virtue of the distance between the two sections of the building.

  But privacy didn’t reckon on a powerful telephoto lens like the one in his camera case.

  With Rebecca beside him, Angus asked the desk clerk for room 1125. It was situated so that he’d have a clear view of Madison’s room, provided Madison hadn’t become shy. Or cautious.

  The clerk’s small, sharp eyes narrowed over the bridge of his hawklike nose. Most guests didn’t specify a room by its number.

  “It’s my lucky number,” Angus supplied amiably in response to the clerk’s quizzical look.

  “Eleven-twenty-five?” It hardly sounded like a run-of-the-mill choice.

  “It’s my birthday,” Rebecca put in. “November twenty-fifth,” she added when the clerk continued to stare uncomprehendingly.

  �
�Oh. I see,” he murmured. The answer seemed to satisfy him. “Well, I see that your luck seems to be holding. The room is unoccupied at the moment.”

  The clerk took down the necessary information, then took Angus’s charge card and fed the numbers into his computer. Waiting for confirmation, he eyed the camera case hanging from Angus’s shoulder. It was the only piece of luggage between the couple.

  “Traveling light, sir?”

  Angus never missed a beat. “We’re only in town for the day.”

  The hotel frowned on being the site of assignations, which was what this appeared to the desk clerk to be. But there was little that could be done. Angus’s charge card had gone through, authorizing payment.

  With a holier-than-thou sniff, the man handed them the card that would get them into the room.

  “We hope you have a pleasant stay with us.”

  Angus had heard more sincere recorded messages from government switchboards. “I’ m sure it will be,” he replied, ushering Rebecca away.

  Laughter, light and musical, broke free as soon as they turned toward the elevators. She looked up at Angus. “I think the clerk thinks that you’re the one in the market for a little afternoon delight.”

  He wasn’t in the market for it, but it certainly kept popping up in his shopping cart At least the thought of it did. Keeping his mind on business was becoming almost a Herculean feat. Who knew how long they were going to have to remain in the room before the opportunity for a good photo presented itself? Meanwhile, another opportunity—a far more tempting one—was already present. If he examined it logically, the timing was perfect. And as a bonus, he wouldn’t have to worry about Vikki coming up on them unexpectedly.

  But something else was coming up on him unexpectedly: his sense of honor, of fair play. Maybe Rebecca belonged to another man, and maybe she didn’t. But without definite proof one way or another, it was the maybe that was the stumbling block. If she did, and they made love, she would feel as if she’d betrayed someone. And if something should come of their being together, if Angus began to care for her and she went back to that someone, then he would feel betrayed. Just the way he’d felt when Jane left.