Diamonds Can Be Deadly

by Merline Lovelace

  And release her death grip on the towel? Jordan didn't think so.

  "What are you going to do?" she jeered. "Kiss the boo-boo and make it better?"

  His grin slipped out then, the same crooked grin that had once put a flutter in Jordan's stomach. To her profound disgust, it still generated a few quivers.

  "The NYPD first responder's medical training didn't include kissing as a treatment option," he said, his eyes glinting, "but I'm certainly willing to give it a shot."

  Enough was enough. Jordan had to get the man out of the bathroom. And she'd damn well better do it before he noticed the thermal suit wadded up in the comer. Conceding this skirmish with something less than graciousness, she jerked her chin toward the door.

  "Wait for me in the other room. I'll dry off, throw on a robe and join you there."

  When TJ retreated to the sitting room, every one of his instincts had clicked into high gear. Right along with his libido.

  Grimacing at the heat Jordan had stirred in his belly, he stared through the open shutters at the dark, restless sea. He'd tried to play it cool, had done his best to keep things professional, but the sight of her almost naked had blown just about every one of his circuits.

  With his brain recording the erotic details and his blood making a quick trip south, TJ was surprised he'd picked up on her lie. He didn't know why she'd fed him the line about the shampoo, but his gut told him it was just that. The untouched bottle on the vanity, paired with her too-casual move to block his view of the shower stall, would have been sufficient to rouse his suspicions.

  Then there was the bundle on the floor of Jordan's bathroom. He'd almost missed it, caught only a glimpse as he turned away. One glimpse was enough to raise another red flag. That bundle sure looked like a wet suit, one that had been recently worn. But the on-duty security officer reported Jordan hadn't left her cottage since returning from dinner.

  The suspicion that was second nature to a cop took over from the man still sporting a hard bulge in his jeans. What the hell was Jordan up to? Why had she picked Bartholomew Greene as a potential business partner just weeks after he'd hired a new director of security? Was she out for revenge, plotting to drag TJ into the gutter the way he'd once dragged her?

  The memory of that made him cringe inside. What a mess! Scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck, he stared out at the inky darkness.

  He still didn't know how it had happened. All he'd intended was a few hours in the leggy ex-model's company. That night at the charity event, the Sunday afternoon in Central Park, the invitation to drive up to Connecticut for the weekend... All or­chestrated to finesse the intriguing, intoxicating Jordan Colby into bed.

  He certainly hadn't planned on becoming as fas­cinated with her mind as he was with her sensuous body. Nor had he figured on moving with lightning speed from plain old-fashioned lust to something harder to define. And he sure as hell had never dreamed Jordan would be in his bed when officers from his own precinct busted down his door.

  The swish of cloth slippers on carpet told him Jordan had finished in the bathroom. Slamming the door on his memories, TJ turned. She'd wrapped her hair in a towel turban and belted on one of the resort's monogrammed robes. It took everything he had not to think about what was under that thick, white terry cloth.

  "You don't need to play doc," she said dismissively. "My hand is fine."

  "There's a slight matter of liability at stake here. Let's see it."

  "I'm not going to sue the institute."

  "Let's see it."

  Taking her hand in a light hold, he performed a visual inspection. She'd hit the edge of her hand, just below the little linger. The bruise was already an ugly red and purpling fast, but he didn't spot any swelling, protrusions or awkward joint angles that would indicate a fracture or dislocation.

  "How bad does it hurt?"

  "It doesn't. Much."

  Gently TJ manipulated her little linger. When it moved freely without a wince or a grunt on Jordan's part, he tested the metacarpal, the wrist and her lower arm.

  "Doesn't feel like you broke any bones. Let's see your other hand."

  With an air of impatience she didn't bother to disguise, she placed her left hand in his. TJ com­pared the two and saw no glaring distortion in their shape or size, aside from the discoloration.

  "I prescribe an ice pack and ibuprofen if it starts to throb. You want to avoid aspirin because it—"

  "Because it slows clotting. Thanks, I know how to treat bruises."

  TJ gave her a considering look. "Sustained a lot of them, have you?"

  He'd always wondered about the scar above her eyebrow. The cop in him had also noted how neatly she would sidestep any reference to her childhood in their admittedly brief hours together. She'd shrugged off his questions then and did the same now.

  "Obviously you've never been behind the scenes at a fashion show. Backstage is nothing short of con­trolled chaos. With just minutes to make a complete wardrobe change, models are always bumping into dressers, makeup artists or each other. I had to cover up more than one bruise over the years."

  Jordan delivered that last statement without blinking an eye. It was true. Truer than he would ever know. She was battling memories she refused to let surface when TJ raised her hand to his lips.

  The kiss was as light as the touch of snow, but the contact jolted through her with the impact of a Taser. So did the glint of laughter in his eyes.

  "All better now?"

  "Yes." Jerking her hand free of his, she shoved it into the pocket of her terry cloth robe. "Good night."

  He took the hint. Finally! Relieved she would be rid of him, Jordan trailed him to the entryway.

  "I'll check on you tomorrow," he told her at the door. "If there's any swelling or stiffness in the finger joint, we'd better take you into town for X-rays."

  She frowned up at him, struck by the absolute ab­surdity of the situation. She hadn't exactly led a sedate life before or after being recruited by OMEGA. More than one of her undercover assign­ments had required her to dodge bullets and/or bounce off walls.

  Just last year she'd dangled helplessly at the end of a helicopter retrieval cable, slamming into sheer canyon walls while the crew worked frantically to compensate for a sudden downdraft and reel her in. The year before, she'd cracked a rib leaping from one rooftop to another in pursuit of a Swiss forger.

  That TJ would make such a big deal about one little pinkie both annoyed and disturbed Jordan. She wasn't used to people fussing over her. Especially rogue cops who topped her shortlist of suspects in a possible money-laundering scheme.

  "I'll let you know if the hand bothers me. Good night."

  He tipped her a salute and departed. Jordan stood at the door for a moment, listening to the soft crunch of his footsteps on the lava walkway, watching him move through the tropical night. As he merged with the shadows, her gaze swept the postcard-perfect scene.

  A fat moon hung low above the mountains, washing their jagged peaks with pale light. The dark silhouettes of palm trees stood like tall sentinels against the night sky. Their fronds rustled in the breeze, as if whispering secrets to the waves curling against the cliffs.

  It was a setting designed for romance. A night made for lovers. Jordan didn't realize she was rubbing the spot TJ had kissed until she pressed the bruise a little too hard.

  "Idiot," she muttered, thoroughly disgusted with herself.

  One crooked grin. That's all it had taken to breach her barriers again. She knew what the man was. Knew what he'd done. Yet here she was, tingling like some silly schoolgirl from his touch.

  "Idiot," she said again and slammed the door on the magical night.

  What she needed, Jordan decided, was a long, hard workout at the spa. She'd schedule one for tomorrow, after the group session Greene had talked her into. And that seaweed wrap, she thought, re­membering Felicity Waller-Winston's sly comment about the spa director. If the dark-haired Eurasian had gotten as close to TJ as Felicity ha
d hinted, Jordan might be able to worm some information about him and their mutual employer out of the woman.

  The plan should have sparked a sense of antici­pation. Instead, the idea of pumping Liana Wu for intimate details about TJ left almost as sour a taste in Jordan's mouth as the prospect of listening to Felicity go into detail about her horny state.

  Her mouth curling, she retrieved a towel from the bathroom, yanked a tray of ice cubes from the mini-fridge and slapped an ice pack over her injured hand.

  How the hell did she do it?

  His jaw tight, TJ cut across the grounds to the building that housed the security center.

  How the hell did the woman tie him in knots every time he got within five feet of her?

  Granted, a man would have to be dead from the neck down not to react to the sight that had greeted TJ when he'd entered the steam-filled bathroom. He suspected the erotic image would keep him awake for most of the night. That and the fact that Jordan had lied to him.

  Still puzzling over her slip about the shampoo, TJ let himself in through the rear door of the adminis­trative center. With its wide porch, green shutters and high, hipped roof, the building blended in with the turn-of-the-century style of the other structures. The offices inside, however, were equipped with the best that money could buy.

  Housekeeping and personnel took up one wing, maintenance another. TJ's domain included offices for him and his second in command, a locker room and break area for his staff of thirty, an administra­tive area and the ops center lined with banks of monitors.

  There was also an armory stocked with a lethal assortment of weapons. TJ insisted his people hone their skills regularly at the firing range. The wealthy, high-profile guests who sequestered themselves at the Tranquility Institute made too tempting a target for stalkers or kidnappers.

  The security officer working the 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. shift looked up when his boss entered. "How's Ms. Colby?"

  "You pegged it. She did take a fall."

  "She okay?"

  "She hit her hand going down, but I don't think she broke any bones."

  TJ snagged a cup of coffee from the pot his security crew kept perking twenty-four-seven. The sludge looked like something pumped out by an exhaust pipe and was probably ninety-nine percent caffeine, but he didn't figure he'd get much sleep tonight anyway.

  "You've got the incident recorded in your log, right?"

  "Yes, sir." The officer used a mouse to scroll down the electronic log. "Right here."

  TJ scanned the lines and was about to signal his approval, when a brief entry just above caught his at­tention. Frowning, he leaned over the officer's shoul­der.

  "What's this?"

  "One of the intrusion-detection devices at the main business center went down. It came right back up again, but I made a note for maintenance to test the system first thing in the morning."

  "Show me which device."

  A click of the mouse brought up the business center's security grid. Another click tagged the device protecting one of the first-floor windows.

  "Did you direct the cameras to sweep that area?"

  "Yes, sir, as soon as the device went down."

  "Pull up the sweep," TJ instructed, a tight feeling in his gut. "I want to see it."

  Chapter 5

  The morning group gathered in a large, airy room at the Meditation Center. Outside, a tropical shower pattered down on broad-leafed palms and banyans. Inside, fans whirled lazily, drawing in the spongy scent of wet earth.

  Jordan had taken her cue from the casual resort attire she'd observed last night. Comfortable in jeweled flip-flops, gauzy white drawstring shorts and a shim­mering turquoise halter top by one of New York's top designers, she settled into a high-backed rattan chair and surveyed the others gathered for the session.

  Felicity Waller-Winston lounged in the chair opposite Jordan's. Her blond hair was scraped back from her face and caught with a band, making her look both older and unhappier in the harsh light of day. Her arms and shoulders were bare, her breasts flattened by a stretchy bandeau top. She held her emerald in her hand and thumbed it constantly with a twitchy stroke.

  Edna Albert, the widow Jordan had met last night, sat next to Felicity. Barely five-one or -two, the frizzy-haired matron looked lost in the oversize fan-back chair. Her emerald dangled from a gold chain looped around her neck. Like Felicity, she worked her thumb over the stone.

  The ten-year-old asthmatic, Davy Helms, claimed the seat next to Edna's. His thumbs skimmed over the controls of a Game Boy.

  The other three attendees eyed Jordan with varying degrees of curiosity, but Bartholomew's arrival preempted introductions. His first order of business was to offer Jordan a glistening green teardrop threaded with a gold chain.

  "Ideally, everyone should select his or her own stone. It's a very personal choice that must come from the heart. I've had this beautiful gem in my private collection for some time, though, and thought of it the moment I touched your hands yesterday."

  He dropped the emerald into her palm and made a clucking sound at the contrast between the stone's shimmering purity and the ugly purple bruise mar­ring her skin.

  "TJ gave me a report of your accident."

  Jordan wasn't surprised. She suspected Greene's director of security kept him apprised of everything that went on at the institute. Including, she couldn't help wondering, that touching, tender kiss?

  She'd spent hours last night reliving Scott's sudden appearance in her bathroom, dissecting his every word, remembering the warmth of his lips against her skin. Annoyed that she could still feel a tingle, she shrugged aside her host's concern.

  "The bruise looks worse than it feels. This stone is magnificent."

  Her deliberate attempt to change the topic worked. Greene almost purred as he closed her fingers gently over the emerald teardrop.

  "It's one of the finer samples from our friends at the Muzo mine. My gemologist has had it soaking in saltwater since yesterday afternoon to release its healing properties. Perhaps you'll feel its energy during our session."

  Or not, Jordan thought as he took his seat and opened the session. After introducing her to the group, he went around the circle and invited the others to provide whatever information about them­selves they felt comfortable sharing.

  Jordan picked up a wealth of detail on each guest. She also learned more than she wanted to know about Edna's four ungrateful daughters and Felici­ty's vigorous sex life. When it was her turn, she supplied her name and the fact that she was visiting the institute on business.

  Edna squinted across the room. "So what's your problem, sweetie?"

  "I don't have one. I'm merely here to listen and learn how best to satisfy the needs of Bartholomew's clients in the line of glasses I'm proposing to sell through the institute's outlets."

  "Bull crackers," the widow snorted, crossing one sneakered foot over the other. "Everyone has prob­lems. You just don't want to talk about yours."

  Bartholomew intervened with a mild reproof. "Now, Edna. You know how group works. No one is required to speak if they don't wish to. Do you all have your stones?"

  Hands went to pockets and to necklines. Emer­alds of every size, shape and clarity appeared.

  "Good. We'll begin with five minutes of medita­tion. Take a deep breath. Release it. Again..."

  Like obedient children, the other six members of the group followed his instructions. Jordan snuck a glance at each of them as chests rose and fell.

  "Now think about your physical state," Greene murmured, stroking his pendant with a lover's caress. "Concentrate on the way you're sitting. Whether you're warm or cool. Are you full from breakfast or ready for lunch?"

  Edna closed her eyes. Felicity dropped her head against the rattan chair back and let her gaze drift toward the ceiling. Ten-year-old Davy hunched his shoulders, swung his legs and stared at the floor.

  Jordan went with the flow. Thankful that Claire's pre-brief had prepared her for this sort of hocus-po
­cus, she closed her eyes.

  "Shift your attention to your feelings," Greene said after several silent moments. "Don't judge. Don't analyze. Just let the sensations come and go, bringing thoughts and memories and associations."

  Jordan didn't have any trouble identifying her feelings. Impatience ranked right up there at the top, although she had to admit the man had a mes­merizing voice.

  "Now expand your focus. Bring in the world around you. Do you hear the rain on the roof? Feel the ocean breeze against your skin? Let the sounds and colors and shapes come to you. Broaden you. Stimulate you."

  Okay, this wasn't so bad. Head cocked, Jordan found herself listening to the rhythm of the rain and breathing in the tang of the sea.

  "Relax," Greene said in a seductive whisper. "Relax. Your body. Your mind. Become one with your world. Your self."

  Sneaking a peak, Jordan saw that several of the other guests appeared to have achieved a near-hyp­notic state. Edna's mouth sagged open, showing a good deal of expensive bridgework. Felicity was gazing dreamily up at the ceiling.

  "Who wants to begin?" Greene asked softly. "Who's feeling an increased perceptual sensitivity?"

  Felicity let out a gusty sigh. "I'm feeling an in­creased something, Doc, but I wouldn't classify it as perceptual."

  Edna's mouth snapped shut. Her eyes popped open. With a cackling snort, she sat up in her fan-shaped chair.

  "Hooo, boy! Here we go. Miss Hot Pants is going to tell again about how she can only achieve spirit­ual fulfillment with a stud."

  Jordan shot a look at the youngest member of the group. Surely Greene wouldn't allow Felicity to give the graphic details about her erotic cravings in the presence of a ten-year-old.

  He didn't, thank goodness. With deft skill, the therapist led Felicity into an exploration of her seemingly deep-seated belief that a physical rela­tionship was the only kind she believed she could have with a man. By the time the much-divorced blonde admitted she couldn't trust any male to love her more than her bank account, she was sobbing, Edna was clucking in sympathy, and the tip of Jordan's borrowed emerald was gouging into her palm.