‘Right, so now that’s all done, let’s have you out of there,’ she heard him say briskly a few minutes later.
He held out a bath towel, wrapped her inside it and began gently patting her dry. There wasn’t a single overtone of sexuality in the action, and she blessed him for it.
Now wasn’t the time for love. But she did love him. She had always loved him — and she knew that in her highly emotional state she could be in danger of mixing love and gratitude. She owed him her life, but her emotions were too acute right now to sort out her true feelings, and she knew he wouldn’t press it. But she had to say something.
‘Nick, you know how grateful I am — and I know how bloody feeble that sounds. But you must be aware how overwhelmed I’m feeling — and that if you hadn’t arrived when you did—’
‘I know. Like the cavalry coming over the hill, as usual. Of course I know how you’re feeling, so you needn’t try to explain. Just relax, Alex. And I’m not leaving you alone tonight, so if you’ve got any objections to that, say so now and I’ll arrange for a WPC to stay with you.’
She managed a second smile. Things were looking up.
‘Are you kidding? Since when did I ever prefer a WPC to my own special bodyguard? And please don’t say anything about it being a pretty special body to guard,’ she pleaded.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then coffee’s next on the agenda, and something to eat. I can manage an omelette, though I’m not much good at making anything else. I don’t know about you, but using up all that adrenaline makes me ravenous.’
‘I’m hungry too,’ Alex said, realizing that she was. It seemed hours since she had eaten anything, and she had missed out on dinner with Gary in what seemed like another lifetime.
‘You see to the coffee and I’ll make the omelette,’ she said. ‘It’s my kitchen, remember?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I never pretended to be good husband material, anyway.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ Alex told him. ‘You’ll make some girl a great husband one of these days.’
‘Is that a proposal?’
‘No. Just a bit of psychic prediction. You forget I’ve had a basinful of it in the last few months.’
She gave a small shiver, but already she was starting to get things into perspective. She was here and she was alive, and the case was as good as over. At least the man at the root of it was going to be brought to justice, and it seemed a sweet twist of fate that a high court judge was finally going to get a taste of his own medicine.
This particular one was notorious for doling out unnecessarily vicious and heavy sentences, which was why anyone coming into his court was always extra fearful of their fate. And his cases always got lurid prominence in the press by reporters only too willing to show their contempt for his methods. They were certainly going to have a field day now, and she was glad.
‘Laying ghosts, Alex?’ Nick said quietly, and she realized she had been staring into space for the last few minutes. The smell of percolating coffee began to waft into her nostrils, hot and sensual, and also blessedly normal.
‘Just a few,’ she admitted. ‘Ingleby was the real villain, but those two women—’ she shook her head slowly. ‘I never thought I could be so taken in by anyone. But it seems I’ve still got a lot to learn about people.’
‘It happens to all of us. It’s always them against us. Haven’t you discovered that yet? The crims think they can get away with it, and even the good guys will screw us any way they can. Let it go, darling. Tomorrow’s another day.’
She started to laugh. ‘That was almost straight out of Gone With the Wind, Nick.’
‘Was it?’ he grinned. ‘I wasn’t feeling particularly romantic, but I can always be persuaded. Maybe we could take out the video and watch it together.’
Her laughter faded. ‘Maybe. But let’s leave that for another day too. There’s another video you need to watch first, and I think I’ll leave you to it while I make the omelette.’
She couldn’t bear to watch it again. Especially not with him. He was a decent man who often had a rotten job to do, and she had always known that porno movies were definitely not for her. She didn’t think he would relish them, either.
She had drunk a much-needed mug of black coffee and was still breaking eggs into a bowl and whisking them half-heartedly when he came into the kitchen a short while later.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said in a clipped voice. ‘And you can forget any sense of outrage on the Wolstenholmes’ behalf, Alex. Any woman who can film her daughter like that isn’t worth a rag, and nor is the daughter who was willing to be filmed. They’re both as perverted as Ingleby.’
‘I know,’ Alex said.
‘So now can we put it all behind us and eat?’
As he spoke, Alex felt her stomach rumble. Her father used to tease her, saying that the day she refused food would be the day she gave up living. And this wasn’t the day. This definitely wasn’t the day. This was the first day of the rest of her life. And if she didn’t stop thinking in these bloody cringe-making clichés, she was going to turn into a smirking Stepford wife. She spoke quickly.
‘I’ve got some frozen chips in the freezer. Fancy them to go with the omelette? They’ll only take five minutes in the microwave, and they’ll be ready by the time I’ve finished with these eggs.’
‘Then what are you waiting for, woman?’ Nick said.
Without warning she gave an enormous yawn. She was so tired she could hardly see straight, but she knew she needed food before anything else. And then she needed her bed, more than she had ever needed it before.
‘Sleep with me, Nick,’ she said abruptly.
‘Hey, I intend to,’ he said, and then he paused. ‘Was there any doubt about that?’
‘Well, there was always the sofa. But I mean sleep with me and nothing else. I need to feel your arms around me, and to wake up tomorrow knowing that you’re still there. I need to feel safe.’
‘And you think that will happen with me?’ he teased her with a touch of the old arrogance in his voice. ‘You trust me that much?’
‘I do,’ she said solemnly. ‘For tonight, anyway. And as you said, tomorrow’s another day.’
‘Is that another prediction?’
‘Maybe. Or a promise. But don’t count on it. I’m not into seeing into the future.’
But she was smiling as she said it.
If you enjoyed reading Illusions, you might be interested in Thicker than Water by Jean Saunders, also published by Endeavour Press.
Extract from Thicker than Water by Jean Saunders
Chapter 1
Long before she left the flat that evening, Alex sensed the adrenalin pumping around her veins. The job frequently got her into tricky situations, and some were downright dangerous, verging on the scary and lethal. But at least they were never the same. And they were rarely dull.
And, since she relished a change of tempo in whatever she did, her choice of career had taken considerable thought, ticking off the unlikely and the impossible, and coming down to the, um, well, maybes.
After a sketchy schooling, she was cheerfully hopeless at maths, and science was a frighteningly alien country. But geography and art had always fascinated her, and she definitely had an enquiring, not to say avidly nosy mind. So in choosing to go for the quirky instead of the predictable, she reminded herself severely that she had no one to blame but herself for whatever turned up that night, or any other night.
God, what a job description, Alex thought with a faint smile now. It made her sound more like a street-walker than a perfectly respectable private eye, however amateurish the big boys might think her methods. And at least she got results. Nearly always. Well, sometimes.
The Rainbow Cellar Club was just as she had expected it to be: dimly lit with rose-coloured lamps, and smoky with an indefinable smell that was more than just cigarettes and the overpowering scent of cheap perfume and sweaty bodies.
It was familiar territory for this kind of init
ial meeting. Those who turned up in her office after hesitant phone calls, were usually nervous lady clients, wanting to check up on errant husbands with as little fuss as possible. For those she just needed to keep a supply of tissues at the ready, and just as great a need to keep her own emotions well under control. Beneath her air of hard-won city sophistication there beat a heart of pure unadulterated slush — or would be, if she once gave it its freedom.
She was still a sucker for a woman’s sob story, which, she freely admitted, came from too many late nights watching old movies on satellite television, curled up on her sofa with the said tissues, dipping her fingers far too often into a box of chocolates, to the despair of her thighs.
But when it came to the men who found her name in Yellow Pages, they generally sought her out to investigate a crime thus avoiding the interference of the police. And if they didn’t turn up unannounced at her minuscule office, then, as predictable as breathing, they invariably suggested this kind of place for a first meeting.
She guessed that what they never expected was the kind of upper-class persona she exuded, as if she’d been born to it. It could put them off, of course, but on the other hand, it also kept them firmly in their place.
***
As she moved across the room, her long slim legs seemed even longer in the short black silk skirt and well-fitting jacket she wore. The chocolate-enhanced thighs hadn’t yet succumbed to the wearing of elastic-waisted skirts, she thought thankfully. She wasn’t conventionally beautiful, but she did her best with what she had.
And how about that for an epitaph! She ignored the head-turning and the wolf-whistles and the blatant remarks, and let her startlingly green eyes roam lazily around the disco floor towards the bar.
‘Fancy a night to remember, darlin’?’ a guy in black leathers said, pressing close to her in the crush, and letting his hand slide around the silky mounds of her buttocks.
‘Get lost, creep,’ Alex said, giving him back the kind of language he would understand, and a stare that would freeze a polar bear at ten paces.
‘Is that any way to treat somebody who’s looking for a good time? How about this for starters, babe?’
He pressed closer now, and she could feel his erection pushing against her. She hid a faint smile, and swivelled round as if she was interested.
‘How about this, babe?’ she said softly, kneeing him just hard enough to make him grunt, and then twisting away from him to merge into the crowd of disco dancers.
‘Bitch!’ she heard him yell after her, but she was no longer interested, even though she had swiftly registered that he had a nice bum and clean white teeth, and was probably a biker. Maybe another time she might have accepted a drink or three... but tonight she was here on business, and the guy she was here to meet was a gent called Norman Price.
She scanned the bar area quickly, used to making instant assessments of people. It went with the job. Alexandra Best, Private Investigator... even now, whenever she caught sight of the title on her business cards or headed notepaper, it sent a thrill of almost sexual pleasure running through her.
She had learned the job unaided and through instinct, some of which had admittedly sent her down plenty of wrong alleys. But she finally felt she had made it — sort of — and if she was ever asked about her job, she said with as much irony as possible that turning to crime was the best thing she had ever done...
***
There were half-a-dozen guys at the bar. She discounted the two who were surreptitiously holding hands. It was none of her business. An older man, hunched over his whisky, looked as if he was settling in for the night, and had already drunk half his weekly salary away. One guy turned away from the bar with a trayful of drinks, so he wasn’t her man.
That still left two. It would be the dark-suited one, Alex decided. He was distinguished, slightly greying with a neat haircut and a furrowed frown on his face.
It certainly wouldn’t be the yob with dirty fingernails, at least, she hoped not. She might often be involved in dirty jobs, but she was fastidious when it came to personal hygiene.
In the long mirror behind the bar she could see the guys watching her approach, and sensed that the barman was wondering what the hell she was doing in a place like this.
Her face, while not of the Demi Moore variety (nose too long, chin too pointed), nevertheless had a kind of autocratic quality about it — or so she always kidded herself when bemoaning that she was never going to be movie-star material. But she did have those glorious eyes, and long, pike-straight, fringed red hair that somebody once said shimmered with the richness of autumn leaves in New England.
It was a phrase that alternately charmed her and made her want to throw up. All Alex knew was that it was the kind of springy hair that leapt defiantly out of curling tongs no matter how much she coaxed it or swore at it... but right now, its hot colour was muted under the rose-coloured lights, and it looked pretty good, she acknowledged modestly.
What she did have — so she was told — was a sensual mix of innocence and hidden passion. They were assets that had got her into hot water as often as they had got her out of dangerous situations. She pushed some of the uglier memories out of her mind now, as she wove her way through the disco dancers to reach the bar of the Rainbow Club.
‘Mr Price?’ she queried the well-dressed gent in the suit. He looked at her, startled and wary at being approached, and she knew at once she had made a mistake.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing off. ‘I thought you were someone else.’
‘I wish I was, miss,’ he began with a ready smile, and she could tell he was intrigued and reassured by her well-bred voice and that Sloaney air of sophistication. It always fooled them.
‘Miss Best?’ she heard a thick voice say from somewhere along the length of the bar.
She smothered a groan. It was the huncher. The drunk. She hid her distaste as she moved towards him. She forced herself to remember that he was a client, no more, and personalities and lifestyles made no difference to her determination to do her damnedest for her clients.
Anyway, they were the ones who paid the bills for her tiny office and West End flat, she thought, with the inborn cynicism of somebody who had found her way to the proverbial top by her own efforts and no silver spoon.
She pushed aside the thought. Tonight, Alex Best’s northern background was the last thing on her mind. She was here on business.
‘I’m Alexandra Best,’ she said, extending a slim hand adorned with her favourite antique silver and turquoise rings. ‘And you are Mr Norman Price, I take it?’
‘That’s right.’
He looked at her from beneath bushy eyebrows. He was probably about sixty, but he looked older and seedier. But now that she looked at him properly, she thought he probably wasn’t drunk at all. And why did something tell her the casual clothes he wore were far from his usual style?
His hair was too cropped, and too tidy around his nape; his fingernails were trimmed and ultra-white. She always took account of such things; it went with the job.
But he had a worn, defeated air, like one of those dogs with sad eyes and drooping jowls whose name she could never remember. And he was desperate for somebody to find his missing daughter. Which was why she was here.
‘It’s far too noisy for us to talk here,’ she said quietly, as the disco music reached a chest-hurting crescendo. ‘Why didn’t you come to my office like I suggested? We could go there now, if you like.’
God, she hoped he didn’t think this was a pass. The barman, listening with eyebrows raised, obviously did.
‘No,’ Price said sharply, with no further explanation.
‘Then we’d better find a table,’ Alex said, jostled from behind once more. The biker had recovered from his kneeing, and was glowering at her now, his dark eyes gleaming with anger, but also something else.
Despite her earlier annoyance, she felt a frisson of excitement. After the boredom of a childhood spent in the wilds of Yorkshire, the
longing for a more vibrant lifestyle was what had brought her to London and into this work in the first place. And this guy had a look of animal danger about him... deliciously so. And she was no nun.
She treated him to a smile and mouthed a ‘Sorry, I’m here on business’ at him, as Norman Price looked at her cautiously, then clearly remembered the social niceties.
‘Let me get you a drink, Miss Best.’
‘Just orange juice, thank you,’ she said firmly. She normally went for vodka and lime, but maybe her innocent choice would encourage the guy to do the same.
He scowled as the barman asked him pointedly if he should make that two orange juices, and then reluctantly agreed. A couple of minutes later they were heading towards a table at the far end of the room, but not before the biker had leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, nuzzling his lips far closer than was necessary. He smelled of the healthy outdoors.
‘See you later, Miss Best.’
So he knew her name. Well, it didn’t take a genius to know he’d overheard Norman Price mumble it. But the way the guy in the black leathers had said it was something else.
Sternly, Alex reminded herself that she fell in and out of lust too easily... and all too often it had nothing to do with love, just a wild sexual attraction, as inevitable as the pull of the moon on the tide. And, incongruous and unexpected though it was, it was pulling her now...
‘So tell me what I can do for you, Mr Price,’ she prompted, when the client sat morosely looking into space. ‘I can’t help you unless I know every detail you can think of.’
She flipped open her notebook unobtrusively. The guy was nervous. She knew he didn’t really want to be telling her anything at all. Despite his attitude tonight, Alex suspected he was behaving out of character, both in drinking heavily and coming to this kind of place. Maybe he thought he could find the kind of anonymity here that was in total contrast to his normal life, whatever that was.
Interesting. She filed away the thought for future reference. Intuition told her that he was either a very private person, or somebody with secrets. She plumped for the second, knowing what little she already did. Somebody had invaded the privacy of his life and snatched his daughter. Or so he suspected. And for some reason he didn’t want the police involved. QED.
Illusions (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 2) Page 25