Hot & Bothered

by Susan Andersen

  She felt the knots start to unravel, but it was John who said with a much cooler lack of emotion than she ever would have managed, “You didn’t kill him, kid.”

  “What?” Jared turned to stare at Rocket. “Yeah. I did. I just told you, I couldn’t feel a pulse.”

  “No, J, he’s right.” The girl with her brother darted over to dance in place in front of him. In a raspy voice that was oddly attractive she said, “Remember when I told you I saw on the news that your father had been murdered and they were looking for you? Well, they said he was stabbed.”

  “What?” He looked as though someone had stabbed him as he struggled to assimilate the news. “No, that can’t be right. I pushed him.”

  “But he didn’t die from a head wound,” John informed him. “He died from blood loss due to a stab wound to the chest.”

  “Maybe someone stabbed him after I already killed him.”

  “No,” John said unequivocally. “I don’t know why you couldn’t find your father’s pulse, but if you’d really killed him his heart would have stopped. There would’ve been a lot less blood than the records I read indicate.”

  Jared blinked. For the first time he really seemed to focus on John and his dark eyebrows furrowed. “Who are you?” When his voice cracked in the middle of the demand he flushed a painful-looking shade of red.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Victoria interceded. “I should have introduced you, but I lost track of everything beyond the fact that you’re here and unharmed, as far as I can tell. This is Rocket. John, that is—John Miglionni. He’s…an old friend of mine. I hired him to find you.”

  “Hired him?” He glanced at John. “What are you, some kind of private eye or something?”

  John met his gaze with a steady regard. “Yep.”

  “No shit?” The second the words left his mouth he shrugged as if to invalidate any interest his tone might have suggested. But his shoulders relaxed fractionally as he turned back to Victoria. “I really didn’t kill Dad?”

  “You really didn’t,” she assured him.

  “Oh, God.” Legs folding, he abruptly sank to sit cross-legged on the cement path. He buried his head in his hands. “Oh, God, Tori. I thought I was going to hell, for sure.”

  “Look,” John said. “We’re starting to draw attention and since Jared’s not out of the woods yet that’s not a situation we want to court before we get everything straightened out. Let’s get out of here. We can take this to my office.”

  In the excitement of finding him, Victoria had momentarily forgotten that the police still considered her brother their prime suspect. The reminder served to make her glance around and she saw that John was right—this wasn’t the best venue for airing their private affairs. “Good idea.”

  The girl with the raspy voice took a few hesitant steps back. “I guess I’d better be shoving off then.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her baggy jeans, hunched her narrow shoulders up around her ears and shot agonized glances at Jared’s down-bent head. But when it shot up at her words, she pasted on a bright smile. “Get outta your hair so you guys can get to it and all.”

  “No!” He jumped to his feet and grabbed her by a slender arm. “You’re coming with us.”

  “Oh, but…”

  Without releasing the girl, he turned her toward Victoria. “This is my sister, Tori,” he said. “Tor, this is P.J. If it weren’t for her I’d have been a lot worse off than I was.”

  “Naw, that’s not true,” P.J. disagreed. Her glance locked intently on Victoria. “He’s really smart and—”

  “She warned me away from dangerous places,” Jared interrupted. “Told me where to go to get a shower and food. She kept me company, Tor. And if we leave her here, she’ll be on the streets all alone. Her damn mother—”

  Yanking her arm free, P.J. shoved her slight frame up against Jared’s longer, stronger one. “You leave my mother out of this!”

  “Yeah, okay, I’m sorry. But you’re coming with us.”

  Victoria watched the interaction with fascination and when the girl gave her a glance rife with uncertainty, the vulnerability and fear in those big golden brown eyes just tore her up. “Better do what he says, P.J.,” she advised with a gentle smile. “He can be stubborn as a mule once he sets his mind on something.”

  “Don’t I know it,” the girl muttered, but the trepidation faded from her expression. She turned to Jared. “Okay, then, but just for a while.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He hooked the bend of his elbow around her neck and hauled her in, scrubbing his knuckles against the crown of her Denver Broncos cap.

  She jabbed him in the side with her own sharp little elbow and wrested free, tugging the navy-blue bill down to settle the cap more firmly over her hair. “Jeez. Show a little dignity, will ya?”

  A muffled laugh escaped Rocket, but when Victoria turned to him his expression was bland. “I’ll just give Mac a call and let her know we’re coming,” he said, hauling his cell phone from his hip pocket.

  A piece of her sense of well-being fizzled. Oh, goody. Mac again. The woman who ran John’s office. The woman with whom he carried on a flirtation. It didn’t take much imagination to picture her. She was no doubt some Nordic blonde with a perpetual tan, 40DD breasts and thighs that could crack a walnut. Looking down at her own less-than-pristine T-shirt and dusty sneakers, Victoria wished she’d taken the time to slap on a little makeup this morning.

  The kids sat close together in the back of John’s vehicle and Victoria got a sense of just how much comfort they must have given each other during their time on the streets. Having seen a little during the past two nights of the life kids made for themselves there, she thought she could appreciate how important it must have been for her brother to have someone to count on. Someone to let him know he wasn’t all alone.

  Rocket wheeled into a small parking lot that fronted a converted Arts-and-Crafts-style house a short while later. The antique brass sign posted to one of the pillars of the roofed front porch read Semper Fi Investigations.

  Somehow, both the beautifully painted little house and the small business district in the upscale neighborhood that housed it took Victoria by surprise. She didn’t know what she had expected, exactly, but something more along the lines of a Mickey Spillane book, surely. “What?” she murmured. “No seedy hallway? No transom above the frosted glass door?”

  John shot her a grin and reached over to give her thigh a squeeze as he twisted around to Jared. “Gird your loins, kid—”

  “His name is Jared,” P.J. snapped.

  He smiled at her. “So it is—my apologies. Gird your loins, Jared. And you too, P.J. You’re about to meet Gert.”

  P.J. unbuckled her seat belt and scooted forward on the seat, all big eyes and interest. “Who’s Gert?”

  “Gert MacDellar, also known as Mac, is my office manager. My factotum.” He sent a sly glance Victoria’s way. “My Girl Friday, you might say.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, she thought sourly. Very droll. It wasn’t that she was jealous…exactly. Well, maybe she was, just a little. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn’t nearly as speedy as everyone else to climb out of the car. Lagging behind, she paused to slap away some of the dust that had accumulated on her person. It was amazing how much had managed to transfer itself from Denver’s alleyways and meaner streets to her.

  His Girl Friday was no doubt spotless.

  “Good,” a voice snapped on the other side of the open doorway, “you’re here. I trust you’re going to be around more now.”

  Victoria slowly straightened from brushing off her jeans. Hello. What was this? The much-adored Mac didn’t possess the dulcet tones she’d expected. Picking up her pace, Victoria climbed the porch steps and walked through the open doorway.

  Ensconced behind an enormous oak desk across the room, an older woman with blue-tinted hair and cat’s-eye glasses was staring up at John with a militant expression. “Tell me this finally wraps up the Colorado Springs case.”<
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  “’Fraid not.” He hooked a leg over the corner of her desk and smiled down at her, unaffected by her disgruntled tone.

  “Good God Almighty, boy, you gotta wrap it up pretty soon.” She waved a fistful of pink slips in his face. “Look at these messages! I’ve been turning away clients right and left.”

  “Deal with it, Mac,” he said coolly. “This case is more complicated than I first expected it would be and Ms. Hamilton wants me to look into who killed her father now that we know her brother didn’t.”

  “She wants you to look into a murder investigation?” The woman turned her fierce blue gaze on Victoria. “Do you have any idea how much that might end up costing you, young lady?”

  “Yes. John told me his fee and explained how even paying exorbitant amounts of money wouldn’t guarantee me the answers I’m seeking.”

  “John did, did he?”

  “Knock it off, Gert.”

  “Fine.” She shot him a look and gave her fifties upsweep a comforting pat. “Close that door,” she snapped at P.J., who had been prowling the office and now hung half in and half out the doorway to examine the bird feeder out on the porch. “We’re not paying to air-condition the great outdoors.”

  “Sorry. This place is so beautiful I just wanna see everything.” P.J. closed the door as ordered, then skipped over to the desk. “I love your glasses,” she said, studying Gert closely. “And your hair is too cool! It’s really tight seeing an old—that is, a senior citizen who knows how to make the most of the retro craze.”

  “Glad you approve,” Gert said acerbically, but her eyes softened as she looked at the young girl.

  P.J. indicated Gert’s big desk and the office around her. “So what all do you do here? You must be pretty important, huh? Mr. Miglionni said me and Jared had better gird our loins to meetcha.”

  “Mr. Miglionni is a smart-mouthed whippersnapper,” Gert informed her. “But he is very good at his job. My job is to keep the office working smoothly so he can do it. Not to mention—” she shot John a pointed look from behind her immaculately polished lenses “—seeing to it that he turns in his hours on a regular basis, so I can bill the clients, so we can both eat and have roofs over our heads.”

  P.J. nodded. “That’s important, for sure,” she agreed fervently.

  Gert froze for a second, then gave the young girl a thorough once-over. “You’re okay, kid.”

  “Thanks. My name is P.J.”

  “And I’m Gert.”

  “And this is Jared,” John said. “Now that everyone knows everyone else, let’s go into my office and figure out what we need to do to get Jared off the hook and back to a seminormal life.”

  “Seminormal?” Victoria asked.

  “He’s a teenager.” John shrugged. “It’s the best we can hope for.”

  She smiled and even Jared, who was standing stiffly by her side, dividing his attention between P.J. and Rocket, allowed the corners of his lips to relax.

  But John must have sensed his tension, for he said, “My office is this way,” and led them down a short hallway with deep gold walls and framed posters of old forties film noir movies.

  Victoria divided her time between checking out the rooms they passed—a kitchen, bathroom, and who-knew-what behind a closed door—and admiring the way Rocket’s wide shoulders tapered to narrow hips, and the easy, athletic way he had of moving. Then he paused in front of another door and she pulled her attention away from the contemplation of his shiny hair, which he’d braided today. She was rapidly revising the opinion she’d always held that the only men who wore ponytails in this day and age were stuck-in-the-sixties hippies and hit men. Smiling to herself, she glanced at the door he’d stopped in front of.

  She stopped dead, as well, and stared at it. For this one had a frosted glass window with an open transom over the top. John Miglionni, Private Investigator had been lettered on the window and, turning, she cocked an eyebrow at him. “Can I call it, or what? This is too good.”

  A faint wash of color stained his cheekbones, but he gave her a crooked smile. “What can I say?” His shoulders moved fluidly beneath his plain black T-shirt. “It seemed appropriate.”

  “What did?” P.J. looked up at Jared. “Do you understand what they’re talking about?”

  “The door,” he told her. “In all the old private eye books, the P.I. has an office with a door like this.”

  “Huh.” It didn’t take a mind reader to tell she thought they were making a big fuss over nothing.

  Within minutes John had them all seated facing his desk. Instead of going around and taking his own chair behind it, he hooked a leg over the corner of the desk nearest Victoria’s seat.

  She really wished he hadn’t. It put his spread thighs and the hard-to-ignore fact that he dressed to the left practically at eye level, forcibly reminding her of the past two nights they’d spent together.

  She shifted in her seat, crossing then recrossing her legs.

  “The first thing we need to do is get Jared hooked up with a good criminal attorney,” he said. “Tori, do you have any objection to my office calling your attorney to request he recommend someone?”

  Her face heated. What on earth was she doing, reliving their lovemaking in her mind when her brother was still in trouble? She uncrossed her legs and sat up straight, folding her hands in her lap and primly crossing one ankle over the other. “Not at all.”

  “You have the lawyer’s name, Mac?” he asked.

  Victoria twisted around in surprise. She hadn’t even realized the woman had come with them, yet there she sat in an old leather chair in the back corner of the room. Gert projected such strength of will that Victoria wouldn’t have believed she could enter a room this size without anyone being aware of it. Clearly, though, she could disappear into the woodwork when the situation called for it.

  “Rutherford,” Gert said now, looking up from a legal pad balanced on the arm of her chair. “I’ll give him a call as soon as we’re through here.”

  John turned to Jared. “Okay, here’s the deal,” he said. “In order to straighten this mess out, you’re going to have to turn yourself in to the Colorado Springs Police. The when and the how of it, though, call for strategic handling, so we aren’t going to make a move until we have every piece in place. That means keeping you under wraps until we can get our hands on the best damn lawyer in the state. And since you’re a minor, you’re entitled to have your parents present when the police question you.”

  “I don’t have any parents left,” Jared said, shadows darkening his hazel eyes.

  “I know,” John said briskly. “But I’m guessing Victoria would qualify and what I’d like you to do, Tori,” he said, taking his attention off her brother long enough to level his black-eyed gaze on her, “is sign a statement that permits me to stand in for you.”

  “What?” She sat up even straighter. “No. I want to be there.”

  “I know you do, darlin’. You want to be with him to demonstrate your support when he’s questioned, and God knows you deserve to, since you were probably the only one who believed all along in his innocence. But I’ve met the cop in charge of this case, remember? He’s a hard-ass and, if the idea is to clear Jared’s name, I have a much better chance of representing his parental interests than you do.”

  She knew he was probably right, but that didn’t stop her from protesting, “It’s not as if you were in contact with the detective day after day. You only dealt with him—what?—one time?”

  “True. On the other hand, over the years I’ve dealt with a…shipload…of police departments, in more states than Jared here’s got years. It’s given me experience in working the system that you simply don’t have.”

  “And you don’t have any sort of history or relationship with Jared! Did it ever occur to you that maybe he’d be more comfortable with me there?”

  John turned to him. “Would you?”

  Her brother looked at Rocket for several silent moments, then turned to her and
said apologetically, “I don’t think I’m going to be comfortable no matter what. Still, if it won’t hurt your feelings, I’d like to go with someone who has experience working the system.”

  “Oh, sweetie, of course it won’t hurt my feelings.” Much. She gave herself a small shake, feeling like a spoiled brat. She had an awful feeling her insistence had more to do with her own guilt at having failed him than the need to offer her support. Reaching over to squeeze his hand, she looked at John. “I’ll sign whatever you say.”

  “Thank you,” he said gently. Then he turned brisk. “Mac, see about getting a name for a criminal attorney from the family lawyer. Find out where and when he wants to meet us.”

  “You got it,” she said, and left.

  In a surprisingly short time she was back. “Rutherford recommended an attorney named Ted Buchanan. I called his office and he said he’d meet with you all at the Hamilton estate tomorrow morning at eleven.”

  “Estate?” P.J. said. She looked at Jared almost in horror, but he merely gave a tiny shrug.

  “We might as well head down there this evening then,” Rocket said. He turned to P.J. “Which brings us to you.”

  She froze. “What? No, this ain’t got nuthin’ to do with me. I’m just along for the ride, because J wanted me to.”

  “You can’t go back on the streets, darlin’.”

  The endearment seemed to fluster her for a moment. Then her chin shot up. “I know. I don’t plan to. I’ll call my mom.”

  “And do what if she hangs up on you again?” Jared demanded.

  “Your mother hung up on you when you called?” Gert demanded, her blue eyes growing fierce behind her glasses.

  P.J. ignored the question, but the old lady simply crossed her arms over her bony chest and stared until the young girl finally shrugged. “Yes’m,” she muttered to the floor. Hot color moved up her throat and onto her face.

  “But I’m guessing you’d like to go home to her anyway, right?”