“And jail’s not for the likes of the Jamisons and Fortunes.” Besides, Melissa, the woman he had killed had had it coming to her, anyway, hadn’t she? She’d been willing to pretend she was his wife, but in the end she’d gotten greedy and had tried to mess in things that hadn’t concerned her. He’d thought she loved him; he’d spent tons of money on her and then she’d tried to work her own con and blackmail him in the bargain.
She’d laughed at him, and nobody laughed at Jason Jamison. No one messed with him. Soon enough, everyone would know that. Especially that little bitch that had blown the whistle on him. If it weren’t for her, he would still be living the good life.
Jason let out a long string of expletives.
“Yeah, McCabe and the high-and-mighty Ryan Fortune, they’re the ones who put me in here.”
And they would be the ones who had to pay.
Jason chuckled. A guard stopped by his cell.
“Something especially funny, Jamison? You remembering what it used to be like before you turned killer and ended up behind bars?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Ah, but we know it is, don’t we?” the guard asked.
Yeah, they did. Even prison guards had their uses. This one would be more useful still in the near future.
“You like your temporary home here? You better be grateful for the treatment you get. Because this ain’t nothin’ like it’s going to be. Once you stand trial and end up in maximum security, you might not meet guards as friendly as me.”
“And you might not meet prisoners who can do as much for you as I can.”
The guard shrugged. “You got a point. I definitely prefer guarding a man who at least has some money and a few rich connections. Makes this job more bearable.” The man raked his nose with his sleeve. Jason wanted to sneer, but instead he smiled.
“I can make the job more bearable if you like.”
The guard looked to the side, as if to see if anyone was listening. “What do you mean?”
So Jason told him. Yes, he definitely had a plan, but not everyone was going to like it.
The very thought made Jason smile. He was going to relish getting even.
But first he was going to relish getting free.
Three
“Lock every door, lock every window and stay away from them. Don’t let yourself be silhouetted in the light,” Vincent ordered Natalie as he prepared to leave her at her door.
She nodded. “And where will you be while I’m making myself invisible?” Even though she hadn’t meant to, Natalie asked the question out loud. The truth was she was dreadfully afraid that if she didn’t know exactly where Vincent was, she would be peeking out the window trying to spot him just like a star-struck teenage girl.
And then there was the other concern. She needed to get out of the house, and she needed to make sure that Vincent couldn’t follow her.
“I’ll be nearby,” he assured her.
“Don’t you have a family? A wife? Kids?”
“I don’t do the wife-and-kids stuff. It’s not for me.” His voice was hoarse. There was clearly a story behind that comment, one he obviously didn’t want to share.
“Okay, but don’t you ever go to bed?” She tried not to imagine him in a bed. She really did her best not to think about what he might wear or not wear…and what kind of woman he might sleep with.
“Sure, I sleep,” he assured her. “But I’ll never leave you unprotected. When I’m off-duty, I’ll put my best man on your case. Derek Seefer. If anything should happen, Derek knows what to do and he knows how to reach me.”
“Nothing will happen,” she said too quickly.
Vincent cocked his head, but he simply nodded. “Derek and I will see to it. Sleep well, Natalie.”
She looked up at him then, into those concerned dark gray eyes, and she wished she didn’t have to deceive him. She wished she could tell him what she had planned, but of course there was no way she could ever do that. If she did, he would follow her. Vincent certainly wasn’t the kind of man who would stay or go just because a woman told him to.
No, she would have to be sneaky. Too much was at stake here.
“I’ll be careful, Vincent,” she promised, even though she realized he couldn’t understand what she was talking about. “I promise. And thank you. I will sleep well.” Just as soon as she was back from her mission, she would sleep very well.
Vincent had encountered a lot of guilty looks in his days. He wondered if Natalie knew that she played with her hair when she was being evasive. Those pretty green eyes couldn’t quite focus on him, even though in all other ways she looked perfectly calm and in control.
“If I were a betting man,” he murmured, “I’d say that Natalie isn’t going to lock all her doors and sit tight. She’s going to run.”
He wondered why. She really appeared to be in danger, and it was clear from her reaction to the memory of those notes that she didn’t take the threats lightly. Yet she chafed at having a keeper. Not that he blamed her. Even if a bodyguard was for her own safety, the lack of privacy, the sense of being watched and treated like a child was bound to rankle with a woman who had been on her own for as long as Natalie had. She was twenty-nine, an independent woman with a career, and now she had a keeper.
No, he’d just bet he wasn’t on Natalie’s list of favorite people right now. He wondered who was. What man topped her list of those she wanted to spend time with?
“Whoa, don’t go there, buddy. None of your concern. This lady is just a client. That puts her off-limits for everything.”
Right now the lady was slipping out some back entrance if the slight screech of wood against wood was any indication. Opening a window?
“Maybe, and maybe it’s someone else opening the window to climb inside, you dolt,” he told himself, sprinting around the corner.
He was just in time to see a pair of shapely legs emerging from the window. He frowned. She was wearing beige sandals that displayed pretty pink toes. When she started to slide out of the window, her narrow skirt caught on the frame and stuck, sliding up to reveal a pair of thighs that could make a man beg to touch.
Vincent breathed in deeply, ordering himself to ignore the lady’s thighs and just concentrate on the task at hand.
“Need a hand?” he asked, stepping forward and reaching up for her.
Her head came up and her eyes met his. To her credit, she didn’t shriek, something she certainly had a right to do. Instead, she stared down at his hands and at her own exposed flesh. If he lowered his hands, he could cup his palms around those rounded thighs.
Natalie gave a frustrated sigh. “Yes, thank you,” she said primly. “I could use a hand.”
“And a lift? You appear to be going out.”
“Yes. I have work to do.”
“All right, let’s go.” He reached up and she squirmed, but it was clear that if he let her continue her downward slide, he’d be seeing a lot more than just her thighs. Right now Vincent didn’t think he could handle viewing Natalie’s nearly naked and undoubtedly lovely little ass. A man only had so much self-control and while he had more than most men, while he had spent a lifetime teaching himself to ignore the dictates of his mind and his emotions, the urge to slide his palms across Natalie’s bare skin would still be there. He couldn’t have indiscreet thoughts about his client interfering with his job.
Carefully, Vincent placed his hands on Natalie’s waist and lifted her from the window. “You were going to walk?”
She shrugged. “It seemed best. If I took my car—”
“I’d see you and follow. I’ll drive you.”
Suddenly, she placed her hand on his sleeve and heat filled him. “Vincent, you more than anyone should understand what undercover work is like.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
“I have a job. I’m trying to help people like Mrs. Morgensen. In order to do that, I need information. I have things I need to do, but I need to be able to fit in without causi
ng a stir of any sort.”
“You want me to be scarce,” he finished for her.
“If that’s possible.” For a minute, he thought she was studying his body, as if she were deciding if he might fit behind a potted plant. “You’re a very large man, Vincent,” she pointed out again.
He tried to blank out his thoughts, to remember that she was just being practical, not speaking in sexual innuendos.
“I know how to become a part of the furniture, Natalie. Believe me. It’s my job.”
She nodded. “All right, then.”
She turned to go. He turned to follow her. Suddenly she whirled and he was closer than he had intended. “One more thing,” she said. Her eyes looked dark and worried.
“Tell me.”
“I might make mistakes, but I won’t be in any danger. Even if I do err and things look as if they’re falling apart, don’t help me. I have to learn.”
“Natalie?”
“What?”
“You’ve been a reporter for a while, haven’t you?”
“Yes, but I’ve never had to play a part. When you’re interviewing Beep-Beep the Clown and the owners of The Party Hat Store, subterfuge isn’t really necessary.”
“You’re telling me you’ve never played a part? You’ve never gone undercover?”
“That’s right.”
“The people you’re mingling with tonight, tell me what type we’re talking about. Dangerous?”
“Not really. Accountants, that type.”
He relaxed. “All right. I won’t worry, then. Will you be pretending to be an accountant?”
She hugged her arms. “Natalie?” he prodded.
“I’ll be pretending to be a woman.”
He chuckled.
“A woman in search of a man,” she said, raising her chin. “Maybe more than one man.”
“And you want me to take you to meet your dates?”
“You don’t have to.”
But if he didn’t, she’d try to go on her own again. Well, what difference did it make? She wasn’t his to order around. He just had to guard her.
“Vincent, if anyone thinks you’re with me, they probably won’t come near.”
He wasn’t so sure of that. She had an earnest look on her face that made a man want to find out what put that expression there. And she had those long, delicious legs that could make a man fight for the chance to have them wrapped around him.
Vincent almost swore. “I’ll let you go in first, but I won’t be far behind you,” he finally conceded.
“It’s the best I could hope for, I guess,” she agreed. “All right, let’s go to The Ladder.”
“The Ladder?”
“It’s—”
“I know what it is. It’s a major pickup place.”
“You’ve been there? Did you get lucky?”
He glared down at her and she gave him an impish grin.
“I’m sure you did. Women probably swarm all over you when you walk into a bar.”
But she had asked him to make himself scarce. Now why did that rankle so much?
Natalie had been to The Ladder before, but only as an observer, as a researcher. Those had only been preliminary runs to make sure this was the place where she would be most likely to meet up with employees of Starson Investments and to locate Brad Herron, Mrs. Morgensen’s broker. Now she was going to have to wade in and actually become a part of things. The very thought made her quake inside. The fact that Vincent had come inside, seated himself at a small table in the shadows and was watching her every move only heightened her nervousness. She was going to have to attempt to come on to a man while Vincent watched. She had a feeling that Vincent was an expert at enticing women. The fact that she had little experience at luring men was bound to show.
Why should it bother her that Vincent should think her inexperienced and naive? “It shouldn’t,” she murmured.
“What shouldn’t, sweetheart? Brad Herron,” the man sitting at the next table said by way of introduction, holding out his hand. Natalie looked up at the man she had observed here before, one she had deliberately seated herself near tonight. He was in his early forties, divorced, handsome and very aware of how handsome he was.
She took his hand, then fought a spate of nerves when he held on to her longer than was really necessary. She had to be smart here. Tonight was just to get the lay of the land.
Beating back the urge to yank away, she disentangled herself from his grip as casually as possible. The man was a player, she reminded herself. She’d known that when she came here. In fact, knowing that gave her a decided advantage in this game. Natalie took a deep breath. “What I meant was that age shouldn’t matter when choosing new friends,” she carefully replied to the man almost fifteen years her senior. Somehow, she even managed a small smile.
“Oh yeah, I couldn’t agree more. You have exceptionally beautiful eyes, honey, do you know that?” he asked. Except Natalie couldn’t help noticing that it wasn’t her eyes he was looking at but her breasts. She felt slightly sick. Even worse, she had an awful urge to get up and go sit next to Vincent. She wondered what he was thinking of this whole scenario. Because even though he couldn’t possibly hear what was being said, the fact that Brad was practically salivating on her had to be obvious. And if she was going to make this subterfuge work, she had to pretend that she didn’t mind Brad’s attitude.
“Why, thank you, Brad. I’m Natalie,” she said, holding on to her fake smile. “Do you come here often?” Not thrilling conversation, but she needed some way to get him to lead into his Starson connections.
“Two or three times a week,” Brad said. “A lot of the people I work with hang out here. But you’re not a regular. I’ve never seen you here before.”
That was because the few times she had ventured here in the past week or two, she had been wearing a wig, enveloping clothes and sunglasses. More importantly, Brad had been busy hitting on other women. His modus operandi seemed to be stake out the nearest free female, which was why she had seated herself within range of his radar. Her ploy appeared to be working.
Except she looked up right then and couldn’t avoid seeing Vincent, who was watching her closely. He was frowning, his dark eyes narrowed. For some reason, her heartbeat kicked up in a way it hadn’t when Brad had given her the once-over. She hastily looked away.
“No, I don’t get out that much,” Natalie said.
“Well, we’ll have to change that,” Brad said, sliding closer. He smelled heavily of cologne. Natalie fought the urge to inch away…or to slam her fist into his nose.
“Are you here with friends?” she asked.
Brad laughed and winked at her. “If you mean, am I with a woman, not tonight. If you want me to be alone, then I’m alone. Just you and me, babe.”
Okay, it was difficult to fight her gag reflex after a line like that. Brad’s shoulder was rubbing up against hers now. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Vincent rising. Was her panic that evident? Clearly it was time to effect a change, both in her demeanor and in Brad’s attitude.
“Oh, I’m not in the mood for alone tonight,” she simpered. “Not yet. I came here looking for the thrill of a crowd, and if you’re a regular here, then you must know at least some of the people here.” Besides, she needed to locate other people at Starson who might talk to her.
“Sure do know some people, sweetheart. You could say that I’m a man with connections,” Brad boasted. “I’m a broker at Starson Investments, a damn fine one, and being charming and making lots of friends is part of the game. Not many I don’t know here tonight. Come on, I’ll introduce you around, show everybody what a sweet, pretty thing I’ve found.”
Grasping her hand, Brad pulled her to her feet and made his way through the crowd, his grip clamping down tight.
If things went suddenly south and she had to change her mind, breaking that grip was going to take some serious work. She wondered what Vincent would think if she suddenly resorted to kicking her new buddy
in the groin. For some reason, she had an urge to do just that, to show Vincent that she really wasn’t helpless. It was all Natalie could do not to look Vincent’s way.
She was sure his eyes were following her, but then, that was what he was paid to do, wasn’t it? There was nothing more to it than that. Which was good, she reminded herself.
Try to forget about Vincent and concentrate on Brad and the task at hand, she ordered herself. Just find out whatever you can about who might know what at Starson. Natalie studied the other people to whom Brad was introducing her.
“This is Sheila. She’s the receptionist.”
Natalie smiled and said hello. Judging by the frigid look Sheila gave her, the woman had either slept with Brad at one time or wanted to. Not a woman who looked as if she would talk to another woman she viewed as competition. She filed that information away for later and turned to the next group. Alicia Summersby, an administrative assistant too scared to do more than squeak; Lon Warren, who worked in the mail room and might very well be a misogynist judging from the disgusted look he gave Natalie; Neil Gerard, an account manager.
An account manager? Natalie smiled at Neil. He mumbled a shy hello, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” she said.
He shrugged. “Me, too. Um, have you known Brad long?” He shifted again, and she knew what he was getting at. Brad probably didn’t date anyone for very long. He was in it for the skin and when that palled, he moved on to the next conquest.
“Actually, we just met.”
A look of interest lit Neil’s face. He seemed pleased, even though he didn’t say anything. He struck her as the shy, polite guy that every woman should want but seldom did.
Brad chuckled. “Natalie and I have just met, but I intend to get to know her much better, Neil, my man. Isn’t she hot?”
Neil fidgeted again, and Natalie felt sorry for him, but not so sorry that she wouldn’t come back and talk to him later.
Keeping Her Safe Page 3