Midnight Heat

by Donna Kauffman

  “Whatever tangible evidence there is on this case, we’ll find it, Adria.”

  She whirled on him. “You keep saying that, but I’m not seeing any of it!”

  Dane stood and closed the distance between them. “That’s because there’s damn little out there to be found.”

  “Then keep looking.” She ducked around him, crossed back to the couch, and sat. A sip of her drink cooled her a little.

  Dane sat down next to her. “I’m getting some additional pressure to turn in my preliminary findings. And I have to tell you, what I have right now doesn’t make you look too good.”

  Determination surged through her, helping her hold on to what was left of her control. “Maybe I can give you something.”

  His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Maybe you what?”

  “I got a phone call at three o’clock this morning. A warning.”

  “Whoa, back up.” He pulled a pen and notepad from his inner jacket pocket. “Do you know who it was?”

  Adria stifled a sigh. God forbid she just tell him anything straight out. It had to be at his command. “No,” she said evenly. Her tense expression daring him to interrupt, she continued. “The person whispered, so I can’t be sure if it was someone I know or not. I couldn’t even tell the gender.”

  “What exactly did they say? Word for word.”

  “Don’t talk to the press again.”

  “That’s it? Don’t talk to the press again?” He snapped the notebook shut and slipped it back inside his jacket.

  Repeating the caller’s words out loud made them seem even more real. Ominous. But obviously he didn’t share her concern.

  “Isn’t it enough? Someone is threatening me, for goodness’ sake.”

  “Did they say that?” he asked, clearly unimpressed.

  “Well, no, but it is implied.”

  “Implied? Not really,” he said. “Not that that will carry any weight.”

  “Well, it did with me!” She’d never match him in calm demeanor, so why bother pretending? “I don’t know about you, but being woken up in the middle of the night by a menacing voice on the phone isn’t my idea of no big deal. Someone knows I talked to Sarah Greene.”

  He didn’t say anything for several beats. There were times when his unruffled manner infuriated her. Okay, most of the time he infuriated her. She purposely crossed her legs and her arms, letting body language do her talking.

  Dane downed the rest of his drink and remained silent a few moments more. “Okay, I’ll see what I can turn up.”

  “Thank you,” she said, a shade too dryly. She loosened her arms, resting her elbows on the arms of the chair. He seemed to relax a bit as well. It was hard to tell.

  “There is a reason why I stopped by,” he said.

  Adria kept her casual position, but something in his tone made her want to hug her arms close again. This time for comfort. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to like this about as much as getting crank calls at three A.M.?”

  “The two planes involved”—he shot her a warning look when she opened her mouth to correct him, then went on—“have been examined. Both are missing some pieces of fuselage. Right now we’re determining the ground area where they’re most likely to turn up.”

  Adria quickly put together the importance of this information. “If you find anything that’s not a part of either plane, then that will substantiate my theory.” She tried not to let the excitement build inside her, but it was good news badly needed. Her emotions had been on the worst sort of roller-coaster ride, one she didn’t seem able to get off. “How long will it take?”

  “It’s a very broad area, some of it forested. It may take some time to cover it all. And they may not find anything at all,” he warned. “It happens sometimes. I wouldn’t get my hopes up too high.”

  “It’s my whole life we’re talking about here,” she said quietly. “I have to hope.”

  Dane nodded. “Even if they do find something, it might not prove conclusively that a third plane was involved. In which case, we’re right back to where we started.”

  “Not exactly,” she countered. “Someone thinks there is something important enough about this investigation that the idea of me talking to the press is making them nervous. I’m not playing Tom Clancy here, Dane. But I honestly believe that the third plane is somehow tied up with the phone call.”

  Whatever Dane thought of her theory wasn’t readable in his expression. No surprise there.

  “I’ll let you know if the search teams find anything,” was all he said. He stood and headed to the foyer.

  Adria stood as well, surprised to find herself wishing he’d stay. But she’d exposed her emotions and vulnerability to him more than enough for one day. Besides, wasn’t handling stuff like this all part of the independence she wanted so badly?

  He suddenly turned around, causing Adria to skid to keep from walking right up into his chest. She hadn’t realized she’d been practically running after him.

  “If you get any more phone calls, get in touch with me right away.” He pulled a card out of his infamous inner pocket and jotted a number on the back, then handed it to her. “My home number.”

  She stared down at the neat, precise writing. So legible it could have been typewritten. Figured. “You should have been a doctor.”

  Confusion creased his forehead.

  “Your handwriting. Nurses and pharmacists across the country would revere you.”

  He looked a little nonplussed, but said, “Thanks. I think.” The corners of his mouth kicked up slightly.

  God help her if he ever actually smiled. “I, uh, no problem.” Oh great, now she was stuttering. She leaned forward to open the door, hoping he didn’t see the heat she felt in her cheeks.

  She didn’t move back quite fast enough and Dane’s chest brushed along her arm and breast as he moved past her. Now heat was a problem in more body parts than she could hide. She took a step back, hoping he’d leave quickly.

  Dane was halfway out when he turned again, forcing Adria to face him. She wanted to groan. What was it about this man? Go. Stay. Both words were on the tip of her tongue.

  “If there is more to this, I’ll find it. Trust me on that.”

  She realized she did. Not just because she was strongly attracted to him. Or because she had no one else to trust. But because of his decency. Granted, it was well hidden most of the time behind his autocratic attitude, but bottom line—Dane Colbourne was a decent man.

  She just hoped he was as good an investigator as he kept insisting he was. It was becoming alarmingly apparent he’d have to be if she had a prayer of coming out of this mess with her career intact.

  “Thank you. Will you call me when you find out anything?”

  He gave her the sort of stare that made her supremely self-conscious. The sort of stare that made her really wish she wasn’t wearing raggedy shorts.

  If she was as candid as she liked to think she was these days, she’d admit it was the sort of stare that made her wish she wasn’t wearing anything at all.

  She felt herself lean toward him as if drawn into his heat. He lifted his hand toward her face, then just as suddenly dropped it.

  “I’ll be in touch, Adria,” he said, his voice darker and a bit rough. This time he walked away without looking back.

  Adria. First “the look,” then “the name.” She watched him drive off, and only when he was completely out of sight did she give in to the need to fan herself. And it had nothing to do with the August sun.

  FIVE

  Dane jerked his head off his desk when the phone beside his ear leaped to life and threatened to deafen him. A quick glance at the clock showed it was two-thirty in the morning. He’d been asleep for less than thirty minutes. He grabbed the receiver before the second ring, a sinking feeling telling him that those scant thirty minutes were all he was going to get. Please, he asked silently, let all the planes be in the sky where they belong.

  “Colbourne.”

  �
�It’s Adria Burke. I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  He bolted upright. Disturb him? You don’t know the half of it, he thought morosely. Most of those thirty minutes he’d spent sleeping had featured Adria as the star player in erotic dreams. “What’s wrong? Did you get another call?”

  “Yes. Just now.”

  “Same person?”

  “I couldn’t tell. I think so.”

  “Same message?”

  “No.”

  She sounded anxious, but not hysterical. Still, that she didn’t immediately burst into a full explanation spoke volumes to him. She was spooked.

  “I’m glad you called.” He hoped she didn’t read the depth of sincerity there was in those words. “Will you be able to go back to sleep?”

  A moment’s hesitation, then: “Probably not.”

  He held back the question her response immediately prompted him to ask. His restraint lasted about five seconds. “You want to talk?” Her long sigh told Dane he’d done the right thing. The pleasure that gave him made him wonder if it might also be his biggest mistake. “You got any Coke?”

  If a smile could be heard, he heard hers. “I think I can manage that,” she said.

  Dane instantly felt revved up to full speed. “I’ll be there in less than an hour.”

  “Thank you, Dane.”

  Damn, did she have to say his name like that? All soft and breathy? It had been a long time since he’d heard anything that sounded half as good as Adria Burke’s voice at two-thirty in the morning. Dane gripped the phone tighter. “No problem.” He worked hard for nonchalance. “I’m up, you’re up. We might as well go over it now. If the phone rings before I get there, let the machine get it. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Even tired and unsettled, she didn’t let up on him. “I like ‘Dane’ better,” he said before he thought better of it.

  This time he hung up first.

  Adria met him at the door with a huge glass, filled almost to the rim with ice and Coke.

  “Thank you,” he said. She smiled lightly and traded the glass for his briefcase.

  “Come on in.”

  He followed her down the hall, nursing the Coke, taking in her clothes. He couldn’t say which was worse—the ragged cutoffs she had on last time or the gray sweats she now wore and that clung to her legs. Her shirt wasn’t as old as the Redskins jersey, but she’d tucked it in, revealing the shape of her backside.

  She’s been harassed by some weirdo on the phone, he reminded himself. The last thing she needs is you drooling over her.

  They entered the kitchen and Dane glanced around. No plane parts in here. The room was average size, with standard appliances in standard colors. But it was warm, homey somehow. Maybe it was the woman occupying it that made it seem that way.

  The center of attention was a large oak pedestal table flanked by four ladder-back chairs. Adria put his briefcase on the table, sat down on the other side, and snagged her cup of coffee.

  “Please.” She nodded at the chair in front of him.

  He started to slide the briefcase to the floor, then changed his mind. It might be wiser to keep the constant reminder in sight. He swallowed more of his Coke and allowed himself another glance at her. Her hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail and her face was pale. There were shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there before. It was probably the lighting. He really wanted it to be the lighting.

  The thought of her being terrorized by strange phone calls in the middle of the night had his stomach muscles tightening. One call he could dismiss—and he’d done a lousy job of that—but two calls …

  The instincts riding him now were unfamiliar. They were primal, basic. The sort that made men go out and confront dragons. Because there was simply no other alternative.

  Dane shook off the rather intense, unsettling feeling as he clicked open his briefcase and took out a pen and notepad. He felt ridiculously obvious in his attempts to armor himself, but she didn’t appear to notice. Besides which, no matter how much he might wish it, she wasn’t the dragon he wanted to fight. It would be so much easier if that were the case. Instead, she was rapidly becoming the damsel he wanted to fight the dragons to win.

  “I appreciate your coming over,” she said quietly.

  He shrugged and began flipping the pages, looking for a clean one. “Like I said, I was up, you were up.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dane noticed Adria’s gaze stray to his shirt. She’d done that at the door, but he hadn’t paid much attention then. Now he looked down at the dark blue polo shirt, but didn’t see anything strange. His eyebrows rose in question.

  “Sorry,” she said, color blooming in her face. “It’s just I’ve never seen you without a suit on.”

  Heat crept into his own cheeks. He didn’t know why he even bothered trying to keep things businesslike with her. He damn well knew he didn’t want to. “Did you think I slept in a suit, too?”

  Her widening eyes told him he’d missed dry humor by a mile.

  “You weren’t in—I mean, when I called, you were working.” She stumbled over her words. “You were at your office.”

  “Yes, I was.” He’d been at work all right, but she had caught him dreaming. His thoughts tumbled from falling asleep at his desk way too often to not wearing suits, to wondering what it would be like to fall asleep not wearing anything and being with her when he did it.

  It was a powerful image.

  He shifted in his seat and took another sip of Coke. It was icy cold but did next to nothing to cool him down.

  “The phone call,” he finally said. “You want to tell me about it?”

  Adria studied her coffee as if she expected wisdom to rise with the steam and penetrate the fog in her brain. What was wrong with her? She was thirty-one years old, married and divorced. Certainly well past the age of stuttering and blushing around men.

  But it was no wonder he had her all tongue-tied. A man who was only interested in business had no business giving a woman “the look.” He was too in control of every facet of himself not to know what he was doing. Or what effect it had on her.

  She wanted to groan in embarrassment. Did he know what she was thinking? Dear Lord. Tony had taunted her too often with her inability to mask her thoughts for her not to be aware of that particular shortcoming. It was still on the long list of things she was trying to change.

  Dane’s chair scraped the floor, startling her. He’d shifted closer.

  “When did the call come in?”

  It wasn’t until she exhaled that she realized she’d been holding her breath. “Two-thirty. I called you right after.”

  “And the first call? That came at three?”

  Adria silently thanked him for keeping his attention on the notes he was making. “Yes. It was the same whisper. I think it was the same person.”

  “What was the message this time?”

  She swallowed the fear that knotted in her throat. “ ‘Keep talking and you’ll lose more than your job,’ ” she quoted, not entirely able to keep her voice steady.

  “That’s it?”

  “Isn’t that enough?” she shot back.

  “I didn’t mean to imply it wasn’t,” he said, his manner offhand, as if he didn’t really care one way or the other that she’d been scared out of her wits. He was just an investigator doing his job.

  A fact, Adria instructed herself with brutal candor, she’d better get real straight, real fast.

  Even if he was being “just an investigator” alone with her in her small kitchen, at three-thirty in the morning.

  “I haven’t spoken to Ms. Greene again,” Adria said, “or anyone else from the media. The only person I’ve talked to is you.”

  “Do you want to call the police?”

  The question took her off guard. What, exactly, had she expected? That Dane was going to protect her from this unseen menace? The answer was painful to admit. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, albeit subconsciously, whe
n she’d called him.

  Stupid move, Adria, she admonished herself silently. Haven’t you learned your lesson by now? She’d better hope so. Teachers didn’t come any better than Tony Harris.

  “I wasn’t sure if notifying them was a smart idea.” She was glad that this time at least she’d managed to sound calm and in control. Truth was, with some nut out there threatening her, and the Predator sitting at her kitchen table, she felt anything but calm or in control.

  “It’s up to you,” he responded. “They can put a tracer on your phone, try to find out where the calls are coming from.”

  “And then what?” She went on without waiting for an answer: “I mean, you and I both know the chances of finding the person is small. It’s too easy to call from a pay phone, or a cellular. And besides, I’m not completely sure this person isn’t watching me. If my talking to you or Sarah Greene is making this person nervous, then I don’t want to make a show of having the police trooping in and out of my house.”

  “But you called me. Let me come over here.”

  He was right. All that had mattered to her was that she’d heard his voice and felt safe. When he’d offered to come over, she hadn’t wanted to say no.

  “What makes you think you’re being watched? Have you spotted someone? A car or anything?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s just a … feeling.” What she felt right now was foolish for saying anything. Her tone was a bit on the defensive when she added, “I don’t know, I haven’t seen anyone or anything strange around here. Certainly not at three in the morning,” she added. “It’s probably my imagination. But I don’t know how else the caller could have known I’d talked to Sarah Greene or you.”

  “Unless the caller knows about Sarah’s source.” Dane was so alert the air around him fairly vibrated. “Or our caller is the source.”

  Our caller. It was amazing how reassuring that word was for her. But she and Dane weren’t really a team, as much as she’d like to believe they were. He could still file a report claiming she’d been negligent.

  “The only reason the source would threaten me is to protect his position as a paid informant. But frankly, I can’t see where there’s any real money in it. This isn’t exactly Watergate.”