I stared at the words pasted onto the greeting card. This couldn’t be a description of Angel’s kidnapping. That didn’t even make sense. And how would they find a book that had the exact same kidnapping . . .
Unless the kidnapper had copied the actual kidnapping from a book. I shivered at the thought. It would take a true crazy person to do that.
Blaine’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Boss, what is it?”
I looked up at Blaine’s intense brown gaze. “I don’t know. It’s a scene from a book, I think.” I looked down again, skimming the words. “Wait, this is familiar. I think I’ve read this somewhere . . .”
“How can you remember, with all the books you read?” Blaine asked. “Want me to call the police?”
But I knew this writing. I recognized it. I closed my eyes, trying to put the kidnapping scene in context, when it hit me. I opened my eyes and said, “Vance!”
Blaine reached for the phone. “I’ll call him.”
“No!”
Blaine held the phone in one of his blunt-fingered hands and looked at me. “Come again?”
“I didn’t mean for you to call Vance, I meant this is Vance’s writing. It’s from one of the books that he wrote under his pen name. A romance where the hero/cop’s love interest is kidnapped. That book was hot.”
“So that card has nothing to do with Angel? Then who left it for you? Why?”
I turned the card over and looked at the back. “Samantha, R. V. Logan is looking for me, his heart mate. He wants me to find him. Don’t keep us apart. Zoë.” I groaned out loud. “Cripes, it’s from Zoë.” Talk about crazy. The question became, was she crazy like Kathy Bates in the movie Misery–crazy?
Blaine set the phone down. “That chick that was here on Saturday?”
“Woman,” I corrected. “And yeah, her. I hoped she had gone away.”
Sighing, Blaine said, “You don’t have that kind of luck, boss. Crazies home in on you, like you are their mother ship.”
“Gee, thanks.” I tossed the card down on my desk. “I don’t have time for crazies. Angel is out there somewhere.” I thought of her, scared and afraid of dying alone. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let that happen. “I just hope Gabe and I find out something at the casino that will help us find her.” Now for the hard part. “Since she hasn’t turned up, I think I’m going to try and call her mother on the ship.” Both of us turned to look at the phone on the desk.
It rang.
Cripes! My heart jumped in my chest. But that was silly—it wasn’t like Angel’s mom was calling me from the ship. It was just a coincidence that the phone had rung when Blaine and I looked at it. Pulling myself together, I took a step and grabbed the phone. “Heart Mates, this is Samantha. How can I help you?” It was automatic, almost soothing to be doing something so normal.
“You can help me find the pricks who destroyed my house.”
Omigod! I plunked my backside down on the edge of the desk. Dizziness spun around in my head. Was I hearing things? “Angel?”
4
Ileft Blaine at the office and drove to Angel’s house. I couldn’t believe it! She was alive, and apparently fine. The short version that I’d gotten on the phone with her was that she’d gone to Las Vegas with Rick Mesa and his group. That explained why we never had been able to get ahold of Rick. The promoter who had seen the Silky Men’s show at Daystar had booked them a Sunday matinee as a test show at one of the hotels that had a cancellation. Angel had gone along with Rick, in his truck, to promote her lingerie. That explained why Angel had gone home, left her car in the garage, and changed purses.
Her cell phone’s battery had died, and Angel had just left it home because Rick was waiting for her. She had tried me from the hotel once, but my landline had been busy and my cell phone had said “out of service.” Some days, technology can be cruel.
I spotted Detective Vance’s car parked in Angel’s driveway when I arrived. I parked on the street in front of her house and walked up the driveway, through the flagstone atrium to the front door. I reached out to the doorknob when it swung open.
Vance glared down at me. “Christ, what now? Did you lose a kid this time?”
I almost stepped back at the onslaught of his fury, but held my ground. “It was a reasonable conclusion, Vance. Angel’s car was here, her house was obviously broken into and there was blood!” My face heated.
“Shaw, next time you stumble onto a disaster—and there will be a next time—don’t call me.” He strode by me.
Damn, he pissed me off. I turned and said, “Fine, I won’t call you. I’ll just give your newest fan, who came looking for you at my office, your work address. She’s convinced you are her heart mate and that I know where you live.”
Vance slammed to a stop and turned around. From across the courtyard, I got the full view of Detective Vance. Charcoal gray suit, mint green shirt, dapper tie, all draped over that hard swimmer’s body. The sun had cut through the fog to pick out the highlights in his short-cropped hair. I knew that dimples lived beneath the surface of his hard, square face, but right now, they were hiding. He took three long strides back to me. “Are you threatening me?”
Kind of. I lifted my chin to fix my I-mean-business mom-glare on him. “I’m just passing along information.”
He took another step, forcing me to tilt my head back to keep my gaze on his eyes. “And what information is that? That you have another wacko client? Because that’s not exactly a news flash, Shaw.”
“Her name is Zoë Cash. She came into Heart Mates Saturday and brought me chocolate truffles. She was convinced that since I write reviews for all your books in Romance Rocks magazine, I know where you live.”
His face tightened from warm, breathing male to wooden statue. I could see the effort it took to move his jaw and say, “What did you tell her?”
“That I don’t know where you live. That your publisher sends me the review copies. I left out the part about the stick up your ass.” Shut up! Jeez, my mouth just spewed before my brain could filter it. Vance was not a man to piss off. But he just rubbed me the wrong way, sparking my temper.
Vance rocked back on his polished shoes. “You know, Shaw, I did you a favor by investigating your friend’s disappearance. Normally, we wait a day or two because adults have a funny way of deciding to take a quick trip and not check in with Mommy. But given your worry and the state of the house, I put myself on the line. Then guess what? Ms. Crimson shows up and I look like a fool at the station for calling a simple breaking and entering a kidnapping. And now you are threatening me?”
Crap. “I’m not threatening you.” Not anymore, since he rightly pointed out that he had helped me when I needed it. “You just irritate me.” Mouth before brain again. Scrunching up my face, I said, “Look, Vance, I didn’t get any sleep and I haven’t had enough coffee. I’m in a bad mood, OK? I know you don’t want the cops you work with to find out you write romances. I won’t tell Zoë that you live here in Elsinore. In fact, I already got rid of her.”
He leaned down, and I got a whiff of the coconut scent that always clung to him. “You know what, Shaw? I don’t believe you. There’s no romance fan looking for me, just as there was no kidnapping of Ms. Crimson. These are just your way of getting my attention. Obviously, you’re tiring of Pulizzi and want the real thing.”
Stunned, I took a breath and said, “The real thing? Is that something out of your books, Vance? I’d rewrite that if I were you. It sounds like some kind of reality show where the viewer has to tell the difference between a penis and a hot dog. Not your best work.” OK, maybe I should have shut up. But damn it, Vance looked down at me one moment, then tried to seduce me the next. Men!
His dimples broke over his face in a stunning smile. “Try me, Shaw. When you want to be a grown-up woman, you let me know. One night with me and you’ll know the meaning of bliss. You’ll never go back to your wallbangers with wannabes like Pulizzi.” He turned and walked away.
God, he was s
o damned arrogant. “Vance!”
He opened the gate, then stopped and looked back at me.
So damned good-looking. That smirk had to go. I summoned up my best smile. “You know the saying. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, write. And Vance, you write some hot sex.”
The gate slammed closed.
“That was fun. And hotter than a forest fire.”
I turned to look at my best friend in the world. She was gorgeous, wearing cropped black pants and a printed long-sleeved shirt that teased the waistline of her pants. Her long red hair fell straight to her waist. Today she wore very chic glasses over her green eyes, her only concession to being tired. “Angel, if I weren’t so happy to see you, I’d kick your butt.” I went up and hugged her. “I haven’t been that scared since . . . I don’t know when. I thought something horrible had happened to you.”
Freeing herself from my hug, Angel grinned. “I’m fine, but that prick Hugh is going to pay.”
I followed Angel into the house, through the messy living room to the kitchen. The wine had been cleaned up, but the wood floor was still sticky. “You really think Hugh did this?”
“Who else would do it? Hugh or that bimbo he married. I’m not going to let him get away with it.” Angel got down two unbroken mugs and poured in coffee. “But enough of that. I’ve already called my housecleaners and they will be here to do the worst of the cleanup.” She sat down.
I took a seat at the kitchen table and shook my head. “Gabe and I had a chat with Hugh. He was pissed at you, but he swore he had nothing to do with your house or your disappearance. Of course, he was right about the disappearance. Oh, and Brandi isn’t there right now. She’s on a trip with her mother.”
Angel set down two mugs of coffee, her eyes sparkling. “Sounds like the slut left him.”
“Sluts are like that,” I agreed and picked up my coffee. My brain was on overload after the past weekend.
Angel sat in the chair across from me. “Hey, where’s the sample kit? I thought about that all weekend. It’s an intriguing idea to add something like that to my lingerie line.”
My mind blanked. “Sample . . . oh!” The velvet box of sex toys. “In all the confusion, I’d sort of forgotten about it. I hid it in my bedroom. The boys accidentally found it in my car.”
Angel leaned forward. “Did they open it?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I got it away from them and stuck it in a filing cabinet. Zoë followed me in there.” I told Angel the story about Zoë, Vance’s stalker-fan, and ended with the card she left at Heart Mates. “I don’t think she’s going to give up.”
“So that was the truth when you told Vance that. I thought you made it up to irritate him.”
“Nope, Zoë’s a real, bona fide stalker-fan.” I set my coffee cup down. Relief that Angel had turned up OK was settling into tiredness. But now that the Angel crisis was solved, I had a business to run. “I’ll swing by home and pick up that sample kit. I need to get a change of clothes anyway. Then I have to clean the office from all the painting. My open house is only two days away. Can you make it by work this afternoon? We can investigate the sample kit then.”
“I have some work to do, too.” She stopped talking, looking at the sticky wood floor. “I probably won’t get much work done, but I can get the cleaners started and inventory what was destroyed of my lingerie, call my insurance agent.” Angel picked up her coffee, took a long drink, and sighed. “I’ll need the break this afternoon.”
When I got home, I rushed inside and picked up the cordless phone from the base in the kitchen. I’d already left a message for Gabe that Angel was safe. I had hoped Grandpa would be home so I could tell him in person about Angel, but since he wasn’t home, I was going to call his cell phone.
Ali greeted me from the other side of the sliding glass door. She barked and fixed her big German shepherd eyes on me in a pleading stare.
“Can’t play right now, Ali,” I told her while dialing the phone and heading down the hallway to my bedroom. I told myself I’d make it up to Ali tonight when I got home.
“Hello?”
“Grandpa,” I said as I turned into my bedroom. “Great news! Angel’s OK. I just saw her.” I summed up
Angel’s story for Grandpa and turned to the closet on my left. I pulled the door open but my attention was on Grandpa.
“That girl sure scared us, Sammy. I’m going to tell her so, too, when I see her. Right after I hug her.”
I smiled. “You do that, Grandpa. I’d better run now. I’m picking up some clothes and going back to work.” I hung up and tossed the phone on my bed, then I turned back to my closet. No way was I going to tell Grandpa that I had come home to retrieve a sex-toy kit for Angel and me to look at! My face heated just thinking about it as I reached up and shuffled through shoeboxes on the top shelf until I found the one I wanted. I fished the sample kit out of there and stuck it deep into my big black leather purse with the letter S stamped on it in hot pink. I never used this purse unless I needed to hide something.
Jeez, I was too old to be embarrassed!
I replaced the shoebox, reached back into my closet, and chose a black filmy skirt and a white top to change into after I cleaned the office. I shut the closet door.
And came face to face with a man. “Omigod!” I slammed myself back against the closet door. My purse hit the wall and slid off my shoulder to the floor. The clothes fell from my nerveless fingers. Finally, my brain registered the man’s identity. “Gabe! What are you doing here?”
Dressed in black jeans and a teal blue shirt that set off his olive skin, he rested against the wall on his left shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest. He lifted an eyebrow. “Got your message that Angel’s home, and safe. Called you at the office. Blaine said you were stopping by the house before going back to work.”
My pulse pounded in my ears. First, it had been shock and fear, but now . . . well hell, it was Gabe. Dangerous, sexy . . . Gabe. “Uh, yeah, guess it was all a mistake with Angel.”
Gabe lifted a single brow. “Her house was tossed. That wasn’t a mistake.”
“Angel thinks Hugh did that.”
“Did you see a cut on Hugh, Sam?”
The bloodstains on the kitchen towel. “No, but . . .”
Gabe pushed his shoulder off the wall. “I didn’t come here to talk about Angel.” He stepped in front of me, bracing his hands on the wall behind my head. Pitching his voice to a sexy growl, he said, “I can’t get the picture of you bent over Angel’s car in your shorts out of my head.”
He smelled fresh from the shower with an Irish Spring tang. The heat coming from him was all-male. The tired nerves in my body sprang to life with a heated sizzle. “I didn’t bend over the car; the garage door smacked into me and knocked me over the hood of Angel’s car.” OK, maybe I didn’t need to remind him of that.
Gabe smiled, leaning his body flush into mine. “You made it look sexy.”
He made me feel sexy. All my worries and time pressures slid away on a wave of lust. “You sure it was me and not the red car?” I was shameless, fishing for more compliments.
“The red car was a hot background, but it was your ass in those tight shorts that had my attention.” He took his hands off the wall and slid them behind me to cup my butt through my jeans and pull me into his hips. “You always get my attention.”
Oh yeah, I could feel his attention in his jeans pressed against me. Smiling, I said, “So then what did you come here for?”
“To see you. Touch you.” He lowered his mouth to mine. “Taste you.”
I kissed him back, wrapping my arms around his waist.
Gabe’s cell phone rang.
He groaned out, “Damn.” Breaking the kiss, he let go of my butt to yank the phone off his belt. After looking at the screen, he put it to his ear. “Pulizzi.”
I leaned my head against the wall and watched Gabe. I wanted to possess this man, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. One day, when his old wounds heal
ed, Gabe was going to want a family. A wife, babies . . . the whole romantic package. Not a woman like me, who was five years older, had ready-made teenage children and an aging grandfather, and was done with childbearing.
Gabe said into the phone, “No, it’s better if we arrive at the motel together. I’ll pick you up in ten.”
I snapped out of my thoughts. Motel? Together? “Who was that?”
He closed his phone, slid it back in his belt, and settled his gaze on me. “My new assistant, Dee.”
“A woman? You hired a woman full-time? Does she work out of her house? Or your house?”
“Dee answers phones for me and is beginning her training to get a PI license.”
What was that feeling in my stomach? Oh yeah—hot, pissed-off, irrational jealousy. “And the two of you are going to a motel?”
“To work on a domestic case that I put on hold when we thought Angel was missing.”
“You’re chasing a cheater?”
“Yep.”
“With Dee?” Did I think this was going to get any better with clarification?
“Need a woman to make the cover work. A man who sees me show up at the motel with a woman will assume I’m cheating just like him.”
“OK.” Not OK! This woman was in my place. I was the one who helped Gabe. Well, truthfully, usually Gabe helped me, but still. I wanted this Dee to explode into fiery hellish flames and die. Cripes, it felt like my stomach was on fire.
Gabe slid up a single eyebrow. “You look upset. If I remember correctly, you didn’t want to commit to getting a PI license.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Are you trying to make me jealous? It’s bad enough I had to deal with Vance and his bold suggestions. What is it with you men?”
Gabe took a step, bringing his hard body up against mine. “What did Vance say to you?”
Satisfaction cooled the fire in my belly. “This morning at Angel’s house, he assured me that a night with him would teach me bliss and I’d forget all about wallbangers with wannabes. I think wannabes refers to you.” Yeah, like I’d ever forget Gabe’s hot and hard body.
Jennifer Apodaca - Samantha Shaw 04 - Batteries Required Page 5