Not Quite an Angel (Harlequin Superromance No. 595)

by Bobby Hutchinson

  “Anyhow, after Loretta died, Delilah hired this woman, this Smith woman, to take her place.” Violet sat forward in her chair, narrowing her eyes at him. “I warned her, there’s something fishy about Smith, but once Delilah gets an idea in her head, there’s no changing her mind.” Violet made a disparaging sound in her throat. “And I’m not the only one who doesn’t like her, either. Mr. Wallace doesn’t trust Sameh Smith any more than I do.”

  So old Tyrone was still hanging in there, Adam reflected. Tyrone Wallace had been McDonell’s live-in lover when Blue Knights did the last security stint, over a year ago now, and Adam had met him and liked him. Wallace was distinguished-looking, and if he was a little stuck on himself, what the hell. He’d been an actor, after all, and Adam had met enough actors to know they all had egos the size of the Goodyear blimp—particularly the ones like Wallace who hadn’t been all that successful at it. Tyrone Wallace had given up acting and gone into selling investment securities or some such thing.

  Adam didn’t figure Wallace was busting his ass pounding the pavement as a salesman, though. He had it made with McDonell. She seemed to adore him, and God knew she had enough money to afford him. She wasn’t acting much anymore, but she’d had three books on the bestseller lists for months at a time, and she was a big item on the lecture circuit, so she sure as hell wasn’t hurting for money.

  “What is it exactly that bothers you about Ms. Smith?” Apart from the fact that Delilah likes her and you’re dead jealous, Adam mused.

  “She’s not what she pretends to be,” Violet snapped. Her breathy voice was giving way to a certain shrewishness. “Oh, she’s one smart bimbo, I’ll give her that, but I’m not as easily taken in as Delilah. She’s up to no good, that one.”

  Adam had to curb his impatience. “Anything more specific? Stealing the cutlery, poisoning the houseplants, little things like that?”

  Violet glared at him. “There’s her references, if you want to know. I tried to check the references she gave, and it turns out every single person on the list is either dead or senile. What are the chances of that happening? And when I brought it to Delilah’s attention, she laughed at me.” Violet’s lower lip quivered.

  “You figure Smith had something to do with those deaths?”

  Violet shook her head, but the gesture was reluctant. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. I don’t trust her, though.”

  Adam persevered, bored but thorough. “You think she might do Delilah physical harm?”

  Again, Violet shook her head. “Not physical exactly. But some other way. She’s got some kind of power over Delilah. She knows all about that junk Delilah writes about, parapsychology and New Age and reincarnation, all that airy-fairy stuff. They talk about it until it’s like to drive me crazy. And things happen when she’s around, odd things.”

  For the first time, Adam felt some real empathy with Violet. He was familiar with Delilah McDonell’s interest in the twilight zone; during the last security job Blue Knights had done for her, he and his staff had become acquainted with Delilah’s entourage of crystal-gazing sycophants and fans of the bestselling books she’d written dealing with the so-called paranormal. One of the kooks had asked earnestly what Adam felt he’d done in a past lifetime to make him want to be a private detective in this one.

  Times like this, Adam wondered himself.

  Violet either wouldn’t or couldn’t be any more specific about anything. Over the next quarter hour, Adam took down particulars about Smith’s routine in the McDonell household. She lived with Delilah, as did Violet, each in a suite of rooms in the rambling multimillion-dollar rancher Delilah’d had built in Hancock Park, one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Los Angeles.

  Adam asked what times Smith was likely to leave the house, what she looked like, whether or not she had any visitors. Violet ranted like a loose cannon, forgetting her whispery voice altogether in an outpouring of bitterness. Adam finally got a description, but it took forever.

  It sounded as if Smith wasn’t hard to look at. Blond, deep blue eyes, curly hair, five-seven, about a hundred and ten pounds. Some demon made him want to ask Violet what Smith’s bra size was, but he curbed the impulse. And no, she didn’t have any visitors at all, nor did she receive any personal mail that Violet knew about.

  “What does she do with her spare time?”

  Violet shrugged. “She jogs every morning. She reads stuff from Delilah’s library. She has her own television. She doesn’t go anywhere that I know of.”

  “We’ll need to get hold of the garbage that comes from both her office and her private quarters. You can tell more about a person from their garbage than you can from their résumé.”

  “I can get that for you.” It seemed Violet had done some snooping on her own; she also had Smith’s social security and driver’s license numbers, which was a big help. Adam jotted down a few notes; he’d already decided to pass this jewel on to his partner, Bernie Methot. It would serve Bernie right for taking the afternoon off and leaving Adam to cope with clients like this one.

  At the first opportune moment, Adam got to his feet and assured Violet that Blue Knights would conduct a thorough and discreet investigation. After another ten minutes of rambling complaints, Violet finally took the hint and left, handing over a hefty deposit.

  As the door closed behind her, Adam was sorely tempted to make use of the gin, but he decided to go with roast beef on rye, extra mustard and fries on the side, instead. All that exercise earlier on had given him an appetite.

  Ahh, sex and food. Two of life’s simple, uncomplicated pleasures, always available for a hungry man like himself to enjoy.

  “LIKE EACH OF YOU, like all of us on this green planet, I’ve always been hungry for understanding.” Delilah McDonell’s rich, well-trained voice, amplified by the sound system, ebbed and flowed through the large, packed auditorium, and on the rapt faces of the audience, Sameh could see the interest, the hope, the adulation her employer’s presence and words aroused.

  “I’ve told myself I want to know how the universe works, what life’s really all about, what meaning and purpose there is in this game that we call living. What I didn’t realize was that the understanding I was so hungry for would come through agony, through the pain of losing my dearest treasure, my only child, my daughter, Maggie.” Delilah’s voice vibrated with her suffering, and she touched a chord in each of her listeners’ hearts as she bared her very soul to them, sharing, giving.

  Delilah McDonell was a symbol to these searchers after truth, an almost mythical figure they revered. She obviously had power, Sameh reflected, and the wonderful thing was that she never seemed to misuse it, which was unusual here in the nineties. To acclimatize herself, Sameh had watched news reports on television for weeks after she arrived, and it was curious how power seemed to corrupt almost everyone it touched.

  “Maggie’s death awakened me,” Delilah was saying in her thrilling voice. “It was as if I’d spent many years paying lip service to an intellectual thirst for knowledge without really allowing my heart into the game.”

  Delilah was talking tonight about her first book, Waiting For A Miracle, the heartrending story of her daughter’s death from cancer at the age of twenty seven. Sameh’d read it, of course. It was an important historical document in her time, and she’d also had to study it as part of her preparation for this trip, but actually hearing Delilah speak about it was an immense thrill.

  In the book, Delilah had described with deeply felt honesty how her devastating journey through disbelief, terror and anguish to hope and, at last, acceptance had eventually led her to venture forth on a much wider odyssey, a search for spiritual meaning in her own life.

  That quest had taken on epic proportions and led to the writing of other books. She’d traveled to India and talked with gurus, she’d explored reincarnation with Tibetan monks, she’d been hypnotically regressed to past lives, she’d delved into the whole California craze for psychic readings, astrology, spiritual grow
th. And as she went along, Delilah wrote about her experiences with humor, humility and total candor. Her books sold in the millions, helped only in part by the fame she’d enjoyed as a Hollywood actress.

  Sameh stood backstage tonight, awed by the waves of energy radiating from her employer. She absorbed the simple, heartfelt words that mesmerized the diverse audience, storing them away in her memory for the notes she was keeping for Gamma.

  “The old girl’s really on a roll tonight, huh? She’s a nut case, but she sure draws the crowds,” a stagehand whispered close to Sameh’s ear, and she turned to defend Delilah, irritated at his attitude. But he wasn’t looking at Delilah at all. Sameh realized that he was standing beside her, far too close, staring at her breasts. She could smell his fetid breath, and the sly hunger in his flushed face horrified her. Some of these nineties men were positively archaic in their attitudes toward women.

  Without bothering to answer him, she made her way quietly down the backstage steps and then through the door that opened into the darkened auditorium. She slipped into the seat Delilah had reserved for her in the front row, beside Tyrone Wallace. Sameh looked up at the stage, then turned to Tyrone, determined to overcome her instinctive dislike of the man, thinking how proud he must be of this remarkable woman he lived with.

  Impeccably tailored, smelling of expensive cologne, he was surrounded by a gray cloud of boredom and indifference. He was slumped in his seat, staring down at his lap and cleaning his fingernails with a small penknife. Not for the first time, Sameh wondered why Delilah was so in love with this man.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I SHOULDA STUCK to chasing junkies down dark alleys.” Bernie Methot tossed a file folder onto Adam’s desk and plopped his compact body into the leather chair, sighing as he lifted first one leg and then the other until his size-thirteen feet rested comfortably on the desk. Bernie, at five-nine, had the feet of a very tall man, and his favorite one-liner was that only one other portion of his anatomy matched their size.

  Four days had passed since Adam’s appointment with Violet Temple. He’d turned the investigation over to Bernie as planned, not without some resistance on his partner’s side. Adam had had to trade off, taking over surveillance on one of Bernie’s infidelity cases.

  Bernie ran his beefy hand through his thinning brown hair. “How’d you make out with the Tombasinis’ peep show?” Mrs. Tombasini wanted times, dates and places concerning Mr. Tombasini’s latest in a string of mistresses. Mrs. T was a regular customer; she paid top dollar and never considered divorce. Instead she collected yet another piece of expensive jewelry from her contrite husband each time Blue Knights came up with the goods.

  “Those two are twistos,” Adam growled. “They both get off on this crap. Victor didn’t even bother closing the drapes this time. Bottom floor, Vista Motel, all the lights on. The guys an exhibitionist.”

  “What was the lady like?”

  Adam shook his head. “Built. I don’t know where he finds them.”

  “Mrs. T probably pimps for him.” Bernie sighed. “Any coffee in that pot?”

  “Yeah.” Adam poured a mugful and handed it to him. “I started thinking maybe I should have gone with the Temple case after all. This divorce stuff makes me feel like a peeper.”

  Bernie gulped down half the inky liquid in the mug and shoved the file folder across the desk with his foot. “You can have it back, free and clear. This one’s got me stymied.” Adam waited, an eyebrow lifted in inquiry.

  Bernie finished the coffee and lowered his feet to the carpet. Reaching for the folder, he dumped the contents in an untidy heap on the desk.

  “At first the lady checked out on all counts. I put her social security number through the computer, and there’s no prints on file, no criminal record, right? Straight arrow. Checked out the employment agency that recommended her—” he rifled through the papers and tossed one over to Adam “—Elite Personnel. No problem. Quite the opposite. Smith registered forty points over the highest score ever recorded on the aptitude test she did for them. They figure she’s some sort of genius. No record on her before April of this year, but they also gave glowing reports on her personal interview sheet. Sounds like she could charm the robes off the Pope if she set her mind to it. Like Violet said, her references sounded great but couldn’t be verified—they came from cities in Canada and most of the people on her list are dead. Anyway, Elite was so impressed with the lady, they sent her right over to McDonell.”

  “Credit cards? Medical insurance? Internal Revenue?” Adam rhymed off the sources of information they routinely checked.

  Bernie’s broad forehead puckered in a frown. “That’s where this thing gets complicated, Hawk. She’s got two credit cards, both applied for and issued between April third and April fifteenth, this year. Insurance payments, same drill, same week—April third. First payments to Internal Revenue, also made early April. I did my damnedest to find some record, somewhere, of our girl before April of this year. I checked hospital records all over the country and I had a friend over at the department delve into the IRS’s private snoop section on the computer. No dice.”

  Adam had great respect for Bernie’s ability at this sort of thing. Bernie had worked as a detective for the LAPD before joining forces with Adam, and his hobby was computers. What he couldn’t access one way, he invariably found out in another.

  “There’s absolutely no trace I can find of Ms. Sameh Smith before April of this year.” Bernie tossed the folder down in disgust. “It’s as if she parachuted in from outer space.”

  Adam was intrigued. For once, here was a case with a new spin. If Bernie couldn’t track down anything about her, there was something peculiar going on. “So besides outer space, you got any other ideas about what’s up with Ms. Smith?”

  Bernie shrugged. “I figured maybe we got a nut case who’s been institutionalized for most of her adult life, but that theory doesn’t hold water. According to all accounts, this gal’s bordering on genius, great at her job, well adjusted and trustworthy. Besides, if by some miracle a person like her had just graduated from loonyland, there’d have to be medical records.” He threw up his hands. “Nada. Zilch. I checked whatever’s out there to check. You got any bright ideas, Hawk?”

  Adam thought about it. One possibility came to mind, but it was pretty farfetched. “Maybe we got ourselves a clandestine foreign agent, building herself a background so eventually she can be fed into government?”

  Bernie rolled his eyes and whistled.

  Adam agreed, but there weren’t that many possibilities here, at least not that he could think of. “I know, it sounds like star wars, but it’s the only thing I can think of that makes any sense. Like you say, people in this day and age all leave some kind of paper trail.”

  “Except her.” Bernie shook the file and a packet of photos fell out of the folder and spilled across the desk. Adam picked them up and studied them one by one. “I got those from the surveillance van. She runs every morning. We clocked her at six miles—she goes like a bat out of hell and doesn’t even sweat.”

  “She sure doesn’t look like a bat out of hell.” Adam studied the color photo of the lithe young woman in silky purple shorts and singlet, running along a sidewalk. Some trick of the lens made it look as if she was floating above the ground. She looked both fragile and powerful, a long-limbed, gently curved gazelle with a purple headband holding back a riotous mop of golden curls. He couldn’t quite see her face, and he reached for the other photos and flipped through them until he found a close-up.

  She seemed to be staring straight into the camera. Adam felt the wide-spaced, sapphire blue eyes were somehow reproaching him, as if their owner was fully aware of being photographed.

  “She looks a little like Goldie Hawn,” Bernie volunteered. “You see those reruns of Laugh In? Gad, that woman acted like a dipstick on that show, but they say she’s really one very smart cookie.”

  Adam wasn’t listening. He was studying the pictures, one after an
other, concentrating on her hands, her throat, the curve of her breasts, the long, slender legs, bare beneath the brief running shorts. Always, he returned to her face.

  He wanted her. He wanted this woman.

  The intensity of his reaction caught him entirely by surprise, and for a moment he forgot Bernie, the office, the very reason for the photos. Excitement and a long-lost sense of exhilaration stirred in his belly.

  He wanted her, and so he’d have her. It had always been that way with Adam Hawkins and women. There was no reason to believe Sameh Smith would be any different. “Maybe we ought to work together on this one, Bern. I’ll call Violet and arrange a meeting with our Ms. Smith. We can get to know her a little and maybe find out what her game plan really is.”

  Bernie nodded. “Sounds okay to me. We can always say we’re promoting the celeb security part of the business, out there doing advertising for good old Blue Knights. She doesn’t have to know you’d gut yourself with a dull knife before you ever agreed to do any kind of public relations.”

  Adam reached for the phone.

  SHE WAS WEARING a floaty skirt that almost reached her ankles, with a long white thing over the top. She kept shoving the sleeves up. Her narrow feet were nearly bare in sandals that consisted of two straps across her instep and one on her ankle. Her toenails were polished a pale pink, but she didn’t appear to be wearing any makeup.

  A tiny pulse throbbed in the hollow of her neck, just above the neckline of the sweater. She had huge, remarkable eyes, clear and deep blue and filled with gentle humor—at least until she’d met Adam’s gaze, when the humor faded into wary alertness. She’d led them into a small sitting room located near the front door of Delilah’s mansion when they’d arrived half an hour before. She’d disappeared only a moment ago, heading for the kitchen to bring them tea. Violet had cleverly chosen a time for them to call when everyone else in the house was out.