No Pain, No Gaine

by Edwina Franklin

  The most dangerous killer? The one who hides in plain sight.

  Sandy DeGianni, new crime reporter for Police Digest Magazine, figured digging up fresh information about a series of historical cold cases would spice up an otherwise tame assignment.

  Instead she’s up to her neck in trouble with her editor—and the subject of some uncomfortable police scrutiny. Especially from a handsome detective who will neither confirm nor deny that the prime suspect, the mysterious “Mr. Vanish”, really exists.

  Ted doesn’t know how Sandy got her hands on secret police files, but it’s his job to plug the leak. And rescue the feisty, spirited journalist from a sudden series of freakish accidents. No doubt in Ted’s mind, the mastermind behind the mishaps could only be Dr. Vanish, untouchable master of disguise.

  As they try to stay ahead of a rising tide of dead bodies, sparks of attraction have Sergeant Gaine walking a dangerously thin line between public protector who must keep Sandy at arm’s length, and a man in love who’d make any sacrifice to keep her safe.

  This Retro Romance release was originally published in 1990 by Harlequin.

  No Pain, No Gaine

  Arlene F. Marks w/a Edwina Franklin

  Prologue

  Tuesday, May 8

  Happy hour was a misnomer, Sandy decided as she glanced around nervously at the quietly murmuring clusters of people in the Shamrock Tavern. They were mainly mixed groups of white-collar workers from the neighboring office towers on Bloor and Yonge Streets, quaffing an after-hours beer or three while waiting for rush-hour traffic to thin out. For the most part, they looked like a commercial for Molson’s Golden.

  But off in the corner sat a pack of young men, about six of them, wearing skin-tight jeans and crudely graffiti-covered T-shirts, passing a bottle around and whispering suggestively among themselves. Each time one of them looked at Sandy, she winced and shifted restlessly on her stool.

  Stirring the remaining slivers of ice in her Tom Collins, she asked herself for the tenth time why she was still here. It was bad enough that she’d broken one of her cardinal rules and agreed to meet in a bar with someone she’d only spoken to once on the phone; but this Charlie, whoever he was, was now half an hour late. She glanced up and caught the bartender gazing sympathetically at her. Five more minutes, she decided. If Charlie wasn’t here by then, she would leave.

  Suddenly the stool beside hers creaked as a man sat down. After thirty minutes of leering attention from the boys in the corner, it took all the self-control she possessed to remain calmly seated while she sized him up.

  He was short, with light brown hair and cracked, dirty fingernails. Flashing her a brief grin, he ordered a whiskey. Then, as though they’d been conversing for hours and he’d suddenly remembered to remind her of something, he turned to her and said, “Bert always paid for my drinks.”

  Sandy’s back stiffened momentarily. Bert Waldron was the writer she had replaced at Police Digest magazine. So this unprepossessing little man was the one who had phoned her earlier today, who had chuckled chauvinistically when she’d confirmed that the “A. DiGianni” on the magazine masthead was Alessandra DiGianni, a woman, and had laughed out loud when she’d demanded to know what was so damned funny about that? Who had then dared her to meet him alone in a bar to find out how he could make or break her writing career? Her feminist dander dangerously high at that point, she’d taken his dare and angrily hung up on him.

  And now here they were, exchanging baldly appraising stares, and the bartender was looking expectantly at her, poised to pour the shot of whiskey. After a beat, she nodded at him to go ahead and serve the drink.

  “You must be Charlie,” she said conversationally to the man beside her.

  “Yep. And you’re the newest staff writer over at Police Digest. It took some guts to meet me here. I’m impressed.”

  “Why? Because I’m a woman?” she said, beginning to bristle.

  “Nah. Because you’re a totally green rookie. I noticed your name on the masthead three weeks ago, and I did some checking. Until Rudd hired you, you were nowhere.”

  “I was with a leading women’s magazine.”

  “Same thing.” He paused to down half of his whiskey, apparently impervious to the daggers she was staring at him. “So I set up this meeting to find out whether you’d have the nerve to show up.”

  “I see. And have I passed your little test?” she said, snapping the last two words at him like whips.

  He gave her a sly grin. “With flying colors, doll. Let’s move to a booth so we can talk business.”

  Too busy wondering what he considered “business” to object to being called “doll”, Sandy left a couple of bills on the bar, and she and Charlie carried their drinks to one of the booths at the back of the room. Once he was satisfied that nobody could overhear their conversation, he reached inside his windbreaker and pulled out a fat white envelope.

  “Some of this isn’t even in police records,” he boasted quietly. “Call it research, if you like. But I have access to stuff that you’d never find out on your own. Hot stuff. Up to the minute. And absolutely factual. Before he died, Bert paid me by the month to feed him information for his articles.”

  She nearly inhaled a mouthful of Collins. “Bert died?”

  “Yeah, back in March. Boating accident.” Charlie cocked his head curiously at her. “Nobody told you?”

  Sandy shook her head, feeling a rush of heat to her cheeks. Nobody had told her, and she hadn’t even thought to ask. She’d just assumed the collage of photographs on the office bulletin board was a sentimental leftover from Bert’s retirement party. Some investigative crime reporter she was going to be!

  “So how about it?”

  “How about what?”

  He sighed impatiently. “How about making me your confidential source? You’re going to need one if you expect to make it into the big leagues, babe, and I’m the guy who can boost you up there. Listen, I deal in information, and I have plenty of eager customers. If they want to know what’s really going down on the streets, they come to Charlie. I supply leads to every city desk in Toronto.”

  “Then why did you bother calling this ‘totally green rookie’ if you’re so busy?” she asked.

  Charlie paused, picking his words. “Because Bert was a good guy…and he was one of my regulars, so I figured I’d offer my services to his replacement, as a professional courtesy. However, since you’re not interested—”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  A smile trickled across his face. “Okay,” he said at last. “You just got the go-ahead on a series of articles about past unsolved crimes, right? And you’ve visited the newspaper morgues and the library, and collected a few scraps of information from the police…”

  She frowned. “How did you know that?”

  “Even though I’m not big on history,” he went on, ignoring her question, “just to show my good faith, I went ahead and dug up some exclusive info on unsolved crimes for you, right here.”

  He patted the envelope proprietarily. “You’ll really like the murders,” he added with a conspiratorial wink.

  Sandy stared at the envelope, gnawing her lower lip uncertainly. She had a bad feeling about this. Instincts she hadn’t needed since her rebellious teen years were telling her Charlie was flypaper—the kind of unsavory character who would stick to you, refusing to be shaken off once you’d touched him. And yet…Paul Rudd had warned her that crime journalism was a tough field to break into, that she would have to be stronger and more aggressive than she’d ever been before. That she would have to get her hands dirty digging up information…dealing with so
urces who ate and breathed and slept in that dirt…sources like Charlie.

  “All right,” she said finally. “But I’d have to see the information first.”

  “Huh-uh. Money upfront.”

  “I may be a rookie, but I’m not that green, Charlie,” she warned him.

  He scowled at her for a second. “Okay, okay,” he grumbled, tearing open the sealed envelope. “I’ll show you a sample, but that’s all. You are really stretching my professional courtesy, lady.”

  The envelope contained a thick sheaf of loose-leaf paper. Charlie yanked one page free and thrust it across the table at her.

  Mercantile Bank Robbery, was typed at the top, and then half a page of point-form notes, specifying the number of perpetrators, the make of the getaway car, even the exact wording of the robbery note. The bank job had taken place eight years ago, and neither the suspects nor the stolen fifty thousand dollars had turned up since.

  This was perfect for her first article—if Charlie had his facts straight. Well, it would be easy enough to verify his information, since he had also provided the full names of two of the tellers and the assistant manager who had been on duty that day. In fact, Paul would insist she verify it with two independent sources—her new managing editor was a stickler for corroboration of all reported facts.

  Sandy drew in a long, steadying breath, then touched the flypaper.

  “Okay,” she said with a nod, “how much are you asking?”

  Charlie leaned back in his seat. “A hundred bucks for this package, and then a hundred bucks a month to keep it coming.”

  “Wait a minute, I can’t afford—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I forgot, you’re a rookie,” sighed Charlie, and sat up straight again. “Okay, just this once. A bargoon. Fifty bucks for what’s in this envelope.”

  “Can I write you a check?” she asked hopefully.

  “Lady…” he groaned.

  “Sorry.” Grimacing, she pulled a ten and two twenties from her wallet, thinking of all the hot-dog-and-macaroni dinners she’d be eating for the next week, and handed over the money.

  Charlie pushed the envelope toward her and stood up to leave. “Here’s my phone number,” he said, dropping an open matchbook onto the table. There were figures scrawled inside the cardboard cover. “Give me a call when you need some more research done. Any kind of research. I’m a versatile guy,” he added with a smile.

  Furtively, Sandy tucked both the envelope and the matchbook into her purse. Then, sipping slowly at her Collins, she waited until the tavern’s swinging doors had finished echoing Charlie’s exit before leaving the booth to make her own.

  Three weeks later, Sandy was on the phone, trying to get one of Lou Parmentier’s associates to confirm or deny the hour at which Charlie claimed Lou had left a cocktail party on the night he was murdered. And Charlie wasn’t flypaper anymore; as far as Sandy was concerned, he was a legitimate informant.

  His information had been right on. Independent sources—some of them initially speechless at being contacted by a reporter, some of them uncooperative, even hostile, until she told them what she already knew—had eventually corroborated the facts of all twelve of Charlie’s “unsolved cases”. The details of those cases, placed side by side with the much older ones the police had given her, would make her articles gripping and relevant; would give them the “punch” Paul had said he was looking for.

  And she’d even found a bonus lead, some references in Charlie’s notes to a hit man nicknamed Mr. Vanish, who might or might not exist. Sandy loved puzzles, and this one promised to be fascinating. She decided to stir him into her second article in the series. A phantom killer, able to baffle the most sophisticated police forces, would certainly liven up a piece about unsolved murders.

  Sandy consulted her notes for that article. The police had given her two of the four cases she was writing up–the Marchand-Florion serial killings, and the mystery of the frozen Mountie. Far more interesting, though, were two more recent murders: Lucas James, a farmer in the Credit Valley; and Lou Parmentier, a Toronto businessman and City Councilman-elect who had apparently been executed on the very night of his victory at the polls. The story had been national front-page news for days, and had shaken Toronto Council to its core. Whoever solved this murder, Charlie’s notes suggested, would probably get a medal, a cash reward, and a key to the city. Not to mention a terrific scoop for the magazine, she thought with a grin as she peered at the details of the Parmentier investigation.

  Sandy leaned back in her chair with a sigh. With a confidential source feeding her leads and three weeks’ worth of dirt under her fingernails, she was finally beginning to feel like a pro.

  Chapter One

  Thursday, June 7

  One glance at the computer printout sitting on her desk was enough to send Alessandra DiGianni storming into Paul Rudd’s glass-enclosed office cubicle.

  Planting her feet firmly on the worn gray carpeting and her fists firmly on her hips, she tossed her mane of dark brown hair and demanded hotly, “How dare you change me into a man?”

  On the other side of the cluttered oak desk, the managing editor of Police Digest magazine shifted his well-chewed cigar from the left to the right side of his mouth and gave her a questioning stare.

  “Don’t play dumb, Paul,” she warned. “You promised me a byline on my first feature article, and then you went and changed it to Tony Bryant.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I turned down an associate editorship at Lady Of The House magazine to come and work for you. I was going to break new ground, you said, be a role model for other women writers. So how am I supposed to do that if everyone thinks I’m a man?”

  Paul Rudd sighed wearily. “Sit down, DiGianni.” He chomped hard on his cigar and pointed imperiously to the extra chair beside his desk. Sandy noted the stern glint in his eyes and decided to sit.

  “I changed your byline because the article became a collaboration between you and me.” Raising a hand to still her objections, he explained, “I had to rewrite the piece to keep us out of trouble with the PMRC. You remember the Police Media Relations Committee, the public-affairs branch of the Toronto Police Department and official source of authorized police information in this city? Only a publication with a death wish would deliberately get on the bad side of those people, Sandy. And that’s what your article would have done to us if I’d let it go through the way you’d written it.”

  “I worked hard on that article, Paul,” she pointed out, “and I was careful to stay within editorial guidelines.”

  “I know,” he said, and blew out a long, exasperated sigh. “Look, Sandy, you brought me an outline for a series of historical pieces—Great Unsolved Crimes of the Past. You were going to go right back to Confederation to compare the methods used by the police then and now, and speculate on whether our modern techniques might have solved those unsolved cases. It was a nice, tame little assignment, perfect for someone just learning the ropes—until you decided to move them into a minefield!”

  He was leaning across his desk now, his cigar jutting ceilingward like a warning beacon. Icy dread seeped down Sandy’s spine. This was not the reaction she had been expecting from him.

  “In our business, history means when all the possible suspects have died,” he went on, his voice sharp enough to make her wince. “There is no statute of limitations on indictable crimes in Canada, Sandy. Police files can remain open, and their contents confidential, for fifty years or more. As long as there are suspects still alive, the case can still be solved—but not if some irresponsible writer leaks key details to the public. You know what I’m talking about.”

  Sandy swallowed hard. “The kidnapping.”

  “And the bank job. An eight-year-old robbery, for chrissakes! And you put in the exact wording of the robbery note. There’s no way the police would have given you that for publication, if they gav
e you anything about the case at all. That’s why I had to rewrite your first instalment—to delete all the details of those two crimes. And that’s why I’ve decided to put a senior staffer on this series with you—under his byline.”

  He was demoting her to research assistant on her own articles. Heat crept into Sandy’s cheeks, forcing her gaze downward.

  “Look,” said Paul gruffly, “I hired you because you are a hell of a writer, Sandy, but in this corner of the profession things are different. We don’t do pieces on furniture antiquing or rose gardening; so your previous experience doesn’t count for much here. If you want topical feature assignments, you’ll first have to prove to me that you can handle them without getting yourself or us in trouble. Okay?”

  A lead weight settled slowly at the bottom of her stomach. Paul was right. She was a green rookie and everyone knew it, even Charlie. Silently, Sandy nodded and got to her feet.

  Her editor cleared his throat loudly. “I understand you’ve filed two more articles,” he growled. “I’ll be editing the second instalment on Monday. If there’s nothing in it that would get us in hot water with the PMRC, and if the writing is up to your usual high standards, I might be willing to reconsider my decision about the series.”

  Sandy began to smile. And then it hit her. The second instalment! She’d even hand delivered it to make sure it arrived quickly. Suddenly her legs felt weak and she had to sit down again.

  “We may already be in hot water, Paul,” she told him reluctantly.

  “What?”

  “Well, I needed to check out some of the information in the second article, so…I took a copy to the police department for verification. It’s the instalment about unsolved murders.”

  Mouthing a curse, Paul swiveled his chair and activated his computer terminal. He called Sandy’s article up onto his screen and read it silently, his teeth locked so tightly around the stub of his cigar that she thought he would bite it in two. Then, with a discouraged sigh, he swiveled back to face his errant staff writer.