by Rebecca Deel
“Sartelli?”
“Let’s see if he’s up to anything interesting tonight.”
“What about me?” Brenna asked. “I want to help.”
“Okay.” Eli grinned. “Have dinner with me.”
“That’s helping?” Color stained her cheeks. “How can you hit on me at a time like this? My sister is missing, you Neanderthal. I’m not in the market for a date.”
“Easy, sugar. You’re beautiful and provide camouflage while I ask if Red Lobster employees noticed Dana leave the restaurant.”
A small smile curved Brenna’s lips. “Well done. Mind if I use that line?”
“Absolutely. I’ll expect some thanks on your acknowledgments page.”
Brenna laughed. “I’ll be sure to mention your contribution. Where can I freshen up?”
“Turn to your right at the door.”
“Acknowledgments page?” Jon said. “Brenna’s a writer?”
Eli nodded. “Historical romance, stuff my mom and sisters would like.” He listened to her footsteps retreat across the suite and waited for the click of the lock. “How much time do we have, Jon?”
A grim expression settled on his partner’s face. “We may already be too late.” He raked his hands down his face. “This is my fault, Eli. I should have checked on her sooner, but I was too busy tracking down leads on Joe’s murder. Dana is a friend.” He paused. “A good friend,” he corrected. “And I let her down. Hope I didn’t focus on solving a murder and contribute to Dana’s death.”
An arrow of pain shot through Eli’s heart. Joe Baker, his and Jon’s PI mentor, had been murdered four weeks ago near LP Field, home of the Tennessee Titans. Four years ago, Joe had taken the two frazzled former SEALs who worked occasional jobs for Fortress, a private security company, and trained them in the art of private investigation, selling them his business after two years.
Something or someone drew him out of retirement for one last case. That case lead to the gruff old man’s death. He and Jon had just spent the last month in Mississippi helping his widow, Louise, move in with her daughter and settle Joe’s estate. He and Jon planned to look into their old mentor’s murder. They promised Louise they’d find out who killed her husband and present the evidence to the cops.
“I still say Sartelli is involved in this somehow,” Eli said. “Take your laptop on surveillance. See what’s cooking in Sartelli’s finances. We know Dana couldn’t pay for this cruise. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be a connection with his money.”
Jon nodded. “Maybe. Can’t see old Marcos footing the bill for a vacation without either going along or expecting some kind of favor in return. Even if that’s the case, doubt he’d be stupid enough to pay for it in a way which pointed back to him. I’ll check the cost for the cruise package anyway and see if I can connect the dots. Wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Wonder if Sartelli had anything to do with Joe’s death. Might be interesting to try connecting those dots.” Eli straightened at Brenna’s approaching footsteps. “Ready?” He grabbed her laptop. “After you, pretty lady.” Pausing at the doorway, he glanced back at his partner. “Work fast. Time is gnawing at us with sharp teeth.”
CHAPTER FIVE
After a brisk good night from Eli and a promise to pick her up at eight o’clock the next morning, Brenna closed Dana’s apartment door, latched the chain and slid home the dead bolt. The refrigerator’s hum and the air conditioner’s whoosh broke the silence in the apartment. Too quiet. She missed her sister’s incessant chatter, her spunky sense of humor. Where was she?
For once, Brenna wished she wrote mystery or suspense novels. She wanted to help, but she didn’t write this type of novel or read it much. If she treated this like a suspense novel, could she come up with some ideas that might help Eli and Jon? Eli turned up nothing at Red Lobster. The waitress remembered Dana, but didn’t notice anyone following her as she left the restaurant.
She grabbed her suitcase and headed for Dana’s guest room, her home away from home. Brenna unpacked her night clothes and mused over the facts they knew. Not much, she admitted to herself. Her sister had been gone for two weeks, hadn’t spent any money which didn’t bode well for Dana’s wellbeing. She’d disappeared off the map, as Jon said. But someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make everyone think Dana was on vacation.
Why? What did she know or what had she learned that would make her a threat? Dana was an administrative assistant. The most dangerous thing in her world was a paper cut. She didn’t hang out in bars or nightclubs. Her sister went to work, came home, climbed in bed early, and rose early to start the cycle again the next morning. She didn’t indulge in risky behavior.
Neighbor Tim seemed sure of his relationship with Dana. Fat chance of that being the case. In fact, Dana had complained a few times about how strong her neighbor pushed for a more intimate relationship with her. Was it possible Tim had hurt her? Spurned love did weird things to some people.
And what about Sartelli, Dana’s boss? As far as she knew, he’d been the last person to see her sister. But Dana was just his administrative assistant. Wasn’t she? Brenna considered her encounter with Sartelli. She shuddered. Dana’s boss reminded her of a cold-blooded reptile. How did her sweet sister stand being in the same room with him much less being his personal assistant?
Much as she’d love to blame Sartelli, what if he had nothing to do with Dana’s disappearance? Did she stumble onto something illegal, something which precipitated violence? If so, where did she run into trouble? Work, the bank, the grocery store or bookstore? Brenna dragged her hands through her hair. Yeah, she had some kind of imagination. Came with the creativity gene. Before long, she’d have her sister secreted in the federal witness protection program. She huffed out a laugh.
All the unanswered questions left her with a growing headache. She dug in the suitcase for her face cream and body lotion. Her spirit needed a vanilla pick-me-up slathered on her skin. After a quick shower to wash away the travel stench and a change into her pajamas, Brenna powered up her laptop and clicked on her email icon.
She deleted dozens of requests to be Facebook friends with people she didn’t know and x-rated invitations. How did these people get her personal email address? She had a web mistress who patrolled the email on her author’s website. Maybe it was time to expand Gina’s duties.
A message from her agent caught Brenna’s attention. She was ready to work on something new, anything to distract herself in the quiet moments, waiting for information about Dana. Which proposal had captured an editor’s attention? She clicked and read. An invisible band squeezed air from her lungs as she read further into the document.
No sales bites. Nobody wanted the Amish romance or the Medieval one. Not even the prairie romance or the Victorian. But her publishers always bought her books. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Maybe Maggie hadn’t contacted all of them yet.
She reread her agent’s last paragraph. “The editors we normally work with just aren’t interested in any more historical romances right now, Brenna. I hit them all and no nibbles. Two of them mentioned that if you had a romantic suspense or thriller, they would love to look at your proposals for those. The market is hot for these types of books. You are a fabulous writer and I know you can change genres. Take a few days and switch gears. I want a proposal in my inbox by the end of next week.”
By the end of next week? Was she serious? She wrote historical romances. Period. How could she switch gears in a matter of days and turn into a romantic suspense author? Every plot running around in her head, every character that talked to her was situated in the past. And to get a proposal in by the end of next week was impossible. She couldn’t concentrate on a new proposal while she worried about Dana.
Brenna pressed the reply icon and stared at the blinking cursor. She wanted to shoot off a missive about how she was a historical romance author, an award winning author at that. Some publisher must still publish quality historical romances. She continued to stare at t
he blank space and blinking cursor.
This was what she had always wanted to do—write. And she was a good writer. Writers write, no matter what, she reminded herself. So she had a choice. Either encourage Maggie to keep looking for a publisher who wanted her work, likely a small independent publisher by the looks of the rejection list, or she could buck up and get on with her job and write.
Brenna’s hands shook. Guess she had as many hang-ups as her sister. She hated to change her market. But she was a writer. Did it really matter in which genre she chose to write? In some ways the writing would require less research, at least less historical research. There were so many good romantic suspense authors out there in the market, though. Powerhouses like Elizabeth Lowell, Jayne Ann Krentz, and Nora Roberts ruled the market. Would she be able to compete with such creative geniuses?
She scowled. No, that train of thought led to undermined confidence and writer’s block. Brenna had a large, supportive base of readers. Most of her loyal minions would follow her to the new genre. She would have to entice new readers to replace the supporters who refused to read romantic suspense. Build another mailing list. She could do this.
Brenna dashed off a response to Maggie, indicated an agreement to the one week deadline for the new proposal. She closed out the email program and opened her word processing file. The cursor blinked at her from the white, empty page. She tried a couple pitch sentences. Frowned. Spaced down and tried again. She groaned. That sentence was worse than the first two.
This situation with Dana was the only thing on her mind. No other story popped up from her creativity pool. Well, maybe she should go with it. A young woman disappears. Her sister hires two hot private investigators to look into the situation. Brenna’s face flushed. If Eli ever got his hands on her computer and read this, she’d have to crawl in a hole and pull the dirt in over herself. Good thing no one saw the rough draft of anything she wrote. Her loyal fans would be shocked by her pitiful first drafts. If forced to describe her process to fellow writers, she told them she tried to outrun her writing demon, a yammering editor’s voice in her head that wouldn’t shut up about the lame plot and hokey word choice. As a result, she wrote her first drafts fast and messy. No finesse at all. Not pretty, but the process worked for her.
Brenna typed the premise and shifted over to the character sketches of the male and female protagonists. She grinned as the female turned out to be a romance writer. Well, the experts always said to write what you know. A romance writer with spunk, a sassy mouth, a smart-aleck attitude, the type of woman who took no prisoners.
Eve Dallas better look out. Brenna’s smile broadened. Her character, T.J. Sorenson, might beat Lt. Dallas in a popularity contest. T.J.’s love interest would have to be extraordinary to compete with Roarke. Brenna sighed, wished he was real. She could deal with a guy who made enough money to buy planets and spoke with a dreamy Irish accent.
No surprise, the private investigator she created sounded like Eli Wolfe. Looked like him too. She should change that. Wouldn’t do for Eli to recognize himself in print. It would be pretty embarrassing for her, too. The private investigator took up too much of her attention considering she’d just met the guy a few hours earlier. He was a great dinner companion, though. Funny, charming with an old world southern manner, and courteous. The waitress at Red Lobster had stopped by their table quite a few times to see if they needed anything further. She seemed disappointed that Eli was interested in information on Dana instead of the waitress’s phone number.
By the time Brenna finished the character sketches, the clock showed two a.m. All in all, good progress, considering she was rethinking her characters’ personalities and backstories. None of these people worried about social status and social gaffes, or being disinherited by an irate duchess or scalped by renegade savages on the open prairie. The pace in romantic suspense novels was a great deal faster than a world with knights or Native Americans. And she knew squat about modern weapons. Didn’t suppose T.J. Sorenson could carry a sword instead of a girly gun.
Brain fuzzy and her thought processes running at half speed, Brenna shut off her computer and stretched the kinks from her back. An hour after turning off the lights, she still rolled from one side of the bed to the other, her mind puzzling out plot points and choice of weapons. No sabers or spears or dueling pistols could show up in the villain’s hands. Or could they? Not unless she did time travel, which wasn’t likely in romantic suspense. She sighed. A crash course in guns and bombs was in her near future. She hoped her computer searches didn’t land her on a Homeland Security watch list.
A floorboard creaked in the living room. Brenna’s eyes flew open and she sat up, gaze glued to the dark doorway. Did she imagine that noise, maybe a prodding from her subconscious mind concerning a plot point? Another creak sent her pulse skittering out of control. She knew that creak, a loose floorboard at the entrance to the hall. Was Dana home?
The air conditioner kicked off and left the apartment silent, devoid of mechanical hums. Barely daring to breathe, Brenna slid her feet into a pair of Isotoner slippers and eased her cell phone off the nightstand. Moonbeams filtered through the blinds onto her rumpled covers. She glanced at the window, her eyes widening. She stood there like a goof, silhouetted against the outside light.
Almost silent footsteps and the brush of clothes against the wall told her the intruder moved down the hall. The door to Dana’s room squeaked. Could it be her sister? Brenna shifted her position to hug the wall and eased the door open a little further, enough to tell if her sister had returned and was trying not to wake her.
A nightlight in Dana’s room gave off just enough glow for Brenna to know the intruder wasn’t Dana. Not unless her sister had grown a foot and gained over one hundred pounds in the last ten days. A big man.
Brenna’s grip on the cell phone tightened and she clamped her lips on the gasp that wanted to escape. No way to call the police without the intruder hearing. Dana always complained how sound carried through her paper-thin walls. In fact, Brenna heard him rifling through Dana’s dresser drawers. What was he looking for? Maybe this was just a common thief and she had the bad luck to be home when he broke in.
He must have found nothing of interest in her dresser because the intruder moved on to Dana’s closet. Brenna had to move now or be caught by the stranger when he came to search her room. Should she try to escape by the balcony outside her room or the front door? If she ran to the front door, she had to pass Dana’s room and pinpoint her escape route with the same squeaking floorboard that alerted her to the intruder’s presence in the apartment in the first place.
She grasped the door, shut it, and eased the knob’s lock into place. Pretty flimsy door lock, but at least the intruder would be forced to slow down and kick in the door. Brenna hurried across the room to the French doors leading out to the balcony. She paused, hand on the knob. Her purse. It contained her life—a little money, her ID, and the all-important flash drives with her book manuscripts on them.
She scooped the bag off the floor, dropped her cell phone inside, pulled the long strap across her neck and let it hang down her side. The bag was a little large to carry this way, but she preferred that to leaving it for a burglar to rifle through. The computer was too heavy to haul around in stealth so she shoved the case under the bed and slipped out the door, locking it behind her.
The flashlight in Dana’s room continued its pattern unchanged. Good. The intruder hadn’t heard her slip out. Brenna rushed to the balcony and swallowed hard. Dana lived on the third floor. If she jumped she could break an arm or leg or, worse, her neck.
She leaned over the edge of the railing as far as she could, bent at the waist. Under the balcony she stood on, the second floor railing glistened in the moonlight. How far below was the railing? Brenna glanced back at the French door to Dana’s room. The light had disappeared. In the next instant, she heard heavy thumps against the door to her room.
Brenna grabbed the railing, crawled over the top
and let her hands slide down the wrought-iron rails, her feet dangling in the air. For once, she blessed her 5 foot 10 inches of height. If she stretched, her toes touched the railing on the balcony below. She scrabbled for a foothold, kept her hands on the bottom of her railing and reached for the next floor’s balcony rail. Just as she heard balcony doors open above her, Brenna slid off the railing onto the second floor balcony and moved close to the neighbor’s French doors, prayed they wouldn’t wake up to see a stranger looming in the darkness outside their window and grab a gun.
Footsteps clomped across Dana’s balcony, the brush of clothing telling Brenna the intruder was looking for her. She pressed against the glass, hoped he wouldn’t lean over the railing and catch her.
After what seemed like an eternity, a soft curse drifted down and the footsteps headed back into the apartment. Brenna waited until she couldn’t stand the pressure any more, and repeated the balcony-hopping process down one more floor and jumped to the ground. A final glance at Dana’s apartment with the resumed light dancing in her bedroom window and she bolted across the lawn, keeping to as many shadows as she could find.
She glanced down at herself as she fled and winced. White pajamas. Almost as bad as if she wore glow-in-the-dark nightwear. She needed a place to hide to call the cops, but where could she go this time of night? So close to the apartment, if she pounded on doors to wake the neighbors, the intruder would be able to locate her. Besides who would open a door in the middle of the night to a strange woman in pajamas and slippers?
Laundry room. Brenna scanned the area and changed direction. The laundry facilities were located in the next building. She crossed the grassy area between Dana’s building and her goal, paused at the corner. Between her and the door was a well-lit walkway. Great, just what she didn’t need with her lighthouse-beacon pajamas.