by Mora Early
Geez, maybe Ransler was right about him. Josh blew out a long breath and shoved a hand through his wet hair. “I’m sorry, Emma. Really. That was... inappropriate of me, and I apologize. I value our professional relationship and I respect you. I hope I haven’t made you too uncomfortable. It won’t happen again, I assure you.”
“It’s...” She swallowed audibly. “It’s fine. Really.” She’d turned her face toward the rain speckled passenger window. In the vague reflection there, Josh could see that her eyes were closed.
His shoulders tensed. “I’ll take you back to work.” The deluge had tapered off to a light misting rain as they’d sat in the parking lot, but Josh kept his eyes trained on the road as if his life depended on it. The silence grew heavy between them as he drove.
When he pulled to a stop in front of Picture Perfect, he flicked only the briefest glance her way from the corner of his eye, afraid to make her even more uncomfortable. The heater had dried her blouse somewhat, though she still looked a bit waterlogged. Even with straggling hair and wan cheeks though, Emma was beautiful.
She turned to look at him then and her eyes were huge and luminous in her pale face. “It really is okay, Josh. I know it was just a heat of the moment, proximity thing. Don’t worry about it.” She gave him a trembling smile. “You say it won’t happen again, and I believe you.”
“It won’t,” he croaked. “I promise.”
She unlocked her door and pushed it open, giving him a short nod. “Good. I’ll talk to you tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow.” He gave her a brief wave as she shut the car door. She stood for a minute on the sidewalk, rain misting in her dark brown hair. It looked almost black when it was wet, he realized. Her slender hand rose in a return wave and then she spun and hurried into the building.
Josh pulled away from Picture Perfect and turned the car toward home. His chest felt as if it were full of frost-covered rocks, rolling around his ribcage and pressing on his lungs. He’d made a deal with Eugenie Markham to help build a dormitory that would provide housing for a lot of women in need. He was one step closer to getting what he wanted, Ransler’s name on the dotted line, with the help of Ransler’s own wife, thanks to Emma. He’d even managed not to alienate Emma, despite his asinine assumption that she’d welcome his advances.
And yet, for all that he’d gained today, he felt like he’d made a huge mistake when he’d promised Emma he wouldn’t try to kiss her ever again.
Chapter 7 ~ Magnus & the Rita
This idea was Todd-Ness-level crazy. Emma knew it. But she had no choice. She had to know what Josh had meant when he said Ben was bringing in the ‘big gun’. The phrase sent a rush of cold panic through her. She clenched her hands tighter on the steering wheel of the Saab. Todd had convinced Jimmy to loan her the car for the day. She didn’t want Ben to recognize her car. If he even knew what kind of car she drove. But she wasn’t willing to take that chance.
More than just her relationship with Josh was on the line. Not that they had anything more than a business relationship. And yet. Emma remembered the look in his eyes as he’d gazed at her in his car, soaking wet. She’d been plain old party planner Emma, who had invented a new way to spreadsheet inventory at Picture Perfect so they could monitor seasonal use and order accordingly. Yet Josh had stared at her as if she were a Siren and he Odysseus, bound to the mast. He’d stared at her. Not Madame Butterfly.
“She’s you, idiot,” Emma murmured, weaving through the traffic ahead of her. And that was true. Madame Butterfly was her, after a fashion. Or part of her, anyway. A small, outrageous, flamboyant part of her. But the majority of her was monthly expenditure reports, not masquerade balls. Emma had never gone to bed with a man she’d just met. She’d hardly even gone to bed with the men she knew well. She’d had exactly two serious relationships in her entire life.
She shoved the wayward thoughts away. Her prior romantic relationships and the almost kiss with Josh were not important. Keeping their secret safe was. She had to know if Ben and his big gun were getting close. That was the whole point of her insane plan today.
“Come on, Ness. You can do it.”
Emma had been repeating that over and over since she’d arrived at Ben’s apartment in San Rafael this morning. She’d left orders at work that she was only to be contacted in the event of an emergency. She’d laid out what needed to be done for the press luncheon, and Dag could handle the preparations for one day.
Now, here she was, tailing Ben as he drove... somewhere. She still didn’t know yet. As determined as Josh seemed, Emma was positive he’d have Ben working full-time on finding Carla Fiorentino. Which meant that wherever he went today would tell Emma just how much Ben knew. And tell her what, or who, the big guns were. She hoped, anyway. Otherwise she was wasting a vacation day for nothing.
She’d been worried he’d head toward Napa. It would be harder for her to pull off her spy routine there. But luckily for her, he’d driven toward San Francisco instead. She kept two cars back in her borrowed black Saab. Ben’s car had a distinct broken taillight and an ‘I brake for Sasquatch’ bumper sticker. When he parked in front of a psychic healer’s and crossed the street to a diner, Emma pulled around the corner onto 15th street and found her own parking space.
She checked the rearview mirror before getting out of the car, situating the red fedora at an angle on her head. She slicked on an equally shocking red coat of lipstick. Her ballet flats were cherry. The rest of the outfit - three quarter sleeved light weave sweater and capris - were a shade of brownish-beige Emma had learned was called ‘spice’. She chose a reddish-brown scarf from the pile of clothes she’d brought with her and looped it around her neck. She hoped she’d blend in to the fashionable Castro crowd.
It was a crazy outfit for a crazy scheme, but she’d read somewhere that if you were trying to hide in plain sight, you should wear something bright. It seemed counter-intuitive to draw attention in order to hide. But the idea was that if you wore an eye-catching ensemble, people tended to notice the outfit rather than the person wearing it. Or something. When asked later, anyone who’d seen her would (if the tactic worked correctly) remember the hat and not details of her face.
She pushed into the diner with her cell phone out, head down, and quickly scanned the room as if looking for a lunch date. She spotted Ben. He was sitting in a booth about halfway down the wall. She moved past him, fingers flying over her phone in pantomime of frantic texting, and threw herself into the booth behind him. He didn’t even glance at her. The waitress approached and Emma flashed her a wide smile.
“Can I get a tea with lemon, please?” When she and Todd were younger, he would insist she do voices when she read to him. He’d laughed and clapped at all of them. She’d always assumed it was just her brother’s enthusiasm for her stories, but when she’d gotten a little older and started trying to fool Aunt Margaret about her ‘English friend’, and she’d done the accent so well that Aunt M had never known it was her, Emma realized she really did have an ear for that sort of thing. She injected a faint Australian stretch to her words now. It totally changed the shape of all the vowels.
“Iced or hot?” The waitress inclined her head.
“Iced, thanks.”
The waitress nodded and slid a menu in front of Emma. She opened it, pretending to peruse the contents. She glanced quickly in the mirror that ran along the wall. Ben was still sitting by himself. He sipped a cup of coffee and read a newspaper. She hoped she wasn’t here just to watch him have lunch.
But a moment later a big guy with a face like a pushed-in pumpkin, well over six feet tall and nearly half that wide, slid into the booth opposite Ben. He signaled the waitress with a sharp whistle, pointing at Ben’s cup of coffee and holding up a finger. She nodded in understanding.
“You know it’s the 21st century, right, Gunn?” Ben folded his paper. Emma ducked her head forward. Big Gunn. She almost snorted out loud.
“What’s your point, Benjamin?” Gunn sounded lik
e he was doing an impression of Tony Soprano or some other TV mob boss, a Jersey Italian so thick you could cut it with a knife.
Emma watched them surreptitiously in the mirror. Ben leaned back in the booth, arms behind his head. “We could meet at my office. Or yours. Private Dicks at the diner swapping info is so cliché.”
Gunn shrugged one massive shoulder and ran a shovel-sized hand through his lank brown hair. “I like the coffee here. So sue me. You gonna tell me what you want or you just gonna jaw at me all day?”
“You know what you want, sweetie?” The waitress had returned, setting Emma’s iced tea down with an authoritative thunk. Emma was actually starving. Apparently spying worked up an appetite.
“I’ll have two eggs, over medium, wheat toast and bacon.”
“Hash browns?”
“Yes, please.” Emma could never resist getting breakfast at a diner, no matter what time of day it was.
The waitress scribbled her order and snatched up the menu, flitting away.
“... must have someone high up covering her tracks,” Ben was saying. “Even her arrest report didn’t have a photo. ‘Improper record keeping’ they told me. And not a blink of her on any radar since she was on the rodeo circuit a year ago.”
“She leave before or after this Ness fellow?” Gunn slurped his coffee. Emma tensed. His tone of voice made it clear he found Carla Fiorentino’s disappearance shady, and that he thought her brother might be involved. Which was ridiculous. Todd may not be able to hold a real job or settle down with one girl, but he’d never hurt anybody.
In the mirror, Ben shook his head. “Before. By a month. According to everything I can track down, they were only involved briefly. No one’s sure exactly, but somewhere under two months. She breaks it off, starts seeing another cowboy for a bit, and then takes off. Poof. Off the grid. Ness gets up to all kinds of bad business – fights, mostly – after she leaves. Then, a month later, he drops out of the circuit himself and moves on to knife-throwing at a traveling circus. He’s pretty easy to track, despite the nomadic tendencies. Always keeps in touch with his sister.”
Gunn grunted. “Sounds like Fiorentino and Ness were hardly Bonnie and Clyde. What makes you think she’s your girl?”
“She’s got a record and she’s the only one of Ness’ female companions I can’t track down. And based on the one photo I managed to drudge up, she’s a possible match, physically.”
The waitress slid Emma’s breakfast in front of her and sidled over to refill Ben and Gunn’s coffee cups. Emma poked the steaming hash browns with her fork. After hearing them talk about her brother like a criminal, she’d lost some of her appetite.
And okay, maybe he was sort of a criminal. So was she. They had stolen from Josh. But there were extenuating circumstances! The law recognized that when it came to murder. You could get off on a lesser charge if it was a crime of passion or self-defense. Well, this was both! She and Todd were passionate about protecting their family heritage. It wasn’t like they were a danger to society. At least, she wasn’t.
She flushed a little and sipped her iced tea to cool her dry throat. That was an unkind thought. Todd wasn’t dangerous. He was just... misguided. It was her fault, really. She was the only person he’d ever had to look up to. Aunt Margaret didn’t consider it her job to teach a child anything. And Emma had always been too permissive with Todd. She knew that. But he was all she had. It was hard to risk pushing someone away when they were the only other person in the world who cared if you were alive.
“You don’t think it’s her.” Gunn said it as a statement, not a question. Emma’s ears perked up. Ben set his coffee cup down a little sharply.
“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s shady as hell that she just up and disappeared. But it’s not my job to find every girl who’s running away from her past. Josh wants me to find the woman who helped Ness steal back the watch. And... no, I’m not entirely convinced Carla Fiorentino is that girl.” He tapped his fingers against the pressboard table. “But I won’t be able to prove that to Josh until I either find the girl herself, or at least track down a picture.”
Gunn snorted. “Owens is a stubborn son of a bitch, alright. But if it’s not the buckle bunny, then who? You think the kid hired a pro?”
“What, a hooker?”
Emma bristled. Her fingers curled so tight around her fork that the metal bit into her hand. Thankfully, Ben chuckled. “No way. For one, who’s going to trust a pro with a high-end job like this? And two, she had to pass as a guest in a house full of the rich and famous. Plus, I got a bit of a look at her that night. She was no hooker.”
“You can tell just by looking?” Gunn gave that piercing whistle again to get the waitress’s attention. “You ought to be on the police force.”
“Screw you, Magnus. What I mean is, she was sexy as hell, but not in a for-sale kind of way.” Ben spun his empty cup on the table.
Gunn slurped the last of his coffee noisily. “Oh, well, that clears it right up.” She wasn’t looking at him, but she’d be willing to bet, from the tone of his voice, that Magnus Gunn had just rolled his eyes. “Tell me more about the sexy as hell part.”
Ben gave a low whistle. “About a mile of leg. Curvy in all the right places. And a smile like she knew some seriously dark arts. Like those Hollywood bombshells of the black-and-white era. Veronica Lake, Rita Hayworth. ”
Emma flushed at the description, both pleased and a little mortified. That’s what she’d been going for, she reminded herself. Something nothing like her actual self. She set down her fork and balled her napkin in her sweaty palms.
“No shit?” Gunn sounded intrigued, for the first time since he’d walked in the door. “Maybe I’ll help you track down Fiorentino after all. I always did have a thing for Rita.”
Ben slid a manila folder onto the table. “I’ll handle Fiorentino. What I want you to do is go back over Ness with a fine tooth comb. Make sure I didn’t miss anything. Or anyone, rather. Someone else who could have helped him.” He pushed the folder over to Gunn.
“Oh right,” Gunn replied. “You’ll handle the Rita. Figures.”
“Relax, Magnus.” He tapped a finger on the folder. “If I’m right, Fiorentino isn’t the Rita anyway. The Rita is in here.”
Magnus Gunn grinned. His teeth were large and crooked. Emma shuddered. She was in big trouble.
Josh tapped his fingers against the smooth surface of his desk and forced his gaze to stay away from the clock. Emma had said she’d be here at 12:15, so she’d be here at 12:15. Her punctuality was one of the things he loved about her. Well, he didn’t mean loved. Admired. Appreciated. That was all. He had to keep his ego, and his hormones, in check. He could have seriously screwed himself over if she’d chosen to take offense at his ham-handed come on.
They’d spoken several times since he’d tried to kiss her, and she been polite as usual every time. Maybe still a little skittish, and not likely to go sprinting through a rainstorm with him anytime soon, but she didn’t act afraid of him. Thank god. Especially considering that he still had to enlist her help in wrangling Ransler. He’d been so sure he could pull off this balancing act – presenting Emma to William at the charity function without either one knowing precisely what was going on. Now, after how badly he’d bungled himself with Emma in the car the other day, he was nervous.
“Just let me get through this luncheon, and I swear I’ll...” Josh trailed off, unsure who he was attempting to make a bargain with. Josh heard a soft thump from beneath his desk and frowned. He shoved back his chair, bending down to peer into the shadowed space. Two brown eyes blinked out of the darkness at him. “If you pee under there, so help me, I’ll turn you into a pair of boots.”
“That’s an oddly specific threat.” Emma stood in the doorway, petite form straight as an arrow. “I do hope that’s the dog you’re talking to. Otherwise...” She trailed off, plump lips twitching.
“It’s the dog,” Josh assured her.
Her mouth pursed into
that tiny moue of disapproval. Josh wanted to kiss it off her face. He curled his hands around the armrests of his chair instead and inclined his head to indicate she should take a seat. She sank gracefully into the chair, smoothing her skirt beneath her. “I’m not sure I approve of you threatening poor, defenseless puppies.”
Chewie gave a small yip, as if agreeing with her, and scrambled from beneath the desk to once again throw himself down at Emma’s feet. Josh glared at the pup. “Traitor. And that poor defenseless puppy has peed on me a dozen times. He doesn’t do that to anyone else. He doesn’t wet the carpet. But any time I let my guard down around the beast he pisses on my shoe.”
“He’s just trying to tell you that you’re his.” She bent to rub the dog’s chin. “He’s probably worried you’re going to abandon him too.”
Josh cleared his throat. “Ah. Yes, well, I’m not. So maybe you can tell him that so he’ll stop ruining my shoes?”
Emma glanced up at him, her green eyes wide. “You’re keeping him?”