by Anne Stuart
“It’s all gone.”
“Damn.” Annabel had slumped sideways a bit, but she pushed herself back into a sitting position, crossing her shapely ankles. “I’ll have to send out for more. I only hope we still have credit at the liquor store. Stephen’s been closing all my accounts. He’s put me on a budget. Would you believe such a thing? I’m sure he hasn’t put Miss Goodbody on a budget.”
“Miss Goodbody?” Sandy echoed. He hadn’t taken a seat, he was hovering in the doorway, and Jane suddenly realized his problem. He didn’t want to take advantage of the woman. It would have been a simple matter to mix her another drink from the bottle of vodka that was, in fact, half-full, and then pry any information he wanted out of her. Instead he wanted to sober her up. Jane’s partner in crime had a conscience. The notion was startling and yet, not really surprising.
“My husband’s mistress,” Annabel said tearily. “Oh, he calls her his vice-president or something like that, but I’m not fooled. How do you think I got him in the first place? Back then they didn’t have to make their mistresses executives—they could keep them as secretaries until they dropped them.”
“He didn’t drop you,” Jane said.
Annabel looked crafty. “I was too smart for him. I’m too smart for Miss Goodbody, though she doesn’t know it.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Annabel’s fine blue eyes squinted at her. “Who are you?” she demanded suddenly. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re here to save the Loons,” Jane said somewhat desperately, as Sandy still stood silently by.
“It won’t do you any good,” Annabel said firmly. “My husband shot a loon two years ago. Nearly went to jail for it. He hates the damned things and their awful noise.”
Trust Uncle Stephen to shoot an endangered species, Jane thought. “When will your husband return? Maybe he’d like to assuage his conscience by making a donation.”
“My husband has no conscience,” Annabel snorted. “And I haven’t the faintest idea when he’ll be back.”
“Where’s he gone?” Jane demanded bluntly, when Sandy still said nothing.
Annabel focused her rapidly blinking eyes on Jane. “Why do you want to know?” she said belligerently. “And what are you doing here?”
“We’re representing the Save the Loons Foundation,” Sandy finally spoke, moving into Annabel’s wavering line of vision. “Perhaps we should come back when your husband returns.”
“I don’t know when he’ll return,” she said fretfully. “He’s gone off to upstate New York and I haven’t the faintest idea why. But I can guess who went with him. Elinor Goodbody.”
“Peabody,” a dulcet voice corrected from behind Sandy. She’d entered the house so silently no one had heard her coming. Elinor Peabody looked much as she had two days ago—perfectly groomed, perfectly collected, perfectly angry. Rather like a sober version of Stephen Tremaine’s wife.
Annabel had struggled to her feet, weaving slightly. “Elinor,” she purred, suddenly all affability. “What brings you here?”
“I promised Stephen I’d check in on you. He was worried you might get too lonely. But I see you have visitors already.” Her eyes met Jane’s, bright with mockery, and Jane waited for the boom to fall.
“They’re from the...what did you say you were representing, dears?” Annabel inquired dazedly.
“The Save the Loons Foundation,” Sandy said.
Elinor’s eyes ran the length of Sandy’s cool, elegant body, and Jane followed that gaze with an odd tightening in her stomach. One she called uneasiness, refusing to give another, more elemental name to it. “And I imagine you’re their resident computer whiz,” she murmured silkily, gliding over to him.
“Actually I’m not very good at computers,” Sandy replied in a low, caressing tone of voice that had Jane clenching her fists. “I’m better working with people.”
“I’m sure you are.”
Enough was enough, Jane thought, rising from her chair. “We’d better be going,” she announced abruptly. “We’ll come back when Mr. Tremaine returns from his trip.”
“That would be nice,” Annabel said vaguely.
Ms. Peabody turned an amused gaze back to Jane. “In the meantime, the two of you devoted conservationists might pay me a little visit. I have a great interest in saving loons.”
Jane just stared at her. Sandy broke in, smooth and unruffled as ever. “We’d be more than happy to accept any help you have to offer, Ms. Goodbody.” He let his eyes travel her elegant, voluptuous length just as she had surveyed him. Jane growled low in her throat.
“Peabody,” she corrected gently. “Why don’t you come by my place tonight around eight? I’m sure we can be a great help to each other.”
“We’ll be there,” Sandy said.
Elinor’s mouth turned down in a sour little smile of acceptance. “If that’s necessary. In the meantime, why don’t you leave Mrs. Tremaine to me? She does this every now and then, just to punish Stephen.”
Jane looked back at her hostess, startled, and discovered Annabel sound asleep on the sofa, snoring slightly. “Maybe he deserves it,” Jane said.
Ms. Peabody’s smile broadened. “Maybe he does. Tonight at eight. My address is in the phone book—I imagine two resourceful people like you can find it.”
“I imagine we can,” Sandy said. He moved slowly, easily over to Jane and took her arm in his. He had to feel the clenched muscles, the tension vibrating through her, but he said nothing, just patted her hand gently. “Till tonight.”
Neither of them said a word as they walked through the darkened house. Only when Sandy shut the peeling red door behind them did Jane finally speak. “Do you suppose Annabel is safe with that she-wolf?”
Sandy smiled. “Don’t you like Ms. Goodbody?”
“She’s a snake.”
“A snake who seems willing to help us. I don’t imagine there’s much Elinor doesn’t know about Stephen Tremaine’s affairs.”
“Then you don’t know Uncle Stephen,” Jane said, climbing into the Escort. “He doesn’t know the meaning of the word indiscreet. Anything Ms. Peabody knows she had to worm out of him.”
“First she’s a snake and now she’s a worm,” Sandy said, sliding in beside her. “You didn’t mind her all that much before. Why all the sudden hostility?”
She paused in the act of starting the car, turning to look him directly in his guileless gray eyes. Except, she reminded herself, she’d never known anyone so full of guile in her entire life. “I don’t like what she’s doing to Annabel. I don’t like the fact that while she’s busy ruining one woman’s marriage she seems ripe for a fling with you. I don’t trust her willingness to help, and I don’t trust...” The words trailed off, and she turned her attention to the dashboard of the car.
“You don’t trust me,” he finished for her, quite gently.
“Is there any reason why I should?” she muttered.
“Yes.” His hand covered hers before she could start the car, pulling it away, and she had no choice but to look at him. “You should trust me because we’re partners, Jane.”
“Partners in crime.”
“Whatever,” Sandy dismissed her cavil. “We’re in this thing together, and if we can’t trust each other, if you can’t trust me, then we may as well give it up right now. Is that what you want?”
She looked at him, at his stern, unsmiling mouth, his stormy eyes, his unflinching expression, and she was ashamed of herself. “I trust you, Sandy,” she said. “I do trust you. For a crook you’re very honest,” she added, hoping to coax a smile from him.
There was no answering lightening in his face. “Or for an honest man I’m very crooked,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. This place depresses me.”
Jane looked back at the subtle signs of decay around the beautiful old house, thought back to the beautiful woman passed out on the damask sofa. “Me too,” she said. And she put the car in gear.
Sandy slumped down in the
uncomfortable bucket seat, pulling his sunglasses out and propping them on his nose. Not for one moment longer could he meet Jane Dexter’s trusting gaze, not for one moment longer could he even stand to see his own reflection in the glare of the windscreen.
The names he was calling himself were so obscene he almost blushed. He had no excuse in the world—if he were any sort of decent human being he’d put a stop to this charade right now. He’d tell Jane Dexter who he really was, that he’d never broken any more laws than the average liberal college student growing up in the early seventies had broken, and that he’d do everything legally in his power to help her.
He believed her when she said she trusted him. That made it all the worse. He’d taken her very rational distrust of men, of him, and turned it around so that she was starting to open up to him. Sooner or later she’d find out the truth, whether he had the guts to tell her or not. And worse than her rage, worse than her justifiable fury, was the thought of seeing those trusting brown eyes clouded with hurt and betrayal.
“What was that?” Jane questioned, her eyes trained on the early afternoon traffic clogging Elm Road.
“What?”
“Did you say something? I thought I heard you groan.”
Sandy scooted upright in his seat, shoving his sunglasses back up his nose. Now was the time to tell her. Before things got any worse. “Just clearing my throat,” he said, flashing her his most charming smile, the one that could melt the heart of the stoniest judge.
And Jane, bless her poor, gullible heart, smiled back at him, and he started calling himself those names all over again as they headed back toward Route One.
Chapter Nine
It was a cool, clear night in October. The smell of burning leaves still lingered in the evening air, the dampness of a late rain mingled with the scent of autumn closing in. Outside the Princeton Pike Sleep-a-While Motel the air was filled with exhaust from the ever-busy Route One. By the time they reached Elinor Peabody’s cozy little stucco house in the Riverside section of Princeton the more soothing sights and scents took over, reminding Jane of her childhood, of Halloweens spent trudging the broad, beautiful streets around her parents’ house and collecting chocolate bars that she’d never eaten.
Dick had never bothered going out on Halloween, even when he was little. He preferred to stay home, reading, to dressing up in outlandish costumes and racing around the usually staid residential streets. By the time Sally was old enough for trick-or-treating, certain people had taken to putting razor blades in apples, and Halloween in the suburbs came to an abrupt halt. Jane still missed those earlier times, especially on a night like this, when the sights and smells of her childhood came rushing in on her, leaving her absurdly vulnerable as she hadn’t been in years.
Elinor Peabody’s house was a pale peachy color with aqua trim, carefully landscaped grounds, and an inground swimming pool in the back. Years ago Riverside had been one of the newer sections of town, a place for young couples and tacky houses. Sandy had casually informed Jane that the house was now on the market, and Ms. Peabody was asking four hundred and fifty thousand for a place not much larger than her parents’ garage. She’d probably get it, too.
The MGB coughed to a halt outside the well-tended walkway. At least with Ms. Peabody there was no sign of imminent decay. “You want me to wait in the car?” Jane finally broke the silence that had lasted since Route One.
His face was shadowed in the car. “You might have a long wait,” he said, his voice giving nothing away. “Ms. Peabody had a lean and hungry look. If I go in without you I might not escape with my virtue intact.”
Jane discovered the sheltering darkness could be beneficial as well as frustrating. There was no way he could see the dismay on her face. “Well,” she said finally, “if you’re willing to make that sacrifice for the cause I shouldn’t stand in your way.” Her voice was stiff and unhappy.
He leaned across the front seat, his face inches from hers, the warmth of his breath brushing her mouth. “I’m not,” he said softly.
She couldn’t keep the relieved smile from wreathing her face, and this time he was close enough to see it. His eyes were sober, watching her, and his mouth drew closer until it feathered her lips.
And then he pulled away. “Besides,” he said in a more normal voice, “we decided that despite my gorgeous looks I’m not a gigolo. Now wouldn’t be the time to start. Unless you feel like supporting me yourself?” He didn’t wait for an answer to the astonishing question, merely climbed out of the low-slung car and moved around to open her door.
If Elinor Peabody was disappointed to see Jane accompany Sandy, she was masterful enough to disguise it. She was also masterful enough to maneuver Jane into a hard chair some distance away, and Sandy into the overstuffed sofa beside her. She was dressed for success that night, in a flowing aqua jumpsuit that complemented a cleavage well-hidden in her daytime uniforms. Her silky blond hair was a tawny mane down her back, and Jane was knowledgeable enough to recognize the subtle difference in her makeup. Ms. Peabody was on the prowl, and she wasn’t going to let someone of Jane’s caliber stand in her way.
Jane stiffened her back in the uncomfortable chair, listening with only half an ear to the idiotic pleasantries about the balmy fall weather and Princeton traffic. This time she wasn’t going to give in without a fight. She’d caved in too many times, in her childhood, in her career, in her short-lived marriage. She was through with being understanding, with sitting back and letting other people have their way.
She rose from the chair, crossed the room and sank down gracefully in an overstuffed chair to the left of the sofa, stretching her legs out in front of her, inches away from Sandy’s. Her legs were better than Ms. Peabody’s, even if she didn’t have a model’s figure and tawny hair and perfect eyesight.
“Why didn’t you tell Annabel who we were?” she demanded bluntly, breaking through the polite fencing. She was prepared for Sandy’s disapproval of her precipitous question, but he said nothing, leaning back against the cushions with the air of a man about to enjoy himself.
“Annabel wasn’t in any condition to comprehend anything, Ms. Dexter,” Elinor replied sweetly. “I didn’t want to confuse her any more than necessary.”
“You’re the reason she was in that state in the first place.” Jane went on the attack.
“No, I am not.” Elinor leaned forward, forgetting her languid pose, forgetting Sandy. “No one’s responsible for Annabel’s drinking but Annabel herself. And maybe Stephen helps a bit. But you’ve got to realize Annabel doesn’t do that very often. Just every few months when she’s angry with Stephen and feeling sorry for herself. She doesn’t have a serious drinking problem.”
“Yet,” Jane said.
“I didn’t invite you here to discuss Annabel Tremaine’s domestic problems.” Elinor carefully recovered her composure. “As a matter of fact, Ms. Dexter, I didn’t invite you at all.”
Sandy finally stirred himself. “I don’t go anywhere without my boss,” he said lazily.
“Your boss? I wondered how you two fit together. Somehow I didn’t imagine you were lovers.”
Jane swallowed the growl that threatened to erupt. Instead she leaned forward, putting a predatory expression on her face that would have done Ms. Peabody proud, and placing a possessive hand on Sandy’s knee. She felt the slight quiver of surprise beneath her hand, and then he was still, watching all this with great curiosity.
“You haven’t impressed me as someone with much imagination,” Jane cooed. “Sandy is my...associate. We’re in this together. In every sense of the word.” Sandy’s knee twitched again, and Jane suspected she’d pay for this later.
But Ms. Peabody merely nodded, her sultriness turned off, all business despite the flowing loungewear. “I’m prepared to help you.”
“Why?”
Ms. Peabody’s smile was quite frightening. “Let’s just say I have a score to even up with Stephen Tremaine. I’m a firm believer in looking after my best intere
sts. But I don’t think my motives concern you. I think what matters to you is what happened to your brother.”
Jane’s languid self-control vanished. “I beg your pardon?”
“Was I wrong? I thought these elaborate charades were connected with your brother’s death.”
Jane had the eerie sense of things swinging out of her tenuous control. “Uncle Stephen wants to sell Richard’s titanium coating process for defense purposes, either to this country or to another, hostile one. I owe it to Richard to keep him from doing that.”
“Do you now?” Ms. Peabody murmured. “How are you planning to stop Stephen?”
“Part of the process is missing,” Jane said. “You know that as well as I do. If I can find it before Uncle Stephen does I’ll destroy it.”
“And your brother’s life work at the same time? You’re very severe, Ms. Dexter.”
“He would have wanted it destroyed, rather than have it used for military purposes,” Jane said firmly.
“I imagine you’re right. Your brother always was a royal pain.” She rose, crossing the pretty pink chintz room and pouring herself a drink. Straight vodka, and she didn’t offer them anything. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you where the missing part of the process is. I don’t know any more than Stephen does. He thinks it’s in Richard’s private laboratory, and we don’t really know where that lab is.”
“Neither do we,” Sandy drawled, finally entering the conversation. “Where did Tremaine go today?”
“Upstate New York. He’s gone to the area where Richard had his accident.”
“Does he think he’ll find some clue there?” Jane demanded. “Richard was just passing through, heading for Vermont when his car went off the road. I wouldn’t think he’d learn anything there.”
“Maybe not. All I can tell you is he isn’t any farther along in his quest than you are. He hasn’t the faintest idea where the lab is, and all his private detectives aren’t helping. Is that what you are, Mr....?” She let it trail, eyeing him over the rim of her glass of vodka.