Private Security

by Mallory Kane

  “Which is why I need you to keep my real name out of this. Luckily, I didn’t know any of the officers at the scene.”

  Hardy nodded reluctantly. “Well, they’re searching the casino and gathering evidence. I’ll let you know if they turn up anything.”

  “Thanks, Brian.” Dawson looked past him toward the interrogation rooms. “When are you going to be finished with her?”

  “She should be signing her transcribed statement now. She’ll be out any second.”

  “Mind if I make a phone call?”

  “Nope.”

  Dawson pressed a speed-dial button on his phone and walked a few steps away from Detective Hardy. “Mack, anything on what I gave you to work on last night?” He was being vague deliberately. He didn’t want anybody at the police station to pay attention to what he said.

  “So I take it you can’t talk freely,” Mack said. “I got through to the secretary to one of the vice presidents. She’s single.”

  “That’s the information you have for me. She’s single?” Dawson smiled. Typical Mack.

  “There’s a method here. I’m thinking I’d have better luck if I went there in person. You know I work best face-to-face.”

  Dawson chuckled. He definitely knew that. Mack could charm the hairpins out of a spinster’s French twist without touching the pins or the spinster. “It’s Friday.”

  “No problem. I’ve already hinted that I’d like to buy her dinner if she’s not busy. And maybe go skiing Sunday.”

  “I wasn’t going to spend that much—” Dawson started when he saw Juliana out of the corner of his eye. She looked tired and sad and bewildered. An odd feeling settled in the middle of his chest. He rubbed it absently.

  “What the hell,” he continued. “Go ahead, but you’d better pack plenty of charm because I want proof of a connection. Got it?”

  “Sure, boss.”

  Dawson sighed. He had three investigators on his payroll. Two were exceptional. But they ate MacEllis Griffin’s dust.

  If anyone could connect Tito Vega with Bayside Industries, it was Mack. The question that Dawson couldn’t answer was, would that connection help either Juliana or him accomplish their goals? He sure hoped so.

  While he talked with Mack, a policewoman had given Juliana a clipboard to sign, then handed over her purse.

  She looked around. Her gaze landed on him.

  He let his mouth curve slightly in a smile. She didn’t smile back. She put the bag over her shoulder and strode toward him. The dust on her jeans and the smudges on her face enhanced, rather than detracted from, the dignified tilt of her head.

  She walked straight up to Hardy. “Am I free to go now?” she asked icily.

  “For now,” Hardy said. “But don’t leave town, and remember what I said. I will toss you in jail.”

  She turned to Dawson. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, lifting his hand in a mock salute.

  * * *

  BY THE TIME JULIANA climbed into Dawson’s car and glanced at the dashboard clock, it was almost seven o’clock. “I’m so tired. I’m ready to get home and take a shower and go to bed.”

  Dawson didn’t say anything. He just drove.

  “Why didn’t you tell me my taxi was followed to the casino?” she asked after a couple of minutes of silence.

  He glanced at her sidelong. “Because I didn’t know.”

  “I thought you said a private investigator—”

  “I missed him, okay? And yes, that kind of mistake can get the client killed.” He lifted his chin. “I’m sorry.”

  “I wasn’t after an apology—”

  “You deserve one for that. I could have stopped him from nearly killing you.”

  “Us,” she amended, then fell silent. After a couple of minutes, she saw that he wasn’t headed toward her apartment.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “I don’t feel like—”

  “Post office,” he told her. “I want to check that box. You’ve got the key, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” She looked at him. He was driving with one hand on the wheel. He looked relaxed, in total contrast to how she felt. She was dirty, tired, on edge and irritable.

  “Aren’t you tired?” she asked grumpily.

  “I guess,” he said. “I know I’m hungry.”

  “I was hungry several hours ago,” she replied. “Now I just feel queasy and exhausted. Where did they keep you?”

  He glanced at her sidelong. “Keep me?”

  “Were you in an interrogation room, too? That had to be the most depressing room I’ve ever been in.” She shuddered. “I almost confessed just to get out of there.”

  “Confessed?” Dawson said with a chuckle. “To what?”

  “Anything. Everything.”

  Dawson pulled up to the curb of the post office where she’d rented the box. As he killed the engine, she reached into her bag and pulled out her keys. “I’ll be right back,” she said, reaching for the door, but Dawson caught her hand and took the keys from her.

  “You’re not going in there. I’ll check the box. Number 7874, right?”

  “You think that guy’s watching?”

  “I just don’t want to take any chances.” Dawson got out of the car and locked the doors, then disappeared into the building. Within a few seconds he was back out.

  “Nothing?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah, there was something,” he said, handing her keys back to her. He cranked the car and pulled away.

  “What? Another letter?”

  “Yep,” he said noncommittally.

  “Well? Give it to me,” Juliana said. “I want to read it. Did you open it?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s a federal offense to open someone else’s mail.”

  She laughed nervously. “Let me have it.” She reached over and patted his right coat pocket. “Where is it?”

  “Stop that,” he said, frowning. “I’m trying to drive.”

  “Then give me the letter.”

  “We’ll look at it together,” he said, sending her a quelling glance, “when we get home.”

  Dawson walked her to her door, still uncharacteristically silent. Once they were inside, she turned to him.

  “Let me have my letter.”

  He shook his head.

  “Dawson, isn’t withholding mail a federal offense, too?”

  “Get some things together. You’re going to stay at my apartment for a few days.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said. That would be a bad idea for several reasons.

  “Look, Jules,” he said, catching her arm. “I asked the detective to put you into protective custody until they could figure out who dropped that beam on our heads, but he said he doesn’t have the manpower to guard you. So until they catch the guy, you’re staying with me.”

  “I don’t want to stay with you,” she protested. “Does this have something to do with that letter?”

  “No. Now come on.” He stalked past her to the coffee table and picked up the file folders stacked there. “Get some clothes or don’t, but you are coming with me.”

  “Put those down.” She glared at him, but he was walking to the door. “Those are mine. You can’t—”

  “I’ll just put them in the car.”

  “No, wait.” She could tell by the look on his face that he was not bluffing. She couldn’t let him walk out with her research. Every bit of evidence she had that the Sky Walk was defective was in those folders. Plus, he was holding hostage a response to her ad.

  Her little voice protested. We can’t trust him, remember? And we are not capable of rational thought when he gets too close. Are we sure we want to sleep under the same roof?

  We don’t know, she answered silently. Then out loud to Dawson, “Please just wait right there. I’ll get some clothes.”

  Within ten minutes, when she came out of her bedroom with a weekender bag, Dawson was still standing at the door with the folders cradled in one arm, looking bored
.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready, but this is only for a day or two, right?”

  “We’ll see.”

  She glared at him. “You are such a bully. You think you’re always right, so you don’t even have to explain yourself. I’m going with you, but only because there’s no way I’m letting you steal my research.”

  “I understand,” he said solemnly, but she saw a twinkle in his eye.

  She stormed past him, pulling the wheeled bag behind her, and threw the door open. “Bully,” she said as she jerked the bag over the threshold.

  * * *

  DAWSON DROVE TO HIS CONDO in silence. Juliana sat in the passenger seat, her arms filled with her precious folders. She wasn’t talking, which was fine with him. He had some thinking to do.

  The letter he’d pulled from her post office box was burning a hole in the breast pocket of his jacket. The precise, architectural lettering on the envelope was branded on his inner vision. Except for the bars on the A, the H and the T, the words could have been written by any architect in the country. But those crossbars were unique. They slanted upward with a slight curve at the top edge. The envelope in his pocket had been addressed by Michael Delancey, his dad.

  What the hell are you doing, Dad? His fist clenched on the steering wheel. He clamped his jaw, quelling the urge to slap the wheel with the heel of his palm.

  He turned into the condos and drove around to his unit, opened the garage door, pulled inside and killed the engine.

  “Here we are,” he said, looking at her armful of folders. “I guess I’ll get your bag.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. She shifted the folders into her left arm and reached for the door handle, wincing.

  “Hang on,” he said on a sigh. He climbed out of the driver’s side and went around and opened the door for her. “Can you climb the stairs with that armload?” he asked wryly.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He pulled her weekender bag out of the backseat and carried it up the stairs that led to his condo. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.”

  In the kitchen, he shrugged out of his jacket, then pointed toward the hall. “The bathroom is the first door on the right. The guest bedroom is the second. The second door on the left is my room.”

  She looked at him suspiciously, then headed down the hall, still carrying the folders. He followed with her bag.

  “Here you go,” he said. “Sorry I don’t have a lock for the door.”

  Glaring at him, she set the folders down on the bed and set her bag down beside them. “Thank you,” she said dismissively.

  He smiled and backed out of the room. In his bedroom, he shed his own dirty clothes and tossed them onto the floor of the closet.

  He heard the bathroom door close and not much later, the shower come on. The vision of Juliana in his shower, naked, using his soap and shampoo, rose before his eyes and he almost gasped as his body reacted immediately and powerfully.

  For a few seconds, he closed his eyes and enjoyed that vision. Then he thought about the letter and the erotic daydream died instantly.

  He glanced around for a second before he remembered he’d hung his jacket on a chair in the kitchen, like he usually did. The letter was in the pocket.

  He opened the door to the hall and listened. The shower was still running. So he dashed up the hall in nothing but boxer shorts and grabbed the jacket. As he did he heard the water go off.

  Damn it. He jogged toward his bedroom, figuring she still had to dry off and do stuff to her hair and whatever else women did. But as he passed the bathroom door, it opened and he was cloaked in a cloud of warm steam.

  Juliana almost ran into him. “Oh,” she said.

  He put out a hand to steady her, but she stopped in time.

  “What? You’re na—” She gulped.

  “Yeah,” he said, giving her an apologetic shrug. “Sorry.” He tried—he really tried—not to notice that she’d belted his terry cloth so tightly that it gaped at the neck. He tried not to look at the stunning view of her damp chest or the tops of her shapely breasts. He dragged his gaze away and looked down.

  His turn to gulp. He saw her pink-tipped toes. Toes. Pretty sexy toes. A surge of desire nearly knocked him to his knees.

  She pulled the collar of the robe together and took a step backward. When he met her gaze, her face and neck turned pink.

  “I’ll—just—you know, take my shower now,” he said, swallowing hard. In about one second he was going to embarrass himself. He held the jacket in front of him as he stepped around her.

  “Do you want your robe?”

  Yes, his body screamed. No! his rational brain interrupted. Without turning around, he shook his head and jerked his thumb toward his room. “I’ll get— I’ll—manage.”

  “Please do. Meanwhile, I’m going to drink a gallon of water,” she said and turned toward the kitchen.

  Relieved that she had her back to him, he ducked into his room. For an instant, he looked at his jacket. Did he dare open the letter? No, not if he wanted her to trust him.

  Grabbing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans and fresh underwear, he ducked across the hall into the bathroom and closed the door. It was still steamy from her shower. He climbed into the stall and stood there, letting the wet heat soak into his skin for a minute as his brain taunted him with visions of her.

  These visions involved wet, slick, shiny skin and his robe, but instead of being pulled tight around her, it was hanging from her shoulders. Her ripe-peach skin was radiant in contrast to the white cloth.

  He took a long shuddering breath, then grimaced and turned on the cold water.

  Chapter Eight

  When Juliana set her water glass down, it rattled and almost turned over. She was not shivering with reaction from seeing Dawson ninety-percent naked. Because those boxers couldn’t have covered more than ten percent of his body—his gorgeous naked body.

  She’d been shocked when she’d opened the bathroom door and nearly run into him, but not too shocked that her body didn’t react. It had taken all her willpower to keep from splaying her fingers across his broad chest.

  Thank goodness she’d instinctively stepped backward, away from his hand, because if he’d touched her right then, she might have dropped the robe and her inhibitions onto the hall floor.

  The vision of the two of them intertwined, their bodies glistening with steam, rose up before her eyes and a thrill rippled through her, centering itself in her core.

  Dawson was strong and smart and protective—everything a girl could ever want, all rolled up into one gorgeous sexy package. And he was a private eye, which for her just made him sexier.

  But once in a while, when he wasn’t aware of her watching him, she caught a look in his eyes that she couldn’t quite define. It was a hooded, shadowy look, like guilt or embarrassment—or deceit.

  It worried her because like it or not, she needed him. Not only did he have resources she didn’t have, but he was also definitely nice to have around to whisk her out of the way of deadly falling objects.

  She just had to make sure she didn’t get sidetracked by sex, that was all. At that thought, the thrill within her morphed into yearning.

  “Here you are,” Dawson said, startling her.

  She almost didn’t have the courage to turn around. The warm clean scent of hot water and soap wafted toward her. She took a deep breath to fortify herself, but all it fortified was the yearning inside her.

  Please be dressed. She turned around. Relief cascaded through her. He had on worn jeans and a black New Orleans Saints T-shirt with a gold fleur-de-lis on the front. His hair was damp and brushed back from his freshly shaved face and—she gulped as she looked down.

  He was barefooted.

  If there was anything Juliana liked more than long sinewy bodies and beautiful hands, it was bony, sexy bare male feet peeking out from under frayed blue jeans.

  “Jules?”

  She blinked and looked up at him. He was smiling.


  “Don’t call me that,” she protested weakly.

  “Did you want to look at that letter?”

  “Yes!” How had she forgotten about the letter? Sadly, she knew how. Because she’d been fantasizing about Dawson naked.

  “Yes, definitely. Where is it?”

  “It’s in my jacket pocket. I’ll get it.” He headed back down the hall toward his room.

  Juliana couldn’t take her eyes off him. His skin looked golden under the hall lights. The contours of his back were elegantly masculine, following the curve of his spine down to the low-slung waistband of his jeans.

  And those jeans, they cupped his butt perfectly—not too tight and not too loose. Perfect. When he appeared in his bedroom doorway and headed back up the hall, Juliana realized she had hardly blinked.

  She cleared her throat and turned away, filling her water glass. She turned it up a little too quickly and spilled some down the front of the robe between her breasts. She shivered.

  “Okay, here we are.” He sat down at the kitchen table.

  Juliana swiped away the droplets of water as she sat down next to him and took the letter.

  She looked down at it, then up at Dawson. His gaze was on it and that odd, guilty look was shadowing his eyes again.

  She slid her finger along the flap and then used two fingers to pull out the single sheet of paper. “It’s copy paper. Looks like a regular sheet torn in half, then folded.” She unfolded it and read the handwritten note.

  YOU'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. VEGA'S CAPABLE OF ANYTHING. YOU'LL NEED PROOF, THOUGH. TALK TO KNOBLOCK.

  “That’s all it says?” Dawson asked, reaching for the paper.

  “That’s it.” Juliana let him take it.

  He stared at it for about twenty seconds, much longer than he needed to. He rubbed the paper between his fingers, held it up to the light, turned it over and looked at the back. “Do you know who Knoblock is?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure. The name doesn’t sound familiar. I was going to ask you. What about the handwriting?” she asked. “That’s a peculiar printing style.”

  He nodded and turned the sheet back over. “Architectural printing.”