by Linda Wisdom
For a moment she swore someone nearby was directing waves of hate at her so strong she sensed they could knock her to her knees. She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if she could find the source of this ugly sensation. Instead, she concentrated on Josh. Pretty soon, the feeling diminished and she was able to draw a faint breath of relief.
“I gather the Igor you’re talking about is Pete Ignatius?” She mentioned the assistant coroner.
“Igor, Ignatius. He can’t help looking like something out of a B horror film.” He glanced around, a slight frown on his face. He moved his shoulders as if shrugging off something unpleasant.
“Lauren, I’m glad to have met you, and unfortunately, I’m sure we’ll meet again under different circumstances,” Mike intruded, deliberately stepping in front of Josh. “If I wasn’t a happily married man and leery of people who prefer to spend their workdays with the dead, I’d carry you off to Hawaii and a beachfront condo.”
“This from the man who hates to fly,” Josh muttered.
It took a few moments for the good-natured arguing to recede until Lauren and Josh were alone.
“How do you put up with it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I ignore them. Or threaten to snitch to their wives when they misbehave.”
She gave him a direct look. She never did believe in beating around the bush. “So I gather that means there’s no wife they can snitch to when it comes to you.”
“Probably because no one wants to put up with me.”
Lauren noted the way Josh’s smile lifted one corner of his mustache and warmed his eyes. That and his lazy drawl were pleasing. She had to remind herself that she was still experiencing the aftereffects of a nasty divorce and the last thing she needed was even considering interest in a man. She looked at her watch.
“Well, I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. My house is still filled with unpacked boxes.” She managed a bright smile and again offered her hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Josh Brandon. I suppose we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“We will.” He deliberately held on to her hand longer than necessary.
Lauren extracted her hand, very aware of Josh’s gaze on her as she turned and walked out of the banquet room. And even more aware of someone else watching her with another emotion in mind. She never felt more grateful than when she left the restaurant and the unsettling feeling slipped away. It brought back unpleasant memories she’d succeeded in suppressing. She didn’t like the idea of them resurfacing when she felt as if she’d finally put her life back together again.
By the time she reached her car, she felt the unease come back. She crossed the well-lit parking lot, eyes shifting from right to left, noting a couple walking into the restaurant, a man climbing into his own car after giving her a look of interest that caused her to turn away before he got the wrong idea. She was glad to reach her car and hit her car alarm remote. The extra beep told her the car had been touched. But then, how many times had she lost her balance and fallen against a car with an alarm? Besides, it was still here, wasn’t it? As she started to unlock the door, she noticed the deep scratch scrolled along the side of her blue BMW convertible.
“Wonderful,” she muttered, jerking the door open. “I park under a light, hoping my car won’t get stolen, so instead some sicko has to scratch it up. And they claim the crime rate here is much lower than in LA.” She shook her head. “Although I guess there, the idiot would have chosen to take it for a joy ride before heading to the nearest chop shop.”
Lauren slid behind the steering wheel and started her car, unaware that a malicious spirit was watching her every move.
…
She found a dark corner to stand in just around the side of the building. From there she could claim an excellent view of the bitch’s reaction to that nasty ole scratch that somehow appeared on her pretty little BMW. She smiled her satisfaction as she watched Lauren’s lips moving in a muttered curse and the look of disgust on her face. Obviously, she didn’t like the idea of someone marring the mirror-finish surface.
She hadn’t been the only one to notice the look of interest that had passed between Lauren and Josh when they’d first been introduced. Several comments were made about how the lanky ADA always seemed to fascinate the women. And she knew exactly the meaning of the look that flew between Josh and Lauren, a look she was only too familiar with. It was bad enough that Lauren looked like Celia. Did she have to act like her, too, and steal her man without a thought for the woman he truly belonged to? Josh was all hers. From the moment she’d met him, she’d known he was the man destined to be hers, the one man who could make her happy. He wouldn’t betray her, as the others had with Celia. She just couldn’t allow him to hurt her anymore.
Did Lauren Hunter honestly think her fancy clothes and whorish looks could get Josh’s attention? Didn’t he understand he didn’t need anyone but her? Was she going to have to deal with this one, too? She held onto her purse with clenched fingers while her nails dug furrows into the soft leather. She sensed Dr. Lauren Hunter might not scare off as easily as the others. But that was all right. She wouldn’t mind preparing something very special for the woman if she didn’t stay away from Josh.
Taking one last look at the retreating red taillights of the sports car, she quickly smoked a cigarette before making her way back to the restaurant’s rear door. Going out for a smoke wasn’t anything unusual around here. While inside, maybe she would look around for Josh and see if she could persuade him to go somewhere more private for a drink. After all, she only needed time to prove to him she was all the woman he’d ever want.
…
As Josh talked to several judges, he suddenly realized the dark haze in his mind was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He glanced around, but couldn’t find anyone looking at him with strong intensity. All he saw in the large room were business colleagues, friends, and a few people he couldn’t put in any one category. He soon relaxed and moved on to another group.
He was relaxed until he recognized a familiar fragrance surrounding him like a tightly woven net threatening to choke him.
He hoped it was nothing more than a coincidence that someone happened to be wearing the sultry scent. After all, it was popular. Still, he couldn’t stop the feeling that it was worn as a signal pointed directly at him—something for him to think about. What if this person wanted him to know she could be anyplace he could be?
It wasn’t surprising that all the fun had suddenly gone out of the party.
Chapter Two
“I have met my share of bastards in my time, but Josh Brandon, you take the grand prize when it comes to finding ways to humiliate a woman in front of her peers!” The woman’s voice shrilled in his ear. “After what you did, I know no jury in the land would convict me if I shot you dead!”
Josh winced as her strident voice assaulted his eardrums. He quickly changed ears so the first one could recover. “Carol, honey, I don’t—” he began, only to be cut off by her snarl.
“I don’t want to hear any idiotic excuses! I thought you were the best thing to come along in a long time.” She spoke rapidly, disgust in every word. “Since I consider my career important, I understood why your work had to take precedence at times. Besides, you were always sensitive to my feelings, and I value that in a man. Not to mention you were always great in bed. I just never dreamed you’d do something so cruel to me after everything we’ve meant to each other! You knew how important this promotion was to me! How could you do it?”
“Carol, what the hell are you talking about?” He cut in the moment she took a breath.
“You know very well what I’m talking about, you son of a bitch. You couldn’t bother coming to my celebration party, yet you had the gall to send me two dozen black roses, delivered by the ugliest-looking man I’ve ever seen, and dressed like an undertaker. My God, he even showed up in a hearse!” Her voice grew shriller with each word. “As if that wasn’t bad enough, he went around the room offeri
ng his condolences to my co-workers on their having to put up with me as the new VP. I have never been so embarrassed!” She finally ran out of steam…until she came up with a few more colorful terms for what she thought of him.
Josh closed his eyes. He was listening to a side of the woman he didn’t know existed. And didn’t like.
“Carol, you’ve talked about your hopes for getting a promotion, but I had no idea you’d finally gotten it,” he tried to reason with her. “And I didn’t know about any party held in your honor, and for once, I’m very relieved to say I didn’t send you any flowers, black roses or otherwise. Think about it, honey. That’s not my style.”
“Listen to me, you son of a bitch.” Her vicious hiss was further pain to his ears. “The card was not only addressed to me, but on the inside, you wrote down the nickname you gave me. And I don’t think anyone could forge that unreadable scrawl of yours. So do us both a big favor and erase my name from your little black book, because I won’t be accepting any of your calls from now on. You can just go to hell and stay there!”
Josh held the phone a safe distance from his ear as the receiver was slammed down.
“Shit.” He leaned over and flicked the intercom button, waiting for his secretary’s voice to question what he wanted before he begged, “Ginnie, do we have any aspirin left? Say, fifty or so?”
The older woman walked into his office pulling a white bottle out of her jacket pocket and handing it to him. “The minute I heard her screaming your name and demanding your genitals—see what a lady I am in not using the word she did?—I figured you’d need these. Good thing we buy them by the gross.” She smiled without offering one ounce of sympathy. But that would have been out of character for her. “She thinks you’re pond scum.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” He grimaced as he followed the aspirin with a swallow of cold coffee. “This is all so crazy.” He leaned back in his chair as he mentally replayed the conversation. “If I was the paranoid type, I’d think someone was deliberately sabotaging my love life.”
“What did you supposedly do this time?”
Josh sighed as he tried to figure out something that really didn’t make any sense to him. “She accused me of sending black roses to her promotion party, delivered by some ugly guy dressed up as an undertaker. A party it seems I’d been invited to and didn’t even bother letting her know I couldn’t attend. Hell, I didn’t even know she had gotten a promotion. Much less receiving any word about a party.”
Ginnie shook her head, still not offering any sympathy at her boss’s snarled frustration. The older woman had worked for Josh from the beginning, even though she’d bluntly informed him she didn’t believe fetching coffee and donuts was part of her job description. If Josh ever dared ask her to work late, he’d better be prepared to listen to her mumbling the entire time. Not to mention that she refused to work for a fool, so Josh better make sure he didn’t screw up anything she might have to put right. At the same time, she was as loyal as they came to those she felt deserved it. She was vengeful to those who warranted it, and she had an excellent information network if Josh needed something he couldn’t get by conventional means. She did her best to ensure the job wouldn’t give him an ulcer. She also ruled his office with an iron hand, which made his life easier. More than one prosecutor had trembled under the gruff secretary’s wrath and slunk away to lick his wounds in private.
“Look at it this way—she finally showed you her true colors. And I’m not surprised she turned out to be such a cold-hearted bitch. She only smiled with her teeth, not her eyes. Maybe you had a good time between the sheets with her, but she was still one cold lady. Now, let’s see. The score is, them six, you zip. That’s unless you count the mystery lady who sends you flowers every Thursday. We’ve kept a list out there, and this week is Susan’s turn for whatever floral offering you receive.”
He looked up. “All of you women are sick. Keeping a list as to who gets the next batch of flowers.” He hadn’t confided in Ginnie his uneasy feelings about the woman sending him the flowers perhaps being the same one who’d broken into his house the night of his birthday. But knowing the secretary, she’d already figured it out and was just waiting for him to voice his thoughts to her.
“It makes the days go faster.”
Ginnie stepped forward to snag the ringing telephone. “Mr. Brandon’s office.” Her expression didn’t give any indication as to the identity of the caller. “One moment, please.” She punched the red hold button. “Are you available for the Wicked Bitch of the Eastern Seaboard?”
Josh raised his eyes heavenward. “Did my horoscope read this was the day to make Josh’s life hell?”
“Buck up, Moondoggie, and take your lumps,” Ginnie ordered him, without the least bit of compassion. She held out the receiver.
Muttering curses, Josh snatched it out of her hand and scowled at his departing secretary.
“What do you want, Stephanie?”
“As sparse with words as ever, aren’t you, Joshua? It wouldn’t hurt for you to say hello and ask me how I am.” Cultured tones that could be warm as honey or cold as ice assaulted his ears. Right now, he figured the Arctic Circle would look like the tropics compared to her.
“Since you only call to bitch at me, I don’t see any reason to act polite.”
Stephanie Carver’s silence was as eloquent as her dialogue. “Your check is late again.”
Josh silently counted to ten. “I suggest you take it up with the postal service, since it was mailed out on time. I have to get to court. Anything else?”
“Nothing you would understand, much less be interested in.” The click was loud in his ear.
“Didn’t she get her distemper shot for the month?” Ginnie walked back into the office carrying a file folder.
“She has a trust fund that could pay off the national debt, not to mention a father who’s rolling in money,” he grumbled. “But if her damned alimony check is one day late, she threatens to send out an enforcer.” His scowl would have intimidated a lesser person, but Ginnie was familiar with her boss’s moods.
“You should have gotten married in a state with community property laws. You might have been able to get alimony out of her!” She laid the folder on his desk. “Here’s something that will improve your mood. I only read the first couple of pages, but I’d say it’s a pretty interesting autopsy report. Just the kind you love.”
He chuckled at her false cooing. “Ginnie, there are days when you can be a real bitch.” He picked up the file and opened it.
She snorted as she walked back out to her desk. “Flattery will get you nowhere. Don’t you have enough woman problems without adding me to the group?”
Josh scanned the pages until he came to the last one and found a signature. He chuckled. “And she says my handwriting is illegible.” He returned to the first page and began reading.
By the time he’d muddled through several pages of medical terminology, he felt his suspicions growing. When he’d reached the last page and read the preparer’s conclusions, he was ready to chew nails. He leaned forward to pick up the phone, and then changed his mind. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the morgue,” he snarled on his way out.
Ginnie looked up from her typing. “A perfect place to find a woman, if I say so myself. The ones there can’t scream at you or threaten to cut off your balls when your checks are late.” She mocked embarrassment. “Oh me, and here I promised to be a lady. Well, hell, that’s what she said. Something about using them the next time she played tennis.”
Josh’s answer was to whip his hand over his head with the middle digit standing proudly.
“Same to you, boss,” Ginnie’s voice followed after him.
…
Lauren sifted through her in-box. “Pete, I can’t find your report on the Thompson post. Did you bring it by yet?”
Her second-in-command remained standing in the office doorway as if the last thing he wanted to do was cross the threshold into enemy territory
.
Pete Ignatius wasn’t known as Igor for nothing. Barely five feet seven inches, with a slightly hunched-over, narrow body and even more narrow features, colorless eyes that refused to look at a person, and pale skin from too much time spent under fluorescent lighting, he was a pitiful picture. The green cotton surgical scrubs he wore only made his skin look more sallow. It seemed he enjoyed capitalizing on his less-than-normal exterior.
“I haven’t finished it yet.” Even his voice came out in a slight nasal whine that grated on the ears.
Lauren silently counted to ten, something she’d been doing every time she dealt with her assistant. “You performed the post two days ago. You even said it came out pretty standard. You couldn’t find a sign of foul play, unless something shows up in the toxicology tests. There’s no reason why your report shouldn’t have been turned in by now.”
His face was tight with belligerence. “Dr. Faber never minded if it was a little late. He understood that I do have other duties to perform around here.”
For not the first time, Lauren wondered if the man was this sullen to everyone, or if she was the only lucky one to receive this treatment. “We’re all overworked here, Pete, and yet the others don’t seem to have any problem getting their paperwork in on time. I expect your report on my desk before you leave today.” She deliberately kept her voice soft but firm.
“Lady, you are in big trouble!” Josh pushed past Pete as he barreled into Lauren’s office. “And I’m just the one to give it to you.”
She didn’t bat an eye at the unexpected intrusion.
“I’ll get to you in a moment, Counselor.” She turned back to her assistant, who was inching his way to freedom. “I mean it about the report, Pete. I want it in here by the end of the day.” She ignored his muttered imprecations and turned to Josh, who’d dropped into the chair in front of her desk and was glaring at her as if he wanted to cut out her heart. She smiled at him, looking as unperturbed as if he’d dropped by for a friendly chat. “Now, what can I help you with, Mr. Brandon?”