by Nora Roberts
The old man grunted on impact, teetered on the steps, his worn bathrobe flapping over fish-white legs as thin and sharp as pencils. Breath wheezing, Ashworth swung awkwardly with the golf club as he fought to save his balance. More in reaction than intent, DiCarlo grabbed at the club as it whooshed by his ear. Ashworth pitched forward. His head hit a cast-iron coal shuttle with an ominous crack.
“Ah, Christ.” Disgusted, DiCarlo shoved Ashworth over with the toe of his shoe. In the spill of the upstairs light, he could see the flow of blood, the open staring eyes. Fury had him kicking the body twice before he pulled himself back.
He was out the rear door and half a block away when he heard the sound of sirens.
Finley was switching channels on several of his television screens when the call came through.
“DiCarlo on line two, Mr. Finley.”
“Put him through.” After he’d switched the phone to speaker, Finley said, “You have news for me?”
“Yes. Yes, sir. I have the porcelain figurine with me, Mr. Finley, as well as a list locating all the other merchandise.” DiCarlo spoke from his car phone, and kept his speed to a law-abiding fifty-five on his way back to Dulles International.
Finley waited a beat. “Explain.”
DiCarlo began with Porter, pausing every few sentences to be certain Finley wanted him to continue. “I’d be happy to fax the list to you as soon as I reach the airport, Mr. Finley.”
“Yes, do that. You sound a bit . . . uneasy, Mr. DiCarlo.”
“Well, actually, sir, there was a bit of a problem in recovering the figurine. An antique dealer in Front Royal had purchased it. His shop was closed when I arrived, and knowing that you wanted results quickly, I broke in to retrieve it. The dealer was upstairs. There was an accident, Mr. Finley. He’s dead.”
“I see.” Finley examined his nails. “So I assume you took care of this Porter.”
“Took care of?”
“He can link you to the . . . accident, correct? And a link to you, Mr. DiCarlo, is a link to me. I suggest you snap the link quickly, finally.”
“I’m—I’m on my way to the airport.”
“Then you’ll have to turn around and go back, won’t you? Don’t bother with that fax. After you’ve finished tidying up in Virginia, I’ll expect you here, with the figurine. We’ll discuss the next steps.”
“You want me in California? Mr. Finley—”
“By noon, Mr. DiCarlo. We’ll be closing early tomorrow. The holidays, you know. Contact Winesap with your flight information. You’ll be met.”
“Yes, sir.” DiCarlo broke the connection and headed for the first exit ramp. He hoped to God Porter was still in his office and well drunk so that he could put a bullet in the man’s brain with little fuss.
If he didn’t get this whole mess straightened out soon, he’d never make it home for Christmas dinner.
“Really, Andrew, really, there’s no need for you to walk me up.” With the self-defense only a woman who’d been bored beyond redemption could possibly understand, Dora body-blocked the stairway. Just let me get inside, she thought, behind a locked door. Then she could beat her head against the wall in private.
Andrew Dawd, a CPA who considered bundling funds into tax shelters the height of intrigue, gave one of his hearty laughs and pinched her cheek. “Now, Dora, my mother taught me to always see the girl to her door.”
“Well, Mama’s not here,” Dora pointed out, and inched up the steps. “And it’s late.”
“Late? It’s not even eleven. You’re not going to send me off without a cup of coffee, are you?” He flashed the white teeth that his doting mama had spent thousands to have straightened. “You know you make the best coffee in Philadelphia.”
“It’s a gift.” She was searching for some polite way to refuse when the outside door slammed open, slammed shut.
Jed strode down the hall, his hands balled into the pockets of his scarred leather bomber jacket. It was left unsnapped to the wind over a sweatshirt and torn jeans. His hair was windblown, his face unshaven—which suited the surly look in his eye.
Dora had to wonder why, at that moment, she preferred Jed’s dangerous look to the three-piece-suited, buffed and polished accountant beside her. The lack, she decided, was most certainly in her.
“Skimmerhorn.”
Jed summed up Dora’s date with one brief glance as he fit his key into his lock. “Conroy,” he said. With that as greeting and farewell, he slipped inside and closed the door.
“Your new tenant?” Andrew’s dark, well-groomed eyebrows rose into the high forehead his mother assured him was a sign of intelligence, and not male-pattern baldness.
“Yes.” Dora sighed and caught a whiff of Andrew’s Halston for Men, and the clashing, wild-animal scent Jed had left stirring in the air. Since she’d missed her chance to make excuses, she unlocked her own door and let Andrew in.
“He seems remarkably . . . physical.” Frowning, Andrew shed his London Fog overcoat, folding it neatly over the back of a chair. “Does he live alone?”
“Yep.” Too frustrated for tidiness, Dora tossed her mink, circa 1925, toward the couch on her way to the kitchen.
“Of course, I know how important it is to keep an apartment tenanted, Dora, but don’t you think it would have been wiser—certainly safer—to rent to another female?”
“A female what?” Dora muttered, then paused as she poured beans into her old, hand-cranked coffee grinder. “No.” While she ground beans, she glanced over her shoulder where Andrew was standing behind her, lips pursed in disapproval. “Do you?”
“Certainly. I mean the two of you do live here, alone.”
“No, I live here, alone. He lives there.” Because it annoyed her to have him breathing down her neck while she worked, Dora said, “Why don’t you go put on some music, Andrew?”
“Music?” His blandly handsome face cleared. “Of course. Mood.”
Moments later she heard the quiet strains of an old Johnny Mathis recording. She thought, Uh-oh, then shrugged. If she couldn’t handle an accountant who wore Brooks Brothers suits and Halston cologne, she deserved to pay the price. “The coffee’ll be a few minutes,” she said as she walked back into the living room. Andrew was standing, hands on his narrow hips, studying her new painting. “That’s something, isn’t it?”
He tilted his head right, then left. “It’s certainly bold.” Then he turned to her to take a moment to admire how she looked in the short black dress covered with fiery bugle beads. “And it suits you.”
“I picked it up at an auction in Virginia just a couple of days ago.” She sat on the arm of a chair, automatically crossing her legs without giving a thought to the way the movement urged her skirt higher on her thighs.
Andrew gave it considerable thought.
“I thought I’d enjoy living with it awhile before I put it in the shop.” She smiled, then catching the predatory look in his eye, popped off the chair like a spring. “I’ll go check the coffee.”
But he caught her hand and swung her, in what she imagined he considered a stylish move, into his arms. She barely avoided colliding her head with his chin. “We should take advantage of the music,” he told her as he glided over the rug. His mother had paid good money for dance lessons and he didn’t want to waste it.
Dora forced herself to relax. He did dance well, she mused as she matched her steps to his. She smiled and let her eyes close. She let the music and the movement take her, laughing softly when he lowered her into a stylish dip.
He wasn’t such a bad guy, she mused. He looked good, he moved well. He took care of his mother and had a solid portfolio. Just because he’d bored her silly on a couple of dates didn’t mean . . .
Suddenly he clamped her hard against him, shattering her mellow mood. That she could understand and certainly overlook. But, as she pressed a hand against his chest, she felt the unmistakable outline of a toothbrush he’d slipped into the inside pocket of his jacket.
As conscientio
us as she knew Andrew to be, she sincerely doubted he carried it with him to brush after every meal.
Before she could comment, his hands had streaked under the hem of her dress to grab her silk-covered bottom.
“Hey!” Furious, she reared back, but even as she managed to free her mouth, he was slobbering kisses over her neck and shoulder.
“Oh, Dora, Dora, I want you.”
“I get the picture, Andrew.” While she squirmed, one of his hands snuck up to tug her zipper. “But you’re not going to have me. Now pull yourself together.”
“You’re so beautiful, so irresistible.”
He had her pressed against the side of a chair. Dora felt her balance going and swore. “Well, resist, or I’ll have to hurt you.”
He only continued to mumble seductive phrases as he tumbled with her to the floor. It wasn’t the indignity of being sprawled under a crazed accountant that bothered her so much. It was the fact that they’d rammed against the coffee table and sent several of her treasures crashing to the floor.
Enough was enough. Dora brought her knee up between Andrew’s thighs. Even as he grunted, she popped him hard in the eye.
“Off!” she shouted, shoving at him. Groaning, he rolled, curling up like a boiled shrimp. Dora scrambled to her feet. “If you don’t get up right now, I’ll hit you again. I mean it.”
Afraid, he heaved himself to his hands and knees. “You’re crazy,” he managed, and took out a snowy-white handkerchief to check his face for blood.
“You’re right. Absolutely.” She picked up his coat and held it out. “You’re better off without me. Now run along home, Andrew. And put some ice on that eye.”
“My eye.” He probed at it, winced. “What am I supposed to tell Mother?”
“That you walked into a door.” Impatience snapping around her, Dora helped him to his feet. “Go away, Andrew.”
Struggling for dignity, he snatched his coat away from her. “I took you out to dinner. Twice.”
“Consider it a bad investment. I’m sure you can find a way to deduct it.” She yanked open her door just as Jed opened his across the hall. “Out! And if you ever try anything like that again, I’ll blacken both your eyes.”
“Crazy.” Andrew scurried toward the door. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Come back and I’ll show you crazy.” She pulled off a spiked heel and hurled it like a discus. “And you’re fired.” The shoe hit the back of the door with a satisfying thump. Dora stood, one shoe off, one shoe on, catching her breath. The quiet sound of Jed clearing his throat had her spinning back. He was grinning. It was the first time she’d seen him grin, but she wasn’t in the mood to be pleased with the way it made his usually surly face approachable.
“See something funny, Skimmerhorn?”
He thought about it. “Yeah.” Because it had been a long time since he’d been quite so amused, he leaned against the doorjamb and continued to grin. “Interesting date, Conroy?”
“Fascinating.” She hobbled down the hall to retrieve her shoe. Slapping it against her palm, she hobbled back. “You still here?”
“Looks like.”
Dora let out a long breath, dragged a hand through her tumbled hair. “Want a drink?”
“Sure.”
As she crossed the threshold into her apartment, she pulled off the other shoe and tossed them both aside. “Brandy?”
“Fine.” He glanced at the broken china on the floor. That must have been the crash he’d heard. Between that and the shouting, he’d had a bad moment deciding whether or not to intervene. Even when he’d carried a badge, he’d worried more about answering a domestic dispute than collaring a pro.
He looked over at Dora while she poured brandy into snifters. Her face was still flushed, her eyes still narrowed. He had to be grateful his Seventh Cavalry routine hadn’t been necessary.
“So, who was the jerk?”
“My former accountant.” Dora handed Jed a snifter. “He spends the evening boring me into a coma talking about Schedule Cs and long-term capital gains, then figures he can come back here and rip my clothes off.”
Jed skimmed his gaze down her glittery black dress. “Nice clothes,” he decided. “Don’t know why he’d waste his time with capital gains.”
Dora drank again, tilted her head. “Give me a minute. I think there was supposed to be a compliment buried in there.”
Jed shrugged. “Looks like he got the worst of it.”
“I should have broken his nose.” Pouting, she walked over and crouched to pick up broken bric-a-brac. “Look at this!” Temper began to simmer again. She held up a broken cup. “This was Derby. Eighteen-fifteen. And this ashtray was Manhattan.”
Jed crouched beside her. “Expensive?”
“That’s not the point. This used to be a Hazel Ware candy dish—Moroccan amethyst, with lid.”
“It’s trash now. Leave it be; you’re going to cut yourself. Get a broom or something.”
Muttering, she rose and went out to rummage in the kitchen. “He even had a toothbrush in his pocket.” She came out, waving a whisk broom and dustpan like a shield and spear. “A damn toothbrush. I bet the son of a bitch was an Eagle Scout.”
“Probably had a change of underwear in his overcoat pocket.” Gently, Jed took the broom from her.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Dora stalked back to the kitchen for the trash can. She winced as Jed dumped a load of broken glass into the trash can. “And a couple of condoms.”
“Any self-respecting Eagle Scout would have those in his wallet.”
Resigned, she sat on the arm of the chair again. The theatrics, it seemed, were over. “Were you?”
“Was I what?”
“An Eagle Scout.”
He dumped the last load of glass, then sent her a long look. “No. I was a delinquent. Better watch your feet over here. I might have missed some splinters.”
“Thanks.” Too wired to sit, Dora rose to replenish both snifters. “So what do you do now?”
“You ought to know.” Jed took out a pack of cigarettes, lighted one. “I filled out an application.”
“I didn’t have a chance to read it. Can I have one of those?” She nodded to his cigarette. “I like to smoke in times of stress or great annoyance.”
He passed her the one he’d already lighted and took out another. “Feeling better?”
“I guess.” She took a quick drag, blew it out as quickly. She didn’t like the taste, only the effect. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.” He smiled, but there was nothing humorous about it. “I’m independently wealthy.”
“Oh. I guess it pays to be a delinquent.” She took another pull on the cigarette. The smoke and the brandy were making her pleasantly dizzy. “So what do you do with yourself all day?”
“Nothing much.”
“I could keep you busy.”
His brow lifted. “Is that so?”
“Honest labor, Skimmerhorn. That is, if you’re any good with your hands.”
“I’ve been told I’m good enough.” His fingers hovered at her back, over the zipper that had been pulled nearly to her waist. After a moment’s hesitation, he zipped it neatly into place. Dora jolted, blinked.
“Ah . . . thanks. What I meant was, I need some new shelves in the storeroom. And this place always needs a little this or that.”
“Your outside banister’s a joke.”
“Oh.” Her lips moved into a pout, as though the insult had been personal. To Dora, it very nearly was. “Can you fix it?”
“Probably.”
“We could work it off the rent, or I could pay you by the hour.”
“I’ll think about it.” He was thinking about something else at the moment—about how badly he wanted to touch her. Just a brush of his thumb along the curve of her throat. He couldn’t say why, but he wanted to do that, only that, and to see if the pulse at the base o
f that long, slender throat would throb in response.
Annoyed with himself, Jed set aside his empty snifter and moved past her to pick up the trash can. “I’ll take this back for you.”
“Thanks.” She had to swallow. It wasn’t as simple as it might have been, not with the obstruction in her throat. There was something about the way the man looked at her that sent all sorts of weird jangles through her system.
Stupid, she told herself. It had simply been a long and exhausting day. She started toward the kitchen.
“Really, thanks,” she said again. “If you hadn’t come in, I’d have spent an hour kicking things.”
“That’s all right. I liked watching you kick him.”
She smiled. “Why?”
“I didn’t like his suit.” He stopped in the doorway to look down at her. “Pinstripes put me off.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” With the smile still curving her lips, she glanced up. Jed followed her gaze and studied the sprig of mistletoe over his head.
“Cute,” he said, and because he was a man who’d decided to stop taking chances, started to move by her.
“Hey.” Amused by the situation, and his reaction, Dora caught his arm. “Bad luck,” she told him. Hiking up to her toes, she brushed her mouth lightly over his. “I don’t like to risk bad luck.”
He reacted instinctively, in much the same way he would have to a gunshot or a knife at the back. Thought came after action. He caught her chin in his hand to hold her still. “You’re risking more than bad luck, Isadora.”
And he brought his mouth down on hers in a kiss tasting of smoke and brandy and an underlying violence that had the blood draining out of her head.
Oh God, my God, was all she had a chance to think. Or perhaps she groaned it as her lips parted helplessly under his.
It was quick, seconds only, but when he released her, she rocked back down on her heels, eyes wide.
He stared down at her for another moment, cursing himself and fighting a vicious urge to do exactly what the idiot accountant had tried.