by Janet Dailey
Lucas Wayne was not the first client to make a pass. Only once had Delaney allowed the line between business and pleasure to be crossed. She remembered the pain of it too well. It had her reaching up in a white-hot anger that she barely managed to check before she brushed his hand away and stepped back, putting distance between them.
“Sorry,” she said firmly. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I am here to look out for your safety, not to look after your needs.”
A smile played with the corners of his mouth. “Next you’ll tell me you have a rule against mixing business with pleasure.”
“I do.”
“Rules are made to be broken, don’t you know that?”
“Not mine.”
He chuckled. “You intrigue me.”
Delaney didn’t doubt that she probably did, although she suspected the reason for it was not as straightforward as his statement. But there was no question he was good; he was very good—he knew how to treat a woman, how to draw her out, how to make her feel special. She didn’t know if it was instinctive or simply a practiced technique. Either way, it was highly effective. She might even have been taken in by it if she hadn’t known that not too many hours ago he’d been in bed with the blonde starlet Tory Evans.
“Let me set the record straight. This is an issue of safety—yours and mine.” But it was obvious he didn’t understand, so Delaney explained, “My job is to protect. Which means I can’t be watching you, I can’t be looking at you, I can’t be laughing and talking with you. In short, I can’t be paying any attention to you. I have to be watching the people around you—who’s coming, who’s going, who’s there, and who’s not. And believe me, you won’t like it, because you aren’t used to being ignored by women. But I have to ignore you; it’s my job. So don’t regard it as a challenge. Don’t flirt with me or try to distract me—in public or in private. Understand?”
“I understand.” He had known many women, but not the kind of woman this tall graceful brunette was. Whether she liked it or not, she was definitely a challenge, a most interesting challenge. “One question?”
“What’s that?”
“Could I distract you?”
She studied him for a long second, on guard again. “Unfortunately, I’m not Superwoman. Does that satisfy your male ego?”
“For the time being.”
“Good.” She pushed away from the desk. “Now—if you don’t mind, it’s late and the car will be here to pick you up at six in the morning.”
“Point taken.” He crossed to the hall door, then stopped. “If I wasn’t intrigued by you before, Delaney, I definitely am now.”
“Good night,” she said firmly.
“Good night, Delaney.”
FIVE
ANTICIPATING THE HORDE OF REPORTERS and photographers waiting outside the studio the next morning, Delaney had arranged for Lucas to enter through a side entrance. Once inside the building—unharassed by the press—Delaney stopped to confer with the head of the production company’s security while Riley accompanied Lucas to his dressing room.
To Delaney’s relief, Riley was back to his old competent, easygoing self this morning. After his somewhat cryptic remarks last night, she hadn’t been sure what to expect when she got up. But Riley had acted as if nothing unusual had happened, and Delaney had taken her cue from him.
Lucas was in makeup, seated before a large lighted mirror, a plastic cape covering the top of him when Delaney finally rejoined them. Riley sat on a stool by the door, smoking a cigarette and balancing a cup of coffee on his knee. The makeup girl, a redhead with frizzed hair and garish eye shadow, stood beside Lucas, a sponge in one hand and foundation makeup in the other.
Riley lifted his styrofoam cup and pointed at the television set mounted in a corner of the room. “Take a look. Arthur had her figured right.”
The television was tuned to a morning news show. There, seated next to the anchor, was none other than the blonde starlet Tory Evans. Delaney crossed to the other side of Riley to get a better angle of the screen. “What has she said so far?”
“Not much. Just an account of the shooting from her perspective. Mostly her reactions.”
On television, the actress wore a look of absolute sincerity. “Luke’s attorney was there and he took us over to his place. That’s where the police talked to me and I told them everything that happened.”
“Great job, doll,” Riley grumbled through the cigarette hanging out the corner of his mouth. “Now everyone knows where he is—including the press.”
Privately Delaney wondered whether this Laura person was watching. So many tended to be media addicts, hungry for an item that mentioned the object of their obsession.
“Arthur Golden is Lucas Wayne’s attorney and personal manager, isn’t he?” the anchor asked.
“Yes.”
“Is that where Lucas Wayne is staying now? With him?”
Tory Evans cast an anxious glance into the camera. “He was there, but I don’t know if he still is.”
“Of course. Now, this movie you’re filming with Lucas—”
“A Cry in the Night,” Tory Evans interrupted to supply the title.
“Are you finished filming yet?”
“Almost. As you know, it’s being shot on location here in Manhattan. I have one major scene left with Luke. We’ll be shooting it tomorrow in Central Park.”
“Damn.” Riley slipped off the stool and tossed his cup—coffee and all—into the wastebasket, then muttered under his breath, “We should have gagged her before she left the apartment yesterday.”
“Amen,” Delaney murmured as Riley took up his station in the doorway, watching the hall outside. He was barely in position when a gofer in shirtsleeves and faded jeans trotted up and ducked his head inside the room.
“There’s a phone call for you, Mr. Wayne. On line two.”
Delaney interceded, “Who is it?”
“Someone named Susan,” he said, then frowned. “I think her last name was Jack—or something like that.”
“St. Jacque?” Lucas suggested.
“Could have been. Should I tell her you’ll call back?” the gofer asked.
“No, I’ll take it.” Lucas smiled an apology to the makeup girl and got out of the chair to pick up the phone. “Susan, how are you?” His voice had a friendly ring to it, but his expression was definitely guarded. “I’m fine…. At the moment, it looks like I’ll be leaving here on Saturday. It can’t be soon enough as far as I’m concerned…. I’ll call in a day or two once everything is confirmed…. Dinner sounds fine, and don’t worry—I’ll take care of myself…. I have to go. Monica is waiting to powder my face. I’ll call you later.”
The plastic cape rustled as he hung up the phone and returned to the chair. “Susan has an art gallery in Aspen,” Lucas said to Delaney, his manner offhand. “Remind me to give you her address and phone number. She keeps an eye on my place when I’m not there. She can show you around the house and the grounds when you go to Aspen to do your advance work.”
For an instant, Delaney was rigid. Going to Aspen was something she had successfully avoided thinking about—until now. She mentally gave herself a hard shake. There was nothing and no one in Aspen who could hurt her. That had ended long ago. She had a job to do.
She made some reply to Lucas and excused herself to go call Arthur and alert him to Tory Evans’s interview in the event he hadn’t caught it.
Nearly two hours later, Delaney sat quietly in the dressing room while Riley stood guard outside its closed door. At the other end of the room, Lucas walked a hole in the floor, stopping now and then to sip at the coffee in his personal mug. The script lay open on a nearby table, but his wanderings didn’t take him by it. Delaney couldn’t tell if the idleness was getting to him or if this was his way of getting into the part, working up a tension, letting it build, making the adrenaline flow. Whatever it was, she took her cue from him and didn’t talk.
After a long day on the set, Lucas returned
to Arthur Golden’s apartment without any incident. Riley made certain the door was locked, then turned to Delaney and remarked, “One day of filming down, one more to go.”
“Tomorrow will be the toughest, though,” she replied with a touch of grimness.
SIX
MORNING BROUGHT SMOG AND A high thin overcast to block the sun’s brilliance and spread a pale sky over Manhattan. The kind of sky that film crews prayed for on an outdoor shoot, the kind that meant fewer setups to adjust for the constantly changing angles of the sun’s rays, and—with luck—the kind that could mean the entire shoot would go faster.
Delaney stood at the living room’s long expanse of glass and watched the stream of traffic on the street below. The morning rush that had earlier clogged the streets was over, and the traffic was back to normal—bumper to bumper, but moving steadily, stopping only for red lights. The sidewalks carried their usual flow of pedestrians moving briskly despite the gathering summer heat, intent only on their destination in that single-minded, slightly defensive way of most New Yorkers.
Twenty stories up, the shrill whistles, the horns, the distant sirens, the rumble of traffic, the sounds of the city were muted into something faint, barely distinguishable, something remembered more than heard.
“You seem to be in deep thought.”
Delaney turned from the window, not startled by the idle comment from Riley. She’d known he was standing only a few feet away, waiting like the rest of them for the phone call that would tell them they were ready for Lucas on the Central Park set.
“I wasn’t exactly deep in thought—just going over everything one last time in my mind,” Delaney replied.
If she seemed preoccupied and on edge, Delaney knew it wasn’t due to any misgivings about today. Tomorrow, maybe, and the day after that. But not today.
The phone rang and Riley picked it up. He listened to the voice on the other end of the line, his glance sliding over to her. “Right.” He nodded. “We’ll have him there.” He hung up, then immediately picked up the receiver again, saying, “They’ll be ready for him on the set in twenty minutes. Let me confirm the limo’s downstairs.”
“We need to make sure the car’s waiting at the Plaza for us to make the switch.”
Riley responded with a nod as he dialed. In less than a minute he was off the phone. “I’ll go down first and wait for you outside the elevators.” He headed for the door, pulling out his two-way radio and talking into it.
Delaney picked up her purse off the bar, verified that her gun was inside, and slipped the leather strap over her shoulder. In anticipation of the day’s heat, she wore white slacks and a red cotton top, and plaited her long hair in a French braid to keep it off her neck. She turned to Lucas Wayne, seated in a chair, already in full makeup. “Ready?”
“I’m ready,” he said, then shook his head in an amused and marveling gesture. “You are one of the few women I know, Delaney, who doesn’t pull out a mirror and check her makeup before she walks out the door.”
“The time for that was before the phone call came.”
“That wouldn’t have stopped a lot of women I know.”
“They’re not in my line of work.” She escorted him to the front door.
The man stationed on the floor pushed the DOWN button when he saw them come out of the apartment. “Riley said to come ahead. It’s clear.”
A pair of elevator doors immediately sprang open. “Let him know we’re coming down on two.” Delaney ushered Lucas into the elevator. The man relayed the message as he followed them inside, then reached over to punch the button for the first floor. She looked at Lucas out of the corner of her eye, her glance skimming his sun-bronzed profile. “You know the routine.”
He nodded, a touch of amused boredom in the smile that lifted one corner of his mouth. “One guy goes first; I stay on his heels; you and Riley flank me; and a fourth guy protects my rear.”
“And once we walk out, you don’t stop for pictures, autographs, or a thousand-dollar bill on the sidewalk.”
“Got it,” he said with a mock salute. “What about the press? Will we have to plow through a bunch of reporters again?”
Delaney looked to the other member of her team for that answer. “Do you know, Gary?”
“There were only about three or four out there.”
“Which means either the rest are waiting for you at the park or this business has become old news,” she suggested with a smile.
A hint of grimness tightened the line of his mouth. “I’d like it to be old news. I’d like to be old news to Rina.”
The elevator stopped its descent from the twentieth floor with stomach-sinking suddenness. When the doors slid open. Riley stood on the other side. His glance briefly connected with Delaney’s; then he turned sideways in a shielding manner and extended an arm, shepherding them out while he continued to scan the lobby. For now, Riley walked ahead of them to the glass doors.
Beyond them, Delaney saw the limo parked at the curb. The jockey-sized Bennie with the unconscionably long Greek name of Papagiannopoulos waited beside the open rear passenger door, his chauffeur’s cap tipped slightly back on his head. Delaney skipped her glance from him to the pedestrians passing in front of the building. A man in a business suit and a briefcase stepped off the curb to flag down a taxi, then swore and banged a fist on the trunk of a cab that nearly clipped him when it swerved into the outside lane. A woman with spiked blue hair and open-toed sandals laced up to her knees hustled by, a chartreuse purse as large as a satchel banging against her legs. All looked normal.
The sandy-haired MacDonald waited outside for them. He saw them coming and pushed open one of the doors, letting Riley pull open the other. Delaney stepped into the heat. The mid-morning temperature already hovered near the ninety-degree mark without a breath of air stirring. Automatically she took up her position on Lucas’s right, her left arm impersonally curved along his back to keep him moving toward the limo while she scanned her side of the walk.
A photographer who’d been lounging against the side of the building sprang into action. Delaney threw a quick look at him, then spotted a woman in a scarf and sunglasses hurrying out of an adjoining shop.
Obeying the alarm bells that rang in her head, she called out, swift and low, “Riley, the woman in the sunglasses on my right.” Without waiting for his response, she pushed Lucas toward the limo. “In the car. Now!”
As both Riley and MacDonald peeled away to intercept the plain-looking woman in a shapeless sundress layered over a tank top, Lucas slowed up. Before he could turn and look, Delaney had him by the neck, forcing his head down and propelling him urgently toward the waiting limo. “I said go!” At the same time, she blanketed him from the woman with her body.
She risked one glance over her shoulder as the two men converged on the woman. Then she concentrated all of her attention on reaching the limo’s open door, ignoring the beseeching call of Rina Cole’s voice. “Lucas! Lucas, please, I only want to talk to you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I never wanted to hurt you. You’ve got to believe that. I love you!”
Cameras clicked rapid-fire, mixing in with the sound of a scuffle. The back seat of the limo yawned before her. Delaney shoved Lucas inside, following on his heels and tossing a quick order at Bennie. “Close the door and get us out of here.”
“Let me go!” Rina Cole’s angry protest reached her ears. “Lucas, don’t leave me! You bastard, come back!” she raged. “Don’t you dare go off and leave me like this. Lucas! You can’t walk away from me. Do you hear? I won’t let you!”
The door shut, blotting out the fury of her voice and enclosing them in the serene hum of the limo’s airconditioning system. Scant seconds later, Bennie clambered behind the wheel. He twisted around in the driver’s seat, his glance running to Delaney, a question forming.
“Move it, Bennie. Now!” she said forcefully.
“Yes, ma’am.” With a hand on the horn and tires squealing, he swung the long black car i
nto the traffic, forcing an opening where there was none.
“What about Riley and the others?” Lucas protested.
“They’ll catch up with us. Either at the Plaza or the park.” She squared around in the velour-covered seat and relaxed her grip on the gun in her purse, unable to remember just when she’d slipped her hand inside. She leaned back, silently blowing out a long breath, the adrenaline rush fading, her heartbeat slowing to its normal rhythm.
“Ooooeeee!” Bennie slapped the steering wheel and rocked from side to side in the driver’s seat with excited glee. “‘Move it, Bennie,’ she says. Just like in the movies, eh, Mr. Wayne?” He craned his head to peer in the rearview mirror. “All my life, I been waiting for somebody to say that to me. I could get to like this danger business. I could. I swear I could.”
“We’re out of danger now,” Delaney said dryly, not entirely sure they were ever in it. “You can slow down any time, Bennie.”
“How did you know, Delaney?” Puzzled, Lucas Wayne tilted his head to the side. “How did you know that was Rina? I saw her—and didn’t recognize her at all. You couldn’t have had more than a glimpse of her. Yet you knew. How?”
“It was the scarf and sunglasses,” she replied, then explained, “In situations where there are a lot of people—busy city streets, crowded auditoriums, large parties—you have to watch body language, anything that seems out of place. Sometimes it’s the only warning you have. Bulky coats on a warm day, the sullen face among smiling ones, or—sunglasses and a scarf on a cloudy day without any breeze. When that registered, I asked myself—why is that woman trying to hide what she looks like?”
“She could have had a black eye and forgot to fix her hair,” Lucas pointed out. “What if that had turned out to be the case?”
“Then I’d be sitting here with egg on my face and Riley would be back there apologizing profusely,” Delaney admitted with a hint of a grin.