Danger in a Red Dress

by Christina Dodd

  “Nag,” Gabriel muttered.

  “And Grace has an important appointment with the Grim Reaper.” Dr. Bellota put a hand on her forehead. “Daniel, help her out to the car.”

  Daniel wrapped his arm around her waist and, her brief surge of energy gone, she leaned into him.

  Dr. Bellota pushed Gabriel out into the still, damp heat and toward the long black limo parked in the patient loading zone.

  “I’ll be by in the morning to check on them,” Dr. Bellota said.

  A doctor who did house calls. Gabriel Prescott must really have a lot of money.

  “I’ve had prescriptions called in to the pharmacy. They’ll be delivered within the hour. Daniel, follow the dosage instructions exactly.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” Daniel slid Hannah into the car and onto the smooth leather seat, then placed her backpack at her feet.

  “Don’t worry, Grace. That penthouse is a great place to recuperate,” Dr. Bellota assured her.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.” Gabriel winced as Daniel picked him up and placed him on the seat beside her.

  “Don’t give me any trouble or I’ll have you committed to the psych ward, which is what I should do to keep you here.” Dr. Bellota ran his hands through his thick white hair. “Call for any reason, and otherwise, we’ll see you both in the morning.”

  Daniel shut the door and left them in the quiet, cool, expensive and oh so comfortable interior, then got in and drove with quiet competence through the fading light toward the penthouse everyone said would be so perfectly safe and comfortable.

  “Put your head on my shoulder before you pass out.” Gabriel had a way about him. He didn’t so much suggest as order.

  “You’re in worse shape than I am.”

  “Yeah, I feel like shit, but having a pretty girl against my chest will cure me faster than Bellota’s prescriptions.” He wrapped his arm around her. “Come on.”

  She did. Like a fool, she did.

  For almost a year, she’d been alone, not touching, not trusting, never telling the truth, watching, always watching, always in fear. Now she had her nose pressed into a man’s broad chest, and she felt . . . safe. He smelled good, like laundry soap and clean male, and beneath her cheek, his chest felt firm, muscled. He exuded the illusion of shelter, and right now, that was exactly what she needed. Because she hadn’t experienced anything like this since—

  She gasped and sat up. Since Trent Sansoucy.

  Gabriel held his hands up. “What did I do?”

  “It’s not you. I can’t believe what happened. I can’t believe . . .” She couldn’t believe they’d caught up with her. She passed her hand over her suddenly moist eyes.

  “I know. I know.”

  Hannah watched as they passed into the Galleria, the high-end mall with four anchor stores, an ice-skating rink and so many expensive shops people came from Mexico and across the U.S. to shop there. She had never been inside.

  At the south edge of the Galleria, a tall building loomed above the mall. There the limo turned into a shady parking garage and ascended a ramp. A gate opened into the private lot, and shut behind them. They parked in a place designated for the penthouse, and Daniel said, “You two stay put for a second while I get the wheelchair out of the trunk and bring it around.”

  She leaned forward to touch Gabriel’s forehead. It was warm, but not feverish.

  He caught her good wrist. “Listen. We didn’t discuss salary.”

  She pulled back. “What?”

  “I’ll find out what the going rate for private care is, and I’ll pay you half again as much.”

  She wanted to slap him. “I’m sick, too, and imposing on you. So what are you paying for?”

  He released a gust of laughter. “I don’t pay for my pleasures, if that’s what you’re thinking. But I know it’s going to take me longer to recover than it’ll take you, and by the time you feel better, I’ll be the crankiest patient you’ve ever had. I hate being wounded.”

  “Yes.” She could buy that. Most patients, especially men, had only so much tolerance before they started flinging themselves at the restrictions given for their care.

  “Plus, I’m grateful that you yelled about the gunman, impressed that you threw yourself over me to protect me, and indebted for your care. Paying you a good salary is the only way I can settle my debt.”

  She thought about that. “Okay.” Okay, that made sense. And she needed the cash. If this guy was on the up-and-up, and both his doctor and his chauffeur had gone to pains to assure her he was, then staying at his penthouse would get her off the streets for a while and give Carrick’s pursuit time to calm down, and it certainly looked like he wouldn’t get in here any too easily. “Okay.”

  Daniel opened the door and reached in for Gabriel, helping him out of the car and into the wheelchair.

  Hannah followed, and when Daniel saw her backpack, he took it from her. “I won’t drop it, miss, and you can have it back as soon as we get upstairs.”

  “All right,” she muttered and handed it over. Not that it mattered. The only thing she had that was worth anything was Mrs. Manly’s access code, and she carried that in her head, not her backpack. But when you could carry everything you own in one backpack, you got attached to it.

  Daniel inserted a pass key into the elevator control panel, sending the elevator to the top of the high rise in such a swift, silent ascent, Hannah had to pop her ears. The doors opened into Gabriel Prescott’s penthouse, and she stepped into another world.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The gunshot had obviously left Gabriel half crazed with pain, because he watched his woman step into his penthouse and experienced a bone-deep contentment.

  It didn’t matter that Hannah wasn’t truly his woman, or that she had murdered for profit, or that he wanted to kill her himself for destroying his last, small, vital spark of faith in humanity.

  Somewhere, that primitive part of him that did not respond to logic or good sense told him it was right to have Hannah in his home where she belonged.

  If he could take comfort in anything, it was in her obvious anxiety as she looked around. “This is, um, really nice.”

  “Thank you.” It was really nice. As soon as one of Gabriel’s people called to report that some crazy woman living in a hospice in Houston had contacted them about the reward, and the photo she submitted was a positive identification on their computer program, Gabriel had sent Daniel out to find someplace nice, furnished, with good security. “I’ve taken the whole top floor.” Because that way, the elevator was the only way in, and he had total control of who came and went.

  He had total control of her.

  She groped for her backpack, taking it out of Daniel’s hand as if it was a security blanket. Yet she was too exhausted to lift it, for she dragged it across the burnished tile and the Oriental rugs to the floor-to-ceiling windows with the view looking south. She looked out as the sun set, and lights popped out all along Highway 59 toward Sugar Land. “Spectacular.”

  Daniel hadn’t asked him why he wasn’t immediately turning her over to the police or to Carrick. Gabriel had been in such a foul mood for the past eleven months, he didn’t have to ask. He knew.

  The boss had developed an obsession with a cold-blooded killer.

  “The master bedroom is to the left,” Gabriel said. “That’s mine.”

  She wandered over and looked in. He knew what she saw. A huge room with a California king bed in the center, a lounge chair and end table by the window, a working desk with laptop and desk chair near the bathroom. Bedroom and home office combined.

  “The guest bedrooms are to the right. Pick whichever one you want.”

  She looked back at the doors that led to the guest bedrooms, then at him.

  She didn’t recognize him. Not at all. Not his real voice, not his unmasked face. The voice-changing software, the Phantom mask, and the dim light at the Balfour Halloween party had done their jobs.

  Yet she was still uneasy, probably beca
use of the situation, but maybe because she sensed his interest. His interest . . . Yeah, on the ride here, it had been all he could do to keep his interest to himself. The only thing that had kept him in check was the sure knowledge that he needed to get her up here to keep her—and if she tried to escape, he couldn’t stop her.

  That irritated him, too.

  “Daniel will take care of me.” His voice was compulsively harsh.

  She read his tone correctly, and jerked back as if he’d rejected her.

  His irritation ratcheted up a notch. How dared she pretend to be sensitive?

  Luckily, before he spoke, Daniel stepped in. “Don’t pay him any mind. Mr. Prescott’s cantankerous when he’s hurt.” He spoke gently, apparently as seduced by Hannah’s surface innocence as Gabriel had been . . . once.

  And he was right. Gabriel wanted her here, not calling for help, not trying to steal away. “Go to bed, Grace. Daniel will bring you something to eat and your pain meds.”

  “If you’re sure . . .” She staggered as if her knees could no longer support her.

  “I’m sure. Good night, Grace.”

  Gabriel and Daniel waited until they knew she had found a bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  “The camera in there works, right?” Gabriel said.

  “Sure does. I checked it myself.” Daniel smiled without humor. “What’s the matter, boss? You didn’t want her near you when you’re helpless? You a coward?”

  “That’s not cowardice. That’s intelligence.”

  “I guess.” Daniel, as cynical as any person who worked for Gabriel could be, stared after her. “She seems so genuinely nice.”

  Turning to Daniel, his chauffeur, bodyguard and friend, Gabriel asked, “Do you want to view the video again? The one where the nurse who showed Mrs. Manly such care deliberately shot her full of a poison that stopped her breathing and her heart . . . while she was fully aware?”

  “No. And neither do you. There for a while, you watched it so often I thought you’d lost your mind.”

  “I was finding it.” She looked different than he remembered, different than she had in the video. Any hint of softness had disappeared; she was too thin, with gaunt cheeks and narrow lips she kept pressed tightly together. Her cheap clothes hung on her, her jeans were so thin he could see air through them, and her tennis shoes were duct-taped together. Her large blue eyes seemed smaller, narrowed, and watched everything and everybody with suspicion.

  Life had not been easy for Hannah Grey.

  Good.

  “But she did holler when someone was going to shoot you,” Daniel said.

  “Or shoot her.” Yet for all Gabriel recalled the litany of her crimes, he still remembered how she had pressed herself over his bleeding body, shielding him from the possibility of flying bullets, and the way she’d dragged him behind the hedge when she’d been shot in the wrist—that was the dichotomy of Hannah Grey. At Balfour House, for the weeks that he’d monitored her every move, she’d been a kind, caring nurse—except for that one defining moment of murder.

  So tonight he would sleep and heal, and in the morning, they would talk. Soon he would know everything about Hannah Grey that it was possible to know. Soon he would understand it all.

  “She doesn’t know you,” Daniel said.

  “She barely heard my real voice. She never saw my face.” Bitterly, Gabriel reminded Daniel—and himself. “But she is the best actress I’ve ever seen. She could get an Academy Award for breathless innocence in the category of wholesome.”

  “I know. You’re right.”

  “Find out who fired that shot today and why.” Because Gabriel had thought he was simply going to make first contact with Hannah. He sure as hell hadn’t expected to be shot.

  “I’m already on it.”

  “And find out which one of us he was trying to hit.”

  “Right.”

  “Daniel?”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Most important—don’t let her get away. One way or another, I’m getting a full confession, and then—I’m bringing her in.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  When Hannah awoke, the bedside clock said two thirty a.m. Her mouth was dry; her wrist throbbed and burned.

  More interestingly, she wasn’t boiling hot. She wasn’t freezing cold. The mattress was not lumpy, not hard, firm in the right places, soft in the right places. She smelled good, like the soap she’d used in the shower she’d taken before she went to bed. She wore a clean pair of men’s striped pajamas. And she had food in her belly. She was, for the first time in eleven months, comfortable.

  Gradually she pulled herself into a sitting position. She flipped on the lamp, swung her feet over the edge of the bed, and waited. She didn’t feel too bad. Her wrist burned, and it was getting worse, but she wasn’t sick or faint. She slipped to her feet and waited again. Not bad at all. She walked to her bathroom—each bedroom in this fancy penthouse had its own bathroom—got a drink of water and used the facilities.

  When she came out, she caught her breath in surprise.

  There in the chair by her bed, Gabriel sat, wrapped in a robe, a crutch leaning against the wall behind him.

  Aghast, she asked, “What are you doing up?”

  “Daniel’s asleep, and I thought you’d want your pain medication.”

  Before she’d gone to sleep at eight, after a meal of minestrone soup and whole-wheat bread sent up by the Italian restaurant downstairs, Daniel had given her her antibiotics and a single pain pill. With the assurance he’d be there for her if she needed him, he’d gone off to take care of Gabriel. Now . . . “Daniel’s asleep?”

  “He hasn’t got a gunshot wound to keep him awake,” Gabriel said.

  Maybe it was the wee hours of the morning, maybe it was being on Gabriel’s home turf, but he made her uneasy, as if he could touch her with his gaze . . . and had.

  He was looking now. She was totally covered—the pajamas were too big, the sleeves dangled over her wrists, the legs bunched around her feet, and the drawstring knotted around her waist kept the pants up. Maybe he wasn’t, but she was totally respectable. Yet she had contracted to act as his nurse, and she might pretend to be untrained, but for her own peace of mind, she needed to see if he was all right. And to do that, she had to touch him. The last eleven months had been hard on her; she actually had to work up her nerve before she walked over and placed a hand on his forehead. “You don’t seem to have a fever. How do the dressings feel? Tight? Does the wound feel hot?”

  “My leg hurts like a son of a bitch, but it’s a normal hurt—not infected. I think I dodged that bullet, if you’ll pardon the term.” He grinned, a sharp, white-toothed slash of amusement he asked her to share.

  Startled, she smiled back and realized—this guy was good-looking. She’d recognized it before, of course, that first time she’d seen him, but her reaction then had been dominated by the wariness of a woman who had lived on the streets. Now she knew he was respectable, and wealthy, and felt an obligation to her. And it was the middle of the night, the lights were low, and he appeared—she didn’t know—almost Valentino-like in his looks and intensity. His eyes were deep-set, raw, wild. The skin on his face was stretched too thin across high-set cheeks and a proud, dominant nose.

  She smoothed her hand across his forehead.

  His lips . . . Well, his lips were perfect for kissing.

  That was a dangerous thought.

  She stepped back.

  “Grace.”

  She turned back to him, expecting a request for something to eat or drink.

  “How is your wound?” he asked.

  She looked down at the bandage Zoe had put in place. The white edges were already dirty and damp; she’d tried to wash her fingers and splashed up too far. “It’s okay.”

  “Let me see.” Reaching out, he gripped her good wrist and brought her close.

  The warmth of his grip, the sense of being shackled, made her breathless. Yet he wasn’t doing anything, really.
Invading her personal boundaries a bit, but probably he didn’t look at it that way. Some people had different definitions of what was acceptable and how soon. He made her wildly uncomfortable, and she didn’t understand, would never understand, how a man who was in such lousy shape could exude such a still, smoky danger.

  Without an ounce of respect for Zoe’s work, he unwrapped the gauze, loosening it carefully from the wound. “Damn it!”

  “I thought it looked pretty good.” She didn’t think any such thing, but the sight of her injury, inflamed, muddy with dried blood, seemed to anger him.

  “I shouldn’t have taken you out of the hospital. But you wouldn’t have stayed, would you?” He assessed her silence correctly. “All right. Tomorrow we’ll get someone in to clean this up.” He lifted her other hand and lightly touched the scrapes on her palms. “You must have skidded across the sidewalk.”

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. All I remember is being so scared that he’d keep shooting.” At the memory, her heartbeat accelerated.

  He held each of her hands in each of his, and examined the damage as if he saw something more than scraped palms and swollen knuckles.

  Prudently, she removed herself from his grip. “I was lucky. We were lucky. We’re alive and not seriously injured. That’s cool, right?”

  “Right.” He picked the prescription bottle up off her table and read, “ ‘One tablet every four hours.’ Has it been four hours since your last one?”

  She rolled the gauze back over her wrist. “It’s been at least six.”

  He shook one out into his palm and offered it. “Then you’d better take this and climb back in bed.”

  She picked it up carefully, without touching his skin.

  He pointed to the water bottle—one she hadn’t noticed before—on the bedside table.

  She put the pill to her mouth, then hesitated.

  “What’s wrong? Do you think I will poison you?” He sounded smoothly dangerous, the purr of a lion before it pounced.

  She blinked at him, startled. “No. No, I was wondering when you’re due for a pill, and if you want me to get it for you. I am supposed to be—”