Hot & Bothered
Victoria walked the woman out and John listened to a flurry of farewells and slamming car doors. Then between one moment and the next she was back, closing the front door behind her as silence settled over the entryway. Blowing a strand of hair out of eyes that were alight with humor, she grinned at him. “Whew.”
She was mussed and flushed, and looked so much like the Tori he remembered that he experienced a sudden sharp desire to pin her against the door at her back and rock his mouth over hers. Man, just one little kiss, that was all he asked. Just to see if the new, uptight Victoria had the same addictive flavor that had lived on in his mind all these years. Heartbeat picking up tempo, he took a determined step forward.
She scooped her hair back. “So, tell me. Why were you in a bad mood when you came in?”
He halted, jerked back to the present. “What?”
“When you let yourself in a while ago, you looked furious. Then you saw Es and me and slapped on your company face. Which was pretty smarmy, by the way.”
O-kay. He took a large step back. That wasn’t the brightest plan he’d ever had. Hell, he had professional standards to maintain here. But still…“What do you mean, smarmy?”
“Come on. The way you went from being clearly out of sorts to that phony hail-fellows-well-met smile? Smarmy with a capital smar, Miglionni. I thought for a minute there you were going to try to sell us a used car.”
“Yeah?” He stepped forward again. “So what about you, then?”
She, too, took a step forward, her chin angling up at him. “What about me?”
“You’ve been giving me that little society-princess smile since I first landed on your doorstep, when both of us know damn well that if you had your way I’d be six states away. What’s that all about?”
“Good manners.”
“Uh-huh. So let me get this straight. When you do it, you’re Little Ellie Etiquette, but when I do it I’m a used-car salesman?” He shrugged. “That’s fair.”
The last thing he expected to see was the wide, amused grin she flashed him. “No, it’s not, but somehow it seems different when I’m the one doing it. I suppose, though, that it’s just as much a way for you to keep your feelings to yourself as it is for me.”
Damn. He started measuring the distance between them and the door again, deciding that pressing her up against an unyielding surface was a mighty fine idea after all. Screw professionalism. Stacked up against the thought of getting his hands in that hair, kissing those lips, it was highly overrated.
And if that wasn’t dangerous thinking, he didn’t know what was. Stuffing his hands into his slacks pockets, he took a large step back, feeling like he was performing some spastic do-si-do but determined to put distance between them. “You wanna know what was bugging me?”
“Yes. If you’d like to tell me.”
Sunshine from the leaded-glass entry sidelights shone in her eyes, picking out the gold flecks in her moss-green irises. Feeling a sudden need for an emotional, as well as physical, distance if he wanted to keep himself from doing something they’d both regret, he said flatly, “It was the conversation I had with the police about Jared. I was thinking about the lead detective, who’s a donut-eating lard-ass too lazy to look at anyone else when he’s got a nice, convenient scapegoat in your brother.”
That gave him the distance he wanted, but seeing the humor wiped from her face gave him no satisfaction. On the contrary, the strained worry he was responsible for putting in its place made him feel like a school-yard bully. Pulling his hands from his pockets, he leaned toward her.
Only to watch her back snap poker-straight and her expression smooth out into the bland aloofness he hated. It should have put his back up. Instead her words played back in his head. I suppose, though, that it’s just as much a way for you to keep your feelings to yourself as it is for me.
Shit.
He reached for her hand. “Come on.” Tugging it gently, he led her down the hallway toward the office she’d assigned for his use. “Let’s go sit down and talk about it.”
A moment later he seated her in the chair facing his desk, then circled it to take his own. “Can I have Mary bring you anything? Some iced tea, maybe? Something stronger?” He wasn’t exactly accustomed to summoning servants, but he’d been the housekeeper’s golden boy since he’d questioned her and the rest of the help yesterday, so what the hell. Might as well take advantage. No one understood better that he was likely to drop out of favor just as quickly as he’d come into it.
Victoria merely shook her head, however.
“She agrees with you, by the way.”
She blinked at him. “Mary does? About what?”
“Jared’s innocence.”
That got her attention and John saw with satisfaction a spark of anger igniting in her eyes. He considered that a big improvement over the defeat that had dulled them.
She straightened in her chair. “You questioned Mary?”
“Yes, ma’am. And the cook and the two girls who come in once a week to clean, as well. Oh, and the gardener.” He gave her a smile he knew would aggravate the hell out of her. “And except for the gardener, who’s still hacked off at Jared for running over his dahlias with the car, they all agree the kid couldn’t have killed your father. Swore that he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I told you that!”
“Yes, you did. But I take nothing on faith and no one’s word is good enough for me. I’m not satisfied I’m even getting in the vicinity of the truth, in fact, until I’ve double—and preferably triple or quadruple—checked every statement I take, every assertion I hear. That, darlin’, is what you’re paying me for.”
“To be a cynic?”
“Damn straight. You want someone to hold your hand, agreeing with every word you speak and ‘poor-babying’ you about your murdered dad and missing brother, go talk to one of your country-club boys. You want Jared found, you got me. And that means poking my nose in every corner of his life, finding out things the help might know, discovering the stuff he’d never in a million years confide in his sister.”
He waited for her to ask what kind of stuff, but instead she straightened in her seat and eyed him with speculative consideration. “The police aren’t going to look any further than Jared, are they?”
“Not if the conversation I had with Detective Simpson was any indication.” Anger burned in his gut all over again at the thought of the cop’s incompetence. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to running into with most law-enforcement personnel.
“Then I’d like to expand your job.”
He stared at her. “In what way?”
“I don’t understand the detective’s attitude, given that there are literally dozens of people who might have wanted my father dead. So you look into them. Heck, I can give you ten names off the top of my head just to get you started.”
“That’s probably not a great way to spend your money. It’s likely to cost you a fortune and still not net you the results you’re looking for.”
“I don’t care about the money. The police aren’t doing their job, so I want you to do it for them.”
“You do understand, don’t you, that I have no authority to compel anyone to answer my questions? If people don’t want to talk to me there’s not a helluva lot I can do to make them. It’s why private detectives rarely get involved in murder cases. We have neither the jurisdiction nor the contacts the cops do.”
She met his eyes and her lips curled up in a faint smile. “Yet you’ll do it anyway, won’t you?”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “If that’s what you want. What the hell, I enjoy a good challenge.” Leaning back in his chair, he studied her. “It’s your money, of course, but if you don’t want to find all your resources going into my pockets, you might consider acting as my entree to the folks in your world. I’m not exactly the country-club type.”
She considered him for a moment. “No, you aren’t. Does it really matter?”
“Only in that water-finding-its-own-level kind of way. Chances are better than decent that without an introduction from you, most of that crowd will be leery about talking to me.” Or, more likely, flat-out refuse.
“All right.”
“All right they’ll be leery or all right you’ll—”
“I’ll perform the introductions.”
“Don’t agree without giving it some thought,” he warned. “It could turn out to be time-consuming.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care how time-consuming it is.” She rose to her feet and looked down at him. “If that’s what it takes to clear Jared and get on with our lives, then that’s what I’ll do. Just let me know what you need.”
He thought about that as he watched her walk from the office—about letting her know what he needed. Oh, Mama. Then he thought about getting on with his life, and a less-than-amused laugh escaped him. Shit. He would’ve been all over that concept two days ago. Now he found himself with a daughter he hadn’t known existed and didn’t have a clue what to do with. Not to mention a persistent lech for a woman who only wanted him to untangle her brother’s problem, then disappear. Get on with his life…His ass!
He didn’t even know what the hell that meant anymore.
CHAPTER SIX
JARED STOOD OUTSIDE THE SPOT, silently reciting a variation of the pep talk his baseball coach always gave the team before a game. He’d heard about the drop-in recreational center when he’d eavesdropped on a conversation between a couple of kids hustling for change on the 16th Street Mall. His ears had perked up when he’d heard one of them claim it was possible to hang out there from five in the evening until ten. The prospect of having a solid five hours before he had to move on made him feel almost giddy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a solid block of time to simply sit in one place, never mind sleep. He didn’t even care about the activities the rec center might offer. All he wanted was somewhere he could stay put for a while. It seemed like every time he got halfway comfortable, he had to pick up and move.
He stood to the side of the door for several minutes and watched some Hispanic guys horse around inside the center. Then, drawing a deep breath, he took a step toward the opening.
“You don’t wanna go in there,” a husky voice said from behind him and Jared jerked to a stop, looking over his shoulder. A kid, so slight of build he looked as if a stiff breeze might blow him away, detached himself from the shadows cast by the side of the building. Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans, he jerked his pointed chin toward the group of boys inside the rec hall. “That’s one of the local gangs,” he told Jared. “They have a tendency to run off anyone not one of their homeboys.”
“Shit.” Disappointment was a massive stone around his neck. God, he was tired. He was so freaking tired and he just wished he could go home.
Tears burned behind his eyelids, prickled his nasal passage and he turned his back so the kid with the funny, raspy voice wouldn’t catch sight of them and think he was a damn baby. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said gruffly. Blowing out a weary breath, he trudged away from the place that for one brief, shining moment he’d believed might actually provide a few hours of sanctuary.
“Hey, wait up!” The kid caught up and gave him a friendly nudge. “What’s your name? I seen you around, here and there. I’m P.J.” He dug a grimy hand into his pocket and pulled out a candy bar. “You want half?”
Jared surreptitiously knuckled away a couple of tears that managed to leak past his guard. Glancing at the kid from the corner of his eye, he saw him studiously looking the other way and thought maybe he wasn’t the only one who succumbed to the occasional overwhelming bout of helplessness. For some reason, the realization made a difference, and after a swipe of his nose with his shirttail, he squared his shoulders. “Yeah. Sure.” He was careful when he reached out to accept the portion of candy bar P.J. offered, because what he really wanted to do was snatch it out of the little guy’s hand. He couldn’t quite remember when he’d last eaten. He’d killed off the brandy last night, but hadn’t had any solid food since long before then. Resisting the urge to stuff the entire candy bar in his mouth, he took a small bite. “Thanks.”
“No problem. So, you never told me your name.”
“Jared.”
“That’s prett—uh, a good name.” He cleared his throat, but his voice was even raspier than before when he said, “What were you hoping to get outta The Spot, Jared?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Someplace to just…be, I guess. Do you know what I mean? I just wanted somewhere I didn’t have to leave the minute I got settled.” He noticed the griminess of his own hand as he brought up the candy for another bite. “And I’d sure like a shower. Maybe I oughtta go to the Salvation Army, after all.” He’d been avoiding those kind of shelters, for fear someone might recognize his face. The truth was, though, he didn’t even know if he’d been on the news here. What was hot news in Colorado Springs might not be worth mentioning in Denver. And he was rapidly reaching the point where he could hardly stand his own smell.
“Trust me,” P.J. interrupted his thoughts, “you wanna steer clear of the S.A. Way too many mean sum-bitches there.”
“The Salvation Army isn’t safe?” Jared stared at P.J. in shock. “Aren’t those the people who ring bells and say ‘God bless’ when you drop money in their collection pots outside the stores at Christmas time?”
“Yeah, we ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto.” P.J. shrugged. “It’s not the people running the place who are gonna hurtcha—they’re all pretty nice. But a lot of the homeless grown-ups using the joint?” Blowing out a tuneless, expressive whistle, he shook his head. “They’d just as soon punch you in the face as give you the time of day.” Then he brightened. “We could head on over to Sock’s Place, though.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s another drop-in center. Well, it’s really kind of a church, but it’s tight. You can get a meal and shower there and catch a few hours sleep. Whaddya say?”
“Sounds good.” It sounded great. Like a little piece of heaven. He wasn’t about to say that aloud, though. Playing it cool was difficult, but he sure as hell didn’t have to come off sounding like a hick.
It also felt really nice, he admitted a few minutes later as he and P.J. set off for the new place, to have someone to hang out with. Right up there near the top of the Horrendo-meter was how alone he’d felt in this ongoing nightmare. It was good to have someone to talk to.
Not that he did much of the talking. P.J. seemed to be a jawer by nature; he had an opinion on everything under the sun and didn’t hesitate to state it. That was fine with Jared. The smaller boy had obviously been on the streets longer than he had and he was a font of good information that most likely would have taken Jared weeks to learn for himself.
Studying the other youth as P.J. skipped backward in front of him, telling him ways to blend in around the Auraria College campus in order to catch some rest during the days, he thought the two of them probably looked like Mutt and Jeff. He possessed the Hamilton genes, which meant he was tall and rangy, all long arms and legs. To his disgust, he wasn’t the least bit buff, but Cook said that was because he was still growing into his bones. She insisted he’d be buff enough before he knew it.
He wasn’t exactly holding his breath waiting for that to happen, but compared to P.J. he could have been a fricking graduate of the Charles Atlas school of bodybuilding. The other boy was nearly a foot shorter than he and so fine-boned that he appeared almost girlishly delicate. To be fair, that impression was gained mostly by what was on view: the little dude’s big-eyed face and stick-thin arms. The rest of him was buried beneath a T-shirt about three sizes too large and a pair of wide-legged jeans that sagged off his skinny hips and pooled their frayed hems around sneakers that had seen better days. Somehow Jared doubted that the rest of P.J. was any more filled-out, though. Hell, his face didn’t even exhibit a trace of fuzz yet.
“How old are you, anyway?” he demanded.
“Gonna be fifteen in a few months.”
“Yeah?” Jared studied him skeptically. “How many months do you consider a few?”
“’Bout twenty.” P.J. grinned unrepentantly. “How about you? I bet you must be around eighteen, huh?”
“Not until November.”
“I was close.”
Jared snorted. “Closer than thirteen is to fifteen, anyhow.” But his disdain was all for show, and they both knew it. “So, what does P.J. stand for?”
“Priscilla Jayne.”
Jared stopped dead. “You’re a girl?” His voice cracked on the last word, but he was too busy staring and reassessing to care.
“Of course I’m a girl! Jeez! Why does everybody think I’m not?” Looking down at her chest, she plucked the cloth away from its flat planes. “It’s because I ain’t got no boobies, isn’t it? Well, I’m gonna have ’em someday, you know. I’m just a late bloomer.” Her little triangular face went forlorn. “I’d sure have a lot less money troubles if I had ’em now, though.”
“How’s that?” Now that he knew she was a girl, he was amazed he hadn’t tumbled to it the second he’d clapped eyes on her. Shit. In hindsight, it seemed so obvious.
“If I had a nice rack—or, okay, any boobs at all—I could turn tricks and my money problems would be yesterday’s news.” But she made a sour face. “All right, the truth is, part of me is just as glad that’s not an option, but if you tell anybody I said so, I’ll deny it. Don’t cha think, though, that the whole sex thing seems really…icky?”
“Well, yeah.” He looked at her and thought she didn’t look all that much older than his niece Esme. His stomach rolled at the thought of some sweaty old man rolling around on top of her and he reached out to rap his knuckles against the top of her backward-facing baseball cap. “Hel-lo! Letting fat old guys do whatever they want to you with their pudgy damp hands? Be glad you don’t have the stuff.”
“Yeah, well, easy for you to say. I bet you could make a bundle.” She gave him a jaundiced once-over. “It must be nice to be gorgeous.”
He made a face at the latter comment, but warmed inside all the same at the thought of someone thinking he was good-looking. He also perked up at the idea of making some money. He was down to his last twelve dollars. “Women will pay for sex?” That didn’t sound like such a bad deal. He’d only had sex twice, but he’d liked it.
A lot. P.J. made a rude sound. “Not women, you dumb-shit. Men.”
“No fucking way!” He jumped back, as if the very notion were contagious. “That’s sick.”
“Yeah,” she agreed glumly. “Like I said, the whole deal is really icky.”
“It’s not the sex that sucks, P.J. I’m no big expert, but I’d rank getting laid right up there with hot-fudge sundaes. That’s with girls, though. I’m not into the guy-guy thing.” The mere thought made him queasy.
“Hot-fudge sundaes, huh?” She regarded him with some interest. “I like those. Whaddya wanna bet, though, that only boys get that out of sex? Girls probably end up with mud pies that only look like sundaes.”
“Hey!” He felt vaguely insulted by her assertion until he thought of Beth Chamberlain, with whom he’d shared his first sexual experience. “Well, maybe it is better for guys the first few times.” Then Vanessa Spaulding, an older woman of nineteen who’d taught him a thing or two, popped into his mind. “But if a guy knows what he’s doing, it gets way better.”
“That’s good to know.” P.J. shrugged. “Still, if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon skip the sweaty groping and go straight to the chocolate-covered ice cream.”
He laughed. It was the first thing he’d found remotely amusing since tearing out of the Colorado Springs mansion, and suddenly things didn’t seem quite as scary now that he had someone to hang out with. He gave the young girl a friendly shove to the shoulder. “You’re all right, you know that? I’m glad we met.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JOHN CLIMBED THE EXTERIOR staircase of the six-car garage behind the mansion. Reaching the top, he glanced back over his shoulder toward the kitchen door, which he could just see from his vantage point. Then he turned back and gave the antique brass door knocker several authoritative, decisive raps. Mary, the housekeeper, had told him he’d find Victoria there, and he had no legitimate reason to doubt her. But what would Tori be doing in an apartment over the garage—having a hot and heavy affair with the chauffeur?
Jesus, Ace. Okay, so it didn’t strike him as particularly funny. It should have—considering how much she’d changed over the years, the very notion should have been ironic, or at least marginally amusing. Instead, the mere idea of her getting down and dirty with some faceless man irritated the hell out of him. Which made no sense at all. It wasn’t as if he expected she’d been celibate for the past six years.
All right, that was exactly what he expected. So sue him.
It didn’t help the nascent case of jealousy swirling in his gut that the woman who yanked the door open hardly looked as if getting down and dirty were outside the realm of possibility. Gone was the sheath-and-pearls-attired socialite. In her place stood a familiar barefoot woman clad in a threadbare pair of cutoffs and an oversize white shirt, the tails of which had been knotted at her waist over a lipstick-red sports bra. The shirt looked as if it might have belonged to her father, so long were its tails and so bulky its rolled-back cuffs that ended just below her elbows. And her hair was a wild, sun-streaked, flyaway nimbus floating out from beneath the little red triangular bandana she’d tied behind her head. But it was the ragged threads straggling against her firm, freckled thighs that riveted his attention.
“Can I do something for you, Miglionni, or did you just come up here to stare at my legs?”
He tore his gaze away from the long, smooth, bare expanse. “You gotta admit, they’re ogle-worthy,” he said, meeting her eyes. “Believe it or not, though, I actually did have something to tell you—those beauties just drove whatever it was clean out of my head.” He didn’t plan the grin he flashed her; as with damn near every other time he’d ever been in her company, she drew a reaction from him that was purely spontaneous. “Man, Tori. I’d forgotten how pretty your legs are. You oughtta wear short shorts more often.” He couldn’t stop himself from giving them a final once-over before he made a conscious effort to look elsewhere. No sense giving her any more opportunities to accuse him of sexual harassment.
He glanced past her into the depths of the big open room. A huge worktable, littered with mechanical pencils and blueprints, wood scraps and piles of fabric, stood down near the end of the room. In the midst of the chaos stood two little houses about three feet tall. One was made of balsa wood and was fairly plain, but the other looked very elaborate. Deep shelves behind the table held several other balsa models and one stone one, each in a different style. “Whoa. Are those yours?”
“Yes.”
She relinquished her position blocking the door when he stepped forward and he strode past her, crossing to the table. He saw that the models on the table had an open back and, bending down, he checked out the interior of the ornate one before glancing up at her. “What is this, a dollhouse?”
“Yes.”
He indicated the other. “And this one?”
“It’s the prototype.”
“And you made both of them?” He tipped his chin to include the other prototypes on the shelves. “You made all of these?”
“Yes.”
“Wow.” He gave the one still in progress a more thorough inspection. “I can’t believe the attention to detail. It’s perfect.” It had gingerbread shingles on the roof, a wraparound porch with spindle railings, two balconies and a bay window. Each room was fully realized, from window seats and the tiny oak paneling forming the wainscoting in the parlor, to the old-fashioned wallpaper and white porcelain pedestal sink in the upstairs bathroom. He flipped a switch on a little metal box he saw sitting on the table next to the dollhouse, and minuscule lights within the model came on. Laughter rolled out of his chest. “This is so cool.”