by Cara Summers
Cilla waited three beats, then sighed. “Compromise time.”
He smiled at her. “I’m ready to negotiate, as long as you’re my personal bodyguard until we figure out what’s going on.”
“And stop it.”
His expression sobered. “Yes.”
“We need some ground rules. I don’t sleep with clients—as much as I might want to. Or as much as the client might want me to. During the last job I worked in L.A., the client believed our security service should provide some side benefits.”
He caught her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to understand. Whatever it is we’ve got going between us has to take a backseat until we figure out who’s sending those notes.”
“We can put what we’re feeling in the backseat. That doesn’t mean it will stay there.”
She saw the humor in his eyes again, and it didn’t help that she had quite a vivid image of the two of them in the backseat of a car, their limbs tangled. It helped even less that she knew he was thinking the same thing, and she had no one to blame but herself for the expression.
“Look. We’re both adults. We stayed away from each other for nearly a month. From now until we get your note sender, our relationship has to be strictly professional—security agent and client.”
“It’s a reasonable ground rule. I’ll agree with one modification. I won’t be sidelined. I want to be kept informed of everything you know, and I want to be part of running down leads. I don’t like threats, and if I’m not working with you, I’ll be working on my own. Until this is over, we’re partners.”
“Gabe won’t like it.”
“Gabe will have to live with it. Will you?”
“As long as we agree that when it comes to any kind of imminent threat, I take the lead.”
“Unless I have a better idea.”
“We won’t always have time for negotiations,” she warned.
“True. But I followed your lead earlier this evening. And there is a chance that I might on occasion have a better idea.”
Since it was the best deal she was going to get, she nodded. “Okay. But I’m going to take the lead on this one. I’m going to have someone from G.W. Securities outside watching when I leave tonight.”
“Agreed.”
She took out her cell and checked the schedule he’d sent her. “And if we’re going to be working on this together, I get to go where you go—everywhere you go, including business meetings.”
He grinned at her. “You’re going to cause quite a stir in the men’s room.”
“Not funny. You need to decide how you’re going to explain me to your partners, Stanley Rubin and Carl Rockwell, when I show up with you at the St. Francis Hotel tomorrow. Unless you want them to know about your problem.”
The reminder didn’t wipe the grin from his face, but it did make his eyes darken. And it only took him a few beats to come up with a solution.
“Carl Rockwell already knows you’re from G.W. Securities, and I’ll tell Stanley I’m taking precautions because of the attempted mugging.” He refilled their glasses, then handed her one before he raised his in a toast. “Now let’s drink to our partnership.”
LESS THAN EIGHT HOURS later, Cilla stood with Jonah looking through a two-way glass as Detective Joe Finelli questioned the man she’d kicked with her red shoe. They’d already watched his interview with the skinny guy, Lorenzo Rossi. Chubby’s name was Mickey Pastori, known to his friends as Mickey P., and the shiner he was sporting paid tribute to the punch she’d given him. The public defender assigned to his case looked tired—as if she’d been rousted out of bed at a very early hour.
Cilla could sympathize with that since she’d gotten the call from Detective Finelli at 7:00 a.m. Both Rossi and Pastori had consulted with their Public Defenders and claimed they wanted to cooperate. She’d debated notifying Jonah, but a deal was a deal. He’d been very explicit about wanting to be in on everything.
So he was here right now in an observation room listening to Joe Finelli tell Mickey P. to take it from the top one more time.
She flicked a glance at Jonah’s reflection in the glass that looked into the interrogation room. His attention seemed totally focused on Mickey P. She wished it were that easy for her to concentrate on the interrogation. But she was so aware of him standing only inches away from her. Each time she took a breath, she inhaled his scent. And if he made a move to touch her…
No. The problem was that after a night on her couch—a night in which Jonah Stone had invaded her dreams every time she’d managed to slip into sleep—she was the one who wanted to touch him.
“I don’t know nuthin’,” Mickey P. whined.
“I still need to hear it from the top again,” Finelli said.
Cilla shifted her gaze back to the interrogation room. She’d worked with partners before, and she’d find a way to work with Jonah Stone. Or around him. And she wasn’t going to let her thoughts stray to being wrapped around him, or underneath him.
Stop it. Ruthlessly, she shoved the images out of her mind. He was following her ground rules. So far, he’d even let her take the lead. Last night, he’d allowed her to check out his apartment, including the security, and this morning he’d waited for her knock on his door before he’d opened it and stepped out. He’d offered no objection when she’d insisted that they use her car to get to the police station. In short, he was being Mr. Perfect Client.
She looked over at his reflection again. This time he met her eyes in the glass. And any idea of Jonah as a client, perfect or not, vanished. There was such heat in his gaze that she was amazed it didn’t burn a hole right through the glass. And everything else suddenly faded just as it had the first time he’d looked at her.
“This is not working.” He took her arm and turned her before she could think. Before she could breathe.
“I need a kiss,” he said as he framed her face with his hands. “Give me one.”
Heat flooded her system and her mind began to empty. The man had fast moves. She should have remembered that. “But…ground rules.”
“You’ll have to agree, I’ve followed them so far.”
“Yes.” She had to move. But the brain cells that controlled motion had evidently been the first ones to shut off. His were still working. He’d gripped her shoulders and somehow moved her against the wall.
“I should get points for being good so far. And if I’m going to listen to one more word of Mickey P.’s whining excuses, I need a reward.”
Then his mouth was on hers. The kiss was hard, demanding, everything she’d been imagining since the last time. She couldn’t think, no longer remembered that she should. Suddenly, she could move again. Her arms wrapped around him and she pressed closer. She had to get closer.
Yes, Jonah thought as he molded her against the wall. The desire to kiss her had been building since she’d picked him up at his apartment. No—since she’d left the night before. And as they’d stood in the tiny observation room watching Joe Finelli question the two thugs, desire had intensified until he needed the kiss the way a starving man needed food, or a man dying of thirst needed water. He didn’t understand it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
What he wanted was Cilla. Only Cilla. He ran his hands down her quickly, wishing he had more time, taking what he could get. But when he heard Finelli’s voice again from the interrogation room, he pulled back. If he didn’t, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to.
Still, he couldn’t completely let her go. For one more moment, he held her close and rested his forehead against hers. “Thanks,” he managed. “Now I’ll go back to being good again.”
For how long? If she’d been sure her voice was working, Cilla would have asked the question out loud. But there was a part of her that didn’t want him to be good. As Jonah moved away, she concentrated on making sure her legs carried her back to the glass window.
Inside the room, Mickey P. said, “Lorenzo is the one you should be ta
lking to. I just agreed to go along because of the money. Easy-peasy. That’s the way Lorenzo described the job. Five hundred in advance and another five when the job was done.”
As he whined on, his story didn’t change. The driver of the van had hired them. Mickey P. didn’t even know who the guy was except that he called himself Tank. They were to wait for Jonah Stone to arrive at his club and rough him up a bit.
“No one was supposed to be with him,” Mickey P. complained to Finelli.
“Several witnesses saw your pal, the driver, take a shot at Mr. Stone,” Finelli said.
“I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout that,” Mickey P. insisted. “Shooting Stone was not part of the deal.”
“Then why did you bring a gun and threaten Mr. Stone with it?”
“If he’d been alone, I wouldn’t have had to use the gun. We were just going to scare him, take him into the alley and punch him a few times. But we had to get the woman out of the way. Then she kicked me.”
“Spoilsport,” Jonah murmured beside her.
“All part of the service.” She didn’t look at him. She didn’t dare. And she wasn’t going to look at his reflection, either.
“Think Mickey P.’s telling the truth?”
Cilla considered that. Lorenzo Rossi had claimed just as much ignorance as Mickey P. He only knew the driver of the van as Tank. A tall, broad-shouldered guy with a gray buzz cut had walked into a bar where he and Mickey usually hung out and hired them for a dream job. All they had to do was rough up Jonah and the payoff was one grand. Both Mickey P. and Lorenzo had rap sheets, but they were small-time.
“What’s your gut instinct?” Jonah prompted.
In the room in front of her, Mickey P. groaned about a headache.
“I think they’re both essentially telling the truth. Joe will keep after them for a while, and Lorenzo may eventually remember more about this Tank person. But something about their story rings true.”
She looked at him then. “What does your gut tell you?”
“Same thing,” he said without hesitation. “Neither one of them are Einsteins. They went for the easy money. Neither of them counted on you, and neither has the ability to think on their feet.”
“That would jibe with my take on it,” Detective Finelli said.
They both turned to him as he entered the room. “Except I wouldn’t mention either of them in the same sentence with Einstein. I’ve got a couple of men calling other precincts to see if anyone’s heard of this Tank. I’m thinking he’s pretty small-time, too. And the license plates on the van are a dead end. They were reported stolen yesterday afternoon.”
“So the large man with the short gray hair who goes by ‘Tank’ could be behind the notes or he could be working for someone else,” Cilla said. “And since Skinny and Fatso are a few bologna sandwiches short of a picnic, we’re probably not any closer to finding out who that person is, or if Tank’s behind everything.”
Finelli shot a grin at Jonah. “She’s real good at summarizing the bad news. How about you? You’ve had all night to think about it. You got any thoughts about who sent the notes?”
Jonah had given it some thought. He’d had no choice since Cilla had assigned him to make a list of anyone he might remember who could have a grudge against him going back to the days when he’d been in foster care. But his mind had frequently slipped back to Cilla. In fact he wasn’t sure whether it was the note or the woman standing beside him that had stolen more of his sleep. He felt a little better now that he’d kissed her, but he wasn’t at all sure how long he could wait to do it again.
“I’ve made a list for Cilla of people who might have it in for me, but I don’t think the note sender is on it. None of them feel right. We’ll just have to keep working on it. What’s next?”
Finelli inclined his head toward the glass. “I’ll keep working on them. And we’ll keep looking for the van. If you want to hang around, I can offer you both some very bad coffee.” He grinned at Cilla. “But if I remember correctly, that’s one of the reasons you quit being a cop and went private.”
“One of many,” Cilla said. “I’m going to take Jonah to G.W. Securities so we can discuss what we know and strategize. The coffee’s excellent there.” Then she gave Finelli a hug. “Thanks for letting us watch. I’d appreciate it if you’d keep me posted.”
“Ditto,” Finelli said. Then he nodded at Jonah. “You’re working with the best.”
Jonah didn’t need convincing. As they threaded their way through the desks in the bull pen, he noted that a couple of the uniforms waved at her. That didn’t surprise him. As soon as she’d left his apartment the night before, he’d given in to the temptation to check into her background—something he’d avoided doing for nearly a month. She’d put in three years on the SFPD and she seemed to be well liked here.
He’d also checked into the agency she’d worked for in L.A. It was small and specialized in providing discreet personal security for celebrity clients. He’d also located the story Gabe had told him about the client whose life she’d saved. But there’d been nothing about the one who’d expected side benefits.
“So, besides the lure of greener pastures, better coffee and your five-year plan, why did you go the Charlie’s Angels’ route and move to L.A.?”
She laughed then. “Don’t I wish I’d become one of Charlie’s Angels. They always looked like they were having such fun. They got interesting cases, they got to go undercover and they always had Charlie and Bosley watching their backs. Maybe I had that in mind, but the real world is very different. Mostly I got to babysit the spoiled teen idol crowd.”
He took her arm and waited until she met his eyes. “Was it one of the teens who wanted side benefits?”
“Yeah. But he didn’t get them, and that case is history. Plus, I got a better offer from Gabe.”
Her tone was offhand, but the increased tension in her body told him that was just the surface story. He was willing to bet there was a deeper one. He’d have it when the time was right.
The desk sergeant hailed them as they passed her desk. “Ms. Michaels. A delivery service just left this for Mr. Stone. I saw his name next to yours on the sign-in sheet.”
There was a coldness in Jonah’s gut as he looked at the small green box tied with a red bow.
“What delivery service?” Cilla asked.
“Some private one,” the sergeant said. “He asked me to sign a clipboard.”
“What did he look like?” Cilla pressed.
“Tall, broad-shouldered, short gray hair. I’d say he was in his late fifties.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.”
“Sounds like our man Tank.” Cilla hurried Jonah quickly into the street and scanned it. Because of the early hour, the pedestrian traffic was thin. “Dammit. There’s no sign of him. No sign of that van.”
Jonah waited until they were near Cilla’s car before he opened the box. Then he lifted out the note and held it so they could read it together.
Four nights and counting… Have you remembered yet why you’re going to have to pay? You have some time left. But even in this most joyous of seasons, peaceful interludes are short.
Cilla took out her cell. “I’ll let Joe know.”
7
SHE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE coffee, Jonah had to admit. It was very good. She’d poured a generous mug for each of them before she’d excused herself and left him standing in front of her desk.
G.W. Securities occupied the top floor of a modern-looking building. Cilla’s corner office offered a spectacular view of the Golden Gate Bridge and was spacious enough to hold a gleaming conference table as well as a cozy sitting area with a leather sofa and two chairs.
Her desk was meticulously clean and bare of any photos or mementos. The office clearly belonged to Priscilla. But on the only solid wall hung a painting where red, yellow and purple pansies exploded in bursts of color. That was Cilla. In the bright colors, he saw a visual representation of the energy that always simmered inside of her
.
Initially, it had surprised him that she was an ex-cop. But the part of her that he was coming to think of as Priscilla would have made an excellent cop with her focus and her attention to detail. Before they’d left the police station, she’d checked her car for a bomb. And she’d kept her eye out to see if anyone followed them the short distance to her office. So had he, and he hadn’t spotted anyone.
But he also hadn’t spotted a tail on the way to the police station. And the Tank person must have followed them. Otherwise, how would he have known to deliver the note there? He didn’t like the idea of that, and he had a pretty good idea that she didn’t, either.
Through the other three glass walls, he noted some of the staff and agents settling in at their desks. He sipped coffee as he watched her turn the green box with the red ribbon over to Mark Gibbons. She’d introduced him when they’d arrived. Jonah recalled that he was one of the two men she’d wanted to assign to him, but it was only when he’d seen Mark that he’d recognized him as an agent who’d worked for Gabe in the Denver office. Gabe had hired him about six years ago when Jonah had left G.W. Securities to open Pleasures.
Tall with a swimmer’s build, Gibbons had thinning hair and a neat goatee that was just beginning to show signs of gray. Cilla was assigning him the task of hand delivering the box and note to a lab G.W. Securities used here in San Francisco.
On the short drive over from the police station, she’d filled Jonah in on her plans to do that much. She’d also put in a call to David Santos, the other agent she’d mentioned. She was going to put him in charge of tracking down the people Jonah had written on his possible enemies list. Locating them would be the first step. If they were alive and well and otherwise occupied, they could be crossed off.
All of which would take time, probably more than his ticking four-night clock would allow them. They hadn’t talked about the latest note. Not yet. He was fine with that. Her silence during the drive had given him time to think.
In his mind, he pictured each of the notes. There was something in the messages that he was still missing. Six nights, then five and now four. It was December 21 and kids everywhere had started their countdown to Christmas a long time ago. Why had the writer of the notes waited to begin with day six?
