The Lady in Red & Dangerous Deception

by Linda Turner

  “You can be on my team any day of the week,” Sabrina said, chuckling. “You did get your money back, didn’t you?”

  “Every penny,” the older woman said proudly. “The next time that young man decides to go after a senior citizen, he’d better think twice about it. We’re not all old fogies sitting around waiting to die.”

  Her lips twitching, Sabrina promised to include that little tidbit of information in the story. “Well, that’s a wrap, Thelma. Thanks. You want me to call someone to come and get you? I know you weren’t hurt, but finding yourself face-to-face with a mugger would shake up just about anyone. Maybe you shouldn’t drive.”

  Her eyes crinkling, the older woman held out her hand to show her she was steady as a rock. “I’m fine, sweetie,” she confided, “but if you don’t mind, I’m going to see if I can talk one of those good-looking policemen to take me home. I noticed the blonde wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and my niece, Jenny, is looking for a good man.”

  “Well, then, hey, don’t let me get in your way.” Sabrina laughed as she stepped back and motioned for her to preceed her. “Go get him, girl.”

  She was still grinning when Blake strolled over and joined her. Her heart, remembering a kiss she had tried her damndest to forget, knocked out an irregular rhythm in greeting. Annoyed with herself, she lifted a brow at him and gave him a smile guaranteed to set his teeth on edge. “You having a slow day or what, cowboy? These types of stories are usually beneath a superstar like you.”

  His eyes glinting in appreciation of the dig, he shoved his hands in his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. “That’s funny. I was just about to say the same thing about you, sweetheart. And the last I heard, you were the only superstar around here. When I first came here, all anyone ever talked about was the great Sabrina Jones. For a while there, you really had me shaking in my shoes.”

  She might have been pleased if he hadn’t begun the admission with a qualifying phrase. “For a while,” she repeated, her smile tightening ever so slightly. “But not now?”

  Delighted that she’d asked, he grinned. “Do I look like I’m worried?”

  No, he didn’t, she had to admit, irked. In fact, she’d never seen a man who appeared less worried. Loose-limbed and relaxed in jeans and a polo shirt, his dark hair windswept by the afternoon breeze, he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he was concerned about losing their bet at the end of the month, he certainly didn’t show it.

  Perversely irritated, she said, “For your information, Nickels, I happen to know the victim. She called me right after she called the police. Now that we know why I’m here, what’s your excuse?”

  Opting for the truth, knowing she wouldn’t believe him, he teased, “I figured you’d be here, since it was so close to where you live, and I couldn’t pass up the chance to see you again. We haven’t talked much the last week. Did you miss me?”

  “Like a dog misses a flea,” she tossed back, not batting an eye. “Why don’t you do us both a favor and go back to sports? This town’s not big enough for the two of us to both cover crime.”

  “Then we’ve got a problem,” he said with a chuckle, “because I’m not going anywhere. Anyway, I kind of like running into you just about everywhere I go.” Her words suddenly registering, his grin broadened. “Why, Jones, you had me checked out! I’m touched.”

  She laughed, she couldn’t help it, and cursed her slip of the tongue. Damn the man, did he have to be so charming? Lifting her chin, she said, “Don’t go jumping to conclusions. Of course I checked you out. I’m a reporter. That’s what I do for a living.”

  She might as well have saved her breath. “Yeah, yeah,” he teased. “That’s what they all say. Why don’t you just admit it, honey? You’re crazy about me.”

  “Me and half the female population of S.A.,” she retorted, going along with him. “I bet you can’t go anywhere without beating the women off with a stick.”

  His green eyes dancing, he shrugged modestly. “It’s rough, Jones, but I somehow manage to make time for all of them. Shall I pencil you in for Saturday night? It’s the only night I’ve got free this week.”

  “And I’m busy. Darn! Isn’t that the pits?”

  “Yeah,” Blake drawled, enjoying himself. “I can see you’re real broke up about it.”

  “Oh, I am,” she claimed with mock seriousness that was ruined by the smile that tugged insistently at her lips. “I just don’t know how I’ll get through the rest of the day.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage. You can always bury yourself in your work.”

  “True,” she agreed. “And speaking of work, I guess I’d better get back to it.” Reaching up, impish mischief sparkling in her eyes, she dared to pat him on the cheek. “See you around, Nickels.”

  Letting her go, Blake grinned. Little witch. It would serve her right if he snatched her up and laid a kiss on that beautiful mouth of hers. But the next time he kissed the lady—and there would be a next time; he had no doubts about it—he wanted her all to himself, preferably in a dark, secluded place where he could take his time with her. Then they’d see just who was crazy about whom. But for now, there was work to do.

  It didn’t take him long to get Thelma Walters’s side of the story—thoroughly enjoying the attention, she was only too eager to talk about the mugging. Her attacker, however, was a little more tight-lipped; the arresting officer had to supply the thug’s name and the information that he had a long record.

  Armed with that, Blake had all he needed. And so, apparently, did Sabrina. He saw her heading for her car, which was parked around the corner near his, and fell into step beside her. “Now that we’re through with that,” he said easily as they rounded the corner, “why don’t we grab something to eat? I know this great little Chinese place right down the street.”

  “Sorry, Nickels. I can’t. I—”

  Whatever she was going to say next seemed to stick in her throat. Puzzled, Blake frowned down at her. “You okay, Jones? You’re looking a little strange around the gills.”

  Strangling on a laugh, she said, “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t laugh. It’s really not funny—”

  “What?”

  Unable to manage another word, she only shook her head and pointed down the street. His eyes following the direction of her finger, Blake didn’t see anything at first to explain her amusement. Then his gaze landed on his pickup.

  Someone had set it up on blocks and stolen the two rear tires.

  “Dammit to hell!”

  Sabrina tried, she really did, to summon up some sympathy, but she was fighting a losing battle. Muffled laughter bubbling up inside her like a spring, she bent over at the waist and buried her face in her hands, whooping for all she was worth. “I’m sorry,” she choked, giggling as she wiped at the tears that streamed from her eyes. “Really, I am! But if you could just see your face…”

  He scowled at her, and that set her off again. “Stop it, Blake. You’re killing me!”

  “I ought to kill you,” he retorted, his lips twitching in spite of his best efforts to appear stern. “What kind of neighborhood is this, anyway? Those were brand-new tires!”

  “Well, I should hope so.” She laughed. “What’s the point of stealing old ones? Dammit, Blake, don’t you know better than to drive a new truck into this part of town?”

  “Apparently not,” he said dryly. “I guess I’ll have to get an old clunker like yours.”

  Smirking, she retorted, “At least I don’t get my tires stolen in the middle of the day. C’mon, I’ll give you a ride to my place and you can call a wrecker from there. It looks like you’re going to need one.”

  She’d only meant to offer a helping hand to make up for laughing, but the minute Blake followed her inside her house, she knew she’d made a mistake in bringing him there. The small two-bedroom home her grandmother had given her when she’d married husband number five was her personal space, a retreat from work and crime and the senseless violence she m
ade a living from in the streets. As she watched Blake look around the living room with interest, she knew she would see him there long after he left.

  Panic hit her then, right in the heart, shaking her. Lord, what was wrong with her? He had kissed her one stinking time—one time—and she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head since. She had to stop this, dammit! She wasn’t the type to moon over a man, especially one like Blake Nickels, and she wasn’t going to start now. Still, she couldn’t help noticing how right he looked in her house.

  You’re losing it, Sabrina. Really losing it. Shaking her head over her own fanciful thoughts, she motioned to the old-fashioned, Forties-style rotary on the small table at the far end of the couch. “The phone’s right there. It’ll probably take a tow truck a while to get here. Would you like some iced tea while you’re waiting?”

  “Oh, don’t go to any bother,” Blake began, but he might as well have saved his breath. She was already gone, heading for the kitchen as if the hounds of hell were after her. Staring after her, his lips twitched into a smile. He’d never seen her nervous before, but she was showing definite signs of it now. And he had to ask himself why. If he’d been the conceited type, he might have wondered if it had something to do with him.

  Grinning at the thought, he strode over to the phone and called information for the number to the garage down the street from his apartment. Placing the call, it took him only minutes to explain the situation and request a tow truck.

  Sabrina was still in the kitchen when he hung up, and he couldn’t resist the urge to look around. Reasoning that he wasn’t going to go through her drawers or anything, he found himself wandering over to the photographs that covered nearly all of one wall. Most of them were wedding pictures taken over the course of what looked like half a century, if the style of dress of the wedding guests was anything to go by.

  “They’re something else, aren’t they?” Sabrina said as she returned to the living room with a glass of iced tea in each hand. Strolling over to him, she handed him his glass and nodded at the picture of a beaming older couple he was studying. Standing on the deck of a ship before a judge, they were dressed in full scuba gear, complete with masks. “That’s Grandma and Grandpa Bill,” she said, smiling fondly. “Number four.”

  “Number four?” Blake repeated, lifting a brow in inquiry. “Number four what?”

  “Husband number four,” she explained. “Grandma likes to get around.”

  His brow climbed higher at that. “Your grandmother’s been married four times?”

  “No, actually it was five at last count. Well, six, if you count Grandpa Mason,” she amended. “She married him twice.”

  Amazed, Blake turned back to the wedding pictures and frowned, unconsciously counting them. “But there’s more than six wedding pictures here.”

  “Oh, not all of those are Grandma.” She laughed. “The rest are Mama. She favors Grandma a great deal, don’t you think? In fact, Grandpa Harry said the two of them looked so much alike that they could have passed for twins if they’d been closer in age. It’s a shame he and Grandma didn’t stay together. I really liked him. But he had this daughter who couldn’t stand Grandma, so that was the end of that.”

  “He divorced her?”

  She nodded. “Six months after they married. Grandma was heartbroken until Chester came along.”

  “Then why is his picture still with the rest? I would have thought she’d have tossed it out.”

  “Oh, Grandma doesn’t hold grudges. Once your picture goes up on the wall, you’re up there for life.”

  Blake almost laughed. She had to be kidding. But there was no question that the wedding pictures were legit. Frowning, he said, “Just for the record, how many times have your mother and grandmother been married?”

  Sabrina didn’t even have to count. “Eight and holding—if you don’t count Grandpa Mason twice. Of, course, things could change at any time. Mom’s in Alaska with Hank right now, and Grandma’s touring the country with Grandpa George, and I haven’t heard from any of them in a while. If there’s a shift in the wind, who knows what can happen?”

  It wasn’t something to brag about, but Sabrina had learned a long time ago not to apologize for it, either. Her mother and grandmother were what they were, and there was nothing she could do to change that. At this late date, she wouldn’t even try, but there were times, like now, when she could use their atrocious number of divorces to make a point.

  “The women in my family are very good at saying ‘I do,’” she said quietly. “They’re just lousy at commitment, and it’s not even something they can help. It’s a defective gene, and the only cure for it is not to get married.”

  Her tone was light, amused, almost facetious, but as she watched Blake frown, she knew he’d gotten the message. If he was looking for a relationship, he could look somewhere else. She wasn’t interested.

  Chapter 5

  She should have been pleased that she’d made her point and he didn’t give her an argument about it. But long after Blake left with the tow-truck driver who stopped by to give him a ride to the garage where he would take his pickup, Sabrina stood in her front yard, frowning as she stared down the street after him. She felt sure he wouldn’t try to kiss her again. Why didn’t that bring the relief she’d expected it to?

  “Somebody having trouble?” Louis asked as he passed by on the sidewalk with his Lab, Lady. “I thought I saw a tow truck stop here.”

  Jerking out of her musings, Sabrina summoned a smile. “Oh, hi, Louis. Yeah, there was a wrecker here. Mrs. Walters was mugged at the ATM on McCullough when a mugger tried to rob her. While Blake and I were covering the story, somebody stole the back tires off his pickup.”

  “In broad daylight?” Louis exclaimed. “And no one saw anything?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” Sabrina said dryly. “A mockingbird can’t land on the back fence without old lady Charleston seeing it two blocks over, so I thought I’d ask around and see what I could find out. If you happen to see two slightly used Michelins lying around while you’re walking Lady, let me know, will you?”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open,” he promised. “But if I were you, I’d check first with that Gomez kid down on the corner. From what I’ve seen, he’s a little thug. The police have already questioned him a number of times about several robberies in the area. Stealing tires sounds like something that’d be right up his alley.”

  Sabrina nodded. She’d been thinking the same thing herself. “You might be right. I think I’ll check him out right now.”

  “Be careful,” he warned as Lady grew impatient and started to tug him farther down the street. “With someone like that, you never can be sure of what he’s capable of.”

  That might have been true of someone else, but Sabrina had known Joe Gomez since he’d been in grade school. Despite the fact that he was a gang member with a reputation for stealing just for the heck of it, he had a twisted code of ethics when it came to robbing his own neighbors. He just didn’t do it. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t know who did.

  Heading up the street, she approached the Gomez house cautiously, more out of respect for Killer, the Rottweiler that was usually chained to the tree in the front yard, than because of any fear of Joe. The dog, however, was nowhere in sight. Relieved, she strode boldly up onto the front porch and knocked on the weathered siding next to the wrought-iron grillwork that covered the front door.

  Deep in the bowels of the old wood-frame house, she heard Killer’s fierce growl and a terse command to knock it off. Then Joe was opening the door and looking at her as if he’d just found his favorite centerfold on his threshold. Seventeen and full of himself, he propped a shoulder against the doorjamb and looked her up and down with wicked, dancing eyes. “If you’ve come to borrow a cup of sugar, I’m the only sweet thing in the house.” Grinning, he held his arms wide. “Take me. I’m yours.”

  Sabrina laughed and shook her head at him. It was an old joke between them, his f
lirting with her, and she never took him seriously. She liked his sense of humor and enjoyed jawing with him, but even if he hadn’t been ten years her junior, she wouldn’t have been interested in Joe. The teenage girls that followed him around like puppies might be impressed with his flagrant macho antics, but Sabrina didn’t find them the least attractive and would have never stood for them from any man, young or old.

  “Sorry, Joe, but I’m on a diet. No sweets allowed.”

  “Well, hell, honey, don’t let that stop you. Cheat.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said, grinning. “Anyway, that’s not why I’m here.”

  Just that quickly, his smile vanished. “Oh, boy, here it comes,” he groaned. “The third degree about that mugging over on McCullough.” Glancing over his shoulder to make sure his grandmother had heard nothing of the conversation, he quickly stepped outside and shut the door behind him. “You think I had something to do with it, don’t you? Just because I knew old lady Walters stopped there every Monday to get money for her bratty grandson doesn’t mean I told anyone about it.”

  Amused, Sabrina lifted a brow at him. “You sound just the teensiest bit defensive, Joe. Did I accuse you of anything?”

  “No, but—”

  “Should I be accusing you of anything?”

  “No!”

  “Then what’s the problem? The mugger was caught. I just wanted to talk to you about some tires.”

  “Tires?” he echoed, frowning. “Now what would I know about tires?”

  Another reporter might have been fooled by the scowl and innocent tone he adopted in the blink of an eye, but Sabrina had known him too long to be taken in by such a display. Grinning in appreciation of the act, though, she said lightly, “Oh, nothing. I just thought you might put the word out for me that two Michelins taken off a certain black, 4X4 Chevy pickup belonged to a friend of mine.”