STOLEN MOMENTS

by Michelle Martin

  "I thought you said she doesn't socialize."

  "She doesn't. Those parties and dinners are strictly business."

  "I'll just bet they are," Duncan said under his breath. The Princess of Pop's life seemed to be compressed into a cramped gilded cage. He glanced through the dresser drawers and found very simple bras and panties, nothing overtly sensual. He doubted if Monroe would have tolerated sexuality impinging on Miss Miller's sweet image. "Anything missing?"

  "Annie says not."

  "What about money? How is Miss Miller fixed for cash or credit cards?"

  "She doesn't have anything with her. I manage her bank accounts and her credit cards. Nothing is missing."

  Duncan doubted if Boyd Monroe had ever let his client even touch one of the credit cards in her name. "What about her passport?"

  "In my room safe."

  "Driver's license?"

  "She doesn't have one."

  Duncan turned inquiringly from the bathroom door. "She can't drive?"

  "She can. I won't let her. She needs a professional driver in case of any kidnapping or car-jacking attempts."

  "Of course," Duncan murmured. Wonderful. Surly and paranoid. He walked into the marble bathroom. A quick scan showed shampoo and conditioner, various lotions and bottles of makeup. Interesting. She hadn't taken her makeup. But she had taken her toothbrush. And her brush and comb. The lady was traveling light.

  "Well, that should do it," Duncan said, walking out of the bathroom and into the bedroom again. "I assume you've canceled your flight and will be staying at the Ritz for now. I'll contact you at least once a day to let you know how I'm progressing on the case. I don't anticipate any difficulties."

  "Just get her back," Monroe said, leading him into the living room, "and get her back fast."

  "Guaranteed," Duncan said smoothly. "If you'll just sign this letter of agreement, I'll be on my way."

  He handed the standard two-page contract to Mr. Monroe, who read it line for line. The words "anal retentive" sprang to Duncan's mind. Thin lips tightly compressed, his new client finally pulled a gold pen from his jacket pocket and signed on the dotted line. The "Hallelujah Chorus" rang out in Duncan's ears. This was even a bigger case than his brother was working on. His father would love the international publicity. His mother would love the cachet of association with the upper echelons of the music industry. Duncan had never had a better win-win situation in his life. Finally he had a chance to prove that he could play by the Colangco rule book and succeed. His dim future began to brighten.

  He tucked the contract back into his pocket, bid his client goodbye, and walked out of the suite. As he stood in the hall waiting for the elevator, his lungs began filling easily with air once again. There was a definite pleasure in leaving Boyd Monroe's company. He hoped Harley Jane Miller was enjoying her freedom while she could. It wouldn't last much longer.

  He hopped a cab for the brief ride back to the Colangco headquarters in the thirty-two-story pre-World War II Sentinel Building on Fifth Avenue

  at East Fifty-fifth Street

  . Duncan did not object to exercise. He was an exercise enthusiast, but he liked to keep it in its proper place and that did not include his working hours. He stepped from the cab and walked under the Sentinel's famed gold-leaf archway and into the equally ornate lobby. He loved this building. Every morning, he blessed his long-departed grandfather for having the vision—and the bootlegged fortune—to build the Sentinel. Unlike his parents' house, this had always felt like home.

  He rode the elevator up to the thirty-first floor and walked through Colangco's glass doors. He began prioritizing his initial investigative activities as he walked silently on deep-pile carpeting down the hall, scarcely noticing that only a third of the offices and cubicles were occupied on this Monday morning. Colangco was an international business and on call twenty-four hours a day, every day of the week, for its clients. His brother Brandon was on a cushy job in Florida. His father was on a job in Denver. That's why the Princess of Pop had fallen into Duncan's lap. He was the only senior company rep in town.

  He walked into his office, but Emma Teng, his assistant, was not sitting at her desk in the small, soothingly decorated outer reception area.

  "Em?" he called.

  "In here," she called from his corner office.

  He walked into the sunlight-flooded room: green leather sofa with matching armchairs to his right, round glass conference table and green chairs in front of him, his teak desk with guest chairs and his credenza with his very expensive computer system to his left. Emma Teng, in a powder blue power suit, sat in his executive chair, feverishly working at his keyboard.

  "Okay, Em, out of the B-and-D chat room and let's get to work."

  "Darn, it was just getting interesting," Emma retorted, grinning as she swiveled his chair around to face him. "You look happy."

  "I am ecstatic," Duncan informed her, leaning against his desk. "I've got a challenge for the first time in two years and the chance to prove to my family once and for all that they're wrong about me."

  "So, it's a good job?" Emma asked.

  "Not as complex as I had hoped, but there's enough of interest to keep me awake for the few hours it will take to crack this case."

  "Won't that be a welcome change."

  Duncan grinned at her. "Emma, you have no idea. What'd you find on our pampered Princess of Pop?"

  "Here's my full report," she said, handing him a computer printout.

  "Thanks. You can start logging in my notes," he said, tossing her his notebook. "We'll do this by the book, just so Dad knows that I know there is a book."

  "You got it," Emma said.

  While she sat in his chair working on his computer, Duncan took a chair at the glass conference table and began making phone calls. All he had to do was trace the cab the impulsive Harley Jane Miller had used the night before, and he was on his way to earning a gold star in the company's month-end report.

  He spoke first with the late night Ritz-Carlton doorman who had held the cab door open for Miss Miller the night before, and whom Boyd had vociferously tried to have fired. Fortunately, the doorman was observant. He was able to give Duncan the cab company name and even a partial cab number.

  "The poor kid," Emma said, still typing into the computer.

  Duncan stopped in mid-dial on his next call. "What's that?"

  "Jane Miller," Emma explained, typing from his notes. "Her life does not sound like a barrel of laughs."

  "It's tough at the top."

  Emma turned around to frown at him. "Haven't you heard that nineties women prefer sensitive, sympathetic guys?"

  "I am not insensitive to Ms. Miller's plight. I might even wish her godspeed if it weren't for the fact that our client wants her back and she has about as much street smarts as a blind puppy. Nor am I fond of spoiled brats."

  "It's hell out there on the party circuit."

  Duncan grinned at Emma. "Tell me about it. It's not that rich bitches are bitchy, it's just that all they want to do is talk about themselves, rather than something interesting, like me."

  Emma laughed and turned back to the computer.

  Duncan called Colangco's contact at the cab company and soon had the home phone number of the driver who had helped the Princess of Pop escape her ivory tower the night before.

  The promise of a hundred-dollar tip went a long way toward loosening the Bronx native's tongue, but still the conversation did not go the way Duncan had expected. He hung up the phone, the middle finger of his right hand tapping frenetically on the glass tabletop.

  "You're frowning," Emma said.

  "What?" Duncan looked up to see Emma sitting on the front of his desk, calmly regarding him.

  "You're frowning," she repeated. "Wasn't the cabbie much help?"

  "Enormous help, just not the way I expected. Guess where he took our naive Princess of Pop once he got her away from the Ritz."

  "Grand Central?"

  "Nope. To one of thos
e Korean-owned all-night drugstores on upper Sixth Avenue

  . She said pick one, and he did."

  "Curious," Emma said, swinging her crossed ankles.

  "I thought so."

  "Was she sick?"

  "The driver said she was tense, but she looked as healthy as a horse when he finally dropped her at the Sheraton Manhattan."

  Emma cocked her head. "What happened to her train ride around the country?"

  "Exactly," Duncan said. "And there's more. She didn't go into the Sheraton Manhattan. She gave the driver a fifty-dollar tip as promised, so he was naturally interested in insuring her welfare. He watched her cross the street and walk into the New York Sheraton and Towers."

  "Curiouser and curiouser."

  Duncan pursed his lips. "There are several points of interest for the trained investigative mind."

  "Tell me more, Holmes."

  Duncan grinned at Emma. "The bit of fluff our client and her manager described to me acted with a certain amount of intelligence to hide her tracks. She did not, in short, act as I expected her to act. That is not merely annoying, it is troubling."

  "What interests me is why she went to the pharmacy. She must have known she could get just about every toiletry she needs in any decent hotel room."

  "Elementary, my dear Watson. She was bent on disguise. Everyone knows what Jane Miller looks like. As Mr. Monroe pointed out, her face is plastered across a Times Square billboard. It's my guess that that worried her. Monroe is certain she'd be mobbed if she was ever recognized, so she must be certain too. Hair dyes and makeup and even reading glasses awaited her in the pharmacy. She could look like a myopic librarian now for all we know. I think it best that we take no chances and assume, at least for now, that our Princess of Pop—while spoiled—may actually have some intelligence. Here," Duncan said, handing Emma the Jane Miller publicity shot, "you'd better run this through the computer and print out every variation of eye color, hair color, hair length, hairstyle, and makeup you and it can come up with. Oh, and add some eyeglasses, just in case."

  "No problem," Emma said, taking the publicity shot.

  "When that's done, I want you to go ahead and check the various trains out of New York last night and this morning. Fax the photos and a description to every train you can, not that it will do us much good."'

  "You think the note she left Monroe was a red herring?"

  "Of the ripest," Duncan said, picking up the phone again. "Four more and I'll be able to tie Peter Wimsey."

  "You're mixing your fictional detectives, boss."

  Duncan smiled at her. "Bless you for being literate."

  While Emma ran the Jane Miller Photo Gallery in her office, Duncan reclaimed his desk and his computer and began hacking into the Sheraton's booking system. He found seven people who had checked into the Sheraton between midnight and two the night before. Three women, four men. He was immediately able to eliminate the wife of one of the male guests.

  But the other two women were strong possibilities: Janet Miller and H. Smith. His father always said to follow the obvious trail, and certainly Janet Miller was a logical alias. So, with visions of wrapping this case up by the end of the day dancing in bus head, Duncan went round to the New York Sheraton and Towers and waited by the elevators on the eighteenth floor. He waited for three hours. When Miss Miller finally appeared and inserted her card key into her room door, she proved a major disappointment. She was not five feet five inches with strawberry blond hair and turquoise blue eyes. She was in her late forties (and that was being generous), stout, and primarily gray haired. Miss Janet Miller was a bust.

  That left H. Smith and unfortunately, according to the computer records, H. Smith had checked out of the Sheraton that morning. The only additional charge to her tab was room service the night before: a cheeseburger, chocolate milk shake, and french fries. Duncan smiled for a moment. Miss Miller demonstrated a certain flair for parental flouting that he could appreciate. He'd once used a parental credit card to replace his Talking Heads collection after his father had methodically destroyed every copy of the group's albums he owned.

  Unfortunately, Miss Miller had not been kind enough to leave a forwarding address. The morning desk clerks could not say where she had gone. Still, a doorman was of help. Studying the dozen computer-generated pictures Emma had produced of Harley Jane Miller in various disguises, the doorman finally recognized her, not with long strawberry blond hair, but with short brown hair. The blue eyes were still a dead giveaway.

  Duncan had Emma run the name H. Smith through all of the midtown, then downtown, then uptown hotel computers. Nothing popped up. That meant more legwork.

  His body might be in peak physical condition and form, but legwork was still anathema to Duncan. He preferred brainwork and computers, but the office was short-staffed on this Monday, it was his job, so it was up to him … and his legs.

  He went from hotel to hotel for the remainder of that morning and well into the afternoon until he found a doorman who recognized his flown pigeon and was willing to admit it. It seemed Miss Miller not only had brown hair, she now had brown eyes. Somewhere, somehow, she had acquired brown contact lenses. The young doorman had admitted her—sans luggage—into the RIHGA Royal Hotel on West Fifty-fourth Street

  at ten-thirty that morning. A quick call to Emma, a little computer hacking, and Duncan soon had Miss Miller's newest alias: Grace Smith. She had used cash to pay for a single night's stay.

  This raised two questions: where the hell had she gotten the money, and did she intend to change hotels every day? If so, it required an upgrade in his opinion of her from smart to highly intelligent. She seemed to be doing everything she could to make it hard for Boyd Monroe—and him—to find her.

  Well, he had been wanting a challenge. He would find her, and no amount of hotel hopping and hair dye would stop him. Further conversation with the RIHGA doorman elicited the information that, immediately after checking into the hotel, Miss Miller had walked right back out of the lobby and into a taxi.

  The pampered Princess of Pop was running wild in the Big Bad City.

  * * *

  Card key tucked into her purse, Harley Jane Miller, alias Grace Smith, walked out of the RIHGA lobby. Heart beating a little fast, she looked up and down the street, but Boyd wasn't lurking nearby. It still surprised her, his absence. She nodded at the young, uniformed doorman and he opened the door of the cab parked right in front of her at the curb.

  "Where to?" the Pakistani driver asked as she slid onto the back seat.

  "It's a clothing store downtown called Canal Jean. It's on Broadway between Broome and Spring streets."

  The taxi blasted into the traffic while Harley hung onto the door-handle for dear life. She still wasn't used to the noisy, hurly-burly cab rides that were so different from the quiet, seamless grace of the limousines she'd been traveling in these last nine years. It was staggering, really, how different her life had become in less than twelve hours.

  Last night she had sung at Madison Square Garden, the energy from the audience practically lifting her three feet off the stage. Then she had climbed into the back of a white limousine with Boyd and had sat there miserable and scared as the limo started back toward the Ritz-Carlton.

  "Just let me take a little time off by myself," she had pleaded after ten minutes of fruitless arguments. "Just two weeks."

  "By yourself?" Boyd had said in disbelief. "You wouldn't last two seconds out there on your own."

  Well, Boyd, I have, and I will.

  Harley huddled down in the back seat as her taxi hurtled around a corner. She had run away from Jane Miller, but what should she run to? The past? It was certainly an option. She had been relatively happy when hard-ass rock and roll had been her life … to her mother's despair. Barbara Miller had wanted Olivia Newton-John for a daughter and had ended up with guttural rebellion rock emanating from her garage. Finally years of guilt at letting down her only parent had stuffed Harley into a frilly dress to sing a tr
eacly love ballad that had thrilled her mother, won the regional talent contest, and attracted the intimidating attention of Boyd Monroe, star maker.

  The irony was not lost on Harley that it was she who had created the image that was now strangling her. Yes, Boyd had demanded that she cultivate that image, and her mother had backed him all the way, and Harley had been too young and inexperienced to argue them down to the career she wanted, not the one Boyd had ruthlessly planned out for her down to the last millisecond. But still, shouldn't she have fought harder, held out somehow, when he insisted on eradicating her name and the music she loved in favor of a delicate flower he named Jane?

  Well, she was fighting now. Yes, she had created the monster, but she had finally escaped it, if only for a little while.

  It took twenty minutes of driving through the Manhattan traffic as if the cabbie's life depended on it, before he jerked the taxi to a stop in front of Canal Jean.

  "Thanks," Harley said, a little breathless from the death-defying trip. She paid him—overtipped him because his medical insurance would never be enough to cover his certain forthcoming accident—and walked into the store. Wow. She felt as if she ought to genuflect or something. There wasn't an inch of lace, or even pastels, to be found anywhere. Everything was black or red or purple or some form of neon. All the clothes she had loved as a teenager and secretly lusted after while she was trapped in Jane Miller's dull sack dresses were here in one store. "Heaven!" she sighed.

  She looked around, her gaze passing over boy clerks and girl clerks dressed in black or grunge flannel until she found what she was looking for: a young woman in purple Doc Martens boots, black stockings, jean miniskirt, and black fishnet top. Her hair was a deep purple, her makeup akin to Kabuki. A Technicolor clerk. Perfect.

  Harley walked up to her before anyone else could grab her. "Hello, Denise," she said, reading the young woman's name tag. "I'm going to need your help for the next few hours."

  The clerk looked her up and down. "This should be fun."