This Heart for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Let go of me.” The words were emotionless and detached.

  Logan dropped his hand and stepped back.

  She didn’t trust herself to say anything to him just now. Not until she managed to get her emotions under control. She’d underestimated her own feelings and come here seriously underarmed. That was hubris, but it wouldn’t happen again.

  Next time, she’d be prepared.

  Jessica thought she heard Logan softly cursing to himself as she walked away.

  It was a good sign, she told herself.

  Chapter 3

  Like the pillaging peasants running through the streets of Paris at the height of the Revolution, Jessica’s emotions ran riot as she got behind the wheel of her car. She found herself jabbing her key into the ignition as she tried to ignore them. Seeing Logan again at such close quarters was a hell of a lot more difficult for her than she’d thought it would be. Seeing him and remembering the history that had gone down between them.

  And the history that hadn’t.

  Her hands tightened on the wheel as it purred to life. Hopefully, she’d experienced the worst of it. Now she knew just how badly he could still unnerve her.

  The trouble was, if she took this case, she knew she was going to have to listen to sporadic lectures about this, erupting from Albert’s lips at the drop of a hat. It was a great deal to endure for someone she was trying to permanently work out of her system.

  But beneath the wild fluttering at the pit of her stomach, she found something, deeper in her gut, that told her this was on the level. Logan was getting death threats, and he did need to be protected despite himself. He might think that he was above all this, but she knew better. People did ugly things when it came to money. And no matter what Logan thought, he wasn’t invulnerable.

  Jessica sighed as she guided her car through the gates and off the grounds.

  He snapped to attention the instant he saw her car emerging between the two tall, imposing black gates across the street. It had taken her long enough.

  He narrowed his dark eyes in concentration as she drove by, sliding down in the worn seat of his beige, nondescript car so that she wouldn’t see him.

  Not that she was looking for him.

  Yet.

  Smiling, he turned the key in the ignition, preparing to follow a discreet distance away. He was glad the rain had started again. It would help shield him.

  A slow, mournful tune came from his tape deck as the current met it. A funeral dirge.

  Fitting, he thought.

  Excitement pumped through his veins. He turned the car around. It was beginning.

  Albert jumped to his feet the minute Jessica walked into the outer office, his reflexes snapping to attention as if they were connected to the hinges of the door. One look at her flushed face had him scowling. He crossed to her quickly.

  “My God, he’s made you cry already.”

  She should have known Albert would think that. “No, he did not make me cry.” Sniffing, Jessica tossed the crumpled tissue into Albert’s wastebasket as she passed by it. “You know my sinuses always act up whenever the weather gets like this.”

  It annoyed her to feel anything but healthy. She didn’t have the time or the patience to be sick. It only got in her way. She was never more content than when she was on the go, caught in perpetual motion. By design, she’d long since forgotten how to relax.

  Exhaling, Jessica tried to compose herself. She dabbed at her eyes with another tissue, hoping the tearing would stop as suddenly as it started. She had to look like a sight to Albert. All in all, this wasn’t shaping up to be one of her better days.

  Jessica took the list of board members that Dane had given her out of her purse and handed it to Albert. “See if you and your magic computer can dig up the financial statements and any other useful information on these people.”

  Curious, Albert scanned the list quickly. The names meant nothing to him. He looked down at Jessica. “Who are they?”

  “Members of the board of directors at Buchanan Technology and IT-International Technologies,” she elaborated when he stared at her blankly.

  “Oh, IT.”

  Albert glanced at the list again. Anyone who read the newspapers knew the front-runner in the aerospace industry. International Technologies had been in the news one way or another for the past five years. Absorbing its competition like a giant, insatiable amoeba.

  He put the list on his desk next to his computer. “Looking for anything in particular?”

  Yes, a way to solve this quickly. She shrugged, nonchalantly she hoped. “Maybe just a desperate person, maybe a possible murderer.”

  Reaching her doorway, she turned around to look at him. For a second she debated telling Albert only what was necessary and keeping the rest to herself. But Albert was more than just a secretary. She relied as heavily on him as she would have a partner. Maybe more because she liked him.

  “Someone is sending death threats to Logan.”

  Moving as bonelessly as he appeared to be at first glance, Albert slid into his chair and turned the computer monitor toward him. His expression was completely innocent when he asked, “Would it be considered totally unethical to root for the other side for a change?”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or upbraid him. She refrained from both. “Totally.”

  Albert pressed his lips together a second, as if mourning the decision. They almost disappeared altogether. “Pity.”

  This time Jessica bit back a laugh. Good old Albert. At bottom, he was probably more loyal than most pets.

  Though she knew there was probably a diatribe about this lurking somewhere and she was better off just retreating, vague curiosity had her pushing the envelope a little.

  Leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, she studied him. “Why do you dislike him so much, Albert? You never met the man.”

  Albert spared her a short glance before looking at the screen again. “I don’t dislike him,” he corrected crisply. “I loathe him.”

  How many people still used that word with a straight face? she wondered. “Why?”

  With a click of a key, he loaded the program he wanted. “Because you never got over him.”

  She knew Albert was just being protective, but there were times when he got a little too carried away. Like now. She didn’t like the assumption he made. It was too close to the one haunting the perimeters of her mind.

  “I get over everything, Albert. Colds, flu and Logan Buchanan.”

  Albert didn’t bother looking up from his computer screen. His fingers flew across the keyboard as if they had a life of their own. Quite possibly, she mused, they did.

  “Then why,” he asked, his voice accusingly low, “aren’t you on a bruise ship right now? Why do you insist on getting yourself involved in this instead? God knows you don’t need the money.”

  “Because working is far more interesting than lying around.” She loved pitting herself against puzzles and mysteries, loved putting the tiny, broken pieces together to form a clear whole. She’d had a natural aptitude for it and gravitated to criminology in college. Becoming a private investigator seemed inevitable to her.

  “A lot of people would argue with you about that ”

  Though Albert rarely mentioned anything about his past, she sensed that initially they came from two very different worlds. In some ways, hers had been just as trying as his. “A lot of people weren’t made to feel like nonfunctioning ornaments for the first two decades of their lives.”

  She might not know much about Albert’s world, but he knew a great deal about hers. She’d shared most of it with him willingly, albeit piecemeal. She knew he couldn’t argue with her about this.

  Jessica withdrew to her office. “I’ll leave you to do what you do best.”

  She heard him mutter something under his breath, but thought it best to let it go. Probably just another disparaging remark about Logan.

  In the three years since Albert had come to work for her, they had
struck up a strong if somewhat strange relationship. Albert was part secretary, part den mother, part older brother, and invaluable in all three capacities. In general, he behaved more like a member of the family than an employee.

  She opened the bottom drawer and deposited her purse. More honestly, Albert behaved the way she imagined family members who cared about one another behaved. She’d never experienced having a warm, caring family firsthand, so she could only speculate when it came to Albert’s behavior toward her. Her mother had always been dedicated to the institution of marriage, so much so that she ventured into it every chance she got, each time with a progressively younger man than the last. Her father, on the other hand, shunned marriage altogether. He was dedicated to securing and enjoying the charms of as many mistresses as physically possible.

  That had left very little time for her in either of their lives. Filial concern, except for a doting paternal grandmother who had died when she was eight, was something Jessica had very little knowledge of.

  That was probably what had made her so vulnerable to Logan when she had fallen in love with him. Faced with what she thought was love for the very first time in her life, she’d had no natural immunities to fall back on. No defenses to draw on. There’d been no one to educate her that at times love came with thorns the size of roadside construction cones.

  She knew now.

  Opening up the large notebook that contained the very essence of her life within its overflowing pages, she began making notes to herself regarding Logan’s case. She’d barely gotten to the third page when voices coming from the outer office caught her attention. Curious, Jessica laid down her pen and scooted her chair back to get a clear view of the doorway.

  A delivery boy, hardly out of his teens by the looks of him, was just leaving. She didn’t remember telling Albert to order anything.

  “Who was that, Albert?”

  Rather than answer, Albert walked into her office. He was carrying a long, white florist box in his arms.

  “These are for you,” he said, setting the box down on her desk, he opened his hand. “And so are these. Sinus medicine,” he elaborated when she stared at the two white gel capsules nestled in his palm.

  Jessica raised her eyes skeptically to his. “You just happened to be carrying around sinus medicine?”

  He lifted a single thin shoulder and let it fall. It seemed to rustle, lost beneath his loose fitting sweater. “I believe in being prepared.” He took a step toward the doorway, saying, “I’ll get you a glass of water for the pills.”

  Jessica sneezed before she could say thank you.

  “While I’m at it, I’ll make you some tea.” About to leave, he eyed the box he’d just brought in. “Do you want a vase for those, or will you just be throwing them in the trash, where they belong?”

  She slid the bright red ribbon from the box, noting the name on the lid. Giovanni Gardens. Expensive. She dropped the ribbon on the side. “Why would I throw them out?”

  The frown made his thin face appear austere. “Because they’re undoubtedly from him.” There was no mistaking who Albert was referring to. “Obviously he’s started his campaign to weasel his way back into your affections.”

  Albert succeeded in making her laugh again. “Weasel is the last furry creature one thinks of when thinking of Logan Buchanan. Just get me a vase, thanks,” she said as she lifted the lid from the box.

  Sliding back the green tissue paper, she stopped to admire the lush pink roses lying beneath. She touched one, sliding her fingertip down the soft petal. Pink roses had always been her favorite. She wondered if he’d remembered, or if it was just luck.

  Probably the latter. She sincerely doubted she’d left enough of an impression in his life for him to recall her favorite flower.

  Were they the fragrant kind? she wondered. There was nothing she loved better than the scent of roses.

  Jessica reached in to scoop the flowers out and felt something sharp rip into her fingers. The sudden gasp of pain was involuntary as she pulled her hands out quickly. Something sharp ripped at her fingers again as she did so.

  Blood was dripping from three of them.

  Albert came hurrying into the room, carrying a vase. Water sloshed from it. Like two brown shiny marbles, his eyes darted from her to the roses then to her fingers.

  “What happened?”

  A drop of blood fell on the white box. She pressed her thumbs to her fingers to keep from dripping on the desk. “I thought they took the thorns off roses when they sent them.”

  Albert snorted as he set the vase down. “Obviously the man wanted roses sent that fit his personality. I’ve got peroxide in the bathroom.”

  Leave it to Albert. “Of course you do.”

  He pointed toward the ceiling as he hurried out of the room for the peroxide. “Hold your hands up over your head.” It was a direct order.

  “This isn’t a stab wound, Albert. I just have a few scratches.” Scratches that stung like the devil, she thought.

  Annoyed, she turned the box upside down, smearing blood on the sides as she dumped the flowers out on her desk. She wasn’t about to risk getting impaled again.

  Tumbling out along with the roses were what looked like three thick bougainvillea stems. Each stem had thorns along it that were thick enough to be used as medieval weapons of torture.

  There was a small envelope stuck on one of the thorns. Carefully, Jessica pried it loose, then slit the envelope open, leaving a splotch of blood imprinted on it.

  The single line on the white card inside could have come from the same printer that had spewed out Logan’s death threats. It probably did.

  “I can get to you at any time.”

  A cold shiver shimmied down her spine.

  Jessica slipped the card back into the envelope just as Albert returned.

  Noticing the envelope, he deposited peroxide, cotton balls and Band-Aids on her desk. His eyes widened when he saw the bougainvillea stems. “He send his calling card along?”

  She supposed there was probably no point in having the envelope and card examined for prints, but maybe the sender had gotten careless and licked the envelope. DNA was almost as good as prints once they narrowed the list of suspects down.

  Jessica let the envelope drop on her desk. “Logan didn’t send these, Albert.”

  Albert dabbed peroxide on a cotton ball then swabbed it across her fingers. “You’re probably right.... Then who did?”

  “My guess is that it’s the same person who’s been sending death threats to Logan.” At least, that seemed like the logical assumption. “Whoever it is probably wants to scare me off the case.” She frowned. “How did he or she find out so fast?” It didn’t make any sense. She’d only talked to Dane and Logan.

  “Maybe ‘he or she’ didn’t,” he said, mimicking her tone. “Maybe it’s just a hoax, and Buchanan’s doing this to throw you off.”

  Logan might have broken her heart, but she didn’t believe he was capable of inflicting physical pain. Jessica pulled back her finger, taking a Band-Aid from Albert and finishing the job herself.

  “Look at those stems.” She nodded at them, taping up the second finger. “They’re practically lethal.” Gingerly, she picked up the roses and began placing them in the vase one by one. “If I wasn’t convinced that this was on the level before, I am now.”

  Albert sighed with resignation. “You’re keeping them?”

  She smiled, arranging the last rose. “Why not? They’re pretty. Maybe looking at them will give me an idea.” Pushing the vase to one side, she gingerly deposited the offensive stems back into the box, then slid the lid over it before handing it to Albert. “Put that somewhere for the time being. We might want it later. Then get back to the list, Albert. I want every scrap of information you can find on those people. There’s got to be a clue somewhere.”

  As for her, Jessica thought, she was going to call the florist on the off chance that whoever sent these to her got careless and left something for her to
go on.

  Albert sighed and retreated from the room.

  Sitting down at her desk again, she looked thoughtfully at the roses. Something didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it...stabbed or otherwise, she mused wryly, looking at the Band-Aids on her fingers. She pulled the telephone to her and dialed 411 to get the number of Giovanni Gardens.

  “What happened to you?” Logan asked, letting her in after she rang the doorbell.

  He’d waited for her to arrive, cursing himself for feeling like a damnable schoolboy with perspiring palms, anticipating his first tryst. But upbraiding himself didn’t change the way he felt. Anxious. When the limo he’d sent had returned without her, Logan was sure she wasn’t coming, despite the driver’s assurance that Jessica had told him she was driving herself over.

  Once she’d arrived on his doorstep, he had to struggle not to look as pleased as he felt. He’d rushed her last time. Rushed both of them. And then it had all blown up on him. This time the steps he’d take would be slow, sure. For both their sakes.

  But seeing she’d been hurt, he took one of her hands gently in his, studying her fingers, ignoring the new accessories she was sporting.

  He would immediately hone in on the negative, Jessica thought with resigned exasperation. She pulled her hand away.

  Though she’d told herself not to, she’d spent more than a few minutes getting ready for this meeting over dinner. She was going for the careless, knock-’emdead look. Obviously she could have saved herself the time if all he was going to do was look at the Band-Aids on her fingers.

  She turned to look at him in the foyer, wondering why Dane or even the housekeeper, Julia, weren’t there. She felt like a tightrope walker, just beginning her journey along the long, thin wire with a forty foot drop beneath her. “Someone sent me a box of roses today.”

  Moving behind her, Logan coaxed the raincoat from her shoulders. It was slightly damp. “Didn’t the florist take off the thorns?”

  She didn’t like him doing that, taking her coat. It felt too much as if he were undressing her. Memories whispered along her mind. She shut them away.