Breathless

by Nancy Warren

  She looked richly pleased with herself. “Well?” she asked, pushing her disordered hair behind her ears.

  “Well what?” If she’d asked him something, he couldn’t for the life of him recall what. He hoped it was some version of “would you like to come up and see my etchings?”

  “Did you get the answer to your question?”

  His question? He must have looked as dim-witted as he felt for she laughed softly.

  “What do I taste like?”

  He licked his lips, as though trying to recall her taste when in reality it was forever imprinted on his memory.

  Her breathing hitched as she watched the gesture.

  He leaned closer. “You taste like…more.”

  She chuckled, deep in her throat, the satisfied sound of a woman comfortable in her own sexual power, and reached for the door handle.

  “Maybe you’ll get another taste some time.”

  He watched her all the way into her building and he could have sworn there was an extra twitch in her tail just to drive him even wilder. His left leg wasn’t the only thing she’d rendered stiff and aching.

  One thing he knew for certain. There’d be no maybe about it. He and his sexy angel had some serious hanky-panky in their future.

  And he was done with tasting. He was ready for the seven-course meal.

  6

  SOPHIE HAD BARELY swallowed her first sip of French roast when her phone buzzed. Something about the tone of the buzz suggested there was bad news on the other end. She slugged a big hit of caffeine as she picked up the receiver. “Sophie Morton.”

  “Sophie? It’s Ruby.”

  Yep, she thought. Her intuition was bang on. Forcing her voice to remain pleasant, she replied, “Good morning, Ruby.”

  “If you hadn’t cancelled our meeting yesterday I could have told you how unreliable Phil Britten is becoming. Comes and goes whenever he pleases, spends far too long on simple paperwork, and he’s pushy. I’m not saying ambition’s a bad thing, but…”

  Sophie mentally calculated when Ruby might retire. She was second only to Ellsworth in business volume and if she invested her own savings as shrewdly as she did her clients’, she must be in good shape.

  She fantasized about Ruby’s retirement party while the complaints continued in her ear. From long experience, she’d learned to let Ruby vent all her complaints with no interruptions save a gentle “Uh-huh,” or “Oh, my goodness,” until the woman simply ran out of energy.

  “This morning he hasn’t even shown up,” she continued. “I’ve got a big client presentation I need his help on.

  No call, no apology, nothing. I don’t know what kind of—”

  Sophie sat bolt upright in her chair, putting her stainless steel vacuum mug down on her desk with a thunk.

  “Did you call Phil at home?” she interrupted, feeling a niggle of unease lodge in her belly. She hadn’t slept well last night, worrying about what she’d overheard, but Detective Barker had all but ordered her to do nothing, and she had to assume the police would be watching Phil. Had they arrested him?

  “Of course I did.” Ruby’s voice was scornful. “I ran this department long before we needed human resources counselors to tell us how to manage staff. I got his answering machine.”

  “Is he often late?” Sophie recalled seeing him a couple of times when she’d come in early to catch up. He’d always been cheerful and wide-awake, sucking on some revolting-looking health drink.

  There was a pause, which was as good as a negative. “Well, no. But he’s very unreliable.” The niggle grew stronger. If Sophie hadn’t overheard him yesterday blackmailing someone she would pass the call off as another example of Ruby’s spite. But she had overheard that conversation yesterday, and then over and over again throughout the night. Was Phil even now packing his bags? Prepared to leave the country with money that didn’t belong to him?

  Detective Barker may have told her to mind her own business and stay out of whatever Phil was involved in. In fact the detective had told her in no uncertain terms to stay out of it. But how could she? If they’d arrested him, wouldn’t she have heard about it?

  She sipped coffee and stared sightlessly ahead. She’d hired Phil for the job that may have lured him into temptation. He was only in his mid-twenties, far too young to throw his future away. Surely she owed it to him to try to talk him out of a life of crime. If she could convince him to go to the police, it would be best for everyone concerned.

  “I’ll try to get hold of him, Ruby. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear something.”

  There was a snort on the other end. “I certainly hope I’ll be hearing about a written warning going in his file.”

  Sophie pulled the receiver away from her ear and stuck her tongue out. It was childish and rude, but it made her feel better. “Let’s find out why he’s late first. Let me know if you hear from him.”

  She took the second snort as a yes, disconnected and then sat staring at the silent phone as though willing it to ring with an apologetic Phil on the phone, calling with a flat tire.

  Except he bicycled to work. He liked the extra workout, he’d told her. How hard could it be to change a flat bicycle tire?

  From her computer, she pulled up his address and phone number and printed them out. Then she called his home, but, like Ruby, she got a cheery recorded greeting.

  With his personnel file still on her computer screen she scrolled through his particulars. He was twenty-five years old. He’d been subjected to a rigorous background check, aptitude and personality testing, as were all their staff, and he’d come out squeaky clean. A nice, clean-cut young health nut.

  She worked for half an hour, the sense of unease growing by the minute, then called again and once more got the answering machine.

  It wasn’t her job to go chasing after white-collar criminals, regardless of whether she’d hired them, yet she did have a professional responsibility both to the bank and to Phil. She hated feeling that he might be throwing his life away. Maybe if she talked to him…

  Perhaps he’d open up to her. Maybe he had a good reason for needing money, perhaps he had an ill relative or…

  Her own groan stopped her. She knew she had a bad habit of believing the best of people, but sometimes she was right. If he did need money and it was desperation that had driven him to foolishness, perhaps she could help him realize the error of his ways. He worked for a bank, for goodness’ sake, if he needed financial help, didn’t he realize they could probably work something out?

  She might be impulsive, as the detective with the sharp eyes and clever lips had pointed out, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d make sure her whereabouts were known. “Gwen, I think Phil Britten might be sick. He’s not answering his phone and he doesn’t have a car, so I’m going to his place to make sure he’s all right. If I don’t call you in thirty minutes, call me at Phil’s, will you? Here’s the number.”

  Gwen looked faintly puzzled, but glanced at the clock and wrote herself a yellow sticky reminder note and pasted it onto her computer monitor. “Sure.”

  One of the things Sophie treasured about Gwen was that she did what was asked of her without a lot of fuss or questions.

  “Want a crust of bread so you can leave a trail?”

  Sophie sighed, accustomed to corny jokes about her hopeless sense of direction. “No. I printed out a map from the Internet.”

  FORTUNATELY, PHIL LIVED not far from the bank in an area that she was familiar with, so she didn’t take a single wrong turn. Feeling inordinately pleased with herself, she found a parking spot across from the West End low-rise.

  Nothing she’d rehearsed on the way sounded right for talking a possible blackmailer out of a life of crime, so she decided to wing it. She’d counseled employees through various professional and personal crises, but this would be a first.

  Her stomach did a flip-flop when she saw an ambulance outside Phil’s apartment building, its lights flashing but the siren turned
off. The apartment building’s door was propped open. Had Phil had an accident after all? She stared at the ambulance again, but it appeared to be empty.

  Turning her back on it, she strode briskly through the doorway. There could be a hundred people living in this building, any one of them could be in need of medical attention. It was probably nothing to do with Phil’s absence from work. Still, she’d be happier when she’d spoken to him.

  She almost ran into the building, and crashed into a warm body coming out.

  “Oomph,” he said on impact. There was a dull thud-thud as, one after the other, two crutches fell to the carpeted foyer. Detective Blake Barker teetered, and jammed his injured foot to the ground to stop himself tumbling after the crutches.

  Instinctively, she reached for him to keep him upright and the pair of them staggered into the heavy plate glass of the building front. She was too scared to look at his face—she didn’t need that much rage this early in the day.

  Could her luck get any worse? It couldn’t be coincidence that she kept bumping into this man. She must have done something really bad in a former life and this was her punishment.

  She stared straight ahead at the fascinating view of the top three buttons of his sports shirt. The first was unbuttoned and she was treated to a sexy glimpse of dark chest hair and tan flesh. A pulse thudded in his neck. If a pulse could show anger, this one did. Thud, thud, thud like a scolding voice.

  Soon—much sooner than she would have liked—it was joined by the verbal scolding of Detective Barker himself, his voice low and menacing. “Just what the hell are you doing here?”

  She jerked her chin up at that, which was a mistake. Big mistake. It pushed her gaze up until she was staring at one humdinger of an angry scowl. She could ask him the same question. “My job. I’m here doing my job.”

  His eyes narrowed in what she could have sworn was suspicion. The sexy and warmly exciting man who’d kissed her less than twenty-four hours ago was nowhere in evidence. “You’re the coroner now?”

  “Coroner? What are you—”

  Just then the elevator doors slid open and two ambulance attendants emerged wheeling a stretcher.

  “Oh, no. What…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She wanted to ask what had happened, but the words jammed in her throat as though by avoiding the question she could avoid the answer. Except, of course, the detective wouldn’t let her.

  “Your buddy. Phil Britten.”

  She stared at the approaching stretcher, hoping he’d suffered some minor accident, only to see that a sheet was pulled all the way over the body. No. Not a body. A body bag.

  “It’s not…” She began, then swallowed, her throat so parched her words sounded hoarse. “That isn’t…” No more words came. She stared at Blake in mute appeal.

  He answered the question she couldn’t voice. “Britten’s dead.”

  The floor seemed to tilt and her head felt as if somebody’d stuck it under Niagara Falls. Those warm hands of his gripped her tighter.

  She tried not to look at the sad lump on the stretcher wheeling past where they stood. Tried not to think of the man who’d been so proud of his physique he did isometric exercises in the elevator.

  One of the attendants stooped to pick up Blake’s crutches and handed them to him with a curious glance.

  Blake freed one hand to retrieve the crutches with a brief nod of thanks, his attention still on Sophie.

  “Come and sit down.” There was a rattan seating area to the right of the elevators, with one of those indoor fountains burbling and a few ferns. She knew the fountain was meant to be spiritually soothing, but in her frazzled state it sounded as irritating as a tap left running. She perched on the couch and Blake sank down beside her, his leg sticking straight out in front of him. He laid the crutches on the floor and turned to her. “Want some water or something?”

  “No. I’m…” She couldn’t say she was fine, that would be a lie. She’d never been less fine. She gripped her hands in her lap and stared at them. “What happened?”

  “Why are you here?”

  She rubbed her forehead, trying to dredge up the answer to his simple question. Why on earth was she here? “Phil.” That’s right, it was Phil. “I…he didn’t show up at work this morning, or answer his phone. I was worried about him so I came to check…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She’d wanted to make sure he was okay, when he so blatantly wasn’t okay. He wasn’t ever going to be okay again.

  He was dead.

  “Do you know how he…what happened?”

  He kept staring at her. His eyes not stormy, but still cold. “We won’t know for certain until the autopsy’s done but it looks like a drug overdose.”

  “Drugs?”

  He had his detective face on now, she realized—his cold, serious face. Not at all like the sexy, passionate man who’d kissed her in the car yesterday.

  “Drugs?” she repeated. “Maybe that’s why he needed the blackmail money, because he was a drug addict.” But even as she said them the words felt wrong.

  Shock was like a glass wall between her and the rest of the world and it was tough to get messages back and forth across the invisible barrier. But even as detached and surreal as this whole thing appeared, it made no sense that the Phil she’d hired, with his bicycle and health foods, was a drug addict. “No.” She shook her head, barely realizing she wasn’t alone.

  “What do you mean no?”

  “Phil is…was a health nut. He wouldn’t do something that harmful to his body. I’m sure of it.”

  “How are you sure?”

  “Drug testing is part of the interview process at the bank. Phil was clean when we hired him four months ago. And he was into health and fitness.” She called up images of Phil, but they all involved him doing something healthy or show-offy with his body. The only odd behavior since he’d started work was the phone call she’d overheard. “But…”

  “But?”

  “His boss complained that he was unreliable and mentioned unexplained absences, but I didn’t think much of it. She complains about everyone. I can’t believe he’d do drugs. Unless…” She recalled a television special she’d seen once about amateur weightlifters and steroids. “They weren’t the performance enhancing kind were they? He was an amateur body builder.”

  Blake shook his head, seemed as though he were debating with himself then shrugged slightly as though he’d come to a decision he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. “Heroin.”

  Her eyes bugged out. “Heroin?” To go from slurping health drinks to shooting up heroin… “This doesn’t make sense.”

  Beside her Blake blew out a breath. He didn’t say a word, but she had the strong suspicion that he agreed.

  “Heroin deaths are way up this year. There’s a particularly pure grade coming from South East Asia. It’s easy to make a mistake.” He glanced at her, as though to make sure she was keeping up.

  She nodded.

  “I’ve read about that in the paper.” Her stomach clenched as she recalled the article. “Isn’t there some new triad bringing the drugs in?”

  He nodded. “The Black Dragons.”

  The name had a horribly familiar sound to it. “The woman you almost arrested. Is she one of them?”

  “Girlfriend of the top guy. Yeah.”

  “Blake, I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” He patted her knee, a reassuring gesture that only made her feel worse.

  “So, Phil had a connection to these people, too. What an amazing coincidence.”

  He shot her an impassive cop glance. “Looks like it.”

  “Now what?” she asked him, almost as though they were a team working this case together. “With Phil gone, how are we going to find out what he knew?”

  He quickly disabused her of any notion of teamwork.

  “You’d better get your delectable ass back to work where it belongs. I told you yesterday, stay out of this.” Once again a storm had blown in, reflecting gray over the icy
green eyes.

  In spite of the warm glow caused by him calling part of her delectable, she didn’t appreciate his tone. “This is my business. Phil is…was an employee. As the human resources manager I’d say his demise was very much my business.” Rapidly her brain began sorting all the tasks associated with the tragedy. “I’ll have to arrange a memorial service, flowers, a message for our in-house magazine. I’ll also have to hire a replacement.”

  He hadn’t seemed to be listening all that closely to her litany of tasks, until the last part when he jerked to attention, his gaze once again firmly focused on her face. “That’s right. You’ll hire a replacement.”

  “I certainly will,” she said grimly, determined to double up on screening tests and give every interviewee the kind of third degree that would reveal the slightest personality flaws.

  “Good. Don’t delegate to an underling.”

  She glared at him, thankful for the shard of anger that pierced her numb sense of grief. “Are you ever, for one second, not bossy?”

  The corners of his mouth kinked, putting two deep creases in his cheeks. “What did he do? This Phil?”

  “I told you yesterday. He was an assistant account manager in Private Banking. That division works with high net worth individuals, families and some companies. They help with investments, family trusts, estate planning, stuff like that. Phil was also a bit of a computer techie.” She shrugged. “Outside of work, he was an amateur bodybuilder and health fanatic.”

  He shifted, rubbing his thigh absently. She watched one strong square hand massaging the quadricep muscle, saw it stop when it hit the top of the cast almost as though he’d forgotten he wore it. “Look, can you hold off for a few days on this? I’m going to talk to some people. It might be worthwhile getting somebody in the bank working undercover.”

  “Poor Phil. He must have been celebrating his big wind-fall with a drug party.” She wondered if he’d received the money before he died. “He’s probably got his financial records in his apartment. Maybe you can find out if he got his million dollars and try to track the payment.” Even as she said it she knew how unlikely it would be that the blackmail payoff could be traced.