The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss

by Diana Palmer

  “You’ll start melting one day,” Tess cautioned. “All that pizza will turn your poor insides into mozzarella and you’ll ooze all over the floor.”

  “Not as long as I eat enough anchovies to keep me solvent.” The older woman grinned. “Come on. Come home with me. You look dismal these days, all pale and worn. You need cheering up.”

  “I don’t feel like going out,” Tess said. “I get sleepy with the chickens these days. Residue from all the pressure,” she added with a smile. “I still have to go to court next month when the trial comes up.” Her assailants had since been arraigned and a trial date had been set.

  “The vultures,” Helen muttered. “I hope they get life.”

  “Unlikely,” Tess replied. “But they’ll very probably spend some time in jail. I hope I’m living in Antarctica when they get out,” she added, shivering.

  “Haven’t you heard?” Helen asked. “I thought Dane would have told you that they’ve been implicated in the murder of a rival drug lord. He was shot with an Uzi, and ballistics matched the fatal bullet to the Uzi that wild man was shooting in here the night we apprehended them. It isn’t you they’ll be doing time for assaulting—the DA’s going for murder one and two counts of possession with intent to distribute. He figures that’s more than enough, even without your assault charge, although they may use it if they think they need to.”

  “Dane didn’t mention that.” Tess didn’t add that Dane only spoke to her when it was absolutely necessary, or that he avoided her like the plague most of the time.

  Helen’s eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t look much better than you do,” she remarked. “Poor guy, he lost a lot of sleep while you were in danger. I don’t suppose he’s caught up yet, and he’s taken on a double caseload since the arrest. I suppose he’s trying to use up some of that nervous energy.”

  “I suppose so.” Tess yawned. “I wish I had some of it. I’m so tired!”

  “Maybe you do need an early night at that. Come have a pizza with me. It’ll cheer you up, and I’ll get you home so you can catch up on your beauty sleep.”

  “Thanks, but really, I don’t want anything spicy, anyway. My stomach’s been queasy for a couple of days. I’m afraid it’s that stomach bug Adams had. He breathed on me.”

  “Harold’s got a cold. I’ll bring him to the office and have him breathe on Adams for you,” Helen offered.

  “You’re a real friend,” Tess said fervently.

  Helen grinned. “Don’t I know it.”

  After work, Tess went home and went to bed. The virus was potent, she thought as she lost her breakfast the next morning. She called in sick and curled up in bed again, listening to the pouring rain outside with vague pleasure as she went back to sleep.

  Dane came by after work to check on her. She was astonished that he bothered. His attitude in the office had convinced her that he’d put her completely out of his mind.

  “How are you?” he asked at the doorway.

  She was disheveled and pale, clad in a worn cotton gown and a thick, red chenille bathrobe that covered her from head almost to bare toes. “I’ve just got Adams’s virus,” she said weakly. “Shoot him for me, will you?”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got frozen yogurt. It’s keeping me alive.”

  He hesitated. “Maybe you should see a doctor,” he said with a frown.

  “For a stomach bug? Sure.” She held the door open pointedly. “I need to lie down, Dane. Thanks for coming by, but I’ll be okay in a couple of days. You can get a temp while I’m out, can’t you?”

  “We had one today.” He hesitated. “She’s very good. Her dictation skills and typing speeds are on par with yours.”

  “If you want me to resign, you only have to say so,” she told him softly, her eyes meeting his. She caught a look on his face that confirmed her suspicions. “Talk to her and see if she’ll agree to stay,” she told him. “If she will, and you’ll let me go without proper notice…”

  “You can’t leave until you’ve got another job to go to,” he said through his teeth.

  “Short Investigations will hire me in a minute. You know that. Mr. Short said once when he was collaborating with you on a case that he’d love to have me work for him.”

  Mr. Short was in his forties and good-looking, a widower with style and daring. Dane’s eyes narrowed as he thought about Tess in the same office with that man.

  “I don’t think so…” he began.

  “Dane, you don’t want me around,” she said wearily. “Let’s stop pretending. Since you slept with me, I’m a perpetual thorn in your side. You look at me like you can’t stand the sight of me. I understand. It’s just as hard for me to work with you, knowing you feel that way. Let me go. I’ll be all right.”

  He winced. “Don’t look like that,” he said huskily. “You make me feel two inches tall.”

  “I don’t mean to.” She leaned against the wall beside the door, her eyes loving him unconsciously. “Maybe I can forget, if I don’t have to see you everyday,” she said weakly.

  “You’ll find someone else,” he said through his teeth.

  “I know,” she said to placate his conscience. Not that she believed it. Love like hers didn’t wear out. She forced a smile for him. “Goodbye, Dane.”

  “It couldn’t work, honey,” he said, his voice so tender and anguished that she could have cried. “We’d have two strikes against us from the beginning. I don’t want marriage.”

  “I know,” she said softly. “It’s all right.”

  His chest rose and fell heavily. “No, it’s not. I miss you. I’m alone. Nothing is the same anymore.”

  Tears filled her eyes, threatening to spill over. “Please go, before I make an even bigger fool of myself,” she pleaded.

  “It isn’t love you feel for me!” he ground out. “Don’t you see? It’s just physical!”

  She couldn’t answer him. Her eyes, in her thin, pale face, were tragic.

  “It’s for the best. You’ll realize it eventually. You’ll marry and have a houseful of kids…” He turned away before his voice broke. He couldn’t bear to think about that. “Goodbye, little one. I’ll have Helen bring by your severance pay. You can tell her you can’t bear the memories of the shooting. She’ll believe it.”

  “I’ll do that,” she choked. Please leave, she was thinking frantically, please leave before I break down and go to pieces!

  His shoulders squared. “If you ever need me…”

  “Thank you. Good night.”

  He didn’t look back. He started to, but his control was precarious.

  He went out and heard the door close behind him. It broke his heart to walk away and leave Tess, but he had nothing to give her. She didn’t really love him, he told himself. It was just physical attraction. And marriage was impossible and unfair to Tess. He kept telling himself that all the way home.

  But when he was back in his empty apartment, the only thing that registered was that he was totally alone.

  Chapter Eight

  MR. SHORT DID INDEED want Tess to work for him. The following Monday, when she was feeling a little better, she went in for an interview.

  The tall, distinguished man had an office full of people, just like Dane. This office was less rigid, though, and Desden Short’s operatives were a little more haphazard than Tess liked. The position he was offering her was that of skip tracer, not secretary, and she was delighted.

  “I never expected…!” she exclaimed.

  “I haven’t forgotten how you moaned about being only a secretary at Lassister’s agency,” he chuckled. “Skip tracing isn’t as dangerous and demanding as being a full-fledged operative, but it might satisfy your thirst for stealth and excitement. We’ll see.”

  “I can’t thank you enough!”

  “Yes, you can. Work hard and make me proud.” He stood up and shook hands with her. “If you can stay today, Mary can explain the job to you and help you get accl
imated. She doesn’t leave until next Monday, so that gives you a week to familiarize yourself with the operation before you have to start work.”

  “Fine,” she agreed, smiling. “I’ll enjoy it, I know I will. I’ll work hard.”

  “What puzzles me is why Dane let you go,” he said with a curious smile. “You were practically related.”

  “It was the shooting,” she lied. “The office has such bad memories for me now that I get cold chills just sitting in it.”

  His curiosity faded. “I see.” He smiled. “Well, we’ll do our best not to let you get shot here.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured dryly.

  Mary Plummer was thirty, a blonde like Tess, and vivacious. “You’re going to love this,” she said, introducing Tess to the tools of the trade. “It’s a plum job, and I’ll even give you the names of all my contacts at the public agencies. You can pump them for information when you’re really stuck. This,” she said, picking up a thick book, “is something you’ve probably seen plenty of times at Lassiter’s.”

  “Yes,” Tess agreed. “It’s Cole’s—the directory that gives names and addresses for telephone numbers. Dane said once that no detective agency could operate without one.”

  “Amen. It’s the most important book I own. Here. It’s yours now. Take good care of it, and it will take good care of you.”

  “You’re a real friend.”

  “That’s what my fiancé says. We’re getting married Saturday, and by Monday, I hope to be sailing in the Bahamas, never to return. He’s filthy rich.” She sighed. “But I’d love him if he were a pauper.”

  Tess knew how that felt. Not a day went by that she didn’t think of Dane and wish she could be back with him again. That might never happen. She’d resigned herself to the fact that it was highly unlikely he’d willingly come after her now. He’d convinced himself that she was only infatuated with him and that she wanted things he could never give her. She’d been so certain that he loved her, but as time passed without even a word from him, she grew depressed and unsure of herself.

  “You look very pale,” Mary observed. “Are you sure you’re over that virus?”

  “Of course I am,” Tess replied.

  But weeks went by and she didn’t get appreciably better. If anything, her stomach problems grew worse. She convinced herself that it was an ulcer. With all the pressure she’d been under—being shot, being stalked, losing Dane, changing jobs—no wonder she was having problems.

  She settled into her new job, though, determined not to let her bad health get her down.

  Helen insisted on meeting her for lunch a month after she’d left the agency. She’d tried before and Tess had refused, but this time Helen wouldn’t be put off, so Tess gave in.

  “You really do look bad,” Helen said without preamble, frowning as they sat eating cheddar-cheese soup in a sandwich shop.

  “It’s all the pressure, I think,” Tess told her. “So many changes in so little time.”

  “You’ve lost weight. You’re pale.”

  “Nerves. Mr. Short is a great boss, but I’m doing a job I’ve never tried before.”

  “I suppose so.” Helen wasn’t convinced. She watched the younger girl with narrowed eyes. “Dane is—”

  “How about some ice cream for dessert?” Tess changed the subject, forcing a smile.

  Helen didn’t speak for an instant. But she got the message. She smiled. “Okay. Point taken. Ice cream it is.”

  Tess enjoyed the meal after that, but she didn’t enjoy the memories it brought back. She’d actually kept Dane out of her mind for a whole day just recently, until Helen came along and opened the floodgates.

  Tess went back to her apartment that night and cried herself to sleep. She was so hungry for Dane that even the sound of his name on someone else’s lips made her heart beat faster. She’d told herself that she could live without him, but doing it was proving impossible. She couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t bear it!

  The next morning, she got up and started to leave the apartment, and fainted dead away.

  When she came to, it dawned on her that something was very wrong with her. It had been weeks since she’d left the agency, six since she’d left Dane’s apartment. That was over a month with the strange virus that had assailed her, ruined her appetite, made her tired. She had all the symptoms of cancer, she told herself, and it was stupid not to see a doctor. Having only an ulcer would be a blessing. Being scared to death was no excuse for hiding her head in the sand. Knowing the truth was always best.

  She called for an appointment, and got in that very morning for an examination with the local family practitioner she’d been going to. They must have thought she was terminal, she thought with bitter humor as she phoned the office to tell them she was going to be late.

  It was a routine examination until she explained her symptoms to Dr. Reiner. He sat down on his stool and stared at her.

  “I have to ask you something you aren’t going to like,” he began quietly. “Have you been intimate with a man in the past several weeks?”

  Her heart jumped wildly. “Yes,” she blurted out. “Once. Well, one night…”

  “That would do it,” he said on a sigh. “But he’s…sterile,” she faltered. “He said…that he couldn’t father a child.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “When was your last period?”

  She thought back; she hadn’t realized that she’d missed one. She swallowed and told him her best guess.

  “We’ll run tests,” he said. “I’m sorry, Miss Meriwether, but I think you’re pregnant. The symptoms certainly fit.”

  It was like a blow to the solar plexus. She touched her stomach with wonder, her eyes wide and wild-looking.

  “It isn’t the end of the world,” he said quietly. “There’s a clinic nearby…”

  “No!” She paled, gasping, her hand flattening protectively over the child she might be carrying. “Oh, no, not ever!”

  “You want it, then?”

  “With all my heart,” she whispered. “I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much!”

  “And the father?”

  “I’m afraid he probably won’t believe it’s his,” she said sadly. “In any case, he doesn’t believe in marriage, so it’s not something I need to bother him with. Not now. When I’m sure…I’ll make the decision then.”

  “Very well. I’ll send Nurse Wallace in and we’ll get started.” He patted her shoulder absently. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Not easy to do, she thought. She couldn’t help worrying. The thought of being responsible for a tiny human being was almost as terrifying as a fatal illness. She’d get over it, though, she told herself. People had been having babies for thousands of years. Presumably every mother was afraid of the responsibility at first.

  They ran tests and Tess spent a long, sleepless night worrying about it. She hadn’t told anyone at the office what the doctor suspected. But when she answered the phone at work, and she heard the nurse’s calm voice telling her that she was, indeed, pregnant, she had to struggle to not fall over. She numbly thanked the woman and hung up, without waiting to schedule her next appointment or talk about referral to an obstetrician. That, she decided vaguely, could wait one more day.

  “You’ve gone white,” Delcy, the other skip tracer, said worriedly. “Tess, are you all right?”

  “All right.” Tess nodded.

  “Want some coffee?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. Thank you.”

  Delcy began to laugh. “What was that phone call? A proposal from a boyfriend?”

  Tess fought to pull herself together. “Sorry,” she said, flushing. “No, it was the doctor’s office telling me that I’m going to be all right.”

  “Thank goodness. You’ve had us all worried.”

  “Me, too,” Tess confessed. She sat back in the chair, her hand resting protectively on her stomach. She was carrying Dane’s child. He wouldn’t know. He probably wouldn’t even believe it was his.
But she knew, and the thought of having a child was suddenly magical, awesome.

  For the rest of the day, Tess did her job mechanically. A big part of a detective agency’s routine was finding missing people: deserting spouses, runaway teens, felons skipping out on bail, people trying to outrun debtors, even adopted children trying to find natural parents for one reason or another. Usually, a good skip tracer could find a missing person in under an hour, with some help from contacts at public agencies and a little careful conversation. It wasn’t exactly deductive reasoning on the order of Sherlock Holmes’s, but it served a purpose and it could be rewarding. The day before, when she’d gone to work after visiting the doctor, Tess had located a runaway teenage boy who was trying to make enough money to go home to his frantic parents. The ensuing reunion had earned Tess a tearful phone call of gratitude from parents and son. She’d gone home feeling a little less brittle than usual, feeling useful again.

  Today was less successful, probably because she was preoccupied. She succeeded in locating a man whose wife was tracking him down to recover a year’s worth of child-support payments. She was glad the man didn’t know who at the agency had found him, but all the same Mr. Short was on the receiving end of some nasty language and a veiled threat.

  “I’m really sorry…” Tess began when he hung up.

  He laughed with real delight. “Tess, it goes with the job,” he said. “I’ll bet Dane got his ears burned every day. People in trouble don’t like being found. That’s human nature.”

  Mention of Dane made her uncomfortable. She nodded.

  “You’re just nervous because of what happened to you,” he guessed. “That was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, having a felon try to hurt you. You’ll never be in the line of fire here, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He paused by her desk, his eyes narrow and speculative. “I don’t usually mix business with pleasure, but how would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”