Hot Property

by Karen Leabo

  They finished making the bed in silence. She tried to think of something that would prolong his staying with her. She was a little afraid to be alone. The only thing that came to mind was to work out logistics.

  “Can you drop me off at my office tomorrow, or should I call a cab?” she asked brightly. She didn’t want to put him out any more than she already had.

  He sank onto the edge of her bed. Wendy’s heart beat faster, seeing him there in that place where she would be spending the night. “Wendy, I don’t think you should work tomorrow.”

  “Oh, but I have to,” she said. “I have a completely full schedule, plus whatever requests Jillian took in today. My gosh, she probably wonders what happened to me. I’ll have to call her at home. Is there a phone?”

  He pulled a tiny cellular from his shirt pocket and laid it on the nightstand.

  “Thanks.” She started to reach for it.

  He laid a hand on her arm, stilling her. “Slow down a minute, Wendy. Think. Need I remind you that there’s someone out there who wants you dead?”

  She folded her arms. “I can’t let my business fall apart. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.”

  “You can’t put your life at risk,” he said flatly.

  That got her back up. What he said made perfect sense, but it was the way he said it that annoyed her. Did he think he had the right to boss her around just because he’d been nice to her?

  “I will do whatever I need to do in order not to hurt my reputation or disappoint my clients,” she said smoothly. “You can’t hold me prisoner here. I made bail, remember?”

  Michael stared at her. He didn’t have to say a thing. Her smart-aleck arguments evaporated like dew on a sunny morning.

  “Okay, fine. I can always start another business.” She shrugged. “I’ll call Jillian.”

  He sat close to the phone, so she almost had to reach around him to pick it up. She felt the heat from his body.

  “Wait,” he said, touching her arm yet again. “I have tomorrow off. I can do your shopping and errands for you.”

  Wendy broke into peals of laughter. “You? A personal shopper?”

  “I watched you do it yesterday. It didn’t look all that hard. Tell this Jillian I’m a new employee. She can give me the easy stuff, like dog walking and picking up dry cleaning.”

  Oh, Lord, he was serious. Maybe she should be serious, too, she reasoned. He was only trying to help her keep her business afloat. She couldn’t see him selecting women’s apparel or putting together a gourmet meal any more than she could see herself arresting and interrogating suspects. But he could drop off and pick up stuff as well as anyone, and she figured she could count on him to be honest.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll even pay you, how’s that?”

  He shrugged. “It’s not necessary, but if it’ll make you feel better, okay.”

  It did. His list of favors for her was growing. She didn’t want to be any more beholden to him than she already was.

  “But,” she added, “I dare you to claim my job’s ‘not that hard’ after you spend a day doing it.”

  He grinned. “Piece of cake.” Then he gave her a look of mock cowardice. “You won’t make me walk Yoda, will you?” He cringed dramatically.

  “I only do Yoda once a week,” she said. “But I think I’ll give you the Poms.” She didn’t explain, wanting him to worry a bit.

  Michael couldn’t think of any reason to stay longer. Wendy was settled in; she had his instructions for what to do if there was trouble; she knew how to use the security system; she had his cell phone and the charger. He offered to let her keep his extra gun, but she would have none of that.

  “That would be stooping to Mr. Neff’s level,” she said. “Besides, I’m scared of guns.”

  Michael didn’t press it. If she was hesitant to fire a gun—and most people were—there was too great a chance a bad guy could use the weapon against her.

  “Don’t hesitate to call 9-1-1,” he said, continuing with his litany of warnings, “though I’m positive no one followed us here.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, then.” He started out the bedroom door.

  “Oh, Michael?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What about the investigation? What’s being done?”

  He sighed. This was where his ethical footing got a little dicey. “Technically, I’m supposed to be gathering evidence to turn over to the D.A.’s office.”

  “So they can put me away.”

  “Yeah. But I’m also supposed to follow all leads, not just the ones that make you look guilty. So I did some follow-up with the artist’s composite, showing it around, trying to get the papers to run it.”

  “And will they?”

  He shook his head. “Neither will the TV stations. The media got stung a few months ago when they plastered the city with the composite of a ‘suspect’ that turned out to be the figment of a guilty witness’s imagination.”

  She nodded. “I remember that. The police department was a little embarrassed, too, if I recall.”

  “Yeah. So no one’s that anxious to push Linda’s rendering of Mr. Neff—especially since it looks a little like Captain Patterson, the guy the mayor’s giving the retirement party for.”

  Wendy gasped. “Oooh, that’s right, the mayor’s party. I have some major stuff to take care of.” She sagged. “I guess I can do some of it on the phone. Um, what else?”

  “I’ve got the name of the person at the bank who opened Mr. Neff’s account. I’ll see if her description matches yours.”

  “If she even remembers,” Wendy said glumly. “I’ll bet he’s had that account for months. She’s probably opened a hundred accounts since then. What else?”

  “Motor Vehicles is tracking down the brown car. I got a partial license number on it.”

  “You’re actually doing quite a bit,” she said, sounding surprised.

  “I’ve also been digging into your background,” he admitted. “Prior arrests, stuff like that.”

  “I’ve never been arrest—oh, wait a minute.”

  “I know all about it, Wendy,” he said with mock seriousness. “Chaining yourself to a tree. Really. How sixties.”

  “It was one of the oldest trees in my neighborhood!”

  “I read the article. Don’t worry, the D.A. can’t make much of that. Are there any other skeletons in your closet I should worry about?”

  “The rest of my skeletons are buried too deep to find,” she said mysteriously. He couldn’t tell whether she was joking or not.

  The old man couldn’t sleep. He sat up, pushed himself out of bed, and lit a cigarette. At the rate he’d been smoking lately, he really would have emphysema. But he tended to smoke a lot when he was worried.

  Wendy Thayer was proving the proverbial thorn in his side. First, she hadn’t deposited the money from fencing the deco jewelry. That was a loss of several thousand dollars.

  Second, she’d eluded a professional hit not once, but twice. The hit-and-run attempt was sloppy, he had to admit. But how she’d managed to live through the second attempt on her life was astounding. She’d been struck, his sources told him, but apparently her injuries had been so slight that she hadn’t even gone to the hospital.

  Third, she was missing, location unknown. She’d gone to ground, and now that she was on the alert, getting rid of her would be twice as hard.

  Funny, but she didn’t remind him in the least of his sister anymore. And he wouldn’t regret dispatching her. She was dangerous to him.

  He had only three days to go, three wretched days before he was on a midnight plane headed for Tahiti, and paradise was his. Savagely he stubbed out his cigarette. He wasn’t about to let some little shopper girl ruin it for him.

  SEVEN

  “Hi, I’m the new guy,” Michael said pleasantly to the petite woman behind the desk at Born to Shop. This, presumably, was Jillian. “Here’s the master key ring,” he added. “W
endy said you were to be the mistress of the keys for the day.”

  Jillian smiled and took the key ring. “Hi. I didn’t even know Wendy was looking for someone new until she called me last night. And, wow, a guy, too. You’re the first guy she’s ever hired.”

  “She doesn’t want to be sued for sex discrimination,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek. “Guys can shop.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can, or she wouldn’t have hired you.” She handed him a thick sheaf of papers. “I typed it all out for you.” As she talked, she consulted a list on her computer and removed certain keys from the ring. These she handed to Michael, along with an envelope containing various claim tickets.

  “There’s only one place with a security alarm. It’s written down for you.”

  “Thanks.” He eyed the computer thoughtfully. “You have access to a lot of information in that computer, I bet,” he said, trying his best to sound conversational.

  Jillian nodded. “Wendy gave me the password last night.” She smiled mischievously. “She doesn’t realize I already figured it out.” She lowered her voice. “It’s her birth date.”

  Inwardly, Michael groaned. Didn’t Wendy know better than to use something so easy to figure out for a password? If Jillian knew the password, probably everyone who worked there did. Mr. Neff could have gotten it from an employee. More than likely, though, he’d figured it out for himself. He could have gotten into Wendy’s apartment any day of the week and had hours to make guesses.

  “Call in every couple of hours, okay?” Jillian said. “I might have something else for you later. You have a city map book, right?” she asked. Every cop had one. His was in his ailing police car.

  “Um, no.”

  She handed him a much-frayed green and yellow book. “This one’s mine. Lose it and you’re dead meat. You’ll have to buy one of your own, but Wendy will reimburse you for it.”

  He nodded, then glanced down at the papers. If he had questions, he figured it would be better to ask them now. As he scanned the list of errands, he felt his eyes glazing over.

  “What is this, a week’s worth?”

  Jillian obviously thought he was kidding. “You’ll do fine. The first day is always the worst. I used to run errands before I got promoted to office manager.”

  “Hey, that’s a great idea. I’ll stay and answer the phone, and you can run—”

  Jillian held up her hand. “Not a chance. No one talks me out of my cushy office job. Now get out of here.” She wadded up a piece of scratch paper and threw it at him. “Don’t come back till you’ve shopped till you drop. That’s our motto.”

  Michael saluted her and turned for the door, not feeling nearly as confident as he had the night before. Piece of cake indeed. He didn’t even have an organizer.

  Wendy sat at the chipped Formica table eating some toaster waffles. Everywhere she looked, she was reminded of how dreadfully this house needed a new decor.

  She’d walked down to the corner for a newspaper. She hadn’t read one in a couple of days, which made her antsy.

  The first thing she did was check to see if there was any mention of her arrest. She made it through the front section and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she dropped her fork.

  There it was, right on the front page of the Metropolitan section, and they even had a picture.

  How horrible. How humiliating. No, not just humiliating, devastating. Her clients would drop away like rats deserting a sinking ship, and could she blame them? She wouldn’t want to leave her valuables or belongings with a suspected felon.

  She took a deep breath and tried to put this fiasco into perspective. She’d known this would happen sooner or later. In fact, she was frankly surprised some reporter hadn’t found her name on the police blotter and run the story yesterday.

  The adverse publicity could cripple her business, she thought grimly. Even after she cleared herself, she might never recover. Then again, she’d always heard that any publicity was good, anything that got your name in front of the public. Her newfound notoriety could be a double-edged sword. And if she managed to clear herself and find the real museum thief, public opinion toward her might turn favorable.

  She could hope. She was nothing if not optimistic.

  She scanned the article. Michael was quoted, of course. What he said about her was mostly benign—that she was a suspect, that the investigation was continuing, that nothing had been proven yet. Detective Smythe, the one investigating the home break-ins, was less circumspect.

  The reporter did at least mention the mysterious Barnie Neff and cited the evidence that such a person existed, but they didn’t physically describe him or ask readers for help in identifying him.

  Wendy turned her attention to her picture, a file photo taken several years ago when she’d helped organize a charity auction, an activity one of her wealthy friends had lured her into. The likeness was less than flattering. She looked harsh, and she wasn’t smiling. Gee, if the paper had wanted a photo, she’d have gladly provided them with one of her glamorous publicity photos.

  Enough of the pity party, she decided. First she would call Jillian and warn her to expect a barrage of cancellations. Then she would call the newspaper reporter and offer her side of the story. No, wait, Nathaniel had warned her not to talk to the media.

  She flipped to the inside of the Met section, and her breath caught in her throat. Fabric-a-rama was having its semiannual clearance sale! And there was a location on Jefferson Street only about six blocks from Michael’s rental house.

  She had to do something. She couldn’t just sit and twiddle her thumbs. There wasn’t even a television, not that she’d watch it if there was one. And Michael had said she could redecorate. Oh, not precisely. He’d said they could talk about it. But she was sure he would like what she did, and she would assume the risk.

  She started making a list.

  Michael was less than a third of the way through his list of errands, and it was almost one o’clock. He could see he wouldn’t be taking a lunch break.

  What had possessed him to think this job was easy? The Poms—a pair of yippy Pomeranian dogs from hell—had scratched his leather upholstery on the way to the groomers. He’d picked up a cake for a party from a bakery, then had upended it in the parking lot and was forced to pay for a replacement from his own pocket. He’d have to pick it up later that afternoon.

  Taking some guy’s Lexus in for an oil change hadn’t sounded too hard, until he’d found a waiting line ten cars long. No way could he wait. He’d left the car there and jogged the mile and a half back to the guy’s office, where his own car was parked, explaining to the client that he would have to pick up the car later. The client hadn’t been too pleased.

  He’d done the grocery shopping for a nice little old lady who’d provided him with a detailed list, but he was unfamiliar with her neighborhood store and it took him an hour to find everything. Then she complained that he’d gotten the wrong brand of bran flakes and laundry detergent. He soothed her by taking those items off her bill. He’d pay for them out of his own pocket.

  He’d had to pick up two watches at two different jewelry stores and deliver them to their owners’ homes. He’d realized, as he was delivering the second one, that he’d gotten the watches mixed up. He had to backtrack.

  Wendy enjoyed this? he thought. This was his idea of hell.

  By two o’clock he’d made up some of the lost time by driving like a maniac. He was starving, so he stopped for a bagel.

  That was when he read the newspaper.

  Poor Wendy. He’d tried to downplay the story for the reporter, as if it wasn’t any big deal, but he supposed his snow job hadn’t worked.

  He pictured Wendy at home in his rental house, blissfully ignorant of the day’s news. He hoped she would take this opportunity to rest, sleep in, read a book. She would probably talk to Jillian eventually and find out about the article, but he hoped it was later rather than sooner.

  He didn’t know when Wendy Thayer h
ad gotten under his skin, but she was definitely there now. He wasn’t sure when he’d started to believe she was innocent, but the fact of the matter was, he couldn’t see her jaywalking, much less breaking into a museum or fencing stolen merchandise. She was too … too what? Nice? Sweet? Guileless? Innocent?

  No, those words didn’t begin to describe Wendy. She was too … sexy. That was it. Too sexy to be a felon.

  He shook his head, calling himself ten kinds of idiot. Was he was falling for the oldest trick in the book, letting a beautiful woman bamboozle him into thinking she was innocent just because she fluttered her eyelashes at him and seemed oh-so-overwhelmed by the mean old criminal justice system?

  Maybe he was that stupid. But he hadn’t imagined that brown Caprice, or the speeding bullet that could have ended her life. That reminded him—he needed to call Joe.

  On his way to a nearby department store to pick up concert tickets, he punched in the number on a spare cellular Jillian had given him.

  “Joe Gaglione,” his partner intoned in a bored voice.

  “Joe. You got any information on that brown Caprice?”

  Joe chuckled. “It’s a more common car than you thought, Tagg. I have eight of them.”

  “You’re kidding. But with the license number—”

  “Partial license number. You only got the first three letters, you know.”

  “Yeah, but you should still be able to narrow it down.”

  Joe chuckled again. “Ordinarily. But you know how every couple of years the police department auctions off its outdated cruisers?”

  “Yeah …”

  “It so happens that in 1992 we auctioned off twelve of the suckers. All Caprices. Every one of ’em was painted a nice, neutral brown before the auction.”

  Michael groaned. He knew what was coming next.

  “They licensed them all at the same time, so the numbers—”

  “—are in sequence,” Michael finished for him.

  Joe continued his report, obviously enjoying his partner’s consternation. “Of those twelve that were auctioned, eight are still on the road in Dallas.”