by Joanne Rock
“Why would my father steal from his own business?” she asked finally.
He paced the rooftop, hoping to clear his head. “To cover up his payouts to the mob. They do business by demanding kickbacks, so it’s possible that—”
“There are several entries for large sums labeled ‘security,’” she admitted. He could hear her flipping pages of paper through the telephone. “And my father doesn’t have any sort of security system in place.”
Who needed security when they had the New York crime syndicate in their back pocket? “Maybe you shouldn’t be helping me with this, Amanda.” What if he’d put her in danger by having her look at Matthews’s books?
He plunked down into the lounger where they’d spent half of Friday night, wanting to think about her instead of the case if only for a few minutes. “I mean, I don’t want you to hate me for uncovering the truth about your father.”
“My father isn’t paying off criminals.” The bite in her words chilled him right through. “And I’m only too happy to uncover the truth. Do you think you could at least check out this Karen Wells person?”
“Sure.” For all the good it would do. Karen Wells might be committing a crime, but it wouldn’t come with half as much jail time as the man directing her activities would receive. But Duke couldn’t begin to wade though the ramifications of that knowledge. Right now, he only cared about one thing. “When can I see you?”
Amanda pushed the Matthews’s business ledger across her coffee table, clutching the phone in a death grip. She’d been bracing herself to ward off more insinuations about her father’s guilt, so she hadn’t been prepared for Duke’s provocative question.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” Major understatement. The thought of seeing Duke put her heart in her throat.
“You’re running away?” His words growled their way through the receiver.
“No, I’m taking a stand in several areas of my life, actually.” Her eyes wandered around her loft, taking in the rolling racks full of samples of her fall collection. “You’re one of them.”
“You’re taking a stand with me?” He sounded so offended, she couldn’t help but smile.
Sort of.
It was hard to smile when her heart hurt with the knowledge that she would never walk her fingers over those muscular shoulders again, never thrill to the hungry way he stared at her less than perfect body.
“I don’t think I’m going to get past the fact that you think my dad’s a crook.” The words didn’t emerge in the light tone she’d striven for. Still, she forged ahead, thinking he deserved an explanation. “Besides, I have the feeling you aren’t looking for the kind of relationship I am.”
“Don’t you think you’re just looking for excuses?” A frustrated sigh came through the phone. “We are not having this conversation on the telephone.”
Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. Something she couldn’t allow to happen unless she wanted to arrive at her first show of the season with raccoon eyes.
Still, she was unwilling to have this conversation anywhere but the telephone. Seeing him had a way of making her forget everything else. “I’ve got to go. I need to be at the Jacob Javits Center in less than an hour to start prepping for tonight’s show.”
“A show I noticed I’m not invited to?” She heard the disappointment in his words.
She swallowed. Twice. It had to be this way, no matter how much it hurt her to set him free. “I just wanted to let you know about the bookkeeper. It’s up to you what you want to do with the information, but I’m going to make sure my father fires her.”
She could practically hear his teeth grind in the phone.
Good.
It made it hurt just a little less to know she wasn’t the only one who was having a hard time walking away.
“Bye, Duke.”
AMANDA’S WORDS ECHOED in Duke’s brain as he sifted through computer files at the precinct two hours later.
He couldn’t say goodbye.
Not then.
Not now.
First he would check out her bookkeeper, because Amanda deserved that much from him.
Then, he would figure out what to do to get her back. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could wait around for the appropriate time to take action. Amanda might be all about subtlety and timing, but Duke had lived too many years on hunches and aggressive instincts.
He had to go after her. Had to see if they could outrun her father’s influence.
But first, he needed to find out who the hell Karen Wells might be.
Her name and photograph scrolled across his search screen in moments, an easy catch with her C.P.A. certification to help him track her down.
Duke scanned through other information—address, education, family ties, a photo from a news clipping in an accounting trade publication.
She looked sort of familiar with her dark hair and her bright smile.
When he reached an older story using her maiden name, his finger stalled over the mouse. Maiden name—Karen Patterson Wells.
He scrolled back up to family ties and spied her three sisters—Wendy, Jean and Rhonda.
Rhonda Patterson.
Duke looked over at the computer terminal across the corridor from his. Rhonda Patterson’s empty terminal.
Was it possible Rhonda was the bookkeeper’s sister?
Odd she’d never mentioned her sister worked for Clyde Matthews, given Rhonda’s dedication to studying the designer’s work in an endless search for possible evidence to link him to the mob.
A knot twisted in Duke’s stomach as instincts kicked in. Hadn’t Amanda said something about Rhonda’s jacket being a designer original? It hadn’t occurred to him before, but now Duke wondered if that was something the average beat cop could afford on an NYPD salary.
Adrenaline pumped through him, the familiar surge of energy that came along with a big lead. Only now, the thrill of the chase was conspicuously absent.
In its place, he felt a crushing fear for Amanda. He looked back at Rhonda’s empty terminal with a sense of foreboding.
He shouted across the precinct to the desk sergeant on duty. “Denny, who’ve you got down for security over at Jacob Javits tonight?”
Amanda would be vulnerable at the convention center, an easy target for someone who wanted to do her harm for snooping.
The aging sergeant moved his finger down the page of the logbook in front of him. “Looks like Kowalski is over there.” His finger scanned laterally over the paper.
“Along with Rhonda Patterson.”
15
CLUB MUSIC POUNDED from a state-of-the-art speaker system, bouncing a driving bass sound from one end of the cavernous convention center to the other.
Amanda forced herself to take deep, calming breaths, stopping in the middle of the backstage hubbub for a moment to watch Lexi do a last-minute inspection of Amanda’s runway models. Two girls needed makeup retouches, another one had the wrong color panty hose and one had forgotten to throw away her gum.
After ordering a communal bearing of teeth to be sure no one had lipstick on their pearly whites, Lexi declared them all ready for the show.
Amanda wished she felt half so prepared.
Lexi clicked her way over to Amanda in pumpkin-colored leather pumps that matched her bright orange leash for Muffin. “How are you holding up, girlfriend? You look like a wreck.”
Automatically, Amanda smoothed a hand down her aqua minidress with bright fuchsia flowers. An uncharacteristic choice, the outfit might have been an inadvertent attempt to brighten her world in the absence of a certain flashy detective. “Is the dress too much?”
Lexi twirled Muffin’s carrot-colored leash. “You’re asking me?”
Grateful for the laugh, Amanda peered down the runway from behind the stage’s curtains. Her girls were on next.
“Guess I’m just nervous.”
“Your designs are too fabulous for you to be nervous, Amanda.” Lexi gave her a quick hu
g, mistaking the reason for the knot in Amanda’s stomach. “I’m going to stake out a seat in the front row and prepare the crowd to be impressed.”
Amanda watched her go, a pang of emptiness shooting through her despite the throng of people backstage.
How had her world grown so lonely without Duke?
She could surround herself with all the fuchsia and aqua prints she wanted and her life would still be a lot less colorful without him around.
To a certain extent, tonight’s show reflected the excitement of the times she’d spent with Duke. Yellow silk now lined wool jackets that she’d designed earlier in the year. She’d replaced round buttons on all the fall coats with toggles in the shape of stars.
She had wanted to invite him tonight, but being together would only make her wish for impossible things. That Duke trusted her enough to believe in her father’s innocence. That he cared about her enough to at least check out her father’s bogus bookkeeper.
That he saw beyond her notorious family name to the person she was inside.
The music booming through the sound system changed to the big band sound of a Sinatra classic, cueing Amanda’s models to hit the runway. The song reminded her of another man with heart-stopping blue eyes, but she couldn’t think about him now.
As her moment in the spotlight arrived, butterflies filled the emptiness in her belly, along with a surge of hope for her fledgling designs.
Amanda high-fived the first woman in line and sent the lanky six-foot model down the catwalk.
For the first time, she felt no envy for the rail-thin feminine figures all around her. If nothing else came out of her relationship with Duke, she had him to thank for a newfound confidence in her body.
She was checking over her clipboard to be certain the clothes went on the runway in the right order when someone sidled up beside her.
Amanda looked up to see Karen Wells at her elbow, an earnest expression on her face behind her huge glasses.
“Hi, Amanda.” She flashed a smile so brief Amanda thought maybe she’d imagined it. “I know you are busy, but I needed to talk to you in private.”
Anger and resentment warred as she came face-to-face with the woman who’d probably been ripping off her father all year. Amanda gestured to the clipboard and the parade of models marching past her. “We’re onstage right now.”
Karen leaned closer. “I’m sorry. But it’s about your father and his books.”
That caught her attention.
Amanda tucked the clipboard under one arm. She’d planned this show right down to the last second, so she didn’t really anticipate any problems. She definitely wanted to hear what Karen had to say.
Stepping into the shadow of a marble pillar for what limited privacy the backstage area afforded, Amanda waited. “Yes?”
“I hear you’ve been reviewing the books?” the woman hedged.
How had she heard? Had Amanda’s father told her?
“Yes. I’ve been concerned about the money Matthews Designs has been losing lately.” Amanda saw no reason to deny it. Sooner or later an outside tax attorney would sort out the mess and Karen would have to answer for her portion of the mistakes.
Karen lowered her voice. “We’re not losing it.”
Something inside Amanda stilled. She was more than ready for a little honesty here. “Not because of my father’s business sense at least.”
The mousy bookkeeper had the gall to roll her eyes. “We’re paying off your father’s mobster friends, Amanda. He’s been doing it for years.”
Instead of confirming her worst fears, Karen’s words only strengthened Amanda’s conviction that her father had no idea what Karen was doing with his money.
It seemed the bookkeeping twit had made some very big assumptions about the Matthews family—the same assumptions Duke had made. “Did you consult my father about this before you started doling out all his profits?”
When a few of the models turned in their direction, Karen drew Amanda deeper into the shadows.
The Sinatra tune shifted into Duke Ellington, telling Amanda the show was half over. “I need to get ready for the finale. Why don’t we sit down with my father after the show and talk this out? I’m sure we can come up with a way to resolve any misunderstandings.”
Personally, Amanda hoped that resolution involved firing Karen.
“You must realize we can’t just stop making payments.” Karen gripped her arm with surprising fierceness for a woman of her size. “This is the mob we are dealing with, for chrissakes. Organized crime. People who can end your career—even your life—before breakfast tomorrow.”
“I don’t think—”
One hand still locked around Amanda’s arm, Karen flashed a roll of one-hundred-dollar bills under Amanda’s nose with her other hand. “Besides, your father would prefer you don’t bring up this topic.”
That pissed her off.
Boarding school manners didn’t apply to this situation. Karen Wells had just crossed a line.
Amanda yanked her way out of the bookkeeper’s grip, righteous indignation firing through her even as she knew she needed to get back to the stage curtains to prepare for her final bow. “Who the hell do you think you are to tell me what to say to my father?”
She was about to turn on her heel, away from the insufferable twit, when two broad arms locked her in a vise.
Two broad arms clad in a police uniform.
Her momentary relief was shattered by confusion.
The feminine voice accompanying those incredibly strong, uniformed arms only added to Amanda’s puzzlement.
“Nice job, Karen,” the voice intoned over Amanda’s shoulder. “I told you she wouldn’t go for the money.”
Fear gelled in Amanda’s stomach as she craned her neck to see Officer Rhonda Patterson squeezing the breath from her lungs.
Duke’s friend? It didn’t seem possible. Duke was so noble, so upstanding. He would hate to find out that one of his own, one of the good guys, was corrupt.
Karen stuffed the money back in her sweater pocket and shrugged.
Amanda wanted to scream, felt the ridiculous urge to call out for the man who should have been by her side tonight. Rhonda’s hand covered her mouth before she could act on the impulse.
In the hustle of backstage chaos and models running at high speed back and forth from the dressing room, no one seemed to notice Amanda’s distress in the shadow of one marble pillar.
“If her father is clean in spite of all his gangster friends,” Rhonda hissed at the bookkeeper, “doesn’t it make sense that his sheltered daughter would be all the more ethical?”
A moment of satisfaction swirled through Amanda even as she feared for her safety. Rhonda’s words confirmed her father’s innocence.
“Now how are we supposed to shut her up?” Rhonda’s words mingled with the show commentator’s voice praising the new fall collection by Amanda Matthews over the sound system.
Thunderous applause drowned out all other sound, an erratic pulsing beat that hammered through the convention center and echoed the thump of her heart.
The M.C.’s voice overrode the applause. “Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Amanda Matthews!”
DUKE FIDGETED IN HIS seat next to Lexi, the announcer’s voice ringing in his ears. Any second and he would see Amanda.
Amanda’s best friend had convinced him not to go backstage when he’d charged through the fashion show audience a few minutes before. Lexi had given him Muffin’s seat, a fact which hadn’t pleased him or the dog.
Duke needed to see Amanda.
Now.
He’d filched a squad car so he could fly through city traffic with the siren blaring. But when he’d arrived at the fashion exhibition, Lexi assured him Amanda was fine and that he should wait until she finished up her show.
He kept telling himself she was safe, but he wouldn’t relax until he saw her.
When the announcer finally called her to the stage to take a bow, Duke realized he’d been hol
ding his breath.
The gaunt models wearing Amanda Matthews’s clothes lined either side of the runway and started clapping, clearing a space for the designer to take center stage.
Amanda deserved it.
She’d worked hard for this moment, and had succeeded despite her father’s demands on her time and Duke’s insistence that Clyde Matthews’s activities warranted investigation.
Too bad Amanda hadn’t appeared to take the bows she’d earned.
Dread—a foreboding ten times stronger than what he’d felt at the precinct—kicked in.
His instincts fired to life before the anorexic army quit clapping. Duke vaulted onto the stage as the announcer called for Amanda again, as the crowd of society’s fashion elite gasped and squawked at him.
He shoved his way behind the curtains, his eyes struggling to adjust to the dim light.
From somewhere behind the throng of people, Duke heard a muffled cry.
Dodging the stage security and an angry-looking man with a headset and clipboard, Duke followed the sound. He turned, shoved, ran around anyone in his way.
A flash of aqua and killer thigh caught his eye through the archway of a door already starting to close.
He knew those legs.
Duke sprinted to the door as it closed, reaching the exit in time to hear a feminine voice howl in pain.
“You bitch!” The voice didn’t belong to Amanda, but sounded familiar all the same.
He plowed into a back room cluttered with makeup mirrors and folding chairs. Among the sprawl of rolling racks and abandoned hangers in the makeshift dressing room, Duke nearly slammed into Officer Rhonda Patterson hopping around on one foot.
“I think she broke my toe,” Rhonda announced, her face broadcasting a bright red imprint of an angry palm as she glared across the room.
Duke turned to see the object of Rhonda’s evil eye, only to find a curvaceous knockout in fuchsia high heels.
“Amanda.” He said her name and his whole damn world fell into place. He never would have expected this gorgeous creature to be a bulldog in disguise.
