by Julie Miller
According to Claire, Galvan wore black leather gloves.
His accomplice at Winthrop, Inc., apparently did not.
He’d find the hand that wore that ring. And he vowed that hand would never hurt Claire again.
A.J. shoved open the door, wanting to stride inside as if he owned the place. But common sense dictated that, as usual, he draw as little attention to himself as possible. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust from the natural darkness outside to the garish strobe and spotlight swirling up on the stage.
The music was too loud, but it had a spicy salsa beat that seemed to match the pulse in his Latin blood. His chin started an unconscious bob to the rhythms playing in the background. With his hands hooked into the pockets of his jacket, he lingered in the shadows at the back of the club and scanned the bar and tables for the petitely sexy mama-sita who served the wrong drinks and had a kickin’ ass.
When the big man materialized out of the shadows beside him, A.J. didn’t react. He’d worked with Cole for too many years to not recognize him by scent or silhouette. “I have good news, amigo.”
“I have news, too.” His former partner’s oblique statement put the first suspicious chink in A.J.’s positive mood.
He still hadn’t spotted Claire, but Cole wouldn’t be standing here for a friendly chat if something had happened to her. “I’ve got a way to nail Galvan. And a new lead on the accomplice.”
“I’ve got a lead on the accomplice, too.” A.J.’s chin stopped bobbing. What kind of investigating had Cole been doing? He was supposed to be watching Claire. The second blow to his mood was a big one. He focused his gaze and swept the room again. “Where is she?”
Cole raised his hands in friendly surrender. “First, let me say that I think you and I share an affinity for stubborn women.”
Panic rose like bile in his throat. “Where is she?”
For a second, he thought Cole wasn’t going to answer. Friendship be damned—if he didn’t tell him what had happened to Claire, he was going to take him down at the knees.
Then he realized that Cole was telling him. With his eyes. A.J. followed the direction of his gaze. Trepidation turned to curiosity. Curiosity became a shameless jolt of testosterone as he watched the limber dancer with the bright cheeks and lips do a vertical split against the pole at the middle of the stage, while her giant red-feathered fan kept all the good stuff teasingly hidden from view.
A.J. looked beyond her to the stage entrance to find Claire. The drums of the Latin tempo music became more of a headache than a dance as his patience wore thin. The stripper onstage pirouetted away from the pole, flipped her feathers and wiggled the little strip of red lace that graced her fanny.
“Madre Dios.” A.J. muttered a good chunk of his Spanish vocabulary as he headed for the stage.
A big hand closed around his arm and stopped him. “Don’t do it,” Cole warned.
A.J. whirled around. “This is what you call taking care of my woman?”
“Easy, A.J. She’s undercover.”
“What?” Some bastardo reached up and stuffed a bill in Claire’s panties. “Hey!”
“She says it’s a trick she learned from you.”
His virginal heiress was the hottest damn thing to ever strut the runway at the Riverfront Gentleman’s Club. And she learned that from him? “That’s a load of bull. Get her off the stage.”
“She’s hiding in plain sight.” A.J.’s wiring shorted out at Cole’s choice of words. He’d said that to Claire, hadn’t he? Take the heiress undercover into his world. Alter their appearance, change their jobs, assume a new persona.
Hide in plain sight.
His engine revved back into gear as the import of Cole’s words registered. “Hiding from what?”
THE LAST BEAT of the rhythm pulsed through Claire’s bones. She let out a whoop and tossed her fan onto the stage.
“You’re a natural.” Debbie shut the curtain behind her and grinned. “I can tell you’re a dancer.”
Claire pulled out the money that had been tucked into the various strips of elastic she wore and pushed it into Debbie’s hands. “Here. For school tuition. Or groceries or whatever.”
Debbie pushed it back. “You earned it.”
Claire waved the money aside. “You need it more than I do. Besides, that’s not why I went out there.”
Hugging her arms around her middle, between the bra and tap pants she’d borrowed, Claire balanced on her three-inch heels and followed Debbie down the steps toward the dressing room.
“That was a little weird at first. Okay, a lot weird. It probably helped that I couldn’t hear all the comments.” The adrenaline from all she had done and seen was still pumping through her system. “But then it was just like a workout. It was exhilarating. Nerve-racking. And I was victorious!”
Debbie glanced over her shoulder. “You saw him?”
“Yes. That leering, bug-eyed monster. He probably thinks he’s earning points with my father by trying to find me. I can’t believe he’s working with Galvan, though. I wouldn’t think he could afford to pay him. Unless he’s got some other business on the side I don’t know about. Where’s Cole? I have to point him out.”
The enticing scent of well-worn leather stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. A black jacket and jeans stepped out of the shadows in the hall. Claire looked into piercing golden eyes and shivered. The flow of adrenaline bottomed out.
This was bad. This was very bad.
“A.J.”
He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t talking yet, either.
Nerves kept her tongue going. “Are you okay? You were gone so long, I was getting worried. Did you find something useful?” She thumbed over her shoulder toward the stage. “We had an opportunity here, so I…” Her voice trailed away and she made a lame effort to smile. “Are my lips moving?”
“Cole’s outside, escorting Rob Hastings down to the precinct. I don’t know if he’s guilty of anything more than annoying me, but Josh and Cole will ask him some questions.” He shrugged off his jacket and draped it around her, covering her bare shoulders and arms in its A.J.-scented warmth. He overlapped the opening and held it in place with his hands, masking her body. “Hastings isn’t your man. There’s still somebody else to worry about at Winthrop, Inc.”
Claire clutched the lining of the jacket and shivered. But Rob Hastings had tracked her down. He’d tracked down Debbie, at least. He’d seemed right at home with the vulgar, leering crowd of men trying to glimpse more than lace and feathers during her performance. He was greedy enough, ambitious enough, base enough to be her villain. But A.J. seemed so sure he wasn’t. “How do you know?”
“Police work.” He spared a glance over her shoulder. “Debbie, could you give us a minute?”
Debbie tapped Claire’s arm. “Is that okay?”
She nodded. Her friend seemed glad to disappear in the face of A.J.’s dour mood, and on the surface, Claire supposed she couldn’t blame her. But she saw something beyond the ominously quiet facade, beyond the tough-guy temperament.
This was the A.J. who’d held her last night on the sofa. The one who had tears in his eyes when she’d almost died at the safe house. This was the man who didn’t want to feel anything as deeply as he did, and whose cool and aloof facade was cracking open wider and wider as those emotions emerged.
This A.J. pulled off her red-feathered wig and mussed her mousy brown hair back into place. He hugged her close to his chest and whispered sounds in her ear she couldn’t understand. It was easy to sense that he needed to hold her, and Claire had no intention of denying him what gave her such comfort as well.
A minute or so later, when he pulled away, he actually grinned. “So you liked doing the striptease, huh?’
“Exotic dance,” she corrected with a matching smile. “It was kind of fun,” she had to admit. “But I don’t think I want to make a career of it. I tried to do a Gypsy Rose Lee-ladylike routine. Tease them a lot, without really showing much. I don’t th
ink I was really that good at it.”
“You were damn good at it, amor.” The hint of jealous propriety in his expression warmed her down to her toes and made his next order sound all the sweeter. “Now go put some clothes on. I need to take you home.”
Claire washed her face, then pulled her jeans and shirts on over her red dance costume so she could take her own underthings back to the apartment to wash out. She wore A.J.’s jacket out of the club, and when he didn’t ask for it, she didn’t offer. It was warm and soft and it felt a little like him holding her again.
Besides, she’d never be adverse to seeing what his upper body could do for a plain black T-shirt.
The night was dark and overcast as it had been for the past week. With the club closing for the night, the customers were starting to file out to their cars or line up at the curb for a taxi to pick them up.
“You want to wait here while I pull the car around?” he asked.
Let’s see. The dark? Or the drunks? Half the lights in the parking lot were out, and the nearest street lamp was a block away. Claire crooked an eyebrow. “Do you mind?”
He pushed her back a step into the circle of light pouring through the club’s open front doors. “As long as you don’t move from this spot.”
“Deal.”
With his black hair and black shirt, A.J. quickly disappeared into the darkness of the parking lot. Claire swallowed the lump of insecurity in her throat. She knew he was out there, she just couldn’t see him. She hadn’t been abandoned.
Still, Cole was gone. She didn’t see Debbie anywhere. She hadn’t even gotten the satisfaction of giving Rob Hastings a piece of her mind. Calling Debbie a slut. Ogling over “Kiki’s” salsa ballet performance when he had supposedly come to the club to find Claire Winthrop. Yeah, he cared a lot about her family. A.J. hadn’t explained how he knew Rob wasn’t Galvan’s accomplice, but then he hadn’t told her anything about the autopsy yet. She hoped he’d found something that could put them on the offensive to go after Valerie’s killers—instead of feeling like running and hiding were their only options for survival.
The first taxi pulled up to the cab stand, then another. While she waited for A.J., Claire huddled inside his jacket and distracted herself by reading snatches of conversation from the departing patrons.
“I am so wasted.”
“Dude, your last night as a single man is over.”
“My wife can just…”
“…hot little tamale.” She grinned sheepishly at that one. The first cab left and another pulled in. The driver climbed out and pulled his cap low on his forehead. The cars were starting to line up in the parking lot.
“Give me my keys!”
“You’re not driving.”
“What is that crazy guy doing?”
Claire turned to see who the young man was making fun of.
A.J. charged out of the darkness, pointing down to the pavement. “Get down!”
Nothing funny about that.
He ran straight toward her. “Get down!” Claire’s knees hunched, almost obeying. Some people were nervously curious, others oblivious, to his warning.
A.J. waved his arms, shouting to the entire crowd. “Everybody get down!”
And then he was upon her. “Claire!”
A light flashed beneath the hood of the abandoned taxi. A.J.’s arms whipped around her and slammed them both to the sidewalk as the night exploded.
Chapter Eleven
Third time’s a bitch, A.J. thought, gritting his teeth at the fiery pain burning through his left thigh.
He was learning to hate the sound of a well-tuned engine. Out in the parking lot, away from the noise of the crowd, he’d heard the unique pitch of that same powerful hum that had preceded Slick Williams’s death and the diversionary explosion at the safe house.
The car bomb was an empty shell, the taxi in front of it on fire. People all around him were screaming, moaning, silent.
But he was only interested in two of them. “Claire? Amor?”
He pulled the costume glasses off her face and tossed them aside. Her dazed eyes blinked in a slow, unnatural rhythm. He cradled her head in his hands, checking for signs of injury. She had a lump the size of a walnut on the back of her head—probably from his linebacking effort to hit the sidewalk. He cursed himself in two languages, then said a prayer in both.
“Talk to me, amor.”
He stroked her face, willing her to respond. She was so still beneath him, but he hadn’t moved yet. Galvan was out there somewhere, waiting for his shot at her.
A.J. raised his head and risked a look. This place was a disaster. The light from the fires made the shadows beyond them even darker and harder to assess. People ran out of the club to join the chaos of wounded and possibly dead patrons and passersby. There were people with too much booze in their systems to deal with shock or pain in any logical way. He saw a few good Samaritans, a few hysterics, and plenty of places to hide amongst them all.
Black hair, black eyes. Scarred-up face. A.J. had only seen Galvan in a scratchy black-and-white photograph. How the hell would he find him in all this?
He shifted to one side and hissed at the pain that radiated up and down his leg. He pulled the cell from his pocket and hit 9-1-1. His situation report was brief and graphic, and all response units were soon on their way.
Claire suddenly lurched beneath him and moaned. She shoved at his chest and he tried to adjust his weight without aggravating the shrapnel in his leg or exposing her to Galvan’s line of sight. She tried to suck in a deep breath and winced. “Oh God, it hurts to breathe. My head.”
“Claire?” A.J. ignored his first aid training and kissed her quick and hard on the mouth. “Tell me you’re okay.”
“Did that taxi blow up?” She pushed her bangs off her face, then reached up and did the same for him. “My chest feels like a ton of bricks landed on it.”
“You probably had the wind knocked out of you. I clobbered you pretty hard.”
Her cheeks were pink again, her eyes clear. “My head hurts.”
“I’m afraid that’s my fault, too.”
“I think you just saved my life, so quit talking about this being anybody’s fault.”
He couldn’t help grinning in relief. She was going to be just fine if that bossy mouth was any indication.
“Oh, my God.” Now she was looking around, frowning, pushing at his chest to sit up. “I’m okay, A.J. Let me up. We have to help these people.”
“You help no one but yourself,” he ordered. “Galvan’s here.”
“Did you see him?”
“Not yet.”
“I think I did, getting out of the cab. Black ball cap. Light dress shirt, untucked.”
“That description fits half the people here.”
She twisted frantically beneath him, trying to observe the crowd from her obscure vantage point, jostling his leg between hers. Something caught and jerked. A.J. swore.
“What’s this?” She uncurled her fingers beside her face and gasped. “Blood. But I’m not…” Her eyes flashed at him. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
“You are so full of it.” Her anger was touching, her concern humbling, her burst of strength entirely unacceptable.
“Claire.”
But she was agile enough and he was hurt enough that she managed to sit up. “There’s a first-aid kit behind the bar.”
“You’re staying put.”
She was getting up.
Propped at this angle, it was hard to maneuver his leg. By the time he’d pulled himself to his feet, she’d slipped out and run inside the club. “Claire!”
Pulling the gun from his ankle holster would only panic the victims, and it was already war zone enough to keep track of everyone’s movements. Galvan would take advantage of the situation and lose himself in the crowd. Light shirt. Dark cap. A.J. had to stay sharp to spot him. He had to stay close to Claire to keep her safe.
She was runnin
g back to meet him by the time he’d limped through the door. If she wanted to play doctor, then fine, but they were going to do it someplace more secure than the middle of the sidewalk.
“In here.” He pulled up one of the bouncer’s stools and sat behind the cashier stand.
Sirens wailed in the distance. Help would be here any minute. But until he saw somebody with a uniform and a gun to back him up, he would unstrap his Beretta and keep it in his hand while Claire knelt beside him and inspected his wound.
He winced as she probed the side of his leg. “It looks like part of a mirror.” She looked up at him. “Should I pull it out?”
“If you can get it in one piece.” She removed his jacket and tossed it on the table beside him. Then she peeled off one of her tank tops and wound it around her hand to protect herself. “It’ll bleed when you pull it out,” he instructed, “so be ready to pack it off.”
She angled herself one way and then another, trying to decide the best vantage point. “I’ll have to cut your pant-leg away to get to the wound. Oh, God, A.J. I’m so sorry. This is going to hurt.”
“Just do it. I’m tough.”
She touched her hand to his face and blessed him with a wry smile. “I’m not.”
When she turned her back to him and knelt out of earshot, he whispered, “You’re tougher than you know, sweetheart.”
He looked at his jacket on the tabletop, took note of the sandpapery scrapes that abraded a shoulder and the length of one sleeve. If she hadn’t have been wearing his coat, that would be her skin, and he’d be doctoring…
“Son of a—” A.J. bit off the curse as the shard of mirror popped free.
Claire pressed her shirt against the wound to stanch the bleeding and A.J. decided that at least the pain was good for keeping his senses sharp. She wrapped gauze around his thigh to keep the pack in place. “I think you need stitches.”
A.J. nodded. “Just tie it off. It’s not vital. The bleeding will stop.”
Snapping her fingers, Claire shot to her feet. “Debbie’s a nursing student. She’ll know how to do the stitches.”
