"I often do what others consider unnecessary." He took her hand and, with only the slightest pressure, brought her arm down to her side. "If not lunch, dinner."
"That sounds more like a command than a request." She would have tugged her hand away, but it seemed foolish to engage in a childish test of wills on a public street. "Either way, I have to refuse. I'm working late tonight."
"Tomorrow then." He smiled charmingly. "A request, Counselor."
It was difficult not to smile back when he was looking at her with humor and—was it loneliness?—in his eyes. "Mr. Guthrie. Gage." She corrected herself before he could. "Persistent men usually annoy me. And you're no exception. But for some reason, I think I'd like to have dinner with you."
"I'll pick you up at seven. I keep early hours."
"Fine. I'll give you my address."
"I know it."
"Of course." His driver had dropped her off at her doorstep the night before. "If you'll give me back my hand, I'd like to hail a cab."
He didn't oblige her immediately, but looked down at her hand. It was small and delicate in appearance, like the rest of her. But there was strength in the fingers. She kept her nails short, neatly rounded with a coating of clear polish. She wore no rings, no bracelets, only a slim, practical watch that he noted was accurate to the minute.
He looked up from her hand, into her eyes. He saw curiosity, a touch of impatience and again, the wariness. Gage made himself smile as he wondered how a simple meeting of palms could have jolted his system so outrageously.
"I'll see you tomorrow." He released her and stepped away.
She only nodded, not trusting her voice. When she slipped into a cab, she turned back. But he was already gone.
It was after ten when Deborah walked up to the antique store. It was closed, of course, and she hadn't expected to find anything. She had written her report and passed the details of her interview with Parino on to her superior. But she hadn't been able to resist a look for herself.
In this upscale part of town, people were lingering over dinner or enjoying a play. A few couples wandered by on their way to a club or a restaurant. Streetlights shot out pools of security.
It was foolish, she supposed, to have been drawn here. She could hardly have expected the doors to have been opened so she could walk in and discover a cache of drugs in an eighteenth-century armoire.
The window was not only dark, it was barred and shaded. Just as the shop itself was under a triple cloak of secrecy. She had spent hours that day searching for the name of the owner. He had shielded himself well under a tangle of corporations. The paper trail took frustrating twists and turns. So far, every lead Deborah had pursued had come up hard at a dead end.
But the shop was real. By tomorrow, the day after at the latest, she would have a court order. The police would search every nook and cranny of Timeless. The books would be confiscated. She would have everything she needed to indict.
She walked closer to the dark window. Something made her turn quickly to peer out at the light and shadow of the street behind her.
Traffic rolled noisily by. Arm in arm, a laughing couple strolled along the opposite sidewalk. The sound of music through open car windows was loud and confused, punctuated by the honking of horns and the occasional squeak of brakes.
Normal, Deborah reminded herself. There was nothing here to cause that itch between her shoulder blades. Yet even as she scanned the street, the adjoining buildings, to assure herself no one was paying any attention to her, the feeling of being watched persisted.
She was giving herself the creeps, Deborah decided. These little licks of fear were left over from her night in the alley, and she didn't care for it. It wasn't possible to live your life too spooked to go out at night, so paranoid you looked around every corner before you took that last step around it. At least it wasn't possible for her.
Most of her life she had been cared for, looked after, even pampered by her older sister. Though she would always be grateful to Cilia, she had made a commitment when she had left Denver for Urbana. To leave her mark. That couldn't be done if she ran from shadows.
Determined to fight her own uneasiness, she skirted around the building, walking quickly through the short, narrow alley between the antique store and the boutique beside it.
The rear of the building was as secure and unforthcoming as the front. There was one window, enforced with steel bars, and a pair of wide doors, triple bolted. Here, there were no streetlamps to relieve the dark.
"You don't look stupid."
At the voice, she jumped back and would have tumbled into a line of garbage cans if a hand hadn't snagged her wrist. She opened her mouth to scream, brought her fist up to fight, when she recognized her companion.
"You!" He was in black, hardly visible in the dark. But she knew.
"I would have thought you'd had your fill of back alleys." He didn't release her, though he knew he should. His fingers braceleted her wrist and felt the fast, hot beat of her blood.
"You've been watching me."
"There are some women it's difficult to look away from." He pulled her closer, just a tug on her wrist, and stunned both of them. His voice was low and rough. She could see anger in the gleam of his eyes. She found the combination oddly compelling. "What are you doing here?"
Her mouth was so dry it ached. He had pulled her so close that their thighs met. She could feel the warm flutter of his breath on her lips. To insure some distance and some control, she put a hand to his chest.
Her hand didn't pass through, but met a warm, solid wall, felt the quick, steady beat of a heart.
"That's my business."
"Your business is to prepare cases and try them in court, not to play detective."
"I'm not playing—" She broke off, eyes narrowing. "How do you know I'm a lawyer?"
"I know a great deal about you, Miss O'Roarke." His smile was thin and humorless. "That's my business. I don't think your sister worked to put you through law school, and saw you graduate at the top of your class to have you sneaking around back entrances of locked buildings. Especially when that building is a front for some particularly ugly commerce."
"You know about this place?"
"As I said, I know a great deal."
She would handle his intrusion into her life later. Now, she had a job to do. "If you have any information, any proof about this suspected drug operation, it's your duty to give that information to the D.A.'s office."
"I'm very aware of my duty. It doesn't include making deals with scum."
Heat rushed to her cheeks. She didn't even question how he knew about her interview with Parino. It was enough, more than enough, that he was holding her integrity up to inspection. "I worked within the law," she snapped at him. "Which is more than you can say.
You put on a mask and play Captain America, making up your own rules. That makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution."
In the slits of his mask, his eyes narrowed. "You seemed grateful enough for my solution a few nights ago."
Her chin came up. She wished she could face him on her own ground, in the light. "I've already thanked you for your help, unnecessary though it was."
"Are you always so cocky, Miss O'Roarke?"
"Confident," she corrected.
"And do you always win in court?"
"I have an excellent record."
"Do you always win?" he repeated.
"No, but that's not the point."
"That's exactly the point. There's a war in this city, Miss O'Roarke."
"And you've appointed yourself general of the good guys."
He didn't smile. "No, I fight alone."
"Don't you—"
But he cut her off swiftly, putting a gloved hand over her mouth. He listened, but not with his ears. It wasn't something he heard, but something he felt, as some men felt hunger or thirst, love or hate. Or, from centuries ago when their senses were not dulled by civilization, danger.
Bef
ore she had even begun to struggle against him, he pulled her aside and shoved her down beneath him behind the wall of the next building.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
The explosion that came on the tail of her words made her ears ring. The flash of light made her pupils contract. Before she could close her eyes against the glare, she saw the jagged shards of flying glass, the missiles of charred brick. Beneath her, the ground trembled as the antique store exploded.
She saw, with horror and fascination, a lethal chunk of concrete crash only three feet from her face.
"Are you all right?" When she didn't answer, only trembled, he took her face in his hand and turned it to his. "Deborah, are you all right?"
He repeated her name twice before the glassy look left her eyes. "Yes," she managed. "Are you?"
"Don't you read the papers?" There was the faintest of smiles around his mouth. "I'm invulnerable."
"Right." With a little sigh, she tried to sit up. For a moment he didn't move, but left his body where it was, where it wanted to be. Fitted against hers. His face was only inches away. He wondered what would happen—to both of them—if he closed that distance and let his mouth meet hers.
He was going to kiss her, Deborah realized and went perfectly still. Emotion swarmed through her. Not anger, as she'd expected. But excitement, raw and wild. It pumped through her so quickly, so hugely, it blocked out everything else. With a little murmur of agreement, she lifted her hand to his cheek.
Her fingers brushed his mask. He pulled back from her touch as if he'd been slapped. Shifting, he rose then helped her to her feet. Fighting a potent combination of humiliation and fury, she stepped around the wall toward the rear of the antique shop.
There was little left of it. Brick, glass and concrete were scattered. Inside the crippled building, fire raged. The roof collapsed with a long, loud groan.
"They've beaten you this time," he murmured. "There won't be anything left for you to find—no papers, no drugs, no records."
"They've destroyed a building," she said between her teeth. She hadn't wanted to be kissed, she told herself. She'd been shaken up, dazed, a victim of temporary insanity. "But someone owns it, and I'll find out who that is."
"This was meant as a warning, Miss O'Roarke. One you might want to consider."
"I won't be frightened off. Not by exploding buildings or by you." She turned to face him, but wasn't surprised that he was gone.
Chapter 3
It was after one in the morning when Deborah dragged herself down the hallway toward her apartment. She'd spent the best part of two hours answering questions, giving her statement to the police, and avoiding reporters. Even through the fatigue was a nagging annoyance toward the man called Nemesis.
Technically he'd saved her life again. If she'd been standing within ten feet of the antique shop when the bomb had gone off, she would certainly have met a nasty death. But then he'd left her holding the bag, a very large, complicated bag she'd been forced to sort through, assistant D.A. or not, for the police.
Added to that was the fact he had shown in the short, pithy conversation they'd had, that he held no respect for her profession or her judgment. She had studied and worked toward the goal of prosecutor since she'd been eighteen. Now with a shrug, he was dismissing those years of her life as wasted.
No, she thought as she dug in her purse for her keys, he preferred to skulk around the streets, meting out his own personal sense of justice. Well, it didn't wash. And before it was over, she was going to prove to him that the system worked.
And she would prove to herself that she hadn't been the least bit attracted to him.
"You look like you had a rough night."
Keys in hand, Deborah turned. Her across-the-hall neighbor, Mrs. Greenbaum, was standing in her open doorway, peering out through a pair of cherry-red framed glasses.
"Mrs. Greenbaum, what are you doing up?"
"Just finished watching David Letterman. That boy cracks me up." At seventy, with a comfortable pension to buffer her against life's storms, Lil Greenbaum kept her own hours and did as she pleased. At the moment she was wearing a tatty terry-cloth robe, Charles and Di bedroom slippers and a bright pink bow in the middle of her hennaed hair. "You look like you could use a drink. How about a nice hot toddy?"
Deborah was about to refuse, when she realized a hot toddy was exactly what she wanted. She smiled, dropped the keys into her jacket pocket and crossed the hall. "Make it a double."
"Already got the hot water on. You just sit down and kick off your shoes." Mrs. Greenbaum patted her hand then scurried off to the kitchen.
Grateful, Deborah sank into the deep cushions of the couch. The television was still on, with an old black-and-white movie flickering on the screen. Deborah recognized a young Cary Grant, but not the film. Mrs. Greenbaum would know, she mused. Lil Greenbaum knew everything.
The two-bedroom apartment—Mrs. Greenbaum kept a second bedroom ready for any of her numerous grandchildren—was both cluttered and tidy. Tables were packed with photographs and trinkets. There was a lava lamp atop the television, with a huge brass peace symbol attached to its base. Lil was proud of the fact that she'd marched against the establishment in the sixties. Just as she had protested nuclear reactors, Star Wars, the burning of rain forests and the increased cost of Medicare.
She liked to protest, she'd often told Deborah. When you could argue against the system, it meant you were still alive and kicking. "Here we are." She brought out two slightly warped ceramic mugs—the product of one of her younger children's creativity. She flicked a glance at the television. "Penny Serenade, 1941, and oh, ' wasn't that Cary Grant something?" After setting down the mugs, she picked up her remote and shut the TV off. "Now, what trouble have you been getting yourself into?''
"It shows?"
Mrs. Greenbaum took a comfortable sip of whiskey-laced tea. "Your suit's a mess." She leaned closer and took a sniff. "Smells like smoke. Got a smudge on your cheek, a run in your stocking and fire in your eyes. From the look in them, there's got to be a man involved."
"The UPD could use you, Mrs. Greenbaum." Deborah sipped at the tea and absorbed the hot jolt. "I was doing a little legwork. The building I was checking out blew up."
The lively interest in Mrs. Greenbaum's eyes turned instantly to concern. "You're not hurt?"
"No. Few bruises." They would match the ones she'd gotten the week before. "I guess my ego suffered a little. I ran into Nemesis." Deborah hadn't mentioned her first encounter, because she was painfully aware of her neighbor's passionate admiration for the man in black.
Behind the thick frames, Mrs. Greenbaum's eyes bulged. "You actually saw him?"
"I saw him, spoke to him and ended up being tossed to the concrete by him just before the building blew up."
"God." Lil pressed a hand to her heart. "That's even more romantic than when I met Mr. Greenbaum at the Pentagon rally."
"It had nothing to do with romance. The man is impossible, very likely a maniac and certainly dangerous."
"He's a hero." Mrs. Greenbaum shook a scarlet-tipped finger at Deborah. "You haven't learned to recognize heroes yet. That's because we don't have enough of them today." She crossed her feet so that Princess Di grinned up at Deborah. "So, what does he look like? The reports have all been mixed. One day he's an eight-foot black man, another he's a pale-faced vampire complete with fangs. Just the other day I read he was a small green woman with red eyes."
"He's not a woman," Deborah muttered. She could remember, a bit too clearly, the feel of his body over hers. "And I can't really say what he looks like. It was dark and most of his face was masked."
"Like Zorro?" Mrs. Greenbaum said hopefully.
"No. Well, I don't know. Maybe." She gave a little sigh and decided to indulge her neighbor. "He's six-one or six-two, I suppose, lean but well built."
"What color is his hair?"
"It was covered. I could see his jawline." Strong, tensed. "And his mouth."
It had hovered for one long, exciting moment over hers. "Nothing special," she said quickly, and gulped more tea.
"Hmm." Mrs. Greenbaum had her own ideas. She'd been married and widowed twice, and in between had enjoyed what she considered her fair share of affairs and romantic entanglements. She recognized the signs. "His eyes? You can always tell the make of a man by his eyes. Though I'd rather look at his tush." Deborah chuckled. "Dark."
"Dark what?"
"Just dark. He keeps to the shadows."
"Slipping through the shadows to root out evil and protect the innocent. What's more romantic than that?"
"He's bucking the system."
"My point exactly. It doesn't get bucked enough."
"I'm not saying he hasn't helped a few people, but we have trained law enforcement officers to do that." She frowned into her mug. There hadn't been any cops around either time she had needed help. They couldn't be everywhere. And she probably could have handled both situations herself. Probably. She used her last and ultimate argument. "He doesn't have any respect for the law."
"I think you're wrong. I think he has great respect for it. He just interprets it differently than you do." Again she patted Deborah's hand. "You're a good girl, Deborah, a smart girl, but you've trained yourself to walk down a very narrow path. You should remember that this country was founded on rebellion. We often forget, then we become fat and lazy until someone comes along and questions the status quo. We need rebels, just as we need heroes. It would be a dull, sad world without them."
"Maybe." Though she was far from convinced. "But we also need rules."
"Oh, yes." Mrs. Greenbaum grinned. "We need rules. How else could we break them?"
Gage kept his eyes closed as his driver guided the limo across town. Through the night after the explosion and the day that followed, he had thought of a dozen reasons why he should cancel his date with Deborah O'Roarke.
They were all very practical, very logical, very sane reasons. To offset them had been only one impractical, illogical and potentially insane reason.
Books by Nora Roberts Page 370
