Desired by a Dangerous Man

by Cleo Peitsche

“Did you get advice from Corbin?” I asked.

  “He has bigger things to worry about.” He turned in his bed to face me. “You’re in charge of turning out the lights.”

  Sighing, I got up, turned off the lights, and got back into bed. The room was darker, sure, but plenty of light spilled in around the edges of the curtain. It made the sparse furniture look a little less unloved, a little less harsh.

  I heard Rob flopping onto his back.

  “I’ve dated plenty of women, but no one like her. She’s gorgeous, and she’s confident, but when you talk to her, when you really get to know her, there’s this softness, this vulnerability.”

  “Um, ok,” I said, uncomfortable. And to think that I’d practically begged Rob to tell me his woes, to let me give him advice.

  “See, you can’t relate,” he said with a groan.

  “Yes, I can,” I said, feeling my stubbornness rising. “She’s got a tough job, but she’s a real person. She’s not a sociopath.”

  “No, she’s not a sociopath. Her boyfriend, he is.”

  I flipped over, though I couldn’t really see more than a lump in the darkness. “Really?”

  “Corbin didn’t tell you?”

  “Corbin doesn’t know the details of her personal life.”

  “Sure he does. Or, if he doesn’t, it’s because he doesn’t want to know. I’m not saying her boyfriend is a bad guy, but he’s using her.”

  “Ok,” I said. “But you’re getting that from her, right? So it’s biased.”

  “I might have been at her place when he popped into town.”

  “On purpose?” I asked, scandalized.

  “I’m not saying I wouldn’t take on a trained killer for her, but I’m not insane, either. No, it was a coincidence. He goes all around the world, doing god knows what, but she’s expected to be ready for him, at his beck and call.”

  Man, I was dying to know more details about that, but it wasn’t my business. “I have a hard time imagining Jennifer putting up with that,” I said. Because yeah, she was nice, but she was tough, too.

  “She got his cover blown. Once, several years ago,” Rob said. “He holds it over her head. Keeps her twisted up because of guilt.”

  “Well, no offense but that’s something she needs to deal with,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know. Believe me, I know. She has to walk away because it’s the healthy thing to do, not because someone else pulled her away. Intellectually I get it, but it’s hard as fuck to sit on the sidelines and watch.”

  “But you’re not just sitting on the sidelines,” I ventured.

  “I am now,” he said, his voice closed. “At this point, we’re just friends. It does get awkward.”

  “Maybe you need to date someone else,” I said gently.

  He sighed, a long exhale that was drowned out by the aggressive rumbling of a passing truck. “If I understood her better, maybe I’d know if she’s messed up, or if it’s just this one situation. You know what I mean? But for some reason I just want to save her. Our relationship is doomed, but I want it to work out anyway. You know what I mean?”

  Oh, I knew exactly what he meant. Rob of all people was well aware of that. He’d counseled me plenty of times when things with Corbin got rough. He’d never judged me, and I sure wasn’t going to judge him.

  “I’m glad you’re my twin,” I whispered. My phone vibrated, and I thrust my hand for it, sent it spinning off the table.

  I threw back the covers and grabbed it.

  Not Corbin.

  “Hello?” I answered as I went to the bathroom and flipped on the light. Behind me, I could hear Rob protesting that I didn’t need to leave, but I ignored him.

  “It’s Sara.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “How did it go?”

  I knew I shouldn’t ask her the same thing right back… but I wanted to know. “How did your emergency go?” I asked. She didn’t answer, so I continued. “JD’s furniture was moved out, his papers and clothing and personal effects are strewn all over the floor. Don’t you want any of his things?” I couldn’t imagine not caring about Rob’s things if they were all I had left of him.

  There was a soft sound on the other end of the line, and I realized Sara was crying. I had made her cry. I closed the bathroom door and turned so I wouldn’t have to look at myself in the mirror. “It must be difficult,” I said much more gently.

  “One of the kids at school told my daughter what happened to JD. Of course my children knew he’d died, but now they know the details…” Her voice broke.

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” I felt like an ass.

  She cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to leave them alone.”

  I backed up against the sink and drummed my fingers on the cheap plastic counter. Sara’s kids weren’t that old, were they? How would a bunch of six-year-olds find out about a murder?

  “Well,” I said, “I confirmed that he was seeing… someone… and that it was serious.” I left out Bowlst’s name, not because I really thought my phone was being tapped but because… Sara had been paranoid about him, and I wanted to respect that. Maybe her phone was being tapped.

  “I could fly down in the morning,” she offered.

  “No need.”

  “Do you think… Do you have any leads?”

  I worked my jaw a bit. Sara deserved to know what was going on, but technically, Neil had hired me. And she didn’t seem terribly stable at the moment. I decided not to mention the storage facility. She didn’t need to hear about penis paintings.

  “Not just yet,” I told her. There was a buzzing—someone calling in on the other line. It was Corbin.

  But before I could wish Sara good night, she blurted, “Do you think it’s a lost cause? The cops don’t have any leads.” Her voice was thin, wavered… wavered even more with the other line buzzing every few seconds.

  “I don’t know. Listen—”

  The buzzing stopped, and my heart sank.

  “Yes?” Sara asked.

  Well, I’d just have to call Corbin back. “There is something you can answer. Who told you that Massimo had been tracked down?”

  Her voice dropped even quieter. “A friend,” she said. “Nobody, really. He wanted me to know that Massimo was being dealt with.”

  “It would be helpful if you told me who—”

  “I can’t, and anyway it doesn’t matter. If Massimo is innocent, he doesn’t deserve to die. If he’s guilty, I want answers. I deserve answers.” Her voice, while still quiet, had gotten hard, harsh, and I wondered if I’d underestimated Sara.

  Not if. I clearly had. When I’d met her, she’d been destroyed over the loss of her brother, and it had made me think of Rob, of myself. But now that I could evaluate her without the rawness of her grief staring me in the face, I wasn’t sure I trusted her.

  No, I was sure. I didn’t trust her, or Neil, or Massimo. Everyone seemed to be hiding something, it seemed. Yet I was supposed to figure out the truth, somehow.

  It was complete bullshit.

  “I need to go,” I told her. “I’ll call you in a few days, or sooner if I have something concrete.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and the phone clicked off.

  I didn’t give Sara a second thought as I quickly redialed Corbin.

  Immediately, I went to his voicemail. “It’s me. I’m wide awake. Call whenever.”

  After drinking tepid water from the faucet, I opened the door. It creaked, but I could hear the faint sounds of my brother snoring.

  I got into bed, the phone wrapped in my fist and snuggled against my chin, and I fell asleep waiting for Corbin to call me back.

  Chapter 13

  I woke with a stiff neck and a mild headache, along with the feeling that I’d forgotten something.

  Corbin.

  Instantly I checked my phone, but there weren’t any messages.

  Nothing like a strong dose of irritation to launch the day. I kicked away the covers.

  Corbin had said he would call, and technic
ally he had. But he hadn’t called me back, and he knew damned well that I wanted to talk to him.

  Rob came out of the bathroom. He was completely dressed. “This motel sucks,” he said as he zipped his toiletry kit closed and slid it into his bag.

  “No shit.”

  “We’ve got six hours before we have to be at the airport. I’m thinking it might be useful to try calling Neil again, see if there’s someplace that JD liked to hang out. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “You call him.” I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face.

  Unfortunately, irritation didn’t wash away so easily. The problem wasn’t Corbin. I recognized that. I was just frustrated in general.

  I really did feel like crap.

  I felt… manipulated. Sara had basically told me to come immediately to LA, but then she hadn’t made a similar effort.

  Once I identified what was bothering me, it was easy enough to fix. Jerking upright, I grabbed a rough towel and dabbed at my face to dry it, then flew out of the bathroom. Rob was on the phone, and I motioned for him to hurry and wrap things up.

  “Thanks, Neil. We’ll arrange a meeting in the next day or two.” He hung up.

  I didn’t give him a chance to ask what I wanted. “We’re going to San Francisco,” I announced. “Neil, Massimo, and Sara are all hiding something. I’m tired of getting these little scraps, doled out when they feel like it while they jerk me around like a marionette. You know what I’m going to do?”

  “Change out of your pajamas?” Rob suggested.

  “I’m going to treat this like a fugitive recovery, and here, the fugitive is the truth.”

  Rob looked unimpressed. “Will you do that before or after brushing your teeth?”

  “Call the travel agent.” I tossed him my phone, grabbed my clothes and headed back into the bathroom.

  “What travel agent?”

  “Make sure she books us on a flight home tonight.” I shut the door.

  To my great surprise, Rob managed to find the agent’s phone number in my call history. “What kind of PI would I be if I couldn’t handle that?” he scoffed.

  We barely got to the airport in time to catch the flight. Because I hadn’t been there to insist on flying coach, we were booked first class, which meant we got to use the fast security lane. Good thing, too, because the painting, which was almost four feet tall and equally wide, took some extra attention.

  “It’s priceless,” Rob said to one of the flight attendants when we boarded.

  “We’ll be careful,” she promised, hesitantly taking it from him.

  Rob leaned in and whispered, “I bet they think it’s an Andy Warhol or something. If she only knew.”

  I spent the short flight thinking about Corbin, wondering how his meeting had gone and what he was doing now.

  We landed. I immediately checked my phone. No messages.

  Well, time for work. I set off through the airport with long strides. I had my backpack pulling on my shoulders, Rob’s bag hanging from my right arm, my satchel-duffel swinging from my left. Behind me, Rob carried the painting, which wasn’t heavy but was unwieldy.

  My mini speech to Rob that morning had been in jest, but now that I’d reframed the situation, seeing the truth as a target to be captured, my focus had changed.

  What were my most successful tactics during any fugitive recovery?

  The element of surprise was always an old favorite. Catch people off guard and they’d often give something away. They might not say where the bail skip was hiding, but they’d reveal a detail that made all the difference.

  Sara didn’t know who had killed JD, but she knew more than she was sharing.

  I was going to surprise it out of her. Therefore, I didn’t call to tell her we were in the city until we’d reached the spot that I’d determined was halfway between her home and her knitting store.

  It felt really good to have the upper hand for once.

  “Do you have an hour to spare?” I asked her. “I just arrived in town.”

  “You…” She made a little incredulous cough. “I do. I can meet you—”

  “We’ll pick you up.”

  Rob snapped his fingers to get my attention, and he jabbed his thumb at the painting hogging up the back seat.

  “On second thought, if you’re home, let’s meet there. How far is your house from the airport? And what’s your address?” Though I knew the answers to both questions.

  “This time of day, thirty minutes,” she said, and rattled off the address.

  Rob and I were there in ten. Nine minutes, thirty seconds, to be precise.

  I shut off the engine and stared up at the majestic house. It wasn’t huge, at least not in the sense that I was accustomed to. Meaning that it wasn’t one of Corbin’s mansions. It sat on a small lot, with similar homes on either side and not much space separating them.

  But these homes were clearly expensive. They were mansions that someone had zapped with a shrink ray, then carefully arranged atop the hill.

  Rob whistled.

  “Yeah,” I said. “One good earthquake and it all slides into the bay.”

  “The peasants’ houses will cushion the fall,” Rob said.

  “Ready?”

  “Sis, I was born ready.”

  We got out and climbed the steep, narrow steps. The hedges on the other side of the railing were obedient little masterpieces. I had really misread Sara.

  I should have known that anyone with two kids who could pick up and fly between cities at a moment’s notice wasn’t merely middle class.

  Rob pushed the buzzer, then stepped back.

  “This house is so large,” Rob whispered, “you can’t hear the doorbell ringing. That’s class.”

  I snickered.

  A woman with thick wrists and ankles opened the door. “I’m here for Sara,” I said.

  She looked surprised, but then Sara came up behind her. “That was fast,” Sara said. She wore a simple white dress that looked expensive.

  I’d remembered her as being thin, perhaps even gaunt. She was in better form now, the dark circles under her eyes were gone, and she was elegant, more greyhound than skeleton. Her long blonde hair had been curled. Trophy wife. I hadn’t seen it before, but it was clear now.

  “We were already in the city,” I said.

  A frown furrowed her brow. “It’s fine,” Sara said. “There’s a little bakery two blocks away—”

  “We have sensitive things to discuss,” I said. “And if you don’t mind, I need to use the restroom.”

  Sara pursed her lips, but she stepped back to let me into the quietly elegant foyer. She eyed Rob as he entered, and I didn’t like the interested expression on her face as her gaze traveled over his tight shirt. She was married. Married and in mourning.

  But to look at her now, she wasn’t either.

  She managed to stop drooling long enough to say, “The bathroom is down the hall and to your right. I’ll send out for pastries, and we’ll have tea in the back.”

  The hallway was narrow—thanks to the ray gun—but perfectly decorated. White and gold wallpaper striped the upper half of the wall, and a solid, robin egg blue covered the bottom half. The molding was an immaculate white.

  The windows wore little bibs, a rich people thing. I only knew because of having helped decorate Corbin’s condo.

  Instead of using the bathroom, I poked around a bit. The mansion probably had four or five bathrooms, so I didn’t expect to find anything useful in the medicine cabinet, and I didn’t, however I did see a bottle of aspirin, and since my headache was still bothering me, I popped it open.

  I didn’t recognize the pills inside, but they looked prescription. There were only four left, or I would have slipped one into my pocket. Instead I snapped a photo, then carefully put the bottle back.

  The bathroom was frilly but not girly. It reminded me of one of the bed and breakfasts that Corbin sometimes booked for a night or two. Pretty, fancy, but nothing I’d want to h
ave to look at permanently.

  I flushed and pretended to wash my hands, then went out. The thick-wristed woman was waiting at the end of the hallway. “This way,” she said, and led me deeper into the mansion. It just kept going and going.

  Every room, the color scheme changed. I wondered if the family said things like “meet me in the yellow room” or “I think I saw your keys in the safari room.” I ogled a footstool made from an elephant’s foot. It looked antique, but it creeped me out.

  The home was too clean, too posed, like it had to be ready to be photographed for a magazine at any time.

  I felt bad for Sara’s kids.

  The patio in the rear was, frankly, lovely. There had to be a dozen varieties of flowers, but they were all pink or yellow. Thick hedges around the perimeter gave the impression of being on a country estate and not in a mansion in a crowded city.

  “This way,” the thick-wristed woman said, leading me down a path toward a gazebo. The flagstones looked like someone had gotten onto all fours to scrub them clean with a toothbrush. I was tempted to kick off my dusty sneakers so as not to make a mess.

  Rob and Sara sat in the gazebo. Rob looked uncomfortable, and when he saw me, relief flooded his face.

  “Bring us some fruit salad before you go to the bakery,” Sara instructed the… maid? Servant? Corbin hired people to clean and for some time-consuming tasks, but other than that he took care of himself. I awkwardly sat on the other side of Sara.

  The woman went back inside.

  “Now,” Sara began. “Tell me what you…”

  Voices floated out from the house, and Sara’s eyes went wide. She practically jumped to her feet. “Excuse me,” she blurted before hurrying down the path. Before she reached the door, it opened and a tall, attractive man stepped out.

  “That’s Oswald, her husband,” I murmured to Rob. Oswald was far more attractive in person than in the photos I’d seen. He was in his early thirties, with thick chestnut hair and a square aristocratic jaw. He looked like a Biff, like dock shoes, like pastel sweaters tied around the neck. He looked like someone who used “summer” as a verb.

  “Did you forget something?” Sara was saying. Her tone was steady, but tension stiffened her shoulders, her slender legs.