Hot Property

by Jenna Bennett

  “Don’t you think going to Fidelio’s every night would tax even your wallet?”

  I smiled to make it sound like a joke, when in fact it sounded like he was once more gearing up for a proposal.

  Todd smiled too, but he didn’t answer. “The Broadway production of ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ is coming to the performing arts center this weekend,” he said instead. “I’ve got two tickets for Saturday night’s performance. Would you like to go?”

  “I’d love to!”

  My mother always told me and my older sister Catherine that we should never seem too available when a gentleman asked us out, but after having looked down the business end of a gun recently, I had resolved to play a little less hard to get. All sorts of opportunities were passing me by, and there were no guarantees that they’d come my way again, or that I’d be alive to take advantage of them if they did.

  “I’ll pick you up at five, then, and we’ll have an early dinner.”

  “That sounds great,” I said. Todd leaned in to kiss me.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said when he had withdrawn. I nodded. “Contact me if you need anything.”

  I promised I would. He gave me another quick peck, this one on the cheek, and left. I watched him walk down the hall and around the corner before I pushed the apartment door open and walked inside.

  Chapter 3

  No sooner had I kicked my shoes off and padded into the kitchen in my stocking-feet, than there was a knock on the door. I reversed direction and unlocked the door again, wondering what Todd had forgotten. Had he decided to come out and propose, after all?

  “What did you...? Oh!”

  “Evening, darlin’.”

  The man outside lacked Todd’s all-American, clean-cut good looks, as well as his $500 suit and impeccable manners. Instead of waiting for me to invite him in, he sauntered across the threshold, brushing against me on the way. Not by accident. I glanced out into the hallway – no sign of Todd – before I followed. “Come in. Make yourself at home.”

  To my dismay, my heart was thumping a little faster than usual. I was nervous, and not looking forward to teasing answers to my questions out of him. Even so, I can’t say I was terribly surprised to see him. I had called him, after all, and it wasn’t the first time he’d shown up unannounced on my doormat.

  He stopped in the door to the living room and turned to face me. “Thought I already did. Hot date?”

  “Dinner with Todd.”

  Out of my customary high heels, he seemed even taller than usual. I folded my arms across my chest. It was a reflex, although in my more lucid moments I wasn’t entirely certain whether I was trying to prevent him from seeing into my cleavage or if it was more of a defense mechanism against the man in general, emotionally as well as physically.

  He nodded. “Saw you drive up. Thought maybe he’d be staying the night.”

  “I didn’t see you,” I said, diverted. He shrugged. “No, he won’t spend the night. I let him walk me to the door and I kissed him goodnight, but that’s it. My mother always told me a man won’t pay for the cow if he can get the milk for free.”

  Rafe grinned, white teeth flashing. “So you’ll kiss Satterfield, but you won’t kiss me?”

  So much for pretending last week’s kiss had never happened...

  “I kissed you. Or let you kiss me, which comes to the same thing.”

  He shook his head. “No, it don’t. I’ll show you the difference, if you like.”

  I stepped back, out of reach. “Some other time.”

  He grinned, but let it go. “So what can I do for you, darlin’?”

  “Oh. Um… Right. I called you, didn’t I? I’m never quite sure whether my messages are going to get to you or not. Sometimes you call back, sometimes you don’t, and whoever answers the phone – Wendell, isn’t it? – never answers it the same way twice. First it was a car lot, then a pawn shop, and today he said it was a storage place. The only consistent thing he says is that you’re not there.” I realized I was babbling, postponing the inevitable, and I reined myself in. “I wanted to ask you something. Do you want to sit down?”

  He quirked a brow – usually I was trying to get him out, not in – but he didn’t comment. “Sure.”

  “The living room is through there.” I pointed. “Can I get you anything? Milk, water, sweet tea?”

  “Beer?”

  “Sorry. Although I think I may have half a bottle of Chardonnay somewhere...” I looked around.

  “I ain’t that big on wine. But I’ll take a glass of tea, if it ain’t too much trouble.”

  “Coming right up.” I walked into the kitchen while he headed for the living room. A minute later, when I entered with two glasses of sweet – iced – tea on a tray, I found him not on the sofa, where I’d expected to see him, nor by the balcony doors, looking out at the view – my second guess – but lounging in the doorway to the bedroom, assessing my queen sized bed with an experienced eye. And why I had expected anything different, I don’t know. Nevertheless, I stopped as if I’d hit an invisible wall, and blushed. One corner of his mouth curled up, but he didn’t speak.

  I prodded myself into moving, and put the tray down on the coffee table. “Here you go. It’s just instant; I didn’t have time to brew fresh.”

  “You’re slipping, darlin’. What’d your mama say?” He removed himself from the door and sauntered around the sofa to retrieve his glass. I did my best to avoid touching him when I handed it over, but without success. His fingertips brushed my knuckles, and I’m not willing to swear it wasn’t intentional. Rafe’s got the kind of in-your-face sex appeal that a lot of women – and Tim – seem to like, and although I’ve been brought up to value old-fashioned manners and decorum, I’m not entirely dead below the neck, either. Especially as he doesn’t scruple to turn the setting up to scorching hot every time he sees me.

  “Cheers.” He lifted his glass. I did the same, without thinking. “To us.”

  He drank. I hesitated, and then took a small sip from my own glass. It was just a toast, and joining in it didn’t mean that I acknowledged that there was or ever would be an ‘us.’

  “So what do you need?” He put the glass down on the table and himself on the sofa, where he leaned back comfortably. He was wearing jeans tonight, and a black T-shirt that molded to his chest and upper arms. I turned away to sit down in a chair, before he could catch me looking. He added, with a grin, “You got someplace you need me to break into for you? Or somebody I can beat some answers out of?”

  Recently, we had broken into a storage unit together, in the process of trying to discover who had murdered my two coworkers Brenda Puckett and Clarice Webb, and we had also persuaded a young man to come clean about finding Brenda’s dead body and not calling the authorities. Rafe hadn’t had to do any actual beating, but the way he had loomed over the youth, cowing him with his six feet three inches and 195 pounds of solid muscle, not to mention the demeanor he had developed in two years behind bars, hadn’t hurt. Nineteen-year-old Maurice Washington had sung like the proverbial nightingale.

  I shook my head. “I know how much you enjoy doing that sort of thing, but this time, you can give me the answers I need yourself.”

  “Shoot.” He lifted the glass and took another long draught of iced tea, throat moving smoothly as he swallowed. I wasn’t sure whether the word was an invitation to ask what I wanted, or a reaction to hearing that there was nothing macho and illegal for him to do.

  “Do you know anything about these open house robberies that have been going on for the past two weekends?”

  He put the glass down, and I thought there was a watchful look in the depths of his eyes, but it was hard to be sure. They’re so dark as to be almost black, and he’s learned to hide his feelings and reactions almost too well. “Why?”

  “Tim has asked me to host an open house for him this Sunday.”

  “Yeah? Where?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t been paying attention when Tim went ov
er the details on Monday. “Some million-dollar McMansion in Brentwood somewhere.”

  “Better be careful then, darlin’.” Rafe picked the glass up and took another swig. The ice jingled when he put it down on the table again, empty. “So you want me to get you some protection? Gun? Knife? Something untraceable, in case you have to use it?”

  “Lord, no!” I moderated my voice. “I’m not going to walk around with a gun in my handbag, thanks all the same. I thought about it after Walker tried to kill me, yes, but I’ve decided I’m just not comfortable carrying a weapon. More tea?”

  “Not right now. You’d be more comfortable once you got used to using it.”

  “What makes you think I’d want to be comfortable using it? Deliberately shooting someone, or sticking a knife into them? No, thanks. I don’t think I have it in me.”

  “If you had to, you could,” Rafe said, in a weird echo of Detective Grimaldi’s statement from earlier in the week.

  I shrugged. “I appreciate the offer, but no. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me some... um... personal protection? Stay with me during the open house, just to make sure nothing happens?”

  “Guard your body?” He grinned, letting his eyes wander over it. I compressed my lips and willed the incipient blush to stay where it was. “You sure your body’d be safe with me, darlin’?”

  I hesitated. “I’d trust you to protect it from someone else coming at it with a knife or a gun.” Although not necessarily from himself. But if we were in someone else’s house, surely I’d be safe. “And I’d be happy to pay you for your time, if you’d like.”

  “With your body?”

  “No! Don’t you ever think about anything else?”

  “I’m a man,” Rafe said, as if that was an explanation. Maybe it was. “It’s a tempting offer, darlin’, but I’ve got plans for Sunday afternoon.”

  I’d been afraid he’d say that.

  He added, blandly, “Maybe you should stay home. Find someone to take your place, or just call Tim and say you’re sick.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said. “Maybe you could call in sick from whatever it is you’re doing, to stay with me.”

  “If I do that, you’re gonna have to make it worth my while.”

  “Forget it.” I said. “I’m not going to sleep with you just so you’ll give me two hours of your time.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll ask Todd instead.”

  He smirked. “You think Satterfield can protect you? I could take him with one hand.”

  “But you’re not going to be there, are you?”

  I smiled. Neither of us spoke for a moment, until I changed the subject. “I had lunch with Lila Vaughn earlier today; did I tell you?”

  “Who?” The question sounded innocent, but I thought I could detect that same watchful quality, this time as an undertone in his voice.

  “The Realtor who was hosting the open house that got robbed last weekend.”

  He nodded. “Friend of yours?”

  I explained how I knew Lila. “And she was telling me about what happened, and about this man who tied her to the kitchen chair.”

  “So?”

  “She said she suggested that maybe he’d like to tie her to the bed instead.”

  Rafe’s lips quirked. “I wouldn’t recommend doing that if they come to your open house on Sunday, darlin’.”

  “Because you’d take me up on it?”

  “Because...” He stopped, and his eyes narrowed. “You accusing me of something?”

  He had asked me this question once before, when I had told him that Sheriff Satterfield in Sweetwater – Todd’s daddy – wasn’t entirely sure that LaDonna Collier’s death was an accident. Rafe’s mother had died over the summer, of a drug overdose. There was no evidence to suggest that she hadn’t been alone when it happened, and Bob Satterfield had never been able to prove that anyone, let alone Rafe, had had anything to do with it, but at one point he had told me that Rafe was high on his suspect list. I had passed the news on, in a fit of temper over something Rafe said. And I had recoiled when his eyes turned the flat black of a cobra about to strike. The suggestion that he’d be capable of killing his mother had cut deep, into some reserve of icy menace he kept locked inside. This accusation didn’t bother him the same way; his response was calculated rather than emotional. As a result, he didn’t frighten me. Much.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, lifting my chin. “All I know is that Lila’s description of this guy fit you to a T.”

  He arched a brow. “No kidding? What did he look like?”

  “Tall and dark, with brown eyes and especially long, thick eyelashes.” He batted them playfully. “She also said he had a really sexy voice and called her darlin’. And...”

  “Yeah?”

  “She said he was really hot.”

  He chuckled. “You think I’m hot?”

  “I didn’t say I did. Lila does.”

  “Don’t you mean Lila would?”

  I shrugged. He obviously wasn’t going to admit to anything, and I shouldn’t really have expected him to. Rafe is a master at keeping things private. I didn’t know where he lived when he wasn’t at his grandmother’s house, didn’t know what he did for a living, didn’t know how he had spent the past ten years, after he was released from prison... I didn’t know anything about him at all, other than what I could see with the naked eye, and the few details he’d volunteered from time to time. If they were even true.

  “Sorry I can’t help you, darlin’.” He got up from the sofa in one smooth movement, like a panther uncoiling. I got to my feet as well, and padded after him toward the door.

  “Maybe I’ll call Tamara Grimaldi and see if she has the weekend off and wants to hang out with me.”

  If the suggestion that I was thinking of calling in the cops bothered him, he didn’t show it. When he stopped in front of the door and turned to me, he was smiling again. “Tell Tammy I said hi.”

  Tammy?

  “I didn’t realize you and the detective were on such intimate terms,” I said. She had certainly never asked me to call her Tammy.

  Rafe didn’t answer, just grinned. “Sleep tight, darlin’. Sweet dreams.” He reached out and tweaked a strand of hair that had fallen out of my upswept do, twining it around his finger and tucking it behind my ear. The very same thing he – or someone – had done to Lila last Sunday. I stepped back, out of reach.

  “You, too.”

  “Always.” The grin widened before he blew me a kiss. “See you around.”

  “Right,” I said to his back.

  Of course I couldn’t resist the temptation to mention Rafe’s pet-name to Detective Grimaldi when I called her the next morning. “By the way,” I said sweetly, after the introductions were dispensed with, “Rafe says hi.”

  “Mr. Collier?” Her voice had a weird undertone, and I wondered if she was blushing. The mental image of a blushing Tamara Grimaldi was bizarre; she was always so put together and seemed so capable. The idea that a man’s name could make her blush, was... intriguing.

  “I spoke to him last night, and when I told him I’d be calling you today, he said to tell Tammy hi. I didn’t realize you two were so chummy.”

  “He’s a chummy sort of guy,” the detective said, her voice flat. I didn’t bother to hide my grin, since she couldn’t see me.

  “That’s true. He’d flirt with a lamppost if it was wearing a skirt.”

  She didn’t react, and I added, “I asked him if he had time to babysit me on Sunday afternoon, but he said he doesn’t. I thought maybe, if you’re not working, you’d like to hang out with me. If we’re lucky, maybe the open house robbers will show up and you can arrest them.”

  “Very kind of you to think of me,” Tamara Grimaldi said, “but I’m on call this weekend. I’ll try to stop by, but if something comes up,” I took that to mean ‘if somebody gets killed’, “I’ll be too busy.”

  I nodded. �
�Understandable.” And then I hesitated for a second, and two and three, before I added, “I had lunch with Lila Vaughn yesterday.”

  I could envision the detective’s eyebrows arching. “You don’t say? And what did Ms. Vaughn have to say about her ordeal? Anything interesting?”

  She had better believe it. “Apparently she suggested to the man who was tying her to the chair that maybe he’d like to tie her to the bed instead. I guess she was hoping he’d join her.”

  It wasn’t often I managed to surprise Tamara Grimaldi, but today I succeeded. Twice. “Funny,” she said levelly, after a beat, “there isn’t anything about that in her statement.”

  “When did you read her statement? I thought you said it wasn’t your case. Not until someone dies, you said.”

  “After I spoke with you the other day,” Detective Grimaldi answered cordially. “I looked it up as a favor, in case there was something there that might be of use to you.”

  “Oh.” I bit my lip. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. As it turned out, the statement didn’t contain much. Certainly less than Ms. Vaughn told you. Did she share with you why she suggested that the robber tie her to the bed?”

  “She said he was hot. And before you ask, no, he didn’t take his mask off. All she saw were his eyes. She said his voice was sexy, and maybe that was enough for her. I guess her mother never told her not to proposition strange men.”

  “I guess not,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “Did she happen to mention his response?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? He said no. Or actually, what he said was, some other time. Maybe you should mount a guard over Lila, in case he takes her up on it.” That would serve the added purpose of keeping her safe, in case I was wrong and it wasn’t Rafe she had encountered.

  “Hmm...” Detective Grimaldi debated with herself for a moment. “No,” she said finally, “I don’t think so. Not worth the trouble. I doubt he’d take the chance. Although if he does, and she mentions it to you, maybe you’ll be good enough to let me know?”

  I hesitated. Off-hand I couldn’t think of any reason not to. We’d all be better off once the robbers were safely behind bars; even Lila would agree with that. Probably. And if it was Rafe, and he was stupid enough to take her up on the offer, he deserved to get arrested. “Sure. Next time I talk to her. If she mentions anything that’s pertinent to the case, I’ll pass it on.”