NIGHT WATCH

by Carla Neggers

  And his past. The last year in particular. She thought about that a lot.

  A burnt-out cop.

  And for her a potentially dangerous man.

  Even before he’d come up to her office earlier this morning, she had known he was still in her house. She knew he was there now. She could feel his presence. He hadn’t left.

  Banging keys, she quickly exited the file and returned to the C-prompt.

  Her hands were trembling.

  “This is absurd,” she said under her breath.

  Before she knew what she was doing, Rowena suddenly flew to her feet and raced down the two flights of stairs, nearly running into Joe Scarlatti in her front entry. He appeared to be in a staring contest with her suit of armor. He looked around at her, but said nothing. She wondered if he knew how close she’d come to plowing into him as she had in the restaurant. Would he have caught her up in his arms again?

  I have to stop this sort of thinking. We would be a disaster together.

  Like her parents ...

  “We should talk.” she said, hating the way her voice croaked.

  “About what? You’re the genius.” His mood was obviously still sour over what he clearly perceived to have been an invasion of his privacy. “You must know everything there is to know about me by now.”

  “Only what’s in public records I have access to through my computer.”

  A corner of his mouth twitched. “That’s about everything.”

  “Sergeant—”

  “Joe,” he said. “You know that much about me, you get to call me Joe.” There was no humor in his tone, none in his eyes.

  Rowena was not intimidated. “So it’s okay for you to know everything about me, but I’m to know nothing about you.”

  “I doubt I know everything about you, Rowena. I doubt anyone does. I only know what I need to know to do my job.”

  “A job I didn’t ask you to do. Suppose I need to know about you in order to trust you?”

  “Then you should have asked me.”

  “Would you have told me?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “I didn’t figure you would.” She backed up a step. “I’m sorry about your partner, Matt Lee. He—”

  “You don’t need to tell me his name. I remember.”

  She accepted the criticism without comment. She had no experience talking to cops who blamed themselves for their partner’s death. She noticed his rigid stance, the cold pain in his eyes, and she asked softly, “He’s why you’re on leave of absence, isn’t he?”

  “And available to keep an eye out on a pretty, blue-eyed genius? Yep, he’s why. Get a kick out of it, too, Matt would.” But Joe Scarlatti wasn’t getting a kick out of anything; his whole demeanor was without humor.

  He was angry and sarcastic, but Rowena wasn’t fooled—his pain was nearly palpable. “Anything else you want to tell me about myself?”

  She inhaled, still not intimidated, not afraid of him. “You’re angry.”

  He shoved his hands into his jean pockets. “Let’s just say I don’t appreciate your sneaking around in your computer like Big Brother.”

  She swallowed and made herself meet his gaze with all the courage and directness she could muster. “I can understand that. I also understand that a computer search can’t give the full measure of a human being. The newspaper accounts I accessed—I’m sure they didn’t tell everything. But I’m not apologizing, Sergeant. You’ve invaded my life. I have a right to know the background of a man who purports to want to protect me.”

  “I’m not protecting you, sister. I’m using you to find out if Tyhurst is as reformed as he says he is. That’s all.”

  Rowena chose not to respond to his nasty remark. She could see that he was definitely angry. Hurt and pained and haunted by his partner’s death, but also truly annoyed that she had looked into his background without his say-so.

  He raked a hand through his hair, still unruly from his night in the pantry, and she thought she saw a flash of regret in his dark eyes. He started toward the door. “I’ve got to get out of here, get my bearings. Tyhurst gets in touch, call me at Mario’s. Number’s in the book.”

  “Sergeant—”

  He glanced around at her one final time. “Or just look it up on your computer.”

  * * *

  By teatime Rowena stood in the kitchen disgusted with herself and furious with Joe Scarlatti. She had given up an entire day to him. Not that he’d come back, not that he’d called, not that she’d spotted him on her street. She’d simply allowed him to disrupt her concentration for hours on end. Never, never had she had so much trouble zeroing in on her work without permitting anything else to intrude.

  Of course, there’d never been anything quite as distracting as Sergeant Joe Scarlatti.

  As she brought her tea tray up to the sunroom, she wondered if she’d driven him away by prying into his background. It wouldn’t be the first time her adeptness with a computer had driven off a man. Aunt Adelaide had warned her that many men couldn’t handle an intelligent, driven woman, never mind an eccentric Willow. Rowena had never pretended to be less intelligent than she was; she had never pretended that she didn’t know things, didn’t have a natural ability with numbers. She had always simply been herself, around men and women. And she had met men who were attracted to her; she’d even dated a few. But she was very, very careful about romance, and that had precious little to do with her high I.Q. It had to do with the experience of a little girl whose parents’ insane love for each other had robbed her of them too young.

  Scarlatti, she reminded herself, was a cop on a case. He wanted Eliot Tyhurst. As far as Scarlatti was concerned, she was just a financial whiz, and a tad strange—and nosy—at that.

  Kissing her last night had been a spur of the moment thing. Because she was there and he’d wanted to make a point. Probably had been a knee-jerk reaction for him. It meant nothing. She arranged her pillows close to the windows and stared down at the street. Her heartbeat, she noticed, had quickened as if in anticipation.

  “Of what?” she snorted, disgusted with herself.

  Squinting, she examined each vehicle parked on the street below her just as she had before she had come face-to-face with Joe Scarlatti. She recalled her first good look at him, climbing out of his truck, stretching, irritated and impatient.

  In spite of herself, she imagined what it would be like to go to bed with him. He would be an experienced lover. He would know what pleased him, what pleased a woman. Possibly he would even—

  “Stop!”

  Tea splashed onto her front, but she hardly felt its heat. She didn’t finish it, but returned the tray to the kitchen, dumped the rest down the drain, and wiped her shirt. She played with Mega and Byte for a while, throwing a catnip toy down the hall toward the suit of armor. One or the other would bring it back for her to throw again, like a couple of dogs playing fetch. They were good cats—pretty, predictable, decent company.

  Why now, more than ever before, did she feel the crushing silence of Aunt Adelaide’s peculiar house?

  The doorbell rang, startling her, although not nearly as much as when joe Scarlatti had snuck into her office.

  Checking through the side window, she saw not a tough cop, but Eliot Tyhurst, looking so deceptively correct in his conservative gray suit. She opened the door.

  “Hello, Rowena. I hope I’m not disturbing you.” He had a Burberry raincoat draped over his shoulders against a light but persistent drizzle; it made him look even more competent and powerful. Less of an ex-convict. “May I come in?”

  “Why?” she asked, not rudely.

  If he took offense it didn’t register on his handsome face. “I want to make you a proposition.”

  What if he wanted to go to bed with her? She almost laughed out loud. Really, she was thinking nutty thoughts. She had better make herself another pot of tea and get herself back under control before she started thinking every man in San Francisco wanted her.

/>   Then, as if to prove what an idiot she was turning into, Tyhurst said formally, “I want to hire you.”

  Six

  Two days after Joe had stormed out of Rowena Willow’s Telegraph Hill monstrosity, he sat at Mario’s Bar & Grill nursing a cold beer and taking occasional bites of a black bean enchilada. The spicy sauce was enough to make his eyes tear. He accused his cousin of deliberately adding more jalapeños to his plate.

  “Wish I thought of it,” Mario said, wiping up after a customer, “but I didn’t. You going to hang around here all day?”

  “Maybe.” He probably should have sat at his booth, out of Mario’s immediate range, but he’d wanted some company, some distractions.

  “What about Rowena Willow?” Mario asked. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching her?”

  “‘Supposed to’ implies I’ve got orders. I don’t. Not from the department, not from her and not from you.”

  Mario took no notice of his cousin’s surly tone. “She turned Tyhurst in.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Figure we owe her.”

  “We, Gunga Din?”

  Mario grunted. “The SOB decides to come after her, somebody better be there.”

  “Lady can take care of herself. You’ve seen her. She keeps a spear in the front hall.”

  “You scared of her or what?”

  Joe gave him a look of disgust and tried another bite of the enchilada. Hotter’n hell. He didn’t believe Mario about not trying to char his esophagus. “You wouldn’t serve something this hot to customers.”

  “Some people like their food extra-spicy. Thought you did.”

  “I do, but this is—do I have flames coming out of my ears?”

  Mario scoffed. “Can’t have a fire in a vacuum.”

  “Funny, funny.”

  “Hank Ryan called again. You going to call him back?”

  “Maybe.”

  His cousin tossed his rag onto his shoulder with a hard snap and glared at Joe with growing impatience. His expression reminded Joe of their grandfather. The younger Mario Scarlatti was easygoing in comparison. He said, “Finish your lunch and get the hell out of here for a while. I’m sick of looking at you.”

  “One thing I can say, Mario, I always know where I stand with you.”

  But he’d already stomped back to the kitchen, muttering to himself about how some people tested his sense of family loyalty beyond endurance, only he had a way of putting it that was even spicier than his enchilada sauce. Not ones to cross, the Scarlattis. But Eliot Tyhurst had, and Mario, Sr. hadn’t fought back. He’d just given up and died a broken man. If his grandson and namesake hadn’t been able to take over the bar, he’d have had to sell it.

  Joe finished off his beer and knew he’d need something more to drink if he was going to eat the last of his enchilada. Or maybe he ought to dump the damn thing down the drain and ruin Mario’s plumbing for him. He was still arguing with himself when Hank Ryan wandered in.

  His fellow cop was clearly annoyed. “How the hell tough is it for you to pick up the phone and call me?”

  “Hey, Hank.”

  He plopped on the stool beside Joe. “You drunk?”

  “Nope. Too early.”

  Hank scowled. “You’d be better off watching Rowena Willow and Eliot Tyhurst than wasting away in here all day.”

  “I’m not wasting away. Mario wouldn’t let me. And I don’t get drunk. As for Ms. Willow and Mr. Tyhurst—I don’t want to have a harassment charge laid on my doorstep.”

  “Harassment for what? You haven’t done enough.”

  Joe eyed him and shrugged.

  Mario came out of the kitchen and pointed a thick finger at Hank. “You get him—” he redirected the finger to Joe “—out of here.”

  “I’m trying,” Hank said.

  “Try harder,” Mario said and stomped back to the kitchen.

  Hank sighed. “See, Joe, you’re bugging everybody. A man like you needs to be doing something, not sitting around licking his wounds.”

  “What would you say if I told you I’ve been keeping an eye on our two financial types, only I’ve been especially subtle about it?”

  “I don’t know.” Hank looked dubious. “Would you be lying?”

  Joe grinned, and for a second he forgot about the extra-hot enchilada sauce and took too big a bite. It burned all the way down and continued to burn in his stomach. It was a distraction, anyway, from the way he burned for Rowena Willow.

  “What,” Hank said, “Mario trying to kill you?” He laughed. “I knew I liked that guy. Look, I just wanted to check in, keep in touch. You know you haven’t been yourself for a hell of a long time. I don’t want this thing to—it’s supposed to help, not hurt.”

  “If he’s up to something—and I’m not saying he is— Tyhurst isn’t going to be easy to nail this time.”

  “He wasn’t easy last time.” Hank glanced at Joe. “Think maybe he’s a new man after all?”

  Joe didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “One more thing. I’m going to be talking to a guy Tyhurst knew in prison. He says he has some information on him. He’s a real lowlife himself so I’m not holding my breath. I’ll let you know if anything pans out.”

  After Hank left, Joe gave up on his enchilada and got himself a large cola and returned to his bar stool, staring out at the passersby and the milky mist. What the hell was he going to do about Rowena Willow?

  Not about her, he thought. About himself and his loss of objectivity. He had worked for six months to shut down his feelings, to keep them under control, keep them from hurting anyone else. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about Rowena.

  Then she was there beside him and for a second he thought he’d just conjured her up, but he was stone-cold sober and there was no denying her presence. The light scent of her perfume. The cool mist clinging to her hair. She had it in some kind of prim-looking twist. It was becoming, but again he found himself imagining it down, imagining his hands in it.

  He sipped his soda and said nothing. Neither did she.

  She wore no makeup, had on leggings and a huge San Francisco Giants shirt, and still she looked gorgeous. Her body was trim and fit and feminine, but there was something tentative about her as she shifted on the stool, twisted her hands together on the smooth surface of the bar. She seemed not so much self-conscious or awkward as just unsure of what to do, what to say, why she’d even come. She was out of her element, no buttons to push, no numbers to analyze. Joe figured she’d gotten out more in the past few days than she had in months.

  Finally he said, “You want something to drink?”

  She ignored his question, her black-lashed eyes narrowing on him. “You haven’t been watching my place.”

  “You sure about that?”

  He could see she wasn’t. She untwisted her hands and ran her fingertips along the edge of the bar. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “I—first I have to say I’m sorry about prying into your past. I thought I had a right.”

  He wished she hadn’t brought it up. “Maybe you did.”

  It seemed enough of an answer for her. “Are you still interested in Eliot Tyhurst?”

  “Depends.”

  “I mean, I know your interest is unofficial, that Hank Ryan put you up to watching me ... my place in case Tyhurst tried anything. Technically you’re still on leave of absence, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So anything...” She swallowed, inhaled and started again. “If Tyhurst does anything suspicious or outright fraudulent, if anything really did happen, or does happen, I should go to the police, not to you.”

  Joe’s entire body went rigid. “Rowena, what’s going on?”

  She gave an audible sigh, her dark eyebrows knitted together. Her convoluted speech, he realized, wasn’t tentativeness or uncertainty or awkwardness. She was an eccentric genius who sometimes came across as a dingbat because her mind worked faster than her mouth.

 
; “Eliot—Tyhurst—came to my house after you left the other day.”

  “What, does he want me to chaperon another dinner between you two?”

  She frowned. Either his wit passed her by or she was deliberately ignoring it. The woman’s one-track mind wasn’t on a track that included kidding. “He doesn’t know about you.”

  Joe kept quiet, not wanting to scare her off. He wanted her to talk to him. A sudden pain in his gut told him he more than wanted it; he needed it. He needed her trust.

  “He wanted to talk about hiring me,” she said.

  “And you told him to go soak his head.”

  “No.”

  Again that deadly serious tone. Joe said, “Uh-huh. Go on.”

  “I told him I would meet him this morning.”

  This morning. “Nice of you to come to me after you let the horse out of the barn. Did you meet in a well lit, well populated location?”

  “In my drawing room.”

  “With the dead animals looking on. Terrific. Some protection.”

  “I didn’t think I needed protection,” she said in that cool, I’m-smarter-than-you voice. Joe was beginning to think it was a cover-up, that he’d jumped to some wrong conclusions about Rowena Willow of Telegraph Hill.

  “Did Tyhurst get the creeps?” he asked sarcastically.

  Rowena blinked at him as if she didn’t have the faintest idea what he was talking about. “Is that a joke?”

  “You should have called me before you had Tyhurst to your house alone.”

  “I thought you might be—” she licked her lips, an immense distraction “—out on the street.”

  “And you not know it? My, my. I’m surprised it even occurred to you I might be able to outwit you.”

  Her big eyes seemed to reach for his; he could feel them drawing him toward her. “Did you?”

  It pained him, but honesty was generally one of his habits and he had to shake his head. “I was here.”