Private Dancer Read online

“No, I blew the horn, just like you did.” He rested his head on the pillow, sighed heavily, and then tossed her a wink. “I envy you, kid. It’s fun, isn’t it? Even the screwups.”

  Bev was beginning to understand why he’d relented, perhaps even why he wanted her involved. It wasn’t just for her sake, she realized with relief. In a way, he’d been living vicariously through her since he’d been in the hospital. Working with her allowed him to keep his hand in. Her daily visits and their coaching sessions had kept him feeling involved and needed.

  Harve hit a button on his adjustable bed and suddenly he was sitting up straighter. “So,” he said, reclaiming his trademark gruffness, “what’s your next move?”

  “I have an appointment with Mr. Greenaway tomorrow morning.” She sat forward, eager for his feedback. “Maybe I’ll postpone it until I have something more concrete to tell him.”

  “No, no.” Harve waved away her doubts. “Tell him you’re checking out his wife’s lunch companion, and you’ll get back to him when you know something. It’s a breakthrough in the case, Bev. You did good.”

  Bev’s eyes narrowed in surprise. You old son of a gun, she thought. He was proud. The sudden welling of emotion she felt made it difficult to smile. And then, in the twinkling of an eye—Harve’s eye—she felt a flash of the excitement he’d always told her came with a challenging assignment. “The thrill of the chase,” he’d called it. Tomorrow she would be back on the beat, investigating the roughneck, checking out every possible lead. As much as that prospect frightened her, it also drew her in some strange way that she didn’t want to analyze too closely.

  Maybe Harve was right. Maybe this was fun?

  Someone was following her. Bev hesitated on the fifth-floor landing of the office building’s interior stairwell, listening as whoever was on the landing above her stopped too. Solid concrete obscured her vision completely, but she suspected the tail was a man. A metallic click that sounded like a boot heel had alerted her.

  She’d come out of Nate Greenaway’s office moments before, preoccupied by the brief but difficult meeting. Greenaway had been shaken by the news of his wife’s rendezvous, and Bev had felt both sympathy and empathy. Unfortunately, she could neither console nor reassure him that everything would be all right. He’d hired her to be the bearer of his bad news. That was her job.

  And now she had someone on her tail....

  A good detective’s bag of tricks included several ways to lose a shadow, but Bev wanted to learn the person’s identity without endangering herself. Her palms were damp, her throat dry, but she was more curious than frightened. Perhaps she had inherited some of her father’s coolheaded instincts.

  The ground floor exit had a door that squeaked, which Bev hoped would work to her advantage. Whoever opened it behind her would be unknowingly announcing himself. She let the bolt shut quietly, then took cover in an adjacent breezeway to wait and watch.

  Seconds flashed by—and became minutes. Bev kept her eye on the door as she weighed the possibilities. Her pursuer might have used another exit. Or perhaps she hadn’t been followed after all. She’d simply heard someone who worked in the building descending to a lower floor.

  She decided to check it out. Slipping a hand into her shoulder bag, she gripped the blackjack lightly and crept along the wall toward the door. The staccato click of a typewriter drifted from an open window, but Bev barely registered the sound. She was totally focused on the door. And who might be behind it.

  She reached her destination and hesitated a moment, listening. The knob twisted noiselessly in her damp palm as she turned it. She let the door creak open, then gave it a quick, hard shove. The stairway pulsed with an unseen presence.

  Bev’s fingers tightened around the weapon in her bag as she scanned the emptiness. Every survival instinct she had told her to back off, to get out of there. But something wouldn’t let her run. Her pride was involved. She had no intention of reporting another screwup to Harve.

  She opened the door wider with her foot.

  A hand flashed out of nowhere, so suddenly she couldn’t scream. It snagged her by the wrist and dragged her into the stairwell. “Stop!” she cried, yanking the blackjack from her bag. She swung at her assailant, catching the shadowy form somewhere on the head.

  There was a sharp crack, a muffled grunt of pain, and the man slumped to the cement floor at her feet. Bev reared back, a scream locked in her throat. She gaped at the sprawled body. He was lying facedown and the lights were too dim to see what kind of damage she’d done, but fear and revulsion ran riot in her mind, spiking her imagination. Was he alive?

  Her brain was spinning so fast she couldn’t think what to do. Call an ambulance? The police? He was as still as death itself, and his upper torso was twisted oddly, which told her he probably wasn’t faking unconsciousness. She waited several more seconds, and when he didn’t move, she approached cautiously, nudging him with her foot. His body was limp and unresponsive.

  She dropped to her knees and struggled to roll him over, aware that there was something familiar about him. He was wearing dark glasses! It was impossible to make out his features in the gloom, but Bev had a terrible feeling she knew who he was. Once she had him on his back, she threw open the exit door.

  Light flooded in, revealing an angular jawline and a scar that snaked out from his chin. It was him, the roughneck. A pool of blood had collected on the cement floor, and the sight of it gave her a rush of queasiness.

  She forced herself to press her fingers to a carotid artery in his neck, praying for a pulse. She found one, and it was strong. He wasn’t dead; he was very much alive.

  She let out the taut breath she’d been holding. Her dad had assured her that she was a quick study, but he hadn’t warned her that the past two days would be a crash course in cloak and dagger work. Maybe in theory this was fun, but in practice it felt more gruesome.

  She deliberated, knowing she ought to call an ambulance immediately. If the situation hadn’t presented her with such a perfect opportunity to find out who he was, she probably would have. But instead, her investigative instincts took over.

  It took some twisting and pulling on her part, but she found his wallet in the left back pocket of his jeans. Either he was a lefty, or he was trying to throw off pickpockets. A quick inspection revealed an assortment of business and ID cards, each with a different name. She still didn’t know who he was. A con man? Or a private eye, like herself? Both relied on false identities. Lost in concentration, she bent over him to return the wallet.

  “Oh!” she cried as a hand manacled her wrist. She reared back instinctively, the sudden shock throwing her off balance. She was already toppling as he pulled her over his body and rolled her onto her back on the cement floor.

  “What are you doing?” She got the words out seconds before he swung himself on top of her and clamped a hand to her mouth.

  He glared down at her, his dark hair matted with blood, his jaw contorted with pain. “Let’s put it this way,” he said, grinding out the words with considerable effort. “I’m not asking you to dance.”

  She twisted free of the hand that muzzled her. “Let go of me!”

  “Not a chance, babe. Knocking a guy unconscious and going for his wallet isn’t the way to win friends and influence people. Or hasn’t anybody told you that?” He caught hold of both her hands, subduing her struggles with infuriating ease. His grip was iron. The muscles that layered his forearms and the straining cords that braced his neck were evident even in the dim light.

  Panic ripped through Bev as she realized how helpless she was. She was pinned to the cement floor by his weight, unable to move. Even her breathing was constricted. She searched his face, frantic for clues, for anything that would help her predict what he might do next. He may have been knocked unconscious, but he wasn’t nearly as badly hurt as she’d thought. In her panic she’d forgotten that even a minor head wound could bleed like crazy.

  His clenched jaw told her he was fighting the pain of
his injury. She prayed that would keep him occupied for a while, and yet the grim smile that formed as he stared down at her was as sensual as anything Bev had ever seen. He was aware of the paralyzing intimacy of their situation. His eyes flickered with dark impulses. It wasn’t murder she saw in their depths, but something almost as frightening under the circumstances. She saw raw glints of sexuality, the undeniable heat of male interest.

  “Let me go,” she said again.

  “Sure thing, Lace.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, to her trembling lower lip, and his voice went husky. “Just as soon as I’m done with you.”

  “What does that mean?” Did this have something to do with the private dancer thing? Had he tracked her down because of yesterday? Fear made her voice raspy. “Have you been tailing me?”

  “Watch how you talk,” he said, laughing as he pinned her hands to the floor on either side of her head. “You’ll give me ideas.” The movement brought his face perilously close to hers so that Bev caught the rich tang of coffee on his breath. He shifted over her, and she felt the powerful muscles of his inner thighs.

  Her stomach muscles pulled tight. There was a hot sparkle of sensation somewhere deep inside her that she refused to acknowledge as anything but fear. “I think you should let me up,” she said. “This instant.”

  “I think you should keep your appointments,” he answered back. “Let’s see. Where did we leave off in the bar?”

  Bev remembered exactly where they’d left off in the bar—with her pressed up against his jeans and frantically negotiating her way out of a session upstairs. As for him, he’d been as ready to go as a stud Thoroughbred. “No, you can’t—”

  “Sure, I can. I’m on top.”

  “No! I mean not like this! That would be ...”

  “What? Taking you against your will? Rape?” His eyes flared with an emotion that might have been anger. “Now, there’s a thought. She lies to me. She stands me up, knocks me cold, and tries to pick my pocket. And then, as if that weren’t enough, she accuses me of sexual assault. No thanks. I like my women willing.”

  Bev sighed, limp with relief. “Thank God for that.”

  “Don’t thank Him too quickly.” He sat back on his haunches, keeping her wrists locked in an iron grip, and checked her out. A smile stole into his expression as he took in her quick, deep breaths, her disheveled hair. “You’ve got the look of a willing woman to me,” he told her. “Your face is warm and flushed, your eyes are dilated. In fact, you’re ...”

  She glanced up at him suspiciously. “What?”

  “Damn near beautiful,” he said after a moment of thought. “How did I miss that yesterday?”

  Bev’s heart was pounding. Why had he said that? He didn’t seem to be the kind of man who paid compliments lightly, if at all. He actually thought she was beautiful? “Leave my looks out of this,” she insisted weakly. “And as for that willing-woman business—not a chance. Never.”

  “Never’s a risky word. It makes a man want to prove you wrong.” He stared straight into her eyes, daring her not to respond as he drew his fingers down her throat. Bev could feel a trail of hot sparks as he traced the arc of her collarbone and dipped lower into the warmth of her cleavage.

  “Don’t you dare touch me there!” she warned.

  “You sure about that?” he said, his fingers nestling against her trembling flesh. “I had the feeling you loved having your breasts handled. You nearly purred when I did it yesterday.”

  Purr? Bev Brewster purr? Had he been dropped as a child? He was either crazy or too damn egotistical! She let out a gasp as he slipped his fingers inside her blouse. The sudden shock of his skin against her breasts made her moan aloud.

  “See there,” he said softly. “You do like it.”

  Bev flushed from the roots of her sable hair, but it wasn’t from excitement, it was from anger. She wrenched a hand free, drew it back, and caught him alongside the jaw with a stunning blow.

  He stared at her a moment, dazed, and then shook his head as though he could hear something rattling inside. Bev watched him, breath held. Under other circumstances the blow probably wouldn’t have fazed him, but he had already been knocked unconscious once. He also had a nasty head wound, and it was possible he’d been in shock all along. At that moment he didn’t seem to have any idea what had hit him, and Bev wasn’t about to oblige him with an explanation. He was squinting at her as though she were an out-of-focus television set.

  “Get off me!” she cried. She thrashed and twisted, desperate to dislodge him.

  “I love it when a woman gets rough,” he said, leaning back.

  Bev had him on the ropes and she had no intention of letting him get away. “Then you should love this.” She pushed him with all her might. He was a massive, seemingly immovable object, but she could feel him beginning to give way. As he started to sway, she slid out from under him, escaping just in time to see him topple to the floor.

  At first she thought he was unconscious again, but he rolled to his back and opened one eye, grimacing with pain. “What did you hit me with?” he said, touching his jaw. The head wound had opened up again and blood was flowing freely.

  “I’m calling an ambulance,” Bev said.

  “No,” he rasped, waving her off. “No doctors. I’ll be all right.” He dragged himself to the stairway and propped himself against the bottom step, squinting at her as though he were trying to focus. “Just get me to my place, okay?”

  “Your place? Where is that?”

  “El Monte.”

  “El Monte? You’re half dead and that’s three freeways from here. We’ll hit traffic. It’ll take hours.”

  “An hour and a half,” he said, wincing as he probed the injury with his fingers. “I’ll make it. It’s a bad cut, that’s all, a slight contusion.” He flashed her an accusatory glare. “It’s my jaw that hurts.”

  He sounded pretty sure of his condition, but Bev wasn’t about to get caught in an L.A. traffic jam with a bleeding man in her car. Getting him to a hospital without his cooperation wasn’t going to be easy though. As she tried to decide what to do, she noticed a scrap of paper on the floor. She bent and swept it up, careful to stay out of his range. The top item jumped out at her first. It was the license plate number of her own car! Below it were her address and her phone number.

  Her hand began to tremble and her head snapped up. “Who are you?” she said, drilling him with her eyes. “And what do you want with me?”

  Three

  HE DIDN’T ANSWER, and Bev decided she’d had enough of playing around. Confident that he wasn’t going anywhere in his state, she left him to get her car. She pulled up by the stairway, and with considerable effort managed to put him in the passenger seat.

  As she drove, she wondered at his silence. He should be demanding to know where she was taking him. Had he fainted again? She snuck a look at him and saw that he was slumped back against the seat, resting his head.

  She concentrated on maneuvering down Interstate 5 once more. When she finally heard his whispered question, it was so faint, she almost didn’t catch it.

  “Where are we going?” he’d asked.

  “My place.”

  “Your place?”

  Bev could hear the surprise in his voice as she headed toward an exit. “My place,” she said firmly. “Unless you’d rather go to a hospital. You could probably use a good tetanus shot.”

  “There’s no such thing as a good tetanus shot.”

  She glanced at him again and wondered if she’d made the right choice. She wasn’t worried about her own safety at this point. She was worried about him. He was as limp as wet tissue, and even if he wouldn’t admit it, he probably did need medical attention. She ought to take him to a hospital whether he wanted to go or not, but she’d decided not to. A hospital wasn’t the right environment for getting the answers she wanted. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to track her down, and she wanted to know why. She was burning to know why.

  He rolled his head
to look at her. “So why your place?”

  “I know the way,” she said.

  He managed a pained grin that bordered on being boyish. “Can’t get enough of me, can you?”

  She discouraged him with a stern look. He definitely needed a doctor. He was obviously suffering from brain damage.

  By the time she pulled into the driveway of her small Encino home, her passenger was beginning to recover some of his macho vigor. He insisted on getting into the house on his own steam, although she noticed that he sagged onto her sectional couch as soon he reached it.

  She went in search of antiseptic and bandages, wondering what he thought of her spic-and-span two-bedroom home. If he still had any illusions about her being a private dancer, her living room decor should put them to rest. The needlepoint throw pillows and the “Bless This Mess” telephone message corkboard were strictly Donna Reed stuff. She smiled to herself, enjoying the possibility that she might have him slightly confused. She’d always wanted to be a woman of mystery—inexplicable, and therefore irresistible to the opposite sex.

  Moments later she sat on the arm of the sofa, bending over him to clean the encrusted blood from his temple. His aviator sunglasses were in the way, and as she carefully removed them, she had the oddest sense that she was invading his privacy. Fortunately he accepted her ministrations without comment. His eyes closed while she worked gently with the damp washcloth. To her relief, his head wound turned out to be nothing more than a small laceration.

  Once she had the cut cleaned and bandaged, she smoothed the washcloth over his forehead. He felt warmer than normal, but her thoughts wouldn’t focus on his temperature. Instead, they dwelled on the unrelieved bones of his face, the faint lines that spidered out from his eyes and the jagged scar. He had the face of a man who lived on the brink of risk and ruination, she decided. Perhaps even a man who had ventured so deeply into the heart of darkness that he hadn’t quite made it back.

  As she tried to smooth the cloth over his cheekbones and down toward his jaw, he caught her hand and turned his head to face her, his eyes opening slowly. “What are you doing?”