Danger in a Red Dress (15 page)

“You’d be good at it. You’re very efficient.” Mrs. Manly’s color was good; her eyes were bright.

“You’re looking forward to the party, too,” Hannah observed. Mrs. Manly’s vital signs were perfect; she was in good shape for an overweight, aging diabetic with heart problems.

“It’s my last hoorah before going to court about Nathan’s fortune. I might as well enjoy it.” Her voice sounded as displeased as always, but she looked less bitter.

Hannah placed her hand on Mrs. Manly’s shoulder. “When you go to court, I’ll be there at your side.”

Mrs. Manly covered Hannah’s hand with her palm. “That is a relief. You’ve helped me, and I appreciate every moment that we’ve spent together.”

“Even when I made you eat right?”

“Even then.” Mrs. Manly lifted herself on one elbow. “In fact, as a reward, I had a costume made especially for you.”

Hannah was hanging up the blood pressure cuff, and she paused. “What is it?”

“It’s in that garment bag on the hook.” Mrs. Manly looked as if she were bursting with mischief. “Go look at it.”

Hannah walked over and pulled down the zipper to reveal the costume in its full glory.

It was a white uniform, the kind nurses wore in the fifties, with white stockings, white granny shoes, and a starched nurse’s cap with wings and a black stripe across the brim.

“Mrs. Manly!” Hannah was aghast.

What had Trent had said the night before?
Do you know the fantasies I’ve had about nurses?

“It’s just right,” Mrs. Manly said. “You can comfortably dance in those shoes. The stockings have seams up the back—”

Hannah lifted the ruffled garter belt and the sheer white nylons, and looked at Mrs. Manly with shock and inquiry.

Mrs. Manly smirked. “You’re going to be very popular. Men have dreams about nurses.”

“So I’ve heard.” Hannah fitted the narrow white winged mask over her eyes. She looked in the mirror, and thought about how much she and Trent had said last night, and how much they’d left unsaid. She thought about seeing him tonight, and that he was going to think she’d worn this . . . for him.

And she wondered if at last her luck had changed for the better. “Thank you, Mrs. Manly. I know I’ll enjoy the costume and the party in equal measure.”

“Good.” Mrs. Manly waved her toward the bathroom. “Go and change. I want to be in place when the first of the guests arrive.”

Gabriel stood outside on the steps of Balfour House, dressed in a black business suit and a black velvet Phantom of the Opera mask, and watched the guests arrive at the Balfour Halloween party.

There were considerably more than two hundred of them, people of all ages and backgrounds. Everyone who had received an invitation had brought along a friend, and since many of those friends were prominent politicians, Broadway stars, famous doctors and authors who made their names writing tell-all biographies or scandalous romances, they could not officially be called “party crashers.” They were instead “lending prestige to an already-glittering event.”

One of the young ladies, dressed in a skimpy Cleopatra costume, stopped and looked him over. “What are you supposed to be?” She had a sultry voice that went well with the sheer gold outfit, so thin he could see right through it to her.

“A security guard, ma’am,” he answered without a hint of humor.

Behind her mask, her eyes grew round and wide, and her bosom heaved with such excitement her nipples strained to escape. “That’s a wonderful costume.”

Was she really that dumb? “Thank you.”

“When you’re done playing at security, come in and dance with me.”

Her father—no, her boyfriend, for he wrapped his arm around her waist in a way that said
Mine
—said impatiently, “Stop flirting with the help.”

His rebuke to her and Gabriel would have been more effective if he hadn’t been wearing hose, silk knickers, and a white wig. He knew it, too, because he planted his feet and squared his shoulders at Gabriel.

Gabriel stared back impassively.

When the guy didn’t get a rise out of him, he yanked at the girl hard enough to jerk her off her feet. She tumbled into him, then continued obediently toward the door. But she cast Gabriel a lingering smile that let Gabriel know she didn’t care if he was the help or not—she’d still dance with him.

Susan Stevens walked over from her position on the other side of the steps.

Gabriel braced himself.

In a fake, squeaky voice that went badly with her willowy frame, she said, “Oh, Mr. Security Man, you’re so tall and strong, won’t you make my dreams come true?”

“You’re jealous that she didn’t come on to you.”

“No.” She dropped back into her usual low, sexy voice. “Glory alternates between dumb and crazy, and I can’t handle that.”

“Glory?”

“That girl.”

He glanced toward the open door. “You know her?”

“You don’t?”

“I’m supposed to?”

Susan sighed deeply. “She’s the hot singer du jour, a sex symbol since she was thirteen—”

“Ick.”

“—And currently living with her record producer who is wayyy too old for her.”

Gabriel jerked his head toward the house. “Is that him?”

“That’s him. Steve Chapman.”

“Must be why she’s shopping, and why he’s worried.” He glanced toward the line of cars snaking their way up the drive; he could finally see the end. For two hours they’d been arriving, and he was ready to go inside and . . . see Hannah.

As soon as he allowed himself to think of her, the memory of her self-induced pleasure flooded his mind. He had watched her imagine a lover and, at the peak of her climax, heard her groan his name. He had observed her long after she’d turned off the light and gone to sleep, and even now, the remembrance made his body tighten in anticipation.

After last night, he definitely wanted to see Hannah.

“It looks like the worst is over,” Susan said. “Why don’t you go in and check out the party, boss?”

Gabriel turned his head and looked at Susan. “Why?”

“For one thing, you’re not slated to be on duty. Good thing. You seem distracted. Maybe there’s someone inside who’s caught your interest.” She smiled in a way that told him that, in her estimation, there was no maybe about it.

He had been concentrating on his job . . . but Susan had a way of observing people, a gift that he respected, because she didn’t just observe—she interpreted their actions and speculated, usually correctly, on their motivations, their plans, their intentions.

Tonight, she had seen something different about him. Something more.

She had seen his obsession with Hannah Grey.

But he wasn’t going to admit to anything. If she found out he had taken all the shifts on this job so he could watch their prime suspect brush her teeth, Susan would never let him hear the end of it.

“Fine. I’m going to make my rounds. Inside. Call Mark if you need him.”

“Right.” Susan placed her black Stuart Weitzman flats firmly on the step, put her hands behind her, and observed as another beautiful young thing, accompanied by another old codger, got out of a car. “It’s a parade,” she muttered.

With a nod to the ever-vigilant Nelson, costumed like an eighteenth-century footman, Gabriel walked through the large double doors.

He couldn’t believe how the place had been transformed. Every crystal chandelier, every marble floor, every swirl on the antique furniture had been cleaned, polished, waxed. The decorations had been created with a professional hand. Draperies of black and purple silk, billowing beneath the slow breath of well-placed fans, created a cavelike entrance, which funneled the guests toward the ballroom, where the band played big-band tunes from the forties, music that lured the guests to the dance floor, and waiters circulated with champagne and appetizers.

There the draperies changed, became velvet painted to resemble castle walls that mounted all the way to the second-story ceiling. Real roses with real thorns climbed the velvet panels, and here and there, red and purple silk swayed like dancing skirts.

Yep. This was Sleeping Beauty’s castle, all right. Even if Gabriel hadn’t recognized it, Mrs. Manly’s costume would have provided the final clue.

She sat smack in the middle of the longest wall, on an ornate throne on a raised dais, wearing a black cape with a purple silk lining and a headdress with two pointed black horns, and she held a staff with a glass ball at the top and a stuffed raven atop that.

The costume was a genius of camouflage. Mrs. Manly had aged since her last public appearance—there was no concealing that—but the throne gave her a seat as she greeted her guests, the faint green tinge of her makeup hid the pallor of her skin, and her stooped shoulders seemed like part of her evil character.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t so much a disguise as a revelation.

Gabriel glanced at Carrick, standing at his mother’s right hand, and approved his costume—a long black cape with a stand-up collar worn over dark trousers and a white ruffled shirt. Except for the ruffles, he didn’t look like an ass, and no matter how you cut it, most of the men in here did.

Gabriel watched some guy dressed as a condom walk past. Okay, he didn’t look like an ass. He looked like a prick.

At last, Gabriel allowed himself to look at Hannah.

She stood behind and to the left of Mrs. Manly’s throne, and even though it was obvious she was Mrs. Manly’s companion, she attracted almost as much interest as the elusive Mrs. Manly herself. Maybe it was because word of her notoriety had preceded her. Maybe it was because Mrs. Manly introduced everyone to her as they came through. Personally, Gabriel thought it was because she was so sexy, he broke a sweat just looking at her.

She wore a nurse’s costume, a white dress belted at the waist, with a knee-length skirt, long bloused sleeves, and a tongue depressor and a small flashlight in her breast pocket. Her cap sat perkily atop her blond hair. Her stockings were white, with a seam up the back, and how she kept them up, he couldn’t imagine . . . here. If he stood here and imagined what she wore under that dress, he would be unfit for duty, because she wore a nurse’s costume . . . just for him.

She made him want to fake an illness so she would put him to bed.

He stared long and hard, secure in the knowledge that his eyes were hidden behind his mask, but then . . . she must have felt his stare, because she looked around. He couldn’t see her eyes, and she couldn’t see his, but for the first time, they were looking directly at each other.

Just as he had predicted, she recognized him.

Was this what he had hoped for? That music would swell and birds would sing? That they’d see each other across a crowded room and know that they’d found true love? That he’d know without a doubt that she was innocent of all the sins with which she’d been charged?

It was goddamn romantic. It was also goddamn stupid, lusting after a black widow that caught her victims, sucked the life out of them, and tossed their lifeless husks aside.

Still . . . he was not a victim, and he was forewarned. He could handle this. He could handle her.

Mrs. Manly looked between the two of them, then spoke to Hannah, who started and turned her attention to Mrs. Manly.

The connection between Gabriel and Hannah was broken.

Good. Good, damn it. He had work to do, and it would be better to let Hannah wait.

He slipped away to the back of the ballroom to check on his men, make sure there was no trouble, that they were following orders.

They were. The guests were confined to the ballroom, the corridors, and the restrooms that had been set aside for their use, and while a few had grumbled when turned away from self-guided tours of Balfour House, they were easily distracted when steered to the dining room, with its heaping buffet table.

Pleased, Gabriel paused to watch the company, and as he stood there, over and over he heard the recurring theme.

“What do you suppose is going to happen with Nathan Manly’s widow?”

“What do you suppose she’s going to tell the feds?”

“Do you really think all the money is still around?”

“Nathan spent it.”

“The government wouldn’t waste their time. They know something.”

“Then why didn’t they call her in sooner?”

“They’ve got new information, of course.”

Gabriel thought that the senator who said that probably had a valid point, one worth investigating.

From his point of view, the party was a success. There were no incidents of violence, no obvious drug use, and no one who needed to be ejected. He thought Mrs. Manly also would consider the party a success: power players from all over the world were here, they were having a good time, and wine and gossip were flowing freely.

Which was why he was surprised when Nelson touched his arm. “Mr. Sansoucy?”

Not Gabriel Prescott, but Trent Sansoucy. “Yes.”

“Mrs. Manly wants to speak to you.”

Gabriel looked across the turbulent ballroom toward the elevated throne. Carrick had disappeared into the crowd, but Mrs. Manly still sat there, with Hannah on a stool beside her. “Thank you,” he told Nelson, and walked through the dancers toward them.

When he got close, Mrs. Manly gestured him over. “Are you Eric’s boy?” she asked.

“Yes, Mrs. Manly.”

Hannah took an audible breath, and slid her stool back an inch.

Carrick wandered over, a drink in his hand. “Can I get you anything, Mother?”

“Don’t be irritating, Carrick. When I want something, I’ll send Hannah,” Mrs. Manly said with crushing finality.

“Right.” Without visible sign of hurt, he turned to Gabriel. “How about you?”