Flirting With Danger (2 page)

Tuesday, 2:46 a.m.

Richard Addison came to with an EMT holding open his eyelid and flashing a light in his left eye. “Get the bloody hell off me,” he growled, shoving as he struggled upright.

“Lie down, Mr. Addison. You may have internal inj—”

“Shit,” he rasped, lying back again as pain shot through the back of his skull. On top of that, his ribs felt like someone had caved them in with a baseball bat. He tried to draw in a breath, hacking at both the pain and the sharp, acrid scent of smoke. With a rush everything came back—the explosion, the guard. The girl. “Where is she?”

“Don’t worry, sir,” another voice said, and a second EMT blurred into his line of vision. “We’ve contacted your physician to meet you at the hospital.”

“No, where is the woman?” He didn’t need to ask about Prentiss. He’d felt the heat of the flames, the burning debris smacking into his face.

“We’re not sure about anything, sir. The bomb squad, homicide, forensics are all here, but they have to wait for the fire department to finish. Did you see the device?”

Richard coughed again, wincing. “I didn’t see a bloody thing.”

“Are you sure about that?” a third voice asked, and he refocused.

Plain clothes, with a cheap but tasteful tie. Homicide, from what the tech had said. “And you are?” he asked anyway.

“Castillo. Homicide,” the detective affirmed. “Your guard downstairs called in about an explosion and an intruder. That would be the woman you’re talking about, I assume?”

He nodded. “I assume.”

“Well, she sure wanted you dead. Bad enough to take herself and your security guard out with you. You were lucky you made it down the stairs. Can you describe her?”

For the first time, Richard glanced at his surroundings. He was on the second floor, just off the landing, and the back of his head continued to throb where he’d slammed it against the floor. The fire crew hadn’t dragged him down the stairs, or Castillo wouldn’t have made the comment about his being lucky. And he damned well hadn’t done it on his own.

“She said her name was Smith,” he said slowly, pushing upright again. “Slim, petite, black clothes. Her back was to me, and she wore a baseball cap. I’m afraid I didn’t get much else. Green eyes,” he added, remembering the glimpse of her face as she’d launched herself into his rib cage. As she’d saved his life.

“It’s not much, but we’ll do a search of local hospitals. Even if she had armor on, I doubt she made it out of here without a scratch.” The detective ran a finger across his thick, graying moustache. “Let’s get you to the hospital, and I’ll catch up with you there.”

Wonderful
. The press would love that. He shook his head gingerly. “I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are, Mr. Addison. If you die now, I get fired.”

Two hours later, hearing the chatter of media and the glint of camera lights down the narrow, echoing hall of white plaster and linoleum, he was wishing he’d held his ground and stayed at the estate. Of course the press had found out. And
God knew what a spectacle they’d try to make of his stay in a hospital. He told his doctor as much while they sewed closed a four-inch gash across his chest.

“You’re taking this well, actually,” Dr. Klemm said, taping off his ribs. “I brought an elephant tranquilizer. Shame I won’t have to use it.”

“Keep it close, just in case. I’m mad as hell,” Richard said shortly, trying to take shallow breaths and not collapse back onto the bed. The painkiller the paramedics had given him in the ambulance was beginning to wear off, but it made him groggy, and he refused to request more. Someone had tried to kill him, and he wasn’t going to doze off while someone else figured out who. “Where’s Donner?”

“I’m here.” Tall and lanky, Texas in his soft voice, the lead attorney in the law firm of Donner, Rhodes and Chritchenson strode into the room. “Jesus, you look like hell, Rick.”

“Who is she, Tom? And where are my clothes?”

“We don’t know yet, and right here.” Light blue eyes narrowed. “But we’ll find out. Count on it.” Dumping a sports bag onto a chair, he yanked out a pair of jeans, a black T-shirt, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt.

Richard lifted an eyebrow. “From the Tom Donner Outdoor Living selection, I presume?”

“They wouldn’t let me onto the estate to get your things. They’ll fit.” Scowling as Klemm finished wrapping Richard’s ribs, Donner handed over a pair of brand-name athletic shoes. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be in Stuttgart.”

“Harry tried to talk me into staying another day. I should have listened to him.” Richard rolled his shoulder, wincing again at the pull against his stitches. “I want Myerson-Schmidt on the phone.”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning. I’ll fire ’em for you tomorrow.”

“Not until I have a chance to chat with them.” And not until he’d made certain that they hadn’t sent a very clever—and lucky—female to test his security.

“Hell, the cops found one of the cameras batted into the treetops, mirrors blocking the gate signal, and a big hole in one patio window. Not to mention most of the pieces of a security guard and Rick Addison with his hair on fire.”

“My hair was not on fire, but thanks for the imagery. And I’m not going to sit back and twiddle my fingers. I want to be there when they question her.” Of course they would have to find her first. He assumed the police would, but at the same time he had the distinct feeling that it wouldn’t be easy. Whoever she was, she still had him wondering about the security test, and that was after his third floor had blown up.

“Forget it, Rick. She’s just someone who wanted a piece of you and messed up. She’s not the first to try. And there are already five news crews by the elevator who want a few more slices.”

“I think she saved my life.” Stifling a groan, Richard pulled the borrowed T-shirt over his head. “And that
is
a first for someone who allegedly wanted me dead.”

Tom Donner opened and closed his mouth. “Tell me what happened.”

Rick told him, starting with the screeching fax machine that some idiot had programmed to call his private number every two minutes starting at 2:00
A
.
M
., to the security call he’d overheard informing Clark that Prentiss had discovered an intruder, to the way Miss Smith had tried to stop Prentiss’s advance, then threw herself on him just as the hallway exploded.

“‘Smith?’” Donner repeated.

“I would guess she was lying,” Rick said with a faint smile.

“Ya think? She knew about the bomb.”

Richard shook his head. “She knew something. I saw the look in her eyes when she hit me. She was terrified.”

“I’d be, too, if some idiot security guard set off my explosives before I was clear.”

“She could have made it past me before it went off. She didn’t. She took me down. And I didn’t drag myself downstairs, whatever the police think.”

Of course she’d been at the estate to rob him. And, the cynical, suspicious core of him admitted that she might have been there to kill him. Something, though, had happened to change all that. And he wanted to know what, and why.

The detective he’d met at the estate leaned into the doorway. “Castillo,” he said, flashing his badge as Donner started forward. “You sure her plowing into you wasn’t just an accident, Mr. Addison?”

“I’m sure,” Rick grunted. He didn’t want to deal with the detective right now. With the explosion, this had become very personal. He wanted to be the one asking the questions, and he wanted the answers for himself. This was too much like working for someone else—and that wasn’t how he ran his business, or his life.

The detective cleared his throat. “I’m more suspicious, myself. We’ve got out an APB, and like I said, she’s bound to turn up somewhere for medical attention. I suggest you find a place to stay, and I’ll set up an around-the-clock watch on you.”

Richard frowned. “I don’t want people following me around.”

“It’s procedure. You can either use the Palm Beach PD or the sheriff’s department.”

“No. I don’t get kicked out of my own house, and I have my own estate security.”

“With all respect, I’m not exactly impressed by your estate security, Mr. Addison.”

“I’m not either, at the moment.” Groaning aloud, he gingerly stood to pull on the faded jeans.

“Christ, Rick. I’ll get a wheelchair.” The tall attorney strode for the door.

“I’m walking,” Richard said, clenching his jaw as he straightened. He should probably be grateful his blood wasn’t pooling somewhere on the floor, but damnation, he hurt. And Miss Smith had been right there with him. “Tom, get Myerson-Schmidt on the phone now. And not some drone. Somebody who can answer some questions.”

“I’m working on it.” Donner came back into the room, a cell phone to his ear and a wheelchair in front of him.

Trying not to double over, Richard faced Castillo. “If—when—you find this Miss Smith, I want to know. And I want to be there.”

“That’s not exactly procedure, Mr. Addison.”

Giving up on being stoic, Rick dropped into the wheelchair. “Fuck procedure. My taxes pay half your department’s annual budget. If you’re going to talk to her, I’m going to be there.”

Donner glanced at him, but Richard pretended not to notice. The fiasco, and therefore the answers, belonged to him.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“He what?”

Samantha flinched. “God dammit, Stoney, be careful. I need that arm.”

Fat fingers surprisingly gentle, Stoney sent her shoulder an intense scowl and pinched together the long, jagged cut. “You need a hospital, honey.” With his free hand he squeezed a tube of super glue along the wound.

“What I need is a heavy, blunt object so I can beat you across the head,” she returned, more to cover her gasp of pain than because she was still angry. “You said Addison would be in Stuttgart for another day.”

“That’s what the
Wall Street Journal
thought, too. Some bank deal with Harold Meridien. Blame the
Journal
for having bad information, or blame him for lying to them. And hey, you might at least have grabbed one of the Picassos on the way out. The alarm was already triggered.”

“Like you want to fence a Picasso without a buyer. And I had my hands full, thank you very much.” She
had
had her hands full, with a very heavy, very unconscious Richard Addison. She’d seen a few shots of him, in the
Inquirer
during his messy divorce year before last and on one of the nightly Hollywood entertainment shows a couple of months ago, when
he’d donated an obscene amount of money to some cause at some event hosted by whoever’d won the Oscar last year. Rich, divorced, and private. And annoyingly unpredictable.

“That should do it,” Stoney decided, slowly releasing the hold he had on her shoulder. The glue held. “I’ll bandage it, just in case.”

“How’s my back?” She craned her neck, trying to see.

“Good thing you were wearing Kevlar, honey. You can see the vest outline.” He traced a scooped line high up between her shoulder blades. “No tank tops for a while. But I’m more worried about the gash on the back of your leg. You do much walking, and the glue won’t hold.”

She looked at his face. “You’re worried? About me? How sweet.” Placing a kiss on the end of his crooked, flat nose, she gingerly scooted off the end of his kitchen table.

“I’m serious. You must’ve left some blood behind. What about DNA mapping and that shit?”

She’d thought of that and had already rationalized her way out of letting it bother her. “They have to have me to match it with something,” she returned, taking a slow, experimental step and feeling the glue pull at her torn skin. “And they don’t have me.” She glanced at his sliding-eyes cat clock above the refrigerator. “It’s after five. Turn on the news, will you?”

While he shuffled in his bathrobe and slippers to the small counter television, Sam carefully shrugged into the spare pair of jeans she kept at Stoney’s. This must be why mothers always told their kids to wear clean underwear, she reflected, wincing as the material slid across the bandaged gash. In case of explosions.

“You said the security guard died, Sam,” Stoney grunted, flipping on the local morning news. “What’re you looking for, video of the body bag?”

“I left fast,” she returned, easing on a T-shirt and leaning into the refrigerator for a can of Diet Coke. “I think I avoided all the cameras on the grounds, but I’d like to know for sure.”

He cocked a heavy eyebrow at her. “That all?”

“Well, I’m kind of curious about who strung that wire across the hallway, and it might be helpful to know whether Addison survived or not.”

Cool as she kept her tone, Stoney would know she was worried. The explosion had shoved her into the floor and obviously rattled her brain. She’d dragged Addison downstairs almost by reflex, then realized he could probably identify her to the cops. The guard, Prentiss, was definitely dead, and if she had been the one to discover an intruder in the hallway when a bomb went off, she knew whom she would blame. This was bad. Very bad.

“Sam.”

She jerked her head toward the television.

“—quiet of the night was interrupted by a fire at Solano Dorado, the Palm Beach County estate of billionaire businessman and philanthropist Richard Addison. One fatality has been reported, and the cause is under investigation and has been declared ‘suspicious.’ Addison was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor cuts and bruises, and has been released.” The video changed to show Addison, accompanied by a tall, blond man, diving into the back of a black Mercedes limousine. Disheveled dark hair half hid the bandage that crossed his forehead, but otherwise he looked intact. And for a moment she was relieved.

“Great.” Stoney sighed. “You should have left him up there.”

“I don’t think letting Richard Addison burn to death would have helped me any,” she retorted, hiding a shiver at the thought.

“Did he get a look at you?”

Sam shrugged. “A brief one.”

“They’re going to be after you.”

“I know. I’m good at not being found.”

“This is different, honey.”

She knew that, too. Someone had died. And a very rich man had nearly died. And she hadn’t even managed to nab the stone she’d been after. “I was stupid. I should have no
ticed that someone else had already broken in and wired the place with explosives. Dammit.” She took a long swallow of soda. “Who would want to blow up the stuff in that house, anyway? What’s the point?”