Flirting With Danger (4 page)

All of which made one thing clear. If she wanted to retire, she needed to figure out who had set that bomb. She’d either been played for a fool, or she had the worst luck in history. Either way, she wanted payback. And she needed to be able to prove that she hadn’t done it. Solving this mess just to satisfy her own curiosity wouldn’t keep her out of prison.

The news ended with no break in the story, and she finally found something worth watching. With
Godzilla 1985
roaring and stomping Tokyo on WNBT in the background, she scooted off the couch for her computer, logged on, and checked messages. Since she wasn’t interested in either penile enlargement or a free trip to Florida, she deleted them, went into a search engine, and typed in Richard Addison’s name.

The preview page flooded with images, a backlog of articles on various newspaper and magazine Web sites, from
Architectural Digest
to
CEO
to
Newsweek
. “We get around, don’t we, Addison?” she murmured, scrolling through the first page and calling up the second.

Most of the articles used similar pictures, as though Addison had sat for one photo shoot and left the publications to sort through the results. Despite the slightly too-long, dark, wavy hair just touching his collar, he looked like a multibillionaire, and not just because of the black Armani suit, black tie, and dark gray shirt. It was the eyes, mostly, dark gray and glinting. They said power and confidence, looking directly into the camera and announcing that this was a man to be taken seriously.

“Not bad,” she commented. Okay, so maybe that was an understatement. Maybe he was gorgeous. And he’d definitely looked delicious in nothing but sweatpants, even covered in soot and blood.

Annoyed at herself for getting distracted, she clicked on the third page. Now that the references were becoming a
little more obscure, she slowed. Purchases of antiques, a site dedicated to yacht enthusiasts, and an entire page of
www.divorcegladiators.com
, hosted not by Mr. Addison, but by Patricia, the ex–Mrs. Addison.
Ouch
. Samantha knew she had more pertinent things to discover about the man who’d dumped her into the middle of a murder investigation, but she clicked on the Web site anyway.

A photograph of Patricia Addison-Wallis flashed onto the screen. A petite blonde with the sculpted good looks that cost a thousand dollars per visit at a salon, the ex–Mrs. Addison answered e-mail questions and gave advice on how to avoid being taken to the cleaners in a divorce, in hopes that others would profit where she hadn’t. Considering that just over two years ago Addison had caught her bare-assed with Sir Peter Wallis at his villa in Jamaica, Sam privately thought Patricia had gotten off easy. Not all cuckolded husbands would allow their ex-wives and new spouses enough funds to at least keep a nice home in London.

Her phone rang. Sam jumped, trotting into the kitchen to pick it up. “Hola.”

“Samantha Jellicoe,” the voice returned, male and heavily French. “So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Her heart thunked, then began beating again.
As if she didn’t already have enough trouble
. “Etienne DeVore. I’m not hiding, and how the hell did you get my number?”

He made a derisive sound. “I know my business, cherie. And stay out of mine. It’s dangerous.”

A siren drifted into hearing a few blocks away, then cut off. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked, and Sam pulled aside the lace curtain to gaze out the small kitchen window at the street. Nothing, though the timing of the phone call had just become very interesting. “That was you at Addison’s! You nearly killed me!”

“I did not expect you’d take a job like this one. So complicated, you know.”

“Well, fucks to you, mon ami.” As another thought occurred to her, she frowned. “How did you know it was me, there?”

Etienne snorted again. “Don’t insult me. Anyone else would be dead. Even with you, it was too close, non? Besides, I’m trying to do you a favor.”

“A fav—”

Another siren just entered her hearing, and then shut off abruptly, rather than dropping into the typical low rumbling growl as the car stopped.

“Dammit. I have to go. Etienne, if you called the cops on me, you’re a dead man.”

“I don’t call the cops, ever. This is shit. Go, Samantha. I will take care of things.”

“Yeah, right.” Her mind flying with scenarios about who might have talked and why, Sam hung up the phone. She raced into her bedroom, grabbed up the backpack she always kept under her bed, and hurried back into the living room. The computer still sat there, requesting whether she would like to subscribe, for the reasonable price of $12.95 per year, to the newsletter dedicated to following the private life and business practices of Richard Addison.

She yanked the plug out of the wall, lifted the casing off the CPU, and pulled out every circuit board and wire that wasn’t soldered down. Shoving them into her pack, she kicked the crap out of the rest of the unit, then took another minute to make a check of the windows around the perimeter of the house. It looked clear, and she slipped out the back door. Hopping her neighbor’s fence, she hiked herself onto Mrs. Esposito’s roof, wincing as the motion pulled at the wound on her thigh, and ran.

She’d left the Honda parked in the Food for Less market two blocks away, and she reached it just as a police helicopter, a news helicopter close behind it, powered overhead in the direction of her house. Her former house. Starting the car, she drove another mile and a half before she pulled into a lot crowded with hamburger and pizza and Cuban food restaurants. The pay phone worked, though she wouldn’t vouch for its cleanliness. Dropping in a quarter, she dialed Stoney’s number.

“Yeah?”

“Jorge?” she said in a thick accent. “Está Jorge alle?”

She heard his intake of breath. “Look, lady, I keep telling you, there’s no Jorge here. No está aqui. Comprende?”

“Comprendo.” Her hands shook as she hung up the phone, and she clenched them together. They’d found Stoney, or at least were keeping an eye on him. A close eye. Which meant they’d probably try to trace her call. Cursing, she hurried back to the car and headed north. How in the hell had the police found their trail so fast? She knew she hadn’t left prints, and even if Addison had managed to give a good description of her, they had nothing to match it to. She believed Etienne when he said he hadn’t turned her in—that wasn’t his style. The cops’ arrival, though, hadn’t surprised him, either. Someone had talked, and they’d implicated both her and Stoney. She narrowed her eyes. No one played her for a fool. No one who didn’t regret it later.

This was out of control. Rich people had things stolen from them all the time. That was why they’d invented insurance. What rich people didn’t have, however, were people trying to blow up their houses, and perhaps even them. Damn Etienne. She remembered Addison’s face as she’d hit him, the startled look that had replaced the mild amusement in his gray eyes. He had to know she hadn’t tried to kill him. Just the opposite. She’d saved his life.

Samantha’s heart jumped. He was the only witness to her involvement in any of this, as far as she knew. Etienne might have said he’d take care of things, but in her experience, that meant only things that concerned his own ass. If he followed his usual pattern, he would disappear for a few weeks and emerge counting his cut. Which was fine, except that it left her with a shitload of trouble. And so she needed Addison. She needed to convince him that she was innocent—or relatively so, anyway. Someone needed to take the blame for this fiasco, and she didn’t intend for it to be her. It looked as though she was going in over the wall, after all.

Thursday, 9:08 p.m.

“This is ridiculous,” Richard said, hanging up the phone after his conversation with the chief of the Palm Beach Police Department. “It’s been two bloody days, and still all they’ll say is that they have a few leads but nothing they’re free to tell me.”

“Which would be true.” Donner watched Richard pace from the far side of the desk.

“Except that they have a Walter ‘Stoney’ Barstone under surveillance.” Richard glanced at the fax Donner had brought with him. “And a house they began searching this afternoon. I would say that’s significant.”

“It’s something. But since the house is owned by one Juanita Fuentes, who apparently died in 1997, I’d guess they aren’t quite sure what’s going on.”

“I want to go there,” Richard said. “To that house.” Striding to the liquor cabinet for a brandy, he rubbed at his temple. Dr. Klemm had said he probably had a mild concussion, but by now he imagined the headache was more than equal parts frustration.

“You can’t. We don’t officially know about it yet. And I can only push things so far, Rick, even with your name to throw around.”

“I hate not knowing what’s going on. And whatever anyone else thinks, she didn’t act—”

“Didn’t act like a killer? You said that before—but it’s not your job to decide that.” Clearing his throat, Donner uncrossed his long legs and stood. “I’m more concerned that the police want you to stay in Florida.” He flashed a grin at Richard’s frown. “I mean, I like having you here, even off-season, but keeping you in a place where things explode doesn’t make me all that comfortable.”

“Me, either.”

“Ha. You
like
being in the middle of shit.”

Richard eyed him. “True or not, I
do
like resolutions. Go do something constructive, will you?”

Tom made a truly awful bow.
Americans
.

“Yes, your majesty. I’ll swing by the office and put in another call to Senator Branston. Maybe I can shake something out of her tree.”

“Shake Barbara hard, or I will.”

“No, you won’t, because you’re lying low and cooperating with the authorities in this matter. I’m the lawyer. I’m supposed to be nasty.”

Donner left, closing the door behind him. Richard, though, continued to pace. He hated being handled, even by a friend like Tom. The police department’s sycophantic nonsense was simply insulting. And the FBI and he went back quite a ways and had never dealt well together.

He supposed he might be considered a suspect by an exceptionally broad stretch of someone’s imagination, but in reality they probably wanted him to stay in Florida because his presence would keep the media interested and convince the department to continue paying the investigators their overtime. As long as it helped somebody track down Miss Smith, he would put up with being in the public eye—for now.

He started to take another swallow of brandy, then stopped
as the skylight in the middle of the ceiling rattled and opened. With a graceful flip that looked much easier than it had to be, a woman dropped into his office.
The
woman, he noted, reflexively taking a step back.

“Thank you for getting rid of your company,” she said in a low voice. “I was getting a cramp up there.”

“Miss Smith.”

She nodded, keeping green eyes on him as she walked to the door and locked it. “Are you sure you’re Richard Addison? I thought he slept in a suit, but night before last you had on nothing but jogging sweats, and tonight”—she looked him slowly up and down—“a T-shirt and jeans, and no shoes.”

The muscles across his abdomen tightened, and not—he noted with some interest—in fear. “The suit’s at the cleaners.” Her gloved hands were empty, as they had been the other night, and this time she didn’t even carry a paint gun or a pack. Again she was in black—black shoes and black tight-fitting pants and a black T-shirt that hugged her slim curves.

She pursed her lips. “Satisfied I’m not carrying a concealed weapon?”

“I have no idea where you’d keep one, if you were,” he returned, sliding his gaze along the length of her.

“Thanks for noticing.”

“In fact,” he continued, “you seem a bit underdressed compared to the other night. I do like the baseball cap, though. Very fashionable.”

She flashed him a grin. “It keeps my long blond hair out of my face.”

“Duly noted for my report to the police,” he said, his mind still pondering the intriguing thought of where she might carry a concealed weapon. “Unless you’re here to kill me, in which case I suppose I don’t really care what color your hair might be.”

“If I were here to kill you,” she returned in a calm, soft voice, sending a glance beyond him at his desk, “you’d be dead.”

“That confident, are you?” She wasn’t armed; he could rush her, grab her, and hold her for the police. Instead, Richard took a sip of brandy.

“Mm-hm,” she answered. “Who was that you sent out to shake Senator Branston’s tree? Or Barbara’s, rather?”

He found himself watching her mouth, the soft curve of her full lips.
Concentrate, dammit
. With a breath, Richard glanced toward the skylight again. The glass was thick, but not enough to stop a good listening device—or a bullet. So she had had the opportunity to kill him again and hadn’t taken it. Interesting.

“That was my attorney. Tom Donner.”

“Attorneys. My favorite people. Now why don’t you move over there by the cabinet for a minute?” she suggested, walking closer. She seemed coiled, ready to move in any direction, to react to whatever he might do. Richard found it oddly…tantalizing. Most people played more defensively where he was involved. Miss Smith, it seemed, considered herself his match.

“This is my office, Miss Smith. Why don’t you ask me nicely? Considering that you’re unarmed.”

The soft smile touched her mouth again, saying both that she had no doubt she could hold her own against him and that she was supremely enjoying their encounter. “Please move, Mr. Addison,” she cooed.

Because he wanted to see what she meant to do next, he moved where she indicated. Stepping forward, she brushed gloved fingers through folders and papers on his desk. “I don’t have any concealed weapons, either,” he said after a moment, covering a flicker of annoyance when she invaded the top drawer of his desk.

“Of course you do,” she said. “I just want to make sure they’re not anywhere too easy to whip out.” Her glance took in his faded jeans.

After a moment she backed away, giving him an all clear gesture. He returned to his desk, sinking back against the near edge. If she’d checked the cabinet behind him she would
have found a .44, but she undoubtedly thought she could get out before he could get to anything he had closed away. “All right, let’s say I accept that you’re not here to kill me,” he said. “Why
are
you here then, Miss Smith?”

For the first time she hesitated, a furrow appearing between her delicate, curved brows. “To ask for your help.”

And he’d thought nothing else could surprise him this evening. “Beg pardon?”

“I think you know that I didn’t try to kill you the other night. I did try to take your Trojan stone tablet, and I won’t apologize for that. But thievery has a statute of limitations. Murder doesn’t.” She cleared her throat. “I wouldn’t kill anyone.”

“Then turn yourself in and tell the police.”

She snorted. “No fucking way. I may have missed the tablet, but not all the statutes have run out on me.”

Richard folded his arms across his chest. She hadn’t taken the tablet. Curiouser and curiouser—and it didn’t suit him to let her know that someone else had made off with it. “So you’ve stolen other things. From people other than me, I presume?”

As she glanced toward the skylight, her smooth, devil-may-care countenance shifted a little. It was an act, he realized. Fearless as she seemed to be, she would have to be desperate to drop in on him here tonight. If he hadn’t been so accustomed to reading people, looking for weaknesses, he never would have seen it. She was good at what she did, obviously, but that moment of vulnerability caught his attention—and his interest.

“I saved your life,” she finally said, her unaffected mask dropping into place again, “so you owe me a favor. Tell them—the police, the FBI, the news—that I didn’t kill that guard, and that I didn’t try to kill you. I’ll deal with the rest on my own.”

“I see.” Richard wasn’t certain whether he was more intrigued by her or annoyed that she expected him to make her error go away. “You want me to fix things so you can walk away
from this, without repercussions, owing to the fact that while you’ve been bad elsewhere, you were unsuccessful here.”

“I’m bad everywhere,” she returned, with a slight smile that momentarily made him wonder how far she would go in her quest to see herself cleared of any wrongdoing. “Accuse me of attempted theft. But clear me of murder.”

“No.” He wanted answers, but his way. And not through some sort of compromise, intriguing though she made it sound.

She met his gaze straight on for a moment, then nodded. “I had to try. You might consider, though, that if I didn’t set that bomb, someone else did. Someone who’s better at getting into places than I am. And I’m good. Very good.”

“I’d wager you are.” He watched her for another moment, wondering what she’d be like with all of that coiled energy released. She definitely knew how to push his buttons, and he wanted to push a few of hers. “I’ll admit you may have something I’m interested in acquiring,” he said slowly, “but it’s not your theories or your request for aid.”

Returning to her position beneath the skylight, she yanked her arm down. The end of a length of rope tumbled into the room. “Oh, Mr. Addison. I never give something for nothing.”

He found that he wasn’t quite ready for her to leave. “Perhaps we could negotiate.”

She released the rope, approaching him with a walk that looked half Catwoman and all sexy. “I already suggested that, and you turned me down. But be careful. Somebody wants you dead. And you have no idea how close somebody like me can get, without you ever knowing,” she murmured, lifting her face to his.

Jesus.
She practically gave off sparks. He could feel the hairs on his arms lifting. “I would know,” he returned in the same low tone, taking a slow step closer, daring her to make the next move. If she did, he was going to touch her. He wanted to touch her, badly. The heat coming off her body was almost palpable.

She held where she was, her lips a breath away from his, then with another fleeting grin slid away to grab the rope again. “So you weren’t surprised tonight, were you?” With a fluid coordination of arms and legs, she swarmed up through the skylight. “Watch your back, Addison. If you’re not going to help me, I’m not going to help you.”

“Help me?”

She vanished, then ducked her head back into the room. “I know things the cops would never have a clue how to find out. Good night, Addison.” Miss Smith blew him a kiss. “Sleep tight.”

Richard stepped forward to look up, but she had already disappeared. “I was surprised,” he conceded, taking another swallow of brandy. “And now I need a cold shower.”

Samantha gave Addison credit for one thing. He didn’t sound the alarm while she slipped out of his very nice house, over the side wall, and away from his very nice grounds.

It had been a stupid idea. She’d only been in hiding for two days, and already she was taking foolish chances. Of course he had no reason to believe her, much less to want to help her—even if she had a damned good idea who had done the bombing. Not that she had any intention of ratting out Etienne to anyone—but she could damned well turn their attention away from her. Now, though, she’d given him a better look at her, informed him and thereby the police that she was still in the area, and proven that she could get through even their beefed-up security with enough ease that she could have carried an explosive with her on either occasion.

And what had she gotten out of their little encounter? Sam pursed her lips. She’d already known he was good-looking, but based on their little exchange, his temperature ran to hot and very sexy. It was fortunate that flirting had been part of her plan tonight, because she wasn’t sure she could have stopped herself from doing it. It could have been pheromones or something, but in retrospect perhaps a part
nership with a man she found that attractive wouldn’t have been the best of ideas.

She hiked the rest of the humid mile to where she’d left her car and tossed her gear into the trunk. As she climbed behind the wheel, though, she paused again.
He hadn’t sounded the alarm
. So he did believe at least part of her story. It was something, she supposed, but not nearly the level of assistance she’d wanted.

Blowing out her breath to try to rid herself of the last of the adrenaline-driven arousal he’d sparked, she started the Honda. Time for another plan. Sometime in the next day or two she would have to boost another car, and she hated doing that. Her father had once accused her of being squeamish, but he would have been more accurate to call her a snob. Any slob could boost a car. She craved the thrill of going somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, and of touching…time.

Ancient texts, paintings by the old Masters, vases of the Ming Dynasty, Roman coins, Trojan stone tablets—they fascinated her, and she’d been criticized for that, too, for learning everything she could about an object before she liberated it. Her father had seen them only as money, and himself as the banker, transferring funds from one account to another and taking a cut for his trouble.

Damn. Since Etienne had been less than forthcoming, she’d meant to ask Addison whether the stone tablet had gone missing or been destroyed, not that he was likely to tell her in either case. It made a difference, though; in one case the bomb had been a distraction, and in the other it had been a murder weapon. One most likely meant to kill him. Yummy, desirable Richard Addison. The only billionaire she knew who went about barefoot and wore snug-fitting jeans and had a nice ass.

Sam shook herself. “Stop it,” she muttered, turning up the radio. If nothing else, her level of distraction after one conversation told her she’d done the right thing in getting out of there. So what if he gave the police her description? They’d never find her. Now she just needed to wait a few days for the
official net to get tired of watching for her and develop a few weak spots. One was all she needed.