Flirting With Danger (5 page)

She worried about Stoney, but he’d survived working with her less-cautious father, and he could take care of himself. As for her, Milan would be nice this time of year, too crowded with tourists for anyone to notice her. What she would do later, when she wanted to return to the U.S. and couldn’t because she would still be wanted for murder and attempted murder, she didn’t want to think about.

Deciding she hadn’t damned Etienne nearly enough, she did it a few more times. Of course he’d only been concerned with himself; she was the same way. But he’d been sloppy, and now she’d been stuck with cleaning up his mess.

For tonight, she headed back inland toward Clewiston, where her father had one of his safe houses, now hers. It was a crappy little place, but definitely nondescript. No one would think a self-respecting cat burglar would go within a mile of it.

The wounds in her shoulder and leg smarted. She needed to wipe them down again with alcohol and touch up the super glue where at least one of the cuts had begun to pull open. Tomorrow she would worry about tomorrow. And tonight she would wonder why it continued to bother her that someone might be trying to kill Richard Addison, the one witness to her involvement in any of this.

Friday, 8:27 a.m.

“Did Danté give you the damage report?” Richard asked, sitting back against the soft leather cushions of his limousine.

Donner climbed in behind him. “Yeah, for the items he had confirmation on. He’s still fighting with insurance over the values of most of the damaged stuff. The appraiser had to go throw up once.”

The car rolled down the long, winding drive and through the open gates, still manned by uniformed police. “This is the third day now. How much longer are they going to be here?”

“Until they catch your bomber, would be my guess. It’s a little difficult for me to complain to the police that they’re protecting you too well. Which reminds me, Castillo called this morning to protest that your exiting, and I quote, ‘the secured area of your home today, leaves you vulnerable to a second targeting by an assassin,’ unquote.”

“So I’m warned. Don’t sue him if I get killed.” Richard rolled his shoulders. “And I’m just going to your offices to work for a few hours.” He glanced at Donner. “By the way,
are you charging me for the drive to my house and then riding back with me? I told you I’d prefer to drive myself.”

Tom grinned. “I’m on retainer, so I pretty much charge you for everything.”

“In that case, I neglected to tell you something about last night.” Donner only looked at him, so Richard drew a breath. He could keep it to himself; he actually preferred to do that. On the other hand, if something happened to him, he wanted the murder solved. “I had a visitor. She dropped in to see me after you left.”

“She who? You’re going to have to narrow it down a little before I can guess, Britain’s Hottest Bachelor.”

“I told you never to mention that to me again.”

The attorney snorted. “Sorry. Who dropped in?”

“Miss Smith.”

Tom opened his mouth, but no sound came out. “You—she—why the hell didn’t you say anything, Rick? Dammit!” He grabbed the cell phone clipped to his belt. “This—” and he jabbed a finger in Rick’s direction while he punched numbers with the other hand “—
this
is why you need private security.”

“Hang up.”

“No. You and your damned stiff British upper lip. She was in your house? Where? Did she threaten—”

“I’m not being stoic. And I’m not happy.” Richard yanked the phone out of his attorney’s hand and snapped it closed. “I paid for this phone, for your house, and to put Chris into Yale,” he growled. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Donner’s face reddened. “You—”

“Give me a little bloody credit, Tom. She’s not the one who tried to kill me. And telling Castillo she came visiting won’t do anyone any good.”

“It won’t do
her
any good, which anywhere but here would be the idea.” Tom hurled the water bottle he’d snagged against the opposite seat. “Dammit! And all supposition aside, how do you know she didn’t do it?”

“She told me so.” Goading his attorney only seemed fair,
considering how annoyed he was. This was his problem, and he would decide how it was handled.

“Shit. Give me the phone, Addison. Fire me if you want, but you are not going to get killed on my watch.”

“Very dramatic, but it’s not your watch. It’s mine. It’s always been mine. Now just calm down and listen, or I won’t bother telling you anything.”

After he spat out a few more curses Tom sat back and folded his arms, his color and temper still high. “I’m listening.”

“I was unconscious for at least five minutes after the bomb went off. Instead of leaving me there or finishing me off, she dragged me downstairs, risking discovery, before she got out. Last night when she dropped in through my skylight she reminded me of that fact, then recited the tale end of the conversation you and I had in my office, to prove that she could have taken me out then, as well. She confessed to having been after the tablet—unsuccessfully, by the way—and actually…asked for my assistance in making certain the police knew she hadn’t had anything to do with the explosives.”

“And you said?”

“I said no.” And that, he had realized in the middle of his cold shower, had bothered him. Not because the sight of her practically gave him a hard-on, but because he’d wanted to handle this himself, and she’d tried to give him the opportunity. But it hadn’t been on his bloody terms, so he’d turned her down. “After that, she warned me to be cautious and wished me good luck, since whoever had planted the bomb was at least as proficient as she was at breaking and entering, and she’d managed to get in again.”

“And that’s all.”

“Well, in a roundabout way she offered to help me find out who planted the bomb if I would help clear her of murder charges.” She’d also said a few other things, of course, but he intended to keep those to himself. He leaned down to pick up the water bottle as it rolled back to them and returned it to Donner. “In retrospect, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have taken her up on it.”

Tom continued to glare at him, but the more he considered it, the more he regretted letting her slip back into the night. Beneath her cool facade she’d been worried, and for some unknown reason he found he could sympathize. And he doubted she would have offered assistance if she couldn’t provide any. She didn’t seem to work that way.

In a sense her world was very similar to his, though his opponents wore suits and for the most part swam through the shallows in broad daylight. If their circumstances had been reversed, he would have done exactly as she had—gone to the person with the most power to see whether he could influence the course of events. If Julia Poole or any of the other actresses and models he’d dated had found herself in this kind of trouble, she would have fluttered her eyelashes and thrown herself on his mercy, expecting him to clean things up. Not Miss Smith, however. She proposed a trade. Apparently she hated relinquishing control as much as he did.

“You really are considering it, aren’t you?”

“I’m a businessman, Tom. I trust my judgment in evaluating people and situations because I’ve been successful at it. Yes, I really am considering it.”

“And if you hypothetically did decide to team up with Miss Smith, how would you hypothetically go about contacting her?”

“So you can tell Castillo? I don’t think so, my dear fellow.”

“Stop acting so British.”

Richard lifted an eyebrow. “As you’ve repeatedly pointed out over the past few days, I
am
British.”

“You’re my friend. If you’re jumping out of the airplane, I’m right behind you—but I’m carrying the spare parachute. You keep me in the loop, and it’ll stay between us. Unless it puts your life at risk.”

“Life
is
a risk.” Tapping his fingers on the armrest, Richard spent a few moments gazing out the window. With jolting abruptness palm trees and beach gave way to buildings and traffic lights. “So how do we get hold of someone the police can’t find?”

“I don’t know why the hell you feel the need to risk that thick, billion-dollar skull of yours.” Still shaking his head, Donner opened the water bottle, took a swallow, and scowled at it as if he wished it were bourbon.

Ben in the driver’s seat buzzed the intercom speaker. “Mr. Addison, more cameras coming up. Should I use the parking structure?”

Ahead of them on the right stood the gleaming tower that housed the law firm of Donner, Rhodes and Critchenson on its top three floors. Ranged in front of the lobby’s brass-and-glass revolving doors, a dozen reporters and camera crews sprang to attention like a pride of lions scenting gazelle. Thinking fast, Richard returned the cell phone to Donner. “No, stop at the curb.”

Chauffeur and attorney gave him the same look.

“Yes, I’m certain,” Rick said, straightening his tie. “Tom, pretend you’re on the phone, then hand it to me as soon as I stop to talk to the vultures. Make certain they’ve got the microphones aimed in my direction, first.”

“All right. You’re the boss.”

Richard flashed him a grin. “Yes, I am.”

Ben pulled over and sprang out of his seat, hurrying around to open the rearmost passenger door. Tom emerged first, mostly because Richard shoved him. God, he hated the press. Aside from their constant, annoying, biting-midge presence, two years ago they’d bloodied an already painful divorce and sent in hyenas to scavenge the remains. Well today they could work for him.

“Mr. Addison—Rick—can you give us an update on your injuries?”

“Was this a murder attempt or a robbery?”

“What was taken from your home?”

“Is your ex-wife considered a suspect?”

Richard took the phone Tom practically hurled at him as they waded through the cacophony of shouts. “Just a moment,” he said, and lifted the phone to his ear. “Miss…Jones?” he began. “Yes, four o’clock is fine. I’ll have Tom
prepare the paperwork. Thanks for the help—I can use it. I’ll see you then.” He clicked the phone closed and handed it back while the shouts increased in volume around him. “I’m not at liberty to discuss precisely what was removed from my home,” he continued in a louder voice, “though several antique Meissen porcelain pieces were broken in the explosion. They were personal favorites, and I do regret their loss.”

He couldn’t say more without alerting Castillo and the FBI, but Miss Smith seemed exceptionally bright, and he would wager that she knew precisely which art objects he owned and where he housed them. Now he’d have to wait and see whether he was correct.

“But can you confirm or deny that Patricia Addison-Wallis is—”

“Excuse me, I have a meeting,” he interrupted, working to keep his jaw from clenching. Hearing the Addison and Wallis names strung together like that continued to leave him with the desire to punch someone. One of the few things the court had granted Patricia, though, was continued use of the name of which she’d availed herself for three years.

The silence of the lobby opened around him with cool, air-conditioned fingers, blissful after the humidity that had come with the sunrise and the tight, barking overlay of voice-coached news personalities. He couldn’t help brushing off his sleeves and checking his collar for hidden microphones as he waited for Donner to catch up to him.

“Jesus,” Tom said as he pushed past security and the rotating door. “I think I left an arm out there.”

“What did you get from my blathering?” Richard asked, his voice echoing faintly as he continued toward the brass-plated elevator doors at the far end of the high-ceilinged lobby.

“I got the Jones/Smith bit, which was pretty obvious, and the four o’clock meeting. You lost me with the missing porcelain reference, though.”

“Not ‘missing.’ Meissen. Meissen antique porcelain figures are quite the rage for some collectors. And the shop
housing the largest collection in the world happens to be right here, on Worth Avenue.”

“Ah. I hope your Miss Smith is smarter than I am, then.”

Richard shrugged. “If not, I’ll be buying a Meissen at four o’clock today for no good reason.”

“This piece then, Mr. Addison?” the very helpful store clerk suggested, managing to turn, point, and show off her cleavage all at the same time. “From your description, this may be more to your liking.”

Richard glanced toward the door, as he had every minute for the past twelve. They’d played his little clue on the news at least a dozen times since this morning; if Miss Smith was anywhere near a television, she would have seen it. If she’d seen it, she would understand the message he’d sent. And she would appear, as he’d requested. He drew in a breath and returned his attention to the ornate, brightly-colored pair of wall sconces, circa 1870. “Nothing wall-mounted, please. I want something for a table display.”

“Of course, sir. This way, then. We’ve just purchased several lovely eighteenth-century pieces from an estate in Strasbourg.”

With another glance toward the entrance, he followed. She was late. He wasn’t used to twiddling his thumbs, and he didn’t like it. When he set an appointment with someone, he expected them to arrive on time, or better yet, early. His time was valuable.

The store clerk had certainly recognized this. The “by appointment only” script on the door hadn’t stopped either of them from engaging in business. It hadn’t stopped her from writing her personal phone number on the back of her business card, and it wouldn’t stop her from slipping the card into his bag if he should make a purchase.

Tom stayed a few steps behind, ignoring the delicate porcelains and instead concentrating his attention on the clerks and other clients. Bodyguard seemed an odd job for an attorney of Donner’s reputation and prestige, but Richard
had learned the value and rarity of true friendship. If dogging his heels this afternoon gave Tom some feeling of control, Richard had no problem with it—as long as the attorney didn’t interfere.

“How much do these things run?” Donner asked, relaxing enough to eye a small vase.

“Mostly in the middle five figures, I believe.”

“You believe? You know the price of everything, Rick.”

“I told you I don’t collect it.”

“But—”

“That’s why I chose Meissen, because Miss Smith would know I didn’t have any of it in the gallery.”

“You have a lot of art and antiques, Rick. How’s she supposed to know that these are the one thing you don’t collect?”

While the clerk eyed him hopefully, Richard pretended interest in a pastoral figurine featuring a girl with a goat. “That’s not the point, and they’re not the one thing I don’t collect. Some people, I believe, have a great interest in G.I. Joe action figures, for example. I don’t collect those, either.”

“The older ones were better anyway, when they had real hair.”

Rick froze, electricity shooting from the back of his scalp to his crotch. He turned his head to see the young woman perusing a pink candy tray decorated with a swan. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. This afternoon she fit Worth Avenue to perfection, in a short cotton dress of blue and yellow which showed off long, tanned legs, yellow-heeled sandals, and over her arm a white purse that didn’t need the large “G” branding the flap to declare its origin.

The attentive clerk hovering just behind her only added to the aura of wealthy Palm Beach resident. For a moment he wondered whether she
was
one of the idle wealthy, stealing for thrills, but quickly dismissed the idea. Her expression was too alive, her eyes too inquisitive to allow anyone to dump her into the herd of the isolated, insulated rich.