Knock Me Off My Feet (2 page)

"We'll need to discuss who you might have offended, Miss Adams, who it is that might hold a grudge against you. I'll need a list of husbands and boyfriends, current and ex-."

Autumn burst out laughing. They were driving north on
Ashland Avenue
now, almost at the school. It took several moments for her guffaw to die down.

"Sure, Detective. No problem." She pursed her lips and frowned. "Let's get right to it. Never was a husband, and at this rate there never will be. There's no current anything. And how do you want the others—would alphabetical work for you? Or how about according to the way I got the bad news—E-mail, beeper, voice mail, answering machine, or telepathy!"

She perked up a bit and waved her hand in the air. "Wait! I know! How about I organize the names by the man's neurosis—fear of commitment, fear of boredom, inability to stop lying, unclear sexual orientation, like that?"

Detective Quinn pulled up alongside
Lakeview
High School
and cut the engine. He methodically removed his sunglasses and tucked them inside his jacket pocket. He waited for her to turn to him, and when she did, he saw tears in her eyes.

Despite the attitude, she was scared.

"Someone is threatening to hurt you, Miss Adams. I need to ask questions if I'm going to find him. Do you think we can work together on this?"

Autumn nodded slightly and brushed the tears away with a quick sweep of her hand. "I'm sorry for the snide comments. I'm just so incredibly pissed about this whole thing."

"About the letters or the boyfriends?"

Autumn exhaled sharply and noticed that his uneven grin had returned. "Both, since you asked."

It startled her when he reached inside his jacket and offered her a crisp white handkerchief.

"Thanks." She blew her nose with enthusiasm. "Look, Detective, I don't have a very good track record with men, OK? Nothing ever lasts very long. It's like after seven or eight weeks some green slimy and hairy thing with eleven eyeballs suddenly jumps out of the top of my head and the men start running for the nearest exit."

She sniffled and sighed and rubbed her forehead. "But I don't think I ever did anything to make any of them mad at me. They all seemed pretty glad to see me go."

"Uh-huh. Green and slimy, you say?"

She cast him a sideways glance—he was scribbling in a small notebook. Was he laughing at her? "Hairy, too."

He nodded soberly.

Autumn looked down at her hands. She'd been biting her nails again. "I think I scare men," she sighed. "I'm kind of a spaz."

"Really?"

"Look, I've got to go warm up. You can stay for the game and I'll take you back to your car after, if you've got time. Maybe we can talk more then?"

"I've got time."

She cocked her head and looked at him closely. "You're not much of a conversationalist, are you?"

What color were those eyes? she wondered. Hazel? That word hardly did justice to the complexity of color there—an olive green iris with a sunburst of gold around the pupil. They were dazzling.

The rest of him was
way
above average as well.

Detective Quinn had a head of straight, neatly trimmed light brown hair that the sun had kissed near his forehead and temples. His face was handsome as much for its self-assurance as its strong, even features and wily grin. He was probably a good four inches taller than she was, and she could see the outline of his solid body beneath the lightweight sport coat.

"Everything's relative," he said.

"Meaning I talk too much?"

"I didn't say that."

"Right."

"Audie?"

She stopped before she opened the door. "Yeah?"

"You did say I can call you Audie?"

"Yes, I did."

"Then please call me Quinn. My friends call me Quinn."

"Not Stacey?"

"Nope." The grin was back. "Stacey's a girl's name. I'm not a girl."

Autumn laughed. "You know, I think I noticed that at the TV station. See you after the game."

She didn't fall once, Quinn noticed. In fact, she ran with speed and grace, soared over toppled bodies, bent and twisted to get a good angle on her kicks, and pivoted with quick and sharp agility.

And the whole time, Autumn Adams was smiling. She scored again and, with two other women, jumped high into the air to slap hands—a sight he found amusing. These women were all professionals from the thirty-and-over
Chicago
Parks
and Recreation Women's Soccer League, yet they were running around like a bunch of boys.

"Go, go, go!" Audie screamed a few moments later as her teammate slashed the ball through a tangle of legs and into the net.

"Yes!" Audie punched her fist into the air and jumped into the middle of a cluster of women hanging on one another like monkeys. Quinn watched Audie's hair fall out of its tether as she bounced around on a teammate's back.

He stepped farther from the sidelines and tried to put some distance between himself and Autumn Adams.

Who the hell was this woman? How could he reconcile what he'd seen and heard today with the public persona of Homey Helen, the world-famous household hints columnist?

Quinn had to laugh. He knew too well how whacked-out celebrities could be. For the last few years, he'd been working mostly celebrity cases out of District 18, which encompassed
Chicago
's Gold Coast,
Michigan Avenue
, and the ultrachic towers of black glass and steel along
Lake Michigan
. Talk show queens lived there, as did professional athletes, politicians, and film stars, and he'd handled stalking or harassment cases on a bunch of them.

But compared to Autumn Adams, most other famous types seemed pretty easy to peg.

True, she wasn't the original Homey Helen, but she had taken over everything the job entailed, hadn't she? She still toured all over the world. She still did the television segment. She still wrote the column. So how was it that she was nothing like her image?

Quinn sighed. It had to be a real bitch to pretend you were someone you weren't, day after day.

And then he smiled to himself. God, he loved the way his brain worked! No wonder he'd made detective at the age of twenty-nine.

Obviously, Autumn Adams was sending those notes to herself. If she didn't enjoy doing the column, if the job cramped her style, which it clearly did, then these letters would be a way to bow out without anyone accusing her of failure.

He had to give the woman credit—it was certainly worth a try. Too bad he was so good at his job.

Autumn was walking toward him, and he watched her lift the front of her jersey
to
wipe her sweaty face, exposing a stretch of flat, smooth, and golden skin.

She smiled up at him. "I could really use a beer. How about you?"

Quinn pushed aside the starched cuff of his oxford shirt and checked his watch. So she wanted to play with him a little, did she? He was up for that. He grinned at her. "Sure. Why not?"

"Can we go to my regular watering hole?"

"Sure."

"Great. That would be Field Box Seats Two-oh-five and Two-oh-six, Gate D, Section One-thirty-four, along the first base line. The game starts in ten minutes."

Stacey Quinn stopped dead and stared at the pretty, flushed face and the toffee-brown eyes wide with a question. Homey Helen had just asked him for a date—to a Cubs game!

"I'm not sure I can do that, Audie."

Her face froze in a smile. "Why not? Are you still on duty? Or aren't you allowed to go to sporting events with taxpaying citizens?" Her smile suddenly collapsed and she shook her head. "Whoops. You've got a wife or girlfriend
to
go home to."

He kept grinning. "No wife. No girlfriend. I'm off duty. And yes, I'm allowed to accept your offer."

Her brows knit together. "Then what's the—"

"I'm a White Sox fan, Miss Adams, born and bred."

"Oh, is
that
all?" She slipped her arm through his and pulled him to a walk beside her. "It'll be our little secret then."

* * *

Stacey Quinn tried to keep his head down as much as he could. There were television cameras tucked away all over the friendly confines of Wrigley Field, and there was no way he could allow his mug to end up on television. If his father and brothers ever found out he had gone to a Cubs game, his life would be barely worth living.

"Do you want a hot dog?" Audie tapped his knee. "I'm starving."

"Sure, I'll go to the—"

Audie suddenly stood up, brought a thumb and middle finger against her tongue, and let a piercing whistle rip through the ballpark. "Yo! Hot dog here!"

The kid with the metal box of steaming Eckridge red hots caught her eye and nodded. He was on his way, taking two steps at a time to get to her.

This was too much. Quinn let his head fall into his hand and starting laughing for real now. Martha Stewart, Carmen Electra, and what else? Athlete. Beer drinker. Whistler. A sense of humor and a sharp, albeit criminally inclined, mind.

He should probably just get down on his knees now, in the middle of the second inning, and ask her to be the mother of his children.

She took out a wad of bills from some hidden interior pocket of her shorts and began to pay for the hot dogs.

"I've got this," Quinn said, standing and pushing her hand away. He gave the kid a ten-dollar bill and handed her one of the warm bundles.

Audie stood very still, feeling the blood thump in her veins. "You got the beers. I should get the hot dogs."

Quinn sat down with a shrug and began squeezing out a neat crosshatched layer of mustard along the inside of the bun. "I got it."

Audie collapsed in her seat and left the foil-wrapped package untouched in her lap. She'd suddenly lost her appetite.

"We're not dating, Detective. I just wanted to split the costs."

"You don't have to."

She laughed a little. "I know I don't have to—but I want to!" She stared at him, incredulous. "I'm the one who invited you
to
come, and I can pay for anything I choose."

Quinn raised the hot dog and bun to his mouth and took a large, but tidy, bite. He looked out on the emerald green grass and watched the Padres take the field. He could hardly believe he was sitting in a National League park, watching a National League game. He'd probably go to hell for this.

"Are you listening to me?" Audie whacked him in the shoulder.

Quinn turned slowly toward her, one eyebrow arched high in surprise as he looked at his arm and then at her. "That's assaulting an officer," he said calmly. "I might be forced to use my handcuffs on you."

Audie rolled her eyes. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. She just wanted company for the game, and he was extremely cute. And they did need to talk. But it was clear he was the kind of man she'd clash with on a regular basis. This was a mistake.

"Detective. I can see that you're a wildly progressive man, so it must have occurred to you that I might enjoy paying for half of our purchases this evening, that I might even prefer it."

Quinn took another bite, then dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. He reached for the large plastic cup of Old Style beer below his seat and took a gulp. "Not really."

He watched absently as Sammy Sosa hit a little hopper over the head of the second baseman for a single. It seemed everyone was on their feet cheering but them.

Audie glared at him—what a jerk this Stacey Quinn was! She unwrapped her hot dog and ate in silence as the Cubs ended the inning with Sosa on base. A wasted hit. A wasted evening.

"I'm sorry."

Audie's eyes popped and she stared in disbelief at the detective, a mouthful of hot dog now lodged in her throat. Nothing—absolutely nothing—would have surprised her more.

"They're your season tickets, so I thought I should pay for everything else," he said. "I didn't mean anything by it."

She blinked. My God, he was a fine-looking man, but then, she'd always found men at their most attractive during an apology.

Audie was about to say something nice to him when he smiled wickedly and added, "So how long did you plan to let me squirm?"

"Huh?"

"When were you going to admit you wrote those letters yourself?"

A hot and electric shiver ran up Audie's spine and she wrestled for command of her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"The letters. You wrote them and mailed them to yourself to give you an out."

The blood was pounding in her skull, hot and blinding. "An out?"