The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss (2 page)

He glanced at her, his expression guarded. He seemed to make a point of never looking too closely, or for too long, as if he found her very existence hard to accept. “You’re a secretary, not an operative.”

“I could be, if you’d let me,” she said quietly. “I can do anything Helen can.”

“Including dressing up like a hooker and parading down the main drag?” he mused. She shifted restlessly, averting her face. “Well, maybe not that.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Or listening to intimate conversations in back-alley motel rooms? Taking photographs of explicit situations? Tracing an accused murderer across two states and apprehending him on a bail-bond forfeiture?” She let out a long breath. “Okay. I get the point. I guess I couldn’t

Diana Palmer

handle that. But I could be a skip tracer, if you’d let me. That’s almost as good as going out on cases.”

He put out his cigarette angrily, a terse but controlled stab of his long fingers that made Tess uneasy. He was a passionate man, despite his cold control. She very rarely allowed herself to remember how he was with a woman. Just thinking about those strong, deft hands on her body made her go hot and shaky, but not with desire. She remembered the touch of Dane Lassiter’s hands with stark fear.

He glanced at her suddenly, his eyes piercing, steady, as if he felt the thought in her mind and reacted to it. She went scarlet.

“Something embarrasses you?” he asked in that slow, lazy drawl that intimidated even ex-policemen.

“I was thinking about having to follow philandering husbands,” she hedged. She clutched her purse. “I’d better go.” “Heavy date?” he asked with apparent carelessness.

She’d given up on men some time ago. He wouldn’t know that, or know why, so she just shrugged and smiled and left.

The streets were dark and cold. The subdued glow of the streetlights didn’t make much difference, either. It was a foggy winter night, stark and unwelcoming. Tess pulled her trench coat closer around her and walked toward her small foreign car without much enthusiasm. Tonight was like any other night. She’d go home to an empty apartment-an efficiency apartment with a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, a combination living room and bedroom, and a sofa that made into a bed. She’d watch old movies on television until she grew sleepy, and then she’d go to bed. The next day would be a repeat of this one. The only difference would be the movie.

Ordinarily, she might go out to a movie with her friend Kit Mor-ris, who worked nearby. But Kit’s boss was overseas for two months and Kit had had to go with him-even though she’d groaned about the trip. The older girl was a confidential secretary who got a huge salary for doing whatever the job demanded. Tess missed her. The agency did a lot of work for Kit’s boss, hunting down his madcap mother, who spent her life getting into trouble.

With Kit gone, Tess’s free time was really lonely. She had no one to talk to. She liked Helen, and they were friends, but she

The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss 17 couldn’t really talk to Helen about the one big heartache of her life-Dane Lassiter.

She looped her shoulder bag over her arm and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Her life, she thought, was like this miserable night. Cold, empty and solitary.

Two expensively dressed men were standing under a streetlight as she appeared in the doorway of the office building. She stared at them curiously as one passed to the other an open briefcase full of packets of some white substance, and received a big wad of bills in return. She nodded to them and smiled absently, unaware of the shock on their faces as she walked toward the deserted parking lot. “Did she see?” one asked the other. “My God, of course she saw! Get her!”

Tess hadn’t heard the conversation, but the sound of running feet caught her attention. She turned, conscious of movement, to stand staring blankly at two approaching men. They looked as if they were chasing her. There were angry shouts, freezing her where she stood. She frowned as the gleam of metal in the streetlights caught her attention. Before she realized that it was the reflection of light on a gun barrel, something hot stung her arm and spun her around. Seconds later, a pop rang in her ears and she cried out as she fell to the ground, stunned.

“You killed her!” one man exclaimed. “You fool, now they’ll have us for murder instead of dealing coke!” “Shut up! Let me think! Maybe she’s not dead-“

“Let’s get out of here! Somebody’s bound to have heard the shots!”

“She came out of that building, where the lights are on in that detective agency,” the other voice groaned. “Great place you picked for the drop…. Run! That’s a siren!”

Sure enough, it was. A patrol car, alerted by one of the street people, came barreling down the side street where the office was located, its spotlight catching two men bending over a prostrate form in a dark parking lot. “Oh, God!” one of the men exclaimed. “Run!”

The sound of running feet barely impinged on Tess’s fading consciousness. Funny, she couldn’t lift her face. The pavement was

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damp and cold under her cheek. Except for that, she felt numb all over.

“They shot somebody!” a different voice called. “Don’t let them get away!”

She heard more pops. Black shoes went past her face, as two policemen went tearing after the well-dressed men. “Tess!”

She didn’t recognize the voice at first. Dane was always so calm and in command of himself that the harsh urgency of his tone didn’t sound familiar.

He rolled her gently onto her back. She stared up at him blankly, in shock. Her arm was beginning to feel wet and heavy and hot. She tried to speak and was surprised to find that she couldn’t make her tongue work.

He spotted the dark, wet stain on her arm immediately, because the bullet had penetrated the cloth of her coat and blood was pulsing under it. “My God!” he ground out. His expression was as hard as a statue’s, betraying nothing. Only his eyes, glittery with anger, were alive in that dark slate.

One of the policemen was running back toward them. He paused, his pistol in hand, kneeling beside Tess. “Was she hit?” the policeman asked curtly. “I saw one of them fire-“

“She’s hit. Get an ambulance,” Dane said, his black eyes meeting the other man’s for an instant. “Hurry. She’s bleeding badly.” The policeman ran back down the alley.

Dane didn’t waste time. He eased Tess’s arm out of her coat and grimaced at the gaping tear in her blouse and the vivid flow of blood. He cursed under his breath, whipping out a handkerchief and holding it firmly over the wound, even when she cried out at the pain.

“Be still,” he said quietly. “Be still, little one. I’ll take care of you. You’re going to be all right.”

She shivered. Tears ran down her cheeks. It hadn’t hurt until he started pressing on it. Now the pain was terrible. She cried helplessly while he wound the handkerchief tightly around the wound and tied it. He shucked his topcoat and covered Tess with it. He took her purse and used it to elevate her feet. Then he turned his attention back to the wound. It was still bleeding copiously, and what Tess

The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss 19 could see of it wasn’t reassuring. He seemed so capable and controlled that she wasn’t inclined to panic. He’d always had that effect on her, at least, when he wasn’t making her nervous. “Am I going to bleed to death?” she asked very calmly.

“No.” He glanced over his shoulder as a car approached. He used words she’d never heard him use and abruptly stood as the squad car pulled up. “Help me get her in the car!” he called to the policeman. “She won’t make it until an ambulance gets here at the rate she’s losing blood.”

“I just raised my partner on the walkie-talkie. He’s on his way back with one of the perps,” the officer said as he helped Dane get Tess into the back seat. “If he isn’t here by the time I get the engine going, he’s walking back to the station.” “I hear you.” Dane cradled Tess’s head in his lap. “Let’s go.”

Just as the officer got in behind the wheel, his partner came into view with a handcuffed man. Dane stiffened.

“M-20’s on his way,” the officer called to his partner. “I’ve got a wounded lady in here. Can you manage?” “You bet! Get her to the hospital!” the other man called back.

The older man wheeled the squad car around with an expertise that Tess might have admired if she’d been less nauseated and hurt.

Minutes later, they pulled up at the municipal hospital emergency room, but Tess didn’t know it. She was unconscious….

Daylight was streaming through the window when her eyes opened again. She blinked. She was pleasantly dazed. Her upper arm felt swollen and hot. She looked at it, curious about the thick white bandage it was wrapped in. She stirred, only then aware that she was strapped to a tube.

“Don’t pull the IV out,” Dane drawled from the chair beside the bed. “Believe me, you won’t like having to have it put back in again.”

She turned her head toward him. She felt dizzy and disoriented. “It was dark,” she mumbled drowsily. “These men came after me and I think one of them shot me.” “You were shot, all right,” he said grimly. “They were drug

Diana Palmer dealers. What happened? Did you get between them and the police, get caught in the crossfire?”

“No,” Tess groaned. “I saw them pass the stuff. They must have panicked, but I didn’t realize what I’d seen until they were after me.” He stiffened. “You saw it? You witnessed a drug buy?” She nodded wearily. “I’m afraid so.”

He whistled softly. “If they got a good look at you, and recognized the office building…” “One got away.”

“The one who shot you,” Dane said flatly. “And they don’t have enough on the one they caught to hold him for long. They’ll charge him, but he’ll probably make bail as soon as he’s arraigned, and you’re the gal who can send him up for dealing.”

“His cohort shot me,” she pointed out. “But the one they arrested was there. Can’t he be arrested as an accessory?”

“Maybe, maybe not. You don’t know how these people think,” he said enigmatically, and he looked worried. Really worried.

“I’ll bet you do,” she murmured sleepily. “All those years, locking people up…”

“I know the criminal mind inside out,” he agreed. “But it’s different when things hit home.” His dark eyes narrowed on her wan face. “It’s very different.”

She must be half-asleep, she decided, because he actually sounded as if he minded that she’d been shot. That was ridiculous. He resented her, disliked her even if he had felt sorry enough for her to give her a job when her father had died. He was her worst enemy, so why would it matter to him if something happened to her?

Dane stretched wearily, his white shirt pulled taut over a broad chest. “How do you feel this morning?”

She touched the bandage. “Not as bad as I did last night. What did the doctors do to me?”

“Took the bullet out.” He pulled it from his shirt pocket and displayed it for her. “A thirty-eight caliber,” he explained. “A sou-venir. I thought you might like it mounted and framed.”

She grimaced. “Suppose we frame and mount the man who shot me instead?”

The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss 21

His black eyebrow jerked up. “I’ll pass that thought along to the police,” he said dryly. “Can I go home?”

“When you’re a little stronger. You lost a lot of blood and they had to put you under to get the bullet out.”

“Helen will be furious when she finds out,” she murmured with a smile. “She’s the private eye, and I got shot.”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be livid with jealousy,” he agreed. He paused beside the bed, his dark eyes narrow and intent on her face in its frame of soft, wavy blond hair. He looked at her for a long time.

“I’m all right, if it matters,” she said sleepily. She closed her eyes. “I don’t know why it should. You hate me.”

Her voice trailed off as she gave in to the need for rest. He didn’t answer her. But his eyes were stormy and his mind had already registered how much it would have mattered if her life had seeped out on that cold concrete.

He got up and went to the window, stretching again. He was tired. He hadn’t slept since they’d brought her in. All through the operation, he’d paced and waited for news. It had been the longest night he’d ever spent.

A soft sound from the bed caught his attention. He shoved his hands into his pockets and stood beside her, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. The unbecoming hospital gown did nothing for her. She was too thin. He scowled as he looked at her, his mind on the coldness he’d shown her over the years, the unrelenting hostility that had, eventually, turned a shy, loving girl into a quiet, insecure woman. Tess had wanted to love him, and he’d slapped her down, hard. It hadn’t been cruelty so much as a raging desire that he’d started to satisfy in the only way he knew to satisfy it-roughly, savagely. But Tess had been a virgin, and he hadn’t known. She’d run from him, in tears, barely in time to save her honor. Afterwards, she’d never come near him again. His pride hadn’t allowed him to go after her, to explain that tenderness wasn’t something he was used to showing women. Her frantic departure in tears had shattered him. She didn’t know that. He’d been antagonistic to hide the hurt the experience had dealt

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him, so it wasn’t surprising that she thought he hated her. He’d even tried to convince himself he didn’t mind the fact that Tess avoided him like the plague. To save his pride, he’d even made it appear as if his actions had been premeditated, to make her leave him alone.

He thought back to those dark days after he’d been shot. Everyone had deserted him. His mother had always hated him, despite her pretense for the sake of appearances. Even Jane, his wife, had walked out on him and filed for divorce, after being blatantly unfaithful to him. But Tess had been with him every step of the way, making him live, making him fight. Tess had been the light that brought him out of the darkness. And he’d repaid her loving kindness with cruelty. It hurt him to remember that. It hurt him more to realize that she could have died last night.

A faint tap on the door announced the nurse’s entrance. She smiled at Dane and proceeded to check Tess’s vital signs.