The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss. Diana Palmer
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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 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 Morris, 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 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 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 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 backseat. “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