Entranced (7 page)

*  *  *

She made him wait an hour and a half. He couldn’t even order a second beer without breaking his cover and was enduring nasty looks from the bartender as he nibbled on peanuts and made the last half inch of his drink last forever.

He’d just about had it. His idea of a good time was not sitting in a smelly bar watching some sumo wrestler paw the woman he’d come with. Even if he didn’t have any emotional investment. And even, he thought darkly, if that woman giggled with every appearance of enjoyment every time one of those ham-size hands rubbed her
leg.

It would serve her right if he just strolled out, caught himself a cab, and left her to it.

In Mel’s opinion, everything was going just fine. Fine and dandy. Sir Eddie, as she called him—much to his delight—was getting slowly and steadily drunk. Not pie-eyed, just nice and vulnerable. And he was doing plenty of talking. Men just loved to brag to an eager woman—especially when they were juiced.

He’d just come into a nice chunk of change, so Eddie said. And maybe she’d like to help him spend a little of it.

She’d love to. Of course, she had to get to work in a couple of hours, and she didn’t finish her shift until one, but after that …

When she had him softened up, she gave him a sob story. How she and Harry had been together for almost six whole months. How he ran through money like water and kept her from having a good time. She didn’t ask for much. Just some pretty clothes and a few laughs. And now it was really bad, just plain awful, because her TV had broken down. Here she’d been saving up for a VCR so she could tape shows while she worked, and now the TV was on the fritz. Worse, Harry had blown his money and hers on cards, so now she didn’t even have the fifty to fix the set.

“I really like to watch, you know?” She toyed with her second beer. Eddie was working on number seven. “In the afternoon they got these shows, and all the women have these pretty clothes. Then they switch me to the day shift and I miss out. I can never catch up with what’s happening. And you know …” She leaned forward, confidentially, so that her breasts rubbed against his forearm. “They got these love scenes on them. Watching them just gets me so … hot.”

Eddie watched her tongue peek out and run around her lips. He plainly thought he’d died and gone to heaven. “I guess it’s not much fun watching something like that all alone.”

“Be more fun with somebody.” She gave him a look that told him he was the only possible somebody. “If I had a set that worked, it might be nice. I like daytime, you know. When everybody else is working or shopping, and you can be … in bed.” Sighing, she ran her fingertip around her mug.

“It’s daytime now.”

“Yeah. But I haven’t got a TV.” She giggled, as if it were a great joke.

“I might be able to help you with that, baby.”

She let her eyes widen, then brought her lashes coyly down. “Aw, gee, that’s really sweet of you, Eddie. I couldn’t let you give me the fifty. It wouldn’t be right.”

“What do you want to toss money at an old set for, anyway? You can have a new one.”

“Oh, yeah.” She snorted into her beer. “And I could have me a diamond tiara, too.”

“Can’t help you on that, but I can get you a set.”

“Come on.” She shot him a disbelieving look and let her hand rest on his knee. “How?”

He puffed out his massive chest. “Just so happens, I’m in the business.”

“You sell TVs?” She cocked her head and had her eyes blinking in fascination. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Not now.” He winked. “Maybe later.”

Mel laughed heartily. “Oh, you’re a card, Sir Eddie.” She drank again, sighed again. “I wish you weren’t fooling. If you could get me one, I’d be awfully grateful.”

He leaned closer. She could smell the beer and smoke on his breath. “How grateful?”

Mel wiggled toward him, put her mouth to his ear and whispered a suggestion that would have made the worldly Sebastian stutter.

Short of breath, Eddie finished off his beer in one gulp and grabbed her hand. “Come on, sweet thing. I got something to show you.”

Mel went along, not bothering to glance in Sebastian’s direction. She sincerely hoped that what Eddie was about to show her was a television.

“Where’re we going?” she asked as he led her to the back of the building.

“My office, babe.” A sly wink. “Me and my partners got a little business back here.”

He took her over a rubble of broken bottles, trash, and piles of gravel to another concrete building, perhaps half the size of the bar. After three raps on the door, it was opened by a skinny man of about twenty wearing
horn-rims and carrying a clipboard.

“What’s the deal, Eddie?”

“The lady needs a TV.” He swung his arm over Mel’s shoulder and squeezed. “Crystal, honey, this is Bobby.”

“’Meetcha,” Bobby said with a bounce of his head. “Look, Eddie, I don’t think this is a good idea. Frank’s going to be mad as hell.”

“Hey, I got as much right as Frank.” Eddie bulled his way in.

Ah, Mel thought, and sighed. For real.

The fluorescent bulbs overhead shone down on the blank single eyes of more than a dozen televisions. They sat cheek by jowl with CD players, VCRs, stereo systems. Tossed in for good measure were several boom boxes, personal computers, telephone answering machines, and one lonely microwave oven.

“Wow!” She clapped her hands together. “Oh, wow, Eddie! Look at all this! It’s like a regular department store.”

Full of confidence, and swaying only a little, Eddie winked at the nervous Bobby. “We’re what you call suppliers. We don’t do any retail out of here. This is just like our warehouse. Go ahead, look around.”

Still playing her role, Mel walked over to the televisions, running her hands over their screens as if her fingers were walking in mink.

“Frank’s not going to like this,” Bobby hissed.

“So what he don’t know he don’t have to not like. Right, Bobby?”

Bobby, who was outweighed by a hundred pounds, nodded. “Sure, Eddie. But bringing a broad in here—”

“She’s okay. Great legs, but not much brains. I’m going to give her a set—and then I’m going to get lucky.” He moved past Eddie to join Mel. “See one you like, baby?”

“Oh, they’re great. Really great. Do you mean I can really have one? Just pick one out and have it?”

“Why, sure.” He gave her a quick, intimate squeeze. “We got this breakage insurance. So I’ll just have old Bobby there put down like one got busted. That’s all there is to it.”

“Really?” She tossed her head, moving just far enough out of reach that she could easily slip a hand into her bag. “That’s great, Eddie. But it looks to me like you’re the one who’s busted.”

She pulled out a nickel-plated 38.

“A cop!” Bobby nearly screeched the words, while Eddie’s face settled into a thoughtful frown. “Jeez, Eddie, she’s a cop!”

“There you go. Don’t,” she warned as Bobby edged to the door. “Just have a seat, Bobby. On the floor there. And sit on your hands, will you?”

“You bitch,” Eddie said, in a considering voice that put Mel on guard. “I should’ve smelled cop.”

“I’m private,” she told him. “That might be the reason.” She gestured with the gun. “Let’s take it outside, Eddie.”

“No woman’s going to double-cross me—gun or no gun.”

He lunged.

She didn’t want to shoot him. She really didn’t. He wasn’t anything more than a fat, second-rate thief, and he didn’t deserve a bullet. Instead, she twisted, veering left and counting on her speed and agility and his beer-induced sluggishness.

He missed and rammed headlong into a twenty-five-inch screen. Mel wasn’t sure who was the victor, but the screen cracked like an egg, and Eddie went down hard.

There was a sound behind her. When she whirled she had time to see Sebastian wrap an arm around Bobby’s throat. One quick squeeze had him dropping the hammer he’d been lifting over Mel’s head.

“It probably wouldn’t have made a dent,” Sebastian said between his teeth as Bobby crumpled bonelessly to the concrete floor. “You didn’t tell me you had a gun.”

“I didn’t think I had to. You’re supposed to be psychic.”

Sebastian picked up the hammer, tapping it gently against his palm. “Keep it up, Sutherland.”

She merely shrugged and took another look at the loot. “Nice haul. Why don’t you go call the cops? I’ll keep an eye on these two.”

“Fine.” He was sure it was too much to expect her to thank him for saving her from a concussion, or worse. The best he could do was slam the door behind him.

*  *  *

It was nearly an hour later when Sebastian stood by and watched Mel sitting on the hood of her car. She was going over the fine details with what appeared to be a very disgruntled detective.

Haverman, Sebastian remembered. He’d run into him once or twice.

Then he dismissed the cop and concentrated on Mel.

She’d pulled off the earrings and was still rubbing her lobes from time to time. Most of the goo on her face had been wiped off with tissue. Her unpainted mouth and naturally flushed cheeks made a devastating contrast with the big, heavy-lidded eyes.

Pretty? Had he granted her pretty? Sebastian wondered. Hell, she was gorgeous. In the right light, at the right angle, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Then she might turn and be merely mildly attractive again.

That held an odd and disturbing sort of magic.

But he didn’t care how she looked, he reminded himself. He didn’t care, because he was plenty peeved. She’d dragged him into this. It didn’t matter that he’d volunteered to come along. Once he had, she’d set the rules, and he’d had plenty of time to decide he didn’t like them.

She’d gone alone into that storage building with a man built like two fullbacks. And she’d had a gun. No little peashooter, either, but a regular cannon.

What the hell would she have done if she’d had to use it? Or—Lord—if that mountain of betrayed lust had gotten it away from her?

“Look,” Mel was saying to Haverman. “You’ve got your sources, I’ve got mine. I got a tip. I followed it up.” She was moving her shoulders carelessly, but, oh, she was enjoying this. “You’ve got no beef with me, Lieutenant.”

“I want to know who put you on to this, Sutherland.” It was a matter of principle for him. He was a cop, after all, a
real
cop. Not only was she a PI, she was a female PI. It just plain grated on him.

“And I don’t have to tell you.” Then her lips quirked, because the idea was so beautiful, so inspired. “But, since we’re pals, I’ll clue you in.” She jerked her thumb toward Sebastian. “He did.”

“Sutherland …” Sebastian began.

“Come on, Donovan, what does it hurt?” This time she smiled and brought him in on the joke. “This is Lieutenant Haverman.”

“We’ve met.”

“Sure.” Now Haverman was not only piqued but deflated. Women PIs and psychics. What was law enforcement coming to? “I didn’t think missing TVs was your gig.”

“A vision’s a vision,” Sebastian said complacently, and had Mel hooting.

“So how come you passed it to her?” It didn’t sit right with him. “You always come to the cops.”

“Yeah.” Sebastian shot a glittering look at Mel over his shoulder. “But she’s got better legs.”

Mel laughed so hard she nearly fell off the car. Haverman grumbled a little more and then stalked off. After all, he thought, he had two suspects in hand—and if he tried to shake Donovan, he’d have the chief on his case.

“Good going, slick.” Still chuckling, Mel gave Sebastian a friendly bop on the shoulder. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

He merely lifted a brow. “There are a great many things you might be surprised I have in me.”

“Yeah, right.” She twisted her head to watch Haverman climb in his car. “The lieutenant’s not such a bad guy. He just figures PIs belong in the pages of a book, and women belong one step away from the oven.” Because the sun was warm and the deed had been done well, she was content to sit on the car for few minutes and enjoy the small triumph. “You did good … Harry.”

“Thanks, Crystal,” he said, and tried not to let his lips twitch into a smile. “Now, I’d appreciate it if next time you filled me in on the entire plan before we start.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s a next time coming soon. But this was fun.”

“Fun.” He said the word slowly, understanding that that was precisely what she meant. “You really enjoyed it. Dressing up like a tart, making a scene, having that muscle-bound throwback drool on you.”

She offered a bland smile. “I’m entitled to some on-the-job benefits, aren’t I?”

“And it was fun, I suppose, to nearly have your head cracked open?”

“
Nearly’s
the key.” Feeling more kindly toward him, she patted his arm. “Come on, Donovan, loosen up. I said you did good.”

“That, I take it, is your way of thanking me for saving your thick skull.”

“Hey, I could’ve handled Bobby fine, but I appreciate the backup. Okay?”

“No.” He slapped his hands down on the hood on either side of her hips. “It is not okay. If this is a taste of how you do business, you and I are going to set some rules.”

“I’ve got rules. My rules.” His eyes were the color of smoke now, she thought. Not the kind that had hung listlessly at the ceiling of the bar, but the sort that plumes up into the night from a crackling good bonfire. “Now back off, Donovan.”

Make me.
He hated—no, detested—the fact that the childish, taunting phrase was the first thing to pop into his head. He wasn’t a child. And neither was she—sitting there, daring him with that insolent lift to her chin and that half smirk on her beautiful mouth.

His right hand listed. It was tempting to give her one good pop on that damnably arrogant chin. But her mouth seemed a better notion. And he had a much more satisfying idea about what could be done with it.

He snatched her off the hood of the car so quickly that she didn’t think to use any of the defensive countermoves that were second nature to her. She was still blinking when his arms came around her, when one hand cupped firmly on the back of her head, fingers spread.

“What the hell do you think—?”

That was it. The words clicked off as completely as her brain the moment his mouth clamped over hers. She didn’t break away or shift her body to one side to toss him over her shoulder. She didn’t bring her knee up in a way that would have had him dropping to his and gasping. She simply stood there and let his lips grind her mind
to mush.