In Hot Pursuit (15 page)

Her eyelashes fluttered for a split second, tempting him to give her more attention than she was ready to handle right now—but this wasn't the time. Nor was it the place. Besides, no matter what she said about hating to be ignored, Josh knew she wouldn't settle for anything but everything from him.

She opened her eyes and pinned him with her gaze
as they rolled closer to Simone's Long Island mansion. “So who's going to put their hands down my blouse to attach the microphone? You or me?”

 

I
N THE LOGICAL RECESSES
of her mind, Lexi thought she should probably be at least a little scared as she walked up the steps to Simone's for her first undercover operation. But frustration fueled her steps as she trekked across the brick walkway, her breath fanning out in white puffs through the cool fall air.

Despite her best effort at sensual enticement, Josh had made her do her own microphone installation, staunchly refusing to put his hands anywhere near her bare skin. Damn the man.

His reluctance would have made the Lexi of a month ago believe she had all the allure of a houseplant. Not anymore. If nothing else, her relationship with Josh had given her a confidence in herself she'd searched for through self-defense classes, outrageous clothes and outspoken opinions.

Although those things had bolstered her after a lifetime of being ignored by her busy parents, they hadn't come close to assuaging her pride the way Josh's hungry gaze had.

Too bad he wasn't willing to act on that hunger anymore. He'd turned his back in the van when she'd executed the perfect shimmy out of her silk blouse, all the while barking out instructions for what to ask Simone during their discussion this afternoon. She was thankful that Duke had remained safely on the other side of the curtain during their discussion. By
now, however, Josh's partner would be with him in the back of the van, listening to her wire transmission.

Lexi pressed the doorbell and waited impatiently for James to answer the summons. She would ask all the right questions, elicit the answers Josh needed and then retreat to her own corner after this round. Josh might be willing to risk his neck for her fish or her parakeet, but he didn't seem to want to put his heart on the line for
her.

The leaded glass front door swung open. “Good afternoon, Alexandra,” James greeted her, his butler delivery as flawless as ever. “You're looking lovely today.”

Lexi edged past him into the foyer, hoping for James's sake that the Bertrands weren't involved in anything illegal. She twirled on her heel, however, forcing herself to act the same as usual. “I'm wearing vintage Marc Jacobs, Jeeves. What else do you expect?”

“Vintage Marc Jacobs? In my day, my dear, we called that wearing a lot of leg.” The sly old devil winked at her, although his precise elocution never wavered. “Shall I see if the lady of the house is home?”

“Simone and Anton both, please,” Lexi requested, idly wondering what Josh and Duke thought of her performance so far. She knew they were listening outside in the surveillance vehicle; they'd triple-checked her tiny sound system before she'd entered the house.

James skipped the bow he normally made to more formal guests, but he still added a butler-ish “If you
would care for a seat in the parlor?” before he disappeared upstairs.

He left Lexi to make her way into the front room and to wonder if Josh was already plotting his return to his quiet, anonymous life. With a quiet, easy-to-manage woman. Lexi had no idea what sort of woman he normally dated, but she had the feeling she herself was the anomaly.

“I bet your usual one-night stand wouldn't put herself on the line for your damn job,” she muttered to herself and any stubborn men listening to her via the microphone. She wandered into the parlor to wait.

The room was mercifully devoid of silver statues, decorated French country style with everything in shades of cream and white. Gold picture frames and gold tassels on the white throw pillows grounded the room. As with Simone's clothing designs, her mish-mash of decorating schemes proved she had a great eye for design—she just didn't always know how to use it.

Simone glided into the room first, wearing a burgundy satin smoking jacket Lexi would have killed for. Of course, Simone was actually smoking in it, so she trailed a cloud in her wake and tickled Lexi's nose with fumes.

“Gawd, Simone, how does James put up with you and your vices?” Lexi fanned the air with an architecture magazine she'd picked up from the sofa table.

Simone flung herself onto the sofa and propped her feet on a matching white ottoman. “He usually ices me into compliance by blasting the air conditioner, but I think he feels sorry for me today because I have
a hangover.” She took one last long drag on the cigarette, then stubbed it out in a crystal bowl that had no business being used as an ashtray. “So to what do I owe the pleasure? Have you decided to retract all your nasty statements about my designs?”

Lexi tried to see past the woman's biting tone, wondering if there could be anything to Josh's insistence that Simone secretly envied her.

Hard to believe, judging by the designer's smug expression.

“Not exactly.” Lexi stalled, revamping her approach to this discussion in light of the fact that Anton hadn't entered the parlor yet. Josh was most interested in confirming that Anton ran Simone's business—a fact that apparently wasn't supported in any legal or tax documents. “After our chat last night, I thought I'd come by and see some of your new designs. Is the jacket yours?”

Lexi plunked down on the couch beside her and fingered the silk of the smoking jacket.

“You like it?” Simone looked stunned, as if she'd swallowed a horse.

“I love it.” Which was the honest truth, but Lexi still felt guilty for engaging in this conversation when she had ulterior motives of information gathering.

Simone jumped off the couch as if her hangover was a long-forgotten memory. Pulling a thick sketch pad out of the bookcase lining one white wall, she kept up a running monologue. “I've got a ton of new stuff in here, but I'm only producing about half this fall. I never thought you'd really give me a fair shake,
Lex. I mean, you've always been so bitchy to me—no offense.”

Lexi fought the urge to quibble about who had been bitchy all these years. After all,
Lexi
hadn't been the one cutting off the hair on all of Simone's Barbie dolls or stealing Simone's homework assignments for French class.

Instead, as Simone shoved her design book in Lexi's lap, she seized on a piece of information she thought Josh might be able to use. “You're only producing half of these?”

Anton chose that moment to join them, clearing his throat in the doorway. “Well, if this isn't an unusual sight. I never thought I would see Snow White and the Wicked Queen sitting down over a sketch pad together.”

He wore a taupe suit that might have been Hugo Boss, but it had seen better days. In fact, his whole ensemble looked like he'd slept in it. A teenage boy trailed in Anton's wake wearing beat-up jeans and a jacket with high-tech designer sneakers that might have been just lifted out of the box.

“Hi, Anton.” Lexi smiled at Simone's brother. “Who's your friend?”

Anton pulled on his shirt cuffs and straightened his tie. “This is Brad. We're going to play tennis.”

The boy didn't look like Anton's usual tennis partners, but that was hardly her business. Before she could give it any more thought, Simone nudged her and pointed to a purple smoking jacket on the first page of her book.

The design on paper was more contrived than the
slouch version Simone wore, but Lexi was too aware of her mission now to concentrate on the designs. “It's gorgeous, Simone, but why aren't you producing all these?”

“Because Anton is very stingy,” Simone supplied, flipping forward a few pages in the book. “He said there was no point in making them all, since you would pan them, anyway. Apparently, we lose money whenever you gripe about my clothes in your column.”

As much as it grated, Lexi decided to play stupid for purposes of the surveillance tape. “We? I thought Simone Bertrand Designs was your company, Simone.”

Simone frowned.

Anton lit a cigarette from the pack Simone had left lying on the sofa table. An intriguing move on his part, considering Lexi had never seen him smoke.

“It is Simone's company, Lex,” he answered smoothly. “But as her brother, I try to give her advice on how to conduct the business soundly.”

“Oh, please.” Simone snorted. “You mean, you choose which checks to write for me. I could have had a good year in the magazines if Lexi liked my things and said so in her column, Anton. You should have let me trust my instincts and produce all the designs.”

Anton strode over to Lexi and slammed the book shut in her lap. Lexi noticed the boy—Brad—jumped at the sound.

“We wouldn't have had enough money to finance
them all, anyway, Simone.” He smiled as he said it, but the words were edged with anger, frustration.

Or was Lexi just being paranoid?

Either way, her work here seemed to be done. She'd wrested an admission that Anton was writing the checks for Simone's business. Maybe now Josh could get his warrant to follow up on the arson and smuggling investigations.

Lexi set the design book aside and rose from the couch. “We can always talk about this over lunch next week, Simone. Or else just make sure to invite me to your show—”

“No!” Simone grabbed Lexi by the arm. “Now is a fine time.” She reached for her sketches, glaring at her brother. “Anton and Brad are on their way to play tennis anyway, right?”

Anton paced and smoked, not answering for a moment.

Lexi held her breath, hoping like hell he would just leave.

Finally, he nodded.

Lexi sighed in relief as quietly as she could.

But after he ground out his cigarette in the crystal dish, he headed right toward her.

Once again, Lexi tensed.

Anton stopped a few inches in front of her and held his cheek out for her to kiss.

The age-old hello and goodbye gesture of the design world suddenly turned her stomach. Still, if it signaled the man's exit…

Lexi had leaned forward to kiss the air beside his
jaw when he grabbed with both hands and turned his lips to hers to kiss her full on the mouth.

In the back of her mind, she registered Simone's squeal of disgust at Anton's breach of etiquette as Lexi pushed at Anton's shoulders. Too late, she realized she should have protected her body instead of shoving at his. He groped her right through her silk shell until his hand landed on—

“A wire.” He broke off the kiss and ripped the small microphone from its nestling place between her breasts.

She stared at the little piece of electronic equipment for one horrified moment. Lexi wobbled as she spun on her heel to run, cursing Manolo Blahniks for the first time in her life.

“Not so fast.” Anton grabbed her before she could go anywhere, producing a sleek black gun from his waistband. He pulled Lexi back to his chest, tucking the gun up under her rib cage for good measure. “I've been safeguarding your scrawny butt from Simone since you were ten. You can damn well pay me back with a little protection today, Alexandra.”

J
OSH EXPLODED
through the van door as soon as the tap went dead. He charged across the lawn into the bushes just below the Bertrands' parlor window.

He cursed Anton Bertrand, but not nearly as much as he cursed himself for putting Lexi in danger.

How the hell had a simple dig for information escalated into a hostage situation in the course of five seconds? From the muffled sounds on the other end of the surveillance tape, Josh hadn't been able to tell what had happened in the few moments Anton was supposedly saying his goodbyes. But after hearing Simone's cry, Lexi's muffled yell and the recording turn to static, Josh hadn't waited around to discuss the implications of the sounds.

Lexi was in trouble. Big, no-holds-barred, damn trouble. All because of Josh's impatience with his drug case and his stupid-ass decision to capitalize on Lexi's relationship with the Bertrands to gather more information.

As the sound of static had filled the van, Josh had burst out of the vehicle to sprint across the lawn, Duke on his heels. Duke had taken one side of the house, and Josh had taken the other; presumably, Otis would be calling for backup.

Now Josh eased himself up to the windowsill and peered inside, grateful he'd studied the floor plan of the home.

He was just in time to see Anton Bertrand hustle his sister and Lexi out of the room through a narrow archway in the back, while some kid Josh didn't recognize locked the front door to the parlor behind them.

The teen's patched jeans and threadbare shirt paired with two-hundred-dollar sneakers reminded Josh of another kid he'd tangled with in the course of his drug case. A juvenile offender who hadn't blinked at shooting a cop—and who'd wound up dead.

Josh willed the kid to hurry, because as soon as Gangster Junior was out of the room, Josh would be through the window to follow Lexi.

Seconds dragged on in slow motion until the teen's sneakers sped off under the archway. Josh poised his gun, ready to punch his way through the glass—until the locked parlor door opened from the hallway. He cursed the delay, wondering who the hell else could be in the house for him to have to take on….

Jeeves.

Josh banged on the window as the Bertrand butler was reaching for the telephone. He trusted Lexi's instincts that the man wouldn't be involved in the family's shady dealings.

Besides, he needed all the help he could get.

James moved across the parlor like a rookie showing off his most impressive moves. The old guy pried
the window open and shoved a floor lamp out of Josh's way.

“I was just about to call the police. He's got Alexandra—”

Josh hauled himself into the house and pushed past the butler. “Where?” He was already headed toward the archway in the back of the room.

James shadowed him, keeping pace step for step. “My guess is the wine cellar. Two rights and a left, then down the stairs.”

“Got it.” Josh started running before the words left his mouth. “Let my partner in,” he shouted over his shoulder. “And then you'd better make tracks out of the house.”

Even from three rooms away, he could hear the old man's answer, “Like hell.”

Shit. The last thing Josh needed was for another civilian to get mixed up in his hostage situation, although he had to admire a man who looked out for Lexi. Hell, the old-timer could probably take care of her better than Josh did. Surely Mr. Manners never would have allowed Lexi to involve herself in a high-stakes smuggling case.

Two rights and a left later, Josh tore down the stairs to an arched wooden door with a sophisticated locking mechanism. He stared at the computerized keypad, wondering if he should risk wasting more time with an effort to jam the code and open the lock, or if he should follow his impatient trigger finger and simply start shooting at the security device.

Frustration coiled inside him along with a healthy dose of fear. Fear for Lexi. Fear that he wouldn't play
something out right and she'd wind up getting hurt because of him.

Still, logic won out. Josh ran a series of quick tests on the keypad and succeeded in jamming the mechanism. He slipped inside the door without a sound, but from the depths of the darkened cellar, Anton's voice halted him.

“Every step you take puts the glamour queen a little more at risk, Winger.”

Josh couldn't see three feet in front of him in the shadowed cellar, but he could hear a woman crying. The sound wrenched his gut, reminding him how selfish he'd been to involve Lexi in this mess.

God knows, he would not risk his glamour queen by moving another inch. Lexi in danger made this worse than the worst moment he'd ever had on the job. For her, he'd have to bide his time. Wait until his eyes adjusted and he could see what the hell he was doing.

“I'm not going anywhere.” Josh raised his arms, gun still in his hand.

“Throw down your weapons where I can see them.”

Josh traced the voice to the far corner of the room as he tossed aside his gun. Squinting into the shadows, he spied the outline of a man in a light-colored suit and a woman huddled behind him.

Anton snorted. “No offense, Winger, but I'm going to have to check to make sure you're not packing a few more pistols.”

The teenager Josh had seen in the parlor material
ized at his side. The boy found Josh's knife and another gun, the only weapons Josh had carried.

Except, of course, for his fists. And frankly, Josh had never relied fully upon any other weapon. He could take Anton and whatever teenage army was hiding in the dark cellar, if only he could get Lexi safely out of here.

“You know me.” Josh stalled while he started making mental note of his surroundings—wine racks, casks, barrels. Yet on the other side of the cellar, he could discern the outline of rolling racks and fabric bolts, the same tools of a designer's trade that Amanda Matthews kept at the loft.

“You took care of blasting one of my traitorous lieutenants this summer, remember? I figured you were probably still on my case when I saw you talking to Lexi last night at the Dance for Children.”

The woman sobbing next to Anton cried louder, drawing Josh's attention back to the two figures at the back of the room. Now that Josh's eyes had fully adjusted to the lack of light, he studied the bent figure carefully, scared that Lexi had somehow injured herself in her struggle with the elder Bertrand.

Only the sobbing woman wasn't Lexi.

“Where the hell is she?” Panic and fury rose up in equal parts. He started forward, fully prepared to strangle the rich-boy scumbag if Lexi was already—“If you hurt her—”

No threat sounded dire enough for what Josh would do to the man if he'd harmed Lex.

Before Josh could tear apart the Ivy League criminal along with his three-piece suit, Anton curled an
arm around his sister's head and buried the barrel in Simone's tangled blond hair.

At the same time, the soft
click
of a safety going off registered in his consciousness from somewhere behind him. No doubt the teenager had a gun pointed at Josh's back.

“Not a chance in hell you'll shoot your own sister.” Nevertheless, Josh halted his forward momentum. Simone's face had gone as white as her platinum curls.

“I spent all night celebrating my latest importing mission with a variety of designer drugs and some of the wine cellar's finest offerings. Now I'm hungover, slightly high and desperate. Do you really think I care who I kill today?”

The guy had all but admitted to his crimes, and Josh didn't feel the slightest bit of triumph. Only one concern resounded in his mind.

Josh raised his hands a little higher, needing to make sure this situation didn't get out of control. “I'm cool. I just want to know where Lexi is.”

He reminded himself to breathe, to think. In over a decade of being a cop, Josh had never sweated out a moment like this. But then, nothing had ever threatened a woman he loved.

A hell of a time to realize he loved her, damn it, but maybe he had needed the knockout punch to help him figure it out.

“She got away,” Anton admitted, absently stroking his sister's cheek with one hand while he held the gun to her head with another. “For all I know, she's
hiding in the wine racks. Brad, I'll cover the cop. You find the girl.”

Anton hadn't hurt her.

Relief, hope washed through him.

In the background, he heard Duke pounding on the door to the wine cellar. And somewhere in his mind, he recognized the fact that Anton was getting scared, maybe even stupid.

But Josh's first order of business was scanning the cool, dry cellar for any sign of Lexi. If he was going to ensure her safety, he needed to know if she was down here.

He'd done a lousy job of protecting her up until now, but starting today, that was all going to change.

“Just a minute, pig!” Anton shouted toward the door, toward Duke on the other side of it. “I've got a cop at gunpoint in here, I don't think you want to piss me off.”

Josh shook his head.
Bad move, Anton.
He was about to warn the strung-out smuggler against bluffing the NYPD, when he saw her.

Lexi.

His eyes rested on an industrial-size bolt of orange silky fabric lying on its side in a pile with several other bolts. Only this bolt had one lone black curl springing through one end of the roll to trail down the yards of bright silk.

Smart woman.

It was all Josh could do not to smile, he was so relieved. He just hoped she knew enough to stay put and remain hidden.

Because now that he knew where Lexi hid, he could go about saving her.

And after all she'd done for him, by God, he owed her that much.

 

S
AVE ME
.

Lexi chanted the words in her head as Brad moved closer to her hiding spot, not caring if that made her the world's most desperate, needy woman. In fact, she felt pretty damn desperate and needy as she listened to her longtime friend saying he didn't care if he killed his own sister.

If Anton would shoot Simone, he surely wouldn't wince at killing Josh. The thought paralyzed her.

She'd escaped from Anton with a quick chop to the family jewels, a move she'd perfected on the dummy in self-defense class. Of course, she could also run like hell, and that had helped her lose Anton in the cellar.

But now, all she could do was hide, unless Josh could somehow save her. If Anton found her, he was going to be more than a little upset with her.

Panic twisted her insides now, but despite the icy claw of fear around her throat, she heard Josh's words filter through her cardboard cocoon.

“…forget looking for Lexi, Bertrand. She's probably halfway back to Manhattan by now.”

The rifling around in the wine cellar seemed to stop.

“The door locks automatically when it's shut,” Anton argued. “She couldn't have gotten out of here.”

“She's probably smarter than ten of you put together, bud. I wouldn't count on it.”

Lexi surprised herself by choosing that moment to smile. She was still scared, but Josh's words soothed her just a little.

Anton snorted. “Don't tell me you're a sap for the ice princess, too. You and James can sing her praises all you want. She'll always be a Jersey girl trying to pass herself off as a Manhattan socialite.”

The two-faced traitor. Bad enough he was terrorizing her with a gun. Now he was going to trash her Jersey roots? Anger replaced a little more of her fear.

“Lexi's no ice princess. Maybe she just hides—” Josh paused a split second “—her feelings. She has good sense keeping her emotions out of sight in her line of work.”

Out of sight.

Josh was sending her a message. Telling her to keep hidden. She could feel it in the tension of his words, the off-kilter syntax of his speech.

“Besides, Lexi's the toast of the town and she's going to single-handedly raise enough money to cure cancer. Why the hell would she need a place in the social register?”

Her heart did a back flip. Josh had spoken the words for her.
To
her. Because he knew she was listening.

“Now, why don't you let Simone go and hand over the guns. There are probably a truckload of cops on your lawn by now, and the media, too.”

Anton laughed. “Lucky for me, the wine cellar has an exit in the rocks over the North Shore. I'll wave
to your cop friends from my boat as Simone and I speed out of Long Island Sound.”

There was a scuffle in the wine cellar. A scrape of shoes on concrete, the sound of people moving around.

Lexi edged herself upward in her cardboard tunnel, needing to look out at what was going on. No matter what Josh had said about staying hidden, she wasn't about to let him get hurt.

Peering over the edge of her hiding place, Lexi could see Anton pushing Simone across the room, his gun tucked under her jaw. Brad kept his gun on Josh, but he, too, shifted positions to stand near a door in the floor Lexi guessed must lead to the beach and the escape boat.

What if they shot Josh in order to get away?

She had no choice but to ignore Josh's warning. Scooting to the end of the bolt, Lexi pushed herself out into the cellar again, careful to remain in the shadows of rolling racks and piles of fabric.

Tension gripped her as she kept her eyes trained on the sleek metal of the guns. She needed to be ready in case—

Josh made his move just as Anton released Simone to pry open the door in the cellar floor.

He dove for Anton's weapon, heedless of the armed and nervous teen behind him.

Brad lunged for Josh, jumping on his back like a monkey before he cracked Josh in the head with his gun.

Simone shrieked in time with Lexi's squeal. As Josh fell sideways with the kid still on top of him,
Lexi ran to the wine rack and yanked a bottle from its cradle.

Without any real plan in mind other than to distract the bad guys, Lexi smashed the bottle against the rack, shattering the glass and sending a shower of shards and merlot around the room.