Jennifer Crusie Bundle (62 page)

“So a couple of years ago, I was out drinking with a friend of mine named Newton—you'd like Newton—and we were talking about what we'd always wanted to be, and I said a private detective. Like Sam Spade. A lone knight on mean streets. Saving the poor and downtrodden, especially if they had great legs. Like yours, for instance.”

Mae nodded, still totally lost as to the point of the story.

“Anyway, Newton liked the idea. A lot. Then we sobered up and forgot about it, but I kept thinking about it at odd hours, and I went out about a year ago and got a P.I. license just for the hell of it. And I showed it to Newton.” Mitch winced. “My first mistake. About a week later, we were at a dinner, at a tableful of associates and my boss, and we'd all been tossing back the juice, and Newton brought up my license. So I passed it around, and one of the associates, this clown named Montgomery, said something to the effect that it was typical of midlife-crisis guys to buy Porsches and daydream about dumb new careers. Anyway, one thing led to another, and I said I could get a private investigation bureau into the black in a year.” He stopped and frowned at Mae. “That's a big promise. It takes most new businesses five years to get out of the red.”

“Okay,” Mae said, finally seeing where this was leading. “And he bet you that you couldn't.”

“Right. The rules were that I had twenty thousand as start-up capital, I couldn't use my real name to get financial business or credit and I couldn't touch any other money except what I made as a P.I. Newton volunteered to keep the books.” Mitch sighed. “My boss asked who would take care of my clients, and Newton volunteered for that, too, so my boss gave me a leave of absence. I think he may have had midlife fantasies himself. And the next morning, I woke up, realized what I'd done and swore off alcohol for life. I haven't had a drink since.”

“Well, that explains why you live in a tenement.” Mae tilted her head at him. “How much was the bet for?”

“Ten thousand. Newton got Montgomery into another twenty thou as a side bet.” Mitch shook his head. “I still can't believe he did that. Newton never takes chances with money.”

“So are you going to make it?”

“Yeah, thanks to you. Your check put me over the top.” Mitch smiled at her, and Mae forgot that the shed was empty and that he wasn't to be trusted and let herself fall into his smile until she had to remind herself to breathe.

She tried to pull her scrambled thoughts together. “How much time did you have left? On the bet, I mean.”

“The year was up Friday.”

“Oh.” Mae swallowed. “Close call. No wonder you took my case.”

“That wasn't the only reason.”

Mitch made it sound offhand, but the warmth in his voice made her swallow again. Mae tried to find her own voice, but it seemed to be quivering behind her tonsils. “What other reason?”

“I told you, I had this fantasy.” Mitch tipped back his head to rest it against the door. “I dreamed that this beautiful woman came into my office and asked for my help, and she was intelligent and funny and sexy and warm and she never ever lied to me.” He brought his eyes back to hers. “And then you walked in. It seemed like fate.”

“Oh, no.” Mae closed her eyes in guilt. “Mitch, I lied to you.”

“I know,” Mitch said.

Mae jerked her head up. “How do you know?”

“I guessed. Want to tell me about it?”

“Yes.” Mae exhaled in relief, surprised at how much she really did want to tell him everything. She wasn't quite sure why things were different now that he'd confessed to being a stockbroker, but they were. “Armand wasn't murdered. I made that up. He died in Stormy's bed, like she said.” She stopped, trying to sort out the best way to explain. “I don't have any money. My parents left me the trust fund, but that evaporated. And of course, Harold and June don't have anything, either. We were all dependent on Uncle Armand. Well, actually, I could have moved out, but they—”

“I know this part,” Mitch said.

“Oh, right.” Mae started again. “We lived with my Uncle Armand for twenty-eight years and nothing ever changed, nothing ever left that house. And then a couple of months ago, the stuff I told you about started disappearing. That was strange enough, but then, that last Monday night, I heard him on the hall phone. He'd been on his way out the door, and the phone rang. I was in the hall upstairs, and I couldn't hear what he was saying but I could tell he was mad, so I sort of snuck up to the head of the stairs, and I heard him say, ‘They can't get the money without the diary, and I've always got the diary with me.' And then he listened for a minute, and then he said, ‘Look, I did everything you told me to. I've found a way out of this. You're not getting any more of my money.' And then he listened for another second or two and slammed down the receiver and stomped out, absolutely furious.”

Mitch was leaning forward by this point. “Where was he going?”

Mae blinked at his obtuseness. “To the town house and Stormy, of course. Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, just like clockwork.”

“He never missed?”

“Never. Uncle Armand liked routine.”

“So anyone who knew him knew that's where he'd be.”

“I guess so.” Mae leaned forward, too. “Look, Mitch, he wasn't murdered. I just made up that part so it would look like whoever had the diary was guilty. That way, he couldn't use it to get whatever was left of the money.”

“That would only work if someone really believed Armand was murdered,” Mitch told her.

“That was your job.” Mae tried a small smile as an apology. “You were supposed to be stupid and go out and stir up trouble and make people believe he'd been killed. Problem was, you weren't stupid.”

Mitch sighed and sat back. “The problem may be bigger than that. There's a lot of money missing here. Even if Armand died naturally in his bed, with that much money in the picture, I'd bet there's a crime somewhere. It would explain why someone's so annoyed with my work.” He thought for a moment and then stood up and walked across the shed to her. “Come on, let's get out of here. Whatever was here is gone.”

He held out his hand to her and she took it, letting herself enjoy its warmth and solid strength while he pulled her to her feet. She followed him to the door, relieved that she'd finally come clean, and saddened, too. She wasn't sure why she was sad, but she was fairly sure it was watching his back move away from her.

Then he reached for the light switch, and checked back over his shoulder to make sure she was right behind him before he turned out the lights, and something in the way the line of his jaw eased into the muscle in his neck hit her in the solar plexus.

No, not him,
she thought, but it was a feeble thought. She'd been attracted to him that first day in the office, the way his hands had been so broad and had moved across that writing pad with such confidence, and she'd been falling for him ever since, burying it under a barrage of wiseass comments, getting to know how stubborn and exasperating and endearing and honest he was.

Getting to want him more and more.

You met him less than a week ago,
she tried to tell herself, but of course, that was plenty of time for wanting somebody. A minute was plenty for wanting somebody. Now, if she'd been thinking about anything but getting him into bed—

She had a sudden vivid picture of being in bed with Mitch, his body hard against hers, his hands moving—

“Mabel, you have the damnedest look on your face. Are you all right?”

Mae swallowed. “Fine. I'm fine.”

“Good.” Mitch switched off the light, and in the seconds before he opened the door, Mae thought about grabbing him and pulling him down onto the floor and making him make love to her.

She was fairly sure he'd do it. And then she'd be just another librarian.

He opened the door. Lightning flashed, and the wind blew, and she shivered more in reaction to the storm than to any chill in the air.

“Here.” He took off his windbreaker. “Put this on.”

She started to tell him that she wasn't cold, and then she took the jacket. It was warm, and it smelled like him, and if she couldn't have him wrapped around her, she could at least have his jacket. It was pathetic, but there it was.

She put on the jacket and followed him out into the stormy dusk.

Somebody shot at them.

Mae froze, not believing that anything like that could happen outside of the movies, and Mitch grabbed her and yanked her down into the dirt, and she clung to him while another bullet whined overhead and buried itself in the shed.

S
HE HAD HIM
in a death grip, and Mitch was torn between holding her tight against him to keep her safe and going to find the jerk with the gun. It wasn't much of a choice, but if they just sat in the dirt beside the car until Albert noticed the shooting, they'd be dead in no time.

He had to go.

He didn't ever want to let her go, but he had to go.

“Stay here and don't move,” Mitch whispered, and Mae gripped him harder for a second. Then she released him and crouched in the shadows of the huge car, nodding. “I mean it,” Mitch warned her, fear for her making him stern. “Don't do that dumb stuff that women always do in the movies. You stay put.”

Mae nodded again.

“Right,” Mitch said in disbelief under his breath and moved silently around the back of the shed to circle toward the direction of the shots.
Why am I doing this?
he asked himself as he crept through the dim light. He wasn't even a real private detective.
Possibly because Mae Belle is watching,
he thought and then rejected the thought. Other men made fools of themselves over women, not Mitchell Peatwick Kincaid. This was stupid.

Then the shooting started again.

Mitch hit the ground and rolled into the cover of the shed on his left, only to see Mae totally exposed in her assigned place by the car. The shooter had moved.
Run, you dummy,
he screamed at her silently, and another bullet flew over her head and pinged on the car.
There's a gas tank there. He may start shooting lower. Move, damn it!

She stayed frozen in place, and Mitch mentally called her every name in the book. Practically speaking, there was nothing he could do. If he ran out there to drag her to safety like some dumb movie hero, he'd get picked off, and then she would be in a mess. She obviously couldn't make it without him. She—

Then a bullet hit the dirt beside her, and his heart leapt up his throat, and he surged to his feet and ran past the car, yanking her to her feet and dragging her with him behind the shed.

“Why did you just sit there?” he snapped at her, shoving her behind him so she couldn't see how much he was shaking. “You could have been killed, you dummy!”

“You told me not to move,” Mae snapped back around ragged breaths. “I thought you had a plan.”

“If they're actually shooting directly at you,” Mitch whispered viciously, swallowing his heart back into his chest, “assume my plan has changed.”

“
Now
you tell me.” Mae peered around him into the dark lot and shuddered. “I could have been
killed.
”

“That's your fault.” Mitch looked out into the darkness, too, worried at the sudden quiet. “If you had any sense…”

“And I knew that if I ran and got shot and was lying there, dying, bleeding into the dirt, that you would come and gather me up in your arms, and look deep into my eyes…”

“Shh,” Mitch hissed, trying to see what was going on around him and trying not to think about gathering her up into his arms.

“And then right before I breathed my last, you'd say,
‘Why did you move?'
” Mae mimicked furiously. “You make me
crazy.
”

Mitch swung around to glare at her. “I make
you
crazy? You almost got me killed. I—”

“Why isn't he shooting anymore?”

Mitch listened to the darkness. “He's probably as disgusted with you as I am.” He slid his back down the shed wall until he was sitting in the gloom, glad to give his trembling knees a break. “Here's a better question. Why was he shooting at all?”

Mae slid down beside him and sagged a little against him. It took everything he had not to put his arm around her. Because then he'd kiss her. And then she'd point out that he was a cretin. And then—

Mae's voice whispered back, “Because we were in Armand's storage shed?”

“Which was empty.” Mitch looked down at her drooping head. “You look beat.” He craned his head back to look out into the darkness, but there was no movement anywhere.

“I am.” Mae's voice sounded very far away. “Do you think he's gone?”

“Yes,” Mitch said to comfort her, even though he didn't have a clue. “We'll wait a couple of minutes and go, too.” Suddenly, she seemed like a little kid. An orphan. He reached out and put his arm around her, closing his eyes as he pulled her against him. “Sorry I yelled.”