Take Me Tonight (7 page)

“Shared experiences, especially exciting ones, create a bond. We do many activities that get them to connect with one another. It’s not easy to get twenty-two highly competitive women to form friendships. I find creative ways that force them to appreciate each other.”

“Do they talk about it with each other afterward?” she asked.

“Yes. And with me. But they won’t talk about it to you.”

Oh yes they will.
“Why not?”

She pointed to the paper. “None of those girls has participated in that program yet. And if you mention it to them, they won’t know what you’re talking about.” She waited a beat and curled a shapeless lip. “So don’t.”

Sage folded the paper. “I’d like to talk to someone who has participated. I think this is a fascinating aspect of their training. I’d like to include your team-building efforts in the story.”

“I hope you will.” She made a point of checking her watch. “But if you include the fantasy kidnapping in the story, I will not give my approval to run it.”

“Your approval?” Sage suppressed a choke.

“When I heard you were coming in, I called Mr. Zellman at
Boston Living
magazine. My stipulation is that I have final editorial approval or there is no story. That was his assistant who just called, giving me that approval.”

Sage opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. Who cared? She wanted access and information; this story was just a means to an end. And she could bypass this pesky choreographer in her sleep. There was nothing to be gained from arguing with her. “Fine.”

“And I will be present for every interview or you will not talk to a single member of the New England Blizzard organization.”

“That’s—”

“Not up for debate. Every interview will be scheduled through my office, and you will have exactly one week to conduct those interviews. You will not need to do a photo session; we will provide pictures of the dancers for your article. And, what else did you want? Oh yes.” She opened her drawer and pulled out a small white envelope and handed it to Sage. “Tickets to tonight’s game. You can bring your boyfriend.”

“He’s…” Not worth it. “Thank you.”

“Goodbye, Ms. Valentine.”

So much for access. So much for a press pass. So much for getting information. Sage slipped her notebook, pen, and the tickets into her bag, then leveled a hard look at the other woman.

“Did you arrange for all of the kidnappings?” she asked. “Or do some of the Snow Bunnies go to the site on their own?”

“I assisted in the arrangements.”

Sage’s pulse jumped. “Then do you know what happened to Keisha that night? Who kidnapped her and who rescued her?”

She shook her head. “She never showed. Her kidnapping never took place.”

Exactly what Lucy Sharpe had said. “How do you know?”

“Because she called me that night and told me she’d changed her mind.”

Blood rushed in Sage’s ears. Could this woman know the answer to the question? “Why? Did she say why?”

Her look was one of genuine sympathy. “Because she was despondent and depressed. Surely you read her suicide note.”

Sometimes I think I’ll never be good enough.

Keisha’s words, and her handwriting, were still burned in Sage’s mind. “Yes, I did.”

“Then you know that she was a desperately unhappy woman, riddled with self-doubt and crippled by the competitive nature of this business.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Sage replied, her back straightening with indignation. “She was very happy, brimming with self-confidence, and thrilled to be a Snow Bunny. You didn’t know her at all.”

“On the contrary, Ms. Valentine. You’re the one who didn’t know her at all.”

Resentment rocked through her. “I most certainly did. She was my closest friend.”

“Then why were you in Texas when she had to have an abortion?”

Sage stared, openmouthed. “An abortion?”

Glenda tilted her head. “Evidently you didn’t know her that well after all.”

Glenda waited five minutes before taking out her cell phone. How had he known this was going to happen? The man was brilliant. Utterly brilliant. She dialed the number he’d given her with shaky fingers.

“We have a problem,” she said when he answered the phone. “Her name is Sage Valentine and she was Keisha Kingston’s roommate.”

“Why is that a problem, Glen?”

Because the whole thing could blow up in their faces? She managed to keep her voice steady. “Because she’s an—”

“Investigative journalist. I know that.”

She closed her eyes. Sometimes he was too brilliant. “She’s supposed to do a puff piece on the dance team, but she couldn’t make it through the first interview without mentioning the kidnappings. She has an agenda.” And they were on it.

He just laughed softly, a dry, baritone chuckle. “I bet she does.”

“You’re not worried about her? She’s not going to give up. I could refuse to do the story and close every door in her face.”

“Please don’t. I like tenacious, resourceful, beautiful women. You know that.”

Envy spurted in her stomach. “She’s not
that
beautiful,” Glenda said sharply. “Not like
my
girls.” Sage’s flowing blond hair and mysterious dark green eyes were striking and unusual, true. But she was not the all-American purebred that he liked. Glenda’s trained eye could see there was something in that blood that gave her eyes a hint of an exotic tilt, and her lips were too full to be considered perfect.

“Manage her,” he said simply. “You’re very good at that.”

“I plan to. I am limiting and monitoring her interviews. She won’t find anything.”

He snorted softly. “I’ve always said you can control anything.”

Anything but time, and she had less and less of that every day. The only thing that could extend her time was money…and a miracle. He could offer her one of those.

“I can control twenty-two egotistical cheerleaders. I can surely control one nosy reporter,” she assured him. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“That’s not the only reason you called, I hope.”

She swallowed hard. “Yes. For now.”

“But I’ve been expecting a call with a date and time.” He waited, drawing out the silence. “When and who, Glenda? I’m ready.”

And when he was ready, she had to provide. If she didn’t, he’d go somewhere else. To someone else. If that happened too many times, she’d be out of the picture altogether.

“I thought I would have someone this week, but we’ve hit a snag.” She closed her eyes and braced for the response.

“I don’t like snags.”

“I know. We’re very close. You of all people know that there’s an element of nature involved that can’t be controlled.”

The phone rumbled with his low laughter again. “I thought you can control everything, Glen.”

“I should have someone soon.”

“Tomorrow night is as long as I can wait.” He ended the call with a swift click.

She dropped the phone onto the desk with a thud, replaying the conversation to capture just what caused her stomach to burn. It wasn’t his demands; he always demanded. It wasn’t the little dig about her need to control. It was…

“Oh.” She frowned and whispered to herself, “How does he know she’s beautiful?”

Controlling Sage Valentine and her story might not be good enough. She could be all sorts of trouble for Glenda.

But she still had control. Because she had twenty-two gorgeous, athletic specimens of female humanity out there ripe for the picking, and he couldn’t get to them without her.

Sage held an eggplant in each hand and looked at Johnny. “They look exactly the same to me,” she said, the blank expression that she’d worn all the way back from Revere still in place. “Same weight, same color, same size. Eggplants.”

He tsked lightly, turning one over. “See that indentation, like a belly button? That’s a female.” He set the eggplant in the bin and dropped the other into the cloth grocery bag he’d bought so he didn’t scream “tourist” at every market in Boston’s North End. “Males are less bitter, just like their human counterparts.”

She didn’t react. In fact, she hadn’t laughed at a single joke in the past two hours. Whatever that Hewitt woman had said to her in that interview had sent her into such a silent, dark mood that he ditched fried clams at Kelley’s to cook the girl some real comfort food.

“I think that covers it, sweetheart,” he said, mentally reviewing his menu. “Unless you want to stop for Limoncello. You look like you could use a shot.”

“I can’t drink in the afternoon. I’ll get a headache.”

“Not from the good stuff,” he assured her, as he paid in cash for the produce. He thanked the owner in Italian and guided Sage onto the narrow, cobbled street, keeping one arm on her back, the groceries in the other.

But she didn’t say a word. All the way back to the car—including a stop at Maria’s for the cannoli shells that he’d fill himself after dinner—and for the drive back to Beacon Hill, she didn’t talk. When he parked the car near the Dumpster, she stayed in the passenger seat, still lost in her thoughts.

“Sage,” he said as he opened the door for her. “It might help to talk about it.”

“I can’t.”

“It’s about Keisha, isn’t it? You found something out.”

She nodded, and climbed out of the car. “It’s personal. You wouldn’t understand.” She started down the alley toward the street, leaving him to kick the car door closed with frustration.

Easy, Johnny.
He could practically hear Lucy’s calm voice: Don’t get personally involved. Don’t
care
.

But he couldn’t help wanting to share whatever it was that hurt her. He wanted to pull her close, touch the sad expression on her face, and kiss her until she told him and he made her forget. He’d get it out of her eventually. In the meantime, he was “watching” her, which was all Lucy had asked him to do. Which someone, somewhere was paying for him to do.

He caught up with her in a few strides. “You’ll like my soup,” he promised, dipping close to her from behind as she pulled keys from her bag. “I got everything we need for the best comfort food of all.
Pappa al pomodoro
.”

She laughed softly. “Sounds beauti—”

He walked right into her as she froze in place, her hand on the doorknob. “It’s not locked,” she muttered, turning it as she pushed the door open.

He dropped the bag of groceries and pulled her back. “Don’t go in.” Stepping in front of her, he eased the door open. “Don’t move,” he instructed over his shoulder, his eyes scanning the room.

He loosened his shoulders as he walked, slowly moving his hand to the Glock hidden under his jacket. The living room was empty, untouched. The kitchen looked precisely as he’d last seen it, but for a coffee cup in the dish drainer. The laptop and papers on the built-in desk were just as he remembered them.

He glanced back to make sure Sage stayed where he’d left her, but she was already in the living room.

“Don’t touch anything.” He mouthed the order, inching toward the hall. The first door, to her room, was partially open. Moving silently, he pulled out his gun and flattened the door to the wall, scanning the room. Her iPod was charging in a wall socket, a jewelry box remained closed on the dresser. There was no evidence that someone had been in there.

He yanked open the closet door, used the gun to move clothes, then checked the bathroom. Nothing. Still on guard, he returned to the hall.

He closed the door until it latched and stepped into the hall.

Sage stood at the entrance to the kitchen, her eyes widening as she saw the gun he held. “What is
that
?”

He shook his head to keep her quiet, holding up one finger for her to stay and wait—which she ignored—and walked to Keisha’s room.

The door was wide open and the bureau, night-stands, and a small chest at the foot of the bed had been ransacked. The little antique desk where her laptop had been was empty.

He spun around at Sage’s gasp; she stood openmouthed, staring at the wall.

The poster of twenty-some cover girls hung torn in half, ripped right down the middle, tearing Keisha Kingston’s smiling face in two. On the wall behind it, words were scrawled in thick black marker:

Whores must die.

Chapter
Seven

“L
et me in there!” Sage yanked her elbow out of Johnny’s grip and tried again to shove him out of her way. He’d pushed her right back into the hall, a gun—a gun!—in one hand, the other holding her back.

“No can do, princess.” He’d become a human wall, six feet of heat-carrying muscle and brawn that refused to budge. “First of all, it’s just going to upset you. Second, it’s a crime scene and we’re calling the police.”

“I’m not upset,” she insisted. “I want to go back in that room.”

“Not upset? You’re shaking.”

She inhaled hard in frustration, slicing him with a glare and steadying her voice. “I am going back in that room and—” She held her hand up to stop the argument before it started. “And I am going to see what’s missing, examine the scene, and then maybe we’ll call the police.”

“Maybe?” He slid the gun somewhere on his hip in a well-practiced move.

“Why are you carrying that thing?”

“I’m licensed,” he replied.

“I didn’t ask if you were licensed. I asked why.”

He half shrugged. “In my line of work, I run into some loonies.”

“And you
shoot
them?”

“I scare them.”

She didn’t even want to think about the fact that last night she’d dragged, undressed, and practically raped a man packing a pistol. “Let me go in there.” She put both hands on his chest and softened her voice. “Please. I have to see.”

He closed his eyes, obviously torn. “All right.” His sigh said it was anything but. “Let’s do an inventory. But this wasn’t your garden-variety B and E.”

She didn’t know what a garden-variety break and enter looked like, but she didn’t argue his point.

“That…” he cocked his head toward Keisha’s room, “is a crime of violence.”

“I realize that. And I’d like to see if I can figure out who did it.” She pressed harder against the stone of his muscular chest.

Reluctantly, he stepped aside and let her go. A memory of the day she’d entered the room—two days after Keisha’s body had been found by one of the Snow Bunnies and had been taken to the coroner—hit her like a punch. That day, sadness had flattened her. Today, anger had her stomach roiling.

She stared at the poster, at the vicious slash of a black Sharpie, then scanned the floor with the wild hope that whoever had done this had left a mark, a clue, the pen cap, or a distinctive footprint on the hardwood floor. There was none. She took a step forward and immediately his hand closed over her shoulder.

“Don’t touch.”

“You think there’s a fingerprint?” she asked.

“Maybe. Laptop’s gone.”

“So they did steal something.” She gave a dry laugh. “That actually makes me feel better—like they didn’t come in here just to slap hate mail on the wall.”

“If that were the case, they’d have taken the laptop you keep in the kitchen. And your jewelry case is untouched.”

“You’re starting to sound like a cop.”

He didn’t answer, and she moved to the bureau, to Keisha’s exquisite collection of porcelain boxes. Under the dozen or so hand-painted lids, she’d kept an array of bling—gifts from boyfriends, some she’d bought herself.

Sage reached for one box and Johnny was beside her in an instant. “Here.” He pulled out a white linen handkerchief from his pocket and gingerly lifted the lid. “Anything missing?” he asked, holding the lid of a tiny box, painted to replicate the famous Tiffany blue with a white porcelain ribbon.

Two-carat diamond earrings glinted in platinum settings. A gift from Keisha’s father, a partner at one of the largest investment firms in the world.

“No, that’s all that’s ever been in that Tiffany’s box. Try another one,” she said.

He replaced that lid and slid one decorated with delicate roses to the side. There was the Chanel Star Watch that the entire dance team had received as a gift from the owner of the New England Blizzard at the end of their first season.

“You’re right about one thing,” Sage said softly. “This wasn’t a standard burglary—unless he was dumb as dirt.”

“But he took the computer,” Johnny said.

“I know.” She peered into one last box that he revealed. “And this tennis bracelet is worth a lot more than a laptop.”

He set the lid down exactly as they had found it, then tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket as he walked to the poster. He stood very close and scrutinized the tear in the paper. He’d taken off his black leather jacket, and now she could easily see the menacing pistol stuck into a small leather holster attached to his belt. Who was this man, who carried a loaded gun and a freshly ironed hankie?

“Did Keisha have any crazed fans?” he asked.

“Not more than the usual. Sometimes guys would call who’d dug up her number on the Internet. Or they’d hang out near the exit to the arena, but the girls had a secret way of leaving, and plenty of security.”

“A boyfriend?”

Sage closed her eyes as she remembered what Glenda Hewitt had told her.

An abortion
. She still couldn’t fathom that Keisha would have endured that and not shared the fact with her roommate and closest friend.

“She wasn’t seeing anyone when I left for Texas,” she said quietly. “But I was gone a month. We didn’t talk every day, or even every week. She…might have.” She sat on the edge of the bed, nibbling on her lip. “I’ve tried to remember who she was seeing, but in the midst of the basketball season, she had so many games and commitments, she didn’t have a lot of time to date. But there must have been someone.”

He turned to her. “What do you mean?”

Why hide it from him? “Glenda told me that Keisha had an abortion while I was gone. She implied that might be why she committed suicide.”

“An abortion?” He glanced at the wall, thinking. “Wonder if this is just some whacko antiabortionist who got her name from a clinic.”

She considered that. “That’s possible, I guess. But I’m not sure I believe Glenda. Keisha was too smart to get pregnant.”

“Nothing’s foolproof. Maybe having to make that decision was enough to put her over the edge. You weren’t here. You don’t know what—oh, hey.” He was next to her in two steps, his face sympathetic, his hands strong on her arms. “I didn’t mean to take you on a guilt trip.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t here, you’re right. But still…” Surprised by his tenderness and how much it touched her, she shifted her gaze back to the wall. “Would things have ended differently if I had been?”

Whores must die.

And suddenly the world tilted sideways and she closed her hands over his arms, holding on to him, but staring at the wall.
Whores must die.

“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Maybe she didn’t commit suicide,” she said, her voice strained. “Maybe whoever did this…killed her. Because he thought she was…” She couldn’t say it. “Bad.”

His nod was nearly imperceptible. “That would be the literal translation of the writing on the wall.”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “I think I’ll have that drink now.”

She had to talk coherently to the police, so Johnny brewed peppermint tea while Sage quietly tried to come to grips with the revelation she’d just had.

“You’re a nurturer,” she mused as she plucked the tea bag from the cup and let it drip. “You know that?”

Johnny sat across from her at the table in the portion of the living area that she called a dining room. “I’ve been called worse,” he said with a smile. “By you, as a matter of fact.”

A glimmer of amusement lit her eyes, turning them the deep green color of the herb that matched her name. “And,” she said, training that sage gaze right on him, “you seem to know a lot about crime and investigation.”

“Common sense.” Not to mention a few years with the mob and a few more with the Bullet Catchers. “And, of course, lots of TV.”

The look on her face said she didn’t buy it, but she swirled her tea without comment. After a minute, she said, “The only thing more preposterous than Keisha killing herself is the possibility that it was murder. She didn’t have any enemies, she didn’t have a violent boyfriend, she didn’t ever hang with anyone remotely questionable. She was squeaky clean.”

“Except a little sideline of getting kidnapped and rescued for fun.”

“That doesn’t make her suicidal. Maybe she was just going along with Glenda’s bonding games. I have to look at everything differently now.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “The police are coming. You give them a report, and then you stay behind locked doors and out of harm’s way.”

She scowled at him. “Are you nuts? Not that I want to go in harm’s way, and I won’t, but my story on the Snow Bunnies is more important than ever.” She snapped her finger and pointed at him. “And the computer! Whoever took it now has the links and passwords to takemetonite.com. There could still be a connection.”

“There isn’t.” That was one thing he knew without a doubt, because if Lucy had checked the operation out, she’d done it thoroughly. Although he was dying to call her and throw this new monkey wrench her way. She—and whoever was the client on this job—needed to know what had happened.

“You have to do something for me, Johnny.”

“Anything.”

That made her smile. “You have to get me in to interview everyone who works at that company. I want to talk to whoever kidnapped—”

“She didn’t show.”

“Then whoever
didn’t
kidnap her,” she shot back. “Whoever was supposed to take her. Whoever set it up. I don’t want to be stonewalled; I want to know. Before, I thought there could be a clue to why she killed herself. Now this could be a murder investigation.”

In point of fact, she was right. “I’ll do my best,” he promised. Maybe he could drop the cover, come clean with Sage, and really do what he was meant to do: protect her from the whacko who sliced the poster, and figure out what had happened the night her roommate died. He wanted to know almost as much as Sage did.

And he couldn’t forget about the van he’d seen that morning. He’d tracked Sage and her follower to the train platform, and witnessed their exchange, and the interruption by the cheerleader. All that time, someone was still in that van…or in her apartment leaving love letters.

“Did they let you see the suicide note Keisha left?” he asked. “I assume there was a standard investigation.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, I did see it. I wasn’t here when they did the investigation, because there was a big snowstorm and I couldn’t get into Boston for a while. By the time I got home, they were finished and the medical examiner confirmed that it was suicide. Someone from the Boston PD did talk to me briefly, but by then they had closed the investigation.”

“Did the note look legitimate?”

“It was Keisha’s handwriting, if that’s what you mean. It was very short. She’d written it on a green index card that had sticky on the back, like a Post-it note.”

“What did it say?”

She released a slow sigh. “ ‘Sometimes I think I’ll never be good enough.’ ”

He leaned the chair back, locking his arms behind his neck. “That’s it?”

She nodded, her brows drawn. “In all the years I knew her, since our freshman year in college, I never heard a syllable of self-doubt come from that woman’s mouth. She believed she rocked the world.”

“She didn’t leave a message to her parents or family or friends? No apology to people she loved? No rationalization?” He slammed down on the front two legs of the chair. “That’s not a suicide note.”

“It was hers. At least it’s what she decided to write before she swallowed enough ephedra to kill herself.”

Or someone made her. “What was listed as her cause of death?”

“Suffocation.”

“A side effect of the drug,” he said.

A hard rap came on the front door.

“That’s the police,” Sage said, pushing away from the table. “Maybe they’ll tell us there’s been a rash of break-ins along the flats of Beacon Hill and they caught the guy.”

“Don’t count on it,” he murmured.

“Believe me, I’m not.”

Detective Steven Cervaris had obviously done quite a few B and Es in Beacon Hill, Back Bay, and South End. He was patient, seasoned, and bored. While Johnny stayed in the kitchen, Sage showed the officer the front door, which had no sign of forced entry, described the missing computer, explained that many valuable items had been left behind, then dropped the bomb.

“The burglar left a calling card in one of the bedrooms,” she said.

Bushy eyebrows rose; startling blue eyes blinked with interest. “What’s that?”

She indicated for him to follow her, explaining that her roommate, a dancer for the Blizzard, had died a month earlier.

“Oh, yeah, I read about that,” he said, his New England accent drawing out his vowels. “Didn’t realize this was the building.”

Sage opened the door, steeling herself to see it again. “This burglar certainly did.”

He studied the handiwork, leaning closer to examine the rip in the poster, carefully dabbing the tiniest edge of the
W
in
Whores
with the tip of his finger.

“The computer that was stolen was in here.” Sage indicated the Queen Anne desk. “But nothing else was touched. And she had plenty of good jewelry and expensive clothes.”

Detective Cervaris scanned the room slowly. “When did she die, again?”

“About a month ago. March fourth.”

“Who handled the investigation?”

“I talked to an Officer McGraw when I finally got into town. He said it was a standard suicide investigation.”

“Where were you when it happened?”

“On business in Texas.”

He nodded. “I’ll get the file.”

“Detective,” she said, sensing a too-quick dismissal. “My roommate had absolutely no reason to commit suicide. She was very happy and stable and successful.”

“Happy, stable, successful people are sometimes not really so happy or stable.”

“I realize that, but I think that this”—she indicated the wall—“could be proof that it was murder.”

He shot one of those thick brows north. “I wouldn’t call it a signed confession.”

“No, but it shows that maybe someone had an ax to grind.”