White Hot (15 page)

He glanced up, squinted at her as if he had been so lost in thought he’d forgotten where he was. But the remoteness quickly vanished, and he grinned. “Nah. There’s no hope for a higher life form in there. I don’t know, either this stuff is getting worse or my tastebuds are finally improving.”

He paused, and his eyes, with all their golds and greens and grays, took her in, seemed to drink in her very soul. Mollie forced herself not to look away. No wonder he was so good at what he did. Nothing escaped him. Nothing was beneath his probing interest. Yet, she thought, it couldn’t be an easy way to live. Sometimes he had to wish he could just climb out of his own skin for a while and be as oblivious as most of the rest of the world.

“Helen send you up here?” he asked.

Mollie nodded. “She said you were in a bad mood.”

“I am. She was angling to get me away from my desk so she could rummage through it. Drives her crazy thinking I know something she doesn’t.”

“Do you?”

“Yep.”

“She won’t actually go through your desk, will she?”

“Probably not. But she had to play it out. I can just see her standing there, itching to see what I’ve got, then congratulating herself when she doesn’t go through with it.”

“She knows you wouldn’t leave anything out in the open.”

“Even if I did, she’d stop herself. I’ve known Helen since I landed at the
Trib
as a know-it-all eighteen-year-old. She knows what lines she can cross and what lines she can’t, not just with me. Part of the reason she’s lasted as long as she has is she knows the First Amendment protects what we say, not what we do.”

“Such as fraud, breaking and entering, harassment, trespassing.”

He shrugged. “Such as.” He eyed his coffee. “I used to pride myself on drinking swill. Times change. So, Miss Mollie,” he said, shifting his gaze to her, “what brings you to Miami looking as if you’ve had another good scare?”

“I have.” She sat on a chair at the end of the table, feeling formal, even awkward. “Had another good scare, that is.”

His eyes bored into her, darkening. “Tell me.”

“A phone call. It came on my business line, about ninety minutes ago. The voice was obviously altered, like those unnamed whistle-blowers on
60 Minutes.
It suggested I go back to Boston because Miami’s dangerous.”

“Did you report it to the police?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“There’s only my word that the call happened or that the caller said what he said. I don’t want the police getting the wrong idea about me.”

“You don’t want to become a suspect.”

“Or the crazy woman looking for attention.”

Jeremiah pushed back his chair. “But the call happened.”

She nodded.

He rose, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve got a friend on the Palm Beach police you can talk to. It’ll only take a minute. You can call from my desk.” He grinned at her, an obvious attempt at levity. “Helen’s had long enough to pull herself back from the precipice, wouldn’t you say?”

“Jeremiah—”

“It’ll take two minutes tops. You’ll see.”

They took the stairs back down to the newsroom, no sign of Helen Samuel at his desk. Jeremiah pulled out his chair and made Mollie sit. Then he flipped through a dog-eared Rolodex, dialed a number, got through to some guy named Frank, and handed the phone to her. She told him what had happened, the time, the altered voice, its exact words. Jeremiah made no pretense of not listening in. He sat on the corner of his desk, taking in every word. “I don’t know that this is connected to the robbery on Friday,” she said. “It could just be a nut who saw my name in the paper.”

“Could be,” Frank said. “I’ll write this up. Give me your number in case I have any questions.”

Mollie gave it to him. As she reached over to hang up the phone, her shoulder brushed Jeremiah’s arm, immediately sending warm shivers through her. To be this close to him when she was this vulnerable wasn’t too smart.

“There,” he said. “Duty done. Feel better?”

“Marginally.”

He slid off the desk. “It’s a start.”

She remained seated, blood rushing to her head as another impulsive plan took vague shape. “I have a dinner tonight in Boca Raton. Friends of Leonardo’s invited me. It’s at a private home on the water, probably about thirty guests.”

“Our thief hasn’t hit anything that small. Smallest was seventy-five.”

“I know, but if I’m…” She inhaled, hating the word. “If I’m involved in any way, perhaps we should look at my pattern of activity, too, and not just the thief’s.”

Jeremiah went still. “We?”

She got to her feet, took a breath, and felt more certain about her still-in-progress plan. “I leave Leonardo’s at six-thirty. I intend to keep my eyes open. If anything strikes me as suspicious, I will do what I have to do.”

“Nancy Drew strikes.” But there was no humor in his voice.

“Don’t patronize me, Jeremiah. I’m your ‘common denominator.’ I was attacked. I received that nasty phone call.”

“Precisely why you should skip the dinner tonight and stay home and watch TV. Throw darts. Drag out your flute and play some tunes.”

She raised her chin to him, aware of his penetrating gaze, unintimidated by his relentless intensity—or the sense he was making. “That would be giving in.”

“That would be making an intelligent decision.”

“Maybe, but you do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same. Thank you for your time,” she said, and started briskly across the newsroom.

“When you said we,” he called quietly to her, “did that mean I’m invited tonight?”

She ignored him and kept on marching, and if he was frustrated and even a little irritated with her, so be it. She had come to him in the misguided hope he could be a friend, and he’d gone dictatorial and protective on her. Call the police. Stay home and throw darts.

Damn it, she thought, she half-hoped the thief would show up tonight and she could catch him herself.

“Nancy Drew,” she muttered, and exited the newsroom, aware of every eye in the place on her.

But when she got to her car, Jeremiah was already there, slouched up against its gleaming hood as if he owned it. Mollie sputtered. “How did you get here ahead of me? How did you know where I was parked—”

“I know all the shortcuts, and you’ll notice there are no other back Jaguars in the visitors’ lot.” He eased off the hood. “You’re on my turf now, sweet pea.”

“So?”

“So I want to know why you drove all the way down here to tell me about this nasty little phone call. I want to know,” he said, moving closer, “why you told me about your dinner tonight and said
we
should look at your pattern of activity and not just the thief’s.”

“The
we
was just a slip of the tongue. As for the call—” She met his gaze, ignored the flutter in the pit of her stomach, the deep, unfathomable, undeniable yearning she had to connect with this man. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t already know about it.”

He had no visible reaction. “Why would I know about it?”

“Or the guy who tipped you off about me. Maybe he knows about it.”

“You mean maybe he’s the one who made the call,” Jeremiah said, his tone steady, neutral. “And I knew about it.”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? And if you have to keep an open mind, so do I.”

“It’s not possible I knew about it. If I had, I’d be throttling him right now. Is it possible he made the call? Theoretically, I suppose so, but my gut says no.” He considered a moment. The line of his jaw seemed harder, the muscles in his arms and shoulders leaner, tougher. Ten years of digging into crime and corruption seemed to have affected him physically, not just mentally. “But it’s good you’re keeping an open mind. Now. I’ll be at your place no later than six-twenty-five.”

“What? Why—”

“That’s why you told me about your dinner tonight, isn’t it?” His voice softened. “So I’d be there.”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking—”

“Think now.”

She sighed. “I can’t stand not knowing what’s going on. I can’t stand sitting around waiting for the next phone call. I guess I wanted to find a way to help you—or for you to help me—”

But he was shaking his head. “Mollie, we can’t be a team, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I don’t work that way.”

“I know. You don’t need to remind me.” She hoisted her handbag onto her shoulder, tried to ease the lingering effects of the eerie call. “I understand. Really. Thanks for putting me in touch with Frank. Maybe the police will find this guy.”

He touched the collar of her linen shirt, just a flick of the finger that nonetheless sent shock waves through her. “You’re trying to tell yourself it’s strictly business between us, Mollie, but it’s not. It can’t be.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She sounded prim and unconvincing even to herself. She imagined he could see through the facade, straight into all the parts of her that still wanted him. “Of course it can.”

“You’re remembering. Right now, you’re remembering.”

Her knees quavered. “Remembering what?”

“I was your first lover.” His voice was low, not much above a whisper, a caress. “You remember.”

“Jeremiah…” She swallowed, telling herself this was a test, a way for him to establish terms. He liked making the rules. It was why he worked alone, it was why he stayed alone. She steeled herself against the onslaught of desire, the knot of confused emotions. “Jeremiah, I assure you, I’m long over you. I put your photo on my dartboard for my amusement, nothing more. It could have been a picture of Darth Vader.”

He seemed amused. “And yesterday when I kissed you, could I have been Darth Vader then, too?”

“The Emperor,” she said, unable to stop a smile.

“And if I kissed you right here, right now, what would I be?”

“Very forward.” But her head spun, her body burned at the thought of his mouth on hers.

“I like being forward.”

And his mouth descended to hers, his hand drifting to the back of her neck, where she wasn’t injured. She threw a hand back on the hood of her car, steadying herself as his tongue slid between her lips, tasted, probed, her entire body responding.

He drew back slightly, his eyes dark, his own arousal evident. “That wasn’t too forward, was it?”

Mollie straightened, tried to ignore the strain of her breasts against her linen top, the agony of wanting him. She was shaking with it, unsteady, her mind flooded with memories of him slowly, erotically exploring her body with his hands, then his mouth, teeth, and tongue, until, finally, when she was hot and quivering, taking her with hard, deep thrusts.

His dusky gaze told her that he, too, was remembering.

She willed coherency upon her thoughts. “Look, Jeremiah—” She swallowed, adjusting her shirt so her pebbled nipples wouldn’t show. “I know what you’re doing, but you don’t have to worry. I’m not going to fall for you. It was my choice to drive down here. And I take full responsibility for the consequences of that choice.”

“Hell, it sounds as if you decided to climb Mount Everest.”

She smiled. “You just concentrate on doing your job, okay?”

He dragged one finger along the line of her jaw, sending a stream of liquid heat straight into her bloodstream. “I always do.” He winked. “See you at six-twenty-five.”

Jeremiah went back to his desk feeling grumpy, out of sorts, and way too damned much as if he should have taken Mollie back to his apartment for the rest of the afternoon. He checked his messages. Nothing. He plopped into his chair and stared at his blank computer screen. Neutrality and objectivity had gone straight to hell with the appearance of Mollie and her bottomless eyes, bruised neck, and tale of a nasty phone call.

Helen Samuel couldn’t wait to accost him. “Okay. Tell me what Mollie Lavender was doing here.”

Jeremiah swung around in his chair. Bad coffee and frustration burned in his stomach. Fatigue pounded behind his eyes. “You know why you’ve lasted as long as you have, Helen? You’re by nature a very nosy woman.”

She grinned at him, unoffended. “Yeah, yeah. You’re just in a bad mood because you wanted to write the story about Friday night and couldn’t. You’re feeling conflicted.”

“Conflicted? Jesus, Helen. A reporter has to make these kinds of calls all the time.”

“Bullshit. You’ve got a woman wearing a necklace owned by one of the most famous tenors in the world. You’ve got the necklace ripped off at a fancy private party. You’ve got a gloved hand. You’ve got a daring, clever cat burglar. And you were
right there.
Jesus. It has to kill you. No wonder you’re a grouch.”

He shoved back his chair and stood up. “That’s right, Helen. I was right there. I was a part of the goddamned story. No way could I write it. I did the right thing. So I’m not conflicted.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a grump. You’re still on this thing, aren’t you?”

He sighed. “Damned lot of good it’s doing me. I don’t have a clue who’s behind the robberies, or why, or how he’s getting into exclusive parties without being noticed. I don’t know if it’s a man or woman. I don’t know if it’s someone acting alone or a group. You know, even if the
Trib
had reported that Mollie Lavender, Palm Beach publicist, was robbed at Diantha Atwood’s party Friday night, it would only have filled two inches on page thirty-seven.”

“All right, all right.” Helen studied him with an air of superior knowledge and experience that quickly got on his nerves. “You sure you’re not in over your head, Tabak?”

“If I were,” he said irritably, “I wouldn’t tell the
Trib
’s goddamned gossip columnist. I’m going home and feeding my lizard. He’s better company than what I get around here.”

Helen grunted, unintimidated. “Your lizard have any say about what kind of company he has to put up with?”

Traffic on the causeway out to South Beach was miserable, the lousy weather bringing the tourists off the water and into the shops and restaurants. Although he groused and grumbled, Jeremiah supposed if he were a tourist, he’d be here, too.

He had to hunt a parking space, which didn’t improve his mood, and when he got to his building, he found Croc out front with Bennie, the ex-tailor, and Albert, the ex-mobster. Not once in two years had Croc shown up at Jeremiah’s home, always preferring to meet at public places on Ocean Drive. He looked like a street bum with his scraggly hair and clothes. Bennie pointed at him with his whittling knife. “This guy says he’s a friend of yours. We were letting him hang around for a while, see if you showed up.”