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Across the table from her he let the last remnants of the toothpick fall from his fingers. His features smoothed into a bland mask, revealing nothing of what he was thinking, but the gold glints in his eyes intensified and he flicked a glance around the half-empty room before he spoke. When he did, he sounded as perfunctory as if she’d made a comment about the weather. “Run that one by me again. You saw who?”
“Rupert Carling. You know—the missing tycoon who disappeared two days ago,” she elaborated impatiently. “His photo’s been on the front page of all the papers with the story about how the police think he might have been murdered. You must have seen it!”
“I’ve seen the articles. I know who Rupert Carling is.” He held her gaze with his own. “I still don’t get the connection between his disappearance and what happened tonight at your apartment.”
“It’s obvious! For some reason, no one’s supposed to know where he is or even that he’s still alive, and when they found out I’d seen him at Parks, Parks, and Boyleston today in the basement, they had to totally discredit me before I told the authorities.” Jenna tapped her thumbnail nervously on her bottom lip. “They couldn’t simply kill me. I wonder why?”
“And Parks, Parks, and Boyleston is…?” he inquired politely.
“The law firm where I started work yesterday.” Her hair had fallen forward in her excitement and she pushed it back with a quick gesture. “Don’t you see? This whole thing makes sense now—I’m simply a crazy lady with one crazy story after another.” A thought struck her and her eyes darkened. “The mugger! He wasn’t after my money, he was after my identity! Everything that could help me prove I’m who I say I am was in my wallet….”
Her voice trailed off as the enormity of the plan became clearer. “They couldn’t kill me for some reason, so they did the next best thing. They were trying to make it look as if Jenna Moon never existed, Matt. As if everything about me was a lie or a fantasy.”
Outside it had begun to rain heavily, but she hardly noticed the downpour through the plate-glass window beside them. All her attention was focused on him, and when he finally spoke she realized she’d been holding her breath.
“It sounds too incredible to be true,” he said. At her stricken expression, he continued, voicing his thoughts aloud. “And that might have been just what they were counting on—whoever ‘they’ are.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he sat up straighter and took a pen and a small notepad from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, take it from the top and don’t leave anything out, no matter how insignificant it seems. How did you run into this man you thought was Rupert Carling?”
He wasn’t convinced—not yet. But at least he was giving her the benefit of the doubt, instead of writing her off as a flake, Jenna thought shakily. A wave of relief rushed over her and she felt the sharp prickle of tears behind her eyelids, but she blinked them away and tried to keep her voice steady as she answered him.
“Miss Terwilliger is training me as a records clerk, and like I said, today was only my second day on the job,” she began. He interrupted her.
“Miss Terwilliger? What’s her position at Parks, Parks, and Boyleston?”
“We call it Parks, Parks for short,” she said helpfully. “Miss Terwilliger is the head of the office staff, and she’s been there forever. Parks, Parks is her life—I don’t know what she’ll do when she’s forced to retire.” Matt rubbed his temples in an unconscious gesture and she went on hurriedly. “Anyway, she’s a dragon, but today she said she thought I might have the makings of a first-rate records clerk in me, so I think she likes me. She even gave me some files to put away in the archives but the building’s old, and I got lost going down the wrong passageway.”
“And you ran into Rupert Carling in the basement of this law firm?” The note of disbelief was back, not as strong as before but still distinctly audible. “What was he doing, catching rats?”
Her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt and she stared blankly at him. “If you knew already, why the big pretense with the notebook? Why didn’t you tell me somebody’d already reported it?” She drew away from him in annoyed disappointment, and the bells on her ankle bracelet tinkled sharply.
“I don’t know anything about Rupert Carling being seen except for what you’re telling me now,” Matt said. He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Call the rat-catcher thing a lucky guess.”
“Oh.” She looked dubiously at him. “Well, he wasn’t catching rats when I saw him, but he was wearing coveralls with the name of an extermination firm on them.”
“You’re serious? Rupert Carling really was posing as a rat-catcher?” He looked incredulous, but at her nod he scribbled something in his notebook. “Did you notice the name of the firm?”
“It was something unimaginative like Pestex. Oh—and he had one of those weird gas-mask things on.”
“A respirator?” He started to make a notation in his book but then paused and looked up. “Wait a minute. Wouldn’t that have covered his face?”
“If he’d been wearing it, yes, but he had it hanging by the straps around his neck.” She frowned slightly. “I hope you’re getting this down right. I probably should read it over when we’re finished in case you miss something vital.”
“Someday you’ll have to teach me that deep-breathing technique you use.” Matt laid his pen carefully on the table and smiled thinly at her. “The serenity one.”
He sounded touchy. “Sorry. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve ever given a statement, and I want to make sure I remember everything.”
“That’s understandable.” Sighing, he raked his hand through his hair and picked up his pen again. “If you did see Rupert Carling and someone’s trying to cover it up then you’ve obviously stumbled onto something big. Any little detail could be important. What happened next?”
“Nothing.” She shrugged helplessly. “I turned a corner, barreled into the man, apologized and kept going. The next corridor was the right one, and I was almost back at the file room when I realized who he was. All I could think of was to phone the FBI, so when Miss Terwilliger said I could take my lunch break I ran out to a pay phone, got the number from the operator and called you.”
“Hold on a minute.” Tossing his pen down, he narrowed his eyes. “Why waste precious time waiting for your lunch break? In fact, why didn’t you just phone from the office and tell me all this right away?”
Jenna shook her head. “No personal calls at work. Miss Terwilliger says that’s like stealing from the company. I knew you’d want to ask questions and go over my story a few times, but I only had half an hour for lunch and it was obvious Carling had no idea I’d recognized him.” Color rose to her cheeks. “Look, Matt—I wouldn’t have traded my life for anything up until now. But I’m twenty-four years old, and I’ve never had a regular job or stayed in the same place for more than a few months at a time. Franklin wasn’t the type to settle down and since it was just the two of us, I guess I felt I should stay with him until—until he died earlier this year. It was hard enough to find a firm that was willing to hire someone like me in the first place, and I’m not about to do anything to lose this job. I need it. I’ve got rent to pay. For the first time in my life I’ve finally got a place I can call my own—”
She broke off, suddenly remembering. To her chagrin, this time the tears wouldn’t be contained and she felt one sliding down her cheek. She looked up through flooded blue eyes and attempted to pull herself together, but to her surprise, instead of looking uncomfortable and grabbing for another toothpick to destroy, Matt reached over and took one of her hands in both of his. He’d forgotten to thin his mouth into his usual straight line and he looked more approachable than she’d yet seen him.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.”
He had a nice voice, she thought inconsequentially. When it lost its businesslike edge, it was as warm and silky as melted chocolate, and it was low enough so that the person he was speaking to felt compelled to keep quiet, just to catch what he was saying. Big family, she decided promptly. That had to be something he’d learned growing up in a noisy household. She felt ridiculously pleased at having guessed a little of his background.
“I’m going to make a quick call to the Agency before we leave and alert them to what you’ve told me.” He glanced at the public phone on the wall by the exit. “Not the most secure place to give a report, but I want to get this information to the office right away. Then we’re going to head back to the apartment and start searching for your cat. The most likely way they got rid of him was simply by opening the window and letting him out, and if he’s not familiar with the neighborhood, he’s probably still somewhere close by. Siamese, kind of chunky around the middle, right?” He gave her a one-sided and quizzical smile.
She could feel the stupid tears coursing down her cheeks, but this time she didn’t care. “Don’t forget the blue paint on his tail,” she laughed shakily. “Oh, Matt—I knew your aura couldn’t lie! I can’t see them very often but when I can they’re always right, and today when I met you I was pretty sure I saw yours. It was pale pink, like a cloud.”
He looked nonplussed. “Aura? I have an aura around me?” She saw his eyes flick involuntarily to the air above his head.
“Don’t worry, everyone has one.” She laughed again, and then somewhere deep inside her it suddenly felt like a bird had started fluttering around, trying out its wings for the first time. It was an oddly exhilarating sensation. “They’re—they’re a reflection of your inner being. Pale pink is good,” she finished breathily, her gaze locked onto his.
“Even for a man?” He had that melted-chocolate voice thing going again, she thought hazily. It was such a sexy contrast to the tough pragmatism the rest of him projected that it ignited a string of wildly imaginative paradoxes in her mind, like a chain of Chinese firecrackers exploding one after another—controlled but unleashed, lazily casual and then intense, slow and sweet and strong and hot…
His thumb was idly stroking the inside of her palm. This time she was quite willing to accept that she was going a little crazy.
“Especially for a man,” she managed to say. Whatever was going through her mind had to be going through his right now, too, she thought. That lower lip was pure sensuality and his eyes were half-veiled by those thick dark lashes. His breathing had deepened and slowed.
For a long moment the world around them seemed to recede into nothingness. Far in the background of her consciousness Jenna could hear the clink of china as tables were cleared, the faint sound of a radio playing behind the counter and the rushing hiss of a bus coming to a stop outside in the rain. But nothing registered. She felt as if the whole universe had lasered down to a single pinpoint of reality that only included the touch of their hands, the electric awareness flowing between them.
“I—I should make that call.”
Matt’s reluctant words finally broke the silence, but instead of regretting that the moment had come to an end, she almost welcomed it. She felt shaky and disoriented, and as he abruptly pushed back his chair and walked over to the phone in the corner of the coffee shop, it was almost impossible to force herself to stop staring at the way he moved, from letting her gaze linger on the smoothly powerful shift of muscles under that suit jacket…
What had just happened between them? A silvery shiver ran down her spine. One moment they’d been slightly antagonistic near strangers, and the next minute they’d both been indulging in converging fantasies that had almost accelerated into reality. Only the fact that they’d been in a public place had kept them apart, Jenna thought tremulously.
It had been so intense. It was as if those wings she’d felt fluttering inside her had flown straight up to the sun, heedless of the fire that awaited them there and craving only the ever-increasing heat. A minute longer in that dangerously seductive flight and she would have never been able to return to the safety of the mundane world.
Even now she wasn’t sure that she would ever be the same person she’d been half an hour ago.
He wasn’t her type, for heaven’s sakes! She saw him lift the receiver and casually turn his back to the room, but with heightened awareness she noticed that he was facing the broad, black expanse of plate-glass window. He was using it as a mirror, she realized. He knew everything that was going on behind him, and if anyone came close he’d probably start talking about something totally innocuous. Suspicion, caution, deception—they were all part of his job.
He was nothing like the men she’d known in the past. The two serious relationships she’d engaged in had been gentle and loving, and both Colin and Ted had been committed to the same lifestyle that she was used to—neither one of them could be called aggressive, and each relationship had ended with quiet affection when she’d moved on. She smiled faintly. Certainly neither man had come chasing after her, trying to persuade her to stay.
Matt D’Angelo might have a veneer of civilization and conformity about him, but if he ever wanted anything badly enough, he’d fight to get it—and keep it. Those gold-flecked eyes that could change so swiftly from bland opacity to raw desire gave him away every time he looked at her.
Those eyes were looking down at her now. With a slight start, she saw that he’d finished his call and was standing beside her silently…and as she met his shuttered gaze, she suddenly knew that her world was about to be shattered for the second time that day.
Chapter Three
She’d known it was going to be bad. What she hadn’t been able to imagine was just how bad it could be.
Numb with disbelief, Jenna shivered involuntarily. Despite the steamy heat in the coffee shop, she felt as if a cold wind was cutting through her, numbing her to her very bones.
“They had to have made some mistake in identification.” Even to herself, her protest sounded foolishly stubborn, as if she was insisting that the world was flat. “How do they know for sure it was Carling’s body?”
Matt rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, not meeting her pleading glance. Under the harsh fluorescent lights the lines of weariness around his mouth were thrown into stark relief, and his eyes, when he opened them, were unreadable. He sighed like a man trying to hide his frustration.
“Forensics didn’t make a mistake, Jenna. That’s why they haven’t released the news of his death to the media yet—because they wanted to make damn sure their suspicions were right.”
“But even experts can—”
He cut in on her abruptly, as if he couldn’t allow her to keep hoping any longer. His voice was low and emphatic.
“It’s very important that you understand this. Rupert Carling is dead. He’s been dead for over forty-eight hours—ever since someone turned his Mercedes into a ball of fire with a car bomb the night before last.” His words were vehemently distinct and his gaze held hers with what seemed like desperation. “The man was a financial titan, so when word of his death gets out later tonight, Wall Street’s going to tremble, Jenna—and with that much at stake, nobody could afford to make any creative guesses on what was left of his body. They located a Dr. Borg, Carling’s dentist, and had him working alongside the forensics team to make absolutely certain that the dental records matched up with—” He saw the convulsive swallow that she tried to hide, and changed what he’d been about to say. “With what was found at the crime scene,” he ended quietly.
“So I didn’t see him today at Parks, Parks.” Her voice was barely audible.
“There’s no way you could have.”
“And if I didn’t see Rupert Carling, then there’s no reason for anyone to try to make me look crazy,” she went on. It was as easy as connecting the dots, she thought. One fact led to another, and although she knew she wouldn’t like where this was leading, she had no choice but to follow the logic. “And if no one’s trying to make me look crazy, the only explanation for what’s been happening to me is that I really am crazy. Even Zappa was only part of my fantasy.”
Her face was pale and the strands of hair feathering onto her forehead seemed to have lost their vibrancy and fire. Her eyes were dull. “Paranoid delusions. When I started using phrases like ‘vast conspiracy,’ it should have tipped me off right then. But of course, refusing to believe that they’re delusions is part of the problem, isn’t it?”
“You saw somebody in that corridor at work. It just wasn’t who you thought it was,” Matt said uncomfortably. The coffee shop was nearly empty now, but he lowered his voice. “There’s got to be some other explanation for what happened tonight besides immediately jumping to the conclusion that you’re suffering from paranoia.”
“Another explanation for anyone else, maybe. Not for me!”
The unequivocal reply escaped from her like a cry of pain and her eyes squeezed shut, as if she couldn’t bear to face his carefully phrased questions. Alarmed by her reaction, Matt reached across the table for her hand, but she drew away from his touch. A shudder ran through her and for a moment he tensed, ready to catch her if she fainted; but even as he watched, he saw her quell the trembling with a visible effort.
A few hours ago she’d made him think of caramel sauce and whipped cream, he thought slowly—lush and desirable and frivolously disconcerting. Who would have guessed that that almost confectionery-like exterior hid a will as tough and unyielding as stainless steel? Whatever other problems Jenna Moon had, the woman had an inner strength that was imposing a rigid control on her.
When she spoke again, her words were delivered in a flat, dead whisper that sounded as if it was being wrenched out of her. “Let me tell you about my father. Then you’ll understand.”
She folded her hands carefully in her lap, pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, and then continued, the normally husky edge to her voice harsh with pain. “Franklin Moon was a student radical in the ’60s—passionately committed to making the world a better place through peaceful protests and demonstrations. He was typical of the best of that era, and he should have become one of the most influential people of his generation. But no one’s ever heard of my father—and no one ever will now.”
A car sped by on the rain-slick pavement outside, throwing up a sheet of muddy water against the coffee shop, and she flinched as it slapped loudly against the window beside them. Her shoulders hunched forward. “Sometime during his last year at Berkeley, Franklin Moon became convinced that ‘they’ were out to get him—a sinister enemy or enemies who would stop at nothing to destroy him. He left without completing his degree. My mother, Sara, was his girlfriend back then. She loved him enough to throw away her life and her future—she cut all ties with her family and disappeared with him. They lived like nomads, never staying in one place for more than a few months, sometimes packing up their Volkswagen van and moving on after only a day or two. Franklin would have seen or heard something that convinced him that ‘they’ were on his trail again.”
She couldn’t completely disguise the rawness in her voice, and this time when Matt reached forward he was too fast for her. His hand, strong and warm, encircled her wrist. “You don’t have to go on.”
For a moment she hesitated. Her fingers curled reflexively, resting on the pulse point at the base of his palm as if she needed to reassure herself that he was real. Then she firmly disengaged herself from his clasp.
“For a long time I thought everybody lived that way—starting a new school just as soon as you made a friend at your old one, never owning anything that couldn’t fit in a suitcase, waking up sometimes and forgetting exactly where you were. And then when I was seven, my mother died suddenly and the bottom fell out of my world. A few days later Franklin started loading up the van again and I began screaming and hitting at him, telling him that this time I wasn’t going with him, asking him how he could just leave the place where she was buried when he knew that he’d never come back.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She made no attempt to wipe them away and they fell unheeded from her bowed head to her lap. She continued as if it was vitally important to relate every last painful detail.
“That’s when he told me. He pulled me into his lap and stroked my hair while I cried myself into exhaustion, and he explained that there were people looking for him—people who would never stop looking for him…people who wanted to kill him. The next morning I got in the van and we drove away from the town where my mother had died.”
“How the hell could he have put a child through that?” Matt exploded angrily. “No roots, no stability—what was he thinking?”
“He was trying to protect me,” Jenna interjected. “He really believed that he was in danger, and that whoever was tracking him wouldn’t hesitate to kill his daughter too. In every other aspect Franklin is—” She stopped and her lashes dipped briefly as she closed her eyes and sighed. She corrected herself softly. “Was the gentlest, kindest man I’ll ever know. Most people never guessed there was anything the matter with him, and he tried his best to make my childhood as full of love as possible. That’s one of the reasons we lived on the communes—he hoped that being part of caring communities like that would make up for me not having any family but him.”
She fell silent, and beside her Matt stared unseeingly through the plate-glass window into the wet night. When he spoke, his words were hesitant. “Was there ever anything that made you think he wasn’t fantasizing this mysterious enemy? Anything, however far-fetched, that might have indicated that there really was someone trying to find him and kill him?”
“Forget it, Matt.” She smiled tightly and shook her head, just barely holding on to her composure. “After a lifetime of living with Franklin Moon, maybe I sometimes persuaded myself that I’d seen the same car following us in two different states, or that the casual curiosity of a complete stranger was reason for alarm. But there was never any solid proof. How could there have been? It was all in his mind—all part of the same outlandish delusion.”
His gaze searched her face intently. “And you’re afraid that whatever compulsion drove Franklin to think he had to run for his life has been passed on to you.” It wasn’t a question. One look at her haunted eyes was answer enough.
The smart money at the Agency was on Agent D’Angelo becoming the next area director. The man was tough, pragmatic, and nothing ever threw him. That was the image he seemed to have acquired, Matt thought wryly. But all bets would have been off if any of his co-workers had been around to see the indecision on his features as he searched for something—anything—to soothe away the fear that had taken control of the woman across from him. Dammit, he was supposed to be good at handling people, he told himself in sudden anger. Why was he just sitting here, letting the silence between them lengthen?
He said the first thing that came into his mind, and as soon as he had, he wished he could recall his words. “Even one shred of proof that you’d ever lived there would have given me grounds to investigate further, Jenna. The Carling thing could have been a simple case of misidentification. But coupled with what happened at the apartment and the fact that none of the other tenants in the building would cooperate when I tried to question them before we left—” He broke off, cursing himself for his clumsiness. Jenna had been pale before but now the only color in her face was her eyes, bluer and wider than ever.
“Coupled with the apartment that I insisted was mine, the apartment that obviously belonged to someone else—the apartment where no one knew me—there really isn’t any doubt, is there?” She met his gaze and held it almost challengingly. “Crazy Jenna Moon who sees auras, dead tycoons walking around in exterminator coveralls and whose whole existence is turning out to be a fantasy. And what’s really scary is that I almost had you believing it all, didn’t I?”
“For God’s sake, I’m not the bad guy here.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, acutely aware that Marg the waitress was looking narrowly over in his direction. “I know what you must be going through. I just wish there was some way we could back up part of your story, but there isn’t.”
“You have no idea what I’m going through.” The brief flash of emotion that she’d displayed had subsided, to be replaced once more with a hopeless acceptance of the situation.
The cornflower-blue of her eyes was blinded with a sheen of tears. Even stainless steel snapped under enough pressure, Matt thought worriedly. And although he still thought it was more likely that whatever mental aberration she was suffering from was temporary, she seemed to believe that her condition was permanent—a legacy from a father who’d lived his whole life running from a fantasy enemy. She needed professional help, he thought reluctantly.
A psychiatrist, D’Angelo, he told himself roughly. Face it—it’s possible she needs a shrink. This gorgeous, sexy, warm woman who didn’t look as if there was anything the matter with her at all was going to have to be checked into a hospital. And he had the sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to go along with that plan willingly. He’d been wrong, Matt thought with a twinge of self-condemnation. He was going to have to be the bad guy here.
“We’ve got to find you a place to stay for tonight.” He attempted a reassuring smile, feeling like a Judas. His voice sounded a shade too hearty even to his own ears. “There’s a hotel downtown that the Agency uses sometimes. We’ll put you up there for the night, okay?”
For a moment she didn’t answer him. She stared at him assessingly, the unshed tears glittering at the edge of her lashes, and Matt had the feeling that she knew exactly what he was planning. If she ran, he’d have to go after her. It wasn’t something he wanted to do, but she couldn’t wander around the streets in her condition. Then, with a sense of deep relief, he saw her nod in agreement. Jenna Moon trusted him—which made it a whole lot easier to lie to her. He felt like a heel.
“I guess that’s the best solution. I’ll start looking for another place tomorrow, but if you’re sure it’s okay for me to stay at the hotel tonight, that would solve one problem at least.” She managed a smile. “I owe you, Matt. Just give me a couple of minutes and then we can leave. I’d feel better if I splashed some cold water on my face.”
She got up from the table with that long-legged grace that had caught his eye the first time he’d seen her—had it only been a few hours ago? A gallant spirit, Matt reflected somberly as he watched her approach the waitress standing by the counter. Marg gestured toward the back of the coffee shop. If what Jenna feared was true, she’d need all the courage she had to battle the demons that had beset Franklin Moon throughout his life, and that at his death had seemingly transferred themselves to his daughter. She was going to hate him for deceiving her, but with time maybe she’d realize that he hadn’t really had a choice. The hospital was the only place for her right now. He was doing the right thing, he told himself weakly.
So how come words like betrayal and abandonment kept running through his mind?
Probably because she’d come to him in good faith, asking for his help. She certainly hadn’t expected that he’d end up taking her freedom away, no matter how much he felt his actions were justified. He rubbed the side of his jaw tiredly, hardly noticing the pinprick of stubble against his hand, and as he did he caught the sidelong glance the waitress threw him. Their eyes met, and she switched her attention quickly to her order pad, but not before he saw the guilty flush of color on her cheeks.
For crying out loud, D’Angelo—she’s taken off on you. And that pottery-making waitress helped her escape!
He pushed his chair back swiftly and crossed the distance between them in three strides. Flustered, Marg looked up with an expression of innocence that wouldn’t have fooled a Cub Scout—which was no guarantee that it couldn’t fool him, Matt thought disgustedly. He’d screwed up royally.
“She left by the back exit, didn’t she? Where is it?”
“It’s past the kitchen, mister.” Marg snapped her order book closed defiantly and crammed it into her apron pocket. The only other customer left in the place, a bleary-eyed old man in a security-guard uniform, looked up with interest as the waitress’s voice took on a sharp edge. “And she’s had a good five minutes’ start on you, so you might as well just kiss her goodbye. She’s gone. What the heck did you say to her, anyway?”
Matt didn’t answer. He pushed past her and down the short hall at the back of the room. A slightly overweight boy in a white apron over a stained T-shirt was filling jelly doughnuts with an enormous pastry bag. His boredom was replaced by dull interest as first Matt, then Marg, then the geriatric security guard went by at a fast trot, and he stared hopefully at the hallway as if he was expecting more to the parade. The doughnut he’d forgotten he was filling exploded, sending raspberry jelly and powdered sugar all over the counter.
“You a fed?” The security guard pushed importantly past Marg and wheezed out his question at Matt, watching with avid interest as he unlocked the heavy metal door at the end of the hall with some difficulty. “I switched my hearing aid up full blast when you were on the phone and I heard you talking about that big shot that’s gone missing. That redhead with the great gams was a witness—and you let her get away.”
Ignoring the excited old man’s running commentary, Matt slid the lock back on the door.
Behind the coffee shop was an alleyway that seemed to run parallel with the street in front of the building, but it was hard to see more than a few feet. The rain was a silvery curtain blocking out everything but the basic shapes of the buildings backing onto the alley.
“Calm down, Jimmy,” Marg snorted. “It’s just a lovers’ argument.”
