Sleepless in Las Vegas

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“You were starting to say?” Jayne asked.

Val eased her shoulders back, took a deep breath...and jumped as the phone on her desk jangled.

They both looked at the caller ID.

“Local number,” Jayne said. “Might be that private investigator I spoke with this morning, but I need to discuss the situation with you first. Take a message,” she said, walking away, “then come to my office.”

Val picked up the receiver, wondering why Jayne had met with another P.I. Was it there that she’d cried? What could have affected tough, no-nonsense Jayne so deeply?

“Diamond Investigations,” she answered.

“Is this a, uh, private-investigations agency?”

No, it’s a jewelry inspection plant. “Yes.”

“I think my apartment is bugged. When I walk over to a certain wall, I hear this pinging sound...”

As the guy rattled on about suspecting that somebody, like maybe his landlord, was planting listening devices in his apartment, Val waited for him to pause so she could give the not-accepting-new-cases spiel. But he was on a roll, rambling on about beeps on his phone, a funny hole next to a ceiling light where somebody might have planted a camera...

Just as she was wondering how many a’s were in the word paranoia, the front door clicked open.

She looked up and nearly dropped the receiver.

Sunlight etched the dark silhouette that blocked the doorway. She couldn’t see the man’s features, but she recognized the bulk of his shoulders and his slouched, wary stance.

Drake.

How did he know she worked here?

“...and sometimes at night, there’s this squeaky noise in the kitchen,” the guy on the phone rambled on. “It almost sounds like tiny little fingernails scratching. What should I do?”

“Call an exterminator.” She watched Drake step inside and close the door, his eyes never leaving hers. He looked about as happy as a homicide detective arriving at a crime scene.

“I’m serious,” the guy said, his voice rising, “this is freaking scary!”

“Tell me about it.” She hung up.

As he walked toward her, her insides whirled like seagulls circling before a storm.

He wore the same crisp white shirt as last night, although it no longer looked crisp or white. Like his pants, it was wrinkled and creased with dirt. As he drew closer, she saw shadows under his eyes, a slash of grime on his chin, a ragged tear in his shirt.

He stopped, the muscles bunching in his jaw. His eyes were dull, flat. Not even a glimmer of the passion they’d shared last night. He towered over her desk like a vengeful, brooding Heathcliff, his appearance ragged and dirty as though he had walked through hell itself to get here.

Considering he reeked of smoke, maybe he had.

She swallowed almost convulsively as thoughts zigzagged through her mind. Had he followed her last night, this morning? Was he here to report that she’d played a honey trap? But the questions didn’t stack up. Something else had obviously happened, some ordeal that had nothing to do with her.

Be cool. Think.

They hadn’t ended on bad terms last night. In fact, they had ended on hot, excellent terms. A full-body clutch, a kiss in the works. If her phone hadn’t rung, the next moment would have been one smoldering, memorable lip meltdown.

Which meant...maybe he didn’t recognize her.

Compared to her sexpot look last night, today she could pass for a prison matron. Didn’t explain why he was here, but life was full of crazy coincidences.

“May I help you, sir?” She tried to flatten her speech to mask her New Orleans accent.

He gave her a look that made her insides shrivel. “I’m here to see Jayne,” he said in a low, rumbling tone.

“I’ll check if she’s available.”

But he was already heading to her boss’s office.

Despite her banging knees, she managed to stand. “You can’t go in there—”

“Like hell.”

The door shut behind him with a solid thud.

* * *

TEN MINUTES LATER, which felt like several lifetimes to Val, Jayne’s office door yawned open. The older woman stepped outside, a strained look on her face.

“I don’t want any walk-ins during our meeting,” she said, “so please lock the door, then come directly in here.” She retraced her steps.

Val stood, her heart racing, regretting last night as she had never regretted anything in her life. If only she had obeyed Jayne’s rule, if only she hadn’t been so greedy to take the cash, if only...

Her body felt drained of life force, yet somehow she managed to walk to the front door. She had hoped her new look had fooled him, but so much for that la-la dream. Now she seemed doubly dumb, first for conducting the honey trap, second for pretending she didn’t know the subject of the honey trap.

No, there was a third dumb move. She should have confessed to Jayne the instant she walked in. Spilled her guts, laid it all out, talked right through the rap music, the jangling phone. Now it appeared as though Val had been trying to hide her double-dealing.

After locking the door, she walked into Jayne’s inner sanctum. The room had always unnerved Val because it felt oddly remote. She had always chalked up her reaction to the cool, off-white walls and sparse decor consisting of a modern, glass-topped desk, two metal guest chairs and several silver-gray filing cabinets. The only real color was the soft jade-and-rose area rug and a painting of the San Francisco skyline, its heavens a mix of vibrant golds and blues.

Jayne sat behind her desk, fiddling with a fountain pen, turning it over and over like a slow-motion propeller blade. Drake leaned against the far wall, his arms folded imposingly across his chest, glowering at Val as though she were a bug he wanted to quash.

She stopped near a chair, but didn’t sit. Seemed more respectful to stand. Overhead, a ceiling fan quietly thumped, measuring out the painful moments.

For an unguarded moment, she returned Drake’s granite-hard stare. Damn, even the presidents on Mount Rushmore gave back warmer looks. Her gaze dropped to his downturned, sullen mouth and its sensuously curved bottom lip, and for a surreal instant, she remembered his large hands kneading her, his hot whispers turning her insides molten.