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The elderly woman eyed her suspiciously but stepped aside and motioned her in. Jenna had never actually been inside the apartment before, and she half expected to see a heart-shaped bed in the living room, mirrors on the ceiling, maybe a few pieces of emergency resuscitation equipment in case any of her lovers went into cardiac arrest at an inopportune moment.
What she saw instead was a two-room flat almost identical to her own, except for the matter of décor. Mrs. Lupinski had stopped decorating sometime in the late sixties, when she’d apparently been enamored with orange-and-green flower prints.
She pointed to a telephone next to the couch, and Jenna was surprised to note that it actually had a rotary dial. The feel of catching her shaky fingers in the small holes as she dialed 911 took her back to childhood for a fleeting moment, until an operator came on the line and she found herself recounting the relevant details of the break-in.
The operator warned her not to enter her apartment again until the police had secured it, so Jenna was stuck waiting for them to arrive in the company of Mrs. Lupinski. Luckily, her neighbor didn’t see any need for small talk. Without saying a word, she simply planted herself in front of the TV and watched with undivided attention the plight of Rafe and Savannah, a couple who seemed to be very upset over the resurrection of someone named Lucius.
Jenna, left to her own thoughts, didn’t want to consider what might be missing from her meager belongings. Nor did she want to contemplate whether the break-in was connected to her research of the pageant industry. If it was, and if her files were missing—
A sense of violation rose up in her chest. How could they? How could someone have taken her things, violated her privacy, stolen her work—the thing that mattered most to her?
It was bad enough that she’d taken to cowering behind her apartment door, afraid to venture out in public like a normal person. Now her home had been invaded, and she had nowhere to cower.
No, she had to stop thinking this way. This was exactly the kind of fear they wanted her to succumb to.
She shook herself mentally and her thoughts landed instead on Travis Roth. Where did he fit into this puzzle? Her gut told her he was telling the truth, and her libido told her he was an undeniable babe. But what if he were a hit man, hired to lure her away and kill her, then dump her body in a shallow grave? There was one way to find out, even if it meant calling her mother, Irene Calvert-Hathaway.
She picked up the phone again, dialed directory assistance, and went through the motions of placing a collect call to Palm Springs. Moments later, she heard her mother’s voice on the line. It should have been a comforting sound, in light of the circumstances.
“Mom, it’s Jenna.”
“What’s the matter, dear? Are you dead? Did you get thrown in jail?”
“No, Mom. If I were dead, I’d have trouble dialing the phone. My apartment was just broken into and I can’t go back in yet, but that’s not why I’m calling.”
She heard her mother’s put-upon sigh. “I told you not to move to that crazy city. Probably drug addicts—I’ve read how they steal things to support their habits.”
“I’m calling about Kathryn, actually. I hear she’s getting married.”
“To an absolutely magnificent man!” Her mother’s voice had changed from nagging to dreamy in an instant. “The wedding is in two weeks. I told Kathryn to send you an invitation, but the way you two fight…”
Yeah, yeah, whatever. No need to invite the black sheep of the family to the social event of the season. Kathryn probably couldn’t imagine her lowlife sister rubbing elbows with her country-club friends. Not that Jenna considered herself a lowlife, but she knew her lack of a six-figure income and her less than glamorous lifestyle were a major embarrassment to her family.
While Kathryn had stepped right into their mother’s social climbing footsteps, Jenna had never been much impressed by status symbols and excessive wealth. Her rejection of the material life was a constant source of discord between herself and her family, and Jenna imagined Kathryn and their mother shaking their heads and tut-tutting every time the subject of Jenna’s rattletrap car or seedy apartment came up.
“It doesn’t matter. Do you know anything about Travis Roth, the brother of Kathryn’s fiancé?”
She could almost see her mother’s surgically youthful eyes narrow. “Why do you ask, dear?”
“He, or someone claiming to be him, contacted me today.”
“About what?”
“First, tell me what you know about him,” Jenna said, already feeling relieved that at least there was a Travis Roth.
“I’ve only met him a few times, but he seemed like quite the gentleman. Handsome, too. He has a stellar reputation, from what I hear. Runs the investment branch of the Roth family empire, isn’t married, lives in Carmel near his brother and their parents.”
“What does he look like, exactly?”
“Tall, sandy blond hair, green eyes, nice physique, in his mid-thirties.”
“Do you happen to know if their family is connected to any beauty pageants?”
“No, and why on earth do you ask?”
“Never mind.” Jenna relaxed back onto the sofa, releasing a mental sigh of relief. It sounded as if her lunch companion wasn’t a fraud and knew nothing about the break-in.
“What are all these questions about?”
“I can’t say, but don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin Kathryn’s wedding or anything.”
Soon after Jenna ended the call with her mother, the police arrived, checked out her apartment, took statements from Jenna and Mrs. Lupinski and dusted for fingerprints. The biggest clue the police found was a note scrawled on the bathroom mirror in red lipstick that read, “Don’t write the story, bitch.”
The only story Jenna was working on was the beauty-pageant exposé, so she’d given the police all the information she could remember about whom she had contacted during her research and promised to let them know if she remembered anything else. They’d advised her to take some time off and leave town, maybe stay with family or friends, but to give them an address and phone number for wherever she went.
An hour after they’d left, Jenna sat alone in her ransacked apartment, nervous and depressed. Her laptop and all her files had indeed been stolen. She didn’t allow herself to think about the years of work that were now gone. Instead, she focused on the mess. She wandered around and around the small space surveying her once orderly surroundings.
And strangely, her thoughts kept going back to Travis Roth. His offer wasn’t sounding so outrageous, now that her normal life had suddenly turned into a bad dream she wanted to wake from. As if she hadn’t been scared enough before, now she knew for absolute sure that someone didn’t want her writing the beauty-pageant exposé.
Jenna twirled a strand of hair between her fingers in a nervous habit she’d engaged in since childhood. Any minute now, she figured her eye would start twitching, and then some outrageous behavior wouldn’t be far behind.
Her entire life, she’d always relieved tension by doing something wild. In elementary school, there’d been that incident with Mrs. Joliet’s desk chair right before the big Little Miss Twin America finals. In junior high, there had been the liberation of the science-class rats after her mother had filed for divorce from her father. In high school, there’d been the time she’d cut class and gone cruising with the biggest badass hunk in school, right before refusing to ever do another beauty pageant.
Later, she’d discovered a little fun in bed had the same effect. Preferably, outrageous fun in bed. And here she was with the greatest need for a tension reliever she’d ever had, and no boyfriend or even the prospect of one in sight.
Jenna sank onto her bed, fighting back the big melodramatic sob that threatened to escape her throat.
Not now, not when she had to think.
Two weeks and twenty-five thousand dollars. She’d get to leave town, forget about her own mess of a life for a little while. Maybe that would give the police enough time to catch the scumbag who’d just trashed her apartment. Or maybe not.
But she’d get to leave town. Even if it meant impersonating her sister, perpetrating a fraud, it was an offer she couldn’t turn down now.
And maybe the offer had advantages she hadn’t even considered yet. She envisioned Travis Roth in all his tall, blond, broad-shouldered, suntanned glory. Maybe a few weeks in close proximity to him was just what she needed…and maybe a little negotiating was called for.
She smiled, and an outrageous impulse came bubbling up from her subconscious.
Negotiations, yes.
Something to take her mind off her worries. Something to remind her that she was still Jenna, still in control of her own destiny.
Something wild.
Yes.
A calm settled over her for the first time since she’d laid eyes on her ransacked apartment, and an idea formed in her head. An outrageous idea, guaranteed to make her forget her problems, sure to dwarf all the other outrageous stunts she’d pulled over the years.
She withdrew Travis’s business card from her pocket and stared at it. After a few moments and a silent prayer, Jenna dialed his number.
TRAVIS HAD DECIDED to drop in on an old college friend at his office downtown before leaving the city. He was just starting the car, wondering what his next step with regard to Jenna should be, when his cell phone rang.
“Travis Roth,” he answered.
“It’s Jenna Calvert. I’ve been thinking about your offer, and I may have changed my mind.”
“So you’re willing to help?”
“Maybe. I have a condition of my own I’d like to discuss, in person.”
“Of course. I’m open to negotiating.”
“I’d like you to come here to my apartment and pick me up, if you don’t mind.” She sounded almost…scared. And far less sure of herself than she had a few hours earlier.
“Is something wrong? You sound upset.”
She expelled a strained laugh. “You’ll see when you get here.”
“I’m just leaving downtown, so I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes if traffic is light.”
Travis pressed the end call button on his phone with no small sense of satisfaction. Mission accomplished. Now there was some hope of saving the wedding from ruin, once they’d overcome the next big obstacle—transforming Jenna into an exact copy of her polished, elegant sister.
No matter how daunting the task, it had to be done, and quickly—without any more getting distracted by sexual attraction. Travis drove back to Jenna’s apartment reviewing the necessary steps in his head and trying damn hard not to be thrilled at the thought of a weekend alone with the redheaded vixen.
Before they returned to Carmel, he’d be taking her to a house among the vineyards of Napa Valley, where he’d have the privacy to school Jenna on Kathryn’s life without raising any eyebrows. But for the life of him, he couldn’t stop the images of other things they might do alone at the country estate from invading his thoughts.
There was the matter of the condition Jenna mentioned placing on helping him, but whatever it was, he couldn’t imagine it being much of a problem. More money? He’d pay it. A new car? Consider it done. A nicer apartment? She clearly had the need for one.
The central San Francisco neighborhood where Jenna lived was an urban jungle of decrepit Victorians, tenement apartment buildings and seedy business fronts. The people who walked the streets weren’t the sort who hung out at wine-tasting parties or attended charity art auctions. Rather, many looked as though their favorite forms of entertainment might get them arrested.
Travis questioned his own sanity when he found a spot on the street for the second time that day and maneuvered his Mercedes into it. His car had gathered plenty of looks as he’d driven along, and now he’d be lucky if it were still here when he returned. He activated the security system and hoped there weren’t any smart car thieves around.
The door of Jenna’s building was propped open with a brick, so he went inside and climbed the stairs to her apartment. After knocking on the door, he took time to note the peeling paint on the door frame, the worn hardwood floors, the dingy walls. Jenna’s landlord needed to do some building maintenance, that was for sure.
After several minutes, there was still no answer, and Travis fought the sneaking feeling of panic in his gut that Jenna had changed her mind. He knocked again and waited some more. No one came.
He tried knocking harder, then heard a door open on the floor above.
“You trying to get in to see that red-haired girl?” A woman’s voice called down.
Travis looked up the stairs toward the source of that voice, but all he could see was the landing, lit by what must have been a twenty-five-watt bulb.
“Um, yes,” he said.
Then came the sound of footsteps, and the sight of fuzzy pink house slippers descending the stairs. Next came a red satin robe, and finally he had a full view of a small elderly woman with green curlers in her hair.
“She told me to let you in,” she said, eyeing him with interest. “I’m supposed to ask what your name is.”
“Travis Roth.”
“Yep, you fit the description.”
“Did she have somewhere to go?”
“Don’t ask me what that crazy girl’s up to.” She put a key in the door, unlocked it, then presented the key to him.
“I’m supposed to give this to you so’s you can return it to her.”
Travis took the key, then stared at it in his palm, dumbfounded.
“You get finished with her,” the woman said, “and I’m available right upstairs.” She waggled her eyebrows at him and flashed what must have been her version of a seductive smile.
“Thanks,” he said, forcing a neutral expression. “I appreciate your help.” He pushed the door open and stepped inside Jenna’s apartment before their encounter could get any more bizarre.
“The thing about us older women you can’t get with a young one like that,” she said, nodding in the direction of Jenna’s apartment, “is that we know more.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Honey, I could play your body like an accordion.”
Travis shuddered at the image.
“Have a good night,” he said as he closed and locked the door.
Turning away from it, he looked around the small room. Jenna was nowhere in sight, much as he’d expected, but the sound of running water came from behind a nearby door. Light was visible in the space between the door and the floor, so he figured Jenna had decided to take a shower.
He took in the mess that surrounded him. Either Jenna Calvert was a lousy housekeeper and a woman with violent feelings toward her sofa, or someone had trashed her place. But, if there had been a break-in, maybe even a struggle, it could have only just happened. Maybe Jenna wasn’t even alive and well in the shower. An image of her murdered body being soaked in a bloody shower flashed in his mind, and he panicked.
“Jenna!” He raced to the bathroom door and flung it open.
There, behind the transparent shower curtain, was the unmistakable silhouette of Jenna’s body, standing up, seemingly alive and well. He couldn’t help admiring the perfect proportions, the tantalizing curve where her waist met her hips. Steam from the shower dampened his face, and he caught the scent of her shampoo, something feminine and fruity.
“Jenna? It’s me, Travis.”
She peeked out from the edge of the curtain and smiled. “Oh, hi. You got here faster than I thought you would.”
Even the sight of her bare shoulder and her crimson hair, slicked back away from her face, aroused Travis. He’d definitely been working too hard lately, neglecting his social life, because instantly, he had a hard-on.
Cardiac arrest was the only appropriate reaction to what she did next. As Travis struggled to keep his jaw from sagging, she slid the curtain open and smiled a wicked half smile.
“Care to join me?” she asked, her tone playful, but her gaze leveled at him with a look of absolute daring.
There was simply no way not to look. He admired the full, round perfection of her damp breasts, the small pink nipples forming tight peaks; the narrow expanse of her waist; the incongruous but tantalizing triangle of blond curls at the peak of her thighs; the delicious shape of her long legs. Not a tattoo in sight. Rivulets of water formed all over her skin, and the only coherent thought Travis could form was that he wanted to lick them off.
Finally, he recovered the ability to speak. “It’s a tempting offer….”
She sighed. “But you don’t think it would be appropriate.”
“Um…” Surely he could say something more profound than “um,” but nothing came to mind.
