Pauline Baird Jones

Chapter One

I'd never have gotten mixed up in the first murder if Mrs. Macphearson hadn't caught the flu, but I can't blame her for a capricious fate rolling the "who's turn is it to be smitten?" dice and my name--Isabel Stanley--coming up.

Isabel. Picture someone petite, fragile, done in soft pastels, lusciously formed and you'll know how I don’t look. Most people find it less stressful to call me Stan, when faced with a reality that is tall, lots of leg, and colored in brown and paste . . . with crayon.

Don't get me wrong. Being darn near invisible isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. Ask my sister Rosemary about her ex. Just be sure to do it from a safe distance. Calling her spitting mad isn't an exercise in the theoretical.

I used to be a safe distance from her and my mother until six months ago when my instinct for survival got swamped by guilt because my sister's divorce happened to coincide with our dad’s abrupt exit from this mortal coil. Since my livelihood is done with computer and sketch pad for the benefit of slightly dysfunctional children, I was able to make the move from New Orleans to Arlington, Virginia almost painlessly.

Painless isn’t possible with my mother in the mix. She’s a fundamentalist Baptist and thinks that giving life and voice to a roach named Cochran, no matter how spunky and cute, is just tacky. That it pays very well only adds insult to her imagined injury.

With that attitude, there's no way I’m telling her about my secret yearning to add romance writing to my roach credits. It won’t be an issue for some time. Romance novels are harder to write than they look and being raised by said Fundamental Baptist isn't the best preparation for writing love scenes.

Not too surprisingly, our dysfunctional little family was rubbing along about as smoothly as chalk on a blackboard when Mrs. Macphearson got the flu, sending my life screeching off into a dangerous and embarrassing new direction.

I had no premonition of impending danger when I said I'd fill in for Mrs. M during the youth choir practice. I like playing the organ and they have hot chocolate afterwards. Gourmet hot chocolate. They have to. It's January in our tiny suburb of DC and our church is old and cold. If circulation isn't restored quickly, maiming is inevitable.

Since I have an aversion to getting maimed and my blood was thoroughly thinned by my residence down South, I dressed for the impending arctic conditions. Starting with thermals, I worked my way out to jeans and a woolly mammoth sweater, finishing with snow socks and boots. I pulled my hair back in its usual braid and brushed artificial roses to a bloom along my unremarkable cheekbones. When I could do no more, I collected coat, hat and gloves, and opened the door that separated my over-the-garage apartment-by-Goodwill from my sister's House Beautiful.

Though Rosemary and I started from the same fertilized egg, she is able to manage her assets better than me . . . with the notable exception of Dag Kenyon, scum bag of the universe and the husband who came, screwed her over and went.

Down in the kitchen I found into my mother watching the war on CNN. I knew I would. Just like I knew her meticulously plucked brows would make that arc into her gray fringe when she saw my clothing choice. "Slacks for church, Isabel?"

"It's cold and I’m allergic to frostbite." I bent to root through the refrigerator for pickles.

"You'll reek of pickle if you use your fingers like that. Reverend Hilliard particularly dislikes pickles."

Pickle jar in hand, I looked up in time to catch the match-making gleam in her eye. Surely she wasn't that desperate to remove the stain of singleness from my name?

What was I thinking? Of course she was that desperate. The only thing she wanted more than my marriage to a testosterone carrier was Rosemary's ex-husband castrated and forced to live out his life as an impotent handyman for a women's sorority.

She's still got some work to do on the forgiveness thing.

"How could anyone hate pickles?" Holding her avid gaze with my limpid one, I deliberately submerged my hand in the jar, then wiped the pungent residue down the side of my jeans. If I had to, I'd hang dill around my neck to keep him away. No way I was getting intimate with a guy that close to God.

"Maybe her tight jeans will distract him from the smell," my sister Rosemary said from the doorway, with a shadowed smile. Suffering agreed with her. Our mutual assets still looked better hanging from her bones than they ever had from mine.

"They are very tight," my mother began.

Luckily for me the telephone rang and dislocated the conversation. Before any of us could answer it, Rosemary's eldest daughter, Candice swirled into the room and scooped up the receiver. Telephone answering is the only known benefit of having a thirteen year old in the house.

"Jeez, it's for you, Stan." She thrust the telephone at me like I'd committed a crime, then vanished like a comet, leaving a shimmering trail of hormones quivering in the air to mark her passage.

My mother stared at the place where Candice had been for a moment, then turned to look down her nose at me. "I wish you wouldn't encourage the children to call you Stan. Isabel is a lovely name."

No one needed encouragement to call me Stan, but I didn't waste breath pointing this out. "Hello?"

"Isabel?"

No one except Muir Kenyon who would be at the top of my mother's potential husband list, purely because of his lukewarm interest in me if he weren't also the brother of Rosemary's ex-husband. It's all very awkward but Muir is so clue-less he hasn't figured that out yet.

"Hello, Muir."

"I was wondering if you would care to join me for a cup of hot chocolate this evening? I wrote this new computer program I'd like to show you." Muir's monotone droning in my ear barely registered until he mentioned chocolate.

Somehow Muir has realized I love hot chocolate like hobbits love mushrooms, while totally missing the fact that I hate to hear about his computer programs.

"Gee, I'm sorry, Muir. Reverend Hilliard asked me to play the organ for youth choir tonight."

"Well, that shouldn't last long. It's a school night, isn't it? Can we meet afterwards? I designed this program myself--"

"I don't think so."

"I'll call you tomorrow then."

He would, too. It was depressing, but I didn't have time to dwell on it. I had to leave before I compounded my sins by being late. I hung up the telephone and shrugged on my jacket, while surreptitiously examining Rosemary from under my lashes. She seemed to be in a fairly good mood.

"Could I borrow your Mercedes, Rose? My car was raised in New Orleans and doesn't know how to put out heat."

She frowned. Rosemary is a trifle possessive with her things. When we were kids in nursery school she used to spend the whole playtime with her toys stacked in the corner, guarding them from forays by other kids. Time has not modified this tendency much. Added to the equation is my tendency to sometimes daydream while I drive, even occasionally ending up somewhere other than where I intended. Which doesn't mean I've put a scratch on anything--of hers.

I watched her struggle between her protective passion for the car she'd wrested from her husband in the divorce settlement and the lowering knowledge she needed me to drive carpool in the morning because she had a class in glue gun technique.

"The keys are in my purse. Just be careful," she muttered.

"I'll treat it like it was my own."

Her brows shot up. "Not good enough."

"None of those accidents were my fault," I protested. "New Orleans is an automotive Bermuda Triangle!"

"One scratch--"

"Cross my heart and hope to die if I don't take care of your precious car." How lightly I said those words as I pulled on my wool fedora, tugging it down over my ears. How fate must have chortled (what does a chortle sound like anyway?) while my mother tsk-tsked and adjusted the hat to a more suitable angle on my head. When she was satisfied, she gave my cheek a pat that was partly fond, partly annoyed, and let me escape out the door for my rendezvous with destiny.

As soon as I was out of her sight, I jerked my hat down again. It was cold and I'm a grownup who can do what she likes when her mother isn't looking.

#

When the youthful hallelujahs faded into the frigid halls, I followed the hormonal herd to the kitchen for my earthly reward: the promised gourmet hot chocolate fix. At first the brew was too hot to drink, so I wrapped my hands around my cup, letting the warmth sink into my chilled fingers while I sniffed the fragrant, heavenly steam. After a time, I blew on the surface, took a tentative sip, then closed my eyes and savored the rich bouquet, the hint of hazel nut--

"Stanley!" Jerome Jeffries, youthfully oblivious to the finer nuances of hot chocolate consumption, pulled me to one side. "We got us a job!"

I guess this is where I admit I play keyboard in a band. Jerome, cuter than Val Kilmer, a mere twenty years old, and the guiding light of the band, recruited me shortly after I moved home. It wasn’t hard. I let myself be briefly dazzled with visions of jiving to "Wild Thing" or "I Love Rock'n Roll."

Very briefly.

Jerome had his sights set on becoming another Harry Connick, Jr. I thought we should call ourselves "Sad," but Jerome liked "Star Dust" better. So did my mother, who also pointed out that I was too old for such nonsense. I told her that actually I was too young.

For this reason, I greeted Jerome's announcement of a new gig with some wariness.

"Please tell me it's not another anniversary?" Anniversaries made my mother start digging up blind dates. Didn't matter to her that there were good reasons these guys were still single. Scary reasons.

"This is totally not an anniversary." His mouth curved into a grin that could have taught Tom Cruise a thing or two about grinning.

"It's a rally in support of the troops of Desert Storm at Grant Park! You won't believe this, but we've been asked to play back-up for the one and only Lee Greenwood!"

I waited a moment, but he didn't grin again.

"Lee Greenwood! Wow!" I paused. "Who's Lee Greenwood?"

Jerome laughed like I had told a great joke. Laughing kinked the area around his eyes, his mouth and my mid-section. I sipped my chocolate, the scientific equivalent of pouring gasoline on a fire. I tugged at the collar of my sweater. Perhaps the thermals were a mistake.

Tommy, our bass guitarist and dead ringer for Tom Cruise, mistook this for a summons and joined us. Okay, so it wasn't just the long held dream of playing in a band that made me agree to play bubble music on my weekends. I'm a Baptist, not a saint.

After more exclamations of mutual delight, we agree to get together before the rally to rehearse. I downed the last of my chocolate as I watched them leave, almost reeling when the combined heat of their cute and gourmet chocolate surged into my face, making my eyebrows sizzle and emit steam. Not content with sizzle, the heat spread out, seeking those parts of my body encased in thermal and wool. Time to get cool.

I headed for the door, but got cut off at the pass by Reverend Hilliard. I was starting to sweat buckets while the overhead lights put a halo around his cool blonde hair. He smiled at me, two rows of gleaming, reverential teeth that nearly blinded me. The guy looked like he'd been born with the clerical collar around his neck.

I fought back a sudden urge to repent of my recent lusting.

"I can't thank you enough for helping us out, Miss Stanley. I pray it didn't disarrange you too much?"

He probably had prayed. Scary thought.

"It was no problem. I'm glad to help out the kids."

He smiled again, upping my guilt level dangerously.

I quickly added, "I really have to be going. I have Rosemary's car and she likes it home by ten."

He looked at me uncertainly. I took this for consent and fled. Outside the cold air sizzled against my hot cheeks. In another moment I’d spontaneously combust. I quickly stripped off the jacket, hat and gloves, tossing them into the back seat, then slid in and started the motor. The heater blew cold. Before it could change its mind, I switched it to cold vent and opened the sunroof, welcoming the combined rush of frigid air across my gently steaming face and neck.

Earlier, snow had mixed with rain. Clouds still obscured the stars, but the air was now dry and empty. In the fitful light of the street lamps, the road gleamed slick and empty. I drove cautiously, enjoying the feel of fresh air, sweet solitude --a rare commodity in our over stocked household--and a great car to drive.

Pleasantly tired and full of chocolate, I drove in auto-pilot, my thoughts drifting to my current romance novel with its impending love scene that I still didn't know how to write.

"Get a better imagination or a lover, Stan," my agent had advised, the one time I’d let her read a draft.

"Maybe I should get a new agent," I muttered. About then I saw the stop sign and hit the brakes. Across the intersection, an unfamiliar street retreated into murk, lit only by the faint glow of the street lamps.

"Great." I’d done it again. I crossed the intersection, straining to read the signs. The names were vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place myself relative to home--

To my right, several firecrackers went off, one right after the other.

Then a man burst through the bay window of a house.

Chapter Two

At the sight of him, my mind switched to automatic stupor. With Orphan Annie eyes, I watched flying glass shards sparkling in the fitful light, a deadly rain showering the fast moving figure doing a movie stunt man roll across the ground. He sprang to his feet in a crouch, a cornered animal caught against the faint shimmer of wet grass.

More fireworks, no shots.

Gunshots, I realized with numb horror. They spurted from the shattered window as the man darted for the street, his coat billowing out behind him like Count Dracula's cape.

Automatic reflex took my foot from gas to brake. On a subliminal level I knew I didn't want to drive into a shoot out. More shots. The man vaulted onto a car parked by the curb. I drew level, lost sight of him. Heard a thud. The car rocked.

What the--

Moonlight filtering down through the sunroof was abruptly blotted out. With a sense of foreboding, I looked up just in time to get a face full of him as he slid through the narrow sun roof head first, his entrance into the car hastened by my instinctive stomp on the brakes.

My mother had waited a long time for a man to fall into my lap, but I don't think this was what she had in mind.

Enveloped in his coat and buffeted by his knees, the muffled sound of gunshots came closer. I heard him shout, "Get us the hell out of here!"

Of course. Get out of here. I applied pressure to the gas.

I should have waited until I could see.

We rocketed down the street. At least I hoped it was the street. Adrenaline kept pace with acceleration. I clawed at the coat over my face in literal blind panic, which gave way to clear-sighted panic when I emerged into light and air just in time to narrowly miss a parked Volvo.

The street looped in a U-turn. Rosemary's car didn't. A jolt up over the curb. Passed through a neat, little hedge. Winter-bare branches flying in all directions. A porch loomed into view.

A porch!

I cranked frantically on the wheel. The car bucked the turn. I knew why. My foot was on the gas. Knowing didn't help me lighten up. Grass and twigs sprayed in a graceful arc as the bushes that fronted the porch scraped the full length of Rosemary's car.

I wailed my dismay as the car blasted through the hedge on the other side of the yard, then lurched across the driveway in the narrow space between a parked station wagon and a tree.

Though concerned with my own plight, I was still aware of my unexpected passenger. Impossible not to be aware of him when he was using my nose as leverage for his foot. The other foot was still sticking out the sunroof. An unknown part of his mid-section was draped over the gear shift severely hampering my efforts to steer around trees, garbage cans, and bicycles.

I heard him gasp when the car bounced down the curb, helping me to pinpoint which part of his anatomy was draped. I really wanted to help him out--or off--but my brain wasn't getting through to my foot. Instead of slowing, the car picked up speed until the headlights illuminated a red stop sign.

Habit took over from there. The sudden change in direction made the car shriek in protest. My brain echoed the shriek when my head bounced off the steering wheel a couple of times. We slued left. Then right. The ring of stars circling my head did the same, only opposite.

Car and stars stopped. Car was resting against the curb next to the stop sign. The stars settled into my head and became a crown of ouch.

My first feeling was relief.

I wasn't dead.

Rosemary's car was okay.

My passenger took his shoe out of my nose and climbed off the gear shift, bringing back to my attention the fact that I wasn't alone.

I was sharing car space with a man someone had been shooting at. Rosemary's passion for this car was directly related to how much her ex had hated to lose it in the divorce settlement, so retreat was not an option and I had no weapon.

I did take a self-defense course once. Cute instructor. Distractingly cute. All I could remember from the night was his ass, something about defensive posture and making a lot of noise. I couldn't see how noise would help here, so I straightened my shoulders. It hurt.

"You all right?" he asked.

He didn't sound dangerous. Careful about what I moved because I don't do pain that well, I looked at my sun-roof diver.

The light wasn't too bad to see him.

He wasn't too bad to look at.

Cute in a classy, upwardly mobile, dazed yuppie kind of way. Couldn't see his eyes because he was grimacing as he straightened his body into the standard, upright position in the seat. The nose between the eyes was straight and true in a cleanly sculpted face. The hair was good, both in cut and color. The streetlight found some blonde highlights buried in brown and illuminated them to a pleasing glow.

He had to be at least six feet tall because he sat higher in the seat than me and I was five-nine in my stocking feet. His coat-covered shoulders filled all available space, while a heady male scent tightened my chest and turned my breathing almost languorous.

Practically a romance novel moment. Perhaps some mental note taking was in order, just in case I survived the encounter?

He sighed, relaxing the grim straightness of his mouth to a weary pout that warmed my insides like gourmet hot chocolate.

This was a dangerous man, possibly very dangerous, I realized with an un-Baptist-like thrill.

Unease quivered in the pit of my tum. I wasn't scared and I should be. I should be very scared.

"Get out." I sounded so firm, I startled myself.

He brushed his hair back off the broad, proud expanse of his forehead, seemed surprised to find hand and head still there. With another grimace, he turned and showed me his eyes.

I wasn't ready for them. Or him. Every nerve ending in my body came to attention. I think some of them saluted. Was that a hallelujah chorus I heard? Some violins? No one, no man should be allowed to have eyes so round and spaced for maximum impact. Framed by curving, winged brows of sable and these ridiculously long lashes.

Cool. Blue. Sounded tame, but his eyes weren't tame. They were wild, with the kind of cool that burned straight down to the quivering hearts and souls of innocents. He probably walked through life on broken hearts strewn in his path by virgins. Vestal and non-Vestal.

I didn't want to give him mine. I tried to look away.

I couldn't.

I wanted to climb in his eyes and drown.

He pushed his hair back again. "Look, I'm sorry about this, but we've got to get away from here. Now."

His voice set shivers down my spine. His words loosed a horde of questions in my head. Get away from what? Then I realized he was looking at me like I was the dangerous one.

He continued with an attractive urgency, "They'll come after us. I'd better drive. The odds are already against us."

"Really?" He wasn't that attractive. Outrage gathered my scattered senses in from the four corners of my brain. "You'll drive this car when hell freezes--"

"Look, love." Without warning, he was in my space, his hands on my shoulders, his face so close I could see the smooth texture of his skin and smell him, not his after shave. He smelled good. "There's no time. We go or we die."

Now, when it was too late, I felt the undercurrent beneath his yummy, civilized surface. The yuppie had a dark side and I was in his way. Fear spiked faster than lust. I went from hot to cold in the space of a single heartbeat.

"Don't hurt me. Please."

I hated how begging I sounded, but at least he quit gripping my shoulders. One hand drifted up to cup my cheek. Heat bloomed where he touched, sending impossible comfort to battle fear.

"Sweetheart, I'm trying to save you."

I shouldn't believe him, but I did. Not that it mattered what I believed. He was in the car. I was at his mercy. I dug deep, times like this it paid to be my mother's daughter, and probed his eyes again, this time looking for sincerity. He did sincere really good. I wanted, no, I needed to believe him. If his dark side was gonna mow me down, I didn't want to see it coming.

"What do you want me to do?" My dry whisper sounded distant and kind of hollow.

His smile was relieved and as dangerous as bullets to one in my vulnerable state. The bastard had a dimple. I didn't whimper, but only because my throat was too dry.

"If you'll stand up, I'll slide under you--"

Slide? Surely he wasn't planning to scale the gear shift again?

"You're kidding. Aren't you? Why don't we just open our doors, get out, walk around--" His brows arched in an unspoken query. Suddenly I was on the same page he was. "You think I'll drive away and leave you?"

"If you trust me, open your door and get out," he said, a thread of amusement in his husky voice that made my toes curl under. His unruly hair fell forward again, forming into a question mark on his forehead.

I almost did. Without a thought to what Rosemary would do to me. Luckily I had some pride and my sense of humor to keep me in place. It was his future offspring on the line, not mine.

"I'll just--" I looked up, then reached up and hooked my fingers over the open edge of the sunroof. His hands, warm and strong, went around my waist, providing extra boost. A pity the boost got blunted when my bones turned to rubber.

"Can you pull your legs clear?" he asked.

I tried to concentrate, but it wasn't easy. My touched-deprived nerve endings were doing the dance of joy while I worked my legs clear of the steering wheel. With only minimal skin loss, I got one foot on the armrest attached to the door, the other on the steering wheel and pulled until my head emerged into crisp night air. I tried to look down.

"Can you get under me now?" I asked.

I heard a muffled grunt that could have meant anything and felt some movement--which did nothing to bring down my overall body temperature, despite large gulps of cold air. Gravity was sending out an insistent summons that was getting harder and harder to ignore. Sweaty palms weren't doing that well against the wet, slick surface of the roof. The steering wheel wasn't locked and the armrest wasn't that wide. A precarious situation on all fronts.

I heard a shrill woof. What now?

Oh great. An excitable dust mop dog was doing a "job" on the corner lawn. At the other end of his leash was an old man staring at me with shocked pleasure. I smiled weakly and tried to look casual and innocent as I scrabbled on the roof top for a better grip.

I didn't want to live down to his expectations, but it was no use. Like Orpheus, I was descending, whether I wanted to or not. I caught my passenger just as he was mounting the gear shift.

I'll never forget the sound he made.

Or the whimper he gave when I crawled off him and onto the passenger seat. Moving like an old man, he finished his descent into the driving position. I opened my mouth to apologize, saw a minivan careen around the corner in an ominous manner and turned the apology into a warning wail of dismay.

Apparently warning wail was a language he was familiar with. In a heartbeat, he shook off the blow to his male pride, put the car in gear and hit the gas. We accelerated with a squeal that left the panting dust mop and open-mouthed old man in the dust.

Behind us the minivan miscreants opened fire. The bullets thudded into Rosemary's car. Fear thudded into my heart. Why, oh why had I crossed my heart and hoped to die? I was so far up the creek, I should just beat myself to death with the paddle and been done with it. If the minivan shooter didn't plug me, Rosemary would. With her glue gun.

We sped through the quiet neighborhood, the street lights blurring to a ribbon of gold in our wake. Corners were taken on two wheels.

I turned to protest his wanton car abuse, but when I looked at him protest dried up in my throat. My heart pounded with fright and a complicated longing to be someone daring enough to go with the moment. And with the man. I was the only thing that didn't fit. Questions rose, like tiny bubbles breaking on the surface of my mind. I even opened my mouth to ask him--

And snapped it closed again. In books and the movies, knowing what was going on was a Bad Thing. Of course, so was speeding through the suburbs at a million miles an hour.

A straight stretch of road let him give me a quick, assessing glance. I pointedly buckled my seat belt.

"Look, Mr.--?"

"Kapone. Kelvin Kapone."

"Ca--" I swallowed dryly, "--pone?"

"Ka-pone," he corrected, "with a 'K.' No relation to Al."

I managed a weak laugh. "Of course not."

Just because we were being chased through a subdivision by armed maniacs in a minivan was no reason to assume that it was because his name was Ka-pone.

He made a quick turn, the rear wheels shrieking across the pavement, a short burst forward, then another turn onto a long, straight street that paralleled the park I walk my dog in. It was strangely comforting to find myself in familiar territory.

The car suddenly slowed and I looked at Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K in alarm. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." His gaze roved between the road ahead and the rear view reflection of the minivan.

"We're slowing down. They'll catch up with us." I tried not to sound shrill, but it wasn't easy. I felt shrill.

"I know. I'm gonna force them off the road."

"How--" But I already knew. I'd seen the movies with their disposable Hollywood cars. "Not with my sister's car!"

As if I hadn't spoken, he eased Rosemary's car into the center lane. The minivan jumped like a dog smelling blood and swung over to my side. I was caught in a waking, slow motion nightmare. Frozen in horror, I stared in the side mirror at the steadily gaining minivan.

Then I didn't need the mirror. Fake wood veneer trim and pea green paint pulled into my peripheral vision. Above the veneer an open window framed the driver.

He had a gun.

It was pointed at me.

Behind the round, dark barrel was a shadowy figure with a round, hairless head, round mouth and round eyes. I tried to become one with my seat as Rosemary's car began to veer toward the van.

I don't remember lunging for the wheel, just found my hands around it. I jerked it. We careened across the street and up the curb into the park. He yelled as he fought the skid across the winter brown grass of the park. A ghostly skeleton rose like a ghost in the night. A jungle gym set. Kelvin yelled again. Something that might have been obscene. I yelled, too. Something definitely obscene.

He pulled madly on the wheel. I pressed feet against a brake I wished I had. We missed the jungle gym by inches and skidded through the uprights of a swing set. The rubber swings scraped across the roof, banging briefly in the open top. I don't know how he managed to avoid wrapping the car around the supports.

He looked dazed. "Can we get back to the street this way?"

"Yes," I gasped, "just past the airplane--"

"Airplane?" The headlights grazed the edge of it.

"Mem-or-i-al--" The word bounced with the car as we crossed a lumpy area in the grass. Something to do with earthworms, according to my mother. Bounce turned into a skid. Kelvin straightened the car and looked at me.

I looked back, thought I saw something square and gray in the grass. "What was that?"

"I think it was cement."

"Cement?" The headlights of the minivan bobbed in our wake, then went side ways as it hit the patch. We descended to the street with a neck wrenching lurch, then he punched it, throwing me back against the seat as the car surged forward.

"Time to lose those clowns."

We had a slight lead and he took advantage of it, executing a series of lightening, frightening turns that finished in a dark driveway. He pulled deep into the shadows beneath a stand of trees and shut off the engine. Something wet landed on me. I looked up. The sunroof was still open. It was snowing again. Through the opening, there came the unmistakable sound of an approaching vehicle.

"Is it--them?" I huddled down in the seat. Let the elements come as long as the bad guys didn't.

"Maybe."

What, he couldn't trot out a comforting lie?

His arm brushed against mine, his clothes rustling. He pulled something from inside his coat, something that gleamed dull and dangerous in the deep darkness. He held it up and checked the cartridge, slid it back into the base, loaded a bullet into the chamber, then settled back in the seat, his face turned toward the street.

A sheen of sweat gave definition to the determined angle of his jaw. His eyes glimmered with a deadly light that was comforting until a tremor passed like quicksilver along his jaw. He swallowed. Shook his head, then rubbed his eyes like they hurt him. Or he couldn't see.

A glacier of fear formed along my spine. The hand holding the gun quivered, then started to shake. He rubbed his face. The van slowly idled closer to our hiding place. He shuddered, his body hunching over as if in pain. "Sorry--"

He slumped against the door.

The hand holding the gun went slack.

The thunk of it against the floor coincided perfectly with the arrival of something at the foot of the driveway.

Chapter Three

My life started to flash before my eyes, but right away I got bogged down coming up with explanations for some things that God might not understand. Above the frantic thump of my heart I heard the hum of an engine. The metallic creak of an opening door was followed by the scrape of cowboy boots against pavement.

I abandoned explanations and went for the gun.

As I groped across his unconscious body, snowflakes drifted down, settling on my exposed neck like tiny, icy fingers that quickly turned into rivulets trickling down my back. Fear made a knot in my stomach above the spot the gear shift was digging into.

If I got out of this alive, I wasn't driving manual again.

It took me a moment to register wet warmth against my face. A sickly sweet smell. Even before I lifted my head for a look, I knew what I'd find. He just wasn't the type to pass out from fright.

Blood. He was bleeding--

The sudden blast of light was startling, painful even after the near black I'd been straining to peer through. Had a heavenly apparition appeared to save me?

Only if the angel was disguised as a skinny, bald guy in a bathrobe holding a shotgun. He peered into the dark outside his stoop, his hands working the firing mechanism. Cowboy boots didn't linger to see if the bald guy was serious. He just scuttled back down the driveway.

I didn't have time to enjoy relief or wonder why the old guy didn't point his gun our way. My companion was bleeding to death all over my sister's car. Because it was tradition, I mentally ran down the list of what I was wearing that could be converted to a bandage.

Bra was out. Dispensable, but minuscule. Non-absorbent sweater. That left my thermals.

It didn't take long to shed the top and apply it to his manly chest. I had to use my chin to hold it in place while I shoved both my arms and its sleeves behind his back and knotted the sleeves.

Unfortunately he started to stir while my arms were still wrapped around him. I opened my mouth to babble an explanation, but only managed a squeak before he reciprocated the wrapping of arms and upped the stakes by nuzzling my neck with his mouth.

I would have struggled, but I was so shocked. Then, well, the feel of his mouth on my skin, his warm breath stirring the tendrils of my hair felt kind of--good. Besides, if I struggled it might loosen the makeshift bandage. Not struggling was the right thing to do.

It was darn near noble.

And good for my career as a romance writer. Just couldn't buy this kind of experience. At least, I didn't think so.

"Ummmm," he murmured, the pleasure sound came from deep in his throat, "you taste good."

"Really?" Trembling heat from his mouth tangled with trailing chills from the snowflakes drifting through the sunroof onto my exposed neck. It would have been better without the gear shift digging into my bladder, but sin had a price tag.

Sweet sin.

He found a particularly sensitive spot just under my ear and proceeded to nibble there, temporarily overpowering the effect of the flakes and the gear shift. My bones dissolved, like an Alka-Seltzer in water, swirling around, tickling my insides with aching pleasure. His mouth moved higher, tasting and tantalizing, on a collision course with my unfortunately eager mouth. I pursed my lips in preparation--

Instead of lip locking, he looked up, taking away warm and letting chill back in.

I un-pursed and swallowed a whine--not enough air for any sound--and looked up, too. A fat, wet snowflake got me in the eye.

"It's snowing." His voice was a husky murmur, setting off a landslide of shivers along my spine.

"No kidding." I blinked away the blur. He was quiet, but I could hear his mental wheels starting to crank up again. This seemed a good time to deny complicity in the embrace. "Could you let me go? The gear shift is giving me another navel."

His hands fell away. "What--"

Back in my cold seat, I shifted uncomfortably. "I was just trying to bandage your wound and you got--confused--"

Incredibly, he produced a slight smile that gave me back a measure of warm. "What happened to the van?"

"Oh. They left. This bald guy in a bathrobe scared them off."

"I see." He didn't sound like he did, but that didn't stop him from reaching for the keys. "Let's get out of here."

I covered his hand.

"This time I drive," I said. "I'm more likely to stay conscious." We didn't talk about trust, just traded places the usual way. The walk around the car cost him. He faded out on me before I got the car started. The drive to the hospital seemed endless. I was so worried about him, I almost didn't see the minivan lurking in the shadows.

Instinct took over. I'd watched too much TV not to know how dangerous a hospital is to someone being stalked by killers. That left my vet, who is at least a doctor.

I met Mike Lang when I adopted Addison over the stringent objections of my mother. She doesn't like anything that licks its butt or smells hers. Mike doesn't seem to mind either of these things. He's easy going and kind of like his doggy patients, large and shaggy with dark eyes, a slow, deep voice and endless patience.

He needed that patience when he got me and my dog. Not only is Addison my first dog, but I have this habit of picking up and bringing him wounded strays. Though I've never brought him one this late before. Or this particular breed.

He probably shouldn't have attached his practice to his house. It's just too easy to find him.

The heat from the hot chocolate--and my passenger's nibbling --had faded, leaving me feeling cold and wobbly when I scrambled out of the car. I retrieved my jacket from the back seat and pulled it on for the walk to Mike's door. After pressing the bell, I sagged against the door frame and took a brief nap.

"Stan?"

I opened my eyes to find Mike towering over me, his hairy legs planted like twin tree trunks. He was wearing an elegant robe that opened to expose dark, curling chest hair all the way to his navel.

I averted my gaze from the vee because I was already in a very weakened condition.

"Do you know what time it is?"

"Time?" I shook my head, feeling a strange detachment. "No."

Mike's eyes narrowed sharply and he grabbed my chin, turning my face towards the mellow porch light. He rubbed a thumb lightly across my temple, then examined the dark smudge it had acquired.

I looked at it, too.

"Blood? What the hell's going on? Is Addison hurt?"

"No--" I wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject of whose blood it was. "It's--"

He sighed hugely, almost breaching the fragile closure of his robe. I'd never noticed what a nice chest he had. Course I'd never seen it until now.

"If you don't stay away from strays, you're going to get hurt."

"No kidding." I shook my head to clear his hair covered muscles from my eyes. It wasn't helping my thought processes. "I--"

"Where is this stray of yours?"

"In Rosemary's car. Though there's something I should mention--"

He was already moving away, his long legs using up the distance between his door and Rosemary's car, far too quickly. I trotted after him like an apologetic mongrel.

"I just hope it's not rabid this time--" Mike bent and grabbed the door handle.

"No, but--"

The door came open, the interior light throwing a ghastly light on the man slumped in the seat. His coat and suit jacket were open, giving us an excellent view of my blood-soaked underwear bandage. Scarlet trails dripped from his limp hand onto the concrete between Mike's feet.

#

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this!" Mike's face was uncharacteristically grim as he eased Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K onto the examining table.

"I'm sorry, Mike, but we both know I couldn't take him to the hospital in this condition. They'd have killed him."

Mike looked at me for a moment. Opened, then closed his mouth, clearly struck dumb by my masterful logic. I guess, I decided with a glow of pride, I wasn't as tired as I felt.

He switched on the harsh, overhead light and turned to his new patient. Since this was my first opportunity to see my passenger in real light, I turned toward him, too. I half expected to be disappointed, but even with the color gone from his face and covered in blood, he didn't disappoint. Broad shoulders, lean hips, good bones and taut flesh, all nicely knit together.

His hair was more blonde than I'd thought, his skin lightly tanned, as if he'd just come back from a sunny place. His mouth --I realized I was rubbing my neck where his mouth had been and quickly pulled my hand down, feeling like a ghoul. What kind of Baptist checked out an unconscious man?

My mother had raised me to be Fundamental, not elemental.

Mike laid bare the wound. His hands stilled in the welling blood. He looked up, his face grim. "This is a bullet wound."

"Really?" I tried to look surprised.

"You're telling me you didn't know?"

I shrugged. "I didn't see him get shot. I just saw--people shooting at him."

"Oh! And that makes it all right?"

"No." I shook my head, feeling an attack of profound coming on, but in no condition to stop it. "Life is just too weird. I mean, little tiny things--like a simple phone call--can just send your life spinning right off the track."

"What the--"

I stared at him owlishly. "Do you know that if Mrs. Macphearson hadn't gotten the flu, we'd both be snug in bed right now and--" And I would never have met Kelvin Kapone-with-a-K. Funny how that seemed worse than getting shot at.

Mike's expression lightened. "Snug in bed--together?"

I shook my head. "Why do men have to be so--male?"

"Even the boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend." Darn it.

"Good. So what is he?"

"What is he?" I opened my eyes and my mouth, hesitated, and then shrugged, trying to act casual. "He's Kelvin--" It didn't seem wise to mention the Kapone-with-a-K part. Mike would probably have the same reaction to the name I'd had. "Kelvin, my--friend. Kelvin. That's who he is. My friend--"

"--Kelvin," Mike finished, looking suspicious. I didn't blame him.

"Yes. Kelvin. My friend."

I smiled innocently, then turned and picked up the bloody suit jacket Mike had tossed on the floor.

"Do you really know this guy?"

"I don't know him well." I felt as defensive as if he were my mother. "It's just that, well, I met him--recently--after choir practice actually. Church choir practice."

When being deceptive, it's better to be truthfully deceptive. And throw religion in. It sounds better.

I gave the coat a hearty shake, releasing a tiny shower of white cards. Business cards? I knelt down.

"So what does this guy do, when he's not getting shot?"

The cards fanned across my hand. They all bore the name Kelvin Kapone. It really was with a "K." But they all seemed to be for different businesses or jobs. Import-export, travel agent, engineer--

"Portable toilet sales?" I let the words out involuntarily. In the corner was a sketch of a little tiny outhouse. "Potties-Are-Us?"

Mike looked surprised, then pleased. Maybe it was a guy thing--a vet being higher on the pecking order than a toilet guy. I shoved the cards back in the pocket, folded the jacket and lay it across a metal chair, my gaze returning to the man lying so still on the table.

Didn't take that many brain cells to know the one thing he wasn't was a portable toilet salesman. Whatever I'd gotten mixed up in, it had nothing to do with bodily functions. At least not that kind.

He was so pale. That piece of hair was curling on his forehead again, turning my thought processes back to another kind of bodily functions. I wanted to smooth it back and take his hand, but I didn't have the right.

"Is he going to be all right?"

"It looks worse than it is. The bullet just raked the surface of the ribs." Mike was quiet for a moment, then burst out, "I can't believe I'm saying all this so calmly! This man was shot!"

"I know, I can't believe it either." If we'd made it into the hospital, I'd be trying to explain all this to a policemen and I didn't have a clue what all this was about. And now I'd involved Mike, too. "I suppose you have, like some hypocritical oath to report this?"

"Vet's don't take the Hypocritic oath, but I do have to file a report if he has rabies."

"Ha, ha." I gave him a haughty look.

"We're both culpable if we don't report a crime!"

"I know that. I just think he should report his own crime. He knows more about it than I do. I'm Jane Innocent Bystander here!"

Mike stared at me, then gave another one of those robe popping sighs, but he was behind the table so I didn't have to avert my gaze.

"Then I'd better get him fixed, hadn't I?"

I couldn't help myself. "Fixed? Isn't that a little drastic?"

"Why don't you go do something?" He tried to sound annoyed, but I could see the twinkle creep back into his eyes.

"Like mop up Rosemary's car?"

"Please."

#

There was a flashlight in the glove compartment. It even worked. I gave the outside of the car a once over.It was easy to see the scratches in the dusty surface of the car, impossible to tell if they went through to the paint. I found at least one bullet hole, low on the right side, just above the bumper. Knew there had to be at least one more.

Inside, it was even harder to assess the damage. The upholstery was dark, so how was I supposed to tell which spots were snow water and which were blood?

It was cold, frigid actually, and my hands were getting numb. I pushed the seat forward and scrabbled around until I found my hat and gloves on the floor on top of my purse. My purse? I hadn't brought my purse, just shoved my driver's license into my pocket.

I hesitated, then bent to push the purse under the seat, it was an open invitation for theft and I didn't need to have a smashed window added to my list of car crimes. But when my hand slid across the cheap plastic surface, I hesitated. Rosemary had traded up from plastic years ago. And it was too maroon and small to be my mother's. On one side was a jagged tear.

I undid the clasp. There was no ID inside, just a shopping list and some coupons, an invitation to a meeting for something called PT-PAC, a typewriter claim ticket issued by Kenyon Business Machines, my ex-in-laws' company, and a matchbook from the Tandoor Club, which claimed to specialize in Moroccan cuisine and exotic dancers.

I turned the matchbook over and studied the belly dancer on the front. A strange thing to find nestled next to a coupon for adult diapers.

"Stan?" I looked up to see Mike beckoning to me from the doorway and hurriedly stuffed the things back into the purse, then shoved it under the seat. Time to see about my patient. The mystery of the purse could be solved later. . . . .