Did this woman ever plan on waking up?
Adam Wexler stared down at the woman who slumbered on, unaware of his presence. No doubt, she was beautiful, with that halo of auburn hair surrounding her face, or she would be again, once some of the swelling went down and the bruises faded. He’d seen pictures of her over the years. He knew that face from countless glossy snapshots that graced the pages of magazines and billboards. He’d seen her walking and breathing, filling the big screen and the small with her presence. That face was Samantha Hathaway’s stock and trade, having become one of the most sought-after and well-paid actresses in Hollywood.
She was beautiful, all right, but if she could manage to be conscious, too, he’d consider it a personal favor.
Didn’t she realize he had murderers to catch, rapists to apprehend, not to mention all the other assorted bad guys that populated the city of New York, clogging the justice system and making the citizenry just a little bit edgy.
He would, if he got off disability and if he got his job back, two very big ifs at the moment. His hip burned, like someone had lanced it with a white-hot poker. Maybe he should have listened to his doctor about giving up the cane too soon, but he’d be damned if he’s be stuck with that thing the rest of his life.
Frustrated, he glanced around the darkened room, illuminated only by the light panel above her head and a shaft of sunlight that peeked in through the tiny gap between the curtains at the window. Vases of flowers, cards, elaborately wrapped gifts and what else he had no idea littered the floor, the small table by the window, the dresser by the bed. Four more vases had been delivered in the two hours since he’d gotten there. What would any one person do with all those flowers?
“Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Wake up and smell the hibiscus.”
When that elicited no response, he slumped into the chair at the foot of her bed, groaning as the flimsy construction of cheap metal and cheaper fabric barely accepted his 6′7″, 245 pound frame. Not a lot of chairs did. He sighed, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair and cradling his head in his hands.
He hadn’t slept much in the last twenty four hours, and in an odd way, he envied Samantha Hathaway her ability to shed all cares and sleep. Then again, what did she have to worry about? Whether or not her teeth would need to be recapped? She’d survived the accident with only a face full of bruises, a dislocated left shoulder and a sprained ankle.
Things would have been much worse if she’d been wearing her seat belt. With nothing to restrain her, she’d been thrown clear of the sports car that had literally crashed and burned a few hundred feet below her. So much for buckle up for safety.
“Jarad?”
He lifted his head to find her watching him with a heavy-lidded gaze. “You’re awake.”
“What are you doing here? How’s Ariel?” Her voice cracked and she licked her lips, then winced from the pain.
He knew who she thought he was, film director Jarad Naughton, her best friend and the man who’d gotten him into this mess. He opened his mouth to correct her, then swallowed his confession, instead. Maybe in these first few unguarded minutes, she might tell him something he might never get out of her otherwise.
Modulating his voice into his best impression of the other man, he said, “How do you feel?”
“Like someone hit me with a bag of bricks.” She touched the fingertips of one hand to several spots on her face, pausing longest at the rectangular bandage on her forehead. “How bad is it?”
Just as he’d expected, her first concern was for her face. He didn’t know why that annoyed him so much. “I’ve seen worse.”
“Where’s Billy? We were driving–”
Her doctor had told him she’d been informed what happened to Billy, but she’d been groggy and unresponsive. He didn’t appreciate having to be the one to remind her about it.
“You had an accident. He didn’t make it.”
If he’d had any doubts about her feelings for Billy Prescott, they vanished as she wailed, “No,” and squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly, silently, tears began to seep from beneath her lashes. They cascaded down her cheeks, but she made no move to brush them away. They had to sting, considering the number of abrasions on her face.
And what did he do now? He’d cast himself in the role of her friend, and no man worth his gonads could watch a woman cry and not comfort her. He rose from the chair, got a tissue from the box by the head of the bed and handed it to her. Luckily she’d turned her face from him, so that here in the light he didn’t have to shield his face.
“I’m sorry.”
She nodded, sniffling. “I know you never liked him, but deep down, there was something good about him. I just wish he’d let a little more of it out.”
He said nothing to that, no words of comfort forming in his mind. Time to put the charade to an end as he’d never get any information out of her this way. He laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I’d better go and let you get your rest.”
He turned to leave, but felt her hand grasp his. “Don’t I get a kiss good-bye?”
When he looked down at her, her eyes were closed and her swollen lips were slightly puckered. Did she expect a kiss on the mouth from him–or rather from her very married friend with the very pregnant wife? Mentally, he shrugged. There was no telling how weird these California people might get.
He bent and lightly pressed his lips to hers. She tasted sweet, so sweet that he didn’t immediately pull away.
When he did, he noticed her breathing had evened out and her chest rose and fell in an even rhythm.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “That’s the first time I put a woman to sleep by kissing her.”
He snorted, went back to the chair, picked up his bag that lay on the floor beside it and left the room.
Minutes later, stepping out into the clear afternoon sunshine, he inhaled deeply, expanding his lungs to their fullest. L.A. even smelled different from New York, like someone had taken the Bronx and run it through a dehumidifier.
He’d better get used to it. He wasn’t going anywhere, anytime soon. He needed to get some food in his belly, find a place to stay and, if his reaction to the very battered and bruised Samantha Hathaway was any indication, he needed a woman–bad. His stomach growled and he decided food would be his first stop. The other two could wait.
###
Sam woke to the sound of the phone ringing on her bedside table. She picked it up, wincing at the pain in her shoulder as she cradled it against her ear. “Hello?”
“Sam, how are you feeling, sweetheart?”
“Jarad? Where are you?”
“Home. Ariel and the girls were pestering me to call you. You gave all of us one hell of a scare.”
“You’re home?” That meant New York. It must have been a dream, then. His presence in her room had seemed so real, though. Especially his kiss. In all the years she’d known Jarad, she’d never once felt the slightest romantic urge toward him. Then again, he’d never kissed her on the mouth before. At the time, she’d wondered why he had.
She’d feigned sleep to cover her totally embarrassing reaction. She’d fallen asleep in earnest soon after he’d left the room. At least she’d thought that’s what had happened. Thank goodness it hadn’t been real, but now she wondered why she’d dreamt such a thing to begin with.
“Sam are you okay?” Is anyone there with you?”
“No, I’m here by myself.”
“When are they letting you go home?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m going to be sending someone out to you. A trainer.”
“What for? I don’t think I’m in any shape to make the Boston Marathon this year.”
“A police officer.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard, if that’s what you’re thinking. Lupe will be with me.”
“Yeah, the original female pit bull. Does she still bite the leg off every man that comes to the house?”
“Everyone but you. The other day someone tried to give me a puppy. She wouldn’t let it in the house because it was a male.”
“Well, the person I’m sending you is a New York city cop to help you prepare for your role in “Guardian Angel.” You do remember that part you begged me for. We’re set to shoot in less than four months and I want you to eat, think, and breathe cop by the time we’re ready.”
Sam sighed. She knew when she was licked. As a friend, Jarad was the biggest sweetheart in the world; as a director, he was a royal pain in the butt. “All right, all right. As long as it’s someone unobtrusive. No one named Helga or Brunhilde who’ll think they’re going to tell me what to do.”
“I promise, no Helgas.” She suspected she heard a note of humor in his voice, but dismissed it when he spoke again.
“You know that Billy didn’t make it.”
So, that much of her dream had been true. She’d probably heard the nurses talking and incorporated it into her dream. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. You know I wish I could be there with you, don’t you?”
“I know, and I’m fine. Don’t worry about me, okay? Kiss the girls for me and tell Ariel I’ll be out to help her with the new baby as soon as I can.”
“I’ll tell her. You take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
She leaned over to place the receiver in the cradle. But one question plagued her after she hung up the phone. If Jarad hadn’t been there, why was there a wadded up tissue in her right hand?
###
Adam sat on the bed in his hotel room, his legs stretched out in front of him, his dinner–the latest offering from the local McDonald’s–spread out beside him. The news filled the TV screen with the usual murder and mayhem. Some things didn’t change, no matter what city you were in.
Finally, the report focused on the subject that interested him. A picture of Billy appeared in the corner of the screen above and to the right of the anchorwoman’s head. If the news report could be believed, the police’s preliminary report assumed Billy’s death to be an accident. No surprise there, given Billy’s penchant for crashing, burning, and otherwise mangling expensive pieces of machinery, most often with himself inside them. He had to be the unluckiest guy in America, or somebody had it in for him.
That was the crux of it, the suspicion that had brought him to Samantha Hathaway’s room that morning, the bug that had been successfully planted in his ear less than twenty-four hours ago by none other than Jarad Naughton.
He’d been packing, getting ready for the inevitable trip to California, when his doorbell had rung.
Disgruntled, already in a foul mood, he’d opened the door to find a stranger standing before him. Dressed in a navy sport coat and khaki trousers, he looked like one of his neighbor’s clients. He didn’t know what kind of business Rhonda was running over there, but as far as he was concerned, he didn’t need to know. He operated on a strict don’t ask, don’t tell policy with his neighbors.
“If you’re looking for Rhonda, she’s in apartment 8F.”
“If you’re Adam Wexler, I’m looking for you. I’m Jarad Naughton.”
The name sounded vaguely familiar, but right now, he wasn’t in the mood for guessing games. He stared at the hand the man extended toward him, but made no move to shake it. “I’m kinda busy right now, so I’ll speed this up.
I’m not looking to buy anything, sell anything or have my kitchen remodeled.
I like my phone service the way it is and I already have insurance. Did I hit you somewhere in there?”
“I wanted to talk to you about your brother.”
It was a struggle to keep his features immobile, to give away nothing. That was the last answer he would have expected. Though not a state secret, few people knew of his filial connection to Billy. How did this man know? “What about him?”
“Can I come in?”
Adam stepped back, allowed the other man to enter, then closed the door. He waited as the other man’s gaze scanned the disarray of his living room, the beer cans that, in a moment of artistic inspiration, he’d piled into a pyramid atop his coffee table. “What did you want to tell me about Billy?”
“First, let me offer you my condolences. I worked with your brother a while back–”
“And?” Adam interjected. He recognized the look of someone searching unsuccessfully for something nice to say.
“And my friend Samantha Hathaway was the woman in the car with him. I’m afraid the police will dismiss it as an accident. That means they aren’t going to offer Sam any protection.”
“Why would they, if it was an accident.”
“I’m not so sure it was. Due to the fire, tests will probably be inconclusive as to whether the car had been tampered with.”
“If it had been, that would point more to someone wanting to harm Billy than Ms. Hathaway. They were in his car.”
“All the more reason for you to want to be involved.”
Adam gritted his teeth. Score two points for the man in the khaki pants. He’d walked right into that one. “What kind of involvement are you talking about?”
“I need someone to look after Sam. She’s all alone out there, and I can’t go. My wife is about to deliver any day now. I can pay you whatever you ask.”
Inwardly, Adam stiffened. “I don’t need your money, Mr. Naughton. And I’m not a baby sitter. I’m a New York City detective. If you’re so worried about your friend, why don’t you hire some L.A. muscle to look out for her?”
“Because if she so much as smelled body guard on the man, she’d send him packing. She’s very independent.”
“Look, Mr. Naughton, I appreciate the offer, but Billy was on a self-destruction kick long before you ever met him. If it weren’t this, it would have been something else. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
“Like what?” He gestured in a way that encompassed the room. “Sit around here drinking beer and wondering why me? I know you are on disability leave right now, and an investigation of your last assignment is pending.”
His last assignment. He made it sound like something out of Mission Impossible. It wasn’t an assignment, it was a bust, one that self-destructed as surely as one of Mr. Phelps weekly instruction tapes. In their own way, everyone involved was paying the consequences for it.
“Find somebody else. If you want to know how good I am at protecting women, why don’t you ask my ex-partner. She’s accepting interviews at Woodlawn Cemetery. No lines. No waiting.”
“I read the newspaper reports of what happened. It seems to me, your partner was little more than a rookie who barely passed the height requirements to get on the force. She had something to prove and rushed into a dangerous situation while you kept your head.”
Adam snorted. Leave it to the media to give the public an accurate picture of police operations. “How much do you want to bet she wishes I were a little less cautious and she were a little less dead?”
“Your captain doesn’t think it’s such a bad idea. In fact, he recommended you for the job.”
Adam shoved his hands in his front jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Did he now?” Considering the brouhaha presently playing out in the media, he doubted Captain Fowler would mind if he were were shipped to Timbuktu right now. Anywhere where he couldn’t incite a reporter’s curiosity. His last “assignment” left a thirteen-year-old kid and a member of one of the oldest police families in the city DOA. If there were any hell to pay for that fiasco, Adam was the only one left standing to pay it.
“How did my name come up in the conversation.”
“I’m set to shoot a film set in the Bronx, the story of a female police officer. I need someone to help Sam get ready for the role. And since you were on your way to California already . . .”
“You figured I wouldn’t mind extending my stay to accommodate you.”
“Something like that. Sam was in your brother’s car.”
Adam shook his head. “I’m not responsible for my brother’s actions.”
“Maybe not, but the fact is, Sam needs your help.”
“The fact is, you want me to rearrange my whole life for some bimbo Billy probably should have known better than to hook up with in the first place.”
“Use that word and Sam’s name in the same sentence again, andyou’ll be able to interview your partner face to face.”
For the first time in days, Adam felt a smile lift the corners of his mouth. “Are you threatening me?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
Adam shook his head. The guy had guts, he’d give him that. But the intensity of his words bespoke more than the casual relationship between director and star. If he did what this man wanted, what exactly would he be walking into? “What is she to you?”
“Sam is my best friend. She’s more than that. When she was sixteen, her father died and my family took her in. Her mother had died a couple of years before that. She didn’t have anyone else. She’s like a kid sister to me. She needs me, and I can’t be there. You know how that feels?”
Grudgingly, he admitted, “Yeah.” Every time he heard about some stupid thing Billy had done. The shrink on the job said Billy’s extreme lifestyle was a call for help. Most of the time Adam had been too busy or too fed up to answer.
“All I’m asking is that when you go out there, see how she’s doing, see what you can find out. Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe I’m worrying over nothing. But I feel it in my gut that something isn’t right with her. I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Unable to resist, he asked the obvious question. “Why me?”
“Because I trust you.”
That raised Adam’s eyebrows a fraction of an inch. “Mind if I ask why that is?”
“For one thing, you’re Billy’s brother. I assume you’d want to get at the truth.”
“And the other thing?”
“You don’t have anything to lose.”
He had that right. Adam sighed. If someone had succeeded in killing his brother, he did want to know about it. He wanted to make them pay. But knowing Billy, the only person to blame was himself. “I tell you what, I’ll visit Ms. Hathaway, make sure she’s all right. If I decide to stay, then we’ll talk.”
A picture of Samantha Hathaway flashed across the television screen, drawing Adam back into the present. She was hawking that lipstick she sponsored. He didn’t know what brand. He never got past looking at her, listening to her saying that one line he could recite in his sleep. “Make your lips feel wonderful!”
It was a play on a movie role she’d had a few years back. She’d played a waitress, and in one scene she’d been behind the counter putting on her lipstick. His brother, her co-star, had asked her how she could get it on so flawlessly without checking in a mirror. She’d answered that she knew what her lips felt like. The way she’d said it was a dare to kiss her, and on-screen his brother had done just that.
Adam must have watched that movie a dozen times on videotape. Or, a certain scene of it, anyway. One of the cops at the precinct had pointed out that if you watched this one scene where she was startled while dressing on very slow motion, you could see one of her breasts. It took a cop, or a genuine pervert, to ferret out stuff like that. He’d tried it, just out of curiosity, he’d told himself. She whirled around and her hair lifted from her shoulders, and there it was. A very nice breast–firm, rounded with a large, dark aureole the color of unsweetened chocolate.
In his heart of hearts, he had to admit he had his own little obsession thing going for Ms. Samantha Hathaway. Nothing that would stand in his way or cause him to make an ass of himself. The attraction was purely physical. He knew the kind of women his brother dated. Billy had always been more concerned with what was between a woman’s thighs than what was between her ears. Despite her friend’s insistence to the contrary, he couldn’t imagine this Sam being much different. But it didn’t hurt a man to fantasize did it?
Not much, anyway. But in his mind’s eye, the most compelling image of her was seeing her face contorted with grief upon hearing that Billy was dead. She had loved his brother, a feat he hadn’t always managed himself. If she was in trouble, he couldn’t turn his back on her.
He picked up the hotel phone, dialed the number he already knew by heart and waited. When the other end was picked up, he barked two words into the phone, “I’m staying.”
