Hot & Bothered (19 page)

But for today…She glanced toward the common wall the room shared with the bathroom and listened to the sound of running water. Well, today she was away from home. Without her child.

She picked up the phone and called room service, where she ordered enough food for a small army. Then she plucked a condom out of the box and strolled down the hall toward the bathroom.

She bet John wouldn't mind washing her back.

 

B
Y
T
UESDAY AFTERNOON
Jared was so hungry he could feel his belly button kissing his backbone. It amazed him to recall that there had been times back in his former life when he'd thought he was starved. What that had actually meant was that there hadn't been any junk food around—that there'd been nothing in the house to eat except eggs and meat and vegetables and who the hell wanted any of that when it meant having to prepare it for yourself?

Man, what he wouldn't give for just one of those things now. But he and P.J. hadn't had anything to eat in almost twenty-four hours and his stomach stridently protested its lack of sustenance.

He'd spent his last dollar today calling home in the hope that Tori might be there. Surely she'd come over from London for Father's funeral. His empty stomach cramped painfully at the thought and he had to blink fu
riously against the sudden burning pressure at the back of his eyes.
Don't think about it, don't think about it.

Think instead about the fact that she would have sent him money if they'd connected. He knew it without a doubt and for a moment her image swam across his mental screen, warming him.

But it didn't take long for heaviness to resettle in his gut. Because in the end he'd thrown away his money. DeeDee had answered the phone and he'd immediately slammed it down in a panic.

“Hey!” P.J. dug her sharp elbow into his side. “Smile pretty for the tourist. That lady over there has been eyeing you.” Then her mouth twisted and she pointed in a different direction. “Course, so has that man.”

Involuntarily, Jared's glance followed the trajectory of her finger, but he jerked his gaze away when a pudgy older man wearing an expensive-looking suit raised an eyebrow and gave him a hopeful smile. Ice crawled through his bowels. For the pinch of desperation he was beginning to feel. For the fear that all his choices would soon be used up if his and P.J.'s circumstances didn't improve pretty damn quick.

He honest-to-God didn't know if he could live with himself if it came down to having to do
that
in order to survive.

As if he'd voiced the fear aloud, P.J. said fiercely, “We aren't there yet, bud,” and jerked him around so he could no longer see the man. “And you're smart. You'll figure out something before we get to that point.”

She tugged him over to the curb where they waited for the trolley to rock past before stepping into the street, which was closed to all other traffic. She nudged him around to face a middle-aged woman waiting for the
northwest-bound car and with a final squeeze of his arm, she gave him a little shove. “Now go make nice with the lady. She looks like someone who'd love to part with a bit of change.”

Jared dug his feet in. “How about we try something different?”

She quit shoving to stare up at him. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Like what?”

He hitched his thumb at his backpack and leaned down to murmur instructions in her ear.

Her big golden brown eyes lit up. “Oh, too good.”

He kept walking toward their mark as Peej danced around behind him. A second later he felt the flap of his pack lift and her beginning to rummage through it. When she made a sound of distress and started yanking things out, he nearly smiled. Damn, she was good.

“Wait a minute,” she said. She smacked the pack when he kept strolling toward the woman at the trolley stop. “J, wouldja stop? It's not in here.”

He craned around to stare at her. “What do you mean it's not there? It has to be. You just missed it, is all.”

“No, I'm telling you—it's not there.”

He yanked the straps of the pack down and swung the satchel off his back, dropping it to the ground practically at the feet of the woman they hoped to con out of a few dollars. Forcing himself not to look her way, he began pawing through the backpack, pulling out items with increasing speed and dropping them on the ground next to the pack. “Oh, God,” he said and found it wasn't difficult at all to sound desperate. Because he was—desperate to know he and P.J. would have at least one meal to eat tomorrow. “What are we going to do, Peej?”

“Mom's gonna kill us,” she wailed.

“Excuse me,” said a gentle voice, and they both looked up at the woman. “Are you kids all right?”

“Yes, we're fine ma'am,” Jared said at the same time P.J. wailed, “Nooooo.”

“Did you lose something?”

He looked at her kind eyes and worn shoes and realized she wasn't a tourist at all. Jeez, she didn't look much better off than the two of them and he felt lower than a cockroach because he knew he was going to rook her anyhow. Gathering up the stuff he'd dropped out of the pack, he slowly rose to his feet. “It's nothing.”

P.J. smacked him. “Yeah, if you don't mind the fact that we now have no money to get
home,
and Mom'll never let us forget that she
told
us we couldn't be trusted to come to town by ourselves.”

The woman dug through a purse that had seen better days and pulled out three wrinkled dollar bills. Catching a glimpse into her wallet over her shoulder, Jared saw it only left her with two dollars for herself.

She held the bills out to him. “Maybe this will help.”

His growling stomach reminded him just how much it would help, yet he couldn't seem to raise his hand to take the money. P.J. suffered no such qualms and plucked them from the woman's fingers.

“Thank you, ma'am. You just saved our lives!”

“It's my pleasure.” She bestowed a gentle smile on both of them. “Your brother reminds me of my son.”

“Oh, hey, that's too bad. He's ugly, too, huh?”

A shadow passed over the woman's eyes. “No, he was quite handsome.”

P.J.'s incessant movement stilled. “Was?”

“He died in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

“Oh, man, lady. I'm sorry.”

“Yes. So am I.” She turned toward the trolley that was rattling down the tracks toward them.

Jared dug through his pack and pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper. He thrust it out to the woman. “Will you write down your address?” he asked. “We'll repay your loan as soon as we can.”

“That's not necessary, dear.”

“Please!”

She looked into his eyes for a moment, then reached for the pen and paper and scribbled on it. The trolley arrived as she was handing them back. “Good luck, kids,” she said and climbed aboard.

They stood watching the car depart down the track. Then P.J. turned to him. “Well, that worked like a dream and was a real hoot at first.” She stared at him despondently. “So why do I feel like crap?”

“Same reason I do, I guess.” Jared carefully tucked the scrap of paper in the pack's front pocket, even though he knew he didn't have a prayer of repaying the woman's generosity. “Okay with you if we save her money for tomorrow?”

“Yeah. It's time to head over to Skyline anyway.” Giving him a doubtful look, she said without much conviction, “We'll prob'ly feel better after we get something in our stomachs. Don't cha think?”

“Sure,” he lied. “We'll probably feel a lot better.”

“O
H, MY
G
OD
, J
OHN
. There he is!”

Rocket looked down as Victoria clamped her hand tightly around his wrist. She glanced up at him, her face alight, but promptly swung back to stare across the urban park.

“You were right,” she breathed, “Jared
is
here!”

Following her gaze through the concrete canyon that was Skyline Park, he zeroed in on a tall, slim boy with the same thick, streaky brown hair as hers. The kid was wolfing down a sandwich as he listened to a girl who kept flitting around him, darting and dodging like a hummingbird.

John turned his attention back to Tori. He could understand her disbelief. After combing the city yesterday, most of last night and earlier this afternoon without catching a single glimpse of the boy, it was a bit unreal to finally see him. It made John doubly glad the tip he'd received had panned out, but he also felt they'd better discuss the manner in which they approached him. Making contact after a kid had been on the street a while often required delicate, cautious handling.

Unfortunately, the need to warn her had no sooner entered his mind than she dropped his arm and started across the park.

“Victoria, wait!”

But it was clear that she'd worked up a full head of
steam—not to mention an acute case of excitement deafness—and she took off like a thoroughbred out of the gate, weaving with long-legged grace through the throng of kids milling around in groups or lounging on the cement steps that surrounded a red rock fountain. He picked up his own pace behind her, but even as he caught hold of her elbow to halt her, she called out her brother's name.

Shit.
But she'd warned him now and it couldn't be taken back. He dropped her arm and moved forward, balancing on the balls of his feet as he prepared to run Jared to ground if necessary.

The boy merely blinked once or twice, however, as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Then his lips moved, shaping Tori's name. He said something to the hummingbird girl, grabbed her by the hand, and just as John feared, took off at a dead run.

Only…the kid didn't run in the direction he'd expected. Instead, his somber face suddenly alight with a huge grin, Jared made a beeline straight for his sister.

For once, Victoria wasn't the least bit attuned to John. He might not have existed at all, in fact, so keenly was her focus locked on Jared. She raced to meet her brother halfway, her arms opened wide, and within seconds, she was embracing him. Terrified he'd vanish again, she wrapped her arms tightly around him, backpack and all, anchoring her fingers in the pack's water-resistant fabric to keep him close. To keep him
safe.
A distant corner of her mind registered his slightly ripe smell, but she didn't care. The only thing that had any meaning was the knowledge he was here. In one piece. The rest was merely details.

She felt him begin to tremble and tightened her hold on him, rocking them from side to side. He responded by hugging her harder and pressing his cheek against the top
of her head. A second later she felt him wipe his eyes against her hair, and of all the things she could have, and probably should have, been thinking, her only clear thought was,
When did he get so tall?

Then he raised his head to look down at her. “I'm sorry, Tor,” he said hoarsely. “I'd give anything to go back and do that night over again. But you gotta believe I didn't mean to kill Dad.”

Her heart sank right down to her toes and only then did she realize how much she'd been counting on having him clear up what she'd believed in her heart of hearts must surely be a misunderstanding. She'd been so
sure
he couldn't have killed their father. But his tortured expression said even louder than his damning words had that she'd been wrong and her stomach was suddenly full of frozen knots.

She forced herself to shove the discomfort aside, however, and think. He was still her little brother, and given Father's less than warm and cozy personality, she didn't doubt there were mitigating circumstances. Reaching up to trace the light stubble on his cheek with her fingertips, she said softly, “I know you didn't. Can you tell me what happened?”

He let her go and stepped back, thrusting his long fingers through his hair. “He said that I…that I should have been…” He cleared his throat. “He said something awful and I just wanted to get away, you know? So I shoved him to get past. But I didn't mean to
kill
him!”

“Wait.” She stared at him. “You pushed him?”

“Yes.” His movements were jerky with agitation. “I just wanted to get him out of my
face,
but then he tripped and fell and hit his head on the corner of the hearth. And I
know
I should have called 911, but I couldn't feel a pulse,
and there were all those people in the dining room, and I guess I panicked and God, Tori, I am so damn sorry!”

She felt the knots start to unravel, but it was John who said with a much cooler lack of emotion than she ever would have managed, “You didn't kill him, kid.”

“What?” Jared turned to stare at Rocket. “Yeah. I did. I just told you, I couldn't feel a pulse.”

“No, J, he's right.” The girl with her brother darted over to dance in place in front of him. In a raspy voice that was oddly attractive she said, “Remember when I told you I saw on the news that your father had been murdered and they were looking for you? Well, they said he was
stabbed.
”

“What?” He looked as though someone had stabbed him as he struggled to assimilate the news. “No, that can't be right. I pushed him.”

“But he didn't die from a head wound,” John informed him. “He died from blood loss due to a stab wound to the chest.”

“Maybe someone stabbed him after I already killed him.”

“No,” John said unequivocally. “I don't know why you couldn't find your father's pulse, but if you'd really killed him his heart would have stopped. There would've been a lot less blood than the records I read indicate.”

Jared blinked. For the first time he really seemed to focus on John and his dark eyebrows furrowed. “Who
are
you?” When his voice cracked in the middle of the demand he flushed a painful-looking shade of red.

“I'm sorry, sweetie,” Victoria interceded. “I should have introduced you, but I lost track of everything beyond the fact that you're here and unharmed, as far as I can tell. This is Rocket. John, that is—John Miglionni. He's…an old friend of mine. I hired him to find you.”

“Hired him?” He glanced at John. “What are you, some kind of private eye or something?”

John met his gaze with a steady regard. “Yep.”

“No shit?” The second the words left his mouth he shrugged as if to invalidate any interest his tone might have suggested. But his shoulders relaxed fractionally as he turned back to Victoria. “I really didn't kill Dad?”

“You really didn't,” she assured him.

“Oh, God.” Legs folding, he abruptly sank to sit cross-legged on the cement path. He buried his head in his hands. “Oh, God, Tori. I thought I was going to hell, for sure.”

“Look,” John said. “We're starting to draw attention and since Jared's not out of the woods yet that's not a situation we want to court before we get everything straightened out. Let's get out of here. We can take this to my office.”

In the excitement of finding him, Victoria had momentarily forgotten that the police still considered her brother their prime suspect. The reminder served to make her glance around and she saw that John was right—this wasn't the best venue for airing their private affairs. “Good idea.”

The girl with the raspy voice took a few hesitant steps back. “I guess I'd better be shoving off then.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her baggy jeans, hunched her narrow shoulders up around her ears and shot agonized glances at Jared's down-bent head. But when it shot up at her words, she pasted on a bright smile. “Get outta your hair so you guys can get to it and all.”

“No!” He jumped to his feet and grabbed her by a slender arm. “You're coming with us.”

“Oh, but…”

Without releasing the girl, he turned her toward Victoria. “This is my sister, Tori,” he said. “Tor, this is P.J. If it weren't for her I'd have been a lot worse off than I was.”

“Naw, that's not true,” P.J. disagreed. Her glance locked intently on Victoria. “He's really smart and—”

“She warned me away from dangerous places,” Jared interrupted. “Told me where to go to get a shower and food. She kept me
company,
Tor. And if we leave her here, she'll be on the streets all alone. Her damn mother—”

Yanking her arm free, P.J. shoved her slight frame up against Jared's longer, stronger one. “You leave my mother out of this!”

“Yeah, okay, I'm sorry. But you're coming with us.”

Victoria watched the interaction with fascination and when the girl gave her a glance rife with uncertainty, the vulnerability and fear in those big golden brown eyes just tore her up. “Better do what he says, P.J.,” she advised with a gentle smile. “He can be stubborn as a mule once he sets his mind on something.”

“Don't I know it,” the girl muttered, but the trepidation faded from her expression. She turned to Jared. “Okay, then, but just for a while.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He hooked the bend of his elbow around her neck and hauled her in, scrubbing his knuckles against the crown of her Denver Broncos cap.

She jabbed him in the side with her own sharp little elbow and wrested free, tugging the navy-blue bill down to settle the cap more firmly over her hair. “Jeez. Show a little dignity, will ya?”

A muffled laugh escaped Rocket, but when Victoria turned to him his expression was bland. “I'll just give Mac a call and let her know we're coming,” he said, hauling his cell phone from his hip pocket.

A piece of her sense of well-being fizzled.
Oh, goody.
Mac again. The woman who ran John's office. The woman with whom he carried on a flirtation. It didn't take much
imagination to picture her. She was no doubt some Nordic blonde with a perpetual tan, 40DD breasts and thighs that could crack a walnut. Looking down at her own less-than-pristine T-shirt and dusty sneakers, Victoria wished she'd taken the time to slap on a little makeup this morning.

The kids sat close together in the back of John's vehicle and Victoria got a sense of just how much comfort they must have given each other during their time on the streets. Having seen a little during the past two nights of the life kids made for themselves there, she thought she could appreciate how important it must have been for her brother to have someone to count on. Someone to let him know he wasn't all alone.

Rocket wheeled into a small parking lot that fronted a converted Arts-and-Crafts-style house a short while later. The antique brass sign posted to one of the pillars of the roofed front porch read Semper Fi Investigations.

Somehow, both the beautifully painted little house and the small business district in the upscale neighborhood that housed it took Victoria by surprise. She didn't know what she had expected, exactly, but something more along the lines of a Mickey Spillane book, surely. “What?” she murmured. “No seedy hallway? No transom above the frosted glass door?”

John shot her a grin and reached over to give her thigh a squeeze as he twisted around to Jared. “Gird your loins, kid—”

“His name is Jared,” P.J. snapped.

He smiled at her. “So it is—my apologies. Gird your loins, Jared. And you too, P.J. You're about to meet Gert.”

P.J. unbuckled her seat belt and scooted forward on the seat, all big eyes and interest. “Who's Gert?”

“Gert MacDellar, also known as Mac, is my office
manager. My factotum.” He sent a sly glance Victoria's way. “My Girl Friday, you might say.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah,
she thought sourly.
Very droll.
It wasn't that she was jealous…exactly. Well, maybe she was, just a little. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wasn't nearly as speedy as everyone else to climb out of the car. Lagging behind, she paused to slap away some of the dust that had accumulated on her person. It was amazing how much had managed to transfer itself from Denver's alleyways and meaner streets to her.

His Girl Friday was no doubt spotless.

“Good,” a voice snapped on the other side of the open doorway, “you're here. I trust you're going to be around more now.”

Victoria slowly straightened from brushing off her jeans.
Hello.
What was this? The much-adored Mac didn't possess the dulcet tones she'd expected. Picking up her pace, Victoria climbed the porch steps and walked through the open doorway.

Ensconced behind an enormous oak desk across the room, an older woman with blue-tinted hair and cat's-eye glasses was staring up at John with a militant expression. “Tell me this finally wraps up the Colorado Springs case.”