Hot Spot (34 page)

"I'm not here."

"She says she's parked behind your truck. I don't think she's going to go for the 'I'm not here' bullshit. Maybe you've got yourself a stalker," Stella said, an edge to her voice.

His expression shuttered, Danny reached across the counter and took the phone from Stella. "Who is this?" He wasn't polite, but then he'd been seconds away from finally having what he'd been waiting for all afternoon—for days, actually. He wasn't in a good mood.

"This is Marisa. I have to talk to you right away."

"This isn't a good time."

"At the risk of sounding melodramatic"—she took a deep breath—"it's a life-or-death situation."

With Marisa, her interests were always important
and
often melodramatic. A wealthy divorcee, she had way too much leisure time. "I'm sure it is," he said, "but I'm busy right now."

"Someone just tried to kill me!" A hint of hysteria had entered her voice.

Jesus, had she taken one too many Vicodin with her martinis? "Calm down, Marisa. No one's trying to kill you. That's not possible."

Kill
? Did he say
kill
? All Stella's drug dealer doubts came flooding back, and she called herself every kind of stupid for falling for Danny's smooth talk just because she desperately wanted sex with him. Jeez—what if sex with him turned out to be fatal! She began backing away.

He noticed and shook his head.

Which only made her more apprehensive. Was he going to do her in because she'd inadvertently become a witness to something illegal? Was her comic book store about to become the scene of a crime?

"Listen to me!" Marisa cried.

Okay, that was clear-as-a-bell hysteria.

"Someone just tried to sideswipe me on the freeway! The people who are trying to get in your house are mad at me!" She was screaming full out now. "They rammed me twice! Twice! Do you hear me?"

His spine had gone rigid. "Yeah, I hear you."

"It wasn't some bizarre mistake. I wasn't imagining it! If a police car hadn't come onto the freeway, my car would have been pushed into the river!"

Okaaay
. Definitely not Vicodin talking there. That was real fear and a story to back it up. Moving to the window, he glanced out and scanned the street. It was quiet. Marisa's baby-blue Mercedes was parked right behind his truck, the driver's side definitely caved in. "Stay put. I'll come down and get you," he said.

"You're bringing her in here?" Stella exclaimed, female resentment overcoming her fear of possibly being murdered.

"There's a problem."

No shit. "Call the police. Isn't that what you do when the word
kill
comes into the conversation? If you won't call them, I will."

"Don't call the police."

His voice was like ice. His eyes were, too. Wow. He had drug dealer written all over his face. Maybe this wasn't the right time to be fearless.

"I'll take care of this," he said in a gentler voice. "Give me a couple minutes, and I'll explain."

"With her here?" Jealousy was a powerful emotion; for a moment she forgot about drug dealers and killing.

"Marisa's frightened. It has nothing to do with you or me." He blew out a breath. "Look, I have to go and get her."

And he left. Walked right out the front door as though that sketchy explanation was sufficient to smooth over a stalker woman outside her door and suggestions of killing, not to mention her drug dealing paranoia. As though she was supposed to trust him and not run away or call the cops or in general act like a normal person would under the circumstances. But she didn't move, other than sit down on the counter stool behind the cash register. So maybe she wasn't normal. Maybe she'd never been normal. Maybe that explained her
Marky B
comic and this store and all the weird kids who hung out here and depended on her to give their life some structure.

Okay. That wasn't normal. Looking to her for structure.

I rest my case.

He GAVE HER the sweetest look when he came back in and saw her sitting there behind the counter, and when he formally introduced Marisa, who she knew perfecdy well from their numerous meetings, he said, "Marisa, this is my girlfriend, Stella."

Not that being his girlfriend would wipe away a couple kilos or a truckload of pot or even a woman dripping with jewelry who looked like Marisa and was hanging onto Danny's arm like it was her only anchor in a world gone mad.

But it helped.

It made her more likely to give him a chance to explain.

"Sit down." He eased Marisa toward a chair, although he didn't sit. He leaned against the counter, his back to Stella. "Tell us what happened. Start at the beginning."

Us
. That was a lovely pronoun. It conjured up a future, possibly even a rosy future. One that might even include a trip to Comic Con or Heroes Convention with someone who didn't wear an alien costume. She was beginning to elaborate a fantasy that might even require her throwing away her old sketchbook and some of her sex toys she'd received as gifts when Marisa said, "When you left me I was so angry I wanted to hurt you. Really I wouldn't have done it otherwise."

When he
left
her, as in not leaving in the morning after a one-night stand, but the other kind of leaving? That sketchbook was staying, dammit.

"Tell me what's going on here."

His voice was smooth as silk, like he hadn't even noticed Marisa had said she was angry with him for leaving her. Like that had flown right over his head

"They must have been following you," Marisa said. "That's how they knew where I lived. They stopped by one afternoon and told me they knew you and asked if they could come in and talk to me about a business proposition. They were well dressed and polite—two men—European, I think. Although everyone speaks English now with an American accent so I'm not sure where they were from. They offered me money to bring them the plans for your new game. Don't look at me like that, Rees. You had hurt me terribly."

The only way he'd hurt her was not being at her beck and call. Marisa had come out extremely well in a divorce settlement and had virtually nothing to do but spend her money and fuck. "I don't know if that's an excuse for grand larceny," he quietly said.

"I know now how wrong it was." She looked at him from under her lashes. "I'm truly sorry."

"Did you tell them you were going to disclose this to me?" He didn't believe that sorrowful pose for a second. She was leaving something out. "Is that why they're trying to kill you?"

"I think they're punishing me for not succeeding." She played with an egg-sized emerald on her finger, not about to admit that she'd tried to shake them down for more money by threatening to tell Danny.

"They must have paid you something up front." Perhaps that explained their attempt at retribution. She
had
screwed up if the attempts had really been her work. Maybe they'd found someone else.

"It was just a pittance."

"A down payment though."

She shrugged. "I suppose you could call it that."

"Did they want you to return it?"

"No one said anything. As far as I was concerned, it was good-faith money."

He doubted the money was a pittance, just as he doubted his competitors were giving away good-faith money. "So why do you think they were trying to sideswipe you?"

"I don't know. It seems completely outrageous. And terrifying."

None of what she'd said made sense, other than she was approached and accepted the assignment. As for them trying to kill her, the only reason they'd do that was to conceal their identity. And the only reason they had to conceal their identity was if she threatened to expose them. Which probably meant she'd asked for more money and they'd refused.

This wasn't the first time industrial espionage had occurred in his business. The MO wasn't rocket science; it was common. She wasn't being honest about something—or everything. "I might be able to help you, but you have to level with me. You're not being truthful."

"I resent that!" she retorted, heatedly. "I've almost been killed!"

"You threatened them, didn't you?" He didn't want to waste a lot of time on false righteousness.

"No, of course I didn't. Good God, Rees, do I look like some common thief?"

What she looked like was some woman so put together she could have been on the cover of
Vogue
, Stella thought. From the top of her perfectly coiffed hair to the purple paint on her toes that matched her cute little purple designer dress that was so short when she crossed her legs like she was doing now, the only unknown was the color of her pubic hair.
And
whether she was actually a thief despite the ton of jewelry she was wearing.

"Has the stock market hurt your portfolio?" Danny's voice was mild.

Marisa flushed beet red.

He was getting a good feeling. He might have nailed it. "You needed money. You asked for more. They said no, and you threatened to expose them."

"No—no… that's not true." But she didn't meet his gaze.

"If you need money, I might be able to help you out," he said in a cool-as-a-cucumber voice.

She looked directly at him this time. "How exactly would you do that?"

"If you were willing to testify against these people, I could pay you, say a consultant's fee—for appearing in court." It was diplomacy at its finest.

A small smile formed on her glossed lips. "How much might that be?"

You had to give her credit. She was poised and guilt free. A testament to a life of always taking advantage of opportunity. Her marriage a case in point. She had been the trophy wife. Her husband had wanted a trophy. Until apparently, he'd found the company of his male assistant more interesting. It had almost been a scandal when Marisa uncovered the truth.

Her extravagant settlement had halted that possibility, of course.

But she couldn't have anticipated the tanking of the stock market.

"Tell me what you need. And I'll see what I can do." He didn't really care about the amount, relieved on a number of fronts that he'd discovered who was involved in the break-ins.

"Half a million."

"Sure."

Had he said
sure
to a half a million bucks, Stella shrieked inside her head. He really could afford all those copper pots in his kitchen.

Marisa was immediately sorry she hadn't asked for more. As she opened her mouth to speak, Danny murmured, "Don't get greedy."

"I was simply going to ask you how you intend to identify these men," she quickly improvised. "They didn't give me their names."

"Did you get cash, a check, or were the funds wired?"

"They wired the money to my account."

"Then I'll trace it." Even hacking into the Pentagon wasn't a problem, although he hadn't done that since he was a kid. "Give me your bank account number, and I'll take it from there. By the way, who was your accomplice?"

"My pool boy. But he only came along to help me out. Monty's a sweet kid."

Danny knew that tone of voice. Sweet in more ways than one he'd guess. "Is Monty going to be a problem?"

"Of course not. He thought I was playing a prank on someone."

She was amazing. No guilt, no contrition. On the other hand, his mystery was solved. Marisa's unrepentance was less than a minor issue. "It might be wise for you to disappear for a while until I can clear this up," he said, preferring her out of the way for a variety of reasons. "Why don't I have one of my security guys take you up north for a couple weeks."

"Where up north?" There were resorts and there were resorts, and Marisa didn't consort with fishermen unless they had really expensive boats.

"You name it. I don't care. Let me call Stu and have him come over to get you. I wouldn't go home if I were you. Buy what you need on the way up." Shoving his hand in his shorts' pocket, he pulled out a thick roll of bills and handed it to her.

She just loved men who didn't count their money, Marisa thought, shoving the bills into her purse, pleased to see they were all hundreds. A shame Danny seemed to be enamored with that

H OT SPOT

odd woman standing behind him. The blonde, with hair that looked as though it hadn't been combed this week, who didn't have a speck of makeup on and really—a cartoon T-shirt? She must be good in bed. Rees wouldn't waste his time for any other reason.

"I'm going upstairs," Stella said as Danny punched in some numbers on his cell phone. She didn't care to wait for whomever was coming over to arrive. Marisa, the magazine-cover diva, was staring at her like she was a specimen under glass.

Danny looked up and smiled. "I'll be up soon." He was in good spirits. His piracy problems soon would be over. Most important—Stella was cleared. He was looking forward to going back to his uneventful life. "Hey, Stu, listen up. I've got a new project for you."