Authors: Glenys O'Connell
Wait, run that reel again! That sweet old lady is
a transformation of that old harridan, Granny Somers!
Cíara was still
blinking in shock when they became aware of her.
“Cíara
Henley Somers,” Granny said immediately, in that
I’ll brook no nonsense from
you, young lady
voice that she knew only too well. “Why did you not tell
your own Granny that you had a new partner? And not just any new partner, but a
famous gentleman?”
“’Cos
he’s not a gentleman,” she hissed back under her breath, but she was out of
luck. This was one of those moments when Granny had her hearing aid turned up
full.
“You
watch your lip, young lady, or there’ll be trouble,” the old harridan, who just
a moment ago had been a sweet old lady, warned.
“Gee,
Cíara, I know we said we’d keep our partnership private, but Lillian is your
grandmother, after all,” Winters said, his face innocent.
Lillian? Lillian?
She'd
been fourteen before she’d known Granny even had a first name. His voice was
reproachful, but she could see the glint of laughter in his eyes and sent him
an
if looks could kill you’d be dead meat
glance which only set his lips
twitching merrily, too.
Granny
finally left, sworn to secrecy and clutching an autographed copy of J.V.
Winters’ latest literary bombshell. The writer himself leaned back in
her
chair, feet up on
her
desk, and regarded her with that same arrogant
look.
“I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my chair,”
she said, gritting her teeth.
“But it’s not your
chair,” he replied happily, swiveling to display a brand new, ergonomically
correct office chair. “Your chair is over there –” and he pointed to a corner
where her old thrift-store bargain typists’ chair stood sad and dejected. “The
office supply people will be arriving soon with my new desk, so we’re going to
have to do some re-arranging.”
“That’s
not all that will get re-arranged if you push me any further.” She leaned
forward, her hands braced on the desk. “Don’t start getting yourself too comfortable,
Winters – you’re gonna be out of here the soonest. There’s no way we can make
this work!”
But
she’d lost him. She followed the direction of his gaze and grinned savagely.
Winters’ eyes were fixed firmly on the glimpse of rounded breasts that peeked
from the top of her scoop neck t-shirt, her cleavage accentuated as she leaned
forward across the desk.
“Earth
to Winters, Earth to Winters – never in your sweetest dreams, so forget it!”
She had the satisfaction of seeing him jerk back to the present and blush. But
then he gave her his most engaging grin and said: “Want to bet on that?”
Despite
herself, Cíara grinned back. “I’d win,” she said sweetly.
“If
you win, I’ll be out of your life.”
“Hold
on, what are we betting here?”
“I
win if you come to bed with me – before the end of the next month!”
She
laughed outright then. “Do you always back losing propositions?” she asked.
“To
show how confident I am, if I lose you get to keep the new office furniture,
too!”
“Well,
that’s that, then. Thank you very much – would you mind changing the color of
that chair, I prefer green myself.”
“Don’t
be so confident, Somers,” he declared, and reached across the desk to run a
finger along the line of soft skin just above her neckline. Cíara jumped as if
she’d been scalded, her pulses singing. Suddenly, she wasn’t quite so confident
about this bet…
“Oh,
no, you keep your hands to yourself – no copping a feel without permission!”
she warned.
But he only grinned
and asked what she thought of the new sign on the office door. She had to go
back out and look, because she’d been too pre-occupied with Harry’s problems to
see it the first time. But she returned to the office with murder on her mind.
“You
can just take that right down,” she snapped, “
Winters
& Somers,
indeed! My name should at least come first – and do you always jump the gun
like this?”
“Oh,
no, when the time is right, I can stay the course and my timing’s perfect,” he
replied, with that sexy look on his face.
She rolled her eyes.
Please God, I haven’t
talked to you for a while, but just let me get through the next few weeks, get
this man out of my life, and you’ll see me at early Sunday mass again!
Somehow they
got through the morning, with Cíara biting her tongue to repress a nasty
comment when the office supply people arrived with a shiny wooden desk for
Winters that took up most of the room, two leather visitors’ chairs, and three
wooden filing cabinets. They also brought a replacement chair in green for the
one she’d complained about, and she couldn’t resist a smirk. Apparently,
Winters’ wasn’t quite so confident about their deal as he gave out.
“I’ve been thinking,
maybe we should do some sort of press release, you know, use publicity to drum
up some custom,” Winters said after the office was straightened, the paperwork
agreed, and the silent telephone had started getting to him.
“That’s
a great idea,” she said sweetly, “Maybe we can include a photograph of you, and
we’d have all those romantic ladies queuing up to have you search for their
lost identities.”
“No
photographs. I don’t do photographs,” Winters said sharply.
“Why
ever not? A good looking guy like you?” He turned to look out the window, hands
pushed into the front pockets of his suit pants, but she was sure there was a
higher color on his cheeks.
“Nice
of you to say so – is that a point to my side? But no, no photographs.”
Cíara
just shrugged; content to know that her barb had gone home. Now, if she could
only find out what sinister reason lay behind Mr. Winters’ fear of photographs….after
all, she was a detective!
And I’m going to need any ammunition I can get to
survive the next few weeks!
Finally, Winters
announced it was time for lunch. Optimistically setting the answering machine,
he invited her to join him. She was about to tell him to get lost – part of her
campaign plan was to spend as little time with Winters as possible – when he
added that her old friend Bill would be joining them.
He grinned at
her evil smile. “Remember, revenge is a dish best served cold,” he murmured as
he helped her on with her jacket.
* * *
Winters had chosen a small pub in the popular
Temple Bar area for lunch and Bill was already seated when they arrived. He
shifted nervously as he saw the mean glint in Cíara’s eye. “Before you say
anything at all, I think it’s marvelously romantic, the way this guy wanted to
track you down – and Sórcha backs me up on that,” Bill announced in a bid to
pre-empt her temper tantrum.
Cíara
was gob smacked. When she could string a coherent sentence together, she
gasped: “Romantic?”
“Yeah,
sweetheart, I told Bill that I’d only seen you the once, but that I knew we had
a future together,” Winters said, straight faced, muttering a muffled ‘ouch’ as
Cíara’s heel connected solidly with his toes under the table. Bill looked
startled, but didn’t comment – probably glad to have the redheaded detective's
attention taken off his own transgressions.
“Well,
Bill, there’s good news – Cíara and I have agreed to go into partnership.”
“What!
What happened to all your whining about how you have to be chained to the
computer for the whole year for this special project…?”
“I
needed some stimulus, and Cíara certainly provided that,” Winters replied,
grinning. Her cheeks burned as she caught Bill's smirk.
“But
what happens when your sabbatical is over and you go back to the States? Where
will that leave Cíara?” Bill had the good grace to look concerned.
“You’re
going back to the States?” She didn’t know whether to be pleased at the
prospect, or angry that he was trying to muscle in on her business when he
wasn’t going to be around long-term.
Winters
was silent. Bill studied each of them in turn. “You haven’t told her, have
you?”
Winters
rolled his eyes and suggested they order, but she wasn’t to be put off.
“I
suspect there’s lots of things this bollox hasn’t told me, Bill, so do go ahead
and enlighten me,” she said.
“I’m
sorry, Jon, but she should know if she thinks there’s any long term arrangement
in this. Jon’s only in Ireland for a year – less, now – because he’s on sabbatical
from his job.”
“From
his job?” She looked suspiciously from one man to another, “But I thought he
was just a writer…?”
“Just
a writer?” Winters squawked.
Bill
grinned. “Well, he probably makes more money from his books than from his job,
but Jon’s a police detective in New York. Homicide. That’s how I got to know
him – remember when I did that year's exchange in the States? Anyway, they
won’t let him take more time off, so it’s either go home, or resign at the end
of the year. And he loves that job too much to quit.”
Cíara
was silent, wondering at that funny tight feeling in her stomach, a feeling she
didn't want to examine. Of course she wanted Winters out of her life. But
knowing he was going brought up all sorts of complications for the business, if
he won their bet and stayed at Somers Agency. She swallowed hard. Winters &
Somers had such a ring to it. Maybe she could keep the name after he was gone…
“So
that’s why you won’t have any photographs taken? You don’t want to give away
your police identity!” Realization dawned.
“That’s
right – can you imagine the problems that would cause, both in investigations
and in dealing with the tough guys?”
“To
say nothing of the way his mates would josh him!” Bill added with a sly grin.
Winters shot him a look of loathing. Then the conversation drifted off to other
things, finally alighting on the Diamond Darling and the thefts that Bill was
involved in with his detective team.
“We’ve
hardly any leads,” he confided. “This guy’s a pro. Uses gloves, probably some
kind of disposable coveralls because he leaves nothing behind. But he – or she
– does know his stuff. Only the best for our thief, I can tell you. We figure
he must be someone with some experience in the jewelry industry. We even sent a
guy down to a jewelers’ convention in Waterford last weekend, just to see if he
could pick up any clues.”
At
the mention of the jewelry convention, Cíara tried very hard not to meet
Winters' eye. She was certain now that he was her erstwhile rescuer, and her
cheeks still flushed when she thought of the names Wallace had called her.
To say nothing of the hefty thwack of Grace
Muldoon’s umbrella on the side of his head, for his troubles.
The bruise was still livid – and she imagined
he’d be livid, too, if he recognized her!
To
her horror, when she looked up from her meal, he eyeing her speculatively. But
as soon as he caught her glance he looked away.
Jeez, don’t let him figure that out!
“But we got nothing.
It looks as though he’s smuggling the goods out of the country, 'cos none of
them have surfaced here and believe me, we’ve leaned pretty heavily on all the
likely fences who would deal in this kind of thing,” Bill continued.
“Maybe
he’s breaking them down,” Winters suggested.
“Even
so, precious gems of this quality, I mean we really are talking the best stuff
here, they’d be noticed. Besides which, some of the stuff he's taken would be
more valuable whole, because of historical provenance.”
As their coffee arrived, Bill leaned down to the
briefcase beside his chair and pulled out a sheaf of photocopies. “Maybe you
could take a look at these – I shouldn’t really, but Jon is a police officer
and I had the go-ahead to ask him to consult.”
“Darling,
our first job,” Winters murmured in her ear, his breath tickling the delicate
skin and making her shiver.
“Yeah,
whatever,” she snapped.
Several
minutes later, she commented: “The only thing that seems to be in common here
is that all these victims say they held dinner parties just a few days before
they were robbed.”
“Yeah,
that’s true. But you should see the guest lists, all wealthy beyond our wildest
dreams – except maybe you, Jon.” Bill grinned as the other man scowled.
“J.V.Winters
as a suspect, how delectable!” Cíara exclaimed.