Читать книгу Woman Most Wanted - Harper Allen - Страница 13

“He called me crazy. Miss Looney Tunes.” Jenna sat across from Matt in the nearby coffee shop where he’d hustled her after the fiasco at her apartment. Her gaze looked as if it could start a flash fire on the cracked Formica of the tabletop between them. “And you’re thinking the same thing.”

She never should have let him persuade her to walk away from West and that deceitful old woman who called herself Mrs. Janeway, she thought in angry self-recrimination. She should have refused to leave, at least until she’d found out what they’d done with Zappa. Except that in the middle of her near-hysterical outburst she’d caught a glimpse of the expression, quickly veiled, on Matt’s face and for a moment she’d felt as if she’d actually taken a physical blow.

His expression had frightened her. Suddenly she’d realized that she’d lost her only ally, and that the man she’d thought was on her side wasn’t even able to meet her eyes.

He wasn’t meeting them now.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said a shade too heartily. There was a container of paper-wrapped toothpicks on the table, and he’d already mangled two of them. Now he stripped the wrapping off a third and snapped it in half. “It’s obvious that you’re a little confused, but that could be the result of a lot of things—stress, for example. It could be an aftereffect of the mugging.” The third toothpick lay in pieces by his coffee cup as he fell silent.

Right from the start he hadn’t known what to make of her, she thought despondently. She’d seen him glancing dubiously at her ankle bracelet and tie-dyed dress, and even on the phone this afternoon she had the sinking feeling she’d come off as a flake. When she’d met him, she’d realized that Agent D’Angelo was just as alien to her as she appeared to him.

It was no wonder he’d felt uneasy with her. It had been almost inevitable that he’d jumped to the conclusion that she was suffering from some kind of delusion.

The phrase “just the facts, ma’am,” could have been coined for him. He was the perfect FBI agent, from his unobtrusive but well-cut suit right down to his gleaming shoes. Maybe he was just a little too good-looking to pass unnoticed in a crowd, but even there he’d done his best to conform. Not a strand of that thick black hair was out of place, and that sensuously full lower lip that seemed so at variance with the rest of the hard angles of his face was usually thinned in a tightly controlled line. It must have taken him years to submerge his own personality so completely, Jenna mused. Now he probably didn’t even have to think about it.

But he’d slipped up once, and for a startling moment she’d seen past the conservative facade to the original Matt D’Angelo. The man she’d glimpsed had looked at her with a sudden flare of heat in those cool golden-brown eyes, and for a heartbeat his gaze had lingered searingly on her, as if he couldn’t stop himself. Then he’d pulled back with a visible effort, and she’d almost been able to see him convincing himself that what he’d experienced hadn’t been real.

Just like he was trying to persuade her now.

“Refill?” The waitress, a tired-looking woman in her late forties with a name tag that said Marg pinned to her uniform, was standing beside them with a full coffeepot in her hand and a mechanical smile on her face, but as she looked at Jenna her expression changed to one of interest.

“Beautiful dress, honey.” Almost reverently she reached out and her fingertips brushed the thin multihued cotton. “I used to know a girl in the ’60s who designed and dyed her own—Tamara, her name was. She used to give them away.”

“Tamara Seagull?” Jenna looked up eagerly. “She still does—this is one of hers. She lives on a commune in Vermont and barters them for produce and firewood. I traded a couple of bushels of tomatoes and a wheelbarrow-full of zucchini for this.” She laughed for the first time that evening, feeling suddenly as if she’d run into a friend.

Matt was looking at them as if he didn’t know what they were talking about. She ignored him.

“When I knew Tamara we were both still in our teens,” Marg the waitress said reminiscently. She set the coffeepot down on the table, forgotten, and her expression was faraway, as if her dingy surroundings had faded into the background. She smiled dreamily, and it was possible to see that she’d once been vibrantly pretty. “Everything seemed so simple then—she’d make her dresses, and I was going to set up a pottery studio. But then I met Dwayne and fell madly in love, and the next thing I knew, I was married and expecting a baby. Dwayne took a job for a few months at a factory, but he hated it, and two weeks after Debbie was born he took off. I never heard from him again.” She stared unseeingly through the steam-fogged window of the coffee shop to the darkness outside, and then blinked. Slowly she picked up the pot and one of the thick, chipped mugs. “I’ll never forget that summer. I still have one of the plates I made back then. But you wouldn’t even have been born in the ’60s—how do you know Tamara?”

“My father and I lived on the Sunflower Commune for a while about three years ago,” Jenna said. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Matt frown uncomprehendingly. He probably thought the lifestyle she’d lived up until recently had died out with sit-ins and peace medallions, she thought impatiently. “It’s a well-respected artists’ colony now, with a self-supporting organic farm attached—their stone-ground bread is famous all over the state. They didn’t have a resident potter when I was there, though,” she added. Beside her, Marg bit her lip thoughtfully.

“It’d take a while before I could turn out anything good again,” she said slowly. “But I’m a hard worker, and a bakery can always use an extra pair of hands. Since Debbie got married and moved away, there’s been nothing to keep me here.”

She poured Matt another cup of coffee almost briskly, and her smile at Jenna as she left their table was nothing like the mechanical one she’d worn earlier. As soon as she was out of earshot, Matt spoke.

“How’d you do that?” His voice was almost accusatory. He looked baffled. “I’ve seen agents with years of experience who can’t draw that much out of someone in hours of interrogation, but she spilled her most secret hopes to you after two seconds. Where’d you learn that?”

Jenna shook her head, momentarily taken aback. “I didn’t learn that. It’s not a technique, Matt—I just thought she looked kind of lonely. And when she noticed my dress, she reminded me of the people I grew up with.”

“Ex-hippies.” He couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice. “You really were brought up on communes? I didn’t know they still existed.”

“It’s not that unusual,” she said with a spurt of defensiveness. “A lot of people still choose to opt out of mainstream society and live an alternative lifestyle closer to nature. It’s not as if we painted our bodies blue and sat around contemplating blades of grass all day.”

“Well, it explains the ankle bracelet, anyway,” he muttered, and at that her temper flared.

“And it explains what happened back at my apartment, right? I’m just an off-the-wall flake that lives in a fantasy world half the time, is that it?” She took a deep breath. “I know it must have seemed weird, Matt, but you’ve got to believe me—somebody went into my home today and completely changed everything!”

Put like that, it did sound outrageous, she thought in sudden uncertainty. Why would anyone in the world want to discredit her? What threat was she to anybody?

All of a sudden the answer was right in front of her. Her breath caught painfully in her throat as she considered her theory, examining it for flaws and finding none. Of course, she thought with growing certainty—that had to be it! And once she explained everything to Matt, he’d have to believe her, because with this missing piece in place, the whole thing made sinister sense. Jenna looked around the coffee shop, leaned across the table and lowered her voice to an urgent whisper.

“It’s a vast conspiracy aimed at making me look crazy,” she said in a rush of excitement. “That’s why it’s working so well—because it was planned that way! They wanted you to discount everything I said, so they created the whole setup—changed the locks so my keys wouldn’t work, re-painted and papered my apartment and got rid of all my furniture, and installed that terrible old woman in there with her phony walker. I was watching her, Matt.” She gave an unladylike little snort of derision. “She wasn’t even putting her weight on that thing! Heck, she probably teaches swing dancing when she’s not busy with her criminal career—” She stopped in mid-sentence, taking in the expression in the dark gold eyes across from her.

It was pity. But that was only because he still didn’t know the reason she’d called him today in the first place, Jenna thought, exasperated at herself. She did sound like a kook, spilling it out like that. She took a deep, calming breath to center her thoughts, but Matt’s voice broke into them.

“A vast conspiracy.” His tone was placatingly noncommittal, as if he was taking care not to set her off on another tirade. “Sure, Jenna, that’s probably what’s going on. But right now let’s try and find you a place to stay for the night—since Mrs. Janeway and her cohorts have stolen your apartment.”

He paused, and invested his next words with a casual carelessness, shredding another toothpick to sawdust as he spoke. “And it might be a good idea to take you to the hospital and have that graze on your arm attended to in case it gets infected. In fact, we should do that first. My car’s still outside the apartment, so we’ll walk back. I’ll drive you over to Mass. General straight away.”

He couldn’t have telegraphed his meaning more clearly if he’d been wearing a white coat and chasing after her with a net, she thought in annoyance. She discarded her plan of leading up to the subject logically and dispassionately.

“I saw Rupert Carling today, Matt. That’s what this is all about.”

Across the table from her he let the last remnants of the toothpick fall from his fingers. His features smoothed into a bland mask, revealing nothing of what he was thinking, but the gold glints in his eyes intensified and he flicked a glance around the half-empty room before he spoke. When he did, he sounded as perfunctory as if she’d made a comment about the weather. “Run that one by me again. You saw who?”

“Rupert Carling. You know—the missing tycoon who disappeared two days ago,” she elaborated impatiently. “His photo’s been on the front page of all the papers with the story about how the police think he might have been murdered. You must have seen it!”

“I’ve seen the articles. I know who Rupert Carling is.” He held her gaze with his own. “I still don’t get the connection between his disappearance and what happened tonight at your apartment.”

“It’s obvious! For some reason, no one’s supposed to know where he is or even that he’s still alive, and when they found out I’d seen him at Parks, Parks, and Boyleston today in the basement, they had to totally discredit me before I told the authorities.” Jenna tapped her thumbnail nervously on her bottom lip. “They couldn’t simply kill me. I wonder why?”

“And Parks, Parks, and Boyleston is…?” he inquired politely.

“The law firm where I started work yesterday.” Her hair had fallen forward in her excitement and she pushed it back with a quick gesture. “Don’t you see? This whole thing makes sense now—I’m simply a crazy lady with one crazy story after another.” A thought struck her and her eyes darkened. “The mugger! He wasn’t after my money, he was after my identity! Everything that could help me prove I’m who I say I am was in my wallet….”

Her voice trailed off as the enormity of the plan became clearer. “They couldn’t kill me for some reason, so they did the next best thing. They were trying to make it look as if Jenna Moon never existed, Matt. As if everything about me was a lie or a fantasy.”

Outside it had begun to rain heavily, but she hardly noticed the downpour through the plate-glass window beside them. All her attention was focused on him, and when he finally spoke she realized she’d been holding her breath.

“It sounds too incredible to be true,” he said. At her stricken expression, he continued, voicing his thoughts aloud. “And that might have been just what they were counting on—whoever ‘they’ are.”

He was silent for a moment. Then he sat up straighter and took a pen and a small notepad from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Okay, take it from the top and don’t leave anything out, no matter how insignificant it seems. How did you run into this man you thought was Rupert Carling?”

He wasn’t convinced—not yet. But at least he was giving her the benefit of the doubt, instead of writing her off as a flake, Jenna thought shakily. A wave of relief rushed over her and she felt the sharp prickle of tears behind her eyelids, but she blinked them away and tried to keep her voice steady as she answered him.

“Miss Terwilliger is training me as a records clerk, and like I said, today was only my second day on the job,” she began. He interrupted her.

“Miss Terwilliger? What’s her position at Parks, Parks, and Boyleston?”

“We call it Parks, Parks for short,” she said helpfully. “Miss Terwilliger is the head of the office staff, and she’s been there forever. Parks, Parks is her life—I don’t know what she’ll do when she’s forced to retire.” Matt rubbed his temples in an unconscious gesture and she went on hurriedly. “Anyway, she’s a dragon, but today she said she thought I might have the makings of a first-rate records clerk in me, so I think she likes me. She even gave me some files to put away in the archives but the building’s old, and I got lost going down the wrong passageway.”

“And you ran into Rupert Carling in the basement of this law firm?” The note of disbelief was back, not as strong as before but still distinctly audible. “What was he doing, catching rats?”

Her thoughts skidded to an abrupt halt and she stared blankly at him. “If you knew already, why the big pretense with the notebook? Why didn’t you tell me somebody’d already reported it?” She drew away from him in annoyed disappointment, and the bells on her ankle bracelet tinkled sharply.

“I don’t know anything about Rupert Carling being seen except for what you’re telling me now,” Matt said. He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “Call the rat-catcher thing a lucky guess.”

“Oh.” She looked dubiously at him. “Well, he wasn’t catching rats when I saw him, but he was wearing coveralls with the name of an extermination firm on them.”

“You’re serious? Rupert Carling really was posing as a rat-catcher?” He looked incredulous, but at her nod he scribbled something in his notebook. “Did you notice the name of the firm?”

“It was something unimaginative like Pestex. Oh—and he had one of those weird gas-mask things on.”

“A respirator?” He started to make a notation in his book but then paused and looked up. “Wait a minute. Wouldn’t that have covered his face?”

“If he’d been wearing it, yes, but he had it hanging by the straps around his neck.” She frowned slightly. “I hope you’re getting this down right. I probably should read it over when we’re finished in case you miss something vital.”

“Someday you’ll have to teach me that deep-breathing technique you use.” Matt laid his pen carefully on the table and smiled thinly at her. “The serenity one.”

He sounded touchy. “Sorry. It’s just that this is the first time I’ve ever given a statement, and I want to make sure I remember everything.”

“That’s understandable.” Sighing, he raked his hand through his hair and picked up his pen again. “If you did see Rupert Carling and someone’s trying to cover it up then you’ve obviously stumbled onto something big. Any little detail could be important. What happened next?”

“Nothing.” She shrugged helplessly. “I turned a corner, barreled into the man, apologized and kept going. The next corridor was the right one, and I was almost back at the file room when I realized who he was. All I could think of was to phone the FBI, so when Miss Terwilliger said I could take my lunch break I ran out to a pay phone, got the number from the operator and called you.”

“Hold on a minute.” Tossing his pen down, he narrowed his eyes. “Why waste precious time waiting for your lunch break? In fact, why didn’t you just phone from the office and tell me all this right away?”

Jenna shook her head. “No personal calls at work. Miss Terwilliger says that’s like stealing from the company. I knew you’d want to ask questions and go over my story a few times, but I only had half an hour for lunch and it was obvious Carling had no idea I’d recognized him.” Color rose to her cheeks. “Look, Matt—I wouldn’t have traded my life for anything up until now. But I’m twenty-four years old, and I’ve never had a regular job or stayed in the same place for more than a few months at a time. Franklin wasn’t the type to settle down and since it was just the two of us, I guess I felt I should stay with him until—until he died earlier this year. It was hard enough to find a firm that was willing to hire someone like me in the first place, and I’m not about to do anything to lose this job. I need it. I’ve got rent to pay. For the first time in my life I’ve finally got a place I can call my own—”

She broke off, suddenly remembering. To her chagrin, this time the tears wouldn’t be contained and she felt one sliding down her cheek. She looked up through flooded blue eyes and attempted to pull herself together, but to her surprise, instead of looking uncomfortable and grabbing for another toothpick to destroy, Matt reached over and took one of her hands in both of his. He’d forgotten to thin his mouth into his usual straight line and he looked more approachable than she’d yet seen him.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.”

He had a nice voice, she thought inconsequentially. When it lost its businesslike edge, it was as warm and silky as melted chocolate, and it was low enough so that the person he was speaking to felt compelled to keep quiet, just to catch what he was saying. Big family, she decided promptly. That had to be something he’d learned growing up in a noisy household. She felt ridiculously pleased at having guessed a little of his background.

“I’m going to make a quick call to the Agency before we leave and alert them to what you’ve told me.” He glanced at the public phone on the wall by the exit. “Not the most secure place to give a report, but I want to get this information to the office right away. Then we’re going to head back to the apartment and start searching for your cat. The most likely way they got rid of him was simply by opening the window and letting him out, and if he’s not familiar with the neighborhood, he’s probably still somewhere close by. Siamese, kind of chunky around the middle, right?” He gave her a one-sided and quizzical smile.

She could feel the stupid tears coursing down her cheeks, but this time she didn’t care. “Don’t forget the blue paint on his tail,” she laughed shakily. “Oh, Matt—I knew your aura couldn’t lie! I can’t see them very often but when I can they’re always right, and today when I met you I was pretty sure I saw yours. It was pale pink, like a cloud.”

He looked nonplussed. “Aura? I have an aura around me?” She saw his eyes flick involuntarily to the air above his head.

“Don’t worry, everyone has one.” She laughed again, and then somewhere deep inside her it suddenly felt like a bird had started fluttering around, trying out its wings for the first time. It was an oddly exhilarating sensation. “They’re—they’re a reflection of your inner being. Pale pink is good,” she finished breathily, her gaze locked onto his.

“Even for a man?” He had that melted-chocolate voice thing going again, she thought hazily. It was such a sexy contrast to the tough pragmatism the rest of him projected that it ignited a string of wildly imaginative paradoxes in her mind, like a chain of Chinese firecrackers exploding one after another—controlled but unleashed, lazily casual and then intense, slow and sweet and strong and hot…

His thumb was idly stroking the inside of her palm. This time she was quite willing to accept that she was going a little crazy.

“Especially for a man,” she managed to say. Whatever was going through her mind had to be going through his right now, too, she thought. That lower lip was pure sensuality and his eyes were half-veiled by those thick dark lashes. His breathing had deepened and slowed.

For a long moment the world around them seemed to recede into nothingness. Far in the background of her consciousness Jenna could hear the clink of china as tables were cleared, the faint sound of a radio playing behind the counter and the rushing hiss of a bus coming to a stop outside in the rain. But nothing registered. She felt as if the whole universe had lasered down to a single pinpoint of reality that only included the touch of their hands, the electric awareness flowing between them.

“I—I should make that call.”

Matt’s reluctant words finally broke the silence, but instead of regretting that the moment had come to an end, she almost welcomed it. She felt shaky and disoriented, and as he abruptly pushed back his chair and walked over to the phone in the corner of the coffee shop, it was almost impossible to force herself to stop staring at the way he moved, from letting her gaze linger on the smoothly powerful shift of muscles under that suit jacket…

What had just happened between them? A silvery shiver ran down her spine. One moment they’d been slightly antagonistic near strangers, and the next minute they’d both been indulging in converging fantasies that had almost accelerated into reality. Only the fact that they’d been in a public place had kept them apart, Jenna thought tremulously.

It had been so intense. It was as if those wings she’d felt fluttering inside her had flown straight up to the sun, heedless of the fire that awaited them there and craving only the ever-increasing heat. A minute longer in that dangerously seductive flight and she would have never been able to return to the safety of the mundane world.

Even now she wasn’t sure that she would ever be the same person she’d been half an hour ago.

He wasn’t her type, for heaven’s sakes! She saw him lift the receiver and casually turn his back to the room, but with heightened awareness she noticed that he was facing the broad, black expanse of plate-glass window. He was using it as a mirror, she realized. He knew everything that was going on behind him, and if anyone came close he’d probably start talking about something totally innocuous. Suspicion, caution, deception—they were all part of his job.

He was nothing like the men she’d known in the past. The two serious relationships she’d engaged in had been gentle and loving, and both Colin and Ted had been committed to the same lifestyle that she was used to—neither one of them could be called aggressive, and each relationship had ended with quiet affection when she’d moved on. She smiled faintly. Certainly neither man had come chasing after her, trying to persuade her to stay.

Matt D’Angelo might have a veneer of civilization and conformity about him, but if he ever wanted anything badly enough, he’d fight to get it—and keep it. Those gold-flecked eyes that could change so swiftly from bland opacity to raw desire gave him away every time he looked at her.

Those eyes were looking down at her now. With a slight start, she saw that he’d finished his call and was standing beside her silently…and as she met his shuttered gaze, she suddenly knew that her world was about to be shattered for the second time that day.