Christ. She had stolen goods, a.45, and an appointment. There wasn’t a thing in that combination that didn’t spell trouble in capital letters, and the one thing she didn’t have, the one thing he hadn’t seen anywhere since he’d first seen her up on Seventeenth, was backup.
He let his gaze drop down the length of her, and when he got to her feet, he stopped, his attention arrested. By whatever quirk of fate was out there, when she’d stepped over to the desk, she’d stepped right on top of her hooker skirt. It was under her slinky black high heel, and as he watched, she quietly and deliberately slid her foot across the carpet, dragging the small slip of leather and lace with her, until she could give it one small last push and make it disappear under the desk.
And she did it all without a word.
When she pulled her foot back from the desk, he looked up and caught her gaze. She knew he’d tailed her from the Oxford. She knew he knew about the German, the leash, the dog collar, and probably about the suit jacket she’d cut open, and man, oh, man, it didn’t faze her in the least. Butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth.
Oh, she was a cool one, all right, but not cold. Her hair was warm honey gold, swept up in a Holly Golightly twist. Her mouth was softly pink and glossed, and her eyes were gray, a dozen shades of it, any one of them callable at will-and the one she was currently calling up was clear. Not storm gray, not arctic gray, nothing to do with ice or an emotion-just clear, pure, simple, clean gray. Pure and simple “I know what I’m doing, so don’t get in my way” gray, and he was impressed as hell. What he’d seen in room 215 was none of his business. She couldn’t have made it any plainer if she’d painted it on a billboard in big block letters: “Back off, big boy.”
He knew women like her, had been in love with them most of his adult life, women like Skeeter Bang and the bodaciously dangerous Red Dog. Those two knew exactly what they were doing, and they really didn’t need his help, especially if they had each other.
But Easy Alex had taken on the German alone, and nobody had been waiting for her in the Faber Building. She was running a private game here- and she was cutting him loose, pushing him out the damn door. He had an emotion for that, but he really didn’t know what in the hell to call it.
Bottom line, though, this was her call, not his, no matter how skeptical he was about her father, her gun, and how she’d leashed that guy to the bed. She was done with him, and he wasn’t going to learn anything more by hanging around the B & B office, getting in her way and holding her up.
“If you want to get your things, I’ll walk you out.” He didn’t ask. It wasn’t a question. He was walking her out, end of story, and unless she threw herself at his feet and begged for his help when they hit the street, he was going to go back to his beer at the Blue Iguana.
From the looks of her, he figured the odds on her begging him for anything were zip and none.
Esme hesitated, but only for a second, before she walked back to the bathroom. She knew what time it was, and she knew she didn’t have any to waste.
Good God, Johnny freakin’ Ramos.
She had a handheld black light already in the bathroom, and once she closed the door, she turned it on. It would only take her a minute to check the painting. The last thing she wanted was to show up at Nachman’s with a fake. The Meinhard was her bargaining chip. She needed to know she had a solid opening hand.
Reaching into the white vinyl tote, she removed the thin metal case containing the Meinhard and popped it open. With a small screwdriver also from out of her tote, she loosened the wooden frame on the painting and lifted off the protective covering. One slow pass with the black light was all she needed, and as soon as she was finished, she reassembled the painting and the frame and put the piece back into the case.
The metal case measured precisely two by ten by fifteen inches, and when she got back to her dad’s desk, she slipped it neatly inside a black leather messenger bag she’d designed for a courier contract she’d taken last May. The job had been to transport a rare manuscript from Presque Isle, Maine, to Bern, Switzerland, and it had gone without a hitch.
She zipped the interior pouch on the bag closed, securing the case inside, then buckled the outside straps.
John Ramos, standing right there next to her. That was a bit of a hitch, maybe more than a bit. Cripes. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her red leather skirt, and she didn’t have a doubt in her mind that he’d been the “policía” at the Oxford, or that he’d followed her through the hotel room, or that he knew exactly what she’d done to Otto Von Lindberg.
Hell, for all she knew he was a policeman, undercover, off-duty, whatever. It was enough to make a girl sweat, if a girl ever sweated. Thank God, Esme didn’t, never, not on the job.
The messenger bag had been constructed with a net of very fine steel mesh sandwiched between its lining and the thick latigo leather. It also had a cipher lock connected to a steel cable running through the flap. She engaged the lock before slipping the bag’s shoulder strap over her head and adjusting it across the front of her body in a manner that insured it wouldn’t get in the way of drawing her pistol. Nobody could get the bag without taking her with it, which suited her just fine. This was a four-part deal with three parts left-Isaac Nachman, Franklin Bleak, get the hell out of Denver. That was the plan, and she was still damn close to being on schedule, despite Johnny freakin’ Ramos.
He walked ahead of her into the hall and waited while she locked up.
Hell. She probably needed her head examined for opening the door to him. She should have waited him out, toughed it out, gone out the window-something.
Jiggling the key in the lock, trying to get the dead-bolt to slide home, she hazarded another quick glance at him, and got hit by that freight train all over again, which brought her train-wreck quota for the last ten minutes up to an even dozen, easy, dammit. She felt the collision the same place she’d felt all the others, in her throat and her upper chest, a pure respiratory reaction-as in he took her breath away. It was ridiculous. She was too old for this, too jaded. She’d had real lovers since him, with real sex-and never ever had a man gotten her so hot in a backseat or anywhere else that all she could see on her horizon was complete and utter annihilation. It was the only thing that had stopped her from losing her virginity to the baddest of the bad boys that night-fear of destruction. Everything between the two of them had been so hot, and wild, and edging on frantic, the windows of the car steamed over, his body like corded sinew, all muscle and bone and warm skin, his dark hair so silky, and so tangled from her fingers, his mouth on her everywhere.
Everywhere.
Dammit. Her fingers slipped on the key, and she chipped a nail on the jamb.
Dammit.
She glanced at him again-and got hit by the memory train one more time, except the collision was closer to her solar plexus, and a little lower down.
He’d been naked that night, the first naked boy she’d seen, and she’d never seen another one like him, naked or otherwise, until ten minutes ago.
Perfect.
What an absolutely perfect image to have slide out of her memory banks-John Ramos naked. Cripes. With another couple of tries, she finally got the deadbolt locked.
Dropping the keys into an outside pocket on the messenger bag, she headed for the stairs, and he fell in beside her.
She took a breath, calm, easy. About two more minutes and he’d be firmly back in memory land, a blast from the past that was behind her. She took another breath and kept walking.
He had definitely filled out since high school. He was broader through the shoulders, broader through the chest, taller-just plain bigger all the way around. His hair was thick, and dark, and cut short, shorter than she’d ever seen him wear it. The style made him look older than she knew he was, and the thickness of it made his hair stick up a little, and altogether, combined with the lean, carved lines of his face, he looked tough, like he’d just walked out of the LoDo alley where he’d been seen, like he was still running wild on the streets.