One Last Chance
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JUSTINE DAVIS

lives on Puget Sound in Washington. Her interests outside of writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

Justine says that years ago, during her career in law enforcement, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was at the time occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard from again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington State, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Para Elia de la Cova, mi preciosa suegra— who with a heart so beautiful took in a loner and made her feel loved.

Yo te amo, mamacita.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Chapter 1

“Am I boring you?”

Chance Buckner’s hands stilled, and he looked casually sideways at the man in the gray suit who stood before him, hands on where his hips would be if they were detectable.

“You would be,” he said lazily, “if I was listening.”

Unconcernedly he went back to the informational sheet the speaker had handed out. Almost right, he thought, holding it up for a sighting, then lowering his hand to make a minor adjustment to one of the wings of the paper airplane.

Out of the corner of one eye he saw the livid flush rising above the older man’s collar, and had to smother a grin. He heard a cough but didn’t dare look at his partner. He knew that if he locked eyes with him, his laugh would break loose; he and Quisto had a way of communicating without words that got them into trouble nearly as often as it saved them.

“Perhaps you can explain to me, Detective Buckner,” the man said in barely suppressed fury, “just why you are here?”

In one smooth, fluid movement, Chance levered his lean, muscled body away from the wall he’d been leaning against. He drew himself up to his full six-foot-two height, topping the shorter, older man by at least six inches.

“I’m here,” he said with slow emphasis, “because you guys blew it. I’m here because you guys can’t find your butts with a map. I’m here because you guys couldn’t make a case on a guy you had under your thumb for two damned years.”

“You son of a—”

The man broke off, sputtering. He whirled toward the fourth man who had been sitting at the head of the long table that sat in the center of the conference room, quietly observing.

“If this is an example of this department’s discipline,” he spat out, “then we haven’t got a chance of nailing Mendez!”

“You had your chance, in Miami.”

The man’s red face snapped around to glare at Chance’s partner, the source of the comment, a compact, wiry, dark-haired young man with flashing brown eyes who was seated at the other end of the table. Quisto looked back, totally untroubled. The gray-suited man spun back toward the man at the head of the table.

“I was told we would have complete cooperation, Lieutenant!”

A pair of dark eyebrows rose over an inscrutable pair of brown eyes. “I was told,” the lieutenant said mildly, “to listen to what you had to say, and do whatever you asked. I don’t recall you asking me to maintain order for you.”

Chance managed to convert his burst of laughter to an apparent fit of coughing, but at a warning glance from Lieutenant Morgan he stifled even that. Quisto wasn’t quite so lucky, and drew another furious glare.

“If you can’t control your own men—”

“I have no problem with my men, Mr. Eaton. They know their job, and they do it well. But perhaps we can speed things up by setting down some basics. As a result of your office’s investigation—”

“We chased Mendez right out of Miami,” Eaton said smugly.

“Yeah,” Chance said caustically. “He was so scared he barely had time to pack up his whole operation and move it here.”

“Listen, pretty boy—”

“Gentlemen,” Lieutenant Morgan interrupted, in a tone his men had come to know meant they were pushing the limits of his considerable patience. “Let’s get on with this. As I was saying, as a result of the federal investigation, Paolo Mendez has taken up residence in Marina del Mar. So regardless of how or why, he is now our problem. As is—” he paused and opened the file folder in front of him on the table “—the establishment he intends to open.”

Eaton looked blank. “Establishment?”

“He’s taken out a lease on an empty building on Marina Boulevard. He’s already remodeling. Word is he intends to open a club of some sort.”

Lieutenant Morgan handed out a sheet of paper to Eaton, whose crimson face did not fade a bit as he read the report.

When he had finished, he cleared his throat and spoke reluctantly. “Well, er, yes. Good information.”

“Thank Detective Buckner. He had it within twenty-four hours of Mendez’s arrival, despite the fact that he is using the name Paul de Cortez.”

Eaton’s expression told everyone in the room exactly what he thought of the idea of thanking Chance Buckner for anything, short of dropping dead. Quisto smothered a snigger, and got a third glare.

“This is obviously going to be his cover for his drug activities.” Eaton slapped the report down on the table. “We will begin the surveillance immediately, of course. We already have the necessary court orders.”

“You mean we will,” Chance muttered, knowing all too well that it was unlikely that the federal agents would be the ones doing most of the tedious stakeout work.

“You have a problem, Detective Buckner?”

“Yeah. Something’s making me sick.” The look Eaton gave him made his glance at Quisto seem like a loving gaze. Chance waited just long enough to make it obvious what—or who— his problem was, then said easily, “Must have been that burrito at lunch. It was too…heavy.”

Eaton’s color deepened, but Chance’s innocent expression never wavered, and Eaton had to let it pass.

“Why don’t you tell us what you have in mind for the stakeout?” Jim Morgan threw Chance another warning glance as he spoke to Eaton. Chance shrugged and, pulling a chair from the table and placing it against the wall, sat down.

The agent’s voice hadn’t improved since he’d begun. It still had the annoying, buzzing timbre of the fly trapped in the upper corner of the office window. The hum of the insect seemed infinitely more interesting as the man elaborated on procedures any first-year cop would know. And it had been a long time since Chance Buckner had been a first-year cop.

He glanced at Quisto, who rolled his eyes. Restraining a grin, Chance sat back in the chair, fiddling with the rubber band he’d found on the floor. He wound it around his fingers, snapped it a couple of times, and was just wondering how close he could get to that fly when another, much more tempting target presented itself.

Eaton had walked between Chance and the table, inadvertently exposing his considerable backside to attack. Chance drew back the elastic band until it refused to go any further, and zeroed in on the broad expanse of gray.

Quisto suddenly tapped the table in an odd rhythm. Chance glanced up to see his partner’s gaze fastened on Lieutenant Morgan, who was looking at Chance pointedly. With a sheepish grin, Chance eased off the tension on the tiny weapon, and with exaggerated conspicuousness dropped it to the floor. Only then did he catch Eaton’s last words.

“—expect an improved attitude from your detectives, Lieutenant.”

“I’m sure we can handle this investigation in a spirit of mutual cooperation.”

Lieutenant Morgan rose, closing the file folder. Seeing the signal they’d been waiting for, both Chance and Quisto got rapidly to their feet and headed for the door.

“Detective Buckner.” The lieutenant’s words forced Chance to turn back. “My office.”

Chance smothered a sigh, then nodded. He heard an odd sound, and turned to see Eaton’s face wearing a satisfied smirk. He throttled the urge to deck the man with a well-placed fist, and with an elaborate bow, held the door open.

“So what did he say?” Quisto asked.

“I’m fired.”

“Gimme a break, Buckner. The jerk had it coming. What did he want you for?”

“A startling revelation. Eaton doesn’t like me.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“Thanks a lot.” Chance took a swipe at his partner, who dodged agilely away. Quisto grinned.

“Hey, if I looked like him, instead of my classic macho, Latin self, I wouldn’t like you, either.”

“If his ego was as secure as yours, he wouldn’t care,” Chance said dryly.

“And who else but someone with a secure ego could work with you? I mean, it gets kind of old, my man, watching all those ladies throwing themselves at you all the time.”

“They don’t throw themselves at me,” Chance muttered, although he supposed there was something in what the young Cuban said. He would never understand what there was in the arrangement of his features, in the aligning of the parts that made up Chance Buckner, that made women look twice. He only knew that, to his embarrassment, they did. And often came back for a third look.

“It’s those piercing blue eyes,” Quisto said dramatically, “and all that sun-bleached California hair.”

“My hair’s from Iowa, just like the rest of me.”

His answer was automatic. They’d been through this teasing routine many times. So was the gesture of his hand as he ran it through the tangled mass of the gold-streaked brown hair. He would be grateful for that if nothing else when he left this assignment to narcotics, he thought. He hadn’t had his hair off the back of his neck in four years.

“Besides what are you complaining about? I send ’em all to you anyway.”

“Ah, yes, and I teach them that every wonderful thing they’ve always heard about Latin lovers is true. But you, my friend, don’t you think you’re carrying this solitude bit a little far?”

“You worried about my social life, Quisto?”

“I’m worried,” the younger man said frankly, abandoning the formal tones, “about your libido. You haven’t even had a date since Sarah died, let alone anything more…strenuous.”

Chance’s face closed up in silent warning, but the wiry young man kept on.

“You walk around looking like the poster boy for the wrong side of the tracks, women drool on themselves trying to get to you, and you ignore them all.”

“Quisto.” His tone was the equivalent of the look that had shuttered his face.

“And you’re going to volunteer for all the night shifts on the stakeout, aren’t you? Just like last time. Damn it, Chance, when are you going to—”

“Not now.”

Chance had stopped dead, turning to fix his partner with a steady, forbidding gaze. Quisto shrugged and gave it up.

“Okay, amigo. I was just worried about you.” He grinned suddenly, a brilliant flash of white teeth against perfect olive skin. “Hey, maybe that’s the secret. Ignore ’em, and they flock to you. I’ll have to try it.”

“You, ignore women?” Chance accepted the unspoken apology easily. “That’ll be the day.”

Chance thought of Quisto’s words again that evening as he sat in the surveillance van outside the building Mendez had leased. He had been wary of the effusive young Cuban at first, especially after the quiet, laid-back man who had been his partner for his first three years in the division.

But Marty Thompson was gone now, the unruffled exterior having hidden the ravages of burnout that had surfaced abruptly and finally one day beneath the brilliant California sun. That funeral had frightened him as no other, filling him with the eerie sensation that he was looking at himself, and he wondered if someday, somewhere down the hard, sometimes dirty road, he too would walk out onto the golden sand of this paradise and blow his brains out. It was a question he’d always been able to say no to, until Marty. And Sarah.

“All set, Chance?”

He glanced at Jeff Webster, the detective who was monitoring the equipment. The redhead nodded, and Chance looked up at the man who had turned around in the driver’s seat of the van.

“Yeah, Todd. Go ahead.”

With a nod, the other man turned, slid out of the van and shut the door, locking it from the outside. He would, Chance knew, walk casually toward an expensive shopping area two blocks down, linger there long enough to be sure he hadn’t been followed, then pick up the car that was parked in the lot and return to the station. In about four hours he would be back to do it all in reverse, while a few miles away, the driver of a nondescript panel truck that was parked near Mendez’s house would be doing the same. The two vehicles would trade places, and then it would begin again.

The system would work until someone realized that the same vehicles always showed up in the area, and perhaps even after, if the drivers could pass themselves off as locals with legitimate business in the area. And when the federal vehicle arrived, that would give them one more to play with, he thought, leaning forward to adjust the recording level on one of the machines.

That was one good thing about working with the feds, he thought wryly. They had a lot more leeway when it came to permits for wiretapping and any other kind of surveillance. And the bugs that Quisto, doing his near-perfect migrant-worker imitation, had planted, were working beautifully.

“You stand out too much,” Quisto explained with a superior air. “Me, I just blend, like a chameleon.”

“Okay, Mr. Lizard, get on with it,” Chance had said, smothering a laugh.

Yes, Quisto had gradually worn down that wall of wariness, mostly, Chance admitted, through sheer persistence and a stubborn refusal to be ignored. He had—

The sharp rapping on the back doors of the van cut through his thoughts. Damn, what the hell? He glanced at Jeff, who shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment. The rapping came again, louder, and Chance scrambled to the back of the van and peered through the mirrored, one-way glass.

“That stupid son of a bitch!”

Jeff jumped, both at the sudden exclamation and at the suppressed fury in Chance’s voice. “What…?”

“Eaton,” Chance spat out as the pounding came again. “He pulled up in a damned government car, complete with labeled plates.”

Jeff gaped at him. “What is he, some kind of a nut?”

“Worse. He’s stupid.”

The door handle rattled, and they heard a muffled voice. “Come on, Buckner! I know you’re in there!”

With a snarled curse, Chance braced himself against the roof of the van and reached for the door. With a swift movement he threw it open, reached through with one leanly muscled arm and yanked the startled Eaton into the van. Despite his bulk, the man flew through the opening as if catapulted, and Jeff Webster stared in awe.

“What do you think you’re—”

“Why the hell don’t you just hang out a sign?” Chance snapped, cutting off Eaton’s protest.

“Get off it, hotshot! Mendez left here an hour ago.”

“And just where do you suppose his right-hand man is right now?” Chance bit out. “He’s inside and, unless we’re luckier than you deserve, calling Mendez to tell him there’s a government car sitting in front of his new business. Which means he’ll be looking for one at home. Congratulations, Eaton, you may have burned two stakeouts at once.”

He opened the door again and practically threw the agent from the van. Chance followed him and shoved the man into the plain gray car that stood out like a sore thumb. “Now get the hell out of here!”

Eaton was furious, but something in Chance’s eyes made him stamp down on the accelerator. Staring in disgust as the car sped away, Chance called lowly to Jeff through the door of the van.

“I’m going to see if I can tell if they made us.”

The tap from the inside told him Jeff had heard him. He turned on his heel and strode off, still fuming. He’d go to the building next door, he thought. It was a large office building, and they’d discovered a spot on its roof that gave a bird’s-eye view of what was apparently being converted into an office.

Damn, he thought, I should have grabbed the binoculars from the van. But I was so damned mad, I didn’t even think of it. God, I hate working with the feds. The troops are good, but the generals are just—

“Ouch!”

Chance barely kept himself from going down; he didn’t know how the person he’d just crashed into had stayed upright. He flushed as, muttering an apology, he knelt to pick up the book that had bitten the dust—or the concrete sidewalk, in this case.

Poetry, he noted as he lifted the thick volume. He dusted it off and began to straighten up to give it back. And stopped dead before he’d moved an inch.

There before him were the most beautiful legs he’d ever seen. Small feet were encased in short, bright red socks and pristine white tennis shoes, the ankles were slender and delicate, the calves bare, smooth and shapely. Even the knees were lovely, and the thighs…

He gulped, aware that he seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Where the reality of that long stretch of golden leg ended at the edge of a short white skirt, his imagination had kept right on going.

After a long moment he managed to make his reluctant muscles respond and bring him upright by telling them that it was safe; the rest couldn’t possibly match those legs.

He was wrong. He knew it the moment his eyes slipped over the white skirt to the fluffy, bright red sweater that topped it. The soft plushness did little to disguise the full, feminine curves beneath the cheerful color, and Chance found himself gulping again. He didn’t want to look any further, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was afraid the rest wouldn’t be as incredible, or afraid that it would.

He looked anyway. It was.

He didn’t realize it at first. Her face was shadowed by the brim of the cheerful red-and-white cap she wore, covering what appeared to be dark silky hair. Then she tilted her head and took his breath away again.

Her mouth was a little wide by classic standards, but her lower lip was so full and soft he barely noticed. Her nose was small and pert, her skin creamy and smooth, but once he saw her eyes he forgot everything else. They were huge, framed by thick dark lashes, and deep, smoky gray. And at the moment, those eyes were looking at him with a mixture of wariness and amusement.

“Uh, sorry,” he mumbled again, still staring.

“I hope you’re coming from and not going to.”

He blinked. “Huh?” Oh, brilliant, Buckner. But damn, what a voice. Husky. Silky. Sexy.

“Whatever turned you into the original raging bull.”

He flushed again, then wondered what the hell was wrong with him. “Whoever,” he said hastily.

“A whoever I don’t envy.”

Amusement was winning in the gray eyes, and Chance felt himself responding with a speed that startled him.

“I promised myself I’d wait until tomorrow to kill him. If he’s lucky, I won’t want to by then.”

She looked him up and down consideringly. Contrary to Quisto’s earlier comments, he wasn’t at all sure the total she came up with was favorable. What he was even less sure of was why he cared.

“Why am I not sure you’re kidding?”

His mouth twisted wryly. “Maybe because I’m not sure.”

She smiled suddenly, and took his breath away for the third time. The wide, full mouth started a pulse beating somewhere deep inside him, and the sparkle that had turned her eyes to a glittering silver made it begin to race.

“I’ll have to remember not to read a paper tomorrow,” she said in the silky voice that was a feather up his spine, “in case he’s not lucky.”

“Maybe I’m not so mad at him after all,” Chance said slowly, fascinated by the silver gleam that had lit the gray eyes when she smiled. What would those eyes look like when she laughed? What would they look like hot with passion?

He jerked himself upright and backed up a step hastily. What the hell was he doing?

“Uh, here’s your book.”

He held it out with an uncharacteristically choppy motion. She reached for it, her hand narrow and graceful, her fingers long and slender. Her nails were gleaming red, but a neat, attractive length and shape instead of the daggers he saw so often in this expensive town—nails that made him think of the old mandarins who had thought long nails a status symbol, an indication that they were wealthy enough not to have to do menial work with their hands.

He realized suddenly that he hadn’t released the book and that she was looking at him rather oddly. He let go hastily, pulling his hand back as if the embossed leather cover had burned him.

“Thank you.”

He nodded, wondering what had gone wrong with his coordination that made every move he made seem awkward. He decided the answer was not to move at all, and he didn’t as she replaced the thick volume in the crook of her arm.

“You…like poetry?”

“You get an ‘A’ for deductive reasoning,” she said. Chance suddenly felt as if he’d blushed more in the past five minutes than he had in his entire thirty years. Yet there hadn’t been any real sarcasm in the husky voice, merely the sound of an amusement, matching that in her eyes.

Quisto wouldn’t believe this, he thought ruefully. He’d figure the real reason I ignore all those woman is because if I try to talk, I’ll make a fool out of myself. Hell, maybe he’d be right. “He always is,” he muttered.

“What?” She was looking at him quizzically.

He grimaced. “Just trying to remember back to when I could carry on a conversation.”

“Maybe you knocked something loose here.”

Again there was no sarcasm in her voice, just a touch of the amusement that had been there since he’d first met her eyes. I wish it was only that, he thought, suddenly afraid something had shriveled and died inside him for good.

“Probably permanently,” he said wryly.

“Somehow I doubt that.”

She glanced at the elegant gold watch that banded her slim wrist, her eyes widening when she saw what time it said. He read her look and moved out of her way. She took a step in the direction she’d been going when he had careened into her, then looked back at him.

“About tomorrow…whoever he is, he’s not worth it.”

He let out a breath, then chuckled as he nodded. “Go ahead and read the paper tomorrow.”

The smile came again, even wider this time. He stared after her as she walked away, appreciating the subtle feminine motion of her hips in the short white skirt. He watched her until he realized people were watching him, then he turned around to head toward the other building.

He’d gone only a few steps when he realized he’d never asked her name. It seemed suddenly important, very important, and he turned back to see if he could catch up with her. She was nowhere in sight.

His eyes flicked over every person on the sidewalk in disbelief. She couldn’t have disappeared so fast, she had to be there. But she wasn’t. Damn, Buckner, maybe you hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe she didn’t exist at all.

By the time he gave up and headed once more for the office building that they had scouted out earlier, he was half convinced he had dreamed her. He must have, he thought. No real woman had affected him like that in years. Forget it, he told himself. Get moving.

Chance slipped in the side door of the office building. He passed the elevator and headed for the stairway. He took the four flights at a run, thinking that with working on this case, neither he nor Quisto would have the time for the cutthroat games of racquetball that kept them both in shape.

He was breathing deeply but not, he noted with satisfaction, puffing when he pulled the door open at the top of the stairwell and stepped on to the flat roof of the building. He found a spot quickly and crouched down behind the low parapet.

The first thing he realized was that this vantage point wasn’t going to be useful to them for much longer; he could see a stack of window blinds sitting on a table just inside the now bare window. But more important, he could see, sitting at the desk, Pedro Escobar, Mendez’s lieutenant. Or I guess I should say Pete, he thought wryly. Paul de Cortez seemed to have made some sweeping changes in the names of his employees, as well as his own. I wonder if the Mendezes back in Colombia mind.

The man appeared cool and calm as he worked on something at the desk. Chance’s mind was racing. If he’d made them, he would have already had time to call Mendez, but it was unlikely he’d be sitting there so calmly. From what he knew of the man, Escobar had a tendency to go off half-cocked. Maybe, just maybe they might have lucked out.

No thanks to Eaton, he thought as he kept an eye on the figure at the desk. His report hadn’t even mentioned Escobar; Chance had called a friend in the Miami office for what information he had. Eaton was a prime example of incompetence rising to the top, he thought, wondering cynically how many good men he’d gotten killed along the way.

Eaton. The whoever that had sent him crashing into that vision in red and white. Unless, of course, she really had been a phantom. He ran a hand through his hair, thinking that it was entirely possible. His mind had been doing some funny things lately. Quisto kept telling him he needed a vacation. Actually, what Quisto kept telling him was he needed a vacation and a woman, and not in that order. Maybe he was right.

He knew, of course, that that was the last thing he needed. Or wanted, anyway. Although for a pair of smoky gray eyes, he might think about it….

“Damn,” he muttered, a little stunned at himself. Had she really had that strong an impact on him, to make him think of things he’d sworn off for so long? Had she—

Escobar had moved, and Chance jerked his wandering mind back to the matter at hand. The man had risen from the desk and started to walk toward the door. Before he got there it swung open, and a man in a bright red hard hat stood there. About the red of her sweater—

Knock it off, Buckner, he ordered sharply. The man was smiling, and so was Escobar, nodding and shaking the man’s hand.

As Mendez’s right-hand man turned to walk back to the desk, Chance ducked quickly out of sight. They were safe. They had to be. Escobar didn’t have it in him to remain so calm if he knew they were here.

So, I won’t kill Eaton. At least not yet. Not in time for tomorrow’s paper, anyway, he thought, smothering a grin. Then he settled down to wait until the coast was clear for him to leave.

“Nothing,” Quisto said in disgust. “Absolutely nothing.”

Chance shrugged. “He wouldn’t have all these people after him if he was stupid.”

“I’m the one who’s starting to feel stupid. He hasn’t dealt with anything that even looks like china white, let alone the real stuff. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the guy was opening a legitimate business.”

“Maybe he is.”

“Sure, and politics is a clean business.”

Chance shrugged.

“Damn it,” Quisto said, “all he’s done for a week and a half is talk to decorators, food suppliers, and interview chefs.”

“Hey, now there’s a thought. You could sneak in as a chef. We could close him down in a night.”

Quisto scowled. “One little mistake at a home barbecue and they never let you forget it.”

“It’s your mother who can’t forget it.”

“It was only one fire engine, I don’t see—”

Chance cut off the words with a quick gesture as a silver Mercedes coupe pulled into the driveway behind them. He watched it in the rearview mirror until it pulled into a marked parking stall and Pedro Escobar got out.

“Alone,” he said, and settled back down in the driver’s seat of the black BMW he and Quisto were sitting in.

The car had been, along with a luxurious motor yacht that was moored down at the marina, the spoils of the biggest bust ever made by the Marina del Mar police, two years ago. Under the Federal Forfeiture Statute, they got a large chunk of the hapless drug dealer’s cash in addition to the boat and the car. Chance had been instrumental in that case, and it gave him no small pleasure to know that the man’s resources were being used to bring down others like him.

“Speaking of my mother,” Quisto said as the vigil began again, “she wants to know when you’re coming for dinner.”

“Sometime. When there’s less than twenty of you around,” Chance said dryly. He liked Quisto’s family, especially his energetic, vivacious mother, but sometimes they were daunting just in sheer number. For an only child who’d been a loner most of his life, the chaos of seven brothers and sisters, plus assorted spouses and children was a little overwhelming.

“She worries about you, you know.”

“She worries about everyone.”

“Yes, but when she worries about you, I’m the one who constantly hears about it.”

“Tell her I’m fine.”

“You know she won’t believe me.”

“I know.” Chance grinned at him. “Why is that, partner?”

Quisto grinned back. “Never mind. What you don’t know—”

“—I can’t tell your mother, right?”

The grin widened. “Right.”

They watched as a truck pulled into the driveway, then looked at each other with raised eyebrows.

“I don’t get it,” Quisto said. “If he’s not going to open for another week, like the ad said, why is he having food delivered now?”

“I don’t know. Something private, maybe.”

Chance’s eyes were fastened on the reflected truck. It was food, all right. And perishable stuff at that, lettuce, vegetables, fruit. He shifted his gaze to Quisto, then his eyes shot back to the small mirror, searching.

She wasn’t there. He could have sworn he’d seen her somewhere in the background of the tiny scene the mirror held, but she was gone now. If she’d ever been there at all, he thought wearily.

He rubbed his forehead with one hand, remembering all the times over the past ten days when he’d jerked to attention, thinking he’d seen her somewhere in the distance, or turning a corner, or going through a doorway just far enough away that he couldn’t tell where exactly she was.

“Chance? You all right?”

He turned to find his partner’s bright dark eyes fastened on him curiously. He let out a long breath.

“Yeah.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Maybe I do need that vacation you’re always on me about.”

Quisto’s gaze sharpened, the curiosity changing to concern. “Chance—”

“Forget it, will you? I’m fine.”

Just a minor delusion. Just a strange tendency to jump out of my skin anytime I see a dark-haired woman wearing red. Seeing one woman in particular every time I turn around. Oh, yeah, I’m just fine.

After a moment’s hesitation, Quisto accepted it, at least for now.

“Guess I’ll go see what I can find out, then.”

Although Chance had seen the transformation many times, it never ceased to amaze him. Off came the stylish jacket, and the cotton sweater beneath. Quisto reached behind the seat and tugged out a worn plaid shirt that he slid on over the plain white T-shirt he’d had on under the sweater. His hands went to his hair, pulling it down over his forehead, out of its usual smooth style.

His normally straight, proud carriage changed, slumped. His very features seemed to change, flatten somehow, and he was no longer the aristocratic young Cuban with the flashing dark eyes. He was every brown-skinned Latino day worker seen on the streets of California, the kind that the wealthy people in town looked arrogantly past as if they weren’t there.

“Pick me up around the corner,” Quisto said, and slipped out of the car. He leaned over to look in the window. “Hasta luego, amigo.”

“Yeah, later.”

With an amazed shake of his head, Chance started the car and pulled it away from the curb. Around the corner, as Quisto had indicated, and out of sight of Mendez’s building, he parked again. He picked up the portable radio from the seat, letting Jeff, who was still in the van back in front of the building, know what was going on, then settled down to wait.

It was an unseasonably warm January day, even for sunny-year-round California, and Chance found he had to work to keep his eyes open. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and it was starting to catch up with him. That it was because those gray eyes and that full, soft mouth had come too often to haunt his dreams was something he didn’t care to admit.

You’ve been a fool before, he told himself severely, but that doesn’t mean you have to spend so much time mooning over a woman you saw once, for all of three minutes, and will never see again. And it’s not like you to be mooning over a woman at all, he thought wryly now. You’re out of that market for good, remember?

He shifted in the driver’s seat, leaning his head back against the headrest. A mistake, he thought immediately, and tried to lift it. At least he thought he did. When he came awake with a start, he realized he hadn’t made it. Still leaning on the headrest, he let his head roll to the side, to check the rearview mirror for any sign of Quisto. Seeing none, he let his eyes drift closed again.

Like a video replaying in his head, he saw the scene in the mirror. The construction crews packing up, the food truck driving back the way it had come, the girl with the great legs walking past the driveway—

He jerked upright, his head snapping around. The narrow street was empty. His eyes flicked over both sidewalks— nothing. A long, compressed breath escaped him, and he let his head loll back on his shoulders, his eyes closed.

Of course, he told himself sourly, she’s a phantom, a hallucination, remember? Lord knows, it had happened before.

“Bang, you’re dead.”

Chance’s eyes snapped open, but he managed to keep himself from a startled jump as Quisto slid back into the car.

“Hey, man, you all right?”

Chance shrugged. “Sure.”

“You seem a little…distracted lately.”

“I’m fine,” Chance said firmly. “What’d you find out?”

“You were right. Private party. Big wheels only.” Quisto eyed his friend and partner for a moment. “You gonna tell me what’s bugging you?”

“Nothing.”

“Sarah?” Quisto’s voice was quiet, suddenly devoid of any of its usual glib slickness.

“No.”

For once he could say it and mean it. At least, he thought he could. Maybe this apparition that kept haunting him was no more real than that image had been. It had been nearly two years before Sarah had at last let him rest.

Two years of nightmares, of twisting pain, of reaching for her only to grasp emptiness. Two years of tortured nights spent staring into the dark, staving off sleep, and wondering if the dreams would ever stop. And at last, exhausted, sleeping, only to wake to the ever-present knowledge that he had killed her as certainly as if he had planted the bomb himself.

Chapter 2

“You ready?”

Chance eyed his partner critically. “That depends. Do I have to go in with you?”

“Afraid you’re underdressed?”

Chance grinned. “Everything’s relative, I guess.”

Quisto was looking rather resplendent in a dark, shiny silk double-breasted suit. If he worried about things like that, Chance would have definitely felt underdressed. As it was he was comfortable in the black lightweight wool slacks and thick black-and-tan sweater he had on, which were several steps above his usual worn jeans.

“Let’s hit it, partner,” Quisto said. “Party time.”

They left Quisto’s modern apartment that overlooked the marina, heading for the parked BMW. Tonight was the official public grand opening of the Del Mar Club, and they were off to make a survey of the territory.

They’d spent a useless week running every license plate that had showed up at Mendez’s—de Cortez, Chance reminded himself again—private party. The man was bent on showing everyone how legitimate he was. The guests ranged from the head of the local chamber of commerce to the councilman for the district. Not a single dirt bag in sight, Chance had muttered after two hours hunched over the computer readouts. Except for the ones running the place, he had amended wryly. And, he wondered as he scanned the crowd, any of those local community leaders de Cortez might have managed to stuff in his pocket….

If the number of cars in the lot and on the street was an indication, de Cortez had a hit on his hands. Chance and Quisto scanned the crowd, looking for any familiar faces. Other than a few of the better known local high rollers, they came up empty.

They joined the throng at the door, Chance idly looking at the sign on the wall just inside. Cash only, he mused. De Cortez must be pretty sure of his own success to run a cash-only operation. Then they were inside, going with the flow of humanity that was pouring into the club.

“Nice,” Quisto murmured as he looked around.

Although places like this usually left him cold, Chance had to agree. Through the construction of different levels, and clever, careful lighting, the huge room gave the appearance of private, even intimate alcoves. Yet each was angled in such a way as to give a view of the brightly lit stage, where a four-piece band was hammering out a rock number.

He glanced at them—nothing unusual there, just the expected jeans and slightly unkempt hair. Look who’s talking, he muttered to himself, running a hand through the blond-streaked hair that brushed the top of his shoulders.

Continuing their inspection of the clientele, they made their way around the nearly full room, checking the layout of the place. Chance spotted the hallway just to the rear and the left of the stage that appeared to lead to the stairway up to the office, and marked its location on the mental diagram he was making.

He would have preferred to sit somewhere on the outskirts of the room for a better view of the crowd, but when one of the tuxedo-clad ushers led them rather grandly to a table next to the stage, Chance knew they couldn’t refuse without drawing attention, and it was too early in the game to risk that. He noticed that the music had changed, softened just a bit, although still hardly tame. He glanced over his shoulder at the band, who had changed position, as he sat down.

The table was small, covered with a spotless white linen cloth. The ashtray was cut crystal, as was the elegant vase that held three red roses.

“Whew.” Quisto let out a low whistle. “Three roses per table. That’s a lot of change.”

Chance grinned wryly. “I wouldn’t know. You’re the one who has the standing order for three dozen a week.”

“Hey, I have ladies to keep happy.”

“Rough life.”

“You should try it sometime.”

They’d been through this routine before, too, and Quisto waited for the standard “No, thanks.” His eyebrows rose as he looked at Chance, who had gone suddenly still. The customary answer didn’t come; all Quisto heard was the singer who had joined the band.

It had been all Chance had heard since the first clear, crystal notes had begun, more than a match for the now less boisterous backup band. Pure, sweet and powerful, the words washed over him. He couldn’t seem to move, not even to turn to look, all he could hear was that voice. And the words…

“You wonder when the dreams will stop

Or if they ever will

You wonder if you’re doomed to spend

Your life this way until

You end the dreams…or you”

A shiver ran through him, an eerie sensation of violation, as if his very soul had been invaded, as if the woman whose voice was sending ripples up his spine had climbed inside his mind and read his darkest thoughts.

It was with a sense of trepidation he hadn’t felt in years that he made himself turn. He’d faced armed criminals with less apprehension than he felt when he twisted around in the chair to look at the woman who’d stolen his soul.

Somewhere in the depths of that plundered soul he must have known, because when the slender gray-eyed girl with the wild mane of dark silken hair turned his way, he felt no surprise.

She was in red and white again, this time tight white jeans of some sleek, shiny fabric that molded every taut, trim curve, and a short, bright red leather jacket that came to two points in front where it nipped inward to fit her slim waist. She had on red high-heeled pumps, curving her legs beautifully and emphasizing the delicate ankles. He stared, barely breathing.

The song went on, the words digging deeper, the voice holding every ounce of feeling, every bit of the torture he’d lived with for so long. He was spellbound, completely unaware of Quisto’s gaze fastened on him, as she moved around the brightly lit stage with supple grace.

The tempo changed, the driving beat eased, and she slid into the next song with barely a pause. Slower now, husky with a note of longing and pain so real it was almost tangible, that voice enveloped him, plucked at feelings buried so deeply inside him that he’d been able to deny their existence for a long time.

He tried to turn away, tried to tear his eyes from the personification of the phantom that had haunted him since that day on the street. He couldn’t do it. He could only stare at her as she was lit by a soft spotlight, as she explored his soul with her sweet, poignant song. Only when the third number began, and she drifted back out of the spotlight to let one of the male band members take over the singing, did the spell release him, allow him to move, to suck in a long, deep breath.

“She’s good.”

Quisto’s voice was loud enough to be heard over the music, and Chance’s head snapped around as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. He stared at his partner, fighting the lingering haze that seemed to have surrounded him from the moment he’d first heard that voice, those words. From the moment he’d seen her on the street, he thought wryly.

“Chance?” Quisto was looking at him with an expression that changed from curious to speculative as Chance just looked at him, not speaking. “You all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Chance let out a short, compressed breath. “If you only knew,” he muttered, shaking his head.

Quisto’s brows shot up. “You know the lady?”

“Yes.” He grimaced. “No.”

Quisto’s brows lowered in a hurry. Indecisiveness was not a trait he’d ever seen in his rather taciturn partner. Chance saw the look and shrugged. He couldn’t explain, not here, not now, maybe not at all. He wasn’t sure he understood it himself.

At least now he knew how she had disappeared, where she had vanished to so quickly. Crazy, he thought. All those hours sitting outside, thinking about her, thinking he’d seen her. Hell, maybe he hadn’t been hallucinating, he probably had seen her. She’d apparently been here all the time.

And then she was singing again, a powerful, angry lyric, tearing away at the unnecessary, useless pain of life, shouting fiercely at the darkness. Chance knew that darkness, knew it too well. He wished he’d had her words to help him fight it then.

He hadn’t even realized he’d turned, hadn’t realized the sound of her voice had drawn him as surely as a magnet drew steel. He watched and listened, mesmerized. Each song held words that seemed to reach for something inside him, and her voice held a tremulous note that made his mind, his heart, say yes, that’s how it is, how it was.

She moved to one side, toward them, as the lead guitarist moved to center stage for the bridge between verses. The closer she came, the more Chance held his breath. If she came to the edge of the stage, she would be barely two feet away—

A loud wolf whistle from somewhere behind them broke the spell, and its source tossed something at the stage. Chance tensed, every instinct screaming as the object flew past his head. He ducked, hand outstretched reflexively to grab for the gun strapped to his ankle. Then he heard a small sound and caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye. His rigid muscles slackened, and he let out a rueful breath when he realized the whistler had tossed a rose from the table to the stage.

Then all realization fled, along with most of the rest of his breath, as he began to straighten up. He found himself looking straight into a pair of beautiful gray eyes.

She had bent to pick up the rose, but when their eyes met, bare inches apart, she seemed to go suddenly still. She had begun to smile, the smooth, professional smile of the entertainer, but it stopped abruptly. The gray eyes narrowed, then widened in recognition. When the smile came again, it was soft and warm and real, and it started Chance’s heart on a crazy effort to beat its way out of his chest.

The driving sound of the lead guitar ended, and so did the frozen moment in time. She straightened, whirled and was back into the song without missing a beat. More roses hit the stage and Chance leaned back in his chair, wondering why he was having to think so hard about breathing. All he wanted to think about was that split second when something had seemed to crackle between them.

Hadn’t it? Or had it just been his imagination that had been so overactive lately? But it hadn’t been his imagination, not really. She did exist, she was here, she’d been here all along. But had that moment of electricity really happened? Had her smile been that genuine, that full of what seemed like an intimate warmth?

Then, as that number ended and she turned toward the guitarist before he struck a few softer, slower notes, Chance knew it had been real, that moment had been real. She turned back, the gray eyes searching past the lights until she found him, and the smile came again. When she began to sing, everything in her smile was in the warm velvet of her voice, and the new sweetness of her words.

“It doesn’t happen often

You can’t let it slip away

So when that moment happens

Remember what they say—You’ve got to seize the day”

With one driving chord the lead guitarist slammed the song into high gear, but all Chance heard was the soft, silky introduction. His eyes were fastened on her, on every graceful move, as if there were an invisible bond between them. She seemed to feel it, too. Her eyes found him often and he felt, absurdly, as though he were the only one in the smoky room.

“Well, well, that should make things easier.”

“Yeah.”

Chance hadn’t really heard a word of what Quisto said, he was too intent on watching the vision in red and white until she disappeared down the hall he’d seen earlier. Just before she went out of sight, he saw two tuxedo-clad men close in behind her.

He was on his feet before he even realized he’d made the decision. His eyes were fastened on the hallway as he muttered to Quisto that he was going to check it out, so he didn’t see the gleam that came into his partner’s eyes.

“You do that,” Quisto said, a smile quirking his mouth as he watched Chance’s progress. The men gave way before his broad-shouldered approach; the women, as usual, were slower to move, as if hoping he would decide to stop. And as usual, it was as if Chance never even saw them.

Except, Quisto thought speculatively, for the lady with the big eyes and the bigger voice. He’d certainly seen her. And had reacted more than he had to anyone in all the time Quisto had known him. His eyes were still fastened on the dimly lit hallway as the tall figure in the black-and-tan sweater went out of sight.

Chance never made it to the first door in the narrow hall. He wasn’t sure if the two men who seemed to appear out of nowhere were the same two who had followed her or not. All of the formally dressed attendants seemed to be about the same size. Fifty-two extra-brawny, he thought wryly. At two inches over six feet and a solid two hundred pounds he was hardly tiny, but these guys made him feel inferior.

“Sorry, sir,” one of the bow-tied walls said with impeccable politeness, “no guests allowed beyond this point.”

“Oh?” Chance tried to look surprised; actually he hadn’t expected to get this far. Meanwhile, his eyes were scouring the hallway, noting each door and the barely visible stairway at the end.

“No, sir.” They were closing in, subtly urging him back toward the crowded main room.

“Wait,” he said, grasping at a reason he told himself was only a cover. “I just wanted to see the lady, tell her how much I enjoyed her singing.”

“Visitors aren’t allowed, sir.”

“But I only wanted to see her—”

“She sees no one, sir.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

Chance shrugged, as if he were nothing more than a frustrated fan. “I guess I’ll just wait until she’s done, then.”

“I wouldn’t bother, sir. She won’t see you then, either.”

This was starting to irritate him. “Oh? Why not?”

“She sees no one, sir,” the left bookend repeated. “Boss’s orders.”

Something cold crept down Chance’s spine. “The boss?”

“Mr. de Cortez.”

“Does he own her, or what?” The chill had settled into a frosty knot in the pit of his stomach.

“You might say that. He’s put her…shall we say, off-limits?”

The “sir,” Chance noticed, was gone.

“I’d say that’s for her to decide, isn’t it?”

“She does,” the right bookend said warningly, “what Mr. de Cortez tells her to do.”

That cold lump shifted, changed, spreading out with creeping tentacles, making him fight off a wave of nausea. That lovely vision with the huge eyes and the voice that could melt the most frozen of souls was involved with slime like Mendez?

Get real, Buckner, he told himself fiercely. After all these years, you should know that the most innocent, most beautiful of exteriors often hides the darkest of hearts.

“I suggest you return to your table.”

Suggest? Chance almost laughed. He would have, if he hadn’t been reasonably certain it would get his arm broken. Realizing that any normal patron would have disappeared long ago, he shrugged and managed a careless grin.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying, can you?”

The bookends relaxed a little. “No, sir.”

“You guys here every night?” he asked in a joking tone.

“Yes, sir. Every night.”

With an exaggerated sigh of surrender, Chance shrugged again. Then he turned and walked casually back into the room, wandering here and there, looking around, until the two wardens apparently decided he was harmless, and disappeared. Only then did he go back to the table.

“So,” Quisto said as he sat down, “what’s her name?”

“I was checking the hallway,” Chance answered in automatic protest.

“Sure. What’s her name?”

Chance’s mouth twisted in a wry grin. “I never got that far. Two of the those tuxedoed linebackers stopped me.”

Quisto’s brow furrowed. “They hit you or something? You look a little green.”

“No.” It was short, clipped. He wasn’t about to admit that the thought of the woman who had haunted him for days being connected—intimately—with someone like Mendez made him sick.

“So what’s the story? Why’d they stop you?”

He took in a steadying breath. “I gather she’s…private property.”

Quisto’s brows shot up. “Oh? De Cortez?”

“So it seems.”

Chance could almost see Quisto’s quick brain working, reassessing, placing the vibrant gray-eyed woman in a new niche. A niche that was on the wrong side of the line that he had been walking for the past two years, and Chance for four. Four years that seemed like four centuries.

“A shame,” Quisto said quietly.

“Yeah.” There was a world of bitterness in the single syllable, and Quisto stared at him.

“Chance—”

“Three doors in the hallway,” he said abruptly, cutting his partner off. “Two on the left, one on the right. One’s got to be a dressing room of some kind. She disappeared too quickly to have made it to the stairs.” At least he knew she was real now. “Nothing’s labeled, but we know the office is upstairs. There’s a door at the bottom of the staircase. From the layout, I’d guess it opens into the alley.”

“Lock?”

“Not too tricky, but it’s rigged to the fire alarm. Have to take it out first.”

“I’ll check it out. Just in case.”

Chance nodded. “How many men you figure?”

“Twenty, tonight. Let’s hope that’s just for the big opening. I wouldn’t want to have to deal with all of those clowns through this whole thing.”

“I’d guess the two I ran into are permanent. I’ll check the pictures we got on Mendez—de Cortez’s crew from Florida, see if I can spot them.”

Quisto nodded. He shifted in his chair to look around the room again, then turned back. For a moment he watched his partner, who sat staring at the roses on the table.

“Red roses,” Quisto heard Chance mutter as he reached out and plucked a petal from one of the blooms.

“I’m sorry about the lady, partner.”

“Yeah.” The petal disappeared, crushed in a tightening fist. “Me, too.”

Then, as if realizing what he’d admitted by that answer, by even acknowledging that he knew what Quisto meant, he shut down. His face became stiff and impassive, his voice cool.

“Your turn. Why don’t you check for any other exits, or unexplained doors?”

Reluctantly, Quisto went. He knew there wasn’t any point in arguing when Chance got like that. When he closed himself off, there was no getting through to him. He wandered around the bustling room, scanning every foot of it as he wondered what had happened, what connection there had been between Chance and the sweet-voiced singer before tonight.

He was still wondering by the next night, when it came time to go back to the club. They planned to establish themselves as regulars, become familiar enough to be overlooked, but as he thought about Chance’s reaction the night before, he offered to go it alone, figuring he could check it out and wait and see what happened. Chance only gave him a cool look and asked politely if he was ready to go.

He realized something was up when Chance pulled the car to a stop in front of a small shopping center. Saying only he wanted to get something, he got out of the car. He was back in minutes, empty-handed.

“Closed,” he muttered, and stopped again a few blocks farther on. Again he came back empty-handed. Quisto lifted a brow at him. “They were out,” he explained cryptically. Quisto rolled his eyes in expressive silence, but when Chance stopped once more, in front of a small row of shops, he finally broke.

“Okay, I’ll bite. What the hell are you looking for?”

“The right color.”

Quisto blinked. “Of course. I should have known.”

Chance shrugged noncommittally and got out of the car. When he came back this time, he had something long and slim wrapped in green florist’s paper.

“I thought you didn’t buy flowers.” Quisto’s tone was mild, but his eyes were intently curious.

“It’s Election Day.”

Quisto stared. “It’s not an election year.”

“If it was, this would be.”

Without another word he started the car and pulled away from the curb. Quisto opened his mouth then shut it again, reminding himself that there was no use prodding Chance when he got like this, he just clammed up more.

There were even more people than there had been last night, and the club was crowded to capacity. They worked their way through the milling groups, Quisto following Chance, who appeared to have a definite destination in mind. They moved slowly, eyes searching the crowd. Neither spoke, so they could hear the bits of conversation around them.

“—bringing Sam here tomorrow—”

“—was here last night. The singer is really good—”

“—sexy as hell—”

“—I heard she signed a record contract—”

“—she turned it down—”

“—a knockout. Great body, and she can really sing—”

“—could eat crackers in my bed anytime—”

By the time Chance came to a stop beside an empty table, his jaw was rigidly set. He’d spent a long time last night determinedly shoving the vision that had haunted him into the category of merely a possible way to get to de Cortez. Unless, he thought grimly, she was doing more than just playing house with that piece of slime.

It came back to him then, the picture he’d built last night. He’d had to, to keep his perspective. He’d made himself think about it, made himself picture them together. The crime boss who thought nothing of ordering a murder along with dinner, and the wide-eyed, crystal-voiced woman who had seemed to slice open his soul with her songs.

It was just an image, he told himself again, as he had countless times last night. It was a front, a facade. Part of the big picture de Cortez was building in his new home, the veneer of respectability he was trying to paint over his activities.

He had to accept, no matter how rotten it made him feel, that she knew what de Cortez was, perhaps even helped him. The only alternative was that she was too naive to realize it; he found that more impossible to believe than her connection with the man.

She was a way in, that’s all. A way that might or might not work. Just one facet of a complex investigation. He silently ordered himself to remember that one more time as he tossed the long, slim cylinder of green paper down onto the pristine white cloth covering the table.

“Planning an ambush?”

Quisto had noted immediately the location of the table Chance had chosen. It was farther from the stage, but was exactly where the singer had passed last night on her way to the hallway.

“Sort of.”

“Good luck.”

Chance shrugged. “If it doesn’t work, you’re on next. Maybe she likes the machismo type.”

Quisto lifted a brow in elegant disbelief. “After the way she looked at you last night?” The brow came down in sudden puzzlement. “Besides, I got the idea you were…interested yourself.”

Chance made a low, grunting sound that could have meant anything. “She’s part of the job.”

“So why do I get the feeling you knew her before we came in here last night?”

Chance had had time now to marshal his defenses. “I ran into her on the street a couple of days ago. I was surprised when she showed up here, that’s all.”

Quisto backed off, but he wasn’t convinced. In the two years he’d worked with this man he’d come to admire and respect, he’d never seen Chance react the way he had last night. Quisto leaned back in his chair, occasionally scanning the room, but just as often watching his partner.

She moved so quietly as she opened the first door on the left in the hallway that she was almost even with their table before they saw her. The other members of the band were both in front of and behind her. Still, she paused for a barely measurable moment when she saw Chance. The smile she gave him seemed so warm, so genuine, that he was already smiling back before he realized. Then she was gone, headed for the stage, and he sank back in his chair as he called himself seventeen kinds of a fool.

“Whatever game she’s playing, she’s good,” he muttered, hardly aware of saying it aloud.

“Didn’t seem like a game to me,” Quisto observed mildly.

“It has to be. She belongs to de Cortez, remember?”

“For now.”

Chance’s eyes narrowed as he stared at his partner. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Quisto shrugged as if he’d meant nothing by the comment. “Just that we need to put the heat on without burning ourselves, and I can’t think of any better way to give de Cortez one more thing to worry about than messing with his woman.”

His woman. Chance’s stomach churned. “Yeah,” he muttered, and sank into his seat. He turned toward the stage as the beat began, glad when the houselights went down and the spotlight came up, encircling the slender figure on the stage.

She was in red and white again. This time in a short red leather skirt that reminded him sharply and immediately of the first time he’d seen her, and those long, graceful legs that had knocked the breath out of him. Above the skirt was a shimmering white blouse that draped over her body in a demure cowl neck in front, hinting at the full, feminine curves beneath, then plunged into a deep V in the back, baring a stretch of silken skin that made his fingers curl oddly.

She did it again, as easily as before, reaching into his heart and soul and tying him up in knots with her words. She sang of love and loss, of pain and anger, of fear and mistrust, as if she’d known them all as deeply as he had. For Chance it was a constant battle between the heart that heard and believed every clear, shining note and the mind that knew better.

When she ended with an unexpected ballad, a song of anticipation and hope that she made soar as her strong, sweet voice soared, none of it seemed to matter anymore. For those minutes, she was everything she seemed to be, everything he wished was true.

He watched her as she came off the stage, unconsciously savoring her graceful movements. Those legs, he thought, were incredible. They’d be even more incredible wrapped around—

Damn! He barely kept the oath silent as he sat up sharply. He hadn’t reacted like this to a woman since…since when? Not even with Sarah had it been so quick, so hot.

Great, Buckner, the only thing worse than your timing is your choice of women. Where the hell was all this libido when there was a willing, unentangled woman around?

He didn’t want this, he thought fiercely. Not now, not ever. And especially not with this woman. But he had to deal with her. She was the best chance he had to get close to de Cortez, and if he was going to find out just what de Cortez was up to, he had to take that chance.

She was close now, and with a tremendous effort he forced his mind back to the business at hand. He would think about what he had to do, nothing else. You’ve had years of practice, Buckner. It’ll be easy.

Right, he muttered under his breath as he reached for the green florist’s paper and unrolled it.

He waited until the other members of the band had passed, until the moment she couldn’t avoid seeing him, then slowly stood up. Everything he’d thought of saying fled his mind the moment the gray eyes settled on him. He’d considered the clever lines he’d heard Quisto use and discarded them all, knowing he’d never be able to get one out with a straight face. Finally, as she paused beside the table, he said the only words that came to him.

“Thank you.”

Her eyes shone warmly, then widened as he held out the single flower he’d brought. It was a rose, a beautifully unfolding bud, as perfect and flawless as those on each table that were inevitably tossed to her after every song. But where those were a deep blood red, this one was a pure, immaculate white.

Her gaze lifted from the delicate bloom to his face, a soft smile curving her lips, an acknowledgment of his choice of color in her eyes that was almost a salute. In that moment he would have bet his life that she was for real, that what he saw was the truth. Then one of the tuxedos beside her moved, and he remembered with a dull ache that his life might really be the cost if he didn’t keep his head on straight.

She lifted a hand to capture the long stem in slender fingers. He didn’t release his grip on it but held it, as his eyes held hers. His fingers flexed slightly with an odd tingling sensation, as if the stem of the rose had suddenly developed the capacity to transmit electricity, a current that had begun the moment her fingers had touched it.

She looked momentarily startled, as if she felt it, too, but before she could speak, the tuxedo to her right did, gruffly.

“Let’s go, Miss Austin.”

Irritation flashed through the gray eyes. “In a minute,” she said without looking at the man.

“Maybe you’d better go,” Chance said, a tinge of rancor creeping into his voice despite himself.

“Oh?” She looked puzzled, either at his words or his tone.

“Now, Miss Austin,” the tuxedo said stiffly.

“I said in a minute.” Her voice was cool, her eyes icy as she shot a glaring look over her shoulder.

“You know the boss’s rules,” the man said.

“And we can’t break the boss’s rules, can we?” Chance’s emphasis on the word drew her gaze sharply back to him.

“He’s not my boss,” she began, ignoring the grip the tuxedo had taken on her elbow.

“So I’ve heard. He’s much more than that, isn’t he?” Chance reined in the irritation he couldn’t seem to control. He went on, but still kept his grip on the stem of the rose. “You’d better go. The master awaits.”

“Master?” Her delicate brows furrowed below the tousled fringe of bangs that swept forward from the thick mane of dark hair.

Chance shrugged. “He does own you, doesn’t he?”

He’d wanted to prod her, make her react, but he hadn’t counted on his own reaction to the sudden flare of anger and hurt in her eyes. Contrition flooded him, and before he could stop himself, he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

The tuxedo pulled at her arm, forcing her to move, but she hung back for one last moment. The hurt had faded, but not the anger, and as she at last yielded to the pressure of her escort, she yanked at the rose. It ripped free of Chance’s grasp, a thorn snagging and tearing at his thumb. He jerked his hand back at the sudden pain, shaking it sharply as blood welled to the surface.

When he lifted his head, she was gone, disappearing down the hallway with her solid wall of an attendant. He stared after her for a moment, then slowly sat down.

“It seems the lady has a temper.” Quisto was obviously smothering a grin as he held out a napkin from the table.

“Yeah.” Chance took the cloth and wrapped it around his bleeding thumb. De Cortez could afford it, he thought.

“Of course, you did rather…provoke her.” He looked at Chance consideringly. “Intentionally, I presume?”

“Of course.”

He waited, wondering if Quisto was going to comment on that involuntary apology that had escaped him. But either he hadn’t heard it or had decided not to bring it up. Chance gradually relaxed, dropping the guarded, defensive posture he’d assumed.

“You’re still bleeding.” Quisto eyed the now red-stained napkin. “Do you need—”

He broke off as one of the club’s waitresses, dressed in a short-skirted version of the men’s tuxedos, appeared at their table with a silver tray.

“From Ms. Austin,” she said, and lowered the tray in front of Chance.

Startled, Chance looked at the tray. He stared, then smiled. The smile widened into a grin, then a full-throated burst of laughter broke from him.

Quisto stared. In all the time he’d known him, he’d never heard Chance laugh like that. He shifted his bright gaze to the silver platter and suddenly understood. For there, grandly ensconced on an elegant white doily, sat a thumb-size bandage.

Chapter 3

“He must be on to us. That’s why he hasn’t made a move.”

“If he is,” Quisto muttered to Chance, “it’s thanks to Eaton.”

Eaton’s head snapped around, but they could tell by his expression that he hadn’t heard the actual words. Chance smothered a laugh.

“You have something to say, Detective Buckner?”

Chance raised an eyebrow. “No. I think you’re saying quite enough.”

Color suffused Eaton’s face. “If you can’t treat this with the seriousness it deserves, perhaps we should find someone who can.”

“Oh, I’m taking the case very seriously.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Was there a word in there you didn’t understand?” Chance’s tone was innocent.

Eaton sputtered, but no recognizable words came out.

“All right, gentlemen,” Jim Morgan interjected sternly, “let’s get on with it. What do we have so far?”

“I talked to one of the doormen last night,” Quisto said. “He said that about half the crew was hired for this opening week only. That leaves about ten or fifteen that are probably de Cortez’s own men.”

“Most of them are from his organization in Miami,” Chance added. “We spotted them in the photos they sent out.”

Morgan scanned the papers on the table in front of him. “It seems he brought only those with clean sheets. No serious charges against any of them in Florida or anywhere else. His right-hand man, Escobar, has a local juvenile record, but as far as we can tell, nothing as an adult.”

“Yep,” Quisto drawled, “just a pack of Boy Scouts.”

“Can we get on with this?” Eaton dropped down on to a chair that creaked ominously under his bulk.

Morgan’s eyes flicked to the federal agent, then back to the papers he held without comment. “We’ve gotten nothing on the wiretaps,” he went on as if the man hadn’t spoken. “Only normal business calls, nothing unusual.”

“Unless it’s in code.”

Morgan nodded at Chance’s comment. “Yes. But so far every call has proven legitimate. Every call to a supplier has resulted in a delivery of what was ordered. No unscheduled deliveries have been made. No unaccounted-for appointments.”

“And no unknown visitors to the house,” Quisto put in. “Only the men we already know about.” His eyes flicked to Chance. “And the singer from the club.”

Chance’s face remained impassive as Morgan read from a page of the surveillance log. “The other members of the band are fairly clean. Local. No connections. A couple of arrests on traffic warrants, but no felonies. One marijuana cite, a couple of years ago. Less than an ounce.”

“They may be clean, but the bimbo’s dirty as hell.” Eaton’s voice was almost avid in its luridness.

Chance didn’t visibly stiffen, but Quisto had come to know his partner rather well over the past two years. He looked from Chance’s face back to the agent’s.

“You’ve got proof of that?”

“Proof? If he’d just wanted someone to sing in his club, he would have hired local talent, instead of bringing her in. What more do you need?”

“She’s not from Miami,” Quisto argued. “Our sources say she came in from Reno. And de Cortez has no known contacts there.”

“He obviously has one,” Eaton snapped. “Her. He must have stashed her there when we made it too hot for him in Miami.”

“Then why isn’t she in the file on his known associates? She’s not in any of the surveillance photos, either.” Quisto gestured at the pile of black-and-white pictures.

“Look,” Eaton snarled, “she’s shacked up with de Cortez, isn’t she?”

“She comes and goes from the house. Doesn’t mean she lives there,” Quisto said.

“She doesn’t have to live there to give Mendez what he wants,” Eaton suggested with a leer.

“That doesn’t mean she’s part of it.” The words broke from Chance as if against his will, and Eaton turned to stare at him.

“She’s screwing him, she’s got to know. Even if she isn’t involved in his operation, she has to know what’s going on. Dirt by association is still dirt.”

Chance sat up sharply, but when Eaton’s beady brown eyes narrowed with a gleam of interest, Chance made himself sit back. He stared at his hands, his eyes fastened on the adhesive bandage that was wrapped around his thumb.

“We can’t assume she’s involved,” Quisto put in quickly. “She may be with de Cortez, but that doesn’t mean she knows the details we need.”

“She could be the weak link,” Morgan said slowly. “Can you work her?” He looked at Quisto.

“Er…” Quisto jerked a thumb toward Chance. “He’s already started.”

“I’ll bet,” Eaton sneered. “You pretty boys are all alike.”

Quisto moved as if to stop Chance, then stopped himself when his partner never moved, never even reacted, only lifted a finger to run it lightly over the flesh-colored bandage. His dark brows furrowed.

“That’s enough,” Lieutenant Morgan said. He looked over at Eaton. “Your other men reported in this afternoon. I’ve assigned them to take over the surveillance so my men can get some rest.” Eaton stood up, ready to protest this appropriation of his authority, but Lieutenant Morgan gave him no chance to speak. “Since there’s nothing further to discuss, I suggest we all get some rest.” He got to his feet. “Detective Buckner, my office please.”

Chance’s eyes flicked to his boss, then to Quisto. Had he said something? Was he about to get warned about keeping this completely business? Quisto shrugged, eyebrows raised to indicate he knew no more than Chance did.

You’re a basket case, Buckner, he told himself grimly. Suspecting your own partner of ratting on you about…about what? What was there to tell? Nothing, he answered his silent question firmly. He’d overreacted to a beautiful voice, a pair of wide gray eyes. And those words. Words no doubt borrowed from whoever had truly felt them and set them to music, he told himself.

He walked into the lieutenant’s office, sat down and waited. Morgan dropped the files onto his already cluttered desk, then turned and sat on the edge.

“I know he’s a pain, but we’ve got to work with him.”

Chance smothered a sigh of relief. “I can work with anybody. But I can’t work for him.”

“You’re not. This is our town, and de Cortez is our problem now.” Jim Morgan smiled wryly. “The feds always have a problem about local jurisdiction, but his is—” his mouth quirked “—larger.”

Chance grinned. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”

“Try to live with it, will you? It won’t be forever.”

“It’ll only seem that way,” Chance said dryly. He slid forward to the edge of the chair. “I’ll be good, I promise. Is that it?”

After a split second of hesitation, Morgan answered. “No. Not quite.”

Uh-oh. Chance sat back.

“You know this is our number-one priority now.”

Chance nodded. “I heard the chief wants the feds out of here as soon as possible.”

Morgan nodded. “That’s why we’ve got the go-ahead to table everything else until this is wound up.”

“Which could be a while.” Chance grimaced. “It looks like de Cortez is determined to build one hell of a respectable facade here.”

“Yes. We may have to do a little prodding, eventually.”

“Make him an offer he can’t refuse?”

“Perhaps. But for now, our instructions are to just watch.”

Chance looked steadily at the man he’d worked for, for over five years. “None of this is news, Lieutenant. We’ve discussed it all before.”

“Yes.” Morgan got up and went to sit behind the desk. “But what we haven’t discussed is that devoting all our time to this investigation is going to back up everything else we have going.”

“I know.” Chance was truly puzzled now.

“It’s almost November now. We may have to push hard all the way through the holidays to catch up.”

Chance’s expression changed from quizzical to shuttered.

“I’m sorry, Chance,” Jim Morgan said softly, “but I can’t guarantee you the time off.”

“I understand.”

“I know how hard it is for you to—”

“No. I’m sorry, sir, but you don’t.”

Morgan sighed. “You’re right. I don’t.” He paused. “I wish I could promise you we’ll be able to spare you by then.”

“You can’t. I understand.” He got up. “Is that all?”

Morgan hesitated as if he were about to say more, then stopped. He only nodded before adding, “Get some rest. You’re looking a little ragged.”

Chance gave a short, sharp nod, then turned on his heel and strode out of the office. Jim Morgan shook his head slowly as he watched him go. His expression was sadly compassionate, his mouth compressed into a tight line as he lifted the top folder from the stack on his desk and began to read.

Chance lay sprawled on his bed, trying to blame his sleeplessness on the bright silver glow that filled the room. He was exhausted, he could feel it in the aching of his head and the grittiness of his eyes, but still sleep eluded him.

He rolled over and swung out of bed in one smooth, controlled motion, and walked over to the sliding glass door that led to the small deck. He’d intended to close the drapes to darken the room and then try again, but instead found himself tugging open the heavy door and letting the chilly night air wash over his naked body.

He stared out at the hillside before him, not really seeing it. He’d chosen this place for its seclusion and remoteness. It was a spacious set of rooms over the garage of a large, expensive house whose owner was more than happy to have a police officer in residence while he spent most of the year traveling around the world for his lucrative business.

The garage wasn’t even visible from the street. It backed up to a steep hill, and unless you knew they were there, you might never guess the rooms above it existed. Chance liked it that way, and had gotten to the point where he didn’t even think of why every time he came home or left. The gang that had blown his life apart had been put away. But the knowledge that a man in his job made new enemies every day never left him.

He slammed the sliding door shut with a mutter of disgust. He admitted at last, with tired certainty, that sleep was beyond him tonight. He’d lain there for hours, trying not to think about the one thing his mind refused to let go of. When he looked at the clock that glowed atop the old ammunition crate Quisto had jokingly given him to use for a nightstand, it was only to calculate what was happening at the club.

She’d be starting the first show now, he’d thought at nine. Then at ten-thirty, the second. And at eleven-fifteen the last. What then?

And then, he’d told himself sourly as he rolled over and pounded his innocent pillow with merciless force, she’d go home and climb into bed with the boss. An image of them intimately entwined shot through his mind and banished any hope of sleep that night.

Still muttering, he yanked open a drawer and got out some clothes. He picked up the worn pair of jeans he’d tossed across the foot of the bed and pulled them on, then tugged a thick cotton sweater over his head as he walked into the living room. He slipped on the leather dock shoes he’d kicked off inside the front door, and grabbed his battered faded-denim jacket from the hook on the hall tree. He locked up with instinctive care and headed down the narrow staircase.

He noted almost absently that the third and twelfth steps from the top still creaked with a satisfying loudness. More than once Mr. Hagan, the house’s owner, had offered to have someone come in for repairs. Chance had quietly declined without explaining why.

He skirted the edge of the large pool, the water shimmering from the lights below and the moonlight above, giving the lagoonlike pond an eerie glow. The man-made rocks that surrounded the glistening water looked real and solid yet strangely ethereal in the silver glow. Once he would have appreciated the effect, would have let his imagination run with the slightly unreal setting, let it become the almost fantasy place it appeared.

But the capacity for such whimsical thought seemed burned out of him now, and all he could do was think vaguely that he would have to remember to switch on the waterfall for a while tomorrow, to keep the pump clear of debris. It was one of the little things he did regularly around the place, and while Mr. Hagan had never asked him to do those tasks, he felt it was small enough payment for the low rent and privacy he was getting.

Not to mention, he thought with a wry grin, access to Hagan’s small fleet of cars. The wealthy man had a passion for the more exotic forms of transportation, and the contents of the five-car garage were the proof. After Chance had lived there for about six months, Peter Hagan had apparently decided he was reliable, and had entrusted him with the keys to his babies while he was gone for weeks at a time.

“Take ’em out now and then,” he’d said casually. “It’s not good for them to just sit.”

There was, he’d thought ruefully then, enough kid left in him to make it difficult to stifle the little kick of excitement that went through him while driving the finely tuned, powerful vehicles.

He hit the combination on the keypad outside the garage door that disarmed the elaborate alarm system. The big door lifted, and he stepped inside. Like furniture in a house closed up for the winter, the cars were low bulky shapes beneath enveloping covers. Chance’s open Jeep sat at one end, quietly unimpressed with its august company. He grinned wryly at himself, at how he’d found himself missing the high, stiff ride of the totally utilitarian vehicle after a few days of that smooth, purring power.

It was a good thing real police work didn’t imitate movies and television, he’d thought more than once when behind the wheel of one of the low-slung sleek cars. He could just see himself explaining to Pete how he’d racked up his Lamborghini chasing some crook. No, real life was full of long hours of drudgery and paperwork, with those moments of pulse-pounding, adrenaline-induced frenzy few and far between.

He started automatically for the Jeep, then realized that the odd angle of the vehicle meant it had a flat tire. He looked down the row of covered cars.

Gee, Buckner, that’s too bad, he told himself flippantly. Guess you’ll have to drive one of these.

He uncovered the one that had been sitting the longest, the blatantly red Ferrari F430. The tan top was up and he took a moment to drop it, thinking he would need the blast of cold air. It started with its characteristic throaty roar, and within moments he was pulling onto the street, the heavy iron gates swinging automatically shut behind him.

After a run up the coast that did nothing to ease the restlessness that plagued him, Chance at last pulled to a halt near the waterfront, in a spot overlooking the marina that housed boats whose extravagance matched the car he carefully parked. He didn’t think about it anymore, the fact that he couldn’t afford even the upkeep on the toys that belonged to the people he was sworn to protect. Possessions had come to mean very little to him in the past few years.

He wandered along the waterfront for a while, watching the moonlight play on the water. He tried to keep his mind empty, knowing all too well that moods like the one that had descended on him tonight too often resulted in a flood of memories he didn’t want. He wasn’t up to dealing with it, not tonight. He walked on.

He wasn’t really aware that he had changed direction until a car racing by made him look up. With a little shock, he recognized his surroundings. Had it been an accident, or had some subconscious urge turned his steps in this direction?

He hesitated at the corner, staring up the street. He could see, just beyond the halo of a streetlight two blocks up, the shadowy shape of the surveillance van. There was no movement on the street, only the sound of distant cars passing. A horn honked, somewhere a heavy door slammed, and then silence reigned again. It had to be later than he realized, he thought. No drunks out, no last stragglers leaving the club. He glanced at his watch, shaking his head ruefully when he saw it was nearly three-thirty.

He could go relieve the guys in the van. He wasn’t going to sleep anyway. Then maybe he could go home and get some rest before he was due back tomorrow. Tonight, he corrected himself glumly. He and Quisto were set to go back to the club tonight, and then to take over the stakeout on the house afterward.

Approaching footsteps snapped him out of his reverie. Instinctively he drew back into the shadows, watching, waiting. A woman, he thought, listening to the quick, light stride. And then, suddenly, without knowing how, he knew. He fixed his eyes on the circle of light cast by the corner streetlight, knowing she must pass through it.

When she did, it was as if the light had merely been waiting for her presence to come to life. It seemed to dance around her, gleaming on the sleek fall of her hair, glinting in the huge gray eyes.

She was wrapped in a thick red sweater that came almost to her knees, over a white turtleneck sweater, slacks and boots. Her hair was brushed to a smooth sheen, unlike the dramatic, tossed mane she wore onstage. She was carrying what looked like some kind of a notebook in the crook of her arm, and she looked lost in contemplation. Like a butterfly adrift on a puff of air, he could hear her humming a soft, airy melody. It seemed incredible that the power of that voice could be harnessed to anything so fragile, so delicate.

Not a butterfly, he thought suddenly. An eagle maybe. The essence of restrained power. Able to glide effortlessly on the breeze with the most delicate adjustment of feathers, yet in the blink of an eye able to soar and plummet with dynamic grace.

She walked on, into the shadows, and the streetlight’s glow once more became merely a circle of light on an empty street. She crossed the street, mere yards away. Chance stepped out of the shadows. She jumped back, every muscle in her slender body tensed to flee.

“At least I didn’t knock you sideways this time,” he said quietly.

Her gaze flew to his face, and he saw the tension drain away as she recognized him. Still, she looked at him warily, as if too aware of the late hour and the empty street.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You just startled me.” She looked at him for a moment. “I didn’t see you tonight.”

She’d noticed. He couldn’t help the silly feeling of pleasure that gave him. He tried to smother it. “I…couldn’t make it.” His mouth quirked. “Where are the bookends?”

She looked puzzled, then a grin curved her mouth and put a sparkle in the gray eyes. “Shh,” she whispered conspiratorially, “I gave them the slip.”

He grinned back. She looked at him rather oddly, then shrugged. “I needed to get away. I told them I was taking a cab home.”

His brow furrowed. “Why didn’t you? You shouldn’t be out here alone at this hour.”

“I know, but I wanted to walk. And better now than an hour ago, when they were pouring all the drunks out the door.” She wrinkled her nose expressively.

Something twisted inside him. She didn’t like drunks, but she was de Cortez’s girlfriend? A man who dealt in substances that made alcohol look like Kool-Aid?

“Does the boss know you’re out?”

She drew back at the sudden acid in his tone. “I did my shows,” she said carefully.

Except for the one that comes later. In de Cortez’s bed. His stomach knotted at the image that again flashed through his mind. His voice was as sour as the taste in his mouth.

“I’m surprised he let you out of his sight.”

“Look,” she said in exasperation, “if all you stopped me for was to have somebody to snipe at, forget it. I’ve got better things to do.”

“I’ll bet. I’m sure de Cortez sees to that.”

Suddenly the exasperation became anger. “What is your problem? You don’t even know him!”

I know him, lady. Better than you could ever guess. “I know his type.”

“I don’t care what you think you know. He’s been good to me, and I don’t care to continue this conversation!”

She walked stiffly past him. His gaze followed her automatically, noting her angry stride. He’s been good to me. God, the words alone made him sick. He could imagine just how he’d been good to her.

Snap out of it, Buckner, he ordered himself. She’s part of this job, and you’d damn well better do it, and now—you’ll never have a better chance! Just keep thinking about what she is, about her and de Cortez together. That ugly thought gave him a steadying jolt, and he made himself go after her.

“Wait,” he said as he caught up with her. “I didn’t mean to make you mad. I’m sorry.”

She eyed him skeptically, anger still flickering in her eyes. “But you’re not sorry about what you said.”

She wasn’t going to let it slide. He took a deep breath. “I… Sometimes I form an opinion before I know all the facts.” Like I did with you, he added grimly, after that day on the street. “And sometimes I’m wrong.” Very wrong. So wrong it hurt. He waited.

She read it as he’d intended, thinking he’d meant de Cortez. After a moment she nodded. “All right.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “There’s a café a couple of blocks down that’s open all night. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

She hesitated.

“Please?” He held up his hands. “No sniping, I promise.”

A reluctant smile curved her soft mouth, and he felt the knot in his gut unclench. It didn’t make any sense, she was what she was, but that smile still turned his frozen insides to glowing warmth.

“How’s your thumb?” she asked, and he knew she’d accepted.

He held up the wounded thumb with a grin. “Okay. Somebody sent me a Band-Aid.”

Her smile widened into a grin, and the warmth became a rippling heat.

They walked down the deserted street toward the beckoning light of the café’s window. Chance changed position and walked on the inside when he spotted someone pacing in front of the doors, keeping himself between her and the seemingly agitated young man.

“Hey, man, got any change?”

The words were quick, sharp, and punctuated by a swift swipe of one hand to what appeared to be a runny nose. The eyes that looked up at them were wide and dark, and even in the dim light the sheen of sweat on his forehead was visible.

“Sorry,” Chance said shortly, guiding her past him and into the café.

She looked back over her shoulder as the door swung shut after them.

“Maybe he’s hungry—”

“Save your money. He’d just use it to buy another pop.”

“What?”

“Meth, I’d guess. Crystal.”

“Meth?” Her brows furrowed, then cleared. She stared at the man still pacing anxiously outside. “You mean drugs?”

“That’s what methamphetamines are, yes,” he said more sharply than he’d intended. Damn, if he didn’t know, he’d swear she was shocked. She played the innocent perfectly, looking as if she had no idea what he was talking about.

“What a waste.”

He stared at her as they sat down in a booth in the small chrome-and-glass diner-style café. This didn’t make sense, either. Those soft words had been heated, almost angry. He glanced out the window again.

“Him?”

“Anyone. All the people who waste their lives, and destroy the lives of everyone around them.”

He sat back in the upholstered booth, his mind racing. Was she testing him somehow? On de Cortez’s orders, perhaps? Or was that harsh, vehement tone for real? But how could it be, when she was involved with a man whose livelihood came from the source she was denouncing?

“That sounded rather personal.” He probed carefully.

“It is. Very personal.”

She volunteered no more, and her expression told him clearly that he would get nothing by pushing right now. He let it drop, knowing that he had to go slowly, that he didn’t dare risk alienating what could be their most valuable source of information. And he reminded himself once more that that was how he had to look at her.

The cups of steaming coffee were in front of them before he spoke again.

“You are out pretty late,” he said, careful to keep his tone merely solicitous.

“We were working late. Going over some new songs.”

She gestured at the notebook she’d set down on the table. Only now did he notice that the paper sticking out from between the pasteboard covers was lined for music and covered with bold black notes.

“Was that what you were humming?”

“Was I?” She looked surprised. “Yes, I suppose I was. I get sort of…engrossed sometimes.”

“It was beautiful. Kind of fragile.”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him across the small table. Her voice was full of a surprised happiness that he had chosen the perfect word.

“Yes,” she said softly. “That’s how it was meant to sound. Just like that.”

“Who writes your songs?”

She shrugged. “I do.”

He stared at her. “All of them?”

She nodded. “The boys just play, mostly, although Eric helps with the music sometimes.”

“But the words…?” For some reason he was afraid of the answer he knew was coming. It came.

“All mine. Such as they are.”

It couldn’t be. How could someone who could do that, who could reach into his very soul with her lyrics, possibly be involved with the likes of de Cortez?

“They’re…I…they…” He shook his head sharply, his mouth twisting into a wry grimace. “Apparently they leave me speechless.”

She laughed lightly. “Since my ego is fairly secure, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Do,” he said, recovering himself. “They’re wonderful. And you’re amazing.”

“Thank you.” She accepted it simply.

“Why aren’t you doing it professionally?”

One dark, silky brow rose. “Last time I checked, I was. I do get paid, you know.”

He couldn’t help grinning. “You know what I mean. Records, concerts, that stuff.”

“Not for me.”

“Why?”

She made a rueful face. “You may find this hard to believe, but I really don’t like performing live. I’m not at all how people seem to perceive me. I’m really just a song writer, not a performer, and a little shy, and it’s very hard for me to do it. The idea of doing it for a living…” She shook her head.

“But you’d be a big hit. A celebrity. And rich.”

“And poor in what matters to me most.”

“Such as?”

“Privacy, for one thing.”

“Ouch.” He winced. “Was that a hint?”

She looked genuinely startled. “What?”

“I got the feeling you meant that rather pointedly. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You weren’t,” she said quickly, smiling at him with a warmth that sent an inverse chill rippling down his spine. “I just meant that I have no desire to subject myself to that kind of exposure.”

Of course, dummy, he thought as it hit him at last. The last thing someone like de Cortez needed was a high-profile girlfriend. His kind of work was done best in the dark, not in a spotlight.

“Oh,” he said, barely aware that the biting tone had crept back into his voice. “I should have known.”

“What?” The warmth faded at that sharp note.

“A man like your…boss wouldn’t want anyone looking too close, would he?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He knew that he was out of line and out of control, that he was risking blowing the whole investigation, but that image had settled vividly in his mind, of her in de Cortez’s bed, and he couldn’t stop himself.

“Just that I know what de Cortez is.”

Her coffee cup hit the saucer with a clatter. She stood up, her eyes wide and bright, angry. Her delicate jaw was set, her voice icy.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ve had about enough of it.”

Chance knew he’d made a major mistake and tried hastily to backtrack. He scrambled to his feet.

“Look, I didn’t mean—”

“I don’t care what you meant. I’m not going to sit here any longer and listen to you bad-mouth someone I happen to care for a great deal.”

Chance winced. Somehow, hearing her say it made it worse. His shoulders slumped. Maybe he should just let it go. There were other ways, and he didn’t think he could take this anymore.

“I know you…care for him,” he said, in a tone so weary that, despite her anger, she looked at him intently. When she spoke again, her voice was oddly quiet.

“What is it with you, anyway? You don’t even know my brother.”

Brother? He stared at her, stunned and utterly speechless.

Chapter 4

“Your…brother?”

“Yes,” she said rather acidly. “You remember, the guy you’ve been bashing off and on ever since I met you?”

“He’s…your brother?”

Her forehead creased. “What?”

Chance stared at her across the table, his jaw slack with astonishment. His dazed brain couldn’t take it in. He barely managed to make himself use the right name.

“Paul de Cortez is your brother?” He enunciated each word with careful precision, as if his life depended on perfect communication.

She nodded slowly. “What did you think he was?”

He took a deep breath, and his eyes flicked away from hers. He stared down at the table.

“I thought he…that you were…”

His voice trailed off, and at last he lifted his head to look at her. She was staring at him.

“Were what?”

“They said he put you ‘off-limits.’ I thought…”

One arched brow rose. “You thought we were…lovers?”

He nodded, still shaken.

An odd look came into her eyes. “That’s why you were down on him so hard?”

Slowly he nodded again. At the moment, with all else chased from his mind by this unexpected revelation, it was the truth, and he was too astounded to realize what he was revealing by that admission.

She sank onto the booth’s seat, two spots of color staining her cheeks.

“I suppose I should be flattered.”

Something in her voice, a kind of shy pleasure, caused a burst of heat inside him. He stared at her, at the becoming blush, at the innocent gray eyes. It was the innocence that brought him back to reality with a snap. And with that reality came a sinking realization. He sat down abruptly.

“Your name,” he said slowly, “they said it was Austin.” Was she married, he thought, to somebody else?

“It is. Paul is my half brother, really.”

“Then de Cortez is…?”

She sighed. “It’s kind of complicated. That’s our mother’s maiden name. She married my father after Paul’s father was…killed.”

He knew how de Cortez’s father had been killed, it had been in the files. He pushed the knowledge aside for the moment. “But he uses her name?”

“He does now.” A shadow darkened her eyes. “She died a few months ago. He did it in her memory.”

She believes it, he thought in bewilderment. She really believes the guy gives a damn. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say.

“So am I,” she said softly. “But she’d been very sad for a long time. She missed my father terribly.”

Chance’s head came up. “He’s…dead, too?”

“Twelve years ago.”

“That’s tough,” he said quietly. “You must have been just a kid.”

“Is that a tactful way of asking how old I am?”

He smiled slightly. “If it was, would you answer?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Your brother’s a lot older, then.” He couldn’t quite suppress the twinge of relief using that word gave him.

“Ten years,” she said, eyeing him curiously. “You seem to know an awful lot.”

“I don’t even know your first name.”

“That makes us even.” A look of surprise crossed her face. “On second thought, it doesn’t. I don’t even know your last name, let alone your first.”

“Chance.” If there was any significance to the fact that he never even thought of giving her a cover name, he didn’t dwell on it. Her brother hadn’t been here long enough to make him, anyway. “Chance Buckner.”

“Chance as in ‘not a’?”

He grinned. “Nope. As in ‘last chance.’ My mom had about given up on kids when I finally came along.”

“And how long ago was that?” she asked sweetly.

He laughed. “Okay, it’s only fair. Last birthday was the big three-oh.”

“You don’t look any the worse for it.”

He smiled, toying with the handle of his mug of cooling coffee. “Speaking of fair, you’re still one up on me.”

“What?”

“Your name.”

“Oh. It’s Shea. Shea de Cortez Austin.” She laughed. “Quite a mouthful, huh?”

“An interesting combination.”

He studied her as she sipped her coffee. They’d been way out in left field on her relationship to de Cortez, he thought, trying to contain the thankfulness that flooded him. Easy, Buckner. You’re not that much better off knowing that she’s his sister. She still more than likely knows what he’s up to. Unless…

“Do you live around here?”

A legitimate question, he thought, for a man interested in a woman, as she assumed he was. Right, Buckner. Like she’s wrong. Keep kidding yourself.

“No,” she was saying. “I live in Zephyr Cove.”

He looked blank.

“It’s on Lake Tahoe,” she explained with a laugh that said she was used to that reaction. “Just north of South Lake Tahoe. I have a small house there. I only came here because Paul wanted me to open the club for him.”

The flight from Reno, he thought. “You sing there?”

“Sometimes. In the winter, in some of the smaller places. I can handle small crowds. And I don’t ski, so it keeps me from going stir-crazy.”

“It’s almost winter now.”

She laughed. “Guess they’ll have to struggle through without me.”

“What do you do in the summer?”

“Goof off, mostly.” She grinned. “Providing I make enough money during the winter, of course.” She shrugged. “I sell some of my songs. It keeps me in firewood.”

“How long have you lived there?”

He saw her look change, and realized he was sounding a little too much like a cop questioning someone. Watch it, he warned himself. But she answered easily enough.

“Full-time? Almost five years. But I’ve always spent a lot of time there. The house I live in was my father’s. He left it to me.”

“Then you must not have seen much of your brother,” he said tentatively.

“No,” she said regretfully. “He left home when he was sixteen, and I didn’t see him often after that. I hadn’t seen him at all since I moved. I’m glad he came back to California. At least we’re in the same state. There’s only the two of us now.”

She hadn’t been anywhere near Miami. God, maybe she didn’t know. Maybe she really didn’t know her dear brother was neck deep in slime. He never doubted the truth of what she was telling him. If she was lying, he’d hang up his badge.

“—here?”

He fought off the swamping relief to catch only the end of her question. “I…what?”

“I asked if you work around here.”

He nodded, alarm bells ringing in his head.

“Doing what?”

He owed her this, he thought, but he hoped she would stay clear of questions he couldn’t answer.

“Paperwork, mostly.” That, at least, was true, he thought dryly. “For a local company. I monitor shipments, keep track of some people, that kind of thing.” Nebulous but accurate.

“Have you always lived here?”

“No. I was born in Iowa, but my folks came here when I was just a baby.”

“Are they still here?”

“No. They moved back a few years ago. Said this place was too crazy for them.”

“Were you really the last?”

It took him a minute. “Yeah,” he said with a laugh. “I guess after me they decided one was enough.”

“Waiting for grandchildren now, I suppose,” she teased.

He went pale, as if she’d hit him. Then he yanked his gaze downward, swallowing heavily as he stared at the cup on the table.

“Chance?”

Only the sound of her saying his name so tentatively in that silken voice got through the sudden, unexpected fog of pain. And he found himself answering, telling her the thing he never spoke of.

“They had one. Almost. He died before he was born. Along with his mother.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

He took a deep breath. “No. I am. It’s been a long time, and I don’t usually react like that. I guess you caught me off guard.”

“Things like that are never really a long time ago.” Her voice was soft with an empathy that washed over him like a warm tide.

“No. They’re not.” He let out the long breath slowly, back in control. “But after four years it’s not usually so…close.”

After that, the conversation was purposely light, full of such things as likes and dislikes, tastes in everything from music to books to movies, and a few childhood escapades recounted with almost sheepish pride.

When she spoke again of her brother, he had to force himself to remember who she was talking about.

“He used to seem so angry, before he left. I know he resented his father being killed when he was so young. But when he came back the first time, for my father’s funeral, he was different. Like he’d grown up while he’d been gone.”

Probably made his first deal, Chance thought sourly. But now that that vivid image had been shattered, he was able to keep his mouth shut.

“He told Mom that he was the man in the family now. That he’d always take care of us, that he’d see we never needed anything. And he did.”

Could she? he wondered as he made some appropriate reply. Could she really be so calm about it, sounding almost proud of the brother who had no doubt sent them money, if she’d known where it came from?

I don’t believe it, he thought, knowing even as the words formed in his mind that they stemmed more from his own unwillingness to believe it than from any firm conviction. You just don’t want to believe you can be fooled so easily, he told himself sourly.

Aware she was looking at him rather curiously, he quickly asked her about the small, prestigious college she’d told him she’d attended. Had de Cortez paid for that, too? Had the man who sold death on the streets lovingly sent his little sister to school?

He couldn’t think about it, not now. She was sharp. Sooner or later she was going to realize that he was asking a lot of questions and not answering many of her own. He had to take it on faith for now and analyze it later, or he was going to press her too hard and lose the contact altogether.

Later, keeping it carefully vague, he found himself telling her about Quisto and his family, guessing that it would seem as chaotic to her as it did to him. She laughed at their antics and smiled warmly when he told her of how the matriarch of the clan kept treating him like another son.