Cry Uncle (14 page)

He’d left a couple of lights on inside the
house so it would look warm and welcoming. He pulled all the way
into the carport, and Pamela parked on the driveway behind him.
They got out of the cars and met on the grass.

“
Well, Mrs. Brenner, be it
ever so humble...”

“
There’s no place like
home,” she concluded.

He was thrilled that she could think of his
house as home, even if only temporarily. He took her hand, then
thought better of it and reached around her, hoisting her into his
arms.

She let out a shriek, then a giggle. “Put me
down, Joe! I’m too heavy for you!”

“
You’re too light, is what
you are,” he refuted her. “And I believe there’s some sort of law
that says I’ve got to carry you over the threshold.”

“
Well, I wouldn’t want you
breaking any laws on my account,” she said, looping her hands
around his neck, settling against his chest and smiling up at
him.

Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe it was the
bright half-moon, or the spark of playfulness he hadn’t before
glimpsed in her. Or maybe it was Joe, high on champagne and
moonlight and just as willing to play the game.

Because the instant he’d swung open the front
door, carried her inside and lowered her to her feet in their
house, their home, the legal residence of Mr. and Mrs. Jonas
Brenner, he knew he was going to kiss her. She was his wife, his
mate, his partner in the dance of life.

And he was going to pretend it was real.

Chapter Six

HE LEFT ONE ARM around her when he set her
down. He lifted his other hand to her cheek and angled her face to
his. She gazed up into azure eyes that shimmered with trust. And
then he touched his lips to hers.

Her mind told her this was a bad idea—but her
heart was full of music and dancing and champagne that drowned the
whispers of doubt. She was a married woman, and Jonas Brenner was
her husband, and married people were allowed to kiss each
other.

His kiss was light, tender, questioning. She
answered with a sigh, and he covered her mouth with his once more,
this time less tentatively. When she sighed again, he slid his
tongue between her parted lips. Her eyelids grew heavy at the
gentle assault of his tongue.

She sensed nothing demanding in the kiss. He
was too clever to resort to force. Instead, he lured, he tempted,
he made her want to give so he wouldn’t have to take. He was, she
conceded as her body warmed to his sensual advances, a sublime
kisser.

She wedged her hands under his jacket and
around his waist. His sides were lean and hard, rib and muscle.
Through the soft linen of his shirt she felt the contours of his
back, sleek and supple, flexing beneath her touch.

He lifted his hand to her
temple and into her hair, combing through it to the nape of her
neck. As his tongue surged against hers, she heard him groan, and
groan again when her fingers dug into his back. She was afraid that
if she relaxed her hold on him her legs would buckle, so she clung
to him tightly, kissing him with a passion that matched his. A
voice deep inside her soul whispered,
It’s
all right. He’s your husband. It’s all right
.

It
wasn’t
all right, her conscience
argued—but for the moment she didn’t care. She cared only about the
sweet seduction of his mouth, the restrained aggression of his lips
and tongue, the possessiveness of his embrace as he pressed his
body to hers.

He stroked his fingers along the edge of her
neckline, then slipped under the fabric to trace the ridge of her
spine. His hand felt so good on her skin, too good. She wished he
would move his hand forward to her throat, to her breasts. She
wished he would touch her everywhere. She wished he would tear off
his clothing and hers, so the hard swell of him would no longer be
seeking her, as it was now, through the barriers of his trousers
and her dress.

She heard his breath catch as she brought her
hands down to his hips and held him against her. A shudder of
yearning rippled through her as he rocked against her, slowly,
sinuously. She wanted him, wanted Jonas Brenner. Wanted the man
with the devilish blue eyes and the earring.

She wanted her husband.

“
Pam,” he murmured, his
breath caressing her lips. “Let’s go to bed.”

Bed. Wait a minute! This wasn’t supposed to
happen. She and Joe had entered into their marriage with the
understanding that it wasn’t about love or sex. It was about social
workers and custody hearings, and it was about eluding a murderer
until said murderer was brought to justice. Having already risked
her life in the matter of Mick Morrow, Pamela wasn’t about to risk
her heart in the matter of Joe.

“
I...” She swallowed to
clear the huskiness from her voice. “I don’t think that’s a very
good idea.”

He loosened his hold on her and leaned back
so he could view her in the amber light of the entry hall. Letting
out a long, weary breath, he shook his head and dropped his arms to
his sides. “Sorry,” he muttered, looking supremely disappointed. “I
guess I broke a few rules, huh.”

No more than she had. She’d
been as caught up in the kiss as he. Until he’d mentioned the
word
bed
, she’d
been quite content to yield to the mutual desire that had
unexpectedly ignited between them.

She averted her gaze and fussed with her
hair, which Joe had done an effective job of tangling into
knots—just like her emotions. “I’m sorry, too, Jonas...”

“
No. My fault.” He held up
his hands in mock surrender. He was smiling, but she saw no trace
of his dimple, no glint of humor in his eyes. “Why don’t you go
upstairs and get settled in? I brought all your stuff to your
room.”

“
Thanks,” she mumbled. She
was thanking him not for having lugged her suitcases up the stairs
for her, but for having taken all the guilt upon himself, even
though she deserved at least fifty percent of it. If she had his
courage, she would acknowledge her share. She would tell him he had
nothing to apologize for.

But she’d exhausted her supply of courage
earlier that evening when she’d walked down the aisle to take Joe
for her lawfully wedded husband. As craven as it was, she couldn’t
look at him, let alone share the blame for the passion that had
briefly claimed them. She could scarcely admit to herself how much
she’d ached for him when his arms and his mouth and his desire had
held her captive.

It was a desire she was going to have to
forget. Once the champagne wore off and she had a good night’s
sleep, she would come to her senses. So would Joe. They would make
this marriage work the way they’d intended when they’d come to
terms, and any errant longings would be squelched.

That was the way it had to be.

***

MICK MORROW DROVE smoothly and calmly out of
the parking lot. After a few blocks, he steered to the curb,
shifted into neutral and reached under the passenger seat.

It there was, just as Tony had promised: a
thick yellow envelope.

Although Tony was supposed to be tailing
Mick, he didn’t want them to be seen together in public. So Mick
had traveled to an agreed-upon suburban mall parking lot at an
agreed-upon hour, parked his car in Section 3-A and left it
unlocked so Tony could leave the envelope under the seat. Mick had
gone into a drug store, browsed for ten minutes, and bought a pack
of gum. When he’d come back outside, there had been no sign of
Tony.

The envelope was exactly where Tony had
promised it would be, though. The guy had come through. Mick owed
him.

He slid it back out of sight under the
passenger seat and cruised home, resisting the temptation to open
his special-delivery package until he was safely inside his
apartment. The dreary drizzle of a Seattle summer evening couldn’t
get him down. In that envelope lay a route to Pamela Hayes. Let it
rain—Mick was too pleased to care.

“
I couldn’t get much through
her motor vehicle records,” Tony had told him over the phone
yesterday. “But you mentioned she owned a condominium, so I
thought, maybe she’s sitting on a mortgage. Sure enough, I was able
to get hold of her credit report. Lots of interesting material,
Mick. Information you might find useful.”

Her credit report! Her charge accounts! Her
bank accounts! The most intimate details of a woman’s life, more
significant than her height or weight or hair color, more personal
than who she was sleeping with and what positions she’d rather die
than try. “It could have possibilities,” Mick had agreed, refusing
to let Tony hear how thrilled he was.

“
I can get these documents
to you tomorrow, as long as we don’t have to come face to
face.”

“
Is anyone gonna be able to
trace this to you?” Mick asked. His largesse purchased only so much
loyalty from Tony. If the guy got caught, Mick didn’t doubt for a
minute that he’d sing like the proverbial canary.

“
I left no fingerprints. I
know how to do this sort of thing.”

“
That’s why I love you,”
Mick had said before working out the arrangements for the
drop.

Inside his kitchen, he unlaced the tie that
held the manila envelope shut, and pulled out the papers. Oh, yes
indeed, this was interesting material, very useful. Her bank
account numbers. Her credit card numbers. Previous apartments she’d
lived in before she’d bought her condo. The condo price. Her
income. The graduate school loan she’d taken years ago, paid back
in full.

Mick resisted the urge to shout for joy.

One of her charge accounts was with a local
bank. He dialed, asked for the credit office, and said, “Hello, I’m
calling about my wife’s credit card. Her name is Pamela Hayes.” He
read off the account number, then continued, “She’s out of town,
and I can’t make head or tails of her bookkeeping—”

“
Excuse me, sir, but
according to our records, Ms. Hayes isn’t married.”

He suffered a twinge of reflexive anger—it
always flared when someone questioned him on anything. Smothering
his temper, he faked a chuckle and said, “Well, Pamela is a
stubborn feminist. She kept her own name, her own accounts and
everything else. She doesn’t use my income to get her credit line
higher. That’s the way she likes it.”

“
I see.” The lady at the
other end of the line hesitated. “What did you say your name
was?”

“
Andrew Pitt.” It had been
one of his aliases back in the olden days, when he’d been running
errands for a thug out of Newark.

“
And your social security
number, Mr. Pitt?”

He made up a number.

“
Okay. Is Ms. Hayes planning
to have a credit card issued in your name?”

“
No. I’m just trying to sort
through her receipts here. I think she may have run up some charges
on this business trip she’s taken, and I’d like a record of what
she’s billed so she doesn’t bankrupt me. You know women,” he added
with another phony laugh.

The lady in the bank’s credit department
didn’t share his amusement. “In other words, you want to know her
last few charges?”

“
That’s right.”

“
We’ve received a motel
charge of seventyeight dollars and change in Boise, Idaho, and a
gas station charge of thirty-six fifty in Salt Lake
City.”

“
Great. Anything
else?”

“
No. That’s it. Those
charges came in two weeks ago. Apparently she hasn’t used her card
since.”

Shit. “Okay, great,” he grumbled, then
remembered to thank the lady and say good-bye.

The bitch hadn’t used her card in two weeks.
She was smart; she must have figured out that by charging all her
expenses she would leave a trail for him to follow. She could be
anywhere right now. How was he going to track her down if she’d
taken to using cash?

On the other hand, how much cash could she
possibly have on her? According to her credit report, she had a
cushy little nest egg sitting at the local bank, not to mention the
mutual fund she was into, and the Treasury bills. Surely she hadn’t
liquidated her entire savings account. If she was smart enough to
have eluded him, she was too smart to go driving around with tens
of thousands of dollars in cash stuffed into her bra.

Maybe she’d switched to one of her other
credit cards once she’d left Utah. Maybe she thought she could fool
him by using one card one week and another card the next.

Nobody fooled Mick Morrow for long. Whistling
to himself, he looked up the phone number of the company that had
issued her other major credit card. If he didn’t strike pay dirt
there, he’d call back her bank and find out how much money she’d
withdrawn before she’d left town. If he knew how much she had, he
could calculate how far she would get before she ran out of legal
tender and had to start paying her bills with plastic again.

Oh, he was going to track her down, all
right. And once he did, she was going to be one very sorry
woman.

***

PAMELA SAW NO POINT in lying in bed any
longer. She hadn’t gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep all
night; lingering under the sheet for another half hour wasn’t going
to cure her of insomnia.

It was hard to sleep in a strange bed in a
strange room, she told herself. It was hard to sleep after drinking
too much champagne, and after not eating enough solid food,
and...

Pamela saw no point in lying—either in bed,
or to herself. Her restlessness had nothing to do with the
unfamiliarity of her surroundings or what she’d consumed at the
wedding. There was only one reason she hadn’t been able to sleep
last night, and his name was Jonas Brenner.