Too Hot to Handle

“And I want to know, now.”

For a second he simply stood, gazing down at her. She wished she were over six feet tall so she wouldn’t have to look up to meet his eyes. It was infuriating being shorter and slighter than her foe.

It took her a second to realize that he was looking at her, not in a kidnapper to victim way, but in a man to woman way that made her blood stir. What was wrong with her?

How could her body respond to a criminal?

Needing an excuse to back away from this far-too-close contact, she picked up her mug of coffee. A tiny crack had formed in the bottom where she’d smacked the pottery on the granite. She only wished it was Pendegraff’s head she’d cracked.

And she stepped back.

“Okay,” he said. “You want to talk first, we’ll talk.”

“You’ll talk,” she reminded him.

THE DEEP, COMFY CHAIRS in the den made her want to curl her feet beneath her. Under different circumstances she thought she’d like this place. Wherever it was. There were no newspapers conveniently lying around, no phone book sitting by a phone that might give her hints to her current location.

She sat up straight, her feet on the floor.

He refilled his mug and took the other chair. Sipped, slowly, in a way that suggested he was stalling for time. Her foot began to tap against the floor.

“I actually am Charles Pendegraff,” he began.

“The third?” Skepticism tinged her tone.

A brief grin lit his face. “Yes, though I only mention the number when I want to come off as a pompous ass.”

“You’re good at it,” she said sweetly.

“As you’ve obviously gathered, I’m a thief.” He paused, shaking his head. “Was a thief. I’m retired.” He glanced at her and his gaze darkened. “And, until last night, I’d never been caught. I must be losing my edge.”

“Caught by me and the cops.”

“Lexy, those weren’t cops.”

“Oh, come on. Why would I believe you?”

He reached for the remote control. “You’re not going to like this. I recorded a news broadcast from New York this morning.”

He flicked on the screen and pushed a couple of buttons. A newscast she knew well, one she often watched as she was getting ready in the morning, told her it was going to be cooler in Manhattan today, then there was the usual banter between the show’s host and the meteorologist. Then the news.

“I’m really not sure what the U.N. funding crisis has to do with—”

He held up a finger. “Wait.”

And then there was news footage of a block of buildings she knew intimately. It was her street.

“A suspicious fire broke out last night at a well-known jewelry designer’s SoHo premises, destroying the store and the living space above it.”

“A fire?” she whispered.

The film that went with the voice-over showed her street, the blackened front of her store, the pretty blue paint all bubbled and black, all the windows smashed and uniformed firefighters spraying water into her apartment.

“Emergency crews responded at 4:11 a.m. when a neighbor saw flames coming from the building that houses Alexandra Drake Designs. Ms. Drake’s residence was above the studio.”

Like a horror movie, she watched as a man rushed to the store’s entrance and had to be forcibly restrained by the police officers standing out front.

“Carl,” she cried softly.

Next thing, her friend was being interviewed, clearly distraught.

“Lexy’s a good friend. We asked her to come out with us tonight, but she said she had to stay in and work. I was walking home and saw the fire truck.” He glanced around frantically. “I can’t find her. Did she get out okay?”

The camera cut back to the on-the-scene reporter. “Police and fire crews aren’t saying much at this point, only that they will be investigating the cause of the fire, which they are calling ‘suspicious’ and that robbery is suspected.”

The pictures of the fire crews at work continued to play as the morning news anchor took up the story. “Investigators recovered the body of a woman from the scene. It will be several days before a positive identification can be made of the victim, but at this hour, Alexandra Drake is still unaccounted for.”

Then there was video playing of her at a gala, taken a few months ago, wearing one of her own necklaces. A jeweled collar. Talking about her work.

The host continued: “Alexandra Drake was a fast-rising young jewelry designer in New York. Her work appears in the collections of movie stars, royalty around the globe, and has been featured in a handful of recent movies. Her specialty was wedding and commitment rings.” Close-up of Lexy at the gala, speaking. “I believe every love story is unique, so shouldn’t your wedding ring be as personal?” Back to the host. “Alexandra Drake was twenty-eight years old. And in the meat packing district today, a suspicious package in a garbage bag turned out to be—” Pendegraff flipped off the TV.

“Was? They said was.” Her shock must have shown on her face; she couldn’t have stopped it.

The man beside her nodded. Looking grim.

“They said there was a dead woman in my place. Why would there be a dead body in my apartment?”

“I don’t know, Lexy. We’ll figure this out.”

She rose. Unable to sit still one more second. “Yesterday my life was so normal. Exciting even. And today, my business and home are destroyed, I have no idea where I am.”

She glared at her companion. “Oh, yeah, and I’m dead.”

4

“YOU’RE NOT DEAD.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Right. Just kidnapped.” Rage filled her and she welcomed the fiery anger; it was so much easier to deal with than the despair she felt tugging at the edges of her consciousness. Everything she’d worked for, her home, her business, gone. “This is all your fault.”

“I know you aren’t ready to believe this, but I saved your life.”

It was the last straw. “You stole from me.”

“Technically I was reclaiming stolen property. Look, you’ve had a shock. Let me cook you some breakfast and we’ll talk this through.”

She barely heard him. “I have to call my father. He’ll have seen the news. He’ll think I’m—” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Since her mom had passed away five years earlier, her father had become increasingly protective of her, encouraging her to come home and live in the Queens home she’d grown up in. She knew part of his problem was simple loneliness and his years as a cop had put him in contact with too many horror stories.

She couldn’t allow him to believe she’d become one of them. “Where’s the phone?”

Pendegraff put a restraining hand on her shoulder as she began searching for a phone. “Until I figure out who is behind this, who set me up and burned down your place, the safest thing you can do is stay missing.”

“But—”

“It’s for your own safety, Lexy. Your father wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk, would he?”

“You don’t understand. He’s a cop. He lost my mother to cancer … I’m all he’s got left. He’ll go to my place, he’ll think it was me in that fire and he’ll drive himself crazy. I have to get hold of him.”

He rubbed her shoulder briefly before letting her go. “Give me half an hour to explain. Then, if you still want to, you can call your father.”

She glared at him, at the flawed emerald eyes, the expensive tough-guy face. How could she trust him? He wouldn’t even give out her location.

“Where am I?”

“I value my privacy. You already know too much about me. I really don’t want you being able to summon cops to my door.”

She remained silent.

“You’re in the mountains. Still in the States.”

“Not good enough.”

Maybe he understood how helpless she felt and how much she needed a little information to help her cope. “Colorado. It’s fairly remote, but the closest town is Aspen.”

“How did I get here?”

“Private plane.”

“Stolen?”

A slight grin cracked the serious expression on his face. “No. I bought it.”

“So you’re a pretty rich thief.”

“I do okay.”

“Where’s the pilot?”

“You’re looking at him.”

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised. “This is like one of those nightmares where you want to wake up, and can’t.”

“I’m truly sorry about your home and business. This is not the kind of stuff I get involved in.”

“Right. You’re a gentleman thief, I bet. Somebody Cary Grant would play in an old movie.”

He smiled briefly. “Sit down while I cook you breakfast.”

She picked up her coffee and followed him as he strolled to the fancy-schmancy kitchen, pulling down a gleaming steel frying pan with all the confidence of a top chef. She watched as he opened the fridge and began efficiently removing butter, brown eggs, spinach, cheese and some kind of fresh herb she wasn’t enough of a cook to identify. She topped up her coffee and perched on one of the sleek kitchen stools.

“He cooks, he breaks into supposedly unbreakable safes, he flies his own plane. What other talents are you hiding, Mr. Pendegraff?”

He turned from his task and the glance he sent her was so full of sexual heat she felt as if her skin would scorch. For a second she couldn’t breathe. “One day, I’ll show you,” he promised softly.

Instead of returning the icy glare he deserved, she felt a response so strong it shamed her. Heat rushed through her, making her light-headed. Well, maybe he was the sexiest man who’d ever kidnapped her, but there was one thing she was certain of: it would be a cold day in hell before she’d be getting naked with this guy.

“You’ve got thirty minutes to explain what the hell is going on. Start talking.”

It was amazing how he could crack eggs, chop herbs, grate cheese and still manage to calmly explain a story that grew increasingly complicated as she listened. Her headache was gone and if she still felt a little fuzzy, she had no trouble following the plot.

“I help people retrieve things,” he explained. “Quietly, without a fuss.”

“You steal.”

“It’s a gray area. I used to steal, no question about it, but after a while the thrill wears off. Besides, I figured I should quit while I was ahead. Never caught.”

“I caught you.”

A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. So, that bothered him, did it? Good.

“Had you at gunpoint, too.”

“I was unbelievably careless last night.” He flicked a glance at her … a quicker, softer version of the sexual scorcher he’d lobbed her way earlier. “On too many levels.”

He chopped whatever the herb that was with a vengeance. “And so were you.”

“Me?”

“What are you doing with no proper security? Candy-ass locks and no video surveillance? Anybody can get in.”

She shrugged. His words echoed her father’s uncomfortably. How many times had her dad nagged her about security? “I figured I could take care of things. I live on the premises.” She glared at him. “And the safe is supposed to be unbreakable.”

“No such thing. Not to a guy like me.”

“So what was a guy like you doing there? Spinning me some tale about wanting a wedding ring, then robbing me.”

The knife stilled. “Can we clear one thing up? I wasn’t robbing you. Had no intention of doing so. The only thing I took was the emeralds.”

She snorted. “Oh, is that all? Do you have any idea what they’re worth? My insurance would never cover that amount. I’d be ruined.”

He shook his head. “You can’t put a price on that set. What story did the woman give you? The one who brought in the emeralds?”

“How do you know it was a woman?”

“Please. I’m a professional. I didn’t pick your place to knock it over. I followed the gems to your studio.”

She drank coffee, stalling for time. She didn’t want to give out any information, but if he’d followed the woman to her place he must know something about her. “She said she wanted them reset, modernized to give them to her daughter to wear. I got the feeling she was hoping to attract a rich husband by hanging a fortune around that girl’s neck.”

He glanced at her sharply. “The older woman did the talking?”

“Yes.”

“Who did she say she was?”

“Florence Grayson.”

He laughed aloud. “Oh, you’ve got to give the woman credit. She’s got some guts.”

“Are you saying that woman isn’t Florence Grayson?”

“Nope. Technically I suppose they stole the gems from Florence Grayson. The young one? Pretending to be the daughter? She’s Edward Grayson’s mistress. Or was. I’m guessing Edward gave her the heave-ho and Tiffany treated herself to a little goodbye gift. The Isabella Emeralds.” He poured eggs into the pan and breakfast began to sizzle.

“Wait, I’m getting confused. The mother isn’t the mother, the daughter’s the mistress—and what are the Isabella Emeralds?”

“I’ve met Florence Grayson. That wasn’t her. I’ve also met the mistress, Tiffany Starr if you can believe that’s the name she picked for herself. And as for the Isabella Emeralds, they’re part of a legend. Should really be in a museum.”

Lexy had an affinity for jewels the way some people have for water, or music. They all but spoke to her. She recalled the sadness she’d felt at the idea of resetting stones that were so perfectly at home in the delicate antique setting. “I thought they were some of the nicest and best set gems I’d ever seen. That deep color was so unusual. I’d only ever seen it in jewels that came from Mayan mines in Columbia centuries ago. I actually suggested they might want to rethink the idea of having the set redesigned.”

“Your instincts were right on.”

Something was tickling her memory. She closed her eyes for a moment. And then it came to her. She’d actually read about the Isabella Emeralds back when she’d been studying antique gems. “I thought the Isabella Emeralds had been lost.”

“Nope.”

“Weren’t they rumored to have gone down with the Titanic or something?”

“I suspect the owner set about the rumor. Rich collectors can do some pretty strange things. They’ve been in a private collection, which pretty much means the same thing as lost to the world. Grayson is so terrified of losing those emeralds that he never lets Florence wear them. I didn’t know he even owned the set until I was called in to recover them.”

“Then how did the mistress hear about them?”

He threw an amused glance over his shoulder. “I’m guessing Mr. G got a nice charge out of decking his mistress in his precious gems—and nothing else, for his private pleasure.”

“Historical gems as sex toys? Oh, please.”

He chuckled. “You asked. I was giving my opinion.”

“Is that what you’d do if you had them?”

He folded the omelet expertly in two. “If I had the right model.” Something about his tone reminded her that the Isabella Emeralds were currently in his possession.

As was she.

“If I remember correctly, the Isabella Emeralds were a gift to Queen Isabella of Spain from Christopher Columbus, right?”

He nodded. Cut the omelet in half and slid the pieces onto two thick blue ceramic plates. “As part of a thank-you gift for funding his trip to America.”

“In 1492.”

“Exactly. Not only are the gems themselves amazing quality—”

“I noticed that. The diamonds are flawless, and the emeralds as close to perfect as you can get in that size. The gems alone would be worth a fortune, but their provenance makes them—”

“Priceless.”

He slid a plate to the counter in front of her, handed her a knife and fork and a blue linen napkin.

“Thanks.”

He brought his own meal and sat beside her at the breakfast bar. It was undoubtedly cozy and she might have felt uncomfortable if she weren’t obsessed with the notion that she’d very nearly unwittingly destroyed a piece of history. “How could that woman have been so stupid? By getting me to reset the gems she’d be decimating their value and annihilating a piece of history.”

“They’d be a lot easier to sell, though. You can’t exactly put the Isabella Emeralds on auction at Christie’s or post them on eBay and not have somebody notice.”

“Wow. So where do you come in?” She dug into the omelet, found it thick and fluffy and full of flavor, which didn’t even surprise her. She was beginning to think that Charles Pendegraff did everything well.

“Edward Grayson hired me to retrieve the gems after he discovered they were missing. Oh, he doesn’t know he hired me. My chauffeur fronts for me at all client meetings. I prefer to keep my identity to myself. I go along electronically.”

“Sneaky.”

“I prefer the term discreet. Anyhow, Grayson asked me to get the set back, with no publicity, no police, no embarrassment. In return I pocketed a nice fee. Everybody’s happy.”

“Except this one went sideways. Publicity, police and a very embarrassingly dead body. Somebody screwed up. Great omelet by the way.”

“Thank you. Somebody was set up.”

“But why? It makes no sense. And who is the dead woman in my studio?”

He frowned. “I don’t know for certain, but I could hazard a guess.”

5

THE EGGS SUDDENLY FELT like cement as she swallowed and made the obvious connection. “You think the dead woman is Tiffany Starr?” She had met the woman, talked to her even. She hadn’t reached her thirtieth birthday, and now she was dead? It was foolish and vindictive to steal priceless jewelry from a former lover, but did she have to die for her crime?

“Who else could it be? You and I were there when the goons started to break in. There was no one else in the studio or your apartment.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“So they threw in an already dead woman, torched the place. Days will go by before anyone realizes it’s not you in there.”

“Why? If what you say is true, why didn’t Grayson stick to the plan? He’d have got his emeralds back and no one would ever have known she took them.”

“That, Lexy, is something I’m planning to figure out.”

He was looking at her with an intensity she didn’t like. As though there were more bad news on the way.

“What?”

“My guess is that Tiffany Starr wasn’t the only one who was supposed to die last night.”

An unpleasant queasiness rolled through her. “You mean … ?”

“You’d seen and handled the gems and I’d been hired to retrieve them. As I said, no one has set eyes on them since the early part of this century. I pegged Grayson as one of those fanatics who want to keep all their toys to themselves.”

“Like a spoiled kid?”

“A spoiled kid with his own private staff of thugs and killers.”

She sank her head into her hands. “I should have listened to my mom. I should have gone into nursing. Or teaching. Something uncomplicated, with a pension.”

“Somehow I can’t see you in an ordinary profession.”

She groaned. “I know. It’s my curse.”

“Finish your eggs. It’s always been my belief that you can’t commit a crime on an empty stomach, and I’m almost positive you can’t solve one, either.”

She toyed with an orange slice but in truth she’d lost her appetite. As she played his words back, she dropped the orange. “Wait a minute. You said your chauffeur went into the meeting with Grayson instead of you. They think he is you. He’s the one who’s going to get killed.”

“Don’t worry about Healey. He can take care of himself.”

She didn’t know why she should be concerned about a man who’d aided and abetted her kidnapping, but then she was the sort of person who bought non-kill rodent traps and had, on occasion, transported a very angry rat to a new home.

Amanda had been horrified and flat-out refused even to open the door so she and the rat could get outside. Her breath caught in her chest. “Oh, my God. Amanda. She saw the women. I even showed her the emeralds.” She jumped to her feet, her heart hammering painfully. “I have to warn Amanda.” She ran past Pendegraff, headed for the door of the house. If the Jeep was still sitting there, she could get to a town, somehow she’d find a way back to New York.

She was out of the front door. Good, the Jeep was still there. Keys inside would be nice, but if not she knew how to hot-wire a car. Her dad had taught her a lot of useful skills over the years.

The gravel bit into her socks and the sun blasted her eyeballs but she barely noticed. Amanda was her employee, a friend, her responsibility. She had to warn her.

The Jeep was parked, a gray shape against the snow. She sprinted blindly toward it, was almost there when a strong hand grabbed her arm, almost pulling it out of its socket.

“Ow. Let me go.”

“Lexy. Stop.”

She turned to him, and in turning found herself bashing hard abs, a chest that felt like granite, looking up into a face that was surprisingly understanding. “I have to go. You’ve got to let me. Amanda trusts me. She’s my employee, my responsibility.” She panted, trying to get the words out and pull away from his grip at the same time.

“I know. It’s okay. Healey’s watching things.”

“Healey? The guy who helped you drug and kidnap me? Pardon me if I don’t feel superconfident in his abilities to guard my friend.”

“Healey’s the most capable person I know. It’s why I hired him.”

“Those men are killers. You said so yourself. Killer trumps thief. You know? Like Rock, Paper, Scissors? Killer would trump them all. Crush rock, shred paper, smash scissors. This isn’t a game. You’ve got to let me get back.”

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