Sex & Sensibility Page 8

  “Oh, no.” Tessa couldn’t imagine how he must have felt. Or what his mother had gone through. “So you got him?”

  “Got him, booked him, now he’s doing time. She wasn’t his first victim, and when he gets out she probably won’t be his last.” He swung the truck onto the off-ramp. “I hate it that she nearly lost everything she’d worked for her whole life. But what I hate more is that she lost her faith in people. He stole part of my mom that won’t come back, and that’s what burns me the most.”

  He took a westbound street that would take them to the waterfront.

  “I think she’s lucky to have you,” Tessa said. “You saved her from a lot of misery.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  Grouch he might be. Authority figure—yeah, that, too. But Tessa couldn’t fault him for caring about his mom, as she did hers.

  If nothing else, at least they had that in common.

  8

  THE BOUNCER at the door went by the name of Olie and looked like an ex-WWF wrestler or maybe a runaway extra from a Viking epic. He took the picture of Christina and studied it by the light over the nondescript door on which Atlantis was stenciled in black paint.

  “Nope. Never seen her before. Brunettes are my thing. I’d have remembered her.”

  “How many guys does the club have on the door?” Griffin asked.

  “Six of us. Two on weeknights, four on weekends, when the bar gets covered, too. Eight-hour shift and free drinks. Not a bad gig. I’m going to cooking school in the daytime so I needed an evening job.”

  Griffin wondered if he gave out this much personal information to everyone. No matter. It beat the hell out of a long, frustrating attempt at interrogation.

  “Where’s the other bouncer? I’d like to show this to him, too.”

  “John’s probably inside.”

  They found John talking with the bartender, but like Olie, neither of them could remember seeing Christina before. And the manager was no help, either.

  “Are you a cop?” he asked from behind the desk in an office that looked like the inside of an aluminum trash can, all smooth metallics and black-on-silver design. “Got a warrant?”

  “No and no,” Griffin said. What a jerk. Clearly, he didn’t know it took more than a soul patch to make him cool. “I just need to talk to your weekend bouncers. I’m a private investigator working on a missing persons case.”

  “You’ll have to come back Saturday, then,” the manager said. “I ain’t giving out the names and numbers of my people. That’s confidential.”

  “A girl’s life may be in danger,” Tessa put in quietly. “We need to talk to them. Tonight, if possible.”

  “That ain’t my lookout.” He shook his head. “My people are my lookout. Come back Saturday.”

  He waved them out the door and that was that. Tessa glanced at Griffin as they walked down the stairs, but he was busy trying to control the urge to walk back in there and choke a few names out of the guy.

  When they pushed open the doors, they saw the club had begun to fill up and the music and light show had reached titanic proportions. Tessa had to shout to make herself heard.

  “Now what?”

  “Fall back to Plan B,” he said. “We’ll cruise around and see what you can pick up.”

  The suede fringe on Tessa’s skirt swung as she crossed the dance floor and began to make a slow circuit of the room. Griffin found his anxiety and frustration fading as he followed her. He had no idea what to expect. A trance, such as she’d gone into earlier? Some kind of information flow like that of a Geiger counter? That was too far out of his league. He was better at close observation, and as they pushed through the crowd, the music reverberating around them, he found himself unable to do anything else.

  It was no hardship to observe Tessa and her curvy little rear end wrapped in soft suede. The fringe brushed against her thighs, parting and falling together again every time she took a step. It was hypnotic, almost. Parting and falling. Parting and falling.

  What’s the matter with you?

  Just because it wasn’t a hardship to look at her didn’t mean she was suddenly interesting to him in a sexual way. Not at all.

  Just because she seemed to know what she was doing and might actually be able to help him didn’t mean they were in some kind of partnership. Wrong. He was a glorified babysitter. Or, as she’d said herself, a recording secretary.

  He dragged his gaze off her legs and the fringe and fixed it on the back of her neck as he trailed behind her. There was no particular method in her movements. She’d pause by a table or a stool, wait for a moment, then move on and touch a mirror or a string of glass bubbles suspended in the air. There were no fake fishing nets and naked mermaids at the Atlantis. It was all about glass and transparency and the way light broke in wavy patterns on people’s faces as they danced.

  Flakes of light glimmered in Tessa’s hair as she bent her head to consider the railing of a circular staircase that led to the loft, where there seemed to be a restaurant. The light moved like a sprinkling of fairy dust on the back of her neck, which was exposed by the blunt cut of her hair as it fell forward.

  He’d never realized before how vulnerable a woman’s nape was. How slender yet strong it looked. Maybe it was the contrast of soft skin against the hard transparency of the glass and the bubbles and the Lucite treads of the stairs. Or maybe it was just Tessa.

  He and his bad attitude had hurt her feelings a dozen times since she’d arrived this afternoon. He’d bullied and blustered in the very best Singleton tradition, and she’d done nothing but straighten her spine and force him to focus on Christina. She’d held to her job description when he’d been busy resenting the fact that she’d even been given a job.

  If they were going to be successful, he was going to have to start over with her somehow. If she’d let him.

  He took a breath to say something along that line, when she turned. “I’m not getting anything,” she said. “Sorry about that. I really thought I could.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” The music segued from a brisk salsa number into something he actually recognized. “Smooth,” by Santana and Rob Thomas. “We can head out if you—”

  But she was no longer listening to him. She’d whirled away onto the dance floor, her body pulsing as her feet moved with the salsa step. She lifted her arms above her head, giving herself up to the beat, her hips describing circles that only a guy made of solid rock wouldn’t recognize as the movements of a woman in the throes of sex.

  Two men materialized out of thin air to dance with her, and she turned to face them both, laughing.

  So smooth. She’d said that earlier. Did the song have some kind of effect on her because of Christina? Did he care? No, what he cared about right now was getting her out of the grip of Nitwit Number 1, who seemed determined to pantomime orgasm with her plastered up against him.

  He grabbed the guy by the arm and told him where to go.

  “Take it easy, man,” he said resentfully, brushing his sleeve back into place. “It’s just a dance.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s with me.”

  They faded into the crowd and there was Tessa, doing the shimmy right in front of him. “Dance with me.”

  “I think we should go.”

  “This is it,” she said, and danced around him. “This is their song.”

  His brain had a split second to absorb the words before he found himself attempting to mimic her steps, something he generally avoided like wasps’ nests and crack houses.

  “Like this,” Tessa said, and grabbed the waistband of his jeans on either side. “Move your feet like mine. One-two-three. One-two-three.”

  Was that all there was to it? Or was it the fact that she was plastered up against him and her thighs guided his in the beat while her breasts brushed his chest? His brain lost the ability to focus on anything else but Tessa’s body and the sinuous way she moved, as though the music had wound itself inside her and was pulsing through her body and into
his.

  “This song was playing when they were here.” She did a slow revolution with her arms raised and her suede-covered derriere brushed the front of his pants. Griffin swallowed and hoped no one could see his erection in the crowd.

  “He made his decision while they danced,” she said when she was facing him once more.

  “What decision?”

  “I don’t know. Just a decision.”

  “And who is he?”

  “Don’t know that either. But someone mature. I thought before that her boyfriend isn’t someone her age. He’s definitely older.”

  “How much older?”

  “It’s hard to tell. Fifteen years, maybe? Twenty?”

  “Good God.”

  “Someone old enough to know better, anyway. He could still be the kidnapper, but I’m beginning to doubt it.”

  Talking was good. Talking kept him from thinking about her body and what it was doing to his. “We’ve got to find him. We’ve got no choice but to come back here Saturday night and talk to the other bouncers.”

  “Anything could happen by Saturday night.”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  “So what now?” She swayed gently against him in time with the music, her fingers again hooked in his belt loops. Griffin wasn’t sure which would be worse—holding her this close or doing the professional thing and stepping away. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something—like this, for instance—for the pure pleasure of it. But how could he step away from a woman who made his blood dance with the same dark, insistent beat as the music?

  But he had a feeling that if a man got involved with Tessa Nichols, “normal” might be something he’d have to kiss goodbye for good.

  No way was he getting involved. He dragged his mind off the woman and onto the question she’d asked. “We might as well head back. Unless you want to hang around and listen for more music, there’s nothing else we can do here.”

  “We could dance.” She grinned up at him and tugged on either side of his waistband, as if to show him how to swivel his hips.

  He could show her some hip action, all right. It just wouldn’t be here.

  Or anywhere. She’s not your kind of woman, Knox.

  “Stay if you want,” he said gruffly, to cover up the fact that his body would be only too happy to follow her teasing lead. “Take a cab home and Jay will pick up the tab. I’m heading out.”

  “All right, all right. It was just a suggestion.” She followed him out of the club and down the street to where he’d parked the truck. The wind off the harbor crept under his jacket and chilled him. It had been damned hot in there. Hot music, hot atmosphere…and a very hot woman.

  He had to stop this. Had to stop thinking of her in those terms.

  Unlike the trip out, where she’d extracted more information than he’d revealed to anyone but the staff therapist at the Santa Rita P.D. after the shooting, Tessa was quiet on the trip home. He was almost afraid to start up a conversation in case she weaseled her way into his head again and started on some other forbidden topic, like his ex-wife. And then there was the damn skirt, with its fringe falling open on either side of her thighs and revealing about a mile of soft, bare skin and slender leg.

  Griffin felt almost relieved as they turned into the driveway and approached the dark bulk of the house. He had to get out of the enclosed space of the cab before he did something he would regret, like reach out and touch her. He couldn’t wait to get home, where everything was normal and no visions of Tessa would intrude.

  The house wasn’t as dark as he’d thought. “Looks like Jay’s still up,” he observed, turning off the engine and climbing out.

  Jay was not only up, he was waiting for them. “Well?” He came out of his office as they crossed the entry hall. “What did you find out?”

  “Not a lot,” Griffin confessed. “The two guys on the door didn’t recognize Christina’s picture, and the other four won’t come on duty until the weekend. We’ll have to go back.” He added, “The manager wouldn’t give us their names or numbers, so we didn’t have a lot of choice.”

  “Did you explain to him that this could be a matter of life and death?”

  “Yes, without going into details that might pin down whose life we’re talking about,” Tessa said. “It didn’t do any good. I did get a faint reading there, though. Enough to tell me that the person whose attention she was trying to get really is an older man. Maybe twenty years older.”

  “What?” Jay’s face was a mix of horror and confusion. “Who?”

  “We don’t know yet,” she said. “But give me time.”

  “We may not have time!”

  “If you’d let me bring in the P.D. we might—” Griffin began, but Jay cut him off.

  “I already said no. We’ll do the best we can.”

  Griffin bit back an angry retort that would have included something about rope and tied hands. “I’m out of here, then,” he said instead. “See you in the morning.”

  “What, already?” Jay glanced at his Rolex. “It’s not even eleven.”

  “I’m sure Tessa could use some sleep,” he said. “It’s been a long day.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Tessa stretched like a cat and Griffin swallowed and looked away. “I’m still wired from dancing.” She dropped her arms. “Hey, I know. Why don’t you come out to the cottage and we’ll go through her music collection. Music is obviously a big deal to her. I bet she’s got Santana’s Supernatural and if she does, maybe I get can something from it.”

  “Good idea.” Jay sat behind the desk and settled in front of the computer as though he meant to work into the night. “Whatever the hell Supernatural is. It’s appropriate, if you ask me.”

  Griffin closed his eyes briefly and resigned himself to yet more efforts at control. Tessa in a suede miniskirt. Tessa dancing. Now Tessa in the cottage alone with him, in the miniskirt, probably dancing.

  Supernatural, for sure.

  9

  From the private journal of Jay Singleton

  Okay. Still with the older man. What a theory. Much as this makes me sick, I also don’t have to be a shrink to see what’s going on.

  Is my little girl really hitting on older guys as some kind of substitute for attention from me? When we find her, she’s going into therapy. This has to be fixed. How in the hell could I have given her attention when I was on the other side of the country trying to make enough money to keep two households going? So I missed her eighth-grade graduation and her prom and some godawful father-daughter thing Barbara made a big stink about. Those were just events. Nothing affected the bedrock of my love for my little girl.

  I did the best I could. Some guys make dramatic gestures, like whipping a prom dress out of a box. Some guys go and scream at soccer games and fight with other parents behind the fence. But what did I do? I just loved her. A man has to get credit for that, doesn’t he? My gestures aren’t very dramatic, but they kept her fed and clothed and in a good school, didn’t they?

  Is this some kind of punishment for not being around? The phone works both ways, you know. Not to mention the fact that a private-school education is damned expensive.

  Why is nobody giving me credit for what I did do, instead of making me feel like shit for what I didn’t do?

  “I HOPE YOU didn’t really want to go home,” Tessa said as they crossed the patio. Lamps on posts at intervals around the flagstone square illuminated it gently.

  Because of course he had a home. Somehow she’d pictured him spending his nights standing up outside Jay’s office, like a deactivated droid. “Where do you live?”

  “In Santa Rita. It’s okay. We have a job to do. I can sleep anytime.” Griffin opened the door to the cottage and stood aside so Tessa could pass him. “That said, I still think we’d get further faster if he’d call in the P.D. If something happens to Christina, he’s not going to be able to live with it.”

  Tessa shivered. It was true. Singleton had cut off one hand
of the investigation and without it they were nearly helpless.

  The thought brought another chill. Or maybe it was just the fog moving in for the night, breathing in through the cottage’s open windows. She crossed the room and closed them, turned on a lamp, then took her blue sweater out of the suitcase and tugged it on over her T-shirt.

  Wearing something this clingy to a club was one thing, but after those circus remarks earlier, she figured he’d rather she were covered head to foot in baggy sweats. There were two reasons for that. One, he was attracted to her. Or two, he didn’t like women.

  She had a feeling it was definitely not option two. Not that it mattered to her one bit. She was not excited by a grumpy ex-cop, no matter how well he danced.

  He is for damn sure excited by you. And is trying for all he’s worth not to be, which is kind of insulting when you think about it.

  He’s an honorable man, she reminded herself. He wasn’t going to jump her bones just because they were alone together late at night in these cozy surroundings. But she had felt the desire coming off him in waves, both at the club and in the truck on the way home. It was hot and dark and exciting, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  Enjoy it, silly.

  Right. Hey, they could go at it like minks in this room and then be all cool and Sherlock Holmes in the daytime.

  She could. She doubted he could, though.

  “Let’s see what she’s got in her CD rack.” Tessa knelt next to the bookshelf, which, instead of holding books, held about a thousand CDs and DVDs for the compact entertainment center on that wall.

  The truth was, once she’d gotten over the arrest thing—which had happened right around the time he’d admitted he had been wrong to do it—she’d found herself liking things about him. Riding to his mom’s rescue. Keeping his temper instead of knocking the chip off the club manager’s shoulder.