The Case of the Mesmerizing Boss. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ enforcement experience with the last two as an officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Then the top thirty scorers on the written test had to undergo a grueling oral interview. The five leading candidates to pass this test were placed on a one-year waiting list for an opening on the ninety-four-member force. Dane had been one of the lucky ones. He’d worked out of Houston, ranging over several counties to assist local law enforcement. A ranger might not have to fight Indians or Mexican guerrillas, but since Texas had plenty of ranchland left, a ranger had to be a skilled horseman in case he was called upon to track down modern-day rustlers. Dane was one of the best horsemen Tess had ever seen. Despite his injuries, he still was as at home on the back of a horse as he was on the ground or behind the wheel of a car.

      She was awed by him after all the years they’d known each other. But she was very careful these days not to let him know how awed. One taste of his violent ardor had been enough to stifle her desire for him as soon as it had begun.

      “You never send me out on assignments.” She sighed.

      He glanced at her, his expression guarded. He seemed to make a point of never looking too closely, or for too long, as if he found her very existence hard to accept. “You’re a secretary, not an operative.”

      “I could be, if you’d let me,” she said quietly. “I can do anything Helen can.”

      “Including dressing up like a hooker and parading down the main drag?” he mused.

      She shifted restlessly, averting her face. “Well, maybe not that.”

      His dark eyes narrowed. “Or listening to intimate conversations in back-alley motel rooms? Taking photographs of explicit situations? Tracing an accused murderer across two states and apprehending him on a bail-bond forfeiture?”

      She let out a long breath. “Okay. I get the point. I guess I couldn’t handle that. But I could be a skip tracer, if you’d let me. That’s almost as good as going out on cases.”

      He put out his cigarette angrily, a terse but controlled stab of his long fingers that made Tess uneasy. He was a passionate man, despite his cold control. She very rarely allowed herself to remember how he was with a woman. Just thinking about those strong, deft hands on her body made her go hot and shaky, but not with desire. She remembered the touch of Dane Lassiter’s hands with stark fear.

      He glanced at her suddenly, his eyes piercing, steady, as if he felt the thought in her mind and reacted to it. She went scarlet.

      “Something embarrasses you?” he asked in that slow, lazy drawl that intimidated even ex-policemen.

      “I was thinking about having to follow philandering husbands,” she hedged. She clutched her purse. “I’d better go.”

      “Heavy date?” he asked with apparent carelessness.

      She’d given up on men some time ago. He wouldn’t know that, or know why, so she just shrugged and smiled and left.

      The streets were dark and cold. The subdued glow of the streetlights didn’t make much difference, either. It was a foggy winter night, stark and unwelcoming. Tess pulled her trench coat closer around her and walked toward her small foreign car without much enthusiasm. Tonight was like any other night. She’d go home to an empty apartment—an efficiency apartment with a tiny kitchen, a bathroom, a combination living room and bedroom, and a sofa that made into a bed. She’d watch old movies on television until she grew sleepy, and then she’d go to bed. The next day would be a repeat of this one. The only difference would be the movie.

      Ordinarily, she might go out to a movie with her friend Kit Morris, who worked nearby. But Kit’s boss was overseas for two months and Kit had had to go with him—even though she’d groaned about the trip. The older girl was a confidential secretary who got a huge salary for doing whatever the job demanded. Tess missed her. The agency did a lot of work for Kit’s boss, hunting down his madcap mother, who spent her life getting into trouble.

      With Kit gone, Tess’s free time was really lonely. She had no one to talk to. She liked Helen, and they were friends, but she couldn’t really talk to Helen about the one big heartache of her life—Dane Lassiter.

      She looped her shoulder bag over her arm and stuffed her hands into her pockets. Her life, she thought, was like this miserable night. Cold, empty and solitary.

      Two expensively dressed men were standing under a streetlight as she appeared in the doorway of the office building. She stared at them curiously as one passed to the other an open briefcase full of packets of some white substance, and received a big wad of bills in return. She nodded to them and smiled absently, unaware of the shock on their faces as she walked toward the deserted parking lot.

      “Did she see?” one asked the other.

      “My God, of course she saw! Get her!”

      Tess hadn’t heard the conversation, but the sound of running feet caught her attention. She turned, conscious of movement, to stand staring blankly at two approaching men. They looked as if they were chasing her. There were angry shouts, freezing her where she stood. She frowned as the gleam of metal in the streetlights caught her attention. Before she realized that it was the reflection of light on a gun barrel, something hot stung her arm and spun her around. Seconds later, a pop rang in her ears and she cried out as she fell to the ground, stunned.

      “You killed her!” one man exclaimed. “You fool, now they’ll have us for murder instead of dealing coke!”

      “Shut up! Let me think! Maybe she’s not dead—”

      “Let’s get out of here! Somebody’s bound to have heard the shots!”

      “She came out of that building, where the lights are on in that detective agency,” the other voice groaned.

      “Great place you picked for the drop…. Run! That’s a siren!”

      Sure enough, it was. A patrol car, alerted by one of the street people, came barreling down the side street where the office was located, its spotlight catching two men bending over a prostrate form in a dark parking lot.

      “Oh, God!” one of the men exclaimed. “Run!”

      The sound of running feet barely impinged on Tess’s fading consciousness. Funny, she couldn’t lift her face. The pavement was damp and cold under her cheek. Except for that, she felt numb all over.

      “They shot somebody!” a different voice called. “Don’t let them get away!”

      She heard more pops. Black shoes went past her face, as two policemen went tearing after the well-dressed men.

      “Tess!”

      She didn’t recognize the voice at first. Dane was always so calm and in command of himself that the harsh urgency of his tone didn’t sound familiar.

      He rolled her gently onto her back. She stared up at him blankly, in shock. Her arm was beginning to feel wet and heavy and hot. She tried to speak and was surprised to find that she couldn’t make her tongue work.

      He spotted the dark, wet stain on her arm immediately, because the bullet had penetrated the cloth of her coat and blood was pulsing under it. “My God!” he ground out. His expression was as hard as a statue’s, betraying nothing. Only his eyes, glittery with anger, were alive in that dark slate.

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