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      One dark brow lifted. “Excuse me?”

      “Just a quick personality check. You want my address, right?” she rattled off an address that made both of Alex’s brows raise.

      “Let’s get serious.”

      “Okay.” Willing to oblige, Bess folded her hands on the edge of his desk.

      “Your address,” he repeated.

      “I just gave it to you.”

      “I know what real estate goes for in that area. Maybe you’re good.” Thoughtful, he scanned her attributes one more time. “Maybe you’re better than you look. But you don’t make enough working the streets to pop for that kind of rent.”

      Bess knew an insult when it hit her over the head. What made it worse was that she’d spent over an hour on her makeup. And she happened to know that her body was good. Lord knew, she sweated to keep it that way by working out three days a week. “That’s where I live, cop.” Her temper, which had a habit of flaring quickly, had her upending her enormous canvas tote onto his desk.

      Alex watched, fascinated, as she pawed through the pile of contents. There were enough cosmetics to supply a small department store. And they weren’t the cheap kind. Six lipsticks, two compacts, several mascara sticks and pots of eye shadow. A rainbow of eyeliner pencils. Scattered with them were two sets of keys, a snowfall of credit-card receipts, rubber bands, paper clips, twelve pens—he counted—a few broken pencils, a steno pad, two paperback books, matches, a leather address book embossed with the initials ELM, a stapler—he didn’t even pause to wonder why she would carry one—tissues and crumpled papers, a tiny micro-cassette recorder. And a gun.

      He whipped it out of the pile and stared at it. A water gun.

      “Careful with that,” she warned as she found her overburdened wallet. “It’s full of ammonia.”

      “Ammonia?”

      “I used to carry Mace, but this works fine. Here.” Pleased with herself, she pushed the open wallet under his nose.

      It might have been her in the picture. The hair was short and curly and chic, a deep chestnut rather than a brassy blonde. But that nose, that chin. And those eyes. He frowned over the driver’s license. The address was right.

      “You got a car?”

      She shrugged and began to dump things back into her purse. “So?”

      “Women in your position usually don’t.”

      Because it made sense, Bess stalled. “I’ve got a license. Everybody who has a license doesn’t have to have a car, do they?”

      “No.” He jerked the wallet out of her reach. “Take off the wig.”

      Pouting a little, she patted it. “How come?”

      He reached across the desk and yanked it off himself. She scowled at him while she ran her fingers through short, springy red curls. “I want that back. It’s borrowed.”

      “Sure.” He tossed it onto his desk before he leaned back in his squeaky chair for a fresh evaluation. If this lady was a hooker, he was Clark Kent. “What the hell are you?”

      It was time to come clean. She knew it. But something about him egged her on. “I’m just a woman trying to make a living, Officer.” That was how Jade would handle it, Bess was sure. And since Jade was her creation, Bess was determined to do right by her.

      He opened the wallet, skimmed through the bills. She was carrying around what would be for him more than two weeks’ pay. “Right.”

      “Can you do that?” she demanded, more curious than annoyed. “Go through my personal property?”

      “Honey, right now you are my personal property.” There were pictures in the wallet, as well. Snapshots of people, some with her, some without her. And the lady was a card-carrying member of dozens of groups, including Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Federation, Amnesty International and the Writers’ Guild. The last brought him back to the tape recorder. When he picked up the little toy, he noted that it was running. “Let’s have it, Bess.”

      God, he was cute. The thought passed through her head as she smiled at him. “Have what?”

      “What were you doing hanging around with Rosalie and the rest of the girls?”

      “My job.” When his eyes narrowed that way, Bess thought, he was downright irresistible. Impatient, a little mean, with a flash of recklessness just barely under control.

      Fabulous.

      “Really.” All honesty and cheap perfume, she leaned forward. “You see, it all has to do with Jade, and how she’s having this problem with a dual personality. By day, she’s a dedicated lawyer—a real straight arrow, you know—but by night she hits the streets. She’s blocking what happened between her and Brock, and coupled with a childhood memory that’s begun to resurface, the strain’s been too much for her. She’s on a path of self-destruction.”

      The frown in his eyes turned them nearly black. “Who the hell is Jade?”

      “Jade Sullivan Carstairs. Don’t you watch daytime TV?”

      His head was beginning to buzz. “No.”

      “You don’t know what you’re missing. You’d probably really enjoy the Jade-Storm-Brock story line. Storm’s a cop, you see, and he’s falling in love with Jade. Her emotional problems, and the hold Brock has on her, complicate things. Then there was a miscarriage, and the kidnapping. Naturally, Storm has problems of his own.”

      “Naturally. What’s your point?”

      “Oh, sorry. I get offtrack. I write for ‘Secret Sins’ daytime drama.”

      “You’re a soap-opera writer?”

      “Yeah.” Unlike many in the trade, she wasn’t bothered by that particular label. “And I like to get the feel of the situations I put my characters into. Since Jade is a special pet of mine, I—”

      “Are you out of your mind?” Alex barked the question as he leaned over into her face. “Do you have any idea what you were doing?”

      She blinked, at once innocent and amused. “Research?”

      He swore again, and Bess found she liked the way he raked impatient fingers through his thick black hair. “Lady, just how far were you intending to take your research?”

      “How—? Oh.” Her eyes brightened with laughter. “Well no, not quite that far.”

      “What the hell would you have done if I hadn’t been a cop?”

      “I’d have thought of something.” She continued to smile. He had a fascinating face—golden skin, dark eyes, wonderful bones. And that mouth, so beautifully sculpted, even if it did tend to scowl. “It’s my job to think of things. And when I spotted you, I thought you looked safe. What I mean is, you didn’t strike me as the kind of man who’d СКАЧАТЬ