drapes were as thin as paper, and looked to be of about the same consistency. But he’d pulled them closed over the narrow front window, so the room was deep in shadow.
The television blared out a poorly dubbed Hercules movie on its rickety gray pedestal. The single dresser was ringed with interlinking water-marks. There was a metal box beside the bed. For a couple of bucks in quarters, she could treat herself to dancing fingers. Whoopee.
The yellow glass ashtray on the night table was chipped, and didn’t look heavy enough to make an effective weapon. Even over the din of Hercules, she could hear the roaring sputter of an air-conditioning unit that was doing absolutely nothing to cool the room.
The print near a narrow door she assumed was to the bathroom was a garish reproduction of a country landscape in autumn, complete with screaming red barn and stupid-faced cows.
Reaching over, she tested the bedside lamp. It was bright blue glass, with a dingy and yellowing shade, but it had some heft. It might come in handy.
She heard the rattle of the key and set it down again, stared at the door.
He came in with a small red-and-white cooler and dropped it on the dresser. Her heart thumped when she saw her purse slung over his shoulder, but he tossed it on the floor by the bed so casually that she relaxed again.
The diamond was still safe, she thought. And so was the can of Mace, the can opener and the roll of nickels she habitually carried as weapons.
“Nothing I like better than a really bad movie,” he commented, and paused to watch Hercules battle several fierce-looking warriors sporting pelts and bad teeth. “I always wonder where they come up with the dialogue. You know, was it really that bad when it was scripted in Lithuanian or whatever, or does it just lose it in the translation?”
With a shrug, he walked over, lifted the top on the cooler and took out two soft drinks.
“I figure you’re thirsty.” He walked to her, offered a can. “And you’re not the type to cut off your nose.” His assessment was proved correct when she grabbed the can and drank deeply. “This place doesn’t run to room service,” he continued. “But there’s a diner down the road, so we won’t go hungry. You want something now?”
She eyed him over the top of the can. “No.”
“Fine.” He sat on the side of the bed, settled himself and smiled at her. “Let’s talk.”
“Kiss my butt.”
He blew out a breath. “It’s an attractive offer, sugar, but I’ve been trying not to think along those lines.” He gave her thigh a friendly pat. “Now, the way I see it, we’re both in a jam here, and you’ve got the key. Once you tell me who’s after you and why, I’ll deal with it.”
The worst of her thirst was abated, so she sipped slowly. Her voice dripped sarcasm. “You’ll deal with it?”
“Yeah. Consider me your champion-at-arms. Like good old Herc there.” He stabbed a thumb at the set behind him. “You tell me about it, then I’ll go take care of the bad guys. Then I’ll bill you. And if the offer about kissing your butt’s still open, I’ll take you up on that, too.”
“Let’s see.” She leaned her head back, kept her eyes level on his. “What was it you told your pal Ralph to do? Oh, yeah.” She peeled her lips back in a snarl and repeated it.
He only shook his head. “Is that any way to talk to the guy who kept you from getting a bullet in the brain?”
“I kept you from getting a bullet in the brain, pal, though I have serious doubts he’d have been able to hit it, as it’s clearly so small. And you pay me back by manhandling me, tying me up, gagging me, and dumping me in some cheap rent-by-the-hour motel.”
“I’m assured this is a family establishment,” he said dryly. God, she was a pistol, he thought. Spitting at him despite his advantage, daring him to take her on, though she didn’t have a hope of winning the game. And sexy as bloody hell in tight jeans and a wrinkled shirt.
“Think about this,” he said. “That brainless giant said something about me taking too long, talking too much, which leads me to believe they were listening from the van. They must have had surveillance equipment, and he got antsy. Otherwise, if you’d gone along with me like a good girl, they’d have pulled us over somewhere along the line and taken you. They didn’t want direct involvement, or witnesses.”
“You’d be a witness,” she corrected.
“Nothing to sweat over. I’d have been ticked off about having another bounty hunter snatch my job, but people in my line of work don’t go running to the cops. I’d have lost my fee, considered my day wasted, maybe bitched to Ralph. That’s the way they’d figure it, anyway. And Ralph would have probably passed me some fluff job to keep me happy.”
His eyes changed, went hard again. Knife-edged gray ice. “Somebody’s got their foot on his throat. I want to know who.”
“I couldn’t say. I don’t know your friend Ralph—”
“Former friend.”
“I don’t know the gorilla who broke my door, and I don’t know you.” She was pleased her voice was calm, without a single hitch or quiver. “Now, if you’ll let me go, I’ll report all this to the police.”
His lips twitched. “That’s the first time you’ve mentioned the cops, sugar. And you’re bluffing. You don’t want them in on this. That’s another question.”
He was right about that. She didn’t want the police, not until she’d talked to Bailey and knew what was going on. But she shrugged, glanced toward the phone he’d put out of commission. “You could call my bluff if you hadn’t wrecked the phone.”
“You wouldn’t call the cops, but whoever you called might have their phone tapped. I didn’t go through all the trouble to find us these plush out of-the-way surroundings to get traced.”
He leaned over, took her chin in his hand. “Who would you call, M.J.?”
She kept her eyes steady, fighting to ignore the heat of his fingers, the texture of his skin against hers. “My lover.” She spit the words out. “He’d take you apart limb by limb. He’d rip out your heart, then show it to you while it was still beating.”
He smiled, eased a little closer. He just couldn’t resist. “What’s his name?”
Her mind was blank, totally, completely, foolishly blank. She stared into those slate-gray eyes a moment, then shook his hand away. “Hank. He’ll break you in half and toss you to the dogs when he finds out you’ve messed with me.”
He chuckled, infuriated her. “You may have a lover, sugar. You may have a dozen. But you don’t have one named Hank. Took you too long. Okay, you don’t want to spill it and rely on me to work us out of this, we’ll go another route.”
He rose, leaned over. He heard her quickly indrawn breath when he reached down for her purse. Without a word, he dumped the contents on the bed. He’d already removed the weapons. “You ever use that can opener for more than popping a beer?” he asked her.
“How dare you! How dare you go through
