was Roderick Laughlin?
The picture on his driver’s license didn’t do him justice. His wasn’t a handsome face. The shape was too angular, the features too boldly intense. Yet even in the picture, the sense of controlled power and self-assurance came through. From the balcony, she’d singled him out as much for his height as for his apparent destination. Yet according to his driver’s license, Roderick Laughlin was only six feet tall. He’d seemed taller. Larger.
Safe.
How crazy was that? Claire was right. She needed to get out more. Meeting interesting men was not easy when one was stuck in a kitchen day after day.
Of course, it would be even harder to do from inside a jail cell.
Mel sighed. Roderick Laughlin’s leanness had been deceptive. There had been undeniable strength in the rippled muscles she’d felt beneath that perfectly fitted tuxedo jacket. Why was it men always looked so appealing in a tuxedo?
Mel shook aside that thought. Her slight frame tended to give some men the mistaken belief she needed to be shielded and protected. She was willing to use that impression when it suited her purposes, like tonight, but mostly coddling annoyed her. Roderick Laughlin hadn’t annoyed her. Instead he’d made her sharply aware of her femininity.
That had been some kiss.
Mel yanked her thoughts from that path, too, and flipped to the compartment holding his money. The unanticipated wad of bills made her bite her lower lip to stifle a gasp of dismay. Didn’t the man believe in banks and credit cards?
Wryly, she wondered what she had expected. A bash like the one at that fancy hotel catered only to the rich and famous. Apparently, Roderick Laughlin was rich. How unfortunate that he chose to carry around enough cash to send her to jail for grand theft if she was caught.
She nearly laughed out loud. Grand theft was the least of her worries. The police would be far more interested in tagging her for murder than a simple lift.
“Blast!”
“You say something lady?” the driver asked.
“No!”
His stare was just this side of a leer as they stopped for a traffic light. Mel met his gaze coldly in the rearview mirror until he lowered his eyes.
Good. She did not need another problem tonight.
The evening had not gone well. At first she’d stayed close to the group she’d come in with. Then she’d spotted Harold DiAngelis across the room. She was sure she’d seen a flash of startled recognition in his eyes before she’d moved away in search of her quarry.
Except he shouldn’t have known who she was.
DiAngelis worked with Gary, but her brother didn’t like the older man. The two had never socialized. Heck, they barely spoke, from what she gathered. There was no way Gary would have mentioned her to DiAngelis.
There hadn’t been time to wonder about that then, but she was fretting over it now. DiAngelis was bound to identify her to the police. His presence at the hotel at that particular party couldn’t be coincidence. Was DiAngelis somehow involved in the theft of her brother’s program? Maybe he was even the person who had killed Carl Boswell and taken the DVD!
The taxi slid on the slick pavement as they rounded a corner. The driver swore fluently. He barely avoided a collision with a stretch of parked cars. He offered her a wink and a wide grin as he straightened out and double-parked in front of a tired-looking redbrick building.
Mel handed him the money she’d pulled from the wallet in anticipation.
“Want company?” the driver asked, his leer firmly in place.
Mel inclined her head toward the lighted window of the apartment three stories up. Even from inside the cab the sounds of a party in full swing were unmistakable.
“I’ve already got plenty of company,” she said as she handed him the money.
The man nodded acceptance, but he waited, watching her climb the stone steps to the entrance before he roared off to disappear into the swirling snowflakes. As soon as the cab was out of sight, Mel went back down and hurried along the sidewalk as fast as her borrowed too-high heels would allow.
Snow peppered her skin. In minutes she was liberally coated from her hair to the pinching points of her shoes where her frozen toes begged for mercy. She was so cold she wasn’t sure how she made it to the Metro parking lot where she’d left her car earlier.
The police would trace the cab, of course, but the building would bring them to a dead end. Now, if only she could get her reluctant engine to start! Her twelve-year-old car did not like the cold any more than she did, and the transmission was going.
Curbing her frantic need to get away from the area, Mel finally coaxed the engine to life while shivers wracked her. Nothing resembling heat came from the vents even after she pulled out of the subway parking lot. The streets were growing more treacherous by the minute. Mel didn’t have to turn on the radio to know a snow emergency ban would be in effect. That meant she’d have to find a parking place near her apartment building on one of the side streets that wasn’t deemed an emergency route. Too bad she couldn’t afford the monthly fee to park in the parking garage a block over.
By the time she reached the foyer of her apartment building, two horrifically long blocks from where she’d had to park, the new year was several minutes old and she could no longer feel the finger that pressed Claire Bradshaw’s apartment buzzer.
“Yes?” the tinny voice questioned over the speaker.
“Claire, it’s Mel. Let me in.”
The buzzer answered her plea. Teeth chattering uncontrollably, she grasped the door handle and pushed eagerly into the warmth of the foyer. Her skin burned with returning circulation as she climbed the three flights and tried to ignore the icy rivulets of water melting against her skin.
“Good Lord’a’mighty have mercy,” Claire exclaimed as Mel reached her floor, huffing between fierce shivers. “What on earth were you doing running around outside dressed like that?”
“Tempting frostbite,” she managed.
Claire tsk-tsked as she ushered Mel inside. “Where’s your coat? Never mind. Get inside before you drop.”
Her elderly neighbor ushered her into a cozy warm room. Mel heard her suck in another gasp as she got a good view of Mel’s backside.
“Good Lord,” Claire whispered. “Didn’t I tell you that dress was overkill?”
Another time, Mel might have laughed. Claire had told her as much, even though she’d only seen the dress on the hanger until now.
“I didn’t have a lot of choice. Sue has flamboyant taste.” A serious understatement. Sue had been Mel’s next-door neighbor when she first moved to D.C. Outgoing and courageous, the pretty redhead had made it impossible for Mel not to be friends with her despite how little they had in common. But her friend was exactly her size right down to the shoe size. There hadn’t been time to go shopping for something more suitable after Gary called so she’d stopped at her friend’s apartment to borrow an outfit for the party.
