The important rooms—the living room, guest room, and both baths—looked fairly decent, much to his relief. It had been a while since he’d had anybody in to clean. Although why he was worrying about Laura Mc-Neal’s first impression of his house was beyond him.
On the drive from the city, he’d pretty well concluded that she was a hooker. She had to be. Nobody else would dress that way in the middle of the day. Nobody else would dress that way period.
He’d left her on the porch swing, happy as a three-year-old, smiling while she pushed the big wooden swing back and forth with the pointed toes of her impossibly high, rhinestone-studded heels. She struck him as unusually carefree for a working girl who was obviously out of work for the duration.
Unless she thought that he…
Sam had just opened the refrigerator door, but now he slammed it shut. He must be nuts, bringing this woman here. It had seemed so obvious, so perfect. An ideal hideout where he could keep a casual watch out for her while carrying on with his own life. What was he thinking?
Shaking his head, he opened the door again and grabbed two cans of diet cola. She was still blissfully swinging when he walked out on the porch. Fine host that he was, he popped the tab on her cola before he handed it to her.
“We need to talk, Miss McNeal. We need to get a few things clear.” He slung a hip up on the porch rail, staring down at her, blatantly ignoring her long shapely legs and world-class ankles. “It is Miss, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you just call me Laura?”
“Okay, Laura. But that still doesn’t answer my question. Are you single? Married?”
“Single,” she replied, and Sam felt a sudden, inexplicable, almost goofy sense of relief. He immediately relegated it to the fact that he didn’t like working domestic disputes which tended to be ugly if not downright dangerous. People who loved each other could be the very worst of enemies.
“So you’re not trying to get away from an angry husband, then, I guess.”
“No.”
Sam sighed. He felt more like a dentist pulling teeth than a P.I. eliciting details from a client. “Who, then?”
“A man.”
He stared out at the yard a moment, courting patience, taking a break from the sight of her lovely legs. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, Miss, uh, Laura,” he finally said, “if you want me to help you with this situation.”
“A man who wants to marry me even though he barely knows me.”
Okay. So she wasn’t running away from her pimp. That still didn’t mean she wasn’t a hooker. One of her johns got emotionally involved no doubt. Somehow that didn’t surprise Sam. Laura McNeal was a beautiful woman. She had a face like an angel and a body custom-designed for sin. His own body, as a matter of fact, was acutely aware of hers at the moment. He took a swig from the soda can in the hope of cooling off.
“This man,” he said. “He’s a john, I assume.”
“No,” she answered, after a quick, confused blink. “He’s an Artie.”
Then it was Sam’s turn to blink. “Excuse me?”
She kicked off one shoe, then the other, and tucked about six miles of slender leg beneath her. “The man who hit me, the one who wants to marry me, is named Artie.”
“I meant, is he one of your customers?”
She shook her head, frowning. “No. Artie’s never…” Then her velvety blue eyes sparked with sudden comprehension. “That kind of john!” she exclaimed. “You think I’m a…a prostitute?”
“Well, I… You know.” He gestured to her minuscule dress and the discarded shoes. “The clothes and all.”
The swing started to rock back and forth with her laughter. “Oh, Sam. That is so funny. You thought I was a prostitute!”
He glowered now, feeling foolish, not to mention pretty inept in the deductive reasoning department, and nearly shouted, “Well, why the hell else would you wear a getup like that?”
“Because I own a vintage clothing store, that’s why.”
Sam thought she might have ended with “you idiot” but he wasn’t sure because, laughing as hard as she was, Laura could hardly get the words out clearly.
“This…” She touched the skimpy skirt of the dress. “…is because I was trying on some new merchandise when Artie showed up this morning. Then, after he hit me, I was out of there. I didn’t take time to change.”
“That was smart,” he said, hoping the praise would make her forget that he’d insulted her.
“Not smart so much as scared. Especially when he said, ‘If I can’t have you, then nobody else will, either.”’
Sam didn’t like the sound of that one bit, but he didn’t want to frighten this woman more than she already was. “And you think he means it?”
“I know he means it.” She touched her bruised eye, wincing slightly. “Oh, boy, does he mean it.”
“Artie what? What’s this creep’s last name?”
For an instant, she looked blank. Then her lips compressed and her gaze cut away from his for the briefest moment before coming back. “Jones,” she said. “The creep’s name is Artie Jones.”
Sam nodded and murmured, “Okay,” then took a long and thoughtful sip of his cola, all the while wondering why this woman felt compelled to lie to him—and badly, too—about her assailant’s name. And if that was a lie, he wondered just how much else about Laura McNeal he should allow himself to believe.
Chapter 2
Oh, good one, Laura!
Jones! She felt like smacking the heel of her hand to her forehead. If she intended to make up a different surname for Artie, couldn’t she at least have come up with something a little bit more original? Jones! She might as well have said Smith. The only thing the fake name had going for it was that she’d probably be able to remember it if Sam Zachary asked her again.
He probably would, too. She was sure of that. The private investigator had gone a little thin-lipped and slit-eyed when she’d answered his question, but there was no way on earth she was going to tell him the truth when the mere mention of the name Hammerman tended to make people sweat and develop uncontrollable tics. Even people as big as Sam Zachary.
For every one of his reputable businesses, Art “the Hammer” Hammerman probably had two or three disreputable ones. He was a landlord whose buildings often inexplicably burned down. He was a land developer whose notion of eminent domain included threats, poisoning family pets, and if necessary a well-aimed rifle shot through a kitchen window. A labor leader who had an endless supply of thugs to do his bidding and just enough cops and judges so he never got caught, or if caught, he certainly never went to jail.
But worst of all right now in Laura’s view, the Hammer had a son who wouldn’t take no for an
