Phoebe, a true Mutt and Jeff combination if ever there was one. They were grinning into the camera and holding plastic cups of what looked like red wine. Behind them, a conference room was decked out in tacky holiday decorations—a recent Christmas party at the newspaper, no doubt. Lauren had her blond hair in pigtails, a fuzzy red scarf wrapped around her neck and high color on her cheeks.
By all rights she should have looked like a somewhat tipsy Heidi, but Sebastian’s thoughts were hardly on Swiss orphans. Instead he found himself internally yodeling the delights of slowly disrobing her, leaving only the scarlet boa, and slipping the bands from her hair one by one so that the silky tresses fanned over her cheeks and onto a pillow….
Sebastian blinked. It was happening again, this completely uncharacteristic loss of focus. He cleared his throat and frowned, concentrating on her fingers moving rapidly over the keyboard. “Is that something to do with the case?” He peered over her shoulder.
Lauren swiveled her neck and glanced up. Sebastian loomed over her shoulder like a vulture—a very sexy vulture, but a vulture nonetheless. “I was planning on accessing LexisNexis. Didn’t you want to sit over there and play with your BlackBerry or something?”
“Well, you did warn me about the chair. Besides, it’s not every day I get to see a newspaperwoman in action.”
Lauren rolled her eyes but decided it was best to ignore him—well, at least pretend to ignore him.
She pulled up the search engine that served as the research bible for journalists and typed in Harry Nord’s name, plus Philadelphia, in an attempt to winnow down the number of hits. The obituary she’d fabricated immediately popped up. But right below it was a second item from 1950: a sidebar to a story in the Sports section on Game Two of the World Series between Philadelphia and New York. After a disappointing loss to the Yankees on a homer by DiMaggio, it seems a distraught Harry Nord was in a car accident while driving home from Shibe Park—the Phillies old stomping grounds. Nord’s wife, the only other member of Nord’s family, was killed, and he was left completely paralyzed.
“If Nord became a quadriplegic over fifty years ago, I don’t see him travelling back to Italy after the fact, let alone heisting any art treasures. Your Bernard Lord must be a completely different guy. Let’s see what we get on Bernard Lord instead,” she said out loud, and absentmindedly scratched her neck as she waited for the search to finish.
Sebastian stared at her small hand exposing the white skin at the nape of her neck and had a definite urge to push her fingers aside and run his own across her smooth skin. He breathed in, telling himself to ignore the light scent of lavender. “Do you really think you need to type in Bernard Lord’s name?”
She dropped her hand to her lap. “Are you implying that if I’m really Bernard Lord’s accomplice, I would know everything already? Please, even if I were in on the thefts, you’d think I’d be stupid enough not to pretend otherwise?”
“You’d be surprised how stupid most people are.”
She peered at the screen as the information came up. “I’m not most people.”
“I figured that,” he murmured and leaned next to her ear to read over her shoulder. The smell of her gentle soap was stronger, invitingly stronger. He willed himself to study the screen. While he didn’t have access to this particular data bank, his own tie-in to Interpol was far from shabby. Still, if there was one thing he had learned over the years, any information was relevant—even a dead end.
That’s why when he’d seen the wire story on Harry Nord’s purported obit he decided to follow through. And his instincts told him that he might have gotten lucky. How lucky, he didn’t quite know.
“Hmm,” she mumbled. “Seems your Bernard Lord was quite a flyboy after all—Bronze Star, Purple Heart. Nothing new as far as you’re concerned, though. Let’s see what else we can get—maybe through the Veteran’s Administration.” She tapped in a cross-reference. “No, nothing interesting there.”
Sebastian rested a hand on the back of her chair. “Why don’t you try Camden?”
Lauren poised her fingers on the keyboard. “Camden? As in New Jersey?”
“That’s right. You wrote in the obit that that was where Harry Nord was born.”
Lauren frowned. “That’s right. But it was something I made up, if I remember my notes correctly. Still, it’s just across the river, so why not?” She shrugged and typed in the information. And while the computer hummed away, she tucked her fine hair behind her ear, inches from his face.
Sebastian watched her gesture and was suddenly conscious of the delicate curve of her ear. It would be so easy for him to lower his head and nuzzle her lobe. Offer a teasing bite. Cause Lauren to turn her head and offer more than a gentle nibble in return. More like a full-blown kiss on those plump lips…He gripped the chair more tightly.
“Bingo!” Lauren grabbed the steno pad and scribbled notes. “Seems a Bernard Lord reported a break-in at his apartment at 38 Roebling Street, Collingswood, eight years ago.” She moved her head back and forth as she scanned the copy. “Missing items included a silver tea set, Lenox china. Gee, pretty pricey items for that neck of the woods. Wait a minute—” she scrolled back up “—Roebling Street. That rings a bell somehow.”
She swiveled her chair a few degrees, forcing Sebastian to let go, and rifled through a stack of papers on her desk. “I must have left it here some place.” Coming up empty-handed, she flipped through another, then pulled out a drawer with a stack of steno pads. She ducked her head and searched.
“Looking for something?” Sebastian joined her by the open drawer.
She lifted the top few pads and went through them one at a time. “Yeah, my notes on Harry Nord. I took down information from the press release from the funeral parlor and the VA hospital to write up a ‘real’ obit, which of course, I never actually did when all the hoopla broke out. I must have it here somewhere.”
He stared at the jumble of notebooks. “Maybe I could help you look? Otherwise we could be here until it’s time for you to collect your pension.”
“Technically, the Sentinel has a K1 plan, not a pension plan, which, because I’ve been here four years already—” she stopped going through the pads and blinked. “I can’t believe it’s already been four years.” She shook her head. “Never mind. If I think about that too much I’ll go into a terminal funk. What were we looking for—Oh, right, the notes on Harry Nord. Sure, I suppose you can help look. Just grab a handful. My filing system might not be the greatest, but at least you’ll see I carefully mark the cover with the dates that I used the pad and what stories the notes refer to. See, this one says ‘Christmas Tree Scam’, ‘Homeless Shelters Revving Up For Winter Weather’, ‘Soup Kitchens Facing Shortage Of Food.’”
She skimmed through the pages. “Everybody thinks the holidays are so great, but for some people, it’s just more hardship. At least the story on the soup kitchen generated some interest—they called me to let me know a supermarket chain made a large donation in response. Kind of makes the beat worthwhile after all.”
She closed the notebook and for the first time glanced over at Sebastian and noticed that he was staring at her. His mouth, that incredibly sensuous mouth, was slightly open, and the top ridge of his bottom teeth exposed. “What? Do I have something on my nose or something?” She reached up but didn’t feel anything more than the little bump on one side, the result of having fallen out of the top bunk at a sleepover
