wasn’t in the credit cards, she had only two immediate options. One was to acquire a copy of the crime-lab analysis of the lust potion. Luckily she had a great contact in that system—a nerdy neighbor across the hall in her apartment building. They didn’t exactly get along, but if necessary, she’d use her feminine wiles to beguile him into helping her out. The other immediate option was to return to Jag’s tourist trap and get the story from the lizard’s mouth, so to speak.
Zoe being Zoe, she chose to do both ASAP.
2
DONOVAN SHANE TENDED TO become overly absorbed by his work. He’d managed to ignore the annoying buzz of the intercom system, but he was forced out of his fog when Guillermo Reyes opened the door to the toxicology lab and cleared his throat.
“Dr. Shane, Mandy Rae says to tell you there’s a woman here to see you,” the intern announced in a tone of awe, as if he’d never seen such a creature. The kid was a senior in high school; he should have had girls crawling out of his locker.
Donovan squinted as he pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. He’d been examining the peaks on the liquid chromatograph done on a sample from a murder case. “Whoever she is, she doesn’t have an appointment.”
“She’s…” At a loss for words, Guillermo gave an exceptionally gusty exhale. His sinuses tended to whistle when he got overexcited. “Damn, boss, you gotta see her.”
Boss. Donovan had never been a boss before. After earning his undergraduate degree, he’d been rejected by the police academy because of a preexisting condition—the heart murmur he’d had since childhood—and had taken a part-time lab technician’s job instead while advancing toward his Ph.D. Twelve years later, he was still working in the same facility, now as a toxicologist specializing in the typing and analysis of blood and other fluids. He told himself that he was satisfied to be left alone in the lab, quietly doing his job analyzing the minutiae of crime while others ran about like over-adrenalized superheroes, shooting at perps and risking their lives.
“Is she a kook?” he asked.
“I dunno. Maybe.” The intern gripped the doorknob. “She claims she knows you. Says she won’t leave until you see her.”
Shoulders hunched, Donovan returned to his study of the graph on the computer screen. He wasn’t keen to leave his work and make the trip to the reception desk in the lobby, where all visitors must check in before gaining admittance. He couldn’t imagine who this one-of-a-kind female might be.
Sadly he didn’t know many women. There was Mandy Rae, the pretty receptionist who tolerated him and the rest of the lab rats with unconcealed distaste. Lucilla, the facility’s cleaning lady, who griped at him for filling his wastebaskets and using all the paper towels. A small handful of female police officers, whom he spoke to mainly on the phone when they were anxious for urgent results of the evidence they’d couriered over. He supposed he had to include Dr. Victoria Eubanks, the comely optometrist he’d dated for five months until she’d told him, in the middle of his second eye exam that year, that she’d decided to go back to the ex-husband who’d cheated on her with his secretary.
Lastly, but never leastly, there was Zoe Aberdeen.
His neighbor.
His sworn nemesis.
His greatest fantasy.
Zoe? Could it be? Donovan’s head shot up so fast he lost his balance in the ensuing blood rush. Zoe. Of course. A wayward elbow knocked into a hydrometer jar that had been shifted from its appointed position. Zoe Aberdeen was exactly the type of woman who could make a goofus like Guillermo misplace his brain.
Donovan moved the jar back into place. Not to mention a goofus like himself.
“You didn’t answer Mandy Rae’s summons,” Guillermo explained, “so she sent me to tell you.” The intern was almost blithering as he peered out at the hallway, apparently expecting an invasion. “She said for you to come see because she’s not allowed to send unscheduled visitors to the lab with all the new protocols and—oh, jeezus, boss, here she is.”
Donovan shoved up his cuffs as he made for the door. He was betting the “she” wasn’t Mandy Rae, who turned up her nose at the pungent and occasionally gruesome smells wafting from the lab.
Sure enough, Zoe Aberdeen in all her glory sashayed up the staircase and through the hallway, as tricked out as a Mardi Gras celebrant. Most women would be overwhelmed by that particular combination of curly red hair, orange tank top and flared denim miniskirt, all of it topped off by bangles, chains and jewels swinging off every appendage.
But Zoe Aberdeen wasn’t most women.
Mandy Rae raced to catch up, waving a visitors’ badge. “Dr. Shane! I’m sorry. I got her to sign in, but she slipped past the door while I was making up the badge.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I know her.”
“What a lot of fuss.” Zoe planted her heels and put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on back here, Shane? State secrets?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Donovan resettled his wire-frame glasses. You always had to squint and blink when Zoe arrived. “I’m afraid you can’t stay. The labs are off-limits to most civilians.”
Zoe took the laminated badge from Mandy Rae and clamped it to her spaghetti strap. “Civilians?” A gay laugh. “Do I appear civilized to you, Shane? How disappointing.” An incorrigible flirt, she looked at Guillermo with a moue of her full, glossy lips. There had to be a beauty product that made them look that way. No normal lips were quite so wet and plump and kissable. “I promise you, sweetcakes, I’m as wild as they come.”
She pointed a long red fingernail at Donovan. “And he should know. Remind me, Shane. How many times have you called the cops on me?”
He cleared his throat. “Twice.”
“Only twice? I thought it was at least a half dozen.” She lowered her sunglasses to the end of her nose and slinked toward him with the hippy, shoulder-rolling saunter that was often featured—nude—in his dreams. Mandy Rae watched, fascinated. “Have you been lying to me, Shane, honey, all those times you said I’d better shut down the party because you’d called the cops?”
He held his spot. “I said I would call the cops.”
“And twice you did.”
“My walls were shaking.”
She sent him an unapologetic grin as she brushed by him on her way into the lab. Waving off Mandy Rae, Donovan followed on Zoe’s heels, intending to stay nearby so she didn’t touch any of the sensitive evidence that he kept scrupulously labeled and filed.
He stood so close he could smell her. She was sweet, but not from perfume. Zoe’s scent carried the sweetness of sugar—jelly beans, cherry licorice sticks, birthday cakes, fluffy pink cotton candy. All the forbidden treats he hadn’t been allowed as a sickly child.
Looking around the room and his adjoining office with airy interest, she removed her sunglasses and hooked them in the neckline of the skimpy top. He kept pace, practically peering over her shoulder, his hands itching to grab hold and keep her still. He didn’t quite dare. Zoe was too light and fluttery. He was too clumsy. A butterfly net would
