CHAPTER ONE
‘HEY, MITCH, WAS there anything on a kid in Demarest’s file? About five-two or-three, hundred and ten pounds?’
Zane Montoya squinted into the shadows of the motel parking lot, trying to make out any other usable details. But whoever the kid was, he was being real careful not to stray into the pools of light cast by the streetlamps, making the fine hairs on Zane’s neck prickle. He’d been staking out Brad Demarest’s motel room for five hours—taking over right after Mitch had called in with the flu—and Montoya Investigations had been on the guy’s tail for six months now. Getting the tip that this by-the-hour motel on the outskirts of Morro Bay was Demarest’s latest bolt hole had been their first break in weeks. And his gut was telling him the kid was casing the joint. And he didn’t like it, because if Demarest showed up the last thing Zane needed was some little troublemaker alerting the guy to their presence—or, worse, spooking him before they could do a citizen’s arrest.
‘Is this kid a girl or a boy?’ Mitch’s voice croaked.
‘Don’t you think I would have…?’ Zane’s frustrated whisper cut off as the kid stepped back and the yellow glow of the streetlamp illuminated a sprinkle of freckles, vivid red-and-gold curls springing out from under a low-riding ball cap and the curve of a full breast beneath the skintight black tank she wore over camo trousers and boots. ‘It’s a girl.’
A girl who had to be up to no good. Why else would she be dressed up like GI Jane?
‘Make that a young woman—eighteen to twenty-five—Caucasian with red shoulder-length hair.’
The girl melted into the shadows as he tried to picture the intriguing features he’d glimpsed on a mugshot.
‘She doesn’t look familiar,’ he murmured, more to himself than Mitch.
He’d reread Demarest’s file while gorging himself on the endless supply of junk food Mitch had stashed in the glove compartment, but he couldn’t remember any of Demarest’s known associates fitting her description.
Mitch gave a weighty sigh. ‘If she’s hanging round his motel room, she’s probably another mark.’
‘I don’t think so—she’s too young,’ Zane replied. And way too cute. He cut off the thought. If she was mixed up with Demarest, she couldn’t be that cute. A one-time B-movie producer who’d taken a brief detour into porn before finding a more lucrative income duping rich women by promising to make them movie stars, Demarest was a typical LA parasite. But this kid with her pale skin, her freckles, her silicone-free breasts and her furtive activities looked anything but his typical mark.
‘Don’t be too sure,’ Mitch replied. ‘The guy cast a wide net and he wasn’t choosy.’
‘Oh, hell,’ Zane muttered as the girl approached the door to Demarest’s room. ‘Call Jim for back-up,’ he added sharply. ‘And get him over here now.’
‘Has Demarest showed up?’ Mitch’s croak rippled with excitement.
‘No.’ Thank God. ‘But Jim’ll have to take over the surveillance. We’ve got trouble.’ He glared across the lot, his irritation levels rising as his stomach sank. ‘Because whoever the heck she is, she’s just broken into his motel room.’
He shoved the cell into his back pocket as he lurched out of the car and headed across the parking lot.
Just what he needed after five hours sitting in a damn car—A GI Jane lookalike with freckles on her nose screwing up a six-month-operation.
Iona MacCabe eased the door open, and clutched a sweaty palm around the skeleton key she’d spent a week doing the job from hell to get hold of. The tiny strip of light coming through the curtains was alive with dust motes, but didn’t give her much of an idea of the room’s contents bar the two queen-size beds.
Her heart pounded into her throat at the footstep behind her, but as she whipped round to slam the door a tall figure blocked the doorway.
Brad!
Her stomach hit her tonsils as the apparition shot out a hand and wedged the door open.
‘I don’t think so,’ came the gruff voice—tight with anger.
Not Brad.
The knee-watering shaft of relief was quickly quashed as an arm banded round her waist. Her back hit a chest like a brick wall, knocking the wind out of her, as he lifted her off her feet.
‘Let go,’ she squeaked, her reflexes engaging as the shadow man hefted her backwards.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she yelped as he kicked the motel door shut and carted her across the parking lot to who knew where.
The muscular arm tightened under her breasts and her lungs seized as she figured out that getting abducted might actually be worse than being caught by Brad—the thieving love rat.
‘I’m stopping a felony in progress,’ the disembodied voice growled. ‘Now shut up, because this’ll go a lot worse for you if someone spots us.’
&nbs
p; She grabbed his arm and tried to prise it loose, but he was holding her too tightly for her to get any leverage. The tensile strength under her fingertips made the panic kick up a notch. She heard the heavy clunk of a car door opening and began to struggle in earnest. He was kidnapping her.
No way!
She’d come five thousand miles, lived on her wits for a fortnight, been cleaning toilets for a week in the grottiest motel in the world and hadn’t had a decent meal since the day before yesterday, only to get murdered by a nutjob in a motel car park a few feet from her goal.
Fury overtook the panic. ‘If you don’t put me down this instant I’ll yell my head off,’ she whispered, then wondered why she was whispering—and why she was giving him a warning.