Passion and Scandal (2 page)

"What was what?"

"That," she said. "It sounds like someone's screaming."

"Probably just a siren," suggested another of the group, shrugging as he lifted a joint to his lips for a toke.

"Lots of sirens in L.A.," someone else volunteered. "Nothing to get excited about."

"No, it's not a siren. Someone's screaming," the young woman insisted. She whirled away from the loosely formed circle of people, her long red hair whipping around her shoulders, and reached for the stereo turntable. She hit the play arm, sending it skittering across the record album with a loud screech.

Heads turned toward her and disgruntled protests rose—and then died, unspoken, as the unmistakable sound of a hysterical woman tore through the air like a serrated knife.

Everyone in apartment 1-G froze.

The woman's screams went on unabated, the sound rising and falling jaggedly, as if she were desperately gulping in air between each bloodcurdling shriek.

"What the hell?" someone said.

"Who—"

"Will somebody please call a goddamn ambulance!"

The frantic plea came from outside, too, freeing the party-goers from their stunned inertia. Almost as one they turned toward the door of the apartment, pushing and scrambling as they raced outside and down the interior hallway, all of them coming to an abrupt halt as, by twos and threes, they spilled out onto the courtyard of the Wilshire Arms Apartments. Lights were coming on all over the building; windows and doors were opening; other tenants were coming out onto their balconies and into the courtyard to see what all the commotion was about as the woman continued to scream.

"Somebody shut her the hell up!" It was Carl Mueller, the building superintendent who spoke, bellowing out orders as he pushed his way through the crowd. "And the rest of you get back. Now! Shut her up, I said!" he ordered again.

"Come now, child. Control yourself," urged a tiny woman with a soft Russian accent. "You are not the one who is hurt." There were a few more words murmured in a soothing tone—some Russian, some English—and then the sound of a sharp slap rang out. The screaming stopped.

"Someone shoulda done that in the first place," Mueller muttered before turning his attention to the young man who knelt, barefoot and shirtless, over the still, spread-eagled body of another young man. Blood was smeared on his hands and bare chest. More blood, thick and black against the pebbled concrete of the courtyard, spread out in a pool beneath the head of the man on the ground.

"What the hell happened here, Blackstone?" Mueller demanded.

Zeke Blackstone didn't even look up. "Did somebody call an ambulance?" he asked quietly.

"I did," answered the girl who had first heard the screams. She was pushing through the crowd gathered around the body as she spoke. "They said not to move him, not to do anything until they got—Oh, my God." Her face went dead white, as if it had suddenly been drained of blood. "It's Eric."

Mueller put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her out of the way. "I asked you what happened, Blackstone," he demanded again.

"I don't know," Zeke murmured. His voice was flat and eerily unemotional but his touch was gentle as he stroked the fallen man's shoulder. "I think he's dead." Though they were softly spoken, the words rippled through the courtyard, sending shock waves through the crowd.

"Dead?" Mueller demanded. "He's dead? How?"

"I don't know," Zeke whispered again, still staring down at the body of his friend and roommate. He'd been so alive just a few hours ago. They had been standing in the kitchen—Eric and Zeke and Ethan—talking about the script Eric and his brother Jack had just sold. "I think he must have fallen and hit his head. The blood is coming from his head."

"Fallen from where?" Mueller barked.

"I don't know." Zeke lifted one arm, gesturing overhead toward the tiny wrought-iron balconies overlooking the courtyard from some of the second-and third-story apartments. "Up there."

An exclamation of disbelief came from someone in the crowd and everyone suddenly started talking at once. The plaintive, insistent sound of a siren spiraled through the soft night air, growing louder and louder as it raced toward them on a futile mission of mercy, gradually drowning out the excited babble of voices.

The redheaded girl started to sob softly then, standing by the body with her hands hanging down by her sides and tears streaming down her cheeks, making the soft mewling sounds of a distressed kitten.

Ethan Roberts reached out and touched the sobbing young woman's shoulder, turning her into his arms.

She wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shirtfront. "Oh, Eric," she murmured piteously. "Eric. It's all my fault. I'm the one who saw the woman in the mirror."

"Hush," Ethan murmured soothingly as he cradled her against his chest. "Hush, now, baby. It's all right."

He smoothed his hand over her hair, and leaned down, putting his lips to her ear. His voice was low and crooning. "It's going to be all right, baby. Ethan's got you now."

Chapter 1

The Vietnamese-owned French bakery on the street level should more rightly have been a sleazy bar or a pawnshop but everything else was exactly as Willow Ryan had expected it to be. The stairs creaked. The walls were dingy and needed painting. The narrow hallway was lit by a single naked bulb. The gold letters stenciled on the frosted-glass door panel were peeling at the edges. Gingerly, Willow reached out and put her hand on the doorknob, then hesitated and drew back, giving herself one last chance to reconsider the wisdom of what she was about to do.

At the very least, her actions could end up embarrassing someone. At worst, she might be ruining lives.

If she considered it logically and reasonably, things were fine the way they were. If she went away now and did nothing, they would, in all likelihood, remain fine. But for the first time in her life, Willow found herself unable to be either logical or reasonable.

She had to know.

It was as simple—and as complicated—as that.

She had reached a point in her life when
she had to know.

Willow smoothed her thick, chin-length hair back behind one ear, took a deep breath, and reached for the doorknob. Turning it firmly in her grasp, she pushed the door open and stepped into an office that looked as if it had been furnished to function as a set for a classic 1930's detective movie.

There was an old-fashioned wooden desk, two chairs with cracked, brown leather upholstery, and a low rectangular table littered with a stack of telephone books and a large glass ashtray that looked as if it hadn't been emptied in over a week. The scarred desktop held a telephone, a pencil cup with a motley collection of writing implements and emery boards in it, a leather blotter, and a fashion magazine opened to the monthly horoscope column. A lone calendar with a scenic view of the Sierra Mountains in springtime hung on the dingy beige wall behind the desk. The smell of stale cigarette smoke and burned coffee permeated the air, mingling with the scent of fresh-baked bread wafting up from the bakery below. The only thing missing was a tart-tongued, gum-chewing, blond secretary in a tight sweater.

And her hard-boiled boss, of course.

Willow eyed the half-open door leading into what she presumed was an inner office. Maybe the missing secretary and her boss were in there, going over the day's appointments or discussing a case or something. "Hello?" she called, raising her voice slightly. "Anybody here?"

There was no answer.

Willow took a reluctant step toward the half-open door. "Hello?" she repeated, louder. "Mr. Hart? Are you here?"

The only response was a soft, muffled noise that bore no resemblance to the usual sounds of business in progress. Willow opened her mouth to call again and then hesitated. Maybe they weren't going over the day's appointments. Maybe they were...

She glanced down at the plain gold watch on her wrist. "No, surely not," she muttered to herself.

It was only 9:25 in the morning, after all, and, no matter how disreputable looking, this was a place of business, not a scene from the pages of a potboiler detective novel. Besides, her appointment was for 9:30. She'd carefully arranged her day's schedule around it, leaving her afternoon free for meetings with two of her family's biggest Los Angeles customers. Time was money and she didn't like to waste either one of them.

With a determined step, Willow crossed the small reception area and rapped sharply on the half-open door. "Mr. Hart?"

The low snuffling noise continued unabated and Willow's determination wavered a bit. What if he and his secretary were really in there having sex on the desk? If she just barged in it would be humiliating for all three of them. As much as she hated to do it, maybe she should just write the morning off as wasted time and come back later. Or, better yet, find another detective to help her. Preferably, someone who knew that offices were for working.

She had half turned, ready to leave, when she heard what could only be described as a garbled snort. It didn't sound amorous at all. She leaned toward the door, head tilted as she listened intently.

Someone was snoring.

Loudly.

Willow pushed the door all the way open and stepped inside.

It was another set a classic film noir whodunit, incongruously dressed with props from
Rocky.
There was another battered wooden desk, twin to the one in the reception area, another couple of worn chairs, a row of gray metal filing cabinets against one wall, and a low wooden credenza under the single large window overlooking the street.

There was also a punching bag suspended in one corner, an open gym bag spilling sweaty socks and damp, ratty-looking towels onto the floor, and a pair of boxing gloves sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk. A personal computer, obviously brand-new, judging by the empty box and packaging materials strewn about, occupied the other chair. The desktop was buried in a jumbled mess of books, crumpled papers, empty Chinese take-out containers, fast-food wrappers, and an open pizza box with two slices of pizza left. The smell of burned coffee came from the empty pot on top of the filing cabinet. The snoring came from the man stretched out on his back on the cracked leather sofa.

Willow sidestepped the gym bag, stepped over a pair of size-twelve Reeboks, and turned off the heating element under the scorched and stinking coffeepot. Standing at the end of the sofa, she looked down at its sleeping occupant.

Several inches too long for his makeshift bed, he lay with one hand flung over his head and the other resting, palm up, on the floor. His bare, bony feet dangled over one sagging arm of the too-small sofa. His long legs were encased in faded jeans, torn at one knee, and there were pizza stains smeared down the front of the pale blue T-shirt stretched over his wide chest. His sun-streaked, dark blond hair stuck up in a half-dozen different directions and there was at least two days' worth of golden stubble covering his tanned jaw—which hung open, slackly, revealing a glimpse of toothpaste-ad-perfect teeth. He was snoring rhythmically, each deep sonorous exhalation causing the chiseled curve of his lower lip to vibrate.

This
was the man she had come to see? This was Steve Hart, the private investigator who had been so highly recommended? The ace detective who was going to help her find out what she had to know? Willow stood there in uncustomary indecision, staring down at him for another minute or so, debating with herself.

On the one hand, he looked like a California beach bum, an aging, rather dissolute California beach bum, at that. The kind of man who was still trying to coast through life on his golden good looks and a killer physique. On the other hand, he'd found Angie Claiborne's runaway teenage brother three months after everyone else had given up.

Maybe this wasn't what it looked like, she thought, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he hadn't passed out on the office sofa after a night of carousing. Maybe he'd been up all night working on a tricky case and this was the first chance he'd had to catch a little shut-eye. And she was already
there,
after all, in his office, her morning already invested in the meeting. It would be foolish to waste both time and opportunity simply because of a misleading first impression.

She reached down and jostled his shoulder. "Mr. Hart?"

The rumbling cadence of his snores didn't change.

She tried again, shaking him a bit harder.

He made a snorting noise, sounding very much like a pig at a trough, and shrugged away from her touch.

Recognizing the signs of a heavy sleeper, Willow abandoned the effort to shake him awake. Carefully setting her briefcase on top of the unused computer, she stepped around the desk to the window. With a flick of her wrist, she opened the old-fashioned Venetian blinds, letting in a flood of bright morning light.

The man on the sofa drew his arm down over his eyes and kept on snoring.

"All right," Willow murmured to herself. "You force me to take drastic measures."