Hidden Star: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

He leaped up, burned his hand on the pot. He swore viciously as the pot smashed, shattering glass, and spewing hot coffee in all directions. He ripped open a drawer, grabbed for a stack of napkins and sliced his thumb with the lethal edge of his former—and now thoroughly damned to perdition—secretary’s nail file.

When the woman walked in, he was still cursing and bleeding and had just tripped over the philodendron set in the middle of the floor and didn’t even look up.

It was hardly a wonder she simply stood there, damp from the rain, her face pale as death and her eyes wide with shock.

“Excuse me.” Her voice sounded rusty, as if she hadn’t used it in days. “I must have the wrong office.” She inched backward, and those big, wide brown eyes shifted to the name printed on the door. She hesitated, then looked back at him. “Are you Mr. Parris?”

There was a moment, one blinding moment, when he couldn’t seem to speak. He knew he was staring at her, couldn’t help himself. His heart simply stood still. His knees went weak. And the only thought that came to his mind was There you are, finally. What the hell took you so long?

And because that was so ridiculous, he struggled to put a bland, even cynical, investigator’s expression on his face.

“Yeah.” He remembered the handkerchief in his pocket, and wrapped it over his busily bleeding thumb. “Just had a little accident here.”

“I see.” Though she didn’t appear to, the way she continued to stare at his face. “I’ve come at a bad time. I don’t have an appointment. I thought maybe…”

“Looks like my calendar’s clear.”

He wanted her to come in, all the way in. Whatever that first absurd, unprecedented reaction of his, she was still a potential client. And surely no dame who ever walked through Sam Spade’s hallowed door had ever been more perfect.

She was blond and beautiful and bewildered. Her hair was wet, sleek down to her shoulders and straight as the rain. Her eyes were bourbon brown, in a face that—though it could have used some color—was delicate as a fairy’s. It was heart-shaped, the cheeks a gentle curve and the mouth was full, unpainted and solemn.

She’d ruined her suit and shoes in the rain. He recognized both as top-quality, that quietly exclusive look found only in designer salons. Against the wet blue silk of her suit, the canvas bag she clutched with both hands looked intriguingly out of place.

Damsel in distress, he mused, and his lips curved. Just what the doctor ordered.

“Why don’t you come in, close the door, Miss…?”

Her heart bumped twice, hammer-hard, and she tightened her grip on the bag. “You’re a private investigator?”

“That’s what it says on the door.” Cade smiled again, ruthlessly using the dimples while he watched her gnaw that lovely lower lip. Damned if he wouldn’t like to gnaw on it himself.

And that response, he thought with a little relief, was a lot more like it. Lust was a feeling he could understand.

“Let’s go back to my office.” He surveyed the damage—broken glass, potting soil, pools of coffee. “I think I’m finished in here for now.”

“All right.” She took a deep breath, stepped in, then closed the door. She supposed she had to start somewhere.

Picking her way over the debris, she followed him into the adjoining room. It was furnished with little more than a desk and a couple of bargain-basement chairs. Well, she couldn’t be choosy about decor, she reminded herself. She waited until he’d sat behind his desk, tipped back in his chair and smiled at her again in that quick, trust-me way.

“Do you— Could I—” She squeezed her eyes tight, centered herself again. “Do you have some credentials I could see?”

More intrigued, he took out his license, handed it to her. She wore two very lovely rings, one on each hand, he noticed. One was a square-cut citrine in an antique setting, the other a trio of colored stones. Her earrings matched the second ring, he noted when she tucked her hair behind her ear and studied his license as if weighing each printed word.

“Would you like to tell me what the problem is, Miss…?”

“I think—” She handed him back his license, then gripped the bag two-handed again. “I think I’d like to hire you.” Her eyes were on his face again, as intently, as searchingly, as they had been on the license. “Do you handle missing-persons cases?”

Who did you lose, sweetheart? he wondered. He hoped, for her sake and for the sake of the nice little fantasy that was building in his head, it wasn’t a husband. “Yeah, I handle missing persons.”

“Your, ah, rate?”

“Two-fifty a day, plus expenses.” When she nodded, he slid over a legal pad, picked up a pencil. “Who do you want me to find?”

She took a long, shuddering breath. “Me. I need you to find me.”

Watching her, he tapped the pencil against the pad. “Looks like I already have. You want me to bill you, or do you want to pay now?”

“No.” She could feel it cracking. She’d held on so long—or at least it seemed so long—but now she could feel that branch she’d gripped when the world dropped out from under her begin to crack. “I don’t remember. Anything. I don’t—” Her voice began to hitch. She took her hands off the bag in her lap to press them to her face. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know who I am.” And then she was weeping the words into her hands. “I don’t know who I am.”

Cade had a lot of experience with hysterical women. He’d grown up with females who used flowing tears and gulping sobs as the answer to anything from a broken nail to a broken marriage. So he rose from his desk, armed himself with a box of tissues and crouched in front of her.

“Here now, sweetheart. Don’t worry. It’s going to be just fine.” With gentle expertise, he mopped at her face as he spoke. He patted her hand, stroked her hair, studied her swimming eyes.

“I’m sorry. I can’t—”

“Just cry it out,” he told her. “You’ll feel better for it.” Rising, he went into the closet-size bathroom and poured her a paper cup of water.

When she had a lapful of damp tissues and three crushed paper cups, she let out a little jerky sigh. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I do feel better.” Her cheeks pinkened a bit with embarrassment as she gathered up the tissues and mangled cups. Cade took them from her, dumped them in the wastebasket, then rested a hip on the corner of his desk.

“You want to tell me about it now?”

She nodded, then linked her fingers and began to twist them together. “I— There isn’t that much to tell. I just don’t remember anything. Who I am, what I do, where I’m from. Friends, family. Nothing.” Her breath caught again, and she released it slowly. “Nothing,” she repeated.

It was a dream come true, he thought, the beautiful woman without a past coming out of the rain and into his office. He flicked a glance at the bag she still held in her lap. They’d get to that in a minute. “Why don’t you tell me the first thing you do remember?”

“I woke up in a room—a little hotel on Sixteenth Street.” Letting her head rest back against the chair, she closed her eyes and tried to bring things into focus. “Even that’s unclear. I was curled up on the bed, and there was a chair propped under the doorknob. It was raining. I could hear the rain. I was groggy and disoriented, but my heart was pounding so hard, as if I’d wakened from a nightmare. I still had my shoes on. I remember wondering why I’d gone to bed with my shoes on. The room was dim and stuffy. All the windows were closed. I was so tired, logy, so I went into the bathroom to splash water on my face.”

Now she opened her eyes, looked into his. “I saw my face in the mirror. This ugly little mirror with black splotches where it needed to be resilvered. And it meant nothing to me. The face.” She lifted a hand, ran it over her cheek, her jaw. “My face meant nothing to me. I couldn’t remember the name that went with the face, or the thoughts or the plans or the past. I didn’t know how I’d gotten to that horrid room. I looked through the drawers and the closet, but there was nothing. No clothes. I was afraid to stay there, but I didn’t know where to go.”

“The bag? Was that all you had with you?”

“Yes.” Her hand clutched at the straps again. “No purse, no wallet, no keys. This was in my pocket.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket and took out a small scrap of notepaper.

Cade took it from her, skimmed the quick scrawling writing.

Bailey, Sat at 7, right? MJ

“I don’t know what it means. I saw a newspaper. Today’s Friday.”

“Mmm. Write it down,” Cade said, handing her a pad and pen.

“What?”

“Write down what it says on the note.”

“Oh.” Gnawing her lip again, she complied.

Though he didn’t have to compare the two to come to his conclusions, he took the pad from her, set it and the note side by side. “Well, you’re not M.J., so I’d say you’re Bailey.”