Parker And The Gypsy

Which didn’t help to explain why he’d reacted to Sara like a man stranded for years on a desert island, pulling her into his arms and kissing her that way. Or why when Mike tried to dismiss the whole episode, he couldn’t seem to get Sara out of his mind.

Settling back into his chair, he reached for the report he’d been working on, but somehow he kept seeing Sara’s woebegone face when he shoved her into the outer office and slammed the door closed.

“I came to you because I honestly needed your help, Mr. Parker.”

Mike experienced a brief twinge of conscience. He supposed he hadn’t needed to get that rough with the poor kid, but she could always find some other investigator. There was bound to be someone who would be happy to play ghost hunt with her and sucker her out of her money.

Another unpleasant thought. Mike thrust it ruthlessly aside. No, he’d done right by getting rid of Sara and forgetting about her.

Because a woman who thought she could read minds and see ghosts, well she was bound to be nothing but trouble. Especially packaged the way Sara was. Her pretty face all vulnerable and innocent, filling a man’s head with stupid noble impulses to fight the baser urges her body was arousing in him.

And what a body. Mike stretched back in his chair, latching his hands behind his head. Good thing he’d resolved to stop thinking about Sara. Because if he closed his eyes, he could still remember how tempting her breasts had looked outlined by the sun, how good it had felt to have those soft curves pressed against him. A faint trace of her perfume still lingered in the air and it brought with it the memory of the kiss they shared. He could still feel the sweet surprise of Sara’s lips yielding beneath his, the imprint of her body in his arms, warm, fragile and feminine. It was almost as though she had left some—some sort of aura behind.

Aura? Mike straightened abruptly, his eyes flying open wide. Had that thought really come from him? His gaze darted around his office like a man who’d misplaced his mind and was trying to locate it again.

Oh, man! Mike rubbed one hand across his unshaven jaw. If he was starting to entertain thoughts about Sara’s aura, he really needed to get out of here for a while, go get himself a cup of coffee or some breakfast. Yeah, likely that was what was wrong with him. He’d gone hungry enough as a kid to know that the world always made more sense on a full stomach.

Shoving an unfinished report in the top drawer, Mike leapt up and strode out of the room. In the outer office, Rosa’s modest switchboard was lit up like the neon sign at a strip joint. Mike paused long enough to switch on the answering machine before trudging down three hot airless flights of stairs that connected his office to the outer world.

He emerged into the heat and noisy blare of the street just in time to catch some little blue-haired punk painting graffiti on his office sign.

“Hey,” Mike bellowed.

The kid dropped the spray can and took to his heels. Swearing, Mike gave halfhearted chase for half a block, slowed by the heat and the lingering effects of his hangover. As the kid darted down a narrow alley, Mike gave it up in disgust and turned back to see how much damage had been done.

Instead of the usual obscenities, the kid had merely altered the sign to read Ma Parker’s Detective Agency, Two Flights Up.

“Great,” Mike muttered. Just what he needed—a graffiti artist with a wit. Grabbing some paper napkins that lay tumbled by a nearby trash can, Mike sought to repair the damage before the paint had a chance to dry, but he only succeeded in smearing it worse.

Preoccupied by his cursing and rubbing, he forgot his own cardinal rule about always being aware of what was happening on the street around him. He didn’t realize he had company until a finger poked him sharply in the back of his shoulder.

Mike spun around to find himself all but hemmed to the wall by a burly gorilla of a man attired in a chauffeur’s uniform, salt-and-pepper hair bushing out from beneath his driver’s cap, his coarse ruddy features and slightly crooked nose shoved in Mike’s face. It was a nose Mike remembered well. He’d broken it himself. Though he had trouble recollecting the big ape’s moniker—Greg or George perhaps—Mike knew all too well the name of the man who held his leash—

Storm. Xavier Storm.

Every muscle in Mike’s body went taut, but he masked his tension behind an insolent drawl. “Well, well, if it isn’t George of the Jungle. What brings you to this part of town? Isn’t the zoo the other way?”

The gorilla’s face scrunched up into a mighty scowl beneath the brim of his driver’s cap. “It’s Mr. George to you, Parker.” He jerked one large callused thumb in the direction of a long black limo that stood idling at the curbside. “Mr. Storm is waiting in the car. He’d like to have a word with you.”

“I’ve got one for him.” With a dark smile, Mike spat out the expletive between clenched teeth.

“That’s two words,” George objected.

“What d’you know? The ape can count.” Mike tried to elbow his way past, but with a low growl the driver clamped his hand around Mike’s upper arm.

Mike shot him a black, warning look, but the goon only tightened his grip, snarling, “Mr. Storm ain’t got no time to waste with you, wise guy. He told me to request your presence and I’m requestin’. Now, it can either be at your convenience or your inconvenience, if you get my drift.”

Mike’s hand clenched into a fist, his immediate impulse to deliver a solid blow to the big ape’s solar plexus. He didn’t know what stopped him. It was what a younger Mike Parker would have done. But maybe he was finally starting to get a little older and wiser. Maybe he remembered too well the result of his last encounter with good old George—three cracked ribs, a dislocated jaw and a night in jail.

And maybe it was nothing more than the besetting sin that had landed Mike in a heap of trouble more than once in his life—curiosity. It had been a couple of years since he had crossed paths with Xavier Storm and they hadn’t exactly parted on friendly terms. What the hell could Storm possibly want with him now?

After a brief hesitation, Mike forced himself to relax. “All right,” he said, breaking George’s grip with a quick, sharp movement. “I’ll go see your boss. Just keep the paws to yourself. I wouldn’t want to have to do anything that would mess up your pretty uniform.”

George gave a contemptuous snort but retreated a step. As Mike sauntered over to the car, the driver dogged his heels like a suspicious pit bull preparing to chomp into Mike’s ankle at any moment if he showed any signs of attempting to escape.

Mike noted the limo awaited him, eased next to the yellow curb of a no-parking zone. But that was typical of Storm’s arrogance, Mike thought sourly. From his penthouse high atop his hotel casino at the end of the boardwalk, the man thought he owned the whole damned town.

George stepped forward to open the rear door. He barely gave Mike time to scramble inside the limo before slamming it closed again. Mike sank down into an air-conditioned interior that was better outfitted than his office—dark luxurious leather upholstery, a minibar, a TV, a personal computer and printer. All of it was as sleek, cool and expensive as the man who sat in the opposite corner, speaking into a cellular phone.

Xavier Storm gave Mike a brief nod of greeting and continued with his conversation, which seemed to consist mostly of dictating orders to whoever was on the other end. Storm could have been an ad for Gentlemen’s Quarterly, not a strand of his thick black hair out of place, his tailored linen trousers crisp, his necktie perfectly arranged, his subtle pinstripe shirt immaculate, the square links that fastened the cuffs simple in design, but obviously solid gold.

He gave an impression of height and power even while lounging in the back of a limo, his hooded green eyes dispassionate, faintly bored as he listened to whatever excuses the subordinate was apparently whining into his ears through the phone. The cast of his features was gaunt, almost predatory. Mike supposed Storm could have been called handsome, if you liked that lean, arrogant look that many women appeared to, including Mike’s own ex-wife.

The chauffeur resettled his large bulk behind the wheel of the car. Never missing a beat in his phone conversation, Storm depressed a button, raising a tinted glass, turning the back seat of the limo into a very private, sealed-off world.

“How cozy,” Mike muttered, his fingers drumming out an impatient tattoo on the armrest. Between the minibar and a seat large enough to be a bed, Storm really had it made. Make-out city if the rumors about Storm were true. An unwelcome image surged into Mike’s head no matter how hard he tried to fight it.

So was it here in the back seat that Storm had seduced Darcy, or had he deemed her worth the cost of a hotel room?

The thought no longer had the power to burn Mike with a jealous rage, but the cold ashes of his hate for Storm remained.

Even if it hadn’t been for the bad blood between them over Darcy, Mike feared his dislike of Storm would have still been intense. There was just something about the man and his mocking arrogance that brought out in Mike a side of himself he didn’t like. Storm’s wealth and breeding was like a slap in the face, a constant reminder to Mike of who he was and where he came from. The son of a no-account gambler and petty con man from the wrong side of the tracks. Little Mikey Parker, the throwaway kid, worth more dead than alive even at the tender age of twelve.

Mike felt familiar bitterness chum through his gut and mumbled, “The hell with this.” He reached for the door only to discover it was locked and there was no sign of a release button. Storm chose that moment to end his conversation. Snapping the phone shut and tossing it on top of the minibar, he turned toward Mike with an urbane smile.

“So sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Parker,” he said in a low purring voice. “It was good of you to agree to meet with me on such short notice.”

Mike shot him a glare. “It’s not as though I had a helluva lot of choice.”

Storm hunched one shoulder in a dismissive shrug. “Mr. George is a very devoted employee. But you have my apologies if he was a little...overzealous in carrying out my commands. I trust I didn’t drag you away from anything too important.” Storm arched one thin black brow as his gaze roved over Mike’s disheveled appearance. “May I offer you anything? A drink perhaps? Or a comb and razor?”

“No thanks, Storm. If I wanted to slit your throat, I would’ve brought my own.”

A glimmer of amusement appeared in Storm’s hooded green eyes. “Do I still detect a note of hostility, Mr. Parker? After all this time, I would have thought the little misunderstanding between us long forgotten.” After a brief hesitation, Storm asked, “How is Dulcie?”

Mike’s jaw clenched. The son of a bitch didn’t even remember her name. “Darcy is doing just fine for all I know. She’s probably living quite well down there in Florida with all the money she managed to clean out of me after the divorce.”

“Pity you didn’t think to have a prenuptial agreement,” Storm drawled. “You could have hardly expected to have formed a permanent relationship with a woman you found in a cake.”

“And you’d know all about permanent relationships, wouldn’t you, Storm?” Mike said with a sneer. “Didn’t I just see in the papers that you finished up your third divorce? In most ball games I’ve ever heard of, three strikes and you’re out.”

For a moment, Storm’s imperturbable mask slipped and his mouth tightened with what might have been pain if he’d been anything other than the coldhearted man he was. “Perhaps it would be better if I come right to the point.”

“Oh? You’ve got a reason for wasting my time? I’m dying to hear it.”

Storm ignored the sarcasm and went on. “I have reason to believe that you may soon be receiving a visit from a woman seeking the services of a detective. A woman from Aurora Falls named Sara—Sara—” Storm frowned slightly as he groped for the name.

Mike gaped at him. He didn’t know quite what he’d been expecting this little tête à tête to be about, but it certainly wasn’t this. He was so stunned, he forgot his usual caution about volunteering information and supplied, “Holyfield. Sara Holyfield.”