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She finished with her phone call. “I was going to tell you about that.”
“When?”
“Don’t be mad. There’s a story with it and—” The phone chirped again. She flicked her earpiece this time instead of picking up the cell and immediately put the caller on hold. “Tell you what,” she said. “I get off work in fifteen minutes. It’ll take me ten to change out of my uniform. Why don’t you go to the bar and relax. I’ll come get you and we can go to dinner. My treat.”
“Twenty-five minutes?”
“And I’ll be all yours.”
He knew exactly what she meant but that didn’t stop a momentary flash of a completely unprofessional nature.
She returned her attention to the guest as he walked toward the bar, wondering if his attraction to her was about hormones or homicide?
SHE HAD THE CAMERA CASE in her purse as they went to Maxwell’s, a coffee shop she and most of the Hush crew frequented. It was no Amuse Bouche, but they had decent food and for Madison Avenue, they were reasonable.
Mia could tell he wanted answers, but he waited patiently as they were seated and placed their orders.
She brought out the bag as soon as the waitress left. “It’s just a lens,” she said. “No film, no camera.”
“But it did belong to Geiger?”
“It did, yes. But that’s not the interesting part.”
The waitress came back with coffee for him, an iced tea for her. When they were alone again, Mia leaned in. “It was found in Peter Eccles’s suite and it was left there the night Geiger was killed.”
The detective’s expression changed. It wasn’t dramatic. In fact, if she hadn’t been watching closely, she’d have missed it. His eyes, a deep dark brown, widened a hair and his nice broad shoulders straightened.
He really was an attractive man. Even in his dull suit there was something about him that appealed to her. Not just his rugged good looks, either. Obviously, she barely knew the man but still she saw an intelligence about him. He might come off all stoic and unflappable, but there was a brain in there. How she knew, she wasn’t sure, but she knew. She’d known from the first.
Over the years her ability to quickly gauge strangers had been developed and nurtured. Part of being a good concierge was to make and trust first impressions.
Even in the stressful situation of finding a body her radar had been active. Other parts of her had been active, too, which surprised her more.
Honestly, his looks weren’t all that remarkable. Not compared to the movie stars and models who frequented the hotel. But he was sexy in his rumpled suit and his mussed hair. She kept finding herself wanting to touch him.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll pay for dinner if you don’t make me beg.”
She realized she’d been staring instead of talking. “The maid found it in Eccles’s room. Along with the remains of his scotch, which room service had delivered the night before.”
“How did you get it?”
“I told you. I know people.”
“Right.”
“Listen, Detective. I shouldn’t have the lens. It was a questionable move meant to help. If it came to light how I got it, good people could get hurt. I won’t let that happen.”
“I could compel you to tell me—”
“You could,” she said, stopping him, “but you’d be cutting off your nose to spite your face.”
“You want to be the go-between, I get it. While that might seem appealing or even exciting, it can also mean you’ll be caught in the middle. We’re talking murder here, Ms. Traverse. Not a game of telephone.”
She’d thought about this since the moment Theresa had told her about the lens. The last thing she wanted to do was to impede the investigation. Hush didn’t need the kind of publicity it was getting and the longer the killer was on the loose, the more it damaged the reputation of the hotel. Mia’s first responsibility, as long as she didn’t actually break the law, was to protect her employer. Second was to protect the staff. She could do both while still helping the detective, but only if he agreed to her terms. “I understand what’s at risk. We all want this murder solved.”
“What if it turns out to be someone from the hotel. Someone not involved with the movie?”
She sat back in the booth. “You think I want a killer working at Hush?”
He didn’t say anything, but his eyes told her he wasn’t completely convinced.
“Look, we have a lot of our staff assigned directly to the VIP guests. They’re all very discreet though. If you try to talk to them, you’ll get a whole lot of nothing. They trust me. They’ll open up to me.”
“There’s a big difference between being discreet and obstructing justice.”
“It’s up to you. Your way, there’s a lot of disruptions and rancor. My way, you catch the killer and everybody wins.”
He laughed. “Confident, are we?”
She sat up straighter and willed herself not to blush. “Yes, I am.”
He drank some more coffee, looked at her as if he was trying to see inside her head, but finally he nodded. “We’ll try it your way. But you don’t tell anyone you’re talking to me, got it? And you don’t hold anything back, even if it’s not good for the hotel.”
She stuck out her hand. “To the best of my ability, you have my word.”
He shook, although the doubt was still in his eyes.
She didn’t really want him to think too much more about their agreement, though. Time to change tactics. “You haven’t been home since last night.”
“No, I haven’t.”
“How come?”
“Part of the job.”
“It must be interesting. What you do.”
The look on his face said it was anything but. “Yeah. It is.”
She sipped her tea, debating for a moment letting it go, but the heck with that. “How long have you hated being a detective?”
Now that got a reaction. Alarm, then what, anger? No, not quite.
“I don’t hate my job.”
“Really,” she said.
“Okay. It’s lost some of its allure.”
“How come?”
His lips pressed together as if to keep his words from slipping out. Mia just waited. Like a good cop, she’d learned a lot over the years about the value of silence.
“The politics,” he said, finally.
She had the feeling he knew exactly what she’d done. That he was throwing her a bone. “What do you mean?”
“Too much paperwork, too much political correctness. It makes it hard to do the real work.”
“I can see that. You must be under terrible scrutiny. Everyone out there with cameras on their cell phones. Everyone ready to sue at the drop of a hat.”
With her commiseration, his defensiveness seemed to mellow. “It was my own fault. I had a romanticized view of what I’d be facing. I was naive to think things would get better when I became a detective.”
“But you solve crimes. You put bad guys away.”
“Not as often as I should.”
“Somehow I doubt it’s your work that’s at fault.”
“Why would you think that?”
“I watched you last night. You were thorough, com manding. You didn’t let anything slide. And here you are. Still at it even though you must be exhausted. Am I right?”
“You make it sound noble. It’s not.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. I’m sure it’s discouraging to jump though all those hoops but I don’t think you hate the heart of the job. It takes a unique individual to face the worst of people day after day, and still want to do the right thing.”
Bax shook his head, almost but not quite dismissing what she’d said. “How did you end up at Hush?”
“Changing the subject, are we?”
“Turnabout’s fair play.”
She grinned. “I wanted the job very badly. Hush is a unique hotel, with unique demands. I was lucky to be chosen.”
“Okay, I have to ask,” he said. “What’s the business about the sex?”
She grinned shyly. “Hush is simply an adult hotel that caters to consenting, discriminating couples.”
“Yeah, I saw that in the brochure. But I still don’t get it.”
“It’s about pleasure, Detective. Unapologetic and sophisticated. Visual, tactile, in fact all the senses are catered to. There’s something for everyone from the massages at the spa to the unbelievable room service—”
“Yeah, about that. I’ve heard that a guest can order more than dinner.”
“They can have massage or beauty services. Even their pets can have room service.”
He wondered if she was being coy or naive. It was hard to tell with her. Damn, though, he wished she hadn’t changed from the black tux. Not that she didn’t look good in her red T-shirt and jeans, but the T was snug and Maxwell’s was chilly.
Of course he was a moron for bringing up this topic. Just hearing her talk about catering to all the senses had made him uncomfortable. Bringing it back to business would help. “Those massage services wouldn’t include special bonuses, would they?”
“Oh, you’re talking about prostitution. No, that’s not at all what Hush is about. Did you know that each room comes with an armoire stocked with sex toys?”
Okay, so Mia wasn’t quite as innocent as her image would suggest. Shit. An armoire stocked with sex toys? He’d like to see those. See her. Touch— Damn it. “How does that work?” he asked, hoping she hadn’t noticed his voice crack.
She unsuccessfully hid a snicker. “That would depend on the guest.”
She was killing him here. On purpose. Because she could. Because she knew he was getting hard at her matter-of-fact voice, at that wicked smile. He cleared his throat. “No, I mean those kinds of amenities really couldn’t be reused, could they?”
“It depends. Anything that has the possibility of contact with bodily fluids is replaced for each guest. But some of the toys are cleaned and reused. It’s a very strict process with no room for error. You should come down sometime and see the operation. You’d be impressed.”
“I’m sure I would,” he said, desperate to change the subject. Thankfully, dinner arrived and Bax threw himself into eating his pastrami on rye. It wasn’t quite as effective as a cold shower, but as long as Mia didn’t talk about sex toys any more, he should be okay.
“A lot of people come to Hush expecting something lurid or tacky, but no one has ever left with that impression. It’s hard, though, because the press is so myopic. Sex sells. The sleazier the better. And when you combine that with Piper Devon’s reputation, which, I must say is totally distorted, then you get tabloid accounts full of insinuation and exaggeration. It’s a shame.”
Think of the sandwich. Not the sex. “But you keep getting the clientele you’re really after.”
“Mostly due to Piper and word of mouth.”
“It doesn’t hurt that the place is incredibly expensive.”
“Our guests are of the belief that you get what you pay for. The higher the price, the more valued the service.”
“Damn, you’re good at this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
He ignored the question as he finished the first half of his sandwich. He was finally settling down, getting some control. But he had to steer the conversation away from the goddamn sex. “Let me ask you something. You’ve clearly had to deal with the paparazzi since you started working there. Do you make deals with them? Give them exclusives in return for favors?”
“Sometimes. Always to the benefit of the hotel, though, and there are lots of paps who aren’t ever considered for special favors.”
“Like Gerry Geiger?”
She shook her head. “Geiger wasn’t always this bad. We used to use him on occasion, but only because he played by the rules.”
“Why do you think he changed?”
“I don’t know. I figured it was about money. It always seems to be about that, though.”
Bax made a mental note to dig deeper into Geiger’s financial situation, although he knew Grunwald was already on top of it. What Bax wondered was if there were some hidden accounts, maybe under Sheila’s name.
“Let me talk to Kit, our public relations manager,” Mia said. “She’ll let me know what the situation was with Geiger.”
Bax nodded. Relaxed. Finally, he felt steady again, at least for the time being. “You went to school to become a concierge?”
“I studied hotel management. But I’ve been around hotels my whole life. Both my parents are concierges. That’s what gave me the edge with Hush.”
“Doesn’t it bother you to have to coddle a bunch of overprivileged snobs?”
“I don’t coddle. I perform a service. I do my best to see that the guests of the hotel have an exceptional experience.”
“But aren’t most of the requests things your guests could do for themselves if they’d only lift a finger or two?”
“Sometimes. But honestly, I don’t see it that way. A lot of them are simply too busy to start checking the phone book or to find out where the closest luggage shop is. I know the city. I can make their stay more pleasant, easier. I have extraordinary connections, so I’m able to help the guests get the things they really need.”
“I’m leaving,” he said, apropos of nothing.
She put her fork down. “Now?”
He shook his head, surprised that he’d brought this up. He hadn’t planned on telling her anything about himself. “In three months. I’m leaving the force.”
She didn’t seem too shocked, which made sense considering their earlier conversation. “Where are you going?”
“Boulder. I’m going back to school.”
“That’s wonderful. Studying law, or—”
“Literature.”
Mia sat back in the booth. Now she seemed shocked. “Literature. Wow.”
Oddly, he felt proud and embarrassed both when he should have felt neither. “I want to write. To teach.”
“I’d very much like to hear that story,” she said.
He tried to hold back a yawn and failed. “Maybe another time.” When he looked at her again it was with a sleepy smile. “I have the feeling you’re a very good concierge.”
“That I am,” she said.
He sat back in the booth as she took her tiny bites of blintzes, thinking that he should leave her to finish dinner alone. He needed to go home and get some sleep. Not that he hadn’t done this a hundred times over the last ten years. Stayed up for twenty-four, thirty-six or more hours. It was part of the gig. What made him wonder about his mental state wasn’t that he was sleepy. It was that all he wanted to do was sit in Maxwell’s diner across from Mia Traverse and watch her eat. Sip her iced tea.
Nope, it didn’t make a damn bit of sense. But there it was.
4
“I PREFER JANE AUSTEN, personally,” Mia said as they returned to Hush later that night. “Pride and Prejudice. Emma.” She gave herself a little hug. “So wonderful.”
“Would my manliness come into question if I admitted I like her books, too?”
Mia looked up at him with a broad smile. “I think you’re safe in that respect, Detective.”
He slowed his pace, wondering if he was about to make a big mistake. Screw it. He only had three more months to get through, and they were going to be working together. “It’s Bax.”
The back of her hand brushed the back of his. The briefest of touches, probably an accident. And yet it made him feel things he hadn’t felt in a hell of a long time.
“I know,” she said. “Baxter Milligan. What I can’t figure out is if the name is Irish or Scottish.”
“Both is my guess. The Milligans were on the border between England and Scotland, from Wigtown, in fact. From what little my grandfather told me, the young lads had issues with geography.”
“Have you been there?”
He shook his head. “But if the writing works out, I mean really works out, I might like to settle in Ireland.”
“Won’t you miss living here?”
“I don’t think so,” he said, his pace so slow they were almost standing still. Thing is, he didn’t want the conversation to be over. “I don’t have real close ties. A brother in California, a sister in Boston. We hardly see each other.”
“Why not?”
He had to think a minute but before he could even suppose at an answer they were in front of the hotel.
Suddenly there was a crowd of people surrounding Mia. Someone shouldered him back a step, then a camera hit him in the ribs.
“Who killed Gerry Geiger?”
“Why are Bobbi and Danny only taking half their regular salaries?”
A dozen more questions shot like gunfire over the flashing camera lights. He ignored it all in his need to get to Mia, to get her out of the center of the storm. Taking no precautions, he barreled through, not caring one damn that there were cries of protest and pain. Especially when, to his horror, Mia yelped as she fell over some moron’s camera case.
Bax was there in a heartbeat, kneeling down, scared shitless and mad enough to put the whole lot of them behind bars or worse.
“Mia?”
She blinked up at him. “Whoa. That wasn’t very pleasant.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He took her arm and helped her sit up as flashes went off all around them. He wanted to shove the cameras down some throats. For Christ’s sake, they weren’t celebrities. None of those pictures would mean a damn thing.
The moment he could see she hadn’t been seriously hurt, he turned on the paparazzi. “Get the hell away from her.”
Instant quiet. No more camera flashes.
“You found the body. Any clues there who killed Geiger?” some guy shouted from the edge of the crowd.
“Are Danny and Bobbi having an affair?”
“Why was Geiger on Weinberg’s payroll since the Mexico shoot?”
“Come on, you must know something, huh!”
Bax checked Mia once more. “You okay? Should I get an ambulance?”
“No, no. I’m fine. Just a little bump on my butt is all.”
“You sure?”
She squeezed his arm with her small hand. “Positive.”
“Good,” he said, then stood up, pulling her along with him. She seemed steady on her feet.
He swung around, lifting his badge as he faced the bulk of the crowd. “Two seconds and I’m taking you all in for a hard forty-two. Is that clear enough for you bastards, or do you want to get a tour of Rikers?”
The photographers flew apart as if blown by a tornado, and that’s what Bax felt like. This whole event had been unacceptable and it was all he could do not to bust some heads.
Of course, most everything was unacceptable these days.
“I should have been more careful,” Mia said as she brushed off the back of her jeans. “They never leave. I’m surprised they didn’t catch us when we left for dinner.”
“They were busy. Swarming in front of some other victims.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Are you really okay? I can get you to the hospital in a couple of minutes.”
“I’m fine. But it’s late. I should go, get home. So should you.”
He took her elbow and led her into the hotel. It was calm and cool inside, with some good jazz coming from the bar. As they got closer to the reception desk, he saw that the restaurant was still busy, the bar packed. He wondered how many of the night crawlers were part of the film company. How many were there because they wanted to meet the celebrities.
“Thank you, Bax,” Mia said as she stopped in front of the elevator. “I had a good time.”
Her smile hit him again in that long-dormant center of his brain where women had once had free rein.
“You owe me the rest of your story.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said.
She pressed the down button. “I’ve got to scoot to get my train. Be careful out there, Detective.”
“I always am.”
She left him standing in the lobby, under a picture of a very exotic naked lady who was sitting perilously close to a jaguar. He needed to go home. Get some sleep. Start tomorrow fresh and on his game. But hell, who was he kidding? There was no way he was letting Mia get home on her own.
MIA WENT TO THE LADIES room mirror to make sure she didn’t have a big old bruise on her behind.
She wasn’t about to freak in front of Bax, but wow, that had been really scary. For a minute there, she’d thought those whack jobs were going to trample her to death.
Bax. He’d asked her to call him by his first name. That meant something. And he’d been all over those paparazzi when she’d tripped. Just remembering his voice gave her the shivers. So forceful and commanding. She’d practically swooned into his arms, which, now that she thought about it, was pretty bizarre. She wasn’t the swooning type. She was the one her friends called when swooning occurred.
So why was she feeling like such a girl?
And what had that one pap asked about Geiger and the Mexico shoot? Was she remembering right? Probably not. She’d been pretty distracted, what with falling on her behind.
Back in the locker room to fetch her backpack, she met up with Lorraine, one of Piper Devon’s assistants. They talked a bit about the murder. Lorraine hadn’t worked yesterday, but she’d heard all kinds of things today.
“Geiger’s wife is planning to sue the hotel and the movie company for millions.”
“Really?” Mia sat down on the bench, her backpack forgotten on her lap. “Did she call Piper?”
Lorraine sat down, too. She was about Mia’s age, but they didn’t know each other well. Lorraine was in grad school, so her schedule was hell, but she was nice. And observant.
“She called Piper all right. Of course, Piper knows how to handle this kind of thing. She invited the wife to lunch. Tomorrow.”
“At Amuse?”
Lorraine nodded, then wiped a stray blond hair from her cheek. She, like many of the women here at Hush, tried to emulate Piper Devon’s look. They all wanted to appear as sophisticated and as together as Piper. Only a few came close.
“Of course, Trace is going to be there, too. She’ll just introduce him as her husband. Geiger’s wife won’t even know he’s the hotel’s attorney until it’s too late.”
“Odd though, don’t you think, that Geiger isn’t even buried yet and his wife is all about the lawsuit?”
“Look what her husband did for a living.”
Mia nodded. “That’s true. Greedy doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
Lorraine looked into the bathroom, making sure they weren’t being overheard. “Did you know that Danny Austen had something going on with Geiger?”
“No he did not.”
“I swear.”
“Something sexual?” Mia asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.
“So I’ve been told.”
“I thought he was trying to get tight with that actress. You know, the redhead?”
“Yeah, Nan. I met her. She seemed sweet and all, but she wasn’t shy about Danny Austen. Paul saw her in Austen’s trailer wearing his bathrobe.”
“So if Danny is with Nan—”
Lorraine shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose if you’re famous enough, you can have everybody. Maybe for them it doesn’t matter what the sex is as long as it’s sex.”
“Still, Danny Austen with Geiger? I find that difficult to believe. Geiger was a parasite. Danny could get anyone he wanted.”
“You’re probably right. Although…”
“What?”
“Jeff Crown, the guy from accounting? He said there were some pretty suspicious charges coming from Danny’s room.”
“How would he know?”
“Yeah. You’re right. I think everybody wants to be on the inside, you know? He’s probably full of crap.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“I gotta go,” Lorraine said. She closed her locker. “See ya.”
Mia hugged her backpack as she stared at her locker. That business about Danny Austen made no sense. But then, she didn’t really know a lot of famous people. She wouldn’t have believed Geiger having drinks with the director, and that turned out to be true.
Or was it?
No, it was true. Andy, Theresa’s room-service source, wouldn’t lie about that. Mia had no idea if Jeff Crown would. She’d best take it all with a big grain of salt. She’d keep her ear to the ground. That’s all. She’d just listen.
A few minutes later, she was going out the back door to make a beeline to the subway, hoping to get past the paps without tripping or being trampled. Only she didn’t have to worry because there was Bax, sitting on the pony wall in the garage, looking rumpled and tired and wonderful. Not a paparazzi in sight.