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  Sheridan prided herself on being competent, professional, sophisticated and in charge of her thoughts, but as she stumbled into her apartment building on Marlborough Street in Boston's Back Bay at 6:05P.M., she felt none of these. Her mind had wandered during the presentation of the Johnson report. Her mind had wandered during a staff meeting after the presentation. Her mind had wandered while she sat at her desk, trying vainly to work.

  And each time it had wandered to Richard St. Charles and his business in Boston. She couldn't shake him. He was there in her thoughts, with his black eyes and deep, quiet voice and eclectic clothes, with his questions and his subtle threat: J.B. would get in touch with her, and St. Charles would be there when he did.

  Or so he had said. Sheridan didn't believe him for a moment.

  She sighed, digging out the key to her mailbox. But what if he were serious? J.B. had enemies. That was no secret and certainly no surprise. Private investigators made enemies just by doing their job well. Was St. Charles an enemy?

  I'm going nuts, she thought, groaning in frustration at her ambivalence. If J.B. were crying wolf again, she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of following up on Mr. Richard St. Charles herself. But if J.B. were for real this time and if St. Charles weren't one of his buddies…

  She refused to complete the thought. St. Charles was just an emissary. Part of a scheme to prove to her that the new Sheridan Weaver hadn't exorcised all of the old Sheridan Weaver.

  She would not be fooled.

  She pried her mail out of its long, too-slender box and frowned at the mix of bills and catalogs. "Junk, junk, junk." She sighed. Even the catalogs were uninteresting. At least Richard St. Charles had livened up her day. But that was no way to think. She didn't need lively days like that anymore!

  With her leather briefcase and mail in hand, she started up the stairs to her overpriced third-floor apartment. It was a floor-through, with a bedroom overlooking an alley, a bathroom with a tub on legs, a kitchen that was just barely eat-in and a living room with windows that got full sun from the sunny side of Marlborough. Because the building had once been a posh townhouse, there were wide, curving mahogany stairs. Instead of opening at the top of the stairs, her apartment opened at the bottom, giving it a certain cachet. Also, she got to vacuum the stairs, not the landlord. It was the small rooftop deck, where she could grow tomatoes and geraniums, that had sold her on the place.

  Sheridan fished her keys out of her shoulder bag and started to unlock the door.

  And sensed a presence behind her. Someone, something. She couldn't be sure. She had heard nothing, seen nothing. But she knew something was there.

  The years of mental and physical training went to work instantly, instinctively. She dropped everything in her hands and swiftly sent the hulking individual crashing to the floor with a simple hip throw.

  As his body whirled through the air, she recognized the linen jacket.

  He let loose a flow of curses as he landed and flipped onto his back.

  Sheridan tucked in her blouse. "Sorry."

  "That's a hell of a way to greet a guest," Richard St. Charles grumbled.

  "Guests buzz on the intercom. They don't sneak up on people."

  He rolled into a sitting position. "Don't pretend to be apologetic, Ms. Weaver. You look positively smug. Proud of yourself, aren't you?"

  She tried to look less exhilarated and more professional. "No, I'm not. I merely responded to a questionable situation."

  "Well, I suppose if you did more of this sort of thing you wouldn't have an ulcer."

  He swore more and got up, brushing off his pants. There was a rather large smudge of dirt on his left thigh. Sheridan tried to notice the dirt rather than the bulge of muscle. His body had the toughness of a man in peak condition, and she was grateful for her years of discipline and training in the martial arts. And also for her father. She had reacted more like J.B. Weaver than a black belt in judo. One of J.B.'s chief principles of operation was "deck the guy before he decks you and ask questions later."

  "I suppose your father taught you that little maneuver?" St. Charles asked, none too pleased.

  She shrugged. "I know a little judo and karate. You could have been seriously hurt, you know." She had been prepared to respond to any offensive move with a devastating snap kick.

  "So I gather. But you restrained yourself?"

  "When I saw your jacket, yes."

  She wasn't sure he believed her. "And I should thank you?"

  "No, that's all right."

  He grinned and reached out a long arm. "I'm afraid you popped a button." He touched one finger to her stomach, and his voice took on an unexpected seductiveness, devastating in its own way. "There."

  She glanced down and said softly, "So I did."

  Her response was casual, but only on the surface. Inside a heady mix of sensations rushed out in response to that momentary physical contact. Strangely she felt energetic, alive, alert—more so than she had in months. Was it defending herself against a man like Richard St. Charles that thrilled her? Or just being near him?

  Either way she had to get rid of him fast. She didn't want to be reminded of how much fun she had had working with J.B. and his entourage of friends and enemies. "What were you doing, sneaking up on me like that?"

  He had the audacity to laugh. "I was not sneaking up on you. I was right behind you and managed to catch the downstairs door before it latched. I just followed you up. I assumed you knew I was behind you and were just being coy so I didn't say anything."

  "If there's one thing I'm not, Mr. St. Charles, it's coy." She gathered her mail.

  He snatched up her briefcase and handed it to her. "Obviously."

  She sighed. "Still, I must be getting rusty. I should have heard you."

  "It's the rubber-soled shoes."

  "I guess. I suppose now there's no getting rid of you?"

  "All I ask is ten minutes."

  "Fine, then that's all you'll get." She unlocked her door and pulled it open. "After you, Mr. St. Charles."

  She followed him up the stairs. He had good legs and an easy, altogether masculine way of carrying himself. Sheridan recalled the sensations prompted by his single brief touch. It was an unsettling feeling.

  The stairs ended at a foyer of sorts where she kept her ten-speed bicycle and had tossed her beat-up running shoes. St. Charles looked at her over his shoulder. "Not as tidy at home as at work, I see."

  She refrained from commenting and marched into the living room that she had decorated unexquisitely with pedestrian furniture and remnants of a more exciting past. On her rolltop desk without a rolltop was an eight-by-ten photo of her and J.B. in front of the San Francisco courthouse. St. Charles hunched over and had a look.

  "I think you have his chin," he said, then cocked his head around at her and grinned. "But that's all."

  "Watch it, St. Charles, or you'll find yourself hanging from a lamppost on Marlborough Street."

  "Impressive as your talents are, Ms. Weaver, I don't believe you could get me down two flights of stairs— not without my putting up a fuss."

  She headed toward the kitchen. "Who said anything about stairs?"

  Once again came that audacious, charmed laugh.

  "Do I amuse you, St. Charles?"

  "Intermittently."

  She got out a pitcher of ice tea, and he began rummaging in the cupboard above the sink. Unexpectedly Sheridan imagined how nice her life might be if she shared it with a witty and self-assured man who wasn't threatened by her own skills and intelligence. She shuddered. Richard St. Charles was not that man!

  "You won't find any glasses there," she told him, reminding herself she'd promised him only ten minutes of her time. Surely he couldn't change her entire life in just ten minutes. "Bottom left cupboard. Wait—what are you doing?"

  He dragged out a bottle of vinegar and was looking at it. "Tarragon vinegar. Well, at last a hint of Yuppie-dom," he said.

  "What on earth are you talking about?
"

  "Yuppies are notorious for having all the best ingredients for gourmet cooking they never seem to have time to do." He checked the cap. "Unopened, I see." He returned the bottle to the shelf and peered into the cupboard. "Aha. Here we have lemon thyme vinegar, red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, garlic red wine vinegar—"

  "Must you?"

  He shrugged. "I was just debating whether I should invite myself to dinner or invite you to dinner."

  "Neither." The refusal was more of an effort than she would have expected. All too easily she could see herself at a quiet restaurant with this amusing, intriguing man. "You've used up two of your ten minutes examining my vinegar."

  "So I have." He pulled two glasses from the lower cupboard. It was a small, adequate kitchen loaded with up-to-date appliances: a food processor, coffee grinder, pasta machine, microwave, juice machine. "You're going to be an interesting woman to figure out, Ms Weaver." He poured himself a glass of ice tea and nodded to her. She nodded back, and he filled the other glass.

  He brought both glasses over to the tiny butcher-block table and sat down. But he seemed to overwhelmingly close that Sheridan found herself springing up and leaning against the refrigerator. She wasn't usually so jumpy, but something about the man set her on edge. She wasn't reacting to him the way she usually did to one of J.B.'s buddies. And certainly not the way she would to one of J.B.'s enemies. He handed her her glass; his half smile told her he'd noticed her reaction. "Thinking about pitching me out the window?" he asked laconically.

  "Just talk."

  "As you wish. Tell me, when was the last time you spoke to your father?"

  She sighed. "You're supposed to do the talking, Mr. St. Charles, not the questioning."

  "I begin to see why you have so many kinds of vinegar. Fits your personality. I am merely trying to figure out how much you might already know."

  "Absolutely nothing, okay? I haven't talked to J.B. in more than a month."

  "And saw him when?"

  "At Christmas. I showed him the sights, and he told me he thought my job stunk, but my apartment was okay."

  His black brows drew together in an intimidating frown, yet he said without emphasis, "Damn."

  "That's it? Just damn?"

  He took two swallows of ice tea and set his glass down. "Yes, that's it. You've told me all I need to know, Sheridan Weaver. Goodbye."

  "Goodbye?" She couldn't believe what he was saying.

  "Yes, goodbye. Obviously you know nothing and cannot possibly be of any help to me. Lovely and intriguing as you may be, I have wasted my time in coming to Boston." He rose, his tall dark figure dominating the small kitchen. "Thanks for the tea, Ms. Weaver."

  She gaped. "You're just going to walk out of here?"

  "Unless you prefer to throw me, yes."

  "But you're the one who wanted so badly to talk to me. So, dammit, talk!"

  He walked back through the living room.

  Sheridan banged her glass down. "Listen here, St. Charles, if this is all some asinine scheme you and my father have cooked up to lure me back to San Francisco, you're going to regret you ever set foot in Boston. Do you hear?" When he didn't answer, she raced into the living room. He was already trotting down the stairs. She leaned over the railing. "You tell J.B. I'm perfectly happy at United Commercial. Tell him I like being in a nine-to-five job. Remind him we had an agreement: he'd stay out of my life and I'd stay out of his. You got that, St. Charles?"

  He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, his hand on the doorknob. "Ms. Weaver, before I leave, let me clarify one point: I am not a friend of your father's nor a part of any scheme of his. I've only met him once."

  "But—but how did you know I worked at U.C.?"

  He looked surprised. "Why, I followed you, of course."

  "Me? You followed me?"

  "This morning, yes." He gave her the subtlest mocking smile. "Didn't you notice?"

  He pushed open the door and disappeared.

  2

  Sheridan skipped her run and consumed a meager dinner. When she finished, it was 4:30P.M. on the West Coast. She grabbed her phone and pressed the automatic dial button for J.B.'s San Francisco office. Lucille Stein, his part-time secretary for the past twenty-five years, picked up the phone on the second ring. She was a frugal, well-endowed woman, long divorced from a husband she never heard from, and she treated Sheridan just like one of her three daughters.

  "Lucy, hi, it's Sheridan." She didn't bother with small talk. "I'm trying to reach J.B."

  "Well, good luck. I haven't heard boo from him in almost a week."

  Sheridan had expected, at worst, two days. J.B. was maniacal about checking with Lucille. "Do you know where he is?"

  "Not this time, honey."

  "You're sure?"

  Lucille didn't grace that with a reply; she was always sure.

  "Did you see him a week ago, or did he just call in?"

  "Called."

  "And he sounded okay?"

  "Sounded fine. Is there something you aren't telling me, Sheridan?"

  "A man's been out here asking about J.B. A Richard St. Charles. Tall, dark, good-looking."

  "Oh, dear."

  "Lucy, who is this guy?"

  "I'm not at liberty to say. J.B. would pluck me bald-headed."

  "Are you suggesting he's a client? This Richard St. Charles? He said he wasn't—"

  "I'm not suggesting a thing. I got another call waiting. You want me to leave a message you called?"

  "Might as well. Lucy—" Sheridan inhaled sharply. "Lucy, you'd tell me if something had… happened to J.B., wouldn't you?"

  " 'Course I would, sugar. Don't worry. J.B. can take care of himself. If he ever does me the courtesy of checking in, I'll have him call you."

  "You're not worried about him?"

  There was just the slightest hesitation. "No—and you know J.B. hates for anyone to be worrying about him. Now I gotta go."

  Sheridan's apartment seemed eerily quiet after the call. She felt depressingly alone. She leaned back in her big comfortable white chair. Today just wasn't going as planned, damn Richard St. Charles's black eyes.

  No, she wouldn't think about him. She needed a distraction. Her favorite P.I. show would be on in a few minutes.

  P.I.s.

  J.B.

  Richard St. Charles.

  Was he a client? But how? Clients didn't look for missing private investigators, and why wouldn't he admit it if he were a client? No, whoever St. Charles was and whatever he wanted with J.B., neither man had seen fit to tell Sheridan. Apparently her complacency was misplaced: this was no elaborate joke on her unless St. Charles was carrying his part to extremes. But she didn't think so. Somehow she had believed him when he had claimed to be acting strictly on his own.

  That could mean her father was in over his head.

  "Why are you thinking about this?" she asked herself. "You've got work to do. To hell with cop-and- robber shows."

  Specifically, United Commercial work.

  But instead of her briefcase, she reached for the Boston Yellow Pages. She simply had to get Richard St. Charles to tell her what was going on. If he had expected her to help him find her father and had planned on lurking behind every lamppost she passed, chances were he had booked a room in a nearby hotel. She flipped to the hotels and, starting at the top of the list, worked her way down, calling every hotel in Back Bay.

  Fifteen minutes later, with a pencil tucked behind her ear and completely undaunted, she punched out the number of an expensive hotel in Copley Square.

  "Richard St. Charles, please," she said. "I don't have a room number."

  "Thank you, I'll put you right through."

  Her heart pounded so hard she almost dropped the phone.

  St. Charles answered on the second ring. "Yes?"

  "St. Charles?" She breathed deeply so her voice wouldn't sound timid and squeaky; his sounded so deep and controlled. "This is Sheridan Weaver—please don't hang up. I think we should… talk
. Please. I know you think I've told you everything I know, but perhaps I haven't. And, in any case, I think you haven't been very fair to me."

  An ordinary man would have asked a few questions—would have at least hesitated—but Sheridan had already discovered Richard St. Charles was no ordinary man. "I suppose you're right," he said. "I'll meet you in the hotel bar in thirty minutes."

  She didn't press her luck. "Thank you, I'll be there."

  "And Sheridan?"

  She loved the way her name rolled off his tongue. "Yes?"

  "If you don't like what I have to tell you, just say so. You don't need to break up the place or attack anyone. I have a reputation to maintain."

  She could almost see him smiling and was disturbed—disturbed because she liked what her mind was conjuring up and because she liked men with a dry sense of humor.

  "I'm just a mild-mannered financial analyst, St. Charles."

  "Yes. Well, see that you stay one."

  He had changed into a black shirt and sat in a dark corner of the bar, a glass of an amber liquid over ice in front of him. As she moved toward him, Sheridan could see that his style—his manner of dressing, his quiet, uncluttered way of talking—was natural and unselfconscious. The man was just himself.

  The dim light accentuated the blackness of his eyes and hair and the hardness of his expression. She would hate to see him truly angry. He was leaning back in his chair, stretched out as much as was possible without falling off, one arm thrown casually over the back of the chair and his right foot slung up onto his left knee. When he saw Sheridan, his one courtesy was to drop his foot to the floor. He did not smile.

  She acknowledged him with a tight smile and slid onto the chair opposite him. "You don't look the least bit bruised or broken," she told him. It was a grand understatement. He looked nothing short of an uncompromising, beguiling male, and Sheridan was beginning to regret that she hadn't simply hopped on a plane and gone to find J.B. herself.

  "We all have our ruses," he replied. Even against the background of live jazz, his languid voice was steady and quiet. He motioned to the waitress. "If, for example, I didn't know better, I'd mistake you for a remarkably dull businesswoman."