Brazen Virtue Read online

  Grace struggled to take it all seriously. “You only talk straight sex.”

  For the first time in months, Kathleen felt pleasantly relaxed. “That’s right. And I’m good at it. I’m very popular.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Anyway, the men call, they leave their phone number and the number of a major credit card. The office makes sure the card’s good, then contacts one of us. If I agree to take the call, I phone the man back on the telephone Fantasy had installed here, but that’s billed directly to the office address.”

  “Of course. And then?”

  “Then we talk.”

  “Then you talk,” Grace murmured. “That’s why you have the extra phone in your office.”

  “You always notice the little things.” Kathleen realized, with no small satisfaction, that she was well on her way to getting drunk. It felt good to have a buzz in her head, the weight off her shoulders, and her sister across the table.

  “Kath, what’s to keep these guys from finding out your name and address? One of them might decide he doesn’t just want to talk anymore.”

  She shook her head as she carefully wiped the slight ring from the glass off the table. “Fantasy’s employees’ files are strictly confidential. The callers are never, under any circumstances, given our number. Most of us use false names too. I’m Desiree.”

  “Desiree,” Grace repeated with some respect.

  “I’m five-two, blond, and have a body that won’t quit.”

  “No shit?” Though she held her liquor better, Grace had eaten nothing that day but a Milky Way on the way to the airport. The idea of Kathleen having an alter ego not only seemed plausible but logical. “Congratulations again. But, Kath, say one of the people at Fantasy decided he wanted closer employer/employee relations?”

  “You’re writing a book again,” Kathleen said dismissively.

  “Maybe, but—”

  “Grace, it’s perfectly safe. This is a simple business arrangement. All I do is talk, the men get their money’s worth, I’m paid well, and Fantasy gets its cut. Everyone’s happy.”

  “Sounds logical.” Grace swirled her wine and tried to push away any doubts. “And trendy. The new wave of sex as we rush toward the nineties. You can’t get AIDS from a phone call.”

  “Medically sound. Why are you laughing?”

  “Just getting a picture.” Grace wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “ ‘ Afraid of commitment, tired of the singles scene? Call Fantasy, Incorporated, talk to Desiree, Delilah, or DeeDee. Orgasms guaranteed or your money back. Major credit cards accepted.’ Christ, I should be writing ad copy.”

  “I have never considered it a joke.”

  “You never considered enough in life a joke,” Grace said, not unkindly. “Listen, the next time you’re working, can I sit in?”

  “No.”

  Grace shrugged off the refusal. “Well, let’s talk about it later. When do we eat?”

  When she slipped into bed that night in Kathleen’s guest room, full of pasta and wine, Grace felt an ease about her sister she hadn’t felt since they’d been children. She didn’t know the last time she and Kathleen had sat up late, drinking and talking, like friends. It was hard to admit that they never had.

  Kathleen was finally doing something unusual, and standing up for herself while she was about it. As long as it didn’t bring her sister any trouble, Grace was thrilled. Kathleen was taking charge of her life. And she was going to be just fine.

  HE LISTENED FOR THREE hours that night, waiting for her. Desiree never came. There were other women, of course, with exotic names and sexy voices, but they weren’t Desiree. Curled up in bed, he tried to get himself off by imagining her voice, but it wasn’t enough. So he lay, frustrated and sweaty, wondering when he would work up the nerve to go to her.

  Soon, he thought. She’d be so happy to see him. She’d take him to her, undress him just the way she described. And let him touch her. Wherever he wanted. It had to be soon.

  In the shadowy moonlight he rose and went back to his computer. He wanted to see it again before he went to sleep. The terminal came on with a quiet hum. His fingers, thin but competent, tapped out a series of numbers. In seconds the address came up on the screen. Desiree’s address.

  Soon.

  Chapter 2

  GRACE HEARD THE LOW, droning buzz and blamed it on the wine. She didn’t groan or grumble about the hangover. She’d been taught that every sin, venial or mortal, required penance. It was one of the few aspects of her early Catholic training she carried with her into adulthood.

  The sun was up and strong enough to filter through the gauzy curtains at the windows. In defense, she buried her face in the pillow. She managed to block out the light, but not the buzzing. She was awake, and hating it.

  Thinking of aspirin and coffee, she pushed herself up in bed. It was then she realized the buzzing wasn’t inside her head, but outside the house. She rummaged through one of her bags and came up with a ratty terry-cloth robe. In her closet at home was a silk one, a gift from a former lover. Grace had fond memories of the lover, but preferred the terry-cloth robe. Still groggy, she stumbled to the window and pushed the curtain aside.

  It was a beautiful day, cool and smelling just faintly of spring and turned earth. There was a sagging chain-link fence separating her sister’s yard from the yard next door. Tangled and pitiful against it was a forsythia bush. It was struggling to bloom, and Grace thought its tiny yellow flowers looked brave and daring. It hadn’t occurred to her until then how tired she was of hothouse flowers and perfect petals. On a huge yawn, she looked beyond it.

  She saw him then, in the backyard of the house next door. Long narrow boards were braced on sawhorses. With the kind of easy competence she admired, he measured and marked and cut through. Intrigued, Grace shoved the window up to get a better look. The morning air was chill, but she leaned into it, pleased that it cleared her head. Like the forsythia, he was something to see.

  Paul Bunyan, she thought, and grinned. The man had to be six-four if he was an inch and built along the lines of a fullback. Even with the distance she could see the power of his muscles moving under his jacket. He had a mane of red hair and a full beard—not a trimmed little affectation, but the real thing. She could just see his mouth move in its cushion in time to the country music that jingled out of a portable radio.

  When the buzzing stopped, she was smiling down at him, her elbows resting on the sill. “Hi,” she called. Her smile widened as he turned and looked up. She’d noticed that his body had braced as he’d turned, not so much in surprise, she thought, but in readiness. “I like your house.”

  Ed relaxed as he saw the woman in the window. He’d put in over sixty hours that week, and had killed a man. The sight of a pretty woman smiling at him from a second-story window did a lot to soothe his worn nerves. “Thanks.”

  “You fixing it up?”

  “Bit by bit.” He shaded his eyes against the sun and studied her. She wasn’t his neighbor. Though he and Kathleen Breezewood hadn’t exchanged more than a dozen words, he knew her by sight. But there was something familiar in the grinning face and tousled hair. “You visiting?”

  “Yes, Kathy’s my sister. I guess she’s gone already. She teaches.”

  “Oh.” He’d learned more about his neighbor in two seconds than he had in two months. Her nickname was Kathy, she had a sister, and she was a teacher. Ed hefted another board onto the horses. “Staying long?”

  “I’m not sure.” She leaned out a bit farther so the breeze ruffled her hair. It was a small indulgence the pace and convenience of New York had denied her. “Did you plant the azaleas out front?”

  “Yeah. Last week.”

  “They’re terrific. I think I’ll put some in for Kath.” She smiled again. “See you.” She pulled her head inside and was gone.

  For a minute longer Ed stared at the empty window. She’d left it open, he noted, and the temperature had yet to climb to sixty. He took out h
is carpenter’s pencil to mark the wood. He knew that face. It was both a matter of business and personality that he never forgot one. It would come to him.

  Inside, Grace pulled on a pair of sweats. Her hair was still damp from the shower, but she wasn’t in the mood to fuss with blow dryers and styling brushes. There was coffee to be drunk, a paper to be read, and a murder to be solved. By her calculations, she could put Maxwell to work and have enough carved out to be satisfied before Kathleen returned from Our Lady of Hope.

  Downstairs, she put on the coffee, then checked out the contents of the refrigerator. The best bet was the spaghetti left over from the night before. Grace bypassed eggs and pulled out the neat plastic container. It took her a minute to realize that her sister’s kitchen wasn’t civilized enough to have a microwave. Taking this in stride, she tossed the top into the sink and dug in. She’d eat it cold. Chewing, she spotted the note on the kitchen table. Kathleen always left notes.

  Help yourself to whatever’s in the kitchen. Grace smiled and forked more cold spaghetti into her mouth. Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll pick up a couple steaks. And that, she thought, was Kathleen’s polite way of telling her not to mess up the kitchen. Parent conference this afternoon. I’ll be home by five-thirty. Don’t use the phone in my office.

  Grace wrinkled her nose as she stuffed the note into her pocket. It would take time, and some pressure, but she was determined to learn more of her sister’s moonlighting adventures. And there was the matter of finding out the name of her sister’s lawyer. Kathleen’s objections and pride aside, Grace wanted to speak to him personally. If she did so carefully enough, her sister’s ego wouldn’t be bruised. In any case, sometimes you had to overlook a couple of bruises and shoot for the goal. Until she had Kevin back, Kathleen would never be able to put her life in order. That scum Breezewood had no right using Kevin as a weapon against Kathleen.

  He’d always been an operator, she thought. Jonathan Breezewood the third was a cold and calculating manipulator who used family position and monied politics to get his way. But not this time. It might take some maneuvering, but Grace would find a way to set things right.

  She turned the heat off under the coffeepot just as someone knocked on the front door.

  Her trunk, she decided, and snatched up the carton of spaghetti as she started down the hall. An extra ten bucks should convince the delivery man to haul it upstairs. She had a persuasive smile ready as she opened the door.

  “G. B. McCabe, right?” Ed stood on the stoop with a hardback copy of Murder in Style. He’d nearly sawed a finger off when he’d put the name together with the face.

  “That’s right.” She glanced at the picture on the back cover. Her hair had been styled and crimped, and the photographer had used stark black and white to make her look mysterious. “You’ve got a good eye. I barely recognize myself from that picture.”

  Now that he was here, he hadn’t the least idea what to do with himself. This kind of thing always happened, he knew, whenever he acted on impulse. Especially with a woman. “I like your stuff. I guess I’ve read most of it.”

  “Only most of it?” Grace stuck the fork back in the spaghetti as she smiled at him. “Don’t you know that writers have huge and fragile egos? You’re supposed to say you’ve read every word I’ve ever written and adored them all.”

  He relaxed a little because her smile demanded he do so. “How about ‘you tell a hell of a story’?”

  “That’ll do.”

  “When I realized who you were, I guess I just wanted to come over and make sure I was right.”

  “Well, you win the prize. Come on in.”

  “Thanks.” He shifted the book to his other hand and felt like an idiot. “But I don’t want to bother you.”

  Grace gave him a long, solemn look. He was even more impressive up close than he’d been from the window. And his eyes were blue, a dark, interesting blue. “You mean you don’t want me to sign that?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Come in then.” She took his arm and pulled him inside. “The coffee’s hot.”

  “I don’t drink it.”

  “Don’t drink coffee? How do you stay alive?” Then she smiled and gestured with her fork. “Come on back anyway, there’s probably something you can drink. So you like mysteries?”

  He liked the way she walked, slowly, carelessly, as though she could change her mind about direction at any moment. “I guess you could say mysteries are my life.”

  “Mine too.” In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator again. “No beer,” she murmured and decided to remedy that at the first opportunity. “No sodas, either. Christ, Kathy. There’s juice. It looks like orange.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ve got some spaghetti here. Want to share?”

  “No, thanks. Is that your breakfast?”

  “Mmmm.” She poured his juice, gesturing casually to a chair as she went to the stove to pour her coffee. “Have you lived next door long?”

  He was tempted to mention nutrition but managed to control himself. “Just a couple of months.”

  “It must be great, fixing it up the way you want.” She took another bite of the pasta. “Is that what you are, a carpenter? You have the hands for it.”

  He found himself pleasantly relieved that she hadn’t asked him if he played ball. “No. I’m a cop.”

  “You’re kidding. Really?” She shoved her carton aside and leaned forward. It was her eyes that made her beautiful, he decided on the spot. They were so alive, so full of fascination. “I’m crazy about cops. Some of my best characters are cops, even the bad ones.”

  “I know.” He had to smile. “You’ve got a feel for police work. It shows in the way you plot a book. Everything works on logic and deduction.”

  “All my logic goes into writing.” She picked up her coffee, then remembered she’d forgotten the cream. Rather than get up, she drank it black. “What kind of cop are you—uniform, undercover?”

  “Homicide.”

  “Kismet.” She laughed and squeezed his hand. “I can’t believe it, I come to visit my sister and plop right down beside a homicide detective. Are you working on anything right now?”

  “Actually, we just wrapped something up yesterday.”

  A rough one, she decided. There’d been something about the way he’d said it, the faintest change of tone. Though her curiosity was piqued, it was controlled by compassion. “I’ve got a hell of a murder working right now. A series of murders, actually. I’ve got …” She trailed off. Ed saw her eyes darken. She sat back and propped her bare feet on an empty chair. “I can change the location,” she began slowly. “Set it right here in D.C. That’s better. It would work. What do you think?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Maybe I could come down to the station sometime. You could show me around.” Already taking her thought processes to the next stage, she thrust her hand into the pocket of her robe for a cigarette. “That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

  “I could probably work it out.”

  “Terrific. Look, have you got a wife or a lover or anything?”

  He stared at her as she lit the cigarette and blew out smoke. “Not right now,” he said cautiously.

  “Then maybe you’d have a couple of hours now and again in the evening for me.”

  He picked up his juice and took a long swallow. “A couple of hours,” he repeated. “Now and again?”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t expect you to give me all your free time, just squeeze me in when you’re in the mood.”

  “When I’m in the mood,” he murmured. Her robe dipped down to the floor but was parted at the knee to reveal her legs, pale from winter and smooth as marble. Maybe miracles did still happen.

  “You could be kind of my expert consultant, you know? I mean, who’d know murder investigations in D.C. better than a D.C. homicide detective?”

  Consultant. A little flustered by his own thoughts, he switched his mind off her legs. “Right.” He let out
a long breath, then laughed. “You roll right along, don’t you, Miss McCabe?”

  “It’s Grace, and I’m pushy, but I won’t pout very long if you say no.”

  He wondered as he looked at her if there was a man alive who could have said no to those eyes. Then again, his partner Ben always told him he was a sucker. “I’ve got a couple hours, now and then.”

  “Thanks. Listen, how about dinner tomorrow? By that time Kath will be thrilled to be rid of me for a while. We could talk murder. I’m buying.”

  “I’d like that.” He rose, feeling as though he’d just taken a fast, unexpected ride. “I’d better get back to work.”

  “Let me sign your book.” After a quick search, she found a pen on a magnetic holder by the phone. “I don’t know your name.”

  “It’s Ed. Ed Jackson.”

  “Hi, Ed.” She scrawled on the title page, then unconsciously slipped the pen into her pocket. “See you tomorrow, about seven?”

  “Okay.” She had freckles, he noticed. A half dozen of them sprinkled over the bridge of her nose. And her wrists were slim and frail. He shifted the book again. “Thanks for the autograph.”

  Grace let him out the back door. He smelled good, she thought, like wood shavings and soap. Then, rubbing her hands together, she went upstairs to plug in Maxwell.

  She worked throughout the day, skipping lunch in favor of the candy bar she found in her coat pocket. Whenever she surfaced from the world she was creating into the one around her, she could hear the hammering and sawing from the house next door. She’d set up her workstation by the window because she liked looking at that house and imagining what was going on inside.

  Once she noticed a car pull up in the driveway next door. A rangy, dark-haired man got out and sauntered up the walk, entering the house without knocking. Grace speculated on him for a moment, then dove back into her plot. The next time she bothered to look, two hours had passed and the car was gone.