LITMIR.BIZ

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fit that pattern.

      Unfortunately, for the past five months he hadn’t been seeing anybody on a steady basis. That had to be why this woman’s overwhelming lushness was getting to him.

      “This is the first time anything like that’s ever happened to me. Before I knew what was happening, my shoulder bag was gone and I was lying on the ground.” Again she breathed, her breasts rising against the thin cotton of the dress. “Pranayama,” she said, opening her eyes and meeting his carefully blank gaze. “Tantric breathing. It’s a yoga exercise to restore serenity.”

      Her serenity, maybe. Matt cleared his throat.

      “What was taken?”

      Resuming normal breathing and starting up the walkway to the shabby apartment building, for a moment she didn’t answer him. Following her, he saw her shoulders slump a little, and at that he felt a familiar emotion—one that he could deal with—override the inappropriate flicker of attraction he’d just been feeling. It was anger. It was directed at the unknown scumbag who’d done this to her.

      He was willing to bet that losing even the ten bucks or so she’d probably been carrying in her purse had been a major financial blow. What the hell was the matter with the world, when a woman couldn’t even walk home safely in the daytime anymore?

      “Nothing that really mattered.” They’d reached the front door of the building, and as he held the door open for her, Jenna fished inside the front of her dress, finally pulling out a couple of keys hanging around her neck on a piece of string. She looked up at him and flashed a weak smile. “A hundred and fifty dollars. It was all the money I had till I get my first paycheck Friday, but Franklin always used to say that money’s the least valuable commodity in the world. Anyway, maybe the mugger needed it more than I did.”

      Slipping the string over her head, she tried to insert the key in the peeling foyer door but she seemed to be having trouble. Silently Matt reached over to take the awkward can of cat food from her and she bent to her task again, her face hidden by that fabulous cloud of red-gold hair, her voice slightly muffled. “Franklin was my dad. He never trusted banks, but then again, he never really had much need for them.” She dropped the keys and he was sure he heard her muttering a singularly unangelic phrase.

      “It’s not working.” She pushed the mass of hair back from her face and turned to him. “Why isn’t the stupid thing working? Can’t anything go right today?”

      Those honey-and-cinnamon tones sounded decidedly peevish. Two seconds ago she’d written off her life savings with the calm saintliness of a Mother Superior, he thought, bemused. Now she was getting cranky because her key wouldn’t fit smoothly. He handed her back the can, picked the keys up off the cracked linoleum floor and tried the first one in the lock.

      “This one’s obviously the key to your own apartment,” he said. “That’s why it wouldn’t fit.”

      Behind him, he heard her taking a deep breath.

      His sisters always had problems with keys. Privately he was convinced it was built in with the XX chromosome, although the one time he’d run that theory by his older sister, Carmela, she’d hit him over the head with her physics textbook.

      He straightened up in abrupt annoyance. “The stupid thing’s not working. Which apartment does your super live in?”

      Jenna took her keys back and pressed a button on the intercom board. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I didn’t have a problem this morning. I forgot my bus pass, and I had to let myself back in to get it.”

      She gave the buzzer another halfhearted little tap and turned back to him without waiting for a response. “He’s not home. Let me try the keys again. Men always have trouble with keys.”

      “Trust me—they don’t work.” Biting off the words with unnecessary emphasis, Matt jammed his thumb on the buzzer and kept it there. Whatever information she had for the Bureau, he thought wearily, it had better be good. By the time they got into her apartment and she spilled her big secret it would be midnight, at the rate this meeting was going.

      He felt a twinge of guilt. It wasn’t her fault she hadn’t shown up on time, he told himself. And if his evening wasn’t turning out exactly the way he’d planned, hers had been a disaster. She’d been mugged, for God’s sake. She’d been left penniless by some creep who’d knocked her down and taken her purse, and she was right—the money was going to be the least of her problems. Replacing credit cards and identification would be a major headache.

      No wonder her serenity was beginning to crack a little.

      “What do you want, mister?” The man who opened the door was about fifty. He was shorter than Matt’s own six-two by about a foot, but he had the bad-tempered pugnaciousness of a bantam rooster. Under the dirty white T-shirt he was wearing strained the hard potbelly of a serious drinker, and his tattooed biceps, stringy as they were, looked as if they’d served him well in decades of barroom brawls.

      He didn’t even glance at Jenna, but instead kept his glare pinned on Matt. “If you’re a goddamn salesman for something, buddy, you’ve got about five seconds to get your butt off—”

      “Mr. West, my key’s not working.” Jenna didn’t seem intimidated by his stream of invective. “When I moved in last week you said you’d get a spare set cut for me. Can I use them tonight and have some copies made tomorrow?”

      He swung round to her, the scowl on his face deepening. “And who are you, lady? What is this, some kind of freakin’ scam?”

      Matt had been watching the super, ready to step in if the man’s hostility crossed the line into action, but this newest tactic caught him by surprise. Flashing a quick look at Jenna’s dumbfounded expression, he realized that she was as taken aback as he was. Her polite smile had faded into confusion, and her cornflower-blue eyes widened.

      “I’m Jenna, Mr. West—Jenna Moon, from 2B. Remember, you helped me move in my futon and I dropped it on your foot? And last night I gave you an aloe plant and told you how it could heal burns and cuts?” She gave an uncertain little laugh. “You were going to fix my faucet this weekend.”

      “You’re crazy, sweetcheeks.” West looked from her to Matt and grunted. “Get your flaky girlfriend out of here before I call the cops.”

      He started to close the foyer door, but Matt had had enough. Swiftly he stepped forward and shoved his shoulder and right arm through the narrowing space between the door and its frame, his ID and badge already open and dangling from his fingers.

      “I am the cops,” he said in a flat voice. “And the lady’s a tenant of yours. How about you start showing some cooperation here, buddy?”

      He could have sworn he saw a flash of something like fear behind West’s hard stare, but that was a common reaction. Men like him always had something to hide, Matt thought with disgust. Usually their dirty little secrets had nothing to do with the case on hand, but as soon as they realized they were dealing with the authorities they started lying automatically, unwilling to give a straight answer to any question.

      West was probably just a mean drunk who’d drawn a temporary blank on his newest tenant. But Jenna—what had she said her last name was?—Jenna Moon didn’t need any more problems tonight. She was doing that deep-breathing thing again, he noted resignedly.

      “Just let her into her apartment. I’ll even sign for the key if you want some kind of official receipt.” He forced a civility into his voice that he didn’t feel, at the same time exerting enough pressure on the half-open door to make the surly superintendent step back. Giving Jenna a slight nod, he kept his body between her and West as she nervously slipped past him to the short flight of stairs leading to the second floor.

      “Look, mister.” West dropped his voice and darted a look at her, now climbing the stairs. “I’m being straight with you—that little sweetheart don’t live in 2B or any other freakin’ apartment here. If I have to, I’ll prove it to you.”

      His

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