“Call them and reschedule. I have a police emergency.”
Kent reached for his jacket and grabbed his car keys and briefcase on the way out the door. His mind was racing even as he descended the stairs two at a time, the five flights faster by far on foot than by elevator. He burst out the ground floor stairwell and took the basement shortcut to the parking garage, running to his reserved parking area. He was out of breath by the time he reached the place where his new Audi should have been, and stared at the dark, vacant slot in disbelief. What the hell? Grand theft auto wasn’t supposed to happen in this garage, which was precisely why he’d paid an outlandish fee for a reserved space in a place that had an armed security guard controlling access. Kent began a fresh sprint toward the gate, heart hammering.
The security guard was young and ignorant, professing no knowledge of Kent’s Audi leaving the garage without him. Kent didn’t have time to argue. “Call me a cab, and make it quick,” he snapped. He heard a car approaching the gate from behind and stepped out of the way, glancing at the driver as the window lowered and a slender, graceful hand extended with the ticket. Melanie Harris. Her timing was a minor miracle, considering the infamously slow office elevator. Kent threw his arms up to stop her. “Ms. Harris! Could you give me a ride to the Beverly Hills Regency? My car’s been stolen and there’s a police emergency.”
Those turbulent green eyes met his, and she didn’t hesitate. “Get in,” she said, and as Kent climbed into the passenger seat of her silver Mercedes sports coupe, breathing the mingled scents of leather upholstery and perfume, hearing the muted strains of Handel’s Water Music from the stereo, she waved off his thank-you. “Think nothing of it,” she said, pulling out into the midday traffic and accelerating smoothly ahead. “Consider my thirty-minute debt to you repaid.”
CHAPTER TWO
MELANIE HARRIS drove with the practiced skill of someone accustomed to navigating busy city streets. They had spoken barely five words since he had hopped in the car and given his destination. As she deftly shifted the Mercedes into gear and pulled into the light prelunch traffic, Kent flipped open the file he had been reading when Melanie first stepped into his office. He wanted to glean as much from the notes as possible before he had to process the second scene.
Try as he might, he found it difficult to concentrate. He found himself distracted by the woman sitting just inches away. There was the perfume, for one thing. Subtle and pleasant, it kept wafting over from the driver’s side of the car. It was one with which he was unfamiliar, but he had a suspicion it would be forever linked with Melanie. He gritted his teeth and began reading the notes, but his eyes kept skipping from the words in front of him to Melanie’s legs. Tanned, shapely and in perfect range of his peripheral vision. After several minutes he gave up and stared out the window, trying to put his thoughts in order. He might have succeeded but for the fact that Melanie seemed to feel it was her duty, as driver, to initiate polite conversation.
“I hope you don’t mind classical music, Dr. Matt¬ son,” she said, in reference to the CD playing in the car’s state-of-the-art sound system.
He turned from watching the passing scenery to look at her. “Water Music’s definitely one of Handel’s all-time classics, but I guess I’m more of a rock and roll kind of guy.”
He went back to glancing at his notes, silently damning himself for sounding so Neanderthal. Still, his response had obviously discouraged Melanie, because she gave up on the small talk and concentrated on her driving instead. Too bad Kent couldn’t do the same with his notes. It was those legs of hers. What red-blooded man could possibly concentrate on the details of an unsolved murder when such a pair of legs was sitting a mere thirty inches away?
MELANIE WAS no stranger to the Beverly Hills Regency, and this was by no means her first visit to the city landmark, a place she had often seen at its busiest times. The luxury hotel was a longtime meeting place of the famous. It was where the rich came to play, to see and to be seen. As such, it was a popular spot for tourists and paparazzi ever on the prowl for celebrity sightings. Melanie had often dined at the formal Green Palms Restaurant or lunched at the trendy Brick Oven Cafe. Part hotel, part spa, part culinary destination, the “Beverly,” as the locals called it, was always crowded, so a packed driveway was to be expected. But as she turned off Wilshire Boulevard, Melanie wasn’t prepared for the sight of dozens of police cars, emergency vehicles, satellite trucks and television vans parked haphazardly on the driveway and even on the hotel’s prized gardens. When she slowed to a stop at the entrance, a squad car was blocking the way. She turned to her passenger, who was already holding out an official ID card for the uniformed officer, who waved them through. Melanie drove slowly between the police cars while Dr. Mattson scanned the scene.
“Park there,” he said, pointing to a slot between two police cruisers scarcely wider than her own car.
She barely managed to squeeze into the space and wondered how she’d ever get her car out of this chaotic maze. A tall black woman with close- cropped hair was coming out of the Beverly’s front doors and scanning the crowds. She spotted Dr. Mattson climbing out of the car and strode over.
“Hey, Murph,” Dr. Mattson said. He reached back into the car to collect his battered leather briefcase.
The handsome, well-dressed woman was obviously in no mood to exchange pleasantries. “Follow me, Kent,” she said, turning and striding briskly back toward the main doors.
Dr. Mattson left without so much as a goodbye, a thank-you or a backward glance. Melanie watched until they both disappeared into the building. In her rearview mirror she spied another cruiser, lights flashing, parking directly behind her and blocking her exit. She sat for a few moments as the engine idled, then switched off the ignition and blew out a breath.
“Now what?” she said.
KENT HAD WORKED with Carolyn Murphy for five years, and the two had become almost instant friends. Together, they had worked on numerous cases, and while Murphy at times had displayed disgust, frustration, anger and sadness at the varied degrees of human degradation they had come across, she always took it in stride, keeping her “eyes on the prize—catching the bad guys.”
A good team, they’d caught a lot of bad guys. Murphy had the hard, no-nonsense approach of a career cop. She gave no quarter and asked for none. A crack shot, she held a black belt in karate, was fluent in several languages and was the product of the meanest streets of South Central L.A. When necessary she could schmooze with the lackeys at Police Central, but she much preferred working in the trenches with her squad of detectives. For a grandmother of two, Kent had discovered early on, she was one hot-shit woman.
As they crossed the lobby toward the bank of elevators, Murphy glanced at him. “Your car. Did I hear over the radio that it had been stolen?”
Kent had been hoping to keep the information from her, but the garage attendant must have called it in. Too bad he hadn’t been that on the ball before the Audi had been stolen. “Yeah, they took it right out of the parking garage. Imagine that.”
He waited for her to chide him, but her grim expression never altered as she hit the elevator button, an indication to Kent that she was preoccupied. Otherwise she would most definitely have rubbed his nose in I-told-you-so’s. Murphy was the one who had cheerfully read him chapter and verse of the California crime stats on the Audi as soon as she learned he’d purchased one.
“The Audi TT convertible?” she’d said, arching her eyebrows with wicked intent. “Nice car. Do you know how many stolen cars were reported to the LAPD last year? One thousand, one hundred and fifty-two. Know how many were sports cars? Eight hundred twelve. I predict your fancy little set of wheels will last two weeks, max.”
Kent had managed to keep