Sandra Brown: Low Pressure

She shook her head. “He got into the car. I sensed it immediately. The interior smelled like sweat. BO.” It made her nauseous to think about it even now.

Dent frowned. “He only wanted to violate your space. Spook you.”

“Which is more sinister than a theft.”

He sat back in the chair and took several swallows of water. As he replaced the bottle cap he asked, “No idea who this smelly creep is?”

“No. But as you said last night, it must be someone who dislikes my book. Intensely.” She looked away but was unable to hide her guilty expression.

“Oh, I get it now,” he said, drawing the words out. “You thought it was me . That’s why you booked the charter. All that bullshit about wanting to see how I had fared was just that. Bullshit. You wanted to see if I was your evil prankster.”

“Dent, I—”

“Save it,” he said angrily, coming out of the chair. “No wonder you fold up like a daylily every time I get too close. You’re afraid I’m about to pounce.” He gave her a scathing look. “Just for the record, I haven’t been to New York lately. I wouldn’t touch a rat, dead or alive. Most days I shower and use deodorant, and I sure as hell couldn’t have been in two places at once yesterday. I was in Houston with you, not back here in your bedroom. And if my hands are ever on your panties, believe me, it won’t be for painting.”

She felt the heat rising in her cheeks and cursed her tendency to blush.

A long silence ensued while waves of anger radiated off him. Finally she said quietly, “Are you finished?”

“More to the point, are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Here.” He gestured to encompass the room. “Are you finished with what you came to do?”

“Yes,” she replied, somewhat warily. “Why?”

He reached down and encircled her biceps with his hand, pulling her up off the sofa. “The people who’d be upset over your book is a short list. I want to go back to your house, see it in daylight, see if we can pick up a clue to identify the villain.”

Bellamy put up token resistance, but actually that was what she had intended to do without him, so she let herself be propelled from the office. Once they were inside the elevator, he asked if she’d had an update from Houston and when she told him no, he said that was probably good news.

The banal conversation got them through the awkward confinement and to the ground level.

Outside, the sun was so bright it momentarily blinded her, so she didn’t see Rocky Van Durbin until he was standing directly in her path.

“Hello, Ms. Price. Long time no see.” He smirked at her, then gave Dent a slow once-over. Hitching his head toward him, he asked her, “Who’s the cowboy?”

“Who’s the asshole?”

There was barely a heartbeat between Van Durbin’s question and Dent’s comeback.

Bellamy answered neither of them and instead demanded of Van Durbin, “What are you doing here?”

“Free country.” He looked beyond them at the building’s glass facade. “So this is the family business’s headquarters.”

“Is that a question? If so, I believe you already know the answer.”

He flashed his smug grin. “What gave me away?”

Her repugnance plain, she sidestepped him. “Excuse us.”

But he was persistent. “I only need a moment of your time. Pretty please? It’s been a few weeks. We have a lot to catch up on.”

The night she’d fled New York, an international rock star had been found dead in his Manhattan hotel suite, the apparent victim of a drug overdose. Speculation over whether it had been a suicide or a tragic accident had dominated the scandal sheets like EyeSpy for days.

That story had shortly been followed by a supermodel’s claim that an “unnamed member” of the British royal family had fathered her twins. The allegation was exposed as a publicity stunt intended to jump-start her flagging career, but it had kept the Van Durbins of the world busily hopping between continents to hound their prey.

Bellamy had thought that while he was occupied covering these stories, his interest in her would have waned if not altogether died. His showing up here today demonstrated that he wasn’t finished with her yet.

Trying not to give away just how upsetting his reappearance was, she said coldly, “We have nothing to talk about,” and stalked past him.

Dent followed more slowly. He was eyeing Van Durbin with distrust and disdain, and Bellamy hoped he wouldn’t do or say anything to fan the columnist’s curiosity. She was relieved when he fell into step beside her without incident.

However, Van Durbin wasn’t about to give up that easily, especially not after tracking her all the way to Texas.

“There’s going to be an update about you and Low Pressure in my column tomorrow,” he said. “Despite your inexplicable shunning of publicity, the book is still topping the best-seller lists. Care to comment?”

Over her shoulder, she said, “You know my policy regarding your column. No comment.”

“You sure?”

The taunting note in his voice was enough to bring her around to face him. He was tapping a pencil against his notepad with an air of self-satisfaction.

“True or false?” he said. “You returned to Texas to nurse your father through his final days.”

She started to lash out at him for asking such an insensitive question. But she reconsidered, believing that if she gave him something, he might be satisfied enough to leave the subject alone.

“My father is undergoing treatment for a malignancy. That’s all I’m willing to say on the subject, except for this: While he’s ill, I hope you’ll respect my family’s privacy.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, making a notation on his pad.

“Now beat it.” Dent hooked his hand around Bellamy’s elbow and steered her toward the parking lot.

“Just one more question?”

They kept walking.

“Did they send the right guy to the pen for murdering your sister?”

Bellamy came around so quickly she stumbled against Dent.

Van Durbin leered. “I’m gonna pose that question in my column tomorrow. Care to comment?”

“Olivia?”

She disconnected her phone and turned toward Howard’s hospital bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was talking loud enough to wake you.”

“I wasn’t really asleep. Just resting.”

He fought sleep because he feared he would never wake up. He wanted to escape the pain and desert the body that was cannibalizing itself, but he wasn’t ready to die quite yet. Before he let go, there were troubling issues he wanted settled and disturbing questions he wanted answered.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Bellamy.”

“Was she at the office?”

“She’d finished there and said to tell you that everything is in order.” Taking his hand, she pressed it between hers. “I’m afraid she saw through your ruse.”

“I knew she would. But I also knew she would go along with it to spare me.”

“You’re trying to spare each other, and each of you knows it.”

“I don’t want her here, watching me die.” He squeezed her hand with as much strength as he could muster. “I don’t want to put you through that, either.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I’m not leaving you. Not for a second. And if I could fight this thing bare-handed, I gladly would.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

For a moment they were quiet, gazing into each other’s eyes and pretending that their tears weren’t tears of despair.