Кей Хупер: Hiding in the Shadows

"Dinah, don't try to make me feel and sound like the typical selfish male."

"There's nothing typical about you," she murmured.

He decided not to ask if that was a compliment.

"Look, I know work gets the best of both of us from time to time, and that's as it should be."

"But? "

"But there's more to life than work."

Her lips twisted in an odd, fleeting smile. "I know."

"Then talk to me, dammit."

"I don't talk about my stories, Kane, you know that. "

"I'm not asking you to betray a confidence. I just want to know what could be so important that you barely have time to eat or sleep these days. And don't give me that bullshit about the story on city officials. That isn't what's making you toss and turn at night."

Disconcerted, she said, "Am I doing that?"

"Yes. Since the accident."

"Well, it's that," she said, grasping the handy reason with relief. "The accident. I've been wondering about her, and..."

"It isn't the accident. Or isn't only the accident. It So it has to be a story. Or it has to be us."

"I don't know why you would think..."

"Dinah. I know when something is off-kilter in your life. And what affects you affects me. Tell me what's wrong. I can't fix it until I know what it is."

She looked across the room at him, and something changed in her face. She went behind his chair and bent to put her arms around him. Her warm, smooth cheek pressed against his.

"I really don't appreciate you, do I?" Her voice sounded shaken.

He lifted a hand to her head, letting his fingers slide into her silky hair because he loved it and she never minded. "No," he said a bit dryly. "I'm a prince."

She chuckled. "You certainly are. And I have been neglecting you, I realize that. I'm sorry."

He looked down at her hands on his chest, the fine-boned strength of them, the red-polished nails that showed her one vanity. "So what's going on? Is it just work, or have you met a better prince?"

She hesitated, then moved around him to lean a hip against the table and smiled down at him.

"Let's just say I've stumbled onto a story with a lot of potential. A story that could make my reputation."

He frowned. "Your reputation is already made."

"Locally, sure. Even regionally. But this ... this could put my name on the national map."

Kane felt a prickle of unease. "What kind of story is it."

"You know better than that."

"I'm not asking for details, Dinah. just a general idea. Is it criminal? Political? Business?"

"Criminal and business. Maybe wanders into the political arena as well, although I'm not sure about that yet," she replied, still smiling.

"Jesus. Dinah..."

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." She reached over and brushed the backs of her fingers down his cheek in a familiar caress.

He didn't allow it to distract him. "Just don't tell me you're on your own in this. if Steve doesn't know..."

Her smile vanished. "He's my editor, Kane, not my nanny."

"That isn't what I meant and you know it. if there's a criminal element in this story, things could get very nasty in a hurry."

"I know that." Her voice was patient. "I have been doing this for a number of years, in case you've forgotten." She went to pick up her briefcase, the tension in her shoulders obvious; that alone told him he'd crossed the line.

She was already moving toward the door; it was too late to apologize, to explain that he was worried only because he cared, not because he doubted her instincts or abilities.

"Just be careful," he called after her.

"Always," she tossed back lightly. And then she was gone.

The silence of the apartment settled over him. With a new problem in his mind, the morning seemed darker and much less peaceful than it had only minutes before.

Kane seldom had to cope with downtown traffic, which, in Atlanta, could be truly horrendous. His company was on the outskirts of the city, a five-story stone and glass structure of considerable beauty set on five acres of sprawling grounds just as lovely. It was an engineering and architectural firm founded by his father and his mother's brother, named Macgregor and Payne ; Kane hadn't felt the need to change the name, despite the fact that his uncle, Jonah Payne, had died a bachelor, leaving his share of the business to his nephew.

Kane had been in charge since his father, John Macgregor, had taken an early retirement more than ten years before, happily setting off with his second wife to see the world, then choosing to settle in California when his traveling was done.

Kane enjoyed the work, although lately he seemed to concentrate more on administrative details than on the engineering and architecture he loved.

Which was probably why, after Dinah left that morning, he decided on the spur of the moment to visit the construction site where Macgregor and Payne was building new offices for the mayor's support staff and other city officials.

"Kane? What are you doing out here?" Max Sanders, the owner of the Mayfair Construction Company, approached Kane's car briskly. He was wearing a hard hat and carrying a rolled-up set of blueprints, neither one detracting from his superbly cut dark suit — though the liberal coating of dust didn't help. Behind him rose the steel skeleton of what would be an impressive building, which today was crawling with construction workers. Huge earth-moving machines working inside the foundation were kicking up waves of dust.

"I could ask you the same thing," Kane said as he got out of his car. "Since when does the boss get his nice suit dirty if he doesn't have to?"

"He has to," Max replied with a grimace. "Somebody misread your plans and fucked up at least three of the support beams. Something the foreman said to me yesterday bothered me, so I came out this morning. Good thing I did, too."

"It can be corrected?"

Max nodded. "Shouldn't lose more than a day or two. And I've warned Jed he'd better be more careful from now on."

Jed Norris was the construction foreman.

"How did he come to misread the plans? He's been in the business long enough to be an expert."

"Well, that might be part of the problem. He thinks he knows how things should be, so he doesn't always consider somebody else's opinion."

"Blueprints are opinions?"

Max grimaced again. "What can I tell you? I had a talk with him, Kane. He's too close to retirement to want to fuck up his twilight years, so maybe that'll be enough. I'll keep an eye on things, though, don't worry."

Kane was concerned; the oh was highly visible, and if anything went wrong, reputations could end up with mud all over them. But he wasn't about to tell another man how to do his job, and once construction began, his own responsibilities were purely advisory and explanatory.

"I'll leave it up to you, then," he said. "If you find something wrong on the blueprints, give me a call. Otherwise, it seems you have everything under control. So I'll get out of your way."

"You just don't want to get your nice suit dirty," Max retorted, his slightly wary expression vanishing, then saluted Kane with the roll of blueprints and headed back toward the site.

Kane had just opened his car door when Max returned. "By the way, did Dinah find you yesterday?"

Kane frowned. "Yesterday?"

"Yeah. About, I don't know, two in the afternoon, maybe? I dropped by here for a look — see, and she came around about fifteen minutes later. Said she thought you might have been out here instead of at the office. I showed her around since she seemed curious. She didn't stay long, though. Did you catch up later?"

Kane nodded. "Yeah, thanks, we did."

"Okay, great. See you, Kane."

"Bye."

Kane didn't know why Dinah had come out there, though it wasn't the first time she had shown up at a construction site looking for him — and finding him, once or twice. But she hadn't mentioned it last night.