would like to know about that. You should probably give me the gun, little lady, you wouldn’t want to hurt yourself.” He started to reach for the weapon. Taylor snapped the purse closed, grabbed the man’s hand and twisted, hard. He was forced to spin away from her and she used that momentum to get him moving back toward the door.
“Hey!” he said, loud enough to get the attention of a passing waiter, who looked on in shock as Taylor maneuvered the boor right back out into the hallway.
She tossed him up against the wall face-first. He landed with a thud, grunting, then turned on her. She had her badge in her hand. His eyes bulged at the gold shield.
“Listen,” he started, but she cut him off.
“No, you listen to me. I don’t have the first clue who you think I am, but let me introduce myself. I’m Lieutenant Taylor Jackson, homicide. Now who the hell are you?”
His little pig eyes got smaller. “Tony Gorman.”
“And why did you call me Tawny?”
She could see him calculating. “It’s your hair,” he said finally. She knew immediately that he was lying. She hissed in his ear.
“You’re a liar, Mr. Gorman. Tell you what. Why don’t you just slink out of here and I won’t arrest you for assaulting an officer. And maybe you’ll think twice the next time you decide to lay your hands on a woman. Some of us bite.”
She heard him call her a bitch under his breath as he walked away. Fat bastard. She rubbed her arm. She was going to have bruises just the size of Gorman’s meaty fingers. Some men just didn’t get it.
Taylor went back into the room, feeling like all eyes were on her. The salad was being served. She sat next to Sam, who gave her a look of concern, but she shook her head. “Later,” she mouthed.
She ate, and made polite conversation with the couple to her left, and drank a fine glass of Bordeaux. She clapped the hardest at the end of Sam’s speech, and was more than relieved to see the evening draw to a close. Her feet hurt. She just wanted to get out of her clothes and into the bed.
She told Sam what happened on the way home. By the time they’d arrived at the house, Taylor was laughing about it and Sam had graced her with a new nickname, Miss Tawny T. She drove off with a wave and Taylor bolted the door behind her. She went into the kitchen, turned on the alarm system and dumped her shoes with a clatter on the hardwood. She’d retrieve them tomorrow. It was eleven-thirty. Too late to bother Baldwin, he was on Eastern time and probably already asleep. She envied his ability to drop off as soon as his head hit the pillow. She poured a glass of Chianti and went upstairs to the office.
She booted up the computer and walked to her bedroom to change. She shed the dress and accoutrements like a chrysalis, feeling better the instant she was naked. She walked back to the computer, set the wine on a coaster and started Googling Tawny.
What’s in a name? Tawny seemed to be a favorite pseudonym for porn stars and wannabe actresses. The Tawny Frogmouth was a bird, a family pet rabbit named Tawny had its own Web site, lots of flora and fauna that got the tawny designation, even a port. Nothing that looked like her, though. She tried Tawny Nashville, got a few live sex operators and a Greek restaurant, but still nothing with ties to her life. Obviously it was a case of mistaken identity.
But Taylor was uncharacteristically unnerved. She’d seen the look in Tony Gorman’s eyes, the twist of lust in his features. This was a man who’d thought of sex when he saw her, and that made her more uncomfortable than anything she’d felt in some time. If she’d been weaker, or another woman entirely, the situation would have gone a different way.
She erased Tawny from the browser and plugged in the name Tony Gorman. Too many hits to count. She tried variations-Anthony Gorman, Tony Gorman Nashville, Anthony Gorman Tennessee, but the results were just too numerous. She was damned tired, and figured she’d have better luck using the police channels to track the bastard.
Taylor closed the Web browser, leaned back in her desk chair. Thought about the quick glimpse into Tony Gorman’s soul. She had been familiar with the concept of desire from a relatively tender age. Her parents, for all their failings, had treated her as an adult from the time she could be expected to make a few of her own decisions, and as a result she’d ended up being rather precocious.
When her body developed, her gangly height and tomboy attitude turning into a lush ripeness at age fifteen or so, she’d found herself the recipient of plenty of unwanted attention. Most came from older men; boys her own age had no idea what to do with her. She’d gone from being a favorite colt to a sleek thoroughbred in the span of weeks, and was somewhat shunned among her male playmates, who had always treated her as just another one of the boys. She’d felt that was unfair and from then on stuck to dating boys older than her.
She’d lost her virginity to a friend of her father’s in a torrid affair when she was seventeen. She was head over heels in lust with the man, a classics professor at Vanderbilt. Dr. James Morley was sexy and urbane and taught her many things about life and love. The relationship was the final nail in the coffin for Morley’s crumbling marriage, but he’d remained friends with both Taylor and his wife. He had a fatal heart attack a few years later, and Taylor had grieved for him.
Over the subsequent years she’d had a few short-term affairs, lovers her age who were frightened by her intensity, older men who wanted to protect her, to keep her. She had a knack for getting involved with men she could never love but who loved her, and that had forced a few nasty breakups.
Baldwin was the first man she’d ever truly loved, loved in a way she’d thought she was incapable of. The giving and receiving of hearts was something she had always scoffed at. It was wonderful and scary at the same time. But if she were honest with herself, Baldwin had some of the same characteristics as her first lover-the cosmopolitan attitude, the intelligence, the striking looks. But Baldwin was different in all the good ways; he was an honest man. No need to worry about infidelity; he’d never tried to hide anything from her. No late-night cruising through his e-mail or wallet would be necessary, she’d simply ask and he would always answer.
And maybe, deep down, knowing he’d always be truthful was the most important part of her feelings, the reason she’d been able to give herself fully to him.
Taylor shook off her emotions, shut off the computer. As the light sputtered out on the screen with a snap, she bade farewell to the ghosts lingering in the room with her. She finished her wine and turned off the light.
Her bed was warm and soft, and she felt sleep tug at her immediately, probably as a result of all the alcohol. Groaning, she got up and took two Advil, sucked down five Dixie cups of water, hoping to alleviate what she assumed would be a killer headache in the morning. She didn’t get hangovers from wine anymore, but could be struck with a migraine if she didn’t prepare her body for the process.
She climbed back in the bed, this time nearly boneless. Images from the evening spun through her head, the ugly twist to the strange man’s mouth, the whirling waiters, the pouty-lipped social mavens with their identical face-lifts and overinjected foreheads. She was asleep within moments.
The ringing phone woke her. It was still dark. Somewhere in her consciousness, she palmed the Glock from under Baldwin’s pillow as she answered the phone.
“What?”
There was nothing. A deep silence filled the room, static and bottomless. She wondered if she were dreaming. Then she heard the breathing.
She slammed the receiver down. It rang again immediately. The backlit caller ID said UNKNOWN NAME UNKNOWN NUMBER in a ghostly green. Of course. She answered it anyway, this time more awake.
“What.” It wasn’t a question.
This time a man’s laugh filled her ear. It wasn’t Tony Gorman, that much she knew. This was a different tone altogether. And then he was gone.
Taylor continued to grip the phone for another minute, listening to the soft bonging of the dead line. She set the phone back on the cradle carefully and sat up, slipping a pillow behind her back. She wouldn’t turn on the light-if the caller was anywhere near, he’d see that and know he’d rattled her. There would be no more sleep tonight. She caressed the Glock, comfortable in the knowledge that she was safe enough. She’d just like to know who was trying to spook her.
Thirteen
