Upon a Midnight Clear Read online

  “SO BY YOUR GROUND RULES, WHAT WOULD YOU CALL this no-strings verbal contract you’re proposing, Dixon? A nonengagement? A disengagement? An unengagement?” She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, an unengagement. I like the sound of that. I, Alexandra, take you, Dixon, to be my unlawfully unwedded unhusband.” She slid her arms around his neck.

  Dixon grabbed her forearms. “Which brings us to my second condition.”

  Pressing her body to his, Alexandra nipped at his lower lip. “Have your lawyer talk to my lawyer, Yano.”

  “But you don’t understand—”

  She dragged his face down to meet hers and kissed him until his head swam.

  “The ground rules,” he protested, albeit feebly.

  “Forget the ground rules. There’s only one rule in an unengagement: There are no rules. Okay?”

  “But—” He opened his mouth to argue the point and Alexandra immediately took advantage. Her soft lips and clever, darting tongue proved devastating to his train of thought.

  “Oh, hell,” he said with a groan.

  When they broke apart, both of them gasping for air, Dixon lifted her into his arms and carried her to the living room. He settled on the sofa with Alexandra on his lap.

  “Just like a romance hero.”

  WHAT ARE LOVESWEPT ROMANCES?

  They are stories of true romance and touching emotion. We believe those two very important ingredients are constants in our highly sensual and very believable stories in the LOVESWEPT line. Our goal is to give you, the reader, stories of consistently high quality that may sometimes make you laugh, sometimes make you cry, but are always fresh and creative and contain many delightful surprises within their pages.

  Most romance fans read an enormous number of books. Those they truly love, they keep. Others may be traded with friends and soon forgotten. We hope that each LOVESWEPT romance will be a treasure—a “keeper.” We will always try to publish

  LOVE STORIES YOU’LL NEVER FORGET BY AUTHORS YOU’LL ALWAYS REMEMBER

  The Editors

  UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

  A Bantam Book / December 1997

  LOVESWEPT and the wave design are registered trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and elsewhere.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1997 by Catherine Mulvany.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78549-7

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  v3.1

  For Jim Cooley

  In Loving Memory

  IYQ2, Daddy.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Editors’ Corner

  ONE

  The dead woman walked into Dixon Yano’s office a little after three on Wednesday afternoon. She wore dark glasses and a wig, but Dixon recognized her right away from her obituary photograph in the Gazette: Alexandra Roundtree, daughter of mystery novelist Regina Roundtree.

  “You don’t look Japanese,” she said by way of greeting.

  “You don’t look dead.”

  “Touché.” She smiled, disclosing perfect white teeth.

  Glancing down at the newspaper on his desk, then back up at the woman, he realized the grainy picture didn’t do her justice. With classic features and flawless skin, Alexandra Roundtree was a “10.” Maybe even an “11.”

  Dixon jumped to his feet, suddenly conscious of the fact that he needed a haircut. A shave wouldn’t have come amiss, either. He rubbed absently at his stubbly jaw. His mother kept telling him he needed to dress more professionally. She’d bought him a tie every Christmas for the last five years. Not that a tie would have looked anything short of ludicrous with the sweatshirt and jeans he was wearing now. “Have a seat.”

  His prospective client settled gracefully on the ugly gray chair across the desk from him and removed her sunglasses.

  Dixon sat, schooling his features to remain impassive, no easy task since her eyes, though distinctly unusual—the left one a clear hazel, the right a bright blue—were as startlingly beautiful as the rest of her. If only she would take off that ugly black wig. According to the picture, her own hair was a blonde-streaked brown that fell past her shoulders in thick waves. Cindy Crawford hair, the kind that practically invited a man to run his fingers through it.

  Oblivious to his reactions, the young woman reached out, picked up the newspaper, and studied it a minute in silence. “ ‘Local Writer Loses Daughter,’ ” she read, “ ‘Alexandra Roundtree, twenty-seven-year-old daughter of best-selling mystery novelist Regina Roundtree, died at home, December seventeenth, of natural causes. Services pending.’ ” She made a face. “Pathetic, isn’t it? I can’t even get top billing in the headline of my own obituary.”

  Dixon noted the self-deprecating smile and the hint of some darker emotion shadowing her eyes. Unusual eyes, unusual woman, unusual situation. “What can I do for you, Ms. Roundtree?”

  “You’re a private detective, right?”

  “Private investigator,” he corrected automatically.

  “Private investigator. Sorry.” She rummaged in her purse and drew out a wad of money. “I want to hire you, Mr. Yano. Here’s a thousand dollars as a retainer.” She tossed a stack of hundreds on the desk between them. “Help me find my killer.”

  Just his luck. The first paying customer all week and she was looney tunes. “What killer? You’re not dead.”

  She frowned. “Not yet, but it’ll be a miracle if I make it to Christmas. Someone is trying to murder me.”

  “The obituary said ‘natural causes.’ ”

  She gave him a look. “The obituary’s a fake, the theory being that if the person threatening me thought I was dead, it might buy me a little time.”

  “Good strategy. How’d you get the Gazette to play along?”

  “My uncle’s the publisher.” She fell silent, staring in apparent fascination at the black leather purse she clenched in her hands. The muffled noise of holiday traffic on the street below sounded loud in the silence.

  Dixon watched her closely. Body language betrayed even the best liars.

  Alexandra Roundtree squared her jaw and lifted her gaze to meet his. “Over the past couple of weeks, Mr. Yano, I’ve started having accidents. Only I’m not convinced they are accidents.”

  Dixon relaxed. Confusion, yes. Fear, definitely. But above all, what he read in her face was integrity. “Tell me about it.” He paused with his finger above the record button on his tape recorder. “You don’t mind if I tape this, do you?”

  “Go ahead.” She frowned as if she were trying to organize her thoughts. “The first hint of trouble was the exploding reindeer.”

  Alert for potential clients, Dixon always read the local paper thoroughly
and he sure as hell would have noticed any mention of an exploding reindeer. Must have heard her wrong. He shoved his hair behind his ears. “I’m sorry. I thought you said ‘exploding reindeer.’ ”

  “I did say ‘exploding reindeer.’ Eight of them. Nine if you count Rudolph.”

  “Rudolph.” Dixon leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his arms over his chest. Okay, so she was telling the truth, or at least what she believed to be the truth. Damn. Not a liar, just delusional.

  “They were part of a window display at Gemini Gifts. That’s the shop my sister and I own. The reindeer were trimmed with strings of Christmas lights that all went off like fireworks. Poor Rudolph’s nose exploded into a million fragments of red glass. The jolt knocked me flat and blew every light on our block. At the time I wasn’t suspicious. We found a couple of frayed wires, so I dismissed the whole thing as an accident.”

  “Quite honestly, it does sound like an accident.”

  “Wait. There’s more. The very next day, Saturday before last, I came within millimeters of being squashed by a giant gingerbread house.”

  Dixon tried hard to keep his expression void of skepticism.

  “Part of a float in the Christmas parade,” she continued. “My sister, Amanda, and I were on the committee responsible for getting everybody lined up in the right order. Just as the parade was about to begin the whole float suddenly collapsed. If Mandy hadn’t pulled me out of harm’s way, I’d have been buried under an eight-foot slab of fake gingerbread, nine bazillion gumdrops, and sixteen Girl Scouts dressed as elves.”

  Dixon blinked. Not to mention two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Again, it could have been—probably was—an accident.”

  “And I suppose it was just an accident when Santa Claus stole my purse and shoved me down the escalator at the mall?” Alexandra Roundtree tilted her chin at a pugnacious angle.

  God, she was a looker. Too damn bad she was so paranoid. “A mugger?” he suggested.

  “That’s what the police said.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I never carry much money in my purse—”

  He raised an eyebrow and flicked the pile of cash with his forefinger.

  “All right, hardly ever. The point is I’m not a prime target for a pickpocket, yet of all the people in the mall, that thieving Saint Nick chose to victimize me.”

  “A crime was committed all right, but I’m with the police here.” Dixon shrugged. “I see no evidence of attempted murder.”

  “What would you consider evidence of attempted murder? A bullet hole between my eyes? A knife in my back?” Tight-lipped, she dug through the contents of her bag once again. “How about this? It came in the mail yesterday.” She shoved a sheet of cheap, lined notebook paper into his hands. Someone had pasted together letters cut from the newspaper to form a crude message.

  “ ‘Beware the mistletoe or Christmas may be hazardous to your health,’ ” he read aloud, and nodded. “Okay, I suppose that could be construed as a threat, but I still don’t feel there’s a case here. Sorry, Ms. Roundtree.” He scooped up the money and held it out to her.

  Benjamin Franklin seemed to stare at him accusingly. Christmas was just around the corner, and an extra thousand dollars was nothing to turn his nose up at.

  Ignoring the money, Alexandra stood, then paced restlessly for a few seconds before pausing at the window.

  He watched, fascinated, as she chewed at her full lower lip. He wouldn’t mind nibbling at that lip himself. She was standing directly under the mistletoe, practically begging to be kissed. The situation was tempting. The woman was tempting. If only …

  She stared down at the ice-covered street, though he was pretty sure it wasn’t the inadequacy of the city maintenance crew that was wrinkling her brow. When she finally spoke, her voice was pitched so low that he had trouble hearing her. “This was a stupid idea. The danger’s all in my head anyway, according to Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “Mark Jordan, my fiancé.”

  “Ah.” Dixon felt as if she’d punched him in the gut.

  She glanced toward him. “You know Mark?”

  “Only by sight.” Two years before, Colleen Jordan, the then Mrs. Mark Jordan, had hired Dixon to follow her cheating husband. In the one week Dixon had shadowed the man, Jordan managed to have assignations with six different women in four different motels, which Dixon figured was some kind of record, at least for a small town like Brunswick. Delusional or not, Alexandra Roundtree deserved better than a jerkwad like Mark Jordan.

  She turned, so she stood in profile to him. A wistful smile tilted the corner of her mouth. “It was a whirlwind courtship. We met last year at a ski lodge in Sun Valley, got engaged a week later. Mark was so charming, so supportive, though lately …”

  She straightened and swiveled to face him again, as if suddenly realizing she’d strayed off the subject. “Nobody takes the threat seriously—nobody except my mother. She’s the one who suggested I contact you.”

  “Yes, I’ve met your mother,” Dixon said dryly. Talk about your certifiable nutcases. Regina Roundtree, a woman with a penchant for eccentric hats, was well-known in Brunswick and beyond. Rumor had it she’d once attended a garden party at the White House in a floppy-brimmed confection of aluminum cans crocheted together with fishing line.

  From his chair behind the desk, all Dixon could see out the second-story window of Yano Investigations was a slice of bright blue eastern Oregon sky and the damaged top floor of the historic Stockton Building directly across the street. The view was nothing to brag about, but it did provide a nice backdrop for Alexandra, its angles contrasting nicely with her curves.

  “Much as I’d like to take your money, Ms. Roundtree, I have to say—”

  Suddenly the window shattered, spraying shards of glass.

  Alexandra Roundtree fell to the floor.

  He thought for one horrible moment that the bullet had found its target, then realized he was the one who was bleeding. Luckily, the deadly projectile had only creased the skin of his upper arm before burying itself in the far wall.

  Dixon dropped to all fours, carefully picking his way through broken glass to crawl to Alexandra’s side. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, white-faced. A few small cuts marred the perfection of her face, but none looked serious enough to require immediate medical attention.

  “Now do you believe me?” Her voice shook, but he could tell she was more angry than frightened.

  He moved toward his desk in a crouched position. She started to get up to follow.

  “Stay down.” The order came out more sharply than he’d intended.

  She flinched, then frowned. “Why? You’re not.”

  Dixon grabbed his .38 from the top drawer. “I’m not a target.”

  Her gaze followed his every move. “What are you doing? You’re not going to leave me here alone, are you?”

  He tossed her the cell phone. “Call the police.”

  “Why can’t you do it?”

  “That shot came from across the street. I’m going to try to cut the shooter off before he has time to make a getaway. Call the cops. Tell them what happened.”

  Without waiting to see if she followed his instructions, Dixon ran down the back stairs, then cut through the pet store below. Charging out the front door to the street, where traffic clogged both lanes, Dixon dodged quickly through the cars, careful to avoid the icy patches left over from the big snowstorm they’d had Thanksgiving weekend.

  A fire two years earlier had gutted one wing of the Stockton Building and severely damaged the top floor of the main section. The wing had succumbed to the wrecker’s ball shortly after the flames were doused, but the owners were gradually refurbishing the main building with an eye to leasing it out as office space.

  Dixon entered through the main doors into a huge room, dominated by a massive stone fireplace. The ro
om had been the lobby back in the days when the Stockton was a hotel. Now it seemed to be temporary headquarters for the contractors hired to do the remodeling. Two men in flannel shirts and baggy jeans were hauling a load of drywall up the curved staircase.

  “Anyone come down the stairs in the last couple minutes?”

  “Nope.” The man who answered had a Fu Manchu mustache and a wad of tobacco tucked under his lip.

  “How about the elevator?”

  “Broke down.” The man spat in a baby-food jar he evidently carried for just that purpose.

  “Any other way out of the building?”

  “Fire escape. Why? What’s the problem?”

  “Somebody just loosed a round through my office window across the way. I figure the shot had to come from this building.” Dixon headed out to check the fire escape.

  The construction worker shouted after him. “We see anybody looks suspicious, we’ll drop a load of Sheetrock on him, okay?” He grinned, revealing crooked, nicotine-stained teeth.

  Dixon gave him a thumbs-up and hurried around to the alley. The fire escape was empty. Either the gunman had already made his getaway or he was hiding somewhere inside.

  Cursing creatively, Dixon jogged back around front just in time to see two city police cars pulling to the curb. He recognized the driver of the first, Officer Cesar Rios. They’d been rookies together way back when. Cesar had been with the city ever since. Dixon, on the other hand, had decided shortly after his first free-for-all drug bust that he’d rather chase deadbeat dads and cheating spouses for a living than set himself up as a target for crazies with guns—which seemed pretty ironic at the moment, what with blood soaking the sleeve of his gray sweatshirt.

  “What’s the story, Dix?” With a bulletproof vest under his uniform and a bulky winter coat on top, Cesar looked even more intimidating than usual. “Is that blood?”