Jeopardy Read Free Page A

he asked. “Did you plan to eat at all?”
    “Of course. Amarillo—”
    “Give me a reason why not.”
    “A reason?”
    “Why not, Angelica?” he said, repeating the question. “Why not go to dinner with me?”
    The shape and force of the words stirred the air around her. The power of the man overwhelmed her.
    She wanted badly to go. One minute she was fighting the urge. The next she gave up with a light laugh. “I guess you’re right. Why not?” “Good,” he said softly. “I’ll see you at seven-thirty.” He bent and drew a computer printout from the wastebasket. “These may be the sales figures you were looking for. Try not to work too hard."
    After he had gone, she gazed down at the sheet he had handed her. They were exactly what she had been looking for.
    The phone rang. With a soft smile on her face, she walked to her desk to answer it. “Angelica DiFrenza.”
    "Be a good girl and mind me. ”
    She went motionless at the high-pitched, muffled voice. “Who is this?”
    “Be a good girl and stay home, where you belong.”
    She slammed the receiver into its cradle. Judith, her secretary, popped her head into the office. “Hi, I’m back from lunch. Is everything all right? That was a rather loud hangup.”
    She ran her hand around the back of her neck and eyed the phone with the same distaste she would a snake. “Oh, it’s nothing. Some crank, that’s all. He called me last night too. I think he even said pretty much the same thing.”
    And Nico had called immediately afterward, she remembered. Without realizing it, she must have sounded disturbed, and he had picked up on it.
    “I don’t like the sound of a crank call. Is there someone we can notify? Make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
    She shook her head. “No, no. It’s no big deal. It’s happened to me a time or two before. This guy will get tired of calling me soon. The others did.”

    Two
    Angelica slid out of her car, locked its door, then paused to survey her surroundings. The address Amarillo had given her was actually a large riverfront warehouse. Her interest heightened. And her nerves worsened.
    She smoothed her hands down her slender leather skirt, straightened the matching jacket, and reflected with uncertainty that perhaps she should have changed. She often went on dates right from work, but then, this definitely was not a date—though she wasn’t entirely certain what it was.
    Amarillo viewed this night as fulfilling some sort of commitment to Nico. In that light, perhaps she should simply look on this evening as a dinner with her brother’s best friend. A casual evening. Yeah, sure.
    The rain that had fallen all afternoon had stopped, leaving the narrow blacktopped street slick, mirrored, and surrealistic. Angelica started toward the warehouse. Large windows lined its long side, but the only light she could see was a small yellow bulb over a door. She knocked several times, but there was no answer. Could she be at the wrong place?
    Gingerly she stepped into the flower bed, worked her way to a window, and peered in. Large indistinct shapes loomed in the darkness. Startled, she jerked away. She had to be at the wrong place. She returned to the light and pulled the paper Amarillo had given her from her pocket.
    “Hey, you!”
    She spun and saw an elderly woman approaching. The woman was dressed in tan pants, an oversize red flannel shirt, and a brown felt hat pulled down tightly on her head.
    “Is there something I can help you with?” the woman asked in a gruff voice. A long, thin cigarette dangled from her mouth, and she carried a brown paper bag filled with groceries.
    Angelica held out a slip of paper. “I’m looking for the address written here."
    The woman scanned it, then looked back at Angelica. “So you’ve come to see Rill, have you?”
    “You know Amarillo?”
    “Sure. He’s my landlord." She took a long draw from her cigarette, then nodded toward her grocery bag. “I had to go get some things to eat.