Risky Business Read Free Page A

She’d thought him harmless—sexy, attractive and basically lazy. He’d boasted of making it big, of wheeling a deal that would set him up in style. Liz had considered it so much hot air. As far as she was concerned, nothing set you up in style but years of hard work—or inherited wealth.
    But Jerry’s eyes had lit up when he’d talked of it, and his grin had been appealing. If she’d been a woman who allowed herself dreams, she would have believed him. But dreams were for the young and foolish. With a little tug of regret, she realized Jerry Sharpe had been both.
    Now he was gone, and what he had left was still scattered in her daughter’s room. She’d have to box it up, Liz decided as she turned off the taps. It was something, at least. She’d box up Jerry’s things and ask that Captain Moralas what to do about them. Certainly his family would want whatever he’d left behind. Jerry had spoken of a brother, whom he’d affectionately referred to as “the stuffed shirt.” Jerry Sharpe had been anything but stuffy.
    As she walked to the bedroom, Liz wrapped her hair in the towel. She remembered the way Jerry had tried to talk his way between her sheets a few days after he’d moved in. Smooth talk, smooth hands. Though he’d had her backed into the doorway, kissing her before she’d evaded it, Liz had easily brushed him off. He’d taken her refusal good-naturedly, she recalled, and they’d remained on comfortable terms. Liz pulled on an oversized shirt that skimmed her thighs.
    The truth was, Jerry Sharpe had been a good-natured, comfortable man with big dreams. She wondered, not for the first time, if his dreams had had something to do with his death.
    She couldn’t go on thinking about it. The best thing to do was to pack what had belonged to Jerry back into his suitcase and take it to the police.
    It made her feel gruesome. She discovered that after only five minutes. Privacy, for a time, had been all but her only possession. To invade someone else’s made her uneasy. Liz folded a faded brown T-shirt that boasted the wearer had hiked the Grand Canyon and tried not to think at all. But she kept seeinghim there, joking about sleeping with one of Faith’s collection of dolls. He’d fixed the window that had stuck and had cooked paella to celebrate his first paycheck.
    Without warning, Liz felt the first tears flow. He’d been so alive, so young, so full of that cocky sense of confidence. She’d hardly had time to consider him a friend, but he’d slept in her daughter’s bed and left clothes in her closet.
    She wished now she’d listened to him more, been friendlier, more approachable. He’d asked her to have drinks with him and she’d brushed him off because she’d had paperwork to do. It seemed petty now, cold. If she’d given him an hour of her life, she might have learned who he was, where he’d come from, why he’d died.
    When the knock at the door sounded, she pressed her hands against her cheeks. Silly to cry, she told herself, when tears never solved anything. Jerry Sharpe was gone, and it had nothing to do with her.
    She brushed away the tears as she walked to the door. The headache was easing. Liz decided it would be best if she called Moralas right away and arranged to have the clothes picked up. She was telling herself she really wasn’t involved at all when she opened the door.
    For a moment she could only stare. The T-shirt she hadn’t been aware of still holding slipped from her fingers. She took one stumbling step back as she felt a rushing sound fill her head. Because her vision dimmed, she blinked to clear it. The man in the doorway stared back at her accusingly.
    â€œJer-Jerry,” she managed and nearly screamed when he took a step forward.
    â€œElizabeth Palmer?”
    She shook her head, numb and terrified. She had no superstitions. She believed in action