Scarlet Nights Read Free Page A

Shaw and I remembered a story my sister told me about a very old tunnel. It just happens to open right into the floor of my sister’s bedroom. All I have to do is move Miss Shaw in there.”
    The captain waited, but Mike didn’t elaborate. “You’ve only got three weeks. Think you can entice Miss Shaw away from a big city charmer like Stefan in that time?”
    Mike gave a sigh. “Usually, I’d say yes, but now …” He shrugged. “In my experience, the only way to get a woman is to find out what she wants, then give it to her. It’s just that I have no idea what a woman like Sara Shaw could possibly want.” He looked at the captain. “So where are these boxes of info? I need to get out of here.” Mike followed him to his car.

    Ramsey McDowell was sound asleep when he heard Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero” blasting from his wife’s cell phone. Groaning, he put the pillow over his head and tried to shut out the noise—and shut out his feelings. It was her brother calling her, a man Rams had never met, a man more elusive than a ghost, more secretive than a spy. But even though he’d never seen the man, Rams had heard more about him than he cared to. According to his bride, her brother was the smartest, most industrious, most heroic and, of course, the best-looking man on the planet.
    “She’s succeeded in making you jealous, hasn’t she?” his cousin Luke had said, laughing. “Don’t worry, old man, a few days—oryears—in a gym and you might live up to his reputation.”
    Jealous or not, Ramsey knew that his wife halted everything—meals, arguments, even sex—if her phone emitted that outrageous song.
    “He is not a hero,” Ramsey said the first time Tess had jumped off of him to run to her phone. “He’s just a policeman.”
    “Detective,” Tess said over her shoulder. She was nude, and the sight of her beautiful body running was enough to make him forgive her. But that had been weeks ago and he was tired of the daily calls.
    Tess said, “He usually only calls me once a week, but he’s off now so we can talk all we want.”
    “All we want” turned out to be every day , and with the way the man caught them in the midst of every “activity,” Rams thought a camera had been set on them. Even now, on their honeymoon, he still called her.
    “Mike!” Tess said as she picked up her phone. Her voice was breathless and a bit frightened. “Is something wrong?”
    Rams looked at the clock. On European time, it was the wee hours of the morning. Why couldn’t the man get a girlfriend like normal people did?
    “All right,” Tess said softly into the phone as she sat back down on the bed. “Of course I’ll do it.”
    Rams moved the pillow off his head and looked at her with curiosity. He’d never heard her use that tone before.
    “Mike, you’ll be careful, won’t you? No, I mean it. Really careful.”
    Rams sat up in bed and watched her more closely. There was enough light in the room that he could see tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?”
    She held up her hand for him to stop talking. “I understand completely. Luke will do whatever I ask him to.”
    “Luke will do what?” Ramsey asked.
    Tess looked at her husband. “Would you please be quiet? This is important.”
    Angrily, Rams flung back the covers, pulled on his trousers that were hanging over a chair, and opened the curtain to look at the mountains outside. Behind him, Tess kept talking.
    “Yes, I think it’s in good condition, and besides me, only Luke knows about it. I’m sure he didn’t tell Joce. He was afraid she’d want to explore it, and he’s always thought it was too dangerous.” Pausing, Tess smiled. “Not yet, but Rams is working on it with enthusiasm and endurance. Yeah, the first one will be named Michael.”
    In an instant, Ramsey’s anger left him and he stretched out on the bed beside his wife. He didn’t like the way she’d told intimacies about them to her brother, but he did like that