Into the Fury (BOSS, Inc. #1)(26)

“I’m not saying anything,” Val said. “The police have enough to worry about just trying to keep us safe.”

“Dirk says Carlyle stepped up security on all the models who live in Seattle. The out-of-towners are staying at the Fairmont. Dirk says they’ve got hotel security beefed up, too.”

“What’s going to happen when the tour goes on the road?” Val asked.

“Maybe they’ll catch the killer before we leave.”

Val glanced at the chaos around them. “Whatever happens, at least we’ll all be together, all of us staying in the same place. That should make security a little easier.”

“Yeah, and Dirk and Ethan are coming with us. Just knowing that makes me feel better.”

Relief and something more trickled through her. She hadn’t known the men were coming along. “They definitely seem capable.”

“Yeah, hot and capable. Nothing like a man who looks like Dirk Reynolds, has a body that makes you drool, and knows how to protect you. Makes him a tough temptation to resist.”

She was thinking the same thing about Ethan. “We need to let them do their jobs and we need to do our own.”

“I know. Plus I don’t want another broken heart.”

“Right. And I don’t need the hassle. I have too much on my plate as it is. Add to that, I have a hunch Ethan has more than enough trouble of his own.”

“Then we don’t have to worry, right?”

Val sighed. “Not about men. Just about not getting murdered.”





By the time the pre-show started, the murder of Delilah Larsen, La Belle’s most famous model, was all over the television and in every newspaper. Media trucks, camera crews, and reporters all jammed together outside the back entrance and lined the walkway up to the front door.

The press backstage had interviewed the nine remaining top models, and photos had been shot from every angle. They’d been fawned over and leered at. Ethan figured the pre-show was the red carpet of lingerie modeling.

As the start of the show drew near, he checked in with his crew, all of whom had been brought up to speed on the murder and cautioned to be alert so it wouldn’t happen again.

“I saw the cops talking to some of the models before the pre-show,” Ted Sandowski said. He was round-faced, a little soft, but not overweight, a nice guy the girls had dubbed Sandy, either for his name or the color of his hair. As long as they smiled at him, Sandowski didn’t seem to care.

“Carlyle didn’t like the models being interrogated,” Sandy said. “He was ranting at one of the detectives, said he didn’t want the girls upset so close to the start of the performance.”

“The cops are just doing their job,” Ethan said. “They’ve been at it since early this morning, trying to find out if one of the models or someone on the crew knows anything that could be relevant to the case. The longer it takes to find the killer, the higher the odds he’ll get away with it.”

“I wish it hadn’t happened on my watch,” Sandy said darkly.

Ethan just nodded. It wasn’t Sandowski’s fault. No one was to blame but the sick SOB who had murdered Delilah. But Ethan had been on enough cases to know it always felt like there should have been something he could have done to prevent it.

“Stay sharp,” he said. “Don’t get sidetracked by everything that’s gone on.”

Sandy nodded and Ethan continued his rounds, pausing to talk to some of La Belle’s own security people, even sparing a moment to speak to Beau Desmond, who was his usual dickhead self.

“I thought you were a detective, Brodie. If you’d been doing your job, you’d have found the guy who wrote the notes before he murdered Delilah.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. He disliked Beau a little more every day. “Unfortunately, it isn’t always that easy. If it were, even you might be able to handle it.”

Ethan knew he shouldn’t bait the guy, but Desmond made it hard to resist.

Beau snarled a smart-ass remark to his blond, surfer-dude friend, Bick Gallagher, as Ethan walked away.





By eight thirty, the show was in full swing, the Paramount a glittering backdrop for the beautiful, sparkling jewels of femininity who were the La Belle fashion models.

Though the theater was filled to capacity and backstage was organized mayhem, Ethan was constantly aware of Valentine’s movements.

At the moment, she was in the dressing room, just minutes away from doing her bit in the Nashville Country segment. He didn’t have to see her walk down the runway to know exactly how she looked in her tiny red-lace hip-hugger panties and red high-heeled cowboy boots. The image was burned into his brain.

Still, he paused for a moment when she appeared, allowed himself to watch the way she strutted her stuff onstage, caught the wink she cast one of the photographers as she made the turn and started striding back down the runway, tried not to wish she’d been looking at him.

He told himself to remember how hot he’d been for Allison and what a disaster that had turned out to be, but it didn’t keep him from getting hard as she passed him again on her second round and flashed a dimpled grin clearly meant for him as she headed back down the runway.

She was a different person up there, he thought, a beautiful sex kitten the men in the audience would be fantasizing about for weeks. A vision in sheer lingerie who made all the women want to buy the garments she wore in the hope their husbands would look at them the same way.