Free Partners in Crime by Anne Stuart Page A

didn’t work exclusively at Technocracies Limited. He had at least one private lab, and maybe more, and your buddy Tremaine hasn’t the faintest idea where they were. All he knows is that when Richard died there was an important piece of information missing from his work at Technocracies. Without it the process is useless.”
    He was unprepared for her response. Unprepared for the blazing smile that lit her face, turning her from passably attractive to a raving beauty. He was unprepared for the whoop of joy, unprepared for her to launch herself at him, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him soundly on the cheek. And he was unprepared for her immediate withdrawal. He reached out, trying to capture her arms and keep her tight against him, but she’d already slipped away.
    “Our troubles are over,” she said, her eyes alight.
    “No,” he said, “they’re not.” He hated to disillusion her, but she’d figure it out sooner or later, and he didn’t trust her without his restraining presence. She was too damned bloodthirsty. “Tremaine isn’t going to give up. They’re hiring private investigators to find Richard’s laboratories. Sooner or later the information is going to turn up, unless you think he would have destroyed it.”
    She shook her head. Her hair was still loose from her earlier transformation, and it tangled appealingly around her narrow face. “He wouldn’t do that. He was too egocentric to destroy anything he’d invented.”
    “And of course he’d have no reason to do so, would he?” he prodded. “It was only a coincidence that a vital part of the process is missing. Wasn’t it?”
    Jane was lousy at dissembling. “Not exactly.”
    “Not exactly,” he echoed. “What have you neglected to tell me? If we’re going to be partners in crime we can’t keep things back from each other.” He didn’t suffer more than a slight twinge at the thought of all he was keeping from her.
    “I didn’t think it was that important. Dick was always paranoid—I just thought it was part of his persecution complex.”
    “What was?”
    She made a face. “He called me a couple of days before he died. He must have had some sort of premonition. He said if anything happened to him I had to make sure Uncle Stephen didn’t misuse the titanium coating process.”
    “Was that a premonition?” Sandy asked. “Or did he know he was in danger?”
    Jane sat very still. “You think it wasn’t an accident?”
    “I don’t know what to think. There’s a lot of money at stake, and Stephen Tremaine is not known for his ethical restraint. You know the man better than I do. Do you think he’d balk at murder?”
    “Absolutely,” Jane said. And then a moment later, “At least, I think so.”
    “Thinking’s not good enough. I think we’re going to have to be extra careful. If he’s killed once there’s nothing to stop him from killing again.”
    “This is ridiculous. No one’s killed anybody. You sound like some sort of murder mystery. People don’t go around killing other people.”
    “Yes,” he said gently, “they do.”
    The dingy motel room was silent, with only the sound of the traffic from Route One filtering through the thin walls. In the distance Sandy could hear the sound of a television set turned up too loud, the noise of a shower two rooms over. And the sound of Jane’s steady, troubled breathing.
    “Have you ever killed anyone?” she asked finally.
    “No.” He could say that both for himself and for the real Jimmy the Stoolie. Though of course he shouldn’t have taken Jimmy’s word for it—the man was a pathological liar. But in his years of practicing law he’d learned to tell, not necessarily who had and who hadn’t committed murder, but who could and who couldn’t. Jimmy definitely fit in the hadn’t and couldn’t category.
    But Jane Dexter was a question mark. Common sense told him a civilized Midwestern librarian wasn’t about to go around wreaking havoc, but her