Free The Last Embrace by Denise Hamilton Page B

Vranizan?” he asked, his voice cool and businesslike.
    Lily shrugged. “Just that he was a special effects guy who also worked at RKO. He was sweet on Kitty, but she had her sights set higher than a toy maker.”
    “When did he tell you that?”
    “He didn’t. The roomies did last night.”
    Pico’s eyes grew razor sharp even as his voice grew more measured. “Red said this Max fellow was obsessed with Kitty.”
    “That doesn’t mean he killed her. He’s probably a harmless freak,” Lily said, fishing for information. “A grown-up guy who lives in a fantasy world of dinosaurs and apes and monsters. A little kid.”
    “Little kids can be cunning. I’d stay away from him. And stay away from RKO too. You’re unlikely to get discovered.”
    So that’s what he thought she was after!
    She regarded him coolly. “I have no desire to be an actress.”
    “Then again, if you play your cards right, you might even be able to take over Miss Hayden’s contract.”
    “I would never—”
    His eyes crinkled. “Of course not. That’s why you showed up here as soon as you heard, then moved right into Kitty Hayden’s room and into her life.”
    Lily uncoiled herself, stretched to her full height, but still barely saw over his shoulder.
    “You know nothing about me. I’m hardly some starstruck ingénue. I grew up in L.A. And I’m staying here because Kitty’s mother asked me to find her daughter.”
    Pico rolled his eyes. “Then you’re free to go. The professionals will take over.”
    “Don’t tell me what to do.”
    She was irked that he’d riled her so easily. “I hope you display a better bedside manner when you talk to Kitty’s roommates or you won’t get very far.”
    A wicked light danced in his eyes. “I’ve never had any complaints about my bedside manner. In fact…”
    “Then let me be the first,” she said, ignoring the innuendo.
    He shook his head. “You don’t give up, do you? Anybody ever tell you that you have a masculine brain?”
    “Now you’re insulting me?”
    “Far from it.” The idea seemed to entertain him.
    “Maybe I just have a criminal brain,” Lily said.
    “Oh?”
    “You want to catch a murderer, you have to think like one. That’s all.”
    The amusement faded from his eyes. “That’s exactly why they’ll never let women on the force,” he said.
    “What’s why?” she asked.
    “Because if you want to catch rats, you’ve got to swim in the sewer, and that’s no job for a girl. You’d lose your sense of wonder and goodness about the world, and we can’t have that.”
    Lily’s mouth twitched. “Save it, Detective. We’re not helpless simpering creatures that have to be protected. We’ve held down jobs, traveled the world. Seen people die. Nobody’s innocent anymore.”
    “The war’s been over four years. Things are going back to how they were.”
    Lily thought of the CIA, reassigning its women agents to desk jobs. Her bosses had claimed their Soviet contacts felt more comfortable handing over secrets to men. That the female temperament was unsuited to surveillance, interrogation, high-stakes dissembling. That women were ruled by their emotions, while espionage required cool, hard reason. No matter what successful female spy Lily brought up, they had an answer: Virginia Hill was an exception; Christine Granville had gotten lucky; Amy Thorpe traded intelligence for sex. Lily’s gorge rose at being lectured by yet another man in authority.
    “Not everyone wants to go back to how things were.”
    “Sure they do. People are settling down, having families. It’s the American way.”
    The taunting tone was back. You want it too, his voice seemed to say. Just admit it.
    “I guess I’m un-American, then.”
    Pico clicked his tongue. “I’d watch where you say that. You said you’ve been gone since 1944. Well, things have changed at home.”
    “I didn’t mean I was a Red,” Lily said frostily. “I mean I want to be able to work and live on my own and