Free Stolen in Paradise (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) by Toby Neal Page A

appropriated a stool and ordered a cosmopolitan. Once the drink was in her hand, Marcella swiveled to survey the dance floor.
    As she’d suspected, the couple was already out dancing. She wouldn’t have been able to spot them if it weren’t for bloodred spangles from a mirror ball hitting Truman’s tall blond head. Natalie—in black with black hair—was all but invisible.
    Marcella spent the next hour fending off passes from various men and a few women and keeping an eye on the couple on the dance floor. Finally they headed for the bar, and on that cue, Marcella glided off her stool and onto the floor, quickly joined by a fledgling vampire who kept trying to bite her on the neck.
    She kept the couple in visual. Quick consumption of drinks, then back out to the dance floor. They twined around each other in endless variations of foreplay.
    Marcella checked the glowing dial of her dive watch—ten thirty. She’d seen enough and got some valuable intel. She brushed off the vampire and headed for the exit.
    More than likely, Truman and Natalie would go back to Natalie’s place, and she didn’t need to see it to predict it. Interviewing them was going to be interesting—and she felt an unexpected tenderness for the clumsy way they’d tried to protect each other. They really seemed, if not in love, seriously into each other.
    Marcella found herself trotting down the sidewalk, galvanized. Her mind was made up, and that ache south of the belt buckle was getting the final vote. She could put her mask on, pretend she didn’t know who he was, see where it all went. She roared out of the garage and the mere half mile to the Club. But as she turned on to the block, she felt her heart speed up with something other than anticipation.
    She parked the car across from the red door of the Club, a move strictly against their policy—members were supposed to park in a nearby garage. She did some breathing. Clenched and unclenched her hands on the steering wheel. Looked at the door. Realized the unfamiliar feeling she had was terror.
    She hated being afraid.
    As if on cue, Kamuela came out through the red door. He wore the silky shirt, the worn jeans. Her palms itched to touch him as he looked up and down the empty street. Then he spotted her car. He looked at it, hands on his hips—the silly mask dangling from his fingers.
    Her heart raced.
    He couldn’t know it was her inside. She had tinting on the windows. Her plates were unlisted, a precaution agents had as a security measure, but if he ran them, he’d know the car was owned by someone in law enforcement.
    He looked away. Paced a bit. Looked at his watch.
    She slid down in the seat. He could still come over, and if he did, he’d see her.
    She imagined opening the door, walking over to meet him, going inside. Dancing. And what came next. She broke out in sweat and couldn’t tell if it was terror or lust. Maybe a little of both.
    She’d brought her mask, and her hands shook as she slipped it on. She peeked over the edge of the window—only to see the flutter of the back of his shirt as he disappeared into the parking garage.
    It was only 10:55. He hadn’t waited until eleven! He’d left early. Dammit! She might have worked up the nerve to get out of the car in the next five minutes.
    Disappointment was sour in her mouth.
    Marcella turned the key, and the Honda roared to life. She didn’t want to be sitting there when he drove out of the garage and maybe got a look at her plates. She peeled out and blazed home.
    Ever since Trevor, she’d told herself whatever she was afraid of, that was the thing she was going to do. And for the most part, she’d been true to that resolve. Until now.
    It was a long time before she fell sleep.

Chapter 9
    Marcella scrolled through her departmental e-mail the next morning, a third cup of inky coffee cooling at her elbow. Rogers hung his jacket on the back of the door, frowned at the sight of her.
    “What you doing here so early? You look