The Lady Has a Past (Burning Cove #5) - Amanda Quick Page 0,11
key she had given him to lock it.
She settled back into the pillows, taking comfort in the faint, lingering trace of his scent. She was not surprised when sleep eluded her. She lay quietly gazing up at the shadowed ceiling and wondered if Lyra was able to sleep. Probably not.
Luther had sent her home in the Paradise limo with instructions to the driver to see her safely inside her beachfront cottage. She had been flushed and giddy from the champagne and the dancing, but the nervy energy unleashed by what had happened at the Adlington residence had not yet burned itself out.
At five o’clock Raina abandoned the effort to get some sleep. She got up, took a shower, put on a floral dressing gown, made a pot of coffee, and opened the front door. The early edition of the Burning Cove Herald was on the doorstep.
She took the paper inside and settled down at the kitchen table to read the headlines. Not surprisingly, Lyra was on the front page again. This time there was a photo of her glamorously dressed in her silver evening gown arriving at the Paradise. The headline said it all: Lady Private Eye Who Dispatched Crazed Killer with Golf Club Celebrates at Local Nightclub.
If Lyra did show up for work today, she was likely to be inundated with clients, probably of the male variety. Last night the men in the Paradise had lined up to take her out onto the dance floor.
A woman who radiated an aura of danger and glamour fascinated a certain kind of man. Those same men would be terrified by the prospect of marrying such a woman, of course. But the possibility of going to bed with one would be an irresistible challenge to a lot of males who assumed that an affair with a fast woman came with no strings attached.
Raina was quite certain that Lyra could handle any man who thought it might be exciting to seduce—or be seduced by—an attractive woman with a killer golf swing. She had been raised in the hothouse of San Francisco’s high society. She had been taught from childhood to navigate the treacherous social waters of that world. She could deal with the male of the species.
The question was whether she would change her mind about her newfound calling. Raina hoped she didn’t. Yesterday I was ready to fire her for her own good, and today I want her to stay.
Lyra might be naïve and inexperienced when it came to the harsh realities of life, but she radiated positive energy the way a light bulb chases off the shadows when you flip the switch. It would be nice to have that sort of energy around the office. Lyra could put the clients at ease. People would open up and talk to her.
There were a number of logical reasons for employing her at Kirk Investigations, but was it the right thing to do? Maybe it would be better to offer Lyra a job as the firm’s secretary. That way she could deal with the clients, but in a much safer capacity.
On the other hand, my last job as a secretary nearly got me killed.
It was a moot question, because Lyra had no secretarial skills. She had not been trained to type or take shorthand. In any event, although she was happy to do anything asked of her, she had made it quite clear she wanted to become a full-fledged investigator.
Raina put down the paper and got to her feet to pour herself a second cup of coffee. For a moment she stood at the kitchen counter, contemplating the bright California dawn.
Luther was right, she decided. She should let Lyra make her own decision.
She went back to the kitchen table and turned the page to read the list of celebrities who had been seen checking into the Burning Cove Hotel. It was always good to know who was in town. Sometimes film stars who wished to have discreet investigations conducted preferred to hire someone who was not connected to the powerful studios. There were no secrets in Hollywood.
Things were different in Burning Cove. The studio fixers had very little power here. If you wanted something hushed up or discreetly buried in this town, you went to Luther Pell or Oliver Ward, the owner of the Burning Cove Hotel.
The phone rang at seven. Raina turned cold. Her palms tingled. No good news ever came over the phone at that hour of the day.