Convincing Alex by Nora Roberts

the urge to pull her to him again and finish what he’d started. But, however stunned and fragile she looked at the moment, Alex recognized a dangerous woman. He’d been a cop long enough to know when to face danger, and when to avoid it.
    â€œYou, ah…” Where was all her glib repartee? Bess wondered. It was a little difficult to think when she wasn’t sure her head was still on her shoulders. “Well,” she managed, and settled for that.
    â€œWell.” He let her go and added a cocky grin before he walked back to the elevator. Though his stance was relaxed, he was praying the elevator would come quickly, before he lost it and crawled back to her door. She was still there when the elevator rumbled open. Alex let out a quiet, relieved breath as he stepped inside and leaned against the back wall. “See you around, McNee,” he said as the doors slid shut.
    â€œYeah.” She stared at the mural-covered walls. “See you around.”
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    â€œHolly hasn’t been able to stop talking about that party.” Judd was scarfing down a blueberry muffin as Alex cruised Broadway. “It made her queen of the teachers’ lounge.”
    â€œI bet.” Alex didn’t want to think about Bess’s party. He especially didn’t want to think about what would be after the party. Work was what he needed to concentrate on, and right now work meant following up on the few slim leads they’d hassled out of Domingo.
    â€œIf Domingo’s given it to us straight, Angie Horowitz was excited about a new john.” Alex tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “He’d hired her two Wednesdays running, dressed good, tipped big.”
    Judd nodded as he brushed muffin crumbs from his shirt. “And shewas killed on a Wednesday. So was Rita Shaw. It’s still pretty thin, Alex.”
    â€œSo we make it thick.” It continued to frustrate him that they’d wasted time interrogating the desk clerks at the two fleabag hotels where the bodies had been found. Like most in their profession, the clerks had seen nothing. Heard nothing. Knew nothing.
    As for the ladies who worked the streets, however nervous they were, they weren’t ready to trust a badge.
    â€œTomorrow’s Wednesday,” Judd said helpfully.
    â€œI know what the hell tomorrow is. Do you do anything but eat?”
    Judd unwrapped another muffin. “I got low blood sugar. If we’re going to go back and look at the crime scene again, I need energy.”
    â€œWhat you need is—” Alex broke off as he glanced past Judd’s profile and into the glaring lights of an all-night diner. He knew only one person with hair that shade of red. He began to swear, slowly, steadily, as he searched for a parking place.
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    â€œYou really write for TV?” Rosalie asked.
    Bess finished emptying a third container of nondairy product into her coffee. “That’s right.”
    â€œI didn’t think you were a sister.” Interested as much in Bess as in the fifty dollars she’d been paid, Rosalie blew out smoke rings. “And you want to know what it’s like to turn tricks.”
    â€œI want to know whatever you’re comfortable telling me.” Bess shoved her untouched coffee aside and leaned forward. “I’m not sitting in judgment or asking for confidences, Rosalie. I’d like your story, if you want to tell it. Or we can stick with generalities.”
    â€œYou figure you can find out what’s going on on the streets by putting on spandex and a wig, like you did the other night?”
    â€œI found out a lot,” Bess said with a smile. “I found out it’s tough to stand in heels on concrete for hours at a time. That a woman has to lose her sense of self in order to do business. That you don’t look at the faces. The faces don’t matter—the money does. And what you do isn’t a matter of intimacy, not