GABBY WAS WORRIED about J.D. It wasn't anything she could
put her finger on exactly. He still roared around the
office, slamming things down on his desk when he couldn't
find notes or reminders he'd scribbled on envelopes or old
business cards. He glared at Gabby when she didn't bring
his coffee on the stroke of nine o'clock. And there were
the usual missing files, for which she was to blame of
course, and the incessant phone calls that interrupted his
concentration. There was still the heavy scowl on his
broad face, and the angry glitter in his brown eyes. But
that morning he'd been pacing around his office, smoking
like a furnace. And that was unusual. Because J.D. had
given up smoking years before, even before she had come to
work for the law firm of Brettman and Dice.
She still couldn't figure out what had set him off. She'd
put a long-distance call through to him earlier, one that
sounded like it came from overseas. The caller had sounded
suspiciously like Roberto, his sister Martina's husband,
from Sicily. Soon afterward, there had been a flurry of
outgoing calls. Now it was silent, except for the soft
sounds the computer made as Gabby finished the last letter
J.D. had dictated.
She propped her chin on her hands and stared at the door
with curious green eyes. Her long, dark hair was piled
high on her head, to keep it out of her way when she
worked, and loose strands of it curled softly around her
face, giving her an even more elfin look than usual. She
was wearing a green dress that flattered her graceful
curves. But J.D. wouldn't notice her if she walked through
the office naked. He'd said when he hired her that he'd
robbed the cradle. And he hadn't smiled when he said it.
Although she was twenty-three now, he still made the most
frustrating remarks about her extreme youth. She wondered
wickedly what J.D. would say if she applied for Medicare
in his name. Nobody knew how old he was. Probably
somewhere around forty; those hard lines in his face
hadn't come from nowhere.
He was one of the most famous criminal lawyers in Chicago.
He made waves. He ground up hostile witnesses like so much
sausage meat. But before his entry into the profession
five years earlier, nothing was known about him. He'd
worked as a laborer by day and attended law school by
night. He'd worked his way up the ladder quickly and
efficiently with the help of a devastating intelligence
that seemed to feed on challenge.
He had no family except for a married sister in Palermo,
Sicily, and no close friends. He allowed no one to really
know him. Not his associate Richard Dice, not Gabby. He
lived alone and mostly worked alone, except for the few
times when he needed some information that only a woman
could get, or when he had to have Gabby along as a cover.
She'd gone with him to meet accused killers in warehouses
at midnight and down to the waterfront in the wee hours of
the morning to meet a ship carrying a potential witness.
It was an exciting life, and thank God her mother back in
Lytle, Texas, didn't know exactly how exciting it was.
Gabby had come to Chicago when she was twenty; she'd had
to fight for days to get her mother to agree to the wild
idea, to let her work for a distant cousin. The distant
cousin had died quite suddenly and, simultaneously, J.D.
had advertised for an executive secretary. When she
applied, it had taken J.D. only five minutes to hire her.
That had been two years earlier, and she'd never regretted
the impulse that had led her to his office.
Just working for him was something of a feather in Gabby's
cap. The other secretaries in the building were forever
pumping her for information about her attractive and
famous boss. But Gabby was as secretive as he was. It was
why she'd lasted so long as his secretary. He trusted her
as he trusted no one else.
She was a paralegal now, having taken night courses at a
local college to earn the title. She did far more than
just type letters and run off copies on the copier. The
office had added a computer system. She ran that, and did
legwork for her boss, and frequently traveled with him
when the job warranted it.
While she was brooding, the door opened suddenly. J.D.
came through it like a locomotive, so vibrant and superbly
masculine that she imagined most men would step aside for
him out of pure instinct. His partner Richard Dice was on
his heels, raging as he followed.
"Will you be reasonable, J.D.!" the younger man argued,
his lean hands waving wildly, his red hair almost standing
on end around his thin face. "It's a job for the police!
What can you do?"
J.D. didn't even look at him. He paused at Gabby's desk,
an expression on his face that she'd never seen before.
Involuntarily, she studied the broad face with its olive
complexion and deep-set eyes. He had the thickest,
blackest eyelashes she'd ever seen. His hair was just as
thick and had deep waves in it, threaded with pure silver.
It was the faint scars on his face that aged him, but
she'd never quite had the bravado to ask where and how
he'd gotten them. It must have been some kind of man who
put them there. J.D. was built like a tank.
"Pack a bag," he told Gabby, in a tone too black to invite
questions. "Be back here in an hour. Is your passport in
order?"
She blinked. Even for J.D., this was fast shuffling. "Uh,
yesโฆ."
"Bring lightweight things, it'll be hot where we're going.
Lots of jeans and loose shirts, a sweater, some boots, and
a lot of socks." He continued nonstop. "Bring that third-
class radio license you hold. Aren't you kin to someone at
the State Department? That might come in handy."
Her mind was whirling. "J.D., what's goingโฆ?" she began.
"You can't do this," Dick was continuing doggedly, and
J.D. was just ignoring him.
"Dick, you'll have to handle my case load until I get
back," he pressed on in a voice that sounded like thunder
rumbling. "Get Charlie Bass to help you if you run into
any snags. I don't know exactly when we'll be back."
"J.D., will you listen?"
"I've got to pack a few things," J.D. said curtly. "Call
the agency, Gabby, and get Dick a temporary secretary. And
be back here in exactly one hour."
The door slammed behind him. Dick cursed roundly and
rammed his hands into his pockets.
"What," Gabby asked, "is going on? Will somebody please
tell me where I'm going with my passport? Do I have a
choice?"
"Slow down and I'll tell you what little I know." Dick
sighed angrily. He perched himself on her desk. "You know
that J.D.'s sister is married to that Italian businessman
who made a fortune in shipping and lives in Palermo,
Sicily?"
She nodded. "And you know that kidnapping is becoming a
fast method of funding for revolutionary groups?" he
continued.
She felt herself going pale. "They got his brother-inlaw?"
"No. They got his sister when she went alone on a shopping
trip to Rome."
© 2003-2026