Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration (9 page)

JOHNNY STOOD in front of the bank of windows overlooking the slopes, phone to his ear, staring at Juliette Jauntie’s ass.
 

Actually, the top edge of her underwear, which was peeking out as she leaned—or sprawled—forward across the darkened bar. It was red. Bright, fire engine red. Delicate. Lacey.
 

He dragged his gaze away and stared out the window at the brightly-lit winter night, listening to Dan relay his opinion of Juliette and the problems she’d caused, which were unsurprisingly similar to the judge’s opinions.
   

“I wouldn’t describe things as a problem,” Johnny said.
 
Yet.

“So, what the hell is going on up there?” Dan demanded.

“We just have some questions.”
 

Silence. “‘We’?”

Against his better judgment, Johnny looked at her ass again. It was a very good ass. Round and lush, like her lips, which were red and full compared to the pale, sharply-defined beauty of the rest of her face.
 

He turned back to the window.
 
“There were no lease agreements or detailed rent receipts.”

“Receipts?” snapped Dan. “
Receipts?
What the fuck are receipts?”

“Things you give people when they pay you money.”
 

“From three years ago? Why the hell would they keep rental receipts from three years ago? Please.”

“Your valuation was dependent on rental income, Dan.
 
She’s trying to trace it.”

“Fuck what she’s trying to do. That needs to be signed off by week’s end. Now she wants rent receipts and leases and a goddamned
appraisal
? And you call me now to ask about it? What a pain in the ass.”
 

“Right. So, I need detailed accounts receivables from the LLC and original lease agreements. Mrs. B thinks you might have them. Yes? No? If no, then where?”

“Johnny, I have no fucking idea where they are.
 
I’m not a bookkeeper.
 
I’m a valuations expert, the judge’s friend, and the idiot who agreed to do their taxes. As a favor to the judge, I handled his wife’s LLC. I took the information he gave me, did their taxes, and made recommendations.”

“Yeah?
 
One of them should have been to hold onto their receipts.”

“I’ll remember that next time,” Dan said coldly. “Is there anything else?”

Johnny looked across the room. Juliette was on the phone, pacing, her restless energy keeping her on the move.
 
How it all fit inside that tight, sculpted body, he had no idea. Adding caffeine and sugar to the mix was probably a bad idea. It made her electric.

And whenever Johnny was near her, his body hummed.
 

“The receipts is what else, Dan,” he said slowly, turning to the window. “If you don’t have them, I can ask the judge.”

Silence met this.

“Johnny,” Dan said slowly, “we’re in the middle of three buy-out investigations for multi-million dollar corporations. I’m on the Sandler-Ross account right now, negotiating one of them. Seven of our corporate clients have a fiscal year-end starting Friday. Tax season is about to begin. And you’re dicking around on this small time case, on what is obviously a delaying tactic by some kiss-ass art lawyer who’s way out of her league. I’ll bet she asked this Jauntie character to ask every question she could to slow things down, trying to wring more money out of Don.”
 
He paused, then said, “Look, they don’t like the valuation, fine, we’ll change it.”

Johnny’s eyebrows lifted a centimeter.
 

“Just get the hell out of there. Don’t waste any more time on this. If it goes to court, we’ve got it. I’ve had twenty years of experience. Everyone knows my name.
 
They can’t even spell hers. Go home, okay? We have real work to do. Know what I mean?”

Johnny looked across the room again. Juliette was pacing. Her ponytail hung in a sleek black waterfall down her back, swaying as she paced. She was a pixie, maybe five and a half feet tall, but her legs seemed to go on forever, her hair did go on forever, long, thick, wrenched into a pony tail and pulled back hard, revealing all the chiseled lines of her face: cheekbone, chin, brows. She had an
intricate
face.
 

And she had questions. A lot of fucking questions.
 

The thing was, Johnny was a fan of questions. If they were good ones, they led to answers, which is why most people didn’t like them.
 

This wasn’t Sunday School. They worked in financial services with wealthy people who had things to hide. But the judge wasn’t particularly wealthy. In fact, this whole case was nothing but a favor to an old friend. Like Dan said, it wasn’t top priority and it wasn’t a big deal. It was a small favor turning into a big hassle.

“Yeah,” Johnny said quietly.
 
“I know what you mean.”

“Excellent,” said Dan, warmth flooding back into his voice, so it became the confident, easy-going voice that everyone knew and either loved (clients) or feared (not clients).
 
People said that simply hearing his voice coming down the hall was enough to make them either grin or clench their ass, depending on which side of the conference table they were sitting on.
 

“I don’t know why you even went up there in the first place,” Dan said, then paused. “Is she hot?”
 

“Goodbye, Dan.”

“Go home, Johnny. I’m telling you.”
 

They hung up. Johnny looked down at his phone.
 

The thing was, Johnny rarely did what he was told.
 
Back in the day, that had got him in a lot of trouble. But in his world, you made your own way; there
were
no other ways.
 
It wasn’t as if you had options, growing up in the projects. Some people called it a swamp, some a jungle. His father had called it a desert, and it had sure burned him up.
 
But to Johnny, it was an ocean, a vast, cold, suffocating ocean, and if you didn’t swim, fast and hard, you drowned.
 

So, you swam for all you were worth, and if you got lucky, you caught a wave and got to the top. You got to air.
 

This was air, now, this world he moved in, where you were measured by what you delivered, not where you came from, this world with its money and competence and relentless achievement, constantly out-performing your last performance. Johnny was one of the best. People had noticed.
 

And when you took all that time to swim to the top, you did the job right. Such as suggesting a second pair of eyes on a valuation done by your partner which, by Dan’s own admission, had been completed in a day and a half, before he left town.

And now, there were questions.

He dialed the judge.
 

When Billings picked up, Johnny said without preamble, “I need copies of the lease agreements for the rental properties.”

“I gave you everythin—”

“And detailed rental rolls.”

“Detailed—?”

“Now.”

Sullen silence. “I don’t have them.”

“Get them.”

Silence. “Fine,” the judge muttered and hung up.
 

Johnny strode back to Juliette and her tight, hot body that was practically bursting out of its seams. Juliette who didn’t play games or ask for anything from anyone and didn’t pull her punches.
 

In a world of lies, Jauntie seemed to be incapable of it.

It was enough to stop a jaded man dead in his tracks.

Chapter Seven

JULIETTE WAITED beside the table as Johnny returned. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“He says he’ll send them. Who were you talking to?”

“Mrs. B.
 
She said she can get into—.”
 
Juliette stopped short. Probably didn’t want to mention the safecracking.
 
“She said she might be able to find some things too.”
 

They looked at each other for a long moment that, for some reason, didn’t descend into discomfort. Johnny didn’t mention anything about leaving. She noticed she wasn’t mentioning it either.
 

He raised his eyebrows. She raised hers back. Then he smiled, and her heart did one of its ridiculous, unnecessary flips.

“Good catch, Jauntie.”

She was taken aback. Such a clear, unambiguous compliment.
 
“Well. Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

“It was nothing,” she said uncomfortably.
 
“Dan probably just missed it.
 
I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing.”
 
She shuffled some papers on the table with her fingers. “I just got lucky.”

He shook his head.
 
“You’re good,” he said, his voice low. Very low. Very rumbly. A shiver went up her arms. “That’s one for you.”
 

She gave a little laugh. “Are we keeping score?”
 
But of course they were.

He smiled. The shiver went down her back, through her belly, making her nipples tighten as it moved across her.

His eyes held hers in the dim light. “Want that drink?”

She opened her mouth and said, “Yes,” as if it wasn’t about to become the fulcrum of her life: Before and After Johnny Danger.

He slid into his seat. She followed suit, her heart beating fast. He lifted the bottle of whisky, raised his eyebrows.
 

Juliette looked away, to break the beam of his gaze, then reached down into her huge bag and pulled out…her bottle of vodka.

He stared at it a second, then his face tipped up to the ceiling, his mouth open as if to blow out a huge silent breath.
 
He was smiling but not laughing, the way you might if you were on an amusement ride at the boardwalk, and it was tossing you and your stomach around, and part of you thought it was great, and part of you thought you might throw up, and your body just hadn’t decided which yet.

“I should have known,” he murmured.

She arched a brow. “That I carried alcohol around with me?
 
I should hope not.”

He pushed the glass to her. It made a low thundering growl as it slid across the surface of the table.
 
She lifted a finger and stopped it.
 
It felt like they were in an old-time black and white movie.

“Ice?” he said.

When she nodded he got up and went behind the bar again, into the back room, and returned with not only ice but cranberry juice.
 
He arrayed his treasures in a little semicircle on the table in front of her.
 

“I won’t ask,” she said, eyeing them.

“It was unlocked.”
 

“Really?”

He sat down. “Probably.”

She smiled faintly and mixed her little drink then sat back and looked at lots of things: the stars outside the window, the glow of lights over the bar, anything but Johnny.
 

“To nailing people to the wall,” his voice rumbled out.

She sailed her gaze over. He’d lifted his drink in the air. She lifted hers too and leaned forward to tap it against his. The tiny tinkle of glass against glass sparkled through the room.
 

“Only the criminals,” she said.

His smile got a little more granite-like. “They’re all criminals, Jauntie.”

He had a point. They sat back.

“So, what made you decide to commit suicide by skiing today?” he asked amiably, sipping his drink, looking at her.
 

“What makes you think I don’t know how to ski?” she demanded.

He laughed.
 

She eyed his smile a bit grimly and muttered, “I needed a hobby.”

“Ah.”

He shifted in his seat, his long legs moved, and his knee brushed hers under the table.
 
An electric cord snapped through her and as if it were truth serum, she blurted out, “I don’t like being scared.”