Set Up For Love Read Online Free PDF

reminded her of a strip-joint marquee.
    She skidded to a stop in the entry driveway and sprinted to the office.
    The night manager was behind bars and glass. The surly-looking, blond ape tilted back in a wooden chair, feet on the desk. His sleeveless T-shirt stretched over a well-muscled chest. This was a man who worked hard to keep his body fit—the rest of him needed some care. Tangled shoulder-length hair, facial stubble and rumpled clothes gave him the scruffy look of a man who’d just crawled out of bed after a bad night. She pressed the buzzer to get his attention.
    He put the newspaper down on the desk and barely glanced at her. “Fifteen an hour or forty-nine for the night,” he mumbled without removing the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. His indifferent eyes squinted against curling smoke.
    Jill flipped open her I.D. “Do I look like a hooker?”
    Rather than inspecting her credentials, he stared at her with a gaping mouth. “Er...certainly not.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “Just kidding, Officer. We run a legit place here.” The grin he flashed didn’t change his cold gray eyes. “What can I do for you?”
    Jill pressed the picture of Tess to the glass. “Have you seen this young woman?”
    He rubbed his unshaven jaw. “A real ten plus, isn’t she?”
    Jill leaned closer to the security pane. “Please, just answer the question.” How could she get this brawny baboon to stick to business with two inches of glass separating them?
    “Just came on duty,” he drawled lazily. “What’s the girl’s name?”
    “Tess Grayson.”
    “Grayson, you say,” he mumbled, checking the computer. “Grayson...Grayson,” he repeated like a mantra, looking amused.
    “What could you possibly find funny? A girl is missing. My sister.” She wanted to add, Look, Baboon, her life is at stake. But venting wouldn’t help.
    After a few seconds, he turned and faced her. “Naw, sorry, Officer, not here.”
    “What about other nights, say in the past thirty days?”
    He scanned earlier entries. “Naw,” he said finally. “No Grayson ever registered here.”
    “Please,” she said, “I’ll need your name for my report.”
    He grinned and snapped to attention. His well-developed muscles flexed as he saluted. “Bill Smith, at your service.”
    An alias? “Do you have some I.D., Mr. Bill Smith?”
    He held up a driver’s license to the glass. It looked okay, but she made a metal note to check him out.
    “I’ll need the address and phone number of the motel owner.”
    Grinning like the cat who ate the canary, he handed her a card. “I could use a raise. Tell Bernie I cooperated fully. Okay, Lady Fed?”
    “Yeah, right.” She tucked the card in her bag and strode away.
    Back in her car, Jill headed for the police station. She rubbed her forehead to ease a dull ache. It was late, but she had to know if her suspect had spilled his guts, yet.
    The desk officer told her they still had Dane in the interrogation room. She requested to watch from behind the one-way glass.
    Dane hadn’t changed his story and nothing in his body language contradicted his words. The lines around his eyes had deepened and his voice was getting hoarse, but his back was erect and his shoulders were squared. As he answered each question with directness and clarity, she found herself rooting for him. What was that about?
    Wavy strands of hair had fallen to his forehead. Her heart beat faster. It was a good thing she was behind glass because if she’d been in the same room with him she might have given in to a very unwise urge. It was irrational, but she’d wanted to touch his thick brown mane. Something about him had her dangerously out of balance.
    She watched him rake the strands from his forehead with steady fingers. His tone had a surly edge. Even with the city’s three finest interrogators pounding him with rapid-fire questions this man wasn’t going to crack.
    Jill was astonished at her sense of relief. She